{"id":34321,"date":"2024-03-05T10:20:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T09:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=87037"},"modified":"2024-03-05T12:11:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T11:11:39","slug":"why-was-sir-walter-raleigh-executed","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/why-was-sir-walter-raleigh-executed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was Sir Walter Raleigh executed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Walter Raleigh was a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. So how did he fall from grace and come to be executed in 1618? <\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 05 March 2024 at 09:20 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Walter Raleigh may have been a great adventurer and favourite of Elizabeth I<\/a> \u2013 and supposedly happy to get his coat muddy to save the queen some laundry \u2013 but he had been tempting fate for decades before his demise in 1618.<\/p>\n

History remembers Ralegh as a polymath: a poet; a historian; a political theorist; a soldier; an explorer; and founder of the first English colony in the Americas who, it is thought, introduced tobacco to England, bringing it over from Virginia. While he was from a modest background, he made his way upwards through the court of Elizabeth I, ending up as captain of the queen\u2019s guard.<\/p>\n

His first fall from grace came when Elizabeth found out he had secretly married one of her ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth \u2018Bess\u2019 Throckmorton, in 1591, earning him a stay at the Tower of London<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sir\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Sir Walter Raleigh depicted during his long imprisonment at the Tower of London. (Photo by The Print Collector\/Print Collector\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

While Raleigh managed to rally from that, things went wrong again in 1603 when James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I and came to the English throne, as James VI and I<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Raleigh had \u201cmade no overtures to the presumptive heir, before Elizabeth died in 1603,\u201d writes Mathew Lyons<\/a>. \u201cWhich was doubly unfortunate, because one of James\u2019s closest English confidantes was Lord Henry Howard, a former associate who had grown to deeply loathe Raleigh. Thus, when James came south in the late spring of 1603, he was already disposed to distrust Raleigh. Even if that weren\u2019t the case, James simply had no need of him. Moreover, James had Scottish friends and supporters whom he needed to reward.\u201d<\/p>\n

In mid-1603, Raleigh was implicated in the Main Plot, which favoured the removal of James from the throne and the insertion of Arbella Stuart, James\u2019s first cousin, in his place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hearing that Raleigh was involved in a plot to overthrow him, James swiftly had him imprisoned for treason. Ahead of Raleigh\u2019s trial in November 1603,\u00a0 <\/span>it seemed certain that he would be convicted and executed. And yet Raleigh put on such an audacious display at his trial that he transformed himself into a public hero.<\/p>\n