Raleigh Executed: Explorer Falls to Royal Wrath

Sir Walter Raleigh, courtier, explorer, poet, historian, and prisoner, knelt before the executioner's block at the Old Palace Yard in Westminster on the morning of October 29, 1618, and reportedly told the headsman, "Strike, man, strike!" He was 66 years old and had spent the last thirteen of those years in the Tower of London. His execution marked the end of the most extraordinary and turbulent career in Elizabethan England. Raleigh had been one of Queen Elizabeth I's favorites, a dashing figure who helped establish the first English colonies in North America, introduced tobacco and potatoes to England (or so legend claims), and wrote some of the finest poetry of the Elizabethan age. He organized expeditions to Virginia and personally led two voyages to South America in search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. Elizabeth rewarded him with estates, monopolies, and the captaincy of the Yeomen of the Guard, making him one of the wealthiest and most visible men in England. Everything changed when Elizabeth died in 1603 and James I took the throne. Raleigh had powerful enemies who persuaded the new king that he had been involved in a conspiracy to place a rival claimant on the throne. Raleigh was convicted of treason in a trial widely regarded as a travesty of justice, with the Lord Chief Justice reportedly telling the jury that Raleigh had "the most horrible treasons that ever existed." The death sentence was suspended, and Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower, where he spent thirteen years writing The History of the World, a vast work of scholarship and reflection. In 1616, Raleigh persuaded James to release him for one final expedition to the Orinoco River in search of a gold mine. The expedition was a disaster. Raleigh's men attacked a Spanish settlement in violation of the king's explicit orders, and Raleigh's eldest son was killed in the fighting. Spain's ambassador demanded Raleigh's head, and James, desperate to maintain peaceful relations with Spain, obliged. The original treason conviction from 1603 was dusted off and enforced. Raleigh faced his execution with theatrical composure, running his finger along the blade and remarking, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases." His wife, Bess, had his head embalmed and reportedly kept it in a velvet bag for the remaining 29 years of her life.