He was always ready to intercede for others, and one day, when asking a service for a friend, the Queen said, ‘When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar?’
‘When your Majesty ceases to be beneficent,’ was the reply. But he fell into disgrace at Court when Elizabeth found out that he was too high in the good graces of one of her own maids of honour, and although he married the lady, (Mistress Elizabeth Throckmorton, daughter of Sir Nicholas of Beddington, county Surrey,) yet the lovers were imprisoned for some months in the Tower.
Voyages innumerable, fresh projects of colonisation followed, but unfortunately in two expeditions the Earl of Essex had the chief command, and he and Raleigh had a deadly quarrel. On their return it was continued, and there can be little doubt Raleigh hated and worked against Essex, at a time when there were many intrigues going on, to get rid of the Queen’s unfortunate favourite. More honours, more places of trust, were bestowed on Raleigh. In 1600 he went Ambassador to France, and soon after was named Governor of Jersey; in fact, while Elizabeth lived, she never swerved in her friendship, but on her death, Cecil, who was Raleigh’s enemy, undermined his favour with James, who received him ungraciously, and dismissed him from the offices he held.
Sir Walter, on discovering his secret foe, tried to impress on the King’s mind that Cecil had been instrumental in the execution of his mother, but this made no difference in his Majesty’s demeanour, and only insured the minister’s bitter hatred. So commenced Raleigh’s downfall. He was accused, with several other noblemen, of a plot to place Arabella Stuart on the throne, tried for high treason, and in spite of deficiency of evidence, in spite of his gallant defence, he was found guilty by a shameful jury, for even Coke, the Attorney-General, who, we are told, made ‘brutal speeches,’ on the trial, exclaimed, when informed of the verdict, (not being in Court at the time,) ‘Surely thou art mistaken, for I only accused him of misprision of treason.’
Sir Walter remained at Winchester under sentence of death for a month, during which time he appealed to the justice and mercy, of a King who was devoid of both. He was reprieved, and sent to the Tower, where they held that noble spirit captive for twelve years. He occupied his melancholy hours with works which would have sufficed to make his name immortal, had it not already become so by ‘his hairbreadth ‘scapes, and moving accidents by flood and field.’
It having been made worth his while, Villiers Duke of Buckingham interceded for Raleigh’s release, and he was accordingly liberated in 1616.
Stripped of all his possessions, and cast entirely on his own resources, the gallant knight once more embarked for Guiana, James, in the hope of wealth accruing to himself, granted him a commission, as Admiral.
But on his arrival he found he had been betrayed to the Spaniards, who were drawn up against him in great numbers. ‘Never,’ he says himself, ‘was poor man more exposed to the slaughter as I was.’ Information was sent to the King of Spain; the cowardly and cruel James, terrified at the prospect of a rupture with that monarch, issued a proclamation setting forth that he had forbid Raleigh to enter on any hostilities, and threatening severe punishment.
The brave, enterprising, noble-minded sailor returned to England, his heart bowed down with sorrow, for the loss of his first-born, who had died on the field of battle.
He was arrested on his road to London, made two ineffectual attempts to escape, and was once more closely imprisoned in the Tower; he was brought to the bar of the King’s Bench, and demanded why the former sentence should not be held good against him. His defence was a model of manly eloquence, but it did not avail him, and he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, the 29th of October 1618.