Walter Raleigh - Trial and Imprisonment

Trial and Imprisonment

Royal favour with Queen Elizabeth had been restored by this time but his good fortune did not last. The Queen died in 1603, and Raleigh was arrested at Exeter Inn, Ashburton, Devon and imprisoned in the Tower of London on 19 July 1603. On 17 November, Raleigh was tried in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle for treason, due to alleged involvement in the Main Plot against King James.

Raleigh conducted his defence with great skill. The chief evidence against Raleigh was the signed and sworn confession of Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. Raleigh frequently requested that Cobham be called in to testify so that he might recant, " my accuser come face to face, and be deposed. Were the case but for a small copyhold, you would have witnesses or good proof to lead the jury to a verdict; and I am here for my life!" Raleigh essentially was objecting that the evidence against him was "hearsay"; but the tribunal refused to allow Cobham to testify and be cross examined. Although hearsay was frowned upon under common law, Raleigh was tried under civil law, which allowed hearsay. King James spared his life, despite a guilty verdict.

He remained imprisoned in the Tower until 1616. While there, he wrote many treatises and the first volume of The Historie of the World (London, 1628) about the ancient history of Greece and Rome. His son, Carew, was conceived and born (1604) while Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower.

In 1616, Raleigh was released in order to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, Raleigh's men, under the command of Lawrence Keymis, attacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Tomé de Guayana (San Tomé) on the Orinoco River. In the initial attack on the settlement, Raleigh's son, Walter, was fatally shot. On Raleigh's return to England, an outraged Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, successfully demanded that King James reinstate Raleigh's death sentence. Raleigh was brought to London from Plymouth, by Sir Lewis Stukeley, and passed up numerous opportunities to make an effective escape.