A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enenemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy... so it was, I think, with Dryden.

Execution and aftermath

Raleigh was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. 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. He made friends with the local gentry such as Sir Ralph Horsey of Clifton Maybank and Charles Thynne of Longleat.

He rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. Instrumental in the English colonisation of North America Raleigh was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia which paved the way for future English settlements.