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Raleigh was less of a pirate than Drake
and concentrated more on discoveries and trying to build settlements in America. He first went there in 1578 and tried to set up a colony in 1585. These were the
people Drake rescued. Raleigh had another go in 1587 but that failed too.
Raleigh brought potatoes back from America to England and no one in this country had ever seen let alone eaten them before. Sadly he also bought back
tobacco and actually encouraged smoking it at the royal court. Now I have to tell you that in all my considerable years I have never, ever smoked a cigarette, a
cigar or a pipe. My reason is simple. My fairly intelligent brain tells me that rolling leaves up in paper and then setting fire to the paper and inhaling the
smoke is only very slightly less stupid than putting your head up a cow’s backside. In fact I guess the smell is not dissimilar. What does amaze me is that people
who do smoke actually wonder why it makes them ill.
Anyhow, enough of that, back to Raleigh. He also became a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. He, too, was knighted and appointed captain of the Queen’s
Guard in 1587. However, going on a bit in time, in 1592 he secretly married one of Elizabeth’s maids of honour. The lady in question was actually called Bess
Throckmorton and related to the guy who had plotted against Elizabeth some years earlier (see 1586). Elizabeth was not best pleased and when she found out she
had Raleigh and his bride thrown into the Tower of London. He was later released and, trying to please Elizabeth again, he sailed off to America to find
El Dorado, the golden land rumoured to be somewhere in South America. He failed, (he seems to have done this quite a lot) and after Elizabeth’s death he was
accused of plotting against the new King and, at first sentenced to death but then imprisoned in the Tower for another 12 years.
In 1616, to just end things neatly, Raleigh was released, set off on another expedition to El Dorado, failed again, attacked the Spanish which the King
had forbidden, arrived back in London, his death sentence was reinstated and his head was chopped off in October 1628 and never reinstated.
Forward to 1586AD
