By varying accounts, Sir Walter Raleigh was either a true gentleman or a pirate. He was a poet, a soldier, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth and an explorer. He was knighted in 1585, and assisted with the settlement of English colonies in Virginia. He married one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies in waiting without asking the Queen's permission and earned a stay in the prisons of the Tower of London as a result, being released after the Queen pardoned him and his wife. After the Queen's death, however, Raleigh truly fell out of favor with her successor King James I and again imprisoned. Raleigh was later released to find the famed "City of Gold" of El Dorado in the New World. During the expedition, Raleigh sacked the Spanish outpost of San Thome. Upon his return to England he was arrested and tried, largely to appease the Spanish. Raleigh was convicted and sentenced to death. He was beheaded at Whitehall on October 29, 1618.
Reach your goals in the travel industry and grow professionally! - Click here to join more than 7,000 of your peers in TRO's Community - an agent-only forum for serious travel professionals.
|
