RALEIGH, Walter

by Walter Raleigh

£4,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

The exceedingly rare first edition, first issue, of the official apologia for Raleigh s execution, detailing, just months after the events described, his conduct during his last voyage to America in 1618. It was composed by the commissioners, including Bacon, who tried and condemned Raleigh. After Raleigh failed to locate the source of Spanish treasure he had promised the ever avaricious King James, he captured the island of St. Thomas killing the Spanish governor. On his return Raleigh was tried for this attack, with Bacon as prosecutor. However, as Raleigh was already under sentence of death for his 1603 conviction for supposed treason, he could not be tried for his misdeeds in St. Thomas. James, under pressure from the Spanish Ambassador Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, Count Gondomar, ordered Raleigh executed under the 1603 verdict. This volume attempts to justify the execution in the face of public indignation. In a letter to a friend, Bacon wrote: we have put the Declaration touching Raleigh to press, with his Majesty s additions which were very material and fit to proceed from his Majesty. In the account of his final moments Raleigh s biographer John Shirley notes that as he took his leave of Lord Arundel he intreated him to desire the King, that no scandalous Writing to defame him might be published after his Death. Raleigh s courageous conduct at the scaffold and popular indignation that followed his execution immediately provoked defences by those responsible. The firs

• Binding: Hardcover

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