156 ST NICOTINE 



savage custom. But the pity is, the poor, wild, barbarous 

 men died ; but that vile, barbarous custom is yet alive, yea, 

 in fresh vigour, so as it seems a miracle to me how a custom 

 springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a 

 father so generally hated, should be welcomed on so 

 slender a warrant.' The mention of ' two or three savage 

 men ' clearly indicates the return of Raleigh's first expedi- 

 tion in 1584, when Captain Amadas and Barlowe brought 

 with them two American Indians, whose appearance in the 

 streets was regarded as one of the sights of London. 

 James's inveterate enmity towards Raleigh would seem to 

 have originated at their first encounter at Burghly, in 

 Lincolnshire, when the King faltered out : ' On my soul, 

 mon, I hae heard but rawley o' thee,' a clumsy attempt at a 

 pun. Doubtless Raleigh's noble bearing and rich attire 

 would touch James's inordinate self-importance, which 

 seems to have at all times blinded him to a proper sense of 

 decency, according to Sir Anthony Weldon's simple, graphic 

 presentation of him. On the King boasting that, had the 

 English crown not been offered to him, his Scotch army 

 would have taken it for him, Raleigh, indignant, made the 

 injudicious remark : ' Would God that had been put to 

 the test.' ' Why ? ' asked James. Raleigh recovering him- 

 self replied, ' Your Majesty would then have known your 

 friends from your foes.' Aubrey says that James never for- 

 gave this speech. One by one, Raleigh was stripped of all 

 his offices ; and before the end of the first year of James's 

 reign (November 4, 1603) he was lodged in the Tower on 

 a false charge of treason, and after fifteen years' imprison- 

 ment was judicially murdered by order of the King. 

 Speaking of this event, Sir Anthony Weldom remarks, 

 ' How this kingdom was gulled in the supposed treason of 

 Sir Walter Rawley and others who suffered as traytors, 



