On This Day in History: March 20
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh had quite a résumé. He was an author, soldier, explorer, politician, and spy. But he just couldn’t help but keep pissing off the English royalty and getting his ass thrown in the Tower of London.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: March 20, 1616--
Queen Elizabeth, the first one, liked the guy. Hell, she gave him a royal charter to pillage those “heathen and barbarous lands” across the Atlantic, saying he could have 20% of the gold and silver they thieved found.
The problems began with his penis.
You know Virginia? The state, I mean. The name of the colony he founded was possibly Raleigh’s paying homage to the “Virgin Queen” Elizabeth. Maybe. But he pissed her off when he secretly married one of Liz’s ladies-in-waiting in 1591 without asking permission. Because he’d already put his penis in there, and a baby was gonna happen. The queen found out and said “Those motherfuckers!” and put both Walt and his bride in the Tower of London because they weren’t supposed to be fucking without permission.
She let him out a few months later and said, “Take these ships and go fuck up the Spanish.” And so he did and took a richly laden merchant ship as prize. He came back and Queen Liz said, “Niiiicccceee.” Then she threw his ass back in the Tower. A year later he was a member of Parliament because doing crime is often a road to political success.
He did more exploring and shit for a decade, but then the queen died in 1603 and James I was in charge and there was a plot to overthrow him and someone said hey Walter Raleigh was part of that plot and even though he totally wasn’t they put him back in the Tower. At least they let him have conjugal visits, because his son was conceived and born while he was in stir.
On March 20, 1616, after having been in lockup for 13 years, the king let him out and gave him a pardon then said hey go to Venezuela and look for that Eldorado place. I want that fuckin’ gold. While he was there a detachment of his men went against orders and attacked a Spanish outpost. At the time, the English were trying not to piss off the Spanish, so that was bad. When Sir Walter returned home the king said sorry dude rules are rules off with your head. And that’s what they did.
And because people are weird, they embalmed his head and gave it to his wife. She was like oh cool, thanks, and kept it.
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Yikes. But yeah.