Sir Walter Ralegh

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Excerpt from "On This Day in Tudor History" by Claire Ridgway

In 1618, Sir Walter Ralegh, courtier, explorer, author and soldier, was executed at Westminster. Ralegh had originally been found guilty of treason and sentenced to death in 1603, after being implicated in the Main Plot against James I, but the King spared his life.

Ralegh was released from the Tower of London in 1616 to undertake a voyage in search of El Dorado, but the voyage was a failure and incurred the wrath of Spain when the English stormed and occupied the Spanish settlement of San Thomé, killing the Spanish governor. He was arrested on his return to England and imprisoned once again in the Tower of London.

Ralegh was tried on 28th October 1618 in front of Sir Henry Montagu, Lord Chief Justice, and the 1603 death sentence was reinstated. At his execution the following day, Ralegh made a forty-five minute speech and then joked with his executioner, commenting, as he touched the blade of the axe, “This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries”. After his execution, Ralegh's wife, Elizabeth (née Throckmorton), took his head and kept it at her side in a red leather bag until her death. His body was laid to rest at St Margaret's, Westminster.

Trivia: Although Ralegh is often credited with introducing the potato and tobacco into England, the potato had already spread around Europe after being brought back from Peru to Seville sometime before 1570. Ralegh definitely played a role in making the smoking of tobacco fashionable in England, but it was already being smoked by 1573 after having been introduced into Europe by André Thevet in the mid 16th century.