Note 584 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

This estate was Sherborn Castle, which Raleigh had not very fairly obtained from the see of Salisbury. He settled this before his conviction upon his son; but an accidental flaw in the deed enabled the king to wrest it from him, and bestow it on the Earl of Somerset. Lady Raleigh, it is said, solicited his majesty on her knees to spare it; but he only answered, "I mun have the land, I mun have it for Carr." He gave him, however, £12,000 instead. But the estate was worth £5000 per annum. This ruin of the prospects of a man far too intent on aggrandisement impelled him once more into the labyrinth of fatal and dishonest speculations. Cayley, 89, etc.; Somers Tracts, ii. p. 22, etc.; Curiosities of Literature, New Series, vol. ii. It has been said that Raleigh's unjust conviction made him in one day the most popular, from having been the most odious, man in England. He was certainly such under Elizabeth. This is a striking, but by no means solitary, instance of the impolicy of political persecution.