By varying accounts, Sir Walter Raleigh was either a true gentleman or a pirate. He was a poet, a soldier, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, and an explorer. He was knighted in 1585 and assisted with the settlement of English colonies in Virginia. He married one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting without asking the Queen's permission, and earned a stay in the prisons of the Tower of London as a result, released only after the Queen pardoned him and his wife. After the Queen's death, however, Raleigh truly fell out of favor with her successor King James I and again imprisoned. Raleigh was later released to find the famed "City of Gold" of El Dorado in the New World. During the expedition, Raleigh sacked the Spanish outpost of San Thome. Upon his return to England, he was arrested and tried, largely to appease the Spanish. Raleigh was convicted and sentenced to death. He was beheaded at Whitehall on October 29, 1618.
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