Once he planned an escape to France, but when he had got in disguise from the Tower Docks as far as Woolwich he was overtaken by some people in the pay of the Government; and at Greenwich was formally arrested by his kinsman, who had accompanied him in his flight. The next morning, August 7th, he was conducted to the Tower, where he took a kind farewell of the king, and remained imprisoned there until the 28th of October. And on that day, as he was lying ill, the king's officers came at eight o'clock in the morning to convey him to Westminster. Thence he was taken to Gate House, and the next morning to the Old Palace Yard, where the scaffold was erected on which he was to die, that the king might preserve peace with Spain! The people of England thought James was very unkind to condemn a man whose guilt had never been proved, and who was the most valiant and spirited in the whole land. And indeed the execution of Raleigh has ever been considered unjust.
He appeared upon the scaffold with a smiling countenance, and saluted all of his friends and acquaintances who were present. Then he spoke in his own defence, but notwithstanding the deep silence around, his words were not heard by the Lords Arundel and Doncaster, and some other lords and knights who sat at a window looking into the yard, and he begged them to come upon the scaffold. When he had saluted them all he thanked God for having brought him into the light to die, instead of suffering him to die in the dark prison of the Tower. Then he defended himself eloquently against the numerous charges that had been made against him, and ended by entreating all his friends to pray for him, because he said that since he had been a soldier, a captain, a sea-captain, and a courtier, he must needs have fallen into many sins.
The lords and knights departed sorrowfully from the scaffold, and Raleigh prepared for death; he gave away his hat, his wrought night-cap, and some money to some of those who remained near him. "I have a long journey to go," he said, "and therefore I will take my leave." And when he had taken off his black velvet gown and his satin doublet, he called to the headsman, and examined the axe, saying, as he felt along its edge, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all disorders." Being asked which way he would lay his head on the block, he said, "So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth." A minute later his head was severed with two blows from his body; the story of his life was ended, and the unjust king could keep the peace he had purchased with the sacrifice of a man who, although faulty, had many of the attributes of true greatness.