As to prize-money, there proved to be very little of it for the captors. It was understood that the Lord Admiral was to have 5,000_l._, Essex as much, and Raleigh 3,000_l._; but Essex, in his proud way, waived his claim in favour of the Queen, just in time to escape spoliation, for Elizabeth claimed everything. Her scandalous avarice had grown upon her year by year, and now in her old age her finer and more generous qualities were sapped by her greed for money. Even her political acumen had failed her; she was unable to see, in her vexation at the loss of the Indian carracks, that the blow to Spain had been one which relieved her of a constant and immense anxiety. She determined that no one should be the richer or the nobler for a victory which had resulted in the destruction of so much treasure which might have flowed into her coffers. Deeply disappointed at the Queen's surly ingratitude, Raleigh, whom she still refused to see, retired for the next nine months into absolute seclusion at Sherborne.
In his retirement Raleigh continued to remember that his function was, as Oldys put it, 'by his extraordinary undertakings to raise a grove of laurels, in a manner out of the seas, that should overspread our island with glory.' In October 1596 he was preparing for his third expedition to Guiana, which he placed under the command of Captain Leonard Berrie. This navigator was absent until the summer of the following year, when he returned, not having penetrated to Manoa, but confirming with an almost obsequious report Raleigh's most golden dreams. It is at this time, after his return from Cadiz, that we find Sir Walter Raleigh's name mentioned most lavishly by the literary classes in their dedications and eulogistic addresses. Whether his popularity was at the same time high with the general public is more easily asserted than proved, but there is no doubt that the victory at Cadiz was highly appreciated by the mass of Englishmen, and it is not possible but that Raleigh's prominent share in it should be generally recognised.
On January 24, 1597, Raleigh wrote from Sherborne a letter of sympathy to Sir Robert Cecil, on the death of his wife. It is interesting as displaying Raleigh's intimacy with the members of a family which was henceforth to hold a prominent place in the chronicle of his life, since it was Henry Brooke, Lady Cecil's brother, who became, two months later, at the death of his father, Lord Cobham. It was he and his brother George Brooke who in 1603 became notorious as the conspirators for Arabella Stuart, and who dragged Raleigh down with them. We do not know when Raleigh began to be intimate with the Brookes, and it is just at this time, when his fortunes had reached their climacteric, and when it would be of the highest importance to us to follow them closely, that his personal history suddenly becomes vague. If Cecil's letters to him had been preserved we should know more. As it is we can but record certain isolated facts, and make as much use of them as we can venture to do. In May 1597, nearly five years after his expulsion, we find him received again at Court. Rowland White says, 'Sir Walter Raleigh is daily in Court, and a hope is had that he shall be admitted to the execution of his office as Captain of the Guard, before he goes to sea.'