imitative English Court. Ralegh wrote to
Winwood in January, 1616, on the wealth of Guiana: 'Those that had the
greatest trust were resolved not to believe it; not because they doubted
the truth, but because they doubted my disposition towards themselves,
had I recovered his Majesty's favour and good opinion. Our late worthy
Prince of Wales was extreme curious in searching out the nature of my
offences; the Queen's Majesty hath informed herself from the beginning;
the King of Denmark, at both times his being here, was thoroughly
satisfied of my innocency. The wife, the brother, and the son of a King
do not use to sue for mere suspect. It is true, sir, that his Majesty
hath sometimes answered that his Council knew me better than he did;
meaning some two or three of them; and it was indeed my infelicity. For
had his Majesty known me, I had not been where I now am; or had I known
his Majesty, they had never been so long where they now are. His
Majesty's misknowing of them hath been the ruin of a goodly part of his
estate; but they are all of them--some living, and some dying--come to
his Majesty's knowledge. But to die for the King, and not by the King,
is all the ambition I have in the world.'

[Sidenote: _Gifts of Money._]

No further explanation of Ralegh's deliverance might seem to be
required. Without the co-operation of these various coincidences which
aided his claim to justice, and weakened the resistance to it, he must
indeed have remained in prison. But the popular belief was that the
immediate agency to which he owed his freedom was neither equity nor
policy; it was the prisoner's own money. A half-brother of George
Villiers, Sir Edward Villiers, and Sir William St. John, a kinsman of
Sir Edward's wife, are alleged in the _Observations on Sanderson's
History of King James_, to have procured Sir Walter Ralegh's liberty,
and to have had L1500 for their labour. The story has been denied.
Unfortunately it is by no means intrinsically improbable. It agrees with
Ralegh's confident allusion at his death to the ease with which he could
have bought his peace, even after his return from Guiana, if he had been
rich enough. There is a miserable consistency in his imprisonment on a
false charge of treason, and his release through a bribe to relatives of
the King's favourite. He wrote to George Villiers: 'You have by your
mediation put me again into the world.' The service cannot be
questioned, but its motive.

[Sidenote: