Travels in America, Sir Walter Raleigh, Bess Throckmorton, William Baynham and his grandson, First Lieutenant Gregory Baynham

I am at what should be the end of the day, but I have two closings to transact. I am glad that I have the two closings to transact, but after driving from Southeast Louisiana, through Mississippi and Alabama, I finally arrived home about an hour ago. Now, we are trying to complete the documents necessary to close the two transactions.

It was on this date in 1618, that Sir Walter Raleigh died in prison. Most remember Sir Walter as the guy who laid his cloak out for the benefit of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Walter was one of Queen Elizabeth's adventurer/soldiers who bedeviled the Spanish in the New World and pranced around Hampton Court in their off-time with the Queen. Apparently, he was one of her favorites. Unfortunately, one day as he found himself in the Queen's court, his eye fell on one of her ladies in waiting, a Bess Throckmorton. They fell in love and married outside the knowledge and consent of the queen.

The Queen's ladies in waiting were supposed to be virgins and they were supposed to keep themselves chaste. This was especially true in service to the "Virgin Queen." Knowing that marriage would go against the wishes of the most powerful woman in the world, Sir Walter and Bess married in secret. Unfortunately, the ability to keep this secret became problematic when Bess' first pregnancy became apparent.

At discovery of Bess' addition, Queen Elizabeth threw her in an apartment in the Tower of London, to suffer for her love. The only fortunate part of this was the fact that her husband, who was also imprisoned in the tower, was thereafter allowed to visit her in her cell, and ultimately the whole family, including their two children, all lived together, in prison, in the tower.

Apparently, at some later date, the Queen or her cousin, King James I, relented from this sentence and allowed the family to leave the tower. At some point later, however, Sir Walter made a further royal error and found himself back in the tower, where he ultimately died on this date. I am not sure what happened to Bess Throckmorton Raleigh and her children.

Life under the royals at this time was treacherous, even for those people who committed acts which don't seem too terribly licentious or offensive these days. I have heard Elizabethan England described as a police state, and I suppose this is good evidence for such a conclusion.

For those who might care, Bess Throckmorton was a relative of my family, her maternal grandparents being Baynhams. Although another of my relatives served as lady in waiting to one of the former Queens, that lady's service under Queen Elizabeth may be as close as my family got to the royalty of England, since, several generations later, my direct ancestor, William Baynham, was taken by boat to Charleston to serve out a fourteen year sentence of service to the crown for backing the losing side in a battle between Prince James Edward Stewart of Scotland and George of Hanover, a German relative of the royal family who became King George I, and coincidently never learned to speak English. I suppose my relative thought a Scottish dialect of English was better than no English at all. As a former student of both, I have to go along with my ancestor.

Of course, the grandson of George I became George III, which King did speak English, but didn't like the freedom practiced by his colonies in America. Sending troops over to America to quell the uprising, the great-grandson of that distant relative of mine who was shipped off to America, namely Gregory Baynham, joined up with the army of General George Washington, where serving as a first lieutenant, he found a measure of revenge against the house of Hanover.

I have several direct ancestors who were able to witness the subordinate to the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, surrender to the French commander at Yorktown. Despite this snub to the American commander, George Washington and America, the freedoms we won in league with the French that day, have survived to this day. So, hurrah for our side!

By the way, this is also the birthday of James Boswell, who made his name by writing a biography of Samuel Johnson. Turning his back on his Scottish heritage to live in London, Boswell made Johnson immortal through this biography, thus giving himself a bit of tangential immortality by writing same. I don't think either of them would have been memorable if not for the writing of that Scottish sycophant. Come to think of it, how many people, outside a group of English professors, students and people named Boswell, possibly know anything at all about Samuel Johnson or James Boswell?

This is also the anniversary of Black Monday, the beginning of the Depression in 1929. Fun day. I think I will focus on Sir Walter Raleigh, and his good lady, Bess. A bad ending but a good story, over all.