Ralegh’s Last Journey : A Tale of Madness, Vanity and Treachery

First edition, first printing. 242pp. Black cloth-covered boards, gilt titles on spine. Lightly bumped spine heel. Pages tanning. Internally neat, clean and tight. Likely unread. Dust jacket lightly chipped along edges, price unclipped. 8vo. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the greatest courtiers of his day, Elizabeth’s favourite, dashing, brilliant, wily and powerful. This book takes as its subject his extraordinary last 20 weeks, during the summer of 1618 when, his last voyage a failure and under great suspicion from James I, he was escorted back to London by Sir Lewis Stucley; the tragicomic story of this journey, from Plymouth to the scaffold, of Raleigh’s grotesque behaviour along the way, of the web of deceit and counter-treachery woven between him and his reviled and much misunderstood betrayer Judas Stucley, and of their travelling companion the French physician and double agent Dr Manourie.