Bacon becomes lord chancellor, and is also…

Bacon becomes lord chancellor, and is also created Baron Verulam, in 1618.

Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer of the New World, has languished in the Tower of London for thirteen years.

While imprisoned, he has written many treatises and the first volume of The Historie of the World, about the ancient history of Greece and Rome.

His son Carew had been conceived and born while Raleigh was legally "dead".

Sir Walter had in 1616 been released from the Tower of London in order to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado.

In the course of the expedition, Raleigh's men, under the command of Lawrence Keymis, had sacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Thomé de Guayana (San Thomé) on the Orinoco.

Raleigh's son Walter had been struck by a bullet and killed during the initial attack on the settlement.

On Raleigh's return to England, the outraged Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, the Spanish ambassador, demands that King James reinstate Raleigh's death sentence.

The ambassador's demand is granted, and on October 29, 1618, Raleigh is beheaded at Whitehall.