When the splendid courtier stood before him—for at fifty Sir Walter was still handsome of person and magnificent of Apparel—James looked him over and inquired who he might be. When they had told him: “I’ve rawly heard of thee,” quoth the royal punster, who sought by such atrocities of speech to be acclaimed a wit. It was ominous of what must follow, and soon thereafter you see this great and gallant gentleman arrested on a trumped-up charge of high treason, bullied, vituperated, and insulted by venal, peddling lawyers, and, finally, although his wit and sincerity had shattered every fragment of evidence brought against him, sentenced to death. Thus far James went; but he hesitated to go further, hesitated to carry out the sentence. Sir Walter had too many friends in England then; the memory of his glorious deeds was still too fresh in the public mind, and execution might have been attended by serious consequences for King James. Besides, one at least of the main objects was achieved. Sir Walter’s broad acres were confiscate by virtue of that sentence, and King James wanted the land—filched thus from one who was England’s pride—to bestow it upon one of those golden calves of his who were England’s shame. “I maun hae the land for Carr. I maun hae it,” was his brazen and peevish answer to an appeal against the confiscation. For thirteen years Sir Walter lay in the Tower, under that sentence of death passed in 1603, enjoying after a season a certain liberty, visited there by his dear lady and his friends, among whom was Henry, Prince of Wales, who did not hesitate to publish that no man but his father—whom he detested—would keep such a bird in a cage. He beguiled the time in literary and scientific pursuits, distilling his essences and writing that stupendous work of his, “The History of the World.” Thus old age crept upon him; but far from quenching the fires of enterprise within his adventurer’s soul, it brought a restlessness that urged him at last to make a bid for liberty. Despairing of winning it from the clemency of James, he applied his wits to extracting it from the King’s cupidity. Throughout his life, since the day when first he had brought himself to the notice of a Queen by making of his cloak a carpet for her feet, he had retained side by side with the dignity of the sage and the greatness of the hero, the craft and opportunism of the adventurer. His opportunity now was the straitened condition of the royal treasury, a hint of which had been let fall by Winwood the Secretary of State. He announced at once that he knew of a gold mine in Guiana, the El Dorado of the Spaniards. On his return from a voyage to Guiana in 1595, he had written of it thus: