one afternoon, while divers of us were in the Tower, examining
these prisoners, Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to have murdered
himself. Whereof when we were advertised, we came to him, and
found him in some agony, seeming to be unable to endure his
misfortunes, and protesting innocency, with carelessness of
life. In that way, he had wounded himself under the right pap,
but no way mortally.

There is no reason whatever for supposing that this was not a genuine
attempt at suicide. We can have no difficulty in entering into the mood
of Raleigh's mind. Roused to fresh energy by misfortune, his brain and
will had of late once more become active, and he was planning adventures
by land and sea. If James did oust him from his posts about the Court in
favour of leal Scotchmen, Raleigh would brace himself by some fresh
expedition against Cadiz, some new settlement of Virginia or Guiana. In
the midst of such schemes, the blow of his unexpected arrest would come
upon him out of the blue. He could bear poverty, neglect, hardships,
even death itself; but imprisonment, with a disgraceful execution as the
only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had
tasted captivity in the Tower once before; he knew the intolerable
tedium and fret of it; and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his
thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were
once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obloquy would
attend his wife and children; and this it was which inspired the
passionate and pathetic letter which he addressed to Lady Raleigh just
before he stabbed himself. This letter seems to close the real life of
Raleigh. He was to breathe, indeed, for fifteen years more, but only in
a sort of living death. He begins thus distractedly:

Receive from thy unfortunate husband these his last lines: these
the last words that ever thou shalt receive from him. That I can
live never to see thee and my child more! I cannot! I have
desired God and disputed with my reason, but nature and
compassion hath the victory. That I can live to think how you
are both left a spoil to my enemies, and that my name shall be a
dishonour to my child! I cannot! I cannot endure the memory
thereof. Unfortunate woman, unfortunate child, comfort
yourselves, trust God, and be contented with your poor estate. I
would have bettered it, if I had enjoyed a few years.