Raleigh's Muddy Cloak

'...From thence home, and after a little dinner my wife and I by coach into London, and bought some glasses, and then to Whitehall to see Mrs. Fox, but she not within, my wife to my mother Bowyer, and I met with Dr. Thomas Fuller, and took him to the Dog, where he tells me of his last and great book that is coming out: that is, his History of all the Families in England; and could tell me more of my own, than I knew myself. And also to what perfection he hath now brought the art of memory; that he did lately to four eminently great scholars dictate together in Latin, upon different subjects of their proposing, faster than they were able to write, till they were tired; and by the way in discourse tells me that the best way of beginning a sentence, if a man should be out and forget his last sentence (which he never was), that then his last refuge is to begin with an Utcunque...'

On January 22, 1661, Samuel Pepys records meeting with Thomas Fuller, the churchman known for his "The Worthies of England".  Fuller is credited also with a fictitious story that Sir Walter Scott employed in his "Kenilworth".  The story is the famous incident of Raleigh gallantly throwing his cloak atop a mud puddle so that Queen Elizabeth wouldn't get her feet dirty.  Scott repeats this incident in Kenilworth:

'Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance on the youth, as she approached the place where he stood, with a look in which surprise at his boldness seemed to be unmingled with resentment, while a trifling accident happened which attracted her attention towards him yet more strongly. The night had been rainy, and just where the young gentleman stood a small quantity of mud interrupted the Queen's passage. As she hesitated to pass on, the gallant, throwing his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on the miry spot, so as to ensure her stepping over it dry-shod. Elizabeth looked at the young man, who accompanied this act of devoted courtesy with a profound reverence, and a blush that overspread his whole countenance. The Queen was confused, and blushed in her turn, nodded her head, hastily passed on, and embarked in her barge without saying a word.

"Come along, Sir Coxcomb," said Blount; "your gay cloak will need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to make a footcloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy's old drab-debure, which despises all colours."


"This cloak," said the youth, taking it up and folding it, "shall never be brushed while in my possession."...'

"Strike, man, strike!"

"Raleigh is my name, most gracious Queen, the youngest son of a large but honourable family of Devonshire." (From "Kenilworth")
Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded on October 29, 1618.  His crime was treason; involvement in the Main Plot against King James I.  This plot was intended to be a coup d'etat that would install Catholic Arabella Stuart onto the throne.  Little was proven against Raleigh, other than a meeting with Lord Cobham Henry Brooke, who was a primary conspirator.  Wishing not to show fear at his impending death, Raleigh is said to have uttered the words in the title line to hurry his executioner.

Raleigh is associated with Elizabeth I of England, with whom he enjoyed a period of substantial favor, an later, disfavor.  Both characters are part of Walter Scott's "Kenilworth".  Scott focuses on Raleigh's period of favor in this passage:

'The Queen paused, and then said hastily, "You are very young to have fought so well, and to speak so well. But you must not escape your penance for turning back Masters. The poor man hath caught cold on the river for our order reached him when he was just returned from certain visits in London, and he held it matter of loyalty and conscience instantly to set forth again. So hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, in token of penitence, till our pleasure be further known. And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold, in the form of a chess-man, "I give thee this to wear at the collar."


Raleigh, to whom nature had taught intuitively, as it were, those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it. He knew, perhaps, better than almost any of the courtiers who surrounded her, how to mingle the devotion claimed by the Queen with the gallantry due to her personal beauty; and in this, his first attempt to unite them, he succeeded so well as at once to gratify Elizabeth's personal vanity and her love of power.'