Raleigh married in secret

Raleigh purchased the Dorset manor of Sherborne in 1592. He sought a family to settle down. The envious queen had been kept in the dark about his marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, probably as early as 1588. He was betrayed in 1592 by the birth of a son. Raleigh and his bride Elizabeth "Bess" Throckmorton were banished and imprisoned in the Tower of London in July 1592 when the queen learned that Raleigh had secretly courted and married one of her ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth "Bess," without the queen's consent (which was customary). When the queen discovered this, she was indignant and imprisoned Raleigh and his family. Some people think Queen Elizabeth I arranged for Sir Raleigh and her maid of honor to get along so she could have an affair through a proxy.

Raleigh embarked on a privateering expedition and used the money to buy his release, but he never regained his position of power in the court. The baby died; a second son, Walter, and a third son, Carew, were born in 1593 and 1604 or 1605, respectively. Raleigh won back the queen's favor when she was permitted to leave the Tower to retrieve the loot from a captured Portuguese ship. In October of that same year, the couple received their formal release from the Tower.