???
Just putting things in perspective.
When i first read this, i thought that was a pretty aweful fate for a guy who did so much to benefit England.
Then i checked his biography and found out he was involved in chopping up 600 soldiers fighting for Irish independence
after they surrendered on condition of being spared.
That was a big deal, even then. As a matter of fact, it was brought up at his trial.
You have to judge people by the standards of their day not by contemporary morality, which i always make an effort to do.
His fate was poetic justice.
Has nothing to do with “ keeping hate alive”. No Englishmen today is responsible for what Raleigh did and most Englishmen of that day were not either.
There were acceptable conventions of warfare and what he did violated them.
It would be interesting to hold everyone to that standard, eh? Think of all the "hate speech" entertainers could be punished (or posthumously turned into a non-person) for. The crown was looking for a reason to chop off his head. He first got in trouble for knocking up, then marrying Bess Throckmorton, and that imprisonment was a rule-by-decree, no real justice involved.
He was executed based on false accusations (the Main Plot) by James I, who obviously was cleaning house of old supporters of his cousin Eliz I. And that's all that he was doing. Since Raleigh conformed to the discipline in the chain of command, ultimately the commanding officer was responsible for what happened -- if anything. There's no verification that any of it happened, maybe on the next dig. Even so, saying he deserved execution is ludicrous, he was just another victim of the ever-bloodthirsty institution of monarchy.
Maybe this slaughter will make you feel better: