Raleigh's El Dorado Expedition Portuguese possessions and shipping, and conduct illicit trading. Sir Walter Raleigh had enjoyed several years of high esteem from Queen Elizabeth I, which stemmed in part from his previous exploits at sea which included the famous Capture of the Madre de Deus. Soon after, however, Raleigh suffered a short imprisonment for secretly marrying one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Throckmorton, and bearing her a child. In a bid to restore his influence with the Queen, Raleigh, having promised a "gold-rich empire more lucrative than Peru", had set up an expedition under John Whiddon to find the fabled city of gold
Elizabeth Whately there with her widowed mother, when Whately came with Willis to take the waters. The Whatelys moved to Halesworth, a living taken by Richard who was required to give up his college fellowship at Oriel on marrying. Elizabeth found the parishioners there to be in a state of "heathenish ignorance". They had five children; Elizabeth herself and her two elder daughters were in time active in religiously-inspired works. Elizabeth was ill in Halesworth, and a sister came to visit, becoming ill also; the malady was called "typhus fever". They returned to Oxford after three years, when Richard became head of