Anthropologist Lee Miller proposed that Sir Francis Walsingham, Simon Fernandes, Edward Strafford, and others participated in a conspiracy to maroon the 1587 colonists at Roanoke. The purpose of this plot, she argued, was to undermine Walter Raleigh, whose activities supposedly interfered with Walsingham's covert machinations to make England a Protestant world power at the expense of Spain and other Catholic nations. This conspiracy would have prevented Raleigh and White from dispatching a relief mission until Walsingham's death in 1590. Miller also suggested that the colonists may have been Separatists, seeking refuge in America from religious persecution in England. Raleigh expressed sympathy for the Separatists, while Walsingham considered them a threat to be eliminated.