The Doughty incident continued to haunt Drake upon his return to England. There, John Doughty, brother of the deceased, sought legal recourse, but the action was dismissed on a technicality. There was also gossip about the inexplicable promotion of the carpenter, Edward Bright, to the position of master of the ship "Marigold," which was inevitably read as payment for falsifying testimony against Doughty. Drake was never able to produce documents showing he had clear authority to act as he did. There was even a rumour, almost certainly false, that Drake was under hire by the Earl of Leicester to kill Doughty. According to the contemporary screed "Leicester's Commonwealth" (1584), Leicester desired Doughty's death because Doughty could incriminate him in the alleged murder of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, refers to the Doughty incident in his poem "Portsmouth's Looking Glass," as if it is a casual reference to judicial malfeasance that his readership will immediately recognise.