11 Facts About Elizabeth Raleigh

Anna Beer, Lady Elizabeth Raleigh's biographer, offers a different perspective, pointing out that due to Elizabeth Raleigh's frequent absences, whether on expeditions, diplomatic duties, or in prison, Bess had to shoulder an unusual level of responsibility for a woman of her time.

Bess is said to have had her husband's head embalmed and to have carried it around with her for the rest of her life, although the only documented reference to Elizabeth Raleigh's head is from the day of his execution, when it was noted that Lady Elizabeth Raleigh and her ladies left the scene carrying Sir Walter's head in a red bag.

An account from 1740 claims that, after Bess' death, Elizabeth Raleigh's head was returned to his tomb in St Margaret's, Westminster.

Anne Carew, Elizabeth Raleigh's mother, was the daughter of Nicholas Carew and Elizabeth Raleigh Carew nee Bryan.

In later parts of the book, Elizabeth Raleigh is depicted as trying to get Walter to leave the court and live quietly with her at Sherborne, and feeling neglected and abandoned when he returned to the Queen's favor, and as loyally standing by him during his disgrace under King James and voluntarily sharing his twelve years of imprisonment in the Tower.

Elizabeth Raleigh Throckmorton is the subject of Rosemary Sutcliff's novel Lady in Waiting.

Elizabeth Raleigh is mentioned in Elizabeth Goudge's "Towers in the mist", set in Oxford in 1566, as Bess.