[4] In June of the same year he left London with verbal orders from the James I to deal with Sir Walter Raleigh when he arrived at Plymouth on his return from the 1617 Orinoco expedition.

Then on the basis of a letter from the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, dated 12 June, Stucley had the written authority to arrest Raleigh.

[4] Setting off in earnest from the Plymouth area, from John Drake's house some way to the east and joining the Fosse Way near Musbury,[10] on 25 July, Stucley's party escorted Raleigh.

[11] The king was there, on a summer progress, and Raleigh used several devices to play for time, composing a state paper in justification of his expedition.

[4] In London on 7 August, Raleigh was for a short time a prisoner at large, lodging at his wife's house in Broad Street;[12] he used the excuse of illness to argue for this lenient treatment, and was granted five days to regain his health.

He was executed on 29 October, on the charge of high treason relating to the 1603 Main Plot; more recent testimony was not legally employed.

There was also an official defence of the king's proceedings, the Declaration, written by Francis Bacon, possibly with Henry Yelverton and Robert Naunton.

The Apology having failed, Stucley issued the Petition in effect asking for official backing; which was published in the Declaration of 27 November, the printers having been up all night.

[22] In January 1619 Stucley and his son were charged with clipping coin, on slender evidence from a servant who had formerly been employed as a spy on Raleigh.

It has been suggested by Baldwin Maxwell that the character of Septimius in The False One was a contemporary reference to Stucley;[22] though this hypothesis has been regarded as unprovable.

[23] Although James I pardoned him, popular hatred pursued him to Affeton so Stuckley fled to Lundy, an island in the Bristol Channel.

[5] From the point of view of Stucley's reputation at the time, it mattered whether Raleigh was part of his extended family, which was widely believed, but they were not related.