Tried by Coke, Devereux was convicted and executed in February 1601. It was this execution that also would cast Raleigh in a bad light with the public. Although he had nothing to do with the trial, he held the title of Sheriff of London, which meant that he had the duty of presiding over the execution. The public saw this as a devious way to remove a rival, and he was reviled for it.

In 1603, Raleigh's fortunes took a definitive turn for the worse when the Queen died. Soon thereafter, none other than King James ascended to the throne. And not long after that Raleigh was himself arrested for treason-accused of plotting with his friend Lord Cobham and with Spain against James.

When the trial began that morning, Coke was faced with a dilemma; he had very little evidence, only an unsigned letter supposedly written by Cobham that accused Raleigh of being part of the conspiracy. On the other hand, the commissions of oyer and terminer were not known for their objectivity. The judges were selected from officers of the state-nobles and judges appointed by the King and his councillors, all with a stake in the survival of the current political structure, and therefore antagonistic toward anyone who might be a threat to the King or their positions.

There was no attempt at impartiality for Raleigh's trial. The commissioners, or judges, included Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil, Sir William Waad, who was Raleigh's jailer, the Earls of Suffolk and Devonshire, Lord Wotton, Lord Henry Howard, and Sir John Stanhope, many of whom disliked Raleigh and had envied his status with Elizabeth, or held him partly responsible for Essex's death. They sat with the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Popham, who hated Raleigh, as well as the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Sir Edmund Anderson, and Justices Gawdy and Warburton.