Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era. A favorite of Queen Elizabeth herself, he was during his life an aristocrat, statesman, courtier, soldier, explorer, spy and poet. He established an English colony on Roanoke Island in Virginia, he led expeditions in search of the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, and popularized the use of tobacco in England.
When Raleigh returned to England from the New World in 1586, he brought with him corn, potatoes and tobacco. This largesse was viewed with a good amount of skepticism — especially those potatoes. They were deemed unfit for human consumption, possibly poisonous and perhaps even the creation of witches or devils.
Tobacco, on the other hand, was seen as beneficial and even healthful (“more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”). It could relieve toothaches and halitosis, and the smoking of it in those elaborately carved pipes was oh so sophisticated.
One story has it that the first time one of his servants saw Raleigh smoking, he thought Raleigh was on fire and doused him with a bucket of water. Nevertheless, once dry, Raleigh resumed the practice and even convinced Elizabeth to give it a go. She did, and so did the rest of the country. Within a few decades, the English were importing 3 million pounds a year from Virginia, this in spite of James I, Elizabeth’s successor and the surgeon general of his time, calling smoking loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs with a black and stinking fume.
Raleigh was executed for treason on October 29, 1618. It had nothing to do with tobacco.
Wretched Richard's Almanac 