I could think of better ways to pass the time, like saying goodbye to your loved ones, but it was none other than the famous courtier to Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh who started to write a novel whilst awaiting execution.
After Queen Elizabeth I died, King James I ascended the throne. James did not like Sir Walter Raleigh and he was soon arrested on a trumped-up charge of high treason. He was sentenced to death and imprisoned in the Bloody Tower at The Tower of London. It was there that he wrote the first and only volume of a book called The History of the World.
Raleigh was reprieved on the scaffold and returned to prison. He obtained release on condition that he should lead an expedition in search of gold, which the king badly needed, to Venezuela in South America.
Raleigh promised not to interfere with the Spanish settlements. However, when his son Walter was killed, he couldn't help himself!
The grief-stricken Sir Walter Raleigh sailed back to England where the furious Spanish ambassador demanded punishment. Raleigh was once again arrested on the charge of treason and was finally executed on October 29th, 1618.