344

CHAPTER X.

A.D. 1594-95, JANUARY-NOVEMBER.

1.

ÆTAT. 34.

THE letters contained in Rawley's Supplement, though his voucher may be considered sufficient to prove them genuine, are not easy to arrange. They have no explanatory headings; most of them are without date; and we have no means of knowing whence they camewhether from the originals or from the rough drafts. The want of dates rather favours the notion that they were from the drafts; in which case another uncertainty arises: we may not assume that they were all sent to the persons whose addresses they bear, in the shape in which we see them. A letter may be written by way of experiment, to see whether such a letter be fit to send. It may be withheld upon better consideration. It may be rendered unfit or unnecessary by something happening in the meantime. I have been careful therefore to distinguish the several collections from which each letter comes; and with regard to all those which are marked as coming from the supplementary collection in the 'Resuscitatio,' I would observe that they are to be taken for historical facts thus far only :they represent something which was in Bacon's mind to say: a fact very interesting, especially where we can date it.

The date of the letter with which I commence this chapter is (and I am afraid must remain) uncertain. There is little doubt however that it relates to the suit for the Solicitorship, and that it fits this stage of it well enough, even if it belongs historically to another. As it must be placed somewhere, and I know no other place which is more likely to be the right one, I place it here.

TO MY LORD OF ESSEX.

My singular good Lord,

I may perceive by my Lord Keeper, that your Lordship, as the time served, signified unto him an intention to confer with

his Lordship at better opportunity; which in regard of your several and weighty occasions I have thought good to put your Lordship in remembrance of; that now, at his coming to the Court, it may be executed desiring your good Lordship nevertheless not to conceive out of this my diligence in soliciting this matter that I am either much in appetite or much in hope. For as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters of the Spaw, that give a stomach; but rather they quench appetite and desires. And for hope, how can he hope much, that can allege no other reason than the reason of an evil debtor, who will persuade his creditor to lend him new sums and to enter further in with him to make him satisfy the old; and to her Majesty no other reason, but the reason of a waterman; I am her first man, of those who serve in Counsel of Law ? And so I commit your Lordship to God's best preservation.

Whether upon this hint or upon his own suggestion, Essex on the 14th of January2 wrote to the Lord Keeper Puckering as follows.

My Lord,3

I have, since I spake with your Lordship, pleaded to the Queen against herself for the injury she doth Mr. Bacon in delaying him so long, and the unkindness she doth me in granting no better expedition in a suit which I have followed so long and so affectionately. And though I find that she makes some difficulty, to have the more thanks, yet I do assure myself she is resolved to make him. I do write this not to solicit your Lordship to stand firm in assisting me, because I know you hold yourself already tied by your affection to Mr. Bacon and by your promise to me; but to acquaint your Lordship with my resolution to set up my rest and employ my uttermost strength to get him placed before the term: so as I beseech your Lordship think of no temporizing course, for I shall think the Queen deals unkindly with me, if she do not both give him the place, and give it with favour and some extraordinary advantage. I wish your Lordship all honour and happiness; and rest,

Your Lordship's very assured,

Greenwich, this 14th of January.

ESSEX.

1 Bacon had been "serving in Counsel of Law,"—that is, he had been employed in business belonging to the Learned Counsel,-since July, 1594; and there does not seem to have been any candidate for the Solicitorship senior to him, who was so employed.

2 The year-date is not given, but the indorsement, in Puckering's hand, "My Lo. of Essex for Mr. Fran. Bacon to be Solicitor," fixes it.

3 Harl. MSS. 6997, fo. 170. Original: own hand.

Whether the deprecation of any "temporizing course" implies a doubt as to Puckering's earnestness in the cause, I do not know but in such cases friends are sure to become talebearers, and doubts were of course suggested as to the sincerity of the Cecils. Sir Robert especially was believed by the friends of the Bacons to be playing a double part; and whether justly suspected or not in this particular case, it was a thing he was capable of doing. But the following conversation between him and Lady Bacon, as reported by herself, contains all that is now known of the matter, and probably all that was ever known, in the proper sense of the word. She had come up, I suppose, from Gorhambury for the purpose of the interview, and on the 23rd of January writes to her son Anthony :

"After courteous and familiar speeches upon the cause of my coming hither and this unlooked for deferring,―to that point Sir Robert said, Indeed her Majesty was not well then. I said, Yesterday I went to see you, much more to my comfort if your body would let you be and see further, God having enabled your mind.-It is true, quoth he, he hath good parts, but gout and stone be too naturally drawn from parents.-Well (inquam) the eldest of my but two in all sons is visited by God, and the other methinks is but strangely used by man's dealing: God knows who and why. I think he is the very first young gentleman of some account made so long such a common speech of: this time placed, and then out of doubt, and yet nothing done. Enough to overthrow a young and studious man, as he is given indeed, and as fit by judgment of wiser both for years and understanding to occupy a place as the Attorney. The world marvels in respect of his friends and his own towardness.-Experience teacheth that her Majesty's nature is not to resolve, but to delay.-But with none so seen, quod I.—Why (inquit) she is yet without officers of three white staffs together: seldom seen: But, saith he, I daresay my Lord would gladly have had my cousin placed ere this.—I hope so myself, inquam: but some think if my Lord had been earnest it had been done.-Surely, saith he my Lord even on last Tuesday moved the Queen that the term-day was near, and required a Solicitor for her service; and she straight should say it was a shame the place was so long unfurnished. No shame, Madam, inquit ille, but a lack. I may not name any, saith Majesty, nor other dare for fear of you and my Lord of Essex. I trust, saith my Lord, you are not without a nomination, but rather now to conclude. Is there none I pray you (inquit Majesty) but Francis Bacon fit for that place, Solicitor? I know not, inquit ille, how your Majesty may be altered, but the Judges and others have and do take him sufficient with your favour, and it is expected of all this term whereto she gave no grant. And this saith and protesteth Sir Robert that my Lord did very plainly and in good faith.

66

Then upon my word that himself was Secretary in place but not nominate,-As for that, saith he, I deal nor speak no more of it; but as long as none is placed I wait still, though I may think myself as hardly used

as my cousin. And I tell you plainly, Madam, I disdain to seem to be thought that I doubted of the place; and so would I wish my cousin Francis to do so long as the room vacant, and bear her delay so accustomed. Let him not be discouraged, but carry himself wisely. It may be (said he) her Majesty was too much pressed at the first, which she liketh not, and at last will come of herself. This in matter was the speech and parting to the Court: truly his speech was all kindly outward, and did desire to have me think so of him."

2.

While Bacon's friends were thus doing what they could to speed this unfortunate suit, he was himself considering how to make an end of it, one way or another. He had made up his mind, in case he were not appointed Solicitor at the beginning of the next term, to give up the suit and the profession at once, to waste no more of his time and means in that attendance, but to make such arrangements as he best might for betaking himself to the life of a student; and in the first place to go abroad for awhile. This is what he had half determined to do some twenty months before, just before the Attorney-Generalship fell vacant; when he was persuaded to wait awhile, probably by Essex to whom it seems that he now declared his intention to wait no longer, but do it at once. Essex, judging rightly enough that the Queen did not intend to lose Bacon altogether, thought to bring matters to a crisis by telling her what would happen if she delayed longer: a characteristic but unlucky move: for it was a kind of challenge which her spirit could never endure. On the same day on which Burghley had the conversation with Elizabeth the substance of which Sir R. Cecil reported to Lady Bacon, (Tuesday, Jan. 21), Bacon was sent for to the Court; and on Saturday sent his brother the following account of what passed.

:

The passage about his brother's "travels" alludes to his study of the affairs of Europe during ten years' residence abroad, the acquaintances he had cultivated, the information which he had supplied to Burghley and Walsingham, and the extensive correspondence which he still kept up: in consideration of which it was hoped that the Queen would find some employment for him in that line.

Good Brother,2

Since I saw you this hath passed.

Tuesday, though sent for, I saw not the Queen. Her Majesty

1 Lambeth MSS. 650, fo. 21. Docketed "le 23me de Janvier, 1594."

2 Lambeth MSS. 650. 28. Original: own hand. Docketed, "De Mons" Fr. Bacon a Mons", 1594."

alleged she was then to resolve with her Counsel upon her places of law.

But this resolution was ut supra; and note the rest of the counsellors were persuaded she came rather forwards than otherwise. For against me she is never peremptory but to my Lord of Essex.

I missed a letter of my Lord Keeper's; but thus much I hear otherwise.

The Queen seemeth to apprehend my travel; whereupon I was sent for by Sir Robert Cecil in sort as from her Majesty; himself having of purpose immediately gone to London to speak with me, and not finding me there, he wrate to me. Whereupon I came to the Court, and upon his relation to me of her Majesty's speech, I desired leave to answer it in writing; not I said that I mistrusted his report but mine own wit; the copy of which answer I send; we parted in kindness secundum exterius.

This copy you must needs return; for I have no other; and I wrate this by memory after the original sent away.

The Queen's speech is after this sort. Why? I have made no Solicitor. Hath anybody carried a Solicitor with him in his pocket? But he must have it in his own time (as if it were but yesterday's nomination) or else I must be thought to cast him away. Then her Majesty sweareth that if I continue this manner, she will seek all England for a Solicitor rather than take me. Yea she will send for Houghton and Coventry1 to-morrow next (as if she would swear them both). Again she entereth into it, that she never dealt so with any as with me (in hoc erratum non est) ; she hath pulled me over the bar (note the words, for they cannot be her own), she hath used me in her greatest causes. But this is Essex; and she is more angry with him than with me; and such-like speeches, so strange, as I should leese myself in it, but that I have cast off the care of it.

My conceit is, that I am the least part of mine own matter. But her Majesty would have a delay, and yet would not bear it herself. Therefore she giveth no way to me, and she perceiveth her counsel giveth no way to others, and so it sticketh as she would have it. But what the secret of it is oculus aquile non

penetravit.

1 Thomas Coventry, afterwards one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and father of the Lord Keeper Coventry.—Birch.