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me that which I wish strongly, and hope for weakly; that is a possibility of restitution to her Majesty's favour. Your arguments that would cherish hope turn to despair. You say the Queen never meant to call me to public censure, which showeth her goodness; but you see I passed it, which showeth others' power. I believe most steadfastly her Majesty never intended to bring my cause to a sentence: and I believe as verily that since the sentence she meant to restore me to attend upon her person. But they that could use occasions (which it was not in me to let), and amplify occasions, and practise occasions, to represent to her Majesty a necessity to bring me to the one, can and will do the like to stop me from the other. You say my errors were my prejudice, and therefore I can mend myself: it is true. But they that know that I can mend myself, and that if ever I recover the Queen, I will never lose her again, will never suffer me to obtain interest in her favour. You say the Queen never forsook utterly, where she inwardly favoured. But I know not whether the hour-glass of time hath altered her; but sure I am the false glass of others must alter her, when I want access to plead my own cause. I know I ought doubly infinitely to be her Majesty's: both jure creationis, for I am her creature, and jure redemptionis, for I know she hath saved me from overthrow. But for her first love, and for her last protection, and all her great benefits, I can but pray for her Majesty. And my endeavours are now to make my prayers for her and myself better heard. For, thanks be to God, they that can make her Majesty believe I counterfeit with her, cannot make God believe that I counterfeit with him. And they which can let me from coming near unto her, cannot let me from drawing near unto him, as I hope I do daily. For your brother, I hold him an honest gentleman, and wish him all good, much the rather for your sake. Yourself I know hath suffered more for me than any friend I have but I can but lament freely, as you see I do, and advise you not to do that which I do, which is to despair. You know letters what hurt they have done me, and therefore make sure of this: and yet I could not (as having no other pledge of my love) but communicate freely with you, for the ease of my heart and yours.

3.

Such was the temper in which Bacon wished Essex to be, and of which he was content for awhile at least to put on the appearance, and see what it would bring. The first thing it brought was liberty. On the 26th of August he was formally released from all remaining restraint, except that which still forbade him to appear at Court without leave. A little patience in the same course would probably have brought about a complete reconciliation. But patience implies delay, and when dangerous secrets are involved, anxiety may make delay intolerable. As long as his secrets were safe-secrets, be it remembered, of which Bacon had no suspicion,-Essex had nothing either to bear or to fear worse than want of power and favour. But what if they should by any accident come to the Queen's knowledge? In that case he might well fear for his head, unless he could in the meantime make himself too dangerous to be attacked. To make himself so he had two chances; one through the Queen's favour, which was to be won by the exhibition of loyal affection; the other through arrangements with Scotland and the army in Ireland for self-defence. And it seems that, not able to rely boldly upon either, he wanted to secure both. To the Commissioners who conveyed to him the Queen's order for his liberty, he declared that it was his wish to live a private life in the country; and only desired permission to see her once before he went. To the Queen herself he wrote letter after letter in the language of a man who valued nothing in the world apart from her favour. His request to see her being refused, he retired into the country in the beginning of September; remained quiet there for the rest of the month; and returned to Essex House in October, where "he lived" (as far as the newsmen of the time could learn) "very private, his gate shut day and night," suing unsuccessfully for a renewal of his monopoly of sweet wines, but "well, and with great patience enduring the heavy cross of her Majesty's displeasure towards him."1 Such was the aspect he presented to the world in general, and to those of his friends with whom, as with the Bacons, he could only venture upon a half-confidence. To those whom he regarded as assured partisans through thick and thin, he appeared in a very different light,-a man restless and impatient; bent on recovering his greatness, if not by lawful then by unlawful means; renewing his invitation to the King of Scots to take more vigorous measures for the recognition of his title; applying to Lord Montjoy for a letter of remonstrance, under colour of which, should his suit for the monopoly (the lease of which was to

1 Syd. Pap. ii. p. 219. Oct. 24.

expire at Michaelmas) be rejected, he might "by means of his friends present himself to the Queen;" that is, make himself master of the Court; revolving many half-digested plans for engaging popular sympathy and support; and betraying in the agitations of uncertainty and anxiety a disorder of mind resembling madness. "It resteth with me in opinion (writes Sir John Harington) that ambition thwarted in his career doth speedily lead on to madness: and herein I am confirmed by what I learn of my Lord of Essex; who shifteth from sorrow and repentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or of right mind. In my last discourse he uttered strange words bordering on such strange designs, that made me hasten forth and leave his presence. Thank heaven I am safe at home, and if I go in such troubles again, I deserve the gallows for a meddling fool. His speeches of the Queen become no man who hath mens sana in corpore sano. He hath ill advisers, and much evil hath sprung from this source. The Queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemeth tossed to and fro like the waves of a troubled sea."2

Of all this Bacon knew nothing. He may have felt that the Earl's professions of devotion to the Queen did not spring out of any deep feeling either of love or reverence; but he did not know that his attitude of despairing affection was deliberately assumed as a mask; that he wore armour under his gown; and was prepared, if he could not gain his end by begging, to take it by force. Had he been aware of this, he would have had no difficulty in accounting for the revulsion he describes as taking place about Michaelmas in the Queen's feelings. It was at Michaelmas that Essex's monopoly-patent expired, the renewal or non-renewal of which he had determined to regard as a decisive test of the Queen's disposition towards him; and in case of non-renewal to abandon at once the trial of patience and submission, and resolve upon some other course. The disposal of the lease remained in suspense till the end of October, when it was assigned to Commissioners for the Queen's own use; and Essex took his resolution accordingly. Such a resolution in such a mind would inevitably produce a change of manner which would put the Queen upon her guard, even if we reject as scandal the report that it betrayed him into expressions of coarse contempt, which were repeated to her; and though Bacon in his 'Apology,' dealing as tenderly as possible with the Earl's memory, shrinks from suggesting the true explanation, Montjoy, to whom it was addressed, and who knew better .than Bacon what Essex had really been about all this time, would 1 Sir C. Davers's declaration. 2 Nuga Antiquæ, i. p. 179.

easily supply the omission; which being supplied, the issue follows naturally enough. "The truth is" (proceeds the 'Apology,' immediately after the words last quoted from it) "that the issue of all his dealing grew to this, that the Queen, by some slackness of my Lord's, as I imagine, liked him worse and worse, and grew more incensed towards him. Then she, remembering belike the continual and incessant and confident speeches and courses that I had held on my Lord's side, became utterly alienated from me, and for the space of at least three months, which was between Michaelmas and New Year's tide following, would not so much as look on me, but turned away from me with express and purposelike discountenance wheresoever she saw me."

Thus we see that from the latter part of July to the end of September Bacon, though treated as a confidential adviser, had really been kept in the dark as to half the Earl's case; and that from the end of September his influence over his conduct and fortunes was entirely at an end. Thenceforward, the Queen's ear being shut against him, and Essex following his own course not only against his advice (as he had long done) but without his knowledge, he had no means of interfering either to guide him from errors or to protect him from the consequences of them.

4.

For awhile therefore he retires into the background and occupies himself about his proper business; which was partly the business of the Counsel Learned in looking after matters of law and revenue; partly I suppose the preparation of his Reading on the Statute of Uses, for he had just been chosen Double Reader at Gray's Inn for the following Lent,' and was about to deliver a course of lectures on that subject; and partly the payment of debts and clearing of his estate from embarrassment; concerning his progress in which perplexing task the two following letters to Mr. Hickes give us some information.

It will be remembered that the last time he was pressed for the payment of a debt which he had not present means of satisfying, it was to Mr. Hickes that he applied for help: and it is a good sign. when a borrower applies again to one who has had former experience of his dealings in that kind. The letters are taken from the originals, which are still to be seen among the Landsdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum, and do not appear to require any explanation.

1 See Gray's Inn Order Book. 24th Oct. 1600.

Mr. Hickes,

To MR. M. HICKES.1

Your remain shall be with you this term. But I have now a furder request which if you perform I shall think you one of the best friends I have, and yet the matter is not much to you. But the timing of it is much to me. For I am now about this term to free myself from all debts which are any ways in suit or urged, following a faster pace to free my credit than my means can follow to free my state, which yet cannot stay long after, I having resolved to spare no means I have in hand (taking other possibilities for advantage) to clear myself from the discontent speech or danger of others. And some of my debts of most clamour and importunity I have this term and some few days before ordered and in part paid. I pray you to your former favours which I do still remember and may hereafter requite, help me out with 2007. more for six months. I will put you in good sureties, and you shall do me a great deal of honesty and reputation. I have writ to you the very truth and secret of my course, which to few others I would have done, thinking it may move you. And so with my loving commendations I

rest

Your assured loving friend,

FR. BACON.

Jan. 25, 1600.

The next letter appears to be in reply to Mr. Hickes's answer to the last.

Mr. Hickes,

TO MR. MICHAEL HICKES.2

I thank you for your letter testifying your kind care of my fortune, which when it mendeth your thanks will likewise amend. In particular you write you would be in town as on Monday which is passed, and that you would make proof of Mr. Billett or some other friend for my supply, whereof I see you are the more sensible because you concur in approving my purpose and resolution of first freeing my credit from suits and speech, and

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