SIR FRANCIS BACON HIS APOLOGIE,

IN

CERTAINE IMPUTATIONS

CONCERNING

THE LATE EARLE OF ESSEX.

WRITTEN TO

THE RIGHT HONORABLE HIS VERY GOOD LORD, THE EARLE OF DEVONSHIRE,

LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR FELIX NORTON, AND ARE TO BE SOLD IN PAUL'S CHURCHYARD

AT THE SIGNE OF THE PAROT.

1604.

141

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HIS

VERY GOOD LORD THE EARL OF DEVONSHIRE,

LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND.

Ir may please your good Lordship: I cannot be ignorant, and ought to be sensible, of the wrong which I sustain in common speech, as if I had been false or unthankful to that noble but unfortunate Earl, the Earl of Essex and for satisfying the vulgar sort, I do no so much regard it; though I love good name, but yet as an handmaid and attendant of honesty and virtue. For I am of his opinion that said pleasantly, That it was a shame to him that was a suitor to the mistress, to make love to the waiting-woman; and therefore to woo or court common fame otherwise than it followeth upon honest courses, I, for my part, find not myself fit nor disposed. But on the other side, there is no worldly thing that concerneth myself which I hold more dear than the good opinion of certain persons; amongst which there is none I would more willingly give satisfaction unto than to your Lordship. First, because you loved my Lord of Essex, and therefore will not be partial towards me; which is part of that I desire: next, because it hath ever pleased you to show yourself to me an honourable friend, and so no baseness in me to seek to satisfy you and lastly, because I know your Lordship is excellently grounded in the true rules and habits of duties and moralities; which must be they which shall decide this matter: wherein (my Lord) my defence needeth to be but simple and brief: namely, that whatsoever I did concerning that action and proceeding, was done in my duty and service to the Queen and the State; in which I would not shew myself false-hearted nor faint-hearted for any man's sake living. For every honest man, that hath his heart well planted, will forsake his King

rather than forsake God, and forsake his friend rather than forsake his King; and yet will forsake any earthly commodity, yea and his own life in some cases, rather than forsake his friend. I hope the world hath not forgotten these degrees, else the heathen saying, Amicus usque ad aras, shall judge them. And if any man shall say that I did officiously intrude myself into that business, because I had no ordinary place; the like may be said of all the business in effect that passed the hands of the learned counsel, either of State or Revenues, these many years, wherein I was continually used. For, as your Lordship may remember, the Queen knew her strength so well, as she looked her word should be a warrant; and after the manner of the choicest princes before her, did not always tie her trust to place, but did sometime divide private favour from office. And I for my part, though I was not so unseen in the world but I knew the condition was subject to envy and peril; yet because I knew again she was constant in her favours, and made an end where she began, and specially because she upheld me with extraordinary access, and other demonstrations of confidence and grace, I resolved to endure it in expectation of better. But my scope and desire is, that your Lordship would be pleased to have the honourable patience to know the truth in some particularity of all that passed in this cause wherein I had any part, that you may perceive how honest a heart I ever bare to my Sovereign and to my Country, and to that Nobleman, who had so well deserved of me, and so well accepted of my deservings; whose fortune I cannot remember without much grief. But for any action of mine towards him, there is nothing that passed me in my life-time that cometh to my remembrance with more clearness and less check of conscience; for it will appear to your Lordship that I was not only not opposite to my Lord of Essex, but that I did occupy the utmost of my wits, and adventure my fortune with the Queen to have reintegrated his, and so continued faithfully and industriously till his last fatal impatience (for so I will call it), after which day there was not time to work for him; though the same my affection, when it could not work on the subject proper, went to the next, with no ill effect towards some others, who I think do rather not know it than not acknowledge it. And this I will assure your Lordship, I will leave nothing untold that is truth, for any

enemy that I have to add; and on the other side, I must reserve much which makes for me, upon many respects of duty, which I esteem above my credit: and what I have here set down to your Lordship, I protest, as I hope to have any part in God's favour, is true.

It is well known, how I did many years since dedicate my travels and studies to the use and (as I may term it) service of my Lord of Essex, which, I protest before God, I did not, making election of him as the likeliest mean of mine own advancement, but out of the humour of a man, that ever, from the time I had any use of reason (whether it were reading upon good books, or upon the example of a good father, or by nature) I loved my country more than was answerable to my fortune, and I held at that time my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the State; and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner which I think happeneth rarely amongst men: for I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that he set me about, whether it were matter of advice or otherwise, but neglecting the Queen's service, mine own fortune, and in a sort my vocation, I did nothing but devise and ruminate with myself to the best of my understanding, propositions and memorials of any thing that might concern his Lordship's honour, fortune, or service. And when not long after I entered into this course, my brother Master Anthony Bacon came from beyond the seas, being a gentleman whose ability the world taketh knowledge of for matters of State, specially foreign, I did likewise knit his service to be at my Lord's disposing. And on the other side, I must and will ever acknowledge my Lord's love, trust, and favour towards me; and last of all his liberality, having infeoffed me of land which I sold for eighteen hundred pounds to Master Reynold Nicholas, and I think was more worth, and that at such a time, and with so kind and noble circumstances, as the manner was as much as the matter; which though it be but an idle digression, yet because I am not willing to be short in commemoration of his benefits, I will presume to trouble your Lordship with relating to you the manner of it. After the Queen had denied me the Solicitor's place, for the which his Lordship had been a long and earnest suitor on my behalf, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond to Twicknam Park, and brake with me, and said: Master Bacon, the Queen hath denied me