Now what passed between Anthony Bacon and Lord Henry Howard on this occasion (if such an occasion ever was), or between Lord Henry and the Earl, would of course be known to very few; and therefore that no rumour of such a transaction should have got abroad for thirty years (though strange considering all the circumstances), and that Wotton should have remained the sole depository of the secret, is not conclusive against it. But when a witness. is found to be ill-informed on points which lie open to observation and can be checked by other evidence, we may fairly doubt whether in matters known to few and mentioned by nobody except himself his testimony is weighty enough to override improbabilities. Now in a house so open and so well frequented as Essex House, the habits and general relations of a man of such a large and various acquaintance as Anthony Bacon, and the nature of his connexion with so popular person as the Earl, cannot have been any secret. Yet it is certain that Wotton, when he wrote this passage, had a very loose and erroneous impression regarding them. It is true that Anthony Bacon lived in Essex House from October, 1595, to March, 1600, and that much secret correspondence passed through his hands. But if he had "a noble entertainment"- that is, if he lived there at the Earl's charge-how is it that his mother had to remonstrate with him upon the amount of his bill for coals during the summer months of 1596 ? Again: if he had an annual pension of £1000, how is it that among so many letters relating to financial perplexities-letters to and from creditors pressing for payment, lenders demanding security, the brother who shared his difficulties, his liabilities, and his purse, the mother who criticised and deplored his expenses-there is not somewhere or other an allusion to so large an item as this in the reckoning of his means and expectations-being more than twice as much as all his rents came to ? Yet" of this pretended pension," says Birch, "there is not the least trace in all Mr. Bacon's papers." Again: if in cunning and policy he wanted to make Essex believe that the Cecils were "making great proffers to win him away," how is it that he so often and so openly complained of their unnatural neglect? Our evidence on these points is, of course, negative; for evidence in direct contradiction of charges which nobody made and suspicions which nobody was supposed to entertain, was not to be expected. But in supposing that Anthony Bacon was a man "of a provident nature" in money matters, it cannot be doubted that Wotton was utterly mistaken. Upon this point our evidence is positive and conclusive; proving that he was neither a getter nor a keeper of money, but altogether a borrower and spender. And it is Birch, ii. p. 371. a mistake which can only be accounted for by supposing that Wotton knew nothing about his private affairs, and very little about his character and habits. If, therefore, we find the rest of the story hard to reconcile with what we know otherwise, we need not believe it merely because he did: seeing that in a thing where it was so much less easy to be mistaken he could so easily make a mistake. Now that if Anthony Bacon was really a man capable of extorting money from one who trusted him by threatening to betray the trust, his character could have so completely concealed itself throughout all that long and various correspondence as to leave an impression directly contrary, and that if he had been known by anybody, not an accomplice, to have abused his trust so grossly, his reputation as an attached and loyal friend to the Earl, could have remained unsullied till his death, and survived him without a shadow of suspicion for thirty years. (for the suspicions which the friends of Essex were so ready to take up against his brother never reflected upon him),-these things are to me simply incredible. And as by a slight conjectural emendation in Wotton's story the whole difficulty which it involves may be made to disappear, we can scarcely be rash in concluding that it arose out of a misreport, a misreport credulously listened to at the time, as whispered scandal commonly is,-imperfectly recollected through the haze of thirty years,--and pieced into a smooth story by a lively imagination driving a ready pen. That Essex had important secrets with which Anthony Bacon was acquainted, that he had also extensive agencies which required money to nourish them, and that the money was not always ready at hand-this we know. That in some exigency connected with one of these secret agencies a large sum of money had to be borrowed in a hurry; that Essex House was pledged to the lender by way of security; that the money passed (as it naturally would) through Anthony Bacon's hand; that nobody knew what was done with it, but that (some rumour of the transaction getting abroad) it was supposed by somebody that he had obtained it for himself this we can easily believe: and the rest followed naturally. How he obtained the money, as no man could know, except himself and the Earl and whatever confidential agent passed between them, every man was the more free to guess. The secret circumstances would easily be supplied, and a story made up, which seemed probable enough to Wotton and others who knew no more of the personal relations of the two men than he appears to have done; and which was accordingly believed at the time, and repeated long after,-probably with variations ad libitum,—as the true history of what passed. In this there would be nothing strange. But with our means of information, which are really very much more and better than theirs, it is easier to believe that Wotton was mistaken than that the story he tells was true. 3. As soon as the depth and extent of the Essex conspiracy had been well ascertained, and the principal leaders executed, the others were allowed to purchase their pardons. "There is a commission," says Chamberlain, 27 May, 1601, "to certain of the Council to ransom and fine the Lords and gentlemen that were in the action; and have already rated Rutland at 30,000l. Bedford at 20,000l. Sands at 10,000l. Mounteagle at 80007. and Cromwell at 60007. Catesby at 4000 marks,” etc. Money thus falling into the Treasury was usually bestowed upon deserving servants or favoured suitors in the way of reward; and Bacon on this occasion came in for a share. Out of Catesby's fine, 12007. was assigned to him by the Queen's order; and on the 6th of August the Attorney-General received directions from the Council to prepare an assurance accordingly-a fact of which we owe the discovery to Mr. Jardine, and which explains and dates the following letter. The fine, it seems, was to be paid by instalments; and each instalment was to be divided pro ratá among the several assignees. But the absence of the Attorney, "busied to entertain the Queen," would cause some delay in the payments upon the first instalment; and Mr. Hickes, a friendly creditor, would no doubt accept the excuse and wait. This letter was printed by Mr. Montagu from the original, which is in the British Museum; though, being written in extreme haste, he did not succeed in reading it quite correctly. The date may be inferred from the fact that a few days after the letter from the Council was written, the Queen "made a step" from Windsor "to Mr. Attorney's at Stoke, where she was most sumptuously entertained," etc. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this was the occasion; and the date was probably the 6th or 7th of August, 1601. Sir, To MR. MICHAEL HICKES. The Queen hath done somewhat for me, though not in the proportion I hoped. But the order is given, only the monics 1 Chamberlain's Letters, p. 108. 2 Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot (1857), p. 31. The letter from the Council is printed in Dixon's 'Personal History of Lord Bacon,' p. 125. 3 Chamberlain's Letters, pp. 115, 117. The Queen was at Windsor on the 13th of August. 4 Lansd. MSS. cvii. fo. 14. Original, own hand. will not in any part come to my hand this fortnight, the later by reason of Mr. Attorney's absence, busied to entertain the Queen, and I am loth to borrow the meanwhile. Thus hoping to take hold of your invitation some day this vacation, I rest Your assured friend, 4. FR. BACON. I omitted to state that after the Speaker had handed in the Subsidy Bill at the close of the last Parliament, he proceeded in a set speech, drawn up for the purpose by a committee, to thank the Queen in the name of the whole House for her "most gracious care and favour in the repressing of sundry inconveniences and abuses practised by Monopolies and Patents of Privilege." To which the Lord Keeper answered that " Her Majesty hoped that her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her Prerogative, which was the chiefest flower in her garden and the principal and head-pearl in her crown and diadem, but that they would rather leave that to her disposition. And as her Majesty had proceeded to trial of them already, so she promised to continue that they should all be examined, to abide the trial and true touchstone of the law.”2 This was on the 9th of February, 1597-8, and was an answer satisfactory for the time. But even if the Queen was in her own judgment fully alive to the evil and danger of these abuses, and in her own inclination really desirous to be rid of them, she was not likely to pursue the inquiry very zealously just then. Postponement of decisive action as long as the matter would bear postponement, which in her youth she had deliberately practised as a politic art to keep enemies holding off and friends holding on, had grown into a habit which she could hardly overcome when it was most her interest to do so; and at this time she had businesses on hand of more pressing importance. Henry IV. of France was negociating a separate treaty of peace with Philip, which would increase the danger of England from Spain, and she was sending Sir Robert Cecil over to remonstrate. That treaty being, in spite of her remonstrances, soon after concluded, the great question of peace or war with Spain pressed for a resolution, and divided her council table. In the meantime the condition of Ireland was becoming every day more alarming, and threatened to absorb the most liberal grant ever voted by Parliament as fast as the money came in. With one "whose nature was not to resolve but to delay," these cares and alarms would be 2 Ib. p. 547. 1 D'Ewes, p. 573. 3 R. Cecil in his conversation with Lady Bacon, i. p. 346. enough to keep the monopoly question in the waiting-room, without supposing any deliberate intention to evade it. Nor was the removal of the abuse quite so simple a matter perhaps as it seemed to people unacquainted with the exigencies of the Government and the state of the Exchequer. Elizabeth is charged with a dislike of spending money. Yet she kept no private hoard: what she did spend she spent all upon public objects: and in order to meet those objects, even with a regard to economy which is now thought unworthy of a Queen, she was forced to call upon her people for contributions far beyond all precedent. It should never be forgotten that during the first twenty-seven years of her reign a single subsidy had never served for less than four years: during the next ten it had never served for more than two: then came three whole subsidies payable in four years; and now three payable in three; and all likely to be less than enough. This was not a convenient time for giving up an independent source of income: for to depend upon other people for anything which she could not do withoutthis she did really dislike. Now, by granting monopoly-patents she could reward servants without either spending her own money, or laying herself under obligations to Parliament, or exposing herself to complaints from anybody in particular; whereas to call in those already granted would bring a host of troublesome complainants about her. It is not to be wondered therefore, that while the struggle in Ireland, beginning as it did with a costly failure and still far from its termination, was drawing upon her resources at the rate of more than £300,000 a year,' the inquiry into these patents was allowed to wait until the fast approaching necessity of another Parliamentary grant reminded her of her parting promise. This necessity began to be felt in October, 1600:2 and in the beginning of Hilary Term (23 January 1600-1) she gave orders to Coke and Fleming to "take speedy and special course" for them.3 But before they were well entered on the business, they were interrupted by the insurrection of the Earl of Essex and the proceedings consequent upon it, which kept them busy till the summer vacation. And before the vacation was over, a crisis occurred which made it advisable to summon Parliament without delay. On the 23rd of September, Don Juan d'Aquila, with 4000 men, three parts of them being of the best soldiers in Spain, landed on the southern coast of Ireland, occupied Kinsale, and proclaimed the Queen deprived of her crown by the Pope's sentence, her subjects thereby 1 Parliamentary Debates in 1610 (Camden Soc. Publ.), p. 4. 3 Fleming's speech: D'Ewes, p. 648. |