Sir,

I received your last of the 12th of February, and have not failed to acquaint her Majesty with the contents thereof; who very graciously accepteth that your so dutiful remembrance of her service, affirming that the great care and diligence you have performed in that behalf showeth whose son you are as also that her Highness is right glad to find by so good and kindly experience that she hath a gentleman of your quality so towardly and able to do her service. And for that her Majesty is given to understand that during the term of your travel hitherto you have often fallen sick, and are still subject to great indispositions, she hath willed me to signify unto you that she would have you for the time you are yet to remain abroad to have a more earnest care to preserve your health; which her Highness doth especially charge you to do chiefly when you remove from place to place, and that if not for your own safety, yet for her own sake.

Touching the matter by you advertised, her Majesty conceiveth thereby your ripeness of judgment, and (the particularities concurring with the soundest advertisements she receiveth nearer hand) findeth that you have had better intelligence in that corner than hath been received from any others in those parts; whereby it is seen that your credit is good with the evil affected of that nation remaining there. And therefore, notwithstanding you remove to Paris, I shall heartily pray you by all the best means you may devise to continue your intelligence with the parties with whom it seemeth you can prevail; very much the rather for that the same may greatly import her Majesty's service.

For myself I must pray you to hold me excused, if hitherto I have not often written unto you; which I assure you hath happened through the uncertainty of your being, occasioned as I hear by your long and often sickness. And, lastly, for that I perceive how that your friends do generally hold an opinion of your weak nature and indisposition, unfit to abide the hardness you should find by travelling into other remote parts, besides many other reasons they have imparted unto you, persuading your return, for mine own part, as one that for so many good respects wish you so well as I do, I cannot but friendly advise you, after you have remained there some time, to think on your repair home with as convenient speed as you may, as well in respect of your outward estate of health and otherwise, as also for the particular comfort myself among other your good friends should receive now after so many years of your absence to see and enjoy you in your own country. And so with hearty remembrance of you, I commit you to the Lord from my house in London, the first of March, 1584.

Your assured loving friend,

FRA. WALSINGHAM.1

It appears plainly from this that Walsingham, though he con

1 From the same letter-book: p. 59. A copy, in the hand (as I suppose) of A.

B.'s amanuensis.

curred formally in advising him on his own account to return, would have been glad for the sake of the country that he should stay. In a man of spirit and liberality, of conscious ability, of patriotic impulses, and of moderate income, a position like this would be quite enough to explain an excess of expenditure. Nor was his case much altered in this respect, when on his return to England after Walsingham's death he was taken into the confidence of the Earl of Essex, and trusted (not as a servant, but as friend') with the management of all his political correspondence:-a very large business, which could not be properly conducted without hospitalities, liberalities, servants, and means of locomotion. To account, therefore, for his "extravagance,”—that is, for his spending more than his income, -it is not at all necessary to suppose him a self-indulgent voluptuary, as he has been represented of late, upon no other ground that I can hear of: a "gay" man, of easy nature and lax morals, "roving and mercurial," "fond of good wines and bright eyes," "everywhere at home," "hailfellow" with all classes, a lover of " finery, and show, and pleasure," one of "a jovial crew," "running from bad to worse," and finally sinking into a premature grave," the victim of his companion's riot and evil ways," (the companion being the Earl of Essex) imputations no way countenanced by the correspondence at Lambeth; in which, though it may be inferred from the tone of affectionate regard with which he is addressed by so many correspondents of different classes and characters that there was something about him very interesting and attractive, there is no indication of impurity or excess, or even gaiety, either in life or conversation. And indeed, if it were not for a story told by Sir Henry Wotton nearly thirty years after his death, which is difficult to deal with because it stands so completely by itself, his character would be clear of all serious imputation, except on the score of insolvency: nor was he insolvent in any other sense than this-that he had to draw upon his capital to pay his debts: for he seems always to have borrowed at interest and upon security, and there is no reason to suppose that any of his creditors were losers in the end by their dealings with him.

Now Wotton's tale, though inconsistent with the notion that he was a man of pleasure, implies (if true) that he was something very much worse: nor can his evidence be dismissed like that of an anonymous storyteller or dealer in scandal: for Wotton was personally acquainted with him, was in the Earl's service at the same

1 Two or three years after, Lady Bacon objected to his lodging in Essex House, on the ground that having been "hitherto esteemed a worthy friend," he would then be accounted the Earl's "follower." Birch, I. p. 278.

66

"I

time, and was a well known man, of many accomplishments, of good position, and great employments. Still it carries no authority which entitles it to overrule criticism: and when it stands quite unsupported, and relates to transactions necessarily of a very secret character to which he was not himself a party, and gives no hint of the manner in which he came by the knowledge, and is difficult to reconcile with other evidence undoubtedly authentic, and was not published till all those who could have confirmed it if true, and all those who would have cared to question it if false, were equally dead, the question may fairly be raised, whether he was a man whose report must be accepted as conclusive-a man incapable of believing a thing upon insufficient grounds. And upon this point we happen to have evidence in discredit of his pretensions, quite as respectable as his own. In the correspondence between Chamberlain and Carleton, who both knew him, he is frequently mentioned, and always as a man upon whose words they set no value. "Touching all that I wrote you before of Signor Fabritio," (says Chamberlain, June 17, 1612" Signor Fabritio" is the name under which Sir Henry Wotton is usually spoken of in these letters,-I do not know why) "I should not nor could not believe it; but that sometimes unfitness and unlikeliness makes a thing more likely." agree with you in opinion" (says Carleton, speaking of some impressions to his disadvantage of which Chamberlain had warned him) "that Fabritio hath lent me that charity and if for satisfying his particular malice on other occasions the King's service did not suffer, I could easily forgive him." And again, speaking of another report about himself, "I know not out of whose shop should come this parleria, unless my good old friend Fabritio will never leave his old trade of being fabler, or, as the Devil is, father of lies." "Hither came yesterday Signor Fabritio," (says Chamberlain, writing from a great house in the country, where some new building was going on) "and stays till to-morrow; . . . . and as he is ignorant in nothing, so he takes upon him to propound many new devices, and would fain be a director where there is no need of his help. He discourseth liberally of the matter of Savoy, and shows himself so partial," etc. And again (July 5, 1617), returning some papers which Carleton had sent him, “a man shall understand more by one of them than by twenty Fabritios; who still antiquum obtinet, and cannot leave his old custom of posting things over to the next courier, which commonly proves Tom Long, the carrier: for I never knew him yet discharge any debt that way; though he promised round things to somebody else besides you; which I came to see by chance, being 1'Court and Times of James I.,' vol. i. p. 182. Ib. p. 209. 3 Ib. p. 260.

present at the receipt: but hitherto, for ought I can hear, they neither appear round nor square, but flat farlies and idle conceits." Again (August 9), "Touching Fabritio's precious advertisement. . . he [Secretary Winwood] gave me this answer-I cannot precisely say what it may come to, but as far as I can gather, never trust my judgment if it prove any matter of worth. So that this legatus peregre missus will make good his mentiendi causa as well in that as he doth in his last letters (which I saw yesterday), that the Venetians had lost more than a million and a half in merchandise upon two gallies taken by the Neapolitan fleet. I would scant change states with him or with all I know of his name, if I had but so much as there was lacking of that sum.'

112

Other passages might be quoted in the same tone: but these are enough to show that Wotton was not a man whose uncorroborated statement was considered conclusive by all who knew him, which is all I mean to assert. He is not the less, however, entitled to a hearing; and with this introduction by way of caution, he shall tell his story for himself.

"The Earl of Essex had accommodated Master Anthony Bacon in partition of his house, and had assigned him a noble entertainment. This was a gentleman of impotent feet, but of a nimble head; and through his hand ran all the intelligences with Scotland; who being of a provident nature (contrary to his brother the Lord Viscount St. Alban's), and well knowing the advantage of a dangerous secret, would many times cunningly let fall some words, as if he could much amend his fortunes under the Cecilians (to whom he was near of alliance, and in blood also), and who had made (as he was not unwilling should be believed) some great proffers to win him away which once or twice he pressed so far, and with such tokens and signs of apparent discontent, to my Lord Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Northampton (who was of the party, and stood himself in much umbrage with the Queen), that he flies presently to my Lord of Essex (with whom he was commonly primæ admissionis, by his bedside in the morning), and tells him that, unless that gentleman were presently satisfied with some round sum, all would be vented. This took the Earl at that time ill provided, (as indeed oftentimes his coffers were low), whereupon he was fain suddenly to give him Essex-house; which the good old Lady Walsingham did afterwards disengage out of her own store with 2500 pound and before he had distilled 1500 at another time by the same skill. So as we may rate this one secret (as it was finely carried) at 4000 pounds in present money, besides at the least 1000 pound of annual pension to a private and bedrid gentleman: What would he have gotten if he could have gone about his own business ?"3

1 Court and Times of James I.,' vol. ii. p. 15.
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ,' p. 13.

3

2 Ib. p. 26.

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.