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"My Lord," writes the Recorder of London to Burghley, "there is a saying, When the Court is furthest from London, then there is the best justice done in England. . . . It is grown for a trade now in the Court to make means for reprieves. Twenty pounds for a reprieve is nothing, though it be but for ten days." In 1598, Sir Anthony Ashley thus writes to Sir Robert Cecil: " I am advertised that Wm. Whorewood is very deeply to be touched in the treasonable matter of one Tydie, late a scrivener here in Holborn, not long since executed at Tyburn for having counterfeited her Majesty's great seal. . . . If you, either by yourself or in some other name, will deal in this suit, it will easily pay your extraordinary expenses in the French embassy; for his yearly revenue in land and leases is 2,000 marks, besides much money. If you neglect it, the party will promote it to the great one." The "great one" is probably Cecil's rival, Essex. There is no reason to suppose that Essex would have been much more scrupulous than Cecil in "dealing" in such a suit. Egerton was one of the most upright men of the time; yet we find Essex writing to Egerton, first on behalf of one party to a suit, and then (finding that he had been unwittingly supporting an enemy of Anthony Bacon) in behalf of the opposite party. To the same Egerton we shall find Francis Bacon offering something closely approximating to a bribe, and showing how the transaction can be arranged without any one's noticing it. Lady Edmondes, a lady about the Queen's person, declines 1007. as too little to save the ears and liberty of a certain Mr. Booth, who has been condemned, or is likely to be condemned, to the pillory and imprisonment. Concerning this Booth, Mr. Standen (a correspondent of Anthony Bacon's) writes that he heard Lord Keeper Puckering say to Lady Edmondes, "Do your endeavour, and you shall not find me wanting;" and Standen unquestionably lays the blame in the right place when he adds, "This ruffianry of causes groweth by the Queen's straitness to give to these women, whereby they presume thus to grange and huck causes." Anthony Bacon, taking up poor Booth's case, offers 100l., but will not come up to the lady's price, which is 2001. Even for this sum she will only save his ears, but not his fine-which has been already assigned to some

1 See p. 86.

servant in the royal stables. We must not be too hard on this Lady Edmondes. She was but one of a class, "these general contrivers of suits," whom Bacon justly stigmatises as "a kind of poison and infection to public proceedings." 1

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Apart from the corruption and mendacity for which the Queen appears, in part at least, to be personally responsible, the system of government was radically bad, demoralising both the governor and the governed. The sort of reverence that we pay to "the British Constitution" is now, in our minds, quite distinct from the feeling of loyalty to the person of the sovereign. But to the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth the Queen was not Queen merely, but Constitution too. No minister could dare to assume responsibility for the royal actions; and yet the Queen could do no wrong, and was responsible to no one.

The increasing years and infirmities of the sovereign increased the friction of the imperfect system and the debasement of those who were subjected to it. Gloriana in her brighter years standing up against Duessa as the champion of the truth against superstition, Britomartis in arms at the head of an armed people defying the enemies of pure religion—this was a fitting and worthy object for the homage of a court; but Gloriana senile, yet destitute of the graces of old age, Gloriana flirting and lying, Britomartis abusing her chief minister as "a peevish old fool," or amusing herself with making Francis Bacon "frame," or boxing Essex on the ears, or swearing at her godson Harrington, or in her final stage of melancholy with a rusty sword before her on the table hacking at the arras-who could worship such an idol as this without becoming a hypocrite or a veritable slave? To the outside world the Queen's imperfections were less visible, and they could still undebased revere in her the fearless champion of their religion and their national independence; but for the inner circle of the Court the old reverence had become unnatural, hypocritical, and incompatible with the spirit of freedom and honour.

If the Queen's aims had been invariably directed towards objects useful for the country, the mischief might have been much diminished. But it was not so. She thought of England, it is true; but she thought of the interests of England as being 1 Essays, xlix. 62.

included in the interests of the Crown. She did not desire to see her courtiers too friendly together. "Divide and command" was her motto. Elizabeth, no doubt, was in Bacon's mind when he wrote that "many have an opinion not wise, that for a prince to govern his estate according to the respect of factions is a principal part of policy." To the same effect writes Clarendon, though more approvingly, "That trick of countenancing and protecting factions. . . . was not the least ground of much of her quiet and success. Insomuch that during her whole reign she never endeavoured to reconcile any personal differences at Court." Well may Clarendon say that this is a policy seldom entertained by princes that have issue to survive them! Elizabeth had no issue, and the maintenance of her own power seems to have been her first care. Grant that her policy of keeping the succession uncertain turned out ultimately well for the nation; yet there is nothing to disprove, and everything to prove, that she pursued that policy and all her other policy, not because it was best for the nation, but because it was best for herself.

In any case her policy of dividing her servants against one another was injurious, not only to her immediate ministers, but to the nation at large. "There were in Court," says Wotton, "two names of power and almost of faction, the Essexian and the Cecilian, with their adherents." But he might have added that the bickerings of these rival factions at Court penetrated to the most distant parts of England, and weakened the action. of the nation even in Ireland and France. If, for example, Sir Francis Allen seeks a post at Court and is supported by Essex, the Cecils are sure to have another candidate in the field Sir Thomas Bodley loses the post of Secretary of State simply becauses Essex takes up his cause out of spite against Cecil, and because Cecil consequently feels himself bound in honour to oppose him. Standen, applying to Burghley for a reward for the valuable correspondence with which he has supplied the Queen, is frankly told by the Lord Treasurer that, since he has chosen to send his information through Essex, and not through him, he must look to Essex for support. Anthony Bacon supports a certain Mr. Trott in his suit for the clerkship to the 1 Essays, xli. 1.

Council of York, and procures for him the support of Essex. Immediately the opposite party at York send word to Burghley that Essex had put forward a candidate, and pray Burghley's support for a rival.

So keen is the rivalry between the two parties, and so absolute the necessity of always being in the Queen's eye, that the heads of the contending factions are ready to shirk the service of their country rather than to absent themselves from Court. Cecil refuses to go on an important embassage to France, unless Essex will promise to take no advantage of his absence, and will conclude an ȧuvnoría. Essex in the same way shrinks for a long time from taking the command of the Irish Expedition, although the unanimous opinion of the country designated him as the fittest leader in a dangerous crisis. Even when he has at last consented to go, he will not stir till he has it under the broad seal that he may return at pleasure. He is even guilty of the crime of designating for that responsible post Carew, a most intimate friend of Cecil's, simply with the view of bringing discredit on the Cecilian faction by Carew's probable defeat and failure.

For the same reason the cautious Francis Bacon most earnestly begs Essex to avoid foreign expeditions, and to stop at home in the precincts of the Court. That the Earl of Essex was, in the general estimation at that time, the fittest man to serve England abroad, does not seem to have been thought an argument worthy of serious consideration. Bacon warns Essex not to be like Martha, "cumbered about much serving," but rather to imitate the pious Mary: "One thing is needful," and that one thing is the Queen: "win the Queen."

Cecil is equally emphatic on this point: "I desire you to know this, that men are never more in a state to desire to be freed from any tongue that conceives unkindness than when they are in foreign employments." This he writes to his friend Carew when the latter is serving the state in Ireland, and he proceeds to advise him to throw up his duty as soon as possible, and to return on the pretext of sickness: "Things done for absent men come not so easily for my part I would

wish that after the end of the harvest you wrote that you are sick, and desire but to return two or three months."

All this party bickering was encouraged by the Queen for her own ends. It was pleasant to her to play off one party against another, and to know that at any moment her finger could shift the scales. She was not content with being supreme-" one mistress at Court and no master "-as she told Leicester; she desired to have her courtiers absolutely dependent upon her beck and nod, and rather encouraged them to look upon one another as enemies. "Look to thyself, good Essex," she says, while giving him a gift of money; and in the act of assuring him that her hand shall not be backward to do him good, she begs him to give no occasion to his enemies.

If the Queen herself used such language, it is no wonder that the courtiers adopted it. Lady Ann Bacon most solemnly warns her son Anthony against the machinations of his cousin Cecil when the latter rises to power. Essex is continually influenced, especially towards the end of his career, by the belief that he is surrounded by "enemies," who are ready to assail, not only his honour, but his life. Francis Bacon shares and encourages the same belief, warning the Earl to beware of "such instruments as are never failing about princes, which spy into their humours and conceits, and second them; and not only second them, but in seconding increase them; yea and many times, without their knowledge pursue them farther than themselves would." We shall hereafter see how powerfully this suspicion of the "instruments" about the Queen impelled Essex towards his mad and fatal treason.

Torn by these contending factions-while the supreme arbiter held aloof, and, when she interfered, interfered out of mere caprice-the Court often presented the appearance of a transformation scene in a pantomime. No one knew what scene was to come next. Nothing in Ovid's Metamorphoses-writes Anthony Bacon to Essex during a moment of Essexian triumph-was so sudden as the change brought about by the Earl at the Court. At one time it is Essex who has the upper hand, and has (to quote Anthony Bacon's bitter expression) made "the old fox [Burghley] to crouch and whine," so that even Carew goes humbly to court the favour of the powerful Earl. At another time it is Cecil who is the great man, with all the business passing through his hands, the object of general