6.

The reader is now in a condition to judge for himself how far the official narrative is borne out by the depositions. He has both before him side by side, as nearly in their original state as modern orthography and typography permit,-in all substantial points, I venture to say, represented with scrupulous fidelity,-discrepancies pointed out, omissions replaced, and entire declarations produced which were withheld at the time for reasons no longer applicable;-and if the effect of the evidence so set forth is in any material circumstance misrepresented in the statement published by the Government, there can be no longer any difficulty in pointing out how and where.

So far as I can see, the only considerable correction which Bacon's narrative requires tends to confirm the substantial truth of the rest, and to relieve it from the charge of putting a construction upon Essex's conduct worse than the facts seemed necessarily to involve. I allude to the time at which the Earl is said to have communicated to Blount and Southampton his project of returning to England at the head of his army and so bringing the Government to conditions. It happens singularly enough that until the discovery of the Hatfield copy of Sir Christopher Blount's examination, bearing his own signature, for which we are indebted to Mr. Bruce, none of the reports either of his confession or of Southampton's gave the exact date of that communication, either directly or by implication. Bacon, it seems, supposed that it took place after the parley with Tyrone, and that the parley itself was a preparative towards it. I was myself rather disposed to connect it with the receipt of the Queen's letter of the 17th of September, and to take it for a sudden plunge out of a hopeless embarrassment. It now appears, if there be no error in the signed examination (and Mr. Bruce assures me, upon a second reference, that the words of the MS. are clear), that the project was not only meditated but announced " some few days before the Earl's journey into the North:" some few days therefore before the end of August; at which time not one of his requisitions had been refused, nor one of his plans of action interfered with. He had been forbidden, it is true, to leave his post without licence; but he had received from England all the reinforcements he had asked for; he had obtained authority not a month before to raise an additional force of 2000 men in Ireland; and he not only still retained all the unusually large powers with which he had been sent out, but was at that very time expected, encouraged, and extremely wished by the Government to make himself as strong as possible for the coming encounter with 2 See above, p. 147.

See above, p. 256.

Tyrone. That he should have meditated such a use of these forces at such a time, is a fact which certainly tells formidably in favour of the darkest view of the spirit and purposes with which he undertook the service; and the error (if it be an error) as to the date of the communication I can only account for by supposing that Bacon took his information from Coke's rough memorandum of Blount's confession (for which see note, p. 313) and was not in possession of the fuller copy of the examination. It is easily conceivable that among so many papers one may have been mislaid or overlooked, and the existence of another copy which contained all that was most material in it (this date excepted) may have prevented the oversight from being detected.

:

As the case stands however, it seems that this correction must be made for we have no evidence, with equal pretensions to authority, which is inconsistent with it; and it is difficult to conceive an oversight in such a matter. In Bacon's narrative the correction may be introduced without disturbing the rest of the story. My own I have been obliged to leave as it was: for the fact is incompatible with the theory I had formed of the Earl's proceedings, and could not be incorporated into my account of them without more extensive alterations than the state of the press permitted. In all other respects the "additional evidences" will be found I think to confirm the official narrative.

7.

With the publication of the Declaration of Treasons, as now set forth, the history of the relation between Bacon and Essex may be considered as concluded and complete. For though I shall have to recur to it hereafter in connexion with the 'Apology'—a work which belongs to a later period-I shall have nothing material to add; having already taken into my account the disclosures for which we are indebted to that very interesting narrative. In a note to Dr. Rawley's 'Life of Bacon'1 I said that I had no fault to find with him for any part of his conduct towards Essex, and that I thought many people would agree with me when they saw the case fairly stated. Closer examination has not at all altered my opinion on either point. And if I have taken no notice of what has been said on the other side, it is because I do not wish to encumber this book with answers to objections which a competent judgment would not raise; and I cannot think that any of the objections which have been urged against Bacon's conduct in this matter would naturally suggest themselves to a reasonable person in reading the story as I have told it.

1 Works, vol. i. p. 6.

8.

In all attempts to arrange papers according to their strict chronological sequence, this difficulty will from time to time present itself: what is to be done with those of which the true date cannot be ascertained or guessed? Several cases of this kind have been already dealt with, in a manner and upon grounds which I have sufficiently explained in the several places. But I find two letters remaining undisposed of, concerning which I can only be sure that they were not written after the time at which we have now arrived; and five more which do not seem likely to belong to a later date. I have therefore thought it most convenient to introduce them all here.

That the two first were not written later is proved by this: that one of them is addressed, and the other contains an allusion, to Anthony Bacon; who (as I have already incidentally mentioned') died before the 27th of May, 1601, and of whom I shall have something to say in the next chapter.

'An entry in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica' among the works of Robert Southwell,-viz. "Supplication to Queen Elizabeth, printed in 1593”—led me long ago to hope that some light might be thrown on the first by reference to that work; but though I have been on the watch for news of it, I have not succeeded either in meeting with the Supplication itself or in learning anything as to its character. In the absence therefore of all means of guessing at the subject of the communication, I must content myself with printing the letter as I find it; hoping that if anybody has a copy of the thing referred to, he will consider that the publication of these few lines has given it an interest which it did not possess before.

FRANCIS BACON TO HIS BROTHER.2

Good Brother,

It

I send you the Supplication which Mr. Toplife lent me. is curiously written, and worth the writing out for the art; though the argument be bad. But it is lent me but for two or three days. So God keep you. From Gray's Inn this 5th of May.

Your entire loving Brother,

FR. BACON.

1 See above, p. 234.

:

2 Lambeth MSS. 657. 27. Original: own hand written in extreme haste; and docketed, "De Mons' Fr. Bacon, le 5me May."

The next is addressed to Sir Thomas Lucy;-eldest son, I suppose, of Justice Shallow. For I find in Burke's 'Commoners of Great Britain' that Sir Thomas Lucy, knight, of Charlcote, who succeeded his father in 1600, had by his first wife a daughter (Joyce) who married Sir William Cook, knight, of Highnam. Sir William Cook may have been one of Bacon's kinsmen by the mother's side, and his approaching marriage with Joyce Lucy may have been the occasion of this letter: which comes from the supplementary collection in the 'Resuscitatio.' It is sufficiently intelligible as it stands; nor have I any reason to suppose that a more complete account of the relations between the parties, of their previous history and subsequent journey together through this transitory life, would add anything material to the little interest which it still retains for us, as an agreeable and very characteristic letter.

Sir,

To SIR THOMAS LUCY.1

There was no news better welcome to me this long time than that of the good success of my kinsman; wherein if he be happy he cannot be happy alone, it consisting of two parts. And I render you no less kind thanks for your aid and favour towards him than if it had been for myself; assuring you that this bond of alliance shall on my part tie me to give all the tribute to your good fortune upon all occasions that my poor strength can yield. I send you, so required, an abstract of the lands of inheritance; and one lease of great value which my kinsman bringeth; with a note of the tenures, values, contents, and state, truly and perfectly drawn; whereby you may perceive the land is good land, and well countenanced by scope of acres, woods, and royalties; though the total of the rents be set down as it now goeth, without improvement in which respect it may somewhat differ from your first note. Out of this what he will assure in jointure, I leave it to his own kindness; for I love not to measure affection. To conclude, I doubt not your daughter mought have married to a better living, but never to a better life; having chosen a gentleman bred to all honesty, virtue, and worth, with an estate convenient. And if my brother or myself were either thrivers or fortunate in the Queen's service, I would hope there should be left as great an house of the Cookes in this gentleman as in 1 'Resuscitatio,' Supplement, p. 92.

VOL. II.

2 B

your good friend Mr. Attorney-General. But sure I am, if Scriptures fail not, it will have as much of God's blessing; and sufficiency is ever the best feast, etc.

The next is from the original, found among the Burghley papers in the Lansdown Collection, and was probably addressed to the first Lord Burghley, though the address has disappeared along with the fly-leaf, and the docket does not supply it. If so, it must have been written before the autumn of 1598, but it seems impossible to determine on what occasion. I do not remember to have met with any report of a projected masque by the four Inns of Court united. But I find that on the 15th of October, 1596, Bacon wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury from Gray's Inn, "to borrow a horse and armour for some public shew;" and this may possibly have reference to the Occasions of the kind occurred frequently, and though small things sometimes help to illustrate things of importance, it is not very likely that anything would be gained by ascertaining the particulars of the "demonstration of affection" here proposed.

same.

It may please your good Lordship,2

I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth; wherein I conceive there is no other ground of that event but impossibility. Nevertheless, because it falleth out that at this time Gray's Inn is well furnished of gallant young gentlemen, your Lordship may be pleased to know, that rather than this occasion shall pass without some demonstration of affection from the Inns of Court, there are a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn, that out of the honour which they bear to your Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain, to whom at their last masque they were so much bounden, will be ready to furnish a masque; wishing it were in their powers to perform it according to their minds. And so for the present I humbly take my leave, resting

Your Lordship's very humbly and much bounden,

FR. BACON.

The fourth of these undatable letters comes likewise from the Lansdown MSS. Not however from the original; but from a collection of letters, chiefly Bacon's, fairly copied in a hand of the time,

1 Note of unpublished papers in the Talbot Collection; at the end of Lodge's Illustrations, 2nd edition, 1838, p. 79.

2 Lansd. MSS. 107, p. 13. Original: own hand. Fly-leaf gone. Docketed merely, "Mr Fra. Bacon."