XIV. 6. ture; Buckingham is away; till he comes back nothing can be done. Conway's answer is in the State Paper Office; its spirit may be guessed from the following note of Bacon in reply to it: 1623. BACON TO CONWAY. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Gray's Inn, 29th of March, 1623. I am much comforted by your last letter, wherein I find that his Majesty of his great goodness vouchsafeth to have a care of me, a man out of sight and out of use, but yet his (as the Scripture sayeth, "God knows those that are his"). In particular, I am very much bounden to his Majesty, and I pray (Sir) thank his Majesty most humbly for it, that, notwithstanding the former designment of Sir A. Beecher, his Majesty (as you write) is not out of hope in due time to accommodate me of this cell and to satisfy that gentleman otherwise. Many conditions (no doubt) may be as good for him, and his years may expect them. But there will hardly fall (especially in the spent hour-glass of such a life as mine) anything so fit for me, being a retreat to a place of study so near London, and where (if I sell my house at Gorhambury, as I purpose to do, to put myself into some convenient plenty), I may be accommodate of a dwelling for the summer time. And, therefore, good Mr. Secretary, further this his Majesty's good intention by all means if the place fall. For yourself you have obliged me much; I will endeavour to deserve it. At best nobleness is never lost, but rewarded in itself. My Lord Marquis I know will thank you. I was looking over some short papers of mine touching usury, how to grind the teeth of it, and yet to make it grind to his Majesty's mill in good sort, without discontent or perturbation if you think good I will perfect it, as I send it to APPLIES AGAIN FOR PROVOSTSHIP. 297 his Majesty as some fruits of my leisure. But yet I would XIV. 6. I rest your very affectionate friend, much obliged, Two days later he writes again. What a mournful, yet what a manful tone! He has sold York House, the place of his birth; he must now sell Gorhambury, the scene of his happiest hours and most splendid toils. Yet how inspiring, in the depths of sorrow, to see the great man bear his burthen bravely: no false pride; no arrogant remembrance of the Mace, the Seals, the Privy Council, the Royal table; only a simple hope of finding in his old age a sphere of duty in which he can win bread by honest work! 7. He writes to the King: BACON TO JAMES. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 7. Bacon to James, Mar. 29, 1623, S. P. O.; Bacon to Conway, April 7, 1623, S. P. O. 1623. Mar. 29. XIV. 7. the nature of the heart, that will be ultimum moriens with me. God preserve your Majesty, and send you a good return of your treasure abroad, which passeth your Majesty's Indian fleet. 1623. Mar. 29. Sept. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, I received right now an advertisement from a friend of mine who is like to know it, that Mr. Murray is very ill (and that, so are the words of his letter) not only his days but his hours are numbered. You have put my business into a good way, and (to tell you true) my heart is much upon this place, as fit for me, and where I may do good. Therefore, Sir, I pray you have a special eye to it, and I shall ever acknowledge it to you in the best fashion that I can. Resting your very affectionate friend, FR. ST. ALBANS. Buckingham still Six months later 8. Murray dies. Time passes on. BACON TO CONWAY. Gray's Inn, this 4th day of September, 1623. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Let me, now his Majesty is in sight of Eton, make my most humble claim to his Majesty's gracious promise 8. Bacon to Conway, Sept. 4, 1623, S. P. O.; Sign Man., xvi., No. 42. DISAPPOINTED OF PROVOSTSHIP. 299 1623. Sept. by you signified, which, as I understand it, was, that if XIV. 8. I always rest your affectionate friend and servant, Buckingham is adverse to his suit. In small things, as in great things, though he professes a boundless admiration for Bacon's parts, he chooses to have about him men more pliable and more frail. Sir William Beecher, a gentleman unfit for such a post as Murray's, takes a promise of 25007. in lieu of the succession; but Sir Henry Wotton, an honourable man and a good scholar, though of far less various learning and far less exalted virtue than Lord St. Albans, gets the Provostship of Eton. 9. It is the last time he troubles Buckingham or James. Henceforth he devotes himself to his experiments and his books; to the collections for his Sylva Sylvarum; to his Historia Vitæ et Mortis; to the construction of his New Atlantis; to the enlargement of his Essays. He is a greater man now in his study than when the Mace was borne before him, and the Lord Treasurer and Secretary of State rode on his right hand and on his left. He lives in seclusion; but his writings fill the whole world with his fame. 1624. XIV. 10. 1624. 10. From the seclusion of Gorhambury or Gray's Inn he watches the men who have ruined his fortune and stained his name fall one by one. Before their year of triumph ran out, Coke's intolerable arrogance plunged him into the Tower, from which he escaped, after eight months' imprisonment, to be permanently degraded from the Privy Council, banished from the court, and confined to his dismal ruin of a house at Stoke. The sale of Frances Coke to Viscount Purbeck is a dismal failure. She makes the man to whom she was sold perfectly miserable; quitting his house for days and nights; braving the public streets in male attire; falling in guilty love with Sir Robert Howard; shocking even the brazen sinners of St. James's by the excessive profligacy of her life. Purbeck steals abroad to hide his shame. At last he goes raving mad. In less than three years from the day of that gorgeous feast at court, Buckingham would have given his marquisate to untie the knot. All that Bacon foresaw has come to pass. Sir Robert Howard, a son of that Earl of Suffolk whom Buckingham broke and disgraced, pursues his pleasure and his revenge in the amour with Lady Purbeck, willing to vindicate by his sword the injury done by his lawless love. Buckingham, who lacks courage either to defend his family honour or to renew the scandalous scene of the Essex divorce, in place of crossing blades with Howard in Marylebone Park, proceeds against his sister-in-law for incontinence, and procures from the Ecclesiastical Court a sentence condemning her to stand in a penitential white sheet at the door of the Savoy church. It is easier to condemn than to catch the nimble profligate, 10. Council Reg., Dec. 27, 1621, Aug. 6, 1622; Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 18, Dec. 1, 1621, June 8, 1622, S. P. O.; James' Reply to the Commons, Dec. 11, 1621, S. P. O.; Locke to Carleton, Jan. 1, 1622, S. P. O.; Buckingham to Crew, Feb. 11, 1625, S. P. O. |