III. 12. waist; and therefore that accident no bad incident. Thus I commend your ladyship to God's good preservation from grief.

1594. June 9.

Aug 20.

Your ladyship's most obedient son,

FR. BACON.

It may be I shall have occasion, because nothing is yet done in the choice of a Solicitor, to visit the Court this vacation, which I have not now done this month's time, in which respect, because having sent to and fro spoyleth it, I would be glad of that light bed of stripes which your ladyship hath, if you have not otherwise disposed it.

13. The Saint of God is spared to her sons for a little while. When Francis makes her a visit he finds her weak with pain, her memory failing like her health, but her tongue and pen as swift to advise as ever. Anthony's easy nature, his indulgence of his men, his love of finery and show and pleasure, wring the poor lady's heart. She wants to see him marry and amend his ways; but she sings of a wife in vain to this gay companion of the young Earl of Essex, Rutland and Southampton. She would not mind stripping her house of everything for him, her pictures, her carpets, and her chairs, if her eldest born would only marry a sober and religious girl. But all pretty faces are to him the same. When Francis rides away from Gorhambury, she sends after him a string of pigeons and a world of pious and tender exhortations for the good of body and soul.

LADY BACON TO FRANCIS BACON.

20th Aug. 1594.

I was so full of back-pain when you came hither, that my memory was very slippery. I forgot to mention of 13. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 168, 171, 223.

1594.

Aug. 20.

rents. If you have not, I have not, received Frank's last III. 13. half-year of Midsummer, the first half so long unpaid. You will mar your tenants if you suffer them. Mr. Brocquet is suffered by your brother to cosen me and beguile me without check. I fear you came too late to London for your horse: ever regard them. I desire Mr. Trot to hearken to some honest man, and cook too as he may. If you can hear of a convenient place I shall be willing if it so please God; for Lawson will draw your brother wherever he chooses, as I really fear, and that with false semblance. God give you both good health and hearts to serve him truly, and bless you always with his favour. I send you pigeons taken this day, and let blood. Look well about you and yours too. I hear that Robert Knight is but sickly. I am sorry for it. I do not write to my Lord-Treasurer, because you like to stay. Let this letter be unseen. Look very well to your health; sup not, nor sit up late. Surely I think your drinking to bedwards hindereth your and your brother's digestion very much. I never knew any but sickly that used it, besides being ill for heads and eyes. Observe well, yet in time. Farewell in Christ.

A. BACON.

At court affairs look grey. Elizabeth will not have a name forced on her for selfish ends. She hears bad news enough to worry the stoutest heart: now a stir among the Irish rebels, now the threat of a descent from Spain. Francis writes to Anthony :

BROTHER,

FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON.

Aug. 26.

Gray's Inn, Aug. 26, 1594.

My cousin Cook is some four days home, and appointeth towards Italy that day sennight. I pray take care

III. 13. for the money to be paid over within four or five days. The sum you will remember is 1507. I hear nothing from the Court in mine own business. There hath been a

1594.

Aug. 26. defeat of some force in Ireland by Macguire which troubleth the Queen, being unaccustomed to such news; and thereupon the opportunity is alleged to be lost to move her. But there is an answer by the coming in of the Earl of Tyrone as was expected.

I steal to Twickenham, purposing to return this night, else I had visited you as I came from the town. Thus in haste I leave you to God's preservation.

Your entire loving brother,

FR. BACON.

Anthony is not now at Gray's Inn Square, having taken a house in Bishopsgate-street, a fashionable part of the city, near the famous Bull Inn, where plays are performed before cits and gentlemen, very much to the delight of Essex and his jovial crew, but very much, as Lady Ann conceives, to the peril of her son's soul. The good mother cannot put old heads on young necks, say what she will. "I am sorry," she writes to her easy elder-born, "your brother and you charge yourselves with superfluous horses; the wise will laugh at you; being but trouble to you both; besides your debts, long journeys, and private persons. Earls be earls." There is the rub. Lady Ann knows, and does not love, these madcap earls.

By help of Cecil, and the Vice-Chamberlain, Fulke Greville, Bacon succeeds so far as to get the nomination of Solicitor put off. For more than a year the situation undergoes no change.

1595.

14. The Queen is full of care; the tug and tempest of III. 14. her reign being close at hand. The league of Pope and King, baffled by the swift scene at Fotheringay, broken by the loss of the Invincible Armada and the victories of Henri Quatre, has again been formed. Plans for seizing Guernsey and Jersey, arming the Ulster insurgents, throwing troops into Wales, and rousing a London mob, have been warmly debated in Madrid. Medina Coeli commands a mighty force at Cadiz. Philip at Madrid, Cardinal Archduke Albrecht at Brussels, are counting, pensioning, directing the English exiles, men amongst whom Wright and Winter, Stanley and Tresham, enjoy conspicuous favour. Father Parsons, Father Creswell, and Father Holt, the most bigoted and brazen of the English Jesuits, busy themselves among the needy and fanatical desperadoes of foreign courts and camps, everywhere vilifying the land which has cast them out, and whetting against their Queen the assassin's knife. Nor do they toil in vain. Two military ruffians, Captain Richard Williams and Captain Edward Yorke, offering to become the Clements-the Ravaillacs-of a more atrocious crime, have crossed the sea, and when taken, knife in hand, and flung into the Tower, confess that they have come into England commissioned by their spiritual and military chiefs for murder. They implicate by name Sir William Stanley and Father Holt.

15. Bacon is sick of heart; looks wan and thin, as all June 3. the world takes note. The heady Earl has proved to him

14. J. Cecil to Sir R. Cecil, Mar. 1594, S. P. O.; Examination of Capt. Edward Yorke, Aug. 12, 1594, S. P. O.; Declaration of Henry Yonge, Aug. 12, 1594, S. P. O.; Confession of Richard Williams, Aug. 27, 1594, S. P. O.; Catalogue of Rebels and Fugitives receiving Pensions from Spain, Sept. 1594, S. P. O.; Council Reg., Oct. 29, 1594.

15. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 144. Patent Rolls 38 Eliz. par. vi. 25.

III. 15. a fatal friend. Lady Ann pours on her son her counsels and consolations.

1595.

June 3.

July 14.

LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON.

June 3, 1595.

I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God and confer with Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with God's blessed favour, had very good healths, and were well out of debt, than any office. Yet though the earl showed great affection, he marred all with violent courses.

I pray God increase His fear in his heart and a hatred of sin; indeed, halting before the Lord and backsliding are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably. God cannot like it.

I pray show your brother this letter, but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself.

Your mother,

A. B.

If the Queen hangs back, and if Burghley hesitates, it is not from dislike or distrust to Bacon; but simply because so grave a nomination as a successor to Coke ought not to be made as a bounty or a submission to the Earl. The more they feel that such a post can never be filled in such a way, the more they strive to let the world see that the advocate, not the candidate, is in fault.

At the express suggestion of Burghley and Fortescue, the Queen appoints Bacon one of her Counsel Learned in the