1595. III. 21. submits. Yet even in taking the strip of ground, he betrays the uneasy sentiment lurking in his heart. "My Lord," he says, "I see I must be your homager and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with saving of his faith to the King." Nov. 22. What says the Queen? Writers who laud the generosity of a man to whom Bacon owed loss of character and loss of place, denounce the stinginess of a woman to whose noble and unfailing friendship he owed almost everything which he possessed on earth. These scribes are hard to please they treat Bacon as a rogue whom it is the duty of honest men to scourge; yet decry the Queen for laying on the lash. What would they have? If Bacon were the rascal they have made him, surely the Queen would have done well in starving his powers of mischief! Their reasoning is faulty as their facts. Inquiry at the Rolls Office would have shown them that, even while she was naming Fleming for her Solicitor-General, Elizabeth was Francis Bacon's most warm and munificent friend. She long ago gave him a reversion of the Registry of the Star Chamber; a post, when he should get it, worth 16007. a year. As he could no more spare his jest than Tully, he said it was like having another man's land near his house it improved his prospect, but did not fill his barn. With woeful lack of humour, Rawley mistook this truly Baconian laughter for a groan; and the poor chaplain's petulant wail misled Montagu into dreaming, contrary to all the evidence of Rolls and grants, that Elizabeth put the : 22. Montagu, xvi., part i. 27. THE QUEEN'S GRANTS. yoke on Bacon's neck. 67 This blunder of Rawley drove Mon- III. 22. tagu to the drollest shifts. 23. The reversion of the Star Chamber, the grant of Zelwood Forest, the post of her Counsel learned in the Law, are but a foretaste of her love. Edward Bacon's lease of Twickenham Park has just expired; that lovely home by the water edge will be his no more. The house has an importance beyond the beauty of its site; a merit rarer than the green mead, the leafy wood, the rushing stream, the whitening swans; it stands all day in the sovereign's sight. To live in such a place is to be a daily guest in her Majesty's mind. The house is good, the park spacious; within the pales are eighty-seven acres of lawn and pasture, lake and orchard; beyond the pales five or six acres of mead and field. It is a home for a prince. Fourteen years ago the park was leased to Milo Dodding for thirty years, commencing from the expiration of Edward Bacon's term; but on passing to Fleming the patent of his place, the gracious Queen makes over to 23. Rot. 38 Eliz., pars vi. 20, Record Office. 1595. Nov. 1595. Nov. 17. III. 23. Francis Bacon a reversion of this lease. On the fifth of November Fleming gets his commission as SolicitorGeneral; on the seventeenth of November, the day of his masque at York House, of his proposed compliment to the Guiana voyage, Bacon's grant of the reversion of Twickenham Park passes under the Privy Seal. EMPLOYED IN THE QUEEN'S SERVICE. CHAPTER IV. 69 TREASON OF SIR JOHN SMYTH. 1596. May. 1. THE Queen not only endows Bacon with lands, and with IV. 1. the reversion of lands and offices, but employs him in her legal and political affairs; often in business which would seem to belong exclusively to the department of Fleming or of Coke. As her Counsel learned in the Law, he is engaged in the prosecution of William Randal. He is consulted in the more momentous charge against Sir John Smyth, who stands accused of no less a crime than that of an attempt, under circumstances of peculiar guilt, to provoke a military mutiny and insurrection against the Queen. 2. In the spring of 1596 an expedition, meant to anticipate the Roman league, has been arming in the Thames. Its destination is unknown, though the few suspect that a blow will fall on the most prosperous and beautiful of Spanish ports. Raleigh is still at home; Keymish having gone with his fleet of ships to the mouths of the Amazon. Vere and Effingham are drilling troops. Essex -martial, if not military-is pouting for command. Anthony and Francis Bacon busy themselves in collecting news for the Queen from foreign spies and foreign Gazettes. While the Earl of Essex lies at Plymouth, waiting for 1. Egerton, Fleming, and Bacon to the Council, May 3, 1596, S. P. O.; Lucas to the Council, June 23, 1596, S. P. O. 2. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 29, 30. IV. 2. Raleigh and the rear-guard of his fleet to come round, Francis writes to his brother: 1596. May 15. FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. MY VERY GOOD BROTHER, May 15, 1596. I have remembered your salutation to Sir John Fortescue, and delivered him the Gazette, desiring him to reserve it to read in his barge. He acknowledgeth it to be of another sort than the common. I delivered him account so much of E. Hawkins' letter as contained advertisements copied out; which is the reason I return the letter to you now; the Gazette being gone with him to the court. The next words consecutive I have not acquainted him with, nor any of them. The body is for more apt time. So, in haste, I wish you comfort as I write. Your entire loving brother, FR. BACON. Fourteen days later, the fleet now riding in Plymouth Sound, Bacon writes again. Anthony, tiring of the Earl's unprofitable service, wishes to be sent abroad as agent or ambassador: a post for which he is eminently fit. To his suit for such a place Francis refers: FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. GOOD BROTHER, From the Court, May 31st, 1596. Yesternight Sir John Fortescue told me you had not many hours before imparted to the Queen your advertisement, and the Gazettes likewise, which the Queen desired Mr. H. Stanhope to read all over unto her; and her Majesty commandeth they be not made vulgar. The ad |