Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Hayward’s Pamphlet

John Hayward does not indeed attempt to vindicate Henry IV., that would have been inconsistent both with his opinions and with the principles professed by the Essex party, he even puts into the mouth of Bishop Merks a long argument in favour of the divine right of hereditary succession, and enlarges upon the misery which arose out of the usurpation of the House of Lancaster; the sting of the work is not in itself, but in the period of its publication. It was no doubt written before Essex’s return, and does not contain any allusion to passing events; but advantage was taken of the recurrence of incidents, which had a Macedon-and-Monmouth sort of similarity to those of the opening of the fortunes of Henry IV., to hurry forth the book into the world, in the expectation that the attractiveness of the dedication, and the situation of public affairs, would conduce to its sale. If that advantage was gained, it was not without being dearly paid for; for the indiscretion of the publisher and the dedicator converted the book into a source of trouble both to the patron and the author. It was objected against Essex in the proceedings in the Star Chamber, and his friend Bacon was deputed by the Council to set forth his undutiful carriage in giving occasion to that seditious pamphlet, “as it was termed” Bacon significantly adds. It was in some manner made matter of charge against Sir Gilly Merick, one of Essex’s followers, who, having had the story of Richard II., thus pointedly brought to his notice, used it again to excite the people before the Government of the Essex conspiracy. He procured “an old play” founded upon “the deposing of Richard II.,” to be played on the afternoon before their breaking-out into rebellion, and he, and a great company, attended the performance; 1 What “old play” it was that Sir Gilly Merick revived is a moot point amongst Shakespeare critics and commentators, the solution of which has been rendered more difficult by Mr. Collier’s interesting publication of the notes of Forman, the astrologer, in his New Particulars Regarding the Works of Shakespeare, 8vo. 1836.

Forman gives clear testimony to the existence of a play entitled Richard II., which differed both from Shakespeare’s play of that name, and also from that ordered to be played by Merick. Mr. Collier’s book contains all the facts, together with a very ingenious letter from Mr. Amyot, in which he suggests various reasons for believing that Shakespeare wrote a “First Part of Richard II.,”' and that that First Part was the play which Forman saw. 2 The notion of the applicability of the precedent of Richard II., to the case of all weak and erring sovereigns, occasioned a republication of Hayward’s Henry IV., in 1642. Hayward himself was committed to prison, and the Queen, in her extreme anger, was discreditably anxious that he should be subjected to very severe treatment, from which, it is delightful to learn, that he owed his safety to the wit, good temper, and humane and liberal feeling of Francis Bacon. We have the incident upon the authority of that great man himself.

Extract from Bacon’s Apologie (1604): “About the same time [1599] I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord’s cause, which though it grew from me, went after about in others’ names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people’s heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within case of treason: whereto I answered: for treason surely I found none, but for felony very many. And when her Majesty hastily asked me wherein, I told her the author had committed very apparent theft, for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus, and translated them into English, and put them into his text.”

If Bacon’s compassionate statement in favour of Hayward’s behaviour was believed by her, remains doubtful. She was extremely educated from a child under the guided wings of tutors like Ashley, Belmain, Cox, Cheke, Grindal, and Ascham. Her lessons contained Cicero and Livy and by the young age of eleven, she was fluent in French, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Welsh, and English. It seems to hold reason, that Elizabeth would have some knowledge of the works of Cornelius Tacitus and would have been able to recognize those translated “sentences” in Hayward’s work. Bacon continues to tell us: “And another time, when the Queen would not be persuaded that it was his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author, and said with great indignation that she would have him racked to produce his author, I replied, Nay Madam, he is a Doctor, never rack his person, but rack his style; let him have pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake by collecting the stiles to judge whether he were the author or no.” With this statement, Bacon gives us the benefit of the doubt. She possibly recognizes those translated “sentences” from Tacitus, but does Bacon persuade? She now wants to know the “more mischievous author” of this work. Does she discover him? Bacon does not tell us, but in Camden’s Annals (1601) there is a reference to the Books of the Privy Council, with a view of procuring some further information respecting Hayward’s imprisonment, an entry is found, under the date of May 17, 1600 which purports that a person of the same name, but described as of the Inner Temple, was summoned before the Lords at that time, and bound to give attendance to answer whatever might be objected against him. During Essex’s rebellion, Cecil, Cobham, Raleigh, and Stanhope never doubted that their necks would be soon on the block if they relented for a moment towards their remorseless enemy, Essex. They accordingly laid before Elizabeth a startling outline of the position she occupied; they showed her that Hayward’s false chronicle of Henry IV., with the deposition and death of Richard II., only typified the contest between her and Essex; they may also have suggested that Shakespeare’s tragedy on the same subject had been inspired by Southampton, and aimed at familiarizing the public mind with the deposition and murder of princes a conviction to which she alluded when she inquired of Lambard, “Know you not that I am Richard?”

Upon further inquiry, John Hayward to whom that entry refers was, at one time, of Clifford’s Inn, and afterwards of Tandridge, in Surrey; that he was admitted of the Inner Temple on 22nd November, 1588, and was called to the bar on November 3, 1598. The entry in question rather puzzles. The same person is mentioned as John Haward in Manning and Bray’s Surrey. 3 There is no doubt then, that Hayward was confined until some time after the death of his earliest patron (Essex in 1601) and probably until the death of the Queen. Not one single word was said during the whole long trial about William Shakespeare, the author of the play considered so suggestive and dangerous by the Queen, though his name was given at full length on the title page.

The accession of James I., produced a great change in Hayward’s situation and prospects, and if it did not restore his person to liberty, set free his pen, and converted the silenced and disgraced defender of hereditary monarchy into a court-advocate, a champion of the lofty notions and pretensions of the new dynasty. But the King liked Hayward, and patronised his various publications, knighting him in 1619; and he acted as a sort of historiographer to the unfortunate Prince Henry. Hayward worked with Camden at Chelsea College. Edward Johnson 4 asks: “How is it that Bacon knew the sources from which some of the chief passages in Richard II., were derived, whereas modern commentators on Shakespeare have never been able to tell us what these passages are?” At the time the above incident was happening, the Queen was sixty-six years of age; Hayward was around the same age as Bacon thirty-nine years of age. There are discrepancies to the event as given by Bacon and is more than curious and allows for gaps that need to fill.

Bacon praises Hayward’s works that was his desire, “by the light of language, to place before our very eyes, the movements of the times, the characters of persons, the hesitations of councils, the course and flow of actions, as of waters; the hollowness of pretences, the secrets of empire.” In addition, if Hayward could do this, Bacon continues, it “is truly a work of great labour and judgment,” and if it be so, great should be the honour, and many the allowances, which they meet with, who first lead the way towards its accomplishment.

Of Hayward’s friends, there are few or no traces: he was a guest at the table of the Bishop of Durham; he was admitted to personal intercourse with Prince Henry; and was permitted by Sir Robert Cotton to have the use of his collections. He was mentioned in 1617 in the proposal for erecting an Academy Royal, 5 which was a scheme for the revival of the first Society of Antiquaries, as a person fit to belong to such an association. “Sir John Hayward, historiographer of Chelsea College, was a celebrated historian and biographer, in this, and the preceding reign; and was particularly admired for his style. He wrote the lives of the three Norman Kings, and also the lives of Henry IV., and Edward VI. Some political reflections in the life of Henry IV., which offended Queen Elizabeth, were the occasion of his suffering a tedious imprisonment. The queen asked Mr. Bacon, who was then of her Counsel Learned in the law, if he discovered any treason in that book. He told her Majesty that he saw no treason in it, but much felony. The Queen bid him explain himself. Upon which he told her, that he had stolen his political remarks from Tacitus. This discovery was thought to have prevented his being put to the rack.” 6

King Henry the IV., 7 was the eldest surviving son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, was born at Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire became Earl of Derby in 1377, married Mary Bohun co heiress of the Earldom of Hereford, in 1380 and became in 1387–88 one of the five leaders of the opposition to the government of Richard II, but in 1389 rallied to the Crown. In 1390 and 1392 he went, with a considerable following, upon two so-called “crusades” to the Eastern Baltic, on pretext of aiding the Teutonic Knights against the Lithuanians, who had recently accepted Christianity, and, on the conclusion of the second of these expeditions, he crossed Germany to Venice and thence paid a flying visit to Jerusalem, being thus the only English King before Edward VII., who saw the Holy Sepulchre. From his return to England in 1393 he took until 1397 little part in politics, but what influence he had was used upon the side of the Crown and against his own friends of ten years before. He was created Duke of Hereford in 1397: in this capacity he had an open quarrel with Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, whom he accused of treasonable designs. The quarrel was to be decided by combat in the King’s presence at Coventry in September 1388; King Richard stopped the combat when the duellists were already in the lists and banished both of them, although professing to Hereford great regret at doing so. Henry went to Paris and waited his opportunity of revenge. This opportunity came at the death of his father, John of Gaunt, in February 1399, for Richard, who had promised the exile that his paternal estates should be secured to him, now confiscated the whole of the Lancastrian inheritance. Henry, whose whole life in England had been devoted, in accordance with the traditions of his house, to a quiet but steady conciliation of popular favour, was no doubt well informed of the growing unpopularity of Richard; he therefore took advantage of Richard’s absence in Ireland to land in Yorkshire with a few followers, professing to claim only his paternal inheritance of Lancaster. But, as he advanced south-westwards, he was received with such acclamations and joined by such powerful men, notably the Percys of Northumberland, that he was able to take a sharp vengeance on the unpopular Ministers of Richard, many of whom he beheaded, and to advance in overwhelming force to meet the King on his return from Ireland.

Richard submitted tamely, and Henry issued writs, still in Richard’s name, for a Parliament in London. At this Parliament, September 1399, Henry claimed the Crown, which Richard resigned, and was joyfully accepted as King by both Houses. The popularity of the House of Lancaster veiled the essential illegality of the business. A month later Richard was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and was never seen again; a rising of his friends in the next year was easily put down, and it is supposed that this led to Richard’s murder at Pontefract. Henry’s reign, however, was never for a moment quiet, and treason always dogged the steps of the King who had usurped the throne. His enemies constantly tried to poison or assassinate him; France and Scotland were both hostile: even Wales was able to lift its head in little spurts of rebellion. Pseudo-Richards began to appear in various parts of England, and their appearance was always the signal for revolts. The state of society, which had been unquiet for a quarter of a century, went from bad to worse during Henry’s reign. The King was constantly on the move endeavouring to repress sedition and riots, and was generally successful in doing so for the time; but, directly he had passed by, they broke out again behind him. Thus his own friends the Percys revolted, joined the Welsh and raised the flag of the Mortimers (1403); they were beaten in a pitched battle at Shrewsbury: in 1405 it was Mowbrays, Scropes, Percies who were up again, and Henry was actually obliged to behead the Archbishop of York: again in 1408 a similar rebellion in the North had to be put down.

In his last years, 1410–1413, the Prince of Wales seems to have given him trouble. Henry died in March 1413, broken down by ill health and hard work at the age of forty-six. Probably his character changed to some extent for the better after his accession. He never lost his popularity with the House of Commons, to which he constantly made valuable concessions of a “constitutional” nature; nor, in spite of his execution of an archbishop, with the Church, to which he and his Parliament gave the long-desired privilege of burning heretics alive; nor with the citizens of London, whom he always ostentatiously courted. From 1404 his health seems to have been uniformly bad. By his first wife, Mary Bohun, he had four sons, Henry V., Thomas, Duke of Clarence, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphry, Duke of Gloucester. By his second wife (Joan widowed Duchess of Brittany) he had no children. 8