A Finding List: Part 2.

Bacon’s Acquaintances, Friends, Companions, Colleagues

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z

In this section, it was felt the need to contain all persons referred to in Bacon’s works, speeches, and letters who were his acquaintances, friends, or companions.

They are given a well deserved synoptical, yet understandable biography. This way, all references noted to persons mentioned by Bacon would be well understood to why he referred to them, and under what circumstances they surrounded his lifestyle. In continuation to these synoptical biographies, are the works of these persons either in a detailed account that will be found in the Appendix volume or in a synoptical form after each individual biography.
Where no additional information is added to those works, is due to the lack of historical records, which is believed to be more and more noted to modern researchers on the history of those times and especially when compiling such a volume as this one.

A jesty note from Edmund Burke will end the introduction to this part: “Strip majesty of its externals and it is merely a jest.” [(m)ajest(y).]

R

Raleigh Walter. Sir (1552–1618) Military and naval commander and author. If England can produce men of such a mould like Raleigh, nowadays, she will continue to be a mighty world power. Sir Walter Raleigh was born in the year 1552, the year in which the Duke of Somerset was executed, while Mary at St. Edmondsbury sat in doubt and gloom, watching the progress of her young brother’s disease, which, if it terminated fatally as she probably hoped, would leave her mistress of England. Elizabeth and Leicester were then nineteen years of age; 1 Mary Queen of Scots was eleven, while many of the men with whom Raleigh was afterwards associated were yet to be born. Sir Philip Sidney would be born two years later and Francis Bacon nine years later. Shaksper the actor in twelve years and Essex in fifteen years. From the month of March, 1592, till his return from Cadiz, 1596, Raleigh was never admitted into Elizabeth’s presence; and was in so much disgrace, that instead of bestowing on him castles and manors, she suspended him from his office of Captain of the Guard. It must therefore have been during the winter of 1591–92, that he became master of Sherbourne, which was thenceforward rendered celebrated by its connexion with his name. What Bacon did for Gorhambury, Raleigh did in a still more remarkable degree for Sherbourne; repairing the castle, erecting a magnificent mansion close at hand, and laying out grounds with the greatest refinement of taste. 2
History abounds with frivolous apologies for princes who have suffered themselves to be led astray by evil counsellors; the same excuse is pleaded for Essex’s crimes: Cuffe, Meyrick, Blount, Father Wright, and others, suggested to him, we are told, his desperate enterprises. This is false. He had entered upon the guilty course which led to his overthrow more than eleven years before, when he began his correspondence with Scotland, in which he designated himself the “Weary Knight.” His enmity to Raleigh dated as early as the defeat of the Armada, and the incidents of every service in which they were engaged together only tended to deepen his resentment. 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?” Essex had long made it evident what fate he would assign to Raleigh should he ever acquire over him the power of life and death; and therefore Raleigh acted as a man instinctively acts towards the assassin whose dagger is at his breast. This must be his defence if he need any. Raleigh, as we are told by Bacon, used to say that the women about the Queen were like witches, who could do a great deal of harm but no good, and his own wife furnishes us, in a letter, with an illustration of this truth. Elizabeth, though she had taken Raleigh himself into favour, had never forgiven poor Bessy Throgmorton, who was incessantly made the butt at which calumny shot its arrows.
We hear much of the Queen’s discernment and knowledge of mankind, which, however, by no means included a knowledge of women, since she allowed some of the worst of her sex to hover about her, and libel the best. Thus we find Lady Kildare, an audacious intriguante, not only in high favour, but able, by malicious slanders, to inflict pain and injury on others. Some French historian alluded to, but not named by Camden, relates certain startling particulars respecting a visit from Marshal Biron. Elizabeth, according to that writer, carried about with her, by way of a keepsake, Essex’s skull, which she exhibited to Biron, indulging at the same time in violent denunciations of his offences. She likewise entrusted him with a message of harsh counsel to Henri, pressing upon him the necessity of eschewing clemency in his treatment of rebels. In Biron’s case Henri certainly displayed no clemency. He was executed July 21, 1602, in the court of the Bastille, where he fought with the executioner, and was at length cut down when in a state of extreme fury. To palliate this barbarity, Henri accused his victim of having slain five hundred persons in cold blood, and other enormities. 3 Nowhere in history has the truth made itself more apparent, that greatness is often found to be no match for crafty littleness. Cecil, who soared over Bacon’s head, likewise soared over Raleigh’s, because there was no moral repugnance in his nature to employ any means which promised to attain the end he aimed at. His power was built on Elizabeth’s weakness, of which he skilfully took advantage in those innumerable conferences which he enjoyed through the necessities of his place.
One day upon Blackheath, while Cecil was driving with the Queen in her carriage, a courier rode up to the window with a packet containing secret letters from Scotland. Elizabeth asked to see them. Cecil felt a choking sensation as of the tightening of a rope about his neck; he would, however, make an effort to save his life: “There may, please your Majesty, be infection in these papers,” he said. “Permit me to step out and purify them in the open air before they touch your Majesty’s hands.” Elizabeth’s eagle eye was upon him; still, with the dexterity of one who had performed a thousand acts of guilt and cunning, he contrived to extract the treasonable missive, after which the packet was submitted to the Queen. Raleigh, Bacon, and many others, instead of denouncing James I., as an infringer of the privileges of Parliament, laboured to conciliate him by fulsome adulation, and met with ruin in the one case and death in the other for their pains. Among the conversations with Wilson in the Tower, September 26, 1618 in the State Paper Office, is this short conversation: Bacon, we are told, observed, “Then, Sir Walter, you would have been a pirate,” to which he replied, “Did you ever know of any one being a pirate for millions? I would have silenced all objections by a lavish distribution of treasure.” No trustworthy narrative of what took place between Raleigh’s departure from the West Indies and his arrival at Plymouth has been hitherto discovered.
For some particulars of what took place in the four hours during which Raleigh pleaded for his life, we are indebted to a foreign witness Ulloa that was written in the Carta Original de Julian Sanchez de Ulloa, 16th Nov. 1618, who however has omitted others which we should have been glad to learn. He tells us that it was Bacon’s ill-fortune to be under the necessity, as Lord Chancellor, not only of acquiescing in Raleigh’s execution, but of sprinkling over his spirit those bitter waters of reproach and contumely by which James thought proper in his case to herald the pangs of death. “I have been told,” says Ulloa, “that the Lord Chancellor of England [Francis Bacon] censured him greatly for the injuries he had done to the vassals and territories of your Majesty, and dwelt on the manner in which he had abused the permission to put to sea, granted him by this King, when his professed object was to discover a gold-mine, which he had affirmed he knew where to find. In conclusion, he informed him that he must die.” Ulloa may have been ill informed respecting the part played by Bacon, upon whom however, by virtue of his office, devolved the unpleasant duty of drawing up and forwarding to the Lieutenant the warrant commanding Raleigh’s removal from the Tower to the King’s Bench, preliminary to his execution. 4

Ramus Petrus or Pierre De La Ramée (1515–1572) French philosopher, logician, and rhetorician. His identifying logic with dialectic, neglected the traditional role that logic played as a method of inquiry and emphasized instead the equally traditional view that logic is the method of disputation, its two parts being invention, the process of discovering proofs in support of the thesis, and disposition, which taught how the materials of invention should be arranged. See Part III: Dead faith in Aristotle & Part I: Axiomata. In many passages of his works he condemns Aristotle for having violated three rules which he had himself propounded. To these rules, Ramus gives somewhat fanciful names:

The first is the rule of truth.
The second the rule of justice.
The third the rule of wisdom.

These three rules are all to be fulfilled by the principles of every science (axiomata artium). The first requires the proposition to be in all cases true, the second requires its subject and predicate to be essentially connected together, and the third requires the converse of the proposition to be true as well as the proposition itself. The whole of this theory, to which Ramus and the Ramistæ seem to have ascribed much importance, is founded on the fourth chapter of the first book of the Posterior Analytics. He maintained as his thesis, when proceeding to his degree of Master of Arts in Paris (1535), that “all that Aristotle has said is not true.” In 1543 he published his System of Logic, with animadversions upon Aristotle. After being deprived of his Professorship and restored, he was put to death in 1572, during the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day.

Rawley Gulielmus (1588–1667) Born at Norwich. Sacræ theologlæ professor. Learned chaplain of the celebrated Francis Bacon, and editor of his works. He was of Benet College in Cambridge. Took a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1604. A Master’s in 1608. A Bachelor of Divinity in 1615. A Doctor’s in 1621. In 1609 he was chosen fellow of his College. He took Holy Orders in 1611, and was instituted to the rectory of Landbeach near Cambridge in January 1616. Landbeach is a living in the gift of Benet College; nevertheless, he was presented to it “per hon. virum Franciscum Baconum Mil. Reg. Maj. Advocatum Generalem, ejusdem Rectoriæ, pro hac unica vice, ratione concessionis Magistri et Sociorum Coll. C.C. (uti afferebatur) patroni.” He held this living till his death, which happened on June 18, 1667; nor does it appear that he had any other preferment, which may seem somewhat marvelous, when it is considered, that he was not only domestic chaplain to Lord Verulam, who had the highest opinion of his abilities, as well as the most affectionate regard for his person, but chaplain also to the Kings Charles I., and II. On a flat marble near the communion table, in the church of Landbeach, there is the following inscription over him: “Hic jacet Gulielmus Rawley, S.T. Doctor, vir Gratiis et Mufis ex æquo charus, fereniss. Regibus Car. I. & II. a facris, D. Fran. Verulamio facellanus primus atque ultimus, cujus opera fumma cum fide edita ei debent literæ. Uxorem habuit Barbaram, ad latus mariti positam, Jo. Wixted aldermanni nuper Cantabr. filiam: ex ea filium suscepit unicum Gulielmum, in cujus cineribus falis haud parum latet. Ecclesiam hanc per annos quinquaginta prudens administravit. Tandem placide, ut vixit, in Domino obdormivit, A.D. 1667, Jun 18; ætat. 79.” 5

Richelieu Cardinal de (b.September 5, 1585) The youngest son of an ancient family of Poitou, was at first destined to be a soldier. But one of his brothers who was appointed to the bishopric of Lucon having made himself a Carthusian monk, Richelieu was obliged to take the cassock rather than let the bishopric escape his family. Henri IV., named him for it, and negotiated the appointment through his ambassador in Rome. Richelieu was at that time only a few months over twenty years of age; he was forced to make many appeals before he received the Pope’s sanction, and went in person to Rome, where he was consecrated April 17, 1607. After his return we find him in his diocese, which had long been without a Bishop; for Richelieu’s brother had never resided there, and, in fact, had never been consecrated, nor had his predecessor resided there. We see dawning in Richelieu’s Letters the first gleams of his favour at Court, without, however, learning much more about it than he tells us in his Memoirs. His first political act, properly so-called, was the harangue he pronounced in presenting the report of his Order at the closure of the States-General, February 2, 1615. He was chosen as orator, and acquitted himself with honour and applause. A tone of high authority and reason makes itself felt through the pomposity of the speech in certain places. He knew the Queen, Marie de Medicis personally, and had already insinuated himself into her confidence. It was about this time that he first saw the Maréchal d’ Ancre. France, after the death of Henri IV., had fallen from the most flourishing and prosperous condition and government into a miserable state of things. Richelieu, in his Memoirs, has admirably pictured the misery of this period anterior to his coming into office, and what he calls the cowardice and corruption of hearts: “The times were so miserable,” he says, “that the ablest among the nobles were those who were most industrious in causing quarrels; and the quarrels were such, and there was so little safety in establishing anything, that the ministers were more occupied in finding the necessary means to preserve themselves than the means that were necessary to govern the State.” 6 [Also see Part III: French Academy.]

Rutland There is a series of letters to Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland (1576–1612), who travelled immensely to Europe during the years 1595, 96, 97. These letters are given by Spedding, Works, ix. pp. 6-20 copied from the Lambeth Palace Library MS., 936, no. 218 from the British Library MSS., Lansdowne 238, fos. 158-159; MS 37232, of. 97. Spedding attributed the letters to Bacon on the grounds of many similarities of style yet expressed doubts to authenticity of other letters in these folios. The Hutton Papers, auctioned at Sotheby’s include a MS., of such letters and catalogued Elizabeth and Essex in their December edition of 1992 on page 26. If Spedding had taken into account the forgeries still circulating from Ireland’s hands, he does not mention. It only remains to say that whatever circulated during the 1700’s and 1800’s must be read with attribution to the style of Bacon, and by honourable scholars who are competent to take this task under their wing.