A Finding List: Part 3.
Elizabethan Facts and Historical References
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Latin Bacon had no confidence in the permanent vitality of English as a classical language. “These modern languages,” he said, “will at one time or other play the bankrupts with books.” With the modern day ebooks on the World Wide Web, he has not strayed too far with his predictions that books are now becoming bankrupt in our hands. Those of his works therefore which he wished to live and which were not originally written in Latin, he translated or caused to be translated into that language, “The universal language,” as he called it. In the first century of the Imperial period it begins already to decay, by being mixed with poetical diction and becoming estranged from natural expression. The decay of accidence and syntax begins also about this time. Later on, the plebeian element found admission. And when the influence provincial writers, who were not guided by a native dense of language and who mingled popular and literary language and mixed up the diction and style of all periods, became prevalent in literature, the confusion became still greater. In Italy itself the language of literature became more and more different from the living language, and became entirely dependent upon the culture attained by each writer, which continually fell to a lower lever. The more provincial Latin (the Romance language) developed, the more did literary Latin become a foreign tongue, familiar only to the learned. (Mommsen). 1 Latin was still a living language among scholars in Bacon’s time. They used it not to show how well they could imitate the manner in which Cicero or Tacitus expressed his thoughts, but to express their own; and in Bacon’s hands it became an organ of expression extremely powerful and sensitive, full of felicities and delicate effects, depending upon its own peculiar resources, and not transferable in the same form into a language of different structure. (Spedding). Latin was in active use as an elegance of manners, for working purposes as an international tongue, for the writing of scholars, in all things in which men consciously sought to show an elevation above the common. In the law, the procedure was still in Latin the ingenious torsions of classical use, and the absolute inventions, to make the Augustan tongue serve the purposes of naming things and expressing ideas Augustus never dreamed of, amuse and irritate. But they served their day.
Le reckoninge Fr; the reckoning, attributed to Kit Marlowe’s murder.
London Stone A Roman milliarium or milestone, and to have marked the point in London whence all Roman roads radiated and distances were measured. Holinshed mentions Jack Cade striking his sword upon the stone after the storming of London Bridge and announcing himself Lord of the city; as does Shakespeare in Henry VI. (Owen). 2
Lord Chancellor Bacon was appointed Lord Chancellor, being then Lord Verulam, January 4, 1617–18.
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal On March 7, 1616–17 the Great Seal is delivered to Sir Francis Bacon, the King’s Attorney, in the 54th year year of his age, whom the King admonished not to seal anything till after mature deliberation, to give righteous judgment between parties, and that he should not extend the Regal Prerogative too far.” (Camden). In Camden’s Annals, is given the following Order of the solemn Procession of Francis Bacon as he “rode in pomp to Westminster, accompanied by most of the Council and Nobility about town with other gallants to the number of more than 200 horse, besides the Judges and Inns of Court” in 1617 when he was honoured the Great Seal: 1. Clerks and inferior Officers in Chancery; 2. Students in Law; 3. Gentlemen, Servants to the Keeper, Serjeant-at-Arms, and the Seal-bearer, all on foot; 4. Himself on horseback, in a gown of purple satin, between the Treasurer and the Keeper of the Privy Seal; 5. Earls, Barons, Privy Councilors; 6. Noblemen of all ranks; 7. Judges, to whom the next place to the Privy Councilors was assigned.” And the satirical Weldon gives the following exaggerated but amusing account of Bacon’s conduct during the King’s absence: “Now he instantly begins to believe himself King, lies in the King’s lodgings, gives audience in the great Banqueting House, makes all other Councilors attend his motions, with the same state the King used to come out to give audience to Ambassadors; when any other Councilor sate with him about the King’s affairs, would, if they sat near him, bid them know their distance; (upon which Winwood the Secretary rose, went away, and would never sit more, but instantly dispatch one to the King, to desire him to make haste back, for his seat was already usurped, at which I remember the King reading it to us, both the King and we were very merry;) and if Buckingham had sent him any letter, would not vouchsafe the opening or reading in public, though it was said it required speedy dispatch, nor would vouchsafe him any answer.”