Part 5. Chronological Order

Important Letters Written by Bacon

August 1585

To the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham,
Principal Secretary to Her Majesty.

It may please your Honour to give me leave amidst your great and diverse business to put you in remembrance of my poor suit, leaving the time unto your Honour’s best opportunity and commodity. I think the objection of my years will wear away with the length of my suit. The very stay doth in this respect concern me, because I am thereby hindered to take a course of practice, which by the leave of God, if her Majesty like not of my suit, I must and will follow: not for any necessity of estate, but for my credit sake, which I know by living out of action will wear. I spake when the Court was at Theball’s to Mr. Vice-Chamberlain,1 who promised me his furderance; which I did lest he mought be made for some other. If it may please your Honour, who as I hear hath great interest in him, to speak with him in it, I think he will be fast mine. Thus desiring continuance of your Honour’s favour, I wish you all good, and myself occasion to do you service.
Gray’s Inn, this 25th of August, 1585.
Your Honour’s in all duty,

Fr. Bacon.

May 1586

To Lord Burghley.

My very good Lord,
I take it as an undoubted sign of your Lordship’s favour unto me that being hardly informed of me you took occasion rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if your Lordship had grounded only upon the said information of theirs, I mought and would truly have upholden that few of the matters were justly objected; as the very circumstances do induce in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me and besides were to give colour to their own doings. But because your Lordship did mingle therewith both a late motion of mine own and somewhat which you had otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand affected) rather to prove your Lordship’s admonition effectual in my doings hereafter, than causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your Lordship’s pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember that I did endeavour to set forth that said motion in such sort as it mought breed no harder effect than a denial. And I protest simply before God that I sought therein an ease in coming within Bars, and not any extraordinary and singular note of favour. And for that your Lordship may otherwise have heard of me, it shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself. Indeed I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet laborant invidiâ. I find also that such persons as are of nature bashful (as myself is), whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. But once I know well and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to believe, that arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as if I think well of myself in anything it is in this that I am free from that vice. And I hope upon this your Lordship’s speech I have entered into those considerations as my behaviour shall no more deliver me for other than I am. And so wishing unto your Lordship all honour and to myself continuance of your good opinion with mind and means to deserve it, I humbly take my leave.
Gray’s Inn, this 6th day of May, 1586.
Your Lordship’s most bounden Nephew,
Fr. Bacon.

1592-93

To the Lord Treasurer Burghley.

My Lord,
With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service and your honourable correspondence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship I wax now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not fear that action shall impair it, because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty; not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour; nor under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent Sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men’s abilities. Besides, I do not find myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my friends, and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of this commonwealth, the honour of my house, and the second founder of my estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me: for though I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it favourably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man’s own; which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship, perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other. And if your Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest man. And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty: but this I will do; I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, which (he said) lay so deep. This which I have writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set down without all art, disguising, or reservation. Wherein I have done honour both to your Lordship’s wisdom, in judging that that will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to your Lordship’s good nature, in retaining nothing from you. And even so I wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do you service.
From my lodging at Gray’s Inn.

March, 1592-93

A Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burghley, in excuse of his Speech in
Parliament against the Triple Subsidy.

It may please your Lordship,
I was sorry to find by your Lordship’s speech yesterday that my last speech in Parliament, delivered in discharge of my conscience and duty to God, her Majesty and my country, was offensive. If it were misreported, I would be glad to attend your Lordship to disavow anything I said not. If it were misconstrued, I would be glad to expound my words, to exclude any sense I meant not. If my heart be misjudged by imputation of popularity or opposition by any envious or officious informer, I have great wrong; and the greater, because the manner of my speech did most evidently show that I spake simply and only to satisfy my conscience, and not with any advantage or policy to sway the cause; and my terms carried all signification of duty and zeal towards her Majesty and her service. It is true that from the beginning, whatsoever was above a double subsidy, I did wish might (for precedent’s sake) appear to be extraordinary, and (for discontent’s sake) mought not have been levied upon the poorer sort; though otherwise I wished it as rising as I think this will prove, and more. This was my mind, I confess it. And therefore I most humbly pray your Lordship, first to continue in your own good opinion; and (then to perform in part of an honest friend towards your poor servant and ally, in drawing her Majesty to accept of the sincerity and simplicity of my heart, and I bear with the rest, and restore me to her Majesty’s favour.

• Copie que Monsr Francois Bacon a escrivit à sa Mate, 1593

To the Queen.

Madam,
Remembering that your Majesty had been gracious to me both in countenancing me and conferring upon me the reversion of a good place, and perceiving your Majesty had taken some displeasure inwards me, both these were arguments to move me to offer unto your Majesty my service, to the end to have means to deserve your benefit and to repair my error. Upon this ground I affected myself to no great matter, bill only a place of my profession, such as I do see divers younger in proceeding to myself, and men of no great note, do without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press this matter, I do assure your Majesty my spirit is not with them. It sufficeth me that I have let your Majesty know that I am ready to do that for your service which I never would do for mine own gain. And if your Majesty like others better, I shall with the Lacedemonian be glad that there is such choice of abler men than myself. Your Majesty’s favour indeed, and access to your royal person, I did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, seek and desire; and I would be very glad to be reintegrate in that. But I will not wrong mine own good mind so much as to stand upon it now, when your Majesty may conceive I do it but to make my profit of it. But my mind turneth upon other wheels that those of profit. The conclusion shall be that I wish your Majesty served answerable to yourself. Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos. Thus I most humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. God preserve your Majesty.

• March 30, 1593

To the Earl of Essex.

My Lord:
I thank your Lordship very much for your kind and comfortable letter, which I hope will be followed at hand with another of more assurance. And I must confess this very delay hath gone so near me, as it hath almost overthrown my health. For when I revolved the good memory of my father, the near degree of alliance I stand in to my Lord Treasurer, your Lordship’s so signalled and declared favour, the honourable testimony of so many counsellors, the commendation unlaboured and in sort offered by my Lords the Judges and the Master of the Rolls elect; that I was voiced with great expectation, and (though I say it myself) with the wishes of most men, to the higher place; that I am a man that the Queen hath already done for; and princes, especially her Majesty, loveth to make an end where they begin: and then add hereunto the obscureness and many exceptions to my competitors; when (I say) I revolve all this. I cannot but conclude with myself that no man ever received a more exquisite disgrace. And therefore truly, my Lord, I was determined, and am determined, if her Majesty reject me, this to do. My nature can take no evil ply; but I will by God’s assistance, with this disgrace of my Fortune, and yet with that comfort of the good opinion of so many honourable and worthy persons, I retire myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and contemplations, without looking back. I humbly pray your Lordship to pardon me for troubling you with my melancholy. For the matter itself, I commend it to your love. Only I pray you communicate afresh this clay with my Lord Treasurer and Sir Robert Cecil; and if you esteem my fortune, remember the point of precedency. The objections to my competitors your Lordship knoweth partly. I pray spare them not, not over the Queen, but to the great ones, to show your confidence and to work their distaste. Thus longing exceedingly to exchange troubling your Lordship with serving you, I rest
Your Lordship’s, in most entire and faithful duty.
F.B.
I humbly pray your Lordship I may hear
from you sometime this day.

• April 1593

Lambeth, written in the hand of one of his brother’s men and docketed “Une lettre au Mons. Le Compte d’Essex de Mons. Francois Bacon, 1593, an mois d’Avrill.”

To the Earl of Essex.

My Lord:
I did almost conjecture by your silence and countenance a distaste in the course I imparted to your Lordship touching mine own fortune; the care whereof in your Lordship as it is no news to me, so nevertheless the main effects and demonstrations thereof past are so far from dulling in me the sense of any new, as contrariwise every new refresheth the memory of many past. And for the free and loving advice your Lordship hath given me, I cannot correspond to the same with greater duty, than by assuring your Lordship that I will not dispose of myself without your allowance; not only because it is the best wisdom in any man in his own matters to rest in the wisdom of a friend (for who can by often looking in the glass discern and judge so well of his own favour, as another with whom he converseth?), but also because my affection to your Lordship hath made mine own contentment inseparable from your satisfaction. But notwithstanding, I know it will be pleasing to your good Lordship that I use my liberty of replying; and I do almost assure myself that your Lordship will rest persuaded by the answer of those reasons which your Lordship vouchsafed to open. They were two; the one that I should include…[The rest of the letter is wanting].

• April 16, 1593

To the Right Honourable Sir Robert Cecil, Knight one of her
Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council.

Sir,
I thank your Honour very much for the signification which I received by Mr. Hickes of your good opinion, good affection, and readiness. And as to the impediment which you mention and I did forecast, I know you bear that honourable disposition as it will rather give you apprehension to deal more effectually for me than otherwise; not only because the trial of friends is in case of difficulty, but again for that without that circumstance your Honour should be only esteemed true friend and kinsman, whereas now you shall be further judged a most honourable counsellor. For pardons are ever honourable, because they come from mercy, but most honourable towards such offenders. My desire is your Honour should break with my Lord your father as soon as may stand with your convenience, which was the cause why now I did write. And so I wish your Honour all happiness.
From Gray’s Inn, this 16th April, 1593.
Your Honour’s in Faithful affection to be commanded
Fr. Bacon.

• September 15, 1592

To Mr. Thomas Phillips.

Sir,
I congratulate your return, hoping that all is passed on your side. Your Mercury is returned; whose return alarmed as upon some great matter, which I fear he will not satisfy. News of his coming came before his own letter, and to other than to his proper servant, which maketh me desirous to satisfy or to salve. My Lord hath required him to repair to me; which upon his Lordship’s and mine own letters received I doubt not but he will with all speed perform; where I pray you to meet him if you may, that laying our heads together we may maintain his credit, satisfy my Lord’s expectation, and procure some good service. I pray the rather spare not your travail, because I think the Queen is already party to the advertisement of his coming over, and in some suspect which you may not disclose to him.
So I wish you as myself, this 15th of September, 1592.
Yours ever assured,
Fr. Bacon.

• January 25, 1594

To Anthony Bacon.

Good Brother,
Since I saw you this hath passed. Tuesday, though sent for, I saw not the Queen. Her Majesty alleged she was then to resolve with her Counsel upon her places of law. But this resolution was ut supra; and note the rest of the counsellors were persuaded she came rather forwards than otherwise. For against me she is never peremptory but to my Lord of Essex. I missed a letter of my Lord Keeper’s; but thus much I hear otherwise.
The Queen seemeth to apprehend my travel; whereupon I was sent for by Sir Robert Cecil in sort as from her Majesty; himself having of purpose immediately gone to London to speak with me, and not finding me there, he wrote to me. Whereupon I came to the Court, and upon his relation to me of her Majesty’s speech, I desired leave to answer it in writing; not I said that I mistrusted his report but mine own wit; the copy of which answer I send; we parted in kindness secundum exterius.
This copy you must needs return; for I have no other, and I wrate this by memory after the original sent away.
The Queen’s speech is after this sort. Why? I have made no Solicitor. Hath anybody carried a Solicitor with him in his pocket? But he must have it in his own time (as if it were but yesterday’s nomination) or else I must be thought to cast him away. Then her Majesty sweareth that if I continue this manner, she will seek all England for a Solicitor rather than take me. Yea she will send for Houghton and Coventry [Birch: Thomas Coventry, afterwards one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and father of the Lord Keeper Coventry.] tomorrow next (as if she would swear them both). Again she entereth into it, that she never dealt so with any as with me (in hoc erratum non est); she hath pulled me over the bar (note the words, for they cannot be her own), she hath used me in her greatest causes. But this is Essex; and she is more angry with him than with me; and such-like speeches, so strange, as I should leese myself in it, but that I have cast off the care of it.
My conceit is, that I am the least part of mine own matter. But her Majesty would have a delay, and yet would not bear it herself. Therefore she giveth no way to me, and she perceiveth her counsel giveth no way to others, and so it sticketh as she would have it. But what the secret of it is oculus aquilæ non penetravit.
My Lord [Burghley] continueth on kindly and wisely a course worthy to obtain a better effect than a delay, which to me is the most unwelcome condition.
Now to perform the part of a brother and to render you the like kindness, advise you whether it, were not, a good time to set in strongly with the Queen to draw her to honour your travels. For in the course I am like to take, it will he a great and a necessary stay to me, besides the natural comfort I shall receive. And if you will have me deal with my Lord of Essex, or otherwise break it by mean to the Queen, as that which shall give me full contentment, I will do it as effectually and with as much good discretion as I can. Wherein if you aid me with your direction, I shall observe it. This as I did ever account it sure and certain to be accomplished in case myself had been placed, and therefore deferred it till then as to the proper opportunity; so now that I see such delay in mine own placing, I wish exanimo it should not expect.
I pray let me know what mine uncle Killigrew will do. [Relating to the borrowing of money.] For I must now be more careful of my credit than ever, since I receive so little thence where I deserved best. And to be plain with you, I mean even to make the best of those small things I have with as much expedition as may be without loss; and so sing a mass of requiem I hope abroad; for I know her Majesty’s nature, that she neither careth though the whole surname of the Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither.
I have here an idle pen or two, specially one that was cozened, thinking to have gotten some money this term; I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out besides your Irish collection, which is almost done. There is a collection of Dr. James of foreign states, largeliest of Flanders, which, though it be no great matter, yet I would be glad to have it. Thus I commend you to God’s good preservation.
From my lodge at Twickenham Park, this 25th of January, 1594.
Your entire loving brother
Fr. Bacon.

• January 25, 1594

Letter to Sir Robert Cecil.

Sir,
Your Honour may remember that upon your relation of her Majesty’s speech touching my travel, I asked leave to make answer in writing; not but I knew then what was true; but because I was careful to express it without doing myself wrong. And it is true I had then opinion to have written to her Majesty. But since, weighing with myself that her Majesty gave no ear to the motion made by yourself that I might answer it by mine own attendance, I began to doubt the second degree, whether it might not be taken for presumption in me to write to her Majesty; and so resolved that it was best for me to follow her Majesty’s own way in committing it to your report.
It may please your Honour therefore to deliver to her Majesty, first, that it is an exceeding grief to me that any, not motion (for there was not now a motion), but mention that should come from me should offend her Majesty, whom for these one-and-twenty years (for so long it is that I kissed her Majesty’s hands upon my journey into France) I have used the best of my wits to please.
Next, mine answer standing upon two points, the one, that this mention of travel to my Lord of Essex was no present motion, suit, or request; but casting the worst of my fortune with an honourable friend that had long used me privately, I told his Lordship of this purpose of mine to travel, accompanying it with these very words, that upon her Majesty’s rejecting me with such circumstance, though my heart might be good yet mine eyes would be sore that I should take no pleasure to look upon my friends; for that I was not an impudent man, that could face out a disgrace; and that I hoped her Majesty would not be offended, if not being able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade.
The other, that it was more than this; for I did expressly and particularly (for so much wit God then lent me) by way of caveat restrain my Lord’s good affection that he should in no wise utter or mention this matter till her Majesty had made a Solicitor; wherewith (now since my looking upon your letter) I did in a dutiful manner challenge my Lord, who very honourably acknowledged [it], seeing he did it for the best; and therefore I leave his Lordship to answer for himself.
All this my Lord of Essex can testify to be true; and I report me to yourself, whether at the first, when I desired deliberation to answer, yet nevertheless said I would to you privately declare what had passed, I said not in effect so much. The conclusion shall be, that wheresoever God and her Majesty shall appoint me to live, I shall truly pray for her Majesty’s preservation and felicity.
And so I humbly commend me to you,
your poor kinsman to do you service.
Fr. Bacon.

• Spring 1594

To Fulke Greville.

Sir,
I understand of your pains to have visited me, for which I thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said Requiesec anima mea: but I now am otherwise put to my psalter: Nolite confidere. I dare go no further. Her Majesty had by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her service; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to. And now whether invidus homo hoc fecit; or whether my matter must be an appendix to my Lord of Essex suit; or whether her Majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take advantage of some errors which, like enough, at one time or other I may commit; or what it is; but her Majesty is not ready to dispatch it. And what though the Master of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex, and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condition, to stand so that whatsoever service I do to her Majesty, it shall be thought to be but servitium viscatum, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man’s nature; which will, I fear, much hurt her Majesty’s service in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the Shop; and if her Majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum, I am weary of it; as also of wearying my of friends; of whom, nevertheless, I hope in one course gratefully to deserve. And so, not forgetting your business, I leave to trouble you with this idle letter, being but justa et moderata querimonia: for indeed I do confess, primus amor [first love] will not easily be cast off. And thus again I commend me to you.

• July 20, 1594

To the Queen.

Most gracious and admirable Sovereign,
As I do acknowledge a providence of God towards me that findeth it expedient for me tolerare jugum in juventute meâ, so this present arrest of me by his divine Majesty from your Majesty’s service is not the least affliction that I have proved. And I hope your Majesty doth conceive that nothing under mere impossibility could have detained me from earning so gracious a vail as it pleased your Majesty to give me. But your Majesty’s service by the grace of God shall take no lack thereby (and thanks to God, it hath light upon him, that may be best spared); only the discomfort is mine; who nevertheless have the private comfort that in the time I have been acquainted with this service it hath been my hap to stumble upon somewhat unseen, which may import the same (as I made my Lord Keeper acquainted before my going). So leaving it to God to make a good ending of a hard beginning (and most humbly craving your Majesty’s pardon for presuming to trouble your Majesty), I recommend your sacred Majesty to God’s tenderest preservation.
From Huntingdon, this 20th of July, 1594.
Your sacred Majesty’s in most humble obedience and devotion,
Fr. Bacon.

• October 14, 1594-95

Letter to the Lord Keeper.

It may please your good Lordship,
I conceive the end already made, which will I trust be to me a beginning of good fortune, or at least of content. Her Majesty by God’s grace shall live and reign long. She is not running away, I may trust her. Or whether she look towards me or no, I remain the same, not altered in my intention. If I had been an ambitious man, it would have overthrown me. But minded as I am, revertet benedictio mea in sinum meum. If I had made any reckoning of anything to be stirred, I would have waited on your Lordship, and will be at any time ready to wait on you to do you service. So I commend your good Lordship to God’s holy preservation.
From Twicknam Park, this 14th of October.
Your Lordship’s most humble at your hon. commandments,
Fr. Bacon.

• November 1594-95

To the Lord of Essex.

It may please your good Lordship,
I pray God her Majesty’s weighing be not like the weight of a balance: gravia deorsum, levia sursum. But I am as far from being altered in devotion towards her, as I am from distrust that she will be altered in opinion towards me, when she knoweth me better. For myself, I have lost some opinion, some time, and some means; this is my account: bill then for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh; for time, it is true it goeth and cometh not; but yet I have learned that it may be redeemed.
For means, I value that most; and the rather, because I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law: (If her Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service:) and my reason is only, because it drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. But even for that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales’ opinion, That a philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your Lordship seeth how I comfort myself; to the increase whereof I would fain please myself to believe that to be true which my Lord Treasurer writeth; which is, that it is more than a philosopher morally can digest. But without any such high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child and had little philosophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your Lordship, I do think myself more beholding to you than to any man. And I say, I reckon myself as a common (not popular, but common); and as much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so much your Lordship shall be sure to have.
Your Lordship’s, to obey your honourable commands,
more settled than ever.

• 1596

To the Lord of Essex.

My singular GOOD Lord,
Your Lordship’s so honourable minding my poor fortune the last year, in the very entrance into that great action (which is a time of less leisure), and in so liberal an allowance of your care, as to write three letters to stir me up friends in your absence, doth after a sort warrant me not to object to myself your present quantity of affairs, whereby to silence myself from petition of the like favour. I brake with your Lordship myself at the Tower, and I take it my brother hath since renewed the same motion, touching a fortune I was in thought to attempt in genere œconomico. In genere politico, certain cross winds have blown contrary. My suit to your Lordship is for your several letters to be left with me, dormant, to the gentlewoman and either of her parents; wherein I do not doubt but as the beams of your favour have often dissolved the coldness of my fortune, so in this argument your Lordship will do the like with your pen. My desire is also, that your Lordship would vouchsafe unto me, as out of your care, a general letter to my Lord Keeper, for his Lordship’s holding me from you recommended, both in the course of my practice and in the course of my employment in her Majesty’s service. Wherein if your Lordship shall in any antithesis or relation affirm that his Lordship shall have no less fruit of me than of any other whom he may cherish, I hope your Lordship shall engage yourself for no impossibility.
Lastly and chiefly, I know not whether I shall attain to see your Lordship before your noble journey; for ceremonies are things infinitely inferior to my love and to my zeal. This let me, with your allowance, say unto you by pen. It is true that in my well-meaning advices, out of my love to your Lordship, and perhaps out of the state of mine own mind, I have sometimes persuaded a course differing; ac tibi pro tutis insignia facta placebunt. Be it so: yet remember, that the signing of your name is nothing, unless it be to some good patent or charter, whereby your country may be endowed with good and benefit. Which I speak, both to move you to preserve your person for further merit and service of her Majesty and your country; and likewise to refer this action to the same end. And so, in most true and fervent prayers, I commend your Lordship and your work in hand to the preservation and conduct of the Divine Majesty; so much the more watchful, as these actions do more manifestly in show, though alike in truth, depend upon His divine providence.

• January 22, 1597

Indorsed by Lord Ellesmere, Mr. Bacon. To the R. hon.
his very good L., the L. Keeper of the great Seale of England.

Yt may please your r. hon. good L.
I have understood that your L. hath an intention to reduce the office of Clerk of the Star Chamber to the just and lawful fees, and to purge it of the exactions newly imposed, and I was advised by a wise friend to desire humbly of your L. to be called unto it. But truly, my good L., I am determined not to meddle in it: first, because my time is not yet come in presence, at lest for any thing doth yet judicially appear. Next, because I trust your Lo. Judgment better then mine own; and sure I am, as long as it is in your good hand, terminus antiquus non movebitur. Lastly, because looking into the matter at first, and since better informing my self, I find the ground to watry for me, or any other to stand upon. And therefore, as at first I always protested to sondre my self from any thing that was unjust, so the same course I hold still, ever desiring your L., as I have heretofore done, that in safting this unlawful prize, no lawful fraught may be [not legible] which I know perfectly your L. will do, and to your L. I wholly leave it. So I commend your good L. to the preservation of the divine Ma.
From Gray’s Inn, this xxijnd of Jan. 1597. *

• 1597

A Letter of Advice to the Earl of Essex to take upon him the care of
Irish causes when Mr. Secretary Cecil was in France.

My singular good Lord,
I do write, because I had no time fully to express my conceit to your Lordship, touching Irish affairs, considering them as they may concern your Lordship; knowing that you will consider them as they may concern the state. That it is one of the aptest particulars for your Lordship to purchase honour upon, I am moved to think for three reasons. Because it is ingenerate in your house, in respect of my Lord your father’s noble attempts: because of all the actions of state on foot at this time, the labour resteth most in that particular: and because the world will make a kind of comparison between those that have set it out of frame and those that shall bring it into frame: which kind of honour giveth the quickest kind of reflexion. The transferring this honour upon yourself consisteth in two points: the one, if the principal persons employed come in by you and depend upon you; the other, if your Lordship declare yourself and profess to have a care of that kingdom. For the persons, it falleth out well that your Lordship hath had no interest in the persons of imputation. For neither Sir William Fitzwilliams nor Sir John Norris was yours. Sir William Russell was conceived yours, but was curbed. Sir Coniers Clifford (as I conceive it) dependeth on you, who is said to do well. And if my Lord of Ormond, in the interim, do accommodate things well (as it is said he doth), I take it he hath always had good understanding with your Lordship. So as all things hitherto are not only whole and entire, but of favourable aspect towards your Lordship, if hereafter you choose well. Concerning the care of the business, the general and popular conceit hath been, that Irish causes have been much neglected; whereby the reputation of better care will put life into them. But for a beginning and key to that which shall follow, it were good your Lordship would have some large and serious conference with Sir William Russell, Sir Richard Bingham, the Earl of Toumond, and Mr. Wilbraham, to know their relation of the past, their opinion of the present, and their advice for the future.
For the points of apposing them, I am too much a stranger to the business to deduce them. But in a general topic, methinks the pertinent interrogations must be, either of the possibility and means of accord, or of the nature of the war, or of the reformation of abuses, or of the joining of practice with force in the disunion of the rebels. If your Lordship doubt to put your sickle into another’s harvest; first, time brings it to you in Mr. Secretary’s absence: next, being mixt with matter of war, it is fittest for you: and lastly, I know your Lordship will carry it with that modesty and respect towards aged dignity, and that good correspondence towards my dear kinsman and your good friend now abroad, as no inconvenience may grow that way.
Thus have I played the ignorant statesman, which I do to nobody but your Lordship: except to the Queen sometimes when she trains me on. But your Lordship will accept my duty and good meaning, and secure me touching the privateness of that I write.

• October

To the Lord of Essex.

It may please your Lordship,
That your Lordship is in statu quo prius, no man taketh greater gladness than I do; the rather, because I assure myself that of your eclipses, as this hath been the longest, it shall be the last. As the comical poet saith, Neque illam tu satis noveras, neque te ilia; hoc ubi fit, ibi non vivitur. For if I may be so bold as to say what I think, I believe neither your Lordship looked to have found her Majesty in all points as you have done, neither her Majesty percase looked to find your Lordship as she hath done. And therefore I hope upon this experience may grow more perfect knowledge, and upon knowledge more true consent; which I for my part do infinitely wish; as accounting these accidents to be like the fish Remora; which though it be not great, yet hath it a hidden property to hinder the sailing of the ship. And therefore as bearing unto your Lordship, after her Majesty, of all public persons the second duty, I could not but signify unto you my affectionate gratulation. And so I commend your good Lordship to the best preservation of the Divine Majesty.
From Gray’s Inn.

• November, 1597

To the R. hon. his very good L. the L.
Keeper of the Great Seale of England be these delivered.

Yt may please your hon. good L.
As I began by letter so I have thought good to go on, signifying to your L., with reference had to my former letter, that I am the same man, and bare the same mind, and am ready to perform and make good what I have written, desiring your L. not only to discern of this my intention, howsoever in other circumstances, concerning the quick and not the impostume of the office, I may seam to stand; but also to think that I had considered and digested with my self how I mought put in execution my purpose of good will to be carried without all note, as first to a deputation in some apt person your L. mought choose, and so to a passing over to such depute, and then a name in the next degree is soon changed. All which I do now write, both lest your L. mought conceive any alteration or inconstancy in me, and also than you mought think that I had sufficient regard to all by matters of discretion before I would expound any thing to a person of such honour. I am assured the matter is bonum in se, and therefore accidents may be accommodate. So in most humble manner I take my leave, commending your L. to God’s preservation.
From Gray’s Inn, this xijth of Nov, 1597.
Humbly at your L. honourable commandment,
Fr. Bacon.

• September 24, 1598

To Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State.

It may please your Honour,
I humbly pray you to understand how badly I have been used by the enclosed, being a copy of a letter of complaint thereof, which I have written to the Lord Keeper. How sensitive you are of wrongs offered to your blood in my particular, I have had not long since experience. But herein I think your Honour will be doubly sensitive, in tenderness also of the indignity to her Majesty’s service for as for me, Mr. Sympson might have had me every day in London; and therefore to belay me, while he knew I came from the Tower about her Majesty’s special service, was to my understanding very bold. And two days before he brags he forbore me, because I dined with sheriff More. So as with Mr. Sympson, examinations at the Tower are not so great a privilege, cundo et redeundo, as sheriff More’s dinner. But this complaint I make in duty; and to that end have also informed my Lord of Essex thereof; for otherwise his punishment will do me no good. So with signification of my humble duty, I commend your Honour to the divine preservation.
From Coleman Street, this 24th of September [1598].
At your honourable command particularly,
Fr. Bacon.

• September 1598

To Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.

It may please your Lordship,
I am to make humble complaint to your Lordship of some hard dealing offered me by one Sympson, a goldsmith, a man noted much, as I have heard, for extremities and stoutness upon his purse: but yet I could scarcely have imagined he would have dealt either so dishonestly towards myself, or be contemptuously towards her Majesty’s service. ** For this Lombard (pardon me, I most humbly pray your Lordship, if being admonished by the street he dwells in, I give him that name) having me in bond for £300 principal, and I having the last term confessed the action, and by his full and direct consent respited the satisfaction till the beginning of this term to come, without ever giving me warning either by letter or message an execution upon me, having trained me at such time as I came from the Tower, where, Mr. Waad can witness, we attended a service of no mean importance. Neither would he so much as vouchsafe to come and speak with me to take any order in it, though I sent for him divers times, and his house was just by; handling it as upon a despite, being a man I never provoked with a cross word, no nor with many delays. He would have urged it to have had me in prison; which he had done, had not sheriff More, to whom I sent, gently recommended me to an handsome house in Coleman Street, where I am. Now because he will not treat with me, I am enforced humbly to desire your Lordship to send for him, according to your place, to bring him to some reason; and this forthwith, because I continue here to my further discredit and inconvenience, and the trouble of the gentleman with whom I am. I have an hundred pounds lying by me, which he may have, and the rest upon some reasonable time and security; or, if need be, the whole; but with my more trouble. As for the contempt he hath offered, in regard her Majesty’s service, to my understanding, carrieth a privilege cundo et redeundo in meaner causes, much more in matters of this nature, especially in persons known to be qualified with that place and employment, which, though unworthy, I am vouchsafed, I enforce nothing; thinking I have done my part when I have made it known; and so leave it to your Lordship’s honorable consideration.
And so with signification of my humble duty, etc.

• 1599

To the Lord of Essex.

My Lord,
Conceiving that your Lordship came now up in the person of a good servant to see your sovereign mistress, which kind of compliments are many times instar magnorum meritorum, and therefore that it would be hard for me to find you, I have committed to this poor paper the humble salutations of him that is more yours than any man’s and more yours than any man. To these salutations I add a due and joyful gratulation confessing that your Lordship, in your last conference with me before your journey, spake not in vain, (God making it good, that you trusted we should say Quis putasset. Which it is found true in a happy sense, so I wish you do not find another Quis putasset in the manner of taking this so great a service. But I hope it is, as he said, Nubecula est, cito trausibit: and that your Lordship’s wisdom and obsequious circumspection and patience will turn all to the best. So referring all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you to God’s best preservation.

Letters dated 1600 and onwards