If Anthony in his hidden lair could no longer write, no longer move about at will, even his eyesight failing, as it had done once before when he was fourteen, one of his faithful attendants would have taken letters, books, plays, and read them aloud—Jacques, perhaps, Tom Lawson, Robert Prentis or even Ned Selwyn, riding up from his Sussex estate to keep Anthony company. The first quarto of King Henry V had been printed that year, so much of it reviving memories of what the hero of Cadiz had been himself in happier days, when all his thoughts and aims had been set on victory and a foreign enemy’s defeat. When King Harry stood with his lords before the French, it could have been Robert Devereux himself waiting to breach the Spanish citadel.
… Take a trumpet Herauld,
Ride unto the Horsemen on yond hill:
If they will fight with us bid them come downe,
Or voyde the field: they do offend our sight.
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them sker away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
Besides, weele cut the throats of those we have;
And not one alive shall taste our mercy.
King Harry had been proud, and the Earl too; but the first had been dead nearly 180 years, and the second had lost his fire and perhaps his reason. A good thing his doughty comrade-in-arms, Sir Roger Williams the old Welshman, had not lived to see his hero now. Anthony, dreaming of the past, thought of the drinking and the laughter in the taverns, the old warrior boasting of his exploits, and the times the Earl had called on him in Bishopsgate to ask what news there was from France, from Venice and the Netherlands.
When the Earl, first fallen from favour after the Azores expedition, was living in retirement down at Wanstead, the first quarto of King Richard II had been printed. Ned Selwyn or Robert Prentis could read a speech aloud.
I have bin studying, how to compare
This Prison where I live, unto the World:
And for because the World is populous,
And heere is not a Creature, but my selfe,
I cannot do it…
As Anthony thought back, even the moans and plaints and fastidious conceits of Antonio de Perez seemed harmonious. ‘My Lord hath provided him here of the same office those eunuchs have in Turkey, which is to have the custody of the fairest dames,’ thus Standen had written, mocking the Spaniard, with his protestations of a close acquaintance with the Princess Catherine of France, poor lady now married to a man she did not love, and of how he had once travelled in a coach with her from St Germain into Paris. How tedious the King of France had found him too!
Our Court, you know, is hanted
With a refined travailler of Spaine,
A man in all the worlds new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his braine:
One who the musicke of his owne vaine tongue
Doth ravish, like inchanting harmonie:
A man of complements whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutinie.
So the King of Navarre describes Don Adriano de Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost. As well that Antonio de Perez had been out of England in 1598, or he might have seen the play performed at Essex House.
King Henri of Navarre had been Anthony’s first hero; now, as Henri IV of France, he had married a new queen, Marie de Medici, this October. The world had changed, was changing, all about the sick man in his caged retreat, and his second hero, Robert Devereux, had altered almost out of recognition, one moment indecisive, wavering, weary of life, the next listening to advice from meaner men who were only seeking their own ends. There was no quarto published yet of the tragedy of another man suffering from the same sense of oppression as Robert Devereux—it would be nearly three years before Hamlet’s utterances found their way on to the printed page; but in the late autumn of 1600 the play may well have been in the process of composition.
A play with a very different theme was to go into rehearsal very shortly, so that it could be shown before the Queen and her Court on Twelfth Night, when she would be entertaining the Duke of Bracciano, cousin to the new Queen of France. There would be celebrations around the clock through Christmas-tide, her Majesty footing it with the best of them, partly to show how little she thought of her sixty-eight years, and partly to prove she was not thinking of the Earl of Essex, whose absence would be noted by everyone present and, from discretion, not remarked upon anywhere near the royal presence. The play would be a merry one, befitting the occasion. Sir William Knollys would be made a butt and a figure of fun, with his known passion for Moll Fitton, one of her Majesty’s maids of honour. The title of the play? Malvoglio.
Brother Francis would certainly be of the company, and Lady Hatton was listed amongst those attending the Queen. No doubt Francis and his idle pens devised some new conceit to entertain the distinguished visitor at the Inn of Glaucus. But Anthony, the caged bird, never had, and never would, look upon Whitehall in all its brilliance, never see Nonsuch, or Richmond except from the grounds of Twickenham Lodge, or Windsor Castle save from the windows of his coach. It had been his own choice, and there let it rest. The Court of Navarre had been good enough for him, and Princess Catherine de Bourbon less formidable a royal personage than her Majesty of England.
Meanwhile, at Essex House in mid-December, the Countess of Essex had been safely delivered of a daughter, and this over the Earl could summon all his friends for consultation, but for better security have them meet at the Earl of Southampton’s London seat, Drury House. Southampton himself was present, naturally, and his friend Sir Charles Davers, who had corresponded with Anthony Bacon in the past when he was a student in Paris and Anthony was living in Bordeaux, as well as Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, Sir John Davis, surveyor of the Ordinance, and others, including, of course, Sir Christopher Blount. There were said to be at least one hundred and twenty noblemen and gentlemen sworn to the service of the Earl of Essex.
The possibility that Anthony Bacon knew of these consultations at Drury House, or that he formed any part of the growing conspiracy, has never been suggested. He was known to be bedridden, sick, and therefore out of action, of no account. Nevertheless, it is strange that his name nowhere appears. Either he was so ill by this time as to be paralysed, or he was virtually a prisoner, all information withheld from him. Francis could have arranged this, alarmed that his brother’s deep affection for the Earl might lead him to be involved in what so many who were loyal to the throne already feared would, before long, take place, the meetings at Essex House and Drury House having by Christmas attracted considerable attention.
The only contemporary of Anthony’s who ever spoke against him in later years was Henry Wotton, who had entered the Earl’s service in 1595. Dislike between the two men seems to have been mutual, jealousy no doubt the basic cause. In 1651, with Anthony in his grave for half a century and Sir Henry himself twelve years dead, his memoirs, Reliquiae Wottonianae, were published. In them he said, ‘The Earl of Essex had accommodated Master Anthony Bacon in partition of his house, and had assigned him a noble entertainment. This was a gentleman of impotent feet, but of a nimble head; who being of an improvident nature, contrary to his brother the Lord Viscount St Albans, and well knowing the advantage of a dangerous secret, would many times cunningly let fall some words as if he could amend his fortunes under the Cecilians with whom he was near in alliance and of blood also, and who had made some great proffers to win him away.’
Henry Wotton, who by the time he wrote these words was past fifty years of age, had obviously drawn upon backstairs gossip. There was nothing very improvident about Anthony at Essex House, where he complained to his mother of the damp even in summer. Also, his dislike of the Cecil faction was well known. It was brother Francis who wrote courteous letters to their cousin Sir Robert Cecil. Henry Wotton continues, ‘My Lord Henry Howard flies presently to my Lord of Essex and tells him that, unless that gentleman [i.e. Anthony Bacon] was presently satisfied with some round sum, all would be vented. This took the Earl at that time ill-provided, whereupon he would fain suddenly to give him Essex House; which the good old Lady Walsingham did afterwards disengage out of her own store with £2,500: and before he had distilled £1,500 at another time by the same skill. So as we may rate this one secret, as it was finely carried, at £4,000 in present money, besides at the least £1,000 of annual pension to a private and bedrid gentleman. What would he have gotten if he could have gone about his own business?’
The story is an extraordinary one, and prompted by malice. There is no trace of any pension paid to Anthony amongst his papers, but that he often was obliged to pay foreign agents and others from his own pocket is very evident. He was pressed on all sides by creditors, as the Earl was himself when his fortunes sank. Nor does it seem probable that ‘good old Lady Walsingham’ could suddenly lay her hand on some thousands of pounds to satisfy either her son-in-law or his friend Anthony, when her own husband Sir Francis had died so deeply in debt in 1590 that it was feared his creditors would steal his coffin for the sale of the lead.
It is significant that Henry Wotton was safely on the continent when the Earl’s friends and supporters were gathering, significant, too, that his word was never relied upon in later years by those well-known gossips John Chamberlain and Dudley Carleton. Nevertheless, the omission of Anthony’s name from all letters and State papers during the fateful period December 1600 to February 1601 is baffling. That his brother Francis was at last free, or almost free, from debt is indicated in a letter to Michael Hicks, secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, written on January 25th 1601 by Francis himself.
I am now about this term to free myself from all debts which are in any ways in suit or urged, following a faster pace to free my credit than my means can follow to free my state, which yet cannot stay long after, I having resolved to spare no means I have in hand, taking other possibilities for advantage, to clear myself from the discontent of speech or danger from others. And some of my debts of most clamour and importunity I have this term and some few days before ordered and in part paid. I pray you to your former favours which I do still remember and may hereafter requite, help me out with £200 more for six months. I will put you in good sureties, and you shall do me a great deal of honesty and reputation. I have writ to you the very truth and secret of my course, which to few others I would have done, thinking it may move you.
So, although in need of a further loan, yet the main part of his debts had been paid. No revelation as to the source of payment. No mention of his ailing brother.
During the first week in February someone from Essex House either sent or took a message to the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, saying that a conspiracy had been formed, led by Essex, whereby the Council was to be overthrown, the Queen’s person seized, and a new parliament called to change the form of government. The name of the informer was never given; it was said to be a man who had been at Trinity College with Essex as a student, and had remained close to him ever afterwards.
The Secretary of State was now thoroughly aroused, and the rest of the Council too. On the morning of Saturday February 7th the Earl was summoned to appear before them. He refused, pleading illness, but the summons alerted him and all his supporters at Essex House. If there was to be action, it must take place within twenty-four hours; surprise was essential if action was to succeed. Zero hour was fixed for Sunday morning, when people would be at church and the Earl would ride into the city, arriving at Paul’s Cross before the end of the sermon, and there appeal to Sheriff Smith who commanded the militia, and afterwards to the Lord Mayor, asking for the support of the City of London. So confident did the conspirators feel that Sir Gilly Mericke, Essex’s steward, went over to the playhouse at Southwark and offered the actors forty shillings if they would perform the play of Richard II. It was thought this would so rouse the spectators, showing as it did the deposing of a monarch, that they would rally to the Earl the following day. The performance seems to have fallen flat: the audience had seen the play before. But the choice was significant, showing that her Majesty had some reason to mistrust the theme when she had discussed it with Francis Bacon at Twickenham Lodge.
Sunday dawned, and soon after daybreak the courtyard of Essex House was full of armed men. The members of the Council had made their own preparations, and at ten o’clock Lord Keeper Egerton, Sir William Knollys and Lord Chief Justice Popham arrived, demanding admission. They found the Earl of Essex and his friends assembled, including the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, with more than three hundred men. The Lord Keeper ordered that everyone should disperse, and said that if the Earl of Essex had cause for complaint he would hear his case in private and report it to the Queen.
Essex replied that there was a plot against his life and he was to have been murdered in his bed; letters had been written in his name, his signature counterfeited, his friends had assembled merely to defend him. This was not believed either by the Lord Keeper or his companions, and once again he asked to speak with the Earl in private.
Then the crowds in the courtyard, supporters of the Earl, began to cry out, ‘Kill them… stop them… Cast the Great Seal out of the window.’ Essex led Egerton and his companions into a back room of the house and told them, ‘Be patient here awhile, my Lords, and stay here, and I will go into London and take order with the Mayor and the Sheriffs of the city, and will be here again within this half-hour.’
Then the door was shut and locked and the further door fastened too, and the Lord Keeper, the Controller and the Lord Chief Justice were left there as hostages, guarded by Sir John Davis and others.
The plan for the ride into the city had miscarried with the unexpected arrival of the Lord Keeper, and now the horses were not ready, so that the Earl with two hundred men was obliged to go on foot from Essex House to the city, joined by the Earl of Bedford and others. People looking from their windows stared, astonished, to see the Earl with his group of supporters, sweating their way to Sheriff Smith’s house in Fenchurch, no hero of Cadiz on horseback, proud and smiling, with crowds acclaiming him. The streets were empty, and there was no sermon being preached at Paul’s Cross.
‘For the Queen, for the Queen, a plot is laid against my life,’ shouted the Earl, haggard and distraught. People turned away. The Sheriff made excuses from his house in Fenchurch Street. The whole scheme was in total disarray. Some of the supporters who had followed the Earl sensed the situation and began to disperse. There was nothing for it but to return to Essex House. In Ludgate Street soldiers were standing guard. Essex ordered a charge, but his diminishing band of followers was repulsed. Sir Christopher Blount was wounded and taken prisoner, a young friend of the Earl’s named Tracy was killed, and a handful of bystanders as well. A musket-shot pierced the Earl’s hat. It was a lamentable and disastrous finale for the hero who had breached the walls of a citadel and sacked the houses of Cadiz.
The Lord Keeper and his two associates were released from Essex House by Ferdinando Gorges, who now feared for his own life; and scarcely had the Earl and his remaining supporters, unable to return along the Strand because of the soldiers blocking their way, taken boat from Queenhithe and returned to Essex House, than it was surrounded by forces summoned by the Lord Admiral. The Countess of Essex, Lady Rich and other ladies of the house were allowed to leave, but the Lord Admiral would make no terms with those whom he deemed rebels. The Earl burnt all his papers, among them, it was said, a history of his troubles, declaring that he would tell no tales of his friends.
At 10 o’clock that Sunday evening Essex and his fellowpeers and knights surrendered their swords to the Lord Admiral.
The night was stormy, the river rough—it was thought too rough to proceed by boat further than Lambeth—but an order came from her Majesty that despite the weather the rebels were to be conveyed by barge to the Tower, where, nearly forty-seven years before, she herself had gone as prisoner.