Restored once more to favour, prospects for the future seemed brighter than they had done for many months. He must not expect continual access to the monarch, but at least the first interview had been granted, and with Buckingham in good humour once more greater progress would be made in time. The eight books of De Augmentis Scientiarum—the Latin additions to The Advancement of Learning—were with the printers, and his leisure hours, apart from other work, could be spent on a life of Henry VIII, a fitting sequel to the History of Henry VII.
Living at Bedford House was expensive, though, and it was difficult to keep her ladyship at bay. His finances were still at a low ebb, and there appeared to be one answer to this, ensuring privacy at the same time. He would move back to his old quarters at Gray’s Inn. Here he would have all the books he needed, students going to and fro at his bidding, friends and associates calling with no questions asked, the life that had suited him admirably when young now adjusting to his needs as he grew old. Every corner was familiar: the entrance through the court, his rooms above, the furniture that had been his father’s and his half-brothers’ before him—no whining creditor could take these from him.
At Gray’s Inn he was known, loved and respected, his very name a legend; and if he needed a nosegay on his table and the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers, he need not send to Gorhambury but to Lady Hatton within strolling distance, and her garden there. She had sold the house itself to the Duke of Lennox for £2,000 in ready money, with £1,500 a year for her lifetime, but had wisely kept the lodgings over the gate and a door into the gallery. His Grace would never dare deny her access to her garden. So, when he felt in the vein, talks over old times, without mentioning his rival, her husband Sir. Edward Coke, who had been in disgrace himself the past year and committed to the Tower, but was now released.
Juggling for position was long over, they could call it quits. The power game had ended for the ex-Lord Chancellor and the ex-Lord Chief Justice. Their advice in Council, usually on opposing sides, was no more than a memory. Sir. Edward, an exile in his turn, was living with one of his married daughters, and was likewise over-burdened with his own and his family’s debts. Neither man, any longer, could do the other harm.
Francis at least could follow each turn in the political game through his informant Tobie Matthew, who, moving with ever-growing involvement in diplomatic circles, and in constant touch with the Spanish ambassador Count de Gondomar, was one of the first to report that a plan was afoot for the Prince of Wales and the Marquis of Buckingham to travel incognito to Spain. Once there it was hoped they could enlist the cooperation of King Philip in the recovery of the Palatinate, and in return conclude the marriage negotiations between the Infanta and the Prince of Wales. In short, an alliance would be cemented between Catholic Spain and Protestant Britain.
The reason for secrecy was that such an alliance was likely to be unpopular at home. Parliament, prorogued the year before without the subsidy granted, had not been recalled, nor was the Council briefed on this sudden project. The Prince of Wales and his companion Buckingham, wearing false beards, were ferried from Essex to Gravesend, and thence to Dover, sailing on February 21st 1623; but the secret was out. According to John Chamberlain the world was talking of it the following day and doubts were expressed about the mission which was likely to prove ‘costly and hazardous.’
Francis would have discussed the likelihood of success or failure privately with Tobie Matthew, but to Buckingham he wrote, ‘Though your Lordship’s absence fall out in an ill time for myself, yet because I hope in God this noble adventure will make your Lordship a rich return in honour abroad and at home, and chiefly in the inestimable treasure of the love and trust of that thrice-excellent Prince; I confess I am so glad of it, as I could not abstain from your Lordship’s trouble in seeing it expressed by these few and hasty lines. I beseech your Lordship of your nobleness vouchsafe to present my most humble duty to his Highness, who I hope ere long will make me leave King Henry the Eighth and set me on work in relation of his Highness’s heroical adventures.’ And in a note to the gentleman in attendance upon the Prince and Buckingham he wrote, ‘Myself for quiet and the better to hold out am retired to Gray’s Inn: for when my chief friends were gone so far off, it was time for me to go to a cell. God send us a good return of you all.’
And her ladyship? Not a word of her since July, when she was demanding half the sum due for the sale of York House lease. It was now the end of February. She can hardly be blamed if she relied rather more for companionship upon her steward John Underhill than her husband, safely installed at Gray’s Inn, either knew or cared. She had her freedom. He had his work.
The question is, on what particular work was Francis Bacon engaged during the winter, spring and summer of 1623, and did Tobie Matthew possess the secret? Tobie left for Spain, in the wake of the Prince of Wales and Buckingham, some time in April, bearing letters from his friend and mentor to the Marquis, to the Earl of Bristol (the King’s emissary) and to Count de Gondomar. Spedding, Bacon’s biographer, prints all three letters, but omits—possibly because he thought it of little interest—a letter from Tobie to Francis which was published in Birch’s Collection of 1762.
The letter reads as follows:
‘To the Lord Viscount St. Alban.
‘Most honoured Lord,
I have received your great and noble token and favour of the 9th of April, and can but return the humblest of my thanks for your Lordship’s vouchsafing so to visit this poorest and unworthiest of your servants. It doth me good at heart, that, although I be not where I was in place [referring obviously to his stay under Francis’s roof, either at Bedford House or Gray’s Inn], yet I am in the fortune of your Lordship’s favour, if I may call that fortune, which I observe to be so unchangeable. I pray hard that it may once come in my power to serve you for it; and who can tell, but that, as fortis imaginatio generat causam, so strange desires may do as much? Sure I am, that mine are ever waiting on your Lordship; and wishing as much happiness as is due to your incomparable virtue, I humbly do your Lordship reverence.
‘Your Lordship’s most obliged and humble servant
‘Tobie Matthew.’
[Postscript.] ‘The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship’s name though he be known by another.’
Here is food for speculation. To what personal notes and papers, to what manuscripts, had Tobie Matthew been granted access at Gray’s Inn? Was something in preparation that was to appear later under a different name? No other inference can be drawn from that cryptic postscript. The Latin De Augmentis Scientiarum had been with the printers for months, and would be published in October with the author’s name upon it, and the usual copies forwarded to his Majesty and the Prince of Wales. The history of the reign of Henry VIII was no more than a fragment, consisting of a couple of pages, and never finished; besides, when the chaplain Rawley came to publish it, with other of the works, it carried, as the rest did, the author’s name, Francis Bacon.
‘The most prodigious wit… is of your lordship’s name, though he be known by another.’
Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, in one volume, was published in November 1623, a month later than De Augmentis Scientiarum, and had likewise been in the hands of its printers for something like eighteen months. Printing had started early in 1622, had been interrupted during the summer, and had continued during the following year. The work, which came to be known as the First Folio, consisted of 934 pages, and approximately 1,000 copies were printed, all at the shop of William and Isaac Jaggard. The editors were fellow actors of the dead dramatist, John Heminge and Henry Condell (thus was the spelling of the day), Heminge having also been business manager of the acting company and having large financial interests in the Blackfriars and Globe theatres. It is generally thought that Edward Knight, the book-keeper of the King’s Men’s company, actually had the exacting task of editing the text, but there is no proof of this. Of the thirty-six plays that the volume contained, eighteen had never before been printed. Performed, yes; yet, again, there is no documentary proof that each of these eighteen plays had been seen in public, nor can any scholar affirm that the acted text was word for word, or scene for scene, the same as that of the printed text of the First Folio in 1623. (A list of these eighteen plays is given in Appendix II.)
The volume also contained laudatory poems to the dead dramatist from Ben Jonson and others, an epistle To the Great Variety of Readers from John Heminge and Henry Condell, and a list of the principal actors who had appeared in the plays. Henry Condell, incidentally, had by now retired from the stage and was living on his estate at Fulham, a neighbour to Sir. John Vaughan, with whom Francis Bacon had lodged after his disgrace in 1621.
It might be thought the Folio would have been dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, known to have been William Shakespeare’s patron in his early days in the theatre, but he is nowhere mentioned. The volume bore the dedication to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery. The former was currently Lord Chamberlain, and his brother succeeded him in this position three years later.
William Herbert was one of those members of the House of Lords who had been more kindly disposed to Viscount St. Alban at the impeachment than some others, and there is a memorandum of thanks to him for ‘his kind remembrance,’ in the hand of Francis’s secretary Thomas Meautys but dictated by his employer: ‘I cannot but acknowledge the moderation and affection his Lordship showed in my business, and desire that of those few his Lordship will still be one for my comfort, in whatsoever may cross his way, for the furtherance of my private life and fortune.’ As for his brother, the Earl of Montgomery, it was he who had obtained the interview for Lady St. Alban with the Marquis of Buckingham, and a note in St. Alban’s papers late that year says, ‘There is not an honester man in court than Montgomery.’ All three men, Francis Bacon, Pembroke and Montgomery, had been founders of and had held shares in the Virginia Company and the Newfoundland Company in 1609, and had known one another for years.
It is interesting that the decision to print the volume of plays—the First Folio—had been taken early in 1622, after the Lord Chancellor’s disgrace, and when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb. Why had no attempt been made to collect and publish the thirty-six plays immediately after William Shakespeare’s death in April 1616? Why the lapse of seven years? Heminge and Condell mention in their epistle to the reader ‘surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that exposed them’: so fraudulent editions had been distributed from time to time; but now at last, in 1623, the genuine and definitive edition was for sale.
It is not intended here to enter into a long and tedious argument as to whether William Shakespeare was indeed the author of all the thirty-six plays published under his name in the First Folio. The original manuscripts, notes and promptcopies have never been found. It is suggested, however, that some of the themes, plots, scenes and speeches could have been contributed by others, and woven into the necessary form for dramatic presentation by the actor-playwright. Anthony Bacon was living in Bishopsgate, close to the Bull Inn where plays were performed, in 1594; William Shakespeare was living in the same parish, and acting with Richard Burbage and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It was on December 28th of that year that The Comedy of Errors was performed at Gray’s Inn. It is furthermore suggested that from this time forward both Anthony and Francis Bacon, and possibly others, were in collaboration with the actor-dramatist on some of the earlier plays, which were issued in quarto and printed, and that, after the Essex débâcle, Anthony’s death and the start of the new reign, Francis Bacon continued this collaboration. Anonymity suited both men, William Shakespeare deriving financial advantage and popular success, while the Learned Counsel and politician preferred to be known for his philosophical and literary efforts.
It is interesting that William Shakespeare, despite the performances of his plays often given at Court, seems never to have been officially presented to their Majesties King James and Queen Anne, unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson; and that no new plays were forthcoming from his pen after 1612, when he retired to his birth-place at Stratford-on-Avon, shortly before Francis Bacon became Attorney-General.
William Shakespeare left a long and very detailed will when he died four years later, entirely concerning property to be settled amongst his family, but without mentioning any interest he may have had in any of the plays that had been issued in his name. This was because all rights of authorship belonged to the King’s Men’s company, and to the publishers of those plays that had appeared in quarto. Twenty-five pounds each went to his fellow-actors John Heminge, Richard Burbage and Henry Condell, ‘to buy them rings.’
It was only in succeeding centuries, and particularly during the past one hundred and fifty years, that the astonishing range and versatility of these plays won world-wide recognition, and perhaps in our own time more than ever before, now that they can be seen not only on the stage but on the screen at home as well. There are said to be some 238 copies of the First Folio in existence today. Priced at £1 in 1623, a copy was sold to a book-dealer in 1923 for approximately £25,000. In 1975 it would probably cost a quarter of a million. John Chamberlain, who had at least made an attempt to read Francis Bacon’s Latin philosophical works, and had praised his History of Henry VII, cannot have thought very much of William Shakespeare’s plays. The publication of the First Folio is not even mentioned in his letters. ‘The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation…’
Tobie Matthew, in Madrid, ‘is grown extreme lean and looks as sharp as an eyass’ reported the Marquis, now Duke of Buckingham, from Spain on May 29th, when thanking Francis for his ‘hearty congratulation for the great honour and gracious favour which his Majesty hath done me.’ Negotiations for the royal marriage were apparently progressing well, and frequent letters passed between Matthew and his mentor the Viscount St. Alban during that summer of 1623, but there is no further allusion to ‘the prodigious wit,’ and if Francis ever remarked upon that postscript to Tobie’s letter the shrewd diplomat destroyed the reference.
By the end of June Francis, still at Gray’s Inn, told his friend in Madrid that the essays were being made more perfect, ‘well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens which forsake me not. For these modern languages will at one time or other play the bankrupts with books; and since I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad as God shall give me leave to recover it with posterity.
‘For the essay of friendship, while I took your speech of it for a cursory request I took my promise for a compliment. But since you call for it I shall perform it.’
Bacon’s essay Of Friendship, which he now enlarged from a shorter, earlier version, is one of his longest and most famous, and the more interesting in that Tobie Matthew was the source of inspiration.
‘You may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain, but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever liveth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession… Certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communication and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation… I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.’
No man could have wished for a finer tribute than this.
It is possible that Francis was indeed taking sarza for the liver and flower of sulphur for the lungs that summer of 1623, for on August 29th he wrote to the Duke of Buckingham, excusing himself for not having written before. ‘In truth I was ill in health… for I have lain at two wards, the one against my disease, the other against my physicians, who are strange creatures. I do understand from Mr. Matthew, which rejoiceth me much, that I live in your Grace’s remembrance, and that I shall be the first man that you will have care of at your return, for which I most humbly kiss your hands.’
The letter is written from Gray’s Inn, which leads one to suppose that he had remained there throughout his sickness, and had not spent any time at Gorhambury. Copies of De Augmentis Scientiarum—the Latin translation and additions to The Advancement of Learning—were awaiting the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham on their return from Spain in October, and Francis, who seems to have recovered his health by now, was hoping that Buckingham could obtain for him the position of Provost of Eton. The post had not been filled since the former Provost had died in April, and although Francis had put forth tenders at the time the Secretary of State, Sir. Edward Conway, had not been able to hold out any firm promise. A word from the Duke to his Majesty would surely arrange the matter. Francis had never abandoned his desire to help mould the minds of future generations, to watch over the training of the young who would one day, by their birth and upbringing, rise to positions of authority in Parliament and government; besides, Eton’s proximity to Windsor Castle would be useful. Unfortunately the Duke had promised the post to another—Sir. Henry Wotton had it eventually—and Eton College lost the chance of a provost who possessed ‘the most prodigious wit… this side of the sea.’
Meanwhile, what had the Duke and the Prince of Wales actually accomplished in Spain? Not a very great deal, according to the gossip filtering through the pen of John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton. At first there was great public acclaim. Hogsheads of wine in the streets, butts of sack, bonfires everywhere, and when the Prince and the Duke arrived at Royston his Majesty fell on their necks, and everybody wept. But, the celebrations over, Chamberlain reported in the third week of October that ‘our courtiers and others that were in Spain begin now to open their mouths and speak liberally of the coarse usage and entertainment, where they found nothing but penury and proud beggary, besides all other discourtesy… and whereas it was thought the Spaniards and we should have peace and grow together, it seems we are generally more disjointed and farther asunder in affections than ever.’
One of the incidents that irritated John Chamberlain most was that Tobie Matthew had been knighted at Royston, ‘but for what service God knows.’ For keeping the peace, one assumes, between the high dignitaries of the Spanish court and their English guests, for it was soon learnt that the Duke of Buckingham had fallen out with the Count de Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, and had returned from Spain no longer in favour of the Spanish treaty of alliance. Francis would have heard of this direct from Tobie Matthew, also that Parliament was likely to be recalled. No longer a member of the Council, or of Parliament, yet he fretted to give advice, the mood of those in power being such that opposing factions might once more develop, and the Duke’s own position of authority be placed in jeopardy. He must write a letter of advice to his Grace, first of all jotting down notes in a memorandum of what he intended to say.
‘There are considerable in this state three sorts of men. The party of the Papists which hate you, the party of the Protestants, including those they call Puritans, whose love is yet but green towards you, and particular great persons, which are most of them reconciled enemies, or discontented friends… It is good to carry yourself fair… to keep a good distance and to play your own game, showing yourself to have, as the bee hath, both of the honey and of the sting… You march bravely, but methinks you do not draw up your troops… If a war be proceeded in, to treat a straight league with France… Above all you must look to the safety of Ireland… for the disease will ever fall to the weakest part… You bowl well, if you do not horse your bowl an hand too much. You know the fine bowler is knee almost to ground in the delivery of the cast. Nay, and the King will be a hook in the nostrils of Spain, and lay a foundation of greatness to his children here in these west parts. The call for me, it is book-learning… I cannot thread needles so well.’
The jottings run on and on, fascinating for the image they give of Francis Bacon, ex-Lord Chancellor, letting his mind leap ahead to a future alliance with France as against a treaty with Spain, ever mindful of Catholic Ireland as a possible base for Spanish invaders. Then, when his thoughts were assembled into some order, they could be translated into a true directive. One jotting only was omitted: ‘Offer of mine own service upon a commission into France.’ He had been ill, he was yet frail, his sixty-third birthday was fast approaching, but if there was anything he could still do to serve his King and his country he was ready, despite the humiliation and shame of his disgrace.
Parliament was to be called during February of the new year, 1624, and both Houses would then be informed of all that had taken place regarding the Spanish treaty and the marriage negotiations. According to the terms of his sentence Francis was not permitted to take his seat in the House of Lords; nevertheless he could draw up notes of a speech he would have made had he been present, and, moreover, compose a lengthy document entitled Considerations Touching a War with Spain which he addressed specifically to the Prince, beginning with the words, ‘Your Highness hath an imperial name. It was a Charles that brought the empire first into France; a Charles that brought it first into Spain; why should not Great Britain have his turn?’
The document was an enlargement of his original treatise on the subject, first written in 1619 when he still held high office, and once again Francis Bacon, who had been a man of peace for most of his life, showed himself to be something of a hawk in his last years, with considerable understanding of how the united forces of Great Britain, France and the Low Countries could scatter and overcome the armies and ships of Spain. His comparison with the power which Spain possessed in 1588, Armada year, and now in 1623, is concise and masterly, the balance having shifted in favour of Britain and her nearest neighbours; while any naval or military authority who read the document then—if any did—would surely have warmed to the author (as he would today) for certain of the sentiments expressed.
‘Of valour I speak not; take it from the witnesses that have been produced before: yet the old observation is not untrue, that the Spaniard’s valour lieth in the eye of the looker-on; but the English valour lieth about the soldier’s heart.’ And he has a splendid tilt at the ‘doves’ who demurred against taking action of any kind, calling them ‘schoolmen, otherwise reverend men, yet fitter to guide penknives than swords.’
He recommended that the Commons should appoint a select committee with power ‘to confer with any martial men or others, that were not of the House, for their advice and information,’ but needless to say this suggestion went unheeded. Whether indeed the document was ever shown to the Prince of Wales or anyone else in authority at the time we have no means of knowing. In any event the marriage negotiations were broken off, apparently with the agreement of both parties, and when Parliament met in February 1624 it was observed that the Prince of Wales was in attendance every day. Possibly he had read Viscount St. Alban’s document after all. When the House voted to end the treaties, and to raise money for the assistance of the Palatinate, the whole British people rejoiced, and bonfires were lighted in the streets once more. Francis Bacon contributed, it was said, four dozen faggots and twelve gallons of wine. He might be without influence or power, but he could still engage in celebration, and damnation to his creditors.