When it became known that her Majesty Queen Elizabeth had at most, perhaps, a week to live, Francis felt the time was opportune to consider his immediate future. The succession was not in doubt: King James VI of Scotland would be proclaimed King James I of England the moment the Queen breathed her last. It was essential that all men desirous of finding favour with the new monarch, and establishing a foothold on the winding stair to place and position, should make themselves known to those who would have authority in the new Court and the Council.
The most powerful man in England was his own cousin Sir Robert Cecil, who had held the post of Secretary of State to her Majesty for many years. The cousins had never been intimate. Boyish rivalry long past, the friendship that the Earl of Essex had shown to Anthony and Francis had proved an insurmountable barrier, Robert Cecil being the Earl’s implacable enemy, and a cool courtesy had developed between them. Even the volte face at the trial, when Francis had been commanded to speak for the Crown against his former patron, had not softened the relationship.
Nevertheless, an effort must now be made to heal the breach and affirm his loyalty. Francis did not write direct to his cousin, but to Robert Cecil’s personal secretary, Michael Hicks, who had invariably proved a helpful friend and ally, more especially during the financial dealings with Nicholas Trott. His letter, written on March 19th, began, ‘the apprehension of this threatened judgement of God, if it work in other as it worketh in me, knitteth every man’s heart more unto his true and approved friend… Though we card-holders have nothing to do but to keep close our cards and to do as we are bidden, yet as I ever used your mean to cherish the truth of my inclination towards Mr. Secretary, so now again I pray as you find time let him know that he is the personage in this state which I love most: which containeth all that I can do, and expresseth all which I will say at this time.’
A little warm, perhaps? Somewhat overdone? But Michael Hicks would take his meaning. Who next? The Earl of Northumberland, who had shown great friendship to brother Anthony in the past and was married to Dorothy, sister of the late Earl of Essex, was one of those known to have been in correspondence with the King of Scotland, and likely to be early on the scene when the future King of England was proclaimed. Therefore, his letter to Michael Hicks sealed and directed to the address in the Strand, Francis composed another to the earl, but in rather a different vein. He made no allusion to her Majesty’s expected demise but said that he had intended writing to his lordship for some time, since ‘there hath been covered in my mind, a long time, a seed of affection and zeal towards your Lordship, sown by the estimation of your virtues, and your particular honours and favours to my brother deceased, and to myself; which seed still springing, now bursteth forth into this profession.’ The point being that the Earl of Northumberland’s interest in scientific matters was as great as his own, and if anyone in high place was likely to advance research in all these aspects of learning during a new reign Francis could hope for no one better. ‘To be plain with your Lordship… your great capacity and love towards studies and contemplations of an higher and worthier nature than popular… is to me a great and chief motive to draw my affection and admiration towards you. And therefore, good my Lord, if I may be of any use to your Lordship, by my head, tongue, pen, means, or friends, I humbly pray you to hold me your own.’
If the form of such a letter appears obsequious to the modern eye, it must be remembered that this mode of approach from a commoner to a nobleman was not only natural but obligatory in those days; anything savouring of familiarity, even between close friends, would have been totally out of place.
Then there was David Foulis, ex-ambassador of Scotland, who had been on close terms with brother Anthony when he was resident in London. Indeed, he had served as go-between for much correspondence from the Earl of Essex to King James VI. And there was Edward Bruce, Abbot of Kinloss. It would be premature to forward the letters before the Queen had died, but drafts could be made in good time, and both letters forwarded when the moment was ripe.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth died on March 24th, and James was proclaimed King James I of England that same night. A few days later the coffin was taken by barge from Richmond to Whitehall, and thence to Westminster, where it lay in state until the new monarch should make his wishes known as to the time and date of the funeral.
Francis’s letter to David Foulis was on its way north by the 27th, carried by a member of the Council. Three other letters—to the Abbot of Kinloss, and to a couple of Anthony’s friends at the Scottish Court (one of them was Doctor Morison, who had supplied the Earl of Essex with much information, and whose frequent visits to London Anthony had paid for from his own purse)—were entrusted to the son of the Bishop of Durham, young Tobie Matthew. Ever since he had performed the part of the squire in a Device by Essex at Gray’s Inn in 1595, and had won general acclaim for his charm and handsome appearance, Tobie had been one of Francis Bacon’s most particular friends.
Nor were these the only letters Tobie took with him. The most important was addressed to the King himself, and in it Francis offered his particular services to the new Sovereign. The Latin phrases with which it opened—and these, as his Scottish Majesty was known to be a scholar of some degree, would surely please—led the writer to a modest reference to the liberty of access which he had ‘enjoyed with my late dear Sovereign Mistress; a Prince happy in all things, but most happy in such a successor.’ He continued, ‘I was not a little encouraged, not only upon a supposal that unto Your Majesty’s sacred ears… there might perhaps have come some small knowledge of the good memory of my father, so long a principal counsellor in this your kingdom; but also by the particular knowledge of the infinite devotion and incessant endeavours, beyond the strength of his body and the nature of the times, which appeared in my good brother towards your Majesty’s service; and were on your Majesty’s part, through your singular benignity, by many most gracious and lively significations and favours accepted and acknowledged, beyond the merit of anything he could effect… I think there is no subject of your Majesty’s, who loveth this island, and is not hollow and unworthy, whose heart is not set on fire, not only to bring you peace-offerings to make you propitious, but to sacrifice himself a burnt-offering to your Majesty’s service: amongst which number no man’s fire shall be more pure and fervent than mine. But how far forth it shall blaze out, that resteth in your Majesty’s employment.’
Whether King James, who left Edinburgh on his way south on April 5th, actually received and read the letter, assuredly one of hundreds from his loyal and aspiring subjects, is not recorded. Its existence was common gossip in London, however, for John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton, ‘Tobie Matthew has been sent with a letter to the King from Master Bacon, but I doubt neither the message nor the messenger were greatly welcome’. Young Matthew, known to have Catholic sympathies despite his father’s bishopric, might not, after all, have been the wisest emissary to approach the new King, who had been bred in the Scottish kirk, but Francis, susceptible himself to the charms of his close friend, and aware that his sovereign—if rumour was correct—liked a handsome face and a shapely leg, may have thought this was a risk worth taking.
He had one other ally who had gone north to meet the King, and this was the poet John Davies, later to be Attorney-General in Ireland. The letter Francis addressed to him is chiefly remarkable for its concluding sentence, when, having desired Mr. Davies to ‘impress a good conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the King’, he ended, ‘So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue, your very assured, Fr. Bacon.’ So it was not only his closest associates, like Tobie Matthew, who knew how he sometimes spent his leisure hours…
Meanwhile, he had a weightier composition in hand, which was a draft of a proclamation to be read to the King on his arrival in England. It would be anonymous, of course, but might be considered by the Council and subsequently used with no reference to himself. This he sent to the Earl of Northumberland, meaning to call with it in person; but having ‘taken some little physic’ he announced his intention of waiting upon the noble lord the following morning. If the physic was the purge which Francis recommended for opening the liver—‘Take rhubarb two drams, steep them in claret wine burnt with mace, and wormwood one dram, steep it with the rest, and make a mass of pills with syrup acetos simplex’—it was as well he decided to postpone his visit a further twenty-four hours. In the event, the proclamation was never used.
The King’s progress through England to his capital was a leisurely one. He was entertained at many of the great houses on his way south. The Earl of Shrewsbury welcomed him at Worksop, the Earl of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, and so to Burghley, residence of the second Lord Burghley (father to Lady Elizabeth Hatton), on to Huntingdon and Hertfordshire, and finally to Sir Robert Cecil’s estate Theobalds, before going to the Tower of London to await his coronation. His Queen, Anne of Denmark, did not accompany him, nor did any of the royal family; they were to follow later. Somewhere along the route Francis went to greet him, bearing a letter from the Earl of Northumberland, but where is not known. It was most likely at Theobalds, no great distance from Gorhambury.
He recorded his first impression of the new monarch to the Earl.
‘I would not have lost this journey,’ he wrote, ‘and yet I have not that for which I went. For I have had no private conference to any purpose with the King, and no more hath almost any other English. For the speech his Majesty admitteth with some noblemen is rather matter of grace than of business… After I had received his Majesty’s first welcome, I was promised private access; but yet, not knowing what manner of service your Lordship’s letter might carry, for I saw it not, and well knowing that primeness in advertisement is much, I chose rather to deliver it to Sir Thomas Erskins, than to cool it in my hands, upon expectation of access. Your Lordship shall find a prince the farthest from the appearance of vainglory that may be, and rather like a prince of the ancient form than of the latter time. His speech is swift and cursory, and in the full dialect of his country; and in point of business, short; in point of discourse, large. He affecteth popularity by gracing such as he hath heard to be popular, and not by any fashions of his own. He is thought somewhat general in his favours, and his virtue of access is rather because he is much abroad and in press, than that he giveth easy audience about serious things. He hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and nations, faster perhaps than policy will conveniently bear. I told your Lordship once before, that (methought) his Majesty rather asked counsel of the time past than of the time to come. But it is early yet to ground any settled opinion.’
A cautious appraisal, fully justified during the next months as far as Francis himself was concerned, for he remained in the same position that he had held under the late Queen, one of the Learned Counsel, which in fact meant no particular duty in the legal field. Indeed, King James made few innovations on succeeding, preferring to let those who had served his predecessor and held authority under her advise him, though, reasonably enough, he kept a number of his own Scottish friends about him at Court.
Had Anthony Bacon lived he would doubtless have received some greater mark of favour than his brother, because of his secret correspondence with the King through the years, for one of the first acts of condescension on the part of the monarch was to free the Earl of Southampton from the Tower, where he had been imprisoned since the execution of the Earl of Essex, and to welcome to Court Lady Rich, the late earl’s sister, and others of his family. Young Robert Devereux, the earl’s son, now Earl of Essex in his turn, was to complete his education beside Prince Henry, the King’s eldest son. It was unlikely, in the circumstances, that any of these would have kind words to say of Francis Bacon about the Court. Nor did the Earl of Northumberland appear to make much attempt to speak on his behalf.
The only sign of favour came in July, at the time of the coronation—which was held in pouring rain on the 23rd—when Mr. Francis Bacon, along with three hundred others, was knighted at Whitehall, presumably for services to the Crown during the previous reign. What the new knight thought of the coronation itself he did not record. Plague had broken out in the city, and the ride from the Tower of London to Westminster could not take place. King James and his consort Queen Anne went by river to the Palace of Westminster, where the crowd could not see them, and then on foot to the abbey. In the abbey itself it seems that the King, whether from nerves or from a natural disinclination for ceremony, shocked the assembly by permitting Philip Herbert, later Earl of Montgomery, when paying homage, to kiss him on the cheek, and instead of rebuking the young courtier laughed and gave him a playful tap. Times had changed indeed.
The coronation over, the King and Queen retired to Woodstock, for fear of the plague, and Sir Francis Bacon, knowing that months of unemployment in the political and legal field lay before him, withdrew to Gorhambury. What now? What lay ahead? Work, yes, some of his ideas for the future of mankind put down on paper at last. He would have ample time for it, and time to write a paper on the union of England and Scotland; a paper, addressed to the King, on the subject of how to reconcile the dissensions at present threatening to tear apart the Church; and a work in Latin, Temporis Partus Masculus (The Masculine Birth of Time), of which he completed only two chapters, but which was a forerunner of his later thought. Here he wrote as an older man would if addressing a younger, criticising Plato, Aristotle, scholasticism, and the philosophies of the Renaissance. None of them was spared. Of Aristotle he wrote that he ‘composed an art of madness and made us slaves of words’, of Plato that he produced ‘scraps of borrowed information polished and strung together’, and of Galen, the Greek physician, that he had cut short the patient’s hopes and the physician’s labours. ‘Take your Arabian confederates with you, those compounders of drugs, hoaxing the public with their bogus remedies.’ Did he, one wonders, blame his brother Anthony’s death on the taking of too much physic of the wrong sort? ‘But I hear you ask,’ he continued, ‘can everything taught by all these men be vain and false? My son, it is not a question of ignorance, but ill-luck. Everyone stumbles on some truth sooner or later… A pig might print the letter A with its snout in the mud, but you would not on that account expect it to go on and compose a tragedy… On waxen tablets you cannot write anything new until you rub out the old. With the mind it is not so: you cannot rub out the old until you have written in the new.’
Looking about him at Gorhambury, with much still to settle there and his mother now confined mostly to her own rooms and unable to give any sort of direction to the household, Francis reminded himself that next year he would be forty-three and still a bachelor. Elizabeth Hatton, wife to the Attorney-General, was now one of the circle of ladies surrounding Queen Anne. No other woman had ever attracted him as she had done. As for seeking a bride amongst the unmarried daughters of other noblemen about the Court, this was out of the question. Of modest fortune with debts still unpaid, despite his estate of Gorhambury, and without promotion in his profession of the law, he was no great catch. Nor, for that matter, had his fastidious eye ever lighted upon one who might be said to suit his particular taste.
No, if he must—and it well might be politic to do so, in order to have a hostess to grace his table at Gorhambury and appear with him in London—then he would choose one who would not only bring him a dowry but whom, if tender enough in years, he could mould to his own will and fancy. She must have looks, a good presence, a quick mind, and an ability to adapt to any suggestion he might put to her. She must be agreeable to his younger friends, such as Tobie Matthew, and to certain of his servants and devoted adherents who flocked about him at Gray’s Inn and Gorhambury, scribbling at his dictation, and must accept his manner of life as perfectly natural. Approaching middle age, he was not going to change for any bride whom he chose to honour as Lady Bacon. He would be generous to such a one, and show her great kindness and affection. He had always liked the young, preferring them to his contemporaries; indeed, imagination was ready to take wing at the thought of such an innovation to his household—an untutored maid, eager to learn. There would be little jealousies at first, perhaps, among his willing scribes which he could smooth away, all adding to the flavour of novelty, and as time went on there would be new depth, new harmony.
Earlier that year, when dining at his old home York House with Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for the past seven years, he renewed acquaintance with the widow of Alderman Benedict Barnham, who had been Member of Parliament for Yarmouth and had died in 1597. His widow Dorothy had made haste the following year to marry Sir John Packington of Hampton Lovett in Worcestershire, well known as a great character about the Court in the preceding reign, and nicknamed ‘Lusty’ Packington. The Queen, amused at his antics, had made him a Knight of the Bath. Lusty Packington found on his marriage that he had four young stepdaughters to take on as well as a bride. Besides a manor in Suffolk which belonged to his wife, and the estate in Worcestershire, Sir John had a lodging in the Strand, hence his and his wife’s presence that evening at York House.
Visits between the Packingtons and Francis Bacon were exchanged. Francis was introduced to Lusty’s four stepdaughters, a lively quartet, and was told they would each inherit £6,000 and an annual £300 in land from the late Alderman Barnham, which sums would come to their husbands when they married. The second daughter, Alice, was the most striking of the sisters, with a quick tongue suggesting a certain intelligence that would ripen with years. Francis was so impressed with what he saw, after a few encounters, that in a letter to his cousin, now Lord Cecil, in July, before the coronation, he declared that it was his intention ‘to marry with some convenient advancement’. He continued with some words about his prospective knighthood, which he said he would be content to have, and then told his cousin, ‘I have found out an alderman’s daughter, an handsome maiden, to my liking.’
What Lord Cecil thought of the prospective match is unrecorded. Preoccupied with affairs of state and arrangements for the coronation, he was doubtless relieved that cousin Bacon had lowered his sights and was not aiming at some scion of the nobility. Let him marry his alderman’s daughter if he desired, and fortune so favoured him. Francis omitted to tell Lord Cecil that Alice Barnham, in July of 1603, was just eleven years old.