In Scotland the relationships between members of the royal family were also passing through a difficult phase. King James’s heir, the infant prince Henry, was now nearly a year old, and his father wished to follow tradition and have the future King of Scotland brought up in Stirling Castle under the care of the Earl of Mar. This meant enforced separation from his mother Queen Anne, who was not yet twenty-one, and who was so bitterly distressed at the thought of parting from her son that she became seriously ill. Queen Anne was known to have strong Catholic sympathies, which was one factor against her having the upbringing of the heir to the throne under her own supervision; but the usual jealousy between noblemen in high authority played into her hands. The Chancellor, Sir John Maitland, was no friend to the Earl of Mar, custodian of the baby prince, and so he supported the Queen’s case, as did other nobles at the Scottish Court. This rivalry, and the dispute between King James and his Queen, were officially no concern of the Earl of Essex; but since his position close to Queen Elizabeth was well known in Scotland, and both factions desired to stand well with her Majesty, it was to the advantage of them all to keep on good terms with her favourite. The cost of boat-hire between Barn Elms and Westminster or Greenwich, and stockings and beaver hats for gentlemen bearing letters from north of the border, was a small price to pay, though the money came from Anthony Bacon’s pocket and nobody else’s—certainly not from the Privy Purse—for information that in weeks or months to come might benefit the Earl of Essex.

  The Earl, meanwhile, had become a father again. On April 14th his Countess had produced a third son, and like his two elder boys, Robert and Walter, Henry was baptised at St Olave’s Church in Hart Street. Anthony almost certainly attended the christening.

  Once again there is mention amongst his papers of a move to Chelsea: but when, and to whose house, remains untold. Lady Bacon, writing on June 3rd, says, ‘You had a mind to have the long carpet and the ancient learned philosopher’s picture from hence; but, indeed, I had no mind thereto, yet I have sent them, very carefully bestowed and laid in a hamper for safety in carriage. You have now bared this house of all the best; a wife would well have regarded such things, but now they shall serve for use of gaming and tippling upon the table of every common person, your own men as well as others, and so be spoiled as at Redbourne. I should think that John, your tailor, should be fittest to look well to your furniture… I wish the hamper were not opened till yourself were at Chelsea, to see it done before you; for the pictures are put orderly within the carpet. You have one long carpet already. I cannot think what use this should be. It will be an occasion of mockery that you should have a great chamber, called and carpeted.’

  A fortnight later she continues, ‘The weather here very boisterous with wind, hail and rain. I fear you feeble thereof. I would, if it please God, be a few days in London the next term, but I think you will be gone to Chelsea before. Do what you can to expel the gout by diet and seasonable sleeping. Use not yourself to be twanged asleep, but naturally it will grow into a leading custom and hinder you much.’

  Twanged asleep… a delightful thought. Had young Jacques learnt to strum upon the lute, like the pages in Montauban before him, and did his master stretch himself upon his bed and fall into a pleasing slumber because of it?

  In July she bids her son, ‘Look to your things in Chelsea. I send you oakwood strawberries gathered this morning by this bearer and others, his name is Dawes, diligent in the garden, and a zealous Christian servant, I pray you see him and speak with him yourself. He readeth the morning and evening prayers to my house heartily reverently… Sup not, watch not late, and sleep naturally.’

  There was a wedding in the family this month. The late Sir Nicholas Bacon’s eldest daughter by his first wife, twice married and widowed, became the wife of Sir William Perient, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Anthony apparently ‘derided’ the match, and his mother was afraid this would come to the Lord Chief Justice’s ears. ‘I pray hearken to him with all courtesy,’ she warned her son, ‘he is of marvellous good estimation for his religious mind in following his law-calling uprightly; beware, therefore, in words and deeds and speeches at table before him.’

  Besides, the new relative might put in a good word for her younger son, who was still unplaced as Solicitor-General.

  ‘I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief hindereth his health,’ she wrote in August. ‘Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God, and confer with Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with God’s blessed favour, had very good healths and were well out of debt, than any office. Yet, though the Earl showed great affection, he marred all with violent courses. I am heartily sorry to hear how his Lordship sweareth and gameth unreasonably.’ And in a postscript, ‘Alas, what excess of bucks at Gray’s Inn; so to feast it on the Sabbath! God forgive and have mercy upon England.’

  Fulke Greville, who had been a friend of Sir Philip Sidney and was himself a poet, was a good ally to Francis, and like many others had urged the Queen that the post of Solicitor-General should be given to the younger Mr Bacon. ‘I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop,’ Francis told him, ‘and if her Majesty will not take me, it may be selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I have 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 on ad infinitum, I am weary of it; as also of wearying my friends…’

  Thirty-four years old, and the past three years, when he could have held public office and served his Queen and country, wasted. His threat to retire to Cambridge came to nothing, as had a similar plan to travel abroad. Yet the man possessing the most brilliant intellect in the whole of England was never idle. He moved between Gray’s Inn and Twickenham, his restless, enquiring mind forever in pursuit of new ideas, philosophic, literary, scientific, even horticultural—the gardens at Twickenham Park began to take shape about this time—and always the quest for motives: why did a man act thus, or a woman so, what moulded the rulers of the past, the Romans, the Kings of England? Were the stars responsible for ill, or did a man’s own actions shape his destiny? Well, let it go, for the night at any rate, and for relaxation to the playhouse or to a private showing with the Earls of Essex and Southampton, to see how the Lord Chamberlain’s players dealt with their scripts, enacted by Richard Burbage and his company. But before seeking relaxation at the play, one final attempt to persuade Lord Keeper Puckering to further his affairs.

  ‘For if it please your Lordship but to call to mind from whom I am descended, and by whom, next to God, her Majesty, and your own virtue, your Lordship is ascended; I know you will have a compunction of mind to do me any wrong. From Twickenham Park, this 19th August, 1595.’

  Antonio Perez, the Spanish diplomat who had attached himself to the Earl of Essex for nearly a year, hoping for some employment in which he could fully stretch his devious talents for diplomacy, was now back in Europe, on the Earl’s recommendation, endeavouring to prove his same gifts to the duc de Bouillon, Marshal of France. Anthony Bacon was by no means sorry to see him go, for Perez, although good company, had been a drain on time and energy, and it was a relief to get him abroad, with a companion, Godfrey Aleyn, armed with letters of introduction asking that he might be given all possible assistance.

  Perez was received with great honour by the governor of Dieppe, after which nothing was done for him, so he complained. The 525 crowns he had been promised had not been received, nor had he heard either from the Earl of Essex or from Anthony Bacon. So he went to Paris, and presuming upon his former acquaintance with the King’s sister, Princess Catherine, called upon her at the Palace of St Germain, and was most ‘honourably entertained’, so Anthony was informed, even travelling in her coach with her. But—and more protests—no money had yet come, and he was thinking of returning to England.

  This would not do at all, for the Earl of Essex had just offered Anthony the suite of rooms in Essex House where Perez had previously been lodged, an invitation Anthony immediately accepted. So the house in Chelsea had definitely fallen through, it would seem; perhaps it suited the Earl to have Anthony Bacon under his own roof, or, more exactly, under one of his many roofs. Essex House near the Temple, which had been called Leicester House in his stepfather’s day, and had now been refurbished and fitted up for his own use, would do very well for the purpose.

  Essex House fronted the Strand, with a broad terrace to the south, extensive gardens leading down to the river, and, of course, its own landing-stage, Essex Stairs. The house was of irregular shape, with a forecourt, inner paved court, great hall and galleries. The great chamber was above the south-facing hall, there were guest rooms facing east, and the Earl himself seems to have occupied a suite of rooms on the north and west sides of the paved court. His mother, who called herself Countess of Leicester still despite her marriage to Sir Christopher Blount, had her own apartments, besides her house at Wanstead, as did his sister Lady Rich and his grandfather Sir Francis Knollys. Kitchens, larders, wardrobes, armoury, banqueting house, chapel, and finally porter’s lodge, the house was conceived, and kept up, in the grand scale.

  Where his steward, Gilly Mericke, the numerous confidential secretaries, including the Greek scholar Henry Cuffe, and Anthony Bacon had their lodgings can only be surmised, but it seems likely that their rooms were on the third or top floor. There was a wainscotted chamber, known as the stair-head chamber, at the head of the stairs leading to the third floor. This may well have been Anthony Bacon’s apartment, with a second room alongside. Any personal servant would doubtless have occupied the smaller chamber. His butler Knight, his cook, and the rest of his attendants, if they indeed remained with him, would have found quarters amongst the household servants. He presumably paid no rent, but he had to buy his own fuel for heating the apartments, which remained damp even in mid-summer, as he admitted to his mother in a letter some time later.

  Lady Bacon, not surprisingly, was against the move from the start.

  I beseech God his blessing may follow you and be upon you wherever you go. The counsel to part with that London house so well agreed and most necessary was more cunning than regret for your good, being gouty as you be, but you are in such things to your great hurt credulous, and suffer yourself willingly to be abused. For the other place, though honourably offered, shall find many inconveniences not light. Envy, emulation, continual and unseasonable disquiet to increase your gout, great urging for suits, yea importune, to trouble the Earl as well as yourself. Peradventure not so well liked yourself there as in your own house… I fear, having as you have working about you, some increase of suspicion and disagreement, which may hurt you privately if not publicly, or both, by all likelihood these evil times. The Lord help, and I have not mentioned before your unavoidable cause of expense. The manner of your removal goes to my heart. Besides, your own stuff spoiled and lost and many incommodities.

  Mercy is gone with me, and I am but sickly and sad,

  Mater tua pia,

  AB.

  Poor lonely Lady Bacon, seeing her sons so seldom, and her fretful words many a time laced with good advice. Suits and increased pressure Anthony would certainly find in Essex House, with the Earl demanding ever more of his company and assistance.

  The Earl was now much preoccupied with French affairs, and in September he urged the Queen to send an army of some eight or ten thousand men to aid Henri IV against his enemies. His stout-hearted and devoted soldier-friend, the fifty-five-year-old Sir Roger Williams, had already waited upon the King, acting as go-between, and endeavouring at the same time to fob off the attentions of the agitated Perez, who kept insisting that his life was in danger from some unknown assassin.

  Perez was rapidly becoming a liability, and early in October Anthony, as a gesture of goodwill, sent his young servant Jacques Petit with letters to the Spaniard from himself and from the Earl. This might serve to keep him quiet for a week or so, and Jacques Petit was instructed to tell Godfrey Aleyn, Perez’s companion, to report back to England if the Spaniard became too talkative. Which indeed he did, boasting openly at table that the King of France intended to make him a Knight of the Holy Ghost and favour him with even further honours, and was likely to appoint him to his privy council; all of which Anthony, and the Earl, accepted with the proverbial pinch of salt.

  How Anthony was faring himself under the roof of Essex House does not appear, but there was an awkward moment, late in October, when a letter arrived from his mother informing him that she had it on good authority that her Majesty had marvelled he had not yet been to see her in all this while. Lady Bacon ended her letter by saying, ‘Where you be must needs disorder your time of diet and quiet; want of which will keep you lame and uncomfortable. I hear the Lord Howard is too often with you. He is subtly deceitful. Beware! Beware! Burn this.’

  The Queen’s remark, if indeed she had really made it, was enough to send Anthony back upon his bed, and in any event her Majesty did not deserve the bended knee from either brother, for word had finally come that the long-awaited post of Solicitor-General had been given to Serjeant Thomas Fleming.

  The Earl of Essex went at once from Richmond Palace to Twickenham Park to offer his apologies and his sympathy. The following conversation then took place.

  Essex Master Bacon, the Queen hath denied me yon place for you, and hath placed another. I know you are the least part of your own matter, but you fare ill because you have chosen me for your mean and dependence; you have spent your time and thoughts in my matters. I die if I do not somewhat towards your fortune; you shall not deny to accept a piece of land I will bestow upon you. (He was referring to Edward Bacon’s long lease of Twickenham Park, which now, at the latter part of 1595, would revert to the Crown.)

  Francis My Lord, for my fortune it is no great matter, but your offer makes me call to mind what I was wont to hear of the duc de Guise when I was in France, that he was the greatest usurer in the kingdom, because he had turned all his estate into obligations; meaning that he had left himself nothing, but had only bound numbers of persons to him. Now, my Lord, I would not have you imitate his course, nor turn your state thus by great gifts into obligations; for you will find many bad debtors.

  Essex Have no care of that, Master Bacon. Take the land.

  Francis My Lord, I see I must be your homager and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with a saving of his faith to the king and his other lords, and therefore, my Lord, I can be no more yours than I was, and it must be with the ancient savings; and if I grow to be a rich man, you shall give me leave to give it back to some of your unrewarded followers.

  When the Earl had taken his leave Francis wrote him a letter, in which he observed, ‘For myself, I have lost some opinion, some time, and some means; this is my account: but 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. A philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your Lordship seeth how I comfort myself… But without any high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child and had little philosophy, I was glad 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; and as much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so much your Lordship shall be sure to have.’

  The final sentence, so typical of Francis as carrying a sting upon its tail, warned Essex that the Crown would ever have first claim upon him. And so the matter was closed, and he could turn his attention to something lighter, a Device in honour of the Queen’s Accession Day on November 17th, which the Earl could present to her Majesty as his own composition.

  It was customary to celebrate her Majesty’s accession first by a contest of arms, known as the Tilt—this had been started by the Queen’s Champion Sir Henry Lee in 1580. The contest, with speeches and parades, took place in the Tiltyard at Whitehall. Stands were erected for the ladies and gentlemen of the Court, there was standing-room for citizens, and then the present champion, George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, rode into the yard, his horse disguised as a dragon, followed by the Earl of Essex all in white.

  So much for the forenoon’s entertainment, but in the evening the Earl’s Device was performed before her Majesty, with a Squire, supposed to represent Essex, hearing advice from a Hermit (possibly Francis himself), a Soldier, suggesting doughty Sir Roger Williams, and a Statesman, with shoulders even more hunched than those of Sir Robert Cecil. The Squire argued against all three, accepting what was good, rejecting that which seemed unworthy, and ending with vows of undying love to his Mistress, intending, of course, her Majesty.

  The Device, like many another performed by amateurs, sounds somewhat laboured, and the contemporary allusions, which were right on target for November 1595, meaningless to twentieth-century ears; but the Queen was apparently amused, and the Device had the effect of restoring Essex to the royal favour, which had been temporarily withdrawn during the past weeks. A book had recently been published in Antwerp relating to the succession and dedicated to the Earl, saying that no one was more worthy to succeed to the throne than Essex himself. He was as shocked as everybody else when news of the book came to England, but it took several weeks, and the help of the Device, for the Queen to be reassured that her Robin was in no way to be blamed.