The King of France was not so persuaded, and sent the duc de Bouillon as emissary to confer with her Majesty and her Council. But before this the King had written a personal letter to Anthony Bacon.

  Monsieur Bacon,

  I have always held a high opinion of you through the affectionate services you have rendered me, and because of your providential handling of public affairs, which is why I now ask Monsieur de Sancy to bear this letter to you, and to inform you of my intentions, so that you may assist me in regard to my cousin the Earl of Essex, knowing full well his reliance upon you. I trust you will be able to employ yourself accordingly, and when occasion presents itself, I shall most certainly recognise this service, praying God that He will keep you in his care.

  This XIth day of April, 1596,

  Henri.

  The King, with his reference to ‘affectionate services’, can hardly have had in mind past events in Béarn, now ten years old. It seems evident, from the wording of the letter, that Anthony had sent him intelligence from England during the intervening years, possibly through Tom Lawson, who frequently travelled to France, or by some other trusty messenger. That he communicated with Marshal Matignon, who had protected him in Bordeaux as far back as 1584, is proved by an undated letter from Anthony, written in either 1595 or 1596, offering his services, in the shape of information, at any time, and assuring the Marshal that the Earl of Essex held him in high esteem.

  It is hardly likely that Anthony Bacon acted as a ‘double agent’ as the term is used today, but in all matters of diplomacy, then as now, it paid to keep your allies informed of any particular move that might concern them; and when, as in 1596, her Majesty’s Council were opposed on foreign policy, with Essex taking a contrary view to that of the Lord Treasurer and his son Sir Robert Cecil, then Anthony would naturally put the Earl’s interests first and see that nothing was lacking to obtain intelligence from any source, even if some small measure of the same was expected in return. On this occasion he was, however, careful to excuse himself from receiving Monsieur de Sancy personally, pleading an infirmity which confined him to his chair, and the actual bearer of the letter was Monsieur le Doux, the agent who had so shocked young Jacques Petit in Rutland. Anthony hastened to reply to Monsieur de Sancy the following day, expressing his unbroken devotion to his Majesty, and offering to do everything in his power to further the King’s service. The memory of Montauban, and of what might have been but for King Henri of Navarre, could never be erased from his memory.

  On April 17th the duc de Bouillon, accompanied by Perez and Aubéry du Maurier, who for some time had been the Duke’s private secretary, arrived at Gravesend on the official mission to the Queen. Standen, still hovering amongst the lesser fry at Court, wrote to Anthony that the French emissary was expected at Greenwich the following day, and that the Earl of Essex, not wishing to be embroiled, had left for Portsmouth with every intention of going to sea. The excuse that had served Anthony in his reluctance to meet Monsieur de Sancy must serve again with the duc de Bouillon, whom he had also known in Béarn, when the Duke was in attendance upon the Princess Catherine. As for du Maurier, he had been too closely associated with Anthony’s old enemy du Plessis to find a welcome on the third floor of Essex House. Anthony wrote at once placing his coach at de Bouillon’s disposal, but regretting that ‘a severe fit of his old disorder’ prevented him from waiting upon the Duke in person. It turned out that he need not have worried; de Bouillon was seized with ague as soon as he set foot in England, and it was some little while before he was well enough to attend her Majesty.

  It was one thing to plead indisposition to Monsieur de Sancy and the due de Bouillon, but quite another to keep Perez at bay. He knew his way to the rooms in Essex House that had been his own before Anthony took them over, and had no hesitation about bursting in upon the invalid and pouring out complaints. The Lord Treasurer and his son ‘Roberto il diavolo’ had slandered him; the Queen was incensed against him, due, he felt sure, to rumours spread about him by Monsieur de Sancy; the Earl of Essex had left for Portsmouth without seeing him; and the duc de Bouillon suggested that he should return forthwith to France—in short, he was totally baffled by his poor reception in England, and felt so ill in consequence that he must go to Bath to recover. Whether he went, his wants supplied by the Bacon purse, is not clear, but Anthony told the Earl, by now in Plymouth at a safe distance from the importuning Spaniard, that he would rather hear the cannon’s roar by his side, nor would that sound so much trouble him or hinder his rest, as the complaints, exclamations, discontentments and despair of Antonio de Perez.

  ‘I have been advised by my physicians to retire into the country to attend to my health and take physic there,’ he added, ‘yet I am content to stay in town and keep Antonio from despair.’

  Then another visitor arrived, Monsieur de la Fontaine, minister of the French church in London, saying that the duc de Bouillon had recovered from his ague and was shortly to see the Queen, but was disturbed that the Earl of Essex had not remained in town to see him and feared some change in his attitude. Did Mr Bacon know why this should be so? No, Mr Bacon did not know, and was sure that the duc de Bouillon had been misinformed. A hurried note was sent to the Earl in Plymouth accordingly. ‘I beseech your Lordship,’ wrote Anthony, ‘by one word to give me my tune and my plain song to descant hereof.’

  How much simpler, indeed, to hear the cannon roar, to muster men and ships, than to sit in Essex House and deal with so many complaints from those visitors to London. Tom Lawson was already with the Earl at Plymouth, and Standen too. If only Anthony’s health had permitted he would have formed one of that merry company, and ridden down to Devon on one of her ladyship’s greys from Gorhambury. Instead, another 200 crowns to Hawkins in Venice, and a slightly indiscreet letter accompanying the sum, acquainting the agent of the fact that her Majesty’s army in Plymouth comprised 14,000 men at the least, of whom 1,500 were gentlemen volunteers; also that the duc de Bouillon and Monsieur de Sancy were likely to be ill-satisfied with their mission to the Queen.

  Meanwhile brother Francis had spoken twice with her Majesty, a full hour each time, and it looked as if the long period of disfavour was over at long last.

  ‘Thus,’ Anthony told his mother, ‘your Ladyship sees, that tho’ loyalty, patience and diligence may for a time be shadowed and disgraced by malice and envy, yet it pleaseth God, the fountain of all goodness, by His extraordinary power, to make them sometimes shine to the prince’s eyes, through the darkest mists of cunning and misreports.’

  The family hopes were raised at the same time, for a brief moment, by the sudden death from apoplexy of Lord Keeper Puckering. The place was immediately filled by the Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Egerton, which meant that the Mastership of the Rolls was now vacant. However, on May 15th someone else was appointed. Francis, for his part, had expected nothing; it was only that Anthony, by writing a word in due season to the Earl at Plymouth, felt that some cautious move might be made on his brother’s behalf. No matter. His time would come.

  On May 16th a treaty was signed between the Queen’s Commissioners—the Lord Treasurer and others—and the duc de Bouillon, on the conclusion of which, although the terms were not entirely satisfactory from the French point of view, de Bouillon and his retinue prepared to take their leave, Perez amongst them. Anthony, exhausted by the continuous ‘importuning’ of the Spaniard, accepted with intense relief his brother’s invitation to Twickenham. The lodge, as they called it, was at Anthony’s disposal; he could rest there in seclusion, Francis himself moving between Gray’s Inn and the Court. Anthony wrote to the Earl accordingly.

  My special good Lord.

  My patience being at the last on charge, and, as I may say to your Lordship, almost turned into just anger, to see that my double torment both of stone and gout could not obtain me the privilege of rest at Signor Perez his hands; but that I must daily hear my dear Lord’s honour hammered upon both by him and the French, and serve as it were, hourly, instead of a cistern, to receive his Spanish exclamations, and scalding plaints; I had no other sanctuary but to retire myself hither to my brother’s pleasant lodge and fine designed garden, where, with your leave and liking, I would propose to be as private as I may, namely, till the D of Bouillon and Signor Perez, his departure, which last, I doubt not, but that my absence will haste, if the letter which I have received this morning by my man Jacques, who came in post, mar not all my former painful endeavour to get him well gone.

  The fear that Antonio Perez might delay his departure, and come to seek him out in Twickenham, was ever present until the French party had definitely left Gravesend. Then, with nerves restored, he wrote to Francis:

  Well, at the last he is gone. God send him fair wind and weather for his passage, and me but the tithe of the thanks which I have deserved; for I dare assure you, that without my watchfulness and painful patience he would have chanced upon some plot, whereby to have made an after-game. I doubt not but that you have heard of Mr Fulke Greville’s employment to carry to the two generals their royal benediction; and yet Sir Walter Raleigh’s slackness and stay by the way is not thought to be upon sloth or negligence, but upon pregnant design, which will be brought forth very shortly and found to be, according to the French proverb, fils ou fille.

  This final quip was an allusion to Raleigh’s wife, who was about to make him a father, and is an amusing illustration of how Anthony changed his style to suit the recipients of his letters; intimate and light-hearted to his brother, the same though on a humbler footing to the Earl, and, in contrast to both, sober, rather distant, and with religious undertones when writing to his mother.

  His style changes again, becoming imbued with deep respect, when corresponding with the Earl’s two sisters, Lady Penelope, wife of Lord Rich, and Lady Dorothy, Countess of Northumberland. Her husband, the ‘wizard Earl’ as he was termed because of his interest in science and the occult, was hardly the best choice of husband for Lady Dorothy. They were married in 1595, and in March of 1596, when she was six months pregnant, Anthony, hearing the gossip at Court to the effect that her husband was showing every sign of infidelity, took it upon himself to warn the injured Countess. His letter was unsigned, which leads to speculation as to whether he was used to anonymity and had employed the same means in other circumstances:

  Most Honoured Lady,

  If I could digest any injury offered you, I would rather conceal that which I write, than trouble you with others’ folly, protesting I am as free from malice, as to keep you from being abused: so it is, that your Lord hath gotten him a chamber at Court, where one of his old acquaintance be lodged. What his meaning is, I know not, but you may perceive he bears small respect to you, that will give occasion, if any be so simple as to think he can neglect you for a ruined creature. Therefore, Madam, support cheerfully yourself with your wonted wisdom, and let them not unworthy disquiet your mind. Proportion your affection according to their deserts, and consider, that we are not bound by virtue to love them, that will unloose themselves by vice. Thus much the honour I bear you hath enforced me to say. More I will not, for I am one devoted to your service, and do not conceal my name for shame or fear.

  Three months later the Countess of Northumberland gave birth to a son, but the anonymous letter, despite its fine style, can hardly have made her pregnancy easier to bear. Impossible to guess at Anthony’s motive, unless, the rumour of infidelity coming to his ear, he wrote at a white heat of indignation that his own Earl’s sister should be so soon betrayed by her new bridegroom.

  Lady Penelope was a different proposition. Philip Sidney’s childhood sweetheart had never loved her husband Lord Rich, and had already borne children to her lover Charles Blount, brother to Christopher Blount and later to be Lord Mountjoy. She had her own rooms at Essex House, but was frequently at Barn Elms and at her mother’s house in Wanstead. Before de Bouillon departed for France, taking Perez with him, and Anthony moved thankfully to Twickenham for his few weeks’ respite, she wrote him the following letter:

  Worthy Mr Bacon,

  There are many respects which lead me to an extraordinary estimation of your virtues, and besides your courtesies towards myself meriteth the desire I have to requite your friendship, and so do you all honour, praying you to believe my words, since your merits doth challenge, more than I can acknowledge, though I do with much affection esteem your worth. And while I am in this solitary place, where no sound of any news can come, I must entreat you to let me hear something of the world from you, especially of my brother, and then what you know of French affairs, or whether there go any troops from hence to their aid, and so wishing you all contentment,

  I remain, your very affectionate friend,

  Penelope Rich.

  I would fain hear what became of your wandering neighbour.

  The wandering neighbour was, of course, Signor Perez, but the warm tone of Lady Penelope’s letter suggests that she herself might be a welcome visitor to those rooms on the third floor near the leads. Anthony could hardly wait to reply.

  Most honourable worthy Lady,

  My right honourable and dutiful thanks are the least I can render your good Ladyship for the honour of your good opinion and kind conception of me, which I humbly beseech your Ladyship to believe. I hourly expect to hear from your noble brother, and will not fail to acquaint your Ladyship of any good news I may hear from his Lordship or through others. For the French affairs, her Majesty is entered into a treaty, and is brought almost to condescend to sending three thousand men into France, the expense to be defrayed by her for five months, and certain French noblemen to remain here as hostages for payment and her Majesty’s reimbursement.

  Your Ladyship may well call my neighbour wandering, if you knew as well as I do, against my will, what strange bypaths his thoughts walk in, which fester every day more and more in his mind by my Lord’s silence, and the continual alarums that sound in his ear of the Queen’s displeasure.

  The duc de Bouillon presseth him to be in readiness to return with him, but he refuses to go without my Lord’s privity and consent.

  This is all, Madam, at this instant, and I most humbly beseech you to accept and to dispose freely of my poor service. And so I humbly take my leave.

  Anthony Bacon.

  On the last day of May, writing from Twickenham, he told his brother, ‘I purposed yesternight to have made a start to London, but it pleased God to visit me anew with a more cruel pang of the stone than ever before, which hath provoked me to vomit at the least twenty times.’

  Small wonder his mother wrote to him, ‘I fear your drink is too strong and breedeth fancies.’ It is to be hoped that Jacques was on hand to ‘twang’ him asleep, but gout and stone were not helped by the lawyer friend Nicholas Trott, to whom both brothers owed a considerable sum of money, ‘storming against them with more passion than reason.’

  Meanwhile, down in Plymouth preparations for the great expedition against the Spaniards were almost complete. The ships were ready to sail, and now all that remained to do was to embark the army. Standen, who earlier in the year had been knighted by the Queen, to his surprise and immense gratification, told Anthony that the Lords General intended to be under sail by the end of the week—the last week in May—and that ‘the rich apparel, which the night before was shown in Plymouth, was beyond all the sights which he had ever seen, for at least five hundred gentlemen were covered over with silver and gold lace.’

  He himself was on board the Repulse, and had lain there in harbour for three days now. Tom Lawson had received £100 from Essex, who, according to Standen, spared neither purse, body nor spirit, and had won for himself a wonderful regard from his troops. There were four squadrons; seventeen of the vessels were her Majesty’s own and seventy-six were chartered. There were over six thousand mariners and soldiers, making nearly thirteen thousand men in all, who would take part in the expedition. The Dutch formed a fifth squadron. Her Majesty composed a special prayer to be used each day in the fleet, the final words being, ‘We humbly beseech Thee, with bended knees, prosper the work, and with the best forewinds guide the journey, speed the victory, and make the return the advancement of Thy glory, the triumph of their fame and the surety of the realm, with the least loss of English blood. To these alone petitions, Lord, give Thou Thy blessed grant, Amen.’

  The fleet set sail on June 2nd, and Anthony, who despite his recurring sickness had returned to Essex House to take charge of any intelligence that might arrive, thought of what he himself had written to Henry Hawkins in Venice: ‘My Lord is wonderfully confident of success, and that he shall give the King of Spain so deadly a wound that he will never recover from it.’

  He remembered also the Earl’s message to himself through his secretary Edward Reynolds: ‘Commend me to Mr Anthony Bacon, and tell them that are most sorry at my going, they would not wish me diverted from this army, if they saw the beauty of it’, and the later personal letter, written shortly before embarking: ‘For yourself, I pray you believe, although your mind, which so tenderly weigheth my danger, be very dear unto me, yet for my sake you must be confident, for if I be not tied by the hand, I know God hath a great work to work by me. Farewell, worthy Mr Bacon, and know that though I entertain you here with short letters, yet I will send you from sea papers that shall remain as tables of my honest desires, and pledges of my love to you.’