To the Earl, a few days previously, he had advised that, ‘I will be seeing Mr Hudson from Scotland, and his Lordship must not censure the silence of the agent Bruce nor the Scots ambassador David Foulis, for they both appreciated Mr Secretary’s ambuscades and interceptions, and will defer to write till they meet with some confident messenger, whom I expect daily. Your Lordship knows the French proverb Un chien en chaud craint fort I’eau froid; and if a public minister’s letters to a king, his master, and the king’s to him, have been laid in wait for, and opened, how much more letters betwixt private friends.’

  On New Year’s Eve he was happy to acquaint his mother with the good news that ‘Brother Francis has received gracious usage and speech from her Majesty at Court, and that I hope will, at the last, exemplify her good words by some princely real effects’, and that, wonder upon wonders, his cousin Robert Cecil had declared himself ready to do ‘Anthony Bacon any kind office, if Anthony would but make proof of him’.

  Time would show what 1597 would bring—whether favours and friendship from the Cecil faction or a continuance of the old reserve, more skirmishes against the might of Spain or an ill-timed, patched-up peace. Above all, would the Earl of Essex heed what brother Francis had advised him in October? ‘To stay close to the Queen, as the late Earl of Leicester and Lord Chancellor Hatton had done, to divert her Majesty’s mind from the impression the Earl gave of martial greatness, for she loved peace, and loved not the charge of war; to take care in his personal habits, what he wore, his gestures and the like; to speak against popularity and popular courses, this should be handled tenderly; to be careful of his estate; and lastly, to be plain, to have the altering of some of his officers about him, though this could not be done but with time.’ Wise counsel, and how closely brother Francis had observed his subject; and yet… he would never be as close to the moody, volatile commander as was Anthony himself, who loved and questioned not.

  17

  In February of the new year, 1597, Francis published his first volume of essays, ten in number, and dedicated them to his dear brother, Anthony Bacon.

  Loving and beloved brother [the dedication ran], I do now like some, that have an orchard ill-neighboured, that gather fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceit were going to print. To labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation: to let them pass, had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment, which it might please any that should set them forth, to bestow upon them. Therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself as they passed long ago from my pen, without any further disgrace than the weakness of the author… Only I disliked now to put them out, because they will be like the new half-pence, which tho’ the silver were good, yet the pieces were small. But since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have preferred them to you, that are next myself, dedicating them, such as they are, to our love; in the depth whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her Majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind, and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest. So commend I you to the preservation of the Divine majesty.

  From my chamber at Gray’s Inn, this 30th of January 1597,

  Your entire loving brother,

  Fran. Bacon.

  In later years, in 1613 and again in 1625, these essays would be enlarged and bear different dedications, but in 1597 brother Anthony was the ‘begetter’, and indeed, with his known admiration for Montaigne, the source of the inspiration. The very choice of subject matter was suited to his temperament—‘Of Study’, ‘Of Followers and Friends’, ‘Of Suitors’, ‘Of Expense’, ‘Of Regimen of Health’—and in each appears some phrase or sentence which had undoubtedly sprung from discussion between the brothers, whether in early days at Cambridge, or when they shared chambers at Gray’s Inn, or more recently by the river banks at Twickenham—Francis, with his biting wit that stung if it did not wound, and Anthony with an equally swift rejoinder, culled from the French, yet sometimes disenchanted.

  Thus, in ‘Studies’, the reader can have a picture of Francis pacing up and down, his eye upon a recumbent Anthony, saying, ‘If a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.’ And swiftly, before Anthony could interrupt, ‘Nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercise; bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head and the like.’ Then reaching down and lugging his brother to his feet, who answered, ‘Aye, so if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.’

  The essay on ‘Followers and Friends’ applied very closely to both brothers, with their band of personal attendants, some of whom pass from the records, others, like Tom Lawson, Jacques Petit and Francis’s Henry Percy, remaining steadfast throughout, possibly with too great power behind the scenes. ‘There is a kind of followers likewise,’ said Francis, ‘which are dangerous, being indeed espials; which enquire the secrets of the house, and bear tales of them to others; yet such men, many times, are in great favour; for they are officious, and commonly exchange tales.’ And again, ‘It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion. To be governed (as we call it) by one, is not safe; for it shows softness, and gives a freedom to scandal and disreputation… Yet to be distracted with many, is worse; for it makes men to be of the last impression, and full of change. To take advice of some few friends is ever honourable; for lookers on many times see more than gamesters; and the vale best discovereth the hill.’

  Both brothers might well have taken heed, which they did not, of the truths Francis expounded in the essay upon ‘Expense’: ‘He that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay. In clearing of a man’s estate, he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden, as in letting it run on too long; for hasty selling is commonly as disad-vantageable as interest. Besides, he that clears at once, will relapse; for finding himself out of straights, he will revert to his customs; but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate.’

  The most pointed essay of reference to his brother Anthony was certainly that on ‘Regimen of Health’, every word of which told upon the original begetter. ‘Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet, and, if necessity inforce it, fit the rest to it, for it is a secret, both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one… To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys, and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them… I commend rather some diet, for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom, for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less.’

  And lastly, Francis had no great opinion of physicians, some of whom were always on call at Essex House. ‘Physicians,’ he wrote, ‘are some of them so pleasing and conformable to the humour of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or, if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort: and forget not to call as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty.’

  Anthony’s first response, on receiving his own copy of the essays, was to forward another to the Earl of Essex on February 8th: ‘To your Lordship, to whose disposition and commandment I have entirely and inviolably vowed my poor self, and whatsoever appertaineth unto me, either in possession or right’, adding on behalf of his brother, ‘Your Lordship’s singular kindness towards us both will vouchsafe first to give me leave to transfer my interest unto your Lordship, and then humbly to crave your honourable acceptance and most worthy protection.’

  Francis, doubtless, approved of the gift, knowing that a great deal of what the essays contained by way of advice would apply to the noble lord almost as much as it did to Anthony, especially where the choosing of followers and friends was concerned. Essex had been indisposed for some weeks, keeping to his bed at Barn Elms and supposedly out of favour with her Majesty, the reason being the increasing influence of the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil. It still annoyed her Majesty that the expedition to Cadiz had brought so little in the way of financial return, and Essex was convinced that this irritation was deliberately fostered by Robert Cecil, an opinion which Anthony also held. ‘The just cause of your Lordship’s undeserved discontent of mind is far more irksome to me than my own bodily pains,’ he told Essex. There was talk of the Earl going to his estates in Wales and staying there until the Queen should soften towards him; while the Queen, for her part, was resolved to break him of his pride, and was heard to say that this same pride he inherited from his mother Lettice.

  Gossip was rife at Court, of discontent, of reconciliation, of discontent once more, and there was further argument concerning the Earl’s sister Dorothy, the Countess of Northumberland, and lands she held to be hers through her former husband. The Attorney General, Edward Coke, thought fit to intervene for the Crown, which Anthony deemed ‘intolerable insolency’.

  Essex was once again overruled when Lord Cobham, Lord Chamberlain and Warden of the Cinque Ports, died early in March. The Earl had asked the Queen that the position of Warden might be given to his friend Sir Robert Sidney, but she made the new Lord Cobham Warden instead. That Lord Cobham, whom Essex detested, should be preferred to Sidney added further fuel to his smouldering fires of discontent. Moreover, since Robert Cecil was married to the late Lord Cobham’s daughter, this meant that the new Warden was Cecil’s brother-in-law—so yet another member of the Cecil family had been shown favour by the Queen. It appeared to Essex and to his friends and supporters that the Cecil faction was growing in strength daily.

  Anthony was powerless to intervene. He could only continue his unceasing correspondence in the Earl’s name with agents in Italy, France and Scotland, sending and gathering what intelligence there might be, and every few days writing messages of support to his loved employer, as this, on March 3rd, when the Earl was still toying with the idea of going into Wales: ‘Alarm is taken by the proposed journey into Wales, which, if your Lordship hath resolved to perform, I can but pray to God by the most cordial defensive of His divine grace to preserve her Majesty’s royal heart, if not her ears, from the venomous injections of those two pestilent vipers, sovereign jealousy and subaltern unquenchable envy.’ (Allusions to the advice that might be given to the Queen by Lord Cobham and Sir Robert Cecil during the Earl’s absence from Court.)

  The King of France continued to press for further assistance from the English sovereign. He was desirous that Essex should command an army and relieve Calais, still in the hands of Spain; but the Queen, prompted by her own instinct and supported by the prudent Sir Robert Cecil, returned an answer through her ambassador at the French Court that if her army should recover Calais, then she desired that it should rest in her own hands until she was reimbursed for all expenses. ‘This,’ Anthony Bacon told the Earl, ‘so infuriated the King he was ready to strike the ambassador, but checking himself in time, asked him to leave the chamber. Whether this be fiction or truth, I doubt not but your Lordship knoweth. If the first, it is not without design. From whencesoever it springeth, if the circumstance be true, some effects, no doubt, will follow, if they be not in time prevented.’

  The King of France then sent a personal envoy, one Monsieur de Fouquerolles, to have a private audience of her Majesty, but he was coldly received, and the entertainment provided for him at Court was poor. His royal master asked for the continuation of English troops in France, and for a further supply of as many more, upon the Queen’s pay. The answer came, ‘Her Majesty could not tell what she would do in this request.’

  Anthony, whose letters to Henry Hawkins in Venice were frequently indiscreet, wrote him a full account of the whole affair, and how Monsieur de Fouquerolles was so enraged at his reception that an Italian neighbour in the adjoining room heard him stamp about the floor in anger.

  ‘Come, dine with me and forget your business,’ said the Italian.

  ‘What—dine?’ repeated de Fouquerolles. ‘I had such a bellyful this morning I am full of it still and ready to vomit.’

  ‘How is that, monsieur? Some drollery with your old acquaintances?’

  ‘Old in truth,’ replied the Frenchman, ‘and I mean by old that senile Lord Treasurer of England, to whom I paid court today on behalf of my royal master. Tossing his Majesty’s letter amongst the papers on his table he asked me if my French King had so little conscience that he could ruin all the English, waste their resources, lose good cities in France, and all for love of a whore—referring to Madame Gabrielle d’Estrées, my master’s most respected mistress. Well, the King of France deceives himself, says my Lord Treasurer. We intend to keep our hands out of his poor game, for we can see very well the folly of hoping for anything good out of Henri de Bourbon.’

  Monsieur de Fouquerolles continued to stamp up and down the room before his Italian neighbour.

  ‘God’s blood,’ he went on, ‘I was never more astounded in my life to hear that old lunatic rave thus, and could hardly contain myself from letting him have it with my fist rather than with my tongue. But the privilege of old age, and the honour with which I hold my master, kept me back. I merely told him I would reply if he would send his servants from the room, as I would the gentlemen who accompanied me, from respect for my master the King. “Oh, indeed,” rejoined the Lord Treasurer disdainfully, “I have no time to amuse myself with your reply. We have had enough of all these fanfares. The last envoy, the vicomte de Turenne who calls himself duc de Bouillon, hasn’t yet paid up the 20,000 écus he owes for all his grandeur.” So that was it, and for my part,’ added Monsieur de Fouquerolles, ‘I’ll be off tomorrow, and cannot get away soon enough.’

  The whole conversation was repeated verbatim to the Earl of Essex, and, ‘Thus your Lordship sees,’ said Anthony, ‘the untimely morosity of an old Englishman, and the indiscreet manner of a Frenchman to a stranger, namely an Italian, between whose stayed judicious nature and the French giddy impotent impatiency is such an extreme antipathy.’

  What brother Francis thought of the Lord Treasurer’s ‘untimely morosity’ towards the French emissary does not appear. Doubtless when he heard of it he kept silent, for it would not have suited his plans at this moment to join in argument against the Cecil family. The Lord Treasurer’s grand-daughter, the enchanting Elizabeth, with whom he had flirted since she had been a girl in her teens, but who had married Sir William Hatton, had suddenly become a widow, her husband having died in March. She was barely twenty, herself childless, though stepmother to her husband’s young daughter by his first marriage, and she had inherited the whole of the Isle of Purbeck, with Corfe Castle as its centre, and the imposing Hatton House in Holborn, which had once belonged to the see of Ely.

  Hatton House was within strolling distance of Gray’s Inn, and the gardens were famous for their beauty and design, with fountains, fish-ponds, arbours, lawns and alleys, terraces and trees. Francis, who had planned much of the lay-out of the garden at Twickenham and later was to do the same for Gorhambury, was no stranger to Hatton House or to its lady, even after her marriage. She was not only beautiful, witty, possessed of great spirit and temperament; she was also rich. The fact that she had been devoted to her late husband, who as a young man had fought beside Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester, was no barrier to the urging of his suit. Others were after the same game, amongst them his friend Fulke Greville. There was little time to lose, for young widows of property and fortune were expected to remarry almost as soon as they had put on their widow’s weeds. But Francis was virtually penniless, and without position. A barrister just turned thirty-six, without prospects—unless his brother Anthony should die and leave him Gorhambury—and with only his brains and his ever-ready pen to support him, would stand small chance with the best catch of the season, however much she chose to laugh and argue with him, unless he had friends at hand to urge his suit.

  The Earl of Essex, very naturally, was the first of these to come to mind. The timing of a suitable letter was all-important, and to importune too soon might mar success. Here was the rub. The Earl, in May, was appointed chief commander of the fleet that was shortly to set sail against Spain, her Majesty having finally agreed to another expedition; and with so much preparation for war on hand, and Essex going backwards and forwards to Chatham to see to the fitting-out of the ships, it was hardly the moment to press his lordship towards the urging of a marriage suit. Nevertheless, a letter was penned and sent to Sandwich, where the Earl was staying, and while the greater part concerned other matters, and the hopes for divine providence in the forthcoming voyage, one sentence refers, most assuredly, to his courtship of Lady Elizabeth Hatton. ‘My suit to your Lordship is for your several letters to be left with me dormant, to the gentlewoman, and either of her parents: wherein I do not doubt, but as the beams of your favour have often dissolved the coldness of my fortune; so in this argument your Lordship will do the like with your pen.’