V

TUDOR PROBLEMS

BUST OF FRANCIS AS A BOY.

Frontispiece.

TUDOR PROBLEMS

BEING ESSAYS ON THE HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CLAIMS CIPHERED AND OTHERWISE INDICATED BY FRANCIS BACON, WILLIAM RAWLEY, SIR WILLIAM DUGDALE, AND OTHERS,! IN CERTAIN PRINTED BOOKS DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

BY

PARKER WOODWARD

Truth can never be confirmed enough'

PERICLES

SOME OF THESE ESSAYS HAVE BEEN PRIVATELY PRINTED, BUT THE WHOLE WORK HAS BEEN EXTENSIVELY REVISED AND AUGMENTED

LONDON GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.

12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN igi2

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE . . . . . . V ix

PROEMIAL . . , . . . xi

I. QUEEN ELIZABETH . . . . .1

II. FRANCIS . . . . . . .19

III. ROBERT ....... 32

IV. MISADVENTURES . . . . . .45

V. THE MASTER-VIZARD . . . . .54

VI. VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS . . . . . 63

vii. 'FiLUM LABYRINTHI' . . . . .69

VIII. GOSSON . . . . . . .75

IX. LYLY ....... 83

X. WATSON . . . . . . .100

XI. PEELE . . . . . . .109

XII. GREENE . . . . . . .119

XIII. MARLOWE . . . . ,. . .132

XIV. SPENSER . . . . . . .138

XV. KYD . . . . . . .164

XVI. NASH . . . . . . .172

XVII. WHITNEY . . . . . . .185

XVIII. WEBBE . . . . . . .189

xix. 'THE ARTE' . . . . . . 193

XX. DORRELL . ... ... 201

XXI. BRIGHT . . . . . . . 205

XXII. BURTON ....... 213

XXIII. SHAKSPERE . . . . . .216

XXIV. THE ALLEGORY ...... 226

XXV. EDUCATIONAL . . . . . .229

XXVI. THE PLAY FOLIO . . 238

vt

TUDOK PROBLEMS

CHAPTER

XXVII. ETERNIZING

XXVIII. THE MAZE

XXIX. SIDNEY

XXX. PLAYS .

XXXI. RE-ENTOMBED .

XXXII. THE LOVE TEST

XXXIII. SEVEN PSALMS .

XXXIV. ROBERT, THIRD EARL XXXV. CIPHER HISTORY

XXXVI. OTHER OBJECTIONS

xxxvu. 'SONNETS'

XXXVIII. PRAYERS

BOOK REFERENCES INDEX

PAGE

247 256 262 267 271 290 296 301 303 310 317 323

329 331

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO PACE PACK

BUST OF FRANCIS AS A BOY . * . Frontispiece

QUEEN ELIZABETH . . . , . .1

FRANCIS AT THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN . , . .19

FRANCIS AT MIDDLE AGE . . . . .63

EARL OF LEICESTER . . , . . .119

FRANCIS AT SIXTY . . . . . .213

THE MARSHALL WOODCUT, 1640 ..... 216

FRANCIS AT SIXTY-ONE . . . . . 238

FRANCIS AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-SIX . . . .267

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT . . . . .271

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT . . . . . 280

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT , . . . . 288

MONUMENT OF FRANCIS BACON IN ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH 290

Vll

ERRATA

Page 14, line 7, for ' Sydney ' read ' Sidney.'

,, 22, line 8, for ' Shakespeare ' read ' Shakspere.'

,, 35, line 35, /or ' wosrt ' read 'worst.'

,, 44, line 9, delete 'it.'

,, 46, line 26, for 'dedication ' read ' dedications.'

,, 73, lines 16 and 17, for 'The Hon. Judge Stotsenburg, in his recent clever book, asks,' read, ' The late Judge Stotsen burg, in his clever book, asked.'

„ 105, line 25, for ' 1617 ' read ' 1618.'

, , 106, last line but one, for ' presents ' read ' present. '

,, 185, line 3, for ' Gabriel ' read • Geoffrey.'

,, 217, line 14, for ' SAafcper ' read i Shafaper.'

,, 217, line 25, for ' Kyd was in trouble in the Star Chamber ' read ' Kyd was in trouble with the Star Chamber.'

,, 219, line 18, for ' it ' read 'Hamlet.'

,, 242, line 7, for ' the most superficial men ' read ' the most of super ficial men.1

,, 244, line 14, for 'acromatic' read 'acroamatic.'

„ 24S, line 12, remove the quotation mark from 'himself to 'great.'

Vlll

PREFACE

FRANCIS BACON, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, opened the final edition of his * Essays ' thus :

<OF TRUTH.

What is truth 1 said jesting Pilate ; And would not stay for an answer.'

Francis was well aware that Pilate was only a type of vast groups of men and women who prefer not to know truth. Vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, would otherwise be disturbed. Says the Essay:

'No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage-ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded), and where the air is always clear and serene ; and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below/

At first for personal, and later for educational, reasons, Francis Bacon hid the outpourings of his great learning and word mastery behind vizards.

To trace his workmanship, follow the thread of his labyrinth, and record confirmatory proofs, has made enjoy able many a leisure hour.

The results are offered as a tribute to this greatest of literary Englishmen, and as an aid to the accession of the Fame which he hoped might eventually enshrine his memory.

I acknowledge gratefully, help, clue, and light from the printed contributions of Mr. Edwin Eeed, Lord Penzance,

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x TUDOR PROBLEMS

Judge Webb, LL.D., Mr. W. Stone Booth, Mr. W. H. Edwards, Mark Twain, Mr. G. Stronach, M.A., Mr. G. C. Bompas, M.A., Mrs. E. W. Gallup, Rev. W. Begley, Rev. W. A. Sutton, Mr. G. Hookham, Mr. G. Greenwood, Mr. W. F. C. Wigston, Mrs. C. M. Pott, Mr. G. C. Cuningham, Mr. Harold Bayley, Mr. A. J. Williams, Oliver Lector, Mr. W. Theobald, M.A., Mr. W. T. Smedley, Miss A. A. Leith, Mrs. C. Bunten, Mr. G. James, Hon. I. Donnelly, Mr. Castle, K.C., Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence, Bart., and others representing the unorthodox view ; as also from the publications of writers strictly orthodox, such as Mr. F. G. Fleay, Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, Sir S. Lee, Mrs. Stopes, Mr. Calvert, Dr. Grosart, Mr. J. Churton Collins, Dr. Creighton, Mr. Dyce, Mr. F. S. Boas, Mr. R. S. Rait, Mr. A. Lang, Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, Miss Marriott, Archdeacon Beeching, Professor Dowden, Mr. Arber, Mr. Spedding, Mr. Blackbourne, Mr. Montagu, and many others.

Attention is particularly drawn to the chapter entitled ' Re-entombed.'

PROEMIAL

* I RETURNED, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the men of under standing, nor yet favour to men of skill ; but time and chance happeneth to them all.' (Ecclesiastes ix. 11.)

'Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends, for I have taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries ; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain-glory, or nature, or (if one take it favourably) philanthrophia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed.' (Bacon to Burleigh, 1592.)

' I began to consider that Astrea, that virtue, that metaphisicall influence which maketh one man differ from another in excellence, being I meane come from the heavens, and was a thing infused into man from God, the abuse whereof I found to be as prejudicial as

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xii TUDOR PROBLEMS

the right user thereof was profitable, that it ought to be employed to wit, not in setting out a goddesse but in setting out the praises of God ; not in discovering of beauty but in discovering of vertues ; not in laying out the platforms of love, nor in telling the deepe passions of fancy, but in persuading men to honest and honor able actions, which are the steps that lead to the true and perfect felicity/ (' Greene ' : ' Vision/ 1592.)

6 To this effect the pollicie of Playes is very necessary howsoever some shallow-brained censurers (not the deepest searchers into the secrets of government) mightily oppugne them. . . . Nay what if I proove Playes to be no extreme, but a rare exercise of vertue. First for the subject of them (for the most part) it is borrowed out of our English Chronicles wherein our forefathers' valiant actes (that have lien long buried in rusty brass and worme-eaten bookes) are revived and they themselves raysed from the grave of oblivion and brought to plead their aged Honours in open presence : than which can be a sharper reproofe to these degenerate effeminate dayes of ours ? . . .

'In Plays all coosonages all cunning drifts over- guylded with outward holinesse, all stratagems of warre all the canker- wormes that breed on the rust of peace are most lively anatomized : they shew the ill successe of treason, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the miserie of civil dissention, and how just God is evermore in punishing of murther.' (' Pierce Penilesse,' 'Nash,' 1592.)

'Do you suppose that when the entrances to the minds of all men are obstructed with the darkest errors —

PEOEMIAL xiii

and those deep-seated and, as it were, burnt in, smooth, even spaces can be found in those minds, so that the light of truth can be accurately reflected from them ? A new process must be instituted by which we may insinuate ourselves into natures so disordered and closed up.

'For as the delusions of the insane are removed by art and ingenuity, but aggravated by opposition and violence, so must we choose methods here that are adapted to the general insanity. Indeed, it is sufficient if my method of delivery in question be ingenuous if it afford no occasion for error, if it conciliate belief, if it repel the injuries of time, and if it be suited to proper and reasonable readers. Whether it have these qualities or not I appeal to the future to shew' (Bacon's ' Temporis Partus Masculus, ' transl. E. Reed.)

'Dramatic poetry which has the theatre for its world, would be of excellent use if it were sound, for the discipline and corruption of the theatre is of very great consequence. And the corruptions of this kind are numerous in our times, but the regulation quite neglected. The action of the theatre, though modern states esteem it but ludicrous, unless it be satirical and biting, was car ef idly watched by the ancients, that it might improve mankind in virtue; and, indeed, many wise men and great philosophers have thought it to the mind as the bow to thejiddle: and certain it is that the minds of men in company are more open to affections and impressions than when alone/ (Bacon, 'Advancement of Learning/ 1605.)

' Soone it can be seen that I have undertaken great labour in behalfe of men for the furder advancing of

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TUDOK PROBLEMS

knowledge, awaiting a time when it shall be in everie language as in our owne ; but that this may be kept to other ages we may use the Latine, since our feare is often excited by th' want we note, in this th' English, of a degree or measure of stability, or of uniformity of its construction ; and also many changes in usage shewe it is wise to use for a monument marble more lasting.

' Still so great is our love for our mother tongue, wee have at all times made a free use both of such words as are consid'r'd antique and of stile theme and innermost spiritt of an earlier day especially in th' Edmunde Spenser poems that are modelled on Chaucer; yet th1 antique or ancient is lightly woven as you no doubte have before this noted, not onlie with expressions that are both comon and unquestionablie English of our daie, but frequently with French wordes, for the Norman- French William the Conqueror introduced left its traces. Beside, nothing is furder from my thoughts than a wish to lop this off, but on the contrarie, a desire to graff more thoroughly on our language, cults that will make th' tree more delightsome and its fruits more rare, hath oft led me to do the engraffing for my proper selfe. Indeed not th' gemmes of their language alone, but the Jewells of their crowne are rightfullie England her inheritance. Furthermore many words commonlie used in different parts of England strike th' eare of citizens of townes in southerne England like a foreine tongue, combinations whereof make all this varietie, that I finde offtimes melodious, againe less pleasing, like the com mingling of countrey fruites at a market faire. Yet you seeing the reason, approve no doubte th' efforts I make in the cause of all students of a language and learning, that is yet in its boyhood, so to speake.'

' The inward motive is noble onlie as it cometh from a pure love of the people.' (Bacon : deciphered from 4 Advancement of Learning,' 1605/.)

PEOEMIAL xv

1 The English tongue the most harsh, uneven, broken, and mixed language in the world now fashioned by the dramatic art has grown to a perfect language.' (' Apology for Actors,' 'Heywood,' 1612.)

' If God doth give me a long life so to complete these varied labours it shall be well for th' world since I am seeking not my own honour, but th' honor and advancement th' dignitie and enduring good of all mankinde.' (Bacon : deciphered from ' Novum Organum,' 1620.)

* I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other : when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes With words that made them known.

(Prospero to Caliban, 1623 : * Tempest,' Act i. sc. 2.)

'What my Lord the Right Honorable Viscount St. Albans valued most, that he should be dear to Seats of Learning and to Men of Letters, that (I believe) he has secured ; since these tokens of love and memorials of sorrow prove how much his loss grieves their hearts. And indeed with no stinted hand have the Muses bestowed on him this Emblem : (for very many poems and the best too I withhold from publication;} but since he himself delighted not in quantity, no great quantity have I put forth. Moreover let it suffice to have laid, as it were, these foundations in the name of the present age ; this fabric (I think) every age will embellish and enlarge ; but to what age it is given -to put the last touch, that is

xvi TUDOK PROBLEMS

known to God only and the fates.' (Rawley, Preface to 'Manes Verulamiani,' 1626.)

' As Eurydice wandering through the shades of Dis longed to caress Orpheus, so did Philosophy entangled in the subtleties of Schoolmen seek Bacon as a deliverer, with such winged hand as Orpheus lightly touched the lyre's strings, the Styx before scarce ruffled now at last bounding, with like hand stroked Philosophy raised high her crest ; nor did he with workmanship of fussy meddlers patch, but lie renovated her, walking lowly in the shoes of Comedy.' ('Manes Verulamiani,' 1626. No. 4.)

•IT IS ENOUGH FOR ME THAT I HAVE SOWEN

UNTO POSTERITY AND THE IMMORTAL GOD.'

(BACON, 1605.)

' FOR MY NAME AND MEMORY

I LEAVE IT TO MEN'S CHARITABLE SPEECHES

AND TO FOREIGN NATIONS

AND THE NEXT AGES.'

(BACON, 1625.)

QUEEN ELIZABETH : EARLY PORTRAIT.

To face page 1.

TUDOR PROBLEMS

CHAPTEE I

QUEEN ELIZABETH

THE secret history of this Queen's relationship with the Earl of Leicester, as given in the story deciphered from the works of Francis Bacon, both those acknowledged and those printed under other names, tells us that Leicester and the Queen were man and wife. The biliteral cipher has been tested and worked by others, and the de cipherer confirmed in her affirmation that it is to be found in Bacon's printed works. There is nothing extra ordinary that a cipher peculiarly suited to the printed page should have been so used. Bacon openly stated that he invented the cipher when he was a young man in France, associated then with the British Embassy, where cipher-writing of different kinds would be studied and practised. In 1623 he printed his ' De Augmentis,' in which the method of employing the cipher is described.

But though the cipher may spell out a story, the story may be untrue. It is because of the large author ship claim which it makes, that it becomes necessary to examine into the truth of its allegations. The de cipherer's bona fides having been proved (though anyone who has met the lady and seen her method of working, and anyone who has appreciated the marvellous — indeed, impossible — genius which she would have had to possess

1

2 TUDOE PKOBLEMS

in order to produce the story as told, could have no- doubt on that score), the next question is whether the story obtains confirmation from other sources.

To this question these chapters are addressed. The story alleges that Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester were married, that there were two unacknow ledged sons of the marriage — the elder, Francis, being brought up in the family, and as son of Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Bacon ; and the younger, Robert, in the family, and as the son of Lord and Lady Hereford, afterwards Earl and Countess of Essex.

In this chapter it is proposed to discuss, as ancillary to the main question of literary authorship, whether historical facts confirm the allegation that the Queen and Lord Robert Dudley were married.

It must be borne in mind that on the maternal side Elizabeth's pedigree was not high. It must also be remembered that, by the Act of Parliament passed when her half-sister Mary was on the throne — viz., that which declared the dissolution of Henry VIII.'s marriage with Mary's mother, Queen Katherine, to have been invalid — Elizabeth had been indirectly declared to be illegitimate, and Mary Queen of Scots was consequently rightfully entitled to the throne on the death of Queen Mary. Moreover, Edward VI. had by will conferred the suc cession to the throne upon Lady Jane Grey.

Under these circumstances, and with the example of her father before her, a little laxity of conduct might have been expected and certainly excused.

Her alleged husband, Lord Robert Dudley, and Princess Elizabeth (born September 7, 1533), were about the same age, and had known one another from childhood. On March 18, 1554, when, at the age of twenty-one, Princess Elizabeth (who, by direction of her father's will, was to succeed her sister Mary if the latter had no children) was committed to the Tower as a prisoner, Lord Robert Dudley was already a prisoner

QUEEN ELIZABETH 3

there. While incarcerated, Elizabeth had strong appre hension that she was not going to be allowed to live. She was not closely confined, but had a considerable latitude of movement about the grounds of this large fortress and castle. Ten of her servants waited upoa her, and there is little doubt she had many good friends amongst the officials, particularly those opposed to the Eoman Catholic faith.

The cipher story alleges a ceremony of marriage between Elizabeth and Dudley in the Tower. Dudley had a wife living, to whom he was wedded four years before — namely, at the age of seventeen. Yet there is nothing improbable in a lovesick daughter of Henry VIII. , doubtful as to her legitimacy, and at a time she never expected to be out again alive, going through a secret marriage ceremony with a tall, handsome fellow-prisoner similarly circumstanced. A short life, but a merry one. Moreover, there was a secret way between the Beau- champ Tower and the Bell Tower in which Elizabeth was lodged.

The cipher story alleges a subsequent private marriage of the parties after the Queen had succeeded to the throne. Her accession was on November 17, 1558. On the 28th she took formal possession of the Tower. Lord Robert, as Master of the Horse, rode next to her. Miss Agnes Strickland, in her 'Life of Queen Elizabeth/ writes :

' The signal favour that Elizabeth lavished on Robert Dudley by appointing him her Master of Horse, and loading him with honours within the first week of her accession to the crown, must have originated from some powerful motive which does not appear on the surface of history ; ... he must by some means have succeeded ... in exciting an interest in her bosom of no common nature while they were both imprisoned in the Tower, since, being immediately after his liberation employed in the wars with France, he had no other opportunity of ingratiating himself with the Princess/

4 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The assumption that they were lovers who, after a separation of four years, had become reunited, whether their love was adequately sanctioned or not by a Tower ceremony of marriage, seems to be a consistent one.

Camden makes a similar observation about the Queen and Dudley, and her making him Master of Horse and bestowing upon him the Order of the Garter in the first year of her reign :

' Whether this was from any real virtues in him whereof he gave some appearances, and in regard to the common lot of their imprisonment in Queen Mary's days.'

The cipher story is that in September, 1560, the Queen went through a second ceremony of marriage with Dudley, this time at the house of a certain Lord P. and before sufficient witnesses.

If the Tower ceremony correctly defines the situation, we have two persons on the faith of it actually associa ting as man and wife, but finding it impossible to declare themselves owing to the fact that the man had a wife living, to whom he was married as a boy, although they were much apart.

Being very much in the public eye, the association of Elizabeth and Dudley could not be entirely cloaked, and, though in an age of much licence, occasioned serious remark from persons whose testimony was clearly intended to be accurate.

First, we have the reports of the Spanish Ambassador Feria. On April 18, 1559, he wrote to his King :

' Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does what he pleases with affairs, and it is even said that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night.'

(The parties were then each of about the age of twenty -five.)

The same month he again reports : ' Then they say she

QUEEN ELIZABETH 5

is in love with Lord Robert, and never lets him leave her.' Bishop de Quadra next appears on the scene, and he reports to the King of Spain, under date November, 1559 :

{ I have heard from a certain person who is in the habit of giving me veracious news that Lord Robert has sent to poison his wife ... I am told some extraordinary things about this intimacy.'

On March 15, 1559-60, De Quadra reports :

' Lord Robert says that if he lives a year he will be in another position from that he holds. Every day he presumes more and more, and it is now said he means to divorce his wife.'

On August 13, 1560, Cecil, the Prime Minister, on his return from a long visit to Scotland, obtained a report concerning Mother Dowe, of Brentwood, in Essex, who openly asserted that the Queen was with child by Dudley. Cecil upon this decided to resign his office.

On August 27 De Quadra wrote to the Duchess of Parma reporting that the Queen told him ' she should be married before six months are over/

On September 3 De Quadra met Cecil, whom he knew to be in disgrace, and who told him, under promise of secrecy, that —

'The Queen was rushing upon her destruction, and this time he could not save her. . . . She was shutting herself up in the Palace, to the peril of her health and life. . . . They were thinking of destroying Lord Robert's wife.'

On September 4 De Quadra reported :

c The day after this conversation the Queen, on her return from hunting, told me that Lord Robert's wife was dead, or nearly so, and begged me to say nothing about it.'

6 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

The Queen's method of hunting was to sit in a bower in a deer park, furnished with a crossbow and arrows, which she fired at the deer as they were driven past her.

The cipher story is quite consistent with the Queen being in September about five months off her confine ment of a child, the offspring of a union which would probably have not been renewed had it not been covered — however defectively — by the Tower ceremony of 1554.

No wonder Cecil looked upon the situation as hope less ! A Eoman Catholic reaction was morally certain, and he, as a prominent Protestant, would have had to go to the wall.

For the Queen and Dudley things were equally desperate. Were she known to be delivered of a child under the then existing conditions, her position was unten able. Bear in mind the effect of the Act of Parliament obtained by her half-sister. A Queen who was virtually illegitimate herself to be the mother of a bastard ! Even many Protestants w7ould have declared for Mary of Scotland.

To relieve the situation something had to be done, and it is impossible to acquit Elizabeth of a guilty knowledge that Amy Eobsart, Dudley's wife, was about to be 'destroyed.'

She had at other times no hesitation in destroying other persons whom she deemed to be in her path, as witness her treatment of the Duke of Norfolk, Mary Queen of Scots, Eobert Earl of Essex, and others.

She was suspiciously able by four days to forecast the death of Amy Eobsart, as that lady was on September 8 found alone at her house at Cumnor with her neck broken. Dudley never went near the place of his wife's death, but sent messengers to clear matters up and give explanations as to his conduct.

At p. 181 of vol. ii. of Nare's ' Life of Burleigh ' there is printed a suspicious letter from Dudley to Burleigh,

QUEEN ELIZABETH 7

asking advice as to Dudley's course of action now that he was released from bondage.

In the same month there was a rumour that the Queen and Dudley had been married privately. The cipher story alleges that the marriage took place at the house of a certain Lord P., in the presence of Sir Nicholas and Lady Bacon.

Brook House, Hackney, which was granted by Edward "VI. to Earl Pembroke, may have been the place.

Pembroke was one of the trustees of the will of the Queen's father, and appears to have been anxious that she should have a Protestant consort. Brook House had large gardens, and near it was a quiet little parish church. It was at a convenient riding distance from Westminster.

There is a local tradition that the Queen visited Brook House, and that during her stay she had in her keeping the key of the church. Most women prefer to be married at a church, and one can imagine Sir Nicholas Bacon read ing the service and Lady Anne acting as witness of the nuptial ceremony.

Shortly afterwards the Spanish Ambassador was placed under semi-arrest, and accused of writing to Philip of Spain that the Queen had been privately married to Dudley in the Earl of Pembroke's house. To this he replied that he had merely written what all London was saying — namely, that it had taken place. The Queen remarked that it was not only people outside who thought so, as on her return that afternoon from the Earl's (Pembroke's) house her own Ladies-in-waiting had asked her whether they were to kiss Dudley's hand as well as her own, and that she had replied < No,' and that they were not to believe what people said. (See Hume's ' Courtships of Elizabeth.')

Earl Pembroke was a firm Protestant, and zealous for an English marriage, by which he hoped the Protestant faith might be secured to the English throne. He died in March, 1569-70, and any favour he lost in urging the Duke of Norfolk's marriage to the Queen of Scots was

8 TUDOR PROBLEMS

really for the protection of his friend the Earl of Leicester, and as a counterblast to Queen Elizabeth's ridiculous scheme for making a match between Leicester and Mary, so as to free herself to marry some powerful foreign Prince. Leicester was one of the overseers of Pembroke's will.

In November, 1560, Jones, writing to Throckmorton, reported that he had seen the Queen at Greenwich, and that she looked ill and harassed.

The period of six months from the conversation which De Quadra reported to the Duchess of Parma had nearly expired by January 22, 1560-1, the date accepted as the day when Francis was born. Lady Anne's deciphered account is that immediately upon the birth the Queen made observations to her attendants that she wanted the child to be made away with. Young Lady Anne begged to be allowed to have the child and bring it up as her own, and this course was acceded to.

The baptism is recorded in the register of the church known as St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London. It is the first name in the register, and there are no witnesses' names.

The entry is : ' 1560. 25 Januarie Baptizatus fuit Mr. Franciscus Bacon.' In a different handwriting and paler ink follows : ' Filius Dm. Nicholo Bacon Magni Anglie sigilli custodis.' It looks as if Sir Nicholas sent for the book and made the entry, and that the clergyman added the other particulars, which Sir Nicholas, as a God fearing Lord Keeper, had refrained from writing.

In January, 1560-1, Sir Henry Sidney, who had married Lord Robert Dudley's sister, made an offer to De Quadra that if the King of Spain would countenance a marriage between the Queen and Dudley, they would restore the Roman Catholic religion. These assurances were repeated to De Quadra in February by Lord Dudley himself. The Queen was not strong enough to break with the Protes tants unless she had Roman Catholic support, backed by the King of Spain. Evidently a public marriage was

QUEEN ELIZABETH 9

what the parties still needed and contemplated. In January De Quadra had reported to Philip that it was said that the Queen was ' a mother already,5 though he did not believe it. About February 23, Bishop De Quadra had an interview with the Queen, at which she made a confession. De Quadra did not break the seal of the confessional further than to report to the King that Elizabeth admitted that she was no angel.

So far as we have gone, the facts and reports made by the Ambassadors and others in the due discharge of their duties are consistent with the cipher story. Manifestly the Queen had to keep her marriage secret from Spain as well as from her own subjects.

The De Quadra letters of October, 1562, show that the Queen was then ill with smallpox, and, owing to inju dicious bathing and exposure, suffered a relapse, losing her speech and eyesight for four hours. When these were recovered, the Queen, in fear of her life, asked her Council to make Lord Robert Protector of the kingdom, and grant him a revenue of £20,000 per annum. She also ordered that a revenue of £500 per annum should be given to a groom of the chamber named Tamworth, who slept in Lord Robert's room. When she recovered other arrange ments were made.

From this time for several years Lord Robert behaved as a sort of Prince Consort. He rode by the Queen's side at all ceremonials, and occupied private rooms next to hers. In 1563 he was appointed Lord High Steward of Cam bridge University ; in 1564, Chancellor of Oxford Univer sity, Baron of Denbigh, and Earl of Leicester. The latter title had been thitherto, says Nichols, * usually appro priated to persons of Royal progeny/ At various dates the Queen enriched the Earl with large gifts of money and leases of Crown estates, including Kenil worth and Wanstead. He was made Lord-Lieutenant of the Forest and Castle of Windsor, Lord High Steward of Yarmouth, and given licence to sell woollen cloths free of duty.

10 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Tamworth seems to have been the private channel through whom large payments by the Queen to Leicester were made. His name figures for large sums in the household accounts, 1558-1569. At Court, Leicester was styled ' My lord.' When Melville visited the Queen in 1564, she opened a cabinet and showed him the Earl of Leicester's miniature, at the back of which she had written: 'My lord's picture.' Ambassadors made their reports to him. In April, 1566, Cecil urged the Queen not to marry Leicester, one of the reasons being that * he is infamed by the death of his wife.' Cecil had, of course, to consider the matter of public marriage, a step which would definitely assure the Earl's position as Queen's Consort. In view of the legal rights of Mary Queen of Scots to the throne, and the divisions upon the subject of religion which existed between large sections of the Queen's subjects, a more powerful Consort from amongst the Protestant Princes of the Continent was what Cecil was aiming at.

At this period Leicester's rooms at Court were, for a reason of health given by the Queen, made contiguous to her own.

In August, 1566, the Earl of Leicester told the French Ambassador that he was more uncertain than ever whether the Queen wished to marry him or not. He believed that the Queen never would marry, and that he had known her from her eighth year better than any man on earth. He added that he was as much in favour as ever, and was convinced that if the Queen altered her determination she would choose no other but himself (the Earl).

A second child was, according to the cipher story, born to the Queen and Leicester in 1567, the date being November 10.

In the autumn of 1569 matters were not going well with Elizabeth and Leicester. There was a Catholic rebellion in the North of England, which was eventually quelled by the Earl of Sussex. In the spring of 1570 the

QUEEN ELIZABETH 11

Pope issued a Bull of excommunication against her. Mary Queen of Scots' infant son had just been crowned King of Scotland, and all Elizabeth's intrigues to obtain possession of him had consequently failed. The rumours discreditable to the Queen were becoming numerous. A Norfolk gentleman named Marsham was condemned to lose his ears because he had been stating that ' my Lord of Leicester had two children by the Queen/ See letter of August, 1570, to the Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hard wick).

There was also a widespread conspiracy to rescue the Queen of Scots from her imprisonment. Leicester and Elizabeth seem to have come to the conclusion that, to save the country and themselves, she had better marry some powerful foreign Prince. An attempt to make a marriage treaty with an Austrian Archduke utterly broke down. Next negotiations were started with a French Prince, the Duke of Anjou, but that young gentleman was unwilling to oblige.

In 1571 a statute was passed (procured by Leicester, says the cipher story) rendering it penal even to speak of any other successor to the Crown of England than the issue of the reigning Queen. ' Naturalis ex ipsius corpore sobolis.' This was as far as Elizabeth would go towards a formal and open limitation of the succession, but the omission of the word ' lawful ' as applied to the word * issue ' gave rise to comment.

The Northumberland rebellion and the troubles with Scotland, Ireland, and Spain had caused her chief advisers also to conclude that a marriage with one of the French Princes was the only chance of the Queen's safety.

At this date both Leicester and Elizabeth were close on forty years of age, and after many years of intimacy the interests of their own preservation warranted that they should part company. Leicester is to be found arguing in favour of a French marriage, and Burleigh and Wal- singham (afraid for the Protestant religion) opposed to it.

12

TUDOR PROBLEMS

This position is confirmed by letters written to Walsing- ham, the English Ambassador in Paris in 1570-1.

Leicester wrote, January 16, 1570-1 : * I confesse our estate requireth a match, but God send us a good one and meet for all parties.'

The Queen wrote, March 24, 1570-71 : The Earl is * ready to allow of any marriage that we shall like.'

Burleigh wrote in October, 1571, that only the French marriage offered any chance of the Queen's safety.

The Catholic rebellion in the North of England and the discontent of the large English Catholic population appear to have thoroughly alarmed all three of them. In addition to obtaining the penal statute of 1571 already referred to, the Queen assured her Council that she was ' free to marry/

All this is consistent with an arrangement between the Queen and Leicester to ignore their secret marriage and seek safety in the Queen marrying a foreign Prince. Otherwise, what had Leicester to do with allowing any marriage the Queen might like ?

Immediate danger being passed, the year 1572 saw very little change in the close relations between the Queen and Leicester ; and there is some mystery as to the parentage of another child, probably born in this year, to which allusion will be made at the end of this chapter.

On May 11, 1573, Gilbert Talbot, writing to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury (then acting as custodian of Mary Queen of Scots), makes the statement that, though Leicester was upon good terms of affection with the Queen, two of her half-cousins, Douglas (widow in 1569 of Lord Sheffield) and her sister Frances, daughters of Lord William Howard of Effingham, were very far in love with him as they long have been.' Later it turned out that on May 21, 1573, Lady Sheffield had given birth to a son, of which Leicester admitted being the father, and for whom he made substantial provision in his will. From the

QUEEN ELIZABETH 13

Talbot letter it may be noticed that the Queen had also qualified her constancy by very marked flirtations with the Earl of Oxford, and by daily visits to her Captain of Guard, Sir Christopher Hatton, who was ill. This seems to mark a period when the Queen and Leicester had agreed to part company.

With the political horizon much brightened in 1575, the Queen seems to have made a great effort to recover Leicester's wandering affections by making him gifts to the extent of £50,000. He responded by giving her a magnificent entertainment at Kenilworth Castle.

The marriage negotiations with the Due d'Alen£on continued to drag along.

In September, 1576, Walter Devereux, the husband of Lettice, Countess of Essex (half-cousin of the Queen), died in Ireland, and in 1577 Leicester betrothed himself to the widow. It is unlikely that Leicester intended to actually marry the lady ; but her father, Francis Knollys, insisted upon a marriage before witnesses, and this was solemnized in the autumn of 1578 at Wanstead House, in the presence of Earl Warwick and Earl Pembroke, who married Leicester's niece. (See Lord North's account of this in 1 Collins's Peerage/ vol. iv., p. 461.) Leicester knew that the Queen dared not affirm her own marriage with him. At that time she was still negotiating to marry a French Prince, and disclosure of the true situation would have lost her the throne. Nevertheless, the Leicester-Essex marriage was kept from the Queen's knowledge for nearly a year, and then only disclosed to her out of spite by Simier, the French Ambassador, who was then negotiating (1579) the Alen£on marriage. The Queen made Leicester a prisoner at Greenwich Castle, and forbade the Countess from ever coming to the Court. She had intended to treat the matter much more seriously, but was dissuaded.

Simier, in 1579, was actively pressing for the conclusion of the d' Alenqon match. According to Camden, Leicester, although himself married, chafed very much about the

14 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Queen's expected marriage with the French Prince. Certainly the expectations of Francis and Robert, the off spring of their secret marriage, would be thereby absolutely destroyed. In August Leicester's friend, John Stubbe, a Norfolk squire, published a pamphlet deprecating the pro posed French marriage, and for this was savagely punished. Shortly afterwards Leicester's nephew, Philip Sydney, urged objections to the marriage, and for this was banished from the Court. Cecil, too, had prepared himself with objections. Under date October 6, 1579, he noted reasons against it, urging the doubtfulness of issue and the danger to the Queen, then aged about forty-six, of child- bearing.

When Cardinal Allen, about the year 1587, fulminated against the Queen, calling her ' an usurper, the firebrand of all mischief, the scourge of God, and rebuke of women- kind,' Cecil employed Stubbe to prepare a reply defending the Queen and her Protestant supporters.

Stubbe was also a friend of Lady Anne Bacon. So that we have Leicester, his nephew, and the Protestant group united in an attempt to induce the Queen to abandon the projected French marriage. But they were dealing with a vicious and violent woman. It must have been an open secret that Francis and Robert were either the legitimate or illegitimate sons of the Queen by Leicester. Even the learned Camden, when he wrote his account of these times, insinuated that the Queen had borne children to the Earl of Leicester. Almost without a story in biliteral cipher, the political position can be guessed to have been a dynastic and religious difficulty. With reference to Stubbe it may be added that about the time of the Cardinal Allen attack Leicester appointed Stubbe to be Sub-Steward of the im portant fishing-port of Yarmouth.

In 1586 the Earl and Elizabeth had passed the age of fifty — in fact, were no longer young ; but when important business needed attention, Leicester seems to have been called in as a matter of course. He conducted the English

QUEEN ELIZABETH 15

military operations in the Low Countries that year. In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth gave him charge of the military defences, and when the Armada was defeated she either made or designated him Lord- Lieutenant of England and Ireland, which office would have invested him with the highest powers. He, how ever, died a few weeks later, and at his death was heavily in debt to the Queen.

She did not show to his ' widow ' the cordiality due to the late ' wife ' of the Lord-Lieutenant of England and Ireland. On the contrary, her acts indicated spite- fulness and womanly jealousy. She not only ordered an auction sale of all the late Earl's extensive and valuable estates, but made the Countess pay £300 a year out of her jointure by enforcing an ' extent ' against it. Leicester must have apprehended some trouble of this kind, as in his will he particularly requested his executors to take care of his widow, and he left the Queen his great diamond and emerald jewel, with a string of 600 pearls (valued at £1,200 at that date) to hang it by. Lady Leicester shortly afterwards consoled herself by marrying Sir Christopher Blount, a young man fifteen years her junior, who had served the Earl as Master of Horse. It was not until March 2, 1597-8, that the Queen consented to admit the widow to her presence.

A few matters in Leicester's will are significant. The question of his burial was to be settled by Her Majesty. This gave her the chance of putting his body in a royal vault if desired. He left the benefit of an unexpired Crown lease of land in Wales to Robert Earl of Essex ('well-beloved son-in-law'). Leicester House, with the lordship of Chirk, was also to go to Robert after the death of his widow and base son, if the latter died without issue. His badge as Knight of the Garter was also left to Essex.

Historical facts may reasonably be said to confirm

16 TUDOK PEOBLEMS

the truth of the cipher story as regards the relations subsisting between the Queen and Lord Robert Dudley and the consequences which ensued.

The concealment of the fact of marriage resulted in comments as to the association of husband and wife, which in the absence of this knowledge appeared scandalous and objectionable. About the year 1568 Arundel, the premier Earl, and Norfolk, his son-in-law, the premier Duke, called Leicester to account for famil iarities towards the Queen, which to the limit of their knowledge appeared a disgrace to the English nation. For this and his conduct generally Norfolk was eventually to suffer death by the axe. The Queen sheltered her action by casting responsibility for the execution upon Lord Burleigh, a very unfair proceeding.

Twice afterwards she took a similar course. For the execution of the warrant for the death of Mary Queen of Scots, after the failure of her attempt to have the lady privily destroyed, she cast responsibility on her secretary Davison. For execution of the death-warrant against her own rebellious son Robert, Earl of Essex, she affected to blame everybody, and made her eldest son Francis print and publish a declaration of Robert's treasons.

To return to the Norfolk period. The decision to separate and ignore their marriage, which the Queen and Leicester seem firmly to have decided upon in 1571, seems in 1572 (after the Catholic rebellion had been ruthlessly repressed, and hundreds of more or less innocent persons put to death) to have been followed by a period of vacillation.

In 1573 the 'go-as-you-please' understanding seems to have been revived. Young Talbot, writing to his father, as before mentioned, on May 11, 1573, refers to Leicester transferring attention to a young widow, Lady Sheffield, and to her sister, while the Queen was taking a strong delight in the society of Chris-

QUEEN ELIZABETH 17

topher Hatton, and Vere, Earl of Oxford, both much her juniors in age.

Next to Leicester's tomb in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick is a handsome monument- tomb and effigy of a boy. The inscription upon it tells us that the boy was son of Robert Earl of Leicester, and nephew and heir unto Ambrose Earl of Warwick. ' A child of great parentage,' 'taken in his tender age' at Wanstead, Essex, on Sunday, July 19, 1584.

The age is not given, nor the name of the boy's mother, and he is not stated to have been heir to the Earl of Leicester.

Upon an engraving of the tomb in Dugdale's * Anti quities of Warwickshire,' 1656, the effigy looks like that of a boy of about twelve years of age.

In most accounts the boy buried in the Warwick Chapel tomb is alleged to have been son to Leicester and Lady Lettice, but in that case his age at death would have been about five years at most. The fact that he was named as heir to Leicester's brother, the Earl of Warwick, and that he was not described as heir to Leicester, supports the cipher account that Leicester had previously had sons by his secret marriage with the Queen.

The cipher account of the temperament and uncon trolled conduct of Queen Elizabeth is borne out very completely by the criticisms and statements — (1) in an article by the late Mr. E. A. Freeman, in the Gentleman s Magazine of 1854 ; (2) in one by the late Mr. J. A. Froude, in Fraser's Magazine ; and (3) in the ' Courtships of Elizabeth/ a book by the late Major Hume. The account is also confirmed in the c Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton/ by Nicholas; by Miss Agnes Strickland in 'Lives of the Queens of England ' ; and particularly by Mr. Campbell in ' The Case for Mary Queen of Scots.' The latter quotes con temporary letters as to later intimacies of Queen Eliza-

2

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TUDOR PEOBLEMS

beth with officers of her Guard, such as Raleigh and Blount.

Yet no one took greater pains to give the people of his day a better impression about his mothers career than her son, Francis ' Bacon? in his 'Felicities of Elizabeth,' printed in Latin for Continental perusal in 1607, and directed in his Will of 1621 to be printed in English.

He calculated that any necessary truths he had to reveal about her marriage, and her conduct to her two sons, would not be disclosed, by decipherment or other wise, until at least a hundred years after his own death.

FRANCIS AT THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.

To face page 19.

CHAPTER II

FRANCIS

IN this chapter it is proposed to consider what known facts as to the career of Francis Bacon are consistent with the cipher story claim. Francis was born on January 22, 1560-1, and, according to the cipher account, was taken away at birth from the Queen's palace by the Queen's companion, Lady Anne Bacon, the young second wife of the Queen's man of business, Sir Nicholas Bacon. He was brought up as the younger of Sir N. Bacon's second family, Anthony Bacon being the elder. Sir Nicholas had several children by his first wife. Although Anthony was an important man in his day, no one seems to have troubled to record the date of his baptism, and no interesting details of his childhood have been pre served or even thought worth it.

With Francis, the supposed younger son, tradition has been more kind. He is recorded as having visited the Queen at Court on more than one occasion, to have made clever replies to her questions, and as having been called by her ' her little Lord Keeper.' Francis was evidently a very precocious child.

He was a great song- writer, as the many songs intro duced into his various plays show. As a young man of twenty-two he sang to young Tom Walsingham on the banks of the Seine in Paris (see ' Eglogue upon the Death of Sir Francis Walsingham,' printed, 1590, by Francis, under the nom de plume of Watson). In 1590 he printed some Italian madrigals, published under the same pen-

19

20

TUDOE PROBLEMS

name. Later in life we know he wrote music and had an expert knowledge of it — a knowledge also extensively shown in the Shakespeare plays.

In August, 1569, the Court was at Guildford, in Surrey, for a few days.

The Duke of Norfolk recorded —

'that while there he came unaware into the Queen's privy chamber, and found Her Majesty sitting on the threshold of the door listening with one ear to a little child, who was singing and playing on the lute to her, and with the other to Leicester, who was kneeling by her side/

One would like to think that the little child was Francis, and that Norfolk was an eavesdropping witness of a quiet, peaceful interval, when the son of nine years old was visiting his real parents, though he did not then know of his relationship. To what extent the child was brought up at the Court there is no evidence, but no doubt his time would mostly be spent at York House and its garden bordering upon the Thames, or at Gorham- bury House, St. Albans. Sir Nicholas, according to the cipher, was to give Francis an education suitable for a Prince of such great expectations.

The talented Lady Anne Bacon and her father, Sir Anthony Cooke (tutor and friend to Edward VI.), had very likely much to do with his early tuition. When Cooke died, in 1576, he was in full possession of his faculties. He owned a most extensive and valuable library of books. He entertained the Queen at Gidea Hall in 1568. Her intimacy with Cooke's family was a close one.

From various odd sources, the knowledge of certain frequent visits by the Queen to Gorhambury is obtain able. These visits are consistent with more than a mere interest in Sir Nicholas Bacon. She was there in August, 1568, and again in July, 1572. Three terra-cotta busts — viz., one of Sir Nicholas, another of his wife, and a third

FRANCIS 21

of Francis at the age of twelve — are still preserved, and are attributed to the last-mentioned date. Anthony the supposed elder son, does not seem to have been com memorated in this way. In March, 1573, the Queen again visited Gorhambury. In April Francis was sent with Anthony to Cambridge University, so that the Queen's visit may have been concerned with his equip ment. The college selected was not St. Bennet's, where Sir Nicholas was educated, but Trinity, a college erected and endowed by Henry VIII., the Queen's father, and which she and Earl Leicester inspected in 1564. At Trinity Francis was under the charge of Whitgift, one of the Queen's chaplains, afterwards Archbishop of Canter bury. Francis left college in December, 1575, without having taken a degree, and yet, according to Bawley, his chaplain, having acquired all the knowledge which the University was capable of affording. The Queen visited Gorhambury again in March, 1576. During some part of that year Francis was at Court, according to the cipher story, and was suspected of being a bastard son of the Queen and Leicester. Owing to gossip about this and an interposition by Francis on behalf of a Lady-in-waiting, who was being violently struck and assaulted by the Queen for this gossip, the Queen, in her fit of anger, admitted to Francis that she was his mother, but said she would never acknowledge him.

Lady Anne Bacon, to whom Francis then referred, told him that it was true, and that she herself was but his foster-mother. The cipher account further states that it was decided that Francis should be sent abroad. In August, 1576, the Queen was once more at Gorhambury (see Eymer's ' Foedera/ p. 765). The question once more of the nature and extent of the equipment for her son about to travel aboard may have required her attention. In September, 1576, Francis crossed to France with Sir Amias Paulet, the English Ambassador. The extent of his travels in France is not known, but he was certainly

22 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

at Paris, and probably at Tours, Poitiers, Bordeaux, and other places. In 1578, according to Eawley, Francis ^returned to England. The cipher account is that he had fallen in love with the beautiful Marguerite of Valois, the French King's sister, a lady married to Henry of Navarre, but who for several years had declined to reside with her husband.

Although, as in the case of Shakespeare and his wife, the lady was eight years older than himself, Francis hoped that his parents would help in promoting a divorce from Henry of Navarre, to be followed by a marriage of Francis with Marguerite. His hopes were not realized, but his visit to England seems to have been availed of for the painting of his miniature by Hilliard, the Queen's Court Limner, which bears date 1578. The Queen, for some reason or another, had lavished much wealth on Sir Nicholas Bacon. If the cipher story be true, there was good reason for it. He was privy to a most important royal secret. This wealthy man on December 12, 1578, made and published a very full and carefully -drawn will, whereby he divided his numerous estates between his children; but he made no provision for Francis, the youth of such bright intelligence that Hilliard had recorded a special remark about it upon the miniature. Sir Nicholas Bacon died two months later. Eawley, in his intentionally garbled ' Life of Bacon ' (' I shall not tread too near upon the heels of truth,' Eawley said in his preface), pretends that this was accidental, and that Sir Nicholas had pro vided money to purchase an estate for Francis, but that owing to death his intentions had not been carried out. The fact is that Francis was actually, though only politely, mentioned in the will. He was to have half the Gorham- bury furniture at Lady Anne's death, and Gorhambury House itself if Anthony died without issue. It is a fair suggestion that, had Francis been a son of Sir Nicholas, the latter would have fully provided for him in his will.

FRANCIS 23

In 1580 Francis, against his inclination, was put to study law at Gray's Inn. His interesting objections are recorded in a letter to Burleigh, the Queen's Prime Minister, of September 16, 1580 (see the 'Life and Letters of Francis Bacon,' by the late Mr. Spedding). The Queen took upon herself the burden which Sir Nicholas very naturally left to her — that is to say, she provided Francis with a maintenance allowance, for which he duly thanked her in a letter to Burleigh, dated October 18, 1580. Queen Elizabeth was a writer of poetry, and Francis appears to have been a good poet as a youth, no doubt trained to some extent at Cambridge by his friend Gabriel Harvey, the accomplished Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry. His early literary work will be dealt with later, but it is certain that, having regard to his own peculiar position and expectations, he could not print his writings under his own ascription.

One other thing Burleigh arranged for Francis in 1580. According to his own handwriting upon an ex tract from the Gray's Inn records, he procured a dis pensation that Francis should not have to take his commons at the Inn.

Had Francis been the son of a lawyer such as Sir Nicholas, his desire to have his meals apart from the barristers, ancients, and fellow-students at the Inn would be pronounced odd. But for a man who was a young Prince, though for reasons of the Queen's safety on the throne unrecognized, the wish for freedom in this par ticular would be natural. Some time in April, 1582, or a little later, Francis seems to have travelled abroad again, and if we are to accept the account given in a preface to a French edition of Bacon's ' Sylva Sylvarum,' called ' L'Histoire Naturelle,' printed in 1630, he travelled at one time or another both in Italy and Spain. On October 19, 1582, Francis was in Orleans, because he wrote from there for money to Sir Thomas Bodley, a great personal friend of the Earl of Leicester, who would

24 TUDOB PROBLEMS

seem, from his biographers, to have filled at this date the position of Gentleman Usher to the Queen's private apartments. Anyway, Bodley, in his reply, written in December, 1582 (see 'Reliquae Bodleiana'), pressed upon Francis the importance of making special study of the States and Governments visited by him.

There is a gap in Francis's vizarded publications from April, 1582, to some date in 1583, so there was time for him to have been abroad this second time for a period of nearly two years. That he visited Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Denmark, may be gathered from certain of his vizarded writings — namely, ' Discovery of Cosenage'C Greene,' 1591), ' Pierce Pennilesse ' ('Nash/ 1592), and ' Repentance ' (' Greene,' 1592).

Philip Sidney visited all or most of these countries, his expenses coming to over £800. The 'friends' who furnished Francis with his travelling expenses through the medium of Bodley, the Queen's private doorkeeper, must have been very wealthy people. A year or less after his return from abroad he was elected M.P. for Melcombe and for Gatton. In 1586 he was elected M.P. for Taunton.

The lawyers of Gray's Inn have celebrated somewhat solemnly the tercentenary of Francis Bacon's election as Treasurer of the Inn. One can only say, with Queen Elizabeth, that the speakers made show to the uttermost of their knowledge, rather than that they were deep.

c What's open made to justice, That justice seizes.'

Yet Francis had a right merry time at Gray's Inn, to which attention might happily have been called.

In 1586 his scruples as to meals had been over come, an order being made permitting him to take his meals at the Reader's or Master's table, care being had to reserve the rights to pension and otherwise of the barristers and ancients over whose heads he had been

FRANCIS 25

passed. He served in another Parliament in 1589, and again in 1592-3. By this time anyone who has studied Francis Bacon's tendencies will be prepared to be told he had taken considerable charge of the House of Commons arid its rights. He had what his brother, Robert Earl of Essex, described to Lord Keeper Puckering as a ' natural freedom and plainness ' ; in other words, he was more than a trifle masterful.

In March, 1592-3, however, he met with a serious rebuff. Over a debate upon supply, Francis started a question of privilege, in which he maintained the rights of the Commons against the Lords. Had this masterful person been in the Lords, the protest might never have been raised. This brought supply to a sort of dead-lock and made the Queen angry. The delay in replenishing her Treasury was unpleasant, and she evidently thought it necessary to check her son's assumption of authority. Accordingly, she forbade him the Court, which meant a very great disgrace to him. He was very hurt, but having an abundance of literary work on hand, seems to have occupied his mind with that. His own supplies must also have been restricted, as he became short of money, although Anthony, his foster-brother, was mort gaging his patrimony in order to help him. About February, 1593-4, the office of Attorney-General was likely to become vacant, and Francis busied himself in canvassing for the post. Just imagine the impudence : a young man of thirty-two who had never practised at the Bar wanting to occupy its highest position. As a Prince possessed with an immense belief in himself, yet sadly in want of a valuable salaried position, his applica tion can be understood. If he did not get it, he told his brother, Robert Earl of Essex, he should quit the Queen's service and retire ' with a couple of men to Cambridge.'

The Queen did not think his knowledge of law was good enough for the post. In her opinion (expressed to his brother Robert) he was showy, but not deep. On

26

TUDOR PROBLEMS

April 10, 1594, she appointed Sir Edward Coke. Francis did not retreat to Cambridge, but tried about on another tack by starting an urgent negotiation for the position of Solicitor-General, made vacant by Coke's elevation. We can picture him in the midst of his hard work at Gray's Inn or at Twickenham, making his younger brother Robert run his legs off in carrying messages and letters to the Queen and other personages. Robert was only twenty-eight, but he was holder of the valuable salaried post of Master of the Horse and first favourite with the Queen, while Francis had only what the Queen allowed him through Burleigh. Naturally he wanted an income he could draw direct, particularly as he had a number of literary assistants in his pay, and there must have been a large bill running up with printers and bookbinders. A valuable salaried appointment was more than ever necessary. But, in spite of his persistency and Robert's continued exertions as intermediary, the office of Solicitor- General remained unfilled.

In December, 1594, being still out of favour, but unable to pass by a jest, he decided to enact a little comedy. Refused access to the Court, he took oppor tunity of the twelve days' Christmas licence to establish a Court of his own. With the help of his friends at Gray's Inn he wrote a ' Device of a Mock Court,' and organized the gentlemen of the Inn to act in it. From amongst them a Prince of Purple was elected, and the whole * Device/ as a skit upon the real Court, bubbled over with merriment.

A number of the leading courtiers were invited to witness the performances. Later on, in order that the Queen should not be displeased, a deputation was arranged to sail in barges past her palace at Greenwich, and offer to perform before her. This was accepted, and the performance took place at Greenwich at the following Shrovetide.

Before that feast we find Francis, on January 25,

FRANCIS 27

1594-5, writing to Anthony that he was thinking of selling up and going to live abroad. In the battle with his mother he was as obstinate as she was.

During the year just ended he had tried, with the help of permission which Burleigh had obtained for him, to plead at the Bar for any suitor who would employ him. Before that he had only served the Queen as a sort of private counsel. On March 21, 1594-5, however, he had had enough, and wrote to Burleigh that —

' though I am glad of Her Majesty's favour that I may with more ease practise the law, which percase I may do now and then for my countenance, yet to speak plainly, though perhaps vainly, I do not think that the ordinary practice of the law, not serving the Queen in place, will be admitted for a good account of the poor talent which God hath given me.'

Before 1595 was out Francis had been restored to the Queen's favour. He had not written anything for her Accession-Day celebrations (November 17) since 1592. This year he wrote the device known as c Essex's Device, and received by way of acknowledgment a grant from the Queen of a twenty-one years' extension of the lease of his Twickenham Lodge estate. The deed was appro priately dated November 17, 1595. He appears to have celebrated the reconciliation by producing the play of ' All's Well that Ends Well,' which Sir Sidney Lee and others attribute to this year.

It is next proposed to deal with the evidence which even Spedding's ' Letters and Life of Francis Bacon ' gives, as to what during the period from 1579 to 1603 was going on behind the scenes. The biliteral cipher story as to Bacon's activity as a poet and writer of works printed anonymously (or under ascriptions to other persons paid for the use of their names) is quite con sistent with the indications given in the correspondence. At the risk of a slight recapitulation, the following are the indications relied upon :

28 TUDOR, PROBLEMS

To Burleigh in 1580 Francis refers to 'studies oi greater delight.'

To Burleigh in 1592 he threatens 'to become a sorry bookmaker.'

The Queen in 1594 admitted his ' great wit, excellent gift of speech, and much other good learning/ but in law thought he made show to the uttermost of his knowledge rather than that he was deep (letter, Essex to Bacon).

In the letter of March 30, 1594, he told Essex he should ' retire with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and contemplations without looking back.'

In 1595 he wrote to Essex : * For as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters of Spaw that give a stomach ; but rather they quench appetite and desires.'

In a second letter in this year he told Essex he purposed not to follow the practice of the law, ' because it drinketh too much time which I have dedicated to better purposes.' The same year, in a letter to Anthony Bacon, he refers to c certain idle pens ' in his service.

On May 17, 1596, Essex, writing of Francis to the Lord Keeper, said : 'That life I call idle which is not spent in public business, for otherwise he will ever give himself worthy tasks.'

In 1597 Francis asked Burleigh ' to continue unto me the good favour in the course of my poor travails ' (works).

In January, 1597-8 Francis for the first time published under his own ascription. This synchronizes with the deciphered statement that he had decided to abandon in favour of his brother, Robert Earl of Essex, pursuit of his right to the succession to the throne. It agrees, too, with his observation concerning Essex in the 6 Vewe of Ireland/ written about that period in the name of Spenser — viz., 'upon whom all our hopes now rest.' There was no c brand ' attached to Robert's birth, and he was in great favour with his mother the Queen.

FRANCIS 29

As showing the caution of the man, the publication (Essays) under his (' Bacon's ') own ascription was such as to involve him in no disgrace should he ever attain the throne.

In 1603 he concluded a letter to his friend and fellow- poet Davis, who was going to Scotland to meet the new King, ' so desiring you to be good to concealed poets' If Davis had told King James that Francis had written * The Faerie Queene ' containing the Duessa (Mary Queen of Scots), cantos to which at the time James took great exception, Francis would have been in trouble.

In the same year Francis wrote to the Earl of Northumberland, leader of the English peers, reminding the Earl of certain ' Public writings of satisfaction ' which he, Francis, had written.

This was an allusion to the fact that when the Earl was made a Knight of the Garter in 1593, Francis (in the name of Peele) had written the poem ' The Honor of the Garter,' to celebrate the occasion.

In 1604 Francis printed his 'Apology' concerning Essex. In this are two admissions. First, that, ' though he pro fessed not to be a poet, he writ a sonnet to tend to the reconciliation of the Queen and Essex.' Secondly, that he objected to having been ordered to confront Essex at his first trial with the prose ' Henry IV.,' on the ground that it would be said, * I gave in evidence my own tales. . . .' He had written the English history plays of ' Richard II.1 and ; Henry IV.' just previously.

The conduct of all parties is consistent with Francis having been an unacknowledged son of the Queen com pelled to keep up appearances by settling at Gray's Inn and studying law (for which he did not care), the ordinary conditions of residence being modified in his favour. No mere son of a deceased Lord Keeper, without experience and at the age of about thirty-three, would for two years continually press for one of the principal law offices in

30

TUDOR PEOBLEMS

the gift of the Crown. Nor would any such individual have ventured to threaten what he would do if refused.

The correspondence and printed statements by Francis are consistent with his having been from as early a period as 1580 engaged in ' studies of greater delight ' than law studies, and that it meant to him a loss of dignity to be set to the law. His literary occupation was an absorbing one, as is proved by his letter of 1592, Vthat he had taken all knowledge for his providence,' and that if he was not appointed to a good salaried office he should become ' a sorry bookmaker,' and that he was in need of literary helpers. The letter of 1594, that he should retire with a couple of men to Cambridge, is an indication that he had already a literary staff working for him. The * idle pens ' reference in the letter to Anthony con firms this, and, in the same year, the letter from Essex shows that the Queen was aware of his accomplishments. That he was a poet is proved by the ' waters of Parnassus ' passage in the letter of 1594-5, and the later intimations as to the dedication of ' my time to better purposes,' ' worthy tasks,' * poor travails/ ' concealed poets,' ' public writings of satisfaction/ ' writ a sonnet,' ' gave in evidence my own tales.' Mr. Spedding, who worked under the disadvantage of not possessing the right clue, gives as Bacon's whole literary output from 1580 to 1603 — three or four pamphlets, ten short essays, and one or two devices. Could he but have caught a mental glimpse of that busy group of literary workers under Francis as chief, at one time at Gray's Inn, at another at Twickenham Lodge, his account would have been very different. Over the period under review Francis wrote, either wholly or mainly edited, works published either anonymously or under the names of Spenser, Gosson, Marlowe, Greene, Kyd, Watson, Nash, Bright, and Peele. He also wrote a few ascribed to Shakespeare and edited Sidney's writings.

Even the sonnet he wrote in Michaelmas term, 1600, found its printed page. Later in the year it was printed

FRANCIS 31

in the quarto of the ' Merchant of Venice/ We refer to the well-known fourteen lines of Portia's speech :

1 The quality of mercy is not strain' d, It droppeth as the gentle raine from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest ; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes The throned Monarch better than his Crowne, His Scepter shewes the force of temporall power, The attribute to awe and Majestic, Wherein doth sit the dread and feare of Kings : But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of Kings, It is an attribute to God himselfe ; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercie seasons Justice.'

That this beautiful sonnet did not bring about the reconciliation between the Queen and her brilliant younger son was not the fault of the elder one.

Sir E. D. Lawrence suggests that the speech restored (in modern spelling) to Sonnet form might have been somewhat as follows :

FRANCIS BACON'S SONNET FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.

' The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as from Heaven the gentle dew Upon the place beneath. Bliss twice attain d, It most becomes the mightiest in his might, The throned Monarch better than his Crown. His Sceptre shows the force of temporal right, The attribute to awe and wide renown, Wherein the dread and fear of Kings doth fall : But mercy is above the sway of sword It is enthroned in the hearts of all ! It is an attribute to God the Lord And earthly power likest God's doth show, When Kingly mercy seasons Justice so.'

CHAPTER III

ROBERT

IN 1561 or 1562 young Walter Viscount Hereford married Lettice Knollys, the Queen's first cousin. Her mother, the Queen's relative, filled the office of Mistress of the Robes. The cipher story alleges that a second child, Robert, was born of the private union of the Queen and Earl Leicester, and that such child was brought up as the eldest son of this Lord Hereford, who was afterwards Earl of Essex.

It is not unreasonable to expect that had a child of the Queen to be fostered, the newly married daughter of the Queen's relative and confidential friend might appro priately have been entrusted with the responsibility. Lord Hereford was not rich, and had only one country- house — viz., Chartley, where his daughter Penelope was born in 1563, his daughter Dorothy in 1565, and his son Walter in 1569. Another child died in infancy. Robert is stated to have been born on November 10, 1567. If truly the child of Lord and Lady Hereford, it is unusual to find that he did not, as eldest son, bear his father's Christian name. The baptisms of Penelope, Dorothy, and Walter are duly recorded at Chartley ; that of Robert, stated to have occurred at Netherwood, in Herefordshire, is not recorded in the parish register.

On the date given of Robert's birth, an important letter from the Earl of Sussex, in Vienna, was received by the Queen, in London, on the subject of a proposed marriage with the Archduke of Austria. The Queen

32

BOBEBT 33

replied to it a month later, requesting a personal inter view. On November 8, 1567, was issued a warning to the officers of the household at Hampton Court to cause guests to use modest speeches upon the affairs of the realm. In 1571 to 1573 the Queen's conduct towards Lord Hereford is consistent with the existence of some distrust and desire on her part to get him out of the way. After giving him an estate in the county of Essex, and creating him Earl of Essex and a Knight of the Garter, she sent him to Ireland on a very curious errand — namely, to recover possession of a barony in Ulster, which, when obtained, they were to divide between them ! To provide funds for the expedition, the Queen lent him £10,000, at £10 per cent, interest, on mort gage of the Earl's estates, which were made subject to forfeiture on non-repayment of instalments of the loan.

The correspondence of the Queen with the Earl at this period gives indication that there was something under the surface. In one letter she refers ' to letters the contents whereof assure yourself our eyes and the fire only have been privy' (March 30, 1574-5). In another she remarks :

' Deem, therefore, cousin mine, that the search of your honour with the danger of your breath hath not been bestowed on so ungrateful a prince that will not both consider the one and reward the other.

' Your most loving cousin and sovereign,

( TT T) Hi. it.

'August 6, 1575.'

It is consistent with the truth of the cipher story that Walter Earl of Essex should, by letter of November 1, 1573, have written to Burleigh, the Lord Treasurer, offering to him the ' direction, education, and marriage of my eldest son.' This might well have been written to order, and the offer to contribute £10 per annum towards the cost of education added to give some * carp of truth.' It seems highly probable that Walter came back to

3

34 TUDOR PROBLEMS

England earlier than expected, made himself very awkward, and that it became expedient to get him back to Ireland, and possibly to destroy him ; but these surmises do not necessarily concern the cipher story. Anyway, he arrived in Dublin in July, 1576, and died in the September following, being seized with a violent and sudden illness.

At the time of the Earl's death little Lord Hereford was not quite nine years old. Sir Henry Wootton records that the Earl had but a poor conceit of him, and preferred his second son, Walter.

Robert remained at Chartley until January 11, 1577, when he became a member of Burleigh 5s family for a few months. In May he was at Trinity College, Cambridge — the college at which Francis ' Bacon ' had resided about eighteen months earlier.

In June he was short of clothing and silver plate for his rooms. Application was made to Burleigh, the Queen's Lord Treasurer, for these requirements. His Christmas vacation was spent at Court. His meeting with the Queen is thus described :

4 On his coming, the Queen meeting with him, offered to kiss him, which he humbly altogether refused. Upon Her Majesty bringing him through the great chamber into the chamber of presence, Her Majesty would have him put on his hat, which nowise he would, offering himself in all things at Her Majesty's commandment ; she then replied that if he would be at her command ment, then he should put on his hat.'

That this boy should pass with the Queen into the presence of the kneeling courtiers without doffing his hat seems to have suited the Queen's humour at that moment, and is consistent with the relationship disclosed by the cipher story.

On July 6, 1581, at the age of fourteen, the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him. From that time he resided at Lanfey House, in Pembroke, until 1584, when he went to live at London. In 1585 and 1586 he was in the Low Countries with the Earl of Leicester, who

EGBERT 35

was anxious to have him with him, and he took part in the military movements which ended with the fight at Zutphen. After his return to England he seems to have been constantly at Court and on the best of terms with the Queen. Earl Leicester in May, 1587, wanted to give up the post of Master of the Horse in Robert's favour, but this was not carried out until December, when Leicester was made Lord Steward of the Household in succession to the deceased Lord Hunsdon. The post given to Robert was worth £1,500 per annum.

Had Robert been the son of Lettice, Lady Essex, whose marriage to the Earl of Leicester had caused so much offence to the Queen, and who was forbidden the Court, the Queen would hardly have been so generous. When Robert came to live at the Court he found his mother the Queen far committed to an intrigue with Walter Raleigh, a young man of thirty-four, her junior by twenty years. She had provided him with a house, and made him considerable monetary provision. There was sufficient prima facie justification for the remark which Morgan, the agent in France of Mary Queen of Scots, made in a letter of March 31, 1586, that Raleigh was Queen Elizabeth's mignon.

This was not a happy state of things for young Robert, just come, at the age of twenty, to his mother's Court. The Queen in that year made Raleigh Captain of her Guard in succession to Hatton. There is an interesting letter from Robert to his friend Edward Dyer dated July 21, 1587, describing a hot altercation between Robert and the Queen, in the course of which he accused his mother of being under the control and influence of Raleigh.

' I spake what of grief and choler as much against him as I could, and I think he [Raleigh], standing at the door, might very well hear the wosrt that I spoke of himself.'

That Raleigh never forgave Robert for his attitude towards him is shown by his letter to Robert Cecil of

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TUDOR PEOBLEMS

a later date, and it was Raleigh who presided at poor Robert's execution.

After the altercation in July, 1587, Robert decided to go abroad and join the fighting in the Low Countries before Sluys. He bolted off without notice, but Sir Robert Carey was sent after him by the Queen, and stopped him from embarking.

1588 was the year of the Spanish Armada, and Robert took a prominent part in the military defences organized in this country, and was appointed General of Horse.

Earl Leicester died on September 4 of that year, leaving by will his George and Garter to Robert, who was made K.G. the same year. After Leicester's death the Queen seems to have leant a good deal upon Robert. The correspondence between the Queen and Essex, and his doings in the years 1589, 1590, and 1591, again support the cipher story. In 1589 he ran away from the English Court, and took ship to join the English naval expedition to Portugal. The Queen sent several courtiers to try and stop him. Learning that he had got on board the Swiftsure, commanded by Sir Roger Williams, she sent word to Norris and Drake, then in charge of the fleet, to threaten Williams with death, and to send Robert back to England. In a letter to Robert, sent out to the fleet, she accused him (Robert) of undutiful behaviour. He returned in June, and, going direct to her room, just mudstained from his journey, soon made his peace with the Queen.

About April, 1590, he privately wedded Sir Philip Sidney's widow. This did not come to the Queen's knowledge until several months afterwards. Then her anger was very great, not merely, she declared, that he married without asking her consent, but for marrying below his degree — as if the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, her late Secretary of State, was not good enough. But if the cipher story correctly describes the

ROBERT 37

position, the Queen would have preferred Robert to have married a foreign princess.

In October, 1590, Henry IV. of France was in military difficulties with Spain, and sent Marshal Turenne to negotiate for English assistance. He also wrote to Robert personally, asking him to help him in the matter. The French King had either some private knowledge or else an exalted notion of Robert's position. It was not until the following June that the Queen con* sented to Robert leading an expedition into Normandy. His commission was dated July 21, 1591, and he was to keep his forces in France for two months only from the time of landing. He was to have power to create knights, but to be careful as to who were appointed. He wrote a number of very fulsome letters to the Queen during his absence, his object very plainly being to pre serve himself as first in her good opinion.

The Queen was very angry with Essex for staying beyond the agreed time. He accordingly came home in October, explained his position, and was permitted to go back to France for another month. The Council, in con veying the Queen's decision, wrote that it was her wish that ' you should not put in danger your own person at the siege of Rouen '!

In December he issued a challenge to a combat to the Governor of Rouen. The Queen instructed her Council to stop the encounter !

On December 19, infectious illness having broken out amongst his troops, the Council wrote, desiring him to return from such danger to his person as they feared might happen from the increase of such infection. In 1592, 1593, and 1594 Robert was resident at Court; he was, says Mr. Devereux, the idol of the populace, and the Queen could scarce bear his absence from her side.

In 1594, on returning together in a coach from the examination of Dr. Lopez, Robert had an altercation with Sir Robert Cecil as to the appointment of Francis Bacon

38

TUDOR PEOBLEMS

to the vacant office of Attorney-General. Essex said : ' I have made no search for precedents of young men who have filled the office of Attorney-General, but I could name to you, Sir Robert, a man younger than Francis, less learned and equally inexperienced, who is suing and striving with all his might for an office of far greater weight (the Secretaryship of State).' Cecil said if Essex would be satisfied with the Solicitorship for Francis, it might be of easier digestion for the Queen. ' Digest me no digestions,' cried Essex. ' The Attorney ship for Francis is that I must have ; and in that I will spend all my power, might, authority, and amity.' This agrees with the cipher story as to the decision of Francis to give up his life wholly to literature, and push Robert's claims to the succession instead of his own. The use of the Christian name indicates a close familiarity between Francis and Robert, and the energy with which Robert was pushing Francis for the legal appointment shows the urgent need there was for providing a substantial salary for Francis.

In 1595 Robert's high favour continued. Letters to the Queen from foreign potentates and officials were delivered only to Robert, and ' he to answer them.' In August, 1595, Robert sent Antonio Perez (who had been several months in England) back to Henry IV. of France, who wrote to Robert on December 4, thanking him.

In 1596 Robert took part in a large sea expedition against Spain. In the March of that year the Spaniards had assaulted Calais, and before the Queen could be induced to send help, it was captured on April 10. On the 23rd the French King wrote to Robert, apprising him of the sad event, and sent the Duke of Bouillon and Antonio Perez to discuss the situation. Perez (in the absence of Robert at Plymouth) settled on to Anthony Bacon, who in turn took refuge from his complaints by visiting Twickenham Lodge, where Francis dwelt. ' Love's Labour Lost,' refurbished, and with its joke at the expense

EOBEET 39

of Perez (Armado), was performed before the Queen at the Christmas of 1597-8. The naval expedition against Spain, in which Eobert had acted so valiantly, returned in August, 1596. The Queen thought that the large captures of plunder ought to be applied in discharge of part of the heavy cost she had incurred. Matters had gone heavily against Eobert during his absence. His enemy, Henry Brooke (afterwards Lord Cobham), had been making mischief, and Ealeigh's friends caused the Lords to publish an account of the expedition giving Ealeigh all the credit. Eobert printed a private account to counteract this, but the Queen would not allow him opportunity of justifying his own conduct.

That the populace took his side only rekindled the Queen's jealousy of him. While Essex had been away the Secretaryship of State, vacant by the death of Walsingham, and which Essex had striven to give to Davison or Bodley, was given to Eobert Cecil, who thenceforth made no secret of his hostility to Essex. With the tide so adverse, Eobert became a tired and beaten man. In November he fell ill. In February, 1596-7, he was ill again, and it was gossiped that the Queen had expressed her determination to break him of his will and pull down his great heart, and that he had replied, it was a thing impossible, and that he held it from his mother's side ! In March, 1597, he was anxious to retire into Wales, but the Queen would not let him. His object was to drop out of Court altogether. The Queen, who had refused him the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports (eventually given to Cobham), made him Master of Ordnance. In June he was pushed into taking charge of another naval expedition against Spain. He had the rank of Lord General of the Forces, and amongst others who accompanied him was Ealeigh. Ealeigh was, as we have seen, no friend to Eobert, and under date July 6, 1597, wrote a guarded letter from Plymouth to his particular friend, Sir Eobert Cecil. It appears to be

40 TUDOR PROBLEMS

so worded that, if intercepted, it would be taken to be as much friendly to Essex as the reverse.

He alludes to the Lord General being ' wonderful merry at the conceit of Richard II.,' and adds : 'It is perhaps the true way to all our good quiet and advancement, and most of all for her sake, whose affairs will thereupon find better progression.'

The allusion is clearly to Robert's project of deposing the Queen and establishing himself as Regent. Had Robert done this before his fruitless expedition to Ireland and his subsequent illness, English history might have been very different. At this period arrangements had been made for Robert's praises to be sounded in Scotland by Anthony Bacon, in the Low Countries by Sir Thomas Bodley, and in France by La Fontaine, the French Ambassador. Robert Cecil, however, was secretly work ing to make the French King hostile to the Earl of Essex's pretensions.

The navy returned in October unsuccessful. For this the Queen again blamed Robert, and he retired, offended, to Wanstead House. On October 23 the Queen created Lord Howard Earl of Nottingham, which, combined with the office of Lord Admiral, gave that nobleman prece dence at Court over Robert, who thereupon positively refused to go to Court.

After long negotiations the Queen on December 10 created Robert Earl Marshal of England, which restored his precedency. Matters proceeded better during 1598, Essex being very influential at Court, until in June a stormy scene occurred over the question of appointing a Lord Deputy for Ireland, when the Queen boxed his ears, and he in retaliation put his hand upon his sword and left the Court, and was not again received until Novem ber. Meantime Lord Burleigh died on August 4. The following year Essex virtually appointed himself com mander of an expedition to subdue Ireland. It left on March 29, 1599. The jealousy of the Queen at his

EGBERT 41

masterful conduct of this campaign, his very free appoint ments to knighthood — some fifty or more being made — was further fomented by his enemies at the Court, and in view of this he deemed it prudent to come back without waiting for the Queen's instructions. The old Queen was induced to believe that his return was really part of a planned attack upon her throne, so that on his arrival on October 1 he was made a prisoner at York House, the residence of Lord Keeper Egerton. He fell ill — all the symptoms pointing to an attack of typhoid fever, con tracted in Ireland. The Queen thought he was sham ming, and declined to let her physician, Dr. Browne, attend him, but she gave way ten days later. His illness and imprisonment made a great impression upon the populace, which was loudly in his favour. Lady Scrope (one of the Careys, cousins to the Queen) inter vened with the Queen without effect. Even the French Ambassador tried, but found the Queen short-tempered and bitter. The clergy preached in his vindication, and prayed for him by name. Pamphlets in his favour were scattered about the Queen's Palace. The Queen told Harrington : ' By God's Son, I am no Queen. That man ' (meaning Robert) ' is above me.'

On November 29 the Star Chamber made a declara tion of the reasons for his imprisonment. The same night the Queen, with Lady Warwick and the Earl of Worcester, went privately to see him. On December 13 Robert sent back to the Queen his patents as Master of Ordnance and Master of Horse. On the 15th the Queen, showing signs of grief, sent him some broth by one of her physicians. On March 10, 1599-1600, to suit the Lord Keeper's convenience, he was removed in custody to Essex House. In June he was proceeded against before the Star Chamber, and Francis, although not a law officer, was ordered by the Queen to take part in the prosecution. By order of the Chamber, Robert was to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. That Robert understood

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

and did not mind the part taken by Francis is shown in Robert's letter to Anthony : ' For Francis, I think no worse of him for what he has done against me than of my Lord Chief Justice.' In July Robert was again ill, and on the 19th wrote a friendly letter to Francis, indicating that he had virtually given up the struggle and should retire into private life.

On August 26 he was set at liberty, but the Queen would not be reconciled to him. Francis tried very hard to bring it about, even writing and presenting the Queen with the beautiful sonnet beginning, ' The quality of mercy is not strained/ It was all to no purpose. No influence could stir the bitter old woman, now finally estranged. It is always a dangerous thing to offend old people — they never forgive. Moreover, the Queen was backed by men like Sir Robert Cecil, the Lord Admiral, Lord Cobham, and Sir Walter Raleigh, with all of whom Essex had quarrelled, and all of whom were in power ; even Raleigh had, after five years, been restored as Captain of the Queen's Guard.

Finally, after the failure of many appeals to the Queen, Essex gave himself up to rage and despair. He essayed his coup d'etat designed to emancipate the Queen from the men who surrounded and influenced her, and to govern in her name.

The attempt was made on February 8, 1600-1, and failed. On the 19th he was arraigned for high treason and sentenced to death. He said, with evident truth : ' I am not a whit dismayed to receive this doom. Death is as welcome to me as life.' Francis took a small part in the prosecution by peremptory order of the Queen. From the report of the proceedings it would appear that he took a perfectly fair line of argument, and that Robert, though inclined to argue, did not show any resentment. The rebellion had evidently been planned in entire oppo sition to the course of conduct which Francis always advised Robert to take, and there seems very little doubt

ROBERT 43

that he never thought the Queen would allow the death penalty to be carried out. The Queen appears to have waited for a sign of contrition to be sent by Essex while confined in the Tower. It is said that a token in the form of a ring was so sent, but reaching the Countess of Nottingham (wife of the Lord Admiral) instead of her sister, Lady Scrope, was not delivered to the Queen.

Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Nottingham, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lord Cobham fought not for the Queen, but for their own necks, which would not have been very safe had Essex been pardoned. When Robert was taken prisoner, Raleigh wrote to Cecil : « Let the Queen hold Bothwell while she hath him ; he will ever be the canker of her State and safety/

Robert was beheaded on February 25, 1600-1, and his supporters, Sir Christopher Blount and Sir Charles Danvers, on March 17 following.

Anthony Bacon died a little later.

Robert's sojourn and death in the Tower have been recorded in more ways than one. Clearly cut upon the wall over the doorway of the small cell at the foot of the stairs in the Beauchamp Tower are two words, which for three hundred years many men have seen, few have heeded, fewer have understood —

ROBABT TlDIE,

implying some unknown's effort to memorize this un happy son of Elizabeth Tudor (pronounced Tidir). That he was her son, as alleged in the cipher story, is abun dantly confirmed by natural inferences from recorded history. No mere lover would have attained the ascend ancy that Robert gained (but by his own stubbornness lost) over such a Queen. None but an arrogant, vain royal mother, who had never reared a child, would have treated him as she treated him. After his death the Queen complained that times had altered with her, and

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

she had now no one to trust. She lost her taste for dress, became thin and worn, was pleased with nothing, stamped and swore. Her delight, writes one of the courtiers, is to sit in the dark and sometimes with shed ding of tears to bewail Essex. On March 24, 1602-3, she died.

Francis, the survivor of this marvellously accomplished, forceful, yet ill-starred pair, printed in the year 1601 a poem which may or may not have concerned it, yet one of the verses is not without application to his dead relative :

' To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair ;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.'

The Phoenix and the Turtle.

CHAPTER IV

MISADVENTURES

FBANCIS BACON was essentially a cautious man. Having 1 vast contemplative ends,' his first care was to preserve his life in order to accomplish them. So he kept to the causeway of his road through life, and, like many cautious persons, retired into his cellar when storms were about.

The following incidents in his career may prove interesting :

The years 1591 to 1600 witnessed the publication, in fairly steady sequence, of Bacon's English history plays. We refer more particularly to the group dealing with some of the Kings in the order of succession to the throne — viz., ' King John ' to ' Richard III.' Below is the chronicle order and dates of printing :

Play. 'John' < Henry III.' 'Edward!.' ' Edward II.' 'Edward III.' 1 Eichard II.' ' Henry IV.' 1 Henry V.' ' Henry VI.' 'Edward IV.' 'Eichard III/

Date of Printing ... 1591 ... 1594 ... 1593 ... 1594 ... 1596 ... 1597 ... 1598 ... 1598 ,.. 1595 ... 1600 1597

Anon.

Greene

Peele

Marlowe

Anon.

The play dealing with the reign of Henry III. was ' Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,' in which the King is an important character. Francis evidently could not resist

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46 TUDOR PROBLEMS

the opportunity of giving prominence to his own name, Fr. Bacon.

The play of ( Edward IV.' was printed and published without the name of the author upon its title-page. Mr. F. G. Fleay could not understand why it was eventually placed to the credit of Thomas Heywood. This Heywood was evidently one of the group of young scholars attached to Bacon's scrivenery, taking part under his editorship in preparing and acting plays wherein the English tongue was being fashioned into a perfect language, and which plays at the same time taught habits of restraint and gentleness, and tuned the public mind to appreciate better things. Heywood modestly said of himself some years later that he was 1 youngest and weakest of the nest wherein he was hatched.' Heywood as a means of livelihood was appren ticed to Henslowe for a two years' course upon the English stage, and was connected with it as an actor for many years. In his illuminating book, the ( Shakespeare Symphony,' Mr. Bayley shows how many other play wrights were working upon Francis Bacon's plan, and their affection for him is shown in the poems or personal allusions of such men as Francis Beaumont, Thomas Powell, Ben Jonson, John Davies of Hereford, Massinger, and others. Heywood evidently had chambers at Gray's Inn, as his dedication of the 'Fair Maid' (1631), 'Iron Age ' (1632), and ' Jew of Malta ' (1633) show. Some of his plays show more of Bacon's share in composition than others, and there is very little doubt but that the prose work, 'An Apology for Actors' (1612) was entirely of Bacon's writing. The scheme of education by means of plays was Francis Bacon's, and he therefore was the proper man to defend it. That Heywood published the 'Jew of Malta,' a play containing part of Bacon's cipher story, shows that Heywood continued in the con fidence and privacy of those concerned in putting forth Bacon's work unpublished at the date of his death. We

MISADVENTURES 47

must apologize for this digression. It was necessary to account for the inclusion of the play of ' Edward IV.' in the English history sequence.

The chief point to which we wish to draw attention is the notable break in 1593 and 1594 in the chain of anonymity.

The explanation seems to be that early in 1592-3 Francis Bacon, as we know, incurred the grave dis pleasure of the Queen ; and not only that, he was, with out experience, asking first to be Attorney -General, and that failing, to be Solicitor-General, both posts being very correctly refused, though the latter appointment was not filled for many months. At that time the play of ' Edward I.' was emerging from the press. For reasons which further examination may enable us to infer, the title-page could not be altered. Yet the play, in view of Bacon's difficulties and aspirations, needed an ascribed author. This was accomplished by adding to the last page the quite unusual suffix, * Yours by George Peele Maister of Artes in Oxenford.' He had already stood sponsor for c The Arraignment of Paris.' For the same reason, in 1594 the * Henry III.' (' Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay ') was title-paged to the deceased Greene, and the ' Edward II.' to the deceased Marlowe.

In 1595 the Queen was reconciled to Francis, though she had not made him Solicitor- General. Thenceforth he could continue his practice of printing his plays anonymously.

By the year 1596 Francis had given up in favour of Robert all expectation of being named as successor to the throne.

The * Vewe of Ireland,' circulated and written in 1596, confirms this, containing as it does the reference to Eobert, * upon whom all our hopes now do rest.' It is not surprising, therefore, to find Francis venturing into print openly in his own name. On February 5, 1596-7, Henry Hooper * entered for his copie under the hands of

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

Mr. Fr. Bacon, Mr. D. Stanhope, Mr. Barlow, and Mr. Warden Dawson, a booke intituled Essaies, &c., by Mr. Fr. Bacon/ These ' Essaies,' which were doubtless in part intended for the indirect instruction and advice of both the Queen and Robert, seem to have been circulated in manuscript for several months, and then printed and published in January, 1597-8. It may be noted from the dedication with what great caution Francis for the first time prints under his own ascription. He can 'find nothing to my understanding in them contrarie or infectious to the state of religion or manners/ The dedication contains a further hint that at a time of so much uncertainty as to his brother Robert's energetic schemes he (Francis) was at any rate behaving discreetly.

' 1 mought be with excuse confined to these contempla tions and studies for which I am most fitted/

Francis and Robert differed totally as to the proper way of keeping ascendancy with the Queen, their mother. Francis was all for ' obsequiousness and observance/ Robert for masterful conduct. The Queen, then aged sixty-five, was capricious, vacillating, suspicious, vain, imperious, and subject to frequent brain storms. Not many months previously she had called her old Prime Minister ' a miscreant and a coward/ and shown her dis approval of the amours of her Lady-in-waiting, Mrs. Bridges, by striking her.

In the list of contents endorsed upon what is now known as the Northumberland House Manuscript cover, next to the 'Essays' come the plays of 'Richard II.' and ' Richard III/ They were printed between August, 1597, and March 25, 1597-8, anonymously. Francis, many years later replying to Oliver St. John, indicated that someone else was re sponsible for bringing the play of 'Richard II/ on the stage and into print in Queen Elizabeth's time. We know from Raleigh's letter to Robert Cecil of July 6, 1597, that Essex had very much upon his mind the notion of deposing the Queen and establishing a Regency. It is

MISADVENTURES 49

fair to assume that he brought pressure upon Francis to have the play printed. Whether or no it had been staged before, there is certainly some reasonable ground for sur mising that it was one of the two plays performed before Essex's personal friends and Catholic adherents assembled in force at Essex House on February 14, 1597-8. Cecil and Raleigh were away in France at that date, and Essex was in full charge of the Government.

In June, 1598, the Queen had a violent altercation with Robert and boxed his ear. He threatened her with his sword. Whatever the cause, whether this trouble or some thing else, the plays of ' Richard II.' (without a deposition scene) and ' Richard III.' were reprinted in this year, 1598, title-paged to William Shakespeare. So was the play of 'Love's Labour's Lost, 'performed at theprevious Christmas ; and so was the play of ' Henry IV.' Then in September, 1598, a pamphlet, under the name of Francis Meres, but apropos of nothing in particular, was printed, and quietly an nounced to the public that the plays of Two Gentlemen of Verona,'* Comedy of Errors, ''Love's Labour's Lost,' 'Love's Labour's Won,' ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' ' Merchant of Venice,' 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' ' Titus Andronicus,' and ' Romeo and Juliet,' had been written by Shakespeare. Meres was brother-in-law to John Florio, whose connection with Francis is well attested. Meres was evidently one of Bacon's literary assistants, and in sequence of events it looks as if the pamphlet of Sep tember was first prepared, perhaps hurriedly, to place the plays under a Shakespeare ascription, and that the prints and reprints of the quartos followed afterwards. Of these twelve plays two at least — viz., 'Two Gentlemen of Verona ' and ' Titus Andronicus ' — had been played as far back as 1585 or earlier — before, in fact, the Stratford player had left his native village; while another — viz., 'King John' — had been printed anonymously in 1591.

Before the end of 1598 the Queen and Robert had become reconciled, but the latter was still occupied with

4

50

TUDOR PEOBLEMS

his scheme to depose his mother and govern as her Regent. He must therefore be reasonably suspected of having put up young John Hayward to publish at the turn of the year a pamphlet entitled ' Henry IV.,' which dealt with only the first year of that reign, but particularly with the deposition of Richard II. The pamphlet was dedicated in Latin to Robert, and was doubtless intended to test to what extent the public would entertain a similar course with the old Queen.

The result may not have been entirely unanticipated. The Queen sent Hayward to the Tower, and sent for Francis to advise as to whether Hayward should be put to the rack to make him confess what other persons had been concerned in the publication. Francis appears to have quietened his old mother with the joke that Hay- ward had been guilty of felony rather than treason, in that his pamphlet had borrowed a good deal from Tacitus. This rather points to the conclusion that Hayward was one of Bacon's ' good pens/ who had been taking out notes from Tacitus for the purpose of the English history plays (in which they are plentifully used), and that Robert had consequently commandeered him to write the * Henry TV.1 pamphlet.

When Francis, about a year and a half later, was ordered by the Queen to take part in examining Robert before the Star Chamber, the legal gentry gave him the task of confronting Robert with the Hayward pamphlet.

Francis complained of this part being assigned to him. Writing on the subject he said : ' I having been wronged by bruits, this would expose me to them more, and it would be said I gave in evidence my own tales.' When we compare this remark with the note in his ' Promus,' * Law at Twickenham for the merry tales,' does it not rather go to show that there had been rumours connecting his name with the writing and editing of stage-plays. Francis had evidently tried very hard to keep out of this deposition movement of Robert's, of which he never — so

MISADVENTUEES 51

he says in the cipher story — approved. Yet he had been wronged by rumours before, and felt it to be additionally hard to be required to cross-examine about the book which Robert had induced Francis's man Hayward to write for him.

That there was no deposition scene in the first and sub sequent quartos of the play of 'Richard II.' until the year 1608 shows that Francis had been exceedingly anxious, in writing the play, as part of his English history sequence, not to cause offence to the Queen. Ever since her cousin, Lord Hunsdon, had christened her 'Richard II.' because of her love of flattery, the Queen suspected every reference to that King as an attack upon herself. By the year 1601 it had become an obsession. She then astonished old Dr. Lamparde by telling him that she was Richard II.

By grouping in the years of their publication Bacon's various vizard and anonymous writings some significant inferences are obtained.

For instance : In 1586, the year of the war and of Philip Sidney's death, the printers had little to do. If they were not mere vizards, something might have been expected from the pens of the pseudo-authors Lyly, Spenser, Peele, and Greene ; but nothing was printed.

In 1601, upon the same assumption, Shakespeare need not have been idle.

But on the footing of the truth of the biliteral cipher story, the trial and execution of his brother Robert Earl of Essex, followed by the death of his foster-brother Anthony, sufficiently accounts for the literary inactivity of Francis Bacon.

That Bacon's literary publications in 1603, the year of the Queen's death, were very slight is equally natural. He had much more to do than find work for printers.

It was the year of his Sedan. Early in the year the Queen was seriously ill. On March 24 she died. The question of whether he should be her successor was every thing to Francis. The drama enacted round her death-

52

TUDOR PROBLEMS

bed can be realized better from a Cottonian manuscript, given in Nichols' ' Progresses,' than from ordinary history- books. As Nichols is not very available, it is given below. The account was probably written by Lord Keeper Egerton, and seems purposely guarded in tone. What happened the day before her death is thus recorded :

' The Lord Admiral being on the right side of her bed the Lord Keeper on the left and Mr. Secretary Cecil being at the bed's feet, all standing, the Lord Admiral put her in minde of her speech e concerning the Succession, had at Whitehall ; and that they in the name of all the rest of her Council came unto her to know her pleasure who should succeed ; wherewith she thus replied : "I told you my seat had been the seat of Kings, and I will have no rascall to succeed me ; and who should succeed me, but a King ?" The Lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the other, at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by these words, " that no rascall should succeed her." Whereunto she replied that her meaning was, a King should succeed her ; " and who," quoth she, " should that be but our Cousin of Scot land ?" They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution. Whereunto she answered : "I pray you trouble me no more ; I'll have none but him." With which answer they departed.'

Bacon's own account, deciphered from the 'Parasceve,' reads :

' Yet I am persuaded we had wonne out, if her anger against the Earl our father [Leicester] — who ventured on matrimony with Dowager Comtesse of Essex, assur'd no doubt it would not bee declar'd illegal by our warie mother — had not outlived softer feelings. For in the presence o' severall that well knew to whom she referr'd when she was ill in minde as in body, and th' Council askt her to name th' King and shee reply'd : " It shall be noe rascall's sonne" ; and when they press'd to know whom, said : " Send to Scotland."

In the year of his mother's death Francis Bacon pub lished one work only, but a very significant one.

MISADVENTURES

53

It was the play which was considered by the late Mr. J. R. Lowell to have expressed certain states of the mind of its author —

4 HAMLET.'

The death of the Queen left Francis alone in the world. Father, mother, and brother were dead.

Succession to the throne, and, above all, open acknow ledgment of his true relationship to the Queen, had been denied to him.

Is it to be wondered at that at this time he communed with himself upon the situation with great seriousness ?

* Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or by opposing, end them 1 To die to sleep. To sleep no more.1

* Hamlet ' was fitly the only play printed in 1603.

CHAPTEK V

THE MASTER- VIZARD

FRANCIS BACON" masked his dramatic and other writings under many vizards, but the vizard which first enshrouded him at his baptism in January, 1560-1, seems to be as tightly fastened upon him to-day : — the surname of * Bacon.' The name is not beautiful, and Francis must often have reflected upon the curious train of events which compelled him to bear it. He wrote :

• What's in a name 1 That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.'

Romeo and Juliet, II. i.

To judge by his cipherings during the first forty years of his life, he bitterly resented his non-recognition by the Queen, his mother. Even towards the close of his life his attitude towards her was marked with severity. Her occasional acts of kindness to him and the difficulties of her own position seem to have been somewhat lost upon him. His mastering thought concerning the mother who refused him open recognition, and declined to pave the way for his succession to the throne, was bitter resentment.

No doubt her final treatment of her second son, Bobert Earl of Essex, changed his whole nature, and the iron of hate entered into his soul.

Yet it was impossible for the Queen to recognize him as her son unless she was prepared for obloquy and contempt, if for nothing worse.

54

THE MASTER- VIZARD 55

The Catholic party of her subjects was large and powerful. Queen Mary of England, by procuring an Act of Parliament declaring the dissolution of the marriage of Katherine with Henry VIII. invalid, had indirectly made Elizabeth illegitimate in the eye of the law. Mary Queen of Scots, or, at her death, her son James, was thus the proper successor to the throne of Mary of England.

Mary of Scotland was actively intriguing to enforce her claim to this succession. Elizabeth held out by reason of her general popularity and the particular support of the Protestant party. Imagine what would have happened had Elizabeth openly acknowledged Francis as her son, the result of a compromising union with a married man !

The vizard of ' Bacon ' was thus as firmly fastened on Francis as ever was the head-piece of the Man in the Iron Mask. In this chapter it is proposed to discuss how this master-vizard of * Bacon ' was treated both by Francis and by certain other people.

Besides the Queen and Leicester, Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Bacon were necessarily in the secret. Anthony Bacon and Robert Earl of Essex were possessed of it later, Ben Jonson and W. Rawley later still.

SIR NICHOLAS BACON. — Sir Nicholas Bacon died in February, 1578-9. In his carefully prepared and then recently signed will, elaborate distribution of his great riches was made amongst his seven children. Francis, except nominally, was excluded, as explained in a previous chapter.

When Rawley came to write a feigned biography of Francis, he tried to get over this subject of awkward comment by suggesting that there was a fund belonging to Sir Nicholas not dealt with by the will — a most improbable suggestion. But suppose there had been a sum, say, of £4,800 (a large amount in money of that day) not dealt with by Sir Nicholas, and as to which he

56 TUDOE PROBLEMS

could have been held to have died intestate, the share payable to Francis would only have been one-eighth of two- thirds, or, in terms of money, £400.

If Sir Nicholas desired to keep up appearances, his method was singularly inept.

LADY ANNE BACON. — There do not appear to be in existence any letters from Lady Anne to Francis, and only two or three from Francis to her. His attitude is polite and courtly rather than affectionate. ; Madam.' 4 Your ladyship's most obedient son.' ' I humbly thank your ladyship for your good counsel/ ' I received, this afternoon, at the Court, your letter.' 'I must humbly thank you for your letter.' During 1592 Lady Anne's letters to Anthony are frequent. In them Francis is generally referred to as 'your brother.' They indicate a grandmotherly rather than a motherly regard for Francis/ ' He was a towardly young gentleman and a son of much good hope in godliness,' wrote Lady Anne.

During the ten years from 1600 until August, 1610, when Lady Anne died, Mr. Spedding could not find even casual mention of her by Francis. (Mr. Spedding thought the omission most incomprehensible.) However cold in his style towards Lady Anne — and, of course, it may have been correct and usual — he was rather more pleasant to others of his supposed relatives. He dare not address Robert Cecil otherwise than as cousin ; to Lady Cooke he was ' your loving nephew ' ; to Lord or Lady Burleigh, * your dutiful and bounden nephew/

ANTHONY BACON. — With this man, his senior by a year or more, he had been brought up as a boy and as a fellow student in Cambridge; but from 1576 Francis was away nearly three years, and in 1579 Anthony was sent abroad as a political agent, and did not return to England until February, 1591-2. Anthony seems during 1592 to have spent some of his time at Gorhambury with his mother. He was there in July and August,

THE MASTER-VIZABD 57

when his cousin Hoby sent to invite Francis and Anthony to the festivities at Bisham ; but he had been with Francis at Gray's Inn earlier in the year, occupying himself with docketing Francis's letters. Henry Gosnold, who was a particular friend of Francis, and had been with him at Twickenham Lodge in the autumn, wrote on November 28 to Anthony at Gorhambury, by the instructions of Francis, regretting to learn of Anthony's ill-health, and offering to accommodate him at Gray's Inn. Next year Francis found a berth for Anthony as secretary to Essex. While acting in that capacity he received, during 1593, a number of letters from his mother, fortunately preserved. Where precisely he was living in 1593 it is not easy to say, but sometimes he was at Twickenham. The following year he resided in Bishopsgate Street. In May, 1595, he was living at Chelsea, but in October took up his quarters with Essex, at Essex House, in the Strand. There he was until his death in 1601, except for occasional visits to Gorham bury, Eedburn, or elsewhere. He had a few monetary transactions with Francis in 1594 ; his records, however, point to a knowledge that Francis was an important personage of no real relation to him — ' De Mons. Francois Bacon, le mois de Juin, 1594.'

Mons. Francois Bacon £400

Mons. Francois Bacon £100

In March, 1599, Francis thought he saw his way to buy Gorhambury House from Anthony, and wrote to the Queen to help him to make the purchase. This letter is omitted from some collections of Francis Bacon's letters. It appears, however, in Nichol's ' Progresses of Elizabeth.'

FRANCIS. — When left alone in the world, in conse quence of the death of his mother, the Queen, in 1603, Francis had to walk very warily. James I. knew of his relationship, and was jealous and fearful. His old

58

TUDOE PROBLEMS

enemy, the hump-backed Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was in power as Prime Minister. He had to assure those two persons that they had no competition now to fear.

On July 3, 1603, he wrote to Cecil one of his inimit able letters, which was intended to convey three im pressions :

First, that he was hard up — an awkward position for a possible claimant for the throne. This he did by urging Cecil to pay off one of his pressing creditors.

Secondly, that he was not a candidate. He therefore wrote : ' My ambition now I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times succeeding/

Thirdly, that he proposed to put himself out of even running as a candidate, by contracting a mesalliance — 'an alderman's daughter, an handsome woman to my liking.' While Francis himself might be a popular pre tender, particularly as an Englishman, the King being a pronounced Scotchman, and he and his followers not being very acceptable to the English people, still an alderman's daughter for possible Queen, would have been about as effectual a wet blanket for any agitation as anything that could have been devised. It was an excellent idea of Bacon's, and probably saved his head. Moreover, he seems to have been made to marry ' the young wench' (as Chamberlain called her) on May 10, 1606, the witnesses being Sir Michael Hicks, Sir Walter Cope, and Sir Hugh Beeston — three of the Prime Minister's confidential men ! This one may venture to call marriage under pressure, and it is not surprising that it proved an utter failure. Not until this marriage was effected was Francis advanced to important office under the Crown. Tudor and Jacobean methods were very drastic.

But we are overrunning the story. His other care

THE MASTER- VIZARD 59

was to get into personal touch with the King, in which case he felt confident in his ability to arrange matters. James knew of the relationship of Francis to the late Queen, and was fearful of his personal popularity. In the cipher in the ' Novum Organum ' Francis wrote :

' Nought but the jealousy of the King is to be feared, and that more in dreade of effecte in the hearts of the people than any feare of th' prosecution of my claime, knowing as he doth that all witnesses are dead and the requir'd documents destroyed.'

His first suggestion would seem to have been that he should publish a discourse in praise of the happy union of the two countries. This scheme fell through, and another expedient was adopted. This was a preface to the * Advancement of Learning' (1605), dedicated to the King, in which Francis professed to be more than delighted at the union of the two kingdoms, and said of the late Queen, ' She lived solitary and unmarried ' — a sentence of some ambiguity, but sufficient for its pur pose. These portions of the preface and other passages in praise of Queen Elizabeth were omitted from the enlarge ment of the work, called by its Latin title of ' De Aug- mentis,' in 1623. By that date they had served their purpose, and other things had happened which could not have improved Bacon's good opinion of the King.

Having decided to pursue a literary career, and keep his grievances for revelation long after his death, it was essential that his relationship to the Queen should not form the subject of public gossip. In those times they had a summary method of removing persons who came into unpleasant prominence, and Francis, having great and valuable educational schemes on hand, had strong objection to 'The coward conquest of a wretch's knife.1

The Roman Catholic attack in 1592 on the virtues

60 TUDOR PROBLEMS

of Queen Elizabeth he had had to counter with his pamphlet, ' Observations upon a Libel.'

At her death* in 1603, the unpleasant rumours revived again, and he countered them with his preface to the ' Advancement of Learning ' (1605).

They were once more renewed in 1607, this time in Paris, where was published a Latin pamphlet, entitled 'Examen Catholicum Edicte Anglicane,' etc. Mr. Spedding says that its first five or six pages are occupied with a collection of all the evil ever uttered against Queen Elizabeth, It became once more necessary, in the interest of his own peace and quietness, that Francis should thrust these allegations back into obscurity.

He accordingly wrote a pamphlet in Latin, entitled * In Felicem Memoriam Elizabeths,' and bundled it off to Paris to his friend Sir George Carey, the Ambassador, with a polite request that he should ask the publicist, De Thou, to circulate it. Note how prudently he dis sembles his words to Sir George in a letter designed for everybody to read : ' We ' (alluding to De Thou and himself) ' serve our sovereigns in inmost place of law ; our fathers did so before us.'

In August, 1610, Lady Anne Bacon died. Francis, always striving to save the situation, invited to the funeral the Lord Treasurer's Secretary, Sir M. Hicks. A sentence of his invitation runs : ' I wish I had your company here at my mother s funeral' This occurs to us to be a simple way of counteracting, through the gossip of Sir Michael Hicks, comments which would again be made.

Care for the future is still more strongly evidenced in the provisions he made by will prior to his death, which did not occur until April 9, 1626.

Two leading considerations actuated his will. When misfortune unexpectedly fell upon him, and he feared an earlier death, his first will, dated April 10, 1621, indi cated his necessarily hasty preparations. His first care

THE MASTER-VIZARD 61

was to stop the ' bruits ' which would once more fly around the throne, and perhaps prove fatal to the lives of the children of his deceased brother Robert. This step he hoped to accomplish by the publication in English of the ' Felicities of Elizabeth,' and this was accordingly directed in the first will. His other care was to indicate that he looked to the future to find out his real name and judge impartially of his life-conduct. So he bequeathed his ' name to the next ages and foreign nations.' His troubles partially passed over, and, his health being restored, he took occasion to prepare another will, dated December 19, 1625, by which the above two important purposes were more neatly effected.

He wrote : * For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches and to foreign nations and the next ages.'

Archbishop Tenison seems to have seen another version, perhaps an earlier draft ; but the variation, ' and to mine own countrymen after some time be passed over/ is unimportant.

The word ' name ' was no doubt used ambiguously, but was intended to comprise the eventual revelation of the whole truth about himself.

He gave up the expedient of silencing rumour by having the Elizabeth eulogy printed in English (as a matter of fact, it was not printed until 1657). Instead, he made two very clever references in his will to Lady Anne Bacon as his mother and to Sir Nicholas as his father. They are :

'For my burial I desire it may be in St. Michael's Church, near St. Albans. There was my mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion house of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam.'

Further on he directed his executors to take care that

'of all my writings, both of English and Latin, there may be books fair bound and placed in the King's Library,

62 TUDOR PKOBLEMS

and in the Library of the University of Cambridge, and in the Library of Trinity College, where myself was bred, and in the Library of Bennet College, where my father was bred.'

Thus were all rumours hushed for that day and genera tion. We can now guess why the original will was taken out of the registry and never returned. It con stituted a document of State importance, as comprising an attested declaration in writing by Francis on a solemn occasion, that Sir Nicholas Bacon was his father and Lady Anne his mother.

The missing original last will and testament of Francis Bacon was no doubt removed by the Stuart authorities, and placed with other secret archives of State away from the risk of damage or removal. Francis was faithful to his vizard of ' Bacon ' for the period necessary for public quietude. It rests with his countrymen of to-day and foreign nations to do justice to his name and memory.

FRANCIS AT MIDDLE AGE.

To face page 6 .

CHAPTER VI

VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS

His anomalous position as shown by the cipher story ex tenuates, and partly explains, Francis Bacon's disastrous adventure as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor.

As a Prince he shared the Queen's love for the magni ficent and costly.

* Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.'

His intense concentration upon literature was greatly to his disadvantage. Persons occupied in absorbing work or studies have little or no time to practise thrift or to learn the value of money. When Francis ran short in

1593 he borrowed right and left.

Yet so little did he profit by his experience that in

1594 he spent the most part of a year's income in the purchase of a jewel wherewith to conciliate the Queen. She very properly declined to take it from him. Unlike the landed aristocrats with whom he associated, he had no estates. Until 1610 he did not even own Gorhambury House, and only possessed a few leases and reversions which the Queen had given him. He had for six years (July 25, 1607, to October 17, 1613) first the emoluments of Solicitor-General, and then the larger earnings as Attorney- General, but there was every indication that he was spending his income faster than it was made. In December, 1613, he insisted on bearing the whole cost (£2,000) of a Gray's Inn masque. At that date Cham berlain remarked of him : * He carries a great port as well

63

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TUDOB PBOBLEMS

in his train as in his apparel and otherwise, and lives at a great charge/ It was no kindness to advance him to the position of Lord Keeper (March 7, 1616-7), particularly if (as Mr. Hepworth Dixon stated) he paid Lord Egerton £8,000 for giving up the office.

It was an added misfortune for the King to proceed immediately to Scotland, leaving Francis head of the Council left in charge. His personal popularity was then very great, yet here and there he had his enemies, such as Coke and Secretary Winwood.

The King's absence gave exceptional opportunity for the man who had for years and years yearned to sit on the English throne. For a few months he was virtually seated there. He took charge of the government of the country in his prompt, glorious, magnificent, and master ful way. The King had left behind a proclamation directing the crowd of pleasure-seeking aristocrats who had centred upon London to go back to their counties. This desire seems to have become known, and, with the break-up of the Court, very many had gone as wished. Bacon, accordingly, decided to stop the issue of the pro clamation as unnecessary.

James I. was disturbed at this, and wrote sharply back to Winwood, desiring him to tell the Lord Keeper that * obedience was better than sacrifice, and that he (James I.) knoweth that he is King of England.' Francis seems to have reassured the nervous monarch.

On May 7, when he rode in State to open the Courts at Westminster, Francis was magnificently attired in a purple satin gown, and accompanied by most of the Council and the nobility on horseback — a cavalcade of 200 horsemen — besides the judges and members of the Inns of Court. The ceremonial was a great one.

At the close of the proceedings the greater part of the company dined as his guests at a cost of £700.

We obtain another sidelight upon his proceedings from a letter written by the jealous Winwood to the King in

VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS 65

Scotland. Fortunately, the King had overcome his own fears, and only laughed at Win wood's despatch. But from the letter we learn that the Lord Keeper gave audience in the banqueting - house, and required the other members of the Council to attend his movements with the same state as the King used, and that if any of them sat a little too near him, they were desired to keep their distance ; indeed, the King (said Win- wood) had better come back, as his seat was already usurped.

Francis, in his new position of Lord Keeper, was very arduous in his legal duties, and full of plans for the improvement of law and procedure. By the end of the year he had cleared all arrears and disposed of Court work at more than twice the rate of his predecessors. About this time he moved into York House, and his friends and some suitors took advantage of the occasion and of the New Year to send in presents to him of all kinds, including gifts of money.

In his mother's time gifts of money, with a view to gain favour, even to the Queen herself, had been quite ordinary.* Lord Burleigh was not above receiving £100 from a Bishop. In the time of James I. these usages had not altered. That monarch created 300 baronets for a payment of £1,095 apiece, and accepted £4,000 as a gift from Yelverton for having made him Attorney- General. Here was Francis at the age of fifty-four attended by a staff of over seventy officials and servants, absorbed by the business of Chancery and State and his own literary pursuits. As to the money brought to him, whether as gifts or fees, he exercised very little over sight. However much money came in, it was accepted ; he appears to have been always able to do with it, and there is reason to think he was systematically robbed by some of the people about him. Honours were still

* See Quarterly Review, vol. xcv. Every subject who entertained the Queen had also to give her a purse of gold.

5

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

heaped upon him. He was created Baron of Verulam in 1618-19, and Viscount St. Albans in 1620. It seems to have been generally known that he was in debt, and that his revenue from land was not more than £500 per annum — quite insufficient to support a Viscounty. The wits of the period said he was very lame as an Earl, and all bones when made a Viscount. A crisis in his affairs was imminent, but the disturbance came from an unexpected quarter. A new House of Commons, very dissatisfied with the abuses surrounding the King and Court, was informed that even the Lord Chancellor had been accept ing bribes to pervert justice. Bushell relates that it was a question with the King as to whether he should permit the favourite of his affection (Buckingham), or the oracle of his Council (Bacon), to sink in his service, and that the King chose the latter.

For the moment their indignation was concentrated upon the unfortunate Francis. Resolutions were passed and evidence quickly collected, and Francis was called to account. The suddenness of the attack and the known hostility of Coke, the man leading it, made him ill, and resolved him to bend before the storm and make no defence. Nothing but complete submission offered any hope for his future.

Before any particulars had been furnished to him, he wrote to the House of Lords (April 20) :

' I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House, but enough to inform my con science and memory, I find matter sufficient and full both to move me to desert my defence and to move your Lord ships to condemn and censure me.'

The Lords, not being satisfied with this, delivered par ticulars of twenty-seven charges brought by the Commons, and required him to answer them severally.

This he did on April 30, and from his answers the case

VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS 67

against him almost melted away, as the following summary will show :

Fees received as arbitrator 3

Gifts from suitors after suit ended ... ... 13

Fee for commercial negotiation 1

Loans from persons then or afterwards suitors 3

Gift refused, but not taken away 1

Gift paid to clerk directed to be refunded ... 1 Exaction by subordinates without his know ledge ... 1

Gift accepted after decree as to lands, but

pending suit as to goods ... ... ... 1

Gift after cause sent for trial, but before the

equities had been dealt with 1

Gift of £100 pending suit ... 1

Gift of £300 pending suit 1

27

The last two were the only serious charges of the twenty-seven tabled in the House of Commons, and it is curious that the persons who had openly brought these two sums were the first to complain to the House of Commons because decrees were not made in their favour. Although Francis, in answering the particulars, estab lished that he had never accepted gifts as part of bargains to pervert the ends of justice, he was careful to insure his dismissal by entering two general admissions of corrup tion. He evidently wanted the business closed, and to be back into private life. The position of magnificence which his notion of the Lord Chancellorship involved could not be supported. He had sat upon the Woolsack as a prince, with princely notions and aspirations, but, owing to the curious circumstances of his history, without the endowment of the essential princely fortune. For extenuation Francis himself drew attention to his person and estate. He also wrote :

' For that in all these particulars there are few or none that are not almost two years old, whereas those that have an habit of corruption do commonly wax worse/

This goes a long way to support Bacon's later assertion :

68 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

' And howsoever I acknowledge the sentence just and for reformation's sake fit, I was the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time.'

Manifestly the suitors and their advisers would soon find out, that whatever money was presented to the Chancellor on one excuse or another, in the hope of gain ing his influence, he always decided his cases fairly and without being influenced by the gifts. Those who had confidence in their claims, and those who had not, soon found out that to make presents was only a waste of good money. It did not make a bad case good or a good case better. The practice of giving during the last two years of his Chancellorship seems to have died out.

That Bacon would or would not have accepted a gift depended almost solely upon the moment's pressure of his finances ; but that he was not corrupt in the sense of accepting gifts to pervert justice, or of being bribed, as alleged, is proved not only by the absence of appeals from his decisions, but also by the evident discontinuance of suitors' gifts.

Francis, in his play of * Henry VIII. / revised soon after his fall, and published in the Folio of 1623, put into beauti ful verse a correct commentary upon his own unfortunate and unsupported incursion into the realm of Great Place :

* I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye.'

Francis was frail, and partook of the abuses of his times. The special conjunction of his high birth, mag nificent notions, and comparative poverty, contributed to his discomfiture.

BUT HE WAS NOT CORRUPT.

CHAPTER VII 'FILUM LABYRINTHI'

WRITING to King James in October, 1620, about the * Novum Organum,' then being published, Bacon stated that the work, ' in what colours soever it may be set forth, is no more but a new logic teaching to invent &n& judge by induction*

At an earlier date, possibly 1619, writing to Father Fulgentio, he stated, ' After these [works] shall follow the " Novum Organum," to which a second part is to be added which I have already comprised and measured in the idea of it.' This letter should be read.0

Mr. Ellis, who joined with Mr. Spedding in editing Bacon's works, remarks anent the ' Novum Organum ' :

' However this may be, it is certain that an attempt to determine what his method, taken as a whole, was, or would have been, must necessarily involve a conjectural or hypothetical element.7

Again :

'It becomes impossible to justify or to understand Bacon's assertion that his method was absolutely new. . . . It need not be remarked that induction in itself was no novelty at all. The nature of the art of induction is as clearly stated by Aristotle as by any other writer. Bacon's design was surely much larger than it would thus appear to have been.'

The ' Novum Organum ' was most probably a dissem-

* Spedding has : ' I have already compassed and planned it out in my mind.' The Latin is : ' Quam tamen animo iam complexus et metitus sum.'

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70 TUDOR PROBLEMS

bling of his real new method. The ' Novum Organum ' was to be in two parts ; and in what colours soever it might be set forth, it was (1) to teach men to invent, and (2) judge by induction. Let us see whether Bacon anywhere shows how men are to be taught to invent (to originate).

In * The Wisdom of the Ancients ' Bacon explains his favourite fable of Orpheus as representing the image of Philosophy,

' which busies herself about human objects, and by persua sion and eloquence insinuating the love of virtue, equity, and concord in the minds of men, draws multitudes of people to a society, making them subject to laws, obedient to government, and forgetful of their unbridled affections, whilst they give ear to precepts, and submit themselves to discipline/

Philosophy, therefore, according to Bacon, operates by persuasion and insinuation. In the 'Advancement of Learning ' (printed 1605) we are told :

' Men generally taste ivell knowledges drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about which men's affections, praises, fortunes do turn, and are conversant. ; . . Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason it were true there should be no great use of persuasion and insinuation to the will. . . . Another precept is that the mind is brought to anything better, and with more sweetness and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not first in the intention . . . impressions may be strongly made when the mind is influenced by passion.'

But it is in ' Filum Labyrinthi,' a tract addressed in the MS. adjilios (in which he gave to his assistants the thread by which the labyrinth might be successfully entered and quitted), that we have the nearest approach to a full revelation of his methods. This tract was found among Bacon's MSS. at his death. To quote from it :

' For this object he [Bacon] is preparing a work on nature which may destroy errors with the least harshness9

' FILUM LABYEINTHI ' 71

and enter the senses of mankind without violence; which would be easier from his not bearing himself as a leader, but bring ing and scattering light from nature herself so that there may be no future need for a leader. . . . We ought to consider that the importunity of teaching doth ever by right belong to the impertinences of things. . . . But now which (thou wilt say) is that legitimate mode ? . . . Dismiss all art and circumstances, exhibit the matter naked to us, that we may be enabled to use our judgment. And would that you were in a condition, dearest son, to admit of this being done. Thinkest thou that when all the accesses and motions of all minds are besieged and obstructed by the obscurest idols, deeply rooted and branded in, the smooth and polished areas present themselves in the true and native rays of things ? A new method must be entered upon by ivhich we glide into minds the most obstructed. . . . In this universal insanity we must use moderation. . . . It has a certain inherent and innate power of conciliating belief, and repelling the injuries of time so that knowledge thus delivered like a plant full of life's freshness may spread daily and grow to maturity . . . that it will set apart for itself, and as it were, adopt a legitimate reader. And whether I shall have accomplished all this or not I appeal to future time.'

Further on is written :

* Wherefore, duly meditating and contemplating the state both of nature and mind, we find the avenues to men's understandings harder of access than to things themselves, and the labour of communicating not much lighter than of excogitating ; and therefore, which is almost a new feature in the intellectual world, we obey the humour of the time, and play the nurse both with our own thoughts and those of others. For every hollow idol is de throned by skill, insinuation, and regular approaches. . . . Wherefore we return to this assertion, that the labour commenced by us [doubtless Bacon and his literary and play- writing staff] in paving the way, so far from being superfluous, is truly too little for difficulties so con siderable.'

Why was it only almost a new feature in the intellectual world ? The ' Filum Labyrinthi ' answers this :

72 TUDOR PROBLEMS

' He thought also that knowledge is uttered to men in a form as if everything were finished . . . whereas antiquity used to deliver the knowledge which the mind of man had gathered in observations, aphorisms, or short and dispersed sentences, or small tractates of some parts that they had dili gently meditated and laboured, which did invite men both to ponder that which was invented, and to add and to supply further/

Probably enough has now been quoted to indicate that the 'almost new' feature, or method, which Bacon elaborated was not so much the inductive system of reasoning (although that was a prominent part) as the in sinuation of knowledges, a method once in use with the ancients, in which the real is masked by the seeming object.

Over what period of years Bacon practised his great plan of playing the nurse, both with his own thoughts and those of others, is hardly the subject of this chapter. But the sowing of the seed was evidently a most extensive business, as Mr. Harold Bayley's book 'A Shakespeare Symphony ' makes apparent.

The plays and other light literature in which the good things of knowledge were scattered with a lavish hand were, possibly, the works of the Alphabet (i.e., the ABC of his system of education), to which Bacon alludes in his letters to Toby Mathew.

Mr. Fearon thought that the passage in a later letter to Mathew was a mere concealed way of telling Mathew that he (Bacon) was ' putting the Alphabet in a frame ' — viz., preparing a selection of the well-stuffed and garnished plays for folio production as the second part of his ' Novum Organum.'

If this view is right, it follows that it was absolutely part of the system that his authorship should be concealed. Disclosure could not be made until many, many years after Bacon's death, so as to give the method long and patient trial.

' FILUM LABYEINTHI ' 73

* To speak the truth of myself,' said Bacon, ' I have often wittingly and willingly neglected the glory of my own name and learning (if any such thing be), both in the works I now publish and in those I contrive for hereafter, whilst I study to advance the good and profit of mankind.' ('Advancement of Learning,' book vii., chap, i.)

Directly men were aware that the main purpose of the plays was not so much to entertain them as to put them to school, the New Method was certain to become a failure. Long and patient trial of the system could alone attain success. To disclose the author was to reveal the schoolmaster, whose work would then be resented and ignored as an impertinence by those for whom it was most fit.

Few will deny the 'salting' to be found in the Folio Shakespeare.

The Hon. Judge Stotsenburg, in his recent clever book, asks:

* Was there in England a concealed poet who wrote or revised the plays in part or all, or who inserted in all or part of them the magnificent and sparkling gems culled and gathered from art, from nature, from history, from philosophy, from science, and from ancient lore, which have always captivated and enchanted the reading world ?'*

The late Mr. G. C. Bompas wrote :

' In all subjects treated of by Bacon, the human body, sound and light, heat and cold, germination and petrifica- tion, the history of winds, astronomy, meteorology and witchcraft, the plays and prose works closely correspond, and both exhibit a learning up to the time of the age/ f

It is hardly necessary to show how fully this ' scatter ing of light ' has been accomplished. Books have been written on the various ' knowledges ' contained in the Folio alone. For observations as to the law of the plays

* 'An Impartial Study of the Shakespeare Title.' t ' Problem of the Shakespeare Plays.'

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

go to Lord Campbell, for biblical references to Wads- worth, surgery and medicine to Bucknill, geology to Fullom, natural history and entomology to Patterson, emblems to Green, sports to Madden, delineations of the passions to Donnelly, Bradley, and others ; folk-lore, proverbs, natural phenomena, customs, and many other interesting things, to Dyer. We know the use made in it of Holinshed's Histories, of Plutarch, Pliny, Du Bartas, Montaigne, and classical authors generally. After nearly three hundred years we can report that Bacon's New Method has prospered and borne fruit. The brimstone has been so cleverly mixed with the treacle that the compound has been gulped down with universal satis faction. His New Method has been a world-wide benefit, but not so far a personal success.

This was the great secret as to which the brethren of the Rosy Cross were to remain silent for at least a hundred years, while the lessons of philosophy were being quietly sunk into the minds of men. This was the way that Francis Bacon 'laid great bases for eternity.' This was the scheme for the fruition of the mot of the gentle knights' impresa : ' Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.'

Philosophy was to reach the masses through the medium of the stage, whereon the mirror was held up to Nature. The plays of ' Shakespeare ' were only part of a galaxy of dramatic compositions issued at first under the vizards of Lyly, Greene, Marlowe, Peele, Nash, and Kyd, and afterwards issued from his school of writers, such as Massinger, Ford, Fletcher, Beaumont, Hey wood, and others, all gently inculcating the philosophy and aphorisms of the earlier plays. As Mr. Harold Bayley stated in his ' Shakespeare Symphony,' the orchestra was large, and played in tune.

CHAPTER VIII

GOSSON EULES OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.

* All sworn to secrecy for 100 years.' 1 To have secret names.'

* Works not to be published with the names of their authors.'

* Feigned names to be frequently changed.'

A. E. WAITE : Real History of the Eosicrucians.

THE writer of the 'Schoole of Abuse ' (1579), and a few other pamphlets and verses, was an exceptionally learned man. He indicated acquaintance (amongst many others) with the works of the classical poets : — Homer, Ovid, Simonides, Pindar, Virgil, Lucan, Ennius ; the theo logians — Solomon and David ; the philosophers — Plato, Cicero, Maximus Tyrius, ^Esop, Hesiodus, Pythagoras, Aurelius, Aristotle, and Demosthenes ; the historians — Sallust, Plutarch, Xenophon, Dion, Csesar, and Pliny ; and with the dramatists — Plautus, Seneca, Menander, and Euripides. He punned upon the name of the English poet, Whetstone.

From an allusion on the second page of the ' Schoole of Abuse' — viz., 'the vizard that Poets maske in' — he would seem to have considered it orthodox for writers of poetry or prose (both at that day being called poets) to conceal their individuality.

The question proposed here to be considered is whether this little group of writings (1579 to 1583)was the genuine work of Stephen Gosson, whose name is on the title- pages, or was he only the ' vizard ' for another person ?

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76 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

Young Gosson was not twenty-one when, having graduated B.A. in 1576, he proceeded to London. He is described as having become a player, and as having quitted that occupation to become a preacher. Eventu ally by gift of the Queen in 1591 he became Rector of Wigborough. He died in 1624, Eector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, London, and was buried at night. It is very odd that a literary career commenced so brilliantly should (if his) have stopped abruptly in 1583.

On the authority of the biliteral cipher story, Francis Bacon published his poetical and lighter writings under many vizards. That ' Gosson ' was one of them has not been claimed specifically in the cipher story translated, but it makes a general allusion to the occasional use of other names than those specifically mentioned. That the Gosson family had good friends at Court, Stephen obtain ing the Wigborough rectory (gift of the Queen), and William becoming Her Majesty's drum-player, supports the ' vizard ' assumption.

The dates of the * Gosson ' writings offer further indication. Young Francis was in London in 1576, the date of the ' Gosson ' poem at the end of Kerton's ' Mirror of Man's Life.' When the two poems at the end of ' The Pleasant History of the Conquest of West India' (1578) were added, Francis would be back in London from abroad. The first poem is in a distinctly ' Spenserian ' vein.

* Gosson ' was noted (according to Francis Meres) for his admirable penning of pastorals, though no Gosson pastorals have come down to us. Yet Francis as ' Immerito ' and ' Peele ' was (while Gosson was still a player) writing pastoral verse' and a pastoral play.

The * Schoole of Abuse ' is written very closely in the style of the * Euphues ' of ' Lyly.' It is passing strange, if not inconceivable, that two writers in the same year, and in, as it were, the ' first-fruits ' of their respective ' inventions/ should independently possess and practise a

GOSSON 77

new antithetical style, subsequently known as Euphuism. But if one author only was masking under two ' vizards,' the cause for wonder ends.

We have the authority of the cipher story that ' Greene ' was one of Bacon's c vizards,' and the authority of Gabriel Harvey (Bacon's poetical adviser) that ' Greene,' * Nash/ and ' Lyly ' were one and the same personality (see ' Pierce's Supererogation,' 1593).

That being so, one can notice with less diffidence that in the title of the * Schoole of Abuse,' counting from the first ' f / a sequence of letters will spell out ' Francis Bacon.' That this may not be entirely accidental is possibly indicated by the circumstance, that in the head of the ' Epistle Dedicatorie' (counting from the first 'f ') we again obtain 'Francis/ and from the bunched-out words at the end of it (counting from the first ' b ') we obtain ' Bacon.'

Again, on the first page of the pamphlet in question it is suspicious to find references to ' Virgil's Gnat ' and to ' Dido/ the one shortly afterwards used by Bacon as title for a ' Spenser ' poem, the other for a ' Marlowe ' play.

Later on in the * Schoole/ p. 34, the author compares London to Eome and England to Italy, and says : ' You shall finde the theatres of the one, the abuses of the other to be rife among us. Experto crede, I have scene somewhat, and therefore I think may say the more.' This remark is explicable from young Francis after about three years' continental travel, 1576-9.

At a later date we find Bacon printing under the ' vizard ' of ' Kyd ' :

' The Italian Tragedians were so sharpe of wit That in one hour's meditation They would perform anything in action.

Spanish Tragedy, IV.

The late Mr. Bompas stated in his book on the Shake speare problem that Italian players were settled in France from 1576 onwards.

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In his scheme of writing a literature in the English tongue, it will eventually be appreciated that Bacon made his various ' vizards ' refer to one another, so as to increase the impression that the writings were by several individuals instead of by one. Of course his literary Areopagus comprising Sidney, Greville, Dyer, and Harvey were in his secret. As proof of this, neither Greville nor Harvey ever mentioned ' Shakespeare,' although alive while the Shakespeare works were being produced. Writ ing as 6 Immerito/ on October 16, 1579, Bacon makes a sly reference to the ' Schoole of Abuse,' evidently with the object mentioned above. Francis and Sidney were, of course, hand and glove. The former at the beginning of the year 1579 dedicated his ' Shepheard's Kalendar ' to the latter. In August, 1579, he dedicated to him, writ ing as ' Gosson/ the f Schoole of Abuse/ and in the following November the * Ephemerides of Phialo/ In 1582 he dedicated 'Plays Confuted' to Sidney's father- in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham. The suggestion that Sidney referred to ' Gosson ' in the * Apologie for Poetrie ' has no foundation.

Careful comparison of the works under this ' vizard ' with those under other ' vizards ' confirms our theory as to the ' Gosson ' mask.

For instances :

1. 'Was easier to be drawen to vanitie by wanton poets than to good government by the fatherly counsel of grave senators.

' The right use of ancient Poetrie was too have the notable exploytes of worthy Captaines, the holesome councils of good fathers and the vertuous lives of prede cessors set down in numbers and song to the Instrument at solemne feasts that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from kissing the cupp too often ; the sense of the other put them in minds of things past and chaulk out the way to do the like. After this manner were the Boeotians trained from rudeness to civilitie/ (' Schoole of Abuse/)

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If the above words were written by Gosson himself, and not by young Francis Bacon, then the latter was entirely anticipated in his notion of the true interpreta tion of the Orpheus legend.

Moreover, in the like event, to Gosson must be attributed the first encouragement to the revived pro duction of history in dramatic form, a characteristic of subsequent Elizabethan plays. Also the methods of peaceful persuasion — chalking out lodgings for soldiers rather than hectoring invasion — to which Bacon clung so persistently.

2. ' Gosson ' is to be found to have Bacon's objection to duelling.

* The crafte of defence was first devised to save our selves harmless. . . . Those days are now changed . . . the cunning of Fencers applied to quarrelling ; . . . these no men if not for stirring of a strawe they prove not their valure uppon some bodyes fleshe.' (' Schoole of Abuse.')

Compare what Bacon wrote under another vizard :

1 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor's at the stake.'

Hamlet, IV. iv.

In ' Gosson ':

* I have showed you loving countrymen ye corruption and inconveniences of your plaies as the sclenderness of my learninge woulde afforde, being pulde from ye univer- sitie before I was ripe and withered in the countrie for want of sappe.' (' Plays Confuted,' 1582.)

3. In ' Lyly ' we find a reference to the University :

' Wherein she played the nice mother in sending me into the countrie to nurse, where I tyred at a drie breast three yeares, and was at the last inforced to weane myself.' (Preface to ' Euphues his England,' 1580.)

4. ' Gosson ' possessed Bacon's contempt for the then existing system of University studies.

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' I cannot but blame those lither contemplators very much, which sit concluding sillogismes in a corner; which, in a close study in the University, coope themselves up fortie yeres together, studying all things and profits nothing.' (' Schoole of Abuse/)

5. c Gosson,' like another of Bacon's vizards, ' Nash,' refers to the sepia fish :

' But the fish Sepia can trouble the water to shun the nettes that are shot to catch her. . . . Whether our Players be the spawnes of such fishes I know not well.' (Apology for the ' Schoole of Abuse/ Gosson. 1579.)

1 They are the very spawnes of the fish Sepia ; where the streame is cleare and the Scriptures evidentlie dis cover them, they vomit up ynke to trouble the waters/ (' Nash/ in 'Pasquil's Return to England/ Marprelate Pamphlet, 1589.)

6. c Gosson ' was a reformer.

' They that are greeved are Poets, Pipers and Players : the first thinke that I banish poetrie, wherein they dreeme ; the second judge that I condemn musique, wherein they dote ; the last proclaime that I forbid recreation to man, wherein you may see they are starke blinde. He that readeth with advise the booke which I wrote shall perceive that I touche but the abuses of all these/

So that, like Bacon under the vizard of * Immerito/ he was concerned with the reformation of English poetry. Like him, he was interested in the harmonies of music and their true limitation ; like him, as manifested under other vizards, he laboured for a reformed drama.

7. At an early age he wrote * Cataline's Conspiracies/ played at the c Theatre/

* The whole marke which I shot at in that worke was to showe the reward of tray tors in Catalin and the necessary government of learned men in the person of Cicero which foresees every danger that is likely to happen and forestalls it continually ere it takes effect/

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There is much reason for believing that ' Catiline/ which made its first appearance in print, like ' Sejanus ' (also written by Bacon), amongst Ben Jonson's produc tions, was one of Bacon's early plays. Jonson may have subsequently worked upon it, but his prefaces and dedi cations make no specific claim to authorship. Like ' Julius Csesar,' and other ' Shakespeare ' plays dealing with Roman history, North's translation of { Plutarch's Lives ' is freely drawn upon, the author in each case also correcting from the original Latin. Having regard to the date of its publication, and its curious reference to November 5 — the date of the Gunpowder Plot — it would seem to have been revised and published sub sequent to the Guy Fawkes attempt in order to point the moral of the wickedness of conspiracies against the State.

The problem of ' Gosson ' authorship seems only soluble on the assumption that Bacon was the author, and that Gosson the player, afterwards preacher, was only the ' vizard.'

The preacher (if author) stopped writing at the age of twenty-seven, died at the age of sixty-nine, and made no claim to authorship.

The c Gosson ' writings comprise verse as good as ' Spenser's ' and prose as good as ' Lyly's.' The presumed author showed that he possessed a wide, and at that date rather exceptional, acquaintance with classical authors. He admitted authorship of three plays, of which ' Cataline ' discloses like methods of composition to The ' Shakespeare ' Roman history plays.

The * Gosson ' opinions on certain subjects were the same as held by Bacon and other of his vizards.

The author knew of the practice of poets to veil their utterances under vizards, and yet, if Gosson was really the writer, he did not follow the practice he approved.

The circumstances and dates indicate that the young

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player Gosson was only a mask for young Francis Bacon at the threshold of his efforts at the creation of an English literature and drama for the instruction and enlightenment of his race.

Francis, from his association with the Queen and the Earl of Leicester, would be able to make use of young Gosson just as readily as he was able to utilize Spenser.

CHAPTEE IX

LYLY

WE seek in this chapter to reopen the question of the authorship of the following Tudor writings :

PEOSE.

PKINTED

1. 'Euphues' Anatomy of Wit' 1579

2. 'Euphues and his England' - 1580

DEAMA.

3. 'Woman in the Moon' - 1597

4. 'Campaspe' - 1584

5. 'Gallathea' - - 1592

6. 'SaphoandPhao' - - 1584

7. 'Endimion' - - 1591

8. 'Midas' - 1592

9. ' Mother B<5mbie ' - 1594

10. ' Love's Metamorphosis ' - 1601

PAMPHLET.

11. ' Pappe with an Hatchet ' - - - ; 1589

Of the above, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11, were first printed without any author's name. The second edition of No. 1, and the first edition of No. 2, were printed as by John Lyly, Master of Arts. No. 11 was attributed to Lyly by Gabriel Harvey, and Nos. 3 and 10 were first printed as by him in the years 1597 and 1601.

The plays were all what are known as Court Comedies, and they were in each case first performed before the Queen by the children of her chapel. The boy actors

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afterwards performed some of them at the Blackfriars Theatre, built in 1596.

The years of performance are more difficult to settle. Mr. Fleay has attempted solutions, but the probabilities are that, with the possible exceptions of ' Midas/ which was either written or rewritten after the Spanish Armada had been defeated, and * Love's Metamorphosis/ the plays were all written about the period 1580-85. Most of the plays are derived from classical history or legend, and, according to Mr. Crofts, familiarity is shown in them with passages from Ovid, Virgil, and Cicero.

Messrs. Seccombe and Allen state that ' Campaspe ' was derived from Pliny's ' Natural History/ ' Sapho ' and ' Gallathea ' from Ovid. They remark the originality of form and refinement of manner of the comedies. Mr. J. A. Symonds observed of four at least of the comedies that each was a studied panegyric of the Queen's virtue, beauty, chastity, and wisdom. ' Euphues and his England ' winds up with a similar panegyric, as does the anonymous play of ' The Arraignment of Paris/ a pastoral performed by the same children before the Queen, also at a date before 1584. Professor Eushton stated that the Ephcebus passages of ' Euphues' Anatomy of Wit ' were almost entirely translated from Plutarch on Education. Anyone carefully reading the works attributed to ' Lyly ' will find in them evidence of wide and copious reading combined with an exceptional memory. The author was familiar with Pliny, Plutarch, Plato, Ovid, Aristotle, Cicero, Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras. He had studied his Bible, and thought much upon religion. David and Solomon were favourite lives. He wrote of Tymon of Athens, Diogenes, the Labyrinth of Crete, of Apollo, Pan, Proteus, Orpheus, Venus, Vulcan, and other gods of ancient mythology. He had read of Homer and the Trojans, of Dido, Titus, Csesar, Cleopatra, Cornelia, Tarquin and Lucretia, Troilus and Cressida, Damon and Pithias, Hero and Leander, and the fable of the Phoenix.

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He was familiar with falconry and hunting. He affirmed, 'Philosophy, Physic, Divinity, shall be my study.' M. Jusserand noticed in ' Euphues ' that conversations are there reported in which are found the tone of well- bred persons of the period.

One of the earliest of the plays, 'Campaspe,' gives evidence of a somewhat stoical purpose in the line,

' Be content to live unknown and die unf ound.'

A similar idea is to be found in the play of 'The Misfortunes of Arthur/ performed by the students of Gray's Inn in February, 1587-8 :

'Yet let my death and parture rest obscure.'

With the preparation of this play the unhonoured name of Francis Bacon was openly associated. We must make some demand upon the patience of the students of the literature of the Elizabethan period in asking them to follow the reasons which we are about to give for the belief that Francis Bacon, under the pen-name of ' John Lyly,' wrote the prose works of Euphues, and produced the Court Comedies, most of which were collected and reprinted in 1632 by Blount, who was one of the publishers of the Shakespeare Folio. In 1632 acknow ledged works by Bacon were being prepared for the press. Blount wrote a short dedication to the 1632 collection. It contains a somewhat pregnant sentence :

4 The spring is at hand, and therefore I present you a Lily growing in a Grove of Laurels.'

It is true that the biliteral cipher story of Francis Bacon (of the authenticity of which we are satisfied) makes no claim to the authorship of ' Euphues/ But it may have been intended to include it under the cipher story sentence :

' Several small works under no name won worthy praise.' As we have seen, the first part of ' Euphues ' had no author's name to it. When ' John Lyly ' was

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used it was probably as a pen-name only, as distinguish from the name of some actual and living sponsor, as the remainder of the cipher sentence is :

' Next, in Spenser's name also they entered into an unknown world.'

Here, we think, is the distinction drawn between the work ascribed to Lyly and Immerito (' Shepheard's Kalendar ') and other work put forth in the name of an actual person such as Spenser was.

The biographers have been misled. Things are not always what they seem.

Wood, compiling his ' Ath. Oxon.' at a date (1691) many years after 1579, and finding from the records of Magdalen College that a scholar named John Lylie had matriculated there in 1571, formed the conclusion that this person was the author of ' Euphues.'

The surname, according to Wood, was a common one at the college. This Lylie was, when matriculated, described as 'plebeii filius.' The material date of his entering college is unknown. In 1574 he petitioned Lord Burleigh to be made a Fellow. In 1575 he took his M.A., and in 1584 owed to the bursars of the college £1 3s. lOd. for his share of the college provisions, ' pro communis et batellis.'

Messrs. Cooper, in their * Athen. Cantab.,' writing at a still later date, assert that a certain John Lillie was M.P. for Hendon in 1589, Aylesbury in 1593, Appleby in 1597, and Aylesbury again in 1601. Mr. Arber, on probably good grounds, does not repeat this information. But he does set out a statement quoted by Mr. Collier from the register of St. Bartholomew, under date November 30, 1606, that ' John Lyllie, gent, was buried.' In view of the irregular methods of Mr. Collier, it is to be hoped that Mr. Arber satisfied himself as to this entry.

The biographers have — which is the material point- entirely failed to connect either Lylie the ' plebeii filius ' of Magdalen College, Lillie the M.P., or Lyllie of the

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burial register, with the works ascribed to * Lyly ' — no point is made of the spelling. That being so, we must see what help may be gleaned from the works themselves, and the contemporary statements of Gabriel Harvey and others.

In examining the ' Lyly ' works and imputing them to Francis Bacon, we bear in mind his aphorism, ' He who would be secret must be a dissembler in some degree.' We must also have regard to what Harvey wrote to Immerito in 1579 (* Two Letters ') : ' For all your vowed and oft-experimented secrecie ' ; and to the statement in ' Campaspe' (circa 1582) : 'Be content to live unknown and die unfound.'

Accordingly, we must not attach, as the biographers seem to have done, too much importance to the remark of Euphues, at p. 451 of his 'England': * Touching whose life [Queen Mary] I can say very little, because I was scarce borne ' (1553-58). More especially as a little later on he had no hesitation on the score of infancy in commenting on what Elizabeth did in 1558 on coming to the throne. Again, in ' Euphues' Anatomy of Wit ' (1579), he complained of the disgraceful state of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities (p. 140). He con tinues, ' But I can speake the lesse against them for that I was never in them.'

This statement does not quite conform with that in ' Euphues and his England ' (1580, p. 436), where he wrote of the same Universities : ' I was myself in either of them, and like them both so well/ Is this a cryptic reference to his having been educated at Cambridge ?

In 1581 another edition of the 'Anatomy of Wit ' was printed, with a dedication to Lord de la Warre, and an apology to the scholars of Oxford. In the apology Lyly regrets that some thought that in his article on the education of Ephcebus, ' Oxford was too much defamed.' Bear in mind, he does not apologize to Cambridge, though his remarks had applied equally to both Uni-

88 TUDOR PROBLEMS

versities ! He added : ' If any fault be committed, impute it to " Euphues " who know you not, not to Lyly who hate you not/

In the same apology are some jocularities about his being sent into the country to nurse, * where I tyred at a drie breast three yeares, and was at the last inforced to weane myself.' It is somewhat difficult to arrive at the significance of this passage. Francis Bacon was certainly three years at Cambridge, and, according to Rawley, his chaplain, he left dissatisfied with the un- fruitfulness of the philosophy of Aristotle. It may mean that Oxford was unkind to him because he was never there ! If we are to gather that the writer meant to infer that he was away from college three years before he published his first book, we seem to obtain some con firmation of our assumption as to the real ' Lyly.' Francis Bacon, in September, 1576, left for France, in the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English Ambassador. He remained abroad until March 20, 1578-9. On the assumption of his parentage, the pen-name ' Lyly ' for his first book was suitably chosen. He had just arrived from the land of the fleur-de-lis, an emblem also upon the English crown, and on the Royal Arms.

The ' Anatomy of Wit ' was licensed December 2, 1578. In * Euphues and his England,' printed in 1580, ' Lyly ' refers to the ' Anatomy of Wit ' as being ' my first counterfaite,' and hints that it was mainly autobio graphical ; * that it was sent to a nobleman to nurse, and was hatched in the hard winter with the Alcyon.' We gather from this that Francis, while in Paris, pro cured some noble friend of his in England to arrange for the publication, that he finished writing it (except per haps for a few letters) in December, 1578, and that the book was finally published a short time after his return to England. This seems confirmed by a few words at the end of the first edition of * Euphues' Anatomy of Wit.1

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' I have now finished the first part of Euphues, whom now I left ready to cross the seas to England.' Ergo the writer wrote * Euphues ' on the other side of the seas. A further confirmation may be found in the letter ' Euphues to Botonio,' which we take to be an ' open letter ' from Francis, as ' Euphues/ to Anthony Bacon, as 1 Botonio. ' Anthony, for some reason or other, was in 1579 ordered abroad. Again, we rather infer that the person who required ' Lyly ' to apologize to Oxford was the Earl of Leicester, who was not only father to young Francis, but also Chancellor of the Oxford University.

In the corrected (1581) edition of the 'Anatomy of Wit ' Lyly is described as ' Master of Art,' and whenever the name is subsequently used, it is followed by a like description. We cannot find him anywhere described as M.A. of Oxford. That the author alleges himself to be M.A. tells against the Francis Bacon theory, unless we can conclude one of two things : either that the 'M.A.' was merely part of the pen-name, or possibly that Bacon, under the pen-name of ' Lyly,' was, upon the popularity of the first edition in 1579, passed to the degree of M.A., by way of compliment from the authorities of Cambridge University, one of whom was his Trinity College tutor, Whitgift, the Queen's Chaplain. Whitgift was not long afterwards made Archbishop of Canterbury. Francis took up his M.A. in July, 1594.

To follow in this chapter the internal evidence of the two parts of ' Euphues ' at any length is out of the question. M. Jusserand, on the authority of Dr. Land- mann, has shown that, besides using Plutarch, 'Lyly' borrowed large passages from the Spanish writer Guevara, and he also points out that * Euphues ' went to Athens (for which we may read 'Paris') and to England to study men and Governments. This, in the light of the letter written to him by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1582, was precisely what Francis had been expected to do, and what we know from his biographer, Mr. Spedding, he

90 TUDOR PROBLEMS

successfully did at a very early age. From the cipher story we learn that he returned from France refused in marriage by Marguerite of Navarre, whose favourite flower, the marigold, is referred to in ' Euphues and his England,' at p. 462.

In view of this it is interesting to find Euphues urging the study of Philosophy or Law or Divinity, and the supplementing of such study by contemptuous meditations about women. * Euphues ' presents himself to our view as an over-educated youth, whose brain was bursting to record itself on paper — a most necessary safety-valve. Mr. Crofts drew attention to the uncalled-for puns. To us moderns these puns seem poor frail things, but they bubble up in ' Lyly,' Spenser, Nash, Kyd, Greene, Peele, and even ' Shakespeare,' and are all of about the same average weakness.

M. Jusserand and others remark the fondness of ' Lyly ' for the gods of mythology. We remind them that Bacon was equally interested in the subject, as his * Wisdom of the Ancients ' plainly shows. * Lyly,' like Bacon, appreciated Atalanta, Orpheus, Vulcan, and many more of the ancient myths. In his epilogue to ' Sapho/ he refers to the Labyrinth of conceits, and wishes every one a thread to lead them out of it. Bacon in later life entitled one of his papers ' Filum Labyrinthi.'

* Lyly ' used the simile of the ensnaring with lyme- twigs that we also find in Nash, in Kyd, in Shakespeare, and in Bacon's letter to Greville (1594). In his prologue to ' Midas,' ' Lyly ' remarks : c For plays no invention but breedeth satietie before noon.' Here we have the association of playwriting with invention. When at a much later date Bacon wrote that his head was * wholly employed about invention,' the use of the word in ' Midas ' may be some guide as to what he may have alluded. The ' plebeii filius ' theory of authorship seems to break down before the very audacity of ' Euphues.' He had such a fine conceit of himself. What * plebeii filius '

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in Tudor times dared have started his literary career by lecturing the Court ladies ?

In 1871 Mr. W. L. Rushton published a valuable pamphlet called ' Shakespeare's Euphuism.' Another pamphlet may much more appropriately be written about Greene's Euphuism.

Spenser, Greene, Peele, Marlowe, sold Bacon the use of their names, states the cipher story, and as nothing further appeared under the name Lyly until many years after 1579, it seems probable that Bacon preferred the protection of the name of a known person to the un certainty of a mere nom de plume. That is the probable explanation of the style of Lyly being conspicuous in the prose works attributed to Greene.

The absorbent sponge theory of Shakespeare's acqui sition of knowledge has a great vogue. Yet Shake speare, from his country associations, ought to have absorbed some valuable field knowledge of birds and animals. It is significant that he failed to do so, and that the natural history in ' Shakespeare ' is no better than it is in ' Lyly.' One feature, however, is constant to Bacon, Shakespeare, Peele, Lyly, Greene, and Mar lowe — viz., the love of garden flowers.

At p. 367 of 'Euphues and his England' Lyly writes of roses, violets, primroses, gilliflowers, carnations, and sweetjohns.

At p. 455 he refers to bees making their hives in soldier's helmets, an idea afterwards developed in the beautiful poem written for the occasion of Sir Henry Lees' retirement (in 1590) from the position of Queen's Challenger at Tilt.

This poem has been assigned to Peele and also to Marlowe, and begins :

' His golden locks time has to silver turned.' The second verse commences :

' His helmet now shall make a hive for bees.'

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c Endimion ' must have been an early play. It con tains much to remind one of Bacon. For instance, it mentions the ebbing and flowing of the sea, and has the phrase 'love should creep,' which we find in Greene, in the 1623 Folio Shakespeare, and in one of Bacon's letters.

One of the characters of ' Endimion ' refers to himself as follows :

' 1 am an absolute microcosmus, a pettie world of myself.'

This play, moreover, contains such aphoristic sentences

as —

' Love knoweth neither friendship nor kindred.' * Sleep is a binding of the senses, love a loosing.' ' Things past may be repented, not recalled.'

Like Bacon, ' Lyly ' in ' Endimion ' alludes to the ' vulgar sort/ refers to ' swelling pride/ ' standing at a stay/ ' a thousand shivers/ ' an hundred eyes/ ' princely favours/ 'vainglorious/ He has the line, 'Always one, yet never the same/ absorbed by Shakespeare for his sonnet, 'Why write I still all one ever the same?''; also the phrase, 'excellent and right like a woman/ which Shakespeare varied in ' King Lear ' :

' Her voice was soft, sweet, and low, An excellent thing in woman.'

In all ' Lyly's ' work we have many examples of that triform construction of sentences common to Bacon, Greene, and Shakespeare. Here is one : c Virtue shall subdue affections, wisdom lust, friendship beauty.'

In 'Midas' was further material for the absorbent c Shakespeare ' :

'Love is a pastime for children, breeding nothing but folly,'

is of kin with

{ All friendship is feigning, All loving mere folly.

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' Though my soldiers be valiant, I must not therefore think my quarrels just/ is assumed to be material for

* Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrels just.'

' Woman in the Moon ' provided more Shakespearian raw material with

* What makes my love to look so pale and wan V

turned into

* How pale and wan he looks !'

Comedy of Errors, IV. iv.

What if Bacon were deceiving, and these were only reforgings in his fine brain of the thoughts he recorded as ' Lyly ' ? No matter ; the pilgrimages of actor- managers and others to Stratford-on-Avon will probably last our day !

According to the cipher story, Bacon wrote : ' I have lost therein a present fame that I may out of any doubt recover it in our owne and other lands after manie a long yeare.'

We fear the deceased Lord Chancellor was too sanguine. The mention of Lord Chancellor brings us to another feature of the ' Lyly ' works — that is to say, the use therein of legal terms, such as : ' Deed of gift,' ' statute merchant,' ' bond/ ' withdraw the action/ ' accessory punished as principal/ ' conveyance/ 'join issue/ ' arraigned as a riot because they clunged together in such clusters/ 'I refuse the executorship/ 'Liber tenons/ ' a freeholder.'

Having assuredly tired our readers with these internal evidences, we pass to proofs of another kind.

THE TESTIMONY OF GABRIEL HARVEY AND OTHERS.

In another chapter (' Spenser ') we give some account of the early association of Gabriel Harvey, the brilliant young Professor of Rhetoric, with young Bacon in 1579-80.

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In 1589 a pamphlet was printed anonymously, entitled 1 Pappe with an Hatchet/ It concerned itself mainly with the Martin Marprelate dispute, but incidentally contained a rap at Harvey, then already engaged in an amusing skirmish with young Francis Bacon, battling under the names of Greene and Nash. Harvey, in the part of his ' Pierce's Supererogation' (1593) which is dated November, 1589, wrote :

'Pap-hatchet (for the name of thy good nature is pittyfully growen out of request), thy old acquaintance in the Savoy when young Euphues hatched the eggs that his elder friends laid (surely Euphues was someway a pretty fellow : would God Lilly had always been Euphues and never Pap-hatchet) : that old acquaintance now somewhat straungely saluted with a new resem blance is neither lullabied with thy sweet Papp nor scarre-crowed with thy sour hatchet.'

In another part of 'Pierce's Supererogation/ dealing with the assaults upon him in the names of Greene, Lyly, and Nash, he lapses into verse :

' Aske not what Newes 1 that come to visit wood :

My treasure is Three faces in one Hood :

A chaungling Triangle : a turncoat rood.

***** ' Three hedded Cerberus, wo be unto thee :

Here lyes the onely Trey, and rule of Three :

Of all Triplicities, the A B C.'

Harvey goes on to say :

* Somebody oweth the three-shapen Geryon a greater duty in recognisance of his often promised curtesies ; and will not be found ungrateful at occasion. He were very simple that would feare a conjuring Hatchet, a ray ling Greene, or a threatening Nash.'

A little further on Harvey wrote :

' These, these were the only men that I ever dreaded : especially that same odd man Triu Litteraru that for a linsey-woolsie wit and a cheverill conscience was A per se A.'

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Referring to this or a similar expression, ' Nash,' in ' Pierce Pennilesse,' wrote :

' A per se A. Passion of God ! how came I by that name ? My Godfather Gabriel gave it me, and 1 must not refuse it.'

The name was originally given by Harvey to Bacon in the complimentary verses published in the * Three Letters,' Harvey to Immerito, in 1580. We quote the line :

' Every one A per se A his terms and braveries in print.'

Thus, the Harvey testimony very materially supports our view as to the true authorship of the ' Lyly ' works.

Mr. Crawford, in the second volume of his ' Collec tanea,' at p. 141, writing ironically about the ' Pappe with an Hatchet ' tract, states :

' Because the tract repeats over and over again the pet phrases and proverbs of John Lyly, and because its general style bears more than a passing resemblance to that author's, critics have assigned it to Lyly. Other circumstances seem to lend colour to the correctness of the attribution. But how easily the best men may err ! Things that seem are not the same (see Peele's " Old Wives' Tale "). The real author is Francis Bacon.'

Many a true word has been spoken in a jest. Mr. Crawford only provides another instance. For he pro ceeds to say that a —

4 comparison of the pamphlet with Bacon's known work will yield evidence in his favour in abundance. For instance, Promus No. 909 (Bacon's "Promus"): "The crowe of the belfry" ; and No. 536 reads, "Allow no swallow under thy roof." " Pappe with an Hatchet " dilates on both proverbs.'

Again, that * the tract quotes the Latin sentence, " Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere divos." This sentence,' writes Mr. Crawford, ( is from the " ^Eneid," vi. 620, and Bacon notes it, either fully or in part, three times in his "Promus," Nos. 58-436 and 1092.' Mr.

96 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

Crawford's comments may be supplemented by a few other indications of Bacon's authorship of the tract. The author was evidently a lawyer. This is betrayed by such sentences as * Beware an action of the case,' ' Draw a conveyance ' (deed), ' The common pleas at West minster to take forfeitures/ Here, again, is a thoroughly Baconian sentence : ' So well established, so wisely maintained, and so long prospering.'

The author of ' Pappe with an Hatchet ' shared Bacon's love of apothegms. For he writes : ' Here is a fit time to squeeze them with an apothegm.' The author also held Bacon and Lyly's attitude towards atheism : ' What atheist more fool than says in his heart, 44 There is no God"?' Bacon's essay on Atheism has, ' The Scripture saith, " The foole hath said in his heart there is noe God."

Henry Upchear (whoever he was), in verses prefixed to Greene's ' Menaphon ' (1589), wrote :

' Of all the flowers a Lillie one I loved, When labouring beauty brancht itself abroade, But now old age his glorie hath removed, And Greener objects are my eyes aboade.'

The date of birth of the 'plebeii filius,' M.A., is guessed at 1554. He would resent the allegation of old age at thirty-five.

The verse is quoted to show the association of Lyly and Greene in one compliment. In a chapter on ' Nash,' we seek to show how Bacon, writing under that name, discussed his method of mixing ' precepts of doctrine with delightful invention.' We find Lyly, as appears by the prologue to ' Carnpaspe,' when in later years (in or after 1596) performed by the boy actors at Blackfriars, actuated by the like intention : ' We have mixed mirth with counsell and description with delight.' To the devotees of Stratford-on-Avon we observe that Lyly in ' Campaspe,' like Spenser, Nash, and others, was familiar with the term, * Shake the speare ' ; while in this

i

LYLY 97

association it should be noted that correspondences between passages in * Euphues ' and others in ' Hamlet * are frequent. Mr. Eushton has pointed out several, such as the advice of Polonius to his son. We suggest that the man who wrote, * When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin,' had in mind the passage, ' Asiarchus spoyled himself with his own bodkin ' (' Euphues,' First Part).

Transcripts of two undated petitions of Lyly to Queen Elizabeth are of slight importance. They tell nothing inconsistent with Bacon's career as known to us, but we have no evidence that any such petitions were ever presented. They certainly show the Baconian charac teristic of perseverance.

The evidence of Ben Jonson as to the authorship of the ' Lyly ' works is necessarily slight. True, he said of Bacon that he had filled up all numbers and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. His allusion to Lyly is in his verse prefixed to the Shakespeare Folio,

1623:

1 Thou didst our Lilly outshine, Or sporting Kyd or Marlowe's mighty line.'

Jonson would not have made an unfavourable com parison between ' Shakespeare ' and any real author. It would have been unfair, and as it is not difficult to show that Kyd and Marlowe were other masks for Bacon, the true inference from Jonson's lines is that Bacon's dramatic development began as ' Lyly/ improved as * Kyd ' and ' Marlowe,' and reached its culmination as ' Shakespeare.'

The dropping of the Lyly vizard was neatly accom plished. At the end of ' Euphues, his England ' (1580), Euphues is mentioned as retiring to Silexedra (a stone seat). This we take to be a reference to Francis taking up his quarters, ' poor cell,' in that year at Gray's Inn. In 1586, under the vizard of Bright, Francis wrote

7

98 TUDOE PROBLEMS

' A Treatise of Melancholy.' In 1589 he wrote * Mena- phon ; or, Camillas Alarum to Slumbering Euphues in his Melancholic Cell at Silexedra ' (vizard Greene). The verses as to Lyly's old age have been quoted in a previous chapter. In 1590 a book published by Lodge was called ' Rosalynde : Euphues' Golden Legacy,' found after his death in his cell at Silexedra.'

In 1591, under the vizard of Spenser, in ' Tears of the Muses/ is the line

' Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late.'

It seems to be now tolerably certain that the Chapel children rehearsed the Lyly Court Comedies at a room within the walls of the dismantled Blackfriars Monastery, where the various ' properties ' for use in the Court revels and interludes had been kept from the time of Edward VI. That Edward Vere Earl of Oxford, a poet, and * Lyly ' (doubtless a nom de plume for Francis), had rooms at the monastery buildings, shows them to have been interested in the rehearsal of the performances.

If this argument as to the Baconian authorship of the ' Lyly ' works can be established, it shows the dramatic craftsman at the beginning of his career Hard reading and study, methodical note-taking, continuous practice, continuous revision, indomitable industry from an early age, produced the genius which reached its highest point of expression in ' Shakespeare.' It also demon strates another interesting fact — namely, that in Bacon's old age thoughts^ registered in his brain during early manhood, came again to the surface.

In his ' Life and Works of Bacon,' Mr. Spedding printed two short poems, which, after careful considera tion, he accepted as having been written by Bacon towards the close of his life.

The first contains the following lines :

1 The world's a bubble, and the life of a man Less than a span.'

LYLY 99

The other poem ends :

1 Good thoughts his only friends, his life a well-spent age, The earth his sober inn — a quiet pilgrimage.''

Bacon in his prayer in 1621 said : ' I have misspent my life in things for which I was least fit ; so as I may truly say my soul hath been a stranger in the courses of my pilgrimage.'

As 'Euphues' (First Part), at the age of twenty, Bacon had recorded : ' Our life is but a shadow, a warfare, a pil grimage, a vapor, a bubble,' and that * David said it is but a span long. See also :

4 How brief the life of man

Runs his erring pilgrimage, That the stretching of a span Buckles in his summe of age.'

As You Like It, III. ii.

CHAPTER X

WATSON

LET it be said at once that ' Thomas Watson ' is a bio graphical myth. Nothing is known of him. His supposed biography has been compiled merely by inferences from the writings printed with his name as author.

To these inferences the contents of two mare's-nests have been added. One, discovered by Mr. Hall and re corded in the Athenaeum for 1890, was that Watson was the same person as one ' Watsoon,' brother-in-law of Swift, a servant of a certain ' Cornwallis.' The assump tion depended upon the correct reading of an old MS. letter to Burleigh of March 5, 1593, in which Mr. Hall thought he deciphered a statement that 'Watsoon' 'could derive twenty fictions and knaveries in a play which was his daily practyse and his living.'

Mr. Ellis, in a letter to the Athenceum a few weeks later, pointed out that the word ' plott ' or ' plan ' had probably been misread as c play/ inasmuch as no trace of a play by Thomas Watson had ever been found.

The other probable mare's-nest is an entry said to have been discovered by that doubtful investigator, Mr. Collier, in the register of St. Bartholomew the Less — viz., ' Sep tember 26, 1592, Thomas Watson, gent, was buried.7

It is suspicious that Collier found a similar entry in St. Bartholomew's register about Lyly — viz., ' 1606, 30th Novr. John Lyllie, gent, was buried.'

The first 'Watson' publication was in 1581, and con sisted of a translation from Greek into Latin of Sophocles'

100

WATSON 101

'Antigone,' together with a few Latin poems and four Themata.

The first of the four Themata is written in Iambics, the second in Anapsestic Dimeters, the third in Sapphics, and the fourth in Choriambic asclepiadean verse. Surely here is presumptive evidence of a poet at practice. Next year (1582) came the * Watson' publication, called 'The Pas sionate Century of Love/ in which the young poet exer cised himself in expressing English verse in sonnet form. These sonnets numbered about one hundred in all ; eight of them are imitated from Petrarch, twelve from Serafina, four from Strozza, three from Firenzuola, and two each from Parabosco and Sylvius. What a range of careful reading in Italian poetical literature this betokens ! In addition he imitated four sonnets of the contemporary French poet Ronsard and two of Etienne Forcadel, another Frenchman also then living. In the glosse to the verses he indicates acquaintance with other poets — viz., the Italians Ariosto, Baptista Mantuanus, Poliziano ; the German Conradus Celtes ; and with the Greek writers Theocritus, Sophocles, Musseus, Aristotle, Homer, and Apollonius. Of Latin authors, he quotes or borrows from Ovid, Cicero, Lucan, Seneca, Horace, Pliny, Martial, and Flaccus.

One English poet had great attraction for him — namely, Chaucer. It is a suspicious circumstance that this old poet was also a great favourite with the writer of the * Spenser ' and ' Greene ' works claimed in the biliteral cipher to have been written by Bacon.

In 1585 appeared, under the name 'Watson,' a trans lation into Latin of Tasso's pastoral drama ' Amyntas.' Bacon's love of the pastoral form is shown in the ' Shep- heard's Kalendar ' (1580), in the ' Spenser ' ' Colin Clout ' (1595), in the pastoral play 'Arraignment of Paris,' and some of the Eglogues published in the name of Peele. In 1590 'Watson' used the pastoral form for an Eglogue upon the death of his friend Sir Francis Walsingham.

102 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

Another translation into Latin of Tasso's ' Amyntas ' was made by ' Watson's ' friend Abraham Fraunce, who was a barrister of Gray's Inn at the time Bacon was then resi dent. This Fraunce had access to the * Faerie Queene r two or three years before it was printed, as in his work called 'Arcadian Rhetorike' (1588) are quotations from it. On the assumption that Bacon's claim to authorship of the ' Faerie Queene ' is true, this access was natural. Fraunce, moreover, like Bacon, was a close and intimate friend of the Sidney family. In 1586, in the name of * Watson,' was published a translation into Latin of the short Greek poem by Coluthus called 'The Rape of Helen/ A lost translation of the same poem into English was, according to a Coxetian MS., attributed to ' Marlowe.'

It will be remembered that in ' Marlowe's ' name was printed a translation from Lucan, and translations of Ovid's ' Amores,' and of the Hero and Leander poem of Musseus, a long time after * Marlowe's ' death. With Lucan, Ovid, and Musaeus, ' Watson ' was familiar. Of other classical poets well read by * Watson ' we find Pliny drawn upon largely by ' Lyly,' Cicero by ' Greene/ ' Homer,' and ' Virgil ' in the biliteral cipher — Virgil again in the ' Dido ' of ' Marlowe,' Seneca and others in the ' Shakespeare ' plays.

In 1590 a number of Italian Madrigals were Englished by ' Watson ' and set to music by William Bird, who was a prominent Court musician. That Bacon had a first-class knowledge of music is well shown in his acknowledged writings.

The 'Tears of Fancie, or Love Disdained,' another series of sonnets, was the last effort attached to the name of ' Watson.' Mr. George Steevens, the Shakespeare Editor, thought the ' Watson ' better than the ' Shakespeare ' sonnets. Mr. Palgrave considered ' Watson ' a writer to whom fame has been singularly unjust. The year of publication of the 'Tears of Fancie' was 1592, and not 1593, as guessed by some critics. A later date is incon-

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sistent with Bacon's decision to drop the name of 'Watson* and yet to retain the works in memory.

On November 10, 1592, was entered in the register a book entitled ' Aminte Gaudea. Author Thorn. Watson. Londoniensi juris studioso.' It was prefaced by a Latin dedication to Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, by a writer printing the initials 'C. M./ who deeply lamented 'Watson's' recent 'death/ This lament, which Bacon wrote as ' C. M./ he followed up as 'Peele,' in honour of the Garter, 1593, with :

' To Watson, worthy many epitaphs. For his sweete poesie for Amintas teares.'

Then as 'Nash' in 'Have with you the Saffron Walden ' he wrote, ' A Man he was that I dearly lov'd and honor'd, and for all things have left few his equals in England/ Bacon in this way perseveringly maintained attention to his ' Watson ' writings, which ceased to appear after the year 1592.

Bacon's intimacy with the Sidney family was close and continuous. He lost a great friend and fellow- worker in Sir Philip. His panegyrics in the names of ' Spenser ' and * Nash ' show this. Another great friend was Sir Francis Walsingham, Sidney's father-in-law, whose death was fitly lamented in the Watson Eglogue to Meliboeus, 1590. Sidney's sister Mary Countess of Pembroke, to whom the last Watson work was dedicated, was a talented writer and cousin of Francis. One can almost conjure up the friendly group of three ardent enthusiasts translating Gamier 's plays, when published in collected form in French in 1586 : the Countess undertook 'Antony/ Abraham Fraunce 'Cleopatra/ and Bacon 'Cornelia* (published in the name of 'Kyd').

The 'Shakespeare' Folio of 1623, comprising certain of Bacon's revised plays, was dedicated to the sons of the Countess.

To return to the ' Watson ' writings. The biographers say that 'Watson' was in Paris in or before 1581, and that

104 TUDOR PROBLEMS

he was educated at the University of Oxford. The first proposition depends upon a statement in the Eglogue to Walsingham, which runs :

Tityrus (Thomas Walsingham) sings to Corydon (Wat son) :

' Thy tunes have often pleas'd mine eare of yore When milk-white swans did flock to heare thee sing Where Seane in Paris makes a double shore.'

Francis was in Paris at various times during the periods 1576 to 1578-9 and 1582-3.

Young Thomas Walsingham was heir to the family estates, and, compared to his uncle, Sir Francis Walsing ham, was a rich man. He was twenty-one in 1589. If through his uncle's influence he was ever sent to Paris to learn French, he would have been a boy of sixteen, when young Francis was there in 1582-3. Young Thomas Wal- singham's friendship for Bacon seems tohavebeen exercised in another way — by his giving some refuge to Bacon's assistant, Marlowe, at the time he was being searched for under warrant from the Star Chamber in consequence of the libels on the wall of the Dutch cemetery.

In addition to the references to the Sidney and Walsingham family in the ' Watson ' works, there are references and dedications showing intimacy with Queen Elizabeth and her leading courtiers — the Earls of Essex, Arundel, Oxford, and Northumberland, Lord Chancellor Hatton and Lord Burleigh.

The relationship of Francis to the Queen and Robert Earl of Essex has already been discussed. Lords Burleigh, Arundel, and Oxford were high Ministers of State, and to the last-named Francis, in the name of ' Lyly,' had already dedicated one of his books.

With regard to the allegation that ' Watson ' was educated at Oxford, it must be noticed that no person of that name has yet been identified as having belonged to any college there at a suitable date. The allegation is solely based upon the fact that a short Latin verse pre-

WATSON 105

fixed to 'Tullies Love,' 1589 (a pamphlet published by Francis in the name of 'Greene'), is printed as by 'Thomas Watson, Oxon.' The use of the term ' Oxon ' was most probably owing to the fact that a Catholic Bishop of Lincoln, named Thomas Watson, educated at Cambridge, died in 1584 at Wisbeach Castle, where he had been in confinement for several years. This Bishop was author of several works, including a play called ' Absalom,' the MS. of which is or was in the possession of the Pembroke family at Penshurst. Bacon probably used the word ' Oxon ' to avoid any inference that Bishop Watson wrote the ' Watson ' poems.

The internal evidence of the ' Watson ' writings seems to confirm their Baconian origin. ' The Passionate Century of Love ' contains several distinctly Baconian phrases.

Take one :

' But how bold soever I have been in turning out this my pettie poor stocke upon the open common of the wide world.'

Take another :

' Homer in mentioning the swiftness of the winde maketh his verse to runne in posthaste all upon dactilus.'

It will be remembered that Ben Jonson walked to Scotland about the year 1617, and in his conversations with the poet Drummond, of Hawthornden, is recorded that at his hither-coming Sir Francis Bacon had re marked to Jonson, 'He loved not to see poesy go on other feet than poetical dactylus and spondseus.'

The following seems to be another :

In one of the prefaces referred to, 'Watson' wrote, 'Therefore if I rough-hewe my verse.' In Webster's Dictionary the example for ' rough-hewe ' is given from ' Shakespeare,7 for ' rough-hewn ' from Bacon. We also find the word ' rough-hewe ' in the biliteral cipher story.

106 TUDOB PROBLEMS

In the Ninth Sonnet of the ' Passionate Century ' (1582) there is a reference to the ' marigold,' the favourite flower of Marguerite of Navarre. A similar reference is in Lyly's * Euphues and his England,' and in the cipher story we learn of Bacon's unsuccessful love-affair with Marguerite, who was sister of the French King. The f Passionate Century' contains a number of sonnets on the subject of c My Love is Past,' which would suitably follow the failure of the courtship by Francis of Marguerite in 1578.

In the Fourth Sonnet is an exercise in the Greek figure of rhetoric, ' Anadiplosis,' one of those discussed in the 'Arte of English Poesie.' Mr. Bushton gives ex amples of the use in * Shakespeare ' of twenty other of the figures of rhetoric explained in the ' Arte.'

The Forty-seventh Sonnet is used bodily in the early play of 'The Spanish Tragedy/ written by Bacon, but fathered upon Kyd.

The Fifty-third Sonnet deals with the subject of the Labyrinth of Crete, and the guiding thread by which it might be entered and quitted. Bacon, in several places in his acknowledged, and elsewhere in his c vizard,' writings refers to this Labyrinth, which seems to have greatly impressed him. One of his unpublished tracts is entitled 'Filum Labyrinth!,' and it is evident that his scheme of literary production was upon Labyrinthine lines.

In other places in the 'Watson* writings are to be found such Baconian expressions as * winter's blast/ ' nipping frost,' ' swelling seas,' ' the vulgar sorte,' ' swell ing pride,' ' sea of teares/ ' Titan/ ' hapless case/ * extremest justice/ ' void of equity/ ' smokie sighs/ ' fickle fortune/ ' surging seas/ c thousand cares/

' The Tears of Fancie ' has the line, ' Go, idle rhymes, unpolished, rude and base/ which resembles the lines prefixed to the ' Shepheard's Kalendar ' :

* Go little booke, thyself presents As one whose parent is unkent.'

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In the 'Arraignment of Paris' (1584), attributed to Peele, a variety of metres is employed. In the * Shep- heard's Kalendar ' Bacon (under the sobriquet of ' E. K.' in the glosse) mentions Theocritus, Virgil, Mantuanus, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Marot, Sanazasso, ' and also diverse other excellent, both Italian and French, poets, whose footing this author everywhere followeth.' 'Spenser' and * Watson' therefore adopted like methods of acquiring facility in verse-making. As Spenser was a ' vizard ' for Bacon, so it is fairly evident was * Watson.'

At an early stage in his development Bacon had mastered the mysteries of style. ' Style/ said he in the ' Arte of English Poesie,' ' is as the subject matter.' It is most interesting to see the early evidence in * Watson ' of the readiness with which he could change his style. In the Eglogue to Walsingham we have :

Cvrydon : ' But I must sorrow in a lower vaine,

Not like to thee whose words have wings at will ; An humble style befits a simple swaine. My muse shall pipe but on an oaten quill.'

In another place :

e But Tityeus enough, leave a while ; Stop mourning springs, drie up thy drearie line, And blithely entertain my altered stile.'

The ' Watson ' writings are very evidently the work of Francis Bacon ; much of it early work, but none the less important. He and he alone was the law student of London who had at an early date visited Paris, and was the courtier whose association with the Queen and her chief Ministers was so close and intimate. He it was who had perfected himself in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, of Italy, France, and England, and who had taken all knowledge for his providence.

Suffering is considered by many necessary to the making of a truly great poet. That Francis suffered

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and was baffled in his efforts through life we know full well.

He was unhappy in his first love. He was refused due recognition as the eldest (because base begotten) son of the Queen. He had great difficulty in preserving his health, in maintaining a position for himself, and even in avoiding treachery and death. That he alternately desired and shunned death can be gleaned from his life history as it becomes more open to us.

The Forty-fourth Sonnet in the ' Tears of Fancie,' published in the name of 'Watson/ has therefore significance :

1 Long have I sued to fortune, death and love, But fortune, love nor death will deign to hear me. I fortune's frown, death's spite, love's horror prove, And must in love despairing live, I feare me.'

CHAPTER XT

PEELE

GEORGE PEELE, born about 1558, was a free scholar of Christ's Hospital, of which his father was clerk. He was at Oxford from 1571 until 1579, when he graduated M.A. at Christ Church. In Michaelmas of that year he was in London. By 1581 he was married and settled there. In 1583 he arranged the production of two Latin plays. He died between 1596 and 1598. The biliteral cipher story states that Peele, for valuable consideration in money, sold to Bacon the use of his name as the supposed author of certain of Bacon's plays and verses.

This notice will accordingly be confined to the plays and verses either published in Peele's name or at a subsequent date expressly ascribed to his authorship. They are :

PLAYS.

1 . ' The Arraignment of Paris : a Pastoral presented before the Queen's Majestic by the Children of her Chappell.' Imprinted (anonymously) 1584.

2. « Edward I.1 Printed in 1593, with the following words at the end : ' Yours by George Peele, Master of Arts in Oxenford.'

3. 'The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe with the Tragedie of Absalom. As it hath been divers times plaied on the stage. Written by George Peele. 1599.'

4. < " The Old Wives' Tale." A pleasant conceited Comedie played by the Queen's Majestie's players. Written by G. P. 1595.'

VERSES.

1. ' The Device of the Pageant borne before Woolstan Dixie, Lord Mayor, on 29th Oct., 1585. Done by George Peele, Master of Arts in Oxforde.'

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2. ' The Device of the Pageant borne before Lord Mayor Webbe, 29th Oct., 1591, by G. Peele, Maister of Arts in Oxforde.'

3. 'Speeches to the Queen at Theobalds, 10th May, 1591' — initialed 'G. P.' at end of the MS.

4. * A Farewell. Entituled to the famous and fortunate Generalls of our English forces : Sir John Norris and Syr Francis Drake, Knights, and all theyr brave and resolute followers. Whereunto is annexed : A Tale of Troy . . . Doone by George Peele, Maister of Artes in Oxforde. 1589.'

5. 'An Eglogue Gratulatorie. Entituled to the right honorable and renowned Shepheard of Albion's Arcadia : Robert Earle of Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from Portugall. Done by George Peele, Maister of Arts in Oxon. 1589.'

6. ' Polyhymnia, describing the honorable Triumph at Tylt on the 17th of November last past . . . With Sir Henrie Lea his resignation of honour at Tylt . . . 1590.' On the back of the title is : « Polyhym nia. Entituled with all duty to the Eight Honorable Lord Compton of Compton. By George Peele, Maister of Artes in Oxforde.'

7. ' The Honor of the Garter. Displaied in a Poeme gratulatorie : Entituled to the worthie renowned Earle of Northumberland. . . . By George Peele, Maister of Artes in Oxenforde.' No date.

8. 'Anglorum Feriae. Englande's Hollydayes celebrated the 17th of Novemb. last 1595. ... By George Peele, Mr. of Arte in Oxforde.'

Of the four plays ascribed to Peele, one is a pastoral, another an early chronicle history, the third a more modern development of the religious play, and the fourth an interlude or farce.

' The Arraignment of Paris ' (which was the pastoral play) was, according to Mr. Fleay, performed before the Queen, by the children of her Chappell, probably on February 5, 1581.

As a pastoral, it seems in natural sequence to the 'Shepheard's Kalendar,' published anonymously in 1579. It makes use of two of the names — Colin and Hobbinol — of personages in the ' Kalendar,' and was perhaps one of the first plays that Bacon wrote. Other two may have been the ' Woman in the Moon' and * Alexander and Campaspe,' both subsequently printed and ascribed to 'Lyly.' The 'Woman in the Moon' seems to have been Bacon's first essay in blank verse. 'Alexander and Campaspe' was reproduced at the

PEELE HI

Blackfriars Theatre by the boy players in 1596 or later. In the prologue used at the Blackfriars Theatre the author declared his intention of ' mixing mirth with counsel and discipline with delight, thinking it not amisse in the same garden to sow pot-herbs that we set flowers' This is one of many indications that the ' Lyly ' plays represent early dramatic efforts by Francis, written for performance by the boy actors, mostly those known as the ' children of Her Majesty's Chappell.'

Concerning 'The Arraignment of Paris/ Professor Ward wrote that its versification was various and versatile. Mr. Bullen noted that * rhymed lines of fourteen syllables and rhymed lines of ten syllables predominate; but that there are passages — notably Paris's oration before the Council of the Gods — which show that Peele wrote a more musical blank verse than had yet been written by any English poet.' Francis was evidently trying his hand at various forms of versification.

The internal evidence of his authorship of this play is considerable. First, it is common ground that, whether or no Kyd, while copying law drafts, became an expert lawyer, and whether or no Shakespeare became equally conversant with law by occasional visits to the Stratford County Court and subsequent gossip with London barristers, no one has ever asserted that Peele was a lawyer. Yet ' The Arraignment ' bristles with legal jargon. Read Mercury's speech in Act III., Scene ii., or the whole of Act IV., Scene i., in proof of this. In Act I, Scene i., are these lines :

' Why then Pomona with her fruit comes time enough I see, Come on awhile ; with country store, like friends we venter forth.'

A correspondent of ' Baconiana ' (1904), with reference to the passage in the * Epistle Dedicatorie ' of the First Folio Shakespeare (1623)-— viz.,

'Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruits or what they have ' —

112 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

noted a parallel phrase from a letter written by Bacon to Sir George Villiers :

' And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some of my country fruits' (1616).

According to Mr. Begley in ' Is it Shakespeare ?' at p. 113, the Folio passage referred to is taken from the dedicatory epistle to Vespasian, prefixed to Pliny's 6 Natural History.' Messrs. Seccombe and Allen, in ' The Age of Shakespeare,' affirm that * Lyly ' drew his similes largely from Pliny's ' Natural History.' If ' Lyly ' was only a pen-name for young Francis, the Pliny dedi cation would naturally become fixed on his mind at an impressionable age. Another indication of common authorship is to be found at Act L, Scene i., in the speech by Flora. Many of the favourite flowers which are named in Bacon's ' Essay of Gardens,' and in 'Winter's Tale,' are also mentioned in Flora's speech. Nor must the significance of the eulogy of Queen Eliza beth with which ; The Arraignment ' concludes be

omitted :

* Long live the noble Phoenix of our age, Our Fair Eliza, our Zabet fair !'

The fathering upon Peele of ' The Arraignment ' by Bacon, writing in the name of ' Nash ' in the preface to 'Menaphon' (1589), was in accordance with his scheme of dissimulation.

The play of ' Edward I/ is also ascribed to Peele. His name is placed at the end.

It is one of the series of chronicle plays, which, in the words of Mr. J. A. Symonds (in ' Shakespeare's Pre decessors '), are peculiar to English history. Says Mr. Symonds : ' We know quite well that Shakespeare did not make, but found, the chronicle play in full existence. Yet he and his humbler fellow-workers together under took the instruction of the people in their history.' It is one of the difficulties of the Shakespeare authorship cult

PEELE 113

that, owing to Stratford considerations, the ' deserving man ' (as the Burbages called him) has to be dissociated from early states of the chronicle plays. The simpler course of accepting the fact that he was only one of several masks for Francis Bacon would enable the order of production of the chronicle plays to be the more readily arrived at.

Professor Courthope has now concluded that the play of ' The Troublesome Reign of King John/ printed (1591) anonymously, was written by the same author who wrote the other great plays in the First Folio Shakespeare. This adds probability to the assumption that the same author wrote the ' Edward I.' (1593). But he never seems to have troubled to polish this play, and in subse quent editions it was not materially altered. Mr. Symonds thought that * Edward I.' marked a consider able advance on ' The Troublesome Reign of King John,' and that Marlowe s touch 'transfigured this department of the drama ' by the production of ' Edward II.' True, it was not entered in the Stationers' Register until July 6, 1593, Marlowe being then dead; but as it was title-paged to Marlowe when printed in 1594, we are asked to accept it, not as the improved work of the more mature Francis Bacon, but as the inspiration of the genius of Marlowe in the year 1590. Over the anonymous play of ' Edward III.,' printed in 1596, a glorious literary battle has raged. Ulrici and others have claimed it vigorously as the work of Shakespeare ; others as ener getically have denied it. Mr. Symonds summed up the situation with the supposition that before 1596 there was another playwright superior to Greene, Peele, Nash, and Lodge, but not superior to Shakespeare and Marlowe — 'one, moreover, who had deliberately chosen for his model the Shakespearian style of lyricism in its passage through the influence of Marlowe.' O shade of Francis Bacon ! This * vowed and oft -experimented secrecie ' of yours has caused sore trouble to the literary critic !

8

114 TUDOR PROBLEMS

You as ' Nash ' in ' Piers Pennilesse ' (1592) commented with pride on your scheme of teaching history by the chronicle plays. As * Hey wood ' in 1612, twenty years later, you reviewed the result and pronounced it good.

We do not, 0 shade ! think it needful to hunt for much internal evidence of your authorship of ' Edward I.,' further than to notice your legal jokes and your facility in the language of Italy, both ancient and modern ; but we should like to know what was your little jeu d' esprit in Scene xii.

We know that in ' Summer's Last Will and Testa ment,' played in the autumn of 1592, you jested about 1 Saint Francis,' a holy saint, and never had any money ; but why in 'Edward I.' (1593) do you drag in 'Saint Francis ' five times, and then allude to a breakfast of ' calf s head and bacon ' f

' David and Bethsabe ' (1599).

This play may have been written during the early part of 1593, when Francis was nervous and afraid of dying from the plague, and when he wrote under the pen-name of ' Nash ' the religious homily, ' Christ's Tears over Jerusalem.'

Attention is drawn to the speeches of Solomon and David in Scene xv. of this play.

' It would content me, father, first to learn How the Eternal framed the firmament, Which bodies lend their influence by fire, And which are filled with hoary winter's ice, What sign is rainy and what star is fair.'

Again :

' 0 Thou great God, ravish my earthly sprite, That for the time a more than human skill May feed the organons of all my sense.'

'David and Bethsabe' was not printed until 1599, a period nearer the maturity of Bacon's literary power. It was conveniently fathered upon the then deceased Peele.

PEELE 115

1 Old Wives 7W (1595).

The 'Old Wives' Tale,' printed in 1595, appears to have been acted by the Queen's players. The date of production is put by Mr. Fleay at about 1590. Its title was a favourite expression with ' Lyly.' Its precise con nection with Elizabethan drama may be ascertained some day. It brought upon the theatre stage some portion of the Harvey-Nash controversy. 'Nash,' in one of his anti-Harvey writings, uses and parodies two lines of Harvey's 'Encomium Lauri,' printed in 1580.

In the ' Old Wives' Tale ' another hexameter is used :

' Oh that I might — but I may not, woe to my destiny therefore.'

Bacon as ' Nash ' in the preface to ' Menaphon ' (1589) ridiculed certain verses by Dr. Stanyhurst. As c Peele ' he did the same in this play. Mr. Fleay surmised that some of the outlandish names, such as Polemackero Placidus (Polly, make a rope, lass), were hits at the Harvey family and the father's trade of ropemaker. Mr. Dodsley drew attention to the fact that during all the Harvey-Nash controversy Peele was never men tioned. We venture to infer that Harvey knew that ' Nash ' and ' Peele ' were merely different masks for his young friend Francis.

THE POETICAL WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO 'PEELE.'

Dealing now with the verses to which Peele's name is attached, we have no notion whether Peele himself was some sort of poet or not. Perhaps he was. Judging, however, by external evidence, it may be concluded that Francis, and not Peele, wrote the two Lord Mayor's Pageants.

The ability of young Francis to turn out a masque or write speeches for a tilt-yard or other ceremony seems to have been taken for granted. These Lord Mayors were rich Aldermen, married to two sisters.

116 TUDOR PROBLEMS

From the Dixie Pageant of 1589 is the line : 1 The wrathful storm of winter's rage doth bide.'

* Winter's rage ' was rather a favourite expression with Francis.

In the Webbe Pageant of 1591 are the following lines :

1. 'And made the silver moon and heaven's bright eye.'

2. ' Enrolled in register of eternal fame/

3. ' As bright as is the burning lamp of heaven ' —

which point to Baconian authorship.

' A Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake' (1589).

This was doubtless written by Bacon. At the back of the title are the arms of Queen Elizabeth, which he would have permission to use on such an occasion. The dedication and the first three lines of the verse furnish good internal proof of his authorship. Bacon in his own name and those of his masks is to be trusted to use the term 'swelling' in association with either seas or waves. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth lines are quite Shakespearian. They reminded Mr. Dyce of Othello's 1 Farewell to War.' They also recall part of the Hamlet soliloquy.

Later on we once more have —

'The eternal lamp of heaven, lend us light.'

The author concludes with another high-pitched tribute to the Queen. Francis knew two things : first, that he was financially supported by ' her princely liberality '; secondly, that in praise of the Queen he could not lay the paint on too thick to please the vain old autocrat.

1 The Tale of Troy,' by parity of reasoning, must also have been written by Francis. It was claimed to be an early work, and bears internal evidence of composition at

PEELE 117

the period when he was partly obsessed by the pastoral and Chaucerian style in which he wrote the * Shepheard's Kalendar. '

He shows the aristocratic familiarity with hawking, which Bacon, according to Osborn, most thoroughly

' As falcon wonts to stoop upon his prey.'

'An Eglogue Gratulatorie* (1589).

The Earl of Essex had been to Lisbon on his own account, against the wish of the Queen, having preceded Norris and Drake. Elizabeth wrote to Knollys and Drake that if Essex had reached the fleet, they were to send him back safely (see Devereux, ' Lives of the Earls of Essex '). Essex was assured of a friendly reception on his return.

The ' Eglogue ' is also in the Chaucerian style, but begins with a line from Ovid's ' Amores/ Book II., verse 1.

Bacon as ' Marlowe ' translated the ' Amores ' of Ovid.

His 'Venus and Adonis,' the first-fruits of 'Shake speare's ' invention, was also prefaced by a line from the * Amores,' book i., verse 15.

The poet explains why he could not include Essex in the ' Farewell ' poem. As Essex was coming back in full favour with the Queen, Francis evidently thought it desirable to explain matters a little :

* But now returned to royalize his fame.'

This gives indication of the hopes that Francis then had of Essex succeeding to the throne. He had the same hope in 1596 (see Spenser, ' View of Ireland '), in a refer ence to Essex, upon whom ' our last hopes now rest.5 The last verse contains a line which is distinctly

Baconian :

* And evening air is rheumatic and cold.'

The Peele writings show that their author was acquainted with the works of Virgil, Pliny, Horace,

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TUDOE PEOBLEMS

Juvenal, Cicero, Plautus, Ariosto, Du Bartas, Chaucer, Gower, and Holinshed.

A careful comparison of the acts and life of Peele as known to us, with the plays and verses ascribed to him, and a study of the internal evidence, support the asser tion of the cipher story that the works in Peele's name were written by Bacon.

EARL OF LEICESTER.

Qb. 1588, aged 55.

To face ptage 119.

CHAPTER XII

GEEENE

UNTIL the life of Eobert Greene, asserted to be written in cipher in certain printed works of Francis Bacon, is de ciphered, attempts to identify the- man under whose name Francis vizarded some of his earlier writings must neces sarily be tentative only. In Queen Elizabeth's household accounts for the period 1558-69 mention is made of pay ments to one Robert Greene, the Court Fool. It may have been a son of this man who was a choir-boy of St. Paul's, and who, in 1566-7, according to the ' Old Cheque-Book of the Chapel Royal ' (Camden Society's publications), was made one of the eight choristers of Her Majesty's Chapel. These youths were lodged at the Court, sang the services at Royal worship, and, as other part of their duties, acted in plays and interludes for the amusement of the Court.

The plays appear to have been rehearsed in a room about 60 feet by 20 feet, forming part of the disused monastery of Blackfriars, outside the London walls.

This monastery was very suitable for the purpose. It was protected by walls and four gates, and, moreover, being situate within the verge of the Court, was under the jurisdiction of the Lord Steward of the Royal House hold. After the Friars were suppressed, and certainly during the reign of Edward VI., it was in charge of the Master of the Revels, and the apparel and furniture for the Court masques and revels were kept there. It seems to have been here that young Vere Earl of Oxford, and young Francis, under the incognito of ' Lyly,' had rooms,

119

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

and where Francis could arrange and rehearse the per formances of his early plays and Court comedies, prob ably 'the studies of greater delight than the law,' to which his letter to Burleigh of September, 1580, refers. As the boys of the Chapel grew towards manhood they had, of course, to leave. When young Greene left on this account he appears to have joined St. John's College as a sizar in November, 1575, where, in return for his meals, board, and tuition, he would render the usual ser vices required from sizars or serving-scholars. Francis was at Trinity College, Cambridge, at the same period, and would have seen the youth Greene at Court. Greene took his M.A. in 1583, the degree, however, being no evidence of scholarship. From the Chapel Royal records it appears that a Robert Greene, who seems to have been the same person, and by that date back in London, was made sub-dean. This would bring him into some position of authority over the boys of Her Majesty's Chapel.

Robert Greene first appeared in connection with litera ture in 1583, when a tale, entitled 'Mamillia,' was pub lished, with his name on the title-page.

This tale was entered S.R. without author's name in 1580, when Francis was back from his tour abroad. The date of publication (1583) coincides with the year of return from his long second tour through the States of Europe. That Francis visited Italy and Spain, France, Germany, Poland, and Denmark, may be gathered from a work under the ' Robert Greene ' ascription, entitled, * A Notable Discovery of Cozenage' (1591).

Going back to the real Robert Greene, it may be premised that a University education, coupled with ability to sing the sacred services, was sufficient quali fication for appointment to one of the many vicarages then available through the dispossession of the Catholic priests. On June 19, 1584, one Robert Greene, no doubt our Greene, was given the Vicarage of Tollisbury, in Essex. This living was attached to estates given by the

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Queen to Walter, first Earl of Essex, but which had again passed to her control. Greene's services to Francis would sufficiently account for a method of reward in frequent use by the Queen. She once gave a vicarage to Tarlton, the jester. Greene resigned the living in February, 1584-5. His training as an actor may have occasioned a call for his services as one of the troop of actors of Leicester's company who went abroad in 1585.

From 1583 to 1591 a series of tales, translations from Italian pamphlets, poems, and plays, were printed under the ascription 'Robert Greene.' In the company of actors abroad in 1585 and 1586 Greene is identified as the one called ' Robert the Parson.' A few years later a depreciated personal appearance may have accounted for his being called, in one of the Marprelate tracts, 'the red-nosed minister.'

Many of the tales, pamphlets, and poems are included in the list attached to the chapter (hereafter) on ' Eternizing/

The tales, translations, and poems are mostly dedicated to lords and ladies of the Court, with whom Francis would be on terms of intimacy. Besides this wealth of elegant light literature, a group of serious tracts, known as the Repentance series, are title-paged to 'Greene,' and the name in one form or other has become associated with the following plays :

FIRST PRINTED

1. 'Selimus' - - - 1594

2. ' Orlando Furioso '- - 1594

3. ' Looking Glass for London ' - - 1594

4. 'Friar Bacon' - 1594

5. ' Alphonsus, King of Arragon ' - 1597

6. 'James IV. of Scotland' - 1598

7. « Pinner of Wakefield ' - - 1599

All the above were published after the actor Greene's death, and some were first printed anonymously.

Let us note what some of the literary critics had to say of these plays.

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Professor Brown affirmed that '"Orlando Furioso" pointed the way to "Lear" and "Hamlet;"3 that 1 Friar Bacon ' preceded Shakespeare's use of the super natural ; that the fairy framework of ' James IY. ' was followed by the ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' ; and that ' James IV.' is the finest Elizabethan historical play out side Shakespeare, and worthy to be placed on a level with Shakespeare's earlier style. In style, again (thought Professor Brown), Greene is father of Shakespeare.

Tieck, a German critic, considered the 'Pinner of Wakefield ' to be one of Shakespeare's juvenile produc tions. The critics of style think they find Greene's handiwork in certain of the Shakespeare plays. Ulrici said that ' Pericles ' and ' Arden of Feversham ' were composed in Greene's style. E. G. White thought Greene part author of 'Taming of the Shrew.' T. W. White assigned to Greene the whole of ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and ' Comedy of Errors,' and parts of ' Henry VI.' and ' Winter's Tale.'

While the later style of the vizard ' Greene ' approx imated to that still later writing which is ascribed to ' Shakespeare,' so the earlier style approximated to that of the earlier vizard, ' Lyly.' Harvey called ' Greene ' ' The Ape of Euphues.' The Euphuism present in the earlier works ascribed to Shakespeare is to a still larger extent employed in the early works of ' Greene.' One can understand a great literary prodigy expressly de veloping different styles of writing to suit his subject matter, but not that another person could acquire and use such styles by a mere effort of imitation. Shake speare is assumed to have been able to imitate Greene, Marlowe, Lyly, Spenser, or Peele at will, which seems impossible. On the vizard question the researches and comments of other critics have a valuable bearing.

Mr. Edmund Gosse in an essay in Grosart's c Spenser ' wrote :

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' It is pretty certain that Robert Greene had be come acquainted with the bucolic romances of the Italians while he was travelling in the South of Europe. He was in Italy in 1583, and certainly under foreign influence in the composition of his " Morando." '

We now know that Francis, who used ' Greene ' as vizard, was in the South of Europe in 1582, and prob ably in 1583.

Again Mr. Gosse :

'Without it [Euphues] the novels of Greene would scarcely have existed. We reach the extreme confines of pastoral in " Penelope's Web" and " Ciceronis Amor." c In his verse he is curiously at one with the " Shepheard's Kalendar." :

So we see that, according to this sound critic, ' Greene ' could write like both * Lyly ' and ' Spenser,' while other critics detect Greene's handiwork in certain * Shakespeare ' plays. Wonderful, on any other assump tion than that the writings were all by Francis, visored under these names ! Large as the literary production was, Francis was well aware that this splitting up of his writings under different names made the total look larger. In his acknowledged writings there is a passage as to the effects of subdivision,

M. Jusserand, writing of Greene, states : * Learned he was, versed in the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian tongues.' So was Francis Bacon.

Mr. H. C. Hart, in Notes and Queries, remarked that ' Greene was a versatile genius.' So was Francis Bacon.

' Proverbial philsophy is unusually rampant in Greene's method/ says Mr. Hart. So it was in Bacon's method.

Mr. Hart shows that from Bowes' translation (1586) of Primaudaye's ' French Academy/ ' Greene ' made long excerpts. He says the chapter on ' Fortune ' (except one passage) is virtually annexed by Greene in ' Tritameron/ second part, 1587. Mr. Hart finds the excepted passage

124 TUDOR PROBLEMS

used in the play of ' Tamburlaine,' printed anonymously in 1590, but posthumously ascribed to Marlowe. This points strongly to the use by one writer of different portions of the book for different purposes.

That 'Greene' in ' Menaphon,' printed 1589, quoted from 'Tamburlaine/ not then printed, again points to single authorship.

The writer of the ' Greene ' works was a lawyer. The following instances of legal phraseology go far to estab lish this contention :

' Mark the words, 'tis a lease parol to have and to hold ' (' Looking Glass for England ').

1 This lease, this manor, or this patent sealed ' (' James IV.').

' I have left thee by my last Will and Testament only heir and sole executor of all my lands and movables, yet with this proviso.'

' Neither is the defendant overthrown at the first plea of the plantiff' (' Mamillia,' second part).

' The lawyers say the assumpsit is never good where the partie gives not something in consideration ' (' Never too Late').

Turning once again to the c Cheque-Book of the Chapel Royal,' it will be found there recorded that Robert Greene, the sub-dean, died on July 10, 1592, at Abdye, an obscure vicarage in Norfolk.

Francis, who had dropped his vizard of ' Watson ' in the early part of the year, conceived this to be an excel lent opportunity of giving up his vizard of ' Greene.' The frequent changing of pen-names was a rule of the ' Rosicrucian Brotherhood ' (formed some years later). Taking advantage of the obscurity of Greene's death, Francis proceeded to ' die ' in amusing fashion.

The pamphlets by which this was accomplished, 1 Greene's Groatsworth of Wit,' ' Greene's Vision,' and the ' Repentance of Robert Greene,' were all entered S. R. subsequent to July 10, 1592.

GREENE 125

According to these pamphlets Greene makes himself out to have been a licentious vagabond, and writes an elaborate apology for his life, urging others to take warning from his example, and improve their own conduct. We quote the words, putting in italics a few which seem equivocal :

* But however my life hath beene let my repentant end be a generall example to all the youth in England to obey their parentes to flie whoredome drunkenness swearing blaspheming contempt of the word and such grevous and grosse sinnes, least they bring their parents heads with sorrow to their graves and leaste (with mee) they be a blemish to their kindred and to their posteritie for ever.'

Yet, when we examine the few contemporary descriptions of Greene, we find the witnesses as respectfully complimen tary of him as Gabriel Harvey, the brilliant young Gam- bridge Lecturer, was oflmmerito (' Two Letters of Notable Contents ' ) .

This is what Chettle said ('Kind Hearts Dream, 1592) :

' A man of indifferent yeares, of face amiable, of body well proportioned, his attire after the habit of a scholar- like gentleman only his hair was somewhat long.'

In Greene's 'Funeralls' (1594), E. B. says: 1 Greene pleased the eies of all that lookt upon him/

* * -X- * *

' For judgment Jove for learning deepe he still Apollo seemde For fluent tongue for eloquence, men Mercury him deemde For curtesie suppose him* Guy or Guyons somewhat lesse His life and manners though I would I cannot halfe expresse Nor mouth nor mind nor Muse can halfe declare His life his love his laude so excellent they were.'

Other things being equal, these encomiums would accord with a fair description of young Francis Bacon.

What Harvey said to the contrary was only part of the collaborated joking in which Harvey took a full

126 TUDOK PEOBLEMS

share. Harvey pretended that he was ( altogether un acquainted with the man.'

That Francis Bacon decided in 1592 to drop light literature, and let his ' Greene ' vizard die dramatically in the public eye, has some support from his letter to Lord Burleigh, which Mr. Spedding ascribes to this date :

' Lastly I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends, for I have taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous dis putations, confutations, and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded con clusions and profitable inventions and discoveries ; the best state of that province. This whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or nature or (if one take it favourably) philantrophia is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see that place of any reason able countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a mans own which is the thing I greatly affect. . . . And if your lordship cannot carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with con templation into voluntary poverty ; but this I will do : I will sell the inheritance that I have and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry bookmaker or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which (he said) lay so deep. '

•

This piece of autobiography was followed up in September with the pamphlet ' Greene's Vision,' which gives us further insight into his state of mind, already much disturbed by the Plague then raging in London.

In the ' Vision ' he proceeds to tell how in a discon tented humour

' I sat me down upon my bedside and began to cal to remembrance what fond and wanton lines had past my pen, how I had bent my course to a wrong shore, as

GREENE 127

beating my brains about such vanities as were little profitable, sowing my seed in the sand and so reaping nothing but thornes and thistles/

He then prints an * Ode of the Vanity of Wanton Writings/

Proceeding, he writes :

* After I had written this Ode a deeper insight of my follies did pearce into the center of my thoughtes, that I felt a passionate remorse, discovering such perticuler vanities as I had soothed up with all my forepassed humors, I began to consider that that Astrea, that virtue, that metaphisicall influence which maketh one man differ from an other in excellence being I meane come from the heavens, and was a thing infused into man from God, the abuse whereof I found to be as prejudicial as the right user thereof was profitable, that it ought to be employed to wit, not in setting out a goddesse but in setting out the praises of God ; not in discovering of beauty but in discovering of vertues ; not in laying out the platformes of love, nor in telling the deepe passions of fancy but in persuading men to honest and honorable actions which are the steps that lead to the true and perfect felicity : . . . These premises drive me into a maze especially when I considered that wee were borne to profit our country not only to pleasure ourselves : then the discommodities that grew from my vaine pamphlets, began to muster in my sight : then I cald to minde how many idle fancies I had made to passe the Presse, how I had pestered gentle men's eyes and mindes with the infection of many fond passions rather infecting them with the allurements of some inchanted Aconiton than tempered their thought with any honest Antidote. . . .'

Then follows a very beautiful prayer, concluding :

' And so shadow me with the wings of thy grace, that my minde being free from all sinfull cogitations I may for ever keepe my soul an undefiled member of thy church, and in faith love feare humblenesse of heart, prayer and dutiful obedience shew myself regenerate and a reformed man from my former follies.'

128 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

This prayer is given in full in a later chapter.

1 Greene ' next proceeds to describe a vision of a visit from the poets Chaucer and Gower. These poets discuss the merits of Greene's work, and after certain quotations,

* How saiest thou Gower quoth Chaucer to these sen tences ? are they not worthie grave eares and necessary for younge mindes ? is there no profit in these principles ; is there not flowers amongst weedes and sweet aphorisms hidden amongst effeminate amours f Are not these worthie to eternize a mans fame and to make the memorial of him lasting V

After the introduction of one or two tales, Gower makes a speech, in the course of which he says :

1 Then Greene give thyself to write either of humanity and as Tullie did set down thy minde de officiis, or els of Morall virtue and so be a profitable instructor of manners : doe as the Philosophers did, seeke to bring youth to virtue with setting down Axiomes of good living and doe not persuade young gentlemen to folly by the acquaint ing themselves with thy idle workes. I tell thee bookes are companions and friends and counsailors, and therefore ought to bee civill honest and discreet least they corrupt with false doctrine rude manners and vicious living : Or els penne something of natural philosophie. Dive down into the Aphorismes of the Philosophers and see what nature hath done and with thy pen paint that out to the world : let them see in the creatures the mightinesse of the Creator, so shalt thou reape report worthy of memorie.'

Next follows a vision of Solomon, who counsels the study of Divinity — the true wisdom.

Greene winds up the pamphlet with the remark that he found he had been in a dream :

' Yet gentlemen when I entered into the consideration of the vision and called to minde not only the counsaile of Gower, but the persuasions of Solomon : a sudaine feare tainted every limme and I felt a horror in my con science for the follyes of my Penne : whereupon as in

GREENE 129

my dreame, so awoke, I resolved peremptorilie to leave all thoughts of love and to apply my wits as neere as I could to seeke after wisdome so highly commended by Solomon.'

Thus in the cases of Bacon and ' Greene ' the year 1592 sees them both embarked upon ' vast contemplative ends/

In working out Bacon's resolve to bury himself as Greene, Harvey collaborated. The fictitious autobiog raphy and the pamphleteering arising out of the ' death ' of the pseudo- Greene are most amusing incidents in Elizabethan literature. From the autobiography and the pamphlets modern biographers and editors have evolved what they honestly supposed to have been correct details of Greene's life. How otherwise could they have passed by the obvious jest in the ' Groats worth of Wit' (1592), in which the supposed dying father remarks of his son, ' He is still Greene, and may grow straight'? They have also allowed themselves to be imposed upon by Harvey, who stated ('Four Letters') that Greene had a bastard son, ' Infortunatus Greene' (why Greene ?). This surely was only a jibe by Harvey at Francis Bacon's fondness (in writing in the name of Greene) of the word ' infortunate ' (see examples in Notes and Queries, by Mr. Hart, 1905, p. 81).

Mr. J. P. Collier, always ready to go one better, professed to have found the following entry in the Parish Registry of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, under date August 11, 1593 :

* Fortunatus Green was buried the same day.'

The name is not correct, and we have cause to distrust Mr. Collier.

Gabriel Harvey is responsible for further mystification. According to the ' Eepentance,' the following letter was written by Greene on his deathbed :

9

130 TUDOR PROBLEMS

' Sweet wife as ever there was any goodwill or friend ship between thee and mee see this bearer (my host) satisfied of his debt : I owe him tenne pound and but for him I had perished in the streetes. Forget and forgive my wrongs done unto thee and Almighty-God have mercie on my soule.

* Farewell till we meet in heaven for on earth thou shalt never see me more.

1 This 2 of September.

' Written by thy dying husband. Eobert Greene.'

Harvey, in his ' Four Letters/ states that he saw the hostess of the dying Greene, before September 8, and that Greene had given his host a bond for ten pounds, on which was written the following letter :

* Doll I charge thee by the love of our youth and by my soules rest that thou wilte see this man paid : for if he and his wife had not succoured me I had died in the streetes. Robert Greene/

There could hardly have been two letters, so that the Harvey-Immerito combination in this instance did not collaborate very well.

Identities of expression are of course not conclusive, but the following are only open to the objection of possible copying by two persons from one common source.

* Greene,1 in 'Mamillia,' Second Part, printed 1590, says : ' I remember the saying of Dante that love cannot roughly be thrust out, but it must easily creep.'

In 1619, not printed until after Bacon's death, a letter from him to King James has : ' Love must creep in service where it cannot go.'

In ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' not printed until 1623 — seven years after the ascribed author's death — there is the same sentiment : ' Love will creep in service where it cannot go.'

The writer of the works ascribed to Robert Greene indicates acquaintance with Homer, Virgil, Plato, Ovid, Cicero, Juvenal, ^Esop, Erasmus, Chaucer, Gower, Dante,

GREENE

131

Ariosto, Tasso, Cinthio, Boccaccio, Sanazzaro, Monte- mayor, Guazza, Castiglione, and Macchiavelli.

The list is by no means complete.

The cipher claim that Bacon wrote the works ascribed to Greene will be borne out by unprejudiced investi gation.

CHAPTER XIII

MARLOWE

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, or Marley, was the son of a shoemaker, and born at Canterbury in February, 1563-4. He was at Cambridge as a sizar or serving scholar, and obtained his M.A. degree in 1587. He died at Deptford in June, 1593, being killed in a brawl. In a contem porary ballad he is described as an actor. That he was a man of some individuality is apparent from two cir cumstances — namely (1) that during a space of six years or less he got into trouble with the Star Chamber for publishing a libel, and for holding atheistic views ; (2) that Francis Bacon, his employer, wrote an account of him in cipher.

A letter sent to the Star Chamber, about July, 1593, in the name of a fellow assistant, Thomas Kyd, contains the only other clue to the life and habits of Marlowe in the period 1587-93.

From this letter we learn —

1. That for two or perhaps more years, before June, 1593, Kyd and Marlowe were in the service of a certain unnamed lord.

2. That they worked together in the same room.

3. That Marlowe was in Kyd's opinion intemperate, of a cruel heart, irreligious, and by some thought to be an atheist.

4. That Kyd's ' first acquaintance with this Marlowe rose upon his bearing name to serve my lord, although his

MAELOWE 133

lordship never knew his service but in writing for his players, for never could my lord endure his sight when he had heard of his conditions.'

Professor Boas, in his ' Life and Works of Kyd,' gives a facsimile of this letter, and tried to guess who was the lord referred to in the letter. Eawley, writing in 1657, may help us a little. In his 'Life of Bacon1 he refers to Bacon at Gray's Inn, ' where he erected that elegant pile or structure commonly known by the name of The Lord Bacon's lodgings, which he inhabited by turns the most part of his life.' Of course, he was writing years after Bacon had been made a peer, and the common expression might have been the growth of only about thirty yearg. But having regard to the under current of talk, that he was a high-born personage, he might in 1593 have been termed a lord by the 4 humbler sort,' and particularly by his immediate entourage.

Note in this connection that young Nash, who was another vizard for Francis, used in the preface to ' Pierce Pennilesse,' licensed August, 1592, the expression 'the feare of infection detained mee with my Lord in the Countrey/

Francis was spending that August at Twickenham.

The Kyd letter looks very much as if it had been dictated by Francis. It contains some clever quotations from Cicero, and seems to have been intended more as a quiet notification to Lord Keeper Puckering and the Star Chamber that young Francis, although he had employed Marlowe and used his name in writing for his (really the Queen's) players, had never associated with the reprobate then in hiding at the house of Francis's friend, Tom Walsingham.

The biliteral cipher story states that Francis, for reward, obtained the right to make use of Marlowe's name as assumed author of certain plays and poems.

This is corroborated —

134 TUDOR PROBLEMS

1. By the fact that no play was printed with the ' Marlowe ' ascription until after Marlowe's death in 1593, whatever may have been done on the manuscripts of the actors' parts.

2. * Tamburlaine ' was printed 1590, anon.

3. ' Edward II.' was published in the * Marlowe ' ascrip tion in 1594.

Numerous instances of identities of thought and ex pression between this play and the acknowledged writings of Bacon are given by Mr. R. M. Theobald in ' Shake speare Studies' (1901).

4. * Massacre at Paris ' (1594), contains opinions antag onistic to the views of a contemporary French Professor of Logic, Peter Ramus. The same antagonism is shown by Bacon in ' Temporis Partus Maximus,' and by ' Nash.'

5. 'Dido, Queen of Carthage,' when printed in 1594, has the name of 'Nash' introduced as joint author. Mr Dyce could not determine what verses, if any, were by ' Nash/ The versification was the same throughout. One man alone wrote it — viz., Francis Bacon, behind two masks.

6. 'Dr. Faustus' (1604) contains references to the attempt of Dr. Lopez on the Queen's life, which attempt was made subsequent to Marlowe's death. In 1616 it was in part rewritten by a hand as good as the first writer.

7. ' The Jew of Malta ' (1633). It is named for the first and only time in that part of the biliteral cipher story which was by Bacon's direction ciphered by his chaplain Rawley in the c Sylva Sylvarum' of 1635. It was prob ably printed as a vehicle for some portion of cipher history.

8. The ' Hero and Leander ' verses, entered S. R. in September, 1593, were not printed until 1598, and then in two sestiads. In 1606 four sestiads were added, and the poem reprinted ' as begunne by Christopher Marloe and finished by George Chapman.' Mr. Theobald shows

MAELOWE 135

that the two sestiads ascribed to Marlowe cannot be dis tinguished from the four ascribed to Chapman, and that nothing in Chapman's other work is at all like the ' Hero ' sestiads. In the case of Kyd, both Charles Lamb and Coleridge could not find any similarity between the ascribed Ben Jonson's ' Additions ' to ' The Spanish Tragedy ' and Jonson's known writings.

9. The translation from 'Lucan' was printed in 1600. Could any printer, even presented with the manuscript, have expected to have made a profit by printing it ? A living author, particularly one so sensible of his own im portance, as was Bacon, might have ventured.

10. The translation of Ovid's 'Elegies/ by C. Mv is undated. Someone was at the expense of printing it in Middleburgh, in Holland. As the late Mr. Begley re marked, it is odd that on the theory of Marlowe author ship a few of the elegies by a deceased author should first be published and followed later by another edition with all of them.

Bound in the booklet with the Ovid { Elegies ' were certain epigrams written by J. D. (Sir John Davis) :

* Qu'allait il faire dans cette galore V

Davis was not called to the Bar until two years after Marlowe's death. How could they have ever become associated ? But if we lift the Marlowe mask we find the face of Francis Bacon beneath. Davis was a personal friend of Bacon. On Davis going in 1603 as one of the party to conduct James I. from Scotland to England on his accession, Bacon wrote the letter in which he asked Davis ' to be kind to concealed poets.'

In the completed edition of the ' Elegies ' is included, next to the fifteenth elegy, an alternative translation by ' B. J/ This translation also appears in Jonson's play of 'The Poetaster/ performed 1601 and printed 1602. Ovid Junior, in the play, is told to give up poetry and get to his law-book. Mr. Begley was disposed to regard

136 TUDOR PROBLEMS

this as a hit at Bacon. He gave other good grounds for thinking that at one period some sort of literary feud was waged between them.

Except on the assumption that ' Marlowe ' was merely a name used by Bacon in putting forth the Ovid * Elegies/ the association of Marlowe with Jonson is inexplicable. The completed series of the Ovid translations in undated, but it would be safe to fix the date as subsequent to the printing in 1602 of ' The Poetaster/

Bacon and Jonson were on most friendly terms in 1603, and the publication of the completed 'Elegies* with the alternative translations of the fifteenth elegy, whether the second one was written by Jonson or not, would be natural. Mr. Begley has given ample proof of knowledge by the literary men of the time that Bacon was a poet, but concealed. He has further reminded us that even Stowe, in his 'Annals' (1605), joins Sir Francis Bacon with Sir John Davis as two of the poets of Elizabeth's reign. Surely these two were the 0. M. and J. D. of the ' Elegies ' and ' Epigrams,' the first edition of which was destroyed by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury dated June 1, 1599, only to be reprinted abroad, with additions, after a considerable interval of years.

Bacon was the happy genius who joined Jonson in writing ' Sejanus,' as is indicated by that tendency for a writer to repeat himself, which Mr. Crawford in ' Collec tanea' defines as 'style.' When Bacon celebrated his sixtieth birthday, Jonson wrote a poem for the occasion, commencing

* Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile/

From Harvey's 'Sonnet ' of the year 1593 it may be inferred that he had considerable misgiving as to the wisdom of Bacon, after the death in June of that year of his actor-mask Marlowe, bringing upon the scene in the next month another actor, Will Shakspere, in whose

MARLOWE 137

reconstructed name of William Shakespeare he published the ' Venus and Adonis ' poem. Evidently not sorry that the turbulent and free-thinking Marlowe had ended his earthly career, Harvey nevertheless had doubts about the expediency of the working arrangement newly con cluded by Bacon with the ' deserving man ' from Strat- ford-on-Avon.

Copied below is the portion of the Harvey Sonnet, which shows this :

* Wonders enhance their power in numbers odd, The fatal yeare of yeares is ninety three. Parma hath kist, Demaine entreats the rodd, * * * * *

Navarre woos Roome ; Charlemaine gives Guise the Phy : Weep, Powles, thy Tamburlaine vouchsafes to dye.

L'Envoy.

The hugest miracle remains behind,

The second Shakerley Rashe-swashe to Unde*

Yes, verily, the hugest miracle has remained behind.

The Marlowe plays show that their author knew the works of Virgil, Ovid, Aristotle, Lucan, Musseus, Xenophon, Catullus, Euripides, Herodotus, Ramus, Holinshed, and Macchiavelli.

Careful examination would probably much extend the list.

CHAPTER XIV

SPENSER

FRANCIS BACON asserted in biliteral cipher, that Edmund Spenser, an Irish official, was one of his vizards. Under the impression that he was the actual writer of the ' Faerie Queene ' and other poems, the late Dr. Grosart and others have collected every fact that might be said to relate in any way to Spenser, the Irish official. It will be convenient to record them here :

Birth, circa 1552.

Son of a journeyman tailor or cloth -maker resident in London.

Attended Merchant Taylors' School, London.

In 1569 was at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar or serving scholar. These students received free educa tion, board and lodging in return for their services to the masters and wealthy students.

In 1576 obtained his M.A.

1577, 1578, and 1579 in London. Dr. Fulke, who was the Master of Pembroke College, was chaplain to the Earl of Leicester. It is probable that he obtained for Spenser a position as clerk in the employment of the Earl.

In July, 1580, Spenser accompanied Lord Grey de Wilton, the Queen's Lord Deputy to Ireland, as a secretary.

1581. Engaged copying documents at Dublin.

1581 (May 6). Attended at the Court of Exchequer, Dublin.

1581. Appointed to be a clerk in the Irish Court of

Chancery.

138

SPENSER 139

1581. Lease of the forfeited Abbey of Enniscorthy granted to him.

1582. Lease of forfeited house in Dublin granted to him.

1582 (August). Lease of New Abbey, County Clare, granted to him.

1586 (June). Recorded as Grantee of Kilcolman Castle and 3,028 acres.

1588. Lease of Dublin house expired. Dr. Grosart thought Spenser must have resided continuously in Dublin from 1580 to 1588.

1588 (June). Resigned office of clerk of Chancery Court, and purchased from Ludovick Bryskett the office of Clerk to the Munster Council.

Bryskett was an Italian who had travelled abroad as courier or companion to the Earl of Leicester's nephew, Philip Sidney, in 1572-5. He had obtained the clerkship when Sidney's father was Lord Deputy.

1588. Grant of Kilcolman actually sealed.

1589 (October). Litigation instituted in the Irish Courts against Spenser by a neighbour, Lord Roche, and continued until 1593.

1593. Spenser assigned his Clerkship of Munster Council to R. Curteys.

1598 (September). Appointed to be Sheriff of Cork.

1598 (December 9). Owing to rebellion, fled to England with wife and children.

1598-9 (January 16). Died in London.

Most of the above information is obtained from Irish State Papers. From the English State Papers we learn that on February25, 1590-1, a pension of £50, payable half- yearly, every Christmas and Midsummer, was granted to Edmund Spenser and his assigns during his natural life, to be paid at the office of the Exchequer at Westminster ' by the hands of our Treasurer and Chamberlain.' The Issue Rolls for 1591-8 are missing. In January, 1598-9, there is a record (the only one) of a payment of the pension —

140 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

viz., to Edmund Spenser by the hand of Thomas Walker, being £25 for the half-year due at Christmas. There is nothing to show that Spenser himself ever touched a penny of the pension.

GABRIEL HARVEY.

As in the investigation of the Francis Bacon contention that Spenser merely served as his mask, it will become neces sary to consider a printed correspondence in which Harvey took part, a few details about Harvey are now given.

Gabriel Harvey was at Cambridge before 1569. In 1573 he was tutor at Pembroke College. Before 1577 he was a Professor of Ehetoric and Poetry at Cambridge. His lectures were very popular and largely attended by the students. Francis Bacon was, as we know, at Trinity College, Cambridge (on and off), from April, 1573, to December, 1575.

To judge by a letter to Dr. Young of April 24, 1573, in the ' Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey/ published by the Camden Society, Harvey, in 1579, would be about twenty-eight years of age — perhaps a year or two more. In the summer of 1578 Harvey delivered a Latin oration to Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester at Saffron Walden, his native place, the Queen being upon one of her Progresses.

The Earl shortly afterwards wanted to send Harvey to Italy upon some business. In December, 1578, Harvey was probably in London, that being the date of an entry in a book (' Howliglass,' by Copeland) which he had lent to Spenser. In 1579 Harvey was in Cambridge.

The inferences are strong that Harvey, Francis, and the clerk Spenser were all acquainted, and that the place of their meetings in 1578-9 would be at the house of the Earl of Leicester (father of Francis), known as Leicester House, Strand, London.

Granted that young Francis wanted to use another man's name as pseudo-author, one can very well under-

SPENSER 141

stand his making a bargain with his father's clerk, Spenser, just before he was sent to a permanent situation in Ireland.

THE PORTRAITS.

Certain of the ' portraits ' of Spenser may be portraits of Francis at various stages of his mid-career. Two are said to be at Pembroke College, another was in the possession of the Earl of Kinnoul, and a fourth in the gallery of the Earl of Chesterfield. There are great differences between them. It will be interesting to know which of these was the one which the Queen, shortly before her death^ gave to her relative, Lady Carey.

It is said to have golden-red hair, the colour of the Queen's own hair. It would be useful to compare it with the portrait of Sir Francis Bacon (painted by Jans- sen) after he was about fifty years of age. In this the hair is said to be dark brown with an auburn tint, while the beard and moustache are of a light flaxen brown, almost yellow.

One can venture to affirm confidently that Spenser the Irish official never had either time, money, or oppor tunity for having his portrait painted.

Aubrey's account of the Irish official is that he was a 4 little man, wore short haire, little band and little cuffs/

THE * NOM DE PLUME.'

There is strong indication that the Queen and the ladies and gentlemen of her Court knew that Francis was using the name Spenser as cover for certain of his poetical writings. We will return to this point later. One other person of prominence knew this — viz., Gabriel Harvey.

THE HARVEY-IMMERITO LETTERS.

In 1580 a short pamphlet, dedicated June 19 of that year, was printed, entitled ' Three Proper Witty Familiar

142 TUDOE PROBLEMS

Letters lately passed between two University Men touch ing the Earthquake in April last and our English Re formed Versifying.' Later in the same year another pamphlet appeared, entitled ' Two other very Commend able Letters of the same Men's Writing, both touching the foresaid Artificial Versifying and certain other par ticulars more lately delivered unto the Printer.1 Both pamphlets were published by H. Bynneman with ' the grace and privilege of the Queen's Majesty.' The letters purport to be correspondence passed between Immerito and G. H.

In addition to these printed letters, there exists the manuscript letter-book and diary which belonged to Harvey, and which Mr. Scott edited for a Camden Society publication. Mr. Scott complained that in portions of the letter- book leaves had been torn out and mutilated.

The correspondence printed in 1580 consists of letters from Immerito to Harvey of October 16, 1579, and April 9, 1580, and from Harvey to Immerito, October 23,

1579, and two undated, but written between April 6 and June 19, 1580.

The three 1580 letters were published on June 19,

1580, the 1579 letters later in 1580 after the vizard ' Spenser ' had gone to Ireland. The two in Harvey's letter-book, and of course not printed until the Camden Society unearthed them, are dated after July, 1580.

From the Harvey letters we have various references bearing upon the identity of Immerito. He was —

1. ' A Hertfordshire gentleman.'

Francis, as a boy, was frequently resident at St. Albans, Herts. Spenser was a Londoner.

2. * Illustrious Anglo-francitalorum.'

This may point to an Englishman who had spent a considerable period in France. If so, the cap fits Francis Bacon.

3. Harvey addressed Immerito with much deference and politeness :

SPENSER 143

' Magnifico Signer Benevolo.'

' Your delicate Mastershipp. . . . My younge Italianate Seignoir and French Monsieur. . . . Good-natured and worshipful young gentleman. ... I beseech your Beni- volenza. . . . Take my leave of your Excellencies feet and betake your gracious Mastershipp. . . . What tho' II Magnifico Segnior Immerito Benivolo hath noted this amongst his politic discourses and matters of state and Government/

This is an attitude consistent with the position of a young nobleman such as Francis Bacon, who at an early age studied foreign politics. Harvey could not have been so deferential to a sizar of his college, even to one in the employ of Earl Leicester.

4. ' So trew a gallant in the Court, so toward a lawyer and so witty a gentleman.'

' We are yet to take instructions and advertisements at your lawiers and courtiers' hands, that are continually better trayned and more lively experienced therein than we University men are.'

The suggestion that Immerito was a lawyer and courtier fits Bacon, but does not accord with Spenser the serving scholar.

5. ' So honest a youth.'

1 Good lord, you a gentleman, a courtier and youth.9

The respective ages of Harvey and Bacon warrant the term ' youth ' as applied by the former to the latter. Spenser must have been close upon the same age as Harvey.

6. ' Foolish is all younkerly learning without a certain manly discipline. As if indeed for the poor boys only, and not much more for well-born and noble youth, were suited the strictness of that old system of learning and teaching.'

The above observation would be appropriate from Harvey to Bacon, but a deprecation of the poor boys would hardly have been made to one like Spenser, who was educated at Cambridge as a poor boy.

144 TUDOR PROBLEMS

7. ' You suppose us students happy, and think the air preferred that breatheth on these same great learned philosophers and profound clerks. . . . Would to God you were one of these men but a sennight.'

Such an observation, if made to Spenser, who was at college for seven years, is inexplicable. Francis was specially tutored at Trinity College by Whitgift, the Queen's chaplain ; took no degrees, and left at the age of fifteen.

8. In a later letter from Harvey (see Scott) he sug gested that Immerito might shortly be sending one of Lord Leicester's, or Earl Warwick's, or Lord Rich's, players to get him to write a ' comedy or interlude for the theatre or some overpainted stage whereat thou and thy lively copesmates in London may laugh.'

On the footing of the truth of the cipher story it is intelligible. The influence of young Francis with the players belonging to his father, the Earl of Leicester, or his uncle, the Earl of Warwick, can be understood.

9. In another passage Harvey rebuked Immerito for thinking that the first age was the golden age. If Immerito was the son of a journeyman cloth -maker, and had in two years become a lawyer, a gallant at Court, and a witty gentleman, why was he discontented and sighing for a bygone period, which he thought had been the golden age ?

In a draft letter in Harvey's ' Letter- Book ' are two references to a certain E. S. of London, Gentleman. The

date of this letter is 10th of , 1579. In another

draft the date is given as August 1, 1580. In the same book Harvey refers to ' a friend of mine that since a certain chance befallen unto him, a secret not to be revealed, calleth himself Immerito.'

Harvey's draft letter may have been prepared for the pamphlets but never published, though consistent with a settled plan to lead the reading public to think that Immerito was Spenser, and not Francis Bacon, who, in

SPENSER 145

view of his possible open recognition by the Queen as her son, had good reason for concealing his identity.

If we turn to Immerito's letters, we find him writing sometimes from the Court at Westminster, sometimes from Leicester House. In that of October 16, 1579, he remarked :

' First I was minded for awhile to have intermitted the uttering of my writings leaste by over much cloying of their noble ears I should gather a contempt of myself or else seem rather for gaine and commoditie to doe it.'

This indicates that his previous as well as his then present writings were intended for the courtiers to read, and that he did not wish to be thought to be trying to get some personal advantage by his writings. This could not have been the line of the poor son of a journey man cloth-maker.

Another remark is, ' Your desire to hear of my late being with her Majesty must die in itself.' That the sizar of yesterday should obtain private audience with the Queen of a most exclusive Court is incomprehensible. Even in the Victorian age an ordinary Oxford under graduate could not, without social offence, appear in public with a 'servitor,' which is the Oxford equivalent for the Cambridge sizar.

THE ' SPENSER ' PUBLICATIONS. They consist of the —

FEINTED

'Shepheard'sKalendar' - ... 1579-80

' Faerie Queene ' (First Part ) - - - 1590

< Complaintes ' - - 1591

'Daphnaida' - - - 1591

< Colin Clout' - - 1595

'Amoretti' - - ... 1595

* Four Hymns'- - 1596

'Astrophel' - - 1596

'Prothalamion' - - 1597

{ Faerie Queene ' (Second Part) - - 1597

1 Vewe of Ireland ' (prose) - 1598

146 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The ' Kalendar ' was title-paged to Immerito, and dedicated to Philip Sidney.

It was prefaced with some ambiguous verse :

* Go, little book, thyself present As child whose parent is unkent To him that is the president, Of nobleness and of chivalry. But if that any ask thy name Say thou were base begot with shame.'

Editions of the ' Kalendar ' appeared in 1581, 1586, 1591, and 1597, but it was not included as a Spenser poem until the Folio of 1611.

The new edition of 1581 was in smaller type, closer set, and corrected. It came from a different London printer. This is inconsistent with authorship by a man in Dublin all that year, busy copying documents — ' Vera copia Edmund Spenser.'

Besides the poems published under the Immerito and Spenser ascriptions, the Harvey letters of 1580 and one in a ' Spenser ' dedication of 1591 affirm that there were others which never saw the light :

1. * Dreames.'

2. ' English Poet/

3. ' Court of Cupid.'

4. Seven Psalms.

5. l Stemmata Dudleiana,' etc.

Francis had too much confidence in himself to waste anything good. So we may fairly conclude that No. 1, with its glosse, was printed under the * Watson ' ascription in 1582 as the ' Passionate Century of Love '; No. 2 as ' Discourse of English Poesie,' 1586 ; that No. 3 was used for the Masque of Cupid in the ' Faerie Queene,' 1590 ; and No. 4 was refurbished in 1625, and printed by Francis under his own * name.'

Francis was naturally interested in his father's lineage, but * Stemmata Dudleiana' was perhaps wisely suppressed.

SPENSER 147

With respect to the use of Spenser's name, Francis seems to have been in difficulties. He was under pledge to his mother to glorify her as the ' Faerie Queene,' and he had in the ' Discourse of English Poesie ' (1586) identi fied Immerito as Spenser ; while ' Immerito ' in the Harvey letters (1580) is given as the writer of the ' Faerie Queene/ then in progress.

But the incongruity arisen from Spenser's continuous absence in Ireland seems to have prevented Bacon's use of the 'Spenser' vizard until 1590, when the 'Faerie Queene ' had to be given to the public.

That the ' Faerie Queene ' was being written by Francis at Gray's Inn is evidenced by the fact that Abraham Fraunce, another Gray's Inn lawyer, published in 1588 a work entitled ' Arcadian Rhetorike, ' containing quota tions from it although not printed until 1590.

On December 1, 1589, the First Part of the 'Faerie Queene ' was registered in London. It was published in 1590 in the name of Edmund Spenser as author, and had a prefatory letter to Raleigh, dated January 23, 1589-90. Raleigh had been in Ireland in August and September, 1589, and returned in October to his duties as Lord- Lieutenant of Cornwall. From thence Raleigh wrote to a friend with the information that he was on terms of confidence and friendship with the Queen. The letter to Raleigh, and sonnets affixed to the ' Faerie Queene ' addressed to Queen Elizabeth and her chief Ministers, as well as to the ladies of her Court, give, as Dr. Grosart remarked, 'touches declarative of some personal inter course.'

There is no evidence that Edmund Spenser, the Irish official, ever crossed the sea to superintend the printing and publication of this magnificent and lengthy poem. The testimony, such as it is, of the ' Colin Clout ' poem (1595) is excepted. The allegations of the ' Colin Clout ' verses settle nothing.

If Spenser did not cross from Ireland in 1589 or 1590,

148 TUDOR PROBLEMS

the personal intercourse with the notables named in the affixed sonnets to the ' Faerie Queene ' is hard to under stand. Yet perhaps it is harder still to comprehend how much progress he had to make in the way of personal intimacy between October, 1589, and the January following. There is one notable exception. We should have expected Spenser to have known best Sir John Norris, the President of Munster. That warrior spent most of his life in warfare, and practically none at the English Court. Yet the sonnet to him gives no indication of personal intimacy !

So far the trend of the evidence supports the claim that the concealed poet and courtier, Francis Bacon, wrote the poems attributed to Spenser, and published them in the latter' s name.

The next ' Spenser ' publication was a group of minor verses, entitled ' Complaintes,' entered S.R., London, on December 29, 1590, and published the next year. 1 Spenser ' wrote no dedication, but Ponsonby, the pub lisher, prefixed an epistle — ' The Printer to the Gentle Reader ' — and therein affirmed that the poems had ' been dispersed abroad, and some of them embezzled and pur loined from the poet since his departure over the sea.' This observation is consistent with a departure in 1580.

The * Complaintes ' comprised the following :

1. 'The Ruines of Time,' with dedication to Lady Marie, Countess of Pembroke.

2. ' The Teares of the Muses,' dedicated to Ladie Strange.

3. ' Virgil's Gnat/ Long since dedicated to the Earl of Leicester, late deceased.

4. ' Mother Hubbard's Tale/ dedicated to Lady Compton and Mountegle.

5. 'The Ruines of Rome/

6. ' Muioptomos,' dedicated to Ladie Carey.

7. ' Visions of the World's Vanities/

8. ' Visions of Petrarch/

SPENSER 149

Of the above, No. 4 is admittedly a youthful pro duction ; No. 3 was written and dedicated to the Earl of Leicester in his lifetime (i.e., before the autumn of 1588) ; No. 1 was written after the death of Ambrose Earl of Warwick (February, 1590); Nos. 7 and 8 are certain early writings revised.

No. 1 concerns itself with a long lament over the old city of Verulam, the site of St. Albans, where Francis, as a boy, was brought up. It also most feelingly mourns the deaths of Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Earl of Leicester, Ambrose Earl of Warwick, and Sir Francis Walsingham.

In 'The Teares of the Muses' (No. 2) Melpomene laments the low state of the stage ; Terpsichore records the greater burden of misery which occurs to anyone who has, previous to misfortune, 'in the lap of soft delight been long time lulled.' It would have been difficult for the prosperous and busy Irish official to have evolved these evidently painful personal sentiments.

In No. 4 the poet seems to take part in the Martin Marprelate controversy, which in 1588, 1589, and 1590 raged in England, though not in Ireland. The poet objected to difference of texts :

' From whence arrise diversities of sects And hateful heresies of God abhor'd.'

In the same poem (which, by-the-by, caused some offence, and had to be withdrawn) there are the lines :

' What hell it is in suing long to bide, To lose good days that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent, To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope with fear of sorrow, To have thy Prince's grace yet want his Peeres', To have thy asking, yet wait manie years.'

How this can express the feelings of the Irish official is difficult to comprehend. The poem refers to the sad lot

150 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

of the suitor at Court. It was, in the opinion of Dr. Grosart, written several years before the date of publica tion. If Spenser did come to Court in October, 1589, as to which there is no evidence whatever, he did not have to 'wait manie years' before he had a pension granted him, and in 1586 he was presented with a large Irish estate of 3,000 acres and a castle.

The most curious dedication is that to the Earl of Leicester in No. 3 :

' Wronged, yet not daring to express my paine. To you, great lord, the causer of my care, In cloudie tears I thus complain Unto yourself that only privie are.'

This agrees with the allegation of the cipher story as to the parentage of young Francis and its non-recognition.

The difficulties of editors when dealing with ' nominal titles ' is illustrated in the case of the late Dr. Grosart.

In the collection of * Complaintes ' (1591) are some verses entitled "Visions of Bellay' and some called ' Visions of Petrarch.'

Finding that the Bellay verses had appeared in English blank verse in a Miscellany called the ' Theatre of Worldlings ' (1569), and the Petrarch verses in sonnet form in English in the same Miscellany, he concluded that schoolboy Spenser had been employed to make the trans lations for the English edition of the Miscellany. Van der Noodt, who brought out the ' Theatre of Worldlings ' in both French and English editions, was a young poet and Flemish physician, aged thirty, in 1568, and who, in that year, had fled to England to avoid the persecution of the Duke of Alva for his anti- Catholicism.

That he was received in Court circles in England is shown by his dedication of both the French and the English editions of the c Theatre ' to Queen Elizabeth. That he was likely to have been received at the English Court is confirmed by his like experience at the French Court a few years later, and his friendship with Eonsard.

SPENSER 151

Now, the English edition of the * Theatre ' was not dedicated to the Queen until May 25, 1569, though the French had been dedicated to her on October 28, 1568. The English edition was not licensed to Bynneman, the Queen's printer, until July 22, 1569, long after schoolboy Spenser had departed for Cambridge.

Queen Elizabeth was not only a patroness of poets, but a poetess of some skill herself. It is exceedingly probable that she translated into English blank verse the French of the 'Visions of Bellay,' and into English verse the sonnets of * Petrarch,5 which would be well known to her.

In order especially to guard against disclosure, Van der Noodt would be made to say (as he did) in the intro duction to the English edition, that he himself had done these translations. When, therefore, Francis added them at the end of his ' Complaintes' (1590-91), he did so with as little alteration as possible. Keeping to the words of the Queen's blank verse translation of the 'Visions of Bellay' closely, out of respect for her, he tuned the verses to rhyme more neatly. The * Visions of Petrarch ' he described as 'formerly translated,' and being already in verse, his alterations were confined mostly to the spelling. That he expected his mother to examine what he had done, is shown by a verse of his own, with which he concludes :

1 When I beheld this tickle trusties state, Of vaine world's glorie flitting too and fro, And mortall men tossed by troublous fate, In restles seas of wretchednes and woe, I wish I might this weary life forgoe, And shortly turne unto my happie rest Where my free spirite might not any moe Be vext with sights that doo her peace molest. And ye faire Ladie in whose bounteous brest All heavenly grace and vertue shrined is, When ye these rythmes doo read, and vew the rest, Loath this base world and think of heaven's blis. And though ye be the fairest of God's creatures, Yet thinke that death shall spoyle your goodly features.'

152 TUDOR PROBLEMS

It is, of course, possible that Van der Noodt himself made the English renderings of ' Petrarch ' and ' Bellay' in the 1569 English edition of his Miscellany, or that the Earl of Oxford, Sackville, Dyer, or perhaps even young Sidney, did them. Certainly the schoolboy Spenser assumption, any more than a schoolboy Bacon assumption, does not explain the matter. We cannot help concluding that they were his mother's efforts at poetical expression which Francis so carefully and reverently revised in 1590. It was natural that the Queen should closely read his editing of her own work, although the rest of the book she would, to use his complimentary phrase, merely view. This solution is somewhat confirmed by the fact that other poetry of the Queen's composition had been printed by Francis in the 'Arte of English Poesie,' 1589 — the previous year.

There is no record whatever of the Irish official coming to England in 1589 or 1590 on the business of the ' Faerie Queene ' or on any other business, but certainly there is a record of a grant on February 25, 1590-1, of the pension of £50.

The probability is that the money was paid to, or for, the pseudo-Spenser, and that even the £25 paid to Thomas Walker in January, 1598-9, never reached the real Spenser, who arrived in London on the 16th of that month. The Jonson statement about the twenty gold pieces (which, in Elizabethan coinage, would be rather more than £25) offered by Essex to, and refused by, Spenser, seems to have been a belated attempt to let him have the half-year's pension, to which technically, though riot actually, he was entitled. His refusal to take it can also be appreciated. The burial at Westminster Abbey with the procession of so-called poets was all part of the dissembling which had to be maintained to the end.

In 1591-2 a poem or elegy entitled * Daphnaida,' being a lament at the death of the only daughter of the Lord Henry Howard, and niece of the Queen's Mistress of the

SPENSER 153

Robes, the Marquise of Northampton, was dedicated January 1, 1591-2, at London. The deceased was the wife of Arthur Gorges, who translated Bacon's ' Essays ' into French in later years.

In 1595 a pastoral poem, entitled ' Colin Clout's Come Home Again/ was published in London, but it is dedicated at Kilcolman Castle, December 27, 1591. This was either a slip on the part of Francis, or was intended to help to confirm his claim of authorship when revealed by the cipher story.

The ' Colin Clout ' was the record of a supposed journey by the Irish official from Ireland with Raleigh in October, 1589, and a supposed visit to the English Court. It is made the vehicle for a number of complimentary references to the Queen, and the ladies and gentlemen of her Court. In the same year, 1595, a collection of sonnets called 'Amoretti' was published by Ponsonby, who, in his dedication of the book to Sir Robert Needham, alleged that the manuscript crossed the sea at the same time as Sir Robert, though without his knowledge.

The Thirty-third Sonnet mentions ' Lodwick ' in a regret that further books of the ' Faerie Queene ' were not then ready. Now Ludovic Bryskett was back again in London by the date of the ' Amoretti,' and in 1600 was asking for employment.

The Seventy- fourth Sonnet is as follows :

' Most happy letters f ram'd by skilf ull trade With which that happy name was first desynd : The which three times thrice happy hath me made With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind From mother's womb deriv'd by dew descent ; The second is my sovereigne Queene most kind That honour and large richesse to me lent ; The third my love my lives last ornament, By whom my spirit out of dust was raysed : To speake her prayse and glory excellent Of all alive most worthy to be praysed, Ye three Elizabeths for ever live That three such graces did unto me give.'

154 TUDOB PROBLEMS

This form of tripartite glorification has been remarked upon by the poet Campbell (see later). In this sonnet Francis explains the trinity in unity as his mother, queen, and object of adoration. It is another indication that she kept him fairly well supplied with money for some of his purposes.

This c Colin Clout ' has a reference to three of the daughters of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe :

* The sisters three, The honor of the noble family, Of which I meanest boast myself to be.'

They were Lady Compton, Lady Elizabeth Carey, and Lady Strange, afterwards Countess of Derby, all intimate friends of Francis.

As to what was meant by boasting, reference should be made to Book V., Canto 3 of the 'Faerie Queene' dealing with Braggadocio, the boaster.

The Irish official would not have dared even to boast of a relationship with these prominent Court ladies, which, as is well known, did not exist.

It is interesting to notice that in 1595 Francis had been restored to the good graces of the Queen, and on January 20, 1595-6, the second part of the c Faerie Queene ' was published. It consisted of three more books, illustrating Justice, Friendship, and Courtesy. James VI. of Scotland took strong exception to the book on Justice, complaining that it was unfair to the memory of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, and asking, through the English Ambassador, that the author should be tried and punished. There is no evidence whatever that the Irish official came to London to superintend these three important publications of 1595 and 1595-6, and it is clear that some such supervision was both necessary and impossible to be adequately performed at the distance in time that Dublin was from London in those days.

SPENSEK 155

Later in the year — namely, on September 1, 1596 — poems entitled ' Four Hymns ' were dedicated from Greenwich Palace, where the Queen was in residence with her Court. The dedication is to Margaret Countess of Cumberland, and her sister the Countess of Warwick (widow of Ambrose Dudley), a * service in lieu of the great graces and honorable favours which ye daily show unto me ' These ladies must have known the true author. One, according to the cipher story, was aunt to Francis, and a brother of both had married a niece of Lady Anne Bacon. The letters of that lady show that Francis Bacon and his foster-brother Anthony were on very friendly terms with Lady Warwick.

A daughter of the Countess of Cumberland became Countess of Dorset, and erected the Spenser Tomb in Westminster Abbey.

On November 8, 1596, two daughters of the Earl of Worcester were married from Essex House in the Strand, where Eobert Earl of Essex and Anthony Bacon were resident.

A ' Prothalamium,' or bridal song, was written for the occasion, and published next year as a c Spenser ' poem.

The poet describes himself as watching events from the banks of the Thames.

' At length they all to mery London came. To mery London my most kindly nurse That to me gave this life's first native source ; Though from another place I take my name, An house of ancient fame.

These when they came whenas those bricky towres, The which on Thames brode aged back do ryde, Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers That whylom wont the Templar Knights to byde, Till they decay 'd through pride. Next whereunto there stands a stately place Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace Of that great Lord which therein wont to dwell, Whose want too well now feeles my friendles case. But ah, here fits not well old woes but joye to tell. Sweet Thames runne softly till I end my song.'

156

TUDOE PROBLEMS

These covert references fit Francis. He speaks of his birth in London and of his name coming from a house of ancient fame (Bacon), and refers feelingly to his father the Earl of Leicester, who tried his best to induce the Queen to acknowledge their sons.

In 1596 the 'Vewe of Ireland7 was written and circulated in manuscript. The best copy was found at Lambeth Palace.

It would have been sent by Francis to his brother, Robert Earl of Essex, and filed by the latter's secretary, Anthony Bacon.

It contains a significant reference to Essex ' upon whom the eye of all England is fixed, and our last hopes now rest.' The * Vewe ' is a general summary, historical and political, of the condition of Ireland, arid was probably based upon the ' Irish ' collection alluded to by Francis in his letter to Anthony Bacon of January 25, 1594-5.

The * Note of Suggested Remedies ' seems also to have been written by Francis.

Spenser was a Cambridge student in July, 1577, so that the statement in the * Vewe ' that he was present at the hanging of O'Brien was evidently Bacon's mistake.

In 1603, just after the death of the Queen, Bacon's friend, Sir John Davis, went to Scotland to meet the Scottish King, then on his way to assume the English throne. Bacon wrote to Davis concerning his journey, and asking him 'to be kind to concealed poets.' It was very evident that King James must not get to know that the real author of the ' Justice ' cantos of ' Faerie Queene' (second part) was Bacon, or trouble was in store for him. In 1606 Bacon was canvassing very hard for a salaried position under the Crown. In the same year the translation by Ludovic Bryskett of an Italian book entitled 4 Discourse of Civil Life ' was prefaced by an irrelevant account of a ' conversation ' alleged to have taken place between the deceased Spenser and others at an obscure cottage near Dublin.

SPENSER 157

We have mentioned something already about Bryskett as a dependent of the Sidney family.

After he had transferred the clerkship of the Munster Council to his fellow-official Spenser, he is noted as in 1594 applying to be reappointed clerk to the Irish Council. In 1600 Sir Robert Cecil wrote to Sir George Carew, the Lord-Deputy in Ireland, asking for employ ment for Bryskett, who, he said, was then serving her Majesty beyond the seas.

The Bryskett translation from the Italian of Giraldo, an educational treatise entitled a ' Discourse of Civil Life/ was printed by W. Aspley and E. Blount, two of the printers of the Shakespeare Folio, 1623. The book was dedicated to Lord Grey of Wilton, then dead. Of the persons stated to have been present at the ' Spenser ' conversation, Warham St. Leger, Sir Robert Dillon, Sir Thomas Norreys, Spenser, and another, were also dead. The conversation was recorded after an interval of over twenty years with all the exactitude of an official shorthand report.

If Bacon as a ' dissembler in some degree ' desired to cause King James to continue to think that the ' Faerie Queene,' with its objectionable * Duessa ' cantos, had been written by an Irish official who died in 1598-9, the Bryskett preface served admirably. In the year of its publication — that is to say, probably 1606-7 — Francis was an applicant for one of the law offices, and received his first appointment — viz., as Solicitor-General — in July, 1607.

It is, however, very probable that Francis had at an earlier date satisfied the King that he had written the Duessa cantos under orders.

158 TUDOR PROBLEMS

LEGAL ATTAINMENTS.

Harvey, writing to Immerito in 1579 and 1580, alludes to the latter as a courtier and lawyer.

There is no evidence that the Irish official ever received a legal training. Francis, on the other hand, was entered as a law student in 1576, and in 1580 had regular chambers at Gray's Inn. We give below extracts showing the remarkable extent of the poet's legal knowledge :

4 As she bequeathed in her last testament

Who dying whylom did divide this fort To them in equal shares in equal fee.'

Faerie Queene, I. 2.

* Now were they liege men to this Lady free And her knights service ought to hold of her in fee.'

III. 1.

* The charge of Justice given was in trust That they might execute her judgments wise Which proudly did impugn her sentence just. Whereof no braver precedent this day.'

' So is my Lord now seised of all the land As in his fee with peaceable estate And quietly doth hold it in his hand/

VI. 4.

' The damsel was attacht and shortly brought Unto the bar whereat she was arraigned; But she thereto no would plead nor answer aught Even for stubborn pride which her restrained. So judgment past as is by law ordained In cases like ; which when at last she saw Cried Mercy to abate thj extremity of the law.

VI. 7.

Are changed of Time which doth them all disseise.

VII. 7.

SPENSER 159

FROM ' YEWE OF IRELAND.'

' The right between party and party will compound between the murderer and the friend of the party mur dered, which prosecute the action.'

* How can they do so justly ? Doth not the act of the parent in any lawful grant or conveyance bind his heirs V

* It is a capital crime to devise or purpose the death of the King/

1 By the common law the accessory cannot be proceeded against till the principal has received his trial.'

Close and colourable conveyances.

THE POET'S HUMOUR.

Someone has noted as many as thirty -one puns in Shakespeare. Bacon, according to Ben Jonson, fre quently could not spare or pass by a jest. His love of jest, moreover, is exemplified in his 4 Apophthegms.' The poet ' Spenser ' was equally fond of a pun.

' AndDebons share was that in Devonshyre.'

Faerie Queene, II. 10.

* Yet was it said there should to him a sonne Be gotten not begotten which should drink.'

VI. 4.

4 Yet they were bred of Somers — heat they say.' ' Prothalamion ' on marriage of the Ladies Somerset, 4.

* And endless happiness of thine own name.'

Idem, 9. (Devereux = hereux.)

SOME LITERARY CRITICS.

Neither Spenser nor Shakespeare, the visors, left either books or manuscripts. In Bacon's acknowledged writings he never alluded to either of these supposed contem porary poets.

To come to later times, the Rev. D. Hubbard com-

160 TUDOR PROBLEMS

mented that Spenser's genius was aristocratic in its preferences. Christopher North referred to him in 1834 :

' Thus sings the philosophical pious poet his hymns and odes on Nature and Nature's God, and the tongues of men are as of angels.'

Mr. Rushton, in his book ' Shakespeare Illustrated/ gives many parallels between the writings, respectively ascribed to ' Spenser ' and ' Shakespeare.' Naturally the true author of both repeated himself in idea, expression, and illustration. Mr. Palgrave commented that ' the stanzas on Leicester's death show strong and unmis takable feeling/

Mr. Thomas Campbell considered that in Elizabeth's reign Spenser stood without a class and without a rival : ' He threw the soul of harmony into our verse ' ; * Gloriana is at once an emblem of true glory, an Empress of fairy land, and her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.' Apply this criticism to the elucidation of Sonnet 74 of the ' Amoretti.'

INCONSISTENCIES.

When the ' poet ' wrote about the Irish rivers, as when he wrote concerning the English rivers, . he was accurate. His information was probably founded upon Holinshed. But when he dealt with the neighbourhood of Kilcolman Castle, as to which no full information would be available in England, he blundered sadly.

Dr. Grosart, who visited the district, reported that the fields and hills were commonplace and unpicturesque. The * Mulla ' was five miles distant, the correct name being the f Awbeg/ There was no mountain of Mole, but some hills called the Ballyhowra were five miles in another direction. For the river ' Allo ' we were to read Blackwater, and for Arlo Hill we were to read Harlow, a fastness in the Galtee Mountains, frequented by the Irish insurgents, and often named in contem porary State records.

SPENSER 161

The poet, if the Irish official, could certainly have described his own residence and district.

In 1609 a folio of the ' Faerie Queene ' was published, corrected, and altered. To it were added two new cantos of ' Mutability/ perhaps the finest of the whole set.

The printers incorporated them with the observation — 'which for Forme and Matter appear to be parcel of some following Booke of the "Faerie Queene.'" Compare Bacon's dedication of his versifications of Seven Psalms. Spenser's children were living and could have vouched as to the authorship if their father really had been the writer. In 1611 a corrected folio edition of the ' Spenser ' poems was published. Who was the obscure, yet talented, literary man responsible for the corrections ? The answer is : — The true author, then at the zenith of his attainments.

The Irish official's energies did not end with his death in January, 1598 (old style). In 1599 a sonnet with his name congratulated Lewkenor on his style in translating the * Commonwealth of Venice/

Another sonnet, signed E. S., was prefixed to Peacham's ' Minerva Britannia,' 1612.

In 1628 ' Brit tain's Ida' was published by Thomas Walkley as a work by Spenser.

Walkley had published ' Othello ' in quarto in 1622.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS.

Although Spenser, the official, never visited Italy, while Francis, on the other hand, did so, Francis was much more likely to have done justice to Borne in the ' Buines of Borne ' than a man who had never been there.

Francis, too, would be more likely, in preparing the * Stemmata Dudleiana,' to have been interested in the family tree of his father, the Earl of Leicester, than a man who had possibly been in his service as clerk.

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162 TUDOB, PROBLEMS

The writer of the poems ascribed to Spenser was a man of great scholarship. He knew the English Bible thoroughly, and was closely familiar with the writings of Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower. He was intimate with the works of Holinshed and Buchanan ; the classics Virgil, Homer, Plato, ^Esop, Dion, Horace, Mantuanus, Catullus, and Plutarch ; with the French of Ilonsard, Desportes, Mar6t, Du Bartas, and Du Bellay ; and with the Italian of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Ficino, Boccaccio, Tasso, and Sannazaro. The writer of the Spenser works refers to personages whose careers, mythical or historical, were the subject of poems, plays, or essays in the lifetime of Francis. We refer to Locrine, Lear, Cymbeline, Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Edward II. , and Bichard III., dealt with in plays ; Venus and Adonis the subject of a ' Shakespeare ' poem ; and Henry VII., a prose history written by Bacon in 1621-2.

The origin of the invented name * Shake-speare ' may be traced as far back as the Glosse to the * Shepheard's Kalendar ' (1579). (See under October, referring to Pallas, 1 which the lady disdaining shaked her speare at him.') The references to the ' shaking of speares ' are fairly numerous in the * Faerie Queene ' (1590).

PAEALLELISMS.

The parallels between * Spenser ' and ' Shakespeare ' are almost unlimited. Those between ' Spenser ' and Bacon's acknowledged writings are also numerous. A few examples are here given :

SPENSER. — ' In deep discovery of the mind's disease.'

BACON. — ' The particular remedies which learning doth minister to

all the diseases of the mind ' (' Ad. of L.').

SPENSER. ' Of this world's theatre in which we stay

My love like the spectator idly sits.'

BACON. — ' In the theatre of man's life none are lookers on.' SPENSER. — The fall of Lucifer, as the result of ambition, is described

in the ' Hymn of Heavenly Love/

BACON. — * The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.'

SPENSER 163

SPENSER. — ' Discords oft in music make the sweeter lay.' BACON. — * Discord resolved into a concord improves the harmony.' SPENSER. — * And steal away the crown of their good name.' BACON. — 'He weighs men's minds and not their trash.' SPENSER. * To be wise and eke to love,

Is granted scarce to God above.' BACON. — ' It is impossible to love and to be wise.'

CONCLUSIONS.

The circumstantial evidence points conclusively to the truth of the ciphered assertion that Francis was the writer of the ' Spenser ' poems and essays (' Vewe of Ire land,' etc.). He must have hesitated for a consider able time before he made use of the Spenser ascription.

By using the term ' Edmondus ' in the Harvey- Im- merito correspondence printed in 1579-80, he was pre cluded from printing the c Faerie Queene ' under any other vizard. It will be seen in a later chapter upon the vizard Webbe, with what great caution, in the ' Discourse of English Poetrie ' (1586), he associated 'Spenser' with the ' Shepheard's Kalendar,' and intimated that, further poems might be expected from ' Spenser's ' pen.

In Court circles he must have been known as the real author of the ' Faerie Queene.' Sir Robert Needham may not have been in the secret, but the Queen and her Ministers, and principal Court officials, and certain ladies must have known all about it.

CHAPTER XV KYD

THOMAS KIDD, the son of a London scrivener or writer of the Courte letter, was baptized on November 6, 1558. He would seem to have followed his father's occupation — that of a person employed to copy or write legibly letters and documents prepared or dictated by others.

According to a London Probate record, dated Decem ber 30, 1594, his father and mother surrendered all right to administer the goods of their deceased son, Thomas, so that his death had occurred before that date.

In 1901 Professor Boas, a learned Shakespearian scholar and author, published a collection of what he believed to be the works of Kyd, together with many valuable com ments and notes.

Mr. Boas adjudged as his works two original plays, 1 The Spanish Tragedy ' and ' Soliman and Perseda ' ; one translated play, ' Cornelia,' from the French of Gar- nier ; a translation from the Italian of Tasso, entitled ' The Householder's Philosophic ' ; and a short four-page pamphlet called * The Murder of John Brewen.'

From this selection may be eliminated —

1. The Brewen pamphlet, as unimportant, and as being only attributed to Kyd because his name is written upon a print of it.

2. 'Soliman and Perseda,' an old play even in 1599, when reprinted, because it is anonymous and mainly ascribed to Kyd by reason of its subject being used as a sub-play in c The Spanish Tragedy.'

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KYD 165

This leaves for examination —

1. 'The Spanish Tragedy/ licensed for the Press on October 6, 1592, printed anonymously in 1594, and alleged by Ben Jonson, in * Bartholomew Fair ' (1614), to have been on the stage for thirty years. It was probably performed as early as 1586, and certainly before 1589 (see Nash, preface to Greene's 'Menaphon'). In 1612 Hey- wood, in the * Apology for Actors,' quoted three lines from the play, and said they were written by Kyd. The 4 Apology ' is Bacon's writing.

2. 'The Householder's Philosophic,' printed 1588, as translated by *T. K.' from the Italian of Tasso.

3. ' Cornelia,' a translation of the French play ' Cornelie,' by Garnier, licensed to the Press, January 26, 1594-5, first printed as by *T. K.,' and next printed (1595) as by Thoma Kid. The ascribed author had, however, died the previous year.

What manner of man was this ' writer ' who never in his lifetime claimed authorship of the two plays ? Could he really have contented himself with the usual copyist's initials on a valuable translation ?

Mr. Boas finds internal proof that the ' author ' was familiar with a fairly wide range of Latin authors, and that he had Seneca's dramas at his finger-ends. Of Spanish he knew a few phrases. Like Shakespeare, he could quote pocus pallabris. With French and Italian he was much more familiar. Bel-Imperia spoke in * courtly French/

Mr. Boas is of opinion that the author visited France, because Lorenzo speaks of having seen extempore perfor mances ' in Paris amongst the French Tragedians/

Of Italian the author's knowledge was serviceable rather than accurate. Like 'Shakespeare,' geography was not a strong point with him. The former caused Valentine, in ' Two Gentlemen of Verona/ to voyage by ship from Verona to Milan. The latter, in ' The Spanish Tragedy/ refers to a sea journey from Lisbon to Madrid.

166 TUDOE PROBLEMS

Perhaps in both cases part of the journey was by water. Though as a translator he did not reach high-water mark, he was evidently a man of resource and masterfulness.

Witness Mr. Boas, who commented as follows upon both French and Italian translations :

' Yet in spite of gross blunders the version in either case is spirited and vigorous. The Italian prose and the French verse are both somewhat expanded in their English rendering. The imagery becomes more concrete ; more of realistic detail is introduced. Occasionally passages of some length are interpolated by the translator. Hence "The Householder's Philosophic " casts light on Kyd's views on certain subjects. Thus his emphatic elaboration of Tasso's protest against women painting their faces shows that he shared Shakespeare's aversion to the practice.'

He showed a love for out-of-the-wajr words and phrases. He coined words. He reminded Mr. Boas of Spenser in his usage of Middle-English forms. He is also to be found using distinctively euphuistic constructions — a matter of some difficulty, surely, if your mind is not shaped that way. The author borrowed freely from what are known as Watson's verses and ideas. He used (and perhaps anticipated) a passage of the * Faerie Queene.'

The only autobiographical details vouchsafed by the author occur in the dedication of * Cornelia' to the Countess of Sussex, whose husband owned or protected a troupe of actors. According to this, the translation had occupied the author 'a winter's week.' As it was licensed on January 26, 1594-5, and was produced in haste, it was probably written during that month to oblige the Earl, who may have wanted a new play for some special occasion.

But the translator was evidently in low spirits. While writing it he endured .' bitter times and privie broken passions/ which he asks to be taken into consideration. He remarks :

' Having no leisure but such as evermore is traveld with

KYD 167

the afflictions of the minde, than which the woorld affords no greater misery, it may be wondered at by some how I durst undertake a matter of this moment/

Yet he had a good conceit of himself. Like the author of the Shakespeare Sonnets, he evidently thought his labours would eternize the lady, for he says :

' I have presumed upon your true conceit and enter tainment of these small endeavours that thus I purposed to make known my memory of you and them to be immortal/.1

This is rather 'tall' if we are dealing with a young scrivener with only one original play to his account ! (Bacon had a notion that his ' Advancement of Learning ' would be an enduring monument to King James.) He promises better work next summer with the ' Tragedy of Portia,' and like Thomas Thorpe to the ' onlie begetter of the Shake -speare Sonnets,' concluded by wishing her ' all happiness.' That Francis was very unhappy at this date is shown by his letter to Anthony, of January 25, 1594-5, in which he said he should go abroad.

' The Spanish Tragedy ' and ' Cornelia ' were written by Francis — the first at about the age of twenty- four, and the second at the age of thirty -three. The ' courtly French ' was acquired by Francis during his long sojourns in France. He would see the French tragedians perform in Paris. Acquiring his French largely through the ear, his acquaintance with French grammar was likely to be defective, and he was probably never an expert translator. His Italian would naturally be inferior to his French. He was an earnest student and writer of poetry from the age of fifteen, as may be gleaned from both the Harvey - Immerito letters (1580) and a verse from * The Spanish Tragedy' itself:

' When I was young I gave my minde And pleid myself to fruitles Poetrie.'

By 1594 both Marlowe and Greene had died ; Peele was utterly broken down. Shakespeare's name had only

168 TUDOR PROBLEMS

been connected with poems. Towards the end of 1594 Kyd was also dead. What more natural than to put forward Kyd's name as the author of ' Cornelia ' ? In 1594-5, when this translated play was printed, Francis was in very low water. He had offended the Queen, was forbidden the Court, and was manifestly hard up, unwell, weary of delay, dejected, and miserable. He seems later on to have redeemed his promise in the dedication to the Countess to write a play on the subject of Portia, as the tragedy of ' The Merchant of Venice ' was produced in that or the following year. About 1595 W. Har, a poet, whom Mr. Boas identified as Sir William Herbert, appears to have known who was the real author both of ' Lucrece/ printed 1594, as by Shakespeare, and of ' Cornelia,' printed 1595, as by Kyd. This poet wrote :

1 You that have writ of chaste Lucretia,

Whose death was witness of her spotless life, Or pen'd the praise of sad Cornelia,

Whose blameless name hath made her fame so rife.'

So that the name Shakespeare on ' Lucrece ' and the name Kyd on ' Cornelia ' had not deceived one frequenter of the Court, at any rate.

We have seen how well acquainted the author (whom Swinburne claimed to have been Shakespeare) of ' The Spanish Tragedy ' was with courtly French and with Italian.

Mr. Boas shows that he was also well acquainted with law terms. A young scrivener, or, in other words, copyist of legal documents, might be familiar with the terms ' action of batterie/ * of debt,' ' action of the case/ ' plead ing,' 'bond/ 'equitie/ 'lease/ and even ' ejectione firmse ' ; but the formal phraseology of international law used in the articles of marriage between Balthazar and Bel- Imperia ( * Spanish Tragedy ') would certainly be beyond a scrivener's ken.

Francis would have had much to do with international law. The practice of altering, expanding, and improving

KYD 169

upon the work in course of translation, to which Mr. Boas draws attention in the author, was also a settled habit with Francis. That Francis, at an early date allowed to practise at the Bar, was an able and cultured lawyer we also know. We know, too, that he was a user of out-of- the-way phrases and an inventor of new words. ' The Spanish Tragedy/ moreover, met with the experience common to Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' to Marlowe's ' Faustus,' and to several Shakespeare plays. Subsequent to the deaths of Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, cer tain of the works ascribed to their authorship received important additions and alterations at the hands of a brilliant but unknown expert.

In his ' Shakespeare Symphony' (p. 301), Mr. Bayley cites a very strange instance of the manner in which Bacon's and Kyd's minds synchronized. In 1594 Bacon, wearied by fruitless applications for employment, wrote to his friend, Fulke Greville :

' What though the Master of the Rolls and My Lord of Essex and yourself admit my case without doubt, yet, in the meantime, I have a hard condition to stand, so that whatsoever service I do to her Majesty, it shall be thought to be servitium viscatum, lime twigs and fetches to place myself, and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature. ... I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends.7

In the same year (1594) Kyd seems to have suffered a similar experience ; he used the same metaphor, and ad vocated exactly the method which the persistent but discouraged Bacon was then actually employing :

' Thus experience bids the wise to deal. I lay the plot, he prosecutes the point ; I set the trap, he breaks the worthless twigs, and sees not that wherewith the bird was limed. Thus, hopeful men that mean to hold their own must look like fowlers to their dearest friends.' (' Spanish Tragedy,' III. 4.)

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TUDOR PROBLEMS

The accord here is between words and actions. Bacon, the hopeful man, desiring to hold his own, lays his plot by looking like a fowler to his dearest friends to prosecute his point, but her Majesty, he fears, will imagine c limed twigs.'

In 1602, eighteen years after Kyd's death, 'The Spanish Tragedy ' was reprinted with a number of most valuable and important additions. It is the current practice to call these Ben Jonson's additions, because Henslowe in his diary so records a payment in 1601. Mr. Boas writes of these additions as being so steeped in passion and wild sombre beauty that they threw into harsh relief Kyd's more old-fashioned technique and versification. He quotes both Charles Lamb and Edward Fitzgerald as affirming the ' Additions ' to be totally unlike Jonson's admitted work.

At a certain date Jonson, according to the cipher story, became Bacon's assistant and confidant. Jonson may well, therefore, have been only an intermediary for Bacon when 'The Spanish Tragedy' was revised for acting by the players associated with Henslowe.

In his verses prefixed to the Shakespeare Folio, Ben Jonson refers to ' Sporting Kyd.'

The ' Additions ' to 4 The Spanish Tragedy ' give us at once the source of Jonson's jocular epithet and an indica tion as plain as a pikestaff as to who the author really was.

Reference should be made to Act III., Scene xi., where the third passage of 'Additions' occurs. The whole passage is worth reading, but a few lines only are here quoted :

* What is there yet in a sonne 1 He must be fed, Be taught to go and speake. I or yet ? Why not a man love a Calfe as well ] Or melt in passion ore a frisking Kid As for a sonne 1 Methinks a young Bacon Or a fine little smooth Horse-colt Should moove a man as much as dooth a sonne.'

KYD 171

When young Bacon wrote ' The Spanish Tragedy ' he was a frisking kid of about twenty-four. At the age of forty-one he could not, to use the words of Jonson, ' spare or pass by a jest.'

Mr. Charles Crawford, in his ' Collectanea/ is assured that c Arden of Faversham/ a play which Tieck, Swin burne, and other critics firmly claim for Shakespeare, was written by Kyd. He thinks the vocabulary, phrasing, and general style of ' Arden ' are those of Kyd. Kyd in turn is convicted of frequent borrowings from Spenser, Watson, Marlowe, Lyly, and Peele. Elsewhere Mr. Crawford remarks :

'But all men repeat themselves both in speech and writing, and it is these repetitions that go to make up what is termed " style."

Until critics realize the protean literary labours of Francis Bacon, the muddle will be perpetuated. Every one of his repetitions will be regarded as a plagiarism, an imitation, or a repetition, accordingly as it serves the argument of the moment. ' Kyd the scrivener ' had scholarship without University education ! He knew Virgil, Ovid, Plato, Cicero, Catullus, Lucan, ^Esop, Claudian, Statius, Terence, Seneca, Petrarch, Tasso, and Macchiavelli — that is to say, unless he was merely a vizard for his employer, Francis Bacon.

CHAPTER XVI

NASH

ONE Thomas Nayshe, a native of Lowestoft, matriculated as a poor scholar at St. John's, Cambridge, in 1582 — B.A. 1585-6 — is credited with having commenced as an author in London, in the year 1589, at the age of twenty- one.

Like to the cases of Marlowe, Spenser, Kyd, Shakes peare. Greene, Peele, and Burton, his biography has been several times attempted, but with inglorious results.

Thomas Nash the writer was not Nayshe the son of the unbeneficed minister at Lowestoft, but merely a mask, through which spoke the voice of the great contriver of the reformation of English language, manners, and morals.

The Nash writings consist of —

1. A budget of pamphlets in the Martin Marprelate warfare.

2. Supposed additions to an old short play called ' Dido,' produced in Marlowe's time, but revised after Marlowe's death for publication in print in 1594.

3. A play or masque called ' Summer's Last Will and Testament/

4. Pamphlets in a friendly warfare with Gabriel Harvey.

5. ' The Anatomie of Absurditie ' (a satire).

6. 'Jack Wilton,' a novel of adventure, mostly in Italy.

7. 'Christ's Tears over Jerusalem,' a discussion of London morals.

8. 'The Terrors of the Night,' a disquisition on dreams.

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NASH 173

9. ' Lenten Stuffe/ a brilliant account of Yarmouth and the herring-fishing industry.

10. A preface to 'Menaphon,' and another to ' Astrophel and Stella/

THE MARTIN MARPRELATE PAMPHLETS.

In the year 1589 the Church of England, as independent of Rome, had not existed long upon its separate establish ment of Archbishops, Bishops, and clergy, having the Sovereign behind them as Defender of the Faith. With a large hostile Catholic population and with Romish plots and intrigues abundant, the English Established Church in 1589 found itself confronted with a new danger — schism. A growing Puritan party inside and outside the Church was energetically denying both the authority of, and necessity for, the Archbishops and Bishops as by law established.

Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to have accepted the aid of his old University pupil, the brilliant young poet Francis.

Francis acted with promptitude. An opportunity had thus occurred for the exercise of his great powers of invective and ridicule. By their aid he sought to stifle the defection before it had gone too far. His pamphlets were issued anonymously and in various guises.

As ' Pasquil,' he refers to the sepia fish, which vomited a black fluid like ink in order to escape detection.

But he could hardly hope to be himself obscured in an inky cloud. Upon someone had to rest an uncertain suspicion of authorship. Nayshe, then at the age of twenty-one, and fresh from Cambridge for a copying job, was evidently selected. He was brought upon the scene indirectly as the ascribed writer of a preface to a work entitled ' Menaphon,' written also by Francis in the name of ' Greene.'

The author of the preface was a very learned man and

174 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

practised writer. From perusal of it we learn that he was familiar with the works of Plutarch and Pliny, Ovid and Tully, Tasso and ^Esop, Seneca, Erasmus, Melanchthon, Sadolet, and Plautine.

One may say that it was possible at Cambridge, where only Latin was then taught, for a serving scholar by the age of twenty-one to have acquired some knowledge of the Latin authors.

But what are we to conclude when we find the writer able to pass in learned and rapid review the English authors of the period ? He discusses the art of poetry with the authority of a Sidney or a Harvey, and does not hesitate to ridicule and condemn the verse of the learned Dr. Stanyhurst. To the Italians Petrarch, Tasso, and Celiano, he can oppose Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower (favourites, by the way, of ' Greene ' and ' Spenser '). He shares with Bacon and ' Marlowe ' a strong antipathy to Peter Eamus, a contemporary French logician. He is able to assign to George Peele the authorship of the anonymous pastoral play, ' The Arraignment of Paris.' He hints obscurely that he is not the ' Pasquil ' of the Marprelate pamphlets. The preface has been read and quoted for almost anything but its true inwardness. In inviting its examination afresh attention is drawn to one extract only : ' I will not denie but in scholler-like matters of controversie a quicker style may pass as commend able.'

Internal indication of the true author is to be gathered from the Marprelate pamphlets. At p. 121 of ' Pasquil's Eeturn/ a cleverly managed hint of advice to the Queen is introduced. Francis is to be found, both in his own name and some of those he assumed, taking opportunity to show the Queen and her Ministers the best way to deal with political questions of the moment.

Again, in 'Martin Month's Mind' (1589), at p. 171, he discusses a point which the cipher story shows very much interested him — viz., 'that a son may be no bastard though

NASH 175

perhaps base begotten.' At p. 189 he betrays a sound knowledge of the law of inheritance ; at p. 217, of Italian. At p. 219 we have that curious expression ' Her Ma.,' for Her Majesty, which, when it appeared in Mrs. Gallop's decipher, excited much cheap derision. On p. 220 is the word ' Essay/ In dedicating an edition of his 'Essays* to Prince Henry, Francis wrote : ' The word is late, but the thing is ancient.'

THE PLAYS.

' Dido ' is a dull play, freely translated from or founded upon the second and fourth books of the '^Eneid.'

It appears to have been acted by the children of Her Majesty's Chapel on some Court occasion, and was possibly written shortly after the production of Dr. Gaeger's Latin play of the same name, at Oxford, in June, 1583. Per formed as having been written by 'Marlowe,' its augmenta tions and additions, when printed after Marlowe's death, were conveniently ascribed to * Nash.'

'Summer's Last Will' was performed at Whitgift's palace, at Croydon, in 1592, at a date subsequent to September 24 (the last day of summer), on the return of Queen Elizabeth from one of her Progresses. The evidence is that the Queen moved from Greenwich to Nonsuch Palace, near Epsom, on July 27. On August 21 she was entertained at Bisham, the estate of Lady Russell (sister to Lady Ann Bacon), and next at Quarendon Park, near Aylesbury, the seat of the old champion at tilt, Sir Henry Leigh. By September 12 the Queen had reached Sudeley Castle, near Cheltenham, where the Lord Keeper's Secre tary reported that the plague was getting worse in London.

She then went to Bath, then to Oxford on September 22, and Hycote on her way home on the 28th. The play is from the Baconian mint. We have the same sort of weak puns, the old familiar allusions to money and muck, to Orpheus and his lute, to the song of the dying swan,

176 TUDOR PROBLEMS

the swinishness of drunkenness, and to the baseness of the rabble.

There is probably one sly jest at his own plight : ' Saint Francis, a holy saint, and never had any money.'

About the first week in August, Francis, nervous of the plague, had bolted from London to Twickenham Park with a few friends. From thence on August 14 he wrote to invite another friend, Mr. Phillips, decipherer to the Foreign Office, to join him. He wrote :

' I have excused myself of this Progress [meaning the Queen's Progress], if that be to excuse — to take liberty where it is not given.'

It may be inferred that he was expected to go the round as of course. But Francis was a busy and probably a tired man, and having furnished the two little displays performed at Lady Russell's and Sir Henry Leigh's respectively, and having written and revised to date the more important masque or play for Whitgift, already mentioned, was doubtless glad, like many another dramatic author on 'first nights,' to be reported as not in the house. Mr. Spedding seems to have thought that Francis referred to an invitation to Bisham. But that is not the true reading of Phillips' letter. Moreover, Hoby's invitation was sent to Anthony Bacon at Gorhambury, and a very long journey would have been necessary in order to make Francis aware of it.

The ' Isle of Dogs ' is another play not now extant. It may be urged that Bacon would not have allowed Nayshe to be imprisoned for the offence which the play gave to the authorities. The mischief, however, was due to what was added.

According to 'Lenten StufiV (1599), he states :

' An imperfit Embrio, I may well call it, for I having begun but the induction and first act of it, the other foure

NASH 177

acts, without my consent, or the least guesse of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine too.'

From Henslowe's Diary it appears that Nayshe was locked up and soon afterwards released, probably at the instance of an intervention by Francis. If Nayshe him self wrote the remaining four acts, and the quality of his work was no better than shown in the short verse called 4 The Valentine,' unearthed by Dr. Grosart from the Temple Library, he may have deserved his punishment on literary grounds alone. Possibly, after ten years' copying in Bacon's scrivenery, he may have tried his hand at original work. The fact, however, that the ' Isle of Dogs ' frag ment is mentioned on the Northumberland House manu script cover — a document evidently emanating from the possession of Bacon or some person in his employ, probably Davies — is a further proof of the true authorship of the 'Nash' writings. Davies may not have known of 'Nash' otherwise than as a subordinate, or, as he puts it, inferior, player.

THE GABRIEL HARVEY CONTROVERSY.

Dr. Grosart took this controversy seriously, and was very severe on Gabriel Harvey. We venture entirely to disagree with him. The Nash-Harvey pamphlets were merely a continuation of the warfare of pleasantries which Francis, in 1580, as ' Immerito,' at a later date as * Spenser,' and afterwards as ' Greene,' had waged in print with his old friend Gabriel Harvey. The reason these pamphlets were printed is tolerably clear. In the scheme for the improvement of the English language, in which these two co-operated, word-making played a part.

New words had to be unobtrusively sown in print. Some of them would, no doubt, catch on, and become part of the language ; but there was no other or better way of bringing this about than using them as though they

existed, and were not new coinings.

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178 TUDOB, PROBLEMS

It is interesting to observe how deferential Harvey was, and how he tried to avoid being severe on Francis.

It was only towards the latter end of the pamphleteer ing that Harvey really let himself go.

' Pierce Pennilesse ' was one of the first of the ' Nash ' portion of these pamphlets.

Licensed August, 1592, it was printed a little later. In the preface he states : ' I am the plague's prisoner in the country as yet.' Also that ' the feare of infection detained mee with my Lord in the Countrey.' Nayshe would doubtless be with Francis, his employer, at Twicken ham at this time. He complains that Greene's ' Groats- worth of Wit' (not on the register until September) was alleged to be 'of my doing.' Here we pause to point out to the learned Shakespearian societies that three hun dred years ago the printing of a man's name on the title- page of a book as being the author thereof was not accepted as conclusive on the subject. The writer of ' Pierce Pen nilesse ' holds, at p. 43, Bacon's objection to the practice of face-painting. At p. 49 he writes of ' Armadoes that, like a high wood, overshadowed the shrubs of our low ships.' Bacon, in his translation of Psalm civ., has : 'The greater navies look like walking woods.' At p. 88 he defends the production of stage plays,—

' for the subject of them (for the most part) is borrowed out of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers' valiant acts, that have lain long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books, are revived.'

The incident on p. 134 is amusing. The ' Faerie Queene ' (ascribed to Spenser, but, according to the cipher story, claimed by Bacon) had appeared in print in 1590, with sonnets to a host of courtiers and Court beauties. But Earl Derby had been overlooked. ' Nash ' supplies a sonnet to rectify the omission ! At p. 238 he refers to the reason why Harvey had imputed to Greene that he had a bastard son, 'Infortunatus.' He also pretends that Harvey had been in the Fleet Prison, and jests ' Thy joys

NASH 179

were in the fleeting/ At p. 261 there is an interesting bit of biography. Referring to an expression of Harvey, ' Nash ' remarks :

' A per se, A can doe it : tempt not his clemency too much. A per se, A ? Passion of God, how came I by that name? My Godfather Gabriel gave it me, and I must not refuse it.'

The explanation is that the term was applied by Harvey to 'Immerito' (Francis) in verses printed in 1580, 'Two Letters of Notable Contents.' 'Nash' jocularly sought to evade the suggestion, and said that the verses were a libel, intended for the Earl of Oxford. As a matter of fact, they were very complimentary.

It is not asserted that Harvey and ' Nash ' printed their invectives solely as a medium for introducing new words. It evidently gave them great pleasure. Harvey enjoyed it, otherwise we should not find him writing in ' Pierce's Supererogation ' :

' Alacke nothinge livelie and mightie — till his frisking penne began to play the sprite of the buttry and to teach his mother tongue such lusty gambolds.'

Again —

' he will flatly denie and confute even because I say it, and only because in a frolic and dowtie jollitie he will have the last word of me.'

Harvey was fond of associating ' Euphues ' or e Lyly ' with ' Greene.' The terms ' greene or motley' or ' greene motley ' occur. Towards the finish of the ' Supereroga tion ' Harvey hints at ' Nash,' ' Lyly/ and ' Greene ' being three faces in one hood, and as being the three-headed Cerberus. This recalls a line :

' And make myself a motley to the view.'

The testimony of Harvey alone, though given slyly and indirectly, is strong proof that Francis, ' Immerito,' 1 Lyly,' ' Greene,' and ' Nash ' were one and the same person.

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'ANATOMIE OF ABSURDITIE' (1589).

This booklet was printed in 1589, and is really part of the series of * Anatomies ' commenced by Francis in the name of ' Greene.' It was dedicated to Sir Charles Blount, to whom, when he was Earl of Devonshire, Francis addressed his ' Apology ? concerning Essex.

It indicates that it was written in 1586, when Nayshe, the ascribed author, would be a youth of eighteen at Cambridge. He refers to circumstances which had com pelled his wit to wander abroad in ' satyricall disguise.' Further on he remarks that Proteus is still Proteus, though girt in the apparel of Pactolus. He eternizes the praise of Queen Elizabeth, and describes how a company of gentlemen had united in praise of Sir Charles Blount's perfections, and that he (the author) had a desire to be suppliant with him in some subject of wit. We meet with the term c idle pens,' which also occurs in a letter from Francis to Anthony Bacon. He refers to a loyal Lucretia and the inconstancy of Venus, showing that the subjects of ' Lucrece ' and ' Venus and Adonis,' a few years after wards put forth in the name of * Shakespeare,' were then revolving in his mind.

The whole work demonstrates the facility of a practised writer, and the learning of a man deeply read in all avail able literature. At p. 39 he declares himself a professed Peripatician, mixing profit with pleasure, and precepts of doctrine with delightful invention.

' Yet these men condemn them of lasciviousness, vanity, and curiosity, who, under feigned stories, include many profitable moral precepts.'

Have we not in this passage the thesis and root plan of the Shakespeare plays ?

Even * Nash ' holds the notion of the ' pearl in the head of the Toade.'

' Which, like the Toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head.'

NASH 181

At p. 48 he objects, as did Bacon, to the enclosure of common lands, and on p. 60 describes, almost in Bacon's words, his theory of the action of wine on the brain.

'CHRIST'S TEARS OVER JERUSALEM' (1593).

According to ' Have with you to Saffron Walden,' ' Nash ' — by whom, of course, is meant Francis — spent the Christmas of 1592-3 in the Isle of Wight, at the house of Sir George Carey, who there resided with his wife Elizabeth, and his only child, a daughter, who bore her mother's Christian name. Sir George was eldest son of the first Lord Hunsdon, cousin to the Queen, and a visit from Francis, from his relationship, was a natural incident. * Christ's Tears ' was dedicated to Lady Elizabeth Carey, while ' Terrors of the Night ' was next year dedicated to her daughter.

' Christ's Tears ' is interesting as showing the profound influence for sadness that probably the plague raging at the period of its writing had upon the sensitive nature of young Francis.

The title of ' Christ's Tears ' was probably suggested to him by a carving in mother-of-pearl in the hall at Hampton Court Palace, and called the 'History of Christ's Passion.' In the same way 'Lucrece' (1594) may have been prompted by the picture at Hampton Court entitled 'The True Lucretia.' (See report by Hentzner).

At p. 122 of ' Christ's Tears ' we find Bacon's favourite Orpheus legend alluded to. At p. 138 there is a death bed description like that of Falstaff (the play being written later). At p. 196 is a part of a sentence, viz. : ' Many a time and oft ' — which a year or two later is used by Shy- lock in « The Merchant of Venice.' At p. 216 is another rendering of —

' For the apparel oft proclaims the man.'

That is to say —

' Apparel more than anything betray eth his wearer's mind.'

182 TUDOR PROBLEMS

At p. 245 he advised the giving to hospitals and col leges, a matter in which Bacon took much interest, and which shortly afterwards became one of the rules of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. At p. 255 there is a reference to Briareus, with his hundred hands, also to he found in Bacon's acknowledged writings.

' JACK WILTON ' (1594), ' TERRORS OF THE NIGHT ' (1594), 'LENTEN STUFFE' (1599).

'Jack Wilton,' like 'Lucrece,' was dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton, at that time being trained at Gray's Inn, where Francis had his London residence. This novel of adventure in Italy suggests the notion that Francis had visited that country. That he did so is openly stated in the ' Life ' prefixed to ' L'Histoire Naturelle.'

At p. 120 of ' Jack Wilton ' is a reference to the music of the spheres, a subject in which Francis was interested, and which some months later was so beautifully rendered in ' The Merchant of Venice ' :

' There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion there an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed Cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls, But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in we cannot hear it.'

In c Lenten Stuffe ' (which is a long account of the fishing town of Yarmouth), at p. 243, is the long word ' Honorificabilitudinitatibus,' which also appeared in print in 1598 in 'Love's Labour's Lost.' At p. 292 the author remarks that those who were present at the arraignment of Lopus (Dr. Lopez, who sought to poison the Queen) ' I am sure will bear me record.' This arraignment took place on January 21, 1593-4. Mr. Spedding finds from a letter that Essex was present, but he cannot record any one else. But we know that Francis was generally called

NASH 183

in to cases of the kind, and in a letter of the time he refers to his having been at an examination at the Tower. He wrote a full report of it, the terms of which give the impression that he was actually present. One can hardly understand how Nayshe could have been admitted on such an important occasion. As his father, the Earl of Leicester, was High Steward of Yarmouth, Francis doubtless knew a great deal about this busy fishing port.

The 'Terrors of the Night' (1594) is a disquisition upon the subject of dreams. Francis was admittedly a bad sleeper. So was the writer of the 'Shakespeare Son nets.' This work is dedicated to Elizabeth, Sir George Carey's daughter and heiress. Those interested in dis cussing the persons involved in the 'Shakespeare Sonnets' may not have noticed that in 1594-5 the match between this lady and Lord Herbert was broken off by the latter's father, Earl Pembroke, upon a question of dowry.

In ' Terrors of the Night ' allusion is made to a visit by the author in that year to a place situate in rather low marshy ground about some threescore miles from London. Bacon was that year at Huntingdon, which in distance and situation answers the description. The months do not fit — one is stated to have been in February and the other in July — but 'he who would be secret must be a dissembler in some degree,' said Bacon. In the ' Terrors ' the author discusses in a preliminary way the effect on the brain of the secretions from the liver, a subject discussed very extensively in the ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' a compilation the authorship (or, what was possibly intended, the chief editorship) of which the cipher story claims for Bacon.

THE PREFACE 'TO ASTKOPHEL AND STELLA' (1591).

No one of the few men originally associated with Sir Philip Sidney in the ' Areopagus ' for the reform of English literature was more fitted than Francis to write the pre-

184 TUDOK PROBLEMS

face to the appearance in print of this small book of verse by his dead friend.

Sir Philip Sidney died in 1586, when Nayshe would be a stripling of eighteen, serving meals to the better circum stanced scholars of his college.

The following is an extract from the preface :

' Deare Astrophel [Sidney] that in the ashes of thy love livest againe like the Phoenix. O might thy bodie (as thy name) live againe likewise here amongst us : but the earth, the mother of mortalitie, hath snatched thee too soone into her chilled colde armes, and will not let thee by any meanes be drawne from her deadly imbrace ; and thy devine Soule carried on an angel's wings to heaven, is installed in Hermes' place sole prolocutor to the Gods/

These are the words of an affectionate friend. They are the words, too, of a poet.

The late Hon. Ignatius Donnelly was not far out when he wrote :

' We are in the presence of an unbounded intellectual activity, a Proteus that sought as many disguises as Nature itself/

1 Nash ' was one of them.

CHAPTER XVII

WHITNEY

IN the year 1580, at the age of twenty-eight, Gabriel Whitney was in the employment of the Earl of Leicester, the Lord High Steward of Great Yarmouth, as under- steward. Yarmouth is the place which Francis, under the name of ' Nash,' described in great detail under the title of ' Lenten Stuffe.' In 1584 Whitney was still under -steward, but about that date the Earl of Leicester required the office for his friend, John Stubbe.

In 1585 Francis designed to publish some Emblem literature in English, and prepared a book called 'A Choice of Emblems/ with the accompanying letterpress Englished.

In March, 1586, he seems to have made use of his father's unemployed assistant, Whitney, by sending him to Leyden, in Holland, to see the book through Plantin's press.

Plantin was a celebrated printer, who evidently had possession of many Emblem engravings published in other languages, and doubtless was the best person to go to for the use of Emblem engravings, and for the en graving of the twenty new designs comprised in the book ascribed to Whitney.

Sketches in the margins of books annotated in the handwriting of Francis Bacon lead to the conclusion that Francis himself was a fair draughtsman, and probably supplied the new designs, which cannot, however, be said to be as good or as complete as the older Emblems in the

185

186 TUDOR PROBLEMS

book, the work, doubtless, of Continental draughtsmen of greater skill. The identity of Francis as the real pro ducer of the book ascribed to Whitney is proved by the remarkable resemblances of thought, illustration, and word between the verses and other verses published by Francis under his Shakespeare vizard.

In the ' Choice ' an Emblem is described—

4 As some witty device expressed with cunning work manship, something obscure to be perceived at first, whereby, when with further consideration it is under stood, it may the greater delight the beholder/

Francis must have been, at an early period of his life, interested in the large number of Emblem books published in Europe — indeed, they were among the most important picture-books. He used Emblems in one of his earliest works, the ' Sheph card's Kalendar.' In explaining the Emblem in the ' Mglogue of December/ Francis states that the meaning is, that all things perish and come to their last end, but the works of the learned wits and monuments of poetry abide for ever. It will be interest ing to discover whether the illustrations for the * Kalendar' and the twenty odd new Emblem pictures in the ' Choice ' were drawn by Francis. If so, it is likely that in a way ' obscure to be perceived at first,' they are earmarked with his name, number, initial, or distinguishing mark.

In a great deal of the ornamentation of books published in Francis Bacon's time there is evidence of careful preparation and object. The title pages, engraved portraits, and designs in many books of this period seem to have some sub -surface significance. A book printed in Amsterdam in 1616 shows a figure of Truth or Fortune pushing from a pinnacle a figure wearing in his hat the plumes of an actor, while Truth is at the same time assisting another figure (wearing a hat like that shown in many engravings of Francis Bacon) to mount in his place.

In April of that year Shakespeare had died. Of course,

WHITNEY 187

the plumes of an actor would equally refer to the deceased actors, Peele, Marlowe, Gosson, Greene, and Nash.

An edition of the 'New Atlantis' (1627) has a wood cut of Father Time handing from a cave a female figure personifying Truth. Round the woodcut are words in Latin, stating that in time the hidden Truth would be revealed.

The Emblem forming the frontispiece of the ' Novum Organum' (1620) is very interesting. It depicts an un manned and empty ship sailing through the Pillars of Hercules out upon the wide ocean.

Other Emblem books of the seventeenth century con tain pictures of special significance.

Mr. Oliver Lector, in his book ' Letters from the Dead to the Dead,' (B. Quaritch) gives a selection of them, such as —

1. A shaking speare enveloped in ciphers.

2. A crowned snail crawling round a cipher.

3. A seated figure holding aloft a cipher. Near it a phoenix rising from flames.

4. The beheading of an obscure person.

5. A man bearing logs (supposed reference to loga rithms).

6. An old tree being revived and showing new growth. (Compare the words given to Posthumous in 'Cymbeline.')

The 'Minerva Brittanna of Peachem' (1612) contains many curious Emblems. Note particularly that on p. 33. Thirty-three is the clock figure equivalent to the name Bacon. B 2, A 1, C 3, 0 14, N 13 = 33. On that page is a portrait of Sir Francis Bacon. Opposite is the hand of an unseen person grasping a spear.

The devices of the knights in the play of ' Pericles ' would seem to have emblematical significance —

1. A black Ethyope reaching at the sun. Motto : IMX tua vita mihi.

188 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

2. An arm'd knight conquered by a lady. Motto : Pue per dolcera kee per forsa.

3. A wreath of chivalry. Motto : Me pompey provexit apex.

4. A burning torch that's turned upside down. Motto : Qui me edit me extinguit.

5. A hand environed with clouds holding out gold that's by the touchstone tryde. Motto : Sic spectanda fides.

6. A withered branch, that's only greene on top. Motto : In hac spe vivo.

Solutions of these old riddles can only be tentative. The first device may suggest that Francis there prays for light upon the dark places of his life ; the second, that he overcame his difficulties by gentleness rather than force ; the third indicated his faith that the laurel crown of fame would eventually be his ; the fourth, that the mother who bore him defeated his expectation of the throne ; the fifth refers to the title l Francis I.,' that he should have borne ; and the sixth his plans for restora tion of his fame. (The fifth device was a favourite one of Francis I., King of France.) See further upon the subject of Emblems, ' The Mystery of Francis Bacon/ by W. T. Smedley (London : Banks and Son).

CHAPTER XVIII

WEBBE

IN restoring to Francis Bacon the fame which he con sidered should come after death rather than accompany a man during life, the booklet bearing the title ' Discourse of English Poetrie," printed in 1586, can safely be added to his authorship credit.

Convinced of the civilizing influence of ' measurable and tunable ' English, he invited men of education to practise the art of writing English poetry, at the same time cleverly insinuating his own methods. He was opposed to the miserable rhyming then in vogue, and desired agreement upon some apt English Prosodia. He offered his 'Discourse' as a sort of draught for consideration, admittedly having omitted ' the chief collours and ornaments of Poetrie,1 and having introduced matters less pertinent. For Francis, true to his favourite motto, Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, in the ' Discourse,' first strove to interest his readers with an irrelevant but delectable review of poetry from its earliest to its then latest exponents. The class-work followed, but even that was interspersed with attractive comment and illustration. To describe his own methods he had per force to turn to his only printed verse of any variety or length, the ' Shepheard's Kalendar.' In his printed letters to Harvey he had already insinuated that Spenser — the use of whose name he had bought before Spenser went away to a permanent berth in Ireland — was the author of the 'Kalendar.' Having also on hand the

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190 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

' Faerie Queene,' which, in consequence of admissions in the Harvey letters, he was bound to suppress, or else bring out in Spenser's name, he had to make a number of dissembling references to cast the authorship of the * Kalendar ' upon Spenser :

' Whether the author was Master Sp. or what scholler in Pembroke Hall soever, because himself and his freendes for what respect I know not, would not reveal it/

* If his other workes were common abroade, which are, as I think, in ye close custodie of certain his friends, we should have, of our owne, poets whom wee might match e in all respects with the best.'

' But nowe yet at ye last hath England hatched uppe one Poet of this sorte, in my conscience comparable with the best in any respect : even Master Sp., author of the Shepheardes Calendar.'

It may be concluded that, had Francis been the author, he would have been less eulogistic about it. Francis, bear in mind, was a young Prince, on good terms with his mother, the Queen, and fully expectant of royal recognition as her heir. In his conscience he was satis fied of his own pre-eminence as a poet.

But stop ! The name of the author of the * Discourse ' is upon the title page, namely, one William Webbe, and, according to Mr. Chisholm in the new 'Encyclopaedia Britannica, ' it is the duty and privilege of literary critics to shelter behind title pages, and not go beyond what Ben Jonson called the ' title of nominals.' Still, Jonson's remarks were intended for the ' most of superficial men.' All that the biographers can tell us about Webbe is that he flourished in 1586, and was tutor to the two sons of Sir Edward Sulyard, and afterwards to the sons of Henry Grey, created by the Queen Lord Grey of Groby.

Sulyard was a wealthy landowner resident at Bun well, in Essex. Grey was one of the Queen's defenders at tilt. The Queen granted him her mansion at Pyrgo, near her old Saxon Palace of Havering atte Bower in Essex, which overlooked the Thames estuary. The Queen held

WEBBE 191

frequent Court at Havering, which alone would be likely to bring Francis into association with the tutor Webbe, who probably did a little copying and referencing for Francis, and would hardly be in a position to refuse a proposal for the one-time use of his name on a title page.

In Hazlewood's * Ancient Critical Essays ' is a reprint of the ' Discourse,' rendered as near as possible in fac simile, where it will be seen that prefixed to both preface and Discourse are Francis Bacon's well-known trefoil marks.

In the epistle the writer hardly sustains the role of an humble tutor. He offers to be a trusty Achates to the Sulyard boys, even so far as ' my wealth ' may serve.

There is internal evidence of Baconian authorship. The writer uses the term ' merry tales,' also found in Bacon's ' Promus '; tells the same tale about Alexander and Achilles that Bacon gives in ' Ad. of Learning ' ; treats the Orpheus legend as Bacon treats it in ' Wisdom of the Ancients ' ; and makes the same complaint as in the ' Ad. of Learning' against those who ' hunt the letter.'

The writer anticipates Bacon in dividing plays into Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories, and also the general plan of the Shakespeare plays. They were ' to present in the shapes of men the natures of virtues, vices, and affections, and join profitable and pleasant lessons together for the instruction of life.' He even anticipated Ben Jonson — ' Yirgill, who performed the very same in that tongue which Homer had done in Greek.'

Jonson preferred Bacon's labours for the English tongue to all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome had done.

'Webbe,' after his 'hour upon the stage' in 1586, appeared again for five minutes in 1592, and thereafter was ' heard no more.'

Wilmot, an Essex Vicar, when in 1568 an Inns of Court student, was part author of a rhymed play entitled 'Tancred and Gismunda,' performed before the Queen.

192 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

It was rubbishy work. In 1592 it was entirely rewritten, and, except for the title, became a new play of considerable merit. It was printed under the Wilmot ascription, accompanied by an unusual amount of apologetic pre amble, and an introduction by Webbe. This was evidently to anticipate the query why a quiet country vicar should, after an interval of twenty-four years, have produced practically a new play of equal style and quality to those then issuing under the ascriptions of Marlowe and Greene. Webbe, the Essex tutor, was brought in to play the part of intermediary and apologist for the Essex Vicar in his supposed reconstruction of the old play, in the writing of which he had, as a student, participated.

The introduction betrays that its writer was not a tutor but a lawyer, whose mind was saturated with legal jargon — in fact the mind of Francis at the age of thirty-two.

The words ' respite,' ' arrest,' ' actum est,y ' commence suit,' 'case,' 'judge's court/ ' charges,' 'action,' 'cause,' ' plead,' and * parties ' occur in the first few sentences.

Even ' Wilmot ' has to explain that the purpose of Tragedy 'tendeth only to the exaltation of virtue and suppression of vice, with pleasure to profit and help all men.'

We affirm with confidence that ' Webbe ' was only a cover for Francis, the true author of the ' Discourse,' which was published for certain important purposes —

1. It was an appeal to the educated to take up the study and practice of English poetry upon modern lines.

2. An opportunity for Francis to teach the art of eglogue writing as he practised it.

3. An opportunity to answer criticism passed upon the sixth eglogue of the ' Kalendar.'

4. A means of preparing the general public to believe that the 'Faerie Queene,' then in progress, and which had to appear under the Spenser ascription, was really the work of the absent Irish official.

CHAPTER XIX 'THE ARTE'

IN 1589 'The Arte of English Poesie' was published by Richard Field, with a dedication to Lord Burleigh, dated ' May 28th.'

In 1722 was first printed a curious manuscript, by one Edmund Bolton, probably written in 1620, containing a passage stating that the fame was that the ' Arte ' was the work of one of Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners — Puttenham. A form of this name appears in the 'Device of the Order of the Helmet,' see Begley's * Bacon's Nova Resuscitatio.'

The ascription to Puttenham therefore rests merely on a rumour noted thirty-one, and published one hundred and thirty- three, years after the date of the work.

Dr, Garnett and Mr. E. Gosse, writing of English literature of the period, say ' the " Arte " is attributed, on by no means exclusive authority, to one of two brothers — Puttenham ;' and add, ' We must acknow ledge grave doubts whether it can rightly be attributed to either'

The ' Dictionary of National Biography ' shows that these brothers were frequently in prison. The known age of one of them does not fit with the personal state ments in the book, and the other is not recorded to have been abroad.

Sir Sidney Lee, alluding to the author, says : ' He was the first English writer who attempted philosophical criticism of literature.' Mr. Gilchrist, an earlier critic,

193 13

194 TUDOR PROBLEMS

expressed the .opinion that the * Arte ' was intrinsically one of the most valuable books of the age of Elizabeth.

The work being so important and its authorship still an open question, there is excuse for suggesting another likely author.

The date of writing of the ' Arte ' is, according to the opinion of Mr. Arber, about the year 1585.

In 1584 Vautrollier, the Edinburgh printer, had pub lished for King James of Scotland ' A Treatise of the Airt of Scottis Poesie.' On its title-page was the printer's trade mark and motto, Anchor a Spei.

The probability is that Queen Elizabeth, in a spirit of royal emulation, thereupon thought well to show what she and her literary assistants could do. Francis at that date was greatly in the Queen's confidence. In 1582 he had written for her a monograph on the state of affairs on the Continent. In 1585-6 he was M.P., and made some marvellously brilliant speeches. He also had written to the Queen a long and careful memorandum on State affairs and the question of her personal safety.

It is very odd to find Francis, if a penniless younger son of Nicholas Bacon, taking, before he was barely twenty-five, such a prominent part in the affairs of his Sovereign, of whose purse he was a pensioner. Both Francis and the Queen were poets and expert linguists, and the ' Arte ' gave an opportunity to the Queen to publish her verses and recollections, which could not well be given in print in any other way. At the same time it enabled Francis to expound the rules of poetry which he had studied. Says the author in book iii., chap, xxv.:

' We have in our humble conceit sufficiently performed our promise, or rather dutie, to your Majestie in the description of this arte. '

Upon this point a few words in Bacon's ' Apology concerning Essex ' are instructive :

' Her Majesty, taking a liking to my pen . . . and likewise upon some other declarations which in former

'THE ARTE' 195

times, by her appointment, I put in writing, commanded me to pen that book.'

Mr. Arber points out that the ' Arte,' although probably begun in 1585, was not altered and amended until 1589, when it was printed by Vautrollier's son-in-law, Richard Field, under, curiously enough, the same trade-mark, Anchora Spei, which by this date had doubtless passed into the latter's possession.

Bacon, writing years afterwards to King James, refers to ' your Majesty's Royal promise (which to me is Anchora Spei):

The composition of the ' Arte ' having been decided upon by these distinguished persons, the next character istic precaution would be to shroud the authorship under such a veil as could not with any certainty be pierced.

The author remarks that ' the good Poet or maker ought to dissemble his arte.'

We may therefore expect to meet with a number of statements purposed to throw people off the scent, com bined with others which may be true in substance and fact.

With this precaution well in mind, there is much primd facie evidence pointing to Francis as the author.

It is also quite likely that Francis wrote the verses entitled the ' Partheniades/ which the author states he presented to the Queen on a certain New Year's Day. One of the verses alludes to ' twenty years agon ' of Her Majesty's reign. The usually assigned date is New Year's Day, 1579, when Francis was probably in England, but the phrase would, perhaps, more correctly indicate the year 1578. Francis came from France about March 20, 1578-9, but, according to Rawley's ' Life,' he had visited England in 1578, before his final return. Again, who amongst the Queen's courtiers, skilled as a poet, better answers the description of one who had spent his youth amid foreign Courts (Francis was there from September, 1576, and again in 1582), who was closely intimate with Lord Burleigh and Sir Nicholas Bacon, and who (accord-

196 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

ing to Hazlewood) quoted frequently from Quintillian, the favourite author with Sir Nicholas ?

Francis Bacon was provided by the Queen herself with the means to live. He no doubt became a gentleman pensioner of the Court. No acknowledged poet of the period answers to the description the writer of the ' Arte ' gives of himself.

It will no doubt be objected that Bacon could have had no personal knowledge of Queen Mary or Edward VI., nor could he have been present at the banquet in Brussels in honour of the Earl of Arundel, nor at Spain in the reign of Charles IX. Nor was he educated at Oxford. On the other hand, had these experiences — no doubt gathered from others and with permission — been entered as the writer's own, his anonymity would have been absolutely gone, since by the admissions the actual author could have been readily traced and identified.

' He who would be secret must be a dissembler in some degree.' This dissembling may be less than appears if it should turn out that some of the incidents occurred to, and were interpolated by, Queen Elizabeth herself.

The following is suspiciously like her writing : ' The eclogue Elpine which we made, being but eighteen years old, to King Edward, a Prince of great hope.'

Elizabeth was eighteen in September, 1551, while her brother Edward was King. The epitaph on Sir John Throgmorton may be another interpolation by Her Majesty ; Sir John was judge of the Palatine Court of her Duchy of Chester. He died in 1580. Her close intimacy with the Throgmortons is also shown by the letter of Paulet to Burleigh in September, 1576, which states that he is taking to Paris with him a son of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton (brother of Sir John) at the recom mendation of Her Majesty, and therefore he could not refuse him. Sir John was knighted by the Queen at Kenilworth. His wife, according to the list of New Year's gifts, was at Court in 1578 and 1579.

'THE AKTE' 197

Passing to the internal evidence of mannerisms and style, attention is drawn to the dedication of the book to Lord Burleigh, nominally the work of the printer.

Compare —

' Bestowing upon your Lordship the first vewe of this mine impression '

with —

1 The first heir of my invention/

occurring in the dedication to ' Venus and Adonis,' also published by Field in 1593.

Then contrast this concluding passage in the ' Arte ' :

4 1 presume so much upon your Majestie's most mild and gracious judgment, howsoever you conceive of myne abilitie to any better or greater service, that yet in this attempt ye will allow of my loyall and good intent, always endeavouring to do your Majesty the best and greatest services I can,'

with a passage in a letter written years later by Bacon to King James :

* I hope and wish at least that this which I have written may be of some use to your Majesty. ... At the least it is the effect of my care and poor abilitie, which if in me be any, it is given me to no other end but faithfully to serve your Majesty.'

In 1592, when he wrote to Burleigh, Bacon was openly begging for office of some kind, ' I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty.' ' Place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of man's own, which is the thing I greatly affect.'

Internal evidence also shows that the work, probably begun in 1585, was altered and added to even up to 1589. The practice of altering and adding was common to Bacon's acknowledged works. ' I alter ever when I add, so that nothing is finished until all be finished ' (Bacon to Tobie Matthew).

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Internal evidence shows the writer to have been a barrister of such familiarity with law and pleading as we should expect Francis to have attained at this period, 1585-9. In the last year he was made a Reader of his Inn. Below are some illustrations from the ' Arte ' of this proficiency in law :

* And this figure is much used by our English pleaders in the Star Chamber and Chancery, which they call to confess and avoid.'

' It serveth many times to great purpose to prevent our adversaries' arguments and take upon us to know before what our judge, or adversary, or hearer thinketh.'

' It is also very many times used for a good pollicie in

As he that in a litigious case for land would prove it, not the adversaries, but his clients.'

' No man can say its his by heirship, nor by legacie or testator's device, nor that it came by purchase or engage, nor from his Prince for any good service.'

' This man deserves to be endited of petty larceny for pilfering other men's devices from them and converting them to his own use.'

Compare Bacon's remarks to Elizabeth in ' Apothegms ' concerning Heywood :

c No, madam, for treason I cannot deliver opinion that there is any, but for felony very many. Because he had stolen so many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus.'

Bacon's love of the art of persuasion (which he was fond of illustrating with the story of the unresisted invasion of Italy, where the conqueror came with chalk in his hands to mark up lodging-places for his soldiers rather than with arms to force their way) seems also a characteristic of the writer of the ' Arte.'

In 'The Wisdom of the Ancients' (1609) he writes :

4 The fable of Orpheus, though trite and common, has never been well interpreted.'

1 THE ARTE' 199

Then he explains :

' Orpheus's music is of two sorts . . . the first may fitly be applied to natural philosophy, the second to moral or civil discipline ... by persuasion and eloquence ; insinua ting the love of virtue, equity, and concord in the minds of men, draws multitudes of men to a society, makes them subject to laws, obedient to government.'

In the grounds of Gorhambury, Bacon erected a statue to Orpheus, inscribed * Philosophy Personified/

In his discourse on the 'Plantation of Ireland ' (1598,) he stated

1 that Orpheus, by the virtue of the sweetness of his harp, did call and assemble the beasts and birds of their nature. wild and savage, to stand about him as in a theatre/

which he explained to imply the reducing and plantation of kingdoms whereby people of barbarous manners are brought to give ear to the wisdom of laws and govern ments.

The passage in the * Arte ' relating to Orpheus is at the beginning of book i., chap. iii. After referring to sweet and eloquent persuasion, he proceeds :

' And Orpheus assembled the wilde beastes to come in heards to harken to his musicke and by that means made them tame, implying thereby how, by his discreet and wholesome lessons, uttered in harmonie and with melodious instruments, he brought the rude and savage people to a more civil and orderly life'

Internal evidence shows the writer of the ' Arte/ like Bacon and the writer of the * Shakespeare ' plays, to be fond of introducing new and unaccustomed words. In book iii., chap, iv., before proceeding to discuss a number of novel words used by him, the writer of the ' Arte ' says •

1 And peradventure the writer hereof be in that behalfe no lesse faultie than any other, using many strange and unaccustomed wordes and borrowed from other languages.'

200 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The following are a few parallelisms between the ( Arte ' (A), and the writings of Bacon (B), and Shake speare (S) :

A. — ' Every man's stile is for the most part according to the matter and subject.'

B. — ' Style is as the subject matter.'

A. — * He cannot lightly do amiss if he have besides a special regard to all the circumstances of the person, place, time, cause, and purpose he hath in hand.'

B. — ' It is good to vary and suit speeches with the present occasions and to have a moderation in all our speeches, especially in jesting of religion, state, great persons, etc.*

S. — ' He must observe their moods on whom he jests The quality of persons and the time.'

A. — * And maketh now and then very vice go for a formal virtue.' S. — c There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.'

A. — ' But now because our Maker or Poet is to play many parts and not one alone.'

S. — * And one man in his time plays many parts.'

Love in its two aspects is treated much alike by the writer of the ' Arte ' and by Bacon :

A. — ' For love there is no frailtie in flesh and blood as excusable as it, no comfort or discomfort greater than the good and bad success thereof, nothing more natural to man, nothing of more force to vanquish his will and to inveigle his judgment.'

B. — 'Love is a pure gain and advancement in nature, it is not a good by comparison but a true good ; it is not an ease of pain but a true purchase of pleasures.'

1 It checks with business and troubleth men's fortunes and maketh men that they can no ways be true to their own ends.'

The above indications present a fair primd fade case for ascribing to Francis Bacon the authorship of 'The Arte of English Poesie.'

Since this was written the late Mr. Walter Begley, in c Bacon's Nova Resuscitatio/ gives independent reasons for assigning to Bacon the authorship of * The Arte of English Poesie/ Mr. W. T. Smedley has after careful consideration formed the like conclusion.

CHAPTER XX

DOBBELL

A BOOK of verse entitled 'Willobie his Avisa,' was printed October 1, 1594. It has the line :

1 And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape/

Mr. Hughes thinks Henry Willoughby, of West Knowle, Wilts, wrote the poem at the age of eighteen, and that he met the play-actor, Shakespeare, in 1593, when Earl Southampton was possibly visiting his sister at Shaftesbury.

Dr. Creighton thinks Willobie a myth, and that Southampton, at the age of twenty, wrote the verses.

Mr. Hughes affirmed the chaste lady, Avisa, to have been A vice Forward, of Mere, in Wilts.

Dr. Creighton identified her as Avis Yate, of Basing- stoke, Hants.

Mr. Hughes cannot trace * Hadrian Dorrell/ the avowedly unauthorized publisher of the book.

Dr. Creighton dismisses ' Dorrell ' as a myth.

Another critic suggested Avisa to be merely the first biliteral cipher symbol, A five times is A, as illustrated in the 'De Augmentis.'

'Dorrell,' in his 1596 reply to critics, said the name merely stood for the virtue Chastity.

' Dorrell ' was one of the many pseudonyms assumed by Francis Bacon, the close personal friend and mentor of the young Gray's Inn student, Earl Southampton.

Discussing ' Lucrece,' the constancy of an innkeeper's

201

202 TUDOR PROBLEMS

wife or daughter known to Southampton in the West of England, may have caused Francis to celebrate it in verse.

The name of a young page just sent to live abroad on the Queen's service would be a suitable vizard.

The hand that wrote the dedication of ' Lucrece ' (1594),

' What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours.

' Were my worth greater my duty would show greater, meantime as it is bound to your Lordship/

wrote the dedication in ' Willobie his A visa,' in the same year :

1 Whatsover is in me I have vowed it wholly to the exalt ing of your siveete sex, as time, occasion, and ability shall permit. In the meantime I rest yours in all duty full affection'

Francis was then thirty-three years of age ; South ampton twenty-one, and had succeeded to a large fortune.

Francis was unusually poor at this period, and the probability is that Southampton helped him considerably with money.

The prose in * A visa' and its 1596 apology are Baconian in style.

Catch the lilt of the following passage :

' Pleasant without hardness, smooth without any rough- nesse, sweet without tediousnesse, easie to be understood, without harrish absurdity ; yielding a gratious harmony everywhere to the delight of the reader.'

Consider another :

' But I see that as it happeneth in the distemperature of the body, so it often fareth in the disorders of the minde, for the body being oppressed with the venemous malice of some predominate humor, the seate of judge ment which is the taste, is corrupted.'

DORRELL 203

Compare —

Dorrell. — 'I have not added nor detracted anything from the worke it selfe but have let it passe without altering anything,'

with —

Bacon. — ' I alter ever when I add.'

The scholarship of the author was very wide. He knew the works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Pindar, Musseus, Plutarch, Mantuan, Eusebius, Helleborus, and other classics. He quoted Italian freely, and was familiar with the Bible and the writings of Ariosto, More, Sidney, and Spenser.

He punned on ' Rara Avis/ ' pain and pin/ ' queens and queanes/

He used terms found in other vizarded works. 'I cannot tell/ 'Seas of grief/ 'Flying fame/ ' Stormie blasts/ ' Fancies bred/ ' Smokie sighs/

The author was a good lawyer : ' Trial of my faith some wise delay.' ( Jury cast condemned at last.' ' Take the vewe of mine estate.' * Assurance make.9

1 That this in trust from me shall take While thou dost live unto thy use. Where nature granteth such a face I need not doubt to purchase grace.'

Here are a few parallelisms :

1. * The lymed bird by fowlers trained

Willobie his Amsa.

See Bacon's letter to Greville (1589), also 'Spanish Tragedy' (1594).

2. ' When she doth laugh you must be glad, And watch occasions, tyme, and place.'

'It is good to vary and suit speeches with the present occasions,' etc. — BACON.

204

TUDOR PROBLEMS

3. ' It's hard to love and to be wise/

Willobie his Aviso,.

'To be wise and eke to love Exceeds man's might, etc.'

SPENSER.

4. 'A spotless name is more to me

Than wealth, than friends, than life can be/

Willobie his Avisa.

' Good name in man or woman dear, my lord.'

SHAKESPEARE.

5. 'I saw your gardens passing fyne With pleasant flowers lately dect, With cowslips and with eglantine, When wofull woodbine lyes reject.'

Willobie his Avisa.

' Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. * * * # *

' Just overcanopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk roses and with eglantine.'

SHAKESPEARE.

6. ' You look so pale with Lented cheeks, Your wanny face and sharpened nose.'

Willobie his Avisa.

' How pale and wan he looks.'

Comedy of Errors, iv. 4.

' His nose was as sharp as a pen.'

See SHAKESPEARE'S Death of Falstaff.

' The nose becoming sharp, the face pallid.' — BACON : History of Life and Death.

The last parallelism is very convincing as to common authorship. But these things are not taken into account by the critics where any claim for Bacon's authorship is concerned. They are, therefore, submitted with apologies.

CHAPTER XXI

BRIGHT

A ' MEMOIR of Timothe Bright,' by Mr. W. J. Carlton (London : Elliott Stock, 1911), is exhaustive and full.

But upon the only material question — viz., as to who wrote the 'Treatise of Melancholy' (1586) and ' Cha- racterie ' (1588) — Mr. Carlton cannot tell much more than that the books are title-paged to Dr. T. Bright as author.

Dr. Bright was born at Cambridge in 1550, became a subsizar at Trinity College in 1561, and graduated B.A. in 1568. His name does not appear upon the College books after Michaelmas, 1570, at which time he probably accepted service with and accompanied Sir Francis Wal- singham to Paris. He was there at the time of the massacre in 1572, back in Cambridge in 1573, obtained a licence to practise medicine in 1575, and practised at Cambridge until late in 1583. He may have written an English tract of forty-eight small pages, printed anony mously in London in 1580, called 'A Treatyse wherein is declared the sufficiency e of English Medycines for cure of all diseases cured with medicine,' but there is no certainty.

He probably did write and publish three small tractates in Latin (founded upon notes from which he taught), and entitled ' Hygieina ' (1582), 'Medicinae' (1583), and ' Animadversiones ' (1584), the latter being described by Dr. Norman Moore as not worth reading.

At Paris he seems to have met Sir Philip Sidney ;

205

206

TUDOR PEOBLEMS

at Cambridge he would be known to Whitgift the Master, and to young Francis Bacon.

In 1584 he was appointed physician to St. Bartholo mew's Hospital, London, the emoluments comprising a house and garden, free fuel, and a fee of £2 annually.

In 1586 was published in London a book entitled a ' Treatise of Melancholy, by T. Bright, Doctor of Phisicke.' In biliteral cipher Francis Bacon claims that he wrote this * Treatise/ as well as the augmentations of it, published after Bright's death, entitled the * Anatomy of Melancholy.' The circumstance that Mrs. Gallup in the course of her deciphering found out that the * Treatise ' was in part printed by Vautrollier, and the remaining part by Windet, and that a complete cipher story runs through the italic letters in the Vautrollier part and concludes in the Windet, might have been accepted as confirmation of the good faith of her decipher. But it was not.

Mr. Carlton called Mrs. Gallup's statement a ' stagger ing theory ' and an ' amazing proposition.'

That he should so describe an assertion of fact only shows how the judgment of a level-headed man may be upset when met with something entirely opposed to his line of assumption, and for which he was unprepared. Mr. Carlton alleges that the ' fallacies and inconsis tencies ' of this (the Bright) part of Mrs. Gallup's story are 'so self-evident as to carry their own refutation.' He would have been wise to have stopped at that exhibition of mental fireworks. But he proceeded to assert that the volumes which bear the name of Bright and those issued as the work of Burton were ' palpably dissimilar in style and matter.'

Bright's Latin * volumes ' may surely be ruled out of this controversy. Until opportunity of reading the ' Treatise of English Medicine,' and ' Characterie,' one can only remark that the extracts from them which Mr. Carlton gives, furnish very little support to his contention.

BRIGHT 207

Comparison of 'style' can only be between the 1586 'Treatise' and the 1621 'Anatomy,' which means the style of a youth at twenty-six contrasted with his style at sixty -one, after a life of widely varying literary activities. Such a test manifestly cannot settle the point.

Then as to ' matter/ Mr. Carlton admitted that both

* authors ' adopted the same plan, which, to say the least, is suspicious. The later ' author ' (as Dr. Rimbault's tabulation shows) is more exact and compact in his definitions. This is consistent with revision by the original author later in life. Bacon, when he revised the ' Treatise,' would adhere to his original plan. Mr. Carlton will, on comparing the two books, find the ' Anatomy ' repeating the very words of the ' Treatise/

* Thus : — You feel the wrath of God kindled against your soule and anguish of conscience most intolerable and can finde (notwithstanding continuall prayers and incessant supplications made unto the Lord) no release and in your own judgment stand reprobate from God's covenant and voide of all hope of his inheritance/ (Bright, p. 252.)

' God's heavy wrath is kindled in their so ids and not withstanding their continual prayers and supplications to Christ Jesus they have no release or ease at all, but a most intolerable torment and unsufferable anguish of conscience.' (Burton, p. 575. Edition 1821.)

'Certain German literary critics are satisfied/ wrote Mr. Carlton, 'that "Shakespeare" studied the Treatise.'

Yes, as Bacon wrote the ' Treatise ' as well as the Shakespeare works, it is not surprising that the novel phrase, 'discourse of reason/ which he used in the

* Treatise/ and which Mr. Carlton stated was at one time thought to be exclusively Shakespearean ('Hamlet/ 1603), he also used in his 'Gesta Grayorum ' (1595), in his letter to Earl Rutland (1596), and his ' Advancement of Learning' (1605).

Nor is it other than consistent that a man of Bacon's wide activities, frequently suffering ill-health, should

208 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

have studied its causes, written upon it in the name of his assistant Bright, and used in delineating character in his dramas the knowledge of ' physiological psychology ' so acquired. In ' Planetomachia,' published in 1584-5, under the vizard of Greene, young Francis Bacon styled himself 'student in physicke,' and in his old age was stated to have been able to outcant a London surgeon.

We say ' assistant ' because that explains Bright's true position. A trained Bachelor of Arts, of Francis Bacon's own college (perhaps one of his tutors), skilled in medicines, and capable of conversing in French, would be the sort of man young Francis would be glad to have assisting him.

Bacon's great trouble was the difficulty of getting enough money to pay his helpers in the large task — the renaissance of English literature — to which he had devoted himself.

If Bright came to him in 1584, the extraordinary stir which caused two of the Queen's Ministers and her Household Treasurer to insist upon Bright having the hospital residence and perquisites, instead of their going to the nominee of the College of Physicians, was probably due to young Bacon's private pressure.

The next event in order of date was a movement by Vincent Skinner, a fellow M.P. and friend of young Francis Bacon (both being nominees of Lord Burleigh), to induce a mutual friend, Michael Hicks, one of Burleigh's two confidential secretaries, to obtain letters patent for a system of shorthand alleged to have been invented by Bright, and for other works to be produced by him. Skinner married a first cousin of Lady Anne Bacon. His letter to Hicks is dated from Enfield House (Middlesex) March 30, 1586, and Hicks is made to understand that his success in procuring the patent to be granted could probably be rewarded ! The patent was a long time before being granted, meantime the ' Treatise of Melan choly,' dedicated in the following May (1586), was

BRIGHT 209

printed without its protection and without entry at Stationers' Hall.

By July, 1588, Hicks' intervention with Burleigh had succeeded, and on July 26 royal letters patent were granted to Bright and his assigns for fifteen years next ensuing to teach, print and publish in or by ' Character/ Then follows a grant of a still more remarkable privilege to Bright and his assigns, to print and sell all such books as lie theretofore had or thereafter should make, devise, compile, translate, or abridge, to the furtherance of good knowledge and learning.

' Characterie ' — a book of about 250 small pages — was poor excuse for letters patent ; but the protection for a series of all manner of new books which need not be entered at Stationers' Hall was most valuable.

In 1589 Vautrollier printed the ' Arte of English Poesie,' written through command of the Queen by a person who preferred to remain anonymous, and who seems to have been Francis Bacon. To this book the Queen herself contributed.

In the year 1589 also, an abridgment of ' Foxe's Book of Martyrs ' was printed by Windet, under protection of the letters patent, and ascribed to the authorship of Bright. The copyright in the original work belonged to certain printers, and except for the letters patent the abridgment could not have been published.

The haphazard materials collected by Foxe were in the abridgment reproduced in a connected, flowing, harmonious manner.

The address to the 'Christian Reader' assures him * there is not a book under the Scriptures more necessary for a Christian to be conversant in.' If the further passage, as to the comparative use of abridgments (quoted at p. 112 of Mr. Carlton's book), was not written by Bacon, then we know nothing about Bacon's prose style.

In October, 1589, the Queen gave to young Francis the reversion to the office of Clerk to the Star Chamber

14

210 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

and the £1,600 per annum salary, which would accrue to him when the then occupant died or vacated the post. This gift is significant of her satisfaction with the above publications of the year.

In 1590 Francis was concerned in the production of the' Faerie Queene ' and a variety of lighter publi cations under the vizards of Spenser, Peele, Greene, and ' Watson.'

Nothing suitable for the gravity of Dr. Bright's nominal occupation was printed during that year ; but Bright, through the influence of Whitgift, was given a parish curacy of £8 per annum, and a few months later was given a better living at Stanford Rivers, in Essex, in the gift of the Crown Ducky of Lancaster.

In the meantime Bright was neglecting his duties at the hospital, and was in such disgrace that he was about being supplanted and dismissed. Manifestly it was undesirable that his name should appear as author at that critical period.

In 1591 Bright was again neglecting his duties — why, it does not appear ; but our expectation is, he was work ing hard, copying from dictation and transcribing for Francis.

Between September, 1591, and March, 1591-2, Bright was dismissed and cleared out of his house at the hospital. In the following June, however, he was provided for by being preferred to the Rectory of Methley, in Yorkshire, in the gift of the Queen.

Friends in high places must have been helping him. These could not have been either Walsingham or Sidney, who were both dead. He was tied by private bond to Whitgift and others, to join in appointing their nominee as his successor at Methley in case he resigned.

It was probably owing to the chagrin which Francis must have felt in having to part with so valuable an assistant as Bright, that he addressed his celebrated letter of 1592 to Lord Burleigh, in which he announced that he

BBIGHT 211

had taken all knowledge for his province and must have some salaried office which would give him ' commandment of other wits than his own.' His letters patent scheme had entirely broken down, because he had not the means to pay his assistant's salary, and Bright was far away in Yorkshire. Alternative expedients had been found unworkable.

Bright quarrelled with his parishioners at Methley, and was moved to another parish twelve miles away — also in the gift of the Crown Duchy. Here he died in the year 1615. His will affords no light upon his literary activities, if he really had any. It is very strange that, upon the assumption of his capacity for authorship, he took no further advantage of the fifteen years free literary privileges granted by the letters patent of 1588. It is significant, too, upon the view we are presenting, that Bright's eldest son was in 1599 admitted a student of Gray's Inn, where Bacon resided.

In reference to ' Characterie,' Mr. Carlton, alluding to Mrs. C. M. Pott's opinion that Bacon first introduced the art of shorthand, remarked that she had ' out-Galluped Mrs. Gallup.' It is unfortunate that some men who seek to pass as authorities in literary matters are so self- conscious of a sort of sex superiority as to permit them selves to be impertinent to women writers.

We are not aware of any ciphered claim by Bacon that he wrote the ' Characterie,' nor was he interested in doing so, as it was so much improved upon during his lifetime as to have become of no public utility. Besides, he was out for bigger things than the fame of being the * father of modern shorthand.'

Yet, surely, Mrs. Pott's opinion is entitled to the like generosity of treatment which Mr. Carlton accords to the unsupported speculation of a Mr. Blades — that the Stratford player was once in the employment of Vau- trollier.

We see no reason why Bacon and Bright may not have

212 TUDOR PROBLEMS

jointly tried to devise a method whereby Bacon's words could be written down at dictation more rapidly than by the then existing mode of abbreviating.

Nor can we understand how Bright (hard up as Skinner said he was) could have ventured alone to get letters patent for a not very valuable device, nor after wards have gone to the expense of printing it partly on vellum.

' Characterie ' was, it seems to us, only a stalking horse to secure a wide protection for certain future literary productions contemplated by Bacon, a scheme which, through Bright's dismissal and removal into Yorkshire, entirely broke down. We can hardly suppose that Mrs. Pott expressed her opinion until she had read the ' Epistle Dedicatorie,' which to our, and doubtless to her, thinking is written in fine Baconian prose. This dedica tion contains a large number of references to Cicero, who, to slightly alter Mr. Carlton's phrase, was presumably the ' father of ancient shorthand/

Bacon, consulting his Cicero upon the shorthand question, doubtless led to his reading once more the life of this accomplished Roman, and suggested the writing of a story about him. Anyway, a few months later, a novelette, entitled * Ciceronis Amor,' was printed by Francis in the name of Greene.

There is a strong family likeness in form between the synoptical table attached to * Characterie ' and the synoptical table in Bacon's * Advancement of Learning/

Until critics are prepared to accept the biliteral decipher as honest and genuine, their sojourn in the kingdom of the blind in Elizabethan literary happenings is likely to be prolonged.

i. a miniature <6y, tPftfr uh nq, £? Ju^^mee <£6el2)*dx e/

OH

FRANCIS BA the law

seems to ha-v issist&n. >vben

Francis printed his 'Planetomachia' in 1585 he styled him self on its title-page, ' Robert Greene, Maister of ArtB and Student in Phisicke.' The result of this branch of study of the ' all knowledge ' he had taken for his province appears to have matured in 1587, when, under the vizard and doubtless with the help of Bright, he printed a book of 350 pages, 12mo., entitled a * Treatise of Melancholy/ In the story ciphered in the ' Novum Organum,' 1620, Francis gave intimation of a book he was about to publish. * The work beareth the title of the " Anatomy of Melan choly," and will be put forth by Burton.' In 1621 was published the work with this title, containing 855 octavo pages. It is printed with great care. With this and so many other important literary works on the stocks one can appreciate Bacon's haste to get the House of Lords' condemnation done with. This in great measure accounts for his pleading guilty, and moving their lordships to condemn and censure him. He anticipated his ability to explain himself to the juster tribunal of a future age.

Robert Burton was apparently one of two brothers assisting in Bacon's literary schemes.

Robert was Vicar of a church at Oxford, and evidently

was employed in collecting material from the Oxford

ries. Hi* brother was compiling a history of the

213

.

CHAPTER, XXII

BURTON

FRANCIS BACON soon in his career tried to understand the laws of health. Bright, a Cambridge physician, seems to have become his assistant in 1584, so that when Francis printed his 'Planetomachia' in 1585 he styled him self on its title-page, ' Hobert Greene, Maister of Arts and Student in Phisicke.' The result of this branch of study of the ' all knowledge ' he had taken for his province appears to have matured in 1587, when, under the vizard and doubtless with the help of Bright, he printed a book of 350 pages, 12mo., entitled a * Treatise of Melancholy.' In the story ciphered in the ' Novum Organum,' 1620, Francis gave intimation of a book he was about to publish. * The work beareth the title of the " Anatomy of Melan choly," and will be put forth by Burton.' In 1621 was published the work with this title, containing 855 octavo pages. It is printed with great care. With this and so many other important literary works on the stocks one can appreciate Bacon's haste to get the House of Lords' condemnation done with. This in great measure accounts for his pleading guilty, and moving their lordships to condemn and censure him. He anticipated his ability to explain himself to the juster tribunal of a future

Robert Burton was apparently one of two brothers assisting in Bacon's literary schemes.

Robert was Vicar of a church at Oxford, and evidently was employed in collecting material from the Oxford libraries. His brother was compiling a history of the

213

214 TUDOE PROBLEMS

shire associated with the name of Francis * Bacon's' father, the Earl of Leicester. William Dugdale a few years later was busy with a history of the shire associated with the name of Bacon's uncle, Ambrose Earl of Warwick.

These matters may have been purely accidental, but it

is as well to note them. Why the Burton Epilogue was

left out of the second edition of the * Anatomy ' published

in 1624 is difficult to understand. The third edition, of

1628, was enlarged by 102 pages, and has been deciphered

by Mrs. Gallup. As Bacon died in 1626, these editions

would be the work of Burton and Rawley, and the latter

inserted the interior cipher. A fourth edition, enlarged

by another 77 pages, was issued in 1632, and a fifth

edition, only slightly varied, appeared in 1638. Burton

died in 1640. The frontispiece to the larger editions is

a curious one, and bears Bacon's favourite motto : Omne

iulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. That Burton was

assistant editor or sub-editor, and not author, of the

' Anatomy ' may be inferred from the terms of his will,

in which a distinction is drawn between ' such books

as are written with my owne handes ' and * half my

Melancholy copie, for Crips hath the other half.'

4 Copie ' would mean copy for the printer. This would be in all probability a print of the previous edition, with the additions and alterations margined and interleaved. That Cripps, the Oxford printer, had, when the will was made, half of the work in his possession supports this interpretation of the position.

The biliteral cipher has been found in the * Anatomy ' of 1628, and also in the ' Treatise' of 1587. There is ground for stating that important matters will be found embedded in biliteral cipher in the 1621 edition.

In the ' Anatomy ' Bacon airs his notion of a new Atlantis. His more matured scheme called the ' New Atlantis ' was printed after his death.

The ' Anatomy ' also associates Bacon with the 'omnis- cious, only wise fraternity ' of the Rosy Cross. The

BURTON 215

fraternity is described in the ' Anatomy ' as a group engaged in reform and amendment in ' religion, policy, manners, with arts, sciences, etc.'

The collection of miscellaneous accounts of murders, monsters, and accidents, and other pamphlet literature at the Bodleian Library, known as Robert Burton's, rather goes to show that these tracts and papers were sent to him for possible use in add ing facts to the editions of the 'Anatomy' 1628 and 1638.

Many passages in the ' Anatomy ' are closely similar to passages in Bacon's acknowledged works. Mr. W. Theobald's article on the subject in 'Baconiana' (1905), and Mr. Donnelly's chapter in the second volume of 4 The Great Cryptogram/ should be referred to. There are also valuable comments in Notes and Queries (1903).

The assurance which continuous confirmations of the cipher story give, must be the excuse for any dogmatism in this chapter.

Readers may be interested to note that one or two quotations in the * Anatomy ' are taken from a Spanish book written by Antonio Perez, an early friend and guest of Francis Bacon. They may also be glad to have pointed out that the following passage of the * Anatomy ' is very suggestive of the hand which wrote the ' Spenser ' sonnet to Gabriel Harvey :

' A mere spectator of other men's fortunes and ad ventures, and how they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me as from a common theatre or scene.'

Democritus Junior said modestly of certain learned men : ' I light my candle at their torches.'

Rawley, Bacon's chaplain, said of his master that ' he lit his torch at every man's candle.' That, as compared with earlier or contemporary philosophers, poets, and savants, Bacon's was the torch and theirs the candles, may yet be generally admitted.

CHAPTER XXIII

SHAKSPERE

As the play of ' Hamlet ' is said to be in part autobi ographical, the vexed question of the authorship of the plays and poems attributed to William Shakspere or Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, may conveniently be centred upon and discussed in connection with this play.

The ascribed author was baptized in the village of Stratford on April 26, 1564. He died on April 23, 1616, at the age of fifty-two.

The Cambridge History of Literature, 1910, affirms that there is no sureness as to the identity of his father, and still less as to the identity of his wife.

The person suspected of being his father could not write his name. Shakspere married the unidentified wife in 1582. The latest record of the baptism of children of the married pair is dated February 2, 1585, at Stratford. His name, as author, first appeared on the title page of the poem ' Venus and Adonis/ in July, 1593. His name, as actor, is recorded for the first time upon a Treasury pay roll of 1594, as having been paid, with other actors, for performing before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich. There are documents indicating that he bought New Place, Stratford, in 1597, and was at that village in 1598. About this time records in the Heralds' College refer to an application for a grant of arms to a member of his family, an application known of by Ben Jonson and ridiculed in one of the latter's plays. There

216

'Uiu Shadow tr renowned ShatyJ>ear's?*S0uk oftii *wz The applaufe.' detyht.' the wonder of ike Steyt. Nature her selje> was proud of his dejitines cAndjoyd to weare the drejsiny' of his lines ; The ttartwd witi Confi/s»his work* artjuch* . neither man* nor jKufe* carl fr^/i to much. For ever live tlyjwne, the world to till > o. eye, shall ever parahll .

THE MARSHALL WOODCUT, 1640.

To face page 216.

SHAKSPERE 217

is record of a licence to act plays granted to Shakspere and others in 1603. A petition to an Earl Pembroke, dated 1635, affirms his association as man player with others in 1610 at the Blackfriars Theatre. In 1613 are dated deeds of conveyance to him, and mortgage of a house in Blackfriars. There are a few Stratford records showing that between 1598 and 1616 he bought land, houses, and tithes, sold malt and lent money there. A Will of one Phillips, dated 1605, in London, contains a bequest to him of a thirty -shilling gold piece.

In his own Will, 1616, is interlined a gift 'to my fellowes John Hemminges, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell £1 6s. Od. a peice to buy them rings.' The Will contains no reference to him as an author, or to letters, books, or manuscripts, and nothing in his writing has been found. The signatures to the Will and deeds are pronounced (by Sir E. Burning Lawrence and others) to have been written for him by skilled law clerks, in law script. Mr. Halliwell Phillips affirmed that the knowledge of caligraphy, evinced by the testator's daughter Hannah, did not extend beyond ability to attach her name to her marriage register. Testator's other daughter, Judith, for signature made a mark.

It fits with the vizard assumption that Francis was driven, in June, 1593, to find another mask for a poem to be addressed to his friend, neighbour, fellow-lawyer, and probable protege, the young Earl of Southampton. Robert Greene had died in the previous year. Marlowe had just been slain. Kyd was in trouble with the Star Chamber. Peele's name had been used for another style of poem. Having engaged the Stratfordian Shackspur or Shakspere to fill Marlowe's place, Francis soon trans muted the name. He had turned Amleth into Hamlet, Porcie into Portia, and to one who had frequently — viz., in the 'Shepheard's Kalendar,' 'Campaspe,' and the ' Faerie Queene ' — used the simile of shake the speare,

218 TUDOK PROBLEMS

the improvement of the Stratfordian's name to Shake speare presented no difficulty.

Friend Gabriel Harvey seemed to have some doubt about the wisdom of this new engagement. In his Sonnet of the wonderful year 1593, he writes :

* Weep, Powles. Thy Tamburlaine voutsaf es to die.

UEnwy.

A huger miracle remains behinde,

A second Shakerley rashe-swashe to binde.'

Howe, who, in 1709, wrote the first biography of the Stratfordian ninety-three years after the latter's death, manifestly fooled his readers.

If Bacon desired to make as real as possible his Shakspere FIGURE, as part of his great experiment of indirect teaching, ' so that knowledge thus delivered like a plant full of life's freshness may spread daily and grow to maturity? some harmless interferences with records may have taken place. There is an unusual clause in Bacon's pardon of 1621 absolving him from acts of this nature. Williams objected to the clause by letter to Buckingham.

No word can fairly be said to the discredit of William Shakspere. Whether he was an actor of small parts up to the time the play of * Richard II.' had, in 1597 or 1598, to be labelled with his name, or whether he acted well, as the biliteral cipher says he did, or whether he appeared on the stage later than 1597, is not very material. He was paid to allow poems and plays to be published in his name. Beyond this he made no personal effort to perpetuate the illusion.

He acquired land, houses, and tithes at Stratford, grew corn, sold malt, and lent money at interest. At Stratford he led the life of a small farmer or trades man, accumulated money and money's worth for his family, and doubtless would have turned in his grave could he have learnt that every known mistake in his uneventful life had been canvassed and dis-

SHAKSPERE 219

cussed, and that he had had vicariously to bear the adulations of the wise men and women of East and West.

' He " grew immortal in his own despight." '

Having enumerated some important considerations against a conclusion that the ascribed was the true author of ' Hamlet,' we ask the patience of our readers while we state as well as we can the case for the true author, Bacon, who planned for a period to remain * concealed/

The play of ' Hamlet ' was, as many are well aware, founded upon a French story narrated by Belleforest in his cHistoires Tragiques/ printed in 1571, but not trans lated into English until 1608. The position of ' Amleth ' in the French story would naturally appeal to young Francis Bacon, with whose own condition it had much in common. The * Histoires ' would be in regular circulation in France about the time of his sojourn there. It is not surprising, therefore, to find, apart from the cipher story, that it was one of the earliest plays known to have been performed by the men actors in the employment of the Earl of Leicester.

Existing foreign documents show that in 1585 the King of Denmark took into his service a company of English actors.

This is confirmed in general terms in the ' Apology for Actors' (1612), which informs us that the actors were commended to the King of Denmark by the Earl of Leicester.* What more natural than that, at a time when the Low Countries were being assisted by the Protestant Queen of England to hold out against the Roman Catholic domination of Spain, an attempt should have been made to placate a neighbouring King with a play dealing with events of ancient Danish history ?

Dr. Brandes is able to affirm that in 1585 a company of English players performed ' Hamlet ' in the courtyard of the Town Hall of Elsinore.

* Judging by internal evidence, the 'Apology ' was written by Bacon

220

TUDOR PROBLEMS

This company was transferred in October, 1586, to the Duke of Saxony, and after some few months returned to England.

The play was first printed in England in the year 1603, and is thereon stated to have been performed 'in the Cittie of London, as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere.'

It was again printed in 1604, with additions and alterations. Both quartos were published under the auspices of Nicholas Ling, protected by an entry in the Stationers' Register of 1602. The suggestion that the 1603 was a pirated copy is inconsistent with the fact that Ling protected and printed both.

* Hamlet ' is alluded to in the preface to ' Menaphon ' (1589). From an entry by Gabriel Harvey in one of his books, under date 1598, 'Hamlet' was then known as a ' Shakespeare ' play. ' The Spanish Tragedy ' and parts of the 1603 'Hamlet' have, in the opinion of Mr. Boas, much internal indication of some common authorship, which led that gentleman to conclude that an early state of ' Hamlet ' was written by Kyd. According to Ben Jonson, * The Spanish Tragedy ' may have been played as early as 1584. This would exclude Kyd. Mr. Boas accordingly gives up the notion that the ' Hamlet ' of 1585 could have been written by Kyd. So we are asked to fall back upon an assumption that a still earlier * Hamlet ' of 1585 was written by some other Englishman who could read the French of the foundation story. Admit that unknown Englishman to have been Bacon, and the difficulty is removed.

A concealed author who had not in 1589 perfected his arrangements for using the names of certain other people would have been likely to have sought to make mystify ing suggestions as to the authorship of certain anonymous plays for men actors which in 1589 had become rather numerous. Hence, probably, arose the obscure hints as to the authorship of ' Tamburlaine,' 'Taming of the

SHAKSPEKE 221

Shrew/ 'Edward III.,' ' The Spanish Tragedy/ 'Henry VI.' (Third Part), 'Bichard, Duke of York/ and 'Hamlet/ which in 1589 proceeded from ' Menaphon ' and its preface.

That the 'Hamlet' of 1603 contained much of the original play may be established in several ways. First, by Mr. Boas's careful comparison of the text of ' Hamlet ' and ' The Spanish Tragedy/ Secondly, by the fact that the 1603 Quarto agrees in certain respects with the German play, a translation probably made when the play was produced in Germany in 1586. If, upon the facts, Bacon wrote in the name of ' Lyly/ then the advice of the Lord Chamberlain to his son, and the suggestion of suicide with a bare bodkin, had already passed through his mind when he wrote the two parts of ' Euphues ' in 1579 and 1580.

The soliloquies of ' Hamlet ' are consistent with the state of mind of an unacknowledged son, a man wholly in a dilemma, with no apparent way out.

There are other indications. Mr. W. L. Hush ton is able to show that certain statutes of Henry VIII. arid Edward VI. concerning the succession to the throne of England were before the mind of the author of ' Hamlet/ and utilized by him in the play.

No man other than a lawyer, such as young Francis Bacon was, would be likely to turn for dramatic inspira tion to the statutes of the realm. It would be exceed ingly unusual even at the present day. On the cipher story revelation as to Bacon's true parentage those statutes were of strong interest to him.

One cannot understand how a law stationer's assistant, such as Kyd was, could have even looked at the statutes, though not entirely impossible. On the ' Kyd ' hypothesis we have difficulty, first, as to his possible access to the ' Histoires Tragiques ' of 1571, and next as to his ability to read them. Kyd, moreover, must have possessed a knowledge not common to scriveners, to have attempted to make play in the grave-digging scene with the in-

222

TUDOR PEOBLEMS

tricacies of ' Hales v. Pettit,' reported in Norman-French in 1578. To a young barrister like Bacon, skilled in both French and English, ' Hales v. Pettit ' would have been a most interesting law moot. Kyd died in 1594 ; but in the 1604 Quarto the ' Hales v. Pettit ' law points are s<t out still more elaborately / At that date Bacon was a most matured and capable lawyer. ' I alter ever while I add, so that nothing is finished until all be finished/ was a sentence in one of his letters. The argument for Kyd, based upon similarities, breaks down directly it is per ceived that ' Kyd ' was only a mask for Bacon.

' Hamlet's ' affectionate references to Yorick, the King's jester, have more than once been discussed by the critics. Mr. Pemberton in an article in ' Baconiana ' has probably succeeded in establishing that Heywood, once jester to Henry VIII., was the person referred to.

' Alas, poor Yoriok ! I knew him well, ***** He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.'

The association of the Queen's * little Lord Keeper ' with her father's old jester, who doubtless continued in her household as an honoured and privileged old servitor, would have been a natural one. The boy and old man had opportunity for many a romp together.

Alterations in the different editions of ' Hamlet ' bear out the cipher claim that Bacon was the true author of the play.

The 1603 Quarto has the line —

' Doubt that the earth is fire.'

In 1604 Bacon wrote a tract urging that the earth was a cold body.

In the 1604 Quarto the line is —

' Doubt that the stars are fire.'

In the 1604 Quarto the movement of the tides is attributed to the influence of the moon.

SHAKSPERE 223

In 1616 Bacon came to a different opinion. From 'Hamlet,' in the Folio of 1623, the reference to the influence of the moon is (says Mr. Edwin Reed) omitted.

The 1604 * Hamlet' agreed with Bacon's belief that there could not be motion without sense. In the 1623 * De Augmentis ' Bacon changed his opinion. From the ' Hamlet ' of the 1623 Folio the passage associating sense with motion is omitted.

The following are a few illustrations of identities of thought in passages from Bacon's acknowledged work and passages in ' Hamlet.'

Since all the roads point to Borne, we shall hope to get there some time.

PAEALLELS.

* For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog being a god-kissing carrion.' — Hamlet, 1604.

'Aristotle dogmatically assigned the cause of generation to the sun.' — BACON : Novum (jrganum, 1608.

4 A silence in the heavens, the rack stood still, The bold winds speechless and the orb below As hush as death ; anon, the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region.'

Hamlet, 1604.

* The winds in the upper region (which move the clouds about what we call the rack, and are not perceived below) pass without noise.' — BACON : Sylva Sylvarum, 1622.

'Assume a virtue if you have it not.' — Hamlet, 1604.

* Whatsoever a want a man hath, he must see that he pretend the virtue that shadoweth it.' — BACON : Advancement of Learning, 1605.

' From the tables Of my memory I'll wipe away all saws of books/

Hamlet, 1603.

* Tables of the mind differ from the common tables . . . you will scarcely wipe out the former records unless you shall have inscribed the new.' — BACON : Eedargutio Phil.

224 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

'Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.' — Hamlet, 1604.

* They were only taking pains to show a kind of method and dis cretion in their madness.' — BACON : Novum Organum, 1620.

' POLONIUS. What do you read, my lord ? HAMLET. Words, words, words. POLONIUS. What is the matter, my lord?

Hamlet, 1604.

* Here, then, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter/ — BACON : Advancement of Learning, 1605.

' There's such divinity doth hedge a king That treason dares not look on.'

Hamlet, 1603.

' God hath implanted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous intent.' — BACON : Speech at Trial of Essex, 1601.

' HAMLET. Denmark's a prison. KOSENCRANTZ. Then is the world one.'

Hamlet, 1623.

The world is a prison.' — BACON : Letter to Buckingham, 1621.

< I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.'

Hamlet, 1603.

'The truth of nature lies hid in certain deep mines and caves.' — BACON: Advancement of Learning, 1605.

' This majestical roof fretted with golden fire.'

Hamlet, 1604.

' For if that great workmaster had been of a human disposition he would cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders like the frets in the roofs of houses.' — BACON : Advancement of Learn ing, 1605.

' The Cyclops hammers fall On Mars his armor forg'd for proof eterne.'

Hamlet, 1604.

' With officious industry the Cyclopes laboured hard with a terrible din in forging thunderbolts and other instruments of terror.' — BACON : Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609.

SHAKSPEEE 225

1 HAMLET (pointing to the dead body of Polonius). This counsellor is

now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave.'

.Hamlet, 1604.

' The best counsellors are the dead.' — BACON : Essay of Counsel.

'She swoons to see them bleed.' — Hamlet, 1604.

' Many upon seeing of others bleed, themselves are ready to faint/ — BACON: Sylva Sylvarum, 1627.

'To thine ownself be true.'— Hamlet, 1603.

' I prefer nothing but that they be true to themselves and I true to myself.'— BACON : Promus, 1594-6.

Let us, living in the twentieth century, also be true to ourselves, though it may involve a wrench to part with the assumptions of a lifetime.

One more parallel :

' There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Hough-hew them how we will.'

Hamlet, 1664.

In the biliteral decipher from ' Novum Organum* (1620) are the following beautiful sentences of the concealed poet, Francis Bacon :

* I have lost therein a present fame that I may out of anie doubt recover it in our owne and othe' lands after manie a long yeare. I think some ray — that farre off golden morning — will glimmer ev'n into the tombe where I shall lie, and I shall know that wisdome led me thus to wait unhonour'd as is meete until in the perfected time — which the Ruler that doth wisely shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will, doth ev'n now know — my justification bee complete/

15

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ALLEGORY

THE play of ' Taming of the Shrew ' is evidently a revision of one which Francis printed anonymously in 1594.

The story of the drunken tinker forming the Induction is said to have been derived from Ludovic Vives or from Heuter's ' History of Burgundy.' It is also related in the 1 Anatomy of Melancholy/ but it is said to be really only a version of the ' Arabian Nights ' story of the ' Sleeper Awakened.' As used in the play of 1 594 the Induction had no allusive meaning. But as re- written for the Shakespeare Folio of 1623, it is full of allusive words. For neither play is the Induction needed (says Mr. Wigston), and the drunken tinker, who is made to believe himself a lord whose actors are performing for his amusement, disappears after the first act.

Another odd thing about the Induction in the Folio play is that in it are practically the only associations with Stratford-on-Avon. That is, if we exclude the very suggestive name in ' Henry IV.' of William Visor of Woncot.

The tinker calls himself Christophero Sly. Sly was the surname of a player in the employment of Henry VIII. ; Christopher was the Christian name of the player Marlowe, who died in 1593. To the landlady who refused to supply him with more ale the tinker remarks :

' Ye are a baggage ; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the chronicles ; we came in with Richard Conqueror.'

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THE ALLEGOEY 227

This may refer to the use of the Stratford actor's name as vizard for plays first essayed upon the reprinted chronicle plays of 'Richard II.' and * Richard III.' in 1598, and to the application of the actor's father for a coat-of- arms on grounds of claim to nobility. According to statute an actor was a 'rogue.' The drunken tinker while asleep has the remark passed upon him, ' How like a swine he lies.'

'Swine' and 'Bacon' were the Saxon and Norman names of the same animal.

When questioned he says he is old Sly's son, of Barton Heath. Barton-on-the-Heath is a few miles from Stratford. He says he was by ' birth a pedlar,' which may be an allusion to his father's trade. By ' education a card-maker/ His father became a woolstapler, and the observation may allude to the instruments of leather and wire with which wool was carded. By ' transmutation a bear-herd.' This may refer to some early employment of the Stratford runaway at the Paris Garden on Bankside, where bears were exhibited. ' And now by present profession a tinker,' may allude to the drinking habits alleged to have been contracted by the Stratfordiari in retirement.

Dr. Schmidt in his 'Shakespeare Lexicon' gives ' Tinker' as a name applied to anyone who was a proverbial tippler. Sly professes to have known Marian Hackett, the fat ale-wife of Wincot. Wilmecot was a neighbouring village to that where the Stratford actor was born.

If we take ' Faire Emm with the loves of William the Conqueror,' a play which Mr. Simpson considered to be referred to in the shake-scene passage of the ' Groatsworth of Wit ' (1592), as the first in which the actor Shakespeare performed, there is a possible explanation of another allusion in the Induction. The pseudo-lord is stated to have been for fifteen years in a dream. The play of 'Taming of the Shrew' was entered at S. K in 1607; 1592 from 1607 leaves fifteen.

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TUDOR PEOBLEMS

It is singular to find a drunken tinker using Spanish words : ' Therefore paucas pallabris, let the world slide : Cessa !' These words were not used in the 1594 play.

In 1584, Ruiz, a Spanish author, in ' Libro di Can tares,' had the line * Pocas palabras cumplen al buen entenedor,' which has been rendered into English as ' And sparing words suffice for listeners wise.' Cessa is the Spanish word for ' Be silent.'

The insistent investigator of these curious allusions is thus obscurely requested to * let the world slide,' allow the matter to pass for the time being, to be silent as to his discoveries, and to be sparing of comment. So what, in the 'Taming of the Shrew' (1594), was the mere relation of an old joke at the expense of a travelling tinker, became, in the 1623 Folio, a veiled allegory of the use of the Stratford actor as visor.

CHAPTER XXV

EDUCATIONAL

OWING to the paucity of available facts, Shakspere had to be educated hypothetically to suit the situation.

Born in 1564, in the scattered and squalid village of Strat ford-on- A von, licensed to marry in 1582, and having children baptized as late as 1585, we must assume the first twenty-one years of his life to have been spent in and around Stratford.

Our first inquiry should be, ' Did he ever go to school ?' In those days, and certainly in that district, boys did not become schoolboys as a matter of course. Thirteen of the village council of nineteen were unable to sign their names. From Ascham's ' Schoolmaster,' published 1571, we learn that a father did not send a child to school unless it had aptitude. Sending a child to school in those days was as much a matter of consideration as sending a boy to the Army or Church is in these.

'A dull child/ says Ascham, 'never lacketh beating.' Perusal of this little book gives one a better understand ing of the

* Whining schoolboy with his satchel, Creeping like snail unwillingly to school.'

Supporting the assumption that Shakspere actually went to school are two facts :

1. He became an actor. Although oral methods of teaching were used in those days, it is not improbable he learnt to read sufficiently to memorize his parts himself.

229

230 TUDOR PROBLEMS

2. From five alleged signatures which have been preserved he could possibly write his name.

If he went to school, we may safely assume it was in Stratford. In 1578 his father could not raise fourpence for rates, and, presumably, was unable to pay for his son being boarded and educated in a neighbouring town — Coventry, for instance.

In 1535 and onwards Stratford possessed a grammar school. What were these grammar schools, and how did this one develope ?

Says the 1868 Schools Commission Report :

' Choirs in training to sing the Latin offices appear to have been the nucleus of many of the early Grammar Schools ; and when the Chantries and Monasteries were dissolved at the Reformation, the Schoolmaster was restored with the Latin grammar in his hand.'

According to Dugdale, the Guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford had, in the year 1535, four priests and a clerk, who was also schoolmaster, at £10 per annum. A later survey showed that their possessions, in addition to tithes, comprised a five-roomed priests' house, a garden and dovehouse, and that one of the priests conducted services at a central chapel, and was teacher of the grammar school at the side of it.

All this was very necessary. The choristers had to be trained to read and sing in Latin.

In 1540 the Guild was dissolved with the other English monasteries.

In 1553 Stratford obtained a re-grant of the forfeited tithes, conditional on the town (which was incorporated for the purpose) maintaining a vicar, curate, and school master, paying some alms-people, and keeping the chapel, bridge, and school in repair.

When Shakspere was nine years old, the small school room was still preserved and had a schoolmaster.

What books were available to the scholars ? The

EDUCATIONAL 231

wills and inventories of the time and district do not disclose the existence of any books as private property.

The Stationers' Register for the period shows, indeed, a singularly poor supply for the whole of England. What books, then, may be expected to have belonged to the school under the personal charge of the master ?

Lilly's Latin Grammar must have been there, and none other, so as to comply with the Queen's Ordinances of 1559 and 1571.

Ocland's 'Latin Panegyric of Elizabeth,' written in 1580, was also enjoined to be read as a classic in every grammar school. For Dictionary (Latin-English) they had probably Cooper's * Thesaurus' (1552). Other likely equipments would be the * Abceedarium ' of 1552, the Psalter, the English Catechism, the Horn book, some inkhorns, quills, slates, tallow candles, and the schoolmaster's rod.

This hardly seems enough educational material where with to acquire at Stratford the classical knowledge of Latin shown in the plays arid verses title-paged to Shakspere, while of education in English there was apparently none.

The late Mr. Churton Collins (Fortnightly, April, 1903) brilliantly demonstrated that the writer of the plays

4 could almost certainly read Latin with as much facility as a cultivated Englishman of our own time reads French ; that with some, at least, of the principal Latin classics he was intimately acquainted ; that through the Latin language he had access to the Greek classics, and that of the Greek classics in the Latin versions he had, in all probability, a remarkably extensive knowledge.'

Mr. Collins, however, felt that he could, hypothetically, educate his man in Latin, at any rate.

Mr. Spencer Baynes had once essayed the task, and succeeded in bringing settled convictions to Mrs. Stopes — but his notions did not satisfy Mr. Collins.

Mr. Baynes vouched the book of one Hoole, published

232 TUDOE PROBLEMS

in 1659, of what happened about 1622 at Rotherham's first school, of which he was head master. At this school one master taught writing, another music, and a third grammar. The statement as to what Latin authors were read in a grammar school about fifty years after the time when Shakspere could have gone to school is of no pertinent value. But when Hoole goes on to refer to the ' traditional plan of forcing a child to learn by heart a crude mass of abstractions and technic alities it cannot comprehend, of compelling it to repeat in dull mechanical routine definitions and rules of which it understands neither the meaning nor the application/ we may safely assume that matters at least were no better in 1573.

After a reference to the book of one Brinsley, who can tell us very little, Mr. Spencer Baynes next vouched the curriculum prescribed in 1583 by its founder, for the Grammar School of St. Bees in Cumberland. Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born there, and devoted his last years to founding and endowing this school. He was an eminent scholar, and naturally very particular about the curriculum of the project of his old age ; but as the patent and transfers to the school governors were not confirmed until 1605, it is doubtful whether the school was in working order until that date.

The Archbishop's Ordinances are set out in Carlisle's * Endowed Grammar Schools.' Mr. Baynes argued that the curriculum, so carefully prescribed for St. Bees, is a fair guide as to the curricula of other grammar schools of the period, and many years earlier. An obvious comment is, ' Why, then, was it specifically and in detail prescribed f

That the founder was so particular as to the course of reading at a school his own money was to endow is an indication that existing systems did not meet with his approval. Nor have we any proof that the full course was ever followed, because in the Ordinances the school-

EDUCATIONAL 233

master is allowed his choice of the prescribed books, ' to take or leave as he thinketh meet, save that the Accidence, the Queen's Grammar, and the Catechism shall not be omitted.'

Clearly, this minimum curriculum was contemplated by the founder as, possibly, all that might be practicable.

Mr. Churton Collins very properly rejected Mr. Baynes as an unsafe guide upon the subject of Stratford education in 1573.

Mr. Collins himself was equally in the clouds. He took, as representative of an average grammar-school course in 1573, the curriculum formulated by no less a person than Cardinal Wolsey in 1528 for a projected school at Ipswich.

' Wolsey,' writes Mr. Chalmers, ' was a liberal patron of literature, of consummate taste in works of art, elegant in his plans, and boundless in his expenses to execute them.'

About 1519 he contemplated an elaborate and ex pensive scheme of lectureships in Oxford, but three only were realized — Greek, Latin, and Rhetoric — at Corpus Christi Hall.

His schemes of building were grandly conceived, and executed with care and deliberation.

To build Hampton Court Palace occupied Wolsey from 1514 to 1528 — a period of fourteen years.

For Wolsey 's projected Cardinal College, Oxford, the revenues of twenty-two suppressed religious orders, totalling to £2,000 per annum of money in those days, were appropriated.

The foundation-laying was a big public ceremonial on March 20, 1525. One year's capital outlay on building was nearly £8,000. When Wolsey died, in 1530, only the kitchen, the hall, and about three sides of the quadrangle were finished.

A college of 160 persons had been formed to occupy it, but there were no scholars. These were to be supplied

234 TUDOR PROBLEMS

from Wolsey's native town of Ipswich. Let us follow the working of his scheme there.

At Ipswich his plan comprised a college constituted of a dean, twelve canons, eight clerks, and eight choristers. The college building was to have a grammar school attached.

He obtained an old priory site of six acres in March, 1527, and requested the French Court to open a new quarry at Caen to supply him with good stone. For endowment he obtained transfer of part of the possessions of ten monasteries.

In 1528 he drew up in Latin the rules of his college and school. They are to be found set out in a book called ' Essay on a System of Classical Instruction ' (London : John Taylor, 1825).

Wolsey evidently intended a large number of classes working on a finely graduated system. Interest was to be excited in the district by publication of the proposed rules. The Corporation had to be won over to the scheme, as some of their lands were required. It is, as it were, this grandiloquent prospectus of a company, which did not go to allotment, that caused Mr. Collins not to abandon the orthodox notion of the authorship of the plays.

From this hypothetical grammar school those most soundly prepared scholars were intended to be passed on to the college in Oxford, taught by the best men of the day — a college which, according to Wolsey's promises, was to be the repository of copies of all the manuscripts of the Vatican. The curriculum was the best Wolsey could devise.

Was it ever taught ? In Wodderspoon's * Historic Sites of Suffolk ' there are some useful facts. The foundation-stone of the college and school was not laid until June 15, 1528, and the Corporation granted their land in the same year.

Mr. Wodderspoon sets out an interesting letter to Wolsey from the newly- appointed Dean, dated Sep

EDUCATIONAL 235

tember 27 (probably of 1529). It speaks of the delivery of 171 tons of stone from Caen, and that more was expected. The college part appears to have been just set going, but whether in a temporary building or not is not shown. The priory was taken over with the site ; so the priory building may have been used for the college for the time being. He speaks of a procession to church of himself, the sub-dean, six priests, eight clerks, and nine choristers, 'with all our servants.' He refers to the difficulty of the sub-dean ' upon his charge of survey ing of the works and buildings of your Grace's College.'

He also refers to a Mr. Senthall, who ' is always present at Mattins, and all Masses with Evensong,' and who * is very sober and discrete, and bringeth up your choristers very well, assuring your Grace there shall be no better children in no place of England than we shall have here, and that in a short time.' There is no evidence that anything more than the gatehouse was ever built. Wolsey's disgrace and death were in 1530.

According to Dugdale's ' Monasteries,' the site of the college was granted to someone else in 1532, two years after Wolsey's collapse.

Upon the evidence, Wolseys curriculum was never put into practice, even at Ipswich.

But why go to an Archbishop's school in the North- West, or to a Cardinal's school in the East, of England for relevant inferences about the sort of education avail able at Stratford-on-Avon ?

What evidence is to be gathered from neighbouring towns in Warwickshire ? Mrs. Stopes tells us that on Speed's old map of Warwickshire, Stratford is shown as second only to Coventry.

At Coventry in 1546, one Hales maintained a school in the choir of the church. In 1573 his executors conveyed to the Corporation revenues to maintain a City Free School, paying £20 per annum to a master, £10 to an usher, and £2 12s. to a music master.

236 TUDOE PROBLEMS

According to Ordinances as late as 1628, charcoal only was to be burnt in the school ; the scholars were riot to have free run of the library ; the dictionaries were to be chained, and the masters were made responsible for all books from the Corporation library.

St. Paul's School, London, was founded by Dean Colet in 1510. Its curriculum, formulated in June, 1518, shows nothing in common with Wolsey's. ' First the Catechism in English, next the Latin Accidence, then Erasmus and other Christian authors.'

Search the particulars of other schools of the period, and no evidence of uniformity of scholars' courses can be found.

Shakspere's hypothetical education at Stratford, ac cording to a curriculum prescribed for, but doubtless never practised, at Ipswich, will therefore not stand cross-examination .

But both Wolsey's and Grindal's courses are useful indications of what a good tutor at the University would be likely to teach, and the higher-grade literature which a well-placed student, such as the writer of the plays, according to Mr. Collins, evidently had access to.

Private tuition for the sons of the aristocracy was the main care in those days. Ascham's ' Schoolmaster ' clearly shows this.

In view of the cipher story it is interesting to read Ascham's statement about the Queen's literary ability :

'Yes, I believe that, beside her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, she readeth here now at Windsor (1571) more Greek every day than some Prebendary of the Church doth read Latin in a whole week.'

On Mr. Collins's assumption, the man who, before the age of twenty-one, developed such wonderful classical facility, passed on his way the neighbouring University of Oxford, in order to become an actor in London !

EDUCATIONAL 237

Mr. Collins's imagination gave to ' airy nothings a local habitation/

In one of the plays are these lines :

* Some are born great, some achieve greatness, Some have greatness thrust upon them.'

Shakspere was an able actor, who filled the position of mask for certain of the writings of a great man. This was in the way of his trade, and to that position he remained true to the last. Neither by recorded word of mouth, nor the terms of his will or of any other published document, nor by the facts of his life after leaving the stage, did he seek to mislead. He was no fraud ; he was a vizard — a Figure. His greatness has been thrust upon him.

CHAPTEE XXVI

THE PLAY FOLIO

Two important books were published under the date of 1623. They were printed in folio shape, on foolscap paper of similar quality, measuring 8^ inches by 13, in similar type, and substantially bound.

One, the Science Folio, was entitled ' De Augmentis Scientiarum,' by Francis Bacon. The other, the Play Folio, was called ' Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true original copies.' Preliminary to the latter, Blount and Jaggard, in August, 1623, entered for their copies at the Stationers' Company sixteen Shakespeare plays theretofore imprinted.

For ' King John,' 'Taming of the Shrew' and ' Henry VI.,' parts I. and II. , materially augmented and re-written, no licence was obtained. They had been printed anony mously — ' King John ' in 1591, and the others in 1594.

Of the plays printed in quarto before 1623, with the name of Shakespeare on title-page, two — viz., 'Merry Wives of Windsor' and 'Henry V.' — were improved in the Folio ; while three — namely, 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'Mid summer Night's Dream,' and ' Richard II.' — were better plays in quarto than in the Folio. Other plays then already published in quarto were the subject of much enlargement and emendation in the Folio, ' the altera tions,' said Mr. Swinburne, 'being for the benefit of readers only/ The Science Folio was a reproduction in Latin of Bacon's 4 Advancement of Learning,' with con-

238

„%<- '//Uy//,

'• nj/.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PLAY FOLIO

Two important books were published under the date of 1623. They were printed in folio shape, on foolscap paper of similar quality, measuring 8^ inches by 13, in similar type, and substantially bound.

One, the Scie; !5o, was entitled 'De Augmentis

Scientiarum,' by Fra The other, the Play

Folio, was called ' Mr. William ! Comedies,

Histories, and Tragf the

true original copies.' Preliminary to t ,«r, Blount

and Jaggard, in August, 1623, entered for their copies at the Stationers' Company sixteen Shakespeare plays theretofore imprinted.

King John,' 'Taming of the Shrew' and ' Henry VI.,' parts I. and II. , materially augmented and re-written, no licence was obtained. They had been printed anony mously — ' King John ' in 1591, and the others in 1594.

Of the plays printed in quarto before 1623, with the name of Shakespeare on title-page, two — viz., ' Merry Wives of Windsor' and 'Henry V.' — were improved in the Folio ; while three — namely, ' Love's Labour's Lost,' 'Mid summer Night's Dream/ and ' Richard II.' — were better plays in quarto than in the Folio. Other plays then already published in quarto were the subject of much enlargement and emendation in the Folio, ' the altera tions,' said Mr. Swinburne, ' being for the benefit of readers only/ The Science Folio was a reproduction in Latin of Bacon's 4 Advancement of Learning,' with con-

<?uah 'Gna. nce/wr^e^ tyn

THE PLAY FOLIO 239

siderable revisions and additions. In that respect it resembled the Play Folio. Ben Jonson was writing in Latin for Bacon at that date, as we learn from Arch bishop Tenison. He was the best Latin scholar of his day (so he had affirmed to Drummond), and may have written part of the Latin in which the Science Folio was rendered.

' The History of Life and Death,' printed in January, 1622-3, must have been written by Bacon in the previous year ; and as the * De Augmentis ' was the only work ascribed to him in 1623, it is certain that if Bacon wrote the plays selected, altered and augmented for publication in folio form in 1623, he had, in his retirement from public work, ample time to prepare them for the press.

For noblemen to whom to dedicate the Play Folio he could not have had more faithful friends than the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. They were the sons of his old friend (and cousin, according to the cipher story) the Countess Mary of Pembroke, and both were men of great independence. The old actors, Heminge and Condell, may have been readily induced to lend their names for a first appearance in print of a book of this kind. They could not have been familiar with the dedicatory words, de rived from Pliny's Latin epistle to Vespasian, used in the preface to which their names were appended. That Bacon, on the other hand, was quite familiar with this epistle can be deduced from his letters to King James (1603), to Villiers (1616), and to the House of Lords (1620). The legal terms which succeed one another in Heminge and Condell's dedication — 'arraign/ 'try alls,' 'appeals,' 'quitted by a decree of Court,' 'purchased' — were manifestly not within their ken, but Bacon could write them with practised ease. Shakespearians have, however, almost tumbled over one another to discount the Heminge and Condell statements in the prefaces, as untrustworthy and misleading. Exeunt, therefore, two of the three open sponsors of the Play Folio.

240

TUDOR PROBLEMS

While we are not concerned in finding out the par ticular reason why Bacon as a prolific writer in the weed of poetry, dramatic and otherwise, so much despised by Bodley and other learned men of his day, did not publish it under his own name, we may fairly inquire whether he had some educational object to serve in preparing a Folio selection of his plays for the reading public of future ages. Mr. Wigston's definition of the word ' weed ' seems to be the correct one.

We are all agreed that the plays, with their learning, their study of the passions, their beautiful and impressive language, their philosophical utterances, have been of great educational value to readers. Bacon had an im portant object in this.

In the seventh book of ' De Augmentis ' he observes : 'Writings should be such as should make men in love with the lesson and not with its teachers.' And a few lines further on :

' Both in this present work and in those I intend to publish hereafter I often advisedly and deliberately throw aside the dignity of my name and wit (if such they be) in my endeavour to advance human interests.' (This is the Ellis translation ; the Watts translation is more emphatic and less ambiguous.)

Yet if he sacrificed his own name as teacher, he strove to be sufficiently ambiguous as to leave clear-headed men in enough uncertainty to prevent them falling in love with the Figure or abstraction he put in his place in the Play Folio.

The incongruities and absurdities of the Droeshout portrait should have been enough to give pause. The reader was urged on the very first page to regard the book and not the Figure. Even the ambiguous com mendatory verses were equally devised to cause hesita tion and doubt.

' Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still.'

THE PLAY FOLIO 241

' Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames.'

' And time dissolves thy Stratford monument, Here we alive shall view thee still.'

But it was all to little purpose ; men fell in love with the writings, then with the poetical name, and finally with the nominal teacher. Although these men abandoned Heminge and Condell, they buoyed up their love with the belief that they still had one substantial sponsor left in the contemporary poet Ben Jonson.

Jonson, born in 1574, was forty-nine when the Play Folio was in preparation, and sixty-three when he died (1637).

In 1641 some dissertations from his pen, entitled * Timber,' or ' Discoveries/ were printed. According to a learned writer on Elizabethan literature, Mr. Crawford, these dissertations were largely derived from Bacon. Material, therefore, to the question of the value of Jonson's testimony in the Play Folio (ambiguous as much of it is) are four passages in his 'Discoveries,' written after Bacon's death (1626). Under the heading 1 Dominus Verulamius ' Jonson discussed and highly appraised Bacon as an Orator. Under ' Scriptorum Catalogus ' he valued his worth as a Poet and placed the deceased Lord Chancellor at the top of the literary men of all ages. In doing so he incidentally stultified his verses prefixed to the Play Folio, unless in the latter he was ambiguously referring to Bacon. Under the heading of ' De Augmentis, Lord St. Alban,' he discussed Bacon as an Educationalist. The words used in all three passages are those of intense personal affection and veneration. Elsewhere in the ' De Augmentis ' passage, however, there is considerable ambiguity of expression. The remark about Julius Caesar is unintelligible. Bacon gave no such reason for naming one of his books ' Novum Organum.' But if Jonson wanted to

16

242 TUDOR PROBLEMS

allude to Bacon's new method of teaching, described in his tract ' Filum Labyrinthi/ in which Bacon projected a departure from pedagogic practice in favour of a system by which he should not reveal himself as the teacher, we can better understand Jonson when he proceeded to add in the * De Augmentis ' passage :

' Which, though by the most superficial men, ivho cannot get beyond the title of Nominal*, it is not penetrated nor under stood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever!

Under nominal titles you can reach your readers better. They are best instructed when they are unaware of the process being of set purpose in operation.

Jonson not only discussed Bacon as Orator under his title of Lord Verulam, as Poet under the reference to him as Lord Chancellor, and as Educationalist under the title of Lord St. Alban, but in another passage of his 4 Discoveries ' he criticized someone under another title : 4 De Shakespeare Nostrat Augustus in Hat/ Interspaced between this criticism and those on Bacon as orator, poet, and educationalist, are certain dissertations, num bered from one to ten. It is odd to find this special numbering (numbers are only used in one other place), seeing that in the * Manes Verulamiana ' Bacon is called the tenth muse. As Mr. Wigston rioted in ' Baconiana ' (1909), the Decad or Denarius was a term employed summarily for the whole science of numbers, and ten as the first nominal of the second series conveys the suggestion of a rebirth. But why * Our Shakespeare/ unless Jonson was differentiating between the user of a pseudonym and the man-player whose name had been improved upon to form it ?

Manifestly it would have been imprudent to have put the ' De Shakespeare nostrat ' passage in close juxta position with the other headed passages above men tioned, or even the ' most of superficial men ' might be getting beyond the title of Nominals ! The numbers one to ten accordingly bridged the interspace. Then

THE PLAY FOLIO 243

he gives us another clue, c Augustus in Hat.' Augustus was a Caesar to whom the name Augustus was given by the Senate and people as a mark of great veneration and respect. That Jonson greatly venerated Francis Bacon is shown in the other passages.

4 In Hat/ Who was the contemporary of Jonson who was held in such great veneration, and whose hat was such a well-known feature ?

In his old age, if we may judge by his portraits, Bacon, even indoors, was rarely without his hat. Apart from the biliteral cipher revelations, the man who wore a mantle of kingly purple at his wedding may have had some habit of asserting the kingly privilege of remaining covered in the secret society of his literary assistants and private friends. To such a habit Jonson could safely refer. The Privy Council of which Bacon was a member, wore their hats when hearing causes.

If Jonson wished to publish his opinion of his friend Bacon as poet, orator and educationalist, still more might we expect him to place on record his view of him as a fellow dramatist.

From 1598 onwards he had been always critical of the author of the Shakespeare plays, as many allusions in his own plays bear witness. Moreover, he held the opinion (expressed to Drummond), that Shakespeare wanted art and sometimes sense. Had he not blundered (in one of his plays) in placing Bohemia on the sea-coast ? As a criticism of a fellow dramatist this was quite fair and sound, though, as a fact, Bohemia had seaports on the Baltic and Adriatic during the dominion of one of its Kings (Freeman's 'Historical Geography of Europe').

* Would he had blotted a thousand/ was another observation which Jonson could fairly make.

A stupid phrase in ' Julius Caesar ' as first played had also stuck in old Jonson's memory. He had pilloried it in 'Staple of News,' acted 1625. ' Cry you mercy, you never did wrong but with just cause.'

244 TUDOE PROBLEMS

Nor could he as one of Bacon's assistants, writing at the old man's dictation, have failed to wonder when the eloquent flow of words would end, or how, like Augustus Caesar's verbose senator, he could be stopped. Apart from these very justifiable comments, Jorison loved the man and honoured his memory on this side of idolatry as much as any. Jonson was at pains to put a separate heading to each of the three passages in which he discussed the attainments of Francis Bacon as an orator, a poet, and an educationalist. It is reasonable to expect that if he wished to refer to him as a dramatist, he would, while respecting his friend's wish for concealment, yet find means to make his meaning clear to those taught or self-taught to understand acromatic methods of communication.

1 De Shakespeare Nostrat Augustus in Hat/

Our Shakespeare, the much venerated old man who so continuously remained covered in more senses than one.

Jonson held ' Our Shakespeare ' and Francis Bacon in most affectionate regard. It may have been possible for this old man of sixty to idolize the memory of two separate individuals — one the friend not long deceased, the other dead more than ten years earlier — but a fair inference is, that Jonson's affection was for one man alone, however styled.

In the Science Folio is a passage with which, whether as translator or reader, Jonson would be familiar. It refers to a scheme of communicating which Bacon had devised :

* By obscurity of delivery to exclude the vulgar (the profane vulgar) from the secrets of knowledge, and to admit those persons only who have received the interpre tation of the enigmas through the hands of teachers or have wits of such sharpness and discernment that they can of themselves pierce the veil/

Herein is largely the explanation why Bacon's secrets were so well kept. Those who during many years after

THE PLAY FOLIO 245

his death, acquired them, became a class above the pro fane vulgar, and kept the secrets thus attained to with all the pride of initiates into Freemasonry.

Those who have in modern times pierced the veil, such as the Eev. William A. Sutton, S.L (see his book the 1 Shakespeare Enigma '), will appreciate the fact that Bacon's * Novum Organum ' was not a new method, but was so named to divert attention from his real new and secret method :

' Of publishing in a manner whereby it shall not be to the capacity nor taste of all, but shall, as it were, single out and adopt his reader' (' Valerius Terminus').

* A new method must be adopted by which we may be able to insinuate ourselves into minds the most darkened. That the method should be innocuous — that is, that it should afford no handle or occasion to any error whatever, that it should have a certain innate and inherent strength for attracting to itself confidence and repelling the injuries of time, so that doctrine thus handed on should select, and, as it were, adopt a fit and rightful reader for itself/ ' And to future ages I appeal whether or not I have effected this.'

This very success with one application of Bacon's secret method — namely, to the Play Folio — has drifted so many readers of Shakespeare into permanent attachment to the idol under whose name Bacon published some of his teachings.

Perhaps it had to be so. The title of Nominals has captured more * superficial men ' than Bacon designed, despite the patent and latent ambiguities prepared in the Folio.

This method Jonson adopted. In his 'Discoveries' the fact that he was criticizing and praising his dead friend Bacon as dramatist under the heading c De Shakespeare Nostrat' is as plain, as anyone alive to Bacon's reserved method of delivery, could wish to have it.

Directly one appreciates that Jonson was making use of this method of delivery in his 'Timber' the

246 TUDOR PROBLEMS

latter ceases to give shelter to devout Stratfordians. Of the three contemporary sponsors employed in dressing up the actor-author ' Figure,' two have been very properly discarded. The third sponsor predicted their difficulties as ' the most of superficial men unable to get beyond the title of Nominals.1

* He is gone indeed ; The wonder is he hath endured so long.'

King Lear.

CHAPTER XXVIT

ETERNIZING

' // is the Muse alone can raise to heaven, And at her strong arm's eml hold up and even The souls she loves. Those other glorious notes Inscribed in touch or marble, or the coats Painted or carved upon our great men's tombs Or on their windows, do but prove their wombs That bred them, graves ; when they were born they died, They had no Must to make their fame abide*

THE above is a portion of some verses addressed to Elizabeth Countess of Rutland, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney, and stepdaughter of Robert Earl of Essex. They were published amongst Jonson's poems in 1616.

For reasons which appeared to him sufficient, Mr. A. J. Williams has stated that they were written by Francis Bacon. They form part of the ' Forrest,' which, in turn, is said to be connected with an emblematic cipher in which words such as * timber/ ' underwoods/ ' Sylva/ ' logs/ have a significance and association which others may sometime be able to interpret. The word ' touch ' refers to a sort of black marble, or granite.

This chapter is concerned with what seems to have been Francis Bacon's scheme for giving to the names of his best friends that immortality of fame which, in his opinion, the printed page only could confer. He had no belief in the ordinary purpose of dedications, and his use of them was mostly with the notion of c memorizing ' or * eternizing ' his friends.

; Addressing the Earl of Southampton in the dedicatory

247

248 TUDOR PROBLEMS

preface to * Jack Wilton,' a novel printed in 1594 under the vizard of ' Nash/ he wrote : ' I know not what blind custom methodicall antiquity hath thrust upon us to dedicate such books as we publish to one great man or another.'

Addressing King James in the preface to the * Advance ment of Learning' (1605), he remarked : * Neither is the modern dedication of books to be commended, for that books, such as are worthy the name of books, ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.' His ' Shakespeare sonnets' (1609) show that in his works and their dedica tions he conceived * himself to be laying great bases for eternity/ This attitude of mind is further evidenced in the following excerpts :

In the dedication to Sir Charles Blount (Mountjoye) of the ' Anatomy of Absurditie ' (1589), being the first work put out in the vizard of ' Nash/ he states that a certain cause ' hath compelled my wit to wander abroad un guarded in this satyricall disguise/ Referring to the Queen in the same preface, he remarks : * My tongue is too base a Try ton to eternize her praise.'

In the sonnet to Sir John Norris (one of several affixed to the c Faerie Queene' (1590), printed under the vizard of * Spenser '), he asks Sir John ' to love him that hath eternized your name.'

To Lady Carey, in the dedication of ' Christ's Tears over Jerusalem ' (1593, * Nash '), he said : ' Divine Ladie, you I must and will memorize more especially.' And, again : * Fame's eldest favourite, Maister Spenser, in all his writings hie prizeth you. To the eternizing of the heroycall familie of the Careys my choisest studies have I tasked.' Francis used ' fame ' in the sense of ' rumour.'

In the dedication to the Earl of Southampton of ' Jack Wilton ; (1594), he wrote : ' A new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get me to canonize your name to posteritie.' Evidently Francis thought it unfair to South ampton that his name should only go down to posterity

ETERNIZING 249

in the dedication of the two amorous poems/ { Venus and Adonis' (1593) and 'Lucrece' (1594).

In 1595 Francis prefaced his translation of Garnier's 4 Cornelie ' (printed in the name of Kyd, one of his assistants then just deceased) with a dedication to the Countess of Sussex. In this preface he remarked to her: ' Thus I purposed to make known my memory of you and them to be immortal.'

In the preface to King James of the ' Advancement of Learning' (1605), Francis said that certain attributes of the King deserved to be expressed ' in some solid work fixed memorial and immortal monument. . . . There fore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end.'

The following group of Francis Bacon's vizard writings, printed prior to 1603, should now be considered. (See tables at the end of this chapter.)

To his friend the talented Earl of Oxford, who married Lord Burleigh's daughter in 1571 and was himself a poet and prose writer, three works were dedicated ; to the influential Earl of Arundel, Lord Steward of the House hold, two. Three were addressed by Francis to his intimate literary friend and cousin, Philip Sidney, and one to Sidney's father-in-law, Sir F. Walsingham. To the author's father, the Earl of Leicester, an Emblem book and a serious treatise were dedicated, and after the latter died a poem, entitled ' Virgil's Gnat' (1591).

With the Cumberland family the dedications exhibit that Francis was on terms of close intimacy. One small volume was addressed to the Countess of Derby, half- sister of George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, two to the Earl himself and two to his wife, though with her was associated her sister Anne, Countess of Warwick. The Earl of Cumberland had two sons, who were christened Francis and Robert, but who died in infancy ; and one daughter, Anne, who, whilst widow of Earl

250 TUDOE PROBLEMS

Dorset (1620), erected a monument to ' Spenser.' She afterwards married (1630) Philip Earl of Pembroke, to whom the Shakespeare Folio of 1623 was dedicated. Two publications, 'Meliba?us' and ' Astrophel,' were associated with the name of Sidney's widow, and two with his sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke, while another was dedicated to the widowed Lady Mary Talbot, who was sister-in-law to the Countess.

To Lord Ferdinando Strange, eldest son of the above- mentioned Countess of Derby, was dedicated a tale ; to Lady Strange a poem ; to her sister, Lady Compton, a poem ; and to Lord Compton another poem. Sir George Carey (eldest son of the Queen's cousin, Lord Hunsdon) was eternized indirectly, two works being dedicated to his wife (sister of Lady Strange), and one to his only daughter, while to his brother, Robert Carey, was dedicated a short pamphlet. Sir Charles Blount (after wards Lord Mountjoye, Earl of Devonshire) was honoured in this way in two of the vizarded works as well as in the ' Colours of Good and Evil.' The Countess of Sussex, who was a comely personage and of rare wit, was honoured on two occasions (one being when she was Lady Fitzwalters). Thomas Burnaby is named in two dedica tions, the Earl of Southampton in three, and the Earl of Essex in two. Lady Elizabeth Hatton (whom subse quently Francis wanted to marry) was also remembered. She, through her deceased husband, Sir William Hatton, had succeeded to Sir Christopher Hatton's estates. She was a daughter of Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, the eldest son of Lord Burleigh. Arthur Gorges, who translated Bacon's 'Essays' into French, is memorized in ' Daph- naida.' Lords Burleigh, Darcy, De la Warre, and Northumberland, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robart Need- ham, Gervis Clifton (who married Penelope Rich), and a few others are each of them associated with one or other of the vizarded works, while to the Queen herself was dedicated his great poem, ' The Faerie Queene/ His

ETERNIZING 251

acknowledged works were dedicated to such persons as the King, Prince Henry, Anthony Bacon, Sir John Constable, and so on.

The evidence indicates that Francis planned with con siderable care and forethought the memorizing, canonizing, or eternizing — as he variously expressed himself — of his important friends and compeers, with the view to securing that immortality for their names in association with his works which he expected of the works themselves. This one may venture to style the fine art of eternizing.

True to his intent to preserve their memory in some thing more lasting than brass or marble, Francis com memorated the deaths of his friends and helpers (1) Sir Francis Walsingham, (2) Sir Christopher Hatton, and (3) Sir Philip Sidney, in pastoral elegies :

1. ' Melibseus' (' Watson/ 1590).

2. 'Maiden's Dreame' ('Greene,' 1592).

3. < Astrophel ' (' Spenser,' 1596).

Sir Nicholas and Lady Bacon and family did not materially interest him.

Beyond mentioning the first named in an Apothegm, and his foster-brother Anthony, in the dedication of his first ten Essays, he made no attempt to commemorate this Bacon family in either prose or verse.

Francis had necessarily to keep silence as to his own father, the Earl of Leicester.

Yet he contrived under the ' Spenser ' vizard in 'Humes of Time' and ' Virgil's Gnat,' 1591, to give ex pression to his great sorrow at his father's death.

With regard to his brother, the Earl of Essex, his position was still more difficult. In the ' Phoenix and the Turtle ' he breathed his sighs, and in his ' Apology ' kept the memory of his brother before his countrymen, but his deepest anguish had to be reserved for ex pression in cipher, until the far-off day when he hoped to be heard in his own defence.

He registered the praiseworthy qualities entitling

252

TUDOR PROBLEMS

his mother, Queen Elizabeth, to contemporary credit and renown, in the booklet entitled, ' In Felicem Memoriam Elizabethae,' 1607. He postponed unpl easing facts.

He spent part of his remaining time in writing a monograph to the memory of the greatest of the Tudor kings, his great-grandfather, Henry VII.

Strange to say, his prose account and eulogy of one of his greatest friends was never put into print until the year 1732.

We allude to his ' Life of William Cecil Lord Burghley.' A Mr. Collins copied it from a manuscript, then in the library of the Marquis of Exeter, and Mr. W. T. Smedley believes that he has detected Bacon's authorship.

There is very little doubt that Francis wrote the ' Life ' and submitted it to Burleigh's eldest son, his friend Thomas Cecil, leaving him to decide as to its pub lication.

We are fortunate in its having been preserved long enough to be printed, as it is a fine piece of writing full of poetic imagery :

6 Amidst the streams of his flowing virtues.'

1 Pillars of the State/

' Justice and Peace kissing each other.7

* Surprised with age's imperfections he was a little sharp in words sometimes, but vanished with the wind/

1 Age the mother of morosity.'

That Francis keenly desired to perpetuate Burleigh's memory, may be gathered from such expressions as the following :

* His fame on the Earth which can never die so longe memorye of anie thiuge is left on earth.'

' I have thought it a duty to so noble a Counsellor to committ the truth to memorie of posteryty.'

* Whose fame in all nations so long and lardgly divulged can never die.'

Who was there of Burleigh's acquaintance, other than

ETERNIZING 253

Francis, who had known him intimately from 1573 to 1598, who was able to write in this easy style ?

4 Gentle and courteous in speeche, sweete in counte nance and pleasinglie sociable/

c Disgrace, defame and discredit him.'

4 Charitable to all, envieing no man's fortune nor proud of his own ' (cf. ' Colin ' in 'As You Like It ').

Who was the man who was able to comment : ' It was in the Queene to take whom she pleased,' and had the necessary intimacy with Court matters as to say : 4 My self can witness he was commaunded to manie things he was loth to doe ' ?

Three sentences alone should establish that Francis wrote this memorial eulogy :

1. ' He never failed to serve his God before he served his Contrie.'

2. c Most patient in hearing, ready in dispatching, and my Id in aunswering suitors.'

3. ' And so leaving his soule with God, his fame to the world, and the truth to all charitable mynds.'

Francis Bacon in his own Will wrote ' For my name and memory I leave it to mens charitable speeches and to foreign nations and the next ages.'

254

TUDOR PROBLEMS

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CHAPTER XXVIII

THE MAZE

WORKERS in the maze of Elizabethan literature may find a few hints useful to them.

It is in the first place most necessary to clear the mind of prepossessions and prepare for the unexpected.

They will not only discover that young Francis Bacon was a prolific writer masked under many vizards, but that he had a good conceit of himself, and did not hesitate under one vizard to praise his work under another.

It will be as well also to start with a proper under standing of what he was and under what conditions he developed.

Finally, the biliteral cipher and its story should not be set aside as something to be taken up when further proofs are forthcoming.

Without the cipher story you are pottering in the dark, and while able to assemble parts of the mosaic, you will not succeed informing its pattern.

Bacon was the unacknowledged because base-begotten son of parents of abnormal position and ability — that is to say, child of the belated and secret marriage of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester.

Brought up as the son of the Queen's confidential man of business, Lord Keeper Bacon, he was cared for and educated most thoroughly as a child who might be one day called to the throne. His remarkable mental

256

THE MAZE 257

development is indicated at an early age in the terra cotta bust of him now at Gorhambury.

As a boy of twelve his education was continued at Trinity College, Cambridge, founded and endowed by the Queen's father.

He was there about three years, under the special charge of Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and there came under the influence of Gabriel Harvey, a young and highly popular Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric.

Most of the year 157G was spent by Francis at the English Court, and he was the subject of much specula tion among the courtiers as to what was his precise relationship to either the Lord Keeper and Lady Ann Bacon, or to the Queen and Dudley. His true parentage was revealed to him as the result of an unpleasant incident, and in September of that year he was packed off for a tour on the Continent, travelling to France in the train of the English Ambassador. He was abroad until March, 1579, and again abroad in 1582, being, while away, supplied with money for his expenses by certain ' friends ' represented by the Queen's confidential official, Sir Thomas Bodley, who was gentleman usher to her private apartments. This gentleman, in a letter printed in ' Heliquse Bodleiana,' exhorted Francis to make a careful study of the arts of government and the sources of national prosperity. His marked mental ability at this date is evidenced by the Latin words written round the Hilliard portrait of 1578, coupled with his own statement that he had invented the biliteral cipher and carefully studied the properties of sound.

The remarkable range in his studies in classical and foreign literature is manifest from the writings under his earlier vizards, such as ' Immerito,' ' Watson/ ' Lyly,' ' Gosson, ' and * Spenser. '

Like the Queen, his mother (to whose extensive library he would have access), he was an accomplished scholar,

17

258

TUDOB PEOBLEMS

fluent in Latin and French, and able to read Greek, Italian, arid Spanish with ease.

We can well understand that when this highly talented young nobleman came back to England his parents were proud of him, though it was impossible for them to formally recognize him as a prince. He appears to have spent 1579 partly at the Court and partly at Leicester House, and seems to have been well supplied with money.

A poet by training and disposition, he could not fail to have been inspired by the poets of France as to the important nature of their calling. Ronsard's efforts at the improvement of the French vernacular by the intro duction of new words of classic origin and of words from old French, almost obsolete, would be known to him. Fresh from the influence of talented French and Italian tragedians and comedians, the clownish performances which passed for play-acting in his own country would be an abomination. Proficient in music and a student of the laws of sound, much of the crude piping which was called music in the country of his birth would be equally abhorrent. The decadence of the English poetic muse since the days of Chaucer was only too apparent. Current versification was nothing but dull forced rhyming.

He had not been many months in his own country ere he published a strong protest against the abuses of poets, pipers, and players, entitled 'The Schoole of Abuse/

Amongst the English courtiers at that period there was a great unwillingness to print their attempts in the poetic art. Francis had manifestly reasons of his own for secrecy, so that while his first-fruits were given to the world in the pen-name of 'Lyly.' he chose as vizard for * The Schoole of Abuse ' young Gosson, then one of the boy-players of the Queen's Chapel. As sanction for the practice, he instances the habit of the poets of ancient times to mask their productions under other names or vizards.

THE MAZE 259

Not content with his own efforts, he infected others with his reforming zeal, and formed a small literary society (or areopagus, as Harvey called it), charged to bring about some improvement in English poetry. The little band consisted of Sidney, Dyer, Greville and him self (perhaps the Earl of Oxford as well), while Gabriel Harvey, his tutor of poetry, watched and applauded the movement from Cambridge.

In the 'Shepheard's Kalendar ' (1579), Francis, under his vizard of ' Immerito,' essayed to do for English what Konsard was doing for French. Taking Chaucer for one of his models, he endeavoured to revive obsolete English words and phrases.

From this time onward his literary publications con stituted one steady flow, masked, as they were, under the vizards of young University students of the poorer class, who sought employment in London as clerks, tran scribers, and players. Spenser was a clerk with the Earl of Leicester until sent off to Ireland. Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Shakspere, and Gosson were players. ' Watson ' and ' Lyly ' were mere names. Kyd seems to have had employment as law clerk at Bacon's chambers in Gray's Inn.

The important fact that the attempted biographies would not marry with the works, has been quite over looked by the critics, who have been entirely deceived by the * vizard ' method of publication.

The mystification was made more complete by Bacon's habit (no doubt intended to create the impression that the foundation of an English literature was not the work of one individual) of making his puppets refer to one another as though they really were writing independently.

Harvey, Philip and Mary Sidney, Fraunce, Greville, and Dyer, together with many more of the courtiers, were more or less in Bacon's secret. So were Sir John Davies and Sir Tobie Mathew. Marston, Hall, and Jonson found it out, as the late Mr. Begley has elsewhere

260 TUDOR PROBLEMS

shown. But the general reader was kept in ignorance. Below are some examples of the practice referred to.

To the first set of * Sonnets,' published in 1582 under the name of ' Watson,' he wrote a preface as ' Lyly ' and complimentary verse as ' Peele.' When a number of his plays had been for some time before the public, he, as 1 Greene ' in ' Menaphon,' made some mysterious allusions as to their authorship, and tried to suggest 'Kyd' as one of the authors. As * Nash ' he wrote a preface to 4 Menaphon/ and continued to disperse an inky fluid, like the sepia or cuttle-fish, as means of escape. In this pre face he fathered the play of ' Arraignment of Paris ' on Peele, notwithstanding that it had been published anonymously five years earlier.

As Watson in 1590 he alluded to himself as 'Spenser,' while as Spenser he alluded to himself as ' Lyly.' By 1592 he had practically dropped the ' Gosson ' and 'Lyly' vizards, and he then wanted to abandon the vizards of * Watson ' and ' Greene.' In publishing the last 'Watson' work he wrote as C. M. (Marlowe), regretting his death, and so forth. Of the death of ' Greene ' he, as ' Nash,' and with Harvey's assistance, made great play, com mencing with a sort of death-bed homily to Marlowe and others. The 'Spenser' allusion of 1591 is very interest ing. Thalia, in ' Teares of the Muses,' says :

* And he whom Nature's self had made To mock himselfe and truth to imitate With kindly counter under Mimick shade Our pleasant Willy, ah, is dead of late/

The verses proceed to explain how things have gone wrong with the stage, and that Willy

' Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell, And so himself to mockerie to sell.'

We believe that 'Willy' is, as certain critics think, a reference to ' Lyly,' and its meaning is not very difficult to follow.

THE MAZE 261

Bacon's earliest attempts at comedy would be the few plays performed by the children of the Queen's Chapel from 1580-4, and presented as under the authorship of

'Campaspe,' ' Sapho,' 'Gallathea,' 'Woman in the Moon,' and * Endimion,' are all dry, poor stuff, written by Francis in his youth, and it is natural to assume they did not go down very well with the gallants and ladies of the Elizabethan Court.

Francis, who was doubtless very much chaffed, became huffed, and discontinued his Court comedies. The 'Lyly' vizard was dropped, and he was reputed to be sulking in his cell. The 'Spenser' allusion gives us the reason why a * Greene ' pamphlet of 1587 purports to be compiled from some loose papers found in ' Lyly's ' cell, and why in 'Greene's' 'Menaphon' (1589), 'Lyly' is described as slumbering in his melancholy cell. Young Francis had evidently a notion of abandoning the ' Lyly ' vizard. But as 'Nash/ in the preface to the last-named work, he fathered upon Peele the 'Arraignment of Paris,' which had been better received than the 'Lyly' plays, and was a play in which Francis had experimented successfully with a variety of metres. A verse prefixed to ' Menaphon ' indicates that his ' Lyly ' vizard was thenceforth to be merged in 'Greene.'

We must never forget this young prince's extraordinary egotism. He had no hesitation in referring to himself as

1 That same gentle spirit from whose pen Large streames of honnie and sweete nectar flowe,'

any more than at other times would he refrain from assuring any person associated by name with any of his writings that they would thereby be eternized. Yet in both instances he was quite correct.

CHAPTER XXIX

SIDNEY

PHILIP SIDNEY was a good friend to Francis in the early days.

When Francis returned to England after his long absence abroad, Sidney, his senior by seven years, was the unquestioned chief of the younger men at Elizabeth's Court. He was proficient, whether riding at tilt, com posing a verse, or guiding an affair of State.

Francis, in March, 1578-9, full of the fine frenzy of a poet, found Sidney sympathetic. He was, to use Bacon's own expression (when writing the dedication to the 4 Ruine of Time/ 1591, under his ' Spenser ' vizard), ' The Patron of my young Muses.'

Sidney filled that office to the following compositions, published by young Francis in 1579 :

VIZARD.

' Schoole of Abuse ' . . . ... ... ... Grosson

'Ephemerides of Phialo' „

' Shepheard's Kalendar ' ... ... ... Immerito

Before that year was out Bacon, Sidney, and at least two others of the English Court — viz., Greville and Dyer — had constituted themselves a literary coterie for the improvement of English poetry.

Sidney essayed a pastoral entitled ' The Arcadia.' Francis pushed along with the ' Faerie Queene ' and other literary projects. In 1584 Sidney married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. In October, 1586, at a time when he was at the zenith of his popularity, Sidney died through wounds received at the battle of Zutphen. The

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SIDNEY 263

death at thirty-two, of this promising and prominent nobleman was a great shock to the English nation, and the Court went into mourning for a long period. Francis felt his loss most keenly. His Elegy of ' Astrophel ' shows this. It bears evidence of having been written very shortly after Philip's death, but it was not printed until 1596, when it appeared under the 'Spenser' visor.

The delay was probably due to the awkwardly pro minent position which the Elegy gave to Stella (Lady Rich) — namely, that of chief mourner. First, therefore, it had to wait until 1590, when Sidney's widow remarried, and then until 1596, when Lady Rich left her husband and lived openly with the Earl of Devonshire. The post ponement of this Elegy of ' Astrophel ' was partly atoned for in 1591, when Francis, in the 'Ruine of Time,' wrote feelingly of Sidney's worth.

Sidney's writings were not published in his lifetime. His literary executor, Greville, placed a copy of the ' Arcadia ' in the hands of a printer, who published it in

1590. The publication was a poor one, and both Francis and Sidney's sister, Mary Countess of Pembroke, were dissatisfied.

Francis seems consequently to have taken over the editing for the Press of Sidney's miscellaneous verses, while Mary Sidney revised the 'Arcadia.' The former, under the title of ' Astrophel and Stella,' were printed in

1591, Francis contributing a fine introduction under his ' Nash ' vizard. We quote a passage :

' And thy devine Soule, carried on an angel's wings to heaven, is installed in Hermes' place sole prolocutor to the Gods.'

The Countess having, with assistance from Francis, thoroughly overhauled and in part rewritten, the * Arcadia,' it was republished in 1593 with an introduction by Francis under the initials ' H. S.' These, no doubt, are short for Hermes Stella (a possible reference to Sidney). The initials occur in one or two other of Bacon's

264 TUDOR PROBLEMS

works, and the full name is a sub-title to Bacon's 'Valerius Terminus/ Francis appears to have been so satisfied with Mary Sidney's work as to venture to entitle the revised pastoral * The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.'

The last of the Sidney works, the essay entitled ' An Apologie for Poetry/ was printed in 1595, also, seemingly, under Bacon's editorship. The introduction seems to have been written by him.

In 1591 Sir John Harrington made reference to the * Apologie,' but it was probably then in manuscript only.

How much of Sidney's original manuscript and how much added matter by the editor constituted the 6 Apologie ' as printed, we shall probably never know.

'The Arte of English Poesie,' which preceded it in 1589, was an exhaustive treatise, published anonymously, and lately, on good grounds, believed to have been Bacon's work.

Mr. Fox Bourne, in his * Life of Sidney,' noticed the close resemblances between passages in the ' Arte ' and passages in the ' Apologie.'

Mr. George James observed a close connection between the 'Apologie' and Bacon's 'Wisdom of the Ancients.' Also between the ' Apologie ' and Bacon's Hermit's speech in the ' Device at Tilt,' November 17, 1595.

We would add the similarity of expression to be found in the 'Apologie' and in Bacon's prefatory letter to Raleigh affixed to the * Faerie Queene ' (1590).

Notwithstanding the title-page, which, of course, in those days meant nothing final, and the references to Sidnej^'s visits to Austria and Hungary in the body of the work, it is probable that Bacon practically rewrote the ' Apologie,' and that the likeness of some of its passages to the 'Arte,' and of others to the Raleigh letter, the Hermit's speech, and the ' Wisdom of the Ancients/ may be accounted for on this assumption.

If that be so, it incidentally throws light on the date

SIDNEY 265

of writing of three of the Shakespeare plays. * The Mer chant of Venice,' as Mr. James has pointed out, reproduces in verse — ' But while this muddy vesture of decay ' — the idea of the ' clay lodgings of the human soul ' to be found in the ' Apologie.'

In neighbouring lines of the play there is reference to the 'music of the spheres/ also to be found in * Jack Wilton,' a novel printed in 1594 by Francis under the vizard of ' Nash/ 1595 is probably, therefore, the date of the ' Merchant of Venice/ being the play on the subject of ' Porcie/ promised by Francis in the dedication of * Cornelia' early in 1595. The play of 'Love's Labour's Lost/ with its jocularities about ' perigrinate/ no doubt followed the publication in 1594, by Anthony Perez, of his ' Relaciones/ under the assumed name of ' Raphael Peregrino.' The play was possibly also later than October 7, 1594, when Elizabeth, writing to Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, jokes about his ' perigrinations ' (Nichols' ' Progresses/ vol. iii., p. 260). Mr. James shows how a similar idea to one in the ' Apologie ' is used in 'Love's Labour's Lost/ and also in the Hermit's speech. This, again, rather points to single authorship, and the year 1595 as the year the play was written or revised. So does the correspondency of passages in the ' Apologie ' to those in the play of ' Coriolanus/ in which the Menenius Agrippa's story of the mutiny of parts of the body is related. Mr. James, who quotes the passages, in so doing, partly helps to the date of ' Coriolanus.' The field is quite open, as the critics have come to no conclusion.

Probabilities point to ' Coriolanus ' as having been written in the year 1595. A second edition of North's translation of Plutarch's 'Lives' was published in 1595. Fresh from re-reading or re-editing the 'Lives/ Francis doubtless added ' Coriolanus ' to his Roman history plays. The Agrippa incident seems to confirm this. ' Coriolanus ' seems to have been revised after 1616, in the light of the

266 TUDOR PEOBLEMS

discoveries as to the circulation of the blood made by Harvey who was Bacon's physician.

The 'Apologie for Poetrie' does not seem to marry well with the other Sidney works. The likelihood is that, as Mary Sidney's additions justified the 1593 edition being called ' The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia,' another's still more strenuous work on the ' Apologie ' may justify some future editor in calling it Bacon's ' Apologie for Poetrie/

FRANCIS AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-SIX.

From ' Sylva Sylvarum,' 1627.

To face page 267.

CHAPTER XXX

PLAYS

FKANCIS BACON'S capacity as a poet and dramatist was evolved by continuous experiment and careful study. Beginning with slightly constructed Court masques or Court comedies^ devised for performance by the Chapel children, he proceeded by gradual stages in the comedy class until he reached the perfection of ' As You Like It ' and kindred plays printed under the Shakespeare ascription. His development in writing tragedy moved gradually from the fury of such plays as ' Tamburlaine/ 'Spanish Tragedy/ 'Arden of Feversham/ and 'Titus Andronicus/ to the power and dignity of 'Macbeth,' * Julius Caesar/ and the later c Hamlet/

Under the incognito of ' Lyly ' he seems to have had rooms with the Earl of Oxford within the walls of the old Blackfriars monastery, where the Chapel children were rehearsed, so that we may assume that he had all the cares and experiences of a ' producer ' as well. In this way he would acquire that thorough knowledge of ' exits ' and entrances which held Sir Henry Irving to the belief that the author of the Shakespeare plays must have been an actor.

It is difficult to fix, with any certainty, the date when his scheme for teaching English history to the ' ground lings/ by means of plays, was first put into operation ; but the nature of his other literary tasks would point to the year 1590 as being the first one sufficiently free for extensive writing of this class of drama. We know how

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268 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

rapidly he could write. 'Cornelia/ from the French of Gamier, occupied him a winter's week ; and * Merry Wives of Windsor ' a fortnight. Copying and transposing from Holinshed's 'Chronicles' would, perhaps, take a little longer time, but with his wonderful memory and com mand of poetic language, together with the help of men writing from his dictation, he could make progress with several plays at a time.

Twenty-two of the plays were printed in the follow ing order in the period 1584-94 — viz.: ' Campaspe/ 'Sapho/ 'Arraignment of Paris,' 1584; 'Misfortunes of Arthur/ 1587; ' Tamburlaine/ 1590; 'King John' and 'Endimion/ 1591; 'Gallathea, 'Midas/ and 'Arden of Feversham/ 1592 ; « Edward I./ 1593 ; ' Mother Bombie/ ' Dido/ * Looking Glass for England/ ' Massacre at Paris/ 'Orlando Furioso/ 'Friar Bacon/ ' Spanish Tragedy/ 'Battle of Alcazar/ ' Selimus/ 'Taming of a Shrew/ and 'Henry VI. ' (Part II), 1594.

Sixteen of the above plays were printed anonymously, two were title-paged to the deceased Marlowe, and three to the deceased Greene. One play was ascribed, at foot, to Peele, then living.

In 1595 were printed 'Cornelia/ 'Old Wives' Tale/ 'Locrine/ and 'Macedonia'; in 1596 'Edward III/; in 1597, 'Woman in the Moon/ 'Eomeo and Juliet/ 'Eichard II.' and ' Eichard III/ Of the above group (1595-7), five were anonymous, one ascribed to ' Lyly/ another to G. P., and one to W. S.

In 1598 were printed ' Henry IV.' (Part I ), 'Henry V./ 'Edward II.,' 'James IV. of Scotland/ and 'Love's Labour's Lost ' ; two being anonymous, and one each title- paged to ' Greene ' (deceased), ' Marlowe ' (deceased), and ' Shakespeare/ this last name appearing for the first time.

In 1599 four plays were printed — namely, 'David and Bathshebe/ ascribed to the deceased Peele ; ' Alphonsus of Arragon/ ascribed to the deceased Greene ; ' Pinner of Wakefield ' and ' Sir Clyomen/ both anonymous.

PLAYS 269

In 1600 came 'Titus Andronicus ' (Anon.), and five others title-paged to Shakespeare — viz., 'Henry IV.' (Part II.), 'Much Ado/ * Merchant of Venice,1 'Mid summer Night's Dream,' and ' Sir John Oldcastle.'

After 1600 there was a considerable falling-off in the publication of plays. None appeared in 1601, the year of Robert's death.

In 1602 * Thomas Lord Cromwell,' and 'Merry Wives of Windsor ' were printed title- paged to Shakespeare. In 1603, the year of the Queen's death, only the significant and supposed autobiographical play of * Hamlet ' with the name of Shakespeare as author. Then followed ' Dr. Faustus,' in Marlowe's name, in 1604 ; 'King Lear/ 1605 (Anon.); 'London Prodigal/ 1605 (Shakespeare) ; ' Sejanus ' (Jonson), ' Puritan Widow/ 1607 (W. S.) ; ' Yorkshire Tragedy/ 1608 (Shakespeare) ; 1 Troilus and Cressida ' and ' Pericles/ 1609 (Shakespeare).

After 1609 there is a gap until 1622, when ' Othello ' was published, title-paged to the deceased Shakspere. Next appeared the 1623 Shakespeare Folio, containing sixteen plays not previously printed.

The output of plays appears, therefore, to have been over the period 1580 to 1610. A few plays were doubt less written by Francis in the period 1610-20, as 'works of my recreation/ to use a phrase in a letter of his to Tobie Mathew. In an age of no newspapers, for a man of such unbounded confidence in his own ability, of such power for work, and for organizing and maintaining trained assistants, Francis Bacon's plays would yet only average three or four per annum, and leave ample time for his other literary productions.

Some of his plays seem to have been lost — ' Stephen' and ' Hiren the Faire Greeke ' (there is a curious reference to Hiren in the play of 'Henry IV./ Part II.) ; some so altered by players as to be hardly recognizable, such as ' Faire Emm' (probably first played as ' William the Conqueror '), ' Hengist ' (altered to ' Mayor of Quinborough '), ' Uter

270 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Pendragon ' (altered to ' Birth of Merlin '). The k Jew of Malta ' was expressly published in 1633, apparently for some cipher matter. 'Catiline,' published 1611 as a Jonson quarto, seems to have been an early work by Francis refurbished by Jonson, as allusion is made to it in the ' School e of Abuse ' (1579). It was prob ably revised for the stage to point the moral of the Gunpowder Plot. He may have been concerned in * Wounds of Civil War ' and ' Marius and Scilla,' printed in 1594 in the name of Lodge, and in 'True Trojans' (1633, Anon.), afterwards attributed to the Rev. Dr. Fisher, a clergyman.

Most of the salient and important periods of both English and Roman history seem to have been illus trated and brought by Francis before the Elizabethan public in the form of plays as part of a well-devised scheme of popular instruction. Dickens was a voluminous writer, whose literary and other activities extended over thirty-five years. His published writings would com press into twenty volumes of the size of the ' Pickwick Papers.' Bacon's literary period was nearly fifty years. His acknowledged and vizarded writings would not greatly exceed thirty volumes of the ' Pickwick ' size.

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT. Prom Dug dale's ' Warwickshire,' 1656.

To face page 271.

CHAPTER XXXI

RE-ENTOMBED

IN a letter to Father Fulgentio, a broad-minded divine of the Republic of Venice, Francis Bacon said : ' I work for posterity, these things requiring ages for their accom plishment.'

It is reasonable, therefore, to suspect that Francis organized a secret society to continue after his death work which he considered of essential benefit to the human race. In faith of the honesty of the story revealed by the biliteral cipher, there is prima facie evidence from Francis himself, writing as Democritus Junior in the ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' of his having founded or become associated with some such society.

The pertinacity of a William le Queux, and the detective ability of a Conan Doyle, would be needed for anything approaching to the successful tracking of the movements, mostly sub-surface, of such a society ; yet they ought to be investigated. Upon this point we are not quite in accord with the Bacon- Shakespeare exponents, who believe that the general public will eventually be satisfied that Bacon wrote the plays, and that that is the main end to be attained. There is, we feel assured, a great deal more of an interesting nature in the history of Francis Bacon. So we respectfully decline to confine our efforts to teach ing a reluctant people the goose-step of Bacon's author ship of Shakespeare. Francis frequently asseverated that * the Glory of God is to conceal a thing, the glory of a King to find it out.' Let us try, therefore, to see what other matters there are for investigation.

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We learn from Mr, Waite and others that the Frater nity of the Rosy Cross was first heard of in Europe about the year 1614.

They seem to agree that the named author of the * Fama Fraternitatis ' pamphlet of 1615, Johan Valentinus Andreas (who himself disclaimed membership of the Rosy Cross Society), had only allowed his name to be used as vizard for the real movers in the matter of its objective. Of the two other pamphlets, the ' Confessio Fraterni tatis,' 1615, and the ' Chymical Marriage' of Christian Rosencreutz, 1616, nothing more can well be said in this chapter, nor need the books and pamphlets afterwards printed by Fludd, Maier, and Vaughan, be here dis cussed.

The publications in Germany of Rosy Cross literature by no means proves that country to have been the head quarters of the fraternity ; rather the contrary. Mr. Spedding detected, in certain speeches written by Bacon and used in the ' Device of the Order of the Helmet,' performed at Gray's Inn in December, 1594, indications of the germ of the scheme of the ' New Atlantis.' In the 4 Anatomy of Melancholy,' 1621, Francis as Democritus Junior refers to —

1 that omniscious only wise Fraternity of the Rosie Cross these great theologues, politicians, philosophers, physi cians, philologers, artists, etc. ... or an Elias Artifex, their Theophrastian master, whom though Libavius and many deride and carp at, yet some will have to be the Renewer of all arts and sciences, Reformer of the world and now living.'

And again :

1 Utopian purity is a kind of government to be wished for rather than effected. Respub : " Christian opoli tana," Campanella's "City of the Sun" and that "New Atlantis," witty fictions, but mere chimeras.'*

* 'John Valent Andreas Lord Verulam.'

BE-ENTOMBED 273

Democritus Junior further tells us in another place that the objects of the Bosy Cross men were ' Beform and amendment in religion, policy, manners, with arts, sciences, etc.'

In another passage he writes :

' I will yet, to satisfy myself, make an Utopia of mine own, a new Atlantis, a poetical Commonwealth of mine own, in which I will freely domineer, build cities, make laws, statutes, as I list myself. And why may I not ? You know what liberty poets ever had, and besides, my prede cessor Democritus was a politician.'

It is amusing to think of quiet old parson Burton being held out to be a ' poet,' and in other parts of the ad dress as a * lawyer.'

It is also curious that the ; Anatomy of Melancholy,' dated 1621, should refer to Campanella's book, printed 1623, and to the ' New Atlantis,' printed 1627.

The Andreas pamphlet states that the Bosicrucians were formed out of the ruins of the Knight Templars by one faithful brother. The old Templar motto * In Hoc signo vinces ' is used in the * Chymical Marriage,' 1616, and in Bacon's ' Holy War.' The red cross is also prominent in the ' Chymical Marriage/ the ' Faerie Queene,' and the Tirsan of the ' New Atlantis ' has a red cross upon his turban. A helmet with plumes was part of the crest of Sir Nicholas Bacon. It was part of the crest of the Order of the Helmet, part of the crest of the Andreas portrait, part of the crest of the Boyal Society, and part of the coat-of-arms above the Stratford effigy of Shakespeare.

The veiled lady who rode beside the Bedcrosse Knight of the Faerie Queene personified Truth. The Knight's first encounter was in Errours DerL

The Knights of the Golden Stone in the * Chymical Marriage,' 1616, were each presented with a medal. On one side of the medal were the words or symbols ' Ars naturae ministra,' on the other ' Temporis natura filia.'

18

274 TUDOR PROBLEMS

On the title page of the * New Atlantis/ 1627, is a woodcut of Father Time helping Truth out of a cave.

The term * Page ' is used with somewhat unusual fre quency in the ' Chymical Marriage.'

The literature of the century following Bacon's death abounds with curiosities of pagination, punctuation— among other things, notes of interrogation or colons placed in the ornamental headings — and odd printers' marks and ornamentations and suspicious errata.

Isaac D'Israeli in ' Curiosities of Literature/ i. 24, remarks :

' Besides the ordinary errors or errata which happen in printing a work, there are others which are purposely committed that the errata may contain what is not per mitted to appear in the body of the work.7

We are told by the same authority that Bishops, lawyers, and doctors, were often employed as 'readers' for the press. If, therefore, these ' theologues, politicians, philosophers, physicians, philologers, artists, etc.,' of the Rosy Cross wanted to make communications by the application of certain punctuation and other marks to indicate the words or letters of an interior story, they would seem to have had ample opportunity for doing so.

The operations of the Society were doubtless wholly beneficent, and the fact that the indications frequently appear in works of a Protestant religious character con firms this. D'Israeli in ' Curiosities of Literature/ vol. iii., insists upon the absolute necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances and fallacies which so often deceive us in public history. He also remarks : ' But as secret history appears to deal in minute things, its connection with great results is not usually suspected.7 Why, for instance, was Robert Earl of Essex executed on Tower Green — an exception only made, according to Tower traditions, in the case of persons

HE-ENTOMBED 275

of Royal blood ? Others were beheaded on Tower Hill. As a sample of the sort of history called public history, take Camden's ' History of Queen Elizabeth/ of which the first part, after being checked by Burleigh, was printed in the Queen's lifetime, and the second part in 1625, after being revised by James I.

This History is full of intimations of the suppression of important facts, and in the edition of 1675 a statement appears on the title page and also in the preface that ' several periods and half periods, which were hitherto omitted in the version, are here supplied and made good.'

Is this an intimation that in this edition ' punctuation ' met hods of direction tell some inner history to the initiated? These curious matters often only appear in later or aug mented editions — the 1670-1 * Resuscitatio/ for example. As an illustration of curious errata, we refer to the French edition of ' Les Fameux Voyages de Pietro Delia Valle,' 1663-4, a work considered important enough to print in four languages. In a book of over 500 pages, the last of the errata is stated to occur on page 287. Now, 287 is, as Sir E. D. Lawrence points out, the numerical equivalent of the long word in ' Love's Labour's Lost,' which word is the one hundred and fifty-first on p. 136.

A.D. 287 is the date given as that upon which St. Alban was the first Grand Master of Freemasonry. Two hundred and eighty-seven is the number of letters in the lines to the reader opposite the title page of the First Folio Shakespeare.

You should count upon a facsimile, to be sure that the letters ' V,' where twice used, are not mistaken for ' Ws/

The ' Anatomy of Melancholy/ 1621, is dedicated to George Berkeley Baron of Berkeley. This nobleman may have been the same to whom Dr. John Wilkiris, after words Bishop of Chester, was at one time chaplain.

Dr. Wilkins was a very fine Englishman. He became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, where a number

276 TUDOR PROBLEMS

of scientists and philosophers known as the Invisible College were in the habit of meeting some years prior to the foundation of the Royal Society of London. In 1641 he was chaplain to Charles Count Palatine, then resident in London. A book entitled 'Mercury/ containing explanations of a number of ciphers, including that elucidated in Bacon's * De Augmentis,' and known as the biliteral cipher, was printed anonymously in 1641, and afterwards attributed to Wilkins. In the dedication to the Count Palatine is the sentence :

' It would in many respects much conduce to the general advancement of religion and learning if the Reformed Churches in whose cause and defence your Family have so deeply suffered were but mindful of their engage ments to it.'

Thus we find Wilkins keenly interested in two objects of the 'Rosy Cross Fraternity.' In 1648 Wilkins published a book called ' Mathematical Magic/ which contains a curious reference :

* Such a Lamp is likewise related to be seen in the Sepulchre of Francis Jlosicrosse, as is more largely ex pressed in the Confession of that Fraternity.'

We cannot find in the translation of the Confession set out in Mr. Waite's ' Real History of the Rosicrucians ' any reference to a ' Francis Rosicrosse/ In his ' History of Life and Death ' Bacon states ' there is a tradition that Lamps set in Sepulchres will last an incredible time/ Upon the Andreas portrait in the ' Fama Fraternitatis ' is a St. Andrew's Cross with four Tudor roses. Andreas is stated to have had a coat-of-arms like it. Whether it was original or adopted as part of a plan of concealment we may never know. In 1553 Edward VI. granted to the town of St. Albans a coat-of-arms, azure in saltire Or. A saltire in heraldry is the ordinary form of a St. Andrew's Cross. According to Evelyn's Diary, on the first anniversary of the grant of a charter to the Royal

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Society each member decorated his hat with a St. Andrew's Cross.

That Francis Bacon was at the head of an important movement amongst the poets, theologians, and philoso phers of his time is rather borne out by the outburst of poetical lamentations at his death, many of which were collected and published by Rawley in 1626, under the title of 'Manes Verulamiani.' There would seem, too, to be indications of a scattering of activities. Men like Fludd and Vaughan engaged themselves in mystifying the origin and purposes of the fraternity and drawing attention away from their real activities.

Rawley seems to have concentrated upon the printing here and abroad of new editions of Bacon's acknowledged works, and of editions of Bacon's papers not printed in his lifetime. Dugdale, W. Burton, and doubtless others, turned their attention to the compilation of county histories. Dr. Wilkins and the philosophers devoted themselves to the advancement of religion and learning, and particularly to the establishment of a Royal Society for the investigation of Nature. Bacon's ' New Atlantis ' and other publications show that the establishment of a College of Science, variously referred to as Solomon's House and the House of Wisdom, was keenly desired by him. His own preface added to the Gilbert Watts translation, in 1640, of the ' De Augmentis' has much of the imagery of the ' Chymical Marriage' —

; and adorned the Bride-chamber of the Mind and of the Universe. Now may the note of the Marriage-song be that for this conjunction Human Aids and a Race of Inventors may be procreated as may in some part van quish and subdue man's miseries and necessities/

Dr. Sprat states in his ' History of the Royal Society ' :

' I shall only mention one Great Man who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of this enterprise as it is now set on foot, and that is the Lord Bacon/

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According to Rix and Eutter's ' History of the Eoyal Society,' it was first founded by Bacon as an Invisible College in 1616.

Glanvill, in ' Scepsis Scientifica,' 1665 (a curiously marked book), alludes to Solomon's House in the * New Atlantis ' as being a prophetic scheme of the Eoyal Society.

John Evelyn in ' Acetaria ' gives further confirmation. For some reason or other posterity has had to wait a long time for information concerning the secret side of Bacon's life and activities.

In the meantime, down at any rate to 1740, Bacon's acknowledged works were published with a regularity and faithfulness out of proportion to ordinary demand.

Some unknown persons, at intervals, reprinted the ' Shakespeare Plays,' ' Spenser Poems,' and ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' with great care and constancy.

Eawley printed an admittedly incomplete and doubtful 1 Life of Bacon ' in 1657. ' I shall not tread too near upon the heels of truth,' said Eawley in his preface. John Mil ton, in 1645, published a poem on Shakespeare contain ing an acrostic reference to Francis Bacon (see Mr. Stone Booth's book on ' Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon ').

Eawley died in 1667, and Wilkins in 1672. Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, then became custodian of Eawley's manuscripts, and he and Sir William Dugdale appear to have become prominent in Bacon matters. Tenison published the ' Baconiana ' of 1679. He may also have had a hand in the printing anonymously, in the same year, of a large folio of the ' Spenser Poems.1

To this folio was prefixed a feigned and garbled life of the supposed author, certain peculiarities in which are pointed out by Mr. G. C. Cuningham in ' Bacon's Secret Disclosed.'

Dugdale, who was in the Heralds' College, and became its chief, died in 1686, leaving another Heralds' College

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man, Elias Ashmole, an avowed Rosicrucian and a prominent Freemason, his literary executor. Ashmole died in 1692, Tenison in 1715. He had been a prominent politician, also a King's chaplain, and had erected the first Public Library in London. After the turn of the eighteenth century, Robert Stephens, the Royal Historiographer, and Nicholas Rowe, the Royal Poet Laureate, evinced prominence in Bacon and ' Shakes peare ' matters.

Stephens, in 1702, printed a most carefully selected edition of Bacon's letters. He admits that certain letters and papers of Bacon were transcribed for pre servation, but were not permitted to be divulged. Rowe came on the scene as an editor of ' Shakespeare ' with, for the first time, a garbled and insincere pretence at a life of the supposed Author.

From him we have the amusing assurance that the top of the actor's performance was that of Ghost in his own ' Hamlet.' If for * Hamlet' we read 'village,' we can better understand how the land lay. Rowe quotes an observation, concurred in by Lord Falkland, Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, and Mr. Selden

'That Shakespear had not only found out a new Character in his Caliban, but had devised and adapted a new manner of Language for that Character.'

The edition has a woodcut of the Stratford effigy.

Rowe died in 1718, Stephens in 1733. Alexander Pope, Dr. Richard Mead, and the third Earl of Burling ton, are next prominent in Bacon and Shakespeare matters.

In 1720 Pope published by public subscription his versification of Homer's ' Iliad.' There is strong prima facie evidence that Pope, in consulting, for the purposes of his verse, any other translation he could meet with, had access to the manuscript from which Rawley had ciphered Bacon's prose version of the ' Catalogue of the

280 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Ships,' in the 1628 edition of the ' Anatomy of Melan choly.'

This evidence is given in another chapter of this book. In 1725 Pope edited the * Shakespeare Plays ' in six volumes, making numerous alterations in the text. He prefixed another rendering of the Stratford effigy. According to D'Israeli, the style and manner of the native English drama was not congenial to Pope's taste. Yet a third of the copies of Pope's edition de luxe of a corrected ' Shakespeare ' were left unsold.

In 1730 Blackbourne printed by public subscription a fine folio edition of Bacon's acknowledged works in four volumes.

In the first volume is a long introduction, which brings in about everything concerning Bacon which hitherto had been allowed to escape into print. Not only Rawley's garbled ' Life of Bacon/ but also the qualifications and excuses in his prefaces, were recorded.

Even a draft speech by Bacon, affirmed to have been prepared for Parliament, was also given. This * speech ' contains some sentences worth transcribing :

' My ends are only to make the world my heir, and the learned fathers of my Solomon's House the successive and sworn trustees in the dispensation of this great service, for God's glory, my prince's magnificence, this parliament's honour, and the propagation of my memory.'

The frontispiece to the third volume of Blackbourne 's edition is an engraving by Vertue, intended to represent the statue of Bacon at St. Michael's Church, Gorham- bury. The engraving is in light lines, showing the eyes of the figure closed as in the sculpture. For frontispiece to the fourth volume is a reproduction by Vertue of Hollar's engraving of the same statue in the 1670 Resuscitatio. The peculiarity of this engraving is its dark lines and that in it the eyes of the figure are open and

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT.

From Rome's ' Life of Shakespeare,' 1709.

To face page 280.

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looking out at you ! Whether these Hollar and Vertue en gravings were intended to convey the notion of a meta phorical rebirth of Francis Bacon must be left with time to show. In 1733 Dr. Peter Shaw, a leading Court physician attached to scientific pursuits, published a translation of Bacon's Latin works in three big volumes.

In 1733 Pope, in his ' Essay on Man,' made a deroga tory reference to Bacon, and in 1734, in his ' Satires from Horace,' a somewhat cryptic reference to ' Shake speare.' In 1734 a further selection which Stephens, the Royal Historiographer, had, prior to his death, made from Bacon's letters, was printed. There were letters which Stephens dared not print even at that date. In 1736 was issued another reprint of the letters and other works of Bacon. In 1738 a particularly fine large portrait of Bacon was engraved and issued to the public. In 1740 Mallet published a colourless c Life of Bacon ' and a cata logue of his acknowledged works. In 1740, a smaller edition of the Blackbourne volumes was issued, but from it was excluded the letter of 1599 which Francis wrote to the Queen asking her help to buy Gorhambury from Anthony Bacon, who, Francis implied, was in some pecuniary difficulties. When Francis wanted money or salaried office, his applications seem to have been almost invariably made to Queen Elizabeth or her Ministers.

The prime mover in the preparation and publication of the Blackbourne edition of Bacon's work was Dr. Richard Mead, a leading Court physician, author of medical works, and Vice-President of the Royal Society. The volumes are dedicated to him, the dedication stating 1 that no man better understood the value of Bacon's works.'

In 1740 Dr. Mead, Alexander Pope, and the wealthy third Earl Burlington, together with a Mr. Martin, raised funds to erect in Westminster Abbey a statue to

282 TUDOE PROBLEMS

Shakespeare. Martin may have been a member of the Society of Antiquarians.

Earl Burlington was related on his father's side to the experimental philosopher Robert Boyle, concerned in the early history of the Royal Society. On his mother's side the Earl was descended from Lady Jane Clifford, daughter of William Duke of Somerset, by his wife Lady Frances Devereux.

Lady Frances was the elder of the two daughters of Francis Bacon's brother, Robert Earl of Essex, who was younger son of Queen Elizabeth, according to the biliteral cipher story. Robert, the only brother of Lady Frances, died without issue.

It was to a later Duke of Somerset that Rowe, in 1709, had dedicated his ' Life and Works of Shakespeare.'

Lady Jane Clifford, as of Tudor descent, was, in 1674, buried in Westminster Abbey.

In the Westminster statue to * Shakespeare ' the figure is shown leaning upon the right elbow, and the right heel is slipshod.

The Gentleman s Magazine of 1741 found fault with the Latin of the inscription.

Upon the scroll, forming part of the statue, are lines from Prospero's speech in the * Tempest,' which speech begins :

4 Be cheerful, Sir,

Our Revels now are ended. These our actors (As I foretold you) were all Spirits, and Are melted into Ayre, into thin Ayre, And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The Cloud-cap't Towres, the gorgeous Pallaces, The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself e, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial Pageant faded, Leave not a racke behind : We are such stuffe As dreames are made on ; and our little life Is rounded with a sleepe.'

This speech would seem to be Bacon's beautiful fare well to the decipherer of his word cipher. His epistle to

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that decipherer is said to begin in the first scene of the first act of the first history play, ' King John.'

* My deare Sir, Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin.'

Francis Bacon's habit of supporting his head by hand and elbow is shown in the St. Michael's statue. It is also indicated in certain of the figures in the frontispiece to the ' Anatomy of Melancholy.'

The Abbey statue indirectly records this habit, and has practically the first face of ' Shakespeare ' with any show of intellectuality. We might perhaps except the Pope woodcut of 1725, but the Droeshout woodcut (1623), the Marshall engraving (1640), the Dugdale (1656), the Rowe (1709), and the Stratford effigy, do not indicate in tellectuality.

Engravings of the Shakespeare statue were printed very soon after its erection. One has been found, evidently pasted many, many years ago opposite the title page of the first volume of Dr. Peter Shaw's 1733 translation of Bacon's Latin works. Another old en graving of a meeting of a scientific society of the Georgian period was found pasted in the same old volume.

The placing of a statue to ' Shakespeare ' in the Abbey at Westminster suggests the inquiry as to whether the body of Francis Bacon was ever removed to Westminster. With so many prominent clerics and laymen, apparently concerned with Baconian matters, it should not have been a difficult matter to have effected a secret re-entombment of the ashes of this great though unacknowledged scion of the Royal House of Tudor.

The 1679 ' Spenser ' folio, with its large TOMB fron tispiece, may indicate something of the kind, seeing that in this folio certain lines from the ' Shepheard's Calendar,' absent from a number of previous editions, are restored :

284 TUDOR PROBLEMS

* Now dead he is, and lyeth wrapt in lead. 0. Why should death on hym such outrage shewe, And all hys passing skil with him is fledde, The fame whereof doth dayly greater growe.'

Mr. Granville C. Cuningham (' Bacon's Secret Disclosed ') was the first to point out this curious incident.

If Bacon desired to have his body eventually removed to the tomb of the ' Prince of Poets in his tyme ' erected by his old friend the Countess of Dorset (who once styled James I. ' an usurper '), it is likely that some of his ' suc cessive and sworn trustees ' may have carried out his wish.

Some forty years ago the crypt of St. Michael's Church, Gorhambury, where Francis Bacon's body was, in ac cordance with a direction in his Will, presumably interred, was bricked up by order of the Home Office. About that time Mr. C. le Poer Kennedy wrote to Notes and Queries to say that, before the crypt was bricked up, he and others searched it for the coffin of Francis Bacon, but the coffin was not there. In their search they had taken care also to inspect the part underneath the Bacon statue, but without success in finding the coffin.

The inscription upon the base of the Bacon statue in St. Michael's Church is consistent with a temporary interment. In similar words to those at the beginning of the Great Instauration, ' Francis of Verulam thought thus,' it merely states l Franciscus Bacon Baro de Verulam, etc., sic sedebat ' = ' sat thus.' Had there been an intention of the Invisible College to move Bacon's ashes to Westminster, one or two books which seem to have proceeded from the College or members of it may have significance. Indeed, if they contain cipher messages, it is certainly desirable that some attempt be made to decode them. We refer first to the small quarto published anonymously in 1648. It is entitled ' The REMAINES of the Right Honourable Francis Lord Veru lam,' etc. The border round the title page is curiously arranged, and colons are placed in it, two in the top

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right corner and two in the bottom border. In 1656 another tract having the running title of l Bacon's REMAINES,' and being a reprint of the other work, was published. It had a new title page, and a newly- drawn portrait of Bacon, with the following verse beneath it :

' Grace, Honour, Vertue, Learning, Witt, Are all within this Porture Knitt : And left to time, that it may Tell What worth within this Peere did dwell.'

In 1679, which was the year of publication of the t Spenser ' Folio with the TOMB frontispiece, appeared another book, already referred to (anonymous except for the initials T. T.) entitled BACON. IANA, or certain genuine REMAINES of Sir Francis Bacon. The heading of the table of contents consists of five acorns, then a colon, then thirteen acorns, followed by a full stop and three acorns. The same heading reappears at page 179, but at page 187 the acorns are divided by colons into groups of four, thirteen, and four. There are similar oddities in the other ornamental headings and in the errata. For instance : ' after Nature put a Semicolon ; after parted a Colon.'

On page 16 the writer compares Bacon's troubles with those of Sir George Sommers, who 'was by TEMPEST cast upon the Barmudas.' On the same page T. T. writes : ' But whatsoever his Errors were . . . they . . . will die with Time.' On another page he writes : * The Societies for improving of Natural Knowledg, do not at this day depart from his Directions.'

Where, we wonder, did T. T. obtain his authority for the following paragraph ?

' Neither do we here unfitly place the Fable of the New Atlantis : For it is the model of a College to be Instituted by some King who philosophizeth, for the Interpreting of Nature and the Improving of Arts. His Lordship did (it seems) think of finishing this

286 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Fable by adding to it a Frame of Laws or a kind of Utopian Commonwealth.'

If he gathered this from the ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' then T. T. knew that Francis Bacon was ' Democritus Junior/

On this point it is interesting to note that Tobias Adami is, in the preface to the Oxford 1640 edition of 'The Advancement of Learning,' reported to have said that Campanella and himself (author and publisher of 4 The Philosophical Republic of the City of the Sun ') pur sued the same ends and trod the same footsteps as the deep mineing Philosopher Fra. Bacon. Adami and Campanella were openly accused by a contemporary of being members of the fraternity of the Rosy Cross.

Until further enlightenment is forthcoming upon this mysterious matter, we content ourselves with examining a few symbols. Compare, for instance, the Droeshout woodcut of 1623, the Marshall engraving of 1640, the Dugdale 1656, the Rowe 1709, the Pope 1725, with the Stratford effigy of Shakespeare. The Droeshout figure has been well and sufficiently criticized by Sir E. Durning Lawrence. The Marshall engraving shows the right side shrouded by a cloak, and the left hand holding a poet's bay-leaves.

But why, in 1640, were the verses made ambiguous by notes of interrogation ?

' This Shadowe is renowned Shakespear's ?

Soul of the age, The applause 1 delight 1 the wonder of the Stage.'

Tn the Dugdale engraving the face is distressfully vacant ; it may have been intended as a sort of puzzle- face, combining two. For the second face, look at it obliquely in a line from the hour-glass upward and cover up the forehead. The hands, rather significantly, rest upon a woolsack. Above the pillars are masks. Two cherubs sit upon the canopy, one bearing a spade,

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the other an hour-glass. Do they indicate ' Research and Time ' ? Upon the coat-of-arms is a helmet with plumes, as in the case of the Andreas (Rosy Cross) portrait and the crest of the Royal Society.

In the Rowe engraving the Dugdale face is replaced by another equally dull ; the other details remain. In the Pope engraving which occupied the energies of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, the head is again changed. The dress is re-arranged, and the masks above the pillars are removed. The cherubs no longer hold spade and hour-glass, but bear lit torches or candles. For the woolsack is substituted a flat cushion. One hand holds a pen, the other writing-paper, but the act of writing is not shown. Whether the Stratford effigy was placed there in 1653, according to Dugd ale's Diary, or at some earlier period (for which there seems to be no authority except the Leonard Digges verses), is, perhaps, not very material. It was repaired in 1746, shortly after the erection of the Westminster Abbey statue. As it now appears, the effigy resembles in certain respects the Pope engraving. The torches, though lit, are turned upside down.

The helmet with plumes remains upon the coat-of-arms, but is surmounted by a rather more heraldic-looking bird than the sort of cuckoo rampant of the Dugdale and Rowe engravings.

While awaiting, without impatience, further revela tion concerning these curious matters, a word or two of advice may be adventured to every American or European sightseer visiting this country. As, Sir or Madam, you may not wish to waste time, please accept the kindly hint that the body of the accomplished philosopher, poet, and lawyer who wrote the Shakespeare Plays is in all proba bility re-entombed in Westminster Abbey, possibly in the Henry VII. Chapel, but more probably in the grave near the foot of the Shakespeare monument at present represented to be that of an obscure member of the Tudor family.

288 TUDOR PROBLEMS

These feigned biographies of Bacon, of Spenser, and of Shakespeare may be consistent with an arranged attempt to keep back revelations concerning Bacon until his various cipher messages have been read, and his other provision for later ages, in the form of hidden books and manuscripts, have been brought to light. Rawley as a pious clergyman was seemingly in difficulty with his life of Bacon. He did not commit himself, but rather temporized with his conscience in stating that Francis was born at York House or York Place. The latter, we know, was the name of Queen Elizabeth's Palace of Whitehall, which, when Cardinal Wolsey in earlier years resided there, was called York Place.

According to the cipher story, Francis was born at the Queen's Palace, and removed at birth to York House, the residence of Sir Nicholas and Lady Ann Bacon, where he was brought up as the nominal child of these people. Both York House and Whitehall appear, according to Stowe, to have been in the parish of St.-Martin's-in-the- Fields. The entry of the register of baptism of Francis at St. Martin's Church is said to be only a transcript made in 1598 from earlier registers, said to be destroyed. This fact raises doubt as to the bona-fides of the record. The writers of the first Spenser and Shakespeare bio graphies had no personal considerations to affect them.

They were re-dressing up certain Figures for the purpose of again throwing dust into the eyes of the public, and seem to have discharged their duties very well.

When the memorial to Francis Bacon at Gray's Inn was, a short time ago, unveiled by the Right Honourable Mr. A. J. Balfour, that gentleman alluded very aptly to Bacon as having created 'the atmosphere in which scientific discovery flourishes.' One part of his great self-imposed task may, therefore, be considered as ac complished. It is time that he received the general public acclaim to which he is entitled.

THE STRATFORD MONUMENT.

To face page 288

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Francis Bacon, like his brother Robert, and after his own strenuous career, welcomed death. His last Will, set out in volume two of Blackbourne's edition of 1730, shows this very clearly :

1 1 give and bequeath unto the poor of the parishes where I have at any time rested in my pilgrimage, some little relief according to my poor means ; to the poor of St. Martin's in the Fields, where I was born and lived in my first and last days, forty pounds ; to the poor of St. Michael's, near St. Albans, where I desire to be buried, because the day of death is better than the day of birth fifty pounds/

He regarded life as a pilgrimage, and in this respect only repeated the words he used as a boy in * Euphues ' ; in his manhood in l As You Like It ' ; in his prayer of 1621 ; and in one of the two poems openly attributed to him.

19

CHAPTEE XXXII

THE LOVE TEST

SOME critics have sought to settle the claim as to who wrote the Shakespeare plays and sonnets, by applying what Mr. S. K. Littlewood, in the Daily Chronicle of July 20, 1912, called the Love Test.

The author of the plays and sonnets, wrote Mr. Littlewood, was ' frank, sensitive, exuberant, lyrical, a passionate friend and lover, permeated with the sense of beauty, responsive to every physical impulse, warm and human to the finger-tips ... as incomparably rich in humour as in imagination/ Each and all these qualities, Mr. Littlewood affirmed, are entirely antagonistic to the known character of the author of the ' Novum Organuin ' (1620), the * Advancement of Learning ' (1605), and the 4 Essays' (1598, 1612, 1625). The dates are ours.

The argument comes to this : — This writer of serious prose cannot have written the tragedies and histories of the Play Folio, nor even the serious poems. A fortiori he cannot have written the comedies or the light verse. Against this view of the talents of Francis Bacon one may oppose the opinions of the German historian Gervinus, the English poet Shelley, and the English novelist Bulwer Lytton. But the argument, when ex amined in the light of the statements of Bacon's con temporaries — Waller, Ben Jonson, Tobie Mat hew, and George Osborn — comes to nothing.

We need hardly quote Ben Jonson as to his lordship's unwillingness to spare or pass by a jest when he had an opening to introduce one. The man who, at the age of

290

MONUMENT OF FRANCIS BACON IN ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH.

To face page 290.

THE LOVE TEST 291

sixty-five, took pleasure in dictating the 'Apothegms ' — a collection of some scores of amusing anecdotes — cannot be charged with not being * rich in humour.'

Unprepared to view the ' Essays ' as compressions of statement upon a variety of subjects, Mr. Littlewood termed the Essay of Love * a little page of sneers.'

This essay was necessarily short to conform to Bacon's plan of compacted expression. But it was sufficient. It was printed in 1612, when Bacon was fifty- two and had been married for six years to a young wife. Let us examine the essay :

' The passion of love hath its flouds in the verie times of weakenes, which are great prosperity and great ad- versitie. . . . Both which times kindle love and make it more fervent and therefore shewe it to be the childe of folly. They doe best that make this affection keepe quarter. '

These propositions seem correct, and the conclusions sound.

* For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover does of the person loved/

1 Neither doth this weakness appear to others only and not to the party loved, but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque.'

Is this the truth of the matter or is it not ?

' For it is a true rule that love is ever rewarded either with the recip rogue or with an inward and secret contempt.'

Surely this is a fair and reasonable summing-up of reciprocated and unreciprocated affection respectively !

The Love Test sets one inquiring whether Bacon wrote his essay from outward impersonal observation or from intimate private experience.

Francis Bacon had at least two personal acquaintances with the passion called 'love.' The first was in a time of great prosperity, the second in a time of great adversity.

.

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Touring in France as a well-born English youth of eighteen, with no cloud in the sky of his happy prospects, he fell transcendently in love — so says the biliteral cipher story — with the French King's sister, the beautiful Marguerite of Navarre. This lady, though married to Henry of Navarre, had for years declined to go and live with her husband. Francis's scheme that his own royal parent should help the lady to secure a divorce and then to be married to him, was propounded in 1578, Francis returning to England for the purpose, but was refused and vetoed as impracticable. Moreover, the lady was fickle, and turned to other and older admirers. Thereupon, as frequently happens with intense natures, his feelings rushed to the other extreme. Fortunately he recorded them in print. As Euphues, in 1580, he advocated the study of philosophy, or law, or divinity — supplemented by contemptuous meditations about women. As Immerito, also in 1580, he wrote for the March Emblem of his 1 Shepheard's Kalendar' :

1 To be wise and eke to love Is granted scarce to God above/

Also :

* Of honie and of gaule In love there is store, The honie is much, But the gaule is more.'

His second personal adventure into the toils of love was in a period ' of adversitie.'

Shortly after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, he was alone in the world, his hopes of the throne had been defeated, he had no fortune, his old opponent Robert Cecil was in power, and a jealous King occupied the throne. His only aids were a few good though powerless friends and his own mental dexterity. In this time of weakness and wanting companionship, he fell in love with and married a young girl named Alice Barnham. Her mother was the daughter of the trades-

THE LOVE TEST 293

man who had supplied Queen Elizabeth with her dress- silks. Her deceased father had been a rich City Alderman. Her mother had remarried an old man, the rich Sir John Pakington. Alice and her younger sisters resided with the Pakingtons in the Strand, or at Sir John's splendid mansion in Worcestershire. The sisters married wealthy noblemen.

Eawley tells us that 'his lordship treated his wife with much conjugal love and respect/

Spedding, however, is singularly silent as to Bacon's matrimonial career. Beyond recording that Lady Bacon had a sharp tongue, he presumed a conjugal content ment, and did not want to know anything different. A writer in Frasers Magazine, vol. Ixxix., p. 748, com plained of this bolting of the door upon all inquiry into the matter.

The first hint of a possible rift in the lute comes from a letter of May, 1616, printed in ' Dixon s Personal History of Lord Bacon.' Lady Pakington had written to say that she would receive Bacon's wife * if she be cast off.' To this Francis returned a reproving reply.

The Gorhambury steward's cash account of 1618 rather indicates Lady Bacon's absence from Gorhambury (see Spedding, 'Life and Letters/ vol. vii.). In the same volume there is reference to Bacon's household staffs, and in particular to another household staff which is not further explained.

According to Dixon, Lady Bacon had a private income of £220 per annum, and Francis settled another £500 per annum upon his marriage to her.

Spedding made no comment upon two remarkable passages in Bacon's will of December 19, 1625.

The first has reference to a rent which belonged to Francis, but had been set apart for his wife's better maintenance while she lived at her own charge, but which she had subsequently gone on receiving, and which he therefore proposed to continue to her under his will.

294 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The second remarkable passage is, that after making and enumerating various devises and bequests to his wife, Francis next revoked for 'just and grave causes ' all gifts and grants to her.

After his death Lady Bacon is said to have married her gentleman usher.

When she died, in 1650, her remains were not buried at St. Michael's, Gorhambury, but in the chancel of Eye worth Church, Bedfordshire.

Review of this chain of circumstance prompts the conclusion that this elderly husband's conjugal love and respect for his young wife did not meet with reclproque but per contra, with 4 an inward and secret contempt.'

If that had been Francis Bacon's second personal experience of love, it was but natural that he should repeat in the 1612 Essay of Love the old saw, ' that it is impossible to be in love and to be wise/ which he had quoted in 1580 after his first unhappy cross.

With these personal and searing experiences, and from continued observation of the human comedy at the English and foreign Courts, no man of his generation was better equipped to give expression to the love pas sages in the Shakespeare plays than was Francis. Moreover, critics frequently overlook the fact that the writer of the * Novum Organum ' had his allotted period of youth as well as of old age.

So much for the plays. Mr. Littlewood insists that Francis could not have written the Shakespeare sonnets. Let us examine the proposition as, ' everything is subtile until it be conceived.'

The sonnets were printed in 1609. The impression of them produced upon readers, such as Sir Sidney Lee and others, was that they were meditative soliloquies, a sort of diary of the poet's inner self, having a sort of con tinuity, but by no means closely connected.

We strangely misunderstand Francis, who valued so highly the immortality which the printed page of

THE LOVE TEST 295

literary quality and permanent interest conferred upon those named or associated with it, if somewhere he did not make reference in verse to his young wife.

It was not necessary to put her garishly in the public eye. No need to emphasize her felicities (praiseworthy qualities and actions), as in the public interest he thought it expedient to do in the case of his mother, Queen Elizabeth.

The love troubles of his marriage late in life are yet inconspicuously recorded in Sonnet 132 and onwards. No names appear ; the story is not obtruded, but the in formation is there for the quiet searcher into the truth of the matter. The sonnets reveal the same story as the Love essay — the story of the elderly husband's deep affection not met with the reciproque, but per consequence with inward and secret contempt.

It would be better for the reader to browse slowly along these sonnets.

These are striking passages :

1 Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain ' (132).

4 Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past my best7 (138).

* Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere, but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside' (139).

' Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain ' (140).

' Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin grounded on sinful loving* (142).

Sonnet 129 probably gives the reason why he con sidered his loving sinful.

These particular sonnets are a silent record of a love which was not reciproque. The Love essay, which Mr. Littlewood termed ' a little page of sneers,' is a human document, the quintessence of acute and intimate ex perience in the vale of love and tears.

CHAPTER XXXIII

SEVEN PSALMS

THE late Mr. Churton Collins, in ' Studies in Shake speare/ rejected as unbelievable the notion 'that a man should by the very poetry of which he acknowledged himself the composer, refute all possibility of his being equal to the composition of poetry to which he never made any claim/

The poetry of which Bacon acknowledged himself the composer consists of versifications of seven Psalms (1625).

These versifications were probably first attempted as a very young man, as amongst the * lost ' works of ' Spenser ' one is called ' Seven Psalms.'

That of the 126th Psalm was some justification for Mr. Collins's criticism. Those of the 12th, the 1st, the 104th, and the 159th Psalms seem sound and good work, though not brilliant, and yet manifestly better than Milton's excursions in the same field. Milton, on Mr. Collins's line of reasoning, had equally refuted all possi bility of his being equal to the composition of ' Paradise Lost.' Venturing, however, to judge a man's capability by his best work, we should be disposed, after perusal of Bacon's versions of the 90th and 137th Psalms, to dissent entirely from the conclusion which Mr. Collins asked us to draw.

After the attempts of both Milton and Bacon, a critic might be inclined to infer that to give rhymed expression to the solemn and sacred prose of the Psalms, while desiring to adhere as far as possible to the sacred text, is

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SEVEN PSALMS 297

by no means easy of accomplishment. He might also have reasonably conjectured that the man who, at the age of sixty-five, wearied in body and fallen from high estate, could produce the version of the 90th Psalm as an exercise of his sickness, was an experienced poet whose earlier work should be worth looking out for. He would have borne in mind that in 1600 Bacon wrote with reference to Essex :

4 At which time, though I profess not to be a poet, I writ a sonnet directly tending and alluding to draw on Her Majesty's reconcilement to my Lord.'

The versifier of the Psalms, at the age of sixty-five, was the admitted writer of a sonnet when aged forty. He does not say he was not a poet, but only that he did not profess to be one. Three years later, writing to Sir John Davis, he refers to himself as a concealed poet.

The Psalm versions are dedicated to George Herbert, to whom Lord St. Albans says :

' It being my manner of dedication to choose those that I hold most fit for the argument, I thought that in respect of divinity and poesy met (whereof the one is the matter, the other the style of this little writing), I could not make better choice.'

Poesy, then, with Lord St. Albans was merely a style of writing. How satisfactory it would be could one use the style with equal readiness !

The correspondences between these versions and the plays attributed to Shakespeare are numerous. Here are some of them :

Psalm 1. — A yielding and attentive ear. S. — Attention of your ears.

Ps. — And are no prey to winter's power. S. — Winter's powerful wind.

Ps. — In the assembly of the just.

S. — My oath before this honorable assembly.

298 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Psalm 12. — Unworthy hands. Subtile speech. S. — Unworthy hand. Subtile orator.

Ps. — Cloven heart (double heart in Psalm).

S. — Cloven pines, Cloven chin, Cloven tongues.

Ps. — What need we any higher power to fear. S. — The higher powers forbid.

Psalm 90. — From age to age.

S. — The truth shall live from age to age.

Ps. — Or that the frame was up of earthly stage. S. — All the world's a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players.

Ps. — Thoughts that mounted high. S.— Honorable thoughts, thoughts high. And fit my thoughts to mount aloft.

Ps. — Thus hast thou hanged our life on brittle pins. S. — Better brook the loss of brittle life. I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

Ps. — Thou buriest not within oblivion's tomb. /$'. — Damned oblivion is the tomb.

Ps. — Even those that are conceived in darkness' womb. S. — Dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.

Ps. — Our life steals to an end.

S. — But age with his stealing steps.

Ps. — To spin in length this feeble line of life. S. — Here is a simple line of life.

Ps. — A moment brings all back to dust again. S. — Alexander returneth to dust. The way to dusty death.

Ps. — In meditation of mortality. S. — Meditating that she must die.

Taught my frail mortality to know.

Ps. — This bubble light, this vapour of our breath. S. — Of dignity, a breath, a bubble. Kxhalest this vapour vow.

Psalm 104. — The moon so constant in inconstancy. S. — Not by the moon, the inconstant moon.

Ps.— Golden beams. Hollow bosoms. Gentle air. £.— Golden beams. Hollow bosoms. Gentle air.

Ps. — He made the earth by counterpoise to stand. S. — In the world be singly counterpoised.

SEVEN PSALMS 299

Ps. — Tall like stately towers.

S. — Your stately and air braving towers.

Ps.— The sun, eye of the world, doth know its place. S. — Seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish.

Ps. — The greater navies look like walking woods. S. — Methought the wood began to move 13 imam's wood had come to Dunsinane.

Francis Bacon seems to have had some prevision that fate would not treat him fairly, and that in time to come men would spitefully abuse him, and learned scholars for get to preserve good manners when they tried to measure their own intellects with his, for he closed his version of the 90th Psalm with these lines :

' Our handy-work likewise as fruitful tree, Let it, 0 Lord, blessed not blasted be.'

Mr. George Hookham, in the National Review of Sep tember, 1909, considered Bacon's versification of the 1 37th Psalm as good poetry and great poetry.

Mr. Spedding, writing of the rendering of the 90th Psalm, was satisfied that Bacon had a * fine ear for metre, a fine feeling for imaginative effect in words, and a vein of poetic passion.'

THE 46TH PSALM.

Stratfordians have derived a good deal of comfort from this Psalm They say that ' Shakespeare ' was aged 46 when this Psalm was ready for printing in the authorized version of the Bible. Also that the first 4 letters, viz., ' shak ' and the last 6 : ' speare ' indicate 46. Then they remind us that, in the authorized version, the 46th word from the beginning of the Psalm is * shake,' and the 46th word counting upwards from the end is ' speare.' This is used as a sort of ' cooling card ' to reduce the value of any argument based upon the fre quent odd appearances of the letters and syllables of the name, Francis Bacon.

Mr. W. T. Smedley in * The Mystery of Francis Bacon/

300 TUDOR PROBLEMS

a (firms that the scheme of the authorized version was Francis Bacon's, and that it was Bacon, who, after the revision companies and editors had completed their labours, saw to its literary style. The folio or first edition was printed in 1611.

Probably the incident of the 46th word down in the 46th Psalm being ' shake ' and the 46th word up being ' speare ' was accidental, but still, if Bacon desired to ear mark his association with the version, it was easy for him to make the small verbal alterations needed to bring in one of his later, and certainly the chief of his, pen-names.

In the 1535 or Coverdale Bible the 56th word down is ' shook' and the 47th up Speare.'

In the 1539 or Great Bible, the 46th word down in the Psalm in question, is * shake,' and the 48th up is c speare.' In the 1560 or Geneva Bible, 'shake' is the 47th word down, and ' speare ' the 44th up. In the 1568 or Bishop's Bible, 'shake' is the 47th down, and 'speare7 the 48th up, so that the alteration of one or two words would enable an accident to be changed into a significant, and that without irreverence.

Mr. Smedley reminds his readers of Macaulay's judgment concerning Bacon, that ' in perceiving analogies between things which have nothing in common, he never had an equal ; this characteristic obtained the mastery over all his other faculties and led him to absurdities into which no dull man could have fallen.' A man of such temperament would have been an easy prey to the desire to alter the 46th Psalm had he noticed the curious position of the words when passing under his review for literary form.

CHAPTER XXXIV

ROBERT, THIRD EARL

ROBERT DEVEREUX, whose father was beheaded at the Tower on February 25, 1600-1, was baptized on January 22, 1591. When James VI. of Scotland took over the throne of England in March, 1603, he must have done so with some misgivings. On April 13 he sent word that Lady Essex's son would be brought up with the young Scotch Princes, and kept his word, making him a sharer in Prince Henry's studies and amusements.

On January 5, 1606, it being thought expedient to get Robert married, he was, at the age of fifteen, wedded to the Earl of Suffolk's daughter. There were great entertainments and large gifts, but the lady went home to her parents. In the spring of 1606 Robert went to France, where he was entertained by the French King, and was away four years.

On his return his marriage was annulled, the lady claiming to be still a virgin, and dressing herself accord ingly. After the annulment he retired to Chartley. In 1620 he went to Flanders, and there gained some military experience.

In 1629 he remarried, and had a son, alleged not to have been his, who died in 1636. In 1642 he took com mand of the Parliamentary forces against King Charles I. Yet his bias was more towards royalty than against it. Still, he did his duty by Parliament, and served it faith fully. In December, 1644, he was approached by the King's party as to a termination of hostilities. Crom-

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302 TUDOR PROBLEMS

well opposed this, and said that those in high places desired nothing less than a termination of hostilities, in order that they might be continued in grandeur and power. Early in 1645 Fairfax was appointed to command the field army. In April the Earl resigned his command, stating in his letter :

' This proceeding from my affection to the Parliament, the prosperity whereof I shall ever wish from my heart what return soever it brings me, I being no single example in that kind of that fortune I now undergo.'

He died on September 14, 1646. This short account is given to show the curious fact that of all the noblemen it was Robert, third Earl of Essex, who carried the fortunes of the Parliamentary party to a high degree of success. He attained great popularity with the army. Is it possible that in his case there was at one time a hope that the Parliamentary party would restore him to a position which he probably knew to be his own just due ? Further, when he found that the Parliamentary party would not place him in a position of great power, is it not possible that, like his father, he gave up the un equal struggle, and died of a broken heart ? These assumptions may be wide, but, in view of the cipher story claims, should be noted.

The Independents gave him a big funeral, the intention being to bury him in the Henry VII. Chapel in West minster Abbey ; but while the body was waiting inter ment through the night at the Abbey, some rowdies broke in and damaged the hearse (see Grainger s ' Cata logue of Engraved Portraits ').

The Henry VII. Chapel was an appropriate burial- place for a descendant of the house of Tudor, but the opposition seems to have been allowed to prevail.

CHAPTEE XXXV

CIPHER HISTORY

UNDER the above title, Mr. R. S. Rait contributed to the Fortnightly of February, 1902, his reasons for suggesting the biliteral cipher story to be an American concoction.

Mr. Rait considered the story of Bacon's birth not chronologically impossible, but denied this as to the birth of Robert Earl of Essex.

His grounds were that a Spanish gentleman is stated to have had audience of the Queen five days before the reputed birthday, and in a letter recording the interview said nothing about her condition.

The cipher story gives no date of Robert's birth, and no record of his baptism can be found. It is curious that, whereas the undisputed children of Lord and Lady Hereford (afterwards Essex) were born at their only residence, Chartley, Robert is alleged to have been born at Netherwood. Mr. Rait would no doubt admit that for a privily born child of the Queen the newly-married daughter of the cousin and lady of bedchamber to the Queen would be a likely person to be passed off as its mother. The subsequent crowding of presents and honours on Lord Hereford, his despatch to Ireland, his death there by poisoning at the hands, it is alleged, of an emissary of the Earl of Leicester, seem to be curious points of confirmation of the prima facie truth of the cipher story.

Mr. Rait rejected as impossible the cipher story as to the Queen's admission before certain of the Court ladies

303

304 TUDOR PROBLEMS

of the fact of Francis being her son, and thought the information must have leaked out. But the fact of such an admission was incapable of proof, and in those days folks who babbled lost their lives. That a Sovereign should have a bastard was not uncommon ; it gave rise to no dynastic problem and called for no serious remark. But it was not to be openly talked about, and when a Norfolk gentleman ventured in 1570 to say in public, ' My Lord of Leicester had two children by the Queen/ he was condemned to lose his ears.

TRACHIMUS. Why doe you thinke in Court any use to dissemble. PANDION. Doe you know in Court any that meane to live.

Sapho and Phao, 1584.

Mr. Rait thought the Seymour story belied by the immaturity of the parties. A dietary of milk, meat, and ale in those days may have matured children rapidly. Early marriages in Court circles were frequent. Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., married at fifteen. Catherine Parr first married at fourteen. Philip Sidney's wife was sixteen when he married her. Their daughter married at fifteen. ' A girl unmarried at twenty was called an old maid ' (Besant's ' London in Tudor Times/ p. 312).

Elizabeth was not much over fourteen when Sir Thomas Seymour sought permission to marry her. Being refused by the Government, he married (by personal consent of King Edward VI., then aged ten) Queen Catherine Parr, with whom Elizabeth resided.

His grossly indelicate behaviour to the young Princess is recorded in public depositions. That he nevertheless obtained her affection is proved by the letter from her of January 28, 1548-9.

She remained under the same roof with him until September 5, 1548, when his wife died. He again applied to Government for permission to marry her. Evidently her consent had already been obtained. Shortly after-

CIPHER HISTORY 305

wards Elizabeth wrote to the Lord Protector complaining of rumours to the effect that she had given birth to a child by Seymour, and requesting a proclamation to stop the slanders. This was done.

Edward VI. was twelve at this date, and died at sixteen. At eight he wrote in Latin. From the age of ten he kept a journal. His biographer states that his intellectual precocity and religious ardour were un accompanied by any show of natural affection, and that though young he showed traces of his father's harshness of disposition.

This part of the cipher story was of events as to which Francis Bacon could only speak at secondhand, and yet how closely the historical documents corroborate the story !

Further on in his article Mr. Rait denounced the cipher story as a concoction because Francis claimed to be a 'Tidder,' instead of Dudley, the name of his alleged father.

This may be a sound technical objection, to be tested, perhaps, by the question whether our present King would be justified in calling himself a Guelph.

But it is certainly curious that the word should be written ' Tidder,' which we are told is the correct phonetic sound of the Welsh word ' Tudor/ Surely an American fictionist would have written * Tudor.'

Mr. Rait contended that ' no man who had been Lord Chancellor ' would ever have said * our law giveth to the first borne of the royall house the title of Prince of Wales.' He thought this the very natural mistake of an American fictionist.

The ' Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England/ vol. xii., p. 511, states the law to be as follows :

* The title of Prince of Wales has belonged to the heir- apparent of the Crown since the reign of Edward I.'

The cipher phrase to satisfy Mr. Rait should thereupon have run :

20

306

TUDOE PROBLEMS

' Our law giveth to the firstborn of the royall house the right to be entitled Prince of Wales.'

Nor could Mr. Bait take exception to the following phrase from a decipher dated 1622: 'My attempts in after-years to obtain my true, just, and indisputable title of Prince of Wales.'

Bacon must have known the law. Previous to his time nine Princes had borne the title, and the eldest born of the Royal house had always received it first.

That there were certain formalities of investiture, proclamation, or letters patent must also have been known to him, as he took part, in 1610, in preparing the patent entitling Henry, eldest son of James I., as Prince of Wales. He would also have known what seems the crux of the position — namely, that so long as the first born of the Royal house was alive the title could not have been legally conferred upon anyone else. But he was, like other people, not always exact. The following is a more modern lapse. In her Journal the late Queen Victoria records the parents' delight at the birth of ' a little Prince of Wales.'

Mr. Rait shared the general outcry at the error about Davison. The cipher story says, 'led him to his death,' yet it is quite clear that Davison lived for many years after the period alluded to.

The words occur in a cipher stated to have been completed by Rawley in 1635. Bacon died in 1626. In this cipher Rawley expresses regret for a number of errors, and the question arises whether this was one of them. Davison died when Rawley was a youth, so the latter would know little or nothing about him.

Suppose Rawley made the easy slip of misreading 'her' as ' his ' in the written manuscript from which the en folding manuscript would be marked for the printer, and instead of cipher writing, 'led him to her death,' wrote ' led him to his death/ the ground for the objection to the passage would be gone.

CIPHER HISTORY 307

The passage which is at p. 365 of the first edition of the ' Biliteral Cipher ' should be reconsidered. There are a few words further down which help to confirm this view : ' To send th' unfortunate woman to her death before her time.'

If the mistake is in the decipher, the misinterpreting of three letters would account for the discrepancy. Thus :

Aa^aabaaart represents * er,' A6aaabaaa£ ,, ( is.'

Mr. Rait is wrong in saying there was an Earl Strafford at the date of the cipher — Wentworth, the first Earl, was not created until 1640. There was, therefore, no special reason for accuracy in spelling the word 'Stafford.' which appears to have been either carelessly or acci dentally written ' Strafford.' Confirming this view, in the list of expenses of the Queen's table for 1576 (Nichols' ' Progresses,' vol. ii., p. 39), Lady Stafforde is referred to as Lady Strafforde. Melvill (Ambassador from Scotland), in his l Memoirs ' writes : The Queen ' then called for my Lady Strafford out of the next chamber.' Proper names at that period were spelt in a variety of ways — Burleigh and Raleigh, for instances.

Mr. Rait was very severe with the cipher-story state ment that Lord Montague, who was certainly present at the examination, was also present at the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. He, however, admitted that according to some versions a certain Lord ( Montacute ' was present, but he says, ' " Montague " is a much more familiar name, especially in America, but Bacon must have known all about Montacute.'

A short contemporary account appears in Nichols' 1 Progresses of Elizabeth,' vol. iii., of a visit by Queen Elizabeth to Cowdray in 1591. In this short account Lord Montague is also called Montecute, and Lady Montecute is also called Montague. In the list of Queen's

308 TUDOR PROBLEMS

presents in the same volume the name is also spelt

* Mountague.'

Mr. Rait considered that the cipher-story account of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots — viz., that ' Mary stoode up in a robe of bloud red" — was cribbed from Froude's ' History of England/

He said that Froude's ' History ' does not agree with a contemporary portrait, which proves that at her execu tion Mary wore a black satin dress. At p. 502, vol. ii. of Nichols' ' Progresses ' (quoting from Gunter's ' History of Peterborough/ the town to which Fotheringay Castle is near), it is stated that Mary wore an uppermost gown of black satin with purple under- sleeves, and that her bodice was of crimson satin and her skirt of crimson velvet. The contemporary portrait doubtless depicts the black satin overgo wn disrobed before Mary bared her neck for the block. Thus the cipher story is entirely cor roborated. Mary's body appears to have been left for weeks before interment, so that the crimson bodice and skirt were not available to the portrait-painter.

Mr. Rait waxed scornful when he discussed the passage at p. 312 of the cipher story : ' Our colonies in all the regions of the globe from remote East to a remoter West.' ' It is,' said Mr. Rait, ' as likely that Bacon wrote Pope's "Homer" and Froude's "History" as that he penned these words in the reign of King James I. For where were the colonies ?'

By ' colonies ' at that day appear to have been meant the small bodies of Englishmen established abroad for trading purposes. Under the auspices of the Merchant Adventurers of the East Indies, chartered in 1600,

* colonies ' appear to have been established in the ' remote East' at the Canary Isles, at Surat in Hindustan, at Achern, and at Bantam.

As to the ' remoter West,' Mr. Rait will find in Howe's 4 Annales' (1615) references to colonies at Newfoundland (p. 942), the patent being issued to Bacon and others, at

CIPHER HISTORY 309

Guiana in South America (p. 943), and at Virginia (p. 944).

That the above is the correct sense of the passage is shown by a sentence in Bacon's pamphlet, ' Of a Holy War,' in which he refers to the attitude ' of colonies or transmigrants towards their mother country.'

Mr. Rait affirmed that the word ' curriculse ' could only, in Bacon's time, have meant ' race courses/ and therefore that 'students' curriculae' is a modern expression adopted by the assumed American fictionist.

In the ' New English Dictionary ' he will find the word ' curriculum ' quoted as in common use to express a student's course of instruction as early as 1633, even in Scotland.

Finally, with regard to the Essex ring story, which he adjudges to be a myth, he is not in accord with Mr. H. L. Stephen, an Indian judge, at vol. iii., p. 81, of ' State Trials,' edited by Mr. Stephen. That gentleman believed in the story, and gave grounds for his opinion.

Mr. Bait's objections to the history recorded in the cipher story, and his accusations against the decipherer, come to nothing on close examination.

CHAPTER XXXVI

OTHER OBJECTIONS

ON the principle laid down in the play of * Pericles ' that ' truth cannot be confirmed enough/ we now deal with other objections to the authenticity of the cipher story.

The first to be noticed is the allegation that the Queen wrote two letters on January 20 and 22, 1560-1, and issued a commission to Archbishop Parker on the latter date.

These, while not inconsistent with a birth on the 22nd, may be otherwise disposed of. The first letter is a draft not in the Queen's writing ; the second is a draft in Cecil's handwriting. The commission has the Queen's signature at the top, and was conceivably one of a number of sheets so signed and set apart for use when wanted.

The next suggestion is that Bacon must have known that he was a bastard. In re Don's Estate, 27, Law Journal, Ch. Kindersley, V.-C., held that in the strict technical sense a ' bastard ' is one not born in wedlock. Bacon was born after wedlock, although base begotten.

It is objected that he could not have styled himself Francis I. The 'History of Successions," dated 1653, writes of James I. and Charles I. years before a second King of either name had been crowned. Coke at the Essex trial accused Robert Earl of Essex of wanting to be Robert I.

310

OTHER OBJECTIONS 311

BACON'S ARGUMENT OF THE * ILIAD.'

In the London Times Mr. _R. B. Marston accused Mrs. Gallup the decipherer of passing off upon the public as deciphered a concocted prose version of Pope's versifica tion of the ' Iliad.' This he supported by placing in juxtaposition — first, the Greek text ; secondly, the following literal translation of it :

1 Next, those who held Ormenion and the Spring Hyperia ; and those who possessed Asterion and the white peaks of Titanos ; these did Eurypylos, Eucamon's glorious son, command. With him followed forty black ships.'

Thirdly, Pope's verse :

' The bold Ormenian and Asterian bands In forty barks Eurypulus commands, Where Titan hides his hoary head in snow And where Hyperia's silver fountains flow.'

Then the alleged decipher :

4 Next Eurypylus led th' Ormenian and th' Asterian bands, forty vessels from the land where Titan hideth in snows his hoarie head, or where the silver founts of faire Hyperia flow.'

In the Nineteenth Century for January, 1902, Mr. Marston followed up his letter with five passages from the Greek text, of which he claimed the following to be conclusive of plagiarism by Mrs. Gallup.

Pope's verse :

' The hardy warriors whom Boeotia bred Penelius, Leitus, Prothcenor led ; With these Arcesilaus and Clonius stand, Equal in arms and equal in command.'

Mrs. Gallup's decipher :

4 Peneleus, Leitus, Prothoenor joined with Arcesilaus and bold Clonius, equal in arms and in command, led Boeotia's hosts.'

312 TUDOK PROBLEMS

In ' Baconiana ' (1906), the late Mr. W. Theobald, a gentleman of high classical attainments, followed up Mr. Marston's accusations, and agreed with that critic that 'the chances are a thousand to one against two translators inventing and adding the same words not in the original.' Mr. Theobald was able to detect quite a number of coincidences between Pope's translation and what he more politely called Bacon's, in addition to those noted by Mr. Marston.

The evidence seems full and sufficient, so as to leave virtually three alternatives only :

(1) That Mrs. Gallup, a talented lady, had tried to pass off as deciphered from the 1628 edition of the 4 Anatomy of Melancholy ' an exceedingly able translation of the argument of the 'Iliad/ in which she had, un fortunately for her good name, been detected as having borrowed from Pope ; or

(2) That Pope borrowed from Bacon ; or

(3) That Pope and Bacon borrowed from some common source.

On the first point we have Mrs. Gallup's emphatic denial :

' Any statement that I copied from Pope, or from any source whatever, the matter put forth as deciphered from Bacon's works is false in every particular.'

The third point might be capable of proof, but after this considerable lapse of time no proof has been forth coming.

We are left to consider the second alternative. Bacon and Pope appear to have possessed one attribute in common. Each could read Greek freely, but neither was a profound student of the language.

According to one of his biographers, Pope in trans lating the ' Iliad ' ' used in general to take advantage of the first glow, afterwards calmly to correct each book by the original, then to compare it with other translations,

OTHER OBJECTIONS 313

and lastly gave it a reading for the sake of the versifica tion only.'

We learn elsewhere, that Pope had no hesitation in publishing, as his own work, translations from the Greek ' Odyssey' done by his friends, Broome and Fenton.

It is clear from the biographers that not only had Pope no objection to reading other translations, but he made it his special business to search for all the trans lations he could find. His object was an entirely proper one — the perfection of his verse.

Before, therefore, we dispose of Mrs. Gallup in the pontifical manner of Mr. R. B. Marston — ' And now a bubble burst and now a world ' — let us consider whether in the course of Pope's researches and preparations, extending over several years, it would have been possible for him to have come across either —

(1) Bacon's manuscript, from which Rawley com mitted the ' Argument ' into cipher ; or

(2) An earlier decipher from the 1628 'Anatomy/

On Mrs. Gallup's showing, the manuscript ' Argument ' must have been in existence after Bacon's death, in 1626 ; otherwise Rawley could not have ciphered from it in the 1628 'Anatomy.'

The biographers of Bacon and printers of his works, from Rawley and Gruter down to Stephens and Spedding, show that even until 1734, a date long after Pope's translation, care was taken to transcribe for preservation, but not to divulge certain of Bacon's manuscripts.

There is a manuscript of part of Pope's verse transla tion in the British Museum. It breaks off before the end of Book II., and does not contain the Ormenian passage quoted by Mr. Marston, but the light it sheds is useful.

So the Ormenian passage must be considered by itself. It is clear that Pope could not have obtained from Bacon's translation the word ' bold,' but he could get ' bands,' and from Hobbes' ' commands,' and so construct his rhyme. Using Bacon's * snows ' as ' snow,' and

314 TUDOE PROBLEMS

' flows ' as * flow,' turning ' vessels ' into ' barks/ ' founts ' into ' fountains,' and dropping the word ' fair/ Pope's verse as verse is complete. But it does not tell its story with the naturalness of the prose passage.

What is the assumption regarding Mrs. Gallup's veracity ? The deciphered passage uses ' hoarie-headed ' in the same spelling that it appears in Ben Jonsou (1598), and in 'Shakespeare.' Titan was used in Bacon's acknowledged works, and ' silver fountain ' is in ' Shake speare/

So that expressions which are not in the Greek text were in use earlier than 1628.

Bacon can generally be found producing his poetic similes in more than one place in his writings. The Titan imagery of the Ormenian passage ciphered in 1628 is to be found in 'Menaphon/ printed 1589, under the vizard of ' Greene ' (see p. 49) —

' which hee compared to the coloured Hiacinth of Arcadia, her browes to the mountain snowes that lie on the hils9 her eyes to the <jTay glister of Titan's mantle.1

The Peneleus passage fortunately happens to be in the manuscript. Let us therefore suppose Pope wished to versify this passage of Bacon's prose translation.

He wants to end on * bred ' and ' led/ ' Boeotia's hosts ' is therefore transformed to —

* The hardy warriors whom Boeotia bred.' The second line in the manuscript reads :

1 Bold Clonius, Leitus, and Peneleus led.' This left him with two big names for the third line — * Prothcenor and Arcesilaus stand/

which would not do, so he altered (see the manuscript) the second, third, and fourth lines to read :

* Bold Prothrenor and Peneleus led, Clonius, Arcesilaus, and Leitus stand Equal in arms and equal in command.'

OTHER OBJECTIONS 315

Pope readjusted the second and third lines as finally printed so as to read :

' Penelius, Leitus, Prothcenor led ; With these Arcesilaus and Clonius stand.'

The fourth line convicts Mrs. Gallup of copying from Pope, or Pope of copying from Bacon. Which is the guilty party ? ' Bold ' is not an epithet in the Greek text. It is used by Bacon. It is used by Pope in his manuscript first in association with Clonius, as in Bacon. It is next used in association with Prothcenor. but eventually dis carded altogether by Pope. The inference is that he annexed ' bold ' from Bacon 's prose, tried to carry it first on one shoulder and then on the other, and eventually threw it away, though not before he had been seen in possession of it.

Turning now to the Idomeneus passage, Bacon has:

' Close by them you may see Idomeneus leading the Cretans, aided in the command by Meriones, equal to Mars, that in four score sable shipps came from Gnossus Lyctus and Gortyna from Rhytium Miletus Lycastus faire Phaestus by the silver Jardan,'

Which is more likely — that Pope's line,

1 And Merion dreadful as the God of war,

is suggested from Bacon, or that ' Meriones equal to Mars ' is suggested by Pope's line ? In another passage Bacon's ' sacred to the God Apollo ' is not in the Greek text, nor is Pope's line 'sacred to the God of Day.' Bacon's familiar knowledge of the ancients is in keeping with the use of their names. The more modern writer, Pope, on the other hand, calls the one the God of Day, the other the God of War.

To return to the Idomeneus passage, with its words 4 silver Jardan/ not in the Greek, but yet in both Bacon and Pope, the latter's manuscript gives another indica tion. His third line had ' From Gnossus Lyctus,' as in

316 TUDOR PROBLEMS

Bacon ; but he struck it out, and it appears in print in his second line as 'Of Gnossus Lyctus,' etc. Again, is it not more probable that Pope rendered Bacon's ' that in four score sable shipps came,' into ' in eighty barks,' than that a lady in pursuance of some intent to defraud or mislead turned the ' eighty barks ' into the above plagiarism ?

In the same way, one cannot possibly conceive how any lady cribbing deliberately from Pope could possibly have rendered his line —

' And they whom Thebes' well-built walls inclose '

by-

'In Hypothebae, that well-built city.'

Mr. R. B. Marston in the Publisher s Circular, De cember 20, 1901, alleged that Mrs. Gallup's work was pure invention. It is more probable that Bacon's manuscript was in existence after his death, that it was carefully preserved, and at some time used by Pope to assist himself in a translation very difficult to render in

verse.

' And now a bubble burst and now a world.'

The evidence as to Pope's association with Bacon and with ' Shakespeare,' given in another chapter of this book, confirms the view that Pope had access to the Rawley manuscript.

CHAPTER XXXVII

' SONNETS '

THE * Shakespeare Sonnets 1609' was entered S.R. by Thomas Thorpe (a book agent), on May 20, 1609. The book shows the art of sonnet- writing, laboriously practised by Francis as 'Watson,' developed when writing as * Spenser/ finally carried to its highest power.

A prominent investigator, Mr. Gerald Massey, gave valuable counsel to those seeking to unravel the message of the ' Shakespeare Sonnets ' :

' It must be borne in mind that we are endeavouring to decipher a secret history of an unexampled kind. We can get little help except from the written words them selves. We must not be too confident of walking by our own light ; we must rely more implicitly on that inner light of the Sonnets left like a lamp in a tomb of old, which will lead us with the greater certainty to the precise spot, where we shall touch the secret spring and make clear the mystery.'

Of other searchers, Mr. Bernstorff concluded the ' Sonnets ' to be an allegory in which the writer kept a diary of his inner self. Yet Mr. W. C. Hazlitt pro nounced them casual, arbitrary, and unauthoritative.

Sir Sidney Lee charged them with want of continuity, but held forty of the first group to be meditative soliloquies.

Professor Masson thought they were a connected series of entries in the poet's diary.

Rev. Walter Begley believed some had been written for the use of other people.

317

318 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The critic in the 1911 'Encyclopaedia Britannica ' declared them to be autobiographical, and that their order does not, as a whole, 'jar against the sense of emotional continuity. '

The assumption that the ' Sonnets ' were written by the Stratford player has, of course, tethered most of the critics. Many have conjectured that certain of the sonnets were made to the Earl of Southampton, or to the Earl of Essex, or to William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, and some to Mistress Fitton or Mis tress Vernon.

We invite consideration of another view. In order that it may be understood, the biliteral story as to Francis Bacon's extended authorship, his relationship to Queen Elizabeth as her basely -begotten son, and his cipher inventions, must be assumed to be true.

A few years ago, a writer styled ' Oliver Lector/ re printed certain old emblem pictures in a book entitled ' Letters from the Dead to the Dead ' (London : B. Quaritch).

These emblem pictures show Francis Bacon connected with cipher mysteries, and typify a ' shaken speare ' in a like association.

Mr. Lector, moreover, in explanatory letterpress, indicated that a cipher is contained in the ' Sonnets.'

Our view is, that in 1609, Francis being unready with his ' biliteral ' and ' word ' ciphers and their keys, adopted the expedient of making the ' Sonnets ' a vehicle for a highly complex and difficult cipher, which he hoped and expected would be solved in a future age, and give proofs of his extensive authorship. Not only had he to construct and place his cipher, but he had also to compose the exterior writing which contained it, in sufficiently attractive, occult, and enigmatic words, as in a cleverer age, to invite and eventually obtain solution.

That so many persons have essayed the problem of these 'Sonnets,' is proof that these essentials were observed.

« SONNETS' 319

While ensuring that, as far as possible, the ' Sonnets * should not, as a whole, 'jar against the sense of emotional continuity,' Francis may very well have introduced here and there verses which had previously seen service for himself and his friends.

Within this limitation, sonnets written for his private delectation or consolation, and others addressed to that wonderful person, himself, or to his wife, or to the personifications of ancient hermetic mystery, might con veniently find place. The greater the obscurity the wider and more eager the inquiry.

On the title-page of the books is a short dedication, containing (probably) a punning reference to Thorpe's bookselling colleague, W. Hall, and possibly serving as a key. The ' Sonnets ' immediately follow.

Our hypothesis is, that the first twenty-five of them are addressed by Francis to himself. In this we do no more than arrive on independent grounds at the con clusions of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Smedley.

Unmarried at the time of their composition, why should he not commune with himself and ask whether he ought not to marry and have children ?

When this preliminary had been grasped, he had no compunction in indicating (to his expected decipherer) in the Seventeenth Sonnet, that his verse :

' Is but a tomb

Which hides his (Bacon's) life.'

In the Twentieth Sonnet he probably alludes to the mingled feminality and masculineness of his nature, a peculiarity which some remarks of his chaplain, Hawley, would seem to corroborate.

In the Twenty-third Sonnet he intimates that the fear to trust (his secrets) prevented his marrying. He prefers to rely upon the eventual revelations from his books to gain for him the fame which had never been his portion.

320 TUDOR PROBLEMS

The sonnet closes with a significant hint :

' 0 learn to read what silent love hath writ.' In Sonnet 25 he alludes to his lack of public honour :

4 Whilst I whom fortune of such triumphs bar.' Yet he finds his happiness in his verse :

' Where I may not remove nor be removed.'

When the Twenty-sixth Sonnet is reached Francis supplies an important omission. In almost every Eliza bethan book there is prefaced an ' Epistle Dedicatorie.' As Francis was evidently only concerned with the far-off decipherer who would one day interpret his message, it was conveniently deferred until the Twenty-sixth Sonnet, and begins :

' Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit.'

He proceeds to hope that some good conceit of the person addressed will * put apparel on his tattered loving/ and concludes :

' Till then, not show my head where thou may'st prove me.'

The epistle to the decipherer continues through Sonnets 27 to 32. In the latter he requests the decipherer to compare his (the writer's) verse with the writings of the decipherer's later time, and should the later poets ' better prove/ trusts that his own verse may be cherished on grounds of affection.

The Thirty-third being Bacon's name Sonnet, is naturally very beautiful and reminiscent. It recounts how —

1 My sun one early morn did shine.' ***** 1 But out alack, he was but one hour mine.'

Francis here contrasts his bright early prospects with his subsequent sad experience.

' SONNETS ' 321

In the two next following sonnets he discusses his unhappy lot. Thence continues his epistle to his un known decipherer.

His Sixtieth Sonnet is a soliloquy upon the changes and ruin of Time, a subject he had already dealt with under his ' Spenser ' visor.

Then, continuing his epistle in verses 62-65, he admits and bewails his sin of too much self-love, but in ex tenuation states that he was fortifying against the period of his death.

Again, in verse 72, soliloquizing about himself and death, he concludes that after all he were better forgotten.

From this point the 'Sonnets' are sometimes soliloquies, and sometimes pleas of justification addressed to the far- off decipherer.

The eighty-second Sonnet confirms the view that Francis was addressing a dedicatory epistle to his decipherer :

' I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, And therefore may'st without attaint e'er look The dedicated words which writers use Of their fair subject blessing every book.'

In Sonnet 107 he assures his decipherer :

1 And thou in this shall find thy monument When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.'

Sonnets 110-112 consist of a most beautiful apologia by Francis for his course of life.

Much he had published he would gladly have blotted out, and his dissembling practices were not truly justi fiable. He could only urge in extenuation the peculiar circumstances of his individual case.

He writes :

' Alas ! 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view. Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new, Most true it is I have looked on truth Askance and strangely.'

21

322 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

He looked to his decipherer (Sonnet 112) to relieve him from the brand (the whisper that he was a bastard son of the Queen) which * vulgar scandal ' had stamped upon his brow.

In Sonnet 124 Francis contrasts the fame his writings would win with the comparative unimportance of his claim to the English crown :

1 If my dear love were but the child of state It might for fortune's bastard be unfathered.'

After the 126th there are some which reveal sentiments concording very closely with the views concentrated in Bacon's 'Essay of Love' (1612). We refer particularly to those numbered 132, 138, 139, 140 and 142, which record his unrequited love for the young wife he married in 1606.

CHAPTEE XXXVIII

PRAYERS

RAWLEY, in his 'Life of Lord Bacon,' remarked, 'This Lord was religious.'

At important stages of his career he invoked the mercy and support of the Almighty.

When he entered upon the great change in his life, marked by the discontinuance of his light tales under the 'Greene' vizard, his prayer, which he printed as an example to others as well as to record the spirit in which he, in 1592, the year of the plague, changed the trend of his life's work, is as follows :

' The Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour and redeemer, I humbly beseech thee to looke downe from heaven upon me, thy servant, that am grieved with thy spirite, that I may patiently endure to the end thy rod of chastise ment : And forasmuch as thou art Lorde of life and death, as also of strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness, I do therefore wholly submit myselfe unto thee to bee dealt withall according to thy holy will and pleasure. And seeing, 0 mercifull Jesu, that my sinnes are innumerable like unto the sandes of the sea, and that I have so often offended thee that I have worthely deserved death and utter damnation, I humbly pray thee to deale with me according to thy gratious mercie and not agreeable to my wicked deserts. And graunt that I may (O Lorde) through thy spirite, with patience suffer and beare this Crosse which thou hast worthily laid uppon mee : notwithstanding how greevous soever the burthen thereof be, that my faith may be found

323

324 TUDOE PEOBLEMS

laudable and glorious in thy sight, to the increase of thy glory and my everlasting felicitie.

1 For ever thou (0 Lord), most sweete Savior, didst first suffer paine before thou wert crucified : Since there fore, 0 meeke Lambe of God, that my way to eternall joy is to suffer with thee worldly greevances, graunt that I may be made like unto thee by suffering patiently adver- sitie, trouble, and sickness. And lastly, forasmuch as the multitude of thy mercies doth put away the sinnes of those which truely repent, so as thou remenibrest them no more, open the eye of thy mercie and behold me a most miserable and wretched sinner, who for the same doth most earnestly desire pardon and forgiveness. Eenew (0 Lord) in mee whatsoever hath beene decayed by the fraudulent malice of Satan or my own carnall wilfulness : receive me (0 Lord) into thy favour, consider of my contrition, and gather up my teares into thy heavenly habitation : and seeing (O Lorde) my whole trust and confidence is onely in thy mercie, blot out my offences and tread them under feet, so as they may not be a witnesse against me at the day of wrath. Grant this, O Lord, I humbly beseech thee for thy mercie's sake. Amen.'

Again, in the later years of his life his ' Instauratio Magna ' was opened with a prayer :

' We in the beginning of our work pour forth most humble and ardent prayers to God the Father, God the Word, and God the Spirit, that mindful of the cares of man and of his pilgrimage through this life in which we wear out some few and evil days, thou would vouchsafe through our hands to endow the family of mankind with these new gifts ; and we moreover humbly pray that human knowledge may not prejudice divine truth, and that no incredulity and darkness in regard to the divine mysteries may arise in our minds upon the disclosing of the ways of sense, and this greater kindling of our natural light ; but rather that from a pure understanding, cleared of all fancies and vanity, yet no less submitted to, nay wholly prostrate before the divine oracles, we may render unto faith the tribute due to faith : and lastly, that being freed from the poison of knowledge infused into it by the serpent, and with which the human soul is swollen and

PRAYERS 325

puffed up, we may neither be too profoundly nor immoderately wise, but worship truth in charity.'

In his ' New Atlantis,' a scheme for a College to inquire into the secrets of nature, there is the prayer :

4 Lord God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace, to those of our order, to know thy work of creation and the secrets of them ; and to discern as far as appertaineth to the generations of men, between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people, that the thing which we now see before our eyes is thy finger, and a true miracle ; and forasmuch as we learn in our books, that thou never workest miracles, but to a divine and excellent end, for the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon great cause, we most humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy ; which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it to us."

Others of his prayers can be found in other parts of his works.

Perhaps the one composed when he was Lord Chancellor was his last written, and certainly it is the best known of them :

' Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou, O Lord, soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts : thou acknowledgest the upright of heart : thou judgest the hypocrite : thou ponderest men's thoughts and doings as in a balance : thou measurest their intentions as with a line : vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid from thee.

6 Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before thee : remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies : I have mourned for the divisions of thy Church : I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted

326

TUDOR PROBLEMS

in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, that it might have the first and the latter rain ; and that it might stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine eyes.

( I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart : T have though in a despised weed procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them ; neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure ; but I have been as a dove free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples.

* Thousands have been my sins, and ten thousands my transgressions ; but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart through thy grace hath been an unquenched coal upon thy altar. 0 Lord my strength, I have since my youth met with thee in all my ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable chastise ments, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours have increased upon me, so have thy corrections ; so as thou hast been always near me, O Lord ; and ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me ; and when I have ascended before men I have descended in humiliation before thee. And now when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me according to thy former loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school not as a bastard but as a child. Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies ; for what are the sands of the sea, earth, heavens, and all these are nothing to thy mercies.

'Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee, that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces, which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it as I ought to exchangers, where it might have made best profit, but misspent in things for which I was the least fit ; so I may truly say my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for thy Saviour's sake, and receive me into thy bosom or guide me in thy ways/

PRAYERS 327

Rawley alluded to his lordship's principles :

'That a little philosophy maketh men apt to forget God, as attributing too much to second causes ; but depth of philosophy bringeth men back to God again.'

According to Rawley, his lordship 'died in the true faith established in the Church of England. '

The following short but beautiful prayer would appear to have been first published by Tenison in the Baconiana of 1679. It is by some considered to belong and refer to the 1 623 Play Folio :

1 May God the Creator Preserver and Renewer of the Universe protect and govern this Work both in its ascent to His Glory, and in its descent to the Good of Mankind, for the sake of His Mercy and good Will to Men through His only Son.

'God-with-us.'

* / have lost much time with my own age which I would fain recover with posterity J

FRANCIS BACON.

BOOKS AND WETTINGS READ OR CONSULTED

ANON. : Life of Edmund Spenser, 1679 ARBER : Life and Works of Gosson ARBER : Life and Works of Watson ARBER : The Arte of English Poe"sie ASCHAM: Schoolmaster, 1570

BACON SOCIETY : Journals and Maga zines

BAYLEY: The Shakespeare Symphony BEGLEY : Is it Shakespeare ? BEQLEY : Bacon's Nova Kesuscitatio BLACKBOURNE : Life and Works of

Francis Bacon

BOAS : Life and Works of Kyd BOMPAS : Problem of the Shakespeare

Plays

BOURNE : Life of Sidney BULLEN : Life and Works of Peele

GAL VERT : Bacon and Shakespeare CAMDEN : Annals

CAMDEN SOCIETY : Letter-book of Gabriel Harvey

CAMDEN SOCIETY : Old Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal

CAMPBELL : Case for Mary Queen of Scots

CARLTON : Memoir of Timothe Bright

CASTLE : Bacon, Jonson, and Shake speare

COLLINS : Life of Lord Burleigh

COLLINS : Peerage

COLLINS : Studies in Shakespeare

CRAIK : Romance of the Peerage

CRAWFORD : Collectanea

CREIGHTON : Shakespeare : Story of his Life

CROFTS : English Literature (Eliza bethan)

CUNINGHAM : Bacon's Secret Dis closed

CUNNINGHAM : Life and Works of Ben Jonson

DEVEREUX : Lives of the Earls of

Essex

DIXON : Life of Francis Bacon DODSLEY : Collection of Old Plays DONELLY : Great Cryptogram DUGDALE : Antiquities of Warwick

shire

DUGDALE : Diary DYCE : Life and Plays of Greene DYCE : Life and Plays of Marlowe DYCE : Life and Works of Peele

EDWARDS : Shaksper, not Shake

speare ELTON : Shakespeare : his Family

and Friends EVELYN : Diary

FAIRHOLT : Life and Works of

FLEAY : Life of Shakespeare FLEAY : Chronicle History of the

English Drama FROUDE : History of England

GALLUP : Biliteral Cipher of Francis

Bacon

GALLUP : Bacon's Lost Manuscripts GARNETT and GOSSE : Elizabethan

Literature GRAINGER: Catalogue of Engraved

Portraits GREENE: Shakespeare and the Em

blem Writers

GROSART : Life and Works of Sidney GROSART : Life and Works of Spenser GROSART : Life and Works of Greene GROSART : Life and Works of Nash GROSART : Life and Works of Gabriel

Harvey

HALLIWELL PHILLIPS : Life of

Shakespeare

HAZLEWOOD : Ancient Critical Essays HAZLITT : Shakespear HAZLITT : Shakespeare's Library HOWE : Annales, 1615 HUME : Courtships of Queen Eliza

beth

329

330

TUDOR PROBLEMS

JAMES : Bacon- Shakespeare Pamph lets

JDSSEEAND : English Novel in the time of Shakespeare

LAWRENCE : Bacon is Shakespeare LECTOR : Letters from the Dead to

the Dead

LEE : Life of Shakespeare LINGARD : History of England

Marprelate Pamphlets MONTAGU : Life, Letters, and Works of Francis Bacon

NARES : Life of Lord Burleigh

NICHOLAS : Life and Times of Sir C. Hatton

NICHOLS : Progresses of Queen Eliza beth

NICHOLS : Progresses of James I.

ORDISH : Shakespeare's London

PENZANCE : Bacon- Shakespeare Con troversy

POTT : Francis Bacon and his Secret Society

POTT : Bacon's Promus

BAWLEY : Life of Francis Bacon EAWSON : Bess of Hardwick REED : Bacon our Shakespeare BEEP : Bacon v. Shakespeare REED : Coincidences REED : Parallelisms ROWE : Life and Works of Shake speare, 1709 RUSHTON : Shakespeare Illustrated

SECCOMBE and ALLEN : Age of Shake speare

SHILLITO : Anatomy of Melancholy and Memoir

SIDNEY : Who Killed Amy Robsart ?

SIMPSON : School of Shakespeare

SMEDLEY : Mystery of Francis Bacon SOCIETY OF GRAY'S INN : Records SPEDDING : Evenings with a Re viewer SPEDDING : Life, Letters, and Works

of Francis Bacon STEEVES : Life of Francis Bacon STEPHEN : State Trials (Earl of

Essex)

ST. JOHN : Life of Raleigh STONE BOOTH : Some Acrostic Sig natures of Francis Bacon STOPES : Bacon-Shakespeare Question STOWE : Annales, 1605 STRICKLAND : Life of Queen Eliza beth

SUTTON : Shakespeare Enigma SWINBURNE : Study of Shakespeare SYMONDS : Shakespeare's Prede cessors

TENNISON : Baconiana, 1679 THEOBALD : Shakespeare Studies in

Baconian Light THORNBURY : Shakespeare's England

WAITE : Secret Tradition of Free masonry

WEBB : Mystery of Wm. Shakespeare

WIGSTON : Bacon, Shakespeare, and the Rosicrucians

WILLIS : Shakespeare-Bacon Con troversy

Various biographies and articles on Elizabethan subjects in Wood's Athense Oxon, Cooper's Athense Cantab, Dictionary of English National Biography, Imperial Dictionary of Biography, Encyclo pedia Britannica (1911), Gentle man's Magazine, Eraser's Maga zine, Quarterly Review, Athenaeum, Fortnightly, Nineteenth Century, Notes and Queries, etc.

INDEX

TO PERSONS, PLACES, AND NAMES ASSOCIATED WITH

THE TIMES, WORKS, AND SCHEMES OF FRANCIS BACON,

BARON VERULAM, VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS

, Duo D', 13 Allen, Cardinal, 14 Anjou, Due d', 11 Areopagus, the, 78, 259 Arthur, Prince (son of Henry VII.),

304

Arundel, Earl of, 16, 105, 249 Ascham, Roger, 229 Ashmole, Elias, Rosicrucian and

Freemason, 278 Austria, Archduke of, 11

B

Bacon, Lady Alice (wife of Sir Francis Bacon), 58, 291, 293, 294

Bacon, Lady Anne (wife of Sir Nicholas), 8, 14, 19, 21, 56, 60

Bacon, Anthony (son of Sir Nicholas), 19, 57, 156, 251

* Bacon,' Sir Francis, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, son of Queen Elizabeth, 2, 5 ; birth and register of baptism, 8, 288 ; Marsham's asser tion, 11 ;' Felicities of Queen,' 18 ; Cambridge, 21 ; travels in France, 21 ; Marguerite, 22 ; Hilliard's miniature, 22 ; Gray's Inn, 23 ; travels in Italy and Spain, 23 ; Germany, Poland, and Denmark, 24 ; M.P., 24 ; trouble with Queen, 25 ; seeks office, 25 ; mock Court, 26; gives up legal practice, 27; in favour again, 27 ; concealed poet, 29 ; sonnet, 31 ; Dr. Lopez ex amination, 37 ; 'Essays,' 48; reply to St. John about ' Richard II.,' 48 ; literary inactivity, 51 ; trouble with James I., 58 ; marries, 58 ; funeral of Lady Anne, 60 ; wills, 61 ; earnings, 63 ; Lord Keeper,

64 ; Westminster procession, 64 ; honours, 66 ; fall, 67 ; wants Queen to help to buy Gorhambury, 281 ; married life, 290

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 19, 20, 22 ; will, 55, 256

Bartholomew's Hospital, 206

Beauchamp and Bell Tower, secret way, 3

Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, tomb of ' child of great parentage,' 17

Beauchamp Tower inscription, ' Robart Tidir,' 43

Beeston, Sir Hugh, 58

Blackfriars Monastery, 98, 111, 119

Blount, Sir Charles, Lord Mount - joye. See Earl of Devonshire

Blount, Sir Christopher, 15, 43

Bodley, Sir Thomas, 23, 24, 39, 40, 89, 257

Boyle, Robert, philosopher, 282

Bright, Timothe, 97, 205

Brook House, Hackney, 7

Bryskett, Ludovico, 139, 153, 157

Burbage, 216

Burleigh, Lord, William Cecil: de cides to resign office, 5 ; concerning Leicester, 10; opposed to Queen's French marriage, 11 ; death, 40 ; accepts gift, 65, 105, 193 ; dedica tion to, 250 ; Life of, 252

Burlington, third Earl of, 279, 281

Burton, Robert, 213

Carey, Sir George (relative of the

Queen), 60, 181, 250 Carey, Lady Elizabeth (wife of

above), 141, 154, 181 Carey, Sir Robert (relative of the

Queen), 36

331

332

TUDOE PROBLEMS

Cecils. See Burleigh, Salisbury, and

Exeter

Chapman, George, 134 Clifford, Lady Jane, 282 Clifton, Gervis (married Penelope

Kich), 250

Cobham, Lord Henry, 39 Coke, Sir Edward, 64, 66, 310 Colonies in Tudor times, 308 Compton, Lord, 250 Compton, Lady (daughter of Sir

John Spencer), 154, 250 Constable, Sir John, 251 Cooke, Sir Anthony, 20 Cope, Sir Walter, 58 Cumberland, George, Earl of, 249 Cumberland, Countess M., 155, 249

D

Davis, Sir John, 135, 156, 259 Davison, Secretary, 39, 306 Derby, Earl of, 178 Derby, Countess of, 154 Devereux, Lady Frances, 282 Devonshire, Charles Blount (Mount- joy e), Earl of, 180, 250, 263 DorreU, 201 Dorset, Ann Clifford, Countess of,

155, 284

Dowe, Mother (of Brentwood), 5 Dudley, Eobert. See Leicester Dugdale, Sir William, 178, 277, 278 Dyer, Sir Edward, 35, 78

E

Edward VI., 305

Egerton, Lord Keeper, 41, 64

Elizabeth, Queen of England : born, 2 ; in Tower, 2 ; secret marriage in Tower, 3; accession, 3; com ment on behaviour, 3, 4 ; death of Dudley's wife, 5, 6 ; second ceremony of marriage to Dudley 6 ; confession to De Quadra, 9 illness, 9 ; gifts to Dudley, foreign marriage schemes, 11 statute as to succession, 11 writes to Walsingham, 12 ; alleged children, 14 ; conduct to Lady Lettice, 15 : to Raleigh, 18 ; to Robert Earl of Essex, 40 ; death, 51 ; a Progress, 175

Essex, Walter, first Earl of, 13, 32, 33, 34, 303

Essex, Robert, second Earl of, 15, 32, 34, 35, 36-44; plays at Essex House, 49; Lisbon, 117; story of ring, 309

Essex, Robert, third Earl of, 301

Essex House, 41, 49, 57, 155

Essex, Lettice, Countess of (after wards wedded Earl of Leicester), 13, 15, 17, 35

Evelyn, John, 276, 278

Exeter, Thomas Cecil, Earl of, 250, 352

F

Feria, Spanish Ambassador, 4 ' Filuin Labyrinthi,' 70 Florio, John, 49

Fraunce, Abraham, 102, 103, 147 Fulgentio, Father, 69

G

Gorges, Arthur, 153, 157 Gorhambury House, 20, 21, 22, 56,

57, 61, 63, 176, 199, 281, 284, 293,

294

Gosson, Stephen, 75 Gray's Inn, 23, 24, 29, 30, 46, 57, 63,

97, 133, 147, 158 Greene, Robert, 119 Greenwich Palace. 26, 155 Greville, Fulke, 78, 90, 169, 263 Grindal, Archbishop, 232 Groby, Lord Grey of, 190

Hampton Court, 33, 181, 233 Harrington, Sir John, 41, 264 Harvey, Gabriel, 23. 77, 78, 83, 94,

137, 140, 141, 177, 178, 179, 220,

257 Hatton, Sir Christopher (Captain of

Queen's Guard, afterwards Lord

Chancellor), 13, 17, 35, 104, 251 Hatton, Sir William, 250 Hatton, Lady Elizabeth (daughter of

Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, and

granddaughter of Lord Burleigh),

250

Havering atte Bower, 191 Hayward, John, 51 Heminge and Condell, 239 Henry IV. of France, 37, 38, 106 Henry VII., 304 Henry VIII., 2, 3, 21 Henry, Prince of Wales, 251, 301,

306

Herbert, Sir William, 168 Herbert, Rev. George, 297 Heywood, Thomas, 46 Heywood the Jester, 222 Hicks, Sir Michael, 58, 60, 208 Howard, Lord Henry, 13 Hunsdon, Lord, 51, 181

INDEX

333

James L, 11, 29, 55, 59, 64, 65, 69,

154, 157, 194, 197, 301 Jonson, Ben, 97, 105, 135, 136, 152,

170, 241, 243, 245, 247

K

Kenilworth Castle, 9, 13 Knollys, Sir Francis, 13 Kyd, Thomas, 132, 164, 220

Lee or Leigh. Sir Henry, 91, 376

Leicester House, 15, 258

Leicester, Eobert Dudley, Earl of: age, 2 ; Tower, 3 ; Master of Horse, 3 ; and Queen, 4, 5 ; death of wife, 6 ; letter to Cecil, 7 ; secret nuptials, 7 ; offer to restore Catho licism, 8 ; Mary Queen of Scots, 8 ; honours, 9 ; rooms, 10 ; separation, 11 ; Lady Sheffield, 12 ; gifts, 13 ; Lady Lettice Essex, 13 ; Stubbe, 14; Armada, 15; death, 15; will, 15 ; Low Countries, 34 ; Lord Steward, 35

Lopez, Dr. Pedro, 37, 182

Lyly, John, 83

M

Marguerite of Navarre, 106, 292

Marlowe, Christopher, 132

Marprelate Pamphlets, 149, 173

Marriages at early years, 304

Marsham, 11

Marston, 259

Mary Queen of Scots, 8, 11, 28, 55,

154, 308

Matthew, Tobie, 72, 197, 259, 269 Mead, Dr. Kichard, 279, 281 Melville, 10 Meres, Francis, 49, 76 Montacute, Lord, 307 Morgan, 35

N

Nash, Thomas, 172 Needham. Sir Kobert, 153, 163 Noodt, Van der, 150, 152 Norfolk, Duke of, 7, 16, 20 Norris, Sir John, 148 Northumberland, Earl of, 250 Nottingham, William Howard, Earl of, 40, 43

O

Order of the Helmet, 272 Orpheus legend, 70, 78, 191, 198 Osborne, George, 290 Oxford, Vere, Earl of, 13, 17, 98, 104, 119, 249

Pakington, Sir John and Lady, 293

Parker, Archbishop, 310

Paulet, Sir Amias, 21, 88

Peele, George, 109

Pembroke, Earl of : trustee of will of

Henry VIII., 7 ; firm Protestant,

7 ; owner of Brook House, 7 ;

death, 7; friendship for Earl of

Leicester, 8 Pembroke, Earl of (husband of

Countess Mary), 183, 318 Pembroke, Countess Mary (niece of

Earl Leicester), 103, 239, 263, 266 Pembroke, Earl of (son of Countess

Mary), 239

Perez, Don Antonio, 38, 215, 265 Plays, 45, 46, 48, 238, 267. See

also under chapters Nash, Greene,

Peele, Lyly, Gosson, Kyd, Marlowe,

and Shakespere Pope, Alexander, 279, 280, 281, 286,

311, 312

Pope of Home, 11 Powell, Thomas, 46 Prayers, 323

Prince of Wales (title of), 305, 306 Psalm xlvi., 299 Puckering, Lord Keeper, 133

Q

Quadra, Ambassador de, 5, 8, 9

E

Kaleigh, Sir Walter (Captain of

Queen's Guard), 35, 39, 42, 43,

147

Eamus, Peter, 134, 174 Eawley, William (Bacon's Chaplain) ,

133, 215, 277, 278, 280, 327 Eich, Lady Penelope (daughter of

Countess Lettice of Essex), 250,

263 Eobsart, Amy (first wife of Lord

Eobert Dudley), 6 Eosy Cross (Fraternity of), 74, 75,

124, 272, 273. 276, 286 Eoyal Society, the, 272, 276, 287 Eowe, Nicholas (Poet Laureate), 279 EusselL, Lady, 176 Eutland, Countess of (stepdaughter

of Eobert, second Earl of Essex),

247

S

Salisbury, Eobert Cecil, Earl of (de formed son of Lord Burleigh by second wife), 38, 39, 40

Scrope, Lady (sister of Sir George Carey and relative of the Queen), 41

334

TUDOR PROBLEMS

Seymour, Sir Thomas (suitor for hand of Queen Elizabeth when princess), 304

Shakespere, William, 216, 226, 229

Sheffield, Lady Douglas (widow of Lord Sheffield), 12

Sidney, Sir Henry (brother-in-law to Earl of Leicester), 8

Sidney, Sir Phillip (son of Sir Henry), 14, 24, 51, 78, 105, 183, 184, 251, 262

Sidney, Lady Elizabeth (wife of Sir Philip Sidney and daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham), 36

Simier, French Ambassador, 13

Skinner, Vincent, 208

Solomon's House, 278, 280

' Sonnets,' 317

Southampton, Earl of, 182, 243

Spenser, Edmund, 139

Spencer, Sir John, of Althorpe, 154

Stafford or Strafford, Lady, 307

Statute as to successions (1571). 11

Strange, Lord Ferdinando (after wards Earl of Derby), 250

Stratford effigy, 273, 287

Stubbe, John, 14, 185

Suffolk, Earl of, 301

Sulyard, Sir Edward, 190

Sussex, Earl of, 10, 32

Sussex, Countess of (Lady Fitz- walter, daughter-in-law of above Earl), 166, 249, 250

Talbot, Gilbert (son of Earl of

Shrewsbury), 12 Tamworth (groom of the chamber to

Earl of Leicester), 9, 10 Tarlton (jester to Queen Elizabeth),

121 Tennison, Archbishop, 61, 239, 278,

279

Throgmorton, Sir John, 196 Throgmorton, Sir Nicholas, 196 Tower of London (inscription ' Robart

Tidir'), 43

Twickenham Lodge, 26, 27, 38, 57,

133, 176, 178 Turenne, Marshal, 37

V

Verulam, Baron. See Francis Bacon Verulam city, 149

W

Walpole, Sir Robert, 286

Walsingham, Sir Francis (father-in- law of Sir Philip Sidney and of Robert, second Earl of Essex), 11, 12, 39, 78, 101, 103, 249, 251

Walsingham, Thomas (nephew of Sir Francis), 19, 104, 133

Wanstead House (in Essex, residence of Earl Leicester), 9, 13

Warre, Lord de la, 87, 250

Warwick, Ambrose Dudley, Earl of (brother of Earl of Leicester), 13, 17, 144

Warwick, Countess of (wife of Am brose), 41, 155, 249

Watson, Bishop Thomas, 105

Watson, Thomas, 100

Webbe, William, 188

Westminster Abbey, 152, 281, 282, 283, 287, 302

Whitgift, Archbishop, 21, 89, 173, 175, 210, 257

Whitney, Geoffrey, 185

Wilkins, Dr. John, Bishop of Chester, 275, 276, 277

Willoughby, Lord Bertie, 265

Wilmot, 191

Win wood, Secretary of State, 64, 65

Wolsey, Cardinal, 233, 234

Worcester, Earl of, 41, 155, 159

Yelverton, Attorney- General, 65 Yorick, 222

York House (residence of Francis Bacon), 20, 41, 65, 288

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