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,
ix
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
xi
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
XIV
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
18
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
36
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
42
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
44
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
45
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
48
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
64
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
66
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.'
69
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.'
74
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 ?
75
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.
78
TUDOE PROBLEMS
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/)
GOSSON 79
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.
80
TUDOR PROBLEMS
' 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/
GOSSON 81
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
6
82 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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
83
84 TUDOE PEOBLEMS
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.
LYLY 85
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
86 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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
LYLY 87
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
LYLY 89
' 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 '
LYLY 91
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.'
92 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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.
LYLY 93
' 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.
94 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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.'
LYLY 95
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-
WATSON 103
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.'
WATSON 107
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
108 TUDOR PEOBLEMS
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.'
109
110 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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,
118
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
120
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
GREENE 121
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.
122 TUDOE PEOBLEMS
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 :
GREENE 123
' 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.
11
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.'
164
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.)
170
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.
172
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.
12
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.
180 TUDOR PROBLEMS
'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
189
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).
198 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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.'
226
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.
228
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
262
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
267
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.
271
272 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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
RE-ENTOMBED 277
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/
278 TUDOE PEOBLEMS
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
RE-ENTOMBED 279
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.
RE-ENTOMBED 281
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
EE-ENTOMBED 283
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
BE-ENTOMBED 285
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,
RE-ENTOMBED 287
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
RE-ENTOMBED 289
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.
.
292 TUDOR PROBLEMS
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
290
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-
301
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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