BACON'S SUIT ON HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND, 1580.
Spedding states that the earliest composition of Bacon which he had been
able to discover is a letter written in his 20th year from Grays Inn.
From that time forward, he continues, compositions succeed each other
without any considerable interval, and in following them we shall
accompany him step by step through his life. What are the compositions
which Spedding places as being written but not published up to the year
1597, when the first small volume of 10 essays containing less than
6,000 words was issued from the press? These are they:--
Notes on the State of Christendom[19] (date 1580 to 1584).
Letter of Advice to the Queen (1584-1586).
An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of
England (1586-1589).
Speeches written for some Court device, namely, Mr. Bacon in praise
of Knowledge, and Mr. Bacon's discourse in praise of his Sovereign
(1590-1592).
Certain observations made upon a libel published this present year,
1592.
A true report of the Detestable Treason intended by Dr. Roderigo
Lopez, 1594.
Gesta Grayorum, 1594, parts of which are printed by Spedding in
type denoting doubtful authorship.
Bacon's device, 1594-1598.
Three letters to the Earl of Rutland on his travels, 1595-1596.
That is all! These are the compositions which follow each other without
considerable interval, and by which we are to accompany him step by step
through those seventeen years which should be the most important years
in a man's life! He could have turned them out in ten days or a
fortnight with ease. We expect from Mr. Spedding bread, and he gives us
a stone!
This brilliant young man, who, when 15 years of age, left Cambridge,
having possessed himself of all the knowledge it could afford to a
student, who had travelled in France, Spain and Italy to "polish his
mind and mould his opinion by intercourse with all kinds of foreigners,"
how was he occupying himself during what should be the most fruitful
years of his life? Following his profession at the Bar? His affections
did not that way tend. Spedding expresses the opinion that he had a
distaste for his profession, and, writing of the circumstances with
which he was surrounded in 1592, says: "I do not find that he was
getting into practice. His main object still was to find ways and means
for prosecuting his great philosophical enterprise." What was this
enterprise? "I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have
moderate means," he says, writing to Burghley, "for I have taken all
knowledge to be my province." This means more than mere academic
philosophy.
In 1593, when Bacon was put forward and upheld for a year as a candidate
for the post of Attorney-General, Spedding writes of him; "He had had
little or no practice in the Courts; what proof he had given of
professional proficiency was confined to his readings and exercises in
Grays Inn.... Law, far from being his only, was not even his favourite
study; ... his head was full of ideas so new and large that to most
about him they must have seemed visionary."
Writing of him in 1594 Spedding says: "The strongest point against
Bacon's pretensions for the Attorneyship was his want of practice. His
opponents said that 'he had never entered the place of battle.'[20]
Whether this was because he could not find clients or did not seek them
I cannot say." In order to meet the objection, Bacon on the 25th
January, 1593-4, made his first pleading, and Burghley sent his
secretary "to congratulate unto him the first fruits of his public
practice."
There is one other misconception to be corrected. It is urged that Bacon
was, during this period, engrossed in Parliamentary life. From 1584 to
1597 five Parliaments were summoned. Bacon sat in each. In his
twenty-fifth year he was elected member for Melcombe, in Dorsetshire. In
the Parliament of 1586 he sat for Taunton, in that of 1588 for
Liverpool, in that of 1592-3 for Middlesex, and in 1597 for Ipswich.
But the sittings of these Parliaments were not of long duration, and the
speeches which he delivered and the meetings of committees upon which he
was appointed would absorb but a small portion of his time. It must be
patent, therefore, that Spedding does not account for his occupations
from his return to England in 1578 until 1597, when the first small
volume of his Essays was published.
During the whole of this period Bacon was in monetary difficulties, and
yet there is no evidence that he was living a life of dissipation or
even of extravagance. On the contrary, all testimony would point to the
conclusion that he was following the path of a strictly moral and
studious young man. On his return to England he took lodgings in Coney
Court, Grays Inn. There Anthony found him when he returned from abroad.
There are no data upon which to form any reliable opinion as to the
amount of his income at this time. Rawley states that Sir Nicholas Bacon
had collected a considerable sum of money which he had separated with
intention to have made a competent purchase of land for the livelihood
of his youngest son, but the purchase being unaccomplished at his death,
Francis received only a fifth portion of the money dividable, by which
means he lived in some straits and necessities in his younger years. It
is not clear whether the "money dividable" was only that separated by
Sir Nicholas, or whether he left other sums which went to augment the
fund divisible amongst the brothers. His other children were well
provided for. Francis was not, however, without income. Sir Nicholas had
left certain manors, etc., in Herts to his sons Anthony and Francis in
tail male, remainder to himself and his heirs. Lady Ann Bacon had vested
an estate called Markes, in Essex, in Francis, and there is a letter,
dated 16th April, 1593, from Anthony to his mother urging her to concur
in its sale, so that the proceeds might be applied to the relief of his
brother's financial position.[21]
Lady Bacon lived at Gorhambury. She was not extravagant, and yet in 1589
she was so impoverished that Captain Allen, in writing to Anthony,
speaking of his mother, Lady Bacon, says she "also saith her jewels be
spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven several
persons." Whatever her resources were, they had by then been exhausted
for her sons. Anthony was apparently a man of considerable means. He was
master of the manor and priory of Redburn, of the manor of Abbotsbury,
Minchinbury and Hores, in the parish of Barley, in the county of
Hertford; of the Brightfirth wood, Merydan-meads, and Pinner-Stoke
farms, in the county of Middlesex.[22]
But within a few years after his return to England Anthony was borrowing
money wherever he could. Mother and brother appear to have exhausted
their resources and their borrowing capabilities. There is an account
showing that in eighteen months, about 1593, Anthony lent Francis L373,
equivalent to nearly L3,000 at to-day's value. In 1597 Francis was
arrested by the sheriff for a debt of L300, for which a money-lender had
obtained judgment against him, and he was cast into the Tower. Where had
all the money gone? There is no adequate explanation.
* * * * *
The first letter of Francis Bacon's which Spedding met with, to which
reference has already been made, is dated 11th July, 1580, to Mr.
Doylie, and is of little importance. The six letters which follow--all
there are between 1580 and 1590[23]--relate to one subject, and are of
great significance. The first is dated from Grays Inn, 16th September,
1580, to Lady Burghley. In it young Francis, now 19 years of age, makes
this request: "That it would please your Ladyship in your letters
wherewith you visit my good Lord to vouchsafe the mention and
recommendation of my suit; wherein your Ladyship shall bind me more unto
you than I can look ever to be able to sufficiently acknowledge."
The next letter--written on the same day--is addressed to Lord Burghley.
Its object is thus set forth:--
"My letter hath no further errand but to commend unto your Lordship
the remembrance of my suit which then I moved unto you, whereof it
also pleased your Lordship to give me good hearing so far forth as
to promise to tender it unto her Majesty, and withal to add in the
behalf of it that which I may better deliver by letter than by
speech, which is, that although it must be confessed that the
request is rare and unaccustomed, yet if it be observed how few
there be which fall in with the study of the common laws either
being well left or friended, or at their own free election, or
forsaking likely success in other studies of more delight and no
less preferment, or setting hand thereunto early without waste of
years upon such survey made, it may be my case may not seem
ordinary, no more than my suit, and so more beseeming unto it. As I
force myself to say this in excuse of my motion, lest it should
appear unto your Lordship altogether undiscreet and unadvised, so
my hope to obtain it resteth only upon your Lordship's good
affection towards me and grace with her Majesty, who methinks
needeth never to call for the experience of the thing, where she
hath so great and so good of the person which recommendeth it."
What was this suit? Spedding cannot suggest any explanation. He says:
"What the particular employment was for which he hoped I cannot say;
something probably connected with the service of the Crown, to which the
memory of his father, an old and valued servant prematurely lost, his
near relationship to the Lord Treasurer, and the personal notice which
he had himself received from the Queen, would naturally lead him to
look.... The proposition, whatever it was, having been explained to
Burghley in conversation, is only alluded to in these letters. It seems
to have been so far out of the common way as to require an apology, and
the terms of the apology imply that it was for some employment as a
lawyer. And this is all the light I can throw upon it." Subsequently
Spedding says the motion was one[24] "which would in some way have made
it unnecessary for him to follow 'a course of practice,' meaning, I
presume, ordinary practice at the Bar."
Another expression in the letter makes it clear that the object of the
suit was an experiment. The Queen could not have "experience of the
thing," and Bacon solicited Burghley's recommendation, because she would
not need the experience if he, so great and so good, vouched for it.
Burghley appears to have tendered the suit to the Queen, for there is a
letter dated 18th October, 1580, addressed to him by Bacon, commencing:
"Your Lordship's comfortable relation to her Majesty's gracious
opinion and meaning towards me, though at that time your leisure
gave me not leave to show how I was affected therewith, yet upon
every representation thereof it entereth and striketh so much more
deeply into me, as both my nature and duty presseth me to return
some speech of thankfulness."
Spedding remarks thereon: "It seems that he had spoken to Burghley on
the subject and made some overture, which Burghley undertook to
recommend to the Queen; and that the Queen, who though slow to bestow
favours was careful always to encourage hopes, entertained the motion
graciously and returned a favourable answer. The proposition, whatever
it was, having been explained to Burghley in conversation, is only
alluded to in these letters."
Spedding dismisses these three letters in 22 lines of comment, which
contain the extracts before set out. He regards the matter as of slight
consequence, and admits that he can throw no light upon it. But he
points out that it was "so far out of the common way as to require an
apology." Surely he has not well weighed the terms of the apology when
he says they "imply that it was for some employment as a lawyer."
There had been a conversation between Bacon and Burghley during which
Bacon had submitted a project to the accomplishment of which he was
prepared to devote his life in the Queen's service. It necessitated his
abandoning the profession of the law. Apparently Burghley had
remonstrated with him, in the manner of experienced men of the world,
against forsaking a certain road and avenue to preferment in favour of
any course rare and unaccustomed. Referring in his letter to this,
Bacon's parenthetical clause beginning "either being well left or
friended," etc., is confession and avoidance. In effect he says:--Few
study the common laws who have influence; few at their own free
election; few desert studies of more delight and no less preferment; and
few devote themselves to that study from their earliest years. Since
there are few who, having my opportunities, devote themselves to the
study of the common laws, my position in so doing would not be an
ordinary one, no more than is my suit. Therefore, why should I, having
your [Burleigh's] influence to help me, sacrifice my great intellectual
capabilities fitting me to accomplish my great contemplative ends? Why
should I sacrifice them to a study of the common laws?
The sentence may be otherwise construed, but in any case it involves an
apology for the abandonment of the profession which had been chosen for
him.
The next letter is addressed to the Right Honourable Sir Francis
Walsingham, principal secretary to her Majesty, and is dated from Grays
Inn, 25th of August, 1585. Spedding's comment on it is as follows:--
"For all this time, it seems, the suit (whatever it was) which he
had made to her through Burghley in 1580 remained in suspense,
neither granted nor denied, and the uncertainty prevented him from
settling his course of life. From the following letter to
Walsingham we may gather two things more concerning it: it was
something which had been objected to as unfit for so young a man;
and which would in some way have made it unnecessary for him to
follow 'a course of practice'--meaning, I presume, ordinary
practice at the Bar."
This is the letter:--
"It may please your Honour to give me leave amidst your great and
diverse business to put you in remembrance of my poor suit, leaving
the time unto your Honour's best opportunity and commodity. I think
the objection of my years will wear away with the length of my
suit. The very stay doth in this respect concern me, because I am
thereby hindered to take a course of practice which, by the leave
of God, if her Majesty like not my suit, I must and will follow:
not for any necessity of estate, but for my credit sake, which I
know by living out of action will wear. I spake when the Court was
at Theball's to Mr. Vice-Chamberlain,[25] who promised me his
furderance; which I did lest he mought be made for some other. If
it may please your Honour, who as I hear hath great interest in
him, to speak with him in it, I think he will be fast mine."
Spedding remarks: "This is the last we hear of this suit, the nature and
fate of which must both be left to conjecture. With regard to its fate,
my own conjecture is that he presently gave up all hope of success in
it, and tried instead to obtain through his interest at Court some
furtherance in the direct line of his profession."
He adds: "The solid grounds on which Bacon's pretensions rested had not
yet been made manifest to the apprehension of Bench and Bar; his mind
was full of matters with which they could have no sympathy, and the shy
and studious habits which we have seen so offend Mr. Faunt would
naturally be misconstrued in the same way by many others."[26]
This passage refers to a letter to Burghley dated the 6th of the
following May, _i.e._, 1586, from which it will be seen that the last
had not been heard of the motion. Burghley had been remonstrating with
Bacon as to reports which had come to him of his nephew's proceedings.
Bacon writes:--
"I take it as an undoubted sign of your Lordship's favour unto me
that being hardly informed of me you took occasion rather of good
advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if your Lordship had
grounded only upon the said information of theirs, I mought and
would truly have upholden that few of the matters were justly
objected; as the very circumstances do induce in that they were
delivered by men that did misaffect me and besides were to give
colour to their own doings. But because your Lordship did mingle
therewith both a late motion of mine own and somewhat which you had
otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand
affected) rather to prove your Lordship's admonition effectual in
my doings hereafter than causeless by excusing what is past. And
yet (with your Lordship's pardon humbly asked) it may please you to
remember that I did endeavour to set forth that said motion in such
sort as it mought breed no harder effect than a denial, and I
protest simply before God that I sought therein an ease in coming
within Bars, and not any extraordinary and singular note of
favour."
May not the interpretation of the phrase "I sought therein an ease in
coming within Bars" be "I sought in that motion a freedom from the
burden (or necessity) of coming within Bars." The phrase "an ease in" is
very unusual, and unless it was a term used in connection with the Inns
it is difficult to see its precise meaning. In other words, he sought an
alternative method to provide means for carrying out his great
philosophical enterprise.
There is an interval of five years before the next and last letter of
the six was written. It is undated, but an observation in it shows that
it was written when he was about 31 years of age, thus fixing the date
at 1591.
From an entry in Burghley's note book,[27] dated 29 October, 1589, it
appears that in the meantime a grant had been made to Bacon of the
reversion of the office of Clerk to the Counsel in the Star Chamber.
This was worth about L1,600 per annum and executed by deputy, but the
reversion did not fall in for twenty years, so it did not affect the
immediate difficulty in ways and means.
There are occasional references to Francis in Anthony's correspondence
which show that the brothers were residing at Grays Inn, but nothing is
stated as to the occupation of the younger brother.
At this time, according to Spedding,[28] who, however, does not give his
authority, Francis had a lodge at Twickenham. Many of his letters are
subsequently addressed from it, and three years later he was keeping a
staff of scriveners there.
The last letter is addressed to Lord Burghley, who is in it described by
Bacon as "the second founder of my poor estate," and contains the
following:--
"I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet
my health is not to spend nor my course to get. 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. This
whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or (if one takes it
favourably) _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be
removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable
countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's
own, which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship,
perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any
other. And if your Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I
do seek or affect any place, whereunto any that is nearer to your
Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest
man. And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as
Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto
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
which I have writ to your Lordship is rather thoughts than words,
being set down without all art, disguising or reservation."
The suit has been of no avail. Once more Bacon appeals (and this is to
be his final appeal) to his uncle. He is writing thoughts rather than
words, set down without art, disguising or reservation. But if his
Lordship will not carry him along he has definitely decided on his
course of action. The law is not now even referred to. If the object of
the suit was not stated in 1580, there cannot be much doubt now but that
it had to do with the making of books and pioneer work in the mine of
truth. For ten years Francis Bacon had waited, buoyed up by
encouragements and false hopes. Now he decides to take his fortune into
his own hands and rely no more on assistance either from the Queen or
Burghley.
One sentence in the letter should be noted: "If your Lordship shall find
now, or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place whereunto any
that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I
am a most dishonest man." Surely this was an assurance on Bacon's part
that he did not seek or affect to stand in the way of the one--the only
one, Robert Cecil--who stood nearer to Burghley in kinship.
It therefore appears evident from the foregoing facts:--
(1) That Francis Bacon at 17 years of age was an accomplished scholar;
that his knowledge was abnormally great, and that his wit, memory, and
mental qualities were of the highest order--probably without parallel.
(2) That in the year 1580, when 19 years old, he sought the assistance
of Burghley to induce the Queen to supply him with means and the
opportunity to carry out some great work upon the achievement of which
he had set his heart. The work was without precedent, and in carrying it
out he was prepared to dedicate to her Majesty the use and spending of
his life.
(3) That for ten years he waited and hoped for the granting of his suit,
which was rare and unaccustomed, until eventually he was compelled to
relinquish it and rely upon his own resources to effect his object.
(4) But he desired to command other wits than his own, and that could be
more easily achieved by one holding place of any reasonable countenance.
He therefore sought through Burleigh place accompanied by income, so
that he might be enabled to achieve the vast contemplative ends he had
in view.
(5) That during the years 1580 to 1597, in which he claims that he was
not slothful, there is no evidence of his being occupied in his
profession or in State affairs to any appreciable extent, and yet there
do not exist any acknowledged works as the result of his labours. Rawley
states that Bacon would "suffer no moment of time to slip from him
without some present improvement."
(6) He received pecuniary assistance from his uncle, Lord Burghley. He
strained the monetary resources of his mother and brother, which were
not inconsiderable, to the utmost, exhausted his own, and heavily
encumbered himself with debts, and yet he was not prodigal or
extravagant.
(7) Money and time he must have to carry out his scheme, which, if one
takes it favourably, might be termed philanthropia, and he therefore
decided that, failing obtaining some sinecure office, he would sell the
inheritance he had, purchase some lease of quick revenue or office of
gain that could be executed by a deputy, give over all care of serving
the State, and become some sorry bookmaker or a true pioneer in the mine
of truth.
(8) Spedding says, "He could at once imagine like a poet and execute
like a clerk of the works"; but whatever his contemplative ends were
there is nothing known to his biographers which reveals the result of
his labours as clerk of the works.
(9) If he carried out the course of action which he contemplated it is
clear that he decided to do so without himself appearing as its author
and director. From 1580 to 1590 something more was on his mind than the
works he published after he had arrived at sixty years of age. "I am no
vain promiser," he said. Where can the fulfilment of his promise be
found? Can his course be followed by tracing through the period the
trail which was left by some great and powerful mind directing the
progress of the English Renaissance?
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Spedding prints this in small type, being doubtful as to the
authorship.
[20] That is, never held a brief.
[21] I am indebted to Mr. Harold Hardy for this interesting information.
There is an entry in the State Papers, 1608, Jan. 31: Grant at the suit
of Sir Francis Bacon to Sir William Cooke, Sir John Constable, and three
others, of the King's reversion of the estates in Herts above referred
to. Sir Nicholas, to whom it had descended from the Lord Keeper,
conveyed the remainder to Queen Elizabeth her heirs and successors "with
the condition that if he paid L100 the grant should be void, which was
apparently done to prevent the said Sir Francis to dispose of the same
land which otherwise by law he might have done." When Lady Anne conveyed
the Markes estate to Francis it was subject to a similar condition,
namely, that the grant was to be null and void on Lady Ann paying ten
shillings to Francis. This condition made it impossible for Francis to
dispose of his interest in the estate, hence Anthony's request in the
letter above referred to. It is obvious that his relatives considered
that Francis was not to be trusted with property which he could turn
into money. There was evidently some heavy strain on his resources which
caused him to convert everything he could into cash.
[22] "Story of Lord Bacon's Life." Hepworth Dixon, p. 28.
[23] The two letters of 16th September, 1580, and that of 15th October,
1580, are taken from copies in the Lansdowne collection. That of the 6th
May, 1586, is in the same collection, and is an original in Bacon's
handwriting. The letter of 25th August, 1585, is also in his
handwriting, and is in the State Papers, Domestic. The letter without
date, written to Burghley presumably in 1591, is from the supplement to
the "Resuscitatio," 1657.
[24] "Life and Letters," Vol. I. p. 57.
[25] This was Sir Christopher Hatton.
[26] "Life and Letters," Vol I. p. 59.
[27] Cott. MSS. Tit. CX. 93.
[28] "Life and Letters," Vol. I., p. 110.