The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall

by Daphne Du Maurier

  That fatal habit of sleeping in the afternoon… ‘I do find nothing to induce stopping more and fill the head and to induce languishing and distaste and feverous disposition more I say than any manner of offer to sleep at afternoon, either immediately after dinner or at four o’clock. And I could never yet find resolution and strength enough in myself to inhibit it.’

  No word in Mrs. Sadler’s account as to whether the Lord Keeper had moved to York House or was still at Dorset House. In either case, had his wife Lady Bacon been in residence the servants would presumably have warned her of this sudden intrusion, and confrontation would have taken place. An interesting encounter! But it is likely that, with trouble brewing in her own parents’ case, Lady Bacon was out of town and with her mother.

  The scene enacted between Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Hatton was surely one that Mr. Shakespeare, deceased, could have turned to good account had he lived to edit and amend the publication known as the First Folio, which was printed six years later. Francis, asleep, dreaming of the young woman he had courted in the past, awaking, not to any shadow or even a statue, but to a mature lady standing on his threshold: ‘Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing so aged as this seems.’ A remark which would certainly have roused Lady Hatton to even greater anger as she thrust herself in at the door, until, remembering her cause, she asked pardon for her boldness. ‘When she was young, you woo’d her; now, in age, is she become the Suitor?’

  Francis recovered himself, dismissed his men, and listened to what the intruder had to say, but alas, we have the remainder of the scene only in Mrs. Sadler’s words. ‘And she so justified herself and pacified my Lord’s anger, and got his warrant and my Lord Treasurer’s warrant and others of the Council to fetch her daughter from the father and bring them both to the Council.’

  We are not told at what hour Lady Hatton took her departure, but that same day, July 12th, the Lord Keeper penned a letter to the Earl of Buckingham.

  ‘My very good Lord,

  ‘I shall write to your Lordship of a business which your Lordship may think to concern myself; but I do think it concerneth your Lordship much more. For as for me, as my judgement is not so weak to think it can do me any hurt, so my love to you is so strong, as I would prefer the good of you and yours before mine own particular.

  ‘It seemeth Secretary Winwood hath officiously busied himself to make a match between your brother and Sir Edward Coke’s daughter: and, as we hear, he doth it rather to make a faction, than out of any great affection for your Lordship. It is true, he hath the consent of Sir Edward Coke, as we hear, upon reasonable conditions for your brother; and yet no better than without question may be found in other matches. But the mother’s consent is not had, nor the young gentlewoman’s, who expecteth a great fortune from her mother, which without her consent is endangered. This match, out of my faith and freedom towards your Lordship, I hold very inconvenient both for your brother and yourself.

  ‘First, he shall marry into a disgraced house, which in reason of state is never held good.

  ‘Next, he shall marry into a troubled house of man and wife, which in religion and Christian discretion is never good.

  ‘Thirdly, your Lordship will go near to lose all such your friends as are adverse to Sir Edward Coke; myself only except, who out of a pure love and thankfulness shall ever be firm to you.

  ‘And lastly and chiefly, I believe it will greatly weaken and distract the King’s service; for though, in regard to the King’s great wisdom and depth, I am persuaded those things will not follow which they imagine, yet opinion will do a great deal of harm, and cast the King back, and make him relapse into those inconveniences which are now well on to be recovered.

  ‘Therefore my advice is… your Lordship signify unto my Lady your mother, that your desire is that the marriage be not pressed or proceeded with without the consent of both parents; and so either break it altogether, or defer any further dealing in it till your Lordship’s return: and this the rather for that, besides the inconvenience of the matter itself, it hath been carried so harshly and inconsiderately by Secretary Winwood, as for doubt that the father should take away the maiden by force, the mother, to get the start, hath conveyed her away secretly; which is ill of all sides. Thus hoping your Lordship will not only accept well, but believe my faithful advice, who by my great experience in the world must see further than your lordship can, I ever rest

  ‘Your Lordship’s true and most devoted, ‘friend and servant,

  Fr. Bacon. C.S.’

  The earl, who was travelling with his Majesty in the west of Scotland, would not receive the letter for several days, even if the messenger bearing it set forth immediately.

  The following day, Sunday July 13th, Lady Hatton appeared at the Council table, and told the members in ‘a passionate and tragical manner that… she was by violence dispossessed of her child; and informing us that in regard of her daughter’s weak constitution she had sent her to Sir Edmond Withipole’s house for a small time, and that it was not done in any secret manner. Whereupon Sir Edward Coke… pretending warrant, as he said, from the Board, with his son and 10 or 11 servants, weaponed, in violent manner repaired to the house where their daughter was remaining, and with a piece of timber or form broke open the door, and dragged her along to his coach; with many other circumstances too long to trouble his Majesty withal.’

  The Council appointed the following Tuesday to hear further on the matter, together with Sir Edward Coke’s own complaint. But Lady Hatton was not content to wait. She appeared once more at the door of the Council chamber, and asked for a warrant for her daughter to be brought to London from Stoke Poges that night, because of the weakness of her state and the fright that had been occasioned her. ‘Which,’ the Council agreed, ‘being thought reasonable in humanity, and for avoiding other inconveniences, a letter was written from the Board to Sir Edward Coke, acquainting him with his Lady’s complaint and desire, and requiring him to deliver his daughter to Mr. Edmondes, Clerk of the Council, to be brought by him to London, and kept in his house until the hearing of the cause.’

  This was quick work for a Sunday, and one can see the Lord Keeper’s hand in the arrangement of it. No after-dinner sleep that afternoon. By nightfall the Clerk of the Council had arrived at Stoke, only to be told by Sir Edward that his daughter ‘was in no such extremity, and that upon his peril he would deliver her to Mr. Edmondes’ house the next morning’.

  Monday dawned. No daughter appeared, and the Council sent a further warrant ‘with a clause of assistance’ should it be needed. Lady Hatton herself set forth on the road to Stoke, with several friends, all armed, hoping for a battle with her husband; but the wily Coke had taken another route, possibly scenting trouble, and delivered the exhausted Frances into the hands of the Clerk of the Council. In his house, it appears, she spent the remainder of the day and that night. ‘Doubting some disorder,’ the Council ‘gave directions that she should be kept private until the hearing, which was the next day, and two gentlewomen only to be admitted to her company, such as Sir Edward Coke and his Lady should choose; which was accordingly performed, Sir Edward Coke choosing the Lady Compton and his lady the Lady Burghley.’

  It is to be hoped Frances had some sleep, but her aunt, Lady Burghley, possibly passed a restless evening, for Lady Compton, mother of Sir John Villiers and the Earl of Buckingham (she had been married three times, her third husband being Sir Thomas Compton), was one of the most formidable women of her day, and could hardly be vanquished in argument by anyone, unless it were my Lady Hatton herself.

  On Tuesday July 15th Sir Edward Coke appeared before the Council. He immediately brought a counter-charge against his wife, accusing her of wishing to carry their daughter off into France, so that the marriage arranged between her and Sir John Villiers should not take place. The Council declined to discuss the marriage, and pressed the ex-Lord Chief Justice to answer the charge brought against him, that of ‘riot and force’. Sir Edward Coke replied that he had
a legal right to recover his daughter. Whereupon the Council ordered that he should appear before the Court of the Star Chamber at some date unspecified, and in the interim his daughter should be placed under the care of the Attorney-General, Sir Henry Yelverton.

  Then, on July 18th or 19th, Sir Ralph Winwood turned up a trump card at the Council table. He produced a letter from the King himself, approving of all that he, Winwood, had done to further the marriage of Sir John Villiers and Frances Coke. Consternation at the Council table. If his Majesty were at one with Sir Ralph Winwood and Sir Edward Coke, his Councillors would change their attitude. Action in the Star Chamber must be suspended. The Attorney-General undertook the thankless task of endeavouring to bring about some reconciliation between Sir Edward Coke and his lady. How far he succeeded we learn from a postscript in a letter sent to his Majesty from the Council immediately afterwards:

  ‘But now since, this matter seemeth to have had a fairer conclusion; for that we find that the writings are perfected, and not only so, but the parties, Sir Edward Coke and his Lady, reconciled, and the daughter with both their good likings sent to live with her father and mother in Sir Edward Coke’s house. Which good end hath been much furthered by the charitable endeavour of his Majesty’s Attorney-General. And the information, and all other proceedings in the business, is suspended and left wholly to his Majesty’s pleasure.’

  John Chamberlain, writing a full account of the affair to his crony Sir Dudley Carleton, says, ‘She [Frances Coke] was sent home to Hatton House, with order that the Lady Compton and her son should have access to win her and wear her.’

  How long husband and wife remained together under the same roof we are not told, but certainly not more than a fortnight. In any case Hatton House was the property of her ladyship, and not Sir Edward—though doubtless this was another matter for dispute. By early August Coke had removed his daughter to stay with his son by his first marriage, Sir Robert Coke at Kingston, upon which Lady Hatton took a lodging in the town in order to visit her every day, and confront Lady Compton and her son Sir John Villiers, the hopeful bridegroom, whenever they appeared to press the suit.

  And what of Francis Bacon, the Lord Keeper? Frustrated, exhausted, he left London for Gorhambury as soon as the Council business was concluded. We may hope, for his sake, that his wife was away from home visiting her mother; for there at Gorhambury to join him, to share his relaxation, to renew his inspiration, to read his magnum opus in manuscript, to laugh, to sympathise, to converse on every topic in the world but marriage, was the friend he had not seen for ten years, that exile and recusant from the continent of Europe, permitted at last to return under his personal supervision and assurances of good behaviour—Tobie Matthew.

  13

  Tobie would be forty in October. His friend and mentor was fifty-seven. One wonders how changed in appearance, and perhaps in manners, they seemed to each other after ten years of separation. Francis had undoubtedly aged: greying hair, furrows running from nose to mouth, and a suspicion of bags beneath the eyes suggested a man in his mid-sixties. Too much working at all hours of the day and night had taken their toll. The humour still lurked, though, in the corner of the eyes, the hint of mockery.

  The only description we have of Tobie is contained in a postscript from Charles Prince of Wales to his father the King in 1623, where he mentions ‘little pretty Tobie Matthew’. Fair of face and small of stature. Yet a man of the world, who in his ten years’ absence from England had travelled extensively, chiefly in Italy and Spain, and had formed a wide circle of friends in Madrid, probably owing to his Catholic faith. His father the Archbishop of York had not yet forgiven him for changing his religion, and, in hopes that his eldest son would be converted back to the Church of England, had urged his return home. It was the Earl of Buckingham who had persuaded his Majesty to relent, and it was assumed that Tobie would now conform and in due course take the oath of allegiance.

  These matters were inevitably discussed at Gorhambury, and Tobie was hoping that the influence of the Lord Keeper would stand him in good stead. When he had left England in 1607 Francis had not yet been appointed Solicitor-General; now he held one of the most important posts in the kingdom. The retinue of servants and attendants had doubled, trebled; the rooms at Gorhambury no longer held them all, there was talk of building another house in the grounds for the personal use of the master, and the grounds themselves, walks, gardens, woods, had altered beyond recognition. And in a few weeks’ time, when the Lord Keeper returned to London, York House would be ready for him, with new furnishings, new appointments, and a further retinue of servants.

  Tobie Matthew was impressed. His dear friend had certainly advanced since the early days when Tobie had been a young law student at Gray’s Inn and Francis a barrister with few briefs. It was unfortunate therefore that, just as he had returned from abroad, the Lord Keeper should have found himself involved in this marriage dispute between Sir Edward Coke and his wife Lady Hatton, and have fallen out with the Secretary of State Sir Ralph Winwood in consequence. It might have ill effects upon his friend’s relationship not only with the Earl of Buckingham but with his Majesty himself.

  For of course, once the first delight at meeting had subsided, the renewing of their friendship, the discussion of old times, and Tobie had unburdened himself of all he had to say about life in Europe, the talk eventually came round to what had just taken place at the Council table; the rumour of dissension and trouble had greeted Tobie when he arrived in London. It was the talk of the town. And he could tell, from the Lord Keeper’s preoccupation, although he made light of it, that he was seriously disturbed. It was, in fact, now two weeks since Francis had written to the Earl of Buckingham, giving his reasons for opposing the marriage of Sir John Villiers to Frances Coke, and he had received no reply. He had not expected one for five or six days, but a fortnight was excessive. He must write again, and compose a letter to his Majesty at the same time, repeating much the same arguments he had used to the earl, so that there should be no misunderstanding. It was intolerable that the Secretary of State should profess to know the King’s mind upon the infernal marriage question, while he, the Lord Keeper, had not been kept informed. Something was amiss somewhere.

  Francis wrote, therefore, at some length on July 25th, particularly asking that his Majesty should let him know his own wishes regarding the match, rather than that he, the Lord Keeper, should receive them through a third party. He added, ‘Though I will not wager upon women’s minds, I can prevail more with the mother than any other man’, which suggested that should the King be strongly in favour of the marriage, then the Lord Keeper would trim his sails accordingly and endeavour to persuade Lady Hatton that she must withdraw her objections. He wrote to the Earl of Buckingham on the same day, saying, ‘I do think long to hear from your Lordship touching my last letter, wherein I gave my opinion touching your brother’s match.’ The delay, he reassured himself, had come about by the King travelling south from Scotland, and the earl with him; they must by now have reached Carlisle.

  Then, in early August, the long-awaited reply came from the Earl of Buckingham, written in a very different tone from any of those Francis had received before.

  ‘To the Lord Keeper Bacon.

  ‘My Lord,

  ‘If your man had been addressed only to me, I should have been careful to have procured him a more speedy dispatch: but now you have found another way of address, I am excused; and since you are grown weary of employing me, I can be no otherwise in being employed. In this business of my brother’s that you overtrouble yourself with, I understand from London by some of my friends that you have carried yourself with much scorn and neglect both towards myself and my friends; which if it prove true I blame not you but myself, who was ever

  ‘Your Lordship’s assured friend,

  ‘G. Buckingham.’

  A cold rebuke, and no mistake about it. The favourite was deeply offended, apparently on two counts: that the Lord Keeper had written direc
t to the King in the matter, and—which of course was hearsay and malicious gossip—that he had spoken scornfully of the earl himself.

  The shock Francis received on reading this letter was considerable. He needed all the comfort Tobie Matthew was able to offer. But worse was to follow. A letter arrived from his Majesty himself, also blaming the Lord Keeper for interference. Unfortunately this letter can no longer be traced, but Francis replied to it about August 12th, and from the tenor of his reply it would seem that the King had not only upbraided him for going against his wishes by opposing the marriage but had accused him of criticising the Earl of Buckingham. Sir Ralph Winwood had obviously given his own version of how events had gone at the Council table in July, and since he was a friend of Sir Edward Coke and of Sir John Villiers’s mother Lady Compton, it is not difficult to see how both the King and Buckingham had been prejudiced against the Lord Keeper.

  One thing strikes the observer today, which is that Francis Bacon, despite his vast retinue, had a poor system of intelligence. His brother Anthony, had he found himself in similar circumstances, would have had secret agents following the King’s train and reporting back almost daily. It is almost as though Francis had too great a faith in his own judgement; yet his own vast experience should have warned him that during their absence his Majesty and Buckingham would come under other influences beside his, and that the favourite, despite his previous amiability, was now fully conscious of his own power and had begun to resent advice from any quarter. One wonders, furthermore, who was the attendant ‘your man’ who had carried the Lord Keeper’s letters north. It was not Edward Sherburn, because Chamberlain mentions seeing him in town around this time, and he was known to have been down at Gorhambury. In 1618, a year later, we have a list of all the attendants, some seventy-five of them, but this does not help us in July-August of 1617.