The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall

by Daphne Du Maurier

  This gentleman waiter would presently rise to become steward to the new Baroness Verulam and enter into a very close relationship with her indeed. They were the same age, and one cannot help wondering if Lady Hatton, whose first husband was step-brother to Mr. William Underhill of Warwickshire, original owner of New Place, introduced young Underhill to the Gorhambury household. A presentable young man might keep Lady Verulam company about the fish-ponds, while she herself discussed the planting of rosemary for remembrance in the upper walks with his lordship.

  Whether she dined with him on a Monday in early August we are not told, but if she did she would have been in company with Lady Compton, her daughter’s mother-in-law, who had just been created Countess of Buckingham, a title which gave some concern to the Heralds, as her husband Sir Thomas Compton remained a knight, causing them to wonder whether her daughters should now take precedence over other ladies. Possibly this was discussed at table, for the new countess drove down there for dinner to see her patent sealed and delivered. Bucks, salmon, a stag, and twelve fat wethers (castrated rams) were delivered to Gorhambury during that first week in August, and the apothecary’s man called twice…

  Lady Verulam was now accustomed to presiding at her husband the Lord Chancellor’s table, and assuming that he had indeed chosen her twelve years before for her looks and her wit—and also, of course, her portion—she would have been well able to hold her own with the formidable Countess of Buckingham. Alice, the alderman’s daughter, could now boast that all her three sisters had married knights, and her two Packington half-sisters were to do the same. As for her mother, that interfering lady, when her second husband Sir John Packington died, she found herself a Viscount Kilmorey.

  It is easy to imagine how Francis Bacon after entertaining the various members of his wife’s family, besides visitors from London who had travelled down on other business, would find an excuse, the moment they all departed, to wander in the woods and gardens he so much loved, with young Bushell or another at his side, pen and ink-horn in hand. ‘God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works.’ As he looked about him, different thoughts would come to mind, comparisons with earlier days, other years when his mother still lived… ‘They say that every five-and-thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weathers comes about again: as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little heat, and the like: it is a thing, I do the rather mention, because computing backwards, I have found some concurrence.’

  Then back to the house to more serious work on his Novum Organum, which would cover his whole field of thought: ‘And again, if a man turn from the workshop to the library, and wonder at the immense variety of books he sees there, let him but examine and diligently inspect their matter and contents, and his wonder will assuredly be turned the other way; for after observing their endless repetitions, and how men are ever saying and doing what has been said and done before, he will pass from admiration of the variety to astonishment at the poverty and scantiness of the subjects which till now have occupied and possessed minds of men.’

  But duty claimed him once again. He must leave Gorhambury and his private pursuits for London. Sir Walter Ralegh, home from his expedition in search of a gold-mine in the new world, whither he had sailed the year before, had returned to report only failure, and was in disgrace not only for this but for having sacked a Spanish settlement. This was a serious offence, in view of the present state of friendship between Great Britain and Spain. He was arrested and imprisoned for the second time in the Tower of London. The Lord Chancellor was one of the members of the Council appointed to examine him.

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  Sir Walter Ralegh’s expedition had been made in all good faith, and sanctioned by the King himself. His release from the Tower, after fifteen years’ imprisonment, had been for the specific purpose of going ‘unto the south parts of America… to discover and find out some commodities and merchandises in those countries that be necessary and profitable for the subjects of his Majesty’s kingdoms and dominions; whereof the inhabitants there make little or no use or estimation.’

  Ralegh declared that he knew of one particular gold mine near the banks of the river Orinoco, and this seems to have been the real purpose of his expedition. Vessels were placed under his command, and he sailed from Plymouth in June of 1617 with the goodwill of his Majesty, the Council and all the people. Francis Bacon, Lord Keeper at the time, had discussed the project with him one day at Gray’s Inn, and with his interest in mining and in colonisation—he had been one of the first to invest in the Company of Venturers to Virginia and the islands off the coast—was naturally enthusiastic; Ralegh was as forward in science and mineralogy as he was himself.

  Francis would have warned him, however, not to play the pirate, or harm any of the King of Spain’s subjects who might be in the vicinity. These instructions were implicit in Ralegh’s orders from the Council, but whether he misunderstood them, or Captain Keymis under his command disobeyed them, has never been entirely clear; the sequel was that Spaniards were found on the banks of the Orinoco, fighting took place, villages were burnt, no mine was discovered, and the expedition returned to Plymouth in June 1618 having achieved nothing at all except to endanger diplomatic relations between England and Spain.

  The Spanish ambassador Count de Gondomar (he whom Tobie Matthew used to visit by night) had objected to the expedition before it set forth, and now found himself vindicated, crying ‘Piratas! Piratas!’ against Ralegh and his fellow adventurers. Unfortunately for the ambassador, one of his train had the misfortune to run down a child with his horse just about this time, which so infuriated the people of Chancery Lane, where the accident occurred, that some five thousand citizens living in the neighbourhood besieged the count’s house, and a near-riot took place. Sir Walter Ralegh’s arrest and imprisonment in the Tower, clashing with the arrest of the rioters, instantly turned him into a popular hero amongst the ordinary people, everything Spanish was detested, and diplomatic relations became more delicate than ever.

  The Council of six appointed to examine Ralegh included Sir Edward Coke, who had uttered vituperation against him sixteen years before at Winchester, and condemned him to death for treason; but then his Majesty had intervened, and spared his life. The examination continued throughout September and into October, and the recommendation of the Council was that Sir Walter should be brought before the whole Council, the judges, and some of the nobility and gentry. The King disagreed: he wished for no one other than the original examiners to be present, and for the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General to prefer the charges against Ralegh and those committed with him. After which the sentence, so long suspended, would be put into execution.

  The King knew only too well that Sir Walter Ralegh, now a popular figure, would win even more esteem amongst the people and the nobility and gentry if he was allowed publicly to speak in his own defence. If he were pardoned twice, and imprisoned for life rather than suffer the supreme penalty, relations with Spain would seriously deteriorate, and negotiations for the Spanish marriage be broken off.

  The Queen, by now seriously ill with dropsy at Hampton Court, did everything she could to spare Ralegh’s life. She had never forgotten the friendship that had existed between him and her eldest son Henry Prince of Wales. The Marquis of Buckingham would surely speak for him, and she wrote as she had done in the past, beginning her letter, ‘My kind dog, if I have any power or credit with you, I earnestly pray you let me have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the King that Sir Walter Ralegh’s life may not be called in question…’ But the Marquis, like his Majesty, had no desire to make trouble with the Spanish ambassador and the King of Spain; he, like Charles Prince of Wales, favoured the marriage at all costs.

  The trial took place in private, as the King had demanded. Ralegh denied all
allegations save one, that he had attempted to escape from the Tower when first arrested. On October 28th he was brought to the bar of King’s Bench and sentenced to death. That night he was taken from the Tower to Westminster gatehouse, and the following morning, the 29th, he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard.

  Sir Walter Ralegh spoke for half an hour on the scaffold, and won respect from everyone who heard him. Even that cynic John Chamberlain was impressed. ‘He speak and behaved himself so, without any show of fear or affectation, that he moved much commiseration, and all that saw him confess that his end was omnibus numeris absolutus, and as far as man can discern every way perfect.’ He was sixty-six years old. Soldier, seaman, courtier, individualist throughout his life, with many friends and many enemies, he was the last of that gallant breed of men who had won the favour and affection of Queen Elizabeth.

  Popular indignation was great. There was a man like the Earl of Somerset, still living in comfort at the Tower—in Ralegh’s old lodgings, which made comparisons the more odious—while a courageous adventurer like the brave man just beheaded, who had served monarch and country in many an expedition in the past, and had voyaged overseas to bring back wealth to all, was made to die the death of a traitor; just, so it was said, to pacify the blood-lust of Spain.

  Something had to be done to reassure the people. Since there had been no public trial they were ignorant of all the aspects of the case. There had been errors of judgement, failure to obey instructions, and many other faults on the part of Ralegh and his commanders of which the people should be told. His Majesty must by now have realised that he had been in error when he insisted on a private trial. The facts must be set out plain and clear for all to know.

  So far Francis Bacon had taken no prominent part in the proceedings beyond having been one of the six Councillors appointed to examine Sir Walter Ralegh in the Tower. Now he was desired by the King, with others of the Council, to draw up an official declaration of the True Motives and Inducements which occasioned his Majesty to proceed in doing justice upon him, as hath been done.

  This extensive document, which was printed in London by his Majesty’s printers, and appeared on November 28th, was attributed by John Chamberlain and others to ‘the Lord Chancellor, Master Attorney, and Secretary Naunton’. (Sir Robert Naunton had succeeded to the late Sir Ralph Winwood’s place earlier in the year.) If all three Councillors were blamed for salving the King’s conscience at the expense of the popular hero, it was something to which the Lord Chancellor had become accustomed. Indeed, he had been commanded to do the same some seventeen years before, after the Earl of Essex had been condemned to death. It was no light thing to serve a monarch who ruled by divine right. Obedience to royal command came before any personal obligation to former friends.

  The effort required to assist in the compiling of the declaration took its usual toll upon the Lord Chancellor’s health; there was no meeting of the Star Chamber during the week previous to its publication because of his ‘indisposition’, and no meeting early in December either, the excuse being ‘that he cannot endure the cold’. The weather had certainly turned bitter, with the Thames frozen over and impassable for boats, while the smallpox raged in London at the same time. These natural hazards were hardly likely to have kept Francis from the usual routine, and one cannot help wondering whether he felt that Ralegh’s execution had been a grave error of judgement and would reflect badly upon the monarchy and the person of the King himself, whose popularity with the ordinary people had never been high.

  The ‘indisposition’ continued off and on throughout the winter, and for almost the first time since her marriage Lady Verulam is mentioned in one of John Chamberlain’s letters in December, appearing at a large funeral cortège for one of the nobility, a victim to smallpox, ‘with a world of other Ladies’. Perhaps she was deputising for her husband, and found satisfaction in her new status.

  Something that certainly saddened Francis was that Tobie Matthew had still not taken his oath of allegiance, and early in the new year his Majesty once more ordered him to leave the country. ‘What offence was done or taken I know not,’ observed John Chamberlain, ‘but it seems for all his great friends he was commanded away.’ Correspondence between the two friends would continue, with Tobie writing from Brussels, but this was not the same as seeing one another continually at York House and Gorhambury, and there was no one, not even among his secretaries and attendants, to whom he could open heart and mind as he did to Tobie Matthew. It was not a happy start to 1619.

  Then on January 12th there was a great fire at Whitehall. The banqueting-house was burnt out, and many Council papers that had been kept in the room beneath the gallery were destroyed. Mercifully no lives were lost in the fire, but the disappearance of so many important records and documents came as a great shock to those who, like the Lord Chancellor and other members of the Council, held high office.

  Foreign intelligence was another cause for concern. Early in February Tobie Matthew reported to the Lord Chancellor from Brussels that ‘in Spain there are very extraordinary preparations for a great Armada’. Where this fleet was to be employed no one knew.

  It was about this time, between winter and spring, that Francis drew up a paper entitled A Short View to be Taken of Great Britain and Spain, evidently to be shown to his Majesty as a summing up of the relative power of the two countries. This paper was found after his death, and we have no means of knowing whether in fact it was ever shown to the King. It is worth quoting for its forthright views, which may well have been expressed at the Council table.

  ‘His Majesty now of England is of more power than any of his predecessors… Ireland is reduced into a more absolute state of obedience and increase of revenue than heretofore… The joining of Scotland hath made us an entire island, which by nature is the best fortification and the most capable of all the advantages of strength that can by art be added unto nature; whereby we may be able at one and the same time both to undertake any action abroad and defend ourselves at home without either much danger or great cost…

  ‘Now for Spain, his Majesty there, though accounted the greatest monarch of Christendom, yet if his estate be enquired through, his root will be found a great deal too narrow for his tops… The policy of Spain hath trodden more bloody steps than any state of Christendom. Look into the treaties and the negotiations of his ministers abroad. You shall find as much falsehood in these as blood in the other… And [his Spanish Majesty] hath an ambition to the whole empire of Christendom… Who hath been so thirsty of our blood as Spain? And who hath spilled so much of it as he? And who hath been so long our enemy? And who hath corrupted so many of our nation as Spain?’

  What is particularly fascinating to the modern reader is to find Francis Bacon revealing himself in the plumage of what we are pleased to call in present-day phraseology a ‘hawk’. For the enterprise which he suggested in his pamphlet was no less than the conquest of the Indies for Great Britain, with the accompanying risk of a war with Spain—if, in fact, the King of Spain had resources enough to face such an encounter by sea.

  The King of Great Britain, on the contrary, was a ‘dove’. He had no desire for war of any kind; the role of mediator was more agreeable to him. So the Lord Chancellor’s ‘hawk-like’ project—inspired, one cannot help thinking, by regret at Ralegh’s execution—was laid aside; and then events at home preoccupied his Majesty and all his loyal subjects.

  The Queen, who had been failing for some months, died early in the morning of March 2nd at Hampton Court. The Prince of Wales was at her bedside. The King was at Newmarket with a ‘fit of the stone’, and became so weak himself that his doctors feared for his life also and would not permit him to travel.

  By a coincidence, the Lord Chancellor was ill of the same disease, more seriously than was supposed at the time. He referred to it later in a letter to Tobie Matthew, ‘when once my master and afterwards myself, were both of us in extremity of sickness, which was no time to dissemble, I never had so great pl
edges and certainties of his love and favour’. It is unfortunate for us that the messages from the sick sovereign to his equally sick subject do not seem to have survived.

  The Queen’s body was brought to Denmark House in the Strand and lay there for more than two months, the excuse being, so rumour had it, that there was no ready money available for the funeral. The London crowds, hoping for the customary stately spectacle, became restless. Entertainments were forbidden, and all play-houses were closed, the ban coinciding, strangely enough, with the death of London’s most famous and best-loved actor-manager, Richard Burbage.

  Finally, on May 13th, the Queen’s coffin, drawn by six horses, was escorted to Westminster Abbey. The Prince of Wales walked before it, deputising for the King, who was at Theobalds. John Chamberlain did not think much of the procession. ‘The funeral was but a brawling, tedious sight, more remarkable for number than for any other singularity… and though the number of Lords and Ladies were very great, yet methought altogether they made but a poor show, which was perhaps because they were apparelled all alike, or that they came laggering all along even tired with the length of the way and weight of their clothes, every Lady having twelve yards of broad cloth about her and the countesses sixteen.’ Lady Verulam would have been one of these, and Lady Hatton.

  Queen Anne’s had been a sad, lonely life, despite her many ladies, since the death of her beloved son Prince Henry; and with her husband the King, who had his own separate household, his own pursuits and his own favourites, there had for many years been little companionship. Her happiest time had surely been when she first came to England, to be acclaimed by the crowds, and when her children were still young, and she herself twenty-nine years old, throwing herself with delight and gaiety into those frequent masques at Court which she enjoyed so much. She lies somewhere beneath the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey, but no monument was ever placed to mark her grave.