The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall

by Daphne Du Maurier

  When Tobie, now forty-four, arrived home in England and paid his first visit to his life-long friend and mentor Viscount St. Alban at Gorhambury, it was to find their positions reversed. He was now the diplomat, with powerful friends at Court and the promise of a career ahead of him, and the older man had lost his status and was living in banishment in Hertfordshire. No matter. Their relationship had not altered. No loss of power on the one hand, nor rise of fortune on the other, could mar those sentiments of real affection and friendship that each held for the other; and although doubtless the whole sorry story of the impeachment and its aftermath had to be recounted in detail, which had not been possible by letter, one can be sure that ‘work in progress,’ scientific, philosophical and literary, took prior place in the later discussions.

  Tobie had translated Francis Bacon’s essays into Italian during his previous visit to England, and these had been reprinted twice, besides a translation of De Sapientia Veterum. Tobie had dedicated the volume to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with a preface descriptive of the author, praising his intellect, his virtues, and his desire to adorn the age in which he lived and to benefit the whole human race. ‘And I can truly say… that I never yet saw any trace in him of a vindictive mind, whatever injury were done him, nor ever heard him utter a word to any man’s disadvantage which seemed to proceed from personal feeling against that man, but only, and that too very seldom, from judgement made of him in cold blood. It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue: it is not the favours I have received from him, infinite though they be, that have thus enthralled and enchained my heart, but his whole life and character; which are such that, if he were of an inferior condition I could not honour him the less, and if he were my enemy I should not the less love and endeavour to serve him.’

  Tobie had also translated The Confessions of St. Augustine into English, and was thus proving himself a writer as well as a diplomat.

  Meanwhile, back in London he would use what influence he had with Lord Digby and others about his Majesty to see if the enforced exile of his friend could be ended, and Viscount St. Alban come and go between Hertfordshire and the capital at will. This was not so easy. His lady was already in London. She had left Gorhambury in the first week in January, and had obtained access to the Marquis of Buckingham himself. After she had waited a whole afternoon he had finally condescended to appear in his room and talk to her. What transpired between them is not, alas, recorded, but Thomas Meautys, Francis’s friend and secretary, who was waiting in an adjoining room, reported to his employer that ‘she found time enough to speak at large,’ which suggests she was in no way awed by the King’s favourite. Meautys adds, ‘And though my Lord spake so loud as that what passed was no secret to me and some others that were within hearing… my Lady told me she purposeth to write to your Lordship the whole passage.’ Since Francis kept none of his wife’s letters, or else gave orders that they should be destroyed at his death, the reader is left to imagine the scene for himself.

  The interview over, her Ladyship returned to York House, where Tobie Matthew was waiting to pay his respects before visiting Gorhambury later in the week. We have no record of this brief encounter, the budding diplomat all courtesy, one feels sure, with the lady, shrewd enough to remember he was one of her husband’s closest friends, dropping a hint that if she had no satisfaction out of the Marquis of Buckingham she would find means of seeking an interview with the Prince of Wales. So Thomas Meautys informed his employer. The Viscountess St. Alban was as determined to live in London as her husband, whether at York House or elsewhere did not matter, anywhere in town would suit her, but at the end of January another prospective tenant appeared on the scene. The Duke of Lennox wrote to Francis, ‘I have resolved to intreat your Lordship that I may deal with you for York-house; wherein I will not offer any conditions to your loss. And in respect I have understood that the consideration of your Lady’s wanting a house hath bred some difficulty in your Lordship to part with it, I will for that make offer unto your Lordship and your Lady to use the house at Channon-row, late the Earl of Hertford’s, being a very commodious and capable house, wherein I and my wife have absolute power; and whereof your Lordship shall have as long time as you can challenge or desire of York House.’ He added, in a postscript, that he would not have petitioned for the house but for the fact that the Marquis of Buckingham was now provided with one.

  Francis had no intention of living in Channon Row. He was a man of habit. It was one thing to explore the unknown in the world of scientific thought and to probe the future, quite another to take up permanent quarters in an unfamiliar atmosphere. He must live where he had already put down roots.

  ‘My very good Lord,’ he wrote to the Duke, ‘I am sorry to deny your Grace anything; but in this you will pardon me. York-house is the house where my father died, and where I first breathed, and there will I yield my last breath, if it so please God, and the King will give me leave; though I be now, as the old proverb is, like a bear in a monk’s hood. At least no money nor value shall make me part with it. Besides, as I never denied it to my Lord Marquis, so yet the difficulty I made was so like a denial, as I owe unto my great love and respect to his Lordship a denial to all my other friends; among which in a very near place next his Lordship I ever accounted of your Grace.’

  We hear no more from the Duke of Lennox, but Buckingham, despite his own newly acquired residence off Whitehall, seems determined to have had one of his own closer associates living in York House. His choice fell upon Sir Lionel Cranfield, recently appointed Lord Treasurer. It soon became clear to Francis that only by relinquishing his birthplace and his first home would he be permitted freedom to come to London. York House, or else exile forevermore in Hertfordshire. Tobie Matthew, Lord Digby, Sir Edward Sackville, all did what they could by manoeuvre and discretion to change the favourite’s attitude, but to no avail. Buckingham was adamant. His influence and power was such now with both his Majesty and the Prince of Wales that to thwart his wishes would be to court disaster. As a final gesture Francis was willing to give up Gorhambury and all his estates in Hertfordshire to Buckingham if only he could keep York House. The favourite did not want Gorhambury. He wanted York House for the Lord Treasurer…

  The business dragged on through February to March, with Sir Edward Sackville acting as chief go-between, finally urging Francis Bacon to reconcile himself to parting from York House in order to obtain his freedom. There was no other way out of exile. Lord Falkland made an offer to Francis of his own house at Highgate, and Sir Edward Sackville suggested this would make a good alternative.

  ‘My Lord Falkland,’ he wrote to Francis, ‘by this time hath showed you London from Highgate. If York-house were gone, the town were yours, and all your straightest shackles clean off, besides more comfort than the city air only…’ But Francis had no more desire to live at Highgate than Buckingham had to live at Gorhambury. Finally, in mid-March, he came to terms with the inevitable. The Lord Treasurer should have York House if he would at the same time consider ‘the relief of my poor estate… I humbly pray your Lordship to give it dispatch, my age, health, and fortunes making time to me therein precious… As for somewhat towards the paying off my debts, which are now my chief care, and without charge of the King’s coffers, I will not now trouble your Lordship; but purposing to be at Chiswick, where I have taken a house, within this seven-nights, I hope to wait upon your Lordship, and to gather some violets in your garden, and will then impart unto you, if I have thought of any thing of that nature for my good.’

  The paying off of his debts was possibly helped by the sale of his History of Henry VII, which was published at the end of March and sold for the sum of six shillings; but the ‘relief of his estate’ would have to await the consideration of Lord Treasurer Cranfield after he had moved into York House. As for the house at Chiswick, Thomas Meautys reported, ‘My Lady hath seen the house at Chiswick, and can make a shift to like it’; which was very considerate of her, only ‘she means to come to
your Lordship thither, and not to go first, and therefore your Lordship may please to make the more haste, for the great Lords long to be in York house.’

  His Lordship Viscount St. Alban would not move from Gorhambury until his warrant of release and freedom from exile was signed, sealed and delivered and he was legally a free man once more. On March 27th he told Tobie Matthew, ‘I do make account, God willing, to be at Chiswick Saturday, or because this weather is terrible to one that hath kept much in, Monday… If on your repair to the court, whereof I am right glad, you have any speech with the Marquis of me, I pray place the alphabet, as you can do it right well, in a frame to express my love faithful and ardent towards him. And for York-house, that whether in a straight line or a compass line, I meant it his Lordship, in the way which I thought might please him best.’

  And so to Chiswick, with copies of his volume on Henry VII dispatched to all his friends, as well as to those in high places, amongst them the King’s daughter the former Queen of Bohemia, with a letter saying, ‘Time was, I had Honour without Leisure; and now I have Leisure without Honour… But my desire is now to have Leisure without Loitering, and not to become an abbey-lubber, as the old proverb was, but to yield some fruit of my private life… If King Henry the Seventh were alive again, I hope verily he would not be so angry with me for not flattering him as well-pleased in seeing himself so truly described in colours that will last and be believed.’

  The Queen was pleased presently to reply, ‘My Lord, I thank you very much for your letter and your book, which is the best I ever read of the kind… and I am very sorry that I cannot show otherwise but by my letters my gratitude for this and other benefits for which I am beholden to you: and though your fortunes are changed, for which I grieve, believe that I shall not change to be what I am, your very affectionate friend.’

  So the Princess Elizabeth had not forgotten his worth, any more than her late beloved brother Henry Prince of Wales would have done; and although his History of Henry VII bore a dedication to the present Prince, Francis could have wished the elder had lived and bore the title still.

  As to the work itself, although later historians may have discounted it, Francis Bacon’s biographer Spedding found ‘it comes nearer to the merit of Thucydides than any English history that I know,’ and certainly to the layman there is nothing tedious, exaggerated or biased in its two hundred and fifteen pages. On the contrary, Henry VII and the times in which he lived are as vivid and alive to the reader of today as they must have seemed to Francis Bacon himself, separated as he was from them by some hundred and fifty years, while the speed with which it was written and completed—all in the space of a few months—leaves one astounded that this man, who had so recently suffered supreme disgrace, could find the energy and will-power to execute his task.

  Even John Chamberlain found words of praise at last. ‘The late Lord Chancellor hath set out the life or reign of Henry the Seventh. It is pity he should have any other employment. I have not read much of it yet, but if the rest of our history were answerable to it, I think we should not need to envy any other nation in that kind.’

  Francis was already planning further histories. The reign of Henry VIII, a complete history of England, a dialogue on the Holy War, in which he envisaged an alliance between Christian peoples against the Turk, a complete digest of all the laws of England; and if this was not enough he was preparing at the same time another work in Latin, to be published in monthly instalments later in the year, entitled Historia Ventorum (The History of Winds) and Historia Vitae et Mortis (The History of Life and Death) whilst adding further parts to his original Advancement of Learning.

  Whether all this could be attempted from Chiswick remained to be seen—it is to be hoped her ladyship had quarters well away from her husband’s library. Books of reference were essential to the labours to come, with willing secretaries and attendants travelling to and fro, all of whom must be recompensed for their services, and who would have to possess genuine ability for the labour of research. Francis Bacon could not possibly have undertaken all the necessary listing and sorting of the very specialised subjects he wished to write about without such assistance, and although Thomas Meautys, his chaplain William Rawley and doubtless Edward Sherburn and Thomas Bushell, later to be a mining engineer, would have been available, they had also to deal with domestic matters—correspondence, the running of the household, and so on. It is regrettable that Rawley, who published so much of Francis Bacon’s work after his death, with a brief life of his greatly loved and respected employer, gave no details of the manner in which he set about his writing.

  The History of Winds, intended to be the third part of his Instauratio Magna, is positively encyclopedic in its information. Every conceivable source is quoted, and one can picture Francis seated at desk or table, pointing to a pile of volumes near at hand: ‘There, third volume on the left, Pliny,’ ‘Fourth from the right, Acosta, Histoire des Indes,’ ‘Top shelf, Herodotus’; and when the mass of detail had been sorted, the wheat separated from the chaff, he would decide what must be set down and what omitted. On what occasion, one wonders, with the good chaplain Rawley by his side, did he dictate, ‘In a south wind the breath of men is more offensive, the appetite of animals is more depressed, pestilential diseases are more frequent, catarrhs common, and men are more dull and heavy; whereas in a north wind they are brisker, healthier, and have a better appetite’? A south wind was surely blowing that day in Chiswick, and the Master moved his chair…

  ‘In a water thermometer dilated air depresses the water as with a blast; but in a glass filled only with air and capped with a bladder the dilation of the air blows out the bladder perceptibly, like a wind.

  ‘I made an experiment of this kind of wind in a round tower that was completely shut up on every side. A chafing dish of coals thoroughly ignited so that there might be no smoke was placed in the middle of the room. At one side of this, but some distance from it, I suspended a thread, with a cross of feathers fastened to it to make it more susceptible of motion. After a short time, therefore, when the heat had increased and the air dilated, the cross of feathers with its thread began to wave about, first to one side and then to the other. And further, when a hole was made in the window of the tower, a warm gust of air passed out, not continuous, but intermittent, with undulating currents.’

  The reader is more intrigued by the where and when than by the experiment itself. One of the three towers at Gorhambury? Was Francis young at the time, and seized suddenly with a desire to investigate curious phenomena? Or already middle-aged, with his lady tapping her foot in an adjoining room awaiting dinner? His knowledge of sailing cannot have been obtained except through close observation of a vessel at sea—and he had crossed the Channel once only, back and forth, as a young man attending the ambassador Sir. Amias Paulet—or by long consultation with an experienced mariner. He describes in minute detail not only the exact rigging of a ship of his day under full sail, and how the sails should be adjusted to meet the ever-changing wind direction, but how, by altering the designs of certain sails, they could be made more efficient—something that was not put into practice until at least two centuries later.

  Challenge this brain on any topic and he had an answer for it, almost invariably correct; yet he had not possessed the foresight to steer clear of that charge of impeachment, or to evade the ever-mounting claims upon his purse. It was now eighteen months since he had spoken to his Majesty, and despite the handing over of York House to the Lord Treasurer and the bunch of violets proffered from the garden, Lord Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, had done nothing for him. His pension of £800 was in arrears, his income from Petty Writs had been confiscated. His friend and supporter Lord Digby, now Lord Bristol, was in Spain. In a moment of despair, Francis drafted a letter to the King that summer of 1622 which was never sent.

  ‘Mine own means, through mine own improvidence, are poor and weak, little better than my father left me. The grants which I had from your Majesty are eit
her in question or in courtesy… The poor remnants which I had of my former fortunes in plate or jewels, I have spread upon poor men unto whom I owed, scarce leaving myself bread… Help me, dear sovereign lord and master, and pity me so far, as I that have borne a bag be not now in my age forced in effect to bear a wallet; nor I that desire to live to study, may not study to live.’

  His Majesty was said to be affected by gout in his arms and in his legs these days, and when in residence at Theobalds was carried around in a litter to see his deer. A chapter on the prolongation of life might be opportune, in the Historia Vitae et Mortis, and with his passion for minutiae Francis sat down yet again to his desk.

  ‘Hairiness of the upper parts of the body is a sign of short life; and men with hairy breasts, like manes, are short-lived; but hairiness in the lower parts, as the thighs and legs, indicates longevity… Eyes rather large, with an iris of greenish colour; senses not too acute; a pulse slow in youth, but quicker as age increases; a power of holding the breath easily and long; the bowels more costive in youth and looser in old age, are likewise all signs of longevity…

  ‘I remember a young Frenchman of great wit… who argued that the defects of the mind had some parallel with the defects of the body. To dryness of the skin, he opposed impudence; to hardness of the bowels, hardness of the heart; to blear eyes, envy and the evil eye; to sunken eyes and bowing of the body to the ground, atheism; to the bending and clutching of the fingers, rapacity and avarice; to the tottering of the knees, timidity; to wrinkles, cunning and crooked ways.’