The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall

by Daphne Du Maurier

  Such passages might induce his Majesty to look a little harder at his courtiers, and perhaps to examine his own features in a mirror. But stay, what was this? Francis turned to a passage from the Italian humanist Ficino: ‘Old men, to comfort their spirits, should frequently recall and ruminate on the acts of their childhood and youth.’ Very true. Hence his own sentiment for York House, which was now denied him. Was it not the Emperor Vespasian who had this feeling so strongly that he could not bear to change his father’s house, and on holidays used to drink out of a wooden cup, tipped with silver, which had belonged to his grandmother?

  Francis was fretting for familiar sights and sounds. Chiswick was too far out of town. The southerly wind might suit his lady, but it poisoned the atmosphere for him. Besides, she was forever plaguing him as to when the money for York House would be forthcoming, for half this sum would be due to her. Perhaps if he could arrange accommodation for himself and his attendants in Bedford House on the Strand the matter could be brought to a successful conclusion.

  The reader is indebted to the gossip John Chamberlain for the following information, writing, as usual, to his friend Dudley Carleton. ‘Not long since I met with your old friend Tobie Matthew and we had long conference. He continueth his course and lodgeth at Bedford House with the late Lord Chancellor.’ The letter is dated June 22nd 1622.

  A week later he reports, ‘The Lord of St. Alban hath put a bill into the Chancery against the Lord Marquis Buckingham which the world will not believe but to be done with consent. The substance is that having contracted for the lease of York House for the sum of £1,300 whereof £500 was to be paid to the Lady of St. Alban, the time of payment being past and no money appearing the poor Lady is in fear to be defrauded by her Lord for whose satisfaction he desires the Lord Marquis may show cause why he goeth not on with the contract as agreed.’

  John Chamberlain makes a valid point. Francis would never have put a bill into Chancery without Buckingham’s agreement, but we are left in ignorance as to how and when the bill was passed, if it was passed. Though the favourite and the ex-Lord Chancellor were no longer on the intimate terms they had been once, there was no open rupture between them, and certainly by the autumn Buckingham had moved his Majesty to sign a warrant for the payment of the arrears of pension, telling Francis in a letter dated November 13th, ‘I have likewise moved for your coming to kiss his hand, which he is pleased you shall do at Whitehall when he returneth next thither.’

  Whether advance copies of The History of Winds and The History of Life and Death had helped to smooth the path we do not know, but on January 20th 1623 Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, was conducted by the Marquis of Buckingham to kiss his Majesty’s hand.

  It is to be hoped, for all concerned, that the wind was in the north.

  19

  Restored once more to favour, prospects for the future seemed brighter than they had done for many months. He must not expect continual access to the monarch, but at least the first interview had been granted, and with Buckingham in good humour once more greater progress would be made in time. The eight books of De Augmentis Scientiarum—the Latin additions to The Advancement of Learning—were with the printers, and his leisure hours, apart from other work, could be spent on a life of Henry VIII, a fitting sequel to the History of Henry VII.

  Living at Bedford House was expensive, though, and it was difficult to keep her ladyship at bay. His finances were still at a low ebb, and there appeared to be one answer to this, ensuring privacy at the same time. He would move back to his old quarters at Gray’s Inn. Here he would have all the books he needed, students going to and fro at his bidding, friends and associates calling with no questions asked, the life that had suited him admirably when young now adjusting to his needs as he grew old. Every corner was familiar: the entrance through the court, his rooms above, the furniture that had been his father’s and his half-brothers’ before him—no whining creditor could take these from him.

  At Gray’s Inn he was known, loved and respected, his very name a legend; and if he needed a nosegay on his table and the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers, he need not send to Gorhambury but to Lady Hatton within strolling distance, and her garden there. She had sold the house itself to the Duke of Lennox for £2,000 in ready money, with £1,500 a year for her lifetime, but had wisely kept the lodgings over the gate and a door into the gallery. His Grace would never dare deny her access to her garden. So, when he felt in the vein, talks over old times, without mentioning his rival, her husband Sir. Edward Coke, who had been in disgrace himself the past year and committed to the Tower, but was now released.

  Juggling for position was long over, they could call it quits. The power game had ended for the ex-Lord Chancellor and the ex-Lord Chief Justice. Their advice in Council, usually on opposing sides, was no more than a memory. Sir. Edward, an exile in his turn, was living with one of his married daughters, and was likewise over-burdened with his own and his family’s debts. Neither man, any longer, could do the other harm.

  Francis at least could follow each turn in the political game through his informant Tobie Matthew, who, moving with ever-growing involvement in diplomatic circles, and in constant touch with the Spanish ambassador Count de Gondomar, was one of the first to report that a plan was afoot for the Prince of Wales and the Marquis of Buckingham to travel incognito to Spain. Once there it was hoped they could enlist the cooperation of King Philip in the recovery of the Palatinate, and in return conclude the marriage negotiations between the Infanta and the Prince of Wales. In short, an alliance would be cemented between Catholic Spain and Protestant Britain.

  The reason for secrecy was that such an alliance was likely to be unpopular at home. Parliament, prorogued the year before without the subsidy granted, had not been recalled, nor was the Council briefed on this sudden project. The Prince of Wales and his companion Buckingham, wearing false beards, were ferried from Essex to Gravesend, and thence to Dover, sailing on February 21st 1623; but the secret was out. According to John Chamberlain the world was talking of it the following day and doubts were expressed about the mission which was likely to prove ‘costly and hazardous.’

  Francis would have discussed the likelihood of success or failure privately with Tobie Matthew, but to Buckingham he wrote, ‘Though your Lordship’s absence fall out in an ill time for myself, yet because I hope in God this noble adventure will make your Lordship a rich return in honour abroad and at home, and chiefly in the inestimable treasure of the love and trust of that thrice-excellent Prince; I confess I am so glad of it, as I could not abstain from your Lordship’s trouble in seeing it expressed by these few and hasty lines. I beseech your Lordship of your nobleness vouchsafe to present my most humble duty to his Highness, who I hope ere long will make me leave King Henry the Eighth and set me on work in relation of his Highness’s heroical adventures.’ And in a note to the gentleman in attendance upon the Prince and Buckingham he wrote, ‘Myself for quiet and the better to hold out am retired to Gray’s Inn: for when my chief friends were gone so far off, it was time for me to go to a cell. God send us a good return of you all.’

  And her ladyship? Not a word of her since July, when she was demanding half the sum due for the sale of York House lease. It was now the end of February. She can hardly be blamed if she relied rather more for companionship upon her steward John Underhill than her husband, safely installed at Gray’s Inn, either knew or cared. She had her freedom. He had his work.

  The question is, on what particular work was Francis Bacon engaged during the winter, spring and summer of 1623, and did Tobie Matthew possess the secret? Tobie left for Spain, in the wake of the Prince of Wales and Buckingham, some time in April, bearing letters from his friend and mentor to the Marquis, to the Earl of Bristol (the King’s emissary) and to Count de Gondomar. Spedding, Bacon’s biographer, prints all three letters, but omits—possibly because he thought it of little interest—a letter from Tobie to Francis which was published in Birch’s Collection of 1762. />
  The letter reads as follows:

  ‘To the Lord Viscount St. Alban.

  ‘Most honoured Lord,

  I have received your great and noble token and favour of the 9th of April, and can but return the humblest of my thanks for your Lordship’s vouchsafing so to visit this poorest and unworthiest of your servants. It doth me good at heart, that, although I be not where I was in place [referring obviously to his stay under Francis’s roof, either at Bedford House or Gray’s Inn], yet I am in the fortune of your Lordship’s favour, if I may call that fortune, which I observe to be so unchangeable. I pray hard that it may once come in my power to serve you for it; and who can tell, but that, as fortis imaginatio generat causam, so strange desires may do as much? Sure I am, that mine are ever waiting on your Lordship; and wishing as much happiness as is due to your incomparable virtue, I humbly do your Lordship reverence.

  ‘Your Lordship’s most obliged and humble servant

  ‘Tobie Matthew.’

  [Postscript.] ‘The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship’s name though he be known by another.’

  Here is food for speculation. To what personal notes and papers, to what manuscripts, had Tobie Matthew been granted access at Gray’s Inn? Was something in preparation that was to appear later under a different name? No other inference can be drawn from that cryptic postscript. The Latin De Augmentis Scientiarum had been with the printers for months, and would be published in October with the author’s name upon it, and the usual copies forwarded to his Majesty and the Prince of Wales. The history of the reign of Henry VIII was no more than a fragment, consisting of a couple of pages, and never finished; besides, when the chaplain Rawley came to publish it, with other of the works, it carried, as the rest did, the author’s name, Francis Bacon.

  ‘The most prodigious wit… is of your lordship’s name, though he be known by another.’

  Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, in one volume, was published in November 1623, a month later than De Augmentis Scientiarum, and had likewise been in the hands of its printers for something like eighteen months. Printing had started early in 1622, had been interrupted during the summer, and had continued during the following year. The work, which came to be known as the First Folio, consisted of 934 pages, and approximately 1,000 copies were printed, all at the shop of William and Isaac Jaggard. The editors were fellow actors of the dead dramatist, John Heminge and Henry Condell (thus was the spelling of the day), Heminge having also been business manager of the acting company and having large financial interests in the Blackfriars and Globe theatres. It is generally thought that Edward Knight, the book-keeper of the King’s Men’s company, actually had the exacting task of editing the text, but there is no proof of this. Of the thirty-six plays that the volume contained, eighteen had never before been printed. Performed, yes; yet, again, there is no documentary proof that each of these eighteen plays had been seen in public, nor can any scholar affirm that the acted text was word for word, or scene for scene, the same as that of the printed text of the First Folio in 1623. (A list of these eighteen plays is given in Appendix II.)

  The volume also contained laudatory poems to the dead dramatist from Ben Jonson and others, an epistle To the Great Variety of Readers from John Heminge and Henry Condell, and a list of the principal actors who had appeared in the plays. Henry Condell, incidentally, had by now retired from the stage and was living on his estate at Fulham, a neighbour to Sir. John Vaughan, with whom Francis Bacon had lodged after his disgrace in 1621.

  It might be thought the Folio would have been dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, known to have been William Shakespeare’s patron in his early days in the theatre, but he is nowhere mentioned. The volume bore the dedication to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery. The former was currently Lord Chamberlain, and his brother succeeded him in this position three years later.

  William Herbert was one of those members of the House of Lords who had been more kindly disposed to Viscount St. Alban at the impeachment than some others, and there is a memorandum of thanks to him for ‘his kind remembrance,’ in the hand of Francis’s secretary Thomas Meautys but dictated by his employer: ‘I cannot but acknowledge the moderation and affection his Lordship showed in my business, and desire that of those few his Lordship will still be one for my comfort, in whatsoever may cross his way, for the furtherance of my private life and fortune.’ As for his brother, the Earl of Montgomery, it was he who had obtained the interview for Lady St. Alban with the Marquis of Buckingham, and a note in St. Alban’s papers late that year says, ‘There is not an honester man in court than Montgomery.’ All three men, Francis Bacon, Pembroke and Montgomery, had been founders of and had held shares in the Virginia Company and the Newfoundland Company in 1609, and had known one another for years.

  It is interesting that the decision to print the volume of plays—the First Folio—had been taken early in 1622, after the Lord Chancellor’s disgrace, and when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb. Why had no attempt been made to collect and publish the thirty-six plays immediately after William Shakespeare’s death in April 1616? Why the lapse of seven years? Heminge and Condell mention in their epistle to the reader ‘surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that exposed them’: so fraudulent editions had been distributed from time to time; but now at last, in 1623, the genuine and definitive edition was for sale.

  It is not intended here to enter into a long and tedious argument as to whether William Shakespeare was indeed the author of all the thirty-six plays published under his name in the First Folio. The original manuscripts, notes and promptcopies have never been found. It is suggested, however, that some of the themes, plots, scenes and speeches could have been contributed by others, and woven into the necessary form for dramatic presentation by the actor-playwright. Anthony Bacon was living in Bishopsgate, close to the Bull Inn where plays were performed, in 1594; William Shakespeare was living in the same parish, and acting with Richard Burbage and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It was on December 28th of that year that The Comedy of Errors was performed at Gray’s Inn. It is furthermore suggested that from this time forward both Anthony and Francis Bacon, and possibly others, were in collaboration with the actor-dramatist on some of the earlier plays, which were issued in quarto and printed, and that, after the Essex débâcle, Anthony’s death and the start of the new reign, Francis Bacon continued this collaboration. Anonymity suited both men, William Shakespeare deriving financial advantage and popular success, while the Learned Counsel and politician preferred to be known for his philosophical and literary efforts.

  It is interesting that William Shakespeare, despite the performances of his plays often given at Court, seems never to have been officially presented to their Majesties King James and Queen Anne, unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson; and that no new plays were forthcoming from his pen after 1612, when he retired to his birth-place at Stratford-on-Avon, shortly before Francis Bacon became Attorney-General.

  William Shakespeare left a long and very detailed will when he died four years later, entirely concerning property to be settled amongst his family, but without mentioning any interest he may have had in any of the plays that had been issued in his name. This was because all rights of authorship belonged to the King’s Men’s company, and to the publishers of those plays that had appeared in quarto. Twenty-five pounds each went to his fellow-actors John Heminge, Richard Burbage and Henry Condell, ‘to buy them rings.’

  It was only in succeeding centuries, and particularly during the past one hundred and fifty years, that the astonishing range and versatility of these plays won world-wide recognition, and perhaps in our own time more than ever before, now that they can be seen not only on the stage but on the screen at home as well. There are said to be some 238 copies of the First Folio in existence today. Priced at £1 in 1623
, a copy was sold to a book-dealer in 1923 for approximately £25,000. In 1975 it would probably cost a quarter of a million. John Chamberlain, who had at least made an attempt to read Francis Bacon’s Latin philosophical works, and had praised his History of Henry VII, cannot have thought very much of William Shakespeare’s plays. The publication of the First Folio is not even mentioned in his letters. ‘The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation…’

  Tobie Matthew, in Madrid, ‘is grown extreme lean and looks as sharp as an eyass’ reported the Marquis, now Duke of Buckingham, from Spain on May 29th, when thanking Francis for his ‘hearty congratulation for the great honour and gracious favour which his Majesty hath done me.’ Negotiations for the royal marriage were apparently progressing well, and frequent letters passed between Matthew and his mentor the Viscount St. Alban during that summer of 1623, but there is no further allusion to ‘the prodigious wit,’ and if Francis ever remarked upon that postscript to Tobie’s letter the shrewd diplomat destroyed the reference.

  By the end of June Francis, still at Gray’s Inn, told his friend in Madrid that the essays were being made more perfect, ‘well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens which forsake me not. For these modern languages will at one time or other play the bankrupts with books; and since I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad as God shall give me leave to recover it with posterity.

  ‘For the essay of friendship, while I took your speech of it for a cursory request I took my promise for a compliment. But since you call for it I shall perform it.’