The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall

by Daphne Du Maurier

  Bacon’s essay Of Friendship, which he now enlarged from a shorter, earlier version, is one of his longest and most famous, and the more interesting in that Tobie Matthew was the source of inspiration.

  ‘You may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain, but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever liveth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession… Certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communication and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation… I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.’

  No man could have wished for a finer tribute than this.

  It is possible that Francis was indeed taking sarza for the liver and flower of sulphur for the lungs that summer of 1623, for on August 29th he wrote to the Duke of Buckingham, excusing himself for not having written before. ‘In truth I was ill in health… for I have lain at two wards, the one against my disease, the other against my physicians, who are strange creatures. I do understand from Mr. Matthew, which rejoiceth me much, that I live in your Grace’s remembrance, and that I shall be the first man that you will have care of at your return, for which I most humbly kiss your hands.’

  The letter is written from Gray’s Inn, which leads one to suppose that he had remained there throughout his sickness, and had not spent any time at Gorhambury. Copies of De Augmentis Scientiarum—the Latin translation and additions to The Advancement of Learning—were awaiting the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham on their return from Spain in October, and Francis, who seems to have recovered his health by now, was hoping that Buckingham could obtain for him the position of Provost of Eton. The post had not been filled since the former Provost had died in April, and although Francis had put forth tenders at the time the Secretary of State, Sir. Edward Conway, had not been able to hold out any firm promise. A word from the Duke to his Majesty would surely arrange the matter. Francis had never abandoned his desire to help mould the minds of future generations, to watch over the training of the young who would one day, by their birth and upbringing, rise to positions of authority in Parliament and government; besides, Eton’s proximity to Windsor Castle would be useful. Unfortunately the Duke had promised the post to another—Sir. Henry Wotton had it eventually—and Eton College lost the chance of a provost who possessed ‘the most prodigious wit… this side of the sea.’

  Meanwhile, what had the Duke and the Prince of Wales actually accomplished in Spain? Not a very great deal, according to the gossip filtering through the pen of John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton. At first there was great public acclaim. Hogsheads of wine in the streets, butts of sack, bonfires everywhere, and when the Prince and the Duke arrived at Royston his Majesty fell on their necks, and everybody wept. But, the celebrations over, Chamberlain reported in the third week of October that ‘our courtiers and others that were in Spain begin now to open their mouths and speak liberally of the coarse usage and entertainment, where they found nothing but penury and proud beggary, besides all other discourtesy… and whereas it was thought the Spaniards and we should have peace and grow together, it seems we are generally more disjointed and farther asunder in affections than ever.’

  One of the incidents that irritated John Chamberlain most was that Tobie Matthew had been knighted at Royston, ‘but for what service God knows.’ For keeping the peace, one assumes, between the high dignitaries of the Spanish court and their English guests, for it was soon learnt that the Duke of Buckingham had fallen out with the Count de Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, and had returned from Spain no longer in favour of the Spanish treaty of alliance. Francis would have heard of this direct from Tobie Matthew, also that Parliament was likely to be recalled. No longer a member of the Council, or of Parliament, yet he fretted to give advice, the mood of those in power being such that opposing factions might once more develop, and the Duke’s own position of authority be placed in jeopardy. He must write a letter of advice to his Grace, first of all jotting down notes in a memorandum of what he intended to say.

  ‘There are considerable in this state three sorts of men. The party of the Papists which hate you, the party of the Protestants, including those they call Puritans, whose love is yet but green towards you, and particular great persons, which are most of them reconciled enemies, or discontented friends… It is good to carry yourself fair… to keep a good distance and to play your own game, showing yourself to have, as the bee hath, both of the honey and of the sting… You march bravely, but methinks you do not draw up your troops… If a war be proceeded in, to treat a straight league with France… Above all you must look to the safety of Ireland… for the disease will ever fall to the weakest part… You bowl well, if you do not horse your bowl an hand too much. You know the fine bowler is knee almost to ground in the delivery of the cast. Nay, and the King will be a hook in the nostrils of Spain, and lay a foundation of greatness to his children here in these west parts. The call for me, it is book-learning… I cannot thread needles so well.’

  The jottings run on and on, fascinating for the image they give of Francis Bacon, ex-Lord Chancellor, letting his mind leap ahead to a future alliance with France as against a treaty with Spain, ever mindful of Catholic Ireland as a possible base for Spanish invaders. Then, when his thoughts were assembled into some order, they could be translated into a true directive. One jotting only was omitted: ‘Offer of mine own service upon a commission into France.’ He had been ill, he was yet frail, his sixty-third birthday was fast approaching, but if there was anything he could still do to serve his King and his country he was ready, despite the humiliation and shame of his disgrace.

  Parliament was to be called during February of the new year, 1624, and both Houses would then be informed of all that had taken place regarding the Spanish treaty and the marriage negotiations. According to the terms of his sentence Francis was not permitted to take his seat in the House of Lords; nevertheless he could draw up notes of a speech he would have made had he been present, and, moreover, compose a lengthy document entitled Considerations Touching a War with Spain which he addressed specifically to the Prince, beginning with the words, ‘Your Highness hath an imperial name. It was a Charles that brought the empire first into France; a Charles that brought it first into Spain; why should not Great Britain have his turn?’

  The document was an enlargement of his original treatise on the subject, first written in 1619 when he still held high office, and once again Francis Bacon, who had been a man of peace for most of his life, showed himself to be something of a hawk in his last years, with considerable understanding of how the united forces of Great Britain, France and the Low Countries could scatter and overcome the armies and ships of Spain. His comparison with the power which Spain possessed in 1588, Armada year, and now in 1623, is concise and masterly, the balance having shifted in favour of Britain and her nearest neighbours; while any naval or military authority who read the document then—if any did—would surely have warmed to the author (as he would today) for certain of the sentiments expressed.

  ‘Of valour I speak not; take it from the witnesses that have been produced before: yet the old observation is not untrue, that the Spaniard’s valour lieth in the eye of the looker-on; but the English valour lieth about the soldier’s heart.’ And he has a splendid tilt at the ‘doves’ who demurred against taking action of any kind, calling them ‘schoolmen, otherwise reverend men, yet fitter to guide penknives than swords.’

  He recommended that the Commons should appoint a select committee with power ‘to confer with any martial men or others, that were not of
the House, for their advice and information,’ but needless to say this suggestion went unheeded. Whether indeed the document was ever shown to the Prince of Wales or anyone else in authority at the time we have no means of knowing. In any event the marriage negotiations were broken off, apparently with the agreement of both parties, and when Parliament met in February 1624 it was observed that the Prince of Wales was in attendance every day. Possibly he had read Viscount St. Alban’s document after all. When the House voted to end the treaties, and to raise money for the assistance of the Palatinate, the whole British people rejoiced, and bonfires were lighted in the streets once more. Francis Bacon contributed, it was said, four dozen faggots and twelve gallons of wine. He might be without influence or power, but he could still engage in celebration, and damnation to his creditors.

  20

  ‘We sailed from Peru, where we had continued by the space of one whole year, for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months’ space and more. But then the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east… so that finding ourselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victual, we gave ourselves for lost men and prepared for death.’

  The start of a nineteenth-century novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, telling the adventures of a barque in the Pacific? Not so. The opening of New Atlantis, the fable that Francis Bacon began in 1624 and never finished. Now read on.

  ‘And it came to pass that the next day about evening, we saw… as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land: knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown; and might have islands or continents, that hitherto were not come to light… And after an hour and a half’s sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city… but straightway we saw divers of the people, with bastons in their hands, as it were forbidding us to land; yet without any cries of fierceness… There made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in his hand a tip-staff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who came aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at all… He drew forth a little scroll of parchment… in which scroll were written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the School, and in Spanish, these words, “Land ye not, none of you; and provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days, except you have further time given you. Meanwhile, if you want fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repair, write down your wants, and you shall have that which belongeth to mercy.” This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubins’ wings, not spread but hanging downwards, and by them a cross… About three hours after we had dispatched our answer, there came towards us a person, as it seemed, of place. He had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamolet, of an excellent azure colour, far more glossy than ours; his under apparel was green; and so was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans; and the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it.’

  After swearing they were not pirates, and had not shed blood within forty days past, and were Christians, the ship’s company were given permission to land the following day, bringing their sick. This they did, and were taken to a spacious house, built of brick of a blueish colour, known as the Stranger’s House. Here they were told they might rest for three days and were given food and drink of a more refreshing kind than any of them had tasted in Europe, and pills to hasten the recovery of the sick. When the three days had passed, the governor of the Stranger’s House came to visit them, telling them that he was by vocation a Christian priest, and seeing that his guests were also Christian he would answer their questions, for the state had given them licence to stay for six weeks in the island, which was called Bensalem.

  The officers of the ship’s company, six in number, then learnt, after further discussion each day, the extraordinary history of the island. How some three thousand years before, although even then an island, it had formed part of the great continent of Atlantis, possessing ships that travelled the world over. Hence their knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Then disaster struck. A mighty flood overwhelmed the whole continent, burying its cities and drowning almost all its inhabitants, and the few who survived became, through succeeding centuries, the unlettered and near savage population of what remained of the once proud and powerful continent, namely America.

  As for the island of Bensalem, it had survived intact, through the miraculous intervention of the Almighty, and the Apostle of Jesus Christ, Saint Bartholomew, thus enabling the islanders and their descendants to grow in wisdom and culture through the ages, Christian in faith and outlook, while their king and governor had been one they called Solamona, who had created an order of society that was named Salomon’s House, dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God.

  Isolated from the rest of the world, the islanders had thus avoided all contamination from outer sources, but certain brethren of Salomon’s House were permitted to travel in disguise, wander amongst the peoples of the world, and then return with what they had learnt of the progress of science, art, manufacture and invention, and so improve their own inventions in the island; yet by their very isolation in these unexplored waters of the Pacific ocean, and the rule of life by which they lived, safeguard their discoveries from Man’s greed and exploitation.

  The visitors to Bensalem were permitted to wander about the town and its neighbourhood as they wished. ‘We took ourselves now for free men,’ says the narrator of New Atlantis, ‘and lived most joyfully… obtaining acquaintance with many of the city… at whose hands we found such humanity, and such a freedom and desire to take strangers as it were into their bosom as was enough to make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries: and continually we met with many things right worthy of observation and relation; as indeed, if there be a mirror in the world worthy to hold men’s eyes, it is that country.’

  The resemblance to a nineteenth-century novel of adventure ends, and a forerunner of twentieth-century science fiction begins when the narrator is allowed access to one of the Fathers of Salomon’s House, who imparts to him all the secrets of the work in progress.

  ‘Caves… sunk six hundred fathom… These caves we call the Lower Region. And we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies… and the producing also of new artificial metals… and we use them sometimes for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life… We have also great variety of composts, and soils, for the making of the earth fruitful.

  ‘We have high towers… and these place we call the Upper Region… We use these towers for the view of divers meteors; as winds, rain, snow, hail; and some of the fiery meteors also…

  ‘We have also a number of artificial wells… Chambers of Health… gardens where we practise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating… parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds… to try poisons and other medicines upon them… resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance…

  ‘We have heats in imitation of the sun’s and heavenly bodies’ heats… Instruments also which generate heat only by motion… We procure means of seeing objects afar off… and things afar off as near, making feigned distances… We have also sound-houses… and means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distance… Engine-houses, where we practise to make swifter motions than any you have… and more violent than yours are, exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks… We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas…

  ‘We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and il
lusions; and their fallacies.

  ‘These are, my son, some of the riches of Salomon’s House.’

  To the ordinary reader, who is neither scholar nor historian and has yet managed to read The Advancement of Learning and translations of the Latin works without difficulty, indeed with enjoyment, New Atlantis comes as a further shock of surprise and excitement, for here is something quite different again from anything that Francis Bacon had written hitherto. The nineteenth-century Robert Louis Stevenson has been mentioned, and the names of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells could be added; but these were all writers close to our own time and the author of New Atlantis preceded them by two and a half centuries.

  So what were his sources, and who inspired him? Certainly the style and the opening description of the voyage are reminiscent of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation by Richard Hakluyt, first published in 1589, with further editions in 1598, 1599 and 1600. Francis, an avid reader, would have seized upon them as a young barrister at Gray’s Inn, and undoubtedly made notes of their contents. Moreover, Richard Hakluyt, like Francis, had shares in the Virginia Company; the two men would certainly have met.

  Dr. John Dee, astrologer, mathematician and alchemist, was another celebrated figure about the Elizabethean Court in those days, one of his obsessions being to discover a north-west passage to the Far East; while later in his career, in Bohemia, he became involved with the curious mystical Rosicrucian movement which spread across the whole of Germany, a ‘fraternity in learning and illumination,’ its members secret, known as the Brothers of the Rosy Cross. Their manifestos, the Fama (in German) and Confessio (in Latin), were published in 1615, and Francis Bacon would certainly have read the latter and known about the Rosicrucian fraternity. There is a striking resemblance between Salomon’s House in his New Atlantis and the Brothers of the Rosicrucian movement; and Frances Yates, author of The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, believes that Francis Bacon based his fable upon the manifestos but that he was not himself a member of the fraternity. Nor is there any proof that Francis Bacon ever belonged to any mystical or other secret society.