Item. Bacon’s sudden rise to be more honored and powerful than Cecil was, could not take place until Cecil died. Thus, ironically, he owes it to Cecil.
Item. Francis Bacon is more vulnerable than Cecil ever was. Bacon has been left a legacy of dangerous delusion—belief in the justice of this world. How can he imagine otherwise? Surely the long seasons of famine and gnawing hope were unjust. If so, then the rewards, a feast beyond promise and expectation, must be just.
But if his reward is the working out of the justice of the world, then it follows there never was any true injustice. So the sweetness of the present is dulled by the compelling knowledge, taken for demonstrable and true, that he owes thanksgivings to the discontents of most of a lifetime. That he cannot, imperious as a conqueror, reject the man he was; for it is that man who has placed him, by suffering and sacrifice, where he is now. That man must be remembered. He is condemned to live again and again on discontents and doubt if only to believe in and preserve the man that he now is. At times the finest foods can have no more taste than a wooden bowl of boiled beans.
What profiteth it a man …?
Item. That by these same terms, he is, then, required to remember Cecil, too, and to think at least somewhat kindly of him. Compelled to remember him not with the pleasures of revenge or triumph, but with ambiguous gratitude. As if he were deeply beholden to Cecil for all that Cecil did to delay, frustrate, and defer him until his true time had come. Small wonder that Mr. Bacon in his excellent Essays condemns the custom of revenge. Since he can have none, he calls it folly.
They say he goes nowhere, gallery or garden or chamber, nowhere except perhaps the privy—and who knows?—without his amanuensis in attendance, ready to write down for posterity Bacon’s thoughts and observations. It must goad Lord Bacon to know he cannot speak of the things which he must, in truth, think on most. And what a mind the man has! What a pity that it must dance lame in chains.
Item. Cecil has done more.… Call it the world if you choose, but remember that it is Robertus, the world’s amanuensis, who comes first to Bacon’s mind whenever he considers justice or injustice. Cecil has not only spoiled the savor of the present for Lord Bacon (though nevertheless Bacon must dissemble, even to himself, and smack his lips and rejoice in evident pleasure at … a plate of boiled beans!), he also has taken away much of the joy of the future.
If a dying man forfeits his future and is, thus, freed of it, then a living man, upon a peak of eminence, standing and surveying the immensity of the unknown, of the unimagined and unimaginable, in awe and wonder—just so Sir Francis Drake in a high tree in Panama saw the vastness of that other ocean; and prayed thanksgiving; and vowed to live to sail across it; and being Francis Drake and no other, he did so—has every right to call the future his plantation. Much as Noah, when he opened the Ark to welcome the dove’s return, claimed the kingdom of the world to come and named all mankind to be his sons. By rights, having endured and suffering all, having come to a new world colored with rainbows, Bacon should be able to cast aside his past like an old cloak, never to be worn again.
No man, impatient, eager, quick as a coursing greyhound in the mind, has loved the future, spent his substance so freely investing in the future, as Bacon. Possessed with the power of the new knowledge to restore this weary world—as much possessed as Kit Marlowe’s German doctor, he dreamed the future when he had none, and, therefore, had no right to dream.
Now with eminence from which to see the vastness of the dream, with power to work upon the future and to leave his name and mark there, he finds that, in justice, he cannot do so. He must live in the comfort of present time, brief as any poor man’s stinking candle, and he finds himself shadowed by a past he cannot ignore. Nothing has prepared him for this.
The future is stolen away, the past given back, but not as it was. All that was, is seen as an illusion, vanished scenery from an old play or masque.
Consider what this stunning knowledge can work upon a man whose power lies chiefly in the mind. To learn the mind has been a false servant, cheating him while seeming to serve him best. The mind has played him false, given him the lie before. He cannot be sure of himself again.
To live in a brilliant present, he cannot be content with his own powers. He must, therefore, call upon the example of Cecil.
Item. An old enemy, now safely dead, becomes a new model for his actions. Becomes in death more important than while he lived and held power. Ironically, in a past rehearsed, becomes Bacon’s hope for the present.
Bacon must conjure the ghost then. He must open up the tomb in hope of finding Cecil there. He must sue once again for favor. Only to find, beneath marble, a grinning skull, dirt, a bundle of small bones.
Cecil would do him no favors then and can do him no service now.
Except in memory. And that is weak and watery as an old man’s eyes. For while Cecil lived, Bacon hated Cecil too much to study him well. Indeed, he could not even have endured that time had he permitted himself to think too deeply on his cousin. Would have driven himself into melancholy and perhaps madness.
Item. In death as in life, the crippled cousin grins and refuses to assist him.
Item. Nonetheless Bacon must seek in some way to imitate his cousin if he is to survive and prosper.
Example: Bacon’s final triumph over his rival, Edward Coke. Coke had been Speaker of the House; Coke had been Attorney General while Bacon still served the Queen without patent. But neither had been knighted when James first came to the throne. Came blithely, generously dispensing all kinds of titles. Unfortunately, for a price. Which Bacon could not afford. When he could, he was galled—gulled, if you wish—to be among some three hundred knighted by the King at once. Coke was one of six.
Coke always bettered him. Until at last he permitted that habit to become Coke’s punishment. Bacon was instrumental in raising Coke to the position of powerless eminence, and against both Coke’s will and wishes, to Lord Chief Justice. From which he toppled to disgrace. Toppled through his own doings, by his own nature. There is the sign of Robert Cecil triumphant.
But if Robert the Devil is proved right, then Bacon cannot be secure in his trust in justice. The fall of Coke need not be a demonstration of justice. Can be viewed as proving the power of injustice. More, this success over Coke hints that there is neither justice nor injustice, but only the whimsical, irrational, impulsive ways of Fortune.
Does the Queen live on, too, enthroned more powerful than before, as Dame Fortune herself? Surely, when Francis Bacon calls up the portrait of Fortune, the Queen is his model.
Bacon has cause to be uneasy. Though still in disgrace, Coke was called back by the King to join with the Commission, and to deal with Ralegh—himself like a risen ghost. Meet and right that Coke should be called back, for had Coke done his duty as he should have in Winchester in ’03, Ralegh would be less than memory now. Coke’s tactics failed. Therefore it is fitting that whatever the conclusion must be, Coke must bear a fair share in the responsibility for it.
But Coke is a man of mind too. In a different and deeper fashion than Bacon. For Edward Coke has formed his mind like a fine glass to capture the rays of the sun and bring them into the intense heat of a single beam.
Irony contained in the figure of speech. Coke, though made of different cloth than the Cecils, more than Bacon, has a mind which could match theirs. Ways and means are different, but the power is of high degree. His may be a simpler mind than Bacon’s, but with the enormous power of simplicity.
Coke serves the Law of England; thus he serves England always. And he who truly serves England, serves the future. And he who serves the future, owns shares of it. Therefore Coke has more shareholds in the colony of future time than Bacon can hope for.
It is no humiliation to Coke to be called back to finish the affair of Ralegh. For he was thereby given an unexpected occasion to right wrongs done long ago. To make his peace with Ralegh without apology, by performing his duty to the King. Which he has done. L
eaving Ralegh with no cause for quarrel with Coke, if any rancor remains.
So be it, Mr. Coke. You have finished. We are at quits. You need not ever think of Walter Ralegh, whether he dies tomorrow or lives to be one hundred years.
Bacon may believe he has a pawn against the King’s displeasure if things should turn against the counsel of the Commission. Coke is the likely victim. And if all goes well, Coke does not stand to gain anything.
Bacon may believe that Robert Cecil would approve of his latest stratagem—persuading Coke to write the King from York House counseling a second public trial. That counsel was sure to displease the King. Bacon was willing to risk an implied endorsement of Coke’s argument. Which would be necessary if only to dupe Coke. Coming from York House, bearing unmistakable signs of Bacon’s style, the letter would prove to the King that Bacon was in agreement with Coke for once.
Precisely Bacon’s intent. Should something untoward follow, then he has the proof that he advised against the present course. Again Coke gaining no credit. Should all things go well, Bacon need only remind the King that this letter is signed not by him but by Coke, and, swelling the scene, embellishing the tablature of simple music, he can cause the King to laugh by confessing he has played a trick, no more than a jest really, upon old Coke, that he left some clear signs of himself so that the King, excellent scholar, could see the deception.
Not knowing that Edward Coke assumed all this before he dipped pen in ink. Coke would know and be indifferent, enjoying an occasion to trouble the King with some impunity.
Bacon not knowing the King fears Edward Coke far more than he fears or needs Lord Bacon.
Not knowing that if the King should see the ghost of Cecil’s hand in the stratagem, he will not be pleased. The King feared Robert Cecil living. The specter of Cecil haunting his tractable Lord Chancellor will cause the King to waken to a swarm of doubts.
Bacon not knowing that Robert Cecil would grin and shake his head.
Cecil would know that the fate of Walter Ralegh, at this time and place, is not so simple that it can be soon recorded as having gone well or ill. He would see that no man alive can foresee all the consequences. That if it is the will of the King that Ralegh must die, then die he will. But the intelligent man’s best surety against whatever comes to pass lies, as always, in patient, watchful, wakeful waiting.
Francis Bacon, ever impatient and forever something of a fool in a world of knaves, has demonstrated once again the flaws of his nature.
Bacon not knowing that in the eyes of a living Robert Cecil he would earn credit for nothing.
Not reading rightly the meaning of the grin of the skull of Cecil under the marble tomb.
Yet despite discontent, Bacon’s smile fades not at all as the coach, equipped for comfort and show within and without, but almost as rough on a man’s bones as the flat-runnered hurdles which draw wretches to Tyburn, rattles, bounces, and bumps a brief journey along the Strand.
He could have come and returned by barge; for he has a barge as splendid as the King’s and his own crew of liveried watermen ready upon his whim to push out from what is the finest water gate along the river.…
Canopied against the weather, the watermen on their benches with oars raised, waxed and glistening, in salute, the barge waited for him this morning as he passed under the classic marble arch and descended the flight of steps from water gate to wharf.
Bacon paused to look at the rain-flecked river. Close by two lean fishermen, ill clad and weather-soaked, were working their net and had cast out hooks and lines as well. Catching his stare, they looked up and returned his look, unsmiling. Cut his eyes away to scan larger distance. Rain and cold or no, there was much traffic on the river, and, he suspected, some of it composed already of the idle and curious taking in the sights of London.
Well, he had no intention of adding to their catalogue of wonders.
He turned back to mount the stairs without a word. Behind him some whispered voices, muffled scurrying.
His young clerk, taking quick steps, came close enough to speak.
“What is your pleasure, my lord?”
Bacon stopped, turning abruptly. The young man stumbled on rain-slick stone. Blushed with embarrassment and Lord Bacon smiled.
“I shall go to the hall by coach,” he said.
“By coach, sir?” The young man echoing his voice, so others could hear.
“I fancied this weather would clear the river,” Bacon replied. “But I think only the end of the world will empty the Thames.”
“Indeed, my lord,” the young man, his poise recovered, began.…
And Francis Bacon’s quick eyes catching all the discreet motion around him. As servants slipped away, seeming to vanish. For coach and all horses must be made ready and seem to have been standing there always.
“Indeed, my lord,” the young man, last traces of the blush vanishing, saying: “I fear to contradict your fancy, but I think Judgment Day will not improve our crowded river.”
“How so?”
Moving at a slow pace to permit his harried servants time to deceive him. Probably he should have more servants. To gratify his whims and their deceptions. But, God’s wounds! he has, how many?—more than a hundred already.
“Why, my lord,” the young man saying, “your charitable disposition toward men deludes you. You overlook two plain truths of London.”
“And what may they be, these plain truths I so charitably ignore?”
“Of all the people of the world, my lord, there is no creature so brazenly curious as your Londoner. London will as lief come crowding to the sounds of bagpipe, drum, and penny whistles, announcing some juggler or mountebank rogue, as to the call to alarm by the Lord Mayor himself. Indeed, sir, they will come sooner for a juggler.”
Thinking: And where were they all that day when Essex called for them? Judging their account books?
But saying: “Well then, curiosity. I must admit the citizens of London, spoiled children all, are curious of everything, especially the new.”
“Exactly as you say, sir. Allowing for one exception, if it please you; that though they tire sooner of the old and familiar than jaded emperors or potentates, still they can never have their fill of common blood and thunder, be it at Tyburn or the Beargarden, or upon the stage.”
“But I recollect you said that there was something else I overlooked.”
“The tenacious venality of our watermen. Why, they would ferry Death himself, scythe and all, and shoot the bridge at ebb tide, if the price were right.”
“No need to fear anything, young man, when Death is your passenger.”
“Pardon the extravagance of my figure of speech.”
“It is too early, God willing, for you to study death. Youth is the time for extravagance.… But tell me what is missing in your complaint against the city? You owe me some rousing conclusion.”
“Sir?”
“We were speaking, I believe, of Judgment Day in London.”
“Ah, yes, my lord. Picture it if you will, then: the Angel Gabriel, all history for practice and rehearsal, puts angelic lips to a heavenly trumpet and blows across the sky a flock of shining notes purer and cleaner than any music ever heard yet by human ears.…”
“And damnable loud, too. Don’t forget that. It may be that the dead shall think it is clean and pure. But it will rattle in the skulls of the living.”
“And out they all come, the merchants and prentices, servants and sailors, bawds and wives, all of London on the streets, jostling and pressing down to the banks, crying out for watermen—and they shall not be scarce that day or hard to find, having in all likelihood received advance notice of the event—to carry them out to the middle of the Thames, so they may have best places to view and to criticize the performance of the prophecy of St. John.”
Lord Bacon laughs. For all this, trivial and innocent, has kept his mind from wrestling with itself.
“What pleases me most,” Bacon says, “is what you have to
uched on by implication—that of all God’s creatures only citizens of London will believe themselves entitled to be spectators on that day.”
“The Apocalypse, my lord, will be their final entertainment. Mark my word, they will find some fault with God’s performance, though they may condescend to applaud as the blessed and the damned depart their separate ways.”
“Your coach, sir.…”
A gesture and there stands the coach as if by magic.
“One more word.”
“My lord?”
“What will become of the swans?”
“I confess I had not considered them.”
“Think of the swans, young man. They have an evil temper, it is true, in keeping with our dismal climate and these wicked times. But still, our swans are beautiful. They offer much grace and purity to the eye. I sometimes doubt angels will prove to be quite so graceful.
“What will become of them, my boy? I can conceive of your Judgment Day in London. For like the Londoner, I, too, am insatiably curious. And I can picture this place, York House, Westminster, the City, all England unpeopled forever. I can view that prospect with a certain pleasure, even though perforce it entails my absence from the scene as well. But …”
“Sir?”
“But the picture of our river without swans is a cold thing near my heart. What desolation! A river with no swans and no man left to name them and call them beautiful.”
“I fear I have led you up the wrong path of the garden, my lord. It was not my intention to call up melancholy.”
“But I am, as God made me, a melancholy man. And I have now a melancholy duty to perform.”
He mounts the coach and settles on the soft leather seat, as a footman wraps a turkey carpet about his legs.
The young clerk stands attentive beside the coach. Raindrops, like dew of May flowers, are rich in his curls. His face is frowning, perplexed.
“I go to Westminster to see the last of one of our swans,” Bacon calls out. “A black swan, it is true. But, then, black swans are very rare.”
Death of the Fox Page 40