THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 SHAKESPEAKE AND BACON 
 
 AND THEIR BUSINESS CONNECTION; 
 
 WITH SOME REVELATIONS OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY 
 
 STRUGGLES 1587-1592. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. G. THOEPE, F.S.A. 
 
 OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE STILL LIFE OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE,'" 
 "MIDDLE TEMPLE TABLE TALK," ETC. 
 
 " Tot ou Tard, tout se scait." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR AT THE CHISWICK PRESS 
 
 1897 
 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 

 I 
 
 INSCRIBE THIS BOOK TO 
 
 THOMAS WILLIAM BROOKES 
 
 of the Convent, Kingsgate, Thanet, in remem- 
 brance of nearly forty years' friendship and esteem. 
 But I must, in common gratitude, record thus 
 publicly the sympathy, aid, and encouragement 
 accorded me in this novel and difficult inquiry by 
 
 SAM. TIMMINS, J.P., F.S.A., 
 
 of Spring Hill, Arley, Coventry, the widely known 
 scholar and student of Shakespeare, to whose 
 literature he has for over forty years devoted all 
 the powers of his mind, and in whose " The 
 Shakespeare Year " the world of the Poet's 
 admirers yearly find a careful and thoroughly 
 reliable account of all that has occurred to interest 
 them in the previous period. 
 
 705 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell-Pliillipps iu liis " Outlines of the Life of 
 Shakespeare," seventh edition, thus forecasts the future of 
 the still expanding Shakesjjeare cult. 
 
 " XN the absence of some very important and 
 
 -^ unexpected discovery, the general desire to 
 penetrate the mystery which surrounds the personal 
 history of Shakespeare cannot be gratified. 
 
 " It is not likely that much beyond a very im- 
 perfect sketch of the material features of his life 
 will ever be revealed . . . but so vivid is the general 
 interest enforced by the publication of the minutest 
 new fact regarding the world's greatest author 
 that this unsatisfactory position hardly accounts 
 for an inclination not unfrec[uently manifested . . . 
 for the setting up of a mythical Shakespeare. 
 
 "Such an inclination may sometimes arise from 
 a reluctance to believe that the object of our 
 idolatry could ever have been human. 
 
 " It is a delusion that Shakespeare's transcendent 
 intellect excluded the admission of human frailty." 
 
 Thus prophesied the man who has done the 
 most to clear up the mystery! and had he lived 
 to see the revelation of the "important and unex- 
 pected discovery " he saw afar off, he would have 
 
Vlll TO THE READER. 
 
 found his prediction verified, even had it been his 
 own lot to proclaim to the world, the secret which 
 lay all the while easily within his reach. 
 
 Hardly, even for him, would publishers have dared 
 to face the (possible, even now) howl of execration 
 awaiting the man who might assert that Shakespeare 
 was not nursed by fairies and cradled in violets, 
 was not lawyer, statesman, linguist, and scientist 
 combined. 
 
 In fact, they are equally timorous now, and but 
 for my reliance on the evidence hereafter adduced, 
 and my faith that Truth must prevail in the end, 
 I should not have put forward and challenged 
 criticism on the following astounding propositions, 
 which, however, the chief authority at Stratford- 
 on-Avon has stamped with his approval — the MS. 
 being printed exactly as it left that gentleman's 
 hands. In his own words to me, it fits exactly 
 together, and cannot be got out of; with him, at 
 all events, the Truth is above all sentimental and 
 preconceived considerations of however long stand- 
 ing. In such a spirit, gentle reader, I ask you to 
 approach the following positions, which directly 
 arise from the book in your hands. 
 
 (i.) That Shakespeare, at all events up 
 to 1599, kept a gold, silver, and "copper" 
 hell, carrying on this last in the open streets 
 with yokels, and putting on workman's 
 dress in order to appear to be on their level 
 and thus more easily gain their confidence. 
 
TO THE READER. IX 
 
 (2.) That by this means he supplied the 
 wants of his " hungry famylee " (one of 
 Mr. Halliwell's standing puzzles). 
 
 (3.) That he purchased New Place out of 
 the money got by rooking an infant young 
 gentleman ; these circumstances being 
 matter of notoriety among his townsmen 
 and neighbours, gentle and simple. 
 
 Now take another tack. 
 
 A. That deer-stealing was felony punish- 
 able in the Star Chamber, for which Bacon 
 (practically the Public Prosecutor until he 
 became Chancellor) prosecuted two men 
 separately as late as 1614. 
 
 B. That hence, if an information was 
 laid, it was in Bacon's power to have dealt 
 similarly with Shakespeare any time be- 
 tween the date of the offence in 1587 and 
 the 1614 aforesaid. 
 
 C. That if Bacon did not so prosecute, 
 but rather protected him, there must have 
 been good (Baconian) reason for it. Now 
 Bacon blackmailed everybody, and hunted 
 his patron Essex to the death for money. 
 
 D. Thirteen years after his Hegira from 
 Stratford, Shakespeare's offence was re- 
 membered and cast up against him. He 
 had fled for very fear. Can this be the 
 reason why he did not revisit his native 
 town for ten years, and then only for his 
 
X TO THE READER. 
 
 son's funeral, when pity might stay the 
 hand of the avenger? Can this, too, be the 
 cause w^hy he "lay low" and kept out of 
 sight in London, lived in a Bankside lodg- 
 ing, and did not ruffle it bravely as did 
 Henslow, Alleyne,and Burbage, actor-man- 
 agers like himself? Here are two more of 
 the conundrums Mr. Halliwell despaired of 
 solving. 
 
 E. Shakespeare was completely in 
 Bacon's power, by the double ties of profit- 
 able employment flowing inwards, and the 
 fear of the terrors of the law w^hich stood 
 ready at Bacon'shand. Weknowthat Bacon 
 cadged for the smallest item of " copy" for 
 the Twickenham Scrivenery, so that Shake- 
 speare's theatre -writing would not pass 
 overlooked. 
 
 And yet, as often happens, the victim had 
 (perhaps from some hold springing out of Bacon's 
 private life) a back pull which enabled him to 
 constrain his master to put off another pressing 
 creditor (as we know he did), and pay him out of 
 Catesby's fine, really the blood-money for which 
 lie had sold Essex, the amount which paid for the 
 Combe Estate; yet one more point which puzzled 
 Mr. Halliwell as he plaintively confesses. 
 
 It may be, gentle reader — I trust, indeed, it is 
 — that this investigation which I have had the 
 happy chance to open, may, if followed up by abler 
 
TO THE READER XI 
 
 hands, throw more light still on this hitherto 
 unworked inquiry. I do but ask you to be not 
 shocked by the announcement, but courageously 
 compare, side by side, the baseless theory of a 
 glorified superhuman Shakespeare with the hard 
 facts which I endeavour in this book to oppose to it. 
 I make Shakespeare neither better nor worse 
 than any other man. I bow before, and acknow- 
 ledge, his marvellous talents and gifts. I in no 
 way impeach the authorship of his works— 1 but 
 show the man as he was, hardly tried, with all 
 possible means of earning his living denied him, yet 
 doing his best, and a desperate best, too, to keep 
 the wolf from the door of those whom he loved, 
 and whose daily bread he must, at all hazards, 
 provide. 
 
 W. G. Thorpe. 
 
 Gloucester House, 
 
 Laekhall Eise, S.W. 
 
 Neiv Years Eve, 1896. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction xix 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Immortality of Poets — -Envied by Heroes — Wolfe and 
 Grray's "Elegy" — Public Interest in great Poets' 
 Lives — Gryprograms useless for such purposes — 
 Parallel Passages only tantalizing — Shakespeare's 
 personal Surroundings hunted up Microscopically — 
 Now exhausted — Bacon's Life recorded volumin- 
 ously — The two Biographies never compared for 
 possible Points of Contact — Yet Bacon directed 
 the Grray's Inn Masque of 1594, Mounted by the 
 Chamberlain's Players, of which Shakespeare Factotum 
 Manager — The two in Hand-grip then, if not before, 
 and continuing so till Shakespeare died — Ben Jonsou 
 a Common Friend — Present when Shakespeare got 
 his Death and Apologist for Bacon in his Degrada- 
 tion — "0 rai'e Ben Jonson " — Origin of Present 
 Inquiry — The writer's Copy of First Folio 1623 — The 
 Second-Hand Book Catalogue — The MS. Pamphlet 
 the "Apologie" 1600 — Bacon's Allusion to his Public 
 Scrivenery at Twickenham — Publication of facts in 
 "The Academy" of March 30th and April 13th, 
 1895— The " Apologie " a Key to all tbat follows the 
 j^roximate cause of Essex's Death and Forfeiture — 
 And a Clue to the Five Dark Years of Shakespeare's 
 Life, 1587-92 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Elizabethan Society thoroughly corrupt — The Queen's 
 Intimacy with Essex, and her Jealousy of him — 
 She drives Maids of Honour from Court with blows 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and curses — Essex's Liaison with Lady Rutland 
 brings about Elizabeth's Signature to his Death 
 Warrant — Allen, Faunt, and Standen upon Court 
 Morals — Lord Keejjer makes over the sale of Pardons 
 to the Court Ladies, to eke out their stipends — Bacon 
 appears as a Broker herein — Terrible Grambling 
 among all ranks — Northbrooke's evidence 1577 — 
 Grambling in Inns of Court Halls — Cause of the 
 Bacon Brothers' ruin — Bacon comes from Paris to 
 London 1597 — Master of Revels at Gray's Inn 1588 — 
 Directs Plays and Masques before the Queen and his 
 uncle, Lord Burleigh — Wlio will not employ him in 
 Government Service on account of his Follies and 
 Vices — Shakespeare has to leave Stratford in 1587 
 on account of a " Star Chamber " offence and slii:)s 
 away in the train of the Players — The Company 
 Prosper, and oust all Competitors, finally appearing 
 at Court where (if not earlier) he would meet Bacon- — 
 It mounts the Gray's Inn Masque of 1588 before the 
 Court — Bacon meets Essex in 1591 and obtains 
 complete Influence over him — Essex's Bravery still 
 recorded on the Walls of Cadiz — Bacon introduces 
 his brother Anthony as Essex's Foreign Secretary — 
 Scrivenery set up at Twickenham Park for the 
 Correspondence — By Standen' s order the Cipher 
 never intrusted to Essex — Bacon's Mother, Lady 
 Ann — Her close watch uponlier Sons and her absolute 
 Tyranny over them — Her Complaints that Bacon's 
 Gambling had led to his " early discredit" (i.e., loss 
 of Character), and of the Drunken Habits of both 
 Brothers — She spent her whole Substance upon 
 them, and was Bacon's sole Money Resource — 
 Shakespeare's Position in 1594 — How did he Subsist 
 and keep his Family from 1587 '?— All Biographers 
 at fault here — The only possible Solution Winnings 
 at Play — Parallels in the Lives of Crockford and 
 Swindell — No Personal Disgrace in all three cases — 
 The Great Duke of Wellington asking to be Elected 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 to Crocky's — Cutting Double or Quits for .£90,000 
 — But this solution of Shakespeare's Rise prov- 
 able by direct Contemporary Evidence — Sir John 
 Harrington — His Character by the present Bishop 
 of London — His knowledge of Gaming — His 
 " Nugse Antiquse " written 1597 — Three Extracts 
 from it — At this time Shakespeare buys " New 
 Place " — Sii' John a frequent Resident at Combe 
 Abbey close by, and the talk there as to where the 
 Purchase Money came from — Incidental Proof that 
 Shakespeare was a iimn not to be trifled with — 
 Strange Infrequency of References to Gambling in 
 Shakespeare's Plays, even Disapproval of it in 
 Hamlet— Why? 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 About 1590 Theatres under a Cloud — In 1594 Gray's 
 Inn decide upon a Play and Pageant — Their Plays 
 usually Classical Translations by one of them- 
 selves — Any such Translation, if not written hv an 
 Accomplished Latinist like Bacon, would be Revised 
 by him as Master of the Revels — The Masque con- 
 tained six Speeches by Bacon and one Song by 
 Campion — Who contributed the " Last Songe ? " — 
 Who Contributed the " Dancing Songe ? " — Who 
 read up Gilbert's Latin " De Magnete " and wrote 
 the Discussions on Magnetism ? — Rehearsals at 
 Gray's Inn — The Bolt from the Blue — Lady Ann 
 Bacon — Will she attend the Performance and 
 thoroughly Purge the Pit — Similar Macstingers — 
 Sarah Lady Jersey, Mrs. " Diamond " Hope, etc. — 
 How Lady Ann Rebuked Essex, her sons' Patron, for 
 Adultery, and how Meekly he took it — The Bacons 
 cannot offend their only Friend — The Performance 
 must come off, but Authorship can be shifted on to 
 Stage Manager, to whom the Play stuck — Why 
 called " Errors " — Intimacy quietly continued be- 
 tween Bacon and Shakespeare until Lady Ann's 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Death, when Bacon Solicitor-General — Bacon gets 
 up Masque for the Palatine's Wedding and offers to 
 do so for Carre's — His letter to Carre — Evidence of 
 Sodality with Players — How close Mr. Spedding 
 came to finding out the Secret Link 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Scriveneey — Anthony Burleigh's "Foreign Intelli- 
 gencer " on the Continent for some years — Return 
 to England 1592 — Sets up a Scrivenery for Copying 
 Manuscripts for sale — Slighted by the Cecils, attaches 
 himseK to their rival Esssex as Foreign Secretary — 
 Renews connection with his old Correspondents in- 
 volving much Pen work. Decipherment, and Transla- 
 tion — Anthony's Salary =£,1000 a year, <£,7000 now — 
 Scrivenery removed to Twickenham Park, out of 
 reach of the City Company's Sphere of Prohibition — 
 Names of some of the Foreign Agents, Standen, Sir 
 Thomas Bodley (of the Library), Guicciardini, etc. — 
 Treachery on every side — How Essex was able to 
 provide for this Enormous Expense — His Gifts from 
 the Queen alone averaging d£210,000 a year (of our 
 money) besides his Places, ^835,000 more — Anthony 
 blackmails Essex out of Essex House, only leaving it 
 afterwards by the Queen's Special Order — Mentions 
 of the Scrivenery in History — Standen — Colman 
 James, the Cadiz Relation — The " Apologie " — Top- 
 clifEe and, after Anthony's Death, Dorset — The 
 Theatre Work done for Shakespeare was the only way 
 by which the Dramatist could get repaid the loans 
 which he could not refuse making to Bacon as Master 
 of Gray's Inn Revels — From a Letter to Lord Shrews- 
 bury, asking the loan of a "Horse and Armour" for 
 some public show, Bacon seems to have Directed Public 
 Pageants — Twickenham would provide Amanuenses 
 to write down the Plays — Would copy out the 
 MSS. without a blot, and supply Prompters' parts 
 and Actors' lengths as and when required — More- 
 
CONTENTS. XVll 
 
 PAGE 
 over, as it would not do to run about to several 
 places, all the acting Plays would be kept at 
 Twickenham 40 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 Burleigh in 1598 wishes peace with Spain; Essex 
 Ojiposes it, and Ajjpeals to the Nation in a Pam- 
 phlet styled the "Apologie" sent out from Twick- 
 enham broadcast, like the Cadiz Eelation — The 
 Queen resents it bitterly — He Insults her, she boxes 
 his ears and goes off in a Huff — Quarrel patched up, 
 but from this time dates Essex's Pall — Liege spy 
 reports to Cecil that Foreigners accuse the Bacons 
 of making the King of Spain Ridiculous on the 
 Stage as if they Controlled a Theatre (a Statement 
 subsequently confirmed by Essex) — Essex Intrigues 
 again with Maids of Honour whom Elizabeth drives 
 from Court with Blows and Curses — In September, 
 1599, Essex Imprisoned in his own house under a 
 Keeper for eight months — Nearly Dying in the 
 Time — His Monopoly of Sweet Wines taken from 
 him b}'' the Crown — The Bacons in sore Money 
 Straits also — Francis implores the Queen for a Grant 
 of Land, " Creditors are Suing him and Insulting 
 him " — Anthony Blackmails Essex and gets all he 
 had left — Essex House, Strand — Elizabeth furious 
 and forces the Family to Eedeem it — Bacon sees no 
 more is to be gained by Essex's Life, but if (as Eliza- 
 beth's Custom was) the Forfeiture consequent on 
 his Attainder and Death enured to the man who 
 brought it about, there was great Profit in view — 
 The Plan commenced — Lady Eich's Unhappy 
 Letter — As Elizabeth had been Provoked by " The 
 Apologie " — Bacon prints it together with this last 
 and circulates it by Anthony's servants, i.e., his own 
 (Vide his own words, Abbott, Bacon and Essex, App. 
 p. 1.) — Elizabeth Furious — Imprisons two men and 
 tries to get in all the Copies — Two Contemporary 
 
XVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letters from Sydney Papers — Essex in Despair — He 
 also seets to stop Cii'culation ; ultimately effects it — ■ 
 He writes the Queen that those who had thrown him 
 aside like a dead Carcase had Printed him and would 
 Play him on the Stage — Implying the Bacons control 
 of a Theatre — Essex is Executed — Anthony Dies of 
 Kemorse within four months — Destroying his later 
 Correspondence — In the Autumn Bacon receives 
 some of Essex's Blood-Money — But Shakesj^eare 
 receives most of it and Purchases in the following 
 Spring the Combe Lands — Halliwell's query as to 
 where this money came from, Answered — On Shake- 
 speare's Death, Ben Jonson applies to Lord Chan- 
 cellor Bacon for a Subscription to a Monument — He 
 receives back an Epitaph — 
 
 " What needs my Shakespeare for his hallowed bones ? " 
 
 Wliy this was Omitted from the First Folio of 1623 
 and only published anonymously in the Second 
 Folio of 1632 — The two wholly different men United 
 in Bacon — Miserere Domine 51 
 
 Appendix 67 
 
 Index - - ... 77 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rjlHIS book has nothing in common with the so- 
 -*- called Bacon- Shakespeare controversy, nor 
 does it seek to impugn the accepted authorship of 
 the plays. Its object is merely to prove from 
 contemporary evidence, from papers under Bacon's 
 hand and the logic of facts, the existence for 
 over twenty years of a close intimacy between poet 
 and philosopher, involving large business trans- 
 actions both in theatrical and monetary matters. 
 
 The evidence will, in every instance, be set out 
 in the text. 
 
 The investigation, of which these pages are the 
 outcome, sprung from my casually perusing a 
 document in Spedding's exhaustive life of Bacon. 
 It is undated and unaddressed, but the learned 
 editor fixes it as written in 1613, and addressed 
 to Carre, the favourite of James L, with which 
 period alone in Bacon's life can it possibly inter- 
 leave. 
 
 The original can be seen among the Bacon MSS. 
 in Lambeth Palace Library, and it opens out to 
 us from the outset a very peculiar and hitherto 
 unsuspected story; for, firstly, it is one of the 
 greatest rarities in the great philosopher's life, A 
 DEAFT in his own handwriting. We know that 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 he wrote out his works seven times over, but I 
 can only call to mind the existence of two drafts ; 
 this, and the Comentarius Solutus — a private note- 
 book of his plans and means, which is printed at 
 length in Spedding, " Life," vol. iv., p. 40. But 
 that a draft of this letter should exist seems to 
 prove that the document itself required much con- 
 sideration before its despatch, and that, too, from 
 one of the most cautious and secretive of mankind. 
 Secondly, it is the one and only admission by the 
 great philosopher under his own hand of his con- 
 nection and personal intimacy with the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company of Players, of which 
 Shakespeare was Actor-Manager-factotum. " Gray's 
 Inn was much bounden to them " — the actors are 
 almost treated as equals, if not more. 
 
 Of course there already existed circumstances, 
 which I had the o^ood fortune to brino; out two 
 years ago, and in which the logic of facts left no 
 escape from these two conclusions. 
 
 (1.) That in 1594, if not previously. Bacon, as 
 Master of Gray's Inn Revels, had employed this 
 company to mount a masque, and perform a play in 
 that society's hall, involving thereby the three im- 
 portant relations of emploj-er and employed, critic 
 and stage- manager, paymaster and payee. 
 
 Bacon would be keen on making the pageant a 
 success, and be present at most of the rehearsals, 
 which extended over three weeks. 
 
 (2.) That these relations went on without check 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 or hitch for twenty years, up to 1614, when Bacon 
 " devised " the sumptuous masque and water 
 pageant for the Elector Palatine's marriage with 
 the king's daughter Elizabeth. Shortly afterwards 
 he again employed this same company to perform 
 a masque at a cost to himself of £2,000, say 
 £14,000 of our money. 
 
 This letter shows that he held the players in 
 personal esteem, but that is by no means all, for 
 it is the one remnant left to us (and that assuredly 
 by a slip) of the voluminous theatrical correspond- 
 ence (not to speak of accounts and receipts for 
 money paid), to which Bacon was a party, during 
 this double decade. The Elizabethan was a letter- 
 writing age, and people for the most part pre- 
 served their correspondence, unless there came to 
 be a risk in keeping it, when they promptly put it 
 out of reach of a Privy Council Warrant, and its 
 search officer. 
 
 For some such cause Anthony Bacon must have 
 destroyed the concluding portion of his papers, 
 and for an equally good reason his brother Francis 
 made away with his stage correspondence. He was 
 good at suppressing awkward matters, such as the 
 nature of his wife's misconduct, and his scrivenery 
 business ; of which, oddly enough, the only record 
 under his hand also exists in the Lambeth Palace 
 collection. Yet he kept it going till 1609, and 
 even touted for work for it, though then a rich 
 man. 
 
XXll INTEODUCTION. 
 
 Some one seems to have hinted this last to Mr. 
 Spedding, but he brushed the suggestion aside 
 Yet, had he coupled it with the letter to Anthony 
 in 1594, on which he never comments at all, he 
 would have been very near the discovery which, 
 in abler hands than mine, may yet have more to 
 tell us. 
 
 So great was Bacon's ascendancy over the minds 
 of men, that those who knew both secrets, the 
 stage and the Scrivenery, dared only refer to it 
 with bated breath. The Liege spy wrote it to the 
 Cecils, but they kept it dark; even the unhappy 
 Essex, when denouncing the Bacons as his be- 
 trayers, dared say no more than " they play me 
 on the stage and now they print me." The Queen 
 knew well enough whom he alluded to. 
 
 There is a touch of sadness in looking at my 
 own MS. copy of this so "printed" item, the 
 " Apologie." It was written by Essex's request at 
 the Scrivenery, for his private use, and the fact of 
 such request, may, a few days later, have suggested 
 to the Bacons what a terrible power the " printing " 
 would have to effect his ruin. Essex taunted 
 Bacon with this on his trial. It had been the first 
 cause of his decline in the Queen's favour three years 
 before : Elizabeth never forgave it, and Chamber- 
 lain tells us of the spasm of fury which seized her 
 when it was "printed" as Bacon tells us, by him- 
 self, practically. It was the death-warrant of the 
 high-souled Englishman, on whose gallant memory 
 
 I 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXllE 
 
 rests none of the treachery in which Elizabeth's 
 courtiers were for the most part adepts. 
 
 But it occurred to me that, in a life lived sa 
 much in public as was Bacon's, there must be 
 points at which these secrets would work up close 
 to the surface, so that anyone on the lookout might 
 verify their existence ; just as the Esquimaux waits 
 at a seal's blow-hole on the ice till the animal 
 comes up to breathe; and with this view I 
 read through Bacon's acted life as disclosed in 
 facts. 
 
 But I also kept in view the few leading occur- 
 rences in Shakespeare's life, so as to lay hold of 
 any possible points of contact. 
 
 I was thus in a position to synchronize Bacon's 
 receipt of money with Shakespeare's large pur- 
 chase of land at about the same amount, and, above 
 all, when turning over Harrington, to detect the 
 long overlooked references, and verify them by the 
 local surroundings at Combe Abbey. As in my 
 discovery of the warrant for Bunyan's arrest for 
 that imprisonment during which he wrote " Pil- 
 grim's Progress," the wonder is how it has been 
 so overlooked! To speak of only a few, it has 
 escaped Halliwell, Collier, Mr. Fleay, Dr. Furnivall, 
 and Dr. Mandell Creighton, the present Bishop of 
 London, who wrote the life of Harrington in the 
 " Dictionary of National Biography." 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is plain, also, from Mr. Park's preface to his 
 1804 edition of " Nng£e Antiquas," tliat his pages 
 were gone through, and his notes corrected by so 
 keen a Shakespearian as Malone, as also the Anti- 
 quaries Bindley and Douce, who, with so keen a 
 critic as Professor Porson, followed Malone's lead 
 in failing to detect the thinly-veiled secret, which 
 it is my happiness now to bring to light. 
 
 My discovery of the Bacon-Shakespeare connec- 
 tion was announced in my " Middle Temple Table 
 Talk," in 1894— "The Academy" of March 3rd 
 and April 14th, 1895, jDublished the account of the 
 " Scrivenery," and invited students' attention to a 
 possibly new field of research ; some of them told 
 me they had looked over it but did not see their 
 way to contradict or challenge : " there was some- 
 thing staggering about it." I print these as an 
 appendix. 
 
 On the contrary, Mr. Sam. Timmins, F.S.A., 
 wrote, accepting my conclusions unreservedly, and 
 asked for any further information to be incorporated 
 in his Annual Review of things Shakespearian — 
 "The Shakespeare Year" — a kind of Annual 
 Register of the cult. I was luckily at the moment 
 in a position to enable him to foreshadow the 
 (then not thoroughly worked out) Harrington 
 revelation. 
 
 When, however, the local fillings in were com- 
 pleted, I placed the MS. in Mr. Timmins's hands 
 for perusal and verification. He honoured it with 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 unqualified approval, suggesting some alterations 
 which were at once accepted. The book now 
 appears as it left his hands, and I hope he will 
 pardon my saying that 1 could not have placed it 
 before any better qualified authority. 
 
 Henceforth, if I am right, the lives of Shake- 
 speare and Bacon are inseparably connected in 
 three respects : personal intimacy, theatrical pur- 
 suits, and money matters. I foresee at least one 
 more to come. One rejoices, however, to think 
 that, in the dark shadows which gloom over so 
 much of the great philosopher's life, the great 
 poet has no share. On the contrary, in that one 
 especial stain, the judicial murder of their common 
 friend and patron, Essex, Shakespeare's dumb pro- 
 test stands clearly on record. 
 
 Bacon, as we know, was one of the most thin- 
 skinned of mortals, and, after the deed was done, 
 published his own " Apology " with a view of es- 
 caping some of the public opprobrium then largely 
 being heaped on him. In other words he "printed " 
 Essex. Now gladly would he have "played him 
 ON THE stage." But there he met with resistance 
 — there the mighty spell of his influence failed 
 
 The Players' sympathy with the victim, which 
 caused them to lie long under serious suspicion of 
 complicity with his outbreak, might have been 
 overcome, but the actor-manager stood firm. We 
 know so little of Shakespeare's life, but here, at 
 least, is unmistakable evidence of that high-minded 
 
 c 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 principle, rightly termed a passion for truth — 
 "Facta non verba." 
 
 The life of that great dramatist may have to be 
 partly re-written, and I can only hope that some one 
 with better qualifications than myself, but with 
 equally good fortune, may discover other points of 
 contact. 
 
 For he will have at least these o^rounds to o^o 
 upon, that m these latter days of ours, as in those 
 gone by, knowledge comes to him who waits, and 
 that " there is nothing hidden which shall not be 
 revealed." 
 
 W. G. Thorpe. 
 
THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BACOK 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 X SIT down to write the story of the connection 
 -*- which for nearly a quarter of a century united 
 the private lives of the two most illustrious men in 
 poetry and philosophy who ever lived — sharers in 
 that unique and ever-green immortality confined 
 alone to those who appeal to the minds of men. 
 
 Great conquerors are remembered in a way — 
 Alexander's name can never wholly die, but his 
 victories and successes are memories without 
 present interest ; while the deathless ring of 
 Homeric cadences, even veiled in translation, still 
 touch and stir the hearts of thousands, and will do 
 so for all time. 
 
 Trumpet and drum sound once for all : but he 
 
 who can 
 
 " Sing of what the world shall be 
 Wlien the years have passed away " 
 
 has a voice audible throughout the ages. 
 
 The heroes themselves admit it ; did not Wolfe^ 
 on the eve of his deathless victory, his the one 
 voice audible in that silent flotilla, charm away the 
 
 B 
 
Z THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 anxieties of that terrible dumb night-watch by re- 
 peating to those around him Gray's "Elegy" ? and 
 then continue : " Now, gentlemen, I'd rather have 
 written that poem than take Quebec." 
 
 The hero dies as did Wolfe at the next sunrise, 
 and his work blurs out; the poet lives — thus it is 
 that the two great luminaries who blazed out in 
 the Elizabethan age have an ever increasing attrac- 
 tion, and the apparently unslakable thirst for a 
 solution of the problems which surround their 
 private lives grows rather than diminishes. The 
 inquiry has taken all manner of forms, of which the 
 ^' cryptogram craze " is probably the most futile. 
 
 A cryptogram is a private mark put on an article 
 of no present value, to evidence ownership at a 
 future period, when something is to be gained by 
 the assertion of proprietorship. Shakespeare's plays 
 were of such little current value that their author 
 never cared to collect them together in his life, and, 
 while making bequests to their subsequent editors 
 in his will, never intrusted the plays to those who 
 best knew what, if anything, could be made of 
 them. Nay, when the First Folio did appear, its 
 editors were uneasy about its being a pecuniary 
 success. 
 
 Hence " discovery by cryptogram " was a false 
 issue from the first, and the "parallel passages" 
 inquiry can never have more than a possibility as 
 their result. tt 
 
 But Shakespeare's surroundings, his relatives 
 
 I 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 6 
 
 and their connections, where they Hved, what they 
 said and did, and every transaction in which the 
 poor peasants were engaged are another matter; 
 and these have been hunted up with an almost 
 German patience, which has thrown, however, little 
 or no light on the grand questions of "the Genesis 
 of the Plays, their MSS., and what became of them" 
 — for the earliest now existing is of Commonwealth 
 age. Even this source has been gradually drying 
 up, and it is safe to say that no new light can be 
 thrown on Shakespeare^s life from Shakespeare's 
 side. 
 
 Yet all this while there lay hidden another mine 
 of research, abounding in documents, and itself a 
 part of the History of England, which surely might, 
 at all events, be worth looking through, on the off 
 chance of something turning up in it ! But as 
 neither Chamberlain's nor the Sydney letters men- 
 tion Shakespeare, it was taken for granted that the 
 actor was " out of Society " — as he undoubtedly 
 was of a certain sort — and that he and Bacon 
 never knew each other, and still less came into 
 constant contact in business matters. Yet both 
 Mr. Halliwell and Mr. Fleay knew that Bacon had 
 directed the "dumb show" at the Royal Palace 
 at Greenwich, had Avritten an essay specially on 
 pageants, and knew that his tastes lay strongly 
 toward the stage. Both knew that, as an especial 
 iavourite of the Queen, he was constantly at Court, 
 where the Lord Chamberlain's players, to which 
 
4 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 company Shakespeare was always attached, had 
 ousted all rivals. Both knew that Bacon, as 
 Master of the Kevels at Gray's Inn in 1594, had 
 directed the great Masque which the players, of 
 whom Shakespeare was "factotum" manager, had 
 mounted and put on the stage. 
 
 How could the Master of the Revels, himself a 
 director of the " dumb show " six years back, 
 avoid constant touch with the manager, a man 
 whose skill in " staging " had converted a ghastly 
 failure like Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His 
 Humour " into a comedy which is performed even 
 now ? And how could all the commentators have 
 missed this simple point? — how our American 
 cousins could have overlooked it is a blindness for 
 which one cannot account in such men. 
 
 For, in addition, there was Bacon's intimacy 
 mth Ben Jonson, a worthy fellov/ never in the 
 best of feather as Henslow, Alleyne, and Burbage 
 were, but yet an honoured guest at York Place on 
 the Chancellor's "proudest day of his life." 
 
 He wrote an ode for this triumphal occasion, 
 but he also, in the dark day of disgrace and 
 humiliation then waiting at the door, loyally 
 stood up and said what little could be said for the 
 great man fallen so low. In an age of such un- 
 speakable depravity and moral degradation as we 
 shall be compelled to consider hereafter, such a 
 refreshing interlude of kindly feeling might have 
 recalled itself, twenty years or so later, to the by- 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BAQ0N. 5 
 
 stander "vvho caused to be cut on his grave, " rare 
 
 Ben Jonson." 
 
 " Bright things can never die, 
 E'en though they fade," 
 
 nor, in this case at least, — a kindly heart. 
 
 But how came about the change ? How is it 
 that a new field has opened for Shakespearian re- 
 search which has already developed some startling 
 results, made it necessary for the life of Shakespeare 
 to be re- written, and has opened a field for inquiry 
 which may possibly, so vast is its ground, develop 
 a library of literature only second to that already 
 in our hands, and of which the end is not yet? 
 
 It came by apparent accident ; or, rather, in 
 Pope's words : 
 
 "All chance, direction — which thou canst not see." 
 
 The writer possesses a First Folio of Shakespeare, 
 and had long fretted under the little information 
 then on record as to its author; but he did not care 
 for the flood of rhapsodical and irrelevant matter 
 poured then — and now — from the press, while 
 the cryptogram was, as we have seen, inherently 
 abhorrent. 
 
 Seeino- in a bookseller's cataloo-ue the name of a 
 manuscript which hereafter plays a great part in 
 unravelling the mystery, I purchased it, and sub- 
 mitted it to some valued friends at the British 
 Museum and Record Ofiice, who had greatly helped 
 
6 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 me in my discovery of the Bunyan Warrant in 
 1887. They gave me cold comfort. " It was a 
 common political pamphlet of the period — it had 
 been printed in 1603, and they had five copies, one 
 of them in French." (These last turned out to be 
 all somewhat rough transcripts, and ran down to 
 1620.) 
 
 The case looked so hopeless that, in spite of a 
 clear individuality about the beautifully written 
 book, the purchaser decided to ask the vendor to 
 take it back at half-price ; but before doing so he 
 did what, unhappily, few students do — he looked it 
 up, there flashing across his mind the recollection 
 that Bacon had written a letter to his brother 
 Anthonv, in which he asked him to tout for custom 
 for an evidently extensive scrivenery carried on by 
 him at Twickenham Park (Spedding, Life, i. 349). 
 
 The quest yielded fruit at once, and I published 
 in "The Academy" of April 13th, 1895, a de- 
 scription of this " Apologie," setting out conclusions 
 to which it pointed, inviting comments and in- 
 formation generally. None, however, appeared — 
 though I was told many sat down to confute it, 
 one of whom (a scholar far above me) abandoned the 
 attempt, "there was something staggering about 
 it." These letters are printed in the Appendix. A| 
 
 Further search brought up further and sugges- n 
 tive evidence, and this special MS. is now submitted 
 to the Shakespearian world as having thrown a 
 new light, by a hitherto untrodden path, upon the 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. / 
 
 hidden life of the dramatist. When abler hands 
 than mine take it up, " the end may not be yet " by 
 a long way. 
 
 As it is, this pamphlet will be attempted to be 
 shown as the instrument by which Bacon, when 
 all chance of continuing to profit by sponging on 
 Essex's life was at an end, and the only benefit open 
 to the ruined and penniless spendthrift was through 
 his deaths attainder^ and forfeiture., brought about 
 the outbreak for which the gallant Englishman was 
 brought to axe and block. The other evidence is 
 from extracts from the letters of the two Bacons, 
 their mother and their uncle, while the clinchers 
 shall come from two distinct and independent 
 sources, quite unknown to each other, one an 
 English Government spy at Li^ge, and the other 
 the wailing outcry in his agony of the gallant, high- 
 minded Essex — against whom stand on record 
 many faults and errors, but none of the despicable 
 and ignoble meannesses which stamped all the 
 foremost men of the age, as we shall have pitifully 
 to note in the next chapter. 
 
 In fact, his share of the sack of Faro was the 
 Bishop's Library, now, by his gift to his friend the 
 illustrious founder of it, a part of the Bodleian 
 Library. 
 
 Finally, an attempt will be made, from a hitherto 
 unnoticed source, to clear up the mystery which 
 shrouds the five absolutely dark years of Shake- 
 speare's life— 1587-92. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ~OErORE bringing our several performers on 
 J-^ the scene, a few Avorcls must be said on the 
 conditions of Society towards the end of the reign 
 of Elizabeth, and the strong factors by which 
 therefore all their characters were moulded. 
 
 It is hardly possible to imagine any period worse, 
 in a moral point of view. Intrigue and profligacy 
 were almost its sole constituents. The Queen set 
 a most deplorable example. Lord Essex, on his 
 return from Ireland, went splashed, and in his 
 riding boots, straight up to her bedchamber, as if 
 he were her husband, none staying his way. 
 Elizabeth, with "hair about her face just as she 
 was risen," in no way resented the intrusion, but 
 chatted pleasantly with the newcomer ! — on the 
 contrary her jealousy of him was extreme ; when 
 he was " carrying on " with four of her maids of 
 honour, she could drive two of them from Court 
 with oaths and blows ; and his intimacy with Lady 
 Rutland is said by Birch (Queen Elizabeth, i. 354), 
 to have finally forced from her the warrant for his 
 death. 
 
 One or two proofs are permissible. When 
 Anthony Bacon was on the point of returning to 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. ^ 
 
 England, Allen writes him on Aug. 17th, 1589: 
 " There never was in Court such emulation, envy, 
 and backbiting as is now. At the time you come 
 home, you must 
 
 Cogg, lie, flatter and face 
 
 Four waies in Court to win you grace." 
 
 Faunt, Walsingham's secretary, writes to Anthony : 
 " In Court where sin reio^neth in the hiohest 
 degree." Standen, chief spy first to Burleigh, then 
 to Essex, writes him : " All Charity is exiled from 
 Court and all envy and treachery doth prevail." 
 
 The Queen kept her bedchamber women on 
 such scanty pay, that they had to eke out their 
 salaries by selling pardons; in fact, the Lord 
 Keeper, as did Jeffreys later on with the ]\laids of 
 Taunton, had made over to them that department 
 as a source of income, and Ave find Bacon — to 
 whom the smallest sum of money (as we shall 
 sorrowfully find hereafter) was irresistible — acted 
 as a broker in the business; Standen writing him 
 in December, 1595, that Lady Edmondes thought 
 the £100 he had offered for a pardon was too 
 little. 
 
 But the most shockino; feature of the ao^e was 
 the universal gambling of all classes — apparently 
 more widely spread than in " The early days of 
 Charles James Fox," of whom we read in the 
 pleasant pages of Sir George Trevelyan, who 
 speaks of " Gambling in all its forms as rather a 
 
10 THE HIDDEX LIVES OF 
 
 profession than an occupation among leaders of 
 London Society." 
 
 A book by one Northbrooke, in 1577, called 
 "Dicing, Drinking, Play and Interludes," tells us 
 on p. 8 : 
 
 " If a man will not dice and play, then he is a 
 niggard and a miser and no good fellow. 
 
 "What is a man now a dayes if he know not 
 fashion, and how to wear his apparel after the best 
 fashion ? to kepe company and to become mummer 
 and dicer and to play their twenty, fifty or even 
 one hundred li {i.e. pounds) at cards, dice, post, 
 gleek, or such other games? And by such kinds 
 of playes manie of them are brought into great 
 miserie and penurie." 
 
 We learn from Ben Jonson that the coster- 
 mongers' games were mumchance and tray trap.^ 
 
 The uiilearned, and learned classes also, had no 
 other diversion than what is now euphoniously 
 called the three W's. After meals taken in hall, 
 barristers passed their time away with wine, cards, 
 and dice. When the floor of our Middle Temple 
 Hall (co-a3val with that at Gray's Inn) was taken 
 up, any quantity of these last, mostly cogged, were 
 picked up which had fallen through the joints, as 
 wide apart as those still to be seen at the historic 
 " Cheshire Cheese " in Fleet Street. 
 
 This vice of gambling will exhibit its results 
 
 ^ Mumchance was played in silence ; in tray trap they won 
 throwintc a trois. 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BiVCON. 11 
 
 prominently in our narrative for it was certainly 
 the cause of Bacon's ruin, and if the evidence we 
 shall adduce be accepted, of Shakespeare's rise. 
 
 Into this seething sea of corruption Bacon en- 
 tered in 1579. He had graduated in vice for three 
 years in Paris, then, and for two centuries to come, 
 possessing the distinction now held by Tunis, of 
 " the wickedest place on earth." Sir George 
 Trevelyan quotes from Lord John Russell a 
 sickening story of Fox's initiation into vice there 
 by his own father, the first Lord Holland — let us 
 add, however, that on the lad's return to Eton, 
 the moral infamy which he started there In-ought 
 about the youngster's prompt expulsion. 
 
 Bacon, son of a Lord Keeper, and nephew of the 
 Prime Minister, soon became an Ancient of Gray's 
 Inn, and some few traditions of what was called 
 " Waterfordism " in the forties, show that he went 
 the pace pretty much like the rest. He evidently 
 took part in the amusements that were going, and 
 directed a pageant played before Lord Burleigh, 
 and a queer kind of comedy on June 16th, 1588. 
 The next year he wrote to his uncle offering to 
 produce another one, so he would then be officially 
 Master of the Revels, as which he remained till 
 1614, twenty-six years. 
 
 On May 28th, 1588, we find Bacon acting " dumb 
 show "in a play performed before Elizabeth by the 
 gentlemen of Gray's Inn. We thus find Bacon 
 actor in and director of Plays and Masques before 
 
12 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 the Queen, and his uncle Lord Burleigh, who 
 evidently disliked what he called his nephew's 
 " vanities " (otherwise follies and vices), declining 
 to push him forward in the Government Service 
 on the ground of what we should now call his 
 ^' unsteadiness," which must have been very 
 noticeable indeed, to have barred his advancement 
 in those days. A century later, debt and dissolute- 
 ness did not delay the upward career of the 
 infamous Jeffreys, nor, a century later still, that 
 of Charles James Fox, or the Earl of Sandwich — 
 nay, the Prime Minister could take a mistress picked 
 from off the streets, and place her by his side 
 opposite the royal box where George III. and 
 Queen Charlotte sat in state, and afterwards wait 
 on his Sovereign, as though nothing had happened ! 
 Xow in 1586 Shakespeare, then affected with 
 the same complaint, had got into a serious scrape 
 at Stratford for deer-stealing ; there must have 
 been something remarkable about this business, for 
 as we shall see, it stuck to him in after years. 
 However, he had to slip away in the train of a 
 London theatre company, then on tour there. 
 That company eventually prospered, and after 
 many changes of name, became known as the 
 Lord Chamberlain's Players, by which name it 
 will be styled in these pages. It lasted till 1641, 
 when for twenty years theatres were to cease to 
 exist. By good management, suitable wardrobe 
 and plant, it ousted all its competitors from the 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 13 
 
 Court, and performed there on six recorded occa- 
 sions in the winter of 1591-2. These were at 
 Whitehall, and there were others in the followino- 
 winter. 
 
 As the Gray's Inn Masque of 1588 before the 
 Court would require some kind of mountings 
 dresses, rehearsals, and drilling for the dumb shows 
 in which Bacon acted, there must have been some 
 kind of what we call professional assistance derived 
 from the actors ; we therefore may fairly refer the 
 acquaintance of Bacon with Shakespeare to that 
 date at all events, though it is hard to conceive the 
 racketty young barrister not going to all the 
 theatres, and knowing all the actors, especially one 
 pushing young man among them who did all round 
 good service, and managed to make money in a 
 way we shall unhappily describe later on. But 
 from December 27th, 1591, their acquaintance is 
 unavoidable. It must have improved too, under 
 the added accessories of drink and the dice box, 
 for before the year was out the two were to be in 
 co-operation and intimate hand-grip for twenty-two 
 years. Money changed hands on that occasion, if 
 not before, and was to continue doing so till Bacon 
 paid the actor £2,000 out of his own money to 
 perform a mask at the latter date. 
 
 In 1591 Bacon formed the acquaintance of 
 Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, over whom 
 he at once exercised great influence ; upon whom 
 he lived for certainl}^ the nine following years ; and 
 
14 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 whom, if popular report, and the story we have to 
 tell be true, he betrayed to the death, when his 
 patron's ruin Avas so complete that he could no 
 longer make a profit out of him. Lord Essex is to 
 tell this to the Queen. 
 
 One follows the downfall of Essex with pitiful 
 interest. He was not a hero only to the nation 
 whose name he made as terrible as did Cromwell 
 afterwards : for Ave are told in the " Lives of the 
 Earls of Essex," i. 373, that his arms cut in stone 
 Avere let into the Avails of Cadiz, near the Puerta de 
 Tierra. It Avas the spot Avhere he had been the 
 first to scale them ; the arms Avere to be seen there 
 fifty years ago, and may be there noAv. 
 
 Mr. Lee in the " Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy" confirms this. "The intelligent, but im- 
 pulsive and passionate young nobleman found in the 
 cool and wary adviser, those qualities so different 
 from his own which were likely to rivet his affection." 
 Essex Avas indeed Avarmly attached to the Bacons ; 
 treachery, betrayal, blackmail, were all forgotten 
 Avhen the master mind made some flimsy apology, 
 and the old confidence Avas at once restored as before. 
 
 In 1592 Bacon's brother Anthony was intro- 
 duced by him to Essex, as having during ten years' 
 residence abroad gained great information about 
 foreign aJffairs for the use of Burleigh. He still 
 kept touch Avith the able ring of intelligencers 
 Avhom he had sujDervised in the capitals abroad, 
 and was willing to transfer his services to Essex, 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 15 
 
 with the view of ousting Burleigh from the Queen's 
 favour, by earlier and better information. He 
 became Essex's private secretary, at a salary of 
 £1,000 a year, largely increased from irregular 
 sources, and, as the number grew to five, a large 
 staff of clerks was required. These were located 
 at a house of Essex's at Twickenham Park, where 
 also the Bacons resided, and which he afterwards 
 presented to Francis. The course of business at 
 the Scrivenery was this (Spedding, i. 250) : 
 Anthony received all the letters, deciphered and 
 had them fair-copied, then forwarded them, usually 
 through Bacon, to Essex, who returned instructions 
 from which Anthony framed, enciphered and des- 
 patched the replies. The Scrivenery was in full 
 work on Nov. 15th, 1593, as on that day Essex 
 sent one Lawson to Twickenham with letters to 
 be deciphered and returned. Essex was never 
 intrusted with the cipher- — ^of which there are 
 specimens on the Bacon MSS. at Lambeth Palace 
 Library. 
 
 But at this period another person came on the 
 scene, Avho plays an important part in the develop- 
 ment of our story, in fact, without whom it would 
 not have been written. Most of us are happily 
 surrounded with hidden checks and restraints 
 which, unseen, control our actions. Bacon seems 
 to have been exempt from all but two of these; 
 one, a kind of false shame, when, as he always was, 
 in danger of his impecuniosity being publicly 
 
16 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 exposed; the second, the fear of his mother. This 
 lady was one of those persons who are at one and 
 the same time thoroughly good and equally 
 thoroughly unpleasant. She thought nothing in 
 1588 of going into her son's chambers at Gray's 
 Inn, and walking him off to Mr. Travers " lecture " 
 (otherwise preachment) in the Temple ; she ruled 
 him with a rod of iron, and under the plea of 
 supplying eatables for their table obtained a pretty 
 close report of how her sons were going on from 
 Peter, the man whom she sent up twice a week in 
 charge thereof. She tells him that she hears he 
 rises at three of the clock, not casting it out as the 
 time he went to bed — somewhat like the Oxford 
 man who, being pulled up for not attending morn- 
 ing chapel, told the President, " The fact is, sir, if 
 I'm not in bed by seven o'clock, I am upset ibr 
 the whole of the day." 
 
 On April 18th, 1593, she hints to Anthony the 
 cause of Francis Bacon's great troubles, " Oh that 
 by not hearkening to wholesome and careful good 
 counsels and by continuing still the means of his 
 own great hindrance he had not procured his own 
 discredit, but had joined with God," &c. 
 
 What does this revelation as to a hindrance of 
 long continuance, personal to Francis and in which 
 Anthony did not share, mean ? It could not be 
 drunkenness, for in her letter of August 20th, 1594, 
 she writes to Francis, and includes Anthon}^ as 
 liable to that. It could only have been " gambling," 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 17 
 
 a vice, which with yet one even worse, Francis 
 had brought with him from Paris — We shall find 
 her anxiety reasserted in the important letter to 
 Anthony of December 5th, 1594, " I trust they 
 will not mime nor sinfully revel at Gray's Inn " — 
 expressions sufficiently explained by Northbroke's 
 evidence already quoted. 
 
 The mother had yet one more claim upon her 
 sons. Her wliole substance had been spe7it upon this 
 precious pair. Little wonder Spenser writes to 
 Francis in July, 1597, "no body can please her 
 long — 'and her sons be vainglorious.' " She blows 
 off the steam in a letter to Francis of August 20Lh, 
 1590. " Let this letter be unseen : look very well 
 to your health. Sup not nor sit up late. Surely 
 I think your drinking to bedwards hindreth yours 
 and your brother's digestion very much. I never 
 knew any but sickly that used it. Observe while 
 yet in time." 
 
 Here is a distinct charge of late drinking, against 
 both brothers. Francis is charged Avith gambling 
 as well. The influence of such a mother, com- 
 manding, and receiving such aflfection as to make 
 Francis order his body to rest in her grave, with 
 her ceaseless prying into the Gray's Inn menage 
 by the weekly visits of Peter, the cook, and his 
 boy, was of the most powerful nature upon the 
 brothers, and any sudden action by her would be 
 a difficult matter to contend with openly ; the 
 only plan would be to get round it somehow, 
 
 c 
 
18 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 Thus the mother's horror of stage plays amounted 
 to a positive passion: even their neighbourhood 
 was poisonous, and when Anthony took a house in 
 Bishopsgate next door to a theatre, there was no 
 peace for anyone till he removed from it. 
 
 Havino- now brouoht all our characters into the 
 position they occupied in the autumn of 1594, 
 both the Bacons impecunious, running a public 
 scrivenery in touch with the stage and its actors, 
 for which Essex paid, and horribly afraid of their 
 termagant mother who sat upon them like a con- 
 science. — I should like to hazard a conjecture as 
 to Shakesj)eare's then position in the world. We 
 know that he had to leave his deserted wife and 
 ehildren to shift for themselves, that he was so 
 utterly moneyless as to begin by holding horses 
 at the stage door to support himself during his 
 informal apprenticeship as an actor, which craft 
 does not^ like gig-driving and farming, come by 
 nature. How did Shakespeare live, and get on so 
 well, as in five years to be Jack Factotum, a posi- 
 tion needing at all events good clothes, which cost 
 money in those days ? All his biograjDliers give 
 it up, Halliwell only noting the sudden access of 
 affluence in 1602 (which the writer holds to have 
 been money paid him by Bacon when he received 
 £1,200 for Catesby's fine). There is but one road 
 which, with luck, in those days got a man off the 
 ground, and sometimes made a man to sit with 
 princes, even with the princes of the people. 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. • 19 
 
 It exists now ! a man gets up in life through 
 the turf, which raised the late Mr. Swindell from 
 the position of a factory operative to the ownership 
 of tens of thousands. From a memoir which 
 appeared at the time of Swindell's death in the 
 " Daily Telegraph," it appears that he started to 
 attend a race where he had taken a 100 to 1 
 in crowns against a horse. But on the way to the 
 course he had looked into a cockpit, and backed a 
 bird of Lord Derby's (grandfather to the present 
 peer, for it was only sixty years since) which got 
 soundly beaten, leaving Mr. Swindell absolutely 
 penniless. In very despair he went up to the 
 course. The horse won, and the young mechanic 
 continued on the turf which had saved him. It is 
 recorded of him that he once took a house in 
 Berkeley Square that he might sit there on Sun- 
 days and watch the callers on Mr. George Payne, 
 or some other turf luminary, and thus guess at 
 probable starters. There must have been great 
 luck (natural as well as artificial) in such a char- 
 acter — the talents necessary for success must have 
 been strongly present, but (I quote from memory) 
 his biographer records some such sorrowful saying 
 from the dying man as " Doan't 'ee let 'em saa noa 
 worse of me than yo' can help." 
 
 " Play " is very accommodating ; in Elizabeth's 
 days there were copper " hells," as well as silver 
 "hells," and also "hells" where £100 could be 
 risked on a cast of the dice. 
 
20 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 With all his wit and poetical talents, imagination 
 and so forth, Shakespeare was a first rate man of 
 business — he knew how to earn money, how to 
 save it, and how to keep it ; and looked sharply 
 after his debtors and their sureties. Will anyone 
 suggest an easier, likelier, or indeed any other 
 means by which Shakespeare could keep himself, 
 and his family at Stratford ? put money in his 
 purse, and obtain the costly clothing which as 
 Jack Factotum was indispensable ? Did not 
 Crockford start as a fishmonger, and are not his 
 bills for " Sowles " still in collectors' hands ? Was 
 he not good enough for the Duke of Wellington to 
 be proposed and elected to the Membership of 
 Crockys ? Has not there been in our days a 
 Prince of Monte Carlo ? Was his career considered 
 disgraceful ? Disgraceful indeed ! to keep a " hell ! " 
 if it be only big enough, it is not that now; and, in 
 the days that are gone, was there not basset in the 
 Whitehall Gallery on that Sunday evening when 
 the worst of the Stuarts was summoned before his 
 Judge ? 
 
 Moreover women have kept banks in their own 
 houses, not only king's mistresses, but ladies of 
 unimpeachable rank and even character, when, as 
 Macaulay says, all the beauties gathered round 
 Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire ("bless your 
 eyes, ma'am, let me light my pipe at them," was the 
 coster's compliment to her). 
 
 Yet she kept a gambling table — so did other 
 
 I 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 21 
 
 great ladies till nearly our own day, and on the 
 fall of the last Empire did it not appear from the 
 Police Archives that great Court ladies were re- 
 corded there as having done the same ? 
 
 Sir George Trevelyan's pleasant pages have al- 
 ready been referred to as to the play at Brooke's 
 Club, but they do not, I think, contain the story 
 of the young naval officer who lost £100,000 to a 
 professional gambler. The loser said his estate 
 was worth as much again — and proposed to cut for 
 double or quits. The winner said he must keep 
 something, so suggested £90,000 instead. Amidst 
 breathless silence the sailor won but — like Sir 
 John Harrington, shortly to come on our scene — 
 he never played high again, but stuck to his pro- 
 fession, and was one of Nelson's captains at 
 Trafalgar. 
 
 There is prima facie no other way than this 
 gambling to account for Shakespeare's rise from 
 worse than nothing ; from being a young butcher 
 wanted for deer-stealing, to burgess, landholder, 
 and country gentleman with coat armour. Will 
 anyone at this point offer a better solution ? 
 
 The thing was done, but how ? in whatever way 
 it came about, it was not considered a disgrace, or 
 Greene would not have lailed to cast it up to " Jack 
 Factotum Shakespeare of the borrowed plumes." 
 
 But there happens to be positive evidence upon 
 the point, strangely suggestive, and quite as good 
 as, if not better than, every other accepted reference 
 
22 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 to Shakespeare. We have already quoted from 
 Sir John Harrington, EHzabeth's godson and 
 favourite, whom the present Bishop of London 
 (Dictionary of National Biography — under his 
 name) describes as "a wit and man of the world 
 whose frankness was entire. He gives a living 
 picture of life and society in his times, and abounds 
 in incidental stories, which throw great light on 
 many prominent persons." Dr. Creighton thinks, 
 therefore, well of Sir John's keenness and accuracy. 
 
 Harrington was well versed also in games of both 
 chance and skill and his 4th Book of Epigrams, 
 printed in 1618, gives a list of those in vogue at 
 the time he wrote the essay on Gambling now in 
 question — " Seaven-up " is not named, however, 
 among them. 
 
 What, therefore, does Harrington mean in his 
 book " Nugffi Antiqute " vol. i., p. 219 (edition 1804) ? 
 He is discoursing upon the wisdom of playing low 
 stakes, which he himself acted upon from sad experi- 
 ence of the other thing. (I have not modernized 
 the spelling as something turns upon it.) 
 
 " There is a great show of popularytee hi playing small 
 game — as we have heard of one that shall be nameless (be- 
 cause he was not blameless) that with shootynge seaven up 
 groates among yeomen, and goinge in playne apparell, had 
 stolen so many hartes (for I do not say he came trewly by 
 them) that hee was accused of more than fellony," (P. 225.) 
 " Pyrates by sea, robbers by land, have become honest sub- 
 stanceall men, as Ave call them, and jiurchasers of more lawfull 
 purchas." (P. 226.) " With the ruyn of infant young gentle- 
 men the dyeing box maintains a hungry famylee." 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 23 
 
 The deer-stealing was a very serious matter, in 
 fact "fellony " in Elizabethan times — the food of the 
 poor was *' horsecorne " and strong laws were passed 
 to protect fresh meat which was left unguarded. 
 So late as 1614, Bacon, when Attorney-General^ 
 prosecuted a man in the Star Chamber for it — and 
 could, if he so pleased, have at any time officially 
 prosecuted Shakespeare also. No amount of 
 friendly intimacy would have stood in the way — 
 any more than it did with Essex — there must have 
 been stronger reasons for a sufferance which was 
 a practical protection. Yet Shakespeare lay very 
 low in all his London life ! — Could this be why ? 
 
 Shakespeare dare not return to Stratford with 
 this hanging over him, and though his visit to bury 
 his son in 1596 would be overlooked, yet his return 
 a year later to take possession of New Place would 
 occasion much comment, especially with neighbour- 
 ing gentry such as those at Combe Abbey, where 
 there is even now a large park. The Harringtons 
 clave to their deer as the Bao-ots to their ancient 
 strain of goats, whose continuance is said to be a 
 condition of the existence of the family itself. 
 
 The story is serious enough in all conscience, 
 and is followed by another of the kind, of Sir John's 
 godfather. Lord Pembroke, losing £2,000 at a sitting, 
 because he would not reduce his stakes. 
 
 Its meaning, I submit, is this. A person of 
 questionable repute, who had been in serious 
 trouble for deer-stealing, was in the habit of putting 
 
24 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 on common clothes, going among yokels, and rook- 
 ing them for groates at "seaven up," some kind 
 of Vingt-et-un probably; he had by this means 
 acquired enough money to buy real estate. His 
 name was too risky to be safely printed. By the 
 help of the dicing box, which he worked independ- 
 ently of the " seaven up," he had ruined gentlemen 
 under age and " maintained a hungry family." He 
 kept a copper " hell," where groats were staked, 
 and also a silver "hell," where gentlemen could 
 go. 
 
 1. Xow several considerations flow from this. 
 The treatise is dated 1597, the time when Shake- 
 speare bought New Place for £60. 
 
 2. Sir John Harrington's cousin and intimate 
 friend (afterwards Lord) Harrington was then per- 
 manently residing at Combe Abbey, his wife's 
 inheritance, five miles from Coventry. 
 
 3. Can the purchase of the ruined home of the 
 Cloptons at Stratford by a Stratford man " with 
 something against him " have woke up the jealousy 
 of feudal Combe Abbey, at which the brilliant 
 London courtier-cousin often stayed, and called 
 out this "shot" at Shakespeare? 
 
 4. The prudent withholding the name is sugges- 
 tive, if we remember that when Greene lampooned 
 Shakespeare in 1592, the dramatist fired up and 
 forced Chettle to apologize for his share in the 
 publication within a very few weeks. Evidently 
 Harrington bore this in mind. 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 25 
 
 5. Mr. Fleay remarks that Shakespeare never 
 appears to have visited his wife and family till his 
 son's burial in 1596; his visit in 1597 to take 
 "seisin" of New Place would therefore cause a 
 stir among the gentry. 
 
 6. As bearing on the question, it is clear that 
 Shakespeare had no more money to lay out in land 
 till 1602, when (as I submit) he got it from the 
 instalments of Catesby's fine paid to Bacon. 
 
 Universal as gambling was among all classes, it is 
 odd how few are the references to it in the Plays — 
 Shakespeare seems to shrink from it. Although 
 public ordinaries reeked with it, and taverns as well, 
 there are no gambling scenes ! 
 
 FalstafF is not drawn as a gambler, nor are 
 Bardolph, Pistol, etc. It could hardly fail to have 
 been one of Prince Harry's "vanities," yet we hear 
 nothing of it ! Lastly, the terrible scenes in Pericles, 
 with its Southwark stew which Harrington de- 
 scribes as the worst gambling place of all, do not 
 echo the rattle of the dice — nothing was more 
 common than the " cozener " at cards, yet none are 
 produced on Shakespeare's stage. Even the line 
 in " Love's Labour's Lost," 
 
 " Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you." 
 
 is banter in the mouth of a lady, Avhile Hamlet 
 denounces it in set terms : " Gaming . . . has no 
 relish of salvation in it." 
 
 Shakespeare evidently did not care to draw 
 
26 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 
 
 attention to the subject, for Mr. Bartlett's admirable 
 Concordance only records the poet's uses of gam- 
 bling terms as follows ; 
 
 Cog ... . 
 Cozen 
 
 (Playing) Cards 
 Dice .... 
 Gaming . 
 Tray trap . . 
 Mumchance . 
 Post .... 
 Gleek .... 
 Primero . 
 
 7 
 25 
 
 5 
 12 
 
 n 
 
 oJ 
 
 
 4 
 2 
 
 All in Hamlet. 
 Costermongers' Games. 
 
 The whole thing is in a nut-shell. Shakespeare 
 was a splendid man of business, worthy of the 
 county from which he came. In addition to all his 
 other gifts, not the least of which was sound common 
 sense, he wanted to get on, and did so, without 
 being very nice as to the way it was done in. He 
 moreover kept the double life in which he lived, as 
 dark as he could, and it was reserved for Mr. Fleay 
 to definitely establish the existence of "the other 
 lady," who comes out in the Sonnets. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WE can now come to the autumn of 1594, at 
 which time Gray's Inn, having performed 
 no revels for three or four years, was seized with a 
 noble desire for their renewal. It was to be a 
 splendid affair, and got wind over all the town, 
 which could enjoy the sumptuous outdoor proces- 
 sion, though it could not penetrate into the hall of 
 performance. The Queen heard of it through 
 Bacon first no doubt, as he had in 1589 the posi- 
 tion of offering such a display to Lord Burleigh. 
 He had even endeavoured to get up a masque by 
 all the four Inns of Court, but the scheme had 
 fallen through. Hence doubtless the discourage- 
 ment which had lasted so long. It first came upon 
 the shows; the Privy Council ordering that aU 
 plays must be licensed, so as to eliminate anything 
 depravatory to Church and State ; and the St. 
 Paul's boys were suppressed, as interfering with 
 bear-baiting, which the Queen desired to encourage. 
 (Fleay, 94.) The City of London banished all 
 theatres from its limits, and neither players nor 
 play are heard of again in the city till 1597. 
 In 1592 all the theatres were closed for the last 
 half of the year on account of the Plague, and 
 
28 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 not re-opened till Christmas, 1593. The players, 
 meanwhile, went on tour in May. No Avonder, 
 then, that in December, 1694, people gladly wel- 
 comed their return. 
 
 Now in Gray's Inn the play, according to rule, 
 must be a classical one, translated by one of its 
 members, and in 1564, Gascoyne had presented 
 Euripides' " Jocasta." This, of course, was a pre- 
 cedent to be strictly followed in the new revival, 
 and the play selected was Plautus' " Mencechmi," 
 a play which Kowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, 
 states had never before been translated into Eng- 
 lish ; going further out of his way to express his 
 doubt whether Shakespeare knew enough Latin to 
 read it in the original. 
 
 The play itself, moreover, would require the 
 hand of a scholar to bring out the many fine points 
 and perpetual contrasts of the dialogue, perfectly 
 to the satisfaction of a houseful of Latin scholars, 
 both of the Temple and Gray's Inn ; and it had to 
 pass the previous censorship of an official " Master 
 of the Revels." Indeed, Mr. Fleay, while loyally 
 claiming the play for Shakespeare, admits the 
 intervention of another hand. The work of that 
 hand (if any other than his own) Avould be super- 
 vised by that eminent Latinist, Francis Bacon, 
 Master of the Revels at Gray's Inn. 
 
 But in addition to the play, there was a masque, 
 and here Mr. Spedding claims at least six of the 
 speeches as Bacon's, and, indeed, produces the 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 29 
 
 drafts in his handwriting. One of the songs was 
 claimed by Campion, and published in his works a 
 few years later. 
 
 There is much that calls up " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream" about this masque, as Mr. Fleay 
 points out (Life of Shakespeare, p. 178). Here 
 is the last songe. 
 
 " The laoures of sleepy iiiglit decay apace, 
 And now warme beds are fitter than this place ; 
 All time is longe that is unwilling spent. 
 But hours are minutes when they yield content. 
 
 It is a life is never ill 
 
 To lye and sleepe in roses still. 
 
 The rarer pleasure is, it is more sweete, 
 
 And friends are kindest when they seldome meete ; 
 
 Who would not lieare the nightingale still singe '^ 
 
 Or who grew ever weary of the springe ? 
 
 The daye must have her nighte, the springe her fall, 
 
 All is divided, none is lorde of all. 
 
 It were a most delightful thinge 
 
 To live in a perpetuall springe." 
 
 And the " dancing songe " begins : 
 
 " Musicke is the soule of measure, speeding both in equal 
 grace." 
 
 with a merry burden : 
 
 " Sprightly, sprightly move your paces 
 Nimbly, changing measure graces 
 Lively mounted, high aspire 
 For joy is only found in fyer." 
 
 Campion claimed neither of these songes in 1602. 
 If they had been his, why did he not print them, 
 like the former one ? Can they be by the author of 
 
30 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 the six speeches ? Stowe ranks him as eighth in the 
 list of twenty-eight poets — Campion being sixth, 
 (Camden) Shakespeare eighth — poet was play- 
 wright then. Moreover, the dialogue has a philo- 
 sophical twist. The question of fishes hearing is 
 debated, and there is much talk about magnetism, 
 evidently based upon Dr. Gilbert's treatise, " De 
 Magnete," published just previously, a work, we 
 may notice, published in Latin^ like the Plautus, 
 from which the " Comedy of Errors " had been 
 translated. 
 
 Now with respect to this masque, Gray's Inn 
 had decided to turn itself into the semblance of a 
 Court and Kingdom, and to entertain its members 
 for twelve days playing at Kings and Councillors ; 
 with a Prince to match, for which purpose Gray's 
 Inn Hall was tilled up with a royal throne, and 
 other regal furniture. Funds were raised by sub- 
 scription from those present, and by appeals to 
 those absent. Bacon wrote the speeches of the six 
 Councillors, and supervised the whole. On this 
 Spedding is clear. 
 
 The rehearsals must have occupied a month or 
 six weeks, and while they were going on, Peter the 
 Cook or his boy, bringing up the chicken's eggs, 
 and " sallets," reported the approaching pageant 
 to their mistress at Gorhambury. This was on 
 December 5th, say three wrecks before the first 
 performance. Lady Ann Bacon became simply 
 furious. Her dislike of stage plays was aggravated 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 31 
 
 by Anthony's having taken a house next to the 
 Bull Theatre in Bishopsgate Street, from which 
 her continual worrying forced him to remove the 
 following year. So she wrote him on December 
 5th, 1594, "I trust they will not mum nor mask 
 or sinfully revel at Gray's Inn : " The last being 
 the very thing the Society had decided upon doing 
 to their heart's content, with the dice-box and 
 wine-flask rather more accented than usual. No 
 doubt, the figure of Lady Ann was well known in 
 the Inn, and her servants' account of what she was 
 capable of doing at the shortest notice, was matter 
 of common talk in Gray's Inn, and freely canvassed 
 in the buttery, not to speak of the Hall, to whom 
 the discussion of her visitations to a bencher was 
 "nuts." 
 
 As an illustration of what this terrible lady 
 actually was suffered to do, not only with impunity 
 but even approval, we will abstract a story from 
 Birch. Essex had taken up again with his old 
 flame, Lady Rutland, and on December 1st, 1596, 
 Lady Ann, the mother of her Ladyship's secretary, 
 actually sent him, by the channel of her said son 
 Anthony, a letter of remonstrance upon his adul- 
 tery, modelled upon those of John Knox to Mary 
 Queen of Scots. It is both long and strong. In 
 place of resenting, Essex meekly answered it that 
 same day, denying the charge, but adding " Burn, 
 I pray you." This, however, was the last thing in 
 Lady Ann's thoughts, and, elated with her victor}^. 
 
32 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 she sends the whole correspondence for Anthony 
 to read, mark, and digest. On the 6th, he thanks 
 her for a sight of the documents which he considers 
 " welcome and comfortable to him." Lord Essex 
 seems to bear no malice, sends gracious compli- 
 ments to his rebuker, and turns his attentions to 
 Mrs. Bridges, a Maid of Honour, whom he got into 
 serious trouble with the Queen by them. 
 
 When, therefore, this terrible virago wrote on 
 December 5th, 1594, to her son Anthony, " I trust 
 they will not mum or mask or sinfully revel at 
 Gray's Inn. Who were sometimes counted first, 
 God grant they wane not daily and deserve to be 
 named last," the contingency had to be distinctly 
 faced, of Lady Bacon's putting in a personal a^)- 
 pearance, with a row of the first magnitude to 
 ibllow on between her and the assembled guests. 
 It is to be noted that the epithet "counted first" 
 is used elsewhere by Anthony as if it were a house 
 or pet name of his brother Francis. Everything 
 was going on merrily, Gray's Inn Hall filling up 
 with thrones, scafi'olding and seats, rich hangings 
 covering the walls, nymphs and fairies practising 
 pleasant melody with viols and voices, and gentle- 
 men marching and counter-marching in the re- 
 hearsals ; when down came the bolt from the blue ; 
 what time Peter the Cook, who had duly reported 
 at Gorhambury the great doings in preparation at 
 Gray's Inn, brought up to Anthony together with 
 the pigeons, the following note: "December 5th, 
 
SHAKESPEAKE AND BACON. 33 
 
 1594. I trust they will not mum nor mask nor 
 sinfully revel at Gray's Inn. Who were sometimes 
 counted first, God grant they wane not daily, and 
 deserve to be counted last." The allusion to 
 Francis was pointed, as " one to be counted first " 
 is used for Francis in one of Anthony's own letters. 
 
 The screw came down very heavily, and on a 
 very tender place. 
 
 From a letter five days later from Bacon to 
 Anthony, sending him a bond for £600 for his 
 signature, and apologizing for its being £100 more 
 than the brother had agreed to become surety for, 
 it is plain that neither brother seems to have had a 
 penny in his pockets, and it must have been a trial 
 for Anthony to know that the original £500 had 
 been paid for a jewel, which evidently had been 
 parted with, and was no longer available for money 
 raisino-. Where had it 2:one to ? Bacon had been 
 already arrested for £300, the price of a jewel ! The 
 pinch was a terrible one, for Anthony was already 
 bound to Fleetwood, the late Recorder of London, 
 for £100 on Bacon's behalf. This judge was 
 probably a relation, having resided at Bacon House, 
 Foster Lane, but, as he had deceased on the pre- 
 vious February 28th, his people would probably be 
 looking after their money, from which Bacon 
 " promised immediately to free " his brother. 
 
 Under these circumstances to offend the only 
 person from whom the brothers could obtain a 
 penny, was impossible. As was also the stopping 
 
 D 
 
34 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 the performance. " It was too late for praying," 
 says Mr. Speckling — though doubtless Anthony 
 would seek to again appease his mother by stating 
 that Psalms XXXV. and XXXYI. were "the very 
 joy of his heart." All that could be done was to deny 
 all authorship of the pieces, as the only possible 
 chance of avoiding Lady Ann's personal appearance 
 on the scene — and her fame for prompt action was 
 as great as that of a former landlady of the 
 " Anglers " at Marlow, Avho, when all the men 
 about her recoiled from the task, had with her 
 own hands " chucked out " of the tap a six foot 
 drunken bargee, the terror of the river; the 
 hostess standing four feet eleven, and scaling seven 
 stone nine. 
 
 Among similar MacStingers were Sarah Sophia 
 Whilome, Countess of Jersey, and the late Mrs. 
 "Diamond" Hope, a daughter of Napoleon's 
 General Rapp, and sole inheritress of the unrivalled 
 paternal powers of swearing. An eminent solicitor 
 friend of mine, the late Mr. Michael Abrahams, de- 
 scribed her as the " only man he ever was afraid of." 
 
 The Temple Ambassador had arrived in great 
 state, and been conducted to the Prince's presence 
 with sound of trumpet. The performance was 
 ready to begin "before a splendid company of 
 lords, ladies, and worshipful personages, that did 
 expect some notable performance," when the stage 
 was stormed by the back-seat people, who had 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACOX. OD 
 
 dined at one o'clock, and diverted themselves 
 since by the dice-box and the wine cup freely 
 passed round. The performance could not go on 
 — so the Temple envoy with his train withdrew in 
 high dudgeon, and, after an attempt to quiet down 
 matters with dancing and revelling, the players 
 were called upon to "play the audience out, with 
 the play they had performed before the Court 
 that afternoon," — the historian goes on to say 
 "the niofht besfun and continued to the end in 
 nothing but confusion and error," whereupon it 
 was ever afterwards called the "Night of Errors." 
 The play, hitherto unnamed, received this name 
 of " Errors " irom the circumstances under which 
 it was performed and as such remained a stock 
 piece of the Theatre Company. As for the Masque, 
 it was at once dropped out of sight, and replaced 
 the next week by a splendid device to celebrate 
 the restoration of amity between the offended Tem- 
 plars and Gray's Inn. In this Mr. Spedding opines^ 
 that Bacon had a leading hand. Why his name was 
 kept entirely out of it has already been explained. 
 I Nor did the brothers again risk the loss of their 
 only friend, though on October 15th, 1596, Bacon 
 wrote from Gray's Inn to Lord Shrewsbury " to 
 borrow a horse and armour for some public show," 
 as if he were a professional director of such things. 
 Bacon's vices and extravagance kept him miser- 
 ably poor till 1608, when a wealthy marriage, the 
 falling in of his Star Chamber Reversion, and his 
 
36 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 fees as Solicitor-General, lifted him from the slough 
 of despond in which his life till then had been 
 passed, so that the mother's displeasure (she lived 
 till 1610, though probably insane) barred Bacon 
 from all avowed connection with the stage — the 
 scrivenery trade being, however, carried on, on 
 ^' the quiet," as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 Of course Royal and Inns of Court Masques 
 would still continue, and I was anxious to trace 
 iiny possible connection of Bacon with the produc- 
 tion of " Twelfth Night," at the cost of the Middle 
 Temple Benchers, in their Hall in February, 1602. 
 The Gray's Inn Master of the Revels could not 
 fail, however, to have been at least a guest — if only 
 as a distraction from the pressure of creditors who 
 had just compelled him to mortgage Twickenham 
 Park. I regret, however, that my Benchers have 
 now twice refused me access to the Inn Records of 
 the period, and, if I have thus overlooked any 
 material fact, the blame must rest with the 
 Treasurers of the Middle Temple for 1894 and 
 1896. 
 
 Still the Gray's Inn Masques and the Scrivenery 
 hereafter described, would keep up a close in- 
 timacy, and even respect, between Bacon and 
 Shakespeare; and our next evidence is at a time 
 when Bacon had become Attorney-General. The 
 story is a sickening one, and short preface is 
 required to it. 
 
 The infamous Carre was about to be married to i 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON 37 
 
 the equally infamous Lady Frances Howard, the 
 divorced wife of the son of Bacon's murdered 
 patron Essex. Bacon had squirmed to Carre in 
 order to obtain the Mastership of the Wards and 
 had failed. He therefore tried before the wedding 
 to curry favour by offering to provide a Masque 
 similar to the gorgeous pageant produced by the 
 Inner Temple and Gray's Inn on the occasion of the 
 marriao;e of the Elector Palatine and the Princess 
 Elizabeth on February 14th, 1613. These Masques 
 were usual on such occasions. At the week's 
 festivities which took place at the marriage of the 
 Prince of Orange with Charles I.'s daughter 
 (whose son was to dethrone the Stuarts), a great 
 scaffolding for the show was erected outside White- 
 hall Banqueting House. During that whole week 
 Strafford lay awaiting his doom, vainly imploring 
 the King, for whose service he was about to die, 
 and whose protection had previously been promised 
 him, to refuse to sign the Attainder. The mills of 
 God do not always grind slowly, for within eight 
 years that same scaffold was re-erected on the 
 same spot, and the King himself ascended it. 
 
 As will be seen. Bacon absolutely tried to get 
 the Masque performed by the four Inns of Court. 
 But three of these bodies had an instinct that both 
 bride and bridegroom would be in the Tower as 
 convicted murderers within a very short period, 
 and held aloof. So Bacon by a letter in his own 
 liand, thus commits his own Inn. 
 
38 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 " It may please your good L. I am sorry the 
 joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth. 
 Nevertheless because it faileth out that at this time 
 Gray's Inn is well furnished of gallant young 
 gentlemen, your L. may be pleased to know that 
 rather than this occasion shall pass without some 
 demonstration of affection from the Inns of Court, 
 there are a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn that out 
 of the honour which they bear to your Lordship 
 and my Lord Chamberlain (father of the bride) to 
 whom at their last masque they were so much bounde?i, 
 will be ready to furnish a masque, wishing it were 
 in their power to perform it according to their 
 minds." 
 
 If Mr. Spedding, who publishes this (vol. iv., 
 p. 394), had only glanced back to the Masque of 
 Flowers in 1594, he would have discovered the 
 Bacon-Shakespeare sodality thirty years ago ! 
 
 As a matter of fact Gray's Inn found only the 
 composers and performers, the cost (some £2,000 
 then, £14,000 now), being borne by Bacon per- 
 sonally. 
 
 The expression, the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn 
 were " much bounden " to the Lord Chamberlain at 
 their last masque seems to indicate some kind of 
 sociality between that Inn and the Players. Indeed 
 one of them, Ben Jonson, was Bacon's guest at 
 York House on the proudest day of his life — his 
 sixtieth birthday — an honour the poet repaid by 
 sympathy, and saying all that could be said, 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 39 
 
 by way of defence, when the terrible downfall 
 came, and almost the only thing Bacon, who was as 
 little as he was great, could say was that he had not 
 received as much as £100,000 in bribes during his 
 Chancellorship. If such generous acts as these 
 were common with the bricklayer poet, we can 
 well understand the casual visitor recordingf his 
 merits on his gravestone : 
 
 "Oh eare Ben Jonson." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SCRIVENERY. 
 
 BACON'S brother Anthony, before referred to, 
 was employed by his uncle, Lord Burleigh, 
 to travel on the Continent, as a " political intel- 
 ligencer," from 1579 to 1592, in which year he 
 returned to England in bad health, and he applied 
 to his uncle for a post at Court, but was for some 
 reason disappointed. He kept, however, in full 
 touch with his foreign correspondents, and seems 
 also to have established a Scriptorium where he 
 copied books for sale. Thus (Birch, i. 85) Standen 
 writes that by one Lawson, he sends his travels in 
 Turkey, Italy, and Spain — "nothing too high in 
 prices for you " — out of which and the Zibaldone 
 MS. Anthony is to copy what he likes. If Standen 
 discovers a lost MS. (his discourse on the Spanish 
 State), Anthony shall have it. 
 
 Morgan Colman, an English correspondent, 
 writes on September 23rd, 1692, that he is feed- 
 ing himself with his papers, which he trusts will 
 deliver fruit well pleasing to Anthony. 
 
 At this time he was introduced by his brother 
 Francis to the young Earl of Essex, to whom 
 
SHAKESPEAKE AND BACON. 41 
 
 Anthony found his brother "bound and in deep 
 arrearges," otherwise heavily in debt: but yet 
 possessing the enormous influence which a strong 
 mind has over an impetuous and weaker one. He 
 recommended Anthony as being of skilled ability 
 in matters of state, especially foreign, and hence 
 likely to obtain earlier foreign intelligence for 
 Essex than the Queen's advisers were likely to 
 receive — thus enabling the Earl to conciliate the 
 Queen's favour by intelligence in advance of that 
 procured by the Cecils. 
 
 A Scrivenery is, of course, a prime factor in such 
 a service, and the engagement of correspondents 
 upon the Continent proceeded at once. It was 
 originally started, no doubt, in Gray's Inn, but 
 the Scrivener's Company had a monopoly which 
 they strictly enforced; hence it was removed to 
 Twickenham Park, a house belonging to Lord 
 Essex, as being out of the reach of the City 
 Company's franchises, while the brothers Bacon 
 occasionally resided there, and it ultimately be- 
 came, by the Earl's free gift, the property of Bacon. 
 On April 4th, 1591, Palmer, Burleigh's corre- 
 spondent at St. Luz, is applied to for copies of his 
 letters to Burleigh. In the same month a survey 
 of Essex's parks with their value is "faired out." 
 It is at Lambeth, and is beautifully done. In fact, 
 if my copy of the " Apologie " (and we know from 
 Bacon's words on Essex's trial that it was written 
 there), be an average example of the work, the 
 
42 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 writers must have been masters of their craft, it 
 being " without a blot " as were the " true originall 
 copies " from which Heminge and Condell compiled 
 the First Folio. 
 
 On September 15th, 1593, Phelips (Walsing- 
 ham's decipherer of intercepted letters) is retained 
 on the staff, and the cipher is only known to him, 
 Standen, and the brothers Bacon, not communicated 
 to their employer — Essex. 
 
 The number of paid agents in connection with 
 this " news agency " was enormous, the chief being 
 an exceedingly clever spy, named Standen, who 
 boasted that he could come and go as a French- 
 man. He began his trade in 1562 and became a 
 Spanish pensioner. Walsingham bought him for 
 £100 in 1572, the King of Spain paying him con- 
 currently 480 crowns. In 1590 he Avas detected 
 and lay eight months in prison, from which Anthony 
 procured his release by bribery. Coming to 
 England, he appealed to Burleigh for employment 
 as a spy, which he obtained, afterwards being re- 
 tained by Essex as well. Knighted by Elizabeth 
 for some unheard-of reason, he betrayed James I. 's 
 secrets in 1604, was thrown into the Tower, and 
 nearly lost his life. The list of correspondents, 
 apparently all paid in meal or in malt, is over 
 thirty in number : comprising English Ambassadors 
 to France, Holland, and the States General, French 
 Protestant Ministers, agents sent specially on 
 Essex's behalf, Guicciardini, the historian, Mr, 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 43 
 
 Bodley — hereafter as Sir Thomas to found the 
 Bodleian Library — shipmasters, and a most extra- 
 ordinary gangUon in Scotch affairs. 
 
 Essex had his own agent at Edinburgh — he 
 corresponded with Bower, the English ambassador 
 there, some of the rebel lords, and the Scotch 
 Chancellor; while, on the other hand, one Foulis 
 actually bribed Anthony himself in the interest of 
 the Scotch king. The imbroglio is such, that it is 
 by no means wonderful to learn that Lord North- 
 ampton goes to Essex's bedside on June 28th, 1599, 
 and informs him that unless he there and then 
 makes over Essex's House, where they then were, 
 as a free gift to his secretary, Anthony Bacon, that 
 individual will place in the hands of Secretary 
 Cecil the whole of his intrigues with the Scotch 
 king. Essex has no resource but to comply, and 
 the estate, valued at £2,000, became Anthony's, 
 though subsequently redeemed by a " whip " of 
 from £2,000 to £4,000 among the family: an effort 
 called up by Elizabeth's outspoken anger at the 
 proceeding. This was matter of common talk, 
 and Wotton's relation of this infamous treachery 
 is corroborated by Chamberlain — which last upsets 
 Mr. Spedding's faint attempt to discredit Wotton, 
 himself one of Essex's secretaries. 
 
 Of course the expense of all this was enormous. 
 From Devereux, " Lives of the Devereux," vol. i., 
 p. 295, we learn that one of his agents writes 
 Essex that Mr. Edmondes has been paid £300 for 
 
44 THE UIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 his journey to Lyons, and 600 crowns more since 
 his return, and asks for instructions, as this is 
 much more than the Queen allows her agents. 
 How, then, were funds found for all this? Wotton, 
 at one time one of his five secretaries, tells us that 
 Essex received from Elizabeth more than £300,000 
 besides the fees of his ofiices, three in number — as 
 Earl Marshal, General of the Horse and of the 
 Ordnance, and the sums spent for war purjDoses. 
 This last office was over £1,000 a year, and it was 
 but the third in money value. It was nothing for 
 the vain old hag of sixty to give her favourite 
 £7,000 in cochineal. But dividing the sums quoted 
 by Wotton over thirteen years, 1588-1600, we get, 
 at a small estimate, £32,000, or in our present 
 currency, £210,000 a year, of which he is said to 
 have allowed Anthony £1,000. Bacon's own 
 rapacitj' knew no bounds, and yet, like all other 
 spendthrifts, he never had a farthing in his pocket. 
 
 We have now to give some particulars as to the 
 mentions of the Scrivenery on this matter. We 
 have seen that it was used for copying out MSS. 
 from Standen and Colman, and that a MS. relating 
 to Italy was stolen out of Lord Essex's chamber; 
 so that other work was taken on besides Lord 
 Essex's. ^ 
 
 Anthony writes Francis from Gorhambury on 
 November 15th, 1593, that Lawson was just 
 arrived from the Earl (who had sent for him ex- 
 ' Spedding, vol. i., p. 349. 
 
 J 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 45 
 
 pressly from T wick en ham), with letters from Dr. 
 Morison (Essex's agent at Edinburgh), and a 
 most earnest request to return them, deciphered, 
 with all possible expedition. 
 
 The next is from Francis to Anthony, dated 
 "Twickenham Park, this 25th of January, 1594-5. 
 I have here an idle pen or two, specially one that 
 was cozened, thinking to have got some money 
 this term : I pray send me somewhat else for them 
 to write out beside j^our Irish collection, which is 
 almost done. There is a collection of Dr. James, 
 largeliest of Flanders, which though it be no great 
 manner, yet I would be glad to have it." 
 
 This Dr. James had been chaplain to Lord 
 Leicester, was then Dean of Christchurch, and was 
 a voluminous writer. He succeeded the father of 
 Bacon's young friend, Toby Matthew, as Bishop of 
 Durham in 1606. 
 
 Going back to the letter, it states plainly that 
 he is short of "copy" at the scrivenery, that one 
 of his clerks (who had been cheated, and, therefore, 
 probably came cheap) was worrying for work — 
 hence Anthony was to look out to see if he could 
 get any of Dr. James's copying. Bacon, hke every 
 other tradesman, kept an eye on quarters where 
 custom was to be had. 
 
 The next reference we find is in August, 1596. 
 Essex had prepared "a true relation of the action 
 at Cadiz," sent it home by his secretary Cuffe, who 
 writes to Anthony : " The original you are to keep, 
 
46 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 because my Lord charged me to cause either you 
 or Mr. Fontaine (minister of the French Church) 
 to turn either the whole or the sum of it into 
 French, and to cause it to be sent to some good 
 personage in these parts, under a false name or 
 anonj^mously. (Anthony was rather partial to 
 these anonymous letters, and one is extant from 
 him to the Countess of Northumberland, Essex's 
 sister, informing her of her husband's adultery.) 
 The Queen was very angry, and forbade CufFe 
 on pain of death to have it printed, whereupon 
 Anthony, finding he could not get it put into 
 type, resolved to write out and send abroad copies 
 of it, so that they would very shortly pass into all 
 parts and speak all languages in spite of those who 
 sought to suppress them." 
 
 Anthony did his part for Scotland, Mr. Bodley, 
 afterwards of the librar)', for the Low Countries, 
 and M. Fontaine for France. 
 
 The Liege spy informs us it occupied three long 
 written sheets. 
 
 The next allusion is to the "Apologie," which 
 will be more conveniently taken as a whole in the 
 next chapter. 
 
 To proceed. During the years 1591-1602, one 
 Topcliflfe was a diligent discoverer and violent 
 persecutor of Roman Catholics under the penal 
 laws. Elizabeth seems to have given credit to his 
 reports, and encouraged him. In March, 1599, 
 there seem to have been heavy complaints against 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 47 
 
 him for arresting Harrison, one of Cecil's spies, 
 and he would seem to have got into such disgrace, 
 as to make him draw up a supplication (probably 
 to the Queen), which was evidently of interest. It 
 must have been written before Anthony's death, 
 about May 27th, 1601, and it shows how keen 
 Bacon was to earn anything, however small. It 
 runs thus : 
 
 " Good brother, I send you the supplication 
 which Mr. Topclifte lent me. It is curiously written 
 and worth the Avriting out for the art, though the 
 argument be bad. But it is lent me but for two 
 or three days. So God keep you." 
 
 If my conjecture is accurate as to the person, he 
 was subsequently reinstated ; for he assists Chief 
 Justice Popham in some examinations in the fol- 
 lowing year. On the other hand, it is equally 
 possible that the supplicant may have been one 
 Charles TopclifFe, who, at the loot of Cadiz, carried 
 off £600 in silver (£4,200 now), and pleaded that 
 it was the private property of the Corregidor, by 
 whose wife it was given him ! But the fact remains 
 the same. Bacon was greedy for " copy," and did 
 not trouble himself about the author's consent be- 
 fore publishing it. 
 
 Oddly enough, the last instance we shall find of 
 this is in 1608, at which time the Scrivenery was 
 still used for theatre purposes, the last of Shake- 
 speare's plays appearing some two years later. 
 In 1608 Bacon composed a notebook of private 
 
48 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 memoranda of his property, and his plans for the 
 future, which Professor Rawson Gardner describes 
 as a thorouo-h insisjht into his character. It is a 
 very pitiable record, and it is hardly conceivable 
 that it could have been written by the man who 
 wrote any of the published works. 
 
 Its full title is " Comentarius Solutus sive Pan- 
 decta sive Ancilla Memoriee." It was discovered 
 by Mr. Spedding in 1848, in Archbishop Tenison's 
 Library at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and is now in 
 the British Museum. It seems to have taken Bacon 
 a week to write it, and it occupies some fifty-five 
 jjages of print in Spedding's vol. iv., p. 40. 
 
 He reckons his property as worth £24,000 (clear 
 of debts), his income as £4,975 (say £35,000 of it 
 in our money), so that he was not a needy man ; 
 but he thinks only of ingratiating himself with the 
 King by flattering his domestics and physicians, 
 and of noting all the weaknesses of the Attorney- 
 General, with a view of superseding him. It is a 
 pitiful record of grasping human selfishness, without 
 one redeeming part. 
 
 Though his mother was living, her name never 
 occurs, but two entries are so peculiar that even 
 Mr. Spedding in a note gives to them the right ex- 
 planation, though dissenting from it. The old Lord 
 Treasurer Dorset had died suddenly two months 
 before, leaving a widow over seventy, and some 
 eight children. The first memorandum is (Sped- 
 ding, iv. 3) " to send messages of compliment to 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 49 
 
 my Lady Dorsett' 'the wydow.' " The second, 
 "Applying myself to be inward with my Lady 
 Dorsett per Champnes ad utilitat tcstam " (Sped- 
 ding, iv. 35). Spedding agrees that these last 
 words stand for use of the will, and, after much 
 speculation as to how Bacon was to get his profit, 
 adds in a note a friend's suggestion that they relate 
 to some professional employment in connection 
 with that document. It really was in order to 
 obtain the scrivener work in connection with what 
 Ave should call the executorship. This work was 
 highly paid, and the London scriveners throve ex- 
 ceedingly, so the Solicitor-General chose to tout for 
 the work by an agent, no doubt his servant. 
 
 We have now linked together all the facts at 
 present traceable with regard to this writing shop. 
 That copying was costly and very profitable work tlie 
 sudden leap of printing into common use a century 
 before distinctly proves ; that these Scrivenery con- 
 ductors would take up any work, however obtained, 
 whether in confidence or not, is also perfectly clear, 
 as is, unhappily, the fact that they were crippled 
 with debts, and borrowed from everj'one they 
 could. Would Bacon, for a quarter of a century 
 Master of the Revels at Gray's Inn, not ask Shake- 
 speare for loans, when on his good will depended 
 the retention of the Inn pageant work, for which 
 the other theatre companies were eager ? 
 
 Chamberlain tells us that Sii* Francis Bacon was 
 the chief " contriver " of the Masque on the mar- 
 
 E 
 
50 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF SHAKESPEAKE AND BACON. 
 
 riage of the Palatine, which came by water from 
 Winchester Place, close by the Globe Theatre, 
 where the Templars and Gray's Inn men who pro- 
 duced it had been drilled and formed up. The 
 Avater pageant alone cost £300. The pickings in 
 copying out the parts of such a pageant would be 
 Avorth having. 
 
 Dare Shakespeare refuse the loans and risk the 
 loss of the connection ? 
 
 Emphatically no; but the Scrivenery could copy 
 out his prompters' parts and actors' copies from 
 the MS. plays taken down from his dictation, keep 
 them in order for use, and, when required, the cost 
 would go " to my account with you," i.e.^ Bacon. 
 
 Shakespeare, from his two avocations (for the utter 
 silence of the plays on the question of gambling is 
 strong evidence that he carried them on concur- 
 rently), had more money to lend than he could find 
 borroAvers for, hence employed agents to make loans 
 for him. He knew hoAv to keej) as Avell as to make 
 money — actors did this in those days, AAdtness 
 Burbage, Alleyne, and Henslow. But he also 
 looked sharp after his debtors, and in the meagre 
 annals of his life but one fact repeats itself three 
 times, and that is : his suing his debtors and their 
 surety, one of them, too, a felloAv townsman. 
 
 Here, then, we liaA^e the place where the priceless 
 manuscripts of the plays would be kept under the 
 control of Lord Bacon, at all events up to 1608. 
 AVhat became of them afterwards may possibly be 
 told hereafter. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE APOLOGIE. 
 
 TN the spring of 1598 the French king concluded 
 ^ a separate peace with Spain, and opinions were 
 greatly divided in England as to the advisability 
 of Elizabeth doing the same. Supported by Bur- 
 leigh, it was bitterly opposed by Essex, who ac- 
 cordingly prepared a document, addressed : " An 
 Apologie for the Erie of Essex against those who 
 Falsely and Maliciously say him to be the onelie 
 Hindrance of the Peace of his Country." 
 
 At the end of my copy of this " Apologie," which 
 is dated April 8, 1600, there are "Considerations 
 against the Peace" (with Spain), etc., with some 
 prayers, which 1 believe, for reasons set out in 
 "The Academy" of April 13th, 1895 {vide Ap- 
 pendix), to have been written at the Scrivenery for 
 the private use of the unhappy Essex at his request. 
 The book seems always to have been under Bacon's 
 control, as he admits in his "Apologie" for his 
 conduct to Essex. 
 
 The Queen disliked this appeal to the public, and 
 treated him coolly in consequence. When next at 
 Court, in the heat of dispute, the Earl, with a ges- 
 ture of contempt, turned his back upon Elizabeth, 
 
52 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 sa}dng "her conditions were as crooked as her 
 carcase," whereupon the Queen boxed his ears, and 
 told him to go "in malam rem." And a "bad 
 thing " he went in for there and then, putting his 
 hand to his sword, swearing that he would not bear 
 such an indignity from Henry VIII., and leaving 
 the Court. A great coolness ensued ; a letter of 
 Lord Essex to Lord Keeper Egerton added fuel to 
 the fire, and Bacon brought this last up against 
 Essex on the proceedings in June, 1600, as bold, 
 presumptuous, and derogatory to Her Majesty — 
 going on to say that it had been published by the 
 Earl's friends, of whom the brothers Bacon, by 
 the wa}', were at that time the chief, and ran 
 the Scrivenery Avhere the copies had been translated 
 and written out. 
 
 Camden and other historians distinctly say that, 
 although the quarrel was apparently patched up in 
 the following October, from this time dated Essex's 
 fall. 
 
 For the Bacons translated this " Apologie " into 
 French, had it copied at the Scrivenery, and dis- 
 tributed in Italy, France, and Spain, causing there 
 great irritation by its outspoken language about 
 the King. Spaniards marvelled that such libels, 
 sent by the Earl to Mr. Bacon, should be allowed 
 by Elizabeth to be written in her country, " making 
 comedies and jests of the King of Spain upon stages.'^ 
 These are the words written from Liege by Petit, 
 a spy, under date June 10th, 1599, extant in the 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 53 
 
 '"Domestic State Papers," vol. 270, and it is extra- 
 ordinary that he should credit Anthony Avith the 
 same power of making people ridiculous upon the 
 staore, which Essex later on attributes to him. It 
 must have been a matter of common notoriety to 
 l)e circulatino- at the same time in both London and 
 
 o 
 
 Liege. The spy says that a copy had been sent to 
 the King- of Spain, as if Standen had turned it into 
 Spanish. 
 
 Things looked gloomy at this time for Essex and 
 his parasites the Bacons. He had forfeited the 
 Queen's favour, and made things worse by his 
 iroinirs on with the Maids of Honour, with four of 
 Avhom he was credited with intimacy at the same 
 time. Two of them, named Bridges and Russell, 
 were driven from Court by the Queen with oaths 
 and blows. 
 
 Essex was committed to custody in September, 
 1599, and for eight months confined to his house. 
 He was in debt, and though the fees of his great 
 offices regularly came in, yet none of such princely 
 gifts as the £7,000 in cochineal were now to be 
 looked for from the Queen. On the contrary, his 
 monopoly of sweet wines, which had expired at 
 Michaelmas, was not renewed, but fell into the 
 Exchequer. The Bacons, too, were at their wits' 
 end. In March, 1600, Francis Bacon had begged 
 Elizabeth for a gift in fee shnple of three parcels 
 of Crown Land, value £80 odd, on the grounds 
 tliat his brother was beino; forced to sell Gorham- 
 
54 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 bury; and on another plea, in order to free himself 
 from " the contempt of the contemptible that 
 measure a man bj^ his estate " — his creditors were 
 evidently getting rude to him. The request was 
 certainly not granted by Elizabeth. 
 
 In January, 1600, suits were pending against 
 Bacon, and on January 25th he applies to his old 
 creditor Hickes for a further loan of £200, on 
 sureties whose consent he says he had not asked. 
 Anthony, by a threat to divulge Essex's intrigues 
 with the King of Scots (who was next heir to the 
 throne) to Cecil, obtained a gift of Essex House 
 (all, apparently, Essex had left at his disposal), 
 which had to be ransomed afterwards for £4,000. 
 
 This terrible treachery by a pampered and trusted 
 servant is attested by both Wotton and Chamber- 
 lain, the last in " Domestic State Papers," 1599, p. 
 222. Anthony-, probably from shame and remorse, 
 appears to have destroyed all his correspondence 
 with Essex, for the valuable series in Lambeth 
 Palace Library, from wliich so much of this mono- 
 graph has been derived, and from which much more 
 is evidently derivable, ceases here. 
 
 Crippled with debts, insulted by creditors who 
 are pressing him, all other resources gone, with the 
 Queen obdurate, and the Cecils hostile, it seems to 
 have struck Bacon that, if nothing was to be 
 gained by Essex's life, his death and forfeiture 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 55 
 
 would be of value to those who brought it about^ 
 to whom such things were afterwards commonly 
 granted by the Crown ; and, in the spring of 1600, 
 the scheme was put in hand. Essex's sister, Lady 
 Rich, had at the end of July addressed a letter to 
 the Queen, interceding for her brother. It may 
 be seen in Birch, ii. 442, and is certainly slightly 
 blasphemous as Avell as " piquant," the term used 
 for it by Bacon on the Earl's trial. It seems, 
 however, to have intensely irritated Elizabeth, and 
 accordingly the Bacons issued several copies from 
 the Scrivenery, which ended in Lady Rich's being- 
 summoned twice before the Council to answer for 
 it — the usual prelude to committal to the Tower. 
 And to make matters worse, the half- forgotten 
 " Apologie " which had caused the original quarrel 
 ending on the box upon the ears, was maliciously 
 pi'efixed to it ! 
 
 It had j)robably been asked for by Essex himself, 
 whom illness had made very despondent (Chamber- 
 lain speaks of him on February 28th, 1600, as"some- 
 whatcrazie"and March 5th as "quite out of minde'') 
 and religiously inclined ; as the beautiful copy 
 without a blot made for him at the Scrivenery, and 
 now in my possession, dated April 8th and 10th 
 1600, contains some prayers as for a sick man. 
 But early in May it got secretly printed with Lady 
 Rich's letter appended, and tlie result came quite 
 up to the expectation of the conspirators ; Elizabeth 
 became furious, put two men into close prison, and 
 
56 THE HIDDEN LIVES OE 
 
 had the copies sought for, but only 8 out of 
 200 issued could be found. Two important 
 extracts are inserted here verbatim iVom the 
 Sydney Papers.^ I 
 
 Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney on May 10th, IGOO. | 
 
 " An apology written by my Lord of Essex about 
 the Peace is I hear printed on which his Lordship 
 is very much troubled, and hath sent to my Lord 
 of Canterbury, and others and to the Stationers to 
 suppress them, for it is done without his knowledge 
 or procurement, and he fears it may l^e ill taken, 
 two are conniiitted close prisoners ; what they will 
 disclose is not yet known. 
 
 " The Queen is offended that this Apology of 
 Peace is printed for of 200 Copies only 8 is 
 heard of — it is said that my Lady Rich's letter to 
 Her Majesty is also printed which is an exceeding 
 Avrong donne to the Earle of Essex." 
 
 Essex was in despair, seeing the malignity of the 
 move, and at once wrote to the Archbishop — as 
 Press licencer, and the Stationers' Company to stop 
 the sale — a process accomplished by May 28th, as 
 Chamberlain tells us. 
 
 Essex had, however, on the 20th, written to the 
 Queen in terms which tells us a secret hitherto 
 known only to the spy at Liege, as we have seen. 
 
 " I am subject to their wicked information that 
 first envied me for my happiness in your favour, 
 
 ' " Caleudar Domestic State Papers," p. 149, May 13th. 1600. 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 57 
 
 and now hate me out of custom, but as if I were 
 thrown into a corner like a dead carcase I am 
 gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest 
 creatures upon earth. . . . Already they print me, 
 and make me speak to the world, and shortly they 
 Avill play me i?i what form they list upon the stage. 
 The least of these is a thousand times worse than 
 death." 
 
 Now Bacon had thrown him aside like a dead 
 dog — had laid, and was prosecuting the information 
 against the Earl for his Irish conduct. On this 
 point public opinion was strongly clear. Bacon 
 liad certainly printed the " Apologie " and Lady 
 Uich's letter. 
 
 Do the lines emphasized mean that Bacon had 
 control of a theatre, and could cause a play to be 
 written and acted upon the stage to Essex's 
 prejudice ? The inference when coupled with that 
 from the Li(^ge letter, seems hard to avoid. It 
 must be remembered that the Earl was a popular 
 favourite, and that for long afterwards all pam- 
 phlets in his defence were suppressed by Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 If this doubly vouched statement be correct, we 
 have Bacon in command of the Globe Theatre, and 
 in such authority there as to be able to risk its 
 popularity with playgoers to serve his own private 
 ends. 
 I But the hideous story must go on, for it is hard 
 to believe Shakespeare does not come in again. 
 
 h 
 
58 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 Essex died a death worthy of the man whose 
 arms even yet remain on the walls of Cadiz to 
 mark the spot where he was the first to scale them. 
 Anthony died of remorse within four months, so 
 deep in debt and disgrace that it is due only to 
 these circumstances that Chamberlain records his 
 decease, as being of no benefit to his hard-pressed 
 brother Francis. 
 
 In the autumn come the fines and ransoms of 
 the prisoners, and from Catesby's fine of 4,000 
 marks, £1,200, payable by instalments, was assigned 
 to Bacon by the Queen's order. He forthwith 
 writes to his creditor Hickes, who had probably 
 just jogged his memory ; grumbling at the small- 
 ness of the amount, and promising to attend to him 
 sometime this vacation, "which then ran on till 
 November 2nd," four months' respite. 
 
 Catesby's instalments could hardly be spread 
 over less than six months, and in the spring of the 
 next year comes that sudden flush of money to 
 Shakespeare, which Mr. Halliwell (Outlines, vol. 
 i., p. 240) is astonished at, and which Mr. Fleay 
 passes unnoticed. Now the previous windfall in 
 Shakespeare's life was the £60 paid in 1597 for 
 New Place, and which Sir John Harrington accounts 
 for as "landed" from the ruin of an infant young- 
 gentleman. That haul he at once put away in 
 lands, and at this time the dramatist purchased the 
 Combe Lands for £320, buys up a blot on the 
 title of New Place (which may up to then have 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 59 
 
 kept him out of possession), and a copy-hold at 
 Rowington. This last speaks of the determination 
 to invest the whole of the money, common in minds 
 to whom a big pull is a luxury to be thoroughly 
 enjoyed, and put away safely. It is the act of a 
 man occupying a risky position, who, like Louis 
 Phillipe or Napoleon III., invested as much as he 
 could get in the English Funds with the remark, 
 " That 's safe at all events." Not that the Empress 
 Eugenie's jewels, sold piecemeal to the native 
 princes of India, did not realize half a million more. 
 
 Many other gamblers, whether in politics, stock 
 exchange, even racing and betting, have done the 
 like, and a thousand times as many have wished, 
 when too late, they had done the same while they 
 liad the chance. 
 
 My submission is that this money, say at least 
 £600, Avas worried out of Bacon by Shakespeare, 
 who knew his debtor's only fetchable point, " the 
 contempt of the contemptible," and traded upon 
 that at the right moment, promptly putting the 
 money away in a safe quarter where the shifty 
 debtor could not get it back, however much he 
 might try it on. 
 
 One more association between the two men is 
 adducible. Did Bacon write the epitaph upon 
 Shakespeare prefixed to the Second Folio of 1632? 
 
 In Bacon's "Life of Henry VII." published in 
 1622, pages 247 and 248, there appears as the 
 concluding sentence an epitaph upon that king ; 
 
60 TH'E HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 and in the Second Folio of Shakespeare, published 
 in 1632, appears the " epitaph on the Admirable 
 Dramatick Poet, Mr. William Shakespeare." 
 
 Both passages have, as their author's last thought, 
 and as their closing line, the reflection that a 
 man is more richly sepulchred in a written monu- 
 ment of his fame, than in any material tomb, how- 
 ever sumptuous 01- even regal it may be. The 
 idea is Horace's : 
 
 " Exegi Bionumeutum aere pereiinius," 
 
 and therefore famihar to a scholar with a fine ear 
 for rhythm and swing. Such learning was common 
 enough among the courtiers of " King Elizabeth," 
 and the example of George Buchanan had kept it 
 alive in the reign of Scotch " Jamie." 
 
 Let us see how it is worked out in these two 
 books, published within ten years of each other. 
 
 "The Epitaph on the Admir- Bacon, " Henry VII." 
 
 ABLE Dramatick Poet Mr. Wil- pp. 247-248, couclnsioii. 
 
 LiAM Shakespeare " (2n(l, 3rd, 
 
 caud 4tli Folios). 
 
 "What needs my Slialves2:)eare for '' He lyeth buried at 
 
 Lis Hallowed Bones V Westminster in one of 
 
 A pyramid of earth in piled stones, tJieStatehjestandDainti- 
 
 Or that his mortal relics should he est Momiment& ofEurope 
 
 hid both for the Chappell, 
 
 Beneath some starre-y-poiuting and for the Sepukher. 
 
 pyramid ? So that hee dwelleth 
 
 Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of more richly Dead in the 
 
 Fame, Monument of his Tomlje. 
 
 Why needs the world such witness than he did Alive in 
 
 of thy Name ? Eichmond or any of his 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 61 
 
 Thou iu our wonder aud astonish- Palaces. I could tvish 
 
 inent he did the like, in this 
 
 Hast built thyself a lasting monn- Mouuinento//««rame." 
 
 ment, 
 And so sepulchred in such state 
 
 dost lie, 
 That Kings for such a tomb would 
 
 wish to die." 
 
 Xow this epitaph chites itself to a nicety ; it is a 
 burst of warm, heart-felt affection for a friend, 
 thrown off just after Shakespeare's burial, and 
 before the precise shape of the present monument 
 at Stratford, the only one of his own time which 
 exists, had been decided on ; nay, at the time 
 while it was being debated among frieuds and 
 admirers of his o;enius as to the erectino- a 
 monument. 
 
 Let us spot two phrases in the epitaph — " my 
 Shakespeare," and " our wonder and astonishment." 
 They are perfectly natural ones ; but as to this 
 epitaph for a man whose social talents made so 
 firm a mark in the memory of his epitaphist, that 
 lie could keep it by him for the next sixteen years, 
 why came these lines, full as they are of almost 
 Miltonian music, to be left out of the first edition 
 of 1623 and yet appear in the second edition of 
 1632 ? Surely there must have been some cause 
 for the omission of this tribute of an affectionate 
 friend of such commanding genius from the Fiist 
 Folio, which had ceased to exist when the Second 
 saw the light ! Ben Jonson's rugged tribute could 
 
62 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 be prefixed, but why should this still grander one 
 be left out? During that nine years between 1623 
 and 1632, the restraint, whatever it was, vanished. 
 Why ? 
 
 To go on with our microscoping of the epitaph — 
 let us look closely into its composition — the writer 
 must have been a man in years, and of grave and 
 sober habits of thought to have imagined and 
 given utterance to such grand organ music — re- 
 sembling Milton's " Lycidas " and Tennyson's " In 
 Memoriam," where also, after long lapse of years, 
 the loss of a personal friend, one's other self, is 
 bewailed. Moreover the writer had first learnt to 
 use his pen in pre-Jacobean daj^s, from his using 
 the word " starre-y-pointing," the "y" prefix 
 beine: in common use about the middle of the six- 
 teenth century and dying out before its close. 
 
 The upshot, therefore, seems, so far, to be this : 
 that the wi'iter of the epitaph was a scholar with 
 the classics at his fingers' ends ; courtier ; a man of 
 taste; personal friend and appreciator of Shake- 
 speare's wit; and brought up in traditions of the 
 middle of Elizabeth's reign at latest. All of which 
 would imply familiar knowledge of that poet of 
 whom it is written : 
 
 " Horace still charms with graceful uegligeuce, 
 
 And, without method, wins us into sense ; 
 
 Can, lite a friend familiarly convey 
 
 The truest doctrines in the easiest way, 
 
 Yet judged with coolness though he sang with fire ; " 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 63 
 
 and this knowledge could hardly have been acquired 
 by a youth who, having learnt at a grammar school 
 small Latin and less Greek, was bound apprentice 
 to a butcher when thirteen years old. 
 
 De Missy in his " Notes on Anacreon " quotes a 
 passage from Shakespeare to show that the Author 
 of the Plays had a knowledge of Greek. 
 
 It is in " Timon," Act lY., Scene 7. 
 
 " The sun's a tliief and with his great attraction 
 Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant robber, 
 And her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 
 The sun's a thief whose liquid surge resolves 
 The moon into salt tears." 
 
 (Pseud.) "Anacreon," Ode XIX., runs thus: 
 
 TTivsi QaXaaaa S' avpaq 
 "O S' i]\ioq 6a\a(Tcn]v 
 
 which I roughly condense, sacrificing everything 
 to literalness and metre 
 
 " Deeply drinks the dark brown field, 
 Drinks of it the tree-clad weald. 
 Drinks the sun from ocean streams, 
 Drinks of him the pale moon-beams, 
 Drinks the sea from showers of sky, 
 All things drink, mates, why not I ? " 
 
 A perfect drinking song with a rollick about it 
 that would find acceptance with roystering classical 
 topers in those classical days which lasted certainly 
 down to Porson's 
 
 ovre Too£ ourf raAXo. 
 
 In these unclassical days may I explain this last 
 
64 THE HIDDEN LIVES OF 
 
 jest ? The drunken pillar of Greek scholarship 
 at Cambridge had seen both liquor and candles 
 simultaneously give out, and his comment reads 
 in his mother tongue, 
 
 " Out e tallow out e toddv." 
 
 My letter to " The Academy " of March 23rd, 1895 
 evoked no contradiction, but I learn from an 
 amiable friend at the head of Gray's Inn Librar}', 
 that since my establishment of the sodality of 
 Bacon and Shakespeare, a tradition is creeping up 
 that the summer house in the Gray's Inn Gardens, 
 beneath the famous elms which this so great (and 
 oh, so little) man planted, was the scene of some 
 of these drinking symposia between the two. My 
 copy of the " Apologie," which must have touched 
 his hand when he presented it to his victim Essex, 
 rested some days next to the fine portrait there of 
 the man to whom Humanity owes a debt which can 
 never be discharsfed. 
 
 '&' 
 
 This epitaph business chimes in too well with 
 what we unhappily know of the character of Bacon. 
 
 In the taverns where the actors assembled, much 
 sorrow would be felt when the death of Shakespeare 
 was announced, and the feeling, then as now, 
 would be to raise a monument over him as over 
 any comrade of note who had joined the majority. 
 As often as not these schemes collapsed, as was 
 the case with Ben Jonson's, where subscriptions 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 65 
 
 freely promised at the outset, failed lamentably 
 before the work Avas ordered, or rather, not ordered 
 at all. One cannot doubt that a subscription for 
 Shakespeare's memorial would be at once set on 
 foot, and that application would first be made to 
 the Lord Chancellor Bacon, probably by his friend 
 Ben Jonson, to head the list with something hand- 
 some. Imagine the disgust of the assembled 
 troupe, when the reply came back, that the de- 
 ceased needed no monument except his splendid 
 works, and inclosing only a copy of verse expressing 
 this idea. Such a substitute for a subscrij)tion 
 would thoroughly damp the project from the very 
 first, and the whole thing would fall through, to be 
 revived some dozen years later, when a Dutch 
 sculptor living in Southwark could be employed to 
 cut the now existing memorial over the grave. 
 
 The epitaph was held over at the time of the 
 publication of the First Folio in 1623. Bacon's 
 name was then an object of popular detestation, 
 and even when inserted in the volume of 1632, his 
 name was suppressed as being no recommendation. 
 
 I have now for some two years been patiently 
 unveiling, from his mother's and his brother's 
 words, the hidden life of the greatest, wisest, 
 meanest of mankind. 
 
 None of his great writings have had to come 
 before me, and the comparison of the two different 
 men in him (and alas ! in us all as well) brings a 
 feeling of infinite sadness. The two men are dis- 
 
 F 
 
6G THE HIDDEN LIVES OF SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 
 
 I 
 
 tinct as the two sides of a medal! When one is 
 seen the other is invisible, yet both are one. 
 
 On the obverse are the noble head, the eloquent 
 features, the speaking eyes. On the reverse not a 
 redeeming feature ; drunkenness, debauchery, of 
 the vilest kind according to current reports, 
 gambling, extravagance, forgery, fraud, ingratitude, 
 treachery, and finally the judicial murder of Essex, 
 his patron, to whom he owed all, for the sake of 
 the plunder it might happen to bring. Xot a trace 
 of either love or })ity for any human being ! for his 
 mother inspired only fear; and the desire to be 
 buried in her grave is but the instinct of servitude 
 reasserting itself at the last. Not one act of 
 charity records itself in Bacon's life, even the 
 reference in his diary to the will of " Charterhouse " 
 Sutton relates to the prospective fees Avhich as 
 Solicitor-General he would derive from it. 
 
 An aggravated paradox of humanity : inwardly 
 " concentred all in self^^; outwardly the revealer to 
 Humanity- of a new Philosophical Universe — the 
 Uberator then and for all time to come of Human 
 Intellect. 
 
 But the one closing word must be 
 
 MISERERE, REX C^LORUM 
 MISERERE MISERORUM. 
 
 for, of all that mighty host which has no other 
 help save the Mercy of God, none could stand more 
 in need of it than he. 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 Letters to " The Academy." 
 
 London, April ISth, 1895. 
 
 SHAKESPEAEE AND BACON. 
 
 London, March 23rcZ, 1895. 
 
 rpHE " Gazetteer" of December 31st, 1766, con- 
 J- tains in its last column the followinef: 
 
 o 
 
 " W. wishes some of our critical corresj^ondents would give 
 their opinion of the resemblance between a passage in Shake- 
 speare and one in Anacreon. The passage from Shakespeare 
 reads thus : 
 
 " ' The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction 
 Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief, 
 And her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 
 The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves 
 The moon into salt tears.' — Timon, act iv., sc. 7. 
 
 " The passage in Anacreon, ode xix., reads : 
 
 ' TTivti OaXaaaa S' avpag 
 "O o i']Xiog 9u\a(7(n]}> 
 Tov o 7/Atoi' cnA^ixn]. 
 
 Here our querist stops, and he seems to have got 
 no answer till the Variorum edition of 1803, and 
 Mr. Staunton later on, confirm the resemblance, 
 though the former quotes a version by Ronsard of 
 1597. No English translation was extant in 
 Shakespeare's time. 
 
€8 APPENDIX, 
 
 This ode of the Pseudo-Anacreon suggests in- 
 
 qiury; and, as a preliminary, I give my own 
 
 rough version, wherein I sacrifice everything to 
 
 literalness and metre, condensing even seven lines 
 
 into six : 
 
 " Deeply di*inks the dark-brown field, 
 Drinks of it the tree-clad weald, 
 Drinks the sun from ocean streams. 
 Drink of him the pale moon beams, 
 Drinks the sea from showers of sky : 
 If they drink, mates, why not I ? " 
 
 It is a perl'ect drinking song, and found much favour 
 with roystering classical topers in those drinking 
 ■days of theirs, which lasted certainly down to 
 
 1 Orson S ovn ro'Sc ovre raXXo. 
 
 Now Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps opines (" Outlines," 
 i. 97) that Shakespeare's classical learning was 
 picked up during the period from 1587 to 1592 
 from the society he kept of Gray's Inn and Temple 
 men, whose masques and pageants he mounted for 
 them. Such a songj as Anacreon XIX. must have 
 been in favour at those hard-drinking symposia, at 
 Avhich I have elsewhere established the sodality of 
 Shakespeare ' and the two Bacons, Francis and 
 Anthony. 
 
 Shakespeare's head was strong enough to carry 
 off these carouses ; though a later one is said to have 
 killed him; but the two brothers got frightfully 
 upset, as is plain from Lady Ann Bacon's letter to 
 
 ' " Middle Temple Table Talk," pp. 50-60. 
 
APPENDIX. 69* 
 
 Francis of August 20th, 1594 (Speddiug's " Life,"" 
 
 i. 313): 
 
 " Let this letter be unseen. Look very well to your health. 
 Sup not nor sit up late. Surely I think your drinking to bed- 
 wards hindreth your and your brother's digestion very much. 
 I never knew any but sickly that used it : besides bad for 
 head and eyes. Observe while yet in time." 
 
 Wc know also from one of Anthony's letters. 
 (Spedding, i. 322) that Francis was even then, at 
 thirty-four, troubled with stone. 
 
 Here, then, was an opportunity for Shakespeare 
 to pick up the ode which he so magnificently ex- 
 panded in " Timon." 
 
 And may not the intimacy between Shakespeare 
 and Bacon have had other results equally ready ta 
 hand? Is it not probable that the money-making 
 actor-manager and "Jack Factotum" would avail 
 himself of the staff of scriveners which Bacon kept 
 for public use at his Twickenham Lodge — especially 
 when we remember the large money transactions 
 for mounting masques, etc., which passed between 
 the two during twenty years (1593-1613) ? 
 
 No one appears to have noticed that Bacon did 
 keep this scrivener's shop, had many clerks, whom 
 he found it hard work to keep going, and even 
 " sweated " them in his desperate endeavour to 
 extricate himself from his embarrassments. The 
 proof is in a letter from Francis to Anthony Bacon 
 (Spedding, i. 349). 
 
 " I have here an idle pen or two, especially one that was. 
 cozened, thinking to have got some money this term. I praj 
 
 I 
 
70 APPENDIX. 
 
 send me somewhat else for tliera to write out, besides your 
 Irish collection, which is almost done. 
 
 " There is a collection of Dr. James, of foreign states, large- 
 liest of Flanders, which though it he no great matter, yet I 
 would be glad to have it. — From my lodge at Twickenham, 
 this 25 of Jany., 1594." 
 
 Is it going too far to suggest that we may here 
 find the solution of the vexed problems : and perhaps 
 who wrote out, and w^ho kept, the original MSS. of 
 the plays? 
 
 A SURVIVAL OF BACON's TWICKENHAM 
 SCRIVENERY. 
 
 London, April 10th, 1895. 
 
 Referring to my letter in the ''Academy" of 
 March 30th, in which I evidenced the existence of 
 this hitherto unnoticed phase in Bacon's life, I may 
 be reasonably asked if any book produced there, is 
 still in existence? I shall submit that at least one 
 such has survived, and is in my possession. 
 
 I copy its short history from Dr. E. A. Abbott's 
 
 " Bacon and Essex," p. 165. 
 
 In the spring of 1600, after Bacon's temporary reconcilia- 
 tion with Essex, for the purpose of conciliating Essex with the 
 Queen, Francis Bacon, who was supposed to know better than 
 other people what would please the Queen, volunteered to 
 draw up for Essex a letter to Anthony Bacon which Essex 
 might copy out in his own handwriting, and send him ; and 
 then Francis would show it to the Queen as a proof of Essex's 
 ■contrition and loyalty. To make the thing more natural and 
 deceptive, Francis would also dress up in. Anthony's name a 
 letter to Essex, which was to elicit in answer the letter above- 
 mentioned. The two letters might natiirally be supposed to 
 be shown by Anthony to his brother Francis, and Francis 
 might then show them to the Queen." 
 
APPENDIX. 71 
 
 Essex was mucli under the influence of Anthony, 
 and Chamberlain writes to Carleton, on June 28th, 
 1599, that he proposed to give him Essex House. 
 
 The letters thus " faked up '' were admirable 
 imitations of the several styles of the supposed 
 writers — catching the quaint, humorous, cumber- 
 some language of Anthou}-, as also the abrupt, in- 
 cisive, and passionately rhetorical phrasing of the 
 Earl (Abbott, p. 185). It is our first instance of 
 Bacon's writing in the name and style of other 
 people. 
 
 Both Essex on his trial and Bacon in his 
 "Apology" (Abbot, App., p. 17) allege all these 
 facts ; and the passages need not be cpioted, except 
 for one important sentence to be alluded to later on. 
 
 The title of our pamphlet is, " To Maister 
 Anthonie Bacon, An Apologie of the Earle of 
 Essex against those which falsely and maliciously 
 taxe him to be the only hinderer of the Peace and 
 quiet." 
 
 My copy is post octavo, of about 100 pp., and 
 contains five documents: (1) The Apologie, dated 
 at foot, April 8, 1600. (2) Reasons for the peace 
 with Spain in 1598. (3) Reasons against the 
 peace with Spain in 1598, dated at foot, April 15, 
 1600. (4) A morning prayer agreeable to the 
 Lord's Prayer. (5) A prayer at night going to 
 bed. (6) A prayer for the Sabaoth. 
 
 The book is beautifully written, " without a blot," 
 and is clearly contemporary with the inception of 
 
72 APPENDIX. 
 
 the idea, when Essex had been u close prisoner for 
 eight months, and was to continue so for three 
 more. It contains the first of the "Apologie," a 
 document addressed to the future ; two out-of-date 
 historical documents which had lost their interest 
 save to Essex alone, and for which he would have 
 an author's affection ; and three prayers suited for 
 a man who had been perilously near the gates of 
 death, and was in great temporal distress as well. 
 In fact. Bacon, in his own "Apology," casts up 
 against Essex his " carrying on a show of religion " 
 — a weakness, by the way, to which Bacon did not 
 yield. 
 
 Can this book have been written for any one but 
 Essex's own use, and to his order? It contains his 
 hope for the future, his memories of a brilliant past, 
 his consolation for the present hour of sickness and 
 disgrace ; and it is contemporary with the scheme 
 for his restoration to the Queen's favour. 
 
 The book had subsequently public interest. Eive 
 transcripts, mixed up with other miscellaneous 
 documents up to as late as 1616, exist in the British 
 Museum — one of them in French. There is an- 
 other in the Record Office, not dated; two (of the 
 " Apologie " alone) were in the recent Phillipps' 
 sale — that which belonged first to Sir Julius Caesar, 
 and afterwards to Horace Walpole (4to size), fetched 
 £5 105. My own seems to have been annotated by 
 Dr. Grosart; and one would like to know if the 
 Bodleian and other great libraries have not also 
 
APPENDIX. 73 
 
 copies, and whether they contain any documents 
 personal to Essex/ If not, I submit that my pam- 
 phlet is an early copy written for, and by order of, 
 the unhappy favourite of Elizabeth. 
 
 Mr. Saunders (law stationer in Portugal Street) 
 has no doubt the pamphlet was written b}' a pro- 
 fessional scrivener. The British Museum and 
 Record Office have nothing to say against this — 
 they say it is vastly superior to the handwriting of 
 the time. The book has been shown to Sir E. 
 Maunde Thompson, K.C.B.; Mr. Maxwell Lyte, 
 C.B., who corrected the date of the Record Office 
 Transcript to the date of this; and j\Ir. Scott, head 
 of the MSS. Department, British Museum. It has 
 been exhibited at the Library of the Royal Institu- 
 tion, Middle and Inner Temples and Gray's Inn. 
 Xo corrections or contradictions have appeared, 
 although I was told many had sat down for the 
 purpose, but found " something staggering about 
 it." 
 
 But how do we connect it with the newly dis- 
 covered Twickenham copying shop? Firstly, the 
 date is contemporaneous with an idea admittedly 
 originated and secretly carried out by Bacon; it 
 was a State document, and he would not have it 
 " faired out " anywhere else. Secondly, a slip in 
 Bacon's own " Apology " (quoted by Abbott, App., 
 p. 17) shoAvs that he kept control over its issue. 
 The passage runs : " which letters \_i.e.^ Anthony to 
 
 ^ This query has produced no reply. 
 
74 APPENDIX. 
 
 Essex and this " Apologie "] cannot now be re- 
 tracted or altered by reason of my brother or his 
 lordship's servants' delivery long since comen into 
 other hands." 
 
 A liar's evidence is good against himself. Anthony 
 and Essex were in this matter mere puppets of 
 Francis from the very first, and the " delivery " or 
 putting into circulation, which he himself speaks 
 of, would be under his own control. Till the 
 Queen had seen it, no issue, save this to Essex 
 himself, would be permissible; and we know the 
 Queen did not receive it until she dined with him 
 in the summer at Twickenham, when he tells us, 
 with an author's whimsical vanity, that he pre- 
 sented her with a sonnet which was commended 
 by those who saw it. The poet Bacon ! 
 
 May I somewhat expand the reasons why Shake- 
 speare should employ the Twickenham Scrivenery 
 for his MSS. and theatre copying? 
 
 In 1596 Bacon was absolutely shackled with 
 debt on all sides. He had " rooked " (there is no 
 other word for it) his cousin Robert Bacon into 
 making over to him £600 a year, on the assurance 
 that he would stand Robert's friend with the Lord- 
 Keeper in a suit to which Robert was a party — 
 Francis never did anvthinof of the kind, as Robert 
 pitcously bewails. He had ruined his creditor 
 Trott, as that victim complained to Anthony with 
 tearful eyes. He had stripped Anthony of every- 
 thing, so that he had to contemplate ahenating 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 75 
 
 Gorhambury. He pestered everybody (save his 
 mother) for loans. 
 
 Would he not apply to Shakespeare ? Could the 
 manager refuse the Master of Gray's Inn Revels, 
 when there were four other theatre companies 
 ready to step into his shoes? Moreover, Shake- 
 speare was flush of cash, and had to employ other 
 capitalists, in order to put out his spare money. 
 
 Shakespeare's difficulty was, " How am 1 to get 
 it back from Bacon?" He was a keen man of 
 business, and sued at least three of his debtors, and 
 their sureties; he was not afraid of looking after 
 his money, even from a fellow-townsman. His 
 only way was to " take it out in work " at Twicken- 
 ham, and he may even have suggested to Bacon an 
 idea so foreign to all that Queen's Counsel's ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Twickenham would provide Shakespeare with 
 the amanuensis to write down the plays from his 
 dictation, would copy out the MSS. themselves, 
 and the actors' and prompters' parts without a 
 blot — as Heminge and Condell tell us ; would have 
 them all in order for reference or copying at the 
 moment, and the cost would be put down to "my 
 account with you." 
 
 I must leave others now to examine the docu- 
 ments which I have carefully collected, searched, 
 and studied for many years, in the hope that some 
 lost passages of Elizabethan times may thus be 
 brought to light. 
 
76 APPENDIX. 
 
 "(Sz quid novisti rectius istis candidus imperii si 
 non utere his mecumy 
 
 N.B. — It is only fair to say that these questions 
 have not as yet met with a reply. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Allen. Corruptness of Elizabetli's Court, 9. 
 
 "Apologie," The. Original cause of quarrel between Elizabeth 
 
 and Essex, 51. 
 
 also of his disgrace and death, 53, 
 
 my copy made by the Bacons at the Scrivenery, April 
 
 8th, 1600, for Essex's private use, 51. 
 first written by Essex at sea, when retm-uing fi-om the 
 
 Spanish expedition, and sent through his secretary, 
 
 CufEe, to Anthony, for translation and circulation on 
 
 the continent under a false name, 46. 
 Elizabeth threatens Cuffe with death if it is printed, 46. 
 
 (IST.B. — A threat ultimately carried out.) 
 
 Anthony transcribes it nevertheless, 52. 
 
 French translation by Fontaine (Minister of the French 
 
 Church in London), Dutch by Sir Thomas Bodley, 
 
 Spanish by Standen, 52. 
 
 Spaniards, greatly angered, attribute it to Anthony, 52. 
 
 Francis prints 200 copies to anger the Queen and bring 
 
 about Essex's ruin, 56. 
 Elizabeth furious, imprisons two persons, and orders all 
 
 copies to be got in, 56. 
 Essex wi-ites Stationers' Company (which has no record of 
 
 it) and Archbishop of Canterbury to same effect, 56-7. 
 
 all copies got in during May, 1600, 56-7. 
 
 Essex writes Elizabeth that the Bacons had printed it 
 
 to riiin him, " they Avill also play him on the stage, 
 
 which is 1,000 times worse than death," 57. 
 Francis admits having circulated it through Anthony's 
 
 and Essex's servants, 74. 
 sharp spar about it between Francis and Essex on the 
 
 latter's trial, 74. 
 
78 INDEX. 
 
 "Apologie," The. Bacon's admission about it in his own 
 " Apology," published after Essex's execution, 71. 
 
 printed, much circulated, and popular after Essex's 
 
 death, 72. 
 
 Bacon, Lady Ann. Her power over her sons, 16. 
 
 ■ her close watch uj^on them, 16. 
 
 her complaint of Francis's gambling, 1593, 16. 
 
 ■ her complaint of the drunkenness of both her sons, 17. 
 
 her termagant temper, 16, 17. 
 
 her spending all her substance upon her sons, 17. 
 
 her letter reproving Essex for adultery, his meet denial, 31 . 
 
 her horror of stage plays, 32. 
 
 her protest against Gray's Inn Bevels, 1594, 33. 
 
 how it came to pass that the screw came quickly to act 
 
 on her sons, 33. 
 the Bevels modified: Francis's name and authorship kept 
 
 out of sight for a century, 34. 
 her influence debars Francis from any avowed connec- 
 tion with the stage till her death in 1610, 36. 
 Bacon, Anthony. Foreign correspondent for many years on 
 
 the continent for Burleigh, 40. 
 
 returns to England, 1572, in ill health, 40. 
 
 coldly received by the Cecils, and not emj^loyed by them 
 
 in Government work, '40. 
 being greatly in debt, sets up a pu.blic scrivenerv, where 
 
 he transcribes for sale MSS. he collects from England 
 
 and the continent, 41. 
 
 names of some of the authors, 42. 
 
 introduced to Lord Essex by Francis, 15, 40. 
 
 becomes his private secretary at ^1,000 a year salary 
 
 (^7,000 now), 15. 
 transfers the Scrivenery to Essex's service for foreign 
 
 correspondence, 15. 
 
 its enormous expense, 43. 
 
 to escape from the monopoly of the London Scriveners' 
 
 Company, transfers it to Twickenham Park, a house of 
 
 Lord Essex's, but occupied by the two Bacons, which 
 
 he afterwards gives to Francis, 41. 
 
INDEX. 79 
 
 Bacon, Anthony. Enlists all his old correspondents so as to 
 enable Essex to supply the Queen with earlier foreign 
 information than Burleigh, 42. 
 
 engages others as decipherers and translators. Phelijjes 
 
 (Walsingham's decipherer), Standen, Sir Thomas 
 Bodley, Fontaine, Guicciardini — forty or more, 42. 
 
 deciphering done only at Twickenham, 42. 
 
 the cipher kept back from Essex, 42. 
 
 Standen, sketch of his life, 42. 
 
 thinks of selling Gorhambury, 53. 
 
 plot and counter-plots in Scotland. The Edinburgh 
 
 correspondents, 43. 
 
 bribed by Foulis there, 43. 
 
 in January, 1600, Anthony threatens Essex, when ill, 
 
 with the discovery of above to Cecil, -54, 
 
 Essex buys his silence by the gift of all the property he 
 
 had left : Essex's house in the Strand, value =£2,000 
 then, oei4,000 now, 54. 
 
 the Queen, indignant at the transaction, compels Anthony 
 
 to quit the house after Essex's execution, and the family 
 redeem the house for =£4,000. What did Anthony do 
 Avith the money ? he died penniless. 58. 
 
 work done at the Scriveuery for Bacon's j^rivate profit. 
 
 44, 45. 
 
 work falling short, Erancis writes Anthony to hunt up 
 
 more work, 45. 
 
 Essex returning from Spain, sends him by his secretary 
 
 Cuffe draft of " Apologie " — he is to have it translated 
 by Fontaine, and circulated on the continent anony- 
 mously or under false name, 45. 
 
 N.B. — Anthony great at anonymous letters and writing 
 
 Lady Northumberland, Essex's sister, one as to her 
 husband's adultery, 46. 
 
 Elizabeth threatens Cuffe with death if it is published 
 
 (a threat she ultimately carries out) ; nevertheless, 
 Anthony transcribes and scatters it broadcast, 46. 
 
 it forms three long, closely written sheets, 46. 
 
 Petit, goverument spy at Liege, reports to Cecil the 
 
 anger of the Spaniards at Anthony's pamphlet, adding 
 
80 INDEX. 
 
 that he makes comedies of their Icing on the stage, 
 52. 
 
 Bacon, Anthony. At Essex's desire, when ill in April, 1600, 
 makes copy of " Apologie " for his use, adding certain 
 prayers, which copy is now in my hands, 55. 
 
 to incense Elizabeth against Essex, prints 200 coj^ies of 
 
 " Apologie ; " added Lady Rich's offensive letter as 
 greater aggravation. (Vide Sydney Papers.) After 
 Essex's execution the Queen compels him to leave 
 Essex's house. 56. 
 
 destroys the bulk of his later papers, 61. 
 
 dies of remorse within four months after Essex's death in 
 
 debt and disgrace, 58. 
 
 his death only recorded by Chamljerlain as bringing no 
 
 benefit to Francis ; so that the Essex House money had 
 vanished. Where had it gone to ? Probably handed to 
 Francis, who gambled it away or spent it on another 
 jewel. 58. 
 
 Bacon, Francis. Reproved by his mother for gambling, 16. 
 
 ■ Reproved by his mother for drunkenness also, 17. 
 
 his mother protests against Gray's Inn Revels, Decem- 
 ber, 1594, 17-33. 
 
 how it happened that the screw worked so quickly, 33. 
 
 heavily in debt to Essex and others, 33, 41 . 
 
 introduces Anthony to Essex as private secretary, 41. 
 
 his money straits, 33. 
 
 Essex gives him Twickenham Park, worth d£2,000 
 
 (■£14,000 now), for which sum he afterwards mortgages 
 it, 15, 41. 
 
 directs Anthony to hunt vip " coj^y " for the Scrivenery, 
 
 work being short, 45. 
 
 arrested for a debt of .£300, 33. 
 
 his extravagance and rapacity, 44. 
 
 acts as broker for prisoners' pardons with the Court 
 
 ladies, to whom the Lord Chancellor has assigned the 
 sale, 9. 
 
 acts generally as a professional director of pageants, 35. 
 
 Master of Gray's Inn Revels, 1589-1614. Employs Lord 
 
 Chamberlain's players all the time, 13. 
 
I 
 
 INDEX. 81 
 
 Bacon, Francis. Composes six speeches in the " Masque of 
 
 Flowers," 1594, 28. 
 N.B. — Campion only claims one of the songs in it. Who 
 
 wrote the others ? 29. 
 
 the Play of " Errors," 35. 
 
 intimate with Shakesj^eare from 1588, and with Ben 
 
 Jonson also, 13, 38. 
 intimate also with Lord Chamberlain's players, to whom 
 
 " Gray's Inn much bounden," 88. 
 " Contrives," the pageant at Palatine's wedding, per- 
 formed by them, 37. 
 
 prosecutes Essex the first time, 14, 
 
 apologizes and is forgiven, 14. 
 
 in March, 1600, writes the Queen that his brother must 
 
 sell Grorhambury, and that his creditors insult him. 
 
 Asks for land worth .£80 a year (perhaps c£l,000 then). 
 
 Elizabeth refuses. 53. 
 in his despair, decides to obtain money by Essex's death 
 
 and forfeiture, 54. 
 as the "Apologie" was a sore point with Elizabeth, 
 
 decides to print it, appending to it an intemperate 
 
 letter from Lady Rich (Essex's sister) to the Queen, 
 
 for writing which she had been twice had up before the 
 
 Privy Council. Issues 200 copies. 56. 
 Elizabeth furious, imprisons two men and orders the 
 
 book to be seized, which was effected during May, 
 
 56. 
 Essex writes the Queen that the printing was the work 
 
 of the Bacons, who could also play him on the stage, 
 
 56. 
 does this and Petit' s letter show Bacon to have had the 
 
 control of a theatre ? 57. 
 Bacon acknowledges his publication of the " Apologie " 
 
 on Essex's trial, and in his own subsequent " A2:»ology," 
 
 therefor Bacon prosecutes Essex to the death, 57. 
 • from the fines and forfeitures of Essex's convicted 
 
 adherents obtains =£1,200 out of Catesby's fine, 58. 
 puts off Hickes, a creditor who applies for some part of 
 
 it, for four months, 58. 
 G 
 
82 INDEX. 
 
 Bacon, Frauds. Shakespeare receives <£700 from some 
 quarter, which he lays out in the Combe lands. 
 Halliwell cannot guess where it comes from. Can it 
 be out of Catesby's fine and from Bacon ? No other 
 channel seems possible. 58. 
 
 could Bacon have been Shakespeare's protector against 
 
 prosecution for the deer-stealing felony? He prose- 
 cuted for such an offence an Attorney- General so late 
 as 1614, and was practically Government General 
 Prosecutor from 1592 downwards. Could the fear of 
 such prosecution be the cause of Shakespeare " lying 
 low " all his London life — herein differing from all his 
 fellow actors and managers, who ruffled it bi-avely ? 
 Could Shakespeare, in view of this and Bacon's power 
 of giving employment as Manager of Gray's Inn 
 Revels, refuse to lend him money ? for which Bacon 
 worried everybody else, without exception. Would not 
 the Scrivenery be availed of to repay him by copying 
 his theatre work, setting one debt against another? 23. 
 
 did Bacon wi-ite the Epitaph prefixed to Second Folio? 59. 
 
 Why it was omitted from the First Folio, 65-73. 
 
 Bodley, Sir Thomas, English ambassador in Holland, after- 
 wards founder of Bodleian Library. Acts as foreign 
 cori'espondent of Anthony Bacon. 43. 
 
 Translates the " Apology " into Dutch, 46. 
 
 Acquires the Bishop of Faro's Library as a gift from 
 
 Essex, and adds it to what is now the Bodleian at 
 Oxford, 7. 
 
 Bridges, Mrs. A maid of honour too intimate with Essex. 
 Elizabeth drives her from Court with oaths and blows. 
 8, 32, 53. 
 
 Burleigh, Lord. From his dishke of Francis Bacon's " vani- 
 ties," otherwise follies and vices, will not employ him 
 in the Public Service, 12. 
 
 Campian. Claims one song only in " The Masque of Flowers," 
 
 29. 
 •Carre. Bacon's letter to him about the pageant he (Bacon) 
 
 would get up for his marriage — reveals a great deal, 38. 
 
INDEX. 83- 
 
 CliamlDerlaiu's Company of Players. Employed by Bacon, 
 
 1591-1614, 13. 
 Chamberlain Letters. Confirm Essex's blackmailing by 
 
 Anthony, 43, 56. 
 
 the printing of the " Apologie," 56. 
 
 Bacon chief contriver of the " Palatine's Mask," 49. 
 
 Essex's ill health in the spring of 1600, 55. 
 
 Anthony Bacon's death in poverty, 58. 
 
 " Comentarius Soliitus." Bacon's private note-book, 1608, 48. 
 Court Ladies sell pardons. Bacon and Standen act as brokers 
 
 between them and the prisoners, 9. 
 Ci'ockford. His rise by the ti;rf held no disgrace. Duke of 
 
 Wellington asks to be member of Crocky's, 19, 20. 
 Cryptograms. A false issue, 2. 
 Cutting Cards by one of Nelson's captains for d£90,000 at 
 
 Brooke's Club, 21. 
 
 Dorset Estate. Bacon cadging through a servant for the 
 scrivenery work thereof in 1608. Eecord thereof in his 
 private diary. 48. 
 
 Edinburgh Correspondents of Anthony Bacon. Plot and 
 countei'-plot. Sir Hemy Foulis bribes Anthony him- 
 self in the Scotch interest. Anthony blackmails Essex 
 thereon — obtains all the j^roperty the Earl had left, 
 namely, Essex House, Strand, for his silence. 43. 
 
 Elizabeth. Corruptness of her Court, her passion for and 
 jealousy of Essex, 8. 
 
 Essex, Lord. His arms engraved on the spot where he scaled 
 the walls of Cadiz, 14. 
 
 his average income d£32,000 a year — ^210,000 now, 44. 
 
 rebuked by Lady Ann Bacon for adultery. His meek 
 
 reply. 31. 
 
 sends Anthony the " Apologie " for translation and 
 
 foreign circulation under a false name, 45. 
 
 A copy, with the addition of certain suitable prayers, 
 made 8th April, 1600, at the Scrivenery for his own 
 private use, now in my possession. 
 
 the cipher at Scrivenei'y kept back from him, 42. 
 
^4 INDEX. 
 
 Essex, Lord. Francis Bacon's influence over him. Vide Mr. 
 
 Lee's statement in "Dictionary of National Biograpliy," 
 
 " Essex." 14. 
 blackmailed by Anthony into giving him Essex House, 
 
 House, Strand, value ^£2,000 then, 43, 54. 
 redeemed by the family for ^£4,000, which amount gulfed 
 
 in Anthony's debts, as he died penniless, 54. 
 having taken, as his share of the plunder of Faro, the 
 
 bishop's library, gives it to Sir Thomas Bodley as a 
 
 nucleus of the Bodleian, 7. 
 
 committed to custody in his own house, 53. 
 
 his monopoly of sweet wines withdrawn, 53. 
 
 after the Bacons have printed the " Apologie," reveals 
 
 to the Queen their connections with the stage, and 
 
 their power to "play him upon it" 56, 57. 
 
 Faunt (Walsingham's secretary). Corruptness of Elizabeth's 
 Court, 9. 
 
 Fontaine (Minister of the French Church, London), trans- 
 lator for the Scrivenery, turns the " Apologie " into 
 French, 46. 
 
 Foulis (agent of King James at Edinburgh) bribes Anthony 
 Bacon, in the Scotch interest, against Essex, 43. 
 
 Gambling universal among all classes, 9. 
 
 cause of the Bacons' ruin and of Shakespeare's rise, 
 
 11. 
 
 gambling terms rarely mentioned by Shakespeare, 26. 
 
 disapproved of in " Hamlet," 26. 
 
 Gray's Inn Masque, 1594 ; splendid affair. Bacon 
 
 writes six speeches in it. 35. 
 their play must be classical, and translated by one of 
 
 their own members, 28. 
 
 Harrington, Sir John (courtier and Elizabeth's godson). His 
 
 character, by Bishop Creightou, 22. 
 a freqtient resident at Combe Abbey, his cousin's house, 
 
 near Coventry, 24. 
 a writer on gambling, gives a Hst of games, 22. 
 
INDEX. 85 
 
 Harrington, Sir John. His positive evidence as to Shake- 
 speare's supporting his hungry family, and buying 
 New Place by money from that source, 22, 23. 
 
 Hope, Mrs. " Diamond," a terrible termagant. She frightens 
 a very tough solicitor, 34. 
 
 James, Dr. (chaplain to Lord Leicester). Some of his works 
 wanted for " copy " by Bacon, to write out at the 
 Scrivenery, 45. 
 
 Liege Spy. His account of the " Apologia," which he states 
 is written and circulated by Anthony Bacon in 1599. 
 It contains three long sheets, 56. 
 
 Marlow, Landlady at, chucks out big bargee, 34. 
 Middle Temple Hall, Gambling in, 10. 
 
 benchers refuse me access to documents relating to the 
 
 production of " Twelfth Night" there, 36. 
 Mumchance. A coster monger's game, 26. 
 
 Northbrooke, Gambling alluded to by, 10. 
 
 Northumberland, Lady (Essex's sister). Anthony writes her 
 
 an anonymous letter about her husband's adultery, 
 
 1577, 46. 
 
 Oxford Man. His reason for not attending Morning Chapel, 
 16. 
 
 Palatine's Wedding. Bacon " contrives " the masque which 
 Lord Chamberlain's players perform, 37. 
 
 Palmer (correspondent for Burleigh at St. Luz), Engaged 
 for Scrivenery by Anthony, 41. 
 
 Petit (English Government correspondent at Liege) tells Cecil 
 Anthony Bacon had printed the " Apologie," and that 
 the Spaniards were indignant at his playing their king 
 in comedies on the stage, 52. 
 
 Eich, Lady (Essex's sister), writes to the Queen an intem- 
 perate letter, pleading for her brother. Queen furious. 
 
S6 INDEX. 
 
 Lady Eicli summoned twice before Privy Council for 
 
 it, and threatened with a third, 55. 
 Eich, Lady. Bacon, when printing the " Apologie," prints 
 
 this letter therewith, 56. 
 — 200 copies sent out. The Queen commands all to be got 
 
 in, which was accomplished in May. Recorded in 
 
 Chamberlain's letter, 56. 
 Russell, Mrs., Lady of Honour, 53. 
 • Elizabeth jealous of her and Essex : drives her from 
 
 Court with oaths and blows, 55. 
 
 Scriveuery. Set up by Anthony in 1592, probably at Gray's 
 
 Inn, 41. 
 his foreign correspondence scribed there, as also MSS. 
 
 for Public Sale : among the authors, Standen, Colman, 
 
 Faunt, Sir Thomas Bodley, Palmer of St. Luz, 42. 
 when Anthony becomes Essex's private secretary, the 
 
 Scrivenery goes with him, 41. 
 removed, to Twickenham Park, out of reach of City 
 
 Scriveners' Company monopoly, 41. 
 transcribers, translators, and decipherers engaged, among 
 
 them Phelipes, Walsingham's decipherer, 42. 
 
 its enormous expense, 43. 
 
 cipher kept back from Essex, 42. 
 
 work being short, and Anthony's Irish collection nearly 
 
 finished, Erancis writes Anthony to hunt up work, 
 
 esi^ecially Dr. James' Flanders collections, 45. 
 Essex sends the " Apologie " to be coj^ied, translated, 
 
 and circulated abroad anonymously, or under false 
 
 name, 46. 
 Fontaine translates it into French, Sir Thomas Bodley 
 
 into Dutch, Standen into Spanish, 46. 
 
 it comprises three long written sheets, 46. 
 
 this document the original cause of Essex's quari'el with 
 
 the Queen, and downfall, 52. 
 Petit (English Government Agent at Liege) ascribes it 
 
 to Anthony, and says Spaniards are very indignant at 
 
 the insults to their king, 52. 
 , Francis borrows a petition from Topcliffe, which, without 
 
INDEX. 87 
 
 permission, lie sends to Anthony as worth copying for 
 
 sale, 47. 
 Scrivenery. April 8, 1600. Copy of the " Apologie " — now 
 
 in my possession — with certain prayers added, copied 
 
 for Essex's private use in his illness, 55. 
 the "Apologie," with Lady Eich's letter, printed there 
 
 to prejudice Essex with the Queen. 200 copies (see 
 
 "Chamberlain Letters," efforts to recall the copies), 
 
 56. 
 ■ still existing in 1608, as Bacon touts, through a servant, 
 
 for the Dorset estate copying work. The Theatre work 
 
 still being done there, 48. 
 Shakespeare. Personal and family history ransacked; but 
 
 no attempt made to compare it with Bacon's, although 
 
 he was closely and necessarily intimate with Bacon as 
 
 Master of Gi-ray's Inn Revels, 3. 
 
 • who employed the Chamberlain's Players, 1591-1614, 4. 
 
 ■ ■ and was much boundeu to them, 38. 
 
 ■ deei'- stealing, a felony punishable in the Star Chamber. 
 
 Bacon jDrosecutiug for it in 1614. Can Bacon have 
 
 shielded him from government pi'osecution ? He had 
 
 the power to do so, 23. 
 can his constant liability thereto have been the cause of 
 
 Shakespeare's " lying low " in London ? None of the 
 
 other actors of his rank did so, but rufiled it bravely, 
 
 23. 
 does not visit Stratford for ten years — till his son's 
 
 funeral, 23. 
 
 Shakespeare's position 1586-91, 18. 
 
 • all biographers silent thereon, 18. 
 
 how does he maintain his " hungry famylee " the while? 
 
 18. 
 
 • gambling the only explanation, 18, 20. 
 
 thought no disgrace in those days, or Greene would have 
 
 cast it up to him, 21. 
 jjarallels of Crockford and Swindell in our own time, 
 
 19-20. 
 j)^^'^ll'^ls of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and other 
 
 Court ladies, 20. 
 
88 INDEX. 
 
 Harrington, Sir John. Elizabeth's godson, 22. 
 
 his character by present Bishop of London, in " Diction- 
 ary of National Biography; " often resident with his 
 cousin at Combe Abbey, Coventry, 24. 
 
 acquainted with gambling, 24. 
 
 records in his epigrams; list of games then in vogue, 22. 
 
 gives positive evidence as to Shakespeare's carrying on 
 
 gambling, both with rich and poor, as a trade ; and 
 buying New Place with money derived therefrom, 22. 
 
 example : " The ruin of infant young gentlemen main- 
 tains his hungry famylee," 23. 
 
 ■ Harrington's reason for thus recording it ; namely, the 
 
 local jealousy of the gentry when Shakespeare bought 
 New Place, 24. 
 
 a man not to be spoken lightly of, and quickly resenting 
 
 it, 24. 
 
 hardly ever alludes to gambling in the Plays. Even 
 
 denounces it three times in Hamlet, 25. 
 
 Halli well's question. — "Where did the money come from 
 
 to buy the Combe lands ? " Answered. — It came out 
 of c£l,200 (part of 4,000 marks, Catesby's fine), practic- 
 ally Essex's blood-money, given to Bacon as his share 
 thereof, 58. 
 
 . keen man of business, dare not refuse to lend money to 
 
 Bacon, who was his employer for twenty-one years, 
 and protector against prosecution for the deer-stealing, 
 50. 
 
 got repaid by having his theatre work copied at Scriven- 
 
 ery, and crediting Bacon with the cost, 50. 
 
 did Bacon write Shakespeare's epitaph prefixed to the 
 
 Second Folio? 59. 
 
 why it was not inserted in the First Folio, 65. 
 
 quotes Anacreon in Timon. Did he know Greek ? 63. 
 
 Standen — the spy on both sides. His life, 9, 42, 46. 
 
 Sydney papers describe the printing of the " Apologia," 56. 
 
 Swindell. His rise by the turf, 19. 
 
 Tray trip. Costermonger's gambling game — the three the 
 winning card, 26. 
 
INDEX. 89 
 
 TopclifEe. His M.S. petition borrowed by Bacon for two or 
 three days ; and as a document likely to sell, ordered 
 by him without TopclLffe's consent to be copied quickly 
 at the Scrivenery, 47. 
 
 Wolfe, Greneral, and GTray's "Elegy," 1. 
 
 Whitehall. The same scaffold used at Prince of Orange's 
 
 wedding, and at execution of Charles I., 37. 
 ■ print of it in my possession, dated 1649, shows that the 
 
 north window was not used for the king's entry, but 
 
 the middle one, 40. 
 Wotton, Sir Henry, one of Essex's four seeretaries, confirms 
 
 the blackmailing of Essex by Anthony, corroborated 
 
 by Chamberlain, 43-54. 
 
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