ELIZABETH AND ESSEX: a tragic history

by Strachey, Lytton

  Burghley was indeed very much upset. He considered the whole situation carefully, and he came to the conclusion that perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake in his treatment of the Bacons. Would that young nobleman have ever reached so dangerous an eminence without the support of his nephews? Did not they supply him with just that intellectual stiffening, that background of sense and character, which his unstable temperament required? Was it possibly still not too late to detach them? He could but try. Anthony was obviously the more active and menacing of the two, and if he could be won over… He sent Lady Russell, the sister of his wife and Lady Bacon, on an embassy to her nephew, with conciliatory messages and bearing offers of employment and reward. The conversation was long, but it was fruitless. Anthony would not budge an inch. He was irrevocably committed to the Earl, whom he worshipped with the sombre passion of an invalid, his uncle’s early neglect of him could never be forgiven or forgotten, and as for his cousin Robert, his hatred of him was only equalled by his scorn. He explained his feelings in detail to his aunt, who hardly knew what to answer. The Secretary, he declared, had actually “denounced a deadly feud” against him. “Ah, vile urchin!” said Lady Russell, “is it possible?” Anthony replied with a laugh and a Gascon proverb - “Brane d’��ne ne monte pas al ciel.” “By God,” said Lady Russell, “but he is no ass.”

  “Let him go for a mule then, Madam,” rejoined Anthony, “the most mischievous beast that is.” When his aunt had gone, Anthony wrote out a minute account of the conversation and sent it to his patron, concluding with a protestation to his “Good Lord” of “the entire devotion of my heart, together with the unchangeable vow of perfect obedience, which it hath long since no less resolutely than freely sworn unto your lordship, and the confidence I have in your lordship’s most noble and true love.” Why indeed should he change? How futile to suggest it! And now, when so many years of service had grown into adoration - now, when so many years of labour were blossoming into success!

  For, in truth, the dreams of Anthony seemed to be on the brink of fulfilment; it was difficult to conceive what could prevent Essex from becoming before long the real ruler of England. His ascendancy over Elizabeth appeared to be complete. Her personal devotion had not lessened with time; on the contrary it seemed now to be reinforced by a growing recognition of his qualities as a soldier and a statesman. The Cecils bowed before him; Raleigh was not admitted to the royal presence; no other rivals were visible. Dominating the council-table, he shouldered the duties and responsibilities of high office with vigour and assurance. Work poured in upon him; he had, he said, “to provide for the saving of Ireland, the contenting of France, the winning of the Low Countries to such conditions as they are yet far from; and the discovering and preventing of practices and designs, which are more and greater than ever.” In the midst of so much business and so much success, he did not forget his friends. His conscience pricked him on the score of Thomas Bodley. What reparation could he make for the loss of the Secretaryship, which he had promised his faithful follower in vain? He bethought him of the library of Bishop Jerome Osorius, seized up so unexpectedly on that summer day at Faro. Bodley should have it - it was the very thing. And Bodley did have it; and such was the curious beginning of the great Library that bears his name.

  Success, power, youth, royal favour, popular glory - what was lacking in the good fortune of the marvellous Earl? Only one thing, perhaps - and that too now was given him: the deathless consecration of Art. A supreme poet, blending together with the enchantment of words the loveliness of an hour and the vastness of human destiny, bestowed a splendid immortality upon the

  “noble Peer,

  Great England’s glory and the world’s wide wonder,

  Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder,

  And Hercules two pillars standing near

  Did make to quake and fear.

  Fair branch of Honour, flower of Chivalry,

  That fillest England with thy triumph’s fame,

  Joy have thou of thy noble victory!”

  The prowess and the person of Essex stand forth, lustrous and dazzling, before all eyes.

  Yet there was one pair of eyes - and one only - that viewed the gorgeous spectacle without blinking. The cold viper-gaze of Francis Bacon, heedless of the magnificence of the exterior, pierced through to the inner quiddity of his patron’s situation and saw there nothing but doubt and danger. With extraordinary courage and profound wisdom he chose this very moment - the apex, so it seemed, of Essex’s career - to lift his voice in warning and exhortation. In a long letter, composed with elaborate solicitude and displaying at once an exquisite appreciation of circumstances, a consummate acquaintance with the conditions of practical life, and a prescience that was almost superhuman, he explained to the Earl the difficulties of his position, the perils that the future held in store for him, and the course of conduct by which those perils might be avoided. Everything, it was obvious, hinged upon the Queen; but Bacon perceived that in this very fact lay, not the strength, but the weakness of Essex’s situation. He had no doubt what Elizabeth’s half-conscious thoughts must be. - “A man of a nature not to be ruled; that hath the advantage of my affection, and knoweth it; of an estate not grounded to his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a militar dependence.” What might not come of such considerations? “I demand,” he wrote, “whether there can be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarch living, much more to a lady, and of Her Majesty’s apprehension?” It was essential that the whole of Essex’s behaviour should be dominated by an effort to remove those suspicions from Elizabeth’s mind. He was to take the utmost pains to show her that he was not “opiniastre and unrulable”; he was “to take all occasions, to the Queen, to speak against popularity and popular courses vehemently and to tax it in all others”; above all, he was utterly to eschew any appearance of “militar dependence.” “Herein,” wrote Bacon, “I cannot sufficiently wonder at your Lordship’s course … for Her Majesty loveth peace. Next she loveth not charge. Thirdly, that kind of dependence maketh a suspected greatness.” But there was more than that. Bacon clearly realised that Essex was not cut out to be a General; Cadiz, no doubt, had gone off well; but he distrusted these military excursions, and he urged the Earl to indulge in no more of them. There were rumours that he wished to be made the Master of the Ordnance; such thoughts were most unwise. Let him concentrate upon the Council; there he could control military matters without taking a hand in them; and, if he wished for a new office, let him choose one that was now vacant and was purely civilian in its character: let him ask the Queen to make him the Lord Privy Seal.

  No advice could have been more brilliant or more pertinent. If Essex had followed it, how different would his history have been! But - such are the curious imperfections of the human intellect - while Bacon’s understanding was absolute in some directions, in others it no less completely failed. With his wise and searching admonitions he mingled other counsel which was exactly calculated to defeat the end he had in view. Profound in everything but psychology, the actual steps which he urged Essex to take in order to preserve the Queen’s favour were totally unfitted to the temperament of the Earl. Bacon wished his patron to behave with the Machiavellian calculation that was natural to his own mind. Essex was to enter into an elaborate course of flattery, dissimulation, and reserve. He was not in fact to imitate the subserviency of Leicester or Hatton - oh no! - but he was to take every opportunity of assuring Elizabeth that he followed these noblemen as patterns, “for I do not know a readier mean to make Her Majesty think you are in your right way.” He must be very careful of his looks. If, after a dispute, he agreed that the Queen was right, “a man must not read formality in your countenance.” And “fourthly, your Lordship should never be without some particulars afoot, which you should seem to pursue with earnestness and affection, and then let them fall, upon taking knowledge of Her Majesty’s opposition and dislike.” He might, for instance, “pretend a journey to
see your living and estate towards Wales,” and, at the Queen’s request, relinquish it. Even the “lightest sort of particulars” were by no means to be neglected - “habits, apparel, wearings, gestures, and the like.” As to “the impression of a popular reputation,” that was “a good thing in itself,” and besides “well governed, is one of the best flowers of your greatness both present and to come.” It should be handled tenderly. “The only way is to quench it verbis and not rebus.” The vehement speeches against popularity must be speeches and nothing more. In reality, the Earl was not to dream of giving up his position as the people’s favourite. “Go on in your honourable commonwealth courses as before.”

  Such counsels were either futile or dangerous. How was it possible that the frank impetuosity of Essex should ever bend itself to these crooked ways? Every one knew - every one, apparently, but Bacon - that the Earl was incapable of dissembling. “He can conceal nothing,” said Henry Cuffe; “he carries his love and his hatred on his forehead.” To such a temperament it was hard to say which was the most alien - the persistent practice of some profoundly calculated stratagem, or the momentary trickery of petty cunning. “Apparel, wearings, gestures!” How vain to hope that Essex would ever attend to that kind of tiresome particularity! Essex, who was always in a hurry or a dream - Essex, who would sit at table unconscious of what he ate or drank, shovelling down the food, or stopping suddenly to fall into some long abstraction - Essex, who to save his time would have himself dressed among a crowd of friends and suitors, giving, as Henry Wotton says, “his legs, arms, and breast to his ordinary servants to button and dress him, with little heed, his head and face to his barber, his eyes to his letters, and ears to petitioners,” and so, clad in he knew not what, a cloak hastily thrown about him, would pass out, with his odd long steps, and his head pushed forward, to the Queen.

  And, when he reached her, suppose that then, by some miracle, he remembered the advice of Bacon, and attempted to put into practice one or other of the contrivances that his friend had suggested. What would happen? Was it not clear that his nature would assert itself in spite of all his efforts? - that what was really in his mind would appear under his inexpert pretences, and his bungling become obvious to the far from blind Elizabeth? Then indeed his last state would be worse than his first; his very honesty would display his falsehood; and in his attempt to allay suspicions that were baseless he would actually have given them a reality.

  Essex, no doubt, read and re-read Bacon’s letter with admiration and gratitude - though perhaps, too, with some involuntary sighs. But he was soon to receive a very different admonition from another member of the family. Old Lady Bacon had been keeping, as was her wont, a sharp watch upon the Court from Gorhambury. Shortly after the Earl’s return from Cadiz, she had received a surprisingly good report of his behaviour. He had suddenly - so Anthony wrote - given up his dissipated habits, and taken to “Christian zealous courses, not missing preaching or prayers in the Court, and showing true noble kindness towards his virtuous spouse, without any diversion.” So far so good; but the amendment, it appeared, was not very lasting. Within a month or two, rumours were flying of an intrigue between the Earl and a married lady of high position. Lady Bacon was profoundly shocked; she was not, however, surprised; such doings were only to be expected in the godless world of London. The opportunity for a letter - a severely pious letter - presented itself. As for the lady in question, no words could be too harsh for such a creature. She was “unchaste and impudent, with, as it were, an incorrigible unshamefacedness.” She was “an unchaste gaze and common by-word.” “The Lord,” she prayed, “speedily, by His grace, amend her, or” - that would be simplest - “cut her off before some sudden mischief.” For Essex, such extreme measures were not yet necessary; he was, of course, less guilty, and there was still hope of his reformation. Let him read 1 Thessalonians Chapter IV, Verse 3, and he would see that “this is the will of God, that ye should be holy, and abstain from fornication.” Nay, more; he would find “a heavy threat that fornicators and adulterers God will judge, and that they shall be shut out; for such things, says the Apostle, commonly cometh the wrath of God upon us.” Let him “take care, and ‘grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.’” “With my very inward affection,” she concluded, “have I thus presumed ill-favouredly to scribble, I confess, being sickly and weak in many ways.”

  Essex replied immediately, in the style of pathetic and dignified beauty that was familiar to him. “I take it,” he wrote, “as a great argument of God’s favour in sending so good an angel to admonish me; and of no small care in your Ladyship of my well-doing.” He denied the whole story. “I protest before the majesty of God that this charge which is newly laid upon me is false and unjust; and that, since my departure from England towards Spain, I have been free from taxation of incontinency with any woman that lives.” It was all, he declared, an invention of his enemies. “I live in a place where I am hourly conspired against, and practised upon. What they cannot make the world believe, that they persuade themselves unto; and what they cannot make probable to the Queen, that they give out to the world…. Worthy Lady, think me a weak man, full of imperfections; but be assured I do endeavour to be good, and had rather mend my faults than cover them.” The Dowager did not quite know what to make of these protestations; perhaps they were genuine - she hoped so. He had begged her, in a postscript, to burn his letter; but she preferred not to. She folded it carefully up, with her crabbed fingers, and put it on one side, for future reference.

  Whatever may have been the truth about the story that had reached her, it is clear that she no more understood the nature of her correspondent than she did that of her younger son. That devout austerity had too little in common with the generous looseness of the Earl, who, no doubt, felt that he might justly bow it on one side with some magnificent asseverations. His spirit, wayward, melancholy, and splendid, belonged to the Renaissance - the English Renaissance, in which the conflicting currents of ambition, learning, religion, and lasciviousness were so subtly intervolved. He lived and moved in a superb uncertainty. He did not know what he was or where he was going. He could not resist the mysterious dominations of moods - intense, absorbing, and utterly at variance with one another. He turned aside suddenly from the exciting whirl of business and politics to adore alone, in some inner room, the sensuous harmonies of Spenser. He dallied dangerously with court beauties; and then went to meditate for hours upon the attributes of the Deity in the cold church of St. Paul. His lot seemed to lead him irrevocably along the paths of action and power; and yet he could not determine whether that was indeed the true direction of his destiny; he dreamt of the remoteness of Lanfey and the serene solitudes of Chartley Chase. He was sent for by the Queen. He came into her presence, and another series of contradictory emotions overwhelmed him. Affection - admiration - exasperation - mockery - he felt them all by turns, and sometimes, so it seemed, simultaneously. It was difficult to escape the prestige of age, royalty, and success; it was impossible to escape the fascination of that rare intellect, with its alluring sinuosities and all the surprises of its gay vitality. His mind, swept along by hers, danced down delightful avenues. What happy twists! What new delicious vistas! And then - what had happened? The twists had grown abrupt, unaccountable, ridiculous. His head span. There was the way - plain and clear before them; but she insisted upon whisking round innumerable corners, and all his efforts could not keep her straight. She was a preposterous, obstinate old woman, fluctuating only when she should be firm, and strong in nothing but perversity. And he, after all, was a man, with a man’s power of insight and determination; he could lead if she would follow; but Fate had reversed the r��les, and the natural master was a servant. Sometimes, perhaps, he could impose his will upon her - but after what an expenditure of energy, what a prolonged assertion of masculinity! A woman and a man! Yes, indeed, it was all too obvious! Why was he where he was? Why had he any influence whatever? It was not only obvious, it was ludicrous, it was disgusting: h
e satisfied the peculiar cravings of a virgin of sixty-three. How was this to end? His heart sank, and, as he was about to leave her, he caught sight of something inexplicable in those extraordinary eyes. He hurried home - to his wife, his friends, his sisters; and then, in his great house by the River, one of those physical collapses, which from his boyhood had never been long absent, would come upon him; incapable of thought or action, shivering in the agonies of ague, he would lie for days in melancholy and darkness upon his bed.