the impulsiveness and gaiety of Anthony's patron. Lady Russell told Bacon that he was too well beloved in Scotland to be a true Englishman, and that he had not only abandoned the kind old nobleman (Burghley), but did him ill offices, not only with the earl here but in France and Scotland. She proceeded to reproach him (in his mother's vein) with all his past life, and he defended himself in a detailed speech which is very useful to his biographer. An account of the lengthy interview was sent by Bacon to Essex, and there Anthony stated that there was a mortal enmity between himself and his cousin. Sir Robert Cecil (which seems in the next year to have somewhat abated), and he reiterated 'the entire devotion of his heart' to the earl. On the return of Essex from Cadiz, where he had been hampered by the home government in all his movements, he forwarded to Anthony from Plymouth a 'True Relation of the Action' for publication; but the council forbade this step, and Bacom had a number of manuscript copies and translations distributed in Scotland, the Low Countries, and France (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1598-1601, p. 203). In 1597 Bacon was returned to parliament a second time as M.P. for Oxford, and in the same year Essex parted from him to take the command of another expedition by sea against Spain; but its failure to gain any decisive victory brought Essex into disfavour with the queen, and he retired for a time from public life, only to re-enter it to involve himself in more serious complications. Bacon had twice in the early part of the year warned Essex against allowing acts prompted by personal pique to give colour to the malicious reports of his enemies, and Essex in 1598 addressed to Bacon, as his 'true friend,' a paper for publication to refute the report that he was 'the only hinderer of the peace and quiet of his country.' A manuscript copy of this tract is in the Public Record Office; it was published for the first time in 1603.
With the close of 1597 Bacon's correspondence with Essex comes to an end, and it has been reasonably inferred that the later letters were burnt by Anthony to prevent their exposure and misapplication when Essex was in disgrace in 1599 and 1600. After Essex's return to England from Ireland and his imprisonment in the former year. Bacon was ordered by the queen to quit Essex House (10 March 1599-l6OO), so that the earl might be kept in confinement there. Both Francis and Anthony seemed to be then working together in the earl's behalf. (3n 5 June 1600 Essex was sentenced, after an informal trial at York House, to virtual
suspension from all his offices of state. Francis, although he acted with the government on this occasion, took no prominent part in the proceedings, and immediately afterwards, at Anthony's suggestion, he drew up a pretended correspondence between Anthony and the earl, in which the attempt was made to 'picture forth unto her Majesty my Lord's mind to be such as . . . her Majesty would fainest know it.' Here Francis, in his brother's name, begged Essex not to despair, but humbly to wait for a change of fortune, while, as the spokesman of Essex, he represented Anthony to be the most devoted of the earl's friends. The letters, 'by the advice of Mr. Anthony Bacon and with the privity of the said earl, were to be showed to Queen Elizabeth' (cf. Addit. MS. 4130 f. 50).
Nearly three months later Essex was released from confinement (26 Aug. 1600). Soon afterwards he entered into further clearly treasonable practices, and was arrested again (8 Feb. 1600-1). An important part in the prosecution was then entrusted to Francis Bacon, and Essex suffered on the scaffold (25 Feb. 1600-1). At the final trial Essex referred to the correspondence between himself and Anthony, drawn up by Francis in the preceding June, as proof of the latter's sudden change of front. Although we have no direct information as to Anthony's relations with the earl or with his brother during the last six months of Essex's life, it is clear that Anthony anticipated as little as the earl the role played by Francis in its closing scenes. From a long letter addressed (30 May 1601) to Anthony by an anonymous writer, which was never seen by him, for he died some days before it was written (Camden, Annales, ed. Hearne, 957-61), we learn that Anthony was interesting himself to the last to prove his patron innocent of the worst accusations brought against him. The story related by Sir Henry Wotton — at one time a secretary of Essex and the companion of Anthony Bacon — to the effect that Anthony — 'a gentleman' (in Wotton's words) 'of impotent feet but nimble head' — was faithless to the earl, and extorted money from him on several occasions by threatening either to reveal diplomatic secrets to the Cecils, or to abandon Essex's service, may justly be rejected as false (cf. Reliquæ Wottoniane p. 13; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 121, 190, 252). We know that Anthony received little or no money from Essex. He had lodgings in Essex House, but maintained himself out of his private resources. Soon after his removal thither his mother, who treated him as a wayward child to the last.
