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Both which by the advice of Mr. Anthony Bacon and with the privity of the
said Earl were to be showed Queen Elizabeth upon some occasion, as a mean
to work her Majesty to receive the Earl again to favour and attendance at
Court. They were devised while my Lord remained prisoner in his own house. |
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My singular good Lord,
This standing at a stay in your Lordship's fortune doth
make me in my love towards your Lordship jealous lest you do somewhat, or
omit somewhat, that amounteth to a new error; for I suppose of all former
matters there is a full expiation. Wherein for anything that your Lordship
doth, I for my part (who am remote) cannot cast nor devise wherein any
error should be, except in one point, which I dare not censure nor
dissuade; which is, that (as the prophet saith) in this affliction you look
up ad manum percutientem, and so make your peace with God. And yet I
have heard it noted that my Lord of Leicester (who could never get to be
taken for a saint) nevertheless in the Queen's disfavour waxed seeming
religious; which may be thonght by some, and used by others, as a case
resembling yours, if men do not see and will not see the difference between
your two dispositions. But to be plain with your Lordship, my fear rather
is, because I hear how some of your good and wise friends, not unpractised
in the Court, and supposing themselves not to be unseen in that deep and
inscrutable centre of the Court, which is her Majesty's mind, do not only
toll the bell, but even ring out peals, as if your fortune were dead and
buried, and as if there were no possibility of recovering her Majesty's
favour, and as if the best of your condition were to live a private and
retired life, out of want, out of peril, and out of manifest disgrace; and
so in this persuasion of theirs include a persuasion to your Lordship to
frame and accommodate your actions and mind to that end: I fear, I say,
that this untimely despair may in time bring forth a just despair, by
causing your Lordship to slack and break off your wise, loyal, and
seasonable endeavours and industries for reintegration to her Majesty's
favour; in comparison whereof all other circumstances are but as
atomi, or rather as vacuum without any substance at all.
Against this opinion it may please your Lordship to consider of these
reasons which I have collected; and to make judgment of them, neither out
of the melancholy of your present fortune, nor out of the infusion of that
which cometh to you by others' relation (which is subject to much
tincture), but ex rebus ipsis, out of the nature of the persons and
actions themselves, as the trustiest and least deceiving grounds of
opinion. For though I am so unfortunate as to be a stranger to her
Majesty's eye and to her nature; yet by that which is apparent, I do
manifestly discern that she hath that character of the divine nature and
goodness, quos amavit amavit usque ad finem; and where she hath a
creature she doth not deface nor defeat it. Insomuch as, if I observe
rightly, in those persons whom heretofore she hath honoured with her
special favour, she hath covered and remitted not only defects and
ingratitudes in affection, but errors in state and service. Secondly, if I
can spell and scholar-like put together the parts of her Majesty's
proceeding now towards your Lordship, I can but make this construction;
that her Majesty in her royal intention never purposed to call your
Lordship's doings into public question, but only to have used a cloud
without a shower, in censuring them by some temporary restraint only of
liberty, and debarring you from her presence. For first, the handling the
cause in the Star Chamber, you not called, was enforced by the violence of
libelling and rumours, wherein the Queen thought to have satisfied the
world, and yet spared your Lordship's appearance. And then after, when that
means, which was intended for the quenching of malicious bruits, turned to
kindle them (because it was said your Lordship was condemned unheard, and
your Lordship's sister wrote that piquant letter), then her Majesty saw
plainly that these winds of rumours could not be commanded down without a
handling of the cause by making you party and admitting your defence. And
to this purpose I do assure your Lordship that my brother Francis Bacon,
who is too wise (I think) to be abused, and too honest to abuse, though he
be more reserved in all particulars than is needful, yet in generality he
hath ever constantly and with asseveration affirmed to me that both those
days, that of the Star Chamber and that at my Lord Keeper's, were won from
the Queen merely upon necessity and point of honour, against her own
inclination. Thirdly, in the last proceeding I note three points, which are
directly significant that her Majesty did expressly forbear any point which
was irreparable, or might make your Lordship in any degree incapable of the
return of her favour, or might fix any character indelible of disgrace upon
you. For she spared the public place of the Star Chamber; she limited the
charge precisely not to touch disloyalty and no record remaineth to memory
of the charge or sentence. Fourthly, the very distinction which was made in
the sentence, of sequestration from the places of service in state, and
leaving your Lordship the place of Master of the Horse, doth to my
understanding, indicativè, point at this, -- that her Majesty
meant to use your Lordship's attendance in Court, while the exercises of
the other places stood suspended. Fifthly, I have heard, and your Lordship
knoweth better, that now since you were in your own custody her Majesty in
verbo regio, and by his mouth to whom she committeth her royal
grants and decrees, hath assured your Lordship she will forbid and not
suffer your ruin. Sixthly, as I have heard her Majesty to be a prince of
that magnanimity, that she will spare the service of the ablest subject or
peer when she shall be thought to stand in need of it; so she is of that
policy, as she will not lose the service of a meaner than your Lordship,
where it shall depend merely upon her choice and will. Seventhly, I hold it
for a principle, that generally those diseases are hardest to cure whereof
the cause is obscure, and those easiest whereof the cause is manifest.
Whereupon I conclude that since it hath been your errors in your courses
towards her Majesty which have prejudiced you, that your reforming and
conformity will restore you, so as you may be faber fortunae
propriae.
Lastly, considering your Lordship is removed from dealing in causes of
state, and left only to a place of attendance, methinks the ambition of
any man who can endure no partners in state matters may be so quenched, as
they should not laboriously oppose themselves to your being in Court. So as
upon the whole matter, I can find neither in her Majesty's person, nor in
your own person, nor in any third person, neither in former precedents, nor
in your own case, any cause of dry and peremptory despair. Neither do I
speak this, but that if her Majesty out of her resolution should design you
to a private life, you should be as willing upon her appointment to go into
the Wilderness as into the Land of Promise; only I wish your Lordship will
not preoccupate despair, but put trust next to God in her Majesty's grace,
and not to be
wanting to yourself.
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