XXX PREFACE, 
the Savoy, where his chief guests were the three knights, 
Cope, Hicks, and Beeston; and upon this conceit (as he said 
himself) that since he could not have my L. of Salisbury in 
person, which he wished, he would have him at least in his 
representative body.’ Alice Barnham, who thus became the 
wife of Francis Bacon, was no doubt the same ‘handsome 
maiden’ whom he mentioned three years before to his cousin 
Cecil. She was the daughter of Benedict Barnham, a London 
merchant, whose widow took for her second husband Sir John 
Packington, a knight of Worcestershire. Lady Bacon brought 
with her a fortune of 220/. a year, which was settled upon 
herself, with an additional 500/. a year from her husband, 
a fact which at once disproves Lord Campbell’s charge that 
the match was a mercenary one. But how much of romance 
or even sentiment there was in it we have no means of know- 
ing. Bacon was now in his forty-sixth year, and his language 
three months later breathes not so much the tone of ecstasy 
as of tranquil satisfaction. ‘I thank God I have not taken a 
thorn out of my foot to put it into my side.’ No letter of 
their correspondence has been preserved, and from this time 
we hear nothing more of the lady which could tell us whether 
her influence over her husband was great or small. The 
gossip of fifteen years later credited her with a forward 
tongue, and from a sentence in Bacon’s will we learn 
that she had given him grievous cause of offence. She 
survived him many years, and married her gentleman 
usher. 
The subject of the Union with Scotland and the Natural- 
isation of the Scotch was still the prominent one before the 
House. On the former question we have a fragment of Bacon’s 
speech delivered on 25th Nov., 1606. On the latter he replied 
to Nicholas Fuller, 17th Feb., 1606-7. He spoke against the 
motion for the Union of Laws on the 28th of March, and on 
the 17th of June he reported to the House the speeches of 
Salisbury and Northampton at the conference concerning the 
petition of the merchants upon the Spanish grievances. The 
reward which he had so well earned came at last. Doderidge 
