86 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 



ledged it, seeing he did it for the best; and therefore I 

 leave his lordship to answer for himself. All this my Lord 

 of Essex can testify to be true : and I report me to yourself, 

 whether at the first, when I desired deliberation to answer, 

 yet nevertheless said, I would to you privately declare what 

 had passed, I said not in effect so much. The conclusion 

 shall be, that wheresoever God and her majesty shall ap 

 point me to live, I shall truly pray for her majesty s pre 

 servation and felicity. And so I humbly commend me to 

 you. 



Your poor Kinsman to do you service, 



FR. BACON. 

 Indorsed January, 1594. 



To Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great 

 Seal.* 



May it please your honourable good Lordship, 

 Of your lordship s honourable disposition, both generally 

 and to me, I have that belief, as what I think, I am not 

 afraid to speak ; and what I would speak, I am not afraid 

 to write. And therefore I have thought to commit to letter 

 some matter, whereunto [which] I have been [conceived] 

 led [into the same] by two motives : the one, the considera 

 tion of my own estate; the other, the appetite which I 

 have to give your lordship some evidence of the thoughtful 

 and voluntary desire, which is in me, to merit well of your 

 most honourable lordship : which desire in me hath been 

 bred chiefly by the consent I have to your great virtue 

 come in good time to do this state pleasure ; and next by 

 your loving courses held towards me, especially in your 

 nomination and inablement of me long since to the soli 

 citor s place, as your lordship best knows. Which your 

 two honourable friendships I esteem so much [in so great 

 sort] as your countenance and favour in my practice, which 

 are somewhat to my poverty; yet I count them not the 

 best [greatest] part of the obligation wherein I stand bound 

 to you. 



And now, my lord, I pray you right humbly, that you 

 will vouchsafe your honourable license and patience, that I 

 may express to you, what in a doubtful liberty I have 



* From the original draught in the library of Queen s College, Oxford, Arch. 

 D. 2. the copy of which was communicated to me by Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq. 

 Clerk of the honourable House of Commons. Sir William Dugdale, in his 

 Baronage of England, vol. ii, p. 438, has given two short passages of this letter 

 transcribed by him from the unpublished original. 



