XX PREFACE. 



Court, he says with quiet irony, it was given out that I 

 was one of them that incensed the Queen against my Lord 

 of Essex. To Elizabeth s plan of having * somewhat pub 

 lished in the Star-Chamber, for the satisfaction of the world 

 touching my Lord of Essex his restraint, Bacon was firmly 

 opposed, and his opposition gave her great offence. She 

 charged him with being absent from the Star-Chamber when 

 the declaration was made on the 29th of November. That 

 he was absent we have his own evidence to prove, and he 

 pleaded indisposition as the cause. An unjust suspicion fell 

 upon him of having given the Queen an opinion in the cause 

 of Essex in opposition to that of the Lord Chief Justice and 

 the Attorney-General. His life was even threatened ; but he 

 had * the privy coat of a good conscience, and felt that these 

 falsehoods would recoil upon their authors. Essex still re 

 mained in the custody of the Lord Keeper, and for some 

 months not a word passed between the Queen and Bacon 

 about him. But neither of them at this time knew the depth 

 of Essex s guilt. They knew nothing of his first design of 

 landing in England with two or three thousand men, to make 

 good his position till he could gain support. They knew 

 nothing of the treasonable intention with which Montjoy 

 succeeded to Essex s command in Ireland; an intention 

 which had no less a scope than with half his army to join the 

 King of Scots in an armed demonstration to support his 

 right to the succession, the party headed by Essex in England 

 working to the same end. James was too timid or too wary 

 to listen to such a proposal, and the plot was for the time 

 abandoned. Before it was revived Montjoy had come to his 

 senses, and then utterly rejected it as a thing which he could 

 no way think honest. 



In the meantime Essex was released from custody and 

 allowed to retire to his own house, still however remaining 

 under surveillance. Towards the end of the Easter term the 

 Queen admitted to Bacon that the former proceeding in the 

 Star-Chamber had done no good, but rather kindled factious 

 bruits (as she termed them) than quenched them. She now 



