ueen. 



ESSEX S IMPRUDENCE, xlix 



self at a tournament, or a passage at arms, being totally 

 unfit to manage an expedition requiring all the skill, expe 

 rience, and patient endurance of a veteran soldier, the whole 

 campaign was a series of rash enterprize, neglected oppor 

 tunity, and relaxed discipline, involving himself and his 

 country in defeat and disgrace. By this ill-advised con 

 duct he so completely aliened the minds of his soldiers, 

 that they were put to flight by an inferior number of the 

 enemy; at which Essex was so much enraged, that he 

 cashiered all the officers, and decimated the men. 



Bacon, seeing how truly he had prophesied, and ob- 1597 

 serving the pain felt by the Queen, availed himself of every lt. 37. 



opportunity to prevent his ruin in her affections. &quot; After Interces- 

 11, . ,, T sion with 



my lord s going, he says, &quot; I saw then how true a prophet 



I was, in regard of the evident alteration which naturally 

 succeeded in the Queen s mind, and thereupon I was still 

 in watch to find the best occasion that in the weakness of 

 my power I could either take or minister, to pull him out 

 of the fire if it had been possible ; and not long after, me 

 thought I saw some overture thereof, which I apprehended 

 readily, a particularity I think be known to very few, and 

 the which I do the rather relate unto your lordship, because 

 I hear it should be talked, that while my lord was in Ire 

 land I revealed some matters against him, or I cannot tell 

 what; which if it were not a mere slander as the rest is, 

 but had any, though never so little colour, was surely upon 

 this occasion. The Queen one day at Nonsuch, a little 

 (as I remember) before Cuffes coming over, I attending on 

 her, showed a passionate distaste of my lord s proceedings 

 in Ireland, as if they were unfortunate, without judgment, 

 contemptuous, and not without some private end of his 

 own, and all that might be, and was pleased, as she spake 

 of it to many that she trusted least, so to fall into the like 

 speech with me; whereupon I who was still awake, and 

 VOL. xv. e 



