PUBLICATION OF ESSEX S APOLOGIE. Iv 



followers, by new seditious discourses and offensive pla 

 cards, never gave her indignation time to cool. About 

 Christmas, Essex from agitation of mind, and protracted 

 confinement, fell into a dangerous illness, and the Queen 

 sent to him some kind messages by her own physician, 

 but his enemies persuaded her that his illness was partly 

 feigned; and when at last his near approach to death 

 softened the Queen in his favour, the injudicious expres 

 sions of those divines who publicly prayed for him, amount 

 ing to sedition, entirely hardened her heart against him. 

 Upon the earl s recovery, and after some months patient 

 endurance on his part, the Queen desired to restore him to 

 favor; and on the 19th of March Essex was removed to 

 his own house, in the custody of Sir Richard Barkley. (i) 



About three years previous to his accepting the command Apology 

 in Ireland, Essex published a tract, entitled &quot; An Apologie o: ssex&amp;lt; 

 of the Earl of Essex against (k) those which jealously and 

 maliciously tax him to be the hinderer of the peace and 

 quiet of his country.&quot; This tract originated, as it seems, 

 in an admonition of Bacon s, which he thus states : &quot; I re 

 member, upon his voyage to the islands, I saw every spring 

 put forth such actions of charge and provocation, that I 

 said to him, my lord, when I came first unto you I took 

 you for a physician that desired to cure the diseases of the 

 state ; but now I doubt you will be like those physicians 

 which can be content to keep their patients low, because 

 they would always be in request: which plainness he 

 nevertheless took very well, as he had an excellent ear, 

 and was patientissimus veri, and assured me the case of the 

 realm required it; and I think this speech of mine, and 

 the like renewed afterwards, pricked him to write that 

 apology which is in many men s hands. &quot;(I) 



(i) Sydney Papers, 149. (&) See note 3V at the end. 



(/) Bacon s Apology, vol. vi. p. 254. 



