The defence which Essex was at first prepared to make was simply the repetition of the false clamour that he had raised when he rushed into the city—that his life was in danger, and that he acted according to the law of self-preservation. But, before the trial came on, several of his associates had made full confession of the actual plot that had long been in agitation, and which, only at the last moment, had been substituted by this open and clamorous appeal to the citizens of London. To Bacon, as one of her Majesty’s counsel, engaged, as we should say, for the prosecution, the real state of the case was known; the full extent of Essex’s criminality was known. Do we wonder that, at this moment, he altogether severed himself from Essex, and took his position as a zealous supporter of the Queen’s government?
Lord Macaulay, who could not have had before him the materials for forming a judgment which Mr Spedding has now placed within the reach of us all, wrote of Essex and Bacon in the following strain:—“The person on whom, during the decline of his influence, he chiefly depended, to whom he confided his perplexities, whose advice he solicited, whose intercession he employed, was his friend Bacon. The lamentable truth must be told. This friend, so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part in ruining the Earl’s fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening his memory.” A more unfortunate sentence, or one more replete with error, was never penned. It would be ungenerous to revive it in presence of the lucid statement of facts which Mr Spedding has given us, if it were not the case that many are still under the impressions derived from this eloquent essay. Essex, as we have seen, was very far from confiding his perplexities to Bacon, or soliciting his advice in those latter days of his life; and Bacon was so far from being instrumental to his ruin, that no advocacy on earth could have saved him. Nor can it be said that he blackened the memory of Essex, for neither on the trial, nor in the narrative which he subsequently drew up of the whole transaction, is the guilt of Essex overcharged. Nay, with the materials before us, the historian could add some very dark strokes to the picture; for he could show that, even at a time when Essex was receiving nothing but favours from the Court, he was meditating treason; and he could add that, in his last moments, he tarnished even his character for generosity by needlessly including others, hitherto unsuspected, in his guilt.
What could have been, we are tempted to ask, the hopes of Essex, or what his final purpose in this act of rebellion? Where could he have stopped? how found safety for himself in any measure short of a deposition of the Queen? He must have known that if, by overpowering her guard and putting a personal constraint upon her, he obliged the Queen to reinstate him in his former command, yet that the moment such force was withdrawn he would have been dismissed again, and exposed to the resentment of a proud and injured sovereign. A subject who goes so far must go farther still. Elizabeth must have been deposed, and James prematurely thrust into her place. It has been even suggested that Essex had some wild dream of filling the throne himself. He was to play Bolingbroke, and Elizabeth Richard II.
Those who take a lenient view of Essex’s character might shape a defence for him out of his very self-will and the headstrong nature of the man. They would say he did not calculate consequences. He had twice before regained the favour of the Queen by manifestation of his own violent and haughty temper. He had managed the Queen by proving that he was as self-willed as herself. He merely intended to follow the same course again—to threaten, and display his power. Such a defence we should not be unwilling ourselves to adopt, if the treasonable projects of Essex had sprung directly, and only, out of his last dismissal from Court and his employments. We can conceive that a spoilt and violent nobleman might have imagined that he could successfully overawe the Queen: she had, indeed, treated him as a spoilt child, and had something of a maternal weakness for him: he might have thought that he could subdue her spirit by this display of his power, and yet not have contemplated any more atrocious act of rebellion. But the ugly fact remains that he was meditating high treason of the most criminal description before he had been dismissed, and while he was still the most favoured subject of her Majesty.
Even to those who knew nothing of his antecedent schemes, it must have seemed a monstrous thing that a nobleman, because he has been dismissed from his command, should think of reinstating himself by an armed attack upon the palace, and a violent seizure of the person of the Queen. So much as this was known to Bacon, and was indisputably proved by the evidence submitted to him. But why, it will be said, did Bacon appear upon the trial at all? If his services were necessary to the support of the Queen’s government, he ought to have given them, whatever his friendship to Essex; but there were others who could have performed his part; he might have stepped aside; he, in silence, might have let justice take its course. “This man is guilty, but he was my friend; let others pursue him to his merited punishment.” He might have said this; we wish he had. It would have been a graceful part to play; it would have added a very pleasing trait to the biography of Bacon.
But such moral enthusiasm had no place in Bacon’s personal character. To retire from the post which his legal functions assigned to him, might have been seriously prejudicial to his own interests, and in the spirit of martyrdom Bacon did not share in the least degree. Meanwhile Essex by his conduct had forfeited the friendship henceforth of all honest men. It must be said that Bacon rather lost the opportunity of doing a gracious act, than that, in performing his duties as counsel to the Queen, he did anything gravely reprehensible. And he performed these duties fairly. It is objected against Bacon that he pressed heavily on the memory of Essex in the account he subsequently drew up of the events. This charge Mr Spedding has quite dispelled. He shows that that account is fully justified by the evidence. The fact is, that for a long time after his death a current of popular opinion ran in favour of the Earl; and the “Declaration,” therefore, which Bacon, with the assistance and under the direction of the Council, drew up, was regarded as a libel upon his memory. People refused to believe him guilty. If any remains of this partiality to the Earl has descended to our times, it will be finally dissipated by Mr Spedding’s work.
There is one specific accusation which Mr Jardine brought against Bacon, which is here very completely refuted. Mr Jardine, in examining the original depositions from which this “Declaration” was drawn up, found paragraphs marked along the margin with a significant om. against them. He further found that these passages had been omitted in the “Declaration,” and he concluded that this om. was in the handwriting of Bacon, who had marked these passages for omission because they told in favour of Essex. Mr Spedding replies:—
“First, it is by no means certain that the marks in question were made with reference to the Declaration at all. Secondly, it is quite possible that the passages in question had been omitted at the trial. Thirdly, whether the omission were right or wrong, there is no ground for imputing it to Bacon personally. Fourthly, the passages omitted do not in any one particular tend to soften the evidence against Essex as explained in the narrative part, or to modify in any way the history of the case, as far as it concerned him.”
The last, the Fourthly, is quite sufficient to demolish Mr Jardine’s hypothesis. These passages appear to have been omitted because they affected living persons whom the Council wished to spare, or because they contained matters which the Council did not wish to publish to all the enemies of the Queen’s Government at home or abroad. Mr Spedding, however, has enabled the reader to judge for himself by publishing these omitted passages.
As very much stress has been laid on the presumed unfairness of this Declaration composed by Bacon, it must be remembered, under the supervision of the Council, we quote at length Mr Spedding’s concluding observations upon it:—