LORD CHANCELLOR BACON
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mouthpiece. "Never secretary," he says, seem to have had any such intimate relations "had more particular and express direc with Carr as he afterwards had with his successor in the position of Royal Favorite, tions of how to guide his hand in it." But perhaps the strongest contempora George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Bucking neous piece of evidence against the righteous ham, and there were no personal reasons and honorable intentions which Bacon so far as we know why he should not have claimed for himself in the matter, was his simply done his professional and official course in respect to the Earl of Southamp duty according to law and justice. The ton, who had been Essex's associate in his extreme beauty of the young Viscount had plans, as well as in his mad ride through captured the heart, or at least the fancy, London, and against whom as well as of the young Countess of Essex. This against Essex Bacon had conducted the young lady, Frances Howard, daughter of prosecution. Southampton, although like the Earl of Suffolk and niece of the Earl of Essex he had been sentenced to death for Northampton, had been married while al treason, had been reprieved from time to most a child to the young Essex, apparently time, so that at Elizabeth's death he was an ungainly and unattractive lad, who re still in the Tower. He was at once par mained abroad for some years under the doned and released by James I, whereupon charge of tutors before claiming his bride. Bacon wrote him a letter of congratulation, On his return to England, in 1612, he found containing a tender of service, and declar the young Countess possessed with1 an in ing that there was no other change in his tense passion for the King's favorite, feeling toward this great noble, "than that Rochester, and an equal aversion for her he could safely now be to him what he truly husband, with whom she refused to hold was before, his humble and devoted friend." relations. The powerful relatives of the Either this letter therefore was a lying piece Countess accepted her views as to the of flattery, or Bacon had not followed his greater desirability of a marriage with heart and conscience in the prosecution of Viscount Rochester, and the King also Essex and Southampton, but had been having been won over to the scheme by his actuated by the baser motives of self-inter favorite,, young Essex was partly cajoled and partly intimidated into acquiescence. est and the fear of the Queen's displeasure. It may be, however, that the best and A proceeding for divorce was brought on fairest way of judging as to what class of strictly ecclesiastical grounds, viz. : for the motives, the best or the worst, governed alleged incompetency of the Earl of Essex Francis Bacon's action will be to follow his for married life. The falsity of this charge life a little further down and examine his was but thinly veiled at the time and soon course as Solicitor General when, Sir Henry afterwards was generally recognized; but it Yelverton having resigned, he was called on answered for the time its scandalous purpose. in his official capacity to take charge of the The divorce was granted by the ecclesiasti prosecution of Robert Carr, Earl of Somer cal Court, and the fascinating Carr, now set, and his Countess, the divorced wife of created Earl of Somerset, was with the sanc the young Earl of Essex, for the murder of tion of the Church and King united in marriage to the young Countess of Essex, Sir Thomas Overbury by poison. Robert Carr, or Ker, a singularly hand whose husband's place he had long usurped. some young Scotsman, had followed his In all the Jacobean Court but one voice royal Master to London, and soon attained seems to have been raised in condemna the highest favor of his sovereign. James tion of these nuptials, although one or two created Carr Viscount Rochester, and after of the Bishops silently refused to take part wards Earl of Somerset. Bacon does not in the judgment of divorce. This voice was
