A Finding List: Part 3.

Elizabethan Facts and Historical References

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Returning the Great Seal On May 1, 1621 Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, offered up the Great Seal. Says Sir Simonds D’Ewes in his Diary, “He had been often questioned during this Parliament in the Upper House for his gross and notorious bribery; and though he had abstained from coming to the Parliament House, yet he had the Broad Seal still remaining with him till this first day of May in the afternoon, and he by that means as yet remained Lord Chancellor of England. The four Lords that came for it were:

1. Henry Viscount Mandeville, Lord Treasurer
2. Lodowicke Steward, Duke of Lenox Lord Steward of the King’s Household
3. Thomas Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshall of England
4. William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain of the Household.

“They coming to York House to him, where he lay, told him they were sorry to visit him on such an occasion, and wished it had been better. ‘No, my Lords,’ replied he, ‘the occasion is good;’ and then delivering them the Great Seal, he added, ‘It was the King’s favour that gave me this, and it is my fault that he hath taken it away: Rex dedit, culpa abstulit;’ or words to that effect. So leaving him, the said four Lords carried the gage they had received to Whitehall to the King, who was overheard by some near him to say, upon the delivery of it to him, ‘Now, by my soul, I am pained at my heart where to bestow this; for as for my lawyers, I think they be all knaves.’ Which, it seemed, at that time was to prepare a way to bestow it upon a Clergyman, as the Marquise of Buckingham had intended, for otherwise there were at this present divers able wise lawyers, very honest and religious men, fit for the place, in whom there might easily have been found as much integrity, and less fawning and flattery, than in the Clergy; and accordingly Dr. Williams, now Dean of Westminster, and before that time made Bishop of Lincoln, was sworn Lord Keeper, and had the Great Seal delivered to him October 9 next ensuing, being the first day of Michaelmas term.”

Robe of Honour Title of Viscountess; a quotation by Dr. Rawley toward Bacon’s investment to his wife, Alice Barnham (1592–1650). [Also see Part II: Barnham Alice.]

Rosicrucian Mysteries From Max Heindel’s 1 work is an extract of interest on the topic. See Appendices.

Rosicrucianism. King James I., appoints Sir William Schaw as Master of the Work and Warden General. The nameless and inexpressible fascination of Freemasonry possessed in later years this King and not only. The Great Lights of Freemasonry, 2 the Square with immovable legs set at 90º that represent matter compelled, and the Compass with movable adjustable legs that represent consciousness, the Bible or Sacred Law, compelled James I. Mason Doug Pickford, in I Am Who I Am, The Provincial Grand Master of Cheshire invites Freemasonry Today to his historic home and states that, “the fifteenth century Gawsworth Hall, once the home of Mary Fytton, the supposed Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, her ghost is still said to haunt the ancient timbers and stone of this friendly, yet stately, home, but no longer does the Fytton family, once known as the “Fighting Fyttons” hold the family seat. It is now in the incumbency of the Richards family and, more to the point, the Provincial Grand Master of Cheshire, Timothy Richards and his lovely wife Elizabeth.” [Also see Fytton family.]

Royal Society Sprat tells us that, “The Royal Society was a work well becoming the largeness of Bacon’s wit to devise, and the greatness of Clarendon’s prudence to establish.” 3 The enrichment of the storehouse of Natural Philosophy was a work begun by the single care and conduct of the excellent Lord Verulam, and is now prosecuted by the joint undertakings of the Royal Society. (Oldenburg). 4 Here are some who would persuade us, that the taste for experimental philosophy was introduced into England from the Continent, and that the first idea of the Royal Society was copied from similar associations abroad. This certainly was not the language of the founders and early historians of that Society. It is curious to remark, that while some of our own writers ascribe its origin, and the philosophical spirit which gave it birth, to foreign influences, there are, on the other hand, foreign writers who trace the Academies of the Continent to the effects produced by the writings of Bacon. (Napier). 5