A Finding List: Part 3.

Elizabethan Facts and Historical References

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z

V

Valentine Case One of Bacon’s probing into a mysterious crime in 1598 was that of Thomas Valentine, a Scot of many names and characters, Thomas Anderson, Thomas Alderson, Valentine Thomas, a servant, a soldier, a gentleman, who confesses under the Council’s attendance in the Tower. Here is the confession, solemnly arrested, from the Scottish Papers of Elizabeth: 1
Collection
Of The Principal Points In Valentine Thomas’s Confession
Concerning
The Practice Against Her Majesty’s Person
Subscribed By Himself
December 20, 1598

Valentine Thomas, otherwise called Thomas Alderson or Anderson, confesseth that his access to the King of Scots was principally procured by on John Stewart of the Buttery, who keepeth the King’s door, and that he repaired to the King at sundry times and in sundry places; and amongst divers speeches of many things concerning the state of England and her Majesty’s person, the King fell one day into some speech of the Lord Treasurer, whom he wishes Valentine Thomas to kill, as having ever been his enemy about the Queen, which fact when Valentine undertook to execute, after some speeches how it might best be done, the King further replied, “Nay, I must have you do another thing for me, and all is one; for it is all but blood, you shall take an occasion to deliver a petition to the Queen in manner as you shall think good, and so may you come near to stab her.” And Valentine told the King that it was a dangerous piece of work, but he would do it, so the King would reward him thereafter, and the King said, “You shall have enough.” And after this, Valentine took his leave of the King, and said he was to go to Glasgow for a time to his kinsman’s wedding: and the King said “Go, as you say, to Glasgow, and then come again, when you hear that Sorleboy is come.” And so he left the King, and the Laird Arkinglasse came to the King.

(Signed)                                              (Attested by)
Valentine Thomas.                              John Peyton
Edw. Coke
Tho. Flemyng
Fr. Bacon
Wm. Waad

Verulam and burial grounds St. Alban, a twenty minute train ride from London’s King’s Cross St. Pancras station, is the beautiful town where the Gorhambury ruins plead the eye. The Estate was once named Abbot Geoffrey de Gorham after the twelfth century and sold to Sir Nicholas Bacon, Francis’ father, who began rebuilding it in 1563. It was known far and wide and was visited by Queen Elizabeth I. Sir Thomas Meautys passed these estates in 1652 to Sir Harbottle Grimston and they eventually became the Earls of Verulam. The house was pulled down in 1787 and today only the ruins of the hall, and the grand entrance, an early example of English Renaissance style, survive. The present Gorhambury House is late eighteenth century; a Palladian mansion the home of the Verulam family (no relation to the Bacons). The Old Gorhambury Estates was “constructed, tradition reports, out of the stones of the ruins of the old Abbey of Saint Albans, and it was reduced to its present condition when the house of the existing family, the Lords Grimston, was constructed in the years 1775–1778.” There does not exist even an account of Bacon’s burial or funeral. In Thomas Fuller’s Worthies: “Since I have read, that his grave being occasionally opened, his skull (the relic of civil veneration), was by one King, a Doctor of Physic, made the object of scorn and contempt; but he who then derided the dead, has since become the laughing-stock of the living.” This cited by a correspondent 2 elicited from C. Le Poer Kennedy, of St. Albans, an account of a search that had been made for Bacon’s remains, on the occasion of the interment of the last Lord Verulam. “A partition wall was pulled down, and the search extended into the part of the vault immediately under the monument, but no remains were found.” Mrs. Henry Pott relates that she was informed by Lord Verulam, of an attempt to carry away Bacon’s monument from Saint Michael’s Church, Saint Albans, the monument being found detached from its niche, and lying with a broken leg under the chancel window. The robbers, who planned this mysterious sacrilege, evidently had hoped to have lifted the statue through the window, but found it too heavy, and had to relinquish their task. The mystery attached to Bacon, applies also to Shakespeare’s grave. Washington Irving relates, that the old sexton who made bold to peep through a partition hole into Shakespeare’s grave, saw neither dust or bones. “This October 1681 it rang over all St. Albans that Sir Harbottle Grimston, Master of the Rolls, had removed the Coffin of this most renowned Lord Chancellor [Bacon] to make room for his own to lie-in in the vault there at St. Michael’s church.” (Aubrey). 3 In the year 1796, the supposed grave (of Shakespeare), was actually broken into, in the course of digging a vault in its immediate proximity; and not much more than fifty years ago, the slab over the grave, having sunk below the level of the pavement, was removed, the surface was levelled, and a fresh stone was laid over the old bed. It is certain, that the original stone did not bear the name of Shakespeare, any more than its successor, but it is not certain that the four lines appear upon the new stone in exactly the same literal form as they did upon the old one. 4 It has been told that these two were not the only occasions when either grave or grave stone was meddled with. On the authority of a free and accepted Mason, that a brother Mason of his, has explored the grave which purports to be Shakespeare’s, and that he found nothing in it but dust.” (Ingleby). 5
Give a lie a quarter of an hour’s start and who shall overtake it? The honours of repose, which have thus far been conceded to the actor’s remains, have not been extended to the tomb-stone. The latter had, by the middle of the last century, sunk below the level of the floor, and, about fifty years ago, had become so much decayed as to suggest a vandalic order for its removal, and in its stead, to place a new slab, one which marks certainly the locality of Shakespeare’s grave, and continues the record of the farewell lines, but indicates nothing more. The original memorial has wandered from its allotted station no one can tell whither, a sacrifice to the insane worship of prosaic neatness, that mischievous demon whose votaries have practically destroyed so many of the priceless relics of ancient England and her gifted sons. 6 “It is very remarkable, we think, that this plain freestone does not bear the name of Shakspere has nothing to establish the fact that the stone originally belonged to the grave. We apprehend that during the period that elapsed between his death and the setting-up of the monument, a stone was temporarily placed over the grave; and that the warning not to touch the bones was the stone-mason’s invention, to secure their reverence till a fitting monument should be prepared, if the stone were not ready in his yard to serve for any other grave.” (Knight). 7 It would, however, appear reasonable to suppose that, if any considerable interval of time elapsed between Shaksper’s burial and the erection of his monument, any stone placed over his grave, to identify it, would, at least, have contained his name. A gravestone without a name would be insufficient means to identify the mortal remains of any one. [Also see Shakespeare’s grave; St Albans.] On July 20, 1612 King James left Theobalds and proceeded to St. Albans, but it has not been discovered whether he slept in the Town, or at Francis Bacon’s at Gorhambury. It is highly probable that during the prosperity of the great Bacon the King several times visited Gorhambury. Queen Elizabeth was frequently entertained there, particularly in 1572, 1573, 1576 (March 26 she there granted a charter to the Town of Daventry, co. Northampton), and 1577.

Verulamian Workshop Bacon’s brother Anthony, was employed by his uncle, Lord Burleigh, to travel on the Continent, as a “political intelligencer,” from 1579 to 1592, in which year he returned to England in bad health, and he applied to his uncle for a post at Court, but was for some reason disappointed. He kept, however, in full touch with his foreign correspondents, and seems also to have established a Scriptorium where he copied books for sale. Thus 8 Standen writes that by one Lawson, he sends his travels in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, “nothing too high in prices for you” out of which and the Zibaldone MS., Anthony is to copy what he likes. If Standen discovers a lost MS., (his discourse on the Spanish State), Anthony shall have it. At this time he was introduced by his brother Francis to the young Earl of Essex, to whom Anthony found his brother “bound and in deep arrearges,” otherwise heavily in debt. He recommended Anthony as being of skilled ability in matters of state, especially foreign, and hence likely to obtain earlier foreign intelligence for Essex than the Queen’s advisers were likely to receive; thus enabling Essex to conciliate the Queen’s favour by intelligence in advance of that procured by the Cecils. A Scrivenery is, of course, a prime factor in such a service, and the engagement of correspondents upon the Continent proceeded at once. It was originally started, no doubt, in Gray’s Inn, but the Scrivener’s Company had a monopoly which they strictly enforced; hence it was removed to Twickenham Park, a house belonging to Lord Essex, as being out of the reach of the City Company’s franchises, while the brothers Bacon occasionally resided there, and it ultimately became, by the Earl’s free gift, the property of Bacon. Isaac Grüter shall later refer on the Verulamian Workmanship to Rawley, “if my fate would permit me to live according to my wishes, I would fly over into England, that I might behold whatsoever remaineth, in your cabinet, of the Verulamian Workmanship, and at least make my eyes witnessed of it, if the possession of the merchandise be yet denied to the public. At present I will support the wishes of my impatient desire, with hope of seeing, one day, those which being committed to faithful privacy, wait the time till they may safely see the light, and not be stifled in their birth.”
On April 4, 1591 Palmer, Burleigh’s correspondent at St. Luz, is applied to for copies of his letters to Burleigh. In the same month a survey of Essex’s parks with their value is “faired out.” It is at Lambeth, and is beautifully done. On September 15, 1593 Phelips (Walsingham’s decipherer of intercepted letters) is retained on the staff, and the cipher is only known to him, Standen, and the brothers Bacon, not communicated to their employer: Essex. The number of paid agents in connection with this “news agency” was enormous, the chief being an exceedingly clever spy, named Standen, who boasted that he could come and go as a Frenchman. He began his trade in 1562 and became a Spanish pensioner. Walsingham bought him for £100 in 1572, the King of Spain paying him concurrently 480 crowns. In 1590 he was detected and lay eight months in prison, from which Anthony procured his release by bribery. Coming to England, he appealed to Burleigh for employment as a spy, which he obtained, afterwards being retained by Essex as well. Knighted by Elizabeth for some unheard-of reason, he betrayed James I’s secrets in 1604, was thrown into the Tower, and nearly lost his life. The list of correspondents, apparently all paid in meal or in malt, is over thirty in number: comprising English Ambassadors to France, Holland, and the States General, French Protestant Ministers, agents sent specially on Essex’s behalf, Guicciardini, the historian, Bodley, hereafter as Sir Thomas to found the Bodleian Library, shipmasters, and a most extraordinary ganglion in Scotch affairs. Essex had his own agent at Edinburgh: he corresponded with Bower, the English Ambassador there, some of the rebel Lords, and the Scotch Chancellor; while, on the other hand, one Foulis actually bribed Anthony himself in the interest of the Scotch King. The imbroglio is such, that it is by no means wonderful to learn that Lord Northampton goes to Essex’s bedside on June 28, 1599 and informs him that unless he there and then makes over Essex’s House, where they then were, as a free gift to his secretary, Anthony Bacon, that individual will place in the hands of Secretary Cecil the whole of his intrigues with the Scotch King. Essex has no resource but to comply, and the estate, valued at £2,000, became Anthony’s, though subsequently redeemed by a “whip” of from £2,000 to £4,000 among the family: an effort called up by Elizabeth’s outspoken anger at the proceeding. This was matter of common talk, and Wotton’s relation of this infamous treachery is corroborated by Chamberlain, which last upsets Spedding’s faint attempt to discredit Wotton, himself one of Essex’s secretaries. Of course the expense of all this was enormous. From Devereux 9 we learn that one of his agents writes Essex that Mr. Edmondes has been paid £300 for his journey to Lyons, and 600 crowns more since his return, and asks for instructions, as this is much more than the Queen allows her agents. How, then, were funds found for all this? Wotton, at one time one of his five secretaries, tells us that Essex received from Elizabeth more than £300,000 besides the fees of his ofiices, three in number; as Earl Marshal, General of the Horse and of the Ordnance, and the sums spent for war purposes. This last office was over £1,000 a year, and it was but the third in money value. It was nothing for the old Queen of sixty to give her favourite £7,000 in cochineal. But dividing the sums quoted by Wotton over thirteen years, 1588-1600, we get, at a small estimate, of which he is said to have allowed Anthony less. We have now to give some particulars as to the mentions of the Scrivenery on this matter. We have seen that it was used for copying out MSS., from Standen and Colman, and that a MS., relating to Italy was stolen out of Lord Essex’s chamber; so that other work was taken on besides Lord Essex’s. Anthony writes Francis from Gorhambury on November 15, 1593 that Lawson was just arrived from the Earl (who had sent for him expressly from Twickenham), with letters from Dr. Morison (Essex’s agent at Edinburgh), and a most earnest request to return them, deciphered, with all possible expedition. The next is from Francis to Anthony:

Twickenham Park, this 25th of January, 1594.
I have here an idle pen or two, specially one that was cozened, thinking to have got some money this term: I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out beside your Irish collection, which is almost done. There is a collection of Dr. James, largeliest of Flanders, which though it be no great manner, yet I would be glad to have it.

This Dr. James had been chaplain to Lord Leicester, was then Dean of Christchurch, and was a voluminous writer. He succeeded the father of Bacon’s young friend, Toby Matthew, as Bishop of Durham in 1606. Going back to the letter, it states plainly that he is short of “copy” at the scrivenery, that one of his clerks was worrying for work hence Anthony was to look out to see if he could get any of Dr. James’s copying. The next reference we find is in August 1596. Essex had prepared “a true relation of the action at Cadiz,” sent it home by his secretary Cuffe, who writes to Anthony: “The original you are to keep, because my Lord charged me to cause either you or Mr. Fontaine (minister of the French Church) to turn either the whole or the sum of it into French, and to cause it to be sent to some good personage in these parts, under a false name or anonymously.” Anthony was rather partial to these anonymous letters, and one is extant from him to the Countess of Northumberland, Essex’s sister, informing her of her husband’s adultery. The Queen was very angry, and forbade Cuffe on pain of death to have it printed, whereupon Anthony, finding he could not get it put into type, resolved to write out and send abroad copies of it, so that they would very shortly pass into all parts and speak all languages in spite of those who sought to suppress them.
Anthony did his part for Scotland, Bodley, afterwards of the library, for the Low Countries, and M. Fontaine for France. The Liege spy informs us it occupied three long written sheets. During the years 1591-1602, one Topcliffe was a diligent discoverer and violent persecutor of Roman Catholics under the penal laws. Elizabeth seems to have given credit to his reports, and encouraged him. In March 1599, there seem to have been heavy complaints against him for arresting Harrison, one of Cecil’s spies, and he would seem to have got into such disgrace, as to make him draw up a supplication (probably to the Queen), which was evidently of interest and written by Francis Bacon. It must have been written before Anthony’s death, about May 27, 1601. It runs thus:

Good brother,
I send you the supplication which Mr. Topcliffe lent me. It is curiously written and worth the writing out for the art, though the argument be bad. But it is lent me but for two or three days. So God keep you.
Fr. Bacon

It is equally possible that the supplicant may have been one Charles Topcliffe, who, at the loot of Cadiz, carried off £600 in silver and pleaded that it was the private property of the Corregidor, by whose wife it was given him. But the fact remains the same. Oddly enough, the last instance we shall find of this is in 1608, at which time the Scrivenery was still used for theatre purposes, the last of Shakespeare’s plays appearing some two years later. In 1608 Bacon composed a notebook of private memoranda of his property, and his plans for the future, which Gardner describes as a thorough insight into his character. Its full title is Comentarius Solutus sive Pandecta sive Ancilla Memoriæ. It was discovered by Spedding in 1848, in Archbishop Tenison’s Library at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields and is now in the British Museum. It seems to have taken Bacon a week to write it, and it occupies some fifty-five pages of print in Spedding’s volume IV., p. 40. He reckons his property as worth £24.000 (clear of debts), his income as £4.975, so that he was not a needy man; but he thinks only of ingratiating himself with the King by flattering his domestics and physicians, and of noting all the weaknesses of the Attorney General, with a view of superseding him. Though his mother was living, her name never occurs, but two entries are so peculiar that even Spedding in a note gives to them the right explanation. The old Lord Treasurer Dorset had died suddenly two months before, leaving a widow over seventy, and some eight children. The first memorandum is “to send messages of compliment to my Lady Dorsett, the widow.” The second, “Applying myself to be inward with my Lady Dorsett per Champnes ad utilitat testam.” Spedding agrees that these last words stand for use of the will, and, after much speculation as to how Bacon was to get his profit, adds in a note a friend’s suggestion that they relate to some professional employment in connection with that document. It really was in order to obtain the scrivener work in connection with what we should call the executorship. This work was highly paid, and the London scriveners throve exceedingly, so the Solicitor General chose to tout for the work by an agent, no doubt his servant.
We have now linked together all the facts at present traceable with regard to this writing shop. That copying was costly and very profitable work; that these Scrivenery conductors would take up any work, however obtained, whether in confidence or not, is also perfectly clear, as is, unhappily, the fact that they were crippled with debts, and borrowed from everyone they could. Here, then, we have the place where the priceless manuscripts of the Shakespearean plays would be kept under the control of Francis Bacon, at all events up to 1608. What became of them afterwards may possibly be told in Part III: Where are they?