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creasing too, and in September 1598 he was arrested on his way from the Tower, where he had been engaged in the investigation of a plot for the murder of the Queen. He complained of the indignity thus offered him to Sir Robert Cecil and the Lord Keeper Egerton, but how he was relieved from it we have no information. A history of the conspiracy from his pen appeared in the following year.

In the spring of 1599 Essex set out on his disastrous expedition to Ireland. Bacon had already so far renewed his intercourse with the Earl as to write him two letters of advice. A third Cassandra-like note of warning was sounded just before his departure, containing two maxims which Essex was only too apt to forget, ‘that merit is worthier than fame,’ and ‘that obedience is better than sacrifice.’ He landed in Dublin on the 15th of April, and on the 28th of September he startled the Queen at Nonsuch, by rushing travel-stained into her chamber while she was dressing, ‘her hair about her face,’ as a letter-writer of the time tells us. And what had he done meanwhile? Practically, as Mr. Spedding puts it, ‘whatever might be said in justification of this or that item of the account, the totals must stand thus :— Expended, 300,o00/. and ten or twelve thousand men: received, a suspension of hostilities for six weeks, with promise of a fortnight’s notice before recommencing them, and a verbal communication from Tyrone of the conditions upon which he was willing to make peace.’ Between ten and eleven o’clock the same night he was ordered to keep his room. His first plan of bringing over with him a part of the army to enable him to make conditions with the government, had been abandoned by the advice of his stepfather Blount, and his friend Southampton. But he took with him a strong body-guard of trusty men, ‘who might have secured him against any commitment.’ On the 1st of October he was placed in the custody of the Lord Keeper at York House. Bacon, who at this time had constant access to the Queen, was charged by popular rumour with irritating her against Essex. ‘According to the ordinary charities of

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