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desirable that an authoritative statement should be drawn up, setting forth with all clearness the real nature of the offence, and the evidence on which judgement had been pronounced, and the task of drawing up such a statement was entrusted to the skilful pen of Bacon. The result was A Declaration of the Practises and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices, against her Maiestie and her Kingdoms, &c., which was published in 1601. His instructions as to the writing were very precise, and after a first draft had been made, it was submitted to ‘certain principal counsellors,’ who ‘made almost a new writing,’ so that Bacon himself ‘gave only words and form of style,’ and in this he nothing extenuated or set aught down in malice. The principal offenders being punished, he exerted himself to save the inferior actors, and with such good success that six out of nine were stayed from being attainted.

In the course of the spring of 1601 he lost his brother Anthony, to whom he had always been greatly attached. His circumstances were by this somewhat improved, and with the 1200/. which he received from the fine of Catesby, one of the accomplices of Essex, he was enabled to get rid of some obligations which had pressed heavily upon him.

In the last Parliament of Elizabeth, which met on the 27th of October, 1601, Bacon was returned both by Ipswich and St. Alban’s, a conspicuous proof that his conduct in the Essex conspiracy had not brought upon him the censure of the country. His voice, as of old, was heard, and his pen was still busy, on all important questions.

With the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March, 1602-3, and the accession of James, no great change took place in Bacon’s prospects. He was still allowed to continue one of the learned counsel. On the 3rd of July he writes to Cecil that he is forced to sell the skirts of his living in Hertfordshire to preserve the body, thereby leaving himself free from debt and with a little money in hand, ‘300/. land per annum, with a fair house, and the ground well timbered.’ He wishes to be made a knight because of some disgrace which had