ul letters of 'Lydds' were
fervent solicitations for response to his passion; that he won her favor
and his successive promotions by timely exhibition of personal grace and
steady perseverance in flattery. Campbell speaks of the queen and her
chancellor as 'lovers;' and the view of the historian has been upheld by
novelists and dramatic writers.

The writer of this page ventures to reject a story which is not
consistent with truth, and casts a dark suspicion on her who was not
more powerful as a queen than virtuous as a woman.

For illustrations of lovers' pranks amongst the Elizabethan lawyers, the
reader must pass to two great judges, the inferior of whom was a far
greater man than Christopher Hatton. Rivals in law and politics, Bacon
and Coke were also rivals in love. Having wooed the same proud, lovely,
capricious, violent woman, the one was blessed with failure, and the
other was cursed with success.

Until a revolution in the popular estimate of Bacon was effected by Mr.
Hepworth Dixon's vindication of that great man, it was generally
believed that love was no appreciable element in his nature. Delight in
vain display occupied in his affections the place which should have been
held by devotion to womanly beauty and goodness; he had sneered at love
in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of
his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power,
and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most
solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,[4] misread and
misapplied.

The lady's wealth, rank, and personal attractions were in truth the only
facts countenancing the suggestion that Francis Bacon proffered suit to
his fair cousin from interested motives. Notwithstanding her defects of
temper, no one denies that she was a woman qualified by nature to rouse
the passion of man. A wit and beauty, she was mistress of the arts which
heighten the powers of feminine tact and loveliness. The daughter of Sir
Thomas Cecil, the grandchild of Lord Burleigh, she was Francis Bacon's
near relation; and though the Cecils were not inclined to help him to
fortune, he was nevertheless one of their connection, and consequently
often found himself in familiar conversation with the bright and
fascinating woman. Doubtless she played with him, persuading herself
that she merely treated him with cousinly cordiality, when she was
designedly making him her lover. The marvel