But one friend at court he found in the Earl of Essex, the favorite of Elizabeth, the rival of Raleigh.  Essex, however, who could win so much favor for himself, could win none for Francis Bacon.  Being able to win nothing from the Queen, on his own account Essex gave his friend an estate worth about 1800 pounds.  But although that may have been some comfort to Bacon, it did not win for him greatness in the eyes of the world, the only greatness for which he longed.  As to the Queen, she made use of him when it pleased her, but she had no love for him.  “Though she cheered him much with the bounty of her countenance,” says an early writer of Bacon’s life, his friend and chaplain,* “yet she never cheered him with the bounty of her hand.”  It was, alas, that bounty of the hand that Bacon begged for and stooped for all through his life.  Yet he cared nothing for money for its own sake, for what he had, he spent carelessly.  He loved to keep high state, he loved grandeur, and was always in debt.

* William Rawley.

Essex through all his brilliant years when the Queen smiled upon him stuck by his friend, for him he spent his “power, might, authority and amity” in vain.  When the dark hours came and Essex fell into disgrace, it was Bacon who forgot his friendship.

You will read in history-books of how Essex, against the Queen’s orders, left Ireland, and coming to London, burst into her presence one morning before she was dressed.  You will read of how he was disgraced and imprisoned.  At first Bacon did what he could for his friend, and it was through his help that Essex was set free.  But even then, Bacon wrote to the Earl, “I confess I love some things much better than I love your lordship, as the Queen’s service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the like.  Yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for gratitude’s sake, and for your own virtues.”

Set free, Essex rushed into passionate, futile rebellion.  Again he was made prisoner and tried for high treason.  It was then that Bacon had to choose between friend and Queen.  He chose his Queen and appeared in court against his friend.  To do anything else, Bacon told himself, had been utterly useless.  Essex was now of no more use to him, he was too surely fallen.  To cling to him could do not good, but would only bring the Queen’s anger upon himself also.  And yet he had written:  “It is friendship when a man can say to himself, I love this man without respect of utility. . . .  I make him a portion of my own wishes.”

He wrote that as a young man, later he saw nothing in friendship beyond use.

The trial of Essex must have been a brilliant scene.  The Earl himself, young, fair of face, splendidly clad, stood at the bar.  He showed no fear, his bearing was as proud and bold as ever, “but whether his courage were borrowed and put on for the time or natural, it were hard to judge."* The Lord Treasurer, the Lord High Steward, too were there and twenty-five peers, nine earls, and sixteen barons to try the case.  Among the learned counsel sat Bacon, a disappointed man of forty.  There was nothing to single him out from his fellows save that he was the Earl’s friend, and as such might be looked upon to do his best to save him.