Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/52

Rh so many pounds a head. George Chapman and John Marston for ridiculing "my thirty-pound knights" in Eastward Hoe, were thrown into prison, in 1605, whereupon Ben Jonson valiantly walked into prison to share their punishment. Francis Bacon, writing to Sir Robert Cecil, July 3, 1603, expresses three several reasons for desiring one of those purchasable baronetcies,—

"Lastly, for this divulged and almost prostituted title of knighthood, I could without charge, by your Honour's mean, be content to have it, both because of this late disgrace, and because I have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn's commons; and because I have found out an alderman's daughter, an handsome maiden to my liking." A second letter, a fortnight later, begged that he might receive the honor in some such manner as would confer real distinction, and "not be merely gregarious in a troop." He was duly knighted two days before the coronation, July 23, 1603, but he had to share the honor with three hundred other gentlemen. In the autumn of 1605 appeared The Two Books of Francis Bacon, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning.

On the 11th of May, 1606, Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to John Chamberlain,—

"Sir Francis Bacon was married yesterday to his young wench in Maribone Chapel. He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and his wife such store of fine raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it draws deep into her portion."

Sir Francis Bacon's wife was Alice Barnham, Rh