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 156 THE CECILS

time will founder all your competitors and set you on your feet, or else I have little under- standing." 1 The Queen, however, was still angry with Bacon on account of a speech he had made in Parliament in opposition to the Subsidies Bill in the previous year, and, though she kept the office of Solicitor - General open for eighteen months, she finally gave it to Serjeant Fleming. Bacon was always suspicious of Sir Robert, and was led to believe that he had " wrought under- hand " against him, though he afterwards con- fessed he was wrong. Writing to Lord Burghley in March, 1595, he says : " If I did show myself too credulous to idle hearsays in regard of my right honourable kinsman and good friend, Sir Robert Cecil (whose good nature will well answer my honest liberty), your lordship will impute it to the complexion of a suitor and of a tired, sea-sick suitor, and not to mine own inclination." 2 The venom of the Bacons, and especially of the elder brother, against Sir Robert, was well shown at an interview which Anthony had with his aunt, Lady Russell, in September, 1596, and of which he sent a long account to Essex. 3 Lady Russell was endeavouring, without any success, to promote peace between Bacon and the Cecils. After complaining that Burghley was " so loth, yea, so backward," to advance his nephews, Anthony said that Sir Robert, " whether

1 May, 1594 (Spedding, I. 296).

a Spedding, I. 358. See also Bacon's letter to Sir R. Cecil (ibid., 355).

8 Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, II. 136.

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