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.
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