Arcana aulica, or, Walsingham's manual of prudential maxims for the states-man and courtier : to which is added Fragmenta regalia, or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorites / by Sir Robert Naunton.

Sir Nicholas Bacon.

I Come to another of the Togati, Sir Ni∣cholas Bacon, An arch-piece of Wit and Wisdom. He was a Gentleman, and a man of Law, and of great knowledge therein; whereby, together with his other parts of Learning and Dexterity, he was promoted to be Keeper of the Great Seal: and being of kin to the Treasurer Burleigh, had also the help of his hand to bring him into the Queen's favour; for he was abundantly fa∣ctious, which took much with the Queen, when it was suited with the season, as he was well able to judge of his times. He had a very quaint saying, and he used it often to good purpose; That he loved the jest well, but not the loss of his Friend. He would say, That though he knew Ʋnusquis∣que suae fortunae faber, was a true and good principle; yet the most in number were those that marred themselves. But I will never forgive that man, that loseth himself, to be rid of his jest.

He was Father to that Refined Wit, which since hath acted a disastrous part on the publick stage, and of late sat in his Father's room as Lord Chancellour. Those that lived in his age, and from whence I have taken this little Model of him, gives him a lively Character; and they decypher him for another Solon, and the Synon of those times, such a one as Oedipus was in dissolving of Riddles. Doubtless he was as able an In∣strument; and it was his commendation, that his head was the Mawl (for it was a great one) and therein he kept the Wedge that entred the knotty pieces that came to the Table. And now I must again fall back to smooth and plain a way to the rest that is behind, but not from the purpose.

There were about these times two Ri∣vals in the Queen's favour; Old Sir Fran∣cis Knowls Comptroller of the House, and Sir Henry Norris, whom she called up at a Par∣liament to sit with the Peers in the higher House, as Lord Norris of Ricot, who had married the daughter and heir of the old Lord Williams of Tame, a Noble person, and to whom in the Queen's adversity she had been committed to safe custody, and from him had received more than ordinary obser∣vances. Now such was the goodness of the Queen's Nature, that she neither forgot good turns received from the Lord Williams,

neither was she unmindfull of this Lord Norris, whose Father, in her Father's time, and in the business of her Mother, died in a Noble cause, and in the justification of her innocency.