Parker Woodward

The Early Life of Lord Bacon Parker Woodward

Publisher Marketing: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... LORD BACON'S EARLY LIFE. Preliminaries as to Parentage. ITHOUT waiting for the settlement of the very V V relevant typographical question as to whether the Elizabethan quartos and folios disclose a cipher arrangement of the italic fonts, I have ventured to take Mrs. Gallup upon her honour, and to endeavour, in the light of the story deciphered, to supply much that is missing from the existing biographies of his lordship. The questions of his true parentage, and of the parentage of Robert, second Earl of Essex, are not at this date very important, though material. I am concerned mainly with Lord Bacon, the author. But it will be necessary to deal shortly with the evidences which to my mind support the cipher assertions, inasmuch as the truth or falsity of the other portions of the cipher story is involved. The Assertion as to Parentage. (I.)--The Assertion as to Parentage. I do not propose to repeat many details to be found in history, having done that elsewhere; but I propose here to indicate what these evidences are, and where any person interested in checking my statements may find them. The Princess Elizabeth, when placed in the Tower, had no expectation of coming out alive. We may judge of her hereditary tendencies by what we know of the conduct and disposition of Henry VIII., her father. Some evidence that Elizabeth had acquired those characteristics is afforded by the State documents as to the Sir Thomas Seymour intrigue while Edward VI. was on the throne. For this see the article by Dr. E. A. Freeman in the " Quarterly Review " of 1854. He says: "The details of Seymour's courtship of Elizabeth are somewhat extraordinary, and must have surpassed even the ordinary grossness of the age.... It does not say much for Elizabeth that proceedings of this kind...