But it was no use.
His full pardon Bacon did not get, though earnestly suing for it, that
he might not "die in ignominy." He never sat again in Parliament. The
Provostship of Eton fell vacant, and Bacon's hopes were kindled. "It
were a pretty cell for my fortune. The College and School I do not doubt
but I shall make to flourish." But Buckingham had promised it to some
nameless follower, and by some process of exchange it went to Sir Henry
Wotton. His English history was offered in vain. His digest of the Laws
was offered in vain. In vain he wrote a memorandum on the regulation of
usury; notes of advice to Buckingham; elaborate reports and notes of
speeches about a war with Spain, when that for a while loomed before the
country. In vain he affected an interest which he could hardly have felt
in the Spanish marriage, and the escapade of Buckingham and Prince
Charles, which "began," he wrote, "like a fable of the poets, but
deserved all in a piece a worthy narration." In vain, when the Spanish
marriage was off and the French was on, he proposed to offer to
Buckingham "his service to live a summer as upon mine own delight at
Paris, to settle a fast intelligence between France and us;" "I have
somewhat of the French," he said, "I love birds, as the King doth.
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