213 Soame of Thurlow, in Co. Suffolk, eldest son of Sir Stephen Soame, sometime Lord Mayor and Alderman of London. Bacon's creditors were pressing him in 1603, and on July 3 he wrote to Robert Lord Cecil, that he intended to sell some of his lands and pay his debts; " that he de sired to marry with some convenient advance ment; that he had found out an Alderman's daughter, an handsome maiden, to his liking," etc. Alice Barnham's portion of 10,000 was a large sum in those days, and would be a very " convenient advancement " even now. Cecil recommended Bacon to her mother, and in due time the usual agreements were en tered into; but the daughter was probably under twelve years of age in 1603, and the marriage did not take place until May 10, 1606. The following letter is said to con tain the only contemporary account of the marriage that has been preserved. Carle/on to Chamberlain. London, May nth, 1606. ... Sir Francis Bacon was married yesterday to his young wench in Maribone Chapel. He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made him self and his wife such store of fine raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it draws deep into her por tion. The dinner was kept at his father-in-law Sir John Packington's lodging over against the Savoy, where his chief guests were the three Knights, [Walter] Cope, [Michael] Hicks, and [Hugh] Beeston; and upon this conceit (as he said him self), that since he could not have my Lord of Salisbury in person, which he wished, he would have him at least in his representative body. These three knights were in the confi dential employment of Salisbury. It seems that Lady Dorothy Pakington had been in the habit of giving Sir John "a piece of her mind " in a private way; but soon after she became Bacon's mother-in-law, she began to " show her hand " more pub licly. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on the 13th of February, 1607 (N. S.) : " Sir John Packington and his little violent lady are parted upon foul terms." I do not know
what this trouble was, but it may have been incidental to the contracting of her daughter Dorothy to John Constable, Esquire. The marriage took place before Constable was knighted, probably in September, 1607; but the contracting may have begun as early as February. This, of course, is mere specula tion; there is ample evidence, however, that Lady Dorothy violently opposed the match. Sir John Constable was a lawyer; a lifelong friend and an executor of Lord Bacon. The following letter from Sir Francis Bacon to Lady Dorothy, written in the autumn of 1607, is in reply to a message from her to him relative to Constable's marriage : — Madam, — You shall with right good will be made acquainted with anything which concerned) your daughters, if you bear a mind of love and concord; otherwise you must be content to be a stranger unto us. For I may not be so unwise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your daughters and their husbands, having seen so much misery of that kind in yourself. And above all things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say you will receive my wife if she be cast off. For it is much more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to make an end of those follies. And you shall at this time pardon me this one fault of writing to you. For I mean to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you ought. So, wishing you better than it seemeth you will draw upon yourself, I rest, Yours, etc. Bacon's letter gave Lady Pakington no satisfaction, and she made her next appeal to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in the following letter : — My very good Lord, — Whereas I have un derstood of your Lordship's late favour and care had of two of my daughters, in taking them from the place of danger, and putting them into safe keeping, at what time one of their sisters was, by the practice of Sir Francis Bacon, in marriage with one Cunstabell, cast away, I thought it my duty, by some few lines, to testify my thankfil
