Amongst the eminent men who are frequently mentioned as notorious suitors for the personal affection of Queen Elizabeth, a conspicuous place is awarded to Hatton, by the scandalous memoirs of his time and the romantic traditions of later ages. Historians of the present generation have accepted without suspicion the story that Hatton was Elizabeth's amorous courtier, that the fanciful letters of 'Lydds' were fervent solicitations for response to his passion; that he won her favor and his successive promotions by timely exhibition of personal grace and steady perseverance in flattery. Campbell speaks of the queen and her chancellor as 'lovers;' and the view of the historian has been upheld by novelists and dramatic writers. The writer of this page ventures to reject a story which is not consistent with truth, and casts a dark suspicion on her who was not more powerful as a queen than virtuous as a woman. For illustrations of lovers' pranks amongst the Elizabethan lawyers, the reader must pass to two great judges, the inferior of whom was a far greater man than Christopher Hatton. Rivals in law and politics, Bacon and Coke were also rivals in love. Having wooed the same proud, lovely, capricious, violent woman, the one was blessed with failure, and the other was cursed with success. Until a revolution in the popular estimate of Bacon was effected by Mr. Hepworth Dixon's vindication of that great man, it was generally believed that love was no appreciable element in his nature. Delight in vain display occupied in his affections the place which should have been held by devotion to womanly beauty and goodness; he had sneered at love in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power, and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,[4] misread and misapplied.