Lord Chancellor Bacon, the son of Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, was born here in 1561, and here his father died in 1579. One of the most interesting of literary associations is that of Francis Bacon with York House. He built an aviary here at a cost of £300, and here Aubrey laid the scene of his jesting with the fishermen, although Bacon himself placed it at Chelsea: "His Lordship (Bacon) being in Yorke House garden looking on Fishers, as they were throwing their nett, asked them what they would take for their draught; they answered so much: his Lop would offer them no more but so much. They drew up their nett, and it were only 2 or 3 little fishes; his Lop then told them, it had been better for them to have taken his offer. They replied, they hoped to have had a better draught; but said his Lop, 'Hope is a good breakfast, but an ill supper.'"[52] When the Duke of Lennox wished to buy, or exchange, York House,[53] Bacon replied: "For this you will pardon me: York House is the house where my father died, and where I first breathed, and there will I yield my last breath, if so please God and the King." In 1621, however, Bacon, charged before the House of Commons with bribery, confessed that he was guilty of "corruption and neglect," and, on May 21 of that year, the Great Seal was "fetched from" the keeping of Lord Bacon of York House. A little later, Bacon had "leave to repair to York House for a fortnight, but remained so long that he had warning to repair to Gorhambury." Another keeper of the Great Seal was Sir John Puckering, who died at York House in 1596. Lord Chancellor Egerton also died here, in 1617. The commission of enquiry into the death, in 1613, of Sir Thomas Overbury, was held at York House, and resulted in the hanging of four of the agents of Lady Essex. The Orders of October 17, 1615, to Somerset "to keep his chamber near the Cockpit," and to his countess "to keep her chamber at the Blackfriars, or at Lord Knollys's house near the Tilt yard," are dated from York House. An attempt made, in 1588, to obtain the property from Queen Elizabeth, has been attributed to the Earl of Essex, to whom the custody of the house was subsequently committed. Edwin Sandys, when Archbishop of York, wrote a "secret letter" to Lord Burghley entreating his lordship to use his influence with the Queen for the refusal of the request of the Earl of Essex, who, curiously enough, was under surveillance at York House during the time--October 6, 1599, to March 20, 1600--that he was in the charge of Lord Keeper Egerton.