I thought perhaps I had. Then one day, I received a letter from a reader, referring me to page 240 of Francis Bacon’s Historie of the Reigne of King Henry the Seventh, published in 1641: As for his secret Spialls, which he did imploy both at home and abroad, by them to discover what Practices and Conspiracies were against him, surely his Case required it: Hee had such Moles perpectually working and casting to undermine him.
