PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD BACON. FROM UNPUBLISHED PAPERS. BY WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON OF THE INNER TEMPLE. COPYRIGHT LEIPZIG BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ 1861. The Itiyht <\f Translation is reserved. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE BIOGRAPHERS. Page 1. Art and nature 1 2. Pope's satire on .Bacon 1 3. Can one be good and evil ? 2 4. Traducers of Bacon . 2 5. Corruption of Pope's period 3 6. Difference between contemporary libels and modern satires . 4 7. Hume , Hallam , Lingard , and Macaulay 4 8. Lord Campbell's Life of Bacon 5 9. Importance of a true estimate 6 10. Bacon among his competitors 6 11. His rise in life slow and late 7 12. Why was his rise deferred ? . 7 13. Difficulties of the satirical theory 8 14. The questions proposed for illustration 8 15. Careers of his chief political contemporaries 9 16. His chief legal contemporaries 10 17. True critics judge by the whole 10 18. Spedding's edition of Bacon's works 11 CHAPTER II. EARLY YEARS. 1. Picture of Bacon in his youth 12 2. Moral beauty of his early life 13 3. The Bacon household. Lady Ann and her two sons ... 14 4. Bacon at Gray's Inn. In the House of Commons. His early style 16 Iliicun to Wylie, Mi/ 11, 1580 17 Burghley's relation to him 18 5. Bacon's early parliament life 19 6. Character of the sessions in which he serves .... 20 7. His rivals in the House of Commons 21 8. His personal appearance at twenty-four 28 9. Session of 1586. Bacon represents Taunton 23 10. Excitement in the country 24 VI CONTEN Page U. Mary Queen of Scots 24 12. Popular demand for her execution 26 13. The forged libels against Elizabeth 27 14. Bacon's fame as a member of Parliament 28 15. Session of 1589. Bacon's speech on subsidies .... 28 16. Anthony comes home. The brothers at Gray's Inn Square. Sir Nicholas Bacon. Dealing* with the Jews 29 17. A Queen's ward SI Bacon to Lady Ann, Feb. 18, 1592 31 Lady Ann's care of her son. Good advice 52 . Lady : Ann to Anthony Bacon, May 24, 1592 32 The brothers set np a coach. Lady Ann's objections to it . . 33 18. Session of 1593. Principal members of the Commons. War and plague. State of London 34 19. Bacon proposes his great law reform 35 20. Check to the Government. Lord Campbell's mistake ... 36 21. Burghley's proposal for doable subsidies 37 22. Bacon's famous speech and defeat of the Crown .... 38 23. Bacon defends his speech 39 24. Raleigh proposes a compromise .......40 25. Defeat of the Government 40 CHAPTER m. THE EABL OF ESSEX. 1. A candidate for office. Edward Coke 42 2. Catherine Carey. Her grandson. Robert Devereux Earl of Essex 43 3. Scandals against Queen Elizabeth 44 4. Elizabeth's relation to Essex 45 5. Essex and Francis Bacon. Bacon's poverty 46 Bacon to Lady Ann, Apt. 16, 1593 47 6. The brothers in debt. Designs for raising money. Spencer the miser 48 Bacon to Mr. Spencer, Sep. 19, 1593 49 7. Bacon sick 50 Bacon to Lady Pamlell, Sep. 23, 1593 50 8. Anthony and Francis enter the Earl's service .... 51 9. Duns at Gray's Inn 51 Bacon to Lady Ann, Oct. 3, 1593 52 Ditto, Xo. 2, 1593 52 10. Bacon's prospects dashed by Essex 53 Etffjc to Framcit Bacon, Jlar. 24, 1594 54 11. Bacon's surprise and resolution 55 Bacon to Sir Robert Cecil, May 1, 1594 55 Cecil's good wishes 56 Cecil to Bacon, Mag 1, 1594 56 CONTENTS. VII Page 12. Sickness of his mother 56 Bacon to Liidy Ann, June 9, 1594 56 18. Visit to Gorhambury. Anthony's easy nature .... 58 Lady Ann to Francis Bacon, Aug. 20, 1594 58 Bad news at court 59 Francis lo Anthony Bacon, Aug. 26, 1594 59 Lady Ann cautions her son against the Earl 60 14. The Roman League 60 15. Bacon sick. Lady Ann's consolations 61 Lady Ann lo Anthony liacan, June 3, 1595 62 The Queen's bounty to Bacon. She appoints him her Learned Counsel and gives him the Pitts 62 16. Lady Ann to Anthony Bacon, Any. 7, 1595 63 1?. Sir Walter Raleigh. Bacon's proposed compliment to the Guiana voyage 64 18. Essex jealous. Burghley and Cecil support Raleigh's voyage . 65 19. Fleming made Solicitor-General 65 20. The error about Twickenham Park 66 21. Essex' patch of meadow 67 22. Elizabeth's munificence to Bacon .... ... 68 23. She grants him a reversion of Twickenham Park .... 69 CHAPTER IV. TREASON OF SIB JOHN SMYTH. 1. Bacon's legal employments ........ 71 2. Expedition sails for Cadiz 71 Francis lo Anthony Bacon, Man 15, 1596 72 Ditto, May 31, 1596 72 3. Essex' superfluous kindness 73 ESHB.K to Eijerton, May 27, 1596 74 4. Excitement in the country 74 5. Sir John Smyth 75 6. Attempt to excite mutiny 77 7. Bacon one of the commissioners to take his examination. De- clares the crime high treason .78 8. News from Cadiz 79 9. Discontent of Essex. Cecil Secretary of State. Lady Ann's warnings to her sons 80 Lady Ann to Anthony Bucon, July 10, 1596 81 Bacon's differences with Essex 83 10. They cease their intercourse. Francis in love. Lady Hatton and her suitors 83 11. Essex deserts his post. Falls under the sway of Sir Christopher Blount 84 12. Lady Leicester and her children 85 13. Blount 86 14. Blount's influence. Essex' choice between Bacon and Blount . 87 VIII CONTENTS. Page 15. Session of 1597. Bacon member for Ipswich .... 8!) 16. Great motion on the State of the Country 90 17. Yeomen and the land. Deer and parks 91 18. Jesuits on the land question 92 19. Bacon's proposals 93 20- Conference with the Lords 93 21. Essex opposes Bacon's bills 93 22. Success of Bacon's measures 94 23. Grant of Cheltenham and Charlton Kings 95 CHAPTER V. THE IRISH PLOT. 1. Roman Catholic conspiracy at Essex House .... 96 2. Plan of the plotters ^7 3. Irish insurrection 98 4. Movement of English troops 99 5. Essex gains the command 99 6. Coke marries Lady Hatton 100 7. Essex visits Gray's Inn. Bacon's advice rejected . . . 101 8. The Jesuits approve the plot 102 9. Roman Catholics in command 103 10. Lord Southampton 104 11. Essex confers with O'Xeile 104 12. Armaments in England. Essex returns 105 13. Shakespeare's Richard the Second. Essex arrested . . . 106 14. Montjoy goes to Dublin. Wood's confession .... 107 15. Essex deserted by all save Bacon 107 16. Bacon's generosity 108 17. Bacon ignorant of Essex' real crimes 109 18. Intercedes with the Queen 110 19. Hayward's seditious tract Ill 20. Curious conversation of Bacon and Elizabeth .... Ill 21. Bacon's note to Howard 112 22. Essex liberated. The Queen's pledge 113 CHAPTER VI. THE STREET FIGHT. 1. The plot renewed 115 2. Catesby, Wright, and Winter 116 3. Proposal to assassinate the Queen 116 4. Valentine Thomas' secret mission 117 Points of Thomas' confession 117 The secret kept 118 5. Attempt on Kaleigh 119 6. The conspirators resolve to rise 119 7. Send for Phillips to Essex House. Shakespeare's play performed 120 8. The street demonstration . 121 CONTENTS. IX Page 9. Elizabeth at Whitehall 121 10. Fight in the city. The conspirators in jail 121 11. Essex put on trial 123 12. Bacon's speech 123 13. Essex confesses against bis accomplices 126 14. State Paper on Essex's treason 127 l.j. Elizabeth's gifts to Bacon 129 Council to Cuku, AUIJ. 6, 1601 130 Hi. Mysterious escape of Monteagle from justice .... 131 17. Lord Campbell's judgment of Bacon's conduct .... 133 18. Contemporary opinions. Double elections for Ipswich and St. Albaus 133 CHAPTER VII. THE NEW REIGN. 1. Desire of James for peace with Spain 135 ". Bacon and the new court 136 3. The session of 1604. Election of Speaker 138 4. Grievances of the Commons. Union with Scotland . . . 139 5. Bacon's'position in the House 140 6. Lord Campbell's errors 141 7. Alice Barnham 142 8. Alice Barnham's mother and sisters 143 9. Sir John Pakington 144 10. Westwood Park 146 11. Bacon in love 148 12. The Powder Plot 148 Hticun to Cecil, Nov. 8, 1605 149 13. Bacon's tolerance. Case of Tobie Mathews .... 150 14. Sir John and the ladies in London 151 15. Differences between Sir John and Bacon. Bacon's political views 153 16. Cecil consults him on the money bills 155 lincon lo Cecil, Feb. 10, 1606 156 17. Warm debate on subsidies 156 18. Bacon's fears of a division 157 Uaconto Cecil, Mar. 22, 1606 158 Rumour that the King is slain 158 19. Bacon's speech 15!> 20. Proposes to Alice. His worldly position and prospects . . 1GO 21. The wedding feast. Alice's dowry 161 L'L'. A new disappointment. Egerton's suggestion .... 163 23. The Government in difficulties. Bacon conciliated . . . 164 24. Fuller's speech against the Scots 165 25. Bacon's reply 167 26. Bacon appointed Solicitor-General 169 X CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER VIII. SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 1. Six years of office 170 2. Cecil's riches and prosperity 170 3. Bacon's ceremonial politeness with his cousin .... 171 Bacon lo Cecil, Aug. 24, 1608 172 Essay on Deformity 173 4. The Court of Wales 173 5. Sir John Pakington's quarrel with Lord Eure .- 174 6. Bacon argues against Pakington 175 7. Bacon one of the founders of America 176 8. England and Spain as colonists 176 9. Spanish designs against Virginia. Fleet under Gates and Summers 10. The city of Raleigh 11. The Solicitor in opposition 12. Crown privileges for sale 13. Coke against Bacon 14. Bacon's speech on the feudal burthens 15. Bargains made and broken 16. Death of Cecil. Bacon's answer to James 17. Bacon proposed for Secretary of State 18. Court of Wards Bucon to Lord Rochester, Nov. 14, 1612 Wards and Liveries 19. Ireland 20. Sir Arthur Chichester's government 21. Irish members in London. Bacon's advice I!acon to Kinij James, Aug. 13, 1613 22. Bacon made Attorney-General. Coke indignant 23. A new session. Bacon returned for Cambridge , Ipswich, and St. Albans. Sits for Cambridge 191 24. Curious debate on these elections. Vast popularity of the Attorney-General 192 CHAPTER IX. ST. JOHN AND PEACHAM. 1. Lord Campbell's omissions 195 2. Offence of Oliver St. John 195 3. St. John sent to the Tower 197 4. His amazing abjectness 197 St. John lo tlie Kinij 198 5. Lord Campbell's mistakes 199 6. The case of Peacham 200 7. His infamous character 201 8. Difficulty suggested by Hallnm. Peacham libels his bishop . 202 CONTENTS. XI Page 9. Condemned by Archbishop Abbott 203 10. Discovery of his political libels 203 11. Peacham's accusation of his patron John Paulett . . . 204 12. Commission of examination 205 13. Question by torture 207 14. Character of the age 208 15. Bacon opposed to judicial torture 209 16. Peacham's condemnation 211 17. Confession 211 18. Macaulay's assertion on the practice of consulting the judges . 212 19. The precedent of Legate 213 20. Charge against Paulett abandoned 214 CHAPTER X. RACE WITH COKE. 1. Bacon and Somerset 215 2. Character and policy of Somerset 215 3. The Romanist party at Court. Lady Somerset. Murder of Overbury 216 4. Publication of ' The Wife.' 217 5- Inquiry into the crime. Rise of Villiers 218 6. Trial of the murderers 219 7. The Earl and Countess arraigned 220 8. Bacon pleads for clemency 221 9. Bacon's domestic trials. Sir John quarrels with Lady Pakington. Warrant of search 222 10. Lady Pakington tries to rule Bacon. His defence . . . 223 Bacon to Lady Pukimjton, 1616 224 11. Sir William and Sir Thomas Monson 225 12. Bacon's efforts to save them. Coke's animosity .... 226 Bacon to Cuke, Apt. 16, 1616 (?) 226 13. Popular feeling against Sir Thomas 227 14. Fall of Coke 227 15. Case of Commendams 228 16. James' message to Coke through Bacon 230 17. His message direct 230 18. The judges on their trial 231 19. Bacon defends himself against Coke 232 20. Coke condemned by Egerton ....... 232 21. Bacon sworn of the Council. Procures the restoration of Dr. Burgess 233 22. Coke in the Star Chamber 233 23. Lady Hatton deserts him 23f> 24. Monson's case referred to Bacon 235 Bacon to the King, Dec. 7, 1616 236 Monson pardoned 237 XII CONTENTS. Page 25. Illness of Egerton. Public business 237 26. Mysterious tale of Lady Arabella having borne a son. Bacon's inquiry 238 27. Bacon receives the Seals 240 CHAPTER XL LORD CHANCELLOR. 1. Rage of Coke 242 2. Story of Egerton's later days 243 3. The gold and silver thread business 244 4. Egerton opposes the patent to Mompesson 245 5. Buckingham seeks his ruin 245 6. Buckingham loses by the transfer of the Seals to Bacon . . 246 7. Coke's insinuations against Bacon 246 8. Lady Hatton 247 9. Frances Coke sold to Sir John Villiers. Lady Hatton's opposi- tion. Escape to Oatlands 248 10. Bacon refuses Lady Buckingham's request for warrants of arrest 250 11. Coke breaks into Withipole's house. His wife appeals to the Council 250 12. Coke, threatened with proceedings, submits .... 251 13. Lord Campbell's errors 253 14. Buckingham's interference 253 15. Marriage of Sir John Villiers and Frances Coke . . . . 254 16. Domestic broils of Sir John Pakington. Bacon's delicacy and consideration 255 Chamberlain lo Carlelon, July 5, 1617 256 17. Bacon's rise and prosperity . . 256 18. Suddenness of his fall 257 CHAP TEE XII. FEES. 1. Universality of fees 258 2. Fees in Government offices 258 3. Fees on the bench 259 4. Fees at the bar 260 5. Fees not an old grievance 261 6. Bills to limit fees rejected by the Commons .... 262 Sir Fnincis [(aeon's siirech on fees in 1606 263 7. Desire to change the system 266 8. Lady Buckingham hostile to Bacon. Sir Lionel Cranfield. Sir James Ley 267 9. Suffolk prosecuted and ruined 268 10. Sir Henry Ye'.vcrton 269 CONTENTS. XIII Page 11. Prosecuted in Star Chamber 270 Bacon's notes of a speech, Nov. 10, 1620 271 Yelverton condemned 272 12. Montagu becomes Treasurer 272 13. Coventry Attorney 273 14. Character of Cranfield 273 15. His ambition and unscrupulousness 274 16. Lady Buckingham's lover, John Williams 275 17. The confederacy against Bacon 277 18. John Churchill 279 19. The Chancery clerks 280 20. Ralph Hansby's case 281 21. Sir George Reynell 283 22. The new session . 284 CHAPTER XIII. THE ACCUSATION. 1. An empty Treasury. Bacon's jest 285 2. Bacon proposes a new parliament. Foreign affairs . . . 285 3. Agitation in England 287 4. Bacon proposes reform 287 5. Preliminaries of the session 288 Bacon nnd others to Buckingham, Nov. 29, 1620 .... 288 6. Writs go out. James alarmed by the elections .... 293 7. Stern character of the new parliament. Rage against Papists 293 8. Coke heads the fanatics 294 9. Bacon's tolerance unpopular 295 10. Coke takes advantage of it 295 11. Inquiry into abuses welcomed by Bacon 296 12. Quarrel of Scrope and Berkshire. Bacon offends I/ady Buck- ingham 297 13. Cranfleld attacks the Chancery 298 14. Buckingham urges the Commons to demand victims . . . 298 15. Aubrey and Egerton's cases brought forward .... 300 16. Heneage Finch defends Bacon 301 17. Churchill's evidence 302 18. Bacon's confidence 303 19. Bacon sick. His remarks on the accusation. Declaration of his innocence 303 20. The twenty-two charges ... .... 305 21. The case sent up to the Lords 309 22. Ley appointed to preside 310 23. Bacon's self-examination 310 24. Preliminary vote in the Peers 312 25. Bacon's confession 314 26. Ley delivers sentence 316 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. AFTER SENTENCE. 1. Bacon's statement of the case 317 2. End of the movement for reform 317 3. Division o spoil among the confederates. Fall of Montagu . 318 4. Bacon's fine remitted 319 5. Bacon's fall an accident, not a judgment, in the opinion of his contemporaries 320 6. Busy with his books. His witty sayings. Applies for the Provostship of Eton , . 322 Bacon to Conway, ilnr. 25, 1623 323 7. Conway supports his suit 324 Bacon to Cunway, Mar. 29, 1623 324 Dignity of Bacon's conduct 325 8. Bacon's letters neither venal nor insincere . ... 326 9. Bacon to King James, Mar. 29, 1623 327 Ditto Conway, Apt. 23, 1623 327 10. Ditto, Sep. 4, 1623 328 Buckingham adverse. Provostship given to Sir Henry Wotton . 329 11. Bacon's literary work 329 12. Fall of his enemies. Coke. Misery of Sir John Villiers . . 329 13. Fall of Churchill and Cranfield 331 14. Fall of Williams 332 15. Death of Bacon 333 APPENDICES. I. LETTER FROM ANN LADY BACON TO LORD BURGHLEY . . 335 II. LETTERS FROM LADY BACON TO HER SON ANTHONY . . 338 III. LETTER FROM ANNE BACON TO HER BROTHERS FRANCIS AND ANTHONY 363 IV. LETTF.RS FROM FRANCIS BACON TO VARIOUS PERSONS . . 364 V. GRANTS FROM QOEEN ELIZABETH TO EDWARD BACON AND FRANCIS BACON 385 VI. LETTER FROM ANTHONY BACON TO FRANCIS BACON . . 414 VII. LETTERS BY THE EARL OF ESSEX 415 VIII. EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTERS . 417 IX. REPORT BY BACON AND OTHERS TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL . 421 FRANCIS BACON. CHAPTER I. The Biographers. 1. A PINE wit has told the world that all men and women, all youths and girls, are true poets, save only those who write in verse. In such a saying, as in all good wit, there lies a core of truth. Men who have kept the poetry of their lives unshaped by art stand face to face with nature, seeing the blue sky, the bursting leaf, the rising and setting sun, the green glade, the flowing sea, as these things are; not as they appear in books, cut off into lengths of lines, tricked into antithetical phrase, rounded and closed by rhyme. No false rule of art impels a man who sees and feels, but who does not mean to write or paint, to squint at a group of elms, to peer through his hand at moonlight shimmering on a lake, or at sunset on the tops of a range of hills; for such a man has no thought of how tree, lake, and alp may be de- scribed in verse of five or six feet, or of the lines in which this or that old painter would have framed them. He comes fresh to nature, and has an intimate and poetical relation to her. 2. As with nature, so with man. That figure, decked by Pope, Lord Bacon. 1 2 FRANCIS BACON. Th'e wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind over which fools have grinned and rogues have rubbexl their palms for more than a hundred years, has never yet been recognised by honest hearts. Men who trust the face of nature,, not the point of satire, turn from this daub as from a false note in song, or from a painted living face. The young and pure re- iect satire, and they do well to reject it; for satire is the disease of art. The young and pure will not be- lieve a thing true because it is made to look false. Taught by heaven, and not by rules, they judge of character in the mass. Nature abhors antitheses; loving the soft approach of dawn, the slow sprouting of the seed, and moving by a delicate gradation through her round of calm and storm, of growth and life. Her forks never flash from a blue vault, nor do her waves cease to crest when the wind which whipped them lulls, ffra- dation is her law. If she may make a god or devil, she will not put the two in one. That is the task of art; but of art in its lowest stage of depravity and de- cline. 3. Can you be good and evil, wise and mean? Grazing on the girl-like face in Hilyard's miniature, conning the deep lore of the Essays, toying with the mirth of the Apophthegms, lingering on the tale of a gay and pure, a busy and loving life, how can they who judge by wholes and not by parts admit that one so eminently wise and good was also a false friend, a venal judge, a dishonest man? 4. Yet this comedy of errors has run its course from Alexander Pope to John Lord Campbell Strange THE BIOGRAPHERS. 6 to say, the grave writers have gone nearly as far i. astray from fact as those bright Parthians who, in ~ choosing their shafts, look rather to the feather than the flight. With them Bacon is, in turn, abject, venal, proud, profuse ungrateful for the gifts of Essex, mercenary in his love for Alice Barnham, callous to the groans of Peacham, servile in the House of Com- mons, corrupt on the judicial bench! 5. The lie against nature in the name of Francis Bacon broke into high literary force with Pope. Be- fore his day the scandal had only oozed in the slime of Welden, Chamberlain, and D'Ewes. Pope picked it, as he might have picked a rough old flint, from the mud; fanged it, poisoned it, set it on his shaft: Meanest of mankind! What if it be a lie? May not a lie kill? It was not the only scum which in Pope's day frothed to the head. What man then believed in nobleness, even in intellect, unless that intellect were of the lowest type or served the basest cause? The sole end of wit was defamation, the sole end of poetry vice. Of pure genius there was little, of high virtue less. All glorious characters, all serious things, if not gone wholly from the minds of men, lingered in their memories only to be reviled. When Bacon became the meanest of mankind, Ealeigh was assailed, and Shakespeare driven from the stage. Kowe was tainting our national drama, St. John undoing our political philosophy, Hume training his mind through doubts of God for the task of painting the most manly passage of arms in all history as our greatest blunder and our 1* 4 FRANCIS BACOX. 1.5. darkest shame. How should Francis Bacon have escaped his share in this moral wreck? 6. Xo man of rank in letters had yet soiled his fame; for the foes who had lived in his own age, who had danced with him in the Gray's Inn masques, or had bowed to him as he rode down to the House, even those who, like Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Edward Coke, had most to fear from his gladiatorial strength, and in the madness of that fear pursued him with taunts and hate, had never dreamt of denying that his virtues and his courage stood fairly in line with his vast abilities of tongue and pen. They had called him blind when they could not see, as he could, all the faces of an object. They had denied to his gra- titude the strong vitality of his intellectual power. They had spoken of his vanity, of his presumption, of his dandyism, of his unsound learning and unsafe law; but the malice of these rivals had never strayed so far as to accuse him, to the ears of men who heard him in the House of Commons and met him at the tavern or the play, of a radical meanness of heart. Coke had called him a fool. Cecil had fancied him a dupe. But neither his rancorous rival at the bar, nor his sordid cousin at Whitehall, had ever thought him a rascal. That was the invention of a later time. The age that took Voltaire to be its guide, found out that Bacon had been a rogue. 7. Since then he has been the prey of painters and pasquins; his offences deepening, darkening, as men have moved yet farther and farther from the springs of truth. Hume is comparatively fair to him. Hallam LORD CAMPBELL. 5 is less fair; though he will not, even for the sake of i. 7. Pope, call Bacon the meanest of mankind. Lingard paints him with a more unctuous hate. Macaulay, in turn, is fierce and gay: his sketch of Rembrandt power: his lights too high, his smears too black: noon on the brow, dusk at the heart. Nature never yet made such a man as Macaulay paints. 8. But of all the sins against Francis Bacon, that of Lord Campbell is the last and worst. I wish to speak with respect of so bold and great a man as our present Lord Chancellor. He is one who has swept up the slope of fame by native power of heart and brain ; in the proud course of his life, from the Temple to the Peerage, from the Reporters' Gallery to the Woolsack, I admire the track of a man of genius brave, circumspect, tenacious, strong; one not to be put down, not to be set aside; an example to men of letters and men of law. But the more highly I rank Lord Campbell's genius, the more I feel drawn to re- gret his haste. In such a case as the trial of Bacon's fame he was bound to take pains; to sift every lie to its root; to stay his condemning pen till he had satis- fied his mind that in passing sentence of infamy he was right, beyond risk of appeal. A statesman and a law-reformer himself, he ought to have felt more sym- pathy for the just fame of a statesman and law-re- former than he has shown. Not that Lord Campbell finds fault with Bacon where he speaks by his own lights. Indeed, there he is just. He has no words too warm for Bacon's reforms as a lawyer, for his plans as a minister, for his rules as a chancellor. When Lord Campbell knows his subject at first hand, his praise of 6 FRAXCIS BACOX. i. 8. his hero rings out clear and loud. But there is much in the life of Bacon which he does not know. He has not given himself time to sift and winnow. Like an easy magistrate on the bench, he has taken the pleas for facts. That is his fault, and in such a man it is a very grave fault. 9. What Hallam left dark and Campbell foul should be cleansed as soon as may be from dust and stain. It is our due. One man only set aside, cm- interest in Bacon's fame is greater than in that of any Englishman who ever lived. We cannot hide his light, we cannot cast him out. For good, if it be good, for evil, if it must be evil, his brain has passed into our brain, his soul into our souls. We are part of him; he is part of us; inseparable as the salt and sea. The life he lived has become our law. If it be jtrue that the Father of Modern Science was a rogue and cheat, it is also most true that we have taken a rogue and cheat to be our god. 10. In front of all detail of fact, a general question must be put. Bacon seemed born to power. His kinsmen filled the highest posts. The sovereign liked him; for he had the bloom of cheek, the flame of wit, the weight of sense, which the great Queen sought in men who stood about her throne. His powers were ever ready, ever equal. Masters of eloquence and epigram praised him as one of them, or one above them, in their pecu- liar arts. Jonson tells us he commanded when he spoke, and had his judges pleased or angry at his will. Raleigh tells us he combined the most rare of HIS RISE LONG DEFERRED. 7 for while Cecil could talk and not write, Howard write I. 10. and not talk, he alone could both talk and write. Nor were these gifts all flash and foam. If no one at the court could match his tongue of fire, so no one in the House of Commons could breast him in the race of work. He put the dunce to flight, the drudge to shame. If he soared high above rivals in his more passionate play of speech, he never met a rival in the dull, dry task of ordinary toil. Ealeigh, Hyde, and Cecil had small chance against him in debate; in com- mittee Yelverton and Coke had none. Why was he left behind? 11. Other men got on. Coke became Attorney- General, Fleming Solicitor-General. Raleigh received his knighthood, Cecil his knighthood. He alone won no spur, no place. Time passed. Devereux became a Privy Councillor. Cobham got the Cinq Ports, Ra- leigh the patent of Virginia. Years again raced on. A new king came in, and still no change. Cecil became an Earl, Howard an Earl. What kept the greatest of them down? It was certainly not that he was hard like Popham, or crazed like Devereux, or gnarled like Coke. A soft voice, a laughing lip, a melting heart, made him hosts of friends. No child, no wo- man, could resist the spell of his sweet speech, of his tender smile, of his grace without study, his frankness without guile. Yet where he failed, men the most sullen and morose got on. 12. Why did he not win his way to place? He sought it: never man with more passionate haste; for his big brain beat with a victorious consciousness of 8 FRANCIS BACON. i. 12. parts: he hungered, as for food, to rule and bless man- kind. This question must be met. While men of far lower birth and claims got posts and honours, solici- torships, judgeships, embassies, portfolios, how came this strong man to pass the age of forty-six without gaining power or place? Can it have been because he was servile and cor- rupt? 13. Rank and pay, the grace of kings, the smiles of ministers, were in Bacon's days, as in other days before and since, the wages of men who knew how to sink their views, to spend their years, to pledge their thought, their love, their faith, for a yard of ribbon or a loaf of bread. If Bacon were a man prostituting glorious gifts and strong convictions for a beck or nod, a pension or a place, why did he not rise? why not grow rich? If he were a rogue, he must have sold his virtue for less than Popham, his intelligence for less than Coke. How, then, could he be wise? Wisest and meanest there is the rub! But turn the case round. How if his virtues, not his vices, kept him down so long? How if his honesty, tolerance, magnanimity, not his heartlessness, his servility, and his corruption, caused his fall? 14. Look at the broad facts of the man's life first. Small facts may be true, broad facts must be true. One day in a man's course is hard to judge; a year less hard; a whole life not at all hard. It is the same in nature. Watch for one night the track of a planet. Can you say if it move to the right or left? You are not sure. It seems to go back. It seems to go on. HIS COMPARATIVE POVERTY. 9 Watch it for a month, and you find that its path is i. forward. Is the star in fault? Not in the least. It is your own base that moves. Look at any chasm, peak, or scar on the earth's face: you see the earth jagged, crude, motionless. Take in the whole orb at once: you find it smooth, round, beautiful, and swift. In Bacon's own words, a wise man "will not judge the whole play by one act." Still less by one scene, one speech, one word, will he judge. In taking Bacon's course as a whole what do we find? A man born to high rank, who seeks incessantly for place, who is above all men and by universal testi- mony fit for power; yet one who passes the age of forty-six before he gets a start; one who, after serving the Crown for more than fourteen years in the highest offices of the most lucrative branch of the public ad- ministration, dies a poorer man than he was born. 15. Bacon was fifty-two when he became Attorney- General; fifty-seven when he became Lord Chancellor. For one who had been Elizabeth's young Lord Keeper at ten, who had been a bencher of Gray's Inn at twenty-six, Lent Reader at twenty-eight, this rise in his profession came late in life; later than it came to barristers who could boast of neither his personal force nor his father's official rank. Coke was Attorney-General at forty-two. Egerton was Lord Keeper at forty-six; Bromley Lord Chancellor at forty-seven, Hatton at forty-eight. It was much the same at Court as at the Bar. Youth was at the prow and beauty at the helm. At twenty-two Sydney went ambassador to Vienna; at thirty he went governor to Flushing. At twenty-six 10 PEAXCIS BACOX. i. is. Essex was a Privy-Councillor; at twenty-nine Com- mander-in-Chief. At thirty-two Raleigh received his powers to plant Virginia. 16. Again: if Francis Bacon rose later in life than Egerton or Coke, even after he had risen to the loftiest summit of the Bar he won for himself none of the sweets of office. Alone among the great lawyers of his time he died poor. Hatton left a prince's wealth. Egerton founded the noble house of Ellesmere, Montagu that of Manchester. Coke was one of the richest men in England. Popham bequeathed to his children Littlecote and Wellington. Bennet, Hobart, Fleming, each left a great estate. How explain this rule and this exception? Surely they are not explained by the theory that Bacon's servility held him down, while Coke's servility sent him up-, that Bacon's corruption kept him poor, while Popham's corruption made him rich! 17. To judge a man's life in mass may not be the way to please a Cecil or a Coke; the libidinous states- man who made love to Lady Derby, who sold his country for Spanish gold, who gave power to his in- famous mistress Lady Suffolk to vend her smiles; or the acrid lawyer who jibed at Raleigh, who married a jilt for her money, who gave his daughter for a place. Nor is it the way to please those painters and lam- pooners who prefer dash to truth; for a man so judged is not to be hit on paper in a mere smudge of black and white, by dubbing him wise and mean, sage and cheat, Solomon and Scapin, all in one. OBJECT .OP THE PRESENT WORK, 11 18. The lie, it may be hoped, is about to pass J. away. An editor worthy of Bacon has risen to purge his fame. Such labours as those undertaken by Mr. Spedding demand a life, and he has not scrupled to devote the best years of an active and learned man- hood to the preliminary toil. Lord Bacon's Literary, Legal, and Philosophical Works are already before the world in seven of Mr. Spedding's princely volumes, printed and noted with the most skilful and loving care. Three or four volumes of Occasional and Per- sonal Works are still to come, for which we may have to wait as many years. Meanwhile, the appearance of this new edition has drawn men's thoughts to the char- acter of Bacon as painted by his foes; and the instinct, strong as virtue, to reject the spume of satire and falsehood, has sprung at the voice of Mi-. Spedding into lusty life. To aid in some small part in this good work of obtaining from men of letters and science a reconsideration of the evidence on which true judgment will have to run, the new facts, the new letters, the new documentary illustrations comprised in this Eeview of the Personal History of Lord Bacon are given to the world. 12 FRANCIS BACON. CHAPTER II. Early Years. n. i. 1. SWEET to the eye and to the heart is the face of Francis Bacon as a child. Born among the courtly 1561 Jan. 22. glories of York House, nursed on the green slopes and in the leafy woods of Gorhambury ; now playing with the daisies and forget-me-nots, now with the mace and seals; one day culling posies with the gardener or coursing after the pigeons (which he liked, particularly, in a pie), the next day paying his pretty wee com- pliments to the Queen; he grows up into his teens a grave yet sunny boy; on this side of his mind in love with nature, on that side in love with art. Every tale told of him wins on the imagination: whether he hunts the echo in St. James's Park, or eyes the juggler and detects his trick, or lisps wise saws to the Queen and becomes her young Lord Keeper of ten. Frail in health, as the sons of old men mostly are, his father's gout and stone , of which he will feel the twinge and fire to his dying day, only chain him to his garden or his desk. When thirteen years of age he goes to read books under Whitgift at Cambridge; when sixteen to read men under Paulett in France. If he is young', he is still more sage. A native grace of soul keeps off from him the rust of the cloister no less than the stain of the world. As Cambridge fails to dry him into Broughton, Paris and Poictiers fail to 1. Sir Amias Paulett's Despatches in the Cott. MSS. , Calig. E. vii. 3, 8, 16, 31, 57; Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 54; Bacon to Lady Paulett, Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 214. PURITY OF HIS YOUTH. 13 melt him into Montjoy. The perils he escapes are I?- 1. grave; the three years spent under Whitgift's hard, cold eye being no less full of intellectual snares than are the three years spent in the voluptuous court of Henri Trois, among the dames and courtiers of France, of moral snares. In the train of Sir Amias Paulett, he rides at seventeen with that throng of nobles who at- tend the King and the Queen-Mother down to Blois, to Tours, to Poictiers; mixes with the fair women on whose bright eyes the Queen relies for her success, even more than on her regiments and fleets; glides in and through the hostile camps, observes the Catholic and Hugonot intrigues, and sees the great men of either court make love and war. But Lady Paulett, kind to him as a mother, watches over his steps with care and love, a kindness he remembers and repays to the good lady, and to her kin, in later years. For him the d'Agelles sing their songs, the Tosseuses twine their curls in vain. 2. No one lapse is known to have blurred the beauty of his youth. No rush of mad young blood ever drives him into brawls. To men of less temper and generosity than his own to Devereux and Mont- joy, to Percy and Vere, to Sackville and Bruce he leaves the glory of Calais sands and Marylebone Park. If he be weak on the score of dress and pomp; if he dote like a young girl on flowers, on scents, on gay colours, on the trappings of a horse, the ins and outs of a garden, the furniture of a room; he neither drinks nor games, nor runs wild and loose in love. Armed with the most winning ways, the most globing lip at 2. Sylva Sylvarum, x. 946, 986. 14 FRANCIS BACON. if. 2. court, he hurts no husband's peace, he drags no wo- man's name into the mire. He seeks no victories like those of Essex; he burns no shame like Raleigh into the cheek of one he loves. No Lady Rich, as in Syd- ney's immortal line, has cause To blush when he is named. When the passions fan out in most men, poetry flowers out in him. -Old when a child, he seems to grow younger as he grows in years. Yet with all his wis- dom he is not too wise to be a dreamer of dreams; for while busy with his books in Paris he gives ear to a ghostly intimation of his father's death. All his pores lie open to external nature. Birds and flowers delight his eye; his pulse beats quicker at the sight of a fine horse, a ship in full sail, a soft sweep of country, everything holy, innocent, and gay acts on his spirits like wine on a strong man's blood. Joyous, helpful, swift to do good, slow to think evil, he leaves on every one who meets him a sense of friendliness, of peace and power. The serenity of his spirit keeps his intellect bright, his affections warm; and just as he left the halls of Trinity with his mind unwarped, so he now, when duty calls him from France, quits the galleries of the Louvre and St. Cloud with his morals pure. 1579. 3. At the age of eighteen he fronts the world. The staff of his house being broken, as the dream has told him, he hies home from France to Lady Bacon's side. The Lord Keeper was not rich, and his lands 3. Lord Bacon to Burghley , Lansdownp 51SS., xliii. 48; Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon , Lambeth MSS. 648, 649, 650. The portrait of Lady Bacon by Nathaniel is at Gorhambury. LADY ANN BACON. 15 have passed to his son by a former wife. Ann n. 3. Lady Bacon is left a young widow with two sons, Anthony and Francis, a meek, brave heart, and a slender fortune; a little family of three persons, who make up in love for each other all that they lack in pelf. Lady Ann, the Olympia Morata of Elizabeth's court, is one of five sisters, daughters of that fine old scholar who drugged King Edward with Latin verse, Sir Anthony Cook of Giddy Hall in Essex-, all the five sisters pious and learned as so many Muses, but unlike the Muses all made happy wives; Mildred by Lord Burghley, Ann by the late Lord Keeper, Katharine by Sir Henry Killigrew, Elizabeth first by Sir Tho- mas Hoby and next by John Lord Russell, Margaret, the youngest sieter of the five, by Sir Ralph Rowlet. So Francis Bacon claims through his mother close cou- sinry with Sir Robert Cecil, with Elizabeth and Anne Russell , with the witty and licentious race of the Killi- grews, and with the future statesman and diplomatist Sir Edward Hoby. Lady Ann is deep in Greek and in divinity; her translation of Jewell's 'Apology' is praised by the best critics, and has been printed for public use by orders from the Archbishop of Canter- bury; yet the good mother is not more at home with Plato and Gregory than among her herbs, her game, her stewpans, and her vats of ale. Nathaniel Bacon, with hearty humour and a play upon her name and habits, paints a portrait of her dressed as a cook find standing in a litter of dead game. She is very pious: in the words of her son "a Saint of God." Not quite a Puritan herself, she feels a soft and womanish sympathy for men who live the gospel they proclaim; brings up her sons in charity with all Protestant creeds; 16 FRANCIS BACON. n. 3. tears the preachers with profit-, and without airs of patronage and protection towards them, speaks to her great kinsman, the Lord Treasurer, the word which spoken in season is quick to save. A bright, keen, motherly lady; apt, as good women are, to give ad- vice. To her, her famous children are always two little boys, who need to be corrected, physicked, and fed: when they are forty years old, and filled with all knowledge of men and books, she not only sends them game from her own larder and strong beer from her own casks, having no great faith in other people's work, but lectures them on what they shall eat and drink, when they shall purge or let blood, how far they may ride or walk or drive in a coach, when they may safely eat supper, and at what hour in the morn- ing they shall rise from bed. 4. Lady Ann lives at Gorhambury. Anthony is abroad, now in France, now in Italy, now in Navarre, conning the languages and manners, the politics and events, of these famous lands. Francis falls to his terms at Gray's Inn, seeks the help of his great kins- man Burghley, and finds a seat in the House of Com- mons for himself at the age of twenty-four. 1580. A letter, now first put in type, will show that he u y ' has fixed his tent at Gray's Inn as early as the summer of 1580, a few months after his nineteenth year. This note is curious as the earliest known piece of writing from his hand, and as a sample of his boyish style. Macaulay dwells on the change from his early to his later manner; the statuesque severity of that of his 4. Gray's Inn Reg. , cited in Craik's Bacon , i. 12 ; Bacon to Wylie, July 11, 1580, in Lambeth MSS. 647, fol. 14. LETTER TO MR. WYLIE. 17 youth compared against the glow, the imagery, the n. 4. wit, the licence, and the colour of that of his later time. At twenty Mino, at forty he had grown into j^- Kaffaclle. How grave, how cold this message to Mr. Wylie! BACON TO MR. WYLIE. MR WYLIE From Gray's Inn, 11 of July, 1580. This very afternoon, giving date to these letters of mine, I received yours by the hands of Mr. Wimbanke, and to the which I thought convenient not only to make answer, but also therein to make speed, lest, ' upon supposition that the two letters enclosed were, according to their directions, delivered, you should commit any error, either in withholding your letters so much the longer when peradventure they mought be looked for, or in not withholding to make mention of these former letters in any other of a latter despatch. The considerations that moved me to stay the letters from receipt, whether they be in respect that I take this course to be needless or insufficient or likely to lead to more inconvenience otherwise than to do good, as it is meant in some such, they are that they prevail with my simple discretion, which you have put in trust in ordering the matter to persuade me to do as I have done. My trust and desire likewise is that you will re- port (?) and satisfy yourself upon that which seemeth good to me herein, being most privy to the circum- stances of the matter, and tendering my brother's or>lcrs as I ought, and not being misaffected to you neither, by those at whom you glance, while I know whom you mean. I know likewise that you mean Lord /(i/con. 2 18 FRAXCIS BACOX. n. 4. amiss; for I am able, upon knowledge, to acquit them from being toward fin?! this matter. For mine own ftftftt Joij. part, truly, Mr. Wylie, I never took it that your join- ing in company and travel with my brother proceeded not only of good will in you, but also of his motion, and that your mind was always rather by desert than pretence of friendship to earn thanks than to win them. Xeither would I say this much to you, if I would shrink to say it in any place where the contrary was inferred: and in that I rectified my brother of this matter being delivered unto me for truth. I had this consideration that among friends more advertisements are profitable than true. My request to you is, that you will continue and proceed in your good mind to- wards my brother's well-doing; and although he him- self can best both judge and consider of it, yet I dare say withall that his friends will not be unthankful to misconstrue it, but ready to acknowledge it upon his liking. And as for this matter, as you take no know- ledge at all of it, I will undertake it upon my know- ledge that it shall be the better choice. Thus betake I you to the Lord. Your very friend, FR. BACOX. 1585. Though he enters the House of Commons, he finds ' no public work. Not that Burghley pets and lures him only to chain him fast: the great Protestant minister is a man too high and noble for such a part, nor can Englishmen afford to soil his fame. Bacon, at least, never dreams that his uncle plays him false. That he does not push him with all his might is true: but this may be, not because he dreads in him a rival to his RETURNED FOR MIDDLESEX. 19 son, as is often said, so much as because, being old n. 4. and timid, fearful of adventure and speculation, of risking those measures of Religion and State in which ^ov. his name is for ever bound up, he dreads the daring and original genius of his nephew, apt, he may think, in his flush of youth and intellectual strength to dash at success, to fly at the nearest road, to bridle and ride the popular storm. 5. Rawley, Mallet, Montagu, and Lord Campbell have in turn slurred the ten or twelve years in which Bacon grows from a boy of nineteen into a man of thirty or thirty-one, though in drama and instruction these years hold rank among the noblest of his life. The writers set him high on the stage for the first time in 1592, when he is thirty-one. "In the parliaments which met in 1586 and 1588," says -Lord Campbell, "he had been returned to the House of Commons; but he does not seem to have made himself prominent by taking any decided part for or against the Crown." What is the truth? In 1592 he is returned to par- liament for Middlesex, the most wealthy, liberal, in- dependent shire in England the West Riding of the time and of long succeeding times. He is young, poor, out of place. He is even out of favour, since his uncle has turned from the young reformer his power- ful face. Having neither rood of land nor hope of inheritance within the shire, the squires and freeholders of Middlesex choose him. Why, and how? Did pen- niless genius ever start in life by winning the first con- stituency in the realm? Burke wooed the electors of Wendover before he dreamt of Bristol. Pitt began 5. Willis, NotitiaPariiamentaria, Hi. 101, 113, 121; D'Ewes, 337. 2* 20 FRAXCIS BACON. ii. 5. with Appleby, and only at his height of power won the University of Cambridge. Brougham suffered de- NOV! f ea t a t Liverpool, and was glad to sit for Knares- borough, ere he tried to conquer the West Riding. So with Bacon. Service and success, of which the writers have never heard, lifted him to the height of Middlesex. When he rose at Brentford in 1592, he spoke to freeholders who knew his name and voice, not only as one of the most youthful, but as one of the most daring and effective members of a former House. Bacon indeed served in Parliament prior even to the sessions of 1586 and 1588. He entered the House of Commons in 1585, when he was only twenty-four. He then sat for Melcombe. In the Parliament of 1586 he sat for Taunton, and in that of 1588 for Liverpool. 6. These three sessions not stirring! The author of Tom Jones has a passage on the advantage of a writer knoAving his subject; the great humourist should have told us of the ease and comfort which a writer finds in not knowing his subject. Will not his soul be more at peace? No truth will curb the freedom of his judgment no fact interrupt the flow of his style. See how Hallam hesitates and halts! He knows too much. Only your blind* horse will leap into the chasm, or wait his death-gore from the horn of a bull. A month at books on any subject will not weight one much. A diplomatist used to say that when he had been four weeks in London he felt able to write a book on English life; when he had been a year, he had doubts if he yet understood the whole of his 6. D'Ewes, 332i 439; Townshend, i. 29. HIS EARLY POPULARITY. 21 theme; when he had been ten years, he gave up the n. 6. book in despair. l r )85 Not stirring! Why, the three sessions in which K'OV." Bacon serves his parliamentary apprenticeship, though slipped as void and waste by his biographers, abound in scenes of high and tragic conflict scenes in which he plays an active and conspicuous part, and which colour and shape for him the course of his political life. These three sessions have to save the liberties of Eng- land, the faith of nearly half of Europe. They crush the Jesuits, they found the Defence Association, they send out Raleigh to plant new States, they lay Mary on the bier at Fotheringay, they break and punish the Romanist conspiracies, they shatter and disperse the Invincible Armada! 7. Nor are these early Parliaments less bright in composition than brave in deed. On swearing the oaths as member for Melcombe, Bacon takes his seat on the same benches with the chief lights of law and govern- ment with Hatton and Bromley, Egerton and Wal- singham as well as near those younger glories of the Court, the poets and warriors to whom secretaries of state are but as clerks, with Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Charles Blount, and hosts of others scarcely less renowned than these in love and war. Yet from the midst of this group he leaps like fire into fame. At twenty-five he has won the ear of that fastidious House. Wit so radiant, thought so fresh, and lore so prompt, have not before 7. Not. Parl. , iii. 99, 107; Bacon's Essays, No. 3. 22 FRANCIS BACOX. n. 7. (and have never since) been heard within those famous 77 walls. Yet his hold on the men of his generation is j,v! due less to an intellectual than to a moral cause. They trust him, for he represents what is best in each. The slave of Whitgift, the dupe of Brown, can each give ear to a churchman who seeks reform of the church, a lawyer eager to amend the law, a friend of the Crown pleading against feudal privileges and unpopular pow- ers. When a colleague proposes some change in the church which would destroy it, he replies to him: "Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of England; if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; he would be a strange oculist who would pull out the eye." Of no sect, he represents in Par- liament the patriotic spirit of all the sects. Not him- self a Puritan, he pleads with Hastings for reform; not a Roman Catholic, he lifts his voice against persecu- tion for concerns of faith ; not a courtier, he votes with Cecil for supplies. In one word, he is English. To sustain the Queen in her great strife with Spain, to guard the church from abuse and from destruction, are as much his objects as to break the bonds of science and lead inquiry back from clouds to earth. When he strikes at corruptions in the State, when he resists the usurpations of the Peers, when he saps the privi- leges of the Crown, he speaks in the name of English progress and English strength. He fights for reform of the law, for increase of tillage, for union with the Scots, for plantations in Ulster, for discovery and de- fence in Virginia, for free Parliaments and for ample grants, because he sees that increase, union, freedom, and a rich executive are each and all essential to the growth and grandeur of the realm. MEMBER FOR TAUNTON. 23 8. How he appears in outward grace and aspect n. 8. among these courtly and martial contemporaries, the ~ miniature by Hilyard helps us to conceive. Slight in K O V! build, rosy and round in flesh, dight in a sumptuous suit; the head well-set, erect, and framed in a thick starched fence of frill; a bloom of study and of travel on the fat, girlish face, which looks even younger than his years; the hat and feather tossed aside 1 from the broad white brow, over which crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair; an English nose, firm, open, straight; mouth delicate and small a lady's or a jester's mouth a thousand pranks and humours, quibbles, whims, and laughters lurking in its twinkling, tremu- lous lines: such is Francis Bacon at the age o twenty-four. 9. No session ever met under darker skies that of 1586. Babington's conspiracy has just ex- ploded; fleets are arming in Cadiz bay; money and men are ready in Rome, in Naples, in Leghorn, for a crusade against the heretics; Parsons is hounding on the Pope, Sixtus hounding on Philip; in the Tagus, at the Groyne, in the cities of Brabant and Flanders, armaments wait but a word to cross over into Kent, to seat Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, to reduce England to a fief of the Church. England flushes with heroic pride. London, Dover, Portsmouth swarm with soldiers; drums are rolling in every hamlet, yeomen mustering in the market-places of every shire. But no part of England burns with more fervent heat than the 8. Hilyard'a miniature is in the possession of Adair Hawkins , Esq., of Great Marlborough Street. 9. Dom. Papers of Queen Eliz., ccxxii. ; Andrea Philopatri ad Eliza- bethse Reginae Angli* edictum responsio : Toulmin's History of Taunton, 365. 24 FRANCIS BAG OX. ii. 9. western counties, nor in these counties than the town of Taunton. Taunton is the seat of trade and mann- er. 20. facture a Manchester of a milder clime; next to Bristol the richest town between the Severn and the Scilly Isles; next to London the most patriotic town between the Irish Sea and Dover Straits. In the day when everything dear to men appears to be at stake, this populous and enterprising town sends Bacon to Westminster to speak in its name and give its vote. 10. The writs having gone out while the ruffians who prated of friendship and sentiment are on trial for their crimes > the passionate patriotism of the land storms ^p, too strong for Burghley to breast, too strong for Elizabeth herself to ride. When the Peers and Com- moners meet, a cry goes up to the throne that Mary shall be brought to trial, and, on proof of her guilt, shall be put to death. In this stern prayer the burgess for Taunton, tolerant as he is of mere opinion, joins. The Crown dares not refuse. Menaced on every side, England can give no answer to the threats of invasion save an open trial and solemn execution of the Queen of Scots. 11. What to do with Mary has been a dismal question for honest men since the day when she first sought refuge in Carlisle from her licentious barons. In her room at Chartley, guarded by the old moat, shut in with her women and her priests, she has scared the Protestant imagination more than either 10. State Trials, i. 1127-1162; D'Ewes, 393. 11. Dom. Papers of Eliz., cxciv. ; D'Ewes, 393-410; Davison toWalsinjr- ham, Oct. 10. 1586, in the State Paper Office; Burghley to Davisou, Nov. 24, 1586, S. P. O. OUTCRY AGAINST MARY. 25 the Kaisi-r Ju Vicuna or the Pope in Rome. Her n. n- position is, indeed, most strange: to-day a prisoner, to-morrow she may become a queen. No need to Oct. 20. make a party, to risk her head, in order to win her game. She lias only to live: certain, as fall will fol- low spring, of rising one day from her bed of durance to find the necks of her enemies beneath her feet. An accident, a crime, may give her, any hour, the crown. A stumbling jennet, an unwholesome meal, a prick of Babington's knife, a snap of Salisbury's dagg, may take away the life which stands between her and the English crown. Put on trial, her complicity proved, her cousin would still spare her life. But the Burghleys, Davi- sons, and Pauletts are in no position to treat this pro- fligate woman with the leonine clemency of the Queen. To Elizabeth she is, indeed, a danger and a snare; but to the Protestant gentleman who loves his religion and his country, her removal or succession is a question of life or death. She can neither break Elizabeth on the wheel nor roast her at the stake; for, unless a Spanish force should succeed in seating her on the throne, her day of evil cannot come until the Queen is safe from the revenge of King and Pope. But what prelate on the bench, what councillor at the board, what magis- trate in his shire, would feel his head safe should trumpets bray the accession of Mary to the English throne? They have seen another Mary. Old men re- call the day when Latimer perished. Half the citizens of London can tell how Rogers went to heaven in the Srnithfield fires. All England shakes with news of the more recent massacres of Paris massacres solemnly approved and commemorated in Rome as services to 26 FRANCIS BACOX. n. 11. God. Men firm in their own faith, loyal to their own Queen, pretend no pity for a woman who to Helen's Oct. 29. loveliness of person adds more than Helen's dissolute- ness of mind. They see in Mary a wife who has mar- ried three husbands and is eager to marry more. They see in her the murderess of Darnley, the destroyer of the Kirk. They see in her a pretender to the English crown, in whose name Sixtus has resumed the king- dom, and Philip is preparing to lay it waste. Is such a woman to live and become their Queen? Could Mary refrain from plots, content to bide her time, the peril of such a future would be hard for them to meet; but when her complicity in Babington's treason is proved in court, then, with law and reason on their side, Davison urges, and the House of Commons demands by petition, that for the security of life, liberty, and true religion in time to come, the prisoner of Fo- theringay shall suffer the just sentence of the law. NOV. 12. 12. The Queen holds out. A grand committee, of which Bacon is a member, goes into the presence, and the lords spiritual and temporal, the knight and squire, the lawyer and goldsmith, kneeling together at her feet, demand that the national will shall be done that the Protestant faith shall be saved. She will not hear them. When the deed is done that makes Eng- land free done by Davison's command if not by the Queen's she casts the courageous minister from power; nor will she to her dying day consent to see his face or hear his name. There ought to be no doubt of the sincerity of her grief. 12. Nicholas, Life of Davison, 1823, D'Ewes , 394-400 ; Camden, Ann. 1586. OUTCRY AGAINST MARY. 27 13. The letters which have been printed in more n. is. recent times, suggesting that Elizabeth, while affecting to withhold her consent to Mary's death, instigated Feb. 8. Paulett to commit a private murder, are odious and clumsy literary forgeries. These letters have been adopted by Lingard, and have half imposed on the cautious Hallam. Yet the originals are nowhere to be found, the name of the pretended discoverer of them is unknown, and they have never been seen by any competent or reputable man! The circumstances of their publication suggest forgery for a political end, while the style and statement of the letters prove them to be inventions of a later time. The alleged dis- covery of these papers, so damaging to the English Church and so fatal to the Protestant Queen, was made by partisans of the Papist Pretender in the hottest days of the Jacobite feud. The dates, the names, the facts adduced, establish the comparatively recent fraud. The Queen, slow to shed blood, meant to save Mary from the block, but her people and her parlia- ment, free from her woman's weakness and her ties of blood, required that high political justice should be done. Mary was the first and worst of all their foes; the princes of Spain and Italy were her soldiers, the Babingtons and Salisburys of London her assassins. England could only meet the league of Kaiser, Pope, and King by snatching away their flag. Mary gone, the invaders were without a cause, the conspirators without a cry. Who shall say what might have chanced had Mary been alive, when the Duke of Medina Sidonia rode off the Lizard, to excite a rising in the western 13. Comp. Hallam, Hist, of Eng., i. 159 .; Lingard, viii. 282; with a Note in Charles Knight's Hist, of Eng., iii. 205. 28 FRANCIS BACON. n. 13. shires, or even to divide the loyalty and check the Courage of the English fleet? Feb. 8. 14. Bacon's fame as a patriot, as an orator, is in these transactions formed and fixed. To know him is to be happy; to have been at school with him, dis- tinguished. William Phillippes, wanting a place under Davison for his son, thinks it enough to remind tin- great minister that his boy was trained with the young member for Taunton. Fet> 89 4 ^' "^" ears hurry past. The Armada comes and goes. While the watch-fires are yet burning on the cliffs, the wrecks of a hundred keels yet tossing in the foam from Devon to Caithness, Parliament meets. Bacon now sits for Liverpool. Danger is past; the Queen has been to thank God at St. Paul's, and a merry Christmas has been kept in hall and cottage, many a spar washed up from the wrecks of the Spanish fleet crackling in the festive fires. In this new session Bacon serves on the most important committees, speaks on the most important bills: now standing for the privileges of the House of Commons, now assaulting the Royal purveyors, now H. Phillippes to Davison, Oct. 5, 1586, S. P. O. In citing those State Papers from which a main portion of the following narrative will be de- riveJ, I must express my obligations to Sir John Romilly, Master of the Rolls, f-r the facilities which, during many years, he has given to my researches among the public documents of which he has the legal charge. My thanks are no less due to Lord Stanley and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, for tke courtesy wiih which, when Secretaries of State, they listened to niy proposals for certain changes in the State Paper Office favourable to historical students, and for the promptitude with which they consented to remove restrictions that had made any general and critical study of the Stato Papers next to impossible. lo. Not. Parl. , iii. 121; D'Ewes, 430-439; Statutes of the Realm, 31 Eliz., c. 15. SITS FOR LIVERPOOL. 29 denouncing the forestall ers, regrators, and engrossers, ir. is. The great debates of this year occur on subsidies and J 1589. grants. Feb . 4 Hatton proposes two subsidies and four fifteenths and tenths-, to which Bacon, whose soul is in the patriotic tug, agrees: he moves, however, to insert iu the bill a clause explaining that these grants are extraordinary and exceptional, meant for the war, and only for the war. To this the Queen objects, as fettering her future acts: enough for. the squires to pronounce their Yea or Nay. The squires stand firm. Many men support Avhat one man dares. After much debate, the Crown proposes to lay the bill, with Bacon's amendments to it, before the Learned Counsel; to which the House of Commons, insisting first that the author of the amendments shall be present at the sittings of that learned board, consents. Under his soft, persuasive tact, the interests of the sovereign are reconciled with the interests of her people, and the bill is passed to the satisfaction of Queen and Commons. Power and fame now seem to be in his grasp. Elizabeth sends for him to the palace; the electors of Middlesex c-ist their eyes upon him; and, when parliament meets again, he will represent the wealth and courage of that great constituency. From the session of 1589 dates his firm ascendency in the House of Commons. 16. Lady Bacon and her sons are poor. Anthony, 1501. the loving and beloved, with whom Francis was bred at Cambridge and iu France, has now come home. 16. Wotton's Baronetage, edited by Johnson and Timber, i. 8; Patent Rolls, 16 Eliz., par. 6, mem. 3 (see App. v. 1); Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon, Lamb. MSS. 648, 106, 600, 75, 651, 54; Lady Bacon to her brothers Francis and Anthony Bacon, Lamb. MSS. G-18, fol. 10. 30 FRANCIS BACON. ii. 16. His health, bad at the best, has broken in the south; so he lies for a long time in bed or on a couch at his brother's rooms in Gray's Inn Square. The two young fellows have little money and expensive ways. An- thony, as the elder brother, owns a seat at Redburn, in Hertfordshire, with a few farms lying round it. Gorhambury, too, will be his when Lady Bacon dies. But the rents fall far below his needs, not to speak of the needs of his brother, who is now prominent at court, a leader in the House of Commons, and a can- didate for the glory of representing in parliament the metropolitan shire. Their half-brother Sir Nicholas, who inherits Redgrave and the broad Suffolk acres left by the Lord Keeper, a man with penurious habits and a swarm of children, deems his own nine sons and three daughters burthen enough, without having to pinch for the offspring of Lady Ann. When he marries a daughter they may get an invitation to Redgrave; but his brotherly hospitalities end with the feast. Nathaniel may paint their portraits and present them with game on canvas , but the artist can do nothing to fill their mouths. Edward, however, has a lease from the Crown of Twickenham Park, a delightful place on the river, of which Francis makes a home. Lady Ann starves herself at Gorhambury that she may send to Gray's Inn ale from her cellar, pigeons from her dovecote, fowls from her farmyard; gifts which she seasons with a good deal of motherly love and not a little of her best motherly advice. The young men take the love and leave the advice, as young men will. Like Buck- hurst, Herbert, and the race of gay cavaliers, while waiting for better days and brighter fortunes, they relieve their wants by help of the Lombards and Jews. LETTER TO LADY BACON. 31 17. Francis looks for an opening to mend their 11.17. means. A rich alderman dies, leaving his son a ward. The guardianship of a Queen's ward is often a pro-p^ 92 ^ fitable toil, and the care of Hayward's son is in Burgh- ley's gift. Francis urges Lady Ann to apply to her sister's husband for this lucrative trust. BACON TO LADY BACON. MADAM, From niy Lodgings, Feb. 18, 1591-2. Alderman Hayward is deceased this night. His eldest son is fallen ward. My Lord Treasurer doth not for the most part hastily dispose of wards. It were worth the obtaining, if it were but in respect of the widow, who is a gentlewoman much recommended. Your ladyship hath never had any ward. If, my Lady, it were too early for my brother to begone with a suit to my Lord before he had seen his Lordship, and, for me, if I at this time procure (?) my Lord to be my friend with the Queen, it may please your ladyship to move my Lord, and to promise to be thankful to any other my Lord oweth pleasure unto. There should be no time lost therein. And so I most humbly take my leave. Your Ladyship's most obedient son, FR. BACON. My Lord (Lord Burghley) is a leal friend to him with the Queen; a little slow, as his nature is, but honest, sage, and sure. While waiting for a post, and only that of Attorney-General or Solicitor-General will serve his turn, the young barrister fags at his books; framing in his mind a magnificent scheme for reducing 17. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 5, 106, 110. 32 FRANCIS BACON. ii. 17. and codifying the whole body of English lav,-, as \vell as shaping his more colossal plans for re-constituting May 24. the whole round of the sciences. Like the ways of all deep dreamers, his habits are odd, and vex Lady Ann's affectionate and methodical heart. The boy sits up late of nights, drinks his ale-posset to make him sleep, starts out of bed ere it is light, or may be, as the whimsy takes him, lolls and dreams till noon, musing, says the good lady with loving pity, on she knows not what! Her own round of duty lies in saying her morning and evening prayers, in hearing nine or ten sermons in the week, in caring for her kitchen and hen-roost, in physicking herself, her maids, and her tenants, in making the rascals who would cheat her pay their rent, and in loving and counselling her two careless boys. Dear, admirable soul! How human and how humorous, too, the picture of this good mother, warm in her affections, scolding for us our broadbrowed awful Verulam! LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. Gorhambury, 2-ltli May, 1592. Grace and health. That you increase in amending I am glad. God continue it every way. When you cease of your prescribed diet, you had need I think to be very wary both of your sudden change of quantity and of season of your feeding, specially suppers late or full; procure rest in convenient time, it helpeth much to digestion. I verily think your brother's weak stomach to digest hath been much caused and con- firmed by untimely going to bed, and then musing, I know not what, when he should sleep, and then, in consequence, by late rising and long lying in bed, LADY BACON. 33 whereby his men are made slothful and himself con- n. rr.i tinually sickly. But my sons haste not to hearken to their mother's good counsel in time to prevent. The May 24. Lord our heavenly Father heal and bless you both, as His sons in Christ Jesus! I promise you, touching your coach, if it be so to your contentation, it was not wisdom to have it seen and known at the Court. You shall be so much pressed to lend, and your man for gain so ready to agree, that the discommodity thereof will be as much as the com- modity. I would your health had been such as you needed not to have provided a coach but for a wife; but the will of God be done. You were best to ex- cuse you by me, that I have desired the use of it, because, as I feel it too true, my going is almost spent, and must be fain to be bold with you. It is like Robert Bailey and his sons have been to seek some commodity of you; the father hath been but an ill tenant to the wood, and a wayward payer, and hath forfeited his bond, which I intend not to let slip; his son a dissolute young man, and both of them crafty. Likewise young Carpenter may sue to be your man. Be not hasty; you shall find such young men proud and bold, and of no service, but charge and discredit. Be advised. Overshoot not yourself undiscreetly. I tell you, plain folk in appearance will quickly cumber one here, and they will all seek to abuse your want of ex- perience by so long absence. Be not hasty, but under- stand well first your own state. There was never less kind- ' ness in tenants commonly than now. Farewell in Christ. Let not your men see my letters. I write to you, and not to them. Your mother, A. BACON. Lord Bacon. 3 34 FRANCIS BACOX. IT. 17. This coach which the two brothers, both of them sick, both racked with gout and ague, have set up, ' weighs heavily on her spirits. Again and again she returns to the charge. "I like not your lending it to any lord or lady. It was not well it was so soon seen at court. Tell your brother, I counsel you to send it no more. What had my Lady Shrewsbury to borrow your coach?" Feb 9 i9 -^' ^ *ke P ost ^ orator f * ne House of Commons is no easy one to win, it is one more difficult to hold. Wit, sense, readiness, repartee, power, patience, mastery of men and books, are parts of the round of faculties and acquirements for one who is to seize the direction and sway the votes of an English House of Commons. At thirty-two, when Bacon, in the session of 1593, takes his seat for Middlesex, he finds on the benches right and left of him men the most renowned in Eng- lish story. Coke is Speaker-, Cecil leads for the Crown; Raleigh and Vere sit nigh him-, Fulk Greville, the friend of Sydney, John Fortescue, Lawrence Hyde, Henry Yelverton, Edward Dyer, Henry Montagu, rival speakers and lawyers, are but six of a con- spicuous crowd. The war continues, and events look grave. Battalions crowd Dunkerque and Calais-, the flag of Leon and Castile flaps within sight of Dover- pier; London stands under arms; troops hurry for Flanders, Dublin, and Kinsale; the Sussex foundries cast guns; and fort on fort rises along the coast from Margate to Penzance. Yet the war without is not more 18. Not. Parl. , iii. 131; Council Reg., Jan. 28, July 19, J593; Mem. of Men for Ireland, April 6, 1593, S. P. O. ; Elizabeth to Godolphin, May 9, 1593, S. P. O.; Mem. by Bnrghley, May 9, 22, 31, 1593, S. P. O. ; List of Parishes in London infested with Plague, Lamb. MSS. 648, fol. 152. PROPOSES HIS GREAT LAW REFORM. 35 harassing than the disease within. London gasps with n. is. plague. No lute or tabor sounds from the tavern- porch; no play draws dames and gallants to the Globe; F G b.' no pageant crowds the Thames with citizens and 'pren- tice boys. An order from the Lord Mayor puts down all games the bear-bait at Paris Garden, the sports of the inn-yards, the song and jollity of the ale-clubs. Yet, in the midst of woe and death, the recruiting-ser- geant beats to arms. Henri the Fourth, who has mounted the throne of France, pressed by the vic- torious Spaniards, calls for help, and levies are being raised for him in London and in places usually exempt from such a tax. While yielding the Queen's government support on her money bills, the feeders of the war, Bacon forces on the topic of reform, and defeats an extraordinary attempt at dictation by the ministers of the Crown. 19. The House has not sat a week not yet Feb. 26. proved its returns before he hints at his scheme for amending and condensing the whole body of English law. The House starts up. The tide might have come in from the Thames. Reform the code! Bacon tells a House full of Queen's Serjeants and utter barristers that laws are made to guard the rights of the people, not to feed the lawyers. The laws should be read by all, known to all. Put them into shape, inform them with philosophy, reduce them in bulk, give them into 6A r ery man's hand. So runs his speech. A noble thought a need of every nation under the sun a 19. Townshend's Historical Collection, 60, Bacon's Works, vii. 313; Les Aphorismes du Droit, tradnits du Latin de Messire Frangoia Bacon, Grand Chancelier d'Angleterre, par J. Baudoin, 1640. 3* 36 FRANCIS BACON. n. 19. task to be wrought at by him through a long life to be then left to successors, who, after revolutions and Feb. restorations, commissions and reports, have it still in hand undone! The plan, of which this fragment of a speech is the root, developed in his Maxims of the Law, and proposed as part of his great reform in the De Augmentis, has had more success abroad than it has found at home. It has been universally read, and most of all in France. It was translated by Baudoin, and inscribed to Segrier, Chancellor of France. In that country it has blossomed and come to fruit. But a French revolution was required for the achievement of this vast and philosophic innovation on established things; and the Code Napoleon is even now, in 1860, the sole embodiment of Bacon's thought. 20. Ten days later he gives a check to the Go- vernment, which brings down upon his head those cen- sures of Burghley and Puckering which are said to have represented in fact, if not in word, the personal anger of the Queen. The story of this speech has been so told as to rob Bacon of all credit for his daring, the ministers of all reason for their wrath. Lord Campbell writes, that Bacon voted for the grants proposed by the Crown, but pleaded for time in which the people should be called to pay them; that Burghley and Puckering bullied and threatened him; that he bowed to this storm of indignation a penitential face. Lord Campbell pictures the young barrister as whining under the lash, kissing the rod that smote him, pledging the tears in his eyes that he would never, in that way, offend her Majesty again. 20. Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, art. "Bacon," iii. 15. r OPPOSES THE GOVERNMENT. 37 21. The offence lies deeper than Lord Campbell 11.21.' dreams: an offence of two parts; one of which parts has wholly escaped his sight. Mar. The Government seeks from the House of Com- mons a very extraordinary grant of money. It is usual to ask for half a subsidy a year. Half a subsidy is ten per cent. - - two shillings in the pound a year. Burghley proposes to demand from the burgesses a double rate: one whole subsidy a year; four shillings in the pound. So high a tax will not, he knows, be voted by the House, with all its eagerness for war, unless the whole authority of the Crown and Govern- ment can be brought to bear. He forms his plans. Drafting such a bill as he hopes may pass, he sends word to Mr. Speaker Coke that he must beat down, in the Queen's name, all such noisy members as shall presume to prate of things in Church and State. No idle threat, as Bromley and Wentworth find; ere many days are gone, "Wentworth has talked himself into the Tower, Bromley into the Fleet. Burghley now asks the House to confer with the Peers on a grant for the Queen's service; and a com- mittee goes up; among them, in frill and feather, gown or sword, Vere, Ealeigh, Greville, Hastings, Cecil, Bacon, and Coke. They hear the Lord-Treasurer's words; and the next day Sir Robert Cecil reports to the Commons, that the Peers have decided for them what they shall give, and at what times: three sub- sidies in three years four shillings in the pound each year. For them to hear is to obey. "~- 21. Inhibitions delivered to Coke from the Queen, Feb. 28, 1593, 8. P. O.; Message from Coke to the House of Commons, Feb. 28, 1593, S. P. O. ; Confession of Laton, Feb. 1593, S. P. O. 38 . FRAXCIS BACOX. H- 21. Knight and squire gaze at each other. Four shil- lings in the pound a year! And the Commons robbed Mar. of even the credit of their own gifts! Such a speech is resented as a slur on their patriotism, a curb on their debates. 22. Who rises to warn the minister? Is it the fiery Raleigh, the martial Vere? Where sits the noisy Hastings, the sagacious Greville, the turbulent Coke? Not one of these flames up. Soldiers who have pushed through Parma's lines, advocates bronzed in cheek, and Puritans steeled in the fire of controversy, stare and wait. No marvel either. Not one of these men, in a plain, good cause, would shrink from a threat of Little Ease or Beauchamp Tower. The difficulty is, to de- fend their right of making grants and subsidies without seeming to oppose a war on which the country has set its soul, and without showing to the hosts of home and foreign enemies a broken front. To the bill itself the capital objection is one of form. Cecil counts on the heat for battle ; and to fight for the power of free taxa- tion against the passionate haste of the people for clash of pikes and roar of guns, needs courage of a lofty and peculiar kind. Coke may fear to offend the Queen, Raleigh to embolden the King of Spain, Hastings to vex the musters and the fleet. Bacon stands up. A few clear words declare that he does not mean to touch the grant. No one will grudge the funds to fit out ships and man the guns. But there he stops. To give is the prerogative of the people to dictate what they shall give is not the duty of the House of 22. D'Ewes, 468-83. RESENTS INTERFERENCE OF THE PEERS. 39 Peers. In framing this bill the Government, he says, n. 22. has gone beyond its powers; and he counsels the Com- mons, in defence, to decline any further conferences M ar .' with the Lords on a money-bill. From his vest he takes an Answer to the Lords, which he proposes shall be read, and if approved, sent up. This Answer is re- ferred to a committee of fifty-one. The committee can- not agree; and return their commission to the House. Hot debates ensue. Burghley hides himself behind the Queen: but even her august and sacred name appears to have lost its force. Broad lines are drawn, and the members fall into either camp; the courtiers standing with Cecil for continuing the conferences on the money- bill; the reformers with Bacon for resisting this en- croachment on the constitutional laws. Coke puts the question from the chair for a conference; yea, or nay? A hundred and twenty-eight gentlemen cry Yea. Two hundred and seventeen gen- tlemen cry Nay. 23. A raid of Parma's pikes through Kent would have startled Burghley less than such a vote. It is the first great check he has ever known; it stops the whole machinery of legislation; it covers himself, his mea- sures, and his friends with public shame. He scolds his nephew, and sets the Lord-Keeper on to scold him. These functionaries threaten him with the Queen's ire; but Bacon defends what the Knight for Middlesex has said and done. If words not used by him are put upon him, he will deny them; if his words are misunder- stood, he will explain them; but to the sense of his speech he must hold fast. How can he unsay the 23. Bacon to Burghley and to Puckering, Montagu, xii. 275, Notes E. E. 40 FBAXCIS BACOX. ;n. 23. truth? This is his apology and defence. If her High- ness, as they urge, is angry with him, he shall grieve; MM. if she commands him into silence, he must obey; hut in thwarting this invasion of popular rights by the House of Peers, he has done no more than his duty to his Queen, his country, and his God. 24. Though the progress of the bill is stopped, all sides agree that the fleet must be manned the musters armed. Ealeigh starts a compromise. Flushed with his glorious voyage, red with spoil from the Santa Clara and the Madre de Dios, the adventurer burns to be again at sea, chasing the Spanish ships, or forcing the rivers of Guiana. Every day given to debate, he grudges as lost to victory and revenge. To him, de- lay is disaster; talk is treason. Vote the supplies send out the fleet dash at Cadiz or Malaga sweep the plantations snap up galleon and carrack death to the yellow flag! cries that impetuous soul. The members warm to his voice. Resolve, he says, to confer with the Lords on the perils of the realm. Say no more about grants. Listen to what the Government may have to tell you about the Papal bull and the Spanish fleet. When you have saved the point of form, vote the money-bill as you list. Well spoken, Raleigh ! Not a tongue cries Nay. Aprn. 25. Set free by this device to discuss their money- bill, the Commons fall to work. Cecil stands to the old plan of three subsidies, to be paid in three years. 24. Townshend, 67; D*Ewes, 488. 25. Lords' Jour., ii. 184; D'Ewes, 493; Townshend, 72; SUtutes'j35 Eliz., c. 13- RALEIGH'S COMPROMISE. 41 Bacon, neither cowed nor penitent, rises once more to n. 25. oppose the court; not on the amount, which he ap- proves, but on the time, which is, indeed, the essential April', point. He asks for six years in place of three; in other words, for two shillings in the pound a year, in place of four. Even for the joy of smiting Spain, he cannot drain the sources of industry, seize the crafts- man' s* tools, the farmer's cider-press and milk-pans. Raleigh storms upon him. Will he starve the war? Cecil smiles and cajoles. But Bacon, who has won the ear even of this warlike auditory, insists that time shall be given, and that the grants shall be described as exceptional and extraordinary. In the end, against the warmth of Raleigh and the wiles of Cecil, he com- pels the Government to meet his proposal half-way, to extend the period proposed for the raising of these taxes a year (in other words, to take three shillings in the pound each year in place of four), and to insert a clause in the bill declaring that the money is given solely for the war against Spain. 42 FRANCIS BACON. CHAPTER III. ^ The Earl of Essex. 1. Six months after this brush with the Govern- 1593. ment Bacon is a candidate for place. The Rolls are Sept. vacant, an d the rise of Egerton must leave the post of Attorney void. Coke claims to succeed. Some at the bar and on the bench would prefer Bacon's rise to Coke's: each has his troop of friends; and thus, at an early stage, begins that rivalry between these famous men which is to run through every phase of their careers, and only end with their lives. Coke gains his move, as is only just on account of his age, his emi- nent services to the crown, his great reputation as a jurist. Bacon's claim to the place left void by Coke, that of the Solicitor-General, is no less strong. Born at the bar and nursed on law, he has served to his profession an apprenticeship of fourteen years. If Phi- losophy has been his Rachel, Law has been his Leah. A bencher and Reader of his Inn, he enjoys a good reputation in chambers and in the courts. The best judges at the bar approve his rise. Burghley and Cecil cautiously promote his suit, and Egerton presses it with a noble friendship on all who have power to help or harm. Yet in the end Thomas Fleming gets the post of solicitor-general, a man only known to the world for having stood in Bacon's way, and to the profession for his singular and disastrous ruling in the case of Bates. Bacon owes this loss of place to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex: out of which cruel disappointment to him springs the charge of ingratitude to a patron treason to a friend. 1. Chron. Jurid., 177; Lane's Reports, 22. ELIZABETH'S LOVE FOR ESSEX. 43 A plain history of events will show that the con- in. i. nexion of Bacon with Essex is one of politics and busi- ness; that it brings no advantages to Bacon, and im- y cpt .' poses on him no obligations; that it ceases by the Earl's own acts; that personally and politically Essex separates himself from Bacon, not Bacon from Essex; that Bacon, in his efforts to save Essex while he be- lieves him a true man, goes the extremest lengths of chivalry; and that, in acting against him when he proves himself a rebel and a traitor, he does no more than discharge his necessary duty to his country and his Queen. 2. One of the nearest friends of Queen Elizabeth was Catherine Carey, afterwards Lady Knollys, her cousin in the first degree of the Boleyn blood. They were sisters' children, and loved each other with more than sisters' love. Catherine died young in years, and was buried by her sovereign in Westminster Abbey with regal pomp. Essex is Catherine Carey's grand- son; in everything but the name he is a grandson to the childless Queen. This tie of blood the slanderers of her fame forget to state. Yet Essex and the two Careys are her only male relations on her mother's side, as James of Scotland is her sole surviving kins- man of the royal race. He was born into her lap and into her heart. She loves him, too, for his father's sake ; Walter, Earl of Essex, having been a leal friend to her in those young days when friends were few and cold. As she sears into age, it pleases her eye to see the sons of her first stanch peers around her throne. 2. Craik's Romance of the Peerage, i. 5; Council Reg. , April 13, 1589, April 14, 1591, June 21, 1592. 44 FRANCIS BACON. in. 2. She has made Hunsdon chamberlain ; she means to make Cecil Secretary of State. She loved Sydney for Sept. his father's virtues; she endures Essex in remembrance of his father's fate. She has indeed much to bear with and forgive. More profuse than generous, more rash than brave, he tries her affection by his petulance and brawls; but she clings to the orphan boy with that clannish pride which she always felt for her mother's kin. She loads him with favours. His jerks and whims, so galling to the council and the court, amuse the Queen as signs of the Boleyn blood. Her mother had them; his mother has them. That she loves him more than a lady of sixty years may love her cousin's grandchild is a monstrous lie. No woman can believe it: no man but a monk could dream it. 3. Yet this lie against chastity and womanhood has been repeated from generation to generation for two hundred and sixty years. It oozed from the pen of Father Parsons. It darkens the page of Lingard. Like most of the scandals against her her jealousy of the wives of Leicester, of Raleigh, of Essex even it came from those wifeless monks, men of the confes- sional and the boudoir, who spent their nights in gloating with Sanchez through the material mysteries of love, and in warping the tenderness and faith of woman into the filthy philosophy of their own 'Dispu- tationes de Sancto Matrimonii Sacramento.' Against 3. Elizabeths Anglise reginas, hsresim Calvinianam propugnantis, in catholicos sui regni edictum, quod in alios quoque reipublicae Christianas prineipes contumelias continet indignissimas. Promulgation Londini 29 Nov. 1591. Cum responsione ad singula capita: qua non tantum savitia et impietas tarn iniqui edicti, sed mendacia quoque et fraudes ac imposture deteguntur et confutantur. Per D. Andream Philopatrum. 1592. ELIZABETH'S LOVE FOR ESSEX. 45 such calumniators the Queen might appeal, like Marie m. 3. Antoinette, to every woman's heart. Jealous of Lettice v 1 ^^^ Knollys, of Bessie Throckmorton, of Frances Sydney! gept! Elizabeth is indeed vexed with them, but has she not cause? Has not each of these ladies married, not only without her knowledge as their Queen, but with- out honesty or honour? In secret, under circumstances of shame and guilt, Leicester wedded her cousin's daughter Lettice. Would the head of any house be pleased with such a trick? Raleigh brought to shame a lady of her court, young, lovely, brave as ever bloomed on a hero's hearth; yet the daughter of a dis- loyal house, of one who had plotted against the Queen's crown and life. Could any prince in the world ap- prove of such an act? Essex himself, a member of her race, a descendant of Edward the Third, married, in secret and against her will, a woman of inferior birth, without beauty, youth, or fortune, a widow, who took him on her way from the arms of a first Imsband into those of a third. What kinswoman would smile on such a match? Love for Essex warmer than that of an aged gen- tlewoman for a young and dashing kinsman would be in her sin against nature not less than sin against na- ture's God. The letters of Catherine's grandson to the Queen, if bright with poetry, playfulness, and compli- ment, are, in tone and substance, dutiful and chaste. In the Queen's letters to him there is not a line she might not have written to a grandson of her own. 4. She guards him with the fondness and with the 4. Lives and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex, 2 vols., 1853, Vii.-xiv. 46 FRANCIS BACOX. in. 4. fear of a mother. She never sends him from her side without a pang; for she knows that he will knock his Sept! head against stone walls, that he will hurry brave men to a foolish end. Proud and high though his temper is, he can neither lead others to victory like Raleigh, nor defend his own face from harm like Montjoy. If he sail for Cadiz with Nottingham and Raleigh to slack his fire, the Queen's work may be done, and he himself may shine the bravest of the brave. If he go to Rouen alone, he will scare the sleep from her pillow, and wring the blood from her heart, by his reckless waste of her veteran troops. She pets him as a boy hope- lessly brave, heroically frail; but she deems him such a fool, though a charming one, that anything he raves for must be wrong. If he fume and fret, put his head on her footstool, rush into the country, pout, and sulk, and rage, like a great spoiled child, she will not yield to his caprice. For ever asking something that he should not have, he will be Master of the Horse; he will have the Cinque Ports; he will command fleets and camps. 5. In an evil day for Bacon this petulant noble swears he shall succeed to Coke. Essex and Bacon have been drawn together, less by the magnetism of character, though the Earl has a thousand showy and alluring ways, than by their common wants. Bacon is poor and works for bread. His brother Anthony is poor and lame. In the rooms at Gray's Inn they lie sick together, racked with pain and pestered by duns. Lady Ann does her best: sending them hogsheads of March beer, with plenty of good advice and scraps of 5. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 67, 100. SITUATION OF THE BROTHERS. 47 Greek; but the most she can do is little, and neither ni. 5. Greek nor good advice will discharge their weekly -. ,11 1593. Dills. Sept. A letter from Francis to Lady Bacon gives a glimpse into these troubles the sickness, the fraternal love, the worrying debts. FRANCIS BACON TO LADY BACON. From Gray's Inn, April 16, 1593. My duty most humbly remembered. I assure my- self that your ladyship, as a wise and kind mother to us both, will neither find it strange nor unwise that, tendering first my brother's health, which I know by mine own experience to depend not a little upon a free mind, and then his credit, I presume to put your lady- ship in remembrance of your motherly offer to him the same day you departed, which was that to help him out of debt you would be content to bestow your whole interest in markes upon him. The which unless it would please your ladyship to accomplish out of hand, I have just cause to fear that my brother will be put to a very shrewde plunge, either to forfeit his reversion to Harwin (?) or else to undersell it very much; for the avoiding of both which great inconveniences I see no other remedy than your ladyship surrender in time, the formal drafte whereof I refer to my brother himself, whom I have not any way as yet made acquainted \vith this my motion, neither mean to do till I hear from you. The ground whereof being only a brotherly care and affection, I hope your ladyship will think and accept of it accordingly: beseeching you to believe that being so near and dear part of me as he is, that can- 48 FRANCIS BACON. in. 5. not but be a grief unto me to see a mind that hath given so sufficient proof of wit (?) in having brought Sept! forth many good thoughts for the general to be over- burdened and cumbered with a care of clearing his particular estate. Touching myself, my diet, I thank God, hitherto hath wrought good effect, and am ad- vised to continue this whole month, not meddling with any purgative physic more than I must needs, which will be but a trifle during my whole diet; and so I most humbly take my leave. . B. 6. No young fellow of Gray's Inn, waiting for the tide to flow, is sharper set for funds than the young knight for Middlesex or his elder brother. Anthony tries to raise his rents, and some of the men about him godless rogues, as Lady Bacon says propose that he shall let his farms to the highest bidders. Goodman Grinnell, who has the land at Barly, pays less rent than he ought: let him go out and a better man come in. But Goodman Grinnell speeds with his long face to Lady Ann. "What!" cries the good lady to her son; "turn out the Grinnells! Why, the Grinnells have lived at Barly these hundred and twenty years!" So the brothers have to look elsewhere. Bonds are coming due. A famous money-lender lives in Crosby Place, Spencer by name, and Lord Mayor of the year; a man rich as a Jew and close as a miser; him they go to, cap in hand, and with honeyed words. The Lord Mayor is a good miser, and allows his bond to lie. Francis writes to him from his brother Edward's house at Twickenham Park, to which he has removed from Gray's Inn for the benefit of country air. 6. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 109. LETTERS TO A MONEY-LENDER. 49 FRANCIS BACON TO MR. SPENCER. in. 6. GOOD MR. SPENCER, Twickenham Park, Sept. 19, 1593. 1593- Having understood by my man your kind offer to Sept< send my brother and me our old bond, we both accept the same with hearty thanks, and pray you to cause a new to be made for half a year more, which I will both sign and seal before one Booth, a scrivener, here at Isleworth, and deliver it him to your use, which you know will be as good in law as though you were here present. True it is that I cannot promise that my brother should be here at that time to join with me, by reason of his daily attendance in court, by occasion whereof I am to be your sole debtor in the new bond. As for the mesne profits thereof, you will receive them presently. I have given charge to my man to deliver it. And so with my right hearty commendations from my brother and myself, with like thanks for your good will and kindness towards us, which we always shall be ready to acknowledge when and wherein we may, I commit you to the protection of the Almighty. Your assured loving friend, FR. BACON. One likes to know that this good miser escaped the Dunkerque pirates who sought to kidnap him as he rode from Crosby Place to his country house at Islington, that he lived prosperously and long as alder- man of his ward, and that he married his daughter Elizabeth to a peer. One dares not say, however, that one would like to have been Lord Compton, the husband of the lady's choice, and heir of the miser's enormous hoard. Lord Bacon. * 4 50 FRANCIS BACON. in. 7. 7. Bacon lies sick the whole summer of 1593, as a note to his old friend Lady Paulett shows. Her 1593 Sept. ladyship, who was so kind to him in his younger days in France, is now a widow, his good friend Sir Amias sleeping the great sleep under a splendid tomb in the chancel of St. Martin's church. Bacon is proud and glad to do the widow service. FRANCIS BACON TO LADY PAULETT. MADAM, Twickenham Park, Sept. 23, 1593. Being not able myself, by reason of my long lan- guishing infirmity, to render unto your ladyship by a personal visitation the respect I owe unto your lady- ship, I would not fail to acquit some part of my debt by sending this bearer, my servant, expressly to know how your ladyship doth, which I beseech God may be no worse than I wish and have just cause to wish, con- sidering your ladyship's ancient and especial kindness towards me. Which if I have not hitherto acknow- ledged it hath been only for want of fit occasions, but no way of dutiful affection, as I hope in time, with God's help, I shall be able to verify by good effects towards the young gentleman Mr. Blount, your nephew, or any other that appertains unto your ladyship. This is, good madam, much less than you deserve and yet all I can offer, which, notwithstanding, I hope you will accept, not that it is aught worth of itself, but in respect of the unfeigned good will from whence it proceedeth. And so, with my humble and right hearty commenda- tions unto your good ladyship, I beseech God to bless you with increase of comfort in mind and body, and admit you to his holy protection. 7. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 214. CONNEXION WITH ESSEX. 51 Your ladyship's assured and ready in all kind af- in. 7. fection to do you service, p R- BACON. 8. Essex has need of strength such as these penni- ept ' less men of genius have to spare. Francis Bacon has won all nature for his province. Anthony is a man of many parts; gay, supple, secret; fond of society and of affairs , of good wines and bright eyes ; at home in cloister and in court; easy in morals, tolerant in creed; hail fellow with the vagabond and the noble, the King's mistress, the professional conspirator, the free lance, and the travelling monk. The two brothers enter into the Earl's service; Francis as his lawyer and man of poli- tical business, Anthony as his secretary; hoping, as many wise men hope, to make him the court leader of that great patriotic band of which Raleigh, Drake, and Vere are the fighting chiefs; the one part for which he is gifted beyond all other men. Under their eyes he so far gains in gravity and sense that the Queen swears him of her Privy Council, and even trusts to his care much of her correspondence abroad. Day and night their tongues and pens are busy in this work. An- thony writes the Earl's letters, instructs his spies, drafts for him despatches to the agents in foreign lands. Francis shapes for him a plan of conduct at the court, and writes for him a treatise of advice which should have been the rule and would have been the salvation of his life. For all these labours the workmen must be paid. 9. Duns weigh on the two brothers. Here are two Oct. 3. notes to Lady Ann, both from Francis, full of the same sad romance of love and debt. One runs: 8. Lambeth MSS. 649; Devereux, i. 277; Sydney Papers, i. 360. 9. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 298, 274. , 52 FEANCIS BACON. m. 9. FRANCIS BACON TO LADT BACON. MADAM, From the Court, Oct. 3, 1.593. Oct. 3. I received this afternoon at the Court your letter, after I had sent back your horse and written to you this morning. And for my brother's kindness, it is ac- customed; he never having yet refused his security for me, as I, on the other side, never made any difficulty to do the like by him, according to our several occasions. And therefore, if it be not to his own disfurnishing, which I reckon all one with mine own want, I shall receive good ease by that hundred pounds; specially your ladyship of your goodness being content it shall be repaid of Mr. Boldroe's debt, which it pleased you to bestow upon me. And my desire is, it shall be paid to Knight at Gray's Inn, who shall receive order from me to pay two fifths [?] (which I wish had been two hundred) where I owe, and where it presseth me most. Sir John Fortescue is not yet in Court; both to him and otherwise I will be mindful of Mr. Down ing's cause and liberty with the first opportunity. Mr. X.evill, my cousin, though I be further distant than I expected, yet I shall have an apt occasion to remember. To my cousin Kemp I am sending. But that would rest be- tween your ladyship and myself, as you said. Thus I commend your ladyship to God's good providence. Your Ladyship's most obedient, FR. BACON*. OT. 2. FRANCIS BACON TO LADY BACON. MADAU, Twickenham Park, Nov. 2, 1593. I most humbly thank your ladyship for your letter and sending your man Bashawe to visit me, who pur- poseth with God's help so soon as possibly I can to do THE SOLICITORSHIP. 53 my duty to your ladyship, but the soonest I doubt will in. ?. be to-morrow or next Monday come sennight. My ~ brother, I think, will go to Saint Albans sooner, with NOV. my Lord Keeper, who hath kindly offered him room in his obscure lodgings there, as he hath already resigned unto him the use of his chamber in the Court. God forbid that your ladyship should trouble yourself with any extraordinary care in respect of our presence, which if we thought should be the least cause of your discontentment, we would rather absent ourselves than occasion any way your ladyship disquietness. As for Sotheram, I have been and shall be always ready to hear dutifully your ladyship's motherly admonitions touching him or any other man or matter, and to re- spect them as I ought. And so, with remembrance of my humble duties, I beseech God to bless and preserve your ladyship. F. B. Essex is poor. Dress, dinners, horses, courtesans exhaust his coffers. If he cannot pay in coin he will pay in place. His servant Francis Bacon shall be the Queen's Solicitor. Essex swears it. 10. Until he swears it all goes well. Burghley supports his nephew. Egerton and Fortescue urge his suit with admiring friendship on the Queen. Cecil is warm in his behalf; not alone begging in his own name, but stirring up friends and making a party at the Court. Every one at the bar, save only Coke, ad- mits his claim to place. Essex spoils all. At first the Queen is gracious; extols his eloquence and his wit, while doubting if he 10. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 37, 60, 197 ; 650, fol. 109. 54 FRANCIS BACON. m.io. be deep in law. It only needs that his nomination 7~ shall be made in the proper way; because it is the Mar. 24. best, not because this or that lord of her Court may wish it made. This does not please the Earl. Pledged to make Bacon's fortune, he will not stoop to see his debts paid by another hand. The work must be his own: "Upon me," he says, "must lie the labour of his establishment; upon me the disgrace will light of his refusal." The Queen gets angry at this selfish pride. When he talks of Bacon she shuts her ears; biit night and day he hammers at the name; doing his full of mis- chief; fretting and sulking till he drives her mad. Never were good intentions worse bestowed. A brief note from the Earl to Bacon brings the impatient Queen and her importunate suitor on the scene: THE EARL OF ESSEX TO FRANCIS BACOX. SlR ? 24 March , 1594. The Queen did yesternight fly the gift, and I do wish, if it be no impediment to the cause you do handle to-morrow, you did attend again this afternoon. I will be at the Court in the evening, and go with Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, so as, if you fail before we come, yet afterwards I doubt not but he or I shall bring you together. This I write in haste because I would have no opportunity omitted in this point of access. I wish to you as to myself, and rest Your most affectionate friend, ESSEX. The Queen will not see him. She will not have her freedom of selection curbed. LETTERS TO SIR ROBERT CECIL. 55 11. Bacon is surprised and hurt. His hopes for in. 11. the moment dashed, he perceives no chance of suc- ceeding 1 even at a better time, unless the Queen can Mayi. be induced to leave the Solicitorship^ for the present void. To this end he applies to his cousin Cecil. Here is his note: FRANCIS BACON TO SIR ROBERT CECIL. Gray's Inn , May 1 , 1504. My MOST HONORABLE GOOD COUSIN, Your honour in your wisdom doth well perceive that my access at this time is grown desperate in re- gard of the hard termes that as well the Earl of Essex as Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, who were to have been the means thereof, stand in with her in acceding to their occasions. And therefore I am now only to fall upon that point of delaying and preserving the matter entire till a better constellation, which, as it is not hard, as I conceive, considering the proving business and the in- stant Progress, &c., so I commend in special to your honour's care, who in sort assured me thereof, and upon [whom] now in my lord of Essex' absence I have only to rely. And if it be needful, I humbly pray you to move my Lord your father to lay his sure hand to the same delay. And so I wish you all increase of honour. Your poor kinsman in faithful prayers and duty, FRANCIS BACON. Cecil, who knows that the Earl, and none but the Earl, stands in the way of his cousin's rise, writes* back, on the same sheet of paper, in the left corner, these words: 11. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 125. 56 FRANCIS BACON. m.ii. SIR ROBERT CECIL TO FRANCIS BACON. COUSIN, June 9. I do think nothing cuts the throat more of your present access than the Earl's being somewhat troubled at this time. For the delaying, I think it not hard; neither shall there want my best endeavours to make it easy, of which I hope you shall not need to doubt. By the judgment which I gather of divers circumstances confirming my opinion, I protest I suffer with you in mind that you are thus yet gravelled; but time will founder all your competitors and set you on your feet, or else I have little understanding. 12. For the first time in his life Bacon is now a stranger at the court. Lady Ann lies sick at Gorham- bury; so sick, that the "good Christian and Saint of God," as her son affectionately calls her, makes up her soul for death. Two of her household have been snatched away from her side by plague or fever. She is down with ague. Bacon wrestles with her resigna- tion, praying her to use all helps and comforts that are good for her health, to the end that she may be spared to her children and her friends, and to that church of God which has so much need of her. Here is the letter from which these particulars are drawn: FRANCIS BACON TO LADY BACON. June 9 , 1594. My humble duty remembered, I was sorry to under- stand by Goodman Sotheram that your ladyship did find any weakness, which I hope was but caused by the season and weather, which waxeth more hot and 12. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 232; 650, fol. 140. , LADY BACON'S ILLNESS. 57 faint. I was not sorry, I assure your ladyship, that in. 12. you came not up, in regard that the stirring at this time of year, and the place where you should lie not j a uo9. being very open nor fresh, might rather hurt your ladyship than otherwise. And for anything to be passed to Mr. Trot, such is his kindness, as he de- mandeth it not; and therefore, as I am to thank your ladyship for your willingness, so it shall not be need- ful but upon such an occasion as may be without your trouble, which the rather may be because I purpose, God willing, to come down, and it be but for a day, to visit your ladyship, and to do my duty to you. In the mean time I pray your health, as you have done the part of a good Christian and Saint of God in the comfortable preparing for your duty. So nevertheless, I pray, deny not your body the due, nor your children and friends, and the church of God, which hath use of you, but that you enter not into further conceit than is cause; and withal use all comforts and helps that are good for your health and strength. In truth I have heard Sir Thomas Scudamore often complain, after his quartain had ceased, that he found such a heaviness and swelling under his ribs that he thought he was buried under earth all from the waist; and therefore that accident no bad incident. Thus I commend your ladyship to God's good preservation from grief. Your ladyship's most obedient son, FR. BACON. It may be I shall have occasion, because nothing is yet done in the choice of a Solicitor, to visit the Court this vacation, which I have not now done this month's time, in which respect, because having sent to 58 FRANCIS BACON. in. 12. and fro spoyleth it, I would be glad of that light bed of stripes which your ladyship hath, if you have not June 9. otherwise disposed it. Aug. 20. 13. The Saint of God is spared to her sons for a little while. When Francis makes her a visit he finds her weak with pain, her memory failing like her health, but her tongue and pen as swift to advise as ever. Anthony's easy nature, his indulgence of his men, his love of finery and show and pleasure, wring the poor lady's heart. She wants to see him marry and amend his ways; but she hints of a wife in vain to this gay companion of the young Earls of Essex, Eutland and Southampton. She would not mind stripping her house of everything for him, her pictures, her carpets, and her chairs, if her eldest born would only marry a sober and religious girl. But all pretty faces are to him the same. When Francis rides away from Gorhambury, she sends after him a string of pigeons and a world of pious and tender exhortations for the good of body and soul. LADY BACON TO FRANCIS BACON. 20th Aug. 1594. I was so full of back-pain when you came hither, that my memory was very slippery. I forgot to men- tion of rents. If you have not, I have not, received Frank's last half-year of Midsummer, the first half so long unpaid. You will mar your tenants if you suffer them. Mr. Brocquet is suffered by your brother to cosen me and beguile me without check. I fear you came too late to London for your horse: ever regard 13. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 168, 171, 223. ADVICE FROM LADY BACON. 59 them. I desire Mr. Trot to hearken to some honest in. is. man, and cook too as he may. If you can hear of a convenient place I shall be willing if it so please God; Aug. 20. for Lawson will draw your brother wherever he chooses, as I really fear, and that with false semblance. God give you both good health and hearts to serve him truly, and bless you always with his favour. I send you pigeons taken this day, and let blood. Look well about you and yours too. I hear that Robert Knight is but sickly. I am sorry for it. I do not write to my Lord-Treasurer, because you like to stay. Let this letter be unseen. Look very well to your health; sup not, nor sit up late. Surely I think your drinking to bedwards hindereth your and your brother's digestion very much. I never knew any but sickly that used it, besides being ill for heads and eyes. Observe well, yet in time. Farewell in Christ. A. BACON. At court affairs look grave. Elizabeth will not have a name forced on her for selfish ends. She hears bad news enough to worry the stoutest heart: now a stir among the Irish rebels, now the threat of a descent from Spain. Francis writes to Anthony: FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. BROTHER, Gray's Tnn, Aug. 26, 1594. Aug. 26. My cousin Cook is some four days home, and ap- pointeth towards Italy that day sennight. I pray take care for the money to be paid over within four or five days. The sum you will remember' is 150/. I hear nothing from the Court in mine own business. There hath been a defeat of some force in Ireland by Macguire 60 FRANCIS BACON. m. 13. which troubleth the Queen, being unaccustomed to such ~ news; and thereupon the opportunity is alleged to be Aug. 26. lost to move her. But there is an answer by the coming in of the Earl of Tyrone as was expected. I steal to Twickenham, purposing to return this night, else I had visited you as I came from the town. Thus in haste I leave you to God's preservation. Your entire loving brother, FR. BACON. Anthony is not now at Gray's Inn Square, having taken a house in Bishopsgate-street, a fashionable part of the city, near the famous Bull Inn, where plays are performed before cits and gentlemen, very much to the delight of Essex and his jovial crew, but very much, as Lady Ann conceives, to the peril of her son's soul. The good mother cannot put old heads on young necks, say what she will. "I am sorry," she writes to her easy elder-born, "your brother and you charge yourselves with superfluous horses; the wise will laugh at you; being but trouble to you both; besides your debts, long journeys, and private persons. Earls be earls." There is the rub. Lady Ann knows, and does not love, these madcap earls. By help of Cecil, and the Vice-Chamberlain, Fulke Greville, Bacon succeeds so far as to get the nomina- tion of Solicitor put off. For more than a year the situation undergoes no change. 14. The Queen is full of care; the tug and tempest 14. J. Cecil to SirR. Cecil, Mar. 1594, S. P. O. ; Examination of Capt. Edward Yorke, Aug. 12, 15U4, S. P. O. ; Declaration of Henry Yonge, Aug. 12, 1594, S. P. O. ; Confession of Richard Williams, Aug. 27, 1594, S.P. O. ; Catalogue of Rebels and Fugitives receiving Pensions from Spain, Sept. 1594, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., Oct. 29, 1594. THE ROMAN LEAGUE. 61 of her reign being close at hand. The league of Pope m. u. and King, baffled by the swift scene at Fotheringay, ~ broken by the loss of the Invincible Armada and the victories of Henri Quatre, has again been formed. Plans for seizing Guernsey and Jersey, arming the Ulster insurgents, throwing troops into Wales, and rousing a London mob, have been warmly debated in Madrid. Medina Coeli commands a mighty force at Cadiz. Philip at Madrid, Cardinal Archduke Albrecht at Brussels, are counting, pensioning, directing the English exiles, men amongst whom Wright and Winter, Stanley and Tresham, enjoy conspicuous favour. Father Parsons, Father Creswell, and Father Holt, the most bigoted and brazen of the English Jesuits, busy them- selves among the needy and fanatical desperadoes of foreign courts and camps, everywhere vilifying the land which has cast them out, and whetting against their Queen the assassin's knife. Nor do they toil in vain. Two military ruffians, Captain Richard Williams and Captain Edward Yorke, offering to become the Clements the Gerards of a more atrocious crime, have crossed the sea, and when taken, knife in hand, and flung into the Tower, confess that they have come into England commissioned by their spiri- tual and military chiefs for murder. They implicate by name Sir William Stanley and Father Holt. 15. Bacon is sick of heart; looks wan and thin, as Junes, all the world takes note. The heady Earl has proved to him a fatal friend. Lady Ann pours on her son her counsels and consolations. 15. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 144. Patent Rolls 38 Eliz. par. vi. 25. 62 FRANCIS BACON. in. is. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. June 3 , 1595. June's. I am sony your brother with inward secret grief hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God and confer with Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with God's blessed favour, had very good healths, and were well out of debt, than any office. Yet though the earl showed great affection, he marred all with violent courses. I pray God increase His fear in his heart and a hatred of sin; indeed, halting before the Lord and backsliding are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably. God cannot like it. I pray show your brother this letter, but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself. Your mother, A. B. If the Queen hangs back, and if Burghley hesitates, it is not from dislike or distrust to Bacon; but simply because so grave a nomination as a successor to Coke in the office of Solicitor-General, ought not to be made as a bounty or a submission to the Earl. The more they feel that such a post can never be filled in such a way, the more they strive to let the world see that the advocate, not the candidate, is in fault. July u. At the express suggestion of Burghley and Fortes- cue, the Queen appoints Bacon one of her Counsel Learned in the Law, and confers on him, at a nominal rent, a good estate. This grant comprises sixty acres, GRANT FROM THE CROWN. 63 more or less of wood, in the forest of Zelwood in the in. 15. county of Somerset, known as the Pitts; which Bacon receives from the Crown on a rent of seven pounds ten j u iy 14. shillings a-year, payable at the feasts of St. Michael the Archangel, and of the Annunciation of the Virgin. 16. If Elizabeth pauses in her choice of a Solicitor- Aug. 7. General, her servants see that Bacon's hopes are for the moment dead. Lady Ann hears this bad news at Gorhambury, and writes to console her son. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. Aug. 7 , 1595. If Her Majesty have resolved upon the negative for your brother, as I hear, truly, save for the brust a little, I am glad of it. God in His time hath better in store I trust. For considering his kind of health and what cumber pertains to that office, it is best for him I hope. Let us all pray the Lord we make us to profit by His fatherly correction; doubtless it is His hand, and all for the best, and love to His children that will seek Him first, and depend upon His goodness. Godly and wisely love ye, like brethren, whatsoever happen, and be of good courage in the Lord, with good hope. A. B. And how does Bacon bear this prospect of defeat? Merrily, it seems. There is a glimpse of him in his mother's .notes to Anthony: "With a humble heart before God, let your brother be of good cheer. Alas! what excess of bucks at Gray's Inn! And to feast it on the Sabbath! God forgive and have mercy upon England!" 16. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 211. 64 FRANCIS BACON. in. 17. 17. A fleet lias gone from Plymouth under Drake. ~ A fleet more terrible to the Don is arming under Sept'. Raleigh. Drake is a marauder, Raleigh a statesman. If he can burn Nombre di Dios and spoil the carracks of Margarita, Drake will be at peace. Raleigh, fresh from his romantic voyage to the Amazon, flushed with the hope of conquest and discovery, is bent on founding States. Bacon, who sees in Raleigh, not alone the nimble wit, the proud courtier, the dashing seaman, but the leader of vast horizon, of philosophic thought, would like to keep Essex on easy terms Avith him; the two men holding, as far as might be, a common course in politics and in war. Their loves and hates are the same. Each longs for war; a war of books and laws against Rome, a war of pikes and culverins against Spain. Each in his own person represents the youth and genius of the time: Essex that of the nobles, Raleigh of the gentry. Each of the two seems to Bacon needful to the other and to the common cause: the Queen's kinsman to uphold it' against timid coun- sels at court, the founder of Virginia to maintain it against Philip's admirals on the Spanish Main. A frank and loyal union of these two men would have given England the free use of all her arms; in the long run it would have saved the men themselves from the block. With tongue and pen Bacon labours to make peace between them. He seeks to push the new ex- pedition. In spite of Raleigh's pride, Avhich often mars his work, he repeats to Essex that Raleigh will be his stanchest and safest friend. 17. Elizabeth to Raleigh, Nov. 1595, S. P. O. ; Notes of the Supple- mental part of the Entertainment given at York House, Nov. 17, 1595, 8. P. O. MASQUE AT YORK HOUSE. 65 Essex is preparing to receive the Queen at York in. 17. House in the Strand with a grand entertainment and a sumptuous masque given in her honour; for which s ept '. Bacon is composing characters and words. The play being given in Essex's name, here are the means for a striking and conspicuous compliment to Raleigh. Bacon frames a scene of the masque in happy allusion to the Amazon and to Raleigh's voyage. 18. Essex has not the grace to let it stand. The NOV. glory of Raleigh breaks his rest, for he himself aspires to be all that Raleigh is renowned in war even more than in letters and in courts. He strikes his pen through Bacon's lines, which drop from the acted scene and from the printed masque. A contemporary copy of this suppressed part remains in the State Paper Office: a proof how much, five years before the Earl rushes into high treason, Bacon leans to the side of her Majesty's Captain of the Guard. The opportunity thrown away by Essex, Burghley and Cecil hug to their hearts. They give, not only their countenance to Raleigh, but their money to the Guiana voyage; Burghley contributing five hundred pounds, Cecil a new ship, the hull of which alone costs him no less than eight hundred pounds. 19. The Earl's want of tact and temper is more NOV. 5, hurtful to his friends than to his foes. He does Raleigh ]595 ' no great harm; he causes Bacon the most grievous loss. Give me this place of the Solicitor he drums and drums at the Queen's ear. She thinks her law officers 18. Entertainment 'given to the Queen at York House, Nov. 17, 1595; Sydney Papers, i. 77. 19. Warrant Book, Nov. 5, 1595. Lord Bacon. 5 66 FRANCIS BACON. in. ID. should be chosen by herself, and for their good parts, not to please the fancy or make good the pledges of a NOV. carpet knight. She will not do a right thing for a bad reason or in a wrong way. Her courts are crowded with able men. She is old enough to choose a servant for herself. As Essex grows hot, she cools: when he storms upon her and will not be denied, she tunas from the spoiled boy, her nomination made. Bacon must wait; Fleming shall be her man. 20. Lord Campbell says, as writers have said from the days of Bushel, that the Earl atoned to Bacon for his failure by a gift of Twickenham Park. It happens, however, that Twickenham Park was not, and never had been, the Earl's to give. That lovely seat, which blooms by the Thames, close under Richmond Bridge, fronting the old palace, and some of the elms of which stand, venerable and green, in the days of Victoria, had belonged to the Bacons for many years. In 1574, while Essex was a boy at Chartley, Twickenham Park, together with More Mead and Ferry Mead, the adjoining lands, had been granted by the Queen to Edward Bacon on lease. The lease is enrolled, and a copy of it may be read in one of the appendices of this book. Francis lived in the house, as his letters prove, long before Fleming's patent of Solicitor passed the Seal. It had all the points of a good country house; a green landscape, wood and water, pure air, a dry soil, vicinity to the court and to the town. From his windows he could peer into the Queen's alleys; in an hour he could trot up to Whitehall or Gray's Inn. Every plant that thrives, every flower that blows, in the south of Eng- 20. Rolls, Mar. 3, 16 Eliz., Record Office. ESSEX S GIFT OF LAND. b7 land, loves the Twickenham soil. There were cedars 111.20. in the great park, swans on the river, singing-birds in the copse; every sight to engage the eye, every sound NOV! to please the ear. He loved the house, and lived in it when he could steal away from Gray's Inn. It was his house of let- ters and philosophy, as the lodging in Gray's Inn Square was his house of politics and law. In fact, when the Earl of Essex ferried over from Richmond Palace, he leapt from his barge on to Bacon's lawn. 21. Unable to pay his debt by a public office, Essex feels that he ought to pay it in money or in money's worth. The lawyer has done his work, must be told his fee. But the Earl has no funds. His debts, his amours, his camp of servants eat him up. He will pay in a patch of land. To this Bacon objects: not that he need scruple at taking wages; not that the mode of payment is unusual; not that the price is be- yond his claim. Four years have been spent in the Earl's service. To pay in land is the fashion of a time when gold is scarce and soil is cheap. Nor is the patch too large; at most it may be worth 1200Z. or 1500/. After Bacon's improvements and the rise of rents, he sells it to Reynold Nicholas for 1800 I. It is less than the third of a year's income from the Solicitor-General's place. Bacon's doubts have a deeper source. Knowing the Earl's fiery temper, and sharing in some degree his mother's fears, he shrinks from incurring feudal obliga- tions to one so vain and weak. Hurt by this hesitation, Essex pouts and sulks; being, as he truly says, the 21 Sir Francis Bacon , his Apologia in certain imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex , written to his very good Lord the Earl of Devon- shire, 1604, 13, 16. 5* 68 FRANCIS BACON. m. 21. sole cause of this loss of place, he will die of vexation if he be not allowed in some small measure to repair NOV'. it- Bacon submits. Yet even in taking the strip of ground, he betrays the uneasy sentiment lurking in his heart, "My Lord," he says, "I see I must be your homager and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with saving of his faith to the King." 22. What says the Queen? "Writers who laud the generosity of a man to whom Bacon owed loss of char- acter and loss of place, denounce the stinginess of a woman to whose noble and unfailing friendship he owed almost everything which he possessed on earth. These scribes are hard to please: they treat Bacon as a rogue whom it is the duty of honest men to scourge; yet decry the Queen for laying on the lash. What would they have? If Bacon were the rascal they have made him , surely the Queen would have done well in starving his powers of mischief! Their reasoning is faulty as their facts. Inquiry at the Rolls Office would have shown them that, even while she was naming Fleming for her Solicitor-General, Elizabeth was Francis Bacon's most warm and munificent friend. She long ago gave him a reversion of the Registry of the Star Chamber; a post, when he should get it, worth 1600 /. a year. As he could no more spare his jest than Tully, he said it was like having another man's land near his house: it improved his prospect, but did not fill his barn. With woeful lack of humour, Rawley mistook this truly Baconian laughter for a groan; and the poor chaplain's petulant wail misled 22. Montagu, xvi., part i. 27. THE QUEEN'S GRANTS. 69 Montagu into dreaming, contrary to all the evidence of m. 22. Rolls and grants, that Elizabeth put the yoke on Ba- ~ con's neck. This blunder of Rawley drove Montagu N'OV. to the drollest shifts. Knowing how Bacon cherished her fame in his heart of hearts, how was the biographer to reconcile this fable of her stinginess to him with the fact of his undying gratitude to her? He hit on the queerest explanation. Does a father who loves his son spare the rod? Are not pangs and stripes good for the soul? Yes, the great Queen must have understood the great man-, in mercy to the world, she crossed him at the bar and starved him at the court! Macaulay rent and tossed this amazing theory; but neither he nor Lord Campbell ever paused to ask if it were true that Elizabeth left him to starve. 23. The reversion of the Star Chamher, the grant of Zelwood Forest, the post of her Counsel learned in the Law, are but a foretaste of her love. Edward Ba- con's lease of Twickenham Park has just expired ; that lovely home by the water edge will be his no more. The house has an importance beyond the beauty of its site; a merit rarer than the green mead, the leafy wood, the rushing stream, the whitening swans; it stands all day in the sovereign's sight. To live in such a place is to be a daily guest in her Majesty's mind. The house is good, the park spacious; within the pales are eighty-seven acres of lawn and pasture, lake and or- chard; beyond the pales five or six acres of mead and field. It is a home for a prince. Fourteen years ago the park was leased to Milo Dodding for thirty years, commencing from the expira- 23. Rot. 38 Eliz., pars vi. 20, Record Office. 70 FRANCIS BACOX. m.23. tion of Edward Bacon's term; but on passing to Fle- ming the patent of his place, the gracious Queen makes Nov/i7. over to Francis Bacon a reversion of this lease. On the fifth of November Fleming gets his commission as Solicitor-General ; on the seventeenth of November, the day of his masque at York House, of his proposed compliment to the Guiana voyage, Bacon's grant of the reversion of Twickenham Park passes under the Privy Seal. EMPLOYED IN THE QUEEN'S SERVICE. 71 CHAPTEE IV. Treason of Sir John Smyth. 1. THE Queen not only endows Bacon with lands, iv. i. and with the reversion of lands and offices, but em- ' ploys him in her legal and political affairs; often in M a y- business which would seem to belong exclusively to the department of Fleming or of Coke. As her Counsel learned in the Law, he is engaged in the prosecution of William Randal. He is consulted in the more mo- mentous charge against Sir John Smyth, who stands accused of no less a crime than that of an attempt, under circumstances of peculiar guilt, to provoke a mi- litary mutiny and insurrection against the Queen. 2. In the spring of 1596 an expedition, meant to anticipate the Roman league, has been arming in the Thames. Its destination is unknown, though the few suspect that a blow will fall on the most prosperous and beautiful of Spanish ports. Raleigh is still at home; Keymish having gone with his fleet of ships to the mouths of the Amazon. Vere and Effingham are drilling troops. Essex martial, if not military is pouting for command. Anthony and Francis Bacon busy themselves in collecting news for the Queen from foreign spies and foreign Gazettes. While the Earl of Essex lies at Plymouth, waiting for Raleigh and the rear-guard of his fleet to come round, Francis writes to his brother: 1. Egerton, Fleming, and Bacon to the Council, May 3, 1596, S. P. O. ; Lucas to the Council, June 23, 1596, S. P. O. 2. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 29, 30. 72 FRAXCIS BACOX. IV- ?. FRANCIS BACOX TO AXTHOXY BACOX. j^ MY VERY GOOD BROTHER, May is, 15%. May 15. I have remembered your salutation to Sir John Fortescue, and delivered him the Gazette, desiring him to reserve it to read in his barge. He acknowledged it to be of another sort than the common. I delivered him account so much of E. Hawkins 1 letter as contained advertisements copied out; which is the reason I return the letter to you now; the Gazette being gone with him to the court. The next words consecutive I have not acquainted him with, nor any of them. The body is for more apt time. So, in haste, I wish you comfort as I write. Your entire loving brother, FR. BACON. Fourteen days later, the fleet now riding in Ply- mouth Sound, Bacon writes again. Anthony, tiring of the Earl's unprofitable service, wishes to be sent abroad as agent or ambassador: a post for which he is eminently fit To his suit for such a place Francis refers: FRAXCIS BACOX TO AXTHOXY ^ GOOD BROTHER, From the Court, May 31st, 1596. Yesternight Sir John Fortescue told me you had not many hours before imparted to the Queen your advertisement, and the Gazettes likewise, which the Queen desired Mr. H. Stanhope to read all over unto her; and her Majesty commandeth they be not made vulgar. The advertisement her Majesty made estima- tion of, as concurring with the other advertisements, and belike concurring also with her opinion of the LETTER TO HIS BROTHER ANTHONY. 73 affairs. So he willed me to return to you the Queen's iv. 2. speeches. Other particulars of any speech from her Majesty of yourself he did not repeat to me. For my May si. Lord of Essex and the Lord-Treasurer, he said he was ready and disposed to do his best. But I seemed to make it only a love-suit, and passed presently from it, the rather because it was late in the night, and I was to deal with him on some better occasion after another manner, as you shall hereafter understand from me. I do find in the speech of some ladies, and the very fairest of this court, some additions of reputation as methinks to be both; and I doubt not but God hath an operation (?) in it that will not suffer good endeavours to perish. The Queen saluted me to-day as she went to supper. I had long speech with Sir Robert Cecil this morning, who seemed apt to discourse with me. Yet of your hest not a word (?) This I write to you in haste, aliud ex alio. I pray you, in the course of ac- quainting my Lord, say, where presseth, at first by me, after from yourself, I am more and more bound to him. Thus, wishing you good health, I commend you to God's happiness. pTour entire loving brother, FR. BACON. ' 3. Against the Queen's sounder sense, Essex gets command of the land forces told off for a dash at Cadiz. On the eve of sailing, conscious that, though he may have meant the best, he has done for Bacon the worst that man could do, he writes in kindly but superfluous words to recommend him to the care of his oldest and sagest friend. Thus, in generous helplessness, he writes to Egerton: 3. Lambeth MSS. 657, 90. 74 FRAXCIS BACOX. rv. 3. ESSEX TO LORD KEEPER EGERTON. MY VERY GOOD LORD, May 27, 1506. May '. I do understand by my good friend Mr. F. B. how much he is bound to your lordship for your favour. I do send your lordship my best thanks, and do pro- test unto you there is no gentleman in England of whose good fortune I have been more desirous. I do still retain the same mind; but, because my interces- sion hath rather hurt him than done him good, I dare not move the Queen for him. To your lordship I earnestly commend the care I have of his advancement ; for his parts were never destined to a private and (if . I may so speak) an idle life. That life I call idle that is not spent in public business; for otherwise he will ever give himself worthy tasks. Your lordship, in performing what I desire, will oblige us both, and within very short time see such fruit of your own work as will please you well. So, commending your lord- ship to God's best protection, I rest, at your lordship's commandment, ESSEX. June. 4. At length they are gone; Effingham, Raleigh, Vere, Montjoy, all the great fighting men, on board; leaving England for the' moment bare of fleets or troops' Twelve days have worn since the ships weighed anchor in Plymouth Sound, and not one word of news has come to shore. They may be hundreds of fathoms deep in the Bay of Biscay, or lie crushed and strewn under Lisbon rock. Should they have perished as the In- vincible Armada perished! It is known that the Twelve 4. Gilbert to Raleigh , Mar. 16 , 1596 , S. P. O. ; Gorges to Burghley, April 12 , 1596, S. P. O. ; Proclamation by the Earl of Essex , April 14, 1596 , S. P. O.; Queen Elizabeth to Cobham, June 7, 1596, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., June 1 to August 7, 1596. DEFENSIVE PREPARATIONS. 75 Apostles, gigantic Andalusian war-ships, float in Cadiz rv. 4. bay, that a fleet of transports rides at the Groyne; that a Spanish army of horse and foot crouches behind j^ ne '. the heights of San Sebastian and the walls of Bilboa; that a body of victorious troops, flushed with the as- sault of Calais, occupies the dunes which look on Dover cliffs. It is felt that a storm, a repulse, even a dead calm, may give the signal for a swarm of Pan- dours and Walloons to burst into Kent. Some, in this day of dark suspense, dispute the policy of having sent the fleet on such a cruise many blame the ambition which pulls the weaver from his loom, the hind from his plough. Every one has to submit to loss of money or loss of time. The train- bands garrison the city and protect the Court. Lord Cobham holds the Cinque Ports. Sir Thomas Lucas puts the men of Colchester under drill. The bombar- diers of Dover, Plymouth, and Milford Haven stand to their guns. Musters for defence gather even in the midland and northern shires; where, at a call from the Privy Council, yeomen snatch down their bills and pikes, often rusty and out of date, bills which were swung in Bosworth field, bows which were drawn at Agincourt. On every village green, and under every market-cross, drums beat and tabors sound the local force to arms. 5. Now is the time for friends of Rome to strike. June 12. Where there is much to bear, a man of weak under- standing will infer that, despite ambition and pride of 5. Elizabeth's Letters Patent to raise troops in Kent, Sussex, Middle- sex , and Surrey , for relief of Calais , April 1596 , S. P. O. ; Smyth to Cecil, Mar. 14, 1600, S. P. O.; Discourse of the Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of the Catholic Faith, Aug. 1600, S. P. O. 76 FRAXCIS BACON. iv. 5. race, there must be fires of discontent ready to flare 7~ out. When discontent is armed, it may be led to un^is. abuse its strength ; so at least reasons the rich country gentleman, Sir John Smyth. Smyth is a Roman Catholic, owner of Baddow and Coggeshall, in Essex; a friend of the great Seymour family, an ally of Catherine de' Medici; a correspond- ent of the foreign Jesuits and priests. His life has been one long plot. In the war now booming, all his love lies beyond the sea. The doctrine taught by Parsons and Bellarmino, that a good Roman Catholic must fight and pray for his Church, even against his native sovereign and his native land, is an active por- tion of his creed. Others may wish to maim the go- vernment, may pray for storms to whelm or cannon to crush the English fleet; Sir John is fool enough to risk his neck by active measures in support of the allies of his Church. The fighting men gone, he be- holds the Queen, the lords of her Council, all the peers of her realm, at the mercy, as he thinks, of an armed, uncertain mob. A march on London, a fight under the windows of Whitehall, may cause the fleets to hie back to Plymouth, or the Spaniards to cross the Straits. Cries are never wanting to a traitor. There is the old, ol'd feud of poor against rich; the old, old aver- sion of local troops to serve the Crown in its foreign wars. Unhappily both these feuds are now malignant: that between rich and poor being embittered by the recent conversion of a vast extent of plough-land into pasture, by the destruction of a great number of cot- tages and holdings, and by the increase of sheep-walks and of parks for the preservation of red and fallow deer; that between the local troops and the Crown, by SMYTH'S TREASON. 77 reports that the musters have been forced to go on rv. 5. board the fleet, and that soldiers raised in the metro- politan shires have been sent by the Government into France. The decay of tillage, the increase of sheep and deer, are for the yeoman class, and for the country of which they are the thew and sinew, hard events. The yeomen kick against the goad; for, not being skilled in science, they cannot see that they are driven from their farms by the operations of a natural law. If they have ever heard that when wool pays better than rent, their landlords may prefer sheep to men, the news has not reconciled them to the conversion of their old farms into sheep-walks or deer-parks. Smyth, as a country gentleman, sees this sore, and fancies he may turn the discontent against the Queen. 6. Like his neighbours, Smyth hands down from his walls the rusty arms, calling in Frost of Colchester to edge his swords and string his bows. Thomas Sey- mour, one of those weak descendants of Maiy Brandon whose blood is too red for their sovereign's comfort, or their own, joins him in his freak. With an army of two mounted followers, Smyth and Seymour ride into the field at Colchester in which Sir Thomas Lucas, fiercely loyal, drills his troop. Eeining their steeds in front of the yeoman line, Sir John cries, Who will go with me? There are traitors round the Queen who grind the poor into bondmen; who send them out of the realm; who break the laws; who weaken the coun- try, who ruin the yeomen. These traitors have killed 6. Examination of John Lucas and others, June 12, 1596, S. P. O. ; Examination of Frost, June 22, 1596, S. P. O. ; Smyth to Mannocke, June 13, 1596, S. P. O. 78 FRANCIS BACON. rv. c. nine thousand foot in their foreign wars, and they will send you out of England to be slain. Juae 6 i2. "Shall we go with you, Sir John?" asks a trooper. "You shall go with a better man than me than Sir Thomas Lucas," shouts Smyth. "Here is a noble man of the blood royal, brother to Lord Beauchamp; he shall be your captain. I myself shall be his as- sistant. Down with Burghley! Who goes with me, hold up his hand." Not one. No hand, no cry is raised. Treason that halts is lost; and whoever is not with the traitor is against him. Meshed in a fearful crime, the four horse- men prick from the field, part in the slob, and hide themselves from pursuit in the sands of the sea-shore. Smyth seeks a boat for France; but the summer morn- ing dawns on him staggering, faint and hopeless on the coast. Crazed with fear, he skulks home to Baddow, where he vainly hopes to hide his face from the local magistrates, now hurrying on his track. June 19. 7. Sent up to London, lodged in the Tower, Smyth confesses his crime. Coke and Fleming receive orders from the Privy Council to call in Bacon and Waad, a clerk of the Council, and then to take the evidence, look up the law, and, if they find the offence treason, prepare articles of indictment against Smyth. These four commissioners meet, find the acts at Colchester trea- son, and report that the offence is punishable by a special statute. Bacon, not content, like the Attorney-General and 7. Smyth to the Council, June 19, 1596, 8. P. O. ; Council to Coke, Fleming, Waad, and Bacon, June 27, 1596, S. P. O. ; Smyth's Examination, June 28, 1596, S. P. O.; Abstract of Evidence against Sir John Smyth, July 1596, S. P. 0. NEWS OP A GREAT VICTORY. 79 Solicitor-General, with setting the law in motion to iv. 7. hang this wretched man, asks himself how a country knight, not wholly crazed, could have dreamt that, juneio. on a cry of "Down with sheep and deer," honest men could be roused to mutiny against their Queen? To a philosophic mind the reason of a thing is often of larger interest than the thing itself. Is there dis- content among the yeomen? If so, is there cause? He makes a wide and sweeping study of this question of Pasturage versus Tillage, of Deer versus Men, which convinces him of the cruelty and peril of depopulating hamlets for the benefit of a few great lords. This study will produce when Parliament meets again a memorable debate and an extraordinary change of law. 8. While Coke and Bacon wind out of Smyth's con- July 16. fessions the threads of his interrupted treason, comes in, wave on wave, the news of such a victory as only twice or thrice in a thousand years has stirred our Eng- lish phlegm. It comes in first by a Dutch skipper, who puts three men on the Devonshire coast. The tale they tell is beyond belief: the city of Cadiz taken, an armada sunk, Porto Santa Maria wrapt in flame, the Duke of Medina Coeli driven from his lines, the road from San Lucar to Seville blocked up with the fugitive population of a great province hurrying for their lives. Some nine days pass, when a Scotch boat drops into Dartmouth with the same news. A few hours later still the van of the victorious fleet rides into Plymouth Sound, laden with such spoil, such heaps of plate, gold, jewels, damasks, silks, hangings, carpets, 8. Carey to Cecil, July 16, 1596, S. P. O. ; Report from Cadiz , July 16, 19, 21, 1596, 8. P. O. ; Report of the Spoil taken at Cadiz, Aug. 11, 1596, S. P. 0. 80 FRANCIS BACON. iv. 8. scarfs, as living Englishmen have only seen in dreams. To hear that the fleet is safe would have been joy 1596 Sept! enough; this fiery triumph of our arms, this glow of spoil and conquest, all but drive men mad. 9. Most mad of all is Essex. The glory gained by Raleigh and Effingham chafes his pride; the eleva- tion of Cecil in his absence into First Secretary of State disturbs his power. If much remains to him, much ,js not enough. A warrior who has pushed through the Puerta de la Tierra, and seen the loveliest city in the west of Europe at his feet, should be suf- fered, he thinks, to enjoy a monopoly of power and fame. Yet a senseless country shares the credit with his rivals, while a forgetful Queen has given the most active place in her government to his foe. On every side he is robbed of his due: getting neither his fair part of the spoil, nor anything like his fair part of the reputation. So he sulks and pouts; prints his own account of the voyage; finds fault with the generals and admirals; tells the sailors of the fleet and the sol- diers in the camp that their success would have been far more prompt, their prizes far more abundant, had his command of them been unfettered by such a coun- cil of fools and cowards. But Cecil's rise at home provokes him more than Raleigh's success abroad. This case is a repetition of Bacon's case. Sir Thomas Bodley, that experienced scholar and diplomatist to whose wealth and taste we owe the princely library at Oxford, has, like Bacon, been of use to the Earl, and Essex, who pays his debts 9. Lambeth MSS. 658, fol. 21; Censures of the Omissions in the Expedi- tion to Cadiz, 1596; Camden's Ann. Eliz., 1596; Bacon's Apologie, 19, 20; Devereux, i. 380. CECIL'S ELEVATION. 81 in offices and grants, has pledged his word that Bodley iv. 9. shall be Secretary of State. The Queen has not kept her kinsman's pledge. On his return from Spain, per- ceiving that he was sent away from London to give Cecil an open field, he begins to sulk and storm. He will not stay at court to be mocked. He will bury his grief at Wan stead, or rush away to the wars, and find peace of heart on a Spanish pike! Lady Ann's quick ear and loving eye perceive the change that Cecil's elevation, the Earl's discomfiture, must work at court. Now that her sister's son, who so bitterly hates the Earl of Essex and so sharply resents the connexion of any of his own able kin with the insolent and brainless peer, has come to his height of power, she writes to warn Anthony of the evil days in store for them, now Cecil is greater than before, and of the need for her sons to walk with a more wary step. It is the last letter from her pen, closing, as a good wo- man's letters should do, with words of love. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. July 10, 1596. Now that Sir Kobert is fully stalled in his long longed-for secretary's place, I pray God give him a re- ligious, wise, and an upright heart before God and man. I promise you, son, in my conjectural opinion, you had more need now to be more circumspect and advised in your troublous discoursings and doings and dealings in your accustomed matter, either with or for yourself or others, whom you heartily honour, nor without cause. He now hath great advantage and strength to inter- cept, prevent, and to say where he hath been or is in. Son, be it revelation or suspicion, you know what terms Lord liitcon. 6 82 FRAXCIS BACOX. iv. 9. he standeth in towards yourself, and would needs have me tell you so; so very vehement he was. Then you are said to be wise, and to my comfort I willingly think so; but surely, son, on the other side, for want of some experience by action and your tedious unac- quaintance of your own country by continual chamber and bed-keeping, you must need miss of considerate judgment in your verbal only travailing. If all were scant sound before betwixt the /"//. [Earl of 1! and him, friends had need to walk more warily in his days; for all affectionate doing he may hurt though pretending good. The father and son are joined iu power and policy. The Lord ever bless you iu Christ. Still I hearken for Yates; I doubt somebody hindereth his coming to me. It were small matter to come speak with me. You know what you have to do in regard touching the Spaniard. I reck not his dis- pleasure; God grant he mar not all at last with Spanish popish subtlety. Alas! what I wrote touching the poor sum of five pounds to your brother [Francis], I meant but to let you know plainly. I would rather nourish than any little way weaken true brotherly love, as appeareth manifestly to you both. God forbid but that you should always love heartily, mutually, and kindly. God commandeth love as brethren, be- sides bond of nature. This present time I am brewing but for hasty and home drinking. In truth, if I should purposely make a tierce somewhat strong for you, I know not how to have it carried through. It were pity that you and I both should be disappointed. Burn, burn, in any wise. From your mother, A.B. PROPOSES TO ELIZABETH HATTON. 83 Bacon warns the Earl against hasty speeches and iv. 9. offensive acts. Essex swears the rough way is the 1596 only way with Elizabeth. She may be driven, not g e pt! led. "My lord," says Bacon, "these courses are like hot waters; they may help at a pang, but they will not do for daily use." Essex seems crazed. Bacon seeks to dissuade him from this lust of arms; his pro- per weapon being a chamberlain's stick. In happy phrase he tells him that this haughty, bearing to the Queen, this craving for command in camps, may prove to him the two wings of Icarus wings joined on with wax; wings which may melt as he soars to the sun. 10. Essex cools to a man whose talk is so very 1597. much wiser than he wants to hear. They have no une * scene, no quarrel, no parting; for there are no sym- pathies to wrench, no friendships to dissolve. Essex ceases to seek advice at Gray's Inn. They now rarely see each other. Bacon is writing his Essays, fagging at the bar, slipping into love; and Essex is still happy to serve him, when he can do it at anybody's cost but his own. Francis falls into love. Lord Campbell thinks he only falls into debt. "He was desperately poor; he therefore made a bold attempt to restore his position by matrimony." This is surely in Bantam's vein. "When one doesn't know," asks the cockfighter, "is not it natural to think the worst?" The lady that Bacon courts is rich and of his kin. Elizabeth Hatton, a granddaughter of his uncle Burghley, niece of his 10. Essex to Sir Thomas Cecil , June 24, 1597 ; Bankes's Story of Corffe Castle, 34. 6* 84 FRANCIS BACON. rv. 10. cousin Cecil, has been left a widow, young, lovely, powerful in her friends and in her fine estate. The June, mistress of Hatton House, of CorfFe Castle, of Purbeck Isle, a woman whose lovely hand is celebrated in Jon- son's verse "Mistress of a fairer table Hath no history nor fable," has, of course, crowds of adorers at her feet: among them men no less renowned than William Earl of Pembroke and Francis Bacon. The lady, or her kins- man for her, puts aside their suits. Cecil looks on his fair niece as a thing to be sold for his own gain. Her youth, her beauty, her great inheritance are precious in his sight, and the husband for such a woman must be to him a strong defender or a useful slave. Essex, on the point of sailing for the Azores, writes to Sir Thomas and Lady Cecil, saying, if he had a sister to give away in marriage, he would gladly give her to his friend. If this means more than the cheap generosity of words, it is most fortunate for Francis Bacon that Penelope and Dorothy, the Earl's two sis- ters, are already in holy bonds. It would be bad enough for him to have won Lady Hatton; it would be awful to have to stand in the shoes of Northumberland or Eich. Oct. 22. 11. During the Earl's absence at the Azores Effing- ham is made an earl: an affront to Essex more galling than the rejection, on his suit, of the services of Bacon and Bodley; for this creation robs him, as he thinks, of the glory of Cadiz fight, and permits a man whom 11. Patent of the Earldom of Nottingham, Oct. 22, 1597, S. P. O. ; Elizabeth to Essex, Oct. 28, 1597, S. P. O ; Raleigh to Cecil, July 20, 1597, S. P. O. ; CecU to Essex, July 26, 1597, S. P. O. ; Devereux, i. 467. THE COUNTESS OP LEICESTER. 85 he loathes to walk before him in the Queen's train and rv. 11. sit above him in the House of Peers. When he hears of this grant having passed the Seal, he quits his com- 6ct. mand without leave, hurries up to town, and, finding the thing done, insults the Queen, spurs to Wanstead House, defying at once the entreaties of the Council to return, and the advice of his best friends to submit. A dark and ruinous spirit now stands by his side. Ealeigh screens him from blame in his great failure at the Azores; pleading for him with the Queen in almost passionate terms; but Raleigh is the lion in the way of Sir Christopher Blount, his new and most confiden- tial friend. Under the lead of Blount, Essex begins to part from his old Protestant and patriotic allies, from Bacon and Raleigh, from Cecil and Grey, turning his eyes and ears to the blandishments of loose women and the suggestions of discontented men; to such wantons as Elizabeth Southwell and Mary Howard, to such plotters as Robert Catesby and Christopher Wright. A craze is in his blood and in his brain. "It comes from his mother," sighs the hurt and angry Queen. 12. As Lettice Knollys, as Countess of Essex, as Countess of Leicester, as wife of Sir Christopher Blount, this mother of the Earl has been a barb in Elizabeth's side for thirty years. Married as a girl to a noble husband, she gave up his honour to a seducer, and there is reason to fear she yielded her consent to the taking of his life. While Devereux lived, she deceived the Queen by a scandalous amour, and after his death by a clandestine marriage, with the Earl of Leicester. 12. Papers of Mary Queen of Scota, xvi. 7, 15, 16, 17; Camden's Ann. Eliz., 632; Craik's Romance of the Peerage, i. 5, 338. 86 FRANCIS BACON. IV. 12. While Dudley lived she wallowed in licentious love with Christopher Blount, his groom of the horse. When Oct. her second husband expired in agonies at Cornbury, not a gallop from the place in which Amy Robsart died, she again mortified the Queen by a secret union with her seducer Blount. Her children riot in the same vices. Essex himself, with his ring of favourites, is not more profligate than his sister Lady Rich. In early youth Penelope Rich was the mistress of Sydney, whose stolen love for her is pictured in his most voluptuous verse. Sydney is Astrophel, Penelope Stella. Since Sydney's death she has lived in shameless adultery with Lord Montjoy, though her husband Lord Rich is still alive. Her sister Dorothy, after wedding one husband secretly and against the canon, has now married Percy, the wizard of Northumberland, whom she leads the life of a dog. Save in the Suffolk branch of the Howards, it would not be easy to find out of Italian story a group of women so detestable as the mother and sisters of the Earl. 13. The third husband of Lady Leicester is her match in licentiousness, more than her match in crime. By birth a papist, by profession a bravo and a spy, Blount is incapable either of feeling for his wretched wife the manly love of Essex, or of treating her with the lordly courtesy of Leicester. Brutal and rapacious, he has married her, not for her bright eyes, now dim with rheum and vice, but for her jewels, her con- nexions, and her lands. He cringed to Leicester, that he might sell the secrets of his cabinet and enjoy the 13. Craik's Rom. Peerage, i. 127, 208. SIR CHRISTOPHER BLOUNT. 87 pleasures of his bed. With the same blank conscience, rv. is. he wrings from the widow her ornaments and goods. Chain, armlet, necklace, .money, land, timber, every- Oct. thing that is hers, wastes from his prodigal palm. He beats her servants; he thrusts his kinsfolk upon her; he snatches the pearl from her neck, the bond from her strong box. A villain so black would have driven a novelist or playwright mad. lago, Overreach, Bara- bas all the vile creatures of poetic imagination, are to him angels of light. What would have been any other man's worst vice, is Blount's sole virtue a ruth- less and unreasoning constancy to his creed. Fear and shame are to him the idlest of idle words; and, just as he would follow the commands of his general, he obeys the dictation of his priest. As a libertine and as a' spy, his days have been spent in dodging the assassin or in cheating the rope. Waite was sent by Leicester to kill the villain who defiled his bed; Blount repaid the courtesy by prompting or conniving at Leicester's death. Taught by Cardinal Allen, deep in the Jesuit plots, he has more than once put his neck so near the block, that a world which neither loves nor understands Mm hugs itself in a belief that he must have bought his safety from arrest and condemnation by selling to Walsingham or Cecil the blood of better and braver men. 14. This bravo has subdued the imperious Countess of Leicester to his will. She has been to him an easy, if not an ignoble prey; for the profligate woman dotes 14. Devereux, i. 281; Council Reg. , 'Mar. 16, 1600. The frequent re- currence of the Privy Council Register in these notes reminds me that I ought to express, and in the warmest manner, my many obligations to Henry Reeve, Esq. , of the Privy Council Office. I owe to his ready and unvarying kindness an easy access to the sources of some of the most im- portant facts in this volume. 88 FRANCIS BACON. IV. H. on her tyrant; so that she who could barely stoop to the kiss of Devereux and Dudley, prides herself on the Oct! blessing of being robbed and cuffed by a wretch with- out grace, accomplishments, or parts. When, for his private gain and the promotion of his faith , it serves Blount's turn to win over Essex the same brutal ascend- ency which he has established over Lady Leicester, he feels no pang of heart in turning her tenderness as a mother into the abominable instrument of his guile. His bold, coarse arts are soon successful with the giddy youth; who draws closer and closer to his mother's husband, puts him into places of trust near his person, listens to his counsels, makes associates of his male and female friends, gets him a command in the army, and gives him a seat in the House of Commons. Bacon and Blount propose to Essex the two courses most opposed to each other: Bacon the abandonment of his military pomp, of his opposition to the Queen, and the acceptance now and for ever of that great part which Leicester filled for so many years; Blount the pursuit of war and glory, so as to dazzle the multitude, overawe the Queen, find employments for his compa- nions, and consolidate his personal power. Bacon would make him chief of the Protestant nation, Blount of a discontented and disloyal Roman Catholic sect. One asks him to be grave, discreet, and self-denying. The other fires his blood with maddening and dramatic hopes. He cleaves to Blount, who tempts him with the things for which his restless and evil nature pants. He begins to toy with treason. He admits Roman Ca- tholics of sullied reputation and suspected loyalty into his confidence. He even interferes to protect from jus- tice the traitor Sir John Smyth. MOTION ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 89 15. At the end of those four years for which Bacon iv. 15. compelled the Government to accept of subsidies, the ~ money being spent, writs for a new parliament go out. Oct. Bacon now stands for Ipswich, the family county town, to represent which is the aim of his ambition; having for his colleague Michael Stanhope, a grand-nephew of Lady Ann. His kinsmen muster strong in Westminster. Anthony sits for Oxford, Nathaniel for Lynn; Henry Neville, his sister's son, for Liskeard; Sir Edward Hoby, his cousin, for Rochester; Sir Robert Cecil, also his cousin, for Herts. Benedict Barnham, of Cheapside, whose pretty little daughter, Alice, Bacon will years hence make his wife, is returned for Yarmouth, having represented Minehead in the former Parliament. Ra- leigh sits for Dorsetshire; and Christopher Yelverton, the Speaker nominate, for Northants. Sir Christopher Blount, by command from the Earl of Essex, serves for Staffordshire. In this new session the member for Ipswich sits; not, as Lord Campbell writes, a burgess prostrate, penitent, under the royal ban, anxious by his silence and servility to efface the recollection of his former speech. No voice is raised so often or so loud as his. Again he speaks for ample grants; again he votes with the reforming squires; again he wages battle of privilege against the Privy Council and the House of Lords. He serves on the Committee of Mo- nopolies. He seconds Sir Francis Hastings' motion for amending the penal laws. But the great contest of this session, the one that makes it memorable in English history, is fought on a bill of his own, framed on the treason of Sir John Smyth, and meant to arrest the 15. Mem. of Stages of Bills in Parliament, Oct. 1597, S. P. O. ; Willis, Not. Parl., iii. 137, 139, 140, 141, 142 j D'Ewes, 549; Tovrashend, 102. 90 FRANCIS BACOX. iv. is. decay of tillage, the perishing of the yeomen from the English soil. 1597. KOV. 16. Yelverton chosen Speaker, Bacon rises with a motion on the State of the Country. State of the Country means to him the relation of the people to the land. The population lives on the soil. Mining is in its cradle, though the iron ordnance of Sussex and Arden has been heard on the Rhine and the Theiss. Manufactures are few and scant, though the dyed wools of Tiverton and Dunster have begun to find markets on the Elbe and the Scheldt. To grow corn, to herd cattle, to brew ale and press cider, to shear sheep, to fell and carry wood, are the main occupations of every English shire. The farms are small and many; the farmers neither rich nor poor. The breeder of kine, the grower of herbs and wheat, is a yeoman born; not too proud to put hand to plough, not too pinched to keep horse and pike. A link between the noble and the peasant, he is of the very thew and marrow of the state; a man to stand at your shoulder in the day of work or in the day of fight. This sturdy class is dropping the plough for the weaver's shuttle and the tailor's goose; the rage for enclosing woods and com- mons, for impaling parks, for changing arable land into pasture, for turning holdings for life into tenancies at will, having driven thousands of yeomen from fields and downs which their fathers tilled before the Conqueror came in. Whole districts have been cleared. Where homesteads smoked and harvests waved, there is now, in many parts, a broad green landscape, peopled by a Ifi. Summary Articles of the Bill for Maintenance of Husbandry, Oct. 1597, S. P. O. ; D'Ewes, 550-53; Bacon's History of the Reign of Henry VH., Works, vi. 94. INCREASE OF PASTURE. 91 shepherd and his dog. Where the maypole sprang, and rv. ie. the village green crowed with frolic, are now a sheep- walk and a park of deer. N'OV! 17. The loss of this martial race, the bowmen of Cressy, the billmen of Boulogne, is a grievous weakness for the Crown; thinning the musters for defence, while swelling the materials for mutinies and plots. Nor has this change escaped the Jesuits, or those who live to watch and thwart the Jesuits. A paper of instructions for the Roman Catholic priests and gentry, On the means of recovering England to the Holy See, lays stress on the discontent caused by these enclosures of commons and village greens. Smyth used this argument at Colchester. The Catholic peers have not been slow to increase an evil which their party treats as a means of future good to the Church. Dr. James, the Dean of Durham, has had to warn Burghley of the consequences of this waste of tillage and population in the two shires of Durham and Northumberland; shires in which two or three Roman Catholic earls own nearly all the soil. The yeomen have embraced the national faith, while most of the old nobility cling to the foreign creed; and a fanatic like Percy or Seymour may often find a legal form of persecution in the pretence of converting his arable land into pasture, or of forming a park for deer. But if this rage for enclosure is sometimes abused into a means of sectarian spite, it is very far from being confined to the Roman Catholic lords. From Durham to Devon the tenants are chased from their farms that 17. Discourse of the Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of the Catholic Faith , when God shall call the Queen out of this life, Aug. 1600, 8. P. O. ; Dr. James to Burghley, May 26, 1597, 8. P. O. ; Stillman to Cecil, Jan. 2, 1600, S. P. O. 92 FRAXCIS BACOX. IV- 17. sheep may feed and stags disport. Ire fills and in- ~ flames the yeomen's veins. In every park wall they NOV. see a menace, in every fawn the substitute of a child. They throw down the pales and ensnare the deer. A youth of Stratford-upon-Avon kills his buck in Charle- cote Park. A crowd from Enfield scours the preserves of Hatfield Chace. Every spark becomes his own Robin Hood, and haunches of venison smoke on the tables of Cheapside and Paternoster Row. To snare deer is, in all the popular comedies and songs, an heroic protest, not at all a crime. 18. Unlike the Jesuits and the Jesuitized peers, whose purpose it may be to thin the fibre and relax the power of England in the field, Bacon seeks to ar- rest this evil in its germ. Placed by his birth between the nobles and the commons, he shares neither the pride of the superior nor the envy of the inferior rank. His genius, too, is singularly free from taint of sect or class. Wholly English, his glory is to reconcile classes through* reform, to strengthen the Crown by justice. Concord, tolerance, loyalty at home; sway, extension, trade abroad; these are the points at which he aims. Xot so the Jesuits. They have begun, to despair of aid from Spain; after the wreck of the Armada, the sack of Cadiz, they fear lest England may be found too strong for subjection to Rome by either foreign guile or foreign steel. They turn their eyes, there- fore, to the men with sore hearts and brawny arms, and, taking note of the discontent among the yeomen, begin to count with confidence on the approaching days of civil war. IS. Discourse of Providence necessary to be had for the setting up of the Catholic Faith, Aug. 1600, S. P. O. BILL FOR MAINTENANCE OF HUSBANDRY. 93 19. Bacon's plan for staying the decline of popula- iv. 19. tion is to convert this new grass-land into arable, to 1 ^Q7 put these new parks under the plough. A committee K OV ' of the House of Commons, named to consider this plan, votes in its favour, when the House commissions its author to frame and introduce his bill. He brings in two bills: one for the Increase of Tillage and Hus- bandry; one for the Increase of People; which provide that no more land shall be cleared without special rea- son and a special licence. They provide that all land turned into pasture since the Queen's accession, no less a period than forty years, shall be taken from the deer and sheep within eighteen months, and restored to the yeoman and the plough. 20. If the Commons pass these bills at once, the Peers receive them with amazement. Ask the Shrews- burys, Worcesters, and Northumberlands to dispark their chaces and restore the plough! As well ask Re- gan for the hundred knights. At once they name a committee of Peers to oppose the two bills; which committee calls to its aid the legal dexterity of Chief Justice Popham and Attorney-General Coke. 21. Though the foreign enemy is at the gate and every true man at his post, Vere in the Low Coun- tries, Raleigh and Montjoy at Plymouth, Essex still sulks and pouts at Wanstead. In vain the Lord Trea- surer coaxes him. In vain the Earl's friends remon- 19. Summary Articles of the Bill for Maintenance of Husbandry , Oct. 1597, 8. P. O.: Breviate of a Bill entitled 'An Act for the Increase of People for the Service and Defence of the Realm,' Dec. 20, 1597, S. P. O. 20. Lords' Jour., ii. 212, 217. 21. Burghley to Essex, Nov. 9, 19, 30, 1597, S. P. O. ; Remonstrance with Essex, Nov. 1C, 1597, S. P. O. ; Howard, Montjoy, and Raleigh to the Council, Nov. 9, 1597, S. P. O. ; Hunsdon to Essex, Nov. 1597, S. P. O. 94 FRANCIS BACON% iv. 21. strate with him on the wickedness of dividing or dis- ~ tracting his country at snch a time. They beg him to Dec. put aside his wrongs, if he has any wrongs, nntil the danger of a fresh invasion from Spain, of a fresh mas- sacre in Ireland, shall have passed away. The Queen declares herself hurt more by this desertion than by his failures when at sea. But nothing moves him until Bacon's patriotic bills come up before the Peers, when he hastens to town, and, receiving the nomination of Earl Marshal, takes his seat in the House of Lords. As he was not named to the hostile committee, he begs that his name may be added to the list. For this committee Coke draws up thirty-one legal objections to Bacon's bills. Thus armed to contest his logic and deny his law, the Peers send Black Rod to request a conference with the Lower House. 1598. oo Aware of these hostile preparations in the up- per House, the burgesses, ere entering into conference, wish to have a copy of Coke's thirty-one legal objec- tions to their bills. The Lords refuse to give it. But Bacon will not bend; if the Commons are to meet ob- jections, they must know what these objections are. No copy, no conference! After much debate the Peers consent to give their written answer to the bills when the gentlemen of the Commons shall come up to confer. Conference now meets: the burgesses employing Bacon as their champion, the barons employing Coke. After day on day of talk, after many proposals and some amend- ments, Coke gives way, and the worsted Peers accept the two bills with some slight modifications of title and clause. The bills did not pass, says Lord Campbell. They are in the Statute Book, 39 of Elizabeth, 1 and 2. 22. Lords' Jour., ii. 217 ; Statutes 39 Elizabeths:, c. 1 and 2. FURTHER GRANT PROM THE QUEEN. 95 23. No love for enclosures which thin her hamlets iv. 23. of their strength prevents the Queen from receiving most graciously and rewarding most nobly this mo- Feb. 27. mentous service to her crown. Bacon knows her well. A law case being referred to some of the judges and counsel, she inquires his mind on the course she is pur- suing. "Madam," says he, "my mind is known: I am against all enclosures, and especially against enclosed justice." Only two weeks after signing her name to his bill for replacing the yeomen on the soil from which they have been driven, she sets her hand to the grant of a third estate. This act of her princely grace confers on Bacon the rectory and church at Chelten- ham, together with the chapel at Charlton Kings, in the lovely valley nestling under Cleve and Leck- hampton hills; a valley not yet famed for those mine- ral springs, those shady walks, those pretty spas and gardens, which in the days of Victoria have trans- formed Lansdowne and Pittville into suburbs of de- light-, yet rich in the voluptuous charms of nature, and blessed with a prodigal fertility of corn and fruit, of kine and sheep. The rectory, the chapelry, are noble gifts. With them are granted all the land, houses, meadows, pastures, gardens, rents all services all views of frankpledge, courts leet, fines, heriots, mor- tuaries, and reliefs all tithes of fruit and grain all profits, all royalties save only the usual crown rights reserved on crown lands, with a fee to the Arch- deacon of Gloucester, and an obligation to support two priests and two deacons on the payment of a nomi- nal rent of seventy-five pounds a year. 23. Resuscitatio, 40; Patent Rolls, 40 Elizabeths, Pars iii. 26. 96 FRAXCIS BACOX. CHAPTER V. The Irish Plot. v. i. 1. UNDER the eyes of Blount, Essex parts more and more from the good cause and from those who Sei't. love it. His horses are not now seen in Gray's Inn Square. The correspondence with Anthony Bacon drops. The barges which float to Essex Stairs bring other company than the Veres and Raleighs, the Ce- cils, Nottinghams, and Greys. To sup with bold, bad men; to listen when he ought to strike; to waste his manhood on the frail Southwells and Howards, have become the feverish habits of his life. Sir Charles Danvers, Sir Charles and Sir Jocelyn Percy, Sir Wil- liam Constable, Captain John Lee all discontented and disloyal Roman Catholics are now his house- hold and familiar friends. The young apostate Lord Monteagle sits at his board; though merely, it is guessed from what comes after, in the shameful char- acter of Cecil's tool and spy. But in rear of Danvers and Percy, Constable and Lee, wicked and dangerous as these men are, lurks a crowd of ruffians at whose side they seem respectable. Tresham is seen at Essex House. Catesby sits at the Earl's table. All the slums and jails of London stir with a new life. As a Privy Councillor, Essex can send into the prisons and fetch their inmates to his private house. Light breaks into the cells of Bridewell and the Fleet. ' Sir John Smyth is liberated on bond: Essex himself coming for- 1. Lodge's Illustrations, ii. 545 ; Devereux, i. 475; Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, ii. 70; Vaughan to Cecil, Jan. 29, 1598, S. P. O. ; Vaughan to Hesketh, Jan. 29, 1598, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., Mar. 16, 1600. PLAN OP THE PLOTTERS. 97 ward as the traitor's friend and surety. Father Tho- v. i. mas Wright, a Jesuit agent, deep in the secrets, high ~ in the confidence, of the two Courts of Some and Ma- s e pt. drid, who has been for many months in trouble, at first confined in Dean Goodman's house, but of late transferred to a common jail, steals after dusk from the Bridewell to Essex House for secret interviews with the Earl and Blount. Nor is this bustle limited to the London taverns and the London jails. The cloughs of Lancashire, the ridges and heaths of Wales, send up to London the most restless of their recusants and priests. Vaughan, the Bishop of Chester, notes a mys- terious change in that Papist district, and warns the head of the Government to look for sudden storms. The recusants of his diocese, he says, refuse o pay their usual fines, defy the clergy and magistrates, and talk of the support which they expect from new and powerful friends. When pressed too hard, instead of bowing to the laws as they have been wont to do, they jump to horse and spur away. 2. The gangs of Papist conspirators which now be- gin to gather into force round the Earl of Essex, pro- pose to themselves not only to escape from fine and imprisonment, but to dethrone the Queen, to restore the faggot to Smithfield and the mass to St. Paul's. They hope to effect this change by a military surprise and a secret understanding with the Pope. Essex tells the Jesuit Father Wright, in their midnight meetings, that he could become a Roman Catholic, were it not that the Roman Catholics have always been against 2. Examination of Thomas Wright, July 24, 1600, S. P. O. ; Abstract of Evidence against the Earl of Essex, [July 22, 1600], 8. P. O. Lord Bacon. 7 98 FRANCIS BACOX. v. 2. him. Wright assures him that the Roman Catholics will now be his best friends. The plotters lay down Sept. their plans. To surprise the Queen they must have the command of an armed force; Raleigh must be killed; a military faction must be formed, an army raised, and the places of trust secured to the principal leaders in the plot. Oct. 3. As the Queen will trust Essex with no more regiments for Rouen, no more ships for Spain, he begs , for a command against the Irish kernes. Ireland is ablaze. That Hugh O'Neile, son of the bastard of Dundalk, who owes to the policy and generosity of Queen Elizabeth his life, his education, his nobility, even his ascendency in his sept, has turned on his benefactress: laying down his earldom of Tyrone; as- suming the sovereign and rebellious style of The O'Neile; raising the unkempt, unclothed Ulster hinds; and filling the valleys from Inishowen to Mouaghan and Down with the tumult of war. Fires bum on the hill-tops. Churches are profaned, innocent homesteads razed. The Galloglass, mounted on his brisk marron, pricks through the country, spearing his enemies, driving off their kine. Ferocious kernes, shaggy and illfed, their arms a skean and pike, their dress a blanket or a shirt, plunge into the houses of English gentlemen, wreaking such woe and shame on the Protestant settlers as pen of man may well refuse to describe. An English force keeps front to the rebellious horde ; but the fire darts out in a hundred places : Con- naught kindles into insurrection; Munster defies the 3. Irish Correspondence. 1595-98, S. P. O.; Annals of the Four Masters, 591-645 ; Council Reg., Oct. 29, 1595, July 19, 1598. TROOPS LEVIED FOR IRELAND. 99 Saxon; Ulster presses on the Pale; Spanish ships stand v. 3. off the coast; Spanish regiments form at Ghent and at the Groyne. A day may bring the Basqiies, the Wai- Oct. loons, and Pandours to Kinsale. Drogheda is in danger. Dublin itself is not safe. 4. Shakespeare gives the English passion voice: "Now for our Irish wars! We must supplant these rough, rug-headed kernes, Which live like venom where no venom else, But only they, hath privilege to live!" So cries the English king in that new play of Richard the Second, which is now drawing crowds of citizens and courtiers to the Globe. Troops are being raised and fines imposed for this new war; the re- cusants who will not fight for their country against their creed such men as Tresham, Talbot, Rook- wood, and Throckmorton being mulcted in heavy rates. The force prepared is of imposing strength. Two thousand veterans cross from the camp of Vere, their ranks filled up by a levy of youngsters from the loom and plough. In all, some twenty thousand horse and foot are on the march. Who shall conduct them to the coasts of Down, the passes of the Foyle? 5. Essex asserts his claim. Those who would see the fire of the insurrection stamped under foot propose to send out Raleigh, Sydney, or Montjoy. But events 4. Shakespeare's Richard II., editions of 1597 and 1598; Camden, Ann. Eliz., 1598; Chamberlain to Carleton, May 4, 17, 30, 1598, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., July 19, Dec. 22, 1598. 5. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 30, Aug. 30, Nov. 8, 1598, S. P. O.; Lytton to Carleton, Aug. 29, 1598, S. P. O. ; Mathews to Carleton, Sept. 15, 1598, S. P. O. 7* 100 FRANCIS BACON. v. 5. at Court disturb these preparations against O'Neile. The great Lord Burghley, Bacon's uncle, dies, leaving Oct.' the Treasury and the Court of Wards vacant. Essex wants them both; and Cecil, who thinks that offices held by his father ought to descend upon himself, be- comes, as he has been before, a secret and powerful advocate for his rival's nomination to a distant post. For a time the Queen will hear of no such thing; yet, as Raleigh will not go, and Vere is in the field, Essex, with an underground and treacherous aid from Cecil, gains his suit. 6. Cecil's beautiful young niece still wears her widow's weeds: a prize with which he may either bribe an enemy or fix a friend. She has rejected Pembroke as well as Bacon. To the surprise of her gay and youthful suitors, she allows her uncle Cecil to buy with her hand the unscrupulous arts and venomous tongue of Coke. A first wife, who brought him love and money, not yet cold in her grave, the grisly old bear of an Attorney-General marries this dainty and wilful dame. How she is persuaded to such a match no soul can tell. Old, grim, penurious, every way opposite to herself and to everything that she seems to like, Coke has neither the wit that wins nor the fame that fills a lady's ear. Wags whisper that she hopes to be able to break his heart. He, too, is rich. She has got one fortune through Sir William Hatton, why not a second fortune through Sir Edward Coke? Her kinsman's motives, no one doubts, are coarse. Cecil has need for such an instrument as Coke: close, supple, learned, 6. Autobiographical Notes of Coke in Harl. MSS. 6687, transcribed by John Bruce for the Collectanea Top. et Gen., vi. 108. PLAN FOR CALMING IRELAND. 101 grinding , cold Jo his dependants , cringing to his V. 6. superiors: nor is he disappointed in the match. On Coke's marriage into the Cecil house, though the wife Oct. whom he vows to love rejects his name and destroys his peace, he becomes to Cecil and to Cecil's faction a brutal and obsequious slave. 7. At a private meeting of the Privy Council held J 599 g at Essex House, only Cecil, Fortescue, and Buckhurst present, a commission for the lord-lieutenancy is drawn. Essex has had no speech with Bacon for eighteen months. Their ways now lie apart. In the conferences on his bills for restoring tillage and increasing popula- tion they stood in hostile ranks; yet, on the eve of his fatal voyage to Ireland, Essex rides once more, and for the last time now, to Gray's Inn Square. Had he come to seek counsel, no man could have given him safer. More than any one alive more than Chi- chester or Montjoy Bacon sees through the Irish question. Sure that Ulster will not be calmed by the sword and the rope, that no dash from Cork to Cole- raine will make a savage sept, ruled by a Brehon law, prefer husbandry to theft, his plan is to clear the fo- rests, to drain the bogs, to lay out roads, to build ports and havens, to plant new towns. His hope lies in the plough, not in the sword. "We must supplant these rough, rug-headed kernes." He would have the great officers of the Queen's go- vernment and army live in the country, build in it their houses, as Sir Arthur Chichester, whom Cecil has 7. Council Reg., Mar. 8, 1599; Bacon's Remains, 39, 48; Certain Con- siderations touching the Plantation in Ireland, 1606 ; Bacon's Apologie, 23 ; Essex to Cecil, Mar. 29, 1599, Add. MSS. 4160. 102 FRANCIS BACON. v. 7. sent from Flanders to Dublin, afterwards builds his house on the Lough of Belfast. But a man like the jj ar- ' Earl of Essex, living only in the air of courts and the light of camps, has neither temper, hardihood, nor patience for such a work. Bacon tells him to give up an enterprise in which he can neither serve his country nor secure himself from shame and loss. Essex has not come to learn. With soul corrupted by disloyalty, he turns his back on the one honest voice which even yet might save his fortune and his fame from wreck. 8. Father Wright consults Cresswell and Parsons, the experienced chiefs of the English conspiracy in Madrid and Rome, on these bold and perilous plots. The Jesuit Fathers, doubtful if it be not sin and folly to shed Catholic blood that Essex may gain a throne, urge him through Wright to adopt the Infanta's claim in preference to his own-, a course to which Essex, when pressed by Wright, most sternly demurs, as be- comes a descendant of John of Gaunt. Philip and Clement, less deep in guile than the Jesuits, agree to recognise, and if need be to aid, a rebellion of the Earl and his partizans against the Queen, on this un- derstanding: that Essex, when king, shall become re- conciled to the Church, shall leave Ireland to be ruled by O'Neile as viceroy, shall abandon the Protestant Netherlander, shall yield up Raleigh's conquests and plantations in America, and shall recognise the rights of Spain to an exclusive possession of both the Indies. It is understood that the Irish army is to effect this plot, of which all the details are to be settled with O'Neile. 8. Abstract of the Evidence against Essex [July 22 , 1600] , S. P. O. ; Examination of Wright, July 24, 1600, S. P. O. ESSEX LORD-DEPUTY. 103 9. Twenty thousand men march to the coast and v. 9. cross the sea. Lee, Danvers, Percy have all commands 7" in this force. Constable, broken for bad conduct, is AprfL restored by Essex to his rank. Father Wright begs hard to be taken with them; but, although a Privy Councillor may fetch a prisoner to his house, a lord- lieutenant of Ireland has no power to empty the Lon- don jails. All that he can do for Wright is to get him removed from Bridewell to the Clink. From the hour of his quitting Whitehall Essex assumes the powers of a sovereign prince. On his way to the coast he sends back Lord Montjoy. Montjoy is his friend; the yet nearer friend of his sister Lady Rich. For love of her, Montjoy has joined in opposi- tion to Raleigh on the right hand, to Cecil on the left; but neither friendship for Essex, nor love for Lady Rich, would draw a man so firm in faith, so loyal to the Crown, to league with a gang of Papists against the Queen. Essex sends him back. From Dray ton Bassett, where Blount and Lady Leicester live, Essex has the effrontery to write for leave to appoint Blount his Marshal of the Camp. A marshal of the camp is the second in command, the first in activity and influence; to put such a fellow as Blount in such a place, the Queen indignantly demurs. There is Sir Henry Brounker, an officer of talent and experience: let him be our marshal. Essex pouts and sulks: "If she grant me not this favour," he writes to Cecil, "I am maimed of my right arm." Cecil takes care he shall have his way. 9. Council Reg., Mar. 11, April 2, 1599; Essex to Cecil, Add. MSS. 41CO; Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. O. 104 . FRANCIS BACON. V. 10. 10. When he lands in Dublin he casts to the four winds his commission and instructions. One of his first May! and most insolent acts is to appoint the young Earl of Southampton his Master of the Horse. This friend and patron of Shakespeare is not a Papist, not an ally of Blount. He is a patriot, though not a wise one; a Protestant, though not a zealous one. Heady, amorous, quarrelsome, swift to go right or wrong as his passions tempt him, he has vexed and grieved the Queen hy falling madly and licentiously in love with Mistress Vernon, one of her beautiful maids of honour, and filling her court with the fame of his amours. In this offence against modesty he was abetted by the young lady's first cousin Lord Essex, himself too frail as re- gards the passions, and too familiar with his mother's vices and his sister's infidelities, to feel the shame brought on his kin by a scandal which after all may end in marriage. Sent away from London , South- ampton returned in secret, and married the lady with- out her sovereign's knowledge. For these offences he was ordered into free custody. Breaking his gage of honour, he has stolen away to Dublin, where the Earl, in place of sending back the Queen's fugitive, gives him the welcome which a prince at war might give to a deserting general from the hostile camp. Aug< 11. Every one knows the issue of this Irish cam- paign: a lost summer, a corrupted army, a traitorous truce. Instead of smiting O'Neile, Lee arranges an 10. Cecil to Southampton, Sept. 3, 1598, S. P. O. ; Council to Essex, June 10, 1599, S. P. O. ; Elizabeth to Essex, July 19, 1599, S. P. O.; Devereux, i. 474. 11. Annals of the Four Masters, 646-654; Blount's Confessions , Stato Trials, i. U15. ESSEX RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 105 interview on the Lagan, at which the English and v. 11. Irish rebels discuss their terms and enter into league. Blount hails his fellows in the Celtic camp. Like the Aug ; Irish traitors, he abhors the Protestant Queen, not only as the most powerful enemy of their church, but as an insolent sovereign who has spared their lives. They propose to carry out the Papal scheme, giving Eng- land to Essex, Ireland to O'Neile. The Desmonds and Fitzmaurices, not less than the O'Donnels and O'Kanes, are privy to a league in which the Celts drive a bar- gain with their allies; for while the Roman Catholics are to get the whole of Ireland to themselves, they claim immunities in England equal to those of the rival creed. They are to enjoy on the Thames, not alone freedom of conscience, but street processions of the host and public performance of the mass. 12. Essex breaks up his camp atDrogheda; hurries Sept. to Dublin, Blount at his side, Danvers, Constable, Lee at his heels; crosses the sea, leaving Ireland without an army or a government; the English settlers aghast at this desertion, the Ulster rebels elate with joy. But at Milford Haven they receive intelligence which breaks down all their plans. The country rings with arms. While they have been conspiring with O'Neile, the Privy Council, under guise of preparing to repel an expected landing of the Spaniards, have drawn out the musters, set the trainbands in motion, filled the city with chosen troops. Wags have mocked and jested over this Invisible Armada ; but Essex lands at Milford ' r 12. Annals of the Four Masters, 655; Blount's Confessions, State Trials, i. 1415; Bacon's Notes to Camden, Works, VI. 359; Memorandum of Precautionary Measures, Aug. 1599, S. P. O. ; List of Army in Kent and Essex, Aug. 1599, S. P. O. 106 FRAXCL3 BACOJf. v. i*. Haven to find his road to London barred by a truly formidable force. Nottingham covers the capital with 5W " a camp of six thousand horse and foot. Twenty-five thousand men answer to the roll in Kent and FBBCT Under such a change of affairs, even Blount dissuades a march on London. The road is long; halberdiers cannot fly, like Imogen, on the wings of love: and the very maddest of the plotters knows that the Protestant gentlemen of Gloucester, Wilts, and Berks will not stare idly on while gangs of mutinous troopers, led by Papist captains, march past to dethrone then* Queen. With the whole army of Drogheda at their backs, they could not force their way through six or eight warlike shires. Better, says Blount, prick on alone. A chance remains that by dash and swiftness Essex may surprise the Queen, put his friends in power, and return to Sept. 28. Dublin to mature his plans. To horse, to horse! Xo pause in the ride till he flings himself, splashed and faint, at his sovereign's feet. Oct. 13. Lee, Danvers, Constable, Davis, spur into Lon- don. News-writers stare at the swarms of captains and commanders from the Irish camp which suddenly hustle through the taverns of Paternoster Row and fill the pit of the theatre, where Rutland and Southampton are daily seen, and where Shakespeare's company, in the great play of Richard H., have for more than a year been feeding the public eye with pictures of the de- position of kings. But the plotters have met their mates. The Earl is in charge. From the presence of 13. Eowland White, Oct. 5, 11, 1599, in Sydney Papers, ii. 130, 132 : Devereux' Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. 76-117: Speeches in the Star Chamber on Essex's Expedition to Ireland, NOT. 1599, 8. P. O.: Essex to Eli*., Feb. 11, 22, 1600, S. P. O. ESSEX IN CUSTODY. 107 his Queen be has passed into custody; when a solemn v. is. act of the Privy Council having declared him unfit to discharge the duties of Earl Marshal, Privy Councillor, Oct. and Master of the Ordnance, a writ from the Star- Chamber cites him to answer for his suspicious deal- ings with O'Neile. This citation he disobeys. After j^' a brief confinement in the house of Lord Keeper Eger- ton, he is placed in permanent free custody in his own great mansion in the Strand. 14. The Council hastens to repair the jevil done in Dublin. Montjoy goes over as Lord Deputy, letters recal the Lords Justices and magistrates of Ireland to their duty. Threads of the great conspiracy soon appear. Among the witnesses against Essex, Thomas Wood, a nephew of Lord Fitzmaurice, makes a most damnatory declaration. 15. The world parts suddenly from the fallen man. /Mar - Those who know or suspect the depth of his guilt shun him as one who is lost past hope; those who see no more than his disgrace fall off from a losing cause. Cecil spurns his advances; when the old Countess of Leicester begs of him to save her son, Cecil answers her that his fate is with a higher power. Babington, Bishop of Worcester, glances at him cautiously in a Court sermon; but when sent for by the angry Queen he denies that he pointed to the Earl. Save his cousin Lady Scrope, and his sisters Lady Rich and the Count- il. Wood's Confessions, Jan. 20, 1599-1600, S. P. O.; Council Reg., Feb. 2, 1600. 15. Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 22, Mar. 5, 1600, S. P. O. ; Cecil to Countess of Leicester, Mar. 21, 1600, S. P. O.; Sydney Papers, ii. 132, 213 ; Council Beg., Aug. 3, 17, 1600. 108 FRANCIS BACON. v. is. ess of Northumberland, not one of his confederates or companions dares to speak for him a word. Blount Mar. slinks with his wife to Drayton Bassett. Southampton goes abroad to fight Lord Gray, breaking his parole for the second time; an offence for which the coun- cil, though loth to strike the amiable and mis- led young gentleman, strips him of his company of horse. Lee makes no sign. Danvers and Constable hide their heads. These Bobadils of Drogheda and Milford skulk about the kens of Newgate Street and Carter Lane; and only a group of women, kin to the Queen, who gloom about the court in black, find courage for even tears and, weeds. Yea; there is one. In this dead silence of despair, one voice alone dares to breath the Earl's name, to whisper in the royal ear excuses for his fault, to plead with that leonine heart for the mercy which becomes a monarch better than his crown. April. 16. Any man save Francis Bacon would have left the Earl to his fate. The connexion has been to him waste of character and waste of time. The hope of making Essex chief of the national party has come to nought and their intercourse has ceased. To Bacon, and to all his kin, the Earl of Essex has brought anxiety, grief, and shame. The loss of rank and power is the least part of his misery; for that loving and beloved brother, to whom the Essays are so tenderly inscribed, has sunk past hope, the victim of his com- panion's riot and evil ways. Despite the warnings of the Saint of God, though Anthony and Essex so often 16. Lady Bacon to Anthony Bacon , various dates ,' in Lambeth MSS. &i'J, 650 ; Devereux, i. 406. ESSEX DESERTED BY ALL SAVE BACON. 109 promised her to amend their ways, they have run from y. 16. bad to worse, until one is about to sink into political crime, the other into a premature grave. ^p^ 17. The prospects, the affections of Bacon and Essex J^e. lie apart, distant as the temperate and the torrid zones. For two whole years they have met but once; to part from the Gray's Inn conference less near in opinions than before. All that Bacon foresaw from the Irish expedition has come to pass. The voyage has failed. More than the visible failure Bacon does not know; nothing of the interviews with Wright; nothing of the understanding with the Jesuits; nothing of the Pope's approval; nothing of the compact with O'Neile. Cecil keeps these formidable secrets close, sharing them, if with any one, only with his creature and dependant Coke. In other business of the Crown, in admiralty affairs, revenue affairs, in debts, in grants, and fines, above all in arbitrations, Bacon, as the Queen's Coun- sel learned in the law, is now constantly employed by the Crown. Instructions from the Privy Council com- monly run to Yelverton, Coke, Fleming, and Bacon; in cases of dispute, as in those of Blundel, of Perrim, of Trachey, he is often employed alone; bxit in taking the confessions, in confronting the spies and prisoners of the Irish plot, he has no share. Yet, knowing no more of it than all men know, why should he risk his future to save a man who has covered him with misfortunes and who has only sought his advice to cast it in his teeth? 17. Council to Yelverton, Coke, Fleming, and Bacon, Nov. 9, 1600, S. P. O ; Council Reg., Feb. 2, 28, July 6, Sept. 29, Dec. 24, 1600. 110 FRANCIS BACON. y. is. 18. Bacon is not the man to ask. Seeing- the Earl ~~ crushed without being charged, supposing him wanton June, and foolish but free from crime, he carries his plea of clemency to the throne. Often in the Queen's closet on his public duty, he seizes every opening for a saving word. Never had such an offender such an ad- vocate. Gaily, gravely, in speech, in song, he besets the royal ear; kneels to her Majesty at Nonesuch; coaxes her at Twickenham Park. When she ferries to his lodge, he presents her with a sonnet on mercy; wlien she calls him to the palace, he reads to her let- ters purporting to come from the penitent Earl. What Babington dares not hint from the pulpit, Bacon dares to urge in the private chamber. Wit, eloquence, per- suasion of the rarest power, are lavished on this un- grateful cause. At times the Queen seems shaken in her mood; but she knows her kinsman better than his advocate knows him. Spain still threatens a descent; and Ireland rocks with the tumult of civil war. Those scenes of Shakespeare's play disturb her. Richard the Second has had a long and splendid run, not less from its glorious agony of dramatic passion than from the open countenance lent to it by Essex, who, before his voyage, was a constant auditor at the Globe, and by his noble companions the Earls of Rutland and Southampton. The great Parliamentary scene, the deposition of Richard, not being in the first or second edition of the printed book, may be reasonably supposed to have been absent from the early play; yet the re- presentation of a royal murder and a successful usurpa- tion on the public stage is an event to be applied by the 18. Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. O. ; Shakespeare's Richard II.. editions of 159S and 1608. SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD THE SECOND. Ill groundlings in a pernicious and disloyal sense. Some v. is. whisper to the Queen that this play is part of a plot to teach her subjects how to murder kings. They tell junc her that she is Richard; Essex, Bolingbroke. These warnings fret her soul, and the vexation flashes from her eyes and from her tongue. When Lambard, Keeper of the Records, waits upon her at the palace, she exclaims to him, "I am Richard, know you not that?" 19. Nor does the play by Shakespeare stand alone. One of the Earl's friends publishes on this story of the deposition of Richard a singular and mendacious tract, which, under ancient names and dates, gives a false and disloyal account of things and persons in his own age: the childless sovereign; the association of defence; the heavy burthen of taxation;, the levy of double sub- sidies; the prosecution of an Irish war, ending in general discontent; the outbreak of blood; the solemn deposi- tion and final murder of the prince. The book has no name on the title-page that of John Hayward signs the dedication. Bolingbroke is made the hero of the tale; and that even the grossly stupid may not miss its meaning, this lump of sedition is dedicated to the Earl. In one place it openly affirms the existence of a title to the throne superior to that of the Queen. 20. This proves too much for Elizabeth. Packing 1!>. Hayward's First Part of the Life of Henry IV., 1599; Papers con- cerning the History of Henry IV. i the Letter Apologetical written by Dr. Hayward, 1599, S. P. O. 20. Bacon's Apologie, 36; Bacon's Remains, 42; Matters wherewith Dr. Hayward was charged, and Dr. Hayward's Confession, 1599, 8. P. 0. 112 FRANCIS BACOX. V. 22. the scribe in jail, she sends for Bacon to draw up ar- ticles against him. j u iy. Had she sent for Coke! To Bacon's tenderness of human life the poor scrib- bler, Hayward, owes his subsequent length of days and authorship of other books. "There is treason in it," says the Queen; as indeed there is. "Treason, your Grace?" replies Bacon; "not treason, Madam, but felony, much felony." "Ha!" gasps her Highness, willing to hang a rogue for one crime as for another: "Felony where?" "Where, Madam? Everywhere: the whole book is a theft from Cornelius Tacitus." A light of laughter breaks the cloud. "But," says her darkening Highness, "Hayward is a fool; some one else has writ the book; make him confess it; put him to the rack." "Nay, Madam," pleads the advocate of mercy; "rack not his body rack his style. Give him paper and pens, with help of books; bid him carry on his tale. By comparing the two parts, I will tell you if he be the true man." July. 21. Aware how strong are Bacon's views on poli- tical crime, some of the conspirators, conscious of their own guilt, dread lest in these frequent pas- sages with the Queen he may be taking part against their lord. Fear gives suspicion wing. Among them- selves they whisper that in the royal presence he has pronounced the offence treason. The offence is trea- son; but Bacon has not called it such, for he has no knowledge of its darker facts. He therefore meets and spurns these misrepresentations of his words. In a note 21. Bacon's Apologie, 47 ; Birch, 459; Montagu, xil. 168. IMPROVEMENT IN ESSEX'S AFFAIRS. 113 to Lord Henry Howard, one of the close Koman Ca- v. 21. tholic friends of Essex, lie writes with honest heat: "I thank God my wit serveth me not to deliver any j u i y '. opinion to the Queen which my stomach serveth me not to maintain; one and the same conscience guiding and fortifying me. The untruth of this fable God and my sovereign can witness, and there I leave it. ... For my Lord of Essex, I am not servile to him, having regard to my superior duty. I have been much bound unto him; on the other side, I have spent more time and more thoughts about his welldoing than ever I did about mine own. I pray God you his friends amongst you be in the right." 22. Affairs grow brighter for the Earl. Good news comes in from Dublin and the Hague; Des- mond has been taken, and Wexford pacified by Mont- joy; Vere and Nassau have fought a battle and gained a victory on Nieuport sands. The Queen's heart opens. When the Earl now begs for freedom, she more than ever inclines to hear his prayer. Cecil gets alarmed; so, putting Wright and Hay ward under stern examination, he frames from their confessions an indictment against Essex, which, if half of it were proved, would assuredly send him to the block. But an advocate stronger than Cecil stands beside the Queen; one who, in season and out of season, in the midst of a dispute on law, in the turn of an anecdote, in a casual laugh or sigh, searches and finds a way to her heart. One day she asks him about his brother's gout. 22. Essex to Eliz., June 21, 1600, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carlef on, July 1, 26, 1600, S. P. O. ; Confession of D. Hayward, July 11, 1600, 8. P. O. ; Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600; Examination of Thomas Wright, July 24, 1600, S. P. O. ; Bacon's Apologie, 41, 57. Lord Bacon. O 114 FRANCIS BACOX. V. 22. Anthony's gout is sometimes better, sometimes worse. "I tell you how it is, Bacon,"- says her sagacious July. Majesty; "these physicians give you the same physic to draw and to cure; so they first do you good, and then do you harm." "Good God, Madam!" cries Bacon, "how wisely you speak of physic to the body! consider of physic to the mind. In the case of my Lord of Essex, your princely word is, that you mean to reform his mind, not to ruin his fortune. Have you not drawn the humour? Is it not time to apply the cure?" Another day she tells him the Earl has written to her so dutifully that she felt moved by his protestations; but that, when she came to the end, it was all to procure from her a patent of sweet wines. "How your Majesty construes!" says Bacon; "as it' duty and desire could not stand together! Iron clings to the loadstone from its nature. A vine creeps to the pole that it may twine." "Speak to your business," says the Queen; "speak for yourself: for the Earl not a word." Yet drop by drop the daily oil softens her heart. At length the Earl is set at large; though as one to whom much has been pardoned; one who shall never again command armies, or even approach the Court. Elizabeth will see her kinsman's face no more. Shall he go back to the Irish camp? "When I send Essex back into Ireland," says the Queen, "I will many you you, Mr. Bacon. Claim it of me." PARTISANS OP ESSEX. 115 CHAPTER VI. The Street Fight. 1. WHEN free to plot, Essex, in the secresy of his VL * own house, and in open breach of loyalty and honour, j~ renews the intrigue with Rome. Blount returns from Oct. Drayton Bassett to crowd Barn Elms and Essex House, the Earl's head-quarters in and near London, with the most desperate of his Papist gangs. Mad at their loss of time, they propose to do without an army what they failed to do with one. Enough, they say, to raise a troop, to kill Raleigh and Nottingham, to seize the Queen by force, and summon a parliament of their OAvn. Essex shall be swept to the throne by a street fig] it and an act of assassination. Yet, if they still pretend to believe him more popular than Elizabeth, they dare not trust his chances and their own safety to an English crowd. Seeking to gain strength else- where, they open a deceptive intercourse with James, incite O'Neile to resist by promises of speedy help, and raise a band of their sturdy partisans in Wales. One Englishman holding office, Sheriff Smith of Lon- don, probably a Roman Catholic, listens to their schemes. The Earls of Rutland and Southampton sit at the board; Rutland bound like Southampton by a pair of bright eyes to the Earl, being deeply in love with Elizabeth Sydney, daughter of Lady Essex by her first husband Sir Philip ; neither of them sharing his insane ambition or suspecting his murderous thoughts. 1. Nottingham to Montjoy, Goodman, ii. 14 ; Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 342; Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 10, 1600, S. P. O. 8* 116 FRANCIS BACON. vi. i. The partners of his secret soul are those Papists, old and new, who have been and will be the terror and Oct. shame of England for twenty years. Blount and Danvers, Davis, Percy, and Monteagle are not the worst. From dens like the Hart's Horn and the Ship- wreck Tavern, haunts of the vilest refuse of a great city, the spawn of hells and stews, the vomit of Italian cloisters and Belgian camps, Blount, long familiar with the agents of disorder, unkennels, in the Earl's name, a pack of needy ruffians eager for any service which seems to promise pay to their greed or licence to their lust. 2. These miscreants are wholly Papists. Four of the five monsters who, some years later, dig the mine in Vineyard House, Robert Catesby, John Wright, Christopher Wright, and Thomas Winter, answer to this call of Blount; while the fifth, Thomas Percy, is with them in the persons of his more reputable kinsmen Jocelyn and Charles. Nearly all their most guilty associates of the Powder Plot, Throckmorton, Lyttleton, and Grant, join with them; as also Ogle, Baynhain, Whitelocke, and Downhall, the dregs and waste of a dozen Roman Catholic plots. 3. They mean to kill the Queen a palace murder if she resist them, a Pomfret murder if she yield. Raleigh and Cecil are to share the fate of Bushy and Green. Is Essex more squeamish than Bolingbroke? Is Blount less bold than Piers of Exton? Though they advance towards their goal under cover of a 2. List of Prisoners in the Compter and the Poultry, Feb. 8, S1601, S. P. O. ; Lodge, ii. 545. 3. State Trials, i. 1415. VALENTINE THOMAS'S CONFESSION. 117 design to free the Queen from enemies who hold her vr. 3. in thrall, the confession of Blount on the scaffold re- moves all doubt of a deliberate plan to assassinate her Oct. if she stand in their way. "I know and must confess," said the impenitent ruffian, "if we had failed in our end, we should even have drawn blood from herself." Nor is this design of dethronement and assassination a last resource of men at bay. The plan was formed two years before. It lay at the door of all Father Wright's suggestions, inspired the publication of Hay- ward's tract, controlled the understanding with O'Neile, gave colour to the correspondence with King James. 4. At the moment when this faction was struggling to secure the Irish command, Bacon had been engaged with Coke and others in probing a mysterious crime. A Scot of many names and characters - - Thomas Anderson, Thomas Alderson, Valentine Thomas, a servant, a soldier, a gentleman giving no good ac- count of his journey to London, had been brought into the Tower. Bread and water, Bacon and Coke, had brought him to his knees. He confessed that he had been employed by the King of Scots to kill the Lord Treasurer Burghley and her Majesty the Queen. Here is the confession, solemnly attested: Collection of the Principal Points in Valentine Thomas's Confession concerning the Practice against Her Ma- jesty's Person. Subscribed by himself the 20th of December, 1598. Valentine Thomas, otherwise called Thomas Alderson or Anderson, confesseth that his access to the King of 4. Scottish Papers of Elizabeth, Ixii. 28, 46, 50, 52, 54; Ixiii. 13, 15, 22, 29, 31, 45. 118 FRANCIS BACON. vi. 4. Scotts was principally procured by one John Stewart of the Buttery, who keepeth the King's door, and that he repaired to the King at sundry times and in sundry places; and amongst divers speeches of many things concerning the state of England and her Majesty's person, the King fell one day into some speech of the Lord Treasurer, whom he wished Valentine Thomas to kill, as having ever been his enemy about the Queen, which fact when Valentine undertook to execute, after some speeches how it might best be done, the King further replied, "Nay, I must have you do another thing for me, and all is one; for it is all but blood. You shall take an occasion to deliver a petition to the Queen in manner as you shall think good, and so may you come near to stab her." And Valentine told the King that it was a dangerous piece of Avork, but he would do it, so the King would reward him thereafter, and the King said, "You shall have enough." And after this, Valentine took his leave of the King, and said he was to go to Glasgow for a time to his kins- man's wedding: and the King said "Go, as you say, to Glasgow, and then come again, when you hear that Sorleboy is come." And so he left the King, and the Laird Arkinglasse came to the King. [Signed] VALENTYNE THOMAS. [Attested by] JOHN PEYTON. EDW. COKE. THO. FLEMYNG. FR. BACON. WM. WAAD. The Government has kept this story secret. The Queen, indeed, professes to believe it false, and she is ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE RALEIGH. 119 wise to do so. James stands beyond her reach; her vi. 4. courts cannot punish him; .after her death he must be King. To prove him an assassin is to make of him, ] and of all who support his claims, the most ruthless of her foes. James, knowing of Thomas's arrest, is anxious to be spared the disgrace of a public trial; yet the knowledge that such a crime has been contem- plated helps to nerve the hand of every one who loves his Queen the visible embodiment of English virtue and English strength. 5. If only the Papists share the heart of Blount, *^- still, where he fancies that either private love or lust of spoil will tempt a man to arm, he throws his line. From Lancashire, from Norfolk, and from Devon, friends of the conspirators prick to town. Among them comes Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, a brave and loyal gentleman akin to Sir Walter Ra- leigh, who, seeing him drawn into a dangerous plot, sends to warn him. Blount, now ready for the blow that is to make him father-in-law to a king, persuades Gorges to invite the Captain of the Queen's Guard to come and speak with him at Essex House. Raleigh jumps into his barge. At Essex-stairs the plotters beg him to land; but finding the fox too wise to trust his life in such hands, Blount, throwing off the mask, sends an armed boat in chase of Raleigh, which, failing to catch its prey, fires four loaded pieces into his barge. 6. The blood of the conspirators mounts with this Feb. 6. 5. Declaration of the Practice of the Earl of Essex, 1601; Gorges' Answer to certain Imputations, quoted in Cay ley, i. 337; State Trials, i. 1424. 6. Jardine's Criminal Trials, i. 320. 120 FRAXCIS BACON*. vi. 6. attempt at assassination. On Sunday they will rise: the pretext to be spread through the streets and lanes Feb. o. being that Raleigh has formed a plot to murder the Earl. The parts in the play are all given out. While Smith secures the city in their rear, a force is to march from Essex House and seize the avenues of Whitehall. Blount is to keep the palace-gates, Davis the hall, Danvers the entrance of the presence-chamber, while Essex himself, pushing into the royal closet, is to force the aged Queen, sword in hand, to yield. 7. To fan the courage of their crew, and prepare the citizens for news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of the insurrection think good to revive for a night their favourite play. They send for Augustine Phillips, the manager of Blackfriars theatre, to Essex House. Monteagle, Percy, and two or three more among them Cuffe and Meyrick, gentlemen whose names and faces Phillips does not recognise receive him; and Lord Monteagle, speaking for the rest, tells him they want to have played the next day at Blackfriars the deposition of Richard the Second. Phillips objects that the play is stale, that a new one is running, and that the company will lose money by a change. Monteagle meets his objections. The theatre shall not lose; a host of gentlemen from Essex House will fill the gal- leries; if there is fear of loss, here are forty shillings to make it up. , Feb. 7. Phillips takes the money; and Bang Richard is duly deposed and put to death. 7. Examination of Augustine Phillips, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. O. This examination has been printed by Mr. Collier, but with an error in the names. ENDEAVOUR TO RAISE THE CITY. 121 8. Next morning after the play, when the conspi- vi. 8 rators are about to rise, Egerton, Popham, and Knollys knock at the gates of Essex House; a visit from the Feb. s Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Queen's Chamberlain, which disconcerts their plans. They meant to begin by a street tumult and a march on Whitehall, under cover of a design to punish Raleigh and restore the Queen to her freedom of choice. The arrival of these great officers of State compels them either to lay down their arms and submit to the law, or to rush into the city, raising the cry of war against the Queen. Mad as the action seems, they choose to strike. Put- ting the Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice and the Chamberlain under guard, the Papist rabble, Blount, Catesby, Tresham, Danvers, Davis, Wright, Grant, Lyttleton, Baynham, and their fellows, tear past Temple-bar, yelling to the astonished citizens to arm and follow the young Earl. 9. The Queen sits in her palace superbly calm. Raleigh himself has scarcely her nerve of steel. Told at dinner that her faithless kinsman is in arms against her, she eats her meal, no more disturbed than by a tumult on the stage. When, some minutes later, comes in news that London has risen for the Earl, she proudly puts aside the lie, saying: "He who placed me in this seat will preserve me in it." 10. Essex is no more Bolingbroke than Elizabeth Richard. It is Sunday morning, and people crowd the streets; some making holiday, more on their way 8. Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601; State Trials, i. 1333-1409. 9. Birch, ii. 468; Jardiue's Criminal Trials, i. 309. 10. Lodge's Illustrations, ii. 545; List of Prisoners in the Poultry and the Compter, Feb. 8, 1601, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., Feb. 14, 1601. 122 FRAXCIS BACOX. vi. 10. to church. Yet, though the Earl rides past them, not a man from Temple Bar to Cheapside arms to follow leoi. this descendant of John of Gaunt. As the Papists wheel into the city, the inhabitants shut their gates. Halberds and lances soon gleam out from city doors; not to guard the Earl, but to defend religion and the Queen; so that, when the baffled insurgents, pressed from the upper lanes about Guildhall, beat a retreat towards St. Paul's, they find the gorge of Ludgate and the long line of approaches to Essex House blocked up with pikes. Deceived in the promises of Smith, the despairing bands fall back on Ludgate Hill, where Levison, with a party of soldiers, guards the pass. Blount sounds a charge. Some fall, some turn, some cut their way through. Seeing his old adversary Waite in the ranks before him, Blount rushes upon him, and, though faint with wounds, chops the assassin down. It is the last pang of joy before he yields. The game is now up. All London is against them in an hour, as England will be in a week. The gangs disperse. Some crawl into alehouse- vaults; some leap into boats, and drop with the tide; but every honest man's hand is against them, and at sundown most of the leaders are safe in jail. In less than forty-eight hours from the first rebellious shout near Temple-bar, Ogle and Throckmorton are in the Gatehouse; Baynham, Lyttleton, and Percy in the Fleet; Smith and Constable in the Poultry; Blount in Mr. Xewsom's house in Paul's Churchyard, to be carried, when his wounds allow, to the Tower; Whitelocke in the Marshalsea; Catesby in the house of Sheriff Gamble; Grant and the two Wrights in the White Lion; Danvers, Essex, Lee, Southamp- ton, and Monteagle in the Tower. TRIAL OF ESSEX. 123 11. Swift justice is the only mercy they can now vi. 11. hope from man. Never has criminal fairer trial, less partial judges, Feb. {9. than the Earl. His peers, the companions of his youth, the connexions of his blood, are summoned by a spe- cial message from the Crown. The most odious facts against him are withheld; the Government wishing to spare his memory, though they cannot in honour, and dare not in policy, spare his life. They shrink from proclaiming to the world that a kinsman of the Queen has been in treacherous intercourse with Jesuits and the Pope. Not a word is said on the trial about his midnight interviews with Father Wright; not a word about his complicity in the publication of Hayward's tract. Only the obvious facts are proved, but these suffice. From the hour of his rising his fate has been sealed. That girlish romance of the ring, that still more girlish tale of Elizabeth's weakness and change of mind, are idle mirage of the brain. Camden, indeed, speaks of her hesitancy, but Camden wrote after the Queen's death, when it had become fashionable at court to speak well of the Earl. Jardine was the first to remark that this rumour of her changes and hesita- tions is unsupported by any one passage in the State Papers. In fact, Elizabeth never in her life showed less weakness than in the case of her rebellious kins- man. For a crime like his there was no mercy but the grave. 12. Called by the Privy Council to bear his part in this great drama, Bacon no more shirks his duty at 11. Council Reg., Feb. 13, 1601 ; Jardine, i. 376. 12. Council to Bacon, Feb. 18, 1601, 8. P. O. ; Abstract of Evidence against Essex, July 22, 1600, S. P. O. ; Jardine, i. 316-321, 351, 360.; 124 FRANCIS BACOX. vi. 12. the bar than Levison shirked his duty at Ludgate Hill, or Raleigh his duty at Charing Cross. As her Counsel Feb. ID. Learned in the Law, he has no more choice or hesita- tion about his duty of defence than her Captain of the Guard. Raleigh and Bacon have each tried to save the Earl so long as he remained an honest man; but England is their first love, and by her faith, her free- dom, and her Queen they must stand or fall. Never is stern and holy duty done more gently on a criminal than by Bacon on this trial. He aggravates nothing. If he condemns the action, he refrains from needless condemnation of the man. Here is his speech (set down, though it has already appeared in print, that the reader may have the whole case before his eyes without trouble of turning to another book): "My Lord, I expected not that the matter of de- fence would have been excused this day; to defend is lawful, but to rebel in defence is not lawful; therefore what my Lord of Essex hath here delivered, in my conceit, seemeth to be simile prodigio. I speak not to simple men, but to prudent, grave, and wise peers, who can draw up out of the circumstances the things themselves. And this I must needs say, it is evident that my Lord of Essex had planted a pretence in his heart against the Government, and now, under colour of excuse, he layeth the cause upon his particular enemies. My Lord of Essex, I cannot resemble your proceedings more rightly than to one Pisistratus, in Athens, who, coming into the city with the purpose to procure the subversion of the kingdom and wanting aid for the accomplishing his aspiring desires, and as the surest means to win the hearts of the citizens unto SPEECHES ON ESSEX'S TRIAL. 125 him, lie entered the city, having cut his body with a vi. 12. knife, to the end they might conjecture he had been in danger of his life. Even so your Lordship gave Feb. 19. out in the streets that your life was sought by the Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh, by this means persuading yourselves, if the city had undertaken your cause, all would have gone well on your side. But the imprisoning the Queen's councillors, what reference had that fact to my Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, or the rest? You allege the matter to have been re- solved on a sudden. No, you were three months in the deliberation thereof. Oh! my Lord, strive with yourself and strip off all excuses; the persons whom you aimed at, if you rightly understand it, are your best friends. All that you have said, or can say, in answer to these matters, are but shadows. It were your best course to confess and not to justify." What a contrast to the style of Coke! Later in the day, after hours of prevarication on the part of Essex, Bacon speaks again, in a warmer tone, but without a particle of rancour in his words: "My Lord, I have never yet seen, in any case, such favour shown to any prisoner; so many digres- sions, such delivering of evidence by fractions, and so silly a defence of such great and notorious treasons. Your Lordships may see how weakly my Lord of Essex hath shadowed his purpose, and how slenderly he hath answered the objections against him. But admit the case that the Earl's intent were, as he would have it, to go as a suppliant to her Majesty, shall petitioners be armed and guarded? Neither is it a mere point of 126 FRANCIS BACON. vi. 12. law, as my Lord of Southampton would have it be- lieved, that condemns them of treason, but it is ap- 1601 Feb. 19. parent in common sense; to consult, to execute, to run together in numbers, in doublets and hose, armed with weapons, what colour of excuse can be alleged for this? And all this persisted in after being warned by mes- sengers sent from her Majesty's own person. Will any man be so simple as to take this to be less than treason? But, my Lord, doubting that too much va- riety of matter may occasion forgetfulness, I will only trouble your Lordship's remembrance with this point, rightly comparing this rebellion of my Lord of Essex to the Duke of Guise's, that came upon the barrica- does at Paris in his doublet and hose, attended upon but with eight gentlemen; but his confidence in the city was even such as my Lord's was; and when he had delivered himself so far into the shallow of his own conceit, and could not accomplish what he ex- pected, the King taking arms against him, he was glad to yield himself, thinking to colour his pretexts and his practices by alleging the occasion thereof to be a private quarrel." Defence there is none: the peers condemn him to death. Mar. 13. After trial and condemnation, when the Garter is plucked from his knee and the George from his breast, the Earl's pride and courage give way. He closes a turbulent and licentious life by confessing against his companions, still untried, more than the law-officers of the Crown could have proved against 13. Council Reg., Feb. 24, 1602 ; Jardine's ' Criminal Trials,' i. 366-372 ; State Trials, i. 1412, 1414. STATE PAPER ON ESSEX'S TREASON. 127 them ; and, despicable to relate, most of all against the vi. is. two men who have been his closest associates Blount and Cuffe. His confessions in the face of death de- prive these prisoners of the last faint hope of grace. They go, with Meyrick, Lee and Danvers, to the gallows or to the block. But the anger of the Queen being stayed, the rest of the gang Catesby, Tresham, Grant, Winter, Baynham, and their tribe escape, some with imprisonment, some with mulct, for future villanies. At the end of twelve or fifteen weeks the last of the conspirators leaves the Tower. 14. When law and justice have been appeased, the Queen commands Bacon to draw up for publication a brief and simple narrative of these events. An ap- peal to the judgment of her people and of her allies has been usual with Elizabeth whenever state crimes, most of all crimes against the national faith, have been re- pressed and punished by her government: an open state- ment of the facts, given in her name and on her re- sponsibility to the world, being her sole defence against the calumnies whispered at home and the brazen false- hoods published by her Jesuit enemies abroad. On such narrations, it has been her habit since Bacon's appoint- ment as her Learned Counsel to employ his pen. When, therefore, the partizans of Rome begin to calumniate English justice, the Queen sends for him to the Palace, in the ordinary way. and commands him on hints and materials furnished by herself and by members of her Privy Council, to draft such a state paper as shall satisfy the world that in all the proceedings 14. A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and com- mitted by Robert late Earl of Essex, 1601 ; Bacon Apologie, 1603. 128 FRANCIS BACON. vi. u. against her guilty kinsman law lias been respected and justice done. The task requires a tender hand. Though unable to save his life, Her Majesty is earnest to spare his name. How can she bear to tell the enemies of her country and her faith that one of her own blood has been in clandestine and criminal correspondence with the Pope? What she kept back on the trial she will keep back now. The dealings with O'Xeile the conferences in London the attempt on Raleigh the imprisonment of her ministers of state the rising in the streets, with the bloodshed at Ludgate Hill these are enough to justify the sentence and execu- tion. Bacon takes her materials, and weaves them into a tale so much more generous to the dead Earl than Elizabeth meant, that the Declaration sounds to her ears like an explanation, almost an excuse for the plot. It must be mended. Pen in hand, she weighs and slashes at Bacon's words; her Privy Council do the same, untill the story has acquired a new form and a new sense. She bids him write out the whole afresh. When the Declaration, so changed, is put in type, she again sends for him. The style is too soft, the tone too lenient. It is my Lord of Essex, my Lord of Essex, she cries, on every page; you can't forget your old respect for the traitor; strike it out; make it Essex, or the late Earl of Essex. She will have the whole book printed anew. Yet, even when it has been made thus sternly true and just by the Queen, the Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earl of Essex and his com- plices, is perhaps the most gentle and moderate state paper ever published in any kingdom. It is conceived in sorrow, not in anger. Not a word of insult, not a AWARDS FROM REBELS* FORFEITS. 129 hint of accusation, beyond the needs of the case, dis- vi. u. figures it. The facts which no impartial judge could have pardoned are suppressed; and the whole Declara- tion is so mercifully worded, that it saves the memory of Essex from public execration, if it cannot save it from public indignation, and leaves the future open to his misguided followers and to his innocent son. In this passage of Bacon's life , as in many another, the modern writers have been pleased to see an addi- tional instance of his ingratitude; though it is histori- cally certain, that to the humane suppression of what was most black and base in the treasons of Essex was owing the fact that his very name could be pronounced by an Englishman without a curse. 15. The fines of the conspirators reward service for Aug.e. which no other salaries are paid. The Queen, who in the fictions of biographers and historians is for ever starving Bacon for his good, now makes over to him, in actual fact, a considerable share 'of Catesby's fine. The manner of this grant of twelve hundred pounds is not less gracious than the gift itself. It is not made in the usual way, from the Lord Treasurer's office, but as a public act of the Privy Council and the Queen. A council meets at Greenwich Palace, Egerton in the chair. Around him sit Lord Buckhurst, the de- lightful poet; Nottingham, the great commander; the Earls of Shrewsbury and Worcester; Knollys, Fortescue, and Cecil. These councillors draft a letter to Coke, 15. Council Reg., Aug. 6, 1601. Lord Bacon. 9 130 FRANCIS BACON. VI. 15. which stands among the many interesting letters in the Privy Council register thus: 1601. ' Aug. 6. A LETTER TO EDWARD COKE, ESQ., HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Aug. 6, 1C01. Forasmuch as her Majesty is pleased to bestow particular reward upon divers of her servants, to be taken out of such fines as have grown unto her by the offences of several persons, we have thought good to let you know particularly who they be that are at this time to receive several portions in that kind, to the intent that you may cause some such assurances to be passed over, as the person may be assured to receive those portions as are allotted to them according to her Majesty's gracious pleasure, in this sort following. When there is an assurance passed to her Majesty's use of certain lands, for the payment of two thousand at several days by Francis Tresham, her Majesty is pleased that Mr. Lieutenant of the Tower shall receive the sum of a thousand five hundred pounds, assigned him out of that; the other five hundred remaining to be disposed at her Majesty's pleasure. Next, you shall understand that she is likewise pleased to divide the fine of Mr. Catesby between Mr. Francis Bacon, Sir Arthur Gorges, and Captain Carpenter, at Ostend, in this sort following, for which you are likewise to pre- pare some such assurance to be passed from the Queen as the person may receive those sums, every one pro rata, out of eveiy portion as it is assigned to be paid at several times, namely, to Mr. Bacon the sum of a thousand two hundred pounds; to Sir Arthur Gorges a ESCAPE OF MONTE AGLE FROM JUSTICE. 131 thousand two hundred pounds ; and to Captain Car- vi. 15. penter the rest; for doing whereof these presents shall be your warrant. Aug.e. THOMAS EGERTON. BUCKHURST. NOTTINGHAM. SHREWSBURY. WORCESTER. KNOLL YS. EGBERT CECIL. JOHN FORTESCUE. Fancy Coke's delight in passing an assurance for twelve hundred pounds to Francis Bacon! 16. One actor in the drama which has shaken Lon- don slips mysteriously from public view. Flung into the Tower with Essex and Danvers, as of equal guilt, Lord Monteagle is neither put with them on trial for his life, nor, in the various public investigations, are the damning facts of his having sent for Augustine Phillips and of having paid the Globe comedians to play the deposition of Richard II. on the very eve of the rising, allowed to escape Coke's lips in a public court. That Phillips was sent for to Essex House, and was there paid money to change the play at the Black- friars theatre, are facts too grave for the prosecution to conceal ; but when Coke rises, with the comedian's evi- dence in his hand, he drops the name of Lord Monteagle from the sworn depositions, inserting that of Meyrick in its place! Meyrick is hanged, Monteagle only fined. Cecil must have his reasons for this strange suppression, this cruel substitution: reasons which be- 16. Phillips' Examination, Feb. 18, 1601, S. P. 0. ; State Trials, i. 144 J" 9* 132 FRAXCIS BACON*. .VL16. come clear to us from Monteagle's share in the more terrible drama of the Powder Plot. 1601. Aug. 6. 17. Lord Campbell writes, and many others have written, as though it would have been right for Bacon to have shirked his part in this great act of justice. Yet this can hardly be his serious meaning. To put Bacon in the wrong, the objector must prove Essex to have been acting in his right. This, it may be safely asserted, they can never do. If all writers must agree that England was justified in crushing with swift, stern hand this peculiarly hideous and unnatural plot, by what path of reasoning can we come to a conclusion that one of the Queen's Counsellors, called to his duty by the Crown, was not right? In Bacon's place, we must assume that Lord Camp- bell would have done his duty as Bacon did. There is no second course for honest men. Bring the case down. Lord Campbell has had many clients: men who have paid him fees far larger than the patch of meadow tossed to Bacon by the Earl. Imagine events arming the papal powers once more against England; hostile fleets off the coast; O'Donnel or M'Mahon at the head of a successful host in Connaught; Zouaves swarming in Cork; our colonies menaced with fire and sword; a gang of ruffians, spawn of the stews and prisons, abroad in London; the Queen's cousin of Hanover plotting with all those rebels and fanatics against her crown and life; a foreign league resolving to put down our free con- stitution and our Protestant faith; imagine, under all these circumstances of alarm, one of Lord Campbell's former clients, a man for whose personal character he 17. Campbell's 'Lives of the Chancellors,' iii. 37. 39. CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS. 133 felt no respect and whose political conduct he held in vi. IT. abhorrence, joining with John Mitchell, Dr. Cullen, and the disbanded remnants of the Pope's brigade in open Aug! rebellion against the law, in rousing the dregs of the city, in shedding innocent blood at Charing Cross; would not Lord Campbell, under such provocations, do his duty as a lawyer and as a man? This was Bacon's case. He owed nothing to Essex that could have tempted even a weak man to take the wrong side instead of the right side. He owed alle- giance to his country and to truth. He was as much the Queen's officer, armed with her commission, bound to obey her commands, as her Captain of the Guard. He had no part in the Earl's crime, and utterly ab- horred his means, his associates, and his ends. To have done more than he did in the conduct of this bad drama might have been noble and patriotic; to have done less would have been to act like a weak girl, not like a great man. 18. That the bearing of Francis Bacon throughout Oct. these mournful events is just and noble, is the public verdict of his time. Lord Campbell talks of his fall in popularity. "For some time after Essex's execution Bacon was looked upon with great aversion." But, in truth, he never loses for a day the hearts of his coun- trymen. Of this the proofs are incontestable. While the spirits of men are yet warm with remembrance of the scenes at Tyburn and on Tower Hill, writs travel down into the shires for a new Parliament. Now, therefore, comes the proof how far he has fallen. If he be thought of with aversion, as Lord Campbell says, 18. Campbell's 'Bacon,' iii. 43; Willis, 'Not. Part.,' 149. 134 FRANCIS BACON. vi. is. here are the means, the opportunities, and the scenery for a condign revenge. The scot and lot men of Eli- Oct." zabeth are not nice. A candidate cross to the moods of squire and freeman often finds himself burned in straw, pelted Avith foul eggs, or drummed by humorous rogues from the county town. Do the friends of Lord Essex rise on his adversaries? Is the drum beaten against Raleigh, or the stone flung at Bacon? Just the reverse. The world has not been with the rebellious Earl; and those who have struck down the papist plot are foremost in the ranks of the new Parliament. Four years ago Bacon had been chosen to represent Ipswich, and the chief town of Suffolk again ratifies its choice. But his public acts have now won for him a second consti- tuency in St. Albans. Such a double return always rare in the House of Commons is the highest com- pliment that could have been paid to the purity and popularity of his political life. UNDER A CLOUD AT COURT. 135 CHAPTER VII. The New Reign. 1. NOR is Bacon's popularity a tide at the ebb. VIL * The Queen dies. A King comes in. who knows not 1603 Joseph, nor the principles of Joseph. James has se- April, cretly promised peace to Spain. A man of weak nerve and small quick brain, fond of his ease, a friend of dogmatic controversies and a stranger to religion, he can neither tolerate nor understand the passionate fervour of the realm for this foreign war. By war he sees that he may offend the Jesuits and the Pope, men who can put poison into his wine or sharpen against him an assassin's knife. What are the Dutch to him, that lie should offend for them the masters of a -hun- dred legions and twenty secret fraternities? Why, these Dutch are in arms against lawful kings! Eng- land, it is true, has undertaken their defence, and, in league with Henri Quatre, she has for many years past commanded in their towns and camps. But the treaties of Elizabeth, he says, are not his treaties, nor can he hold himself bound by the acts of a woman and a fool. But the desertion of a cause which every man be- tween the four seas possessing high spirit and sound faith feels to be his own, is not the act of a day. A path must be prepared. The eager spirits must be dispersed or stunned, the great fighting-men must be crushed or bribed. Cecil adopts this policy of peace, which suits his genius and secures to himself the fore- 1. King's MSS. 123; Harl. MSS. 582. 136 FRANCIS BACOX. vn. r. most place. Nottingham is won by a youthful bride, and Vere is recalled from the Flemish camp. A mas- IfiOS Nov! ter-work of political art sends Gray and Raleigh to the Tower. At the same time Bacon is thrust aside, discredited to the new sovereign, his usual access to the throne refused, and his proffered services of tongue and pen disdained. 1604. 2. At court he is under a cloud. The patron of Essex, the employer of Valentine Thomas, takes into his grace all those who shared in the Earl's affections and in his crime. Southampton is restored in blood. Lady Rich and the Countess of Northumberland ap- pear at court. Lady Rich's lover, Montjoy, becomes an earl. Rutland gets the reversion of a royal park, Monteagle a grant of land. Among those old par- tizans of Essex, who now keep the gates of Whitehall and dispose of offices and grants, Bacon is undoubtedly unpopular: and in a heat which his temperate nature rarely shows even against his most rancorous traducers, he addresses to Montjoy, the one noble gentleman whom a guilty passion for Lady Rich has put on the same side as the pardoned conspirators of Essex House, that remarkable remonstrance known as his Apologie: a word which he uses, as Jewell used it in his Apology for the Church of England, and as King James used it in his Apology for the Oath of allegiance, in its contemporary sense, as a vindication of what was right, not as an excuse for what had been wrong. Not a word of excuse appears in the Apology. In a few lines 2. Grant Book of James the First, 2, 3, S. P. O. ; Doquets of James the First, Nov. 13, 1G04, S. P. O. ; Warrant Book of James the First, 4, S. P. O.; In felicem memoriam Elizabeths, Bacon's Works, vi. 283; Willis, Not. Parl., 160. UNDER A CLOUD AT COURT. 137 Sir Francis states the high principle on which he acted vn. 2. through the melancholy course of the Essex plot: "Every honest man that hath his heart well-planted will for- Feb! sake his king rather than forsake his God; and forsake his friend rather than forsake his king; and yet will forsake any earthly commodity, yea and his own life in some cases rather than forsake his friend." And then he adds: "My Lord, my defence is simple and brief. Whatever I did concerning that action and proceeding was done in my duty and service to the Queen and State, in which I could not show myself faint-hearted or weak-hearted for any man's sake living." The pub- lication of the Apology silenced and put to shame the scandal and the scandal mongers. Even Coke, who after- wards accused him of ingratitude to Somerset, never dreamt of reviving these slanders of ingratitude to Essex. If Francis Bacon is still unpopular at White- hall, it is less for his past speech against the Earl than for his present defence of the dead Queen. In James's ear the name of Elizabeth is rank; on Ba- con's tongue and pen her virtues live and her glo- ries speak. When no man but himself dares breathe her name in the court of her successor, he composes that magnificent prose elegy, In felicem Memoriam Elizabeths, which he himself esteems the most pre- cious of all his works. The cloud is at Whitehall or at Hampton Court, not at Ipswich or St. Albans. To the country his name is dear as ever. When writs go out for the first Parliament of the new reign (one pur- pose of which is to restore the friends of Devereux in estate and blood), though the King and court bear hard against him, Ipswich and St. Albans send him to London once again by a double return. Nor is this 138 FRAKCIS BACON. vii. 2. all. So soon as the burgesses meet in Westminster, he becomes again, what he has been before in every ses- Feb! sion for twenty years, their chief. Some go so far as to use his name for Speaker of the House; a fact un- known to Lord Campbell; yet worth a word in re- ference to the false report of his lying at that very moment under public ban. Mar. 27. 3. By ancient usage the Crown appointed the Speaker to be chosen by the House. A leave to elect came down, weighted with a particular recommenda- tion; and, like a dean and chapter in the election of a bishop, the squires and burgesses were expected to adopt the royal choice. A time has now come for trying what force remains in these feudal forms. Some members think this leave to elect a Speaker should be taken in its open sense: that the House should choose its officers, causing these old pretensions of the Crown to cease. When, therefore, the court proposes Sir Edward Phellippes, a buzz and hum of opposition rises. Why not have a Speaker of their own? Hast- ings, Neville, Bacon, each is named. Hastings is a Puritan, Neville an opponent of the court. That each of these men should be deemed a fitting instrument of opposition to the Crown is susceptible of easy explana- tion. But Bacon is neither a Puritan nor an enemy of the court. He differs from the Puritans on some of their principles, particularly on their intolerance for errors of faith ; and he supports the King against many of their most obstinate prejudices, particularly their re- pugnance to a union with the Scots. Yet the gentle- 3. Com. Jour., i. 141; Bacon's Essays, No. 3; Bacon's Speech on the Naturalization of the Scots, State Trials, ii. 575. SERVICE ON COMMITTEES. 139 men who live with him and serve with him, who dine vn. 3. at the same tables, laugh over the same jests, and sometimes, it is likely, suffer from his wit, believe that ^ ar . 07. liis genius may be played, in a good cause, against the King. These gentlemen are not aware that Bacon is a corrupt and obsequious rogue. 4. If the House of Commons, not yet strong enough April, to give battle to the Crown on such a field as the choice of Speaker, accepts the nomination of Phel- lippes , it puts Bacon forward as its man of confidence, electing him on the Standing Committee of Privileges, on the Committee of Grievances, of which he is named reporter, on the Committee for Conference on the Re- straint of Speech, on the Committee for Union with Scotland ; in all, on twenty-nine committees. All through the session he speaks with a boldness, an ability, a frequency unrivalled in the House of Commons before his day or since. The topics are great and various: abuses in the taverns, the laws against witchcraft, the licence of purveyors, the election of members, the sin of adultery, the increase of drunkenness, the sale of Crown offices and lands. Two topics stand out from the rest with almost solid brightness of historical out- line. These are the Grievances and the Union. On the first Bacon has the disadvantage of differing from the Crown; on the second from a majority of those country gentlemen with whom he usually speaks and votes. James will not hear of the List of Grievances, nor will the burgesses vote his Bill of Union with the Scots. Each side has its personal feel- ing and its narrow view. With a deeper wisdom and 4. Com. Jour., i. 142-253; Lords' Jour., ii. 206, 309. 140 FRANCIS BACON. Vir. 4. a larger patriotism, Bacon, while he sees with the King that these claims to suspend the penal laws, to April, grant private monopolies, to command personal service, to sign away heiresses in marriage, to supply his kitchen from the poulterer's basket and his cellars from the vintner's store at his own price, are each and all incontestably historical, founded on customs older in date than the oldest statute in the book, sees also with the complaining citizen or squire that time, by its slow but devouring sap, has hollowed the ground on which these regal privileges stand, so that they have no longer a safe foundation on which to rest, and he seeks to improve the old ways before improvement is too late. But James is deaf. To take from him the right to re- ward a barber with a wine patent, to compel the young noble to hold his reins or feed his dogs, to match his favourites of the bedchamber with the daughters of English earls, to fetch in ale from Blackfriars and fish from Billingsgate wharf, to grant leave to his groom, or the darling of his groom, to vend pardons for rape and arson, burglary and murder, would, in his opinion, be to rob him of the most princely attributes of his high rank, i 5. Some among the Commons are not less weak than James. When they see him break his word, turn his baek on the List of Grievances, nip in the flower their hopes of a Church reform, begin a secret corre- spondence with the Cardinal Archduke and with the Pope, they set themselves to oppose his policy even in the few particulars on which his policy is just and 5. Abstract by Bacon of Objections in theHouse of Commons, April25, 1604, S. P. O.; Speech on the Union, April 25, 1604, S. P. O. INTRODUCES THE BILL OF UNION. 141 sound. In a union with the Scots Bacon finds a mea- vn. 5. sure of defence against Spain. A dull squire sees in it only an opening for the rush into London of savages April. with red beards, bare legs, and scurvy tongues. Waiving his own wrongs for the public good, Ba- con draws for the King the draft of a Bill of Union, which he introduces into the House of Commons in a luminous speech, opening to the view of knight and squire a political scene, in which he pictures to their minds the contending nationalities and hostile creeds of Europe, striving, by his bold, persuasive eloquence, to lure them into pondering less on the ancient feud of Saxon and Scot, more on the permanent safety of the English faith and power. With all the lights of fancy, all the subtleties of logic, he meets on one side the ob- stinacy of his colleagues, on the other side the per- verseness of his prince. Each, however, holds to his own. The Grievances are not heard, the Bill of Union does not pass. 6. While Bacon is making these splendid displays July. of political wisdom and personal independence in the House of Commons, Lord Campbell fancies him slink- ing and skulking under public odium! Lord Campbell takes everything on trust. When Bacon got his knighthood, Lord Campbell says he was "infinitely gratified by being permitted to kneel down with three hundred others." Now, Bacon's letters to Cecil on the knighthood are not only in print, but are known to every one who reads. In place of being in- finitely gratified, Bacon protests against the shame of being compelled to kneel down with Peter and John. 6. Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, Hi. 49. 142 FRANCIS BACOJf. VIT. s. So again with his marriage to Alice Barnham. Lord Campbell makes merry over his mercenary love and Jaiy. his match of convenience. Yet from his own text, and from the pages of Montagu, it is certain that he knows nothing whatever of this love or of this match; neither who Alice Barnham was, nor the circumstances of her parents ^ neither when she hecame Bacon's wife, nor the amount of jointure which she hrought home to her lord. He imagines that Alice became Lady Bacon in 1603, shortly after July 3rd, He says she was rich. In all that relates to Alice Barnham the writers of Bacon's life have been as much at fault as though she had been the wife of Ward the Rover or Steer the Leveller, in place of being, as she was, lady to a man who framed the New Philosophy and held the Great Seal. Yet some of the facts about her birth, the asso- ciations of her early years, the members of her family, the circumstances of her love, courtship, marriage, and wedded life, may still be recovered from the manuscript mounds of the Bodleian, the State Paper Office, and the library of Westwood Park. Aug - 7. More than a year ago, in writing to his cousin Cecil, Bacon mentioned his having found a handsome maiden to his mind. She loved him and he loved her. But her mother, a widow and again a wife, having made two good matches for herself, had set her heart on making great alliances for her girls. In part to 7. Bacon to Cecil, July 3, 1603; Notes on the Pakington Family in Wotton's Baronetage, ed. by Kimber and Johnson, L 180. Wotton's account was derived from a MS. History of Sir John Pakington written by the Rev. Mr. Tomkins, a Prebendary of Worcester, preserred in Wotton's time at Westwood Park. The HS. is now lost. COURTS ALICE BARXHAM. 143 please her, still more to glorify his bride, Bacon waited vn. 7. and toiled that he might lay at her feet a settled fortune and a more splendid name. Aug. The family* into which when he can steal an hour from the courts of law and the pursuits of science he goes a-courting, and in which he is now an ac- cepted lover, consists of four girls, their pretty mother, and a bold, handsome, heady stepfather of fifty-six: a group of persons notable from their private histories, and of romantic interest from their loves and feuds with the philosopher, and from the part which they must have had in shaping his views of the felicities and in- felicities of domestic life. 8. The four young girls are the orphan daughters of Benedict Barnham, merchant of Cheapside and alder- man of his ward; an honest fellow, who gave his wife a good lift in the world, and left his children to take their chance of rising among men who, with all their sins, are never blind to the merits of women blessed with youth, loveliness, and wealth. Alice is the first to fall in love; but the three hoydens who now romp around her, and perhaps get many a hug and kiss from her famous lover, will in their turns be followed for their bright eyes and brighter gold. Elizabeth Avill marry Mervin Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, that miser- able wretch who, when his first young wife, the hoyden of to-day, is in her grave, will expiate on the block the foulest crime ever charged against an English peer. The two little things now playing at Alice's knee will be- come, in due time, Lady Constable and Lady Soames. 8. Wotton, i. 180-186; Nash's History of Worcestershire, i.352; Collins' Peerage, art. 'Audley.' 144 FRANCIS BACOX. vir. 8. The mother of these girls was a daughter of Hum- plirey Smith, of Cheapside, silkman to the Queen. Aug! Eager, lovely, and aspiring, she had won the alderman of her ward an admirable city match ; but she meant and means to rise yet higher in the world, and heaven has given her the strength to fight her way. Of the four husbands whom she has made, or has still to make, the happiest of their sex, each is to be in his turn a loftier one than the last. She has buried a citizen. She will, in turn, bury her knight. She will then many a baron, and, on his death, an earl. Barnham was her early choice. When he left her with the four young girls and a great estate, Sir John Pakington, of Hampton Lovet, ancestor of that Worcestershire baronet who is said to have sat to Addison for the portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley, proffered to console her with his hearty affection and his good old name. The widow was not perverse. If she wept for the alderman of Cheapside, it was in a coach emblazoned with the mullets and wheatsheafs, and with a handsome and jovial knight at her side. 9. Sir John had been a father to the four girls ; for if rough and ready, apt to quarrel and quick to strike, he had a gentle and manly heart. A gentleman with due pride in his long line and his broad lands, in his length of leg and width of chest, he was known at Christ- church and on llichmond-green as Lusty Pakington; 9. Council Reg. , Aug. 24, 1600, June 6, Oct. 13, 1601; Wotton, i. 180; The Camden Society's Miscellany, iv. 50. There is a portrait of Sir John at Westwood Park. My impressions of him are mainly derived from a multitude of private papers preserved at Westwood , free access to which I owe to the obliging courtesies of the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., his descendant and successor. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 145 and the good old Queen, who liked to see a man a vn. 9. Man, had made him, for his brave looks, a Knight of the ~~ Hath. A great swimmer, an adroit swordsman, few Aug. who could help it ever cared to wait the shock of his hasty temper or his vigorous thrust. The great man of his country-side, he sent his buck for the judges' table at assizes, and had his name put first on every rniiuiiission from the Crown, whether the shire was called to raise forces against Spain, build light-houses in the Bristol Channel, or provide for the wants of sick and disabled troops. If orders from the Crown opposed his own particular humours, as they sometimes would, he put them in the fire. The Privy Council had to be rather plain and rough with the jovial knight. Once he laid a wager to swim against three stout gal- lants from Westminster to London-bridge; but the Queen forbade the match, lest some of the fools should get drowned. He had a passion for building and dig- ging on a princely scale. He bought a whole forest of trees for his salt-pits and for the great house which he was building at Westwood Park, and he sank a farm of a hundred acres under water that he might have room to swim and fish. Debt caught the generous spendthrift in its claws; and that which could not force him into meanness, lured him, at the age of fifty, into love. When maddened by duns, he swore to be free of such rogues, even if he had to give up London, and live on bread and verjuice. News that Sir John was going to forsake the town, to sell horses and dogs, and, for the time to come, live on his own estate, shoot in the woods round Hampton Lovet, and stick to the ses- sions of Worcester, as his father and grandfather had done before him, soon got wing; when sixty stout gen- Lord Bacon. 10 146 FR ANSIS BACON. vii. 9. tlemen and yeomen of the shire, his friends and tenants, seated in their own saddles, pricked up to London, and Aug. waited for him at the palace-gates while he went in to bid the Queen adieu. Sorry to miss so fine a gentle- man from her court, Elizabeth gave him an estate in Suffolk, worth from eight to nine hundred pounds a year, of .traitor's land. Off he spurred to take posses- sion; but, on gaining the door of his new house, he found there a mourning lady with her children in de- spair. In place of kicking them out into the street, he ran away himself, nor ever rested in his bed till he had got the Queen to take back her gift and bestow it on the weeping lady and her little brood. When a good friend in the city whispered in his ear the name of widow Barnham, the great affectionate fellow, wanting to dig and build, and having no objection to four pretty girls to romp with him and love him, as they were sure to do, dashed into Cheapside, told his bashful little tale, and the young widow, wooed for the second time in her life, said Yes. 10. A brood of Pakingtons joined the brood of Barnhams Mary, Ann, and John their names. Mary lived to become Lady Brook; Ann first to become Lady Ferrars, next the Countess of Chesterfield ; Jack to be the first baronet of his line; and his son, Jack also, the famous cavalier who sacrificed so much for Charles the First, and who married Lady Dorothy, the reputed author of The Whole Duty of Man. The blood of Mistress Smith of Cheapside runs in the veins of half our modern peers. The Barnhams and Pakingtons kept house together; 10. I derive these details from the Westwood 1ISS., the stained glasses of Hampton Lovet church , and personal inspection of the localities , with the valuable aid of Sir John and Lady Pakington. HAMPTON LOVET. 147 in summer-time at Hampton Lovet, among the baksvir. 10. and 'apple-trees; in term and sessions, when the world 1 //\ A rode up to town, they hired a lodging in the Strand, Aug. over against the door of the Savoy, church. Their home in Worcestershire was a big stone house, standing in a wooded dell, close by Hampton-brook, and at the foot of Hornsgrove-hill : a pile witli flanking wings, a trim parterre in front, and five huge lanterns on the roof, from which nothing could be seen save the square plain tower of the village church, the clasping* zone of wood, and now and then a curl of ascending smoke from the Droitwich salt-pans. Near a mile from Hampton Lovet lie the ruins of an ancient abbey, which, may possibly have been the scene of Sir Roger's ghost. A chain of ponds, alive with fish and fed by natural springs, drips past the ruin, and beyond these slants a bright green grassy upland, bare of wood, from the top of which, a level table-land, the eye sweeps lovingly over wood and water, hill and hamlet and orchard ; near you the village spires of Ombersley and Hampton; far away the ca- thedral towers of Worcester; and in the distance, over leagues of country, powdered in May with the pink and white of innumerable apple-trees, in autumn warm with the ruddy glow of the ploughed red land, the bold purple ridge of the Malvern hills. On this pla- teau, high above the low-lying woods, Sir John had begun to build a big house and dig a lake a house of rough red brick, with a grand hall and a state-room above it, panelled, carved, and tapestried: a house like himself, thouroughly genuine and English, in which he was to die, and his descendants were to live. His new lake, close by his house, was the wonder and bugbear of the shire. 10* 148 FRANCIS BACON. vn. 11. 11. Between this proud mother and this burly knight the course of Bacon's love for Alice had no hope Aug. of running smooth. Lady Pakington adored great people; thinking more of Sir Francis Bacon as a friend and favourite of the Lord Chancellor than she would have thought of him had he already published the Great Instauration. Lady Egerton condescended to keep her in good humour while them an of genius waited and laboured for a better time. Oct. 28. He had still to wait, even for that rise in his pro- fession which was incontestably his due. On the death of Sir William Peryam, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the third husband of his sister Elizabeth Bacon, Fleming became Chief Baron, yet the Solicitorship, vacant once more, was given over his head to Sir John Doderidge, serjeant of the coif. 1605. 12. A brief reference in the charge against William Talbot, a phrase here and there in his Essays, have told the world what Bacon thought of the Powder Plot. It has not been known that he had any part, slight or serious, in repressing this foul conspiracy, the natural sequel of the Essex plot. The new facts are found in an unpublished letter from Bacon to Cecil. The crime of Essex, the royal patronage of the conspirators, have borne their fruit in the Westminster mine. It is the eighth of November, four days after the strange discovery made by Lord Monteagle. Fawkes is in the Tower. Catesby, Percy, Christopher and John 11. Bacon to Egerton, in Tanner MSS. 251, fol. 38 b; Doqnets, Aug. 18, Oct. 28, 1604, S. P. O. 12. Bacon to Cecil, Nov. 8, 1605, S. P. O. ; Examination of John Drake, Nov. 8, 1605, S. P. O. THE POWDER PLOT. 149 Wright are riding through the midland shires, flinging vu. 12. away cloaks and scarfs, the country at their heels. The fight is not yet won. Jesuits peer from the slums of N'OV. Whitefriars, and many who have come to town for the fifth of November still lurk among the sheds of Drury- lane. True citizens keep watch and ward, lest, mad- dened by defeat, some desperate villain should commit midnight murder or scatter midnight fire. John Drake, serving-man to Reynolds, a gentleman living in pleasant Holborn, hears a fellow named Beard declare that the plot was a brave plot, and that he, for one, regrets that it should have failed. Drake runs to his master, and Reynolds repeats to the Principal of Staple Inn the suspicious words his servant had overheard. The Principal sees that here is no case for a city Dogberry: Beard must be a Papist, may be a plotter. Away he hies with the ancients of his Inn to Bacon's rooms in Gray's Inn Square. The words are bad, but general may mean little, may mean much. The knave who uttered them should certainly be caught and questioned. Bacon sends the examination of Drake to Cecil, with the following note: BACON TO CECIL. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, Nov - 8 " 1605 ' I send an examination of one who was brought to me by the principal and ancients of Staple Inn , touch- ing the words of one Beard, suspected for a Papist and practiser, being general words, but bad, and I thought not good to neglect anything at such a time; so with signification of humble duty, I remain, at your Lordship's honourable commands, most humbly, F. BACON. 150 FRANCIS BACOX. vn. is. 13. Even the atrocious plot of Fawkes and Garnet, . though its success would have been death to him, as jan. to so many more, does not sour Bacon into a perse- cutor. He classes their crime with the massacres of Paris; but while the bigots find in these monstrous aberrations a plea for hanging and embowelling Roman Catholics who have taken no part in them, he finds, as wise and tolerant men see in them now after a lapse of two hundred and sixty years, an argument against arming any one sect of men with the persecutor's sword. The traitor he gives up to the law; the heretic is to him a brother who has lost his way. In the noblest and most original of his Essays, penned in the prime of his intellectual powers, he especially explains and defends this principle of toleration. But the doc- trine of his book had been previously exercised as a virtue in his life. The lapse of Tobie Mathews from the English- Church to Rome put his tolerant philo- sophy to the proof. Born on the steps of the episcopal bench, his grandfather a bishop, his father a bishop, four of his uncles bishops, all his connexions in the Church, the fall of this young man made a noise in England loud as the apostasy of Spalatro made in Rome. The Puritans would have cut him off branch and bole. When he came from Italy to London, having given up all his old delights, cards, wenches, "wine, and oaths, some, who were not themselves saints, would lave flung him into the Tower and left him there to die, as Spalatro, venturing into Rome, was sent to perish in the dungeons of St. Angelo. James was bitterly incensed 13. JlaihewB to Carleton . July, 1606, S. P. O. ; Ap. to Salisbury's Ori- ginal Papen relating to Rubens , 341 , 343 ; Bacon's Essays , ed. of 1625, Ko. 3; Mathews to Bacon, April 14, July 16, 1616, Lambeth MSS. 936. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 151 against him, looking on his fall as that of a column of vn. 13. his church; his father drove him from his heart with a curse; yet, when his whole kin spat on him and cast j an .' him forth, Bacon, strong in his sympathy for a scholar and a man who had lost his way, took this outcast and regenerate pervert to his house. Though he fought against his friend's new doctrines, he never would con- sent, with the less tolerant world, to hunt him down for a change in his speculative views, which every eye could see had made him a better and a happier man. The philosopher might not be always able , by any sacrifice of name and credit, to shield this enthusiast from the rage of sects, but he comforted him when in jail, procured leave for him to return from exile, softened towards him the heart of his father, and obtained for him indulgences which probably saved his life. 14. In the session which meets after the plot Bacon plays a most active and brilliant part. The whole world has come to town: some to see that the King is safe, some to see the traitors hang. Among others have come up Sir John and Lady Pakington, together with the young ladies from Westwood Park. Sir John has left behind him for a few weeks his brine-pits, his great pool, his herds of deer, his new house" in the wood, his petty squabbles with the neigh- bouring squires, and penned himself and the young ladies in a lodging of the Strand, not only that he may see the opening of parliament and hear the news, but that he may fight his way through two or three of his 14. Carleton to Chamberlain, May 11, 1600, S. P. O.; Wotton , i. 184; Heath's Preface to Bacon's Speech on the Jurisdiction of the Marches, vii. 569 ; Dom. Papers James I., x. 86. 152 FRANCIS BACON. vn. 14. ugly scrapes. In digging his huge pond in Wcstwood Park, lie had put under water some part of an old Feb. road, never doubting his power to do what he saw good on his own estate, the more so that he: had given a turn to the road more convenient for himself and for every one else. A neighbour, between whom and Sir John no love was lost, seeing the flaw in'this easy mode of making things straight, had procured from the Crown an order to remove the pond and restore the King's ancient highway. This news he had sent to Westwood, saying, with a politeness which the hot old gentleman read for insult, that, though he had such an order in his hands, he should not use it so long as the knight was pleased to live with him on friendly terms. Scorning to owe his pleasures to such a fellow, Sir John had broken down his banks, and, the pool lying high, the waters had raced and crashed through the orchards, strew- ing the fields with dead fish for a mile or more, and dis- colouring the Severn as far off as Worcester for a week. Having let out his pool, he has come to answer for himself, and seek power to fill it with water and fish once more. A yet more serious quarrel with Lord Zouch helped to bring him up to town. As President of the Council of Wales and the Welsh Marches, Lord Zouch for a long time claimed a certain jurisdiction over the four border shires of Gloucester, Hereford, Salop, and Worcester; a claim which the shires denied and re- sisted, with loud speeches from the gentry, met by threats of force on the part of Zouch, tumultuous riding, sign- ing, and protesting, ending for the day in solemn ap- peals from the four shires to the House of Commons, and from the angry Council of Wales to the King. Sir HIS POLITICAL VIEWS. 153 Herbert Crofts, Knight of the shire for Hereford, hadvn. u. the cause against Zouch in hand. Sir John, who was Sheriff of Worcester, but not a Parliament man, having ru b.' no tongue to wag, yet felt a passionate interest in this appeal; for Loi'd Zouch not only claimed a certain authority in his county, but showed no sense of the re- spect due, even from a peer, to so great a man as Sir John. 15. Alice is now near her lover, whom she may spy as he trots from Gray's Inn to Westminster, or lounges from the House towards Chancery-lane. Bacon sees many a rock ahead. He is still a simple knight, and he has the misery of differing frpm Sir John on the great question of Lord Zouch and the shires. Sir John can hardly make him out. Pakington is a Royalist root and branch, one who has lent money to his Prince on Privy Seals, and who would draw a sword for Church and King with the ready zeal which made his grandson famous among the soldiers of Charles the First; yet this young lawyer, who has spent his life in recommending reforms, presumes to defend against him, loyal Sir John, the prerogatives of the Crown! Wiser heads than that of the warm old Worcestershire knight were often at fault when trying to explain to themselves the relations of Bacon to the Puritan House of Commons and to the episcopal and regal court. Yet they seem to be easy of explanation. It is, indeed, so rare for a man to stand on good terms with a hostile Crown and House of Commons, that it is often thought and sometimes found to be impossible. 15. Com. Jour. , i. 286, 299; App. to the Verney Papers, ed. by John Bruce, 281. 154 FRANCIS BACON. vn. 15. Winwood tried it. Strafford tried it. Pym would have tried it. But Winwood lost favour with the House Feb. when he took office under the Crown; lost favour at Court when he leaned to the Puritan opinions of the House. Strafford and Pym had each to choose a side. Bacon's position was far more lofty, and for years it seemed as if it were more secure. From his height of view and round of .sympathy he was unable to throw himself, tongue and pen, into the exclusive and secta- rian lines of either camp. His reconciling genius spanned the dividing stream of party. Above the foolish Prince and petulant squires, he saw his country; not merely the England of Bancroft, of the Hampton Court Con- ference, of the Proclamation against Papists; but the England of a thousand years, of Alfred and of Edward, of Cressy and of Cadiz, of Chaucer and of Spenser; the England of a glorious past and a hopeful future; the land which had nurtured Wycliffe and Caxton, which had broken the spiritual bonds of Leo, which had crushed the invincible fleets of Spain. This country he strove to arm, to free, to guide; now by aiding the King in questions of revenue and of union; now by aiding the House in questions of reform or war. In each he was consistent first and last His first votes in the House were for supplies, his last speech was for supplies. With no fear of the controversial genius of Rome, he felt a wholesome dread of the fleets and regiments of Spain; those tracts by which Parsons, Schioppius, and Bellarmino stung the sleep from so many pillows passed him by; but he could not hear unmoved that the same Paul who had launched an interdict on Venice was forming a Roman Catholic League against England; that the O'Neiles and O'Donnels, driven out from Ire- CONSULTED BY CECIL. 155 land by Lord Montjoy, were hurrying home from Brussels vir. 15. and Madrid: that rebels were drilling in the wilds of -I c Ail Connaught and Ulster; that Fajardo was manning his Feb. ships in Cadiz bay, and Brochero proffering his red hand to brush away Virginia with steel and flame. Willing to meet the men of words with words, he was not less eager to meet the men of war with steel and lead, the midnight assassin with the chain, the gibbet, and the cord. Now, to starve the Crown was to leave England weak. True, the Prince was lax, and moneys voted 'for the musters and the fleets might drop into the pouches of Hume and Herbert and Carr; yet of two dark evils he chose to dare the least, see- ing that to pare down the subsidies, as many virtuous and unreasoning squires proposed, was to subject James and his needy servants to the magnificent corruptions ofLerma, the great minister of Spain, already suspected, and with, truth, .of having taken the chief men of the Privy Council and the Bedchamber into his pay. Better own the King's debts than letLerma pay them. There- fore, while he spoke with Hastings and Hyde against patents, wardships, private monopolies, the whole tag- rag of feudal privilege, he constantly voted with Hitcham and Hobart for those supplies which were necessary to maintain the splendour of the Crown and the efficiency of the musters and the fleet. Here he parted from the majority; wide as in his vote for union with the Scots. 16. Cecil, knowing his kinsman free from selfish and sectarian views, consults him on the money-bills and settlements. The debates on a grant for the new 16. Bacon to Cecil, Feb. 10, 1C06, S. P. O.} 156 FRANCIS BACON. vn. 16. reign are about to come on; and Cecil, who as Earl of Salisbury sits in the Peers, has begun to feel his need Feb! of a bold and influential friend in the Lower House. He hints that the Court shall no longer oppose Bacon's rise at the bar. On his part, Bacon is ready to assist the Crown in procuring an ample grant; to shape drafts and preambles for the government such as may disarm the resentment of knight and squire. Cecil takes him at his word, and Bacon drafts a bill. Here is a note which shows how he is nearing power: BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. Feb. 10, 1606. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, I cannot as I would express how much I think myself bounden to your Lordship for your tenderness over my contentments. But herein I will endeavour hereafter as I am able. I send your Lordship a pre- amble for the subsidy, drawing which was my morn- ing's labour to-day. This mould or frame, if you like it not, I will be ready to cast it again, de novo, if I may receive your honourable directions: for any parti- cular corrections, it is in a good hand; and yet I will attend your Lordship (after to-morrow's business, and to-morrow ended, which I know will be wearisome to you) to know your further pleasure: and so in all humbleness I rest at your Lordship's honourable com- mands more your ever bounden F. BACON. Mar. 11. 17. After warm debates in the Lower House a bill goes up to the throne for two subsidies and four 17. Hoby to Edmonds , Mar. 7, 1G06; Cecil to Earl of Mar, Mar. 0, 1606, S. P. 0. ; Com. Jour., i. 281-84. BILL OF SUPPLY. 157 fifteenths, payable in eighteen months. It is notvii. 17. enough. Hitcham, member for Lyme, a patriotic fight- ing town on the Dorset coast, proposes in committee a Mar. second grant of two subsidies, four in all. A dozen members rise at once. Peake will hear no more about the royal debts. Holt declares the proposition of Hitcham dangerous. Paddye will tell the King that even kings must not do wrong. Noy declaims against spoiling the poor to gorge the rich. Dyer and Holcroft hint that more than once demands like these have been met by the cry, To arms! But the warmest speaker is Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch, member for Marl- borough. Courtiers shrink from an unequal contest. Sir Edward Hoby, an observant politician, friendly to his kinsman Cecil and the court, notes how poor a figure the King's official friends make in that mascu- line and stormy House. 18. Bacon starts to the front. In the midst of a Mar>18- noisy sitting of the committee, word conies down from Whitehall that James will not wait that the bill must be passed, or the undutiful members shall feel his ire. Such words now frequent make the King odious and contemptible. A storm sets in; the members fling back threat for threat; the bill is lost. This scene takes place on Tuesday. On Thursday the committee meets again; the King has not accepted his defeat, nor will the Commons enlarge their vote. Saturday brings no change of mood. On Monday the Mar. 22. committee must report to the House; and Bacon, who has been made reporter, will have to report against his 18. Bacon to Cecil, Mar. 22, 1606, S.P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 288; Jonson's Epigrams, 41; A Proclamation touching a Seditious Rumour, Mar. 22. 1606. 158 FRANCIS BACON. vn. is. own convictions of what is best for the country and the Crown. He sees the committee sullen, almost sa- Mar. 22. vage. Monday is the anniversary of the King's ac- cession, yet no one rises to propose a holiday. Fagged with work, he must ride down to Gorham- bury for a day of rest. He does not wish to appear as if flying from his post, so he takes up his pen and writes : BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. This Saturday, the 22nd of March , 1606. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, I purpose upon promise rather than business to make a step to my house in the country this after- noon, which, because your Lordship may hear other- wise, and thereupon conceive any doubt of my return to the pursuance of the King's business, I thought it concerned me to give your Lordship an account that I purpose (if I live) to be there to-morrow in the even- ing, and so to report the subsidy on Monday morning; which, though it be a day of triumph, yet I hear of no adjournment, and therefore the House must sit. But if, in regard of the King's servants' attendance, your Lordship conceive doubt the House will not be well filled that day, I humbly pray your Lordship I may receive your direction for the forbearing to enter into the matter that day. I doubt not the success, if those attend that should. So I rest, in all humbleness, at your Lordship's honourable commands, F. BACON. An hour after this note is penned a rumour rises, no one knows how, that the King is dead. Some say he SUBSIDY GRANTED. 159 has been shot, some stabbed, some smothered in hisvn. is. bed. No one asks where the King is-, all agree that he is killed. Members rush to the council, to the city : Mar. 22. but the ministers, the aldermen, know as little as them- selves. Some spur for Theobalds, some for Royston. London yields itself to the wildest terrors. Hundreds of men concerned in the Powder Plot are still at large. Garnet is still unhung; the priests are sworn to have blood for blood; the Jesuits, it is said, have threatened to bum London to ashes, to massacre all the Protestants, should that shining example of Christian virtue come to harm. Citizens bar their doors and swing on their Toledo blades. A horseman, Sir Herbert Crofts, dashes into Palace Yard. He has seen the King! The King is safe, and near the town. Fear now mutinies into joy. Bells laugh over London roofs, crowds ride in procession to meet their Prince. If he is safe, the realm is safe. The Peers and Commons go to Whitehall. Ben Jonson bursts into music. As night comes down, the streets start out with fire, and the taverns of Fleet-street and Cheapside roar with patriotic songs. 19. Sunday and Monday pass in rejoicings and Mar. 25. receptions. Tuesday brings up Bacon. He has not, he tells the House of Commons, drawn a word-for-word report from the committee, for his soul is shaken with too much fear and joy. What, he cries, are a few debts to the exultation now straining every loyal heart? These debts are less the King's than the late Queen's. The Queen made war, the country must repair the 19. Com. Jour., i. 286, 299; Cecil to Wotton, Mar. 19, June 18, 1606, S. P. O. ; Statutes 3 Jacobi, c. 26. 160 FRANCIS BACON. vrr. 19. ravages of war. Reparation costs money. The Crown debts, too, must be paid in full, next year if not this 1606. , ' , / J . Mar. 25. year; and why prefer a vote one session to a vote another session? The House can name its time; but he says, Vote to-day! In that rapturous and sacred moment, when a great alarm has pressed heart to heart, and made the whole nation one, he calls on the gen- tlemen of England to crown their own happy work by voting the subsidies necessary to support the power of the country, the independence of the Crown. His eloquence bears away the House. Hyde fronts the stream; but the tide has turned towards Whitehall, and he strives against genius and enthusiasm, if man- fully yet in vain. A bill for another subsidy is passed. May 6. 20. In the flush of this triumph, with his fame now fixed, and with a great place, won by himself, not tossed to him by a patron, within reach of his hand (not, as Lord Campbell says, when he is poor and down in the summer of the Queen's death), he begs the lady of his love to name her day. Three years ago they were pledged to each other; he could have made her Lady Bacon then, or at any time since then ; but he has hoped to give to his bride a more settled fortune and a more illustrious name. Renown beyond the dreams of woman he can give her. Xor is he poor in those worldly gifts which girls sometimes covet even more than character and fame. Besides the grants bestowed upon him by Elizabeth, the reversion in the 20. Bacon to Egerton, Tanner MS S. 251, fol. 38 b; Rawley's Resusci- tatio, 41; Domestic Papers, James I., xtx. 33; Heath's Preface, Bacon's Works, vii. 576. HIS MARRIAGE. 161 Star Chamber (not yet fallen in), and the leases ofvu. 20. Cheltenham and Charlton Kings, of the Pitts and 1 fiOfi Twickenham Park, the death of poor Anthony (dead May. of the vices and excesses caught from his noble friend) has given him Gorhambury and the lands about it, where he now lives when not at Gray's Inn, and where, in after years, he will build Verulam House by the pond, taking his house, as he says, to the water, when the water will no longer flow to his house. More than all, the patent of Solicitor-General may be now sealed to him any day or week, a post of not less value than three or four thousand pounds a-year, with openings to higher office and greater pay, to the Privy Council, the Peerage, and the Seals. He is rich, too, in genius and in noble friends. If Cecil plays with him fast and loose, the Lord Chancellor pushes his fortunes at the bar, and Lady Egerton smooths his suit with the young beauty and with her domineering kin. Sir John is in high spirits. True, the bill to exempt the four shires from Lord Zouch's jurisdiction has been dropped by the Lords; but the King .has assured Sir Herbert Crofts with his own lips that right shall be done; and the loyal country gentleman believes that when a prince has promised to do right he will of course maintain his word. The day is named; the tenth of May. 21. By help of Sir Dudley Carleton we may look May 10. upon the pleasant scene, upon the pretty bride, the jovial knight, the romping girls, and the merry com- pany, as through a glass. Feathers and lace light up 21. Carleton to Chamberlain, May 11, 1606, 8. P. O.; Bacon's Will; Spedding's Bacon, i. 8. Lord Bacon. 11 162 FRANCIS BACOX. vn. 21. the rooms in the Strand. Cecil lias been warmly urged to come over from Salisbury House. Three of his AiajMio. gentlemen, "'Sir Walter Cope, Sir Baptist Hicks, and Sir Hugh Beeston, hard drinkers and men about town, strut over in his stead, flaunting in their swords and plumes; yet the prodigal bridegroom, sumptuous in his tastes as in his genius, clad in a suit of Genoese vel- vet, purple from cap to shoe, outbraves them all. The bride, too, is richly dight; her whole dowry seeming to be piled up on her in cloth of silver and ornaments of gold. The wedding rite is performed at St. Mary- lebone chapel, two miles from the Strand, among the lanes and suburbs winding towards the foot of Hamp- stead Hill. Who that is blessed with any share of sympathy or poetry cannot see how the glad and shining party ride to the rural church on that sunny tenth of May? how the girls will laugh and Sir John will joke, as they wind tlirough lanes now white with thorn and the bloom of pears; how the bridesmaids scatter rosemary and the groomsmen struggle for the kiss? Who cannot imagine that dinner in the Strand, though the hunchback Earl of Salisbury has not come over to Sir John's lodging to taste the cheer or kiss the bride? We know that the wit is good, for Bacon is there; we may trust Sir John for the quality of his wine. Alice brings to her husband two hundred and twenty pounds a-year, with a further claim, on her mother's death, of one hundred and forty pounds a- year. As Lady Pakington long outlived Bacon, that increase never came into his hands. Two hundred and twenty pounds a-year is his wife's whole fortune. What is not spent in lace and satins for her bridal A NEW DISAPPOINTMENT. 163 dress, he allows her to invest for her separate use. vn. 21. From his own estate he settles on her five hundred pounds a-year. M^io. Now, in what sense can a marriage in which there seems to be a good deal of love, and in which there certainly is no great flush of money, be called, on Bacon's side, a mercenary match? 22. A slight more galling than has yet been put June, on him awaits the close of his honeymoon. Only a few days after his marriage to Alice, Sir Francis Gawdy of the Common Pleas, stricken with apoplexy, is removed from his chambers at Serjeants' Inn to Easton Hall, where he soon after dies. Coke goes up to the bench, and Doderidge, the Solicitor -General, ought by the custom of the bar to follow Coke, leaving the post of Solicitor void. But Sir Francis Gawdy having been a partizan of the Essex faction, and his daughter married to a son of Lady Eich, Cecil, either anxious not to offend that powerful faction, which he lias made his own by a double contract of marriage, or doubtful of his cousin's subserviency in office, sets aside the usual order of promotion at the bar, and raises Sir Henry Hobart, his obscure Attorney of the Court of Wards, over Doderidge's as well as over Bacon's head, to the high place of Attorney-General. Bacon complains to Egerton and Cecil of the insult Oct. even more than of the wrong; and the Lord Chan- cellor, seeing the error made by the government in alienating the most powerful man in the House of Com- mons, proposes to heal the wound by asking Sir John 22. Foss'a Judges of England, vl. 158, 306, 329; Chron. Jurid. 181; Montagu, v. 297; Council Reg., Oct. 14, 1C06. 11* 164 . FRANCIS BACON. vii. 22. Doderidge to yield his patent to Bacon, taking in ex- change the place of King's Serjeant, with a promise of June, the first seat that shall fall vacant in the King's Bench. To this plan Doderidge and Cecil both object. NOV. 23. When Parliament meets in November to dis- cuss the Bill of Union, Bacon stands back. The King has chosen his Attorney; let the new Attorney fight the King's battle. The adversaries to be met are bold and many. During the recess Cecil has imposed on the country a Book of Rates, pretending that taxes may be lawfully laid in the King's ports at the King's plea- sure. John Bates, a merchant trading with Venice, for resisting a tax unsanctioned by the House of Commons, has been condemned in the Court of Exchequer; but the condemnation rousing a nation of taxpayers, from every port into [which ships can float come protests against Sir Thomas Fleming's reading of the law. Beyond the Tweed, too, people are mutinous to the point of war; for the countrymen of Andrew Melville begin to suspect the King of a design against the Kirk, and Melville himself, lured by a false pretence from St. Andrew's to London, has been provoked into an indiscretion, and clapped in the Tower. Under such crosses, the Bill on Union fares but ill. Fuller, the bilious representative of London, flies at the Scots. The Scots in London are in the highest degree unpopular. Lax in morals and in taste, they will take the highest place at table, they will drink out of anybody's can, they will kiss the hostess or her 28. Carleton to Chamberlain, Dec. 18, 1606, S. P. O. ; Foster to Mathews, Feb. 16, 1607, S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 314, 333; Lane's Reports in the Court of Exchequer, 22, 31 ; M'Crie's Life of Melville, ii. 234. DEBATE ON UNION BILI* 165 buxom maid without saying "By your leave." Brawls vii. 23. fret the taverns which they haunt ; pasquins hiss against them from the stage. These broils distract the poor Jj^; King, who sees no way to put them down save by commanding Popham to whip and pillory the rogues who beat his countrymen and friends. Three great poets, Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, are sent to jail for a harmless jest against the Scots. Such acts of rigour make the name of Union hateful to the pub- lic ear. Hobart goes to the wall. James now sees that the Dec. battle is not to the weak nor the race to the slow. Bacon has only to hold his tongue and make his terms. Alarmed lest the Bill of Union may be re- jected by an overwhelming vote, Cecil suddenly ad- journs the House. He must get strength. The plan proposed by Egerton for making Doderidge a King's Serjeant, Bacon the Solicitor- General, is revived. Pressed on all sides, here by the Lord Chancellor, there by a mutinous House of Commons, Cecil at length yields to his cousin's claim, Sir John Doderidge bows his neck, and when Parliament meets after the Christmas holidays Bacon holds in his pocket a written engagement for the Solicitor's place. 24. The Bill of Union, drawn by Egerton, consists p e b. i'i. of four parts: hostile laws, border laws, laws of com- merce, laws of navigation. Three of these parts pre- sent no difficulties to the House of Commons. Statutes which forbid a Scot to pass the Tweed, which fill the dales of Ettrick and Yarrow with feud and slaughter, 24. Com. Jour., i. 333-337; Lords' Jour., ii. 4G9, 472; Statutes, 4Jac.c.l. 166 FRANCIS BACON. vii. 24.. which prohibit the sale of English wool in Scotland and of Scottish furs in England, find no advocates. Feb. u. All the old barbarous laws are at once annulled. But the knights and burgesses resist the King's design of naturalizing the whole Scottish population. Nicholas Fuller reopens the debate. A union of these two countries, says the uncivil member for Lon- don, would be a marriage of the rich with the poor, the strong with the weak. With the pardonable pride of a London burgess he points to the arts, the in- dustry, and wealth of England, to its orchards swelling with fruit, its pastures fat with kine, its waters white with sails, to its thriving people, abundant agriculture, inexhaustible fisheries, woods, and mines. With all these riches he contrasts a land of crags and storms, peopled by a race of men rude as their climate, poor in resources and in genius, a nation with pedlars for merchants, and two or three rotten hoys for a fleet. Such countries, he contends, are best apart. What man in his senses, having two estates divided by a hedge, one fruitful, one waste, will break down his fence and let the cattle stray from the waste into garden and corn-field? Will any one mingle two swarms of bees? why then two hostile swarms of men? England is bare as the land round Bethel; so that nature and God call out to separate the nations, as Lot chose the left hand, Abraham the right. He denies that the King's accession has changed the relations of the Saxon to the Scot: and sits down with demanding whether, if Mary had borne a son to Philip, that son being heir to his father's crowns, an English Par- liament would have naturalized the people of Sicily and Spain? DEBATE ON UNION BILL. 167 25. The speech makes a deep impression. Fuller vn. 25. speaks to men convinced; men sore from daily wrongs and insults. Bacon, rising to reply, begins with that Feb. 17. shower of image and illustration which his experience tells him is never lost on a learned and poetic House. He begs his hearers to forget all private feuds, to raise their minds to questions of the highest state; not as merchants dealing with mean affairs, but as judges and kings charged with the weal of empires. Glancing in sconi at Fuller, he passes with his light laugh the moral of that tale of Abraham and Lot, a parting cursed with a cruel war and a long captivity, to his illustration of the fence. The King, says Bacon, threw down the fence when he crossed the Tweed; yet the flock of Scots has not yet followed through the rent. Proud and lavish, doting on dress and show, the Scot- tish gentleman will rather starve at home than betray his poverty abroad. The Roman commons fought for the right to name Plebeian consuls, and, when they had won the right, voted for Patricians: so with the Scots: they claim the privilege of coming into Eng- land; yield the right, and they will not come. It is said the land is full. London, he grants, is thronged and swollen: not the open downs and plains. France counts more people to the mile. Flanders, Italy, Ger- many exceed us in population. Are there no English towns decayed? Are there no ancient cities heaps of stones? Why, marsh grows on the pasture, pasture on the plough-land. Wastes increase; the soil cries loud for hands to sow the corn and reap the harvest. But this bill for naturalizing the Scots stands on a far 25. Speech by Sir Francis Bacon in the House of Commons concerning the Naturalization of the Scots, 1641 ; Wilson, 37. 168 FRANCIS BACON. vii. 25. higher ground. A people, warlike as the Romans and as ourselves, a race of men who, like wild horses, are 1 ( l (V7 , Feb.' hard to control because lusty with blood and youth, offer to be one people with us, friends in the day of peace, allies in the day of strife. Take from the Scots this brand of aliens, and they will stand by our side, bulwarks and defenders against the world. Should you shut them out from England, treating them as strangers and enemies, they may prove to you what the Pisans proved to Florence, the Latins to Rome. In our an- cient wars the invader found the gates of our kingdom open. France could enter through Scotland, Spain through Ireland. Pass this bill, we close our gates. No minor argument deserves a thought. Union is strength, union is defence. You object that the Scots are poor. Are not strong limbs better than riches? Has not Solon told us the man of iron is master of the man of gold? Does not Macchiavelli pour his scorn at the false proverb which makes money the sinews of war? The true sinews of war are the sinews of valiant men. Leave, gentlemen, to the Spaniards, the delusion that a heap of gold, filched from a feeble race, .can give the dominion of the world. If union Avith the Scots will not bring riches to our doors, it will bring safety to our frontiers, will give us strength at sea and reserves on land. Alone we have borne our flag aloft; with Scotland united in arms, with Ire- land settled and at peace, with our war fleets on every sea, our merchants in every port, we shall become the first power in the world. Warmed with such glorious hopes, how can the gentlemen of England stand upon terms and audits upon mine and thine upon he knows not what! DEBATE ON UNION BILL. 169 26. The House rings with applause. Cecil sends VIL 26. a copy of this speech to James; and in the midst of his trials, it is some pleasure to the poor pedant to see Feb.* what splendid things a practical statesman and philo- sopher can say for his favourite scheme. If the Union is postponed until another generation, its eloquent advocate gains his place. Lord Campbell assumes that Egerton's plan for June 25. Bacon's promotion failed, and that he rose into office through the changes on Popham's death. These are mistakes. Fleming succeeds Popham, Tanfield suc- ceeds Fleming, and Hobart remains Attorney. To create a vacancy, Doderidge has to take the coif, when Bacon's commission as the King's Solicitor-General im- mediately passes the Seal. 26. Cecil to Lake, April 16, 1607, S. P. O. ; Chron. Jurid., 183. 170 FRANCIS BACON. CHAPTEE VIII. Solicitor-General. viii. i. 1. ON the twenty-fifth of June, 1607, at the age of forty-six years and five months, Bacon entered office. June 25. During the six years which he acted as Solicitor-Ge- neral, Lord Campbell has found no flaw in his prac- tice abstinence which is due in part to the circum- stance that for these six years, with the unimportant exception of the trial of Lord Sanquhair for murder, Lord Campbell has overlooked every fact in Bacon's life. If there is nothing to relate, there may be nothing to condemn. ^ Yet there is much in the story of these six years years in which he wrought at the Essays and shaped out the New Philosophy, in which, to his personal disquiet, he resisted the design of Sir John Pakington and his friends to abridge the authority of the Court of Wales; in which, at his personal risk and loss, he aided to plant Virginia and Ulster; in which, against his professional interests, he engaged in many a good fight for popular liberties against the Crown which men of sense and spirit will wish for the sake of example to keep alive. 1608. 2. Cecil is now at his height of fortune. On the sudden, dramatic death of Dorset, the most daring of poets, the most prudent of financiers, Cecil takes the 1. Campbell's Life of Bacon, iii. 56. 2. Bare to Cecil, April 27, 1608, 8. P. 0.; Chamberlain to Carleton, J.ily 7, 1608; Provisoes between Salisbury and Morral, Dec. 1608, S. P. O. POSITION OF CECIL. 171 White Staff without parting from his office as premier vm. 2. Secretary of State. He is now neai-ly all in all. Except 1 fiOR in naval affairs, in which Nottingham's great age and Apri i. eminence as a sailor forbid all meddling, no depart- ment of the public service, home or foreign, trade, police, finances, law, religion, war and peace, escapes the quick eye and controlling hand of the tiny hunch- back. Every one serves him, every enterprise enriches him. He builds a new palace at Hatfield, a new Ex- change in the Strand. Countesses intrigue for him. His son marries a Howard, his daughter a Clifford. Ambassadors start for Italy, less to see Doges and Grand Dukes than to pick up pictures and statues, bronzes and hangings for his vast establishment at Hatfield Chace. Gardeners travel through France to buy up for him mulberries and vines. Salisbury House on the Thames almost rivals the luxurious villas of the Roman Cardinals in its wealth of tapestry, of furni- ture and plate. Yet under this blaze of worldly sue- May. cess Cecil is the most miserable of men. Friends grudge his rise; his health is broken; the reins which his ambition draws into his hands are beyond the powers of a man to grasp ; and the vigour of his frame, wasted by years of voluptuous licence, fails him at a moment when the strain on his faculties is at the full. 3. In this strain of powers no longer fresh, in Aug. this solitude of severed friendships, in this misery of broken health, Cecil turns to his hale, bright cousin, not for the companionship he will not give, but for the hints and helps a lawyer has to sell. Bacon does 3. Bacon to Cecil, Aug. 24, 1608, S. P. O. ; Essays, xliv. 172 FRANCIS BACON. vni.3. not love him. More than Coke, Cecil has heen to him a cross and grief: for while he can fight with his own 1608 Aug. weapons the coarse and spiteful foe, his gentle heart supplies no armoury of defence against the cold and veiled contempt of his perfidious friend. When this agonized spectre of success invites him to more frequent consultations on affairs, instead of gliding into that kindly and gracious correspondence which is the habit of his pen, he chooses to stand with him on the cere- monial footing of good manners and the duties of his place. While writing notes of business like the fol- lowing, Bacon may have in mind the day, not long ago, when the Earl of Salisbury declined to cross the Strand to taste the hypocras and kiss the bride: BACON TO SALISBURY. Aug. 24. This Wednesday, the 24th of Aug. 1608. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, I had cast not to fail to attend your Lordship to- morrow, which was the day your Lordship had ap- pointed for your being at London; but having this day about noon received knowledge of your being at Ken- sington, and that it had pleased your Lordship to send for me to dine with you as this /day, I made what diligence I could to return from Gorhambury; and though I came time enough to have waited on your Lordship this evening, yet, your Lordship being in so good a place to refresh yourself, and though it please your Lordship to use me as a kinsman, yet I cannot leave behind me the shape of a Solicitor. I thought ' it better manners to stay till to-morrow, what time I will wait on you. And at all times rest, your Lord- ship's most humble and bounden, F. BACON. THE COURT OF WALES. 173 To the last hour of Cecil's life, Bacon keeps thisvm. 3 ceremonial style. No kindness flows between the cou- sins; they talk of business, not of love; and when NOV.' Cecil passes to his rest, a new edition of the Essays, under cover of a treatise on Deformity, paints in true and bold lines, but without one harsh touch, the genius of the man. 4. The feud of the four shires is again ablaze. Sir John Pakington has found that the King's promise to do right has borne no fruit for him or for his friends sweeter than the sour crabs of his own orchard. Lord Zouch is gone, and Lord Euro, with a new set of stand- ing orders, reigns in his stead; yet the Court of Wales, under this new President, is no less warm to maintain its right than under the old. Indeed, in the belief of wise and practical men, the time has not arrived for either abolishing the court or interfering with its powers. This Court of Wales and the Welsh Border, like the more important Court of the North, was erected as a defence against Papist missionaries and Papist plots. The gentry of Wales and of the Border shires were mainly Roman Catholic; and every villain who in Elizabeth's time disturbed the public peace, and broiight shame or punishment on the members of the Roman Church, reckoned on the aid of an army of fighting and fanatical Sir Hughs. The Court of Wales kept them under. The poor, who wished to smelt the iron-ore, to feed their sheep, to dredge their streams for pearls, and net their bays for fish, in peace, blessed 4. Cott. MSS. Vit., c. 1; Dom. Papers of James the First, xxviii. 48, xxxii. 13," 14, S. P. O. ; Heath's Preface, Bacon's Works, vii. 584. 174 FRANCIS BACOX. vin. 4. it for this boon, and not for this alone; for this royal Court gave them such cheap and speedy justice as NOV! could not be obtained in counties governed by the or- dinary courts under the common law. If prompt and stern, its rule was national in spirit, popular in aim. The abuses which crept in a few years later, and which caused its fall, were of a kind unknown in the days of Elizabeth, and only just beginning to be known in the days of James. Charles the First gave a new aim to the Court, perverting the power created by Henry and fostered by Elizabeth as a defence of the national sentiment and national faith, into instruments of attack upon them; then, indeed, but not till then, the Court of Wales fell under public odium, and was swept away in the revolutionary storm. But the men who destroyed it under Charles were not the men who complained of it under James. The Crofts, Hoptons, Pakingtons, Sandys, Lees, Sheldons, Blounts, and Corbets who contested the authority of Lord Eure, were afterwards no less hot on the other side, voting and fighting against popular rights under Charles. 5. To Sir John, and to country gentlemen like Sir John, the Court of Wales is not so much a national grievance as a personal offence. It takes from his place and dignity; and he instructs his under- sheriff to refuse obedience to the precepts of such a Court. The gentry of Herefordshire are up in arms; but people in the southern and middle shires suspect, as proves to be the, fact ere long, that these loud cries against the Court of Wales come mainly from a wish 5. Eure to Salisbury, Jan. 26, 1608, S. P. O. ; Eure to Pakington, Jan 3, 1608, S. P. O.; Pakington to Eure, Jan. 17, 1608, S. P. O.; Council Reg., Nov. 2, 1613. THE COURT OF WALES. 175 on the part of a few magistrates to get rid of a popular vm. 5. and successful local power which curbs for the common good their private feuds, and keeps a bright eye on NOV. the movements of their missionary priests. Many of those who cry loudest against the Court are said to find reasons for their discontent in the commands of their confessors. Most of them are Papists, open or concealed. Sir Herbert Crofts, long passing for a firm Protestant, has within the year avowed himself a con- vert to the Church of Rome. Sir John adheres to the Church, but his near kinsman, Humphrey Pakington, is an active and dangerous recusant, whose name is constantly before the Privy Council. Lord Eure com- plains to Sir John. Sir John flatly refuses to obey his precepts. Eure writes to Lord Salisbury that his powers must be preserved in full, or he shall feel it a duty to resign his place. G. Cecil consults Bacon, now become chief adviser of the Crown in all affairs of law, and finds his opinion on the jurisdiction of the Court of Wales, as in most things, the reverse of that pronounced by Coke. Coke is against Eure. A dry, stiff formalist, wanting the warmth of heart, the large round of sympathies which enable his illustrious rival at the bar to see into poli- tical questions with the eyes of a poet and a statesman, Coke can only treat a constituted court as a thing of words, dates, readings, and decisions; not as a living fact in close relation to other living facts, and having in itself the germs of growth and change. A point of 6. Dom. Papers James the First, xxxvii. 53, 54, 56, S. P. O; Bacon's Works , vii. 587 ; Proclamation for the Continuance of the Authority and Jurisdiction of the Presidencies of the North and of Wales [Nov. 1C08J. 176 FRANCIS BACOX. vm. e. law is taken for debate before the judges, when Bacon, appearing in opposition to Sir John and his friends, NOV. pronounces that argument on The Jurisdiction of the Marches which is printed in his works. After this hearing a proclamation from the King announces the confirmed authority of the Court of Wales; but the magistrates of the four shires continue their opposition, and the case drags on for nine or ten years, until these magistrates drop the agitation in presence of more solemn facts. 7. In no History of America, in no Life of Bacon, have I found one word to connect him with the planta- tion of that country either with our present colonial pos- sessions, or with the great Republic. Yet, like Raleigh and Delaware, he took an active share in the labours, a conspicuous part in the sacrifices, through which the foundations of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Newfound- land were laid. Like men of far less note, who have received far higher honours in America, Bacon paid his money into the great Company, and took office in its management as one of the Council. To his other glories, therefore, must be added that of a Founder of New States. 8. The causes which led Bacon, with most of his parliamentary and patriotic colleagues, to join first the Virginia Company, then the Newfoundland Company, with person and purse, were the same causes which moved him to fight for the Union and the Subsidies. 7. Virginia Charter Book, May 23, 1600, S. P. O, ; Annex of Colonial Papers i. 41, S. P. O. 8. Fernando Gorges' Brief Relation , 3, 10; Charters of Virginia, April 10, 1606, Mar. 9,U607, May 23, 1609, S. P. O. THE AMERICAN PLANTATIONS. 177 The plantation of Virginia and of Newfoundland was a vni. 8. branch of the great contest with Spain. England and Spain had long been rivals in plan- May 23. tation and discovery. Neither could claim for itself the wide continents of America by the happy exercise of native genius ; for while a Genoese had given the south to Spain, a Venetian had conferred the north on England. Frobisher and Gilbert followed in the wake of Cabot, though working in a different spirit and to another end. Inflamed by tales of the Incas' shining palaces, Fro- bisher went forth in search of mines and gold; Gilbert, who revived the spirit of the Great Discoverer, sailed to the far west and gallantly gave his life, not for the rewards of wealth and fame, but solely in the hope of extending English power and of converting souls to God. When he sank in the Golden Hind he left these tasks to his young half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, who lived to be the true Founder of the United States. Raleigh, trained to politics under the eyes of Eli- zabeth, saw that the battle-field of the two maritime powers lay in the waters and along the shores of the New World. Europe was peopled. But the prairie and the savannah, the forest and the lake of America were virgin fields, the 'homes of an expanding race, the seats of a mighty empire in the time to come. Who shall occupy this splendid scene? Shall the New World become mainly English or mainly Spanish? Shall the original type and seed of her institutions be a Free Press or a Holy Office? Such questions throbbed and thrilled in the veins of Englishmen of every rank. Lord Bacon. 12 178 FRANCIS BACOX. vin. 9. 9. They answered with one voice. While the Queen lived and Raleigh was free to spend his genius and his May is. fortune on the work of discovery and plantation, it never flagged. But when James came in, and, with Ms dread of heroism and adventure, flung the explorer s of Guiana, the founder of Virginia, into the Tower, as a first step towards receiving the Spanish ambassador Velasco with proposals for a shameful peace, the old English spirit appeared to droop. Velasco for a time said little of Virginia, for the fires of the Armada and of Nieuport burned in many hearts; but Lerma, in his letters to the King, reserved an exclusive right of the Spanish crown, based on a Papal bull, to all the soil of the New World from Canada to Cape Horn. When his agents in London found their season they made this claim; when his admirals in the Gulf of Mexico felt their strength they chased the English from those seas as pirates. If the Spanish cruisers caught an Eng- lish crew, they either slung them to the yard-arm or sent them prisoners to Spain. Ruled by a corporation of adventurers, tormented by these Spanish cruisers, unprotected by the royal fleets, the settlement on the James River fell to grief. A man of genius, Captain John Smith, more than once snatched it from the jaws of death. But the planters fought among themselves, deposed Smith from power, and sent back nothing to the Company save miserable complaints and heaps of glittering dust. The colony was on the verge of failure, when a threat from Spain to descend on the Chesapeake shot new life into the ' 9. Smith's History , 88 , 90 ; Nova Britannia, 1609 ; Jourdan's Discovery of the Barmudas , otherwise called the Isle of Divels , by Sir T. Gates , Sir G. Sommers, and Captain Newport, with divers others, 1610. LIST OF GRIEVANCES. 179 drooping cause. All generous spirits rushed to the de- vni. 9. fence of Virginia. Bacon joined the Company with purse and voice. Montgomery, Pembroke, and South- May 23. ampton, the noble friends of Shakespeare, joined it. Nor was the Church less zealous. The ardent Abbott, the learned Hackluyt, lent their names. Money poured in. A fleet, commanded by Gates and Somers, sailed from the Thames, to meet on its voyage at sea those singular and poetic storms and trials which added the Bermudas to our empire and The Tempest to our lite- rature. 10. One hundred and seventy-five years after Wal- ter Raleigh laid down his life in Palace Yard for Ame- rica, his illustrious blood paid for by Gondomar in Spanish gold, the citizens of Carolina, framing for themselves a free constitution, remembered the man to whose genius they owed their existence as a state. They called the capital of their country Raleigh. The United States can also claim among their muster-roll of Founders the not less noble name of Francis Bacon. Will the day come, when, dropping such feeble names as Troy and Syracuse, the people of the Great Re- public will give the august and immortal name of Ba- con to one of their splendid cities? 11. The session of 1610 shows Bacon in a charac- 1610. teristic scene. Bound by the traditions of his place to support the King's measures in the House of Commons, when the session opens, with a freedom which sur- prises the King's friends, and which Coke and Do- 10. Statutes of North Carolina, c. xiv. 11. Add. MSS., 11, 695; Lords' Journals, ii. 574. 12* 180 FRANCIS BACON. vm. 11. deridge never dared to take, lie both speaks and votes against the superior law-officers of the Crown. April. The List of Grievances has at length been shaped into a proposition, and laid before the House. This Great Contract, as the people call it, offers to buy from the Crown, either for a fixed sum of money to be paid down or for a yearly rental, certain rights and dues inherited by the King from feudal times, which the change of manners and the refinements of society have made abominable to rich and educated men. Escutage, Knight-service, Wardship of the body, Marriage of heirs and of widows, Respite of homage, Premier seizin, every knight and squire in the land longs to suppress, as things which yield the King an uncertain income, but cover themselves with a certain shame. A group of feudal tenures which concern the dignity of the Crown, such as Serjeautry, Homage, Fealty, Ward- ship of land, and Livery, they propose to modify, so as to satisfy just complaints while preserving to the King all services of honour and ceremonial rite. Aids to the King they limit in amount; suits, heriots, and escheats they leave untouched; monopolies for the sale of wines, for the licensing of inns, for the importation of coal, they abrogate. In lieu of these reliefs, they offer the King one hundred thousand pounds a year. 12. At first James will not listen. The terms of such a contract touch, he says, his honour. These privileges may be of no moment to the Crown; to part with them may neither lower its dignity nor abate its pride; yet why should he be asked to part with them? 12. Add. MSS., 11, 695; Com. Jour., i. 419, 420. DEBATE ON FEUDAL TENURES. 181 Elizabeth had them. All the Plantagenets, all thevm. 12. Tudors, had them. Why should the first of the Stuarts IfilO strip his Crown of privileges held by his predecessors April, for five hundred years? But James is not true to his own folly. To resist a sale of the rags and dust of feudal power, if done on the ground of conscience, would to many seem respectable, to some heroic; but the offer of a hundred thousand pounds a year tempts a man dogged by duns to compromise with his sense of right. He lends his ear; he hints his willingness to treat. Will the Commons give a little more? Will they take a little less? If so, he will hear them; if not, not. Cecil asks Fleming and Coke to declare whether James can lawfully sell the burthens on tenures, yet preserve to his Crown the tenures themselves. 13. The chance of hurting Bacon, who pleads in office, as he always spoke when out of office, for the full surrender of these feudal dues, is too much for Coke. Their feud has, indeed, grown fiercer as they have grown in years, flashing out even in the courts of law. "The less you speak of your own greatness," says Bacon in open court, "the more I shall think of it, and the more, the less." As Bacon contends that a sale of the burthens on tenures is in fact a sale of the tenures, Coke answers Cecil that the King may, if it shall please him, sell the burthens, yet keep the temires intact. James therefore sends to tell the Com- mons that he will sell, to them for six hundred thou- sand pounds paid down, and a rental of two hundred thousand pounds a year, his rights of marriage, ward- ship, premier seizin, respite of homage and reliefs. 13. Spedding's Bacon, vii. 177; Add. MSS., 11, 695. 182 FRANCIS BACOX. vin. u. 14. In these debates, the Solicitor-General, brushing away the distinctions of Coke and Fleming, urges on April, the House of Commons and on the Crown the wisdom of abolishing these feudal tenures both in name and fact. Tenures in capite and by knight-service, he says, have lost their virtue. When the Sovereign sum- moned his liegemen to the field, Reason might have cried Hold fast all tenures which augment the na- tional force! But the King no longer leads his armies in the field or calls his vassals round his flag; war has grown into a science, arms into a profession 5 if an enemy should appear at Dover or Berwick, no man would now wait for the King's tenant to strike. In the musters for defence, holders in soccage stand foot to foot with holders by knight-service. In feudal ages the tenures meant defence; but the usage and the idea has alike gone by; and tenures no longer represent either force, honour, or obedience. July 23. 15. Bacon pleads so well that after warm debates the King consents to reduce his demands, the House of Commons to raise their price. The two powers draw nearer to each other, and a happy resolution seems about to cleanse away some of the very worst abuses of the feudal state. For two hundred thousand pounds a year the Crown agrees to renounce for ever these feudal rights. How this Great Contract comes to an abrupt and ignominious end, how King and Commons wrangle over the Book of Rates, and how a session that began 14. Bacon's Speech, April, 1610; Lords' 1 Jonr., il. 530. 15. King's Proclamation, Dec. 31, 1610; Add. MSS., 11, 695; Lords' Jour., ii. 666-86; Statutes of the Realm, ir. 1207. DEATH OF CECIL. 183 so prosperously closes in open strife between the vni. 15. people and their prince, not a single bill receiving the royal signature, all this, though full of constitutional, May. and even of romantic interest, is a tale for the historian of England, not for the critic of Bacon's life. 16. So long as his kinsman Cecil lives, Bacon sees no hope of rising in the world. In May, 1612, the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of England, premier Secretary of State, and Master of the Court of Wards, worn out by fag of brain not less than by disease of blood, dies, and a burst of gladness breaks over court and country at the news. His companions of the Privy Council traduce his fame, his tenants at Hatfield at- tack his park. Of all men living, the cousin he has so deeply hurt is the least unjust. In an edition of the Essays, now in the press, Bacon paints him to the life: every one knows the portrait; yet no one can pro- nounce this picture of a small shrewd man of the world, a clerk in soul, without a spark of fire, a dash of generosity in his nature, unfair or even unkind. The spirit of it runs in a famous anecdote. "Now tell me truly," says the King, "what think you of your cousin that is gone?" "Sir," answers Bacon, "since your Majesty charges me, I'll give you such a character of him as if I were to write his story. I do think he was no fit councillor to make your affairs better. But yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse." "On my so'l, man!" says James, "in the first thou speakest like a true man, in the second like a kinsman." 1C. Bacon's Essays, xliv. ; Apophthegms, Works, vil. 175. 184 FRANCIS BACON. viii. 17. 17. From the day of Cecil's death his prospects, clouded till now, begin to clear. If promotion pauses, May. it is only because the crowds of suitors perplex the King. Carr and Northampton claim the Treasurer's staff. Everybody begs the Court of Wards and Li- veries. Sir Thomas Lake, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Ralph Winwood, Sir Henry Neville, each aspires to the rank of Secretary of State. The patriots put up Bacon's name for this great office, and shrewd obser- vers fancy him nigh success. Poor James, unable to decide, hankering, though afraid, to make Carr his chief minister, puts the Treasury into commission for six months, gives the Wards to Carew, and startles the gossips of Whitehall by announcing that, instead of employing either Bacon or Wotton, Winwood or Lake, he means for the future to be his own Secretary of State. NOV. 18. Carew dying suddenly six months after his no- mination, Bacon applies for. the Court of Wards. His pay as Solicitor-General is only seventy pounds a-year. Promised for his service to the Crown a place of pro- fit, he points out in a letter to Carr that the Court of Wards is one for a lawyer rather than a courtier to hold. BACON TO LORD ROCHESTER. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, This Mastership of the Wards is like a mist sometimes it goeth upwards and sometimes it falleth downwards. If it go up to great lords, then it is as 17. Chamberlain to Carleton, Nov. 26, 1612, S. P. O. 18. Bacon to Carr, Nov. 14, 1612, S. P. O.; Lake to Carleton, Nov. 19, 1612, Venetian MSS., S. P. O. WARDS AND LIVERIES. 185 it was at the first, if it fall clown to mean men, then vm. is. it is as it was at the last. But neither of these ways concerns me in particular, but if it should in a N OV .' middle region go to lawyers, then I beseech your Lord- ship have some care of me. The attorney and solici- tor are as the King's champions for civil business, and they had need have some place of rest in their eye for their encouragement. The Mastership of the Kolls, which was the ordinary place kept for them, is gone from them. If this place should go to a lawyer, and not to them, their hopes must diminish. Thus I rest, your Lordship's affectionate, to do you humble service, F. BACOX. He feels so certain of this suit that he orders the new clothes for his servants; yet the suit fails. He wants the Court of Wards and Liveries as a right, and will not buy it. Sir Walter Cope, a man of larger fortunes and smaller scruples, while Bacon alleges ser- vice, tells down his money and buys the place. The wags of the Mitre have their laugh. "Sir Walter," they say, "has got the Wards, Sir Francis the Li- veries." 19. If he sue without success for the Court of iei3. Wards, he is constantly consulted or employed in the most weighty, the most delicate business of the Crown. Most conspicuous, perhaps, of the cases which now engage his mind is the old, old story of Irish broils. Of Ireland itself Bacon never speaks but in words of tenderness and grief. With him the green lustrous island is "a country blessed with almost all the dowries 19. Bacon to Carr, Nov. 14, 1612, S. P. O. 186 FRANCIS BACON. viii. 19. of nature with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good soil, temperate climate, and a race and generation of Aug. men, valiant, hard, and active, as it is not easy to find such confluence of commodities, if the hand of man did join with the hand of nature; but they severed, the harp of Ireland is not strung or attuned to concord." More the pity, thinks its generous and sa- gacious friend! 20. Sir Arthur Chichester, the wisest, firmest man ever sent from England to rule the Celt, after dri- ving out the rebels O'Neile and O'Donnel, crushing O'Dogherty and the assassins who ravished and de- stroyed Derry, has built a new city on Lough Foyle, garrisoned arid calmed Strabane, Ballyshannon, Omagh, and the forts along the lines from Kerry to Inishoan, and peopled with the germs of a new race the wastes of Antrim and Down, of Londonderry and Coleraine. Strong in his genius and in his success, after founding an English state in Ulster on the ruins of the great Celtic insurrection, he calls a Parliament in Dublin to sanction what has been done, and to resume, for the first time in the remembrance of living men, a regular mode of civil and popular government. For seven years he has ruled by the sword. He wishes to lay it down. But blood is hot and feuds run high. The Saxon and the Celt, the Protestant and the Papist, meet in Dublin, less disposed to sit on the same benches and hear each other prate than to pluck out the sharp skean and fly at each other's throats. At 20. An Account of the Right Hon. Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Belfast, Lord Deputy of Ireland; by Sir Faithful Fortescue: with Notes and a Memoir of the Writer by Lord Clermont, 1858; Ellis's Orig. Lettess, Third Series, iv. 173. CHICHESTER'S IRISH GOVERNMENT. 187 the first meeting they fall to blows. One party saysvm.20. Sir John Everard shall be Speaker; the other, Sir John Davis. Everard is in opposition, Davis is the Irish Aug.' Attorney-General; Everard the candidate of the monks, Davis of the Crown. Chichester can but follow the Imperial law. Usage good in Westminster must be held good in Dublin. Davis must be Speaker. In- deed, the majority elect him. But a crowd of men summoned from the Bog of Allen, from the banks of Lough Swilly, from the wilds of Sligo and Mayo, representatives of the MacOiraghtys and Mac Coghlans, of the O'Doghertys, O'Donnels, and O'Concannons, who have scarcely ever heard of a precedent, have not learned to respect a majority of votes. When the Protestants file into the right lobby, instead of filing into the left the Roman Catholic members seat Everard in the chair. They refuse to move or to be counted like a drove of sheep! Davis, voted into the chair by a majority of twenty-eight, is taken up to his seat by two members, as in the English House of Commons. Everard will not stir. Davis plumps into his lap. In a wild Irish uproar, Everard, caught by the crowd, is thrust out neck and crop. The Celtic members grasp their skeans. If Chichester, wise in time, had not prudently set them in a ring of steel, the members, in- stead of hearing each other's grievances, would have cut each other's throats. Such a House of Commons is an impracticable instrument for preserving the peace of Ireland, and Chichester dissolves it. On the even- ing of the row, to show his scorn of such brabbles, the Lord Deputy goes out to play his usual rubber. 21. Everard and his friends come over to complain 21. Abbot, Aug. 4, 1613, S. 1>. U. ; Add. MSS. 19, 402, fol. 37. 188 FRANCIS BACON. VHI. 21. at Whitehall. They talk of their wrongs. They ob- ject to the new boroughs planted by the English; they Aug. 13. require that these boroughs shall not be allowed to send representatives to an Irish House of Commons. They whine of danger to their persons, of a Gun- powder Plot to blow them into the sky. The King consults Bacon. Anxious for Parliaments, but aware that Parliaments presuppose habits of order and discussion, respect for opinion, submission to ma- jorities, Bacon gives the King this advice: BACON TO JAMES. Aug. 13 , 1613. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, I was at my house in the country what time the commission and instructions for Ireland were drawn by Mr. Attorney, but I was present this day the fore- noon, when they were read before my Lords and ex- cepted to, some points whereof use was made, and some alterations followed, but I could not in decency except to so much as I thought there might be cause, lest it might be thought a humour of contradiction or an effect of emulation, which, I thank God, I am not much troubled with, for, so your Majesty's business be well done, whosoever be the instrument, I rest joyful. But because this is a tender piece of service, and that which was well directed by your Majesty's high wis- dom may be marred in the manage, and that I have been so happy as to have my poor service in this business of Ireland, which I have minded with all my powers, because I thought your estate laboured, gra- ciously accepted by your sacred Majesty, I do presume to present to your Majesty's remembrance (whom I ADVICE CONCERNING IRELAND. 189 perceive to be one of the most truly politic princes vni. 21. that ever reigned, and the greatest height of my poor abilities is but to understand you well) some few points in a memorial enclosed which I wish to be changed. They tend to this scope principally, that I think it safest for your Majesty at this time, hoc arjere, which is to effect that you may hold a parliament in Ireland with sovereignty, concord, contentment, and moderate freedom, and so bind up the wound made without clogging the commission with too many other matters. . . . whereas these instruments are so marshalled as if the grievances were the principal. The grievances which were not commended to these messengers from the party in Ireland, but slept at least a month after their coming hither, and . . . are divers of them of so vulgar a nature as they are complained of both in England and Ireland, and both now and at all times. For your Majesty to give way upon this ground, to so particular an inquiry of all these points, I confess I think is unworthy of majesty, for they are set down like interrogatories in a suit in law. And my fear is they will call up and stir such a number of complaints and petitions, which not being possible to be satisfied, this commission meant for satisfaction will end in mur- mur. But these things which I write are perhaps but my eiTors and simplicities. Your Majesty's wisdom must steer and ballast the ship. So most humbly cra- ving pardon, I ever rest your Majesty's most devoted and faithful subject and servant, FR. BACON. Government acts on this counsel of maintaining in Dublin a firm and inflexible justice. A Parliament 190 FRANCIS BACON. vm. 21. meets within twelve months, the members of which quarrel indeed among themselves, as is only national and natural; but which proves itself as capable of transacting public business as almost any Parliament in Palace Yard. It gives peace to Ireland for thirty years. For nearly all that is most gracious and noble, most wise and foreseeing in the Irish policy of the Crown in this reign, thanks are due, next after Arthur Chichester, to Francis Bacon. Yet Lord Campbell, a statesman and a lawyer, has not one word on this theme. Oct. 27. 22. Two years of fag and moil cure James of his ambition to be thought the best scribe in Christendom. Dissolving the commission of the Treasury, he gives the Staff to Northampton. He brings "Winwood forward as Secretary of State; but ere passing his commission under the Seal, James raises his great competitor for that post a step in his profession; Coke going up to the lung's Bench, Hobart to the Common Pleas, and Bacon to the Attorney's place. Coke huffs at the King's Bench, a court of higher dignity than the Com- mon Pleas, but of fewer fees. James has to interfere. "This is all your doing, Mr. Attorney," says the irascible Lord Chief Justice; "it is you that have made this great stir." With the light laugh that has so often maddened Coke, Bacon answers, "Your lordship all this while hath grown in breadth; you must needs now grow in height, or you will be a monster." 22. Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 14, 27, 1614, S. P. O.; Grant Book, 102; Bacon's Apophthegms in Resuscitatio, 38. TRIPLE RETURN TO PARLIAMENT. 191 23. Lord Campbell sees in these promotions, notvm.23. the natural changes brought about by time, such as every year occur at the bar, but a mean trick, a court N OV . intrigue, an affair of secret letters, of back-stairs inter- est, in short, a dodge and a cheat! To this reading of events may be opposed the judgments of those among Bacon's contemporaries who knew him best, the electors of the University of Cambridge, the members of the House of Commons. Their judgments, happily for us, were given in a very conspicuous and decisive way. Bacon's first advice to the Crown in his new office is to abandon its irregular, unproductive methods of raising funds, inventions of the Meercrafts and Over- reaches of the court; to call a new Parliament to West- minster, to explain frankly the political situation, and to trust the nation for supplies. The advice, though hotly opposed by Northampton and the whole gang of Spanish pensioners, men paid to provoke hostility between the Commons and the Crown, so far prevails that writs go down into the coxmtry. For thirteen years Bacon has re- presented Ipswich in the House of Commons. Ipswich dings to him with the love of a bride. But Cambridge, a more splendid and gracious constituency, claims him for its own. In the ambition of a public man there is nothing more pure than the wish to represent in Parliament the University at which he has been trained; nor is there for the scholar and the writer any reward more lofty than the confidence implied in the votes of a great con- 23. Hem. of Burgesses chosen for more than one place, April, 1614, S. P. O. Bacon's biographers have been misled about his seat in 1614 by an erroneous conjecture of Willis (Not. Parl., iii. 173). There is a list of the Parliament of 1614 among the valuable MSS. at Kimbolton Castle, for which, as for many other courtesies, I am indebted to the obliging friend- ship of his Grace the Duko of Manchester. 192 FRANCIS BACOX. viii. 23. stituency of scholars and writers. In Bacon's case there are peculiar obstacles. He left Cambridge early HOV! and in disdain; he has kept no friendly intercourse with its dons; the business of his intellectual life has been to destroy the grounds 011 which its system of in- struction stands. Yet the members of the University feel that as a writer and a philosoper he is not only the most brilliant Cambridge man alive, but the most brilliant Englishman who ever lived. They elect him. The burgesses of Ipswich also elect him. The burgesses of St. Albans also elect him. Such a return is unprecedented in parliamentary annals. Only the most popular and patriotic candidates are rewarded in this Parliament by double returns. Sandes is elected for Hendon and Rochester, Whitelocke for Woodstock and Corffe Castle. No one save the new Attorney- General can boast of a triple return. Of course he sits for Cambridge; a fact, overlooked by his biographers from Kawley to Lord Campbell, which connects his fame in a gentle and gracious form with the political history of Cambridge. leu. 24. Nor is this gracious confidence of his Univer- Mar- sity the most striking proof of popularity which lie now receives. When the Houses meet in April, a whisper buzzes round the benches that the elections for Cam- bridge, Ipswich, and St. Albans are null and void. No man holding the office of Attorney-General has ever been elected to serve in Parliament: and some of the members seem resolved that so powerful an officer of the Crown never ought to sit, and never shall sit, in 24. Chamberlain to Carleton, April 14, 1614, S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 456; Statutes of the Realm, iv. U'07. VAST POPULARITY OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 193 that House. The Attorney-General is the Crown trier ; vnr. 24. he sets the law in motion; he gathers the evidence, Aveighs the words, sifts the facts for prosecution. Un- April, less scrupulous beyond the virtue of man, such an of- ficer, hearing everything, noting everything, forgetting nothing, may become, in a House of Commons bent on free speech as its sacred right, the worst of inquisitors and tyrants. He shall not sit. Yet, notwithstanding their jealousy of power, the representative gentlemen of England have no heart to put the wisest and best among them to the door. They seek for precedents, that lie may sit. No case is on the rolls. An Attorney- General, chosen after his nomination, cannot sit by precedent. What then? They waive their right. They take him as he is. Crown lawyer or not Crown lawyer, he is Sir Francis Bacon. As Sir Francis Bacon he shall sit. But the case shall stand alone. This tribute paid to personal merit and public service must not be drawn, say the applauding members, into a precedent dangerous to their franchise. He is the first to sit, he must be the last. That an exception in favour of the new Attorney- General should have been made by men so hostile to the court that they broke up at last without passing a single bill which the Crown could assent to, is strange. The results are yet more strange. As if to witness to the latest generations the profound estima- tion in which Bacon was held by a House of Commons which had known him closely for thirty years, and which had seen him vote and act under every form of temptation that can test the virtue and tax the genius of a public man, this exception, made in his favour solely, became the rule for his successors and for suc- Lord Racon. 13 194 FRAXCIS BACOX. vm.24. ceeding times. Once only has the restriction been re- ferred to in the House. That was in the case of his April, immediate successor. Since his time the presence of the Attorney-General among the representatives of the people has been constant. This fact suggests not only that a change has taken place in public thought, but that the character of the Crown official has undergone a change. Such is the truth. Before Bacon's day the Attorney-General was the personal servant of the prince: from Bacon's day he has been the servant of the State. Bacon was the first of a new order of public men. The fact is scarcely less creditable to his poli- tical purity than the composition of the Novum Orga- num is glorious to his intellectual powers. Bad men kill great offices. Good men found them. THE PAPAL LEAGUE. 195 CHAPTER IX. St. John and Peacham. 1. IP Lord Campbell has not one word to say on ix. i. Bacon's part in the plantation of Virginia, in the rege- neration of Ulster, he has room for page after page of Oct. ii. statement, more or less false in fact, wholly false in spirit, on the examination into the contempt of Oliver St. John, and on the trial for libel of Edmond Peacham. Happy the great lawyer who in passionate times can give up office with no worse recollection on his soul than having conducted two such cases for the Crown! 2. First of Oliver St. John. In the session of 1614, as in every session when he was out of office, Bacon puts his strength to the supplies. The day which he has so long feared has come 5 the Papal powers, united over the corpse -of Henri Quatre, have formed their league; Spinola's Walloons and Pandours are crushing out the free, industrial, and religious life of the Lower Rhine. A dozen cities lift their hands for help. Bat- talions clash down the passes of the Alps and the Py- renees, armadas ride in the roads of Sicily and in the bays of Spain. The English fleet is rotting in port. Only ten or twelve ships are in commission; four in the Thames or the Downs, one or two at Portsmouth and Plymouth, four in the Irish seas. The Crown is 1. Campbell, Lifp of Bacon, iii. 62-66. 2. St. John to Mayor of Marlborongh, Oct. 11, 1614, S. P. O. 13* 196 FRANCIS BACON. ix. 2. deep in debt. To a man not mad with jealousy of power such a political situation must be intolerable, Oct. ii. and it is intolerable to Bacon. But the Puritans are deaf. They fear the King even more than the Roman League. They will not give. Unable to procure grants from Parliament, James tries to raise money by a bene- volence-, when the lords, the bishops and archbishops, come to his aid, bringing cups, rings, and golden angels into the Jewel House of the Tower. All mayors of towns are ordered to receive such gifts as may be of- fered. No rate is laid; no one is forced to give; at least so say the officers of the Crown. In loyal shires persuasion may be used to swell the lists; but where the magistrates are not loyal, the benevolence flags. Many of the Puritans, all the Papists, close their hands; those distrusting the court; these wishing well to the foe. The benevolence fares best in the most Protestant shires; worst in the most Catholic shires. Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Herts, Berks, Essex, and Norfolk yield an army of subscribers. Sussex sends up only three; Dur- ham, Cumberland, Westmoreland, not one. Now, it is clear that those who oppose a Parliamentary vote may fairly decline to make a free gift. But Oliver St. John, Black Oliver his contemporaries call him from his bilious temper and dark complexion, is not content merely to decline. A man of a stormy and yet slavish spirit, he must denounce this measure of the government by voice and pen. He will not let the people give. In a public letter to the Mayor of Marlborough he declares that the King, in asking his people for a free gift of money, is violating his oath, committing a perjury more gross than that for which more than one English monarch has lost his crown! CASE OP OLIVER ST. JOHN. 197 3. It is impossible for the Privy Council to over- ix. 3. look such a contempt. The lawfulness of a Bene- volence may be open to debate; no true Englishman Dec* can doubt that St. John's letter is in the highest de- gree scandalous to the King, and in the highest degree injurious to the national force. Lord Campbell (who confounds this Oliver St. John with the famous Lord Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, now a boy of six- teen!) appears to regard St. John as an earlier Hampden. A closer reading of the time would show that he was one of those loud and lying politicians who are the disgrace of eveiy cause. Instead of being the Hampden, Black Oliver was the O'Brien or the O'Connor of his time; though he had neither Smith O'Brien's abilities nor Feargus O'Connor's dash. When the Marlborough bully is cited into the Star Chamber, Coke condemns him to five thousand pounds fine and imprisonment for life. Yet even the Tower, which so often elevates a fool into a martyr, fails to make St. John appear, even to the undiscerning mob, either a wise or a brave man. When the gate of his cell creaks on its hinge he be- gins to whine and cry. He repents his sally, recants his words. He goes on his knees, he pledges his future fame. He begs, fawns, groans to be let out. Even those who make an idol of every one barred in the Tower turn from this pusillanimous and crouching pri- soner in disgust. 4. One of St. John's letters to the King is so amazingly abject as to constitute a curiosity in litera- 3. Council Reg., Nov. 19, 25, Dec. 4, 9, 1614, Feb. 3, May 31, 1615; Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 5, Feb. 9, 1615, S. P. O. ; Council to James, Feb. 8, 1615, S. P. O. ; Add. MSS. 19, 402. 4. Add. MSS. 19, 402, fol. 62. 198 FRANCIS BACON. K. 4. ture. In England we are not used to such a style of prison supplication, for the men who go wrong gener- rec.' ally have the merit of going wrong in good faith, and when called to the martyr's crown wear it as a crown. It may be well to give a passage from this document (now for the first time printed), that the world may note, under his own seal, what kind of hero this Oliver St. John, whom Lord Campbell mistakes for the great Chief Justice, is OLIVER ST. JOHN TO THE KING. Most High and Mighty King, my alone virtually and rightfully dread Lord and Sovereign (after God my Maker and my Saviour Jesus Christ), my hearty chief joy, love, slave, and delight! In all humbleness of soul and spirit showeth unto your sacred Majesty your poor distressed subject and faithful servant, sometimes long close prisoner in the Tower of London; that whereas it graciously pleased your said Majesty, on humble submission and petition, to consider and commiserate the lamentable condition of the poor petitioner, censured in the Star Chamber for a letter written to the Mayor of Marlborough in October 1614, and therewith showed your princely and Royal heart so moved to mercy, that as the then Lord Chancellor said you had out of your admirable and more than kingly benignity and bounty so remitted the same that I had not any more to starve, although my fine, together with my] submission, remained on record. . . . But my great and brain-sick offence against your Most Excellent Majesty, my right dear Sovereign (for which phrase at your Highness's feet, my broken heart again and again most humbly and instantly CASE OP OLIVER ST. JOHN. 199 asketh your most gracious pardon), forbidding me your ix.4 awful presence ... on my bended knees, in all humility of heart and spirit, [I] beseech of your great, imperial, D ec . and sacred Majesty, first gracious remission and par- don, both of the fault and pain, as also, most gracious King and my dearest liege lord, that you will further be graciously pleased to show your most admirable goodness and mercy (if it may stand with due order of state policy) in commanding a removal or deleator of the whole record thereof; that so great an ignominy remain not on the name of him who, having been now received your Majesty's sworn servant, is still resolved ever to receive therein that fatal arrow in his breast (with loyal Hugo de St. Clara) than once admit into his heart the least disloyal thought against your sacred person, dignity, or fame; the very least of us whoso shall seek to impeach, let God from Heaven shoot sharp arrows into his heart, that all the King's enemies may fall before him. So prayeth, from his inmost heart, Your Majesty's humble, faithful, and obedient vassal, OLIVER ST. JOHN, 5. Lord Campbell, who brands the conduct of Bacon in officially aiding to silence this impudent and whi- ning demagogue, is more than usually infelicitous in the grounds of his charge. He says that Bacon in his speech against Oliver St. John strenuously defends the raising of money by benevolences. Now, he does no such thing. He never once touches the law of these free gifts. He proves, and proves most clearly, that 5. State Trials, ii. 899. 200 FRANCIS BACON. ix. 5. the particular benevolence denounced by St. John to the Mayor of Marlborough as a violation of the King's D ec ; oath, has no character of a forced loan. The question tried, if one may say so to a nobleman who has been a Lord Chief Justice and is now a Lord Chancellor, was not one of law, but one of fact not whether a benevolence was, in the reig-n of James the First, legal, but whether St. John had been guilty of a grievous contempt in publishing his letter to the Mayor. The trial of John Bates for refusing to pay the taxes levied by the Book of Rates was a trial of law; the trial of Oliver St. John for calling the King forsworn was a trial of fact. St. John was condemned, not for refusing to subscribe his money, but for publishing a letter in contempt of the Crown. 6. Pass to the case of Peacham: a case which Lord Campbell has taken less pains to understand than even that of St. John. "Fine and imprisonment," he writes, "having no effect in quelling the rising murmurs of the people, it was resolved to make a more dreadful example, and Peacham, a clergyman of Somersetshire, between sixty and seventy years of age, was selected for the victim. On breaking into his study, a sermon was there found, which he had never preached, nor intended to preach, nor shown to any human being, but which contained some passages encouraging the people to resist tyranny. He was immediately arrested, and a resolution was taken to prosecute him for high treason. But Mr. Attorney, who is alone responsible for this atrocious conduct, anticipated considerable diffi- culties 'both in law and in fact' before the poor old 6. Peaeham's Examination, Aug. 31, 1615, S. P. O. CASE OF EDMOXD PEACHAM. 201 parson could be subjected to a cruel aud almost igno- ix.e. minious death." In every line of this passage there is error; indeed, L> ec ! the whole passage is an error. No murmurs arose in the country on account of St. John. No one at court ever dreamt of making Peacham a victim, for no one out of Somersetshire had ever heard his name. His study was not broken into for the purpose of finding treason in it. It was not a sermon that had been found. It is ridiculous to say that the papers seized in his desk were not intended to be shown to any human being, for they had been written for publica- tion and had in truth been shown to several persons. Peacham was not arrested immediately on the seizure of his papers; he was already in custody for offences less dubious than a political crime. Mr. Attorney was not alone responsible. The prosecution was ordered by the Privy Council, of which he was not a member. It was conducted by Win wood, the Puritan Secretary of State. 7. Not much has been left to us by the writers about Edmond Peacham; yet evidence remains in the books at Wells and in the records of Her Majesty's State Paper Office, to prove that he was one of the most despicable wretches who ever brought shame and trouble on the Church. It is there seen that he was a libeller. It is there seen that he was a liar. It is 7. Sentence of Deprivation against Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. O. ; Presentation Books at Wells. I am indebted for many particulars re- specting Peacham to the friendly inquiries made for me by Lord Auckland, Bishop of Bath and Wells. A brief inspection of the papers preserved in the old gate-tower at Wells convinces me of their very great value for ec- clesiastical and family hiatory. 202 FRANCIS BACON. ix. 7. there seen that he was a marvel of turbulence and in- gratitude; not alone a seditious subject, but a scan- Dec, dalous minister and perfidious friend. It is in evidence that he outraged his bishop by a scandalous personal libel; and that he did his worst to get the patron to whom he owed his living hung. 8. Hallam tells us how hard it is for him to see any way in which this poor parson, in a wild part of the west country, far from a large town, could have fallen into the clutches of the law. The reader of Hallam will be glad to find that Peacham fell into trouble, not on account of his politics, but for an un- bearable ecclesiastical offence. For several years Peacham had been rector of Hint on St. George, a parish in the wildest part of Somerset- shire, and in the diocese of Bath and Wells. James Montagu, Dean of the Chapel, was bishop. The lord of the manor and patron of the living of Hinton St. George was John Paulett, grandson of Bacon's old friend and guardian, Sir Amias Paulett, and founder of the noble line of that name and place. Margery, a sister of this John, married Sir John Sydenham of Combe, one of his political friends. Paulett repre- sented the county in Parliament, in which he distin- guished himself by a firm yet far from disloyal oppo- sition to the court. The papers at Wells still prove that Peacham had been very troublesome to the Church. There had been irregularities in his institution. There had been libels and accusations in the Bishop's Court. At length there 8. Wells MSB. ; Collins' Peerage, art. Pawlett; Council Reg., Dec. 9, 16, 16U. CASE OF BDMOND PEACHAM. 203 came from Hinton St. George a foul and malignant ix.s. libel against the bishop himself; when Montagu ap- pealed to his primate, and Archbishop Abbott cited the Dec! offender to appear before him at Lambeth and purge his fame. His character and his cause appeared so bad that on his arrival in town Abbott lodged him in the Gatehouse, among the herd of recusants, monks, and priests. 9. Many a Puritan preacher, silenced for a word Dec< 19 ' on copes and stoles, on the closed book or the unlit candle, must have envied this libeller such a hearing as the Church condescends to grant him. Ten com- missioners, one of them an archbishop, four of them bishops, meet to try his case. If Abbott and King lean to Puritan views, Andrews and Neile incline to- wards Rome. In such a tribunal there is sure to be sympathy for any excess of zeal. Yet these four men, as well as the other six, condemn him. Ecclesiastics who differ from each other on every point of doctrine and discipline, agree to find Peacham guilty of com- posing, writing, or causing to be written, a defamatory libel against his ordinary, contrary to his canonical obedience and reverence and to the virtue of his oath, and of writing, or causing to be written, a scandalous libel against the laws, statutes, and customs of the Church and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, defaming the clerical order and the national rite. By a solemn act they cast him from the Church. 10. Among the papers seized in his house at Hinton j 6 ^' 9. Sentence of Deprivation against Edmund Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. O. 10. The true State of the Question whether Peacham's Case be Treason, State Trials, ii. 878. 204 FRANCIS BACON. ix. 10. St. George, and brought up with him to London, is a mass of political writings scrawled on loose sheets, Jan. sewn together so as to make a book. Glancing through these sheets, the commissioners find them stuffed with defamatory attacks on the Court, the Government, the Prince of Wales, and the King, so sharp and savage that they must have been either meant for the signal of a rising or have been composed by a man drunk or mad. The King is charged with falsehood, his mi- nisters with fraud. Peacham treats the King with no more reverence than his bishop. He has felt himself moved to say that James might be smitten of a sudden, in a week, like Ananias and Nabal; that the Prince will want to take back the Crown-lands sold by his father, when men will rise up against him, saying - This is the heir, let us kill him. He has declared the King's officers so vile that they should be set upon and put to the sword; the King himself a creature not alone unfit to reign, but unworthy to bear the name of Christian or of man a thing too abject to crawl on earth or be redeemed in heaven. These passages are not only meant for the public eye, but are ready for the press. 11. Winwood, who, if not a Puritan, is a protector of the Puritans, by whose help he holds his place at court, sees no cause in this depraved and convicted man's religion to stay his hand. If Peacham is a Puritan, the lay chief of the body does not seem to know it. Winwood puts him under question; when the vicious old sinner falls into deeper and more odious sin. From either demoniacal spite at his recent loss, 11. Council Reg., Nov. 2, Dec. 9, 1614, Feb. 25, 26, 1615. CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 205 or from utter callousness of heart, he accuses John ix. 11. Paulett, the patron to whom he owes his living in the Church, of a treasonable knowledge of the contents of j an .' his book. And not only John Paulett, but his sister's husband, Sir John Sydenham, whom he charges, not alone with criminal silence, but with a positive share in the composition. Nor do the wretch's lies end here. Among the most intimate friends of Paulett is Sir Maurice Berkeley, a politician and a reformer, who plays a conspicuous part in London life, and who divides with him the representation of the shire; him also Peacham charges as a confederate. Winwood gets alarmed. A sedition of which Paulett, Berkeley, and Sydenhara are the accomplices may be fraught with peril. He sends Peacham to the Tower, brings Paulett and Berkeley before the Privy Council, and calls up Sydenham from Combe. 12. All three gentlemen scout with indignation this abominable lie. Paulett and Berkeley say they have never heard one word of the scandalous and seditious book-, Sydenham says he never wrote aline of it. And they tell the truth. If they speak against the Crown on questions of prerogative and grievances, they say what they have to say in the House of Commons. If they are hostile to the court, these men are neither libellers nor traitors. Where lies the truth? Here are the seditious libels against the Crown, of which Peacham asserts that he shares the authorship with Sydenham and the privity with Paulett and Berke- ley. How is Winwood to probe the mystery? The 12. Council Reg., Jan. 18, 1615. 206 FRAXCIS BACOX. ix. 12. law has but one course. Peacham must be interrogated ~ as Fawkes was interrogated. jan.i8. The Crown sends down a commission to the Tower, consisting of Winwood, Secretary of State; Cesar, Master of the Rolls-, Bacon, Attorney-General; Yelver- ton, Solicitor-General; Montagu, Recorder of London; Serjeant Crew; and Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, to put him to the question. An extract from the Council Register will show the orders under which they act: THE COUNCIL TO WINWOOD, MASTER OF THE ROLLS, LIEUT. OF TOWER, AND OTHERS. "After our hearty commendations. Whereas Ed- mond Peacham, now prisoner in the Tower, stands charged with the writing of a book or pamphlet con- taining matters treasonable (as is conceived), and being examined thereupon refuseth to declare the truth in those points whereof he hath been interrogated. For so much as the same doth concern his Majesty's sacred person and government, and doth highly concern his service, to have many things yet discovered touching the said book and the author thereof, wherein Peacham dealeth not so clearly as becometh an honest and loyal subject. These shall be therefore in his Majesty's name to will and require you and every of you to repair with what convenient diligence you may unto the Tower, and there to call before you the said Peacham, and to examine him strictly upon such interrogatories concerning the said book as you shall think fit and necessary for the manifestation of truth; and if you find him obstinate and perverse, and not otherwise willing or ready to tell the truth, then to put him to GENERAL USE OP TORTURE. 207 tlie manacles as in your discretion you shall see occa- ix. 12. sion; for which this shall be to you and eveiy of you sufficient warrant." Jaa. 18. 13. That these instructions were obeyed by the commissioners there is no room to doubt. A man of gentle heart may regret that commands so savage and so futile should proceed from the English Crown; but while grieving that our ancestors were either less wise or less compassionate than ourselves, no candid mind will consent to assess the fault of an entire generation on the character of a single man. A belief that truth must be sought by help of the cord, the maiden, and the wheel, was in the opening years of the seventeenth century universal. It had come down with the codes and usages of antiquity, sxistained by the practice of every people on the civilized globe; most of all by the practice of those wealthy and illustrious commu- nities which had kept most pure the traditions of Im- perial Roman law. Men who agreed in nothing else, agreed in seeking truth through pain. Nations which fought each other to the knife over definitions of grace, election, and transubstantiation, had a common faith in the possibility of discovering truth by the rack, the pincers, and the screw. There were torture-chambers at Osnaburgh and Ratisbon no less hideous than those of Valladolid and Rome. The same hot bars, the same Feb. boots, the same racks, were found in the Piombi and the Bastile, in the Bargello and the Tower. Nor was the Church more gentle or enlightened than the civil power. Cardinals searched out heresy in the flames of the Quemadero, as the Council of Ten tracked 13. Dom. Papers James the First, Ixxx. 6, 26, 38. 208 FRANCIS BACON. ix. is. treason in the waves of the Lagune. Bacon was not more responsible for the universal practice than for the Feb! particular act. To have set himself against the spirit of his time he must have mounted St. Simeon Stylites' column, or shrunk into St. Anthony's cave. If he chose to live among men, he must discharge the duties of a man. There lies a deep gulf between acts of duty and acts of the will. One who from morbid mind, or from love of pain, must follow the death-cart to Ty- burn, is not performing a noble or necessary deed; yet the chaplain who has to recite the prayer, and the sheriff who has to signal the drop, go free from blame. So in truth with Bacon. If he were present at the questioning- of Peacham, he was there as one of a commission acting under special commands from the Privy Council. It is silly to say he was responsible for what was done. He was not chief of the commissioners. He was not even a member of the high body in whose name they spoke. His official superiors, Winwood and Cesar, were on the spot. Does Lord Campbell think the Attorney-General should have declined to act with them, thrown up his commission, and refused to obey the Crown? 14. Bear in mind the age in which he lived. The cry of pain, the gasp of death, were no such shocks to the gentle heart as they would be in a softer time. Men had been hardened in the Smithfield fires. Minds were infected by the atrocities of Papist plots. The ballads sung in the streets were steeped in blood, and the plays which best drew audiences to the Globe theatre were those in which fewest of the characters were left alive. Hamlet, Pericles, Titus Andronicus, BACON OPPOSED TO JUDICIAL TORTURE. 209 wore the Shakesperean favourites. No man is known ix. 14. to have felt any sickness of the heart in presence of judicial torture. Egerton often saw men on the rack, {?* Winwood stood by while Peacham, under torture, told his tale. James was present when Fawkes was stretched. A feeling, it is true, was beginning to quicken in so- ciety against this use of the rack. Both Coke and Bacon disapproved its use; but this merciful sentiment of a few jurists and philosophers was unshared by the multitude of men who made the laws. Until the Crown shoiild see fit to abandon this old plan of seeking truth through crushed feet and dislocated joints, the officers of the Crown had no choice but to read their commis- sion and execute their trust. 15. This truth is so clear that it ought to need no illustration. Take a fact from our own time. More limn one living judge is supposed to be adverse to (rial by jury. Yet the judges sit in courts where pro- perty and life are daily exposed to the mercy of a dozen illogical and prejudiced men. Are they respon- sible for the wrong done? Again, it is conceivable that a judge might feel uneasy on the score of capital punishments. It is inconceivable that any judge on the Bench would refuse to hang a Palmer or a Rush so long as the law continues to declare wilful murder worthy of death. Bacon told the King that he mis- liked the use of torture in judicial inquiries. He told him so in this very case of Peacham. Further than that expression he could not go. Bacon's case in 1860 may possibly become Lord Campbell's case in 1960. Let the public heart go on Lord ttiinin. 14 210 FRAKCIS BACON. ix. 15. softening for a hundred years, fast as it has softened from the early days of John Howard, and the whole Feb.' civilized world may come by 1960 to regard the strangling of a human being, on any pretext whatever, as a monstrous crime. Would such a change of public feeling lay Lord Campbell open to the charge of judi- cial murder? Would it be just in a writer of that compassionate age to relate with "horror" that Lord Campbell prostituted eminent parts and sullied an hon- ourable name by sitting for many years in a court of justice where life was taken in the name of law, with his own lips delivering man after man, and even wo- man after woman, to be strangled in presence of a brutal crowd, by a wretch who received his blood- money for every loathsome job? Would it be fair to say that Lord Campbell in his thirst for blood took the life of Sarah Chesham, a poor woman sentenced to death on circumstantial proof, who protested her inno- cence with the rope round her throat? Would it be fair to say that with savage glee he ordered Emma Mussett to be strangled on pretence of child-murder, even though obliged to confess that the evidence was fall of doubt? Would it be honest in the writer of a future century to say that in 1860 Lord Campbell stood alone on the bench in his resolute practice of hanging women while, under such humane judges as Crompton and Cresswell, the lives of Celestina Som- mers and Elizabeth Harris, criminals of whose guilt no man could doubt, were spared? We think the writer who should say this, or anything like this, in 1960, would be as unfair to Lord Campbell as Lord Camp- bell has been to Francis Bacon. PEACHAM'S ANSWERS. 211 16. How Peacliam lies and swears, now accusing ix. 16. others, and now himself, anon retracting all that he has said, denying even his handAvriting and his signa- ^.ug! ture, one day standing to the charge against Syden- ham, next day running from it altogether; how he is sent down into Somersetshire, the scene of his ignoble ministry, to be tried by a jury of men who will inter- pret his public conduct by what they know of his pri- vate life; how he is found guilty by the twelve jurors and condemned by Sir Lawrence Tanfield and Sir Henry Montagu, two of the most able and humane judges on the bench; how his sentence is commuted by the Crown into imprisonment during the King's pleasure; and how he ultimately dies in Taunton jail, unpitied by a single friend, I need not pause to tell. 17. After sentence of death has been recorded Aug. si. against him, he offers to tell the truth, if the King will only spare his life. The written confession, twice signed by his hand, which remains in the State Paper Office, tells in his own words how he came to utter that lie about Sir John Sydenham. A question being put to him: "He answereth that all the said words wherewith he charged Sir John Sydenham were first written by himself, this examinate, only; and, afterwards hearing these same words delivered unto him by Sir John Sydenham, they were, to this examinate, a confirma- tion of that which he had formerly written. And, being further asked how he could so strongly father those words upon Sir John Sydenham, seeing he now 16. State Trials, ii. 870; Diary of Walter Yonge, 27; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 9, Mar. 2, Aug. 24, 1615, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., July 12, 1615. 17. Peacham's Examination, Aug. 31, 1615, S. P. 0. 14* 212 FRANCIS BACON. ix. 17. confesseth himself to be the author, and Sir John Sydenham but only to confinn him in them, he an- Aug!3i. swereth that, when he made this answer, he understood not that distinction betwixt the author and confirmer, but that they were both taken for one to his under- standing. And, being asked as before, what was his reason and end in charging Sir John Sydenham, he answereth he did it to . satisfy his Majesty and the Lords with the truth." Being asked his motives and intentions in writing the pamphlet: u He answereth that, first, it was compiled without any knowledge of evil (?) on his part, either against the King or estate; and, secondly, after good and ad- vised deliberation, he would have taken out all the venom and poison thereof, before ever he would have published the same. And, being asked in what man- ner he would have published it either by preaching it, or delivering copies of it, or by printing it he protesteth that his intent was never either to publish, or to give- copy, or to print, but only in private, for his own study, to reduce it into heads, that he might make use thereof for such particulars as he out of the text observed, whensoever he should have occasion to speak of any such matter, when all the evil was taken out." He pronounces this a true confession; saying he should abhor telling a lie to his sovereign, and should think him- self guilty of his own blood if he kept back anything after having been promised his life for revealing the truth. 18. One more charge. Bacon, it has been said, not only stands by while the prisoner undergoes exa- 18. Macaulay's Essay on Bacon ; Campbell's Life of Bacon, in. 65. THE PRECEDENT OF LEGATE. 213 miiifition, but, on the King's command, consults the ix. is. judges as to whether this crime of seditious writing ~ amounts to treason by the law. In the wake of Mac- gept. aulay, Lord Campbell says that a private consultation with the judges was an act most scandalous and most unusual. The scandal of such proceedings may be matter of opinion; their frequency is beyond denial. The Kings of England always enjoyed, and constantly exercised, the right of consulting their judges on the statutory bearing of political crimes. These judges had always been the King's judges-, holding their commis- sions at his pleasure; bound by their oaths to advise him on points of law. Macaulay says there is no in- stance of the Crown privately consulting with the bench : "Bacon was not conforming to an usage then gener- ally admitted to be proper. He was not even the last lingering adherent of an old abuse. It would have been sufficiently disgraceful to such a man to be in this last situation. Yet this last situation would have been honourable, compared with that in which he stood. He was guilty of attempting to introduce into the courts of law an odious abuse, for which no precedent could be found." Why, the law-books teem with precedents. One will serve for a score. It happens, indeed, that there is one precedent so strange in its circumstances, and so often the subject of legal and historical comment, that it is amazing how it could have slipped the recol- lection of any lawyer, and most of all a lawyer writing of the times of James the First. 19. Peacham's arrest occurred in 1614. In 1612, Bartholomew Legate, a poor Arian preacher, of simple 19. Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 26, Mar. 25, 1612, S. P. O. ; Sign Manuals, i. No. 15 ; Egcrton Papers, 417. 214 FRANCIS BACON*. ix. 19. nature and extreme dogmatic views, was tried by a consistory of divines then sitting at St. Paul's, con- Sept! demned for ten separate heresies, and sentenced to be burnt alive. King, his ordinary, turned him over to the secular arm. But, as an Act of the first year of Elizabeth had repealed the Statute of Heresy, leaving errors of faith to the more merciful ruling of the com- mon law, a question arose as to whether the Crown had power to execute this abominable sentence of the divines. James thought he had full powers. The judges were consulted one by one. Abbott instructed Egerton how to act; and the Lord Chancellor conferred in private with his legal brethren; Williams, Croke, and Altham being sounded by him or by his orders. As they all agreed that James, despite the repeal of the Statute of Heresy, had power to burn, the King, on their authority, issued his warrant under the sign manual to Egerton, Egerton sent his writ to the sheriff, and thus, without condemnation in any civil court, Bartholomew Legate perished in the Smithfield flames. This is the precedent Macaulay seeks. 20. It is right to add that the Privy Council aban- doned all proceedings against Paulett and Berkeley at an early date, and that Sydenham was restored to his freedom purged in fame. It is also right to add that the notion of treating Edmond Peacham as though he were in some sort a Puritan martyr is an aberration of the modern biographical mind. The Puritan writers say nothing for him; he has no place in the pages of Toulmin or of Xeale. He was degraded by a Puritan Archbishop, prosecuted and condemned by a Puritan Secretary of State. 20. Council Reg., Mar. 26; Chamberlain to Carleton , Mar. 3, 1615, S. P. O. CARR, EARL OF SOMERSET. 215 CHAPTER X. Race with Coke. 1. LORD CAMPBELL accuses Bacon of having fawned x - L on Somerset in his greatness, of having abandoned him 1615 in his fall. Part of this accusation was made by Coke; Sept. not all of it; and in a whisper, not in boldly-spoken words. A glance at the facts, as they stand in the re- gisters of the Privy Council and the archives of the State Paper Office, will suffice, it is thought, to con- vince an impartial reader that Bacon's course through these proceedings against the Earl and Countess of Somerset was in the highest degree noble and humane. Such a reader will see that he was neither obsequious to Somerset in his pride, nor insolent to him in his dis- grace. 2. Somerset had not been friendly to Bacon's suit. Not that the young Scottish favourite was wholly want- ing in sympathy for merit. His own abilities were not vast, nor his tastes, except in dress, refined ; yet he was very |far from being the abject creature that Lord Campbell says. Abject of nature he was not; guilty of murder he was not. More than one popular poet found in him a patron and a friend. He was kind to 1. Campbell, ill. 66; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936. 2. Bacon to Carr, Nov. 14. 1612, S. P. O. Mr. Amos, in his Great Oyer of Poisoning, 1846, and Dr. Rimbault, in his Introduction to the Mis- cellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1856, have thrown light on the story of Somerset ; but the true history can be traced in its minute details nowhere save in the State Papers of 1612-15. These papers are far too numerous to cite. 216 FRAXCM BACOX. 2. Jonson, more than kind to Donne. For years he maintained the closest intimacy with Overbmy; a con- tfi nexion not to have been kept with that haughty and sensitive man of genius had Somerset been the fool in feathers and rosettes he is commonly made. But Bacon's policy was not his policy. Blown about with every wind, the favourite swayed from west to east, now moored among the extreme Puritans, now among the most bigoted of die Papists. When he at length chose a side, it was with the party against which Bacon had spent the best of his days and the most brilliant of his powers; for he suffered his name to be used, and his influence over James to be abused, by that iniquitous Spanish faction of which Sir William Monson was the pensioned agent, Lord Northampton the pensioned chief. A nature proof against gold was not proof against love. A pair of bright eyes, which, in the language of Donne, Sowed the eomtt with stars , turned upon him; the eyes of Lady Essex, Lord North- ampton's niece. Her uncle set her on; that venal old pander putting the young wife of Essex in Somerset's way, tempting her virtue to break its vows, and lend- ing his house to the profligate pair for their otolcn kisses. Soft of heart, inclined by youth and rivalry to vice, Somerset fell into the snares laid for him by the wily greybeard and the shameless girL 3. Somerset won to their side, the Romanist party ruled die state. All that a doting prince has in his X Wake to Carietoa, Yariee Cairtm r 1S - desired or endured, had not the Crown, when succeed- ing to the rights of the Holy Chair, inherited the power June, of granting livings in commendam. Yet such a power was open to grave abuse. Paulo Sarpi has denounced the evils which it brought upon Roman Catholic com- munities, where a Pope's bastard or a Cardinal's nephew, under the title of a holder in commendam, swept the revenues of a province into his private purse. While Coke is in his rage, the case of a living held in commendam comes before the King's Bench. It is a private cause; but Serjeant Chibborne, in the course of his speech, goes out of his way to contest the King's power to grant commendams at all. Fearful lest the angry Chief Justice may pronounce a verdict touching the Crown, without the Crown being heard in its de- fence, James mounts a messenger for London com- manding Bilson and Winwood to attend the next sit- ting of the Court of King's Bench and report to him the arguments there used. Winwood being sick, Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, is the sole witness; but his re- port alarms the King in high degree, for he hears Chibborne contend that the Crown has no power to grant livings or sees in commendam save in cases of extreme need; and that no such need can arise in England, where no man is bound to keep hospitality beyond his means. 16. Informed by Bilson of what has passed in the King's Bench, James sees the gravity of his position, and commands Bacon to write and require Coke to put 16. The Judges to James, April 27, 1616, S. P. O. ; James to the Judges, Council Reg., June 6, J.616. 230 FRANCIS BACON. x> 1S - off the further hearing of this case until he, the King, 1616 can come to to wn and consult the judges. This corn- June, mand a servant carries from Gray's Inn to the Lord Chief Justice's room in Serjeants' Inn; when Coke, who is just setting out for Westminster Hall, sends his own man to Gray's Inn to beg that Mr. Attorney will give to each of the twelve judges a copy of his note. Coke's presence has been required in the Court of Chancery to assist in hearing a case for the Crown; but setting the immediate duty of the day aside, defy- ing the royal command, as conveyed through Bacon, he goes down to Westminster, takes his seat in the King's Bench, and calls the forbidden case. After a further hearing he takes the judges to his rooms in Serjeants' Inn, where he persuades them to sign a letter to the King, throwing the blame of his disobedience on Bacon, whose request for a postponement of the trial they condemn as contrary to law and to the oaths of a judge. 17. James reads this letter with amazement. If his rage against Coke, and his fears of encroachment, do not lure him one day sooner from his dogs and deer, he pens a smart rebuke to the judges, who, when they see how the tide sets, begin to feel heartily ashamed of what they have signed. They know, indeed, that the reasons given by Coke are a mere pretence; that Bacon's letter was sent by command; that the Crown has power by law to grant livings in commendam; and that to delay the hearing until James could arrive in town and lay his arguments before them would neither interfere with justice nor disturb their oaths. All these 17. Council Reg., June 6, 1616. COKE BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 231 points of the case the King sets forth in his note with x. n. unsparing ire. He ends by once again, in his own words and in his own name, insisting that the hearing June, shall be stayed, referring them, with a good sense of which he is seldom capable, to his Attorney-General for his opinions on particular points. 18. Ambling to town for the Whitsun games, he June 6. sends for his twelve judges to the palace. Of the many comedies played in that superb political theatre, few have been so droll as this trial of the judges by the King. All the great officers of state are present; the King himself, Archbishop Abbott and Bishop Bilson, Lord Chancellor Egerton and Lord Treasurer Suffolk, Winwood Secretary of State, and Zouch Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, together with a host of inferior councillors and clerks. Bacon stands there to defend himself. Coke, a member of the Privy Council, takes his seat. The men whose lives have been one long duel, who have pleaded in the same courts, who have made love to the same woman, who have served in the same House of Commons, who for thirty-five years have been at guard and thrust, appear in a scene which can only end in disaster for one of them, perhaps in ruin for both. James opens the inquiry. Bilson states what he heard in the King's Bench. Bacon's letter and Coke's reply are put in as evidence and read. Eleven of the judges see their error. Falling on their knees, they confess their fault and implore the King's most gracious pardon. Coke alone, if wrong at first, has courage enough to be wrong at last; maintaining that 18. Council Reg., June G, 1616. 232 FRANCIS BACOX. x. is. the facts of his note were true, and that Mr. Attorney's message was against his oath. juiiec. James turns to his Chancellor; but Egerton, before pronouncing judgment, begs, as the case involves points of law, that Bacon may first be heard. 19. Bacon rises. In the portrait of Van Somers, painted a few weeks later, we see him as he stands confronting Coke. Thirty-six years have passed since he entered on the fag and contest of the world; but thirty-six years of toil, thought, study, disappointment, and success, have neither soured his blood nor disturbed the beauty of his face. The bust of Somers is the bust of Hilyard come to its perfect growth. Brow broad and solid; eye quick yet mild; nose straight and strong, of the pure old English type; beard trim and dainty, as of one to whom grace is nature; over all the countenance a bold, soft, kindling light; an infinite sense of power, and subtlety, and humour, unmixed with any trace of pride. 20. Turning to the King, he shows, by proofs which seem superfluous, that in staying the hearing Coke Avould have hurt no law, broken no oath. The Lord Chief Justice starts to his feet; the King's counsel, he says, may plead before the judges, they must not dis- pute with them. Bacon answers for his order and for himself, that a King's counsel is, by his office and his oath, free to proceed or declare against any man, against the greatest lord in the kingdom, even against any body of men, though they were peers and judges; and he 19. The portrait of Van Somers is at Gorhambury. 20. Council Reg., Jane 6, 1G1G; Sherborne to Carleton, June 12, 1610, S. P. O. ; Gerard to Carleton, June 14, 161C, S. P. O. FALL OF COKE. 233 demands from the King's justice that this spirt of bad x. 20. temper and worse law shall be withdrawn. James sides witli liis Attorney-General, and Coke has to eat his junee. words. The Lord-Chancellor now asks that the oath of a judge may be read; and when Yelverton has done this, he pronounces judgment wholly against Coke. In Eger- ton's verdict the judges all concur; promising for them- selves to respect all future messages from the Crown. Coke alone answers that he will do what he shall find fit for a judge. The fall of this arrogant man is soon noised in the Strand and at St. Paul's. 21. Bacon is sworn a member of the Privy Coun- June 9. cil; as in every stage of his rise, without a bribe. The very first act of this new Councillor, who, on grounds of humanity, is moving heaven and earth to save A couple of Papists from the gallows, is to induce the favourite and his master to restore the famous Puritan preacher Doctor Burgess to his ministry in the Church. June ic. Burgess has long been silenced. Many congregations wish to hear him; among others, the Honourable So- ciety of Gray's Inn. Bacon prevails, and the thunders of the great preacher are again heard at St. Paul's Cross. 22. Bacon is nominated one of a commission, with the Lord Treasurer, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 21. Council Reg., June 9, 1616; Montagu, xiii. 233; Carew to Roe, Jan. 18, 1617, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 5, 1617, S. P. O. 22. Council to the Commissioners, June 30, 1616, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., June 26, 30, 1616; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 22, IGlfi, S. P. O.; Sherborue to Carleton, June 29, 1616, S. P. O. . 234 FRANCIS BACON. x. 22. other ministers, to consider a plan for raising funds by selling the old feudal right of homage and by dis- june so. afforesting the distant and unprofitable Crown-lands. More than sufficient offences are soon discovered against Coke, frauds, contempts, and disobediences, to ensure a condemnation either in the Star Chamber or in any court over which the Crown can name the judge. When he hears of this investigation into his past life, the bully of Westminster Hall lowers his tone. Not that his course on the bench has been impure-, it has, in fact, as all the world knows, been ostentatiously the reverse of impure; yet the practice of all the courts is so unsafe, the system of fees so lax, that no man on the bench can stand up against an accusation brought by the Crown. No judge on the bench knows better than Coke that to be tried for a Crown offence is to be condemned. In the most grovelling key he prays to be spared the shame of a public trial; on his knees he implores the Council to protect him; saying, and very truly saying, that any man in place, however high his state, however clean his hands, may be crushed by an indictment laid in the royal name. Again and again he appears before the Privy Council, under his rival's eyes, in the same ignominious attitude, begging for mercy in the same miserable tone. July. The woman who in his prosperity was the torment of his life no sooner finds him grovelling on his knees before men deaf to his groans, and the savings of his long practice at the bar menaced with fine and forfeit, than she bounds to his side, makes his suit her own, worries her kinsmen for help, besieges the Queen with petitions, and declares that, come evil or come good to her husband, she will share his fate. MONSON'S CASE. 235 23. Though Anne puts forth her weakness in his x. 23. cause, Coke is degraded from the Council, forbidden to travel circuit, commanded to revise his Reports. Oct. Villiers against him, the poor Queen is slighted: and Lady Hatton, in place of conciliating those who might help her suit, insults the favourite's mother, and on her complaint gets sent away from court. Coke humbles his pride, confesses his fault, nay, darkens his fame as ;i jurist and a judge by stooping, on the King's demand, to alter his Law Reports; a confession of guilt if his cases are false, a dishonest compliance if he believes them true. Even this last concession is made in vain. When stripped of his office and deposed from the bench, his wife, who was going to make his cause her o\vn, packs up her furniture and plate, leaps into her coach, and leaves him to his loneliness and rage. His seat in the King's Bench is offered to Bacon and de- clined. Sir Henry Montagu, Recorder of London, a man of very great wealth and very high abilities as a lawyer, grandson of Bluff King Hal's famous Lord Chief Justice, and founder of the ducal line of Manchester, gets his place. 24. The fall of Coke throws light into the Tower. NOV. Sir Thomas Monson gains the liberty of that fortress. Sure that Monson ought not to be tried , since it , has become improbable that he could be convicted and im- possible that he could be hung, Bacon is not the less 23. Villiers to Bacon, Oct. '3, 1616, Lambeth MSS. 936; Williams to Carleton, July 3, 161C, 8. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 6, Oct. 26, Nov. 9, 14, 23, 1616, S. P. O. ; Sherborne to Carleton, July 11, Oct. 5, 1616, S. P. O. ; Winwood to Carleton, July 13, 1616, S. P. O.; Egerton's Speech to Montagu, Nov. 18, 1616, S. P. O. ; Grant Book, 107, 198. 24. Council Reg., Aug. 10, 1616; Bacon to James, Dec. 7, 1616, S.P.O. ; Statement of the Case of Sir Thomas Monson, Feb. 12, 1617, S. P. O. 236 FRANCIS BACON. x. 24. sure that for tlie King's credit and for Monson's own safety he ought not to be merely set free. He proposes, i6ie'. therefore, with the full concurrence of Sir Henry Yelver- ton, that a pardon shall be granted under the Seal, re- citing Monson's plea of innocence, the dubious proofs against him, and the gracious clemency of the King. Egerton backs this compromise; for he too, though himself a convert from the Church of Rome, believes with Bacon that a gentleman may be a Papist without being a traitor. In his own name and that of Yelver- ton, Bacon communicates this plan to James: BACOH TO KING JAMES. Dec. 7. 7th of December, 1016. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, According to your pleasure, signified unto me, your Attorney, by word of mouth, we have considered of' tin- state of Sir Thomas Monson's case, and what is fit further to be done in it, and we are of opinion first, that it is altogether unfit to have a proceeding to a trial, both because the evidence itself (for so much as we know of it) is conjectural, as also for that to rip iip those matters now will neither be agreeable to the justice nor to the mercy formally used by your Majesty towards others; secondly, to do nothing in it is neither safe for the gentleman, nor honourable (as we conceive) for your Majesty, whose care of justice useth not to faint or become weaiy in the latter end. Therefore we are of opinion that it is a case fit for your Majesty's pardon, as upon doubtful evidence, and that Sir Thomas Moiison plead the same publicly, with such protestations of his innocency as he thinks good, and so the matter may come to a regular and just period, wherein the ILLNESS OF EGERTOX. 237 very reading of the pardon, which shall recite the x. 24. evidence to be doubtful and conjectural, added to his own protestations, is as much for the reputation of the Dec. 7. gentleman as we think convenient, considering how things have formerly passed. Hereupon we have ad- vised with the Lord Chancellor, whom we find of the same opinion. All which, nevertheless, we, in all humbleness, submit to your Majesty's better judgment. Your Majesty's most humble and most bounden servants, FR. BACON, HENRY YELVERTON. The advice is welcome. A pardon, drawn up ^ F ^ L \2 this sense, passes under the Seal. Monson, brought up at the bar of the King's Bench and this paper read to him, declares his innocence once more, protests that his pardon should be read as evidence of his innocence, not of his guilt. Montagu, now Chief Justice, tells him it may be read in this sense, and Monson with a joy- ful heart goes home from the Tower. 25. Egerton is sick. Though he will not give up the Seals, as Villiers presses him to do, while he can sign his name, he begins to divest himself of the minor offices and responsibilities of the world; among other changes yielding the Stewardship of St. Albans to the friend who now sits by his bed, lightening his pains and cares, and whom he, like all the world, has sealed for his successor in the Court of Chancery. Among the public affairs in which Bacon is employed are, the 25. Add. MSS. 19, 402; Sherborne to Carleton, Feb. 8, 1617, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., Feb. 2, 1617. 238 FRANCIS BACOX. * 25> Disorders in our Trade with Spain, and a Report 771 touching a child supposed to have been left by Lady Feb. 12. Arabella Stuart. The first is referred to Bacon alone, with power to collect evidence and to offer remedies for the wrong. The second concerns the King more nearly than the murder of English crews, the confiscation of English goods. This story of a royal child he refers to four commissioners, the highest functionaries of the state Abbott, Suffolk, Winwood, and Bacon; Bacon, on whom the burthen of inquiry falls, repi-esenting the great lawyer now lying sick at York House. Feb. 2. 26. After Lady Arabella's death in the Tower a whisper flew abroad that her romantic marriage had not been altogether barren; that she had given birth to a child while confined in Sir Thomas Parry's house at Lambeth; and that this heir of the Seymours was still alive. The story has a deep and romantic inter- est. If there be such a child, it stands very near the throne uniting, as it must, in one head the rival claims of the Seymour and Lennox lines of descent from Henry the Seventh; therefore a rival, as some folks think, to the King's own children, and one who may become truly formidable should the rickety Prince of Wales not live. Such a birth was not unlikely in itself. The Lady Arabella was only thirty-six when she fell in love and secretly gave her hand to William Seymour. They were married weeks before their amour was discovered. When parted by force, their love and wit found means for meeting. Even Avhen Sey- mour was in the Tower, he so far won upon his jailor by his youth, his misery, or his gold, that he was fre- 26. Council Reg., Feb. 2, 1C, 1617. RUMOURED OFFSPRING OF ARABELLA STUART. 239 quontly allowed to go up the river and see his wife. x. 26. Nothing, therefore, in the tale of a child having been born to all this love appears improbable to men who p e b.2. fear or hate the King, while the motives for conceal- ment, if it has been born, are clear to all. James is profoundly moved. A new Perkin Warbeck menaces his throne. True or false, the story is a serious fact for James and for his dynasty : not less grave for them if false than true; unless it can be wholly and for ever rooted out from the minds of men. Hence the commission. For a time the mystery defies even Bacon's subtlety of search and proof. It is always hard to prove a nega- tive most hard in such a case as this. The com- missioners may convince themselves; they have to con- vince a credulous world, at the risk of leaving that world open to seduction by any knave who may choose to play his head against a crown. They send for Sey- mour, who knows nothing or will tell them nothing. They send for Sir John Keys and Doctor Mountford, physicians to the royal lady. They question Edward Kirton and Edward Reeves, her body servants. None of these will own to knowledge of the birth of any child. Such evidence is, however, far from decisive. Where are Lady Arabella's waiting- women? It is known that, while imprisoned in Parry's house, Arabella's waiting-woman was called Ann Bradshaw. Ann has dropped out of sight, though no one thinks that she is dead. Where is she? The Seymours don't know. Her old friends and fellow servants don't know. Such a fact is of itself suspicious. Is the missing maid watching over the missing child? There must be an end of these questions. If alive, and between the four 240 FRANCIS BACON. x. 26. seas, Ann must be found; for on her testimony hang the chances of a civil war. Feb. 2. A search through every shire from Exe to Tweed discovers her in Duffield an obscure village lost among the snows of the Peak. Though old, full of aches and pains, her memory is good: she remembers everything about her unhappy mistress, was with her day and night in Parry's house, and is positive she never had a child. The local magistrates dare not jolt her off to London through the winter cold, the doctors saying she would die on the road. A message speeds to Bacon. Not an hour is to be lost; the weal of mil- lions hangs on the words of this sick creature; so he mounts for Duffield Sir Clement Edmondes, a trusty Clerk of the Privy Council, to see the woman and take her important evidence on oath. Clement sends in his report. The tale sworn by the waiting-woman con- vinces the commissioners and the Council that the rumour of a young Seymour, born of Lady Arabella, being in existence is a lie. In witness of this inquiry, and of this result, James causes an elaborate statement of the facts to be inserted in the Council Register, signed by George Abbott, Thomas Howard, Ralph Winwood, and Francis Bacon. The search which satis- fies the Council seems to satisfy mankind. It is, in- deed, amazing that, during all the troubles and illu- sions of the succeeding forty years, no one ever as- sumed the character of Lady Arabella's son. Mar. 7. 27. Four weeks after closing this delicate inquiry Bacon receives the Seals. Egerton's love bears fruit; 27. Council Reg., Mar. 7, 24. 1617; Grant Book, 200; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 15, 1617, S. P. O.; Commission to Abbott, Bacon, and others, Mar. 17, 1617, S. P. O. RECEIVES THE SEALS. 241 but the risks of failure in his suit have indeed been x. 27. great, for Buckingham makes no secret of his wish to ruin the old Chancellor and sell his place. While the Mar. 7 ?. favourite haggles with aspirants for the office about its price, the King himself puts the Seals into Bacon's hands. Riding down to York House, he thanks his old friend, and in his Majesty's name presents him with the patent of an Earl. He now turns to the Court of Chancery, not in despair at the long arrears, but with confident sense of his power to conquer the vast ac- cumulation of work. The rules which he lays down, the spirit in which he decides, are beyond all praise. Nor do the labours of his Court, the ceremonial of his rank, and the sittings of the Council, consume his strength. He instructs Buckingham in the arts of government. He toils at his Novum Organum. Within a week of his investiture the King leaves London for the Northern Kingdom , calling Bacon to the exercise Mar. 17. of very extraordinary powers. In 'commission with Pembroke, Suffolk, and a single secretary, he receives power to pardon able-bodied offenders under sentence of death, save only those convicted of rape, burglary, witchcraft, and wilful murder, and send them over sea. In commission with Abbott and others, he is authorised to pass securities for loans, to issue proclamations, to conduct the Irish business, to perfect the ecclesiastical commission, and generally to conduct the government of the realm. Yet, in spite of this enormous addition to his active duties, he clears off the whole arrears of Chancery causes by the end of June. Bacon. 16 242 FRANCIS BACOX. CHAPTER XL Lord Chancellor. xi. i. 1. IN striding over Coke's head to the Mace and Seals, Bacon puts the crown to his many offences July, against that wealthy and vindictive foe. Their lives have been spent in a daily contest for rank, love, place, and power. Up to the present year Coke has been able to keep in front. He made more money, he won Lady Hatton, he first got office under the Crown. He went up to the Common Pleas while Bacon was fight- ing for his promotion at the bar. Before the great philosopher was commissioned as Attorney-General, the great jurist had been seated on the King's Bench. For the three years and four months that Bacon, as At- torney, waited in the Council ante-room, Coke sat at the board. The scene is now changed, the characters reversed. Within a few weeks Coke has been de- graded from the Council to make way for Bacon, and reduced from the King's Bench that his rival may feel the insolent joy of refusing to accept his place. The humiliation has now been capped by Bacon filching from him, at the very moment of his negotiation with Villiers, the Mace and Seals, without paying for them one shilling' of those irregular sums which he himself was told he must lay down. Such a success enrages the miser even more than it galls the man. 1. Council Reg., Nov. 4, 1613; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. S36. STORY OF EGERTON'S LATTER DAYS. 243 2. How can lie drag this rival down? The way is XL 2. but too easy. Gain the favourite. Virtue is no pro- tection to men in power. He has been thrown. Eger- j u i y '. ton only escapes an ignominious fall by the approach of death. The story of Egerton's latter days has never yet been told. As an illustration of the time, it is in the highest degree important for a clear comprehension of his successor's fall. As Egerton grew old a host of lawyers and eccle- siastics began to crave the Seals; conspicuous among these were Bilson and Bennett, Hobart and Coke. The Great Seal, though held like the White Staff during pleasure, changed hands so rarely that the possession Avas regarded as one for life. Pickering, Hatton, Bromley, Nicholas Bacon, kept the Seals to the last, as Northampton, Salisbury, Dorset, and Burghley kept the Staff. The rule applied to every office in the Household and the State. Now this appearance of a permanent possession gave to each holder of office a vested right in it, which had a market value. No man ever yielded his place without being paid for it, any more than a colonel of the line gives up his commis- sion without his price. Death only could deprive him. As Egerton would not die though he had held the Seals longer than any Chancellor since the Conquest, nor yield his place except on reasonable terms of sur- render, those who meant to make a purse by the trans- fer began to brood over the possibility of forcing him to yield by means of a criminal prosecution. A sen- tence in the House of Lords would be legal death. 2. Sherborne to Carleton, Feb. 23, 161T, 8. P. O. ; Lovelace toCarleton, Mar. 11, 1617, 8. P. O. 16* 244 FRANCIS BACON. xi. 2. Once it were pronounced the Seals would fall into the ~ King's gift. This was a new and perilous game to ju^y! play; but the pl an seemed easy, the profits vast. A trial might be made. Any old lawyer, learned in the vices of the times, could get up an accusation. Buck- ingham could secure a majority in the House of Lords. The temptations which drew Buckingham into this odious and criminal course were very great. Sir John Bennett offered for the Seals no less a sum than thirty thousand pounds. 3. This scheme of a criminal information quickened into life on Egerton's refusal to pass under the Seal some patents in which the Villiers family had a share. Famous among these was a grant to Sir Giles Mom- pesson for the manufacture of gold and silver thread. Everybody wore lace. In the comic writers of James's reign, in Jonson, in Webster, in Massinger, the young gallants strut in lace not in the tawdry stuff sold by Autolycus as a present from countiy lads to coun- try lasses but in glinting silver and gold; the metals dropping in threads from the ruff, or wrought into the doublet and hose, the cloak and cap. Venice could not supply the want. The price of gold and silver lace ran high-, and the profits of the trade all went abroad. A Licenser of Inns, Sir Giles Mompesson, a man of energy and wealth, conceived a scheme for in- troducing this profitable manufacture into England. There were serious difficulties. Silver and gold were scarce; sometimes not to be bought except on ruinous terms. The patent under which he was to work must not alone protect his trade, but allow him to take up 3. Sign Manuals, vi. 109 ; Com. Jour., i. 530-576. PLOT TO KUIN EGERTON. 245 gold and silver for bis need, even the coin of the realm, xi. 3. By giving two of Buckingham's brothers a share in the business, Mompesson hoped to secure protection for his ji y '. enterprise. 4. Blind to the lights of trade, Egerton refused to seal this grant. Not that he perceived and lamented the true evil of monopolies; every profession was then a guild; and without a monopoly there could be no trade. The grocer, the perfumer, the vintner, the tailor, was each invested in a charter or a patent. Egerton, during his long reign as Chancellor, passed hundreds of patents, some of them far more mischievous than the one for enabling the London spinners to rival then- Venetian brethren in the production of gold and silver thread. His repugnance to it sprang from the con- tempt of an old man for new fripperies of dress and show, and from a fear that Mompesson would ruin the Crown by withdrawing the coinage from circulation into trade. 5. Buckingham was furious. Urged by his own vexation and by his complaining brothers, he swore to ruin the old Chancellor. Agents sneaked about the Inns of Court speaking evil of the great lawyer, now on his bed of death, provoking all who had suffered wrongs, or who fancied they had suffered wrongs, in his court, to rise up against the -tyrant. Men soon an- swered to the call. A blameless life, a sick bed, were no protection against this outrage. One said he had given money into the court; another said he had given 4. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 8, 1617, 8. P. O. , _ 5. Lovelace to Carleton, Mar. 11, 1617, S. P. O. 246 FRANCIS BACOX. xi. 5. a ring, a cabinet, a piece of plate. In substance and form these tales were true, in spirit and intention they July, were false. Charges enough were gathered: charges more numerous, said Sir William Lovelace, than those which had recently ruined Coke; charges as flimsy and as fatal, I may add, as those which four years later served to overwhelm Egerton's successor. Buck- ingham sent to the sick man's room the news of this flagitious inquisition and its triumphant close; it is greatly to be feared that the blow broke the old man's heart. 6. It needs no magician to see that he who nearly slew Egerton might just as easily slay the successor of Egerton. Buckingham is cheated of his profit; for though Bacon pays to Egerton eight thousand pounds for the surrender of his legal rights, not a shilling of this money flows into the favourite's purse. The Villiers people are not pleased with a Chancellor who refuses to push their fortunes and feed their pride; nor is Buckingham a man to forget that, if Egerton had been chased into the House of Lords, as Coke had been into the Star Chamber, he might have put into his own pocket from the transaction a good many thousand pounds. 7. The loss is great. It is Coke's business to show Villiers how it may be recovered. Bacon is not robust nor likely to live long. He works too much, and lives too well, for length of days. Gout racks his 6. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 11, 1617, S.P. 0.; Gerard toCarleton, Mar. 20, 1617, S. P. O. 7. Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936; Carleton to Chamberlain, May 24, 1617, 8. P. O. CALUMNIES OF COKE. LADY HATTON. joints; being the first beggar, as he jests, who ever had xi. 7. it. If he dies, well; if not, he may be ruined. Coke, who begins by collecting scandals against him, whispers j u i y '. to the favourite that the new Chancellor is no true friend to him; that he is not zealous for the advance- ment of Sir Christopher Villiers and Sir John Villiers; that he has already been false to Somerset, and may end by playing false with his Lordship. Buckingham lies open to such hints, his family more open to the direct persuasion of angels and double angels. Coke gets Lady Buckingham on his side. If he could only part with his hoards, his day of revenge might be near; happily he cannot pay down his money even to assuage the rancour of his heart. He thinks of a plan by which he may gain his end, yet save his pelf. 8. A daughter has been born to Coke of his second wife. This wife and he never pulled together, and of late their wrangles have been louder than at first. Their marriage was a scrape, their wedded life has been a quarrel and a jest. She disdains to bear his name, she slams her door in his face. She gives entertainments in Holborn, from which he and his friends are inso- lently shut out. Their tastes are in the strongest de- gree opposed. He is penurious, she profuse. He loves folios and a farthing candle; she lights and revels, masques and plays. By day and night a rout of fiddlers, dancers, wizards, lovers, and magicians pours through the gal- leries of her great mansion looking on the Fleet. Coke 8. Jonson's Metamorphosed Gypsies ; Bankes's Story of Corffe Castle, 35-44 ; Lady Hatton to Cecil, undated Papers, xl. 6, S. P. O. 248 FRANCIS BACON. xi. 8. slinks in shame from the sig-ht of all this devilry to his den in Serjeants' Inn. Their misery makes the sport jiiiy. of wits and gallants; while in their quarrels and their unhappiness Bacon (though he has not himself escaped the common lot a mother-in-law) has nevertheless, in his own modest and tranquil home, good reason to thank heaven night and day for his escape from such a wife. 9. The child of this dismal pair is blossoming into a beauty and a toast, whose sensuous loveliness Jonson depicts in some of his most luscious lines: Though your either cheek discloses Mingled baths of milk and roses; Though your lips be banks of blisses, Where he plants and gathers kisses ; And yourself the reason why Wisest men of love may die ! Yet the beauty of her cheek and lips is the smallest part of Frances Coke's charms. As Lady Hatton's only child, she is heiress of Hatton House, of Corffe Castle, of Purbeck Isle. Coke privately offers this wealthy and blooming girl to Buckingham's mother as a wife for one of her pauper sons. A bargain is soon struck. Sir John Villiers is to take her, with twenty thousand pounds dower and a settlement of two thousand marks a year. Buckingham is to pardon all Coke's offences, and use his power to restore him to high place and confer on him high rank. To this huckstering Frances Coke is mxich averse, her mother still more averse. The young lady hates 9. Jonson's Gypsies Metamorphosed ; Sherborne to Carleton, Dec. 7, 1616, S. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 21, 1616; June 4, July 19, 1617, S. P. O. ; Winwood to Lake, May 27, 1617, S. P. O. FRANCES COKE. 249 Sir John, a man old enough to be her father, without xi. 9. person or talents, and poor as a church mouse. Her mother huffs at a contract made' at her expense, with- j u i y ' out her leave. That Coke should propose a scheme is enough to make her loathe it. But in such a scheme as this match with Sir John Villiers she has better grounds for hesitation than a woman's whim. She very justly fears the tenure of a favourite's place. Has she not witnessed Somerset's golden rise and stormy end? A twinge of gout, a saucy word, a prettier cheek, may turn the King's eye another way. What then? With Buckingham's fall may come down all his house. Even now sharp eyes are turned on the rising star of Lord Mordaunt. Some note how James of late has begun to ogle a youth named Coney. Bets are made that Buckingham's fortunes are on the wane. Lady Hatton will not hear of such a match for her only child. Hus- band and wife dispute and quarrel, as they have al- ways done over lesser things; and when the Lord Keeper and the Council, anxious for peace, interpose between them, it is only, as results soon prove, to pro- cure a reconciliation in which Coke tries to deceive Lady Hatton and Lady Hatton succeeds in deceiving Coke. Each plots to outwit the other; Coke bent on winning the good will of Buckingham; his wife on dis- posing of her daughter and her property as she herself thinks best. Each plays the spy, makes friends among the servants, gets up factions in the house. Her people take Lady Hatton's part, more because they scorn the penurious old curmudgeon than because they like his prodigal and imperious wife. She steals a march upon him while he sleeps. Putting her child into a coach at dead of night, she slips away 250 FRANCIS BACOX. xi. 9. to Oatlands, where she hides from pursuit in her cousin 1617. July. Sir Edward AVithipole's house. 1617. 10. These domestic broils occur while James and Buckingham are in the north: setting up organs in churches, wrangling over Kirk discipline, consecrating bishops in the land of Knox. The Lord Keeper is act- ing as a sort of regent. To him, therefore, in Council, Coke, when he has traced his wife and child, applies for wan-ants of arrest. Bacon refuses. Coke flies to Sir John's mother; his wicked wife, he tells this lady, has stolen his child, has poisoned her affections towards Sir John, and means to carry her into France to avoid the match with her ladyship's son. Her cupidity aroused, the great lady writes to com- mand the Lord Keeper to arm Coke with full powers of search and arrest. Bacon again refuses. What he feels it right to deny in one quarter, he has courage to deny in another; though aware that his duty may be represented as an insult to Villiers, as an usurpation to the King. His refusal to do wrong at her bidding transforms Lady Buckingham into a ruthless and inexorable foe. 11. Safe in the strength of his great patroness, Coke, defying the Lord Keeper and the Privy Council, arms a dozen of his servants, rides down .to Oatlands, runs a beam against Withipole's door, and, smashing into his wife's retreat, without warrant of arrest, with- 10. Council Reg., July 11, 14, 1617; James to Bacon, July 25, 1617, in Birch, 133. 11. Chamberlain to Carleton, July 19, 1617, S.P. O.; Gerard toCarleton July 22, 1617, S. P. O. ; Council Reg., July 14, 1617. LADY HATTON'S APPEAL AGAINST COKE. 251 out a constable, he seizes the fainting girl, tosses her XT. 11. into his coach, and hurries her away to Stoke. A universal howl pursues the perpetrator of this j u i y ! outrage on the public peace. The Council meet to consider this violation of domicile. As they are rising for the day, Lady Hatton raves to the door. How can they decline to see her? She is a woman and in dis- tress; she is of kin by blood or marriage to the Lord Keeper, to the Lord Treasurer, to half the Council; she is pleading in her right. When admitted to the Council chamber, she describes with consummate art the outrage she has suffered, the confinement of her daughter in a lonely house, her sickness to the point of death, and she implores the lords, as only mothers robbed of their children can implore, that the child may be sent for, that her story may be heard, that a physi- cian may see her lest she die. The Council grant her prayer. An officer of the court rides down to Stoke, takes the girl from her im- prisonment, and lodges her in town. 12. The Lord Keeper summons Coke to attend the July 21. Council and answer for this breach of the King's peace. With an insolence which his secret understand- ing with the favourite's kin makes safe for him, Coke declares that he has done his duty, that his wife meant to break the match with Sir John Villiers, that she would have carried his daughter away to France, that she herself traduced and set on her servants to traduce Sir John. Bacon, who may object to a marriage be- 12. Council Reg., July 21, 1617; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 4, 1617, S. P. O. ; Yelverton to Bacon, Sept. 3, 1617, Lambeth MSS. 936. 252 FRANCIS BACON. xi. 12. tween Frances Coke and Sir John Villiers a mar- riage projected for his own humiliation and for the re- jviiyzi. covery of power by the late Chief Justice feels, as one of the Commissioners governing the realm, the gravest objection to such acts as those of Coke. He replies, therefore, in the name of the Council, that Villiers, as a gentleman worthy of the young lady, would have sought her in a noble and religious fashion, not with a gang of armed men, in a midnight brawl, in contempt of natural and statute law. Yelverton, the Attorney-General, declares that the late Lord Chief Justice, in violating Withipole's house without warrant or constable, has grievously offended against the law. None of the Council, certainly not the Lord Keeper, has any wish to weigh upon the irascible old man; but when he fails to justify by wit- nesses any one allegation against his wife, they are compelled to file an information against him in the Star Chamber for breach of the peace, and allow his daughter the shelter of the Attorney-General's house. Coke shudders at this order for his appearance in the Star Chamber. Recently fined four thousand pounds in that court for taking bail of a pirate, he fears lest a second accusation should end in a second fine. He cannot count on either gratitude or wisdom in the Villiers people. These thriftless adventurers may think it safer to take his money than wait for the chance of obtaining his wife's broad lands. He finds it wiser to defer to the Privy Council. With a rancorous animosity in his heart towards Bacon, and with fiery rage against Yelverton, he bends so far as to undergo a pretended reconciliation with his wife. Bacon joyfully announces to the King that peace is made. COKE'S SUBMISSION. 253 13. A line of writers closing in Lord Campbell has xi. 13. represented Bacon as first selfishly striving to thwart the match; then, finding Buckingham bent on it, asjuiy 17 ^ plotting with Lady Hatton by underground and criminal practices to defeat it; next, after bearing with abject spirit the most provoking taunts and threats from the favourite, as meanly condescending to eat his words and to forward a match which he detested with. all his soul. The dates supplied by the Council Register cor- rect these errors. Bacon's first note to Buckingham on the match was dated July the twelfth, his first note to the King July the twenty-fifth. Before the earlier date, Lady Hatton and her daughter had run away, the ex- Chief Justice had broken into Withipole's house, the Council had met to consider his offence, and Clement Edmondes, their clerk, had taken charge of the girl. Before the later date, and before a single word had been heard from Buckingham in reply, Bacon had calmed the outrage, reconciled husband and wife, and restored Frances Coke to her father's house. 14. After all this had been done, he wrote to Buckingham and the King the reasons which, in his opinion, made a marriage between John Villiers and Frances Coke undesirable: the refusal of Lady Hatton to allow the match, the dependency of the young girl on her mother, the quarrelsome temper of the two parents, the notoriety and scandal of their domestic feuds, the disapproval of leading men in the Govern- ment, the recent disgrace of Coke, the divisions which 13. Bacon to Buckingham, July 12, 25, 1617 ; Bacon to James, July 25, 1617. 14. Vere to Carleton, Aug. 12, 1G17, S. P. O. ; Gerard to Carleton, Aug. 18, 1617, 8. P. O. 254 FRANCIS BACON". xi. u. n j s return to the Council would bring with it sage 1617 and honest reasons, which received the most prompt July, and signal justification from events. But Buckingham was blind. The King himself forbad Bacon to oppose the favourite's schemes of family aggrandisement. Un- able either to resist his Majesty's commands, or to close his eyes on the coming evil, he accepted the duty laid upon him by his sovereign, though not without a pro- test, saying: "For my Lord of Buckingham, I had rather go against his mind than against his good. Your Majesty I must obey." Oct. 15. Lady Hatton, on publishing a prior contract between her daughter and the young Lord Oxford, so as to taint with illegality the contract arranged between Coke and Lady Buckingham, was put into arrest, and the marriage of Sir John and Frances celebrated with regal pomp. It began in misery to end in shame. Lady Hatton resisted every persuasion to appear, nor was there a single member of the Cecil family present at the rite. James made the bridegroom Viscount Pur- beck; but he could not make the young bride love or respect a man to whom she had been sold. Coke was content. To the chagrin of the Lord Keeper, to the terror of Yelverton, he returned to the Privy Council a lawyer out of work the situation in which his enmity could oftenest wound and his activity oftenest thwart the detested rival who held the Seals. Expect- ing a coronet, Coke chose for himself the title of Lord Stoke. He believed, as all the world believed, that 15. Council Reg., Sept. 24, 1617; Obligations and Oaths of Frances Coke to become the Wife of Henry Vere, July 10, 1617, S. P. O. ; Gerard to Carleton, Aug. 18, 1617, S. P. O.; Herbert to Carleton, Oct. 6, 1617, S. P. O. ; Vere to Carleton, Oct. 20, 1617, S. P. O. QUARRELS OF THE PAKINGTONS. 255 his rise would be the signal for Bacon's fall; yet such xi. 15. were the suavity and zeal, the splendour and success of the new Lord Keeper such his popularity on the Oct.' bench and at Whitehall that, in spite of new scan- dals brought upon him and his family by Sir John and Lady Pakington, he was able to defy the malice of his enemies and to soar above every storm. 16. When her daughter's husband received the Great Seal, Lady Pakington supposed that her day of deliverance from Sir John was at hand. The lusty knight, who had sunk her rents in his brine-pits and fish-ponds, had now grown old, verging on seventy years of age, while she was still young and hale. But time, which slackened his thews, had left untamed his temper and his pride. The mother of a Lord Keeper's wife could siirely get justice done to her at last against the tyrant! She appealed to the law, and brought him before the Court of High Commission, where her cold easy manner told in her behalf, and his fluster and violence got him sent to jail and put under lock and mianl. To Bacon's deep mortification, and despite his strenuous efforts to avoid the case, this domestic broil was referred to him. Under trials of excessive difficulty and delicacy, he bore himself between husband and wife, in this miser- able stage, in a way to extort the praise of even those news-writers and gossips who were in other matters the harshest critics of his life. He told Lady Pakington she was in the wrong and that she ought to yield. He warned her against the hope of finding in him a lenient 16. Dom. Papers James the First, xcii. 88. ' 256 FRANCIS BACOX. xr. 16. judge so long as she followed her cold unbending course. Oct.' This is the testimony of an unfriendly hand: CHAMBERLAIN TO CARLETON. July 5, 1617. There be great wars betwixt Sir John and his lady, who sues him in the High Commission; where, by his own wilfulness, she hath some advantage of him and keeps him in prison. But the Lord Keeper deals very honourably in the matter, which, though he could not compound being referred to him, yet he carries himself so indifferently that he wishes her to yield, and tells her plainly and publicly that she must look for no countenance from him as long as she follows this course. 1618. 17 Notwithstanding these scandals and vexations JU1. in his own family, the Lord Keeper continued to rise in power, to expand in fame. In January, 1618, he attained the higher grade of Lord Chancellor. In July of the same year he became a Peer. His slanderers sank beneath his feet. No severity seemed to the Privy Council too great for those, however high in rank, who menaced his person or disputed his justice. For a saucy word they sent Lord Clifton to the Fleet: for a complaint against one of his verdicts they com- mitted Lady Ann Blount to the Marshalsea. In 1620 he published his Novum Organum a book which had in it the germs of more power and good to man than 17. Council Reg., Dec. 30, 1617, Mar. 17, 27, 1618; Grant Book, 241, 283; Herbert to Carleton, Dec. 30, 1617, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carle- ton, Feb. 3, 1621, S. P. O. HEIGHT OF HIS FAME. 257 any other work not of Divine authorship in the world, xi. IT. He was now at the height of earthly fame. First lay- man in his own country, first philosopher in Europe, Jan.' what was wanting to his felicity? Neither power, nor popularity, nor titles, nor love, nor fame, nor obedience, nor troops of friends. All these he had no man in greater fulness. If his heart had other longings, he 1G20< had only to express his wish. In January, 1621, hej 162 *- received the title of Viscount St. Albans, in a form of peculiar honour other Peers being created by letters- patent, he by investiture with the coronet and robe. 18. Yet, only seven months after printing the Greatest Birth of Time, only three- months after re- ceiving in the King's presence the robe and coronet, he was stripped of his honours, degraded from his great place, condemned to an enormous fine, and flung into the Tower. The tale of this fall is the most strange and sad in the whole history of man. 18. Lords' Jour., iii. 105. l.uni /;,;eJH. 17 258 FRANCIS BACON. CHAPTER XII. Fees. XH. i. 1. To see why the threat of prosecution so deeply disturbed Egerton, and how easy it was for un- jan! scrupulous men to frame a charge of corruption against his successor, a reader who is not a lawyer should re- mind himself of the state of society in the days of James the First. There was no civil list. Few men in the court or in the Church received salaries from the Crown; and each had to keep his state and make his fortune out of fees and gifts. The King took fees. The archbishop, the bishop, the rural dean took fees. The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the Baron of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Attorney-General, the So- licitor-General, the King's Serjeant, the utter barrister, all the functionaries of law and justice, took fees. So in the great offices of state. The Lord Treasurer took fees. The Lord Admiral took fees. The Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Master of the Wards, the Warden of the Cinque Ports, the gen- tlemen of the Bedchamber, all took fees. Everybody took fees, everybody paid fees. 2. In some public offices and courts the amount to be paid was fixed, either by ancient usage or by such a common understanding as in modern times controls a railway or steamboat fare. In some, particularly in the courts of justice, it was open. Bassanio might present his ducats ; three thousand in a bag. The judge might only UNIVERSALITY OF FEES. 259 take a ring. A fee was due whenever an act was done. xn. 2. The occasions on which, by ancient usage of the realm, the King claimed help or fine were many: the sealing of j a n.' an office or a grant the knighting of his son the marriage of his daughter the alienation of lands in capite his birthday New Year's Day the anni- versary of his accession or his coronation; indeed, at all times when he wanted money and could find men rich enough and loyal enough to pay. In like manner the clergy levied tithe and toll; fees on christenings, fees on churchings, fees on marriages, fees on interments; Easter offerings, free offerings; charities, church repa- rations, church extensions, pews, and rents. In the government offices it was the same as in the palace and the church. If the Attorney-General, the Secretary of State, the Lord- Admiral, or the Privy Seal put his signature to a sheet of paper, he took his fee. Often it was his means of life. To wit, the retaining fee paid by the King to Cecil, as premier Secretary of State, was a hundred pounds a-year. But the fees from other sources were enormous. These fees were not bribes. 3. The same at the Bar and on the Bench. The Bar is a free profession: a member of the Temple or of Lincoln's Inn being bound to plead, as the knights whose swords are rust were bound to fight, in love and faith, taking no purse nor scrip. It is an order of courtesy and chivalry; its members the soldiers of jus- tice, pledged to protect the weak, to help the needy, to defend the right. Now, all this service is by law and usage free. A barrister may not ask wages for his toil, like an attorney or a clerk, nor can he reclaim by any process of law, as the clerk and the attorney 17* 260 FRANCIS BACON. xn. 3. can, the value of his time and speech. If he lives on the gifts of grateful clients, these gifts must be per- jan.' fectly free. This theory of a counsel's hire, though old as our language and our institutions, is of course a sham. No junior 011 the Oxford circuit dreams of succouring damsels from love of Dulcinea, or freeing galley-slaves from the obligations of knighthood. No guineas, no speech. The shifts by which lax attorneys are tickled into passing the fees which no law compels them to pay are droll as anything in the immortal laws of Barataria. 4. Now, the rules which continue under Victoria to govern the Bar, under James the First governed the Bench. The Lord Chief Justice or the Lord Chan- cellor, like the Secretary of State, was paid by fees. The King's judge was neither in deed nor in name a public servant: he received a nominal sum as standing counsel for the Crown; and for the rest he depended on the in- come arising from his hearing of private causes. These facts appear in a comparison of the amounts paid by the Crown to its great legal functionaries, with the es- timated profits of each particular post. Thus, the Seals, though the Lord Chancellor had no proper salary, were in Egeilon's time worth from ten to fifteen thou- sand pounds a-year. Bacon valued his place as At- torney-General at six thousand a-year; of which princely sum (twenty-five thousand a-year in coin of Victoria) the King paid him only eighty-one pounds six shillings and eight pence. Yelverton's place of Solicitor brought him three or four thousand a-year, of which he got seventy pounds from James. The judges had enough to buy their gloves and robes, not more. Coke, when FEES NOT BRIBES. 261 Lord Chief Justice of England, drew from the State xtr. 4. twelve farthings less than two hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year. When travelling circuit, he was al- !j an .' lowed thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight pence for his expenses. Hobart, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, had twelve farthings less than one hundred and ninety-five pounds a-year; Tanfield, Lord Chief Baron of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer, one hundred and eighty-eight pounds six shillings a-year. Yet each of these great lawyers had given up a lucrative practice at the Bar. After their promotion to the Bench, they lived in good houses, kept a princely state, gave din- ners and masques, made presents to the King, accu- mulated goods and lands. Their wages were paid in fees by those who resorted for justice to their courts. 5. These fees were not bribes. If the satirists, from Latimer to Nashe, described the Bench of Bishops and the Bench of Judges as taking bribes, it was only in the vein common to lampooners in every age of the world-, the vein in which Boccaccio describes his Friars, and Jonson his Justice Overdos. Serious men made no complaint. Judicial corruption was not a grievance in 1604. In 1606 an attempt to reduce the fees in one department of Chancery business was rejected by the popular party in the House of Commons. In the Great List of Grievances, drawn up in 1604, we find complaints that Cecil lives in adultery, that Parliament is packed with courtiers, that the Forest Laws have been revived, that pardons are sold to cut- throats and felons, that monopolies are granted to duns, and patents bestowed on extortioners and pimps; 5. Dora. Papers James First, i. 68, S. P. O. 262 FRANCIS BACON. xii. 5. not that the great lawyers are thought corrupt, or that justice is supposed to be bought and sold. Jala! Nor was such a grievance felt though undescribed. In the List of Grievances there is one charge against the Lord Chancellor Egerton. Had there been a se- cond, it would certainly have been named. In 1604 the charge which law reformers made against Egerton was that he held the two offices of Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seals. It never occurred to these men to complain that he took his wages in the shape of fees. 1 6. In 1606 a bill was laid before the Commons, by a disappointed jobber, to reduce some of the fees for copies in the Court of Eecord. In the debates on this bill Bacon assumed a leading part. The argument of counsel was against the interference of Parliament, in the unfair fashion of the bill, with what Bacon called the freeholds of the officers in that Court. The notes of his speech, which are in the Bodleian Library, and have not been printed, put the case as it appeared to the best minds in England in 1606, a year before he held any office under the Crown. Bacon showed that the bill to reduce the fees for copies originated in a spirit, not of reform, but of revenge; that a similar bill had, in years gone by, been promptly rejected by the House; that such a law to cut down fees was un- precedented; that the bill was retroactive, against all law and justice; that a man's right in his fees was sacred as his right in his goods and lands. Remember- ing all that is to follow, with how much curiosity one reads these nineteen heads of a discourse against the bill! 6. Tanner MSS. 169, fol. 42; Com. Jour., i. 259, 268, 279. SPEECH ON FEES FOR COPIES. 263 SIR FRANCIS BACON'S SPEECH. xn. 6. First: It hath sprung out of the ashes of a decayed 1620. monopoly by the spleen of one man; that, because he Jan - could not continue his new exactions, therefore would now pull down ancient fees. Second: It knows the way out of the House; for in the xxxv Eliz. the like bill was preferred, and much called upon at the first, and rejected at the engross- ment, not having twenty voices for it. Third: It is without all precedent; for look into former laws and you shall find that, when a statute enacts a new office or acts to be done, it limits fees, as in case of enrolment, in case of administration, &c., but it never limits ancient fees to take away other men's freeholds. Fourth: It looks extremely back, which is against all justice of Parliament, for a number of subjects are already placed in offices: some attaining them in course of long service ; some in consideration of great sums of money; some in reward of service from the Crown, when they might have had other suits and such offices again allied with a number of other subjects, who va- lued them according to their offices. Now, if half these men's livelihoods and fortunes should be taken from them, it were an infinite injustice. Fifth: It were more justice to raise the fees than to abate them, for we see gentlemen have raised their rents and the fines of their tenants, and merchants, tradesmen, and farmers their commodities and wares; and this mightily within c. years. But the fees of of- fices continue at one rate. Sixth: If it be said the number of fees is much in- 264 FRANCIS BACOX. xii. e. creased because causes are increased, that is a benefit which time gives and time takes away. It is no more Jan. than if there were an ancient toll at some bridge be- tween Berwick and London, and now it should be brought down because that, Scotland being united, there were more passengers. Seventh: Causes may again decrease, as they do already begin; and therefore, as men must endure the prejudice of time, so they ought again to enjoy benefit of time. Eighth: Men are not to consider the proportion be- tween the fee and the pains taken, as if it were in a scrivener's shop, because in the copies (being the prin- cipal gain of the officer) was considered ab antique his charge, his attendance, his former labours to make him fit for the place, his countenance and quality in the commonwealth, and the like. Ninth: The officers do many things sans fee, as in causes in forma pauperis, and for the King, &c., which is considered in the fees of copies. Tenth: There is 4 great labour of mind in many cases, as in the entering of orders, and in all examina- tions. All which is only considered in the copies. Eleventh: These offices are either the gift of the King or in the gift of great officers, who have their office from the King, so as the King is disinherited of his ancient rights and means to prefer servants, and the great offices of the kingdom likewise disgraced and impaired. Twelfth: There is a great confusion and inequality in the bill, for the copies in inferior courts, as for ex- ample the Court of the Marches, the Court of the North (being inferior courts), are left in as good case as they SPEECH ON FEES FOR COPIES. 265 were, and high courts of the kingdom only abridged, xu. fi. whereas there was ever a diversity half in half in all fees, as Chancellor's clerks and all others. Jan.' Thirteenth: If fees be abridged as too great, they ought to be abridged as well in other points as in copies, and as well in other offices as in offices towards the law. For now prothonotories shall have their old fees for engrossing upon the roll and the like, and only the copies shall be abridged- whereas, if it be well ex- amined, the copies are of all fees the most reasonable; and so of other offices,. as customs, searchers, mayors, bailiffs, &c., which have many ancient fees incident to their offices, which all may be called in question upon the like or better reason. Fourteenth: The suggestion of the bill is utterly false, which in all law is odious. For it suggesteth that these fees have of late years been exacted, which is utterly untrue, having been time out of mind and being men's freehold, whereof they may have an as- size, so as the Parliament may as well take any man's lands, common means, &c., as these fees. Fifteenth: It casts a slander upon all superior judges, as if they had tolerated extortions, whereas there have been severe and strict courses taken, and that of late, for the distinguishing of lawful fees from new exactions, and fees reduced into tables, and they published and hanged up in courts, that the subjects be not poled nor aggrieved. Sixteenth: The law (if it were just) ought to enter into an examination and distinction what were rightful and ancient fees and what were upstart fees and en- croachments, whereas now it sweeps them all away without difference. 266 FRANCIS BACOK. xii. 6. Seventeenth: It requires an impossibility, setting men to spell again how many syllables be in a line, jan* and puts the penalty of xxs. for every line faulty, which is xviii /. a sheet. And the superior officers must answer it for clerks' faults, or oversight. Eighteenth: It doth disgrace superior judges in court, to whom it properly belongeth to correct those misdemeanours according to their oaths and according to discretion, because it is impossible to reduce it to a definite rule. Nineteenth: This being a penal law, it seems there is but some commodity sought for, that some that could not continue their first monopoly might make them- selves whole out of some penalties. Bacon's arguments prevailed. A committee being named to report on the bill, they reported against it, and the bill was laid asleep. 7. A few years later, mainly through the speeches and the writings of Bacon himself, a feeling began to show itself against the payment of judges, registrar-. and clerks by uncertain fees. Each new Parliament saw the subject stirred. In the sessions of 1610 and 1614 bills were introduced and dropped. But the ar- gument for a great and just change of the old system grew under debate. The business of the courts of law in- creased daily, and the private causes had long ago become more numerous and important than the King's causes. A plan, therefore, which might have done very well under Edward or Henry, might be a very great evil under James. An unpaid Bench, though all that 7. Com. Jour., i. 427, 4.83. DESIRE TO CHAXGE THE SYSTEM. 20 7 society wished for its defence under feudal or Brehon xn. 7. law, might obviously become a dangerous power in a highly artificial and litigious age. Such was the rea- j a u.' soning of many wise men. Not that justice was less purely dispensed under Bacon than of yore-, the re- verse was a conspicuous fact. The improvement had been slow and safe. Hatton danced through his duties with more credit than Bromley; Puckering surpassed Hat- ton, and Egerton eclipsed Puckering. The last Chan- cellor of all was the best; in character as in intellect Bacon topped the list. A desire to change the fee system was not the child of discontent, but of growth. Under Edward or Richard the Commons would have refused a salary to the judge; for a magnificently paid Bench would have seemed, and probably would have behaved, as the ministers of a despotic prince, eager only for their master's work, contemptuous of the intrusion of private causes, callous to the concerns of common men. The profits from private suits quickened the stream of justice; helped to maintain the independence of the upright judge. Yet many men saw that a time must come, some think it had come, when, through the growth of riches and the purification of law, the system of various and precarious fees might be wisely abandoned for a system of payments by the State. 8. An old lawyer like Coke knew how to turn this war between an old system and a new sentiment to ac- count. Time had neither cured his jealousy of Bacon nor cooled his resentment towards Yelverton. If the 8. Harwood to Carleton, Feb. 6, 1C19, S. P. O.; Brent 1o Carleton, May 29, 1619, S. P. O. ; Nethersole to Carleton, Jan. 18, 1620, S. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 14, 1621, S. P. O. ; Sign Man., Nos. 44, 53. 268 FRANCIS BACON. XIT. 8. alliance with Buckingham had not yet brought him the ~~ Mace and Seals, nor even the barony of Stoke, it had Jan. given him the favourite's mother for a friend. Lady Buckingham was busy for her kin; her son John married and made a peer, she wanted an heiress for her son Christopher, two or three rich husbands for her penni- less nieces, a suitor, may be, for herself. A wife for Kit she could buy with honours, just as she bought Frances Coke for John. But husbands for her nieces, men of high rank and wealth, she could only tempt into the noose with offices and power. She bought Sir Lionel Cranfield up for one niece. For another she fixed her eye on James Ley, the rich Attorney of the Court of Wards. Cranfield's wooing had been comic as a play. Falling in love with Lady Effingham, he proposed to her, and was about to marry her, when the news reached Lady Buckingham, who instantly warned her miserable dependent that if he hoped to thrive at court he must give up Lady Effingham, and marry a young person who was certainly poor in purse, but rich enough for two in friends. Cranfield took the wife offered to him, with a seat at the Privy Council, and a promise of one of the highest places in the sovereign's gift. To lure him on, James Ley was made a baronet, and a special act under the Sign Manual remitted to him the usual fees for the escutcheon of the bloody hand. These promotions, moreover, were but stepping- stones to place. What great offices could be got? 9. A beginning had been already made with the White Staff. 9. Proceedings against the Earl of Suffolk, Nov. 13, 1619, S. P. O. ] SUFFOLK RUINED YELVERTOfl's CASE. 269 Suffolk was unpopular. As the father of Lady Somer- xn. 9. set, an avowed Roman Catholic, a suspected pensioner of Spain, he was hated while in power with such bit- j an .' terness of hate, that when Buckingham's tools charged him with extortion, false dealing, bribery, and em- bezzlement, to none of which accusations he lay fairly open, no one felt either surprise or pity at the fate of this pernicious peer; and when the Court of Star Chamber, with the pretended proofs of his guilt before it, deprived him of the Staff, fined him thirty thousand pounds, and flung him during pleasure into the Tower, the whole country, which knew him to be a Papist and believed him to be a spy, felt the sentence which de- prived him of power to do harm run through its veins a shock of joy. 10. The profits of this transaction only kindled the June. greed for more. Yelverton's turn came next. If not a Puritan in religion, Sir Henry Yelvei-ton had generally spoken and voted with the Puritan party. A man of good parts and unbending character, he had lived on friendly terms with Bacon, with whom he kept his terms at Gray's Inn and served in the House , of Commons. His popularity in the House, like the popularity of Bacon, kept him out of office. In the de- bates, for many years, his name stood side by side with that of Bacon, with whom he spoke for the sub- sidies and for the Union. The same breeze of favour brought them both into power. When Bacon became Attorney-General he used his influence to procure the Solicitorship for Yelverton. Since then they had acted 10. Bacon's Notes, Lambeth MSS. 9SC, fol. 133; Chamberlain to Carle- ton, June 28, 1620, S. P. O.; Arcb.-eologia, xv. 27. 270 FRAXCIfJ BACON. xn. to. constantly together, most of all so in the effort to pre- ~~ vent Frances Coke from being forced to marry a man June, she could not love. Buckingham and the faction of Buckingham had never liked Yelverton. They were unable to forget the circumstances of his rise, to forgive the obstinacy of his demeanour, or endure the way in which he has exercised towards them his power. When Bacon got the Seals, Sir James Ley, who wanted to succeed him as Attorney, offered to pay Buckingham ten thousand pounds for the post. Lady Buckingham supported the lover of her niece; but the King, when he put the Seals into Bacon's hands, him- self passed the patent of office to Yelverton; who re- fused to contract an obligation to Villiers, though urged by Archbishop Abbott and the Duke of Lenox to con- ciliate the chief authority in the bedchamber and the closet. Yelverton's offences were that he had been very manly, and that he occupied a very high post. 11. Unhappily, in the exercise of powers not well defined, he had given an advantage to his hot and un- scrupulous enemy Coke. A new charter had been lately passed to the city of London, with clauses favourable to the citizens, which Coke had no trouble in persua- ding James trenched on the prerogatives of his Crown. It was not pretended that Yelverton took money for insert- ing these clauses, though it was admitted for the defence that in putting them into the charter he went beyond his powers. The city surrendered its charter, and Sir Henry submitted his error to the King's judgment. 11. L,ambeth MSS. 936, fol. 133; Yelverton's Speech in the Star Chamber, Oct. 27. 1620; Speech in the Same Court, Nov. 10, 1620, 8. P. O. ; Locke to Carleton, Nov. 11, 1620, S. P. 0. ; Dom. Papers, cxvli. 76. SENTENCE ON YELVERTON. 271 Such a course suited neither Buckingham nor Coke, xn. 11. who wanted his fine and the profits on his place. Bid- 1(>2() ders for the post of Attorney-General crowded the j wn o'. favorite's dressing-room. Cited into the Star Cham- ber, over which Bacon, as Lord Chancellor, presided, Yelverton admitted his indiscretion, and threw himself on the King's mercy: Bacon, who could not deny his fault, essayed to soften his judges. Notes for his speech, written in his own hand, remain at Lambeth Palace. They stand as under: BACON'S NOTES ON YELVERTON'S CASE. "Sony for the person, being a gentleman that I lived with in Gray's Inn, served with when I was At- torney, joined with since in many services, and one that ever gave me more attributes in public than I de- served; and, besides, a man of very good parts, which with me is friendship at first sight, much more joined with an ancient acquaintance. But, as a judge, I hold the offence very great, and that without pressing mea- sure; upon which I will only make a few observations, and so leave it. First, I observe the danger and con- sequence of the offence; for if it be suffered that the Learned Counsel shall practise the art of multiplication upon their warrants, the Crown will be destroyed in small time. The Great Seal, the Privy Seal, Signet, NOV. 10. are solemn things, but they follow the King's hand. It is the bill drawn by the Learned Counsel that leads the King's hand. Next, I note the nature of the de- fence; as, first, that it was' error in judgment. For this, surely, if the offence were small though clear, or great but doubtful, I could hardly sentence it. For it is hard to draw a straight line by steadiness of hand, but it 272 FRANCIS BACON. xii. 11. could not be the swerving of the hand. And herein I note the wisdom of the law of England, which termeth KOV. io. the highest contempts and excesses of authority mis- prisions, which (if you take the sound and derivation of the word) is but mistaken. But if you take the use and acceptation of the word, it is high and heinous contempt and usurpation of authority. Whereof the reason I take to be, and the same excellently imposed, for that main mistaking it is ever joined with con- tempt; for he that reveres will not easily mistake; but he that slights and thinks of the greatness of his place more than of the duty of his place will soon commit misprisions." The trial occupied three days', Coke, who sat the lowest of the councillors, spoke the first, demanding from the Court a sentence of imprisonment for life and a fine of six thousand pounds. Even the judges of the Star Chamber could not go his length. They condemned Yelverton to a fine of four thousand pounds. Dec. 12. Two great offices, the Treasury and the At- torney-Generalship, were now for sale. Buyers crowded in; for this system of ruining men in order to vend their posts was new, and no one yet perceived that the purchase of a great office was to be in future the first step towards destruction. Montagu bid for the Staff; and as the purchase, if made, would cause him to leave the King's Bench, Lady Buckingham promoted his suit, that she might raise Sir James Ley to the rank of Chief Justice and marry him to her pauper niece. On going down to Newmarket to see the King, Montagu called to 12. Apophthegms in Resuscitatio, 42; Locke to Carleton, Dec. 2, 1C20, S. P. O. SIR LIONEL CRANFIELD. 273 tell Bacon that he hoped to bring back with him the Staff, xn. 12. "Take heed what you do, my .Lord," says the Chan- cellor; "wood is dearer at Newmarket than at any De c.' other place in England." The Treasury, with the title of Mandeville, cost Sir Henry Montagu no less than twenty thousand pounds. 13. Coventiy bought the Attorney's office, and Heath Dec. 19. became Solicitor in his place. At both ends Bucking- ham made his profit. Not to speak of present bribes, he so arranged the game that these two removals brought him, or saved him, eight hundred pounds a-year. Lady Buckingham presented the King's Bench to Ley. These profits and promotions only edged the tooth for more. 14. In the crowd of able and unscrupulous men who waited in the ante-room of Villiers, and who built their fortunes on him, there was none more able or more unscrupulous than Sir Lionel Cranfield. He had risen from the grade of a London apprentice, through the useful and unclean offices of a receiver, a contractor, and a surveyor of public income, to the rank of a Knight, a member of Parliament, and a Master of Re- quests, before he got introduced to the Villiers gang. His life, indeed, had been a study of safe and decorous villany. He got his first step by making love to his master's daughter; he grew rich by cheating the customs; 13. Woodford to Nethersole, Feb. 2, Ifi21, S. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 3, 1621, 8. P. O. 14. DoqueU, April 1, 1605, Dec. 20, 1607, May 31, 1610; Sign Manuals, No. 49; Minute, Undated Papers of 1607, xxviii. 81; Northampton to Lake, Aug. 12, 1612, S. P. O. ; Winwood to Lake, Mar. 29, 1617, S. P. O.; Brent to Carleton , Jan. 31 , 1618, May 29. 1619, 8. P. O. ; Nethersole to Carleton, Jan. 18, 1620, S. P. O. Lord Bacon. 18 274 FRANCIS BACOX. xn. u. he won notice from the Council by telling them how to squeeze rich aldermen while lightening the load on Ifi20 D ec .' such poor devils as himself; he secured the protection of Lord Northampton by a bribe of land which was not his own; he pleased the King by a plan for jobbing away the Crown lands on a more extensive scale; he fixed himself on Buckingham by betraying to him, or to his cause, his first patrons the Howards. Cranfield was the chief instrument in denouncing Suffolk and placing the Staff in Buckingham's hands for sale. To reward this service, Suffolk's son-in-law, Viscount Wal- lingford, was compelled by threats of prosecution, fine, and ruin, to surrender to Cranfield the Court of Wards. Only a villain of stony heart and brazen cheek could have either done this deed or taken this reward; for these Howards whom he betrayed and spoiled were the very men who had brought him into notice, presented him at court, and procured for him a seat in the House of Commons. But, in truth, there was no act of turpitude, short of the vulgar crimes for which men are hung, at which Cranfield, when his interests call, would stop. 15. Bishop Goodman, who knew him well and who has left a defence of him, such as it is, confesses for him to more dubious conduct and to more safe rascali- ties than would have blasted the credit of ten ordinary men. Courting the society of wits and scholars, pre- tending to wit himself, he had no true knowledge of letters, no true sympathy for such weak fry as poets and playwrights. Pelf was his god. His greed of money was a brisk passion, and he had a perfect familiarity with 15. Goodman, i. 295-308; Coryat's Description of a Philosophical Feast, Com. Papers, Ixvi. 2, S. P. O ; Great Book 337. JOHN WILLIAMS. 275 the crooked ways in which money may be got. NOXII. is. rogue could deceive Cranfield. "Tush, man!" he would ifiSQ say, "I was bred in the city." To pull down judges Dec.' and councillors for his own advancement and for his patron's gain, was the task to which he had now devoted a busy and teeming brain. Since his marriage with Lady Buckingham's niece he had been suffered to mulct and plunder at his ease; and though some of his vic- tims, mad with their losses, threatened to cut his throat, the audacious speculator in human roguery held his course as though there were no retribution for injustice, either in this world or in the next. Among other enter- Dec. 22. prises of doubtful credit, he procured from the crown, on payment of a thousand pounds a year, a considerable share of those fines in chancery which Bacon, fourteen years ago, had described as the freehold of the officers who held them; a fraudulent concession, which not only brought Sir Lionel into personal conflict with the Lord Chancellor, but gave him a right of meddling in the Court and a means of corrupting the solicitors and clerks. A loftier vista opened to his sight; the Staff and the peerage seemed within his reach; but he could only grasp them by the help of that powerful and vindictive woman to Avhom he lately owed the pleasant alternative of destruction or a wife. 16. This great lady, if old enough to have grand- children, was not, in her own belief, too old to have a lover; and one more subtle than a serpent was at her side. John Williams was the chaplain to Egerton when 10. Bonnets, Nov. 5, 1C19; Weldon, 127, 130; Speaker's Note, Feb. C, ICL'l, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 20, IC.'O, S. P. O. 18* 276 FRANCIS BACON. xn. 16. Egerton held the Seals; but while blessing his master's meat and wine, he kept an eye on business; and when D. ' Bacon, coming to York House, offered to continue him in his post, the divine refused, having begun to dream of Recovering the custody of the Great Seal from the lawyers to the churchmen. In the face of candidates like Bacon, Montagu, and Coke, such a hope would seem to most men vain; not so to one versed in the arts by which a low order of monks and priests have in all ages striven to enslave the world. He made court to Buckingham's mother; convinced that no woman is insensible to the flatteries of love, least of all an ambitious woman, greedy for pleasure, and past her prime. "When he had interested her passions in his career, his fight was well nigh won. She put him in the way to rise. She recommended him to her son ; so shaping his course that, as either Lord Chancellor or as Archbishop of Canterbury, he might soon appear to the world in rank and power a husband less un- worthy of herself. Buckingham found in Williams a divine of easy virtue and specious talents; who never prated to him about reform, who paid no homage to the primate, who detested the House of Commons with all his soul. At a word from his new mistress or from her son, Williams would not have scrupled to send his archbishop to the Fleet, or to resist and insult the whole Puritan parlia- ment. A man capable of rising through an old woman's folly and a young man's vices had not been slow to rise. The needy chaplain became Dean of Salisbury and Dean of Westminster. He was to have the first mitre that fell into the King's gift. If Bacon could be ruined, he was to have the Seals. THE CONFEDERACY AGAINST BACON. 277 17. To three such schemers as an old Chief Justice, xn. 17. a Master of the Court of Wards, and an ex-chaplain to the Lord Chancellor, urged by the sharpest passions ofi )ec . ^>. cupidity and revenge, and backed by the whole tribe of Villiers, an accusation against the holder of the Seals was easy enough to frame. The courts of law were full of abuses. The highest officer of the realm had no salary from the state. Custom imposed on him a host of ser- vants; officers of his court and of his household; mas- ters, secretaries, ushers, clerks, receivers, porters, none of whom received a mark a year from the Crown; men who had bought their places, and who were paid, as he himself was paid, in fees and fines. The amounts of half these fees were left to chance, to the hope or gra- titude of the suitor, often to the cupidity of the servant or the length of the suitor's purse. The certain fines of Chancery, as subsequent inquiries showed, were only thirteen hundred pounds a-year, the fluctuating fines still less; beyond which beggarly sum the great establish- ments of the Lord Chancellor, his court, his household, and his followers, gentlemen of quality, sons of peers and prelates, magistrates, deputy-lieutenants of coun- ties, knights of the shire, had all to live on fees and presents. These fees were paid into court, or ought to have been paid into court, after hearing of the cause and judgment given. For a judge to accept, or permit his officers to accept, any present pendente lite, was irregular in point of form , though no act of Parliament and no decision of the bench had ever pronounced it contrary to the law. But when the cause had been 17. Gerard to Carleton, May 9, 1617, S.P.O. ; Chamberlain toCarleton, May 10, 1C17, S. P. O.; Proposals concerning the Chancery. 1050; Council Reg., Sept. 28, 1622. 278 FRANCIS BACON. xri. IT. heard and judgment entered, a fee was due to the court. When was this fee due? Obviously, after the 1> earing on De^. 22. each stage of the cause. It was so, not only in the common practice of the time, but in the very nature of the business done. A Chancery suit might drag for fifty years, begin under one Chancellor, proceed under a second, terminate under a third or fourth. Those officers of the court who helped its commencement might all be dead before it came to a close. Clearly, therefore, when the court was wholly maintained by fees, the time for payment of these fees could no more be postponed until the absolute termination of the suit, than could the time for paying the ordinary fees of counsel and their clerks. For purposes of such pay- ments each separate hearing was a separate case-, when each hearing had been accomplished, the client owed a fee to the court just as he owed a fee to his ad- vocate. But, then, who could say with certainty when even a separate stage in a Chancery suit was at an end? A point might appear to have been settled, the judge and counsel agreed, the judgment delivered, the decree entered up, the fees all paid, yet the client, as in Lady Wharton's case, might run off from the con- clusion, or some minor question, as in Ralph Hansby's case , might bring the same people into court again. In such a case, it was obviously possible, though only dishonestly possible, to construe the fees already paid into court as having been, received pendente lite. A charge of actual judicial corruption, if made at all, would have to be sustained by regular evidence, (1) that there had been perversion of justice, (2) that this perver- sion had been corrupt, (3) that the Chancellor had taken bribes. Not one of these points could be proved. JOHN CHURCHILL. 279 Yet something might be done on the minor accu- xn. 17. sat ion of a breach of form. The causes heard in Chancery were many; five or six hundred in every Dec. 22. term; so that no Lord Chancellor could remember the name of every suitor in his court or the precise stage of every suit. Such details must be left to the suitors themselves and to the registrars and clerks. The ser- vants were not all honest; some of them were flagitious rogues. The Chancellor had not of his own will taken them into his service, nor could he turn them out of it; for their places were their freeholds. If only two or three of these officers of the court could be frightened or seduced into turning against their lord, a blow might assuredly be struck at him, for among thousands of suitors, all of whom must have paid fees into the court, half of whom must be smarting under the pangs of a lost cause, it would be strange indeed if cunning, ma- lice, and unscrupulous power combined, could not find some charge that might be tortured into the appearance of a wrong. 18. They found a fitting instrument for this nefarious search in John Churchill, a wretch whose days had been spent in the most sordid tricks and chicaneries of law. His father was a defaulter in the Court of Wards, he himself was early in life concerned in a most in- famous fraud. Ten years before he lent his services to the enemies of Lord St. Albans, he sold to Sir John Bourchier for a thousand pounds down and eighty 18. Grant Book, 62; Crump to Churchill, April 14, 1605, S. P. O. ; Acton to Churchill, April 14, 1605, S. P. O.; Mabel to Churchill, Aug. 28, 1605. S. P. O. ; Ellis Churchill to Churchill, Aug. 29, Sept. 19, 20, Oct. 3, 1605, S. P. O. ; Bourchier to Cecil, June 16, 1611, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 24, 1621, S. P. O. 280 FRANCIS BACON. xii. is. pounds a-year for life a manor which Bourchier found that he had previously conveyed to his two uncles for Dec. twenty shillings. Bacon, who found this rascal occupying the place of Registrar in the Court of Chancery, detecting him in an act of forgery and extortion, turned him into the street. Broken for his bad faith, liable to punishment for his fraud, sore against his superior, Churchill was just the man for Williams and Coke. Familiar with the court and with its clients, every vicious witness, every mad- dened loser, every knave who had been exposed, every dupe who had been hurt, were known to him by name and sight. A promise of protection from the law, with a restoration to his place on Bacon's fall, sharpened at once his greed and his hate. He hunted among the victims of Chancery law. Every one who had a grie- vance, or who fancied he had a grievance, against the Lord Chancellor, he persuaded or compelled to set down his wrongs. 19. This inquiry was not new. Since the day on which Bacon took the Seals from the King's own hand without paying down fee or present to the favourite, Coke, aware that some of the hungry Villiers clan would sooner or later begin to crave the profits they had then missed, had been scoring complaints against him. The list was not black; a want of loyalty for Buckingham's person and of zeal for his kindred being the perilous offences laid to his charge. Ere Bacon had got warm in office, the draft of an accusation, as he learnt from Yelverton, had been drawn against him, 19. Yelverton to Bacon in Book 138; Lords' Journ., iii. 51. 105; Pro- ceedings &c. Mai-. 17, 19, 1621 ; Domestic Papers, cxx. 38. ,THE CHANCERY CLERKS. 281 ready to be laid before the Bang, should that unstable xn. 19. politician show any signs of tiring of his magnificent councillor. Years had passed and his majesty had made r>'e C .' no sign. But now that Lady Buckingham had begun to crave the Seals for her friend, her partisans in the Privy Council, sure of a staunch ally in her son, began to prostitute the powers of the government and even the functions of the magistracy in order to swell their case. No road was too dirty, no associate too vile for them. They sought confederates in the kennels and in the jails; they stooped to the ineffable ignominy of corrupting and seducing the servants of the Chancellor's court. Some of his clerks they found too honest for their pay; but men of Cranfield's stamp are not to be abashed by the remonstrant virtue of inferiors; and if Edward Sherbome rejected all temptation to turn against his master, John Hunt, Richard Keeling and Bevis Thetwall, three of the receivers and solicitors of the court, succumbed to the temptation and put themselves on the winning side. These men sold themselves to the Lord Chancellor's enemies, like their discarded fellow, Churchill, and consented to urge against him the con- sequences of their own irregularities or crimes. 20. Among the underlings in the Royal Household, men whose fortunes a word from Buckingham might make a blast, one- was found in the stables, one in the jails, who was willing to earn promotion, or to secure protection, by the vilest service. Churchill, Hunt and Keeling, with the entry books of Chancery in their hands, could only help the confederates to a single S 20. Domestic Papers, xiii. 20, S. P. O. ; Sign Manuals iv. No. 7; Grant Book, 302. 282 FRANCIS BACON. xir. 20. case in which there lurked even a faint suspicion of a fee having been received prndente lite; that of Lady Dec. Wharton; a case in which Churchill and Keeling had been the Lady's legal advisers; and in which Churchill was suspected of having made a fraudulent entry in the book. Such a case could hardly be produced at all; certainly not while it stood alone. Ralph Hansby and Sir George Reynell were able to supply two other cases more or less suspicious. Hansby, Surveyor of the stables, had been, when Bacon got the Seal, an obscure hanger-on to the skirts of pages and bedchamber men; picking up any stray crumbs that might fall from the overflowing feast; any small bit of sheep walk or pasturage, not worth a fine gentleman's notice, which might be going for a song. By thrift and cunning he had grown rich. Soon after Bacon got the Seals, he had filed a bill in Chancery on the disputed title to an estate, and the court having pronounced a judgment in his favour, he ' had paid to Tobie Mathews, son of the archbishop of York, and the proper officer of court, a handsome fee. That fee was now to make Hansby's fortune. The entry book showed that months after Bacon's verdict, and when hundreds of intervening causes must have swept the remembrance of suit and fee from the Lord Chancellor's mind, a point of form which had stood over, connected with the chattels on 'the land, came on for hearing ; so that, with the help of Hansby as accuser, the fee which he had honestly paid to Mathews might be construed into one received by the court pendente lite. Hansby lay open to such persuasions as Cranfield and Buckingham held in gift. Such evidence as his was obviously worth its price; and we find without much SIR GEORGE REYNELL. 283 surprise that, while these accusations were being prepared xn. 20. against the Chancellor, Hansby not only obtained from the crown, with others, a grant of the several royal and Dec.' lucrative offices of Constable and Porter of Nottingham Castle, and those of Steward and Guardian of Sherwood Forest, but was introduced by his new patrons to the King; and, to add dignity to virtue, was dubbed Sir Ralph. / 21. Sir George Reynell, Marshall of the King's Bench, a far superior person to the new Knight, was a near connexion of the Lord Chancellor; his elder brother, Sir Thomas Reynell, being husband to Bacon's cousin, Elizabeth Killigrew. Presents had passed be- tween them , as the fashion among Kinsmen was. When Bacon went to live at York House, and his friends came forward to clothe with tapestry and furniture the home in which, fifty-four years before, he had come into the world, Sir George had sent in his ample gift. When New Year's day came round, he had again laid on the table, among piles of presents from friends, a diamond ring. As Reynell had then a suit in court, it was possible to say, though not to prove, that this act of personal civility had been received as a judicial bribe. Of the means by which Reynell was coerced into suffering this abominable charge to be made in his name, we gain some knowledge from the faithful pages of the Privy Council registers'. At the time of Cran- lield's inquisition, we find that a sudden storm began to howl round Sir George; his prisoners in the King's 21. Hall MSS. 1538, fol.60; Petition of Prisoners July 14, 1620, 8. P. O.; Sir Henry Bayn to the Council, Aug. 14, 1620, S.P. O. ; Privy Council Reg. July 6, 9, 24, 1620. 284 FRANCIS BACOX. xii. 21. Bench, chiefly Irish rebels, rising upon him, barrica- ding the passages, petitioning the Lord Chief Justice Dec.' and the Privy Council; a storm most probably raised by Cranfield's arts. A narrative of his misdemeanours in the jail drawn up, the magistrates of Middlesex and Surrey were commissioned by the council to examine the prisoners. Keynell seemed on the brink of ruin, when suddenly some secret hand put out and drew him back. The prisoners who might have made complaints against him were whipt away to Newgate, and the Middlesex and Surrey Shallows could get no evidence against him. Six months after this mock inquiry and acquittal of Sir George, he appeared in public to prove that he had sent his brother's cousin a diamond ring, while a suit in which he had no interest was pending in the Lord Chancellor's court. 22. The case was now ready for the Star-Chamber. But when the confederates were about to move, a patriotic proposal, pressed on the crown by Bacon him- self, postponed their action and ultimately shifted the scene of their Comedy, without changing the actors or disturbing their parts, to the House of Lords. BACON PROPOSES A NEW PARLIAMENT. 285 CHAPTER XIII. The Accusation. 1. IT is no easy berth that Lord Mandeville hasxin. i. bought for his twenty thousand pounds. Soon he be- comes aware that greedy eyes are on the Staff, that Dec.' Buckingham is restless, and the Villiers clan hungry. The more he tries to please, the faster he multiplies his foes. Worse than all, an empty exchequer gapes and yawns. "There is not a mark in the Treasury," he says to Bacon. "Be of good cheer then, my Lord," laughs the Chancellor; "now you shall see the bottom of your business at the first." 2. Something must be done. Bacon says, Call a parliament. The spirit of reform runs high and grie- vances groan on every tongue. To meet the country is to court complaint and risk collision-, yet Bacon presses this counsel on the King, for a series of astounding events abroad makes a prompt and permanent recon- ciliation of the English King and Commons a states- man's gravest care. The Reformed Religion is at stake. Deploying her troops and the troops of her Austrian and Bavarian allies into line, Spain has enveloped Germany in cloud and flame, opening the Thirty Years' War with the sack of the Palatinate and the 1. Bacon's Apophthegms, in Resuscitatio, 42. 2. Council Reg., Dec. 27, 1620; Teynham to Edmonds, Dec. 23, 1620, S. P. O. ; Howard to Naunton, Doc. 2, 1620, S. P. O. ; Replies of Peers and Bishops on the Palatinate Contributions, Undated Papers, cxviii. 43, 44, 45, 57, 58, 59, 60, 8. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Dec. 22, 1620, S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 507, 508. 286 FRANCIS BACON. xm. 2. occupation of Prague. Max is master of the Hradshin, Spinola of the Rhine. Dec. England, not less than the Protestant faith, is smitten by this blow; for Frederick and the Queen of Hearts are fugitives from Prague; the Winter King and Queen, as the fanciful Germans call them, own- ing neither principality nor kingdom, not even a home, on German soil. James, fooled by the Spanish Jew, Gondomar, is mumbling about a Spanish match for his son Charles, when surprised in his cups by news that Max and Spinola have robbed his daughter and her children of their native and elective crowns. What can he do? His purse is empty his credit gone. The goldsmiths of Lombard-street will not cash his bonds. He tries, indeed, to beg funds from a patriotic and warlike people for the recovery of the Palatinate, making of the great Protestant question a small affair of his own household; but the trick is stale, the confidence of his people gone. No man will give or lend. Used as the King is to evasion, he is startled by the shabbiness of his peers in this great need. The Roman Catholic lords refuse on the ground of sickness, debts, and out of town; their true reason, as he ought to know, is their secret sympathy for Spain and Bavaria as the armed protectors of the Roman Church; but the bishops, the deans, the English clergy, with rare exceptions, close their purses with the same hypocritical lies. The gold- smiths speak like men; they will not part with their money because they feel no confidence in the securities offered for their gold. They will send the King, they say, ten thousand pounds as a free gift, rather than lend him a hundred thousand with his crown for pledge. AGITATION IN ENGLAND. 287 3. Under such discouragements from his courtiers, xnr. 3. James listens to the voice of his Chancellor. If Lord St. Albans, in his earlier days, often had to differ from D ec. the House of Commons on subsidies and grants, it had never been through want of patriotism in the knights and burgesses; only through their fears lest the moneys granted by them should be wasted, not on the regiments and fleets, but on the Herberts and Carrs. In the hour of peril St. Albans feels that he can trust their patrio- tism for supplies. The success of Max on the Weissen- berg, the devastations of Spinola on the Neckar and the Main, disasters the most signal which have yet be- fallen the cause of God and the cause of freedom, bring the external danger to our doors. The nation feels its loss. Men mourn the King's indifference to the cries of religion and the claims of nature; and a popular frenzy breaks into accusing prose and song, pouring its subtle fire through the veins and arteries of the land in defiance of the most rigorous proclamations and the most savage censorship of the press. Bacon would meet the people. Let the King call a parliament together, state the situation, and throw himself heart and soul into the religious war! f 4. This time there should be no mistake. The ses- sions of 1610 and 1614 were lost through quarrels; not one Act passed in either. Grievances must now be met; reasonable men must be gained over to support the Crown. The enemy must see in England only one 3. Thomas Scot's VoxPopuli, 1620; Second edition of the same, revised, 1620; Undated Domestic Papers, cxviii. 102, 105, S. P. O.; Murray to Morton, Jan. 11, 1621, 8. P. O. 4. Bacon to James, Oct. 10, 1620, Mar. 11, 1621; to Buckingham, Oct. 19, Dec. 19, 1C20, printed in Birch, 1763, orig. at Lamheth Palace, 936; Statutes of the Realm, iv. 1207. 288 FRANCIS BACON. :rn. 4. party, one flag. Therefore let the King become the leader of the Commons, let the Government adopt the 1G20. , Dec. business or reform! Many voices in the Council rise against these pro- posals of the Lord Chancellor. But the Queen of Hearts cries loud for help; the bankers will lend no more, the nobles will give no more; so James, with many a pause and doubt, with many a sigh for the days, now gone for ever, when he could chase the stag and quaff his strong Greek wine untroubled by the clash of arms or the brawl of tongues, consents to Bacon's plan. The Chancellor, with the help of four great lawyers, including Montagu and Coke, draws up a scheme to promote a safer feeling between the House of Commons and the Crown; a scheme of reform as well as of de- fence ; involving an immediate issue of writs, an honest hearing of public complaints, an abolition of unjust or unpopular monopolies, a withdrawal of some of the more obnoxious patents, above all an instant increase of the royal fleet 5. This statement, addressed through Buckingham to the King, and signed by Bacon, Montagu, Heath, Coke, and Crewe, has not heretofore been printed: MY VERY GOOD LORD, November 29, 1620. It may please his Majesty to call to mind, that, when we gave his Majesty our last account of Parlia- ment's business in his presence, we went over the grievances of the last Parliament in 7mo., with our opinion, by way of probable conjecture, which of them are like to fall off, and which may perchance stick and 5. Tanner MSS. 290, fol. 33. SCHEME OP REFORM. 289 be renewed. And we did also then acquaint his Ma-xm. 5. jesty that we thought it no less fit to take into consi- deration grievances of like nature which have sprung i) ec .' since the said last session, which are the more like to be called upon by how much they are the more fresh, signifying withal that they were of two kinds. Some proclamations and commissions, and many patents, which, nevertheless, Ave did not then trouble his Ma- jesty withal, in particular; partly, for that we were not then fully prepared (it being a work of some length), and partly for that we then desired and obtained leave of his Majesty to communicate them with the council- table. But since, I the Chancellor received his Majesty's pleasure by Secretary Calvert that we should first pre- sent them to his Majesty with some advice thereupon provisional, and as we are capable, and thereupon know his Majesty's pleasure, before they be brought to the table, which is the work of this despatch. And herein his Majesty may be likewise pleased to call to mind that we then said, and do now humbly make re- monstrance to his Majesty, that in this we do not so much express the sense of our own minds or judgments upon the particulars, as we do personate the Lower House, and cast with ourselves what is like to be stirred there. And, therefore, if there be anything, either in respect of matter, or the persons that stand not so well with his Majesty's good liking, that his Majesty would be graciously pleased not to impute it unto us, and withal to consider that it is to this good end that his Majesty may either remove such of them , as in his own princely judgment, and with the advice of his council, he shall think fit to be removed, or be the better provided to carry through such of them as Lunl Hacon. 19 290 FRANCIS BACON. xin. 5. he shall think fit to be maintained in case they should be moved, and so the less surprised. D'ec.' First, therefore, to begin with the patents. We find three sorts of patents (and those somewhat frequent since the session of 7mo.) which in yenere, we conceive, may be most subject to exception of grievance ; patents of old debts, patents of concealments, and patents of monopolies and forfeitures of, or dispensations with, penal laws, together with some other particulars which fall not so properly under any one head. In these three kinds we do humbly advise several courses to be taken. For the first two, of old debts and concealments, for that they are in a mode legal (though there may be found out some point in law to overthrow them), yet it would be a long business by course of law, and a matter unusual by act of council, to call them in. But that truth moves us chiefly to avoid the questioning them at the council-table is be- cause if they shall be taken away by the King's act it may let in upon him a flood of suitors for recompense ; whereas, if they be taken away at the suit of the Par- liament, and a law thereupon made, it frees the King, and leaves him to give recompense only where he shall be pleased to extend grace. Wherefore we conceive the most convenient way will be, if some grave and discreet gentlemen of the country, such as have at least relation to the court, make at fit times some modest motions touching the same: That his Majesty would be graciously pleased to permit some laws to pass (for the time past only), nowhere touching his Majesty's legal power to free his subjects from the same, and so his Majesty, after due consultation, to give way unto them. For the third, we do humbly advise that such of them SCHEME OF REFORM. 291 as his Majesty shall give way to have called in may xnr. 5. be questioned before the council-table, either as granted contrary to his Majesty's Book of Bounty, or found Dec. since to have been abused in the execution, or other- wise by experience discovered to be burthensome to the country. But herein we shall add this further humble advice, that it be not done as matter of pre- paration to a Parliament, but that occasion be taken, partly upon revising of the Book of Bounty, and partly upon the fresh example in Sir Henry Yelverton's case of abuse and surreption in obtaining of patents, and likewise that it be but as a continuance in conformity of the council's former diligence and vigilance, which hath already stayed and revoked divers patents of like nature, whereof we are ready to show the examples. Thus, we conceive, his Majesty shall keep his great- ness, and somewhat shall be done in Parliament and somewhat out of Parliament, as the nature of the sub- ject and business requires. We have sent his Majesty herewith a schedule of the particulars of these three kinds, wherein for the first two we have set down all that we could at this time discover. But in the latter we have chosen out but some that are most in speech, and which do most tend either to the vexation of the common people, or the discontenting of the gentlemen and justices, the one being the original, the other the representative of the Commons. There be many more of like nature, but not of like weight, nor so much rumoured, which to take away now in a blaze will give more scandal that such things were granted than cause thanks that they be now revoked. The' council may be still doing. And because all things may ap- pear to his Majesty in the true light, we have set 19* 292 FRANCIS BACON. Xm. 5. down as well the suitors as the grants, and not only those in whose names the patent came to our knowledge. D!C.' For proclamations and commissions, they are tender things, and we are willing to meddle with them spa- ringly; for, as for such as do but wait upon patents (wherein his Majesty, as we conceived, gave some ap- probation to have them taken away), it is better they fell away by taking away the patent itself than other- wise, for a proclamation cannot be revoked but by a proclamation, which we would avoid. For the Com- monwealth Bills which his Majesty approved to be put in readiness, and some other things, there will be time enough hereafter to give his Majesty account, and, amongst them, of the extent of Ms Majesty's pardon, which, if his subjects do their part, as we hope they will, we do wish may be more liberal than of later times, pardons being the ancient remuneration in Par- liament. Thus, hoping his Majesty, out of his gracious and accustomed benignity, will accept of our faithful endeavours, and supply the rest by his own princely wisdom and direction; and also humbly praying his Majesty, that, when he hath himself considered of our humble propositions, he will give us leave to impart them all, or as much as he shall think fit, to the lords of his council, for the better strength of his service, we conclude with our prayers for his Majesty's happy preservation, and always rest Your Lordship's, to be commanded, FR. VERULAM, Cane. H. MONTAGU. HENRY HEATH. EDW. COKE. KAN. CREWE. SCHEME OF REFORM. 293. 6. The King adopts, or appears to adopt, thisxnr. 6. scheme, and writs go out for the elections. To Bacon's grief, the nation, mad with news from Prague and the j^J.' Palatinate, sends up to Westminster four hundred of the most violent men who have ever met in the Great Council; yet, with straight, swift meaning to do right, to purge abuses in church and state, to launch the army and the fleet against an insolent enemy, even a parlia- ment of fanatics may be turned to good. James, un- happily, loses heart. Fitful and feverish in his moods, he gets alarmed by the returns, puts off the opening, stoops to Gondomar's tales, potters once more about a match in Spain for young Prince Charles. Gondomar regains his power. While Spinola cleanses Cleves and the Palatinate with fire, and the Dutch burghers, smitten into warlike rage, rush to the help of violated cities, James suspends Sir Robert Naunton, Secretary of State, writer of the admirable Fragmenta Regalia, from his public functions, for merely giving some hope of English aid to the Protestants of the Rhine! 7. When allowed to meet, the knights and squires Jan. 30* come together in a turbulent, almost in a savage mood. They listen with bent brows while the poor King maunders about his love for the Church and his hopes of obtaining a Spanish wife for his son, about his dis- like for the doings of the Bohemian Protestants and his willingness to spill his own blood in defence of 6. Bacon to Buckingham, Dec. 16, 1620; Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 20, 1621, S. P. 0. ; Lake to Carleton, Jan. 20, 1621, S. P. O. ; Bacon's Declaration, Jan. 16, 1621, S. P. O. 7. James' Speech on opening Parl., Jan. 30, 1621, S. P. O.; Note of Sir George More's Report, Feb. 6, 1621, S. P. O. ; List of Sub-Committee on Papists, Feb. 5, 1621, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain, Feb. 17, 1621, S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 508, 512, 515, 525. 294 FRANCIS BACON. xm. 7. those of the Ehine, and when he goes away to his palace they proceed, in stern bright haste, to purge Feb. their benches from any suspicion of Popish taint. A committee searches the vaults. The whole House takes the sacrament in public. A second time, and with added solemnity and publicity, the members swear the oaths of supremacy. Hollis and Britton, Roman Ca- tholics of good family, are excluded from Parlia- ment. Shepherd is expelled for a jest against the Puritans. A sub-committee revises and edges the penal laws. Burgess and knight are now in fearful earnest. No more weakness, no more tolerance! Max and Spinola are at our gates. 8. Coke, returned for Liskeard in Cornwall, offers himself as the champion of every fanatical cry, of every mad antipathy of the hour. He yells for the blood of Papists, for the hoards of monopolists, for the licence of free speech. His age, his rank, .his powers of de- bate, his experience of the world, impose on many of the untried members, now serving their maiden session in the House of Commons. Some take him for a guide; still more accept his aid for their own purposes. The money bills pass at once. The Chancellor has not reckoned on the patriotism of the land in vain. Indeed, in their haste to man the fleets, to put a mo- ving fort between the coast of Essex and the camps of Calais and Ostend, the burgesses vote the King two subsidies without a dissenting voice. 8. Com. Jour., 1. 510, 514, 519, 523; Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 10, 17, 1621, 8. P. O.; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, 1621, S. P. O.; Statutes, iv. 1208. COKE HEADS THE FANATICS. 295 9. James takes this money, not without joy andxm. 9. wonder; but when they ask him to banish recusants from London, to put down masses in ambassadors' ji^' houses, to disarm all the Papists, to prevent priests and Jesuits from going abroad, he will not do it. In this resistance to a new persecution, his tolerant Chancellor stands at his back, and bears the odium of his refusal. Bacon, who thinks the penal laws too harsh already, will not consent to inflame the country, at such a time, by a new proclamation; the penalties are strong, and in the hands of the magistrates; he sees no need to spur the zeal of men inclined to persecution by royal proclamations or the enactment of more savage laws. Here is a chance for Coke. Raving for gibbets and pillories in a style to quicken the pulse of a Brownist, men who are themselves wild with news from Heidel- berg or Prague, believe in his sincerity and partake his heat. To be mild now, many good men think, is to be weak. In a state of war philosophy and tolerance go to the wall; when guns are pounding in the gates, even justice must be done at the drum-head. 10. Feeding these fiery humours, Coke gets the ear of an active section of the House, who push him on, their orator of hate, as in happier times they have made his great compeer their advocate of charity and peace. Coke pours on them his gall. No one in the House yet dreams of attacking persons under cover of a wish to expose abuses. Even in the case of Mom- 9. Com. Jour., 518, 523; Speech of a Privy Councillor In the House of Commons, Feb. 16, 1G21, S. I'. O. ; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 1C, 1621, S. P. O.; Murray to Carleton, Feb. 17, 1621, S. P. O. 10. Request concerning Sir Giles Mompesson, Feb. 27, 1621, S. P. O.; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 24, 1621, S. P. O. 296 FRANCIS BACON. xni. 10. pesson, whose manufacture of gold and silver thread is supposed by country gentlemen to have raised the price "' of beer, they declare in their first petition to the King that they want measures of redress, not injury to par- ticular men. But a moderation that might end in a real good to the country is foreign to the nature and designs of Coke. 11. Sure of the ears of a sect, Coke suggests, as a branch of the Grievances, that inquiry should be made into abuses in the courts of law, with a view to limit the duration and cost of suits, more especially in the Chancery and the Court of Wards. Doubts arise on this as to whether Parliament has any power over the King's courts; when Bacon, though he fears and dis- trusts Coke, and complains to the King of his insolence, meets the inquiry with open heart. The Commons are helping to do his work. Reform of the law, and of the courts of law, has been his theme for thirty years. When he got the Seals, his very first speech in Chan- cery proposed a scheme for removing abuses in fees and suits. His rules for conducting business were in themselves the best of reform bills. More than all, he has introduced into that slow and despotic court the substantial amendments of patience, courtesy, and speed. Not a cause is on the lists unheard. Vices remain; vices of form, of persons, of constitution; vices too strong for a single man, however prompt and powerful, to subdue. If the House of Commons have any search to make into his court he offers them full leave; if they 11. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 10, 1617, S. P. O. ; Ordinances made by the Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Bacon for the better Administration of Justice in the Court of Chancery, 1642 ; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 24, 1621, S. P. O. ; Com. Jour., i. 519, 529. BACON OFffENDS LADY BUCKINGHAM. 297 have anything to say on it he bids them freely speak xm.ii, their mind. Without this leave they could not move 1621. one step. Feb. Blind to the plot against him, the Chancellor knows no cause why he should fear their search. 12. While Coke, under cover of the public good, is slowly sliming round his prey, the Chancellor, called by his place to decide between the quarrels of two peers, has the honourable misfortune to offend in a pe- culiar manner the pride of Lady Buckingham and her obedient clan. This scheming mother has fixed her eyes on Eli- zabeth Norreys, daughter of Francis Baron Norreys of Rycote, as a wife for her son Kit. Elizabeth is rich, for her mother was an heiress, and she is an only child. To soften Lord Norreys, he has been created Viscount Thame and Earl of Berkshire. But these Villiers peers, these Purbecks and Berkshires, gall the more ancient nobles. Berkshire either pushes or strikes Lord Scrope, a haughty peer, whose ancestors have been in the House of Lords since the days of Edward the First. The eleventh baron of his line complains of this rude and upstart earl. Berkshire being in the wrong, Bacon, despite his connexion with the Villiers people, has the courage to send him to the Fleet prison till he repents his sally and apologises to Lord Scrope. In a few days Berkshire, on submission to Scrope, regains his freedom, and returns to his seat; making for the upright Chancellor one vindictive enemy the more. 12. Lords' Jour., iii. 19, 20; Locke to Carleton, Feb. 16, 24, 1G21, S. P. O. ; Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 30, 1621, S. P. O. 298 FRANCIS BACON. xm. is. 13. Free from the personal malevolence and from ~~ the virtuous starts which harass Coke, bent on pleasing Feb. his great patroness and on winning a rich reward, Cranfield goes straight and swift to the point ; attacking Bacon, Montagu, and Yelverton by name, and pro- claiming that he does so from a sense of duty to the Bang. Some one speaks of abuses in the Courts of Wards. Cranfield springs to his feet, and with brazen brow admits the existence of abuses in his court, but impudently declares that the corruptions of the Court of Chancery far exceed the corruptions in the Court of Wards. Mar. is. 14. Time has now come for the Villiers faction to show their game. While Cranfield and Churchill have been hunting the dens of London for accusations against the Chancellor, Buckingham has been frequent in his calls at York House. Bacon is sick, and nigh to death. Pains rack his head, and gout torments his feet. Yet up to the llth of March he continues to meet the Council, sitting face to face with Coke and Cranfield, who watch his looks and weigh his words with all the vigilance of spite. At length the treachery of Buck- ingham grows too plain for even Bacon's eyes to blink. If the House of Commons is slow to strike, it must be whipped into the mood for framing accusations and demanding victims. So Coke brings down a message to the Commons, the most extraordinary and the most criminal ever sent down by a subservient House of Peers. Coke tells the burgesses that the King is pleased 13. Com. Jour., i. 525, 535; Locke to Carleton,M*r. 3, 1G21, S. P. O. 14. Council Reg., Mar. 11, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 552, 555; Lords' Jour., iii. 42, 50. ACCUSED IN THE COMMONS. 299 with what they have done and what they are doing; xm.u. that the King advises them to strike while the iron is hot, not to rest content with shadows, but to demand Ma ^ j' 3 real sacrifices. He tells them, too, that Buckingham has fallen in love with Parliaments; that he urges them to go on, and gives up his brother, a partner with Mompesson, to their wrath. No one mistakes the drift and scope of these words. Up to the date of this ex- traordinary and wicked speech, no one has breathed a word against Bacon's fame. Chancery, not the Chan- cellor, has been in fault. Now the plot breaks. Two days after Coke's message, Sir Robert Phillips, chairman of the committee, informs the House that two witnesses, Kit Aubrey and Edward Egerton, are ready to make complaints against the Lord Chancellor. The three cases on which the confederates count, those of Hansby,Reynell, and Lady Wharton, they keep in reserve. Aubrey, having a suit in Chancery against Sir Wil- liam Brounker, says he was advised by his counsel to send a present of a hundred pounds to the court; which money he had paid to Sir George Hastings, a member of that House, who thanked him for it in his master's name, and wished him better speed in his suit. Eger- ton, feeling grateful to the Lord Chancellor for a ser- vice done to him while he was Attorney-General, says he had sent him, on his going to live at York House, through the hands of Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, a basin and ewer, together with a purse of four hundred pounds. Afterwards falling into a quar- rel with his kinsman Sir Rowland Egerton, their differ- ences had been referred by James himself to the Lord Chancellor; who decided for Sir Rowland and against Edward. Thus Egerton and Aubrey each complains 300 FRANCIS BACON. xnr. u. that, though he paid his money, he took nothing by 1621. Mar. 13. his gift. 1621. 15. Such charges against the Lord Chancellor were in the last degree frivolous. Fees and gifts like Aubrey's and Egerton's were common as sun and rain. A barrister or a judge, set apart from the world, with no salary from the State, received, as a rector or a prelate might receive in his day of furnishing or feast- ing, aid from the public and from his friends. Indeed, the higher clergy growled that the great lawyers got a larger share of this help in need than the zealous ser- vants of God. Bishop Goodman has a curious para- graph in point: "I did once intend," he says, "to have built a church; and a lawyer in my neighbourhood did intend to build himself a fair house, as afterward he did. One sent unto him to desire him to accept from him all his timber; another sent unto him to desire him that he might supply him with all the iron that he spent about his house. These men had great woods and iron-mills of their own. The country desired him to accept of their carriage. What reason had this man not to build? Truly I think he paid -very little but the workmen's wages. Whereas, on the contrary, in the building of my church, where it was so necessary, for without the church they had not God's service, and no church was near them for nearly four or five miles, truly I could not get the contribution of one farthing. Lord! how are the times altered! It was not so when St. Paul's 15. Goodman's Memoirs, i. 295-6; A Selection of the Proceedings of the House of Commons against the Lord Verulam, Lord Chancellor of England, Mar. 15, 17, 19, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 552-563. CHARGES OF BRIBERY. 301 church in London and other cathedrals were built, xin. 15. God's will be done!" When Bacon got the Seals his friends and admirers Mar. clothed York Hoxise for him with plate, arras, furniture, and pictures; some sending books, some money, some cups of silver and gold. In the crowd of presents from many persons came Egerton's ewer and purse; came as an expression of gratitude and friendship. No note was made when they were given of any future act; nor could the Chancellor have guessed that the donor was about to quarrel with his kin, or that the King would make choice of him as arbitrator in the cause. ,. How could that friendly gift be called a bribe? In Aubrey's case it is clear that the fee was paid in the usual way; openly paid; paid by advice of his own counsel; paid to the proper officer of the court. It is no less clear that the Lord Chancellor could have no personal knowledge of the payment of this fee. He did not keep the accounts of his court. Hastings told the House of Commons that though he paid in Aubrey's money he never mentioned to the Chancellor Aubrey's name. The story was confirmed in a singular way. When Bacon, on his sick couch, heard of this payment by Aubrey of a hundred pounds, he pronounced it a lie, and declared that he should deny it on his honour be- fore the world. He was not aware that it had been paid to his clerk. 16. Such charges are too flimsy to stand alone. Except the tools of Coke, of Cranfield, and of Buck- ingham, men who have received their cue, and the herd who, without opinions of their own, are ever to Ifi. A Collection of the Proceedings, &c., Mar. 17, 1621. 302 FRANCIS BACON. XTir.i6.be found on the stronger side, no one in the House of Commons pretends to believe that such facts establish Mar. a case against the Lord Chancellor fit to be sent before the House of Lords. Heneage Finch, Recorder of Lon- don, next to Coke himself the most learned jurist in the House, declares that the evidence brought in sup- port of the accusation frees the Lord Chancellor from blame. Mar. 20. 17. Churchill now comes up. Meautys protests that a dismissed servant, an extortioner, a forger, with no hope of escaping pillories and jails except by lies, shall not be heard against his lord. But Coke and Phillips get him sent, together with Keeling, a partner in Churchill's villanies, to the committee. In secret, and without cross-examination, Churchill and Keeling tell their tales, and the hostile members of the com- mittee frame on their confessions and inventions an in- dictment, charging Bacon with bribery and fraud. The cases number twenty-two. It is amazing they should be no more. In his four years of Chancery business, Bacon has pronounced about seven thousand judgments; each judgment must have hurt some man in fame or purse; must, by a law of nature, have seemed to the losing man unjust. Does any one love the judge who has pronounced against him? Would the most up- right magistrate feel easy on having to put his honour or estate at the mercy of a jury, each of whom had been mulcted in his court? Out of these seven thousand sufferers, the skill of Coke and the roguery of Churchill, by including cases of simple debt, cases of arbitration 17. A Collection of the Proceedings, &c., Mar. 20, 21, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 564. PROGRESS OF THE PLOT. 303 and reference, cases of mere friendly courtesy, and cases xm. n. of fees received in a manner perfectly regular in time and place, can only frame an accusation of twenty-two Mar. 20. particulars, not one of them to the point! Where they find a fault, it is not so much that of the Lord Chan- cellor, as that of the faithless registrars and clerks, who are now suborned as witnesses against him. 18. At first the Chancellor only smiles. Charges against the court over which he sits he expects to hear, and will be glad to consider; charges against himself personally he knows must be malignant and he suppo- ses must be vain. The Council guards the high place lie fills with as much care as it guards the Crown. The fate of Lord Clifford and Lady Blount is before the slanderer's eye; and a word from the King or from Buckingham would send Churchill to be whipped through Cheapside and fettered in the Clink. When he finds the case go on, he expresses to Buckingham his indignation at the course of Coke: "Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge," he writes, "by such hunting of matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul. If this is to be a Chancellor, I think, if the Great Seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up." But he is not alarmed. "I know I have clean hands and a clean heart." 19. As the case proceeds as Ley, and Coke, and Cranfield, all the tools of Lady Buckingham who have seats in the House of Commons, take part in it he 18. Council Reg., Dec. 30, 1G17, Mar. 17, 27, 1618, June 19, 1610, Jan. 20, 1620 ; Bacon to Buckingham, in Montagu, 33. 19. Bacon Memoranda, Lambeth MSS. 936, fol. 146. 304 FRANCIS BACON. xm. 19. begins at length to perceive the bearing of the charge and the purpose of. his enemies. The facts of the ac- Mar. cusation are nothing, the fact of it is everything. As he lies sick at York House, or at Gorhambury, hearing through his friend Meautys of the moil and worry made about him in the House of Commons, he jots on loose scraps of paper at his side his answers and re- marks. These scraps of paper are at Lambeth Palace. Their contents are embodied in letters to Buckingham, to the House of Lords, and to the King: yet they pos- sess an original and abiding interest in their first rude drafts; a stamp of honesty and sincerity which the eye cannot help but see or the heart but feel. On one of these sheets he writes: "There be three degrees or cases, as I conceive, of gifts or rewards given to a judge. "The first is of bargain, contract, or promise of reward, pendente lite. And this is properly called venalis sententiae, or baratria, or corruptelse munerum. And of this my heart tells me I am innocent; that I had no bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronoiinced any sentence or order. "The second is a neglect in the judge to inform himself whether the cause be fully at an end or no what time he receives the gift, but takes it upon the credit of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits to inquire. "And the third is when it is received, sine fraude, after the cause is ended; which it seems, by the opi- nions of the civilians, is no offence." Only the first of these three cases, a contract to defeat justice for a personal gain x implies moral guilt or invites legal censure. THE T.WENTT-TWO CHARGES. 305 Bacon adds: xin.i9. "For the first, I take myself to be as innocent as Ifi21 any babe born on St. Innocent's day in my heart. Mar.' "For the second, I doubt in some particulars I may be faulty. "And for the last, I conceive it to be no fault." 20. The evidence produced against him, as Heneage Finch told the House of Commons, proved his case and freed him from blame. Of the twenty two charges on the list, three were cases of debt; Peacock's, Compton's and Vanlore's; two of them on bond and interest. Other three, those of Egerton, the Vintners, and the London Companies, had in them nothing judicial; being simple arbitrations, not suits in law. Even Cranfield, bred in the city, could not make the wages of arbitrations bribes. Smithwick's gift, when found to be irregular, had been sent back; a circumstance from which honest seekers would have inferred that any other present, known to be irregular, would also have been refused. Kenneday's cabinet, sent to York House, had never been accepted, since the Lord Chancellor had learnt that the artizan who made it had not been paid. Eleven of the twenty two cases those of Young, Wroth, Hody, Barker, Monk, Trevor, Scott, Fisher, Dunch, Montagu and Ruswell were, by the showing of his treacherous clerks, of the kind in daily oc- currence in every court of law; common fees, paid in the common way, after the cause had been heard and judgment given. The insertion of these names only showed how difficult Coke and Cranfield had found it 20. A Collection of the Proceedings, &c., Mar. 20, 21, 1621; Com. Jour., i. 563, 578; Dom. Papers, xiii. 29. cxvi. 28. 29, Lord Bacon. 20 306 FRANCIS BACOX. xni. 20. to frame their charge. There remained the three cases of presents asserted to have been received by the Chan- Mar! cellor pendente lite: the ring from Sir George Reynell, the money from Sir Ealph Hansby, the purse from Lady Wharton. Yet, any statement of the facts of these three cases which allowed a hearer to understand them at all, would have convinced any man who brought a pure heart and an accessible intellect to the trial of Ba- con's life: (1) that though these charges of judicial cor- ruption had been framed with the unscrupulous art of Coke and Cranfield, they were unaccompanied by any evidence that justice had been perverted on the bench, the very heart of the alleged offence and the primary fact to have been made good: (2) that in the circum- stances of the receipt of these fees or presents there were none of the customary and necessary signs of cor- ruption no secrecy, no collusion, no promises given or received on either side. Any true statement of these three cases would have shown that such irregularity in the time or mode of payment as occurred in fact was accidental, not criminal; and that the blame of such irregularity attached, morally though not legally, less to the Lord Chancellor than to his registrars and clerks. Reynell's ring appeared to have been given and ac- cepted in the ordinary way of a New Year's gift. It was not the first rich offering made by Sir George to his brother's cousin. No evidence was adduced to show that when Bacon, on New Year's day, had found this ring among heaps of such gifts from his friends and kinsmen, knew of Sir George having any suit pending or coming on ; nor did the donor of the ring ever hint that he had sent it with a corrupt understanding that EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM. 307 the Lord Chancellor would in consequence of it promote xni. 20. his interest in any suit. Coke himself could not assert a perversion of justice in Reynell's case; and Bacon's Mar. award in these premises stood firm and incontestible after his fall from power. The fee of the Sun^eyor of the Stable had been paid in the usual way of all fees; paid to an officer of the court, without message, interview or understanding with the Lord Chancellor. The main cause was at an end, judgment pronounced and entered up, mouths be- fore the fee was paid. If there had been a corrupt understanding between the Lord Chancellor and his client, Tobie Mathews, the intermediary, must have known of it. Why was he not examined? Mathews was the son of an archbishop, and in spite of his lapse to Rome a man of the highest probity and parts. Had there been complicity to corrupt justice, he could have proved it beyond a doubt. Coke did not call him. Nor could Hansby himself, however willing to earn grants and leases, prove one tittle beyond the payment of his fee. No bargain was alleged, no perversion of justice shown. If Lady Wharton's case appears to us less easy to understand than Reynell's or Hansby's case, this is mainly due to our imperfect record of the facts. But on the face of it, we read the same appearances of routine, publicity and directness which belong to the cases which are better known. Lady Wharton had brought an action on cross bills against Montacute Wood and others, the heirs of Sir Francis Willoughby ; but the dispute was so extremely difficult and involved, that by consent of counsel on both sides, Bacon had pronounced a dismission. After 20* 308 FRAXCI? BACOX. xm. 20. this judgment, Lady Wharton went to York House and paid the customary fees. So far all had been indispu- Har. tably regular. But Lady Wharton, vexed at the com- promise made by her own lawyers, ran from the decision, and her suit came on again. She put herself into Churchill's and Reeling's hands: orders were made by the Chancellor; a stage in the suit was accomplished, and another fee was paid. There is reason to suspect that the forger, Churchill, made some false entries in his books, which gave to the second of Lady Wharton's presents the false appearance of having been received pen- dente lite. Slow as Bacon was to impute or imagine evil, he could not pass this count without a word of indigna- tion. "I have a vehement suspicion that there was some shuffling between Mr. Shute and his registrar (Churchill) in entering some orders which afterwards I did distaste.'' The villany must have been special which wrung this sentence from the sick Chancellor; the only charge against any of his persecutors which escaped his tongue or pen. It remains to be said that every circumstance of the reception of Lady Wharton's gifts helped to deprive them of the imputed character of bribes. There was no secrecy, no promise. The fees were paid in the presence of the registrars and clerks, for Churchill con- fessed he was in the room when Lady Wharton brought her purse, Gardiner that he stood by when she paid her fee of two hundred pounds. This evidence would have stopped the case in a court of law, as Finch de- clared it ought to stop it in the House of Commons. Even Coke seemed staggered for an instant by the zeal of witnesses able to prove so much; for who in his senses could suppose that the Lord Chancellor would HENEAGE FINCH DEFENDS BACON. 309 have done an act known to be illegal and immoral inxni.so. the company of a registrar and a clerk? It was clear that a thing which Bacon did under ji ar .' the eyes of Gardiner and Churchill must have been in his mind customary and right. It is no less clear that if Bacon had done wrong, knowing it to be wrong, he would never have braved exposure of his fraud by turning Churchill into the streets. Thus, after the most rigorous and vindictive scrutiny into his official acts, and into the official acts of his servants, not a single fee or remembrance traced to the Chancellor could, by any fair construction, be called a bribe. Not one appeared to have been given on a promise ; not one appeared to have been given in secret ; not one was alleged to have corrupted justice. 21. Very few knights or burgesses take part in the debate: on one side Cranfield, Coke, and Phillips; on the other side Sackville, Meautys, and Heneage Finch make nearly all the list. The citizens and country gentlemen regard the charge against Bacon as a mere theme for the lawyers a charge of technical corruption more than of moral guilt. They may very well stand aloof when Coke and Finch, the two most eminent lawyers in the House, express on it the most diverse views. Coke construes every fee into a bribe: Finch denies that any fee can be called a bribe unless it can be shown to have been taken as part of a con- tract to pervert justice. Finch does not admit of Ba- con's three distinctions: he only knows of fees and bribes. A fee paid at an improper time is not a bribe; 21. Com. Jour., i. 564-67; Proceedings, &c., Mar. 20, 21, 1621. 310 FRANCIS BACON. xni.2i. for how, he asks, can a judge retain in his recollection the name of every suitor in his court? It is not ne- Ifi21 Mar.' cessary to believe that the House of which Bacon was so long the ornament and the pride has become hostile to him in order to understand why they send his case to the lords. They ardently desire a reform of the Law Courts: and they know that it is only through such inquiries as the present, that a change can be intro- duced into any department of the public service. But the burgesses send it up as an inquiry, not as an im- peachment. If they wish the system of Fees amended, as they wish that of Patents, of Protections, of Par- dons, of Personal Service, or of Wards and Liveries amended, they do not load the Chancellor with a per- sonal charge. Otherwise Coke. They want to cleanse the court; he to destroy the judge. They see a grie- vance in the Chancery, as they see one in the Rolls, the Wards, and the King's Bench; he finds the most noxious grievance in the Lord Viscount St. Albans, holder of the Great Seal. 22. To drag the House of Lords on the way down which they have thus far lured the House of Commons, the confederates procure from James a commission for their creature, Sir James Ley, to execute the office of Lord Chancellor. Though not a peer, such a commission will place Ley in the ruling position* of leader and spokesman of the peers. Seeing what means are used against him, Bacon is warned by a friend to look about him. He calmly answers, "I look above." 23. He knows now that his ruin is meant that 22. Lords' Jour., iii. 51. 23. Bacon to James, Mar. 25, 1621; Montagu, 999. INQUIRY IN THE LORDS. 311 the peers who may have to try him wall pronounce asxni.23. Buckingham directs. Some of the [more learned inde- pendent lords may protest by their votes or by their Mar ." absence against these scandalous proceedings; the ma- jority, wishing to dance at Whitehall to enjoy the favourite's smiles and partake of his master's gifts will speak and act under the eyes of Prince Charles, who is not so much Buckingham's partisan as his slave. With Ley and Williams it is not a question of Bacon's guilt but of his place. His own courtesy and generosity blind him to these vile motives of his persecutors. In the loose sheets at his bedside, and afterwards in letters to the King, he writes: "When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is now come upon me. I have been never author of any immoderate counsel, but al- ways desired to have things carried suavibus modis. I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty, intolerable, or hateful man in my conversation or carriage. I have inherited no hatred from my father; but am a good patriot born. Whence should this be?" That eye, so quick to see the power of truth, the beauty of nature, cannot see that it is crime enough that he has vexed Lady Buckingham by his independ- ence, and that Williams wants his place. Yet, knowing his own heart, he can say with honest pride: "I praise God for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living. "I never took penny for releasing anything I stopped at the Seal. 312 FEANCIS BACOX. xm. 23. "I never took penny for any commission, or things of that nature. MM.' "I never shared with any reward for any second or inferior profit." Mar. 19. 24. When the Lords resolve themselves into com- mittee, the very first struggle between the partizans of Lady Buckingham and the independent peers, shows their resolution to have their way either through the law or against the law. The rule of Parliament is for the Lord Chancellor, and of course for an inferior per- son acting in his place, to preside while the House is in full Session, but to move when the House goes into committee to his own seat. Ley, not being a baron, ought to drop from the woolsack to a back bench while the peers consider the Chancellor's case as a mere as- sistant without a voice. But the usual course of justice will not serve the purpose of Lady Buckingham's friends. An active confederate, bound to their patroness by the ties of gratitude and the hopes of preferment, must fashion and control these momentous investigations; therefore, setting at nought the constitutional forms of Parliament, they propose that Sir James Ley, contrary to all precedents in the like circumstances, shall return to the chair and direct the House while they sit in committee on Bacon's case. A few brave men protest against this audacious and illegal course, but a majority of servile barons, voting under the immediate eyes of Buckingham and the Prince of Wales, carry the pro- posal, and Lady Buckingham's creature resumes his seat. It is now clear to Bacon, and to the whole world, that his persecutors command a majority of 24. Lords' Jour., iii. 55; Lambeth MSS. 93G, fol. 146. URGED BY THE KING TO SUBMIT. 313 votes, and that no consideration of legality or decency xm. 24. will check them in the use of their power until they shall have torn from him the Seals. Should the malady jiar. which has broken his health and perhaps for a time unstrung his mind spare his life, two courses stand before him: he may either fling defiance at his enemies, brave the sentence they are able and eager to pass, and die, as Egerton died, of a broken heart; or he may yield the prize, retire from public life, and reserve his remaining years for his nobler intellectual work. His own inclinations side with the counsels of his sovereign. In a private interview, James implores him to abandon all defence, to submit his cause to the peers, and trust his safety and his honours to the pro- tection of the crown. It is easy to conceive the reasons which decide him to obey the King. He is sick, he is surrounded by. foes. His fortune, honour, liberty and life are at the mercy of men who have just outraged the laws of Parliament to his disadvantage. Only the King can save him, and the King will only save him on condition that he shall avoid the scandal of a great political trial. During many years, it has been the habit of the crown in political cases to remit the sen- tences passed on technical confessions procured or im- posed by itself. If Bacon will submit, the King under- takes that his submission shall be only in name. By taking on himself a little temporary blame, he may entertain the hope of doing to his country an enormous good. The corruptions of Chancery can be reached in no other way than through the Lord Chancellor. Every great reform demands a victim, and he will not be the first man of blameless life, who to gain a great moral 314 FRANCIS BACON. x ii r. 24. result, has consented to take upon himself the burthen of offences which are not his own. Mar. Age is approaching. In his illness he has learned to think more of heaven and less of the world. The new philosophy is incomplete. He has had the Seals and the delights of power have begun to pall. To reject the King's advice is to ensure the severest con- demnation; for without a sentence of legal death, Lady Buckingham cannot rob him of the Seals. On the other hand, to yield is to confess no more than a technical offence and incur no more than a nominal blame. Nor can he, in his conscience, say that these complaints against the courts of law are in themselves unjust. So far as they attack the court, and not the judge, they are in the spirit of all his writings and of all his votes. In his soul, he finds no fault with those who call for redress of wrongs, though he sees that the accidents of time and the machinations of vindictive men have made him, the Reformer, a sacrifice to the cry for reform. April 28. 25. He yields. On going from the palace, Bacon sends to the Peers a note renouncing all defence, pray- ing to be relieved of the heavy burthen of the Seals, and commending his conduct and his misery to their Lordships' grace. It is not enough. On such a sub- mission, they can scarcely pronounce a verdict of legal death; and without a verdict of legal death, Williams can only get the Seal on payment of the usual fees. Their difficulty is technical, for the whole proceeding is technical. No part of the case against Bacon has been proved, no court constituted, no evidence taken 25. Lords' Jour. iii. 98. BACON'S CONFESSION. 315 on oath. The Lords cannot vote on rumour, and no-xm.25. thing beyond rumour is yet before them. If they are to vote at all, they must have before them a plea of April, guilty. They send again to York House. The Chan- cellor, seeing the necessities of the position made for him by Buckingham and the King, sends back the famous instrument known as his Confession and Sub- mission. The general plea is made in general terms: "I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption and do renounce all defence:" a plea at once qualified and corrected by a true statement of the particulars, so far as he knew them, in each count of the charge. Bacon admits the receipt of the usual fees and presents; if the receipt of such fees and presents is held by the Peers to be proof of corruption, he is guilty of corruption; but, in this famous document, he nowhere admits, or allows his judges to infer, that he has ever taken a fee or a present as a bribe to prevent justice. Most of the cases fall under his third division; two or three under his second; not one under his first. He confesses to a hypothetical, not to a substantial offence. Legal wrong and moral wrong stand wide apart; a man may be legally responsible for the pil- ferings or extortions of his servants; and, to that ex- tent, he may confess to corruption; he cannot be held morally responsible. If Bacon takes to himself some share of blame, he takes to himself no share of guilt. He confesses to carelessness, not to crime. He points out, too, that the irregularities found in his court had all occurred when he was new in office, strange to his registrars and clerks, overwhelmed with arrears of work. Not a complaint had been heard since the villain Churchill was turned away. The last offence was 316 FRANCIS BACON. xiii. 25. two years old. For the latter half of his reign as Lord Chancellor, the inquisition of his enemies, aided by April 28. the treachery and corruption of his servants, had not been able to detect in his administration of justice a fault, much less a fraud. May 3. 26. The Peers proceed to vote. To pi-event a possible return of the Chancellor to power, with a possible resumption of the Seals, the Villiers party move to suspend the titles of Verulam and St. Albans during life-, an insidious proposition, which rouses even the reserved Archbishop Abbott, with the whole bench of prelates, to resistance. Fine, imprisonment, loss of office, are the understood forms of a political sentence; degradation from nobility is a moral censure. The learned prelates and independent peers have the satis- faction of defending successfully his personal honour; for when Ley puts the motion for suspending the titles of Verulam and St. Albans he has the mortification to declare it lost. The political censure passes; as it must pass on the Chancellor's submission; a vote of the House declaring that the greatest man who ever sat on its benches is expelled, deprived of the Seal, pro- hibited the court, fined forty thousand pounds, and im- prisoned in the Tower. 26. Chamberlain to Carleton, May 2, 5, 1621, S. P. O. ; Lords' Jour, iii. 105. REFORM AT AN END. 317 CHAPTER XIV. After Sentence. 1. BACON makes no complaint. He feels that he XI V- is made a sacrifice, an innocent sacrifice, for what he hopes may turn out to be the public good. The court jfay. is corrupt, though the judge may be pure. In a few- brave words he states the case: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years, but it was the justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years." 2. With the sentence on Lord St. Albans ends the ministerial passion for reform. No further search is made into Chancery iniquities, nor does the House re- member to proceed with its inquiry into the evil prac- tices of the King's Bench and the Court of Wards. The Crown makes a feeble effort of investigation, but only like the House of Commons to let the question drop. If the new Chancellor names a commission to report on Fees, nothing comes of their report. All that is irregular in the mode of conducting legal business grows to be more irregular. Instead of being a court without arrears, it is soon blocked up with clients. The new men invent new methods of extortion. With the fall of the Reformer ends the immediate prospect of reform. The very topic is adjourned to the times of Naseby and Dunbar. 1. Apophthegms, Spedding's Works of Bacon, vii. 179. 2. Statutes of the Realm, iv. 1208; Welden, 130; King's Proclamation, July 10, 1621 ; Proposals concerning the Chancery, 1650. 318 FRANCIS BACON*. XIY. 3. 3. All the agents of this memorable persecution get their share of spoil, except the man to whose invention jaiy! and persistence its success is due. Coke is in disgrace: for the match between his daughter and Sir John Vil- liers, though crowned with a peerage, has turned out a dismal work. Ley, if he misses the Seals, which Lady Buckingham reserves for the one nearer and dearer, obtains a wife, with the prospect of promotion and a peerage, for which indeed he has not long to wait. Churchill goes back to the trust which he so shame- fully abused. Williams steps into the Privy Council, and receives the Seals. "I should have known my successor," says Bacon, on receiving this extraordinary news. Some of the great peers demur to the nomina- tion of such a fellow as Williams to the presidency of their lordships' house; but the King quells this clamour of the Howards and De Veres by threatening them, if they object to Williams, with the nomination of Richard Neile. To give dignity to Lady Bucking- ham's friend, he is named successor to Dr. Mountain in the see of Lincoln. Cranfield's merits demand and re- ceive no less magnificent a prize. Some of the Villiers gang proposed to attack Mon- tagu, the Lord Treasurer, while their friends were pushing the charge against Bacon. Coke hinted a fault before the House of Peers, while Sir George Paul, one of Lady Buckingham's crew, whose zeal had been in- flamed by the gift of a lucrative office under Ley, peti- tioned the House of Commons against him. But there was danger in attempting too much; and a word from 3. Chamberlain to Carleton, June 23, July 14 . Oct. 13, Nov. 10, 1621, S. P. O.; Locke to Carleton, Sept. 29, 1621, 8. P. O.; Lords' Jonr., iii. 42, 81; Paul to Buckingham, July : i>. O. : Sign Manuals, xii. No. 66; Grant Book, 309; Doquet, Sept. 12, It}*'. MONTAGU THE NEXT VICTIM. 319 Buckingham put a stop to the indiscreet initiative ofxiv. 3. Paul, his new clerk of the King's Bench. The attack was but deferred. When Bacon is in the Tower, Cran- Ju i y ; field, now a baron, opens his siege against the Trea- sury. Montagu is rich and timid, and Cranfield offers him no choice but that of a cutthroat on Stamford Hill Your office or your life! Where Bacon has gone down Montagu cannot hope to stand. If he will allow himself to be robbed of a post which has cost him twenty thousand pounds, and of places about it which have cost his kinsmen and servants twenty thousand pounds more, the victorious party promise to secure him the undisturbed enjoyment of his peerage, and to cover the shame of his fall by reviving for him the old office of President of the Council. Montagu succumbs, sept. 29. Cranfield gets the White Staff, and after the birth of a son the Earldom of Middlesex. 4. These, ends of the confederacy obtained, the ^. heat of persecution dies off. Buckingham bears no im- placable resentment against the great Chancellor; he only wanted the mace and Seals. When he has put these baubles into the hand of Williams, he continues to express, and probably to feel, the warmest affection to Bacon's person, the most unbounded admiration for his parts; wishing to be thought the friend of Lord St. Albans, as Greville was known for the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. Meautys, the faithful benchman, in his notes to his master, hints at something savouring of an intrigue to procure from him confessions of friend- ship and obligation to the powerful favorite in whose 4. Meautys to Bacon, Mar. 3, 1622, Lambeth MSS. 930; Spedding 1 * Note, i. 9; Kushworth's Historical Collections, i. 31. 320 FRANCIS BACON. xrv. 4. smile the whole court lives and moves. As the charge of judicial corruption was a mere form, and the sentence Mar.' of fine and imprisonment a mere form, the robbery hav- ing been completed and Lady Buckingham's paramour installed, the charge is dropt, the sentence set aside. The fine is remitted, the freedom restored. An attempt to overthrow some of his judgments, fails; and of the thousands of decisions pronounced by him in the court of Chancery not one is reversed. 5. In these great facts of the Chancellor's life lies the safe and true interpretation of his plea of guilty. That this plea was a technical confession forced upon him by circumstances, not a personal confession of guilt, as modern writers have wrongfully assumed, is proved not more clearly by his own denials than by these subsequent actions towards him of society and the crown. When the battle was lost and Lord St. Albans was politically a fallen man, no contemporary ever dreamed of treating him as a con- victed rogue. When Somerset fell, he fell forever; Coke, when misfortune overwhelmed him, had to pay his heavy fines; no popular sympathy followed Suffolk to the Tower; but the sentence passed on Bacon was reversed by society even before it was cancelled by the crown, and the wisest and noblest persons in the land continued to court and love him, even more in his ad- versity than they had done in his days of grandeur. No living being supposed that he had lost his virtue because he had lost his place. The ascetic Selden looked to him as the first of men; the more genial Jonson expressed the common sentiment held toward 5. Jonson's Discoveries (Works, 1641) ii. 102, in Montagu xii. 407. OPINION OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 321 him of all good scholars and true poets. "My conceit xiv. 5. of his person", said Ben after Bacon's death, "was never increased towards him by his place or honours, but I MarV have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever by his work one of the greatest of men, and most worthy of admiration that hath been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as know- ing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest." In these honest words of the great poet, this fall of Bacon was an accident, not a judgment; an accident which made, not his shame, but his virtue, more conspicuous. That the King and the Privy Council felt with the scholar and poet was shown by several solemn acts of state by his dis- charge from the Tower, by the remission of his fine, by the enlargement of his liberties, by his recall to the House of Lords, in short by the restoration of all his rights and dignities so far as these were compatible with the safety of Lady Buckingham's creatures and the undisturbed enjoyment by her lover of the Seals. Such was also the reading of these transactions by the most eminent of foreign ministers and travellers. The French Marquis d'Effiat, the Spanish Conde de Gon- domar, expressed for him in his fallen fortunes the most delicate, the most exalted veneration. That the judges on the bench, that the members of both Houses of Parliament, even those who, at Buckingham's bid- ding, had passed against him that abominable sentence, concurred with the most eminent of their contempora- ries, native and alien, is apparent in the failure of Lord Racon. ^ 322 FRANCIS BACON. xiv. 5. every attempt made to disturb Ms judicial decisions. These efforts failed, because there was no injustice to Mar* overthrow, and there was no injustice to overthrow be- cause there had been no corruption on ^he bench. 6. Among his books and his experiments, with his horse, his pipe, and his game of bowls, he soon in the country air recovers his health, and with his health his spirits and his wit. He enriches the Essays with a thousand exquisite touches, and floods the court with repartee and jest. When the Jew Gondomar, recalled to Spain by an order from the King, sends to wish Bacon a good Easter, the wit replies, "Tell the Count I re- turn him the compliment and wish him a good Pass- over." Montagu comes to Gorhambury to complain how ill he has been used by the Villiers faction; "Why, my Lord," says Bacon, "they have made me an ex- ample and you a president." Poor in everything but his good spirits and his capacity for work, he toils at his History of Henry the Seventh, at the new edition of his Advancement of Learning, at his Advertizement touching a Holy War. These writings, and the works which have gone before them, extend his fame through- 1623. out Europe. Eminent scholars cross the seas to hear his voice; and fortunate he thinks himself who is able to carry back to France or Germany a picture of the renowned author. But the adversaries who have robbed him of his freehold in the Seals, though they cannot stain his credit in the eyes of Europe, can and do block up the narrowest pass by which he might return to power. Weighted with debt, for he is poorer at the 6. Apophthegms, in Spedding's Bacon, vii. 181 ; Bacon to James, Mar. 25, 1623; Lambeth MSS. 936; Bacon to Conway, Mar. 25, 1623, S. P. O. SEEKS PROVOSTSHIP OF ETON. 323 end of his chancellorship than on the day of his in- xiv. 6. stallation, he is anxious for work, even work of the 1 r ' " humblest kind. In 1623 Thomas Murray, secretary to Mar. Prince Charles, and Provost of Eton, falls sick and is like to die. Bacon offers himself as a candidate. Sir William Beecher, clerk of the Privy Council, a crea- ture of Villiers, and Sir Henry Wotton, poet, wit, am- bassador, are his opponents. Beecher has a promise from Buckingham of the succession to Murray; Buck- ingham is away in Spain with the Prince of Wales, fanning his face at bull-fights, leering at Castilian dames. To Sir Edward Conway, Secretary of State, now the immediate influence near the King, Bacon, who comes back to 'London, to his old lodgings in Gray's Inn, writes: BACON TO CONWAY. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Gray's Inn, 25th of March, 1623. When you did me the honour and favour to visit me you did not only in general terms express your love unto me, but as a real friend asked me whether I had any particular occasion wherein I might make use of you. At that time I had none; now there is one fallen. It is that Mr. Thomas Murray, Provost of Eton (whom I love very well), is like to die. It were a pretty cell for my fortune. The college and school I do not doubt but I shall make to flourish. His Majesty, when I waited on him, took notice of my wants, and said to me that as he was a king he would have care of me. This is a thing somebody must have, and costs his Majesty nothing. I have written two or three words to his Majesty, which I would pray you to deliver. I have not expressed this particular to his Majesty, but 21* 324 FRAXCIS BACOX. xiv. 6. referred it to your relation. My most noble friend the Marquis is now absent. Next to him I could not think 623 ' of a better address than to yourself, as one likest to put on his affections. I rest your very affectionate friend, FRANCIS ST. ALBAXS. Conway supports the suit. 7. James himself allows of Bacon's claims. He will think of it; he even hopes to arrange it; satisfying Beecher with another place. But Beecher is Bucking- ham's creature; Biickingham is away; till he comes back nothing can be done. The Villiers gang who remain in London oppose his nomination, even to so poor a place, as an act of caution and self-defence; for should a man so popular and inventive return to court, who can assure them against his gaining the upper hand? Conway's answer is in the State Paper Office; its spirit may be guessed from the following note of Bacon in reply to it: BACON TO CONWAY. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Gray's Inn, 29th of March, 1623. I am much comforted by your last letter, wherein I find that his Majesty of his great goodness vouchsa- feth to have a care of me, a man out of sight and out of use, but yet his (as the Scripture sayeth, "God knows those that are his"). In particular, I am very much bounden to his Majesty, and I pray (Sir) thank his Majesty most humbly for it, that, notwithstanding the former designment of Sir A. Beecher, his Majesty 7. Bacon to Conway, Mar. 29, 1623, S. P. O.; Do., Mar. 31, 1623. LambethMSS. 936. BACON TO CONWAY. 325 (as you write) is not out of hope in due time to ac-Jtrv. 7. commodate me of this cell and to satisfy that gentle- man otherwise. Many conditions (no doubt) may be as good for him, and his years may expect them. But there will hardly fall (especially in the spent hour-glass of such a life as mine) anything so fit for me, being a retreat to a place of study so near London, and where (if I sell my house at Gorhambury, as I purpose to do, to put myself into some convenient plenty), I may be accommodate of a dwelling for the summer time. And, therefore, good Mr. Secretary, further this his Majesty's good intention by all means if the place fall. For yourself you have obliged me much; I will endeavour to deserve it. At best nobleness is never lost, but rewarded in itself. My Lord Marquis I know will thank you. I was looking over some short papers of mine touching usury, how to grind the teeth of it, and yet to make it grind to his Majesty's mill in good sort, without discontent or perturbation: if you think good I will perfect it, as I send it to his Majesty as some fruits of my leisure. But yet I would not have it come as from me, not from any tenderness in the thing, but because I know well in the courts of princes it is usual n%n res, sed displicet auctor. God keep you. I rest your very affectionate friend, much obliged, FR. ST. AXBANS. Two days later he writes again. What a mournful, yet what a manful tone! JHe has sold York House, the place of his birth; he must now sell Gorhambury, the scene of his happiest hours and most splendid toils. Yet how inspiring, in the depths of sorrow, to see the 326 FRAXCIS BACON. xrv. 7. great man bear his burthen bravely: no false pride; no arrogant remembrance of the Mace, the Seals, the Privy Council, the Royal table; only a simple hope of find- ing in his old age a sphere of duty in which he can win bread by honest work! 8. There are men, and good men, who, from long habit, perhaps, of thinking Bacon weak and servile, fancy that in these letters, and in many other letters to the King, to Somerset or to Buckingham, they detect a slavish spirit, and are sorry to find it there. Should it not be remembered, in explanation, that the age was one of gorgeous compliment? Read the compliments paid by Shakespere to the Queen, by Jonson to James, by Spencer to Raleigh, by Donne to Craven. Bacon saw men, as he saw nature, through a haze of golden light; but because his praises of those he addressed are often, like his speeches and descriptions, glorious, is it fair to consider them venal or insincere? Genius tends to excess; giving brighter pink to the rose and deeper blue to the sky. A writer who cannot name an insect or a flower save to brighten it with poetical fancies, should not be too harshly judged when in the exercise of his abundant gifts he scatters gold dust on the heads of magistrates and Kings. Rawley who often talked with him, reports, as indeed we see in all his works, that the great Chan- cellor could not tell a story or quote a passage from another writer, without adding to it from his own mind a touch of beauty or wisdom not seen in it before. He spread his riches over everything. The humility of his address, and the splendour of his compliment, appear, 8. Rawley's Life of Bacon, 1661. BACON TO KING JAMES. 327 on consideration, to proceed, not from a servile heart, xiv. 8. but from a disposition naturally gentle and from a faculty of expression singularly strong and bright. 9. He writes to the King: BACON TO JAMES. Mar - 29 IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, Now that my friend is absent (for so I may call him still, since your Majesty, when I waited on you, told me that fortune made no difference) your Majesty remaineth to me king and master, and friend and all. Your Beadsman, therefore, addresseth himself to your Majesty for a cell to retire unto. The particular I have expressed to my very hon. friend, Mr. Sec. Conway. This help (which costs your Majesty nothing) may reserve me to do your Majesty service, without being chargeable unto you, for I will never deny but my desire to serve your Majesty is of the nature of the heart, that will be idtimum mor/ens with me. God pre- serve your Majesty, and send you a good return of your treasure abroad, which passeth your Majesty's Indian fleet. Your most humble and devoted servant, FRANCIS ST. ALBANS. Murray grows daily worse. Bacon writes again to Conway : BACON TO CONWAY. April 7. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Gray's Inn, 7th of April, 1623. I received right now an advertisement from a friend of mine who is like to know it, that Mr. Murray is very ill (and that, so are the words of his letter) not 9. Bacon to James, Mar. 29, 1C23, S. P. O. ; Bacon to Conway, April 7, 1623, S. P. O. 328 FRANCIS BACON. xiv. 9. only his days but his hours are numbered. You have put my business into a good way, and (to tell you true) April V. my heart is much upon this place, as fit for me, and where I may do good. Therefore, Sir, I pray you have a special eye to it, and I shall ever acknowledge it to you in the best fashion that I can. Resting your very affectionate friend, FR. ST. ALBANS. Sept. 10. Murray dies. Time passes on. Buckingham still away, the King can form no resolution as to filling up this poor place of Provost. Six months later the place is still vacant. Bacon writes again: BACOX TO CONWAY. Gray's Inn, this 4th day of September, 1623. GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Let me, now his Majesty is in sight of Eton, make my most humble claim to his Majesty's gracious pro- mise by you signified, which, as I understand it, was, that if Mr. Beecher, who had a promise upon my Lord of Buckingham's score, might otherwise be satisfied (which his Majesty would endeavour), I should have my desire. Mistake me not, as if I expected this should be done and perfected till my noble, true friend comes back. But I pray refresh it only in his Majesty's memory. It were strange if I should not do as much good to the College as another, be it square cap or round. I always rest your affectionate friend and servant, ST. ALBANS. 10. Bacon to Conway, Sept. 4, 1C23, S. P. O. : Sign Man., xvi., No. 42. DISAPPOINTED OF PROVOSTSHIP. 329 Buckingham and the faction of Buckingham con- xiv. 10. tinue adverse to his suit; for the men whoSe feet are on his neck distrust his generosity and dread his intellec- tual power. In small things, as in great things, though Buckingham professes a boundless admiration for Bacon's parts, he chooses to have about him men more pliable and more frail. Sir William Beecher, a gentleman un- fit for such a post as' Murray's, takes a promise of 2500/. in lieu of the succession; but Sir Henry Wotton, an honourable man and a good scholar, though of far less various learning and far less exalted virtue than Lord St. Albans, gets the Provostship of Eton. 11. It is the last time he troubles Buckingham or James. Henceforth he devotes himself to his experi- ments and his books; to the collections for his Sylva Sylvarum; to his Historia Vitae et Mortis; to the con- struction of his New Atlantis; to the enlargement of his Essays. He is a greater man now in his study than when the Mace was borne before him, and the Lord Treasurer and Secretary of State rode on his right hand and on his left. He lives in seclusion; but his writings fill the whole world with his fame. 12. From the seclusion of Gorhambury or Gray's Inn he watches the men who have ruined his fortune and stained his name fall one by one. Before their year of triumph ran out, Coke's intolerable arrogance plunged him into the Tower, from which he escaped, 11. Rawley in Speeding, i. 9. 10. 12. Council Reg., Dec. 27, 1621, Aug. 6, 1622; Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 18, Dec. 1, 1621, June 8, 1622, S. P. O. ; James' Reply to the Com- mons, Dec. 11, 1621, S. P. O. ; Locke to Carleton, Jan. 1, 1622, S. P. O. ; Buckingham to Crew, Feb. 11, 1625, S. P. O. 330 FRANCIS BACOX. xiv. 12. after eight months imprisonment, to be permanently de- graded from *he Privy Council, banished from the court, and confined to his dismal ruin of a house at Stoke. The sale of Frances jCoke to Viscount Purbeck is a dismal failure. She makes the man to whom she was sold perfectly miserable; quitting his house for days 4 and nights; braving the public streets in male attire; falling in guilty love with Sir Robert Howard; shock- ing even the brazen sinners of St. James's by the ex- cessive profligacy of her life. Purbeck steals abroad to hide his shame. At last he goes raving mad. In less than three years from the day of that gorgeous feast at court, Buckingham would have given his mar- quisate to untie the knot. All that Bacon foresaw has come to pass. Sir Robert Howard, a son of that Earl of Suffolk whom Buckingham broke and disgraced, pursues his pleasure and his revenge in the amour with Lady Purbeck, willing to vindicate by his sword the injury done by his lawless love. Buckingham, who lacks courage either to defend his family honour or to renew the scandalous scene of the Essex divorce, in place of crossing blades with Howard in Marylebone Park, proceeds against his sister-in-law for incontinence, and procures from the Ecclesiastical Court a sentence condemning her to stand in a penitential white sheet at the door of the Savoy church. It is easier to con- demn than to catch the nimble profligate, an accom- plished player at hide and seek. Once the pursuivants catch a glimpse of her near an ambassador's house; they chase; she slips from her coach, runs through the gates, changes clothes with a page, who minces like a lady into her seat, and tears down the Strand with Buckingham's men at the wheels. She trips laughingly FALL OP HIS ENEMIES. 331 away, while the officers of justice follow the coach andxiv.i2. seize the boy. MM. 13. Three years have now elapsed since a fanatical Ma ^- House of Commons, deceived by a false cry for reform of abuses, gave up as a sacrifice to his enemies and their own, the chief reformer of the age. The burgesses have been undeceived. The great Chancellor driven from power, abuses in the Chancery have increased a hundred -fold. Churchill has had his fling, Williams has grown rich, and suitors in his court find daily cause to regret the speed, the rectitude, the urbanity of his predecessor. The foreign war has been disas- trous, and the young Prince of Wales has been in Spain, seeking for a wife in that splendid and super- stitious Court which every second man in England curses as the home of Anti-Christ. A cry for a new Parliament swells through the land and will not be re- pressed; a Parliament which, made wiser by events, may possibly call for a reckoning from the great Chancellor's foes. An act of conciliation marks the issue of the writ, and Bacon is reinstated in all his honours and privileges as a peer of the realm. Nothing of the sentence now remains beyond the robbery of the Seal. But while the Lord Chancellor's innocence is conspicuously asserted and his peerage restored, the infamous plotter who planned his fall, the wretched witness who supplied the falsehoods, are brought to in- 13. Cora. Jour., i.591. 766; Nicholas to Nicholas, Mar. 17, 1624, S. P. O. ; Chichester to Carleton, May 12, 1624, S. P.*O. ; Locke to Carleton, May 13, 1624, S. P. O. 332 FRANCIS BACON. xiv. 13. stant punishment and perpetual shame. Soon as the House of Commons meets in Westminster, Churchill 1 fi^4. May.' is convicted of forgery and fraud. Two months after Churchill's condemnation Cranfield is in turn assailed. Charges of taking bribes from the farmers of customs, of fraudulent dealing with the royal debts, of robbing the magazine of arms, are proved against him-, when, abandoned by his powerful friends, he is sentenced by the House of Commons to public infamy, to loss of of- fice, to imprisonment in the Tower, to a restitutionary fine of two hundred thousand pounds! "In future ages," says a wise observer of events, "men will won- der how my Lord St. Albans could have fallen, how my Lord of Middlesex could have risen." 14. The most subtle of his enemies falls the last. After his promotion to the Seals and mitre, Williams, silly enough to dream that he could stand alone, began to neglect Lady Buckingham for younger and less ex- acting women. Murmurs now rise against him; slowly at first, but gathering strength as his ingratitude, his arrogance, and his cupidity prove themselves month by month. When Lady Buckingham withdraws from him her countenance, he falls at once from his fatal height is stripped of the Seals with every mark of igno- miny and is driven, with a sullied reputation, though with sharpened powers for mischief, from the Court of Chancery into the more settled scenes of ecclesiastical strife. 14. Suckling to Buckingham, Oct. 24. 1625, S. P. O. ; Williams to Goring, Oct. 30, 1625, S. P. O. HIS DEATH. 333 15. Were there space in his generous heart forxiv. 15. vengeance, how the passions of the great Chancellor would glow and leap as these adversaries fall before NOV. i. his eyes. Never was the wisdom of counsel proved more signally, the vindication of conduct more complete. All that he foresaw of evil has come to pass. He does not, indeed, live to behold that fiery joy which lights and shakes the land when Buckingham's tyranny drops under an assassin's knife; but he lives long enough to find himself justified by facts on every point of his opposi- tion to the scandalous family policy and private bar- gains of the Villiers clan. Frances Coke has made Sir John a perfectly bad wife. Elizabeth Norreys has run away from Sir Christopher, giving up her beauty and her fortunes to Edward Wray. Lady Buckingham her- self, after moving earth and hell to pull down Abbott and make her lover an archbishop, has had to endure the pain and mortification of seeing the creature of her fantasy neglect her charms. Coke, Cranfield, Churchill, Williams, have been alike overwhelmed with misery and shame. But he feels no quickening pang of joy at the discomfiture of these enemies. From the moment of his own trial, he has accepted the position of a ne- cessary sacrifice. He breathes no word against the House of Commons, nor questions the justice of the House of Lords. He speaks no evil of the men who made themselves the instruments of his fall. But re- stored to his legal rights, to his place among the peers, an object of unbounded admiration to scholars, and of infinite love and veneration to all except a desperate 15. Chamberlain to Carleton, Mar. 30, 1C22, S. P. O. ; Bacon's Will ; Montagu, xvl. part ii. 447; Doin. Papers of Charles the First, xxiv. 59. 334 FRANCIS BACON. xiv. 15. crew, he holds on to his nobler intellectual work, and - the Father of Experimental Philosophy dies at last in Nov.i. the very act of an experiment, quitting the world in peace with all men, leaving a young widow, who, like her mother, will many again, and appealing for the vindication of his fame to time. APPENDICES. No. I. A J P - LADY ANN BACON TO LORD BURGHLEY. (Original in Lansdowne MSS., xliii. 48.) Feb. 26, 1585. I KNOW well, mine especial good Lord, it becometh me not to be troublesome unto your honour at any other time, but now chiefly in this season of your greatest affair and small or no leisure; but yet, be- cause yesterday morning, especially as in that I was extraordinarily admitted, it was your Lordship's favour, so, fearing to stay too long, I could not so plainly speak, nor so well receive your answer thereto, as I would truly and gladly in that matter, I am bold by this writing to enlarge the same more plainly, and to what end I did mean. If it may like your good Lordship, the report of the late conference at Lambeth hath been so handled, to the discrediting of those learned that labour for right reformation in the ministry of the Gospel, that it is no small grief of mind to the faithful preachers; because the matter is thus by the other side carried away, as though their cause could not sufficiently be warranted by the word of God. For the which proof they have long been sad suitors, and would most humbly crave still both of" God in heaven, whose cause 336 FRANCIS BACON. APP. it is, and of her Majesty their most excellent Sovereign T> here in earth, that they might obtain quiet and con- venient audience either before her Majesty herself, whose heart is in God's hand to touch and to turn, or before your honours of the Council, whose wisdom they greatly reverence. And if they cannot strongly prove before you out (of) the Word of God that reformation which they so long have called and cried for, to be according to Christ's own ordinance, then to let them be rejected with shame out of the Church for ever. And that this may be the better done to the glory of God and true understanding of this great cause, they require, first, leave to assemble and to consult together purposely, which they have forborne to do for avoiding suspicion of private conventicles. For hitherto, though in some writing they have declared the state of their, yea God's cause, yet were they never allowed to confer together, and so together be heard fully. But now some one, and then some two, called upon a sudden unprepared, to four prepared to catch them, rather than gravely and moderately to be heard to defend their right and good cause. And, therefore, for such weighty conference they appeal to her Majesty and her honourable wise Coun- cil, whom God hath placed in highest authority for the advancement of his kingdom, and refuse the bishops for judges, who are parties partial in their own de- fence, because they seek more worldly ambition than the glory of Christ Jesus. For my own part, my good Lord, I will not deny but as I may I hear them in their public exercises as a chief duty commanded by God to widows; and also I confess, as one that hath found mercy, that I have LADY BACON TO LORD BtTOGHLEY. 337 profited more in the inward feeling knowledge of God's APP. Holy will (though but in a small measure) by such sincere and sound opening of the Scriptures by an ordinary preaching, within these seven or eight years, than I did by hearing odd sermons at Paul's well nigh twenty years together. I mention this unfeignedly, the rather to excuse this my boldness toward your Lordship, humbly beseeching your Lordship to think upon their suit, and, as God shall move your under- standing heart, to further it. And if opportunity will not be had as they require, yet I once again in humble wise am a suitor unto your Lordship that you would be so good as to choose two or three of them which your honour liketh best, and license them before your own self, or other at your pleasure, to declare and to prove the truth of the cause with a quiet and an atten- tive ear. I have heard them say ere now they will not come to dispute and argue to breed contention, which is the manner of the bishops' hearing; but to be suffered pa- tiently to lay down before them that shall command (they then excepted) how well and certainly they can warrant, by the infallible touchstone of the Word, the substantial and main ground of their cause. Surely, my Lord, I am persuaded you should do God accept- able service herein; and for the very entire affection I owe and do bear unto your honour I wish from the very heart that, to your other rare gifts sundry wise, you were fully instructed and satisfied in this principal matter so contemned of the great Rabbis, to the dis- honouring of the Gospel so long amongst us. I am so much bound to your Lordship for your comfortable dealing toward me and mine, as I do in- Lord Bacon. 22 338 FRANCIS BACON. APP. cessantly desire that by your Lordship's means God's glory may more and more be promoted, the grieved godly comforted, and you and yours abundantly blessed. None is privy to this; and, indeed, though I hear them, yet I see them very seldom. I trust your Lordship will accept in best part my best meaning. In the Lord dutifully and most heartily, A. BACON. For thinness of the paper I write on the other leaf for my ill eyes. ii. i. No. IE. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 110.) May 29, 1592. I am glad and thank God of your amendment; but my man said he heard you rose at three of the clock. I thought that was not well, so suddenly from bedding much, to rise so early newly, out of your diet. Ex- tremities be hurtful to whole, more to the sickly. If you be not wise and discreet for your diet and season- ing of your doings, you will be weakish I fear a good while. Be wise and godly too, and discern what is good and what not for your health. Avoid extremities. What a great folly were it in you to take cold to hinder your amendment, being not compelled, but upon voluntary indiscretion, seeing the cost of physic is much, your pain long, and your amendment slow, and your duty not yet done! Give none occasion by negli- gence. You go, as is commonly said, of your own LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 339 errands. I like not your lending your coach yet to APP. any lord or lady, if you once begin you shall hardly end; but that I hope you shall shortly use it, I would it were here, to shun all offending. It was not well it was so soon seen at the Court, to make talk, and at last be mocked or misliked. Tell your brother I counsel you to send it no more. What had my Lady Shrews- bury to borrow your coach! Your man for money, and somebody else for their vain credit, will work you but displeasure and loss, and they have thanks. Learn to be wise in things of this sort, and do nothing rashly. In haste. Late this Sabbath. Farewell. Take care of your health and please God. A. B. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. n.2. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 65.) April 15, 1593. My neighbour upon going to London for his own business told me of it suddenly after this Sabbath forenoon sermon that he must go to London, and that early to-morrow. I am desirous to know how your health is; how matters after Parliament go to private folk, namely, as concerns your cousin Hoby; and, if you will, your brother too. God grant us all faithful hearts in piety and religion, and wise and discreet in godly practices. If any lack wisdom, ask of the Lord, and receive, as saith the Apostle James, his grace with all Christian fortitude to bear up a good conscience. I haste to the church again. God make you able to hear public instructions to your great comfort! I could willingly hear of Early proceedings; for your state of want of health and of money, and Borne other things 22* 340 FP.AKCIS BACOX. AFP. touching you both, gives me no quiet. God bless you both with good and godly increase in Christ. Easter, as they say. Tour mother, A. B. n.3. LADY BACOX TO AXTHOXT BACOS. (Oriff. Lambeth MSS. 619, foL 100.) SOX. Gorhambary, Jane 26. 159S. Goodman Grinnell of Barly came this morning hither very sad upon a speech he had heard you were about to let his farm to another, yet hopeth better, both for your promise and the receipt of some money upon it. Good son, keep your word advisedly spoken; it is a Christian credit. Be not suddenly removed nor believe hastily, but know whom and how. Sure, if that disposition be found and observed in you once, it will be wrought upon to your hinderance in estimation and profit, besides that the grandfather, father, and son have there continued I think once upon a sale of wood in your absence I heard that the Grinnells had dwelled there above a hundred and twenty years. The man is willing to do as much as another: the same person that now would I wot not. What reversion in your absence was backward, and rather hindered wood sales and other things, he would fain have had Goodman Fynch with him to you, but I can in no wise now spare him. Mowing and other businesses come on; it is here marvellously hot and dry, and grass burnt away. God help us! I pray you comfort GrinnelTs heart and keep just promises justly, and be not credulous lightly: and so the Lord bless you and guide you with His Holy Spirit in His fear! Be not LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 341 too frank with that Papist; such have seducing spirits APP. to snare the godly. Be not too open. Sit not up late, nor disorder your body, that you may have health to do good service when God shall appoint. Your careful mother, A. BACON. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. n. 4. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 649, fol. 232.) Oct. 8, 1593. I pray God keep you safe from all infection of sin and plague. It hath pleased the Lord to put me in remembrance, on both sides of me, by taking two of the sickness, very necessary persons to me, a widow, specially the goodman Fynch, whose want I shall have cause to lament daily. His careful, and skilful, and very trusty husbanding my special rural businesses every way procured me, and that even to the very last, much quiet of mind and leisure to spend my time in godly exercises, both public and private. I confess I am so heartily sorry for his death as I cannot choose but mourn my great loss thereby, and now in my weakish sickly age; but the Lord God doth it to humble His servants and teach them to draw nearer to Him in heart unfeignedly, which grace God grant me to be effectual in me. I humbly beseech His pity. Surely, son, one cannot value rightly the singular benefit of such a one in these dissolute and unfaithful days, but by wise consideration and good experience. It may be you know it ere this, by somebody's posting in jollity; but be wise and learn in time to your own good estimation, and be not readily carried either to believe or do upon unthrifts' pleasing and boasting 342 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. speeches, and but mockeries, in order to make their profit of you and to bear out their unknown to you disordered unruliness. Among their peradventure pot- fellowship companions there will be craving of you, and I wot not what. Promise not rashly, be hie juris; you shall be better esteemed both of wise and unwise before that punitive experience shall teach you to your cost. It is said that Thistleworth is visited. Some talk how Fynch should take it there in baiting his horse; but now he is gone. So was the will of God, who bless you and send you much good of all your bodily physic, and make you strong to do His holy will to your comfort. Be slow in speaking and pro- mising, lest you repent when it is too late. Commend me to your brother. Look well to your house and servants. Fear late and night roads, now towards winter. Your sad mother, A. BACOX. n. 5. ( LADY BACOX TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 223.) Sept. 7, 1594. I send you herein Crosby's letter, because you may better understand by it the words of the Sheriff to himself, if the State be brought in question. I am sorry of the last act you so earnestly required, whereto I was hardly drawn, as you know, for doubt of danger. Doubtless your brother Nic hath done somewhat in the Exchequer. You thought it could not come to his ear so soon; but you see you are deceived. You shall do well to send for the attorney and mine Marsh I do mean. If he should strain upon the manor to trouble LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 343 me and my tenants, I have brought myself in good APP. case by your means. Mr. Crew is not in city I hear. It is the worse. The Sheriff thrcateneth to strain be- fore the next audit, which is before Michaeltide, which is not three weeks hence at uttermost. You had not need to slack this, as Brocket's matter is to my hin- drance. Some money I had need of for to have pay the suit by his cousin. I have not of mine own at this present for my house and other charges 6/. in money: I am ready to borrow 10/. of my neighbours if I can. I send purposely. I pray you let me know certainly what way you take to help it with speed. If it once come in Exchequer suit, one trouble will follow another. Prevent therefore. I would fain have gone to London for physic next week, but I perceive I cannot, being weakish to ride so far, and the way is but ill for a coach for me, besides the wet weather. I will desire Mistress Morer to be with me here for that time. If you prove your new in hand physic, God give you good of it. My Lord Treasurer about five years past was greatly pressed by the great vaunt of a sudden start-up glorious stranger, that would needs cure him of the gout by boast; "but," quoth my Lord, "have you cured any? Let me know and see . them." "Nay," said the fellow, "but I am sure I can." "Well," concluded my Lord, and said, "Go, go, and cure first, and then come again, or else not." I would you had so done. But I pray God bless it to you, and pray heartily to God for your good recovery and sound. I am sorry your brother and you charge your- selves with superfluous horses. The wise will but laugh at you both; being but trouble, besides your debts, long journeys, and private persons. Earls be 344 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. Earls. Your vain man straitly by -his sloth and proud quarrel-picking conditions sets all your house at Red- bourn out of quiet order by general complaint, as I hear. Lately young Morer was smote in the eye by him, and I pray God you hear not of some mischief by him. But my sons have no judgment. They will have such about them, and in their house, and will not in time remedy it before it break out in some manifest token of God's displeasure. I cannot cease to warn as long as I am a mother that loveth you in the Lord most dearly, and as Seneca by philosophy only could say, in warning a friend I would rather lack success (which yet I deprecate) than fidelity. Your mother, A. BACON. The heavenly preacher saith, Each thing hath his opportunity and due season: well may you do as blessed in the Lord! n. 6. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 75.) March, 1595. One of the prophets, Nahum I think, saith that the Lord hath His way in the whirlwind, the storm, and tempest, and clouds are the dust of His feet. The wind hath had great power: it hath thrown off a num- ber of tiles, some fruit-trees and one or two other pales, posts and all, and stone pinnacle; and that I am sor- riest for, hath blown up a sheet of lead on one side of the gate where the dial stands. But, in my conscience, your French cattle, Jaques and all, had before loosened it with hacking lead for pellets. I pray burn this. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY" BACON. 345 Let them not see it; but hurtful they were. I desire APP. to know how you did and do. I pray be careful to be well to your own comfort and good desire of your friends, with avoiding cold-taking continually and pre- venting by wariness. Sustain and abstain, and be cheerful and sleep in due time. I liked nothing my coxisin Kemp's horse I sent you. I will not Graham's. My time is in God's hand, and not at his appointment: he ever stood upon a month's warning in my life. Some unknown trick there is; it will not serve with me doubtless. And shall Elsdon and Brocket thus dally and mock still? If God j^ive me strength I will to London for these two causes, by His merciful guiding. A. B. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. ir. 7. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 69.) March, 1595. I came yesterday home, I thank God well, though very weary, by that missing the right way we roved and made it longer. I found a very sick and sore altered man. One might by him see what is the change wrought by the hand of the Highest in correcting. He hath been, as you know, a strong-armed man, and active in such exercises of strength as shooting, wrest- ling, casting the bar; and whilst he was with me I never used footstool to horseback; but now, God help him,' weak in voice, his flesh consumed, his hands, bones, and sinews; but his belly up to his very chest swollen and hoved up, and as hard withal as though one touched wainscot. I thank the Lord that put me in the mind to visit him with a Christian desire to comfort his soul, which I trust Mr. Wilblood's spirit- 346 FRANCIS BACON. APP. ual counsel and comfort, with heaiiy prayer, was a mean to it; God, I trust, working Avith his admonitions in the sick body to the reviving of his soul. He hath his memory perfect, and well and glad of godly correction. God grant him and myself also His continual sweet comfort and feeling mercy to the end! Amen. For your going you spoke of to London, and will have two beds hence for your servants, let me know in time. I would you had here tarried till that re- move; you should have spared much waste expense, which you need not, and have been better provided. Surely, if you keep all your Redbourn household at London, you will undo yourself. Money is very hard to come by, and sure friends more hard; and you shall be still in other folk's danger, and not your own man, and your debts will pinch you, though you may hope; but your continual sickliness withal is a great hindrance ; and if you make show of a housekeeping in the city, you shall quickly be overcharged, much disquieted, and brought not over the ears but over shoulders. Therefore at the beginning be very wary and wise, as it is said. "Learn to be wise for yourself," one said Consult the Lord, and do nothing rashly. I could not choose but advise as heretofore. God guide you to safe age's rest, and best course. H. 8. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 66.) March 30, 1595. I mean, if God will, to come hither again before Easter; but you are going farther hence than my able- ness will endure to travel, either by water or by land, and know not when I shall see you any more. I pray LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 347 God to go before you, and to be with you ever, to APP. heal you, to help you, and to counsel and comfort you continually with His fatherly love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. I wrote yesterday to my Lady Walsingham and by her to the Countess [of Essex]. She took it well, and thanked me. The Countess is very near her tra- vailing time. I beseech God of His goodness make her a joyful mother, with daily increase of God's bless- ing upon her and hers. Beware in anywise of the Lord H. [Howard]! He is a dangerous intelligencing man; no doubt a subtle Papist inwardly, and lieth in wait. Peradventure he hath some close working with STANDEN and the SPANIARD [Perez]. Be not too open; he will betray you to divers, and to your AUNT RUS- SELL among others. The Duke had been alive but by his practising and still soliciting him, to the double undoing. And the EARL of ARUNDEL, avoid his fami- liarity as you love the truth and yourself. A very in- strument of the Spanish Papists. I pray no creature know or see this I write; but burn it with your own hands. And remember; for he, pretending courtesy, works mischief devilishly. 1 have long known him and observed him ; his workings have been stark naught. Stand at a distance! I am sorry I cannot speak with Dr. Fletcher for your horse. I would certainly know. It is not like you will brew hastily. Send me word what time you guess, because of mine absence if God let me live. But vessels and carriage must surely be provided; for indeed I have none for malt. If you tell Crosby your mind, I will pay for it when I have re- ceived rents. Gryst is very dear methinks, but he denieth. If you had taken your physics here in your 348 FRANCIS BACON. APP. well- warmed house, it had been better I think. God II 8 be your guide in all your ways, and take heed of cold- taking upon remove and after physic. Call for your own necessaries; you may forget you, and you smart for it. Use your legs as you may, daily; they will else be the feebler, and the sinews stark and strength- less. It is true, I fear, there is no ordinary preaching ministry at Chelsea. I cannot tell how to lament it; but both my sons, methinks, do not care for it where they dwell. Greater want cannot be. We had needs watch continually to be well armed against evil days, imminent to be feared; for of all soils we wax worse and worse. London waxeth straitlaced, urging that slavish pleasing will not salve his hard-cured sore. Burn this. The God of mercy, health, and peace compass you about with His heavenly favour wheresoever. Fare- well in Christ now and ever. Your mother, A. B. My grief is great about Essex, and truly I fear lest opportunity should have given rise to most shame- ful and grievous adultery and the midst of evils and (Here follow five words much blotted and very in- distinct.) ii. 9. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 54.) Gorhambury, April 1, 1595. I send between your brother and you the first flight of my dove-house: the Lord be thanked for all: ij dozen and iiij pigeons, xij to you, and xvj to your brother, because he was wont to love them better than LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 349 you from a boy. Marvellous hard, snowy, haily, and APP. strong windy weather here, and great scarcity. I have had more toil in my body few days since I came last hither than in above twice as long at London. I wish myself there again, and peradventure, if God will, I will before Easter as now minded. I am glad your beer was sent so soon. To-day, upon occasion of a maid sending to Redborn, but none of my servants, I hear Mistress Read and Henry are malcontent for cer- tain implements; specially, as they say, in the best reserved chamber for your friends, noble or not noble, a carpet, and other things filled with birds, hunting or hawks or dogs. Mr. Lawson was the nobleman lodged there, I ween; and like enough, for he is subtle, vainglorious, and makes you bleared still to ensure all, and pay for all; and further, as was reported, that Norris was discontented for your requiring to Mr. Read, he not made privy before. Thus they talk, and some- thing else, now you are gone; and one that tames the bit is become a tippler and will be overseen with drink, but an ill servant in your house, the fruit of idleness. Large was here this day. I told him it was honesty and Christian duty to dwell at home with his wife. I would, I said, be loth that my son should bear the blame of his being an ill husband, and leave his first calling to labour, for to leave over to be a good thri- ving fellow. I used him so still, though other civil service, washing among. It is commonly spoken that Fynch of Woodend and Guaram are joint companions in all ill fellowship. Use them thereafter, and take no luck by such. You and your brother have taken much discredit by not judging wisely and rightly of those; yea, both of you, over-credit to your willing 350 FRANCIS BACON. APP. hinderance. I pray the Lord give you both good ' " understanding by His word and spirit, and health to serve Him in truth, to your good estimation, with increase of His blessed favour. Let not your men be privy hereof. As your good mother, I thus certify. Think of it. Your mother, A. B. Use your legs betimes, for fear of losing by disuse. Good Rolf was here to-day to speak with me, and very sadly said thus to me, that he had before now, and presently again did hear that his farm should be let from him; whereupon his ancient wife and he both were much grieved. I told him I never heard any tittle of it, and thought it was nothing; so it will be worse, I wis, for you to make a change for Humphrey. He hopes you will at least let him tarry iij years longer after his present state. Finished scamblers are easily had everywhere, but discreet, honest, sufficient farmers would be continued; they serve the country and countenance their landlord indeed. Guaram will prove stark naught if you suffer him to let the ground from Pleatah farm; you are marvellously abused by him and misled; some in my house are too often with him. I will look better to them for it. Yet by them I hear of these his naughty doings, both for himself and you. God be with you, and make you able to every good duty, and guide you all ways to your comfort. God knows when I shall see you. I am therefore more careful to advertise you to beware. Remember Groome I pray you. Brocket will make jest of us both. Keep not superfluous servants to mar LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 351 them with idleness and undo you. Let Large live at APP. home; best for him, a married man. Nobody see this, but burn it, or send it back; and so commend you to the Lord. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. n. 10. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 65.) SON, April 1, 1595. Woodward told me you required a hogshead of beer. I will, if it please God I come well and in time home to-morrow, I will send you one by the cart oi my best ordinary beer; the rest remaining is March. I pray you let me have another hogshead for it. I shall lack else; and let one be ready with a car, because of double jumbling. I think, well used, you may drink it after five days' settling at least; but that, as you see, being above iiij months old, after it is broached it will not last above a fortnight because of turning. This bearer I have newly taken into my house. A. B. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. n. 11. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 64.) Gorhambury, April 3, 1595. I thank you for your horses. I send you a hogs- head of November beer, methinks good, and a ban-el also of the same brewing which I did cause the brewer then to tun of the first tap of the same brewing, and so strong, because at that time it was thought you would come to Redburn, and I meant it to you: it is so strong as I would not drink ordinarily to my meals, but do you use it to your most good; in any wise when these two vessels be empty let them be returned 352 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. by the cart. I cannot want [do without] them indeed, and they be strong, besides divers other vessels of mine sent to your sundry places. I did at one time send six together, if not seven, to Kedbum, and I paid vii s. for heading and hooping and seasoning of them; howsoever they make you pay afterward. I did so in truth. I pray remember Groom's ill handling, and curb it well for all his naughty and tippling mates. I wrong my men, living well and Christianly in their honest vocation, to suffer them to be ill entreated and myself contemned-, I mean not to. Crosby purposeth to be with you on Monday if God will, and your corn ready. Your mother, A. B. Yesterday, seeing my sister Russell at the Black- friars house, after the sermon, I found her very much grieved, and her words charging my Lord Treasurer of very unkind dealing in a matter very chargeable to [her], and a slight end procured, she said to her hurt, with tears on account of him. I saw her so lamenting, I said I would write to Sir Robert Cecil. "No, no," said she, "it is too late; he hath marred all, and that against my counsel's liking at all." But [do] not you nor your brother intermeddle in it nor be a knowing of it. I pray you show your brother this, and let him not take knowledge lest you both set on work; and for that HOWARD, once again be very ware as of a subtle serpent. Burn all, for fear of the servants. Be not hasty to remove. Your drink well used, and not set abroach all at once, above the bung first, then by de- grees lower once or twice, will be better and last long, LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 353 saith the brewer. York House lease is not here, as I said to my cousin Kemp. Mr. Bayley hath seen every place purposely to satisfy my Lord Keeper. I do not remember that ever I saw any lease from the Bishop sealed, but by parley and trust betwixt both. Fare- well. The brewer, who is now here, saith that your beer now sent, well handled, will drink well a month's space. Let not your servants beguile you secretly or openly. Use your legs in any wise and daily, lest they fail you when you would; neglect not in time, and serve the Lord with all your heart. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol, 102.) May, 1595. Grace , and the love of the Lord in Christ. Your beer, well handled I trust, is meant to be sent to- morrow early. The brewer hath been careful himself. I had no brewing, I dare say these twelve months, more diligently attended upon of my servants; if the carriers do their part, and all were well watched and looked to in the cellar, it is thought for your own special use it will last till nigh Michaeltide, both for quantity and quality. As you appointed it is brewed, 8 hogsheads in all, and of the chiefest beer 2 hogs- heads, marked with an S on each side of the wheel mark; the third, somewhat less strong, being a second, is marked, likewise with chalk, with a smaller wheel mark, and one only S, by it to know it rightly. All the other five alike. God give you the right use of all His gifts to God's glory and your own farther ad- vancement and true comfort. The rowelled horse I had no mind to indeed, nor Ltird Racon. 23 354 FRANCIS BACON. APR. the horse Master Spencer rode on. Lawson thrust in 1 1 1 ' here his and others smuttled and spoiled beast. The horse is full of windfalls, a token of very spoiling in riding and dressing. Grass is here yet but poor and scant, and I must turn out shortly my two service geldings of necessity. I will not change my own faulty husband's horse for yours, both heavy and stumbling, and never broken for such a toward horse when you first had him. Diverse of my folk now sickly. God increase your health I pray God, and be merciful to us both. I thank you for your comely mastiff; it is supposed he will hunt after sheep; he is too old; I durst not prove him yet. Your mother, A. BACON. ir. 13. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 144.) $ON, 3 June, 1595. You had a mind to have the long carpet and the ancient learned philosopher's picture from hence: but, indeed, I had no mind thereto, yet have I sent them, very carefully bestowed and laid in a hamper for safety in carriage. For the carpet, being without gold, you shall not I think have the like at this time in London, for the right, and not painted, colours; which is too common in this age in more things than carpets, and such it is for all not of late bought worth you to buy. Such implements as your father left I have very diligent locked in and kept. You have now bared this house of all the best; a wife would have well regarded such LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 355 things, but now they shall serve for use of gaming or APP. tippling upon the table of every common person, your own men as well as others, and so be spoiled as at Redburn. I would think that John, your tailor, should be fittest to look well to your furniture. God, I humbly beseech Him, increase in you daily spiritual store, and also the comfort of bodily health and other comforts of this life to His own good pleasure, to whose fatherly love in Christ I commend you. I wish the hamper were not opened till yourself were at Chelsea, to see it done before you; for the pictures are put orderly within the carpet. You have one long carpet already. I cannot think what use this should be. It will be an occasion of mockery that you should have a great chamber, called and carpeted. What I say is not foolish. Draw no charge till God better enable you; but observe narrowly both for your health and purse. Surely your vi s beer is no ordinary drink for your house no time of the year specially, and usually too strong for you; but Podagra will bestir him. Seeing God hath given you some good abilities, I would, I trow, watch over my diet and everything to put them in use by health to God's glory , and your own more credit. If her Majesty have resolved upon the negative for your brother, as I hear, truly, save for the brust a little, I am glad of it. God, in His time, hath better in store I trust. For, considering his kind of health and what cumber pertains to that office, it is best for him I hope. Let us all pray the Lord we make us to profit by His fatherly correction; doubtless it [is] His hand, and all for the best, and love to His children that will seek Him first, and depend upon His good- 23* 356 FRANCIS BACON. , APP. ness. Godly and wisely love ye like brethren, what- soever [happen], and be of good courage in the Lord with good hope. Farewell! take diligent heed of your health; be master of yourself and act most prudently. Your mother, A. BACON, Widow. Do not readily relinquish or grant your town house to any one. n. 14. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 657, fol. 203.) Gorhambury, July 30, 1595. I most humbly thank God and much rejoiced when I heard by Crosby you do more exercise your body and your legs, and that in your course you go to the Earl yourself at occasions; surely soon, by the grace of God, you shall find great help by bodily exercise in season, and much refreshing both to body and mind, and be more accepted of. I would advise you went sometimes to the French church, and have there, and bash not your necessaries for warmth to hear the public preaching of the word of God, as it is His own ordinance, and, armed so with prayer for understanding, it maketh the good hearers wise to God, and enables them to discern how to walk in their worldly vocation, to please God, and to be accepted of man, indeed, which God grant to you both. Truly, son, the miller's last coming to you was but of a craft to colour his halting touching his secret con- senting to steal, as cause hath been given to suspect him, not lately alone, but long: he waxeth a subtle fellow, and hath a cunning head of his own, now he LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 357 goeth with meal to London and to some other places APP. hereabout, and will mar the mill, I doubt, by his flitting. Wherefore should he have a net? himself confessed about the scouring of the mill, but lately, that there was store of trout, and now almost none, because Bun and others did lately rob, as you know. I took the miller's part in defending his right dealing, and so the justices have bound Bun to good a-bearing till next sessions; but that same Bun said earnestly that the miller could join and bear with some, and he could abide by it, and so hath Mr. Coltman said when I have blamed him but for angling. Certainly, son, where he bringeth you, though I would they were more for you^ he carrieth to Mr. Preston and others twice as many, but say yet not so to him. I mean to take his net from him, he is waxen so heady, new-fangled, that the mill goeth to wreck, and customers begin to mislike and to forsake it, which will hinder our living and discontinue it. I will cause Humphrey to be paid as you order with Crosby; surely set aside my poor mortmain, but 200 /., or little above, a small portion for my con- tinuance. I thank the Lord for all: spending money goeth but from hand to mouth, as they say, with me. I gave your brother at twice 25 /. for his paling, the rather to cheer him since he had nothing of me. Crosby told me he looked very ill; he thought he taketh still inward grief; I fear it may hinder his health hereafter. Counsel to be godly wise first, and wise for himself too, and both of you look to your expenses in time, and oversee those you trust how trustily, for I tell you plainly it hath been long commonly observed that both your servants are full of money. My Lord Chief Baron's marriage with your sister I 358 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. never [had] any inkling of before Crosby told. I pray at your leisure write to me some circumstance of the manner, and God bless it. I send Winter purposely, because you should not send your boy. Gorhambury, penultima of July. Your mother, A. B. Nobody but yourself see my letters, I pray you. After harvest some venison would do well here. God bless you daily with good increase. ii. 15. LADY BACOK TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 651, fol. 211.) 7 of Aug. 1535. For your bottles I thank you. The malmsey I tasted a little 5 very good. Humphrey shall, God willing, be answered ; but with a sight of his reckoning he asketh for 20 neats' tongues at once, not very seldom neither; for Mr. Barber Crosby will go within these 3 days to keep your credit with him, and such is a very Christian duty. Owe nothing to any, saith the Lord in His word, but to love one another. I would I were able to help you both out of debt; but set apart my poor mortmain, which I certainly have vowed for any acknowledgments to God, I am not worth one 100 I. Yea and specially you have spent me quick; nothing can therefore re- main after I am dead. God bless you! I had not sent now but for this cause, by your message by Wynter. The two countess sisters will neighbour you; both ladies that fear God and love His word; indeed zealously, specially the younger sister. Yet upon advice and some experience I would earnestly counsel you to be LADY BACON TO ANTHOXV BACON. 359 wary and circumspect, and not to be too open nor AIM>. willing- to prolong speech with the Countess of Warwick. H 1:>- She, after her father's fashion, will search and sound and lay up with diligence, marking things which seem not courtly, and she is near the Queen, and follows her father's example too much in that. This is the cause of my now writing. Another matter is, that now the marriage of your sister is well, by God's appointment, I trust [you] use not such broad language upon mislike of unkindncss. Your men and others, how peradven- tnre you mark not, may hurt you very much. Surely if such phrases as you Avrote in your letter or Such de- riding should come to his ear, it would be very hurtful to you more than one way, which you need not, being never abroad amongst them. Your sister's nature is but unkind, and at that time of her marriage could not herself think of such things. I pray hearken to him Avith all courtesy; he is of marvellous good estima- tion for his religious mind in following his law-calling uprightly; beware, therefore, in words and deeds and speeches at table before him. There is scarce any fidelity in servants. I write more hereof, because others write your letters and not yourself. I am sorry your brother Avith imvard secret grief hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God, and confer AA'ith Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care: I had rather ye both, with God's blessed favour, had very good healths and were Avell out of debt, than any office. Yet, though the Earl showed great affection, he marred all Avith violent courses. I pray God increase His fear in his heart and a hatred of sin-, indeed, halting before the Lord and 360 FRANCIS BACOX. AFP. backsliding are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably. God cannot like it. I pray show your brother this letter, but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself. Your mother, A. B. Gorhambury, 5th August, '95. With a humble heart before God, let your brother be of good cheer. Alas! what excess of bucks at Gray's Inn, and to feast it on the Sabbath. God for- give and have mercy upon England! ii. iG. LADY BACOX TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 652, fol. 86.) Gorhambury, Oct. 21, 1595. Since it so pleaseth God, comfort your brother kindly and Christianly, and let me, mother, and you, both my sons, look up to the correcting hand of God in your wants every way, with humble hearts before Him, and with comfort, and procure your health by good means carefully. If I did not warily sustain and abstain, I should live in continual pain pitifully. For set sickness, to speak of, I have not now, I thank God, but very cumbersome troublous accidents to keep me to exercise mortification. Remember, her Majesty is, they say, now at Richmond. God preserve her from all evil, and rule her heart to the zealous setting forth of His glory! Want of this zeal in all degrees is the very ground of our honest trouble. We have all dal- lied with the Lord, who will not ever suffer Himself to be mocked. I send you xij pigeons, my last flight, LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. 361 and one ringdove beside, and a black coney taken by j* p *g John Knight this day, and pigeons, too, to-day. Lawrence can tell you my Lady Stafford's speech was of you, as she hath heard from her Majesty, mar- velling you came not to see her in so long space. Con- sider well and wisely; for I sent him to her to know of her Majesty's good estate to Nonsuch, according to my duty, and to Mr. Doctor Smith. He came not home by London, as I bade him: do what you may for health, piously and diligently, out of question. Where you be you must needs disorder your time of diet and quiet-, want of which will still keep you in lame and uncomfort- able. I hear the Lord Howard is too often with you. He is subtilly deceitful. Beware! beware! Burn this. The Lord of heaven bless you from heaven, in Christ our Lord and hope. Your mother, A. BACON. Burn, I pray, but read well first. LADY BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. n. 17. (Orig. Lambeth MSB. 657, fol. 113.) Gorhambury, June 15, 1596. By the good hand of the Lord I am come well to Gorhambury, where I find my household well and in good order. I thank God my sister my Lady Kussell's coach is far easier than either of yours, and her man, a comely man withal, did it with care and very well; and your brother's footman did very diligently go by me. Here be no strawberries nor fish to send; and for beer, son, I have none ordinary under five weeks, at least above a month , brewed the first week of May, which now carried, after so long settling and in the 362 FRANCIS BAG OX. APP; heat of summer, must needs be spoiled, which were great pity this dearth time. Truly, son, as yet I know not when to brew, by my provision not this ij weeks at least, as well as for vessels. I have tierce of last March beer; but surely, being yet unripe and carried this heat, it will be utterly marred. Paying Mr. Moore's bill for my physic, I asked him whether you did owe anything for physic? He said he had not reckoned with you since Michaelmas last. Alas! why so long, say I? I think I said further it can be muted, for he hath his confections from strangers; and to tell you truly, I bade him secretly send his bill, which he seemed loth but at my pressing, when I saw it came to above xv /. or xvj /. If it had been but vij or viij, I would have made some shift to pay. I told him I would say nothing to you because he was so unwilling. It may be he would take half willingly, because "ready money made always a cunning apothecary," said co- vetous Morgan, as his proverb. For Lange, I cannot tell what you would have me do for him: he finds I do not recompense evil with evil. I have at times given him, he knoweth; but he is but whining, and a companion too much with naughty Goodram, though not at Redborn, but to his hurt. Let him ply his la- bour, in God's name, and not a busybody and secret quarrel-picker, as he is partly suspected. I use charity to him, though I like not his crafty soothing nature. With thanks for your horse J. C. . . . th heed all your infirmities to your comfort. Be zealous over your health. Hours sink away unseasonably. Farewell. Your mother, A. BACON. LADY ANXE BACON, JUN. , TO HER BROTHERS. 363 No. III. APP. 111. LADY ANNE BACON, JUN., TO HER BROTHERS FRANCIS AND ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. Lambeth MSS. 648, fol. 10.) GOOD BROTHERS , Guilford, IGth March, 1592. Being very desirous to see you both at Redgrave, and yet loth to put you to that pain which might by my desire impair your healths by entreating your re- pair into this country, yet can I not refrain, upon this occasion offered of the marriage of my daughter, heartily to pray you both to bestow your travels to Red- grave to the same, where, if it shall please God so to dispose of your business and healths as I may see you, I shall think myself greatly beholden to you, and the feast greatly honoured by your presence. I hope also it will be comfortable to you, both in rejoicing with my husband and me in the action itself, and also in the intercourse and meeting of many good friends which you there shall see and meet with, especially your brother Anthony, having been so long absent from us all, and by that means have not seen sundry of those good friends of yours which I hope you shall there see. The day is appointed to be on the Thurs- day, the 6th of April; and even so, with my very hearty commendations to you both, and wishing you all good as to myself, I cease to trouble you. Your very loving sister, ANNE BACON. IV. 1. FRANCIS BACON TO THOMAS PHILLIPS. 364 FRANCIS BACON. No. IV. N TO TH (Orig. in State Paper Office.) SIR, I congratulate your return, hearing that all is passed on your word. Your Mercury is returned, whose return alarmed us upon some great matter which I fear he will not satisfy. News of his coming came be- fore his own letter, and to other than to his proper street, which maketh me desirous to satisfy or to solve. My Lord hath required him to repair to me, which, upon his Lordship's and my own letter received, I doubt not but he will with all speed perform, when I pray you to meet him if you may, that, laying our heads together, we may maintain his credit, satisfy my Lord's expectations, and procure some good fruit. I pray thee rather spare not your travail, because I think the Queen is already party to the advertisement of his coming over, and, in some, suspect, which you may not disclose to him. So I wish you as myself, this 15th of September, 1592. Your ever assured, FR. BACON. IV. 2. FRANCIS BACON TO THOMAS PHILLIPS. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) MR. PHILLIPS, [1593.] I send you the copy of my letter to the Earl touching the matter between us proposed. You may perceive what expectation and conceit I thought good to imprint into my Lord, both of yourself and of this particular service. And as that which is in general HIS LETTERS. 365 touching yourself I know you are very able to make APP. good, so in this beginning of intelligence I pray spare no' care to conduct the matter to sort to good effect. The more plainly and frankly you shall deal with my Lord, not only in disclosing particulars, but in giving him caveats and admonishing him of any error which in this action he may commit (such is his Lordship's nature), the better he will take it. I send you also his letter, which appointeth this afternoon for your repair to him, which I pray, if you can, perform; although, if you are not fully resolved of any circumstance, you may take a second day for the rest, and show his Lord- ship the party's letter. If your business suffer you not to attend their Lordships to-day, then excuse it by two or three words in writing to his Lordship, and offer another time. In haste, your ever assured, FR. BACON. Whereas I mention in my letter an intelligence standing in Spain of my brothers, I pray take no knowledge at all thereof. FRANCIS BACON TO THOMAS PHILLIPS. iv. 3. (Orig. State Paper Office ) MR. PHILLIPS, [1593.] I have excused myself of this progress, if that be to excuse to take liberty where it is not given. Being now at Twickenham, I am desirous of your company. You may stay as long and as little while as you will; the longer the better welcome. Otia colliijunt mcntem? And, indeed, I would be the wiser by you in many things, for that I call to confer with a man of your 366 FRAXCIS BACON. APP. fulness. In sadness come, as you are an honest man. I V 'i So I wish you all good. From Twickenham Park this 14th of August. Yours, ever assured, FR. BACON. IV - 4 - FRANCIS BACON TO HIS AUNT COOKE. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, p. 237.) AUNT , Windsor Castle, 29 Oct. 1593. I had spoken a good while since with my Lord- Treasurer, whose Lordship took pains to peruse the will which I had with me, and in conversation was of opinion that, if the younger children wanted reasonable allowance, it should be supplied, and the other parties to be stored for their advancement: of the same mind I ever was and am, and there is nothing in my cousin Morise's note against. Accordingly I have enclosed a note, of a proportion which I think you cannot dislike, and which I pray communicate with my cousin Morise and the rest of the executors. For my part, I wish you as a kind alliance. But the question is not be- tween you and me, but between your profit and my trust. I purpose as soon as I can conveniently to put the money I have into some other hands, lest you think the case of the money prevaileth with me; but I will endure in a good cause, and wish I you right well. In haste, your loving nephew, FRA. BACON. IV. 5. FRANCIS BACON TO SIR THOMAS CONINGSBY. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, vol. 649, p. 236.) MY VERY GOOD COUSIN, [Oct. 1593.] Whereas this gentleman, Mr. Nicholas Trot, one to whom, besides familiar acquaintance, I am much be- HIS LETTFRS. 367 holden, hath conveyed unto him for his money a lease A PP. of the prebend of Withington, under the title of Mr. Heyghton, that was sometimes of the counsel of the Marches, a man not like to have been overreached in his bargains, against the which one Wallwyne claimeth by a former deed of gift, supposed to be forged and appearing to be fraudulent, because the same party undertook afterwards to sell it, and his interest hath been quietly missed by twenty years' space, I am earnestly to recommend the assistance of this my friend, according to the equity of the cause, to your good favour, whereof there will be the more need, both be- cause he is a stranger in the country, and because the adverse party, ae I understand, hath used force about the possession; and therefore, good cousin, let him use your experience and careful countenance for direction and help, according to that good affection which I per- suade myself you bear me, and which I am ready to answer in all kindness. And so I wish you as Your assured loving cousin, FR. BACON, &c. FRANCIS BACON TO SIR FRANCIS ALLEN. iv. o. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, 301).) SlB, Edborne, this 25th of December, 1593. I accept with all kindness and thanks possible the demonstrations you make from time to time of a sincere affection and singular respect towards me, namely, in your last letter to myself, and approve wholly yours to my brother, even to the least and last tittle thereof, wishing as a brother, for his own sake, that he had had but half as good a ground and reason for his demand as you have for your answer. Protesting unto you 368 FRANCIS BACON*. APP. with a sincerity very present to the merit of your own touching me without prejudice, that the scanty link of German consanguinity should never have prevailed so far with me as to have once moved me to have given my clear consent to my brother for such his request or recommendation. Touching your particular business, I will not fail, by God's grace in my next to our most honourable Earl, to perform my uttermost, and will not forget to acknowledge to our good friend Mr. Standen, that whatsoever friendly office he shall have rendered by his assistance to do to you, that same is done to myself. And so, with most hearty wishes of your health and contentment, I commit you to the protection of the Almighty, remaining always inviolably Your most entire friend and servant, F. B. iv. 7. FRANCIS BACON TO SIR FRANCIS ALLEN. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 649, 310.) SlR FRANCIS ALLEN , Hampton Court, Dec. 20, 1593. I do so much favour this gentleman, Mr. Garret, who from my praise entered a course of following the wars, which hath succeeded unto him as to his good commendations, so yet nevertheless not hitherto to his settling in any place answerable to his desert and pro- fession. In regard whereof, understanding of the no- mination and appearance of employment in Ireland, he conceiveth it will be some establishment to him if he may receive your favour, being by you accepted in the place of your lieutenant, your own virtue and reputa- tion answered, and the uncertainty of the French em- ployment. Of his proof and sufficiency to serve I write the less because I take it to be well known to yourself, HIS LETTERS. 369 but for my particular I do assure you I can hardly APP. imagine a matter wherein you shall more effectually tie me unto you than in this. I wished him to use me but as a mean of my brother's commendation, which I esteemed to be of extraordinary weight with you. But because this was the readier and that the entireness between my brother and myself is well known to you, he desired to begin with this. Thus I wish you all protection. Yours in unfeigned good affection, FR. BACON. I was sorry to hear from Mr. Anthony Standen so sharply and unseasonably you were afflicted by the gout. But you have of him a careful solicitor, and if I can come in to him with any good endeavour of mine you may reckon of it. FRANCIS BACON TO THE MASTERS OK REQUESTS. IV 8 (Orig. in the Record Office.) [? 1593.] After my hearty commendations. At the request of this bearer, Mr. Edward Cottwin, an ancient follower and well- wilier to my name and family, I have con- sidered of a suit of his depending before you for the recovery of certain rents due unto him for divers years past, and detained from him only upon a strained con- struction of extreme law. And finding the honesty of the man and the equity of his cause to deserve favour, considering that the main matter (which is the sum in demand) is freely acknowledged, I could do no less than recommend him unto your good discretions, de- siring you in regard of his great loss and troubles to afford him, that which you deny to no man, lawful fa- Lord Bacon. 24 370 FRANCIS BACON. APP. vour and expedition, which I shall be always ready thankfully to acknowledge by such friendly offices as shall fall within my compass. And so I leave you to God's safe tuition. Resting your very loving friend, FR. BACON. iv. 9. FRANCIS BACON TO ME. SKINNER. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 143.) SlR, July 29, 1594. I hope you will not find it strange nor amiss if the confidence I have in your kind affection makes me so bold as most earnestly to request you to pleasure me with the loan of five hundred pounds for a year. My occasion to employ the same presently is important. My meaning (though I say it myself) is entirely, as it ought to be, to satisfy you without fail at the day, and your assurance shall be my brother A. Bacon's and my own bond. The occasion, my good cousin, and my meaning being by you believed, as I assure myself they shall and most heartily pray they may you, I cannot doubt of the friendly assistance of my request as a form of assurance, but look for such a special favour at your hands, which I shall be always ready and glad to ac- knowledge when and wherein soever it shall please you to employ my true good will and sincere affection. And so, desiring your answer, which I hope shall be no less to my contentment than my resolution of full acknowledgment to yours, I commit you to the protec- tion of the Almighty, And rest your entire loving cousin to use, F. B. HIS LETTERS. 371 FRANCIS BACON TO MR. YOUNG. APP. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 186.) IV ' 10 ' MR. YOUNG , Gray's Inn, Sept. 2, 1594. I shall desire your friendly pains in the repairing and punishing of an outrage offered by one Thomas Lewys, dwelling near Whitechapel, upon a French gentleman of very good quality and honourable, and my special acquaintance, and upon his company, not in terms alone, but in very furious assailing them. My request to you is the rather for the good report of our nation, whither this gentleman is come only for his own satisfaction and experience, that he may have ex- perience of the good policy amongst us in correcting such insolences, specially upon strangers of his respect. And therefore desire you so great an abuse may be examined and corrected. And so in haste I wish you very well. Your very loving friend, FR. BACON. The French gentleman's name is Mr. Corugues, son to the principal treasurer of Guienne, and this bearer IV. 11. shall relate to you the particularities of the abuse. FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 227.) BROTHER, Gray's Inn, Dec. 10, 1594. I moved you to join with me in security for 5007. , which I did purpose then decidedly to have taken up; 300/. odd secure, and 200/. by way of forbearance, both to the satisfaction of Peter Van, our servant. I thank you, you assented. I have now agreed with Peter for the taking up of the whole of one man's, ac- cording to which I send you the bonds and securities. 24* 372 FRAXCIS BACON. APP You shall find the bond to be of 600/., which is one IV 1 1 hundred more than it was at first. The jewel cost 50CV. and odd, as shall appear to you by my bond. Next I send you immediately for use an agreement, so to free you of one hundred, for which you stand bound to Mr. Willis Fleetwood. So in haste I commend you to God's good preservation. Your entire loving brother, FR. BACOX. iv. 12. FRANCIS BACON TO ANTHONY BACON. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, 237.) GOOD BROTHER, [Dec. 1594.] If you leave the matter to me, I am like both to deal with my Lord of Essex in it, attending the first occasion, and to fortify it otherwise, as I will hereaf- ter give you account. And where I doubt, acquaint you in particular beforehand. For Mr. Sugden, I had rather have brought payment than allegation. I ever doubted the resting upon [him] would come to nothing, and I desire you to do as you wish; and yet I will endeavour to speed my part nevertheless, and the whole if I can. Mr. Trott I have desired to be here after to-mor- row to see her. He taketh this his second chance. I desired Dr. Hammond to visit you from me, whom I was glad to have here, he being a physician, and my complaint being want of digestion. I hope by this Sir Ant. Perez has seen the Queen dance. That is not it, but her distraction of body to be fresh and good, I do pray God both subjects and strangers may long be witnesses of. I would be sorry the bride and bridegroom should be as the weather HIS LETTERS. 373 hath fallen out: thus, it goes to bed fair, and rises APP. lowering. Thus I commend you to God's best preservation. Your entire loving brother, FR. BACON. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. iv. 13. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, [1607.] I send the two bills according to your Lordship's pleasure signified to me, hoping your Lordship will pardon me that they come not precisely at the hour. The book is long and full of difficulty; and a business such as this is, I do not much trust to servants or pre- cedents. I found it more convenient to put one pay- ment more upon the Privy Seal than your Lordship directed, and to take it from the rent; because else, the grant must have been for ten years and a half, which is not formal. So I most humbly leave, And rest your Lordship's most humble and bounden F. BACON. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. iv. u. (Orig. in the State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, 28th October, 1608. According to your Lordship's warrant of the 15th of June last I made a book ready for his Majesty's signature to the use of Mrs. Ellis of the benefit of an extent of the lands and goods of Richard Yonge her father, extended for a debt of 3000 /. upon recogni- zances; which book is since past the Great Seal. And now having received order from your Lordship for amendment of the defects in that patent, I find the case to be thus, That she has since discovered two 374 FRANCIS BACON. APP. other debts of record, the one of 8511 L 19,?. 4J., the other of 2100 /., remaining upon account in the Pipe Office. And though it be true that she shall reap no benefit by the former grant, except these debts be like- wise released, on regard the King may come upon the said lands and goods for these debts, and it may be the meaning was in Queen Elizabeth to free and acquit Mr. Yonge of all debts; for else Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una? yet do I not see how I may pass the book again, with a release of these two debts, without your Lordship's further warrant, which I humbly submit to your honourable consideration. Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, FR. BACON. IV. is. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. (Orig. in the State Paper Office.) Gray's Inn, the 6th of July, 1609. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, The assurance which by your Lordship's directions was to be passed to his Majesty by Richard Fore- benche, one of the yeomen of the guard of Potter's Park, within the parish of Chertsey, in the county of Surrey, is thoroughly perfected; so if your Lordship so please he may receive the money your Lordship agreed to pay for it. Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, FR. BACON. IV. 16. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OK SALISBURY. (Orig. in the State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, Though Mr. Chancellor and we rested upon the old proclamation which Mr. Attorney brought forth, HIS LETTERS. 375 for matter of transportation of gold and silver, yet be- A PP. cause I could not tell whither it were that your Lord- X ship looked for from us, and because if you should be of other opinion things might be in readiness, I send your Lordship a draught of a new proclamation, where- in I have likewise touched the point of change in that manner as was most agreeable to that I conceived of your intent; the Frenchman, after I had given him a day, which was the morrow after your Lordship's de- parture, never attended nor called upon the matter since. Sir Henry Nevill has sent up a solicitor of the cause, to whom I perceive by Mr. Calvert your Lord- ship is pleased a copy of his answer when it shall be taken may be delivered. So, praying for your good health and happiness, I humbly take my leave from Gray's Inn, this 10th of August, 1609. Your Lordship's most Immble and bounden, Fs. BACON. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. *v. 17 - (Orig. in State Paper Office.) Gray's Inn, the 13th of Sept. 1G09. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, According to your Lordship's letter, I send an ab- stract of the bonds and conditions touching the depo- pulation, whereby it will appear unto your Lordship that all the articles and branches of the condition con- sist only of matter of reformation in the country, and not of any benefit to the King, otherwise than that the forfeiture in point of law belongeth to his Majesty; but then the reformation is at large. So I very humbly take my leave. Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, Fs. BACON. 376 FRANCIS BACON. APP. FRANCIS BACON TO SIR JULIUS CAESAR. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR HONOUR, Aug. 23, 1610. In answer of your letter of the second of this pre- sent, but not delivered to my hands till the 20th thereof, concerning Sir Robert Steward his petition ex- hibited to his Majesty in the name of Edward Williams, for the new founding of the Hospital of St. John's in the town of Bedford, I have examined the state of the cause, as far as information may be expected by hear- ing the one side; and do find: That this hospital passed divers years since by a Patent of Concealment to Farne- ham, from whom the petitioner claimeth. That there- upon suit was commenced in the Exchequer, wherein it seemeth the Court found that strength in the King's title, as it did order the hospital should receive a new foundation, together with divers good articles of estab- lishment of the good uses, and an allowance of stipend unto the master. Nevertheless, I find not this order to be absolute or merely judicial; but in the nature of a composition or agreement; and yet that but conditional: for it directeth a course of judicial proceeding, in case the defendants shall not hold themselves to the agree- ment. And yet notAvithstanding this order had this life and pursuance, as I find a letter from the Lord-Trea- surer, his Lordship's father, to the then Attorney, for drawing up a book for the new foundation. After which time nothing was done for aught that to me appeareth: no patent under seal, no stirring of the possession, no later order: neither doth it appear unto me likewise in whose default the falling off was. But now of late, some four years past, and about fourteen years after the former order, upon information given of the King's . HIS LETTERS. 377 right to the late Lord-Treasurer, Earl of Dorset, his APP. Lordship directed a sequestration of the possession, and that without any mention of these former proceed- ings; but that, being as it seemeth swiftly granted, was soon after by his Lordship revoked. The pre- tenders unto the right of this hospital (with whom like- wise the possession hath gone) are as it seemeth the master of the hospital (at this time one Dennis) and the town of Bedford, who claim the patronage of it. But in what state the hospital is for repair, or for employment according unto the good uses, or for government, I can ground no certificate. And there- fore it may please you to signify unto his Lordship as well the state of the cause heretofore opened, as my opinion, which is that it were great pity that this hospital should continue either not well founded, or not well employed, the rather being situate in so pop- ulous and poor a town; and that, nevertheless, herein some consideration may be had of the patentee's right; but for the present, that which is first meet to be done, I conceive to be that the other party be heard; and to the end to avoid a tedious suit (which must be defended with the moneys that should go to the sus- tenance of the poor), his Lordship may be graciously pleased to direct his letters as well to the town of Bedford as to the present incumbent, that they do attend a summary hearing of this cause (if his own great business will not permit), before some other that he shall assign; in which letters it would be expressed that they come provided to make defence and answer to three points: that is, the King's title now in the patentee; the order and agreement in the Exchequer, why it was not performed; and the estate of the hospi- 378 FRANCIS BACON'. APP. tal, whether it be decayed and misemployed? And so I leave to trouble your Honour from Gray's Inn, 23rd August, 1610. Your Honour's, to do you service, FR. BACON. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. (Orig. in the State Paper Office.) London, the 7th of May, 1611. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, Understanding that his Majesty will be pleased to sell some good portion of wood in the Forest of Dene, which lies very convenient to the company's wireworks at Tynterne and Whitbrooke, we are enforced to have recourse to your Lordship as to our governor of the said company, humbly praying your Lordship to afford us some reasonable quantity thereof, the better to up- hold the said works, whereof by information from our farmers there we stand in such need as without your Lordship's favour we shall hardly be able to subsist any long time. We do not entreat your Lordship for any other or more easy price than that your Lordship directs the sale of it to other, only we humbly pray for some preferment in the opportunity of the place where the woods lie and in the quantity, as it may answer in some proportion to our wants. Herein, if your Lord- ship will be pleased to favour us, then we humbly pray your Lordship to direct us to some such persons as your Lordship resolves to employ in the business. And so we humbly take our leaves of your Lordship. Your Lordship's humbly at command, FR. BACON. HIS LETTERS. 379 FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. APP. rv 20 (Orig. in State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, October, 1611. I return your good Lord's minute, excellently, in my opinion, reformed from the first draught in some points of substance. I send likewise a clause warrant- ing the subject to refuse gold lighter than the remedies expressed, which is no new device, but the same with 29th Eliz. I find also Mr. Dubbleday to make it a thing difficult to name the pieces of more ancient coin than his Majesty's, for which I have likewise sent a clause. This last clause is immediately to follow the table of the coins expressed. The clause of the weight is to come last of all. So, with my prayers, I rest Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, FR. BACON. FRANCIS BACON TO KING JAMES. rv. 21. (Orig. in the State Paper Office.) January 31st, 1615. Though I placed Peacham's treason within the last division, agreeable to divers predecessors, whereof I had the records read, and concluded that your Majesty's safety, and life, and authority was thus by law in- stanced and quartered, and that it was in vain to fortify on three of the heads and leave you open on the fourth, it is true he heard me in a grave fashion more than accustomed, and took a pen and took notes of my divisions ; and when he read the precedent and records would say, That you mean falleth within your first or your second division. In the end I expressly demanded his opinion as that whereto both he and I Avas enjoined. But he desired me to leave the pre- 380 FRANCIS BACON. APP. cedents with him that he might advise upon them. I TV 91 told him the rest of my fellows would despatch their part, and I should be behind with mine, which I per- suaded myself your Majesty would impute rather to his backwardness than my negligence. He said as soon as I should understand that the rest were ready he would not be long after with his opinion or answer. For St. John's your Majesty knoweth the day draws on, and my Lord Chancellor's recovery the season and his age promiseth not to be hasty. I spoke with him on Sunday, at what time I found him in bed, but his spirits strong and not spent or wearied, and spake wholly of your business, leading me from one matter to another, and wished and seemed to hope that he might attend the day for St. John's, as it were (as he said) to be his last work, to commend his service and express his affection towards your Majesty. I presumed to say to him that I knew your Majesty would be ex- ceeding desirous of his being present that day, so as it might be without prejudice to his continuance; but that otherwise your Majesty esteemed a servant more than a service, specially such a servant. Surely, in my opinion, your Majesty had better put off the day than want his presence, considering the cause of the putting off is so notorious, and then the capital and the criminal may come together the next term. I have not been unprofitable in helping to discover and examine within these few days a late patent by sur- reption obtained from your Majesty of the greatest forest in England, worth 30,000'., under colour of a defective title, for a matter of 4007. The person must be named, because the patent must be questioned. It is a great person, my Lord of Shrewsbury, or rather, HIS LETTERS. 381 as I think, a greater than he, which is my Lady of APP. Shrewsbury. But I humbly beg your Majesty to know this first from my Lord Treasurer; who me think eth groweth ever studious in your business. God preserve your Majesty. Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject and servant, FR. BACON. The rather in regard of Mr. Murray's absence, I humbly pray your Majesty to have a little regard to this letter. FRANCIS BACON TO THE COUNCIL. Iv 22< (Orig. in State Paper Office.) IT MAY PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, Jan. 27, 1616 [1617]. According to your Lordships' preference of the 12th of June last, I have considered of the patent of Clement Dawbeny, gent., for the slitting of iron bare into rods. And I have had before me the patentee that now is, and some of the nailers and blacksmiths that complained against the same. Whereupon it j (leased your Lordships to call in the said patent. But upon examination- of the business I find the com- plaint to be utterly unjust, and was first stirred up by one Burrell, master carpenter to the East India Com- pany, who hath already of himself begone to set up the like engine in Ireland, and therefore endeavoured to overthrow the said patent, the better to vent his own iron to his further benefit and advantage, whereas the nailers and blacksmiths themselves do all affirm that they are now supplied by the patentee with as much good and serviceable iron, or rather better, than 382 FRAXCIS BACOX. APP. heretofore they have been, and that the said patent hath been of much use to the kingdom in general, and likewise very' beneficial to themselves in their trades. And, therefore, your Lordships may be pleased to suffer him quietly to enjoy it without any further interrup- tion, and to this did Burrell himself and the opposer? willingly condescend, which nevertheless I submit to the wisdom of this most honourable Board. FR. BACOX. iv. ii. FRANCIS BACOX TO KING JAMES. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) March, 1617. The gracing of the Justices of Peace. That your Majesty doth hold the institution of Conservators and Commissioners or Justices of the Peace to be one of the most laudable and politic ordinances of this realm or any other realm. That it is not your own goodness or virtues, nor the labours of your counsel or Judges, that can make your people happy, without things go well amongst the Justices, who are the con- duits to convey the happy streams of your government to your people. That your Majesty would as soon advance and call a knight or gentleman that liveth in an honourable and worthy fashion in his country: and it were to be of your counsel or to office about your- self, your Queen, or son, or an Ambassador employed in foreign parts, or a courtier bred an attendant about your person. That your Majesty is and will be careful to understand the country as well as your court for persons, and that those that are worthy servants in the country shall not need to have their dependence upon any the greatest subject in your kingdom, but imme- diately upon yourself. HIS LETTERS. 383 FRANCIS BACON TO LORD ZOUCH. App . (Orig. in State Paper Office.) Gorhambury, 3rd August, 1619. Whereas there are processes gone out, at Mr. Attor- ney General's prayer, against Hugh Hugginson and Josias Ente, concerning the business against the Dutch- men in Star Chamber; out of a desire to preserve the ancient privileges and customs due to your place, not to serve such process within your jurisdiction without your leave and consent, I thought good hereby to de- sire your Lordship for his Majesty's service, that you would cause them forthwith to be sent up to answer Mr. Attorney's bill, and abide such further proceedings as their case shall require. FRANCIS BACON TO KING JAMES. iv. 25. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, Oct. 1626 [? 1620.] According to your commandment I have considered of your patent granted about the time of your going into Scotland unto Mr. Murray and Sir Rob 1 Lloyd, of a custom or duty detained from your Majesty of one shilling four pence upon the cloth and 2s. in the pound upon certain Northern cloth, by colour of a Privy Seal [of] Queen Elizabeth and of a former Seal certificate made by the Earl of Suffolk, then Lord Treasurer, Mr. Chancellor that now is, and myself, then your Attorney-General, upon which certificate the patent did pass. And to find that the said certificate is very true and well grounded, wherein I have strengthened myself with the opinion of your new Solicitor, so that there is no doubt but the right was and is in your Majesty, and the third part thereof was sufficiently 384 FRANCIS BACON. APP. granted unto them, who nevertheless submit their in- terest (being for one -and -twenty years) unto your Majesty. But to suffer the patent to go on to opera- tion, either for your Majesty's two parts or their third part, considering that the merchants have been in long past of that ease, and that cloth is now loaden with the pretermitted duty which was not before (and of which this is no part), and [damaged] the state of the trade of cloth hath been weakened [damaged] for that is concerned the cost of some of the out ports not in any sort advise it, but humbly leave it to your Majesty's . . . r judgment. IV. 26. FRANCIS BACON TO SECRETARY CONWAY. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Jan. 21, 1623. When you visited me yoii expressed in so noble a fashion a vif sense of my misfortunes, as I cannot but express myself no less sensible of your good for- tune, and therefore do congratulate with you for your new honour now settled. The excellent Marquis brought me yesterday to kiss the King's hands, so as now me- thinks I am in the state of grace. Think of me and speak of me as occasion serveth. I shall want no will to deserve it. At best, nobleness is never lost I rest your affectionate friend, to do you service, FRANCIS ST. ALBANS. iv. 27. FRANCIS BACON TO SECRETARY CONWAY. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) GOOD MR. SECRETARY, Gray's Inn, 3rd of June, 1024. This gentleman, Mr. Richard Gilman, who hath been (?) towards me, hath served formerly in Scinde GRANT TO EDWARD BACON. 385 and Russia and the Low Countries, and is suitor now APP. for a lieutenant's place in these succours which are ' ' now to be sent. I recommend his suit unto you, and shall give you very hearty thanks if, for my sake, you will pleasure him. I rest your very affectionate friend, Fs. ST. ALBANS. No. V. v. i. PATENT ROLL, 16 ELIZABETH, PART 6, MEMB. 3. /REGINA omib^ ad quos, etc., saltiii. D' firma p Ed- | Sciatis qd nos in consideracoe qd" wardo Bacon, ar- { dilcus subditus nr Edwardus Bacon, migero. I armig\ non solum sup se assumpsit \nos hered" et successor nros ex- on 9 are de solucoe quatuor librarf et decem solidorf p feed" custott parci nri de Istleworth als diet 1 the newe Parke of Richemonde in Coin nro Midd" annuatim al- locaf' sed eciam de on 9 ib^ repaconu oniu domorf ct edificiorf in dco Parco existeii' et manutenc' inclaus p'dict' parci cum sepibz et fossat' cum quibz feod" et on 9 ibj nos ad p^sens oBat sum 9 tradidim 9 concessim 9 et ad firmam dimisim 9 , ac p psentes tadim 9 concedim 9 et ad firmam dimittim 9 p'fato Edwardo Bacon totum ilium parcum nfm de Istleworth als diet' the new Parke of Rich- monde cum ptifi' in Coin nro Midd', ac oines Iras nras prat' et pastur' in dco parco modo vel nup inclus' cont' p estimacoem octoginta septem acr', necnon omia domos, logeas, edificia, gardin', pomar, stagfl', aquas et pisca- coes in pco pdco existen', seu eidem ptinen'; aceciam totam illam primam vestxu-am et tonsur triu pceft prati l.uril flucon. 25 386 FRANCIS BACON. APP. in prato voc' Ferie meade, exta pareura pdem jacen p Bivu Thames 1 cont' p e.stimacoem duodecem acf, ac totam illam primam vesturam et tonsur unius pcell terr in coi prato voc More meade, exta dcm parcum insimul jacen ad Borial finem dci prati, int' Rivu Thames' ibm ex parte occiden et coe campum ibm voc Twickenham feild, ex parte oriental contineii p estimacoem quinq,, acr et dimid. Que quidem tres pcelle prati in prato voc Ferie meade, et pcell prati in coi prato voc More meade, nup domui Sion in dco Com Midd' spectabant et ptinebant, ac pcefi' Trarf et possession!! dci nup do- rnus quondam extiter' et phic prime vestuf' et tonsur earfdem p custod parci pdict' pcept' et gavis' sunt: exceptis tamen semp et nob hered et successor nris omio revat oiriib^ gi-ossis, arboribj, boscis, subboscis miner et quarr pmissorf. Hend 1 et tenend ^dcm parcum domos, logeas, edificia, gard, pomar, stagn, terr, pastur, prat', vestur, et tonsur pratorf acceta oinia pmissa supius in hiis psent' dimiss' cum eorf ptifi univsis, (exceptis p* exceptis), pfato Edwardo Bacon, execut' et assign suis, a festo Sci Micnis Arcni ultimo ptito usq^ ad finem fmini et p fminu viginti et unius annorf ex- tune p sequen et plenaf complend, reddendo annuatim nob" hered et success' nfis, de et p pdco parco cum ptifi, sex libras et septem solidos; ac de et p prima vestur et tonsur dearf triu pcellarf prati in prato voc Ferie meade, viginti et quatuor solidos; ac de et |> prima vestur et tonsur fklce pcelle fre in coi prato voc More meade, undecem solid legalis monete Angt ad festa Annunciacois bte Marie vginis et Sci Micftis Archi, ad manus ballivo^ vel recepto^ pinisso^ p tern- pore existefi p equales porcoes solvend", durante tmino p^dco. Et pdcus Edward us Bacon executores et as- GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 387 signati sui nos heredes et successores nros de quatuor APP. libris et decem solidis p feed" custod pci pdict' solvend* annuatirn et de tempore in tempus exoftabunt acquie- tabunt et indempnes consVabunt durante tmino p^dco. Et ul'tius p'dcus Edwardus Bacon, executores et as- signati sui, oinia domos et edificia ac oinia sepes, fos- sata et inclur parci pdict', cum fossat' sepib^ et le quicksett; necnon omes alias necessar repac pmissoi^ (pfqara in Pallac) in oinibz; et p omia de tempore in tempus tociens quociens necesse et oportunu fuit sumptibs; suis et expensis bene et sufficient repabunt, supportabunt, sustinebunt et manutenebunt duranto 'tmino pdco, ac pmissa sufficient repata et manutenta in fine fmini illius dimittent. Et volum 9 ac p p'sentes concedim 9 pfato Edwardo Bacon execut' et assign suis qd bene licebit eis et eoi} cuilt de tempore in tempus cape, pcipe et Here de, in et sup pmissis crescen, com- peten et sufficien houseboote, hedgebote, firebote, ploughboote, et carteboote it>m et non alibi annuatim expendend et occupand" duran tmino pdco. Et qd fieant maer in boscis et terris pmissoi^. crescen ad et Vsus repacdes domor f et edificioi^. pmissoif p assignac et supvicoem Senescalli seu subsenescalli aut alioi^, officia- rioif nror f hered et successo^ nror f ittm p tempore existen duran fmino p^dco. Proviso semp qd si con- tigit pdcos sepales redd supius resVat aut eoi^, aliquem aretro fore non solut in parte vel in toto (si debito modo petanf) p spaciu quadraginta die^ post aliquod festum festoi;, pdcor f quout J5fert r solvi debeant, qd tune et deinceps hec psens dimissio et concessio vacua sit ac p nullo lieat r aliquo in psentibj in cont a rium hide non obstan: aliquo statute, etc. In cujus rei, etc. T':R':apud Westin fcio die Marcii. p Warrafi Comissionar. 25* 388 FRANCIS BACON. APP. v. 2. PATENT ROLL, 38 ELIZABETH, PART 6, MEMB. 25. IREGINA omibj; ad quos, etc., saltm. Sciatis qd nos tarn j> fine quadra- ginta solidoi}, legalis monete Angl ad Recept Sc a cii nri ad usum nrum p dilcm et fidelem nfm Franciscum Bacon, armigum, unu de Consilio nfo, erudito in lege, solut, q a m p divsis aliis causis et consideracoib^, de avisamen ditcoi^ et fideliu Consiliarioi^, nroi^,, Wifii, Ba- ronis de Burghly, Thesaurar nri Ang}, et Jonis For- tescue, militis, Cancellar et Subthesaurar Cur Sc a cii nri, t a didim 9 , concessim 9 et ad firmam dimisim 9 , ac p psentes t a dim 9 , concedim 9 et ad firmam dimittim 9 p^fato Francisco Bacon, totam iff parcellam nram bosci vel fre boscalis, jaceii, cresceii et existen infra forestam de Zelwood, in Coin nro SoiSs', vocat 1 et cognit per nomen the Pittf , continen p estimacoem sexaginta acras, sive plus sive minus, ac omes copicias, arbores putridas, Anglice diet' seare or dottrell trees, or shells, or stubbes, et virgult', Anglice diet' shrubbs, sup p'missa cresceii sive existen, unacum omib^ locis aptis Anglice diet' Cleares or lawnes in pdcis Iris boscalibj content', necnon herbagiu pmisso^-, ac oinia pficua, cornoditates, advantagia, emolumenta, et hereditamenta nra quecunq^ de pdict parcett bosci vel tre boscalis vo- cat the Pyttf, acciden, renovafi sive entgen, parcett Maner de Marston Bigott in dco Coin nro 80188. Ex- ceptis tamen semp et nobis, heredib^ et successoribs; nfis oiSino reservat', oiiiibz; arborib^ maer existen, ac omibj hujusmodi pulchris le^ saplinges quercuu aptis fieri vel fore maeren necnon sufficien lez staddells in quait acra pmissorf scdm fonnam statuti in 60 Ciisu nup edit' et GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 389 pvis'. Hend et tenend p'dict' parceti bosci ac ceta APP. omia ct singula proissa cum ptin (except J3 except') pfato Francisco Bacon, executorib^ et assign suis a festo Anunciacois fee Marie Virginis ultimo ptito usq^ ad finem fmini viginti et unius annorf extunc p se- quen et plenarie complend", Reddendo inde annuatim noo, heredib^ et successorib^; nris, septem libras et de- cem solidos legalis monete Angl ad festa Sci Micnis Arcni et Anunciacois tie Marie Virginis ad Recept Sc cii nri sou ad manus Ballivorf vel Receptorf ptaissoi-f p tempore existen p cquales porcoes solvend 1 duran fmino p'dco. Et p'dcus Franciscus Bacon, executores et assign sui, nisi duas succisiones tantum boscorf p'dict' infra fminu p psentes concessf fac seu fieri causabunt, ac eosdem boscos temporibj; congruis p suc- cisione boscorf et non alit succident, necnon dcos bosc sic p ipm seu assign suos succisos cum fossat vel se- pib^ bene et sufficient includent et incipic ac a morsu conculcacoe et damno alaliu p'servabunt et custodient abso^ imposicue aliquorf equorf aut aTaliu in eisdem, qui virgult et lez springf eorf dem boscorC lede pos- sint durante tmino in statute ,p hujusmodi genere boscorf limitat; Necnon sufficien lez staddells in qualt acra ?re boscal scffm formam statuti in eo casu nup edit et pvis dimittent et relinquent. Aceciam has h-as nras patentes tarn coram Auditore nro Com pdict' p. ofi'ai'MG reddit pdict' infra spaciii unius anni px sequen post dat harf Irarf nrarf patenciii q a m coram Supvi- sore nro bosc nrorf cit* Trentham p supvis pformacoe Convene pdict anteq u m aliquam succisionem in boscis p'dict fac irrotulabunt seu irrotulari causabunt. Proviso semp qd" s! contigit dict reddit' supuis p psentes re- servaf' aretro fore non solut' in parte vel in toto p 390 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. spaciu quadraginta dierf post aliquod fcstum festorum pdcorf, quout pfert a solvi debeat, q f I ociatis qa nos tarn in consideracoe xrancisco J3acon, j , . ^\ ,. . .. . , T c boni, ndelis et lonsri svic noo p armisfo, et Jo. j.^ c ~ ~ T> ~* -ni a. i. : -T-T., ^ j I ditcm svien nrm Kaaum Jb letcner, Hibberd. _ T7 , ,,, , , T7 . . . - V unu Valett de le Vestrie in Hos- picio nro, antehac facT;' et impens' q*m ,p_ quibusdam aliis causis et consideracoib^ nos spTalit 9 moventib^, Necnon ad humilem peticoem pdci Rad^i Fletcher de gra nra splali ac ex Sta scientia et mero motu nris, Tradidim 9 , concessim 9 et ad firm dimisim 9 , ac p psentes ^ noft, heredib^ et successoribj nris t a dim 9 , concedim 9 et ad firm demittim 9 dilco not) Francisco Bacon, Ar- migo, Tenenti nro, totum itt parcum nrm de Istleworth, alias diet', The new parke of Richmond, cum ptin, in Com nro MidcT, Ac omia tras, prat' et pastur in dco parco modo vel nup inclu', continen p estimacoem octoginta septem acras, Necnon omia domos, logeas, edificia, gardina, pomaria, stagna, aquas et piscacoes in parco pdco existen, seu eidem ptinen; Aceciam totam illam primarn vesturam et tonsur triu sepaliu prat' in prato vocat' Ferry meade, ext a parcum pdict' p rivu Thamesis, continen p estimacoem duodecim acras, Ac totam illam primam vestur et tonsur unius parcelle GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 391 prati in coi prat' vocat' Moremeade, ext 5 dcm parcum AIM-. insiiuul jaceii ad boreal finem dci prati, int rivu Tha- inisis ibidem ex parte occiden, et coem campum ibidem, vocat' T\\'ikenham feilde, ex parte orientali, contifi p cstimacoem quinq^ acras dimid. Quequidem tres parcelle prati in prato vocat' Ferry meade et parcel! prati in coi prato vocat' Morenieade, nup domui Sion in dco Coin Midd' spectabant et ptinebant, ac parceft Iran et possessionu dee nup domus quondam extiterunt; Et pticua prime vesture et tonsure eo^dem p Custodem parci pdci pcepf' et gavisa fuerunt. Quodquidem par- cum et ce'ta pmissa p psentes dimis.s' dee nup domui Sion in dco Com* Midd spectan et ptiii ac parcel! pos- sessionii inde quondam existen ac cuidam Miloni Dod- dinge, generoso, p Iras nras patentes magno Sigillo nro Angl sigillat' geren dat' apud Westin, decimo die Augusti, Anno regni nfi vicesimo tcio p 'tmino triginta aiinor. in Anno Uni Miliimo, quingentesimo nonagesimo (juarto, et p annual reddit octo librar,, et duoi^ solidor f (inl alia) dimiss' et concessa fuerunt, Ac oiTiia alia plicua cotnoditates, advantagia, emolumenta et heredi- tamen nra quecunq^ pdict' parco et celis p^missis p p scutes dimiss' ullo modo spectan vel ptinen, aut ut membY partes vel pceft pdict parci et cefon pmi.-sor. antebac usuali't p reddit' inferius pinde reservat', dimiss', locat', Hit', cognif', accept', usitat', occupat', reputat' seu gavis' existen. Sciatis ulterius qd nos tarn in con- sidcracoe Svicii pdci Kadi Fletclier, q a m p considera- cob- sup a dict', de ampliori gra nra sj>7ali, ac ex 8ta si'it ncia et mero motu nris, Tradidim- , concessim 9 et ad firmam dimisim 9 , ac p p'sentes p noft, hercdib^ et successorib;; nris, t !l dim Q , concedim'' et ad firm dimit- tim p , fideli subdito nro Joni Hibberd, omcs illas quin- 392 FRANCIS BACON. Apr. quaginta et septcm acras et decem pticat' terr arrabit et pastur, sive plus sive minus, curn eoi^, ptifi, uuivsis sepatim jacen et existen in Whaplodd, in Coiii nro Lincoln, nup in tenura sive occupacoe Thome Pinch- beck et Bici Bennett vel assign suoi} sive eoi^ altius, ac modo in tenura sive occupacoe Thome Middlecote vel assign suoi^, annual reddit' Quatuor librai}, et triu solidor;,; Ac omes illas decem acras fre arrabil prati et pastur cum ptin, jacen et existen in vift et campis de Whaplodd pdict' in pdco Coin, quondam in tenura sive occupacoe JoJiis Parker et nup in tenur Wifii Skarlett, et modo vel nup in tenura sive occupacoe Joliis Daw- son et Thome Dawson, vel assign suo^ seu assign eoi^, allius; Ac totam illam pastur nram vocat' Souterland jacen et existen in diet' viH et Campis de Whaplodd p'dict', quondam in tenura sive occupacoe dci JoKis Parker, et modo in tenura sive occupacoe pdci WiHi Skarlett vel assign suoi^. annual reddit' in't se triginta duoi}, solido^ et octo denariorp. Quequidem pmissa in Whaplodd pdict sunt parceft Mafiii nri de Whaplodd, ac nup Monastic de Crowland quondam spectan et ptin, ac parcel! lai^, et possessionii inde quondam exti- terunt, ac pfat' Thome Middlecote p Iras paten magno sigillo nro Angl sigillat', geren dat' apud Westm, vice- simo quarto die Julii, Anno regni nri tricesimo scdo, tmino viginti et unius anno^ incipiend a Festo Anunciacois fee Marie Virginis tune ultime pftto, Red- dend" annuatim nob, heredib^ et successorib^ nfis de et ^ omib^ pmissis in tenura Thome Middlecote (ut pfert 1 ") existen, Quatuor libras et tres solidos, ac de et ^ p-missis in sepat tenur pdict' Thome Dawson, Jonis Dawson et Wilii Skarlett (ut pfert 1 ') existen, triginta duos solidos et octo denarios (int alia) dimiss' et con- GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 393 cess' fuerunt; Ac totum itt Scit' Mane? de Roxham APP. v 3 cum suis jurib^, membris et ptifi univsis in p'dco Coin nro Lincoln, Ac oiiiia edific, horrea, stabul, Columbar, hortos, pomar et gardin eidem spectan, cum suis ptifi, unu toftum continen p estimacocm trcs rod", duo croft' continen p estimacoem duas acras sive plus sive minus cum coi}. ptin, ac duas acras prati cum ptifi, novcm bovat' tre, prat' sive pastur, continen p estimacocm ducent' et viginti acras, cum ptifi Centum acr 'tre et pastur vulgari? nuncupat' p nomen vel noia de lez un- knowen landf diet' Scit' Maner spectan, tot' itt pastur ,p trescent' ovib^; cum suis juribs; et ptifi, ac omes illas Iras mariscal' sive Coias in marisc ibidem seu alibi diet' Scit' ptifi, parcett Maniii nrT de Ruskington in dco Com nro Lincoln, ac parcett tra^ et possessionu Thome nup Ducis Norff attincti, ac cuidam Thome Horseman, Geftoso, p Iras nras pateii dat' vicesimo septimo die Marcii, Anno regni nfi tricesimo fcio p ?mino viginti et unius annor f incipiend a Festo Afmnciacois tie Marie Virginis tune ultimo pHto et p annual reddit' quadra- ginta novem solidoij et sex denario^ dimiss' et con- cess'; ac totum illud ten nrm ac oiries illas 'tras eidem ten spectan cum ptifi, ac tot' itt claus' cum suis ptin scituat' jacen et existen in Stewkeley in Com nro Hunt', nup in tenura Thome Anthonye, et inodo in tenura sive occupacoe Lawrencii Torkinton vel assign suofy nup Priorat' de Huntingdon quondam spectan et ptin ac pcett frar f et possessionu inde quondam existofi, ac pfato Laurencio Torkington p Iras nras paten, gerefi dat' undecimo die Maii, Anno regni nri vicesimo octavo p tmino viginti et unius annoi} incipiend a festo Afmn- ciacois tie Marie Virginis tune ultimo ptito et an- nual reddit' quinquaginta solido^ dimiss' et concess', 394 FRAXCIS BACOX. APP. ac omia ilia duo clans' prati et pastur jaceli in Cow- bridge in Glaston, in Com nfo Sontsett. modo vel nup in tenura sive occupacue Jofiis Howthins vel ue i suor,, ac to? iS virgul? in occidental parte parci de Where-well, in tenura Jofiis Payne, ac totum illud cotagiii in Bovetowne in Glaston pdict, cuni eurtillag et quincfc acris et una roda 'tre arrabilis in Canapis ibidem, modo vel nup in tenura Rici Sargant, ac ouines illas duas acras tre arrabil in duob^ campis ibidem, modo vel nup in tenura Laurencii Dovell, aceciam omes illas duas acras pastur jacen in Brnndham in tenura Mathei Marten vel assign snot. Quequidem pmissa sunt parcel! Manii nfi de Glaston, ac parceti trar, et possessionu Edwardi nup Dncis Soms, ac cui- dam XicKo Coleman p Iras nras pateii, geren dat' apud Westm, decimo nono die Mail, Anno regni tricesimo scdo, p 'tmino viginti et unius annoc, incipiend a t'est<> Annnciacois b^ Marie Virginis tune ultimo p'tito, et p sepal annual reddi? octo solidot, duoc. solidon. triu solidoc, et quatuor denarion, duoc, solid", et duor, solidoij, dimiss' et concess' fuerunt ; Aceciam totum illud Molen- dinu aquaticum nfm vocat' Farneli^m My 11, cum ptifi, scitua? jaceii et existeu apud Farnebam Royall in Com nro Buck', ac oiuia iH duo clausa nfa jacefi et existeii in Farneham RoyaS pdict' vocat' the great Bownes and the little bownes, ac omes iHas tras, arrabiles et prat' nr eidem Molendino aliquo modo spectan vel ptin, parceS Maner nri de Farneham Royall, parcel} possessionu pquisit' de Francisco nup Comite Salop, ac postea nob concess 1 ante accessum nrm ad Coronam hujus regni nfi Anglic, ac dimisT cuidam Wifio Coxe p Iras nras paten magno sigillo nro Anglic sigilla?, geren da? quartodeeJmo die Marcii, Anno regni nri GRANTS FROM THE CROWX. 395 undecimo, p. frnino viginti et unius annoi^,, incipiend a APP. tempore quo quedam dimiss' cuidam Antonio Reade, Geftoso, de eisdem fcta p Umino viginti et unius p Iras nras paten magno sigillo nro Angt sigillat', gereii daf' vicesimo 'tcio die Junii, Anno regni nfi tcio, p expiracoem sursumreddicoem, forisfcur seu detmi- nacoem inde aut alio modo quocunq^ primo et px' vacari, finiri seu detminari contigit et p annual reddit' quadraginta solido^. Et postea cuidam Anne Twiste ui Thome Twiste p alias Iras nras paten magno sigillo nro Angl sigillat' geren dat' vicesimo quinto die Maii, Anno regni nri vicesimo nono p hnino vi- ginti et unius annoi^, incipiend a festo Afumciacois t5e Marie Virginis, quod erit in Anno Dili Mittimo sexcen- tesimo tcio et p anual reddit' quadraginta solidorf (iirt alia) dimisi5' et concess', ac totum illud claus' sive pastuf vocat Leafeilde grove, contifi p estimacoem quatuor acras cuidam Edmundo Gregorie p Indentuf Ambrosii nup Comitis AVarr, geren dat' octavo die Junii, Anno regni nri tricesimo primo p tmino viginti et unius annor,, incipiend a feato Sci Micliis ArcRi ad- tunc ultimo ptito, ac de et sub annual reddit' sex solido^ et octo denarior,, nup dimiss', Aceciarn totam illam parcellam prati vocaf' the Baylies fee, contifi p estimacoem duas acras, in Broadehall, cuidam Thome Staunton p consimilem Indentur pdci Ambrosii, Co- mitis AVarr, geren dat' septimo die Julii, Anno regni nri vicesimo primo, p fonino viginti et unius annoi^, incipiend a die dat' diet' Indentur pf'ato Thome Staun- ton, ut pfcrf confect', ac de et sub annual reddit' Sex solidoif ct octo denarioif nup dimiss'. Necnon oiTies illas sepales 'tras et pastuf existen parceft parci de Wedgenock, contifi p estimacoem decem acras cuidam 396 FRANCIS BACON. A pp. Rofoto Sheldon p consimil Indentur pdict' Comitis, geren dat' primo die Octobris, Anno regni nfi vice- simo septimo, p ^mino viginti et unius annot^, inci- piend a die dat' diet' Indentur pfato Rofeto Sheldon, ut pferf confect', ac de et sub annual reddit' triginta solidor;, similil! nup dimiss'. Quequidem pmissa pfat' Edmundo Gregorie, Thome Staunton et Rooto Sheldon, ut pferf dimiss', sunt parceS Maner nri de Warr, in Coin nro Warr, ac sunt parcel! frai}> et possessions in manibs; nris existeii rone mortis pdict' Ambrosii, nup Comitis Warr, defuncti, sine hered mascul de corpore suo Itime p.creat', Necnon pfato Thome Staunton p Iras nras paten, geren dat' duodecimo die Februarii, Anno regni nri tricesimo ?cio, incipienda confeccoe dcai^, Irarf paten p et duran resid sepal terminoi^, anno^ supius in pdict' sepalib^ Indenturis pdict' nup Comitis Warr spMcat', et p p'dictis sepal annual reddit' in eisdem mencionat', dimiss' et concess' fuerunt, necnon totum illud ten nrm et duas bovat' ?re cum eoi^ ptin uniVsis quondam in tenura sive occupacoe JoHis Mar- shall vel assign suoi;,, scituat', jaceu et existeii in Hessey in Coin nro Eboi^,, vel infra Com Civitatis Ebo^, seu eoi^. aliquo annual reddit' octodecim solidoi^, ac totum illud altum ten nrm et duas bovat' tre cum eo^ ptin ibidem, quondam in tenura sive occupacoe Rooti Tarte alias Tatte vel assign suoi}, annual reddit' septemdecem solidor), et octo denarioi^ ac totum illud ten et duas bovat' fre cum eoi^ ptin ibidem modo vel nup in tenur sive occupacoe Thome Hedley vel assign suon, annual reddit' sexdecim solidoi^,. Que omia pmissa in Hessey pdict' sunt parcel! Maner nri de Poppleton, in pdco Coin nro Eboi},, ac nup Monaster fee Marie, juxta mur Civitat' Eboif, quondam spectan et ptineii, ac parcel} GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 397 possession ii inde quondam existefi, ac cuidam Georgio APP. Tirell p Iras nfas patefi magno sigillo nf o Angl sigil- ' 3 ' lat', gerefi dat' apud WestiS, decimo sexto die Aprilis, Anno regni nri" undecimo, p fanino triginta et unius annoip incipiend a tempore quo quedam Ire paten et dimissio inde p Iras paten Dni Phi et pcarissime so- roris nre Marie, nup Eegis et Eegine Anglic, sub magno sigillo suo Angl confect', gereii dat' apud Ashur, vicesimo scdo die Aprilis, Annis regno^ suoij primo et scdo, cuidam Rado Hall concess' p expira- coem, sursum reddicoem, forisfcur, aut alio quocuuo^ modo primuin et px' vacari, finiri seu determinari con- tigit, et p annual reddit' quinquaginta unius solido^ et octo denarioi}, dimiss' et concess' fuerunt, ac oinia et singula domos, edificia, structur, horrea, stabul, colum- bar, hort', pomar, gardiii, terr, teii, prat', pasc', pastur, lezur, bruer, moras, marisc, coias sect' ad molendin, tolnet, theolon, mulctur, aquas, aquai^ cursus, gurgit', nipas, stagna, vivar, piscar, piscacoes pfic coinoditat', advantag', emolumenta, et hereditamenta nra quecunq^ p-miss' p p'sentes dimiss' seu alicui eor f dem parceft ullo modo spectan vel ptinen, aut cum eisdem seu eo^ ali- quo vel aliquib^ antehac usualit p sepal annual red- dit' inf^ius in hiis psentib^ Iris nris paten reserva?', dimiss', locat', usitat, occupat', reputat' seu gavis' existefi. Exceptis tamen semp et nofc, lieredibj et suc- cessoribz; nfis omino reservat', oiliib^ grossis, arboribj, boscis, subboscis, miner et quarrels oiriiuin et singuloi^ p'missor,, pfatis Francisco Bacon et Jofii Hibberd p psentes pconcess', pt 9 virgult' parceft Maner de Glas- ton supius p psentes dimiss'. He"nd et tenend toturn p^dict' pare de Istlewortli alias diet' the newe parke of Richmond, fras, prat', pasc', pastur, domos, logeas, ac 398 FRANCIS BACON. ATI', ceta omia et singula pmissa pfato Miloni Doddinge p If as paten supius annotat', ut pfert as dimiss' cum eoi-, juribz; membris et ptin uni^sis (except' f> except') pfato Francisco Bacon, executorib^ et assign suis a Festo Sci Micnis Arcfii quod erit in Anno Dili Miftimo sexcen- tesimo vicesimo quarto, uso^ ad finem tmini et p Iminfi viginti et unius annoi}, extunc px' sequen et plena? complend; Reddendo inde extunc et abinde annuatim nob", hercdibj et successoribs; nfis, octo libras et duos solidos leg monet'e Anglic ad festa Afmnciacois tie Marie Virginia et Sci Micnis Archi ad Recept' Sc a cii nfi, heredum et suecesso^ nro^, seu ad manus Ballivoi^ vel Receptoif pmissotj, p tempore existefi p equales por- coes solvend durail 'tmino pdco inde p psentes peon- cess', Ac Hend et tenend omes, pdcas quinquaginta et septem acras et decem pdicat' terr arrabil et pastuf sive plus sive minus, cum eoi}, ptin uniVsis sepatim jacen et existen in Whaplodd pdict' in p'dict' Com nro Lincoln, ac cefa omia et singula pmissa parcel! Mafilii de Whaplodd p'dict, pfato Thome Middlecote p Iras pateii supius annotat' ut pfert ns dimiiss', ac pdca duo claus' prati et pastur, ac p'dict virgult', cotag, curtilag, terr arrabil, prat', et pastur, ac ceta omia et singula pmissa parcel! Maner de Glaston p'dict in Glaston pdict', in pdco Com nro Soifts, cum eo^ ptin uniVsis (except' p" except') pfato Jofii Hibberd, executorib^ et assign suis, a festo Afmnciacois tie Marie Virginia quod erit in Anno Dm Miftimo Sexcentesimo undecimo, usq^ ad finem tmini et p 'tminu viginti et unius annoi^, ex- tunc px' sequen et plena? complend, Reddendo extunc et abinde annuatim not), heredib^ et successorib^; nris, de et p j5missis in Whaplodd pdict' in tenura pdci Thome Middlecote ut pfert as existen, quatuor libras et GRANTS FROM T1IK I'lunvX. 399 tres solidos; ac de et p pmissis in Wliaplodd pdict' in APT-. sepal tenur Thome Dawson, Johis Uawson et Witti Skarlett ut pfert ns existen, triginta duos solidos et octo denarios; ac de et p pmissis parcel! Maner de Glaston pdict' in tenura dci JoRis Howchins ut pfert ns existen, octo solidos; ac de et p pmissis parcel} ejusdem Maftii in tenura dci Joliis Payne ut pfert as existeu, duos so- lidos; ac de et p pmissis parcel! p'dict' Maner de Glaston in tenura dci Rici Sargant ut pfert ns existefi, tres solidos et quatuor denarios; ac de et p pmissis parcelt cjusdcm Maner in tenura dci Lawrencii Dovell ut pfert as existen, duos solidos; Necnon de et p pmissis parcel! diet' Maner de Glaston in tenura dci Mathei Marten ut pfert :ls existefi, duos solidos legalis monete Angl ad fest' Sci Micliis Arclii et Anunciacois tie Marie Virginis ad Recept' Sc a cii nri hered et succes- sor, nroi},, sou iid nianus Ballivoi}, vel Receptor f jpmissoif | tempore existen p equales porcoes salvend duran tiaino pdco inde p psentes pconcess'. Ac Hend et tcncnd pdict' Scit' Maner de Roxham, domes, edificia, hon-ea, stabul, columbaf et gardin eidem spcctafi cum suis ptin, toft', croft', terr, prat', pasc, pastur, ac cela oinia f singula pmissa parcel! Maner dc Ruskington pdict' in p'dict' Coin nro Lincoln, p psentes dimiss, cum eoi}, ptiii uniVsis '(except' p 1 except') pfat' Jolii ILihbcrd, executorib^ et assign suis, a festo Anuncia- cois be Marie Virginis quod erit in Anno Dni Miliimo Sexcentesimo duodecimo uso^ ad finem Im'mi et p tminu viginti et unius annor f extunc px' sequen et plena? (.iiinplend: Reddendo inde extunc et abinde aimuatini nob', heredib^ et successorib^ nris quadraginta novein solidos et sex denarios legalis monete Angt ad festa Sci Micfiis Arctii et Anunciacois t5e Marie Virginis ad 400 FRANCIS BACON. APP. Recept' S ccii nfi, heredum et successor nror,, seu ad manus Ballivo^, vel Receptoi}, pmissou, p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend duran tmino pdco hide p psentes pconcess'. Ac fiend et tenend pdict' ten ac omes pdict' Iras eidem ten spectan, cum ptin, ac totum pdict' clans' cum suis ptin ac cefca pmissa in Stukeley pdict' in pdict Com nro Hunt', pfato Lawrencio Tor- kington p Iras paten supius annotat' ut pfert r dimiss' (except' p' except') pfato Jofri Hibberd, executoribj et assign suis a festo Anunciacois be Marie Virginis quod erit in Anno Dni Miftimo sexcentesimo septimo usqj ad finem fmini et p fminii viginti et unius annoi^ ex- tunc px' sequen et plenaf complend: Reddendo inde, extunc et abinde annuatim nofc, heredib^ et succ nris quinquaginta solidos legalis monete Anglie ad festa Sci MicKis Arclii, et Anunciacois be Marie Virginis ad Recept' Sc a cii nri, heredum et successo^ nro^, sen ad manus Ballivoi^ vel Receptoi^, pinisso^, p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend duran fmino pdco inde p psentes pconcess'. Ac Rend et tenend pdiot' molen- dinu aquaticu vocat' Farneham Myll cum ptin, scituat', jaceii et existen apud Farneham Royall ptfict' in pdict' Coin nro Buck', ac pdict' duo claus' jacen et existen in Farneham Royall pdict' vocat' the great Bownes and the little Bownes et oines p'dict' fras arrabil et prat' eidem Molendino aliquo modo spectan vel ptinen ac cefa oinia et singula pmissa parceft Maner de Farne- ham Royall pdict' cum eo^ ptin univsis (except' p* except') pfato Jofii Hibberd, executoribz; et assign suis, a festo Anunciacois be Marie Virginis quod erit in Anno Dni Miftimo, sexcentesimo, vicesimo quarto uso^ ad finem fmini et p fminii viginti et unius annoc. ex- tunc px' sequen et plena? complend: Reddendo inde, GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 401 extunc et abinde annuatim not), heredibz; et successorib^ APP. nris, quadraginta solidos legalis monete Angl, ad festa 8~i Micliis ArcTii et Afiunciacois tie Marie Virginis, ad Recept' Sc a cii nri, hered et successor,, nroi^ seu ad ma- nus Ballivor f vel Receptor^ pmissoi}. p tempore existefi p equales porcoes solvend duran fmino pdco inde p psentes pconcess'. Ac ftend et tenend p'dict' clans' sive pastur vocat' Leafeilde grove, continen p estima- coem quatuor acras pfato Edmundo Gregorie p Inden- tnr pdict' supius mencionat' nup dimiss'; aceciam pdict' parceft prat' vocat' the Baylies Fee, continen p estima- coem duas acras in Broadehall pfato Thome Staunton p Indentur p'dict' supius mencionat' nup dimiss; Nec- non offies pdcas sepales fras et pastur existeii parceft parci de Wedgnocke p'dict' continen p estimacoem decem acras pfat' Robto Sheldon p Indentur p'dict supius mencionat' nup dimiss, ac cefa omia et singula pmissa parcel! Mane? de War? pdict' in pdco Coin nro War?, cum eo^ ptin uniVsis (except' p except') pfato Joni Hibberd executoribz; et assign suis, a tem- pore quo pMce Ire paten et dimissio ili supius annotat' pfat' Thome Staunton inde ut pYert" 8 confect' et fmin anno^ in iisdem expss' et mencionat' p expiracoem, sursumreddicoom, forisfcur seu defminacoem inde aut alio modo quocunq^ primo et px' vacari, finiri seu defminari contigit, usq ad finem fmini et p fminii viginti et unius annor f extunc px' sequen et plena? complend: Reddendo extunc et abinde annuatim nofo' heredibs; et successorib^ nris de et j) ^dict' claus' sive pastur vocat' Leafeilde grove, cum ptin, sex solidos et octo denarios; ac de et p f^dict, parcel} prat vocat the Baylies Fee, cum ptin, decem solid; Necnon de et p J)dict' sepal ter? et pastur parcefl parci de Wedgnocke, Lord Bacon- 26 402 FRANCIS BACON. APP. cum ptiii, triginta solidos legalis monete Angl ad Festa ' Sci Micnis Arclii et Aiiunciacois tie Marie Virginis, ad Recept' Sc a cii nfi, heredum et successor,, nror^,, seu ad manus Ballivo^ vel Receptoij. ^misso^ p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend durafi fmino fidco inde p psentes Pconcess': Prima soluc inde incipiend ad illud festum festorf pMcoi}, quod prim et px' evefiit aut acci- derit postq a m eadem p ; missa parceft Manef de War? jpdict', ad manus et possess' pdci Joliis Hibberd execu- te!}, vel assign suorp virtute ha^ Ira^ nrai^, paten de- veffiint seu devenire debent. Necnon Hend et tenend j?dict' ten et duas bovat' tre cum ptin modo vel nup in tenura p'dci Joliis Marshall vel assign suo^ ut pfert r existen; ac pdcm alfum ten et duas bovat' terr cum ptiii, modo vel nup in tenura Rofcti Tarte alias Tatte vel assign suorf ut pfert r existeu; necnon pdict' alfum ten et duas bovat' fre cum ptin univsis, modo vel nup in tenura Thome Hedley vel assign suoi}, ut pfert r existen, ac cefa omia et singula pmissa parceli Maner de Poppleton p'dict', cum eo^ ptiii uniVsis (except' p> except') pfato Jofii Hibberd executorib^ et assign suis, a fine expirac, sursum reddicoe, forisfcur seu defminacoe p'dict' fmin an^io^ mencionat' et expss' in p^dcis Iris paten supius annotat' pfato Georgio Tirrell inde in? alia ut pfert r confect' uso^ ad finem fmini et p ?minu viginti et unius anno^ extunc px' sequen et plenaf complend: Reddendo inde extunc et abinde an- nuatim not}, heredibj et successorib^ nris de et p ptaissis cum ptin in tenura Joliis Marshall ut pferf existen, octodecim solidos; ac de et p p'missis cum ptin in tenura Rotiti Tarte alias Tate ut p^fert r existen septemdecim solidos et octo denarios; Necnon de et p p'missis cum ptin in tenura Thome Hedley ut pferf GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 403 existen, sexdecim solidos legalis monete Angt, ad Festa APP. Sci MicTiis Arclii et Anunciacois tie Marie Virginis ad v - 3 - Recept' Sc a cii nfi, heredum et successor nroi^ sou ad manus Ballivoi^ vel Receptor,, pmissor f p tempore existen p equales porcoes solveud duran ftnino pdco inde p p'sentes pconcess': Prima solucoe inde incipiend ad illud festum festoi^ p'dcoif quod prim et px' evenlit aut accidit postq a m eadem ptaissa parceft Maner de Popple- ton {Mid' ad manus et possessionem p^dci Jollis Hib- berd execute^ vel assignato^. suorf virtute hai^ Ira^ nraif paten devefiint seu devenire debent. Et j?dict' Franciscus Bacon, executores et assign sui nos heredes et successores nros, de Quatuor libris et decem solidos p feod custod parci p'dci solvend annuatim et de tern- pore in tempus exoffiabunt, acquiet' et indempnes con- servabunt duran fmino p'dict'. Qdo^ p'dict' Franciscus Bacon et Jolies Hibberd exec et assign sui respective oiiiia domos et edificia, ac oinia sepes, fossat', inclur, littora, ripas, et muros marittimos , necnon omes alias necessar reparacoes pmissoi^ eis sepatim dimiss' in omibz; et p oinia de tempore in tempus tociens quociens necesse et oportunu fuerit sumptibj suis ppriis et ex- pensis bene et sufficient repabunt, supportabunt, susti- nebunt, escurabunt, purgabunt et manutenebunt duraii ?mino p'dco, ac puiissa sufficient reparat' et manutent' in fine fmini p'dict' dimittent. Et volum 9 ac p p'sentes p noft, heredib5 et successoribj nfis concedimr pfat' Francisco Bacon et Joni Hibberd, executorib^ et assign suis, qd bene licebit eis et eoi^ cuitt de tempore in tempus cape pcipe et Kere de, in et sup jfrnissa eis sepalit 9 dimiss' crescen, competen et sufficien house- bote, ' hedgebote, firebote, ploughebote, et cartebote ibidem et non alibi annuatim expendend et occupand 2G* 404 FKAXCIS r-ACOX. APP. duraii fmino pdco; Et qd neant maeren in boscis ct fris pmissoij. crescen ad et v"sus reparac domoi^, et edi- pmisson p assignacoem et supvis' Seneschaft seu Subseneschaft aut alien Officiarior, nron, heredum et successor; nro^ ibidem p_ tempore existeii duraii fmino pdict'. Proviso semp qd si contigit pdict' sepal reddit supius p psentes reservat' aut eoij. aliquem aretro fore non solut' in parte vel in toto p spacifi quadraginta dierf post aliquod Festum festou pdcoij. quo ut pfert m solvi debeat, Qd tune et deinceps hec psens dimissio et concessio quoad illam partem et pceti pmissoi^, tan- tfimodo unde sepal reddit' pinde supius p psentes re- servat', sic aretro fuer insolut p spaciu dcoi^. quadra- ginta diet vacua sit ac p. nuft Beat-, Aliquo in psen- tibj in contain inde non obstan. Proviso eciam ulfius qd si pdict 1 Jones Hibberd, executores vel assign sui sufficieii sepal dimissiones in scriptis sub sigillo suo conficiend cuilt sepal teneu sive occupator pmisso^. vel alicujus inde parcett eis p psentes pdimiss' de sepal parcefi eoi^dem prnisso^, p toto et integro fmino annon p p'sentes pconcess et p sepal annual reddit' supius p psentes p eisdem reservat' infra spaciu unius anni px sequen post dat' ban, Irai^, nra^ paten non fe8int nee fieri causarint dumodo iidem teiieii sive occupatores eoifdem pmissoE, et eo^ quilt respective solvint seu solvi fefiint eidem Jofii Hibberd, executorib:; vel assign suis, infra dcm spaciu unius anni px' sequen post daf' bar, Irac, nran paten oines tales pecunian suinas quales et quant' pinde cum pdco Jolie Hibberd, executorib^ vel assign suis solve convefiint vel conveiiit, aut omes tales et bujusmodi pecuniar sufnas qual et quant' pinde solvi p Thesaurar Anglie et Cancellar Cur Sc a cii p, tempore existen sub manibs; eoc, seu eoi^ alfius in GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 405 script' erunt sepalit 9 limitat' et appunctuat' erit, Quod APP. tune et deinceps hec psens dimissio et concessio quoad illam partem et parceft purissoi} tantumodo unde tenens sive occupator non pofit fiere Rmoi sufficefi dimiss in script', p vel sup solucoe p. eadem modo et forma pdict' scd'm veram intencoem hai} Irai}, urai}, paten vacua sit ac nullius vigoris in lege: Aliquo in p'sentibj in con- trtn inde non obstan. Aliquo statuto, etc. In cujus rei, etc. T' R-, apud Westm, xvij die Novembr. p fire de privato sigillo, etc. PATENT ROLL, 40 ELIZABETH, PART 3, MEMB. 26. v. 4. REGINA Oiriibz; ad quos etc saltm .... on firm p I Cum in Iris nfis patentib^ magno co Bacon. <{ Sigillo nro Anglic sigillat geren dat apud Westin quintodecimo die February Anno regni nri trice- simo quarto continet" qd t a diderimq-, concesserimqj et ad firmam dimiserimo^ ditco nob Kotito Stephens totam illam Rcoriam et Eccliam de Chestleham cum suis jurib^ membris et ptifi uuiVsis in Coin nro Glouc Ac totam illam Capellam de Charleton cum suis juribzf membris et ptifi uniVsis in eodem Coin dee Rcorie de Cheltenham annex existen Ac oinia et singula scif mesuagia grangia domos edificia structur horrea stabula columbaria hort pomaria gardina tras teiita prata pascua. pastur Coias piscarias piscacoes opa tenen red- dit et svicia tarn liftoi}, q a m Custumarioif tenentin red- ditus et Svicia reservat sup quibuscumq^ Dimissionibj et Concessionibz; de pmissis eschaet relevia mortuaria herriet fines amciamcnta Cnr let vis Franc ple Cur et let pquisit et pficua 00^ Necnon totum ift staur nrm 406 FRANCIS BACON. APP. tarn vivu q a m mortuu videlt avlo^ boil et catall et gran Ac oines illas decimas g a noi^, blad feni lane agnoi^, vituloi} et aliar,, decimal}, tarn major q a m minor oblacoes obvencoes fructus j>ficua comoditates advantagia emolu- menta et hereditamenta nra quecumqj cum ptin tam spualia q a m temporalia cujuscunq^ sint gefiis nature seu specie! scituat jacen et existen .pvenien crescen sive en?gen infra villas campos parochias sive hamlett de Cheltenham et Charleton p>dict vel eo:q, aliquo seu alibi in dco Coin nro Glouc dee Rcorie et Ecclie de Chel- tenham Capelle de Charleton p^dict scit mesuag terr tentis decimis et ceflis p^missis seu eoi}, alicui vel ali- quibs; ullo modo spectan vel ptinen aut cum eisdem seu col} aliquo vel aliquibj ut pars membrum vel parceft eo^dem sive eoi} alicujus antetunc dimiss locat vsitat occupat reputat seu gavis existen cum eor f ptiii uniVsis quondam existen parcett terr tento^ et possessionu nup monaster de Cirencester in Coin p'dict Except tamen semp et nofc heredib^ et successorib^ nris omino reser- vat omibz; grossis arborib^ maerem exisien boscis sub- boscis Ward maritag miner et quarr ac bonis et catallis f'elonu fugitive^ et felonu de se et in exigend posit con- dempnat et utlagat Ac Advocacoib^ Eccliai^, et Capellai^, quarfCumq^ Rcorie p'dict vel cetis p'missis appendeii spectan vel ptinen hendum et tenendum pdcam Ecoriam Eccliam Capellam scit terr glebas decimas ac ce'ta omia et singula pmissa cum eo^ jurib^ membr et ptin univsis (except p* except) p'fat Rofato Stephens et assign suis a Festo sci Micnis Arcni tune ultimo p^fito usq^ ad finem fmini et p fmino viginti et unius Annorf extunc ,px se- quen et plenarie complendo^ Reddendo inde annuatim nob heredib^ et successoribz; nris septuaginta quinq^ libras tresdecim solidos et quatuo r denarios legalis mo- GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 407 nete Anglic ad Festa Annunciacois fte marie virginis ct APP. sci micliis Arcfii ad Receptam Sc a cij nri heredum et V ' 4 ' successo^, nroij seu ad manus Ballivoi^ vel Receptor,, frmissoi}, p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend duran tmino p'dco put p pdcas Iras patentes plenius liquet et apparet Cumqj eciam in Iris nris patentib^ magno Sigillo nro Anglie sigillat geren dat apud Westfn decimo die maij Anno regni nri tricesimo fcio continef qd t a diderim 9 concesserim 9 et ad firmam di- misserim 9 dilco noB Wifto Greenewell totam illam p'dcam Rcoriam et Eccliam nram de Cheltenham cum suis jurib^ membris et ptin uni^sis in dco Com nro Glouc Ac totam illam p'dcani Capellam nram de Charle- ton cum suis jurib^ et ptin in eodem Com nro Glouc dee Rcorie de Cheltenham annex existen ac omia et singula pdict scit mesuagia grangia domus edificia structur horrea stabula Columbaria hortos pomaria gar- dina Iras tenta prata pascua pastur Coias aceciam aquas ac p'dict piscarias piscacoes opa tenenciil reddit et ivicia tarn liborf q fl m Custumarior f tenenciu rcdditus et sVicia reservat sup quibuscumq^ dimissionib^; et Con- cessionib^ de p^missis seu de aliqua inde parcella fact escaet relevia mortuaria herriet fines antciamenta Cur let vis Franc pleg Cur et let pquisicoes et ^ficua eoi^,- dem Necnon tot iti staur nrm tarn vivu q fi m mortuu vidett avior f boii cataft et gran ac ovnos illas decimas nras g a nor f blado^ feni lane agnor f vitulor, ac alias de- cimas nras tam majores q^ minores oblacoes ob- vencoes fructus pficua comoditates advantagia emolu- menta et hereditamenta nra quecunq^ cum ptiii tam spfialia q a m temporalia cujuscumq) sint gcftis nature vel speciei scituat jacen et existen pvcnieii crescen sive etffgen infra villas campos parocTi sive hamlett de Chel- 408 FRANCIS BACOX. APP . tenham et Charleton pdict seu in vel infra eoi}. aliquem vel aliquos seu alibi ubicnmq^ in dco Com nro Glouc pdce Rcorie et Ecclie de Cheltenham Capelle de Charle- ton pdict scit mesuag 1 terr ten decim et celis pmissis seu eorf alicui vel aliquib^ ullo inodo spectaii vel ptifien aut ut membr part vel parceft eatdem Rcuria^ et Ecclie Capeft scit mesuagf terr ten deciiri ac cefoi^, pmissorf seu eoi^ aliquoij. vel alicujus antetunc liit cogint accept vsi- tat occupat seu reputat existen nup monaster de Ciren- cestr in dco Coin modo dissolut quondam spectan et ptinen ac parcel! terr et possession^ inde quondam existen Exceptis tamen semp et noft heredib^ et successorib^ nfis omino reservat omib^ grossis arboribj maerem existen boscis subboscis Wardis maritagiis miner et quarr ac bonis et catallis felonii fugitive^ et felonli de se et in exigend posit condempnat et utlagat Ac advocacoib^ Eccliarj, et Capella^ qua^cumq} Rcorie pdce vel cetis p'missis appenden spectan vel ptirieii liendum et tenend p'dict Rector terr glebales decimas ac cef a omia et sin- gula pmissa cum eoi^ jurib^ membris et ptiii uniVsis (except p* exceptis) pfato Willo Greenewell executorib^ et assign suis a Festo Annunciacois tie marie virginis tune ultimo pfito usq-^ ad finem tmini et p fminu vi- ginti et unius Anno^ extunc px sequefi et plena? com- plend Reddendo inde annuatim nob" heredibj et succes- soribj nris septuaginta quinq^ libras tresdecem solidos et quatuoi}, denarios legalis monete Anglie ad Festa sci michis ArcHi et Annunciacois be marie virginis ad Re- ceptam Scc s ii nri heredum et Successoc, nron seu ad manus Ballivoij, vel Receptorf pmissoi^ p tern pore ex- isten p equales porcoes sol\ r end duraii fmino pdco put p easdem Iras patentes plenius eciam liquet et apparet eciam in Iris nfis patentib^ magno Sigillo nro GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 409 Anglic sigillat gerefi dat apud Westm vicesimo scdo APP. die Maii Anno regni nri scdo continet a qd t a diderimq^ concesserimqj ac ad firmam dimiserimq^ ditco not) Henr. Jerningham militi scitum dee Rcorie de Cheltenham in dco Com nro Glouc ac f?dcam Capellam de Charleton in eodem Com eidem Rcorie anexat Ac ouiia domos terr prat pascua pastur gardina redditus et Svicia tarn litiorf q r 'm Custumarioi}, tenen adRcoriam sive Capellam ptinen sen cum eisdem aut aliqua inde parcella ante- tune dimiss locat occupat recept seu nit Necnon vis Franc pleg Cur let fines heriet mortuaria et relevia ac omia alia pficua quecumq^ eisdem vis franc pleg et Cur ptinen Aceciam oines decimas blador,. feni lane agnor vitulorf et alias decimas quascumo^ tam majores q u m minores oblacoes et oinia alia res p.ficua et comoditates dee Rcorie et Capelle seu eoi^, al?i spectaii ptinen sive incumben Exceptis tamen semp et noft hered et succes- sorib^ nfis omino reservat omibj et oinimodis grossis arborib^ boscis subboscis Wardis maritsgiis miner ct quarr ac bonis et catallis felonii fugitive^ felonn de se et in exigend posit condempn et utlagat Ac advoca- coib^ Eccliarf et Capella^ qua^ cunq^ Rcorie et capelle pdict spectan ptinen acciden sive eriVgen Ticndum et tenend p'dict scit Rcor et Capellam necnon pdict domos terr prat ten pasc et pastur gardin reddif et Svicia una- cum vis franc pleg 1 Cur let finib^ hen-iet mortuarijs ct relevijs et oniibj alijs pficuis p'dcis de eisdem Cur pvenien simulcumdecimis oblacoibjobvencoibz; et alijs robs; pficius et comoditatib^ quibuscunq^ dee Rcorie et Capelle et eoi}. utriq^ ptinen spectan sive incumben aut cum eisdem seu eoi}, aliqua jPantea dimiss^ locat occupat recept sive Tiit cum suis ptin (except p^ except) pfat Henr Jer- nyngham executoribj et assign suis a Festo sci micliis 410 FRANCIS BACON. APP. Arclii tune ultimo pfito us% ad finem ?mini et p ?minu sexaginta Annoi}, extunc px 1 sequeii et plenarie com- plendoi}, Reddendo inde annuatim not) heredib^ et suc- cessorib^ nfis sexaginta libras et octo denarios legalis monete Anglic ad Festa Anunciacois Be marie virginis et sci micfiis ArcTii ad Receptam Scc a ij nri seu ad ma- nus Ballivoi}, vel Receptor, pmissoi^, p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend duraii dco fmino sexaginta Annoi}, Sciatis qd nos tarn in considerate boni fidelis et acceptabilis Ssvicij nott p dilcm et fidelem nofe Fran- ciscum Bacon Armigum antehac fact et impens q^ p diesis alijs causis et consideracoib^ nos ad hoc spialit moven de gra nra spiali ac ex eta scientia et mero motu nris t a didim 9 concession 9 et ad firmam dimisim 9 ac p p^sentes p not) heredib^ et successorib^ nris t a dim 9 concedim 9 et ad firmam dimittim 9 pfat Francisco Bacon totam illam Rcofiam et Eccliam nram de Cheltenham cum suis juribj membris et ptiii uniWis in dco Coin nro Glouc ac pdcam Capellam de Charleton in eodem Coin eidem Rcorie annexat Ac omia domos fras prata pascua pastur gardina redditus et ivicia tarn liftoi} q a m Custumariorf tenenciu ad dcam Rcofiam sive Capellam ptinen seu cum eisdem aut aliqua inde parcella ante- tune dimiss locat occupat recept seu nit Necnon vis franc pleg Cur let fines herriet mortuaria et relevia ac omia alia pficua quecumo^ eisdem vis franc pleg et Cur ptinen Aceciam oines decimas bladoi^ feni lane agnoi^, vitulorf ac alias decirnas quascumo^ tam majores q*m minores oblacoes obvenc et omia alia pficua et comodi- tates dee Rcorie et Capelle seu eoi^ alfi spectan ptinen sive incumben Exceptis tamen semp et not) heredib^ et successorib^ nfis omino reservat omib^ et omimodis grossis arboribj boscis subboscis Wardis maritagijs GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 411 miner et quarr ac bonis et catallis felonii fugitivoi}. APP. felonu de se et in exigend posit condempnat et utlagat Ac Advocacoibs; Eccliai}, et Capellar f quai^cunq^ Rcorie et Capelle pdict spectaii ptinen acciden sive eiSgefi liendum et tenend p'dcam Rcoriam et Capellam scit terr gleft decimas ac ceter omia et singula pmissa p p'sentes dimissa et concessa cum eoi} juribj membris et ptiii univ"sis except p* except pfat Francisco Bacon ex- ecutorib^ et assign suis a Festo sci Micfiis ArcTii quod erat in Anno Dni mittimo quingentesimo nonagesimo septimo usqj ad finem Tiflini et p tmino Quadraginta Annoi^, extunc px sequen et plena? complend Si omes p'dce sepales Ire patentes Concessiones ac Dimissiones confect et Hit pfat Rob"to Stephens Witto Greenewell ac Henr Jerningham militi de p^dca Rcoria et Ecclia de Cheltenham ac de Capella de Charleton ac de ofnib^ et singulis Scit domib^ gardinis fris pratis pastur Coijs redditib^ et vicijs Cur et omibj; et singulis alijs p'dcis rebz; pficuis comoditatibz; tentis hcreditamentis quibus- cunq^ cum omibs; et singulis suis ptin in tfcis sepalibj Iris nris patentib^ mencionat et exp'ss fore dimiss et concess vacue irrite et nullius vigoris sive valoris in lege existunt Et in casu qd pdce nre sepales Ire pa- tentes Concessiones ac Dimissiones vel eor f alique vel aliqua confect et hit pfat Roftto Stephens Witto Greene- well ac henr Jerningham militi de p'dict Rcoria et Ec- ctia de Cheltenliam pdict ac de Capella de Charlton ac de omibz; scit terr decimis tentis et hereditamentis quibuscunq, et cetis ornib^ et singulis p'missis cum suis ptin in dcis sepalibz; Iris nfis patentibz; mencionat et exp'ss fore dimiss et concess bone et valide vel bona et valida in lege existunt vel existit Tune liendum et te- nendum pdcam Rcoriam et Capellam scit terr glebaa 412 FRAXCIS BACOX-. APP. decimas ac cefa oifiia et singula pmissa p psen dimissa et concessa cum eoi^, jurib^ membr et ptifi univ'sis (ex- ceptis p> except) pfat Francisco Bacon executorib^ et assign suis a tempore quo pdca Rcoria et Capella scit terr decime ten et hereditamenta ac cea omia et sin- gula pmissa p psentes dimissa et concessa cum omibj et singulis suis ptiii ad manus et possessionem nras heredum et successor nroi^. rone expiracois sursumred- dicois forisfcure vel alicujus altius defminacois dca^ sepaliu dimissionu vel concess vel ear, aliquac. vel ali- cujus sic existen bona^ et valida^ vel bone et valide in lege fact pfat Roftto Stephens Wilio Greenewell ac henr Jerningliam devenire poter aut debent ad finem fmini et p fmino Quadi-aginta Annoi^ extunc px se- queii et plena? complend Keddendo inde extunc et ab- inde annuatim nob heredib^ et successorib^ nris septua- ginta qiiino^ libras tresdecim solidos et quatuon dena- rios legalis monete Anglie ad Festa Anunciacois tie marie virginis et sci micHis ArcSi ad Receptam Sc a cij nfi heredum et successo^ nro^ seu ad manus Ballivoc. vel Receptor;, jpmissoi^, p tempore existen p equales porcoes solvend duran fmino pdco p psentes pcon- cessj Prima solucoe inde incipiend ad illud Fcstum Festo^ pdcor^. quod primu et px eveiiit aut accident postq u m p'dca Rcofia et Capella et cefa pmissa ad ma- nus et possessionem pdci Francisci Bacon executor^, vel assign suo^ virtute har^, Irar^, nra^ patencim devenint seu devenire debent Et pdcus Franciscus Bacon execu- tores et assign sui solvent Arcfiiano Glouc p tempore existen annualem p curacoem suam duran fmino pdco Ac invenient annuatim ad onus et custag sua ppria duos Capellanos et duos diaconos idoneos et discretes p nos heredes el successores nros noiand et admittend GRANTS FROM THE CROWN. 413 ad celebrand et sViend in Ecclia et Capeft p'dict put APP. cefi parochiales Capellani et Diaconi in eisdem cele- brare et sVire consueverunt Ac invenient panes et vinu et alias res necessarias p divinis celebratur necnon ad sacra et sacrental Ecclie parochial Rcor p'dict ac in Capella p'dca ministrand tarn p comunionibz; q u m alit put antehac ^sitat et consuetum fuit necnon Fumiculos et cordas p campan dee Ecclie Aceciam straminncoem p eadem Ecclia de tempore in tempus put opus et ne- cesse fuit duran toto ftnino p psentes pconcessz; Quodo^ idem Franciscus Bacon executores et assign sui ordina- bunt et pvidebunt sou ordinari et pvideri facient qd cursus aque ibidem p totum tempus p'dcm possit accur- rere in et p quemcumq^ locum et quacum% partem terr Rcofie p'dict quibus ex antiquo accurrere consuevit et cursus illius aque escurabunt et mundabunt aut escu- rari et mundari facient smnptibj suis ppriis et expensis duran fmino pdco Ita qd dampnu pjudicmsiveg ra vamen nob herdibs; et successorib^ nris ob defect pvisionis mundacois seu escuracuis hujusmodi aliquo modo non eveniat in futur Et ulfmo pdict Franciscus Bacon exe- cutores et assign sui tarn Cancel! Ecclie et Capelle fnlicf q u m oinia domos et edificia ac omia sepes fossat inclur littora ripas et muros marittimos necnon omes alias necessarias reparacoes pmissj in omib^ et p. oinia de tempore in tempus tocicns quociens necesse et opor- tunu fuit sumptib^ suis ppriis et expensis bone et suf- ficienf reparabunt supportabunt sustinebunt escurabunt purgabunt et mannetenebunt duran fmino pdco Ac p'missa sufficient reparata et manutenta in fine ftnini |?dci dimittent Et volumq^ ac p p'sentes p not) heredibj et successorib^ nris concedimo^ pfato Francisco Bacon executoribj et assign suis qd bene licebit eis de tern- 414 FRANCIS BACON. APP. pore in tempus cape pcipe et Here de in et sup pmissis crescen competefi et sufficiefi housebote hedgebote fire- bote ploughbote et Cartebote ibidem et non alibi an- nuatim expendend et occupand duran fmino pdco Et qcf neant maerem in boscis et fris pmissoi^, crescen ad et Vsus reparacoes Cancel! Ecclie parochialis de Chel- tenbam p"dict ac domoi^, et edincioij, pmissoi^. p assigna- coem et supvisionem Senescalli seu Subsenescalli aut alioi}, Officiarioi}, nroi^> beredum et successo^ nroi^. ibi- dem p tempore existefi duran fmino pdco Proviso semp qd si contigit pdcm annualem redditum Septuaginta quin% librar f tresdecim solidoi^ et quatuoi^ denarioi^ supius p psentes reservat aretro fore non solut in parte vel in toto p spacim Quadraginta die^ post aliquod Festum Festoi^, pdcoi^ quo ut pfert r solvi debeat qd 1 tune et deinceps bee psens Diuiissio et Concessio vacua sit ac p nullo neat r Aliquo in psentib^ incont a riu inde non obstan Aliquo statute Actu ordinacue pvisione pcla- macoe sive restriccoe incont a riu iude antebac nit fact edit ordinat seu pvis Aut aliqua alia re causa vel ma- tia quacumq^ in aliquo non obstan In cujus rei etc T. R. apud Westin xxvij die February. p t>re de privat sigift etc. No. VI. VI. ANTHONY BACON TO FRANCIS BACON. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 650, fol. 221.) BROTHER, I tbougbt it meet to advertise you tbat my Lord of Essex, being come expressly yesterday, after dinner, to speak witb tbe French ambassador and Sir Anthony LETTERS BY EARL OF ESSEX. 415 Perez, not finding Sir Anthony Perez at his house, APP. but word that he should repair to Walsingham House with all speed; where he had two hours' conference with him, and, amongst other things, urged the matter you wot of at large, with no less judgment than devo- tion to my Lord's honour and profit, and good affection to us. His argument my Lord heard most attentively, and accepted most kindly of many right hearty thanks, assuring him that, at his return which should be within two days from the Court, he would resolve. The occasion was very fitly ministered by my Lord himself, by advertising Spencer that the Queen had signed at two of the clock, and had given him a hun- dred pounds in lands, simple fee, and 30 1. in parks, which, for her quietness' sake, and in respect of his friend, he was content to accept without any further contention. And so I wish you as myself, Your entire loving brother, ANTHONY BACON. No. VII. ESSEX TO * * * vii. i. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 657, 90.) MY LORD, By the advancement of Sir Thomas Egerton to the place of Lord-Keeper (in which choice I think my country very happy), there is void the office of Master of the Rolls. I do, both for private and public re- spects, wish Mr. F. B. to it before all men, and should think much done for her Majesty's service if he were so placed as his virtues might be active, which now 416 FRANCIS BACOX. APP. lie as it were buried. TYTiat success I have had in VII 1 commending him to her Majesty your Lordship knows. I would not the second time hurt him with my care and kindness. But I will commend unto your Lord- ship his cause; not as his alone, or as mine his friend, hut as a public cause, wherein your Lordship shall have honour to the world, satisfaction to see worthy fruit of your own work, and exceeding thank- fulness from us both. And so I rc-v Tour Lordship's cousin and friend, E. ESSEX TO SIR JOHN FORTESCCE. (Orig. at Lambeth Palace, 657, 90.) Cousix, I do commend unto you both present actions and absent friends I mean those that are absent from me, so as I can neither defend them from wrong nor help to that right their virtue deserves. And, because an occasion offers itself before the rest, I will commend unto you one above the rest. The place is the Master- ship of the Rolls; the man, Mr. Francis Bacon, a kind and worthy friend to us both. If your labours in it prevail, I will owe it you as a particular debt, though you may challenge it as a debt of the state. And so, wishing you all happiness, I rest, Your cousin and friend, E. Cousin, I pray you remember my good Dr. Browne. I shall challenge you for a great unkindness if his suit succeed ill. EXTRACTS FROM PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTERS. 417 NO. vin. EXTRACTS FROM THE COUNCIL REGISTER, APRIL 25, 1614. APP. VIII. 1. (Orig. in Privy Council Office.) Present: Lord Chancellor. Earl of Pembroke. Lord Wotton. Mr. Secretary Winwood. Sir Julius Caesar. Sir Thomas Lake. A LETTER TO SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT, His MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL. We send you here enclosed the Petition of one Richard Arrowsmith, his Majesty's servant, wherein he complaineth unto us, that in February last a number of people gathered together in the night and, in dis- guised apparel, did riotously pull up and overthrow a hedge and ditch which he had caused to be made about a copse called Newland, for preservation of his Majesty's game in that part of the forest of Windsor; and do pray and require you (if upon further information you shall find the offence to deserve it) to send for such and so many of the offenders as you shall think fit, and to proceed against them in the Star Chamber, the next term, in the behalf of his Majesty, according as is accustomed in cases of like nature. And so, &c. Lord Bacon. 27 418 FRANCIS BACON. APP. COUNCIL REGISTER, OCT. 19 , 1614. viii. 2. (Orig. in Privy Council Office.) Ut Supra with the Lord Archbishop. A LETTER TO SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT, His MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Whereas his Majesty hath taken notice of a great resort of gentlemen of quality and livelihood, together with their wives and families, unto the city of London, and other principal cities and towns of this realm, with a purpose (as it appeareth) to settle their habitation there, for saving of charges and other private respects. His Majesty, considering of his great wisdom how pre- judicial these courses may prove to the general govern- ment of the kingdom, when the country shall be de- prived of the assistance and presence of so many gen- tlemen, who for the most part bear office or authority in the counties where they dwell, besides the great decay of hospitality and other inconveniences that will ensue thereupon, is therefore pleased that a Proclama- tion shall be published, enjoining and commanding all such persons aforementioned to repair unto their several dwellings in the country, before the last of November next, there to abide and continue as heretofore they have usually done, which we require you to draw ac- cordingly and to make ready for his Majesty's signature with as much convenient expedition as you may. And so, &c. EXTRACTS FROM PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTERS. 419 , (Orig. in Prtvy Council Office.) At Whitehall, on Tuesday the 20th of February, f ': 1615. Present: The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord Treasurer. Lord Bishop of Winchester. Lord Privy Seal. Lord Knollis. Duke of Lennox. Mr. Secretary Winwood. Lord Chamberlain. Mr. Secretary Lake. Earl of Mar. Mr. Chancellor of the Ex- Earl of Dunfermline. chequer. Master of the Rolls. Upon a difference depending at the Board between the Dutch Congregation of the town of Colchester and one William Goodwin and others of that town, as will appear by petitions offered to the Board by both par- ties. Forasmuch as the matter consisting of many par- ties will require a full and deliberate hearing for the better settling of the Trade of Bay and Say making in that place. Their Lordships have this day ordered that liis Majesty's Attorney-General, calling all parties be- fore him, do hear and examine the differences and al- legations on both sides, and thereupon to make report of his opinion thereof, and what course he thinketh fit to be observed therein, in writing, by Thursday next in the afternoon, that such further order may thereupon be taken as shall be expedient. '27* 420 FRANCIS BACON. (Orig. in Privy Council Office.) vm P 4. At tbe Court at Whitehall, on Wednesday in the afternoon, the 5th of April, 1615: Present: Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord Chancellor. Mr. Secretary Winwood. Lord Treasurer. Mr. Chancellor of the Ex- Duke of Lennox. chequer. Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chief Justice. Lord Fenton. Mr. Chancellor of the Lord Knollis. Duchy. Sir Thomas Lake. William Martin, Recorder of the city of Exeter, being heretofore sent for by order from their Lordships, and this day called unto the Board, and charged by his Majesty's Attorney-General to have lately written a History of England, wherein were many passages so unaptly inserted as might justly have drawn some heavy and severe censure upon him for the same. On his humble submission and hearty repentance and ac- knowledgment of his fault, their Lordships Avere pleased to become mediators unto his Majesty for his grace and favour to be extended towards him, which being happily obtained, he is freely dismissed from all further attend- ance; being first enjoined by their Lordships to mani- fest hereafter in some short declaration in writing (as EXTRACTS PROM PRIVV COUNCIL, REGISTERS. 421 he hath already done by words) the true sense and APP. understanding he hath of his offence, together with his ' " repentance for the same. And it is further ordered by their Lordships that the bond which he sealed to his Majesty's use for his appearance at the Board should be cancelled and delivered unto him. No. IX. REPORT BY THE BARONS OF THE EXCHEQUER, THE SOLICITOR- rx. GENERAL (Sm FRANCIS BACON), AND THE RECORDER OF LONDON, TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. (Orig. in State Paper Office.) MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LoRDSHJPS, We have received your honourable letters bearing date the 25th day of this instant month of June, and enclosed in the same a note of a suit which has been of late presented to his Majesty and by him referred to your Lordships' consideration: the substance of whic-h suit is to have a warrant directed to some officer to demand and collect fines upon actions of debt and other finable actions to be sued in all other Courts of England (other than the Courts held at Westminster), concerning which your Lordships require us to certify you our opinions in all points at our speediest oppor- tunity. We have therefore, according to your honour- able directions, considered of the suit. And do find it a matter of so great importance as we must humbly 422 FRANCIS BACON. APP. pray leave to have time to confer with the rest of the Judges, that upon our joint conference your Lordships may have the more full satisfaction both for law and conveniency. Humbly taking our leaves, this 28th of June, 1608. Your Lordships' to command. THE END. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHEK. > Effl H -