<370>Even the news of the invasion of the Palatinate did not at first produce any considerable effect on James’s mind. 1619.Maximilian’s designs upon the Palatinate.He told Dohna that the Emperor was perfectly justified in what he had done. To Caron, who produced an intercepted despatch, which proved that the English ambassadors had been intentionally hoodwinked at Brussels, he replied by suggesting that the Dutch should lend him some money. He ordered a courier to start for Prague, to inquire on what terms his son-in-law would now be ready to make peace. To the Duke of Zweibrücken, the Administrator of the Palatinate in Frederick’s absence, he wrote a vague letter, promising that in the proper time and place he would be ready to defend the inheritance of his grandchildren. For the present he hoped that the princes would do their best. With the help of the English volunteers and of the Dutch escort which accompanied them, he had little doubt that they would be able to make head against the enemy.[627]
Yet the revelation of the intercepted despatch was not altogether thrown away. James’s letter to the Duke of Zweibrücken was written on September 23. The next morning Gondomar was admitted to an audience at Hampton Court. <371>To the surprise of all around, the moment that he entered the presence chamber, James accuses Gondomar of deceiving him.James broke out impatiently in an unwonted strain. For months, he said, he had been cheated into the belief that Spinola was going to Bohemia. He was bound not to allow his children to perish, or his religion to be overthrown. He had been treated with the grossest disrespect. The King of France had known all about the projected attack, whilst he had been kept in the dark.
Gondomar had long been prepared for some such outburst. He haughtily denied that he had ever used any deception at all. He had always said that his master would risk all he had to recover Bohemia. He had given no engagement that the Palatinate should not be attacked. He had never even been asked to do so, and if he had been asked, he could not have given any satisfactory reply, as the intentions of the Spanish Government had not been communicated to him.
To this James had in reality nothing to reply. If he had chosen to interpret according to his own wishes the purposely vague language of the Spanish ambassador, he had no one but himself to blame. In the consciousness that the fault was his, he lost his temper. No king upon earth, he screamed out, should prevent him from defending his children. When he had said this he burst into tears of impotent rage.[628]
Such was the first intimation of James’s intention to interfere in the Palatinate. What chance was there that any good could come of a policy conceived by hazard in a moment of irritation?
A few days afterwards he heard that two of his grandchildren His promises to Dohna and Caron.had been removed from Heidelberg, and had been sent to seek the protection of the Duke of Würtemburg. He was sensibly affected by the news, <372>and almost forgot for a moment that his son-in-law was a usurper. Even Dohna was at last satisfied with the tone in which he spoke. James said that he would bear Gondomar’s tricks no longer, and that he would declare publicly his resolution to embark in support of the Princes.[629] To Caron he was still more emphatic. In his recent displeasure against the Spaniard, his old displeasure against the Dutch had passed out of his mind. The conspiracy for the partition of the Netherlands was forgotten. He might not, he said, be able to do at once all that he wished, but he was thoroughly in earnest. Caron answered by apologising for the untoward occurrences in the East, and by engaging that the States would speedily send ambassadors to clear up all matters in dispute.[630]
Great were the rejoicings at this unexpected turn of affairs. “There was never,” wrote one who took a deep interest in the Protestant cause, “so joyful a court here as this declaration hath made. I see men’s hearts risen into their faces. Some few are dejected, and will shortly be as contemptible as they deserve to be despised.”[631]
On the 29th, James despatched a fresh letter to the Princes of the Union. He intended, he said, to preserve his neutrality His letter to the Princes of the Union.as far as Bohemia was concerned, but with respect to the inheritance of his children, he would not be neutral. He could not do anything now, as winter was coming on; but if peace could not be obtained before the spring, he would aid them with all the assistance in his power.[632]
The next day, when James came up to Whitehall, to make a public declaration of his intentions in the presence of the Council, the dread of giving encouragement to rebellion was already regaining possession of his mind. On the previous day he had offered his support to the Princes unconditionally. He now informed the Council that if Frederick expected aid, he <373>must listen to the advice given him by the English ambassadors at Prague,[633] or, in other words, that he must agree to renounce the crown of Bohemia.[634]
Yet, in spite of this limitation, the King’s declaration was received by the Council with rapturous applause. A benevolence, The Benevolence.it was agreed, should be raised for the purpose of carrying on the war. The Prince of Wales, as ready now to lead an army against the Spaniards, as he had been three weeks before to lead an army against the Dutch, rated himself at 5,000l.; Buckingham, whose exigencies had been satisfied by an apology from Frederick, and who loved the display of a lavish munificence in any cause, offered 1,000l. The remaining councillors followed his example with subscriptions in proportion to their rank.[635]
Yet none knew better than the men who were thus widely opening their purses, that a benevolence would prove October.A Parliament proposed.no efficient substitute for a parliamentary grant. The result of Dohna’s appeal to the nation had barely sufficed to support a regiment of two thousand men. James was therefore plainly told that, if anything serious was to be done, Parliament must be summoned.[636] The King replied vaguely that he would think it over. He, however, consented to the appointment of a commission to consider what measures would be fit to lay before the Houses.[637]
It is refreshing to turn, if but for a moment, to a statesman who kept himself free alike from the ignorant impetuosity of the popular party, Policy of Digby.and the sluggish listlessness of the King. In Digby, James possessed a minister who would have taught him to be a king indeed, and who would have raised England to that high position amongst European states which is denied alike to selfish folly and to military glory, <374>but which is willingly conceded to wise devotion to the common good. Undemonstrative, and careless of his own fame, Digby had allowed men to count him amongst the blindest partisans of Spain, but those who knew what his opinions really were did not do him this injustice. Gondomar was well aware that, whatever else he might do, he could never make a tool of Digby. If Digby could have had his way, there would have been no Spanish match, and no religious concessions to the demands of a foreign sovereign.[638] But he saw clearly that an alliance between Spain and England, honestly carried out on both sides, would put an end to the barbarous wars of religion by which Europe had been so long distracted; and he saw too — what James never could see — that it was hopeless to count on the mere good-will of Spain, unless the Court of Madrid could be brought to understand that a war with England would be the inevitable result of a persistence in the evil paths of Philip II. It was in this spirit that he had never lost an opportunity of offering frankly the choice between the olive-branch and the sword; that whilst he had recommended the sending of ambassadors upon a mission of conciliation, he had at the same time advised the application to the King of Denmark for a loan to be used for the defence of the Palatinate, and the authorisation of the levy of Dohna’s volunteers. In the same spirit, when he was made an involuntary witness of Buckingham’s conversation with Gondomar about the proposed attack upon the Netherlands, he took care to warn the Spaniard of the risk he would run of throwing away the friendship of the English Government, by thwarting its policy on the Continent; and now, as ever, he seized upon the first opportunity which presented itself, of proving to Gondomar that England was not to be trifled with.
By the end of August the fleet which had been so long preparing for August.The fleet against the pirates.the Algiers expedition was ready for sea, and was now lying at Plymouth, waiting for a fresh store of provisions.[639] The Spanish Government was <375>seriously alarmed at the prospect. Orders were accordingly sent to Gondomar to stop the expedition at all hazards.[640] But the ambassador did not find it easy to carry out his instructions. Digby would not listen to his objections. For the attack upon the pirates he cared but little. Two years before he had argued that the chief loss fell upon the subjects of the King of Spain, and that it was, therefore, fitting that the brunt of the undertaking should be borne by Spain.[641] But he knew as well as Gondomar that if war broke out in the spring it would be advantageous that an English fleet should be prepared for action in the Mediterranean.[642]
It was therefore in vain that Gondomar urged that after the King’s declaration to the Council, it was impossible that his master could treat an English fleet on terms of assured friendship. The King, replied Digby, had no wish to quarrel with Spain. He had only promised to assist his son-in-law if he listened to reason. The people were wildly excited by Spinola’s proceedings. The King could not do less than he had done. If Gondomar had orders to break with England he had better say so at once. Whether the King of Spain liked it or not, the fleet would sail. There were many persons in England who would be only too glad to see it used in an attack upon Flanders, or upon Spain itself. By such language the ambassador was reduced to silence, and the fleet sailed from Plymouth without further difficulty.[643]
It was more easy to deal with the King than with Digby. For a few days after the interview at Hampton Court, James had Gondomar and James.maintained his ground. Though the ambassador knew that it would not be long before the old relations between them would be restored, his first effort was not crowned with success. He made a formal complaint that <376>Naunton was treating the Catholics harshly. “I hope,” said James, in language which would have suited Elizabeth, “that in future you will show more respect to me than to bring such charges against my ministers. My secretary is not in the habit of acting in matters of importance without my directions.”[644]
Gondomar returned to the charge. This time his complaint was that there were rumours abroad by which his honour was affected. Persons in high places did not scruple to assert that he had promised that Spinola would not enter the Palatinate. He now called upon the King, his eyes flashing with well-assumed anger as he spoke,[645] to defend him publicly against the liars who had traduced him. If not, he must clear his own reputation with his sword.
This time Gondomar had struck home. Literally at least, his words were true. He had made many assertions, but he had given no positive engagement. James, therefore, came down to the Council and declared openly that there was no truth in the charges which had been brought against the Spanish ambassador. He ordered Buckingham to convey to Gondomar his acknowledgement that no one had ever engaged on the King of Spain’s behalf that Spinola would not enter the Palatinate, but that, on the contrary, no hope had ever been given that any other course would be taken.[646]
By the last clause James deliberately contradicted the assertion which he had made in his passion at Hampton Court. It was all the more welcome to Gondomar. As a certificate of his own honesty he cared but little for it, but it was something to have lowered James in the eyes of his own subjects. Digby’s demonstration of independence was now thrown back upon itself. Since the day on which, in obedience to his <377>menaces, Donna Luisa de Carvajal had been set at liberty, Gondomar’s supremacy at Whitehall had never been so uncontested.
Yet Gondomar did not trust to his splendid audacity alone. Early in September he had received a letter from Madrid, which The marriage treaty.he was to take care to throw in James’s way. The letter, which was written in Philip’s name, contained an assurance that an answer would soon be returned to the overtures of the King of England on the subject of the marriage. At the same time the ambassador was informed in a private note, that the English proposals were altogether inadmissible. Nothing short of complete religious liberty could be accepted. He was therefore to keep James amused till the winter set in, by which time the result of the campaign in Germany would be known.[647] At the moment when these letters were written, Philip was listening complacently to the overtures of Ferdinand’s ambassador, Khevenhüller, who was September.instructed to propose a marriage between the Infanta and the Archduke Ferdinand, now the eldest surviving son of the Emperor. After some consideration, he formally gave his consent to the arrangement, adding a suggestion that the Prince of Wales might be consoled with the hand of an Archduchess, who would doubtless be better fitted for a life amongst heretics than was possible for a Spanish princess. There could be little doubt that the Pope would take the burden of the change upon his own shoulders, but, if that could not be, the Infanta might be told to say that she would rather go into a nunnery than marry a heretic, and Philip might magnanimously refuse to force the inclinations of his daughter, even for the sake of an alliance with the King of England.[648]
Before Gondomar received his master’s letters, the news of the invasion of the Palatinate October.Lafuente’s mission to Rome.had reached England.He saw clearly that this was not the time to raise the slightest suspicion in James’s mind, and that <378>there must be no delay in despatching Lafuente, who had been charged with a mission to Rome, with the purpose of opening negotiations there on the basis of the English proposals. Accordingly, on October 16, Lafuente started for Madrid, on his way to Rome, leaving James in the belief that the Spaniards meant what they said.[649]
All this while the commissioners appointed to prepare measures for a Parliament were busy drawing up bills and investigating grievances. Bacon’s draft of a proclamation.They knew, however, that the key-note of the coming session would be struck by the foreign policy of the Crown; and on the 18th, therefore, they forwarded to the King the draft of a proclamation, drawn up by Bacon, for the purpose of defining the position which they hoped that James would take up.
“While we contained ourselves in this moderation,” James was made to say, after recounting his reasons for taking no part in the Bohemian war, “we find the event of war hath much altered the case by the late invasion of the Palatinate, whereby (however under the pretence of a diversion) we find our son, in fact, expulsed in part, and in danger to be totally dispossessed of his ancient inheritance and patrimony, so long continued in that noble line, whereof we cannot but highly resent if it should be alienated and ravished from him in our times, and to the prejudice of our grandchildren and line royal. Neither can we think it safe for us in reason of state that the County Palatine, carrying with itself an electorate, and having been so long in the hands of the Princes of our religion, and no way depending upon the House of Austria, should now become at the disposing of that House, being a matter that indeed might alter the balance of our State, and the estate of our best friends and confederates.
“Wherefore, finding a concurrence of reasons and respects of religion, nature, honour, and estate, all of them inducing us in no wise to endure so great an alteration, we are resolved to employ the uttermost of our forces and means to recover and <379>resettle the said Palatinate to our son and our descendants, purposing, nevertheless, according to our former inclination so well grounded, not to intermit (if the occasions give us leave) the treaties of peace and accord which we have already begun, and whereof the coming of winter and the counterpoise of the actions of war hitherto may give us as yet some appearance of hope.”[650]
This was statesmanlike language. A proclamation, so temperate, and yet so firm, would have served as a rallying point Its rejection.for the whole nation. It would have formed a common ground upon which Pembroke and Abbot could join hands with Digby and Calvert. A king who could in the name of England put forth such a manifesto as this, would speedily have become a power in Europe which neither Spain nor Austria could afford to despise.
The proclamation was too good for James. It was not that he held, as has been held by many statesmen in later times, that England ought to attend to her own affairs, and that she would only waste her strength in vain in attempting to adjust the relations of Continental states. No such doctrine was put forward either by James or by the opponents of Spain. Where men differed, as far as the Palatinate was concerned, was on the probability that England would find in Spain an enemy or a friend in the achievement of an object which all allowed to be desirable. It is the glory of Bacon and Digby that they attempted to obtain that object in the most conciliatory way, and to oppose Spain in such a manner as to make the risk of war as small as possible. For James, however, the suggested proclamation was too decided. Now, as ever, he shrank from committing himself to any definite step in advance. It would be better, he informed Bacon, to reserve what he had to say till the opening of the session. Matters of state, such as those upon which the proclamation touched, were above the comprehension of the common people.
<380>Meanwhile the excitement was great amongst the common people, who were treated so contemptuously by James. Everywhere men were heard discussing the chances of a Parliament. The simplest occurrences were caught at as affording an indication of the King’s intentions. One day, Bacon had said that ‘whatever some unlearned lawyers might prattle to the contrary, the prerogative was the accomplishment and perfection of the common law;’ and his words were supposed to convey an intimation that supplies would be raised without the intervention of a Parliament.[651] Another day it was rumoured that the King had been talking about demanding Spinola’s head, and that some one had expressed a doubt of the likelihood of the King of Spain granting his demand. “Then,” James was said to have replied, “I wish Raleigh’s head were again upon his shoulders.”[652]
At last it seemed that all hope of a Parliament must be abandoned. On October 25, circulars were issued to the peers, and to other wealthy persons, The Benevolence pressed.urging them to contribute to the Benevolence. The leaders of the war party threw their whole weight into the scale. Nor did they, when it was a question of enforcing the payment of money, shrink from the adoption of the most questionable means. In Hampshire, at the instance of Pembroke and Southampton, Sir Thomas Lambert was punished by a nomination to the shrievalty for his refusal to contribute, and complaints were heard from many other parts of the country of the unfairness with which burdens were laid at the musters of the county militia upon those who had closed their purses to the demand. Yet the result was by no means proportionate to the efforts which were made. One nobleman after another sent an excuse. One was too poor, another had paid large sums to Dohna in the summer, whilst a third would be ready to contribute in a parliamentary way. The Prince of Wales, the members of the Privy Council, and the City of London had in a few days brought together 28,000l. It was with <381>difficulty that, after some delay, a paltry sum of 6,000l. could be levied from all the rest of England.[653]
It was not long before the failure of the appeal was known. If James did not mean to November.Parliament summoned.abandon the Palatinate altogether, there was but one course before him. On November 6, a proclamation appeared, summoning a Parliament to meet on January 16.
The proclamation was a weak and colourless production, which showed that the King would meet his Parliament without a policy. A vague allusion to the necessity of taking into consideration the state of Christendom, ‘so miserably and dangerously distracted at this time,’ was all that was said upon a subject upon which James should have laid the greatest stress, if he was to rally the nation to his standard.
When this proclamation was issued James knew that the crisis was impending in Bohemia, even if it had not already come. The war in Bohemia.For some time the news which had reached England from Prague had been such as to prepare men’s minds for the worst. The despatches of Sir Francis Nethersole, who, under the modest title of Agent with the Princes of the Union and Secretary to the Electress Palatine, was in reality the English Minister at the Court of Prague, had kept James well informed of the chances of the combatants. August.Gloomy despatches of Nethersole.Nethersole had been Doncaster’s secretary during his embassy; and, as a thorough partisan of Frederick and Elizabeth, he was naturally inclined to overestimate their chances of success. Yet, on August 25, he was forced to describe their situation in the gloomiest colours. The kingdom, he wrote, was in a dangerous and almost desperate state. The Elector of Saxony was within two leagues of Bautzen, and the Bavarians had crossed the southern frontier of Bohemia. The King intended to go in person against the enemy as soon as the new levies were completed. “They say,” he continued, “they are I know not how many thousands. But when all that, either out of fear or <382>worse affection or doubtfulness of the issue, will stay away themselves and stay others shall be deducted, I doubt they will shrink like the trained bands of this town, which since I came hither did not muster 4,000, though I have heard them reckoned at a far greater number.” Thurn’s army had dwindled away from 9,000 to 5,000 men. Nor was this the worst. “For towns,” Nethersole went on to say, “there is not any one in this kingdom, saving the enemy’s, fortified enough to hold out three days. For though his Majesty have been often counselled by strangers to strengthen himself by that means, yet the great commanders and councillors of this kingdom, whom it is not safe for his Majesty to overrule, have always dissuaded him from that course upon pretence of their want of means; but, as some think, indeed, because they have more respect to the preservation of the liberties than of the safety of their country, wherein I pray God they do not too late see their error.”[654]
With an apathetic peasantry, and a nobility whose thoughts were fixed upon the maintenance of their own privileges far more September.Hopelessness of Frederick’s cause.than upon the independence of their country, a Napoleon might well have thrown up the game in despair. In blissful ignorance of all that was passing around, Frederick closed his eyes to the danger with which his course was beset. On September 18, he rode out of the gates of Prague amidst the plaudits of the populace, to join his army. There were some bright gleams upon the scene. Bethlen Gabor had been elected King of Hungary, and was hurrying to the assistance of the Bohemians. Mansfeld was fortifying Pilsen. Sickness was raging in the Bavarian camp. Yet, in spite of all this, the enemy was making fearful strides. Bautzen was besieged by the Saxons. The Bavarians and the Imperialists had met with no serious opposition, and were every day drawing nearer to the capital.[655] On the 24th, Nethersole had still worse news to give. The Imperialists had taken Pisek, ‘a considerable place, … because it is capable of being fortified, which the enemy will not neglect <383>though our friends have, who had no mind to dig wells till they grew athirst.’ The town had resisted, and all within it had been put to the sword. A few days later, Prachatitz suffered the same fate. Frederick was anxious to fight, but the enemy was too strongly posted, and no battle was to be had.[656]
At last, on October 29, Frederick had his wish. Outside the walls of Prague, upon the White Hill, the decisive Oct. 29.The battle of Prague.struggle took place. The Hungarians, upon whose assistance he had placed such reliance, set the example of flight. The battle was lost; and the next day Frederick was flying for his life towards the passes which lead through the Giant Mountains into Silesia.
There are defeats from which recovery is possible, but the rout of Prague was not one of these. It was no merely military disaster. November.Frederick had placed himself at the head of an armed mob without national cohesion, without organisation, and without definite purpose. The chiefs were as incompetent as the soldiery. Mansfeld, offended that a post to which he laid claim had been given to another, was sulking at Pilsen, without a thought for the common cause. The Prince of Anhalt’s command of the main army was merely nominal. Thurn and Hohenlohe each thought himself better qualified for command than anyone else. Whilst the generals were disputing, the soldiers, without pay, and almost without provisions, were on the verge of mutiny, and were supporting a precarious existence by robbery and pillage.
Frederick himself had done but little to sustain his falling cause. His was not the spirit which could breathe life into the dead bones of the Bohemian nationality. At the council table and in the camp he was equally powerless. At the moment when the fate of his dynasty was decided on the field, he was hiding his incapacity within the walls of the city, and was busily engaged in entertaining at dinner the English ambassadors, Conway and Weston, who had reached Prague just in time to witness the catastrophe which destroyed for ever the hopes of their master’s son-in-law.[657]
<384>The reign of the Bohemian aristocracy was at an end. Protestantism, unhappy in its champions, was lying bleeding Fall of the Bohemian aristocracy.at the feet of the conqueror. The Royal Charter was sent in triumph to Vienna. After some months’ delay, twenty-six of the revolutionary leaders, protesting to the last the justice of their cause, perished on the scaffold. The men who preserved the traditions of Bohemian independence were scattered over the Continent. Upon the estates torn from the vanquished a new aristocracy arose, German by birth and interest, in whose hands the possession of the confiscated estates of the great native families was the surest pledge of fidelity to the House of Austria.
The lost supremacy of a feudal aristocracy is hardly to be regretted in itself, but in Ferdinand’s hands the change became Character of Ferdinand’s rule.the instrument of unmixed evil. In his hatred of anarchy the Emperor could see no good thing in Protestantism. The Bohemian Brothers, the faithful guardians of the religious life of the country, were at once forbidden the exercise of their religion. The monster cups, the symbols, in the popular mind, of the triumphs of Ziska and Procopius, were dragged down with contumely from the walls of the churches. The Lutherans indeed still held a precarious existence, till circumstances made it convenient to suppress them. All free thought, all independent national life, was crushed out under the leaden rule of an alien aristocracy, and the leaden discipline of the returning Jesuits. Dull adherence to routine and unquestioning submission to authority were the principles upon which the renovated authority of the Hapsburgs was to take its stand. Even this, no doubt, was better for the moment than the anarchy and helplessness which was surging around. But the day would come when greater warriors <385>than Frederick would test the strength of the new edifice with the sword, and when the artificial arrangements of Ferdinand and his successors would prove all too weak to resist the living energy of national organisation. The tree which was planted on the White Hill before the walls of Prague was to bear its bitter fruit at Leuthen and at Marengo, at Solferino and at Sadowa. If a repetition of these disasters is not likely to be witnessed by our own generation, it is because a spirit of higher wisdom has at last found its way to the council-table at Vienna.
The first news of Frederick’s defeat reached London on November 24. The agitation was great. It was easy to see that, November.Excitement in London.in their hearts, the citizens laid the blame of all that had taken place upon the King. Not a few took refuge in incredulity. The story, it was said, had come through Brussels, and had probably been invented by the Papists. Many days passed before the unwelcome news was accepted. A full week after its announcement a strange tale gladdened the hearts of all good Protestants. A Scotch horseman, it was said, had dashed into the streets late at night, with news that a fresh battle had been fought, that Prague had been retaken, and that Bucquoi, with many thousands of his troops, had been slain. One enthusiastic lady went so far as to order that a bonfire should be lighted in the street before her door. But it soon appeared that the whole story about the Scotchman was a pure fabrication. A full account of the battle arrived from Trumbull. Yet, for some time, there were not wanting men who continued obstinate in their disbelief, and bets were freely offered that the Imperialists had never entered Prague at all.
The day on which the bad news arrived in London, an anonymous message reached Gondomar, warning him of a Gondomar threatened.plot to murder him, and recommending him to move to a place of safety. He was seriously alarmed by the intelligence. At midnight he confessed, and, as being in peril of life, received the communion, together with his household. His attendants kept watch till morning dawned. He then sent to ask protection of the Council, and was promised a guard to preserve him from insult. Even then he was not without <386>anxiety. He had no wish, he said, to be knocked on the head by an enraged Puritan. For some days he did not venture to appear in the streets, and he even talked seriously of retreating to Dunkirk.
The King and the Prince were at Royston. Charles, whose affection for his sister had never wavered, was greatly distressed. Reception of the news by James.For two days he shut himself up in his room, and would speak to no one. James, on the other hand, though at first he seemed stupefied by the intelligence, soon recovered his spirits. “I have long expected this,” were the first words he uttered.[658]
James may well have felt that a load was taken off his mind. There would no longer be a conflict between his wishes and his principles. It would, now at least, be possible to defend the Palatinate without giving a sanction to his son-in-law’s aggression. He began again to dream of becoming the peacemaker of Europe.
With unusual celerity James hastened to take advantage of the short breathing time which the winter afforded. Wotton’s nephew, December.Embassies of Morton, Anstruther, and Villiers.Sir Albertus Morton, was hurried off to Worms with the 30,000l. which had been produced by the Benevolence. The King, he was instructed to say, would ‘use all means and ways possible by a vigorous war, not only of defence, but of diversion, if need be, for defence and recovery of the Palatinate.’[659] At the same time, Sir Robert Anstruther, who in the past summer had succeeded in borrowing a sum of 50,000l. from the King of Denmark, was sent back to ask for a fresh loan; whilst Sir Edward Villiers was despatched, as one who could speak with <387>authority, to tell Frederick himself that assistance would be given him, on condition that he would enter into an engagement to relinquish the Bohemian crown. As soon as Villiers could announce that he had received a satisfactory reply, Digby was to start for the Continent to open the negotiations which, it was hoped, would lead to a lasting peace. Conway and Weston were to be recalled from their purposeless mission, and Wotton, who was of little use where business of real importance was to be transacted, was directed, after urging the Emperor to abtain from harsh measures against Frederick, to return to his dignified retirement at Venice.
It is seldom that fortune plays so completely into the hands of anyone as it had played into the hands of James. He had now Difficulties of the future.a plain course before him. The policy which he had always adopted, so far as he had a policy at all, was now undeniably the right one. It was the only one which could unite all Protestant Europe in its defence. It was the only one which Catholic Europe could accept without dishonour.
Unhappily, the success of this policy was far from being assured. Frederick was irritated and unreasonable, and it would be a hard matter to bring him to see that his cause in Bohemia was hopeless. The Catholic powers, on the other hand, in the full tide of victory, would not be easily restrained by a few soft words from pushing on to inflict condign punishment on the aggressor. The military position of the House of Austria was undoubtedly a strong one. It was hardly to be expected that Mansfeld could make a prolonged resistance at Pilsen. Silesia was lying prostrate at the feet of the Elector of Saxony. The Catholic inhabitants of the Valtelline had lately massacred the Protestant minority who had oppressed them in the name of the neighbouring Republic of the Grisons; and an excuse had thus been afforded to the Spanish Governor of Milan, to occupy a valley which gave him an independent line of communication through Tyrol with Vienna. On the Rhine, nothing had been accomplished against Spinola, and, in spite of the arrival of Vere’s reinforcements, the Spaniards had firmly established themselves in the western districts of the Palatinate.
<388>Even James perceived that, if peace was to be had, he must appeal to the fears as well as to the good-will of the combatants. 1621.The Council of War.On January 13, a council of war was appointed, for the purpose of deliberating on the measures to be taken for the defence of the Palatinate. The names of its members were such as to inspire confidence in its decisions. By the side of Essex[660] and Oxford, who had hurried back from Germany as soon as the campaign was at an end, sat Sir Edward Cecil and the Earl of Leicester, both of whom had been trained to war in the Netherlands. To them were added five veteran officers, who had gone through the rough schooling of the Irish wars.[661]
At the time at which the council of war was being formed, a splendid opportunity was offered to James of impressing Gondomar and 1620.Mission of Du Buisson.the Spanish Government with the belief that he was at last determined to follow his own independent judgment. In the past summer an attendant upon the Prince of Condé, a gentleman named Du Buisson, had made his appearance in England, on the pretext that he had come to buy horses for his master. At an audience which had been granted to him, he had blurted out a proposal that the Prince of Wales should marry the Princess Henrietta Maria. James stared at him, and told him that he was much obliged for the honour done to him, but that he could not break his engagements with Spain so lightly. Du Buisson accordingly soon returned to France. James, however, had not heard the last of his proposal. Sir Edward Herbert, the future Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was at this time ambassador in Paris, took it up with all the warmth of his disposition. An alliance with England, he wrote, would be generally acceptable to the French nation. The Princess herself would gladly consent to the marriage. Some one had spoken in her presence of the difficulties which might arise from the diversity <389>of religion. “A wife,” she had replied, “ought to have no will but that of her husband.”[662]
It was easy for James to dispose after this fashion of disagreeable overtures. But it was not without considerable annoyance that December.Cadenet’s embassy.he learned in December that the brother of the favourite, Luynes, the Marquis of Cadenet, was about to visit England upon an extraordinary mission, the purpose of which he could hardly fail to divine. In fact, the French ministers were in a position of no little difficulty. They were beginning to perceive that, in negotiating the treaty of Ulm, they had signed away the supremacy over Germany in favour of the House of Austria. At the same time the clouds were gathering for a fresh civil war at home. Angry at the restoration of the ecclesiastical lands in Bearn to the Catholic clergy, the Protestant malcontents, in defiance of the royal authority, had issued a summons for an illegal assembly to be held at Rochelle. Luynes’s object was, therefore, to make sure of the co-operation of England against the House of Austria abroad, and to make sure of its neutrality in the impending civil war at home.
Cadenet was unfortunately a man to whom no one but the most partial of brothers would have thought of entrusting a 1621.January.Cadenet’s display.delicate negotiation. The first thing that he did upon his arrival in England, was to quarrel with Arundel on a point of etiquette. The next thing that he did was to quarrel with Tillières, the ambassador of his own sovereign, upon a similar question.[663] At a magnificent banquet at which he was entertained by the King, the young French nobles of his train disgusted by their insolence the English who were present. Some of these hotheaded youths actually had the impertinence to leave the hall because they were not allowed to take precedence of the gentlemen of the long robe, as they disdainfully called the Lord Chancellor and <390>the Lord Chief Justice of England.[664] Bacon, at least, had already formed a correct opinion of the splendid diplomatist. “What think you,” said the King, “of the French ambassador?” “He is a tall, proper man,” was the guarded reply. “Ay,” persisted James, “but what think you of his headpiece? Is he a proper man for the office of an ambassador?” “Sir,” said the Chancellor, “tall men are like high houses, of four or five storeys, wherein commonly the uppermost room is worst furnished.”[665]
In such hands a difficult negotiation was unlikely to prosper. A hint on the subject of the marriage, dropped in conversation with Buckingham, was His reception.so coolly received that Cadenet did not venture to repeat it. He could get no definite answer to his suggestions about the Palatinate and the Valtelline. It was still worse when he spoke of the disloyalty of the French Protestants. James turned sharply upon him. He was sorry, he said, to hear such language. If they rebelled against their King, they deserved to be punished. But if it was intended to trump up a charge against them to serve as a pretext for the ruin of the Reformed religion, he would not hear it. It would be better for the King of France to walk in his father’s steps than to do what he was doing now.
Thus repulsed, there was nothing left to the ambassador but to take his leave. James was hardly to be congratulated upon the success of his diplomacy. The strength of his position lay in his adoption of the principle of territorial independence, the only one which at that time could give peace to the <391>distracted Continent. He was now recklessly throwing away the strength which he might have derived from this very principle. It was very doubtful whether, even if he wished it, he would be able to render any effectual service to the French Protestants. It was certain that he would never make up his mind to give them anything more than words. Yet he turned his back upon the alliance which alone would have enabled him to speak with authority in Europe, and placed himself in the ridiculous position of being the defender of the rights of a sovereign against his subjects in Bohemia, and the defender of the rights of subjects against their sovereign in France. Driven about with every gust of momentary feeling, in one thing only was he consistent — in the tenacity with which he clung to any theory, however false, to any phantom, however delusive, which might stave off for the time the dreaded necessity of action.
All this was not lost upon Gondomar. The wily Spaniard took a pleasure, only second to that with which he enjoyed the Naunton’s disgrace.triumph of his master’s armies, in forcing James to proclaim to the world his own weakness. Much to his delight he heard that Cadenet, in his eagerness to obtain support in every quarter, had sent one of his attendants to ask Naunton’s opinion on the prospects of the French alliance, and that Naunton had incautiously answered that he knew the King to be in great want of money, and that he therefore advised the French, if they wished to be listened to, to offer a portion with their princess at least as large as that which would be given with the Infanta.[666]
The story was at once carried by Gondomar, not without exaggeration, to the King. James was indignant. The allusion to his anxiety about the portion of his future daughter-in-law, contained truth enough to put him into a passion. He gave orders at once that Naunton should be suspended from his office, and should place himself in confinement within the walls of his house at Charing Cross.[667]
<392>Gondomar’s influence was evidently in the ascendant. Captain North, returning after a peaceful voyage to the Amazon, was imprisoned for having sailed in disobedience to orders.[668] Dohna, who had been led by imprudent zeal into an attempt to convict James of inconsistency in promising more than he had performed, was forbidden to show himself at Court, and was forced, not long afterwards, to leave England.[669] Even Abbot, upon some charge the nature of which we do not know, barely escaped exclusion from the Council.[670]
All the while that James was thus frittering away whatever character for decision remained to him, the popular indignation Political pamphlets.against everything Spanish was daily growing. It was in vain that the Government attempted to stem the tide. A proclamation appeared, warning all persons ‘to take heed how they intermeddled, by pen or speech, with causes of state, or secrets of empire, either at home or abroad.’[671] James might as well have spoken to the winds. Men’s hearts were too full to be silent.
In the midst of the excitement, general attention was especially attracted by a pamphlet, remarkable for the ability with which The Vox Populi.it was written, and the skill with which it caught the feeling of the hour.[672] It was the work of a Norwich minister, Thomas Scot. Under the title of Vox Populi, it purported to give an account of Gondomar’s reception by the Council of State, upon his return to Madrid in 1618. The ambassador is there made to explain his schemes for bringing England into subjection to Spain, to tell with evident satisfaction of the throngs which had crowded to mass in his chapel, and to recount how he had won over the leading courtiers by his bribes. He then describes, with great glee, the failure of <393>Raleigh’s expedition. As a matter of course, he receives the congratulations of the Council on the approaching realisation of his hopes, and on the coming establishment of the universal monarchy of Spain over the whole world. Suddenly a courier arrives with news of the imprisonment of Barneveld, and the Council breaks up in confusion, upon hearing of the fall of the man who is depicted as their principal supporter.
With Gondomar’s despatches in our hands, it is easy for us to discover that the whole story was an impudent fabrication. At the time it was widely received as a piece of genuine history.
In the midst of this excitement, on January 27, Bacon was raised to a higher grade in the peerage by the title of Viscount St. Alban. Bacon created Viscount St. Alban.He was now at the height of his prosperity. On the 22nd, there had been high feasting at York House, the stately mansion which had once been tenanted by his father, and which had become the official residence of the Chancellor of the day. It was the last birthday which he was destined to spend in the full consciousness of honour and success. Ben Jonson was there amongst the guests, Ben Jonson’s verses.bringing with him the lines which he had prepared to recite in celebration of the greatness of his patron. “This,” he said, addressing his words to the fabled genius of the house:—
“This is the sixtieth yearSince Bacon and thy Lord was born, and here,Son to the grave, wise keeper of the Seal,Fame and foundation of the English weal.What then his father was, that since is he.Now with a title more to his degree:England’s High Chancellor, the destined heir,In his soft cradle, to his father’s chairWhose even thread the Fates spin round and full,Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.”
To the outward adornments of rank, to its pomp and splendour, to the new grandeur of The Novum Organum.the old abode which had sheltered him in his infancy, to the flowery lawns and soft beauty of the woods of Gorhambury, Bacon clung fondly in sunshine and in storm. But he had not <394>made these things the purpose of his life. In the midst of the state which he kept, in the midst of the political occupations by which he hoped to serve his King and his country, he kept steadily in view that great scientific object to which, above all things, he had devoted himself. And now at last the Novum Organum, the fragmentary relic of that grand scheme for the restoration of the sciences which had floated before his youthful imagination in the days when he boasted that he had ‘taken all knowledge for his province,’ had passed through the press. For the reception with which it met, he cared but little: Coke might recommend him with a snarl to restore the justice and the laws of England before he meddled with the doctrines of the old philosophers; James might meet him with the silly jest that the book was like the peace of God, because it passed all understanding. It was for posterity that he worked, and for the judgment of posterity he was content to wait.
In truth, it was not altogether the fault of Bacon’s contemporaries that they failed in appreciating the merits of his work. Its defects,As a practical book, addressed to practical men, it was as complete a failure as was the commercial policy of its writer. He fancied, indeed, that he had discovered a method by which the whole domain of nature might be explored with a very moderate amount of labour, and by which the acquisition and retention of knowledge might be reduced almost to a mechanical certainty.[673] Yet, in fact, the method which he invented has never been of the slightest use to any scientific inquirer. Nor was it Bacon’s method alone that was at fault. In spite of the value which he placed upon experiments, he seems to have been intellectually incapable of conducting a single experiment properly. The great preacher of accurate investigation was constantly casting ridicule upon his own pretensions by accepting the most ludicrous blunders as undoubted truths. He tells us, for instance, that metals <395>never expand when heated, and that a wooden arrow will penetrate more deeply into a wooden target than one pointed with iron.[674] He did not even take the trouble to acquaint himself with the labours of contemporary investigators; and he actually ventured to write about astronomy, in ignorance of the discoveries of Kepler, and to write about mathematics, in ignorance of the discoveries of Napier.[675]
Yet, strange to say, these errors, instead of detracting from Bacon’s greatness, serve but to increase our admiration of his powers. and merits.There would be nothing wonderful if a man in the foremost ranks of science, the Newton or the Faraday of his day, were to indicate the probable direction of future inquiry. But that which gives to the author of the Novum Organum a place apart amongst ‘those who know,’ is, that being, as he was, far behind some of his contemporaries in scientific knowledge, and possessing scarcely any of the qualifications needed for scientific investigation, he was yet able, by a singular and intuitive prescience, to make the vision of the coming age his own, and not only to point out the course which would be taken by the stream even then springing into life, but to make his very errors and shortcomings replete with the highest spirit of that patient and toilsome progress from which he himself turned aside.
A great writer who has written of Bacon’s political life without understanding either the nature of the man or the ideas of Bacon’s philosophical position.the age in which he lived has compared him to Moses looking from the heights of Pisgah upon the Promised Land which was hidden from the eyes of the multitudes below. It would perhaps be more just to compare him to the traveller who from some lofty peak surveys a mountain region without the assistance of a map, than to one who looks down upon a plain stretched beneath his feet. Such a one gains a new and overpowering sense of the general geographical features of the landscape. He sees the mountain <396>forms piled confusedly around him, and, for the most part, he can distinguish the furrows of the greater valleys. Here and there the gleam of a lake, half-concealed by intervening obstacles, will catch the eye, and he learns to discern the softened greenness of the distant plain. As he descends, he carries with him in his mind’s eye that which no map could have given him. Yet, to construct even the roughest map from the knowledge thus gained would be far beyond his powers. He will remember how soon the course of the stream or of the pathway was hidden amongst the windings of the hills; and even if he is aware of the geographical position of the city to which his steps were directed, he will know that any attempt to reach it in a straight line would be met by the intervention of some precipitous abyss abruptly barring his passage. He will be condemned to wander hopelessly amongst a network of undistinguishable tracks, until he resigns himself to the guidance of some peasant whose practical acquaintance with the path is greater than his own.
It is in Bacon’s philosophy that the key to his political life is to be found. In its general conceptions, his statesmanship was admirable. His political position.The change which was to make religion thoughtful and tolerant, and the change which was to make England the home of peaceful industry and commercial activity, were ever present to his mind. He took no part in the wrangling disputations of contending theologians, and he turned a deaf ear to the interruptions of legal pedants.
No point of Bacon’s political system has been so thoroughly discarded by later generations as that which deals with the relations On parliamentary government.between the Crown and the Houses of Parliament. Yet even here his mistake lay rather in the application of his principles than in the spirit by which they were animated. His hardest blows were directed against the error of which the French Constituent Assembly of 1789 has furnished the weightiest example; the error which regards the Executive Power and the Representative Body as capable, indeed, of treating with one another on a friendly footing, but as incapable of merging their distinct personalities in each other. It was thus that the Great Contract of 1610 <397>was utterly distasteful to him. The King and the Lower House, he held, were not adverse parties to enter into bargains. They were members of the same commonwealth, each charged with its appropriate functions. It was not well that the King should redress grievances merely because he expected to receive something in return. It was not well that the Commons should vote supplies as the purchase-money of the redress of grievances. If the King wished to have obedient and liberal subjects, let him place himself at their head as one who knew how to lead them. Let the administration of justice be pure. Let the exercise of the prerogative be beneficent. Let Parliament be summoned frequently, to throw light upon the necessities of the country. If mutual confidence could be thus restored, everything would be gained.
In proclaiming this doctrine, Bacon showed that he had entered into the spirit of the future growth of the constitution as completely as he showed, in the Novum Organum, that he had entered into the spirit of the future growth of European science. That it is the business of the Government to rule, and that it is also the business of the Government to retain the confidence of the representatives of the people, are the principles which, taken together, distinguish the later English constitution from constitutions resting upon assemblies formed either after the model of the first French Empire or after the model of the Popular Assembly of Athens. Yet no man would have been more astonished than Bacon, if he had been told what changes would be required to realise the idea which he had so deeply at heart. Clinging to the old forms, he hoped against hope that James would yet win the confidence of the nation, and he shut his eyes to the defects in his character which rendered such a consummation impossible.
So far, indeed, is it from being true that the domestic policy of James must of necessity have been opposed to Bacon’s views, that Bacon’s foreign policy.we have every reason to believe that in its main lines it was dictated, as far as it went, by Bacon himself. It was otherwise with James’s foreign policy. For, though Bacon looked forward with hopefulness to the time when Europe should no longer be distracted <398>by religious difficulties, he regarded Spain with the deepest distrust, and he cherished the belief that it was a national duty to prevent any further aggression of the Catholic Powers upon the Protestant States on the Continent. In this spirit he had prepared the draft of the proclamation which James had refused to use, and it was the expectation that this spirit would animate both King and Parliament which had raised his patriotic hopes more highly than they had been raised at any time since James had come to the throne.
End of the third volume.
[627] Naunton to Nethersole, Sept. 13, 23, S. P. Germany. Caron to the States-General, Sept. 14, Add. MSS. 17,677K, fol. 66. Notes of Oñate’s despatch, July, S. P. Spain. Dohna’s reply to the King’s objection, Sept. 16, S. P. Germany. The King to the Duke of Zweibrücken, Sept. 23, Add. MSS. 12,485, fol. 50.
[628] Caron to the States-General, Sept. 28⁄Oct. 8, Add. MSS. 17,677K, fol. 70. Lando to the Doge, Oct. 1⁄11, Venice MSS. Tillieres to Puisieux, Oct. 4⁄14, Bibl. Nationale MSS. Harl. 223: 16, fol. 524. It is a pity that Raumer did not include this despatch in his selection. The extremely silly remarks of the Frenchman might have served as a warning to those English writers who have built their narratives on his guesses.
[629] Extract from Dohna’s despatch, Sept. 27⁄Oct. 7, Add. MSS. 17,677K, fol. 74.
[630] Caron to the States-General, Sept. 28⁄Oct. 8, Add. MSS. 17,677K, fol. 70.
[631] Rudyerd to Nethersole, Sept. 27, S. P. Germany.
[632] The King to the Princes of the Union, Sept. 29, Add. MSS. 12,485, fol. 51. Naunton to Carleton, Sept. 30, S. P. Holland.
[633] Morton to Zouch, Oct. 7, S. P. Dom. cxvii. 5.
[634] Wotton to the King, Sept. 7. Wotton to Conway and Weston, Sept. 7. Naunton to Nethersole, Sept. 23, S. P. Germany.
[635] Naunton to Nethersole, Oct. 2, S. P. Germany. Contributions to the Palatinate, S. P. Dom. cxvii. 21.
[636] Rudyerd to Nethersole, Oct. 2, S. P. Germany.
[637] Bacon to the King, Oct. 2, Works, ed. Montagu, xiii. 23.
[638] Digby to the Prince of Wales, 1617, State Trials, ii. 1408.
[639] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Aug. 24, 31, Sept. 28⁄Sept. 3, 10, Oct. 8. Lando to the Doge, Aug. 31⁄Sept. 10, Venice MSS. Carleton to Nethersole, Oct. 22, S. P. Holland.
[640] Minutes on the expedition against the pirates, Aug. (?), Simancas MSS. 2601, fol. 71.
[641] Digby to Buckingham, Oct. 12, 1618, Harl. MSS. 1580, fol. 102.
[642] Digby to the Commissioners for Spanish Affairs, July 26, 1621. Clarendon State Papers, i. App. vi.
[643] Buckingham to Gondomar, Oct. 3, Londorp, ii. 218. Gondomar to Philip III. Oct. 11⁄21, Simancas MSS. 2601, fol. 104.
[644] Lando to the Doge, Oct. 1⁄11, Venice MSS. Desp. Ingh.
[645] “Y cierto es que se lo dixe con la severidad y modo che el caso pidió, y la colera y sentimiento con que yo estaba.” Gondomar to Philip III., Oct. 7⁄17 Simancas MSS. 2601, fol. 101.
[646] Buckingham to Gondomar, Oct. 2, S. P. Spain. Gondomar to Philip III., Oct. 7⁄17, Simancas MSS. 2601, fol. 101.
[647] Philip III. to Gondomar (two letters) Aug. 23⁄Sept. 2. Printed in Francisco de Jesus, Appendix vii.
[648] Khevenhüller, ix. 1191.
[649] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Oct. 19⁄29. Philip III. to Gondomar, Nov. 30⁄Dec. 10. Simancas MSS. 2573, fol. 87.
[650] Draft of a Proclamation. Bacon to Buckingham, Oct. 18. Buckingham to Bacon, Oct. 19, Letters and Life, vii. 123.
[651] Chamberlain to Carleton, Oct. 14, S. P. Dom. cxvii. 13.
[652] Burton to Carnsew, Oct. 11, S. P. Dom. cxvii. 10.
[653] The Council to the Peers, Oct. 25. Rudyerd to Nethersole, Nov. 8. Payments to the Benevolence, S. P. Dom. cxvii. 36, 64; cxix. 14. Many letters of excuse will be found amongst the State Papers of the time.
[654] Nethersole to Naunton, Aug. 15, S. P. Germany.
[655] Nethersole to Naunton, Sept. 22, ibid.
[656] Nethersole to Naunton, Sept. 24, Oct. 1, S. P. Germany.
[657] “On the Sunday morning news came that … the horse upon the <384>outflanks of the army did skirmish. We were invited to dine with the King, where, for aught we could discover, there was confidence enough, and opined that both the armies were apter to decline than to give a battle. After dinner the King resolved to go to horse to see the army. But, before the King could get out of the gate, the news came of the loss of the Bohemian cannon.” Conway to Buckingham, Nov. 18, Harl. MSS. 1580, fol. 281.
[658] Salvetti’s News-Letters, Nov. 30⁄Dec. 10, Dec. 1, 7⁄11, 17. Van Male to De la Faille, Nov. 30⁄Dec. 10, Dec. 8⁄18, Brussels MSS.
[659] Naunton to Carleton, Dec. 2, S. P. Holland. The King to the Princes of the Union, Dec. Add. MSS. 12,485, fol. 55b. From the Dormant Privy Seal Book, it appears that on January 8, 31,000l. had been paid to Burlamachi out of the Benevolence, for which he had given letters of exchange to Morton. 1,500l. more was paid on January 10; 1,000l. on Feb. 14; and 200l. on July 27. On February 10 the sum received by the King had been 34,211l., and 296l. was afterwards paid in.
[660] It is amusing to find the historians of the Civil War justifying Essex’s appointment as Parliamentary General, on the ground of the experience which he had acquired in the Palatinate. He saw the enemy once, but he never drew sword against him.
[661] Appointment of the Council of War, Jan. 13, S. P. Dom. cxix. 21.
[662] Herbert to the King, Aug. 14, 1620, Harl. MSS. 1581, fol. 15; Memoires du Comte Leveneur de Tillières, 25.
[663] Ibid. 32.
[664] Chamberlain to Carleton, Jan. 13, S. P. Dom. cxix. 24. Salvetti’s News-Letter, Jan. 5⁄15. Finetti Philoxenis, 67.
[665] The story is told by Howell, Letters, ed. 1726, 81. The date given is wrong, but the dates in this book are frequently wrong, having been added pretty much at random after the publication of the first edition. What is of more importance is, that Bacon is called Lord Keeper, which, unless it be considered the mistake of a man just returned from the Continent, looks as if the letter itself, like many others in the series, had been got up for publication long afterwards. Yet the story may, I think, be accepted. It finds a place in the Apophthegms (Bacon’s Works, viii. 182), though without mention of the name of the ambassador referred to.
[666] Memoires du Comte Leveneur de Tillières, 43. Caron to the States-General, Add. MSS. 17,677K, fol. 91.
[667] Gondomar to Philip III., Jan. 31⁄Feb. 10, Simancas MSS. 2602, fol. 18.
[668] Salvetti’s News-Letter, Jan. 12⁄22.
[669] Dohna’s Memorial, Jan. 8. Dohna to Calvert, Jan. 18, S. P. Germany. The King to Frederick, Jan. 26, Add. MSS. 12,485, fol. 61.
[670] Gondomar to Philip III., Jan. 30⁄Feb. 10, Simancas MSS. 2602, fol. 18.
[671] Proclamation, Dec. 24, 1620, Rymer, xvii. 279.
[672] I suspect, from the slight mention of Bohemia, that it was written about the spring of 1619, and perhaps circulated in MS. till the course of events made the writer think that it would be worth while to print it.
[673] “Absolute certainty and a mechanical mode of procedure such that all men should be capable of employing it, are the two great features of the Baconian method.” — Ellis. Introduction to the Philosophical Works. Works, i. 23.
[674] Nov. Org. ii. 18, 25.
[675] Ellis. Preface to the “Descriptio globi intellectualis.” Compare Mr. Spedding’s remarks in his preface to the “De interpretatione naturæ proœmium.” Bacon’s Works, iii. 705, 507.