<56>Even after the demand for an inquiry into the conduct of the referees had been withdrawn, Bacon must have felt that, though Bacon’s position.the immediate danger had passed by, his position was still insecure. In the House of Lords his connection with Buckingham told against him. The Commons, it is true, had withdrawn their charges against him in deference to the King, but they were in no humour to criticise very closely any accusation brought against him which did not involve an attack on the royal prerogative. Whatever may be the judgment finally passed on his conduct with respect to the patents, it is impossible that he can have been regarded by his political opponents, in the full blaze of the revelations of Mompesson’s villany, in any other light than in that of a sycophant and a tyrant.
Since its appointment at the commencement of the session, the committee for inquiring into abuses in courts of justice had The registrars in Chancery.held its sittings regularly on Wednesday afternoons. On February 28, its attention was drawn to the delinquencies of the registrars of the Court of Chancery. These men, amongst whom a certain John Churchill was especially notorious, were accustomed to add to their regular fees by the practice of forging orders, and entering them as if they had been delivered by the Court. Bacon’s character was not affected by this discovery in the slightest degree, but it gave the delinquents a special <57>motive for purchasing impunity by informing against their superiors.[83]
The Committee did not meet again till March 14. Cranfield,[84] who saw that, since Buckingham’s speech on the preceding day, March 14.Bills of Conformity.his opportunity of calling the referees to account was slipping away, led the attack against Bacon by complaining of his practice of issuing Bills of Conformity. These Bills, by which the Court of Chancery had been in the habit of extending its protection over insolvent debtors who were able to make out a case for its interference, were attacked by the Master of the Wards in the true spirit of a London shopkeeper. Cranfield even went so far as to declare that, compared with these, Mompesson’s knaveries were but a trifle. “It were as good,” he said, “a man took away a purse as hinder him recover by justice his due debt.” Coke followed on the same side. He could not believe that there were such proceedings in any court of justice. Sir Dudley Digges, who had just returned from a mission to <58>Amsterdam on behalf of the East India Company, spoke the sentiments of the more reasonable traders, who did not altogether regard a debtor as a wild beast to be hunted down without mercy. In old times, he said, there were certain definite cases in which these bills had been granted, ‘but now, it is to be feared, that the latitude of the jurisdiction of that Court had brought in many mischiefs.’ He wished that something might be done, in order that it might not ‘lie in the breast of one man, be it whosoever, to use so large a power, but that he might be tied to the old rules and bounds of Chancery, which is only to mitigate the rigour of the law.’[85]
Digges had evidently made out a case for inquiry. Dislike of technicalities, and confidence in his own powers, were the fertile sources of Bacon’s errors. In his eagerness to supersede the imperfections of the existing law, he sometimes forgot to calculate the risk of pouring contempt upon law itself, or to remember that it is only by the establishment of general rules that progress is possible. In his desire to crush opposition to the gold and silver thread patent, which had, as he firmly believed, been established for the benefit of the commonwealth, he had sanctioned the operations of an arbitrary tribunal, which might in after times be imitated for the worst of purposes, and it is by no means impossible that in the hope of giving protection to a struggling debtor, he may have countenanced measures which, if reduced into a rule, would have made honest trade impossible.
Every day was thus increasing the alienation between Bacon and the House of Commons. Yet there can have been Bacon charged with bribery.few amongst the members who did not feel a shock when Christopher Aubrey appeared at the bar with a petition in which the Chancellor was directly charged with bribery.
Aubrey had many years previously been employed by Sir William Brunker, as a receiver of certain fines, called the Issues of Jurors, Aubrey’s case.which had been leased to him by the King. The two men had quarrelled, and an action at common law resulted in a judgment in Aubrey’s <59>favour. Brunker appealed to the Court of Chancery, and in April, 1618, the suit came on for a hearing before Bacon. On the whole the Chancellor expressed himself in Brunker’s favour, but declined to give any positive opinion till the accounts had been subjected to a strict examination.[86] Some weeks passed by, and no satisfactory explanation of his claims could be extracted from Aubrey.[87] It was not, it would seem, in the correctness of his figures that the strength of his case was to be found. He had already, unless he is grossly belied, bribed and cajoled at least two witnesses to give evidence in his favour. He now ventured on a bolder step. On June 1, he placed 100l. in the hands of his counsel, Sir George Hastings, and requested him to give it to the Chancellor himself. The money, he was subsequently informed, had been given and accepted, and he confidently looked forward to a favourable decision upon his case. In less than a fortnight, however, he was undeceived. On the 13th, “a killing order,” as he afterwards termed it, ejected him from his post, and appointed a new receiver in his place. Under these circumstances, the production of his accounts became a necessity. His case occupied the court for more than two years; and it was not till November, 1620, that Bacon finally announced his award, which acknowledged the justice of many of his claims, but which, as it did not give him all that he had asked, left him a dissatisfied man.[88]
Brooding over his injuries, Aubrey determined to appeal to <60>the House of Commons. According to the petition which he now presented, His petition to the Commons.he had met with nothing but delay, through no fault of his own. It was at Hastings’s advice that he had sent the 100l. to the Chancellor. But though the money had been taken, justice had not been done.
Aubrey’s petition at once called up Hastings, who happened to be a member of the House. He denied that he had ever Explanation of Hastings.given any advice of the kind. Aubrey had placed in his hands a box, which he presented to the Chancellor, without knowing what was in it. Mr. Aubrey, he had said, had been a bountiful client to him, and he therefore begged his lordship to accept the present. At the same time he had asked him to do the poor man justice without delay. Bacon had hesitated for a moment, had said that it was too much, and had finally accepted it as a present from himself, and not from Aubrey.[89]
Though the witnesses contradicted one another upon points of detail, the story was sufficiently startling to arrest the attention of the House. It was followed by revelations more startling still.
Edward Egerton was one of those impracticable persons who never fail to gather round them every element of disturbance, and who Early history of Edward Egerton.pass their lives in complaining of misfortunes which are for the most part the fruit of their own wrongheadedness. He had inherited from his father the estate of Wrynehill in Staffordshire, together with other lands in the neighbourhood. Being burthened with a load of debt, he applied for assistance to Sir John Egerton, the head of the Cheshire family of Egertons, to which he was very distantly related.[90] Sir John consented to help him, and paid his debts. Edward Egerton, in return, executed two conveyances, by the first of which he assured to his benefactor the succession of his estates in case of his own death <61>without issue, and by the second, which was probably educed by fresh assistance to him in his difficulties, he unconditionally made over to Sir John the whole of his landed property. It was noticed that the two men continued on friendly terms with one another, and were frequently seen riding about in company. Yet when Sir John died, in 1614, it was not without surprise that his neighbours learned that, after making provision for his widow, he had bequeathed the whole of his property to his spendthrift cousin, to the entire exclusion of his own children.[91]
The heir, thus strangely nominated, took possession of the whole estate, and Rowland Egerton, Sir John’s eldest son, lost no time in appealing to Chancery for redress.
In December 1615, Ellesmere delivered judgment, as far as the case was then ripe for a decision. Sir John had, a few years His dispute with Rowland Egerton.before his death, executed a deed by which a large part of his lands, including the estate at Wrynehill, was conveyed to the trustees of his son Rowland’s marriage settlement, and Ellesmere had no difficulty in deciding that Ellesmere’s judgment.their claim came before that of Edward Egerton. As to the remaining lands, which alone would be affected by the will, he suspended his judgment till the validity of that document had been tested in the Prerogative Court; and till this decision could be obtained, the claimants were to remain in possession of those lands which had belonged to their respective fathers.[92]
Fair as this judgment was, Edward Egerton was grievously dissatisfied. He had made up his mind that the second conveyance, by which Edward Egerton’s resistance.he had surrendered his own lands to Sir John, was a mere formality, and the discovery that his kinsman had taken it in earnest, and had, by including the manor-house at Wrynehill in his son’s marriage settlement, put it out of his power to return to the <62>home of his fathers, was a grievous blow. He determined to spare no effort to overthrow the decision of the Chancellor. He placed every obstacle in the way of the division of the lands, and attempted to get into his possession the deed by which he had relinquished his rights. Bacon’s first action in the matter after he received the seal, was to order that Egerton’s application for this document should be refused. All deeds were to remain in Court till the question of the validity of the will had been determined elsewhere.[93]
As soon as this order was delivered, Bacon may well have thought that the question, so far as he was concerned, was finally settled. His attempt to bribe Bacon.The battle which had hitherto been carried on in the Court of Chancery, was to be transferred to the Prerogative Court; and in the natural course of things, the Court of King’s Bench would be called upon, if necessary, to pronounce a final sentence upon the ownership. It was not, therefore, likely, that Bacon would have anything further to do with the matter, except perhaps to give his formal assent to the decision of other judges.
Eight days afterwards, Egerton asked to speak to Bacon, and was told by Sir Richard Young, that the Lord Keeper was too busy to see him. Upon this he produced a bag containing 400l., which Young took, and, in the presence of Hastings, delivered to his patron. But for one circumstance, it is not improbable that Bacon would at once have rejected the money. It is true that it was the ordinary custom to present the Chancellor with a gratuity at the conclusion of a suit. But it had been Ellesmere and not Bacon who had given judgment on the main point, and what little had been done by Bacon in the matter, had not been of a nature to call for any extravagant gratitude on the part of the suitor who was now waiting at the door. It happened, however, that Edward Egerton had been his client in the earlier stages of the dispute, and it was in this <63>capacity that he now approached him. The money, Bacon was told, was offered as a thankful remembrance from a client. He was to buy with it a suit of hangings for his new abode at York House. Yet even with this explanation, Bacon was surprised at the largeness of the sum. Not long before, a present of plate Bacon accepts the money.had been brought him by the same client. He now took the purse, poised it in his hand, said that it was too much, and that he could not accept it. Yet at last he gave way to the repeated assurance that payment for past services was intended. He put the money aside, and told Young to assure the donor that ‘he had not only enriched him, but had laid a tie on him to do him justice in all his rightful causes.’[94]
That the money was intended as a bribe it is impossible to doubt. In a few months, the whole question was re-opened. Revival of the suit.The will had been declared valid, but the two parties, unwilling to prosecute the matter further in a common law court, begged the King to refer it to Bacon’s arbitration.
When at last the Chancellor’s decision was pronounced, Egerton found, as Aubrey had found before, that his money had been thrown away. By a statute of the reign of Henry VIII., only two-thirds of such lands as were held by knight service were devisable by will. Bacon accordingly decided that two-thirds of the lands not included in the settlement were to go to Edward Egerton, and the other third to Rowland.
The judgment, in the eyes of unprejudiced persons, was unassailable. The validity of the disputed will had been acknowledged, and everything was now done for Edward Egerton that the law permitted. But in the eye of this litigious and impracticable suitor all this was as nothing. He wanted the reversal of Ellesmere’s judgment and the declaration of the nullity of his own conveyance to Sir John. As long as the hated Rowland was master of Wrynehill, his life was embittered. He at once refused to submit to the decree, and Bacon was obliged to direct that the arbitration should be converted into <64>a formal suit. At last, in 1619, he re-affirmed his previous judgment in the shape of a binding decree.[95]
There can be no doubt that this decision was substantially just. By Bacon’s permission, Edward Egerton brought his case in Further history of Edward Egerton.another form before the King’s Bench; and in 1620 judgment was given against him. In 1622 he applied for redress to Williams, who had succeeded Bacon as Lord Keeper, and was by him referred once more to the courts of common law, a permission which was only rendered useless by Egerton’s stubborn refusal to try the case on any of the issues which were tendered to him. In the next reign, after the disgrace of Williams, he lost no time in applying to Coventry, the new Lord Keeper. The judges to whom the matter was referred by Coventry, reported against re-opening the case. Yet, in spite of this, he was allowed a fresh hearing; and once more he failed to make out his claims. Seldom has any judgment been subjected to such an ordeal, with such triumphant success.[96]
Such, as far as it is now possible to recover the truth, is the history of the two cases which were brought before a Committee of Proceedings of the Commons.the whole House by the disappointed bribers. In one respect, indeed, they differed widely from ordinary cases of corruption. In both of them, the complaint was, not that the Chancellor had decided for, but that he had decided against, the person by whom the money was given. Yet there was surely enough to justify further investigation, especially as Egerton produced written evidence to prove that he had not only attempted to bribe the Chancellor, but had promised to pay 6,000l. to one of Bacon’s servants named Davenport, and to Dr. Field, who had subsequently become Bishop of Llandaff, as soon as they could procure a judgment in his favour.
The case was not much altered by further inquiry. A <65>fortnight before, it seemed, Hastings had told Bacon that Aubrey March 15.Further inquiry.intended to bring a complaint against him. “Well, George,” had been the Chancellor’s reply, “if you lay it on me, I must deny it on my honour;” and, unless his words had been misunderstood, he had recently made a similar declaration with respect to Egerton’s story. An attempt was made by John Finch to turn the current of indignation against Hastings. He believed, he said, that it was true that Aubrey’s money had been given to Hastings, but that Hastings had kept it in his pocket. Such assertions were out of place at this stage of the proceedings. The question was not whether the charges against Bacon were true, but whether there was sufficient evidence to make it worth while to further investigate the matter. The Committee therefore wisely decided upon reporting to the House that in both cases there were causes depending in Chancery at the time when the money was given.
That the Commons were in some degree prejudiced against Bacon on account of his conduct in the affair of the patents, March 16.Feeling of the House.it would be impossible to deny. But there was no wish to deal with him unjustly. On March 16, the question of the disputed jurisdiction between the Chancery and the Court of Wards came up for discussion. The debate was opened by Cranfield with his usual arrogance. But the House decided that there had been faults on both sides, and forced a member who had cast aspersions upon Bacon’s character, to give a less offensive meaning to his words.[97]
On the 17th, the report of the Committee on the charges of bribery was brought in by Phelips. His language was singularly temperate. March 17.The debate on the charges of bribery.He reviewed the evidence at some length, and pointed out the absolute necessity of a complete investigation. “It is a cause,” he said, “of great weight. It concerns every man here. For, if the fountains be muddy, what will the streams be? If the great dispenser of the King’s conscience be corrupt, who can have any courage to plead before him?” He concluded <66>by moving that they should ‘present this business singly to the Lords, and deliver it without exasperation.’ It would be impossible to get at the truth in any other way. The Commons had no power to summon to their bar a peer of the realm, and they were equally incapacitated from examining his accusers upon oath. The best course for them to take would be to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Upper House.
So precisely did this proposal meet the exigencies of the case, that Bacon’s friends only wasted their breath in pointing out They are sent up to the Lords.discrepancies in the evidence. Calvert’s suggestion, that the King should be asked to institute an inquiry, and the wild rants of Christopher Neville about the Chancellor sitting ‘like a minotaur in the labyrinth of his court, gormandising and devouring all that came before him,’ were equally disregarded by the House. The feeling of the vast majority was well expressed by Sir George More. “Were the Lord Chancellor,” he said, “never so great, never so dear unto me, yet the Commonwealth, the mother of us all, is to be preferred before all. I will not speak in favour, nor against the Lord Chancellor. For, if it be gold, why should we fear to try it? I would have us go to the Lords, because we cannot do the Chancellor right without it.” To such reasoning there was no reply; and Phelips was ordered to lay the evidence before the Peers, ‘without prejudice or opinion.’[98]
Meanwhile Bacon was presiding for the last time in the Upper House. The blow which now fell upon him was entirely unexpected. Bacon’s feelings.He seems to have had no conception that any really well-founded charge could be brought against him, and to have fancied that the Commons, baffled in their assault upon him as a referee, were eagerly adopting a few trumped-up stories in order to punish him for his support of Mompesson.[99] The conduct of the House was, therefore, in his eyes, a mere factious attack upon authority, to be resisted <67>at all hazards. It was not merely his personal honour which was at stake; the highest interests of the Crown and of the State were involved in the contest.
His first thought on March 14, the day on which Aubrey’s accusation was brought before the Commons, was to write March 14.His appeal to Buckingham.to Buckingham. Recently — probably in speaking of the affair of the referees — something had been said about the Chancellor’s being in purgatory, from which the favourite perhaps wished him a speedy release. “Your lordship,” wrote Bacon, pouring out his feelings in a letter which came straight from his heart, if any letter ever did, “spoke of purgatory; I am now in it, but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands, and a clean heart; and, I hope, a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the game. And if this be to be a Chancellor, I think if the Great Seal lay upon Hounslow Heath nobody would take it up. But the King and your lordship will, I hope, put an end to these my straits one way or other. And, in truth, that which I fear most, is, lest continual attendance and business, together with these cares, and want of time to do my weak body right this spring by diet and physic, will cast me down, and that it will be thought feigning or fainting. But I hope in God I shall hold out.”[100]
It was perhaps at this time that he replied to some one who recommended him to look around him, “I look above me.”[101]
That which Bacon feared was not long in coming upon him. March 18.His illness.Under the pressure of anxiety, his health, never very strong at the best, broke down completely. On the morning of the 18th he was unable to leave his house.
In this state he received a visit from Buckingham, who <68>found him, as he afterwards reported, ‘very sick and heavy.’[102] In one respect, March 20.Ley appointed to preside in the House of Lords.the Chancellor’s illness served him well. It would have been impossible for him to take his seat on the woolsack till the charges against him were cleared up to the satisfaction of the Peers; and his sickness afforded a good excuse for the temporary appointment of Chief-Justice Ley to preside in the House of Lords during his absence.
The result of Buckingham’s interview with Bacon may no doubt be traced in the proceedings of the Commons. “His Majesty,” March 19.The King proposes to take the case into his own hands.said Calvert, “hath understood of the crimes that are laid to the Lord Chancellor’s charge, and is sorry that a man whom he hath preferred should be guilty of such great crimes.” He was, therefore, unwilling that accusations of such a nature ‘should lie long on so great a person,’ and was ready, in order to expedite the business, to direct a special commission to six members of the House of Lords and to twelve members of the House of Commons. He would see that they took up the matter vigorously, and that their inquiry was carried on during the Easter vacation, which was now at hand. He accordingly wished to have the opinion of the Commons on the course thus proposed. If they approved of it, he would send a similar message to the Lords. He hoped that the Chancellor would be able to establish his innocence; but if he failed, he was then prepared ‘to show himself a most just King.’
The proposal was no doubt made in all honesty. By his conduct at the time of the attack upon the referees, James had shown that he had no intention of sacrificing his ministers to popular clamour. But the moment that a direct charge of malversation was brought, he was as ready to consent to a strict and impartial inquiry as he had six years before been ready to consent to a similar inquiry in the case of Somerset. All he asked was that he should have the appointment of the judges.
No doubt there was much to be said in favour of the scheme. The House of Lords was, with the single exception <69>of the House of Commons, the most unfit body in existence for conducting a political trial. Of all its members, now that the Lord Chancellor was set aside, Mandeville alone had received a legal education. There were many honourable men amongst them, though there were many who by no means deserved that title; but there were few, even among the best, who were not swayed one way or another by party feeling, and who could be depended upon to give a strictly judicial vote. If, however, some of the peers were factious, and some were servile, the House was still, as a body, tolerably independent, and this was more than could be said of the new tribunal which James proposed to create. That the innovation, if once permitted to come into existence, would be converted into a precedent, was certain; and it was no less certain that, whatever confidence might be reposed in the fairness of the King’s intentions in the present instance, it would be highly unwise to entrust the power of finally deciding upon the guilt or innocence of Government officials to a shifting and temporary court nominated from time to time by the Crown; especially as there would be no other check upon the natural tendency of the Sovereign to support his ministers, than the very slight difficulty which he might find in selecting eighteen satellites of his own from so large a body as that of the two Houses.
In spite of all the objections which might be brought against his scheme, James very nearly carried his point. Reception of his proposal by the Commons.There was something enticing to superficial observation in the proposal to give twelve votes out of eighteen to members of the Lower House. Popular speakers, like Perrot and Alford, gave in their adhesion to the plan. But Coke, Coke’s objection.whose natural acuteness was on this occasion sharpened by his dislike of Bacon, threw the weight of his authority into the opposite scale. “Let us see,” he said, “that this gracious message taketh not away our parliamentary proceeding.” It was not fit, he held, that any answer should be returned till the Lords had been consulted.
If there was a man in all that assembly qualified to express <70>the opinions of those moderate politicians who recoiled from extremes Sir E. Sackville.on either side, it was Sir Edward Sackville, the brother and heir of the childless Earl of Dorset. Pre-eminent in beauty of person, and in the vigour of a cultivated intellect, he wanted nothing to fit him for the highest places in the commonwealth but that stern sense of duty without which no man can be truly great. Protestantism, as a great revolt from oppression, he could understand and sympathize with. But Protestantism as a rule of life was beyond his ken. He had early broken away from the restraints of marriage, and had followed the seductions of his roving fancy wherever he was attracted by a bright eye or a tender glance. One dark day had passed over him without startling him from his evil course. His guilty love had in some way or other entangled him in a quarrel with Lord Bruce of Kinloss, which led to a challenge. The duel was fought on the frontier, half-way between Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom, amongst the grassy fields which stretch out their level surface to the low horizon. Young Bruce was left bleeding to death upon the sward, and Sackville returned to find the reward of his prowess in the arms of the light wanton for whose sake he had stained his sword with the life-blood of a fellow-creature.
Such deeds, it is true, are not always followed by penalties of which the world takes cognisance. A man may do them, and yet may die in the full possession of wealth, and of all that wealth can give. But he who does such things is at least morally the worse for them. The shape in which Sackville’s punishment came was, that when the great crisis arrived, and England was marshalled into two opposing camps, he, the man of splendid acquirements, the delight of listening senates, could not choose but take the side on which the arousing voice of Puritanism was hushed, and lived to be the minister of Charles without adding weight to the cause which he had adopted.
That time, however, had not yet arrived. Sackville’s known good-will towards Supports Coke.the cause of the German Protestants, his recent determination to accompany Vere to the Palatinate, which had been characteristically retracted on <71>account of some personal affront, had given him the confidence of the popular party; whilst his respect for the prerogative made him equally a favourite with those who looked with dread on the encroachments of the House of Commons. He had been chosen at the beginning of the session to the chairmanship of the Committee for inquiry into the Abuses in Courts of Justice, and it had only been by ill health that he had been compelled to resign its functions into the hands of Phelips. He thoroughly detested everything that savoured of violence or exaggeration; and it might have been expected that he would gladly have yielded to the apparent moderation of the King’s suggestion. His personal friendship for Bacon was likely to draw him in the same direction. Yet, in spite of all this, when he stood up it was to second Coke’s motion, with some unimportant modifications. No further resistance was possible; and the House resolved that the King should be informed that if he would lay his scheme before the Lords, they would be ready to join the Upper House in giving him a joint reply. As a matter of course, Phelips was allowed to go before the Peers with his demand for a conference on the charges against Bacon.[103]
James’s first thought upon hearing what had passed was to prosecute his design. He told Calvert to thank the Commons for their reply, and The King’s plan relinquished.to assure them that he had already sent to the Lords the message which they desired. If this was the case, his messenger was speedily recalled. At all events, nothing more was heard of the royal scheme. If Bacon were consulted on the matter, it may well be supposed that he would be the first to point out that it was now hopeless. If the Lower House could have been induced to give a warm support to the Crown, the Lords might perhaps have given way. But with the Commons lukewarm or hostile, it was madness to suppose that the Peers would relinquish one tittle of their ancient jurisdiction. Any attempt to press the matter now would only be to the detriment of the accused.
That very afternoon had been appointed for the conference <72>between the Houses. Not a word was breathed on the subject which The charges laid before the Lords.had been in agitation during the morning. Phelips contented himself with laying before the Upper House the evidence collected in the cases of Aubrey and Egerton, and with respectfully demanding inquiry.[104]
After the conference was at an end, Buckingham hastened to York House to inform the Chancellor of the events of the day. Bacon’s letter to the Peers.He found him more cheerful than he had been of late, and full of confidence that the Lords would do him justice. When he left, he carried with him a letter in which the sick man begged for time to answer his accusers, adding that he thought it likely that more petitions would be put up against him; but that he hoped that they would not give any weight to the mere number of the complainants. He had made more than 2,000 decrees yearly; and it was easy to make a great show by hunting for accusations. Whatever the charges might be, he trusted that time would be granted him to answer them severally.
The next day the Lords resolved to proceed at once to the examination of witnesses; and at Southampton’s motion March 20.an answer, drawn up in rather curt terms, was returned to the Chancellor’s letter. Bacon was briefly informed that justice would be done.[105]
Bacon was right in supposing that the attack thus commenced would not rest here. Lady Wharton’s case.The next morning a petition was presented to the Commons, demanding inquiry into his acceptance of a bribe of 300l. from Lady Wharton.
Lady Wharton — such is the story which may yet be gleaned from the records of her endless litigations — had been three times married. Her second husband, Sir Francis Willoughby, had left her a considerable property, which had given rise to long and bitter contention in the law courts. Her last appearance in Chancery, at least, had not arisen from any fault of her own. A discontented servant, rummaging amongst her <73>papers, lit upon a deed by which Sir Francis, long before he married her, had made over to his daughters by his first wife, a large portion of those very lands which he subsequently bequeathed to his widow. The man saw in his discovery an opportunity for revenge, took a note of the contents of the document, and, as soon as an opportunity offered, communicated what he had learned to the husbands of Sir Francis’s three surviving daughters. The consequence was, that in the spring of 1618 a Chancery suit was commenced by these three gentlemen to compel the surrender of the deed, whilst Lady Wharton filed a cross bill to obtain a judicial declaration of its invalidity.
On October 30, 1619, Bacon delivered judgment in the cause. Sir Francis, it appeared, had reserved to himself a power of revocation; and, Bacon’s judgment.though there was no legal proof that he had made use of any such power, there was sufficient evidence that he had again and again acted in such a way as to show that he considered the deed no longer to be binding upon him. Upon these grounds the Chancellor decided that the deed must be considered to have been revoked, and that there were no grounds for compelling Lady Wharton to surrender a document which was no longer of any importance.[106]
The whole question was practically settled by this decision, though Lady Wharton’s demand for a formal condemnation of the deed had yet to be heard. Accordingly, the lawyers on both sides were summoned to York House to argue what must have appeared to Bacon to be a question now devoid of interest. The deed was produced, and Serjeant Ashley, the counsel for Lady Wharton’s opponents, brought forward some arguments in favour of his clients which had not been used in court before. Bacon, accordingly, was about to direct that the questions thus raised should be formally argued before him, when Shute, who <74>was acting as counsel for Lady Wharton, interposed. His opponents, he said, should have no benefit by his client’s bill. She would at once withdraw her demand for a declaration of its invalidity. In fact, she had got all that she wanted. As she was now entitled to keep the document in her own hands, it was of no importance whatever to her whether its invalidity were formally declared or not. Upon this the lawyers on the other side, who probably knew well enough that Serjeant Ashley’s arguments were worth little or nothing, expressed their willingness to withdraw their bill also. Bacon, accordingly, agreed to the dismissal of both bills by the consent of the parties, taking care, however, to direct Churchill, the registrar, to see that, in entering the order, the reasons which he had recently alleged against the validity of the deed were allowed to appear.[107]
Bacon’s decision had satisfied the lawyers, and had satisfied the claims of justice; but, as is not unfrequently the case, it <75>had not satisfied the suitors. Nothing short of an absolute condemnation of the deed, pronounced in the most formal manner, would be acceptable to Lady Wharton. She would not hear of the withdrawal of her bill. She carried Churchill with her in her coach to York House, and entreated the Chancellor to rescind his order, and to allow the suit to proceed. Nor was it only from Lady Wharton’s side that the pressure came. Her opponents, who knew that they had nothing to lose by reopening the case which had hitherto gone so completely against them, urged the same request. In face of this united demand, Bacon was powerless. He withdrew the order for the dismissal of the suits, and directed that the judgment by which he had granted her the custody of the disputed deed, should be entered on the books at once. Yet upon this latter point he subsequently gave way, on a fresh petition from the lady’s opponents; and the whole affair was allowed to stand over as an open question till a future day.[108]
As it would not be long before a final decision must be given, the concession was of no great importance. Such, however, was not the opinion of Lady Wharton. She was indignant that her adversaries should have had any respite whatever, and she convinced herself that the favour shown to them was owing to some sinister influence. She fancied, as Aubrey and Egerton had fancied before, that a bribe given to the Chancellor would be followed by the utter discomfiture of her enemies. She consulted with her attorney, a man named Keeling. The result was that she put 100l. in a purse, and, accompanied by his servant Gardner, drove straight to York House. “What is <76>that,” said Bacon, as soon as she was admitted, “that you have in your hand?” It was, she replied, a purse of her own working, which she hoped his lordship would accept. “What lord,” he said, “could refuse a purse of so fair a lady’s working?” Before she left him, she told him that 200l. more would be at his disposal as soon as the decree was really passed.
Such was the scene which took place three days before the 29th of June, the day on which the final argument of the lawyers was heard. The result was what might have been expected. Bacon adhered to the decision which he had announced seven months before. The order of October 30 was to be passed and entered. A few days later, Lady Wharton returned to York House with the promised sum of 200l. The money was taken, and the long-delayed decree was entered on the books.[109]
So much, at least, is clear. But it seems that, in pronouncing judgment, on October 30 in the preceding year, Bacon had said something which did not find its way into the books in which the orders of the Court were entered by the Registrar; and the Chancellor afterwards expressed his belief that Lady Wharton’s lawyer, that very Shute who had been so strongly recommended by himself for the Recordership of the City, had been tampering with Churchill, the Deputy Registrar. It was not long before the audacity of the deceit was detected. An attempt on the part of Lady Wharton’s opponents to reopen the case at common law, was met by an appeal to Chancery; and though Bacon, at first, granted the injunction asked for, yet as soon as his attention was specially called to the order in question, as having been drawn up ‘contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Lord Chancellor,’ he acknowledged the justice of the objection. The decree, he said, had been ‘not duly obtained’; and Lady Wharton must, therefore, either show cause why the whole case should not be re-opened, or must be content to fight out her battles at common law.[110]
<77>What was the precise point upon which the order as entered differed from the order which was actually delivered, we have no means of knowing with certainty. Judging, however, from what we do know, it seems probable that an appeal on some question or other to the common law was intended to be given; and that Lady Wharton, who had impudently begun by bribing the Chancellor to pronounce a decree in her favour, ended by no less impudently bribing the Registrar to alter the decree when she found it not altogether to her liking.
Lady Wharton had been playing a game in which it behoved her to keep her counsel well, but she could not hold her tongue. The case laid before the Commons,It was soon known to her opponents that she had paid 300l. into Bacon’s hands. It was soon no longer a secret that the lady had been to Bacon to complain of the reopening of the case, and that he had consoled her by reminding her that a re-hearing did not necessarily imply defeat. Is it to be wondered that they came to the conclusion that the whole affair was a swindle, carried on between Lady Wharton and the Chancellor, and that the last concession made to them was merely a device to put off the final decision till Parliament was no longer sitting? Under this <78>impression, they heard how the House of Commons had listened to the petitions of Aubrey and Egerton, and at once laid their own grievances before the same tribunal.
Inquiry was accordingly made. Churchill was examined, but was found to be too prudent to tell a story which would compromise himself. and sent up to the House of Lords.Keeling and Gardner were more explicit, and the fact of the acceptance of the 300l. was established beyond dispute. Coke was delighted at the turn which matters were taking. “A corrupt judge,” he said, “was the grievance of grievances.”[111] Bacon’s friends were reduced to a general appeal to his character, and to a denunciation of the little credit due to the informers. As a matter of course, Phelips was ordered to bring this case too to the knowledge of the Lords.[112]
The Wharton case is undoubtedly the one upon which the assailants of Bacon’s good name may fairly elect to take issue. Inquiry into Bacon’s conduct.In the Aubrey case it is impossible, in the present state of the evidence, to know with what words the nakedness of the bribe was disguised. In the Egerton case the disguise was such that, amidst the pressure of business, it was not impossible that an honest man might have failed to penetrate it. But in the Wharton case all was open. No doubt the evidence laid before the Commons was misleading. Churchill, for his own purposes, represented Bacon as far more pliant in Lady Wharton’s hands than he really was. The accidental circumstance that the last order reopening the case was not delivered till after the meeting of Parliament, was calculated to give rise to unfounded suspicions. But after all deductions have been made for misrepresentation and misunderstanding, the fact that money was actually taken from a suitor before judgment was delivered remains unaffected by any explanations, and was afterwards admitted to be true by the Chancellor himself.
There were three ways in which, according to the notions <79>of the day, a public official might receive money. A bribe was Distinction between various modes of payment.what it has always been in every age, money given to influence the future action of the person in authority. A fee was a certain definite payment, the amount of which was settled by custom or authority, and which was regarded as the proper mode of obtaining payment for official services in an age when official salaries were purely nominal. But besides these there had grown up a class of payments, especially to persons high in authority, which were neither fees nor bribes. Under the name of gratuities, it was the custom to reward the Lord High Treasurer or the Secretary of State with presents, undefined in amount, as a reward for the trouble which they had taken, and as a retainer of their good-will in case of necessity arising for troubling them again. It was thus that, after the treaty with the Dutch in 1619, Digby, who had taken a leading part in the negotiations, openly received a present of plate from the East India Company; and that Carleton, who believed that he had contributed, by his efforts at the Hague, to the success of the negotiations, complained bitterly and without reserve that a few hundred pounds had not been placed at his disposal by the same body. Under any circumstances, such a custom must have been attended by grave abuses. It reached its height when adopted by a judge in a court of law; for amongst the multiplicity of business it was always possible that the most innocent transaction might be clothed with the semblance of corruption. A suit once closed might be reopened, or the successful litigant might have a second suit on hand with a third party. In either case the Chancellor who accepted the gratuity as soon as his decision was pronounced, was at any time liable to the discovery that the donor had other objects in view than the simple payment for past services.
If, therefore, all that could be said against Bacon was that he had occasionally made mistakes, that he had fancied that Gratuities in Chancery.suits were ended when they were not ended, or that he had not detected the intention with which money, ostensibly given under other pretences, had in reality <80>been offered, there would be cause for regret that he had not been more sharpsighted, or that he had not endeavoured to reform the abuses by the simple remedy of substituting fees for gratuities; but there would hardly be sufficient ground for charging him with any deep moral culpability.
Unfortunately, however, in the face of Lady Wharton’s case no such explanation is possible. Bacon knew perfectly well when Bacon’s fault.he took the purse that the suit was not concluded; and he was certainly not ignorant that to accept money from a suitor under such circumstances was to do that which, in any other person except himself, he would have been the first to stigmatize as proof of the vilest corruption.
Yet, if no flaw is to be found in the evidence which shows that Bacon’s conduct was utterly inexcusable, it is by no means so How far was it a proof of moral corruption.plain that he was aware at the time of the enormity of his actions. Whatever Churchill might choose to say, it is certain that it was not Bacon’s fault that the whole case was not closed six or seven months before he touched a penny of Lady Wharton’s money. He had dismissed the whole affair, and had given a judgment which was entirely satisfactory to the lawyers on both sides, when Lady Wharton’s litigiousness brought the case again before him. Again and again his time had been occupied by this quarrelsome old lady’s folly. The approaching decision which he was to deliver in court, he may have argued, was a pure formality. His decision had been given long ago, and all that he intended to do was to reaffirm it. What, then, did it matter whether he took the purse now or a week later? It would not affect his judgment one way or another.
That it did not affect his judgment is certain. All that followed upon the reception of the purse was a direction that an order given nine months before should be entered in the books. Nor is it true that Lady Wharton’s case was in any way expedited by her gift. For on June 1, at least three weeks before the purse was given, he had fixed upon the 29th as the day on which he was to dispose of the affair.[113]
<81>The charge, therefore, that Bacon knowingly and corruptly sold or delayed justice falls entirely to the ground. The only possible explanation of his conduct is that, with his usual carelessness of forms, he contented himself with knowing that the immediate reception of the money, which he believed himself to have fairly earned, would not influence his decision; in other words, that, without a corrupt motive, he accepted money corruptly tendered. The suspicions to which his conduct would be exposed, and the evil lesson which he was teaching to the anxious and unscrupulous crowd of suitors, did not enter into his calculations.
As it was most improbable that the man who had taken Lady Wharton’s purse had not laid himself open to other charges, Cases of Holman and Smithwick.the Lords can hardly have been surprised that when the case of Lady Wharton was brought before their House it was accompanied by two others. As the Peers subsequently refused to entertain one of these complaints, it may be taken for granted that it could not be substantiated. The other proceeded from a merchant named Smithwick, who asserted that he had improperly paid over 200l. to the receiver of the Lord Chancellor’s fines. It did not, however, appear that Bacon knew anything about the matter at the time, and Smithwick himself allowed that he had petitioned the Chancellor for relief, and that the money had been repaid.
Though these five complaints were all that were voluntarily <82>brought before the House by persons who felt themselves aggrieved, Churchill’s list.a long list of Bacon’s evil deeds had been drawn up by Churchill. The Commons knowing well that a man who is anxious to divert attention from his own misdemeanors is unlikely to be scrupulously accurate about the faults of others, and acting in that spirit of fairness which had characterized the whole of their proceedings in this lamentable affair, took care to avoid all responsibility for the assertions of the guilty registrar, and laid his paper before the Lords without note or comment.[114]
Bacon had recovered his cheerfulness as soon as it became plain that his conduct was not to be submitted to a vote of the House of Commons, but March 23.Bacon regains his cheerfulness.to a judicial inquiry in the House of Lords. “His most judicious friends,” says a letter-writer of the day, “have already given him for gone. Notwithstanding, himself is merry, and doubteth not that he shall be able to calm all the tempests raised against him.”[115] His own feeling appears to have been one of bewilderment. “When I look into myself,” he wrote to the King, “I find not the March 25.materials of such a tempest as is come upon me.” He had never, he said, ‘been the author of any immoderate counsel.’ He had ‘been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man in’ his ‘conversation or character.’
Of the charges brought against him he spoke like a man of honour who is opening his eyes to the possibility that he may have committed faults, but who is still blind to their heinous nature. “For briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged,” he wrote, “when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice, however I may be frail and partake of the abuses of the times. And therefore I am resolved, when I come to my answer, not to trick my innocency, as I writ to the Lords, by cavillations or voidances; but to speak to them the language which my heart speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or ingenuous confessing; praying God to give me the grace to see to the <83>bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of heart do steal upon me under show of more neatness of conscience than is cause.”[116]
It was perhaps in consequence of this letter of Bacon’s that James resolved upon addressing one of his usual discursive March 26.The King’s speech to the Houses.speeches to the two Houses. The Commons, he said, had at last learned to treat him with respect. The Lords had always behaved well. He was, therefore, glad to see his son sitting amongst them. The whole world was talking of bribes, and he supposed that they had bribed the Prince to plead their cause. He would at once call in the obnoxious patents by proclamation. He would gladly give his consent to a Bill against informers. Buckingham had said that he had never had so much quiet as since the meeting of Parliament, since he was now freed from the crowd of projectors and informers, who, at other times, miserably vexed him at all hours. As for himself, he must acknowledge that in looking upon the face of the government, he had thought, as every man would have done, that the people were never so happy. Yet it now seemed that the country resembled some of his own coppices. When he rode round them they appeared on the outside very thick and well grown; but when he entered into the midst of them they were discovered to be full of plains and bare spots. So it was with the kingdom. The external government was good; but he was ashamed, and it made his hair stand upright, to consider how his people had been vexed and polled.
James then proceeded to touch upon Bacon’s case. He doubted not, he said, that there were matters before them, some complained of out of passion, and some out of just cause of grievance. Let them weigh both, without allowing themselves to be carried away by the impertinent discourses of those who named innocent men as well as guilty. Let their judgment take hold of the guilty only. Let them proceed judicially, and spare none where they found just cause to punish.[117]
<84>A speech like this may fairly be taken as a genuine expression of the King’s feelings. With the House of Commons Position of the King.he had every reason to be well satisfied. It had, at his bidding, refrained from trenching upon his prerogative by questioning the referees. It had granted two subsidies with unprecedented alacrity. It had abstained from pressing upon him its undoubted opinion in favour of an immediate declaration of war. The attack upon Michell and Mompesson did not touch the rights of the Crown. Nor, though he evidently wished well to Bacon, had he any desire to shelter him from a well-founded accusation. To hold a chancellor responsible for his legal opinion given in good faith was one thing; to hold him responsible for corruption was another: and, to do James justice, during the whole course of his reign he never once allowed personal favour to shield anyone whom he had reason to believe guilty of actual crime. What Bacon asked for was a fair inquiry, and to secure him this was the object to which the King addressed himself. In placing the Houses in a good humour by assuring them of his intention to cancel the obnoxious patents, he did everything in his power to bring them to a temper which would enable them to consider the question of Bacon’s conduct upon its own merits.
Upon the first part of the King’s speech the Upper House was prepared to act. That afternoon sentence was delivered Sentence upon Mompesson.upon Mompesson in his absence. He was to be degraded from the order of knighthood, and to be condemned to perpetual outlawry. His testimony was never to be received in any court. He was to be exempted from all general pardons. If ever he returned to England he was to be imprisoned for life, and never to be allowed to come within twelve miles of the Court. His property was to be forfeited, and he was to pay, from what source does not appear, a fine of 10,000l. Lastly, he was to be held for ever an infamous person.
For the first time since the evil days of Henry VI. the House of Lords had March 27.The Easter vacation.sat in judgment upon a subject accused of official malversation. The revival of the practice was undoubtedly an indirect censure upon the Sovereign whose want of energy and circumspection had <85>allowed Mompesson’s oppressions to flourish under the shadow of his name. But it was only for direct aggressions upon his prerogative that James had eyes, and he was blind to the lesson conveyed by the history which had been unrolled before him. The Lords were in high spirits. They ordered that March 26, the day of the King’s last speech, should be yearly held as a sermon day through all England. The two Houses then adjourned for the Easter vacation till April 17.
The Lords’ committees appointed to examine into Bacon’s case were directed to remain sitting during the vacation.[118] March 30.The patents cancelled.Three weeks would, however, pass before their report could be made, and there would be time for the animosities of party warfare to cool down. If the charges against him had proceeded, as Bacon once thought, from mere faction, James was doing everything in his power to allay the resentment of the popular party. On March 30, he followed up his recent speech by a proclamation cancelling the patent for gold and silver thread, the patent for inns, and the patent for concealed lands.[119]
There was one at least by James’s side who was not content with such sober measures as these. With the headlong impetuosity Buckingham advocates a dissolution.which was natural to him, Buckingham had now thrown himself heart and soul into his friend’s defence, and he was all the more eager because rumours had reached him that there was a party in the two Houses which had formed the intention of directing against himself the weapons which had proved so serviceable against Bacon. Once more the fears which had driven him to his base desertion of the referees disturbed his mind. He had taken Williams’s advice in vain. He had courted popularity only to make the way to his ruin more easy. For the evil which he dreaded there was but one remedy,— the immediate dissolution of Parliament. Yet, unaccustomed as he was to plead in vain, he now found the King’s ear closed to his appeals. James was indeed capable of quarrelling with a Parliament upon some point of personal dignity; but the <86>great wrong which his favourite now urged him to commit was utterly distasteful to his nature. He would not allow the representatives of the people to return to their homes with the tale, that when grave charges of peculation had been brought against a minister of the Crown, their King had refused them even the common justice of an investigation into the truth of their complaints. So urgent had Buckingham’s language been, and so public was the rebuff with which he met, that for some time it was believed at Court that the breach between himself and his Sovereign was irreparable, and that the often-foretold downfall of the arrogant favourite was at last at hand.[120]
It is hard work to follow out with accuracy the Protean <87>changes of such a mind as Buckingham’s. Perhaps he took counsel April.Buckingham gives way.once more with the cautious Williams. Perhaps he was really influenced by the arguments of the King, or by rumours which may have reached him of the disclosures which were being made before the Lords’ Committees. Before the vacation was at an end, he had completely shifted his ground. As he could not save himself by throwing over the Parliament, he would try to save himself by throwing over Bacon. He was sorry, he was now heard to say, that the Chancellor’s conduct had been so bad. He could not be sorry for his disgrace, for that, at least, he had richly deserved. There were not, however, wanting those who thought that Buckingham was merely making a virtue of necessity, and that he shrank from Bacon’s defence merely because he saw that it was impossible to save him.[121]
But, whatever the truth may have been, Buckingham’s insane demand for a dissolution had never been supported by Bacon. Bacon’s request for an audience.Every letter that he wrote, every word that he uttered, gave token of his readiness to see the charges against him sifted to the uttermost. At first he had believed them to be pure inventions, trumped up to gratify the malice of his enemies; but as the vacation passed, and rumours reached him of the progress of the investigation, he <88>was driven to abandon the ground which he had taken up. He now could no longer deny that, at least through inadvertence, he might have erred. Being sufficiently recovered to leave his house, he requested the King to grant him an audience. James accorded his petition, having first taken the precaution of informing the Council of his intention.
The papers on which the Chancellor jotted down the memoranda His memoranda.of which he intended to avail himself, have fortunately been preserved. “There be three causes of bribery,” he wrote, “charged or supposed in a judge.
“The first, of bargain or contract for reward, to pervert justice.
“The second, where the judge conceives the cause to be at an end by the information of the party or otherwise, and useth not such diligence as he ought to inquire of it.
“And the third, when the cause is really ended, and it is sine fraude, without relation to any precedent promise.
“Now, if I may see the particulars of my charge, I should deal plainly with your Majesty, in whether of these causes my particular case falls. But for the first of them I take myself to be as innocent as any born upon St. Innocent’s Day in my heart. For the second, I doubt, in some particulars I may be faulty; and for the last, I conceived it to be no fault, but therein I desire to be better informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for the fact, and again for the error. For I had rather be a briber than a defender of bribes.
“I must likewise confess to your Majesty that, at new year’s tides, and likewise at my first coming in (which was, as it were, my wedding), I did not so precisely, as perhaps I ought, examine whether those that presented me had causes before me, yea or no. And this is simply all that I can say for the present concerning my charge, until I may receive it more particularly.”[122]
Accordingly on April 16, the last day of the vacation, Bacon was admitted to an audience. How far he April 16.His interview with the King.carried out the programme which he had laid down for himself we do not know, but there was one point upon which he was specially desirous of the King’s <89>assistance. Properly enough, he had not yet received a copy of the charges made against him; for till the witnesses had been examined, it was impossible to say how far their statements would be adopted by the House of Lords, and till the Lords had adopted them, there was no formal accusation in existence to which he could be called upon to answer.[123] Bacon, however, seems to have feared lest he should be judged in the dark. He therefore begged the King to request the Lords to grant him a fair trial, and to allow him an opportunity of making his defence. To this very reasonable demand, James at once acceded, so far as to direct the Lord Treasurer to inform the House of what had passed between them.[124]
Accordingly, as soon as the Houses met on the following day, the Lords were informed by Mandeville of Bacon’s request, and April 17.Re-assembly of the Houses.of the King’s reply. Fresh witnesses were then sworn, and fresh names were added to the committees.[125] On the 18th April 18.it was resolved, at Arundel’s motion, that a report of the examinations should be brought in on the following day, to the end their lordships might give the Lord Chancellor such particulars of his charge as their lordships should judge fit. The next morning, as soon as the evidence taken by the committee over which Arundel presided, had been read, Buckingham rose. The attitude which he now assumed, after some vacillation, was that of an advocate who, without venturing to deny his client’s guilt, watches the case with the intention of taking advantage of any point that may be raised in his favour. The evidence just read, he now pointed out, was altogether in the handwriting of the persons who had been interrogated. There might, therefore, have <90>been a conspiracy amongst them to insert statements which had April 19.Buckingham’s position with regard to Bacon.never really been made. To this Arundel replied, that the answers had been written down in the presence of the committee, and that they tallied exactly with the spoken evidence. To this statement, confirmed as it was by other members of the committee, no answer was possible.[126] The remainder of the reports was read, and finally the three committees were amalgamated, in order to draw up a connected statement of the whole evidence. The Peers then adjourned to the 24th.[127]
The joint committee, thus constituted, consisted of sixteen peers and prelates. Their names may be at once accepted as Temper of the Lords.a proof that the Lords, as a body, desired to approach the delicate inquiry before them in a spirit of impartiality. The only section of the House not represented upon the committee was that composed of the connexions of the Villiers family, and of the sycophants who basked in the favourite’s smile. Arundel, Sheffield, and Neile were there, ready to resist any excesses of factious animosity against a faithful servant of the Crown, whilst the names of the pure-minded Andrewes, of the virtuous Morton, and of that Russell who, long afterwards, in times when few knew what moderation was, carried to the grave, as Earl of Bedford, amidst the regrets of all honest Englishmen, a well-earned reputation for singular moderation and discretion, were a sufficient guarantee that in the discussions which were impending, nothing would be left undone to secure the furtherance of equal justice without respect of persons.[128]
Of the general effect of the examinations read, some inkling seems to have been carried to Bacon. From a fresh letter April 20.Bacon writes again to the King.which he addressed to the King on the 20th, it is evident that his hope of being able to resist the accusations against him was growing faint. He trusted, he said, that the Lords would be like his Majesty in imitating Him who had refused to break the broken reed, or to quench the smoking flax. “It is not possible,” he concluded by saying, <91>“nor it were not safe for me to answer particulars till I have my charge; which, when I shall receive, I shall, without fig-leaves or disguise, excuse what I can excuse, extenuate what I can extenuate, and ingenuously confess what I can neither clear nor extenuate. And if there be anything which I might conceive to be no offence, and yet is, I desire to be informed, that I may be twice penitent — once for my fault, and the second time for my error.”[129]
Scarcely was this letter written, when some friendly hand brought him a copy of the examinations which had been read He relinquishes his defence.in the House of Lords. The effect was instantaneous. All thought that he was struggling against a factious oppsition was now at an end. He saw, as in a mirror, the hidden secrets of his life revealed. Actions which had long ago slipped out of his memory, and which, at the time, had seemed utterly unimportant, now stood out in strange distinctness before him. In his last letter, he had talked of excuse and extenuation. He now knew that he had done that for which there was no excuse, and for which extenuation would be of no avail.
Yet even in this hour of trial, conscious of the integrity of his motives, and knowing well that if there had been corruption in his actions, there had at least been none in his heart, he was unable to realise the effect which the revelation would produce upon others. He hoped that the Lords would be satisfied with his resignation of the Great Seal, and would spare him any further disgrace.
On the 21st, therefore, he made one more appeal to the King, praying him to use his influence with the Lords, to persuade them April 21.Appeals to the King,to be content with his general submission, to be followed by his resignation of the Seal. “But,” he concluded, in words which showed that his old buoyancy of spirit was still uncrushed, “because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go farther, and present your Majesty with a bribe; for, if your Majesty give me peace and leisure, and God give me life, I will present you <92>with a good history of England, and a better digest of your laws.”[130] On the following day he made his promised submission to the Lords. April 22.and makes submission to the Lords.His words, he said, came from wasted spirits and an oppressed mind. Yet, strange as it might seem, though in the midst of as great affliction as mortal man could endure, honour being above life, he would begin with a profession of gladness; for he could not but rejoice that, for the future, the greatness of a judge would be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness (and that was, in a word, the beginning of a golden world), and that magistrates would learn, by his example, to fly from the very semblance of corruption as from a serpent.
Even in his misery Bacon’s first thoughts were for his country. He then turned to his own case. “But to pass,” he wrote, “from the motions of my heart, whereof God is only judge, to the merits of my cause, whereof your lordships are judges under God and His Lieutenant, I do understand there hath been heretofore expected from me some justification, and therefore I have chosen one only justification, instead of all other, out of the justifications of Job. For, after the clear submission and confession which I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say and justify with Job, in these words:— ‘I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my thoughts in my bosom.’ This is the only justification which I will use.
“It resteth therefore that, without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and censure me.”
It was useless, he went on to say, to trouble them by singling out particulars against which he might justly except, to raise scruples touching the credit of the witnesses, or to plead extenuating circumstances. He was about to resign his office, “and therefore,” he ended by saying, “my humble suit to your <93>lordships is that my penitent submission may be my sentence, and the loss of the Seal my punishment; and that your lordships will spare any further sentence, but recommend me to his Majesty’s grace and pardon for all that is past. God’s Holy Spirit be amongst you .”[131]
Bacon had forgotten that it is not the business of a court of law to inquire into motives, and that the Lords would only stultify themselves April 24.It does not satisfy the Lords.if at this point they gave up the investigation without recording their sentence upon acts which he had himself admitted to be indefensible. It was in vain, therefore, that his letter was brought before them by a personage no less influential than the Prince of Wales. As soon as it had been read, there was silence for a long time throughout the House. Then Pembroke rose. It was a question, he said, whether the Lord Chancellor’s submission was sufficient for them to ground a judgment upon without further inquiry. As soon as the House had gone into committee to discuss the point thus raised, it became evident that the submission would not be accepted in the form in which it had been tended. Certain definite accusations had been made, and the Lords wanted to know, in so many words, whether they were true or not. The submission was therefore unanimously rejected.
In the course of the discussion a new question had been started by Spencer:— Was the Lord Chancellor to be summoned to the bar to answer to the charges in person? Buckingham once more interposed in Bacon’s behalf. He hoped, he said, that they would make a charitable exposition of the case, and would ‘attribute this thing to the corruption of the time in respect of the quality of the person.’ The Chancellor had already acknowledged himself to be guilty in general, though not in particular. Let a message be sent to him, in order that he might have an opportunity of making a full acknowledgment of his fault, before they resorted to the extreme step of sending for him in person. Arundel and Pembroke followed in support of the same view. “Shall the Great Seal,” said <94>Pembroke, “come to the bar?” It was in vain that Saye, then, as ever, bitterly one-sided, urged that Bacon should be sent for; and that Suffolk, not unmindful of the day when the Lord Chancellor had sat in judgment upon himself, argued on the same side. Wallingford probably expressed the general opinion. His lordship’s submission, he said, was too short, and it was unfit that he should presume to dictate his own punishment. Nor was it becoming that he should throw the blame of his faults upon the age rather than upon himself. He had all due respect for the person of the accused man, but if a reformation was intended, the proceedings should be as public as possible. Yet, after all, how could the Chancellor come to the bar with the seals? The House, on this point, at least, felt with Pembroke and Wallingford, and it was decided that Bacon should be applied to for a fuller answer.[132] A copy of the evidence against him was accordingly transmitted to him, together with the articles of accusation as they had proceeded from the committee.[133]
The next day, after an unsuccessful attempt to re-open the question of summoning the Chancellor to the bar, messengers were April 25.sent to inquire into his intentions. “The Lord Chancellor,” they reported, “will make no manner of defence to the charge, but meaneth to acknowledge corruption, and to make a particular confession to every point, and after that an humble submission.” He desired, however, to add an explanation on some particular points. Five days were accordingly allowed him to prepare his statement; and, in spite of Suffolk’s renewed opposition, it was resolved that this statement should be made in writing.[134]
On April 30, accordingly, the promised confession was April 30.Bacon’s comments on the charges.handed in, with some insignificant exceptions.[135] The examinations of the witnesses have unfortunately not been preserved, but by those who have learned by experience to place unreserved confidence in Bacon’s truthfulness, his own declarations, together wilh the additional <95>light which can be thrown upon them by the help of the records of the Court of Chancery, will be sufficient to give a tolerably clear idea of the nature of his delinquencies.
In answer to one at least of the charges, he could offer no excuse. “He had given way,” it was said, “to great Faults of his servants.exactions by his servants.” He at once acknowledged that it was a great fault of neglect that he looked no better to them.
From the remaining twenty-seven[136] articles, ten may, for all practical purposes, be summarily excluded. They related to Payments after the close of the suit.presents given after the closing of the various suits, and which were, therefore, according to the ideas of the day, to be regarded as legitimate payments.[137] Of the rest, Cases where the fault was merely formal.five cases may also be dismissed as of no real importance. When Bacon accepted 500l. from Sir Rowland Egerton, it was in total ignorance that the old question would be again stirred by Edward Egerton’s wilfulness. Smithwick’s case has been already commented on: it concerned the Chancellor’s servants rather than himself. The three remaining gifts of this class had been received from rival companies which had submitted to his arbitration; but this was merely in accordance with the opinion of the day, which held that an arbitrator ought to be rewarded for his trouble, without fixing any scale of payment.
Still Cases more or less objectionable.twelve cases remain, all of them open to grave objection, some of them to the severest reprobation.
From Sir John Trevor, Bacon had accepted 100l., as a Sir J. Trevor.new year’s gift, but had neglected to inquire whether his cause was ended or not. The truth was, that it had been dismissed to a trial at common-law, but that as the equity was reserved, it might again come before him judicially.
He had received 600l. or 700l. from Lord Montague after the decision had been given. But Lord Montague.the decision was resisted by the other party, and the case came up again before him. He was obliged to acknowledge that he had <96>received fair warning that this was likely to occur; for when the money was brought, the bearer told him, ‘that my lord would be further thankful if he could once get his quiet.’ All that Bacon was able to say in defence of his conduct was that he had paid no attention to the message.[138]
From Sir John Kennedy he had received a rich cabinet, whilst a suit was pending. Bacon had seen it, and had Sir J. Kennedy.ordered it to be carried back. When he afterwards heard that it was still in the house, he was offended at the neglect of his orders; but he had not insisted on obedience, and all that he could now say was that the cabinet was ready to be returned to whom their lordships should appoint.
Of Aubrey, E. Egerton, and Lady Wharton.the cases of Aubrey, of Edward Egerton, and of Lady Wharton, enough has been said already.
In one respect the case of Ralph Hansby resembles that of Lady Wharton. There is the clearest evidence that Hansby.Bacon did that which was utterly indefensible. But there is also the clearest evidence that the money which he improperly received did not, in the slightest degree, affect his judgment.
On July 17, 1617, Bacon had decided, in Hansby’s favour, a question respecting the validity of a deed by which he derived a large estate from his uncle. There still, however, remained a further question as to the property, upon which certain legacies were chargeable. The point was referred by Bacon to some of the Masters in Chancery, upon whose report he would have to deliver his final judgment. Under these circumstances he accepted a present of 500l. from Hansby, in whose favour the suit about the legacies was finally decided. In itself, this last judgment was, no doubt, open to grave suspicion. But, fortunately for his credit, Bacon had given the reasons upon which it was based. The question turned upon the intention of the old man at the time when he was signing the deed in favour of his nephew, and it so happened that not only <97>the lawyers who had drawn it up were unanimously in favour of Hansby’s interpretation of the clauses, but that evidence was given to the effect that his uncle, before he signed the deed, had entered into an explanation in which he spoke of other property on which he intended that the legacies should be charged, and by which, therefore, his intention to exonerate his nephew was placed beyond a doubt. Once more then, in a case in which the presumptions against Bacon are undoubtedly strong, the evidence in favour of his integrity is overwhelming.[139]
The next case, if it had stood alone, was sufficient to procure Bacon’s condemnation. In 1614, Ellesmere had decided Reynell.in favour of Peacock in a suit against Sir George Reynell.[140] Difficulties arose in carrying out the judgment, and interrogatories were administered to various persons, with the view of ascertaining the facts of the case with greater accuracy. Before sufficient time had elapsed for raising the question again in court, the Great Seal was transferred to Bacon, and Reynell, who was connected with him by marriage, brought him 200l. to buy furniture for York House, of which he was then about to take possession. It was not till the succeeding winter that Reynell made application for a rehearing,[141] and it was either on the following or on some subsequent New Year’s Day, that he brought to the Chancellor a diamond ring, which was, as Bacon admitted, of too great value for a New Year’s gift. Peacock.What was still worse, before the suit was ended, Bacon borrowed from Peacock 1,000l., and submitted to receive an assurance that no interest or written acknowledgment of the debt would be required.
The case of Vanlore was Vanlore.similar to that of Peacock. It was proved that Bacon had borrowed from him 2,000l. at a time when he was a suitor in the Court.
<98>Compton’s case was more peculiar. He had been asked by Bacon for a loan of 500l., and had refused to lend it, on the ground that Compton.the Chancellor had interfered with his attempt to proceed to extremities against a debtor, and that he now owed 400l. to a certain Huxley. Upon this Bacon wrote to Huxley, begging him to refrain from pressing his claim for six months; and Compton accordingly retracted his refusal, and lent the money which had been demanded. By-and-by, however, Huxley repented of his concession, and proceeded against Compton at common law. Compton appealed to Chancery, alleging that he was merely a surety, and that Huxley ought first to have applied to those who had actually borrowed the money from him. Sir Charles Rich, one of the Masters of the Court, reported that Compton’s story was a mere tissue of falsehoods, and Bacon ordered him to pay the debt with costs. Unseemly as the Chancellor’s position was towards the plaintiff, it cannot be affirmed that there was any denial of justice here.
The last case to be mentioned was an affair of a very different kind. The Company of French Merchants had complained to Bacon, that The French merchants.the London Vintners had entered into a combination not to buy wine at reasonable prices, and had offered him 1,000l. as a reward for the services which they expected him to render. Bacon at once drew up a tariff by which he considered that the vintners would make a profit of 6l. a tun. His scheme was, however, rejected by the vintners, and the merchants appealed to the King. James, on the ground that his customs would be injuriously affected by the cessation of trade, commissioned Bacon to settle the dispute. Thus authorised, he dealt with the vintners, as he himself acknowledged, ‘more stiffly and preremptorily.’ He imprisoned ‘for a day or two some that were the most stiff.’ Unable to resist such arguments as these, the vintners withdrew their opposition, though they complained bitterly that they had been forced ‘to buy wines whereof they had no need nor use,’ at higher rates than they were vendible. The merchants on the other hand, presented the Chancellor with the 1,000l. which they had promised him, assuring him that ‘he had kept them <99>from a kind of ruin;’ and maintaining that ‘the vintners, if they were not insatiably minded, had a very competent gain.’ No candid person who reads Bacon’s account of the matter can doubt that he acted precisely as, with his notions on trade, he would have been likely to act if he had never been offered a penny for his trouble. But no candid person can deny that in listening to the offer of payment before the service was rendered, he did precisely what in the most corrupt times would have been done by the most corrupt of ministers.
In every one of these cases additional inquiry tells the same tale. The volumes of the Order Books may be searched through, but The bearing of the evidence upon the question of character.they will never reveal an excuse for Bacon’s actions. But wherever they throw any light upon his motives, that light is invariably favourable. He takes Lady Wharton’s purse, but be does nothing but repeat a sentence delivered months before. He accepts a sum of money from Hansby, but he decides on evidence so conclusive that no other course is open to him. May it not fairly be supposed that this result would hold good in other instances, and that the misdeeds of the great Chancellor were attributable to contempt of forms, to the carelessness of haste, and to an overweening confidence in his own integrity? His own language during the progress of the investigation is in every respect honourable to his character. Believing at first that no case can be established against him, his only demand is for a fair and open trial. As day by day brings fresh presumption against him, he reiterates his demand, adding the assurance that no prevarication on his part shall stand in the way of justice. When the blow falls it is a crushing one. He sees the truth, and he makes no attempt to blind the eyes of his judges. He never admits that his intentions had been corrupt, nor does he ever affirm that his actions had been innocent. “I do again confess,” — His expression of penitence.such are the words with which his long answer closes, “that in the points charged upon me, although they should be taken as myself have declared them, there is a great deal of corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and penitently sorry.”[142]
<100>As soon as this submission was read in the House, a committee was appointed to visit him, in order to learn whether his signature was genuine. “My lords,” was his reply, “it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships be merciful unto a broken reed.”
It was in the midst of racking pain, physical and mental, that this cry of agony was wrung from him. He believed that he was dying. He knew that few amongst his countrymen would from henceforth regard him otherwise than as corrupt in heart and feeling. Nor was this all. A man who is in act innocent, may look forward to the day when it will be proved that he never committed the crime of which he is accused. No such proof could ever come for Bacon. To admit his innocence men must read his heart, and must learn to look upon the world with his eyes. “For my name and memory,” he declared in his last will, “I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next ages.” Yet he must have known that the next ages would have a difficult task. They would have to show, what of all things is the hardest to prove, that his heart was pure whilst his actions were guilty.[143]
<101>With such inquiries the House of Lords had no concern. They were called upon — not to solve a psychological problem, but May 1.The Great Seal taken from him.to punish corrupt actions, in order that they might not be imitated for the future. Their first step was to ask the King to take away the Great Seal from the man in whose custody it had been surrounded with an atmosphere of venality. James at once assented. “I would have done it,” he said, “if I had not been moved therein.” The next day Mandeville, Pembroke, Lennox, and Arundel were sent to the sick man to require the surrender of the Seal. They found him ‘very sick.’ “We wish,” said one of them, “that it had been better with you.” In his weariness of life, Bacon replied, “The worse, the better.” Then, after a little, he added, “By the King’s great favour I received the Great Seal; by my own great fault I have lost it.” After this melancholy scene the messengers departed, carrying with them the symbol of the King’s authority, which they had been directed to retain in their own hands, as commissioners, till a permanent successor was appointed.[144] At the same time Ley was anthorised to continue his attendance as Speaker of the House of Lords.[145]
There were those amongst the peers who were not satisfied even with this humiliation. The next day, at Southampton’s motion, May 2.Bacon unable to attend the House.the officers of the House were sent to summon the late Lord Chancellor to the bar. The Great Seal, which had hitherto protected him, was no longer his. But he was still able to appeal to the weakness of his physical frame. He was in bed when the officers arrived. He told them that they asked for an impossibility. He was not making excuses. If he had been well, he would willingly have come.
The excuse thus made was accepted without difficulty on the following morning. The question was then put whether May 3.The sentence debated.the late Lord Chancellor was guilty of the matters with which he was charged, and it was agreed to without a dissentient voice. The House then went into committee to discuss the penalty to be inflicted upon him. <102>That it should consist of fine and imprisonment was accepted without difficulty. Lord Sheffield moved, amidst signs of approbation, that he should be incapable for the future of holding any office of judicature, or of a seat in the Privy Council. Saye, ever rancorous in his indignation against guilt, proposed that degradation from the peerage should be added. Against this extremity, Arundel and Pembroke protested. It soon appeared that Saye’s proposal would be made a question between the supporters of the Court and the Opposition. It was adopted by Spencer and Southampton, the latter of whom took credit to himself for not having recommended the addition of banishment, of which he declared the late Chancellor to be worthy; whilst Lennox, Mandeville, Hamilton, and the Prince himself spoke in Bacon’s favour. At last a compromise was suggested by Hamilton. Let him be spared from personal degradation; but let him lose his right of sitting in the House, or of coming to Court. After this, Arundel, who had earlier in the debate acknowledged the foulness of the offence, nevertheless again deprecated the idea of expulsion from the peerage. It was not usual, he said, to degrade a peer excepting by Act of Parliament. Bishop Neile added a more peculiar reason. It would be well, he said, to leave him his title, that he might remember from whence he had fallen. To these arguments no reply was made; but Southampton, fearing perhaps lest Bacon might escape altogether, rose again. “Is it well,” he said, “that he whom this House thinks unfit to be a constable, shall come to the Parliament?” After this the exclusion from Parliament was voted without a dissentient voice. As soon as it was carried, Buckingham, apparently with the intention of averting any further addition to the sentence, observed that Bacon was so sick that he could not live long.
The House then resumed, and the sentence was formally put into shape. The late Chancellor was to pay a fine of 40,000l., to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King’s pleasure, to be incapable of any place or employment in the State or commonwealth, and to be disabled from sitting in Parliament, or from coming within twelve miles of the Court. <103>An attempt made by Suffolk’s son, Lord Howard de Walden, to gratify the animosities of his family, by the suspension during life of Bacon’s titles of nobility, was thwarted by the good sense of the House. Such a sentence would have been more than a penalty for a crime; it would have been a personal disgrace inflicted upon the offender. The Prince and Buckingham came to the aid of the fallen Chancellor, and it is said that the Bishops voted as one man on the side of lenity. Their efforts were successful, and the proposition was rejected by a majority. The remainder of the proposed sentence was then put to the vote, and was carried with a single dissentient voice — the voice of Buckingham, who had found little to say in extenuation of such faults as those with which Bacon had been charged, but had made it a point of honour not to abandon his constant supporter in extremity.[146]
The Commons were then summoned to the bar, and the judgement resolved upon was pronounced. It was a heavy sentence, but The sentence delivered.not more heavy than the circumstances of the case demanded. It was well that the House of Lords should declare its opinion that the late Lord Chancellor could no longer be employed with advantage in the service of the State. The fine and imprisonment were, as every one knew, worse in appearance than in reality. Such penalties were in those days little more than a strong expression of opinion: if the condemned person sought for a remission of his sentence from the King in sufficiently humble terms, the remission was almost certain to be accorded; and no one could doubt that Bacon was likely to be humble, and that James was likely to be forgiving.
When the history of the debate was told to Bacon, he remarked ‘that he was only bound to thank his clergy.’ Some weeks later, looking back upon the past in a more serious mood, he said that though he was bound to acknowledge ‘the sentence just, and for reformation’s sake fit,’ yet that he had been the justest Chancellor since his father’s death. The judgment thus recorded by himself may be accepted by history as final.
Thus fell Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, from the <104>highest eminence to which a subject could climb. Neither of Bacon’s fall.the great English parties which were so soon to spring into existence could claim him as their own; and as long as the influence of those parties continued to lay its spell upon history, his memory was left without a champion. His name was used by satirists, who knew nothing of his life, to point the commonplace moral that intellect dissociated from virtue must fail to command success. In our own days, the most brilliant of historians, exasperated by the absurdities of a weak and ignorant panegyrist, took the case against Bacon under his patronage, and in language which will be read as long as the English tongue endures, painted the great statesman and the great philosopher in colours as odious as they are untrue to nature, because his thoughts and principles did not square with the system of a Whig politician of the nineteenth century.[147] After this, it is hardly to be wondered at that a great German chemist should have boldly declared him to be a charlatan and an impostor, because he was neither a Kepler nor a Faraday. It is time that Bacon should be known as he really was. He was not the faultless monster which it has pleased some of his too enthusiastic worshippers to represent him. But far less was he that strange congeries of discordant qualities which were never found united in any human being. He was not one man as a thinker, and another man as a politician. In every part of his career he was indefatigable in his pursuit of truth and justice. His faults as a philosopher, as a statesman, and as a judge, arose alike from the same source. “I have taken all knowledge for my province,” he once <105>exclaimed in the enthusiasm of youth. He laid himself open to the criticism of chemists and astronomers, because he believed that the whole intellectual world was at his feet, and that a single generation would suffice to classify and arrange the infinite phenomena of nature. He laid himself open to the criticism of statesmen and lawyers, because, in his reverence for the powers of intellect, he despised the checks upon the exercise of sovereign power which in a free constitution are necessarily placed in the hands of commonplace and ill-educated men. He laid himself open to the criticism of the moralist, by fancying that integrity of heart might be left to its own guidance; and that a vivid intelligence and a direct honesty of purpose might safely dispense with the forms which are needed for the guidance of smaller men, and might even, on occasion, overstep the line at which courtesy passes into insincerity. Yet, in the end, the wisest and greatest of his generation had to learn that he too was fallible, and that even for him forms were necessary.
The tragedy of Bacon’s final catastrophe has branded itself upon the memory of succeeding generations. Yet his failure as a judge is His failure as a statesman.not to be compared, in real interest, with his failure as a statesman. The one is attractive as a psychological problem; the other contains a lesson to which it is well to give ear at all times and in all seasons. In the speculative ideal which he set forth to the world in the New Atlantis, he proposed that different tasks should be distributed to different classes of labourers in the cause of science, no one of which was to share in the duties of another. The collector of facts was not to conduct experiments. The conductor of experiments was not to pronounce upon their value. It was to be the duty of a body of men standing apart from the vulgar contamination of the observatory and the laboratory, to make use of the results by raising the scattered truths to the dignity of a higher science. In the same spirit he would have assigned to all men their position in the State. The country gentlemen might administer a rude justice in their respective districts. The judges might decide moot points of law bearing upon the <106>rights of property. Parliaments might vote subsidies, might, subject to the veto of the Crown, assent to laws for the benefit of the commonwealth, and might give useful information of the state of public feeling, or of the existence of popular grievances. But, knowing as he did, that the highest work of legislation and government calls forth the highest faculties of man, he did not venture to confide the chief interests of the nation to common hands. In the Sovereign who had recognised his own merit, he saw, or fancied that he saw, a patriotic king, who would control the hard technicalities of the judges by his Court of Chancery; who would supply the weakness of criminal justice by his Court of Star Chamber; and would regulate, by means of his Privy Council, questions of high policy with which Parliament was unfit to be trusted. How it ended we all know. On the great questions on which his advice would have been truly valuable, on the reform of the law, on the Spanish alliance, on the war in Germany, he was probably never seriously consulted during the four years of his tenure of the Great Seal; and his opinion, whenever, at long intervals, he ventured to tender it, was certainly never adopted. Yet it is not to the incapacity of James, or the arrogance of Buckingham, that we must look for the heaviest condemnation of Bacon’s system. If ever a man was fitted, by nature and study, to be the leader of a nation, it was he; and yet this man, great as he was, failed ignominiously, no less in that which he did, than in that which he was compelled to leave undone. Narrow as, in many respects, the commercial policy of the House of Commons was, it was not so narrow as Bacon’s. It saw by instinct what Bacon could not see,— the intolerable abuses which would necessarily spring from the powers which he claimed for the Crown. In condemning Bacon it condemned, in a rude and accidental fashion, the theory of government which draws a distinct line of separation between the Executive and the representatives of the people, and which affords no scope for that mutual play of special knowledge and of popular instinct which may sometimes check the speed at which an enlightened Government would fain advance, but which has saved us from incalculable blunders on either side, <107>and which, above all, has made our slow progress more certain than that of other nations, because it has ensured that the amelioration of the laws shall go hand in hand with the growth of the national conscience.
Yet, whatever we may think of Bacon’s political ideas, it is grossly unfair to him to confuse his devotion to monarchy with His monarchical theories.the narrow-minded partisanship of the Cavaliers of the Restoration, or with the no less narrow-minded theories of the non-jurors of a later age. In his eyes the cause of monarchy was the cause of intellect in the eternal battle against ignorance, pedantry, and routine. He believed that, on the whole, the King would choose wiser servants than a body so inexperienced as the House of Commons was likely to do. He feared the encroachments of the popular party for the same reasons as those which, in later times, led Canning to throw his weight into the scale in opposition to the advocates of popular reform. Then, as now, the victory was to be won, not by mere declamation on constitutional privileges, or on the rights of the people, but by the spread of political knowledge, and of that moral self-restraint which, in every noble people, is the surest result of increased responsibility.
[83] Proceedings and Debates, i. 109. These forgeries must, as a rule, have related to matters of small weight, which would escape the notice of the Court. On one occasion on which Churchill ventured to tamper with a decree of importance he was, as will be seen, detected immediately.
[84] In his anxiety to prove that there was a good understanding between Buckingham and Cranfield, Mr. Hepworth Dixon (Story of Lord Bacon’s Life, 371) has said that Cranfield received a grant of ‘a considerable share of the fines which belonged of right to the officers of Bacon’s court,’ by which he got ‘a pretext for overhauling the Entry Books and scrutinising the receipt of fees.’ No doubt Mrs. Green, in her Calendar, states that Cranfield received a grant of the alienation fines on Dec. 22, 1620. But her statement that it was made to Lord Cranfield at once provokes suspicion, as there was no such person in existence at the date, and a reference to the Patent Rolls shows that she was led into error by a mistake in an old index. The grant was made, not in 1620 but in 1621. It could not well be otherwise, as the fines belonged not to Bacon’s officers, but to Bacon himself, and till he surrendered them after his sentence it was not in the King’s power to grant them to Cranfield. Mrs. Green’s reputation for accuracy stands deservedly so high that it is always worth while to notice any of the slips which are to be found, few and far between, in that calendar which few have had opportunity of testing so thoroughly as myself.
[85] Proceedings and Debates, i. 157–159.
[86] Affidavits of Brunker and Twine, Oct. 23, 1617, Chancery Affidavits, Mich. T. 1617, Nos. 157, 158. Orders, Brunker v. Aubrey, Oct. 20, 1617; April 29, 1618, Order Book, 1617, A. fol. 71,955.
[87] Orders, Brunker v. Aubrey, May 5, 16, 17, 1618, Order Book, 1617, A. fol. 931, 937, 1246.
[88] Affidavits of Ware, Jolly, and Worrall, April 21, June 25, July 24, 1618, Chancery Affidavits, Hil. T. 1617–18, No. 634; Trin. T. 1618, Nos. 186, 211. Orders, Brunker v. Aubrey, June 13, 1618; Nov. 14, 1620, Order Book, 1617, A. fol. 1101, 1620, B. fol. 460. In Proceedings and Debates, the date of the “killing order” is erroneously given as July 13, and the bribe is said to have been given on July 1. No doubt both these should be June. The mistake would easily be made in transcribing from Nicholas’s shorthand notes.
[89] Proceedings and Debates, i. 160, 164, Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi., note G. G. G.
[90] The common ancestor lived in the reign of Edward I. Ormerod’s History of Cheshire, iii. 350.
[91] Chancery Depositions, James I. E. 4, E. 15. Egerton v. Egerton. Will of Sir J. Egerton, recited in the Inquisition, p.m., Chancery Inquisitions, 21 Jac. I. Part 2, No. 104. It is only fair to E. Egerton to say that he was not present when Sir John’s will was made.
[92] Orders, Egerton v. Egerton, June 28, 1614; Dec. 4, 1615, Order Book, 1613 A. fol. 955; 1615 A. fol. 574.
[93] Orders, Egerton v. Egerton, April 18, May 11, 1616; May 28, June 2, 1617, Order Book, 1615 A. fol. 647, 804; 1616 A. fol. 818, 798. It was stated in the House (Proceedings and Debates, i. 184), that there was another order, dated June 16. But of this I can find no trace in the Order Books.
[94] Proceedings and Debates, i. 161; Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi. note G. G. G.
[95] Order, Egerton v. Egerton, June 16, 1619, Order Book, 1618 A. fol. 1409.
[96] Report of Doderidge, Hutton, and Yelverton, Nov. 19, 1627. Egerton v. Egerton, Masters’ Reports. Order. Egerton v. Egerton, June 16, 1632. Order Book, 1631 A. fol. 794.
[97] Commons’ Journals, i. 558; Proceedings and Debates, i. 183.
[98] Commons’ Journals, i. 560; Proceedings and Debates, i. 188.
[99] Such is the feeling which seems to lie at the root of all his sayings at this time, and to be the explanation of the words used by his secretary Meautys, “He seeth the way is already chalked out.” — Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi. note G. G. G.
[100] Bacon to Buckingham, March 14, Letters and Life, vii. 213.
[101] Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi. p. cccxxix.
[102] Buckingham’s Declaration. Lords’ Journals, iii. 54.
[103] Proceedings and Debates, i. 193; Commons’ Journals, i. 563.
[104] Proceedings and Debates, i. 194; Commons’ Journals, i. 563. Lords’ Journals, iii. 51, 53.
[105] Ibid. iii. 54.
[106] Order, Willoughby v. Wharton, Oct. 30, 1619, Feb. 12, 1621, Order Book, 1619 A. fol. 978, 1620 A. fol. 749. Miscellaneous Chancery Proceedings; Eliz. to James II.; Bills and Answers; Single Bills, 1620–24, Part 33, No. 98. Dalston v. Willoughby, May 11, 1622.
[107] “E. Willoughby, Esqre., Winifred his wife, W. Pargiter and Abigail his wife, M. Wood and Frances his wife, Plaintiffs.
“The Lord and Lady Wharton, Sir R. Lovelace, and E. Molineux, Defendants, et e contra.
“William Pargiter maketh oath that My Lord Chancellor having appointed one counsellor of a side to attend him at his house, where Mr. Serjeant Ashley, being of counsel with the plaintiffs, read a deed of my lady’s brought thither by Mr. Shute being of her counsel, and after the reading of the said deed used some reasons to his Lordship on the plaintiff’s behalf, which my Lord confessed he had not heard before; whereupon it was desired on the plaintiff’s behalf, that my Lord would be pleased to appoint a time to hear them, for those reasons were the substance of my lady’s cross bill. His Lordship was well pleased so to do, but Mr. Shute, being of counsel with my lady, refused to go to a hearing upon that bill, affirming that the plaintiffs should have no benefit by my lady’s cross bill, for they would let it fall, and desired his Lordship to dismiss it; whereupon the counsel of the plaintiffs desired a dismission of their bill also; whereupon his Lordship did pronounce a dismission of both bills, with some reasons to be inserted against the validity of the plaintiff’s deed; and the Registrar, Mr. Churchill, did draw up an order for dismission of both bills accordingly about the latter end of Michaelmas Term last.
Intratum.
Juratum 27° Junii, 1620.
Jo: Amye.”
Chancery Affidavits, Trin. T. 1620, No. 90.
[108] Churchill afterwards represented Bacon’s agreement to rescind his order for the dismissal of the suits as a special favour to Lady Wharton. But the words of the order of Dec. 9, 1619, are decisive against this view of the case. It commences thus:— “Upon a petition exhibited unto the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor on behalf of the said Pargiter and others, the co-heirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, it was desired for the reasons therein expressed that the lady might procure her cause upon her cross bill to be heard in Court before his lordship the next term, &c.” — Order Book, 1619 A. fol. 370. Again, in an order of June 1, 1620 (Order Book, 1619 A. fol. 1290), the delay is ascribed to a petition, not from Lady Wharton, but from the plaintiffs.
[109] Proceedings and Debates, i. 203, 206. Order, Willoughby v. Wharton, June 29, 1620, Order Book, 1619 A. fol. 1541.
[110] Orders, Willoughby v. Wharton, Feb. 12; Pargiter v. Wharton, March 12, 1621, Order Book, 1620 A. fol. 749, 801. Compare two <77>orders by Williams — Wharton v. Willoughby, Nov. 3, 1621, and Willoughby v. Wharton, Feb. 20, 1622, Order Book, 1621 A. fol. 88, 428. The case was afterwards sent by Williams to the King’s Bench for a decision on the validity of the conveyances. The decree which was tampered with is stated expressly in the order of Feb. 20, 1622, to have been that of Oct. 30, 1619, which is in fact the only substantive decree in the whole case. The final order to enter it was only given on June 29, 1620, and therefore any attempt to explain the story by supposing that the falsification took place earlier may be rejected at once. We are now able to get at the date of the payment of the money. Keeling said it was ‘about the time of the passing of the decree.’ (Proceedings and Debates, i. 202.) Gardner said more distinctly, ‘three days before the decree was made’ (Proceedings and Debates, i. 206), meaning, as appears from the context, the decree of June 29, 1620. If there were any reason to doubt this evidence it would be removed by Bacon’s own confession that the money was received “pendente lite.” If the first 100l. had not been received till after his judgment of June 29, ordering the entry of the October decree, he would surely have pointed out that, practically at least, the case, as far as he was concerned, was closed.
[111] Chamberlain to Carleton, March 24, S. P. Dom. cxx. 38. The writer does not state on what occasion the words were used. But it can hardly have been at any other moment than when this revelation was made.
[112] Proceedings and Debates, i. 208.
[113] “Whereas Mr. Shute, being of the defendants’” i.e. Lady Wharton’s “counsel, came this present day and moved the Rt. Honble. the Lord <80>Chancellor for the signing and passing of a decree drawn up by the Registrar upon the hearing of the said several causes the 30th of October last, the signing thereof hath been hitherto foreborne by reason of the petition preferred by the plaintiffs; which decree his lordship would not yet pass, being a matter of great moment in regard it hath rested so long without the hearing of the plaintiff’s counsel what they can say to maintain their suggestions contained in their petition. For which purpose it is ordered that counsel on both sides shall attend in Court on the second Tuesday in the next term, when such further order shall be taken touching the passing of the said decree as shall be fit; and the plaintiffs or one of them are to have notice hereof; to the end they may be provided at the time aforesaid, and the cause to be entered into the paper of that day.” — Order, Willoughby v. Wharton, June 1, 1620. Order Book, 1619 A. fol. 1290.
[114] Proceedings and Debates, i. 206; Lords’ Journals, iii. 61.
[115] Brent to Beaumont, March 23, Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi. 328.
[116] Bacon to the King, March 25, Letters and Life, viii. 225.
[117] Lords’ Journals, iii. 68. In a letter written to Mead (Harl. MSS. 389, fol. 43) it is said that the King spoke directly of the Chancellor. This does not appear from the printed speech. But the allusion is evident.
[118] Lords’ Journals, iii. 73.
[119] Proclamation, S. P. Dom. clxxxvii. 91.
[120] “Aspettiamo adesso l’esito del resto, et sopra tutto della causa del Gran Cancilliere, et forse d’altri di qualche qualità perchè il dire che fece il Rè che non risguardassero a persona, non n’eccettando il suo proprio figliuolo, ha dato loro tanto animo che sono d’oppinione che faranno quanto potranno per essaminare le azioni del Signor Marchese di Buckingham, et tanto più quanto credono che questa franca permissione di Sua Maestà proceda da stracchezza verso la parte, la quale se punto apparisca, ognuno puol poi fare giudizio del resto.” — Salvetti’s News-Letter, March 30⁄April 9.
“Il Gran Cancelliere se prepara per fare i suoi difesi; ma con apparenza che gli habbino da servire a poco; non scuoprendo nel Parlamento inclinatione nessuna di ammettergliene, et contra del Marchese se bene gli humori sono preparatissimi, credo però che se la passerano con questa voglia.” — Salvetti, April 6⁄16.
“Si” le Parlement “eust duré davantage, le Chancelier eust eu le sault; et, comme j’entend, non sans subject, ayant fort malversé en sa charge. Le Marquis de Buckingham l’assiste de tout son pouvoir, et n’en peult venir a bout, non plus que de la rupture du Parlement, qu’il a fort souhaitée; ce que fait juger a aucuns que ce Roy s’en veut deffaire par le moyen dudict Parlement, comme il fist du Comte de Sommerset, et par le moyen de la feue Reine sa femme; soit que la longue conversation qu’il en a eue luy a donné de disgoust, ou bien que, voyant qu’il est mal voulu de tout, et luy pour son subject, il le veuille donner a la haine generale pour se reconcilier les cœurs de ses subjects.” — Tillières to Puysieux, April 3⁄13, Bibl. Nat. MSS. Harl. 123, 17, fol. 47.
These extracts will, I hope, put an end to the theory which has had extraordinary vitality, that Bacon’s fall was caused by Buckingham’s weariness of him.
[121] “Pour le Chancelier il n’est remis sur le trottoir, mais il y sera bientost avec asseurance de sa perte. Je l’ay apris de M. le Marquis de Bouquinguam, qui est son amy, et lequel m’a tesmoigné de recepvoir a deplaisir non pas sa ruyne, car il dit qu’il l’a bien meritée, mais son mauvais gouvernement, estant homme qui avoit de bonnes partyes, et mis de sa main en la charge qu’il possede, mais que pour luy il est si affectionné au service de son maitre et du bien de son pays, qu’il abandonneroit son propre frere s’il avoit malversé. Quelqu’uns, croyent que ceste sincerité n’est qu’en parolles, et qu’en effect il a fait son pouvoir pour le sauver, mais qu’il ne l’a peu, ce qui donne subject aux plusieurs autres considerations de continuer l’opinion que je vous ay mandée par quelques unes de mes depeches de la defaveur dudit M. de Boquinguam, laquelle est fondu sur des autres apparences, dont les unes sont entierement speculatives et par un rapport du present au passé, les autres plus apparentes, mais toutes incertaines.” — Tillières to Puysieux, April 22⁄May 2, Bibl. Nat. MSS. Harl. 223, 17, fol. 60.
[122] Bacon’s Works, ed. Montagu, xvi. note G. G. G.
[123] There has been considerable misunderstanding on this point, arising probably from a careless supposition that Bacon had been impeached by the Commons. This was not the case. No accusation had as yet been brought against him. The examination of witnesses was merely a preliminary investigation for the purpose of giving information to the Upper House. When the Lords had made up their minds to act upon it, then, and not till then, Bacon would be put on his trial, and would have a right to a copy of the charges.
[124] Lords’ Journals, iii. 75.
[125] Ibid.
[126] Elsing’s Notes, 9.
[127] Lords’ Journals, iii. 78, 179.
[128] Lords’ Journals, iii. 74.
[129] Bacon to the King, April 20, Letters and Life, vii. 240.
[130] Bacon to the King, April 21, Letters and Life, vii. 240.
[131] Bacon to the Lords, April 22, Lords’ Journals, iii. 84.
[132] Elsing’s Notes, 13.
[133] Lords’ Journals, iii. 85.
[134] Elsing’s Notes, 18.
[135] These are amongst the House of Lords’ MSS. and were published by me in the Archæologia, vol. xli.
[136] I adopt Bacon’s numbering in preference to that of the Lords.
[137] These were the gifts brought by Hody, Monk, Holman, Fisher, Scott, Lenthall, Wroth, Dunch, Ruswell, and Barker.
[138] The particulars of the case will be found in the Order Books, under the heading “Dominus St. John v. Englefield.” In Trin. T. and Mich. T. 1617, there are two Masters’ Reports headed “Viscount Montague v. Englefield.”
[139] Orders, Hansby v. Hansby, Order Book, 1616 A. fol. 1257, 1617 A. fol. 661, 965, 1051, 1228.
[140] Order, Peacock v. Reynell, June 27, 1614, Order Book, 1614 A. fol. 1308.
[141] Order, Reynell v. Peacock, Dec. 20, 1617, Order Book, 1617 A. fol. 389.
[142] Bacon’s confession, Lords’ Journals, iii. 98.
[143] The following verses are valuable as giving an idea of the mode in which Bacon’s case was regarded by a not unfavourable looker on:—
“Vicecomes Sanctus Albanus Cancellarius AnglicanusMiris dotibus imbutus, ingeniosus et acutus,Linguâ nemini secundus (ah! si esset manu mundus)Eloquens et literatus repetundarum accusatusAccusatus haud convictus (utinam haud rithmus fictus)Tanquam passer plumbo ictus est ægrotus, aut sic dictus,Morte precor moriatur reus antequam damnatur,Morte dico naturali (munus, non est pœna tali),Ab amico accusatus; miser tu, at es ingratus.Actæon tu propriis manibus, præda facta tuis canibusPereant canes hi latrantes te famamque vulnerantes.Tua sors est deploranda, quid si culpa perdonata,Fama est per orbem flata quod sigilla sunt sublata.Mali semel accusatus, etsi pœnâ liberatus,Manet malum et reatus, absit hic sit tuus status.Vive tu, si vitam cupis, vita cara ursis, lupis,Et si quid fecisti malè, redime et benè vale.”
S. P. Dom. cxx. 39.
[144] Elsing’s Notes, 41.
[145] Lords’ Journals, iii. 103–104.
[146] Elsing’s Notes.
[147] It will be seen that I have little sympathy with Lord Macaulay’s view of Bacon’s character. But there are wonderful flashes of common sense in his essay. For instance, when have the writers who believe in Bacon’s faultlessness, answered such an argument as this? — “It seems strange that Mr. Montagu should not perceive, that while attempting to vindicate Bacon’s reputation, he is really casting on it the foulest of all aspersions. He imputes to his idol a degree of meanness and depravity more loathsome than judicial corruption itself. A corrupt judge may have many good qualities. But a man who, to please a powerful patron, solemnly declares himself guilty of corruption when he knows himself to be innocent, must be a monster of servility and impudence.”