Bacon — 10 - Chapter 5B

But the serious thing is that Bacon subjected himself to two of the most dangerous influences which can act on the mind of a judge--the influence of the most powerful and most formidable man in England, and the influence of presents, in money and other gifts.

From first to last he allowed Buckingham, whom no man, as Bacon soon found, could displease except at his own peril, to write letters to him on behalf of suitors whose causes were before him; and he allowed suitors, not often while the cause was pending, but sometimes even then, to send him directly, or through his servants, large sums of money.

Both these things are explained.

It would have been characteristic of Bacon to be confident that he could defy temptation: these habits were the fashion of the time, and everybody took them for granted; Buckingham never asked his good offices beyond what Bacon thought just and right, and asked them rather for the sake of expedition than to influence his judgment.

And as to the money presents--every office was underpaid; this was the common way of acknowledging pains and trouble: it was analogous to a doctor's or a lawyer's fee now.

And there is no proof that either influence ever led Bacon to do wrong.

This has been said, and said with some degree of force.

But if it shows that Bacon was not in this matter below his age, it shows that he was not above it.

No one knew better than Bacon that there were no more certain dangers to honesty and justice than the interference and solicitation of the great, and the old famous pest of bribes, of which all histories and laws were full.

And yet on the highest seat of justice in the realm he, the great reformer of its abuses, allowed them to make their customary haunt.

He did not mean to do wrong: his conscience was clear; he had not given thought to the mischief they must do, sooner or later, to all concerned with the Court of Chancery.

With a magnificent carelessness he could afford to run safely a course closely bordering on crime, in which meaner men would sin and be ruined.

Before six months were over Bacon found on what terms he must stand with Buckingham.

By a strange fatality, quite unintentionally, he became dragged into the thick of the scandalous and grotesque dissensions of the Coke family.

The Court was away from London in the North; and Coke had been trying, not without hope of success, to recover the King's favour.

Coke was a rich man, and Lady Compton, the mother of the Villiers, thought that Coke's daughter would be a good match for one of her younger sons.

It was really a great chance for Coke; but he haggled about the portion; and the opportunity, which might perhaps have led to his taking Bacon's place, passed.

But he found himself in trouble in other ways; his friends, especially Secretary Winwood, contrived to bring the matter on again, and he consented to the Villiers's terms.

But his wife, the young lady's mother, Lady Hatton, would not hear of it, and a furious quarrel followed.

She carried off her daughter into the country.

Coke, with a warrant from Secretary Winwood, which Bacon had refused to give him, pursued her: "with his son, 'Fighting Clem,' and ten or eleven servants, weaponed, in a violent manner he repaired to the house where she was remaining, and with a piece of timber or form broke open the door and dragged her along to his coach."

Lady Hatton rushed off the same afternoon for help to Bacon.

After an overturn by the way, "at last to my Lord Keeper's they come, but could not have instant access to him, for that his people told them he was laid at rest, being not well.

Then my La.

Hatton desired she might be in the next room where my Lord lay, that she might be the first that [should] speak with him after he was stirring.

The door-keeper fulfilled her desire, and in the meantime gave her a chair to rest herself in, and there left her alone; but not long after, she rose up and bounced against my Lord Keeper's door, and waked him and affrighted him, that he called his men to him; and they opening the door, she thrust in with them, and desired his Lp.

to pardon her boldness, but she was like a cow that had lost her calf, and so justified [herself] and pacified my Lord's anger, and got his warrant and my Lo.

Treasurer's warrant and others of the Council to fetch her daughter from the father and bring them both to the Council."

It was a chance that the late Chief-Justice and his wife, with their armed parties, did not meet on the road, in which case "there were like to be strange tragedies."

At length the Council compelled both sides to keep the peace, and the young lady was taken for the present out of the hands of her raging parents.

Bacon had assumed that the affair was the result of an intrigue between Winwood and Coke, and that the Court would take part against Coke, a man so deep in disgrace and so outrageously violent.

Supposing that he had the ear of Buckingham, he wrote earnestly, persuading him to put an end to the business; and in the meantime the Council ordered Coke to be brought before the Star Chamber "for riot and force," to "be heard and sentenced as justice shall appertain."

They had not the slightest doubt that they were doing what would please the King.

A few days after they met, and then they learned the truth.

"Coke and his friends," writes Chamberlain, "complain of hard measure from some of the greatest at that board, and that he was too much trampled upon with ill language.

And our friend [_i.

e. _ Winwood] passed out scot free for the warrant, which the greatest [_word illegible_] there said was subject to a _præmunire_; and withal told the Lady Compton that they wished well to her and her sons, and would be ready to serve the Earl of Buckingham with all true affection, whereas others did it out of faction and ambition--which words glancing directly at our good friend (Winwood), he was driven to make his apology, and to show how it was put upon him from time to time by the Queen and other parties;

and, for conclusion, showed a letter of approbation of all his courses from the King, making the whole table judge what faction and ambition appeared in this carriage.

_Ad quod non fuit responsum.

_" None indeed, but blank faces, and thoughts of what might come next.

The Council, and Bacon foremost, had made a desperate mistake.

"It is evident," as Mr. Spedding says, "that he had not divined Buckingham's feelings on the subject."

He was now to learn them.

To his utter amazement and alarm he found that the King was strong for the match, and that the proceeding of the Council was condemned at Court as gross misconduct.

In vain he protested that he was quite willing to forward the match; that in fact he had helped it.

Bacon's explanations, and his warnings against Coke the King "rejected with some disdain;" he justified Coke's action; he charged Bacon with disrespect and ingratitude to Buckingham; he put aside his arguments and apologies as worthless or insincere.

Such reprimands had not often been addressed, even to inferior servants.

Bacon's letters to Buckingham remained at first without notice; when Buckingham answered he did so with scornful and menacing curtness.

Meanwhile Bacon heard from Yelverton how things were going at Court.

"Sir E. Coke," he wrote, "hath not forborne by any engine to heave at both your Honour and myself, and he works the weightiest instrument, the Earl of Buckingham, who, as I see, sets him as close to him as his shirt, the Earl speaking in Sir Edward's phrase, and as it were menacing in his spirit."

Buckingham, he went on to say, "did nobly and plainly tell me he would not secretly bite, but whosoever had had any interest, or tasted of the opposition to his brother's marriage, he would as openly oppose them to their faces, and they should discern what favour he had by the power he would use."

The Court, like a pack of dogs, had set upon Bacon.

"It is too common in every man's mouth in Court that your greatness shall be abated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor unto some, so shall theirs be to you."

Buckingham said to every one that Bacon had been forgetful of his kindness and unfaithful to him: "not forbearing in open speech to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you, to be unfaithful unto him, as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset."

All this while Bacon had been clearly in the right.

He had thrust himself into no business that did not concern him.

He had not, as Buckingham accuses him of having done, "overtroubled" himself with the marriage.

He had done his simple duty as a friend, as a councillor, as a judge.

He had been honestly zealous for the Villiers's honour, and warned Buckingham of things that were beyond question.

He had curbed Coke's scandalous violence, perhaps with no great regret, but with manifest reason.

But for this he was now on the very edge of losing his office; it was clear to him, as it is clear to us, that nothing could save him but absolute submission.

He accepted the condition.

How this submission was made and received, and with what gratitude he found that he was forgiven, may be seen in the two following letters.

Buckingham thus extends his grace to the Lord Keeper, and exhorts him to better behaviour: "But his Majesty's direction in answer of your letter hath given me occasion to join hereunto a discovery unto you of mine inward thoughts, proceeding upon the discourse you had with me this day.

For I do freely confess that your offer of submission unto me, and in writing (if so I would have it), battered so the unkindness that I had conceived in my heart for your behaviour towards me in my absence, as out of the sparks of my old affection towards you I went to sound his Majesty's intention how he means to behave himself towards you, specially in any public meeting; where I found on the one part his Majesty so little satisfied with your late answer unto him, which he counted (for I protest I use his own terms) _confused and childish_, and his vigorous resolution on the other part so fixed, that he would put some public exemplary mark upon you, as I protest the sight of his deep-conceived indignation quenched my passion, making me upon the instant change from the person of a party into a peace-maker; so as I was forced upon my knees to beg of his Majesty that he would put no public act of disgrace upon you, and, as I dare say, no other person would have been patiently heard in this suit by his Majesty but myself, so did I (though not without difficulty) obtain thus much--that he would not so far disable you from the merit of your future service as to put any particular mark of disgrace upon your person.

Only thus far his Majesty protesteth, that upon the conscience of his office he cannot omit (though laying aside all passion) to give a kingly reprimand at his first sitting in council to so many of his councillors as were then here behind, and were actors in this business, for their ill behaviour in it.

Some of the particular errors committed in this business he will name, but without accusing any particular persons by name.

"Thus your Lordship seeth the fruits of my natural inclination; and I protest all this time past it was no small grief unto me to hear the mouth of so many upon this occasion open to load you with innumerable malicious and detracting speeches, as if no music were more pleasing to my ears than to rail of you, which made me rather regret the ill nature of mankind, that like dogs love to set upon him that they see once snatched at.

And to conclude, my Lord, you have hereby a fair occasion so to make good hereafter your reputation by your sincere service to his Majesty, as also by your firm and constant kindness to your friends, as I may (your Lordship's old friend) participate of the comfort and honour that will thereby come to you.

Thus I rest at last "Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, "G. B."

"MY EVER BEST LORD, now better than yourself,--Your Lordship's pen, or rather pencil, hath pourtrayed towards me such magnanimity and nobleness and true kindness, as methinketh I see the image of some ancient virtue, and not anything of these times.

It is the line of my life, and not the lines of my letter, that must express my thankfulness; wherein if I fail, then God fail me, and make me as miserable as I think myself at this time happy by this reviver, through his Majesty's singular clemency, and your incomparable love and favour.

God preserve you, prosper you, and reward you for your kindness to "Your raised and infinitely obliged friend and servant, "Sept.

22, 1617. FR.

BACON, C.

S."

Thus he had tried his strength with Buckingham.

He had found that this, "a little parent-like" manner of advising him, and the doctrine that a true friend "ought rather to go against his mind than his good," was not what Buckingham expected from him.

And he never ventured on it again.

It is not too much to say that a man who could write as he now did to Buckingham, could not trust himself in any matter in which Buckingham, was interested.

But the reconciliation was complete, and Bacon took his place more and more as one of the chief persons in the Government.

James claimed so much to have his own way, and had so little scruple in putting aside, in his superior wisdom, sometimes very curtly, Bacon's or any other person's recommendations, that though his services were great, and were not unrecognised, he never had the power and influence in affairs to which his boundless devotion to the Crown, his grasp of business, and his willing industry, ought to have entitled him.

He was still a servant, and made to feel it, though a servant in the "first form."

It was James and Buckingham who determined the policy of the country, or settled the course to be taken in particular transactions; when this was settled, it was Bacon's business to carry it through successfully.

In this he was like all the other servants of the Crown, and like them he was satisfied with giving his advice, whether it were taken or not; but unlike many of them he was zealous in executing with the utmost vigour and skill the instructions which were given him.

Thus he was required to find the legal means for punishing Raleigh; and, as a matter of duty, he found them.

He was required to tell the Government side of the story of Raleigh's crimes and punishment--which really was one side of the story, only not by any means the whole; and he told it, as he had told the Government story against Essex, with force, moderation, and good sense.

Himself, he never would have made James's miserable blunders about Raleigh; but the blunders being made, it was his business to do his best to help the King out of them.

When Suffolk, the Lord Treasurer, was disgraced and brought before the Star Chamber for corruption and embezzlement in his office, Bacon thought that he was doing no more than his duty in keeping Buckingham informed day by day how the trial was going on; how he had taken care that Suffolk's submission should not stop it--"for all would be but a play on the stage if justice went not on in the right course;" how he had taken care that the evidence went well--"I will not say I sometime holp it, as far as was fit for a judge;" how, "a little to warm the business" ...

"I spake a word, that he that did draw or milk treasure from Ireland, did not, _emulgere_, milk money, but blood."

This, and other "little things" like it, while he was sitting as a judge to try, if the word may be used, a personal enemy of Buckingham, however bad the case might be against Suffolk, sound strange indeed to us; and not less so when, in reporting the sentence and the various opinions of the Council about it, he, for once, praises Coke for the extravagance of his severity: "Sir Edward Coke did his part--I have not heard him do better--and began with a fine of £100,000; but the judges first, and most of the rest, reduced it to £30,000. I do not dislike that thing passed moderately; and all things considered, it is not amiss, and might easily have been worse."

In all this, which would have been perfectly natural from an Attorney-General of the time, Bacon saw but his duty, even as a judge between the Crown and the subject.

It was what was expected of those whom the King chose to employ, and whom Buckingham chose to favour.

But a worse and more cruel case, illustrating the system which a man like Bacon could think reasonable and honourable, was the disgrace and punishment of Yelverton, the Attorney-General, the man who had stood by Bacon, and in his defence had faced Buckingham, knowing well Buckingham's dislike of himself, when all the Court turned against Bacon in his quarrel with Coke and Lady Compton.

Towards the end of the year 1620, on the eve of a probable meeting of Parliament, there was great questioning about what was to be done about certain patents and monopolies--monopolies for making gold and silk thread, and for licensing inns and ale-houses--which were in the hands of Buckingham's brothers and their agents.

The monopolies were very unpopular; there was always doubt as to their legality; they were enforced oppressively and vexatiously by men like Michell and Mompesson, who acted for the Villiers; and the profits of them went, for the most part, not into the Exchequer, but into the pockets of the hangers-on of Buckingham.

Bacon defended them both in law and policy, and his defence is thought by Mr. Gardiner to be not without grounds; but he saw the danger of obstinacy in maintaining what had become so hateful in the country, and strongly recommended that the more indefensible and unpopular patents should be spontaneously given up, the more so as they were of "no great fruit."

But Buckingham's insolent perversity "refused to be convinced."

The Council, when the question was before them, decided to maintain them.

Bacon, who had rightly voted in the minority, thus explains his own vote to Buckingham: "The King did wisely put it upon and consult, whether the patents were at this time to be removed by Act of Council before Parliament.

_I opined (but yet somewhat like Ovid's mistress, that strove, but yet as one that would be overcome), that yes!

_" But in the various disputes which had arisen about them, Yelverton had shown that he very much disliked the business of defending monopolies, and sending London citizens to jail for infringing them.

He did it, but he did it grudgingly.

It was a great offence in a man whom Buckingham had always disliked; and it is impossible to doubt that what followed was the consequence of his displeasure.

"In drawing up a new charter for the city of London," writes Mr. Gardiner, "Yelverton inserted clauses for which he was unable to produce a warrant.

The worst that could be said was that he had, through inadvertence, misunderstood the verbal directions of the King.

Although no imputation of corruption was brought against him, yet he was suspended from his office, and prosecuted in the Star Chamber.

He was then sentenced to dismissal from his post, to a fine of £4000, and to imprisonment during the Royal pleasure."

In the management of this business Bacon had the chief part.

Yelverton, on his suspension, at once submitted.

The obnoxious clauses are not said to have been of serious importance, but they were new clauses which the King had not sanctioned, and it would be a bad precedent to pass over such unauthorised additions even by an Attorney-General.

"I mistook many things," said Yelverton afterwards, in words which come back into our minds at a later period, "I was improvident in some things, and too credulous in all things."

It might have seemed that dismissal, if not a severe reprimand, was punishment enough.

But the submission was not enough, in Bacon's opinion, "for the King's honour."

He dwelt on the greatness of the offence, and the necessity of making a severe example.

According to his advice, Yelverton was prosecuted in the Star Chamber.

It was not merely a mistake of judgment.

"Herein," said Bacon, "I note the wisdom of the law of England, which termeth the highest contempt and excesses of authority _Misprisions_; which (if you take the sound and derivation of the word) is but _mistaken_; but if you take the use and acception of the word, it is high and heinous contempt and usurpation of authority; whereof the reason I take to be and the name excellently imposed, for that main mistaking, it is ever joined with contempt; for he that reveres will not easily mistake; but he that slights, and thinks more of the greatness of his place than of the duty of his place, will soon commit misprisions."

The day would come when this doctrine would be pressed with ruinous effect against Bacon himself.

But now he expounded with admirable clearness the wrongness of carelessness about warrants and of taking things for granted.

He acquitted his former colleague of "corruption of reward;" but "in truth that makes the offence rather divers than less;" for some offences "are black, and others scarlet, some sordid, some presumptuous."

He pronounced his sentence--the fine, the imprisonment; "for his place, I declare him unfit for it."

"And the next day," says Mr. Spedding, "he reported to Buckingham the result of the proceeding," and takes no small credit for his own part in it.

It was thus that the Court used Bacon, and that Bacon submitted to be used.

He could have done, if he had been listened to, much nobler service.

He had from the first seen, and urged as far as he could, the paramount necessity of retrenchment in the King's profligate expenditure.

Even Buckingham had come to feel the necessity of it at last; and now that Bacon filled a seat at the Council, and that the prosecution of Suffolk and an inquiry into the abuses of the Navy had forced on those in power the urgency of economy, there was a chance of something being done to bring order into the confusion of the finances.

Retrenchment began at the King's kitchen and the tables of his servants;

an effort was made, not unsuccessfully, to extend it wider, under the direction of Lionel Cranfield, a self-made man of business from the city; but with such a Court the task was an impossible one.

It was not Bacon's fault, though he sadly mismanaged his own private affairs, that the King's expenditure was not managed soberly and wisely.

Nor was it Bacon's fault, as far as advice went, that James was always trying either to evade or to outwit a Parliament which he could not, like the Tudors, overawe.

Bacon's uniform counsel had been--Look on a Parliament as a certain necessity, but not only as a necessity, as also a unique and most precious means for uniting the Crown with the nation, and proving to the world outside how Englishmen love and honour their King, and their King trusts his subjects.

Deal with it frankly and nobly as becomes a king, not suspiciously like a huckster in a bargain.

Do not be afraid of Parliament.

Be skilful in calling it, but don't attempt to "pack" it.

Use all due adroitness and knowledge of human nature, and necessary firmness and majesty, in managing it; keep unruly and mischievous people in their place, but do not be too anxious to meddle--"let nature work;" and above all, though of course you want money from it, do not let that appear as the chief or real cause of calling it.

Take the lead in legislation.

Be ready with some interesting or imposing points of reform, or policy, about which you ask your Parliament to take counsel with you.

Take care to "frame and have ready some commonwealth bills, that may add respect to the King's government and acknowledgment of his care; not _wooing_ bills to make the King and his graces cheap, but good matter to set the Parliament on work, that an empty stomach do not feed on humour."

So from the first had Bacon always thought; so he thought when he watched, as a spectator, James's blunders with his first Parliament of 1604; so had he earnestly counselled James, when admitted to his confidence, as to the Parliaments of 1614 and 1615;

so again, but in vain, as Chancellor, he advised him to meet the Parliament of 1620. It was wise, and from his point of view honest advice, though there runs all through it too much reliance on appearances which were not all that they seemed; there was too much thought of throwing dust in the eyes of troublesome and inconvenient people.

But whatever motives there might have been behind, it would have been well if James had learned from Bacon how to deal with Englishmen.

But he could not.

"I wonder," said James one day to Gondomar, "that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution as the House of Commons to have come into existence.

I am a stranger, and found it here when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of."

James was the only one of our many foreign kings who, to the last, struggled to avoid submitting himself to the conditions of an English throne.

CHAPTER VI.