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Vol. V.

Parliam

p. 174.

cularly jealous of Sir Edward Coke, and represented Bacon, him as one who abounded in his own sense; one Letter who affected popularity, and likely to court the good cxxvII. will of the nation at the hazard of the prerogative. For himself, he placed his great merit in obedience and submission; in the interest he had among the Commons, and in being able to influence the lower house of parliament: a service which he magnifies as more important in a Chancellor, than to judge in equity between party and party. This opinion of his own popularity in the nation was not groundless. The parliament that met in 1614, though extremely Petyt's out of humour with the ministers in general, distin- Placita guished him by an uncommon mark of favour and confidence. An objection having been started in the house of commons, that a seat there was incompatible with the office of Attorney General, which required his frequent attendance in the upper house: the commons, from their particular regard for Sir Francis Bacon, and for that time only, overruled the objection; and he was accordingly allowed to take his place among them. If I observe farther, that the king raised him to the dignity of a privycounsellor while he was still in this very office, it will be instead of many instances to shew, with what an addressful prudence he steered his course betwixt the court and the nation. He was thus favoured by a prince, who exacted from all his servants an implicit submission to his maxims of government: he gave no umbrage to a parliament whom these maxims had rendered jealous of the prince, and of almost every man in his favour. But to return.

These insinuations had their desired effect. Upon An. 1617. the Chancellor's voluntary resignation of the seals, they were given to Sir Francis Bacon, with the title of lord Keeper, on the seventh of March 1617. To Bacon, what interest he more particularly owed this promotion we may learn from his letter of acknowledgement, written that very day, to the earl of Buckingham.

A few days after he had the seals delivered to him,

Vol. V.

Letter

CLXIX.

Bacon,
Vol. V.
Letter

CLXXV.

Rapin.

the king went a progress into Scotland, carrying with
him the favourite, who was likewise his prime mini-
ster for to him all business, public or private, was
addressed; and, according to his fancy, for the most
part determined. The great affair that employed the
deliberations of his council about this time, and had
a fatal influence on his conduct ever after, was the
marriage of prince Charles with the Infanta of Spain.
In this resolution, though contrary to all the rules of
good policy, he persisted for seven years together;
against his own interest, against the universal voice
of his people: only to procure the imaginary honour
of an alliance with a crowned head; for all other
alliances he thought below his dignity. Sir Francis
Bacon, who saw through the vanity and danger of
this intention, but who wanted resolution to be
greatly honest, contented himself with insinuating
softly, that it would be necessary to have the council
unanimous in their suffrage on the occasion, what-
ever might be their private sentiments. This hint
was not sufficient to open the king's eyes. On the
contrary, he run blindfold into the snare that Gun-
damor was spreading for him. That famous states-
man, as much by his buffooneries as by his talent for
intrigue, had gained an absolute ascendant over
James, leading him on from error to error: till in the
end he made him sacrifice his conscience to the pope,
and his honour to the resentments of Philip, in the
murder of his bravest subject Sir Walter Raleigh;
the last terror of Spain, and the only surviving favou-
rite of Queen Elizabeth. The Dutch too made ad-
vantage of the king's weakness and necessities.
the cautionary towns were still in the hands of the
English, the States were under some apprehensions
that the Spanish ministry might prevail upon James,
who could not possibly conceal his fondness for
the match in treaty, to put those important places
into their power.
They knew at the same time
that his treasury was exhausted, and that his courtiers
were insatiable. To bring their purpose about,
they ceased all at once to pay the English who

As

garrisoned those places, as by their treaties they were obliged to do. Complaint being made of this to the Dutch envoy at London, he insinuated, as from himself, to some of the ministers, that if king James would desire it of the States, they would, out of consideration for him, take up money at an exorbitant interest, and in one payment discharge the whole debt due to the crown of England. This stratagem took effect. James wrote to the States; and the matter was immediately put into negotiation. The pensionary Barnevelt, whom they sent over, conducted the affair with so much address, that the king agreed to deliver up the cautionary towns for less than three millions of florins, in lieu of eight millions they had engaged to pay Elizabeth, besides the interest that had been running on for eighteen years. Such are the events of this reign ; fit only to depress the writer, and distaste the reader.

During the king's absence in Scotland there happened an affair, otherwise of small importance, but as it lets us into the true genius of those times, and serves to shew in what miserable subjection the favourite held all those who were in public employments. He was upon the point of ruining Sir Francis Bacon, the person he had just contributed to raise, not for any error or negligence in their master's service, but merely for an opinion given in a thing that only regarded his own family. Indeed such was the levity, such the insolence of his power, that the capricious removal of men from their places, became the prime distinction of his thirteen years favour; which, as bishop Hacket observes, was like a sweeping flood, that at every spring-tide takes Life of from one land, to cast what it has taken upon ano- Abp. Williams, ther, The affair was this. The year before, my lord Part II. Coke had been removed from his place of Chief p. 19. Justice, and disgraced: the court having found him, in several instances, no friend to arbitrary will and pleasure, or to the prerogative, as it was called; but resolutely bent to maintain the integrity and honour of his post. One Peacham had been accused of in

Bacon
Vol. V.
Letter
CXII.

Bacon
Vol. V.
Letter

CXLV.

serting in a sermon several passages accounted treasonable, for it seems they reflected on the ministry; but in a sermon never preached, nor ever intended to be made public. The king, who was beyond measure jealous on this head, fearing the man might either be acquitted on his trial, or not condemned to a capital punishment, had ordered his attorney general Bacon to sound the judges before-hand, and gather their opinions secretly and apart. My lord Coke obstinately refused to declare his; looking on this auricular taking of opinions, for so he named it, as not according to the custom of the realm, but new, and of pernicious tendency. About the same time he had determined a cause at common law. The plaintiff, who thought himself injured, would not abide by his decision, but applied to chancery for CXXVIII, relief: where the defendant refused to appear, disclaiming the authority of that court: in which he was supported by the Chief Justice, who threatened the Chancellor with a premunire, grounded on a statute made 27th Edw. III. for thus invading the limits of his jurisdiction. The king, who thought his prerogative struck at anew in this attack on the court of his absolute power, as Bacon styles it, had the matter examined before the council; who condemned the Chief Justice for what he had done, and obliged him to make a submission on his knees. But what completed the distaste taken at him, was his behaviour in a cause of the bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, to whom the king had granted a vacant church in commendam. Serjeant Chiborne, who was counsel against the bishop, in arguing the case had maintained several positions, reckoned prejudicial and derogatory to the king's supreme and imperial power, which was affirmed to be distinct from, and of a higher nature than his ordinary authority. Informed of this, James, by his attorney general Bacon, ordered the judges to stay further proceedings in that business, till they had consulted with him. The judges assembled, and unanimously agreed, that they could not obey this order; that

Letter
CXLV,

CXLVIII.

the letter they had received was contrary to law; that by their oath and the duty of their places they were not to delay justice; that they had therefore proceeded in the cause at the time fixed: and of this they certified the king in a writing under all their hands. Upon this remonstrance, he writ them an angry letter, and peremptorily commanded them to stay all proceedings, till his return to London. They were then summoned before the council, and sharply reprimanded for suffering the popular lawyers to question his prerogative, which was represented as sacred and transcendent, not to be handled or mentioned in vulgar argument. At last raising his voice to frighten them into submission, he put this question to them severally: "If, at any time, in a case depending be"fore the judges, he conceived it to concern him "either in profit or power, and thereupon required to "consult with them, and that they should stay pro"ceedings in the mean time; whether they ought "not to stay them accordingly?" They all, the Chief Justice only excepted, acknowledged it their duty to do so. His answer deserves to be for ever remembered: "That when such a case happened, he Bacon "would do that which should be fit for a judge to "do."

Vol. V.

Letter

CXLVIII.

Yet this great lawyer, who had the honest courage to resist the king to his face, wanted that independence of mind which alone enables a man to bear solitude, and an acquaintance with himself. His disgrace, which reflected more honour on him than all his preferments, he was unable to support; and therefore he soon after sued to be reinstated in the king's favour. To recover it, he meanly enough courted the favourite with an offer, which he would not hear of when it was formerly made to him. While in power, he had refused to give his daughter Vol. V. in marriage to Sir John Villiers, not without marks CLXXX, of disrespect he now submissively intreated the CLXXXI; same person to honour him with his alliance: and employed Secretary Winwood to inform the carl of Buckingham of his extreme concern for what had

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