King and your lordship will I hope put an end to these my straits one way or other."-And in a subsequent letter he said, "I perceive, by some speech that passed between your lordship and Mr. Meautys, that some wretched\ detractor hath told you, that it were strange I should be in debt; for that I could not but have received an hundred thousand pound gifts since I had the seal, which is an abominable falsehood. Such tales as these made St. James say, that the tongue is a fire, and itself fired from hell, whither when these tongues shall return, they will beg a drop of water to cool them. I praise God for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living; I never took penny for releasing any thing I stopped at the seal; I never took penny for any commission, or things of that nature; I never shared with any servant for any second or inferior profit." About the same period he thus wrote to the King, in a letter which he entrusted to the discretion of Buckingham to withhold or deliver: (a) It may please your most excellent Majesty,-Time hath been, when I have brought unto you "Gemitum Columbæ" from others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your majesty with the wings of a dove, which, once within these lordship's last and highest step of preferment in his profession, which was the custody of the great seal of England. And for conformity of language I call this a preferment, but in truth (and as his lordship understood) it was the decadence of all the joy and comfort of his life; and instead of a felicity, as common reputed, it was a disease like a consumption, which rendered him heartless and dispirited." See ante, p. cxcii. (a) My very good Lord,-Yesterday I know was no day; now I hope I shall hear from your lordship, who art my anchor in these floods. Meanwhile to ease my heart, I have written to his majesty the inclosed; which I pray your lordship to read advisedly, and to deliver it, or not to deliver it, as you think good. God ever prosper your lordship. March 25, 1621. Yours ever what I can, FR. ST. ALBAN, Canc. seven days, I thought would have carried me a higher flight. When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is come upon me. I have been (as your majesty knoweth best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things carried "suavibus modis." I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man in my conversation or carriage: I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should this be; for these are the things that use to raise dislikes abroad. For the House of Commons, I began my credit there, and now it must be the place of the sepulture thereof. And yet this parliament, upon the message touching religion, the old love revived, and they said, I was the same man still, only honesty was turned into honour. For the upper house, even within these days, before these troubles, they seemed as to take me into their arms, finding in me ingenuity, which they took to be the true straight line of nobleness without crooks or angles. And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books 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; howsoever 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 that my heart speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or ingenuous confessing; praying God to give me the grace to see to the bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of heart do steal upon me, under shew of more neatness of conscience, than is cause. But not to trouble your majesty any longer, craving pardon for this long mourning letter, that which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I may know, by my matchless friend that presenteth to you this letter, your majesty's heart (which is an abyssus of goodness, as I am an abyssus of misery) towards me. I have been ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, the property being yours. And now making myself an oblation, to do with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as clay in your majesty's gracious hands, FR. ST. ALBAN, Canc. March 25, 1620. To the preparation of his defence he now proceeded—a preparation which could scarcely to any advocate have been attended with difficulty, whether considering the general nature of the complaints, or the weight due to each particular charge. There are circumstances attending these accusations, by which at this time the judgment may be warped, that did not exist two centuries since. We may be misled by transferring the opinions of the present to past times, and Transfer to by supposing that the accusations were preferred by some past times. or all of the suitors whose names are mentioned, and on whose behalf the presents were offered after the termination of their causes; but it was then well known, that these suitors reluctantly attended in obedience to the summons obtained in consequence of the petitions presented by the two discontented persons against whom the Chancellor had decided, notwithstanding their supposition that his judgment was to be purchased. It could not have escaped the notice of any advocate Presents by men of that the presents were made on behalf of the suitors, by eminence. furniture. men of character, counsellors, and members of parliament, Sir George Hastings, Sir Richard Young, Sir Henry Holmes, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Thelwall, Mr. Toby Matthew, and Sir Thomas Perrott; and that they were made openly, with the greatest publicity, both from the nature of the presents themselves, and from the manner in which they were presented; so openly, (a) that even Sir Edward Coke admitted the fact, that they were delivered in the presence of witnesses; (b) and the Chancellor, in answer to the 21st charge, that, "upon a dispute between three public companies of the Apothecaries and Grocers, he had received presents from each of the companies," instantly said, "Could I have taken these presents in the nature of a bribe, when I knew it could not be concealed, because it must needs be put to the account of the three several companies, each of whom was jealous of the other?" Presents of Who can suppose that, if secrecy had been the object, presents of articles constantly in sight would have been selected, gold buttons, tasters of gold, ambergrease, cabinets, and suits of hangings for furniture; they were made, as was notorious, according to the established custom, in this, and in all countries, a custom which, as the Chancellor L'Hopital endeavoured to abolish in France, (c) the Chancellor Bacon would most gladly have abolished in England, and demanded from the country a proper remuneration for the arduous labours of his high office. Presents No man felt more deeply the evils which then existed, customary of the interference by the crown and by statesmen to influence judges. How beautifully did he admonish Buckingham, regardless as he proved of all admonition, (a) See the Whitelocke MSS. as to presents. (c) Ante, p. ccvi. "By no means be you persuaded to interpose yourself, either by word or letter, in any cause depending, or like to be depending, in any court of justice, nor suffer any other great man to do it where you can hinder it, and by all means dissuade the King himself from it upon the importunity of any for themselves or their friends. If it should prevail it perverts justice, but if the judge be so just and of such courage, as he ought to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of suspicion behind it ; judges must be chaste as Cæsar's wife, neither to be, nor to be suspected to be unjust: and, Sir, the honour of the judges in their judicature is the King's honour, whose person they represent.” (a) Thus did he raise his voice in opposition to an inveterate practice. The first mode of correcting error, whether in individuals or in the community, is by proclaiming its existence; the next is, when ripe for action, by acting. ence on That the presents influenced the judgment of the No influChancellor was never for a moment supposed by any man. judgment. Fourteen out of the twenty-two charges related to presents made long after the causes were terminated, and the complaints of his accusers were, not that the gratuities had, but that they had not influenced his judgment, as he had decided against them. Such topics would have occurred to any advocate. With what force would they have been urged by the Chancellor ? In his Novum Organum, which he had published in the previous year, he had warned society, that "at the entrance of every inquiry our first duty is to eradicate any idol by which the judgment may be warped; as the kingdom of man can be entered only as the kingdom of God, in the simplicity of little children." How powerfully, then, would (a) Ante, p. 176. |