"To the Right Honourable the Lords of Parliament, Letter to in the Upper House assembled.

"The humble Submission and Supplication of the Lord Chancellor.

"It may please your Lordships,—I shall humbly crave at your lordships' hands a benign interpretation of that which I shall now write. For words that come from wasted spirits and an oppressed mind are more safe in being deposited in a noble construction, than in being circled with any reserved caution.

"This being moved, and, as I hope, obtained, in the nature of a protection to all that I shall say, I shall now make into the rest of that wherewith I shall at this time trouble your lordships a very strange entrance. For, in the midst of a state of as great affliction as I think a mortal man can endure (honour being above life), I shall begin with the professing of gladness in some things.

"The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, which (in few words) is the beginning of a golden world. The next, that, after this example, it is like that judges will fly from any thing that is in the likeness of corruption (though it were at a great distance) as from a serpent; which tendeth to the purging of the courts of justice, and the reducing them to their true honour and splendour. And in these two points, God is my witness, that, though it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these good effects are beaten and wrought, I take no small comfort.

"But, to pass 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

Lords.

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 faults in This is the only justification which I will use.

my bosom.'

"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. Neither will I trouble your lordships by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off,

Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una?

Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses; neither will I represent unto your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, extenuate the offence, in respect of the time or manner of the gift, or the like circumstances, but only leave these things to spring out of your own noble thoughts and observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, and charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge here and there, as God shall put into your mind, and so submit myself wholly to your piety and grace.

"And now that I have spoken to your lordships as judges, I shall say a few words to you as peers and prelates, humbly commending my cause to your noble minds and magnanimous affections.

"Your lordships are not simple judges, but parliamentary judges; you have a further extent of arbitrary power than other courts; and, if your lordships be not tied

by the ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of strictness and severity, much more in points of mercy and mitigation.

"And yet, if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honourable and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, I should not seek it. But herein I beseech your lordships to give me leave to tell you a story. Titus Manlius took his son's life for giving battle against the prohibition of his general; not many years after, the like severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor, the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to be sentenced, by the intercession of some principal persons of the senate, was spared; whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation: Neque minus firmata est disciplina militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserabili supplicio Titi Manlii. The discipline of war was no less established by the questioning of Quintus Maximus than by the punishment of Titus Manlius: and the same reason is of the reformation of justice; for the questioning of men of eminent place hath the same terror, though not the same rigour with the punishment.

"But my case standeth not there. For my humble desire is, that his majesty would take the seal into his hands, which is a great downfall; and may serve, I hope, in itself for an expiation of my faults. Therefore, if mercy and mitigation be in your power, and do no ways cross your ends, why should I not hope of your lordships' favour and commiseration?

"Your lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern, the King our sovereign, a king of incomparable clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for wisdom and goodness. Your lordships will remember that there sat not these hundred years before a prince in your house, and never such a prince whose presence deserveth to be made

memorable by records and acts mixed of mercy and justice; yourselves are either nobles (and compassion ever beateth in the veins of noble blood) or reverend prelates, who are the servants of Him that would not break the bruised reed, nor quench smoking flax. You all sit upon one high stage; and therefore cannot but be more sensible of the changes of the world, and of the fall of any of high place. Neither will your lordships forget that there are vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis, and that the beginning of reformations hath the contrary power of the pool of Bethesda; for that had strength to cure only him that was first cast in, and this hath commonly strength to hurt him only that is first cast in; and for my part, I wish it may stay there, and go no further.

"Lastly, I assure myself your lordships have a noble feeling of me, as a member of your own body, and one that, in this very session, had some taste of your loving affections, which, I hope, was not a lightening before the death of them, but rather a spark of that grace, which now in the conclusion will more appear.

"And therefore my humble suit to your 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. Your Lordships' humble servant and suppliant, FR. ST. ALBAN, Canc."

April 22, 1621.

Although the King and Buckingham hoped that this general submission would be satisfactory, the agitation was too great to be thus easily quieted. It was, after deliberation, resolved that the Lord Chancellor's submission gave not satisfaction to their lordships, for that his lordship's

confession therein was not fully nor particularly set down, and for many other exceptions against the submission itself, the same in sort extenuating his confession, and his lordship seeming to prescribe the sentence to be given against him by the house.

Their lordships resolved, that the Lord Chancellor should be charged particularly with the briberies and corruptions complained of against him, and that his lordship should make a particular answer thereunto. It was, therefore, ordered that the particulars of the charge be sent to the Lord Chancellor, and that the lords do expect his answer to the same with all convenient expedition. They were sent accordingly. (a)

(a) They are subjoined. They are twenty-three in number, expanded by the Chancellor to twenty-eight.

1. In the cause between Sir Rowland Egerton, knt. and Edward Egerton, the Lord Chancellor received five hundred pounds, on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he decreed the same; proved by the depositions of Sir Rowland Egerton: of John Brooke, who deposeth to the próviding of the money, of purpose to be given to the Lord Chancellor, and that the same is delivered to Mr. Thelwall, to deliver to the Lord Chancellor: of Bevis Thelwall, who delivered the five hundred pounds to the Lord Chancellor.

He received from Edward Egerton, in the said cause, four hundred pounds; proved by the depositions of Sir Richard Young, knight, Sir George Hastings, knight, Rolphe Merefeild, and Tristram Woodward.

2. In the cause between Hody and Hody, he received a dozen of buttons, of the value of fifty pounds, a fortnight after the cause was ended; proved by the depositions of Sir Thomas Perient, knight, and John Churchill, who speaks of a greater value, by the report of Hody.

3. In the cause between the Lady Wharton and the coheirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, he received of the Lady