A.D. 1617. DINNER TO THE JUDGES. 85 To gain the good will of the profession, he wisely revived a practice which, having succeeded well with Lord Chancellor Hatton, had fallen into desuetude, and which all prudent Chancellors follow,-to give dinners to the Judges and the leaders of the bar." He sends the following account in a letter to Buckingham of his first banquet: 66 Yesterday, which was my weary day, I bid all the Judges to dinner, which was not used to be, and entertained them in a private withdrawing chamber with the learned counsel. When the feast was past, I came amongst them and sat me down at the end of the table, and prayed them to think I was one of them and but a foreman. I told them I was weary, and therefore must be short, and would now speak to them upon two points." The first was about injunctions :—“I plainly told them that, for my part, as I would not suffer any the least diminution or derogation from the ancient and due power of the Chancery, so if anything should be brought to them at any time touching the proceedings of the Chancery, which did seem to them exorbitant or inordinate, that they should freely and friendly acquaint me with it, and we should soon agree; or if not, we had a Master that could easily both discern and rule. At which speech of mine, besides a great deal of thanks and acknowledgment, I did see cheer and comfort in their faces, as if it were a new world." The second point was, requiring from each of them a written account of what they had done and observed on circuits, to be sent to the King. What was not so laudable,-he already began to tamper privately with the Judges, and soliciting such of them as were was occupied by almost all the holders of the Great Seal who succeeded him down to Lord Bacon. The hall was fitted as a court for business in the afternoons and out of term, and it contained various accommodations for the Chancellor's officers. Coming by exchange to the Crown after the fall of Bacon, it was granted to Buckingham. Being seized as forfeited by the Long Parliament, it was granted to Lord Fairfax,-but reverting to the second Duke of Buckingham, he sold it for building, and there were erected upon it "George Street," "Villiers Street," "Duke Street," and "Buckingham Street," which, with "Of Alley," still preserve his name and title, the lines of Pope being a lasting record of his infamy. were much aggravated by his non-feazance in this respect. During a course of professional dinners by Sir Thomas Plomer, Romilly observed, that "the Master of the Rolls was very properly clearing off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor." x I do not exactly understand how my Lord Keeper Bacon comported himself on this occasion. Are we to understand that he could not be at table during dinner from indisposition? or that he was too great to eat with his company, and condescendingly asked them to "think he was one of them," when he came in to harangue them? Whoever has had the good fortune to be present when Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst presides at similar dinners will form a better opinion of u The complaints of Lord Eldon's delays, the manners of the man and the times. most apt for his purpose, prosecuted a scheme for extending still farther the usurped jurisdiction of the High Commission Court. He continued regularly to correspond on all matters of State with the King and Buckingham, who were holding a parliament in Scotland, in the vain hope of establishing episcopacy in that country. Having at first ventured to oppose the projected matrimonial alliance between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain, he yielded to the King's wishes, and did all in his power to promote it. He was thus in the highest possible favour, when suddenly his inextinguishable enmity to Sir E. Coke had nearly accomplished his ruin. Not satisfied with turning him out of his office of Chief Justice, and erasing his name from the list of Privy Councillors, Bacon still went on with the absurd charge against him about his Reports, and hoped to "make a Star Chamber business of it." y The Ex-Chief Justice counteracted this scheme by a most masterly stroke of policy. His second wife, Lady Hatton, had brought him one child, a daughter, who was to succeed to all her mother's immense property. This heiress he offered in marriage to Sir John Villiers, the brother of the favourite, who was eager for the aggrandisement of his family. The proposal was highly agreeable to both brothers and their mother who ruled them, but most highly alarming to Bacon. He was delighted to hear that Lady Hatton disliked the match as much as himself, and forgetting the scornful usage he had experienced from her in former days, when he sought her hand in marriage, he opened a correspondence with her, and strenuously abetted her resistance. Without duly considering what were likely to be the feelings of Buckingham on the occasion, he wrote to him,-"The mother's consent is not had, nor the young gentlewoman's, who expecteth a great fortune from her mother, which, without her consent, is endangered. This match, out of my faith and freedom towards your Lordship, I hold very inconvenient both for brother and yourself. First, he shall marry into a disgraced house, which in reason of state is never held good. Next, he shall marry into a troubled house of man and wife, which in religion and Christian discretion is disliked. Thirdly, your Lordship will go your y "I did call upon the committees also for seriously."-Bacon to Buckingham, May, the proceeding in their purging of Sir Edward Coke's Reports, which I see they go on with 1617. A.D. 1617. PROSECUTES COKE IN STAR CHAMBER. 87 near to lose all such your friends as are adverse to Sir Edward Coke, myself only except, who out of a pure love and thankfulness shall ever be firm to you. And, lastly and chiefly, it will greatly weaken and distract the King's service." He therefore strongly advises that the match shall be broken off, or not proceeded in without the consent of both parents, required by religion and the law of God." 66 66 Bacon wrote still more strongly to the King, pointing out the public mischief which would arise from the notion that Coke was about to be restored to favour. "Now, then, I reasonably doubt that, if there be but an opinion of his coming in with the strength of such an alliance, it will give a turn and relapse in men's minds into the former state of things hardly to be holpen, to the great weakening of your Majesty's service." Having dwelt upon the dangerous influence which Coke might thus acquire if a parliament were called, he contrasts himself with the dangerous rival-whose coming patriotism seems to have cast its shadow before: I am omnibus omnia for your Majesty's service; but he is by nature unsociable, and by habit popular, and too old now to take a new ply, And men begin already to collect, yea, and to conclude, that he that raiseth such a smoke to get in, will set all on fire when he is in." a Bacon's head was so turned by his eleva tion, that in this letter he madly went so far as to throw out some sarcasms upon the favourite himself. To him, as might have been expected, it was immediately communicated. Buckingham was thrown into an ecstacy of rage, and he easily contrived to make the King, if possible, more indignant at the presumption and impertinence of the Lord Keeper. Meanwhile the plot thickened in England. Lady Hatton, with the concurrence of her present adviser, carried off her daughter, and concealed her in a country house near Hampton Court. The Ex-Chief Justice, tracing the young lady to her hiding-place, demanded a warrant from the Lord Keeper to recover her, and this being refused, he went thither at the head of a band of armed men and forcibly rescued her. For this alleged outrage he was summoned, and several times examined before the Council,-and, by the Lord Keeper's directions, Yelverton, the Attorney-General, filed an information against him in the Star Chamber. Intelligence of these events being brought to Edinburgh, b the King and Buckingham put an end to the sullen silence they had for some time observed towards the Lord Keeper, and wrote him letters filled with bitter complaints, invectives, and threats. Bacon suddenly awoke as from a dream, and all at once saw his imprudence and his danger. In an agony of terror, he ordered the Attorney-General to discontinue the prosecution in the Star Chamber; he sent for Lady Hatton, and tried to reconcile her to the match, and he made the most abject submissions to Buckingham's mother, who had complained of having been insulted by him. He then sent despatches by a special messenger to Edinburgh to relate his altered conduct. 66 There never was a more striking instance of "kissing the rod" than is exhibited in his answer to the King. "I do very much thank your Majesty for your letter, and I think myself much honoured by it. For though it contain some matter of dislike, in which respect it hath grieved me more than any event which hath fallen out in my life, yet I know reprehensions from the first masters to the best servants are necessary, and chastisement, though not pleasant for the time, worketh good effects." But the great difficulty was to explain away the disparaging expressions he had so unguardedly used about Buckingham. I know him to be naturally a wise man, of a sound and staid wit, as I ever said unto your Majesty. And again, I know he hath the best tutor in Europe. But yet I was afraid that the height of his fortune might make him too secure, and, as the proverb is, a looker on seeth more than a gamester." With respect to his treatment of Sir Edward Coke, he says, I was sometimes sharp, it may be too much, but it was with end to have your Majesty's will performed, or else when methought he was more peremptory than became him, in respect of the honour of the Table. It is true, also, that I disliked the riot or violence whereof we of the Council gave your Majesty advertisement, and I disliked it the more because he justified it by law, which was his old song. Now that your Majesty hath been pleased to open yourself to me, I shall be willing to further the match by anything that shall be desired of me, or that is in my power. " d James, now on his return to the South,--by order of Buckingham, wrote back an answer showing an unappeased resent b Bacon had complained of this silence. "I do think long to hear from your Lordship touching my last letter, wherein I gave you my opinion touching your brother's match." d Works, vi. 157. A.D. 1617. vos. e ment: "Was not the thefteous stealing away of the daughter from her own father the first ground whereupon all this great noise hath since proceeded? We never took upon us such a patrocinying of Sir Edward Coke, as if he were a man not to be meddled withal in any case. De bonis operibus non lapidamus But whereas you talk of the riot and violence committed by him, we wonder you make no mention of the riot and violence of them that stole away his daughter." After repeating Bacon's explanation about the favourite, he proceeds, "Now we know not how to interpret this in plain English, otherwise than that you were afraid that the height of his fortune might make him misknow himself. We find him farthest from that vice of any courtier that ever we had so near about us; so do we fear you shall prove the only Phoenix in that jealousy of all the kingdom. We cannot conceal that we think it was least your part of any to enter into that jealousy of him, of whom we have often heard you speak in a contrary style. We will not speak of obligation, for surely we think, even in good manners, you had reason not to have crossed anything wherein you had heard his name used till you had heard from him."" 66 Bacon, with the most painful anxiety, awaited the return of the Court to Whitehall, and he made another desperate effort, by a letter to the King, to apologise for his words about Buckingham. 'My meaning was plain and simple, that his Lordship might, through his great fortune, be the less apt to cast and foresee the unfaithfulness of friends, and the malignity of enemies, and accidents of time. Therefore I beseech your Majesty to deliver me in this from any the least imputation upon my dear and noble Lord and friend." The time at length arrived when Bacon's fate was to be decided. As soon as he heard of Buckingham's return, he hastened to his house, but was denied an audience. For two successive days was he suffered to remain in an antechamber, among lacqueys, seated on an old wooden box, with the purse holding the Great Seal in his own hand, as if prepared to go into the presence of the Sovereign, or to receive a message from the Commons at the bar of the Upper House. When, at length, he was admitted, he flung himself on the floor, kissed the favourite's feet, and vowed never to rise till he was forgiven.g e It is superscribed "James R.," and coldly begins" Right trusty and well-beloved Councillor, we greet you well." f Works, vi. 161. 8 See Sir Anthony Weldon's account of this scene. |