СНАР.
LIV.

Lord
Chancellor

recovers. Bacon's pretended joy.

Bacon so

may

be done as heretofore by commission, till your Majesty hath resolved of an officer. God ever preserve your Majesty!"

Is not this something very much like "suing to be made a Judge, and bargaining for a place of judicature?" MEANEST OF MANKIND!!! A touch of vanity even is to be found in this composition, a quality he hardly ever betrays elsewhere, although he had an inward consciousness of his extraordinary powers. Boasting of his great influence in the lower House, little did he think that when parliament should next meet, both Houses would unanimously agree in prosecuting and punishing him.

But, alas! Ellesmere rallied, and in three days Bacon was obliged hypocritically to write, "I do find, God be thanked, a sensible amendment in my Lord Chancellor. I was with him yesterday in private conference about half an hour, and this day again at such time as he did seal, which he endured well almost the space of an hour, though the vapour of wax be offensive to him. But whoever thinketh his disease is but melancholy, he maketh no true judgment of it; for it is plainly a formed and deep cough, with a pectoral surcharge; so that at times he doth almost animam agere. I forbear to advertise your Majesty of the care I took to have commissions in readiness, because Mr. Secretary Luke hath let me understand he signified as much to your Majesty; but I hope there shall be no use for them at this time.Ӡ

He next seems to have tried to prevail upon the old Chanlicits to be cellor to resign in his favour. But James would put no conmade Privy Councillor. straint on the inclinations of Ellesmere; and Bacon, to

secure his succession when a vacancy should happen, now resorted to the expedient of being made a Privy Councillor,which was pretty much the same as in modern speech being admitted to a seat in the Cabinet. He writes to Villiers, “My Lord Chancellor's health growing with the days, and his resignation being an uncertainty, I would be glad you went on with my first motion, my swearing Privy Councillor. Tho' I desire not so much to make myself more sure of the other, and to put it past competition, for herein I rest wholly upon

Feb. 12. 1616. Works, v. 371.

Feb. 15. 1616. Works, v. 374.

LIV.

the King and your excellent self, but because I find hourly CHAP. that I need this strength in his Majesty's service, both for my better warrant and satisfaction of my conscience, that I deal not in things above my vocation, and for my better countenance and prevailing where his Majesty's service is under any pretext opposed, I would it were despatched.

....

"I sent a pretty while since a paper to Mr. John Murray, which was indeed a little remembrance of some things past concerning my honest and faithful services to his Majesty ; -not by way of boasting, from which I am far,-but as tokens of my studying his service uprightly and carefully. If be pleased to call for the paper which is with Mr. John Murray, and to find a fit time that his Majesty may cast an eye upon it, I think it will do no hurt; and I have written to Mr. Murray to deliver the paper if you call for it.”* To such minute artifices did he descend for effecting his object.

you

He is offered pro

free pr

or to be

being a

Privy

After some interval, and renewed solicitations, the King gave him his choice, either that he should have an express promise to succeed to the Great Seal, or that he should Great Seal, forthwith be sworn of the Privy Council. The bare pro- made Privy mise, he thought, would not much improve his chance, while Councillor. a seat at the council table could not fail to place him above competition. More suo, he makes his election in a letter to Villiers to be shown to James. "The King giveth me a He prefers noble choice, and you are the man my heart ever told me you were. Ambition would draw me to the latter part of Councillor. the choice; but in respect my hearty wishes that my Lord Chancellor may live long, and the small hopes I have that I shall live long myself, and, above all, because I see his Majesty's service daily and instantly bleedeth; towards which I persuade myself (vainly, perhaps, but yet in mine own thoughts firmly and constantly,) that I shall give, when I am of the table, some effectual furtherance, I do accept of the former, to be Councillor for the present, and to give over pleading at the bar; let other matter rest upon my proof and his Majesty's pleasure, and the accidents of time.Ӡ

CHAP.
LIV.

Sworn a Privy

In consequence of Villiers's representation the King consented; and on the 9th of June Bacon was sworn of the Privy A. D. 1616. Council, and took his place at the table,-it having been, at his own request, previously arranged that, with permission to give Councillor. advice at chambers to those who might consult him, he should cease to plead as an advocate at the bar in private causes, unless some weighty matter might arise in which he was to be allowed to be engaged under the King's express licence.

Gives up

private

the bar.

Having thus got rid of his private practice, he applied his practice at leisure to a most noble account, dedicating himself by turns to the prosecution of his philosophical pursuits, and to the improvement of the institutions of his country. The NOVUM ORGANUM made great progress, though it was not ready to His propo- see the light for some years; and he actually published “A Proposition to his Majesty touching the Compiling and of the law." Amendment of the Laws of England.” He commences

sal for "the amendment

His wise views of

"Your

this treatise with the following dignified address.
Majesty, of your favour, having made me Privy Councillor,
and continuing me in the place of your Attorney General,
which is more than was three hundred years before, I do not
understand it to be that, by putting off the dealing in causes
between party and party I should keep holyday the more,
but that I should dedicate my time to your service with less
distraction. Wherefore, in this plentiful accession of time
which I have now gained, I take it to be my duty not only
to speed your commandments and the business of my place,
but to meditate and excogitate of myself wherein I may best
by my travels derive your virtues to the good of your people,
and return their thanks and increase of love to you again.
And after I had thought of many things, I could find in my
judgment none more proper for your Majesty as a master,
nor for me as a workman, than the reducing and recompiling
of the laws of England."

In this scheme he displays great caution and wisdom; not law reform. Venturing to codify the common law, but contenting himself with reforming the statute-book, and extracting from the jumble of Reports a series of sound and consistent deci

· Works, iv. 366.

sions. It is curious to reflect that his exhortations in favour of law reform produced no fruit till the Republic was established under Cromwell, and that the subject was entirely neglected from the Restoration to our own times. Much has been done in the spirit which he recommends; and in what remains to be done he will be found our safest guide.

CHAP.

LIV.

libel in the

ber on

bury.

Bacon was called away from all such speculations to con- Prosecuduct the prosecutions which arose out of the murder of Sir tion for a Thomas Overbury. These began with an information, ore Star Chamtenus, by the Attorney General, in the Star Chamber, murderers against Mr. Lumsden, a Scotch gentleman, Sir John Hollis, of Overand Sir John Wentworth, for saying that the Earl and Countess of Somerset were concerned in it. The defendants urged that they had only repeated what they had often heard, and if they had been permitted, they could easily have proved the truth of the charge; -but, according to the law manufactured in this tribunal, and still only partially corrected †, evidence of the truth was not admitted. They were told that they could have no right to slander the nobility, and they were fined,- Mr. Lumsden 2000 marks, Sir John Hollis 10007., and Sir John Wentworth 1000 marks, and all sentenced to be imprisoned for a year, and to make submission, and confess their fault at the King's Bench bar.‡

But while they were undergoing their sentence, the guilt of the Somersets became so notorious, and the public cry for justice was so loud against them, that the King found it necessary to have these noble culprits arrested, and brought to trial before the Court of the Lord High Steward.

He

I am sorry to say that Bacon shared in the disgrace incurred by James and all his ministers in that mysterious affair. prepared the questions to be put to the Judges prior to the

* In this address, Bacon displays his great anxiety about his reputation as a lawyer. "And I do assure your Majesty I am in good hope that when Sir Edward Coke's Reports' and my Rules and Decisions,' shall come to posterity, there will be, whatsoever is now thought, question who was the greater lawyer?"

By stat. 6 & 7 Vic. c. 96., which I had the honour to introduce, evidence of truth is admitted on the trial of private prosecutions for libel; but a bill which I offered in 1844 to extend the same principle to prosecutions by the Attorney General was rejected by the House of Lords.

Bacon's part in of the So

prosecution

mersets.

LIV.

CHAP. trial, and arranged the course to be adopted "if Somerset should break forth in any speech taxing the King;" and it is quite clear, that though the inferior agents employed in the murder were to be sacrificed, he was in collusion with the King to spare the two great offenders who had planned it, notwithstanding James's celebrated imprecation on himself and his posterity if he should impede the course of justice. Bacon has been praised for the mild manner in which he stated the case against Somerset; but this was in performance of his promise, "It shall be my care so to moderate the manner of charging him as it might make him not odious beyond the extent of mercy." ." The disgraceful pardon Bacon himself, as Attorney General, prepared.

Proceed

ings against Sir E. Coke.

Coke, the Chief Justice, had now rendered himself very obnoxious to the Court by his activity in detecting and prosecuting the murderers of Overbury, and by the part he had taken in the dispute about Injunctions and the affair of Commendams, or staying suits Rege inconsulto, which will be found circumstantially detailed in the Life of Lord Ellesmere.+ Bacon having at last gained an ascendency over him, was determined to show him no quarter. Little was to be apprehended from his rivalry in the competition for the Great Seal, but there still rested in Bacon's mind a rankling recollec

* April 28. 1616. Works, v. 995.

How zealously Bacon laboured in the affair, and how he did his best permanently to pervert the due administration of justice in this country, by esta blishing the power of the Sovereign to interfere in private causes, strikingly appears from his letter to James, giving an account of the manner in which he had tried on this occasion to frighten the Judges. "Sir, I do perceive that I have not only stopped, but almost turned the stream, and I see how things cool by this, that the Judges who that were wont to call so hotly upon the business, when they had heard, of themselves took a fortnight to advise what they will do. Yet because the times are as they are, I could wish in all humbleness that your Majesty would remember and renew your former commandment, which you gave my Lord Chief Justice in Michaelmas Term, which was that after he had heard your Attorney, he should forbear further proceeding till he had spoke with your Majesty. This writ (viz, a letter from the King forbidding the Court to proceed Rege inconsulto) is a mean provided by the ancient law of England to bring any cause that may concern your Majesty in profit or power from the ordinary benches, to be tried and judged before your Chancellor of England by the ordinary and legal part of his power; and your Majesty knoweth your Chancellor is ever a principal councillor and instrument of monarchy, of immediate dependence upon the King, and therefore like to be a safe and tender guardian of the royal rights.' - Jan. 27. 1616. Works, v. 266. Bacon knew that he was misstating the law- — to please the King-and to show that by ap pointing himself Chancellor, prerogative might be exercised without control.