of these particulars, as well of the one sort as the other, and deliver their opinions unto him; whereupon their Honours appointed another meeting on Friday following, the 7 of March, to confer thereof.

The result of Friday's conference is not known. But it could only have applied to details. That the treaty of marriage should be proceeded with, was decided with the clear consent of those members of the Council to whom the question had been referred, and upon a full review of all the circumstances. Bacon was one of these, and may be fairly held responsible for concurring in the affirmative opinion. Now we have seen that about a year and a half before, he had said in a letter to the King that though the rumour of a match with Spain might be of use, he "should not easily advise that it should be really effected;"2 and in what respect, it may be asked, was the case changed so as to justify a change in his opinion? The change, I imagine, was not so much in the case itself as in his knowledge of it. It is one thing to advise a man against a particular marriage when you suppose him to stand quite free, and another when you know him to have given the lady just reason to expect an offer. Till Bacon heard Digby's account of the state of the negotiation he did not know how far the King was committed. The question now was not whether it was wise to commit himself so far, but being so far committed, how it was best to proceed. Bacon's objection to the marriage was founded probably upon the unpopularity of Spain with the majority of the House of Commons. In the eyes of the Puritans an alliance with Spain was an alliance with Antichrist, and believing as he did that the only adequate remedy for those pecuniary embarrassments which were making all the business of Government so difficult must come from Parliament, he feared that the effect would be to postpone it: the Lower House would be less than ever in a humour to vote supplies. That the popular feeling was in great part superstitious and irrational did not make it the less formidable; and I know no reason for supposing that he thought better of the match in point of policy than he had done before. But the King,-who governed in these matters for himself, had already advanced so far (with the zealous assistance, be it remembered, of no less a man than Sir John Digby, however originally against his advice) that he could not easily retreat without inconsistency and discredit; and the best that could now be done was to manage the conditions so as either to disarm the

1 The Earl of Bristol seems to speak of "the commissioners for the marriage" (of whom Bacon was certainly one) as the same persons to whom he explained the state of the negotiation. See 'Earl of Bristol's Defence of his Negotiations in Spain.' Camd. Soc. Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 9. 2 See Vol. V. p. 185.

alliance of all danger or to break it off in good time and on good terms. Now a marriage with Spain, though unpopular in England, was not necessarily a bad thing in itself. Carried out fairly on both sides, it might have been good for both. If the Spanish government could have seen and accepted the fact that England had become a Protestant nation, and not merely a nation governed by a sovereign who for politic reasons professed himself a Protestant; if they could have believed that Protestantism had as much faith in its own gods as they had in theirs; if they could have been content to aim at the relief of the English Catholics from oppression without aspiring to re-establish them in authority; and if they could have cordially united with England in an endeavour to compose the religious dissensions of Europe by enforcing equitable conditions between the contending parties; the alliance might have proved a fortunate thing for the world. The Catholics of England, ceasing to be dangerous, would have been less persecuted; and such measures for the good of Europe as England and Spain would have concurred in taking would have been measures for the good of Europe. We know now that this was not to be. We know now that the Spanish statesmen utterly misunderstood the case; that their wisest councillors were under a fixed impression that the re-establishment of Catholicism in England (the highest service they could render to God and his Church) might be effected by a Royal Proclamation, and that a Royal Proclamation for the purpose might be obtained by a little cajolery and bribery. We know that they were trying from first to last to manage the negotiation in that spirit to that end. But the English councillors at that time, whatever they may have apprehended, had no right to assume all this. It was enough to be prepared for the contingency. The professions of Spain, so far, were fair; the offers liberal; the demands not unreasonable. So long as England was asked to do nothing in return except what would be good in itself,and a relaxation of the severities which the Gunpowder Plot had brought upon the Catholics, under conditions tending to make them loyal, would have been a good thing, there was no reason why the proposal should not be entertained. If in the course of the negotiation they should alter their terms and increase their demands, it would still be open to refuse them, and (if they insisted) to break off the treaty. And a breach upon that ground-especially if it turned upon a point of Religion, as it probably would-far from being a disadvantage, would leave the Government in a better position than it stood in now; for it would be a popular quarrel, and would give them the support not only of the Parliament and people at home, but of Protestantism through Europe. They held it, in

short, to be a very safe enterprise; for if it succeeded, the conditions would be honourable and advantageous; if it failed, the breach would be honourable and advantageous.

Such I take to have been the substance of the advice which these councillors gave the King. We shall see as we proceed how Bacon tried to give effect to it.

13.

The part which he took in this deliberation was probably his last service as Attorney General. On the 5th of March, the Lord Chancellor, who had long been begging to be relieved from the cares of office, succeeded at last in inducing the King to accept his resignation. He was allowed to deliver up the Great Seal on the 6th, and on the 7th it was given, with the title of Lord Keeper, to Bacon. Contemporary letter-writers mention several competitors for the appointment, and name the sums they offered for it. But such stories are valuable only as evidence of what people were ready to believe. Bacon considered himself indebted for it to the disinterested friendship of Buckingham; and it may well be believed that if the Favourite had used his influence for another, the chances would have

1 Mr. Gardiner maintains that "the points of religion to be insisted on" related only to "the details of the treaty, such as,-at what age the children should be taken from the care of their mother, what jurisdiction should be allowed to the ecclesiastics of her household, and so on (Fraser's Magazine, May 1871); and represents the consultation as a "farce," because first, the general question of the desirableness of the marriage was not laid before the commissioners at all; and secondly, the question of religious toleration was not brought before them in any such shape as to make it possible, without going out of their way, to express their opinions about it.

But after much discussion of the matter with him both in print and writing, I remain incredulous. The question of the desirableness of the marriage seems to me to be necessarily involved in the question whether it was desirable to enter into a treaty with the object of concluding the marriage. And if the question of religious toleration did not come before the commissioners, it was only because the demand for toleration having been withdrawn, it did not form part of the case. It might no doubt be renewed; and if renewed, might be a just occasion for a "breach upon a material article of religion," and about this they did go out of their way to express their opinion. But whether they expressed an opinion on it or not, I do not see how they could have helped taking the subject into consideration. What was to be laid before them was the state of the negotiation; and as the withdrawal by Spain of the demands concerning religion was specially mentioned as the dif ference in the present case which induced the King to ask their advice upon it, and distinguished it from former occasions when it had been rejected at once without reference to the Council, I do not see how these demands could have helped forming part of the case which they had to consider. The question whether the Prince should marry the Infanta involved the question whether he should marry a Roman Catholic wife, and thereby incur whatever demands for concessions and toleration to the Catholics might be expected to follow; and so far were these from being thought unimportant that Digby was expressly forbidden to approve of anything new without first reporting and receiving directions; the matter being thought too important to be left to the discretion of a single man.

been against him. The next letter, written on the same day on which he received the seal from the King, expresses his sense of the obligation.

MY LORD KEEPER TO MY LORD OF BUCKINGHAM UPON HIS BEING CHOSEN LORD KEEPER.1

My dearest Lord,

It is both in cares and kindness, that small ones float up to the tongue, and great ones sink down into the heart with silence. Therefore I could speak little to your Lordship to-day, neither had I fit time: but I must profess thus much, that in this day's work you are the truest and perfectest mirror and example of firm and generous friendship that ever was in court. And I shall count every day lost, wherein I shall not either study your well doing in thought, or do your name honour in speech, or perform you service in deed. Good my Lord, account and accept me

Your most bounden and devoted friend

and servant of all men living,

FR. BACON, C. S.

March 7, 1616.

Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 58. Fair copy. The heading is from the docket, which is in Meautys's hand.

THOSE of my readers who complain that I have told them nothing about Bacon's married life' (unreasonably, I think; seeing that I have told all I know) will be glad to hear that before the King set out on his Scotch expedition the following warrant was prepared (or proposed) for his signature.

A WARRANT FOR CONFERRING A DIGNITY UPON THE LADY BACON, WIFE TO OUR TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED SIR F. B., ETC.

James Rex.

Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. These are to command you that you forthwith cause a book to be drawn fit for our signature, declaring our will and royal pleasure to be that the Lady Bacon, wife to our trusty and well-beloved Counsellor Sir F. B., knt., L. Keeper of our Great Seal, shall be ranked in place and precedency in all places and at all meetings, as well public as private, next to the ladies or wives of the Barons of this our realm. Wherein we will command and express our royal pleasure to be, that all ladies of what estate or degree soever, under the estate or degree of a Baroness, wife or widow to a Baron of this our realm, shall hereafter at all times and in all places permit and suffer the

1 See Fraser's Magazine, vol. lxxix. p. 748.—I see that an expression which I used on this subject has been misunderstood by two or three critics, and as the misunderstanding may be general, I take this opportunity of correcting it. When I said (Vol. III. p. 292) that "twenty years of married life in which the gossips and scandalmongers of the time found nothing to talk about have a right to remain exempt from intrusion," I did not mean to forbid enquiry, or a full report of the results of enquiry. I should be glad to know, and should certainly have felt bound to report, as much about Bacon's married life as can be learned. The "intrusion" I deprecated (as I thought the context sufficiently explained) was the intrusion of gossip and scandal-injurious surmises without any enquiry or any authority or any provocation, such as we find in Lord Campbell (vol. iii. p. 49, ed. 1857) and his reviewer (Edin. Rev. vol. lxxxiii. p. 313), who nevertheless was a remarkably amiable man.