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These then were the grounds upon which it was urged that Coke was not the right man for his present place. According to modern ideas, his defects both of temper and judgment, as well in the getting up as in the trial of criminal cases, would have formed a better reason; but they would have not been thought so then. Such as they were, the King made up his mind that they were sufficient, and on the 10th of November declared to the Council his resolution to remove him from the Bench. Of what he said on the occasion I have not met with any account full enough to explain the precise grounds on which he put it; but all reports agree that he used him with respect. He had already, on hearing that he had been treated with discourtesy by "the Lord Chancellor's men," sent word "that he would have him well used;" and it had then been hoped by his admirers that things were taking a turn in his favour. 'The Attorney" (says Chamberlain, 26 October)" is thought to be come about, as well for that he ever used him with more respect than the rest, as for divers speeches he gives out in his favour,-as that a man of his learning and parts is not every day found nor so soon made as marred." But whatever his faults were, they were not of a kind to justify disrespectful treatment from anybody; and the King when he informed the Council of his resolution to remove him, " yet gave him," says Chamberlain, "this character, that he thought him no way corrupt, but a good justicer; with so many other good words, as if he meant to hang him with a silken halter." It is rather strange that more curiosity should not have been felt as to the reasons which the King gave for such a measure. But this is all that Chamberlain knew, or all that he cared to tell Carleton, about his speech; nor is there any fuller report, so far as I know, in existence. There was found however among Bacon's papers a rough draft, entitled "Remembrances of his Majesty's declarative touching my Lord Coke;" which-whether it be a note of what the King said, or (as I rather suppose) a sketch of what Bacon wished him to say-may be probably taken as containing, so far as it goes, the substantial grounds of the proceeding; which seems to me perfectly intelligible without supposing any mystery behind. The paper is in Bacon's own hand, and what we have of it-for there is but one sheet and I think there must have been more-runs thus.

REMEMBRANCES OF HIS MAJESTY'S DECLARATIVE TOUCHING THE LORD COKE.

That although the discharging and removing of his Majesty's

1 Camden. Annalium apparatus.

2 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 254. Draft in Bacon's hand. No date or docket.

officers and servants, as well as the choice and advancement of men to place, be no council-table matters, but belong to his Majesty's princely will and secret judgment; yet his Majesty will do his Council this honour, that in his resolutions even of that kind, his Council shall know them first before others, and shall know them accompanied with their causes, making as it were a private manifeste or revealing of himself to them without parables.

Then to have the report of the Lords touching the business of the Lord Coke, and the last order of the Council read.

That done, his Majesty further to declare, that he might, upon the same three grounds in the order mentioned, of deceit, contempt, and slander of his government, very justly have proceeded then, not only to have put him from his place of Chief Justice, but to have brought him in question in the Star-chamber, (which would have been his utter overthrow,) but that his Majesty was pleased for that time only to put him off from the council-table and from the public exercise of his place of Chief Justice, and to take further time to deliberate.

That in his Majesty's deliberation (besides the present occasion) he had in some things looked back to the Lord Coke's former carriage, and in some things looked forward, to make some further trial of him.

That for things passed, his Majesty had noted in him a perpetual turbulent carriage, first towards the liberties of his church and the state ecclesiastical; then towards his prerogative royal, and the branches thereof; and likewise towards all the settled jurisdictions of his other courts, the High Commission, the StarChamber, the Chancery, the Provincial Councils, the Admiralty, the Duchy, the Court of Requests, the Commission of Sewers, the new boroughs of Ireland; in all which he hath raised troubles and new questions; and lastly, in that which might concern the safety of his royal person, by his exposition of the laws in case of high treason.

That besides the actions themselves, his Majesty in his princely wisdom hath made two special observations of him. The one, that he having in his nature not one part of those things which are popular in men, being neither liberal, nor affable, nor magnificent, he hath made himself popular by design only, in pulling down government. The other, that whereas

his Majesty might have expected a change in him, when he made him his own by taking him to be of his Council, it made no change at all but to the worse, he holding on all his former behaviour, and running separate courses from the rest of his Council; and rather busying himself in casting fears before his Council concerning what they could not do, than joining his advice what they should do.

That his Majesty, desirous yet to make a further trial of him, had given him the summer's vacation to reform his Reports, wherein there be many dangerous conceits of his own uttered for law, to the prejudice of his crown, parliament, and subjects; and to see whether by this he would in any part redeem his fault; but that his Majesty hath failed of the redemption he desired, but hath met with another kind of redemption from him, which he little expected. For as to his Reports, after three months time and consideration, he had offered his Majesty only five animadversions,1 being rather a scorn than a satisfaction to his Majesty; whereof one was that in the Prince's case he had found out the French statute, which was filz aisné, whereas the Latin was primogenitus; and so the Prince is Duke of Cornwall in French, and not Duke of Cornwall in Latin. And another was, that he had set Montagu to be Chief Justice in Henry VIII.'s time, when it should have been in Edward VI.'s, and such other stuff: not falling upon any of those things which he could not but know were offensive.

That hereupon his Majesty thought good to refresh his memory, and out of many cases, which his Majesty caused to be collected, to require his answer to five, being all such as were but expatiations of his own, and no judgments; whereunto he returned such an answer, as did either justify himself, or elude the matter, so as his Majesty seeth plainly antiquum obtinet.

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The last words come quite to the bottom of the sheet; and it seems probable that the manuscript was continued on another which has been lost, so we cannot know in what terms Bacon would have ended the declaration. But the conclusion would no doubt have been a direction for the preparation of a supersedeas; which he was in fact ordered to draw up forthwith.

1 The words "not one of them falling upon those things, which his M. did apprehend" followed here, but are struck out.

TO THE KING.1

May it please your excellent Majesty,

I send your Majesty a form of discharge for my Lord Coke from his place of Chief Justice of your Bench.

I send also a warrant to the Lord Chancellor for making forth a writ for a new Chief Justice, leaving a blank for the name to be supplied by your Ma. presence; for I never received your Majesty's express pleasure in that.

If your Majesty resolve of Montagu (as I conceive and wish), it is very material, as these times are, that your Majesty have some care that the Recorder succeeding be a temperate and discreet man, and assured to your Majesty's service. If your Majesty without too much harshness can continue the place within your own servants, it is best: if not, the man upon whom the City's choice is like to fall, which is Coventry, I hold doubtful for your service; not but that he is a well learned and an honest man, but he hath been (as it were) bred by my Lord Coke and seasoned in his ways.

God preserve your Majesty.

Your Majesty's most humble and
most bounden servant,

FR. BACON.

I send not these things which concern my Lord Coke by my Lord Villiers, for such reason as your Majesty may conceive. November 13th, at noon [1616.]3

It now remained only to set at rest the doubts which had been raised on the Reports. In his declaration to the Council the King, it seems, had given directions for a commission to review them; and a warrant to certain Judges for that purpose was drawn up by Bacon, and ready for his signature by the 21st of November. And here we may leave Coke for a while to himself. We shall meet him again before long in a new occupation, if not in a new character: but for the present he retires to his daughter Sadler's, and applies himself to win the favour of the Favourite.

1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 279. Copy in Meautys's hand.

So read by Birch. But the word in the MS. is doubtful. I think it must be

"to be supplied by your Majesty presently."

3 The year-date is not in the MS. But it is given in Stephens's catalogue.

VOL. VI.

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BACON's correspondence during the remainder of this year deals with many matters, but is for the most part intelligible enough without any commentary.

Momperson's patent for Inns (which became afterwards a great grievance, owing to abuse of the powers which it conferred) was still a project under consideration; referred in ordinary course to the law officers and selected members of the Council, that they might report whether it were open to any objection in law or policy; and shown to be a thing requiring caution chiefly by Bacon's anxiety that it should pass other judgments besides his own.

The murder of Sir John Tyndall, the suicide of his murderer, and the measures taken by the King and Bacon to satisfy justice and make the truth of the case known, are sufficiently explained in the letters which treat of them.

The "tie" to be taken of the new Lord Chief Justice-alluded to at the end of the letter of November 17-relates, I suppose, to "Roper's place," of which we have already heard something-a valuable patent office, the reversion of which had been granted to two lawyers, Heath and Whitelocke, under covenant to pay the proceeds, minus one twelfth, to the Earl of Somerset.1 Somerset's interest in it being now forfeited by his attainder, Villiers (to whom it was to be transferred) wished for some reason-probably neither better nor worse than that of serving a friend-to substitute for Whitelocke, whose appointment had been confirmed by Coke, one Shute, a dependent of his own. Coke, it was apprehended, might have made a difficulty about this; and it was thought expedient to

See above, Vol. V. p. 227.

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