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BACON could not be forgotten: and as in the judgments of this world confession and penitence prove guilt but earn no absolution, his disgrace remained with him and his punishments could not be dispensed with or remitted. The disposition to take his part as much as they could, which had been shown by the Prince and Buckingham, and to a certain extent by the Court party in general, appears to have excited an apprehension that his ruin was not complete, and that he might rise again: an apprehension which pursued him to the end; there being always somebody, whenever a proposal was made for his relief, to object to it as disrespectful to Parliament.

The following note of the proceedings in the House of Lords on the 12th of May, shows how active and impatient this jealousy

was.

SOUTHAMPTON. That the L. Chancellor is not yet gone to the Tower; moved that the world may not think our sentence is in vain.

L. ADMIRAL, The King hath respited his going to the Tower in this time of his great sickness.

SHEFFIELD.

A warrant from the House to commit the late L. Chancel

lor to the Tower.1

1 Elsing, p. 79. It appears, however, that the blow was aimed, not so much against Bacon as against Buckingham; who was supposed to be shielding him, and against whom there was a strong party in the Upper House, headed by Southampton. "The rumour lately spread," says Sir Anthony Ashley, writing on the same day, "touching his Majesty's untimely pardon of the late Lord Chan cellor's fine and imprisonment, with some other favours intended towards him (said to be procured by your Lordship's only intimation) hath exceedingly exasperated the rancour of the ill-affected; which, albeit it be false, and unlikely, because very unseasonable, it doth yet serve the present turn for the increase of malice against you. I can but inform your Lordship of what I understand. You may please to make use thereof as yourself thinketh best." 'Cabala,' p. 2.

As there is nothing to be found about this in the Journals, I suppose the motion was not carried, but withdrawn upon an understanding that he would be sent to the Tower as soon as his health permitted. He was sent accordingly before the end of the month: and so far, the Lords had the satisfaction of proving to the world that their sentence had not been in vain. But as the words of it were that he was to be "imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure," they could not complain of his being released as soon as it was the King's pleasure that he should be imprisoned no longer. The exact date and duration of his imprisonment is not certainly known; at least our authorities do not exactly agree. Chamberlain, writing on the 2nd of June (which was Saturday), says that he went to the Tower in "the beginning of the week; and afterwards writing on the 9th, reports that he came out on the 2nd; Camden,'in his Annalium Apparatus, says that he remained only two days,' but does not give the date either of his entrance or his exit. What we know is that he was in the Tower on the 31st of May, and out on the 4th of June, as will be seen by the following letters.

To THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.2

Good my Lord,

Procure the warrant for my discharge this day. Death, I thank God, is so far from being unwelcome to me, as I have called for it (as Christian resolution would permit) any time these two months. But to die before the time of his Majesty's grace, and in this disgraceful place, is even the worst that could be; and when I am dead, he is gone that was always in one tenor, a true and perfect servant to his master, and one that was never author of any immoderate, no, nor unsafe, no (I will say it) not unfortunate counsel; and one that no temptation could ever make other than a trusty, and honest, and thrice loving friend to your Lordship; and howsoever I acknowledge the sentence just, and for reformation sake fit, the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time. God bless and prosper your Lordship, whatsoever become of me.

Your Lordship's true friend, living and dying,

Tower, 31st May, 1621.

1 Post biduum deliberatus.

FR. ST. ALBAN.

2 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 147. Original. Indorsed "To the Marquis of Buckingham from the Tower."

1621.]

BACON'S IMPRISONMENT AND RELEASE.

281

TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.1

My very good Lord,

I heartily thank your Lordship for getting me out of prison, and now my body is out, my mind nevertheless will be still in prison, till I may be on my feet to do his Majesty and your Lordship faithful service. Wherein your Lordship, by the grace of God, shall find that my adversity hath neither spent nor pent my spirits. God prosper you.

Your Lordship's most obliged

friend and faithful servant,

FR. ST. ALBAN.

4 June, 1621.

TO THE KING.2

May it please your most excellent Majesty,

I humbly thank your Majesty for my liberty, without which timely grant, any further grace would have come too late. But your Majesty that did shed tears in the beginning of my trouble, will I hope shed the dew of your grace and goodness upon me in the end. Let me live to serve you, else life is but

the shadow of death to

4 June, 1621.

Your Majesty's most devoted servant,

FR. ST. ALBan.

The next letter has no date, but the allusion to what took place ' yesterday' makes it probable that it was written on the 5th of June. On the 4th, when Parliament was about to adjourn till November, it was moved in the Lower House by Sir J. Perrot, that since the King at the beginning of the Parliament "made his protestation about the Palatinate, to adventure himself, his son, and all his estate," they on their part should make a public declaration before their departure "that at their next access they would, if the King should require it, adventure themselves and all their estates in defence of Religion, etc. Which he hoped, being known abroad, would facilitate his Majesty's treaties with foreign princes." The motion was supported by Sir Robert Phelips, as tending to advance the reputation of the country abroad, and proposed in the following shape:

1 Stephens's second collection, p. 147.
* Stephens's second collection, p. 146.

From the Register.
From the Register.

"To declare that if his Majesty shall not by peace obtain the settlement of true religion, which now shaken, and the recovery of the Palatinate, we all undertake for the several shires and places for which we serve [that we] will adventure all our fortunes, of lives and estates for those services."

The motion being put by the Speaker was, "by a general acclamation and waving of hats, allowed."! Towerson, the merchant, was ready to answer for London; declaring that if ten subsidies would not serve, twenty should; if twenty were not enough, thirty would be forthcoming. And if words would equip armies and keep them in fighting trim, the Palatinate would have been easily recovered. It remained to be seen whether, when it came to the point, ten subsidies would be easily raised; and a declaration like this, hastily adopted at the close of a session in the course of which (but for their fury against Edward Lloyde) it might have seemed that they had forgotten the Palatinate altogether, was not a security that could be relied upon. Still it was valuable as far as it went. They had got through a session without any open quarrel with the King, which was matter for congratulation. And the results were fairly summed up by Sir Henry Savile in a letter to Carleton, a few days after.

66

'We have made an end of our session of Parliament, where nothing is passed but 18 or 20 weeks (as Popham said to Q. Elizabeth) and 2 subsidies, besides some censures upon great persons. I am sorry for the persons, but exemplum placet. The like hath not been done these 500 years. I send you here a declaration of the Commons House made to the King touching your affairs par de la. It is not nothing, though you will say it is not much. At least it declareth the good and perfect union between the King and his subjects.""

It was the passing of this Declaration that made it "a day of great honour to his Majesty."

TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.3

My very good Lord,

I hear yesterday was a day of very great honour to his Majesty, which I do congratulate. I hope also his Majesty may reap honour out of my adversity, as he hath done strength out of my prosperity. His Majesty knows best his own ways, and for me to despair of him were a sin not to be forgiven. I thank

1 C. J. p. 639. 2 S. P. vol. cxxi, no. 85. 7th June, 1621. 3 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 219. Rough draught in Bacon's hand. No fly-leaf. Indorsed "To my Lo. Buckingham after my troubles."

1621.]

REVIEW OF HIS POSITION.

283

God I have overcome the bitterness of this cup by Christian resolution, so that worldly matters are but mint and cumin. God ever preserve you.

2.

Bacon had gone from the Tower to Sir John Vaughan's house at Fulham - the house (says Chamberlain) that was Sir Thomas Smith's-and having partly recovered his health, was at leisure to review his position and consider how to make the best of what remained. It was no pleasant survey either in the retrospect or the prospect. Surprised and incredulous as he had been at first, when in the middle of his fullest sea and fairest weather he found himself suddenly among the breakers, it was now full two months since he had seen the whole length and breadth of his mischance and to a man who was not a worldling, I suppose a more mortifying and irritating mischance could hardly have happened. Had it been. merely a political overthrow, it would have been mortifying enough, because of the issues which were at stake. Had the loss of fortune only and reputation in the world's eyes been added, especially if in consequence of any negligence or oversight of his own, it would have been so much the worse. But still he would have had Job's consolation: he could have boldly stood upon his integrity and challenged censure. But to see all go, and to feel that he had only himself and his own fault to blame, even though the blame were not much in itself, was a terrible catastrophe, when one considers all that it involved. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. That little drop of admitted guilt changed the whole colour of his life, past and to come. All his life he had had an eye to the future as well as to the present; had been labouring to set patterns for imitation, and to give the weight of his example and authority to precedents of reform: and I am persuaded for my own part that, if he had died before Christmas 1620, his example and authority upon all questions of business, politics, administration, legislation, and morals, would have stood quite as high and been as much studied and quoted, and with quite as good reason, as it has upon questions purely intellectual. All his life he had been studying to know and to speak the truth; and I doubt whether there was ever any man whose evidence upon matters of fact may be more absolutely relied on, or who could more truly say with Kent in Lear

All my reports go with the modest truth;.
Nor more, nor clipp'd; but so.

1 Bacon's carly friend, who died in December 1609.

See Vol. IV. p. 139.

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