THE King having now had a taste of Bacon's disposition and abilities, was not long in marking his appreciation of them. On the 18th of August, 1604,' he granted him by patent the office of Learned Counsel, which he had hitherto held only by verbal warrant and at the same time conferred on him a pension for life of £60. For a man of Bacon's abilities and long service, it was not much; but it was a beginning; and it came at a time when he had a very good opportunity to show how well it was deserved. For the Commissioners for the Union were to meet in October, and his vacation's work was to prepare for the conference by taking a survey of all the questions which would fall under consideration. In such matters one of the best-informed men of the time was Sir Robert Cotton, and the following letter has been preserved by accident, to show that consultation with such men was not neglected. Sir, To SIR ROBERT COTTON.2 Finding during Parliament a willingness in you to confer with me in this great service concerning the Union, I do now take hold thereof to excuse my boldness to desire that now which you offered then, for both the time as to leisure is more liberal, and as to the service itself is more urgent. Whether it will like you to come to me to Gray's Inn or to appoint me where to meet with you, I am indifferent, and leave it to your choice, and accordingly desire to hear from you; so I remain your very loving friend Gray's Inn, this 8th day of Sept. 1604. FR. BACON. This was the date of the warrant; the patents were dated August 25. S. P. O. 2 Cott. MSS. Jul. C. iii. fo. 30. Original: own hand. The first fruit of these studies and conferences was a concise but complete analysis of the whole subject, drawn up for the King's information in which all the particular questions that would have to be dealt with questions which it took a hundred years to adjustwere enumerated and explained. What use was made of it at the time, besides submitting it to the King, and to what extent it was circulated, I do not know. The only manuscript of it which I have met with-and that appears to be only a collector's copy, without any special value as an authority for the text-is in the Library of Queen's College, Oxford. The earliest printed copy I know or have heard of is in Rawley's Resuscitatio: and from this the text is here taken. CERTAIN ARTICLES OR CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. Collected and dispersed for his Majesty's better Service. Your Majesty, being (I do not doubt) directed and conducted by a better oracle than that which was given for light to Æneas in his peregrination (Antiquam exquirite matrem), hath a royal and indeed an heroical desire to reduce these two kingdoms of England and Scotland into the unity of their ancient mother kingdom of Britain. Wherein as I would gladly applaud unto your Majesty, or sing aloud that hymn or anthem, Sic itur ad astra; so in a more soft and submisse voice, I must necessarily remember unto your Majesty that warning or caveat, Ardua quæ pulchra it is an action that requireth, yea and needeth, much not only of your Majesty's wisdom, but of your felicity. In this argument I presumed at your Majesty's first entrance to write a few lines, indeed scholastically and speculatively, and not actively or politicly, as I held it fit for me at that time, when neither your Majesty was in that your desire declared, nor myself in that service used or trusted. But now that both your Majesty hath opened your desire and purpose, with much admiration even of those who give it not so full an approbation; and that myself was by the Commons graced with the first vote of all the Commons selected for that cause; not in any estimation of my ability (for therein so wise an assembly could not be so much deceived), but in an acknowledgment of my extreme labours and integrity in that business; I thought myself every way bound, both in duty to your Majesty, and in trust to that house of Parliament, and in consent to the matter itself, and in conformity to mine own travels and beginnings, not to neglect any pains that may tend to the furtherance of so excellent a work. Wherein I will endeavour that that which I shall set down be nihil minus quam verba. For length and ornament of speech are to be used for persuasion of multitudes, and not for information of kings; especially such a king as is the only instance that ever I knew to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance; and that the mind of man knoweth all things, and demandeth only to have her own notions excited and awaked. Which your Majesty's rare and indeed singular gift and faculty of swift apprehension, and infinite expansion or multiplication of another man's knowledge by your own, as I have often observed, so I did extremely admire in Goodwin's cause; being a matter full of secrets and mysteries of our laws, merely new unto you, and quite out of the path of your education, reading, and conference: wherein, nevertheless, upon a spark of light given, your Majesty took in so dexterously and profoundly, as if you had been indeed anima legis, not only in execution, but in understanding: the remembrance whereof, as it will never be out of my mind, so it will always be a warning to me to seek rather to excite your judgment briefly, than to inform it tediously; and if in a matter of that nature, how much more in this, wherein your princely cogitations have wrought themselves, and been conversant; and wherein the principal light proceeded from yourself. And therefore my purpose is only to break this matter of the Union into certain short articles and questions; and to make a certain kind of anatomy or analysis of the parts and members thereof. Not that I am of opinion that all the questions which I now shall open were fit to be in the consultation of the Commissioners propounded. For I hold nothing so great an enemy to good resolution as the making of too many questions; specially in assemblies which consist of many. For Princes, for avoiding of distraction, must take many things by way of admittance; and if questions must be made of them, rather to suffer them to arise from others, than to grace them and authorise them. as propounded from themselves. But unto your Majesty's private consideration, to whom it may better sort with me rather to speak as a remembrancer than as a counsellor, I have thought good to lay before you all the branches, lineaments, and degrees of this Union; that upon the view and consideration of them and their circumstances, your Majesty may the more clearly discern and more readily call to mind which of them is to be embraced, and which to be rejected; and of those which are to be accepted, which of them is presently to be proceeded in, and which to be put over to further time; and again, which of them shall require authority of Parliament, and which are fitter to be effected by your Majesty's royal power and prerogative, or by other policies or means; and lastly, which of them is liker to pass with difficulty and contradiction, and which with more facility and smoothness. First, therefore, to begin with that question, that I suppose will be out of question. Statutes Whether it be not meet, that the statutes which were made concerning Scotland touching Scotland or the Scottish nation while the kingdoms stood severed, be repealed? and the Scottish nation. Laws, cus It is true, there is a diversity in these; for some of these laws consider Scotland as an enemy country; other laws consider it as a foreign country only as for example, the law of Rich. II. anno 7°. which prohibiteth all armour or victual to be carried to Scotland; and the law of 7° of K. Henry VII. that enacteth all the Scottish men to depart the realm within a time prefixed; both these laws, and some others, respect Scotland as a country of hostility: but the law of 22° of Edward IV. that endueth Barwick with the liberty of a Staple, where all Scottish merchandises should resort that should be uttered for England, and likewise all English merchandises that should be uttered for Scotland; this law beholdeth Scotland only as a foreign nation; and not so much neither; for there have been erected Staples in towns of England for some commodities, with an exclusion and restriction of other parts of England. But this is a matter of the least difficulty; your Majesty shall have a calendar made of the laws, and a brief of the effect; and so you may judge of them: and the like or reciproque is to be done by Scotland for such laws as they have concerning England and the English nation. The second question is, what laws, customs, commissions, toms, com- officers, garrisons, and the like, are to be put down, discontinued, missions, officers of or taken away, upon the borders of both realms. 1 these: Res. To this point, because I am not acquainted with the the borders orders of the Marches, I can say the less. or mar ches. Herein falleth that question, whether that the tenants who hold their tenant rights in a greater freedom and exemption in consideration of their service upon the borders, and that the countries themselves which are in the same respect discharged of subsidies and taxes, should not now be brought to be in one degree with other tenants and countries; nam cessante causa, tollitur effectus. Wherein, in my opinion, some time would be given; quia adhuc eorum messis in herba est: but some present ordinance would be made to take effect at a future time; considering it is one of the greatest points and marks of the division of the kingdoms. And because reason doth dictate that where the principal solution of continuity was, there the healing and consolidating plaister should be chiefly applied; there would be some further device for the utter and perpetual confounding of those imaginary bounds, (as your Majesty termeth them) : and therefore it would be considered, whether it were not convenient to plant and erect at Carlisle or Barwick some counsel or court of justice, the jurisdiction whereof might extend part into England and part into Scotland; with a commission not to proceed precisely or merely according to the laws and customs either of England or Scotland, but mixtly, according to instructions by your Majesty to be set down, after the imitation and precedent of the Counsel of the Marches here in England erected, upon the union of Wales. The third question is that which many will make a great ques- Further tion of, though perhaps your Majesty will make no question of sides the it; and that is, whether your Majesty should not make a stop or removing stand here, and not to proceed to any further union; contenting venient yourself with the two former articles or points. union be of incon and dis senting For it will be said, that we are now well (thanks be to God laws and and your Majesty), and the state of neither kingdom is to usages. be repented of; and that it is true which Hippocrates saith, that Sana corpora difficile medicationes ferunt; it is better to make alterations in sick bodies than in sound. The consideration of which point will rest upon these two branches : what inconveniences will ensue with time, if the realms To om. in R. |