nay so many men's lives are taken away with impunity, that the very life of the law is almost taken away, which is the execution; and therefore though we cannot restore the life of those men that are slain, yet I pray let us restore the law to her life by proceeding with due severity against the offenders; and most especially this plot of ground (which as I said is the King's carpet) ought not to be stained with blood, crying in the ears of God and the King. It is true nevertheless that the law doth make divers just differences of life taken away, but yet no such differences as the wanton humours and braveries of men have under a reverend name of honour and reputation invented. The highest degree is where such a one is killed, unto whom the offender did bear faith and obedience; as the servant to the master, the wife to the husband, the clerk to the prelate; and I shall ever add (for so I conceive of the law) the child to the father or the mother. And this the law terms petty treason. The second is where a man is slain upon forethought malice, which the law terms murther; and it is an offence horrible and odious, and cannot be blanched nor made fair, but foul. The third is where a man is killed upon a sudden heat or affray, whereunto the law gives some little favour, because a man in fury is not himself, ira furor brevis, wrath is a short madness. And the wisdom of law in his Majesty's time hath made a subdivision, of the stab given where the party stabbed is out of defence and had not given the first blow, from other manslaughters. The fourth degree is that of killing a man in the party's own defence or by misadventure, which, though they be not felonies, yet nevertheless the law doth not suffer them to go unpunished: because it doth discern some sparks of a bloody mind in the one, and of carelessness in the other. And the fifth is where the law doth admit a kind of justification, not by plea, (for a man may not, that hath shed blood, front the law with pleading not guilty); but when the case is found by verdict, being disclosed upon the evidence; as where a man in the king's highway and peace is assailed to be murthered or robbed; or when a man defends his house, which is his castle, against unlawful violence; or when a sheriff or minister of justice is resisted in the execution of his office; or when the patient dieth in the surgeon's hands, upon cutting or otherwise. For these cases the law doth privilege, because of the necessity, and because of the innocency of the intention. of life. Thus much for the death of man, of which cases you are to inquire, together with the accessories before and after the fact. For the second kind, which concerns the honour and chaste- Honesty ness of persons and families, you are to inquire of the ravishment of women, of the taking of women out of the possession of their parents or guardians against their will, or marrying them or abusing them; of double marriages, where there was not first seven years absence, and no notice that the party so absent was alive, and other felonies against the honesty of life. For the third kind, which concerneth men's substance, you Substance. shall inquire of burglaries, robberies, cutting of purses, and taking of anything from the person, and generally other stealths, as well such as are plain as those that are disguised, whereof I will by and by speak. But first I must require you to use diligence in presenting especially those purloinings and embezzlements, which are of plate, vessel, or whatsoever within the King's house. The King's house is an open place; it ought to be kept safe by law, and not by lock, and therefore needeth the more severity. Now for coloured and disguised robberies, I will name two or three of them. The purveyor that takes without warrant is no better than a thief, and it is felony. The servant that hath the keeping of his master's goods and goeth away with them, though he came to the possession of them lawfully, it is felony. Of these you shall likewise inquire principals and accessories. The voluntary escape of a felon is also felony. For the last part, which is of offences concerning the people The peonot capital, they are many, but I will select only such as I think ple, not capital. fittest to be remembered unto you; still dividing, to give you the better light. They are of four natures. The first is matter of force and outrage. The third public nuisances and grievances. The fourth breach and inobservance of certain wholesome and politic laws for government. For the first, you shall inquire of riots and unlawful assem- Force. blies, of forcible entries and detainers with force; and properly VOL. IV. T Fraud. Nuisance. Breach of Statutes. of all assaults, striking, drawing weapon, or other violence within the King's house and the precincts thereof. For the King's house, from whence example of peace should flow unto the furdest parts of, the kingdom, as the ointment of Aaron's head to the skirts of his garment, ought to be sacred and inviolate from force and brawls, as well in respect of reverence to the place as in respect of danger of greater tumult, and of ill example to the whole kingdom. And therefore in that place all should be full of peace, order, regard, forbearance, and silence. Besides open force, there is a kind of force that cometh with an armed hand, but disguised, that is no less hateful and hurtful; and that is, abuse and oppression by authority. And therefore you shall inquire of all extortions in officers and ministers; as Sheriffs, Bailiffs of hundreds, Escheators, Coroners, Constables, Ordinaries, and others, who by colour of office do poll the people. For frauds and deceits, I do chiefly commend to your care the frauds and deceits in that which is the chief means of all just contract and permutation, which is weights and measures; wherein, although God hath pronounced that a false weight is an abomination, yet the abuse is so common and so general, (I mean of weights, and I speak it upon knowledge and late examination,) that if one were to build a church, he should need but false weights, and not seek them far off; the piles of brass to make the bells, and the weights of lead to make the battlements; and herein you are to make special inquiry, whether the clerk of the market within the verge, to whom properly it appertains, hath done his duty. For nuisances and grievances, I will for the present only single out one, that ye present the decays of highways and bridges. For where the majesty of a king's house draws recourse and access, it is both disgraceful to the king and diseaseful to the people,-if the ways near-abouts be not fair and good; wherein it is strange to see the chargeable pavements causeways in the avenues and entrances of the towns abroad beyond the seas; whereas London, the second city (at the least) of Europe, in glory, in greatness, and in wealth, cannot be discerned by the fairness of the ways, though a little perhaps by the broadness of them, from a village. For the last part (because I pass these things over briefly) I will make mention unto you of three laws. The one concerning the king's pleasure. The second concerning the people's food. And the third concerning wares and manufactures. You shall therefore inquire of the unlawful taking partridges King's and pheasants or fowl, the destruction of the eggs of the wild- pleasure. fowl, the killing of hares or deer, and the selling of venison or hares for that which is for exercise and sport and courtesy should not be turned to gluttony and sale victual. tures. You shall also inquire whether bakers and brewers keep their Food. assize, and whether as well they as butchers, innholders and victuallers, do sell that which is wholesome, and at reasonable prices, and whether they do link and combine to raise prices. Lastly, you shall inquire whether the good statute be observed, Manufacwhereby a man may have that he thinketh he hath, and not be abused or mis-served in that he buys: I mean that statute that requireth that none use any manual occupation but such as have been seven years apprentice to it; which law being generally transgressed, makes the people buy in effect chaff for corn; for that that is mis-wrought will mis-wear. There be many more things inquirable by you throughout all the former parts, which it were overlong in particular to recite. You may be supplied either out of your own experience, or out of such bills and informations as shall be brought unto you, or upon any questions that you shall demand of the court, which will be ready to give you any further direction as far as is fit: but these which I have gone through are the principal points of your charge, which to present you have taken the name of God to witness, and in the name of God perform it. THE Consultation about the King's affairs which was to succeed the dissolution of the last Parliament had not thus far brought forth much fruit. Neither the raising of the price of gold pieces, nor the erection of the new order of Baronets, can have afforded any material relief to the Exchequer; for the first did not involve a fresh coinage, and the fruits of the other were appropriated to the colonization of Ulster. Privy seals and loans from the City were merely borrowings for the present at the expense of the future: and the total result of Salisbury's financial administration appears to have been the halving of the debt at the cost of almost doubling the deficiency. He died on the 24th of May, after a few months' illness, leaving the debt 500,000l. and the ordinary annual expenditure in excess of the ordinary annual revenue by 160,0007. Bacon felt that the occasion was a critical one. It was plain that everything had been going wrong of late. But Salisbury had had so much to do with everything, that his death, which though not sudden had been preceded by no retirement from business or transfer of power to other hands, left a large space clear for a thorough rearrangement. The place of Secretary as well as Treasurer was now vacant; and there was no man (with the exception perhaps of Coke on the Bench) whose personal qualities, combined with his position, gave him an overruling power even in his own department. But this state of things could not be expected to last long. The new streams would soon find new channels from which it would again be difficult to divert them. To rectify the relation between the King and his people, which the dissolution of the late Parliament had left quite out of joint, it was necessary to have another Parliament with which he could proceed in harmony. And to make this possible, it was necessary not only that he should present himself in a new character to his subjects, but that they should feel that the new character was his own, and that that in which he had last appeared |