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hear laid' open by those very learned and worthy gentlemen his Majesty's Counsel learned in the laws, the dangers and mischiefs which might have ensued upon my rash and unadvised writing, and saw the Lords' apprehension thereof, but I had some beginning and feeling of remorse of my great offence, and now upon a more serious consideration of the same, I do in all humility prostrate myself (as duty bindeth) first at the feet of his most excellent Majesty, and secondly before these right honourable Lords and most grave sages, with all humble thankfulness and due acknowledgment of their great clemency towards me.

And I do now for further declaration of my penitency and sorrowful heart address myself unto my brethren and countrymen in general; for whose sakes I suppose this my public confession and acknowledgment was by their Lordships' wisdoms ordained as a preservative or antidote, against the poisonful humour and perilous contagion wherewith over many of us (the more is the pity) are infected and sorely corrupted, over busily prying into and enquiring after the doings of the higher powers; yea so far as that we leave not their thoughts and purposes many times unsifted and examined, forgetting that we are taught by the Preacher (Eccle: 8. ver. 2, 3, 4) in these words: I advertise thee to take heed to thy mouth of the King and to the word of the oath of God: Hasten not to go forth of his sight, stand not in an evil thing, for he will do whatsoever pleaseth him.

Where the words of the King is, there is power, and who shall say unto him what doest thou?

And Pro: 25. 3: That no man can sound the heart of the King.

Pro. 27. 8: That a man wandering from his own place is as a bird wandering from her nest.

And lastly, Pro. 16. 14. and 20.2: That the wrath of the King is as messengers of death, and he that provoketh him unto anger sinneth against his own soul.

Good friends and brethren, had we wit in time of liberty and prosperity to consider these things duly, we should every man lie closer to his own vocation, and not so much busy ourselves as we do with things too high for us.

If ever nation had cause to repose itself and rejoice in their King (my3 beloved countrymen) we of happy England have cause to clap our hands, to leap, to dance, and to lift up our voices in thanksgiving unto our loving God, who in a season so perilous hath raised up unto us such a David, to feed his people in Jacob and his inheritance in Israel; to feed them in the simplicity of his heart and to guide them by the discretion of his hands, to settle peace within their borders, and to satisfy them with the flower of wheat, and which is above all, to show unto his Jacob (amongst us) the doctrine of his holy word, and his statutes and judgments to his people Israel. He hath not dealt so with every nation; no not near us; though (blessed be our God therefore) it is verily to be thought that most people christened receive warmth from his Majesty's fire, and vigour from his virtue.

1 here lay: MS.

2 thie: MS.

3 wee: MS.

Blessed art thou O land (saith the preacher) 10 ver. 17. when thy King is the son of nobles, and thy Princes eat in time for strength and not for drunkenness. Had ever nation a King more nobly descended? We all know him (God be thanked) not for the son of nobles, but even for the top and crown seed of all the royal kings of this flourishing realm, since the glorious conquest thereof. Neither then was that most famous conqueror a stranger from the blood of the former Kings, but so near unto Edward the Confessor, that among other it was no reason of his part or promise of the Kingdom after his decease whereupon the Royal Conqueror took the occasion of his invasion and happy conquest.

And for the other point or note of Blessedness (his diet) whereto if you will add also his apparel and whatsoever other outward gloriation or bodily ostentation that most mastereth and overswayeth the might of the earth, all men see it to be of that moderation and seemly mean, free from all excess, as not only ought to stir up the whole land to an answerable imitation thereof, but doth also as it were in plain English terms (if we had wit and grace to understand the same) deliver unto you this worthy doctrine, that it is a shame for a wise man having a soul to seek praise and glory from the body. But his excellencies and graces I may not take upon me to recount. I know my tongue cannot speak them, my pen cannot set them down. Besides it is not the work I am appointed unto. Yet having so highly offended the Majesty of my so gracious a King in laying before you occasion of withdrawing your dutiful affections and affectionate obedience, my soul longeth somewhat to do or say, whereby (at least) I may do my poor endeavour to right so odious a wrong. And I hope this honourable Court will tolerate the same and your selves not unwillingly give ear thereunto.

If it were not for these causes I would unto some of you open, unto others call to your minds, an argument of such true and natural love in his most excellent Majesty to this our realm, long ere he wore the diadem thereof, as would make you all to say he were a beast and no Englishman, that, knowing it, would ever be backward in remunerating so great a love with all reciprocal affection and respect. It is the action of 1588 wherein most of you know, the rest have heard, how mischievous the Pope and Spaniard were bent to our destruction, what preparations to slay, what whips and instruments to torment the unslain, what strength by home Papists they were sure of, how able to draw into their association other forces in abundance, how fit the neighbourhood of our own King was then to have made the enterprise unresistable, and then judge with yourselves if ever there were shewed a more sure testimony of true natural and fatherly love upon the earth. I may not dilate upon the forcible circumstances belonging; yet are they worthy your further enquiry after them, only I will show unto you that he not only refused to join with them, but (denying them all aid) would not so much as permit them succour upon his coasts. And not that alone, but he presently put forth such a divine and holy exposition upon part of the 12th of Revelations in support and 1 noe: MS.

honour of our then Queen and the Gospel of Truth, which she maintained, and for defacing the enemies thereof, as required not only great learning and familiarity in the holy Scripture generally, but even much study and frequent meditation in that particular subject. Salomon would say, Surely this is the natural father.

Now to the second part of my offence (as I understood that the division): it is the slandering of the lower house of Parliament, a detestable sin, will you say, being one of the three estates of this noble land. Beloved I must needs say, and yet cannot deny, but the plain grammatical construction of mine own words will directly convince me thereof; and myself cannot but think the excuses wherewith I may comfort myself in my own conceipt altogether frivolous and idle, here to be spoke of. Therefore my very heart (dear brethren) groaneth, and my bowels yearn within me, to think that I should by either tongue or pen affirm so great an untruth against so high and honourable a Court, one of the three estates of this realm, of that antiquity authority and necessity as (convinced by the truth) I do acknowledge it to be true. Beloved brethren, the apostle James biddeth that we should acknowledge our faults one to another; and why? that we may be healed. The apostle John sayeth If we acknowledge our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And Salomon, Pro: 28, telleth us that he that hideth his sins shall not prosper: But he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. According to all which holy David after his adultery and murder (reproved by the prophet Nathan) confesseth I have sinned: and the prophet straight pronounceth the Lord also hath put away thy sin.

That therefore my confession may be more plain, and the very particular thereof the better known unto every man, This it is, dear countrymen. I do in that my writing, here censured as above said, affirm that the Parliament (meaning the last assembled) did deny to give subsidy to aid the King; which (as Mr. Attorney and others of the learned Counsel made very clear, yea and the Lords with all the rest of the Judges constantly maintained) was most false and untrue. Yea I do not only acknowledge the untruth of that my assertion, but further freely and with the more grief I confess that having spoken with many of that house, I never spoke with any of them but he did very earnestly protest that for himself and so many others of them as he knew, they were all minded to have yielded a very large and ample supply, had the session continued. So that you see by my confession, my error was not only the affirming an untruth barely, but (which increaseth the transgression) even a known untruth: the Lord shew mercy to mine infirmity, and hold from me the rod belonging to the back of such a fool.

The third part of my offence (good countrymen and friends) is sedition and disturbance of the common peace, which my rash and wretched writing might have wrought, by alienating the hearts of the King's subjects from their due allegiance and dutiful obedience, to the King our liege Lord and sovereign, next under God, to be loved, feared, honoured and obeyed, and that not for fear only but for very conscience sake.

True it is, brethren, this must have been through your great default also in taking, as well as mine in giving, the scandal and cause of offence. But alas your condemnation is no discharge to me: my sin had still lien at my own door. David called the water which his men fetched with peril of their lives the blood of their lives, though not one drop of blood was shed in that enterprise. So irksome was it to him to think that through his words any man might have been hazarded. By God's law not only he that threw down another or caused his fall was guilty of blood, but he that prevented not (what in him was) the danger which otherways might have befallen, as the house not made with battlements was guilty of blood if any man happened to fall thence. Alas good brethren, if in this my indiscreet building and work I had not let fall these forenamed' stumblingblocks, yet see my rashness and forgetfulness to provide for the safety and preservation of such my brethren as are weak and apt to stumble, were cause enough to reprehend me of sin against you, if any such weak be amongst you. And alas, alas, what steadfastness is there in any man? Therefore leaving to show further my sin against you, in the scandals and offences cast by me in the quiet and dutiful ways of your obedience, and holding myself more indebted unto you even in this sin of improvision and negligence than that my very life may well recompence, I beseech you all to pardon, and of your prayers also, for saith St. James The prayer of the righteous availeth much, if it be fervent.

God save the King.1

It was upon this submission, I presume, that St. John was set at liberty without being called upon to pay the fine. The date of his release is uncertain, except that it was while Ellesmere was Lord Chancellor, which implies that it was before March, 1616-7. But the sentence remaining on record, he afterwards petitioned the King that he would "further be graciously pleased to show his most admirable goodness and mercy (if it might stand with due order of State policy) in commanding a removal or deleator of the whole record thereof; that so great an ignominy remain not on the name of him who having been now received your Majesty's sworn servant, is still resolved," etc. And on the 21st of October, 1618, the fine was formally remitted. Large extracts from this petition may be seen in Mr. Dixon's 'Personal History of Lord Bacon.' But as I do not think that those who have read his Submission' will obtain any fresh light from it as to the nature of the man, I content myself with the reference. From a comparison of the three-the letter, the submission, and the petition-which form the opera omnia of black

1 forenaming in MS.

2 Harl. MSS. 6854, f. 112. Docketed "Mr. St. John's submission."
3 Dixon's Personal History of Lord Bacon,' p. 189.

Gardiner, ii. p. 177.

Oliver St. John, I should myself infer that he was a well meaning man who had too high an opinion of his literary powers.

3.

How far copies of speeches made in the days when there was no reporting can be trusted as representing what was actually spoken, is a difficult and probably an unanswerable question. In this case we see from Bacon's letter to the King that the report was made by himself from memory, and that it was intended to be as true a report as his memory could supply. We see also by comparing his speeches in the House of Commons, as written out by himself, with the notes in the Journals, that they were the speeches really delivered,— though no doubt revised and corrected; and in some cases perhaps, when he wished to make some further use of them, enlarged. How much liberty he allowed himself in that way, the Journals do not give us the means of judging,-being themselves so fragmentary, that the absence in them of all traces even of the most important and striking passage would not justify us in presuming that it had not been contained in the speech. But I am able to produce one authentic instance of revision and correction by himself of his own report of a speech of his own, which shows how much pains he could sometimes take in that way; though it leaves the question still doubtful whether his object was to make it a truer report of what he did say, or to say it in better fashion.

Of the speech which by right of date comes next—the charge against Owen-there are two manuscript copies at Lambeth, much varying the one from the other. Both are in the handwriting of men commonly employed by Bacon as scribes: both bear marks of correction by himself: both are incomplete. They appear to have been overlooked, or looked at carelessly, by Tenison and Birch; probably because they were presumed to contain only old matter; the Charge having been printed by Rawley in the Resuscitatio. A little examination however would have shown that Rawley's copy had been taken from a different manuscript, representing the less perfect of the two without the latest corrections; and that the other is a fair copy of an enlarged and improved version of it; a version so much fuller and in so many ways altered, that (since the variations could scarcely be represented intelligibly in footnotes, and yet as a piece of literary work are worth studying) I have thought it best to print the whole of both. That both are fragments is easily seen; for the subject being carefully laid out in five parts, only three of them are handled.

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