and other officers, and that merchants may pass away their goods after the custom compounded for. [28.] An act for to limit a time for the begining of suits. Those readers who have accompanied me thus far will recognize in the above list many measures with the names of which they are familiar, either as suggested by the petition of grievances, or as forming part of the "retribution " offered in the Great Contract, or as brought forward independently by Bacon himself in Parliament or otherwise, in the interest of the Commonwealth: measures for the removal or mitigation of the various inconveniences and vexations arising out of the old feudal tenures; measures for the suppression of practices injurious to society, such as piracy and duelling; measures for the protection and encouragement of trade and commerce, according to the political economy of that day; measures for the better and cheaper administration of justice, for the furtherance of colonization, for the suppression of abuses in various kinds, and for enforcing by statute-law injunctions or prohibitions, believed to be salutary, but for which admonitions by Royal Proclamation were not only ineffectual, for want of penalties that could be legally enforced in case of disobedience, but mischievous, because of the jealousy which they excited and the pretensions which they seemed to imply. And if we may take the titles (being all we have) as indicating the policy and intentions of the government, it is impossible, I think, to look through the list without feeling that, however the want of money may have been the immediate occasion of calling this Parliament, it was not the less called for the dispatch of divers weighty affairs affecting the great interests of the kingdom; and that if the Parliament could have met the government in a corresponding spirit, the result might have been a session memorable to after times for the number of good laws enacted in it. There were rocks in the way, however, which it required discreet steering to avoid. On the subject of Impositions, the King, in his answer to the petition of the Commons on the 10th of July, 1610, though he had conceded a great deal, had not conceded enough to satisfy them. The scantiness of the supply which they then consented to vote was ascribed especially to their resentment of his resolution to maintain the existing impositions as last arranged by Salisbury, even though accompanied with a promise to impose no more; a resolution which he had since reiterated. Now I do not find that anything had occurred since 1610 to make that controversy easier of settlement. For I cannot think that a proposition which 1 See Vol. IV. pp. 206 and 231. seems to have been urged by Sir Henry Neville would have answered the purpose; namely, that a grant should be made to the King for his life by Parliament of the existing impositions: since it was recommended on the very ground that it would make no substantial difference in either of the points which were most stood upon; either the constitutional question of the right to impose, which was a matter of immense importance for the future, or in the actual pressure of the tax, which was the immediate grievance. So that if they were not satisfied with the King's offer in 1610 to "assent to an act by which his power should be suspended from imposing any more upon merchandises without consent of Parliament, it is difficult to conceive why they should have been better satisfied now with the arrangement proposed by Neville. With regard again to the Ecclesiastical Grievances, which were left very much as they were, I do not find that anything had happened either to make the people forget them or to reconcile the King to their removal. Nor does it appear that the "Undertakers" had any measure on this head to recommend. For though Mr. Gardiner has "little doubt that if Neville had been called on to speak plainly, he would have pointed to the ecclesiastical grievances as those which it was most necessary to redress; yet as he was not restricted to the answering of questions asked, but delivering himself of a piece of free and voluntary advice, and professing to offer as complete a collection as he could of the "things which had been by several men desired to be obtained of his Majesty for the good of his people ;" and as he made no mention whatever of Ecclesiastical Grievances either in the memorial or the collection which accompanied it;-if we may not infer that they were not the grievances which seemed to him to stand most in need of redress, we must at least conclude that he had no practical measure of redress to suggest. With combustibles of this kind lying so near the surface, and so ready to take fire, a safe passage could only be secured by more discreet behaviour on both sides than in their present temper could well be expected from either. But the experiment was to be made. 5. The writs were out before the end of February: and during March all England was busy with the election of knights and burgesses for See a paper in Sir H. Neville's hand, entitled "Reasons to prove that the course propounded doth no way prejudice his Majesty's right or claim of imposing, nor abridge his profit." Cott. MSS. Tit. F. iv. fo. 344. 2 Vol. IV. 3 Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 139. a parliamentary campaign in which questions were to be dealt with that were interesting to everybody. Bacon, we have seen, though far from thinking that such a business ought to be left to chance, without any care taken to promote the election of the better sort of candidates or hinder that of the worse, had nevertheless warned the King against "brigues and canvasses,"-which, he said, "would but increase animosities and oppositions," and would also destroy the moral value of success-" making whatever should be done to be in evil conceit with the people in general afterwards." But when such eager passions and such strong personal interests were enlisted on both sides, it was impossible to prevent zeal from overflowing. There was a great deal of canvassing, and the effect of it upon popular opinion was exactly what Bacon anticipated, and showed itself immediately. As early as the 3rd of March we find Chamberlain reporting to Carleton,-"Here is much justling for places in Parliament, and letters fly from great persons extraordinarily: wherein methinks they do the King no great service, seeing the world is apt to censure it as a kind of packing." It is true that the interference was not generally successful. "Letters and countenance" (he writes again on the 17th) "prove not so powerful as was imagined, even in the meaner boroughs." But that did not mend the case. If they were ineffectual, it was because the adverse party was too strong. Where they failed to overcome opposition, they would exasperate and strengthen it. And the result of the election was the return of a House of Commons in which two-thirds of the members had never been in Parliament before ;-heavy odds against order and regularity, and that conformity to ancient usage by which alone any numerous popular assembly can be preserved from mere distraction and confusion. In the meantime the near approach of the day fixed for the meeting of the new Parliament had at length forced the King to choose a secretary of state; it being absolutely necessary that the Government should be represented in the House by somebody who was in a position to lead. And very unlucky he was, either in having no one to choose who knew the House of Commons, or in not choosing such a one from those he had. To commit a new team to a driver to whom whip and reins are new is the way to be upset. To commit the management of the King's business in a new House of Commons, elected under circumstances so novel and so critical, to a man who had never seen the inside of any House of Commons and was almost a stranger to England, having spent his life in employments abroad, was the way to have the King's business miscarry. And yet such a person was Sir Ralph Winwood:-a man of good character, good abilities, and considerable experience; who had done valuable service as minister in France and in Holland; but whose experience was not English, whose manners were rough and ungracious, and who was so new to Parliament that (as was observed at the time) "the first person he heard speak in that place was himself." He had returned to England in September, upon hope of the vacant secretaryship, and so had had the benefit of half a year's study of the state of opinion in the country: on the 26th of March he was sworn in: and on the 5th of April he had to take his place in the House of Commons, as principal minister of the Crown. 6. What with undertakers in Parliament, what with electioneering in the country, what with a House of Commons containing so many who had had no experience in its forms and orders of proceeding, what with a leader who had had no experience of the nature and temper of the House,-Bacon must have begun, before March was out, to feel anxious about the issue. Nor could he have felt quite easy as to the manner in which the King would get through his own part; which though very fit for him to learn, was not one for which nature had accomplished him. To assume an air of personal indif ference to matters about which he was in fact extremely and reasonably anxious, was not an easy task for one of the most unaffected men, I do not say that ever reigned, but that ever lived. But it was what he had to try to do. Since Salisbury's death he had been his own prime minister. His manner of dealing with his new Parliament was to show what the effect had been of looking into his affairs himself, and what his own nature was, when seen without any interposing medium. He was to "proceed with his Parliament in a more familiar and yet a more princely manner." Unfortunately (though it was a misfortune connected with some of his best qualities), he did not know how to be princely where he was familiar, nor to be familiar where he was princely. As a man, he had no reserve; as an official, he had no condescension. To assist him in his task, Bacon drew up (whether by direction or as a voluntary offering, I do not know) a sketch of the speech which he wished him to make to the two houses when they met; for a copy of which, with permission to include it in this collection, I am indebted to Mr. David Laing, the possessor of the original manuscript. Taken in connexion with the memorials of advice printed in the last chapter, and with another of the same kind which I shall print a little further on, it will be Chamberlain to Carleton, 7 April 1614. found to be a very valuable paper; both as showing how Bacon proposed to unite the princely and the familiar in the King's demeanour to his Parliament, and as filling up the outlines of his former advice in several particulars. For I take it that the things which he would have had the King encourage the people to expect from him, were the things to which he wished him to commit himself. To some courses indeed he was already committed, not by Bacon's advice but against it, and these had to be accepted and made the best of. The policy of opening the session with an ostentatious offer of popular concessions under the title of " Bills of Grace," by way of inviting a corresponding liberality from the Lower House, was the policy of the undertakers," and would not have been recommended by him: but being resolved on, it had to be dealt with and the best colour put upon it. The negotiations with the "undertakers" themselves were also (as we have seen) impolitic in his opinion; and the rumour of them had already done mischief; insomuch that he thought it necessary for the King to take notice of it in his speech, and endeavour to allay the discontent which it had excited, by disclaiming all reliance upon the service of particular persons in the House. These were difficulties which he would not have had to deal with, if the King had acted from the beginning by his advice. But in the main I think we may take this memorial as expressing his idea not only of the tone and manner which the King should assume in addressing his Parliament, but of the policy which he should make up his mind. to pursue. An ostensible occasion for calling a Parliament at this time-an occasion unconnected with the money question, and upon which no difference of opinion could arise-was conveniently supplied by the birth of the King's grandson; upon which some congratulatory demonstration from the two Houses was a thing natural and politic, and agreeable to the feelings of the nation. A glance at the political state of Europe (naturally suggested by the political considerations connected with the marriage of which the new-born child was the issue) would introduce the subject of supply of treasure, not with reference to the King's personal debts and difficulties, but as a condition without which England could not be expected either to hold her own among the other Powers in case of disturbance, or to pursue at home a policy as liberal as might otherwise be preferred. Thence it would follow, by a natural consequence, to speak of the abortive proceeding of the last Parliament, to disavow the policy out of which it grew, and explain the difference of the course which (now that he had looked into the matter with his own eyes, and was acting on his own judgment) he meant to pursue with this. And in con |