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It is possible that some of the papers mentioned in my note p. 364, Vol. IV., belong to this date, and were submitted to the King or Council in answer to the question here suggested by Bacon. But the largest and completest of them, the "collection of such things as have been by several men desired to be obtained of his Majesty for the good of his people "—so well answers the description of the memorial subjoined to Sir Henry Neville's "Advice touching the holding of a Parliament," that, whether Bacon knew of it or not, there can be little doubt that the King had seen it some months before. I have not, however, been able to find any further particulars of his communications with that party, and in the absence of these it seems impossible to guess how far his subsequent proceedings were guided by them, and whether they had enough of their own way to be fairly chargeable with the issue. It is certain that they were entertained in conference and encouraged to give advice by some of the great councillors, but not so certain that they were fairly and frankly dealt with. Bacon in the meantime had other businesses to attend to.

2.

The first was a matter of no great consequence to us; but may serve for an illustration of the caution with which criminal justice was really conducted in those days by the Crown. It is true that the powers assumed by the Crown gave it the means of obtaining the conviction upon insufficient evidence of almost anybody who fell under suspicion of treason. But it is not at all true that those means were lightly put in force. Whether from fear of public opinion, or from doubt of what Judges and Juries would do, or simply from respect for justice itself, it is certain that the officers whose business was to prosecute were always anxious to avoid a public proceeding upon evidence which was not plausible. Even in Coke's time, it was not the disposition to proceed without evidence that suspected persons had to complain of, but the indiscriminate appetite which accepted as evidence anything which favoured his preconceived opinion. Bacon was not so easily satisfied: and here we have an example of what happened where proof enough was not

1 "Yet what I have collected out of the desires of sundry of the principal and most understanding gentlemen that were of the last Parliament, and are like to be of this, I will be bold to deliver in a memorial subjoined," etc.-Gardiner, ii. p. 391. The "advice" dates itself approximately by naming Michaelmas as the earliest time when the Parliament could begin: whence it follows that the summer of 1613 is the latest date that can be assigned to it.

2 See a letter from Suffolk to Somerset, quoted by Gardiner, ii. p. 145.

forthcoming to satisfy the Crown-prosecutor that the suspected man was really guilty.

:

On the 11th of June, 1612, a proclamation had been issued for the apprehension of John Cotton, a gentleman of Hampshire, on suspicion of high-treason. The supposed treason, I believe, was the authorship or circulation of a scandalous book, called 'Balaam's Ass.' Hearing of the proclamation, he gave himself up. Being charged with the authorship of the book and denying it, his study was searched and there were found "divers papers containing many pieces of the said book," together with some relics of the martyrs of the Gunpowder Plot, a finger of Sir Everard Digby, a toe of Percy, and the like. These were thought circumstances suspicious enough to justify his detention, pending further inquiry. The particulars of that inquiry (which appears to have been in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury) are not preserved: but the following report shows how the case stood half a year after, in the opinion of the King's Attorney, Solicitor, and Sergeant, to whom it had been referred.

TO THE KING.3

It may please your most excellent Majesty,

We have, with all possible care and diligence considered of Cotton's cause, the former and the latter, touching the book and the letter in the gilt apple, and have advisedly perused and weighed all the examinations and collections which were formerly taken; wherein we must attribute a good deal of worthy industry and watchful inquiry to my Lord of Canterbury. We thought fit also to take some new examinations; which was the cause we certified no sooner. Upon the whole matter, we find the cause of his imprisonment just, and the suspicions and presumptions many and great; which we little need to mention, because your Majesty did relate and inforce them to us in better perfection than we can express them. But nevertheless, the proofs seem to us to amount to this: that it was possible he should be the man; and that it was probable likewise he was the man: but no convicting proofs that may satisfy a jury of life and death, or that may make us take it upon our conscience, or to think it agreeable to your Majesty's honour (which, next our conscience to God, is the dearest thing to us on earth) to

1 Cal. State Papers.

2 Lorkin to Puckering, 30th June, 1613. C. & T. of James I. vol. i. p. 251. 3 Advocates Library, A. I. 35. Original; in Bacon's hand.

bring it upon the stage: which notwithstanding we in all humbleness submit to your Majesty's better judgment. For his li berty and the manner of his delivery (he having so many notes of a dangerous man) we leave it to your princely wisdom. And so commending your Majesty to God's precious custody, we rest Your Majesty's most humble and bounden servants, FR. BACON.

22 Jan. 1613.

H. MONTAGU.

H. YELVERTON.

Upon this report it seems that Cotton was kept in prison till 1618, when the real author of the book was discovered.

3.

I mentioned in the last chapter (p. 388) that one of the members of the Irish deputation having declined to repudiate in distinct terms certain doctrines of Zuares concerning the duty of Catholic subjects towards heretical kings, it had been thought necessary to deal with the case judicially. This was William Talbot, a member of the Irish Parliament, one of the leaders of the Catholic party, and said to be "their chief oracle for law." He had been committed to the Tower on the 17th of July, and as he still refused to make any further submission, order had been given on the 19th of November to proceed against him in the Star Chamber. He does not appear to have been accused or suspected of any personal disloyalty, and I suppose the object of the proceeding was only to establish and proclaim the point of law by a formal sentence of the Court. The case came on for hearing at the last sitting in Hilary Term (31st January, 161314), when Bacon delivered the following charge.

My Lords,

CHARGE AGAINST WILLIAM TALBOT.3.

I brought before you at the first sitting of this term the cause of duels; but now this last sitting I shall bring before you a cause concerning the greatest duel which is in the Christian world, the duel and conflict between the lawful authority of sovereign kings, which is God's ordinance for the comfort of human society, and the swelling pride and usurpation of the See of Rome, even in temporalibus, tending altogether to anarchy and 1 Desid. Cur. Hib. i. p. 393. 2 Gardiner, ii. p. 315.

3 Harl. MSS. 6797 f. 172. Fair copy. Corrected throughout in Bacon's hand. Docketed "Speech against Talbott," and (in another place by a later hand) “Talbot the faire copie."

confusion: Wherein if this pretence in the Pope of Rome by cartels to make sovereign princes as the Banditti, and to proscribe their lives, and to expose their kingdoms to prey; if these pretences, I say, and all persons that submit themselves to that part of the Pope's power in the least degree be not by all possible severity repressed and punished, the state of Christian Kings will be no other than the ancient torment described by the poets in the hell of the heathen; a man sitting richly robed, solemnly attended, delicious fare, &c. with a sword hanging over his head, hanging by a small thread, ready every moment to be cut down by an accursing and accursed hand. Surely I had thought they had been the prerogatives of God alone and of his secret judgments, Solvam cingula regum, I will loosen the girdles of Kings; or again, He poureth contempt upon princes; or I will give a King in my wrath, and take him away again in my displeasure, and the like but if these be the claims of a mortal man, certainly they are but the mysteries of that person which exalts himself above all that is called God, supra omne quod dicitur Deus. Note it well, not above God (though that in a sense be true) but above all that is called God; that is, lawful Kings and magistrates.

But, my Lords, in this duel I find this Talbot, that is now before you, but a coward; for he hath given ground, he hath gone backward and forward, but in such a fashion, and with such interchange of repenting and relapsing, as I cannot tell whether it doth extenuate or aggravate his offence. If he shall now publicly in the face of the court fall and settle upon a right mind, I shall be glad of it, and he that would be against the King's mercy I would be mought need the King's mercy but nevertheless the court will proceed by rules of justice.

The offence therefore wherewith I charge this Talbot, prisoner at the bar, is this in brief and in effect: That he hath maintained and maintaineth under his hand a power in the Pope for the deposing and murthering of Kings. In what sort he doth this, when I come to the proper and particular charge, I will deliver it in his own words without pressing or straining.

But before I come to the particular charge of this man, I cannot proceed so coldly; but I must express unto your Lordships the extreme and imminent danger wherein our dear and dread Sovereign and in him we all, nay all Princes of both religions,

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(for it is a common cause,) do stand at this day, by the spreading and inforcing of this furious and pernicious opinion of the Pope's temporal power: which though the modester sort would blanch with the distinction of in ordine ad spiritualia, yet that is but an elusion; for he that maketh the distinction will also make the case. This peril, though it be in itself notorious, yet because there is a kind of dulness and almost a lethargy1 in this age, give me leave to set before you two glasses, such as certainly the like never met in one age; the glass of France, and the glass of England. In that of France the tragedies acted and executed in two immediate Kings; in the glass of England, the same or more horrible attempted likewise in a Queen and King immediate, but ending in a happy deliverance. In France, Henry III. in the face of his army, before the walls of Paris, stabbed by a wretched Jacobine frier. Henry IV. a prince that the French do surname the Great, one that had been a saviour and redeemer of his country from infinite calamities, and a restorer of that monarchy to the ancient state and splendor, and a prince almost heroical, (except it be in the point of revolt from religion), at a time when he was as it were ready to mount on horseback for the commanding of the greatest forces that of long time had been levied in France, this King likewise stilletted by a rascal votary, which had been enchanted and conjured for the purpose. In England, Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory, a Queen comparable and to be ranked with the greatest Kings, oftentimes attempted by like votaries, Sommervile, Parry, Savage, others, but still protected by the watchman that slumbereth not. Again, our excellent sovereign King James, the sweetness and clemency of whose nature were enough to quench and mortify all malignity, and a King shielded and supported by posterity; yet this King in the chair of majesty, (his vine and olive branches about him,) attended by his nobles and third estate in Parliament; ready in the twinkling of an eye, as if it had been a particular dooms-day, to have been brought to ashes, dispersed to the four winds. I noted the last day, my Lord Chief Justice, when he spake of this powder treason, he laboured for words, which though they came from him with great efficacy, yet he truly confessed, and so must all men, that that treason is above the charge and report of any words whatsoever.

1 Spelt 'lytargye,' in Bacon's own hand; the clause being interlined.

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