and general audit-day. We desire you to amend | wealth's behalf; hoping it proceedeth not from a this, and let your poor tenants in Norfolk find some comfort; where nothing of your estate is spent towards their relief, but all brought up thither, to the impoverishing of your country. In your last, which might have been your best, piece of service to the state, affectioned to follow that old rule, which giveth justice leaden heels and iron hands, you used too many delays, till the delinquents' hands were loosed, and yours bound: in that work you seemed another Fabius, where the humour of Marcellus would have done better; what need you have sought more evidences than enough? while you pretended the finding out of more, missing your aim, you discredited what you had found. This best judgments think; though you never used such speeches as are fathered upon you, yet you might well have done it, and but rightly; for this crime was second to none, but the powder-plot: that would have blown up all at one blow, a merciful cruelty; this would have done the same by degrees, a lingering but a sure way; one might by one be called out, till all opposers had been removed. Besides, that other plot was scandalous to Rome, making Popery odious in the sight of the whole world; this hath been scandalous to the truth of the whole gospel; and since the first nullity to this instant, when justice hath her hands bound, the devil could not have invented a more mischievous practice to our state and church than this hath been, is, and is like to be. God avert the evil. But herein you committed another fault: that as you were too open in your proceedings, and so taught them thereby to defend themselves; so you gave them time to undermine justice, and to work upon all advantages, both of affections, and honour, and opportunity, and breach of friendship; which they have so well followed, sparing neither pains nor costs, that it almost seemeth a higher offence in you to have done so much indeed, than that you have done no more: you stop the confessions and accusations of some, who, perhaps, had they been suffered, would have spoken enough to have removed some stumbling blocks out of your way; and that you did not this in the favour of any one, but of I know not what present unadvised humours, supposing enough behind to discover all; which fell not out so. Howsoever, as the apostle saith in another case, you "went not rightly to the truth ;" and, therefore, though you were to be commended for what you did, yet you were to be reprehended for many circumstances in the doing; and doubtless God hath an eye in this cross to your negligence, and the briers are left to be pricks in your sides and thorns in your eyes. But that which we commend you for, are those excellent parts in nature, and knowledge in the law, which you are endowed withal; but these are only good in their good use. Wherefore we thank you heartily for standing stoutly in the common disposition to oppose greatness, as your enemies say, but to do justice, and deliver truth indifferently without respect of persons; and in this we pray for your prosperity, and are sorry that your good actions should not always succeed happily. But in the carriage of this you were faulty; for you took it in hand in an evil time, both in respect of the present business which was interrupted, and in regard of his present sickness whom it concerned, whereby you disunited your strength, and made a gap for the enemies to pass out at, and to return and assault you. But now, since the case so standeth, we desire you to give way to power, and so to fight that you be not utterly broken, but reserved entirely to serve the commonwealth again, and to do what good you can, since you cannot do all the good you would; and since you are fallen upon this rock, cast out the goods to save the bottom; stop the leaks and make towards land; learn of the steward to make friends of the unrighteous mammon. Those Spaniards in Mexico who were chased of the Indians, tell us what to do with our goods in our extremity; they being to pass over a river in their flight, as many as cast away their gold swam over safe; but some more covetous, keeping their gold, were either drowned with it, or overtaken and slain by the savages: you have received, now learn to give. The beaver learns us this lesson, who being hunted for his stones, bites them off: you cannot but have much of your estate, pardon my plainness, ill got; think how much of that you never spake for, how much by speaking unjustly or in unjust causes. Account it then a blessing of God, if thus it may be laid out for your good, and not left for your heir, to hasten the wasting of much of the rest, perhaps of all; for so we see God oftentimes proceeds in judgment with many hasty gatherers: you have enough to spare, being well laid, to turn the tide, and fetch all things again. But if you escape, I suppose it worthy of an "If," since you know the old use, that none called in question must go away uncensured; yet consider that accusations make wounds, and leave scars; and though you see the toil behind your back, yourself free, and the covert before, yet remember there are stands; trust not a reconciled enemy; but think the peace is but to secure you for farther advantage, or expect a second and a third encounter; the main battle, the wings are yet unbroken, they may charge you at an instant, or death before them; walk therefore circumspectly, and if at length, by means of our endeavours and yours, you recover the favour that you have lost; give God the glory in action, not in words only; and remember us with sense of your past misfortune, whose estate hath, and may hereafter lie in the power of your breath. There is a great mercy in despatch; delays are tortures, wherewith by degrees we are rent out of our estates;* do not you, if you be restored, as some others do, fly from the service of virtue to serve the time, as if they repented their goodness, or meant not to make a second hazard in God's house; but rather let this cross make you zealous in God's cause, sensible in ours, and more sensible in all; which express thus. You have been a great enemy to Papists; if you love God, be so still, but more indeed than heretofore; for much of your zeal was heretofore wasted in words: call to remembrance that they were the persons that prophesied of that cross of yours long before it happened; they saw the storm coming, being the principal contrivers and furtherers of the plot, the men that blew the coals, heat the iron, and made all things ready; they owe you a good turn, and will, if they can, pay it you; you see their hearts by their deeds, prove then your faith so to: the best good work you can do, is to do the best you can against them, that is, to see the law severely, justly, and diligently executed. And now we beseech you, my lord, be sensible both of the stroke and hand that striketh; learn of David to leave Shimei, and call upon God; he hath some great work to do, and he prepareth you for it; he would neither have you faint, nor yet bear this cross with a stoical resolution; there is a Christian mediocrity worthy of your greatness. I must be plain, perhaps rash; had some notes which you had taken at sermons been written in your heart to practise, this work had been done long ago, without the envy of your enemies; but when we will not mind ourselves, God, if we belong to him, takes us in hand; and because he seeth that we have unbridled stomachs, therefore he sends outward crosses, which, while they cause us to mourn, do comfort us, being assured testimonies of his love that sends them. To humble ourselves, therefore, before God, is the part of a Christian; but for the world and our enemies the counsel of the poet is apt, "Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito." The last part of this counsel you forget, yet none need be ashamed to make use of it, that so being armed against casualties, you may stand firm against the assaults on the right hand, and on the left. For this is certain, the mind that is most prone to be puffed up with prosperity, is most weak and apt to be dejected with the least puff of adversity. Indeed she is strong enough to make an able man stagger, striking terrible blows; but true Christian wisdom gives us armour of proof against all assaults, and teacheth us in all estates to be content: for though she cause our truest *My Lord Bacon observes elsewhere, that the Scripture saith, there be that turn judgment into wormwood; and, saith he, surely there be "also that turn it into vinegar; for injustice maketh it bitter, and delays make it sour." ESSAY LVI. Vol. i. p. 58. friends to declare themselves our enemies; though she give heart then to the most cowardly to strike us; though an hour's continuance countervails an age of prosperity; though she cast in our dish all that ever we have done; yet hath she no power to hurt the humble and wise, but only to break such as too much prosperity hath made stiff in their own thoughts, but weak indeed; and fitted for renewing: when the wise rather gather from thence profit and wisdom; by the example of David, who said, "Before I was chastised I went astray." Now, then, he that knoweth the right way, will look better to his footing. Cardan saith, that weeping, fasting, and sighing, are the chief purges of grief; indeed naturally they do assuage sorrow: but God in this case is the only and best physician; the means he hath ordained are the advice of friends, the amendment of ourselves: for amendment is both physician and cure. For friends, although your lordship be scant, yet I hope you are not altogether destitute; if you be, do but look upon good books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble: be you but true to yourself, applying that which they teach unto the party grieved, and you shall need no other comfort nor counsel. To them, and to God's Holy Spirit, directing you in the reading of them, I commend your lordship; beseeching him to send you a good issue out of these troubles, and from henceforth to work a reformation in all that is amiss, and a resolute perseverance, proceeding, and growth, in all that is good; and that for his glory, the bettering of yourself, this church, and commonwealth; whose faithful servant whilst you remain, I remain a faithful servant to you, FR. BACON. TO THE KING, ABOUT THE COMMENDAMS. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. I am not swift to deliver any thing to your majesty before it be well weighed. But now that I have informed myself of as much as is necessary touching this proceeding of the judges to the argument of the commendams, notwithstanding your majesty's pleasure signified by me, upon your majesty's commandment in presence of my lord chancellor and the Bishop of Winchester, to the contrary, I do think it fit to advertise your majesty what hath passed; the rather, because I suppose the judges, since they performed not your commandment, have at least given your majesty their reasons of failing therein; I being to answer for the doing your majesty's commandments, and they for the not doing. I did conceive, that in a cause that concerned your majesty and your royal power, the judges having heard your attorney-general argue the Saturday before, would of themselves have taken farther time to be advised. And, if I fail not in memory, my Lord Coke received from your majesty's self, as I take it, a precedent commandment in Hilary term, that both in the "rege inconsulto," and in the commendams, your attorney should be heard to speak, and then stay to be made of farther proceedings, till my lord had spoken with your majesty. Nevertheless, hearing that the day appointed for the judges' argument held, contrary to my expectation, I sent on Thursday, in the evening, having received your majesty's commandment but the day before in the afternoon, a letter to my Lord Coke; whereby I let him know, that upon some report of my Lord of Winchester, who, by your commandment, was present at my argument of that which passed, it was your majesty's express pleasure, that no farther proceedings should be, until you had conferred with your judges: which your majesty thought to have done at your being now last in town; but by reason of your many and weighty occasions, your princely times would not serve; and that it was your pleasure he should signify so much to the rest of the judges, whereof his lordship might not fail. His answer by word to my man was, that it were good the rest of the judges understood so much from myself: whereupon, I, that cannot skill of scruples in matter of service, did write, on Friday, three several letters of like content, to the judges of the common pleas, and the barons of the exchequer, and the other three judges of the king's bench, mentioning in that last my particular letter to my lord chief justice. This was all I did, and thought all had been sure; insomuch as, the same day being appointed in chancery for your majesty's great cause, followed by my Lord Hunsden, I writ two other letters to both the chief justices, to put them in mind of assisting my lord chancellor at the hearing. And when my lord chancellor himself took some notice upon that occasion, openly in the chancery, that the commendams could not hold presently after, I heard the judges were gone about the commendams; which I thought at first had been only to adjourn the court, but I heard after that they proceeded to argument. In this their doing, I conceive they must either except to the nature of the commandment, or to the credence thereof; both which, I assure myself, your majesty will maintain. For if they should stand upon the general ground, "Nulli negabimus, nulli differemus justitiam," it receiveth two answers. The one, that reasonable and mature advice may not be confounded with delay; and that they can well allege when it pleaseth them. The other is, that there is a great difference between a case merely between subject and subject, and where the king's interest is in question directly or by consequence. As for the attorney's place and commission, it is as proper for him to signify the king's pleasure VOL. II.-62 to the judges, as for the secretary to signify the same to the privy-council; and so it hath ever been. These things were a little strange, if there came not so many of them together, as the one maketh the other seem less strange: but your majesty hath fair occasions to remedy all with small aid; I say no more for the present. I was a little plain with my Lord Coke in these matters; and when his answer was, that he knew all these things, I said he could never profit too much in knowing himself and his duty. God preserve your majesty. A MEMORIAL FOR HIS MAJESTY, CORRECTED That his council shall perceive by that which his majesty shall now communicate with them, that the mass of his business is continually prepared in his own royal care and cogitations, howsoever he produceth the same to light, and to act "per opera dierum."t That his majesty shall make unto them now a declarative of two great causes, whereof he doubteth not they have heard by glimpses; the one concerning his high court of chancery, the other concerning the church and prelacy; but both of them deeply touching his prerogative and sovereignty, and the flowers of his crown. That about the end of Hilary term last, there came to his majesty's ears, only by common voice and report, not without great rumour and wonder, that there was somewhat done in the King's Bench the last day of that term, whereby his chancery should be pulled down, and be brought in question for "præmunire;" being the most heinous offence after treason, and felony, and misprision of treason; and that the time should be when the chancellor lay at the point of death. That his majesty was so far from hearing of this By the laws, several ages are assigned to persons for several purposes; and by the common law, the fourteenth tion. At that time a man may agree or disagree to a preceyear is a kind of majority, and accounted an age of discredent marriage: the heir in socage may reject the guardian appointed by law, and choose a new one: and the woman at that age shall be out of ward, etc.-Stephens. God was pleased to observe in the creating of the world. In +"Per opera dierum," alluding to the gradations Almighty this paragraph, Sir Francis Bacon insinuates what he expressly declares, Vol. i. Essay XLVII. p. 52, that in all negotiations of difficulty a man must first prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.-Stephens. by any complaint from his chancellor, who then had given over worldly thoughts, that he wrote letters of comfort to him upon this accident, before he heard from him; and for his attorney, his majesty challenged him for not advertising him of that, of which it was proper for his majesty to be informed from him. some of them are fled, and others stand out and will not answer. That there resteth only one part more towards his majesty's complete information in this cause : which is to examine that which was done in open court the said last day of Hilary term, and whether the judges of king's bench did commit any excess of authority; or did animate the offenders otherwise than according to their duty and place; which inquiry, because it concerneth the judges of a court to keep order and decorum, his majesty thinketh not so convenient to use his learned counsel therein, but will commit the same to some of the council-table and his learned counsel to attend them. That his majesty being sensible of this so great novelty and perturbation in his courts of justice, nevertheless used this method and moderation, that before he would examine this great affront and disgrace offered to his chancery and chancellor, he would first inform himself whether the chancery or chancellor were in fault; and whether the former precedents of chancery did warrant the proceedings there after judgment passed at common law, which was the thing in question, and thereupon his majesty called his learned counsel to him, and commanded them to examine the pre-openly read. cedents of chancery, and to certify what they found: which they did; and by their certificate it appeareth, that the precedents of that kind were many and precise in the point, and constant, and in good times, and allowed many times by the judges themselves. That after this his majesty received from the lord chancellor a case, whereby the question was clearly set down and contained within the proper bounds of the present doubt; being, Whether upon apparent matter of equity, which the judges of the law by their place and oath cannot meddle with or relieve, if a judgment be once passed at common law, the subject shall perish, or that the chancery shall relieve him; and whether there be any statute of" præmunire" or other, to restrain this power in the chancellor, which case, upon the request of the lord chancellor, his majesty likewise referred to his learned counsel, and the prince's attorney, Mr. Walter, was joined with them, who upon great advice and view of the original records themselves, certified the chancery was not restrained by any statute in that case. That his majesty again required his learned counsel to call the clerks of the king's bench to them, and to receive from them any precedents of indictments in the king's bench against the chancery for proceeding in the like case; who produced only two precedents, being but indictments offered or found, upon which there was no other proceeding; and the clerks said, they had used diligence and could find no more. That his majesty, after he had received this satisfaction that there was ground for that the chancery had done, and that the chancery was not in fault, he thought then it was time to question the misdemeanor and contempt in scandalizing and dishonouring his justice in that high court of chancery in so odious a manner; and commanded his attorney-general, with the advice of the rest of his learned counsel, to prosecute the offenders in the Star Chamber, which is done; and This declared, or what else his majesty in his own high wisdom shall think good; it will be fit time to have the certificate of the learned counsel His majesty may, if he please, forbear to publish at this time at the table the committees; but signify his pleasure to themselves afterwards. The committees named by his majesty, were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Secretary Lake, the chancellor of the exchequer, and the master of the rolls. This report is to be prefixed, to be given in by Wednesday at night, that his majesty may communicate it with his council, and take farther order on Thursday thereupon, if his majesty be so pleased. At this declaration, it is his majesty's direction, to the end things may appear to be the more evenly carried, that neither my lord chancellor nor my lord chief justice be present. But then, when his majesty entereth into the second declarative, my lord chancellor is to be called for: but my lord chief justice not; because it concerneth him. For the second declarative: that his majesty hath reason to be offended and grieved, in that which passed touching the commendams, both in matter and manner: for the matter, that his majesty's religious care of the church and of the prelacy, and, namely, of his lords spiritual the bishops, may well appear, first, in that he hath utterly expelled those sectaries or inconformable persons that spurned at the government; secondly, that by a statute made in the first year of his reign, he hath preserved their livings from being wasted and dilapidated by long leases, and therein bound himself and his crown and succession; and, lastly, that they see two bishops privy counsellors at the table, which hath not been of late years. That agreeably to this his majesty's care and good affection, hearing that there was a case of the Bishop of Lincoln's, wherein his majesty's supreme power of granting commendams, which in respect of the exility of bishoprics is sometimes necessary, was questioned to be overthrown or weakened; he commanded his attorney general, not only to have care to maintain it according to his place, but also that he should relate to his majesty how things passed; and did also command the Bishop of Winchester to be present at the public argument of the case; and to report to his majesty the true state of that question, and how far it extended. This being accordingly done; then upon report of the Bishop of Winchester in presence of the lord chancellor, his majesty thought it necessary, that before the judges proceeded to declare their opinion they should have conference with his majesty, to the end to settle some course, that justice might be done, and his regal power, whereof his crown had been so long vested, not touched nor diminished: and thereupon commanded his attorney, who by his place ought properly to signify his majesty's pleasure to his judges, as his secretary doth to his privy council, in the presence of the lord chancellor and the bishop, to signify his pleasure to the judges, that because his majesty thought it needful to consult with them in that case before they proceeded to judgment; and that his majesty's business, as they all knew, was very great, and Midsummer term so near at hand, and the cause argued by his attorney so lately, they should put off the day till they might advise with his majesty at his next coming to town. That his majesty's attorney signified so much by his letters, the next day after he had received his commandment, to all the judges, and that in no imperious manner, but alleging the circumstances aforesaid, that the case was lately argued, his majesty's business great, another term at hand, etc. Now followeth the manner that was held in this, which his majesty conceiveth was not only indiscreet, but presumptuous and contemptuous. For, first, they disobeyed this his majesty's commandment, and proceeded to public argument, notwithstanding the same; and thought it enough to certify only their mind to his majesty. Secondly, in a general letter under all their hands, howsoever it may be upon divided opinion, they allege unto his majesty their oath; and, that his majesty's commandment, for the attorney's letter was but the case that it was wrapped in, was against law; as if maturity and a deliberate proceeding were a delay, or that commandment of stay in respect of so high a question of state and prerogative, were like a commandment gotten by importunity, or in favour of a suitor. Thirdly, above all, it is to be noted and justly doubted, that, upon the contrary, in this that they have done, they have broken their oath; for their oath is to counsel the king when they shall be called; and if, when the king calleth them to counsel, they will do the deed first, and give him counsel after, this is more than a simple refusal. Lastly, it is no new thing upon divers particu lar occasions, of a far higher nature than the consulting with their sovereign about a cause of great moment, to put off days, and yet no breach of oath. And there was another fair passage well known to my Lord Coke, that he might have used if it had pleased him; for that very day was appointed for the king's great cause in the chancery, both for my Lord Hobart and him; which cause ought to have had precedence afore any private cause, as they would have this seem to be. To this letter his majesty made a most princely and prudent answer, which I leave to itself. Upon this declaration his majesty will be pleased to have the judges' letter and his own letter read. Then his majesty, for his part, as I conceive, will be pleased to ask the advice of his council as well for the stay of the new day, which is Saturday next, as for the censure and reproof of the contempt passed: for though the judges are a reverend body, yet they are, as all subjects are, corrigible. SIR, TO SIR GEORGE VILLIERS. I send his majesty a draught of the act of council concerning the judges' letter, penned as near as I could to his majesty's instructions received in your presence. I then told his majesty my memory was not able to keep way with his; and, therefore, his majesty will pardon me for any omissions or errors, and be pleased to supply and reform the same. I am preparing some other materials for his majesty's excellent hand, concerning business that is coming on: for, since his majesty hath renewed my heart within me, methinks I should double my endeavours. ever preserve and prosper you. I rest God |