afterwards urged reforms in the interest of the Nonconformists; the King had taken steps for the revocation of injurious Monopolies, but the Commons, with a view to the liberation of trade, were preparing a large measure aimed at the Monopolies of the great Companies; the discussion of the proposed composition for Wardships and tenures had led to inconvenient inquiries into the condition and sources of the Crown revenues; and now the renewal of complaints of long standing arising from the disputed jurisdiction of the Council of Wales, threatened to trench on the royal Prerogative.1 And beneath all these particular grievances there was the less definite and far more fatal evil, which no statesman could hope to remove, the want of sympathy and confidence between the House of Commons and the King, arising from an unalterable difference of natures, interests, and opinions.

Even if James had been the Solomon Bacon believed, or tried to believe, him to be, Solomon himself would have found all his powers tasked in the endeavour to solve the political problems of the time. Everywhere the nation was outgrowing the machinery of national Government: and the problem of adjustment was almost insoluble. The ordinary income of the Crown was no longer equal to the ordinary demands on it, and, whatever may have been the reason, the subsidies brought in less than formerly. Three subsidies in the beginning of James's reign brought in less than two in the beginning of Elizabeth's; yet the people thought they were paying more. Even with the strictest economy James would have had to spend a tenth more than his receipts; and James was so far from an economist that, by 1608, his ordinary expenditure exceeded his ordinary income by £83,000 and his debt had risen to a million. great problem, therefore, was how to obtain the double result of replenishing the King's coffers without discontenting the peoplea problem that was always before the minds both of Cecil and his supporter, Bacon. The latter familiarly alludes to it in his private notebook, as “poll. è gem.," i.e. " politica è gemino,” or

2 Spedding, iv. 149.

The

1 Spedding, iii. 210. 3 To understand the meaning of these figures the reader must remember that the average of the twelve Supplies voted in the reign of Elizabeth amounted to no more than £160,000; in other words, during the whole of her reign she received from the House of Commons not more than two millions.

"the double policy:" "To correspond to Salisbury (Cecil) in the invention of suits and levies of money, and to respect poll. è gem. for emptying coffers and alienation of the people," and again, "To think of matters against next Parliament for satisfaction of King and people in my particular" (i.e. so as to make himself acceptable to both), "otherwise with respect ad Poll. è gem."

Closely connected with the Poll. è gem. was another difficulty, the use and abuse of the royal Prerogative. The old feudal system assigned to the Crown many rights which, being in former times intelligible as well as valuable, had, therefore, been once borne without complaint. There was for example Escuage, or Knight's service, due from one who held land in Knight's tenure, whereby the tenant was bound to follow his Lord into the Scottish or Welsh wars at his own charge. Since these wars were no longer possible, was this to be still exacted? Again, a Minor, being unable to serve in the field, might naturally be assigned in feudal times as a Ward to the Crown, and the profits of the estate might naturally be made chargeable with the service which the Ward could not perform; and this right, continued into the seventeenth century, was a source of considerable revenue to the Crown; but was this also to continue, when the reason for it had disappeared?1 Another source of revenue was the granting of Monopolies. Elizabeth had allayed the popular discontent by suppressing many of these; but she had not disclaimed the right thus to exercise her royal Prerogative: and the question, therefore, remained undecided. Most important of all, there was the question of Impositions, that is, of the King's right to impose duties at will upon exports and imports. This involved the fundamental question of supremacy in the State. For if the King could levy Impositions at will, he could govern without the aid of Parliament; if not, Parliament could always control the Government by refusing supplies. On the one side it was alleged against Impositions that the Edwards had bound themselves not to levy them, and that none had been levied from the time of Richard II. to Queen Mary; on the other side, that they had been levied for a hundred years during the times of the Edwards, and also during the last

1 "The whole system" (of Wardship) "was one huge abuse; but, whatever it was, it was strictly legal."-Gardiner, History, i. 174.

sixty years; and a recent decision in the Exchequer1 supported the right of the Crown. Here, therefore, was a subject for dispute, sufficient, of itself, to make a breach between even a wise King and a loyal people.

How did Cecil, and how did Bacon, propose to deal with this and other kindred questions? Three courses appear to have been open to them.

They might have admitted that the feudal and exceptional powers attached to the Crown were unfit for the times, and might have advised the King to commute them for fixed payments, more profitable to him and less galling to his subjects. This plan would have at once allayed much popular irritation ; it would have removed much occasion for future misunderstanding; and it might have induced a wise Sovereign to study economy, by enabling him to ascertain the exact amount of his income, and by stimulating him to suit his expenditure to his receipts. The disadvantage would have been that, unless it left. the King largely dependent upon supplementary subsidies, it would have made him independent of Parliament and not unlikely to become practically despotic. But it was, at all events, for the King's interests; and the plan might have been prudently and even patriotically suggested by a courtier, who did not wish to exchange the personal government of the Sovereign for government by a fluctuating and irresponsible House of Commons.

A second course would have been to suppress all Monopolies and Impositions in practice, while tacitly retaining the power of granting Monopolies and levying Impositions as part of the royal Prerogative, thus not raising the question of right or legality, and trusting to the gratitude of the House of Commons for liberal and compensative Subsidies. The attention of the people might further have been diverted from burning constitutional questions by introducing, at every meeting of Parliament, popular measures for reforming the laws, encouraging commerce, and the like, so that the whole nation, as well as the House of Commons, might lay aside its antagonism to the royal Prerogative. This was the course adopted by Elizabeth towards the end of her reign, when pacifying the

1 Bates's case, decided in 1606; see Gardiner, History, ii. pp. 5-7.

[§ 16 popular discontent at Monopolies; and it succeeded for the time. But an obvious objection to it was, that the royal self-sacrifice might not bear fruit for some years; and meantime the royal necessities were rapidly growing. Elizabeth succeeded; but she succeeded because she had the good fortune to die soon afterwards, bequeathing her debts to her successor; James had no such prospect before him. And it might also be asked, Was it worth while to retain, in a dormant state, rights which every year of inaction would make it more difficult for the Crown to recall to life? In any case, this course, if practicable at all, was not compatible with delays, hesitations, bickerings, half-concessions; if the King was to adopt this course, he must adopt it quickly and heartily.

A third course would have been to divert the attention of the nation from Constitutional questions by a spirited and popular foreign policy, championing the cause of the Protestants in Europe, and making Great Britain the centre of a powerful Protestant League. It is hardly necessary to mention as a fourth course, the plan of giving up, as obsolete, without contract or bargain, all exercise of the royal Prerogative that had become obsolete and unduly burdensome to the subject, and all that excited suspicion by reason of abuses in the past and anticipations of abuses for the future. To a very much nobler and wiser king than James, such advice might well have seemed quixotic; and even if James had been the king to accept it, Cecil and Bacon were not the counsellors to offer it. It might have been the best course: but, in the circumstances we are considering, it was impracticable, and may, as such, be dismissed.

There remain then the three policies described above, the first, the Prudent or Mercantile Policy; the second, the Distractive and Paternal Policy; the third, the Distractive and Spirited Foreign Policy. Of these Cecil chose the first, and Bacon systematically and (as far as we can see) sincerely supported it during his life, although he bitterly inveighed against it as soon as its author was in the grave. It was frustrated by the inconstancy or insincerity of the King; and, after it had failed, Bacon, instead of trying to recur to it, resorted to the Distractive and Paternal Policy, with occasional

vain attempts to induce the King to adopt the third course, which in his own heart he thought the best, the Distractive and Spirited Foreign Policy. But all his efforts were inevitably barren. The Prerogative question had gone too far, even in the reign of Elizabeth, to be now ignored under her successor. Settled it must be in some way; and that it must be settled was probably patent to almost every member of the House of Commons except Bacon and the tribe of courtiers who had neither ability nor desire to see, or foresee, anything that was disagreeable to the King.

It was characteristic of this most sanguine of counsellors that he should have supposed that the great constitutional question of the day could be buried by simply ignoring it. But we are startled to find him at the same time using language calculated to magnify the difficulty. At the least, it might have been supposed that, during the discussion of these questions, he would have studiously avoided every word that might have led the King to magnify, and the Commons to dread and suspect, the Prerogative of the Crown. But no: he loses no occasion for bringing the Prerogative forward; he justifies it, extols it, amplifies it. Perhaps he thought by enhancing the value of it, to enhance the price at which the Commons must expect to redeem the burdens which it entailed; more probably he perceived that this was the surest way to obtain entrance to the King's confidence; but in any case few did so much as Bacon to confirm the King in his most dangerous pretensions, and to convince the House of Commons that the Royal Prerogative might be turned against the liberties of the people.

A brief sketch of the course of Cecil's policy may throw light on much that Bacon said and did as a member of the House of Commons, and in the capacity of confidential adviser to the King, both here and afterwards.