stubborn; but it was not mere stubbornness and love of opposition that led him afterwards to confront and contradict the King and to be crushed rather than submit.1 He prized the growing independence and purity of the Bench, and manfully resisted all attempts to revive the once customary but almost disused interferences with the course of justice by the Crown, which Bacon desired to restore and systematize as part of the foundation for his ideal Monarchy. Thus pitted against one another by circumstances, and having natures at all points antithetical, the lawyer and the philosopher could hardly fail to feel, from the first, a certain degree of mutual antipathy: but the ill-will between the two exploded in a quarrel of which Bacon himself gives the following account to his cousin Cecil. Coke appears to have taken fire at some implied charge, or what Coke regarded as a charge, on the part of Bacon, that, in his capacity of Attorney he had been too lenient, or too neglectful of the interests of the Crown, in dealing with a Recusant.

"To MR. SECRETARY CECIL.

"It may please your Honour,

"Because we live in an age where every man's imperfections is but another's fable, and that there fell out an accident in the Exchequer which I know not how, nor how soon may be traduced-though I dare trust rumour in it, except it be malicious or extreme partial-I am bold now to possess your Honour, as one that ever I found careful of my advancement and yet more jealous of my wrongs, with the truth of that which passed, deferring my farther request until I may attend your Honour; and so I

continue

Your Honour's very humble,

"Gray's Inn, this 29th of April, 1601."

And particularly bounden,

FR. BACON.

1 In February, 1609, the King became so furious with Coke's arguments against the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, that he "clenched his fists as if about to strike the Chief Justice. Coke fell grovelling on the ground and begged for mercy." Gardiner, History, ii. 42. This may seem inconsistent with the statement in the text; but a good deal depends upon what is meant by "grovelling.' It was customary for Bishops and Lord Chancellors to fall on their knees before the King, whenever they intended to contradict him or take a liberty. (Gardiner, History, i. 153, ii. 330); and kneeling and "grovelling" might be confused by an unfriendly reporter, or through the mere love of exaggeration. At all events, if Coke "grovelled," he did not yield; for the debate was postponed.

"A true remembrance of the abuse I received of Mr. Attorney-General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term; for the truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present.

1

"I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of Geo. Moore, a relapsed recusant, a fugitive and a practising 1 traitor; and showed better matter for the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever with a salvo jure. And this I did in as gentle and reasonable terms as might be.

"Mr. Attorney kindled at it, and said, 'Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against me pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good.' I answered coldly in these very words: 'Mr. Attorney, I respect you; I fear you not; and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it.'

"He replied, I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, who are less than little; less than the least;' and other such strange light terms he gave me, with that insulting which cannot be expressed.

"Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this: 'Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again, when it please the Queen.'

"With this he spake, neither I nor himself could tell what, as if he had been born Attorney-General; and in the end bade me not meddle with the Queen's business, but with mine own; and that I was unsworn, etc. I told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest man; and that I ever set my service first, and myself second; and wished to God that he would do the like.

"Then he said, it were good to clap a cap. utlegatum upon my back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault, for he hunted upon an old scent. He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides, which I answered with silence and shewing that I was not moved with them."

Although Coke appears, and probably was, mainly to blame for this discreditable squabble, it is not unlikely that he received some provocation from the manner in which Bacon "showed better matter for the Queen." It was a point of policy with the latter to endeavour to gain credit at the expense of rivals. We shall find him, later on, committing to paper a determination to "win credit comparate to the Attorney [Hobart] by being more short, round, and resolute." 2

1 i.e. "plotting."

But

See p. 153, and compare Essays, lv. 20: "Honour that is gained and broken upon another hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with facets; and, therefore, let a man contend to excel any competitors of his honour in outshooting them, if he can, in their own bow."

the present Attorney was a very different man from Hobart, and not a man to allow " credit comparate" lightly to be won at his cost. The threat of the capias utlegatum-no doubt referring to Bacon's arrest for debt in September, 1598-must have been extremely galling to a man who was still not free from money difficulties, and who, throughout almost all his life, was never out of debt; and he sent the Attorney the following letter of expostulation:

"MR. ATTORNEY,

I thought best, once for all, to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me.

"You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion. What it pleaseth you, I pray, think of me : I am one that knows both mine own wants and other men's and it may be perchance that mine mend, and others stand at a stay. And surely I may not endure in public place to be wronged without repelling the same to my best advantage to right myself.

"You are great and therefore have the more enemies which would be glad to have you paid at another's cost. Since the time I missed the Solicitor's place (the rather I think by your means) I cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together; but either to serve with another upon your remove, or to step into some other course; so as I am more free than ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming myself to you, more than general good manners or your particular good usage shall provoke. And if you had not been shortsighted in your own fortune (as I think) you might have had more use of me. But that tide is passed. I write not this to show my friends what a brave letter I have writ to Mr. Attorney; I have none of these humours. But that I have written is to a good end, that is to the more decent carriage of my Mistress' service, and to our particular better understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall be answered by you in deed and not in word, I suppose it will not be worse for us both. Else it is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. So this being but to yourself, I for myself rest."

The enmity thus published to the world did not end here; and through the web of Bacon's destiny and various vicissitudes, the antagonism of Coke runs like a dark thread interwoven with his most signal triumphs and his ultimate humiliation and fall.

About this time Bacon lost his brother Anthony.1 His health, 1 Chamberlain, writing on 27 May, 1601, says 'Anthony Bacon died not long since."

always infirm, had perhaps received a shock from the outbreak and death of Essex, to whom he remained faithful to the last: at all events his correspondence breaks off at that point, and from that time forward we have no record of the relations between the two brothers. More impulsive, more free-spoken, more lavish and reckless of expenditure, and (we must add) more single-hearted than Francis, he had spent his fortune first in travelling, and afterwards in procuring foreign information for Essex, and in maintaining himself and (in part) his younger brother while the latter was prosecuting his suit for the Attorneyship and Solicitorship. But by this time the tide. had turned, and whereas he had sold estate after estate for Francis, it is now Francis who hopes (1600) to get into his own possession the land that Anthony is forced to sell; and Anthony died, says Chamberlain, "so far in debt that I think his brother will be little the better by him." 1

In the last Parliament of the Queen, which met 17 Oct., 1601, Bacon, who had been returned both for Ipswich and St. Albans, took an active part. He opposed a Bill against Monopolies, declaring that the House must not interfere with the Prerogative, but proceed by petition. He also spoke against the Repeal of the Statute of Tillage, maintaining "that it stands not with the policy of the State that the wealth of the kingdom should be engrossed in a few pasturers' hands." During the same year, in a letter to Cecil on Irish policy he ventured to advocate conciliation and toleration of the Roman Catholics, at least for a time, and the establishment of courts for the administration of justice, released from the technicalities of English law: English and Irish were to be treated as one nation. In Ireland, however, the difficulty of maintaining order-in consequence of the inability of the English exchequer to maintain there a large military force-always stared the reformer in the face; and Bacon, like the rest of his contem

1 This quotation from Chamberlain is important, because it seems to show that there was, at all events, no known and open rupture between the brothers consequent on the fall of Essex. The suspicion of such a rupture might have been suggested by Bacon's language to the Queen: "I have just fears my brother will endeavour to put away Gorhambury, which-if your Majesty enable me by this gift-I know I shall be able to get into mine own hands." But it is quite characteristic of Bacon to use such language in order to convey to the Queen the impression that he and his Essexian brother were not on the best of terms.

Essays, xxix. 125.

poraries, had no better remedy to propose than the introduction

of English settlers as a standing garrison, a plan which, when actually adopted, spoiled the whole scheme of reform." 1

§ 12 THE NEW REIGN

The death of Elizabeth (24 March, 1603) made a complete change in all Bacon's prospects. Several letters show the assiduity with which he endeavoured to recommend himself to the new King through those who might have influence with him. Three or four days before the Queen's death (19 March, 1603) he writes to Mr. Michael Hickes, Cecil's confidential man of business:

"The apprehension of this threatened judgment of God, percutiam pastorem et dispergentur oves gregis, if it work in other as it worketh in me, knitteth every man's heart more unto his true and approved friend. . . . And as I ever used your means to cherish the truth of my inclination towards Mr. Secretary, so now again I pray, as you find time, let him know that he is the personage in this State which I love most. And this, as you may easily judge, proceedeth not out of any straits of my occasions, as mought be thought in times past, but merely out of the largeness and fullness of my affections."

2

To the Earl of Northumberland, the patron of Harriot the mathematician, he bases an appeal on the ground of his friendship for his brother Anthony and the studies which they pursue in common; and, as in the former letter, he disavows the pressure of any necessity, begging the Earl "not to do so much disadvantage to my good mind, nor partly to your own worth, as to conceive that this commendation of my humble service proceedeth out of any straits of my occasions, but merely out of an election, and indeed the fullness of my heart." His brother Anthony is mentioned in a third letter to a Mr. David Foules, in Scotland, in which he refers (25 March) to the correspondence which Essex had kept up, through Anthony, with the Scottish Court.

1 Dictionary of National Biography, "Bacon," ii. 335.

2 Compare the Commentarius Solutus (1608), in which Bacon proposes "the setting on work) my lord) of North(umberland), and Ralegh, and therefor Haryott, themselves being already inclined to experiments."