CHAPTER VI.
REVIEW OF THE STATE OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS—DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT—PROTEST—JAMES TEARS IT OUT OF THE JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS—ACTS OF OPPRESSION—CASE OF THE EARL OF OXFORD—OF LORD SOUTHAMPTON—PERSECUTION OF SIR EDWARD COKE—THE CONDUCT AND IMPEACHMENT OF LORD BACON—THE PART TAKEN BY BUCKINGHAM IN THIS AFFAIR—THE ABUSES OF MONOPOLIES—CASE OF SIR GILES MOMPESSON—OF SIR FRANCIS MICHELL—BACON’S LETTERS TO PARLIAMENT—HIS ILLNESS—THE GREAT SEAL TAKEN FROM HIM—JAMES’S RELUCTANCE TO ACT WITH VIGOUR—SHEDS TEARS UPON THE OCCASION—BACON STILL PROTECTED BY BUCKINGHAM—WILLIAMS, BISHOP OF LINCOLN, IS MADE CHANCELLOR—HIS CHARACTER, BY BISHOP GOODMAN.
CHAPTER VI.
It is now necessary to make a short review of the state of political affairs coëval with these successive manifestations of a blind partiality shown by James to Buckingham.
The autumn of 1621 had witnessed the dissolution of the Parliament. This step, which was imputed to the advice of Buckingham, was hastened by a protest from the two houses of commons, declaring “that the liberties, franchises, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright of the subjects of England;” asserting the point that the arduous affairs of state, the making of laws and redress of grievances, are the proper subjects of debate in Parliament; and maintaining the privilege of each member to enjoy entire freedom of speech.
This protest, which James and his son would have done well to have for ever remembered, was drawn forth by the King’s resentment at the interference in the Spanish marriage.[[321]] “He considered it,” he said, “presumptuous in the Parliament humbly to beseech him to permit his son to marry a Protestant Princess; and he intimated that if they had fixed upon any person or place, he should have thought it high treason.”
The proclamation which announced the dissolution was ascribed to the pen of Archbishop Laud, who now exercised an ascendancy over Buckingham; and the King, hastening to London, called a Privy Council, and, sending for the journal of the House of Commons, declared the protest void, and tore it from the book with his own hands.[[322]]
These rash and blamable measures were resented by the whole kingdom. They were followed by acts of oppression and injustice. The first object of the King’s wrath was Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford. This young nobleman, who was endowed with great ability, courage, and high reputation, was one of those young and daring aspirants whose honours were not only inherited from a long series of noble progenitors, but by merit made their own.[[323]] He had already distinguished himself in the cause that was dearest to the hearts of the English—that of the Palatinate, and had extorted from the King one regiment to employ in the service of his son-in-law, Frederic. The body of men whom he led to the unequal contest, was, says a contemporary, “the gallantest for the persons and outward presence of men,” that, “in many ages, ever appeared at home or abroad.” It consisted almost entirely of gentlemen, the flower of the commoners of England, who went to improve themselves in the art of war, to which the English had for years been strangers. Oxford, with his noble associates and brave soldiers, did all that was possible for man to do; and then, finding that there was no support from England, returned, hopeless, but not disgraced.
Here was one of those “gallant spirits who aimed at the public liberty more than at their own interest;[interest;] and who yet, when the Government which they served, or the prerogative which they held sacred, was attacked, were fierce in defence of the King and his authority; supporting,” says Arthur Wilson, “the old English honour, they would not let it fall to the ground.”[[324]]
In spite of this acknowledged loyalty, the Earl of Oxford was accused by a man named White, henceforth called Oxford-White, of having spoken against the King; and was committed to the Tower, where he was long imprisoned, until, on account of his known bravery, he was made one of Buckingham’s Vice-Admirals on the English coast. A letter, addressed to Buckingham, whilst the Earl was under this disgrace, appealing to the King, to the favourite’s own conscience, whether he had ever harboured any treasonable thoughts, obtained for him, perhaps, this tardy justice:—“If it shall please the King,” wrote the gallant Vere, “to line me out my path to death (the period we must all travel to) by imprisonment, I shall be far from repining at the sentence, but with all humbleness will undergo it, and employ my heartiest prayers for the long continuance of his health and happiness.”[[325]]
The persecution of Vere reflects infinite dishonour upon Buckingham—but that bright star was fast losing the purity of its lustre. Buckingham was an altered man. Unbounded prosperity was changing the once generous foe into an avenger.
Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, was the next subject of the Marquis’s wrath. Upon this brave peer the King’s favours had hitherto been showered down, and he had been endeared to the people by his friendship for the unfortunate Earl of Essex, on whose account he had suffered confinement in the reign of Elizabeth. On the accession of James, Lord Southampton was brought from “the prison to the palace.”[[326]] His lands had been forfeited to the crown: they were immediately restored. On the meeting of the first Parliament called by James, the Earl was restored by a bill, read after the recognition of the King, to his titles.[[327]] The rest of this nobleman’s life was spent in promoting worthy objects, to some of which even the lettered attached ridicule. For instance, his patronage of colonization, his sending ships to America for the purpose of discovery and traffic, excited the ridicule of some of the caustic geniuses of the day. Yet Lord Southampton received many tributes from the learned; and such was his protection of letters, that he was called “learning’s best favourite.”[[328]] It was, however, his highest praise that he was the patron and friend of Shakspeare.
It was upon this popular nobleman that the ire of Buckingham next fell. It must, however, be acknowledged, that Lord Southampton’s credit at Court had been on the decline previous to the altercation which took place between him and Buckingham in the House of Lords; the Earl having incurred the royal displeasure on several occasions, especially in opposing illegal patents, a tender subject which had lately been under the consideration of Parliament. Under these circumstances, when he called the Favourite to order in a debate of the House of Lords, he only rekindled the embers of former animosities. Prince Charles attempted, indeed, successfully, to check the dispute; nevertheless, Southampton sustained an imprisonment of twelve days upon the adjournment of Parliament. He was allowed, on the eighteenth of July, to go to his own house at Titchfield, where he was, however, a prisoner.[[329]] The famous Selden, Pym, and Sir Robert Philips, were imprisoned in the Tower of London for freedom of speech;[[330]] in short, during this Parliament, were the seeds of that arbitrary disposition, which afterwards manifested itself so calamitously, first ripened. It was not among the least sources of public regret, that the heir-apparent should have witnessed, and in some measure participated in, these flagrant oppressions.
Buckingham either perceived that these infringements upon the liberty of the subject had been permitted to go far enough, or his native good nature prevailed over the virulence of party and the love of power; for on the nineteenth of July he came to London, visited the Earl of Northumberland in the Tower, passed two hours with the Earl of Southampton at Westminster, and with the Earl of Oxford at Sir Thomas Cockaine’s. “This was taken,” writes Mr. Chamberlain, “for a good presage, like the coming of St. Elmo after a tempest.”[[331]] Two days afterwards, the Lord Keeper Williams took the Earl of Southampton to Theobald’s where the king was. A long conference ensued; the Lord Keeper, the Marquis of Buckingham, and Southampton being the only persons admitted to the royal presence. On the following day, Southampton, was set at liberty.[[332]]
Sir Edward Coke was likewise among those who incurred the displeasure of James for freedom of speech. Imprisonment in the Tower followed his offence. The locks and doors of his chambers in the Temple were sealed up, and several securities for money taken away. Immured in prison, his family not being suffered to approach him, he had yet another trial to encounter. James, whose meanness equalled his improvidence, took this base occasion to sue Coke for an old pretended debt due from Sir Christopher Hatton to Queen Elizabeth. The reply of the Solicitor-general, Sir John Walter, when the brief of this iniquitous case was sent to him, is worthy of a nobler character of mind than that usually imputed to the English lawyer of that period. “Let my tongue,” he answered, “cleave to the roof of my mouth whenever I ope it against Sir Edward Coke;” yet the suit was rigorously prosecuted. “That spirit of fiery exhalation”[[333]] was not daunted even by this petty and malignant persecution. It was observed of him that he lost his advancement in the same way that he got it[[334]]—by his tongue. To the last, he steadily resisted the oppressions of the crown, and his character, odious as it was to his contemporaries, odious when we reflect upon him as the vituperative judge of Ralegh, and too justly censured by Bacon “for insulting misery,”[[335]] has received the respect and gratitude of posterity for its general political independence.
The fate of Bacon himself excited a still more mournful interest in good minds, than the injuries inflicted upon Coke.
It becomes necessary for the biographer of Villiers, to examine into the circumstances of an affair with which, as with every public event of the day, he was intimately connected. Bacon, in afterwards addressing James, alludes to Buckingham when he imputes his degradation to the personal views of some secret foe. “I wish that, as I am the first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times; and when, from private appetite, it is resolved that a creature shall be sacrificed, it is easy to pick up sticks enough from any thicket, whither he has strayed, to make a fire to offer it with.”[[336]]
In the early period of his career, Buckingham had owed much to the countenance, and more to the advice, of Bacon. The author of the Novum Organum seems to have been among the first to discern that remarkable association of personal and mental qualities in Villiers, which promised to secure him an ascendancy over James. Bacon lent the lustre of his name to shine upon the young courtier, and expected in return that aid which Buckingham, he soon perceived, would have it in his power to bestow. A mutual dependence was established; Buckingham existed on the capital of Bacon’s intellect; Bacon throve on the inferiority of the youth, conscious of his defects, and wise enough to remedy his own weakness by the strength of another.
No greater proof of confidence in a friend can be given than to seek his advice, and Villiers paid Bacon that tribute. He requested him “to instruct him how to fulfil his high station, how to serve the King, how to conciliate the people.” In consequence of this, Bacon had addressed to the Favourite a letter of advice,[[337]] “such,” observes the biographer of Bacon, “as is not usually given in courts, but of a strain equally free and friendly, calculated to make the person to whom it was addressed good and great, and equally honourable to the giver and the receiver; advice which contributed not a little to his prosperity in after life.”[[338]]
This manual of a courtier’s duty, it must be owned, was sadly at variance with the practice that followed these nobly conceived instructions on the part of him who gave them.
“You are,”—Bacon thus addressed Villiers—“as a new risen star, and the eyes of all are upon you; let not your own negligence make you fall like a meteor.” “Next to religion,” he adds elsewhere, “let your care be to promote justice. By justice and mercy is the King’s throne established.” “And as far as it may rest in you, let no arbitrary power be intended. The people of this kingdom love the laws thereof, and nothing will oblige them more than a confidence of the free enjoying of them.” “Your greatest care must be,” he adds, towards the conclusion, “that the great men of the court—for you must give me leave to be plain with you, for so is your injunction laid upon me—yourself in the first place, who are first in the eye of all men, give no just cause of scandal either by light, vain, or by oppressive carriage.”[[339]]
Notwithstanding these admirable precepts, the years during which Lord Bacon held the Great Seal, and during which Villiers ruled predominant, were, as it has been justly observed, “the darkest and most shameful in English history.”[[340]] The domestic government of James and his favourite, in weakness and want of high principle, corresponded but too mournfully with their foreign policy; with their indifference to the great struggle for the interests of liberty and of Protestantism in Germany; with their vacillating and cowardly counsels. Whilst the continental nations were venting their surprise and indignation in sallies of ridicule directed against England, the King, who had nothing to bestow in the aid of a loyal cause in which the welfare of his own child was bound up, resorted at home to the most disgraceful expedients in order to exalt his favourite. During this period, Buckingham held an absolute empire over the actions of Bacon. A system of persecution against Coke had followed the disgraceful affair of Sir John Villiers’ marriage. In an unlucky hour, Bacon interfered between Lady Hatton and her injured husband; he even descended to lend himself to the low affairs of these vulgar great, and to take part against his enemy, Coke, and with his arrogant wife. This was during the King’s absence in Scotland: as matters then stood, this proceeding on the part of the Lord Keeper militated against the marriage which Buckingham had at heart. Bacon was soon taught, therefore, to see his error. The Favourite resented his interference, and refused to be pacified. In vain did the Lord Keeper stay certain proceedings against Coke which had been instituted in the Star Chamber; in vain did he hasten to testify his submission to Buckingham. Two successive days he went to the stately apartments of the Favourite; waited meekly in an ante-chamber, seated on an old box, with the Great Seal of England at his side. At length, when he was admitted, he threw himself at the feet of Buckingham, and swore never to rise thence till he had received the pardon of the lofty personage whom he had once instructed in the art of conducting himself with dignity.[[341]]
This was not such conduct as would entitle a man to respect even from him on whom he cringed. Yet Bacon, in one of his letters addressed to Buckingham, declares him to have been the “truest and perfectest mirror of friendship that ever was in a court;” and protests that “he should count every day lost in which he should not study his well-doing in thought, or do his name honour in speech, or perform service for him indeed.”[[342]] Nor is the statement given by Weldon, of the manner in which the seals were offered to Bacon by Buckingham, credible. According to that writer, the Favourite, when he sent to proffer them to Bacon, accompanied them with an insulting message, saying, that whilst he knew him to be a man of excellent parts, he was also aware “that he was an errant knave, apt, in his prosperity, to ruin any that had raised him in his adversity;” yet from regard to his master’s service, he had obtained the seals for him; but with this assurance, that if he ever should act to him as he had done to others, he would be cast down as much below as he was now above any honour that he had expected,[[343]] alluding to the flagrant ingratitude and perfidy of Bacon to Essex. But this story, supported by no evidence, is at variance with probability; and since it rests upon the authority of one who is always inveterate against Buckingham, it may be discarded as wholly unworthy of belief.
That Buckingham knew well the character of the Lord Keeper before he promoted him to the Chancellorship—that he calculated on his subservience to himself, expressed in his letters, so that posterity may judge of Bacon’s professions—that he had discovered that the doctrine of expediency influenced the practice of Bacon, is almost certain; for he did not hesitate to sway him to the most disgraceful countenance of abuses for which the whole country was crying out for redress.
Amongst the grievances most disliked were those of monopolies; and amongst the most detested of detestable patents was that for the exclusive manufacture of gold and silver lace. It had been conjointly granted to Sir Giles Mompesson, who is supposed to have been the original of Sir Giles Overreach, and to Sir Frances Michell, who is said to have suggested the character of Justice Greedy. Sir Giles was a Wiltshire knight, patronised by Buckingham; or, as it was the fashion of the day to speak, “a creature of the Favourite’s;” and was concerned, not only in the patent of gold and silver lace, but in forming the monopolies styled the patents of “Inns and Osteries.” In this affair Michell assisted him.[[344]]
To render Bacon justice, he had formerly, when applied to with regard to these patents on behalf of Sir Christopher Villiers, advised Buckingham not to have anything to do with them.[[345]] He declared them to be one of the grievances which Parliament ought to put down; but avowed his readiness, should it not be done away with, “to mould it in the best manner, and help it forward.”[[346]]
The latter course was preferred by Buckingham, and was therefore adopted. The result was not only that the manufacture of gold and silver thread was adulterated, for that would have been a matter of comparatively little consequence, but that an inquisitorial jurisdiction was exercised by the patentees of the Inns and Osteries, who were armed with as great powers as had ever been granted to the farmers of the revenue. The abuses which resulted cried for redress; and, during the session of 1620, Parliament took the matter up. It became the province of the Lord Keeper to interpose, and he decided that it should be settled with all convenient speed. “The meaning of this was,” writes Lord Macaulay, “that certain of the house of Villiers were to go halves with certain of the house of Overreach and Greedy in the plunder of the public.”
Petitions were sent up to Parliament by persons who had suffered under these exactions, and the whole affair was thoroughly “ripped up.”[[347]]
The odium of these abuses fell upon Buckingham; the blame upon the Lord Keeper, who had not restrained these patents. Sir Edward Villiers, who was thought to be as “deep in the mire” as Mompesson and Michell, was sent on an embassy for safety. Mompesson was, on the third of March, 1621, summoned to appear before Parliament: he had fled, assisted, according to common report, by Buckingham, who dreaded further exposure, for Mompesson’s neck was in danger. On the twenty-seventh of the same month, the King went to Parliament, and pronounced sentence on Sir Giles, the dignity of his wife remaining untainted.[[348]] Michell, a newly-made knight, was brought to his trial on the third of May, and suffered the singular sentence of degradation, with all “the ceremonies of abasement,” “but that,” observes Arthur Wilson, “being most proper to his nature, he was but eased of a burthen, his mind suffered not.”[[349]] He was made incapable of holding office, fined 1,000l., and ordered to be imprisoned in Finsbury Prison during the King’s pleasure. The ceremonial was rendered sufficiently effective, and Buckingham, with the highest persons of the realm, witnessed the process. The “old justice,” as Michell was called, was brought by the Sheriffs of London to Westminster Hall, on the last day of Term, when the sentence of Parliament was read before him by a pursuivant, in an audible voice. His spurs were then broken in pieces by the servants of the Earl Marshal, and thrown away; the silver sword was taken from his side, broken over his head, and thrown away. Last of all, he was pronounced no longer a knight, but a knave; Garter, Clarencieux, Norroy sitting at the feet of the Commissioners.[[350]]
Sir Giles Mompesson, meantime, having contrived to elude the sergeants who had him in charge, was safe abroad; but a proclamation was out against him. The Prince and Lords promised to do all they could to ensure his being apprehended: the ports were guarded. Buckingham, meantime, declared in the House that he had no hand in the matter, but that the blame rested with the referees who had tested the lawfulness of these patents.[[351]] Sir Giles was heavily fined; an annuity of 200l. on the new waterworks being all that was reserved for Lady Mompesson and her child.
Two years afterwards he was, however, allowed to return to England for three months, though under some risk; for the people did not forget that the two words, “no Empsons,” formed his anagram, and he was only permitted to land in England on the petition of his wife.[[352]]
With what sensations Buckingham, who had certainly regarded the peculation permitted by these patents as a family perquisite, must have witnessed these proceedings, it is not easy to say. His once generous character was gaining in hardness, and losing the traces of its delicacy and scrupulousness every day.
But evils of a more stupendous character were soon to be detected and avenged by a people who, Bacon truly said, “loved the law of their land.” The Lord Keeper had reckoned for a long time that the protecting hand of the Favourite could cover his venial proceedings. On the twenty-seventh of January, 1620, he was created Viscount St. Albans, with plenary investiture. The Lord Carew carried his robe before him; the Marquis of Buckingham held it up. The prosperous Lord Keeper gave the King most hearty thanks for each successive step of his preferment. 1st, for making him his solicitor; 2nd, his attorney; 3rd, a privy councillor; 4th, Keeper of the Great Seal; 5th, chancellor; 6th, Baron Verulam; 7th, Viscount St. Albans;—honours and emoluments which had been procured for him entirely through the influence of Buckingham. The envious world wondered, according to Sir Symonds D’Ewes, at the gratification of Bacon’s pride and ambition. His estates in land were thought, at that time, not to be more in value than four or five hundred pounds yearly; his debts were supposed to amount to 30,000l. He was then known to receive bribes in all cases of moment that came before him.[[353]] The hour of reckoning, however, eventually arrived.
The disgraceful transactions which brought this tardy justice on the man so pre-eminent in letters, so debased in honourable principle, had been a frequent source of complaint in parliament. Thus, as a modern writer observes, “was signally brought to the test the value of those objects for which Bacon had sullied his integrity, had resigned his independence, had violated the most sacred objects of friendship and gratitude, had flattered the worthless, had persecuted the innocent, had tampered with judges, had tortured prisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted on paltry intrigues the power of the most exquisitely constructed intellect that had ever been bestowed on any of the children of men.”[[354]] It is of no avail to say that the custom of the day authorized the receiving of bribes and presents; or to justify the mean subservience of the Lord Chancellor by blaming the interference of Buckingham. That interference may be justly censured; but it forms no ground of acquittal to Bacon.
In the letter of advice addressed by this most inconsistent man to Buckingham, when Sir George Villiers, he counsels him by no means ever to be persuaded to interpose himself, “either by word or letter, in any cause depending, or likely to be depending, in any court of justice, nor suffer any other great man to do it where he could hinder it, and by all means to dissuade the King from it.” “If it prevail,” he adds, “it prevents justice; but if the judge be so just, and of such courage, as he ought to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of suspicion behind it. Judges must be chaste as Cæsar’s wife—neither to be, nor to be suspected to be, unjust; and, sir, the honour of the judges in their judicature is the King’s honour, whose person they represent.”[[355]]
Shortly after Bacon had become Lord Keeper, a series of letters was, nevertheless, commenced on the part of Buckingham in favour of persons who were likely to come into chancery.[[356]] And it is related in Hacket’s Life of the Lord Keeper Williams, the successor of Bacon, that there was not a cause of moment, but that, as soon as it came to publication, one of the parties concerned in it brought letters from this mighty peer and the Lord Keeper’s patron.[[357]] A committee was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the proceedings of the courts of justice. Two charges of corruption were brought against the Lord Chancellor; the one in the case of a man named Aubrey, who had been advised to quicken a suit in chancery by the bribe of a hundred pounds. The money was presented, through the medium of Sir George Hastings, directly to the Lord Chancellor at his lodgings in Gray’s Inn, and when Sir George came out from the chambers, he told Aubrey that his “Lordship was thankful, and assured him of good success in his business, which, however, he had not.”[[358]] The other case was that of Mr. Egerton, who mortgaged his estate for four hundred pounds; a sum which Bacon at first refused, saying it was too much, but accepted at last. These charges were eventually preferred before the House of Lords, and when the complaint was made in that assembly, it devolved on Buckingham, in the absence of the Chancellor, who was sick, to present a letter praying for time for the privilege of cross-examining witnesses; and requesting that if there came up any more petitions of the same nature, their Lordships would not take any prejudice at their numbers, considering that they were against a judge that made two hundred and forty decrees in a year.[[359]] During this interval, Bacon was assured of the sympathy of James and the intercession of Buckingham. The King shed tears on hearing of his dilemma, and procured a recess of parliament, in order to give him time for defence. It was, however, judged best by the Chancellor, notwithstanding all this powerful patronage, not to attempt a defence, but to throw himself upon the mercy of the House. That, in spite of this confession, Bacon still continued to enjoy the protection of Buckingham, is evident, for the heir to the crown presented Bacon’s memorable letter, full of eloquence, and expressed with the inimitable address which he knew so well how to employ. This submission was not deemed enough; a full confession was required. It was given by one sunk in character and broken in spirit, and was received by the House. Prince Charles was then requested to intercede with His Majesty that he would sequester the Great Seal, to which James assented, declaring it was his resolution to fill up the place of Chancellor forthwith. Bacon was summoned before the House; he excused himself on the plea of sickness, and sentence was passed upon him in his absence. He was decreed to pay a fine of 40,000l., to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King’s pleasure, and declared incapable of ever either sitting in Parliament again, or of holding any office or employment; he was even forbidden to come within “the verge”—that is, within twelve miles of the Court.[[360]]
The condition of Bacon’s mind and body under this severe disgrace seems to have been truly melancholy. One moment he was merry, and declared that he believed he should be able to ride safely through the tempest. When passing through the hall of his stately abode at York House, on his servants rising at his presence, he said, “Sit down, my friends; your rise has been my fall.” Upon one of his friends observing, “You must look around you,” he answered, “I look above me.” At other times his despair broke out in words that, although somewhat abject, were touching in the extreme. As he lay in his bed, his frame swoln with disease, he bade none of his gentlemen come near him, nor take any notice of him, but altogether to forget him, not hereafter to speak of him, nor remember that there was such a being in the world.
In this extremity of sorrow, Buckingham visited the fallen one. Already had Bacon written to him in the following terms:—“Your Lordship spoke of purgatory; I am now in it; but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands, and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may, for a time, seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the game. And if this be to be a Chancellor, I think, if the Great Seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would stoop to take it up.” What marvellous self-deception, or consummate duplicity! Owing to Buckingham’s mediation, a letter was given to the King, from Bacon; in this he again asserted that innocence to which he had solemnly renounced all claim before, in his submission to Parliament.
“And now for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged; when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice, however I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times.”[[361]]
On the nineteenth of March, Bacon addressed a letter to the House of Lords, contending, he said, that charges of bribery were brought against him; he prayed that they would not prejudge him for absence, having been ill, and preparing for a higher tribunal; that they would give him leisure to make his defence, which would be plain and ingenuous; also, that they would not be prejudiced against him by the number of petitions brought against a man who gives two hundred decrees and orders a year, exclusive of causes. He did not, he said, desire to make greatness a subterfuge for guiltiness.[[362]]
Notwithstanding a message from James to Parliament, saying that he had refused the tender of the Great Seal from the Lord Chancellor, and hoped that they would give him a patient hearing, “but to judge him as they thought fit, if matters prove foul,”[[363]] Bacon was suspended. He wrote a pitiful, specious letter to the House of Lords, in which he “rejoiced that in the midst of his profound afflictions the greatness of a magistrate was no shelter for crime.” His only justification, he said, was his non-concealment of his offences. He did not mean to reply to particular questions, nor cavil at witnesses, nor urge extenuations. He submitted to their judgment and mercy, but hoped that the loss of his soul might be sufficient expiation for his faults. He pleaded for compassion, by the example of the King’s clemency, and their own fellow feeling for him.[[364]]
Until the first of May, 1621, Bacon remained Lord Chancellor of England. On the afternoon of that day, the Lord Treasurer, Viscount Mandeville, the Duke of Lennox, Lord Steward of the King’s Household, the Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, repaired to York House. They were introduced into the presence of Bacon, and then told him “that they were sorry to visit him on such an occasion, and wished it had been better.” “No, my lords,” he replied, “the occasion is good.” He then delivered to them the Great Seal, saying, as he gave it up, “It was the King’s favour that gave me this, and it is my fault that he hath taken it away.” The seal was conveyed to Whitehall, and restored to the King, who exclaimed, on receiving it, “Now, by my soul, I am pained at my heart where to bestow this; for, as for my lawyers, they are all knaves.”[[365]] But Buckingham had provided against this difficulty, and the high office which Bacon had so greatly abused was bestowed upon Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, who was now the chief adviser of the Marquis, and to whose counsels much that had been done was attributed.
The choice of Williams, for this high office, reflected no discredit upon Buckingham. Bishop Goodman terms this prelate “a man of as great wit and understanding as ever I knew any man.” “And truly,” he adds, endeavouring to rebut Weldon’s charge of a mean birth, “he was as well-descended and had as good kindred as any man in North Wales, none beyond him. He had a very quick apprehension, and for the discharge of the Lord Keeper’s Office, he was never taxed with any insufficiency. I have heard him make his reports in the Lord’s House of Parliament, and answer such petitions, that in truth we did wonderfully commend him.”[[366]] To these essentials Williams added the popular qualities of hospitality and liberality; in this respect he resembled Laud. “There was not a man in England,” says Bishop Goodman, “that kept a more orderly house than Laud did, or bred up his servants better. But I will join these two celebrities together for the great hospitality which they kept, inviting and entertaining strangers.” With regard to liberality, the erection of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the foundation there of several scholarships and fellowships, the library at Westminster, the library at Lincoln, the repairs of Westminster Abbey, and the care which Williams took, even when he was Lord Keeper, of the young scholars at Westminster, sufficiently attest his great and salutary views.
Whilst he was Proctor at Cambridge, he conducted a magnificent entertainment, given to the Lord Chancellor Egerton, and to the Spanish ambassadors, on which occasion Egerton told him that he “was fit to serve a king,” and afterwards introduced him at court.[[367]]
The chief circumstance that brought Williams into notice was his figuring at Cambridge in a disputation, before Prince Charles, in 1612-13,[[368]] when he was made a Bachelor of Divinity by special grace, in order that he might become a disputant in the Theological Controversy.[[369]]
Still, great subserviency was expected even from the Lord Keeper in those days of despotic rule. The industrious letter writer, John Chamberlain, who supplies us with all the gossip and news which, in those days, had no outlet in the public press, writes of this new appointment in these terms:—
“The King has made the Dean of Westminster Lord Keeper for a year and a half; if he behave well, he is to retain office for a year and a half longer, and then to surrender it: he is to consult one of the Chief Justices in all cases of importance.”[[370]]
He quietly adds, immediately afterwards, that the Bishop of Bangor had been sent to the Fleet for disputing “malapertly” with the King on the Sabbath; and that Dr. Price had shared the same punishment for his sermon at Oatlands. The “Prevaricator” of Cambridge was expelled the University for saying, at a banquet that he gave, that he would have all sorts of instruments except Gondomar’s pipe.[[371]] The Lord Keeper’s “good behaviour,” therefore, meant an absolute subjection of reason and understanding; and, more especially, an entire adherence to that line of politics which might happen to be agreeable at the time to the King.
The Great Seal, when it had been fetched from the miserable Bacon, was delivered by the King, in presence of the Prince and the Privy Council, to Williams, and was received with a short speech, “marvelling at His Majesty’s benignity,” and promising to be pastor of the sheep. In his first speech in the Court of Chancery, the Lord Keeper vindicated the principle on which the King had determined to fill up the post with one who was not a lawyer.[[372]]
A few months before Buckingham, who, as “Steward of the City and College of Westminster,” was patron of the Deanery, had made the young disputant Dean of Westminster. Williams, nevertheless, abstained from paying any court to the Favourite; his pride and honesty kept him aloof. “For he had observed,” says Bishop Hacket, “that the Marquis was very apt suddenly to look cloudy upon his creatures, as if he had raised them up on purpose to cast them down.” One day, however, whilst the Dean was attending upon King James, in the absence of the Marquis, the Monarch suddenly inquired, without any relation to the previous discourse, “when he was at Buckingham?” “Sir,” replied Williams, “I have had no business to go to his lordship.” “But,” rejoined the King, “you must go to him about my business,” and Williams accordingly sought an interview with the Marquis. The Favourite and the Dean were thus brought into contact, and the result was favourable to both. To Buckingham it procured an able and, for the time, a zealous friend, to whom he owed the great service which Williams afterwards performed in converting Lady Katherine Manners from Popery; and Williams obtained, for his part, a munificent and deserving patron. A different version of the causes of Williams’s elevation was given by a scandalous historian. According to Sir Anthony Weldon, it was owing to the hopes which the Countess of Buckingham entertained of becoming, in her third nuptials, the wife of Williams, who is said to have “thought otherwise of that marriage when he was Lord Keeper Williams, than he had done as Dean of Westminster,”[Westminster,”][[373]] “which,” he adds, “was the cause of his downfall.” But this report was wholly without foundation. “Williams was generally beloved by his neighbours,” says Bishop Goodman, “and for that report, that he should be great with Buckingham’s mother, it is an idle, foolish report, without any colour of truth.”[[374]] His appointment as Lord Keeper gave, however, great offence to the members of the bar. It was loudly resented that the highest post in the law should be bestowed upon a doctor of divinity; and this step was, it was supposed, preparatory to filling all the courts of judicature with churchmen. Williams, nevertheless, proved himself to be admirably adapted for the office. He had already gained general confidence by persuading the King to suffer Parliament to sit, and to go on, in opposition to those who, being afraid of exposure, had endeavoured to prejudice Buckingham and his royal master against that assembly.[[375]] As a chancellor, he was acknowledged, even by the most distrustful, to be a faithful counsellor; and by the friendship and instruction of the Lord Chancellor, Egerton, to whom he had been domestic chaplain, he had been prepared for the great duties of his legal office. Egerton, on his death, had addressed to Williams these words:—“If you want money, I will leave you such a legacy as shall furnish you to begin the world like a gentleman. I know,” he added, “you are an expert workmen. Take these tools to broach with: they are the best I have.” He then gave him some books and papers, which he had written with his own hand, being directions concerning the regulation of the High Court of Parliament, the Court of Chancery, and the Star Chamber, for the dying Chancellor foresaw that his chaplain might, in the course of his career, require such materials.[[376]]
The promotion of Williams involved very important consequences to the English Church. It was by his instrumentality that Bishop Laud was first brought forward at the Court of James.
Williams foresaw the rise of that eminent and unfortunate man, but few persons could have predicted his fall.
An accidental circumstance drew upon Laud the attention which his learning, his zeal, and his ardent piety, tainted as it was by bigotry, might not have procured him. Bishops, and even archbishops, in those days, were, as we have seen, by no means restricted from the diversions of the hunting-field, nor even, if occasion occurred, from martial exploits. Archbishop Abbot, among the rest, had been a jovial huntsman. The practice was, it is true, forbidden by the canons of the church, but those had not been admitted by the law of the land. There was a high and violent party in the church, who were eager that Abbot should be deprived of his ecclesiastical dignities, on account of the accident in which he shot a keeper, a mishap which the worst construction could only render into justifiable homicide. Laud was amongst the most vehement of these, and his views of the case were so rigid, that he did not consider the orders which Archbishop Abbot conferred afterwards to be valid. There were others who judged differently, and amongst the rest, the justly celebrated Lancelot Andrews, who maintained that since Bishop Juxon was famous for breeding the best dogs in England, and was yet worthy to be promoted to a see, Abbot was excusable.
But the resistance of Laud was agreeable to Buckingham, who already had constituted himself his patron. By his influence, Williams was induced to get Laud made Bishop of St. David’s, and Laud afterwards acknowledged that and other obligations by exclaiming, “My life will be too short to repay his Lordship’s goodness.” Yet he lived to change his opinion.
The rise of Laud at Court may be traced by distinct, steps. In 1621-2, we find him preaching at Court, on the day of the King’s accession,[[377]] and “commanded to print.”[[378]] Shortly afterwards the King sent to Laud, to converse with him about the Countess of Buckingham, who was wavering on the subject of her faith. Several interviews succeeded, and in consequence, it may be presumed, of Laud’s exertions in that cause, he became chaplain to the Marquis of Buckingham. For a time, his efforts at conversion appear to have been crowned with success. The Countess consented to receive the sacrament in the King’s chapel, and received a present, according to common report, of 2,000l. for her conformity.[[379]] Sometimes religious discussions took place before His Majesty, and on one occasion, the answer of Laud to the nine articles, delivered in a book from Fisher, the Jesuit, was read and argued upon at Windsor, in the presence of James, his son, Buckingham, his mother, and his lady. These endeavours proved futile; the Countess became eventually confirmed in the Church of Rome, and retreated to her house at Goadby, to enjoy the exercise of her persuasion, undisturbed by the observations of the world. Hitherto, she had been one of the most brilliant leaders of fashion; her retirement from the Court was therefore the theme of much remark. Her compliance with the King’s wishes in receiving the Holy Communion was said to have been prompted by her dread of banishment from that sphere in which she had figured.[[380]] It was during the following year that she relapsed to Popery, and after she was, as Mr. Chamberlain declared, sent from Court, either on that account, or perhaps on account of a quarrel with her daughter-in-law.[[381]]
Whatsoever may have been the reason for the retirement of this ambitious woman, one may easily imagine with what mingled emotions of chagrin and triumph she returned to the scene of her early married life; her sons, already great, were ennobled, and influential; her title and fortune formed a striking contrast between the all-powerful mother of a royal favourite, and the lowly serving maid in the household of an obscure Leicestershire country gentleman; yet there were, as it so appears, clouds overshadowing even the brightness of her destiny, and darkening, eventually, the close of her singularly prosperous career.