He was again, in 1621, promoted in the peerage to be Viscount Saint-Albans; his patent particularly celebrating his “integrity in the administration of justice.”
In this same year the Parliament assembled. The House of Commons first voted the subsidies demanded by the Crown, and next proceeded, as was usual in those times, to the redress of grievances. A committee of the House was appointed to inquire into “the abuses of Courts of Justice.” A report of this committee charged the Lord Chancellor with corruption, and specified two cases; in the first of which Aubrey, a suitor in his court, stated that he had presented the Lord Chancellor with a hundred pounds; and Egerton, another suitor in his court, with four hundred pounds in addition to a former piece of plate of the value of fifty pounds; in both cases decisions had been given against the parties whose presents had been received. (Lord Campbell asserts that in the case of Egerton both parties had made the Chancellor presents.)[16] His enemies, it is said, estimated his illicit gains at a hundred thousand pounds; a statement which, it is more than probable, is greatly exaggerated.[17] “I never had,” said Bacon in his defence, “bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronounced sentence or order.” This is an acknowledgment of the fact, and perhaps an aggravation of the offence. He then addressed “an humble submission” to the House, a kind of general admission, in which he invoked as a plea of excuse vitia temporis.
How widely different from this is his own language! It is fair justice to appeal from the judge to the tribunal of the philosopher and moralist; it is appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober; unhappily it is likewise
to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar.
He says, in his Essay of Great Place: “For corruption: do not only bind thine own hands, or thy servant’s hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors from offering. For integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion.”[18] He says again, in the same Essay: “Set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them.”
But the allegation that it was a custom of the times requires examination. It was a custom of the times in reality to make presents to superiors. Queen Elizabeth received them as New Year’s gifts from functionaries of all ranks, from her prime minister down to Charles Smith, the dust-man (see note 1, page 7), and this custom probably continued under her successor, and may have been applied to other high functionaries, but it does not appear to have been in legitimate use in the courts of judicature. Coke, himself Chief Justice, was Bacon’s principal accuser; and, although an enemy, he has been said to have conducted himself with moderation and propriety on this occasion only. Lord Campbell, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench, and author of the Lives of the Chancellors and Chief Justices of England, repels the plea, as inadmissible. It cannot be denied that if Bacon extended the practice to the courts of justice, he has heaped coals of fire on his head; for applied to his own case personally it would be sufficiently odious; but what odium would not that man deserve who should systematize, nay, legitimize a practice that must inevitably poison the stream of justice at its fountain-head! What execration could be too great, if that man were the most intelligent, the wisest of his century, one of the most dignified in rank in the land, clad in spotless ermine, the emblem of purity, in short, the Minister of Justice!
The Lords resolved that Bacon should be called upon to put in a particular answer to each of the special charges preferred against him. The formal articles with proofs in support were communicated to him. The House received the “confession and humble submission of me, the Lord Chancellor.” In this document, Bacon acknowledges himself to be guilty of corruption; and in reply to each special charge admits in every instance the receipt of money or valuable things from the suitors in his court; but alleging in some cases that it was after judgment, or as New Year’s gifts, a custom of the times, or for prior services. A committee of nine temporal and three spiritual lords was appointed to ascertain whether it was he who had subscribed this document. The committee repaired to his residence, were received in the hall where he had been accustomed to sit as judge, and merely asked him if the signature affixed to the paper they exhibited to him was his. He passionately exclaimed: “My lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.” The committee withdrew, overwhelmed with grief at the sight of such greatness so fallen.
Four commissioners dispatched by the King demanded the Great Seal of the Chancellor, confined to his bed by sickness and sorrow and want of sustenance; for he refused to take any food. He hid his face in his hand, and delivered up that Great Seal for the attainment of which he “had sullied his integrity, had resigned his independence, had violated the most sacred obligations 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 all the powers of the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any of the children of men.”[19]
All this he did to be Lord High Chancellor of England; and, had he not been the unworthy minister of James, he might have been, to use the beautiful language of Hallam, “the high-priest of nature.”