In the later negotiation about the marriage of Prince Charles, those of the council who were known or suspected catholics, Arundel, Worcester, Digby, Weston, Calvert, as well as Buckingham, whose connections were such, were in the Spanish party. Those reputed to be jealous protestants were all against it. Wilson, in Kennet, ii. 725. Many of the former were bribed by Gondomar. Id. and Rushworth, i. 19.
[588] The proclamation for this parliament contains many of the unconstitutional directions to the electors, contained, as has been seen, in that of 1604, though shorter. Rymer, xvii. 270.
[589] "Deal with me, as I shall desire at your hands," etc. "He knew not," he told them, "the laws and customs of the land when he first came, and was misled by the old counsellors whom the old queen had left;"—he owns that at the last parliament there was "a strange kind of beast called undertaker," etc. Parl. Hist. i. 1180. Yet this coaxing language was oddly mingled with sallies of his pride and prerogative notions. It is evidently his own composition, not Bacon's. The latter, in granting the speaker's petitions, took the high tone so usual in this reign, and directed the House of Commons like a schoolmaster. Bacon's Works, i. 701.
[590] Debates of Commons in 1621, vol. i. p. 84. I quote the two volumes published at Oxford in 1766; they are abridged in the new Parliamentary History.
[591] Id. 103, 109.
[592] The Commons in this session complained to the Lords, that the Bishop of London (Stokesley) had imprisoned one Philips on suspicion of heresy. Some time afterwards, they called upon him to answer their complaint. The bishop laid the matter before the Lords, who all declared that it was unbecoming for any lord of parliament to make answer to any one in that place; "quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum prædictorum alicui in eo loco responsorum." Lords' Journals, i. 71. The lords, however, in 1701 (State Trials, xiv. 275), seem to have recognised this as a case of impeachment.
[593] Debates in 1621, p. 114, 228, 229.
[594] Id. passim.
[595] Carte.
[596] Clarendon speaks of this impeachment as an unhappy precedent, made to gratify a private displeasure. This expression seems rather to point to Buckingham than to Coke; and some letters of Bacon to the favourite at the time of his fall display a consciousness of having offended him. Yet Buckingham had much more reason to thank Bacon as his wisest counsellor, than to assist in crushing him. In his works (vol. i. p. 712) is a tract, entitled "Advice to the Duke of Buckingham," containing instructions for his governance as minister. These are marked by the deep sagacity and extensive observation of the writer. One passage should be quoted in justice to Bacon. "As far as it may lie in you, let no arbitrary power be intruded; the people of this kingdom love the laws thereof, and nothing will oblige them more than a confidence of the free enjoying of them: what the nobles upon an occasion once said in parliament, 'Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari,' is imprinted in the hearts of all the people." I may add that with all Bacon's pliancy, there are fewer over-strained expressions about the prerogative in his political writings than we should expect. His practice was servile, but his principles were not unconstitutional. We have seen how strongly he urged the calling of parliament in 1614: and he did the same, unhappily for himself, in 1621. Vol. ii. p. 580. He refused also to set the great seal to an office intended to be erected for enrolling prentices, a speculation apparently of some monopolists; writing a very proper letter to Buckingham, that there was no ground of law for it. P. 555.