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"England's high Chancellor, the destined heir, In his soft cradle, to his
father's chair, Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full Out of their
choicest and their whitest wool."
In the intervals of rest which Bacon's political and judicial functions
afforded, he was in the habit of retiring to Gorhambury. At that place his
business was literature, and his favorite amusement gardening, which in one of
his most interesting Essays he calls "the purest of human pleasures." In his
magnificent grounds he erected, at a cost of ten thousand pounds, a retreat to
which he repaired when he wished to avoid all visitors, and to devote himself
wholly to study. On such occasions, a few young men of distinguished talents
were sometimes the companions of his retirement; and among them his quick eye
soon discerned the superior abilities of Thomas Hobbes. It is not probable,
however, that he fully appreciated the powers of his disciple, or foresaw the
vast influence, both for good and for evil, which that most vigorous and acute
of human intellects was destined to exercise on the two succeeding generations.
In January 1621, Bacon had reached the zenith of his fortunes. He had just
published the Novum Organum; and that extraordinary book had drawn forth the
warmest expressions of admiration from the ablest men in Europe. He had obtained
honors of a widely different kind, but perhaps not less valued by him. He had
been created Baron Verulam. He had subsequently been raised to the higher
dignity of Viscount St. Albans. His patent was drawn in the most flattering
terms, and the Prince of Wales signed it as a witness. The ceremony of
investiture was performed with great state at Theobalds, and Buckingham
condescended to be one of the chief actors. Posterity has felt that the greatest
of English philosophers could derive no accession of dignity from any title
which James could bestow, and, in defiance of the royal letters patent, has
obstinately refused to degrade Francis Bacon into Viscount St. Albans.
In a few weeks 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 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. A sudden and terrible reverse was at
hand. A Parliament had been summoned. After six years of silence the voice of
the nation was again to be heard. Only three days after the pageant which was
performed at Theobalds in honor of Bacon, the Houses met.
Want of money had, as usual, induced the King to convoke his Parliament. It may
be doubted, however, whether, if he or his Ministers had been at all aware of
the state of public feeling, they would not have tried any expedient, or borne
with any inconvenience, rather than have ventured to face the deputies of a
justly exasperated nation. But they did not discern those times. Indeed almost
all the political blunders of James, and of his more unfortunate son, arose from
one great error. During the fifty years which preceded the Long Parliament a
great and progressive change was taking place in the public mind. The nature and
extent of this change was not in the least understood by either of the first two
Kings of the House of Stuart, or by any of their advisers. That the nation
became more and more discontented every year, that every House of Commons was
more unmanageable than that which had preceded it, were facts which it was
impossible not to perceive. But the Court could not understand why these things
were so. The Court could not see that the English people and the English
Government, though they might once have been well suited to each other, were
suited to each other no longer; that the nation had outgrown its old
institutions, was every day more uneasy under them, was pressing against them,
and would soon burst through them. The alarming phenomena, the existence of
which no sycophant could deny, were ascribed to every cause except the true one.
"In my first Parliament," said James, "I was a novice. In my next, there was a
kind of beasts called undertakers" and so forth. In the third Parliament he
could hardly be called a novice, and those beasts, the undertakers, did not
exist. Yet his third Parliament gave him more trouble than either the first or
the second.
The Parliament had no sooner met than the House of Commons proceeded, in a
temperate and respectful, but most determined manner, to discuss the public
grievances. Their first attacks were directed against those odious patents,
under cover of which Buckingham and his creatures had pillaged and oppressed the
nation. The vigor with which these proceedings were conducted spread dismay
through the Court. Buckingham thought himself in danger, and, in his alarm, had
recourse to an adviser who had lately acquired considerable influence over him,
Williams, Dean of Westminster. This person had already been of great use to the
favorite in a very delicate matter. Buckingham had set his heart on marrying
Lady Catherine Manners, daughter and heiress of the Earl of Rutland. But the
difficulties were great. The Earl was haughty and impracticable, and the young
lady was a Catholic. Williams soothed the pride of the father, and found
arguments which, for a time at least, quieted the conscience of the daughter.
For these services he had been rewarded with considerable preferment in the
Church; and he was now rapidly rising to the same place in the regard of
Buckingham which had formerly been occupied by Bacon.
Williams was one of those who are wiser for others than for themselves. His own
public life was unfortunate, and was made unfortunate by his strange want of
judgment and self-command at several important conjunctures. But the counsel
which he gave on this occasion showed no want of worldly wisdom. He advised the
favorite to abandon all thoughts of defending the monopolies, to find some
foreign embassy for his brother Sir Edward, who was deeply implicated in the
villainies of Mompesson, and to leave the other offenders to the justice of
Parliament. Buckingham received this advice with the warmest expressions of
gratitude, and declared that a load had been lifted from his heart. He then
repaired with Williams to the royal presence. They found the King engaged in
earnest consultation with Prince Charles. The plan of operations proposed by the
Dean was fully discussed, and approved in all its parts.
The first victims whom the Court abandoned to the vengeance of the Commons were
Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell. It was some time before Bacon began
to entertain any apprehensions. His talents and his address gave him great
influence in the House of which he had lately become a member, as indeed they
must have done in any assembly. In the House of Commons he had many personal
friends and many warm admirers. But at length, about six weeks after the meeting
of Parliament, the storm burst.
A committee of the lower House had been appointed to inquire into the state of
the Courts of Justice. On the fifteenth of March the chairman of that committee,
Sir Robert Philips, member for Bath, reported that great abuses had been
discovered. "The person," said he, "against whom these things are alleged is no
less than the Lord Chancellor, a man so endued with all parts, both of nature
and art, as that I will say no more of him, being not able to say enough." Sir
Robert then proceeded to state, in the most temperate manner, the nature of the
charges. A person of the name of Aubrey had a case depending in Chancery. He had
been almost ruined by law expenses, and his patience had been exhausted by the
delays of the court. He received a hint from some of the hangers-on of the
Chancellor that a present of one hundred pounds would expedite matters. The poor
man had not the sum required. However, having found out an usurer who
accommodated him with it at high interest, he carried it to York House. The
Chancellor took the money, and his dependants assured the suitor that all would
go right. Aubrey was, however, disappointed; for, after considerable delay, "a
killing decree" was pronounced against him. Another suitor of the name of
Egerton complained that he had been induced by two of the Chancellor's jackals
to make his Lordship a present of four hundred pounds, and that, nevertheless,
he had not been able to obtain a decree in his favor. The evidence to these
facts was overwhelming. Bacon's friends could only entreat the House to suspend
its judgment, and to send up the case to the Lords, in a form less offensive
than an impeachment.
On the nineteenth of March the King sent a message to the Commons, expressing
his deep regret that so eminent a person as the Chancellor should be suspected
of misconduct. His Majesty declared that he had no wish to screen the guilty
from justice, and proposed to appoint a new kind of tribunal consisting of
eighteen commissioners, who might be chosen from among the members of the two
Houses, to investigate the matter. The Commons were not disposed to depart from
their regular course of proceeding. On the same day they held a conference with
the Lords, and delivered in the heads of the accusation against the Chancellor.
At this conference Bacon was not present. Overwhelmed with shame and remorse,
and abandoned by all those in whom he had weakly put his trust, he had shut
himself up in his chamber from the eyes of men. The dejection of his mind soon
disordered his body. Buckingham, who visited him by the King's order, "found his
Lordship very sick and heavy." It appears, from a pathetic letter which the
unhappy man addressed to the Peers on the day of the conference, that he neither
expected nor wished to survive his disgrace. During several days he remained in
his bed, refusing to see any human being. He passionately told his attendants to
leave him, to forget him, never again to name his name, never to remember that
there had been such a man in the world. In the meantime, fresh instances of
corruption were every day brought to the knowledge of his accusers. The number
of charges rapidly increased from two to twenty-three. The Lords entered on the
investigation of the case with laudable alacrity. Some witnesses were examined
at the bar of the House. A select committee was appointed to take the
depositions of others; and the inquiry was rapidly proceeding, when on the
twenty-sixth of March, the King adjourned the Parliament for three weeks.
This measure revived Bacon's hopes. He made the most of his short respite. He
attempted to work on the feeble mind of the King. He appealed to all the
strongest feelings of James, to his fears, to his vanity, to his high notions of
prerogative. Would the Solomon of the age commit so gross an error as to
encourage the encroaching spirit of Parliaments? Would God's anointed,
accountable to God alone, pay homage to the clamorous multitude? "Those,"
exclaimed Bacon, "who now strike at the Chancellor will soon strike at the
Crown. I am the first sacrifice. I wish I may be the last." But all his
eloquence and address were employed in vain. Indeed, whatever Mr. Montagu may
say, we are firmly convinced that it was not in the King's power to save Bacon,
without having recourse to measures which would have convulsed the realm. The
Crown had not sufficient influence over the Parliament to procure an acquittal
in so clear a case of guilt. And to dissolve a Parliament which is universally
allowed to have been one of the best Parliaments that ever sat, which had acted
liberally and respectfully towards the Sovereign, and which enjoyed in the
highest degree the favor of the people, only in order to stop a grave,
temperate, and constitutional inquiry into the personal integrity of the first
judge in the kingdom, would have been a measure more scandalous and absurd than
any of those which were the ruin of the House of Stuart. Such a measure, while
it would have been as fatal to the Chancellor's honor as a conviction, would
have endangered the very existence of the monarchy. The King, acting by the
advice of Williams, very properly refused to engage in a dangerous struggle with
his people, for the purpose of saving from legal condemnation a Minister whom it
was impossible to save from dishonor. He advised Bacon to plead guilty, and
promised to do all in his power to mitigate the punishment. Mr. Montagu is
exceedingly angry with James on this account. But though we are, in general,
very little inclined to admire that Prince's conduct, we really think that his
advice was, under all the circumstances, the best advice that could have been
given.
On the seventeenth of April the Houses reassembled, and the Lords resumed their
inquiries into the abuses of the Court of Chancery. On the twenty-second, Bacon
addressed to the Peers a letter, which the Prince of Wales condescended to
deliver. In this artful and pathetic composition, the Chancellor acknowledged
his guilt in guarded and general terms, and, while acknowledging, endeavored to
palliate it. This, however, was not thought sufficient by his judges. They
required a more particular confession, and sent him a copy of the charges. On
the thirtieth, he delivered a paper in which he admitted, with few and
unimportant reservations, the truth of the accusations brought against him, and
threw himself entirely on the mercy of his peers. "Upon advised consideration of
the charges," said he, "descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory
to account so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am
guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense."
The Lords came to a resolution that the Chancellor's confession appeared to be
full and ingenuous, and sent a committee to inquire of him whether it was really
subscribed by himself. The deputies, among whom was Southampton, the common
friend, many years before, of Bacon and Essex, performed their duty with great
delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a mind and the degradation of such a name
might well have softened the most obdurate natures. "My Lords," said Bacon, "it
is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a
broken reed." They withdrew; and he again retired to his chamber in the deepest
dejection. The next day, the sergeant-at-arms and the usher of the House of
Lords came to conduct him to Westminster Hall, where sentence was to be
pronounced. But they found him so unwell that he could not leave his bed; and
this excuse for his absence was readily accepted. In no quarter does there
appear to have been the smallest desire to add to his humiliation.
The sentence was, however, severe--the more severe, no doubt, because the Lords
knew that it would not be executed, and that they had an excellent opportunity
of exhibiting, at small cost, the inflexibility of their justice, and their
abhorrence of corruption. Bacon was condemned to pay a fine of forty thousand
pounds, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was
declared incapable of holding any office in the State or of sitting in
Parliament: and he was banished for life from the verge of the court. In such
misery and shame ended that long career of worldly wisdom and worldly
prosperity.
Even at this pass Mr. Montagu does not desert his hero. He seems indeed to think
that the attachment of an editor ought to be as devoted as that of Mr. Moore's
lovers; and cannot conceive what biography was made for,
"if 'tis not the same Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame."
He assures us that Bacon was innocent, that he had the means of making a
perfectly satisfactory defense, that when "he plainly and ingenuously confessed
that he was guilty of corruption," and when he afterwards solemnly affirmed that
his confession was "his act, his hand, his heart," he was telling a great lie,
and that he refrained from bringing forward proofs of his innocence, because he
durst not disobey the King and the favorite, who, for their own selfish objects,
pressed him to plead guilty.
Now, in the first place, there is not the smallest reason to believe that, if
James and Buckingham had thought that Bacon had a good defense, they would have
prevented him from making it. What conceivable motive had they for doing so? Mr.
Montagu perpetually repeats that it was their interest to sacrifice Bacon. But
he overlooks an obvious distinction. It was their interest to sacrifice Bacon on
the supposition of his guilt; but not on the supposition of his innocence. James
was very properly unwilling to run the risk of protecting his Chancellor against
the Parliament. But if the Chancellor had been able, by force of argument, to
obtain an acquittal from the Parliament, we have no doubt that both the King and
Villiers would have heartily rejoiced. They would have rejoiced, not merely on
account of their friendship for Bacon, which seems, however, to have been as
sincere as most friendships of that sort, but on selfish grounds. Nothing could
have strengthened the Government more than such a victory. The King and the
favorite abandoned the Chancellor because they were unable to avert his
disgrace, and unwilling to share it. Mr. Montagu mistakes effect for cause. He
thinks that Bacon did not prove his innocence, because he was not supported by
the Court. The truth evidently is that the Court did not venture to support
Bacon, because he could not prove his innocence.
Again, it seems strange that Mr. Montagu should not perceive that, while
attempting to vindicate Bacon's reputation, he is really casting on it the
foulest of all aspersions. He imputes to his idol a degree of meanness and
depravity more loathsome than judicial corruption itself. A corrupt judge may
have many good qualities. But a man who, to please a powerful patron, solemnly
declares himself guilty of corruption when he knows himself to be innocent, must
be a monster of servility and impudence. Bacon was, to say nothing of his
highest claims to respect, a gentleman, a nobleman, a scholar, a statesman, a
man of the first consideration in society, a man far advanced in years. Is it
possible to believe that such a man would, to gratify any human being,
irreparably ruin his own character by his own act? Imagine a grey-headed judge,
full of years and honors, owning with tears, with pathetic assurances of his
penitence and of his sincerity, that he has been guilty of shameful
malpractices, repeatedly asseverating the truth of his confession, subscribing
it with his own hand, submitting to conviction, receiving a humiliating sentence
and acknowledging its justice, and all this when he has it in his power to show
that his conduct has been irreproachable! The thing is incredible. But if we
admit it to be true, what must we think of such a man, if indeed he deserves the
name of man, who thinks anything that kings and minions can bestow more precious
than honor, or anything that they can inflict more terrible than infamy?
Of this most disgraceful imputation we fully acquit Bacon. He had no defense;
and Mr. Montagu's affectionate attempt to make a defense for him has altogether
failed.
The grounds on which Mr. Montagu rests the case are two: the first, that the
taking of presents was usual, and, what he seems to consider as the same thing,
not discreditable; the second, that these presents were not taken as bribes.
Mr. Montagu brings forward many facts in support of his first proposition. He is
not content with showing that many English judges formerly received gifts from
suitors, but collects similar instances from foreign nations and ancient times.
He goes back to the commonwealths of Greece, and attempts to press into his
service a line of Homer and a sentence of Plutarch, which, we fear, will hardly
serve his turn. The gold of which Homer speaks was not intended to fee the
judges, but was paid into court for the benefit of the successful litigant; and
the gratuities which Pericles, as Plutarch states, distributed among the members
of the Athenian tribunals, were legal wages paid out of the public revenue. We
can supply Mr. Montagu with passages much more in point. Hesiod, who, like poor
Aubrey, had a "killing decree " made against him in the Chancery of Ascra,
forgot decorum so far that he ventured to designate the learned persons who
presided in that court, as Basileas dorophagous. Plutarch and Diodorus have
handed down to the latest ages the respectable name of Anytus, the son of
Anthemion, the first defendant who, eluding all the safeguards which the
ingenuity of Solon could devise, succeeded in corrupting a bench of Athenian
judges. We are indeed so far from grudging Mr. Montagu the aid of Greece, that
we will give him Rome into the bargain. We acknowledge that the honorable
senators who tried Verres received presents which were worth more than the
fee-simple of York House and Gorhambury together, and that the no less honorable
senators and knights who professed to believe in the alibi of Clodius obtained
marks still more extraordinary of the esteem and gratitude of the defendant. In
short, we are ready to admit that, before Bacon's time, and in Bacon's time,
judges were in the habit of receiving gifts from suitors.
But is this a defense? We think not. The robberies of Cacus and Barabbas are no
apology for those of Turpin. The conduct of the two men of Belial who swore away
the life of Naboth has never been cited as an excuse for the perjuries of Oates
and Dangerfield. Mr. Montagu has confounded two things which it is necessary
carefully to distinguish from each other, if we wish to form a correct judgment
of the characters of men of other countries and other times. That an immoral
action is in a particular society, generally considered as innocent, is a good
plea for an individual who, being one of that society, and having adopted the
notions which prevail among his neighbors, commits that action. But the
circumstance that a great many people are in the habit of committing immoral
actions is no plea at all. We should think it unjust to call St. Louis a wicked
man, because in an age in which toleration was generally regarded as a sin, he
persecuted heretics. We should think it unjust to call Cowper's friend, John
Newton, a hypocrite and monster, because at a time when the slave-trade was
commonly considered by the most respectable people as an innocent and beneficial
traffic, he went, largely provided with hymn-books and handcuffs, on a Guinea
voyage. But the circumstance that there are twenty thousand thieves in London is
no excuse for a fellow who is caught breaking into a shop. No man is to be
blamed for not making discoveries in morality, for not finding out that
something which everybody else thinks to be good is really bad. But, if a man
does that which he and all around him know to be bad, it is no excuse for him
that many others have done the same. We should be ashamed of spending so much
time in pointing out so clear a distinction, but that Mr. Montagu seems
altogether to overlook it.
Now, to apply these principles to the case before us; let Mr. Montagu prove
that, in Bacon's age, the practices for which Bacon was punished were generally
considered as innocent, and we admit that he has made out his point. But this we
defy him to do. That these practices were common we admit; but they were common
just as all wickedness to which there is strong temptation always was and always
will be common. They were common just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery have
always been common. They were common, not because people did not know what was
right, but because people liked to do what was wrong. They were common, though
prohibited by law. They were common, though condemned by public opinion. They
were common, because in that age law and public opinion united had not
sufficient force to restrain the greediness of powerful and unprincipled
magistrates. They were common, as every crime will be common when the gain to
which it leads is great, and the chance of punishment small. But, though common,
they were universally allowed to be altogether unjustifiable; they were in the
highest degree odious; and, though many were guilty of them, none had the
audacity publicly to avow and defend them.
We could give a thousand proofs that the opinion then entertained concerning
these practices was such as we have described. But we will content ourselves
with calling a single witness, honest Hugh Latimer. His sermons, preached more
than seventy years before the inquiry into Bacon's conduct, abound with the
sharpest invectives against those very practices of which Bacon was guilty, and
which, as Mr. Montagu seems to think, nobody ever considered as blamable till
Bacon was punished for them. We could easily fill twenty pages with the homely,
but just and forcible rhetoric of the brave old bishop. We shall select a few
passages as fair specimens, and no more than fair specimens, of the rest. "Omnes
diligunt munera. They all love bribes. Bribery is a princely kind of thieving.
They will be waged by the rich, either to give sentence against the poor, or to
put off the poor man's cause. This is the noble theft of princes and
magistrates. They are bribe-takers. Nowadays they call them gentle rewards. Let
them leave their coloring, and call them by their Christian name--bribes." And
again. "Cambyses was a great emperor, such another as our master is. He had many
lord-deputies, lord-presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is a great while
ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under him, in one of his
dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men; he followed gifts as
fast as he that followed the pudding, a hand-maker in his office to make his son
a great man, as the old saying is: Happy is the child whose father goeth to the
devil. The cry of the poor widow came to the emperor's ear, and caused him to
flay the judge quick, and laid his skin in the chair of judgment, that all
judges that should give judgment afterwards should sit in the same skin. Surely
it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge's skin. I pray
God we may once see the skin in England." "I am sure," says he, in another
sermon, "this is scala inferni, the right way to hell, to be covetous, to take
bribes, and pervert justice. If a judge should ask me the way to hell, I would
show him this way. First, let him be a covetous man; let his heart be poisoned
with covetousness. Then let him go a little further, and take bribes; and,
lastly, pervert judgment. Lo, here is the mother, and the daughter, and the
daughter's daughter. Avarice is the mother: she brings forth bribe-taking, and
bribe-taking perverting of judgment. There lacks a fourth thing to make up the
mess, which, so help me God, if I were judge, should be hangum tuum, a Tyburn
tippet to take with him; an it were the judge of the King's Bench, my Lord Chief
Judge of England, yea, an it were my Lord Chancellor himself, to Tyburn with
him." We will quote but one more passage. "He that took the silver basin and
ewer for a bribe, thinketh that it will never come out. But he may now know that
I know it, and I know it not alone; there be more beside me that know it. Oh,
briber and bribery! He was never a good man that will so take bribes. Nor can I
believe that he that is a briber will be a good justice. It will never be merry
in England till we have the skins of such. For what needs bribing where men do
their things uprightly?"
This was not the language of a great philosopher who had made new discoveries in
moral and political science. It was the plain talk of a plain man, who sprang
from the body of the people, who sympathized strongly with their wants and their
feelings, and who boldly uttered their opinions. It was on account of the
fearless way in which stout-hearted old Hugh exposed the misdeeds of men in
ermine tippets and gold collars, that the Londoners cheered him, as he walked
down the Strand to preach at Whitehall, struggled for a touch of his gown, and
bawled, "Have at them, Father Latimer!" It is plain, from the passages which we
have quoted, and from fifty others which we might quote, that, long before Bacon
was born, the accepting of presents by a judge was known to be a wicked and
shameful act, that the fine words under which it was the fashion to veil such
corrupt practices were even then seen through by the common people, that the
distinction on which Mr. Montagu insists between compliments and bribes was even
then laughed at as a mere coloring. There may be some oratorical exaggeration in
what Latimer says about the Tyburn tippet and the sign of the judge's skin; but
the fact that he ventured to use such expressions is amply sufficient to prove
that the gift-taking judges, the receivers of silver basins and ewers, were
regarded as such pests of the commonwealth that a venerable divine might,
without any breach of Christian charity, publicly pray to God for their
detection and their condign punishment.
Mr. Montagu tells us, most justly, that we ought not to transfer the opinions of
our age to a former age. But he has himself committed a greater error than that
against which he has cautioned his readers. Without any evidence, nay, in the
face of the strongest evidence, he ascribes to the people of a former age a set
of opinions which no people ever held. But any hypothesis is in his view more
probable than that Bacon should have been a dishonest man. We firmly believe
that, if papers were to be discovered which should irresistibly prove that Bacon
was concerned in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, Mr. Montagu would tell us
that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was not thought improper
in a man to put arsenic into the broth of his friends, and that we ought to
blame, not Bacon, but the age in which he lived.
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