which time, if his sickness or madness be counterfeited, it will manifestly appear. In the mean time, I doubt not but ye have acquainted the chancellor with this strange fit of his; and if, upon these occasions, ye bring him a little later than the hour appointed, the chancellor may in the mean time protract the time the best he may; whom I pray you to acquaint likewise with this my answer, as well as with the accident, if he has said. anything of moment to the Lord Hay. I expect to hear of it with all speed; if otherwise, let me not be troubled with it till the trial be past. Farewell.

JAMES R.1

66

1 We have before alluded to the supposition that James was afraid of some disclosure, and it may be as well to give from Weldon the principal evidence on which it is founded:-" And now, for the last act, enters Somerset himself on the stage, who (being told, as the manner is, by the lieutenant, that he must provide to go next day to his trial) did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed; that the king had assured him he should not come to any trial, neither durst the king bring him to trial." There does not seem to be much in these words, but those which the lieutenant heard produced so much effect, that it seems likely he heard more than he has repeated. This was in a high strain," he continues," and in a language not well understood by Sir George More, lieutenant in Elwes' room, that made More quiver and shake; and however he was accounted a wise man, yet he was ne'er at his wits' end." What he heard was sufficient to induce More to go to Greenwich, with intent to disturb the king at midnight-no season-able hour at that period: and he is observed by one of the grooms "bouncing at the back stairs as if mad." He procured admission, and having given his information, the king falls into a passion of tears., “On my soul, More, I wot not what to do. Thou art a wise man-help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master." This the king said, "with other sad expressions;" and the whole history forms rather a serious piece of sad court scandal.

James I. to the Lord Bacon.1

July, 1617.

James R.-Right trusty and well-beloved councillor, we greet you well. Although our approach doth now begin to be near London, and that there doth not appear any great necessity of answering your last letter, since we are so shortly to be at home, yet we have thought good to make some observations to you upon the same, that you may not err by mistaking our meaning.

The first observation we are to make is, that whereas you would invent the second sense, wherein we took your magnum in parvo, in accompting it to be made magnum by their streperous carriage that were for the match,2 we cannot but show you your mistaking therein;

1 Lambeth Palace MSS., No. 936, f. 69.

2 In this letter the king vindicates Sir Edward Cook's behaviour for the recovery of his daughter, and blames Lord Bacon for some expressions used in his former letter against the duke of Buckingham. The chancellor felt and wrote most strongly on the subject, and it would almost seem, in his opinion, that the welfare of the nation depended on the prevention of a marriage between Lady Francis Coke and Sir John Villiers. Bacon thus summed up his reasons against it:-" First, he shall marry into a disgraced house, which in reason of state is never held good; next, he shall marry into a troubled house of man and wife, which in religion and Christian discretion is disliked; thirdly, your lordship will go near to lose all such your friends as are adverse to Sir Edward Coke, myself only excepted, who out of a pure love and thankfulness shall ever be firm to you; and, lastly and chiefly, I believe it will weaken and distract the king's service; for though, in regard of the king's great wisdom and depth, I am persuaded those things will not follow which they imagine; yet opinion will do a great deal of harm, and cast the king back, and make him relapse into those inconveniences which are now well on to be recovered." Bacon changed his tone considerably after the receipt of the king's letter.

for every wrong must be judged by the first violent and wrongous ground whereupon it proceeds. And was not the thefteous stealing away of the daughter from her own father the first ground whereupon all this great noise hath since proceeded? For the ground of her getting again came upon a lawful and ordinary warrant, subscribed by one of our council, for redress of the former violence. And, except the father of a child might be proved to be either lunatic or idiot, we never read in any law, either it could be lawful for any creature to steal his child from him; or that it was a matter of noisy and streperous carriage for him to hunt for the recovery of his child again.

Our next observation is, that whereas you protest of your affection to Buckingham, and thereafter confess that it is, in some sort, parent-like; yet after that you have praised his natural parts, we will not say that you throw all down by a direct imputation upon him; but we are sure you do not deny to have had a greater jealousy of his discretion, than (so far as we conceive) he ever deserved at your or any man's hands; for you say, that you were afraid that the height of his fortune might make him too secure; and so, as a looker-on, you might sometimes see more than a gamester. Now we know not how to interpret this in plain English, otherwise than that you were afraid that the height of his fortune might make him misknow himself; and surely, if that be parent-like affection towards him, he hath no obligation to you for it. And for our part, besides our own proof, that we find him furthest from that vice of any courtier

that ever we had so near about us, so do we fear that you shall prove the only phoenix in that jealousy of all the kingdom. We would be very sorry that the world should apprehend that conceit of him, of whom we have heard you oft speak in a contrary style. And for that error of yours, which he lately palliated, and whereof you seem to pretend ignorance, the time is so short since you commended him to me, to be one of the barons of our Exchequer in Ireland, as we cannot think you to be so short of memory, as to have forgotten how far you undertook in that business before acquainting us with it, what a longer journey you made the poor man undertake, together with the slight recommendation you sent of him; which drave us to these straits, that both the poor man had been undone, and your credit a little blasted, if Buckingham had not by his importunity made us both grant your more than suit (for you had already acted a part of it), and likewise run a hazard of the hindrance of our own service, by preferring a person to so important a place, whom you so slightly recommended.

Our third observation is upon the point of your opposition to this business, wherein you either do or at least would seem to mistake us a little; for, first, whereas you excuse yourself of the oppositions you made against Sir Edward Cooke at the council table, both for that and other causes, we never took upon us such patrociny' of Sir Edward Cooke, as if he were a man not to be meddled withal in any case; for whatsoever you did

Patronizing.

against him by our employment and commandment, we ever allowed it, and still do, for good service on your part" de bonis operibus non lapidamus ros." 1 But whereas you talk of the riot and violence committed by him—we wonder you make no mention of the riot and violence of them that stole away his daughter, which was the first ground of all that noise, as we said before; for a man may be driven by manifest wrong beyond his patience; and the first breach of that quietness, which hath ever been kept since the beginning of our journey, was made by them that committed the theft. And for your laying the burden of your opposition upon the whole council, we meddle not with that question; but the opposition we justly find fault with was, your refusal to sign a warrant for the father for the recovery of his child, clad with those circumstances (as is reported) of your slight carriage to Buckingham's mother, when she repaired to you upon so reasonable an errand.

What further opposition you made in that business, we leave it to the due trial in their own time. But whereas you would distinguish of times, pretending ignorance either of our meaning or his when you made your opposition; that would have served for a reasonable excuse not to have furthered such a business, till you had been first employed in it; but that can serve for no excuse of crossing anything that so nearly concerned one, whom you profess such friendship unto. We will not speak of obligation; for surely we think, even in good manners, you had reason not to have crossed anything wherein 1 For good works we do not stone you.

VOL. II.

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