tram, to be examined before he was further proceeded with. And I for my part, before I had received his Majesty's pleasure by my Lord Chamberlain, went thus far; that I had appointed him to be further examined, and also had taken order with Mr. Solicitor that he should be provided to make some declaration at his trial, in some solemn fashion, and not to let such a strange murder pass as if it had been but a horsestealing.

But upon his Majesty's pleasure signified, I forthwith caused the trial to be staid, and examined the party according to his Majesty's questions; and also sent for the principal counsel in the cause, whereupon Sir John Tyndal's report was grounded, to discern the justice or iniquity of the said report, as his Majesty likewise commanded.

I send therefore the case of Bertram truly stated and collected, and the examination taken before myself and Mr. Solicitor; whereby it will appear to his Majesty that Sir John Tyndal (as to this cause) is a kind of a martyr; for if ever he made a just report in his life, this was it.

But the event since all this is, that this Bertram, being as it seemeth indurate or in despair, hath hanged himself in prison: of which accident, as I am sorry, because he is taken from example and public justice, so yet I would not for any thing it had been before his examination; so that there may be otherwise some occasion taken, either by some declaration in the King's Bench upon the return of the coroner's inquest, or by some printed book of the fact, or by some other means (whereof I purpose to advise with my Lord Chancellor), to have both his Majesty's royal care, and the truth of the fact, with the circumstances, manifested and published.

For the taking of a tie of my Lord Chief Justice before he was placed, it was done before your letter came; and on Tuesday Heath and Shute shall be admitted and all perfected.

My Lord Chancellor purposeth to be at the Hall to-morrow, to give my Lord Chief Justice his oath; I pray God it hurt him not this cold weather. God ever prosper you.

Your true and most devoted servant,

Sunday night, the 17th of Novemb., 1616.

FR. BACON.

THE CASE OF JOHN BARTRAM.1

LEONARD CHAMBERLAYNE died intestate without issue, and left a sister married to Bartram, and a niece afterwards married to Sir George Simeon.

The niece obtained letters of administration, and did administer; but afterwards, upon appeal, Bartram, in the right of his wife (that was the sister) obtained the former administration to be repealed, and new letters of administration to be committed to Bartram and his wife, because the sister was nearer of kin than the niece.

Thereupon Bartram brings his bill in Chancery against the first administratrix, to discover the true state of the intestate, and to have it set over unto him, being the rightful administrator; and this cause coming to hearing, it did appear that there was a debt of £200 owing by one Harris to the intestate; whereupon it was decreed that the debt of Harris by bond should be set over to Bartram, and likewise that all other moneys, debts, and bonds should be assigned over to him.

In the penning of this decree there was an error or slip; for it was penned that a debt by Harris by a bond of £200 should be set over, whereas the proofs went plainly that it was but £200 in toto upon divers specialties and writings.

Upon this pinch and advantage, Bartram moved still that the bond of £200 should be brought in, and at last the defendants alledging that there was no such bond, the court ordered that the money itself, viz. £200, should be brought in; which was done accordingly, and soon after by order of the court it was paid over to Bartram.

When Bartram had this £200 in his purse, he would needs surmise that there was another £200 due by Harris upon account, besides the £200 due by one singular bond, and still pressed the words of the decree, which mentions a bond, and thereupon got his adversary Sir George Simeon committed.

Afterward it was moved upon Simeon's part, that there was only one debt of £200, and that the decree was mistaken in the penning of it, and so must needs be understood, because the decree must be upon the proofs; and all the proofs went but

1 Birch MSS. 4259. An old copy, but not in Bacon's hand.

upon the £200 in toto, and not upon any particular bond; whereupon my Lord Chancellor referred the consideration of the proofs, and the comparing of them with the decree, to Sir John Tyudal and Doctor Amye.

They reported (which was the killing report) that upon the proofs there was but one £200 in all, and that it had been eagerly followed by Bartram, and that Simeon had suffered by error and mistaking, and that it were time he were released (which was a most just and true report), and yet it concluded (as is used in such cases) that they referred it to the better judgment of the court; and the court upon the reading of that report gave order that the plaintiff Bartram should show cause by a day why Simeon should not be enlarged, and the plaintiff Bartram dismissed.

And before the day prefixed to show cause, Bertram pistolled Sir John Tyndal.

TO MY LORD OF BUCKINGHAM, TOUCHING MOM PERSON'S BUSINESS. THE MALTSTERS, ETC.1

My very good Lord,

I am much troubled in mind, for that I hear you are not perfectly well, without whose health I cannot joy, and without whose life I desire not to be. I hear nothing from Mr. Momperson, save that some tell me he is knighted, which I am glad of, because he may the better fight with the Bull and the Bear, and the Saracen's heads, and such fearful creatures.

For Sir Robert Killigrewe's suit of enrollment of apprentices, I doubt we must part it; but yet I suppose it may be left valuable.

Your office is despatched, and your books in effect. I have given his Majesty an account of those things wherein I have received his pleasure from your Lordship by this letter which I send open.2

Good my Lord, once again have care of your health; and learn what Cardanus saith, that more men die of cold after exercise than are slain in the wars. God ever keep you.

Your Lordship's true and much devoted Servant.

Nov. 21, 1616.

1 Additional MSS. 5503. f. 98.

2 See p. 105.

2.

We are familiar with Bacon in the Star-Chamber as counsel prosecuting; we are now to see him as one of the judges giving sentence. A case of provocation to duel was coming before the Court; a case not anyway interesting in itself, for it arose out of a quarrel of old date, vulgar, stupid, and disreputable in the last degree, without a feature in it either tragic or touching or entertaining, and in which both parties behaved so ill that it is impossible to feel any sympathy with either. But as one of them was a gentleman and the other a nobleman, it was a case convenient enough for example, and gave a conspicuous opportunity for enforcing those measures for the repression of duelling which the King had threatened three years before.

Gervase Markham, Esquire, by rank a gentleman and by profession a soldier, had been invited by Lord Darcy of the North to meet him at a hunting-party at Sir Gervase Clifton's. When they were in the field, a follower of Lord Darcy's, named Beckwith, "wished Markham not to ride too near one of the hounds." The request, or the manner of it, affronted him; and he gave an answer which implied that if the hound's tail were off it would be no matter. This again affronted Beckwith, who appears to have had an interest in the dog, and replied in effect that the dog's tail was worth more than the horse's head which Markham was riding; adding (a little after) that "though he loved hunting well, he had more mind to fight with him than to hunt." To this Markham answered that "he was a base fellow :" upon which Beckwith "fell to switching of him,”—an operation equivalent, I suppose, to what we now call horse-whipping: and when the saddle slipping round in the struggle left Markham hanging by his foot in the stirrup, he continued to switch him until Lord Darcy came up and released him.

Thus far the quarrel should have been only with Beckwith. But whether it were that he thought Darcy had not interfered soon enough, or did not treat the case gravely enough, or that the state of mind incident to so extremely disagreeable a position disposed him to fall out with whatever was nearest,—so it was that, instead of thanking him for the service, he turned upon him with angry reproaches for having "suffered so base a fellow to use him thus." This again was more than Lord Darcy could endure. "What would you have me do ?" said he. "Had not I been [by], he would have beaten you to rags;" adding, according to Markham's version, "that his man Beckwith was as good a gentleman as he."

How the account stood as between Markham and Beckwith, we have not the means of knowing: for that part of the case was not

His

the subject of inquiry at this time, and we have not Beckwith's version of it. But in one way or other it is clear that Markham's honour had suffered in the fray, and required reparation. Certainly, if he had not behaved very badly, he had been very badly used. first step in righting himself was unexceptionable. "He sent two of his kinsmen to my Lord to desire my Lord Darcy to explain himself concerning those words, that his man Beckwith would have beaten him to rags, and that his man Beckwith was as good a gentleman as he." Under all the circumstances, the words had been at least ungracious and uncivil, and one might have expected that Lord Darcy would have been anxious to excuse them as spoken in haste or under momentary irritation. But his answer made the matter "He would not give such a fellow as he any other satisfaction than this-that he did not say that his man Beckwith was as good a gentleman as he, but that he was a gentleman as well as he; and that his meaning of "beaten to rags" was this-that he had ever held that a child of five years old, having a sword in his hand, might be revenged of his enemy."

worse.

He wrote a letter,

It would not have been reasonable to expect Markham to be satisfied with an answer like this; and if he had laid his case, as it stood here, before a court of honour, it can hardly be doubted that some reparation would have been awarded to him. But the reparation which he devised for himself was a strange one. saying that "he knew my Lord was a Peer of the realm, but he had no privilege to abuse any gentleman; and that my Lord Darcy, in saying that his man Beckwith would have beaten him to rags, had lied, and should lie as often as he should say so, and that if he listed to send his boy unto him he would meet him wheresoever he would and make good what he said with his life; and there was a Rowland for his Oliver, and the lie for his indignity." If this letter had been sent to Lord Darcy in the ordinary way, it would have been an ordinary challenge, as justifiable as most challenges; and why he did not send it is not explained, for it is expressly stated that he did not at the time know of the King's proclamation. But it seems that though ready to maintain with his life that Lord Darcy was a liar, he was not prepared to call him a liar to his face: so he contented himself with writing "divers copies" of the letter, and scattering them about in the fields,-addressed and signed, but not sealed.

How and when any of them came into Lord Darcy's hands, I do not find stated. But they had been written and distributed as early as the beginning of 1614, and now in the Autumn of 1616 the case came before the Council. The statement drawn up by Yelverton for the King's information, which was enclosed in the next letter, has