indeed my care did fly to it before, as it shall always do to any knots and difficulties in your business, wherein hitherto I have been not unfortunate. God ever have you in his most precious custody. Your Majesty's most faithful and most bounden servant, FR. BACON. Sept. 13, 1616. The paper which was enclosed in the short letter which follows has not been preserved: and it is therefore of the less consequence to inquire what the proposition was to which it related. I fancy it was some offer from the old company of merchant adventurers, with whom Towerson was connected,' and who were certainly still in communication with the Council. But the particulars to be gleaned from this would not be sufficient to identify the proposition, even if one were to light upon it. TO THE KING UPON TOWERSON'S PROPOSITION ABOUT THE CLOTH BUSINESS.2 May it please your excellent Majesty, Because I have ever found that in business the consideration of persons (who are instrumenta animata) is no less weighty than of matters, I humbly pray your Majesty to peruse this inclosed paper, containing a diligence which I have used in omnem eventum. If Towerson, as a passionate man, have overcome himself in his opinion, so it is. But if his company make this good, then I am very glad to see in the case wherein we now stand there is this hope left, and your Majesty's honour preserved in the entier. God have your Majesty in his divine protection. Your Majesty's most devoted, and most bounden servant, This is a secret to all men but my Lord Chancellor; and we go on this day with the new company, without discouraging them at all. September 18, 1616. 1 See S. P. Dom. James I. Vol. lxxx. no. 105. 2 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 48. Fair copy in Meautys's hand. 3. We left Sir Edward Coke at the beginning of the Long Vacation, temporarily suspended from the exercise of his office of Chief Justice, and ordered to review his Reports, to correct anything in them that he might find requiring correction, and to communicate the result privately to the King. A few days before the beginning of the next term, the King directed the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General to call upon him for an account of what he had done. On the 2d of October he appeared before them, and the following letter gives their report of what passed. THE LORD CHANCELLOR AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO THE KING.1 It may please your most excellent Majesty, This morning, according to your Majesty's commandment, we have had my Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench before us, we being assisted by all your learned counsel, except Serjeant Crew, who was then gone to attend your Majesty. It was delivered unto him, that your Majesty's pleasure was, that we should receive an account from him of the performance of a commandment of your Majesty laid upon him, which was that he should enter into a view and retractation of such novelties and errors and offensive conceits as were dispersed in his Reports; that he had had good time to do it; and we doubted not but he had used good endeavour in it, which we desired now in particular to receive from him. His speech was, that there were of his Reports eleven books, that contained about five hundred cases: that heretofore in other Reports, as namely those of Mr. Plowden (which he reverenced much) there hath been found nevertheless errors which the wisdom of time had discovered and later judgments controlled; and enumerated to us four cases in Plowden which were erroneous; and thereupon delivered in to us the inclosed paper, wherein your Majesty may perceive that my Lord is an happy man, that there should be no more errors in his five hundred cases than in a few cases of Plowden. Your Majesty may also perceive that your Majesty's direction to my Lord Chancellor and myself, and the travail taken by us and Mr. 1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 50. Copy. Docketed 2 Octo. 1616. A copy of my letter to the K's Mat., Lo. Cooke. Sollicitor in following and performing your direction, was not altogether lost; for that of those three heads which we principally respected, which were the rights and liberties of the church, your prerogative, and the jurisdiction of other your courts, my Lord hath scarcely fallen upon any except it be the Prince's case, which also yet seemeth to stand but upon the grammatical of French and Latin. My Lord did also [qualify1] his promise, which your Majesty shall find in the end of his writing, thus far in a kind of common-place or thesis, that it was sin for a man to go against his own conscience, though erroneous, except his conscience be first informed and satisfied. The Lord Chancellor in the conclusion signified to my Lord Coke your Majesty's commandment, that until report made and your pleasure thereupon known he shall forbear his sitting at Westminster, &c. not restraining nevertheless any other exercise of his place of Chief Justice in private. Thus having performed, to the best of our understanding, your royal commandment, we rest ever Your Majesty's most faithful, and most bounden servants This joint letter appears to have been accompanied with another from Bacon either to the King or Villiers, in which he recommended the course to be now taken in the matter. But this has unluckily been lost, and the substance of the advice can only be gathered imperfectly from the King's remarks in answer. A loss much to be regretted; for the question was important and difficult. Up to this point Coke had been dealt with cautiously and prudently. The acts previously selected for censure had been acts of aggression, obstruction, and disturbance. Having been called on to justify them before the Council, and failed, he had been brought to acquiesce (however ungraciously) in an order that they should not be repeated; and so far the wound was healed. The "novelties, errors, and offensive conceits dispersed in his Reports" were more difficult to deal with, being expressions of opinion on points of law, and Coke's opinions in There is no word between "also" and "his" in the MS. Birch, finding the sentence imperfect, put in "give," without notice; and " my Lord did also give his promise" has been the reading in all editions since. I do not think it can be the right word. I have substituted "qualify,"-not as being probably Bacon's own word, for I think it more probable that several have dropped out,-but as giving what was probably the sense. such matters being likely to outweigh in popular estimation those of any authority who might undertake to censure them. That erroneous opinions published in a book might be a fit subject of censure and punishment would not, I suppose, have been disputed. The offence of Dr. Cowell, which caused such excitement in the House of Commons in 1610, was quite analogous, only that it came from the other side. Dr. Cowell, Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge, having published a law-dictionary-a book professing to set forth the true meaning of all words used in legal writings-was found by the House of Commons in some of his definitions to have expressed or implied opinions inconsistent with the privileges of the House of Commons. Coke, having published reports of a number of cases decided in the courts of law, was found by the King, the Archbishop, and the Lord Chancellor to have set down as law doctrines inconsistent with the rights of the Crown, the Church, and the Courts. Dr. Cowell's dictionary had been, at the instance of the House of Commons, by authority of the King, immediately and peremptorily suppressed. Coke was treated more respectfully. Before any objection was made, opportunity was given him to correct or withdraw anything objectionable. But when he had corrected everything that he found amiss, there still remained many passages to which it was thought that just objection might be taken and the question was how these were to be dealt with. From the King's reasons-as reported by Villiers in the following letter for disliking Bacon's advice, I gather that he had suggested a course similar to that which he had advised in the case of the Commendams and the Præmunire: a declaration of the whole case before the Council, in the presence probably of the Judges, followed by a formal application for their opinion and advice. Such a proceeding would at any rate have left no room for doubt as to the true grounds upon which the action was taken; and if the advice of the Council had been freely given and duly followed, it might have carried weight enough to bear out the conclusion even in the opinion of the people, and even though it implied that Coke in his own special province was not infallible. Less than this could hardly be expected to outweigh the obvious popular presumption that he was paying the penalty of his virtue. The King however professed to take a more summary course, and directed Villiers to return Bacon the following answer. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNT, HIS MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL, AND OF HIS MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.' Sir, I have acquainted his Majesty with my Lord Chancellor's and your report touching my Lord Coke as also with your opinion therein; which his Majesty doth dislike for these three reasons: first because that by this course you propound the process cannot have a beginning till after his Majesty's return, which how long it may last after no man knoweth ; he therefore thinketh it too long and uncertain a delay to keep the bench so long void from a Chief Justice. Secondly, although his Majesty did use the Council's advice in dealing with the Chief Justice upon his other misdemeanors, yet he would be loth to lessen his prerogative in making the Council judges whether he should be turned out of his place or no, if the case should so require. Thirdly, for that my Lord Coke hath sought means to kiss his Majesty's hands and withal to acquaint him with some things of great importance to his service, he holdeth it not fit to admit him to his presence, before these points be determined, because that would be a grant of his pardon before he had his trial. And if those things wherewith he is to acquaint his Majesty be of such consequence, it would be dangerous and prejudicial to his Majesty to delay him too long. Notwithstanding, if you shall advise of any other reasons to the contrary, his Majesty would have you with all the speed you can to send them unto him, and in the mean time to keep back his Majesty's letter which is herein sent unto you from my Lord Coke's knowledge, until you receive his Majesty's further direction for your proceeding in his business. And so I rest, Theobalds, the 3rd of October, 1616. Your ever assured friend at command, Of the letter from the King himself to the Lord Chancellor and Bacon which went along with this, I have not met with any copy or account; only I gather from the answer which was returned to both letters that it was not acted upon at that time. TO THE KING.2 It may please your most excellent Majesty, We have considered of the letters which we received from your Majesty, as well that written to us both, as that other 1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 51. The original letter. Docketed in Meautys's hand "Octob. 3 1616. My Lo. Villiers to my Mr. upon the K's pleasure for proceeding against my Lo. Chief Justice." 2 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 52. The original letter, in Bacon's fairest hand; signatures and superscription remaining. Docketed "Lo. Chancellor and Mr. Attorney to his Matie" |