TO THE LORD VISCOUNT VILLIERS.1 My very good Lord, I delivered the proclamation for Cloth to Secretary Winwood on Saturday, but he keepeth it to carry it down himself, and goeth down, as I take it, to-day. His Majesty may perceive by the docket of the proclamation that I do not only study but act that point touching the Judges which his Majesty commandeth in your last. Yesterday was a day of great good for his Majesty's service and the peace of this kingdom concerning duels, by occasion of Darcy's case. I spake big, and publishing his Majesty's strait charge to me, said it had struck me blind, as in point of duels and cartels, etc. I should not know a coronet from a hatband. I was bold also to declare how excellently his Majesty had expressed to me a contemplation of his touching duels: that is, that when he came forth and saw himself princely attended with goodly noblesse and gentlemen, he entered into the thought that none of their lives were in certainty not for twenty-four hours from the duel; for it was but a heat or a mistaking, and then a lye, and then a challenge, and then life: saying that I did not marvel, seeing Xerxes shed tears to think none of his great army should be alive once within a hundred years, his Majesty were touched with compassion to think that not one of his attendance but mought be dead within twenty-four hours by the duel. This I write because his Majesty may be wary what he saith to me (in things of this nature), I being so apt to play the blab. In this also I forgot not to prepare the Judges, and wish them to profess, and as it were to denounce, that in all cases of duel capital before them, they will use equal severity towards the insolent murder by the duel and the insidious murder; and that they will extirpate that difference out of the opinions of men; which they did excellent well. I must also say, that it was the first time that I heard my Lord of Arundel speak in that place; and I do assure your Lordship he doth excellently become the court; he speaketh wisely and weightily, and yet easily and clearly, as a great nobleman should do. There hath been a proceeding in the King's Bench against 1 Stephens's first collection, p. 192. From the original. Bertram's keeper for misdemeanor, and I have put a little pamphlet (prettily penn'd by one Mr. Trotte, that I set on work touching the whole business,) to the press by my Lord Chancellor's advice. I pray God direct his Majesty in the Cloth business, that that thorn may be once out of our sides. His Majesty knoweth my opinion ab antiquo. Thanks be to God for your health, and long may you live to do us all good. I rest Your true and most devoted servant, 3. FR. BACON. Villiers had risen rapidly in dignity, but he had yet to be provided with means of supporting it. Grants from the Crown, whether of lands, goods, or patents, would naturally pass through the hands of the King's Attorney and Solicitor: Bacon would naturally feel a special and personal interest in this particular case: and we may take the following report to Villiers of the state of "his own business," as a kind of supplement to the advice which he had given him concerning the demands of his public position. TO THE LORD VISCOUNT VILLIERS.1 My very good Lord, I am glad to find your Lordship mindful of your own business, and if any man put you in mind of it, I do not dislike that neither; but your Lordship may assure yourself, in whatsoever you commit to me your Lordship's further care shall be needless. For I desire to take nothing from my master and my friend but care; and therein I am so covetous, as I will leave them as little as may be. Now therefore things are grown to a conclusion touching your land and office, I will give your Lordship an account of that which is passed, and acquaint your judgment (which I know to be great and capable of anything) with your own business; that you may discern the difference between doing things substantially and between shuffling and talking. And first for your Patent. First, it was my counsel and care that your book should be fee-farm, and not fee-simple; whereby the rent of the crown in succession is not diminished, and yet the quantity of the land Stephens's first collection, p. 188. From the original. which you have upon your value is enlarged; whereby you have both honour and profit. Secondly, By the help of Sir Lyonel Cranfield I advanced the value of Sherbourn from 260007. (which was thought and admitted by my Lord Treasurer and Sir John Deccomb, as a value of great favour to your Lordship, because it was a thousand pound more than it was valued at to Somerset) to thirty-two thousand pounds; whereby there was six thousand pounds gotten, and yet justly. Thirdly, I advised the course of rating Hartington at a hundred years purchase, and the rest at thirty-five years purchase fee-farm, to be set down and expressed in the warrant; that it may appear and remain of record, that your Lordship had no other rates made to you in favour than such as purchasers upon sale are seldom drawn unto; whereby you have honour. Fourthly, That lease to the feoffees, which was kept as a secret in the deske1 (and was not only of Hartington, but also of most of the other particulars in your book) I caused to be throughly looked into and provided for; without which your assurance had been nothing worth. And yet I handled it so, and made the matter so well understood, as you were not put to be a suitor to the Prince for his goodwill in it, as others ignorantly thought you must have done. Fifthly, The Annexation2 (which no body dreamt of, and which some idle bold lawyer would perhaps have said had been needless, and yet is of that weight, that there was never yet any man that would purchase any such land from the King, except he had a declaration to discharge it,) I was provident to have it discharged by declaration. Sixthly, Lest it should be said that your Lordship was the first (except the Queen and the Prince) that brake the Annexation upon a mere gift; for that others had it discharged only upon sale, which was for the King's profit and necessity; I found a remedy for that also; because I have carved it in the declaration, as that this was not gift to your Lordship, but rather a purchase and exchange (as indeed it was) for Sherbourn. Seventhly and lastly, I have taken order (as much as in me was) that your Lordship in these things which you have passed 1 Decke 1st coll. Deske 2nd coll. 2 The annexation by which lands, etc., were united or annexed to the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. (Note by Stephens.) be not abused, if you part with them: for I have taken notes in a book of their values and former offers. Now for your Office. First, Whereas my Lord Teynham, at the first, would have had your Lordship have had but one life in it, and he another; and my Lord Treasurer, and the Solicitor, and Deccombe, were about to give way to it; I turned utterly that course, telling them that you were to have two lives in it, as well as Somerset had. Secondly, I have accordingly, in the assurance from your deputies, made them acknowledge the trust and give security not only for your Lordship's time, but after; so as you may dispose (if you should die, which I would be sorry to live to) the profits of the office by your will or otherwise to any of your friends for their comfort and advancement. Thirdly, I dealt so with Whitlocke as well as Heath, as there was no difficulty made of the surrender. Lastly, I did cast with myself, that if your Lordship's deputies had come in by Sir Edward Cooke who was tied to Somerset, it would have been subject to some clamour from Somerset, and some question what was forfeited by Somerset's attainder (being but of felony) to the King; but now they coming in from a new Chief Justice, all is without question or scruple. Thus your Lordship may see my love and care towards you, which I think infinitely too little in respect of the fulness of my mind; but I thought good to write this, to make you understand better the state of your own business; doing by you as I do by the King; which is, to do his business safely and with foresight not only of to-morrow or next day, but afar off; and not to come fiddling with a report to him what is done every day, but to give up him a good sum in the end. I purpose to send your Lordship a kalendar fair written of those evidences1 which concern your estate, for so much as have2 passed my hands; which in truth are not fit to remain with solicitors, no nor with friends, but in some great cabinet to be made for that purpose. All this while I must say plainly to your Lordship, that you fall short for your present charge, except you play the good So in the 2nd collection. The copy in the first collection has 'evidence.' 2 So in 2nd collection. The 1st has as I have.' husband; for the office of Teynham is in reversion, Darcye's land is in reversion; all the land in your books is but in reversion, and yields you no present profit, because you pay the feefarm. So as you are a strange heteroclite in grammar, for you want the present tense; many verbs want the præterperfect tense, and some the future teuse, but none want the present tense. I will hereafter write to your Lordship, what I think of for that supply; to the end that you may, as you have begun to your great honour, despise money, where it crosseth reason of state or virtue. But I will trouble you no further at this time. God ever preserve and prosper your Lordship. Your true and most devoted servant, November 29, 1616. 4. FR. BACON. Among the persons implicated in the murder of Overbury, there remained one whose case was not yet disposed of, and presented a peculiar difficulty. In the arrangements for transferring the authority of Lieutenant of the Tower to Hellwysse and that of undergaoler to Weston, Sir Thomas Monson had been employed by Somerset and Northampton as a messenger. It did not follow that he had any reason to suspect the object of those measures, but as they were in fact preliminary conditions without which the murder could not have been accomplished, his employment in them exposed him to grave suspicion. Coke examined him, and easily concluding that he was guilty, reported to the King that he was about to proceed against him as an accessory before the fact. Up to this time the persons brought to trial had been persons about whom the King knew nothing, and he had been content to take Coke's word for the sufficiency of the evidence. But Sir Thomas Monson was a gentleman belonging to the Court, of good character and position, a Knight and a Baronet, with friends; and before he would believe him guilty of such a crime he desired to see the depositions. He accordingly sent to Coke for the papers, and finding upon careful examination that the evidence was too inconclusive as it stood to justify a verdict of guilty, directed him to defer the trial, "that it might be seen what other evidence would come against him."1 But before the order arrived the preparations had already proceeded so far that the reading of the indictment could not, in Coke's opinion, be dispensed with or postponed; and on the 4th of December 1615 Monson was 1 Statement by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, as reported by John Lepton, groom of the Privy Chamber. See Archæologia, vol. xli. |