his Majesty, who liketh it very well. As for the point of law, his Majesty will consider of it at more leisure, and then send you his opinion thereof. And so I rest Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Hinchingbroke, the 22d of October, 1617. My honourable Lord, TO THE LORD KEEPER.' His Majesty hath spent some time with Sir Lionel Cranfield about his own business, wherewith he acquainted his Majesty he hath had some conference with your Lordship, upon whose report to his Majesty of your zeal and care of his service, which his Majesty accepteth very well at your hands, he hath commanded Sir L. Cranfield to attend your Lordship, to signify his further pleasure for the furtherance of his service, unto whose relation I refer you. His Majesty's further pleasure is you acquaint no creature living with it, he having resolved to rely upon your care and trust only. Thus wishing you all happiness, I rest October 26, 1617. Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. TO THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAM.2 My very good Lord, I send your Lordship the certificate touching the inrolment of prentices. We can find no ground for it by law. My will shall ever be ready to further any thing your Lordship recommendeth; but where the matter will not bear it your Lordship I know will think not the worse but the better of me if I signify the true state of things to your Lordship; resting ever Your Lordship's true friend and devoted servant, York-house, 29 Octob. 1617. The Certificate.3 According to his Majesty's command signified by your Lordship's letters, we have advisedly considered of the petition touch 1 Harl. MSS. 7006, f. 31. Copy by Meautys. Docketed "Octob. 26, 1617. The Earl of Buck to your Lp. importing his Ma. special service to be further imparted to your Lp. by Sir Lionel Cranfield." Below, in Bacon's hand, "Tresury and Subcommittees, Select." 2 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 80. Fair copy by Meautys. No fly leaf. Indorsed in the usual hand, "29 Oct. 1617. To Lord of Bucking, touching the enrolment of Apprentices." 3 Stephens's first collection, p. 218. From the original. ing the inrolment of apprentices' indentures, and heard the petitioner's counsel, and do find as followeth : 1. That the Act of Parliament 5° Eliz. doth not warrant the erecting of an office to inroll such indentures in cities, towns corporate, or market towns. But if any such inrolment should be, it must be by the officers there, who are assigned to perform sundry other things touching apprentices and servants. 2. That in country villages (for which the suit carries most colour) we cannot give the suitors hope that any profit will be there made, warrantable by law. Thus we have (according to our duties) certified our opinions of this petition, submitting the same nevertheless to his Majesty's great wisdom; and rest At your Lordship's command, FR. BACON, C.S. H. MONTAGUE. THO. COVEntry. Oct. 25, 1617. It will be seen by the dates of the last letters that Bacon was now established in York House: and a letter relating to the lease (the exact date of which I do not know how to determine) may come in here as fitly as anywhere. Upon the death of the late Lord Chancellor, Bacon had applied to the Archbishop of York-Tobias Matthew, father of his friend Tobie for a lease of the house in which his own father had lived and himself had been born. The Archbishop's answer,-communicated by Buckingham, through whom the application had been made, on the 18th of May, 1617,-was that he "put it wholly into his hands, to do with it what he pleased." The first arrangement seems to have been a lease for life. But afterwards-how long after I do not know, but long enough to allow of the spending of a thousand marks in reparation—he wished to turn it into a lease for 21 years; and accordingly wrote to the Archbishop the following letter. TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.1 My very good Lord, I must use a better style than mine own in saying, Amor tuus undequaque se ostendit ex literis tuis proximis. For which I give your Grace many thanks, and do with more confidence continue my suit to your Lordship for a lease absolute for 1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 245. Copy. Docketed, "A letter to the Bishop of Yorke touching a lease to be made for 21 years of Yorkehouse," twenty-one years of the house; being the number of years which my father and my predecessors fulfilled in it. A good fine requires certainty of term; and I am well assured, that the charge I have expended in reparations, amounting to 1000 marks at least already, is more than hath been laid out by all the tenants that have been in it since my remembrance, answerable to that particular circumstance which is peculiar to myself, that I was born there, and am like to end my days there. Neither can I hold my hand, but upon this encouragement am like to be doing still, which tendeth to the improvement in great measure of the inheritance of your see by superlapidations, if I may so call it, instead of delapidations, wherewith otherwise it might be charged. And whereas a state for life is a certainty, and not so well seen how it wears, a term for years makes me more depending upon you and your succession. For the providing of your Lordship and your successors a house, it is part of the former covenant, wherein I desired not to be released. So assuring myself of your grant and perfecting of this my suit; and assuring your Grace of my earnest desire and continual readiness to deserve well of you and yours chiefly, and likewise of your see in any the causes or preeminences thereof, I commend your Grace to God's goodness, resting, etc. 3. On the 27th of October Secretary Winwood died, after a week's illness; leaving an important office vacant, but less disturbance otherwise than might have been expected from the sudden removal of a man so active and busy, the head of the popular court faction, and at the same time "in his highest favour with the King, Queen, Prince, and principal favourite." His death makes a considerable figure in the news letters of the day, but none at all in this correspondence. The principal event which followed, though I do not know that it really had anything to do with it, was the restoration to fiberty of Lady Hatton, who (according to Chamberlain) laid all the fault of her late troubles upon him. She was set free on the 2nd of November, and a week after gave a great dinner to the King and Prince, which seems to have been the celebration of her reconciliation with everybody-except her husband. As we do not often hear 1 Chamberlain to Carleton, 31 Oct. 1617. S. P. vol. xciii. no. 158. of Bacon assisting at festivities of this kind, a contemporary notice of it may be worth inserting. "This day was the great feast at Hatton House made to the King and Prince and their followers, lords and ladies, by the most noble lady my La. Eliz. Hatton. My Lo. Coke only was absent, who in all vulgar opinions was there expected. His Majesty was never merrier nor more satisfied, who had not patience to sit a quarter of an hour without drinking the health of my La. Eliz. Hatton, which was pledged first by my Lo. Keeper and my Lord Marquis Hamilton, and then by all the lords and ladies with great gravity and respect, and then by all the gallants in the next room."2 No successor was appointed for the present to Winwood. "The King said he was never so well served as when he was his own secretary, and to that end" (says Chamberlain) "had delivered the seals that were belonging to Sir Ralph Winwood to the custody of the Earl of Buckingham, and there perhaps they shall remain till they both grow weary of the trouble."3 The correspondence with Bacon went on in the mean time much as before only that Sir Lionel Cranfield begins now to appear on the scene as an indispensable man, who must be waited for if he is not ready. He was the same person whose proposition for the arrangement of the dispute about "Impositions" two or three years before had been noticed by Bacon with approval, as more statesmanlike than he should have expected from a man of his breeding. He had been bred apprentice to a merchant in the city, and having married his master's daughter had risen to be a merchant himself; and being apt and able in his own vocation was very well qualified to assist in the principal business upon which the Council was now engaged the retrenchment of needless expenditure in the King's household and the rectification of his finances. Bacon's correspondence for the rest of the year relates chiefly to their labours in this matter; but as it turns for the most part upon details which have no interest for modern readers, and the general course and spirit of their proceedings may be followed without difficulty, it may be left to tell its own story. 1 He had been feasted, together with the Judges, by the college of Westminster three days before: when his munificence to the King's scholars is noted by Camden. 2 John Pory to Sir D. Carleton, 8 Nov. 1617. S. P. xciv. no. 15. Chamberlain to Carleton, 8 Nov. Ibid. no. 12. My honourable Lord, TO THE LORD KEEPER.' I have thought good to renew my motion to your Lordship in the behalf of my Lord of Huntingdon my Lord Stanhope and Sir Thomas Gerard, for that I am more particularly acquainted with their desires. They only seeking the true advancement of the charitable uses unto which the land given by their grandfather was intended, which as I am informed was meant by way of a corporation, and by this means if it might be settled upon the schoolmaster usher and poor, and the coheirs to be visitors, the tenants might be conscionably dealt withal, and so ` it will be out of the power of any feoffees to abuse the trust, which as it hath been lately proved, have been hitherto the hindrance of this good work. These coheirs desire only the honour of their ancestor's gift, and wish the money misemployed and ordered to be paid into court by Sir John Harper may rather be bestowed by your Lordship's discretion for the augmentation of the foundation of their ancestors than by the censure of any other. And so I rest Your Lordship's servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Theobalds, 12 November. My honourable Lord, TO THE LORD KEEPER.2 Though I had resolved to give your Lordship no more trouble in matters of controversy depending before you, with what importunity soever my letters had been desired ;3 yet the respect I bear unto this gentleman hath so far forced my resolution as to recommend unto your Lordship the suit, which I am informed by him is to receive a hearing before you on Monday next, between Barnaby Leigh and Edward Dyer, plaintiffs, and Sir Thomas Thynne, defendant; wherein I desire your Lordship's favour on the plaintiffs' behalf so far only as the justice of their cause shall require. And so I rest Your Lordship's faithful servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Newmarket, the 15 of Nov. 1 Harl. MSS. 7006. f. 33. orig. Docketed by Meautys, "12 Novemb' 1617. The Earl of Buck" to your Lp. in the behalf of the Lo. Huntingdon and others." 2 Harl. MSS. 7006. f. 35. orig. Docketed by Meautys, "15 Novemb1 1617. The Earl of Buckm to y' Lp, in the behalf of Mr. Leigh and others." 3 I have observed that any remonstrance which Bacon felt called to make with Buckingham against writing letters of this kind would have been best made by speech. This passage seems to imply that something of the kind had actually passed between them. VOL. VI. T |