VII. 14. Worcester for a week. Having let out his pool, he has come to answer for himself, and seek power to fill it with water and fish once more. 1606. Feb. A yet more serious quarrel with Lord Zouch has helped to bring him up to town. As President of the Council of Wales and the Welsh Marches, Lord Zouch has for a long time claimed a certain jurisdiction over the four border shires of Gloucester, Hereford, Salop, and Worcester; a claim which the shires deny and resist, with loud speeches from the gentry, met by threats of force on the part of Zouch, tumultuous riding, signing, and protesting, ending for a day in solemn appeals from the four shires to the House of Commons, and from the angry Council of Wales to the King. Sir Herbert Crofts, Knight of the shire for Hereford, has the cause against Zouch in hand. Sir John, who is Sheriff of Worcester, but not a Parliament man, having no tongue to wag, has yet a passionate interest in the appeal; for Lord Zouch not only claims a certain authority in his county, but shows no sense of the respect due, even from a peer, to so great a man as Sir John. 15. Alice is now near her lover, whom she may spy as he trots from Gray's Inn to Westminster, or lounges from the House towards Chancery-lane. Bacon sees many a rock ahead. He is still a simple knight, and he has the misery of differing from Sir John on the great question of Lord Zouch and the shires. Sir John can hardly make him out. Pakington is a Royalist root and branch, one who has lent money to his Prince on Privy Seals, and who would draw a sword for Church and King with the ready zeal which made 15. Com. Jour., i. 286, 299; App. to the Verney Papers, ed. by John Bruce, 281. 1606. Feb. his grandson famous among the soldiers of Charles the VII. 15. First; yet this young lawyer, who has spent his life in recommending reforms, presumes to defend against him, loyal Sir John, the prerogatives of the Crown! Wiser heads than that of the warm old Worcestershire knight are often at fault when trying to explain to themselves the relations of Bacon to the Puritan House of Commons and to the episcopal and regal court. Yet they seem to be easy of explanation. It is, indeed, so rare for a man to stand on good terms with a hostile Crown and House of Commons, that it is often thought and sometimes found to be impossible. Winwood tried it. Strafford tried it. Pym would have tried it. But Winwood lost favour with the House when he took office under the Crown; lost favour at Court when he leaned to the Puritan opinions of the House. Strafford and Pym had each to choose a side. Bacon's position was far more lofty, and for years it seemed as if it were more secure. From his height of view and round of sympathy he is unable to throw himself, tongue and pen, into the exclusive and sectarian lines of either camp. His reconciling genius spans the dividing stream of party. Above the foolish Prince and petulant squires, he sees his country; not merely the England of Bancroft, of the Hampton Court Conference, of the Proclamation against Papists; but the England of a thousand years, of Alfred and of Edward, of Cressy and of Cadiz, of Chaucer and of Spenser; the England of a glorious past and a hopeful future; the land which nurtured Wycliffe and Caxton, which broke the spiritual bonds of Leo, which crushed the invincible fleets of Spain. This country he strives to arm, to free, to guide; now by aiding the King in questions of revenue and of union; now by aiding the House in ques 1606. Feb. VII. 15. tions of reform or war. In each he is consistent first and last. His first votes in the House were for supplies, his last speech will be for supplies. With no fear of the controversial genius of Rome, he feels a wholesome dread of the fleets and regiments of Spain; those tracts by which Parsons, Schioppius, and Bellarmino sting the sleep from so many pillows pass him by; but he cannot hear unmoved that the same Paul who has launched an interdict on Venice is forming a Roman Catholic League against England; that the O'Neiles and O'Donnels driven out from Ireland by Lord Montjoy are hurrying home from Brussels and Madrid; that rebels are drilling in the wilds of Connaught and Ulster; that Fajardo is manning his ships in Cadiz bay, and Brochero proffering his red hand to brush away Virginia with steel and flame. Willing to meet the men of words with words, he is not less eager to meet the men of war with steel and lead, the midnight assassin with the chain, the gibbet, and the cord. Now, to starve the Crown is to leave England weak. True, the Prince is lax, and moneys voted for the musters and the fleets may chance to drop into the pouches of Hume and Herbert and Carr; yet of two dark evils he chooses to dare the least, seeing that to pare down the subsidies, as many virtuous and unreasoning squires propose, is to subject James and his needy servants to the magnificent corruptions of Lerma, the great minister of Spain, already suspected, and with truth, of having taken the chief men of the Privy Council and the Bedchamber into his pay. Better own the King's debts than let Lerma pay them. Therefore, while he speaks with Hastings and Hyde against patents, wardships, private monopolies, the whole tag-rag of feudal privilege, he constantly votes with Hitcham and Hobart for those supplies which are necessary to maintain the splendour of the Crown and the efficiency VII. 15. of the musters and the fleet. Here he parts from the majority; wide as in his vote for union with the Scots. 16. Cecil, knowing his kinsman free from selfish and sectarian views, consults him on the money-bills and settlements. The debates on a grant for the new reign are about to come on; and Cecil, who as Earl of Salisbury sits in the Peers, has begun to feel his need of a bold and influential friend in the Lower House. He hints that the Court shall no longer oppose Bacon's rise at the bar. On his part, Bacon is ready to assist the Crown in procuring an ample grant; to shape drafts and preambles such as may disarm the resentment of knight and squire. Cecil takes him at his word, and Bacon drafts a bill. Here is a note which shows how he is nearing power: BACON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, Feb. 10, 1606. I cannot as I would express how much I think myself bounden to your Lordship for your tenderness over my contentments. But herein I will endeavour hereafter as I am able. I send your Lordship a preamble for the subsidy, drawing which was my morning's labour to-day. This mould or frame, if you like it not, I will be ready to cast it again, de novo, if I may receive your honourable directions for any particular corrections, it is in a good hand; and yet I will attend your Lordship (after tomorrow's business, and to-morrow ended, which I know will be wearisome to you) to know your further pleasure: 16. Bacon to Cecil, Feb. 10, 1606, S. P. O. 1606. Feb. VII. 16. and so in all humbleness I rest at your Lordship's honourable commands more your ever bounden 1606. Mar. 11. Mar. 18. F. BACON. 17. After warm debates in the Lower House a bill goes up to the throne for two subsidies and four fifteenths, payable in eighteen months. It is not enough. Hitcham, member for Lyme, a patriotic fighting town on the Dorset coast, proposes in committee a second grant of two subsidies, four in all. A dozen members rise at once. Peake will hear no more about the royal debts. Holt declares the proposition of Hitcham dangerous. Paddye will tell the King that even kings must not do wrong. Noy declaims against spoiling the poor to gorge the rich. Dyer and Holcroft hint that more than once demands like these have been met by the cry, To arms! But the warmest speaker is Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch, member for Marlborough. Courtiers shrink from an unequal contest. Sir Edward Hoby, an observant politician, friendly to his kinsman Cecil and the court, notes how poor a figure the King's official friends make in that masculine and stormy House. 18. Bacon starts to the front. In the midst of a noisy sitting of the committee, word comes down from Whitehall that James will not wait that the bill must be passed, or the undutiful members shall feel his ire. Such words --now frequent-make the King odious and contemptible. A storm sets in; the members fling back threat for threat; the bill is lost. 17. Hoby to Edmonds, Mar. 7, 1606; Cecil to Earl of Mar, Mar. 9, 1606, S. P. O.; Com. Jour., i. 281-84. 18. Bacon to Cecil, Mar. 22, 1606, S. P. O.; Com. Jour., i. 288; Jonson's Epigrams, 41; A Proclamation touching a Seditious Rumour, Mar. 22, 1606. |