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advantages he owed to nature, such as a handsome face, a body exactly proportioned, an ease and gracefulness in his motion, she had taken care to improve with that elegance of manners, that artificial politeness, and skill of excelling in trifles, which are the last finishings of a French education. In a word, he was just returned from his travels, and accomplished in all those agreeable and frivolous arts, which were a certain recommendation to the favour of James. The earls of Pembroke and Bedford, with some other lords who were secret enemies to Somerset, after dressing out this youth with a studied exactness, placed him to advantage in the king's eye, at a comedy. That monarch was immediately smitten with his face, air, and appearance, which yet he endeavoured for some time to conceal. Nay he carried this dissimulation so far, that he would needs be solicited by the queen to receive Villiers into his bosom: imagining the world would be thus deceived into a belief that he rather followed her advice, in this matter, than his own inclination. Such was the kingcraft on which he so highly valued himself. The queen was not easily prevailed with to take this step; worth of of which she foresaw all the consequences. At last, however, she yielded to the archbishop's importunity; telling him at the same time, that those who laboured most to promote Villiers might be the first to feel his ingratitude. Upon this he was immediately knighted, and declared gentleman of the bed-chamber: the herd of courtiers rivalling each other in their offers of Weldon, friendship and service to him. Some of them even descended to undertake his quarrels, and brave such as were still in Somerset's interest.

Rush

Abbot,

ch. 1.

p. 84.

Bacon,

Among those who courted the rising favourite, none was more zealous than Sir Francis Bacon; as none was able to serve him more nobly, or more usefully. Villiers had at this time sense enough to Vol. III. feel his inexperience in business, and therefore had recourse to our author for his advice: which he gave him fully in a letter, still extant among his works; written with so superior a judgment and so much

Advice to

Sir G. Villiers, p. 429.

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honest freedom, that it does honour equally to his head and heart. He has ranged his thoughts under seven or eight principal topics of consideration, and entered into an accurate detail of what a minister ought to know and practise. In another letter to him, he has these remarkable words:-" It is now time that you "should refer your actions chiefly to the good of your sovereign, and your country. It is the life of a "beast always to eat, and never to exercise. In "this dedication of yourself to the public, I recom"mend to you principally that which I think was never done since I was born, and which, not done, "hath bred almost a wilderness and solitude in the king's service which is, that you countenance, " and encourage, and advance able and virtuous men "in all kinds, degrees, and professions." This excellent advice the favourite received with thankfulness; and neglected.

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Though the king's passion was now wholly di- An. 1616. verted upon a new object, he still affected to treat Somerset with kindness and distinction; even after the discovery of his being an accomplice in poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury had rendered this dissimulation not only mean but criminal. Yet he continued it to Wilson, the last, embracing with fondness the man whom he p. 81. had secretly ordered to be arrested and intreating him to hasten his return, when he believed he should never see him more. In such trifles he was fond to exert his talent of political management. The earl's unhappy passion for the young countess of Essex was the source of all his misfortunes, and drew after it the most terrible consequences: ending, as I have already observed, in the murder of his friend, in the ruin of himself, and of her to whom he had treacherously sacrificed that friend. The whole affair is displayed at full length in our author's charges against those two prime agents in that infernal con- May 24, spiracy. They were both found guilty, sentenced as wel to die, and afterwards pardoned by the king, not- I. p. 334, withstanding his solemn imprecations to the contrary, on himself and his posterity.

25. Statetrials, Vol.

348.

Bacon, Vol. V. Letter

CXXXVI.

Vol. V. Letter

CXXXIX.

Certain historians have remarked, that there was something in the behaviour of Somerset before his trial, singular and mysterious; and that his master likewise seemed to labour under a secret anxiety of mind equally surprising. The earl, they pretend, said aloud in the Tower, that the king durst not bring him to a trial. Others reject this account as a downright calumny, invented merely to fix a black and cruel imputation on that prince's memory: or affirm at least that it was founded only in popular rumour and malicious conjecture. But that there was more in it than conjecture, may be proved by undoubted authority; by some original letters of Sir Francis Bacon, then attorney-general, and particularly employed in this very affair. Those letters have, I think, escaped the observation of all our writers: I shall therefore quote from them such passages as may serve to throw some light on this dark transaction; though not enough perhaps to discover the darker motives that influenced the king's and the earl's behaviour in it.

James himself selected certain persons to examine Somerset with all secrecy, and marked out to them the particular articles on which they were to interrogate him. They had withal orders to work upon his obstinate temper by every method of persuasion and terror: to give him now hopes of the king's compassion and mercy; and now to assure him that the evidence was full to convict him, so as there needed neither confession nor supply of examination. Bacon, who was one of them, adds that they found his deportment sober and modest, different apparently from other times. In another letter he has these remarkable words: "That the same little charm "which may be secretly infused into Somerset's ear "some hours before his trial, was excellently well

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thought of by his majesty: only I could wish it a "little enlarged; for if it be no more but to spare his "blood, he hath a kind of proud humour that may (6 over-work the medicine." All this was to be done with much caution and privacy; for the very ser

Vol. V.

jeants, appointed to manage part of the trial, were not yet in the secret how the king would have it carried on and therefore Bacon, to cover from them what he knew of the matter, desired that some general heads of direction might be sent to them all. From hence it appears that James shewed an extreme solicitude about the earl's behaviour, and the event of this affair. To what can it be attributed? His affection for Somerset was extinguished: and he lay under the strongest obligations of public honour and justice not to screen, from the censure of the law, a man whose guilt was of the most crying enormity. The earl's standing mute, or denying that guilt, especially as the proofs of it were strong and pregnant, could bring no possible imputation on his name. Why then all this dark practice? all these artifices of the persons who examined him, only to make him submit to be tried, and to keep him in due temper during his trial? There is still more. James Bacon, ordered his attorney general to forecast and put in Letter writing every possible case with regard to the trial, and accompany them with his own opinion on each that no surprise might happen, but that things duly foreseen might have their directions and remedies in readiness. Accordingly Sir Francis Bacon sent a writing of that purport, on which there are several observations in the king's own hand. I will only quote one passage from it: "All these points of 66 mercy and favour to Somerset are to be understood "with this limitation; if he do not, by his con"temptuous and insolent carriage at the bar, make "himself incapable and unworthy of them." king's remark in the margin is in these words: "That danger is well to be foreseen, lest he upon the one part commit unpardonable errors; and I on the "other part seem to punish him in the spirit of re"venge. Somerset was not to be tried for any offence against the king, but for the barbarous murder of a private man and his friend. What then means the contemptuous carriage that is so much apprehended? What are the unpardonable errors it may

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CXXXVIII.

Court of

p. 106.

lead him to commit? If he reflected on a master, to whom he had been so much obliged, only for giving him up to a fair and equal trial, to a trial by many circumstances rendered inevitable; that would, in the opinion of all mankind, only aggravate his crime, and furnish a new motive to that master for letting the sentence of justice pass upon him in all its rigour. After these particulars, I may venture to mention a K. James I. fact related by Sir Antony Weldon, who says, that when the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir George More, came and told the earl he must prepare for his trial on the morrow, he absolutely refused to appear unless they dragged him to it by violence; adding, that the king durst not bring him to trial. Astonished at such rash and dangerous expressions, the lieutenant, though it was then midnight, went and demanded an audience of the king, to inform him of what had passed. James, upon hearing his story, burst into a passion of tears, and entreated More to use his utmost skill upon his prisoner and soothe him, by whatever means, into proper temper and submission. This More undertook to do, and by a stratagem effected it. Weldon affirms he had this story from the lieutenant's own mouth: and though he is a partial writer, and indulges himself in a humour of licentious scandal, the authentic vouchers I have produced render his anecdote not improbable. Other circumstances, mentioned by those who have professedly written of this reign, I therefore omit, and shall only add, that there is in the Cabala a letter to king James from Somerset after his condemnation, of a very peculiar turn. He desires that his estate may be continued to him entire, in a style rather of expostulation and demand, than of humility and supplication and through the affected obscurity of some expressions, one may discover, that there was an important secret in his keeping, of which_the_king dreaded a discovery. The issue was, that James continued to him a pension of four thousand pounds a year, as long as he lived.

Cabala, p. 204.

edit. 1691.

Prince Henry died in the year 1612, universally

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