man's private. But my heart is not on these things. Yet on the other side I would be sorry that worthless persons should make a note that I get nothing but pains and enemies; and a little popular reputation, which followeth me whether I will or no. If any thing be to be done for yourself, I should take infinite contentment, that my honour might wait upon yours; but I would be loth it should wait upon any man's else. If you would put your strength to this business, it is done; and that done many things more will begin. God keep you ever. I rest May 30, 1616. Your true and devoted servant, Stephens's CXLIV. To the King, about the Commendams. first collec tion, p. 137. May it please your most excellent Majesty, I AM not swift to deliver any thing to your majesty before it be well weighed. But now that I have informed myself of as much as is necessary touching this proceeding of the judges to the argument of the Commendams, notwithstanding your majesty's pleasure signified by me, upon your majesty's commandment in presence of my lord chancellor and the bishop of Winchester, to the contrary, I do think it fit to advertise your majesty what hath passed; the rather, because I suppose the judges, since they performed not your commandment, have at least given your majesty their reasons of failing therein; I being to answer for the doing your majesty's commandments, and they for the not doing. I did conceive, that in a cause that concerned your majesty and your royal power, the judges having heard your attorney-general argue the Saturday before, would of themselves have taken farther time to be advised. And, if I fail not in memory, my lord Coke received from your majesty's self, as I take it, a precedent commandment in Hilary term, that both in the rege inconsulto, and in the Commendams, your attorney should be heard to speak, and then stay to be made of farther proceedings, till my lord had spoken with your majesty. Nevertheless, hearing that the day appointed for the judges argument held, contrary to my expectation, I sent on Thursday in the evening, having received your majesty's commandment but the day before in the afternoon, a letter to my lord Coke; whereby I let him know, that upon some report of my lord of Winchester, who by your commandment was present at my argument of that which passed, it was your majesty's express pleasure, that no farther proceedings should be, until you had conferred with your judges: which your majesty thought to have done at your being now last in town; but by reason of your many and weighty occasions, your princely times would not serve; and that it was your pleasure he should signify so much to the rest of the judges, whereof his lordship might not fail. His answer by word to my man was, that it were good the rest of the judges understood so much from myself: whereupon I, that cannot skill of scruples in matter of service, did write on Friday three several letters of like content to the judges of the common pleas, and the barons of the exchequer, and the other three judges of the king's bench, mentioning in that last my particular letter to my lord chief justice. by my lord This was all I did, and thought all had been sure; in so much as the same day being appointed in chancery for your majesty's great cause, followed by my` lord Hunsden,* I writ two other letters to both the This case chief justices, to put them in mind of assisting my lord is reported chancellor at the hearing. And when my lord chan- Hobart, p. cellor himself took some notice upon that occasion 109. openly in the chancery, that the Commendams could not hold presently after, I heard the judges were gone about the Commendams; which I thought at first had been only to adjourn the court, but I heard after that they proceeded to argument. In this their doing, I conceive they must either except to the nature of the commandment, or to the credence thereof; both which, I assure myself, your majesty will maintain. * Mag. Chart. Stephens's first collection,p.140. For if they should stand upon the general ground, * Nulli negabimus, nulli differemus justitiam, it receiveth two answers. The one, that reasonable and mature advice may not be confounded with delay; and that they can well alledge when it pleaseth them. The other is, that there is a great difference between a case merely between subject and subject, and where the king's interest is in question directly or by consequence. As for the attorney's place and commission, it is as proper for him to signify the king's pleasure to the judges, as for the secretary to signify the same to the privy-council; and so it hath ever been. These things were a little strange if there came not so many of them together, as the one maketh the other seem less strange: but your majesty hath fair occasions to remedy all with small aid; I say no more for the present. I was a little plain with my lord Coke in these matters; and when his answer was, that he knew all these things; I said he could never profit too much in knowing himself and his duty. God ever preserve your majesty. CXLV. A Memorial for his MAJESTY, corrected with Sir FR. BACON's Own hand, 1616. It seemeth this year of the fourteenth of his majesty's reign, being a year of a kind of majority in his government, is consecrated to justice: which as his majesty hath performed to his subjects in this late memorable occasion, so he is now to render and perform to himself, his crown and posterity. That his council shall perceive by that which his majesty shall now communicate with them, that the mass of his business is continually prepared in his own By the laws, several ages are assigned to persons for several purposes: and by the common law the fourteenth year is a kind of majority, and accounted an age of discretion. At that time a man may agree or disagree to a precedent marriage: the heir in socage may reject the guardian appointed by law, and choose a new one: and the woman at that age shall be out of ward, etc. Stephens. royal care and cogitations, howsoever he produceth the same to light, and to act per opera dierum.3 That his majesty shall make unto them now a declarative of two great causes, whereof he doubteth not they have heard by glimpses; the one concerning his high court of chancery, the other concerning the church and prelacy; but both of them deeply touching his prerogative and sovereignty, and the flowers of his crown. That about the end of Hilary term last, there came to his majesty's ears, only by common voice and report, not without great rumour and wonder, that there was somewhat done in the king's bench the last day of that term, whereby his chancery should be pulled down, and be brought in question for pramunire; being the most heinous offence after treason, and felony, and misprision of treason; and that the time should be when the chancellor lay at the point of death. That his majesty was so far from hearing of this by any complaint from his chancellor, who then had given over worldly thoughts, that he wrote letters of comfort to him upon this accident, before he heard from him; and for his attorney, his majesty challenged him for not advertising him of that, of which it was proper for his majesty to be informed from him. That his majesty being sensible of this so great novelty and perturbation in his courts of justice, nevertheless used this method and moderation, that before he would examine this great affront and disgrace offered to his chancery and chancellor, he would first inform himself whether the chancery or chancellor were in fault; and whether the former precedents of chancery did warrant the proceedings there after judgment passed at common law, which was the thing in question, and thereupon his majesty called his learned counsel to him, and commanded them to 3 Per opera dierum, alluding to the gradations Almighty God was pleased to observe in the creating of the world. In this paragraph Sir Francis Bacon insinuates, what he expressly declares Vol. II. Essay XLVII. p. 370. that in all negotiations of difficulty a man must first prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees. Stephens. examine the precedents of chancery, and to certify what they found: which they did; and by their certificate it appeareth, that the precedents of that kind were many and precise in the point, and constant, and in good times, and allowed many times by the judges themselves. That after this his majesty received from the lord chancellor a case, whereby the question was clearly set down and contained within the proper bounds of the present doubt; being, Whether upon apparent matter of equity, which the judges of the law by their place and oath cannot meddle with or relieve, if a judgment be once passed at common law, the subject shall perish, or that the chancery shall relieve him; and whether there be any statute of pramunire or other, to restrain this power in the chancellor; which case, upon the request of the lord chancellor, his majesty likewise referred to his learned counsel, and the prince's attorney Mr. Walter was joined with them, who, upon great advice and view of the original records themselves, certified the chancery was not restrained by any statute in that case. That his majesty again required his learned counsel to call the clerks of the king's bench to them, and to receive from them any precedents of indictments in the king's bench against the chancery for proceeding in the like case; who produced only two precedents, being but indictments offered or found, upon which there was no other proceeding; and the clerks said, they had used diligence and could find no more. That his majesty, after he had received this satisfaction that there was ground for that the chancery had done, and that the chancery was not in fault, he thought then it was time to question the misdemeanor and contempt in scandalizing and dishonouring his justice in that high court of chancery in so odious a manner; and commanded his attorney-general, with the advice of the rest of his learned counsel, to prosecute the offenders in the star-chamber, which is done; and some of them are fled, and others stand out and will not answer. That there resteth only one part more towards his majesty's complete information in this cause: which is |