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politics he was combining philosophy; for about this time he composed a work on this subject, which as he confesses to a correspondent forty years afterwards-" he named with great confidence and a magnificent title The Greatest Birth of Time."

§ 3 THE "ADVICE TO QUEEN ELIZABETH" 1

On an equally high level of confidence with the Greatest Birth of Time stands another treatise entitled Advice to Queen Elizabeth (written at the end of 1584 or the beginning of 1585), in which Francis Bacon advises the Queen upon all points of her policy, and in particular upon the treatment of those who objected to the religious supremacy of the Sovereign, and who were therefore called Recusants.2

During the twelve months preceding the meeting of Parliament in November 1584, three plots against the Queen's life had been detected; and in the October of that year a voluntary association had been formed to prosecute to the death any person by whom or for whom violence should be offered to the life of the Sovereign, and to hold such person (Mary Stuart) for ever incapable of the crown. In the Queen's life, at that crisis, were bound up the interests of England, of liberty, and of the Protestant faith; and to be a Roman Catholic at such a season seemed well-nigh equivalent to being a rebel.

But while the Queen and the House of Commons were at one in their determination to keep down, and if possible to suppress, Roman Catholicism, they were divided in their opinions as to the form of religion expedient for the Established Church.

The Commons would willingly have seen modifications introduced in the direction of Calvinistic Puritanism, and would have freed the Clergy from subscribing those of the Thirtynine Articles which related to discipline and Church government. The Queen, so far from making these or any concessions,

1 Spedding, i. 47-56.

2 It is interesting to know that, even before this date, in 1583, the Queen was in the habit of receiving from Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of Francis, confidential letters containing foreign information, which she highly valued. Through the Earl of Leicester she expressed to Anthony her satisfaction in having so good a man as you to have and receive letters by" (7 October, 1583). Dictionary of National Biography, "Anthony Bacon," ii. 324.

determined to inforce a stricter uniformity. For this purpose she appointed (1583) as Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, formerly Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, a man of honesty and good intentions, but of so narrow a mind as to be incapable of comprehending the scruples of those who differed from him, and devoted to the sole object of creating at least an outward uniformity among the Ministers of the Church of England. Το second Whitgift's efforts she recalled into action the Court of High Commission which had been sanctioned by Parliament twenty-four years before, when religious differences threatened the nation with civil war. This court claimed a power, used by no other English court, of compelling men to accuse both themselves and others. By tendering to an accused person what was called the ex officio oath that he would answer truly twenty-four inquisitorial interrogatories, which he had drawn up the new Archbishop could obtain information about the private and public lives of all suspected Ministers. Refusal to take the oath was punished by deprivation of benefice and imprisonment. The Commission had not indeed the power of torture or death; but these deficiencies they supplied, when occasion demanded, by recourse to the ordinary tribunals, "and men were actually sent to execution for writing libels against the Bishops, on the plea that any attack upon the Bishops was an instigation to sedition against the Queen." 1

Not a single Statesman approved of the proceedings by the bigoted Archbishop; and even the placid Burghley was roused to remonstrance. He too, he said, desired to see order established in the Church; but these proceedings resembled that of the Romish Inquisition, and were "rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any." 2 Bacon's nature pre-disposed him to tolerance of almost all religious differences that did not affect the order of the State, and his mother's influence and home training would incline him to side with Burghley in favouring the persecuted Ministers. But in the paper written about this time (1584-5) he touches this subject lightly, and with a prudent-perhaps almost too prudent-discretion. His main business is with the present dangers of the

1 Gardiner's History, i. 33-6.

2 Ib., 36.

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State, and the principal danger is, in his opinion, the Queen's "strong factious subjects, the Papists."

It cannot be surprising if, in the general fear of Mary Stuart and the supporters of her faith, the "Advice" advocates strong measures against the Roman Catholics. Yet the pressure is to be one of continuous discouragement, enfeeblement, and coercion, rather than aggressive persecution. To suffer them to be strong, in the hope that they will be contented with reasonable concessions, carries with it but "a fair enamelling of a terrible danger." To leave them half content, half discontent, carries with it an equally deceitful shadow of reason; "for no man loves one the better for giving him a bastinado with a little cudgel." Nevertheless, the Papists, he thinks, have a grievance from which it will be safe to relieve them. The present oath of allegiance compels a Recusant to swear that he thinks "that which, without the special grace of God, he cannot think," so making him perjured; or else, if he refuses the oath, the refusal constitutes him a traitor, "which, before some act done, seems somewhat hard." The best course is, first, to frame the oath in this sense, "that whosoever would not bear arms against all foreign princes, and, namely, the Pope, that should any way invade your Majesty's dominions, he should be a traitor." Most Papists, Bacon thinks, would take this oath; or, if they refused it, no tongue, for shame, could say that the refuser suffered for religion; and the accepting of this oath would dissolve the present mutual confidence between the English Papists and the Pope.

Secondly, "their number will easily be lessened by means of careful and diligent Preachers in each parish to that end appointed, and especially by good Schoolmasters and bringersup of their youth; the former by converting them after their fall, the latter by preventing the same." The mention of Preachers introduces the delicate question of tolerance for the Puritans. The subject of the paper is the Queen's "strong factious subjects and foreign enemies." Bacon says plainly at the outset, "Your strong factious subjects be the Papists." He does not dream of imputing "faction" to the Puritans, who are therefore altogether out of his legitimate scope. Yet he cannot help mentioning and protesting against the grievances to which they were being subjected, at the same time that he apologises for the digression and declares that he is not personally addicted to their opinions :

"For Preachers, because thereon grows a great question, I am provoked to lay at your Highness's feet my opinion touching the preciser sort; first protesting to God Almighty and your sacred Majesty that I am not given over, nor so much as addicted, to their preciseness; therefore, till I think that you think otherwise, I am bold to think that the Bishops, in this dangerous time, take a very evil and unadvised course in driving them from their cures."

Such persecution, he says, spreads abroad an impression of disunion in England; and besides, the Preachers are effectually helping the State, and ought not to be discouraged : "their careful catechising and diligent preaching bring forth that fruit" which is desired, "the lessening and diminution of the Papistical number."

"And therefore in this time your gracious Majesty hath especial cause to use and employ them, if it were but as Frederick II., that excellent Emperor, did use and employ Saracen soldiers against the Pope, because he was well assured and certainly knew that they only would not spare his sanctity.

"And for those objections what they would do when they got once a full and entire authority in the Church, methinks they are inter remota et incerta mala, and therefore vicina et certa to be first considered."

One advantage of the appointment of Schoolmasters will be that, by making the parents of each shire send their children to such fit and convenient places as may be at her devotion, the Queen may, "under colour of education, have them as hostages of all the parents' fidelity that have any power in England." As for the punishment of death, it is useless as a means for lessening their numbers; their vice of obstinacy seems to the people a divine constancy; and, as with Hydra, when one head is cut off, seven grow up.

A third means for keeping down the Papists will be to disqualify all who will not "pray and communicate according to the doctrine received generally in this realm" from all office, "from the highest counsellor to the lowest constable." Fourthly, Popish landlords are not to be allowed to evict or unreasonably molest any tenants who "pay as others do: "

"And although thereby may grow some wrong that the tenants, upon that confidence, may offer unto their landlords; yet those wrongs are very easily, even with one wink of yours, redressed, and are nothing comparable to the danger of having so many thousands depend upon the adverse party."

In order to enfeeble the Papists for military enterprises, no one is to be "trained up in the musters except his parishioners would answer for him that he orderly and duly received the Communion;" and no one is "to have in his house so much as a halbert without the same condition."

Above all, let her Majesty, in her dealings with the Papists avoid "that evil shamefacedness which the Greeks call δυσωπία, which is, not to seem to doubt them who give just occasion for doubt." By modifying the Oath of Allegiance, and by enfeebling the Papists, the Queen will never need to execute any but those whom all will acknowledge to be traitors; and while she will be dispensed from the necessity of seeming to trust them, they will be obliged, for their own sakes, to be faithful to her.

In foreign policy Bacon here avows himself, as throughout his life, the enemy of Spain. France ought to be made a friend; Scotland to be distracted by supporting those noblemen whom the young King suspected, and by giving him "daily cause to look to his own succession;" but against Spain help might be sought from Florence, Ferrara, and especially Venice. The alliance of the Dutch and northern princes, "being in effect of your Majesty's religion," ought not to be contemned; Spain should be weakened by attacks both upon his Indies and Low Countries; or, if war is not to be provoked, such help is to be offered the Low Countries as can be given without provoking actual war with Spain.

The whole paper is remarkable, not only for the lofty tone adopted by a young barrister of three-and-twenty in addressing the Sovereign, but also for the cool directness with which the writer advances straight towards his political object, keeping his eye much more upon the end than upon the means.

Here, as throughout the whole of Bacon's political writings, the influence of Machiavelli is manifest. Perhaps there is even some affectation of Machiavellianism in his eulogy of Frederick II., (" that excellent Emperor who did use and employ

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