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to confer with him about their further demands. Let him but do this, and Sir Henry Neville was ready to answer it that "in a month or five weeks this point of supplying the King and of his retribution will be easily determined, if it be proposed betimes and followed close afterwards."

By this course the King undoubtedly risked something. It was possible that some of the popular party might succeed in embittering the House against the Crown, even after the royal concessions; so that when a dissolution came, the King might find that he had granted much and the Commons given nothing in return. But it was a time when to risk something would have been wise. The mutual distrust between Crown and Commons needed to be dispelled; it was the King's unconstitutional interference that had elicited from the House of Commons (1604) the protest that the privileges of the House, and therein the liberties and stability of the whole Kingdom had been "more universally and dangerously impugned than ever, as we suppose, since the beginning of Parliaments;" and since the King had created the distrust, there now justly devolved on him the task of dispelling it. Moreover, the spirit certainly, and probably the letter also, of laws and precedents, was generally felt to be against the royal claim to levy Impositions. Soon after the last Parliament, records concerning Impositions had been disinterred which had converted Hackwill, a learned lawyer and strenuous defender of the royal right. Bacon himself had seen these; and his altered tone in the next session more than justifies Mr. Spedding's cautious conjecture that he too was converted by them. If this was so, we might have expected that Bacon would retrace his steps; but there is no hint of any kind of retractation. We have seen the alarm, expressed by a dispassionate observer like Chamberlain, lest the King's Prerogative might be magnified to the detriment of the liberties of the people. Yet Bacon knew nothing, or cared nothing, for such fears. In every possible way he was still endeavouring to increase the King's power, and we shall soon find him boasting (25 July, 1617) that, when he was Lord Keeper, his Majesty's prerogative and authority had "risen some just degrees above the horizon." Bacon's action conciliated the King, and was for the advantage of "his own particular;" but it was not for the advantage of the people, nor for the ultimate advantage of the Crown. We may excuse his error in various ways, so as to save his morality and sincerity at the expense of his statesmanship; we may point out that he contemplated in a too sanguine and unpractical spirit the immediate fulfilment of colossal schemes of law reform, colonisation, enlargement of empire, all of which would be deferred if the cumbrous machinery of a supreme popular assembly were substituted for a King; we may plead that he desired the King to be powerful merely in order that the royal power might be more effectively used for the good of the people; we may show that he was led by his student, theorizing, habit of mind to leave out of account the inevitable tendency to misgovernment which besets irresponsible power, and that his weak admiration for the splendour of the throne blinded him to the special abuses which were sure to arise from the despotism of such a king as James, and such favourites as those whom James was collecting around him: but, after all has been said that can be said in the way of excuse, we must admit that Bacon's policy was radically unsound. Far wiser, far more generous, and, under the circumstances, far more for the interest both of King and Commonwealth, was the policy suggested by Sir Henry Neville.

At all events Neville's policy was entirely free from the reproach cast by Bacon on Cecil's Great Contract; it did not exhibit the King in the attitude of a bargainer. Whatever the King gave, he was to give freely and unconditionally, making no mention of his own wants, but trusting to the good sense and good feeling of Parliament to do what was needful. The question of supply was to be raised in due course," betimes," but not immediately; four or five weeks were to be allowed to elapse first; but when once raised, it was to be followed close and driven home. This plan promised well, and another suggestion also, if adopted, might have been very fruitful. The King was to confer occasionally with a deputation, not selected by him, but appointed by the Commons. Immense political results might have followed from the adoption, of this advice; tending to the removal of misunderstanding, the contentment of the Commons, the abasement of royal favourites, the guidance of a weak king, and the strengthening of a wise one.

Again, Neville entirely avoided the dissembling taint of Bacon's policy. The King was not to profess to have called the Parliament together to settle Ireland nor to recompile the laws; nor was he to allege, nor to cause it to be "voiced," that he could extricate himself from his debts without the aid of Parliament. He was to appear as the superior disputant in a quarrel, who, on the strength of being superior, did not shrink from making the first advances for a reconciliation. No doubt James was capable of spoiling any Parliamentary plans, however well devised; but if he could have succeeded with any, this policy of Neville's afforded the best prospect of success.

It was hardly possible that a rising politician who wished to be Secretary of State should criticize dispassionately the policy of another man who aspired to the same office: and Bacon had already experienced the mortification of being pushed into the background on an important occasion when Neville, instead of himself, was chosen by the King to represent the wishes of the Commons. About 15 November, 1610, "his Majesty," we are told, "called thirty of the Parliament House before him at Whitehall, among whom was Sir H. Neville. Where his Majesty said the cause of sending for them was to ask of them some questions, whereunto he desired they would make a direct answer. The first was, whether they thought he was in want, according as his Treasurer and Chancellor of the Exchequer had informed them. Whereunto, when Sir Francis Bacon had begun to answer in a more extravagant style than his Majesty did delight to hear, he picked out Sir Henry Neville, commanding him to answer according to his conscience." 1 It was not in human nature that the man thus put on one side should be pre-disposed to look favourably on the counsel tendered by the rival who stepped into his place. And besides, it was not in Bacon's nature, delighting as he did in subtle and circuitous operations, to approve of a frank, straightforward and slightly rash policy, such as Neville recommended. He was therefore probably sincere in dissenting from it. But none the less, looking back upon the past, and contrasting the two courses suggested, the one by the plain, blunt country gentleman, and the other by the Author of the Advancement of Learning, we must admit that the former advised like a statesman, and an English statesman; and the latter like a student, and a student of Machiavelli.

1 Winwood, Mem. iii. p. 235; Spedding, iv. 231.

§ 28 BACON'S DRAFT OF THE KING'S SPEECH

For some time before the summoning of Parliament, conferences went on between the King and Sir Henry Neville. In order to neutralize Neville's efforts, in a letter written shortly after the birth (9 January, 1614) of the King's grandchild, Bacon does his best to prevent James from making any substantial concessions, and to assure him of the hearty loyalty of his subjects. The pealing of church bells, he says, and "the lightning of bonfires" are sufficient proof that England is not disaffected. He advises the King to ask those gentlemen who profess to do him service in Parliament what they can propound for the good of the people; and if they reply that

"..... the Parliament is so now in taste with matters of substance and profit as it is vain to think to draw them on but by some offer of that nature, then for my part I shall little esteem their service if they confess themselves to be but brokers of bargains. If your Majesty had heard and seen the thunder of the bells and the lightning of the bonfires for your grandchild, you would say there is little cause to doubt the affections of the people of England in puris naturalibus."

...

On 16 February, 1614, it was resolved in Council that a Parliament should be called, and all through March, says Chamberlain, there was "much justling for places in Parliament, and letters fly from great persons extraordinarily: wherein methinks they do the King no great service, seeing the world is apt to censure it as a kind of packing." 1 In fact the very measures which Bacon had recommended to be taken quietly and skilfully, in order to bring fit men in and keep unfit out, seem to have been taken so unskilfully and obtrusively, that they damaged the King's cause. Bacon had some legal work to do in the Duchy, receiving an annual fee for his services; 1 but he cannot (unless other evidence be forthcoming) be held responsible for the folly of the Chancellor of the Duchy, Sir Thomas Parry, one of Bacon's fellowcommissioners in the recent financial investigations, who was at this time expelled from the House for unlawful interference with elections. But the Court candidates were almost everywhere rejected. Nearly two-thirds of the four hundred and fifty members returned were elected for the first time to represent the rising discontent of the nation; Pym amongst the number. To add to his disadvantages, the King rejected Neville and chose Sir Ralph Winwood as Secretary of State to represent the Government in the House of Commons, a man of character, ability, and valuable experience in foreign affairs, but so new to the House that the wits declared that "the first person he heard speak in that place was himself."

1 Spedding, v. 20. Bacon in several passages gives the impression that this "packing" was attempted by the "Undertakers." But Chamberlain's view, that it was rather the work of "great persons"-and not of Neville and his friends in the House of Commons-is confirmed by the speech of Coke in September 1615, referring to this Parliament: "He wished also that none of their lordships, or other of the Council, or any other great men of the land should meddle with the election of knights or burgesses, but leave the people to their own choice; for he had observed in the last Parliament that such interposing of great men and recommendations in these elections had been very offensive."

The session began on 5 April with a speech from the King for which Bacon had suggested notes, entitled A Memorial of some Points which may be touched in his Majesty's speech to both Houses, a paper so inconsistent with Bacon's own previous advice, so destitute of dignity, so deficient in tact, so full of tedious repetitions, of timorous protests, and ill-timed deprecations, that it is difficult to believe that Bacon was entirely responsible for it. Probably it was drawn up after conference with the King, who dictated parts of it; or else we must suppose that, with his usual versatility, Bacon coloured his counsel to suit the recent changes of his master's mind. It begins with a protest excellently calculated to awake general mistrust :

1

Spedding, iv. 53, 83.

* Bacon had, however, considered "What use may be made of the boroughs of the Cinq Ports, and of the Duchy, and other boroughs at the devotion of diverse the K.'s counsellors, for the placing persons well affected and discreet."

3 So Gardiner, ii. 230, "three hundred members, making nearly two-thirds of the whole assembly;" Bacon (Spedding, v. 181) says that "three parts" (I presume three-quarters) "of the House were such as had never been of any former Parliament."

4 For example, to attribute to Bacon the parenthesis (Spedding, v. 25)-" if his officers had made as good surveys of his lands as himself hath done of his estate, he should have lost less in his sales than he hath done;" seems to be doing an injustice no less to his style and rhythm than to his sense of what was expected from a king and due to a parliament.

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