Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/360

 Bacon and useth not such diligence as he ought to inquire of it; and the third, when the cause is really ended, and it is sine fraude, without relation to any precedent promise.'

When he wrote these words he had not yet seen the charges against him in detail. He acknowledged that he might have done things falling under the second head. What he asked for was a fair trial. On the 20th he knew enough of the particulars of the charges to be aware that the case against him would be difficult to answer. Within a few hours a copy of the examinations taken in the House of Lords reached him, and he then knew that defence was impossible. Though he might be certain that he had never taken a bribe from corrupt motives, he knew that he had done the very things which corrupt men do. He had taken money whilst cases were pending. On the 27th he made his formal submission to the lords, hoping that they would be content with depriving him of office. The lords, however, pressed for an answer to the charges. Bacon was again ill, and the answer brought by the lords' messengers was that he would make no defence, but wished to explain some points. On the 30th the explanation was given. 'I do again confess,' Bacon wrote at the end of his statement, 'that in the points charged upon me, although they should be taken as myself have declared them, there is a great deal of corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and penitently sorry.' On 1 May the great seal was taken from him. As he was still too ill to attend in person, the sentence was passed on 3 May in his absence. He was to be fined 40,000l., imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and disabled from sitting in parliament and from coming within the verge of the court.

Bacon only remained for a few days in the Tower. On 20 Sept. the king signed a warrant assigning his fine to trustees for his own use, and directing a pardon to be drawn which would protect him from all demands other than those arising out of his parliamentary sentence.

Bacon had more difficulty in procuring a relaxation of that part of the sentence which prohibited him from coming within twelve miles of the court. Buckingham wished to become the owner of York House, and it was not till, in the spring of 1622, Bacon consented to sell it to him, that the required permission was obtained.

Bacon was not a man who could allow himself to remain idle. As early as October 1621 he completed his 'History of Henry VII,' which was published in the following year. Then he busied himself with the completion and translation into Latin of the 'Advancement of Learning,' which appeared in October 1623 as 'De Augmentis Scientiarum.' To his former feelings towards the king was now added gratitude for having tempered the blow which had fallen on him, and his language was as flattering after his fall as it had been before. In March 1622 he offered to do what had long been on his heart, to draw up a digest of the law. If he wrote of the 'Instauratio' as his 'great work,' it does not follow that he regarded political work as much inferior in importance. His correspondence shows how eagerly he desired to be employed in political matters again, and it is one of the most curious features of that correspondence that he never seems to have understood that the sentence passed on him was an insuperable bar to employment in the service of the state.

The return of Buckingham and the prince from Spain gave Bacon an opportunity of appearing on the side which was at the same time popular and courtly, and the support of which was also in harmony with his own lifelong convictions. In a speech which he drew up for the use of some member of the House of Commons in 1624, and in the 'Considerations touching a War with Spain,' which he addressed to the prince, he took the course which satisfied his conscience, if it seemed also calculated to gain satisfaction for what ambition was left to him. In spite of all, however, he remained a disappointed man. Even the provostship of Eton was refused him in 1623, and in 1625 he pressed the new king in vain for the grant of the full pardon which would enable him to take his seat in parliament. Charles and Buckingham no doubt regarded him as an importunate old man, whose advice they were even less likely to regard than James had been.

Nothing remained to Bacon but to devote himself to further work upon the 'Instauratio Magna.' Increasing weakness of health, however, made every task difficult. At the end of March 1625, being near Highgate on a snowy day, he left his coach to collect snow with which he meant to stuff a fowl in order to observe the eftect of cold on the preservation of its flesh. In so doing he caught a chill, and took refuge in Lord Arundel's house, where, on 9 April, he died of the disease which is now known as bronchitis. He was buried at St. Michael's Church, St. Albans.

'For my name and memory,' wrote Bacon in the will which he drew up on 19 Dec. 1625, 'I leave it to men's charitable speeches and to foreign nations and the next ages.' He surely never contemplated that his 