Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/100

xcii cases, he acted only as arbitrator; and in others that the sums received were not gifts, but loans, and that he had decided against his creditor; and in others that the sums offered were refused and returned. And to the twenty-eighth charge, "that the lord chancellor hath given way to great exactions by his servants," he surely might have admitted that he was negligent in not looking better to his servants. Standing on a cliff, and surveying the whole intellectual world, he did not see every pebble on the shore.

Some defence of this nature could not but have occurred to the chancellor?

Whatever doubt may exist as to the state of his mind, there is none with respect either to the king or Buckingham. The king was disquieted, and Buckingham robbed of all peace. This was the very state of mental fusion favourable for experiment by a shrewd politician. "It is the doctrine of philosophy that to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous." This is not the politician's creed.

The king's fears, notwithstanding his pecuniary distresses, disposed him to dissolve the parliament, to which he had been advised, though by this measure he should lose his two subsidies. Williams dissuaded him from such an expedient. "There is," he said, "no colour to quarrel at this general assembly of the kingdom, for tracing delinquents to their form: it is their proper work, and your majesty hath nobly encouraged them to it. Your lordship," he said, turning to Buckingham, "is jealous, if the parliament continue imbodied, of your own safety. Follow it, swim with the tide: trust me and your other servants that have some credit with the most active members, to keep you clear from the strife of tongues; but if you breakup this parliament, in pursuit of justice, only to save some cormorants who have devoured that which they must disgorge, you will pluck up a sluice which will overwhelm you all." The king listened to the advice of Williams; and his determination not to dissolve the parliament was followed, of course, by the consideration how the charges were to be met, by resistance or by submission.

There cannot be any difficulty in following the train of Williams's reasoning in this conclave. "Resistance will be attended with danger to your lordship and to his majesty. These popular outcries thrive by opposition, and when they cease to be opposed, they cease to exist. The chancellor has been accused. He cannot escape unheard. He must be acquitted or convicted. He cannot, in this time of excitement and prejudgment, expect justice. His mind will easily be impressed by the fate of other great men, sacrifices to the blind ignorance of a vulgar populace, whom talent will not propitiate or innocence appease. Can it be doubted, that the prudent course will be the chancellor's submission, as an atonement for all who are under popular suspicion? The only difficulty will be to prevail upon him to submit. He has resolved to defend himself, and in speech he is all-powerful; but he is of a yielding nature, a lover of letters, in mind contemplative, although in life active; his love of retirement may be wrought upon; the king can remit any fine, and, the means once secured to him of learned leisure for the few remaining years of his life, he will easily be induced to quit the paradise of earthly honours."

So spoke the prelate; and the voice that promised present immunity to the king and his humbled favourite, seemed to them the voice of an angel: but the remedies of a state empiric, like those of all empirics, are only immediate relief; "they help at a pang, but soon leese their operation." The king fatally resolved upon this concession, and Bacon's remarkable prediction fell upon him and his successor, "They who will strike at your chancellor will strike at your crown." There was not any suggestion by Williams that the chancellor could not have anticipated, except the monstrous fact that the king and Buckingham were consenting to his downfall. Once convinced that his weak and cowardly master was not only willing but anxious to interpose him between an enraged people and his culpable favourite, his line of conduct became evident: he was as much bound to the stake as if already chained there; and, when the fate of Essex and of Somerset recurred to him, he must have felt how little dependence could be placed upon court favour, and how certain was the utter ruin of a man who attempts to oppose a despotic prince. He might well say, "he was become clay in the king's hand." He who is robbed of all that constitutes a man, freedom of thought and action, which is the breath of his nostrils, becomes no thing but a lifeless statue.

Before the 16th of April the king sent for the chancellor, who instantly prepared minutes for their conference, in which he says, "The law of nature teaches me to speak in my own defence. With respect to this charge of bribery, I am as innocent as any born upon St. Innocent's day: I never had bribe or reward in my eye or thought when pronouncing sentence or order. If, however, it is absolutely necessary, the king's will shall be obeyed. I am ready to make an oblation of myself to the king, in whose hands I am as clay, to be made a vessel of honour or dishonour." That an interview between the king and Bacon took place is clear, from the following entry in the journals of the House of Lords of April 17:

"The lord treasurer signified, that in the interim of this cessation, the lord chancellor was an