Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/79

Rh the political friends of Buckingham, and fraught with bitterness from the opposition of Lady Hatton, the young lady's mother, upon whom her fortune mainly depended. Bacon's dislike to Coke, and the possible consequences to himself from this alliance, were supposed by Buckingham to have influenced this unwise interference; which he resented, first by a cold silence, and afterwards by several haughty and bitter letters: and so effectually excited the king's displeasure, that, on his return, he sharply reprimanded in the privy council those persons who had interfered in this business. Buckingham, who could show his power, as well in allaying as in raising a storm, was soon ashamed of the king's violence, and, seeing the ridicule that must arise from his inflating a family quarrel into a national grievance, interceded "on his knees" for Bacon. A reconciliation, of course, took place, but not without disgrace to all the parties concerned; exhibiting on the one part unbecoming violence, and on the other the most abject servility. The marriage, which had occasioned so much strife, was solemnized at the close of the month of September; and Sir Edward Coke was recalled to the council table, where, after the death of Winwood, he did not long keep his seat.

This storm having subsided, the lord keeper turned his attention to the subject of finance, and endeavoured to bring the government expenses, now called the civil list, within the compass of the ordinary revenue; a measure more necessary, since there had never been any disposition in parliament to be as liberal to James as to his illustrious predecessor.

The difficulties which the council met in the projected retrenchments, from the officers of state whose interests were affected, confirmed the remark of Cardinal Richelieu, "that the reformation of a king's household is a thing more fit to be done than successfully attempted." This did not discourage the lord keeper, who went manfully to the work, and wrote freely to Buckingham and to the king himself, upon the necessity both of striking at the root, and lopping off the branches; of considering whether Ireland, instead of being a burden to England, ought not, in a great measure, to support itself; and of diminishing household expenses, and abridging pensions and gratuities.

Notwithstanding these efforts to retrench all unnecessary expenditure in the household, the pecuniary distresses of the king were so great, that expedients, from which he ought to have been protected by the Commons, were adopted, and the grant of patents and infliction of fines was made a profitable source of revenue: although Bacon had, upon the death of Salisbury, earnestly prayed the king "not to descend to any means, or degree of means, which cometh not of a symmetry with his majesty and greatness.

While these exactions disclosed to the people the king's poverty, they could daily observe his profuse expenditure and lavish bounty to his favourite; recourse, therefore, was had to Buckingham by all suitors; but neither the distresses of the king, nor the power of the favourite, deterred the lord keeper from staying grants and patents, when his public duty demanded this interposition: an interference which, if Buckingham really resented, he concealed his displeasure; as, so far from expressing himself with his usual haughtiness, he thanked his friend, telling him that he "desired nothing should pass the seal except what was just or convenient." On the 4th of January, 1618, the lord keeper was created Lord High Chancellor of England, and, in July, Baron of Verulam, to which, as stated in the preamble to the patent of nobility, witnessed by the Prince of Wales, Duke of Lenox, and many of the first nobility, the king was "moved by the grateful sense he had of the many faithful services rendered him by this worthy person." In the beginning of the same year the Karl of Buckingham was raised to the degree of marquis.

In August, 1618, the lord keeper, with a due sense of the laudable intentions of the founder, stayed a patent for the foundation of Dulwich College, from the conviction that education was the best charity, and would be best promoted by the foundation of lectures in the university. This, his favourite opinion, which he, when solicitor-general, had expressed in his tract upon Sutton's Hospital, and renewed in his will, was immediately communicated to Buckingham, to whom he suggested that part of the founder's bounty ought to be appropriated to the advancement of learning.

Firm, however, as Bacon was with respect to patents, his wishes, as a politician, to relieve the distresses of the king, seem to have had some tendency to influence his mind as a judge. In one of his letters he expresses his anxiety to accellerate the prosecution, saying, "it might, if wind and weather permit, come to hearing in the term;" and in another he says, "the evidence went well, and I will not say I sometimes helped it as far as was fit for a judge." So true is it, as Bacon himself had taught, that a judge ought to be of a retired nature, and unconnected with politics. So certain is the injury to the administration of justice, from the attempt to blend the irreconcileable characters of judge and politician: the judge unbending as the oak, the politician pliant as the osier: the judge firm and constant, the same to all men; the politician, ever varying,

It was, about this time, discovered that several Dutch merchants of great opulence had exported gold and silver to the amount, of some millions.