which is the true way, that is, that whoever shall affirm, in diem, or sub conditione, that your Majesty may be destroyed, is a traitor de præsenti; for that he maketh you but tenant for life, at the will of another. And I put the duke of Buckingham's case, who said, that if the king caused him to be arrested of treason, he would stab him; and the case of the impostress Elizabeth Barton, that said, that if king Henry the eighth took not his wife again, Catherine dowager, he should be no longer king; and the like. It may be these particulars are not worth the relating; but because I find nothing in the world so important to your service, as to have you thoroughly informed, the ability of your direction considered, it maketh me thus to do; most humbly praying your Majesty to admonish me, if I be over troublesome.

For Peacham, the rest of my fellows are ready to make their report to your Majesty at such time, and in such manner, as your Majesty shall require it. Myself yesterday took my lord Coke aside, after the rest were gone, and told him all the rest were ready, and I was now to require his lordship's opinion, according to my commission. He said, I should have it; and repeated that twice or thrice, as thinking he had gone too far in that kind of negative, to deliver any opinion apart, before; and said, he would tell it me within a very short time, though he were not that instant ready. I have tossed this business in omnes partes, whereof I will give your Majesty knowledge when time serveth. God preserve your Majesty.

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject

and servant,

Feb. 11, 1614.

FR. BACON.

CXVII. TO THE KING, ABOUT A CERTIFICATE OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE COKE.*

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENT MAJESTY, I SEND your Majesty enclosed my lord Coke's answers; I will not call them rescripts, much less oracles. They are of his own hand, and offered to me as they are in writing; though I am glad of it for mine own discharge. I thought it my duty, as soon as I received them, instantly to send them to your Majesty; and forbear, for the present, to speak farther of them. I, for my part, though this Muscovia weather be a little too hard for my constitution, was ready to have waited upon your Majesty this day, all respects set aside: but my lord treasurer, in respect of the season and much other business, was willing to save me. I will only conclude touching these papers with a text, divided I cannot say, "Oportet isthæc fieri;" but I may say, Finis autem nondum." God preserve your Majesty.

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject

and servant,

14 Feb. 1614.

Rawley's Resuscitatio.

FR. BACON.

CXVIII. SIR FRANCIS BACON TO KING JAMES.+

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENT MAJESTY,

I PERCEIVE by the bishop of Bath and Wells, that although it seemeth he hath dealt in an effectual manner with Peacham, yet he prevaileth little hitherto; for he hath gotten of him no new names, neither doth Peacham alter in his tale touching Sir John Sydenham.

Peacham standeth off in two material points de novo.

The one, he will not yet discover into whose hands he did put his papers touching the consistory villanies. They were not found with the other bundles upon the search; neither did he ever say that he had burned or defaced them. Therefore it is like they are in some person's hands; and it is like again, that that person that he hath trusted with those papers, he likewise trusted with these others of the treasons, I mean with the sight of them.

The other, that he taketh time to answer, when he is asked, whether he heard not from Mr. Paulet some such words, as he saith he heard from Sir John Sydenham, or in some lighter manner.

I hold it fit, that myself, and my fellows, go to the Tower, and so I purpose to examine him upon these points, and some others; at the least, that the world may take notice that the business is followed as heretofore, and that the stay of the trial is upon farther discovery, according to that we give out.

I think also it were not amiss to make a false

fire, as if all things were ready for his going down to his trial, and that he were upon the very point of being carried down, to see what that will work with him.

Lastly, I do think it most necessary, and a point principally to be regarded, that because we live in an age wherein no counsel is kept, and that it is true there is some bruit abroad, that the judges of the king's bench do doubt of the case, that it should not be treason; that it be given out constantly, and yet as it were a secret, and so a fame to slide, that the doubt was only upon the publication, in that it was never published, for that (if your Majesty marketh it) taketh away, or at least qualifies the danger of the example; for that will be no man's case.

This is all I can do to thridd your Majesty's business with a continual and settled care, turning and returning, not with any thing in the world, save only the occasions themselves, and your Majesty's good pleasure.

I had no time to report to your Majesty, at your being here, the business referred, touching Mr. John Murray. I find a shrewd ground of a title against your Majesty and the patentees of these land; for I see a fair deed, I find a reasonable conlands, by the coheir of Thomas earl of Northumbersideration for the making the said deed, being for the advancement of his daughters; for that all the possessions of the earldom were entailed upon his † Sir David Dalrymple's Memoirs and Letters, p. 29.

brother; I find it was made four years before his rebellion; and I see some probable cause why it hath slept so long. But Mr. Murray's petition speaketh only of the moiety of one of the coheirs, whereunto if your Majesty should give way, you might be prejudiced in the other moiety. Therefore, if Mr. Murray can get power of the whole, then it may be safe for your Majesty to give way to the trial of the right, when the whole shall be submitted to you.

Mr. Murray is my dear friend; but I must cut even in these things, and so I know he would himself wish no other. God preserve your Majesty.

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject

and servant,

Febr. the 28th, 1614.

FR. BACON.

was last at London after the end of the last parliament, but where he lodged he knoweth not.

Being asked, with what gentlemen, or others in London, when he was here last, he had conference and speech withal? he saith he had speech only with Sir Maurice Berkeley, and that about the petitions only, which had been before sent up to him by the people of the country, touching the apparitors and the grievances offered the people by the court of the officials.

Being asked, touching one Peacham, of his name, what knowledge he had of him, and whether he was not the person that did put into his mind divers of loose and contexted papers? he saith this Peacham, those traitorous passages which are both in his of his name, was a divine, a scholar, and a traveller; and that he came to him some years past, the certainty of the time he cannot remember, and lay at this examinate's house a quarter of a year, and took so much upon him, as he had scarce the command

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

I SEND your Majesty enclosed a copy of our last examination of Peacham, taken the 10th of this present, whereby your Majesty may perceive, that this miscreant wretch goeth back from all, and denieth his hand and all. No doubt, being fully of belief that he shall go presently down to his trial, he meant now to repeat his part which he purposed to play in the country, which was to deny all. But your Majesty, in your wisdom, perceiveth, that this denial of his hand, being not possible to be counterfeited, and sworn to by Adams, and so oft by himself formerly confessed and admitted, could not mend his case before any jury in the world, but rather aggravateth it by his notorious impudence and falsehood, and will make him more odious. He never deceived me; for when others had hopes of discovery, and thought time well spent that way, I told your Majesty pereuntibus mille figuræ, and that he did but now turn himself into divers shapes, to save or delay his punishment. And therefore submitting myself to your Majesty's high wisdom, I think myself bound, in conscience, to put your Majesty in remembrance, whether Sir John Sydenham shall be detained upon this man's impeaching, in whom there is no truth. Notwithstanding, that further inquiry be made of this other person, and that information and light be taken from Mr. Paulet and his servants, I hold it, as things are, necessary. God preserve your Majesty.

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject and servant.

writing, sometimes in the church, sometimes in the steeple, sometimes in this examinate's study; and now saith farther, that those papers, as well loose as contexted, which he had formerly confessed to be of his own hand, might be of the writing of the said Peacham; and saith confidently, that none of them are his own hand-writing or inditing; but whatsoever is in his former examinations, as well before his Majesty's learned council, as before my lord of Canterbury, and other the lords, and others of his Majesty's privy council, was wholly out of fear, and to avoid torture, and not otherwise.

Being required to describe what manner of man the said Peacham that lay at his house was; he saith that he was tall of stature, and can make no other description of him, but saith, as he taketh it, he dwelleth sometimes at Honslow as a minister; for he hath seen his letters of orders and licence under the hand of Mr. D. Chatterton, sometime bishop of Lincoln. He denieth to set his hand to this examination.

THE indictment is grounded upon the statute of Edward the third, that he compassed and imagined the king's death; the indictment then is according to the law, and justly founded. But how is it verified? First, then, I gather this conclusion, that since the indictment is made according to the prescription of law, the process is formal, the law is fulfilled, and the judge and jury are only to hearken to the verification of the hypothesis, and whether the minor be well proved or not.

That his writing of this libel is an overt act, the judges themselves do confess that it was made fit for publication, the form of it bewrays the self; that he kept not these papers in a secret and safe façon, (manner,) but in an open house and lidless cask, both himself and the messenger do confess; nay, himself confesseth, that he wrote them at the desire of another man, to whom he should have shown them when they had been perfected, and who craved an account for them, which though it be denied by the other party, worketh sufficiently against the deponer himself. Nay, he confesses that in the end he meant to preach it; and though, for diminishing of his fault, he alleges, that he meant first to have taken all the bitterness out of it, that excuse is altogether absurd, for there is no other stuff in, or through it all, but bitterness, which being taken out, it must be a quintessence of an alchemy, spirit without a body, or popish accidents without a substance; and then to what end would he have published such a ghost, or shadow without a substance, cui bono? and to what end did he so farce (stuff) it first with venom, only to scrape it out again; but it had been hard making that sermon to have tasted well, that was once so spiced, " quo semel est imbuta recens, etc." But yet this very excuse is by himself overthrown again, confessing that he meant to retain some of the most crafty malicious parts in it, as, &c. [So the manuscript.]

The only question that remains then is, whether it may be verified and proved, that, by the publishing of this sermon or rather libel of his he compassed or imagined the king's death: which I prove he did by this reason; had he compiled a sermon upon any other ground, or stuffed the bulk of it with any other matter, and only powdered it here and there with some passages of reprehension of the king; or had he never so bitterly railed against the king, and upbraided him of any two or three, though monstrous vices, it might yet have been some way excusable; or yet had he spued forth all the venom that is in this libel of his, in a railing speech, either in drunkenness, or upon the occasion of any sudden passion or discontentment, it might likewise have been excused in some sort; but upon the one part, to heap up all the injuries that the hearts of men, or malice of the devil, can invent against the king, to disable him utterly, not to be a king, not to be a christian, not to be a man, or a reasonable creature, not worthy of breath here, nor salvation hereafter; and, upon the other part, not to do this hastily or rashly, but after long premeditation, first having made collections in scattered papers, and then reduced it to a method, in a formal treatise, a text chosen for the purpose, a prayer premitted, applying all his wits to bring out of that text what he could, in malem partem, against the king.

This, I say, is a plain proof that he intended to compass or imagine, by this means, the king's destruction. For, will ye look upon the person or quality of the man, it was the far likeliest means he could use to bring his wicked intention to pass; his person an old, unable, and unwieldy man; his quality a minister, a preacher; and that in so remote a

part of the country, as he had no more means of access to the king's person, than he had ability of body, or resolution of spirit, to act such a desperate attempt with his own hands upon him; and therefore, as every creature is ablest, in their own element, either to defend themselves, or annoy their adversaries, as birds in the air, fishes in the water, and so forth, what so ready and natural means had he whereby to annoy the king as by publishing such a seditious libel? and so, under the specious pretext of conscience, to inflame the hearts of the people against him. Now, here is no illation nor inference made upon the statute, it stands in puris naturalibus, but only a just inference and probation of the guilty intention of this party. So the only thing the judges can doubt of, is of the delinquent's intention; and then the question will be, whether if these reasons be stronger to enforce the guiltiness of his intention, or his bare denial to clear him, since nature teaches every man to defend his life as long as he may; and whether, in case there were a doubt herein, the judges should not rather incline to that side wherein all probability lies: but if judges will needs trust better the bare negative of an infamous delinquent, without expressing what other end he could probably have, than all the probabilities, or rather infallible consequences upon the other part, caring more for the safety of such a monster, than the preservation of a crown, in all ages following, whereupon depend the lives of many millions : happy then are all desperate and seditious knaves, but the fortune of this crown is more than miserable. Quod Deus avertat.

CXX. TO THE KING, TOUCHING MATTER OF HIS MAJESTY'S REVENUE AND PROFIT.*

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

I MAY remember what Tacitus saith, by occasion that Tiberius was often and long absent from Rome. "In urbe, et parva et magna negotia imperatorem simul premunt:" but, saith he, "In recessu, dimissis rebus minoris momenti, summæ rerum magnarum magis agitantur." This maketh me think it shall be no incivility to trouble your Majesty with business, during your abode from London; knowing that your Majesty's meditations are the principal wheel of your estate; and being warranted from a former commandment which I received from you.

I do now only send your Majesty these papers enclosed, because I do greatly desire so far forth to preserve my credit with you, as thus, that whereas lately, perhaps out of too much desire, which induceth too much belief, I was bold to say, that I thought it as easy for your Majesty to come out of want, as to go forth of your gallery; your Majesty would not take me for a dreamer, or a projector; I send your Majesty therefore some grounds of my hopes. And for that paper, which I have gathered of increasements sperate, I beseech you to give me leave to think, that if any of the particulars do fail, Rawley's Resuscitatio.