COKE BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 221 1616. June 6. woman, who have served in the same House of Commons, X. 18. who for thirty-five years have been at guard and thrust, appear in a scene which can only end in disaster for one of them, perhaps in ruin for both. James opens the inquiry. Bilson states what he heard in the King's Bench. Bacon's letter and Coke's reply are put in as evidence and read. Eleven of the judges see their error. Falling on their knees, they confess their fault and implore the King's most gracious pardon. Coke alone, if wrong at first, has courage enough to be wrong at last; maintaining that the facts of his note were true, and that Mr. Attorney's message was against his oath. James turns to his Chancellor; but Egerton, before pronouncing judgment, begs, as the case involves points of law, that Bacon may first be heard. 19. Bacon rises. In the portrait of Van Somers, painted a few weeks later, we see him as he stands confronting Coke. Thirty-six years have passed since he entered on the fag and contest of the world; but thirty-six years of toil, thought, study, disappointment, and success, have neither soured his blood nor disturbed the beauty of his face. The bust of Somers is the bust of Hilyard come to its perfect growth. Brow broad and solid; eye quick yet mild; nose straight and strong, of the pure old English type; beard trim and dainty, as of one to whom grace is nature; over all the countenance a bold, soft, kindling light; an infinite sense of power, and subtlety, and humour, unmixed with any trace of pride. 20. Turning to the King, he shows, by proofs which seem superfluous, that in staying the hearing Coke would have 19. The portrait of Van Somers is at Gorhambury. 20. Council Reg., June 6, 1616; Sherborne to Carleton, June 12, 1616, S. P. O.; Gerard to Carleton, June 14, 1616, S. P. O. 1616. June 6. X. 20. hurt no law, broken no oath. The Lord Chief Justice starts to his feet; the King's counsel, he says, may plead before the judges, they must not dispute with them. Bacon answers for his order and for himself, that a King's counsel is, by his office and his oath, free to proceed or declare against any man, against the greatest lord in the kingdom, even against any body of men, though they were peers and judges; and he demands from the King's justice that this spirt of bad temper and worse law shall be withdrawn. James sides with his Attorney-General, and Coke has to eat his words. June 9. The Lord-Chancellor now asks that the oath of a judge may be read; and when Yelverton has done this, he pronounces judgment wholly against Coke. In Egerton's verdict the judges all concur; promising for themselves to respect all future messages from the Crown. Coke alone answers that he will do what he shall find fit for a judge. The fall of this arrogant man is soon noised in the Strand and at St. Paul's. 21. Bacon is sworn a member of the Privy Council; as in every stage of his rise, without a bribe. The very first act of this new Councillor, who, on grounds of humanity, is moving heaven and earth to save a couple of Papists from the gallows, is to induce the favourite and his master to June 16. restore the famous Puritan preacher Doctor Burgess to his ministry in the Church. Burgess has long been silenced. Many congregations wish to hear him; among others, the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn. Bacon prevails, and are again heard at the thunders of the great preacher 21. Council Reg., June 9, 1616; Montagu, xiii. 233; Carew to Roe, Jan. 18, 1617, S. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 5, 1617, S. P. O. 22. Bacon is nominated one of a commission, with the X. 22. Lord Treasurer, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other ministers, to consider a plan for raising funds by selling the old feudal right of homage and by disafforesting the distant and unprofitable Crown-lands. More than sufficient offences are soon discovered against Coke, frauds, contempts, and disobediences, to ensure a condemnation either in the Star Chamber or in any court over which the Crown can name the judge. When he hears of this investigation into his past life, the bully of Westminster Hall lowers his tone. Not that his course on the bench has been impure; it has, in fact, as all the world knows, been ostentatiously the reverse of impure; yet the practice of all the courts is so unsafe, the system of fees so lax, that no man on the bench can stand up against an accusation brought by the Crown. No judge on the bench knows better than Coke that to be tried for a Crown offence is to be condemned. In the most grovelling key he prays to be spared the shame of a public trial; on his knees he implores the Council to protect him; saying, and very truly saying, that any man in place, however high his state, however clean his hands, may be crushed by an indictment laid in the royal name. Again and again he appears before the Privy Council, under his rival's eyes, in the same ignominious attitude, begging for mercy in the same miserable tone. 1616. June 30. The woman who in his prosperity was the torment of July. his life no sooner finds him grovelling on his knees before men deaf to his groans, and the savings of his long prac 22. Council to the Commissioners, June 30, 1616, S. P. O.; Council Reg., June 26, 30, 1616; Chamberlain to Carleton, June 22, 1616, S. P. O. ; Sherborne to Carleton, June 29, 1616, S. P. O. 1616. X. 22. tice at the bar menaced with fine and forfeit, than she bounds to his side, makes his suit her own, worries her kinsmen for help, besieges the Queen with petitions, and declares that, come evil or come good to her husband, she will share his fate. July. Oct. 23. Though Anne puts forth her weakness in his cause, Coke is degraded from the Council, forbidden to travel circuit, commanded to revise his Reports. Villiers against him, the poor Queen is snubbed: and Lady Hatton, in place of conciliating those who might help her suit, insults the favourite's mother, and on her complaint gets sent away from court. Coke humbles his pride, confesses his fault, nay, darkens his fame as a jurist and a judge by stooping, on the King's demand, to alter his Law Reports; a confession of guilt if his cases are false, a dishonest compliance if he believes them true. Even this last concession is made in vain. Nov. When stripped of his office and deposed from the bench, his wife, who was going to make his cause her own, packs up her furniture and plate, leaps into her coach, and leaves him to his loneliness and rage. His seat in the King's Bench is offered to Bacon and declined. Sir Henry Montagu, Recorder of London, a man of very great wealth and very high abilities as a lawyer, grandson of Bluff King Hal's famous Lord Chief Justice, and founder of the ducal line of Manchester, gets his place. 24. The fall of Coke throws light into the Tower. Sir Thomas Monson gains the liberty of that fortress. Sure 23. Villiers to Bacon, Oct. 3, 1616, Lambeth MSS. 936; Williams to Carleton, July 3, 1616, S. P. O.; Chamberlain to Carleton, July 6, Oct. 26, Nov. 9, 14, 23, 1616, S. P. O.; Sherborne to Carleton, July 11, Oct. 5, 1616, S. P. O.; Winwood to Carleton, July 13, 1616, S. P. O.; Egerton's Speech to Montagu, Nov. 18, 1616, S. P. O.; Grant Book, 197, 198. 24. Council Reg., Aug. 10, 1616; Bacon to James, Dec. 7, 1616, S. P. O.; Statement of the Case of Sir Thomas Monson, Feb. 12, 1617, S. P. O. ADVISES PARDON FOR SIR T. MONSON. 225 Nov. 1616. that Monson ought not to be tried, since it has become X. 24. improbable that he could be convicted and impossible that he could be hung, Bacon is not the less sure that for the King's credit and for Monson's own safety he ought not to be merely set free. He proposes, therefore, with the full concurrence of Sir Henry Yelverton, that a pardon shall be granted under the Seal, reciting Monson's plea of innocence, the dubious proofs against him, and the gracious clemency of the King. Egerton backs this compromise; for he too, though himself a convert from the Church of Rome, believes with Bacon that a gentleman may be a Papist without being a traitor. In his own name and that of Yelverton, Bacon communicates this plan to James : BACON TO KING JAMES. 7th of December, 1616. Dec. 7. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, According to your pleasure, signified unto me, your Attorney, by word of mouth, we have considered of the state of Sir Thomas Monson's case, and what is fit further to be done in it, and we are of opinion-first, that it is altogether unfit to have a proceeding to a trial, both because the evidence itself (for so much as we know of it) is conjectural, as also for that to rip up those matters now will neither be agreeable to the justice nor to the mercy formally used by your Majesty towards others; secondly, to do nothing in it is neither safe for the gentleman, nor honourable (as we conceive) for your Majesty, whose care of justice useth not to faint or become weary in the latter end. Therefore we are of opinion that it is a case fit for your Majesty's pardon, as upon doubtful evidence, and that Sir Thomas Monson plead the same publicly, with such |