posed, had reasonable liberty of action been allowed them, to be among its most zealous and effectual supporters. Their importance as a party may be understood from the fact that Leicester, the favourite, was content to put himself at their head; that Walsingham, Secretary of State, was known to sympathize with them; that Burghley, Lord Treasurer, though restrained by official caution and reserve, was believed to wish them well; that Grindal, the late Primate, had been for some time out of favour with the Queen for giving too much countenance to some of their opinions; and that they had a large majority in the present House of Commons. Whether this party was to be in alliance with the State or in opposition, was the question now at issue; and to this particular Parliament, more distinctly perhaps than to any other period, must be assigned the determination of it. I doubt whether there has been a more important crisis in English history, or whether the Queen ever made a greater mistake than in choosing this moment to stop the tide and put herself in direct opposition to this party. She succeeded indeed: she carried her point and stood her ground during her own life; but it was at the expense of creating a division among the Protestant party, which ended in the overthrow of the monarchy itself for a time, and in making the existence of a national English Church, in any true sense of the word national, an impossibility to this day. The Church of England emerged from the storm with the name and legal rights and temporal attractions, but without the moral and spiritual authority, of a national church, to be thenceforward only one of many Protestant sects into which the English people are divided. But so it was to be. Grindal was dead; and Whitgift, known as the uncompromising foe of the Nonconformists, had been advanced to the Primacy, with the avowed purpose of enforcing uniformity by silencing and punish 1 To prevent misconceptions I may mention that I use the word "sect" in exactly the same sense in which Paley uses it in the following passage :-"If in deference then to these reasons it be admitted that a legal provision for the clergy, compulsory upon those who contribute to it, is expedient, the real question will be, whether this provision should be confined to one sect of Christianity, or extended indifferently to all. Now it should be observed that this question never can offer itself where the people are agreed in their religious opinions, and that it never ought to arise where a system may be framed of doctrines and worship wide enough to comprehend their disagreement, and which might satisfy all by uniting all in the articles of their common faith, and in a mode of Divine worship that omits every subject of controversy or offence. Where such a comprehension is practicable, the comprehending religion ought to be made the religion of the State." This is exactly what I mean by "a national Church in the true sense of the word national." The rest of Paley's argument proceeds upon the supposition that such a Church is to be despaired of, that "separate congregations and different sects must unavoidably continue in the country," and that the only practicable form of national religion is the establishment by law "of one sect in preference to the rest." (Mor. and Pol. Philos. ch. x.) ing dissentients. The severity of his proceedings was now taken up by the Commons as a national grievance, and the complaints of the people were embodied in a petition to the Queen, the substance of which may be seen in Fuller's Church History' (ix. 16. 7), and the entire document, together with the answers, in D'Ewes's Journals, pp. 357-361. The particulars and progress of the quarrel will be noticed more conveniently a little further on, in connexion with Bacon's tract on Church Controversies. But I thought it better to introduce the subject in this place, because of the great impression which it must have made upon his mind, and some influence which it probably had upon his career. What his judgment was upon the matters in controversy we shall see hereafter. What his prejudices and predispositions were likely to be may be partly inferred from a letter addressed at the time by his mother to Burghley. The opinions of a man of twenty-five are rarely so independent of domestic influences as not to be partly explained by those of his nearest relatives under whose eye he has been brought up. And as I shall have to make frequent mention of Lady Bacon in connexion with her sons' affairs during the next ten years, I may as well take this opportunity to introduce her in person. During the Christmas recess a conference had taken place at Lambeth between the Bishops and the Nonconformists—or Preachers, as they were called,-upon the questions raised in the Petition; and it seems that the Bishops were thought to have had much the best of the argument. Lady Bacon, believing that the Preachers had not had fair play, in the abundance of her zeal sought an interview with Burghley to urge their cause, and the next day reinforced her arguments in the following letter :- "I know well, mine especial good Lord, it becometh me not to be troublesome unto your Honour at any other time, but now chiefly at this season of your greatest affairs and small or no leisure; but yet because yesterday's morning speech,-as, in that I was extraordinarily admitted, it was your Lordship's favour,-so, fearing to stay too long, I could not so plainly speak, nor so well perceive your answer thereto as I would truly and gladly in that matter,—I am bold by this writing to enlarge the same more plainly and to what end I did mean. "If it may like your good Lordship, the report of the late conference at Lambeth hath been so handled to the discrediting of those learned that labour for right reformation in the ministry of the Gospel, that it is no small grief of mind to the faithful preachers, because the matter is thus by the other side carried away as though their cause could not sufficiently be year 1587. 1 1 Misplaced under the warranted by the Word of God: for the which proof they have long been sad suitors, and would most humbly crave still, both of God in heaven, whose cause it is, and of her Majesty their most excellent sovereign here on earth, that they might obtain quiet and convenient audience either before her Majesty herself, whose heart is in God his hand to touch and to turn, or before your Honours of the Council, whose wisdom they greatly reverence; and if they cannot strongly prove before you out [of] the Word of God, that reformation which they so long have called and cried for to be according to Christ his own ordinance, then to let them be rejected with shame out of the Church for ever. And that this may be the better done to the glory of God and the true understanding of this great cause, they require first leave to assemble and to consult together purposely, which they have forborne to do, for avoiding suspicion of private conventicles. For hitherto, though in some writing they have declared the state of their, yea God his cause, yet were they never allowed to confer together, and so together be heard fully; but now some one, and then some two, called upon a sudden unprepared to foreprepared to catch them, rather than gravely and moderately to be heard to defend their right and good cause. And therefore for such weighty conference they appeal to her Majesty and her honourable wise Council, whom God hath placed in highest authority for the advancement of his kingdom; and refuse the bishops for judges, who are parties partial in their own defence, because they seek more worldly ambition than the glory of Christ Jesus. "For mine own part, my good Lord, I will not deny, but as I may hear them in their public exercises as a chief duty commanded by God to widows, and also I confess as one that hath found mercy, that I have profited more in the inward feeling knowledge of God his holy will, though but in a small measure, by such sincere and sound opening of the Scriptures by an ordinary preaching within these seven or eight years, than I did by hearing odd sermons at Paul's wellnigh twenty years together. I mention this unfeignedly the rather to excuse this my boldness towards your Lordship, humbly beseeching your Lordship to think upon their suit, and as God shall move your understanding heart to further it. And if opportunity will not be had as they require, yet I once again in humble wise am a suitor unto your Lordship that you would be so good as to choose two or three of them, which it likes best, and licence them before your own self, or other at your pleasure, to declare and to prove the truth of the cause, with a quiet and an attentive ear. I have heard them say or now, that they will not come to dispute and argue to breed contention, which is the manner of the bishops' hearing, but to be suffered patiently to lay down before them that shall command (they excepted), how well and certainly they can warrant by the infallible touchstone of the Word the substantial and main ground of their cause. Surely, my Lord, I am persuaded you should do God acceptable service herein. And for the very entire affection I owe and do bear unto your Honour, I wish from the very heart that to your other rare gifts sundry-wise, you were fully instructed and satisfied in this principal matter, so contemned of the great Rabbis, to the dishonouring of the Gospel so long amongst us. I am so much bound to your Lordship for your comfortable dealing towards me and mine, as I do incessantly desire that by your Lordship's means God his glory may more and more be promoted, the grieved godly comforted, and you and yours abundantly blessed. None is privy to this. And indeed, though I hear them, yet I see them very seldom. "I trust your Lordship will accept in best part my best meaning. "A. BACON."1 The day before this letter was written, the House of Commons had received the answer of the Bishops to their petition, and the Nonconformists had learned that they must either abandon their cause, or work it against the Government by the help of popular sympathy and alliance. 3. It is not probable that Bacon took any conspicuous or active part in any of these proceedings. Indeed his name occurs only twice in any records of this session that I have met with. He is mentioned in D'Ewes's Journals as one of the Committees2 to whom a bill "for redress of disorders in Common Informers" was referred on the 9th of December, 1584. And from some short notes of speeches made during this Parliament, in the hand I believe of Recorder Fleetwood, it appears that at a later period of the session he made a speech. It was upon some clause in "a bill against fraudulent means used to defeat wardships, liveries, and premier seisins," which had been introduced in the House of Lords, was referred to a Committee of the House of Commons on the 12th of March, 1584-5, and after a good deal of discussion, conference, and alteration, was at last rejected. Of the character of the bill we know nothing, and the sorry memorandum which remains of Bacon's speech deserves preserving only as evidence that his reputation did not come into the world full-grown. It is but a careless note, made for the writer's own memory or amusement; and his own impatient comments are mixed up in it with what are meant for fragments of the speech. I give it as it stands, only distinguishing the comments by italics. "Bacon. Many rather mislike of jealousy, and are timorous of that they conceive not. "I will open plainly to you that this Bill is hard in some points. If he had as substantially answered it as he confessed it plainly. 1 Lansd. MSS. 43. fo. 118, original: own hand. 2 This is the form and the spelling always adopted by D'Ewes; to be pronounced, I suppose, Committées. What we should call "a member of the Committee," he calls" one of the Committées." "Speaking of the Queen: worthy to be respected, for his father had received by her ability to leave a fifth son to live upon: but that is nothing to the matter. Then you should have let it alone.” So ends the memorandum, and whether this was all that Mr. Recorder Fleetwood found worth noting in what Bacon said upon the occasion, or whether as the speech proceeded he left off noting and began to listen, must be left to conjecture. 4. About the time of this Parliament, a letter of advice was addressed to the Queen, which, had it never been attributed to any other hand, I should have thought it right to print here, as being possibly and not improbably an early composition of Bacon's. And since I am fully persuaded that it was not the composition of the writer to whom it has been attributed, the reasons which would otherwise have led me to print it remain unaffected by the fact; except in so far as a longer story must be told in explanation. The external evidence which connects the paper in question with Bacon may be thus stated. In a list of "unpublished works of the L. Bacon," sent by Tenison to Sancroft, on the 18th of December, 1682, I found the following title:" Advice to K. James how to prevent recusants from growing either desperate or formidable." In the catalogue of the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, vol. iii. No. 6867, I found the following: Counsel concerning behaviour to the Roman Catholics, addressed to the King." Upon referring to the manuscript thus described, I found that it answered precisely to the title given in Tenison's list, except in one point; and in that point—namely, that it was addressed to Queen Elizabeth and not to King James-it answered no better to the description in the catalogue. There being nothing however on the face of the manuscript to decide what " sovereign" or whose “majesty" it was addressed to, it was easy to conceive that two different catalogue-makers might have fallen into the same mistake. And I have in fact no doubt that this Harleian MS. is the same (or a copy of the same) paper which was indicated in Tenison's list. Now on questions regarding the authenticity of writings imputed to Bacon, Tenison, though not an absolute authority, is one of the best we have; and if the case ended here, there would be good ground for admitting this among his putative works. It happens however that this same tract had been previously as 1 Lansd. MSS. 43. fo. 175. 2 Bodleian Library: Tanner MSS., vol. xxxv. p. 252. |