XXXiv PREFACE. 
him with regard to the former, is that he employed the laws, 
which he was engaged in reducing and re-compiling, to the 
vilest purposes of tyranny, by appearing as counsel for the 
prosecution of Oliver St. John, who maintained that the King 
had no right to levy benevolences. As Bacon acted in this 
matter in a purely official capacity, it is scarcely necessary to 
inquire whether the charge against St. John was justified 
or not, and whether his conduct was so ‘manly and constitu- 
tional’ as Macaulay represents it. The circumstances were 
these. In June, 1614, the Parliament, to which Bacon had 
been returned by three constituencies, Cambridge University, 
Ipswich, and St. Alban’s, was dissolved without voting any 
supplies. As a means of meeting the King’s wants, it was 
proposed that a voluntary contribution should be raised, to 
which all who would should give as they were disposed. No 
compulsion was to be employed and no tax levied, but it was 
to be a benevolence in the strict sense of the word. On the 
11th of October, Oliver St. John, a gentleman of Marlborough 
(not the St. John of the Long Parliament), addressed a letter 
to the Mayor of that town, denouncing this kind of benevol- 
ence as contrary to law, reason, and religion, and charging 
the King with a violation of his coronation oath. For this he 
was tried on the r5th of April, 1615, in the Star-Chamber. 
The judges were unanimous, Coke leading the way, in sup- 
porting the legality of the benevolence, and St. John was 
condemned to a fine of 5000/., and to be imprisoned during 
the King’s pleasure. In this Bacon acted simply by the direc- 
tion of the Council, and even if he recommended the prose- 
cution, of which there is no evidence, he would have been 
fortified by the unanimous opinion of the judges. 
Peacham’s case was of a different nature, and the charge 
against Bacon founded upon it is even more serious. There 
were difficulties both of fact and law to be met, and Bacon, 
according to Macaulay, ‘was employed to settle the question 
of law by tampering with the judges, and the question of fact 
by torturing the prisoner.’ Edmund Peacham, a Somerset- 
shire clergyman, having brought libellous accusations against 
