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 

 i ith of October, Oliver St. John, a gentleman of Maryborough 

 (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 isth 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 sooo/., 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 



