

NOTE Z 2. 



and papers with them for some little time, to consider, which is a thing they 

 use, but I conceive, there will be no manner of question made of it. My Lord 

 Chief Justice, to shew forwardness, as I interpret it, shewed us passages of 

 Suarez and others, thereby to prove that though your majesty stood not excom 

 municate by particular sentence, yet by the general bulls of Cocna Domini, and 

 others, you were upon the matter excommunicate ; and therefore that the treason 

 was as de prtesenti. But I (that foresee that if that course should be held, when 

 it cometh to a public day, to disseminate to the vulgar an opinion, that your 

 majesty s case is all one, as if you were de facto particularly and expressly ex 

 communicate ; it would but increase the danger of your person with those that 

 are desperate papists ; and that it is needless) commended my lord s diligence, 

 but withal put it by, and fell upon the other course, which is the true way ; that 

 is, that whosoever shall affirm, in diem, or sub conditione, that your majesty may 

 be destroyed, is a traitor de presenti ; 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 throughly in 

 formed, the ability of your direction considered, it maketh me thus to do j 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. 



Foster, on High Treason, when speaking of Peacham s case, says, &quot; This 

 case weigheth very little, and no great regard hath been paid to it ever since. 

 And perhaps still less regard will be paid to it if it be considered that the king, 

 who appeareth to have had the success of the prosecution much at heart, and 

 took a part in it unbecoming the majesty of the crown, condescended to instruct 

 his attorney general with regard to the proper measures to be taken in the exa 

 mination of the defendant ; that the attorney, at his majesty s command, sub 

 mitted to the drudgery of sounding the opinions of the judges upon the point of 

 law before it was thought advisable to risk it at an open trial ; that the judges 

 were to be sifted separately, and soon, before they could have an opportunity of 

 conferring together ; and that for this purpose four gentlemen in the profession 

 in the service of the crown were immediately dispatched, one to each of the 

 judges; Mr. Attorney himself undertaking to practice upon the chief justice, of 

 whom some doubt was then entertained. Is it possible that a gentleman of 

 Bacon s great talents could submit to a service so much below his rank and 

 character ! But he did submit to it, and acquitted himself notably in it. 



&quot; Others of his letters shew that the same kind of intercourse was kept up 

 between the king and his attorney general with regard to many cases then de 

 pending in judgment, in which the king was pleased to take a part, or thought 

 his prerogative concerned, particularly in the case of one Owen, executed for 

 treasonable words ; in that of Mr. Oliver St. John, touching the benevolence in 

 the dispute between the courts of King s Bench and Chancery in the case of 

 praemunire, and in the proceedings against the Earl and Countess of Somerset,&quot; 



VOL. XV. 11 



