LETTER LXVI. Lord Bacon to James I. It may please your moft excellent majeży, DO many times with gladness, and for a remedy of my other labours, revolve in my mind the great happiness which God (of his fingular goodness) bath accumulated upon your majefty every way; and how complete the fame would be, if the state of your means were ence rectified and well ordered; your people military and obedient, fit for war, cled to peace; your church enlightened with good preachers, as an heaven with tars; your judges learned, and learning from you, juft, and juft by your example; your nobuity in a right distance between crown and people, no oppreffors of the people, no overthadowers of the crown; your council full of tributes of care, faith, and freedom; your gentlemen and jažices of peace willing to apply your royal mandates to the nature of their feveral counties, but ready to obey; your fervants in awe of your wifdom, in hope of your goodness; the fields growing every day, by the improvement and recovery of grounds, from the defart to the garden; the city grown from wood to brick; your fea-walls, or pomerium of your island furveyed, and in edifying; your merchants embracing the whole compass of the world, eaft, weft, north, and fouth; the times giving you peace, and yet offering you opportunities of action abroad; and, laftly, your excellent royal iffue entailing thefe bleffings and favours of God to defcend to all pofte rity. It refteth, therefore, that God having done fo great things for your majefty, and you for others, you would do fo much for yourself as to go through (according to your good beginnings) with the rectifying and fettling of your eftate and means, which only is wanting. Hoc rebus defuit unam. I therefore, whom only love and duty to your majefty, and your royal line, hath made a financier, do intend to prefent unto your majefty a perfect book of your eftate, like a peripeftive glafs, to draw your eftate hear to your Eght; befeeching your majefty to conceive, that if I have not attained to do that that I would do in this which is not proper for me, nor in my element, I fhall make your majefty amends in fome other thing in which I am better bred. God ever preserve, &c. Sir Walter Raleigh to James I. IT is one part of the office of a just and worthy prince to hear the complaints of his vaffals; efpecially fuch as are in great mifery. I know not, amongst many other prefumptions gathered against me, how your majefty hath been perfuaded that I was one of them who were greatly difcontented, and therefore the more likely to prove difloyal. But the great God fo relieve me in both worlds as I was the contrary; and I took as great comfort to behold your majesty, and always learning fome good, and bettering my knowledge by hearing your majesty's difcourfe. I do moft humbly befeech your fovereign majefty not to believe any of thofe in my particular, who, under pretence of offences to kings, do easily work their particular revenge. I truit no man, under the colour of making examples, fhould perfuade your majefty to leave the word merciful out of your ftyle; for it will be no lefs profit to your majefty, and become your greatness than the word invincible. It is true, that the laws of England are no lefs jealous of the kings than Cæfar was of Pompey's wife; for notwith ftanding the was cleared for having company with Claudius, yet for being fufpected he condemned her. For myfelf, I proteft before almighty God, and I fpeak it to my mafter and fovereign, that I never invented treafon against him; and yet I know I fhall fall in manibus eorum, a quibus non possum evadere, unlefs by your majefty's gracious compaffion I be fuftained. Our law therefore, moft merciful prince, knowing her own cruelty, and knowing that he is wont to compound treafon out of prefumptions and circumftances, doth give this charitable advice to the king her fupreme, Non folum fapiens esse jed & mifericors, &c. Cum tutius fit reddere rationem mifericordiæ quam judicii. I do, therefore, on the knees of my heart befeech your majefly, from your own fweet and comfortable difpofition, to remember that I have ferved your majefty twenty years, for which your your majefty hath yet given me no reward; and it is fitter I fhould be indebted unto my fovereign lord, than the king to his poor vaffal. Save me therefore, most merciful prince, that I may owe your majefty my life itfelf, than which there cannot be a greater debt. Limit me at leaft, my fovereign lord, that I may pay it for your fervice when your majefty fhall pleafe. If the law deftroy me, your majefty fhall put me out of your power, and I thall have none to fear but the King of kings. LETTER LXVIII. AFTER many lofes and many years forrows, of both which I have caufe fions; neither could it agree with the duty and love of faithful fubjects (efpecially of your nation) to bewail his overthrow that had confpired against their mo natural and liberal lord. I therefore truit that you will not be the first that thall kill us outright, cut down the tree with the fruit, and undergo the curfe of them that enter the fields of the fatheriefs; which if it pleafe you to know the truth, is far lefs in value than in fame. But that fo worthy a gentleman as yourfelf will rather bind us to you (being fix gentlemen not bafe in birth and alliance) which have interest therein: and myfelf, with my attermost thankfulnefs, will remain ready to obey your commandments. T LETTER LXIX. of James I. HE following lines are addreffed to your highnefs from a man who values his liberty, and a very fmall fortune in a remote part of this ifland, under the prefent conflitution, above all the riches and honours that he could any where enjoy under any other establiininent. to fear I was mistaken in their ends, it is Sir Walter Raleigh to Prince Henry, Sen come to my knowledge, that yourself (whom I know not but by an honourable favour) hath been perfuaded to give me and mine my laft fatal blow, by obtaining from his majefly the inheritance of my children and nephews, loft in law for want of a word. This done, there remaineth nothing with me but the name of life. His majefty, whom I never offended (for I hold it unnatural and unmanlike to hate goodneis), ftaid me at the grave's brink; not that I thought his majefty thought me worthy of many deaths, and to behold mine caft out of the world with myfelf, but as a king that knoweth the poor in truth, hath received a promife from God that his throne fhall be established. And for you, Sir, feeing your fair day is but in the dawn, mine drawn to the fetting; your own virtues and the king's grace affuring you of many fortunes and much honour; I befeech you begin not your firft building upon the ruins of the innocent, and let not mine and their for rows attend your first plantation. I have ever been bound to your nation, as well for many other graces, as for the true report of my trial to the king's majelly; against whom had I been malignant, the hearing of my caufe would not have changed enemies into friends, malice into compafion, and the minds of the greatest number then prefent into the commiferation of mine eftate. It is not the nature of foul treafon to beget fuch fair paf You fee, Sir, the doctrines that are lately come into the world, and how far the phrafe has obtained of calling your royal father, God's vicegerent; which ill men have turned both to the dishonour of God, and the impeachment of his majetty's goodnefs. They adjoin vicegerency to the idea of being all-powerful, and not to that of being all-good. His majesty's wifdom, it is to be hoped, will fave him from the fnare that may lie under grofs adulations; but your youth, and the thirst of praife which I have obferved in you, may poffibly mislead you to hearken to thefe charmers, who would conduct your neble nature into tyranny. Be careful, O my prince! Hear them not, fly from their deceits; you are in the fucceflion to a throne, from whence no evil can be imputed to you, but all good must be conveyed from you. Your father is called the vicegerent of heaven; while he is good he is the vicegerent of heaven. Shall man have authority from the fountain of good to do evil? No, my prince; let mean and degenerate fpirits, which want benevolence, fuppofe your power impaired by a difability of doing LETTER LXX. janes. If want of power to do ill be Lord Bacon to James 1. after his Difgrace. an incapacity in a prince, with reverence be it spoken, it is an incapacity he has in common with the Deity. Let me not doubt but all pleas, which do not carry in them the matual happiness of prince and people, will appear as ufurd to your great Endeminding, as diagreeable to your Exert vocrief, O geterous prince, agaiak foch fycophants, glodas calle of Liberty; and aftime Sto an ambition worthy of you, to pare your fellow-creatures from favery; érac a condition as muca below that of braces, as to at without reason is leh Pre To the King. It may pleafe your molt excellent majefty, IN the midst of my mifery, which is rather affraged by remembrance than by hope, my chiefel worldly comfort is to think, that, face the time I had the fre vote of the common to do of pat Hamme for comm Dong of me stice, cntil the time that I was, by te is inh parHament, diefen by ivern nodes for their de deal of ferenity and clearefs toward: me, Nether, my most gracious fovereign, do I, by this mention of my former fervices, lay claim to your princely graces and bounty, though the privilege of calamity doth bear that form of petition. I know well, had they been much more, they had been but my bounden duty; nay, I must alfo confels, that they were from time to time, far above my merit, over and fuper-rewarded by your majesty's benefits, which you heaped upon me. Your majesty was and is that maiter to me, that raifed and advanced me nine times, thrice in dignity, and fix times in offices. The places were indeed the painfulleft of all your fervices; but then they had both honour and profits; and the then profits might have maintained my now honours, if I had been wife; neither was your majelty's immediate liberality wanting towards me in fome gifts, if I may hold them. All this I do moft thankfully acknowledge, and do herewith conclude, that for any thing aring from myfelf to move your eye of pity towards me, there is much more in my prefent mifery than in my paft fervices; fave that the fame, your majefty's goodness, that may give relief to the one, may give value to the other. And indeed, if it may pleafe your majefty, this theme of my mifery is fo plentiful, as it need not be coupled with any thing elfe. I have been fomebody by your majesty's fingular and undeferved favour, even the prime officer of your kingdom. Your majefty's arm hath often been laid over mine in council, when you prefided at the table; fo near was I have borne your majesty's image in metal, much more in my heart. I was never, in nineteen years fervice, chidden by your majefly; but, contrariwife, often overjoyed when your majefty would fometimes fay, I was a good hufband for you, though none for myself; fometimes, that I had a way to deal in bufinefs fuavibus modis, which was the way which was moft according to your own heart; and other most gracious fpeeches of affection and truft, which I feed on to this day. But why fhould I fpeak of these things, which are now vanished? But only the better to express my downfal. year and a half cld in mifery; though For now it is thus with me: I am a fome mixture of your majefty's grace I mat ever acknowledge, not without and mercy. ble that any one, whom you once loved, For I do not think it pofffhould be totally miferable. Mine own means, through my own improvidence, father left me. The poor things that I are poor and weak, little better than my queftion or at courtely. My dignities have had from your majesty are either in remain marks of your paft favour, but poor remnants which I had of my former burdens of my prefent fortune. fortunes in plate or jewels, I have fpread upon poor men unto whom I owed, fcarce leaving myself a convenient fubfiftence; fo as to conclude, I muft pour out my mifery before your majetty so far as to fay, Si tu diris, perimus. The compaffion little arifing from myself to But as I can offer to your majefty's mifery, which I have truly opened; fo move you, except it be my extreme looking up to your majefty's own felf, I fhould think I committed Cain's fault if I fhould defpair. Your majesty is a king whofe heart is as unfcrutable for fecret motions of goodnefs, as for depth of wifdom. You are, creator-like, factive, not deftructive; you are the prince in whom hath ever been noted an averfion against any thing that favoured of an hard heart; as, on the other fide, your princely eye was wont to meet with any motion that was made on the relieving part. Therefore, as one that hath had the happiness to know your majefty nearhand, I have, moft gracious fovereign, faith enough for a miracle, and much not fuffer your poor creature to be utmore for a grace, that your majefty will terly defaced, nor blot that name quite cred hand hath been so oft for the giving out of your book, upon which your fahim new ornaments and additions. God (of whofe Unto this degree of compaffion, I hope in my profperity and adverfity, I have mercy towards me, both had great teftimonies and pledges, though mine own manifold and wretched unthankfulness might have averted them) will difpofe your princely heart, already prepared to all piety you shall do for Therefore this was wrote near the middle of the year 1622. me. me. And as all commiferable perfons (especially fuch as find their hearts void of all malice) are apt to think that all men pity them, so I affure myself that the lords of your council, who, out of their wisdom and nobleness, cannot but be fenfible of human events, will, in this way which I go for the relief of my eftate, further and advance your majefty's goodness towards me; for there is, as I conceive, a kind of fraternity between great men that are, and those that have been, being but the feveral tenses of one verb. Nay, I do further prefume, that both houfes of parliament will love their jaftice the better, if it end not in my ruin; for I have been often told by many of my lords, as it were in the way of excufing the feverity of the sentence, that they knew they left me in good hands. And your majefty knoweth well I have been all my life long acceptable to thofe affemblies; not by flattery, but by moderation, and by honeft expreffing of a defire to have all things go fairly and well. But if it may please your majefty (for faints I fhall give them reverence, but no adoration; my addrefs is to your majefty, the fountain of goodness) your majefty fhall, by the grace of God, not feel that in gift which I fhall extremely feel in help; for my defires are moderate, and my courfes measured to a life orderly and referved, hoping ftill to do your majefty honour in my way; only I most humbly beseech your majefty to give me leave to conclude with thefe words, which neceffity fpeaketh: Help me, dear fovereign, lord and mafter, and pity fo far, as that I, that have borne a bag, be not now in my age, forced in effect to bear a wallet; nor that I, that defire to live to study, may not be driven to ftudy to live. I moft humbly crave pardon of a long letter, after a long filence. God of heaven ever blefs, preferve, and profper your majefty. Your majefty's poor ancient fervant and beadsman. LETTER LXXI. Lord Baltimore to Lord Wentworth, after wards Earl of Strafford. My lord, WERE not my occafions fuch as neceffarily keep me here at this time, • Vouchsafe to exprefs towards me. I would not fend letters, but fly to you myself with all the speed I could, to exprefs my own grief, and to take part of yours, which I know is exceeding great, for the lofs of fo noble a lady, fo virtuous and fo loving a wife. There are few, perhaps, can judge of it better than I, who have been a long time myself a man of forrows. But all things, my lord, in this world pass away, ftatutum eft, wife, children, honour, wealth, friends, and what else is dear to flesh and blood; they are but lent us till God please to call for them back again, that we may not esteem any thing our own, or fet our hearts upon any thing but him alone, who only remains for ever. I beseech his almighty goodnefs to grant, that your lordship may, for his fake, bear this great crofs with meeknefs and patience, whofe only fon, our dear Lord and Saviour, bore a greater for you; and to confider that thefe humiliations, though they be very bitter, yet are they sovereign medicines ministered unto us by our hea venly physician to cure the fickneffes of our fouls, if the fault be not ours. Good my lord, bear with this excess of zeal in a friend, whofe great affection to you tranfports him to dwell longer upon this melancholy theme than is needful to your lordship, whofe own wisdom, affisted with God's grace, I hope, fuggefts unto you thefe and better refolutions than I can offer unto your remembrance. I have to fay more is but this, that I humbly and heartily pray you so to difpofe of yourself and your affairs (the rites being done to that noble creature) as to be able to remove, as foon as conveniently you may, from those parts, where fo many things represent themfelves unto you, as to make your wound bleed afresh; and let us have you here, where the gracious welcome of your mafter, the converfation of your friends, and variety of bufineffes may divert your thoughts the fooner from fad objects; the continuance whereof will but endanger your health, on which depends the welfare of your children, the comfort of your friends, and many other good things, for which I hope God will reserve you, to whofe divine favour I humbly recommend affectionate and faithful fervant. you, and remain ever your lordship's most From my lodging in Lincoln's Inn-Fields, Oct. 11, 1631. All |