BACON, Francis (1561-1626)

One of the leading lawyers of his age, Bacon’s intellectual gifts placed him in the front rank of early modern European philosophers and scientists, and his perspicacity as a political commentator made him a valued advisor to two royal favourites: Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex and – much later – George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham. However, his prodigious intellectual gifts were counterbalanced by serious flaws: failure to disguise his naked ambition hampered his persistent quest for office; while his role in the prosecution of his patron Essex, after the latter’s unsuccessful rebellion in 1601, was never forgiven by many of the earl’s supporters. Moreover, Bacon’s extravagance consistently outstripped his income, and the bribes he took as lord chancellor ultimately destroyed his political career.

Early career, 1601-14

Bacon’s father, Sir Nicholas^‡, served Elizabeth as lord keeper for 20 years, but died before he could settle a landed estate on Francis, his youngest son. In 1601, on the death of his brother Anthony^‡, Bacon inherited 2,000 acres at Gorhambury, near St Albans, Hertfordshire;57 Jardine and Stewart, 29-30; C142/191/90; 142/515/75. yet the modest revenue from this manor never covered his rising expenditure, and at James I’s accession in 1603 he faced the prospect of debtors’ prison. However, he was saved by his cousin Robert Cecil^*, later 1st earl of Salisbury, who helped to find him a wealthy bride, the 13-year-old daughter of a London alderman.58 Chamberlain Letters, i. 192; ii. 243; HMC Hatfield, xix. 346; Jardine and Stewart, 265-70; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, iii. 79-82; Birch, Ct. and Times Jas. I, i. 46; Carleton to Chamberlain, 76, 84. This was a marriage of convenience, and the couple never had any children.

Bacon true inheritance was his education: he was enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, under John Whitgift^†, the future archbishop of Canterbury; studied civil law in Paris; and was called to the bar of Gray’s Inn in 1583, after an unusually brief period of study. There is no evidence that his mastery of the common law was ever questioned, while his training as a civilian gave him an unusual dual perspective on legal issues. It was also in the early stages of his career that his writings on moral philosophy and science began to attract the attention of a pan-European audience.

Always ferociously ambitious, Bacon aspired to succeed Sir Edward Coke^‡ as solicitor general in 1593-4. However, his speech on supply in the 1593 Parliament provoked Queen Elizabeth to the acid observation that she would ‘seek all England for a solicitor’ rather than choose Bacon, while his subsequent estrangement from the Essex faction dashed his chances of preferment before Elizabeth’s death.59 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, i. 348; D. Dean, Law-making and Soc. in Late Elizabethan Eng. 43-7; Jardine and Stewart, 146-53, 159-68, 219-62. Bacon therefore greeted the accession of James with palpable relief, advertising his services to the new monarch in a tract welcoming the Union with Scotland, and underlining his devotion in 1604, with a series of parliamentary speeches which generally attempted to support the crown’s agenda. He was rewarded with the newly created position of king’s counsel, and after ploughing a lonely furrow supporting the Union in the Commons in 1606-7, he finally acquired the post of solicitor general he had first sought 14 years earlier.60 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, iii. 90-9; Jardine and Stewart, 272-3; HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 86-90.

In 1610 Bacon defended impositions, a key royal policy, in a sceptical House of Commons. Although most MPs disagreed with his arguments, they valued his eloquence sufficiently to use him as a mouthpiece to express their concerns to the Lords and king on several occasions. Bacon lobbied hard for preferment after the dissolution, but it was not until 1613 that he succeeded Sir Henry Hobart^‡ as attorney general. One of the strongest advocates of a fresh Parliament, his preferred method of securing a tractable Commons was packing – securing the election of court candidates. This scheme was not systematically adopted during the general election of 1614, but rumours of crown interference circulated widely during the opening weeks of the session, and there were unsuccessful moves to unseat Bacon, on the grounds that the attorney general was required to serve as a legal assistant in the Lords.61 HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 91-5; Jardine and Stewart, 315-54.

Lord keeper and lord chancellor, 1615-20

Bacon’s standing at court flourished over the next few years, chiefly because he attached himself to the new favourite, George Villiers, who in 1616 received a lengthy memorandum from Bacon on statecraft, and sponsored the latter’s appointment as a privy councillor. Bacon’s ambition focussed on the office of lord chancellor, then held by the ailing Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley), for which position his main rival was Chief Justice Coke. Bacon, never backward in the arts of self-promotion, advised James against appointing a man of Coke’s ‘over-ruling nature’, recommending himself as the son of a lord keeper, an experienced Parliament-man, and one able to restrain the excesses of projectors. In the autumn of 1616 Ellesmere and Bacon were ordered to investigate ‘novelties and errors and offensive conceits’ in Coke’s law reports, and their critical verdict was the final straw which led to Coke’s removal as chief justice.62 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, v. 241-4; vi. 27-56, 76-7, 85-97; HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 568-70; iv. 591-2; Jardine and Stewart, 389-91. Bacon was now Ellesmere’s obvious successor, and early in 1617 he reminded James that ‘my lord chancellor’s age and health is such, as it doth not only admit but require the accident of his death to be thought of’. Matters came to a head shortly before James’s departure for Scotland: Ellesmere resigned on 3 Mar.; and Bacon was installed as lord keeper four days later. He played a prominent role in the conciliar administration left behind in London.63 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vi. 139-40, 151-2, 197-9; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 59, 76-7; Jardine and Stewart, 392-400.

During James’s absence, Coke attempted to rehabilitate himself at court by arranging a match between his daughter Frances and John Villiers^* (later Viscount Purbeck). Bacon quietly attempted to obstruct this marriage, but his manoeuvrings were noticed and censured by both James and Buckingham.64 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vi. 223-53; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 88-90; Jardine and Stewart, 400-15. He promptly changed his mind about the merits of the match, thus ensuring that his standing at court suffered no lasting damage. Buckingham had clearly forgiven him by January 1618, when the favourite became a marquess, and Bacon was appointed lord chancellor. Like Ellesmere before him, his promotion was accompanied by ennoblement: in July 1618 he was created Baron Verulam, a title derived from the Roman town of St Albans. He was also included on the commission appointed to run the Exchequer after the disgrace of the lord treasurer, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk. As chancellor, Bacon had oversight of the administrative process whereby projects promoted by entrepreneurs and courtiers were scrutinized before being approved by letters patent. While he was prepared to order a patent which was unnecessary or inappropriate to be redrafted or rejected, he approved several lucrative but controversial schemes promoted by Buckingham’s relatives, Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, and Christopher Villiers^* (later 1st earl of Anglesey), which became the focus of complaints in the 1621 Parliament.65 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vi. 269-70, 294-6, 320-1, 324-5, 338-41; vii. 447; vii. 30, 68-70.

Bacon inaugurated his tenure in Chancery with ‘a great deal more bravery … than was expected in the king’s absence’, taking over Ellesmere’s lease of York House, in the Strand, where he established himself in the grand manner, with a retinue of 150 servants. The perquisites of his offices were enormous, but failed to cover his expenses, and he became notorious for his willingness to accept bribes from suitors in Chancery.66 Ibid. vi. 327-38; D’Ewes Autobiog. ed. J.O. Halliwell, i. 169; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 72-3; Jardine and Stewart, 397, 417-18. Despite the pressures of office, he continued his scholarly pursuits, publishing his Novum Organum in October 1620, which he described to the king as ‘a new logic, teaching to invent and judge by induction … and thereby to make philosophy and sciences both more true and more active’. The king, whose intellectual tastes were theological rather than scientific, was said to have described the work as resembling ‘the peace of God, that passeth all understanding’.67 Ibid. vii. 119-20, 129-30; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 339; Jardine and Stewart, 437-9.

As chancellor, Bacon was not actively involved in diplomatic affairs, although a memorandum he wrote for the king in 1619 testifies to his anti-Spanish, pro-Dutch views.68 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 22-8. He was, however, one of the keenest advocates of Parliament on the Privy Council, and in early October 1620 James, confronted with war in Bohemia, where his son-in-law had accepted the crown from a group of noble Protestant rebels, gauged the prospects for a fresh session. Bacon, Coke, the judges and the king’s serjeant, Sir Ranulphe Crewe^‡, were instructed to recommend how a Parliament might be managed ‘in true policy, without packing or degenerate arts’. Bacon swiftly reported their recommendations: a proclamation to explain the circumstances which required a Parliament; some discreet management of elections; and the framing of ‘some commonwealth bills’, as in 1614.69 Ibid. 114-17, 123-9; CSP Ven. 1619-21, p. 440; A. Thrush, ‘Personal Rule of Jas. I’, Pols. Religion and Popularity ed. T. Cogswell, R. Cust and P. Lake, 96-7. Later, after the writs of summons had been sent out, Bacon and the other committees recommended the revocation of ‘some proclamations and commissions, and many patents’. Buckingham was specifically warned about the patents for inns and alehouses, with which the favourite’s kinsmen were involved; but the Privy Council resolved to leave monopolies for consideration in Parliament.70 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vi. 142-52; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 325, 328; Jardine and Stewart, 444-8; R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, pp. 19-26.

Bacon promoted the return of various clients at the parliamentary elections of December 1620: the Speaker-designate, Thomas Richardson^‡, found a seat at St Albans, as did one of Buckingham’s clients. At Cambridge Bacon’s secretary Thomas Meautys^‡ was returned; Edward Wrightington^‡, a Chancery law reporter who had formerly served as Bacon’s clerk, secured a seat at St Mawes; and Bacon’s servant William Johnson^‡ was returned at Liverpool, presumably with assistance from the duchy of Lancaster.71 HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 35, 77, 181, 213; iv. 910-11. However, Bacon departed from the caution he urged on others in pressing for his own elevation from a barony to a viscountcy on the eve of the session. Buckingham advised him to wait until afterwards – ‘whatsoever the use hath been after the end of the Parliament, I assure myself your lordship will hold it very unreasonable to be done before’ – but Bacon was ostentatiously created Viscount St Alban on 27 Jan. 1621,72 For simplicity, in this piece he will continue to be referenced as ‘Bacon’. ‘with all the ceremonies of robes and coronet’, although these had begun to fall into disuse in the previous decade.73 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 158-9; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 339; A. Wagner and J.C. Sainty, ‘Origins of the Introduction of Peers in the House of Lords’, Archaeologia, ci. 130; JOHN EGERTON; THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL.

Parliamentary management, 1621

In a memorandum of 1615 about the opening of a Parliament, Bacon had advised the king to restrict himself to general remarks about the ‘wealth and defence’ of the nation, leaving the lord chancellor to unveil potentially controversial policy initiatives. However, if he offered similar counsel before the king’s opening speech of 30 Jan. 1621, his advice was discounted, as James spoke at length about his ‘urgent necessities’ and the need for supply. Responding as chancellor, the newly created Viscount St Alban commended his master’s eloquence, and noted that ‘there is a great expectation in the beginning of this Parliament, and I hope there will be a happy conclusion in the end thereof, so as it may be of a generative quality to beget another Parliament’.74 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, v. 190; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 2; HP Commons 1604-29, i. 403. A different text of Bacon’s speech, perhaps an early draft, is printed in Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 171-2. Behind the scenes, he clearly urged James to reconsider his approach; and when the Commons presented the newly-elected Speaker Richardson on 3 Feb., the king delivered a fresh speech acknowledging the need for ‘good laws’ and desiring only a ‘moderate sum’ to meet his needs. Bacon - he is seldom known by his title - then recited the benefits of Union, plantation, peace, justice and religion which James had brought to his new kingdoms, and outlined an agenda for the session: ‘laws and multiplicity thereof’ he insisted, echoing his royal master, ‘are such as you need not add very many … help old laws and take away the superfluity of them’. While James had permitted grievances to be discussed, Bacon urged ‘that you do not hunt after grievances such as may seem rather to be stirred here when you are met, than to have sprung from the desires of the country. You are to represent the people; you are not to personate them’ – the last phrase being an echo of James’s speech of 30 January. Furthermore, Bacon reminded his audience, ‘as you desire to relieve the people, so ought you to be careful not to cast scandal upon the state, the least fault being the soonest apparent in the best commonwealths … The manner how to redress those things amiss, the king can better do than you, for he hath been longer a king than you [have been] Parliament men’.75 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 4-6; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 173-9; HP Commons 1604-29, i. 403, 443.

Thereafter, Bacon settled into the management of the routine business of the upper House, often in tandem with the lord treasurer, Henry Montagu^*, Viscount Mandeville (later 1st earl of Manchester) and Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales), then attending his first Parliament.76 See, for example, Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 190. On 5 Feb. Bacon delivered a message from the king urging all peers newly arrived in the House to take the oath of allegiance, which he himself swore at the end of the day’s proceedings. On the following day, he intervened at the first reading of Sir Stephen Le Sieur’s naturalization bill, seeking to ascertain that the beneficiary had already received letters of denization.77 LJ, iii. 10a-b, 11b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 1.

For all his extensive service in the Commons, Bacon had no experience of the Lords prior to 1621, and he was therefore keen to establish his authority on the woolsack. On 8 Feb., when it emerged that a Chancery clerk had made errors in copying out the writs of summons to various peers, he chastised the offender in forthright terms: ‘you must understand that noblemen’s titles are incorporated into their honours, their honours into their blood, so as in this default of yours, you lose them part of their right’.78 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 8, 11; LJ, 14a. Eight days later, he dealt briskly with a scuffle between Emanuel Scrope^*, 11th Lord Scrope (later earl of Sunderland) and Francis Norris^*, earl of Berkshire, identifying the latter as the offender, and committing him to the Fleet prison.79 LJ, iii. 19a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 8; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 19-20. On 3 Mar., when he was designated as the peers’ spokesman at a conference with the Commons, he was careful to obtain precise instructions about what he was expected to say or agree to.80 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 11; LJ, iii. 34a. Like any other peer, Bacon was entitled to voice his private opinions; and when this first occurred, on 8 Feb., he followed Ellesmere’s custom of standing down from the woolsack. On this occasion, he sought to curtail a debate about the wording of the Lords’ standing orders on privilege, then being formulated for the first time, by reminding the House that the text could be altered by a simple vote. Early in the session, he was added to the bill to update militia arms, and when this measure was reported on 16 Feb. he tendered an additional proviso, which was rejected.81 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 1-2; LJ, iii. 15b.

The first challenge to Bacon’s control of the Lords came in the debates over the Commons’ petition for enforcement of the recusancy laws. On 14 Feb., the Lords were asked to join MPs in an appeal to the king. Bacon was appointed spokesman for both Houses, and on the following day he helped to persuade the upper House to co-opt Prince Charles onto their delegation. James, who clearly saw the petition that night, disapproved of the clause urging him to issue a proclamation urging strict enforcement of the existing laws, and on 16 Feb. Mandeville, Bacon and Prince Charles attempted to persuade a sceptical House to change the wording. This task was rendered more difficult by the decision to hold the debate in a committee of the whole House – still a procedural rarity in the Lords – and while it was agreed that the Commons would be asked to consider an amendment, this was not made a condition of the Lords’ support for the Commons’ draft, which Bacon presented to James, unaltered, on 17 February. James loftily retorted that he ‘needed no spur in matters of that nature’, a cool response which Bacon delayed reporting to both Houses until 20 February.82 LJ, iii. 17a, 18a-20a, 22b, 24a-b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 3-7, 9-10; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 13-19, 23-5; Zaller, 41-5; E.R. Foster, House of Lords, 1604-49, pp. 111-14.

Having reported on the delivery of the recusancy petition, Bacon returned to the Lords, only to be plunged into another confrontation: a petition, complaining about the precedence granted to Englishmen who had recently bought Irish and Scottish titles, was tabled by Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset, who attempted to solicit signatures from those present. Bacon repeatedly insisted that ‘it is no business of the House’, then attempted to adjourn, without success; the House eventually calmed down enough to give a first reading to the bill to regulate the export of bullion before rising for the day. He was hardly to blame for this fracas: the argument continued before the Privy Council that afternoon, where Dorset was ordered to hand over his petition. It ultimately took the intervention of Prince Charles to pacify the malcontent peers.83 APC, 1619-21, pp. 352-3 [which should be dated 20 Feb.]; LJ, iii. 24a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 10-11; SP14/119/106A; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 348; Zaller, 60-2.

The Lords regained their composure during the following week, when Bacon steered Prince Charles’s bill to confirm leases to his duchy of Cornwall tenants through committee. However, during this time the Commons were uncovering the first serious evidence of the abuses of patentees – and with Sir Edward Coke playing a leading part in the investigation, it may not have been entirely coincidental that several of the grants which received early attention involved Bacon.84 LJ, iii. 26b, 29b; Zaller, 51-5; C. Russell, PEP, 98-103. For Coke’s motives, see A. Thrush, ‘Fall of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and the Revival of Impeachment in the Parliament of 1621’, PH, xxxvii. 210-11. One of the first patentees to come under fire was Mompesson, placed under house arrest on 27 February. Bacon was all too well connected with Sir Giles, and on 1 Mar., in order to delay proceedings, he encouraged George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, to move that the Lords should not meet on the following day, being a Convocation day; he then adjourned the House before the Commons could ask for a conference about the patentees. This only delayed matters by 48 hours, and it was while he was at this conference on 3 Mar. that Bacon learned of Mompesson’s flight; he immediately offered the services of various peers in pursuing the fugitive. A preliminary examination of Mompesson’s papers quickly implicated Bacon, Mandeville and Buckingham as the chief sponsors and referees of his patents. However, discreet inquiries by Bacon established that only Coke had the heart for a confrontation with the crown’s senior ministers, and when MPs presented their findings to the Lords on 8 Mar. they failed to mention the referees.85 CJ, i. 530b; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vi. 99, 102; vii. 68-9, 190, 192; LJ, iii. 32b; Zaller, 62-7; Russell, 105-9.

Two days later, shortly before the Commons presented further evidence against Mompesson, James changed the political landscape in an unplanned address to the Lords. Once Bacon had recited the existing charges against Mompesson, in a low and (perhaps) embarrassed tone of voice, the king proclaimed ‘I have always been a hater of projects and projectors’, and commended the Commons for their investigation. ‘As for the things objected against the chancellor and the treasurer’, he said, ‘I leave them to answer for themselves … for if they cannot justify themselves, they are not worthy to hold and enjoy those places they have under me’. As Mandeville had served as treasurer for less than three months, it was presumably at this moment that Bacon realized he had been chosen to replace Mompesson as a scapegoat.86 This was the argument made, in general terms, years later by Bacon’s servant, Thomas Bushell. See Jardine and Stewart, 455-6. James instructed him to respond to the charges, which he naturally refuted, appealing to ‘my peers and judges, to judge me in their honours’.87 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 12-16; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 25-31; Zaller, 67-71; Russell, 109-111; C.C.G. Tite, Impeachment and Parlty. Judicature, 102-3.

On 12 Mar. the Lords chided Bacon, Mandeville and Buckingham for attempting to exonerate themselves before the Commons at the conference of 10 Mar.; the House’s investigation of the charges against Mompesson commenced three days later.88 LJ, iii. 42a-b, 46b-7a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 17-20, 24-6. Meanwhile, the Commons broadened their inquiries into Bacon’s misdeeds by appointing Sir Robert Phelips^‡ as chairman of the committee for courts of justice. Rumours of complaints against Bacon’s corrupt practices in Chancery had been circulating for weeks, and Bacon had been working quietly to suborn hostile witnesses. However, Phelips spurred the committee into action, and on 14 Mar. petitions were received from two disgruntled litigants, against Bacon and his former chaplain Theophilus Field^*, bishop of Llandaff. On the same day, Bacon complained to Buckingham that ‘I think if the great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up’. The Commons’ charges were reported to the Lords on 19 Mar., on which day Bacon excused himself, pleading ill health. He was replaced on the woolsack by the House’s senior legal assistant, Lord Chief Justice Sir James Ley^* (later 1st earl of Marlborough), and never returned to the upper House.89 CJ, i. 594b; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 232; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 212-13; Nicholas Procs. 1621, i. 162-3; LJ, iii. 51a; SP84/100, ff. 68-9; Tite, 110-13; Zaller, 74-81.

At this point, Bacon had every intention of defending himself. Indeed, Buckingham reported that while the lord chancellor was initially downcast, news of the Commons’ charges had hardened his resolve. On 19 Mar. Bacon requested time to seek legal counsel and permission to cross-examine the witnesses testifying against him. He also asked the Lords ‘not to take any prejudice or apprehension of any number or muster of them, especially against a judge that makes two thousand decrees and orders in a year’, and undertook to refute each charge individually.90 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 215-16; LJ, iii. 54b. It is possible that Bacon’s spirits were revived by the news that James was to ask the Commons for the charges against Bacon to be referred to trial before a special commission of 12 MPs and six peers, to meet during the Easter recess. However, although this offer, made to the Commons on 19 Mar., was welcomed by Sir James Perrot and Edward Alford, it was swiftly dashed by Coke, who warned the commission might ‘hinder the manner of our parliamentary proceedings’.91 CJ, i. 563a; CD 1621, ii. 244-5; v. 51; vi. 385; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 354; Tite, 113; Zaller, 82-3. Over the next few days the Lords appointed three committees to interview a long list of witnesses about Mompesson’s patents, while the Commons, now assisted by testimony from John Churchill, a Chancery registrar who had handled many of the bribes destined for Bacon, sent up a long list of supplementary charges.92 LJ, iii. 53b-4b, 56b-8b, 60a-2b, 65b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 27-32, 36-7; LD 1621, p. 130; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 202-3, 206-8; CD 1621, ii. 251-2.

The Lords’ initial instructions to the committees investigating the charges against Bacon specified that deponents should not be urged to accuse themselves, but many of the material witnesses, being those who had offered bribes, were reluctant to give evidence, as they risked incriminating themselves under oath. The Lords decided to offer the witnesses immunity from prosecution on 23 Mar., against spirited opposition from Mandeville, who was himself under investigation. Buckingham was not particularly vigorous in his opposition to this motion, but did enter a formal dissent from the vote, thereby demonstrating solidarity with Bacon – he was still a regular visitor at York House.93 LJ, iii. 58b, 67b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, 37-40; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 356; Russell, 113. Even after this setback, Bacon acknowledged Buckingham as ‘my anchor in these floods’, while he assured the king of his continued resolve to defend himself, concluding, ‘I have ever been your man, and counted myself but an usufructary of myself, the property being yours’. It was, however, at this point that newsletter-writers gave up his cause as lost, and began to discuss who would succeed him as lord chancellor.94 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 225-6; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 355-6; NLW, 9057E/943; SP84/100, ff. 87-8.

On 27 Mar. Parliament rose for an Easter recess of three weeks, a lengthy vacation that was probably intended to allow tempers to cool, although both Houses continued their investigations. Bacon, perhaps unaware of the extent to which his bribe-taking had been documented, studied precedents for his defence, and asked to see the king, who cautiously sought the advice of his Privy Council before meeting his errant minister on 16 April. While submitting himself to the royal mercy, Bacon insisted that he had not taken bribes, but merely gratuities after cases were concluded. He also asked to know the detailed charges against him, and renewed his earlier promise that he would refute those which were misinformed, and mitigate those which had some truth in them.95 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 51; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 232-8; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 51-2; LJ, iii. 75b; Jardine and Stewart, 461-3. When the Lords reconvened the following day, Mandeville reported both this meeting and James’s request that the charges against Bacon be collated and presented to the accused. The extensive list of charges took a week to compile, during which time Bacon’s resolve crumbled. On 20 Apr. he still maintained that he would ‘excuse what I can excuse, extenuate what I can extenuate, and ingenuously confess what I can neither clear nor extenuate’. However, on the following day he suggested a compromise: ‘if it be reformation that is sought, the very taking away the seal, upon my general submission, will be as much in example … as any further severity’. If James were to recommend this course to the Lords, and was supported by Charles and Buckingham, he hoped this might ‘effect the sparing of a sentence’.96 LJ, iii. 75b, 85-6, 98-100; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 364-5; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 240-2.

It seems unlikely that Bacon would have devised a plan this specific, which depended entirely on the cooperation of the king, prince and favourite, without some degree of collusion. Whose purposes would have been served by Bacon’s confession to the charges against him at this time? One possible beneficiary was the king: on 24 Apr. James instructed the Lords to prosecute the former attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, who had proved all too willing to expose the murkier practices of Jacobean government when questioned in Parliament. However, if James wished to use parliamentary judicature to serve his own ends, he was circumscribed by his speech of 10 Mar., in which he had warned the Lords not to rely entirely on pre-Tudor precedents, from times when the crown was ‘tossed up and down like a tennis ball’. Yet if Bacon could confess and be condemned before Yelverton’s cause received its hearing, it would provide a timely, contemporary precedent for the impeachment of ministers accused of misconduct in office.97 LJ, iii. 82a; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 25; Zaller, 116-18. Coke’s researches on medieval precedents for impeachment are outlined in Thrush, ‘Fall of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk’, 208-9.

Whatever the circumstances underlying Bacon’s offer to the king may have been, his actions suggest that he believed James had agreed to the plan outlined in his letter of 21 April. On the following day he capitulated to the Lords:

having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off … Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses. Neither will I represent unto your lordships how far a defence might in divers things extenuate the offence …98 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 243.

This letter was delivered by Prince Charles on the afternoon of 24 Apr., shortly after James had called for Yelverton’s prosecution. Once the House recovered from their shock at his volte-face, Bacon’s confession received a cool response: William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, insisted that it could not be accepted, ‘for the confession is grounded upon a rumour’, not the specific charges, which had not yet been finalized. Buckingham observed that ‘in the general, though not in the particular, he [Bacon] hath condemned himself’, but the phalanx of Villiers clients Bacon had hoped would sway the House failed to materialize, and a series of hostile speakers called for Bacon to answer the charges in public, at the bar of the House. In the end, this humiliation was averted, and the accused was finally sent a copy of the charges against him.99 Ibid. 241; LJ, iii. 84-6; LD 1621, pp. 13-18.

Bacon’s enemies in the Lords resumed their attack on the following day, renewing their calls for him to answer the charges at the bar, and moving the king to sequester the great seal, lest the chancellorship be brought into disrepute by the misdeeds of its incumbent. When pressed to declare his intentions, Bacon undertook ‘to make a particular confession to every point, and after that an humble submission’.100 LJ, iii. 87a-b; LD 1621, pp. 18-24. He honoured this promise on 30 Apr., when he pleaded guilty to each of the 28 charges of bribery, and submitted himself to the judgement of the House. The only mitigating circumstance he offered was the consideration that many of these charges dated from the earlier part of his term of office, ‘so that it hath pleased God to prepare me, by precedent degrees of amendment, to my present penitency’. The House, rather ungenerously, required him to confirm that the signature on the confession was his own, and sent Prince Charles to ask the king to sequester the great seal. James observed that he would have done this, even without such a request, and sent four peers to effect the task on the following day, when Bacon laconically observed, ‘by my own great fault have I lost it’.101 LJ, iii. 98a-101a, 102b, 104a; LD 1621, pp. 41, 54.

One final humiliation remained: the sentence. Bacon’s hopes that the Lords might waive their duty to punish him had evaporated, but in debate on 3 May, his enemies vied to heap ever-greater indignities upon his head. Calls for him to be degraded from his peerage were narrowly averted when it was observed that this would require a bill of attainder, but the punishments visited upon him were warning enough to future offenders: he was fined £40,000, imprisoned in the Tower during royal pleasure, and barred for life from Parliament, the court and public office. Buckingham was the only peer to express dissent, perhaps by way of apology for failing to persuade the House to show mercy, as Bacon had hoped in his letter of 21 April.102 LJ, iii. 105b-6a; LD 1621, pp. 61-4; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 371.

The severity of Bacon’s punishment may have been increased deliberately in anticipation that the king would mitigate its implementation. However, within days of his sentencing, rumours circulated that he had been pardoned altogether. On 12 May Thomas Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton, complained that Bacon had not yet been sent to the Tower, whereupon Buckingham explained that this was because of the prisoner’s ‘great sickness’. Bacon was not finally detained until the end of the month, and even then he was sent a warrant for his release, which he exercised on the evening of 4 June, the day Parliament rose for the summer. He stoically told Buckingham that he hoped the king ‘may reap honour out of my adversity, as he hath done strength out of my prosperity’, and there was a rumour that – the terms of the Lords’ sentence notwithstanding – he was to be made lord president of the Council.103 LD 1621, p. 79; Cabala (1691), 2; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 377, 381; Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 280-3.

Predictions of an early return to favour proved unfounded – the presidency went to Mandeville, and Bacon was dismissed as a councillor.104 Rumours in February 1622 that Bacon would be readmitted to the Privy Council came to nothing, and Chamberlain’s statement that he remained a member until 1625 is erroneous: CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 342; APC 1619-21, p. 357; 1623-5, p. 1; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 609. Nevertheless, the latter corresponded with James, Charles and Buckingham throughout the summer, and was one of those who urged a revocation of the vexatious patents complained of in Parliament, which was ordered by proclamation on 10 July. This did not go unnoticed; one newsletter-writer claimed he was ‘as vain and idle in all his humours as when he was at [his] highest’. At court, Meautys worked hard on his behalf: his fine was waived in September, and in the following month he was promised a pardon for everything but the Lords’ sentence. He was also allowed back to London, under licence, but pleas for access to the court were ignored, as was his work on a history of the reign of Henry VII, a monarch ‘whose spirit, as well as his blood, is doubled upon your Majesty’. In October, with Parliament due to reassemble, his successor, Lord Keeper John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln, stayed his pardon at the great seal: ‘that motion was … to me as a second sentence’, he complained to Buckingham.105 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 287-93, 296-301, 303-5, 315; Stuart Royal Proclamations ed. J.F. Larkin and P.F. Hughes, i. 511-19; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 385, 402-3, 430; Jardine and Stewart, 473-8.

When Parliament finally reconvened, Bacon was confined to Gorhambury, but the subsequent dissolution gave him false hopes for rehabilitation: learning that the session had been ruled a ‘convention’ rather than a Parliament by the judges, he asked John Selden^‡ whether this meant his sentence was invalidated – an assumption Selden quashed. In the spring of 1622 Bacon sold his lease of York House to Buckingham for £1,300, and by the following year his ambitions had shrunk to the point where he was an unsuccessful contender for the provostship of Eton College.106 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 306-33; Jardine and Stewart, 378-88, 491-2; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 443-4, 487. Buckingham consulted him on the eve of the 1624 Parliament, and he sent Prince Charles a tract on foreign policy. However, his overtures for a writ of summons to the Lords were dashed, and for the first time in his adult life he was left as an onlooker during the session.107 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 441-51, 454-5, 469-505.

For all his lobbying, Bacon spent most of the final years of his life pursuing his literary and scientific interests; it was an ill-advised experiment that caused his death from bronchitis on 9 Apr. 1626. His will of 19 Dec. 1625 sought to preserve his intellectual reputation: he endowed lectureships at Oxford and Cambridge in ‘natural philosophy and the sciences’; left copies of his own published works to various libraries; and appointed Lord Keeper Williams and the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Humphrey May^‡, as custodians of his ministerial papers, instructing them that only privy councillors were to be granted access. His wife, from whom who had separated in the aftermath of his impeachment, had her jointure settlement confirmed, thus enabling her ‘to maintain the estate of a viscountess’. He was buried at St Michael’s church in St Albans, ‘the only Christian church within the walls of old Verulam’.108 Jardine and Stewart, 502-5; PROB 11/152, ff. 151-2; C2/Jas.I/S39/12. His widow swiftly remarried, her new husband being John Underhill, one of Bacon’s former servants. The couple fought a lengthy battle to establish their legal title to the Gorhambury estate, but in 1632 the courts ruled in favour of Thomas Meautys, who had married Bacon’s great-niece.109 Jardine and Stewart, 512-18; C142/515/75.