Part 4

That a man could write as Bacon afterwards wrote of "Friendship," and of "Honour and Reputation," and yet permit himself, at the base dictates of ambition, to desert, nay, even to betray his earliest and most generous friend, must seem to every noble heart a fact almost incredible; but it is unhappily an undoubted fact, that when Essex was at the bar of the House of Lords to be tried for his life. Bacon, in his professional capacity, appeared _against_ his generous and affectionate friend and patron.

Nor was even this the extent of his unworthy treason.

For some time previously, and also after the unhappy favourite had expiated his follies by a shameful death, discontent and irritation had been spreading amongst all classes, and the Government grew daily more and more unpopular.

At length the clamours of the people became so loud and deep, not only against ministers, but also against the Queen herself, that it was deemed necessary to make a formal vindication of the proceedings of the Administration.

For this end all the blame, all the obloquy of every administrative failure must be thrown upon the dead man.

Bacon accepted the discreditable, nay, disgraceful duty that had been assigned to him. He allowed himself to vilify the name of his benefactor, his early friend. He agreed to cast the odium of treason upon one from whom he had accepted gifts, and for whom he had professed, and professed for years, the most ardent friendship.

In a skilful and masterly paper he justified the proceedings of the Government, and drew up a declaration of the treason of which Essex had been found guilty, and for which he had duly suffered.

Bacon retained his place. He had assured his career. He had forced the world to recognise his transcendent abilities; but ambition must have indeed hardened the heart of this man, ere she could console him for having thus cast from him every sentiment of gratitude, and affection, for having thus forsworn the honourable fealty that he owed to his benefactor and his friend.

From this moment, however, Bacon rose steadily, and, after the accession of James I., having published a brilliant pamphlet in favour of uniting the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, he rapidly obtained considerable honour.

In 1616 he was sworn of the Privy Council. He then devoted himself to reducing, and, in fact, recomposing the laws of England.

When Attorney-General he distinguished himself by his endeavours to restrain duelling, a practice at that time very frequent and very fatal.

In 1617 he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and the following year he was raised to the woolsack, and created Lord Verulam.

In the midst of these honours, and notwithstanding, also, the press of business, he did not forget his studies in philosophy, but in 1620 he published his great work, "Novum Organum." In 1621 he was advanced to the dignity of Viscount, and as Lord St. Albans he appeared with great splendour at the opening of Parliament.

But he had now arrived at the culminating point of his triumphs, and at the very moment when his power seemed greatest and his position most stable, his fall was near.

A very few months after Parliament had assembled, a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the abuses that existed in the Courts of Justice; and, ere many sittings had taken place, the Chancellor was openly accused of corrupt practices.

The King, ever pusillanimous, and shrinking from giving support to a falling man, sent for Bacon, and, it is said, positively enjoined him to submit to his peers, promising to reward him afterwards!

The Chancellor, although he could have had but little faith in such promises, and foresaw his approaching ruin if he did not plead for himself, resolved, however, to obey the Royal command.

He was silent therefore under the accusations brought against him, and on the 3rd May, 1621, the House of Lords gave judgment against him, pronouncing upon him the following severe sentence:

"That he was to pay a fine of £40,000, and be confined a prisoner in the Tower, during the King's pleasure. That he should for ever be incapable of holding any place, office, or employment in the State, and that he should never again sit in Parliament, nor come within the verge of the Court."

At this distance of time the world judges him more leniently than he was then judged by his peers.

Greed of money had never been one of Bacon's failings. He loved power, place, and the good things that money can procure. He also loved his ease, and the affection and good-will of those about him; but of the gold itself he took little or no heed.

It was, in fact, to this carelessness, and to an amiability that he carried to the extent of selfish weakness that he owed his fall. For years all that he possessed had been at the service of those about him, and unhappily he was surrounded by, and had bestowed his kindness on persons, who were not only unworthy of it, but who had basely abused the confidence he had reposed in them.

We are told by Rushworth, that the Chancellor (Bacon) treasured up nothing for himself or his family, but that he was so over-indulgent to his servants, that this indulgence reached the point of conniving at their evil doings. Both his servants and his dependents were therefore profuse and extravagant, and had at their command whatever he was master of.

Too late did Bacon perceive his error. It is related that, one day during his trial, he passed through a room where several of his servants were sitting. They rose up respectfully to salute him as he went by, but said the Chancellor, "Sit down, my masters, for your rise has been my fall."

There seems little reason now to doubt that the gifts the Chancellor was accused of taking had been enforced, and received by these underlings.

It was these lamentable gifts that had caused him to be suspected of injustice, and yet it was subsequently proved that his decrees had been made for the most part with so much equity, that not one of them was ever reversed as unjust.

"It was peculiar to this man," says one of his numerous biographers, "to have nothing narrow or selfish in his composition. He gave away without concern whatever he possessed, and believing other men to be of the same mould, he received with as little consideration."

This opinion is probably correct in the main, but the greatest admirers of this talented and in many respects exceptionally great man, must admit that, ere he could have become unmindful of the honourable fealty he owed to his dead friend, the greed of power must have been strong in his heart, and that it was a selfish reluctance to take trouble that made him disregard one of the most stringent duties of the great, not only to be just themselves, but to ascertain that injustice is not practised by their subordinates.

After a short period of imprisonment the fallen Chancellor was released from the Tower. The King ultimately remitted his fine; and, after the death of James, he was again summoned to attend Parliament in the first year of the reign of Charles I., but never again after his degradation did Bacon take part in active life.

At first, indeed, after his release from prison, he found himself in extreme poverty. All he valued in this world had gone from him. Place, position, money, and, above all, that consideration from others which had been so dear to his heart.

So great at one time was his pecuniary distress, that he wrote a pathetic letter to King James, entreating His Majesty's assistance. "Lest," as he expresses it, "he should be reduced to carry a wallet, and after having lived only to study, be forced to study to live."

Notwithstanding the sorrowfulness of the letter, there lurks within it a vein of the humour that rendered him so delightful a companion, and through it all can be perceived the indomitable spirit of the man, that, even in the bitterest moment of his shattered fortunes, rose superior to the ruin that had overtaken him.

The energy that had made him so powerful in his public career did not desert him in his retirement.

With all the ardour of his great heart, he loved his country home, his quiet lodgings in Gray's Inn, and the studies to which, during the last years of his life, he wholly devoted himself. It was at this period that he wrote some of his most important English and Latin works; and from these it is evident that his thoughts were as free, and as vigorous, as they had ever been during the earliest and most brilliant years of his career.

Although he had been unhappy in having had many false and unworthy friends, one, at least, loved him faithfully to the end; and it was by him, Sir Thomas Meanty, his secretary, that the monument was erected to his memory in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans.

Many have written the biography of this distinguished man, but the best evidences of his life are the works he has given to the world: works replete with noble thoughts; works so grand, that they make us the more regret that there should be even one flaw to tarnish the golden lustre that shines around the name of one so brilliant, so illustrious.

It was in chambers in Coney Court, now called Gray's Inn Square, that Bacon passed his last years, and where he wrote several of his greatest works.

The aspect of these old houses--indeed, of these old chambers--bears traces, not only of the storms and sunshine that have passed over them in all this lapse of time, but they also speak to us powerfully of the vicissitudes of human life, and of the changes that are taking place around us yearly, nay, hourly.

What anxiety and distress, what joy and what pain, have not these old walls witnessed.

How many hearts have beat high with hope, or have been racked with anguish in the thoughtful gloom of many of these shadowy rooms.

Bacon himself, though he bore so brave a front before the world, must have had many torturing recollections and regrets as he paced up and down these ancient chambers. But then, again, what noble thoughts came to cheer and support him as he overcame the keenness of his pain, and fixed his mind on objects higher and grander than the passing events of human life.

Thus generation after generation pass away, with all their joys and all their fears.

Each human being departs, and his name is no more known even in the spot where he dwelt; but still the great squadrons of mankind are ever advancing, with the same delights, the same anxieties as those who have left this earth many hundreds of years ago; thus every place is filled and emptied, and filled again in endless rotation.

Truly life is but a magic-lantern, and the players therein are but fleeting shadows.

Bacon died on Easter Sunday, the 9th of April, 1626, being then sixty-six years of age.

In the December previous he had with his own hand written his will. In it he writes:

"For my burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's Church near St. Albans. There was my mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion house at Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next ages."

SIR NICHOLAS BACON.

Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal during the greater part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst, in Kent, in 1510.

Few men have enjoyed during a long and brilliant career a more unblemished reputation for probity, or have conducted themselves in troubled and dangerous times with more prudence and good discretion than this celebrated statesman and judge.

He received his first rudiments of learning at home, and at a small village school in the neighbourhood of his father's house; but when still very young he was sent to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Here he made great progress in all branches of useful knowledge, and then travelled over France, making some stay in Paris, in order, as an old chronicler remarks, "to give the last polish to his education."

Either this last polish or his natural gifts enabled him to turn his speeches with singular aptitude and felicity. Though resolute in proposing and carrying out any measure he deemed advisable, he spoke with so much prudence and tact, that he ever succeeded in retaining the good will even of his opponents.

This is all the more remarkable, for never, perhaps, did party feeling run so high, never was party animosity more bitter, both with regard to politics and also on religious subjects, than during this period, when England was convulsed by the tremendous changes that were taking place in the Church, and by the savage persecutions that had been endured and inflicted both by Protestants and by Roman Catholics.

Alas! that men, while calling themselves Christians, should so distort and make of none effect the first principles of our Divine Teacher!

When Bacon returned from Paris he settled in Gray's Inn, and applied himself with such assiduity to the study of the law, that he speedily became of note amongst the learned in that profession. His profound knowledge of many difficult points of law enabled him to be useful not only to the Government but also to the King (Henry VIII.), insomuch that, on the dissolution of the Monastery of Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk, King Henry conferred upon him several manors in that county.

Two years afterwards he was promoted to the office of Attorney of Wards, an appointment of both honour and profit.

Edward VI. confirmed him in this post, and in the last year of that King's reign Bacon was elected treasurer of Gray's Inn.

His great moderation and his consummate prudence preserved him safely during the dangerous reign of Queen Mary, although he was well known to be a staunch Protestant.

No sooner did Elizabeth come to the throne, however, than he was knighted, and the Great Seals of England having been taken from Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, they were delivered to Sir Nicholas Bacon in November, 1558, with the title of Lord Keeper.

It is much to the credit of Sir Nicholas that he himself introduced a Bill into Parliament for the purpose of defining and settling the position of Lord Keeper; although, had he chosen to be silent, and to procure for himself the additional title of Lord Chancellor, he might have obtained almost unlimited power.

But his motto was, and ever had been, "_Mediocra firma_." He was content to be safe, and did not desire greatness.

Unlike many celebrated men, he was unaffectedly modest, and devoid of self-seeking, so that while it was said of some other great personages that they seemed wiser than they were, the common voice of the nation agreed in this, that Sir Nicholas Bacon was even wiser than he seemed.

To the Queen he was indeed a most valuable minister, and a most trusty counsellor, for not only was he as a statesman remarkable for a clear head, and wise, farseeing sagacity, but he had marvellous skill in balancing factions, and it was thought he taught the Queen this same secret, the more important to Elizabeth, for being, as Her Majesty was, the last of her family, she was without those supports that are ordinarily incidental to Princes.

In Chancery, also, Bacon much distinguished himself by the very moderate use he made of power, and by the great respect he ever showed for the Common Law. But better than all, in an age of bigotry, when religious differences aroused in men every violent and cruel passion, Bacon showed that though his own religious opinions were strong, he could speak and act on that, as on all other subjects, with moderation and with strict equity.

The main business of the session of January, 1559, was the settlement of religious observances, and no man had a greater share in this momentous and difficult question than the Lord Keeper.

The speeches he made at this period are described by many contemporary writers as "most eloquent, solid, and excellent speeches;" and at this day we can perceive that they were, as another old chronicler observes, "models of eloquence, profound wisdom, and conciliatory discretion."

Few men have left behind them so delightful a character as this famous statesman and lawyer.

Powerful and wise in public life, in his home he was the tender father, the affectionate relative, the indulgent and unostentatious friend.

Though endowed with a keen appreciation of art, and gifted with a fine and graceful taste, as appeared by his house and gardens at Gorhambury, yet he never permitted himself to indulge in an undue or lavish expenditure. So simple and modest was he in this respect, that, when the Queen came to visit him at Redgrave, Her Majesty said she found the house too small for so great a man.

"Nay, madam," said the Chancellor, "but it is your Majesty who has made me too great for my house."

Yet, with his usual graceful tact and ready acquiescence in the wishes of his Royal Mistress, he immediately built two small wings to his house.

His health began to fail during the later years of his life, and he became distressingly corpulent; but he was as diligent in his work, and his temper remained as kind, and his wit as bright as ever.

After having held the Great Seal more than twenty years, this able statesman and faithful counsellor was suddenly removed from this life by the following accident:

He was under the hands of his barber, and the weather being rather sultry, although February, Sir Nicholas, who suffered much from heat by reason of his great size, caused the window before him to be opened. He presently fell asleep, but after a time, a current of cold air blowing upon him, he awoke shivering and feeling very ill.

"Why," said he to his servant, "did you suffer me to sleep thus exposed?"

The man replied that he durst not venture to disturb him.

"Then," said the Lord Keeper, "by your civility I lose my life." And so indeed it proved. He was removed immediately to his bed-chamber, and was tended with loving care, but he expired a very few days after being taken ill.

Sir Nicholas was twice married. By his first wife, Jane, daughter of William Fernley, he had three sons, who died young, and three daughters.

By his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, a woman distinguished alike for her beauty, her piety, and her learning, he had two sons, of whom the youngest, Francis, became so celebrated as Chancellor, philosopher, and writer; a man whose exceptionally brilliant gifts have thrown comparatively into the shade the far more elevated character of his father.

Happy would it have been for the son, if, with his father's talents, he had inherited his father's unswerving integrity and noble sense of honour.

Far happier would have been the closing years of Lord Bacon's life had he, like his father, Sir Nicholas, dealt righteously with all men.

SIR WILLIAM GASCOIGNE.

It is not unusual to find amongst ancient families that the same Christian name is retained from generation to generation, constantly descending for centuries in unbroken succession.

Sometimes this name is preserved in memory of a distinguished ancestor. Sometimes from respect to some prince or powerful patron who had conferred honour or lands upon the family.

Many have supposed that the name of William came to this country at the time of the Norman Conquest. It has been ascertained, however, that long before that date it was in common use in Saxon families, especially amongst those who inhabited the Northern Counties.

This name William is a German word, and, according to Martin Luther, of compound meaning.

_Helm_, signifying "defence;" and _Kenhelm_, "Defence of kindred."

_Willy_, _Villi_, or _Billi_ with the Germans, like _Poly_ amongst the Greeks, before several names indicates "many," consequently _Wilhelm_, now softened into _William_, means "Much defence" or "Defence of many."

Not only did the Normans, who had settled here when their Duke became King of England, call their sons after their victorious sovereign, but many of the old lords of the soil, who, wearied with Harold's tyranny, had gladly welcomed the advent of the foreign prince, gave their children the name now so much in vogue. In addition to this compliment to their new King, some of the Saxon Thanes and great landed proprietors moulded their rougher Northern surnames into courtly Norman terminations.

Thus Gaskin, an old West Riding family, Normanised itself into Gascoigne.

As time went on, this Royal name of William was regularly transmitted from father to son amongst those families who depended upon the Conqueror or his line, or who had received gifts of offices, lands, seignories, or privileges, until in a few years it became so common amongst those of high rank, that at a certain festival given at the Court of King Henry II., when Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitz-Hamon, two especial officers, commanded that none "but those of the name of William should dine in the Great Chamber with them," they were accompanied by a hundred and twenty Williams, all knights.

Sir William Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1401, the second year of the reign of King Henry IV., was the eighth Sir William in lineal descent, and was succeeded, as we learn from Dugdale and Fuller, by seven more Sir Williams, all knights.

The Chief Justice was born in 1350, _temp._ Edward III., at Gawthorp, in the parish of Harwood, between Leeds and Knaresborough.

Sir William was the eldest of five brothers. He married twice: first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Alexander Mowbray, and by her had an only son, Sir William Gascoigne, of Gawthorp, a brave commander in the wars under King Henry V. His descendant, the last Sir William of this branch, married Beatrice, daughter of Sir Richard Tempest, and had four sons, all of whom died young, and one daughter, Margaret, his sole heir, in whom the Gascoignes of this line terminated. This daughter married, in 1552, Thomas Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, and brought great estates into that family. Thomas Wentworth was Sheriff for Yorkshire in the twenty-fourth year of Queen Elizabeth, and had, besides four daughters, an only son, who became afterwards Sir William Wentworth, and was the father of Thomas, first Earl of Strafford.

The Chief Justice married, secondly, Joan, daughter of Sir William Pickering, and widow of Sir Ralph Graystock, Baron of the Exchequer. By this marriage Sir William had also an only son, James Gascoigne, settled at Cardington, in Bedfordshire. A descendant of this James Gascoigne, the inheritrix of Cardington, married her distant cousin William, a younger son of the Gascoignes of Gawthorp.

This William Gascoigne was Sheriff for Bedfordshire in 1506, _temp._ King Henry VII., and was Sheriff for Buckinghamshire in the fifth year of King Henry VIII. He was subsequently knighted by Henry VIII., and became Comptroller of the Household to Cardinal Wolsey; for the great Cardinal in many respects affected Royal state, and succeeded in having the chief offices of his household held by nobles, or by men of gentle birth. This branch of the Gascoignes also terminated in a daughter, Dorothy, who married Sir Jarrett Harvye; thus the direct descendants of the famous Chief Justice became merged in other families. Of collateral descendants, however, there are many; Nicholas Gascoigne of Lavingcroft, Sir William's next brother, having left a numerous family of sons and daughters, who married amongst the Percys, Latimers, Vavasours, etc.

From the eldest son of this Nicholas descended a somewhat celebrated man, Richard Gascoigne, who was not only a learned antiquary and collector, but who has done good service to the history of this country by having brought before the public in 1638 Mr. Dugdale, whose writings have given much interesting and important information.