danger which every one could foresee. To look forward imaginatively to the value of the union required either the mind of a Bacon, or one which, like that of James, was brought to consider the question from a special point of view. Bacon's great speech, delivered on 17 Feb. 1607, seems to indicate that in the high view which he took of the subject he stood alone, and he found himself obliged to refer to the natural belief that he spoke to please the king rather than to satisfy his conscience. 'If any man,' he said, 'shall think that I have sung placebo for mine own particular, I would have him know that I am not so unseen in the world but that I discern it were much alike for my private fortune to rest a placebo in this business. But I have spoke out of the fountain of my heart. Credidi, propter quod locutus sum — I believed, therefore I spake. So as my duty is performed.' There is every reason to suppose that Bacon spoke truly on the 17th. From a letter written on the 22nd we learn that he had received the promise of the solicitor-generalship, for which he had long been hoping. All through the session he struggled in the cause of the union. Long before parliament was prorogued on 4 July, however, it was evident that, as far as the commons were concerned, it was hopeless to expect to gain their consent to the king's proposals. On 25 June Bacon became solicitor-general. The post was not indeed as important as it is now, but it gave a definite place in the service of the crown with the hope of rising higher, as well as an income of about 1,000l. a year, equivalent to one of about 4,000l. at the present day.
For the time being Bacon acquired no political influence. Salisbury had possession of the king's ear, and Bacon was not likely to be allowed to reach it. It is, therefore, all the more interesting to know something of his political views at a time when they were not warped by the consciousness of the possession of power. This we are enabled to do through a paper, entitled 'A View of the Differences in question betwixt the King's Bench and the Council in the Marches,' which was written not later than June 1606, and therefore at least a year before Bacon secured his first important advancement.
The paper refers to a quarrel which had sprung up between the president and council of Wales and the court of King's Bench, which claimed a right to interfere with the jurisdiction of the former body over the four English border counties. In the course of this quarrel the question was mooted whether the king could give jurisdiction without the authority of an act of parliament. In arguing in the affirmative, Bacon fell back on the assertion 'that the king holdeth not his prerogatives of this kind mediately from the law, but immediately from God, as he holdeth his crown; and though other prerogatives by which he claimeth any matter of revenue, or other right pleadable in his ordinary courts of justice, may be there disputed, yet his sovereign power, which no judge can censure, is not of that nature; and therefore whatsoever partaketh or dependeth thereon, being matter of government and not of law, must be left to his managing by his council of state. . . . God forbid also, upon pretence of liberties or laws, government should have any head but the king. For then, as the hopes of Home, by making their seat the only oracle of God's religion, advanced themselves first above religion, and then above God; so we may fear what may in time become of our laws, when those reverend fathers, in whose breasts they are safe, shall leave them toothers, perchance of more ambition and less faith.'
From these words, and still more from the part of the paper headed 'The Reasons of Convenience or Inconvenience,' it is evident from what quarter Bacon apprehended danger. The lawyers struggling for fees and importance, the members of the House of Commons as yet with no experience in the conduct of national politics, and with no definite leadership, would put an end to all intelligent guidance of the state. 'All who know those parts,' he writes, 'must acknowledge that the power of the gentry is the chief fear and danger of the good subject there; and even this is the sum of all their heinous complaints against the president and council, that for incontinency, striking, and every disorder, they are forthwith molested with process and fines.' Further, if the jurisdiction were taken away, those who sought for justice would be put to the expense of seeking it at Westminster. In order that justice might be done, the king's authority must be maintained. . Bacon evidently thought that it was not to be had from the rule of an assembly in which the country gentlemen were predominant. So opposed was this view to the course which national progress took, that it is difficult for us now to put ourselves in Bacon's position or to realise the earnestness with which he threw himself into the cause of the supremacy of the monarchy as a means of carrying out what would now be considered as radical reforms in spite of a conservative and interested opposition.
Bacon's position was, in fact, not unlike that of Burke in the eighteenth century. Both these great men were anxious to effect important improvements, and both of them,
