soon after fatally explained. Although powerfully attracted by the elegance and gayety of Villiers, yet James had been so harassed by complaints of favouritism, that he would not bestow any appointment upon him, until solicited by the queen and some of the gravest of his councillors. In 1613 Villiers was taken into the king's household, and rose rapidly to the highest honours. He was nominated cupbearer, received several lucrative appointments; the successive honours of knighthood, of a barony, an earldom, a marquisate, and was finally created Duke of Buckingham.
From the paternal character of Bacon's protection of the new favourite, it is probable that he had early sought his assistance and advice; as a friendship was formed between them, which continued with scarcely any interruption till the death, and, indeed, after the death of Bacon:[1] a friendship which was always marked by a series of the wisest and best counsels, and was never checked by the increased power and elevation of Villiers.
This intimacy between an experienced statesman and a rising favourite was naturally looked upon with some jealousy, but it ought to have been remembered that there was never any intimacy between Bacon and Somerset. In the whole of his voluminous correspondence, there is not one letter of solicitation or compliment to that powerful favourite, or any vain attempt to divert him from his own gratifications to the advancement of the public good; but in Villiers he thought he saw a better nature, capable of such culture, as to be fruitful in good works. Whatever the motives were in which this union originated, the records extant of the spirit by which it was cemented are honourable to both. In the courtesy and docility of Villiers, Bacon did not foresee the rapacity that was to end in his own disgrace, and in the violent death of the favourite.
About this period, Sir George Villiers, personally and by letter, importuned his friend to communicate his sentiments respecting the conduct which, thus favoured by the king, it would be proper for him to observe; and, considering these requests as commands, Bacon wrote a letter of advice to Villiers, such as is not usually given in courts, but of a strain equally free and friendly calculated to make the person to whom it was addressed both good and great, and equally honourable to the giver and the receiver: advice which contributed not a little to his prosperity in life. It is an essay on the following subjects:
1. Matters that concern religion, and the church and churchmen.
2. Matters concerning justice, and the laws and the professors thereof.
3. Councillors, and the council table, and the offices and officers of the kingdom.
4. Foreign negotiations and embassies.
5. Peace and war, both foreign and civil, and in that the navy and forts, and what belongs to them.
6. Trade at home and abroad.
7. Colonies, or foreign plantations.
8. The court and curiality.
Each of these subjects he explains, with a minuteness scarcely to be conceived, except by the admirers of his works, who well know his extensive and minute survey of every subject to which he directed his attention.
In the beginning of the year 1613, Sir Thomas Overbury was poisoned in the Tower by one Weston, of which crime he was convicted, received sentence of death, and was executed. In the progress of the trial suspicions having been excited against the Earl and Countess of Somerset, as having been deeply concerned in this barbarous act; their injudicious friends, by endeavouring to circulate a report that these suspicions were but an artifice to ruin that nobleman, the King commanded the attorney-general to prosecute in the Star Chamber Mr. Lumsden, a gentleman of good family in Scotland, Sir John Hollis, afterwards Earl of Clare, and Sir John Wentworth, who were convicted and severely punished. The speech of Bacon upon this trial is fortunately preserved.
Shortly after this investigation, so many circumstances transpired, all tending to implicate the Earl and Countess of Somerset, and so great an excitement prevailed through the whole country, that the king determined to bring these great offenders to trial; a resolution which he could not have formed without the most painful struggle between his duty to the public and his anxiety to protect his fallen favourite. His sense of duty as the dispenser of justice prevailed. Previous to the trial, which took place May, 1616, the same course of private consultation with the judges was pursued, and the king caused it to be privately intimated to Somerset, that it would be his own fault if favour was not extended to him: favour which was encouraged by Bacon, in a letter to the king, in which he says, "The great downfall of so great persons carrieth in itself a heavy judgment, and a kind of civil death, although their lives should not be taken. All which may satisfy honour for sparing their lives."
In his speech upon the trial, Bacon gave a clear and circumstantial account of the whole conspiracy against Overbury, describing the various practices against his life; but though he fully and fairly executed his duty as attorney-general, it was without malice or harshness, availing him self of an opportunity, of which he never lost sight, to recommend mercy; and though the friends of the new favourite were supposed to have
- ↑ See Bacon's will.
