In introducing the first order issued by the Commissioners for the Treasury (24th July, 1618),' I ought to have mentioned how it came that the Treasury was then in commission.

On the 12th of July, 1618, some complaint had been made against the Earl of Suffolk, then Lord Treasurer, (of what nature does not clearly appear) for misconduct in his office. On the 16th he was directly accused by a former servant of illegal exaction. On the 19th he was deprived of his staff-the sub-treasurer, Sir John Bingley, being at the same time sent to prison.1

The private history of such a transaction,-that is, the private conjecture as to its history made by the quidnunes of the time,is easy to imagine. Buckingham could not allow any high office in the State to be held by the head of a rival faction: it was necessary that Suffolk should be deposed: it was easy to find a pretext: a pretext was found: and he was deposed accordingly. If the report of news-writers be admitted as evidence, I dare say it would be easy to produce evidence of all this: for this is no doubt what people

1 Vol. V. p. 317.

3 Thesaurarius insimulatur de rebus Fisci male curatis. Camden. Annalium Apparatus.

3 Humfreis, ab Epistolis Vicecomitis Wallingforliæ, scriniis excussis in custodiam datur. Thesaurarium et alios repetundarum accusat. Ib., Ibid.

4 Comes Suffolcia, Angliæ Thesaurarius, bacillo adempto abdicatur, repetundarum accusatus. . et Jo. Bingley, ejus subminister, in custodiam committitur. Ib.

VOL. VII.

B

..ould say, and it is the business of news-writers to report what is said. But as it does not appear that any such complaint was made by Suffolk himself; as it does appear that between himself and his wife there had been corruption-enough going on to make his removal from the office both juist and expedient; and as I find no evidence worth mentioning that Buckingham took any part in the matter; I am content for my own part to believe that Suffolk was dismissed from his place because he had been detected in practices which proved that he was unfit to hold it any longer; and that he acquiesced because he had no justification to offer. The Commissioners who were appointed to discharge the duties of his office were also required to examine the charges which had been brought against him; and while their report was expected, nothing more was done. On the 8th of November, as we learn again from Camden, there was a consultation about them. And the result will best appear from a letter addressed by Buckingham himself to the Earl, -one recently found among the Fortescue Papers and printed by Mr. Gardiner for the Camden Society :

THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM TO THE EARL OF SUFFOLK.2

The care I have to acquit myself according to the profession of my friendship toward your Lp. makes me acquaint you at this time with something that fell out concerning you in the time of his M's. last being at Whitehall.3 Some two days before his remove from thence, the Lords and other Commissioners for enquiry touching the misspending of his treasure repaired to his M. and gave him an account of all their labours, and amongst the rest what they had found against your Lp. and your wife, and in conclusion did all upon their knees beseech his M. to be pleased that both your Lp. and your wife together with Sir John Bingley might be called to the Star-chamber, there to be censured for your misdemeanours in your office. The reasons for which they moved his M. to yield to this order were two: first, for his M's. own honour who could not otherwise be cleared except by such a public and legal course in regard of his taking the staff from you, and for stopping the mouths of those that reported that your Lp's. office was taken from you not upon just grounds but only by the partiality of a Court faction. The other reason was that by this legal and public proceeding there might an example be made for securing his M. and his posterity from being ill-served by any that shall exercise that place hereafter. But though his M. (as himself told me soon after) disputed with them that it had been for his M. honour to grant you first a hearing upon all the points that you are to be

1 Consultatur de corruptelis nuperi Thesaurarii et aliorum. Ib.

2 Fortescue Papers, p. 77. Draft. Docketed "My Lord to the E. of Suffolk, 11 Jan. 1618."

3 He left London for Theobald's on the 8th of January. See Nichols's Progresses.

charged with before a certain number of Lords before the time that you should be brought to any public trial, his M. alleging that many things might appear fouler to them than peradventure they would prove when you should be heard to answer for yourself, and that then upon your answer his M. might best discern whether your offences were of so high a nature or not as to make you to be brought to a public trial, yet they all in one voice insisted in their former suit, affirming that to give you first a more private hearing was against all custom in such cases, and that you could object no material thing against that that was to be laid to your charge, because you were accused of nothing that was not proved by oath of divers witnesses, and altogether undeniable. So as though his M. as every man knows be merciful in his own nature, yet could he not resist this their suit, specially they adding to the former reasons that the burden would be upon them as upon partial surmisers and promoters, if the verity of this cause were not once publicly cleared, leaving it then to his M's. mercy to pardon and spare as should please him.

I confess, my Lord, I wish I could acquaint you with better news, but the sooner you be informed of the truth you may the better prepare you for it, and bethink you what you would have his M. moved in, and how far; assuring you that I shall ever faithfully represent to his M. what your Lp. shall be pleased to employ me in.

As to the expiring of their commission, it is now expired for so much as may have reference to your Lp., but in some other things which do very much import his M. service they do yet go on. This my private advertisement to your Lp. I wish may be kept secret to yourself, for I assure you upon mine honour never one of my fellow Councillors knows of this letter, nor of my acquainting your Lp. privately any ways. of this purpose. And so I rest,

G. B.

Of this matter we shall hear a great deal more as we proceed.

2.

But there was another case with which the Council had been long occupied, though it has not yet appeared in the correspondence, and of which it will be necessary now to give some account. Sir Thomas Lake's daughter was married to Lord Roos, grandson of the Earl of Exeter. An arrangement about the conveyance of property, said to have been unfairly extorted by the Lakes, and in which the Earl, whose consent was necessary, refused to join, led to a quarrel between the families. To force Lord Roos's consent, he was threatened with scandalous accusations; and when he put himself personally out of reach by going over to Italy, the quarrel was transferred to his kindred. The Countess of Exeter, his grandfather's second wife, was accused of an incestuous connexion with

him, and of a design to poison Lady Roos. The King tried to contrive some course which would have made it unnecessary to publish the scandal by bringing the case into Court; but tried in vain. As early as January 1617-8 it was referred to the Councilboard. Before the end of March it was transferred to the Star Chamber, where it seems that both parties put in bills of complaint; the Lakes for the wrong imputed, the Exeters for the wrongful imputation; and the cause was so complicated-the documents put in filling, it is said, 17,000 sheets of paper1-that it could not be concluded by the end of the year. The final hearing was now set down for the three Star Chamber days next after Candlemas: the Judges and lawyers were ordered " to cut off all impertinent matter and contract it within some reasonable compass; "2 and the King meant to hear it himself.

All this, together with the prosecution of the Dutch merchants for exportation of gold, and the negotiation with the Commissioners from Holland about East Indian matters, promised a busy term; though the very press of business which occupied Bacon's time makes his correspondence comparatively barren.s

On the 12th of January of this year occurred the great fire at Whitehall, when the Banqueting House was burnt down: which is worth mentioning, partly to correct an error in a popular book which represents the Lord Chancellor as present on the occasion,4— a misprint or misreading for Lord Chamberlain,-but chiefly as bearing upon the disappearance of official papers. When evidence which formed the justification of a government-proceeding is no longer to be found, people are apt to suspect that the papers have been removed because they would not bear examination. But there are many ways in which such disappearance may be accounted for; and one is an accident like this. "One of the greatest losses spoken of," says Chamberlain, "is the burning of all or most of the writings or papers belonging to the offices of the Signet, Privy Seal, and Council Chamber, which were under it,"-that is under the Banqueting House. Now the papers belonging to the Council office at this time may very likely have included many of the examinations connected with the case of Sir Walter Ralegh; and this may be the real reason why so few of them are now forthcoming.

1 W. Smithe to Carleton, 2 Dec. 1618. S. P.

2 Chamberlain to Carleton, 23 Jan, 1618-9. S. P.

3 It was at this time, as we learn from Chamberlain, that he published some new orders for his court, but I do not know that any existing set of orders for the government of Chancery can be identified with them.

4 Court and Times of James I.' vol. ii. p. 124.

3.

Of the few letters belonging to this period, the first (addressed to Lady Clifford) relates to some affair which is not explained. But 1 find in the Calendar of State Papers (14 March, 1617) notice of an "award between the Earl of Cumberland and the Earl and Countess of Dorset, and Henry Lord Clifford, concerning the estating of divers lands, etc., Cos York and Westmoreland, and payment of money;" and it is not unlikely that some remains of that question had to be dealt with by the Court of Chancery. Lady Clifford, wife of Henry Lord Clifford, was the daughter of Bacon's cousin Robert Earl of Salisbury; whose assistance to him "in the passages of his fortune," though not very strenuous, had no doubt been valuable enough to justify this expression of obligation in writing to his daughter.

TO THE LADY CLIFFORD.1

My good Lady and cousin,

I shall not be wanting in anything, that may express my good affection and wishes towards your Ladyship being so near unto me, and the daughter of a father to whom I was in the passages of my fortune much obliged. So with my loving commendations, in the midst of business, I rest

Your affectionate kinsman and assured friend,

York House, this 25th

of January, 1618.

FR. VERULAM, Canc.

Of Buckingham's letters in recommendation of suitors, I have said in the last volume what I had to say; and in one place I find that I have said a little too much. Unacquainted as I am with the rules of proceeding in the Court of Chancery and the reasons of them, I took the final arrangement of Dr. Steward's case,-a reference of the question in dispute to three indifferent persons chosen by the plaintiff and defendant,-to be not only a fair arrangement in itself but a kind of admission that the previous order of the Court had been too peremptory. I have been since informed, however, by one who understands Chancery business that this is not the true construction of the facts; that supposing Dr. Steward had any exception to take to the decree, and the Lord Chancellor had found that there was ground for a rehearing, he could not properly have proceeded in that way; and that the true inference from the

1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 102. Copy.