miscellaneous army under Count Mansfeldt, and strengthening and encouraging his continental allies with men and money.

Mansfeldt's army was to have aimed directly at the reconquest of the Palatinate. But between bad luck and bad management it proved a complete failure and did nothing. A result doubly unfortunate; for besides missing its object, it made the Commons more disinclined than before to trust the Government with means sufficient for a more successful attempt. And the effect was seen a

few months after in the next Parliament; when the first appeal of the new King for "such supply as the greatness of the work and variety of provision did require," in a war which he had earned their extravagant applause by helping them to bring about, met with a reception which plainly showed that the hot fit of their war-fever had already given place to the cold. The new House which met at Westminster in June 1625, though composed mostly of the same men and guided by the same leaders as the last, knew nothing about the Palatinate, and acknowledged no engagement to grant further supplies. "The promises and declarations of the last Parliament," they said, were in respect of a war." What war? "They knew yet of no war, nor of any enemy." What need then for more than two subsidies? Did not Queen Elizabeth, with less supplies "defend herself, consume Spain, assist the Low Countries, relieve France, preserve Ireland ?" "They diminished the King, who thought money could give him reputation. The hearts of his subjects were his greatest honour and reputation." And this was to be the demonstration of their hearts.

Now, in case of a really popular war-a war for an object upon which the mind of the people is seriously bent-it has always been usual in England for a disaster at the beginning to be followed by a more determined and vigorous effort to retrieve it. We are all very angry with those in whose hands the first attempt fails, and often very cruel and unjust to them. But we never think of resting there and accepting the defeat. Is it conceivable that the highcouraged leaders of the country-party in Charles's first Parliament would have regarded the loss of 10,000 men in an ill-conducted expedition as a reason for giving up the object of that expedition, if they really cared for it? Yet the offer of two subsidies at such a time, as being all that the King could want,-what could it mean but that they meant the enterprise to be abandoned? The motion, though it surprised the Government, caused no disappointment in the House. It was so well in accord with the general feeling that

Sir Robert Phelips, 30 June, 1625.

it was accepted without any opposition and with scarcely any debate: for when "divers courtiers," who had not expected that business to come on that day, arrived late, "though they were provided to have spoken and meant to have urged for a larger proportion, yet not knowing how the debate had passed, and seeing no likelihood of prevailing, they held their peace." If the House had insisted as a condition of granting money for, the war, that war should be forthwith declared; or that it should be conducted in some particular way, or directed to some particular end; and upon that condition had offered an adequate supply :-or if they had themselves undertaken to criticise the estimates and show that less would be enough; their course might be explained without supposing that they had ceased to care for the object of the war. But there is no trace in any of these debates of an attempt to criticise the plan of action, or to suggest a better, or to show that it need not cost so much. The Government estimates had been framed upon careful calculations of all the items that would be wanted and all that each would cost. The Commons knew what they were, and they had nothing better to oppose to them than vague stories of what had been done in old times by Plantagenets and Tudors; as if because the furniture of war cost less formerly than it did then, it could be obtained then for less than its cost. What the estimated cost was no member knew better than Sir Edward Coke, nor was any member more decided in his opinion that more than two subsidies could not now be wanted. And how did he make it out? The estimate (which he summed up himself and did not dispute) was 900,000l. Of this the last House had granted one-third; at the same time, if not engaging itself, at least intimating an intention which was meant to be relied and acted upon, to supply the rest when it was wanted. What the present House offered would amount to 140,000l. So that even "if we were engaged," said he (which we were not) we have performed it."2 The arithmetic is difficult; but the terms of the engagement were not the question. The question was, what to do. Even if the payment of 440,000l. had been the "performance" of an engagement to pay 900,000l., it was not enough to carry on the war with.

1 Commons' Debates in 1625, p. 33.

:

25 August, 1625. Commons' Debates, p. 84. The words of the report are, "Our country does not trust us to engage them but only by act of Parliament; and yet if we were engaged we have performed it. We gave the last Parliament 400,000. now two subsidies, besides the tonnage and poundage." The tonnage and poundage were not to the purpose; because (having been always reckoned as due) the estimated cost of the war was over and above it. The 400,0007. is perhaps a misreport for 300,0007. For I do not know how it is made out. But either way the amount granted falls far short of the sum required,-and I should say promised.

For whether it were right or wrong that it should be so,-whether the Plantagenets and Tudors would have managed better or not,-the fact was undeniable that money must be found, or the war for the recovery of the Palatinate could not go on; all the money at the disposal of the Government being already spent or pledged. And the coolness with which men like Sir Robert Phelips not only laid all the fault of failure upon the Government (which was natural and according to English precedent in all times), but prepared to accept the failure itself with all its consequences and let it rest there without an effort to retrieve it (which was quite contrary to English precedent in all times), proves to me that they had ceased to care for the result: and I think it is impossible to read the account of the debates at Westminster and Oxford either in the copious notes of them recently published by the Camden Society, or with Sir John Eliot's commentary as given by Mr. Forster from the Negotium Posterorum, without feeling that the country party had lost all anxiety for the re-conquest of the Palatinate and felt no very lively interest in the other issues of the war with Spain. They had come (I suspect) to look on it as Buckingham's war: and since his reputation depended upon its success, it may be that the leaders of the country party would have been better pleased with a defeat than a triumph. The short season of applause and adulation was over, and as Buckingham was entering upon a new lease of unbounded favour with the King, which carried with it unbounded power over the conduct of affairs, they had come to regard him as the public enemy, and were bracing themselves for another war on another field for another stake,-the war of the Commons against the Crown. Bacon's long-cherished hope that a foreign quarrel in a popular cause would bring the King and the people together and make them for a while at least forget their differences, had been in this case disappointed. If the occasion had come earlier, or if the beginnings had been more fortunate, the effect might perhaps have been different: and even now some brilliant military success might have revived the popularity of the cause. But it is not probable that the reconciliation could have been permanent. For the powers retained by the Crown and the powers acquired by the Commons had in truth become incompatible with each other, and could not have kept truce The Commons had become too under any searching difference. powerful to remain as they were. Being able to paralyse the action of Government, it was necessary that they should be able to control it. The inevitable struggle was now coming to the crisis. In this war they were altogether in earnest, and would accept no disaster as a defeat: nor was the struggle destined to end until the supreme

control of affairs was in effect transferred to those who had already the supreme command of the purse; and they had learned to exercise it, not directly by Committees of the whole House, but by a standing Committee of responsible advisers of the Crown-now called the Cabinet-selected nominally by the Crown but really by themselves, responsible to them, and removable at their pleasure. An arrangement which Coke himself could not have pretended to justify by any precedent from the times of Plantagenet or Tudor; but one under which the Government can always contrive to obtain from the nation as much money as the affairs of the nation require.

I See "The English Constitution. By Walter Bagehot." p. 11-15.

CHAPTER X.

A.D. MARCH 1624-APRIL 1626.

1.

ETAT. 64-66.

Ir must have been clear to Bacon by this time that the hopes of relief which had been held out to him after his fall by the King and Buckingham, however sincere and well meant, were not to be fulfilled. Nothing had occurred since to show him less worthy of provision for a studious life. No further notice had been taken of his case in either house of Parliament. The justice of his decrees in Chancery had in no instance been successfully impugned. He had abstained from all interference in public affairs. He had pursued his private studies with unabated diligence and vigour. And though the King's Exchequer was empty of money and his hands full of work which wanted it, there can be little doubt that such moderate supply as his case needed might easily have been provided; and that if his help and advice in the great affairs then on foot had been required in return, the money would have been very profitably invested. The、 language used towards him was still gracious and encouraging; but nothing came of it: a fact from which he could only infer that there was no sufficiently earnest intention behind. He moderated his hopes accordingly, and limited his petition to so much advance of his pension as might enable him to pay off his debts, and, so much forbearance in the exaction of his rent to the Crown as might leave him the means of living in the meantime,-favours which would not cost much;-together with a pardon of the Parliamentary sentence, which would cost nothing.

Meanwhile, as the literary services which he had offered to the King in return for the bounty which he had desired were not called for, he applied himself henceforward exclusively to his own work, in which he had lost neither faith nor zeal, though the troubles of want must have sadly interfered with its progress. Amid continual in