Page:Opus majus (IA b24975655 0001).pdf/28

XXii INTRODUCTION.

temporary writer. Matthew Paris relates, under the year 1233, that Henry [IZ conveked the counts and barons of the kingdom to a council at Oxford. Their animosity against Pierre des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, the king’s chicf adviser, who had surrounded his person with a body-guard of Poitevins and filled England with these foreigners, led them to refuse the summons. While the king was debating what measures to take against the recalcitrant barons,a Dominican preacher, Robert Bacon by name, told him frankly that there would be no hope of permanent peace in the kingdom se leng as the Bishop of Winchester and his son, er kinsman, Pcter of Rievaulx, rctained power. Robert Bacon's opinion was echoed by others, and the king was induced to listen to it patiently. ‘Then a certain clerk who was present at the Court, Roger Bacon by name, a man of mirthful speech, said with pleasant yet pointed wit,“ My lord king, what is that which is most hurtful and fearful to those that sail across the sea?” “ ‘Those know it,” the king replied, “who have much experience of the waters.” “ My lord.” said the clerk, “ I will tell you; stones and recks”; meaning thereby Pierre des Roches. It has been thought that the date of the dialogue was too carly to refer to the Roger Bacon with whom we are here concerned. But since he might well be more than twenty years old at the time, the doubt seems hardly founded.

What is certain from Bacon’s own statement is that his family was one of some wealth, since he himself had been able to spend much money on experimental research. It appears also that this family had taken the royal side through- out the disputes between Henry and his barons, and had suffered pecuniary less and exile for their loyalty. He tells Pope Clement that, being in sore distress for the money necessary for the transcription and conveyance of his MSS., ‘T wrote to my brother, a rich man in my country. But he, belonging as he did to the king’s party, was in exile with my mother, brethers, and the whole family. Ruined and reduced to utter poverty, he was unable to help me, and up to the present day he has sent me no reply.” (Op. Teré. cap. 3}

The forty years of study, of which he speaks in 1267, may