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him with regard to the former, is that he employed the laws, which he was engaged in reducing and re-compiling, to the vilest purposes of tyranny, by appearing as counsel for the prosecution of Oliver St. John, who maintained that the King had no right to levy benevolences. As Bacon acted in this matter in a purely official capacity, it is scarcely necessary to inquire whether the charge against St. John was justified or not, and whether his conduct was so ‘manly and constitutional’ as Macaulay represents it. The circumstances were these. In June, 1614, the Parliament, to which Bacon had been returned by three constituencies, Cambridge University, Ipswich, and St. Alban’s, was dissolved without voting any supplies. As a means of meeting the King’s wants, it was proposed that a voluntary contribution should be raised, to which all who would should give as they were disposed. No compulsion was to be employed and no tax levied, but it was to be a benevolence in the strict sense of the word. On the 11th of October, Oliver St. John, a gentleman of Marlborough (not the St. John of the Long Parliament), addressed a letter to the Mayor of that town, denouncing this kind of benevolence as contrary to law, reason, and religion, and charging the King with a violation of his coronation oath. For this he was tried on the 15th of April, 1615, in the Star-Chamber. The judges were unanimous, Coke leading the way, in supporting the legality of the benevolence, and St. John was condemned to a fine of 5000l., and to be imprisoned during the King’s pleasure. In this Bacon acted simply by the direction of the Council, and even if he recommended the prosecution, of which there is no evidence, he would have been fortified by the unanimous opinion of the judges.

Peacham’s case was of a different nature, and the charge against Bacon founded upon it is even more serious. There were difficulties both of fact and law to be met, and Bacon, according to Macaulay, ‘was employed to settle the question of law by tampering with the judges, and the question of fact by torturing the prisoner.’ Edmund Peacham, a Somersetshire clergyman, having brought libellous accusations against