Page:The Advancement of Learning (Wright, 5th ed).pdf/41

his diocesan, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, was sent up to Lambeth to be tried before the High Commission, and sentenced to be deprived of his orders on the 19th of December, 1614. Before the sentence his house was searched, and a finished sermon was discovered, the contents of which were decided by the Council to be of a treasonable nature. It was thought, moreover, to indicate a state of disaffection in the part of the country to which Peacham belonged, and as he refused to criminate any accomplices, the Council resolved that he should be put to the torture. In this there is no evidence that Bacon had any hand whatever, further than that he, as Attorney General, was one of the Commission appointed by the Council to attend the examination of the prisoner. It is clear that by the common law the use of torture for extracting evidence was regarded as illegal, but it is equally clear that it was employed by the Council for discovery, and not for evidence; that is, not to make a prisoner criminate himself, but to get from him other information which it was desirable to obtain. Bad as we may think this to be, it is not Bacon who was to blame for it. There is proof in his own letters that he engaged in the proceeding with reluctance, and that the step was taken against his advice. How far he can be justified against the other charge, of tampering with the judges, depends upon a clear knowledge of what his interference really amounted to, and this is not easy to arrive at. As the torture had utterly failed to extort from Peacham any proof of the existence of a conspiracy, it became a question whether he himself could be proceeded against for treason. On this point of law the King was anxious to obtain the opinion ot the judges of the King’s Bench. It is not denied that the Crown had a right to consult the judges on points of this kind, but it does not appear to have been the custom to consult them separately, as was done in this case. There was no question with regard to Peacham’s authorship of the sermon, which was in his handwriting. The points for the judges’ consideration were, first, whether the sermon, had it been published, would have supported an indictment for

C 2