A

CHARGE

DELIVERED BY

SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT,

THE KING'S SOLICITOR-GENERAL,

AT THE

ARRAIGNMENT OF THE LORD SANQUHAR,

IN THE KING'S BENCH AT WESTMINSTER.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Lord Sanquhar, a Scotch nobleman, having, in private revenge, suborned Robert Carlile to murder John Turner, master of fence, thought, by his greatness, to have born it out; but the King, respecting nothing so much as justice, would not suffer nobility to be a shelter for villainy; but, according to law, on the 29th of June, 1612, the said Lord Sanquhar, having been arraigned and condemned, by the name of Robert Creighton, Esq. was before Westminster-hall Gate executed, where he died very penitent. At whose arraignment my Lord Bacon, then Solicitor-General to King James, made this speech following:

In this cause of life and death, the jury's part is in effect discharged; for after a frank and formal confession, their labour is at an end: so that what hath been said by Mr. Attorney, or shall be said by myself, is rather convenient than necessary.

My lord Sanquhar, your fault is great, and cannot be extenuated, and it need not be aggravated; and if it needed, you have made so full an anatomy of it out of your own feeling, as it cannot be matched by myself, or any man else, out of conceit; so as that part of aggravation I leave. Nay, more, this Christian and penitent course of yours draws me thus far, that I will

agree, in some sort extenuates it: for certainly, as even in extreme evils there are degrees; so this particular of your offence is such, as though it be foul spilling of blood, yet there are more foul: for if you had sought to take away a man's life for his vineyard, as Ahab did; or for envy, as Cain did; or to possess his bed, as David did; surely the murder had been more odious.

Your temptation was revenge, which the more natural it is to man, the more have laws both divine and human sought to repress it; Mihi vindicta. But in one thing you and I shall never agree, that generous spirits, you say, are hard to forgive: no, contrariwise, generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive;

Corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni.

But howsoever murders may arise from several motives, less or more odious, yet the law both of God and man involves them in one degree, and therefore you may read that in Joab's case, which was a murder upon revenge, and matcheth with your case; he for a dear brother, and you for a dear part of your own body; yet there was a severe charge given, it should not be unpunished.

And certainly the circumstance of time is heavy upon you: it is now five years since this unfortunate man Turner, be it upon accident, or be it upon despite, gave the provocation, which was the seed of your malice. All passions are suaged with time: love, hatred, grief; all fire itself burns out with time, if no new fuel be put to it. Therefore for you to have been in the gall of bitterness so long, and to have been in a restless chace of this blood so many years, is a strange example; and I must tell you plainly, that I conceive you have sucked those affections of dwelling in malice, rather out of Italy and outlandish manners, where you have conversed, than out of any part of this island, England or Scotland.

But that which is fittest for me to spend time in, the matter being confessed, is to set forth and magnify to the hearers the justice of this day; first of God, and then of the King.

My lord, you have friends and entertainments in foreign parts; it had been an easy thing for you to set Carlile, or some other bloodhound on work, when your person had been beyond the seas; and so this news might have come to you in a packet, and you might have looked on how the storm would pass: but God bereaved you of this foresight, and closed you here under the hand of a King, that though abundant in clemency, yet is no less zealous of justice.

Again, when you came in at Lambeth, you might have persisted in the denial of the procurement of the fact; Carlile, a resolute man, might perhaps have cleared you, for they that are resolute in mischief, are commonly obstinate in concealing the procurers, and so nothing should have been against you but presumption. But then also God, to take away all obstruction of justice, gave you the grace, which ought indeed to be more true comfort to you, than any device whereby you might have escaped, to make a clear and plain confession.

Other impediments there were, not a few, which might have been an interruption to this day's justice, had not God in his providence removed them.

But, now that I have given God the honour, let me give it likewise where it is next due, which is, to the King our sovereign.

This murder was no sooner committed, and brought to his Majesty's ears, but his just indignation, wherewith he first was moved, cast itself into a great deal of care and providence to have justice done. First came forth his proclamation, somewhat of a rare form, and devised, and in effect dictated by his Majesty himself; and by that he did prosecute the offenders, as it were with the breath and blast of his mouth. Then did his Majesty stretch forth his long arms, for Kings have long arms when they will extend them, one of them to the sea, where he took hold of Grey

shipped for Sweden, who gave the first light of testimony; the other arm to Scotland, and took hold of Carlile, ere he was warm in his house, and brought him the length of his kingdom under such safe watch and custody, as he could have no means to escape, no nor to mischief himself, no nor learn any lessons to stand mute; in which cases, perhaps, this day's justice might have received a stop. So that I may conclude his Majesty hath shewed himself God's true lieutenant, and that he is no respecter of persons; but the English, Scotish, nobleman, fencer, are to him alike in respect of justice.

Nay, I must say farther, that his Majesty hath had, in this, a kind of prophetical spirit; for what time Carlile and Grey, and you, my lord, yourself, were fled no man knew whither, to the four winds, the King ever spake in a confident and undertaking manner, that wheresoever the offenders were in Europe, he would produce them forth to justice; of which noble word God hath made him master.

Lastly, I will conclude towards you, my lord, that though your offence hath been great, yet your confession hath been free, and your behaviour and speech full of discretion; and this shews, that though you could not resist the tempter, yet you bear a Christian and generous mind, answerable to the noble family of which you are descended. This I commend unto you, and take it to be an assured token of God's mercy and favour, in respect whereof all worldly things are but trash; and so it is fit for you, as your state now is, to account them. And this is all I will say for the present.

[Note, The reader, for his fuller information in this story of the lord Sanquhar, is desired to peruse the case in the ninth book of the lord Coke's Reports; at the end of which the whole series of the murder and trial is exactly related.]

THE

CHARGE

OF

SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT,

THE KING'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL,

TOUCHING

DUELS.

Upon an Information in the Star-Chamber against Priest and Wright.

With the DECREE of the Star-Chamber in the same Cause.

My Lords,

I THOUGHT it fit for my place, and for these times, to bring to hearing before your lordships some cause touching private duels, to see if this court can do any good to tame and reclaim that evil which seems unbridled. And I could have wished that I had met with some greater persons, as a subject for your censure, both because it had been more worthy of this presence, and also the better to have shewed the resolution myself hath to proceed without respect of persons in this business: but finding this cause on foot in my predecessor's time, and published and ready for hearing, I thought to lose no time in a mischief that groweth every day: and besides, it passes not amiss sometimes in government, that the greater sort be admonished by an example made in the meaner, and the dog to be beaten before the lion. Nay, I should think, my lords, that men of birth and quality will leave the practice when it begins to be vilified, and come so low as to barber-surgeons and butchers, and such base mechanical persons.

And for the greatness of this presence, in which I take much comfort, both as I consider it in itself, and much more in respect it is by his Majesty's direction, I will supply the meanness of the particular cause, by