He therefore thinketh it too long and uncertain a delay, to keep the bench so long void from a chief justice. Secondly, although his majesty did use the councils advice in dealing with the chief justice upon his other misdemeanors; yet he would be loth to lessen his prerogative, in making the council judges, whether he should be turned out of his place or no, if the case should so require. Thirdly, for that my lord Coke hath sought means to kiss his majesty's hands, and withal to acquaint him with some things of great importance to his service; he holdeth it not fit to admit him to his presence, before these points be determined, because that would be a grant of his pardon before he had his trial. And if those things, wherewith he is to acquaint his majesty, be of such consequence, it would be dangerous and prejudicial to his majesty, to delay him too long. Notwithstanding, if you shall advise of any other reasons to the contrary, his majesty would have you, with all the speed you can, to send them unto him; and in the mean time to keep back his majesty's letter, which is herein sent unto you, from my lord Coke's knowledge, until you receive his majesty's further direction for your proceeding in his business. And so I rest, your ever assured friend at command, Theobald's, the 3d of October, 1616. GEORGE VILLIERS. To the Right Honourable Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney-General, and of his most honourable privy council. TO THE KING. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST excellent mAJESTY, WE have considered of the letters, which we received from your majesty, as well that written to us both, as that other written by my lord Villiers to me, the attorney, which I thought good to acquaint my lord chancellor withal, the better to give your majesty satisfaction. And we most humbly desire your majesty to think, that we are, and ever shall be, ready to perform and obey your majesty's directions; towards which the first degree is to understand them well. In answer therefore to both the said letters, as well concerning matter as concerning time, we shall in all humbleness offer to your majesty's high wisdom the considerations following: First, we did conceive, that after my lord Coke was sequestered from the table and his circuits *, when your majesty laid upon him your commandment for the expurging of his " Reports," and commanded also our service to look into them, and into other novelties introduced into the government, your majesty had in this your doing two principal ends : The one to see, if upon so fair an occasion he * On the 30th of June, 1616. Camdeni Annales Regis Jacobi I. p. 19; and Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, Vol. I. Lib. VI. p. 18. would make any expiation of his former faults: and also shew himself sensible of those things in his "Reports," which he could not but know were the likest to be offensive to your majesty. The other, to perform "de vero" this right to your crown and succession, and your people also; that those errors and novelties might not run on, and authorize by time, but might be taken away, whether he consented to it or no. But we did not conceive your majesty would have had him charged with those faults of his book, or those other novelties; but only would have had them represented to you for your better information. Now your majesty seeth what he hath done, you can better judge of it than we can. If, upon this probation added to former matters, your majesty think him not fit for your service, we must in all humbleness subscribe to your majesty, and acknowledge that neither his displacing, considering he holdeth his place but during your will and pleasure, nor the choice of a fit man to be put in his room, are council-table matters, but are to proceed wholly from your majesty's great wisdom and gracious pleasure. So that in this course, it is but the signification of your pleasure, and the business is at an end as to him. Only there remaineth the actual expurgation or animadversions of the books. But if your majesty understand it, that he shall be charged, then, as your majesty best knoweth, justice requireth, that he be heard and called to his answer, and then your majesty will be pleased to consider, before whom he shall be charged; whether before the body of your council, as formerly he was, or some selected commissioners; for we conceive your majesty will not think it convenient it should be before us two only. Also the manner of his charge is considerable, whether it shall be verbal by your learned council, as it was last; or whether, in respect of the multiplicity of matters, he shall not have the collections we have made in writing, delivered to him. Also the matter of his charge is likewise considerable, whether any of those points of novelty, which by your majesty's commandment we collected, shall be made part of his charge; or only the faults of his books, and the prohibitions and "habeas corpus," collected by my lord of Canterbury. In all which course we foresee length of time, not so much for your learned council to be prepared, for that is almost done already, but because himself, no doubt, will crave time of advice to peruse his own books, and to see, whether the collections be true, and that he be justly charged; and then to produce his proofs, that those things, which he shall be charged with, were not conceits or singularities of his own, but the acts of court, and other like things, tending to excusation or extenuation; wherein we do not see, how the time of divers days, if not of weeks, can be denied him. Now for time, if this last course of charging him be taken, we may only inform your majesty thus much, that the absence of a chief justice, though it should be for a whole term, as it hath been often upon sickness, can be no hindrance to common justice. For the business of the king's bench may be dispatched by the rest of the judges: his voice in the star-chamber may be supplied by any other judge, that my lord chancellor shall call; and the trials by “nisi prius” may be supplied by commission. But as for those great matters of discovery, we can say nothing more than this, that either they are old or new. If old, he is to blame for having kept them so long: if new, or whatsoever, he may advertise your majesty of them by letter, or deliver them by word to such counsellor as your majesty will assign. Thus we hope your majesty will accept of our sincerity, having dealt freely and openly with your majesty, as becometh us: and when we shall receive your pleasure and direction, we shall execute and obey the same in all things; ending with our prayers for your majesty, and resting Your Majesty's most faithful, and most bounden servants, T. Ellesmere, Canc. October 6, 1616. REMEMBRANCES OF HIS MAJESTY'S DECLARATION, THAT although the discharging and removing of his majesty's officers and servants, as well as the choice |