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with the Judges. All this month he is a candidate for the Chancellorship. He is suing for place. He is writing letters concerning the dying Chancellor's health to the King. This he hopes will be his reward. He received 12007. blood-money for the death of Essex. The Chancellorship is to be the sequence of his torturing Peacham. At the same time, moreover, he is prosecuting Mr. Oliver St. John, at the instance of the King, for treason. Another case which will need investigation.

Mr. Dixon, with his usual recklessness as to truth, disposes of Peacham's case with happy flippancy. Two or three slanders, two or three inventions to blacken Peacham's character, and the case is settled.

This is what he has said:

"Not much has been left to us by the writers about Edmund Peacham; yet evidence remains in the books at Wells and in the records of her Majesty's State Paper Office, to prove that he was one of the most despicable wretches who ever brought shame and trouble on the Church. It is there seen that he was a libeller. It is there seen that he was a liar. It is there seen that he was a marvel of turbulence and ingratitude; not alone a seditious subject, but a scandalous minister and a perfidious friend. It is in evidence that he outraged his bishop by a scandalous personal libel; and that he did his worst to get the patron to whom he owed his living hung."

This is matter never before printed. It is undoubtedly original—that is its peculiar merit. It is Mr. Dixon's happy invention, and doubtless, had any stronger averment been wanting it would have been similarly produced. It cannot be charged that it is pure inven

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tion-that would be giving credit to the author of the slander for ability, as well as the disposition to malign; it is simply untrue and false as applied to Peacham. There is nothing "to prove that he was one of the most despicable wretches who ever brought shame and trouble on the Church." Mr. Dixon is self-convicted of this untruth at the outset, for if he had been such a person, there would have been no need for Bacon to torture him, to prove him guilty.

I have simply to ask, Can any species of condemnation be too strong to stigmatize any such wilful slanderer and fabricator of untruths about the dead?

Peacham was the rector of Hinton St. George in Somersetshire, in the diocese of Bath and Wells. His case, as it has descended to us in the Law Reports, is this:-His house was searched, and there, amid a mass of papers, is found a sermon, "never preached nor intended to be preached." This sermon or MS. contained expressions, as may be presumed from the interrogatories to which he was exposed, bearing on the King's acts, the sale of crown lands, the laxity and deceit of persons about the King, his public officers, &c., his gifts to his favourites. It further appears from these also, that poor old Peacham believed himself a second Nathan to rebuke James; that he thought the royal infirmities ought to be exposed; that the King might be stricken dead in his sins like Ananias or Nabal; that to recover the crown lands to the people again would cost blood and bring men to say, "This is the lawful heir of these lands, let us kill him." The possibly half-fanatic, or perhaps equally sincere old gentleman, who has been unhappily

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doomed to spend his life in these desolate wilds, with no other intercourse than the bucolic mind, probably as ignorant as most of the rural preachers of his day, even went further in his biblical warmth, and used in his writings some vague expressions such as that the King's officers should be put to the edge of the sword; much the same, no doubt, as we hear ministers of the mildest manners breathe forth denunciations of flame and fury against sinners, when heated with enthusiasm, or unduly oppressed with the weight of their spiritual mission.

These remarks, never uttered or published, be it understood, were the entire case against the prisoner; if anything stronger had been known, it would have appeared. Now, had Peacham "preached" these words, he might have entitled himself to censure, perhaps to some trivial punishment; but they can hardly be brought within the meaning of the statute of treason-of compassing the King's death. Not having been published, they of course had no significance whatever; for it must be obvious to any person that a man may write, what he neither intends nor dares to utter, what his reason and caliner judgment will prompt him to soften, or exclude. Possibly some actively officious and good-natured friend, had written to the King, alleging that Peacham had spoken irreverently of him, which was quite enough to raise the Sage's ire, especially if it was supposed to hint danger. Cowardice is always cruel. Fear is the fiercest of all tyrannies. James feared everything but how to do wrong, and determined on the old man's punishment. What he really had preached must have been so mild that they dared not use it against him. They searched his house, and there

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they found the paper containing the irreverent suggestions already quoted.

Can we suppose any infamy stronger than this-that an innocent man should be dragged to trial, not for some act which he had consummated, but for some act which he had never intended to consummate, and which, if actually put in force, would have been no crime against the statute? Could any nation be more deplorably situated, than one in which this was held to be law? Every man would be at the mercy of an informer; for with the disposition to punish, the means would never be wanting. Fortunately, English society was not in such a disorganized state that this could pass as law. Edmund Peacham, if brought to trial, it was known, could not be convicted. No jury would lend itself to such an iniquity. The judges would never rule such a prosecution possible in law. The old man had committed no crime with his maundering fribble-frabble. What was to be done? Caution him, one would suppose. No; the King was greatly incensed against him,* would have him hung or burnt, if possible. Bacon was trying for the Chancellorship; Bacon, of course, would get it done if he could. Two things were necessary; two acts of infamy preliminary to anything else. The first, that some evidence should be obtained that he had a treasonable intention, evidence of some overt act, by the Statute of Treason 25 Ed. III., as proof of his intention to compass the King's death. In the arbitrary days of Henry VIII., one or two persons had been punished for

* Chamberlain, Feb. 9, to Carleton: "The King is extremely incensed against him, and will have him prosecuted to the uttermost.”

offences which only came doubtfully under this statute. But a special act of parliament had been passed for the purpose the 25 Henry VIII., cap. 12. By this Sir William Stanley, chamberlain to Henry VII., was punished for saying that he would take part with Perkin Warbeck against the King's heir. But this was known at the time to be an arbitrary punishment and a forcing of the law, though a speech made dangerous, by the wealth and power of the person who spoke it.

In spite of the Editor of the Athenæum,' no evidence was brought forward to prove that Peacham was either a "seditious subject" or had in anywise manifested a treasonable intention. Had Mr. Dixon then lived, doubtless there would have been no difficulty in obtaining evidence. He would have found it then, as he has found it now. Lord Bacon, in all his zeal, could not. The point then was to torture the man that he might, under the anguish of the ordeal, criminate himself; it being a maxim long known and already in print, That men under torture frequently criminated themselves, though innocent.* So Peacham was racked. Here are Winwood's own words: "Upon these interrogatories Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him; he still persisting in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answers. Signed Ralph Winwood, Julius Cæsar, Francis Bacon, Henry Montague, Gervase

*Fortescue, see page 358. Burleigh had written: "The rack was never used to wring out confessions at adventure upon uncertainties." Somers' Tracts, vol. i., p. 211. This was an apology, in a condition of great religious intolerance, about five years before the descent of the Armada.