To his deep distress
and horror he had to go to the Tower to satisfy the terms of his
sentence. "Good my Lord," he writes to Buckingham, May 31, "procure my
warrant for my discharge this day. Death is so far from being unwelcome
to me, as I have called for it as far as Christian resolution would
permit any time these two months. But to die before the time of his
Majesty's grace, in this disgraceful place, is even the worst that could
be." He was released after two or three days, and he thanks Buckingham
(June 4) for getting him out to do him and the King faithful
service--"wherein, by the grace of God, your Lordship shall find that my
adversity hath neither _spent_ nor _pent_ my spirits." In the autumn his
fine was remitted--that is, it was assigned to persons nominated by
Bacon, who, as the Crown had the first claim on all his goods, served as
a protection against his other creditors, who were many and some of them
clamorous--and it was followed by his pardon. His successor, Williams,
now Bishop of Lincoln, who stood in great fear of Parliament, tried to
stop the pardon. The assignment of the fine, he said to Buckingham, was
a gross job--"it is much spoken against, not for the matter (for no man
objects to that), but for the manner, which is full of knavery, and a
wicked precedent. For by this assignment he is protected from all his
creditors, which (I dare say) was neither his Majesty's nor your
Lordship's meaning." It was an ill-natured and cowardly piece of
official pedantry to plunge deeper a drowning man; but in the end the
pardon was passed. It does not appear whether Buckingham interfered to
overrule the Lord Keeper's scruples. Buckingham was certainly about this
time very much out of humour with Bacon, for a reason which, more than
anything else, discloses the deep meanness which lurked under his show
of magnanimity and pride. He had chosen this moment to ask Bacon for
York House. This meant that Bacon would never more want it. Even Bacon
was stung by such a request to a friend in his condition, and declined
to part with it; and Buckingham accordingly was offended, and made Bacon
feel it. Indeed, there is reason to think with Mr. Spedding that for the
sealing of his pardon Bacon was indebted to the good offices with the
King, not of Buckingham, but of the Spaniard, Gondomar, with whom Bacon
had always been on terms of cordiality and respect, and who at this time
certainly "brought about something on his behalf,