Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-10-23
The Fall of Bacon.


May 3, 1921. The fall of Bacon
Lord High Chancellor of England, on
this memorable day. brought with it no
concentrated or sensational scene in
Westminster Hall. and yet the world
agrees that it was a spectacle for both
angels and men. As an event it was
melancholy enough, but as a trial it
was without the presence of the Offend
er. When summoned to sthe bar, he
sent his con ession in his stead. When
personally sought, he could only say:
'.It is my act. my hand, my heart. Oh,
my lords, spare a broken reedn' When
the sentence was given he lay sick in
his bed. 1t was the anguish of great
mind working death to mean spirit.
He had reached the goal of what
was, to such a one as he, an Inadequate
ambition He had reached it through
his genius as a law er. an orator and a
statesman. But he had reached it also
through his crouching arts as a cour-
tier. He lowered it, even in his own
mind, by the means which he employed
to get it. high as it intrins;ca1ly was
as an lice in the state, he was equal
to higher in the service of the world,
and yet he could be tempted by its
empty dignity and emolument in such
a service as that of King James. He
could lay aside the pageant of his
thoughts for the pomp of this position.
What has been called the most exquis-
itely constructed intellect ever given to
man could yet be led aside by ludg-
ment and perception so weak as to
see meaning and glory In show and
sham. The reflection of his strange in
trinity is apparent in the very record
of his imposing induction into his
place. A letter of the time says: ITO
the Hall, besides his own retlnue. did
accompany him all the lords of his
Maiesty's Council and others, with
all knights and gentlemen that could
oct horses and foot cloths. s.He was
accompanied" says Chamberlain, ''by
most OF the nobility, with other gal
lanfs to the number of more than two
hundred horses, besides judges and the
Inns of Court. =. Both queen
and prince sent all their following. and
his other friends did their best to honor
him. When he had arrived at his
place, he made speech to the multi
fude who had been attracted to the
Hall. This might have done for the
first dav. and might we'll have been a
spontaneous testimony of the public
pleasure, at the elevation of one already
soillustrous; but he enjoyed, he de-
sired it too much himself-how unlike
Sir Thomas More in the self-same po-
sition under greater and more snowy
king!-for he Tried to keep up this
splendid state, .'exceeding all his pre-
decessors in the bravery and multitude
of his servants" The real grandeur
of his otfice-what an incongruity in
in the author of the Essays" that he
did not see it!-was in its purity. not
its pomp; and it was IN trying to MAIN
tain its pomp instead of its purity that
he fell. fte
If he did not rise to this concep-
tion. the people did; if he was dazzled
bv his own display, the people We're
not. Tt was one of the tremendous
events of the time that their mortal
eense was equal to his overthrow.
When the Commons impeached him at
the bar of the Lords, il was the revolt
of the people not so much at what he
had done as at the bribery and corrup-
tion which filed the court of the King,
the keeper of whose conscience he was.
When his own conscience was set free
by this enlightenment he said: 81 was
the justest Judge that was in England
these fifty years; but it was the busiest
censure in Parliament that was there
these two hundred years. That was
the very point to which the public sem
timent had risen, and 1t caught him
where he ought not to have been. His
meanness had made him the scapegoat
of the ing. when his G. eatness ought
70 have made bim the sacrificing priest
for the people He crouched beneath