CORRUPTION IN STATE AND CHURCH 365 was at a time when the country was at war with Spain, and the drains upon the public purse the most severe. Hatton, her "sheep," who danced himself into favor, was rewarded with broad acres of land and profitable sinecures, and was finally made Lord Chancellor. Others received grants of monopolies, which extended to so many articles and forms of industry as to become a grievous burden to the State, without benefit to the royal treasury.* But the monopolies were not the worst of the abuses caused by the conduct of the queen. Men who could not get pay for honest service took pensions from France and Spain, both natural enemies of England. Officials, when out of the queen's sight, robbed the government, as they always will where the government shows no honesty in its own dealings. Even the Church became infected. Many of the bishops plundered their dioceses, sold the lead and brick from the buildings, cut down the timber, and made grants of church property to the crown, either for a bribe in money or for a portion of the spoils. In addition, they almost openly sold the livings in their gift, the Bishop of Lichfield making seventy "lewd and unlearned ministers for money" in one day. *Hallam's "Const. Hist." i. 260. † See Hall, p. 68, etc., for an account of the mode in which Sir Thomas Gresham, the queen's financial agent, until recent times regarded as a model of official integrity, acquired his large fortune; and p. 122, etc., for the exploits of Sir George Carey, the Treasurer at War in Ireland. These men were shining lights in their age, far removed from the horde of petty plunderers. Froude, xii. 22; xi. 21; vii. 476. Further authorities for these statements regarding the condition of the Church will be given in Chapter IX. The law courts were little better. In 1592, Elizabeth appointed to the office of Chief Justice of England a lawyer, John Popham, who is said to have occasionally been a highwayman until the age of thirty.* At first blush this seems incredible, but only because such false notions generally prevail regarding the character of the time. The fact is that neither piracy nor robbery was considered particularly discreditable at the court of Elizabeth. The queen knighted Francis Drake for his exploits as a pirate, and a law on the statute-books, passed in the middle of the century, gave the benefit of clergy to peers of the realm when convicted of highway robbery. Men may doubt, if they choose, the stories about Popham, but the testimony of this statute cannot be disputed.+ The elevation of a reputed highwayman to preside over the highest criminal court in the kingdom did not, however, mean that the laws were not to be enforced with rigor. In fact, Popham received the name of the "hanging judge," and well deserved the title. All the *See "Life of Popham," Campbell's "Lives of the Chief Justices." Hall, it should be said, discredits this story as romantic gossip, p. 148. † 1 Ed. VI. cap. 12, sec. 14 (1547). Shakespeare's contemporaries saw nothing remarkable in the fact that Sir John Falstaff, a knight, was represented as a highway robber, and that a prince was his associate. Popham is said to have left the largest fortune ever accumulated by a lawyer. Among his other possessions was Littlecote House, which he acquired in some strange way from Wild Will Darrell. Upon his death, he was succeeded by a son who kept one of the grandest establishments in England. When at home his house was full of guests, and when abroad, his wife gathered in the women of the surrounding country, and they all got drunk together. Campbell's "Life of Popham." Both died from the effects of their debauchery, after squandering the ill-gotten wealth of the Chief Justice. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 367 judicial proceedings of the time are marked by the mixture of ferocity and corruption which characterizes a semi-barbarous condition of society. In prosecutions by the State, every barrier which the law has ever attempted to erect for the protection of innocence was ruthlessly cast down. Men were arrested without the order of a magistrate, on the mere warrant of a secretary of state or privy councillor, and thrown into prison during the pleasure of the minister. In confinement they were subjected to torture, for the rack rarely stood idle while Elizabeth was on the throne. If brought to trial, they were denied the aid of counsel and the evidence of witnesses in their behalf. Nor were they confronted with the witnesses against them, but written depositions, taken out of court and in the absence of the prisoner, were read to the jury, or rather such portions of them as the prosecution considered advantageous to its side. On the bench sat a judge holding office at the pleasure of the crown, and in the jury-box twelve men, picked out by the sheriff, who themselves were punished if they gave a verdict of acquittal.* Well does Hallam compare the English courts of justice, in cases of treason, to the "caverns of murderers." Hentzner counted on London Bridge the heads of over thirty persons who had been executed for high treason, and he was there in a very quiet time. Concerning the Tower he has this significant remark: "N.B. It is to be noted that when any of the nobility are sent hither on the charge of high crimes punishable with death, such as treason, etc., they seldom or never recover their lib "The Trial of the Earl of Somerset," by Amos; Jardine's "Life of Coke;" Hallam's "Const. Hist.," i. 232, 234, etc.; Wade, i. 141. erty.”* It was like the cave of the lion in the fable: all the footsteps pointed in one direction. But it was not alone in prosecutions by the State that liberty was trampled under foot. Private individuals, for suing a wealthy nobleman or court favorite, were arrested by a secret warrant and cast into some unknown dungeon beyond the reach of legal process. Even lawyers and officers of the courts were thus imprisoned for the simple discharge of their duty to the public. These outrages, equalling anything popularly supposed to have been perpetrated in France during the worst days of the Bastile, finally aroused even the men upon the bench to an exhibition of some spirit. In 1592, eleven of the highest judges united in a petition to Lord Burghley and the chancellor, setting forth these facts, and asking that this particular grievance might be redressed, although they admitted that the queen or privy council might imprison any one at pleasure, and that the courts could not interfere. According to Hallam,† it seems probable that this petition was presented twice, first in 1591 and again in 1592. It is certainly one of the most suggestive documents of the time, being the certificate of all the judges of the higher courts to the mode in which personal liberty was utterly crushed out by the powerful and corrupt men about the throne, more than thirty years after the accession of Elizabeth. Had some foreigner made the statements contained in this paper, their truth might well be questioned; but, like the act of Parliament relating to the peers of the realm to which I have just alluded, its authority is too high to be called in question.‡ Hentzner's "Travels," 1598. Somewhat akin to the imprisonment of men without a cause was the pardoning of criminals, which grew into a regular business around the court. Will Darrell, when in jail for murder, obtained his release by a bribe of a sum equal to at least three thousand pounds of modern money, paid to Pembroke, the immortal Sidney's brother-in-law.* An address to the queen upon the dangers of the country, presented by the council in 1579, refers to this practice in language which is deeply significant, as showing that the evils complained of did not lie at their doors. "Further, the loose, disordered administration required to be amended, and godly and learned men appointed as magistrates to do justice without partiality. The present practice of pardoning notable crimes, of pardoning piracy especially, ought to cease, and penal laws not to be dispensed with for private men's profit, a matter greatly misliked of good people." The pardon-brokers and the men who appointed corrupt judges were evidently outside the council and directly around the queen. In 1585, the Recorder of London wrote to Burghley: "My Lord, there is a saying, when the court is farthest from London, then there is the best justice done in England. I once heard a great personage in office, yet living, say the same words. It is grown for a trade now in the court to make means for reprieves. Twenty pounds for a reprieve is nothing, though it be but for ten days."‡ A single illustration will show how this business was and also in another form in Hallam, i. 235. Anderson states that after its presentation there was a marked improvement. * Hall, p. 13. † Froude, xi. 177. Froude, xii, 20. See also Abbott's “Bacon,” p. 4, for an account of how the ladies about the court dealt in pardons, making of it a |