was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it
that might be drawn within the case of treason? Whereto I answered,
For treason, sure I found none; but for felony, very many: and when her
majesty hastily asked me, Wherein? I told her, the author had committed
very apparent theft; for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius
Tacitus, and translated them into English, and put them into his text.
And another time, when the queen could not be persuaded that it was
his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous
author, and said with great indignation, that she would have him racked
to produce his author; I replied, Nay, madam, he is a doctor; never rack
his person, but rack his style: let him have pen, ink, and paper, and
help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh
off, and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge whether he
were the author or no."[**] Thus, had it not been for Bacon's humanity,
or rather his wit, this author, a man of letters, had been put to
the rack for a most innocent performance. His real offence was his
dedicating a book to that munificent patron of the learned, the earl of
Essex, at a time when this nobleman lay under her majesty's displeasure.

* To our apprehension, Haywarde's book seems rather to have
a contrary tendency. For he has there preserved the famous
speech of the bishop of Carlisle, which contains, in the
most express terms, the doctrine of passive obedience. But
Queen Elizabeth was very difficult to please on this head.

** Cabala, p. 81. anciently common of fining, imprisoning,
or otherwise punishing the jurors, merely at the discretion
of the court, for finding a verdict contrary to the
direction of these dependent judges, it is obvious that
juries were then no manner of security to the liberty of the
subject.

The queen's menace of trying and punishing Haywarde for treason could
easily have been executed, let his book have been ever so innocent.
While so many terrors hung over the people, no jury durst have acquitted
a man when the court was resolved to have him condemned. The practice,
also, of not confronting witnesses with the prisoner, gave the crown
lawyers all imaginable advantage against him. And indeed there scarcely
occurs an instance during all these reigns, that the sovereign or the
ministers were ever disappointed in the issue