Chapter II: Part 2

Henry's course of prosperity and success encountered no check, scarcely anything to disturb for a moment its even and onward flow, till after he had been between seven and eight years King of England. The portion of his reign from the middle of the year 1162 till the end of 1170 was mostly spent in a contest with one of his own subjects. The famous Thomas-a-Becket is said to have been born in London in 1117, and his legendary history, which may have some foundation in fact, makes him to have been the son of a citizen of English race, Gilbert Beck, Beckie, or Becket, by the daughter of a Saracen chief, who, when he had been taken prisoner in the east, whither he had followed his Norman lord to the holy wars, had fallen in love with him, contrived to release him from his captivity, and afterwards followed him to England, and found him out by inquiring wherever she went for London and Gilbert, the only two English words she knew. Thomas-a-Becket, like his father, attached himself to the Norman conquerors of his native land; his accomplishments and his obsequiousness had before the end of the reign of Stephen raised him to high favour with Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who induced him to take deacon's orders, and made him archdeacon of his metropolitan church; he was presented to Henry soon after his accession, and he was almost immediately appointed to the high office of chancellor of the kingdom, to which were speedily added the custody of the castle of Berkhampstead, the government of the Tower of London, and other preferments. He was now the most powerful subject in England, the man whom the king most delighted to honour, the familiar friend of his sovereign, and his constant and intimate associate in his private life, in his amusements and pleasures, as well as in the government of the realm. One of Becket's biographers tells us that after they had finished their serious affairs they would often play together like two boys of the same age. This continued till Henry crowned his long unvarying favour by making Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, in May, 1162. From that moment his former friend, who had been indebted to him for so much, for all that he had and all that he was, became his rival and his enemy. Becket, indeed, was now in every respect a changed man. The gay, careless, luxurious layman (for as such he had been hitherto considered, notwithstanding his deacon's orders), the man of gallantry in every sense of the term (for he had also borne arms with distinguished reputation), was transformed at once into a cold, rigid, ascetic priest, hard and unimpressible as a man of stone. All that he had hitherto appeared, all that had seemed his nature and very self, was thrown off as if it had been a masque or disguise. It is unnecessary, however, to assume that Becket was insincere or dishonest either in the part he had made a show of sustaining till now, or in this sudden metamorphosis. It is rather proof of his inherent honesty, as well as of his force of character, that he would not seem to be what he was not, that he would not become a churchman in name without becoming one in reality. But, with this spirit, his new position brought him immediately into collision with Henry. A contest for supremacy between the church and the state was not a new thing in England. Ever since the Conquest the subjugation of the spiritual to the temporal power had been a prominent and steadily pursued part of the policy of the crown. The Conqueror had placed the Archbishop of Canterbury upon an eminence of rank and political position, such as was scarcely occupied by any other subject in Christendom; but in doing this he had strenuously aimed at the same time at making the church part and parcel of the state; so that the primate, with all the splendour of his station, and the other bishops, should in fact form rather a baronage or nobility, the supporters and servants of the crown, than a separate power. This system, however, was entirely opposed to the pretensions and aims of the court of Rome, and to the notions generally entertained by all orders of ecclesiastics in that age. The papal power, professing to consider all legitimate royalty and other civil authority to be derived from itself, and even to be resumable at its will and pleasure, and maintaining the state to be everywhere thus the creation of the church, always resolutely refused to acquiesce, except occasionally in the way of compromise, in any arrangements which seemed to proceed upon an opposite idea or principle. Hence in the time of Rufus and Henry I. the contest between these kings and Archbishop Anselm about investitures, or the right of nominating to offices in the church, which the archbishop and the clergy held to be in the pope, but which the crown insisted upon retaining in its own hands. The first Henry had made good his claims in regard to this matter, and the other subjects of difference between the two interests had not since occasioned any serious disagreement. It is probable, however, that during the weak irregular government of Stephen the spiritual power had made some encroachments, if not in regard to investitures, in another direction. It was a still more important question upon which Henry now found himself opposed by Becket. This king was as little likely as anyone of his predecessors to tolerate such of the pretensions of the clergy as would have either allied them as a body with a foreign power, or withdrawn them as individuals from subjection to the ordinary laws of the realm. It can hardly be doubted that so long as Becket held the office of chancellor (which he threw up as soon as he obtained the primacy) he had gone vigorously along with his royal master in discountenancing, and, where necessary, resisting, all such pretensions. Now, however, when Henry insisted that clerks, or ecclesiastical persons, when charged criminally, should be tried in the king's courts, and punished, if found guilty, in the same way with other subjects, the archbishop declared this to be a violation of the rights of the church, and set himself to oppose what he denounced as a sacrilegious innovation with all the powers of his office. Whether the system which Henry wished to enforce was in conformity with the ancient customs of the kingdom, as he maintained that it was, may indeed be disputed. It was manifestly, at any rate, the only system compatible with the good government of the kingdom. The highest punishments that the ecclesiastical courts could inflict were flagellation, fine, imprisonment, and degradation; and the crime of murder itself, when committed by a clergyman, was usually expiated by a whipping when the case was left in their hands. On the other hand the archbishop probably also conceived himself to be bound in duty to make the stand he did for the claims set up by the church. There is no difficulty in understanding how the two parties should see the question differently from their opposite points of view; and they both gave by the whole course of their conduct all possible evidence of their sincerity. After other proceedings, Henry assembled a great council at Clarendon, in Wiltshire, at Christmas, 1163, and there demanded the assent of Becket and the other prelates to sixteen constitutions or articles, embodying what he maintained to be the ancient law or custom of the realm upon the matters in dispute. Becket, who had before refused to promise obedience to a much less comprehensive enactment, was now prevailed upon by the entreaties of his brethren to sign these constitutions; but he would not affix his seal to them. Even his signature, which had been wrung from him by importunity, was no sooner given than it was bitterly repented of, and he made no scruple openly to accuse himself of the most criminal weakness in doing what he had done. The contest was now renewed with greater animosity on both sides than ever, and before the end of the year Becket had clandestinely withdrawn himself from England, and taken refuge in France, under the protection of King Louis. He remained abroad, firmly refusing to make any concession; but at last, in July, 1170, he and Henry held a conference in a meadow near Freitville, or Freteval, on the borders of Touraine, when the form of a reconciliation was gone through, and the archbishop soon after set out on his return to England. He reached Canterbury on the 3rd of December, and with the exception of making a visit to London, remained there in quiet for the next three weeks. Meanwhile, however, accounts had been brought to Henry in Normandy, that before he had embarked at Wissant, he had sent forward letters of excommunication or suspension against the archbishop of York, the bishop of London, and others of the prelates who had stood by the king in the late controversy. Several of these prelates instantly came themselves over to Rouen, and informed the king of this extraordinary proceeding. Furious with indignation Henry hastily exclaimed, "Of the dastards who eat my bread is there no one who will deliver me from this ungrateful, turbulent, incorrigible priest?" Four knights who heard the words, soon after suddenly and secretly started for England. On that same day, Saturday the 25th, the archbishop was present in his cathedral, at the performance of the solemnities of Christmas, and preached to a crowded auditory from the words "I am come unto you to die in the midst of you." After his sermon he excommunicated some individuals who, he said, had for the last seven years been busy in wronging and insulting himself and the church. On the Tuesday following, being the 28th, the four knights arrived from Normandy. On the afternoon of the next day, accompanied by twelve others, they made their way into the archbishop's house; he was prevailed upon by his friends to proceed to the Church; thither, however, the conspirators followed him; they demanded that he should absolve the excommunicated bishops, but, unbending to the last, he bid defiance to their menaces; upon which he was struck down by repeated blows at the foot of the altar. Henry was still keeping his Christmas festival at Bure, in Normandy, when tidings of the event were brought to him. There can be no reasonable doubt that he was profoundly affected with horror at the crime that had been committed almost in his name, as well as alarmed for the consequences. He shut himself up in his closet for three days, admitting no one and refusing all nourishment. It was not till after a negociation of two years that he obtained from the Court of Rome, a full absolution, on his appearing in the cathedral of Avranches, and there publicly taking his solemn oath on the Gospels, that he was innocent of the murder of the archbishop both in word and deed. Meanwhile, he had acquired new power and glory by the conquest of Ireland; circumstances were also changed in other respects; new objects had in part withdrawn him from the controversy with the church which had occupied him almost to the exclusion of everything else, for the preceding six or seven years; and now that Becket was removed the pretensions of the clergy, although they may have remained the same in words, had actually become something very different and much less formidable. Henry therefore now also engaged, that if any customs hostile to the liberties of the ecclesiastical order had been introduced into his kingdom since his accession, they should be abolished. And four years after, in a great council held at Northampton, the constitutions of Clarendon were so far repealed as that, among other concessions of less moment, clergymen were exempted from being personally arraigned before a secular judge for any crime, unless it were against the forest laws, or regarded a lay fee for which they owed service to a lay lord. But, although we learn this from a letter written by the king to the pope, Alexander III., which is preserved by the contemporary Latin annalist Ralph de Diceto (himself a churchman), it may be doubted if the satisfaction thus given to the clergy proved, after all, much more than a form of words.

Before this, however, Henry had become involved in new troubles, and had encountered the first gust of the storm that was to wrap the afternoon of his reign and his life in darkness and ruin. In the year 1170, in the midst of his contest with Becket, he had had his eldest son Henry consecrated and crowned as conjoint king with himself. The ceremony was performed in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York; and a theory that has satisfied some modern historians is, that Henry's object in this proceeding was simply to spite Becket and to diminish the authority he derived from his station, by showing that a King of England could be crowned without the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is certain, indeed, that Becket resented what had been done as an invasion of the privileges of his see, and this was the principal ground on which he had applied for, and obtained from the pope, the letters of excommunication against the Archbishop of York and the other prelates who had assisted him at the coronation, his display and threatened employment of which had probably been the occasion of his murder. But all the circumstances seem to show that Henry was principally actuated by affection for his son, and a desire to place him in a position of honour and of splendour, although his age, only fourteen, of course precluded him from being as yet entrusted with any share in the government. The young prince, however, or, as he was now called, the young king, or sometimes Henry III., made no creditable return, whether it was fondness or policy that had chiefly moved his father thus to advance him. He appears to have been rather weak than ill-disposed; his new title probably made him giddy; and, easily led in any direction, he was much more likely, in his position, to be led wrong than right. All cordiality between Henry and Queen Eleanor had long been at an end; his infidelities and her jealous temper had completely divided and alienated them; and Eleanor's natural resource was to endeavour to gain over her sons to make common cause with her against their father. About the end of the year 1172, the young king Henry, who was married to the daughter of the French king, Louis VII., and had just been crowned a second time along with his wife, startled his father by a sudden demand, that he should immediately resign to him either the dukedom of Normandy or the sovereignty of England. At this time the boy was not yet sixteen, and his father was himself still under forty. The preposterous proposal is believed to have been prompted by Queen Eleanor and King Louis; from the day on which it was made, and of course instantly rejected, the young king, we are told, spoke not one word more of peace to his father; a few months after, while he was with his father at Chinon, on their way back to Normandy from Limoges, he arose during the night and secretly withdrew himself to the court of his father-in-law; his flight was speedily followed by that of his two younger brothers Richard and Geoffrey, upon the former of whom their father had conferred the earldom of Poictiers, upon the latter the dukedom of Bretagne, and, who had been left with their mother in Guienne; and lastly their mother set out to join her sons, but, being caught as she travelled in man's attire, was by her husband's orders put into immediate confinement, nor was she afterwards released, except once for a short space, while Henry lived.

The war that followed between Henry and his sons, aided by King Louis, did not last long. Attacked as he was on every side at once--in Brittany, in Normandy, in Anjou, in Guienne, in England; from France, from Toulouse, from Scotland--the vigour of the old king, as he was called, carried everything before it; and a peace and reconciliation were arranged after a few months. It was during this contest that Henry performed his famous penance at the tomb of Becket. The desire to see, in the quarrel between Becket and Henry, a struggle between the old Anglo-Saxon population and their Norman conquerors has probably been carried much too far by the eminent living French historian Augustin Thierry: the controversy was in the main and essentially, there can be no doubt, a trial of strength between the church and the state, between the temporal and the spiritual powers, between the crown and the pope, between the laity and the clergy; nor do we believe that the accident of Becket being of Anglo-Saxon lineage went for anything in the case. There is no good evidence that the circumstance ever was appealed to or taken notice of either on the one side or the other. It may be conceded, however, that both parties would naturally wish to secure whatever support could be derived from the sympathy of the great body of the people, and that in this way the native English, who had been already for some time rising again from the state of prostration to which they were struck down by the Conquest, would both be led to take the greater interest in the dispute, and may have been benefited by it. Their devotional and superstitious feelings also were, no doubt, strongly excited by many of the proceedings to which the clergy resorted; and we may well conceive that they would be transported to a state of the highest enthusiasm, first, by horror at the barbarous and sacrilegious murder of Becket, and afterwards, by the miracles with which the kingdom resounded as having been performed at his tomb. But these were feelings which there is every reason to believe were shared in an equal degree by the generality of their Norman masters. The king himself was probably by no means exempt from them. With all the licence that he allowed himself in some respects, he was neither without the piety nor above the superstition of his age; and the circumstances in which he now stood, with troubles gathering around him, and the consciousness pressing upon him that he had, by his hasty and passionate words, materially contributed to Becket's death, were very likely to awaken his devotion and penitence. It seems impossible to regard him as merely acting a part, assuming the outward appearance of a reverence and contrition which he did not feel, in this penitential pilgrimage, when the whole proceeding and his demeanour throughout are fairly considered. He set sail from Barfleur early on the morning of the 8th of July, 1174. It blew fresh at the time, and, the gale increasing after the ship had got under way, some apprehension began to be felt, upon which Henry, coming forward so as to be seen by all, exclaimed, with eyes uplifted to heaven, "If what I have in my mind be for the peace of my clergy and my people, if God have determined to restore such peace by my arrival, then may he in his mercy bring me safe into port; but, if he have resolved still further to scourge my kingdom in his wrath, may it never be given me again to set my foot on land." He landed at Southampton on the morning of the 10th, and instantly getting on horseback, set out for Canterbury, pursuing his journey all night, and taking no other sustenance than a little bread and water. He came within sight of the metropolitan church at the dawn of the next day, Friday the 11th, and then dismounting, and throwing off both his silk apparel and his boots, he walked in the garb of a pilgrim, and barefoot, over the flinty road for the three remaining miles of the way. When he entered the city, his footsteps were observed to leave their marks in blood upon the pavement. Proceeding forthwith to the cathedral, he entered it along with the thronging inhabitants of the city, collected by the ringing of the bells, and, prostrating himself with his face to the ground, wept and sobbed aloud, while the Bishop of London announced from the pulpit that Henry King of England was here come to invoke God and the holy martyr for the salvation of his soul; to protest that he never either ordered or desired the death of the martyr; and to submit his naked flesh to be scourged for the hasty and imprudent words uttered by him, by which the murderers might pretend that they had been excited to the act. After this the king descended to the crypt where the archbishop's body was interred, and there, stripping off his clothes and kneeling down on the tombstone, he submitted his bare back to be scourged with a knotted cord by all the bishops and monks that were present, each giving him three, four, or five strokes, while he pronounced the words, "As the Redeemer was scourged for the sins of men, so be thou for thy own sin." He spent all the rest of the day and the following night in the crypt in prayer and fasting; and the next morning, after hearing mass, he left Canterbury without tasting anything save a draught of the holy water kept at the martyr's tomb. He rode to London; but when he had finished his journey he was taken ill, and he was confined for some days by fever. On the fifth night of his illness a messenger arrived at the palace and insisted upon instant admission to the king. He brought the news of the capture of the king of Scotland at Alnwick, by Ranulf de Glanville. And it turned out that this great event had taken place on the very Saturday on the morning of which Henry had risen an absolved and reconciled man from the shrine of the martyr.

For some years from this time Henry was left at peace, although in

1179 his two eldest sons, Henry and Richard, took arms against each other, and Poitou and Guienne were for a time disturbed and devastated by their dissension. But in 1183 war again broke out between the sons and the father. Sometimes he was opposed to one, sometimes to two of them; sometimes to Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, all at once. Both the two elder were soon cut off; Henry, by fever, on the 11th of June, at Chateau Martel, near Limoges; Geoffrey, early in 1185, by being thrown from his horse and trampled to death, in a tournament at the court of the new French king Philip II. (Augustus), whose aid he had sought against his father. Richard, however, continued in rebellion, or rather, repeatedly defeated and forgiven, still again and again took up arms, whenever a favourable moment seemed to present itself. He had a story that he was fond of relating, about a countess of Anjou, one of his ancestry, who never went to church, and at last, on being taken there one day by force, flew out of the window, on the elevation of the host, and was never more seen; and he used to ask if it was to be wondered at that, sprung from such a stock, the household to which he belonged should be divided against itself. "What comes from the devil," said he, "to the devil must return." Mutual hatred, he professed to believe, was the doom of his family--the fatal inheritance which none of them would ever renounce. At last, at a conference held at La Ferte Bernard, in Maine, on the 18th of November, 1188, Richard, on his father's refusal to comply with his demands, turned round in indignation to the French king, who stood by, and, having ungirt his sword and fallen upon his knees, offered his homage to Philip, in Henry's presence, for all the territories that the latter held in France. Philip accepted his allegiance, and the war was renewed as soon as the term of the truce expired. By this time Henry's spirits, as well as his health, seem to have been broken; his operations in the field were languid and ineffective, and he was soon reduced to the necessity of suing for peace. The matter in regard to which Richard and Philip had pretended to feel most keenly was Henry's detention of Alice, the sister of the French king, who many years before had been affianced to Richard, and his refusal to allow their marriage to take place. He professed to wish to marry her to his youngest son John; but it was suspected that he loved the young and beautiful princess himself, and that her heart, too, was his. Now, however, he offered to resign everything, Alice included; he proposed that she should, in the meantime, be placed in such custody as might be thought fittest, and delivered either to Richard or Philip, on their return from their projected expedition to the Holy Land. The French princess, we may mention, after all was not married to Richard. Though he had demanded her so clamorously before, when he became king he refused to have her; and she eventually became the wife of William Earl of Aumale and Ponthieu, by whom she had a daughter, who married Ferdinand III. King of Castile, and was the mother of Eleanor, the queen of our Edward I. Henry and Philip met to arrange a peace on the 28th of June, 1189, on a plain between Tours and Azay-sur-Cher. Henry agreed to everything that was demanded of him. He became very ill before the conference closed, and was carried from the place in a litter to his quarters, where a few days after the articles of the treaty were sent to him for his ratification. They were read to him one by one as he lay on his bed; and when he had heard the one which secured from punishment all who had been engaged on the side of Richard in the late war, either openly or secretly, and allowed them, although they had hitherto been his own subjects, liberty to continue the vassals of his son, he asked how many and who were the persons whose faith and allegiance he would thus have to lose. The first that was named to him was his youngest son John, his favourite son, of whose affection and fidelity he had never had a doubt, for whose sake, in great part, it had been that he had resisted the demands of Richard, and brought himself to the state in which he was. When he heard it pronounced he raised himself convulsively half up in the bed, and, with a wild look, asked if it was true that this son, whom he had so loved and trusted, for whom he had done and suffered so much, had actually deserted him. He was assured that so it was. He then fell back, and, turning his face to the wall, said, "Well, then! henceforth let all things go as they may; I care nothing more about myself or the world." A few days after he was removed to the Castle of Chinon, and there, on the 6th of July, he breathed his last. Geoffrey, his son by Rosamund Clifford, was with him to the end.

ROGER BACON

Some part of this biography will make the rest more intelligible if made a preliminary explanation. Before the appearance of Wood's History of Oxford (1674), no one had added anything to the summaries of Leland, Bale, and Pits, which are little more than ill-understood lists of works. The name of Bacon was known far and wide as a magician; and the better informed could only judge from such fragments as had been published, and from the traditional reputation of what remained in manuscript, that he was a philosopher of the highest genius. These printed fragments are as follows, so far as we can collect them, being all that was published down to the appearance of Dr. Jebb's edition of the 'Opus Majus:' which closes the list--

1. 'De mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturae et Nullitate Magiae,' Paris, 1542, 4to.; Basil., 1593, 8vo.; in English,[6] Lond., 1597, 4to.; Hamb., 1608 and 1618, 8vo.; in French, Par., 1612, 8vo.; also in French, by Girard, Par., 1557 and 1629; in vol. v. of Zetzner's 'Theatrum Chemicum,' Argent., 1622, 8vo., and 1659 (?); in English, by T. M., Lond., 1659, 12mo.

2. 'Perspectiva,' 'Specula Mathematica,' and 'De Speculis Ustoriis,' Francof., 1614, 4to., whether as one book or three we do not know; the 'Perspectiva' was reprinted in 1671, also at Frankfort.

3. 'De Retardatione Senectutis,' Oxon., 1590, 8vo.; translated, 'The Cure of Old Age,' by R. Browne, M.D., Lond., 1683, 12mo.

4. 'De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae,' Hamb., 1618, 8vo., edited by John Dee.

5. The 'Thesaurus Chemicus,' Franckfort, 1603 and 1620, 8vo. (?) contains the 'Specula Mathematica,' the 'Speculum Alchymiae,' and some other tracts, which Tanner puts down altogether as 'Scripta sanioris medecinae in arte chemiae.'

6. 'Speculum Alchymiae,' Norimb., 1581, 4to.; Basil., 1561, 4to.; Ursellis, 1602, 8vo.; in English, in 'Collectanea Chymica,' Lond., 1684, 8vo.; also[7] in English, Lond., 1597, 4to.

7. 'Practica Magistri Rogerii,' Venet., 1513 and 1519.

8. 'Epistolas Notis illustratas' (we take the title from Tanner), Hamb., 1618, 8vo.

9. 'Fratris Rogeri Bacon, Ordinis Minorum, Opus Majus, ad Clementem IV. Pontif. Rom.,' Londini, 1733, fol. By Dr. Jebb.

The little that is known of the greatest of English philosophers before the time of his celebrated namesake, shows how long the effects of contemporary malice might last, before the invention of printing had made an appeal to posterity easy. His writings, destroyed or overlooked, only existed in manuscript or mutilated printed versions, till nearly the middle of the last century. In the mean time tradition framed his character on the vulgar notions entertained in his day of the results of experimental science; and the learned monk, searching for the philosopher's stone in his laboratory, aided only by infernal spirits, was substituted for the sagacious advocate of reform in education, reading, and reasoning; and--what was equally rare--the real inquirer into the phenomena of nature.

Roger Bacon died in 1292, in about the seventy-eighth year of his age, which places his birth near the year 1214; roughly speaking, he lived from the time of the Interdict in the reign of John, to the beginning of the interference with Scotland in that of Edward I. His age is that of Cardinal Cusa, Thomas a Kempis, Matthew Paris, Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully, Sacrobosco, &c., to whom we add, as they are sometimes confounded with him, and not for their own note, two theologians, Robert Bacon and John Bacon (died about 1346.) The former was a priest of the thirteenth century, whom it would be hardly necessary to notice but for the fact that some of our historians have made him the brother of Roger Bacon, and the two have been often confounded. He is stated to have studied successively at Oxford and Paris; and in 1233, when his friend and teacher, Edmund Rich, was removed from the treasurership of Salisbury Cathedral to the archbishopric of Canterbury, Robert Bacon was his successor. The archbishop was canonized by the title of St. Edmund; and Bacon wrote his life. Matthew Paris states that in 1233 Robert Bacon preached before Henry III. at Oxford, and spoke openly against the favourite, Peter des Roches (or De Rupibus), of Poiton, Bishop of Winchester, who had given great offence by the introduction and promotion of many of his countrymen. Serious disturbance was apprehended, and the king appeared to waver; on which, says the historian, a witty court chaplain, called _Roger_ Bacon, asked his Majesty what was most dangerous to seamen. The king answered that seamen best knew, on which the chaplain rejoined. "Petrae et Rupes; acdiceretur, Petrus de Rupibus." This story is the likely origin of the connexion between Robert and Roger, and also of the account which states that Roger Bacon, the subject of this article, preached before the king on the same occasion. Robert Bacon joined the order of preaching friars in his old age, and died in 1248, whence the story (certainly false) that Roger died in that year. ('Biogr. Britann.;' Tanner, 'Biblioth. Britan. Hibern.;' Wood, 'Hist. et Ant. Oxon.')

Roger Bacon was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire, of a respectable family. He was educated at Oxford, and, according to the usual custom of his day, proceeded to Paris, which was then the first university in the world. The course of study in vogue, however unfavourable to independence of thought, did not give so great a preponderance to the works of Aristotle as was afterwards the case. The theology of the day had set strongly against philosophy of every species. In 1209 a council at Paris condemned and burnt, if not the works of Aristotle, at least the mutilated and interpolated translations from the Arabic which then existed. But when, towards the middle of the century, Latin versions from the Greek began to appear, and the philosophy contained in them to be warmly advocated by the new orders of Franciscans and Dominicans, and particularly by Albertus Magnus (died 1282), the reputation of Aristotle advanced so rapidly, that he had gained the exclusive title of "the Philosopher" by the time Roger Bacon wrote his 'Opus Majus.' But Bacon in no sense became an Aristotelian, except in that which comprehends all who are acquainted with the opinions and methods of the Greek philosopher. Better versed in the original than most of his contemporaries, he freely criticises all he meets with (especially the merit of the translations, which he says he would burn, if he could), and is himself an early and sufficient proof that the absurdities of his successors ought not to be called "Aristotelian," any more than Aristotle himself "the Philosopher." Bacon could read Aristotle without danger of falling into idolatry: his antagonists could have erected a system of verbal disputes upon the Principia of Newton, if they had possessed it.

After his return to Oxford, with a doctor's degree granted at Paris, which was immediately also confirmed by the former university, he took the vows of a Franciscan in a convent possessed by that order at Oxford, on the persuasion, it is said, of Robert Greathead or Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, of whom we shall presently speak. It has been conjectured that he had already done so before his return to Oxford, but this appears to have arisen from his having been known to have resided in a Franciscan convent while at Paris. From the time of his return, which is stated to have been A.D. 1240, he applied himself closely to the study of languages, as well as to experimental philosophy. In spite of the vow of poverty, he does not appear to have wanted means, for he says himself that in twenty years he spent 2000 livres (French) in books and instruments; a very large sum in those days.

The vow of the Franciscans was poverty, manual labour, and study; but the first two were soon abandoned. On this subject we notice a writing of Bacon, of which (except in Dr. Jebb's list) we can find only one casual notice (in Vossius, 'De Hist. Lat.' art. "Bacon.") It is said that he answered a work of St. Bonaventure, general of his order, which treated of the above-mentioned vow; but which side either party adopted is not stated.

The enmity of his brethren soon began to show itself: the lectures which he gave in the University were prohibited, as well as the transmission of any of his writings beyond the walls of his convent. The charge made against him was that of magic, which was then frequently brought against those who studied the sciences, and particularly chemistry. The ignorance of the clergy of that time as to mathematics or physics was afterwards described by Anthony-a-Wood, who says that they knew no property of the circle except that of keeping out the devil, and thought the points of a triangle would wound religion. Brought up to consider philosophy as nearly allied to, if not identical with, heresy itself, many of them might perhaps be honest believers in its magical power; but we can hardly doubt that there were a few more acute minds, who saw that Roger Bacon was in reality endeavouring to evoke a spirit whose influence would upset the power they had acquired over the thoughts of men, and allow them to read and reflect, without fear of excommunication, or the necessity of inquiring what Council had authorized the book. Not that we mean to charge those minds in every instance with desiring such power for their own private ends: there has always been honest belief in the wickedness of knowledge, and it is not extinct in our own day. The following detached passages of the 'Opus Majus' no doubt contain opinions which its author was in the habit of expressing:--

"Most students have no worthy exercise for their heads, and therefore languish and stupefy upon bad translations, which lose them both time and money. Appearances alone rule them, and they care not what they know, but what they are thought to know by a senseless multitude.--There are four principal stumbling-blocks in the way of arriving at knowledge--authority, habit, appearances as they present themselves to the vulgar eye, and concealment of ignorance combined with ostentation of knowledge.--Even if the first three could be got over by some great effort of reason, the fourth remains ready.--Men presume to teach before they have learnt, and fall into so many errors, that the idle think themselves happy in comparison; and hence both in science and in common life we see a thousand falsehoods for one truth.--And this being the case, we must not stick to what we hear and read, but must examine most strictly the opinions of our ancestors, that we may add what is lacking, and correct what is erroneous, but with all modesty and allowance.--We must, with all our strength, prefer reason to custom, and the opinions of the wise and good to the perceptions of the vulgar: and we must not use the triple argument; that is to say, this has been laid down, this has been usual, this has been common, therefore it is to be held by. For the very opposite conclusion does much better follow from the premises. And though the whole world be possessed by these causes of error, let us freely hear opinions contrary to established usage."

As might be supposed, Roger Bacon cultivated the acquaintance of men who held sentiments similar to the above, which could not please his brethren. Among them we have mentioned Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, who usually resided at Oxford. This prelate, who was a good mathematician, and a resolute opponent of undue interference on the part of the see of Rome (_terrificus papae redargutor_, says Camden), had opposed Innocent IV., who attempted to appoint his nephew, a boy, to a prebend at Lincoln. On being excommunicated, Grostete appealed from the tribunal of Rome to that of Christ; and so prevalent was the opinion of his antipathy to the pope, that a story is gravely told by Knyghton (cited by Blount, 'Censura,' &c.), that the Bishop of Lincoln, after his death, appeared to Innocent in a dream, and exclaiming "_Surge, miser, veni in judicium!_" actually stabbed his Holiness, who was found dead next morning. It is needless to say that Innocent IV. died a natural death, and useless to speculate upon the means by which such a circumstance as the preceding, if true, could come to be known. But perhaps the memory of Grostete may have been one reason of the willingness with which succeeding popes continued Bacon's imprisonment, to which we shall soon come; for though they might hold his spirit guiltless of the death of Innocent, they long remembered what he had done in the flesh; and when Edward I. and the University of Oxford, long after, applied to Clement V. for the canonization of Grostete, they received for answer that the pope would rather his bones were thrown out of consecrated ground.

In the mean time a pope was elected, to whom we owe the production of the 'Opus Majus.' This was Clement IV. (elected 1265), who had previously, when cardinal-bishop of Sabina, been legate in England. Here he had heard of Bacon's discoveries, and earnestly desired to see his writings; but, as before stated, the prohibition of the Franciscans prevented his wish being complied with. After his election as head of the Church, Bacon, conceiving that there would be no danger nor impropriety in disobeying his immediate superiors at the command of the pope, wrote to him, stating that he was now ready to send him whatever he wished for. The answer was a repetition of the former request; and Bacon accordingly drew up the 'Opus Majus,' of which it may be presumed he had the materials ready. It appears that he had mentioned the circumstances in which he stood; for Clement's answer requires him to send the work with haste, any command of his superiors or constitution of his order notwithstanding, and also to point out, with all secrecy, how the danger mentioned by him might be avoided. The book was sent in the year 1267, by the hands of John of London, a pupil of whom he speaks highly, and who has usually obtained some notice from the very great praise which Bacon in one place appears to give him, when he says that he only knows two good mathematicians, one of whom he calls John of London. But from some other circumstances Dr. Jebb concludes, with great probability, that this John was not the pupil above mentioned, but John Peccam, a London Franciscan, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was well known as a mathematician, and whose treatise on Optics, 'Perspectivae communis libri tres,' was printed at least six times between 1542 and 1627, at Nuremberg, Venice, Paris, and Cologne.

Before the 'Opus Majus,' Bacon, according to his own account, had written nothing except a few slight treatises, "capitula quaedam." Before he took the vows he wrote nothing whatever; and afterwards, as he says to Clement, he would have composed many books for his brother and his friends, but when he despaired of ever being able to communicate them, he neglected to write.

With the 'Opus Majus' he sent also two other works, the 'Opus Minus' and the 'Opus Tertium,' the second a sort of abstract of the first, and the third a supplement to it. These exist in manuscript in the Cottonian Library, but have not been printed. It appears that, after the death of Clement, which took place in November, 1268 (not 1271, as stated by some; the latter date is that of the election of Clement's successor, the see having been vacant two years and three-quarters), he revised and augmented the second of these works. What reception Clement gave them is not known: some say he was highly gratified, and provided for the bearer; others, that he at least permitted an accusation of heresy against the writer. Both stories are unlikely: for Clement could hardly have received the work before he was seized with his last illness.

Till the year 1278 Bacon was allowed to remain free from open persecution; but in that year Jerome of Ascoli, general of the Franciscan order, afterwards pope, under the title of Nicholas IV., being appointed legate to the court of France, this was thought a proper opportunity to commence proceedings. Bacon, then sixty-four years old, was accordingly summoned to Paris (Dr. Jebb implies that he had already removed his residence there, to another convent of his order), where a council of Franciscans, with Jerome at their head, condemned his writings, and committed him to close confinement. According to Bale, or Balaeus (cited by Dr. Jebb), the charge of innovation was the pretext, but of what kind was not specified: according to others, the writings of Bacon upon astrology were the particular ground of accusation. We cannot learn that any offer of pardon was made to the accused upon his recantation of the obnoxious opinions, as usual in such cases; which, if we may judge from the 'Opus Majus,' Bacon would have conceived himself bound to accept, at least if he recognised the legality of the tribunal. A confirmation of the proceeding was immediately obtained from the court of Rome. During ten years, every effort made by him to procure his enlargement was without success. The two succeeding pontiffs had short and busy reigns; but on the accession of Jerome (Nicholas IV.), Bacon once more tried to attract notice. He sent to that pope, it is said, a treatise on the method of retarding the infirmities of old age, the only consequence of which was increased rigour and closer confinement. But that which was not to be obtained from the justice of the pope, was conceded to private interest, and Bacon was at last restored to liberty by the intercession of some powerful nobles, but who they were is not mentioned. Some say he died in prison; but the best authorities unite in stating that he returned to Oxford, where he wrote a compendium of theology, and died some months, or perhaps a year and a half, after Nicholas IV. (who died April, 1292). We have adopted 1292 from Anthony-a-Wood, as the most probable year of his death, though foreign works frequently state that he died in 1284. He was buried in the church of the Franciscans at Oxford. The manuscripts which he left behind him were immediately put under lock and key by the magic-fearing survivors of his order, until, not so lucky as those of another wizard, Michael Scott, they are said to have been eaten by insects.

Of the asserted works of Bacon there is a very large catalogue, cited mostly from Bale and Pits, in the preface to Dr. Jebb's edition of the 'Opus Majus.' They amount to five on grammar, six on pure mathematics, seventeen on mechanics and general physics, ten on optics, six on geography, seven on astronomy, one on chronology, nine on chemistry and alchemy, five on magic, eight on logic and metaphysics, nine on medicine, six on theology, twelve miscellaneous; a hundred and one in all. But it is most likely that the greater part of these were extracts from the 'Opus Majus,' &c., with separate titles, that some are not genuine, and that others are more properly attributable to the two other Bacons already mentioned. The principal manuscripts of the 'Opus Majus' are, one in Trinity College Library, Dublin, discovered by Dr. Jebb, which forms the text of his edition, two in the Cottonian Library, one in the Harleian, one in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, one in that of Magdalen College, two in the King's Library, all containing various parts of the work. These are independent of the 'Opus Minus' and 'Opus Tertium' in the Cottonian Library, already mentioned, of some in Lambeth Palace, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and a host of others at home and abroad which we cannot specify. The Dublin manuscript is the only entire one with which Dr. Jebb was acquainted. It is a folio of 249 leaves, beautifully written on thick paper, with a good margin, and in double columns. It is not dated, but from the character of the writing it is judged to be of the reign of Henry VIII., or perhaps the early part of that of Elizabeth. The geometrical figures are neatly drawn in the margin. Pope Clement's letters are in the Vatican Library.

It only remains for us to take a general view of the character of Roger Bacon's writings, and of the contents of the 'Opus Majus.' It is surprising how little is known of this work, the only one in print to which we can appeal, if we would show that philosophy was successfully cultivated in an English university during the thirteenth century. It is of course in Latin, but in Latin of so simple a character, that we know of none in the middle ages more easy to read: and it forms a brilliant exception to the stiff and barbarous style of that and succeeding times. We think we see the thoughts of the author untranslated, though the idiom is often that of an Anglo-Norman; by which we mean that we frequently find Latin words used in their modern English sense, as, for instance, _intendere_ for _in animo habere_, meaning the same as our word to _intend_; _praesumere_ for _sibi arrogare_ in the sense of to _presume_. We should perhaps rather say that the English words receive their meaning from the corrupted Latin, and not _vice versa_, in which case the work of Roger Bacon may become useful in tracing the change, and the more so on account of the great simplicity of the style.

The charge of heresy appears to be by no means so well founded as a Protestant would wish. Throughout the whole of his writings Bacon is a strict Roman Catholic, that is, he expressly submits matters of opinion to the authority of the Church, saying (Cott. MSS. cited by Jebb) that if the respect due to the vicar of the Saviour, "vicarius Salvatoris," alone, and the benefit of the world, could be consulted in any other way than by the progress of philosophy, he would not, under such impediments as lay in his way, proceed with his undertaking for the whole church of God, however much it might entreat or insist. His zeal for Christianity, in its Latin or Western form, breaks out in every page; and all science is considered with direct reference to theology, and not otherwise. But at the same time, to the credit of his principles, considering the book-burning, heretic-hunting age in which he lived, there is not a word of any other force except that of persuasion. He takes care to have both authority and reason for every proposition that he advances: perhaps, indeed, he might have experienced forbearance at the hand of those who were his persecutors, had he not so clearly made out prophets, apostles, and fathers to have been partakers of his opinions. "But let not your Serenity imagine," he says, "that I intend to excite the _clemency_ of your Holiness, in order that the papal majesty should employ force against weak authors and the multitude, or that my unworthy self should raise any stumbling-block to study." Indeed the whole scope of the first part of the work is to prove, from authority and from reason, that philosophy and Christianity cannot disagree; a sentiment altogether of his own revival, in an age in which all philosophers, and mathematicians in particular, were considered as at best of dubious orthodoxy.

The reasoning of Bacon is generally directly dependent upon his premises, which, though often wrong, seldom lead him to the prevailing extreme of absurdity. Even his astrology and alchemy, those two great blots upon his character, as they are usually called, are, when considered by the side of a later age, harmless modifications, irrational only because unproved, and neither impossible nor unworthy of the investigation of a philosopher, in the absence of preceding experiments. His astrology is _physical_. "With regard to human affairs, true mathematicians do not presume to make certain, but consider how the body is altered by the heavens, and the body being altered, the mind is excited to public and private acts, free will existing all the same." An age which is divided upon the question of the effect of the moon upon lunatics, and of which the philosophers have collected no facts decisive against many alleged effects of the same planet upon plants, can ask no more of a philosopher of the thirteenth century than that he should not be too positive. The fame of Leibnitz has not suffered from the _pre-established harmony_ one half as much as that of Bacon from his astrology and alchemy, which were believed in to a much greater extent by many of the learned of his time, and the united effect of which would seem to us sense and logic, compared with the metaphysical folly, all his own, of the eminent philosopher just cited.

This planetary influence appears to have been firmly believed in by Bacon, and in particular the effect of the constellations on the several parts of the human body. Perhaps he was rather prejudiced in favour of a doctrine which was condemned by the same men who thought mathematics and philosophy savoured of heresy. And it must be remembered that the pretended science was almost universally allowed existence, even by those who considered its use unlawful; nor can we infer that the church disbelieved it, because that body discouraged it, any more than that it rejected infernal spirits, because it anathematized magic.