It may strongly be believed that Francis Bacon had a reason for never mentioning the Magna Carta (The Great Charter). Sir Edward Coke mentions it and quotes extensively upon its laws, in every law book of the time. Yet, reason why Bacon did not mention the Charter was because he could not believe in it and not as some biographers wish to give the public the impression that Bacon was ‘against the people’. He couldn’t believe in it, because he didn’t abide his law by two serious statements found in the Charter. And how could he?

The first statement in the Charter is that torture is strictly forbidden. There are no doubts of this if one reads the literature on the Charter and its contents. The second statement is that when a person is found guilty he will be executed for that crime under the matter that the law states and when he dies all possessions of this man go to the crown.

In order for those Privy Councillors to extract guilt from a prisoner they used torture, which was forbidden; if the prisoner died, whilst being tortured without confessing, the family of the prisoner inherits his estates. If the prisoner confesses whilst being tortured, the family of the prisoner does not inherit and all goes to the crown.

Bacon, as a Lord Chancellor, was directed by King James and George Villiers, to extract false guilty confessions from tortured prisoners so James and Villiers could profit. Letters exist, written between Bacon and Villiers, where the latter requests from Bacon to ‘sell sentences’ 1 is one of the strongest assets that Macaulay puts his strength upon, if the latter part of his Essay on Bacon is read.

Since Bacon couldn’t get any share from this profit that he was collecting and offering to James and Villiers (as it is highly unbelievable they were so open handed), Bacon turned to going into debt to sustain his luxury position that was then in custom for a Lord Chancellor to have and show off to the public and colleagues, and in order to pay his amanuenses (pen-names), and his publication of works, be those his works known to the public, or the Shakespearean plays and sonnets unknown to the public.

Either way, Bacon was in a difficult spot. Here he was, writing letters to Villiers promising or confirming that a sentence was settled as Villiers requested, leaving himself vulnerable and open to any kind of libel. Here he was, in desperate need of money to keep (a) his lifestyle and state as Lord Chancellor and (b) his publications going. Such a wit as Bacon it is illogical for him to have allowed his own handwriting offering his judiciary assistance to Villiers to remain on paper instead of burning them; but he didn’t burn them.

It cannot be thought able that Bacon kept those letters, his logic would have told him Burn Them! So, what does Villiers do? He asks Bacon to make two copies of the letters he sends: one in cipher and one in plain English. Villiers gives Bacon some excuse that Bacon’s ciphers can’t be read most of the time, and James is having trouble reading the letters. It should be remembered that there exists a letter (see following) from Bacon to King James in 1609 stating that he writes in cipher to James:

Letter to the King

But I make no judgment yet, but will go on with all diligence; and, if it may not be done otherwise, it is fit Peacock be put to the torture. He deserveth it as well as Peacham did. I beseech Your Majesty not to think I am more bitter because my name is in it; for, besides that I always make my particular a cypher when there is a question of Your Majesty’s honour and service, I think myself honoured by being brought into so good company.

And as, without flattery, I think Your Majesty the best of Kings, and my noble Lord of Buckingham the best of persons favoured, so I hope, without presumption, for my honest and true intentions to State and justice, and my love to my master, I am not the worst of chancellors.
God preserve Your Majesty.
Your Majesty’s most obliged and most obedient servant,

Fr. Verulam, Canc.
Feb. 10, 1619.

Villiers keeps one copy allowing Bacon to think that after James has read it, it was burnt! But it wasn’t. And this is the evidence they set Bacon up on bribery charges, and, it is quite probable that other such evidence was held in James’ hands regarding Bacon’s connection with Prince Henry’s death and also Overbury’s.

Therefore, being forced to confess his guilt because Villiers presented to him the letters he had sent him whenever he requested a case settled to his satisfaction, letters, Bacon thought were already destroyed, brought him to his downfall.

These letters were not collected by Rawley nor were they printed in the Resuscitatio; these letters were published by Abbott, Stephens, Montague, Spedding, Nichol, and others. These letters had slipped through the cracks of King James’ bed chambers or Villiers’ vaults or letter chests, and travelled like worms through time to the biographers of the 1700’s and 1800’s, to haunt Bacon’s wounded name to this day.

The School of Night, led by Sir Walter Raleigh among others, was a secret society of Elizabethan mathematicians, astronomers, writers, adventurers, chemists, philosophers and poets that dared to address bold innovative new ideas. Marlowe was also a member. Group discussions among these men likely covered blasphemous topics, such as the theory that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of our galaxy or the alchemist’s conviction that common metal could be turned into gold. Members of the School of Night were labeled atheists, a dangerous slander in Elizabethan times, connoting immoral and degenerate traits. Since the Queen was the head of the Church of England, any act of social or political defiance was charged as blasphemy or atheism. Critics went so far as to accuse the School of Night of harboring Satanists who made blood sacrifices, and since it was a secret society, who really knows.

Queen Elizabeth I., probably knew about the School of Night; she knew about everything else. Even so, the existence of the School of Night never erupted into a full-blown scandal. Historians suggest that it might have received some royal protection due to Elizabeth’s intimate relationship with Raleigh.