Word: bacons
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...harsh term. I do not like to use it." John T. Noonan Jr., 58, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, feels quite differently about the term. In a monumental new book bluntly titled Bribes (Macmillan; $29.95), he applies the word to figures as distinguished as Francis Bacon and Thomas a Becket, and to a whole array of U.S. Presidents: Monroe, Garfield, Johnson, Nixon. Noonan's 5,000-year chronicle of scandals is deplorably entertaining, but what is still more interesting is his demonstration of how the whole concept of bribery has evolved...
King James I called on any citizen who knew of bribery of his judges to make a public accusation. One of the first to complain, John Wrenham, charged in 1617 that the learned Lord Chancellor Bacon had unfairly ruled against him. When Wrenham was unable to prove bribery, however, both his ears were cut off, after which he was "perpetually imprisoned." Four years later, Bacon finally confessed to a whole array of bribes, and Parliament fined him (pounds)40,000 and sentenced him to the Tower. The King majestically commuted the penalties...
Lawyers for the insurance company argued that Blaikie may not have killed the businessman and suggested that Bacon's poor finances at the time of his death gave him a motive for suicide...
Blaike, who was indicted on a count of forgery and three related charges in connection with Bacon's insurance policy, is serving a life sentence in state prison on charges that he fatally shot another...
...Bacon's charge that Blaikie killed her husband was never brought to criminal court...