chamber with the Learned Counsel. When the feast was passed I came amongst them, and set me down at the end of the table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, and but a foreman. I told them I was weary, and therefore must be short, and that I would now speak with them but upon two points.

"Whereof the one was that I would tell them plainly that I was firmly persuaded that the former discords and differences between the Chancery and other Courts was but flesh and blood; and now the men were gone the matter was gone; and that for my part, as I would not suffer any the least diminution or derogation from the ancient and due power of the Chancery, so, if anything should be brought to them at any time touching the proceedings of the Chancery which did seem to them exorbitant or inordinate, that they should freely and friendly acquaint me with it, and we should soon agree; or if not, we had a Master that could easily both discern and rule. At which speech of mine, besides a great deal of thanks and acknowledgment, I did see cheer and comfort in their faces as if it were a new world.

"The second point was that I let them know how his Majesty, at his going, gave me charge to call and receive from them the accounts of their circuits, according to his Majesty's former prescript, to be set down in writing, and that I was to transmit the writings themselves to his Majesty ; and accordingly, as soon I have received them, I will send them to his Majesty."

Another means of increasing the King's power would be to extend the jurisdiction of the Court of High Commission. This Court had been established at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, to deal with the extraordinary crisis caused by the national transition in religion. "Its powers were enormous, and united both those forms of oppression which were repulsive to moderate Englishmen. It managed to combine the arbitrary tendencies by which the lay courts were at that time infected, with the inquisitional character of an ecclesiastical tribunal." 1 Yet it is to this Court that Bacon now desires to give extended powers if he can persuade the Judges to consent. The letter concludes with a most courtly and dexterous insinuation that James can govern England as well in his absence, through the Lord Keeper, as by his own presence.

"Some two days before, I had a conference with some Judges (not all, but such as I did choose), touching the High Commission and the extending of the same in some points; which I see I shall be able to despatch by consent, without his Majesty's further trouble.

1 Gardiner, History, i. 34.

"I did call upon the Judges' Committees also for the proceeding in the purging of Sir Edward Coke's Reports, which I see they go on with seriously.

"Thanks be to God, we have not much to do for matters of counsel, and I see now that his Majesty is as well able by his letters to govern England from Scotland, as he was to govern Scotland from England."

A few days afterwards (having recovered from a short illness which made some think that the new Lord Keeper had "so tender a constitution of body and mind that he would hardly be able to undergo the burden of so much business as his place required,") he took the opportunity of the promotion of certain Judges, to deliver two or three weighty speeches, in all of which he magnifies to the utmost the King's Prerogative. A Judge, he says to Mr. Serjeant Hutton, is "not to be headstrong but heartstrong;" and then follows a sentence of which the Lord Keeper thought so well, that he afterwards (1625) inserted it in the enlarged edition of the Essays: "The twelve Judges of the realm are as the twelve lions under Solomon's throne; they must be lions, but yet lions under the throne." Sir John Denham receives similar advice: "Above all, you ought to maintain the King's Prerogative, and to set down with yourself that the King's Prerogative and the Law are not two things; but the King's Prerogative is Law and the principal part of Law." To the same effect is his charge to all the Judges in the Star Chamber on 10 July the Judges are "the planets" of the Kingdom; the King is their "first mover," that is, the primum mobile of the old astronomy. "Do therefore," he charges them, "as the planets do move always and be carried with the motion of your First Mover, which is your Sovereign; a popular Judge is a deformed thing." On 8 June he writes to Buckingham that he has cleared off the business in Chancery: "Not one cause unheard. Not one petition unanswered. And this, I think, could not be said in our age before."

1 Compare Essays xv. 5: xvii. 24; li. 59.

§ 36 THE LORD KEEPER OUT OF FAVOUR

But meanwhile, a storm was preparing for the Lord Keeper. There had been, as far back as November, 1616, a project for the marriage of Sir John Villiers, a brother of Buckingham, to Coke's daughter; and although it had been at one time broken off by Coke's refusal to pay the needful dowry, the negotiations had been reopened, and Coke was now (June, 1617) on good terms with the Favourite. The mother, Lady Hatton, averse to the match, had carried the girl away; but Coke, after vainly attempting to obtain a warrant from Bacon through the mother of Sir John Villiers, had obtained one from Winwood. Then, accompanied by several servants, he had "repaired to the house where she was remaining, and with a piece of timber er form, broken open the door and dragged her along to his coach."

Bacon of course regarded this affair, like all others, from a double point of view-the political, and "his own particular.” In both aspects, the proposed marriage seemed to him most objectionable. If, by an alliance with the Favourite, Coke were again restored to the sunshine of the royal favour, and perhaps to his place in the Council, it might have the effect of discouraging the friends and encouraging the enemies of the Prerogative; and his own position would assuredly be shaken by an enemy always at the King's hand to blacken his motives and to laugh at his law.1 But Bacon made the very great mistake of thinking that, because this step would unquestionably be injurious to him privately, and possibly to his political schemes for the King's interests, therefore the King himself could not possibly be in favour of it. He altogether overrated his own influence and underrated the Favourite's; and in expostulating with the latter, he forgot that a young man who

"It is true," he says, in his first letter (July 12) to Buckingham, "my judgment is not so weak to think it can do me any hurt;" and he protests to the King that it is absurd to suppose that he should fear Coke or "take umbrage at him in respect of mine own particular;" but in a subsequent letter he confesses that, from the very first, he was alarmed on his own account, lest he should lose the friendship of the Favourite (August 23): "I did ever fear that this alliance would go near to leese me your lordship, that I hold so dear ; and that was the only respect particular to myself that moved me to be as I was till I heard from you."

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will endure a moral or spiritual exhortation couched in general terms, will be far less patient when his adviser not only warns him against a particular course on which he is resolved, but also gives point to the warning by telling him that his disobedience will end in his ruin.

The Lord Keeper's head must have been a little turned by all that "pomp and world" through which he had lately passed; or else he could hardly have shown such a curious want of tact as characterises the letter to the Earl of Buckingham in which (12 July) he protests against the proposed marriage. The Earl's brother, he says, purposes to marry into a disgraced house, and the Earl himself will go near to lose all his friends, himself (Bacon) only excepted. Since by his great experience in the world he must needs see further than his Lordship can, he trusts Buckingham will accept this, his faithful service. On the same day he gives Lady Hatton a warrant for the recovery of her daughter. Three days afterwards Coke was called before the Council, and orders were given that an information should be preferred against him in the Court of the Star Chamber. But a short interval sufficed to change all this. Taxed at the Council Board with abetting Coke, Winwood produced a "letter of approbation of all his courses" from the King, which struck the Council dumb. They immediately undid everything they had done, and informed the King (about 19 July) of their retractation.

A fortnight had now elapsed since Bacon had written to Buckingham, and still neither the King nor the Favourite had vouchsafed any reply. He therefore writes to the King (25 July) declaring that "if there be any merit in drawing on that match," it is due to the Council, who "have so humbled Sir Edward Coke, as he seeks now that with submission which (as your Majesty knows) before he rejected with scorn." Yet he ventures to protest that, if Coke is to be restored, his Majesty must expect divisions in the Council, not from anything that could arise from Bacon himself " for I can be omnia omnibus for your Majesty's service "--but because of Coke's unsociable and intolerable nature. In the same strain he writes also to Buckingham. On 23 August, a short and angry note from the Favourite, and a sharp rebuke from the King, awakened the Lord Keeper to

a sense of his true position. Another letter from him couched in a strain of pathetic humility-humbly confessing that he had been "a little parent-like" in his advice to the Favourite " (this being no other term than his Lordship hath heretofore vouchsafed to my counsels), but in truth (and it please your Majesty), without any grain of disesteem for his Lordship's discretion" -elicited from the King only a second rebuke, and from Buckingham the laconic reply that "time would try all."

Meantime, Bacon's faithful friend and admirer, Yelverton, the Attorney-General, had gone to meet the King who was now returning from Scotland; and he sent a report of the state of things at Court, which showed Bacon that his position was endangered. Coke had arrived before him and had been well received. Buckingham was burning with a fierce and undisguised resentment; he plainly told Yelverton that "he would not secretly bite," but would openly oppose those who had set themselves against the match; " and they should discern what favour he had by the power he would use." Yelverton, who would truckle neither to the Favourite nor to the King, protested that Sir Edward Coke himself by his violence, and not the Lord Keeper, had thrown obstacles in the way of the marriage. Then follows a graphic account of the storms which the Lord Keeper must be prepared to face.

"Now, my Lord, give me leave out of all my affections that shall ever serve you, to intimate touching yourself :

"1st. That every courtier is acquainted that the Earl professeth openly against you as forgetful of his kindness, and unfaithful to him in your love and in your actions.

"2nd. That he returneth the shame upon himself, in not listening to counsel that dissuaded his affection from you, and not to mount you so high; not forbearing in open speech (as divers have told me and this bearer, your gentleman, hath heard also) to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you to be unfaithful to him as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset.

"3rd. That it is too common in every man's mouth in court, that your greatness shall be abated, and as your tongue hath been a razor to some, so shall theirs be to you.

"4th. That there is laid up for you, to make your burden the more grievous, many petitions to his Majesty against you. . .

"My noble Lord, if I were worthy, being the meanest of all to interpose my weakness, I would humbly desire :