not to proceed further till he (Coke) has spoken with his Majesty: "It concerneth your Majesty threefold: first, in this particular of Murray; next, in the consequence of fourteen several patents, part in Queen Elizabeth's time, some in your Majesty's time, which depend upon the like question; but chiefly because this writ is a mean provided by the ancient law of England, to bring any case that may concern your Majesty in profit or power from the ordinary Benches, to be tried and judged before the Chancellor of England by the ordinary and legal part of this power. And your Majesty knoweth your Chancellor is ever a principal counsellor and instrument of monarchy, of immediate dependence on the King; and therefore like to be a safe and tender guardian of the regal rights."1 No one can mistake this policy. At a time of transition, when on the one side the Commons were striving to shake off the old but legal burdens handed down from feudal times, and when the Stuart dynasty on the other side was attempting to re-animate with increased life and vigour the half-dead powers of Impositions, Monopolies, Patents, Councils of the Provinces, and the like-Bacon sided against the Commons and with the Crown. The former aimed at Constitutional Monarchy, an anomalous kind of government, displeasing to logical minds; the latter, more logically, aimed at Despotism; and Bacon, like a philosopher as he was, drifting further and further out of the current of patriotic sympathies into the vortex of Court influence -deliberately espoused the cause of Despotism against that of Constitutional Monarchy-Despotism that was to be tempered indeed by the deepest affection for the subjects, by profound regard for fundamental traditions, by preservation of all the rights and distinctions of burgesses, gentry and nobility; Despotism that was to be wielded by an ideal King doing all things for the people; but, none the less, Despotism alike in the Church and in the State; and in order that the King might achieve despotism in the State, it was necessary that the Judges in this time of flux-when the nation was striving to accommodate ancient traditions to modern life-should not be allowed to take a dispassionate or impartial view of inevitable conflicts. They were not to regard themselves as umpires arbitrating between the King and the Commons, in all matters of disputed law. Wherever the King's rights were concerned, they were to regard themselves not as Judges but as advocates, as the King's servants; "lions" towards the offending subject, but in relation to the supreme Master, "lions under Solomon's throne." A narrow and short-sighted theory, which every Englishman must regard with aversion; but the persistency and skill with which the Attorney-General endeavoured to carry this theory into effect-in spite of the overwhelming disadvantages of attempting to establish an ideal Monarchy under a Monarch who was so far from being ideal-cannot but extort our admiration for Bacon's pre-eminence in the smaller arts of political management. 1 Bacon did not succeed in this case in establishing the principle for which he was contending; the matter was terminated by a compromise. We have seen from Bacon's private note-book that he invariably regarded politics from three points of view; there was the double view of strengthening the King without discontenting the people; but there was also "his own particular." In thus exalting the Chancellor's Court above all the ordinary Courts of Justice, and in putting forward the Chancellor as "a principal instrument of Monarchy" and "a safe and tender guardian of regal rights," he could not possibly ignore Ellesmere's sinking health or his own peculiar fitness to succeed to the seat on the woolsack. Accordingly on February 9 (1616) he began a letter to the King in which he ventured to introduce the subject of a successor to Ellesmere : "My Lord Chancellor's sickness falleth out duro tempore. I have always known him a wise man and of a just elevation for a monarchy. But your Majesty's service must not be mortal. And if you leese1 him, as your Majesty hath now of late purchased many hearts by depressing the wicked, so God doth minister unto you a counterpart to do the like by raising the honest." But before sending this letter he heard that the King had himself written to the sick Chancellor. In the true spirit of a courtier, Bacon (probably on 11 February) re-wrote his letter : "My Lord Chancellor's sickness falleth out duro tempore. I have always known him a wise man and of a just elevation for monarchy. I understood this afternoon by Mr. Murray that your Majesty hath written to him, and I can best witness how much that sovereign cordial wrought 1 That is, "lose." 2 No doubt, "Somerset." with him in his sickness this time twelvemonths. I purpose to see my Lord to-morrow, and then I will be bold to write to your Majesty what hope I have either of his continuance or of his return to business, that your Majesty's service may be as little passive as can be by this accident." But on the following day (12 February) he had seen the Chancellor; and now, without any hesitation, he offers his services to the King, making "oblation" of his heart, his service, his place of Attorney (worth £6,000 a year), and his Clerkship in the Council, which was worth £1,600 more, and reminding him that his father filled the place under Elizabeth and filled it well: "Your worthy Chancellor, I fear, goes his last day. God hath hitherto used to weed out such servants1 as grew not fit for your Majesty. But now he hath gathered to himself a true sage, or salvia, out of your garden. But your Majesty's service must not be mortal. "Now I beseech your Majesty let me put you the present case truly. If you take my Lord Coke, this will follow: first, your Majesty shall put an over-ruling nature into an over-ruling place, which may breed an extreme. Next, you shall blunt his industries in matter of your finances, which seemeth to aim at another place. And lastly, popular men are no sure mounters for your Majesty's saddle. If you take my Lord Hubbard, you shall have a Judge at the upper end of your Council-board and another at the lower end, whereby your Majesty will find your Prerogative pent. For, though there should be emulation between them, yet as legists they will agree in magnifying that wherein they are best. He is no statesman, but an economist, wholly for himself; so as your Majesty-more than an outward form-will find little help in him for your business." If Bacon himself should become Chancellor, his Majesty " shall only be troubled with the true care of a King, which is to think what he would have done in chief, and not of the passages." Having always been "gracious in the Lower House," and having "some interest in the gentlemen of England," Bacon trusts that he will be able to "rectify that body of Parliament-men which is cardo rerum." By "that body of Parliament-men" he appears to mean, not the country-gentlemen, but the Lawyers in the House. These elsewhere he devises how to "win or bridle," as being "the litterae vocales of the House," that is the "vowel sounds," which are necessary for vocal utterance, and without which the consonants (i.e. the country-gentlemen) cannot find expression of their grievances; and by "rectifying" them, he means keeping them in the straight path of loyalty by the hope of promotions and other rewards. That at least is the natural inference from the words immediately following: 1 i.e. Cecil and Northampton; the fall of Somerset was then impending. 2 Spedding, iv. 367; and see above, p. 193. "For let me tell your Majesty that that part of the Chancellor's place which is to judge in equity between party and party, concerneth your Majesty least. But it is the other parts, of a moderator amongst your Council, of an overseer over your Judges, of a planter of fit Justices and governors in the country, that importeth your affairs and these times most." Professor Gardiner says:1 "Perhaps if any date can be fixed as that on which Bacon's chance of serving the nation politically was at an end, it is that of the dissolution which took place on 7 June, 1614; James then deliberately took one way, and the nation another." But here, two years afterwards, we seem to see Bacon, not following, but guiding the King on the path that led him from the nation, and brought his successor to destruction. He positively invites the King to make a tool of him for the purposes of despotism. It is indeed to be a kindly despotism, and he himself is to be selected as an instrument, partly because he is in favour with the people : "To conclude: if I were the man I would be, I should hope that, as your Majesty hath of late won hearts by depressing, you should in this case leese no hearts by advancing: for I see your people can better skill of concretum than abstractum, and that the waves of their affections flow rather after persons than things: so that acts of this nature (if this were one) do more good than twenty bills of grace." The sum of which is, that if the King will but avail himself of the services of an ideal Chancellor provided him by Providence, the Commons of England will gradually allow themselves, by kind words, gracious manners, and wise and philanthropic measures for the Commonwealth, to be lured into forgetfulness of all past and present grievances, and will suffer the constitution of England to glide into that firm and fixed mould of paternal Monarchy which seemed to Bacon the logical consequence of past precedents and present needs. 1 Dictionary of National Biography, "Bacon." 2 Depressing Somerset. Bacon received a promise of the Chancellorship; but it was conveyed in a manner that showed him he had made one slight mistake. In his letter to the King he had laid stress upon the fact that his former promotion to the Attorneyship was the King's "own sole act," not that of the Favourite Somerset ; "more than that Somerset, when he knew your Majesty had resolved it, thrust himself into the business for a fee." And therefore he had appealed directly to the supreme Master: "I have no reason to pray to saints." There he was wrong. The old saint was cast down from the niche; but a new saint already filled its place. The promise of the Chancellorship was conveyed to him, not directly from the King, but through Villiers. Bacon's consummate tact immediately appreciated and accepted the lesson that he must henceforth approach the King through the new Favourite; and in the following letter he promises Villiers (15 February, 1616) that he will for the future wholly rely upon him and employ no other intercession with the King: "SIR, "The message which I received from you by Mr. Shute hath bred in me such belief and confidence, as I will now wholly rely upon your excellent and happy self. When persons of greatness and quality begin speech with me of the matter and offer me their good offices, I can but answer them civilly. But these things are but toys. I am yours, surer to you than to my own life. For, as they speak of the Turquois stone in a ring, I will break into twenty pieces before you have the least fall. God keep you ever. Your truest servant, FR. BACON. "My Lord Chancellor is prettily amended. I was with him yesterday almost half an hour. He used me with wonderful tokens of kindness. We both wept, which I do not often." § 33 THE FALL OF COKE Ellesmere was moved to fresh life and vigour by an unwarrantable attack of Coke upon the Chancery jurisdiction. Two fraudulent creditors having obtained judgments in their favour in the King's Bench, their victims had sought and obtained relief from Chancery. Indignant at this and at the recent attempt to take causes from his Court to the jurisdiction of the |