t gains on the side of the
reformers, all of whom with one consent confess that no general and
complete reconstruction of legal doctrine as a science is possible,
except upon the lines laid down by Bacon.

The most memorable case in which Bacon was employed to represent the
Crown during Elizabeth's life was the prosecution of the Earl of Essex
for treason. Essex had been Bacon's friend, patron, and benefactor; and
as long as the earl remained faithful to the Queen and retained her
favor, Bacon served him with ready zeal and splendid efficiency, and
showed himself the wisest and most sincere of counselors. When Essex
rejected his advice, forfeited the Queen's confidence by the follies
from which Bacon had earnestly striven to deter him, and finally plunged
into wanton and reckless rebellion, Bacon, with whom loyalty to his
sovereign had always been the supreme duty, accepted a retainer from the
Crown, and assisted Coke in the prosecution. The crime of Essex was the
greatest of which a subject was capable; it lacked no circumstance of
aggravation; if the most astounding instance of ingratitude and
disloyalty to friendship ever known is to be sought in that age, it will
be found in the conduct of Essex to Bacon's royal mistress. Yet writers
of eloquence have exhausted their rhetorical powers in denouncing
Bacon's faithlessness to his friend. But no impartial reader of the full
story in the documents of the time can doubt that throughout these
events Bacon did his duty and no more, and that in doing it he not
merely made a voluntary sacrifice of his popularity, but a far more
painful sacrifice of his personal feelings.

In 1603 James I. came to the throne, and in spite of the efforts of his
most trusted ministers to keep Bacon in obscurity, soon discovered in
him a man whom he needed. In 1607 he was made Solicitor-General; in
1613 Attorney-General; in March 1617, on the death of Lord Ellesmere, he
received the seals as Lord Keeper; and in January following was made
Lord Chancellor of England. In July 1618 he was raised to the permanent
peerage as Baron Verulam, and in January 1621 received the title of
Viscount St. Albans. During these three years he was the first subject
in the kingdom in dignity, and ought to have been the first in
influence. His advice to the King, and to the Duke of Buckingham who was
the King's king, was always judicious. In certain cardinal points of
policy, it was of the highest statesmanship; and h