which it was impossible
for the Commons to give up. But Bacon led the House to agree to an
arrangement which saved their rights; and under a cloud of words of
extravagant flattery he put the King in good-humour, and elicited from
him the spontaneous proposal of a compromise which ended a very
dangerous dispute. "The King's voice," said Bacon, in his report to the
House, "was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth
of man; I do not say the voice of God and not of man; I am not one of
Herod's flatterers; a curse fell upon him that said it, a curse on him
that suffered it. We might say, as was said to Solomon, We are glad, O
King, that we give account to you, because you discern what is spoken."

The course of this Parliament, in which Bacon was active and prominent,
showed the King, probably for the first time, what Bacon was. The
session was not so stormy as some of the later ones; but occasions arose
which revealed to the King and to the House of Commons the deeply
discordant assumptions and purposes by which each party was influenced,
and which brought out Bacon's powers of adjusting difficulties and
harmonising claims. He never wavered in his loyalty to his own House,
where it is clear that his authority was great. But there was no limit
to the submission and reverence which he expressed to the King, and,
indeed, to his desire to bring about what the King desired, as far as it
could be safely done. Dealing with the Commons, his policy was "to be
content with the substance and not to stand on the form." Dealing with
the King, he was forward to recognise all that James wanted recognised
of his kingcraft and his absolute sovereignty. Bacon assailed with a
force and keenness which showed what he could do as an opponent, the
amazing and intolerable grievances arising out of the survival of such
feudal customs as Wardship and Purveyance; customs which made over a
man's eldest son and property, during a minority, to the keeping of the
King, that is, to a King's favourite, and allowed the King's servants to
cut down a man's timber before the windows of his house. But he urged
that these grievances should be taken away with the utmost tenderness
for the King's honour and the King's purse. In the great and troublesome
questions relating to the Union he took care to be fully prepared. He
was equally strong on points of certain and substantial importance,
equally quick to suggest accommodations where nothing