them. To his utter
amazement and alarm he found that the King was strong for the match, and
that the proceeding of the Council was condemned at Court as gross
misconduct. In vain he protested that he was quite willing to forward
the match; that in fact he had helped it. Bacon's explanations, and his
warnings against Coke the King "rejected with some disdain;" he
justified Coke's action; he charged Bacon with disrespect and
ingratitude to Buckingham; he put aside his arguments and apologies as
worthless or insincere. Such reprimands had not often been addressed,
even to inferior servants. Bacon's letters to Buckingham remained at
first without notice; when Buckingham answered he did so with scornful
and menacing curtness. Meanwhile Bacon heard from Yelverton how things
were going at Court.

"Sir E. Coke," he wrote, "hath not forborne by any engine to heave
at both your Honour and myself, and he works the weightiest
instrument, the Earl of Buckingham, who, as I see, sets him as
close to him as his shirt, the Earl speaking in Sir Edward's
phrase, and as it were menacing in his spirit."

Buckingham, he went on to say, "did nobly and plainly tell me he would
not secretly bite, but whosoever had had any interest, or tasted of the
opposition to his brother's marriage, he would as openly oppose them to
their faces, and they should discern what favour he had by the power he
would use." The Court, like a pack of dogs, had set upon Bacon. "It is
too common in every man's mouth in Court that your greatness shall be
abated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor unto some, so shall
theirs be to you." Buckingham said to every one that Bacon had been
forgetful of his kindness and unfaithful to him: "not forbearing in open
speech to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you, to be
unfaithful unto him, as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset."

All this while Bacon had been clearly in the right. He had thrust
himself into no business that did not concern him. He had not, as
Buckingham accuses him of having done, "overtroubled" himself with the
marriage. He had done his simple duty as a friend, as a councillor, as a
judge. He had been honestly zealous for the Villiers's honour, and
warned Buckingham of things that were beyond question. He had curbed
Coke's scandalous violence, perhaps with no great regret, but with
manifest reason. But for this he was now on the very edge of losing his
offi