erees," he wrote on Feb. 29th, "who certified the
legality of the patents are glanced at, but they are chiefly above the
reach of the House; they attempt so much that they will accomplish
little." Coke, who was now the chief leader in Parliament, began to talk
ominously of precedents, and to lay down rules about the power of the
House to punish--rules which were afterwards found to have no authority
for them. Cranfield, the representative of severe economy, insisted that
the honour of the King required that the referees, whoever they were,
should be called to account. The gathering clouds shifted a little, when
the sense of the House seemed to incline to giving up all retrospective
action, and to a limitation for the future by statute of the
questionable prerogative--a limitation which was in fact attempted by a
bill thrown out by the Lords. But they gathered again when the Commons
determined to bring the whole matter before the House of Lords. The King
wrote to warn Bacon of what was coming. The proposed conference was
staved off by management for a day or two, but it could not be averted,
and the Lords showed their eagerness for it. And two things by this
time--the beginning of March--seemed now to have become clear, first,
that under the general attack on the referees was intended a blow
against Bacon; next, that the person whom he had most reason to fear was
Sir Edward Coke.

The storm was growing; but Bacon was still unalarmed, though Buckingham
had been frightened into throwing the blame on the referees.

"I do hear," he writes to Buckingham (dating his letter on March
7th, "the day I received the seal"), "from divers of judgement,
that to-morrow's conference is like to pass in a calm, as to the
referees. Sir Lionel Cranfield, who hath been formerly the trumpet,
said yesterday that he did now incline unto Sir John Walter's
opinion and motion not to have the referees meddled with, otherwise
than to discount it from the King; and so not to look back, but to
the future. And I do hear almost all men of judgement in the House
wish now that way. I woo nobody; I do but listen, and I have doubt
only of Sir Edward Coke, who I wish had some round _caveat_ given
him from the King; for your Lordship hath no great power with him.
But a word from the King mates him."

But Coke's opportunity had come. The House of Commons was disposed for
gentler measures. But he was