days after the first mention of corruption the Commons laid their
complaints of him before the House of Lords, and on the same day (March
19) Bacon, finding himself too ill to go to the House, wrote to the
Peers by Buckingham, requesting them that as some "complaints of base
bribery" had come before them, they would give him a fair opportunity of
defending himself, and of cross-examining witnesses; especially begging,
that considering the number of decrees which he had to make in a
year--more than two thousand--and "the courses which had been taken in
hunting out complaints against him," they would not let their opinion of
him be affected by the mere number of charges that might be made. Their
short verbal answer, moved by Southampton (March 20), that they meant to
proceed by right rule of justice, and would be glad if he cleared his
honour, was not encouraging. And now that the Commons had brought the
matter before them, the Lords took it entirely into their own hands,
appointing three Committees, and examining the witnesses themselves. New
witnesses came forward every day with fresh cases of gifts and presents,
"bribes" received by the Lord Chancellor. When Parliament rose for the
Easter vacation (March 27-April 17), the Committees continued sitting. A
good deal probably passed of which no record remains. When the Commons
met again (April 17) Coke was full of gibes about _Instauratio
Magna_--the true _Instauratio_ was to restore laws--and two days after
an Act was brought in for review and reversal of decrees in Courts of
Equity. It was now clear that the case against Bacon had assumed
formidable dimensions, and also a very strange, and almost monstrous
shape. For the Lords, who were to be the judges, had by their Committees
taken the matter out of the hands of the Commons, the original accusers,
and had become themselves the prosecutors, collecting and arranging
evidence, accepting or rejecting depositions, and doing all that
counsel or the committing magistrate would do preliminary to a trial.
There appears to have been no cross-examining of witnesses on Bacon's
behalf, or hearing witnesses for him--not unnaturally at this stage of
business, when the prosecutors were engaged in making out their own
case; but considering that the future judges had of their own accord
turned themselves into the prosecutors, the unfairness was great. At the
same time it does not appear that Bacon did anything to watch how things
went in