the Committees, which had his friends in them as well as his
enemies, and are said to have been open courts. Towards the end of
March, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that "the Houses were working hard
at cleansing out the Augaean stable of monopolies, and also extortions in
Courts of Justice. The petitions against the Lord Chancellor were too
numerous to be got through: his chief friends and brokers of bargains,
Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, and others attacked, are
obliged to accuse him in their own defence, though very reluctantly. His
ordinary bribes were L300, L400, and even L1000.... The Lords admit no
evidence except on oath. One Churchill, who was dismissed from the
Chancery Court for extortion, is the chief cause of the Chancellor's
ruin."[3] Bacon was greatly alarmed. He wrote to Buckingham, who was
"his anchor in these floods." He wrote to the King; he was at a loss to
account for the "tempest that had come on him;" he could not understand
what he had done to offend the country or Parliament; he had never
"taken rewards to pervert justice, however he might be frail, and
partake of the abuse of the time."

"Time hath been when I have brought unto you _genitum columbae_,
from others. Now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your Majesty
with the wings of a dove, which once within these seven days I
thought would have carried me a higher flight.

"When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a
tempest as is comen upon me. I have been (as your Majesty knoweth
best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to
have things carried _suavibus modis_. I have been no avaricious
oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty or intolerable or
hateful man, in my conversation or carriage. I have inherited no
hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should
this be? For these are the things that use to raise dislikes
abroad."

And he ended by entreating the King to help him:

"That which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is that
I may know by my matchless friend [Buckingham] that presenteth to
you this letter, your Majesty's heart (which is an _abyssus_ of
goodness, as I am an _abyssus_ of misery) towards me. I have been
ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself,
the property being yours; and now making myself an oblation to do
wi