epared to gather up into "one brief" the charges against the Lord
Chancellor, still, however, continuing open to receive fresh complaints.

Meanwhile the chase after abuses of all kinds was growing hotter in the
Commons--abuses in patents and monopolies, which revived the complaints
against referees, among whom Bacon was frequently named, and abuses in
the Courts of Justice. The attack passed by and spared the Common Law
Courts, as was noticed in the course of the debates; it spared
Cranfield's Court, the Court of Wards. But it fell heavily on the
Chancery and the Ecclesiastical Courts. "I have neither power nor will
to defend Chancery," said Sir John Bennett, the judge of the Prerogative
Court; but a few weeks after his turn came, and a series of as ugly
charges as could well be preferred against a judge, charges of extortion
as well as bribery, were reported to the House by its Committee. There
can be no doubt of the grossness of many of these abuses, and the zeal
against them was honest, though it would have shown more courage if it
had flown at higher game; but the daily discussion of them helped to
keep alive and inflame the general feeling against so great a
"delinquent" as the Lord Chancellor was supposed to be. And, indeed, two
of the worst charges against him were made before the Commons. One was a
statement made in the House by Sir George Hastings, a member of the
House, who had been the channel of Awbry's gift, that when he had told
Bacon that if questioned he must admit it, Bacon's answer was: "George,
if you do so, I must deny it upon my honour--upon my oath." The other
was that he had given an opinion in favour of some claim of the Masters
in Chancery for which he received L1200, and with which he said that all
the judges agreed--an assertion which all the judges denied. Of these
charges there is no contradiction.[4]

Bacon made one more appeal to the King (April 21). He hoped that, by
resigning the seal, he might be spared the sentence:

"But now if not _per omnipotentiam_ (as the divines speak), but
_per potestatem suaviter disponentem_, your Majesty will graciously
save me from a sentence with the good liking of the House, and that
cup may pass from me; it is the utmost of my desires.

"This I move with the more belief, because I assure myself that if
it be reformation that is sought, the very taking away the seal,
upon my general submission, will be as much in examp