his disgrace was richly deserved. Buckingham
kept up appearances by saying a word for him from time to time in
Parliament, which he knew would be useless, and which he certainly took
no measures to make effective. It is sometimes said that Buckingham
never knew what dissimulation was. He was capable, at least, of the
perfidy and cowardice of utter selfishness. Bacon's conspicuous fall
diverted men's thoughts from the far more scandalous wickedness of the
great favourite. But though there was no plot, though the blow fell upon
Bacon almost accidentally, there were many who rejoiced to be able to
drive it home. We can hardly wonder that foremost among them was Coke.
This was the end of the long rivalry between Bacon and Coke, from the
time that Essex pressed Bacon against Coke in vain to the day when Bacon
as Chancellor drove Coke from his seat for his bad law, and as Privy
Councillor ordered him to be prosecuted in the Star Chamber for
riotously breaking open men's doors to get his daughter. The two men
thoroughly disliked and undervalued one another. Coke made light of
Bacon's law. Bacon saw clearly Coke's narrowness and ignorance out of
that limited legal sphere in which he was supposed to know everything,
his prejudiced and interested use of his knowledge, his coarseness and
insolence. But now in Parliament Coke was supreme, "our Hercules," as
his friends said. He posed as the enemy of all abuses and corruption. He
brought his unrivalled, though not always accurate, knowledge of law and
history to the service of the Committees, and took care that the
Chancellor's name should not be forgotten when it could be connected
with some bad business of patent or Chancery abuse. It was the great
revenge of the Common Law on the encroaching and insulting Chancery
which had now proved so foul. And he could not resist the opportunity of
marking the revenge of professional knowledge over Bacon's airs of
philosophical superiority. "To restore things to their original" was his
sneer in Parliament, "this, _Instauratio Magna. Instaurare
paras--Instaura leges justitiamque prius_."[5]

The charge of corruption was as completely a surprise to Bacon as it was
to the rest of the world. And yet, as soon as the blot was hit, he saw
in a moment that his position was hopeless--he knew that he had been
doing wrong; though all the time he had never apparently given it a
thought, and he insisted, what there is every reason to believe, that no
pres