sdain, proceeded as with an ordinary cause, heard it,
and judicially determined it. Bacon could have wished for nothing more
suicidal.

Coke was summoned before the Privy Council. It was suddenly discovered
that he had been guilty of a breach of duty while Attorney-General, in
concealing a bond given to the Crown by Sir Christopher Hatton. He had
also misconducted himself in a dispute with the Lord Chancellor
respecting injunctions; moreover, he had insulted the king when called
before him in the case of _commendams_. In addition, many extravagant
and exorbitant opinions had been set down and published in his reports
for positive and good law. So heinous an offender could not go
unpunished. By royal mandate the delinquent was suspended from his
office of Chief Justice. Simple suspension, however, brought no
consolation to Bacon, who goaded the king to downright persecution. On
the 16th of November, 1616, the Chief Justice received his dismissal.
Lord Campbell pleads for the fallen man, who heard his sentence with
"dejection and tears." We must, nevertheless, not forget the weakness
when we reflect upon his abject submission to royalty during his days of
dependence, and as we approach the more stormy times when the spirit of
vengeance incited him to grapple with royalty in the temper of a rebel.
Magnanimity is wanting throughout.

As Coke tumbled down Bacon rose to his zenith. While the former was
shedding tears for his dismissal, the latter was intoxicated with joy by
his elevation to the Chancellorship. The defeated judge, however, was
not the man to submit without a struggle to his fate. By his second wife
he had a daughter: she had reached a marriageable age and was heiress to
a princely fortune. Coke resolved that she should marry Sir John
Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's eldest brother. Sir John was very
poor, and the Duke of Buckingham all powerful. The union effected, what
should hinder his return to favor? Bacon, terrified at the plot,
encouraged mother and daughter to resist the will of the father; but Sir
John and the duke were more than a match for the counter-conspirators.
After a gallant opposition the ladies yielded, and the marriage was
celebrated at Hampton Court, "in the presence of the king and queen and
all the chief nobility of England." Sir John was old enough to be his
wife's father, but that was a trifle. The results of the match were such
as might be expected. Coke was restored to the Privy Co