FRANCIS BACON. 19 



Again, tlioro arc precedents for private consultation with the 

 judfjes. For instance in 1612 an Arian preacher was tried for 

 heresy by a consistory of divines, and sentenced to be burnt alive ; 

 the judges were consulted one by one as to whether the King had 

 power to order the sentence to be carried out ; and, without trial in 

 any civil court, Bartholomew Legate perished in the flames. 



A year after the trial of Peacham, Coke disobeys an order of the 

 King, conveyed to him by Bacon, to defer the hearing of a trial in 

 wliich the court is interested. Coke lays the blame on Bacon, but 

 Bacon shows that Coke is in the wrong, and witnesses his rival's 

 fall. From that moment his own fall is certain. The serpent he 

 has trodden upon and crushed will surely turn and make him feel 

 the poison of his fang; but not yet. He is rising, and rapidly, 

 perhaps too rapidly. Thi'ee days after this he is sworn a member 

 of the Privy Council, taking the place from which his rival had 

 been degraded ; nine months after it he becomes Lord Keeper, and 

 in another three months he clears off a vast accumulation of 

 arrears in the Court of Chancery, his rulings and decisions giving 

 general satisfaction. In another six months the high rank of Lord 

 Chancellor is conferred upon him ; and in yet another six months 

 (12th July, 1618) he is raised to the Peerage with the title of 

 Baron Verulam of Verulam. He has now more leisure, and devotes 

 it to his favourite studies, carrying out the desire of his life that 

 his greatness should redound to the benefit of mankind. 



"We have seen that Bacon strenuously and repeatedly advocated 

 toleration when such advocacy was not likely to meet with the 

 approval of his Sovereign, whether Elizabeth or James. There 

 ought not, therefore, to have been any doubt of his sincerity, but, 

 as it has been questioned, it may be well to mention a few episodes 

 of about this time which go far to prove it. 



His friend, Tobie Matthew, son of a bishop, grandson of an arch- 

 bishop, with all his relatives in the Church, becomes a recusant — 

 a Catholic — a few months after the discovery of the gunpowder 

 plot, when the Catholics were in especial disfavour. Bacon tries 

 at first to bring him back into the Church of England, but soon 

 sees that the change in his views has made him "a better and a 

 happier man." He is cast out of his father's house, and Bacon 

 takes him into his own ; he is cast into jail, and Bacon visits him 

 there, and eventually procures his release. Divergence in religious 

 \'iews was then considered to be an insuperable bar to friendship, but 

 these two men are fast friends for life. 



Ten years later, Sir "William and Sir Thomas llonson are in 

 the Tower on suspicion. That they are CathoKcs is, to Coke, a 



