ua 
PREFACE. Xxxiii 
_ The marriage of the Princess, which had’been postponed 
in consequence of her brother’s death, took place on the r4th 
of February, 1612-13, and a masque was given as an enter- 
tainment in honour of the event by the gentlemen of Gray’s 
Inn and the Inner Temple. Bacon was the contriver of the 
device, which represented the marriage of the Thames and 
the Rhine. It was a work to which he was not new, and his 
Essay ‘ Of Masques and Triumphs’ shows that he took interest 
in it, 
The Mastership of the Wards had again been vacant by the 
death of Sir George Carey, 13th November, 1612, and ‘Sir 
Francis Bacon certainly expecting the place, had put most of 
his men into new cloaks. Afterward when Sir Walter Cope 
carried the place, one said merrily that Sir Walter was Master 
of the Wards and Sir Francis Bacon of the Liveries.’ (Rawley.) 
As before, he might say sic nos non nobis. But the promotion 
for which he had almost served an apprenticeship was not 
long in coming. The death of Sir Thomas Fleming, Chief 
Justice of the King’s Bench, on the 7th of August, 1613, 
brought about'a change. Sir Edward Coke, who had hitherto 
been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, became Chief 
Justice of England and a Privy Councillor; Hobart was put in 
his place, and Bacon succeeded Hobart as Attorney General 
on thé 26th of October. For effecting this change, though 
Bacon himself attributed it to the King, the Court favourite, 
Somerset, wished to appropriate some credit, and it was ap- 
parently with the view of releasing himself from the implied 
obligation, that Bacon took the whole charge of preparing a 
masque, which was given by Gray’s Inn in honour of the 
marriage of Somerset to the divorced Countess of Essex, 
The first professional work in which he was engaged after 
his appointment, was the delivery of a charge in the Star- 
Chamber concerning duels, on the 26th January, 1613-4. But 
there were two cases with which his name has been associated, 
and upon the telling of which much of the impression in 
modern times with regard to his character depends, These 
were the cases of St, John and Peacham, The charge against 
c 
