PREFACE. XXxXix 
and on the z2oth the Lord Treasurer reported to the 
Lords that the Lord Chancellor was accused of bribery 
and corruption, and that the charge was supported by two 
cases alleged. Bacon, sick to death as he thought himself, 
and tortured by his hereditary malady, felt that his enemies 
had closed upon him. He knew of ‘the courses that had 
been taken for hunting out complaints’ against him, and 
begged only a fair hearing, that -he might give them an 
ingenuous answer. He wrote to Buckingham: ‘I know I 
have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house 
for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was 
the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him, as 
hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, espe- 
cially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation 
the game.’ And again, to the same: ‘I praise God for it, 
I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living ; 
I never took penny for releasing anything I stopped at the 
Seal; I never took penny for any commission, or things of 
that nature; I never shared with any servant for any second 
or inferior profit.’ To the King he said: ‘For the bri- 
beries and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books 
of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have 
the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit 
of taking rewards to prevent justice ; howsoever I may be frail, 
and partake of the abuses of the times.’ We must take into 
account these protestations when we come to consider his 
subsequent confession. The Houses adjourned on the 27th 
of March till the 17th of April. The day before they met, 
Bacon had an interview with the King. On the following 
day the Lord Treasurer reported to the Lords that the 
Chancellor desired two things of his Majesty :—1. That where 
his answers should be fair and clear to those things objected 
against him, his Lordship might stand upon his innocency. 
2. Where his answers should not be so fair and clear, there 
his Lordship might be admitted to the extenuation of the 
charge; and where the proofs were full and undeniable, his 
Lordship would ingenuously confess them, and put himself 
