LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 305 



us four cases in Plowden, which were erroneous : and there 

 upon delivered in to us the inclosed paper, wherein your 

 majesty may perceive, that my lord is a happy man, that 

 there should be no more errors in his five hundred cases 

 than in a few cases of Plowden. Your majesty may also 

 perceive, that your majesty s direction to my Lord Chancel 

 lor and myself, and the travail taken by us and Mr. Soli 

 citor, * in following and performing your direction, was not 

 altogether lost ; for that of those three heads, which we 

 principally respected, which were the rights and liberties 

 of the church, your prerogative, and the jurisdiction of 

 other your courts my lord hath scarcely fallen upon any, 

 except it be the prince s case, which also yet seemeth to 

 stand but upon the grammatical, of French and Latin. 



My lord did also give his promise, which your majesty 

 shall find in the end of his writing, thus far in a kind of 

 common place or thesis, that it was sin for a man to go 

 against his own conscience, though erroneous, except his 

 conscience be first informed and satisfied. 



The Lord Chancellor in the conclusion signified to my 

 Lord Coke your majesty s commandment, that until report 

 made, and your pleasure thereupon known, he shall forbear 

 his sitting at Westminster, See. not restraining nevertheless 

 any other exercise of his place of chief justice in private. 



Thus having performed, to the best of our understanding, 

 your royal commandment, we rest ever 



Your Majesty s most faithful and 



most bounden Servants, &c. 



The Lord Viscount Villiers to Sir Francis Bacon, 



Attorney-General . 

 Sir, 



I have acquainted his majesty with my Lord Chancellor s 

 and your report, touching my Lord Coke ; as also with your 

 opinion therein ; which his majesty doth dislike for these 

 three reasons : first, because that by this course you pro 

 pound, the process cannot have a beginning, till after his 

 majesty s return ; which, how long it may last after, no 

 man knoweth ; he therefore thinketh it too long and uncer 

 tain a delay, to keep the bench so long void from a chief 

 justice. Secondly, although his majesty did use the coun 

 cil s advice in dealing with the Chief Justice upon his other 

 misdemeanours, yet he would be loath to lessen his preroga 

 tive in making the council judges, whether he should be 



* Sir Henry Yelverton. 

 VOL. XII. X 



