PREFACE. XXX111 



The marriage of the Princess, which had been postponed 

 in consequence of her brother s death, took place on the i4th 

 ot 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, isth 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 yth 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 the 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 



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