CHIEF JUSTICE COKE. 353 



I send also a warrant to the lord chancellor, for 

 making forth a writ for a new chief justice, leaving 

 a blank for the name to he supplied by your majesty s 

 presence ; for I never received your majesty s express 

 pleasure in it. 



If your majesty resolve of Montagu* as I con 

 ceive and wish, it is very material, as these times are, 

 that your majesty have some care, that the recorder 

 succeeding be a temperate and discreet man, and 

 assured to your majesty s service. If your majesty, 

 without too much harshness, can continue the place 

 within your own servants, it is best : if not, the man, 

 upon whom the choice is like to fall, which is Coven 

 try^ I hold doubtful for your service ; not but that 

 he is a well learned, and an honest man; but he 

 hath been, as it were, bred by lord Coke, and sea 

 soned in his ways. 



God preserve your majesty. 



Your Majesty s most humble 



and bounden servant, 



FR. BACON. 



I send not these things, which concern my lord 

 Coke, by my lord Villiers, for such reasons as your 

 majesty may conceive. 



November 13, at noon [1616.] 



* Sir Henry Montagu, recorder of London, who was made 

 lord chief justice of the King s Bench, November 16, 1616. He 

 was afterwards made lord treasurer, and created earl of Man 

 chester. 



t Thomas Coventry, Esq.; afterwards lord keeper of the 

 great seal. 



VOL. VII. AA 



