niOGKAPHlCAL INTRODUCTION. 



progress with his &quot; Instauratio Magna.&quot; On Lord Salisbury s 

 death Bacon was urgent with the king to make use of his political 

 services, suggesting plans and measures of great importance. 

 Adroit manipulation figures too largely in them ; but his advice 

 to the king to have no more bargaining with his subjects, to wait 

 patiently till the Commons were willing to grant supplies, that 

 &quot; Charity seeketh not her own,&quot; and that the king was to take 

 care of his subjects and his subjects take care of their king, was 

 too high-pitched for that age. Bacon was surprised by the news 

 of the secret arrangement of the Spanish marriage, but he still 

 adhered to the king, and took his side against Coke in the long 

 quarrel about the supremacy of the judges over the king s orders, 

 which we cannot detail here. Coke was dismissed from the Chief 

 Justiceship in 1616. Bacon became a privy councillor ; and in 

 March, 1617, he reached one of the goals of his ambition in 

 being appointed Lord Keeper. In 1618 his title was changed to 

 Lord Chancellor, and he was created Baron Verulam. As a judge 

 he was rapid and just ; but Buckingham continually sent him 

 letters, asking him to favour his friends in their suits. He 

 managed adroitly to steer clear of any open yielding. Against 

 Buckingham s desires he advocated the abolition of the more 

 injurious patents and monopolies then so numerous and so 

 fettering to trade and invention. In 1620 he published his 

 &quot; Xovum Organum ; and in 1621 he kept his sixtieth birthday 

 at York House, which Ben Jonson celebrated in verse, depicting 

 him as one 



&quot; Whose even thread the fates spin round and full 

 Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.&quot; 



A few days later he was created Viscount St. Albans. 



But a storm was brewing which he could not weather with all 

 his manipulation. In March, Cranfield, the Master of the Wards, 

 accused the Court of Chancery of unduly protecting insolvents; 

 but very quickly certain petitions were presented to the House of 

 Commons in which the Lord Chancellor was directly accused of 



r ibcry : he tad taken money from persons and decided their 

 cases against them. He had himself laid down as a rule, that 



