in the background.  It is easy to imagine reasons, though the apparent short-sightedness of the policy may surprise us; but Cecil was too reticent and self-controlled a man to let his reasons appear, and his words, in answer to his cousin’s applications for his assistance, were always kind, encouraging, and vague.  But we must judge by the event, and that makes it clear that Cecil did not care to see Bacon in high position.  Nothing can account for Bacon’s strange failure for so long a time to reach his due place in the public service but the secret hostility, whatever may have been the cause, of Cecil.

There was also another difficulty.  Coke was the great lawyer of the day, a man whom the Government could not dispense with, and whom it was dangerous to offend.  And Coke thoroughly disliked Bacon.  He thought lightly of his law, and he despised his refinement and his passion for knowledge.  He cannot but have resented the impertinence, as he must have thought it, of Bacon having been for a whole year his rival for office.  It is possible that if people then agreed with Mr. Spedding’s opinion as to the management of Essex’s trial, he may have been irritated by jealousy; but a couple of months after the trial (April 29, 1601) Bacon sent to Cecil, with a letter of complaint, the following account of a scene in Court between Coke and himself: 

     “A true remembrance of the abuse I received of Mr.
     Attorney-General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term;
     for the truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present.

“I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of Geo. Moore, a relapsed recusant, a fugitive and a practising traytor; and showed better matter for the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever with a salvo jure.  And this I did in as gentle and reasonable terms as might be.

“Mr. Attorney kindled at it, and said, ’Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against me pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good.’ I answered coldly in these very words:  ’Mr. Attorney, I respect you; I fear you not; and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it.’

“He replied, ’I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, who are less than little; less than the least;’ and other such strange light terms he gave me, with that insulting which cannot be expressed.

     “Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this:  ’Mr. Attorney, do
     not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be
     again, when it please the Queen.’