was worth being employed.  He took a leading part in the discussions, and was trusted by the House as their spokesman and reporter in the various conferences.  The King, in his overweening confidence in his absolute prerogative, had, indeed, got himself into serious difficulty; for the privilege was one which it was impossible for the Commons to give up.  But Bacon led the House to agree to an arrangement which saved their rights; and under a cloud of words of extravagant flattery he put the King in good-humour, and elicited from him the spontaneous proposal of a compromise which ended a very dangerous dispute.  “The King’s voice,” said Bacon, in his report to the House, “was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth of man; I do not say the voice of God and not of man; I am not one of Herod’s flatterers; a curse fell upon him that said it, a curse on him that suffered it.  We might say, as was said to Solomon, We are glad, O King, that we give account to you, because you discern what is spoken.”

The course of this Parliament, in which Bacon was active and prominent, showed the King, probably for the first time, what Bacon was.  The session was not so stormy as some of the later ones; but occasions arose which revealed to the King and to the House of Commons the deeply discordant assumptions and purposes by which each party was influenced, and which brought out Bacon’s powers of adjusting difficulties and harmonising claims.  He never wavered in his loyalty to his own House, where it is clear that his authority was great.  But there was no limit to the submission and reverence which he expressed to the King, and, indeed, to his desire to bring about what the King desired, as far as it could be safely done.  Dealing with the Commons, his policy was “to be content with the substance and not to stand on the form.”  Dealing with the King, he was forward to recognise all that James wanted recognised of his kingcraft and his absolute sovereignty.  Bacon assailed with a force and keenness which showed what he could do as an opponent, the amazing and intolerable grievances arising out of the survival of such feudal customs as Wardship and Purveyance; customs which made over a man’s eldest son and property, during a minority, to the keeping of the King, that is, to a King’s favourite, and allowed the King’s servants to cut down a man’s timber before the windows of his house.  But he urged that these grievances should be taken away with the utmost tenderness for the King’s honour and the King’s purse.  In the great and troublesome questions relating to the Union he took care to be fully prepared.  He was equally strong on points of certain and substantial importance, equally quick to suggest accommodations where nothing substantial was touched.  His attitude was one of friendly and respectful independence.  It was not misunderstood by the King.  Bacon, who had hitherto been an unsworn and unpaid member of the Learned Counsel, now received his office by patent, with a small salary, and he was charged with the grave business of preparing the work for the Commissioners for the Union of the Kingdoms, in which, when the Commission met, he took a foremost and successful part.