“Sir E. Coke,” he wrote, “hath not forborne by any engine to heave at both your Honour and myself, and he works the weightiest instrument, the Earl of Buckingham, who, as I see, sets him as close to him as his shirt, the Earl speaking in Sir Edward’s phrase, and as it were menacing in his spirit.”

Buckingham, he went on to say, “did nobly and plainly tell me he would not secretly bite, but whosoever had had any interest, or tasted of the opposition to his brother’s marriage, he would as openly oppose them to their faces, and they should discern what favour he had by the power he would use.”  The Court, like a pack of dogs, had set upon Bacon.  “It is too common in every man’s mouth in Court that your greatness shall be abated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor unto some, so shall theirs be to you.”  Buckingham said to every one that Bacon had been forgetful of his kindness and unfaithful to him:  “not forbearing in open speech to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you, to be unfaithful unto him, as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset.”

All this while Bacon had been clearly in the right.  He had thrust himself into no business that did not concern him.  He had not, as Buckingham accuses him of having done, “overtroubled” himself with the marriage.  He had done his simple duty as a friend, as a councillor, as a judge.  He had been honestly zealous for the Villiers’s honour, and warned Buckingham of things that were beyond question.  He had curbed Coke’s scandalous violence, perhaps with no great regret, but with manifest reason.  But for this he was now on the very edge of losing his office; it was clear to him, as it is clear to us, that nothing could save him but absolute submission.  He accepted the condition.  How this submission was made and received, and with what gratitude he found that he was forgiven, may be seen in the two following letters.  Buckingham thus extends his grace to the Lord Keeper, and exhorts him to better behaviour: 

“But his Majesty’s direction in answer of your letter hath given me occasion to join hereunto a discovery unto you of mine inward thoughts, proceeding upon the discourse you had with me this day.  For I do freely confess that your offer of submission unto me, and in writing (if so I would have it), battered so the unkindness that I had conceived in my heart for your behaviour towards me in my absence, as out of the sparks of my old affection towards you I went to sound his Majesty’s intention how he means to behave himself towards you, specially in any public meeting; where I found on the one part his Majesty so little satisfied with your late answer unto him, which he counted (for I protest I use his own terms) confused and childish, and his vigorous resolution on the other part so fixed, that he would put some public exemplary mark upon you, as I protest the sight of his deep-conceived indignation quenched my passion, making me upon the instant change from