We look in vain for any threatenings of the storm.  What the men of his time thought and felt about Bacon it is not easy to ascertain.  Appearances are faint and contradictory; he himself, though scornful of judges who sought to be “popular,” believed that he “came in with the favour of the general;” that he “had a little popular reputation, which followeth me whether I will or no.”  No one for years had discharged the duties of his office with greater efficiency.  Scarcely a trace remains of any suspicion, previous to the attack upon him, of the justice of his decisions; no instance was alleged that, in fact, impure motives had controlled the strength and lucidity of an intellect which loved to be true and right for the mere pleasure of being so.  Nor was there anything in Bacon’s political position to make him specially obnoxious above all others of the King’s Council.  He maintained the highest doctrines of prerogative; but they were current doctrines, both at the Council board and on the bench; and they were not discredited nor extinguished by his fall.  To be on good terms with James and Buckingham meant a degree of subservience which shocks us now; but it did not shock people then, and he did not differ from his fellows in regarding it as part of his duty as a public servant of the Crown.  No doubt he had enemies—­some with old grudges like Southampton, who had been condemned with Essex; some like Suffolk, smarting under recent reprimands and the biting edge of Bacon’s tongue; some like Coke, hating him from constitutional antipathies and the strong antagonism of professional doctrines, for a long course of rivalry and for mortifying defeats.  But there is no appearance of preconcerted efforts among them to bring about his overthrow.  He did not at the time seem to be identified with anything dangerous or odious.  There was no doubt a good deal of dissatisfaction with Chancery—­among the common lawyers, because it interfered with their business; in the public, partly from the traditions of its slowness, partly from its expensiveness, partly because, being intended for special redress of legal hardship, it was sure to disappoint one party to a suit.  But Bacon thought that he had reformed Chancery.  He had also done a great deal to bring some kind of order, or at least hopefulness of order, into the King’s desperate finances.  And he had never set himself against Parliament.  On the contrary, he had always been forward to declare that the King could not do without Parliament, and that Parliament only needed to be dealt with generously, and as “became a King,” to be not a danger and hindrance to the Crown but its most sincere and trustworthy support.