A few days after the first mention of corruption the Commons laid their complaints of him before the House of Lords, and on the same day (March 19) Bacon, finding himself too ill to go to the House, wrote to the Peers by Buckingham, requesting them that as some “complaints of base bribery” had come before them, they would give him a fair opportunity of defending himself, and of cross-examining witnesses; especially begging, that considering the number of decrees which he had to make in a year—­more than two thousand—­and “the courses which had been taken in hunting out complaints against him,” they would not let their opinion of him be affected by the mere number of charges that might be made.  Their short verbal answer, moved by Southampton (March 20), that they meant to proceed by right rule of justice, and would be glad if he cleared his honour, was not encouraging.  And now that the Commons had brought the matter before them, the Lords took it entirely into their own hands, appointing three Committees, and examining the witnesses themselves.  New witnesses came forward every day with fresh cases of gifts and presents, “bribes” received by the Lord Chancellor.  When Parliament rose for the Easter vacation (March 27-April 17), the Committees continued sitting.  A good deal probably passed of which no record remains.  When the Commons met again (April 17) Coke was full of gibes about Instauratio Magna—­the true Instauratio was to restore laws—­and two days after an Act was brought in for review and reversal of decrees in Courts of Equity.  It was now clear that the case against Bacon had assumed formidable dimensions, and also a very strange, and almost monstrous shape.  For the Lords, who were to be the judges, had by their Committees taken the matter out of the hands of the Commons, the original accusers, and had become themselves the prosecutors, collecting and arranging evidence, accepting or rejecting depositions, and doing all that counsel or the committing magistrate would do preliminary to a trial.  There appears to have been no cross-examining of witnesses on Bacon’s behalf, or hearing witnesses for him—­not unnaturally at this stage of business, when the prosecutors were engaged in making out their own case; but considering that the future judges had of their own accord turned themselves into the prosecutors, the unfairness was great.  At the same time it does not appear that Bacon did anything to watch how things went in the Committees, which had his friends in them as well as his enemies, and are said to have been open courts.  Towards the end of March, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that “the Houses were working hard at cleansing out the Augaean stable of monopolies, and also extortions in Courts of Justice.  The petitions against the Lord Chancellor were too numerous to be got through:  his chief friends and brokers of bargains, Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, and others attacked, are obliged to accuse him in