That there was any plot against Bacon, and much more that Buckingham to save himself was a party to it, is of course absurd.  Buckingham, indeed, was almost the only man in the Lords who said anything for Bacon, and, alone, he voted against his punishment.  But considering what Buckingham was, and what he dared to do when he pleased, he was singularly cool in helping Bacon.  Williams, the astute Dean of Westminster, who was to be Bacon’s successor as Lord Keeper, had got his ear, and advised him not to endanger himself by trying to save delinquents.  He did not.  Indeed, as the inquiry went on, he began to take the high moral ground; he was shocked at the Chancellor’s conduct; he would not have believed that it could have been so bad; his disgrace was richly deserved.  Buckingham kept up appearances by saying a word for him from time to time in Parliament, which he knew would be useless, and which he certainly took no measures to make effective.  It is sometimes said that Buckingham never knew what dissimulation was.  He was capable, at least, of the perfidy and cowardice of utter selfishness.  Bacon’s conspicuous fall diverted men’s thoughts from the far more scandalous wickedness of the great favourite.  But though there was no plot, though the blow fell upon Bacon almost accidentally, there were many who rejoiced to be able to drive it home.  We can hardly wonder that foremost among them was Coke.  This was the end of the long rivalry between Bacon and Coke, from the time that Essex pressed Bacon against Coke in vain to the day when Bacon as Chancellor drove Coke from his seat for his bad law, and as Privy Councillor ordered him to be prosecuted in the Star Chamber for riotously breaking open men’s doors to get his daughter.  The two men thoroughly disliked and undervalued one another.  Coke made light of Bacon’s law.  Bacon saw clearly Coke’s narrowness and ignorance out of that limited legal sphere in which he was supposed to know everything, his prejudiced and interested use of his knowledge, his coarseness and insolence.  But now in Parliament Coke was supreme, “our Hercules,” as his friends said.  He posed as the enemy of all abuses and corruption.  He brought his unrivalled, though not always accurate, knowledge of law and history to the service of the Committees, and took care that the Chancellor’s name should not be forgotten when it could be connected with some bad business of patent or Chancery abuse.  It was the great revenge of the Common Law on the encroaching and insulting Chancery which had now proved so foul.  And he could not resist the opportunity of marking the revenge of professional knowledge over Bacon’s airs of philosophical superiority.  “To restore things to their original” was his sneer in Parliament, “this, Instauratio Magna.  Instaurare paras—­Instaura leges justitiamque prius."[5]