If Bacon flattered himself that he had extinguished Coke for good and all, he was much mistaken.  It must have alarmed him to find that Lady Elizabeth, after constant quarrels with her husband and ceasing to live with him, had taken his part, now that he had been dismissed from office, that she had solicited his cause at the very Council table,[11] and that she had quarrelled with both the King and the Queen about the treatment of her husband, with the result that she had been forbidden to go to Court, and had begun to live again with Coke, taking with her her daughter, now well on in her ’teens.

There was a period of hostilities, however, early in the year 1617.  Sir Edward and Lady Elizabeth went to law about her jointure.  In May Chamberlain wrote to Carleton:—­

“The Lord Coke & his lady hath great wars at the council table.  I was there on Wednesday, but by reason of the Lord Keeper’s absence, there was nothing done.  What passed yesterday I know not yet:  but the first time she came accompanied with the Lord Burghley” (her eldest brother), “& his lady, the Lord Danvers” (her maternal grandfather), “the Lord Denny” (her brother-in-law), “Sir Thomas Howard” (her nephew, afterwards first Earl of Berkshire) “& his lady, with I know not how many more, & declaimed bitterly against him, and so carried herself that divers said Burbage” [the celebrated actor of that time] “could not have acted better.  Indeed, it seems he [Sir Edward Coke] hath carried himself very simply, to say no more, in divers matters:  and no doubt he shall be sifted thoroughly, for the King is much incensed against him, & by his own weakness he hath lost those few friends he had.”

It is clear from this letter that, although her husband was one of the greatest lawyers of the day, Lady Elizabeth was not at all afraid of pitting herself against him in Court, where indeed she seems to have proved the better pleader of the pair.

This dispute was patched up.  On 4th June Chamberlain wrote:  “Sir Edward Coke & his Lady, after so much animosity and wrangling, are lately made friends; & his curst heart hath been forced to yield more than ever he meant; but upon this agreement he flatters himself that she will prove a very good wife.”  So Coke and his “very good wife” settled down together again.  We shall see presently whether there was to be a perpetual peace between them.

While Bacon was meditating an information against Sir Edward Coke in the Star Chamber for malversation of office, in the hope that a heavy fine might be imposed upon him, Coke also was plotting.  He discovered that Bacon, who had been made Lord Keeper early in the year 1617, had had his head turned by his promotion and had become giddy on his pinnacle of greatness; or, to use Bacon’s own words, that he was suffering acutely from an “unbridled stomach.”  Of this Coke determined to take advantage.