It was generally supposed that the exultant Coke would now be offered the Great Seal; but, to the astonishment of the world and to Coke’s unqualified chagrin, the King proclaimed Williams, “a shrewd Welsh parson,” as Lord Campbell calls him, Lord Keeper in the place of Bacon.  After this disappointment, Coke became even fiercer against the Court than he had been before Bacon’s disgrace.  Bacon’s fine was remitted, “the King’s pleasure” as to the length of his imprisonment was only four days, he was allowed to return to Court, and he was enabled to interest himself with the literary pursuits which he loved better than law and almost as much as power; but he was harassed by want of what, perhaps, he may have loved most of all, namely money, and he died in 1626, five years after his fall and condemnation.

Although Buckingham was at the summit of his glory, everything did not go well with him during the period at which he was scheming to rid his brother of Lady Purbeck.  In 1623 he went to Spain with Prince Charles to arrange a marriage with the Infanta, a match which he failed to bring about.  In 1626 he was impeached, though unsuccessfully, by the House of Commons.  In 1627 he commanded an expedition to the Isle of Rhe against the French, on behalf of the Huguenots, and completely failed in the attempt.  In 1628 a new Parliament threw the blame upon him of all the troubles and drawbacks from which the country was then suffering; and, in August, the same year, he was murdered by an assassin less than twelve months after he had succeeded in his proceedings against Lady Purbeck.

It was not until shortly after the death of Bacon that his rival, Sir Edward Coke, reached the zenith of his fame as a politician.  Only a few months before the death of Buckingham, Coke framed the celebrated Petition of Rights, a document which has often been spoken of as the second Magna Charta.  He had gained little through his attempt to bribe Buckingham by giving his daughter and her wealth to Buckingham’s brother, and he was now exasperated against the royal favourite and that favourite’s royal master.  “In the House of Commons, Sir Ed. Coke,” says Whitelock in his Memorials[81] “named the Duke to be the cause of all their miseries, and moves to goe to the King, and by word to acquaint him.”  Rushworth writes[82] more fully of this speech of Coke’s.  “Sir Edward Cook spake freely....  Let us palliate no longer; if we do, God will not prosper us.  I think the Duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our miseries; and till the King be informed thereof, we shall never go out with honour, or sit with honour here; that man is the Grievance of Grievances:  let us set down the causes of all our disasters, and all will reflect upon him.”  And Coke was as bitter against the King.  A little later Charles I. had issued a warrant for a certain commission, when, in a conference with the Lords, Coke moved[83] “That the Warrant may be damned and destroyed.”