In this temporary alienation of the royal smiles, Coke attempted their renewal by a project, which, involved a domestic sacrifice.  When the king was in Scotland, and Lord Bacon, as lord-keeper, sat at the head of affairs, his lordship was on ill terms with Secretary Winwood, whom Coke easily persuaded to resume a former proposal for marrying his only daughter to the favourite’s eldest brother, Sir John Villiers.  Coke had formerly refused this match from the high demands of these parvenus.  Coke, in prosperity, “sticking at ten thousand a year, and resolving to give only ten thousand marks, dropped some idle words, that he would not buy the king’s favour too dear;” but now in his adversity, his ambition proved stronger than his avarice, and by this stroke of deep policy the wily lawyer was converting a mere domestic transaction into an affair of state, which it soon became.  As such it was evidently perceived by Bacon; he was alarmed at this projected alliance, in which he foresaw that he should lose his hold of the favourite in the inevitable rise once more of his rival Coke.  Bacon, the illustrious philosopher, whose eye was only blest in observing nature, and whose mind was only great in recording his own meditations, now sat down to contrive the most subtle suggestions he could put together to prevent this match; but Lord Bacon not only failed in persuading the king to refuse what his majesty much wished, but finally produced the very mischief he sought to avert—­a rupture with Buckingham himself, and a copious scolding letter from the king, but a very admirable one;[344] and where the lord-keeper trembled to find himself called “Mr. Bacon.”

There were, however, other personages than his majesty and his favourite more deeply concerned in this business, and who had not hitherto been once consulted—­the mother and the daughter!  Coke, who, in every-day concerns, issued his commands as he would his law-writs, and at times boldly asserted the rights of the subject, had no other paternal notion of the duties of a wife and a child than their obedience!

Lady Hatton, haughty to insolence, had been often forbidden both the courts of their majesties, where Lady Compton, the mother of Buckingham, was the object of her ladyship’s persevering contempt.  She retained her personal influence by the numerous estates which she enjoyed in right of her former husband.  When Coke fell into disgrace, his lady abandoned him! and, to avoid her husband, frequently moved her residences in town and country.  I trace her with malicious activity disfurnishing his house in Holborn, and at Stoke[345] seizing on all the plate and moveables, and, in fact, leaving the fallen statesman and the late lord chief-justice empty houses and no comforter!  The wars between Lady Hatton and her husband were carried on before the council-board, where her ladyship appeared, accompanied by an imposing train of noble friends.  With her accustomed haughty airs, and