the lead in legislation. Be ready with some interesting
or imposing points of reform, or policy, about which you ask your
Parliament to take counsel with you. Take care to "frame and have ready
some commonwealth bills, that may add respect to the King's government
and acknowledgment of his care; not _wooing_ bills to make the King and
his graces cheap, but good matter to set the Parliament on work, that an
empty stomach do not feed on humour." So from the first had Bacon always
thought; so he thought when he watched, as a spectator, James's blunders
with his first Parliament of 1604; so had he earnestly counselled James,
when admitted to his confidence, as to the Parliaments of 1614 and 1615;
so again, but in vain, as Chancellor, he advised him to meet the
Parliament of 1620. It was wise, and from his point of view honest
advice, though there runs all through it too much reliance on
appearances which were not all that they seemed; there was too much
thought of throwing dust in the eyes of troublesome and inconvenient
people. But whatever motives there might have been behind, it would have
been well if James had learned from Bacon how to deal with Englishmen.
But he could not. "I wonder," said James one day to Gondomar, "that my
ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution as the House of
Commons to have come into existence. I am a stranger, and found it here
when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get
rid of." James was the only one of our many foreign kings who, to the
last, struggled to avoid submitting himself to the conditions of an
English throne.

CHAPTER VI.

BACON'S FALL.

When Parliament met on January 30, 1620/21, and Bacon, as Lord
Chancellor, set forth in his ceremonial speeches to the King and to the
Speaker the glories and blessings of James's reign, no man in England
had more reason to think himself fortunate. He had reached the age of
sixty, and had gained the object of his ambition. More than that, he was
conscious that in his great office he was finding full play for his
powers and his high public purposes. He had won greatly on the
confidence of the King. He had just received a fresh mark of honour from
him: a few days before he had been raised a step in the peerage, and he
was now Viscount St. Alban's. With Buckingham he seemed to be on terms
of the most affectionate familiarity, exchanging opinions freely with
him on every subject. And Parliament met