ot until all hope of turning sycophancy to
further account was gone that he took up with patriotism.

Coke's last prosecution as Attorney-General was a famous one; for the
objects of his malevolence were no other than Guy Faux and his
accomplices. It would have been sufficient to dismiss in silence to the
scaffold men upon whom the brand of guilt was so deeply fixed. Justice
required no more than their death; much more readily satisfied the
officious love of the king's devoted servant. While the Attorney-General
was hurling insult at the heads of the culprits, one of them, Sir
Everard Digby, interrupted him, confessing "that he deserved the vilest
death, and the most severe punishment that might be," but humbly
petitioned "for mercy and some moderation of justice." Coke, overflowing
with mercy, promised him such moderation as he might discover in the
Psalms, where it is written, "Let his wife be a widow and his children
vagabonds--let his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation
let his name be quite put out." Digby's pathetic appeal upon the rising
of the Court may well stand side by side with this brutality. "If I may
but hear any of your lordships," exclaimed the doomed man, "say you
forgive me, I shall go more cheerfully to the gallows." The lords
answered in Coke's presence, "The Lord forgive you, and we do."

The gunpowder plot disposed of, Coke, in the year 1606, became Chief
Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, "fatigued," as Lord Campbell has
it, "if not satiated, with amassing money at the bar." The new judge was
as fully alive to the rights of his office as he had been before to the
prerogatives of the king. The pedantic presumption of James was safe
till it rubbed against the more stubborn pride of Coke. The monarch was
of opinion that the constitution and the law allowed him personally to
try causes between his loyal subjects. "By my soul," he said pettishly
to Coke, who begged leave to differ, "I have often heard the boast that
your English law was founded upon reason. If that be so, why have not I
and others reason as well as you, the judges?" Coke explained why and by
the manner of his explanation compelled the king to think no more of his
folly. Unfortunately for all parties His Majesty at the same time
remembered the affront.

Had he been disposed to forget it there was one at his side eager enough
to jog his memory. Bacon's advancement depended upon the downfall of
Coke, and the sublimest