ons when he
attempted to justify himself. After the trial he tried in vain to bring
Essex to a sense of duty. On the 8th of February 1601, the day fixed for
the rebellion, the lord keeper with other officers of state visited
Essex at Essex House to demand the reason of the tumultuous assemblage.
His efforts to persuade Essex to speak with him privately and explain
his "griefs," and to refrain from violence, and his appeal to the
company to depart peacefully on their allegiance, were ineffectual, and
he was imprisoned by Essex for six hours, the mob calling out to kill
him and to throw the great seal out of the window. Subsequently he
abandoned all hope of saving Essex, and took an active part in his
trial. On the 13th of February he made a speech in the Star Chamber,
exposing the wickedness of the rebellion, and of the plot of Thomas Lea
to surprise Elizabeth at her chamber door.[7] In July 1602, a few months
before her death, Elizabeth visited the lord keeper at his house at
Harefield in Middlesex, and he was one of those present during her last
hours who received her faltering intimation as to her successor.

On the accession of James I., Sir Thomas Egerton was reappointed lord
keeper, resigning the mastership of the rolls in May 1603, and the
chamberlainship of Chester in August. On the 21st of July he was created
Baron Ellesmere, and on the 24th lord chancellor. His support of the
king's prerogative was too faithful and undiscriminating. He approved of
the harsh penalty inflicted upon Oliver St John in 1615 for denying the
legality of benevolences, and desired that his sentencing of the
prisoner "might be his last work to conclude his services."[8] In May
1613 he caused the committal of Whitelocke to the Fleet for questioning
the authority of the earl marshal's court. In 1604 he came into
collision with the House of Commons. Sir Francis Goodwin, an outlaw,
having been elected for Buckinghamshire contrary to the king's
proclamation, the chancellor cancelled the return when made according to
custom into chancery, and issued writs for a new election. The Commons,
however, considering their privileges violated, restored Goodwin to his
seat, and though the matter was in the present instance compromised by
the choice of a third party, they secured for the future the right of
judging in their own elections. He was at one with James in desiring to
effect the union between England and Scotland, and served on the
commission i