The Historic Case of Coke v. Bacon. — in prospective. The Duke's brother kept the dower, but not the bride — for like mother, like daughter — she eloped with Sir John Howard to foreign parts. Bacon's " Novum Organum" was now awarding fame to its author and feeding Coke's envy and hate. A new Parliament being called, Coke — then three score and ten — successfully stood for a borough; but the lord treasurer vacancy passed him by through Baconish opposition. The Puritans were returned to the Commons largely, and Coke, " rating" against his monarch's party, placed himself in Parliament at the Puritan head. No longer a high churchman, he left Bacon to keep both the king's seal and the king's conscience; while he fed the nation's discontent. When " supply " came up — that still-existing bugbear of every English ministry — Coke moved an amendment against the king's prerogative in monopo lies, which carried; and Coke as chairman of the committee personally took the report into the bar of the lords and placed it in Lord Chancellor Bacon's hands. What a picture for a portrait painter as they faced each other! For rumors of bribe-taking by Bacon were already rife. These rumors nourished by Coke took shape in House of Commons charges against Bacon. Vain ly the king by special message aimed to defeat them. With his own hand Coke drew impeachment and obtained its control as prosecutor. That case (really of Coke r. Bacon) is an historic canse celebre. Bacon feeling that no technicalities of defense (but Bacon's apologists have found many) and that no palliations could obtain while Coke's hands (almost palsied with hatred) held the scales of justice, pleaded guilty. But Bacon's retirement to a scholastic seclu sion, that enriched the literature of the ages ensuing his disgrace, did not give Coke the chancellorship; and now Coke's revenge turned against the Crown. When fatuous James sent his famous message " desiring the Speaker to make
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known to the Commons that none therein shall henceforth presume to meddle with anything concerning Our Government or deep matters of State," it was Coke who prepared and moved the Protestation that went on the journal book out of which the king's own hand usurpingly tore the rebel lious writing before he dissolved Parliament. As we have all read, Coke then was sent to the tower, and in Raleigh's and Essex's old "dungeon keep " could moralize over his former conduct toward them. But Charles, Prince of Wales, was Coke's friend and obtained his release. In a short time the prince came to the throne, and called a new Parliament into which Coke entered from Coventry. A wit of the period might have said, " At length the ex-chief justice has got out of Cqventry " — for that place, as now, was then a synonym for social exile. Again, Coke leading the Puritans, bothered the king (forgetting in his patriotism the recent generous intervention of Charles when prince) on a new supply bill. Charle«, beaten in his " faithful Commons " dissolved it, but was soon compelled to summon another. This time Coke won two seats, but of course sat for only one — Norfolk. In this Parliament Coke brought forward and carried resolutions that are as memor able as Magna Charta in the annals of English constitutional history; comprising what readers of Hallam know as " the Petition of Right" — the practical preface to the half century later Habeas Corpus. The lords refused it, at first, under the lead of Buckingham, upon whom it was now the gage for Coke to turn. The king had to yield and give assent; as well as to see popular bonfires burning in honor of the measure all down Whitehall Street; and tradition says that the statue of Charles that now confronts Cockspur Street in London was erected over the very site where the largest bonfire blazed. Had Charles' soul been properly illumined then by the light of those popular blazes he
