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and on the 20th the Lord Treasurer reported to the Lords that the Lord Chancellor was accused of bribery and corruption, and that the charge was supported by two cases alleged. Bacon, sick to death as he thought himself, and tortured by his hereditary malady, felt that his enemies had closed upon him. He knew of ‘the courses that had been taken for hunting out complaints’ against him, and begged only a fair hearing, that he might give them an ingenuous answer. He wrote to Buckingham: ‘I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation the game.’ And again, to the same: ‘I praise God for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living; I never took penny for releasing anything I stopped at the Seal; I never took penny for any commission, or things of that nature; I never shared with any servant for any second or inferior profit.’ To the King he said: ‘For the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to prevent justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times.’ We must take into account these protestations when we come to consider his subsequent confession. The Houses adjourned on the 27th of March till the 17th of April. The day before they met, Bacon had an interview with the King. On the following day the Lord Treasurer reported to the Lords that the Chancellor desired two things of his Majesty:—1. That where his answers should be fair and clear to those things objected against him, his Lordship might stand upon his innocency. 2. Where his answers should not be so fair and clear, there his Lordship might be admitted to the extenuation of the charge; and where the proofs were full and undeniable, his Lordship would ingenuously confess them, and put himself