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PREFACE,
xliii

Lord Chancellor had obtained leave to go to his own home, and is talked of as President of the Council. On the 23rd, he reports that the Chancellor has removed from Fulham to his house at Gorhambury. Here he remained till the end of the year. From his retirement he writes to Buckingham (September 5), ‘I am much fallen in love with a private life; but yet I shall so spend my time as shall, not decay my abilities for use.’ The occupation of his enforced leisure was the History of Henry VII, which was completed in manuscript by October. The fine inflicted by the sentence in Parliament was released by the King’s warrant on the 21st of September, but was assigned to trustees, that Bacon might be protected from the importunity of his creditors, He had nothing now but the pension of 1200/. a year which the King had recently given him, and his own private fortune. On being made Lord Keeper he had resigned not only the lucrative post of Attorncy General, but the clerkship of the Star-Chamber. By his fall he had lost 6000/. a year. A pardon was issued under the Privy Seal on the 17th of October, but it appears to have been stayed by the new Lord-Keeper. The prohibition which prevented him from coming within twelve miles of the Court was relaxed in the following March, and he was allowed to approach as near as Highgate. Buckingham was annoyed at his refusal to give up York House, and opposed his return to London. In the course of the year, however, the restriction was removed, and he took up his residence at Bedford House, his own mansion meanwhile having been surrendered. The publication of the History of Henry the Seventh in the spring, and the translation into Latin of the Advancement of Learning, kept him fully employed. In the latter work he is said to have been assisted by George Herbert. Writing to Bishop Andrewes the dedication to his Dialogue touching a Holy War, which was also the work of this year, he says: ‘And again, for that my book of Advancement of Learning may be some preparation, or key, for the better opening of the Instauration; because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old; whereas the Instauration gives the new un-