20. =The Monopolies Condemned. 1621.=--The Commons, therefore, in looking for abuses, had no lack of subjects on which to complain. They lighted upon monopolies. James, soon after his accession, had abolished most of those left by Elizabeth, but the number had been increased partly through a wish to encourage home manufactures, and partly from a desire to regulate commerce. One set of persons, for example, had the sole right of making glass, because they bound themselves to heat their furnaces with coal instead of wood, and thus spared the trees needed for shipbuilding. Others had the sole right of making gold and silver thread, because they engaged to import all the precious metals they wanted, it being thought, in those days, that the precious metals alone constituted wealth, and that England would therefore be impoverished if English gold and silver were wasted on personal adornment. There is no doubt that courtiers received payments from persons interested in these grants, but the amount of such payments was grossly exaggerated, and the Commons imagined that these and similar grievances owed their existence merely to the desire to fill the pockets of Buckingham and his favourites. There was, therefore, a loud outcry in Parliament. One of the main promoters of these schemes, Sir Giles Mompesson, fled the kingdom. Others were punished, and the monopolies recalled by the king, though as yet no act was passed declaring them to be illegal. [Illustration: Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor: from the National Portrait Gallery.] 21. =The Fall of Bacon. 1621.=--After this the Commons turned upon Bacon. He was now Lord Chancellor, and had lived to find that his good advice was never followed. He had, nevertheless, been an active and upright judge. The Commons, however, distrusted him as having supported grants of monopolies, and, when charges of bribery were brought against him, sent them up to the Lords for enquiry. At first Bacon thought a political trick was being played against him. He soon discovered that he had thoughtlessly taken gifts even before judgment had been given, though if they had been taken after judgment, he would--according to the custom of the time--have been considered innocent. His own opinion of the case was probably the true one. His sentence, he said, was 'just, and for reformation's sake fit.' Yet he was 'the justest Chancellor' that had been since his father's time, his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, having creditably occupied under Elizabeth the post which he himself filled under James. He was stripped of office, fined, and imprisoned. His imprisonment, however, was extremely brief, and his fine was ultimately remitted. Though his trial was not exactly like that of the old impeachments, it was practically the revival of the system of impeachments which had been disused since the days of Henry VI. It was a sign that the power of Parliament was increasing and that of the king growing less.