With what sensations Buckingham, who had certainly regarded the peculation permitted by these patents as a family perquisite, must have witnessed these proceedings, it is not easy to say. His once generous character was gaining in hardness, and losing the traces of its delicacy and scrupulousness every day. But evils of a more stupendous character were soon to be detected and avenged by a people who, Bacon truly said, “loved the law of their land.” The Lord Keeper had reckoned for a long time that the protecting hand of the Favourite could cover his venial proceedings. On the twenty-seventh of January, 1620, he was created Viscount St. Albans, with plenary investiture. The Lord Carew carried his robe before him; the Marquis of Buckingham held it up. The prosperous Lord Keeper gave the King most hearty thanks for each successive step of his preferment. 1st, for making him his solicitor; 2nd, his attorney; 3rd, a privy councillor; 4th, Keeper of the Great Seal; 5th, chancellor; 6th, Baron Verulam; 7th, Viscount St. Albans;—honours and emoluments which had been procured for him entirely through the influence of Buckingham. The envious world wondered, according to Sir Symonds D’Ewes, at the gratification of Bacon’s pride and ambition. His estates in land were thought, at that time, not to be more in value than four or five hundred pounds yearly; his debts were supposed to amount to 30,000_l._ He was then known to receive bribes in all cases of moment that came before him.[353] The hour of reckoning, however, eventually arrived. Footnote 353: Harl. MSS. 646—See Nichols, vol. iv., p. 649, note. The disgraceful transactions which brought this tardy justice on the man so pre-eminent in letters, so debased in honourable principle, had been a frequent source of complaint in parliament. Thus, as a modern writer observes, “was signally brought to the test the value of those objects for which Bacon had sullied his integrity, had resigned his independence, had violated the most sacred objects of friendship and gratitude, had flattered the worthless, had persecuted the innocent, had tampered with judges, had tortured prisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted on paltry intrigues the power of the most exquisitely constructed intellect that had ever been bestowed on any of the children of men.”[354] It is of no avail to say that the custom of the day authorized the receiving of bribes and presents; or to justify the mean subservience of the Lord Chancellor by blaming the interference of Buckingham. That interference may be justly censured; but it forms no ground of acquittal to Bacon. Footnote 354: Macaulay.