In this extremity of sorrow, Buckingham visited the fallen one. Already had Bacon written to him in the following terms:—“Your Lordship spoke of purgatory; I am now in it; but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands, and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whoever 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 is the game. And if this be to be a Chancellor, I think, if the Great Seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would stoop to take it up.” What marvellous self-deception, or consummate duplicity! Owing to Buckingham’s mediation, a letter was given to the King, from Bacon; in this he again asserted that innocence to which he had solemnly renounced all claim before, in his submission to Parliament. “And now for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged; when the book 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 pervert justice, however I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times.”[361] Footnote 361: Montagu’s Life, p. 332. On the nineteenth of March, Bacon addressed a letter to the House of Lords, contending, he said, that charges of bribery were brought against him; he prayed that they would not prejudge him for absence, having been ill, and preparing for a higher tribunal; that they would give him leisure to make his defence, which would be plain and ingenuous; also, that they would not be prejudiced against him by the number of petitions brought against a man who gives two hundred decrees and orders a year, exclusive of causes. He did not, he said, desire to make greatness a subterfuge for guiltiness.[362] Footnote 362: State Papers, vol. cxx., No. 28. Notwithstanding a message from James to Parliament, saying that he had refused the tender of the Great Seal from the Lord Chancellor, and hoped that they would give him a patient hearing, “but to judge him as they thought fit, if matters prove foul,”[363] Bacon was suspended. He wrote a pitiful, specious letter to the House of Lords, in which he “rejoiced that in the midst of his profound afflictions the greatness of a magistrate was no shelter for crime.” His only justification, he said, was his non-concealment of his offences. He did not mean to reply to particular questions, nor cavil at witnesses, nor urge extenuations. He submitted to their judgment and mercy, but hoped that the loss of his soul might be sufficient expiation for his faults. He pleaded for compassion, by the example of the King’s clemency, and their own fellow feeling for him.[364] Footnote 363: State Papers, vol. cxx., No. 97. Footnote 364: Ibid, No. 104.