Until the first of May, 1621, Bacon remained Lord Chancellor of England. On the afternoon of that day, the Lord Treasurer, Viscount Mandeville, the Duke of Lennox, Lord Steward of the King’s Household, the Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, repaired to York House. They were introduced into the presence of Bacon, and then told him “that they were sorry to visit him on such an occasion, and wished it had been better.” “No, my lords,” he replied, “the occasion is good.” He then delivered to them the Great Seal, saying, as he gave it up, “It was the King’s favour that gave me this, and it is my fault that he hath taken it away.” The seal was conveyed to Whitehall, and restored to the King, who exclaimed, on receiving it, “Now, by my soul, I am pained at my heart where to bestow this; for, as for my lawyers, they are all knaves.”[365] But Buckingham had provided against this difficulty, and the high office which Bacon had so greatly abused was bestowed upon Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, who was now the chief adviser of the Marquis, and to whose counsels much that had been done was attributed. Footnote 365: Nichols, from Sir Symonds D’Ewes’s Diary. The choice of Williams, for this high office, reflected no discredit upon Buckingham. Bishop Goodman terms this prelate “a man of as great wit and understanding as ever I knew any man.” “And truly,” he adds, endeavouring to rebut Weldon’s charge of a mean birth, “he was as well-descended and had as good kindred as any man in North Wales, none beyond him. He had a very quick apprehension, and for the discharge of the Lord Keeper’s Office, he was never taxed with any insufficiency. I have heard him make his reports in the Lord’s House of Parliament, and answer such petitions, that in truth we did wonderfully commend him.”[366] To these essentials Williams added the popular qualities of hospitality and liberality; in this respect he resembled Laud. “There was not a man in England,” says Bishop Goodman, “that kept a more orderly house than Laud did, or bred up his servants better. But I will join these two celebrities together for the great hospitality which they kept, inviting and entertaining strangers.” With regard to liberality, the erection of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the foundation there of several scholarships and fellowships, the library at Westminster, the library at Lincoln, the repairs of Westminster Abbey, and the care which Williams took, even when he was Lord Keeper, of the young scholars at Westminster, sufficiently attest his great and salutary views. Footnote 366: Goodman’s Life, i., p. 285. Whilst he was Proctor at Cambridge, he conducted a magnificent entertainment, given to the Lord Chancellor Egerton, and to the Spanish ambassadors, on which occasion Egerton told him that he “was fit to serve a king,” and afterwards introduced him at court.[367] Footnote 367: Grainger, chap, iv., t. 1.