I will begin with James I. (1603-1625), the first King of New England. At his very accession he had high notions of his royal Prerogative, and maintained that all the privileges of the House of Commons were derived from his royal grant. "I am your King," said he, "I am placed to govern you, and I shall [must] answer for your errors." It was quite enough to answer for his own,--poor man. "Let me make the Judges," said he, "and I care not who makes the laws." Accordingly for judicial officers he appointed such men as would execute his unlawful schemes for the destruction of public liberty. To such considerations was Francis Bacon mainly indebted for his elevation from one legal rank to another, until he reached the seat of the Lord Chancellor. A man whom Villers declared, "of excellent parts, but withal of a base and ungrateful temper, and an arrant knave, yet a fit instrument for the purposes of the government." He did not receive his appointment for that vast, hard-working genius which makes his name the ornament of many an age, but only for his sycophantic devotion to the royal will. Sir Edward Coke was promoted rapidly enough, whilst wholly subservient to the despotic court, but afterwards, though a miracle of legal knowledge, not equalled yet perhaps, he must not be appointed Lord Chancellor on account of "his occasional fits of independence." Chief Justice Ley was one of the right stamp, but it was thought "his subserviency might prove more valuable by retaining him to preside over the Court of King's Bench." "For in making the highest judicial appointments the only question was, what would suit the arbitrary schemes of governing the country."[5] Hobart had resisted some illegal monopolies of the all-powerful Buckingham, and he was "unfit for promotion." [Footnote 5: 2 Campbell, 372, 374.]