13/37 Good my Lord, account and accept me your most bounden and devoted friend and servant of all men living, "March 7, 1616 (_i.e._ 1616/1617). BACON, C.S." He himself believed the appointment to be a popular one. "I know I am come in," he writes to the King soon after, "with as strong an envy of some particulars as with the love of the general." On the 7th of May, 1617, he took his seat in Chancery with unusual pomp and magnificence, and set forth, in an opening speech, with all his dignity and force, the duties of his great office and his sense of their obligation. But there was a curious hesitation in treating him as other men were treated in like cases. He was only "Lord Keeper." It was not till the following January (1617/18) that he received the office of Lord Chancellor. |