The obnoxious clauses are not said to have been of serious importance, but they were new clauses which the King had not sanctioned, and it would be a bad precedent to pass over such unauthorised additions even by an Attorney-General.

"I mistook many things," said Yelverton afterwards, in words which come back into our minds at a later period, "I was improvident in some things, and too credulous in all things." It might have seemed that dismissal, if not a severe reprimand, was punishment enough.

But the submission was not enough, in Bacon's opinion, "for the King's honour." He dwelt on the greatness of the offence, and the necessity of making a severe example.
According to his advice, Yelverton was prosecuted in the Star Chamber.
It was not merely a mistake of judgment.

"Herein," said Bacon, "I note the wisdom of the law of England, which termeth the highest contempt and excesses of authority _Misprisions_; which (if you take the sound and derivation of the word) is but _mistaken_; but if you take the use and acception of the word, it is high and heinous contempt and usurpation of authority; whereof the reason I take to be and the name excellently imposed, for that main mistaking, it is ever joined with contempt; for he that reveres will not easily mistake; but he that slights, and thinks more of the greatness of his place than of the duty of his place, will soon commit misprisions." The day would come when this doctrine would be pressed with ruinous effect against Bacon himself.

But now he expounded with admirable clearness the wrongness of carelessness about warrants and of taking things for granted.