Bacon's counsels were the prophecies of Cassandra in that so prosperous but so disastrous reign.

All that he did was to lend the authority of his presence, in James's most intimate counsels, to policy and courses of which he saw the unwisdom and the perils.

James and Buckingham made use of him when they wanted.

But they would have been very different in their measures and their statesmanship if they had listened to him.
Mirabeau said, what of course had been said before him, "On ne vaut, dans la partie executive de la vie humaine, que par le caractere." This is the key to Bacon's failures as a judge and as a statesman, and why, knowing so much more and judging so much more wisely than James and Buckingham, he must be identified with the misdoings of that ignoble reign.

He had the courage of his opinions; but a man wants more than that: he needs the manliness and the public spirit to enforce them, if they are true and salutary.