Westminster scheming is not all bad. Just ask Bacon and Coke

The King sits fretful upon his throne, while all around him his courtiers jostle for attention and advancement. He insists on his own unfettered power, yet the judges would entrap him in the meshes of the common law.

Any resemblance between the politics of the early 17th century and of today is unlikely to be coincidental. But as my new novel reminds us, while arguments rage in Whitehall over the use of WhatsApp messages, we can still read the WhatsApp messages of the Jacobean court in the Public Record Office, and they are no less illuminating.

In August 1613, Sir Francis Bacon – polymath, essayist and natural philosopher – was serving as Solicitor General in the court of James I. Bacon was 52 and, after a long period of frustrated hopes, desperate to ascend to higher political office. An opportunity opened up with the unexpected death of Sir Thomas Fleming, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench.

In the normal course, the Attorney General would have moved up to fill the vacancy, and Bacon himself would have become Attorney General in turn. But Bacon now saw a golden opportunity: a means by which he could ascend himself, while also undermining his hated rival Sir Edward Coke, then the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. By moving the obstinate and obstructive Coke over to King’s Bench, Bacon wrote in a private memorandum to the King, His Majesty could simultaneously fill the vacancy and bring Coke to heel; or in Bacon’s words “discipline him, and turn him obsequious”.

But the importance of that moment goes far beyond the simple act of filling a political vacancy. By this time Bacon and Coke had already been engaged in a toxic political and personal rivalry lasting some 20 years. It would endure for almost a decade more, destroying the careers of both men and leaving Bacon bankrupt and desolate.

Francis Bacon had grown up in and around the court. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, the second most important commoner in the kingdom after his friend, colleague and brother-in-law Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley. Known to Queen Elizabeth I from a young age, and

Court intrigue: Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher and statesman

affectionately nicknamed her “young Lord Keeper”, Francis Bacon had every expectation of rapid advancement.

Yet it was not to be. Instead Bacon found himself consistently passed over for high office, while Coke rapidly advanced from Speaker of the House to Solicitor General and then to Attorney. To make matters worse, the two men clashed as well in matters of the heart, as they both attempted to woo Eliza, Lady Hatton, by common consent the most beautiful, the best connected and one of the richest women of the day. Here, too, Coke was victorious.

By the time Bacon wrote that memorandum in 1613, he was at last on the ascent, and his rise when it came was rapid. By 1620, he had been made Attorney General, Lord Keeper and then Lord Chancellor, the highest legal officer of all. And, what must have been still more satisfying to him, he had played a crucial role in the downfall of Coke in 1616-17, when the older man was cashiered for his unbending opposition to the King in matters of law.

As it proved, Coke would soon have his own revenge, and the result would be Bacon’s annihilating public ruin.

But the wider point is this: that, as so often in politics, out of private conflict, out of the crucible of personal rivalry, scorn and ambition, out of this titanic 30-year struggle for power, prestige and preeminence between the two men, came a series of astounding public achievements.

For Bacon, these included the first volume of essays in the English language, celebrated ever since for their wisdom, style and wit;

a pioneering argument for research institutions and the importance of observation and experimentation, and a biography of Henry VII which has profoundly shaped the writing of history. He added an important series of further works which lay the groundwork for the empirical “scientific turn” of the later 17th century.

Yet Edward Coke’s achievements were no less momentous, their common theme a vigorous defence of English freedoms under law as part of a constitution which he saw as stretching back to Anglo-Saxon times; realised through a spreading and consistent realm of common law, with Magna Carta at its centre. His pioneering judgments and opinions established the right to silence and the limits of royal prerogative and power; and through the drafting of the

Petition of Right (1628), laid down that there can be no taxation except as approved by Parliament.

The rivalry of Coke and Bacon is a remarkable story, one not just of ambition but also of jealousy, intrigue and revenge. Great political achievements do not require such scheming and deceit, but they are rarely entirely free of them. We may think recent times are something special. History, however, suggests otherwise.

Jesse Norman is Minister of State for Decarbonisation and Technology. His new book, ‘The Winding Stair’, is published this week by Biteback