But while Salisbury was supreme,
Bacon, though very alert and zealous, was mainly busied with his
official work; and the Solicitor's place had become, as he says, a "mean
thing" compared with the Attorney's, and also an extremely laborious
place--"one of the painfullest places in the kingdom." Much of it was
routine, but responsible and fatiguing routine. But if he was not in
Salisbury's confidence, he was prominent in the House of Commons. The
great and pressing subject of the time was the increasing difficulties
of the revenue, created partly by the inevitable changes of a growing
state, but much more by the King's incorrigible wastefulness. It was
impossible to realise completely the great dream and longing of the
Stuart kings and their ministers to make the Crown independent of
parliamentary supplies; but to dispense with these supplies as much as
possible, and to make as much as possible of the revenue permanent, was
the continued and fatal policy of the Court. The "Great Contract"--a
scheme by which, in return for the surrender by the Crown of certain
burdensome and dangerous claims of the Prerogative, the Commons were to
assure a large compensating yearly income to the Crown--was Salisbury's
favourite device during the last two years of his life.
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