“ Half an hour before his decease James sent Bacon, then his successor as lord keeper, with the gift of an earldom, and the presidentship of the council with a pension of £3000 a year, which the dying man declined as earthly vanities with which he had no more concern. He was buried at Dodleston in Cheshire.
As Lord Chancellor Ellesmere he is a striking figure in the long line of illustrious English judges. ”

“ In 1608, in the great case of the Post Nati, he decided, with the assistance of the fourteen judges, that those born after the accession of James I. to the throne of England were English subjects and capable of holding lands in England; and he compared the two dissentient judges to the apostle Thomas, whose doubts only confirmed the faith of the rest. He did not, however, always show obedience to the king’s wishes. He opposed the latter’s Spanish policy, and in July 1615, in spite of James’s most peremptory commands and threats, refused to put the great seal to the pardon of Somerset. ”

“ His efforts to persuade Essex to speak with him privately and explain his “griefs,” and to refrain from violence, and his appeal to the company to depart peacefully on their allegiance, were ineffectual, and he was imprisoned by Essex for six hours, the mob calling out to kill him and to throw the great seal out of the window. Subsequently he abandoned all hope of saving Essex, and took an active part in his trial. On the 13th of February he made a speech in the Star Chamber, exposing the wickedness of the rebellion, and of the plot of Thomas Lea to surprise Elizabeth at her chamber door. ”