A few months before Buckingham, who, as “Steward of the City and College of Westminster,” was patron of the Deanery, had made the young disputant Dean of Westminster. Williams, nevertheless, abstained from paying any court to the Favourite; his pride and honesty kept him aloof. “For he had observed,” says Bishop Hacket, “that the Marquis was very apt suddenly to look cloudy upon his creatures, as if he had raised them up on purpose to cast them down.” One day, however, whilst the Dean was attending upon King James, in the absence of the Marquis, the Monarch suddenly inquired, without any relation to the previous discourse, “when he was at Buckingham?” “Sir,” replied Williams, “I have had no business to go to his lordship.” “But,” rejoined the King, “you must go to him about my business,” and Williams accordingly sought an interview with the Marquis. The Favourite and the Dean were thus brought into contact, and the result was favourable to both. To Buckingham it procured an able and, for the time, a zealous friend, to whom he owed the great service which Williams afterwards performed in converting Lady Katherine Manners from Popery; and Williams obtained, for his part, a munificent and deserving patron. A different version of the causes of Williams’s elevation was given by a scandalous historian. According to Sir Anthony Weldon, it was owing to the hopes which the Countess of Buckingham entertained of becoming, in her third nuptials, the wife of Williams, who is said to have “thought otherwise of that marriage when he was Lord Keeper Williams, than he had done as Dean of Westminster,”[373] “which,” he adds, “was the cause of his downfall.” But this report was wholly without foundation. “Williams was generally beloved by his neighbours,” says Bishop Goodman, “and for that report, that he should be great with Buckingham’s mother, it is an idle, foolish report, without any colour of truth.”[374] His appointment as Lord Keeper gave, however, great offence to the members of the bar. It was loudly resented that the highest post in the law should be bestowed upon a doctor of divinity; and this step was, it was supposed, preparatory to filling all the courts of judicature with churchmen. Williams, nevertheless, proved himself to be admirably adapted for the office. He had already gained general confidence by persuading the King to suffer Parliament to sit, and to go on, in opposition to those who, being afraid of exposure, had endeavoured to prejudice Buckingham and his royal master against that assembly.[375] As a chancellor, he was acknowledged, even by the most distrustful, to be a faithful counsellor; and by the friendship and instruction of the Lord Chancellor, Egerton, to whom he had been domestic chaplain, he had been prepared for the great duties of his legal office. Egerton, on his death, had addressed to Williams these words:—“If you want money, I will leave you such a legacy as shall furnish you to begin the world like a gentleman. I know,” he added, “you are an expert workmen. Take these tools to broach with: they are the best I have.” He then gave him some books and papers, which he had written with his own hand, being directions concerning the regulation of the High Court of Parliament, the Court of Chancery, and the Star Chamber, for the dying Chancellor foresaw that his chaplain might, in the course of his career, require such materials.[376]