 The project was one to which Cecil attached great importance, but the House of Commons eventually lost interest in the plan, and Francis Bacon argued against it, calling it humiliating.King James I also did not show much enthusiasm for it, and it lapsed when the King, against Cecil's advice, dissolved Parliament in 1611.This was a double blow to Cecil, who was sick and prematurely aged, and conscious that the King now increasingly preferred the company of his male favourites, like Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset.