Virginia Pioneers
Members Library

Bacon


The family descends from John Bacon and Margery Thorpe of England and includes the famous Sir Francis Bacon and Nathaniel Bacon, the latter of Virginia. His son was Edmund Bacon who was married to Elizabeth Cofte and that couple had issue John Bacon who married Agnes Cockefield. John Bacon and Agnes had Lord Nathaniel Bacon who married Anna Cook. Lord Bacon had issue Robert Bacon who married Mary Rawlings.

Sir James Bacon of Friston Hall in Kent, England was the son of Robert Bacon and his wife, Mary Rawlings. Issue:

James Bacon, born 1595 in London, Middlesex County, died 6 November 1649 in Burgate Parish, Suffolk County. He was married to Martha Honeywood, chr. 12 June 1597 in Upton Cum Chalvey Parish, Buckinghamshire, England, died 25 Aug 1670. Issue:
Bury St. Edmunds Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral, Suffolk, England where Thomas Bacon was christened in 1620.

Sir Nicholas Bacon
Bust of Sir Nicholas Bacon and wife, Anne. Sir Nicholas Bacon, born 28 December 1510, died 20 February 1579), was an English politician during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. Also, He was the father of the philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Nicholas graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1527, then entered Gray's Inn (the bar in 1533). Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII gave him a grant of the manors of Redgrave, Botesdale, Gislingham and Gorhambury. Gorhambury belonged to St Albans Abbey and lay near the site of the vanished Roman city of Verulamium (modern day St Albans). From 1563 to 1568 he built a new house, Old Gorhambury House (now a ruin), which later became the home of Francis Bacon, his youngest son. In 1545 he was a Member of Parliament, representing Dartmouth; the following year was made Attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries. As a Protestant, he lost preferment under Queen Mary I of England. However, upon the accession of her younger sister Elizabeth in 1558 he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, largely owing to the influence of his brother-in-law William Cecil. Shortly afterwards, Bacon was knighted. In 1564 he fell temporarily into the royal disfavour and was dismissed from court, because Elizabeth suspected he was concerned in the publication of a pamphlet, A Declaration of the Succession of the Crowne Imperial of Ingland, by John Hales, which favoured the claim of Lady Catherine Grey, the sister of Lady Jane Grey. Sir Nicholas Bacon died at Gorhambury and was buried in St. Pauls Cathedral, his death calling forth many tributes to his memory. He was twice married and by his first wife, Jane Ferneley, had three sons and three daughters. In 1553 he married his second wife Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, by whom he had two sons, Anthony Bacon (born 1558, died 1601) and Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626). Lady Anne Bacon [nee Coke], born ca 1528, died 1610, was an English gentlewoman and scholar, Lady in Waiting to Queen Elizabeth. She made a lasting contribution to English religious literature with her translation from Latin of John Jewel's Apologie of the Anglican Church (1564). Lady Anne was born in Essex, England, one of the five daughters of Anthony Cooke, tutor to Edwin, the only son of Henry VIII. Cooke ensured that each daughter received a thorough humanist education in languages and the classics. Anne, excelled in Greek, Latin, and Italian. At twenty-two she translated and published Barnardine Ochyne of Siena's work Ochines Sermons from the Italian. Her translation from the Latin into English of Bishop John Jewel's work of 1564 Apology for the Church of England was a significant step in the intellectual justification of Protestantism in England. The work was a clarification of the differences between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, and was critical to the support of the regilious politics of Queen Elizabeth I. She married Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor, in 1553 and their son, possibly adopted, was Francis Bacon who later became a pioneer of the , scientific revolution.

Gorhambury
The Elizabethan mansion of Gorhambury House was located near St Albans, Hertfordshire, England is an Elizabethan mansion. It was built ca 1563 by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and was twice visited by Queen Elizabeth. The house was built partly from bricks taken from the old Abbey buildings at St Albans, then in process of demolition following the Benedictine priory's dissolution some 25 years earlier. It was used as a residence by his youngest son, the polymath (scientist, philosopher, statesman and essayist) Sir Francis Bacon, before being bequeathed by him to his former secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys, who married Anne Bacon, the great-granddaughter of the Lord Keeper. The estate passed in 1652 to Anne's second husband Sir Harbottle Grimston.

Sir Francis Bacon
Sir Francis Bacon

Fireplace
The basement kitchen of 17th century Bacon's Castle in Surry County, Virginia, with a brick hearth and timber lintel. During the 18th century, an outside kitchen was built.

Bacon Plaque
St. Peters Episcopal Church, New Kent County, Virginia

Sources: Last Will and Testament of Charles Allen (1759) Lunenburg County, Virginia; Allen Genealogy; St. Peters Parish, New Kent County, Virginia; Last Will and Testament of Lyddall Bacon dated 21 Jul 1775 in Lunenburg County Virginia; Bible of Mrs. Mary Bacon, widow of Colonel Lyddall Bacon, Wm and Mary Quarterly, 2d series, pp. 182-187; Lunenburg County Deed Book 24, page 419 and page 418; Power of Attorney given in Ninety Six District, South Carolina, to Tyree Glenn of Laurens County to settled estate of Colonel Lyddall Bacon; Inventory of Estate of Thomas Bacon (1657) in Westmoreland County, Virginia; Parish of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England; Burgate Parish, Middlesex County, England; Last Will and Testament of Edmund Parkes Bacon dated 1 Nov 1825 in Lunenburg County, Virginia; Nathaniel Bacon;Bacon Pedigree Chart;