Biography of Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban 1561-1626

Before 1540 [his father] Nicholas Bacon (age 29) and Jane Ferneley were married.

In 1553 [his father] Nicholas Bacon (age 42) and [his mother] Anne Cooke (age 26) were married.

On 22nd January 1561 Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban was born to Nicholas Bacon (age 50) and Anne Cooke (age 34).

In 1576 Nicholas Hilliard (age 29), whilst in France, painted a portrait of Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 14) who was attached to the English Embassy at the time.

On 20th February 1579 [his father] Nicholas Bacon (age 68) died at Old Gorhambury House, St Albans.

On 10th May 1606 Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 45) and Alice Barnham Viscountess St Alban (age 14) were married. The difference in their ages was 30 years.

On 27th August 1610 [his mother] Anne Cooke (age 83) died.

Before 1612 Mervyn Tuchet 2nd Earl Castlehaven (age 18) and [his sister-in-law] Elizabeth Barnham Countess Castlehaven (age 19) were married. He the son of George Tuchet 1st Earl Castlehaven (age 60) and Lucy Mervyn Baroness Audley and Tuchet.

On 29th June 1612 Robert Crichton 8th Lord Sanquhar was hanged in Westminster Palace Yard for having arranged the murder of his fencing Master John Painter Turner who had previously disfigured him during practice. At his trial Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 51) read the charges.

In 1617 George Tuchet 1st Earl Castlehaven (age 66) died. His son Mervyn (age 24) succeeded 2nd Earl Castlehaven, 12th Baron Audley of Heighley in Staffordshire, 9th Baron Tuchet, 2nd Baron Audley of Orier in England. [his sister-in-law] Elizabeth Barnham Countess Castlehaven (age 25) by marriage Countess Castlehaven.

On 30th December 1617 Gervase Clifton 1st Baron Clifton (age 47) was imprisoned in the Tower of London [Map] for having threatened Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 56) when Francis ordered a survey of Gervase's lands.

In 1618 Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 56) was created 1st Baron Verulam. [his wife] Alice Barnham Viscountess St Alban (age 26) by marriage Baroness Verulam.

On 9th February 1619 Humphrey Ferrers and [his sister-in-law] Anne Pakington (age 20) were married at Kensington.

Autobiography Simon D'Ewes. 3rd May 1621. Upon Thursday, May the 3rd, Sir Francis Bacon (age 60), Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Alhan, who had been exuted of the Lord Chancellor's place the Tuesday foregoing, by the taking of the great seal of England from him, was, for his notorious and base bribery in that place, censured by the Upper House of Parliament, to pay 40,000/. fine¹ to the King, to be imprisoned, during his Majesty's pleasure, in the Tower of London [Map], never again to be capable of any place of judicature under his Majesty, or to sit amongst the Peers in the Upper House.

Note 1. Meade, in a note dated May 4th, 1621, says: - "On Monday divers lords were with the Lord Chancellor. The next morning the seal was taken from him, who, at delivering of it up, said, Deus dedit, culpa mea perdidit. Yesterday he was censured to pay to the King for his fine and ransom forty thousand pounds, imprisonment in the Tower during the King's pleasure, and never to sit again in Parliament, not in any court of justice, or be in commission, or ever come within the verge, or within twelve miles of the Court; and escaped degradation narrowly." - MS. Barl. 389. Meade adds, "Sir John Bennet and othen are like to follow. Fiat justitia!"

In 1622 [his sister-in-law] Elizabeth Barnham Countess Castlehaven (age 30) died.

On 27th January 1626 Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 65) was created 1st Viscount St Alban. [his wife] Alice Barnham Viscountess St Alban (age 34) by marriage Viscountess St Alban.

On 9th April 1626 Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban (age 65) died of pneumonia. He was buried at St Paul's Walden Bury, Hertfordshire. Viscount St Alban and Baron Verulam extinct.

On 29th June 1650 [his former wife] Alice Barnham Viscountess St Alban (age 58) died.

John Evelyn's Diary. 22nd June 1664. One Tomson, a Jesuit, showed me such a collection of rarities, sent from the Jesuits of Japan and China to their Order at Paris, as a present to be reserved in their repository, but brought to London by the East India ships for them, as in my life I had not seen. The chief things were, rhinoceros's horns; glorious vests, wrought and embroidered on cloth of gold, but with such lively colors, that for splendor and vividness we have nothing in Europe that approaches it; a girdle studded with agates and rubies of great value and size; knives, of so keen an edge as one could not touch them, nor was the metal of our color, but more pale and livid; fans, like those our ladies use, but much larger, and with long handles curiously carved and filled with Chinese characters; a sort of paper very broad, thin, and fine, like abortive parchment, and exquisitely polished, of an amber yellow, exceedingly glorious and pretty to look on, and seeming to be like that which my Lord Verulam describes in his "Nova Atlantis"; several other sorts of paper, some written, others printed; prints of landscapes, their idols, saints, pagods, of most ugly serpentine monstrous and hideous shapes, to which they paid devotion; pictures of men and countries, rarely painted on a sort of gummed calico, transparent as glass; flowers, trees, beasts, birds, etc., excellently wrought in a kind of sleeve silk, very natural; divers drugs that our druggists and physicians could make nothing of, especially one which the Jesuit called Lac Tigridis: it looked like a fungus, but was weighty like metal, yet was a concretion, or coagulation, of some other matter; several book MSS.; a grammar of the language written in Spanish; with innumerable other rarities.

John Evelyn's Diary. 20th October 1664. Hence, to see the famous wells, natural and artificial grots and fountains, called Bushell's Wells, at Enstone. This Bushell had been Secretary to my Lord Verulam. It is an extraordinary solitude. There he had two mummies; a grot where he lay in a hammock, like an Indian. Hence, we went to Dichley [Map], an ancient seat of the Lees, now Sir Henry Lee's (age 25); it is a low ancient timber-house, with a pretty bowling-green. My Lady gave us an extraordinary dinner. This gentleman's mother (age 49) was Countess of Rochester, who was also there, and Sir Walter St. John (age 42). There were some pictures of their ancestors, not ill painted; the great-grandfather had been Knight of the Garter [Note. Reference to Henry Lee of Ditchley who was not great-grandfather; he was second-cousin once-removed]; there was a picture of a Pope, and our Savior's head. So we returned to Cornbury.

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 14th March 1666. Thence to walk all alone in the fields behind Grayes Inne, making an end of reading over my dear "Faber fortunae", of my Lord Bacon's, and thence, it growing dark, took two or three wanton turns about the idle places and lanes about Drury Lane, but to no satisfaction, but a great fear of the plague among them, and so anon I walked by invitation to Mrs. Pierce's, where I find much good company, that is to say, Mrs. Pierce, my wife, Mrs. Worshipp and her daughter, and Harris (age 32) the player, and Knipp, and Mercer, and Mrs. Barbary Sheldon, who is come this day to spend a weeke with my wife; and here with musique we danced, and sung and supped, and then to sing and dance till past one in the morning; and much mirthe with Sir Anthony Apsley (age 50) and one Colonell Sidney (age 40), who lodge in the house; and above all, they are mightily taken with Mrs. Knipp. Hence weary and sleepy we broke up, and I and my company homeward by coach and to bed.

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 20th May 1666. Calling on all the Victualling ships to know what they had of their complements, and so to Deptford, Kent [Map], to enquire after a little business there, and thence by water back again, all the way coming and going reading my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae", which I can never read too often, and so back home, and there find my wife come home, much pleased with the reception she had there, and she was godmother, and did hold the child at the Font, and it is called John. So back again home, and after setting my papers in order and supping, to bed, desirous to rise betimes in the morning.

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 10th August 1666. After dinner to the office, and anon with my wife and sister abroad, left them in Paternoster Row [Map], while Creed, who was with me at the office, and I to Westminster; and leaving him in the Strand, I to my Chancellor's (age 57), and did very little business, and so away home by water, with more and more pleasure, I every time reading over my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae".

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 29th October 1666. So home to dinner and to discourse with my brother upon his translation of my Lord Bacon's "Faber Fortunae", which I gave him to do and he has done it, but meanely; I am not pleased with it at all, having done it only literally, but without any life at all.

Autobiography Simon D'Ewes. 31st December 1690. Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, had been often questioned during this parliament in the Upper House, for his gross and notorious bribery, and though he had for divers weeks abstained from coming to the Parliament House, yet had the broad seal still remained with him till this first day of May, in the afternoon; and he, by that means, as yet remained Lord Chancellor of England.

In 1731 (Copy of 1618 original).John Vanderbank (age 36). Portrait of Francis Bacon 1st Viscount St Alban.