Nathaniel Bacon (English politician)
Nathaniel Bacon (12 December 1593 – 1660) was an English Puritan lawyer, writer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1645 and 1660.
Life
Bacon was the son of Sir Edward Bacon of Shrubland, Barham, son of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his first wife, Jane Ferneley (d.1552).[1] He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1617 he was called to the bar.[2]
Bacon was a Parliamentarian, active in support of the New Model Army from 1644,[3] Bacon became Member of Parliament for Cambridge University in 1645, as a recruiter to the Long Parliament until he was excluded after Pride's Purge.[1]
Bacon was elected MP for Ipswich for the First Protectorate Parliament in 1654, along with his brother Francis Bacon and the two represented Ipswich together until his death. He also served as an Admiralty Judge and Master of Requests (1657).[1]
Works
Bacon's Historicall Discourse has been described as the first historical work on Norman England to argue closely from sources,[4] and as "the classical statement of the thesis of Anglo-Saxon liberties".[5] He "presented the ... Saxons as a free people governed by laws made by themselves".[6] Glenn Burgess describes it as "a work of considerable scholarship as well as a piece of political propaganda".[7] It argued continuity of the kingship of William the Conqueror with that of previous kings.[8] It was generally aristocratic and republican in tone, strongly anti-clerical, favouring government by an elected council.[9]
The remark
- Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?
cited by John Bunyan in Grace Abounding,[10] as on Francesco Spiera, is misattributed, and is really Bacon's, from his work on Speira.[11][12]
Publications
- The Fearefull Estate of Francis Spira (1638)
- An Historical Discourse of the Uniformity of the Government of England (1647–51)
Family
Bacon married twice: firstly Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Maydston of Boxted, Essex, and widow of Edward Glascock of Great Horkesley, Essex (no children) and secondly Susan, daughter of William Holloway, clothier, of East Bergholt, Suffolk, and widow of Matthew Alefounder, clothier, of Dedham, Essex with whom he had four sons and five daughters. His brother was Francis Bacon, the Ipswich MP.[1]
References
- Concise Dictionary of National Biography
- University of Calgary Library (Special Collections)
- John Langton Sanford, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion (1858) p. 278
Notes
- ^ a b c d "History of Parliament Online - Bacon, Nathaniel". History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
- ^ "Bacon, Nathaniel (BCN606N)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1571-1651 (1993), p. 235.
- ^ David Bates, England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (1994), p. 9.
- ^ Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries (2004), p. 195.
- ^ Online Library of Liberty - CHAPTER II: The Colonial Perspective: Ancient and Medieval - The Lamp of Experience
- ^ The Politics of the Ancient Constitution, (1992) p. 96.
- ^ Burgess p. 97.
- ^ Tuck, pp. 236-40.
- ^ Grace Abounding - PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD
- ^ Michael MacDonald, The Fearefull Estate of Francis Spira: Narrative, Identity, and Emotion in Early Modern England, The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jan., 1992), pp. 32-61.
- ^ M. A. Overell, The Exploitation of Francesco Spiera, Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 619-637.
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
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- 1593 births
- 1660 deaths
- Members of the Parliament of England (pre-1707) for Ipswich
- Members of the pre-1707 Parliament of England for the University of Cambridge
- Roundheads
- Politics of Suffolk
- 17th-century English Puritans
- English male writers
- 17th-century English lawyers
- 17th-century historians
- English historians
- Bacon family
- English MPs 1640–48 (up to Pride's Purge)
- English MPs 1654–55 (Protectorate)
- English MPs 1656–58 (Protectorate)
- English MPs 1659 (Protectorate)
- English MPs 1660