Free Elizabeth by Philippa Jones Page A

of Nicholas Bacon’s children.
    The date of Francis’s conception tallies with the period during which Elizabeth and Robert Dudley were most rumoured to have engaged in a physical relationship – in anticipation of the imminent death of Robert’s wife, Amy Robsart. If Elizabeth hadconceived an illegitimate child, placing it within a family such as the Bacons, where there were children by two different mothers and family characteristics were less marked, would have been an inspired idea. Additionally, Sir Nicholas and Anne were suitable in so many other ways: he was a Protestant who had maintained his religion, as Elizabeth had done, even through the reign of Mary I, while his wife was one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting and a fellow scholar in Greek, Latin, French and Italian. Conversely, however, the Bacon household was only a stone’s throw from the royal palaces and the alleged foster parents were a daily part of Court life, which might not have been the best way to keep the true identity of such an important baby a secret.
    Francis would have spent part of his childhood at York House, as well as at Gorhambury, where he may have attended the local grammar school at St Albans. He was an academically precocious child and was mainly schooled at home by different tutors. At the age of 12, he went to study at Cambridge with his brother Anthony, then aged 14. They went to Trinity College, where Francis, little more than a child, appears to have spoken out on various subjects, as he later wrote his opinion of the university: ‘For the studies of men in these places are so confined and as it were imprisoned in the writings of certain authors, from whom if any man dissent he is straightway arraigned as a turbulent person and an innovator.’ 1
    In 1576, Francis was placed in the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English Ambassador to France, so he could travel to Europe to extend his education. A French author, Pierre Amboise, wrote a biography of Francis, published in 1631, saying of his time abroad:
    … Mr Bacon … spent several years of his youth in travels, to polish his wit and form his judgement, by reference to thepractice of foreigners. France, Italy and Spain, being the countries of highest civilisation, were those to which this curiosity drew him. As he saw himself destined to hold in his hands one day the helm of the Kingdom, he did not look only at the scenery, and the clothes of the different peoples … but took note of the different types of government, the advantages and the faults of each, and of all things the understanding of which should fit a man to govern. 2
    Since both his father and his uncle, William Cecil, held posts of national importance, at the age of 15, Francis could have, with great reason, imagined himself in a similar position one day.
    The travels, however, came to an end when Francis received word that his father, Sir Nicholas, had died on 20 February 1579. He immediately left France for England, but found that his father had already been buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. Sir Nicholas’s will was not kind to his youngest son: all his bequests went to his wife and to his other children. It has been suggested that Sir Nicholas was planning to make some other provision for Francis and that he died before he could do so. It has also been suggested that, if Francis was not his son, he had left his real parents to provide for the young man.
    The first suggestion is possible; the second is almost certainly unlikely. A monarch would usually provide for an illegitimate child, in which case Sir Nicholas would have received additional grants of estates for the sole purpose of endowing them on the child, rather than leaving him penniless and drawing attention to his plight. A third possibility is that Sir Nicholas left nothing to Francis because he was hopeless with money. In later years, Francis would have serious problems with debt.
    In lieu of a generous inheritance, in 1579, Francis entered