Nathaniel Bacon, MP

Nathaniel Bacon (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.

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)

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]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Bacon_(politician)

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• BACON, Nathaniel (1593-1660), of Gray's Inn and Ipswich, Suff.
• Constituency/Dates
  • CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY1/27 Nov.1645
  • IPSWICH/1654
  • IPSWICH/1656
  • IPSWICH/1659
  • IPSWICH/11 Apr. - Aug. 1660
• Family and Education
• b. 12 Dec. 1593, 3rd s. of Sir Edward Bacon (d.1618) of Shrubland, Barham, and bro. of Francis Bacon. educ. Christ’s, Camb. 1606, BA 1611; G. Inn 1611, called 1617, ancient 1632. m. (1) aft. 1623, Elizabeth, da. of Robert Maydston of Boxted, Essex, wid. of Edward Glascock of Great Horkesley, Essex, s.p.; (2) c.1630, Susan, da. of William Holloway, clothier, of East Bergholt, Suff., wid. of Matthew Alefounder, clothier, of Dedham, Essex, and coh. to her bro. William, 4s. (2 d.v.p.) 5da.2
• Offices Held
  • Reader, G. Inn 1641; freeman and recorder, Ipswich 1643-d., bailiff 1644-5, town clerk 1651-2, commr. for execution of ordinances, Essex, Suff. and Ipswich 1643; dep. lt. Suff. 1643, commr. for sequestration, Essex and Suff. 1643, levying of money 1643, eastern assoc. Suff. 1643, assessment, Suff. 1644, Suff. and Ipswich 1645-52, 1657, Jan. 1660-d.; j.p. Essex 1644-52, Suff. by 1650-2, Essex and Suff. 1653-d.; elder, Ipswich classis 1647; commr. for militia, Suff. 1648, Mar. 1660, drainage of the fens 1649, poor prisoners 1653, scandalous ministers 1654, sewers, Chelsea and Westminster 1656.3
• Commr. for exclusion from sacrament 1646, scandalous offences 1648; judge of Admiralty 1649-53; master of requests 1656-9.4
• Biography
• Bacon’s father was a younger son of the Elizabethan lord keeper, and Bacon himself, like so many of the family, entered the legal profession. An active Parliamentarian during the Civil War, he was chairman of the central committee of the eastern association, and published an attack on the prerogative in 1647. Secluded at Pride’s Purge, he soon conformed to the republican regime and was appointed a judge of the Admiralty. As recorder of Ipswich, he represented the borough with his younger brother in all the Protectorate Parliaments, and served Cromwell as master of requests. But by 1659 he was ready to denounce ‘the tyranny of a Commonwealth’, and he did not sit with the Rump on their second restoration in December. He signed the Suffolk petition for a free Parliament, and returned to the House with the secluded Members in February 1660.5
• Bacon was re-elected to the Convention, and marked as a friend by Lord Wharton, who assigned him to the mangement of William Ellys. An inactive Member, he was appointed to five committees by full name, including those on the bills for confirming the privileges of Parliament and for settling ecclesiastical livings. It was probably he who spoke on 10 July 1660 against a motion to double the poll-tax on Protestant nonconformists as well as Catholic recusants. Together with Matthew Hale he was ordered on 10 Aug. to bring in measures to restrict the granting of leases of church lands and to provide for the endowment of vicarages out of impropriate rectories. He made his will on 26 Aug. and was buried at Barham on 1 Sept. None of his descendants entered Parliament.6
• Ref Volumes: 1660-1690
• Authors: M. W. Helms / Paula Watson / John. P. Ferris
• Notes
• 1. Did not sit after Pride’s Purge 6 Dec. 1648, readmitted 6 June 1649.
• 2. Vis. Suff. ed. Metcalfe, 110; N. Bacon, Annals of Ipswich, p. v; Gent. Mag. xcv. 21, 22, PCC 91 Byrde, 106 May, J. J. Muskett, Suff. Manorial Fams. i. 226; ii. 125; Add. 19116, f. 44; Frag. Gen. i. 12.
• 3. Add. 25334, f. 87; 25335, ff. 9, 78; HMC 10th Rep. IV, 508-10; A. M. Everitt, Suff. and the Gt. Rebellion (Suff. Rec. Soc. iii), 130; County of Suff. Divided (1645), 1.
• 4. CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 254; 1656-7, p. 182.
• 5. C. Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 124; D. Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 345; Gent. Mag. xcv. 21; Suff. and the Gt. Rebellion, 128.
• 6. Bowman diary, f. 62z; CJ, viii. 116; East Anglian, n.s. iv. 34.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/ba... __________________________________