Sir Francis Bacon
Have you ever checked out the amazing Michael Curtiz directed 1939 film- The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex with Bette Davis as Elizabeth 1, Errol Flynn as Essex, Vincent Price as Sir Walter R aleigh, Olivia De Havilland as Penelope Gray, Nanette Fabray as Margaret Radcliffe, & Donald Crisp as Sir Francis Bacon?
It has been suggested that Sir Francis Bacon was the secret son of Queen Elizabeth 1 & her lover Robert Dudley. He has also often been identified as the "real" William Shakespeare.
He looks gay to me...
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, was an English philosopher, statesman & essayist but is best known for leading the scientific revolution with his new "observation & experimentation" theory which is the way science has been conducted ever since.
Sir Francis Bacon becomes a playwright at the age of 16, with the History of Errors, which was presented to the Queen & her royal court. After 3 years in France & then law school, he became a statesmen & Member of Parliament.
Bacon was immensely popular in intellectual circles & succeeded in creating an underground society of great writers, social reformers, & religious leaders who usher in the English Renaissance & strengthen the Protestant Reformation movement. The small group worked in top secrecy to counter Spain & Britain's own blood thirsty Catholic Bishops, ever anxious to help Spain capture England. However, Spain's great Armanda of ships were defeated in stormy weather when they attack England.
According to the film, Bacon is instructed to keep his royal birthright a secret & Queen Elizabeth continues to call herself the "Virgin Queen", which was a very popular image to the masses. Due to his advancing diplomatic positions, Lord Bacon was forced to conceal his achievement as a great playwright.
Bacon was the most popular politician in England. In an effort to help educate the masses, with 95% of the population illiterate, Bacon was busy producing entertaining plays based upon ethics & good morals, but he was also writing plays anonymously, which often portrayed the abuse of power by kings & queens.
In 1606, an impoverished Bacon married Alice Barnham, the daughter of a well-off London nobleman. Nothing is known of their married life. They had no children. In his last will he disinherited her. There exists substantial evidence that Bacon's emotional interests lay elsewhere. John Bacon's fellow member of parliament- Sir Simonds D'Ewes, in his Autobiography & Correspondence writes of Bacon: "yet would he not relinquish the practice of his most horrible & secret sinne of sodomie, keeping still one Godrick, a verie effeminate faced youth, to bee his catamite & bedfellow".
Bacon's mother- Lady Ann Bacon expressed clear exasperation with what she believed was her son's behavior. In a letter to her other son Anthony, she complains of another of Francis's companions "that bloody Percy, he kept yea as a coach companion & a bed companion" (the interior of a traveling coach was one of the few places one could find privacy). Bacon exhibited a strong penchant for young Welsh serving men. One of them- Francis Edney, received the enormous sum of over 200 pounds in Bacon's will.
Bacon had a vision for a Utopian New World in North America, where there would be greater rights for women, the abolition of slavery, elimination of debtors' prisons, separation of church & state, & freedom of religious & political expression. Bacon played a leading role in creating the British colonies, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas, & Newfoundland. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Bacon, I consider him as one of the greatest man that have ever lived, without any exception, & as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical & Moral sciences".
After traveling the known world, in 1626, Bacon moved back London. Continuing his scientific research, he was inspired by the possibility of using snow to preserve meat. He purchased a chicken to carry out this experiment. While stuffing the chicken with snow, he contracted a fatal case of pneumonia. He died in April 1626, leaving assets of about 7,000 pounds & debts of 22,000 pounds. It is said that the chicken still haunts Pond Square in London.
Note: Francis Bacon shares a name with another rather famous gay Brit- 20th century artist Frances Bacon.
No comments:
Post a Comment