Francis Bacon

Topic: Francis Bacon

Bacon to Salisbury, 10 August 1609: holograph letter and the younger Neville

The supplied scan of TNA SP 14/47, fol. 124r-v has now been inspected directly and collated with Spedding and the Calendar of State Papers Domestic. The letter sends Salisbury a draft proclamation about exporting gold and silver and then reports that a Frenchman has failed to attend, while Sʳ He. Nevill has sent a solicitor to receive a copy of the Frenchman's answer once taken.

Spedding prints this exact letter in Letters and Life, vol. IV, p. 130, and labels the archival witness Orig. own hand. Direct inspection supports that description: the body and complimentary close are continuous, and the formal italic fr Bacon subscription is compatible with Bacon's publicly reproduced signatures. The address is compatible with the letter hand; the later Aug 10 1609 / Bacon docket is administrative. The controlled status is therefore strongly supported holograph with autograph signature, not merely a scribal letter signed by Bacon.

The Neville is very probably the younger Sir Henry Neville III. He had been knighted in March 1609; Carleton reported in April that Young Sir Hen. Nevill had been arrested as a pirate by mistake; TNA STAC 8/220/18 identifies the May 1609 plaintiff as Sir Henry Neville, son of Sir Henry, against the Frenchman Peter Gaundon for a false piracy charge; and Royal Berkshire Archives D/EN/L4 describes the same Gandon dossier. Bacon's August reference to the frenche man, an expected answer, and Neville's solicitor closely fits this litigation. Because Bacon does not name the Frenchman and the pleadings remain uninspected, this is a strong inference rather than a fully closed identification.

Full transcription, hand audit, printed-witness collation, policy context, and claim audit: FRANCIS BACON TO SALISBURY NEVILLE GAUNDON 1609 SOURCE PASS 2026 07 30.

1. Verified Sourced Facts

The Two Bacon–Neville Family Connections

There were two distinct family connections between Francis Bacon and Henry Neville:

Connection 1: The Cooke Sisters (first cousins via wife)

• Francis Bacon's mother was Ann Cooke — one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea Hall.
• Henry Neville's wife, Anne Killigrew, was the daughter of Katherine Cooke (another of the Cooke sisters) and Sir Henry Killigrew.
• Ann Cooke and Katherine Cooke were sisters → Francis Bacon and Anne Killigrew Neville were first cousins.
• Sourced: Allen, Gemma, ed., The Letters of Lady Anne Bacon (2014), editorial note: "Henry Neville was married to Anne Killigrew, daughter of Katherine Cooke Killigrew... cousin to Anthony and Francis Bacon." Gristwood, The Elizabethan Court Day by Day: 1584 (Folgerpedia, p. 45), for Anne Killigrew's mother as "Katherine (Cooke)." Note: the Allen note uses the word "niece" in a loose early modern sense meaning female relative; the standard genealogy of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters identifies Katherine and Ann as sisters.
• A further Cooke sister, Mildred Cooke, married William Cecil, Lord Burghley → making Robert Cecil a first cousin of both Francis Bacon and Anne Killigrew Neville. Source: Prior, Mary. "Cecil [née Cooke], Mildred, Lady Burghley (1525/6–1589)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4988.

Connection 2: Step-family (Bacon's half-sister was Neville's stepmother)

• Francis Bacon's older half-sister Elizabeth Bacon (eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon by his first wife Jane Ferneley; Francis was by the second wife Ann Cooke) married Sir Henry Nevell of Billingbere — Henry Neville's father — as his third wife c. 1578.
• Elizabeth was therefore "Lady Nevell" during the Billingbere marriage (until Sir Henry's death January 1593) — the same title under which My Ladye Nevells Booke (William Byrd keyboard MS, 1591) was made for her.
• She subsequently married Sir William Peryam (died October 1604), hence "Lady Peryam."
• Source: Harley, John, "'My Ladye Nevell' Revealed," Music & Letters 86.1 (2005), pp. 1–15.

Summary: Bacon was the first cousin of Neville's wife and the half-brother of Neville's stepmother. These are two separate, documented family routes and should be kept available as context whenever Bacon and Neville appear in the same social, manuscript, or political discussion.

Francis Bacon to Anne Bacon, 4 December 1593: the Neville Letter Located

The previously named but unextracted letter has now been located in the locally stored letters of lady anne bacon, visually checked at PDF pp. 107-108 / printed pp. 157-158, and confirmed against the open Cambridge Core text.

Gemma Allen numbers it letter 78 and gives the witness as:

Francis Bacon to Anne Bacon, 4 December 1593

Copy. LPL 649, fo. 433r-v. 1p.

Endorsed (fo. 433v): Mr Francis Bacon to my Lady Anne Bacon 1593

The letter begins with money and debt arrangements between Francis, Anthony, and their mother. It then records several matters Francis expects to remember at court:

Sir Jhon Foskeu is not yet in court; both to him and otherwise I willbe mindfull of Mr Downing's cause and libertie with the first opportunitie. Mr Nevell, my cosin, though I be furder distant then I expected, yet I shall have an apt ocasion to remember. To my cosen Kemp I am sending.

It closes:

From the court this iiii of 10bre 1593.

Your Ladyship's most obedient sonne,

FB.

Allen expands 10bre as December and identifies the Neville in editorial note 501:

Mr Nevell Henry Neville was married to Anne Killigrew, daughter of Katherine Cooke Killigrew, niece to Anne Bacon and cousin to Anthony and Francis Bacon.

The wording documents Francis Bacon calling Henry Neville my cosin and promising to remember him when an appropriate occasion arose. The surrounding sentences concern court access, causes, liberty, payments, and messages, but the letter does not specify what particular matter Francis was to remember for Neville. That unanswered question should remain visible rather than being filled in from later events.

Checked page images:

• anne bacon 107
• anne bacon 108
• Cambridge Core full edition
• EMLO Anne Bacon correspondence collection

Bacon to John Davies, 28 March 1603: direct Spedding page checked

• A local source note preserving Bacon’s 28 March 1603 letter to Sir John Davies (the lawyer and poet, later Attorney General for Ireland; not to be confused with John Davies of Hereford, the writing-master poet) gives the closing lines:

“So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue”

“Your very assured”

“Fr. Bacon”

• The same local source note dates the letter:

March 28, 1603

• The same note cites the source as:

“James Spedding, ed., The Works of Francis Bacon: The Letters and the Life, Vol. III, p. 65.”

• The same note records the immediately relevant prison context:

“April 10, 1603: Henry Neville and the Earl of Southampton are released from the Tower of London”

• Gemma Allen’s editorial note in The Letters of Lady Anne Bacon states:

“Mr Nevell Henry Neville was married to Anne Killigrew, daughter of Katherine Cooke Killigrew, niece to Anne Bacon and cousin to Anthony and Francis Bacon.”

• The local Essex-rebellion wiki note lists Bacon’s Essex texts among the source cluster:

“Francis Bacon's accounts: His ‘Description of the Essex Rebellion’ and ‘Apology regarding the Essex Rebellion’”

• The recipient of Bacon's 28 March 1603 letter is Sir John Davies the lawyer-poet, not John Davies of Hereford. John Davies of Hereford remains relevant to the Neville case through Microcosmos, but those are two different men and should not be merged in book prose.

The correct public scan has now been downloaded and visually checked: The Works of Francis Bacon, vol. 10, containing Letters and Life, vol. 3, printed p. 65 (access-PDF p. 85). The heading reads:

A LETTER TO MR. DAVYS, THEN GONE TO THE KING, AT HIS FIRST ENTRANCE, MARCH 28, 1603.

The letter asks Davies to use Bacon's name well at James's incoming court, including repressing and answering for me, if there be any biting or nibbling at it in that place, and closes:

So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue

Your very assured,

FR. BACON.

Spedding's footnote is part of the source history and should be retained:

Lambeth MSS. 976, fo. 4. The original letter apparently remains. The signature is Bacon's own, and the docket is in his hand: the body of the letter in the hand of one of his men. There is a copy of it in the Register book, with two or three slight verbal differences, and without the date.

Spedding identifies Davies as the author of Nosce Teipsum and says of the closing phrase:

The allusion to “concealed poets” I cannot explain.

He then offers his own possibility: because Bacon sometimes wrote letters and devices to be fathered by Essex, Bacon might have written verses for a similar purpose and Davies might have known. That is Spedding's nineteenth-century suggestion, not an identification supplied by the 1603 letter. The page documents the phrase, its immediate court-patronage setting, the named recipient, and the manuscript route; it does not name the concealed poets.

Checked witnesses:

• spedding p85
• Spedding Letters Life vol3 Works vol10
• Internet Archive item
• Wikimedia-hosted IA PDF

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• Ken's local book materials use Bacon mainly in three ways: as a family-network comparator, as context for the Northumberland Manuscript, and as the author of the 28 March 1603 "concealed poets" letter.
• Those uses should remain separated: the Bacon/Neville kinship facts are sourced genealogical facts; the "concealed poets" application to Neville/Southampton is an interpretation of an ambiguous phrase; and Baconian authorship arguments are not part of this packet's claim.

3. Quoted Source Text

Bacon to Sir John Davies (Attorney General for Ireland)

• “So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue”
• “Your very assured”
• “Fr. Bacon”

Allen editorial note

• “Mr Nevell Henry Neville was married to Anne Killigrew, daughter of Katherine Cooke Killigrew, niece to Anne Bacon and cousin to Anthony and Francis Bacon.”

Francis Bacon to Anne Bacon

• “Mr Nevell, my cosin”
• “though I be furder distant then I expected”
• “yet I shall have an apt ocasion to remember”
• “From the court this iiii of 10bre 1593”

Local Essex source map

• “Francis Bacon's accounts: His ‘Description of the Essex Rebellion’ and ‘Apology regarding the Essex Rebellion’”

4. Citations

• Spedding, James, editor. The Works of Francis Bacon. Vol. 10; Letters and Life, vol. 3. London: Longmans, 1868, p. 65. Internet Archive item. Local scan: Spedding Letters Life vol3 Works vol10. Earlier source note: bacon concealed poets letter.
• Allen, Gemma, editor. The Letters of Lady Anne Bacon. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2014. Camden Fifth Series, vol. 44, letter 78, pp. 157-158. Cambridge Core text. document witnesses: letters of lady anne bacon. Folger catalog, https://catalog.folger.edu/record/338251.
• Harley, John. “‘My Ladye Nevell’ Revealed.” Music & Letters, vol. 86, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1–15. Oxford Academic, https://academic.oup.com/ml/article/86/1/1/1092011.
• “Essex Rebellion.” Henry Neville Research Wiki source note preserved locally at wiki essex rebellion.

5. Notes on Access

• The verified Bacon/Neville items in hand are:
• the 28 March 1603 Bacon-to-Davies “concealed poets” letter
• the 4 December 1593 Francis Bacon-to-Anne Bacon letter that calls Henry Neville my cosin
• Allen's editorial note identifying the Neville-Killigrew-Bacon family connection
• the Essex-rebellion source note pointing to Bacon’s Essex accounts
• The newly uploaded file letters of lady anne bacon does contain the Allen editorial note quoted above.
• The specific Francis-Bacon-to-Anne-Bacon letter has now been extracted, visually checked, and linked to LPL 649, fol. 433r-v through Allen's edition. Obtaining an image of the manuscript copy remains a useful next step, but the earlier “not located” note is closed.
• The phrase "concealed poets" is real in the Spedding text, but the identity of the poets is not supplied by Bacon in the quoted letter. Any Neville/Southampton application must be labeled as interpretive.

Additional Fact-Source Notes

• The Bacon-to-Davies "concealed poets" phrase remains a real textual control, but Bacon does not identify those poets in the quoted letter. Neville/Southampton use of the phrase must remain interpretive unless a separate source supplies the identification.
• The Lady Anne Bacon editorial note is still valuable for the Bacon/Killigrew/Neville kinship route.
• The 1593 Neville letter is no longer merely a target: its date, shelfmark, endorsement, wording, signature, printed pages, and editorial identification are now documented here.

2026-07-13 Bacon, the Undertakers, and an Attribution Boundary

Spedding prints an undated Bacon letter to the king from Cotton MS Titus F IV, fol. 333. Bacon asks the king to put a case to:

those gentlemen which profess to do you service in Parliament, and desire (as they say) but to have some matter whereupon to work

He warns that if they require an offer of profit before Parliament will act:

I shall little esteem their service if they confess themselves to be but brokers for bargains.

The phrase brokers for bargains is Bacon's. The name Neville is not. Spedding's editorial introduction says that the unnamed gentlemen could be no other than Sir Henry Neville and his party; afterwards known as the “Undertakers.” That identification may be persuasive in the 1613/14 context, but it is an editor's inference and must be cited as such.

A separate note later in the same volume points to a paper in Sir H. Neville's hand at Cotton MS Titus F IV, fol. 344, entitled:

Reasons to prove that the course propounded doth no way prejudice his Majesty's right or claim of imposing, nor abridge his profit.

This is a much stronger Neville-specific archival route than silently inserting Neville's name into Bacon's letter. It gives a concrete manuscript target for the impositions/Undertakers program. The physical folio numbers are locations in a Cottonian compilation; they do not by themselves prove that Bacon and Neville exchanged these sheets directly or that the documents were originally adjacent.

Direct images: bacon brokers 020 and bacon neville hand 037. The British Library describes Cotton MS Titus F IV as a 364-folio collection assembled by Sir Robert Cotton concerning parliamentary proceedings, chiefly 1603-1617; the exact folios should be requested or imaged before handwriting or document-relationship claims are advanced.

Source-Fact Audit — 8 August 2026 (Round 7)

Three Bacon–Neville facts are now kept distinct. Francis Bacon called Henry Neville “my cosin” in the 4 December 1593 copy letter; the kinship ran through Bacon's first cousin Anne Killigrew Neville, while Bacon's half-sister Elizabeth had separately been Neville's stepmother; and Bacon's holograph letter of 10 August 1609 refers to “Sʳ He. Nevill” in litigation involving an unnamed Frenchman.

The 1609 Neville is best identified as Henry III because the knighthood, Carleton's “Young Sir Hen. Nevill,” STAC 8/220/18, Peter Gaundon, and the RBA Gandon dossier converge. Bacon's letter itself does not name Gaundon, so the packet preserves the identification as a strong synthesis and does not insert the Frenchman's name into the quotation. Likewise, “concealed poets” is Bacon's phrase to Sir John Davies; it names neither Neville nor Southampton.