Nathaniel Bacon (politician)

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Nathaniel Bacon (1593-1660) was an English Puritan lawyer, politician and writer.

Contents

[edit] Life

He was (joint) member of parliament for Ipswich, along with his relative Francis Bacon. In 1617 he was called to the bar. A Parliamentarian, active in support of the New Model Army from 1644[1], Bacon became M.P. for Cambridge University in 1645, during the Long Parliament.

Excluded after Pride's Purge, he returned to the Rump Parliament[2]. He later represented Ipswich until his death. He also served as an admiralty judge and master of requests.

His Historicall Discourse has been described as the first historical work on Norman England to argue closely from sources[3], and as "the classical statement of the thesis of Anglo-Saxon liberties"[4]. He "presented the ... Saxons as a free people governed by laws made by themselves"[5]. Glenn Burgess describes it as "a work of considerable scholarship as well as a piece of political propaganda"[6]. It argued continuity of the kingship of William the Conqueror with that of previous kings[7]. It was generally aristocratic and republican in tone, strongly anti-clerical, favouring government by an elected council[8].

The remark

Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?

cited by John Bunyan in Grace Abounding[9], as on Francesco Spiera, is misattributed, and is really Bacon's, from his work on Speira[10][11].

[edit] Works

  • The Fearefull Estate of Francis Spira (1638)
  • An Historical Discourse of the Uniformity of the Government of England (1647-51)

[edit] Family

He was the third son of Edward Bacon, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon.[12]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1571-1651 (1993), p. 235.
  2. ^ Nigel Smith, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660 (1994), p. 351.
  3. ^ David Bates, England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (1994), p. 9.
  4. ^ Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries (2004), p. 195.
  5. ^ Online Library of Liberty - CHAPTER II: The Colonial Perspective: Ancient and Medieval - The Lamp of Experience
  6. ^ The Politics of the Ancient Constitution, (1992) p. 96.
  7. ^ Burgess p. 97.
  8. ^ Tuck, pp. 236-40.
  9. ^ Grace Abounding - PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ M. A. Overell, The Exploitation of Francesco Spiera, Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 619-637.
  12. ^ Special Collections - Occasional Paper No. 8
Parliament of England
Preceded by
William Cage and
John Gourdon		 Member of Parliament for Ipswich
with Francis Bacon
????–1660		 Succeeded by
Sir Frederick Cornwallis and
Francis Bacon
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