Dear Annes,
Thanks so much for your earnest help. Very good of you.
I'm researching the Bacon Family - the one with the great high official and excellent Lord Keeper/cum Lord Chancellor, Sir Nicholas Bacon, whom i learnt was the Foster Father from birth of Francis, "concealed" son of QE I and RD, Earl of Leicester. I well know how many have consternation at this but so be it. The facts, largely hidden themselves, are so wide-ranging within documents that are not necessarily acknowledged by 'orthodox' scholars and have been sidelined for centuries. Many though are now actively into resurrecting them with cryptography, cross-referencing and literary analysis. It's startling but wonderful to me. The context of those horrid and yet brilliant decades of the 16th century is just full of so much 'dark' matter which has not been touched by story-tellers only .
Once i found this out i wanted to learn more of Sir Nicholas' background. Generally most say he came from a very gentric stock largely domiciled in East Anglia, specifically, Norfolk and Suffolk, albeit after the monasteries were gone, so much of all that richness, money, land and materials were siphoned off to all and many of the monarch's (Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) favoured 'servants'.
Sir Nicholas married twice; he had 6 children with his first wife and then one natural son, Anthony, with his second wife, Anne nee Cooke, hghly educated and refined dtr of high scholar, Sir Anthony Cooke. She fostered Francis (b1561) as planned from birth. She had just lost her second child and so this all augered well for a tight conspiracy to conceal the natural parents of both Francis and his younger natural brother, Robert (Tudor Dudley) Devereux. Robert (b1567) was adopted by another couple of high confidence to the queen and vetted by Sir Nicholas and William Cecil, Lord Burleigh - a distant cousin of the queen, Walter Devereux, a soldier and deeply loyal subject of the queen. Walter was the 1st Earl of Essex and had not long married Lady Lettice Knollys, also a cousin of the queen but a much closer one: 1st degree x 1 remove. So Walter and Lettice parented Robert together until Walter was killed or died in Ireland in company with his son's natural father, Robert Dudley! Walter died when Robert 'Devereux' was only 9yrs old. Lettice now a widow and foster mother went after her foster son's father in a big romantic way: they later married in secret which upset the queen greatly. She banned both of them at length, but did reconcile with her long love and 'concealed' husband, Robert Dudley!
Only the most trusted and senior advisors/servants to the queen knew of this legitimate religious marriage and the two resulting sons. But given the horrendous pressures on the queen and 'her men' she had to avoid being a natural woman herself and fashion the unattainable 'Gloriana' in order to secure however tenuous at times, the Protestant state of the nation from all interlopers.
I set up a tree on Ancestry in order to see what may come forth from others who had this long line of Bacons in their family. To some limited extent i have but even Sir Nicholas' parents are not given much detail at all, let alone his grandparents!
So, just enjoying a wait to see what might emerge further.
Cheers from Australia. Julie.
