Francis Bacon Research Trust

Shakespeare Answers

Authorship of the Shakespeare Works

There was only one man, and one man alone, alive and active throughout the time that all the Shakespeare poems and plays were written, performed and published, including the publishing of the First Folio, who fits the complete description of Shakespeare the author. That man was Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). From a young age he was acclaimed as an outstanding genius, a child prodigy, and even the Queen took a special interest in him, calling him her ‘baby Solomon’. His parents were the wise Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Queen’s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and Lady Ann Bacon, the talented second daughter of the great scholar Sir Anthony Cooke and sister of Mildred, wife of Sir William Cecil. Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, was the Queen’s Principal Secretary of State and then Lord Treasurer.

Francis grew up, therefore, in an atmosphere of the highest culture and learning in the country, as well as in the midst of court politics and life. He was given a special upbringing with the best private tutors, was a student at Cambridge University and, at the behest of Lord Burghley, entered Gray’s Inn to study and practice law, where he had his own chambers and library, and maintained a scrivenery of scholars and writers to assist him. Law, however, was not his favourite occupation. His principal love was that of the Muses—literature, poetry and drama—upon which he spent the greater part of his time, helped by the fact that Gray’s Inn was a hotbed of poetical talent.

Francis was a noted classical scholar, proficient in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and a multi-linguist speaking French, Italian and Spanish fluently. He was a musician, a renowned orator, an international traveller, an intelligencer, a courtier, a philosopher, a scientist, a mystic, a poet, a writer, a playwright, a naturalist and horticulturist, a lawyer, barrister, Reader and Treasurer of Gray’s Inn, a Member of Parliament, a statesman and a judge. He was a private advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and one of her Counsel Learned in the Law, employed also on intelligence matters together with his brother Anthony, which took him abroad to France, Italy and Spain. From 1576-9 he was an attaché at the French Court. By the Queen’s command he and his brother were advisors to the Earl of Essex, and knew the earl and his friends, such as Southampton, Sydney and the Pembrokes, intimately. Knighted by King James I in 1603, he became successively a member of the King’s Council, Solicitor General, Clerk to the Star Chamber, President of the Verge, Chief Advisor to the Crown, Attorney General, Privy Counsellor, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and finally, in 1618, Lord Chancellor, the supreme judge in the land, with the titles of Baron Verulam and Viscount St Albans. It was his increasing state responsibilities from 1613 onwards which prevented him from pursuing his favourite occupation, which was that of poetry and drama.

In his own lifetime Francis Bacon was celebrated publicly as the foremost philosopher of his time, and privately as the supreme poet and dramatist. In his letters he always proclaimed literature and poetry to be his main love and what he primarily wished to do. He was a renowned orator and, as a lawyer, barrister and judge, acclaimed for his good judgement and justice which was always tempered with mercy. He was proclaimed as the wisest and wittiest of mankind, revered for his talents and virtue, and loved for his kindness and generosity. Not only did Queen Elizabeth I refer to Francis as her ‘Solomon’ when he was still young, but King James I likewise referred to him as his ‘Solomon’ and as ‘Apollo’ in later years. He was a giant among men—spiritually, culturally, humanely and artistically. His friends record that he was the most prodigious wit that ever lived; he was fond of quibbles (i.e. puns or playing on words) and could never pass by a jest; his speech was nobly censorious and his imagination was of the highest order; he was highly poetical, possessing every faculty and gift of a true poet, but concealed; he was not only profoundly religious but (like a great prophet or yogi) conversant with God and able to render a reason for the hope that was in him; he was humble, virtuous, kind, humorous, open-hearted, compassionate and generous almost to a fault; his conversation and speeches kept his hearers enthralled, and guests at his table carried notebooks in which to inscribe the words he spoke. When he died Ben Jonson and others paid tribute to him as having been the light of his age, a second Apollo or Pallas Athena, the leader of the choir of Muses, inspirer of all the poets and writers, as well as a concealed poet and writer of comedies and tragedies by means of which philosophy was renewed.

Francis Bacon stated that he was following the path of the Ancients, with the wisdom of Solomon and Christ as his guide. Of all that he left us, both Baconian and Shakespearean, his only claim for anything new that he offered as his unique gift to humanity was what he called his ‘New Method’—an ‘Art of Discovery’ by which all knowledge (divine, human and natural) might be obtained. In particular he intended his method for the discovery of the Cause of all causes, which he recognised as being Love, so that we might practice it in charity, with knowledge and power. He urged us, therefore, above all to study emotions, the causes of all things, and to develop clear, unprejudiced perception and knowledge of all things natural, human and divine.

Drama, or Poesie, forms the heart of his method, the important fourth part of his ‘Great Instauration’, capable of educating us like the Ancients did by means of entertainment, holding a mirror up to our own natures, whilst at the same time providing a way of feeling and seeing, in a safe environment, what emotions are and what they do, or might do, in various situations. Allied with this, as an integral part of his method of teaching us his Art of Discovery, is Bacon’s deliberate concealment of part of his work, but in such a way as it might be discovered, as in a game of hide and seek. By partly concealing his work Bacon provides us with a means of learning his method in a practical way, for his Art of Discovery is not just a science, it is an art.