Sir Francis Bacon

Throughout his career Bacon acted as an adviser to Elizabeth and her successor, King James. Several of his advice tracts have been mistakenly thought to be the work of his uncle and main (though unreliable) patron, Burghley. At the end of 1584 Bacon offered to Elizabeth and her ministers advice as to the course to be taken for protection against the Catholic threat at home and abroad. Worth mentioning in your term paper that in 1592, a similar theme occupied Bacon's thoughts, and he was engaged to write a formal response to a vigorous attack on Elizabeth's government by the Jesuit Robert Parsons, the Responsio ad edictum Regine Anglice, occasioned by Elizabeth's edict against the Jesuits. Bacon's reply, "Certaine Observations made upon a libel published this present year, 1592," has been mistaken for the work of Burghley; although he wrote from the perspective of his marginal, insecure existence, his writing was taken for the output of a figure at the center of power.

In the early 1590s Bacon composed some performance pieces for entertainments at Gray's Inn. One such device, "Of Tribute, or Giving What Is Due," offers homage to Elizabeth. Another, A Conference of Pleasure (1592), offers the speeches of "Mr. Bacon in praise of knowledge" and "Mr. Bacon's discourse in praise of his sovereign." At Gray's Inn revels in 1594 a satire about government, Gesta Grayorum, was performed; Bacon wrote the part consisting of advice from fictional "councilors" to the real and powerful personages in office. Though Bacon's pen was behind the composition of some of these pieces, he did not always intend for his identity to be remembered in connection with them. In a performance prepared for the annual Accession Day festivities of 1595 Bacon created an allegorical conceit as a vehicle for the presentation and recommendation of the Earl of Essex before the queen and court. Bacon became friends with Essex, one of the heroes of the 1596 naval battle at Cadiz, Spain, and a favorite of Elizabeth's in the late 1580s. To write an essay on Bacon, you may need to examine his works and his biography. Written to the right Honorable his very good Lord, the Earle of Deuonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1604; conventionally known as the Apology), written after Essex's execution, Bacon spoke of the earl as "the fittest instrument to do good to the state," to whom he appealed for favor while offering "to the best of my understanding, propositions and memorials of anything that might concern his Lordship's honour, fortune or service."