6 J. HOPKINSOIf ANNIVEESAEY ADDRESS : 



Similar views to these liad frequently been expressed before, 

 notably by Roger Bacon in England in the 13th century, and 

 by Leonardo da Vinci ia Italy in the 15th, but they appear to have 

 borne little fruit, and it seems that the greater success which 

 attended the teaching of Francis Bacon was mainly due to the 

 high position he held and the celebrity to which he attained. 

 That such would be the case was clearly seen by him, and to be 

 great for the good of mankiud was the ambition of his life. 



Francis Bacon was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 

 Queen Elizabeth's first Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a man of 

 refined mind and literary and scientific tastes, and the first English 

 statesman of eminence who was neither a warrior nor an ecclesi- 

 astic. He was born on the 22nd of January, 1561 (new style), at 

 his father's London residence, York House, pleasantly situated in 

 its own grounds between the Strand, not then a street, and the 

 Thames, then a river of sufficient purity for the greater part of the 

 Metropolis to be supplied with water pumped from it by water- 

 wheels placed under some of the arches of old London Bi'idge. 



Sir Nicholas Bacon married twice. By his first wife he had 

 three sons and three daughters. His second son, Nathaniel, a 

 talented artist, some of whose paintings are now at Gorhambury, 

 had a daughter Anne who married first Sir Thomas Meautys and 

 next Sir Harbottle Grimston, Master of the Rolls, who also had 

 been married before, to Mary, daughter of Sir George Croke, by 

 whom he had several sons and daughters, and from one of these 

 the present Earl of Yerulam claims descent. By his second wife 

 Ann, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, Sir Nicholas had two sons, 

 Anthony and Francis. In February, 1561, the month after the 

 birth of Francis, he became possessed of the Manors of " Gorham- 

 bury, Westwyke, and Pray," together with property in Redbourn, 

 and in the parishes of St. Michael, St. Peter, and St. Stephen, and 

 with the advowsons of the Vicarages of Redbourn and St. Michael. 

 If there was any house then standing at Gorhambury there is now 

 no trace of it. The house which Geoffrey de Gorham built about 

 the year 1128, and which stood about four hundred yards east of 

 the present building, on the brow of the hill facing towards St. 

 Albans, was demolished before the year 1400. But two years after 

 Sir Nicholas Bacon acquired the manor, he commenced to build the 

 house of which the ruins are still standing, south-west and within 

 sight of the present mansion, finishing it in 1568. In this house 

 he twice entertained the Queen, the second time for four days, and 

 her entertainment cost him for this period one-third as much as the 

 house cost him to build in five years. " In the orchard was a 



