Overview

This volume brings together the final decade of documents from one of Norfolk’s most significant early modern figures. These papers offer a vivid picture of north Norfolk life and highlight Bacon’s enduring commitment to public service, even as age and illness took their toll.

The volume shows Bacon actively fulfilling his duties as justice of the peace and deputy lieutenant, supported by his capable secretary, Martin Man. He dealt with the full range of county business, from poor relief and local disputes to musters and Privy Council orders, while consistently defending local interests against excessive demands from central government.

Alongside his public responsibilities, Bacon remained deeply involved in managing and protecting his estates. The papers reveal his efforts to maintain tenancies, resolve boundary issues, and safeguard the long‑term stability of his lands during a period of economic uncertainty.

These final years also expose growing tensions within his household, particularly with his wife and stepson, contrasted with his close relationships with his daughters and his grandson, Sir Roger Townshend.

Together, the documents in this volume provide a rich and human portrait of a conscientious magistrate navigating the intertwined pressures of governance, estate management, and family life at the end of his career.

Biographical Note

Nathaniel Bacon (?1546–1622) was the second son of the Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon and his first wife Jane, the daughter of Thomas Ferneley, a Suffolk merchant. Nathaniel had two brothers, Nicholas and Edward, both of whom became county figures in Suffolk, and two half-brothers, Anthony and Francis, the sons of Sir Nicholas and his second wife Anne, the intellectual daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. Nathaniel was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn. In 1569 he married Anne, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham and Mistress Dutton who either was, or became, the wife of Thomas Dutton, one of Gresham’s factors in Antwerp. Initially they lived at Norwich with their brother-in-law Francis Wyndham, moving first to the Woodhouses of Waxham before renting a modest house at Cockthorpe in 1573. In 1576 Nathaniel began to build Stiffkey hall where the couple took up residence in 1578 despite its unfinished state. They had three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth and Winifred, and two sons, both of whom died in infancy. Elizabeth married Thomas Knyvett in 1592, Anne married John Townshend in 1593, and Winifred married Robert Gawdy in 1597. Their mother Anne died in 1595 and two years later Nathaniel married Dorothy, the daughter of Arthur Hopton and widow of William Smith of Burgh Castle. He thereby took on management of the inheritance of his two stepsons, William Smith junior (d. 1609/10) and Owen Smith, which was to contribute to a major family dispute after his own death. One bone of contention was the future ownership of Irmingland Hall, the second family home which Nathaniel had built and which was occupied, in alternation with Stiffkey, after 1613. Sir John Townshend, the husband of Nathaniel’s eldest daughter and heiress, Anne, was killed in a duel in 1603. Anne herself died at about the same time as her father; both were buried at Stiffkey on the same day, 7 November 1622. Thomas Knyvett died in 1605.

Through his immediate family Nathaniel had close connections with leading figures at Court, especially through his father, lord keeper to Elizabeth I, and his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Gresham, who was the Queen’s principal financial agent. Then, when his father married Anne Cooke, he became a nephew by marriage of William Cecil Lord Burghley, Sir Thomas Hoby, ambassador to France, Sir Henry Killigrew, ambassador to Scotland, and Lord John Russell, son of the second earl of Bedford. Through this marriage he also became a cousin of Robert Cecil, later earl of Salisbury. His two famous half-brothers were well-connected at Court: Anthony became secretary to the earl of Essex, while Francis rose to be lord chancellor and a philosopher of European renown. His sisters extended this network of Court contacts. The eldest, Elizabeth, was married three times: her first two husbands, Sir Robert D’Oyly (d. 1577) and Sir Henry Neville (d. 1593), were minor figures at Court, while her third, Sir William Peryam, was chief baron of the exchequer. Another sister, also named Elizabeth, married first Francis Wyndham (d. 1592), who became a judge of common pleas, and secondly Sir Robert Mansell, courtier, monopolist, and admiral.

Despite these connections, Nathaniel remained essentially a county figure, apparently never seeking any office at Court or in central administration. In 1574 he was appointed a justice of the peace (JP) in Norfolk, an office he held for almost fifty years and which he discharged assiduously both at sessions and through his out-of-sessions activities. As a carpet-bagger he represented Tavistock in the parliaments of 1571 and 1572, probably as a result of religious affinity and family connections with the Earl of Bedford. But once settled at Stiffkey he was returned as knight of the shire for Norfolk in 1584, 1593 and 1604, and as burgess for King’s Lynn in 1597. His keenness to use legislation as a means to redress the ills of society no doubt prompted him to stand yet again as knight of the shire in 1620 at the age of 74, but this time unsuccessfully. The concern for a range of local issues evident in his papers is reflected in his membership of parliamentary committees and such evidence as survives of his parliamentary speeches. Twice sheriff of Norfolk and for many years collector of the loan there, he regularly figured as a subsidy commissioner and, as a member of innumerable special commissions, was particularly valued by the Council for his “uprightness and indifferency”. He evinced less enthusiasm for military affairs, apparently never commanding his local militia company, and only being appointed to the muster commission in 1596 and the deputy lieutenancy in 1605, an office which he proceeded to discharge with more concern for legal and constitutional niceties than for the raising of an efficient militia. He was knighted in July 1604.

Archival sources

• Holkham Hall
• Norfolk Record Office
• Raynham Hall
• Suffolk Archives (Suffolk Record Office)
• The National Archives

Illustrations, Plates, Figures, Maps and Appendices

• Illustrations: 0
• Plates: 4
• Figures: 0
• Maps: 3
• Appendices: 0

Supported by

This publication was generously supported by: Trinity College, Cambridge, Marc Fitch Fund and Jenny Hemming.

Editors and contributors

• Editors: Barry Taylor and G. Alan Metters
• Honorary Society Editor: Jean Agnew

Publication details

• Series: Norfolk Record Society, Volume LXXXVII (87)
• Publisher: Norfolk Record Society
• Year: 2023
• Period: Early Modern
• Type of Volume: Documentary
• ISBN: 9780995773660
• Number of Pages: 370
• Format: Hardback
• Language: English

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Recommended citation

Taylor, B and Metters, A (eds.), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume VII, 1614-1622. Norfolk Record Society, Vol. 87 (2023).

Keywords

Bacon Family, Local Government, Correspondence, Norfolk, Early Modern Estate Papers

About the editors

Barry Taylor was formerly senior history librarian at the University of East Anglia and co-edited the Bibliography of Norfolk History, along with volumes 4–6 of the Bacon Papers.

Alan Metters was formerly head of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at City College, Norwich, and is a former honorary secretary of the Society. He is an honorary research fellow at University of East Anglia. He previously edited The King’s Lynn Port Books 1610-1614 for the Norfolk Record Society.

Related Volumes

These volumes explore similar themes, periods, editor or record types:

The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume I, 1556-1577
The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume II, 1578-1585
The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume III, 1586-1595
The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume IV, 1596-1602
The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume V, 1603-1607
The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume VI, 1608-1613

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