FRANCIS BACON was born on the 22nd of January, 1560-1, at York House in the Strand, the residence of his father Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. Sixty years later, Ben Jonson sang of him as
• England's high Chancellor; the destined heir,
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair."
His mother, Anne Cooke, whose eldest sister was married to
Lord Burleigh, was his father's second wife, and had borne
him two children. Anthony, the friend and correspondent of
Essex, was two years older than Francis. Of their childhood
nothing is known. In April, 1573, when Francis was little
more than twelve years old, the two brothers were entered
as fellow-commoners at Trinity College, Cambridge, and ma-
triculated between the 10th and 13th of June in the same year.
They were placed under the care of Dr. Whitgift, Master of the
College, who found this distinguished position not inconsistent
with holding the Deanery of Lincoln, a Canonry at Ely, and the
Rectory of Teversham; having, however, previously resigned
the Regius Professorship of Divinity. From an account-book
which he kept, and which was published by the late Dr. Mait-
land in the British Magazine (vols. xxxii. xxxiii), we glean
the meagre facts of Francis Bacon's University career.
learn, for instance, that during the period of his residence in
College, from April 5, 1573, to Christmas 1575, the Master's
parental care supplied him with so many pairs of shoes, a bow
and quiver of arrows, that there was oil bought for his neck,
and certain money paid to the 'potigarie' when he was sick,
and for meat probably as he was recovering, that he had a