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Francis Bacon, Nature, and the Politics of Religion

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The World’s a Bubble: Francis Bacon, Nature, and the Politics of Religion James A. T. Lancaster A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Combined Historical Studies The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Studies University of London 2015 – !1 – I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own James A. T. Lancaster The World’s a Bubble, and the life of man / less than a span. ⎯ Francis Bacon, ‘The World’s a Bubble’ – !2 – Abstract This thesis examines the development of Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) religious views and their impact on his programme for the advancement of learning. It aims to address the largely misguided body of scholarly literature on Bacon’s beliefs by situating his understanding of religion within the complexity of its Elizabethan and Stuart contexts, and to show how Bacon steered his own considered course between the emergent pil- lars of Puritanism and Conformism. To the latter end, it evinces how he drew upon the Christian humanism of his parents, Nicholas and Anne Bacon, as well as the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini, and Justus Lipsius. Guided by the same intellectual commitments, he subsequently came to develop his own ideas about the reform of knowledge and the character of nature within the broader context of Christian humanism, Florentine political thought, and the Magisterial Reformation in England. It argues that, contrary to modern categories of thought, Bacon had no difficul- ty being both a Reformed Christian and a statesman for whom religion was often little more than a social or political currency. This he achieved through a position he set out early in his career; namely, that religion had two ‘partes’: an eternal and a temporal. Christianity could, in this way, be divided into the mysteries of faith, beyond time and the reach of human reason, and civil religion, temporal, political and, in its subjection to natural reason, entirely fair game. This allowed him to anticipate a number of posi- tions that would become central to the religious climate of the later seventeenth-centu- ry, including irenicism, religious toleration, and civil religion. It was also through this division that Bacon came to explain the relationship between God and Nature and, in turn, between religion and natural philosophy. In the 1610s, he would develop a theory of the universe which rested upon the division be- tween the eternal and the temporal, the created and the creating. As a result, this thesis offers an examination and contextualization of the relationship between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ within Bacon’s commitment to a twofold vision of religion. – !3 – Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 7 Introduction: The Temporal and the Eternal in the Thought of Francis Bacon 9 1 ‘Impes of Thine owne Blode’: Christian Humanism and the Bacon Family 18 Educating Nicholas Bacon: Christian Humanism from Bury to Cambridge 19 Nicholas Bacon and the Reformation: from Gray’s Inn to the Court of Edward VI 30 Anne Cooke: From the Studia Humanitatis to an Established Church 41 The Bold Birth of Opportunity: Francis Bacon and the Promise of Reform 68 Sent Abroad: The Influence of French Protestantism on Francis 84 2 ‘No Laughing Countenance’: Youth and the Politics of Religion 92 Religion on the Homefront 94 Florentine Political Thought and a Letter to the Queen 102 Martin Marprelate and the Precisians 110 Libelling the 1559 Settlement 128 3 ‘Broken Knowledge’: Religion and the Limits of Human Knowledge 135 A Confession of Faith 136 Natural Religion and the Limits of Knowledge 143 The Light of Nature Corrupted 161 A Voice Beyond the Light of Nature 170 4 ‘A Theory of the Universe’: From Mythos to Cosmos 186 Ancient Wisdom, the Bible, and the Origins of Baconian Nature 187 Faith and the Causa Causarum 198 Between Ancient Atoms and Modern Matter 203 A Political Matter: Principles, Perception, and Appetite 206 Chaos, Space, and the Reign of Saturn 222 Conclusion: The World’s a Bubble 227 Bibliography 229 – !4 – Acknowledgements The road to success involves a great deal of failure. Francis Bacon himself recognized this as the laborious, but necessary, path to human achievement. For all the roads tak- en in mistake, and for all those not taken, I have only myself to blame. For the wis- dom and patience to allow me to pursue them, I must thank Guido Giglioni, a scholar without whom this thesis would not have been possible. For the raised eyebrows and practical guidance, I have Peter Mack to thank. Finally, for the financial and institu- tional assistance required to undertake this doctoral research, I am indebted to the Eu- ropean Research Council (ERC), who supported me under ‘The Medicine of the Mind and Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England’ project; and to the Warburg Insti- tute and its fellows and staff. A quite considerable number of ‘Baconians’ (if they will accept this moniker) have helped along the way: these include, but are not limited to, Sorana Corneanu, Daniel Derrin, Dana Jalobeanu, Rhodri Lewis, Silvia Manzo, Steven Matthews, Kathryn Murphy, Richard Serjeantson, Doina Rusu, Alan Stewart, Koen Vermeir, and Brian Vickers. But there have also been a number of scholars whose interest in Bacon, although secondary, have given me undeserved attention, for which I am grateful: amongst these are Justin Champion, Stephen Clucas, James DiCenso, Daniel Garber, Anthony Grafton, Peter Harrison, Howard Hotson, and Jill Kraye. To Sietske Fransen, Nicholas Holland, Anthony Ossa-Richardson, Arthur Ringis, Cara Rock-Singer, Igna- cio Silva, and Joseph Wolyniak, I owe the ‘principal fruit of friendship, which is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart.’ When, at times beyond count, I lost the will to continue, it was my family that convinced me to stay the course: to my parents, David and Pat Lancaster, to Luisa and George Apostol, and to the one and only Uncle Tony, I offer you all my sincerest of thanks. It was my parents, though, that led me here in the first place: so to my mother, for her love of English history, and to my father, for his love of writing, you are the ground upon which this thesis was built. The final stages of writing were completed with a baby daughter in arms: her distractions made life tolerable; her smiles, wonder- ful. It is to my wife, Corina, however, that I owe the greatest debt of gratitude. She uprooted her life to support me, and has done so with grace, love, wit, and under- – !5 – standing. For putting up with a grumpy bear, I say: ‘Calling to mind my wife most dear / How oft you have in sorrows sad / With words full wise and pleasant cheer / My drooping looks turned into glad, / How oft you have my moods too bad / Borne patiently with a mild mind, / Assuaging them with words right kind.’ – !6 – Abbreviations The following list of abbreviations from the Oxford Francis Bacon (OFB) edition has been retained across both the OFB and Spedding, Ellis, and Heath (SEH) editions. ACE An Advertisement Touching the Controuersyes of the Church of England (1589) AdFG Letter of Advice to Fulke Greville (c. 1589) AdQ Letter of Advice to the Queen (1584/5) AL The Advancement of Learning (1605) ANN Abecedarium novum naturæ (1622) ArPN Argument in the Case of the Post-Nati (1608) CBP Certain Considerations Touching the Better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England (1604) CDNR Cogitationes de natura rerum CDSH Cogitationes de scientia humana CF A Confession of faith (1603) CGE Colours of Good and Evil (1597) DAS De augmentis scientiarum (1623) DGI Descriptio globi intellectualis (c. 1611-1618) DINP De interpretatione naturæ prooemium DPAO De principiis atque originibus (c. 1611-1618) DSV De sapientia veterum (1609) Ess Essayes (1625) HVM Historiae vitae et mortis (1623) MedS Meditatione sacræ (1597) NA New Atlantis (1626) NO Novum organum (1620) OL Certaine Obseruations vppon a Libell (1592) PhU Phænomena universi (c. 1611-1618) RPQ On the religious policies of the queen or ‘Letter to Critoy’ (c. 1590) SS Sylva sylvarum (1626) TC Thema cœli (c. 1611-1618) TPM Temporis partis masculus (c. 1608) VT Valerius terminus (1603?) – !7 – WB ‘The World’s a Bubble’ The following abbreviations are used for editions of Bacon’s works (for full details of each publication within the editions listed below, please see the bibliography): OFB The Oxford Francis Bacon, gen. ed. Graham Rees and Brian Vickers, 15 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996—. SEH The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, 7 vols. London, 1857-1874. Vickers Francis Bacon: a Critical Edition of the Major Works, ed. Brian Vickers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. – !8 – Introduction Introduction The Temporal and the Eternal in the Thought of Francis Bacon Religion hath partes which belonge to eternity and partes which pertayne to time ⎯ Francis Bacon An Advertisement Touching the Controversies of the Churche of Englande In a little known poem by Francis Bacon, there is to be found the image to which this thesis owes its title.1 ‘The World’s a Bubble’ is supposed to have been composed by Bacon at some point between 1610 and 1615; a ditty of no particular importance which begins with the lines: ‘The World’s a Bubble, and the life of man / less than a span.’ It is a work for which there is extant little evidence of Bacon’s authorship, hav- ing first been printed posthumously in 1629, and yet it fits Bacon’s thought surpris- ingly well.2 For, despite the question of authenticity, it attributes to Bacon’s compre- hension of the world a characteristic implicit in most everything he wrote: its inherent duality.
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