Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as one of the founders of the scientific method.
Born on January 22, 1561, in London to the high-ranking nobles Sir Nicholas Bacon and Anne Bacon, Francis Bacon’s childhood was marked by academic excellence. Educated at home in his early childhood because of poor health (Bacon had health problems throughout his life), young Francis’s bright mind could not be confined for long. He attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge when he was just 12 years old, studying under the personal tutelage of John Whitgift, who would go on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. As a young man, Bacon also spent time abroad with mentors, returning to England when his father suddenly died in 1579.
In 1581, Bacon was elected to Parliament, where he served for the next three decades as a reformer who spoke out against religious persecution. Bacon was the first recipient of the Queen’s Counsel designation, which he received in 1597 from Elizabeth I. He also served as Attorney General of England and Wales from 1613 to 1617, and as Lord High Chancellor of England from 1617 to 1621. In addition, Bacon was knighted in 1603, then elevated to Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St Alban in 1621.
His political career ended in scandal, also in 1621, when he was charged with 23 counts of corruption. The allegations were brought about by Sir Edward Coke, a bitter rival of roughly three decades. Bacon acknowledged accepting various gifts while in office; however, these were common customs in the politics of that era, and scholars believe that the accusations were politically motivated. Even after his fall from grace, his philosophical and scientific writing remained enormously influential. Indeed, in the fullness of history, Bacon’s political and aristocratic career, long and storied though it was, paled in comparison to his contributions to science.
Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His theoretical and written works argued that scientific knowledge could be gained purely from inductive reasoning and astute observation of nature. Most importantly, he argued that science should operate using a skeptical and methodical approach to help scientists avoid self-deception. Although some of his specific recommendations concerning this method have fallen by the wayside, his overall idea of the need for a skeptical methodology revolutionized science, leading him to be credited as one of the founders of the scientific method.
Bacon’s writing, which encompassed scores, or perhaps hundreds, of distinct works, was so prolific that scholars have trouble quantifying it precisely. In fact, the Oxford Francis Bacon Project, a planned 20-volume critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon, began in 1995 and, as of 2026, has covered less than half of Bacon’s colossal bibliography!
Although Bacon was married to a woman, Alice Barnham, there were accounts from contemporaries of him having male lovers. This marriage did not come about until Bacon was 48 years old, and according to the Puritan Sir Simonds D’Ewes, who served with Bacon in the British Parliament, Bacon was deeply attracted to his Welsh serving man named Godrick, who was a “very effeminate-faced youth” and his “bed-fellow.”
D’Ewes also claimed that Bacon at times “desert[ed] the bed of his lady” in favor of his Welsh serving men, whom Bacon preferred. A number of Bacon biographers have arrived at a similar conclusion of Bacon’s gay-leaning bisexual tendencies. Bacon also developed a very close relationship with the courtier and writer Tobie Matthew, and in his will, left 200 pounds to a manservant, Francis Edney, a vast sum in those days. Despite this, Bacon remained married to his wife until his death in 1626.
It’s difficult to say whether or not his marriage was based purely on love, as there was talk of friction between Bacon and his wife, mostly related to the debt the family incurred. The couple also never produced any children. Nevertheless, it is clear from the record that Sir Francis Bacon had an appreciation for both male and female beauty and referenced same-sex desire. That, combined with the accounts of contemporaries and the scholarship of his biographers, paints a fascinating picture of Francis Bacon as not merely one of the great luminaries of science and philosophy, but very possibly a bisexual man as well.