Who is Francis Bacon?

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban,  Baron Verulam

22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626

Bacon was the first recipient of the Queen's counsel designation, which was conferred in 1597 when Elizabeth I of England reserved Bacon as her legal advisor. After the accession of James VI and I in 1603, Bacon was knighted. He was later created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Alban in 1621.

So Verulamiam is encoded in Bacon's title...

Ancient Verulamium

The name "Verulamium" is Celtic, meaning "settlement over or by the marsh"

It is the "ancient" city under St. Albans today.

Roman wall...first example of "Masonry" in England.

a late Iron Age settlement and major center of the Catuvellauni tribe

The Celtic tribes of Southern Britain showing the Catuvellauni and their neighbours

Prima Europe tabula. A 1486 copy of Ptolemy's 2nd-century map of Roman Britain

Verulamium was a town in Roman Britain. It was sited in the southwest of the modern city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain. A large portion of the Roman city remains unexcavated, being now park and agricultural land, though much has been built upon. The ancient Watling Street passed through the city. Much of the site and its environs is now classed as a scheduled ancient monument.

A map of the Saxon Watling Street overlaid on the Roman road network

Watling Street was the site of Boudica's defeat by the Romans and was later the southwestern border of the Danelaw.

 Engraving by William Sharp published in 1793, based on Boadicea Haranguing the Britons

Boudica was a queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She died shortly after its failure and was said to have poisoned herself. She is considered a British folk hero.

A theatre with a stage rather than an amphitheatre at Veralium (foreshadowing Bacon's Globe Theatre)

Reconstruction drawing of the Roman Theatre at Verulamium in about 180 AD, St Albans 

Although there are other Roman theatres in Britain (for example at Camulodunum), the one at Verulamium has been claimed to be the only example of its kind, being a theatre with a stage rather than an amphitheatre.

The Roman Theatre of Verulamium, St Albans (the column is the hoax calling card)

The theatre was lined with shops with storage spaces behind the main shop area and even sleeping quarters. 

Shops near the theatre, a carpenter shop, bronze workers shop and wine shop, Verulamium, St Albans

(Yeah, I see it...)

Verulamium about 300 AD showing large town houses surrounded by gardens

Reconstruction drawing of the London Gate, Verulamium, St Albans

Surviving foundations of the London Gate, Verulamium, St Alban

(Pretty fantastic imagination these "archeologists" had...)

The Shell Mosaic, dated to c. AD 150, Verulamium Museum, St Albans

Wall painting with imitation columns and panelling, ca. 150 AD, Verulamium Museum, St Albans

(Those must be ancient Catuvellauni tribe folk...)

The so-called “Verulamium Venus”, a bronze statuette of Venus holding an apple in her left hand or Persephone holding a pomegranate, 2nd century AD, Verulamium Museum, St Albans

The highly decorated "archeologist" Mortimer Wheeler

(archeologist being a euphemism for fraud...)

Tessa Wheeler

 Institute of Archaeology at University College London

Sheppard Frere (on right) and Sir Mortimer Wheeler share a joke at Verulamium in 1958

(Joke's on us...) 

Society of Antiquaries of London

Society of Antiquaries first journal, Archeologia

Sir Nicholas Bacon (1510-1579), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
 in the reign of Henry VIII Nicholas Bacon (with Robert Carey and Thomas Denton) had reported on a project to create a new inn of court, conceived along the lines of a humanist academy. Bacon had then taken the idea further and combined it with legal experience of wardship, and in a paper of 1561 made a recommendation to the queen.

William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of Britannia, the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Annales, the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.

Hand-coloured frontispiece and title page of the 1607 edition of Britannia

J

James VI and I

"666"

William Stukeley

The city was quarried for building material for the construction of medieval St Albans; indeed, much of the Norman abbey was constructed from the remains of the Roman city, with Roman brick and stone visible. The modern city takes its name from Alban, either a citizen of Verulamium or a Roman soldier, who was condemned to death in the 3rd century for sheltering Amphibalus, a Christian. Alban was converted by him to Christianity, and by virtue of his death, Alban became the first British Christian martyr.

St Albans Cathedral

Saint Alban

Illustration of Alban's Martyrdom from the 13th-century manuscript "The Life of St. Alban" The original author or commissioner of the Passio is thought by historians to be Germanus of Auxerre.

Germanus of Auxerre

He played an important part in the establishment and promotion of the Cult of Saint Alban. The saint was said to have revealed the story of his martyrdom to Germanus in a dream or holy vision, and Germanus ordered this to be written down for public display.

Alb

Chasuble

Bacon coat of arms

Bacon, Francis, Viscount St Albans (1561 - 1626) (Stamp 1)

"Hog Money"