Anthony Bacon (1558–1601)

Anthony Bacon
Anthony Bacon in 1594
Born	1558 London, United Kingdom
Died	1601
Resting place	St Olave Hart Street
Education	Trinity College, Cambridge

Anthony Bacon (1558–1601) was a member of the powerful English Bacon family who was also a spy during the Elizabethan era. He was Francis Bacon's brother.

Anthony Bacon was born in 1558, the same year that his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal by Elizabeth I of England. His mother, Anne, was the daughter of noted humanist Anthony Cooke. His mother's sister was married to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, making Burghley Anthony Bacon's uncle. Anthony Bacon's more famous younger brother, Francis Bacon, was born three years after him, in 1561.

Anthony and his brother spent their early years at York House in the Strand, London. Their mother (who was one of the most educated women of her day, speaking French, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Hebrew and Italian) oversaw their early education. In April 1573, the Bacon brothers enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge, where they lived in the household of the Master of Trinity College, John Whitgift. The boys' father died in February 1579 after having been one of the most powerful men in England for the past twenty years.