Maps of Tudor London - Francis Bacon's Stomping Ground

[Eric Roberts]

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40274/40274-h/40274-h.htm#textVI

"Maps of Old London" by Adam and Charles Black, 1908

The detail above plainly shows the close proximity of Whitehall (York Place) and York House. 

 

 

1543. Note the Isle of Dogs on the right projecting from the south side of the Thames.

 

1543. See if you can spot No. 47, "St John's Hospital".

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Eric Roberts

[Eric Roberts]

Earliest Elizabethan map of London found 

https://deveresociety.co.uk/earliest-elizabethan-map-of-london-found/

Apologies for this reproduction being in left and right halves. Hope you can download, zoom in and 'fly' over 1575 London. Cartographers: Francois de Braun, Georg & Franz Hogenberg.

 

Londinium ferocissimi Angliae Regni metropolis

This derivative of Braun and Hogenberg's 1572 map of London was published in Belle Forest's "La Cosographie universelle de tout le bonds". The map's title features at the top of the plate, flanked by Tudor and city arms. Descriptive notes in French appear at the bottom left and bottom right, with figures of merchants at the bottom centre. The map is similar in detail to the "Copperplate Map", the earliest printed map of London of which no complete copy survives. Merchant ships, cranes, mills, bull and bear baiting pits, the large tennis courts at Westminster and the stags in the gardens, elegant churches and livery halls testify to the high quality of life enjoyed by its citizens.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by Eric Roberts

[Eric Roberts]

Shakespeare's London: 'Oldest' map of Elizabethan era English capital featuring Tower of London and original St Paul's Cathedral is discovered in house clearance

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9529109/Elizabethan-era-map-London-featuring-Tower-London-discovered-house-clearance.html

[A Phoenix]

Fascinating stuff Eric! Thank you.

[Eric Roberts]

The book jacket designers of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works chose a painting of London seen from the top of Southwark Cathedral by an anonymous, possibly Dutch artist around 1630.

This painting resides in the Museum of London.

https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/103403.html

The painting is based on an engraving by Claes Janszoon Visscher (1587 – 1652) who was a Dutch engraver, mapmaker, and publisher. 

Whereas the painting uses distorted perspective, Visscher's panoramic print (1616) gives us a much better idea of Francis Bacon's London.

The image is just under 15 MB so best to download to view it at full size.

 

[Eric Roberts]

Here's a detail showing the proximity of the Bacon residence (York House) and Robert Devereux's home (Essex House):

[Light-of-Truth]

8 hours ago, Eric Roberts said:

Here's a detail showing the proximity of the Bacon residence (York House) and Robert Devereux's home (Essex House):

Is York Place next door to York House? I think I remember that they were near each other, or something like that.

[Eric Roberts]

10 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

Is York Place next door to York House? I think I remember that they were near each other, or something like that.

A Phoenix will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that York Place is the old name for Whitehall. This change of name is referenced in one of the Shakespeare plays, but I forget which one... I'm fairly sure that part of Whitehall Palace/York Place is visible on the extreme left of the picture. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[A Phoenix]

Hi Eric,

Great post and you are correct. York Place was the old name for Whitehall Palace that was changed after the fall of its previous occupent Wolsey, and they are I believe as shown on the engraving. This makes the statement by Bacon's chaplain William Rawley in his biography all the more intriguing when he states that Bacon was born in York House OR York Place. Rawley obviously knew the difference, one being the old name for the royal palace, York Place and the other being the Lord Keeper Bacon's residence York House. Curiously Bacon mentions this (as a clue?) in his Henry VIII

 

"You must no more call it York Place—that is past:
For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost;
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall."
Shakespeare's Henry VIII., Act IV., sc. 1.

[A Phoenix]

More York Place Information

In keeping with his Rosicrucian master Dr Rawley delivers as much of the truth as he is able via a Baconian method of delivery, at once enigmatical and disclosed, or simultaneously concealed and revealed, that can be read by those possessing a penetrating intellect or eyes to see, to enable them to pierce the carefully constructed veil, a method he employs in the very first sentence of his Life of Bacon:

FRANCIS BACON, the Glory, of his Age, and Nation; The Adorner, and Ornament, of Learning; Was born, in York House, or York Place, in the Strand; On the 22^th Day of January; In the Year of our Lord, 1560. His Father, was that Famous Counseller, to Queen Elizabeth; The Second Propp of the Kingdome, in his Time; Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper, of the Great Seal, of England; A Lord, of Known Prudence, Sufficiency, Moderation, and Integrity. His Mother, was Anne Cook, one of the Daughters, of Sir Anthony Cooke; unto whom, the Erudition, of King Edward, the Sixth, had been committed: A choyce Lady, and Eminent, for Piety, Vertue, and Learning; Being exquisitely Skilled, for a Woman, in the Greek, and Latin, Tongues. These being the Parents, you may easily imagine, what the Issue, was like to be; Having had, whatsoever, Nature, or Breeding, could put into Him.  

 It will be observed that curiously Dr Rawley pointedly says that Bacon was born at York House or York Place, which are two separate buildings, and as he was perfectly aware carried absolutely different meanings and implications for the filial antecedents concerning the secret life of the man who had entrusted him with them. In Elizabethan England the mansion York House on the Strand was the official residence of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England the office first held in the Elizabethan reign by Sir Nicholas Bacon who occupied it for some twenty years from 1559 until his death in 1579. The York House mansion was set within grounds adjacent to those of York Place (now known to us as the Palace of Whitehall comprising government buildings including the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defence), Queen Elizabeth’s Palace, the main residence of English monarchs from the early sixteenth century. York Place was originally the official residence of the Archbishops of York from the middle of the thirteenth century. It was rebuilt and extensively expanded in the fifteenth century by Cardinal Wolsey and rivalled Lambeth Palace and surpassed the king’s royal palaces as the greatest house in London. When Henry VIII removed Wolsey from power in 1530 (depicted by Bacon in his Shakespeare play Henry VIII) he acquired York Place as a replacement for the broken-down fire-ravaged Palace of Westminster as his main London residence, and afterwards re-named it Whitehall. He spent a vast fortune on redesigning and greatly extending York Place during his lifetime turning it into the largest palace in Europe with somewhere in the region of one thousand five hundred rooms. After their first secret wedding which took place on 14 November 1532 Henry VIII formally married his second wife Anne Boleyn on 25 January 1533 at the Palace and died there in 1547. On her accession in 1558 Elizabeth inherited York Palace and on appointing Sir Nicholas Bacon as her Lord Keeper of the Great Seal he moved into the adjacent York House in the following year. Of course, Dr Rawley who lived and spent several years with Bacon at York House when he was Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor of England knew the difference between York House and York Place, the royal residence of Queen Elizabeth, and was privy to the secret of his royal birth. He had gone as close to the heels of truth as he might dare by directly suggesting there was some kind of mystery regarding his birth by pointing to York Place, the royal palace of Queen Elizabeth, secret royal mother of Francis Bacon.          

[Eric Roberts]

1 hour ago, A Phoenix said:

More York Place Information

In keeping with his Rosicrucian master Dr Rawley delivers as much of the truth as he is able via a Baconian method of delivery, at once enigmatical and disclosed, or simultaneously concealed and revealed, that can be read by those possessing a penetrating intellect or eyes to see, to enable them to pierce the carefully constructed veil, a method he employs in the very first sentence of his Life of Bacon:

FRANCIS BACON, the Glory, of his Age, and Nation; The Adorner, and Ornament, of Learning; Was born, in York House, or York Place, in the Strand; On the 22^th Day of January; In the Year of our Lord, 1560. His Father, was that Famous Counseller, to Queen Elizabeth; The Second Propp of the Kingdome, in his Time; Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper, of the Great Seal, of England; A Lord, of Known Prudence, Sufficiency, Moderation, and Integrity. His Mother, was Anne Cook, one of the Daughters, of Sir Anthony Cooke; unto whom, the Erudition, of King Edward, the Sixth, had been committed: A choyce Lady, and Eminent, for Piety, Vertue, and Learning; Being exquisitely Skilled, for a Woman, in the Greek, and Latin, Tongues. These being the Parents, you may easily imagine, what the Issue, was like to be; Having had, whatsoever, Nature, or Breeding, could put into Him.  

 It will be observed that curiously Dr Rawley pointedly says that Bacon was born at York House or York Place, which are two separate buildings, and as he was perfectly aware carried absolutely different meanings and implications for the filial antecedents concerning the secret life of the man who had entrusted him with them. In Elizabethan England the mansion York House on the Strand was the official residence of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England the office first held in the Elizabethan reign by Sir Nicholas Bacon who occupied it for some twenty years from 1559 until his death in 1579. The York House mansion was set within grounds adjacent to those of York Place (now known to us as the Palace of Whitehall comprising government buildings including the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defence), Queen Elizabeth’s Palace, the main residence of English monarchs from the early sixteenth century. York Place was originally the official residence of the Archbishops of York from the middle of the thirteenth century. It was rebuilt and extensively expanded in the fifteenth century by Cardinal Wolsey and rivalled Lambeth Palace and surpassed the king’s royal palaces as the greatest house in London. When Henry VIII removed Wolsey from power in 1530 (depicted by Bacon in his Shakespeare play Henry VIII) he acquired York Place as a replacement for the broken-down fire-ravaged Palace of Westminster as his main London residence, and afterwards re-named it Whitehall. He spent a vast fortune on redesigning and greatly extending York Place during his lifetime turning it into the largest palace in Europe with somewhere in the region of one thousand five hundred rooms. After their first secret wedding which took place on 14 November 1532 Henry VIII formally married his second wife Anne Boleyn on 25 January 1533 at the Palace and died there in 1547. On her accession in 1558 Elizabeth inherited York Palace and on appointing Sir Nicholas Bacon as her Lord Keeper of the Great Seal he moved into the adjacent York House in the following year. Of course, Dr Rawley who lived and spent several years with Bacon at York House when he was Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor of England knew the difference between York House and York Place, the royal residence of Queen Elizabeth, and was privy to the secret of his royal birth. He had gone as close to the heels of truth as he might dare by directly suggesting there was some kind of mystery regarding his birth by pointing to York Place, the royal palace of Queen Elizabeth, secret royal mother of Francis Bacon.          

Great summary - so helpful. Thanks A. Phoenix!

[Eric Roberts]

Wenceslaus Hollar and his views of London and Windsor in the seventeenth century

by Arthur Mayger Hind, 1922

https://archive.org/details/cu31924032649984/page/n129/mode/2up?ref=ol

Not strictly Bacon related, but the profusion of views of London in the first half of the 17th century in this book, published by the British Museum, provide at least some sense of what Francis Bacon's day-to-day world looked like. Seven years younger that Martin Droeshout, Hollar (from Bohemia) was clearly a much superior artist. A few examples:

 

Edited July 6 by Eric Roberts

[Kate]

Wow!

[Light-of-Truth]

1 hour ago, Kate said:

Wow!

Hey Kate! I am intrigued with your "Point" profile image. Is there a story to tell?  😉

 

Kate, I never realized you must have been our 22nd sign up on the B'Hive and are member number 22! 🙂

 

 

[Kate]

And look at that,  555 posts and 22 days won.  Pi (3.14) is 22/7 and see the 5s here!

So, talking of Pi and circles, you asked about the point.  It is (hopefully on your device) in the centre of the circle. It is on my phone.

That quote is from one of the Rosicrucian texts. I thought it fitting because a circle with a dot in it represents the Sun in astronomy, and gold in alchemy. The dot (also known as a circumpunct) is: unity; oneness; the one point of light; the point of all potential; the Monad;  the All that is; out of which everything else is created. It is representative of  “God” or “Universal Mind” whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere but in Freemasonry is all the above, but also the dot is Man, and the circle is symbolic of the bounds within which he should keep his passions and morals. 

In psychology too, it is representative of the Self,  and if we look around, our vision is always bounded by our horizon, and we are always at the centre of that circle, wherever we are.  So the inference is, we are always at the centre of our own world.  But it’s an illusion - as that is only what we can visibly perceive. The reality is that if we move towards the horizon a new one will appear around us, and so on into infinity because Space goes on forever, and if we traverse the globe we will keep going forever, never coming to an edge, always moving towards a new horizon and arriving back where we were.
 

Hashtag Deep! 😄 That’s the beauty of the language of symbolism for you.

In geometry to create any shape you have to start at a point and then apply movement.

[Light-of-Truth]

9 hours ago, Kate said:

The dot (also known as a circumpunct) is: unity; oneness; the one point of light; the point of all potential; the Monad;  the All that is; out of which everything else is created. It is representative of  “God” or “Universal Mind” whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere but in Freemasonry is all the above, but also the dot is Man, and the circle is symbolic of the bounds within which he should keep his passions and morals.

The Dot.

in 1998 in Berkeley CA a guy was doing a scientific experiment with subjects using a gas mixture called "Carbogen." It is a mix of carbon dioxide and oxygen. It was explained to me that the brain keys to carbon dioxide to know if it needs more oxygen which would make you breath harder, etc. Exercising demands more oxygen in your blood to keep your brain alive, but your brain has no idea how much oxygen it has, but it keys to carbon dioxide. Extra carbon dioxide and your brain thinks too much CO2 so you must need more oxygen. It is a strange evolutionary quirk where our brain cannot measure oxygen which we need, but it sure knows if the carbon dioxide level gets out of whack.

This safe experiment ihas the experience where you have plenty of oxygen to keep brain cells alive and healthy, but extra carbon dioxide to "trick" the brain into thinking you are suffocating. One puts on a mask, agrees to the procedure, and you take a few deep breaths of about 95% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide. After two or three breaths, your brain thinks it is dying and provides the visual artwork that goes with dying in full color. A very strange experience indeed.

My scientific Carbogen study trip was very quick. On the second breath I felt like I could not breath, gasping, complete brain terror. The third and forth breaths were like total panic breathing very deep and rapid hoping to live. It is a near death experience when reality evaporates and a multidimensional undulating and twisting Universe of patterns and colors takes over. I remember feeling I died, and it was cool. After the 4th breath the Dr turned off the CO2 and I had full 100% oxygen so my brain and body relaxed while I was in a sea of geometrical designs visually.  As it started to fade away I followed the patterns down a path and amazingly in the reality all of the lines and patterns started to come together and a "Point" appeared in the distance and  everything I was seeing and being a part of just kind of magically came together in a perfect mathematical Point. Everything, ALL of reality even from total Chaos eventually merged into this one Universal "Point." Incredible moment.

I think when I woke up looking at the Dr's face, still confused, I said to him and Lawrence, "Reality Dot Com."

Kate, your Dot brings all that back to me. 🙂

 

 

[Light-of-Truth]

13 hours ago, Kate said:

So, talking of Pi and circles, you asked about the point.

"Point" is one of Bacon's (Shakespeare's) favorite words!

https://www.rhymezone.com/r/ss.cgi?q=point&mode=k

But oddly, he only used it a few times in the Sonnets but it does appear, and with an s on Line 360:

Points on me gratiously with faire aspect,

Point is mentioned on Line 360? Hmmm, a Point and Circle? How curious. What a coincidence. Is Pi 3 point 1 4...?

That Line is Line 10 of Sonnet 26. It is a Sonnet to read and meditate on for sure:

https://www.light-of-truth.com/pyramid-GMT.php#Sonnet026

LOrd of my loue,to whome in vassalage
Thy merrit hath my dutie strongly knit;
To thee I send this written ambassage
To witnesse duty, not to shew my wit.
Duty so great,which wit so poore as mine
May make seeme bare,in wanting words to shew it;
But that I hope some good conceipt of thine
In thy soules thought (all naked) willbstow it:
Til whatsoeuer star that guides my mouing,
Points on me gratiously with faire aspect,
And puts apparrell on my tottered louing,
To show me worthy of their sweet respect,
   Then may I dare to boast how I doe loue thee,
   Til then,not show my head where thou maist proue me

13 hours ago, Kate said:

In geometry to create any shape you have to start at a point and then apply movement.

I wonder if we follow every possible path out from a single Point in all the designs and formulas that we eventually would end up back at the same Point. That would break all common theories I bet! LOL

 

[Kate]

Standing at one point he grasps all things

(Taken from book of emblems and Shakespeare posted in separate topic) 

[Kate]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:15 AM, Eric Roberts said:

Wenceslaus Hollar and his views of London and Windsor in the seventeenth century

by Arthur Mayger Hind, 1922

https://archive.org/details/cu31924032649984/page/n129/mode/2up?ref=ol

Not strictly Bacon related, but the profusion of views of London in the first half of the 17th century in this book, published by the British Museum, provide at least some sense of what Francis Bacon's day-to-day world looked like. Seven years younger that Martin Droeshout, Hollar (from Bohemia) was clearly a much superior artist. A few examples:

 

What a fabulous book, Eric! I’ve just looked through it. Really fascinating. Thanks 

[Eric Roberts]

1632 Map of Great Britain: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:44985925

[Lawrence Gerald]

Excellent History lesson and important stretch of time.

It looks like a sure thing that the man who was born in York Place with maternal Tudor blood running through his veins would be motivated to write the seminal history of kings that covered the War of the Roses and the  strategic St. Albans location. And it may be the theater productions  came prior to the  history writings  that were under his worldly name.

[Eric Roberts]

High resolution birds-eye view of London when Francis was a boy living at York House.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-map-agas/1561/map

 

Edited September 2 by Eric Roberts

[Light-of-Truth]

7 hours ago, Eric Roberts said:

High resolution birds-eye view of London when Francis was a boy living at York House.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-map-agas/1561/map

 

Where are my crayons...

[Light-of-Truth]

11 hours ago, Eric Roberts said:

High resolution birds-eye view of London when Francis was a boy living at York House.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-map-agas/1561/map

 

How is this even possible without a drone or hot air balloon?

Astral projection? 😉

[Light-of-Truth]

I probably missed the description being overwhelmed lately, but who did this engraving??

In my imagination, here is the place where me and the B'Hive, Francis, Ben, Leo, maybe even Willy and others were pounding beeres at the Beere howse discussing a King to be.