The Lewkenor Circle · Parliament and court
Francis Bacon — Parliament and the Union
A shared parliamentary undertaking in James I’s first English Parliament
Portrait details.
Lawyer, parliamentarian and political writer
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) combined legal practice, parliamentary service and political writing. Under James I he became a prominent advocate of closer union between England and Scotland, later rising to the office of Lord Chancellor.
The accession of James in 1603 had joined the crowns in one person. It had not merged the kingdoms’ laws, parliaments or institutions. Proposals for a closer union therefore raised questions about nationality, allegiance, trade, government and the relationship between the King and his subjects.
Lewkenor and Bacon, 28 April 1604
Lewkenor represented Bridgnorth in James’s first English Parliament. On 28 April 1604 he was among those appointed to manage business at the conference with the Lords concerning the Union.
The assignment concerned:
Matter of estate foreign or matter of intercourse.
Parliamentary proceedings concerning the Union, 28 April 1604.
Bacon headed the group identified in the account, which also included Sir Henry Neville. The record places Lewkenor and Bacon within a specific shared undertaking concerning relations between the kingdoms.
Lewkenor brought experience of foreign service and diplomatic reception to this work. His responsibilities already required him to interpret relationships between rulers, their representatives and the institutions through which they acted.
One monarch, two kingdoms
The proposed Union made the distinction between a king’s person and a kingdom’s laws unusually pressing. A common ruler could express a desire for unity, but the practical consequences required argument and negotiation.
Bacon addressed those questions in political and legal writing as well as in Parliament. Lewkenor encountered them through the committee’s business and through his ceremonial office, where the representation of royal authority was a daily concern.
Their shared work belongs to a wider culture of debate over how political order should be maintained when inherited arrangements were being changed.
Macbeth and Stuart succession
The Union debates provide a pointed setting for reading Macbeth. The play’s Scottish history, disputed kingship and vision of Banquo’s descendants address subjects of immediate interest under the new Stuart monarch.
Macbeth’s response to the procession of kings includes the image of joined royal powers:
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
Which shows me many more; and some I see
That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry.
Macbeth, Macbeth, IV, i.
The passage gives dynastic succession a theatrical form. Crowns and kingdoms become visible through the regalia carried by the future rulers.
Lewkenor’s parliamentary involvement supplies a biographical point of contact with these questions. He participated in the political business surrounding the relationship between the kingdoms whose crowns James wore.
Read the Macbeth investigation →
Government, delegation and judgement
Measure for Measure approaches authority through a ruler’s choice of deputy and the consequences of entrusting him with power. The Duke’s instructions make the extent of that delegation explicit:
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart.
Duke Vincentio to Angelo, Measure for Measure, I, i.
The play turns from the possession of authority to its exercise: the interpretation of law, the conduct of officials and the treatment of those subject to their decisions.
These questions belong beside Bacon’s legal and political career and Lewkenor’s experience of government at home and abroad. The specific connection between the two men remains their recorded parliamentary work.
Read the Measure for Measure investigation →
The documentary connection
Bacon’s place in the Lewkenor Circle rests upon a named date, a defined parliamentary task and participation in the same proceedings. That foundation allows the political comparisons to begin with an actual undertaking rather than a general resemblance between two court careers.
The Union business also places Lewkenor among men whose responsibilities extended across law, diplomacy and the interpretation of royal policy—the same overlapping concerns that recur throughout the plays.
Related Shakespeare investigations
Sources and further reading
House of Commons proceedings, 28 April 1604, concerning the conference with the Lords on the Union of England and Scotland.
Francis Bacon, writings and speeches concerning the proposed Anglo-Scottish Union.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV, i; Measure for Measure, I, i.
Paul van Somer, portrait of Francis Bacon, 1617.
The Master of the Ceremonies, 18 October 2026, sections concerning Lewkenor’s parliamentary service, the Union and Macbeth.