Elizabeth Bacon

Elizabeth Bacon (c. 1541 – 3 May 1621) was an English aristocrat. She is presumed to have been the Lady Neville of My Ladye Nevells Booke, an important manuscript of keyboard music by William Byrd, which was compiled in 1591. She was the daughter of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his first wife, Jane Ferneley (d. 1552). She was, successively, the wife of Sir Robert D'Oylie, the courtier Sir Henry Neville, and the judge Sir William Peryam. Family Born about 1541, she was the eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, by his first wife, Jane Ferneley (d.1552). By her father's first marriage, she had three brothers, Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet, of Redgrave, Sir Edward Bacon, and Sir Nathaniel Bacon, and two sisters, Anne, who married Sir Henry Woodhouse, and Elizabeth, who married Francis Wyndham. By her father's second marriage, to Anne Cooke, she was the half-sister of Anthony Bacon and Sir Francis Bacon. Career Elizabeth Bacon first married Sir Robert Doyley of Chiselhampton, Oxfordshire, 'a member of a prominent land-owning family' and a member of parliament for Bossiney, Cornwall, in 1572. He was knighted in 1576. While serving as a Justice of the Peace at the Oxford assizes of 4–7 July 1577, Doyley and others were, according to John Stowe, infected with a 'strange sickness', whereof the jurors, including 'Sir Robert de Olie', died. Doyley made his last will on 21 July, and was buried on 29 July at Hambleden. In his will, he left several properties to his widow, Elizabeth, according to Harley likely making her 'an independently wealthy woman'. There were no children of the marriage. Soon after her first husband's death, in about May 1578, Elizabeth Bacon married, as his third wife, Sir Henry Neville, of Billingbear House, Berkshire. As Sir Henry's wife, she became the Lady Nevell of My Ladye Nevells Booke, a manuscript of keyboard music by William Byrd. However, over time her link to the book was forgotten, and it was firmly established only recently by John Harley, following earlier suggestions by Thurston Dart and Alan Brown. Some people have assumed she must have been a keyboard player, but not much is known of her musical activities. Her interest in music is also implied by the dedication to her of a second music book, discussed below.