Zealotry and the well-ordered state

In the late 1580s, Bacon began to be concerned about what he saw as ill-considered criticisms of traditional learning, and the attempt by radical Puritans to set themselves up as arbiters of knowledge. His hostility to this movement is explicit, and there are two strands in his criticisms of it. First, there is an unyielding commitment to the authority of the sovereign. Bacon tells us approvingly in An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England of 1589 that ‘it is a precept of Salomon, that the rulers be not reproached; no, not in thought: but that we draw our very conceit into a modest interpretation of their doings.’ This is very much in line with traditional Tudor thinking, which was quite sensitive to potentially disruptive forces in society and aimed to contain the various forces in society by subordinating them to the absolute authority of the sovereign. Although there has been a tendency to stress this ingredient in Bacon's criticisms, as if it in itself sufficed to explain them, I want to suggest that it is not enough, at least at anything other than a general perfunctory level. It is a second ingredient in Bacon's criticisms which I believe should bear the explanatory weight: This is the fact that his criticisms are very specifically those of a Renaissance humanist.

In Chapter 2, we saw that the two principles to which both Italian and northern humanists were committed were the importance of sound learning for sound government, and the responsibilities of humanists to provide such sound learning in the practical context of government.