Introduction
Anne Bacon Drury (1572–1624) was an English literary patron.
Anne was the fourth daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon (d. 1579) and Anne Butts (d. 1610). Her grandfather was Sir Nicolas Bacon, and her uncle Francis Bacon. She married Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead and Hardwick in 1592. Her parents provided a dowry of £1,600. Anne was a friend of the poet John Donne. Donne's Anniversaries commemorate her daughter Elizabeth Drury, who died in 1610 aged 14. A painting of Elizabeth reclining on a couch, similar to contemporary tomb sculpture, was made, and a monument in Hawstead church where her effigy is in a similar pose.
She created a painted bedroom closet for meditation and study and entertaining close friends at Hawstead Place, near Bury St Edmunds. The painted panelling was removed to Hardwick House, Suffolk. It is now in Christchurch Mansion, part of Ipswich Museum. The decoration consists of a series of forty emblems including Latin phrases.
Sources
- R. C. Bald, Donne and the Drurys (1959)
- H. L. Meakin, The Painted Closet of Lady Anne Bacon Drury (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2013) ISBN 9780754663973
- J. Rowe, 'Drury family (per. 1485–1624)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Jan 2008, subscription required. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73909