Francis Bacon was always accepted as the younger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon however there exist reasonable grounds to suggest that he was actually the secret son of Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. He is an enigmatic figure and some actually believe he is the true author of the works of Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe.

Bacon held a fascination with mysterious codes and ciphers, which could link him to the enigmatic inscribed stone discovered in the Money Pit. In fact, a Dr Orville Ward Owen, a follower of Bacon’s ciphers followed instructions in a Baconian cipher and discovered a mysterious underground chamber beneath the bed of the River Wye, in the West of Britain. Although it was disappointingly empty, further Baconian ciphers were to be found carved on the walls.

Read a newspaper report on the excavation from 1911.

In the opinion of Dr Owen, Bacon had always intended to conceal his manuscripts below the Wye. This was in the tradition of the ancient Visigoths who redirected rivers and buried their dead beneath in secret tombs. Issues of plagiarism were particularly of issue at this time, with censorship developing into a heated area of debate.

Could it be that Bacon, feared that his secret might be discovered had had second thoughts, deciding that the River Wye location was not secure enough? To link Bacon with Canada, in 1610, King James I granted Bacon land in Newfoundland.

Sir Francis Bacon was familiar with the science of preserving manuscripts in mercury. This coupled with his fascination in secret chambers points directly to the Money Pit. The finding of ancient flasks containing mercury plus the recovery of a piece of mysterious parchment allows the theory to become more credible.

It is certainly possible that Bacon had the contacts and status to arrange a secret burial of his valuable manuscripts in a preservative mercury bath. By making use of much older techniques, present at the Money Pit, Bacon was just adding to the mystery lying beneath Oak Island.

He was connected with Shugborough Hall in England, the site of a strange inscription referring to Arcadian treasure. This same treasure is linked to Rennes le Chateau in France and the Knights Templar.

Surely, with his contemporaries familiar with the mysterious disappearance of the fabled Arcadian treasure from France and the possibility that Sir Francis Drake could have informed Bacon about Oak Island, this connection is worth consideration. Had the Arcadian treasure made it to Oak Island through the Knights Templars’ journey to Canada, the location would be an ideal place to hide further valuable items, especially if Bacon himself was a follower, fuelling his interest in ciphers, a typical trait of the Masons.