Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1547-1622) was the second son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper to Elizabeth I, and Jane, daughter of William Fernley. He matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in Michaelmas term, 1561, and was admitted to Gray's Inn on December 16, 1562. In 1569, he married Anne Gresham, natural daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham, Royal Agent in the Netherlands, and Winifred Dutton, wife of Thomas Dutton. They had three daughters (Anne, Winifred, and Elizabeth), and two sons, both of whom died in infancy. Anne died in 1595, and in 1597 Bacon married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Arthur Hopton.

Bacon served as a justice of the peace for nearly fifty years, beginning in 1574, and was sheriff of Norfolk in 1586 and 1599. He was an M.P. for Tavistock in 1571 and 1572, was returned as knight of the shire for Norfolk for three parliaments (1584, 1593, 1604), and as burgess for King's Lynn for one parliament (1597). He was a subsidy commissioner, and served on numerous other special commissions. He was knighted in 1604.

Bacon was related to numerous court figures. His father-in-law was Sir Thomas Gresham, and his half-brothers were Francis Bacon and Anthony Bacon (through his father's second marriage, to Anne Cooke). Through his father's second marriage, he became a kinsman of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Sir Henry Killigrew, Lord John Russell, and Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Through his sister's marriages, he was a brother-in-law to Sir Robert Doyly, Sir Henry Neville, Sir William Peryam, Sir Francis Wyndham, and Sir Robert Mansell.