Bruton Vault

The History Press released my latest book Strange Tales from Virginia's Foothills to the Coast on March 13, 2023. In the book, I briefly covered the tales of the Bruton Vault.

According to legend, the Bruton Vault contains the lost works of Sir Francis Bacon. The vault lies beneath the Bruton Parish church in Colonial Williamsburg.

Sir Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) is an interesting character. Bacon was a statesman, philosopher, and is the father of the scientific method. Some call Bacon “the true founder of America and guardian of her history,” “founder of Freemasonry,” and “guiding light of the Rosicrucian Order.” Additionally, many believe that it was Bacon who wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. Another theory suggests Bacon was the mastermind behind a group of intellectuals that authored the Shakespearean plays. In her book Foundations Unearthed, Marie Bauer Hall wrote:

It is revealed that in the authorship of the Shakespeare plays were concerned not one, or two or three persons, but a group of the greatest intellects of the times. The guiding genius of this group was Sir Francis Bacon; among his associates were such men as Lancelot Andrews, the great Anglican Archbishop; Toby Mathews; John Donne; Ben Jonson; Edmund Spencer; Sir Walter Raleigh; Francis Drake; George Withers, and many others.

Knowing that Bacon may have been the genius behind the works of Shakespeare, it stands to reason that lost Shakespearean works comprise part of the loot in the Bruton vault. But that is not all. There are lost books of the Bible, maps to secret vaults in Europe, crown jewels, Bacon’s blueprint for a utopian society, or a “New Atlantis,” and gold coins. Some have deemed Bacon’s works to be of such importance to humankind they have compared them to the opening of the seventh seal in the Book of Revelation.

“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”

Revelation 8:1 (King James Version)

Marie Bauer Hall

Marie Bauer Hall, wife of influential freemason Manly P. Hall, learned of the Bruton vault and its location through cryptic messages Bacon placed in Shakespearean and other writings. In 1940, she published a book titled Foundations Unearthed in which she detailed her search for the vault. That search led her to Williamsburg where a ten-foot cubical vault lay sixteen feet below the Bruton Parish Episcopal Church. In 1938, church authorities granted her permission to dig for the vault. Her background work in interpreting Bacon’s clues—coded in the writings of William Shakespeare and George Wither—told her the vault was ninety feet northwest of the church door. The location was also near the grave of Ann Graham—another clue given its similarity to the word anagram.

Long story short, the church stopped Hall’s dig at around a depth of nine feet out of fear of disturbing graves in the churchyard. Local authorities conspired to keep Hall from conducting further excavations. But that was not the end of the digging. In 1991, authorities caught “New Age mystic” Marsha Middleton and two accomplices digging on church property. A local judge ordered the trio not to set foot in Virginia again. The illegal dig prompted church authorities to allow archeologists to conduct an excavation in 1992, retracing Hall’s steps. Sadly, the effort failed to yield results that would prove the existence of the vault. But maybe it was not meant to; maybe the excavation was nothing but a sham. To this day, the vault and the lost works of Sir Francis Bacon remain hidden.

A New Atlantis? I Don't Think So!

Sadly, I do not believe the powers that be will ever allow the recovery of the Bruton vault. Think about it this way—why would the global elites want a utopian society or New Atlantis? Things are working out well for them already. The late-great comedian and social critic George Carlin said it best in a classic stand-up routine:

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else…It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks.

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