Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

“ But if paid agencies are not permitted, a very serious suspicion fastens on that hard-mouthed, rising lordling, Robert Cecil, son of the Marquis of Salisbury, and one of the most active and energetic champions of the slave-mongers of the South. The young lord, it is well known, stepped down from the lofty pedestal of a bad pedigree to marry the fair, but portionless daughter of an English judge ”

“ And prove my equal fame in poesy and law!
[1] Rapin observes, that Robert Cecil, the first Earl of Salisbury, was of a great genius; and though crooked before and behind, Nature supplied that defect with noble endowments of mind. ”

“ In all humble mann.r my dutie remembred & in regard you are a noble p (er) son & one whoe dealeth honorably with all men that are honeste soe it is my goal to thereby I presumed by th'advise and direction of Mr Charles Halle one whome I am beholden unto whoe advised me some 6 week paste to offer to yo (u) r hon (o) r in sale my mannor of Sison (sic) with the appurtinaunce. As with tyme allsoe Mr Halle telleth me he sente you a p (ar) ticuler under my owne hande of the state of the said mannor & since he hath allsoe a more ........ ”

“ Some of the leading nobles, the Earl of Westmorland, Lord Peterborough, Lord Newport, and the Earl of Salisbury, were condemned, the last-named on account of an estate which had been presented to his father, Robert Cecil, by Queen Elizabeth [48] . And these claims were constantly being stretched further: it appeared as if the greater part of England would soon be considered as having been forest-land in former days. Even the government [Pg 35] A.D. 1634. now felt itself in a critical position from the agitation kindled by this conduct, and suspended proceedings for a moment [49] . ”

“ He had faithfully served William Cecil, the great Lord Burleigh, [2] and was destined, in the matter of the Powder Plot, to serve with equal fidelity his son, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Sir William Waad, under Elizabeth, had been Secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and afterwards Clerk of the Privy Council. He had been sent on frequent diplomatic missions to Madrid, Paris, and the Low Countries. In 1588 he was elected a member of Parliament, and in 1601 represented Preston, where his Protestant zeal made him very unpopular among the Roman Catholics of Lancashire. ”

“ Richard Dennys who was ...... to Sir Morris his estate being his heire handled the matter so by freude & means as for ..... yeares after the death of Sir Morris Dennys uppon presse yssued to levye the said debt, no lande cold be found byable whereby her majestie was abused and ye stalement unduely obtayned.
Ffurder the purpose of Richard Dennys in assureing Siston to the Crown was to defeate one Weeke, to whom the said Richard Dennys had bargained the same & received £2,000 of the money and to prevent a decree in ye Chancery made against him for Weekes. ”

“ THE CASE: But if the Chancerye have power to decree lands lawfullye bought & payed for and the comon lawe to extend statute for just cause, then had Richard Dennis no power at all to chardge Siston with this imp (er) tinent debt of £7,500 nor the ..... thereby to extend it for that this chardge was doon by Richard Dennis viii yeres after his sale of Siston, a statute acknowledged, the land decreed to Wicke and he thereby in possession. ”

“ F) Richard Dennis being put by his device by this sale and forfeyture aforesaid continueing in his former malitious purpose to defeate Wicke of land and money as aforesaid (ut supra D) made himselfe debtor for the paym (en) t (An (n) o 18 (1576) ) of the said £7,500 by installment thereof at £100 p (er) annum out of the said mannor of Siston with a clause of entrye for not paym (en) t thereof. ”

“ Such was the nature of these secret communications, Which, while they aimed at securing for Cecil a fresh lease of power in the new reign, conferred undoubted advantages on the country. Owing to Cecil’s action, on the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of March 1603, James was proclaimed king, and took possession of the throne without opposition. Cecil was continued in his office, was created Baron Cecil of Essendon in Rutlandshire on the 13th of May, Viscount Cranborne on the 20th of August 1604, and earl of Salisbury on the 4th of May 1605. ”

“ No matter how the honest, dull bulk of his party may distrust him, they cannot do without him and his phalanx; and they allow him to win his battles by the force of their votes, and they think he is winning their battles all the time.
One young man of brains there was on the Tory side of the House of Commons, who did not like Disraeli, and never professed to like him. This was Lord Robert Cecil, who subsequently became Viscount Cranbourne, and now sits in the House of Lords as Marquis of Salisbury. Lord Robert Cecil was by far the ablest scion of noble Toryism in the House of Commons. ”

“ In Lord Robert Cecil great height, slimness, and the scholar’s stoop made rather jarringly noticeable that untidiness which is an abiding Cecilian characteristic; in Lord Salisbury the rounded shoulders rather added to his impressiveness, as suggesting Atlas loads of responsibility, while the very massiveness of the figure cancelled the effect of imperfect valeting. No worse dressed or more majestic figure was ever seen in the House of Lords, which has never been wanting either in shabbiness or in distinction. ”

“ On November 7th, very soon after the discovery of the conspiracy, whose threads it became the immediate duty of the council to unravel, that body appears to have sent for Ben Jonson, at the advice no doubt of Salisbury, who (as has just been seen) knew of Jonson; indeed, the latter has been supposed to have given his support as a dramatist to the party headed by Robert Cecil before Queen Elizabeth's death. ”

“ By this grant they have authoritye not only to extend but to compound which no doubt is meant to be used but for vexacion & (which) ? is levyed on/or h....... by ..........ett composicon cannott appear and so the proceeding will be endlesse. ”

“ The policy of the "Great Contract" had certainly broken down, and the King, under Cecil's guidance, had certainly not known how to manage an English parliament. In writing to the King he found it hard to satisfy himself. Several draft letters remain, and it is not certain which of them, if any, was sent. But immediately on Salisbury's death he began, May 29th, a letter in which he said that he had never yet been able to show his affection to the King, "having been as a hawk tied to another's fist;" ”

“ In 1600 Cecil was a member of a Commission appointed to report on Essex's return from Ireland without permission, and managed to mitigate the gravity of his offence; but in 1601, on Essex's trial for treason, had to defend himself from an accusation by Essex of having declared himself in favour of the Infanta's claim to the throne. By careful preparations he secured the peaceable accession of James ii. to the throne, and was raised to the peerage, and eventually made Earl of Salisbury in consequence. For the rest of his life he remained James's most trusted minister. ”

“ Elizabeth's chief adviser, from the very moment of her accession—and, indeed, even before it—was the celebrated Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, the direct ancestor of the present Marquesses of Exeter and Salisbury. Cecil was a man of the most consummate ability and prudence. He was a man much under the influence of religion, yet totally free from fanaticism—a combination very rarely found in the sixteenth century, and not very common at any time. Like Elizabeth herself, he had outwardly conformed in Mary's days ”

“ Whether the argument of the judges was right or wrong, they were the constitutional exponents of the law, and when Cecil (who had been James's chief minister from the beginning of the reign, and was created Earl of Salisbury in 1605) was made Lord Treasurer as well as Secretary in 1608, he at once levied new impositions to the amount of about 70,000l. a year, on the plea that more money was needed in consequence of the troubles in Ireland. ”

“ Cecil, the father, had founded the barony of Burleigh, which subsequently was raised into the earldom of Exeter. Sir Robert Cecil, the son, whose personal merits towards James I. were more conspicuous than those of his father towards Queen Elizabeth, had leaped at once into the earldom of Salisbury. Through two centuries these distinguished houses—Exeter the elder and Salisbury the junior—had run against each other. At length the junior house ran ahead of its elder, being raised to a marquisate. But in this century the elder righted itself, rising also to a marquisate. ”

“ But she probably had her “summer of green-sickness” like other people, and one of her daughters describes her as liking “to give lip-service to a pretty sentiment, though always ready to laugh at herself for the indulgence.”
Among Georgiana Alderson’s greatest friends was Mary, Lady Salisbury (later Lady Derby) , and it was at her house she met Lord Robert Cecil, Lady Salisbury’s stepson. In appearance at any rate Lord Robert was very different from the massive figure familiar to the older of present-day politicians. ”

“ That cautious and able minister was too fond of power himself to allow it to pass into the hands of much weaker men. James, while Cecil lived, had indeed no lack of favourites on whom he lavished affluence and honours; but his cunning minister had the address to prevent him from giving them places of real power and responsibility. James therefore, so long as Cecil remained, was content to make his favourites his companions and left Cecil to conduct public affairs; but no sooner was Salisbury in his grave, than James became the slave of his favourites, who ruled both him and the kingdom. ”

“ It was necessary to send over Sir Robert Cecil as ambassador extraordinary, to attend the negotiations: and fearing the influence of Essex in his absence, the cunning minister had been induced to favour his advancement to the post of Earl Marshal, and he sought to win the earl over more completely by moving the queen to present Essex with a cargo of cochineal worth £7,000, and a contract for the sale of a much larger amount out of the Royal stores. ”

“ The Bishop’s comment upon this is, that “Cecil’s disgrace must have great effect, as he has many companions in discontent, especially the Duke of Norfolk.... Their quarrels cannot injure public business, as nobody worse than Cecil can be at the head of affairs, but the outcome of it all might be the imprisonment of the Queen, and the proclamation of the Earl of Huntingdon [131] as King. He is a great heretic, and the French forces might be used for him. Cecil says he is the real heir of England, and all the heretics want him. I do not like Cecil’s great friendship with the Bishop of Valence.” ”

“ The dark ability of this man supplied the lack of talent in his patron, and became a mine of wealth to Overbury himself. Even Cecil and the earl of Suffolk strove to avail themselves of his services; and when Cecil quitted the scene, Carr, through Overbury's management, carried all before him. In March, 1611, he was created viscount Rochester, in April, 1612, he became a member of the privy council, and was invested with the order of the garter. ”

“ Cecil assured him there was no danger; the duke, therefore, proceeded to London, and was instantly arrested and committed to the Tower in October, 1569.
At the same time Elizabeth joined the Earl of [281] Huntingdon, an avowed enemy of the Queen of Scots, in commission with her keeper, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Viscount Hertford, to secure more completely the person of Mary, who was again removed to Tutbury, and to examine her papers for further proofs of the correspondence with Norfolk. Her confidential servants had been dismissed; her person surrounded by an armed force ”

“ To these applications, the Cecils were not entirely inattentive; for, although not influenced by any sympathy for genius, "for a speculative man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business," as he was represented by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, [36] they procured for him the reversion of the Registership of the Star Chamber, worth about £1600 a year, for which, modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance of his father's virtues, he immediately acknowledged his obligation to the queen. ”

“ Disraeli led the Opposition in the Commons as his lieutenant. This arrangement nettled the young blood of the Conservative noblesse. Lord Robert Cecil's outlook in the world was not then what it afterwards became. He was a younger son with a career to make for himself. Ambition can supply spurs, so can prudence, so can necessity, and so can all three combined. The younger son of a great house enters upon political life at an enormous advantage over humbler rivals. ”

“ This has been the unfortunate fate of Lord Robert Cecil. He is regarded by his countrymen as unpractical. Men speak well of him, and confess willingly that he is vastly superior in character and intellect to the ruck of politicians, but nevertheless wind up their panegyrics with the regretful judgment that, alas, he is a fanatic. ”

“ It is not desirable that a narrow, selfish, envious Cecil, who could never forgive his noblest contemporaries for failing to be hunchbacks like himself, should steer England all his life as it were with supreme hand, and himself sail on the topmost tide of fortune ”