Robert Cecil

“ He had hardly turned round, when the door was pushed open, and a servant, attired in a plain but tasteful livery, the colours of his household, entered the chamber.
“Sir Robert Cecil would speak a while with your worship,” said the lackey.
It is often imagined, that, in the hour of adversity, a visit from one whom we consider a friend, unsolicited by ourselves, is among the most welcome things that we would aspire to. But let the cold hand of misfortune only seize us; and, in this conceived relief, the proud heart, which sorrow could not subdue, will be most effectually humbled. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The murder of Lady Cecil's favourite was calculated to excite strong feelings among all classes; for the poor had long considered the residence of so good a family on their island as a blessing from Heaven; more particularly, as the former possessor, Sir Herbert, Sir Robert's elder brother, only lived at Cecil Place occasionally, being of too gay, too cavalier a temperament, to bide long in so solitary a dwelling. ”

“ He ventured to console himself, however, by the reflection, that a man of such cool and determined bravery must be, despite external appearances, a person of some consequence: an opinion confirmed by his being a guest, and evidently a privileged guest, of Sir Robert Cecil. ”

“ He was fined a thousand marks and committed to the custody of his uncle Roger at Enfield. Sir Robert Cecil, however, obtained a remission of the fine, and thus the affair cost little either to him or his brother George. As soon as he was free he wrote a penitent letter to his uncle Sir John Manners of Haddon. In November 1601 he became a member of the Inner Temple. ”

“ A sister of Lord Cobham’s was married to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil: his estimable and greatly beloved lady died in January, 1596-7. She was also a kinswoman of Sir Walter Raleigh, and in one of his letters to Cecil he says:—“It is trew that you have lost a good and vertuous wife and my sealf an honorable frinde and kinswoman. Butt ther was a tyme when shee was unknowne to you, for whom you then lamented not. Shee is now no more your’s, nor of your acquayntance, butt immortall, and not needinge nor knowynge your love or sorrow. ”

“ He was chiefly occupied in reporting the progress of the quarrel between Henry IV and the Duc de Bouillon, but he found time to correspond with Sir Henry Savile respecting his projected edition of Chrysostom's ‘Commentaries.’ In June 1602 he was superseded by Sir Thomas Parry, but at the wish of Sir Robert Cecil, the queen's secretary, who had a ‘good conceit of him and his services,’ he remained till the end of the year in Paris in order to instruct Parry in the business of the embassy. ”

“ CECIL, ROBERT Earl of Salisbury (1563?–1612) , statesman, was son of William Cecil, lord Burghley [q. v.] , by Mildred, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. The place of his birth has never been fixed with certainty. He declared that he was born in Westminster; the exact year, too, has been the subject of much doubt. When Thomas Cecil, his elder brother, was in France in January 1563, it was deemed advisable that he should return sooner than had been intended, because his father's ‘younger son’ had recently died. ”

“ The 'Challenge' contains an enlanped copy of 'Shore's Wife,' dedicated to 'Lady Mount Eagle and Compton.' From the dedicatory epistle we learn that some malicious persons had spread the report that this poem was not written by Churchyard. The libellous statement caused great annoyance to the old poet, who declared that if he had been a younger man he would have challenged his detractors to open combat. In 1594 appeared a revised edition of 'The Mirror and Manners of Men,' 4to (written in the days of Edward VI) , with a dedication to Sir Robert Cecil. ”

“ He had seen his wife’s eyes go past him and brighten as they fell upon her visitor, and he closed his study door with a bang.
[184] CHAPTER XVII THE weeks that followed were difficult weeks for Robert. Cecily’s book was a success in so far that from the artist’s standpoint it attracted just the right sort of attention. It was praised by just the half-dozen critics whose opinion Robert held to be valuable; the critics whose good opinion he had secretly never ceased to covet, even while he consciously strayed into the broad path which leads to popular success and literary destruction. ”

“ Should he have fancied that he had caught a chill, a tea-spoon of this; should his dressing-room feel over-hot, four drops of that; should he encounter a bad smell, a table-spoonful of a third mixture. Poor Cecil's interior must have been like a walking drug-store. He was quite inimitable in eccentric character parts, his "Graves" in Money being irresistibly funny, and his "Baron Stein" in Diplomacy was one of the most finished performances we are ever likely to see, a carefully stippled miniature, with every little detail carefully thought out, touched up and retouched. ”

“ Did you receive much injury from the rough usage of the old woman?"
"My face is a little swolen from the effects of the blow, and my arm aches, yet, nothing very serious I believe."
"I have now a favor to ask?"
"What is it?" asked Cecil quickly, and with trepidation in her manner. "Nothing that I shall be obliged to deny you, I hope."
"I trust not young woman. It is this; you have seen my face, and now I wish to look a moment upon yours."
"Oh! is that all," said she laughing. "I can grant it in a minute. Stop until I pull up the wick of the lamp that you may see better. ”

“ Even if Cecil discovered the instinct of the pioneer in him he would not listen to it, for he is very proud and very ambitious. When a man towers in an isolated field like Mr. Rhodes, every man who plants his heels in the same field in the same epoch is a moon to Jupiter. And no two men in a century will ever have all the gifts of the Empire-maker united in one brain. Cecil is highly gifted, and he has enormous energy, but his gifts are on the old conservative lines. ”

“ Uttering shocking blasphemies, he begins the ascent. Cecil in her turn, warns him of the danger, and rashness of the attempt. Her words fell upon deaf ears. He is half to the top, the crumbling steps are tottering under him, and with terror, he hears the rotten wood yielding. Ah! now he discovers his error, but to retreat is as hazardous, or more so, than to proceed. Half frozen with horror, he continues to ascend, the treacherous fabric still settling beneath him, threatening the next instant, to plunge him into the yawning chasm below, breaking in the descent every bone in his body. ”

“ By that time Cecil had begun to trim his sails to a different breeze. He was in secret communication with Elizabeth before Mary died, and from the first the new queen relied on Cecil as she relied on no one else. Her confidence was not misplaced; Cecil was exactly the kind of minister England then required. Personal experience had ripened his rare natural gift for avoiding dangers. It was no time for brilliant initiative or adventurous politics; the need was to avoid Scylla and Charybdis, and a via media had to be found in church and state, at home and abroad. Cecil was not a political genius ”

“ If it be a fair specimen of his style of composition, he must indeed have been a man of but small ‘parts.’ Next year, on the occasion of the French ambassador visiting Cambridge, accompanied by Lord Burghley as chancellor of the university, and other notables, Cecil was admitted M.A. by a special grace of the senate. At a magnificent tournament held at Westminster during this year he took a prominent part, and received a prize at the hands of the queen for his prowess at the barriers. He had always had a desire for a military life, which his father would never allow him to gratify ”

“ The Rhodes family can be traced back to sturdy English yeoman stock. In the eighteenth century they had held land in North London. Cecil's father was vicar of Bishop's Stortford, a quiet country town in Hertfordshire on the Essex border; he was a man of mark, wealthy, [349] liberal, and unconventional, with the rare gift of preaching ten-minute sermons which were well worth hearing. Of his eldest sons, Herbert went to Winchester, Frank to Eton; Cecil, the fifth son, born on July 5, 1853, was kept at home. ”

“ Cecil's head was so filled with thoughts of the pomander-box and his own greatness that his mother was fully dressed while he sat mooning over the lacing of his hose and breeches, and gazing with admiring fondness at the red roses on his holiday shoes. ”

“ Even before the Queen's death it was known that Cecil would be the chief counsellor of the coming reign. "I am told for certain," the Spanish ambassador wrote to Philip after a visit to Elizabeth during the last hours of Mary's life, "that Cecil who was secretary to King Edward will be her secretary also. He has the character of a prudent and virtuous man, although a heretic." But it was only from a belief that Cecil retained at heart the convictions of his earlier days that men could call him a heretic. In all outer matters of faith or worship he conformed to the religion of the state. ”

“ When there is a good deal of talk on the stage about a certain character, who however remains "off" throughout the play and gives you no chance to discover for yourself what he is like, then I have an instinctive distrust of him. If his name is as bad as Cecil he is practically doomed. Betty Dunbar, widow, ran away from her rich sister's house and spent a night in London with such a Cecil. ”

“ Poor Miss Annie Fleude was broken-hearted; she wrote Cecil many piteous, passionate letters, all unavailing; for he was a weak little fellow, ever dominated by a stronger will, and hence his defection and silence.
[106] The story of his racing had somehow reached England. How tiresome it is that in cases where one would like to keep matters quiet, almost every person one meets has relations out in India! Girls and their parents now suddenly cooled; invitations ceased, even although Cecil Brandon would have £1,200 a year on the death of his mother, and was undeniably well connected. ”

“ The latter, who wore a short, brown shell-jacket, with a rolling collar laced with gold, and crimson overalls, was smoking a huge pipe and seated at a table littered with papers and printed journals, from which he started up as Cecil entered, and, drawing himself up to the full height of his short pudgy figure, while all his short, stubbly hair seemed to bristle, and his wiry moustaches to stick out like those of a cat, he eyed him with considerable sternness, indignation, and surprise, mingled in a face that was never at any time a very handsome one. ”

“ Cecil dropped his head and shook it gloomily. “I had a talk with father to-day;” he shivered as he recalled that conversation; “and he says he won’t take you back with us; that he likes you well enough, but one American in the family is as much as he can stand—and, oh, a lot of rot. We’ll have to wait till I grow up, and then I’ll come back for you, or perhaps some one will bring you over.”
They entered the side door of the boarding-house. Cecil pulled Lee down beside him on the stair. ”

“ Cecil is a crafty fox, a mortal enemy of the Catholics and to our King, and it is necessary to watch his designs very closely, because he proceeds with the greatest caution and dissimulation. There is nothing in his power he does not attempt to injure us. The Queen’s own opinion is of little importance, and that of Leicester less; so that Cecil unrestrainedly and arrogantly governs all.... Your worship may be certain that if Cecil is allowed to have his way he will disturb the Netherlands. ”

“ He was tall, too, and of a stately presence; one of those men, in short, to whom, both physically and mentally, a woman, be she ever so highly placed in her own estimation, would hardly have refused to pay the tribute of tacitly acknowledging to her own self that he was her master. Cecil’s father, a practical though not exactly a discerning man, had intended his only son for the Bar; but circumstances, to say nothing of the young man’s own individual tastes, decided against the realisation of the old gentleman’s plans. ”

“ There was nothing heroic about Cecil or his policy; it involved a callous attitude towards struggling Protestants abroad. Huguenots and Dutch Were aided just enough to keep them going in the struggles which warded danger off from England’s shores. But Cecil never developed that passionate aversion from decided measures which became a second nature to his mistress. His intervention in Scotland in 1559–1560 showed that he could strike on occasion; and his action over the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, proved that he was willing to take responsibility from which Elizabeth shrank. ”