Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

James I
Preceded byWilliam Davison
Succeeded byJohn Herbert
Personal details
Born1 June 1563
Westminster, London, England
Died24 May 1612(1612-05-24) (aged 48)
Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
SpouseElizabeth Brooke
Children2, including William
Parent(s)William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
Mildred Cooke
Residence(s)Hatfield House
Salisbury House
Cranborne Manor
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury,

Tudor England gave way to Stuart rule (1603). Lord Salisbury served as the Secretary of State of England (1596–1612) and Lord High Treasurer (1608–1612), succeeding his father as Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Privy Seal and remaining in power during the first nine years of King James I's reign until his own death.[1]

The principal discoverer of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Robert Cecil remains a controversial historic figure as it is still debated at what point he first learned of the plot and to what extent he acted as an agent provocateur.

Early life and family

Cecil (created

Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea, Essex. His elder half-brother was Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, and philosopher Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, was his first cousin.[2]

Robert Cecil was 5 ft 4 in (163 cm) tall, had scoliosis, and was hunchbacked.[3] Living in an age which attached much importance to physical beauty in both sexes, he endured much ridicule as a result: Queen Elizabeth I called him "my pygmy", and King James I nicknamed him "my little beagle"[4] Nonetheless, his father recognised that it was Robert rather than his half-brother Thomas who had inherited his own political genius.

Cecil attended St John's College, Cambridge, in the 1580s, but did not take a degree.[5] He also attended "disputations" at the Sorbonne.[6]

In 1589, Cecil married Elizabeth Brooke, the daughter of

high treason
.

In 1608, Frances Cecil caught the eye of King James I's daughter Elizabeth and she made Sir John Harington write to Salisbury to invite her to join her household.[8] She married The 5th Earl of Cumberland and had one daughter but no sons.[9]

Secretary of State

Under Elizabeth

In 1584, Cecil sat for the first time in the House of Commons, representing his birthplace, the borough of Westminster, and was re-elected in 1586. He was a back bencher, never making a speech until 1593, after having been appointed a Privy Councillor.[10] In 1588 he accompanied Lord Derby in his mission to the Netherlands to negotiate peace with Spain.[11]: 76  He was elected for

Privy Counsellor in 1591 and was leader of the Council by 1597.[10]

Following the death of

Privy Council in 1591, and began to act as Secretary of State in 1589, although his formal appointment came later. He participated in the social life of the royal court, on 15 September 1595 he went hawking with the queen and they caught three partridges, which they gave to Elizabeth Wolley.[13]

In 1597 he was made

King James as Secretary of State.[1]

Cecil fell into dispute with

Nine Years War in 1599. He was then in a position to orchestrate the smooth succession of King James. Lord Essex's unsuccessful rebellion in 1601, which resulted in his final downfall and death, was largely aimed at Sir Robert Cecil, as he then was, who was to be removed from power and impeached.[15] Whether Essex intended that Cecil should actually die is unclear.[16]

It is to Cecil's credit that the Queen, largely at his urging, treated the rebels with a degree of mercy, which was unusual in that age. Essex himself and four of his closest allies were executed, but the great majority of his followers were spared: even Essex's denunciation of his sister

ballads like Essex's Last Good Night, Cecil was viciously attacked.[17]

Sir Francis Walsingham (Elizabeth's principal spymaster), he was trained by them in spy-craft as a matter of course. The "Rainbow portrait" of Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, decorated with eyes and ears, may relate to this role.[citation needed
] Cecil, like his father, greatly admired the Queen, whom he famously described as being "more than a man, but less than a woman".[19] Despite his careful preparations for the succession, he clearly regarded the Queen's death as a misfortune to be postponed as long as possible. During her last illness, when Elizabeth would sit motionless on cushions for hours on end, Cecil boldly told her that she must go to bed. Elizabeth roused herself one last time to snap at him:

"Little man, little man, 'Must' is not a word to use to princes. Your father were he here durst never speak to me so"; but she added wryly "Ah, but ye know that I must die, and it makes you presumptuous".[20]

Under James I

Sir Robert Cecil now promoted James as successor to Elizabeth.

Sir Walter Raleigh and other competitors, and secure the tranquillity of the last years of Elizabeth. Cecil demanded as conditions that James stop his attempts to obtain parliamentary recognition of his title, that absolute respect should be paid to the queen's feelings, and that the communications should remain a secret.[11]
: 76 

James took the throne without opposition, and the new monarch expressed his gratitude by elevating Cecil to the peerage.[1] Cecil also served as both the third chancellor of the University of Dublin,[22] and chancellor of the University of Cambridge,[23] between 1601 and 1612.

In 1603, his brothers-in-law,

Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham and George Brooke, along with Sir Walter Raleigh, were implicated in both the Bye Plot and the Main Plot, an attempt to remove King James I from the throne and replace him with his first cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart. Cecil was one of the judges who tried them for treason: at Raleigh's trial, Cecil was the only judge who appeared to have some doubts about his guilt (which is still a matter of debate, although the prevailing view now is that Raleigh was involved in the Plot to some extent).[24] Though they were found guilty and sentenced to death, both Cobham and Raleigh were eventually reprieved; this may have been due in part to Cecil's pleas for mercy, although the King kept his intentions a secret until the last minute.[1]

The Treaty of London taking place at Somerset House on 19 August 1604 - Cecil is seen sitting on the right in foreground

King James I raised Robert Cecil to the peerage, on 20 August 1603, as Baron Cecil of Essendon in the County of Rutland. Baron Cecil then led the English delegation at the Treaty of London that brought peace between Spain and England after a long war. Between 1603 and 1604 difficult negotiations with the Spanish delegation took place, but through Cecil's determined statesmanship the treaty bought an "honourable and advantageous" peace for England.[25] This was a personal triumph for Cecil which reflected well on James who wanted to be styled as a European peacemaker between the Protestants and the Catholics.[26] Cecil accepted a pension of £1,000 that year, which was raised the following year to £1,500. The King also rewarded Cecil further creating him Viscount Cranborne soon after the treaty had been signed and then Earl of Salisbury the following year.[11]: 76  Cecil was appointed to the Order of the Garter as its 401st Knight in 1606.[12] In 1607, James appointed him as Lord Treasurer, succeeding Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset.[27] As a result, the whole conduct of public affairs was solely in his hands, although the king often interfered.[11]: 76 

Although King James would often speak disparagingly of Cecil as "my little beagle" or "young Tom Durie", he gave him his absolute trust. "Though you are but a little man, I shall shortly load your shoulders with business", the King joked to him at their first meeting. Cecil, who had endured a lifetime of jibes about his height (even Queen Elizabeth had called him "pygmy" and "little man"; he had a curvature of the spine and was barely 5 feet (1.5 m) tall), is unlikely to have found the joke funny, while the crushing weight of business with which the King duly loaded him probably hastened his death at the age of 48.[28] The Venetian ambassador, Nicolò Molin, described Cecil as short and "crook-backed", with a noble countenance and features.[29]

Cecil was the principal discoverer of the

Protestant alliance, and his last energies were expended in effecting the marriage in 1612 of the princess Elizabeth, James's daughter, with Frederick, the Elector Palatine.[11]: 76  Still, he was averse to prosecution for religion, and attempted to distinguish between the large body of law-abiding and loyal Roman Catholics and those connected with plots against the throne and government.[11]
: 77 

Quartered arms of Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG.

The Kingdom of Ireland was a major source of concern and expense during Robert Cecil's time in government. The Nine Years' War there had ended with the leader of the rebels, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, submitting to the Crown and being restored to his estates, following the Treaty of Mellifont (1603). Four years later, Tyrone led his followers into exile during the Flight of the Earls. The response of the government was to plan a Plantation of Ulster, to share out Tyrone's lands between the Gaelic Irish lords and the settlers from Britain. In 1608, Sir Cahir O'Doherty launched O'Doherty's rebellion by attacking and burning Derry. In the wake of O'Doherty's defeat at Kilmacrennan, a much larger plantation was undertaken.[citation needed]

Cecil wrote humorous letters to his friend

Adam Newton the tutor of Prince Henry. Apologizing for a minor breach of manners, he compared himself to the court jester Tom Durie.[33] In another letter he wrote that if a certain man failed to gain a place in Prince Henry's household, he should be sent to "Tom Dyrry or to me". Although the applicant was poor he could become rich by charging a fee to all the girls in England who wished to meet the Prince.[34]

In 1611 Cecil disapproved of the proposed marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain. He may have also received a pension from France.[11]: 77 

Lord Treasurer

As

duties), and imposed new duties on articles of luxury and those of foreign manufacture which competed with English goods. By this measure, and by a more careful collection, the ordinary income was raised to £460,000, while £700,000 was paid off the debt.[11]
: 77 

In 1610–11, Salisbury worked hard to persuade Parliament to enact the

Restoration of Charles II,[38] through which Charles was to receive an income of approximately £1,200,000 per annum.[39]
One historian describes this annual payment as the eventual "implementation of Cecil's Great Contract".[40]

Houses and the arts

In May 1591 Cecil was involved in an entertainment for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth at

Theobalds, the Hertfordshire family home. The Hermit's Welcome at Theobalds made allusion to his father's potential retirement from public life.[41] In July 1593 a Scottish suitor for Cecil's favour, William Dundas of Fingask wrote to him from Edinburgh. Dundas had heard Cecil was completing a gallery in one of his houses and would like paintings with "such toys" or emblems as he had seen himself in Scotland.[42]

In 1606, Lord Salisbury, as Cecil was now, entertained King James I and his brother-in-law,

Sir John Harrington. Both monarchs were notoriously heavy drinkers, and according to some of those present, the occasion was simply an orgy of drunkenness, as few English or Danish courtiers had their rulers' capacity to hold their drink. According to Harrington, who may have been mischievously fictionalising,[43][44] the masque put on to honour the two kings was a drunken fiasco: "the entertainment and show went forward, and most of the players went backward, or fell down, wine did so occupy their upper chambers".[45]

In 1607, King James took possession of Theobalds, giving Hatfield Palace to Lord Salisbury in exchange, a relatively old-fashioned property that the King disliked.[46] Salisbury had a disposition for building and tore down parts of it and used its bricks to build Hatfield House. Work continued on the house until 1612.[27] He remodelled Cranborne Manor, originally a small hunting lodge, and built Salisbury House (also referred to as Cecil House), his London residence on the Strand.[47]

The Cecil family fostered arts: they supported musicians such as William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Robinson,[48] and the Irish harper and composer Cormac MacDermott.[49] Byrd composed his famous pavane The Earle of Salisbury in his memory. Salisbury's motto was "Sero, sed serio", which can be translated as 'late but in earnest'.[50]

Death

In poor health and worn out by years of overwork, Salisbury, in the spring of 1612, went on a journey to take the waters at Bath in hope of a cure; but he obtained little relief. He started on the journey home but died of cancer,[51] "in great pain and even greater wretchedness of mind",[51] at Marlborough, Wiltshire, on 24 May 1612, a week short of his 49th birthday. He was buried in St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, in a tomb designed by Maximilian Colt.[6]

Portrayals

  • He appears as the character "Lord Cecil" in the opera Roberto Devereux (1837) by Gaetano Donizetti; he also appears in the opera Gloriana (1953) by Benjamin Britten.
  • In the BBC TV drama serial Elizabeth R (1971), "Sir Robert Cecil" is played by Hugh Dickson.
  • IN the BBC2 ScreenPlay episode "Traitors," he is played by Anton Lesser.
  • In the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I, Cecil is played by Toby Jones.[52]
  • In the BBC TV drama series Gunpowder (2017), he is played by Mark Gatiss.[53]
  • In the alternate history novel Ruled Britannia, predicated on the victory of the Spanish Armada in 1588, he and his father organise the English resistance movement against the Spanish with the help of William Shakespeare.
  • Robert Cecil was portrayed as the unsympathetic, conniving antagonist of the play, Equivocation, written by Bill Cain, which first premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009. In the play, it is suggested that Cecil was behind the conspiracies of the Gunpowder Plot to kill King James and the royal family. Cecil was first portrayed by Jonathan Haugen. The character in the show was given a serious limp, and is said to hate the word "tomorrow" and to know every detail about everything that goes on in London.
  • He is portrayed extremely unsympathetically in The Desperate Remedy: Henry Gresham and the Gunpowder Plot by
    ISBN 0-316-85970-2
    ), as malevolently self-centred, exploiting the plot to try to bolster his own position in face of his unpopularity.
  • He is a minor character in the children's novel Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease, where he is portrayed positively.
  • Robert Cecil is portrayed sympathetically in the historical mystery series featuring Joan and Matthew Stock, written by Leonard Tourney, where he is a patron to the main characters. The first novel is The Players' Boy is Dead.
  • Sir Robert Cecil features prominently in Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy's play The O'Neill (1969), in which Kilroy uses Cecil to challenge the myth surrounding Gaelic Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, just after the latter's victory over the English at The Yellow Ford. Cecil's dramatic function is to demonstrate the complexity of history as opposed to simplistic pieties that would turn O'Neill into yet another victim of the English. Cecil 'obliges' O'Neill to reenact the past so the audience witnesses the moral dilemma of a man torn between two cultures and keenly aware of the advance of modernity in a troubled political, cultural and religious context.
  • He is portrayed by Tim McInnerny in the 2004 TV mini series Gunpowder, Treason & Plot.
  • He is portrayed unsympathetically, yet quite humanly by
    Anonymous
    (2001).
  • He was a major character at the 2012 Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, portrayed by actor Nate Betancourt.[54]
  • He was a major character at the 2012 New York Renaissance Faire, portrayed by actor J. Robert Coppola[55]
  • He is portrayed sympathetically in the novel 1610 by Mary Gentle.
  • He is mentioned in Red Winter of the Tapestry series, as a figure possessed by Astaroth.
  • He was played by Christopher Peck in the premiere of the musical Remember Remember by Lewes Operatic Society in Autumn 2008.
  • In the BBC TV miniseries Elizabeth I's Secret Agents (2017, broadcast on PBS in 2018 as Queen Elizabeth's Secret Agents), he is played by British actor Kevin James.[56]
  • He was a major character at the 1995 in the Czech TV miniseries From pranks about queens (Z hříček o královnách) in episode Queen pack of Dogs (Královnina smečka psů), portrayed by actor Ondřej Vetchý.[57]
  • He is portrayed as a main character of the book Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory as John Tradescent's master and lord.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury | English statesman". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  2. ^ "Francis Bacon | Biography, Philosophy, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  3. ISBN 9780191033551
    .
  4. ^ Historic Houses of the United Kingdom: Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial. Cassell, limited. 1892. p. 55.
  5. ^ "Cecil, Robert (CCL581R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 20 May 2022. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  7. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  8. ISBN 978-0-11-440062-0
    .
  9. OCLC 52621466.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  10. ^ a b "CECIL, Robert (1563-1612), of the Savoy, London and Theobalds, Herts. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Salisbury, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 76–77.
  12. ^ a b "CECIL, Robert (1563-1612), of the Savoy, London, and Theobalds, Herts". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  13. ^ Kempe, Alfred John (1836). The Loseley manuscripts. Manuscripts and other rare documents, illustrative of some of the more minute particulars of English history, biography, and manners, from the reign of Henry VIII to that of James I, are preserved in the muniment room of James More Molyneux, esq. at Loseley House, in Surrey. The Library of Congress. London, J. Murray. pp. 317–318.
  14. ^ Birch, Thomas (1754). Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the Year 1581 Till Her Death: In which the Secret Intrigues of Her Court, and the Conduct of Her Favourite, Robert Earl of Essex, ... are Particularly Illustrated. From the Original Papers of ... Anthony Bacon, ... By Thomas Birch, ... A. Millar. pp. 372–380.
  15. OCLC 773025655
    .
  16. ^ Weir p.460
  17. ASIN B0000CKRBS
    .
  18. ^ Graham-Dixon, Andrew. "Elizabeth I: The Rainbow Portrait attributed to Isaac Oliver". Archived from the original on 11 March 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
  19. ^ Morris, Christopher (1966). The Tudors. Collins. pp. 148–149.
  20. OCLC 43204094
    .
  21. ^ Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1863). History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Disgrace of Chief-Justice Coke: 1603-1616. Hurst and Blackett. p. 53.
  22. ^ "Former Chancellors 1592-". Trinity College, Dublin. Retrieved 10 February 2018.
  23. ^ "Former Chancellors". University of Cambridge. 9 March 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  24. ^ Nicholls, Mark "Sir Walter Ralegh's Treason- a prosecution document" English Historical Review CX 1995
  25. ^ Reed, Richard Burton (1970). Sir Robert Cecil and the Diplomacy of the Anglo-Spanish Peace, 1603-1604. University of Wisconsin - Madison. pp. 4–5.
  26. ^ Dartford, G. P (1948). The Growth of the British Commonwealth, Volume 2. Longmans, Green. p. 34.
  27. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8027-7926-7
    .
  28. OCLC 1302080011
    .
  29. ^ Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 10, 1603-1607. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office: Horatio F Brown. 1900. p. 515 – via British History Online.
  30. OCLC 1302080011
    .
  31. ISBN 978-0-7546-5771-2
    .
  32. ^ a b Fraser p.38
  33. ^ Ellis, Henry (1846). Original Letters, Illustrative of English History: 1074-1525. R. Bentley. p. 163.
  34. ^ Thomas Birch, Life of Henry Prince of Wales (London, 1760), p. 138
  35. John Harold Clapham & Eileen Power
    , Cambridge Economic History of Europe: From the Decline of the Roman Empire, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 382.
  36. OCLC 57357505
    .
  37. OCLC 31436362.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  38. OCLC 1035924
    .
  39. ^ "Chronological Survey 1660-1837: The Later Stuart Household, 1660-1714 | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.
  40. ISBN 978-0-299-10294-4
    .
  41. OCLC 174501721
    .
  42. ^ "'James VI, July 1594', in Calendar of State Papers, Scotland: Volume 11, 1593-1595" (Annie I. Cameron ed.). Edinburgh. 1936. pp. 366–398. Retrieved 20 May 2022 – via British History Online.
  43. OCLC 233029390
    .
  44. S2CID 161877266
    .
  45. ^ "Nugæ Antiquæ: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Original Papers, in Prose and Verse; Written ..." Vernor and Hood [etc.] 12 March 1804 – via Internet Archive.
  46. ISBN 978-0-230-33667-4
    .
  47. S2CID 190508545
    .
  48. OCLC 43476823.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  49. ^ Peter Holman: "The Harp in Stuart England", in Early Music vol. 15 (1987), pp. 188–203.
  50. ^ "Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury". National Portrait Gallery.
  51. ^
    OCLC 4230856
    .
  52. ^ "Elizabeth I". IMDb. 22 April 2006.
  53. ^ Fullerton, Huw (18 May 2018). "Who was Gunpowder's Robert Cecil?". RadioTimes.com. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  54. ^ "Bacchanalians, Blackfryars and Directors". Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair. Archived from the original on 6 October 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  55. ^ "New York Renaissance Faire - Home - Tuxedo Park, NY".
  56. ^ "Elizabeth I's Secret Agents (TV Mini Series 2017) - IMDb". IMDb.
  57. ^ "Z hříček o královnách - Královnina smečka psů (útržek anglický) (1994)".

Bibliography

  • Croft, Pauline. Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils (2002)
  • Croft, Pauline. "The Religion of Robert Cecil." Historical Journal (1991) 34#4 pp: 773.
  • Croft, Pauline. "The Reputation of Robert Cecil: Libels, Political Opinion and Popular Awareness in the Early Seventeenth Century." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1991) 1: 43+
  • Haynes, Alan. Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1989)
  • Loades, David, ed. Reader's Guide to British History (2003) 1: 237–39, historiography
  • HMC Calendar of Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury: The Cecil Manuscripts, 1306–1595, primary source.

External links

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Political offices
Preceded byas acting secretary Secretary of State
1596–1612
With: John Herbert 1600–1612 		Succeeded by
In commission
Title last held by
Sir Thomas Heneage
 		Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1597–1599 		In commission
Title next held by
Sir John Fortescue
Preceded by Lord Privy Seal
1598–1608 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Lord High Treasurer
1608–1612 		In commission
Academic offices
Preceded by Chancellor of the University of Dublin
1601–1612 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Vacant
Title last held by
The Lord Burghley 		Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire
1605–1612 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Dorset
1611–1612
With: The Earl of Suffolk 		Succeeded by
Peerage of England
New creation Earl of Salisbury
1605–1612 		Succeeded by
Viscount Cranborne

1604–1612
Baron Cecil

1603–1612
Head of State of the Isle of Man
Preceded by Lord of Mann
1608–1609 		Succeeded by
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