[Memoir of Rev. Richard Cecil, by his widow; A View of the Character of the Rev. R. Cecil, by the Rev. Josiah Pratt; Memoir of the Rev. Charles Jerram.]
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. It is to be inferred that Thomas Cecil at this time had no brother, and hence the birth of Robert, the future Lord Salisbury, must be set down at the earliest some time in 1563. Being of a weakly constitution and a delicate physique, he was educated at home under private tutors. It is probable that Dr. Richard Neile, eventually archbishop of York, was one of them; it is certain he was one of Lord Burghley's chaplains and received his preferments through the aid afforded him by father and son. When it is said, as it often has been said, that Robert, earl of Essex, was his ‘early playmate,’ it is forgotten that Essex was his junior by at least four years, and was actually a member of Lord Burghley's household only for a few weeks. It is said that Cecil entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1581, though if it were so he must have gone up to the university four or five years older than was usual at this time. In 1584 he was sent to France, and probably remained abroad for great part of two years. He was M.P. for Westminster in 1584 and in 1586. In 1588 he was in Lord Derby's train on the occasion of the sending an embassy to negotiate conditions of peace with Spain; and we may assume that his familiarity with continental languages qualified him to act as emissary to announce to Parma the arrival of the commissioners. In the parliament that was summoned to meet a few weeks after the destruction of the Spanish armada, but which did not actually meet till February 1589, Cecil sat as knight of the shire for the county of Hertford, and this year he served as high sheriff for that county. It seems, too, to have been the year of his marriage. Robert, earl of Essex, was at this time high in favour with the queen, and, intoxicated by the kind treatment he had received, his vanity led him to regard himself as a power in the state. He actually hoped to supplant his former guardian, Lord Burghley, and to become the director of the counsels of the nation. Davison, whom Elizabeth had made the victim of her statecraft and ruined for his part in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, was a friend and protégé of Essex, and the earl was bent on restoring him to his old place of secretary. Though Elizabeth would not so far gratify the favourite, she kept the post vacant from year to year, Cecil in the meantime doing all the real work that was required. In 1591 (20 May) he received the honour of knighthood on the occasion of the queen's being received at a strange entertainment given by Lord Burghley at Theobalds. In August of the same year he was sworn of the privy council, but it was not until 1596, during the Earl of Essex's absence on the Cadiz expedition, that he was at last appointed secretary of state. In 1598 Philip II, wearied by his long succession of humiliating reverses in his protracted conflict with England, made overtures of peace to Henry IV. If Spain and France should unite in any friendly alliance, it might be a serious matter for the queen and her people. To prevent such an alliance Cecil was sent over, with his brother-in-law, Lord Brooke, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and some others, on an extraordinary embassy to France, and arrived at Paris on 3 March. Two despatches of Cecil's, giving an account of this embassy, have been preserved. He was back again in England on 29 April. Lord Burghley, who was now in his seventy-eighth year, was beginning to show signs of failing health, and he died on 4 Aug.
After his father's death Cecil's position was one of peculiar isolation. He had nothing like a cabinet to support him, or to share with him the burdens and responsibilities of his official duties. In political sagacity there was none to compare with him, none to look to as a coadjutor who might be trusted, and no friend to whom he could unbosom himself with safety. His gifted mother had died nine years before. Sisters he had none surviving; only one of them had left any offspring. His brother Thomas, lord Burghley [q. v.], can never have been much to him. He had been a widower since 1591. His only son (William, the second earl of Salisbury) was a child of seven, his only daughter a year older. His aunt, Lady Bacon, in one of her letters of this date, expresses her belief that he would be ‘better with a good wife;’ but he never married again. His cousins, Francis and Anthony Bacon [q. v.], had taken their side against him, and looked upon Essex as their patron rather than their cautious and inscrutable kinsman. Always in sore need of money and always greedy for any advancement, they thought there was more to be got out of the dashing young earl, who gave himself all the
