34 THE CECILS
His building operations were extensive, and later in life he incurred a good deal of censure for his extravagance. In a letter of great interest, addressed to William Herlle (August I4th, 1585), he makes light of these accusations. " My house of Burghley," he says, "is of my mother's inherit- ance who liveth and is the owner thereof ; and I but a farmer. And for the building there, I have set my walls but upon the old foundation. Indeed, I have made the rough stone walls to be of square ; and yet one side remaineth as my father left it me. I trust my son shall be able to maintain it, considering there are in that shire a dozen larger, of men under my degree." l
In all of this there is great exaggeration. There can never have been a dozen houses in Northamp- tonshire larger than Burghley. As a matter of fact, Holdenby, the palace of Sir Christopher Hatton, was its only real rival. 2 And though Cecil may have used the old foundations so far as they went, his father's house must have been a mere cottage compared with the completed man- sion. According to Mr. Gotch, only part of one wing the east can be regarded as representing the original house ; and it was this wing which was remodelled and enlarged between 1553 and 1564. The great hall and the kitchen, therefore, belong to this period, as well as the stone-vaulted staircase in the north front, a feature unique in
1 S. P. Dom., CLXXXI. 42. See Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1836, p. 49.
2 See Mr. Gotch's article on The Homes of the Cecils in Jack's Historical Monograph (1904),
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