William Cecil 1st Baron Burghley

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Burghley, William Cecil, 1st Lord (1520–98). Cecil, created Lord Burghley in 1571, was the son of Lincolnshire gentleman Richard Cecil. After education at Grantham and Stamford grammar schools, he matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1535. He became part of the important humanist circle of Roger Ascham, Thomas Smith, John Cheke, and Walter Haddon. Cecil married Cheke's daughter Mary in 1541 and entered Gray's Inn the same year. Mary died a year after the birth of their first son Thomas, but Cecil remarried in December 1545. His new wife was Mildred, daughter of the protestant humanist Sir Anthony Cooke.

His political career gathered pace after the early 1540s. According to Cecil's own chronology of his life, he sat in Parliament in 1543. He was knighted in 1551, and became a member of the Privy Council (and the principal secretary) from 1550 until 1553. He spent the last three years of Mary's reign privately in Wimbledon. Cecil's public life began again in November 1558, when he started working on the day of Mary Tudor's death to secure a comfortable accession for Elizabeth. Until he was appointed lord treasurer in 1572, Cecil was principal secretary and the queen's private secretary. He was at the centre of the campaign in 1559–60 to support the protestant lords of the Congregation in Scotland. Like his Privy Council colleagues, Cecil wanted Elizabeth to marry; this was the central political issue of the decade because it involved Mary Stuart, her French connections, Scotland, and the competing ideologies of protestantism and catholicism.

Cecil collaborated with Sir Francis Walsingham in 1584 to involve Englishmen in a ‘bond of association’ to take action in the event of Elizabeth's assassination by catholic foreigners. Although the second part of his Elizabethan career—between 1585 and his death in 1598—is generally viewed as more ‘conservative’, Cecil was still active as a parliamentary patron, co‐ordinator of the Privy Council, master of the court of wards, and lord treasurer.

Cecil's reputation is mixed. Some of his earliest biographers and contemporaries emphasized his anxiety over England's Roman catholic enemies, his political success, and his patronage of learning. Macaulay argued that Cecil was purely an administrator. But Cecil had a keen sense of providence and a strongly apocalyptic view of the struggle between the protestant and catholic European kingdoms.

William Cecil Burghley, 1st Baron , 1520–98, English statesman. He first rose to prominence during the protectorate of Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, and he served as secretary of state (1550–53) during the ascendancy of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland. He avoided direct involvement in Northumberland's seizure (1553) of the throne for Lady Jane Grey and thus did not lose favor when Mary I succeeded. Although he held no office during her reign, he was sent on several diplomatic missions and sat in Parliament. He was reappointed to office by Elizabeth I , whom he served faithfully for 40 years—as secretary (1558–72) and as lord treasurer (1572–98). He continued to sit in Parliament, as a commoner until 1571 and as Lord Burghley thereafter, and was Elizabeth's chief spokesman there, as well as administrative head of her government. One of his greatest skills was his ability to function as a liaison, representing royal policy to Parliament and keeping Elizabeth in touch with its feelings. His personal religious sympathies were with the Puritans, but politically he considered the interests of the country best served by a middle-of-the-road Anglican church, which he supported against both Protestant and Roman Catholic extremes. He urged Elizabeth to marry and perpetuate a Protestant Tudor house, and he supported the cause of the Scottish Protestants against the Roman Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. He was not able to maintain a policy of moderation, however. A succession of Catholic plots against Elizabeth led to increasing harshness toward Catholics generally and finally the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. In the privy council Burghley took a decisive role in the suppression of the Catholic revolts, but he was opposed to the entrance of England into European wars on behalf of the Protestants. This policy was defeated (1585) by the Puritan wing of the council under Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham. Although Elizabeth's favorites often opposed Burghley's influence, his role as chief adviser was never seriously challenged.

Bibliography: See biography by B. W. Beckingsale (1967); C. Read, Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (1955) and Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (1960).

Cecil, William, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–98) English statesman. He trained as a lawyer and held office under HENRY VIII, EDWARD VI, and finally as ELIZABETH I's Secretary of State from 1558. Politically adept, he formulated the queen's policy at home and abroad and was rewarded by the offices of Master of the Courts of Wards and Liveries (1561) and Lord Treasurer (1572). He was created Lord Burghley in 1571.

For 40 years he ensured the stability of the Elizabethan regime. More Protestant in sympathy than the queen, he persuaded her to aid the French Huguenots (1567) and the Dutch Calvinists (1585). He exercised control of appointments to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and was responsible for ordering the execution of MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, whose existence he perceived as a threat to the state. He encouraged new industries, particularly glass-making, and introduced financial reforms.

Burghley, William Cecil, 1st Baron (1520–98) English statesman and chief minister of Elizabeth I of England. He was secretary of state (1550–53) under Edward VI but failed to win Mary I's favour on her accession to the throne. On Mary's death, Elizabeth I made Burghley secretary of state (1558–72) and then lord high treasurer (1572–98). An able administrator, he helped steer a moderate course between Catholicism and Protestantism. In 1587, he was responsible for ordering the execution of Mary.