Family and Education

b. 28 Mar. 1591, o.s. of Robert Cecil†, 1st earl of Salisbury, and Elizabeth, da. of William Brooke†, 10th Lord Cobham.1 educ. Sherborne sch.;2 St. John’s, Camb. 1602, MA 1605; MA Oxf. 1605; G. Inn 1605;3 travelled abroad (France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Low Countries) 1608-11.4 m. 1 Dec. 1608, Katharine (bur. 27 Jan. 1673), da. of Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, 8s. (2 d.v.p.) 5da. (3 d.v.p.).5 KB 6 Jan. 1605;6 styled visct. Cranborne 4 May 1605;7 suc. fa. as 2nd earl of Salisbury 1612;8 KG 31 Dec. 1624.9 d. 3 Dec. 1668.10

Offices Held

Member, Virg. Co. 1611-12,11 N.W. Passage Co. 1612.12

Commr. swans, Herts. 1612, 1619, 1634,13 Essex 1619, 1635,14 Mdx. 1619, W. Country 1629, Suff. 1635;15 ld. lt. Herts. 1612-42, Dorset 1642;16 j.p. St. Albans, Herts. 1612-at least 1641, 1644-d.,17 Dorset by 1614-42, by 1650-3, to 1660,18 Essex by 1614-42, Hants by 1614-42, by 1650-3,19 Herts. by 1614-42, by 1650-d.,20 Kent by 1614-at least 1640, Mdx. by 1614-42, by 1650-3, to 1660,21 Northants. by 1614-at least 1640, by 1650-at least 1656,22 Surr. by 1614-42, Wilts. by 1614-42, by 1650-3,23 Westminster 1618-at least 1640, by 1650-3, 1660-d.,24 custos rot., Herts. 1619-42, from 1650;25 ranger, Enfield Chase, Mdx. 1612-49, 1660-1;26 commr. oyer and terminer, St. Albans 1612-at least 1639, 1644, 1656-at least 1659,27 Home circ. 1614-41, 1654-at least 1659,28 Hertford, Herts. 1620, Dorset 1626,29 London 1629, 1641, 1644-5, 1654-d.,30 Western circ. 1635-42, 1654-at least 1659,31 Surr. 1640, 1644, Herts. 1640, 1644, 1664,32 Mdx. 1644-5, 1660,33 Oxf. circ. 1654-at least 1658, Midland circ. 1659;34 high steward, St. Albans 1612-at least 1640, 1663-d.;35 commr. sewers, St. Albans 1617,36 Herts. and Essex 1623-38, 1645, 1657, 1663, Mdx. 1623, 1635-8, 1645, 1655-7, 1663,37 Lincs. 1623, Rutland 1623, 1634, Notts. 1626,38 Camb., Cambs. 1627, 1631, I. of Ely 1627, Cambs. 1627, 1638,39 Kent 1628, 1645, Northants. 1633-4,40 Westminster 1634, 1645, 1659-60,41 Surr. and London 1645,42 subsidy, Herts. 1621-2, 1624,43 highway repairs, Herts. 1622, preservation of royal game, Herts. 1622,44 commr. inquiry, Cheshunt commons, Herts. 1624,45 Forced Loan, Mdx., Surr., Westminster 1626-7, Dorset, Herts., London 1627,46 knighthood fines, Herts. 1630-2,47 repair of St. Paul’s cathedral 1631,48 member, co. cttee. Dorset 1644, Hants 1645,49 commr. defence, Wilts. 1644, cts. martial, London, Western Assoc. 1644;50 gov. Charterhouse, London 1644, Westminster sch. 1649;51 commr. appeals, Oxf. univ. 1647,52 militia, Dorset 1648, 1659, Herts. 1648, 1659-60,53 assessment 1649-52, 1657, 1660, Dorset 1650-2, 1657, 1660, Westminster 1657,54 drainage, Bedford level, Cambs. 1649.55

Member, council for New Eng. plantations 1620;56 PC 1626-42;57 commr. financial aid for foreign allies 1628;58 member, High Commission, Canterbury prov. 1629-at least 1633;59 commr. knighthood fines 1630,60 fisheries 1630, poor relief 1631,61 transportation of felons 1633;62 capt. band of gent. pens. 1635-42;63 member, Assembly of Divines 1643,64 commr. treaty of Uxbridge 1645, provision for New Model Army 1645, excise 1645, propositions for relief of Ireland 1645,65 Admlty. from 1645, from 1650,66 heraldic abuses 1646, plantations 1646, exclusion from sacraments 1646,67 gt. seal July-Oct. 1646,68 sale of bps.’ lands 1646, complaints about indemnity 1647, managing assessment 1647, navy and customs 1647,69 member, Derby House cttee. 1648,70 commr. scandalous offences 1648, treaty of Newport 1648, removing obstructions to sale of bps.’ lands 1648;71 cllr. of state 1649-51;72 commr. indemnity 1649, security of Ld. Protector 1656.73

Biography

Cecil was born at Westminster in 1591. His grandfather, the 1st Lord Burghley (Sir William Cecil†), had been lord treasurer for nearly two decades, while his father, Robert Cecil†, would help to maintain the family’s political dominance in England for the next 21 years. These two facts shaped Cecil’s early life. He numbered Elizabeth I among his godparents, and began to attend Court regularly by 1603 at the latest.74 His mother had died in 1597, while his father, who was normally preoccupied with affairs of state, treated him indulgently. Cecil possessed little aptitude for formal education. In March 1600 Sir Walter Ralegh† noted his reluctance to study, a problem which was exacerbated by his undisciplined upbringing. Just three months after Cecil’s admission to Cambridge University in 1602, his tutor complained that his academic progress was being disrupted by frequent absences with his father. However, this warning was evidently ignored, and in March 1605 the same tutor observed that, while there was nothing wrong with Cecil’s ‘wit, capacity and memory ... the delights of the Court have greatly estranged ... his mind from his books’.75

In truth, Cecil was much better suited to courtly life. His ‘manly and graceful’ deportment was commended as early as 1603, while three years later the countess of Devonshire described him as ‘a perfect horseman’, who ‘can neither be outridden, nor matched any way’. His status as the heir to James I’s principal English adviser ensured that the king regularly requested his company, while he also found favour with Prince Henry.76 He was created a knight of the Bath in January 1605, and when his father was elevated to the earldom of Salisbury four months later, Cecil acquired the honorary title of Viscount Cranborne, the name deriving from a Dorset estate acquired by the earl in 1601.77 Around the same time, he received degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford, and was admitted to Gray’s Inn. However, these achievements were merely honorary, and by the following year Salisbury was being openly criticized for the unusual amount of freedom that he allowed his son. Somewhat late in the day, the earl registered that Cranborne had not yet mastered the most basic elements of the university curriculum. Accordingly, his tutor was ordered to improve his instruction, while Cranborne was banned from keeping hounds or racehorses until his work improved. Under pressure, he absorbed enough Latin to perform a disputation at Cambridge in December 1607, while a few months later he began a new course of study devised by his father’s client, Richard Neile, dean of Westminster.78

Nevertheless, this stricter regime was shortlived. During 1608 Salisbury allowed his heir back to Court, and placed him in Prince Henry’s service. In July of that year a marriage was agreed between Cranborne and Katharine Howard, daughter of Salisbury’s political ally, the earl of Suffolk. The wedding went ahead in December, but the union was left unconsummated, and Cranborne was instead packed off to the Continent to continue his education.79 James I provided him with an introduction to Henri IV of France, who received him warmly, and predictably Cranborne spent several months attending the French Court.80 However, he was obliged to keep up his academic studies, sending progress reports back to England, and he penned a rather cursory diary in tolerable French while touring the country during the summer and early autumn of 1609. Greatly impressed by the Roman remains in Provence, which he may have inspected in the company of Inigo Jones*, he also briefly crossed into Switzerland to investigate the radical Protestant city of Geneva.81 After wintering in Paris, Cranborne asked to join the prospective French military expedition to Cleves, but this scheme was abruptly terminated by Henri IV’s assassination in May 1610. In the ensuing chaos, Cranborne ignored his father’s instruction to withdraw to the Low Countries, and instead returned to England.82

Back in London, Cranborne participated in Prince Henry’s investiture as prince of Wales on 4 June, helping to carry the king’s train.83 Meanwhile, Salisbury had run into trouble in Parliament over his Great Contract proposals, and he urgently needed new allies in the Commons. When a vacancy unexpectedly arose at Weymouth, the corporation was invited to elect Cranborne, and after an initial refusal he was returned on a blank indenture.84 He took the oath of allegiance on 23 June, having already been named three days earlier to the committee for the New River repeal bill, doubtless on account of his local knowledge as a Hertfordshire resident. Cranborne was also appointed on 23 July to help manage the conference with the Lords at which the Commons requested the exemption of the monopolist Sir Stephen Proctor from the royal pardon.85 He was not recorded as contributing to the debates on the Great Contract, and missed the whole of the final session of 1610, for on 13 Sept. he resumed his foreign travels, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Henry Howard*.86

Cranborne’s second journey was more wide-ranging, and encompassed France, Savoy, Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Low Countries. As before, he enjoyed an automatic entrée to all the courts that he encountered, but this time he apparently travelled reluctantly. Following a serious fever which confined him to Padua for nearly three months, he insisted on returning home, and reached London again in May 1611.87 Supplied by Salisbury with a generous annual allowance of £2,000, he resumed his duties in Prince Henry’s entourage, participating enthusiastically in the Court’s New Year festivities, and riding high in his young master’s favour. In May 1612 he succeeded to the earldom of Salisbury. However, the deaths of his father and Prince Henry, barely seven months apart, proved to be major setbacks in his career.88

The new earl was famously dismissed by Clarendon (Edward Hyde†) as ‘a man of no words, except in hunting and hawking, in which he only knew how to behave himself’. Salisbury’s actual record belies this reputation. Nevertheless, he lacked his father’s political acumen, and proved unable to work successfully with the Court’s main power brokers, such as the Howards, the 3rd earl of Pembroke, and the duke of Buckingham.89 His broad estates and extensive local offices made him Hertfordshire’s greatest single electoral patron during the 1620s, with perhaps 20 successful nominations across the county and its two boroughs. He also asserted patronage rights at Old Sarum, with more mixed results.90 However, he had to wait until 1626 for a seat on the Privy Council, while his subsequent captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners carried no real weight at Court. Salisbury’s patronage of radical Protestants doubtless distanced him from Charles I’s increasingly Arminian religious policies, and he sided with Parliament during the Civil War. Following the abolition of the House of Lords, he sat for King’s Lynn in the Rump, and also represented Hertfordshire in the first two Cromwellian Parliaments. After the Restoration Salisbury sued out a royal pardon, but lost most of his remaining offices. He died in December 1668, and was buried at Hatfield. His son Charles, who sat for Hertford in both the Short and Long Parliaments, had predeceased him, and he was succeeded by his grandson, James, who was currently a Member for Hertfordshire.91

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Authors: John. P. Ferris / Paul Hunneyball

Notes

• 1. VCH Herts. Fams. 113-14.
• 2. HMC Hatfield, x. 459. Claims that Cecil attended Westminster sch. apparently stem from the the dean of Westminster’s role as an adviser on his univ. curriculum in 1608: Rec. of Old Westminsters comp. G.F.R. Barker and A.H. Stenning, i. 172; HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 140-1.
• 3. Al. Cant.; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 343; Al. Ox.; GI Admiss.
• 4. HMC Bath, ii. 56; HMC Hatfield, xxi, 104, 111, 239, 244-5, 247-8.
• 5. VCH Herts. Fams. 115-17.
• 6. Shaw, Knights of Eng. i. 157.
• 7. CP, xi. 405.
• 8. VCH Herts. Fams. 113.
• 9. Shaw, i. 31.
• 10. VCH Herts. Fams. 115.
• 11. HMC Hatfield, xxi. 318; A. Brown, Genesis of US, 542.
• 12. CSP Col. E.I. 1513-1616, p. 238.
• 13. C181/2, ff. 173, 340v; 181/4, f. 178v.
• 14. C181/2, f. 340v; 181/5, f. 28.
• 15. C181/2, f. 340v; 181/4, f. 2; 181/5, f. 28.
• 16. CP, xi. 405; A. and O. i. 1; LJ, v. 193a.
• 17. C181/2, f. 172; 181/5, ff. 212v, 241; 181/7, p. 283.
• 18. C66/1988; C231/5, p. 530; C193/13/3, f. 15; 193/13/4, f. 21v; Perfect List of JPs (1660), p. 13.
• 19. C66/1988; C231/5, pp. 528, 530; C193/13/3, f. 56; 193/13/4, f. 85v.
• 20. C66/1988; C231/5, p. 530; Names of the JPs (1650), p. 26; C193/12/3, f. 45.
• 21. C66/1988; 66/2858; C231/5, p. 533; C193/13/3, f. 40v; 193/13/4, f. 59; Perfect List, p. 31.
• 22. C66/1988; 66/2858; C193/13/3, f. 47v; 193/6, f. 64v.
• 23. C66/1988; C231/5, pp. 529, 532; C193/13/3, f. 68v; 193/4, f. 108.
• 24. C181/2, f. 331; C66/2859; C193/13/3, f. 81v; 193/13/4, f. 127v; C220/9/4, f. 114v; C193/12/3, f. 129v.
• 25. C231/4, f. 89; Names of the JPs, 73.
• 26. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 5, 421; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 588.
• 27. C181/2, f. 176; 181/5, ff. 134v-5, 241; 181/6, pp. 178, 180, 397.
• 28. C181/2, f. 212v; 181/5, f. 221v; 181/6, pp. 12, 372.
• 29. C181/3, ff. 14v, 212.
• 30. C181/4, f. 15; 181/5, ff. 214, 230, 264v; 181/6, p. 1; 181/7, p. 454.
• 31. C181/4, f. 193; 181/5, f. 220v; 181/6, pp. 8, 377.
• 32. C181/5, ff. 169, 175v, 238v, 240; 181/7, p. 303.
• 33. C181/5, ff. 231, 246; 181/7, p. 67.
• 34. C181/6, pp. 10, 302, 370.
• 35. C.F. Patterson, Urban Patronage in Early Modern Eng. 248; CP, xi. 406.
• 36. C181/2, f. 297.
• 37. C181/3, f. 91v; 181/5, ff. 20v, 112v, 114v, 252; 181/6, pp. 67, 221; 181/7, p. 223.
• 38. C181/3, ff. 99, 199v; 181/4, f. 160v.
• 39. C181/3, ff. 219-20v; 181/4, f. 87; 181/5, f. 120v.
• 40. C181/3, f. 252; 181/4, ff. 140, 180; 181/5, f. 263v.
• 41. C181/4, f. 190v; 181/5, f. 254v; 181/6, p. 398; 181/7, p. 37.
• 42. C181/5, ff. 263v, 266.
• 43. C212/22/20-1, 23.
• 44. C181/3, ff. 69, 76v.
• 45. C181/3, f. 128v.
• 46. T. Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 2, pp. 141, 144; C193/12/2, ff. 11v, 22v, 34, 56v, 74v, 90.
• 47. E178/5345, ff. 3, 7; 178/7154, f. 678.
• 48. CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 6.
• 49. A. and O. i. 460, 696.
• 50. Ibid. i. 475, 487, 490.
• 51. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 384; A. and O. ii. 257.
• 52. A. and O. i. 927.
• 53. Ibid. i. 1236, 1238; ii. 1323, 1325, 1432.
• 54. Ibid. ii. 35, 464, 468, 661, 665, 1066, 1070, 1074, 1367, 1370.
• 55. Ibid. 139.
• 56. CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 188.
• 57. APC, 1626, p. 117; PC2/53, p. 207.
• 58. CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 574.
• 59. R.G. Usher, Rise and Fall of High Commission, 357.
• 60. CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 174.
• 61. Rymer, viii. pt. 3, pp. 136, 147.
• 62. CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 547.
• 63. CP, xi. 405.
• 64. A. and O. i. 181.
• 65. Ibid. 609, 658, 691, 723.
• 66. Ibid. 783; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 18.
• 67. A. and O. i. 839-40, 852.
• 68. CP, xi. 405.
• 69. A. and O. i. 905, 937, 1016, 1047.
• 70. CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 90.
• 71. A. and O. i. 1208, 1227; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 277.
• 72. A. and O. ii. 2; CSP Dom. 1650, p. xli.
• 73. A. and O. ii. 149, 1039.
• 74. HMC Hatfield, v. 71; xv. 143; VCH Herts. Fams. 113-14.
• 75. VCH Herts. Fams. 113; HMC Hatfield, x. 84; xii. 406; xvii. 81-2; xviii. 271, 318.
• 76. HMC Hatfield, xv. 143; xvii. 102, 631; xviii. 130, 394.
• 77. Stone, 34.
• 78. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 232; HMC Hatfield, xix. 131, 369, 465-6; xxiv. 140-1.
• 79. HMC Hatfield, xx. 273-4; Chamberlain Letters, i. 259, 268, 273, 300. Claims that Cecil first went abroad in early 1608 derive from two letters miscalendared to that year through a misinterpretation of ‘new style’ dating: Oxford DNB; HMC Hatfield, xx. 50, 104-5.
• 80. HMC Hatfield, xx. 285-6; xxi. 19, 35.
• 81. Ibid. xxi. 123, 104-13; E. Chaney, review article, Burlington Mag. cxxx. 633- 4.
• 82. HMC Hatfield, xxi. 170, 208, 220, 237; Chamberlain Letters, i. 297, 300.
• 83. Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, iii. 179; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 98.
• 84. SP14/55/20, 23; C219/35/1/119.
• 85. CJ, i. 442a, 443a, 454a.
• 86. HMC Hatfield, xxi. 237-8; Winwood’s Memorials, iii. 213.
• 87. HMC Hatfield, xxi. 237-49; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 645, 653; 1611-18, p. 30.
• 88. Stone, 30; Chamberlain Letters, i. 330-1.
• 89. Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, ii. 543; Stone, 115-16.
• 90. L. Stone, ‘Electoral Influence of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury’, EHR, lxxi. 385-99.
• 91. Stone, Fam. and Fortune, 115; HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 285; VCH Herts. Fams. 115.