The Death of the First Earl of Salisbury at Marlhoroiigh. 247 



Robert Cecil (younger son of Wni. Cecil, the Lord P>iu'leigli of 

 the compreliensive nod, by Mildred, dau. of Sir Ant. Cooke), though 

 of delicate health, was a diplomatist ; an M.P. for Hertfordshire, 

 1589 ; Secretary of State, 1591, and 1596—1608. He was instru- 

 mental in procuring the succession of James VJ. to the throne of 

 England. It was a strange reward for such a service that K. James 

 forced Eobert Cecil (who was created 1st Earl of Salisbury in 1605) 

 to exchange Theobalds for Hatfield in 1607. The earl built 

 Hatfield House soon afterwards from the designs of Eobert 

 Limminge ; but death removed the noble owner before his splendid 

 mansion was completed. So long as he lived in that reign " the 

 whole of the administration of the country was in his hands " (as 

 Dr. Jessop says in the Dictionary of National Biography). Robert 

 Cecil was one of the few ministers of that day who did his duty 

 by his country, and did not seek his own advantage. He helped 

 to double the public revenue, and largely to reduce the King's 

 liabilities. He left, however, his own estate £38,000 in debt, so 

 that a large portion of his land was sold to clear it. He suffered 

 from bodily deformity, " wry neck, crooked back, splay foot," a 

 scurrilous detractor said. Queen Elizabeth called him her " little 

 elf " ; King James, his " pigmy," and " little beagle." His health, 

 never vigorous, began to give way early in 1611. In the middle 

 of the year Sir Theodore Mayern, the King's physician, examined 

 him at Salisbury for cancer in the liver, &c., and gave him over. 

 He, however, continued to do his public duties ; but in April, 1612, 

 he set out for the Bath after a temporary recovery. 



An account of his movements and of his last illness was sent 

 subsequently to Dr. James Montagu, Bishop of Bath and Wells, by 

 Mr. Bowles, the earl's domestic chaplain in 1612. This has been 



1 printed in Francis Peck's Desiderata Giiriosa, 4to, 1779, i., 205 — 11. 

 John Bowie, or Bowles, was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 M.A., 1603, Rector of Tilehurst, Berks. In later life he became 

 Dean of Salisbury (July, 1620), when Williams was advanced to 

 the Deanery of Westminster. He was consecrated Bishop of 

 Rochester, 7th Feb., 1629. Like his master, he was an invalid, so 

 that Archbishop Laud had to draw attention to the fact that for 

 1 



