A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



of meadow by the name of the manor of Little Burgh- 

 ley, late the possession of Michael dc la Pole, to John 

 de Hermcsthorp and others,' and in the same year 

 Michael, son of the attainted earl with his wife 

 petitioned for the restitution of the manor, the 

 reversion of which had been granted to Richard Ic 

 Scrope, Edmund de la Pole and other trustees before 

 Jiis father's attainder, to be settled on him and his wife.' 

 The petition was apparently favourably answered, for 

 in 1398 the trustees recovered the manor of Little 

 Burghley against Baldwin Harrington and Richard 

 Fourneys,' and in 1434 it was settled on William de 

 ]a Pole, son of the petitioner in 1 390, and Alice his 

 •wife.* They sold it a few years later to Ralph 

 Lord Cromwell,' from whose heirs, Joan, the wife of 

 Sir Humphrey Bourchier and Maud, wife of Sir 

 •Gervase Clyfton, all right in the manor was bought 

 by John Milton alias Laurence, husband of Elizabeth 

 daughter and heiress of Gervase Wykes, real owner in 

 tail of the manor.' She survived her husband, and died 

 holding Burghley in 1490, leaving as her heir Henry 

 Wykes, son of John Wykes, brother of Gervase.' He 

 died without heirs and the manor passed, by his will, 

 to Margaret, grand-daughter of Richard, youngest 

 brother of Gervase Wykes, the wife of Henry Cham- 

 bers alias H.import and to Thomas Williams, junior.' 

 These two sold the manor 

 in 1526-8 to David Cecil, 

 grandfather of William, first 

 Lord Burghley, the minister of 

 Queen Elizabeth.' 



Burghley House is one of 

 those great houses which sprang 

 up in such remarkable pro- 

 fusion during the reign of 

 Elizabeth, and which were in 

 many cases the work of her 

 great officers of state, or of 

 her judges and other offi- 

 cials connected with the law. 

 There were detractors of Lord 



Burghley who took exception to the amount of 

 building in which he indulged, and who called atten- 

 tion to the fact that, in addition to Burghley House, 

 he had a large residence in London and another 

 within a short distance at Theobalds. He took 

 occasion, in the year 158;, to answer these detrac- 

 tions in a letter to a friend,'" wherein he pointed out 

 that Theobalds had outgrown its original dimensions 

 owing to his having to entertain the Queen there so 

 frequently ; that his house at Westminster was so old 

 that ' it should not stir any ' ; and that Burghley was 

 his mother's, who lived there and was the owner ; 

 that he had but set his walls upon the old foundation, 

 ;ind that one side still remained as his father left it 

 him. 



In thus making light of his work at Burghley, the 

 lord treasurer must have allowed his modesty to 

 obscure his veracity, for by the year 1587 — that is 

 two years after he wrote this letter— the house was 

 completed on its present extensive lines, indeed on 



Cecil. Barry of ttn 

 piecei argent and axure 

 six icutcheont table xvith a 

 lion argent in each. 



lines even more ample, and it must have covered an 

 area some five times larger than that of his father's 

 mansion. The older house occupied what is now the 

 east side of the inner court, and no doubt some of its 

 walls still remain incorporated in the present building, 

 for an earlier window and some decoration of the 

 second quarter of the 16th century have escaped 

 destruction, and may yet be seen in a room over the 

 saloon, approached with difficulty from the stairs 

 leading to the minstrels' gallery of the hall. Shortly 

 after his father's death, which occurred in 1553, Sir 

 William Cecil must have begun to enlarge the old 

 house, since a considerable number of letters are 

 prescn'ed among the state papers" referring to building 

 operations between the years 1556 and 1564. To 

 this period may be ascribed the great hall, the kitchen, 

 the range of rooms between them, and also the 

 remarkable stone staircase on the north front. The 

 great hall is a fine apartment, large and lofty, with 

 an open timbered roof designed after the manner to 

 which carpenters had been accustomed for some cen- 

 turies. The screen at the entrance still remains, but the 

 da(s, which invariably occupies the upper end of the 

 hall, has disappeared. The kitchen is vaulted with stone 

 ribs supporting an octagonal eye in the centre, above 

 which is the ventilating lantern, a construction which 

 is also reminiscent of mediaeval methods. The stone 

 staircase, with its coffered vaulting, is unique of its kind 

 in England, but it is a type which was very prevalent 

 in France in the time of Francis L Cecil was 

 keenly interested in architecture, and more than one 

 letter of his contains a request to correspondents in 

 France to send him a copy of the latest books on the 

 subject. Nothing is more likely, therefore, than that 

 he obtained the idea of this staircase from a French 

 source. 



After this enlargement of the old house there was 

 probably an interval of some ten years before further 

 building was begun, but by the year I 577 the whole 

 of the three other sides of the inner court must have 

 been started, since that date appears on the stone 

 vaulting of the west entrance ; and during the next 

 ten years the court must have been in progress, as the 

 date 1585 occurs on the clock-tower, and 1587 on 

 the parapet over the north entrance, thus marking 

 the completion of the work. The character of the 

 design is fairly typical of the period ; it stands half- 

 w.iy between the plain muUioned treatment of the 

 simple manor-house and the over-elaborate ornament 

 of some of the great houses, such as Wollaton near 

 Nottingham. Heraldry is, as usual, introduced in 

 many places. The Cecil crest, derived from a Winston 

 ancestor — a garb supported by two lions — does duty 

 in the parapet, as also does a tower, which is a charge 

 from one of the quarterings of the family (Carlyon). 

 The Cecil shield of arms, surrounded by the garter, 

 serves as a clock face in the tower, and this shield is 

 supported by two huge lions, well modelled and 

 standing in silhouette. The coffered arches of the 

 tower are also adorned with heraldic badges, and 

 the compartments of the vaulting at the west 



' Pat. 13 Ric. II, pt. ii, ni. 18. 

 3 Chan. Inq. p.m. 13 Ric. II, No. 41 ; 

 llarl. Chart. 54 C. 9. 



* Close, 21 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 2. 



* Harl. Chart, 43 E. 19 ; 45 I. 12 ; 50 

 H. 27 ; 50 H. 28 ; 54 I. 15 ; Add. Chart 

 (B.M.), 20X6. 



* Feet of F. Div. co. 2i Hen. VI, 

 No. 7. 



* Peck, DesiJerata Curiosa, p. 79 ; 

 Feet of F. Northants, 3 Edw. IV, 

 No. 17. Peck quotes from documents 

 belonging to the Cecil family. 



7 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), v. 64. 

 ' Peck, Deiiderala, p. 79. 



» Feet of F. Div. co. Mich. 18 Hto, 

 VIII, East. 20 Hen. VIII. 



'" S.P. Dom. clixii, 42. It is printed 

 at length in the Biograpbia Britannica and 

 in Gent. Mag. vol. cvi, pt. i, p. 149. 



" Printed in Tram. R.l.B.A. vol. vi 

 (New Ser.), 1890. 



