the least important are the letters of Si-[ of cruelty which render the whole story mon_Renard, Charles V.'s ambassador at revolting. Mr. Tytler publishes the orithe English court. We obtain from it a ginal report of the commissioners, defew hints relative to Elizabeth's connection with Wyatt's conspiracy; and referring the reader to the papers themselves, for particulars, shall content ourselves with transcribing Mr. Tytler's brief summary, which seems to embody the substance of all that has hitherto been disclosed on that obscure point of history.

scribing their interview with Elizabeth, and entering into full details of their conduct: from which it is proved that Fox's narrative is completely erroneous. Another source of misapprehension, which has led some of our historians into error respecting Mary's feelings towards her sister, is also here pointed out (vol. ii. p. 429). Her responsibilities are heavy enough, without needing that any unfounded calumnies should be laid to her charge.

There were two rare qualities united in Queen Mary's character; she was determined in council, resolute and bold in action: but when she had accomplished she purpose, was, Mr. Tytler thinks,

her

These letters of Renard tell their own story: and fol ow each other at such brief intervals that any comment is unnecessary. If I do not overrate them, they add many new and important facts to the history of this period, on which Noailles' despatches have hitherto been the great authority; a slight glance at them will convince the critical reader how differently the same facts appear in Noailles' pages and in Renard's narrative. Both ambassadors undoubtedly had their bias, the one for, the other against, Mary; and, as mild as was consistent with her perbetween the two, we are likely to arrive at some. sonal safety. The letters of Renard show, thing like the truth. As to one point, Elizabeth's that Courtenay, Earl of Devon, was deepconnection with Wyatt's plot, I confess, Renard's ly implicated in Wyatt's rebellion, and letters leave on my mind little doubt of her know- in the eye of the law he was worthy of ledge of the designs of the conspirators in her fa- death; yet Mary not only pardoned him, vour. That she directly encouraged them there is no direct proof; and, if Wyatt wrote to her, but treated him with much kindness, and and the Lord Russell delivered his letter, she sent him to travel for his improvement(vol. could not help it. It may be said, concealment ii. p. 471). Mr. Tytler gives a touching was equivalent to indirect encouragement; but letter addressed to the Earl by his mother we can imagine her shrinking from becoming an (p. 473), and another more curious, but informer, and yet disapproving of the enterprise.' less interesting, from the Earl to the -vol. ii. p. 421. Queen herself (p. 474). More illustrations of Mary's merciful disposition might be quoted.

One of her most unpopular acts was her match with the Spanish Prince; and we extract a description of Mary's behaviour with reference to her approaching marriage, as given in one of the somewhat lengthy despatches of Renard to Philip's imperial father:

'On the following Tuesday at three o'clock,

Queen Mary's knight (Sir Frederick Madden) is more chivalric than her esquire (our author); for the former maintains that personal beauty was superadded to all her other good qualities, a cause in which the latter refuses to do battle; but the esquire's opinion is sustained by all the authentic portraits, of which one is engraved for his second volumethough we wish he had rather obtained the use of that which was taken by the French from the Madrid Gallery, and the Earl of Pembroke and the admiral came to which is now in Lord Ashburton's pos- in a chamber where was the blessed Host, the bring us to the Queen and her Council; here, session. One document now disinterred ratifications of her Majesty and his Highness were contains a refutation of the commonly re- delivered, and the oaths taken by both the one ceived opinion of her severity towards party and the other; but, before this, the Queen her sister, at the time of Wyatt's rebel- fell on her knees, and called God to witness that lion. A narrative in Fox has furnished this marriage was not in her the result of any carnal affection; that it did not originate in ambition, or any motive except the good of her kingdom, and the repose and tranquillity of her subjects; that in truth, her single intention in all she did, was to prove faithful to the marriage and oath which she had already made to the crown; expressing this with so much grace, that those who stood round were in tears. ter this, her Majesty, as she had already done, dropped upon her knees, and requested us to join our prayers with hers, that God would be pleased to give her his grace to fulfil the treaty to which

all our historians, from Strype to Turner, with materials for an invective against Mary. That writer states, that on the day after the rising, the Queen sent three of her council to Ashridge with a troop of horse, to bring the Lady Elizabeth to court, quick or dead;' and he has em bellished his account of the journey, and of the mode in which the messengers performed their errand, with sundry touches

6

Af

she had sworn, and that he would make the mar- got up for him a handsome descent from William riage fortunate. Upon which, the Count Eg- Sitsilt, an intimate friend of William Rufus, in the mont presented to her the ring which your Ma-year 1091; which pedigree (with reverency be it jesty has sent, and which she showed to all the spoken) is said to be drawn by Camden; yet so company (and assuredly, Sire, the jewel is a pre- much doubt hangs over the effusions of Rouge cious one, and well worth looking at). After Dragons and Clarencieux's, when working for this we took our leave, first inquiring whether prime ministers, that, till the proofs are produced, her Majesty had any commands for his Highwe may be allowed to hesitate.'-vol. i. p. 71. ness; to whom she begged to send her most affectionate regards, begging us to assure him that for her part, as long as she lived, she would by all dutiful obedience endeavour to vie with him in mutual love and good offices; she added that, as his Highness had not yet written to her, she deferred writing to him till he began the correspondence.'-vol. ii. pp. 326, 328.

We may indeed. But Mr. Tytler should here have mentioned Cecil's mother,-Jane Hickington, the daughter and heiress of a Lincolnshire gentleman, William Hickington, of Bourne. It was she who brought Burleigh, then a small property, into the family. She lived to a We cannot find room for a description great age, to see her son prime minister, of the marriage, but must refer the reader and to keep (as her letters and other pato vol. ii. p. 430. He will also be interest-pers show,) a very strict and severe scrued with the new proof adduced by Mr. tiny over the farming and planting operaTytler of the extent to which the unhap- tions of the great Statesman, who in her py Queen indulged the delusion that she lifetime managed Burleigh for her. was about to become a mother. There There is a curious portrait of her at Hatexists in the State Paper Office an origi- field, exceeding grim and plain, but with nal letter addressed to Cardinal Pole, and an expression of strong sense. Such signed by Philip and Mary, wherein the were Cecil's ancestors; nor does there wished-for event is mentioned as having seem to be the remotest proof that he had already occurred: 'God has been pleased, any claim to the genealogical honours of amongst his other benefits, to add the the house of Sitsilt; neither do we regladding of us with the happy delivery member, amid all the orthographical vaof a Prince' (p. 469). The anxiety of Charles V. on the subject is strikingly illustrated in a letter from Sir John Mason: p. 470.-But we must restrict ourselves to some one definite object.

Deeply impressed with the historical importance which attaches to the name of Cecil, Mr. Tytler has lost no opportunity of directing attention to him in the course of these two volumes, which embracing that portion of his life, concerning which least of all is known, contain much that is new about this great minister. His biographers, dazzled by the lustre of his acts and high station under Elizabeth, invariably slur over the two preceding reigns; contenting themselves with vague assertions or unsupported conjectures. Let us attempt, with Mr. Tytler's help, to supply this defect. Cecil was born, as he himself informs us, in one of his little memorandum-books preserved in the British Museum, on the 13th of September, 1520.

garies which his name admits of, ever having seen it blundered into Sitsilt by any one of the family. It was alternately Cyssell, Cyssyll, Cissell, Cecyll: and various persons addressing the minister, contrived, by a little gratuitous exercise of ingenuity, to torture the sibilants into combinations yet more uncouth and eccentric. He himself invariably spelt his name Cecil.

This great man, who has illustrated a long and honoured posterity, may well dispense with ancestral glories. Still, however, his progenitors can be shown to have been 'respectable.' In a bitter attack upon him which came from abroad, it is said his grandfather kept the best inn at Stamford, and the writer ridicules his quartering lions in his coat, when a couple of fat capons would have been more appropriate. The greater part of this piece is, no doubt, a mere lying libel; but it is curious enough that in the will of David Cecil, he leaves to his son Richard, Burleigh's father, all the title and interest that he has or may have in the Taberd at Stamford.'

His grandfather,' says Mr. Tytler, David Cecil, esq., was water-bailiff to Henry the Eighth, and one of the King's sergeants-at-arms. His father That David, therefore, had was Richard Cecil, esq., yeoman of the wardrobe. something to do with this inn is clear: it From these facts we may infer that he was de- is possible that his ancestors may have scended from an honest and respectable, rather had a nearer connection with it; but he than from a "very ancient and honourable house," could, we think, have had none but one as his biographers have so often repeated, He belonged, I think, to the gentry of the country. The of property. He styles himself, in his heralds, it is true, in the palmy days of Burleigh, will, of Stamford, in the county of Lin

coln, Esquire;' and in those days Esquire infer from such a report that he gave meant something. In the British Muse-early evidence of that understanding and um are preserved many of his letters: judgment for which he became afterwards they prove that he was patronized by so remarkable. Cromwell, the able but unscrupulous min- The conjecture respecting the circumister of Henry VIII., and seem the pro- stance which first swelled Cecil's sail duction of a worthy man, and of one pos- with the gales of court favour is probably sessing considerable local authority and correct. Sir John Cheeke, as tutor to importance. He evidently lived in some- the young king, must have possessed thing like affluence: but from his enume- considerable influence at court, though he ration of the effects which he bequeathed was a person of inconsiderable origin. to his wife, and to his sons Richard and Baker says,- Cheeke's mother sold wine David, his property seems to have con- in St. Mary's parish in Cambridge, in sisted mostly of farming stock and feath- which quality she may be met with upon er beds. He mentions no large sums of the college books.' By this marriage money; and Richard, as he inherited lit- Cecil had one son, Thomas, afterwards tle, so had he little to bestow. Earl of Exeter; and the next point deserv

6

Burleigh himself, having received the ing of notice in his history has been first rudiments of education at Grantham and distinctly pointed out by Mr. Tytler; viz., at Stamford, at the age of fourteen was that at the age of twenty-seven, ‘he mansent to St. John's College, Cambridge; aged the whole correspondence of the where he is said to have made extraordi- Protector Somerset, probably in the canary progress: his diligence being so pacity of his private secretary.' (vol. i. p. great, that, according to the story pre- 73.) This was in 1547, at which time we served by one of the gentlemen of his may begin to regard Sir William Cecil in household, he hired the bell-ringer to the light of a public man--though the call him up at foure of the clocke every statement that he was master of requests morninge ;-an anecdote which the semi- in that year is inaccurate; he was not apnary priests afterwards turned into an as- pointed to this office till much later. sertion that he was hired as the bell-ring- The period, therefore, when he entered er's boy. This over-application impaired on his public career was precisely that inhis health, and is supposed to have laid teresting epoch with which the volumes the foundation of that malady, to which, before us commence. Somerset, the lord in his old age, he became a martyr. He protector of the kingdom, at that time in had, no doubt, something of the stimulus the zenith of power, was his friend and of the grand Magister Artium.' It is patron; Cecil accompanied the duke on recorded by a contemporary, and evi- his great Scottish expedition in 1547, at dently a partial writer, that one Medcalf, the battle of Pinkey (10th September); then master of that house (St. John's), and he narrowly escaped being killed by seeing his diligence and towardness, a cannon-shot. In the following February would often give him money to encourage him; and Cecil himself in after years declared that his 'bringing up' had been 'mean.'-(vol. i. p. 430.)

We know from his Journal,' says Mr. Tytler, that, on the 6th of May, 1541, when twenty-one years of age, he came to the inns of court. His marriage to a sister of Sir John Cheeke took place in August, 1541, and this seems to me to have been the first thing that brought him into notice; for, Checke being appointed tutor to Prince Edward in 1544, he must have had opportunities of befriending his brother-in-law and yet I suspect he did not even then desert the law, and come to court. The exact year when he did so has not yet been pointed out by any of his biographers, and his Journal is silent.'-vol. i. p. 72.

The traditional account of Cecil's obtaining the notice of Henry VIII., by confuting O'Neill's two chaplains in a Latin argument on the supremacy question, is very vague; but true or false, it is fair to

(1547-8) the protector speaks of him in such terms as seem to show that he managed much of his correspondence (vol. i. p. 75); and this very well agrees with an entry in Cecil's Latin diary, which has misled the biographers. Under the year 1548, he says, 'Mense Septemb. cooptatus sum in officium secretarii,'-meaning of private secretary to the protector. Accordingly, Sir Walter Mildmay and others, addressing him in that year, style him 'Secretary to my lord protector's Grace.'

Perhaps there never was a period of history more trying to a statesman than that when Cecil commenced his career. It was a fiery furnace wherein pure faith and honesty proved fatal to their possessors, and the baser qualities stood a man in better stead. He was most fortunate who could most skilfully steer his barque amid the conflicting currents in the great

ocean of politics; for to resign oneself to | lar circumstances, most men would have the influence of any one of these, and to pursued; and the consequences of his become involved in utter ruin, were the adherence to Warwick was his promotion same thing. The recollection of Cecil's to the secretaryship on the 5th of Septemsubsequent greatness suggests some in- ber, 1550. vestigation of his conduct during this ex- In 1551, the memorable year of Somertraordinary period: and first,--What be- set's second and final fall, our author fel him when Somerset was hurled from again directs attention to Cecil's conduct. place and power in 1549? When the Edward VI. states in his journal that when Duke was deserted by his former friends the Duke sent for the Secretary Cecil to and colleagues-openly denounced as an tell him he suspected some ill, Mr. Cecil enemy by the council, who till that hour answered that if he were not guilty he had done his bidding-Cecil was one of might be of good courage; if he were, he the very few who clung to him. Cran- had nothing to say but to lament him: mer, Paget, Smith, and he, were almost whereupon the Duke sent him a letter of the only friends who remained with the defiance' and on this reply, so cold, Protector at Windsor at that memorable measured, and unkind,' Mr. Tytler promoment when the imperious Warwick ceeds to pass some severe comments: was summoning him to withdraw him- but let us look a little into this. Surely, self from the king's majesty, disperse the before we condemn him for having turned force which he had levied, and be content his back upon his friend and first patron to be ordered according to justice and in the hour of adversity, it is necessary to reason. Of these, Cranmer and Paget examine scrupulously on what the charge proved false to him, but Smith and Cecil rests: now the only evidence is the young shared his imprisonment. Mense No- king's journal, and there cannot be a vembris, A° 3 E. 6, fui in Turre,' says doubt, I think,' says Mr. Tytler himself, Cecil: a statement which has puzzled Mr. 'that the narrative of Edward was the Tytler (vol. i. pp. 245 and 274), but we story told him by Northumberland' (vol. think without reason. The Duke and ii. p. 60). It is proper to remember that Smith were committed to the Tower on Cecil was now a man of considerable the 13th of October: how then says our personal standing--that he had to make author, did it happen that Cecil did not his choice between two ambitious follow them thither till the following chiefs--that it is quite possible he sinmonth? We reply, first, that Cecil's cerely disapproved of Somerset's, and having been in the Tower in November is no proof that he was not sent there in October; and secondly, that, as Mr. Tytler has himself remarked (vol. i. p. 76), Cecil's diary is evidently the work of a later period of his life; and therefore its minutest statements are not to be relied on. The inconvencies attending a residence in the Tower during the nipping month of November probably made the strong impression upon his memory.

approved, as far as he then understood them, of Northumberland's views

and, finally, that much would depend on the language and manner which he communicated with Somerset on the occasion; as to which we have no evidence at all. In October, 1551, he was knighted; and Pickering wrote from Paris, congratulating him on having been 'found undefiled with the Duke's folly.' Northumberland and he lived apparently Mr. Tytler has shown that Cecil obtain- on terms of great intimacy and friendship, ed his liberty 25th January, 1549-50 (vol. as Mr. Tytler shows from a curious leti. p. 274). The fact is interesting; but ter in which the Duke assures him that still more interesting and extraordinary he will not fail to visit his father, in his is the fact that, on his release, he possess progress through Lincolnshire, were it ed the regard not only of Somerset but only 'to drink a cup of wine with him at the also of Warwick. That he should have door; for I will not trouble no friend's been obliged to sacrifice the Duke's house of mine otherwise in this journey,' friendship in order to obtain a share of says the magnificent Northumberland, the Earl's confidence seems only natural; my train is so great, and will be, whether but Mr. Tytler appears to think that he I will or not' (vol. ii. p. 111). 'It must did not then do so (vol. i. pp. 276-7). have gratified old Richard Cecil,' obWarwick must have been deeply impress- serves Mr. Tytler, 'to see the boy who ed with Cecil's merit and value: Cecil, had left his roof with no such bright who was now twenty-nine, pursued the prospects, return to it secretary of state, path which it is probable that, under simi- and friend and confidant of the first man

in the realm. But had he known the under consideration (pp. 191 to 206), cares and dangers of the office, he would where an extraordinary paper is published have hesitated to change his own cloth of in illustration of Cecil's conduct. It is frieze for his son's cloth of gold.' Cecil entitled A brief Note of my submission seems to have deeply felt the restraint to and of my Doings,' and was presented by which Northumberland's imperious tem- himself to the Queen. He endeavours to per subjected him. In a remarkable en- exculpate himself on the grounds,-1st, try in his private diary, he describes himself as having no will of his own under Edward, and as only recovering the rights of a free agent by the death of the young king, Libertatem adeptus sum, morte Regis; et ex misero aulico factus liber et mei juris.'

of his having acted on compulsion--‘I did refuse to subscribe the book, when none of the council did refuse; in what peril I refer it to be considered by them who knew the duke;' 2dly, of his having participated, to the least possible extent, in the treasonable practices of NorthumWe must find room for another extract. berland, or rather of his having secretly 'Cecil's desertion of Somerset, and his devoted. acted against him, e. g. 'I dissembled the ness to Northumberland, brought him to the brink taking of my horse, and the rising of Linof a precipice. The moment of trial was now colnshire and Northamptonshire, and come, and it is curious to trace him under it; yet let us do it with every allowance. The times were dreadful, and, in the vocabulary of statesmen, to lose your place and to lose your head were then almost convertible terms. On his first suspicion of the desperate game which Northumberland was playing, Cecil appears to have adopted an expedient not uncommon in those days with councillors who wished to get rid of a dangerous question. He became very sick, and absented himself from court. This, at least, is Strype's conjecture, and there is every reason to believe it correct. Many of his friends, however, thought him really ill, and amongst these, Lord Audley, who loved and studi. ed the healing art, undertook his cure, as appears by the following humorous recipe and epistle.'

Cecil's disease was deeper fixed than to be cured by soup formed from the distillation of a sow. pig boiled with cinnamon and raisins, or of compost of a porpin or hedge-hog stewed in red wine and rosewater. It was Northumberland's plot that troubled his digestion.'-vol. ii. p. 171.

avowed the pardonable lie where it was suspected to my danger.'

All this seems rather shabby; but he was pardoned, though he lost all his places. It is not wonderful that he should seem to have taken little part in public affairs during Mary's reign; though we strongly suspect not so much because he could not have acquired a larger share of influence and authority, as because he did not choose to contend for any. But while he shunned all public business, he continued to be the private adviser of Elizabeth. Write my commendations in your letters to Mr. Cecil,' said the Princess to Parry, her cofferer, in 1551; 'I am well assured, though I send not daily to him, that he doth not, for all that, daily forget me: It must be unnecessary to do more than say, indeed, I assure myself thereof.' (vol. remind the reader of the daring scheme i. p. 426.) He foresaw that, provided of the last-named ambitious peer to divert Queen Mary died without issue, a few the succession into his own family, and short years, could he but be successful of the reluctance of the council to com- in surmounting them in safety, would reply with his wishes. Cecil was as loth as store the religion and the government of the rest to affix his signature to the king's the country to that footing on which it will, and at first was so fearful of be- was the wish of his heart to see them placoming implicated in any of Northumber- ced. When, therefore, we find him folland's proceedings, that he, as we have lowing Paget and Hastings to the court seen, absented himself from the council of the emperor for the purpose of conon the plea of sickness. This was from the 22d April to the 2nd June, 1553, at which time Lord Audley prescribed his hedgehog soup. His signature, however, in common with that of the rest of the council, was obtained by Northumberland, and he was thus made accessary to an act directly hostile to Queen Mary.

ducting to this country Cardinal Pole, we feel less inclined to believe, with Mr. Tytler, that he 'cultivated with assiduity the friendship of Cardinal Pole, the great man of the day, to whom Mary gave her chief confidence' (vol. ii. p. 475), than to suspect that Cecil absented himself as a measure of precaution; too happy to be This placed him in a critical position out of the way of those trials to which all on her accession. Northumberland on Protestants (especially such as had enthe scaffold, and the Roman Catholic party joyed favour in the preceding reign) were triumphant, were appalling changes. We exposed. Cecil's name does not occur in must content ourselves with a general the instructions with which Paget and reference on this subject to the volumes Hastings were furnished (vol. ii. p. 445),