LORD BURLEIGH.

I now come to the next, which was Secretary William Cecill; for on the death of the old Marquis of Winchester, he came up in his room; a person of a most subtle and active spirit, who though he stood not altogether by the way of constellation, and making up of a part and faction, for he was wholly intentive to the service of his mistress, and his dexterity, experience, and merit, challenged a room in the Queen's favour, which eclipsed the other's over seeming greatness, and made it appear, that there were others that steered and stood at the helm besides himself, and more stars in the firmament of her grace than Ursa Major, or the Bear with the ragged staff. *

* The cognisance of Leicester, assumed by his father when created Earl of Warwick. It is well known

He was born, as they say, in Lincolnshire; but, as some upon knowledge aver, of a younger brother of the Cecills of Hartfordshire, a family, of mine own knowledge, though now private, yet of no mean antiquity; who being exposed, and sent to the city, as poor gentlemen use to do their younger sons, he came to be a rich man on London-Bridge; and purchasing in Lincolnshire, where this man was born, he was sent to Cambridge, then to the Inns of Court, and so he came to serve the Duke of Somerset in the time of his Protectorship as secretary; and having a pregnancy to great inclinations, he came by degrees to a higher conversation with the chiefest affairs of state and councils; but on the fall of the Duke, he stood some years in umbrage, and without employment, till the state found and needed his abilities; and though we find not that he was taken into

as the badge of the renowned king-making Earl of Warwick.

any place during Mary's reign, unless (as some have said) towards the last, yet the council on several occasions made use of him; and at the Queen's entrance he was admitted Secretary of State, afterwards he was made Master of the Court of Wards, then Lord Treasurer, a person of most requisite abilities; and indeed the Queen began then to need, and to seek out for men of both garbs: and so I conclude, and rank this great instrument of state amongst the Togati, for he had not to do with the sword, more than as the great paymaster and contriver of war, which shortly followed, wherein he accomplished much through his theorical knowledge at home, and his intelligence abroad, by unlocking the councils of the Queen's enemies.

We must now take, and that of truth, into observation, that until the tenth of her reign, her times were calm and serene, though sometimes a little overcast, as the most glorious sun-risings are subject to shadowings and droppings in; for the clouds

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of Spain, and vapours of the Holy League, began then to disperse and threaten her serenity: Moreover, she was then to provide against some intestine storms, which began to gather in the very heart of her kingdom, all which had a relation and correspondency, each with the other, to dethrone her, and to disturb the public tranquillity, and therewithal, as a principal work, the established religion; for the name of Recusant began then, and first, to be known to the world; and till then, the Catholics were no more than church Papists, but were commanded by the Pope's express letters, to appear, and forbear church going, as they tender their Holy Father, and the holy Catholic church their mother: so that it seems the Pope had then his aims to take a true muster of his children, but the Queen had the greater advantage; for she likewise took tale of her apostate subjects, their strength, and how many they were that had given up their names unto Baal, who then, by the hands of some of his pro

selytes, fixed his bulls on the gates of Paul's, which discharged her subjects of all fidelity, and laid siege to the received faith, and so under the veil of the next successor to replant the Catholic religion; so that the Queen had then a new task and work in hand, that might well awake her best providence, and required a muster of men and arms, as well as courtships and councils; for the times began to be quick and active, fitter for stronger motions than those of the carpet and measure; and it will be a truc note of her magnanimity, that she loved a soldier, and had a propension in her nature to regard, and always to grace them; which the courtiers taking into observation, took it as an invitation to win honour, together with her Majesty's favour, by exposing themselves to the wars, especially when the Queen's and the affairs of the kingdom stood in some necessity of a soldier; for we have many instances of the sallies of the nobility and gentry, yea, and out of the court, and her privy favourites,