The Decline of William Cecil, Baron of Burghley.

In this Series:

• A Brief Bio of William Cecil Until his Creation as Baron of Burghley.
• The Baron Burghley's Lifelong Struggle, Home Remedies and Quack Cures.
• The Decline of William Cecil, Baron of Burghley.
• What caused the death of William Cecil, Baron Burghley, in 1598?

We have already reviewed the history of how William Cecil came to be the Baron Burghley, in 1572,¹ and his struggles with a disease that began to manifest in 1563 and was identified as “gout” by 1566.² As the years went on, the illness effected his hands, as well, and he more often dictated to under-secretaries, appending short hand-written notes to those he knew personally. Burghley himself first attributed the weakness and neuralgia in his legs to sitting constantly behind a desk for all his adult life.

The pain and weakness was bad enough to force him to perform his offices of Principal Secretary and Lord High Treasurer periodically from his estates on the Strand, in London, and at his seat in the countryside at Theobalds. While there he delegated his workload to a greater extent and rode a donkey through the grounds dismounting as he felt able to take short walks.

He found it necessary to do his work remotely more often as the years went on. While at the Royal Court he was the only person allowed to sit in the presence of the Queen. By 1596 he was permanently working from his estates, in continuous communication with his son Robert Cecil who was his trusted amanuensis at Court.

This arrangement created a situation calling for the utmost delicacy. The Queen's then Principal Secretary, Francis Walsingham, died in 1590, Already, Burghley unofficially shared the post with him and was grooming his son, Robert, to receive the office. The two performed the duties for the next six years, without the title, until the Earl of Essex called upon the Queen to appoint one of his allies to fill the vacancy.

By 1596, Essex had become Elizabeth's favorite courtier. She was very attached to him and extended him many of the signs of favor once given to the love of her life, the Earl of Leicester, who had died in 1588. He forwarded the name of William Davison to hold the office permanently. When the office must have a permanent holder Burghley intended it be the son who he was personally training to fill it.

The Baron was no longer so young, though, and less up to contending for offices. Essex was Elizabeth's favorite. The situation called for a rare hand-written letter to the spoiled young Earl.

Thus your lordship seeth, how rudely with a weak hand, how discontentedly in the world's eye, and how well contentedly in God's fight, 1 do write at this time; referring all particularities for the ground of your offence to be discussed at your will hereafter.

From my housed Theobalds the 22'd of September 1596.

Your lordship's,

as you will have me at your commandment,

WILL. BURGHLEY.³

Burghley apologizes for his “weak hand”. The letter is dated from Theobalds. He has grown old and he is ill.

Elizabeth knew old Burghley's advice was wise and young Robert Cecil was specially trained by the that wisest and most knowledgeable of her dedicated servants. Moreover, the Baron would oversee all major matters. Having no alternative, Essex accepted the choice in an equally graceful letter.

“Nether my hand nor eie-sight alloweth me to wryte.” he informs Robert on November 14, 1596.⁴ On the following July 4, “I Have redd Sir Ant. Mildmays letter which I do return with a weak hand, as yow may see.” September 13, “SINCE my last writing to yow, I am more unable to write then I was”. The old Lord is slowly declining.

But, weak though he may be, he rallies to meet his responsibilities at the session of Parliament about the get underway. On the same September 13 he continues:

though my body be this very daye at the period of iij^xx. Xvii. [77] yeares, & therefore farr unable to travayle either with my body, or with lively spirits. . Yet I fynd my self so bound with the superaboundant kyndnes of hir majeſtie in dispensing with "my dishabilities, as, God permytting me, I will be at Westminster to morrowe in the afternone, ready to attend the lords.⁵

It is his 77^th birthday, he is deathly ill, and still it is a work day. Tomorrow he will attend his duties to the crown at the Parliament. The bustle will be disconcerting. The hours will be long.

In the words of Nares:

It appears from the Journal of Sir Simon D'Ewes, that notwithstanding his very advanced age, and other infirmities; and though, as it turned out, he had not many months more to live, LORD BURGHLEY was not only able to attend in his place, through the greatest part of this Sessions of Parliament, but to sit upon many Committees; and yet so entirely had he now outlived his early friends and acquaintance, that upon a question of customs and privileges, the case was referred, as the Journal states, "especially to the Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer, the most ancient Parliament-man of any that were at that time present, either of the Upper House or House of Commons."⁶

The performance, however remarkable, took a price. In a letter of October 12, written from dictation, he attaches a post script.

I am worse since my physic, being now Μονοπουσ and Μονοχειρ, but not Μονοcυλυσ,⁷

He has followed up his exertions with the attentions of his physicians but to no avail. That he has suddenly altogether lost the use of one leg and one arm implies a possible stroke. It could, however, be intended to mean that his neuralgia got so much worse that he is effectively without use of the limbs. Either way, the odds being that he wrote right-handed suggests that, having hand-written the post-script, the hand lost was the left hand.

1Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “A Brief Bio of William Cecil Until his Creation as Baron of Burghley.” Tudor Topics, June 11, 2023. https://vgs-pbr-reviews.blogspot.com/2023/06/a-brief-bio-of-william-cecil-until-his.html

2Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “The Baron Burghley's Lifelong Struggle, Home Remedies and Quack Cures.” Tudor Topics. July 2, 2023. https://vgs-pbr-reviews.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-baron-burghleys-lifelong-struggle.html

3 Birch, Thomas, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1754). II.246-7.

4Peck, Francis, Desiderata Curiosa (1779). Lib. V. No. XV. 174.

5Peck, XIX. 178

6 Nares, Edward, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of... William Cecil (1831). 468.

7Nares, 460n. “i. e. disabled in one foot and one hand, but having, however, the use of both eyes.”

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