Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG, PC (1 June 1563–24 May 1612), son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and half-brother of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, statesman, spymaster and minister to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. Lord Salisbury is the one who tore down most of the old palace of Hatfield House and built the new one.

He was vilified by some of his contemporaries and, as is still common today, some of his less attractive physical features were exaggerated to make an ideological point. His appearance in 1588 is described in Motley's History of the Netherlands this way: "A slight, crooked, hump-backed young gentleman, dwarfish in stature, but with a face not irregular in feature, and thoughtful and subtle in expression, with reddish hair, a thin tawny beard, and large, pathetic, greenish-coloured eyes, with a mind and manners already trained to courts and cabinets, and with a disposition almost ingenuous, as compared to the massive dissimulation with which it was to be contrasted, and with what was, in aftertimes, to constitute a portion of his own character..."

Queen Elizabeth is said to have referred to him as "my elf" or "my pygmy", the latter term not to his liking.

Salisbury was made Secretary of State following the death of Sir Francis Walsingham in 1590, and he became the leading minister after the death of his father in 1598, serving both Queen Elizabeth and King James as Secretary of State. He fell into dispute with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and only prevailed upon the latter's poor campaign against the Irish rebels during the Nine Years war in 1599 (see main article: Essex in Ireland). He was then in a position to orchestrate the succession to the throne, which he achieved with aplomb following Elizabeth's death in 1603.

James I raised him to the Peerage on 20 August 1603 as Baron Cecil, of Essendon in the County of Rutland, before creating him Viscount Cranborne in 1604 and then Earl of Salisbury in 1605.

Lord Salisbury was extensively involved in matters of state security. The son of Lord Burghley (Queen Elizabeth's principal minister) and a protege of Sir Francis Walsingham (Elizabeth's principal spymaster), he was trained by them in matters of spycraft as a matter of course.

In 1603 his brother-in-law Lord Cobham was implicated in both the Bye Plot and also the Main Plot, which were an attempt to remove James from the throne and replace him with Lady Arbella Stuart.

Lord Salisbury and the Gunpowder Plot

In 1605 Salisbury was extensively involved in events surrounding the Gunpowder Plot, as naturally would be the case with someone in his position. There are some who argue that he was in point of fact the éminence grise behind the plot itself. On the one hand, if King James lived through it, it would perhaps be a mechanism to move the King's position from one of relative tolerance of the Catholics to one of repression. On the other hand, if the King was assassinated, then his heir, Henry, Prince of Wales, would be made Sovereign, someone more closely associated with the 'Rosicrucianist' networks spreading through Europe, and likely a more pliable sovereign for the English parliamentary state's interests. A number of these arguments are interesting but ultimately inconclusive. Certainly it would not be the only occasion when the agenda of the British secret service was somewhat less desirable than would appear to be for the greater public good.

One of the arguments used to attempt to inculpate Salisbury in the plot are the death-bed allegations of Robert Catesby's servant stating that Salisbury and Catesby, one of the principal Gunpowder Plotters, met on three separate occasions in the period leading up to the events of the night of 5 November 1605. This allegation may of course be entirely unfounded given that the witness may well have been attempting to smear Lord Salisbury.

More interesting however, are the circumstances of the death of another person arrested in connection with the Plot, Francis Tresham, who some argue may well have been an agent working for Salisbury. His death was officially listed as one of natural causes, although some have argued that he was poisoned in order to prevent him from making revelations which would not have been in either Salisbury or Lord Monteagle's interests.

1563 births | 1612 deaths | Tudor people | Lord High Treasurers | Lords Privy Seal | British Secretaries of State | Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster | Earls in the Peerage of England | Knights of the Garter | Chancellors of the University of Cambridge

Robert Cecil