But few details of the numerous royal entertainments given by Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his sons Sir Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley and afterwards Earl of Exeter, and Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, are upon record. It is, on the whole, convenient to note here, rather than in ch. xxiv, those which have a literary element. Robert Cecil contributed to that of 1594, and possibly to others.
i. Theobalds Entertainment of 1571 (William Lord Burghley).
Elizabeth was presented with verses and a picture of the newly-finished house on 21 Sept. 1571 (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 772).
ii. Theobalds Entertainment of 1591 (William Lord Burghley).
Elizabeth came for 10–20 May 1591, and knighted Robert Cecil.
(a) Strype, Annals, iv. 108, and Nichols, Eliz. iii. 75, print a mock charter, dated 10 May 1591, and addressed by Lord Chancellor Hatton, in the Queen’s name, ‘To the disconsolate and retired spryte, the Heremite of Tybole’, in which he is called upon to return to the world.
(b) Collier, i. 276, followed by Bullen, Peele, ii. 305, prints from a MS. in the collection of Frederic Ouvry a Hermit’s speech, subscribed with the initials G. P. and said by Collier to be in Peele’s hand. This is a petition to the Queen for a writ to cause the founder of the hermit’s cell to restore it. This founder has himself occupied it for two years and a few months since the death of his wife, and has obliged the hermit to govern his house. Numerous personal allusions make it clear that the ‘founder’ is Burghley, and as Lady Burghley died 4 April 1589, the date should be in 1591.
(c) Bullen, Peele, ii. 309, following Dyce, prints two speeches by a Gardener and a Mole Catcher, communicated by Collier to Dyce from another MS. The ascription to Peele is conjectural, and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 417, claims them, also by conjecture, for Lyly. However this may be, they are addressed to the Queen, who has reigned thirty-three years, and introduce the gift of a jewel in a box. Elizabeth had not reigned full thirty-three years in May 1591, but perhaps near enough. That Theobalds was the locality is indicated by a reference to Pymms at Edmonton, a Cecil property 6 miles from Theobalds, as occupied by ‘the youngest son of this honourable old man’. One is bound to mistrust manuscripts communicated by Collier, but there is evidence that Burghley retired to ‘Colling’s Lodge’ near Theobalds in grief at his wife’s death in 1589, and also that in 1591, when he failed to establish Robert Cecil as Secretary, he made a diplomatic pretence of giving up public life (Hume, The Great Lord Burghley, 439, 446).
iii. Theobalds Entertainment of 1594 (William Lord Burghley).
The Hermit was brought into play again when Elizabeth next visited Theobalds, in 1594 (13–23 June). He delivered an Oration, in which he recalled the recovery of his cell at her last coming, and expressed a fear that ‘my young master’ might wish to use it. No doubt the alternative was that Robert Cecil should become Secretary. The oration, ‘penned by Sir Robert Cecill’, is printed by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 241, from Bodl. Rawlinson MS. D 692 (Bodl. 13464), f. 106.