No more is said of the events of the journey, or of Cecil’s negotiations with the Cardinal; but it may be surmised that Pole at first would not look very favourably upon Sir William, as during the correspondence with Somerset, in which Pole exhorted the Protector to desist from troubling Catholics, a somewhat rude communication was sent to him, which in his reply he attributed, not to the Protector himself, but to Cecil. It is probable that Cecil was chosen, because, though outwardly a Catholic, his views were known to be extremely moderate, and at the moment it was these views which were most in accordance with the interests of England and Spain from the point of view of the Emperor and his son. It may be assumed that a similar reason accounts for Cecil’s appointment in the following May, 1555, to accompany the Cardinal to Calais, for the purpose of negotiating for a peace between France and the Emperor. Pole had offered the mediation of England to Noailles some months before, but the lukewarmness of the Emperor, the delay in the appointment of his envoys, and the French military successes in Piedmont, had dragged the matter out whilst an infinity of questions of procedure and personality were being slowly settled. The French Ambassador protested against the appointment of the Earl of Pembroke or the Earl of Arundel, especially the latter, a vain, giddy man, and a friend of Spain, to accompany the embassy. Gardiner, he said, would be sufficient to represent English interests, with Pole as Papal Legate; and the addition of either of the Earls or of Paget was looked upon as an indication of a desire rather to pick a fresh quarrel with France than to negotiate a peace.
Cecil would appear to have occupied quite a secondary position in the embassy, as he is never mentioned in the correspondence between the French envoys Constable Montmorenci and Cardinal Lorraine and Noailles describing the meetings. In any case, the negotiations, which took place at Marcq, equidistant from Calais, Ardres, and Gravelines, speedily fell through, and by the 26th June the attempt was abandoned; in consequence mainly of the insistence of the Emperor in the restoration of the Duke of Savoy to his dominions then occupied by the French. The apprehensions of the French Ambassador had not been entirely unfounded. It had been Philip’s intention to ask the Parliament of 1554 for England’s armed aid in favour of the Emperor, but the indiscreet zeal of the Churchmen had already brought about reaction, and the Parliament was hastily dissolved. In the new Parliament of 1555, Cecil was elected, as he insinuates not by his own desire, Knight of the Shire for Lincoln. In the previous year (February 1554) he had requested the aldermen of the borough of Grantham to elect a nominee of his their member. What would, no doubt, have been a command when he was Secretary of State in the previous reign, could be disregarded under Mary, and the aldermen politely informed him that they had already made other arrangements.[73] It is quite understandable that to so prudent a man as Cecil it would have been much more agreeable to have been represented by a nominee than to have sat personally in the Parliament of 1555.
The Queen’s pregnancy had turned out a delusion. It was seen by the Spaniards now that the Queen herself was but a puppet in the hands of the Council, and that Philip would never be allowed to rule England, as had been intended, solely for the benefit of Spanish interests. The imperial plot had failed; and on the 26th August 1555, the King-consort took leave of his heartbroken wife, and went to his duties elsewhere. As soon as he had gone, as Renard had wisely foretold, all barriers of prudence which had hitherto, to some extent, restrained the persecution of Protestants, were broken down. Philip left with the Queen strict instructions for the administration of affairs, and notes of all Council meetings were sent to him, in order that he might still keep some control. But Cranmer was arraigned, Ridley and Latimer were martyred, the restitution of alienated tithes, first-fruits, and tenths was proposed, the Protestant exiles abroad were recalled, under pain of confiscation of their property, the bishops were deprived, and throughout England the flames of persecution soon spread unchecked.
What King Philip wanted were English arms and money, to aid his father in the war, not the fires of Smithfield, or the blind zeal of the priests to set men’s hearts against the cause of Rome, which was his main instrument. But the Parliament of 1555 and the Queen’s Council were determined to withhold aid to the Emperor’s war as long as they could. Money there was none, the English ships were rotting and unmanned in port, men-at-arms were sulky at the idea of fighting for the Spaniard; but burning Protestants and confiscating recusants’ property cost nothing, and so the game went on in despite of absent Philip. Amongst the threatened exiles in Germany were many of Cecil’s friends, especially the Duchess of Suffolk and Sir Anthony Cooke, who kept up a close correspondence with his son-in-law, but refused to conform and return to England. Whether it was the enactment against these friends,[74] or some other of the confiscatory or extreme measures of the Government, that Cecil opposed in the Parliament of 1555, is not quite certain; but an entry in his diary shows that he was in extreme peril as a result of his action.[75] The entry is, as usual, in Latin. “On the 21st October, Parliament was celebrated at Westminster, in which, although with danger to myself, I performed my duty; for although I did not wish it, yet being elected a Knight of the Shire for Lincoln, I spoke my opinion freely, and brought upon me some odium thereby; but it is better to obey God than man.” The household biographer gives a fuller account of what probably is the same matter: “In this Parliament (1555) Sir William Cecil was Knight for the County of Lincoln. In the House of Commons little was done to the liking of the court. The Lords passed a bill for confiscating the estates of such as had fled for religion. In the Lower House it was rejected with great indignation. Warm speeches were made on this, and other occasions, particularly in relation to a money bill, in all of which Sir William Cecil delivered himself frankly.”[76] One day, especially, a measure was before the House which the Queen wished to pass, and Sir William Courtney, Sir John Pollard, Sir Anthony Kingston, with other men from the west, opposed. Sir William Cecil sided with them and spoke effectively, and after the House rose they came to him and invited themselves to dine with them. He told them they would be welcome “so long as they did not speak of any matter of Parliament.” Some, however, did so, and their host reminded them of the condition. The matter was conveyed to the Council, and the whole of the company was sent for and committed to custody. Sir William himself was brought before his late colleagues and friends, Lord Paget and Sir William Petre. He said he desired they would not do with him as with the rest, which was somewhat hard, namely, to commit him first, and then hear him afterwards, but prayed them first to hear him, and then commit him if he were guilty; whereupon Paget replied, “You spake like a man of experience;” and Cecil, as usual, cleared himself from blame.[77]
During this period Cecil divided his time between Cannon Row, Wimbledon, and Burghley, occupying himself much whilst in the country with farming and horticulture. His accounts are very voluminous, and are frequently annotated in his own hand. Every payment is stated under its proper head—kitchen, cellar, buttery, garden, and so forth; and the whole of the household supplies, whether, as was usual, taken from his own farm, or purchased, are duly accounted for at current prices. The dinner-hour of the family was 11 A.M., before which prayer was read in the chapel, and the supper was served at 6 P.M.; these rules being observed at all his houses, whether he was in residence or not. His charities were always large, and in his later years reached an average of £500 a year; and wherever he had property there was a regular system of distribution of relief to the needy in the neighbourhood. His most intimate friends were still some of the first people in England. As a moderate man he had now commended himself to Pole; Lord Admiral Clinton, a great Lincolnshire magnate, was evidently by his letters on terms of familiarity with him; the Earl of Sussex, the Viceroy of Ireland, expressed himself anxious to do him service;[78] Sir Philip Hoby and Lord Cobham vied with each other in inducing him and Lady Cecil to visit them at their respective Kentish seats; and Lord John Grey, on the occasion of his wife being delivered of a “gholly boye,” begs Cecil to stand godfather to the infant.[79] Cecil’s wife had already given birth to a daughter, and in the Calendar Diary at Hatfield an entry against 5th December 1556 records, “Natus est Anna Cecil,” which event somewhat disappointed both Cecil and his father-in-law, Cooke, in his exile, as they had earnestly looked for a son. Cecil must have been a devoted husband, though probably an undemonstrative one, as the letters of Sir Anthony Cooke always praise him for his goodness, both to his daughter and to himself in his poverty and banishment. Sir Philip Hoby, in one of his hearty letters during Lady Cecil’s confinement, expresses sorrow that Sir William cannot visit him. “You should have been welcome if my Lady might have spared you, to whom you have been as good a nurse as you would have her be to you;”[80] and seven weeks later he writes again (21st February), advising Cecil “to come abroad, and not tarry so long with my Lady, and in such a stinking city, the filthiest of the world.” Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife, Lady Cecil’s sister, were also frequent and kindly correspondents; and the Countess of Bedford, who with her children were left by her husband to Cecil’s care on the Earl’s departure in command of the English contingent to aid the Emperor, referred all her business to him.[81] Cecil’s life, indeed, at this period was that of a noble of great wealth and influence, surrounded by friends, occupied with the details of large estates and with studious pursuits, in great request as trustee and intermediary for other people’s affairs, openly conforming in religion, but of acknowledged moderate views, and keeping on fairly good terms with the party in power, as did Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Smith, Roger Ascham, and others in similar case.
But there was one element of Cecil’s activity to which no undue prominence was given, although it was great and continuous—namely, his communications with the Princess Elizabeth and his prudent efforts in her favour. From his first official employment at court, he had been appealed to by the Princess in questions requiring discretion. When he was Secretary to the Protector (25th September 1549), Parry, the cofferer and factotum of Elizabeth, wrote to him the letter which has often been quoted,[82] in which he gives an account of the visit of the Venetian Ambassador to Ashridge: “Hereof her Grace hath, with all haste, commanded me to send unto you, and to advertise you, to the intent forthwith it may please you, at her earnest request, either to move my Lord’s Grace, and to declare unto him yourself, or else forthwith to send word in writing, that her Grace may know thereby, whether she shall herself write thereof … and in case ye shall advise her Grace to write, then so forthwith to advertise her Grace.… Herein she desires you to use her trust as in the rest.” It will be seen by this that Cecil was then considered by Elizabeth as her friend. Another letter from Parry (September 1551)[83] is still more cordial: “I have enclosed herein her Grace’s letters, for so is her Grace’s commandment, which she desires you, according to her trust, to deliver from her unto my Lord’s Grace, taking such opportunity therein by your wisdom as thereby she may … hear from his Grace.… Her Grace commanded me to write this. ‘Write my commendations in your letters to Mr. Cecil that I am well assured, though I send not daily to him, that he doth not, for all that, daily forget me; say, indeed, I assure myself thereof.’… I had forgotten to say to you that her Grace commanded me to say to you for the excuse of her hand, that it is not now as good as she trusts it shall be; her Grace’s unhealth hath made it weaker and so unsteady, and that this is the cause.”
Elizabeth, in common with most other people, was also very anxious to put her business affairs into Cecil’s hands, and in such matters as leases, sales of timber of her manors, and the like, Sir William’s services and advice were often requisitioned by her. In April 1553 she had serious complaints to make of extortion and malversation on the part of the steward (Keys) of certain of her manors which had been dedicated to the support of the hospital of Ewelme; and she appointed Cecil as the principal member of a committee to examine closely into the whole matter, “as her Grace is determined to remove the violence and oppression, and to have the poor thoroughly considered.”[84] At the time that Northumberland was casting about for a foreign husband for Elizabeth, some prince who, though of Protestant leanings, should not be powerful enough to force her claims to the crown, Cecil seems to have suggested the Duke of Ferrara’s son Francesco, but the proposal came to nothing. It may, however, be accepted as certain that the intrigues of Noailles on the one hand to pledge Elizabeth to marry Courtney, as proposed by Paget, and the persistent attempts of the Spanish party to pledge her to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, found no support from Cecil, since one marriage would have played into the hands of France, and the other would have rendered the Catholics permanently supreme in England; and, as has already been seen, Cecil’s great principle was to keep his country as far as possible free, both from Rome and from France. The consummate dexterity exhibited by Elizabeth during the troubled reign of Mary was exactly of a piece with Cecil’s own management of his affairs at the same period; and although there is no proof that he in any way guided her action, it is in evidence that she kept up communication with him on many subjects, and it is in the highest degree probable that she asked his advice on the vital points, upon which on several occasions her very life depended. Camden expressly says that she did so, and he is confirmed by Cecil’s household biographer; but if it be true, it must have been done with great caution and care, for Cecil to have escaped, as he did, all suspicion when Elizabeth herself was deeply suspected after Wyatt’s rising. Cecil’s advice to the Princess, if given at all, was probably to do as he himself endeavoured to do; namely, to conform as much as might be necessary for her safety, and to avoid entanglements or engagements of every description. This at all events was the course they both successfully followed.
Philip had at last dragged England into war against the wish of the whole of the Council except Paget, though the King had reluctantly to come and exert his personal influence on his wife before it could be done. At the beginning of July 1557 he left her for the last time, and in a month the victory of St. Quentin gave him the great chance of his life. He hesitated, dallied, and missed it; the English contingent sulky, unpaid, and discontented—the Spaniards said cowardly—clamoured to go home, and Philip, not daring to add to his unpopularity in England, let them go. Calais and Guînes fell before the vigour of Francis of Guise (January 1558), for the fortresses had been neglected both by Northumberland and Mary. When it was already too late, the King had urged the English Council to send reinforcements; but his envoy, Feria, crossed the Channel at the same time as the news that the last foothold of England on the Continent had gone.
Thenceforward it was evident that Mary’s days were numbered, and eyes were already looking towards her successor. The war, never popular in England, became perfectly hateful. The people growled that waggon-loads of English money were being sent to Philip, and the Council, almost to a man, resisted as much and as long as they dared, Philip’s constant requests for English aid. When Parliament and the Council had been cajoled and squeezed to the utmost, Feria left in July 1558 to join his master; but before doing so, he thought it prudent to pay a visit to Madame Elizabeth at Hatfield, with many significant hints of favour from his King in the time to come; none of which the Princess affected to understand. A few weeks before the Queen died, peace negotiations were opened between England, France, and Spain; the foolish Earl of Arundel, Dr. Thirlby (Bishop of Ely), and Cecil’s friend Dr. Wotton being sent to represent England. On the 7th November the Queen was known to be dying, and the Council prevailed upon her to send a message to her sister confirming her right to succeed. Feria arrived a few days before unhappy Mary breathed her last, and already he found that “the people were beginning to act disrespectfully towards the images and religious persons.”[85] From the 7th November until the Queen died, on the 17th, matters were in the utmost confusion. All the bonds were breaking, and no man knew what would come next. The Council had for months been drifting away from Philip, and during the Queen’s last days were openly turning to her Protestant successor.
But their duty kept them mostly at court; whereas Cecil, being free from office, went backwards and forwards between Cannon Row and Hatfield, making arrangements for the formation of a new Government when the sovereign should die. Feria writes that on the day the new Queen was proclaimed (17th November 1558), the Council decided that Archbishop Heath, Lord Admiral Clinton, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Pembroke, and Derby, and Lord William Howard should proceed to Hatfield, whilst the rest stayed behind; “but every one wanted to be the first to get out.” When they arrived at the residence of the young Queen, Cecil was already there and the appointments decided upon. Cecil was the first Councillor sworn, and was appointed Secretary of State;[86] the others mentioned above, with Paget and Bedford, being subsequently admitted; and the faithful Parry, her cofferer, elevated to the post of Controller of the Household; whilst Lord Robert Dudley, the son of Northumberland, Cecil’s former patron, was made Master of the Horse.