William Cecil – A man with an eye for the winning horse

Portrait attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

William Cecil – A man with an eye for the winning horse

When William Cecil was born in 1520 he already had links to Court through his father, Richard – a former soldier who had earned a position as Page of King Henry VIII’s Chamber. It was a lowly position but his infant son would grow up to dominate that court for forty years.

On becoming Secretary to Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughter, Cecil would dominate through guile, intelligence, manipulation, spying, fear, wisdom and an acute political nouse which had served him well in his rise to power and saved his skin on more than one occasion. 

William Cecil was an extremely complex character. He could be wise, witty, kind, and extremely hard working. He loved his second wife and most of his children. But he was also hard, even cruel to his first-born son, manipulative and deceptive. He could twist mistakes to seem like a strategy and swear innocence in the face of blatant wrongdoing. He was outwardly frugal – preferring a donkey to a horse when checking his estates – and yet built a monument to wealth and extravagance which stands today in Burghley House. Five hundred years on it is hard to say what he was really like – but we do have evidence of his keen eye for the winning horse and a ruthless determination to ride it.

After a fairly humble education, William Cecil was intelligent enough to enter St John’s College, Cambridge at age 15. He was not shy in establishing connections which would serve his political purposes all his life – Roger Ascham, Bishop John Fisher, John Cheke, John Redman and many others. His university years were full of debate, change, huge national questioning. He also witnessed the harsh side of politics when his friend, Bishop Fisher, who supported Katherine of Aragon in her fight to remain a married queen, was removed and replaced by the ruthless Thomas Cromwell.

Early evidence of Cecil’s willingness to change horses, no matter the consequences for others, came to the fore when he was just nineteen. He fell in love with his friend’s sister, Mary Cheke, who was soon with child. Such was his father’s fury he was taken out of Cambridge and sent to London to study law. Suddenly his world opened up. No more bound by the closed and intellectual corridors of University, William found himself in the middle of political intrigue, change, huge social excitement, and a growing number of influential contacts who saw his potential as a servant of the country.  It seems poor Mary was forgotten. She stayed in Cambridge, bore his son, and then died two years later. Cecil neither paid for nor attended her funeral. Was this circumstance? Was there a good reason? Or did Mary just not fit his future and had become the lame horse?

Two years later, Cecil remarried. This time the match was political, fortuitous, and served his profile well. Mildred Cook was a highly educated intellectual with a bright, political brain and excellent connections to elite society and court. She was a clever and as wily as her new husband.  If it did not start so, it became a love match and Cecil adored her and their children. They became a stable of winners. Young Thomas Cecil, his son with Mary, was always in the shadows.

By 1547, Cecil had friends in high places and was trusted by the powerful. He joined the household of Edward Seymour who, as uncle of the boy-king Edward, had risen to the role of Great Protector.  Cecil, though not a qualified lawyer was given the power to decide cases and acted as an emissary. Such was his influence that he became MP for Stamford in the same year.  

Edward Seymour seemed untouchable. But in the shadows was John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who had his eye on the throne.  The rumour mongering and manipulation began. Cecil looked and quickly saw that the winning horse would likely be called Dudley. Did he stay loyal to Seymour who had given him such power and position? No. Instead he gave secret briefings, wrote articles putting Seymour in the cold and used subtle influence in the King’s inner circle. Within a year, Seymour had been executed, Dudley was in power and Cecil was right by his side.

But that horse was about to fall at the final hurdle to the throne. When the early and awful death of King Edward was seen to be inevitable, Dudley made his play for power. He convinced Edward to create a ‘device’ which bypassed his sister Mary, and made his cousin, Lady Jane Grey his heir. Dudley then married his son to young Jane ensuring that a Dudley would be King and England would remain protestant. Edward’s closest advisors – including Cecil – signed the papers. It was treason.

They thought they could control destiny. But they could not control death. Edward died in July 1553 before the device could be ratified in the autumn parliament and so they had to put a very reluctant Lady Jane on the throne without it being lawful. It was only nine days before her regency crumbled and her so-called supporters, including Cecil, ran for the hills. Mary Tudor rode triumphant into London and Cecil changed horses again, but this would be no easy shift of saddle. His signature was on the documents.

Yet again, Cecil used his guile and the advocacy he had learned in Greys Inn. He spent days crafting a plea, claiming he had signed only as a witness to process and not a deviser of treason. He grovelled. It worked and Mary did not send him to the Tower.

One might imagine that this close shave with certain execution would mollify Cecil’s politicking, but no. When we meet Cecil in The Conjuror’s Apprentice, he is riding two horses.  Mary Tudor was old before her age, racked with anxiety and illness that had plagued her sad life. She was also obsessed with returning England and Wales to Protestantism no matter how brutally. As she moved further and further into the delusion of having a happy marriage, a boy child, and creating a Catholic dynasty close to the Holy Roman Empire, Cecil shifted his attention to her obvious successor, Elizabeth.

So in 1555, Cecil was sitting in two saddles. Externally he was the loyal subject. He kept a low profile, built his connections, built his household, even attended mass though he was a true Protestant. He raised his loyalty profile by joining the entourage to bring home Bishop Reginald Pole, a staunch Catholic and favourite of Mary in December 1554, and then, as depicted in The Conjuror’s Apprentice, accompanied him on a visit to France in May 1555. His clever wife Mildred also played her part, attending court, being the loyal wife, even enthusiastically attending the services of Bishop Reginald Pole in a strategy to keep the lease of the Wimbledon manor which Reginald had his eye upon.  But in the other saddle, Cecil was supporting the secret Day’s Press which railed against Mary’s policies. He created a link to Elizabeth through Lady Margaret Beaufort and soon became advisor and manager of her property. But he was clever and ensured that no meeting was ever recorded. The written history suggests that Cecil met Elizabeth only once in 1558, months before Mary died and she became queen. Yet Elizabeth’s first action on ascending the throne was to appoint her closest advisors. Cecil was made her Secretary. Why would a woman as astute as Elizabeth award such a close and powerful position to a man she had met only once? Logic suggests  she knew him well – but Cecil had made sure that this relationship was well hidden.

So what do we know of the psychology of Cecil? Today we would call him a manipulator. Intelligent, wily, determined, but always bent on power and being the puppet master. He would build a ring of spies which gave him full sight of Europe, let alone Court. He held the reins of power for over forty years until his death in 1598. But he knew that putting on a display and riding the biggest, grandest horse could lead to a grisly fall. And so he kept a low profile and publicly rode a donkey instead of a horse. A perfect metaphor for a man who wanted to hide his true ambitious nature.

Further reading

You cannot do much better than:

Burghley. Stephen Alford, ISBN: 978-0-300-17088-7 for a detailed biography and insight into William Cecil

The Cecils. David Loads. ISBN: 978-1-9056-1555-1 for an excellent history of both Cecil and his favoured son, Robert.