CECIL, James (1691-1728)

Born into the politically weighty Cecil dynasty to the accompaniment of ‘sack and claret plenty’, James Cecil succeeded to the earldom of Salisbury as a young child and inherited an estate encumbered with legacies and debts. HHM, Cranborne Letters, 1680-9; Estate pprs. Gen. 131/22. He remained under the guardianship of his mother while his lands, manors and advowsons were administered by trustees appointed under his father’s will, including Ebenezer Sadler, agent to the 4th earl. HHM, Estate pprs. Legal 16/4; Verney, ms mic. M636/51, J. Churchill to Sir J. Verney, 30 Apr. 1702; List of the Queen’s Scholars at St. Peter’s College, Westminster, 179, 209. The Cecils’ election interests in both Hertford and the county (but not that of Salisbury’s Whiggish uncle Robert Cecil^‡) were also maintained by Sadler and his subordinates during the earl’s minority. HP Commons 1690-1715, iii. 501; HHM, Family pprs. Supplement, iii. 64, 65, 93, 98, 102, 114, 117. By the time Salisbury went up to Oxford, he was regarded by his tutor as ‘a gentleman of excellent parts, principles and temper ... intent in observing our little rites and ceremonies’. HMC Ormonde, n.s. viii. 162. His sixteenth birthday was celebrated in Oxford with week long festivities attended by 28 ‘merry Hertfordshire gentlemen’, including the Tory Charles Caesar^‡, Commons Member for Hertford. Add. 28052, f. 119; HHM, Family pprs. x. 234.

A stalwart Tory Anglican whose tutors ensured his orthodoxy, Salisbury nevertheless took an interest in both protestant and Catholic nonconformity; he purchased books on a wide range of religious topics and in 1706 he gave a guinea to ‘Bugg the Quaker’. HHM, Estate pprs. Bills 470/1; Accounts 79/5. In fact by 1700 Francis Bugg (1640-1727) had deserted the Society of Friends and begun a campaign of abuse directed against Quakers, and it is possible that Salisbury was helping to fund Bugg’s stream of vitriolic publications. Salisbury’s care to steer a steady Anglican course was evident in 1708 when a non-juror dedicated a doctrinal treatise to the young earl; Salisbury ‘having not been desired this favour, and thinking to patronize a non-juror would be taken ill by the government, refused to accept it, and it was returned back.’ Family pprs. x. 234.

At the May 1708 election for Hertford, Salisbury’s agent laid out numerous sums in electioneering expenses, including the entertainment of two Hertford freemen the night before the election. HHM, Estate pprs. Accounts 149/13. Fourteen shillings were spent on engaging votes for the Tory Charles Caesar ‘by my lord’s order’. HHM, Estate pprs. Bills 425. With the Whig Junto in the ascendancy in central government (and William Cowper, Baron Cowper, as lord chancellor purging the Hertfordshire bench of Tories), Caesar and the Tory, John Dimsdale, were defeated in a contested election, but the Tories retained their grip on the county. HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 279. The county elections of 1705 and 1708 for Hertfordshire also involved Salisbury (still a minor) in expenditure at ten different locations, including Hertford, Hatfield and St Albans. HHM, Estate pprs. Accounts 149/10. Despite his minority, it is clear that he was regarded as a standing political influence; on 14 Feb. 1708 he was contacted by the Tory George Smalridge, later bishop of Bristol, about election matters. Smalridge hoped that the Salisbury interest would ‘receive considerable strength by the return of some able gentlemen to their former friends: they meet with a very cheerful reception, and will, it is believed, join heartily in promoting that cause in Parliament which they found they could not serve at court, and therefore left it.’ HHM, Estate pprs. Gen. 73/15. By May 1708, secretary of state Sir William Trumbull^‡ learned that ‘Church people’ were overjoyed at their success in the Hertfordshire election despite Cowper having promoted ‘the Whigs’ interest. HMC Downshire, i. 858. Salisbury and his mother continued to enjoy the bounty of the Salisbury estate but to Ebenezer Sadler’s dismay, ‘scattered all the fat bucks abroad before the season was half over’, leaving the stock so diminished that the countess refused to spare venison for hospitality or to buy in new stock and ‘checked’ the young Salisbury’s demands for a buck to entertain friends at Oxford. Ibid. 861.

By January 1709 the society gossips were busy with news of the imminent marriage of the 18-year-old Salisbury to the daughter of the earl of Thanet. Add. 70149, Lady A. Pye to A. Harley, 21 Jan. 1709; HMC Downshire, i. 869. The marriage took place the following month in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 45, f. 311. In December 1709 Salisbury was admitted a member of the Board of Brothers, a Tory dining club under the presidency of Henry Somerset, 2nd duke of Beaufort. Add. 49360, f. 10. His religious sympathies were made apparent by his offer of the next vacancy of the living of Hatfield (worth £800 a year) to Dr. Sacheverell. Add. 72495, ff. 2-3. With the dissolution of Parliament in September 1710 and a fiercely contested general election, Salisbury’s interest in Hertfordshire was pressed home. The Tories Caesar and Richard Goulston^‡ were returned for Hertford borough, but the county candidate, Ralph Freman^‡, forewarned Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, that Cowper’s appointment as lord lieutenant of the county would lead to Salisbury feeling neglected ‘and … as the greatest support of a different interest, that we were now in hopes would be lessened.’ Add. 70026, f. 85. The Hertfordshire electorate, nevertheless, followed the national pattern, and Ralph Freman^‡ and Thomas Halsey^‡ were subsequently elected for the county. On reaching his majority Salisbury replaced Cowper as lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire (only to lose the position to Cowper in 1714).

The young peer’s finances were precarious and made all the worse by his extravagance. He benefited from significant loans from Trumbull but stopped paying interest on them in or about the spring of 1710. Add. 72491, ff. 44-45. Sadler despaired of him; in 1711 he told Trumbull that,

there appears no prospect of matters mending with us unless some extraordinary course be taken. Your principal debtor takes as little care or notice of the debts upon his estate as if he were no way concerned with them. His study seems to be how to spend only, and his expenses since his marriage (tho he had a year’s board gratis) have more than doubled his income. … I am the only person living that have remonstrated and laid these matters plainly before him, so miserable is his case that not one relation, one person of quality, not one friend in all the world, will admonish or advise him. And in truth he has put it out of their power by abandoning all acquaintance and conversation with people of quality & consuming his time and money among little scoundrel officers and scandalous rakes, who draw him into daily excesses & mad motions to the hazard of his life every day he rises. Add. 72541, ff. 17-19.

By December 1711 the debt (capital plus interest) amounted to some £10,000. Correspondence about the debt and arrears continued for some two years, despite Salisbury promising to sell lands in order to pay Trumbull as soon as he came of age. The negotiations over repayment later resulted in attempts to obtain a private bill. Add. 72541, passim; Add 72491, f. 94; Add. 72492, passim; HMC Downshire, i. 897, 899. It was not until the death of the dowager countess released £6,000 a year to the earl in the summer of 1713 that Trumbull eventually got his money. Add. 72492, f. 110; Add. 72496, ff. 96-97; Add. 72501, ff. 34, 37.

On 9 June 1712, the day after Salisbury’s twenty-first birthday, he took his seat in the House. His parliamentary career proved to be lacklustre. In his first parliamentary session, Salisbury attended 12 per cent of sittings; his subsequent attendance levels barely scraped above a quarter of all sittings in any session before 1715. During his absences from the House, he always entered his proxy in favour of his friend and fellow member of the Board of Brothers, Nicholas Leke, 4th earl of Scarsdale. In February 1713, Oxford, who had been kept informed of the movements of the underage Salisbury through Ebenezer Sadler, made a note that he should contact Salisbury before the start of the session. Once Salisbury attained his majority, he began to use his own interest with Oxford for favours for family members. HMC Portland, x. 119, 484. He arrived at the House on the first day of the April 1713 parliamentary session and attended 27 per cent of sittings – a relatively high level for him which may reflect his interest in securing the passage of the bill that would enable him to sell property and pay Trumbull. On 13 May the judges reported on Salisbury’s petition to bring in the bill and the House ordered its first reading. On 2 June John Somers, Baron Somers, reported from the committee, and the House ordered the engrossment of the bill without amendments. It was steered though the Commons by Ralph Freman, the Tory member for Hertfordshire who had stood on the earl’s interest. Dealing with Salisbury was clearly somewhat difficult; one of Trumbull’s correspondents referred to Salisbury as ‘that odd creature’; another remarked that Salisbury was neither ‘tractable’ nor ‘punctual’. Add. 72496, ff. 96-97; Add. 72500, f. 57.

On 13 June 1713 Oxford estimated that Salisbury would support the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He missed the last four weeks of parliamentary business up to the dissolution of August. During the elections for Hertford borough, Salisbury’s agent again laid out various sums for beer, wine and brandy in support of Caesar and Goulston, and he made a number of financial gifts and loans for the same purpose. He also paid the travel expenses of Hertford voters to travel to the county elections the following month. HHM, Estate pprs. Bills 479. All of Salisbury’s candidates were successful.

Salisbury arrived at the House on 9 Mar. 1714, nearly four weeks into the next session, together with his distant cousin, John Cecil, 6th earl of Exeter. He attended 15 per cent of sittings. On 15 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of the earl of Scarsdale (vacated 11 May). It was almost certainly given for the support of the ministry in the divisions of April on the danger to the Protestant Succession. On 27 May, Salisbury was forecast by Oxford as a supporter of the schism bill. He attended only sporadically over the passage of the bill and on 3 June, 28 June and 6 Aug. again registered proxies in favour of Scarsdale (vacated on 4 June, 4 Aug. and the end of the session respectively). He was not present for the division of 11 June on extending the bill to Ireland but attended the House on 15 June when the measure passed the Lords by an eight vote majority.

In August 1714, Salisbury attended only two sittings of the brief first Parliament in the reign of George I. On 20 Oct. he carried St Edward’s staff at the king’s coronation. The following spring, he arrived at the House nearly three weeks after the start of the session. His parliamentary career up to 1728 will be examined in the next phase of this work (1715-90). Like his father, Salisbury died young. Aged only 37, he died on 9 Oct. 1728 and was buried at the family seat of Hatfield House nine days later.