CECIL, Richard (1570-1633), of Collyweston and Wakerley, Northants.

Cecil was provided with a lengthy education, including several years of travels abroad. His father held the liberty of Peterborough, and doubtless secured Cecil’s election for the borough in 1604. L.B. Gaches, Liberty of Peterborough, 43-5. In the opening session his only appointment was to consider a bill to sever the entail on the Holdenby estate for the benefit of Sir Christopher Hatton* (29 June 1604). CJ, i. 249a. Cecil left no trace on the records of the second session, but in the third he was named to the committee for a bill to enable his uncle, the 1st earl of Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), to convey Theobalds to the king in exchange for Hatfield (30 May 1607). Ibid. 377a. Upon his appointment in 1607 as bailiff of the Crown manor of Collyweston, where his ancestors had held land since 1553, Cecil took up residence in the ‘handsome and elegant house’ built by Lady Margaret Beaufort. VCH Northants. ii. 552, 553; Bridges, Northants. ii. 436-7. In the fourth session of the Parliament he was named the supply conference of 15 Feb. 1610, at which Salisbury proposed the Great Contract. He was also appointed to bills committees concerning pluralities (19 Feb.), subscription (14 Mar.), and hawking (29 March). CJ, i. 393b, 396b, 410b, 416a. His final recorded activity was to attend the king on 24 May with the address against impositions. He left no trace on the records of the brief fifth session. CJ, i. 432a.

At the general election of 1614 Cecil was returned for the family borough of Stamford, four miles from Collyweston. Stamford Town Hall Archive, 2A/1/1, f. 309. In the Addled Parliament his appointments included the conference of 14 Apr. on the Palatine marriage settlement, and a bill to naturalize two daughters of his brother’s most distinguished rival, Sir Horace Vere (17 May). On 29 May Cecil was one of the Members who accompanied the Speaker to explain the ‘forbearance’ of business to the king. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 82, 268, 377.

As heir to his nephew Lord Roos, who died in Naples in 1618, Cecil partitioned the estates with the 6th earl of Rutland, increasing his income by £600 p.a. This included the manor and advowson of Wakerley, seven miles from Stamford, where he took up residence, though ‘having occasion to be much from thence’, and he employed many servants and workmen in the gardens and demesnes. C2/Jas.I/C18/5, D10/51. Re-elected to the third Jacobean Parliament on his father’s nomination, he was appointed to only one committee, for a bill ‘to punish the great and general abuses by licences to beg’ (22 Nov. 1621). Stamford Town Hall Archive, 2A/1/1, ff. 331, 332. Cecil was drawn into Chancery by Roos’s creditors, who included the serjeant-at-arms Edward Dendy, and Tobie Matthew*; he compounded with Dendy, but fought unsuccessfully against Matthew’s claims. C2/Jas.I/M15/37. He never sat in Parliament again after his father’s death in 1623, though he remained a conscientious deputy lieutenant and local magistrate. Montagu Musters Bk. 5, 92, 98, 152, 154, 181, 198. Having made his will on 3 Apr. 1633, he died on 4 Sept. following and was buried at Wakerley. PROB 11/164, f. 293; Northants. Fams. 33. His son David sat for Peterborough in the Short Parliament before succeeding as 3rd earl of Exeter, and his great-grandson John represented Northamptonshire in the Cavalier Parliament.