CECIL, Sir Edward (1572-1638), of Cecil House, The Strand, Westminster; The Farm, Chelsea, Mdx. and Wimbledon, Surr.

Cecil was born into one of the most influential families in England, his grandfather (Sir William Cecil†) and uncle (Robert Cecil†) having successively dominated royal administration for more than half a century. However, Cecil was a younger son and consequently could not expect to inherit a large fortune. After a period at the inns of court, Cecil and his brother Richard* received permission to travel abroad in September 1594. They went to Italy, where Cecil enrolled at the university of Padua and was lavishly entertained by the grand duke of Tuscany. It is not known how much time he actually spent in study, but he was sufficiently proficient in Italian to write to Robert Cecil in that language from Florence in November 1596. Desiderata Curiosa ed. F. Peck (1732), i. 24; HMC Hatfield, vi. 467.

It may have been in late 1598 that Cecil went to the Netherlands to fight in the wars, as he subsequently dated the start of his military career to that year. Dalton, i. 14. Writing to Robert from The Hague the following February, he described soldiering as ‘the profession which I have taken upon me’, stating that he had ‘always heretofore a disposition thereunto’. He requested his uncle’s favour and was rewarded in March 1599 with a commission as captain in one of the English regiments that fought the Spanish. Ibid. i. 15-16. The following year he was also appointed to command a troop of horse, and he was one of the leaders of the decisive cavalry charge at the battle of Nieuwpoort in July. Ibid. i. 53-4.

Writing in the 1630s, Sir John Finet, said that ‘no man, I think, ever doubted’ Cecil’s valour in his youth, and Sir Edward Herbert*, who served with Cecil at the siege of Jülich, described him as ‘a very active general’. HMC 6th Rep. 278; Life of Edward, First Lord Herbert of Cherbury ed. J.M. Shuttleworth, 53. Sir John Eliot* wrote of him,

His carriage and deportment were not ill; his presence good, his conversation full of affability and courtship; and in his affection there was doubted nothing that was corrupt. Facility was the greatest prejudice he was subject to, which rendered him credulous and open to those that were artificial and obscure. Procs. 1625, pp. 568-9.

Moreover, although his courage and energy made him successful in subordinate positions, Cecil proved fatally indecisive in 1625, when he was finally given an independent command.

In 1601 Cecil was knighted and returned to Parliament for Aldborough, probably at the nomination of his father, Thomas, 2nd Lord Burghley†, who was president of the Council in the North. HP Commons, 1558-1603, i. 570. He returned to the Low Countries the following year, but was with his father in York when Queen Elizabeth died in March 1603. Burghley sent him to Edinburgh to assure James I of his loyalty, where he was well received. HMC Hatfield, xv. 11, 31. He was soon made a gentleman of the Privy Chamber and keeper of Putney park.

There is no evidence that Cecil sought re-election to the Commons in 1604; indeed, he had returned to the Netherlands in the early part of that year. He wrote to his uncle, now Lord Cecil, from The Hague on 30 Mar., asking him to support his bid to win promotion to colonel; he also sought permission to retain his post at Court. Ibid. xvi. 45. He secured command of a regiment of foot the following year, when his father was made 1st earl of Exeter, but no subsequent evidence survives to show that he continued to be employed in the Privy Chamber. In 1607 a temporary ceasefire was concluded in the Low Countries, and Cecil, no doubt fearful that it would lead to a permanent peace and therefore disbandment of the English forces fighting alongside the Dutch, applied unsuccessfully to his uncle, now 1st earl of Salisbury, for the presidency of Munster. Ibid. xix. 414.

Writing again to Salisbury about the peace negotiations on 12 Mar. 1608, Cecil argued that the disbandment would entail a humiliating decline in his status, for having ‘lived like a colonel’, he would have to ‘come home and live like a younger brother ... [just] come from the inns of court’. Ibid. xx. 104. His apprehensions were not fully realized, however, for the English colonels were retained during the Twelve Years’ Truce, which began in April 1609. Nevertheless, Cecil returned to England, where he unsuccessfully lobbied to succeed Sir Francis Vere†, who had died the following August, either as governor of Brill or Portsmouth. Dalton, i. 149-3; CSP Dom. 1604-10, p. 539; HMC Downshire, ii. 163.

I. The 1610 Sessions and the Siege of Jülich

In December 1609 Cecil was returned to Parliament, no doubt again on his father’s interest, at the Stamford by-election caused by the death of his cousin Sir Robert Wingfield. He made no recorded speeches, but was appointed to attend the conference of 15 Feb. 1610 at which his uncle proposed the Great Contract, and was named to five legislative committees. His military experience no doubt explains his appointment to consider the bill to prevent export of ordnance (17 Mar.), and he was also among those appointed to consider bills concerning shipping (28 Feb.) and the drainage of salt marshes in East Anglia (20 March). Both his remaining committees were for private bills. The first concerned the naturalization of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting (26 Feb.) while the second dealt with the estate of Sir John Wentworth of Gosford, Essex, (21 March). CJ, i. 393b, 400a, 402a, 412b, 413a, 413b.

Cecil was absent from the latter part of the fourth session, for during the Easter recess he was commissioned as captain-general to command the British contingent sent by the Dutch to besiege the strategically important north Rhineland town of Jülich, which had formed part of the lands of the childless John William, duke of Cleves (d.1609) but which had been occupied by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, who took advantage of a disputed succession. Although the British troops were in Dutch employment, James agreed to meet their cost throughout the campaign himself. Cecil was paid £5 a day as general, and received a lump sum of £300 on 21 April. D. Trim, ‘Sir Horace Vere in Holland and the Rhineland’ HR, lxxii. 336-40; Issues of the Exch. ed. F. Devon. (1836), p. 104. According to Arthur Wilson, a client of the 3rd earl of Essex, with whom Cecil was subsequently to clash, Cecil’s behaviour during the siege ‘gave life to his soldiers’ valour, and that advanced the glory of his conduct’. A. Wilson, Hist. of Great Britain Being the Life and Reign of King James the First (1653), p. 49. Reporting the capitulation of the enemy garrison on 22 Aug., the diplomat Sir Ralph Winwood* stated that Prince Maurice, who had been in overall command, would be willing to acknowledge that this favourable outcome was attributable ‘to the diligence and judgment of Sir Edward Cecil’. Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, iii. 210.

Writing to Prince Henry from Schenkenshanz on 14 Sept., Cecil stated his intention to return to The Hague with Prince Maurice to see his men returned to their Netherlands quarters before travelling home himself. He probably returned to England around 6 Oct., when his general’s pay ceased. Dalton, i. 196-7; E351/275, rots. 2, 3d. He received about £1,000 in total. Consequently he could have attended the fifth session of Parliament, which started ten days later; but if so he left no mark on its meagre records.

Cecil had corresponded with Prince Henry during the siege of Jülich, and on his return to England he struck up a friendship with Salisbury’s eldest son, Viscount Cranborne (William Cecil*). In March 1612 Cecil and Cranborne tilted with the Prince. Dalton, i. 184-6, 193-4, 205; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 309. However, Henry and Salisbury died later that same year, depriving him of both his patrons, although the latter bequeathed him an annuity of £200. By the terms of Salisbury’s will the annuity would cease when the earl’s lease of the farm silk duties, out of which it was payable, expired. In 1613 Salisbury’s heirs were forced to surrender the lease, but Cecil continued to be paid his annuity, presumably out of the £3,000 p.a. granted by the Crown to the Cecils in compensation. PROB 11/119, f. 390v; L. Stone, Fam. and Fortune, 117-18, 144. The following year, he was appointed treasurer for the entourage which accompanied the newly married Princess Elizabeth and the Elector of the Palatinate to Heidelberg, a position which Sir Henry Wotton* thought ‘rather a fall than an ascent’. Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton ed. L. Pearsall Smith, ii. 18. Cecil subsequently returned to Utrecht, where his regiment was quartered. James sent him back to the Palatinate in early 1614, after the princess gave birth to her first child, which meant that he was probably out of the country when elections for the Addled Parliament took place. Dalton, i. 222-5; F. Devon, Issues of the Exch. 174.

It is unlikely that Cecil returned to England during 1614, as later that year the dispute over the succession to the duchy of Jülich-Cleves was renewed and Cecil again saw service in the Rhineland. However, full-blown hostilities were avoided. Life of Edward, First Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 70; HMC Downshire, v. 44-5. Thinking, perhaps, that he had little prospect of advancement in England, he spent most of the next two years in Utrecht, where his first wife died in childbirth. Dalton, i. 231, 237; HMC Downshire, v. 441. He did not return to England until August 1616. In November Chamberlain reported that he was to marry the sister and joint heiress of Sir Robert Drury*, whose fortune was estimated at between £10,000 and £12,000, but in the event the marriage did not take place until the following February. HMC Downshire, v. 571; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 40.

Later that year Cecil became involved in the attempts of his sister, Lady Hatton, the estranged wife of Sir Edward Coke*, to prevent the marriage of her daughter to John Villiers, subsequently 1st Viscount Purbeck, the lunatic elder brother of the new favourite, Buckingham. In October it was reported that he, together with John, 1st Lord Houghton (Sir John Holles*) and Henry, 1st Lord Danvers, had been behind an abortive plot to seize the prospective bride before the wedding. HMC Downshire, vi. 299-300. On 27 Oct. Cecil informed Sir Dudley Carleton* that he had been negotiating with James and Buckingham on his sister’s behalf. Dalton, i. 250. However, on the 31st Cecil wrote that the death of secretary of state Winwood had ‘staggered my sister Hatton’s good hopes’. The tone of the letter suggests he was resentful of Buckingham’s rise; he wrote bitterly of Coke’s ‘pride of the favourite’s countenance’ and successfully predicted that Winwood would be succeeded by Sir Robert Naunton*, whom he described as Buckingham’s ‘kinsman, his creature, herald and honest man’. Ibid. 251-2. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards Cecil accompanied Buckingham in escorting Lady Hatton, who had been confined to the house of a London alderman, back to the Cecils’ Westminster residence, and the family was subsequently reconciled with the favourite. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 113; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 42-4.

In January 1618 Cecil tried to the secure the comptrollership of the Household with the support of the lord steward, Ludovic, 2nd duke of Lennox, but was worsted by Sir Henry Carey I*, who had the support of Buckingham. He also tried to succeed Sir John Dackombe*, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, who died at the end of that month, but lost out to Sir Humphrey May*. CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 510, 521.

Cecil had returned to the Netherlands by August 1618, when he wrote to Carleton celebrating the fall of the Arminians. Cecil’s precise religious views are difficult to establish, but in 1620 the Calvinist conformist Joseph Hall dedicated part of his Contemplations to Cecil, referring to the latter’s ‘noble favours to me’. J. Hall, Contemplations, (1620) v. bk. 2, pp. 329-30. Cecil may have been a supporter of the quasi-presbyterian English classis in the Netherlands, K.L. Sprunger, Dutch Puritanism, 213; R.P. Stearns, Congregationalism in Dutch Netherlands, 90. but there is no evidence that he was opposed to episcopacy at home. Indeed, he contributed £30 to the repair of St. Paul’s in the early 1630s. His vehement opposition to anti-Calvinism in 1618 seems to have been largely prompted by a feud between himself and the Arminian States of Utrecht and the equally Arminian commander of their garrison, Sir John Ogle, over the appointment of Ogle’s nephew to command a company in Cecil’s regiment. GL, ms 25475/1, f. 7; Dalton, i. 249, 272-3; Letters to and from Sir Dudley Carleton ed. P. Yorke, 197-46. Cecil remained a constant advocate of the Protestant cause even after Charles I’s policy shifted to one of peace, encouraging his friend Sir Simonds D’Ewes† to write an ‘apologetical justification’ of the Protestant champion and king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, in the early 1630s. Autobiog. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell, 57.

Cecil briefly returned to his regiment in the Netherlands in 1619 and the following year he became a candidate to command the intended British expeditionary force to Bohemia. He had secured Buckingham’s support, but James’ refusal to sanction officially the expedition left the choice of commander with the Bohemian ambassador, Baron Dohna, whose preference for Sir Horace Vere occasioned a quarrel. Forced to make his apologies to Dohna, who accused him of threatening him, Dalton, i. 321-6, 330-1; Lockyer, 84. Cecil returned to the Netherlands, where Sir Dudley Carleton succeeded in reconciling him to Vere and Ogle. Letters to and from Sir Dudley Carleton, 487. After the Dutch army went into winter quarters at the end of October, Cecil re-crossed the Channel, being returned for Chichester in December, possibly on the interest of his first cousin the 9th earl of Northumberland. CP, ix. 732.

II. The 1621 Parliament

Cecil was named to 26 committees during the course of the 1621 Parliament, including the committee for privileges (5 Feb.), and made 28 recorded speeches. CJ, i. 508a. He was, however, probably absent from the Commons on 24 Mar., when he escorted the commissioners of the Dutch estates general to the accession day tilts. J. Finet, Finetti Philoxenis, 77. One reason Cecil had sought election, no doubt, was to promote a private bill to naturalize his daughter Albinia, who had been born at Utrecht in about 1604. The requisite measure successfully completed its passage through both Houses but, like almost all the legislation of this Parliament, it was not enacted. The bill may not have been strictly necessary in law, as one of its clauses stated that children born abroad while their parents were overseas on public service did not require naturalization. However, as Cecil had been in Dutch rather than English pay at the time of Albinia’s birth Cecil may have been concerned that the nature of his employment raised an element of doubt. CJ, i. 588b, 593b, 605a; LJ, iii. 139; CD 1621, iv. 264; Dalton, i. 109. Cecil may have been particularly concerned if Albinia was born after the peace between England and Spain.

Shortly before the session started Cecil was appointed to a council established by James I to discuss the protection of the Palatinate. Not long afterwards it was being reported that Cecil spoke on the defence of the Palatinate in Parliament, for on 5 May 1621 Joseph Mead sent Sir Martin Stuteville a manuscript which he described as ‘Colonel Cecil’s speech, made (as they say) in the beginning of the Parliament’. In this speech Cecil apparently placed the threat to the Palatinate in the context of Spanish ambitions for ‘universal monarchy’ and called for an early and generous vote of subsidies to enable the Crown to raise a large army and improve defences at home. Harl. 389, ff. 67v, 70-1. However, though this manuscript was widely circulated, there is no evidence, either in the Commons Journal or the surviving parliamentary diaries, that Cecil ever delivered any such speech.

Cecil’s principal legislative concern in the first parliamentary sitting of 1621 was with the bill to standardize arms, a measure originally introduced in the Lords. At its second reading in the Commons on 7 Mar., Cecil assured his fellow Members that it ‘aimed at nothing ... but the good of the commonwealth’, and denied that it would force the militia to buy new weapons. Its purpose, he stated, ‘is only to order the armourers, for their sizes and not to charge the subject’. He was one of those to whom the measure was committed. CJ, i. 543a. It may have been with this speech in mind that Mead reported on 28 Apr. that Cecil had ‘made a brave speech in Parliament, concerning the want of warlike provisions in the kingdom, and the means to redress it; they say, with much approbation’. T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 251-2. Cecil chaired a meeting of the bill committee on 9 May, at which he answered objections to the measure. CD 1621, iii. 219-221. Three days later he reported the bill to the Commons, whereupon Alford protested at the ‘charge of the country’ and, presumably fearing that it would become an excuse for a patent for enforcing its provisions, complained that there was ‘no restraint of monopoly’. Cecil, lamenting that ‘when all Christendom is up in arms, this House should so little respect arms’, again reiterated that the measure ‘doth only concern making of arms, it is not to compel men to buy’. However, despite arguing that it was much more efficient for soldiers to be equipped with standardized arms and that the measure reflected best practice in the Netherlands, the bill was recommitted. CJ, i. 619; CD 1621, iii. 236-7; v. 161. It was again reported on 29 May, this time by William Hakewill, at which time Cecil, perhaps in an attempt to answer anxieties about incurring the expense of buying new guns, tried to reassure his colleagues that ‘unserviceable’ arms meant those that were faulty, not those that were obsolete. The measure was again sent back to committee, where it remained at the dissolution. CJ, i. 631a; CD 1621, ii. 405; iv. 389-90.

On 27 Feb. Cecil was named to the committee for the bill to strengthen Trinity House’s control over the provision of lighthouses, an issue of importance to a port borough like Chichester. On 26 Mar. he spoke in favour of the patentees who had established lighthouses independently of Trinity House, when he was appointed to a further committee. He was probably particularly concerned with the patentee lighthouse at Dungeness, which, lying on the Kent/Sussex border, must have been of particular concern to his constituents. CJ, i. 529b, 573b. Cecil was less sympathetic to other patentees. At the committee for grievances on 30 Apr. he complained that the projectors of the glassmaking monopoly had seized glass imported by an unnamed nobleman for his private use. Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 360. On 7 May he spoke approvingly of the bill to enable the members of the Staplers’ Company to export cloth in contravention of the Merchant Adventurers’ monopoly. Though the Merchant Adventurers were ‘a good Company’, he remarked, ‘the commonwealth finds great fault with them’, with good cause, as the Company was responsible for inflating the retail price of textiles and denying the proceeds to the wool producers and clothiers, who were forced to sell their goods too cheaply. Ibid. ii. 35; CD 1621, iii. 190. Although a prominent member of the Virginia Company, Cecil made only one recorded contribution to the debates relating to that colony. That was a procedural motion made in the debate on the tobacco trade on 18 Apr., when he moved that the question should be put whether to have separate votes on banning all tobacco imports or just one, on banning those from Spain. CJ, i. 581b.

On 26 Apr. Cecil was appointed to the committee to investigate misgovernment in Ireland, whose proceedings were subsequently halted at the insistence of James. Cecil protested, on 30 Apr., that the Commons had not intended to legislate for Ireland but merely to act as the king’s ‘great council’ and to inform him of problems of which he was ignorant. Ibid. i. 593a, CD 1621, vi. 114; Nicholas, i. 359. The issue was not pursued by the Commons, but the king’s veto on further discussion continued to rankle with Cecil, who complained on 2 May that ‘we wanted no precedents in the matter of Ireland, yet that denied by the king’. CD 1621, iii. 143. These last remarks were made during a speech concerning Edward Floyd, the Catholic lawyer who had made disparaging remarks about the king and queen of Bohemia while imprisoned in the Fleet. Speaking in the debate about punishing Floyd on 1 May, Cecil argued that the offence deserved exemplary punishment to ‘make a difference between the scandalizing of a prince, and the scandalizing of a subject’. He endorsed the suggestion of Sir Robert Phelips and Sir Francis Seymour, that Floyd should be carried to the Tower and flogged, but added that he should also have a letter burned on his forehead (although he seems to have been unable to decide which one) and a hole burned through his tongue. Moreover, he proposed that further investigation of Floyd’s papers should be delayed until after this punishment had been carried out, to keep the sentence distinct from any further penalties that the House might choose to inflict as a result of any further discoveries. CJ, i. 601b; Nicholas, i. 372; CD 1621, iii. 124; vi. 121.

The following day, after the king sent a message denying that the Commons had jurisdiction over the Floyd, Cecil’s frustration became evident. He lamented ‘we want nothing but a precedent to make this Parliament the happiest that ever was’. He felt that punishing Floyd, whom he described as the ‘veriest villain that ever was but Judas’, would make an excellent precedent for the future, but queried ‘what will precedents avail us if the king disannul and deny them?’. He was particularly exercised by the fact that Floyd had made the sign of the cross when he had been brought before the Commons, fearing that Catholics would attribute Floyd’s escape from punishment to that ‘superstitious sign’. He proposed that the Speaker and a committee should be sent to the king to ask him to ratify the Commons’ judgment ‘that they be not made the scorn of papists’, and he was named to a committee to draw up a message. According to Chamberlain he instanced the granting of two subsidies at the beginning of the Parliament as an example of a new precedent, and he criticized the ‘slackness and silence of the prime speakers’ of the House, whom, he said, had been ‘wont in matters of less moment to soar aloft like eagles, sat still now or fluttered low by the ground like swallows in foul weather’. CD 1621, iii. 143; v. 135; CJ, i. 605a; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 372.

Cecil continued to criticize his fellow Members on 4 May, regretting that ‘those who seemed most stout [were] now faint’. By this date he was wishing ‘the matter had never been spoke of’ and was seeking to excuse the House’s previous behaviour, claiming that it was Members’ ‘zeal’ which had ‘carried us to give sentence’. He argued against referring the case to the Lords, for ‘we are the sinews of the commonwealth’ and it would be a ‘dishonour for the Lords to patch up our faults’. Instead he proposed that the issue should be left to the king. He was appointed to the committee to draft the Commons’ judgment against Floyd. CD 1621, iii. 165; vi. 135-6; CJ, i. 608b.

Cecil was still concerned to maintain the honour of the House when a message from the Lords arrived the following day requesting a joint conference. ‘It is a rule amongst great personages and prince’, he observed, ‘that, if they would give a respectful answer, they send it ... by their own ambassador or servant’. For this reason the Commons should reply by its own messengers rather than by those sent by the Lords. CJ, i. 619a; Nicholas, ii. 26. He continued to worry that legal quibbles about the powers of the Commons would restrict its proceedings. In the debate on Phelips’ report concerning complaints against two episcopal chancellors on 15 May, he urged his colleagues ‘not to examine ourselves and our power too strictly, let us examine here howsoever and then proceed’. CD 1621, iii. 265.

Cecil spoke twice on the fight that broke out on 30 Apr. between Clement Coke and Sir Charles Morrison, 1st bt., over a piece of doggerel, recited by Morrison, which Coke believed disparaged his father, Sir Edward. On 7 May Cecil moved that the serjeant-at-arms should restrain both men until the matter could be heard. CJ, i. 611b. The following day he proposed that, since no one had laid a formal accusation, both men should now be permitted to resume their seats. However, he also suggested that both should be examined to discover which of them was the guilty party. CD 1621, vi. 144. Three days later Cecil was appointed to the committee to draft the apology which Coke was instructed to give to Morrison. CJ, i. 619a.

Cecil was clearly alarmed by Calvert’s announcement on 28 May of the king’s imminent intention to end the sitting. At the very least he must have been concerned that the passage of the arms bill would be delayed, but he may also have been concerned that, as yet, nothing had been done to help defend the Palatinate. On 30 May he voiced his concern that deteriorating relations with the Crown were responsible for ‘this untimely rupture’. The beginning of the Parliament, he recalled, had been ‘joyful’ as ‘the king’s ear was open to us’, but matters had changed, and he lamented that there was no ‘window in this House that he [James] might see and hear what we do’. Misinformation by ‘ill Members’ was to blame for the decline in relations, one consequence of which was that the House had been ‘forbidden business’, presumably another reference to Ireland. He feared that, because James had promised to assent to the passage of some bills before the adjournment, the Commons would be blamed if no legislation were in fact passed. He urged the Commons to set priorities with respect to its unfinished legislation, arguing that, given the ‘multitude of business’, no one would find fault if the crop of statutes was smaller than had been hoped. To this end he urged a conference with the Lords ‘to debate ... what is fittest for the king’s honour and the good of the commonwealth’. Nicholas, ii. 129-30; CD 1621, ii. 411; iii. 357; v. 186-7, 389; vi. 181. Cecil was promptly sent to the Upper House and subsequently reported back that the Lords had agreed to meet that afternoon. CJ, i. 632a, 632b.

Cecil continued to be exercised by the false information that he believed the king had received. The following day he stated that ‘there are some amongst ourselves who do pick out the worst of every man’s speech’ when reporting to James, but never relate their ‘good offices’. He stated that Sir Edward Coke, with whom he had evidently been reconciled, had particularly suffered in this regard, and moved unsuccessfully to send the Speaker ‘to acquaint the king with the state of the business of the House’. However, unhappy with Speaker Richardson’s performance thus far, he implored him to ‘forbear your prefaces, for you are too large in them’. He was also critical of Sir Dudley Digges, who had spoken at the previous day’s conference, but had ‘omitted our griefs’. Nicholas, ii. 137-8; CD 1621, iii. 369-70; v. 189.

Later that day, Cecil’s anger against the intermediaries between the Commons and the king found a focus after Sir Lionel Cranfield, the master of the Court of Wards, attacked Sir Edwin Sandys. Cecil interrupted Cranfield, saying he was ‘sorry to hear him ... go between the king and us, and to say, that which we have intended for the honour of the king is only to delude and abuse the king’. He also accused Cranfield of ‘tax[ing] the whole House ... of inconstancy and pettishness’, and, although prepared to acknowledge that Cranfield had been ‘serviceable all this Parliament’, he concluded by saying that ‘our speeches and intentions are wrested to the worst constructions’. Nicholas, ii. 142; CD 1621, iii. 375-6. Cecil came to regret this outburst, for in December 1621, two months after Cranfield was appointed lord treasurer, he wrote Cranfield an apologetic letter, in which he declared that he had not spoken out of malice or ‘out of faction; for never was there any of the House more free from that offence than myself’, but out of ‘too much passion in my affection to the House’. Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/OE191.

As well as being concerned that the king was receiving misleading reports of proceedings, Cecil was also worried that the Commons enjoyed too little privacy in general. When, on 2 June, messengers brought a request from the Lords for a conference with the Lower House, Cecil successfully moved for the serjeant-at-arms to be posted on the door to ensure that ‘none may come in, but of the Houses’. CJ, i. 636b; CD 1621, vi. 188. On 4 June Cecil joined with Sir Samuel Sandys in trying to mitigate the punishment of the bailiff who had breached parliamentary privilege by imprisoning Sir James Whitelocke’s servant. CJ, i. 638a. Later the same day he warmly welcomed Sir James Perrot’s motion for a declaration promising the Commons’ support if the king resolved to defend the Palatinate. After exclaiming that Perrot’s suggestion had ‘come from heaven’, he declared that it would ‘work better effects with our enemies, than if we had 10,000 soldiers on the march’. He was subsequently appointed to the committee for drafting the declaration. Nicholas, ii. 169-70; CJ, i. 639a.

Cecil himself was soon on the march again: on 8 June a pass was issued for him to return to his regiment in the Netherlands. APC, 1619-21, p. 389. The Twelve Year Truce had expired in April and, with Sir Horace Vere in the Palatinate, Prince Maurice now appointed Cecil to command all the English regiments in the Dutch army. However, Cecil soon found himself frustrated, as there was little fighting until July, and that was limited in scale. Writing to Calvert on 13 Sept., Cecil opined regretfully that ‘in time of war there never was so little done’. Dalton, i. 362-5.

Cecil was still in the Low Countries when the session resumed on 20 November. By now he hoped that the deteriorating diplomatic situation would force James I to go to war, and he wrote to Buckingham to press his claims for employment and stating that he would be willing to serve for a sixth less than anyone else. Cabala sive Scrinia Sacra, i. 169-70; for the dating of this letter see Dalton, ii. 94, n. 2. At about the same time he also wrote to Prince Charles urging military action to defend the Palatinate. However, Charles wrote to Buckingham on 28 Nov. attributing Cecil’s letter to professional self interest and remarking that, while he ‘wish[ed] the gentleman well’, Sir Horace Vere was more deserving. R. Cust, ‘Prince Charles and the Second Session of the 1621 Parl.’ EHR, cxxii. 441.

Cecil had probably only just returned to London when he wrote his apology to Cranfield on 16 December. Dalton, i. 374. He made his first appearance in the records of the second sitting the following day. CJ, i. 666b. Consequently he missed the foreign policy debates that led to the petition, approved by the Commons on 3 Dec., calling on the king to fight for the Palatinate and marry Charles to a Protestant. This petition drew an angry response from James, who denied the Commons’ right to debate matters of state. On 17 Dec. Calvert read out a new, more conciliatory message from James, which Cecil initially welcomed. The king, he remarked, ‘hath done like a good father after bitter words to do good deeds’, and he called for an end to the Commons’ cessation of business. However, as the debate continued he seems to have become increasingly dissatisfied and rose again to make his last recorded speech of the Parliament. After welcoming the precedents provided by Sir Edward Coke to show ‘that it hath been an ancient use, that on discontent, the House hath used to be silent’, he observed that the king’s letter meant that though ‘we be assured of our privileges in general, yet we cannot in particular’. He therefore thought it necessary for the House to assert its rights and proposed that every Member should take a copy of the king’s message ‘to consider of it till morning’. He concluded by once again attacking the king’s informants, stating ‘the House hath been slandered’. R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, 172; CD 1621, ii. 531; vi. 331, 334; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 344.

Following the angry dissolution of January 1622, Cecil was given permission to visit Coke, imprisoned in the Tower for his parliamentary activities, to discuss the marriage of Coke’s daughter with his kinsman (Sir) Maurice Berkeley*. APC, 1621-3, p. 119. He returned to the Netherlands in the summer, where he clashed with Sir Edward Vere*, who commanded Sir Horace Vere’s regiment in the latter’s absence in the Palatinate, over who should lead the English soldiers when they marched. Cecil argued that, as senior colonel, he should have precedence, whereas Vere demanded this right as Sir Horace’s deputy. A duel was only averted when both men were arrested by Prince Maurice. SP84/108, ff. 1-3, 23-4, 61. Sir Dudley Carleton subsequently wrote to Buckingham that mediators appointed by the prince had reconciled them. Harl. 1580, f. 239. However, the incident may explain why the Venetian ambassador to the Netherlands thought that Cecil was now willing to transfer his services to the Venetian Republic. Writing in November he praised Cecil’s martial abilities but, prophetically, he also queried whether Cecil was suited to commanding a force larger than a regiment. CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 501.

At about the time that Cecil was angling for a commission in the Venetian army the text of the speech he had supposedly given at the beginning of the 1621 Parliament in support of a war over the Palatinate appeared in print. Though dated 1621, it was not seen until November 1622 by Chamberlain, who sent a copy to Carleton ‘because it is not very common’. Speech Made in the Lower House of Parliament, Anno. 1621. By Sir Edward Cicill, Colonell (1621[sic?]); Chamberlain Letters, ii. 464. On 3 Dec. Carleton cast doubt on Cecil’s authorship, because he had seen another speech by him ‘in a far different style, and matter of another mould’, and asked Chamberlain to make inquiries among former Members of the Parliament. SP84/110, f. 139. Chamberlain’s investigations led him to conclude that Cecil was ‘not guilty of it, but that one Turner about him was the true father’. This has led some scholars to claim that the so-called speech was, in fact, a forgery, but mention of Turner as the true author points to a different conclusion, as Turner was almost certainly the dramatist Cyril Tourneur, a kinsman and client of Cecil’s. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 469; HMC Downshire, v. 4. Oxford DNB sub Tourneur, Cyril. Had Tourneur wished to circulate a forged speech he would surely have used the name of someone with whom he was unconnected, if only to protect his own identity. Tourneur continued to benefit from Cecil’s patronage after 1622, which suggests that if he did have a hand in drafting the speech it was on Cecil’s instructions. Interestingly, Tourneur’s text has elements in common with speeches that Cecil is known to have made in Parliament. It contains frequent references to the putative author’s military experience, and expresses the view that English Catholics, unlike those found in other countries, were universally loyal to Spain. It may be that Cecil employed Tourneur to draft this speech for the supply debate on 15 Feb., but then decided not to deliver it after secretary of state Sir George Calvert warned his fellow Members against discussing foreign policy. However, as the sitting continued, Cecil clearly became frustrated at the restrictions that James placed on the activities of the Commons, and this may have prompted him to regret his earlier self-restraint and to circulate the speech. CD 1621, ii. 89, n. 24.

It was probably the polemicist Thomas Scott who was responsible for the speech’s appearance in print. It was republished in 1624 as part of Scott’s collected works, which has led some authorities to attribute it to Scott himself, although the collection includes tracts not written by Scott that he helped get into print. Like Tourneur, Scott was connected with Cecil, as in May 1622 he became minister of the English church at Utrecht, where Cecil’s regiment was based. Consequently, Cecil may have had a hand in the publication of the work, using Scott as a proxy. S. Adams, ‘Protestant Cause: Religious Alliance with the West European Calvinist communities as a Political issue in Eng. 1585-1630’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1973), pp. 488-62. Scott was murdered by one of Cecil’s soldiers in 1626, possibly because he was about to write a tract on the Cadiz expedition critical of Cecil’s leadership, however the year before Cecil had signed a letter of recommendation on behalf of the Utrecht church. Ibid.; Stearns, 90.

Cecil inherited the manor of Wimbledon on his father’s death in February 1623, which subsequently became his principal residence. Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 269. In the same month he wrote to Sir Edward Herbert*, the ambassador in Paris, of his alarm at Prince Charles’ departure for Madrid to pursue the Spanish Match, stating that ‘the lamb is run passed, into the wolves mouth and into such a stomach as doth never cast up any thing that doth enter’. However, he tried to comfort himself with the possibility that it might bring James finally to ally himself with the Low Countries to ‘make the beast, either vomit or die of a consumption’. PRO 30/53/5/19. Private business kept Cecil in England during 1623. In August, for instance, his daughter Albinia married Christopher Wray*, who was to succeed to the greater part of the Drury property. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 167.

III. The 1624 Parliament

Cecil relished the prospect of returning to Parliament in 1624. Writing to Herbert, shortly before the start of the session, Cecil expressed his evident satisfaction at the change in policy since the return of Prince Charles and Buckingham from Spain, stating that there was ‘much provision and providing ... to turn the wheel another way’ and the prince and favourite were ‘resolved to stand staunchly for the good of their country and to be revenged of the falsehood of the Spanish’. He added that ‘if we purge not the papists this Parliament we shall never think to do any good’. PRO 30/53/6/12.

Cecil was apparently elected for two boroughs, Malmesbury and Dover. It is probable that Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, nominated Cecil for the former borough, as Cecil’s cousin William, now 2nd earl of Salisbury, was Suffolk’s son-in-law. In addition Cecil’s niece had married Suffolk’s son, Sir Thomas Howard*. A petition from inhabitants of the borough alleged that Cecil’s name was erased from the Malmesbury indenture and that Sir Thomas Hatton’s was inserted instead before it was returned to the sheriff. The truth of this allegation cannot be ascertained, for although the return shows sign of tampering it is now a largely illegible fragment. A day was fixed for a hearing before the privileges committee, but the case was dismissed after the complainants failed to attend. This is suspicious, and suggests that Cecil did not object to the removal of his name from the Malmesbury indenture. Indeed, the erasure may even have been made at his suggestion. Having already been returned at Dover, he perhaps persuaded Suffolk to nominate Hatton, a client of Cecil’s sister Lady Hatton, himself. The petitioners were presumably local inhabitants and initially unaware of the circumstances behind the change. When they realized what had happened they naturally abandoned the cause. C219/38/290A; J. Glanville, Reps. of Certain Cases Determined and Adjudged by the Commons in Parl. (1775), pp. 115-16.

Cecil’s return for Dover also proved problematic. He was nominated by the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Edward 11th Lord Zouche, with whom he enjoyed a longstanding connection. Zouche had been a ward of Cecil’s grandfather Burghley, and named Cecil as an overseer when he drew up his will in 1617. Oxford DNB sub Zouche, Edward, 11th Bar. Zouche; PROB 11/146, ff. 292v-94v. Cecil was elected by the corporation on 20 Jan. and made free of the borough on the same day. However, the freemen, encouraged by Sir Henry Mainwaring* and Sir Jasper Fowler, a local customs official, petitioned for a wider franchise. A hearing before the privileges committee took place on 23 Mar. but Cecil left the meeting without defending either his election or that of his colleague (Sir) Richard Young, having been ordered to return to his regiment by Prince Maurice. CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 198. The following day the Commons declared the election void. Although exonerated by the privileges committee from all blame, Cecil seems to have felt that his honour had been impugned. CJ, i. 748a. Consequently he wrote to Zouche on 25 Mar. asking that ‘if there be any means for us to recover the honour, I humbly beseech your lord to take it into consideration’, for while he had been summoned to return to the Netherlands, he did not have to leave until the beginning of May. In the event there was little interruption in his parliamentary career as the House was adjourned for Easter on the 25th and Cecil was re-elected at Dover at the end of the month, in time for him to resume his seat when the Commons reconvened on 1 April. Dalton, ii. 55-6.

Cecil was named to 11 committees during the course of the Parliament, one of which was the privileges committee (23 Feb.), and made 12 speeches. CJ, i. 671b. Following the speech from the throne he wrote to Carleton that ‘His Majesty hath given us as much leave and freedom as we can possible desire’. He also asked (Sir) Dudley Carleton* to inform the queen of Bohemia ‘that we will not be negligent in these times to strike hard, now that the iron is so hot’; but religion was to take priority, having been ‘put out of joint by this Spanish treaty’. Dalton, ii. 52. On 23 Feb. Cecil seconded Sir James Perrot’s motion for a collective communion, and added a proposal for a nationwide fast as a ‘subsidy to God’, which, he said was the practice in the Netherlands ‘in all weighty causes’. He argued that such a fast would be ‘very beneficial to the poor’, presumably because it would provide the occasion for collections in every church, and would ‘cheer up the languishing spirits of all the well affected to religion, who ... did faint under the fears that ... our religion did begin to change’. ‘Spring 1624’ pp. 5-6; Rich 1624, p. 1; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 4. He was promptly appointed, at Calvert’s nomination, to go with Calvert himself and the chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Richard Weston, to request permission of the king, and it was Cecil who reported the king’s answer that he would consult the bishops. CJ, i. 716a.

When, on 26 Feb., Sir John Jephson proposed increased security measures to protect Parliament against the Catholics, Cecil not only seconded the motion but observed that ‘if all the House be soldiers they will sooner take alarm’. He also stated that Gondamar, the Spanish ambassador, had been forewarned of the House’s intentions to take measures against Catholics by the previous day’s proposal to request a conference with the Lords about that subject. ‘Holland 1624’, i. 3v; Rich 1624, p. 14. Following the Spanish ambassador’s complaint against Buckingham’s relation of the trip to Madrid, Cecil moved, on 27 Feb., for consideration to be given to the means whereby Gondomar got his information. Holles 1624, p. 11. On 12 Mar. he proposed sending a message to the Privy Council containing Sir Edward Seymour’s information that Catholics were sending large sums of money abroad. The Commons, however, concurred with Sir Thomas Hoby, that correct constitutional procedure was to go through the Lords. Cecil was nevertheless named to deliver the message and he reported back the Upper House’s thanks later the same day. CJ, i. 734b-735a.

On 1 Mar. Cecil spoke in favour of a Lords’ motion for a conference about the negotiations with Spain the following afternoon. He argued that any delay was dangerous ‘and that he would venture his head we should have an enterprise [i.e. Armada] on us’ unless they moved quickly. In particular he wanted steps taken against the Catholics ‘for they are as so many spies’. Acknowledging the objection that the Lords’ timetable left little time to consider the issue, he nevertheless argued that the House could debate the matter that afternoon and stated that ‘it is no strange or new matter to any man but that it hath been long known and often disputed of’. Moreover, he thought there was little to discuss because ‘the world never conceived any probability of the [Spanish] Match’, for ‘was it ever heard that the house of Austria married with a heretic’? ‘Spring 1624’, p. 48; Rich 1624, p. 29; ‘Nicholas 1624’ f. 36; CJ, i. 675b; Ferrar 1624, p. 41. Nevertheless, at the committee of the Whole in the afternoon, Cecil was at pains to contradict Barnaby Gooch’s claim that war would inevitably follow from the collapse of the treaty. He again asserted that the treaty was ‘like to come to nothing’, and desired that the ‘declaration’ of the 1621 Parliament, presumably meaning the Protestation of 4 June, to be read. ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 13; Rich 1624, p. 30.

Cecil again called for the Protestation to be read in the supply debate on 11 March. He also observed, presumably in an oblique attempt to demonstrate the central flaw in the king’s foreign policy, that the king of Spain was powerless to restore the Palatinate, even if he wanted to. After warning that James was ‘unwilling to [go to] war’ and therefore needed to be persuaded, he stated that a war over the Palatinate was both just and necessary because it ‘concerns our lives, children and estate’. He also tried to allay James’s fears about the likely cost of any war, by pointing out that ‘no king makes war of his own purse, the people must bear it’. Moreover, the cost of the first year of war ‘how great soever’, would amount to less than the sum James had been spent on the negotiations with Spain. This rather improbable assertion seems to have been based on a wild under-assessment of Spain’s strength, for he went on to state that ‘with 10,000 men he durst undertake to run through Spain’. He got so carried away that he predicted that English arms would prove so successful ‘we will make the king of Spain bring his sister and offer her’ to Charles. Unfortunately for him, however, his colleagues seem to have interpreted this statement as a proposal to revive the Spanish Match and, according to Pym, it was ‘answered with a negative acclamation of the house, No, No’. He moved that a committee should be appointed to confer with the Lords and draw up a petition to the king for war, assuring James that if he ‘will declare himself, we will maintain our advice’. CJ, i. 682a, 733a ; ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 25v; Harl. 6383, f. 96 (mistranscribed in Holles 1624, p. 30); ‘Holland 1624’, i. 44v.

Cecil seems to have become more realistic about the cost of war by the time he spoke at the committee of the Whole about the subsidy bill nine days later. He argued that the expense involved could not be calculated exactly, and observed that they were entering into a limitless commitment, for ‘if our cassocks will not serve the turn, we must give our cloaks, if not they serve, our shirts, our skins, our blood, our lives’. He objected to any discussion of whether the country could afford to fight, as ‘to discover ... the poverty of the kingdom is a great discouragement to those that shall undertake a war’ and that ‘too much will hurt but a little, to give too little mars all’. He proposed a vote of £300,000 ‘to sweeten the message to the king’. His preference for a precise sum rather than a particular number of subsidies and fifteenths suggests that he may have been hoping for a reform of parliamentary taxation. Holles 1624, p. 48; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 146; ‘Holland 1624’, i. 67v.

On 12 Mar. Cecil introduced a bill for naturalizing all the children born since James’s accession to English soldiers who served the Dutch Republic. However, a number of objections were immediately raised. Sir Thomas Hoby argued that the measure contravened previous legislation that required anyone naturalized to take first the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Cecil retorted that this could be remedied by a proviso which deprived anyone who failed to take the oaths on coming of age of the bill’s benefits. He also tried to answer objections that the bill would lead to large-scale immigration, arguing that there were less than 500 individuals who stood to gain by it. However, it was thought that other groups, such as the children of ministers, would follow the precedent set by Cecil’s bill and secure acts for themselves. It was also deemed unnecessary, as the children were legally English subjects already. The bill was consequently rejected. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 111; Holles 1624, p. 34; ‘Nicholas 1624’ f. 74; CJ, i. 734b; Kyle thesis, 439-40. On 12 Apr. a bill to naturalize Cecil’s daughter, presumably Albinia, was introduced in the Commons, but it failed to progress. CJ, i. 762b.

Cecil made little contribution to proceedings after the Easter recess. Indeed, he is recorded as having made only two more speeches, both on 7 Apr., in which he spoke in favour of issuing a Proclamation against recusants and supported an inquiry into the proceeds of the Bohemian loan of 1620. Holles 1624, p. 65; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 182. At the second reading of the subsidy bill on 24 Apr. he was named by the secretary of state, Sir Edward Conway I, as one of the members of the recently appointed Council for War on whose warrant the money was to be issued. There followed a debate about the order in which the councillors were to be ranked in the Act. Chamberlain subsequently stated that Cecil had claimed precedence, as the son of an earl, over both Sir Horace Vere and Conway himself. However, although Cecil was indeed named before Vere and Conway in the Act, there is no evidence from surviving diaries that he intervened to that effect. ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 261; Birch, ii. 455; SR, iv. 1261.

Cecil’s appointment to the Council of War probably caused him to remain in England longer than he would have done otherwise. On 10 May he wrote to Carleton, stating that the Council of War had sat for the first time that day ‘and accordingly our bill of subsidy doth march, that is after a Parliament manner, hand in hand’, but he feared that ‘the great mountain will turn but into a mouse’. Perhaps as a consequence, he assured Carleton that he would return to the Netherlands ‘as soon as I shall hear of enemy stirring, though I be of the Parliament and Council of War’. SP84/117, f. 199-v. He last appeared in the records of the 1624 Parliament two days later, when he was named to consider the bill against receiving foreign pensions. CJ, i. 703a. Nevertheless, he did not leave England until 7 June. Dalton, ii. 63.

IV. The Cadiz Expedition and Later Life

Shortly before his departure, Cecil wrote to Herbert that he intended to remain in the Netherlands for only six weeks. PRO 30/53/6/53. However, there is no evidence that he returned to England in the latter part of 1624. He wrote to Buckingham from the army’s winter encampment on 4 Dec., complaining that ‘few of my rank and fortune have suffered more or longer than I have in these countries; having served these 27 years together without intermission and all for no other end (for I am £900 a year the worse for the wars) than to make me able to serve my prince and country’. Cabala sive Scrinia Sacra, i. 170. Cecil seems also to have remained in the Netherlands in the first part of 1625, which probably explains why he was not elected to the first Caroline Parliament. He was still abroad on 4 May, when Buckingham offered him the post of lieutenant-general and lord marshal - in effect commander - of the forthcoming joint military and naval expedition to Spain. Dalton, ii. 92-3. Cecil returned to England early in June, but his pleasure in at last achieving an independent command was marred by the news that a barony had been granted to Vere. ‘I know not what worth there is in him’, he wrote to Buckingham on 19 July, ‘than in those that are equal in profession and before him in birth’. Ibid. ii. 102; Cabala sive Scrinia Sacra, i. 169. He was thereupon promised a viscountcy, which restored his precedence over Vere, and was allowed to choose his title. He initially selected the name Wimbledon, but he wrote to (Sir) John Coke* from aboard his flagship during the return voyage from Cadiz on 8 Nov. saying that he had changed his mind and preferred Latimer. However, he was too late as the patent was sealed the following day, presumably before his letter arrived. HMC Cowper, ii. 225. The Cadiz expedition ended in total failure and heavy loss of life, and revealed Wimbledon’s inability to act decisively in independent command, earning him the nickname ‘Viscount Sit-still’ by his troops. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 628.

The Commons examined Cecil over the shortcomings of the Council of War in March 1626. Procs. 1626, ii. 256. In 1628 Buckingham secured his appointment to the Privy Council, and two years later he succeeded the 3rd earl of Pembroke as governor of Portsmouth. He was also an active member of the commission for exacted fees, which he twice claimed to have initiated. G.E. Aylmer, ‘Charles I’s Commission on Fees’, BIHR, xxi. 62. He drew up his will on 1 Nov. 1635, naming Sir Christopher Wray, Sir Thomas Crymes*, Sir William Eliott†, and Thomas Brett* among his executors. PROB 11/178, f. 528. He died three years latter at his home in Wimbledon and was buried in a black marble tomb in the parish church. Lacking male heirs his peerage died with him. His eldest daughter remained a spinster; she joined with her three sisters, who all married leading parliamentarians, in selling Wimbledon to Henrietta Maria shortly after their father’s death. His widow married Sir Robert King, who sat in the Irish Parliament in 1634 and 1639, and represented counties Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon at Westminster under the Protectorate. CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 106-7; J. Aubrey, Natural Hist. and Antiqs. of Co. of Surr. ed. R. Rawlinson (1718-19), i. 97-8; Dalton, ii. 367, 373.