AN ELIZABETHAN STATESMAN

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29010, 26 September 1959, Page 3

AN ELIZABETHAN STATESMAN

[Reviewed by

A.R.]

jle Second Cecil. By P. M. Handover. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 346 pp. Miss Handover is not the equal of Sir John Neale or of G. R. Elton as an historian of Tudor England, but she is a thoroughly competent writer who has steeped herself in the primary source material requisite for her two biographies. Her earlier work on Arbella Stuart dealt with a potential successor to Queen Elizabeth I. Her latest study deals with the statesman who ensured that James VI and I should succeed to the throne of England without challenge and without the horrors of a civil war. This latter work, sub-titled “The Rise to Power 1563-1604 of Sir Robert Cecil, later first Earl of Salisbury,” is the more important work of the two. It will add considerably to Miss Handover’s reputation as 5 scholar 'and it will excite fresh interest in the remarkable career of Robert Cecil, the second son of Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s principal minister and the “first Cecil.”

Robert Cecil was born oh June 1, 1563, five years after the last of the Tudors had ascended the throne. He was the son of William Cecil and his second wife, Mildred Cooke, the learned daughter of Sir Antony Cooke, a noted scholar. His appearance and nature led some to mistrust and others to under-estimate him. Although he had an intelligent attractive countenance, he suffered from a curvature of the spine which practically amounted to a hunch-back and his feet splayed, as he walked, in a most ungraceful manner. His deformity and short stature—he was only five feet two inches in height—inclined him to serious study and he was trained by his father to be his political heir. Nick-named “Robert the Devil” and the subject of various libellous ballads and sayings, such as “the Robin with the bloody breast” and “it’s an unwholesome thing to meet a man in the morning which hath a wry neck, a crooked back or a splay foot,” Robert Cecil did not waste time on self-pity but concentrated on study, hard work, and devotion to what he conceived to be his duty to Queen and country. He had his reward, even if he never enjoyed popularity. Cecil entered the Commons at an early age, was knighted and admitted to the Privy Council before he was 30, and, in July 1596, became Secretary of State. In Elizabeth’s closing years, he was her most important adviser, although she took care that she was never dependent on only one man. By 1601, according to this

biography, Cecil was at the height t °L. hls P u W ! r ’, “ a hei ® ht beyond that reached by his father.” He was the Queen’s right-hand and the government spokesman in the Commons. He displayed remarkable talents in diplomatic negotiations with the representatives of foreign Powers and wise judgment of commercial trends in many of his plans. Like his father, he appreciated the value of peace, if material progress was to be made both at home and in foreign and colonial trade. One of the more interesting facets of this book deals with the rivalry between Cecil and Essex. Another reveals the extent of the intelligence system developed by Cecil: his agents’ reports have been combed and quoted and we learn much of the working of the schemes for learning what his enemies were plotting and preparing. For example, Cecil received so much information from his agents in Spain that a contemporary declared: “He could tell you throughout Spain, every part, every port, every ship with their burdens, whither bound, what preparations, what impediments for diversion of enterprises, counsel and resolution.” Miss Handover declares that his establishment of a comprehensive news service “was his greatest achievement.”

While the biographer has possibly done more than justice to her subject, this book leaves no doubt as to the very real importance off a man who has frequently taken second place to his father. Very readable, though amply documented, it gives the story of an able and determined Parliamentarian, a highly competent secretary, who was almost a “kingmaker,” a ruthless opponent of those who challenged Council decisions and policy, and one of the Elizabethan founders of progress.

Possibly Sir Robert’s greatest success was registered when James Stuart succeeded Elizabeth I. Miss Handover’s treatment of this subject may be somewhat partial. At any rate, it is worth noting that in one of his recently published “Essays in Elizabethan History” Sir John Neale says, after mentioning Cecil’s announcement that Elizabeth had named James as her successor, “it may be that it was an invention given currency after Elizabeth’s death to justify the action of the Council.” Be that as it may, we may well be grateful for this biography of one whose “political skill was revealed in a faultless control of circumstance, an adroitness in manoeuvre and an acute sense of timing, that enabled him to turn to advantage what appeared adverse or sterile.”