The great family of Cecils

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33425, 5 January 1974, Page 8

The great family of Cecils

The Cecils of Hatfield House. By David Cecil. Constable. 320 pp. Index, illustrated. The history of the Cecils of Hatfield House provides a cultural and political history of England from the time of Elizabeth I to the twentieth century. Lord David Cecil, formerly Professor of English Literature at Oxford, a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and president of the Poetry Society and thus himself a cultural and literary historian. Is obviously the right man to write it. The author makes a modest disclaimer for writing a “series of family portraits” rather than a political history of the periods in which each notable Cecil flourished. Although his subjects were statesmen, he treats them in the book as men, “including only such history as I found necessary to illustrate their personal characters.”

The book holds three main focusses of interest: first, to the historian of Elizabethan England, who will find a portrait of the influential Cecils, Lord Burghley and Lord Salisbury, written by a perceptive modern Cecil who is lively and readable; secondly the historian of the nineteenth century, a first-hand account of the author’s grandfather. Robert Cecil, third Marquess of Salisbury. This section of the book, leading to the present day, is written in a vivid style of personal reminiscence. The author’s account of his own education and upbringing is fascinating in itself. In a tradition of the familv he was educated until 14 ai home, under the beneficial influence of his mother and relations; his Cecil aunts and uncles “came down on us, with all the force of their vigorous minds, if we said anything they considered mistaken or silly. At the age of thirteen 1 described someone to my Uncle Hugh as “good.” “What do you mean by good?” inquired my uncle. “Someone who makes other people happy,” I suggested. . . "Any capable licensed victualler can do that,” he commented. It was a lesson in precision of thought.

the third, and most immediate source of pleasure from the book, comes from its illustrations. There are splendid colour plates: the Ermine portrait and the Rainbow portrait of Elizabeth I; portraits of the Elizabethan Cecils, and of their wives; George 111 reviewing the troops at Hatfield; beautiful colour photographs of Hatfield House and its lawns and gardens. An army of black and white illustrations also supports the text.