Robert
Cecil, the son of William
Cecil,
1st Baron Burghley and Mildred Cooke, was born in 1563. He studied
at Cambridge University and the Sorbonne
and in 1584 his father arranged for him to be elected to the House
of Commons.
In 1587 William
Cecil managed to persuade Elizabeth
to order the execution of Mary Stuart.
Afterwards Elizabeth regretted this decision and Cecil was temporarily
banished from court. Robert Cecil gained
favour by writing a pamphlet explaining Elizabeth's attempts to save
Mary's life.
Elizabeth
sent Cecil to Spain in 1588 to carry out peace negotiations over the
conflict in the Netherlands. After the death of Francis
Walsingham in 1590, Cecil became Secretary of State. He was knighted
and gradually took over the role of his aging father.
Robert
Cecil was a very small man and Elizabeth affectionately called him
her "elf". After the death of William
Cecil in
1598 Robert gradually replaced Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex, as the queen's most important adviser.
Cecil
pursued a policy of peace with Spain and played the major role in
arranging James
to
become king in 1603. He was rewarded by being made Viscount Cranborne
(1604) and Earl of Salisbury (1605). He used his wealth to build a
mansion in Hatfield.
The Catholics in England
were upset that there was another Protestant monarch. They also became
very angry when James passed a law that
imposed heavy fines on people who did not attend Protestant church
services.
In 1605 a small group
of Catholics, led by a man called Robert Catesby, devised a scheme
to kill James and
as many Members of Parliament as possible. Catesby planned to James's
young daughter, Elizabeth, queen. In time, Catesby hoped to arrange
Elizabeth's marriage to a Catholic nobleman.
Catesby's plan involved
blowing up the Houses of Parliament on 5th November. This date was
chosen because James was due to open Parliament on that day. At first
the group tried to tunnel under Parliament. This plan changed when
a member of the group was able to hire a cellar under the House of
Lords. The plotters then filled the cellar with barrels of gunpowder.
One of the people involved
in the plot was Sir Thomas Tresham. He was worried that the explosion
would kill his friend and brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle. Tresham
therefore sent Lord Monteagle a letter warning him not to attend the
House of Lords on 5th November. Lord Monteagle
became suspicious and passed the letter to Robert Cecil. He quickly
organised a thorough search of the Houses of Parliament. While searching
the cellars below the House of Lords they found the gunpowder and
Guy Fawkes, one of the men involved in the plot.
Within a few weeks the
other conspirators were either killed resisting arrest or executed
after being found guilty of treason.
This is the traditional
story of the Gunpowder Plot. However, in recent years some historians
have begun to question this version of events. Some have argued that
the plot was really devised by Cecil. This version claims that Cecil
blackmailed Catesby into organising the plot. It is argued hat Cecil's
aim was to make people in England hate Catholics. For example, people
were so angry after they found out about the plot, that they agreed
to Cecil's plans to pass a series of laws persecuting Catholics.
In
1608 Cecil became Lord Treasurer but although he was an efficient
administrator he was unable to deal with mounting royal debts. Robert
Cecil died of stomach cancer in 1612.
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