Letter from William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton

This letter from William Cecil to Henry Wriothesley mentions Cecil's wardship of Wriothesley and what is to be done once Wriothesley comes of age. Cecil mentions one thousand pounds and consulting Mr Ware and Mr Gage and requests Wriothesley to give him an answer to his enquiry regarding Wrothesley's inheritance. Sent from the Court at Greenwhich. Dated 18 September 1594. Signed "W. Burghley" at the bottom. Endorsed with the address: "The right honourable my very good Lord Earl of Southampton".

Cecil, William (1520 - 1598), Lord Burghley, was the ony son of Richard and Jane Cecil of Burleigh, Northamptonshire, and he would become the most trusted advisor of Elizabeth I.He married Mary Cheke in 1541 and the couple had one son, however she died in 1543. Cecil remarried in 1545 to Mildred Cooke, and together they had 6 children though only 3 survived into adulthood. In 1550 he became Secretary of state under Edward VI, and in 1552 his father died, leaving him large estates. In 1553 Cecil added his signature, under protest, to the succession document which allowed Lady Jane Grey to take the throne, however was so against it he resigned his post as secretary of state. Cecil later emerged as a diplomatist in the reconciliatory period following Mary I's marriage to Phillip of Spain, and he put himself in communication with Princess Elizabeth, so when Mary died in 1558, he had gained the esteem of the new queen, and so Elizabeth immmediately appointed him chief secretary of state. It was also during this period, Cecil became the guardian of Henry Wriotheseley, after the young earl's father died. In 1571 Elizabeth created him Baron of Burghley, and in the following year Cecil succeeded the Earl of Winchester as the Lord High Treasurer of England, a position that only grew in importance and influence over the period. Cecil held this post until his death in 1598, and was buried St. Martins Church, Stamford.

Principal Source: unknown artist, 'Cecil, William, first Baron Burghley, (1520/21-1598)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). By permission of Oxford University Press.

Henry Wriothesley, (1573-1624), third Earl of Southampton, became earl when he was just 7 years old after the death of his father and his guardianship fell to William Cecil. He graduated St. John's College in 1589, and before leaving college he entered his name as a student at Gray's Inn. About 1590 at age 17, after he was presented to Queen Elizabeth, Wriothesley was recognised as the most handsome and accomplished of the young lords who frequented the royal presence. Literature was, from early manhood, a chief interest in Southampton's life and he recieved a reputation of patron of the poets; the chief of his poetic clients was Shakespeare, who dedicated his poems 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece' to Southampton. He is the only know patron of Shakespeare and it is thought Southampton inspired a number of Shakespeare's works.