Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
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Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (
June 1,
1563 -
May 24,
1612), son of
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and half-brother of
Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, statesman and minister to
Elizabeth I of England and
James I of England. Robert Cecil is the one who tore down most of the old palace of
Hatfield House and built the new one.
Robert Cecil was vilified by some of his contemporaries and, as is still common today, some of his less attractive physical features were exaggerated to make an ideological point. His appearance in 1588 is described in
Motley's
History of the Netherlands this way: "A slight, crooked, hump-backed young gentleman, dwarfish in stature, but with a face not irregular in feature, and thoughtful and subtle in expression, with reddish hair, a thin tawny beard, and large, pathetic, greenish-coloured eyes, with a mind and manners already trained to courts and cabinets, and with a disposition almost ingenuous, as compared to the massive dissimulation with which it was to be contrasted, and with what was, in aftertimes, to constitute a portion of his own character..."
Queen Elizabeth is said to have referred to him as "my elf" or "my pigmy", the latter term not to his liking.
Cecil was made
Secretary of State following the death of Sir
Francis Walsingham in
1590, and he became the leading minister after the death of his father in
1598, serving both Elizabeth and James as
Secretary of State. James raised him to the peerage on
August 20,
1603 as
Baron Cecil of Essendon, before advancing him to
Viscount Cranborne in
1604 and then
Earl of Salisbury in
1605.
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