Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/124

 ioo THE CECILS

this my brief writing. And I give you my very hearty thanks for your good wishes, and think myself beholding to those my friends that had care of me therein."

In spite of this decision, however, Burghley withdrew his refusal in the following year, and on May 4th, 1605, was created Earl of Exeter. 1

From this time onward the Earl appears to have led a retired life at Burghley or Wimbledon. We hear of his being present at the ceremony when Prince Henry was created Prince of Wales, and his name appears as a witness to the patent, dated May 3oth, 1610. In 1616 he was one of the Commissioners who treated for the surrender of the cautionary towns to the States of Holland, and he served on other commissions in connection with the laws against heresies and other matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The first Countess of Exeter died in 1609, and in the following year the Earl, then aged sixty-eight, married Frances Brydges, daughter of Lord Chandos, and widow of Sir Thomas Smith, Master of Requests to James I. The new Countess was thirty-eight years younger than her husband, and younger than all of her step-children except one. She survived until 1663, and we shall hear of her again in connection with the feuds between her husband's grandson, Lord Roos, and the Lake family into which he was so unfortunate as to

1 Robert Cecil, then Viscount Cranborne, was created Earl of Salis- bury on the morning of the same day, and was given precedence of his brother.

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