Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/24

 io THE CECILS

with Sir David Philipp, and secondly to Joan Roos, daughter and heir of Thomas Roos, of Dowsby, Lincolnshire, who had twice previously been married. By his first wife he had two sons, Richard and David, and by his second, one daughter, Joan. 1

Among the various properties which came into his hands was the manor of Burghley, near Stam- ford, which he bought in 1526 1528 from Mar- garet Chambers and Thomas Williams junior. 2 From this estate his grandson took his title, after erecting the mansion which still remains the seat of the senior branch of the family.

By his will David left to his wife all his lands for the term of her life (she died in 1537) and after her death to his son Richard ; among other things he left her " twenty kye and a bull," three beds and several pieces of silver, to one of which, " a piece gilt with the wheat-sheaf in the bottom, the which I gave her before our marriage," interest attaches since the wheatsheaf is still the crest of the Exeter branch of the Cecils. 3

��1 Joan married Edmund Browne, alderman of Stamford, and from this marriage was descended Richard Browne (1550 1633), the leader of the earliest Separatists, hence called Brownists, the forerunners of the present Congregationalists. When imprisoned, in 1581, he was released by the influence of Lord Burghley, who afterwards presented him to the living of Achurch, Northamptonshire.

2 Victoria County History, Northamptonshire, II. 524. Earlier authorities state that the old and new Manors of Burghley were bought by Richard Cecil, and a memorandum exists in Lord Burghley's hand- writing, in which he gives a history of the manors, and adds " Ista Margarita vendidit omnes suas terras Ricardo Cecill, patri meo " (Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I. 80). Martin Hume, in The Great Lord Burghley, and following him Dr. Jessopp, state that Burghley was brought into the family by Richard's wife, Jane Heckington, but this is a mistake.

3 The Salisbury branch bears a different crest, the origin of which is

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