Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/25

 THE FOUNDING OF THE FAMILY n

He left to his eldest son, Richard, two complete feather beds and his best gown ; to his second son, David, two more complete feather beds and one other bed, a black gown lined with damask, a doublet of satin and his green coat ; and to his daughter Joan he left 20 to be delivered to her mother for her marriage and half of his household goods at Dowsby. The residue of his goods he left to Richard, against whom David afterwards brought an unsuccessful action on the ground that his brother had fraudulently deprived him of certain lands that were rightfully his.

Among the bequests made by David Cecil to his son Richard was his interest in the Tabard Inn, which had come to him from his father-in- law, John Dicons. This suggests an explanation of a story which obtained a wide circulation in later years, to the effect that Lord Burghley's grandfather " kept the best inn in Stamford." Such an imputation, which first appeared in a scurrilous Latin pamphlet issued in the Low Countries under the title of Philopatris, 1 touched Burghley in his most sensitive part, as its originators no doubt knew. It has hitherto been regarded as a mere slander, but it now appears that it may have had some foundation in fact. As Mr. Barron

told in a letter from F. Cordale, July 2ist, 1599. Sir Robert Cecil, he says, " has found a new pedigree, by his grandmother, from the Walpoles, and altered his crest from a sheaf of wheat between two lions, to two sheaves of arrows crossed and covered with a helmet, to distinguish his retinue from his brother's " (Cal. S. P. Dom.).

1 Collins' Peerage, II. 587. See also letters from Dr. Ch. Parkins to Sir R. Cecil concerning this book, November 22nd and 26th, 1593 (Hatfield MSS., IV. 419, 423).

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