Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/29

 CHAPTER II

and Richard Cecil were successful men of the world, and to them the beginnings of the material prosperity of the family are due. But though they planted the stock firmly on the road to greatness, it was William, Lord Burghley, who completed what they had begun, and made the name of Cecil famous throughout the world. With little to help him but his own great abilities, he rose to be Secretary of State at the age of thirty, and from the accession of Elizabeth till his death—a period of forty years—he presided over the affairs of the nation with an authority second only to the Queen, guiding the country successfully through the dangers and difficulties of a supremely critical period, and so increasing her prestige that at his death England had finally taken her place among the great European powers.

William Cecil was born on September 13th, 1520, at Bourne in Lincolnshire, probably at the house of his mother's parents. He gave evidence of more than ordinary ability in his earliest years, "being," we are told, "in his infancy so pregnant in wit, and so desirous and apt to learn, as in