Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/36

 22 THE CECILS

He was now twenty-seven years of age, and must have already shown his abilities, for Somerset in the same year appointed him his " Master of Requests." This was an office, probably of a secretarial nature, connected with the Court of Requests set up by the Protector in Somerset House " to hear poor men's petitions and suits." Here he had his first experience of such complaints and applications, which, throughout the rest of his life, he received in greater numbers, perhaps, than have ever fallen to the share of any one man, before or since.

He accompanied Somerset in his expedition to Scotland, in the capacity of one of the " judges of the Marshalsea," i.e., in the courts-martial, 1 the other judge being William Patten, the chronicler of the campaign. At the battle of Pinkie, where the Scots were disastrously routed (September, 1547), ne na ^ a narrow escape, being " miracu- lously saved by one that, putting forth his arm to thrust Mr. Cecil out of the level of the cannon, had his arm stricken off." 2 This was his first and only experience of fighting, and indeed he was so essentially a man of peaceful and sedentary habits, caring nothing for any form of sport or athletic exercise, that he must have felt out of place in a field of battle.

He was more at home in Parliament, for which he was elected to sit for the borough of Stamford in November, 1547. I n the following year, Somer-

1 See Encyclopedia Britannica, nth ed., art. " Burghley." 8 Peck.

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