Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/68

 52 THE CECILS

sapientes gubernant, aut gubernantes philoso- phantur."

In the following year he received still further marks of the Royal favour. Not only was he made a Knight of the Garter, but on the death of the Marquis of Winchester, he succeeded to his post as Lord High Treasurer, an office which he retained for the remaining twenty-six years of his life.

If Burghley was as poor as he pretended, his poverty must have been owing to the enormous expenditure on his houses and estates. The two principal courts of Theobalds were only lately completed, and from this time onward the Queen visited him there almost every year, staying generally three or four days, but sometimes as long as a fortnight. On these occasions the entertainment was on a lavish scale, and the cost was very great. We are told that " his lordship's extraordinary charge in entertainment of the Queen was greater to him than to any of her subjects, for he entertained her at his house twelve several times, which cost him two or three thousand pounds each time. But his love for his sovereign and joy to entertain her and her train was so great, as he thought no trouble, care, nor cost too much and all too little." *

The same authority tells us that he kept two principal houses, one at London, and one at Theobalds, " though he was at charge both at Burghley and at Court." He must have spent

1 Peck, as before.

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