_C. Beard, Hibbert Lectures, 1883: The Reformation, lecture 9._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1598. The Age of Elizabeth: The Queen's chief councillors. "Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, already officially experienced during three reigns, though still young, was the queen's chief adviser from first to last--that is to say, till he died in 1598. Philip II., who also died in that year, was thus his exact contemporary; for he mounted the Spanish throne just when Elizabeth and her minister began their work together. He was not long in discovering that there was one man, possessed of the most balanced judgment ever brought to the head of English affairs, who was capable of unwinding all his most secret intrigues; and, in fact, the two arch-enemies, the one in London and the other in Madrid, were pitted against each other for forty years. Elizabeth had also the good sense to select the wisest and most learned ecclesiastic of his day, Matthew Parker, for her Primate and chief adviser in Church affairs. It should be noted that both of these sages, as well as the queen herself, had been Conformists to the Papal obedience under Mary--a position far from heroic, but not for a moment to be confused with that of men whose philosophical indifference to the questions which exercised all the highest minds enabled them to join in the persecution of Romanists and Anglicans at different times with a sublime impartiality. ... It was under the advice of Cecil and Parker that Elizabeth, on coming to the throne, made her famous settlement or Establishment of religion." _M. Burrows, Commentaries on the History of England, book 2, chapter 17._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603. The Age of Elizabeth: Parliament.