The eldest son of Lord Treasurer Burleigh succeeded him in his title, which has since been augmented by the Earldom and Marquisate of Exeter; while his youngest son, Sir Robert Cecil, inherited much of his father’s talent and wisdom, “with a more subtle policy and a superior capacity for state intrigue.” For certain secret services to James, during the life of Elizabeth, he was raised by the king to the peerage. In 1604 he was created Viscount Cranborne, and, in the year following, he was made Earl of Salisbury. After filling the office of sole Secretary of State, he succeeded, on the death of the Earl of Dorset, to the high post of Lord Treasurer. “Shrewd, subtle, and penetrating,” he discharged his duties with great ability, and while attending to the interests of his country, forgot not his own, having, “by various methods,” increased his inheritance to a very ample extent. [Illustration: _The Garden Front of Hatfield House._] After taking a prominent part in the affairs of state during Elizabeth’s reign, he was the one who, on her death-bed, succeeded in inducing her to name her successor. Cecil, who was then her Secretary, approached her bed with the lord-keeper and the lord-admiral, and begged the dying Queen to name her successor, when she started and said, “I told you my seat had been the seat of kings; I will have no _rascal_ to succeed me!”—when Cecil boldly asked her what she meant by “no rascal?”—to which she replied, a king should succeed her, and who could that be but her cousin of Scotland? and she begged to be no more troubled. Nevertheless, some hours later Cecil again “besought her, if she would have the King of Scots to succeed her, she would show a sign unto them, whereat, suddenly heaving herself up in her bed, she held both her hands joined together over her head in manner of a crown. Then she sank down, fell into a doze, and at three o’clock in the morning died in a stupor.” Five hours after her death, Cecil proclaimed James of Scotland, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., and thus at once secured the country against conflicting claimants to the crown. Soon afterwards he received the new monarch at Theobalds, who a few days later rewarded him by important offices, and by creating him Baron Cecil and afterwards Viscount Cranborne and Earl of Salisbury. From the moment of James’s accession, through all the troublous times of the gunpowder plot, and all the matters relating to Lady Arabella Stuart, to Sir Walter Raleigh, and others, down to 1612, Cecil’s was one of the most prominent names in the kingdom. In that year “he died, worn out and wretched, at Marlborough, on his way back to court.” In his last moments he said, “Ease and pleasure quake to hear of death; but my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth to be dissolved.” It was this nobleman who exchanged his mansion of Theobalds, with the king, for Hatfield. On