Cecil was simple and sober in his own living and attire, but by his every act he demonstrates his ambition to be well regarded by the world, and his determination to fulfil what he considered decorous in a great personage who owed a duty to his ancestry, to his position, and to those who should inherit his honours. His letter of advice to the Earl of Bedford when the latter was appointed governor of Berwick (1564) sets forth in a few words his ideal of a _grand seigneur_, which might represent a portrait of himself. “Think of some great nobleman whom you can take as your pattern.… Weigh well what comes before you. Let your household be an example of order. Allow no excess of apparel, no disputes on Princes’ affairs at table. Be hospitable, but avoid excess. Be impartial and easy of access. Do not favour lawyers without honesty.… Try to make country gentlemen agree: take their sons as your servants, and train them in warlike and manly exercises, such as artillery, wrestling, &c.” The picture which Cecil presents of his own mind in his writings is consistently that of a judicious, cautious, acquisitive, and intensely proud and self-conscious man; a man eminently fair, especially to his inferiors, to whom it would be undignified to be otherwise; not wanting in courage, but by temperament more inclined to reduce an enemy’s stronghold by sap and mine than by a storming attack; determined that he would stand, no matter who might fall, and yet not greedy or selfish for personal gratification; his mind monopolised by two main ideas, the greatness and prosperity of England, and the decorous dignity of his own house. To attribute to him modern ideas with regard to liberty, as we now understand it, would be absurd. He was a man of great enlightenment, a lover of learning; but he was a statesman of his own age, not of ours. That England should be governed by nobles, and that he should help the Queen to guide the governors, was in the divine order of things. He would do, and did, according to his lights, the best he could for all men; but that the ordinary citizen should claim a voice in deciding what was best for himself would have appeared to Cecil Utopian nonsense to be punished as treason. He would be rigidly just, charitable, and forbearing to all; but if any but those on the same plane as himself should dream of claiming rights of equality, then impious blasphemy could hardly be too strong a term to apply to such insolence. With opinions such as those he undoubtedly held respecting the exclusive right of an aristocracy to govern, his own position would have been inconsistent if he had not claimed, as he did with almost suspicious vehemence, to belong by birth and descent to an ancient and noble race. CHAPTER VII 1564-1566