Cecil does not seem to have absented himself from court, though he passed more of his time than hitherto at Wimbledon. Wyatt rose and fell; Elizabeth and Courtney suffered under the Queen’s displeasure; Cheke and Cooke went to exile; Cecil’s old friend the Duchess of Suffolk and her husband Mr. Bertie fled to Germany; Carews, Staffords, Tremaynes, Killigrews, Fitzwilliams, the ex-Ambassador Pickering, and hundreds like them, took refuge abroad from the country over which a Spanish King, with his half-Spanish Queen, were soon to be supreme. Cranmer, Cecil’s friend from boyhood, and other Protestant Churchmen, filled the rooms in the Tower vacated by those whom Cecil had been active in prosecuting, but Cecil himself lived rich and influential, if no longer politically powerful, and no hand was raised against him. That he was a conforming Catholic is certain, quite apart from Father Persons’ spiteful description of his exaggerated devotion; “frequenting masses, said litanies with the priest, laboured a pair of great beads which he continually carried, preached to his parishioners in Stamford, and asked pardon for his errors in King Edward’s time.” This statement of itself would not suffice were it not supported by better evidence; but although there is a dearth of such evidence at the beginning of Mary’s reign, there is abundance of it later. At the Record Office, among other papers of the same sort, there exists the Easter book for 1556, headed, “The names of them that dwelleth in the pariche of Vembletoun that was confessed and received the Sacrament of the altar;” the first entry being, “My master Sir Wilyem Cecell, and my lady Myldread his wyff;”[69] and Cecil’s accounts for this period contain many entries of the cost of his oblations and gifts to the altar. He retained, moreover, the benefices of Putney and Mortlake, of which he kept strict account; and in August 1557 the Dean and Chapter of Worcester addressed a letter of thanks to him for his annual contribution to his two churches, and assured him of their willingness to accede to his wishes and increase the stipends of the curates there.[70] There is therefore no doubt that, like Princess Elizabeth and most of those who afterwards became her ministers, Cecil was quite ready, in outward seeming at least, to adopt the ritual decreed by the Court and Parliament.