The embarrassment of riches in the way of material is, indeed, the rock upon which most of the serious biographers of Cecil have foundered. In the Lansdowne MSS., at the British Museum alone, there are 122 folio volumes of Burghley manuscripts, which descended through the minister’s secretary, Sir Michael Hicks, besides large numbers in the Cotton and Harley collections. The Burghley Papers at the Record Office are almost innumerable, the foreign documents subsequent to 1577 being still uncalendared, whilst the priceless collection in the possession of Lord Salisbury at Hatfield consists of over 30,000 documents, bound in 210 large volumes. From comparatively early times many of the more interesting of these papers have been in print. The _Scrinia Ceciliana_ in the third edition of Cabala, “The Compleat Ambassador,” the “Sadler State Papers,” Haynes’ and Murdin’s selections from the Hatfield archives, Forbes’ “Public Transactions,” Birch’s “Memoirs of Elizabeth,” Burgon’s “Sir Thomas Gresham,” Nicholas’ “Sir Christopher Hatton,” Burnet, Collier, Lodge, Strype, Foxe, Ellis, the Harleian Miscellany, and Tytler contain a great number of original documents from Cecil’s collections. Above all—since the excellent sketch of Cecil in the “Dictionary of National Biography” was written—the Historical MSS. Commission have completed the six volumes of Calendars of the Hatfield Papers to 1597, and the Calendars of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth have been published by the Record Office. By the aid of these, and the Domestic and Foreign Calendars of State Papers, it is now, for the first time, possible to obtain a comprehensive view in an accessible form of thousands of documents which have hitherto been difficult or impossible to reach; and obstacles which have marred the success of previous labours in the same field, may, it is hoped, now be more easily surmountable. The sources above mentioned have all been placed under contribution for the production of the present summary account of Cecil’s political life, as well as some uncalendared manuscripts kindly placed at my disposal by the Marquis of Salisbury. I cannot hope to have succeeded entirely where others have failed, but I have not spared time or labour in the attempt; and I have endeavoured, at least, to prevent my view of the events themselves from being obstructed by the documents which relate to them; and, so far as is possible in a short readable book, to present a general view of the policy of the reign of Elizabeth, especially with relation to the influence exerted upon it by her principal minister.