1 The family and estate papers at Hatfield House constitute the major source of material for Cecil's household. In 1974, Richard Charteris calendared a selection of references to Jacobean musicians preserved in this collection, ‘Jacobean Musicians at Hatfield House, 1605–1613’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 12 (1974), 115–36; see also John Ward, ‘A Dowland Miscellany’, Journal of the Lute Society of America, 10 (1977), 90–3, appendix B. The following secondary works examine aspects of Cecil's musical patronage, although they contain a number of factual inaccuracies: David C Price, Patrons and Musicians of the English Renaissance (Cambridge, 1981), 173–6, Alan Haynes, Robert Cecil Earl of Salisbury, 1563–1612. Servant of Two Sovereigns (London, 1989), 165–9; Glen A. Philipps, ‘The Patronage of Music in Late Renaissance England 1588–1641’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1974), 9, 33–4, 60–7. A detailed analysis of the nature of late Elizabethan/early Stuart private patronage will be discussed in my forthcoming doctoral thesis, ‘The Musical Patronage of the English Aristocracy, c.1590–c.1640’ (King's College, London) I am grateful to the marquess of Salisbury for permission to publish material from the Cecil papers and to Robin Harcourt Williams, archivist and librarian at Hatfield, for his assistance. I would also like to thank Prof. Curtis Price and Dr Pauline Croft for their comments on this paper.Google Scholar

2 George E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage (London, 1949), xi, 402–4; The History of the House of Commons, 1558–1603, ed Peter W. Hasler, The History of Parliament (London, 1981), i, 571–9.Google Scholar

3 Holdsworth, Sir William, A History of English Law (London, 1903–72), iv, 459–60; Statutes of the Realm, 1547–1624 (London, 1819), 414–22: ‘An Acte towching dyvers Orders for Artificers Laborers Servantes of Husbandrye and Apprentises‘Google Scholar

4 London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 90, f. 178. see also Hulse, Lynn, ‘Sir Michael Hickes (1543–1612): A Study in Musical Patronage’, Music and Letters, 66 (1985), 220–7 Hickes's use of the term ‘consort’ is noteworthy, but may refer simply to a ‘band of musicians’.Google Scholar

5 Nicholas Lanier, Oxford and Frost are included among those servants in receipt of a quarterly wage; see below, note 15. According to Sir Michael Hickes, Cecil also maintained a bass singer prior to April 1608, but it has not been possible to establish his identity (Hatfield, Salisbury MSS, vol. 125/111). In a letter to the earl dated 28 March 1608, Sir Fulke Greville described Thomas Warwick as ‘your servant’ (Salisbury MSS, vol. 125/66). Warwick was reimbursed for the cost of mending Cecil's ‘wynd instruments’ in March 1608/9, but there is no record of him receiving a regular salary (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 18^v, and accounts 9/5) John Caldwell suggests that Warwick was the son of the Hereford Cathedral organist Thomas Warwick (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London, 1980, xx, 224) For an alternative view, see Shaw, Watkins, The Organists and Organs of Hereford Cathedral (Hereford, 1988), 9–10. The composer and musician Joseph Sherley was appointed by Cecil to tutor one of his apprentices on the viol (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 106), but no other information survives regarding his activities in Cecil's household.Google Scholar

6 Kent Archives Office, Sackville MSS, U269/A1/1, entry dated 4 April 1608. During the early years of James I's reign Dorset maintained 11 professional musicians in full-time service.Google Scholar

7 Sean Donnelly suggests that MacDermott may have joined Cecil's household in the late 1590s, see ‘An Irish Harpist and Composer Cormac MacDermott (?–1618)’, Ceol, 8 (1985–6), 40–50 (p. 40). One ‘Cormock, your ho’ servant' petitioned the statesman for a wardship in December 1600 (Salisbury MSS, P 666). However, it is not clear if this reference pertains to the harpist or to a footman named Cormack who was also in Cecil's employment. The earliest reference to the musician in England dates from February 1602/3, see Holman, Peter, ‘The Harp in Stuart England: New Light on William Lawes's Harp Consorts’, Early Music, 15 (1987), 188–203 (pp. 188–9). MacDermott accompanied Cecil on his final journey to Bath prior to the latter's death on 24 May 1612 (Salisbury MSS, Box G/13, f 58^v)Google Scholar

8 In his New Citharen Lessons, dedicated to Cecil's son and heir, William Lord Cranborne, Robinson thanked his pupil, Edward Winne, for the gift of a 14-course cittern. Winne was one of Cecil's attendants, but it is not clear if he was also a member of the earl's band of musicians.Google Scholar

9 Jeffery, Brian, ‘Antony Holborne’, Musica disciplina, 22 (1968), 129–205 (pp 136–7). Holborne instructed his wife on his deathbed that ‘att such time as [she] coulde gett … [their] onelie sonne freed from the service he was in [she] shoulde straighte presente him to [Cecil] as a free gifte’ (Salisbury MSS, vol. 119/10). The boy was offered to Cecil in 1606. He may also have been a musician Elizabeth Holborne referred to her son as impaired by want of a father and the ‘hearinge of some excellent men‘Google Scholar

10 Salisbury MSS, vol. 200/84; Ungerer, Gustav, ‘The French Lutenist Charles Tessier and the Essex Circle’, Renaissance Quarterly, 28 (1975), 190–203 (pp. 198–9).Google Scholar

11 Most boys lost their voices in their fourteenth or fifteenth year; see Wulstan, David, Tudor Music (London, 1985), 241 George Mason left Cecil's household shortly after his fourteenth birthday, two years before the completion of his apprenticeship (Westminster Public Library, St Clement Danes parish register, Vol. 1, f. 28^v; baptized 4 August 1594) He was therefore indentured from the age of about nine. If Richard Charteris is correct in his identification of Simon as Simon Ives, then Mason's successor was indentured a year earlier; see ‘Jacobean Musicians at Hatfield House’, 127. Nicholas Lanier had completed his apprenticeship by the age of 19 (Salisbury MSS, bills 14/17). The age at which Mason and Lanier were indentured is based upon the minimum seven-year apprenticeship requirement set out in paragraph xix of the Statute of Artificers The length of indenture in private households probably conformed to the law, though it is difficult to generalize on the basis of limited evidence.Google Scholar

12 Salisbury MSS, vol 66/65 and 68. Percival Harte was a cousin of Cecil's father-in-law, William Brooke, tenth Lord Cobham, see The History of the House of Commons, 1558–1603, i, 265Google Scholar

13 Salisbury MSS, Box U/54, Innocent Lanier to Mr Houghton: ‘I am sorie for the boy with whome I have taken much paynes, but it lay not in my power to keepe his voyce’ Cecil initially offered the remaining years of Mason's apprenticeship to Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton (Salisbury MSS, bills 33). The boy was employed by Cumberland shortly before December 1608 (Chatsworth, Bolton MSS, books 74 and 227). I am grateful to the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees for their permission to publish material from the Bolton collectionGoogle Scholar

14 Walter L. Woodfill, Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (New York, 1969), 68Google Scholar

15 Salisbury MSS, accounts 8/25, 9/5, 12/6, 128/1, 160/1, ff. 36^v–37, 63, 85^v, 108, 131–2, Box G/13; bills 14, 22, 46, 56, 57, 60 Coprario was not entitled to a regular salary from the earl, but he did receive a gift of £20 in December 1609 (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 58). The musician's lodgings were also financed by Cecil in 1607 (Salisbury MSS, bills 33)Google Scholar

16 See for example the contract of employment drawn up between the first earl of Dorset and his musicians, Public Record Office, PROB 11/113 1 Dorset, f 25^v. ‘The humble answer and advice of his Majesty's council upon certain propositions, a Collection of Several Speeches and Treatises of the late Lord Treasurer Cecil and of Several Observations of the Lords of the Council Given to King James Concerning his Estate and Revenue in the Years 1608, 1609 and 1610’, ed Pauline Croft, Camden Miscellany, 29 (Camden Society, 4th series, 34, 1987), 273–318 (p. 304).Google Scholar

17 For example, Martin Otto moved from the household of Gilbert Talbot, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, to Thomas Viscount Fentoun in order ‘that I may practyse my qualytie about the Cowrt’ (Lambeth Palace Library, MS 708, f 196).Google Scholar

18 Public Record Office, Privy Seal Docket Ind. 6744. I am grateful to Peter Holman for this reference.Google Scholar

19 Salisbury MSS, vol. 111/100. It has been suggested that Nicholas Lanier was attached to the household of Henry, Prince of Wales (d. November 1612) on the basis of a letter which he sent to Sir Dudley Carleton; see Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee (repr. London, 1973), xi, 575. However, the mutual good master to whom Lanier refers is more likely to have been Cecil; Carleton had been employed as one of the earl's secretaries from 1607. The letter includes a tantalizing statement in which Lanier confides to Carleton that he ‘knows not which is the more dangerous attempt to turn courtier or cloune [i.e one who does not live in the city]’ (Public Record Office, SP14/72).Google Scholar

20 Lansdowne MS 92, f 180.Google Scholar

21 Salisbury MSS, bills 14/1, and box ‘Library catalogues’ (two copies, ff. 26^v and 27^v).Google Scholar

22 A cantus part of Morley's The First Booke of Balletts (1595) and Speuy's Les pseaumes de David mis en tableture sur l'instrument des orgues & de l'espinette (Dordrecht, 1610) are preserved in the library at Hatfield Both books were acquired by later generations of the family.Google Scholar

23 Salisbury MSS, accounts 9/5, 11/2, 160/1, ff 11, 15, 18, 42; bills 4, 14, 33, 57, 58, 67, 210; Box A/3, 23, Box B/5, f. 14; Box C/4, 5, 9, Box D/2; Box G/2; Box G/14, vol. 55/15, Lansdowne MS 91, f. 129 Peter Edney, the royal flautist, sold a bass violin to Cecil in 1608 for the sum of £5 (bills 14/9; endorsed ‘a basse vyolle‘). One of Cecil's clients commissioned a viol from the English luthier George Gill, which he presented to the earl; see below.Google Scholar

24 Salisbury MSS, bills 14, and Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1611–18, ed. Mary A. E Green (London, 1858), 128 Brownlow was the father of Mary Brownlow whose galliard by William Byrd was published in Parthenia (1612/13) It is perhaps surprising that Greville should have accommodated Cecil in this way as he had strongly opposed the earl during the final years of Elizabeth's reign and had suffered loss of office as a result. Presumably it would have been unwise for him not to maintain, at least superficially, a cordial relationship with Cecil In May 1612 he thanked the earl for returning an instrument which he described as ‘honoured by his Lordship's use of it‘Google Scholar

25 Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f 42^v.Google Scholar

26 Salisbury MSS, bills 14, 33; accounts 160/1, ff 11, 107, 139, accounts 9/5, box G/13, f 13^v.Google Scholar

27 For an account of this commission see Woodfield, Ian, ‘The Keyboard Recital in Oriental Diplomacy, 1520–1620’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 115 (1990), 33–62 (pp 41–6).Google Scholar

28 Salisbury MSS, vol 111/47, J Gairdner and R H. Brodie, Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII (London, 1905), 20/1, p 55; Dictionary of National Biography, v, 392–3Google Scholar

29 Salisbury MSS, bills 33. Thomas Howard, first earl of Suffolk, was one of Cecil's closest friends. His daughter, Lady Catherine Howard, married Cecil's heir, William Lord Cranborne, in 1608Google Scholar

30 Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, ff 139, 18. The organ was located in the great chamber in the royal apartments designed for James I, and was gilded by Rowland Buckett, a painter and interior decorator employed by Cecil at both Hatfield and Salisbury House (Salisbury MSS, bills 58/1). In April 1609, Cecil also acquired a ‘portative’ organ from Haan for £35 (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 42).Google Scholar

31 Bolton MSS, book 174, f 155^v; Salisbury MSS, Box G/2. Among Lord Cranborne's belongings for use in his travels in France was a viol purchased specially by Lanier at a cost of £5 (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 15). Cranborne asked his father to release the musician in order that Lanier might accompany him to Italy in 1610, ‘by reason of a desire I have to learne one the vio[l] while I am there having noe other exersises to doe by reason of the heate’ (Salisbury MSS, vol. 228/33). The boy's request has led to much speculation about the dating of Lanier's acquaintance with the Italian monodic style, see for example Philipps, ‘The Patronage of Music in Late Renaissance England’, 9, 66, and Peter Walls, ‘The Origins of English Recitative’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 110 (1983–4), 25–40 (p. 37) The intended journey was postponed owing to the assassination of Henri IV in May of that year There is no record in the Salisbury manuscripts that Lanier joined his pupil's retinue to Italy. However, he is known to have carried letters to Venice on behalf of the Privy Council early in 1611 (Public Record Office, E351/543, entry dated 17 February 1610/11) I am grateful to Dr Andrew Ashbee for this reference.Google Scholar

32 Salisbury MSS, bill 14/3, bills 33, accounts 160/1, ff. 10^v, 36, 106; accounts 9/5, box U/54, vol 111/100.Google Scholar

33 None of the composers who dedicated works to Cecil is known to have been employed regularly by the statesman; see Table 2. However, in his dedicatory epistle, Dowland referred to ‘your Lordships speciall Favors and Graces’. The only known connection between them dates from 10 November 1595 when Dowland wrote to Cecil recounting meetings with English Catholic exiles living in Florence and renouncing his adherence to the old religion ‘which tendeth to nothing but destruction’. The implications of this letter are discussed in Diana Poulton, John Dowland (2nd edn, London, 1982), 36–45Google Scholar

34 The entertainments in question are (1) Jonson's The Genius staged at Theobalds on 22 May 1607 when the house was formally given to James I in exchange for Hatfield (Salisbury MSS, bills 386/1), (2) entertainment staged at Salisbury House between 5 and 11 May 1608 to celebrate Cecil's appointment as lord treasurer (Salisbury MSS, bills 22 and 33), (3) entertainment staged at Britain's Burse on 11 April 1609 to mark the opening of the new exchange (Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 51; bills 35/1, la, 6–8, vol 195/100) See also Scott McMillin, ‘Jonson's Early Entertainments. New Information from Hatfield House’, Renaissance Drama, new series, 1 (1968), 153–66; Stephen K. Orgel and Roy Strong, Inigo Jones The Theatre of the Stuart Court (London, 1973), i, 122–7.Google Scholar

35 Lorenzo Bianconi and Thomas Walker, ‘Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), 209–96 (p. 236)Google Scholar

36 Lamer wrote music for the Maske at the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset (1613), Lovers Made Men (1617), The Vision of Delight (1617), The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621) and The Masque of Augurs (1622). Coprario wrote music for The Lords Masque (1613), Masque of the Inner Temple and Grays Inn (1613) and Maske at the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset (1613).Google Scholar

37 See for example Malcolm Smuts, Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England (Philadelphia, 1987), and Kevin Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

38 Salisbury MSS, vols. 31/48, 73/24, 35/100.Google Scholar

39 Salisbury MSS, vol. 30/85 None of Burgh's apprentices can be identified. For an alternative view see Grattan, William H. Flood, ‘New Light on Late Tudor Composers XXXII. John Daniel’, The Musical Times, 69 (1928), 218–19.Google Scholar

40 Salisbury MSS, vol 55/15.Google Scholar

41 Salisbury MSS, bills 14/1. In a draft will dated 24 August 1603, Hickes bequeathed a ‘greate wynde instrument’ to Cecil (Lansdowne MS 88, f. 147^v). I am grateful to Alan Davidson of the History of Parliament Trust for this reference In the event, Hickes died after Cecil.Google Scholar

42 Lansdowne MS 91, f. 129 Gill and his business partner, Peter Edney, are remembered principally for their attempt in March 1608/9 to obtain the monopoly ‘for the sole making of violles, violins and lutes with an addicion of wyer stringes besides the ordenary stringes for the bettering of the sound being an invention of theires not formerly practised or knowne’ (Public Record Office, SO 3/4). Was Gregory also claiming to be the inventor of the viol strung with sympathetic metal strings? The monopoly is discussed in Peter Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers The Violin at the English Court, 1540–1690 (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar

43 Gregory was well aware of Cecil's taste for exotic toys and novelties Among the many gifts which he had already presented to the earl were a portable counting house with presses for papers and a perspective glass for use in the secret service (Salisbury MSS, vols 37/74 and 25/52)Google Scholar

44 Salisbury MSS, vol. 62/77. see also Chibbett, Michael, ‘Dedications in Morley's Printed Music’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 13 (1977), 84–94 (pp. 87–8).Google Scholar

45 Heal, Felicity, ‘The Idea of Hospitality in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, 102 (1984), 66–93 (p. 90). Burghley specifically commended generosity to kindred and allies in his advice to Cecil for ‘by this Meanes thou shalt so double the band of nature, as thou shalt find them so many Advocates to plead an Apology for thee behind thy back’; see Burghley, Lord, ‘Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Man's Life’, Advice to a Son, ed Louis B. Wright (Ithaca, 1962), 9–13 (p. 11) In addition to the royal entertainments listed in note 34 Cecil's musicians regularly played before the monarch and other members of the royal family. On 1 October 1605, for example, Anne of Denmark paid £5 ‘to the Erie of Salisburies musytians’ (British Library, Add. MS 27404, f. 38^v). I am grateful to Dr Andrew Ashbee for this referenceGoogle Scholar

46 Ben Jonson, ed. Charles H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson (Oxford, 1925–52), vii, 153–8 (p. 158); Salisbury MSS, vol. 195/100.Google Scholar

47 Lambeth Palace Library, MS 3203, f. 36; Sir Henry Wotton, ‘Of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex; and George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham: Some Observations by Way of Parallel, in the Time of their Estates of Favour’, Reliquiae Wottonianae (2nd edn, London, 1654), 3–36 (p 9) A copy of the ‘ditty’ was sent to the seventh earl of Shrewsbury, one of Cecil's closest friends. Shrewsbury was privileged to obtain this work, being informed by his correspondent, ‘I do boldly send these things to your Lo’ which I wold not do to any els for I hear they are very secrett' (Lambeth Palace Library, MS 3203, f. 36).Google Scholar

48 Jan Van Dorsten, ‘Mr Secretary Cecil, Patron of Letters’, English Studies, 50 (1969), 545–53, Salisbury MSS bills 1/6, 15; Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1547–1580, ed. R. Lemon (London, 1856). 179. MacDermott's repair of ‘your lo'ps harpe’ has led Peter Holman to suggest that Robert Cecil may have played on this instrument; see ‘The Harp in Stuart England’, 190. In my view, this is to misunderstand the use of the possessive since all the instruments used by Cecil's musicians are generally referred to as belonging to ‘his lordship‘Google Scholar

49 Salisbury MSS, vol. 228/14.Google Scholar

50 Public Record Office, SP78 France 56/286Google Scholar

51 Strong, Roy, Henry Prince of Wales and England's Lost Renaissance (London, 1986), 7–70, Nottingham University Library, Portland MSS, PwV2, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

52 Salisbury MSS, vol. 228/32.Google Scholar

53 Eric W. Ives, ’ “Agaynst taking awaye of Women”: The Inception and Operation of the Abduction Act of 1487’, Wealth and Power in Tudor England Essays Presented to S T Bindoff, ed Eric W Ives, Robert J Knecht and John J. Scarisbrick (London, 1978), 21–44.Google Scholar

54 Lansdowne MS 90, f. 178, Salisbury MSS, vol. 125/111.Google Scholar

55 John Davies's epigram ‘To the generous Maister in Musicke, Mr Oxford’ published in The Scourge of Folly (1611), 207, may be addressed to Cecil's musician.Google Scholar

56 Lansdowne MS 90, f 143Google Scholar

57 Salisbury MSS, accounts 160/1, f. 68^v.Google Scholar

58 Lansdowne MS 99, f. 157. Christopher Heybourne was the younger brother of Ferdinando Heybourne, groom of the privy chamber to Elizabeth I and James I; see Marlow, Richard, ‘Sir Ferdinando Heybome alias Richardson’, The Musical Times, 115 (1974), 736–9 (p 737)Google Scholar

59 Buxton, John, Elizabethan Taste (London, 1963), 3, 17–18, 21–5; Pinto, David, ‘The Fantasy Manner. The Seventeenth-Century Context’, Chelys, 10 (1981), 17–28 (p. 18).Google Scholar

60 Dodd, Gordon, Thematic Index of Music for Viols (London, 1980–7), ‘Coprario’, 4–10, Joan Wess, ‘Musica Transalpina, Parody and the Emerging Jacobean Viol Fantasia’, Chelys, 15 (1986), 3–25, Salisbury MSS, vol. 62/77Google Scholar

61 Bianconi, Lorenzo, Music in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1987), vii, Roy Strong, The Renaissance Garden in England (London, 1979), 103–10, Erna Auerbach and C. Kingsley Adams, Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House (London, 1971), 26; Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1611–1618, p. 4 (Sir Walter Cope to Sir Dudley Carleton at Venice, 26 January 1610/11. ‘[Carleton] cannot send a thinge more gracious [than] .. any auncient Master peeces of paintinge‘).Google Scholar

62 Sir Lionel Cust, ‘Lanier’, Miscellanea genealogica et heraldica, 5th series, 6 (1926–8), 382–3, Roger North on Music, ed John Wilson (London, 1959), 288, Sir John Harington, Nugae antiquae (London, 1804), ii, 348–51 Crusse died in service in February 1611/12 (Salisbury MSS, box G/13, f 11)Google Scholar

63 Holman, ‘The Harp in Stuart England’, 190–4Google Scholar

64 Salisbury MSS, bills 14/18 20 airs in tablature by Joseph Sherley survive in a handful of contemporary sources, but it is not known if these pieces were composed under Cecil's patronage, see Dodd, Thematic Index of Music for Viols, ‘Joseph Sherlie‘Google Scholar

65 The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert L. Ellis and Douglas D. Heath (London, 1858), ii, 433.Google Scholar

66 ‘The Religion of Robert Cecil’, Historical Journal (forthcoming, 1991). I am grateful to Dr Croft for allowing me to see her typescript.Google Scholar

67 For a discussion of the paintings' provenance see Auerbach and Kingsley Adams, Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House, 104 Salisbury MSS, box B/5, f. 14^v (inventory dated 31 July 1612. ‘Pictures in the Chappell’), box G/13, f 21 (to Rowland Buckett ‘for painteinge 2 picktures uppon cloth, the one is the Angells salutation to the Virgin Marie and th'other is the Angell ap’ to the shippards, for the Chapell at Hatfield and done by my lords appointment, xxiii I', both paintings are illustrated in Auerbach and Kingsley Adams, Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House, 152–3); Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists The Rise of English Arminianism c.1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987), 194.Google Scholar

68 Croft, ‘The Religion of Robert Cecil’, Andrew W. Foster, ‘A Biography of Archbishop Neile (1562–1640)’ (D Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1978), 3, 7, 15, 28.Google Scholar

69 Merritt, Julia, ‘Religion, Government and Society in Early Modern Westminster, 1525–1625’ (Ph.D dissertation, London, in progress); I am grateful to Julia Merritt for information on Cecil's lack of attendance at St Martin's parish. Salisbury MSS, box A/2 (inventory of Hatfield Parsonage 1611. ‘In the greate chamber One faire greate bible with your honors Armes, Eight service bookes with your honors Armes < at Hatfield Ho’ in the chap' >'). See for example Salisbury MSS, bills 67B (John Norton's bill for psalm books dated November 1611) Four copies of Sternhold and Hopkins's psalter dating from 1562, 1606, 1607 and 1613 are preserved in the library at Hatfield Only the 1562 edition was purchased at the time of publication'). See for example Salisbury MSS, bills 67B (John Norton's bill for psalm books dated November 1611) Four copies of Sternhold and Hopkins's psalter dating from 1562, 1606, 1607 and 1613 are preserved in the library at Hatfield Only the 1562 edition was purchased at the time of publication' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Merritt,+Julia,+‘Religion,+Government+and+Society+in+Early+Modern+Westminster,+1525–1625’+(Ph.D+dissertation,+London,+in+progress);+I+am+grateful+to+Julia+Merritt+for+information+on+Cecil's+lack+of+attendance+at+St+Martin's+parish.+Salisbury+MSS,+box+A/2+(inventory+of+Hatfield+Parsonage+1611.+‘In+the+greate+chamber+One+faire+greate+bible+with+your+honors+Armes,+Eight+service+bookes+with+your+honors+Armes+<+at+Hatfield+Ho’+in+the+chap'+>').+See+for+example+Salisbury+MSS,+bills+67B+(John+Norton's+bill+for+psalm+books+dated+November+1611)+Four+copies+of+Sternhold+and+Hopkins's+psalter+dating+from+1562,+1606,+1607+and+1613+are+preserved+in+the+library+at+Hatfield+Only+the+1562+edition+was+purchased+at+the+time+of+publication>Google Scholar

70 Philipps, ‘The Patronage of Music in Late Renaissance England’, 60Google Scholar

71 Cecil's reputation came under considerable attack following his death. Vilification of prominent figures was not unusual during the Jacobean period, though Richard Sackville, third earl of Dorset, noted' ‘When great men die such is either their desert or the malice of people, or both together, as commonly they are ill-spoken of; and so is one that died but lately, more I think, than ever any one was, and in more several kinds’; see Nichols, John, The Progresses of King James I (London, 1828), ii, 445, note 1. Libels relentlessly drew attention to Cecil's deformity and compared him with Richard III, another younger son with vaulting ambition. Family members and close friends immediately sprang to Cecil's defence One ballad writer, for example, drew attention to Cecil's patronage of the arts. ‘Where were ye Muses when your glory died? / Would not your griefe endure to see his fall? / Noe marvaile for his glory was your pride, / And those his silver haires enricht yow all …’, ‘Ballads Relating Chiefly to the Reign of Elizabeth I’, Ballads from Manuscripts, ed. William R Morfill, part 2 (Hertford, 1873), 297. If, as Oliver Neighbour suggests, both Gibbons and Byrd's pavans and galliards for the earl of Salisbury ‘were specially written as a tribute to the memory of Robert Cecil’, it is tempting to place these works among the many apologia, see Neighbour, Oliver, The Consort and Keyboard Music of William Byrd (London, 1978), 217. Comments on Cecil's reputation are taken from Pauline Croft's unpublished paper ‘The Reputation of Robert Cecil’, delivered to the Royal Historical Society in March 1990.Google Scholar