View source for William Cecil, Lord Burghley

'''William Cecil, Lord Burghley''' (1520-1598)

http://humphrysfamilytree.com/Cecil/Bitmaps/burghley.2.jpg

He was born Sep 13, 1520, the only son of [[Richard Cecil]] by his wife Jane Heckington.  William was born "probably" (as Townsend and Sanford, op cit) at his grandfather's house in Bourne, Lincolnshire and christened there.

He married first in 1541, against his father's wishes to Mary Cheke, by whom he had only one child, his son Thomas.  Mary died and he married secondly in 1545 to Mildred Cooke, by whom he had three children: Anne, Robert and Elizabeth.

He was granted the manor of Coombe in 1552.

He was the prime minister during the reign of [[Elizabeth I, Queen of England]].

He died on Aug 4, 1598 at his house, Burghly House, in The Strand, London, England.  He was buried on Aug 29, 1598 at St Martin's, in Stamford Baron

==Primary documents==
*The inscription on his monument transcribed [[WilliamCecil2|here]]

==Secondary sources==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography#The_first_series DNB], [http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=6892&path=Brown+-+Chaloner.Dictionary+Of+National+Biography.CE.15&fn=william&ln=cecil&st=d&pid=11794&rc=135,631,256,661;291,632,483,662&zp=75 "William Cecil, Lord Burghley]
*Complete Peerage, "Burghley", pg 428, transcribed [http://www.countyhistorian.com/cecilweb/index.php/WilliamCecil1 here]

*[http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1402159013&id=Wdngqyl9coAC&pg=RA5-PA63&lpg=RA5-PA63&sig=Pdl1T_NOgmfs-4gdFstauZXCu-o The Great Governing Families of England, by Meredith White Townsend and John Langton Sanford; Vol 2, pg 63]

*[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=43014&strquery=cecil BHO], mentioning the granting of Coombe

*''The Princes in the Tower'', by Alison Weir. Ballantine Books, New York. 1992 ISBN 0345391780 page 118 : In speaking of Eleanor Butler she says : "Lady Eleanor died shortly before 30th June, 1468, the day on which she was buried in the conventual church of the Carmelites in Norwich.  Buck states that she had retired there shortly after giving birth to a child by the King, but there is no contemporary evidence for this.  The child, said to have been known at first as Giles Gurney and later on as Edward de Wigmore, was supposed to have been the great-grandfather of Richard Wigmore, secretary to Elizabeth I's chief minister, Lord Burleigh."

http://humphrysfamilytree.com/Cecil/Bitmaps/burghley.grave.jpg
His tombstone, picture from [http://www.tudorplace.com.ar Tudor Place]

==External links==
*[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wjhonson/Royals/GED2WEB/people/p0000058.htm#I4801 His entry at Will Johnson's ''Royals'']
*[http://geneweb.inria.fr/roglo?lang=en;i=312993 His entry at the Roglo database]
*[http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00003566&tree=LEO His entry at genealogics]
*[http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/CECIL.htm#Richard%20CECIL%20(CYSSEL)1 The Cecil family entry at tudorplace.com.ar]
*[http://www.thepeerage.com/p205.htm#i2050 His entry at thepeerage.com]
*[http://www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/cc4aq/cecil01.htm His entry at stirnet.com]
*[http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/individual_record.asp?recid=7672598&lds=0&frompage=0 His entry at familysearch.org]
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cecil,_Lord_Burghley William Cecil, Lord Burghley] on Wikipedia
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=QeGJZ9ABOzsC&pg=PA1 "Lord Burghley's Map of Lancashire"]

[[Category:Cecil1]]
[[Category:Desc. of Richard Cecil|Cecil, William (1)]]
[[Category:England]]
[[Category:Middle Ages]]