Volume 1

Desiderata curiosa: or, a collection of divers ... pieces relating chiefly to matters of English history : consisting of choice tracts, memoirs, letters ... etc / Transcribed ... and illustrated with ample notes ... By Francis Peck.

Francis Peck

Date:: 1779

Credit: Desiderata curiosa: or, a collection of divers ... pieces relating chiefly to matters of English history : consisting of choice tracts, memoirs, letters ... etc / Transcribed ... and illustrated with ample notes ... By Francis Peck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$nowe ufual by officers in that place. For it was then no fmall preferment or reputation in the world, to have the favourable countenannce of fo bountifull, magnificent a prince as he was. 4. This Mr. Richard Cecill was a gentleman defcended from the Cecills of Haulterennes in Whales, a very antient houfe; my felf haveing fene manie antient, authentique writings and evidences, provinge manylyneall defcents, evne to himfelf (the coppies whereof I have in my cuftodie to iliewe) & am allured fewe menn in England can ffiewe more pregnaunt & authenti- call proofes for derivation of [their*~\ difcent, then are extant for aprovinge this truth of his* bis. MS. pedigree, by manie feveral evidences & records, proving every difcent; a thinge not ufuall to be fene. 2 5. But, if this weare not fo, or that his faid proofes failed ; yet was he [a] gentleman. For, befides that his father was a Tquire by his place, he was a gentleman by his mother, a godly, vertuous gentlewoman, who lived to the age of fourfcore & five yeres. Her name was Jane Fleckington, daughter & heir of [William] Heckington of [Bourn] in ijhe countie of [Lin- colne, efquire.] 6. By whome came the inheritence of the lordfhip of Burghley (nowe the manfion of his lordlhips barony) and other lands, to the value of twai hundred pounds yearly. 7. The faid Mr. Richard Cecill had by his wife the faid Jane, William Cecill, Lord Burgh¬ ley, lord treafurer of England. [Margaret] married to Roger Cave [of Stanford] efquire. ' Elizabeth married to [Robert] Wingfield [of Upton] efquire. And Anne married to [Tho¬ mas] White [of Tuxford] efquire.3 8. His lordlhips grandfather, Mr. David Cecill of Stameford, was high fherife of Nor- thamptonlhire, twoe yeres together; viz. [firft] from Michaelmas [the] twenty third to [Mi¬ chaelmas the] twenty fourth ; & fecondly, from [Michaelmas the] twenty fourth to ( Michael¬ mas the] twenty fifth yere[s] of [King] Henry the eight. So, as it maie be noted, he was not meanelie born. For then had not himfelf [as I lhall prefently relate] & his fillers [as I have already Ihewn] matched in fo good fort as they did. But to return to my purpofe. 2 Mr. Richard Verftegan fays, that he did ‘ finde very * probable reafons to enduce him to thinke, that the ‘ honourable family of the Cecils, being iflued from * V/ales, is originally defcended from the Roman Cseci- ‘ lii.’ Rejiituiion of decayed Intelligence, Fond. 1628.7. 312. But The moll: received account is, that this family ‘ de- * rive their defcent from Robert Sitfilt, an afiiftant to ‘ Robert Fitz-Hamon in the conqueft of Glamorgan- * fhire, in the time of William Rufus,’ Peerage of Png- land, Load. 1710, p. 2C)Q. ‘ Which Sitlilts (faith Mr. Aubrey) were originally * of Monmouthlliire, Sc a family of great antiquity. ‘ There are yet of that name there ; but the ellate is ‘ much decayed, Sc become fmall. ‘ I was in Monmouth church (faith iie) anno 16^6, c Sc there was in a window a very old elcutch^on (as old ‘ as the church) belonging to the aforefaid family. It ‘ did hang a little dangeroufly, & I fear ’tis now fpoiled. * They are vulgarly called Seylil.’ Aubrey's H/ftory of Surrey, vol. I. p. 1 c,. 16. 3. In the MS. life, this paragraph runs thus. ‘ The * faid Mr. Richard Cecill had by his wife the faid Jane, ‘ William Cecill (Lord Burghley, lord treafurer ofEng- ‘ land) Anne (married to John White efq.). C II A i. Lhe Lord Burghley Jent firft to Grantham, and then to Stanford, fchool. a. At fourteen, to St. John's, in Cambridge. 3. Where he hires the bell-ringer to call him up every morning at four of the. clock. 4. And contrasts a lamenefs by hard ftudy. 5. Medcalf the mafter of S. John’s encou- B 2 rages * (married to Roger Cave efq.) Sc Elizabeth (married ‘ to John Wingfield efq.), But I have corrected the miftakes, and placed the names above exadfly as I find the fame are fet down on the monument erefted by the Lord Burghley himfelf for his father and mother in S. Martin’s church at Stanford. F. P. The MS. life goes on thus-‘ His lordlhip was firft ‘ married to Mary Creeke, filler to Sir John Creeke ‘ knt. by whome he had Thomas Cecill, now Lord ‘ Burghley. The fecond time he married Mildred ‘ Cooke, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke ‘ knt. by whome he had Robert Cecill (nowe her maief- * ties principal fecretary, Sc mafter of her maiefties ‘ wardes and lyveries) Anne Cecill (married to Edward, ‘ now Earl of Oxford) Elizabeth Cecill (married to Wil- ‘ liana the heyre of the Lord Wentworth) & three other ‘ children, who all died younge. But I will heare leave ‘ the difeription of his fruitful 1 branch to the heraulde, ‘ only oblervinge but his birth and matches.’ All which (coming in here improperly, Sc being moftly repeated afterwards in another part of the MS. life) I have for the prefent left out of the text here, and inferted with other matters of the like fort. Chap. V. infra F. P. P. III.$