New walls on old foundations
AT Westminster on February 25, 1571, Elizabeth I affixed her Great Seal to an unusually elegant and richly decorated patent. It elevated her loyal servant, William Cecil, to the peerage as Baron Burghley. He was the only commoner she dignified in this way during the course of her long reign, a mark of his exceptional status in the realm. Cecil’s chosen title celebrated his connection with the place where—in his own later words—‘my principal house is and my name and posterity are to remain at God’s will and where I am no new planted or new feathered gentleman’.
Burghley House was already a substantial residence in 1571 and one on which Cecil had previously lavished money. Nevertheless, it was in the years after his ennoblement, between 1573 and 1588, that he created much of the great building that visitors admire today. As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of Cecil’s birth, it’s worth reconsidering the story of his baronial seat. For a country house of such defining importance to our understanding of Elizabethan architecture, its early history is surprisingly exiguous and, for a house of such manifest architectural splendour and seeming coherence, it
