William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 1521–4 August 1598), was an English politician, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign (17 November 1558–24 March 1603), and Lord High Treasurer from 1572.

Nicholas White

The most prolonged of Cecil's surviving personal correspondences is with an Irish judge, Nicholas White, lasting from 1566 until 1590; it is contained in the State Papers Ireland 63 and Lansdowne MS 102, but receives hardly a mention in the literature on Cecil.

Related Topics:
Correspondence - Irish - Judge

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White had been a tutor to Cecil's children during his student days in London, and the correspondence suggests that he was held in lasting affection by the family. In the end, White fell into a Dublin controversy over the confessions of an intriguing priest, which threatened the authority of the Queen's deputised government in Ireland; out of caution Cecil withdrew his longstanding protection, and the judge was imprisoned in London and died soon after.

Related Topics:
Tutor - Dublin - Ireland

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White's most remarked-upon service for Cecil is his report on his visit with Mary, Queen of Scots in 1569, during the early years of her imprisonment by Queen Elizabeth. He may have published an English translation of the Argonautica in the 1560s, but no copy has survived.

Related Topics:
Mary, Queen of Scots - 1569 - Translation - Argonautica - 1560s

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