ABSTRACT
Gout and other infirmities made movement difficult for him; but the mind was alert to the last. He continued to have a stream of callers, many of them officials, and he went on, as in his early days, to pour out his directions and counsel. In the last decade of the sixteenth century the political scene, and Cecil’s career, were overshadowed by the turbulent and flamboyant personality of Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex. The queen must have seriously considered the claims of Essex. Few can have drunk so often and so deeply from the cup of bitterness; but it is impossible, even with the exercise of the historical imagination, to share to the full his feelings in the loss of the Mastership. But in the event, hope had been out-distanced by rumour, and both had been overtaken by despair.
