ABSTRACT
The uncertainty which had hamstrung the Court of Wards during the nine months’ vacancy, prevailed until the very moment when the queen’s decision was announced. ‘Sir Thomas Fortescue’, wrote the dowager Countess of Southampton to her son, the earl, ‘utterly refuses the wards, whereat most marvel.’ The letter was written on 18 May 1599. Yet by 21 May it was known that Cecil was Master. Cecil’s surviving manuscripts at Hatfield and elsewhere do not, at first glance, encourage one to make a favourable judgement of him. Hickes, for a time at least, remained active. In 1603 people find Cecil advising Hickes to pay that notorious sponger and go-between, Lady Glemmam, daughter of the Lord Treasurer, one hundreds pounds as a bribe. In 1608 James I appointed Cecil to the office his father had held for so long: Lord High Treasurer of England.
