This refers to what had happened after the Earl of Warwick died in 1590, when the town petitioned Burghley for the right to name the vicar and schoolmaster and other privileges but Greville bought the lordship for himself.

A bitter rivalry between the Earl of Essex and Robert Cecil, son of Lord Burghley, and their respective adherents, for the most powerful positions in the state marred politics.

In later years Burghley was to upbraid Oxford frequently for his prodigal extravagance.

Another of Oxford's men was slain that month, and in March Burghley wrote to Sir Christopher Hatton about the death of one of Knyvet's men, thanking Hatton for his efforts " to bring some good end to these troublesome matters betwixt my Lord and Oxford and Mr Thomas Knyvet ".

Widowed, weary of the unsettled life of a courtier, and anxious to provide for his children and himself, Oxford wrote to Burghley outlining a plan to purchase the manoral lands of Denbigh, in Wales, if the Queen would consent, offering to pay for them by commuting his £ 1, 000 annuity and agreeing to abandon his suit to regain the Forest of Essex.

In June Oxford wrote to Burghley reminding him that he made an agreement with Elizabeth to relinquish his claim to the Forest of Essex for three reasons, one of which was the Queen's reluctance to punish Skinner's felony, which had caused Oxford to forfeit £ 20, 000 in bonds and statutes.

Between 1591 and 1592 Oxford disposed of the last of his large estates ; Castle Hedingham, the seat of his earldom, went to Lord Burghley, it was held in trust for Oxford's three daughters by his first marriage.

In March he was unable to go to court due to illness, in August he wrote to Burghley from Byfleet, where he gone for his health: ' I find comfort in this air, but no fortune in the court.

As noted, twelve years before his death Oxford sold his interest in Castle Hedingham to Lord Burghley, in trust for his three daughters by his first marriage.

On at least one occasion he delivered diplomatic letters to England for Walsingham, Burghley, and Leicester, as well as for the queen.

In 1580, through his uncle, Lord Burghley, he applied for a post at court which might enable him to pursue a life of learning.

Oxfordians claim that Lord Burghley was the model for the character of chief minister Polonius in Hamlet.

* Polonius sent the spy Reynaldo to watch his son when Laertes was away at school, and for similar reasons Burghley sent a spy to watch his son, Thomas, when he was away in Paris.

: The Games of 1944 had been allocated to London and so it was that in October, 1945, the chairman of the British Olympic Council, Lord Burghley, went to Stockholm and saw the president of the International Olympic Committee to discuss the question of London being chosen for this great event.

Cecil favoured the suit of Francois, Duke of Anjou in 1578 – 1581 for Elizabeth's hand, while Leicester was among its strongest opponents, even contemplating exile in letters to Burghley.

Elizabeth was deeply affected and locked herself in her apartment for a few days until Lord Burghley had the door broken.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley ( sometimes spelled Burleigh ), KG ( 13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598 ) was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State ( 1550 – 1553 and 1558 – 1572 ) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572.

The American international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau claimed Burghley accepted a pension ( a bribe ) from Spain, although Burghley's biographer Conyers Read has claimed that there is no evidence for this.

In 1572 Burghley privately admonished the queen for her " doubtful dealing with the Queen of Scots.

Burghley HouseBurghley House near the town of Stamford was built for Cecil between 1555 and 1587 and modelled on the privy lodgings of Richmond Palace.

All the arts of architecture and horticulture were lavished on Burghley House and Theobalds ( which his son, Robert, was to exchange with James I for Hatfield House ).

On January 1576 Oxford wrote to Lord Burghley from Siena about complaints that had reached him about his creditors ' demands, which included the Queen and his sister, and directing that more of his land be sold to pay them.

He allowed his wife to attend the Queen at court, but only when he himself was not present, and stipulated that Burghley must make no further appeals to him on Anne's behalf.

The habit of comparing him unfavourably to William Cecil was continued by Conyers Read in 1925: " Leicester was a selfish, unscrupulous courtier and Burghley a wise and patriotic statesman ".

Alan Haynes describes him as " one of the most strangely underrated of Elizabeth's circle of close advisers ", while Simon Adams, who since the early 1970s has researched many aspects of Leicester's life and career, concludes: " Leicester was as central a figure to the ' first reign ' Elizabeth as Burghley.

On 25 February 1571, Queen Elizabeth elevated him as Baron Burghley.

His circle of friends and acquaintances included Lord Burghley, Fulke Greville, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Stow, John Dee, Jacques de Thou and Ben Jonson, who was Camden's student at Westminster and who dedicated an early edition of Every Man in His Humour to him.

In 1574 he applied to Lord Burghley for the Queen's letters to admit him as fellow at Magdalen College, but the fellowship was not granted, and Lyly subsequently left the university.

His father's death in 1598 brought him a seat in the House of Lords, the 2nd Lord Burghley, as he then was, served from 1599 to 1603 as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire and Lord President of the Council of the North.

He protested in 1568 to Lord Burghley that his religious views were needlessly suspected, and wrote a treatise on natural and moral philosophy for his youngest sister, Catharine, wife of Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley, dated from Trinity Hall 6 August 1569 ; she supported him in some hard times.

Arundell was fond of Southampton as a youth, writing to Lord Burghley when Southampton was 15 that ' Your Lordship doth love him ', and that ' My love and care of this young Earl enticeth me '.

The Queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley, backed him, and he obtained protection against his creditors and permission to recover an old fine of £ 500 due to the Crown from Lord Barry, a neighbour and rival of his in Munster, whom he blamed for his arrest ; Barry was later to accuse him of disloyalty as this suit was prosecuted.

Early in 1571 he appears to have been again in England ; on the 10 March the Bishop of Ross writes to Burghley: " Morton promised to Boyd before his departure out of Scotland to abstain from all that might hinder the Queen's restitution, and to agree ", but he was back at Edinburgh in April, and on 30 May Morton declared to him that the treaty was dissolved.

In dedicating to Lord Burghley his French-English dictionary, Cotgrave says that to his patron's favour he owes " all that he is or has been for many years ," and thanks him for his kindness in " so often dispensing with the or-dinary assistance of an ordinary servant.

He had earlier petitioned both the Queen and Burghley on the condemned Norfolk's behalf, to no avail, and it was reported that he had plotted to provide a ship to assist his cousin's escape attempt to Spain.

In a letter to Burghley three years later Oxford offered to attend his father-in-law at his house " as well as a lame man might "; it is possible his lameness was a result of injuries from that encounter.

After intervention by Burghley and Sir Walter Raleigh, Oxford was reconciled to the Queen and his two-year exile from court ended at the end of May, on condition of his guarantee of good behaviour.

His mother's sister was married to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, making Burghley Francis Bacon's uncle.

However, " farmer " is a common word, and " equivocation " was also the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor Lord Burghley, and of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martin Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.

This view was first expressed by Charles Wisner Barrell, who argued that De Vere " kept the place as a literary hideaway where he could carry on his creative work without the interference of his father-in-law, Burghley, and other distractions of Court and city life.

Oxfordian scholars respond that the concept of " equivocation " was the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor ( and Oxford's father-in-law ) Lord Burghley, as well as of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martín de Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.

* At 12, Oxford was made a royal ward and placed in the household of Lord Burghley, who was the Lord High Treasurer and Queen Elizabeth I's closest and most trusted advisor.

* One of Hamlet ’ s chief opponents at court was Laertes, the son of Polonius, while Oxford continually sought the help of Robert Cecil, the son of Lord Burghley, to seek the queen's favour, with no results.

Sobran suggests that the so-called procreation sonnets were part of a campaign by Burghley to persuade Southampton to marry his granddaughter, Oxford's daughter Elizabeth de Vere, and says that it was more likely that Oxford would have participated in such a campaign than that Shakespeare would know the parties involved or presume to give advice to the nobility.

" William Camden wrote a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and was granted access to the private papers of Lord Burghley and to the state archives.