Note 34 — Chapter II
Reading edition
At the period with which we have to deal the chief minister of James I. was Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury,[34] the political heir of his father, William Cecil, Lord Burghley,[35] and of Walsingham, his predecessor in the office of secretary. It is clear that he had inherited from them ideas of statesmanship of the order then in vogue, and from nature, the kind of ability required to put these successfully in practice. Sir Robert Naunton thus describes him:[36]