“Cecil Over England: Philip Over Spain”

Extract

From 1558 to 1598 Cecil ruled in England, under Elizabeth the Queen, and all that time Philip II reigned over Spain and America. Philip kept both his country and his continent Catholic, and nearly all his European possession. That he lost Holland can be laid to the wiles of that extraordinary character William Cecil, whose continued opposition to Catholicism was a dominant factor in making England Protestant. Here is the man as seen by a modern writer: Never in the history of England has there appeared a man Cecil’s superior in astuteness. There was something satanic about the man; an hypocrisy almost unparalleled, frightening in its profundity. His duplicity can never have been surpassed by any ruler. With equal facility he deceived friend and foe. Even Philip and the wise Cardinal Pole were his victims, and his success with Elizabeth and his defeat of the Catholics is described in lengthy and masterly fashion by Walsh, famous as the author of “Isabella of Spain,” in his new and vast life of Philip II. There was one however whom he could not deceive, Mary the Catholic, so he let his cold heart feed on his hatred till that unfortunate woman passed to the grave. Vain it was for him to clack his rosary in the church at Wimbledon and in the streets of Stamford.