But the best protection of Cecil, during the gloomy and disastrous reign of Mary, was that which he derived from his own prudence and from his own temper, a prudence which could never be lulled into carelessness, a temper which could never be irritated into rashness.  The Papists could find no occasion against him.  Yet he did not lose the esteem even of those sterner Protestants who had preferred exile to recantation.  He attached himself to the persecuted heiress of the throne, and entitled himself to her gratitude and confidence.  Yet he continued to receive marks of favour from the Queen.  In the House of Commons, he put himself at the head of the party opposed to the Court.  Yet, so guarded was his language that, even when some of those who acted with him were imprisoned by the Privy Council, he escaped with impunity.

At length Mary died:  Elizabeth succeeded; and Cecil rose at once to greatness.  He was sworn in Privy-councillor and Secretary of State to the new sovereign before he left her prison of Hatfield; and he continued to serve her during forty years, without intermission, in the highest employments.  His abilities were precisely those which keep men long in power.  He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the Pelhams, and the Liverpools, not to that of the St. Johns, the Carterets, the Chathams, and the Cannings.  If he had been a man of original genius and of an enterprising spirit, it would have been scarcely possible for him to keep his power or even his head.  There was not room in one government for an Elizabeth and a Richelieu.  What the haughty daughter of Henry needed, was a moderate, cautious, flexible minister, skilled in the details of business, competent to advise, but not aspiring to command.  And such a minister she found in Burleigh.  No arts could shake the confidence which she reposed in her old and trusty servant.  The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant talents and accomplishments of Essex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of the woman; but no rival could deprive the Treasurer of the place which he possessed in the favour of the Queen.  She sometimes chid him sharply; but he was the man whom she delighted to honour.  For Burleigh, she forgot her usual parsimony both of wealth and of dignities.  For Burleigh, she relaxed that severe etiquette to which she was unreasonably attached.  Every other person to whom she addressed her speech, or on whom the glance of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his knee.  For Burleigh alone, a chair was set in her presence; and there the old minister, by birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took his ease, while the haughty heirs of the Fitzalans and the De Veres humbled themselves to the dust around him.  At length, having, survived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he died full of years and honours.  His royal mistress visited him on his deathbed, and cheered him with assurances of her affection and esteem; and his power passed, with little diminution, to a son who inherited his abilities, and whose mind had been formed by his counsels.