William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
© National Portrait Gallery, London
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
by Unknown artist
oil on panel, after 1572
18 7/8 in. x 13 1/4 in. (479 mm x 337 mm)
Purchased, 1880
Primary Collection
NPG 604
Sitterback to top
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520 or 1521-1598), Lord High Treasurer. Sitter associated with 45 portraits.
This portraitback to top
More contemporary portraits of Burghley exist than of any Elizabethan other than the Queen herself.
Linked publicationsback to top
- The British Portrait, 1660-1960, 1991, p. 19 number 1
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 89
- Strong, Roy, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 1969, p. 28
Events of 1572back to top
Current affairs
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk is executed for his part in the papacy-backed Ridolfi Plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I.The French prince Francis, Duke of Anjou becomes a potential candidate as Elizabeth I's husband as Parliament makes repeated calls for an heir.
Sir Francis Drake plunders Spanish treasure in the West Indies and returns to Plymouth with his spoils the following year.
Art and science
Miniature of Queen Elizabeth I painted by Nicholas Hilliard.The Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker publishes De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Britain), which charts the history of Christianity in Britain from the apocryphal arrival of Joseph of Arimathea.
Birth of the poet and playwright Ben Jonson.
Birth of the metaphysical poet and churchman John Donne.
International
St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of French Protestants (known as Huguenots) takes place in Paris. Under the orders of the queen mother Catherine de Medici and Henry, Duke of Guise, the Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and thousands of his supporters are killed.Dutch Protestant privateers (known as Sea Beggars) capture the port of Brill, which becomes the first stronghold of the Dutch revolt against Spainish rule.
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