THE FIRST EARL OF EXETER 97
ley House, completed some ten years before. In addition, he still possessed Wimbledon Hall, where he frequently entertained the Queen, 1 though her visits were not an unmixed blessing to her subjects. On the first occasion of her coming, she altered the date of her arrival four times, till Burghley was in despair, complaining that " her Majesty's so often coming and not coming so distempers all things with me as upon every change of coming I do nothing but give directions into the country for new provisions : most of the old thrown away by reason of the heat." He soon perceived that it was not the Queen, but his father who had stood in the way of his advancement, for within a few months of his succeeding to the title, he was con- stituted Warden of Rockingham Forest, and Con- stable of the Castle there, for life, and in August, 1599, he was appointed President of the Council of the North, and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He took up his new duties with enthusiasm. The Queen urged a policy of greater severity towards recusants, owing to the " notorious defections " in the north, and Burghley had soon " filled a little study with copes and mass-books." " I dare promise her Majesty," he writes to his brother, ' that she shall be obeyed either with their purses (I mean of them that be recusants), or with their full obedience and loyalty." 3 His measures seem to have been effective, for six months later he
1 See letter to Lady Guilford, April 8th, 1602 (Hatfield MSS., XII. 99).
- Letters to Sir Robert Cecil, July lythand igth, 1599 (ibid., IX. 236,
239).
8 September ist, 1599 (ibid., IX. 344).
C. H
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