THE FIRST EARL OF EXETER 99
city." l On the 26th of May following he was installed at Windsor a Knight of the Garter.
On the death of Elizabeth, Burghley enter- tained the new King on his progress to London, first for two days at York, and afterwards at Burghley, " where his Highness with all his train were received with great magnificence, the house seeming as rich, as if it had been furnished at the charges of an Emperor." z A fortnight later (May loth, 1603) the King held his first Privy Council at the Charterhouse, and Lord Burghley was sworn a member of the Council and appointed Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire. In the following January he was offered an earldom, which, how- ever, he refused, for reasons explained in the following letter to Sir John Hobart, the Attorney- General (January i2th, 1604). ' Your letter," he says, " found me in such estate, as rather I desired three days' ease of pain, than to delight to think of any title of honour. I am resolved to content myself with this estate I have of a Baron. And my present estate of living, howsoever those of the world hath enlarged it, I find little enough to maintain the degree I am in. And I am sure they that succeed me will be less able to maintain it than I am, considering there will go out of the baronage three younger brothers' livings. This is all I can write unto you at this time being full of pain : and therefore you must be content with
1 Sir Robert Cecil to Sir G. Carew, February loth, 1601 (Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth. II. 469). J Nichols, Progresses of James I., I. 95.
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