160 THE CECILS
being made Secretary, he first tried to have Davison restored to the office, and afterwards he urged the claims of Sir Thomas Bodley, whose own account of the matter has a peculiar interest, as it gives the reasons which induced him to retire from public life, and devote himself to the formation of the library which bears his name. He states that Lord Burghley had always been his friend, and had told the Queen that no man was so fit for the office of Secretary as himself, and adds that Sir Robert afterwards told him that " when his father first intended to advance him to that place, his purpose was withall to make me his colleague." When he returned from the United Provinces in 1597, Essex,
" ... who sought by all devices to divert the Queen's love and liking both from the father and the son (but from the son in special) to withdraw my affection from the one and the other, and to win me altogether to depend upon himself, did so often take occasion to enter- tain the Queen with some prodigal speeches of my sufficiency for a Secretary, which were ever accompanied with words of disgrace against the present Lord Treasurer [Sir Robert], as neither she herself, of whose favour before I was thoroughly assured, took any great pleasure to prefer me the sooner . . . and both the Lord Burghley and his son waxed jealous of my courses, as if underhand I had been induced by the cunning and kindness of the Earl of Essex, to oppose myself against their dealings. And though in very truth they had no solid ground at all of the least alteration in my disposition towards either of them both . . . yet the now Lord Treasurer, upon occasion of some talk, that I have since had with him, of the Earl and his actions, hath freely confessed of his own accord unto
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