been appointed ambassador to negotiate
conditions of peace. He represented Hertfordshire in the House of
Commons in 1589; in 1591 he was sworn of the Privy Council; and in 1596,
during the absence of his rival Essex on the Cadiz expedition, he was
appointed Secretary of State. In 1598 he took part in an embassy to
Paris with Lord Brooke, Raleigh, and others to hinder an alliance
between France and Spain. In 1600 Cecil was a member of a Commission
appointed to report on Essex's return from Ireland without permission,
and managed to mitigate the gravity of his offence; but in 1601, on
Essex's trial for treason, had to defend himself from an accusation by
Essex of having declared himself in favour of the Infanta's claim to the
throne. By careful preparations he secured the peaceable accession of
James II. to the throne, and was raised to the peerage, and eventually
made Earl of Salisbury in consequence. For the rest of his life he
remained James's most trusted minister.

[7] John Popham (1531-1607) was born of a good family in Somersetshire.
He was reported to have been stolen by gypsies in his youth, but was
educated at Balliol. He began life in London as a law-student and a
highwayman; but soon became, according to Campbell, a consummate lawyer,
practising chiefly as a special pleader. He became a Serjeant and
Solicitor-General in 1578, Speaker in 1580, Attorney-General in 1581,
and Lord Chief-Justice in 1592. He presided at the trial of Guy Fawkes
and his fellow-conspirators. He enjoyed the reputation of being a sound
lawyer and a severe judge. He left the greatest estate that had ever
been amassed by a lawyer; but it is probably untrue that he acquired
Littlecot Hall by fraudulently acquitting 'Wild Darrell' of the murder
of its newly born heir. He was, however, reported to have saved money
while he was a highwayman.

[8] Sir Edmund Anderson (1530-1605) was born at Flinborough or Broughton
in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, called to
the bar, and made a Serjeant in 1577. He tried Robert Brown, founder of
the Brownists, as assistant judge on the Norfolk Circuit in 1581; in the
same year he tried Campian, the Jesuit, on the Western Circuit. In both
cases he expressed strong views as to the claims of the Established
Church. He was promoted to the chiefship of the Common Pleas in 1582,
and tried Babington for treason in 1586, and Davison for beheading Mary,
Queen of Scots. He also took part in t