Characters & Actors
William Cecil
The man who, more than anyone, helped the Queen shape Elizabethan England into such a successful and influential era. Yet Cecil came from relatively humble beginnings.
"His family was quite wealthy, but they were members of the middle classes not the aristocracy," explains Ian Hart, "Cecil's father was one of the Welsh mafia - called the Tafia - who were the backers of Henry Tudor; the Tudor family came from South Wales," continues Ian. "The middle classes were obsessed by the monarchy, and Burghley's father sent his eldest son to study purely for this purpose - to be a Privy Counsellor - and it paid off in the end. So his position was almost as pre-ordained as Elizabeth's."
He was so skilled that having worked for "the previous administration", as Ian puts it, was no obstacle to a position of power with Elizabeth. "Like all good civil servants if you're that good at your job, no matter who changes at the top you stay in your position. Burghley was basically a very loyal man who's enamoured by the monarchy to such a degree it's almost religious - he thinks the Queen is placed by God, and so he continued throughout his entire life to serve her as best he could."
But even while working for Mary he was preparing things in case Elizabeth should succeed her, "The guy that basically taught Elizabeth everything was Cecil's old tutor - Cecil himself appointed him, so from a very early age, before she even became Queen, he was laying the groundwork for his own future. Then he made himself indispensable by getting rid of everybody else she may have relied on. The one spanner in the works was Dudley because that's an emotional thing and you can't take account of that kind of thing, though he made very many efforts to get rid of Dudley as well. But he's a clever, wise man who's sitting there being a mover and shaker, and only when it comes to emotional matters does he have a problem."
"He deliberately does not give away who he is," says Ian. "That's one of the things you can't do - if you give people a little chink then they'll find your weakness and destroy you. And a lot of people wanted to get rid of him, because no one could get promoted while he was in charge; anyone else who came in through the ranks of the Court and who wanted to get into a high position, they couldn't - he blocked it. He blocked it because he couldn't control it and anything he couldn't control he stopped happening."
| | Behind the Scenes Rummage around the wardrobe department » Preview ClipEpisodes |
Related LinksBest of Drama | Best of BBC |  |
|
