e of years. Before he died, Robert, his only surviving son by
his second wife, was ready to step into his shoes as the queen's principal
adviser. Having survived all his rivals, and all his children except Robert
and the worthless Thomas, Burghley died at his London house on the 4th of
August 1598, and was buried in St Martin's, Stamford.

Burghley's private life was singularly virtuous; he was a faithful husband,
a careful father and a considerate master. A book-lover and antiquary, he
made a special hobby of heraldry and genealogy. It was the conscious and
unconscious aim of the age to reconstruct a new landed aristocracy on the
ruins of the old, and Burghley was a great builder and planter. All the
arts of architecture and horticulture were lavished on Burghley House and
Theobalds, which his son exchanged for Hatfield. His public conduct does
not present itself in quite so amiable a light. As the marquess of
Winchester said of himself, he was sprung from the willow rather than the
oak, and he was not the man to suffer for convictions. The interest of the
state was the supreme consideration, and to it he had no hesitation in
sacrificing individual consciences. He frankly disbelieved in toleration;
"that state," he said, "could never be in safety where there was a
toleration of two religions. For there is no enmity so great as that for
religion; and therefore they that differ in the service of their God can
never agree in the service of their country." With a maxim such as this, it
was easy for him to maintain that Elizabeth's coercive measures were
political and not religious. To say that he was Machiavellian is
meaningless, for every statesman is so more or less; especially in the 16th
century men preferred efficiency to principle. On the other hand,
principles are valueless without law and order; and Burghley's craft and
subtlety prepared a security in which principles might find some scope.

The sources and authorities for Burghley's life are endless. The most
important collection of documents is at Hatfield, where there are some ten
thousand papers covering the period down to Burghley's death; these have
been calendared in 8 volumes by the Hist. MSS. Comm. At least as many
others are in the Record Office and British Museum, the Lansdowne MSS.
especially containing a vast mass of his correspondence; see the catalogues
of Cotton, Harleian, Royal, Sloane, Egerton and Additional MSS. in the
British Museum, and the Cale