- Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, PC (born
September 30 ,1946 ), is a British Conservative politician. During the 1990s, he was Leader of the House of Lords under hiscourtesy title of Viscount Cranborne. He is currently the Chancellor of theUniversity of Hertfordshire .Political career
House of Commons
Lord Cranborne attended
Eton College andChrist Church, Oxford and became a merchant banker before going to work on the family estates. He was selected, unexpectedly, as Conservative candidate for South Dorset in1976 , where his family owned lands, despite the presence of several former MPs on the shortlist. He spoke at the1978 Conservative Party conference to oppose sanctions onRhodesia . He won the seat in the1979 general election, the seventh consecutive generation of his family to sit in the Commons, and in his first speech urgedIan Smith to stand aside in favour ofAbel Muzorewa .He attracted a general reputation as a right-winger, especially on matters affecting the
Church of England , but confounded this reputation when he co-wrote a pamphlet in1981 which said that the fight against unemployment ought to be given more priority than the fight against inflation. He took an interest inNorthern Ireland , and when Jim Prior announced his policy of 'Rolling Devolution', resigned an unpaid job as assistant toDouglas Hurd .Lord Cranborne became known as an anti-communist through activities in support of
Afghan refugees in Pakistan in the early 1980s, and sending food parcels toPoland . (In fact until the early years of the 21st century a charity shop was run on his Hatfield estate which was solely to raise money for this cause and also to fund Polish orphanages.) He was involved in efforts to fund the Afghan resistance. His strong opposition to any involvement by theRepublic of Ireland in Northern Ireland led him to oppose theAnglo-Irish Agreement and contributed to his decision to retire from the House of Commons in1987 .House of Lords
After the
1992 general election,John Major utilised a rarely-used process known as awrit of acceleration to call Lord Cranborne up to the House of Lords in one of his father's junior baronies. Lord Cranborne was summoned as Baron Cecil of Essendon (his father's most junior dignity), though continued to be known by his courtesy style of Viscount Cranborne. This was the last time a writ of acceleration was issued, and because of the provisions of the House of Lords Act of 1999, abolishing the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, any future use of the writ of acceleration is highly unlikely.He served for two years as a junior defence minister before being appointed as
Lord Privy Seal andLeader of the House of Lords in 1994. When Major resigned to fight for re-election as Conservative Party Leader in July1995 , Lord Cranborne led his re-election campaign. He was recognised as one of the few members of the Cabinet who were personally loyal to Major, but continued to lead the Conservative Peers after Labour won the1997 general election.When the new Prime Minister
Tony Blair proposed the removal of the hereditary element in the House of Lords, Lord Cranborne negotiated a pact with the government to retain a small number (later set at ninety-two) of hereditary peers for the interim period. For the sake of form this amendment was formally proposed by Lord Weatherill, Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. However, Lord Cranborne gave his party's approval without consulting the Leader,William Hague , who knew nothing and was embarrassed when Blair told him of it in the House of Commons. Hague then sacked Lord Cranborne, who accepted his error, saying that he had "rushed in, like an ill-trained spaniel".All former Leaders of the House of Lords who were hereditary peers accepted Life Peerages to keep them in the House in
1999 . Lord Cranborne, who had received the title Baron Gascoyne-Cecil, of Essendon in the County ofRutland , remained active on the backbenches, until the House adopted new rules for declaration of financial interests which he believed were too onerous. He took 'Leave of Absence' onNovember 1 ,2001 . He was therefore out of the House when he succeeded his father as 7th Marquess onJuly 11 ,2003 .Personal life: ancestry, lineage, and family
Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil was born on
30 September 1946 as the eldest child and first-born son of the Honourable Robert and Mollie Gascoyne-Cecil, who became Viscount and Viscountess Cranborne in 1947, when his great-grandfather the 4th Marquess of Salisbury (son and heir of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, thrice Prime Minister) died on4 April .His father the 6th Marquess succeeded his father, the 5th Marquess of Salisbury (
1893 -1972 ), and generally eschewed a political career unlike his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830 -1903 ) had been a great late Victorian Prime Minister; the 4th Marquess of Salisbury (1861 -1947 ) had been Tory Leader of the House of Lords; the 5th Marquess of Salisbury (1893 -1972 ) had been also a leading Conservative politician in the House of Lords. The Marquesses of Salisbury were descended from the 1st Marquess, a courtier and favorite of KingGeorge III of the United Kingdom , who was himself a descendant ofRobert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and one of the men who brought about the accession of KingJames I of England . Robert Cecil was himself a younger son of Elizabeth's courtier-advisorWilliam Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , the descendant of a Welsh soldier David Cyssell - the family name is still pronounced "Siss-el" not "Sess-il".His mother Marjorie "Mollie" Olein Wyndham-Quin was a descendant of
Windham Wyndham-Quin, 5th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl on her father's side, and ofGeorge Bridgeman, 4th Earl of Bradford , via her maternal grandmother. Lady Salisbury is a noted gardener, who has advised several other beginning gardeners includingCharles, Prince of Wales .His parents had seven children, of whom four sons and a daughter survive, although two sons predeceased them.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil began using Robert as his preferred Christian name from his 21st birthday. In 1970, aged 23, he married Hannah Stirling, niece of Lt Col
David Stirling (a co-founder of the SAS) and a descendant of the Lords Lovat, Scottish Catholic aristocrats. The marriage was initially opposed by his family, mostly because Miss Stirling was Roman Catholic.During the 1970s, Lord and Lady Cranborne had two sons and three daughters (including twins), of whom the two elder daughters are married. Until recently, they lived at Cranborne Manor, Dorset. The family seat is
Hatfield House , once home to QueenElizabeth I of England which was given the family byJames I of England in exchange for the Cecil family house Theobalds, which the king liked better. The Salisbury family is very wealthy, with land in Dorset, Hertfordshire, and in London; and with heirlooms at Hatfield House.He ranked 325th in the
Sunday Times Rich List 2008 , with an estimated wealth of £250m in property.The Marquess of Salisbury's heir is his elder son Robert Edward "Ned" William Gascoyne-Cecil, called Viscount Cranborne (b.
1970 ). The heir is currently unmarried, though he does have a daughter born out of wedlock in 2001. ["Debrett's Peerage 2008". ] . The younger son Lord James has recently married. ["The Times", Announcements 2007. ]Titles
* Mr Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1946-1947)
* The Hon. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1947-1972)
* Viscount Cranborne (1972-1979)
* Viscount Cranborne MP (1979-1987)
* Viscount Cranborne (1987-1994)
* The Rt Hon. Viscount Cranborne, PC (1994-2003)
* The Most Hon. The Marquess of Salisbury, PC (2003-)Notes
External links
*http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/salisbury.html
*http://www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/cc4aq/cecil02.htm
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/rich/article/0,2763,191220,00.html The young elite 1-10]
*http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/newhtml_hl?DB=semukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=hagu%20william&ALL=&ANY=&PHRASE=&CATEGORIES=&SIMPLE=&SPEAKER=hague%20william&COLOUR=red&STYLE=s&ANCHOR=81202-18_spnew3&URL=/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo981202/debtext/81202-18.htm#81202-18_spnew3Offices held
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