During this period Cecil divided his time between Cannon Row, Wimbledon, and Burghley, occupying himself much whilst in the country with farming and horticulture. His accounts are very voluminous, and are frequently annotated in his own hand. Every payment is stated under its proper head—kitchen, cellar, buttery, garden, and so forth; and the whole of the household supplies, whether, as was usual, taken from his own farm, or purchased, are duly accounted for at current prices. The dinner-hour of the family was 11 A.M., before which prayer was read in the chapel, and the supper was served at 6 P.M.; these rules being observed at all his houses, whether he was in residence or not. His charities were always large, and in his later years reached an average of £500 a year; and wherever he had property there was a regular system of distribution of relief to the needy in the neighbourhood. His most intimate friends were still some of the first people in England. As a moderate man he had now commended himself to Pole; Lord Admiral Clinton, a great Lincolnshire magnate, was evidently by his letters on terms of familiarity with him; the Earl of Sussex, the Viceroy of Ireland, expressed himself anxious to do him service;[78] Sir Philip Hoby and Lord Cobham vied with each other in inducing him and Lady Cecil to visit them at their respective Kentish seats; and Lord John Grey, on the occasion of his wife being delivered of a “gholly boye,” begs Cecil to stand godfather to the infant.[79] Cecil’s wife had already given birth to a daughter, and in the Calendar Diary at Hatfield an entry against 5th December 1556 records, “Natus est Anna Cecil,” which event somewhat disappointed both Cecil and his father-in-law, Cooke, in his exile, as they had earnestly looked for a son. Cecil must have been a devoted husband, though probably an undemonstrative one, as the letters of Sir Anthony Cooke always praise him for his goodness, both to his daughter and to himself in his poverty and banishment. Sir Philip Hoby, in one of his hearty letters during Lady Cecil’s confinement, expresses sorrow that Sir William cannot visit him. “You should have been welcome if my Lady might have spared you, to whom you have been as good a nurse as you would have her be to you;”[80] and seven weeks later he writes again (21st February), advising Cecil “to come abroad, and not tarry so long with my Lady, and in such a stinking city, the filthiest of the world.” Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife, Lady Cecil’s sister, were also frequent and kindly correspondents; and the Countess of Bedford, who with her children were left by her husband to Cecil’s care on the Earl’s departure in command of the English contingent to aid the Emperor, referred all her business to him.[81] Cecil’s life, indeed, at this period was that of a noble of great wealth and influence, surrounded by friends, occupied with the details of large estates and with studious pursuits, in great request as trustee and intermediary for other people’s affairs, openly conforming in religion, but of acknowledged moderate views, and keeping on fairly good terms with the party in power, as did Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Smith, Roger Ascham, and others in similar case.