His love of study, too, extended to interest in others. He was a constant benefactor to Cambridge University, and St. John’s particularly, and influenced the King[64] to bequeath £100 per annum to the foundation in his will. Shortly before the young King’s death, also, he appears to have granted to Cecil’s own town of Stamford—almost certainly at his instance—funds for the foundation of a grammar school there, of which Sir William was to be the life governor, and there is ample evidence that the establishment of the large number of educational benefactions with which the young King signalised his reign—primarily at the instance of Bishop Hooper—was powerfully promoted by Cecil; who seems also, on his own account, to have always maintained a certain number of scholars,[65] and to have been the universal resource of students, teachers, and colleges, in their troubles and difficulties. The accession of Mary, which threw Cecil out of office, or, as he puts it, gave him his liberty, did not deprive him of his large means, or limit his enlightened activity in other directions. But for a time after the death of Edward, he remained, so far as so prominent and able a man could do so, simply a private citizen. His household biographer asserts “that Mary had a good liking for him as a Councillor, and would have appointed him if he had changed his religion.” Although he puts a grandiloquent speech in Cecil’s mouth, refusing office, saying much about preferring God’s service before that of the Queen, it is extremely doubtful whether Mary ever offered to call him to her Council. Towards the end of her reign, when Elizabeth’s early accession was inevitable, however, the Council itself was desirous of conciliating him. Lloyd (“State Worthies”) says of him: “When he was out of place he was not out of service in Queen Mary’s days, his abilities being as necessary in those times as his inclinations, and that Queen’s Council being as ready to advance him _at last_ as they were to _use_ him all her reign.”
During the trial and execution of Northumberland and his accomplices, Cecil remained prudently in the background. Gardiner, Norfolk, Courtney, Bonner, and the other prisoners in the Tower were released. Home and foreign policy changed, the Catholics were buoyed with hope, and the Emperor’s Ambassador was in full favour, whilst the Protestants were timorous and apprehensive, and the French Ambassador ill at ease, for his King was at war with the Emperor, and had from the first endeavoured to minimise the claims of Mary.[66]