THE FIRST EARL OF EXETER 89
experience of these two years is enough to account for Lord Burghley's prejudice against foreign travel. In his famous Precepts, addressed to Sir Robert, he warns him not to allow his sons to travel, for if by so doing " they get a few broken languages, that shall profit them nothing more than to have one meat served in divers dishes." And we are told that in his old age, if anyone came to the Lords of the Council for a licence to travel, " he would first examine him of England, and if he found him ignorant would bid him stay at home and know his own country first."
Thomas Cecil returned to England in the Spring of 1563, and took his seat in Parliament as member for the borough of Stamford, which place he represented till 1576. In the following year (November 27th, 1564) he married Dorothy Neville, one of the daughters and co-heirs of John Neville, Lord Latimer. The marriage had been strongly advocated by Sir Henry Percy, afterwards Earl of Northumberland, who had married Catherine Neville, the eldest daughter. In a letter to Sir William Cecil 2 he gives an alluring description of the first Countess of Exeter at the age of fifteen. He has made, he says, " some trial of the conversation of the young woman : which I assure you is so good and vertuous, as hard it is to find such a spark of youth in this realm. For both is she very wise, sober of behaviour, womanly
1 Peacham's Compleat Gentleman.
a January 2ist, 1561-2. Printed in Burgon's Life of Sir T. Gresham, I- 451-
�� �
