The earliest known mention of the manor of Theobalds is in 1441 when it was granted to John Carpenter, Master of St Anthony’s Hospital, at the quaint rent of a bow worth two shillings and an arrow worth three pence. In 1519 the manor passed to Thomas Burbage, whose son Robert conveyed it to John Ellyot, a mercer of London, in 1561.
Two years later it was bought by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Secretary of State and Master of Requests to Edward VI and Elizabeth I. This transaction, just over four hundred years ago, marked the beginning of the great era for Theobalds which was to last almost exactly a hundred years.
We do not know where the original Theobalds manor house stood. A contemporary map at Hatfield House shows that there were no structures on the site where Cecil was soon to build his famous house. The estate embraced the minor manor of Cullings, the house of which stood within the moat which can still be seen to the south-west of Theobalds Park Farm by the Great Cambridge Road. This site has never been properly investigated.
For the previous twelve years Lord Burghley had been building Burghley House near Stamford as his main family seat, but he immediately built a comparatively modest courtyard house at Theobalds with the intention that it should eventually pass to his second son. He probably also saw it as a convenient place to which he could withdraw from the pressures of court life.
As early as 1564 Queen Elizabeth paid her first visit to Theobalds, on her return towards London from a progress to Cambridge. She was so well received and so taken with the beauty of the surrounding country and its suitability for hunting that she promised to come again.
Elizabeth was a canny woman. She spent nearly every summer travelling about the country and staying, with her entourage, at the houses of her wealthier statesmen and courtiers – at her hosts’ expense. Elizabeth built nothing of note during her long reign, but a great number of fine country houses – Burghley, Theobalds, Holdenby, Audley End, and many more – were built or enlarged specifically as places in which to receive the Queen. Summerson describes them as “tributes and monuments to loyalty”, and goes on to say:
“The whole Court and its equipment would descend on the selected lords and gentlemen of the counties to be visited, and the Queen certainly did not expect that expense would be spared in receiving and entertaining her. It was not; the mere anticipation of a visit to some remote part of England would set masons and carpenters feverishly working on a new or extended house which should not only be fit for the occasion but an imperishable memorial of it. It is not for nothing that guide books still record among the scanty facts relating to a country house that ‘Queen Elizabeth slept here’.”
In anticipation of further visits from his sovereign Burghley first extended and then completely rebuilt Theobalds. The builders must have been at work almost constantly until 1585. He laid out beautiful grounds with canals wide enough for pleasure boats to ply between tall flag towers. The famous landscape gardener John Gerard was responsible for these formal gardens as well as for those at Burghley’s town house in the Strand.
Burghley admitted to his friends that he spent far more than he had intended or could afford on what was, after all, only to be the inheritance of his second son. But no doubt it was all worth while, for he retained the Queen’s favour and confidence to the end of his life and she visited Theobalds on no fewer than fifteen occasions. Perhaps its proximity to London was one reason; Theobalds was a convenient day’s journey from London and could be the first or last stopping place on royal progresses to many parts of England. One of these visits was described by the chronicler Stow as follows:
“Her Majesty was seen in as great royalty and served as bountifully and magnificently as at any time and place, all at his Lordship’s expense, with rich shows, pleasant devices, and all manner of sports, to the great delight of her Majesty and her whole train, and with great thanks from all who partook of it and as great commendations from all that heard of it abroad”.
