Robert Cecil, brilliant but frail and hunchbacked, enters the House of Commons in 1584 after several years abroad, while his father, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, serves as chief minister to Elizabeth.

In an age that attaches much importance to physical beauty in both sexes, Robert will endure much ridicule as a result: Queen Elizabeth will call him "my pygmy", and King James I will nick-name him "my little beagle".

Nonetheless his father recognizes that it is Robert rather than Thomas who had inherited his own political genius.

While Burghley is fond of both his sons, he is said to have remarked that Robert could rule England, but Thomas could hardly rule a tennis court.

Cecil attended St John's College, Cambridge in the 1580s, but did not take a degree.
He also attended "disputations" at the Sorbonne

Lawyer Francis Bacon is elected to Parliament in this year.