In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife.
It was rumoured in December 1554 that Cecil would succeed Sir William Petre as secretary, an office which, with his chancellorship of the Garter, he had lost on Mary's accession.
It was rumoured about this time.
A majority was thus secured for the Kossuthist programme of compromise, but a majority so obviously precarious that the king-emperor, influenced also - it was rumoured - by the views of the heirapparent, in an interview with Count Andrassy and Mr Kossuth on the 15th, refused to make any concessions to the Magyar national demands.
He died in 93, poisoned, it was rumoured, by the emperor's orders.
