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With no children of her own, what had Elizabeth I done to guarantee a smooth succession after her death? The answer is precious little. Which meant there had to be some clever footwork by her Chief Minister Robert Cecil, son of the William Cecil who had served so ably before, to ensure that the transition went well, peacefully and the way he wanted it. You'll not be surprised to learn that part of "the way he wanted it", was the way that ensured he kept his job. You can tell how that turned out by the illustration, which shows him confirmed in his post, a year later, at an international peace conference with Spain. As well as clever footwork, the death of Elizabeth was followed by exciting hoofwork, as the crazy Robert Carey galloped at breakneck speed northward to bring the good news to James VI of Scotland, soon to be James I of England too. Not that it was that crazy, seeing how well he did out of his adventurous dash (eventually)... The illustration shows the Somerset Conference of 1604, with Secretary of State Robert Cecil at the far right, with writing implements in front of him ©Juan Garcia/123RF.COM Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.