Cecil, William, 2nd Earl of Exeter (1566 -1640)

William Cecil was the eldest son of Thomas, 1st Earl of Exeter, and Dorothy daughter and coheir of John Nevill, Lord Latimer. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated a Fellow Commoner at Michaelmas 1578, and was admitted to Gray's Inn 26 February 1589. He was Member of Parliament for Stamford in 1586 and 1588. He married firstly, in 1589, Elizabeth, suo jure Baroness Ros, daughter and heir of Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland. She died in 1591, and he married, secondly, Elizabeth, sister and coheir of Sir Robert Drury and daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawsted in Suffolk. He succeeded as 2nd Earl in 1623, was Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire that year, and was made a Knight of the Garter in 1630. By his first wife he had a son, who inherited his mother's Barony as Lord Roos, but died during his father's lifetime in 1618, and as he had no other son, the Earldom passed on his death to his nephew, David, 3rd Earl, son of his younger brother, Sir Richard Cecil, of Wakerley, in Northamptonshire, from whom the present Marquesses of Exeter are descended.