The Most Honourable The Marquess of Salisbury KG KCVO PC DL
Lord Salisbury in 2013
Chancellor of theUniversity of Hertfordshire
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 October 2005
Preceded by	The Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth
Leader of the Opposition in the Lords Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
In office 2 May 1997 – 3 December 1998
Leader	John Major William Hague
Preceded by	The Lord Richard
Succeeded by	The Lord Strathclyde
Leader of the House of Lords Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office 20 July 1994 – 2 May 1997
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	The Lord Wakeham
Succeeded by	The Lord Richard
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence
In office 22 April 1992 – 20 July 1994
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	Kenneth Carlisle &The Earl of Arran
Succeeded by	The Lord Henley
Member of theHouse of Lords
Lord Temporal
as a hereditary peer 29 April 1992 – 11 November 1999[1]
Preceded by	The 6th Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
as alife peer 17 November 1999 – 8 June 2017[2]
Member of Parliament forSouth Dorset
In office 3 May 1979 – 18 May 1987
Preceded by	Evelyn King
Succeeded by	Ian Bruce
Personal details
Born	(1946-09-30)30 September 1946 (age 79)
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Hannah Stirling ​ (m. 1970)​
Children	5
Parent	Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 6th Marquess of Salisbury (father)
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, Baron Gascoyne-Cecil (born 30 September 1946) is a BritishConservative politician. From1979 to1987 he representedSouth Dorset in theHouse of Commons, and in the 1990s he wasLeader of the House of Lords under hiscourtesy title ofViscount Cranborne. Lord Salisbury lives in one of England's largest historic houses, the 17th-centuryHatfield House in Hertfordshire, and currently serves as Chancellor of theUniversity of Hertfordshire.

Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil was born on 30 September 1946, the eldest child and first-born son ofRobert Gascoyne-Cecil, 6th Marquess of Salisbury. His younger brother was the journalistLord Richard Cecil, who was killed covering theconflict in Rhodesia in 1978.

Lord Cranborne attendedEton College andChrist Church, Oxford, and became amerchant banker before going to work on the family estates.

Lord Cranborne was selected as the Conservative Party candidate forSouth Dorset in 1976, where his family owned land, despite there being on the shortlist several former members of parliament who had lost their seats in the two 1974 elections. At the 1978 Conservative Party conference he spoke in opposition to British sanctions againstRhodesia. He won the South Dorset seat at the1979 general election, becoming the seventh consecutive generation of his family to sit in theHouse of Commons. In his maiden speech, he urgedIan Smith, prime minister of Rhodesia, to stand aside in favour ofAbel Muzorewa.^{[citation needed]}

Cranborne gained a general reputation as aright-winger, especially on matters affecting theChurch of England, but confounded this reputation when he co-wrote a pamphlet in 1981 which said that the fight against unemployment ought to be given more priority than the fight against inflation. He took an interest inNorthern Ireland, and, whenJim Prior announced his policy of 'Rolling Devolution', resigned an unpaid job as assistant toDouglas Hurd.

Lord Cranborne became known in the early 1980s as ananti-communist, as a supporter ofAfghan refugees (from the Soviet invasion of that country) in Pakistan, and for sending food parcels toPoland. Until the early years of the 21st century, a charity shop was run on hisHatfield House estate solely to raise money for these causes, including funds for Polish orphanages. He was involved in efforts to fund the Afghan resistance. His strong opposition to any involvement by theRepublic of Ireland in Northern Ireland led him to oppose theAnglo-Irish Agreement and contributed to his decision to retire from the House of Commons in 1987.^{[citation needed]}

After the1992 general election,John Major used awrit of acceleration to call Lord Cranborne up to theHouse of Lords in one of his father's junior titles. Thus, Lord Cranborne was summoned toParliament asBaron Cecil, ofEssendon in the County ofRutland (his father's most junior dignity),^[3] although he continued to be known by his courtesy style of Viscount Cranborne. This is the most recent time a writ of acceleration has been issued, and due to the provisions of theHouse of Lords Act 1999, abolishing the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, any future use of the writ of acceleration is highly unlikely.

He served for two years as a junior defence minister before being appointed asLord Privy Seal andLeader of the House of Lords in 1994. Lord Cranborne was appointed by the Queen asPrivy Counsellor (PC) on 21 July 1994.^[4] Funding for opposition parties in the House of Lords, known asCranborne Money, began during his leadership. When Major resigned asLeader of the Conservative Party in an attempt to test his authority as leader in July 1995, Lord Cranborne led his re-election campaign. He was recognised as one of the few members of the Cabinet who were personally loyal to Major, but continued to lead the Conservative Peers afterLabour won the1997 general election.

When the new Prime MinisterTony Blair proposed the removal of the hereditary element in the House of Lords, Lord Cranborne negotiated a pact with theLabour government to retain a small number of hereditary peers (later set at 92) for what was intended to be an interim period. For the sake of form this amendment was formally proposed byLord Weatherill, Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. However, Lord Cranborne gave his party's approval without consulting the party leader,William Hague, who knew nothing and was embarrassed when Blair told him of it in the House of Commons. Hague then sacked Lord Cranborne, who accepted his error, saying that he had "rushed in, like an ill-trained spaniel".

All former Leaders of the House of Lords who were hereditary peers accepted life peerages to keep them in the upper house in 1999. Lord Cranborne, who had received the titleBaron Gascoyne-Cecil, ofEssendon in theCounty of Rutland,^[5] remained active on the backbenches until the House of Lords adopted new rules for declaration of financial interests which he believed were too onerous. He took "Leave of Absence" on 1 November 2001.^[6] He was therefore out of the House of Lords when he succeeded his father as the7th Marquess of Salisbury on 11 July 2003.

In January 2010, Lord Salisbury andOwen Paterson, the ShadowSecretary of State for Northern Ireland, hosted secret talks atHatfield House, involving theDUP, theUUP and theConservative Party. These talks prompted speculation that the Conservatives were attempting to create a pan-unionist front to limitSinn Féin and theSocial Democratic and Labour Party at the2010 general election.^[7]

In September 2012, Lord Salisbury, in his role as Chairman of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation, was knighted byQueen Elizabeth II and became aKnight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).^[8]

He retired from the House of Lords on 8 June 2017, the date of thesnap general election.^[9] He was appointed aKnight Companion of the Order of the Garter (KG) on 27 February 2019.^[10][11]

Salisbury is aDeputy Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, and the current president of theFriends of the British Library^[12] and of theFriends of Friendless Churches.^[13]

Lord Salisbury is the chairman of the Constitution Reform Group (CRG), a cross-party pressure group which seeks a new constitutional settlement in the UK by way of a new Act of Union.^[14] The group backed the Act of Union Bill 2017–19, introduced as aPrivate Member's Bill byLord Lisvane in theHouse of Lords on 9 October 2018, when it received a formal first reading;^[15] its passage through Parliament was terminated by the ending of the parliamentary session in October 2019.

Lord Salisbury writes forThe Spectator and theCentre for Policy Studies under the informal name of Robert Salisbury.^[16][17] He is the chairman ofReaction.^[18]

In 2020, Lord Salisbury published a book entitledWilliam Simpson and the Crisis in Central Asia, 1884–5. It is a non-fiction book on the Victorian war artistWilliam Simpson, and his involvement with theAfghan Boundary Commission, asurveying project whichnearly triggered a war withTsarist Russia in 1885. The book was privately published as a contribution to theRoxburghe Club, and is illustrated by a set of sketches by Simpson, now owned by Lord Salisbury.^[19]

Since 2022, Lord Salisbury is the chairman of theLondon Defence Conference, held in partnership withKing's College London.^[20]

In 1970, aged 23, he married Hannah Stirling, daughter ofBill Stirling of Keir, niece ofColonelSir David Stirling (a co-founder of theSAS) and a descendant of theLords Lovat, Scottish Catholic aristocrats. The marriage was initially opposed by his family, chiefly because Stirling was aCatholic.

During the 1970s, Lord and Lady Cranborne had two sons and three daughters (including twins); the two elder daughters are now married. Until recently, they lived atCranborne Manor, Dorset. The family seat isHatfield House, once home to QueenElizabeth I of England, which was given to the family byJames I of England in exchange for the Cecil family houseTheobalds. The Cecils are landowners in Dorset, Hertfordshire and London, and the 7th Marquess ranked 352nd in theSunday Times Rich List 2017, with an estimated net worth of £335m (of which the paintings at Hatfield accounted for £150m).

The Marquess of Salisbury'sheir apparent is his elder son Robert Edward "Ned" William Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne (born 1970). He was apage of honour to the Queen from 1983 to 1986.^[21] The heir is unmarried, though he does have a daughter born in 2001.^[22] The younger son, Lord James, married Alexandra Issa^[23] and fathered one son, Thomas Richard James (born 2009).^[24]

Coat of arms of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury

Coronet Coronet of a Marquess Crest 1st, Six Arrows in saltire Or, barbed and flighted Argent, bound together with a Belt Gules, buckled and garnished Gold, over the arrows a Morion Cap proper(Cecil); 2nd, A Conger's Head erased and erect Or, charged with an Ermine Spot(Gascoyne) Escutcheon Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Barry of ten Argent and Azure, over all six Escutcheons Sable, three two and one each charged with a Lion rampant of the First, a Crescent Gules for difference[25][26](Cecil); 2nd and 3rd, Argent, on a Pale Sable, a Conger's Head erased and erect Or, charged with an Ermine Spot(Gascoyne) Supporters On either side a Lion Ermine Motto SERO SED SERIO (Late, but in earnest)[27] Orders Order of the Garter circlet (appointed 27 February 2019),[10] with the mottoHoni soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it) Royal Victorian Order (appointedKCVO 2012)[8] Banner Thebanner of arms used as a Garter banner atSt George's Chapel

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