Thomas Chambers Cecil led a profligate life, and although for a time an MP he was forced to live abroad in Brussels, where he married Charlotte Garnier, a lady of uncertain origin, said by some to be a Basque dancer.

[1] When Henry was born in 1754 he was the heir presumptive to his uncle Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter, and for this reason was sent when still a baby to Burghley House to be brought up.

In the early years of his marriage Cecil devoted his energies to modernising and improving his residence at Hanbury Hall and the estates.

William Burslem, to collect the rents and use them to pay off his debts, while he left to live a quiet and simple life under an assumed name.

[5] He chose to buy a small holding in the Shropshire village of Great Bolas, and lived there calling himself John Jones.

Only in 1791 did Cecil obtain a divorce by Act of Parliament, after which he and Sarah went through a second marriage ceremony on 3 October 1791 at St Mildred, Bread Street, London (the register records him as "Batchelor" and her as "Spinster"), thus making the union legitimate.

In December 1793 his uncle died, and Exeter inherited the vast Cecil estates, moving to Burghley House with his new family.