[3] Having paid his subscription he was elevated to MA in 1894, and entered the Commons as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Greenwich in 1895.

[6] During the early 20th century, Cecil (known to his friends as "Linky") was the eponymous leader of the Hughligans, a group of privileged young Tory Members of Parliament critical of their own party's leadership.

"[7] Cecil dissented from the beginning from Joseph Chamberlain's policy of tariff reform, pleading in Parliament against any devaluation of the idea of empire to a "gigantic profit-sharing business".

He took a prominent position among the "Free Food Unionists"; consequently he was attacked by the tariff reformers, and lost his seat at Greenwich in 1906.

[8] He immediately threw himself with passion into the struggle against the Ministerial Veto Resolutions, comparing the Asquith government to "thimble riggers".

In the next year, he was active in the resistance to the Parliament Bill, treating Asquith as a "traitor" for his advice to the Crown to swamp the Conservative majority in the Lords by creating hundreds of Liberal peers, and taking a prominent part in the disturbance which prevented the Prime Minister from being heard on 24 July 1911.

[6] He left the House of Commons in 1937 because the previous year he had been appointed Provost of Eton College, a post he retained until 1944.