Michael Hicks (1543–1612)

Taking the same position with Sir Robert Cecil after Burghley's death, Hicks became an influential figure at court and appears to have been popular.

[1] Kimber & Johnson (1771) state that he "by his ingenious education and good parts, became very polite and agreeable and was admitted into a society of learned and eminent persons, having the accomplishment of a facetious wit to recommend him", but also that "many persons, knowing what interest he had with Sir Robert ... made him their friend, at any rate, to solicit their causes with him, who was ever... ready to gratify Sir Michael, especially where the benefit was likely to accrue to him".

[3] Hicks appeared to have possessed considerable financial abilities, and his personal friends sought his aid and counsel in their pecuniary difficulties.

He died at Ruckholt on 15 August 1612 and was buried in the chancel of the neighbouring church of Leyton, where an elaborate monument in alabaster, with recumbent figures of himself (in full armour) and of his widow, was erected to his memory.

According to Wotton, Hicks "was well skilled in philological learning, and had read over the polite Roman historians and moralists; out of which authors he made large collections, especially of the moral and wise sentences out of which he filled divers paper-books, remaining in the family".

[1] Historian A. L. Rowse describes Hicks as a supporter of the Puritans and suggests he was the author (who to this day has not been conclusively identified) of the Marprelate Tracts.

Rowse's view is based on the observation that the tracts were "clearly written by someone in a position to know everybody who was anybody" and the opinion that Hicks had a "merry, facetious pen".