Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury his nephew, Arthur Balfour. King Edward VII conferred upon him the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO), with the order star set in brilliants, during his resignation audience. Salisbury, due to breathing difficulties caused by his great weight, took to sleeping in a chair at Hatfield House. His death in August 1903 followed a fall from that chair, when by then he had a weak heart condition and blood poisoning caused by an ulcerated leg. Salisbury was buried at St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, where his predecessor as prime minister, Lord Melbourne, is also interred. When Salisbury died his
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, (3 February 183022 August 1903), styled Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until April 1868, was a British statesman and Conservative Party politician, serving as Prime Minister three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was the last Prime Minister to head his full administration from the House of Lords. Lord Robert Cecil was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government from 1866 until