James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury James Brownlow William Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, (17 April 1791 – 12 April 1868), styled Viscount Cranborne until 1823, was a British Conservative politician. He held office under the Earl of Derby as Lord Privy Seal in 1852 and Lord President of the Council between 1858 and 1859. He was the father of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and grandfather of Arthur Balfour, who also served as Prime Minister. Salisbury was the son of James Cecil, 1st Marquess of Salisbury, and Lady Emily Mary
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom the Tories won an outright majority. The Premiership is still largely a convention of the constitution; its legal authority is derived primarily from the fact that the Prime Minister is also First Lord of the Treasury. The connection of these two offices – one a convention, the other a legal office – began with the Hanoverian Succession in 1714. When George I succeeded to the British throne in 1714, his German ministers advised him to leave the office of Lord High Treasurer vacant because those who had held it in recent years had grown overly powerful, in effect, replacing the