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
Lord William Russell house where he was murdered. As with many members of the Russell family, notably his nephew the future Prime Minister Lord John Russell (who was Colonial Secretary at the time of the murder), Lord William was a Whig politician. Russell represented the county of Surrey in the House of Commons from 1789 until he was defeated in the 1807 election. Russell held junior ministerial office in the Ministry of all the Talents, being appointed a Lord of the Admiralty in 1806 and retaining the post until the fall of the ministry in 1807. Russell, taking advantage of the fact that