Short answers, pulled from the story.
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (the 1st of June 1563 - the 24th of May 1612), was an English statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1596 to 1612 and as Lord High Treasurer from 1608 to 1612. He directed the English government through the Union of the Crowns, guiding the transition from Elizabeth I to James I. He is identified as the principal discoverer of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Cecil is recorded as the principal discoverer of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, brought him an anonymous letter warning Monteagle to stay away from the opening of Parliament, and that letter became the central piece of evidence in the plot's unraveling. Whether Cecil had prior knowledge of the conspiracy and acted as an agent provocateur remains a subject of historical debate.
The Great Contract was a financial restructuring Cecil put before Parliament in 1610-11, under which the king would surrender feudal revenues including wardship and purveyance in exchange for a fixed annual income of approximately £300,000. The plan failed when James I dissolved Parliament in 1611, against Cecil's advice. A similar arrangement, granting Charles II an income of approximately £1,200,000 per annum at the Restoration, has been described by one historian as the eventual 'implementation of Cecil's Great Contract.'
Robert Cecil died of cancer at Marlborough, Wiltshire, on the 24th of May 1612, a week short of his 49th birthday. He had traveled to Bath in the spring of 1612 hoping to recover his health but obtained little relief. He was buried in St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, in a tomb designed by Maximilian Colt.
Cecil built Hatfield House in Hertfordshire using bricks from the older Hatfield Palace, after King James I exchanged it for Theobalds in 1607, with work continuing until 1612. He also remodelled Cranborne Manor, originally a small hunting lodge, and built Salisbury House on the Strand as his London residence.
Cecil served Elizabeth I as Secretary of State from 1596 until her death in 1603, and famously described her as 'more than a man, but less than a woman.' Elizabeth called him 'my pygmy,' a reference to his height and scoliosis, and he trained in spy-craft under her principal spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. When Cecil began his secret correspondence with James VI of Scotland around 1600, one of his conditions was that James show absolute respect for the queen's feelings, reflecting his determination to protect her in her final years.