History of the Cecil family of England between the late 1400s and 1973. The family held peerage titles of the Marquess of Salisbury and earlier the Earl of Salisbury. Even earlier (in the 1500s), for one generation, a Cecil was the first Earl of Exeter. The family was related by intermarriage to the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquess of Westmeath, and the Earls of Kinnoull, Oxford and Selborne.