Cicely, daughter of Sir Jolin Baker of Sissinghurst in Kent, and in 1557 he entered public life as member of parliament for Westmoreland. In the following year he sat for East Grinstead in Sussex, and the record of his activity is still to be found in the Journals of the House of Commons. Queen Elizabeth, who had just come to the throne, was attracted by the handsome person, high culture, and evident ability of her young poet-kinsman, who was accordingly, to quote his own words, " selected to a continual private attendance upon her own person," which did not, however, prevent him from appearing again in the Parliament of 1563 as member for Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. A visit to the Continent in 1565 was interrupted by an unexplained imprisonment at Rome, and terminated by the news of his father s death, which took place on 21st April 1566. On his return he was knighted in the queen s presence, and obtained the title of Lord Buckhurst, by which he continued to be known through the most of his life. Apartments were provided for him in the queen s palace at Shene, where his mother was in charge ; but the simplicity of his mode of life is shown by the fact that, when in 1568 he had to entertain Odet de Coligni, Cardinal de Chatillon, at the queen s command, he failed to satisfy the luxurious desires of his guest, and thus fell under her majesty s dis pleasure. In 1571 he was sent to France to congratulate Charles IX. on his marriage with Elizabeth of Austria ; in 1572 he was one of the peers who tried Thomas Howard, earl of Norfolk; and in 1586 he was employed to convey to Queen Mary of Scotland the sentence of death. A more difficult task was found for him in 1587; as ambassador to the Hague he was expected " to expostulate in favour of peace with a people who knew that their existence depended on war, to reconcile those to delay who felt that delay was death, and to heal animosities between men who were enemies from their cradles to their graves." With what fearlessness, fidelity, and sagacity he discharged his duty, has been told in detail by the historian of The United Netherlands, who asserts that there is not a single line in all the ambassador s correspondence which does not reflect honour on his name. But his expostulations with the queen on her parsimonious policy, and his independent conduct towards the royal favourite Leicester, procured him, on his return to England, instead of approbation and reward for his services, an order confining him to his house for nine or ten months in token of her majesty s displeasure. On the death of the earl, however, he was again received into favour; in 1588 he was presented with the Order of the Garter ; in 1591 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, his claims having been supported by a royal letter ; and, in 1599, on the death of Lord Burghley, lie succeeded to the office of Lord High Treasurer of England. In the following year he had to pronounce sentence as High Steward on the earl of Essex, who had been his rival for the chancellorship and his opponent in politics. The change of the dynasty which took place in 1603 left his position unimpaired ; his office of Lord Treasurer was confirmed to him by King James, and on 13th of March 1604, he was created earl of Dorset. He died suddenly on April 19th 1608, while sitting at the council table in Whitehall, and
left his earldom to his son Robert Sackville.In the history of English literature Thomas Sackville occupies an honourable position. We no longer possess any of the " sonnets finely sauced " for which, in his student days, he was praised by Jasper Hey wood, but we may still read the Ferrex and Porrex by which he takes rank as the first writer of genuine English tragedy, the Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates, and the Complaint of Henry Duke of Buckingham. The first was written with the assistance of Thomas Norton, during Sackville s connection with the Inner Temple, was acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1561, appeared without the author s permission in 1565, and again in authorized editions in 1570–1 and 1590. The second is a stately allegorical poem of the kind so much in vogue in the reign of Elizabeth, with elaborate per sonifications of sorrow, death, old age, &c., intended to stand as preface to a series of poems descriptive of the tragic fates of famous men ; and the Complaint was to form the first of the series. They all display a lively fancy, and no small command of pure and sonorous English, but hardly awaken any regret that the author soon laid aside the poet s for the diplomatist s pen.
See Sackville s Works, edited by Reginald "W. Sackville- West, 1859 ; and Arber s Reprint of the Induction.
DORSET, Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of (1637–1706), eldest son of Richard Sackville, the fifth earl, and Frances Cranfield, eldest daughter of Lionel, earl of Middle sex, was born January 24, 1637, and succeeded his father in 1677. His youth, spent partly in London and partly in Italy, was filled with all the madcap and libertine excesses of the period ; but, owing doubtless to the nobler qualities which he none the less displayed, the graceful scapegrace found more favour with the public than the rest of the dissolute crew. He was high-spirited, generous, and humane ; as years passed on his character ripened and refined, and he who had been the worthy rival of Charles II. lived to be laughed at by Etherege for fidelity to his wife. Though present as a volunteer under the duke of York during the Dutch war in 1665, and afterwards sent on more than one mission to the court of France, he took comparatively an unimportant part in politics until the commencement of the troubles which ended in the Revolu tion of 1688. Deprived in 1667 of his office as lord-lieu tenant of Sussex, for his refusal to comply with James II.'s arbitrary demands, he soon after became one of the active members of the opposition, and in 1688 assisted the flight of the Princess Anne. After James had left the country, Dorset was a member of the council for the preservation of the public peace ; and on William s accession he was appointed lord chamberlain. In 1691 he accompanied the new king to Holland ; and, though he was afterwards involved in the accusations of infidelity brought forward by Preston, he retained and deserved the royal favour to the last. He died at Bath in January 1705–6, and was succeeded in the earldom by Lionel Cranfield Sackville, his only son by his second wife, Mary, daughter of James Compton, earl of Essex. Dorset keeps his place in the list of English poets in virtue of a few lyrical and satirical pieces, which, though extravagantly praised by his contemporaries, and, even, according to Macaulay, displaying the easy vigour of Suck ling and wit as splendid as that of Butler, are after all of no great moment in themselves, and only suggestive of what in happier circumstances the writer might have done. The best known is a pleasant careless song To all you Ladies now at Land written at sea shortly before the engagement with the Dutch, in which Admiral Opdam s ship was blown up. As a patron of literature, however, Dorset stands unrivalled, judicious, impartial, and munificent. To him Prior was indebted for his education, Montague for promo tion, and Wycherly for support against the disfavour of the public. Though compelled as lord chamberlain to deprive Dryden of his official laurel, he took care to make good from, his private purse the pecuniary loss involved in the dismissal.
See Prior s dedication of his poems to the duke of Dorset ; John son s Lives of the Poets; "Walpole s Royal and Noble Authors; Macaulay s History of England, vol. iii. chap. viii.
Holland, at the head of a district in the province of South Holland, 10 miles S.E. of Rotterdam, on the" railway between that city and Breda. The island of the Meuse or
Merwe on which it stands is said to have been separated