SACKVILLE, THOMAS, 1ST EARL OF DORSET (c. 1530— i6o8), English statesman and poet, son of Sir Richard Sack ville, was born at Buckhurst, Sussex, took his M.A. at Cambridge, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He married Cicely, daughter of Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst, Kent ; in 1558 he en tered parliament as member for Westmorland, in 1559 he sat for East Grinstead, Sussex, and in 1563 for Aylesbury, Buckingham shire. During a visit to the Continent in 1565 he was imprisoned for a rash declaration of Protestant opinions. The news of his father's death on April 21, 1566, recalled him to England. On his return he was knighted in the queen's presence, receiving at the same time the title of baron of Buckhurst. In 1571 he was sent to France to congratulate Charles IX. on his marriage with Elizabeth of Austria, and he took part in the negotiations for the projected marriage of Elizabeth to the duke of Anjou. In 1572 he was one of the peers who tried Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, and in 1586 he was selected to convey the sentence of death to Mary, queen of Scots. He was sent in 1587 as ambassador to The Hague and carried out under protest the foolish and often contradictory orders he received. His plain speaking on Leicester's action in the Netherlands displeased the queen. His return was followed by a short period of disgrace, but he was sent again to the Netherlands in 1589 and 1598. He was elected chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1591, and in 1599 succeeded Lord Burghley as lord high treasurer. In 16o1 as high steward he pro nounced sentence on Essex, his rival for the chancellorship and his opponent in politics. James I. confirmed him in the office of lord treasurer. He was created earl of Dorset in 1604, and died sud denly at the council table on April 19, 1608. His eldest son, Rob ert, the 2nd earl (1561-1609), was a member of parliament and a man of great learning. Two other sons were William (c. 1568-91), a soldier killed in the service of Henry IV. of France, and Thomas (1571-1646), also a soldier.
Sackville is remembered, not by his distinguished political career, but by his share in two works, each of which was, in its way, a new departure in English literature. To the second edition (1563) of the Myrroure for Magistrates, edited by William Bald win, Sackville contributed the Complaint of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, to which he prefixed an Induction. This induction was arbitrarily transposed (I6io) to the beginning of the collec tion by a later editor, Richard Niccols, a proceeding which led to the attribution of the general design to Sackville, an error re peated by Thomas Warton. The originators were certainly Bald win and his "printer" who designed the Myrroure as a continua tion of Lydgate's Fall of Princes in the form of laments of the ghosts of great men written by various hands. Fragments of the earliest edition entitled A Memoriall of such princes as . . . have been unfortunate . . . are sometimes found bound up with Lydgate's book.
Sackville's Induction opens with a description of the oncoming of winter. The poet meets Sorrow, who offers to lead him to the infernal regions that he may see the sad estate of those ruined by their ambition, and thus learn the transient character of earthly joy. At the approaches of Hell he sees a group of terrible ab
stractions, Remorse of Conscience, Dread, Misery, Revenge, Care, etc., each vividly described. The last of these was War, on whose shield he saw depicted the great battles of antiquity. Final ly, penetrating to the realm of Pluto, he is surrounded by the shades, of whom the duke of Buckingham is the first to advance, thus introducing the Complaint. Sackville's models were Gavin Douglas and Virgil. The dignity and artistic quality of the narra tive of the fall of Buckingham make the work one of the most important between the Canterbury Tales and the Faerie Queene.
Sackville has also the credit of being part author with Thomas Norton of the first legitimate tragedy in English. This was Gor boduc or Ferrex and Porrex, performed at Christmas 156o by the society of the Inner Temple, and on Jan. 18, 1561, before Eliza beth at Whitehall. The argument is as follows: "Gorboduc, king of Brittaine, devided his Realme in his lyfe time to his Sones, Ferrex and Porrex. The Sonnes fell to dyvision and discention. The yonger kylled the elder. The Mother, that more dearely loved thelder, fr revenge kylled the yonger. The people, moved with the Crueltie of the fact, rose in Rebellion, and Slewe both father and mother. The Nobilitie assembled, and most terribly destroyed the Rebelles. And afterwards for want of Issue of the Prince, wherby the Succession of the Crowne became un certayne, they fell to Ciuill wane, in whiche both they and many of their Issues were slayne, and the Lande for a longe tyme al moste desolate, and myserablye wasted." The story is taken from book ii. chap. xvi. of Geoffrey of Mon mouth's history. It was first printed (1565) in an unauthorized edition as The Tragedie of Gorboduc "whereof three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackvyle." In 157o appeared an authentic edition, The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex. The tragedies of Seneca were now being translated, and the play is conceived on Senecan lines. The paucity of action is eked out by a dumb show to precede each act, and the place of the Chorus is supplied by four "ancient and sage men of Britain." In the variety of incident, however, the authors de parted from the classical model. The play is in blank verse, and is the first example of the application of Surrey's innovation to drama. Jasper Heywood in the poetical address prefixed to his translation of the Thyestes alludes to "Sackvylde's Sonnets sweet ly sauste," but only one, prefixed to Sir T. Hoby's translation of Castiglione's Courtier, has survived.
The best edition of A Mirror for Magistrates is that of Joseph Haslewood (1815). Gorboduc was edited for the Shakespeare Society by W. D. Cooper in 1847; in 1883 by Miss L. Toulmin Smith for C. Vollmoller's Englische Sprach and Litteraturdenkmale (Heilbronn, 1883) and by J. Q. Adams Chief pre-Shakespearian Dramas (1925). The Works of Sackville were edited by C. Chapple (582o) and by R. Sackville-West (1859). See also A Mirror for Magistrates (1898) by W. F. Trench; and accounts in W. J. Courthope's History of English Poetry, vol. i. and in the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. iii.