SACKVILLE, Richard (1589-1624)

Sackville was his father’s second son, but as his elder brother was already dead when he was born he was the centre of the Sackville family’s dynastic hopes from the time of his birth. He went up to Oxford in 1605 where, according to his future wife, ‘he was so good a scholar in all manner of learning that … there was none of the young nobility then students there that excelled him’.18 Clifford, 231.

In 1607 Sackville’s grandfather, Thomas Sackville^*, 1st earl of Dorset, approached Margaret Clifford, dowager countess of Cumberland, to propose a match between Sackville and the countess’ daughter, Lady Anne Clifford. Anne was the sole surviving legitimate child of George Clifford^*, 3rd earl of Cumberland, who died in 1605, leaving extensive estates in Westmorland and Yorkshire. These were left by Cumberland to his brother Francis^*, who succeeded him as 4th earl, whereas Anne was bequeathed £15,000 on condition she surrender her rights to her father’s lands. However Anne’s mother, who retained a life interest in the Westmorland lands as her jointure, rejected this settlement and encouraged Anne to believe that she was the rightful heir to the Clifford lands.19 Stowe 558, ff. 36v, 50v; R.T. Spence, Lady Anne Clifford, 6, 19.

By the time Dorset proposed a match with Anne Clifford, Sackville had already begun courting Anne. Indeed, they often met at court and ‘did affect each other in way of marriage’. However, Anne’s mother was then about to visit her jointure estates in the north, and consequently nothing was formally concluded. Moreover, although Dorset expressed sympathy for Anne’s claims, he cautioned the dowager countess of Cumberland against a ruinous dispute over the Clifford inheritance. This was an early sign that the Sackvilles would never be totally committed to Anne’s cause.20 Stowe 558, ff. 36v, 41v-2; A. Lanyer, Salue Deus Rex Iudaeorum (1611), sig. [H4]; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/22.

Dorset died in April 1608, by which time Sackville’s father, who succeeded as 2nd earl, was probably already in poor health. Fearing that his father would die before he himself came of age, Sackville, now known by the courtesy title Lord Buckhurst, approached Prince Henry, ‘of whom he was much beloved’, with a request to sue for his wardship. However, Buckhurst, ‘loth it should be thought that he had any conceit of the shortness of his father’s day’, asked the prince to delay doing so until ‘some greater appearance of danger’. By the following February the 2nd earl’s declining health was well known, encouraging others to sue for Buckhurst’s wardship, among them the king’s cousin, Ludovic Stuart^*, 2nd duke of Lennox [S] (subsequently duke of Richmond). For this reason Buckhurst again approached Prince Henry who, sympathetic ‘of the young gentleman’s towardliness’, thereupon wrote to the king, James I.21 T. Birch, Life of Henry Prince of Wales (1760), 138-40; Anne Clifford’s Great Bks. of Rec. ed. J.L. Malay, 807; Chamberlain Letters, i. 287.

Marriage, inheritance and coming of age, 1609-12

Buckhurst and his father did not put all their faith in the prince. One aspect of the heir’s wardship they could pre-empt was his marriage. If Buckhurst was still single at his father’s death he would only be able to marry with the consent of whoever purchased his wardship; consequently, it was necessary for him to marry with the utmost urgency. According to the dowager countess of Cumberland, there was some debate among Buckhurst’s friends and relations about whether Buckhurst should marry the daughter of the lord treasurer, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury. However, they feared that Salisbury ‘would overrule them all by his great power’, whereas they thought they would be able to ‘do what they listed’ with Lady Anne Clifford and her mother. Consequently, on the morning of 25 Feb. 1609, Buckhurst went to the dowager countess of Cumberland’s London house, accompanied by his father’s chaplain, Jeffrey Amherst, and his servant Matthias Caldicott^‡. Lady Anne Clifford had already summoned her mother’s lawyer and witnesses and, after ‘some speeches … concerning the jointure …, and a perfect agreement of all things between them’ - during the course of which Buckhurst apparently promised not to surrender his bride’s rights to the Clifford lands without the dowager countess’ approval – the couple were married in the bedroom of the bride’s mother. Two days later, Buckhurst’s father died, whereupon Buckhurst himself became 3rd earl of Dorset.22 Stowe 558, ff. 37-9, 42v, 47v, 48v; Longleat, PO/VOL. XXIII (IHR mic. XR56/10), pp. 69, 75.

Dorset’s marriage to Anne was irregular, to say the least, as it was performed without a licence and without the issue or publication of banns. The dowager countess of Cumberland, keen to avoid the penalty of excommunication, therefore approached Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury, for a pardon, which was issued on 14 Mar. after the king intervened. This pardon did not, of course, establish the legality of the marriage, which may explain why a lawsuit was subsequently initiated in the church courts by Dorset’s brother, Edward Sackville^* (later 4th earl of Dorset). However, if the purpose of this lawsuit was collusive, it is hard to explain why Lady Anne Clifford later described Edward Sackville as ‘a great practiser against me from the time I married his brother’.23 Stowe 558, ff. 1, 2v, 38v, 44; HMC 4th Rep. 310; Anne Clifford’s Great Bks. of Rec. 806.

There is no evidence that Dorset’s wardship was granted to Prince Henry, or indeed to anyone else, possibly because he was not far off reaching his majority. He was certainly summoned to Parliament in February 1610, even though he was still technically a minor. He took his seat on the first day of the new session, handing his writ to the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley). After this was read by the clerk of the Parliament and copied into the Journal it was evidently returned to Dorset, as it still survives in the Sackville archives.24 LJ, ii. 549a; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R, Foster, i. 3; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/O3, writ dated 7 Feb. 1610.

Lady Anne Clifford later wrote that her husband was ‘much esteemed of by all the parliaments that sat in his time’.25 Clifford, 231. However, Dorset made little impression on the first assembly in which he sat, for though he attended 70 of the 95 sittings of the Lords (74 per cent), he was appointed to only eight of the 58 committees established by the upper House and made no recorded speeches. His first appointment, on 14 Feb., was to attend the conference with the Commons at which Salisbury detailed the parlous state of the royal finances. The same committee was also instructed, on 27 Feb., to confer with the Commons about Dr Cowell’s book, The Interpreter, which contained absolutist passages that had alarmed the lower House. Dorset was named to consider five private bills, including two concerning the estate of another Kentish peer, Edward Neville^*, 1st (or 8th) Lord Abergavenny, whose eldest son (Henry Neville^*, subsequently 2nd (or 9th) Lord Abergavenny) had been married to Dorset’s aunt. His only appointment for a public bill, on 12 July, concerned the measure against scandalous ministers.26 LJ, ii. 550b, 557b, 570b, 586b, 595b, 609b, 631b, 641b. During the session, in early June, both Dorset and his wife participated in the celebrations which followed Prince Henry’s investiture as prince of Wales, the countess performing in a masque and the earl running at the tilt.27 HMC Downshire, ii. 317.

During the brief fifth session of James’s first Parliament, in late 1610, Dorset attended 13 of the 21 sittings. He was named to four of the seven committees appointed by the House but, again, made no recorded speeches. On 25 Oct. he was instructed to confer with the lower House about the Great Contract and, in the wake of the latter’s rejection, to a further conference on 13 Nov. to persuade the Commons to grant taxation. He was also named to consider two bills, one to avoid legal disputes arising out of bequests of land and the other to enable Prince Henry to administer the estates of the recently reconstituted duchy of Cornwall.28 LJ, ii. 671a. 675a, 677a, 678a.

At the end of December James I announced his intention of dissolving Parliament. By 17 Jan. 1611, Dorset was planning to travel abroad to finish his education.29 Stuart Royal Proclamations I: Jas. I ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 258; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 105. He received a licence to travel at the end of the month but seems to have delayed his departure until late March or early April, possibly because he had to compound for confirmation of his title to Salisbury Court, the Fleet Street property which included his London residence.30 CD 1621, vii. 355; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 18; HMC Downshire, iii. 60. On his travels Dorset wrote to Salisbury, with a ‘profession of friendship nay service’, out of ‘affection and love to your lordship’.31 SP14/66/30.

Dorset returned to England in April 1612 and the following month was employed to conduct the duc de Bouillon, a visiting Huguenot magnate, to Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth.32 Anne Clifford’s Great Bks. of Rec. 803; Stowe 172, f. 257. The following month, he wrote to Sir Thomas Edmondes^‡, the ambassador to France, with whom he had struck up a friendship during his travels, concerning the large number of libels about Salisbury which had circulated since the lord treasurer’s recent death. Despite his recent professions of service, he attributed these libels to Salisbury’s ‘misdeeds’ as well as to ‘the malice of the people’. He wrote to Edmondes again the following November, this time to mourn the death of Prince Henry, from whom, given their close relationship, he might reasonably have expected to obtain a significant office had Henry lived to become king. ‘Our rising sun is set ere scarcely he had shone’, he lamented, ‘and … with him all our glory lies buried’. He also commented on the arrest of Lewis Bayly^*, subsequently bishop of Bangor, for preaching against the crypto Catholicism that was widespread at court. ‘Some here’, he observed, ‘think a thing not fit that men should be punished for speaking of a truth’.33 Birch, Jas. I, i. 178-9, 210-11.

The Addled Parliament and the Clifford inheritance dispute, 1614-20

Mourning for Prince Henry was cut short by preparations for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatinate the following February. Writing of the magnificence of the assembled English nobility, John Chamberlain observed that ‘above all they speak of the earl of Dorset’, whose spending was to place increasing pressure on his finances.34 Chamberlain Letters, i. 425. A year later, Dorset was summoned to the second Jacobean Parliament, which assembled on 5 Apr. 1614.35 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/O3, writ dated 19 Feb. 1614. In the elections to the Commons, Dorset secured the return at Lewes of Richard Amherst^‡, steward of the Sackville estates (whose brother Jeffrey had married the earl to Lady Anne). Moreover, as he controlled both seats at East Grinstead, Dorset also obtained the election of his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Compton^‡ and another family retainer, Sir George Rivers^‡. Dorset was also responsible for the return of his grandfather’s former secretary, John Suckling^‡, at Reigate.36 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 398-9, 411, 414.

Dorset attended 22 of the 29 sittings, missing the last day before the Easter recess on 19 Apr.; he was excused by Lord Chancellor Ellesmere when the House reconvened on 2 May, being detained on ‘special business’, but returned on 5 May.37 LJ, ii. 696b. He was named to four out of the nine committees appointed by the Lords. The first, on 14 Apr., was to confer with the Commons about the bill to settle the succession in the wake of Princess Elizabeth’s marriage. Two days later, he was appointed to consider another bill concerning lawsuits arising from land bequests and, on 26 May, he was instructed to consider a measure to enforce the observance of the Sabbath. This latter measure was the subject of a further conference, to which Dorset was appointed to attend on 31 May.38 Ibid. 692a, 694a, 708b, 713b.

Dorset made his first recorded speech in the Lords on 23 May, in the debate on whether to accede to the Commons’ request for a conference concerning impositions. The lower House was, in effect, seeking to overturn the ruling in favour of the legality of impositions in Bate’s Case, which Dorset’s grandfather had played an important role in procuring. Ellesmere argued that the Lords should consult the judges first in the hope that either they would affirm the legality of impositions and so pre-empt the arguments of the Commons, or declare that the matter belonged to the prerogative, in which case it could not be touched. Ellesmere was supported by most of the privy councillors, including Dorset’s uncle, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk. However, Dorset himself argued that it was ‘an unseasonable time to hear the judges’, suggesting he was sympathetic to the Commons. Although very much part of its social world, Dorset was evidently not politically subservient to the Jacobean court.39 HMC Hastings, iv. 253; C. Russell, King Jas. VI and I and his Eng. Parls. 119-20; P. Croft, ‘Fresh Light on Bate’s Case’ HJ, xxx. 535-6.

Dorset’s other principal concern during the Addled Parliament was to secure the passage of a bill to incorporate Sackville College, an almshouse which his father, in his will, had ordered to be established at East Grinstead. The bill was given a first reading in the Commons on 14 Apr., and was committed after a second reading on 16 May. It was reported on 24 May by Henry Finch^‡, who had been nominated for St Albans by Dorset’s friend, Sir Francis Bacon^* (subsequently Viscount St Alban), when it was ordered to be engrossed. However, there were no further proceedings.40 HMC 3rd Rep. 14; PROB 11/113, ff. 182v-3; 11/143, f. 210; Procs. 1614 (Commons), 81, 258, 331; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 269; J. Aubrey, Brief Lives, i. 67.

In early 1615 Dorset’s wife complained that her husband ‘doth grow much in debt’.41 G.C. Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford, 148. According to the mid-seventeenth century biographer, John Aubrey, Dorset ‘lived in the greatest grandeur of any nobleman of his time in England’, keeping 30 gentlemen to attend him, each of whom was paid £50 p.a.42 Aubrey, ii. 209. After his death his wife blamed his financial troubles on ‘excessive bounty’ to ‘scholars and soldiers, … or indeed of any of worth that were in distress’, and also to ‘prodigality in house-keeping, and other noble ways at court’. Nevertheless, Dorset’s extravagance served to increase his standing. In 1617 his gambling at court, though ‘somewhat chargeable’, brought him ‘into great grace and favour with the king’, and went some way towards compensating him for his lack of major office. The musters of the Sussex militia, too, were ‘prepared in much the better fashion’ because of the men’s affection for Dorset, their open-handed lord lieutenant, ‘which was as much as any lord hath in his own country or can have’.43 Clifford, 116, 165, 231. However, his financial problems must have made Dorset increasingly impatient with his wife, whose refusal to accept her father’s settlement of the Clifford lands meant that he had not yet received her portion. Although he would later describe his wife in his will as ‘Lady Anne Clifford sole daughter and heir of the right honourable George earl of Cumberland’,44 PROB 11/143, f. 207. it was clear as early as November 1613 that the resulting law suit was of benefit only to the lawyers.45 Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 56.

In the summer of 1615 Dorset was forced to make the first of a series of transfers to trustees of property that was to be sold to pay off his debts. It is therefore unsurprising that, shortly before the Clifford inheritance dispute was heard in Common Pleas, he offered to accept £20,000 from Cumberland in lieu of his wife’s claims. Cumberland rejected the offer but, at the hearing, Dorset and Cumberland agreed to refer the matter to the arbitration of the judges.46 C54/2259/25; Clifford, 227; Add. 25463, ff. 73-4. The latter subsequently ruled in favour of Cumberland’s title to the Clifford lands, but endorsed Dorset’s proposal to increase Anne’s portion to £20,000.47 Spence, 52. Anne came under immense pressure to accept the deal, including being subjected to an hour-and-a-half of ‘divine and human’ arguments from George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, but still she refused to budge.48 Clifford, 71.

Dorset tried to persuade his wife to sign by pointing out that, if she accepted the agreement, she would still eventually inherit her ancestral lands if the Clifford male line died out. This was not an unlikely prospect as Cumberland’s only son, Henry Clifford^*, subsequently 5th earl of Cumberland, then had only one child, a daughter (and indeed Anne did inherit after Henry’s death).49 Longleat, PO/VOL. XXIII (IHR mic. XR56/10), p. 71. However, Dorset was unable to win over his wife and would not sign the settlement with Cumberland without her. Consequently, after Anne’s mother died in May 1616, he tried to secure the dowager’s jointure lands instead. However, he agreed to accept the king’s arbitration. In March 1617 James upheld the judges’ earlier ruling, awarding the lands in question to Cumberland while at the same time assigning Dorset £20,000. However, the final £3,000 of that sum would only be payable if Anne consented to the king’s award, or if a private act of Parliament was secured by Cumberland and Dorset confirming the agreement. As Anne continued to refuse to acquiesce, and there was little prospect of a new Parliament in 1617, Dorset had to content himself with £17,000. Nevertheless, this was £2,000 more than his wife’s original portion of £15,000.50 Williamson, 153; Clifford, 229; Spence, 53-6; C66//2102/12.

Aubrey states, on the authority of Dorset’s eldest legitimate daughter, that during the mid 1610s the young George Villiers^* (subsequently 1st duke of Buckingham), then attempting to make his way at court, unsuccessfully applied to be one of Dorset’s attendant gentlemen ‘and within a 12 month was a greater man himself; but the duke ever after bore a grudge to the earl of Dorset’.51 Aubrey, ii. 209, However, there is no contemporary evidence to substantiate this story; on the contrary, before 1621 Buckingham seems to have regarded Dorset as his friend.52 F. von Raumer, Hist. of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 250-1. Dorset and his countess initially welcomed the rise of Buckingham, even though it meant the eclipse of the earl’s Howard kinsmen, for when Buckingham became an earl himself in January 1617, it was Dorset who carried his sword. Nevertheless the story perhaps suggests that, as Villiers came to dominate the late Jacobean court, this welcome soured and was replaced in the Dorset household by contempt for the upstart’s meteoric rise and his involvement in the sale of honours.53 Williamson, 153; Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 75.

In March 1617 Dorset placed his town house at the disposal of his friend, Bacon, who had recently been made keeper of the great seal and was waiting for York House to be refurbished. The following June, Dorset was ‘exceeding great’ with Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales), a longstanding friend who had previously canvassed his election as a knight of the Garter.54 Clifford, 125, 139; R. Cust, ‘Chas. I and the Order of the Garter’, JBS, lii. 356. Nevertheless, Dorset remained politically independent of the court. In 1620 he became one of the most prominent English supporters of the claim of Frederick V, the husband of Princess Elizabeth, to the Bohemian crown. In March of that year, when Frederick’s ambassador was allowed to raise contributions for his master, Dorset immediately sent £500, promising a further £500 within five months, and £1,000 a year thereafter.55 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 300; SP14/113/33. In June it was even rumoured that, despite a complete lack of military experience, he would command the English forces which were then being raised to aid the cause.56 Add. 72253, f. 122v. When the Spanish invasion of the Palatinate prompted the Privy Council to seek a further benevolence in October, Dorset pointedly responded that, had more people followed his example in the spring, ‘matters in all likelihood would not stand as now they do’. He protested that his previous contribution ‘did me much hurt, and the business no good, it being a proportion too large for my estate, and nothing at all to the advancement of those affairs, so slowly seconded’. He, therefore, desired to be excused from any further contributions.57 APC, 1619-21, p. 292; SP14/118/19.

The later Jacobean parliaments, 1621-4

On 18 Nov. 1620 Dorset received his summons to attend the third Jacobean Parliament.58 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/O3, writ dated 13 Nov. 1620. By this date he was in a strong political position in Sussex. Although he was never the sole lord lieutenant of that county, his colleagues, Charles Howard^*, 1st earl of Nottingham, and Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, were non-residents and more tied to the court than Dorset; consequently, they were happy to leave the work of the lieutenancy to him. Moreover, thanks to his generous hospitality and diligence, Dorset had established good relations with the deputy lieutenants. He also acted as an intermediary between the county and the board of green cloth over purveyance in the early 1620s.59 Harl. 703, ff. 159r-v, 171; A. Fletcher, County Community in Peace and War, 178-81, 183. It is therefore not surprising that he secured the election of his brother, Edward, as a knight of the shire for the third Jacobean Parliament. In addition, Sir Henry Compton was again returned for East Grinstead, on this occasion alongside Dorset’s kinsman, Thomas Pelham^‡. The borough of Lewes also re-elected Amherst, while Dorset secured the election of his cousin, Sir Thomas Glemham^‡, at Reigate.60 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 399, 404, 411, 413.

When Parliament commenced the following January Dorset was appointed by the crown as a receiver of petitions from Gascony and England’s overseas territories (a largely nominal position). He was subsequently present at 91 of the 111 sittings of the House of Lords.61 LJ, iii. 71a. He attended most assiduously before the Easter recess, during which time he was recorded as present at 40 of the 44 sittings. Between Easter and the summer recess he was excused three times, but returned to the chamber for the following sitting on each occasion. In total, he was present on 34 of the 43 sittings. After the session reconvened in November he was again excused, on 5 Dec., but on this occasion he remained absent until the 10th of that month. Nevertheless, he was still present for 17 of the 24 sittings.62 Ibid. 91a, 108b, 182a; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, p. 109.

Dorset was appointed to 25 of the 74 or 75 committees appointed before the session was adjourned in June and made ten recorded speeches. On 5 Feb. he was named to the newly established privileges committee and, on the 14th, to the subcommittee for privileges.63 LJ, iii. 10b, 17b. The latter body was initially established to investigate the privileges of the lords, and Dorset was one of the members of the subcommittee who, on 22 Feb., authorized the antiquarian, William Le Neve, to search the records on their behalf.64 Bodl., Carte 77, f. 185. On 14 Feb. he was instructed to confer with the Commons about the proposed petition to the king against recusants. The following day he made his first recorded speech of the Parliament, when he seconded the motion of Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton, that the whole House should present the petition to the king.65 LJ, iii. 17a; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 16.

Dorset’s London house appears to have acted a centre for the opponents of Buckingham during the 1621 Parliament, suggesting that the earl played an important political role behind the scenes, if only as a host. One source attributed the arrest of Southampton, Sir Edwin Sandys^‡ and John Selden^‡, after the session was adjourned in June, to their participation in meetings with ‘many other noblemen and gentlemen’ at Dorset’s London residence.66 William Whiteway of Dorchester: his Diary 1618 to 1635 (Dorset Rec. Soc. xii), 38. These gatherings may have started as early as February 1621, when Dorset House was used as one of the meetings places for those peers who organized a petition against allowing precedence to Englishmen who had purchased Irish or Scottish titles. Buckingham, the principal beneficiary of the sales, saw the petition as a personal attack and angrily rounded on Dorset, stating that he would no longer regard the earl as his friend. On the king’s orders the organizers of the petition met Prince Charles and members of the Council on the 19th. Dorset and his allies, presumably trying to play for time, stated that the petition could not be found, but were given only one day in which to produce it. On the 20th, while the upper House was in session, Dorset not only informed the prince that he now had the petition but also tried to get it officially adopted by the Lords, without success. That afternoon he appeared before the Council, accompanied by Henry de Vere^*, 18th earl of Oxford, and Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex. There, after some reluctance, Dorset agreed to hand over the petition to the prince, who took it to James.67 Raumer, ii. 250-1; CD 1621, vii. 579; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 10-11; APC, 1619-21, pp. 352-3.

Despite their disagreement over the petition and its contents, Dorset and Buckingham were united in their support for Bacon, by now Viscount St Alban, impeached for corruption in the 1621 Parliament. They both dissented from a vote, on 23 Mar., over the examination of a witness, from whom Bacon was accused of accepting bribes. Dorset argued that the Lords were asking the witness to ‘accuse himself’. However, as application of this principle would have thrown out much of the evidence against Bacon, he was overruled.68 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 38-9.

Dorset supported Bacon because he ‘was a great admirer and friend of the lord chancellor’, rather than because he had reached a rapprochement with Buckingham.69 Aubrey, i. 67. Dorset therefore took great interest in the accusations of the disgraced former attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, who claimed that Buckingham had compelled him to approve various monopoly patents. On 28 Apr. Dorset was one of the lords sent to the Tower to investigate whether Yelverton had been truthful when he had pleaded ill-health for his failure to appear before the House that day. Two days later, the earl reported back to the House that they had found Yelverton in bed ‘much swollen about his face with the rheum’.70 LJ, ii. 96b, 98a.

On 2 May, after the king sought to take the Yelverton case into his own hands, Dorset supported a proposal to protest to James, and moved the House to agree on the wording of a message.71 LD 1621, p. 59. Six days later he requested that Yelverton be given another hearing before the Lords, a suggestion he reiterated on 12 May. On this latter occasion he also opposed Buckingham’s motion to resolve whether Yelverton had dishonoured the king, arguing that the House should not pre-judge what the former attorney general had to say because ‘if we say it toucheth the king’s honour, and afterwards … he give us satisfaction … how shall we unsay that?’ On 16 May Dorset was one of the peers who argued that Yelverton should be allowed to produce witnesses in his defence, but their motion was defeated.72 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, pp. 107, 112; LD 1621, pp. 78, 89.

Dorset was named to eight legislative committees before the summer recess. Among them was a measure to improve the arming of the militia which, as lord lieutenant of Sussex, may have particularly interested him. His other appointments included an estate bill for his uncle by marriage, the Catholic, Anthony Maria Browne^*, 2nd Viscount Montagu, suggesting that Dorset expressed little personal animosity towards Catholics to whom he was related.73 LJ, ii. 13a, 139b. Dorset again sponsored a bill to incorporate Sackville College, which received a first reading in the Commons on 14 Feb., but it was not committed, until 4 May, and was never reported.74 HMC 4th Rep. 120; CJ, i. 520b, 607a. On 16 May a bill was introduced in the lower House to confirm the king’s settlement of the Clifford inheritance dispute, but it progressed no further, and consequently Dorset continued to lack the final £3,000 that he had been awarded.75 Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 78; FRANCIS CLIFFORD.

After the session reconvened in November, Dorset made five recorded speeches but received no new committee appointments. On 22 Nov. he moved for the subcommittee of privileges to meet. Eight days later, he informed the House that the subcommittee ‘had matter of great importance to impute’ and asked that the full privileges committee convene for this communication. The ‘matter’ concerned the confiscation of the papers belonging to Selden following the latter’s arrest in June. Selden, like Le Neve, had been employed by the subcommittee to search the records concerning the privileges of peers and some notes, made in the course of his researches for the subcommittee, had not been returned.76 LD 1621, p. 94; Add. 40086, f. 31; LJ, iii. 176a.

On 1 Dec. Dorset tried, unsuccessfully, to salvage the monopolies bill drawn up by the Commons, arguing that it should be recommitted, a motion rejected by the House.77 LD 1621, p. 104. He was sympathetic to Sir John Bourchier^‡, who had made charges against the new lord keeper, John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln (subsequently archbishop of York), concerning a case in Chancery. Although Prince Charles had expressly argued that the case was not sufficiently important to warrant the attention of the House, Dorset moved unsuccessfully, on 11 Dec., that Bourchier’s cause should be heard again by the Lords. The following day he tried to moderate the censure the upper House had imposed on Bourchier for bringing charges against Williams, successfully arguing that an acknowledgement of his faults was sufficient.78 Ibid. 116, 119.

In February 1623 Dorset was recommended by Williams for membership of a commission to hear grievances. Williams claimed that Dorset had been one of the Lords ‘whose ears had been ... opened to the like grievances in the time of Parliament’ but who had, nevertheless, ‘kept themselves within the compass of duty, and respect to your Majesty’.79 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 109. However there is no evidence that he was appointed. Dorset was evidently alarmed that same month on learning that Prince Charles had gone to Spain in an attempt to conclude the Spanish Match. In the following October, he wrote to his friend, Sir Thomas Roe^‡, that ‘the best news I can write you is the prince is come home. … And on my conscience I think not so much Spaniard as he went’.80 SP97/9, f. 200.

Dorset probably became reconciled with Buckingham after the latter, having returned with the prince, determined to make war on Spain. Certainly, in the ensuing elections for the fourth Jacobean Parliament, the earl nominated Buckingham’s client, Sir Robert Heath^‡, for a seat at East Grinstead. It is possible that it was Heath himself who effected the reconciliation, as he was later a witness to Dorset’s will. East Grinstead also returned Dorset’s servant, Matthias Caldicott but the earl’s electoral patronage was otherwise negligible, possibly because of his indebtedness, and the consequent land sales, that had undermined his influence.81 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 399, 410-11. In early 1624, Dorset opened negotiations with Edward La Zouche^*, 11th Lord Zouche, to succeed the latter as lord warden of the Cinque Ports. However, in the event, he was either unwilling or (perhaps more likely) unable to meet Zouche’s asking price.82 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 165; Procs. 1626, i. 569.

Dorset received his writ summoning him to the 1624 Parliament on 9 Jan., and took his leave of his wife and daughters at Knole a month later.83 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/O3, writ dated 30 Dec. 1623; Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford ed. D.J.H. Clifford, 250. He was present on the first day of the session (19 Feb.) and missed only three of the 31 sittings between then and the Easter recess. He was again appointed a trier of petitions from Gascony and was named to five out of 39 committees appointed by the upper House in February and March. These included the committee and subcommittee for privileges, of which he had previously been a member. His sponsorship of Sackville College probably explains his inclusion in the committee for the bill concerning hospitals and workhouses. He was also appointed to consider a new estate bill for Viscount Montagu, in which he was named as one of the viscount’s trustees. His final committee appointment concerned the monopolies bill, on 18 March.84 LJ, ii. 208a, 215a-b, 216b, 254b, 267b; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1623/21J1n48.

Dorset made two recorded speeches in 1624. On 5 Mar. he joined William Fiennes^*, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, in calling for reasons for the breaking of treaties with Spain to be put to the question.85 Add. 40087, f. 54v. Eight days later, he joined in the criticism of Sir Richard Lumley’s estate bill, in which Lady Lumley was erroneously described as Lady Elizabeth Lumley.86 Ibid. f. 83. On 19 Mar., another bill for confirmation of Sackville College was introduced, this time in the Lords, where it was given a first reading.87 LJ, iii. 269a. The following day he was apparently present at a dinner at an ‘ordinary’ or tavern in Milford Lane, attended by many of ‘the greatest lords’, when he proposed a toast ‘to the ruin of Spain and their followers’.88 Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 1621–5 ed. M. Questier (Cam. Soc. ser. 5, xxxiv), 260.

Dorset missed the last sitting before the Easter recess on 25 March. Writing to his wife the next day, he stated that he had fallen ill on the night of the 24th, first with vomiting and later with a fever, but was ‘now at good ease’.89 Williamson, 143. However, he died in his London house on 28 Mar., allegedly from a surfeit of potatoes. Sir Simonds D’Ewes^‡, who described him as ‘a good commonwealth’s-man, though not a strict liver’, wrote that the offending dish was ‘a potato pie, which meat he had often eaten, as was reported, to enkindle his lust’. However, Sir Francis Nethersole^‡ thought the meal consisted of roast potatoes. Whatever the truth of the matter, William Trumbull^‡ was informed that Dorset’s death was ‘much lamented’; Nethersole thought that the queen of Bohemia had ‘lost a faithful’ servant and Sir John Davies^‡ reported that ‘all honest men are sorry’ for his death.90 Clifford, 230; D’Ewes Diary, 1622-4 ed. E. Bourcier, 189; Add. 72255, f. 133v; SP14/161/50; HMC Hastings, ii. 65. Dorset’s former chaplain, Henry King^†, subsequently bishop of Chichester, declared in an elegy to his late patron that Dorset was ‘one that did know the court, / Yet understood it better by report / Than practice, for he nothing took from thence / But the king’s favour for his recompense’.91 English Poems of Henry King ed. L. Mason, 50-1; Nicholson and Burn, i. 301.

Dorset’s death was not universally lamented regretted; one Catholic letter writer commented that the earl had been ‘no friend of ours’.92 Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 260, n.608. This observation was a little harsh, as Dorset was not antipathetic to Catholics, or at least not to those who were related to him: in addition to his connection with Viscount Montagu, he appointed his uncle, the recusant, Lord William Howard of Naworth, as one of his executors.93 PROB 11/143, f. 207v. In an elegy written shortly after Dorset’s death, Henry Peacham described the earl as being as much opposed to puritans as papists.94 H. Peacham, An Aprill Shower Shed in Abundance of Teares (1624), 4. Certainly most of Dorset’s ecclesiastical connections were with supporters of the established Church. In addition to King, his chaplains included the anti-Calvinist, Brian Duppa^† (subsequently bishop of Winchester), and he was a friend and patron to John Donne^‡, dean of St Paul’s. Nevertheless, in his younger years Dorset had been sufficiently godly to satisfy his puritan inclined mother-in-law, and the earl tried to encourage the moderate puritan, Dr Thomas White, minister of St Dunstan-in-the-West, to publish his lectures.95 PROB 11/143, f. 211; N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 206-7, 250; R.C. Bald, John Donne, 185, 455; Longleat, PO/VOL. XXIII (IHR mic. XR56/10), p. 57; P. S. Seaver, Puritan Lectureships, 214.

Dorset drafted his will two days before he died. In this he stated that ‘several bills have been by my procurement and at my charge preferred in Parliament for the better founding’ of Sackville College but ‘by reason of the breaking up of the said assemblies in Parliament sooner than was expected those bills took not their full essence and effect’. He was to have no more success after his decease; although the Sackville College bill was committed on 1 Apr., it proceeded no further. Dorset’s will was witnessed on the day of his death, when he added a codicil promising a living to Duppa.96 PROB 11/143, ff. 207-11; LJ, iii. 284a. According to John Chamberlain he left debts amounting to £60,000; his trustees were still struggling to repay what he owed seven years later.97 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 551; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 99. Nevertheless, he left his wife well provided for, with a jointure worth about £2,000 a year.98 Spence, 80-1.

Dorset requested burial in the parish church of Withyam in Sussex, the traditional last resting place of the Sackville family. There he instructed his executors to build a tomb for him and his wife at the cost of £1,000.99 PROB 11/143, f. 207. His body was accordingly conveyed to Withyham on the night of 6 Apr., where he was buried the next day.100 Sutton, 81; Clifford, 230. The rumour, reported by Sir John Davies, that Anne was pregnant at the time of his death proved false and, all Dorset’s sons having died in infancy, he was succeeded by his brother Edward.101 HMC Hastings, ii. 65.