Sir Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset
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The Right Honourable The Earl of Dorset KG, PC |
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| Lord High Treasurer | |
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In office 15 May 1599 – 19 April 1608 |
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| Monarch |
Elizabeth I James I |
| Preceded by | The Lord Burghley |
| Succeeded by | The Earl of Salisbury |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1536 Buckhurst, Sussex Kingdom of England |
| Died | 19 April 1608 (aged 71–72) Westminster, London Kingdom of England |
| Spouse(s) | Cicely Baker |
| Children | 7, including Robert and William |
| Parents |
Richard Sackville Winifred Brydges |
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (1536 – 19 April 1608) was an English statesman, poet, and dramatist. He was the son of Richard Sackville, a cousin to Anne Boleyn. He was a Member of Parliament and Lord High Treasurer.
Thomas Sackville was educated at St John's College, Cambridge and Hertford College, Oxford. He first entered the House of Commons in 1558 as one of the knights of the shire for Westmorland. In 1559 he was elected for East Grinstead, and then in 1563 for Aylesbury.
With Thomas Norton, Sackville was the author in 1561 of the first English play to be written in blank verse, Gorboduc, which deals with the consequences of political rivalry. He also contributed to the 1563 edition of The Mirror for Magistrates, with the poem Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham. Sackville's first important literary work was the poem Induction, which describes the poet's journey to the infernal regions, where he encounters figures representing forms of suffering and terror. The poem is noted for the power of its allegory and for its sombre stateliness of tone.
In 1566 Sackville travelled to Rome, where he was arrested and detained as a prisoner for fourteen days, for reasons not clear, but at the time there was great tension between England and the Papacy. In 1567 he was created Baron Buckhurst, of Buckhurst in the County of Sussex. His first important mission came in 1571, when he was sent to bear Queen Elizabeth's congratulations to Charles IX of France on his marriage to Elizabeth of Austria, the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, and more importantly to negotiate the matter of the proposed alliance between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou, brother of the French king.
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