Note 43 — The Mirror for Magistrates.

Thomas Sackville was born at Buckhurst, in the parish of Withiam, in the county of Sussex. He was the only son of Sir Richard Sackville, knight, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentation to King Edward the VIth. afterwards to Q. Mary, and Under Treasurer of the Exchequer to Q. Elizabeth, (by Winifred Brydges); at whose death the jury upon the inquisition found that he died 21st April, in the eighth year of the reign of Elizabeth (1566), leaving his son Thomas S. then twenty-nine years of age, thereby making the time of his birth in 1537, a year later than that mentioned by all his biographers. Probably it should stand 1536-7. He was first sent to Hart-hall, Oxford, but removed to Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master of Arts, and was celebrated as a Latin and English poet at both universities. Like Phaer, Ferrers, and other contemporary wits, he was entered in the Inner Temple, and so far persevered in the study of the law as to be called to the bar. The earliest effort of his unrivalled genius that has been preserved was a joint production, and forms the first legitimate tragedy existing in our language. It was called by the authors Ferrex and Porrex, but is more generally known as the tragedy of Gorboduc, and only composed for “furniture of part of the grand Christmas,” or revels, a species of amusement that combined dramatic representations with feasts and balls, and then occasionally kept with great magnificence by the society of the Inner Temple. This dramatic piece was first performed by the students in their hall, and afterwards by them on the 18th Jan. 1561, before Elizabeth at Whitehall. In this composition he is supposed to have assisted Thomas Norton, as, according to the title of the spurious edition of the play, of 1565, “three actes were written by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackvyle;” but the authorised edition of 1570, only extends to say it was “never intended by the authors thereof to be published,” and without attempting any thing like the above apportionment. The claim of Norton has been repeatedly doubted. Warton observes thereon: “The force of internal evidence often prevails over the authority of assertion, a testimony which is diminished by time, and may be rendered suspicious from a variety of other circumstances. Throughout the whole piece, there is an invariable uniformity of diction and versification. Sackville has two poems of considerable length in the Mirrour of Magistrates, which fortunately furnish us with the means of comparison: and every scene of Gorboduc is visibly marked with his characteristical manner, which consists in a perspicuity of style, and a command of numbers, superior to the tone of his times. Thomas Norton’s poetry is of a very different and a subordinate cast.” Certainly all the choruses bear such strong similarity to our author’s style and versification, as to leave no question of his well-founded claim to the entire outline of the whole performance. There cannot here be omitted: “the Order and Signification of the Domme Shew before the fourth Act. First the musick of howeboies began to playe, during which there came from under the stage, as though out of hell, three furies, Alecto, Megera, and Ctisiphone, clad in blacke garmentes sprinkled with bloud and flames, their bodies girt with snakes, their heds spred with serpentes instead of haire, the one bearing in her hand a snake, the other a whip, and the third a burning firebrand; ech driving before them a king and a queene, which moved by furies unnaturally had slaine their owne children. The names of the kings and queenes were these, Tantalus, Medea, Athamas, Ino, Cambises, Althea; after that the furies and these had passed about the stage thrise, they departed, and than the musick ceased: hereby was signified the unnaturall murders to follow, that is to say: Porrex slaine by his owne mother; and of king Gorboduc, and queen Videna, killed by their owne subjects.” This shadowing out of the plot, and the extraordinary characters to be personified in the procession, are too similar to the model upon which the Mirror for Magistrates was to have been completed, had he carried his own plan into effect, to let us doubt, without supposing the author a mannerist, that the composing the Induction and the drama were nearly coeval, and that before entering his twenty-fifth year he had entirely forsaken the Muse. This circumstance leads to an inquiry of his other poetical effusions, which are supposed to be lost, or remain undiscovered. Jasper Heywood, in a poetical address before his translation of the tragedy of Thyestes, 1560, has the following lines:

Warton, in a note on the first line, remarks: “I have never seen his Sonnets, which would be a valuable accession to our old poetry. But probably the term Sonnets here means only verses in general, and may signify nothing more than his part in the Mirror of Magistrates and his Gorboduc.” An oversight of the critic leaves this conjecture without any weight. The above lines were in print before either the communication was made to the Mirror for Magistrates, or the play performed. Several other writers are named by Heywood, in the same address, also their works, and those works known; the sonnets of Sackville and the ditties of Norton and Yelverton excepted. This circumstance may well support a belief of their having been published as well as the others: neither is there any thing improbable that the sonnets and ditties of “such yong men three” were united in one volume, however it has hitherto escaped all research. There is a single sonnet by our author which shall be here preserved as not an inelegant relic of his pen. It is prefixed to The Courtier of Count Baldessar Castilio, done into english by Sir Thomas Hoby, who died embassadour at Paris 13 July, 1566, æt. 36, and was buried at Bisham, co. Berks. This translation was printed 1561, 1577, 1588, (the last supplying the present copy,) again 1603, where the sonnet is omitted.

Thomas Sackeuyll in commendation of the worke.

To the Reader.

Sackville, the junior of nearly all his compeers and associates, during this short career of his Muse,[44] had also to sustain the labour and restlessness of politics. He was elected member for Westmorland, and sat in parliament the 4th and 5th of Philip and Mary. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, he represented Sussex at the time his father did Kent, and in 1562, upon the latter being chosen for Sussex, he was returned one of the members for Buckinghamshire. He early obtained the confidence of Elizabeth, (to whom he was related, as first cousin by his grand mother to Anne Boleyn), being, in his younger years, “by her particular choice and liking, selected to a continual private attendance upon her own person,” and is named in D’Ewes Journal, March 17, 1563, as conveying a message from her to the House of Commons, relative to making an “allowance for Justices Diets,” &c. About this period he visited France, Italy, and Rome, where, for some imprudency of a pecuniary nature, he was detained prisoner for fourteen days. On the death of his father he returned to England. His prodigal taste for splendour was first checked and finally stopped by the influence and admonitions of his royal relative, who, it is said, “would not know him, till he began to know himself.” On the 8th of June, 1567, he was knighted in her presence by the Duke of Norfolk, and created Baron of Buckhurst. In 1573 he was sent ambassador to France, and in the following year sat on the trial of the Earl of Arundel, being styled the Queen’s beloved and faithful counsellor. In 1586 he was nominated a commissioner on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1587 he went ambassador to the States General, but recalled by the influence of the Earl of Leicester and Lord Burleigh, and confined to his house, by the queen’s command, for nine months, when, upon the death of the Earl of Leicester, he was immediately restored to presence and favour, and on April 24, 1589, without previous intimation, made Knight of the Garter. In January 1591-2 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. On the 15th March, 1599, after the death of Lord Burleigh, he was appointed Lord High Treasurer; the patent whereof was renewed for life on the accession of King James, by whom, in 1603, he was created Earl of Dorset, and appointed one of the commissioners for executing the office of Lord Marshal. He died suddenly at the council table at Whitehall on April 19th, 1608, and being taken to Dorset house, Whitefriars, was embowelled and so much of him buried on the 20th, at Saint Bride’s Fleetstreet. Much state ceremony and solemnity followed, and after a lapse of above a month there was A Sermon preached at Westminster May 26, 1608, at the Fvnerall Solemnities of the Right Honorable Thomas Earle of Dorset, late L. High Treasurer of England: By George Abbott Doctor of Diuinitie and Deane of Winchester one of his Lordships Chaplines.[45] 1608. qto. It does not appear that these funeral solemnities were followed with enterment at the Abbey. No tomb exists, and by his will one thousand pounds was given for the building of a chapel at Withiam, Sussex, where his ancestors lay, directing his remains to be there deposited; which is also alluded to in the sermon. Lloyd gives him the following character: “He was a very fine gentleman of person and endowments both of art and nature. His elocution is much commended, but the excellency of his pen more; for he was a scholar and a person of quick faculties, very facete and choice in his phrase and style. He was wise and stout, nor was he any ways insnared in the factions of the Court, which were all his time very strong. He stood still in grace and was wholly intentive to the Queen’s service; and such were his abilities, that she received assiduous proofs of his sufficiency.” As early as the first year of the reign of Philip and Mary his Lordship married his kinswoman, Cecile daughter of Sir John Baker, of Sisinghurst, co. Kent, knt. who survived him, and died Oct. 1st. 1615.