The creation in the Peerage of England occurred in 1628 when Henry Carey, 1st Viscount Rochford, was created Earl of Dover, in the County of Kent.
He had already in 1640 been summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in his father's barony of Hunsdon.
He commanded a troop at the Battle of the Boyne, but shortly afterwards made his submission to King William III.
He spent the rest of his life living quietly at his London townhouse, or at his country estate Cheveley, near Newmarket.
As he left no children by his wife, Judith, daughter of Sir Edmund Poley, of Badley, Suffolk, his titles became extinct at his death.