Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset
Sackville was run through the body and lost a finger while attempting to disarm Kinloss, but ultimately dispatched his opponent with two thrusts to the chest.
[2] Some sources claim that in 1614, Sackville was elected MP for Sussex and was one of the leaders of the popular party[2] but this is disputed in other records of the Addled Parliament.
On 22 July 1620 he sailed as a commander in the forces sent under Sir Horatio Vere to assist Frederick V, the Bohemian king, who was James I's son-in-law.
In November 1621 he vigorously defended the proposal to vote a subsidy for the recovery of the Palatinate, declaring that "the passing-bell was now tolling for religion".
[2] Dorset succeeded to family estates which were heavily encumbered and he was selling land to pay off his brother's debts on 26 June 1626 (money was still owing on 26 September 1650).
His influence at court was fully established by his appointment as lord chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria on 16 July 1628.
While sitting on the Star-chamber commission in 1636, he advised the imprisonment of the peers who refused to pay a forced loan although in April 1636 he himself was one of the defaulters for ship-money in Kent to the extent of £5.
He was nominated on a committee of council to deal with ship-money on 20 May 1640 but abstained carefully from committing himself to the illegal proceedings encouraged by his more violent colleagues.
In January 1641 he helped to arrange the marriage of the Princess Mary with the Prince of Orange, and was a commissioner of regency again from 9 August to 25 November.
He opposed the proceedings against the bishops, and ordered the trained bands of Middlesex to fire on the mob that gathered to intimidate parliament on 29 November 1641.
According to the historian Clarendon the Commons wished to impeach Dorset either for this or "for some judgment he had been party to in the Star-chamber or council table".
He made sensible speeches, which were printed in Oxford and London as "shewing his good affection to the Parliament and the whole state of this Kingdom".
[2] Dorset was said to be one of the six peers who intended to go to Charles at Hampton Court in October 1647 and stay with him as a council, but parliament did not permit this.
An elegy on him was printed, with heavy black edges, by James Howell, in a rare pamphlet entitled "Ah-Ha, Tumulus Thalamus".
He was an able speaker, and on the whole, a moderate politician, combining a strong respect for the royal prerogative with an attachment to the Protestant cause and the liberties of parliament.
[5] Their children were: In 1630 Lady Mary was appointed "governess" for a term of twelve years of Charles, Prince of Wales and James, Duke of York, both later Kings of England and Scotland.
She died in 1645 when she was about to be relieved of her duties, and, as a reward for her "godly and conscientious care and pains," received a public funeral in Westminster Abbey.
