A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackville

I have received your letter by your man, and acknowledge you have dealt nobly with me, and I come with all possible haste to meet you.

E. BRUCE.

§ ii

Between this affair and the date of his succession to his brother Richard, Edward Sackville was employed on various missions: he sat in the House of Commons, he was twice sent as ambassador to Louis XIII, and he travelled in France and Italy. He was thus, when he succeeded, an experienced man of thirty-four, and he pursued, uninterruptedly, the sober path of office, now Lord Chamberlain, now Lord Privy Seal, now a Commissioner for planting Virginia, always in the confidence of the King, and his name affixed to State documents of the day in noble company. The disgraces and follies of his predecessors and of his descendants were not his lot, if that murderous duel is to be excepted. My flaming Cavalier, flamberge au vent, was in reality a sober and consistent gentleman; loyal, but not impetuous; prejudiced, but not blinded; devoted, but not afraid to speak his mind in criticism; and in support of this claim I shall presently quote from one of his speeches in which he argues against a continuance of the Civil War and pleads for a prompt reconciliation between the King and his Parliament. His judgment is acute, and his attitude remarkably sound and broad-minded. Yet at the same time his devotion to the King was such, that after Charles’ execution Lord Dorset never passed beyond the threshold of his own door.

There are a few papers at Knole relating to the years before the war began, and from them one may gather some idea of the then manner of life, always remembering that Lord Dorset was much impoverished by the extravagance of his brother. The total income for the year 1628 from Knole and Sevenoaks was £100 18s. 6d.—a fifth part of which was derived from the sale of rabbits. Some details of expenses are given in the account-books, besides those which I have already given in connection with the park in the second chapter:

Money spent on the pale in Knole Park for one year (£8 9s. 6d.) as follows:

£s.d.
For filling, cleaning, and making six loads of pale rails, posts, and shores, two men080
Setting up panels of pales, blown down by the wind against Riverhill, 10d. day each man050
Paid a labourer for spreading the mole hills in the meads and for killing moles043

The steward of Sevenoaks was paid ten shillings a year, the bailiff of Sevenoaks £10, the steward of Seal £2 10s., the bailiff of Seal £4.

£s.d.
Four hundred nails for the pales020
Paid for setting up pales at mock-beech gate008
Paid toward repairing the market cross in
Sevenoaks684