No particular interest attaches to Richard Sackville, save that he translated Le Cid into English verse and wrote a poem on Ben Jonson, but there are at Knole some memorandum books in his handwriting (between 1660 and 1670) which are worth quoting, I think, for the following illuminating extracts:
From the DIARY of SERVANTS’ faults
| £ | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henry Mattock, for scolding to extremity on Sunday without cause | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| William Loe, for running out of doors from Morning till Midnight without leave | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Richard Meadowes, for being absent when my Lord came home late, and making a headless excuse | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Henry Mattock, for not doing what he is bidden | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| And 3d. a day till he does from this day. | |||
| Henry Mattock, for disposing of my cast linen without my order | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Robert Verrell, for giving away my money | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Henry Mattock, for speaking against going to Knole | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Verrell to pay for not burning the brakes out of the Wilderness, 3d. per week out of his week’s wages of 5s. for forty-two weeks. |
There are various other notes in the same books: Thomas Porter, going to Knole, was to have five shillings a week board-wages; and, judging from the following, Lord Dorset evidently could not wholly trust his memory unaided: “My French shot-bag; an hammer, and some playthings for Tom, a bone knife, etc. A great Iron chafing-dish, or a fire-pan to set it upon.” And again, “A silver porringer for little Tom.”
Another day he notes:
Old lead cast at Knole for the two turrets weighing 1500 lbs. Old lead cast for the cistern weighing 1200 lbs. Sold 13th Aug. 1662 to Edmund Giles and Edward Bourne the Advowson of the Rectory and Parsonage of Tooting in Surrey for an £100 and paid my wife.
There is also a receipt:
Nov. 14, 1671. Recd of the Right Hon. RICHARD Earl of DORSET, in full of all wages bills and accounts whatsoever from ye beginning of ye World to this day ye full sum of five pounds seven shillings and sixpence I say rec’d by JOHN WALL GROVE.
§ ii
This Richard Sackville and Frances Cranfield had seven sons and six daughters. There are some delightful portraits of the little girls at Knole, one in particular of Lady Anne and Lady Frances, painted in a garden, leading a squirrel on a blue ribbon, and in the chapel at Withyham there is an elaborate monument to commemorate the youngest son, Thomas, no doubt the “little Tom” for whom the playthings and the silver porringer were to be remembered. The monument bears the following inscription: