Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset  Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (153619 April 1608) was an English statesman, poet, and dramatist. He was the son of Richard Sackville, a cousin to Anne Boleyn. He was a Member of Parliament and Lord High Treasurer. Thomas Sackville was born at Buckhurst, in the parish of Withyham, Sussex. His mother Winifrede was the daughter of Sir John Bridges, Lord Mayor of London. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained his M.A., and Hertford College, Oxford. He joined the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar. He first entered the House of Commons in 1558 as one of the knights of the shire for Westmorland. In 1559 he was elected for East Grinstead, and then in 1563 for Aylesbury. In 1566 Sackville travelled to Rome, where he was arrested and detained as a prisoner for fourteen days, for reasons not clear, but at the time there was great tension between England and the Papacy. His father died that year and he returned to England. In 1567 he was created Baron Buckhurst, of Buckhurst in the County of Sussex. His first important mission came in 1571, when he was sent to bear Queen Elizabeth's congratulations to Charles IX of France on his marriage to Elizabeth of Austria, the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, and more importantly to negotiate the matter of the proposed alliance between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou, brother of the French king. In 1572, he was one of the peers who sat on the trial of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. In 1579 he hosted the Scottish academic Hercules Rollock at Buckhurst Place, and Rollock wrote Latin verses in praise of Sackville and his house. In 1586 he was selected to convey to Mary, Queen of Scots, the sentence of death confirmed by the English Parliament. In 1587 he went as ambassador to the United Provinces, upon their complaint against the Earl of Leicester; but, although he performed his trust with integrity, the favourite had sufficient influence to get him recalled; and on his return, he was ordered to confinement in his own house, for nine or ten months. He incurred Queen Elizabeth's displeasure by what she called his "shallow judgement in diplomacy". However his disgrace was short, for in 1588 he was presented with the Order of the Garter, and was sent again to the Netherlands in 1589 and 1598.