Sackville, Charles, 6th Earl of Dorset (1638 -1706)
Celebrated poet and courtier, Charles Sackville was the son of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset (1622-1677). and the former Lady Frances Cranfield, sister and heiress of the 3rd Earl of Middlesex, to whose estates Charles succeeded in 1674, being created Baron Cranfield, of Cranfield in the County of Middlesex, and Earl of Middlesex in 1675. Two years later in 1677 he succeeded to the title of Earl of Dorset.
He was educated privately, and spent some time abroad with a private tutor, returning to England shortly before the Restoration. In King Charles II's first Parliament he sat for East Grinstead in Sussex. Having no taste for politics, he continued in Charles II’s favour through his gaiety and wit, but James II could not forgive Dorset's lampoons on his mistress, Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. On James's accession, therefore, he retired from court. He flourished again under William of Orange, who made him a Privy Counsellor, Lord Chamberlain (1689), and Knight of the Garter (1692). During William's absences in 1695-1698 he was one of the Lord Chief Justices of the Realm. In 1699 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Charles was regarded as a libertine, and bore his share in the excesses for which Sir Charles Sedley and Lord Rochester were notorious.
He married three times. Firstly, in 1674 he married Elizabeth Bagot, widow of Charles Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, and daughter of Hervey Bagot and Dorothy Arden. He married secondly, Mary Compton (d. 1691), daughter of James Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton and Hon. Mary Noel, in 1685; they had two children together, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, and Mary Sackville (1689-1705). His third wife was Anne, whom he married in 1704. He fathered an illegitimate daughter, also named Mary Sackville (d. 1714). He died at Bath in 1706.
Seat / Residence(s): Knole House