KNOLE 265 



added so considerably to its beauty and magnifi- 

 cence. Elizabeth granted Knole and its lands to 

 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who, however, 

 surrendered them in the eighth year of her reign. 



The next name connected with Knole, and the 

 one that is generally linked with the fine old place, 

 is Sackville. The Sackvilles were of an old family 

 of Norman extraction, a race renowned for wit and 

 wisdom. Walpole calls Thomas Sackville the owner 

 of Knole, "the patriarch of a race of genius and 

 wit." Thomas Sackville was the only son of Sir 

 Richard Sackville (a kinsman of Queen Elizabeth 

 through her mother Anne Boleyn) and was born at 

 Buckhurst, in Sussex, in 1536 ; he studied at Oxford 

 and Cambridge, and was a distinguished scholar in 

 Latin and English verse. Later he entered at the 

 Inner Temple. Literature places him in an unique 

 position, viz., that of being the joint author of the 

 first tragedy in the English language Thomas 

 Morton having written the first three acts, and 

 Sackville the fourth and fifth. " Ferrex and 

 Porrex," or " Gorboduc " as it was oftener called, 

 was written in the then prevailing style, derived 

 from the school of Seneca in England. Sir Philip 

 Sidney speaks highly of this tragedy in his 

 " Defence of Poesy " : " ' Gorboduc,' which, notwith- 

 standing as it is full of stately speeches and well- 

 sounding phrases climbing to the height of Seneca, 

 his style, and is full of notable morality, which it 



