Thomas Dorset

“ There are many words bearing no resemblance to English in Dorset speech. What modern Englishman would recognise a “mole hill” in a “wont-heave,” or “cantankerous” in “thirtover”? But too much space would be occupied were this fascinating subject to be pursued further.
National schools, however, are corrupting Wessex speech, and the niceties of Wessex grammar are often neglected by the children. Probably the true Dorset will soon be a thing of the past. William Barnes’ poems and Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels, especially the latter, will then become invaluable to the philologist. ”

“ Dorset married (1) Eleanor, daughter of Oliver St. John of Liddiard Tregooze, Wiltshire, and (2) Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Wotton of Boughton Malherbe, Kent, and widow of William Medley. By his second wife he had four sons and four daughters. Of his sons, Henry, duke of Suffolk (d. 1554) , and John (d. 1569) are noticed separately. His third son, Thomas Grey (d. 1554) , took part with his brothers in Wyatt's rebellion in 1554, and when it was betrayed fled with them to Suffolk's estates in Leicestershire. ”

“ He lived and died in a country of which most of the conditions are to be paralleled on Salisbury Plain and the Pewsey Vale. I mean William Barnes.
Dorset is a county of chalk hills divided by broad valleys and, in particular, by the valleys of the Stour and the Frome. William Barnes is the poet of the valleys, the elm and not the beech being his favourite tree. In the first year of last century he was born in Blackmoor Vale, which is watered by a tributary of the Stour: at his death, only fourteen years from the century’s end, he was rector of Came, which is in the valley of the Frome. ”

“ In 1411 his brother Thomas, afterwards duke of Exeter, was created earl of Dorset, and in 1441 his youngest son Edmund obtained the same dignity. Two years later Edmund was created marquess of Dorset and still later duke of Somerset. Edmund’s son Henry, duke of Somerset and marquess of Dorset, was attainted during the Wars of the Roses, and was beheaded after the battle of Hexham in May 1464, when the titles became extinct. ”

“ Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset (1477–1530) , the eldest son of the 1st marquess, fled to Brittany with his father in 1484; after receiving several marks of the royal favour and succeeding to the title, he was imprisoned by Henry VII., and remained in prison until 1509. He was on very good terms with Henry VIII., who in 1512 appointed him to command the English army which was to invade France in conjunction with the Spanish forces under Ferdinand of Aragon. ”

“ The children are always laughing, playing, dancing in their “tiny shoes,” but their heavy elders and the home under the elm or in the “lonesome” grove of oak remind us, if not them, of age and death.
The love-poems further illustrate Barnes’s Dorset homeliness and humbleness. Young maidens delight him much as children do ”

“ So weak a man as Penn, wishing to find Jacobites every where, and prone to believe whatever he wished, might easily put an erroneous construction on invectives such as the haughty and irritable Devonshire was but too ready to utter, and on sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen, dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the Whigs, was disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. ”

“ He attended Elizabeth's funeral at Westminster on the 28th of that month, and on 2 May met the king at Broxbourne. He was graciously received. He was one of the peers who in November 1603 sat in judgment on Henry, lord Cobham, and Thomas, lord Grey de Wilton, and he was created Earl of Dorset on 13 March 1603–4. In May 1604 he was nominated a commissioner to negotiate a new treaty of peace with Spain, which was finally signed on 18 Aug. The king of Spain showed his appreciation of Dorset's influence in bringing the negotiations to a satisfactory issue by bestowing on him a pension of 1,000l. ”

“ In the more remote corners of the county may still be heard fragments of the old Dorset speech, and in these same out-of-the-way spots one may chance on the strangest of superstitions and customs. Witchcraft holds a place in the minds of the illiterate, the semi-educated, and even the better educated, from which no amount of argument can expel it. Thomas Hardy and William Barnes have both used the theme as a groundwork for prose and poem. ”

“ Even at the Dutch Embassy in St. James's Square he was spoken of as a man of such capacity and courage that it would not be easy to find his equal. As a patron of literature he ranks with the magnificent Dorset. If Dorset out of his own purse allowed Dryden a pension equal to the profits of the Laureateship, Lochiel is said to have bestowed on a celebrated bard, who had been plundered by marauders, and who implored alms in a pathetic Gaelic ode, three cows and the almost incredible sum of fifteen pounds sterling. ”

“ His eldest son Henry Grey, 3rd marquess of Dorset, was in 1551 created duke of Suffolk (q.v.) . A younger son, Lord Thomas Grey, was beheaded in April 1554 for sharing in the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat; another son, Lord John Grey, was also sentenced to death for his share in this rising, but his life was spared owing to the efforts of his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne. ”

“ For love and beauty will have end. 150
[Pg 276]
FOOTNOTES:
[739] After the death of Hastings, she was kept by the marquis of Dorset, son to Edward IV.'s queen. In Rymer's Fœdera is a proclamation of Richard's, dated at Leicester, Oct. 23, 1483, wherein a reward of 1000 marks in money, or 100 a year in land is offered for taking "Thomas late marquis of Dorset," who, "not having the fear of God, nor the salvation of his own soul, before his eyes, has damnably debauched and defiled many maids, widows, and wives, and lived in actual adultery with the wife of Shore." ”

“ Under Elizabeth, Lord John, a strong Protestant, was restored to the royal favour, and he died on the 19th of November 1569. In 1603 his son Henry (d. 1614) was created Baron Grey of Groby, and in 1628 his great-grandson Henry was made earl of Stamford.
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (c. 1530–1608) , English statesman and poet, son of Sir Richard Sackville and his wife Winifrede, daughter of Sir John Bruges or Bridges, lord mayor of London, was born at Buckhurst, in the parish of Withyham, Sussex. ”

“ She remained undisturbed all the winter and a great part of the spring, until May, 1643, when the rebels, under the command of Sir Walter Erle and Sir Thomas Trenchard, of Wolfeton House, and others, had gained possession of Dorchester, Lyme Regis, Melcombe, Weymouth, Wareham, and Poole. Portland Castle being treacherously delivered to the rebels, only Corfe Castle remained in obedience to the King. But the rebels, wanting to add this castle to their other garrisons, and preferring to try and gain it by treachery, resolved to lay hold of an opportunity that they knew was just about to offer. ”

“ Lord Lumley, who lay at Ringwood with a strong body of the Sussex militia, had sent forth parties in every direction. Sir William Portman, with the Somerset militia, had formed a chain of posts from the sea to the northern extremity of Dorset. At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey, who had wandered from his friends, was seized by two of the Sussex scouts. He submitted to his fate with the calmness of one to whom suspense was more intolerable than despair. ”

“ No account of Wolfeton House would be complete without some allusion to the story of the Roman Catholic priest. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, when it was the object of the then Government to stamp out in every way the Papal influence in England, the Weld family had a Roman Catholic priest concealed at their house at Chideock, in Dorset. Sir Thomas Trenchard, who then resided at Wolfeton House, and was a personal friend of Mr. Weld, of Chideock, happened to be High Sheriff of the county of Dorset for that year, and received orders to go over and search for the priest therein concealed. ”

“ But as soon as the prisoner, passing from what he could himself testify, began to repeat the stories which Penn had told him, William touched Caermarthen on the shoulder and said, "My Lord, we have had too much of this." 17 This judicious magnanimity had its proper reward. Devonshire and Dorset became from that day more zealous than ever in the cause of the master who, in spite of calumny for which their own indiscretion had perhaps furnished some ground, had continued to repose confidence in their loyalty. 18
Even those who were undoubtedly criminal were generally treated with great lenity. ”

“ Montague owed his elevation to the favour of Dorset, and imitated through the whole course of his life the liberality to which he was himself so greatly indebted. The Tory leaders, Harley and Bolingbroke in particular, vied with the chiefs of the Whig party in zeal for the encouragement of letters. But soon after the accession of the House of Hanover a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared little for poetry or eloquence. The importance of the House of Commons was constantly on the increase. ”

“ Among those who protested were Halifax, Shrewsbury and Mulgrave, three noblemen belonging to different political parties, but all distinguished by their literary attainments. It is to be lamented that the signatures of Tillotson and Burnet, who were both present on that day, should be wanting. Dorset was absent. 399
Blount, by whose exertions and machinations the opposition to the censorship had been raised, did not live to see that opposition successful. Though not a very young man, he was possessed by an insane passion for the sister of his deceased wife. ”

“ Of all the statesmen of the day, not one has left a more blameless character than the Earl of Dorset. Dorset took the opportunity of leaving upon record in his will, which would not be read till he had no longer injury or favour to expect in this world, the very high admiration in which his colleague was held by him. ”

“ Lord Eustace Cecil, F.R.G.S., Past President of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. The contributors to the volume are: Rev. Thomas Perkins, M.A., C. S. Prideaux, Captain J. E. Acland, W. de C. Prideaux, W. B. Wildman, M.A., Rev. Herbert Pentin, M.A., Sidney Heath, The Lord Bishop of Durham, D.D., Mrs. King Warry, A. D. Moullin, Albert Bankes, W. K. Gill, Rev. R. Grosvenor Bartelot, M.A., Miss Wood Homer, Miss Jourdain, Hermann Lea.
MEMORIALS OF OLD WARWICKSHIRE.
Edited by Alice Dryden. ”

“ He married, before 1638, Lady Frances, daughter of Lionel Cranfield, first earl of Middlesex [q. v.] , and eventually heiress to her brothers; she married, secondly, Henry Powle [q. v.] , master of the rolls, and died on 20 April 1687. He had seven sons and six daughters. His eldest son was Charles Sackville, sixth earl of Dorset [q. v.] In memory of his youngest child Thomas (b. 3 Feb. 1662, d. at Saumur 19 Aug. 1675) he contemplated a monument in the Sackville Chapel in Withyham church, which he had rebuilt. ”

“ In Edward the Confessor’s reign one hundred and twenty houses stood in this Dorset town, which, in comparison with the other towns of the county, came next to Dorchester and Wareham. Bridport, too, had a mint of its own, and its mint-master paid well for the privilege of coining.
The Norman Conquest does not appear to have been an unmixed blessing in these parts. In Domesday Survey the town is shown to have gone back considerably. Twenty houses are stated to be desolate, and the people impoverished. ”

“ The peculiarity in Dorset is that such natures are not so much the exception as the rule. The Dorset peasantry are gentlefolk by birth. It is not that veneer which the most thorough scoundrel can easily assume, but that native inbred refinement, that perception of beauty and fitness, which is almost, if not quite, a divine gift.
If any one would see for himself how truly this is the character of the Dorset peasant, let him study the works of their poet, William Barnes. ”

“ The southern part of Dorset, especially in the neighbourhood of Poole Harbour, suffered much during the time that the Danes were harrying the coast of England. There were fights at sea in Swanage Bay, there were fights on land round the walls of Wareham, there were burnings of religious houses at Wimborne and Wareham. Then followed the victories of Ælfred, and for a time Dorset had rest. But after Eadward was murdered at “Corfes-geat” by his stepmother Ælfthryth’s order, and the weak King Æthelred was crowned, the Danes gave trouble again. The King first bribed them to land alone ”

“ Work of the Early English period (thirteenth century) is not very common in Dorset. We meet with it, however, in the east end of Wimborne Minster, in the churches of Knighton, Cranborne, Corfe Mullen, Portesham, and Worth, among others.
Nor is the Decorated style more fully represented. The best examples are Milton Abbey Church, which is almost entirely in this style, and the aisles of Wimborne Minster; but it may also be seen in Gussage St. Michael, Tarrant Rushton, and Wooton Glanville, and at St. Peter’s, Dorchester, a well-preserved arch for the Easter sepulchre of this period may be seen. ”

“ Moule, writing in 1893, says: “Roman work of one kind and another has been found here in Dorset in eighty places, and that for the most part casually.” But year after year this number is increased, and, truth to tell, so frequent are the discoveries that in Dorchester the ordinary labourer, when excavating in the streets, or elsewhere, is ever on the alert, and many a treasure rewards his watchful care ”