Bibliography - Rivkah Zim
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A poet in politics: Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst and first earl of Dorset (1536-1608), by Rivkah Zim, published May 2006 in Institute of Historical Research (vol. 79, issue 204, article, pp.199-223)   View Online

Three elements in the experience of Thomas Sackville - eloquence, money and the law - integrate the achievements of the young poet and the mentality of the mature councillor, and enhance our understanding of him. His poetry had topical, political significance and taught him how to argue persuasively. His wealth gave him the confidence to be outspoken. His legal training, and the emphasis on equity and conscience, which began to affect Tudor jurisprudence (through such works as St. German's), account for many of the assumptions he articulated in public life. Two appended letters provide extended illustrations of these arguments.

Religion and the Politic Counsellor: Thomas Sackville, 1536-1608, by Rivkah Zim, published September 2007 in The English Historical Review (vol. cxxii, issue 498, article, pp.892-917, ISSN: 0013-8266)   View Online

There have been few attempts at new interpretations of religious and political identities among the political elite of Elizabethan England. This article investigates the actions and background of Thomas Sackville, lord Buckhurst, whose politic pragmatism and reticence in commenting personally on religion, in writing, have contributed to conflicting views on his position. It demonstrates that while Sackville upheld and promoted the religion of the established church, he nevertheless repeatedly differentiated between the political needs of the state for conformity, and the personal needs of individuals for freedom of conscience where there was not otherwise a threat to social order. It argues that Sackville's stance is significant because he had opportunities to engage in a wide variety of political spheres at the highest levels and often with scope to use his own judgment in determining when and how to intervene. Reference is made to his family background; activities in Sussex, including ecclesiastical patronage; disagreement with the earl of Leicester over English policy in the Netherlands (1587); his work as a privy councillor and high commissioner from 1586; and as chancellor of Oxford University from 1592. Reasons for his mentality are examined in assessing his generation's humanist ethical values, transmitted in English poetry as well as the premises of a classical education. It concludes that Sackville's construction of his religious identity as a moderate, in the preamble to his will, should not be construed as a lack of idealism in a man of his generation and experience