Lot Essay
The arms are those of Sackville with a mullet for difference, for Lord George Sackville, 3rd and youngest son of Lionel Cranfield, 1st Duke of Dorset, born in 1715. He entered the army in 1737 and served against the Jacobites in Scotland in 1746 under the Duke of Cumberland, who wrote to his father 'Lord George, who has shewn not only his courage but also a disposition to his trade that I don't always find in those of a higher rank.' In 1758 he became Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Germany under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick and was present at the Battle of Minden in 1759, where his failure to obey the Prince's order and advance with the British cavalry led to his being dismissed from the serivce. At his own request he was tried by court martial and found guilty of having 'disobeyed the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, whom he was by his commission bound to obey as Commander-in-Chief, according to the rules of war.' (Complete Peerage, Vol. XI, p. 276 et seq.)
'Sackville was admitted to be an extremely able man, and as he had passed through Fontenoy and been wounded in that action, it is not easy to call him a coward. The courage of some men is not the same on every day, and it is possible that on the day of Minden, Sackville's courage failed him.' (Forescue, History of the British Army, 2nd ed., vol. II, p.505)
Subsequently, Sackville turned to politics and served as Secretary of State for the American Colonies from 1775 until the resignation of the North Ministry in 1782, when, amid protests from a number of peers, George III conferred on him the title Viscount Sackville. It was said ÿhat Sackville asked the king to be made a Viscount since, if he were made a Baron, he would be lower in rank than his own private secretary, Lord Walsingham, his lawyer, Lord Loughborough, and his father's page, Lord Amherst.
He married, in 1754, Diana, 2nd daughter of John Sambrooke, and he died in 1785. Wraxall, in his Memoirs (Vol. IV, p. 217) commented that 'there was not, probably, a nobleman in England who combined a more liberal economy with a hospitable and splendid establishment.'
The same ÿrms appear on a set of four fine fluted dishes of 1732 and 1735 with the maker's mark of Benjamin Godfrey, sold from the collection of the late Antenor Patino, Christie's, New York, October 28, 1986, lot 37
'Sackville was admitted to be an extremely able man, and as he had passed through Fontenoy and been wounded in that action, it is not easy to call him a coward. The courage of some men is not the same on every day, and it is possible that on the day of Minden, Sackville's courage failed him.' (Forescue, History of the British Army, 2nd ed., vol. II, p.505)
Subsequently, Sackville turned to politics and served as Secretary of State for the American Colonies from 1775 until the resignation of the North Ministry in 1782, when, amid protests from a number of peers, George III conferred on him the title Viscount Sackville. It was said ÿhat Sackville asked the king to be made a Viscount since, if he were made a Baron, he would be lower in rank than his own private secretary, Lord Walsingham, his lawyer, Lord Loughborough, and his father's page, Lord Amherst.
He married, in 1754, Diana, 2nd daughter of John Sambrooke, and he died in 1785. Wraxall, in his Memoirs (Vol. IV, p. 217) commented that 'there was not, probably, a nobleman in England who combined a more liberal economy with a hospitable and splendid establishment.'
The same ÿrms appear on a set of four fine fluted dishes of 1732 and 1735 with the maker's mark of Benjamin Godfrey, sold from the collection of the late Antenor Patino, Christie's, New York, October 28, 1986, lot 37