th of January 1638. His mother was Frances Cranfield, sister and
heiress of Lionel, 3rd earl of Middlesex, to whose estates and title he
succeeded in 1674, being created Baron Cranfield and 4th earl of
Middlesex in 1675. He succeeded to his father's estates and title in
August 1677. Buckhurst was educated privately, and spent some time
abroad with a private tutor, returning to England shortly before the
Restoration. In Charles II.'s first parliament he sat for East Grinstead
in Sussex. He had no taste for politics, however, but won a reputation
as courtier and wit at Whitehall. He bore his share in the excesses for
which Sir Charles Sedley and the earl of Rochester were notorious. In
1662 he and his brother Edward, with three other gentlemen, were
indicted for the robbery and murder of a tanner named Hoppy. The defence
was that they were in pursuit of thieves, and mistook Hoppy for a
highwayman. They appear to have been acquitted, for when in 1663 Sir
Charles Sedley was tried for a gross breach of public decency in Covent
Garden, Buckhurst, who had been one of the offenders, was asked by the
lord chief justice "whether he had so soon forgot his deliverance at
that time." Something in his character made his follies less obnoxious
to the citizens than those of the other rakes, for he was never
altogether unpopular, and Rochester is said to have told Charles II.
that he did not "know how it was, my Lord Dorset might do anything, yet
was never to blame." In 1665 he volunteered to serve under the duke of
York in the Dutch War. His famous song, "To all you ladies now at Land,"
was written, according to Prior, on the night before the victory gained
over "foggy Opdam" off Harwich (June 3, 1665). Dr Johnson, with the
remark that "seldom any splendid story is wholly true," says that the
earl of Orrery had told him it was only retouched on that occasion. In
1667 Pepys laments that Buckhurst had lured Nell Gwyn away from the
theatre, and that with Sedley the two kept "merry house" at Epsom. Next
year the king was paying court to Nell, and her "Charles the First," as
she called Buckhurst, was sent on a "sleeveless errand" into France to
be out of the way. His gaiety and wit secured the continued favour of
Charles II., but did not especially recommend him to James II., who
could not, moreover, forgive Dorset's lampoons on his mistress,
Catharine Sedley, countess of Dorchester. On James's accession,
therefore, he retired from court. He