SADLER, Sir Ralph, an eminent English statesman, was born of a good family at Hackney in Middlesex in 1507. His shrewdness and address in business early began to lead him to promotion. While a mere child he was serving the secretary Cromwell with great acceptance. In his eleventh year he attracted the notice of the king, Henry VIII., and a series of appointments was the result. He was made clerk of the hammer, one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber, and a knight. His services were employed in dissolving the religious houses, and rewarded with a large share of the rich spoils. Above all, several successive embassies to Scotland were entrusted to his management. In 1537 he was sent thither to strengthen the English interest; in 1539-40 he was commissioned to persuade the Scottish king, James V., to cast off the supremacy of the Pope; in 1541 he went back to enforce this same counsel; and in 1542 he was appointed to settle the proposed match between Edward, Prince of Wales, and Mary the infant queen of Scots. Nor did Sadler's want of success on all these various occasions affect his prospects. Fortune still remained constant to him. On Henry's death in 1547, his name was found in the royal will as one of the councillors to the sixteen nobles who
were entrusted with the guardianship of the young king. In the same year he was appointed treasurer to the army sent against Scotland, and for his great services in rallying the repulsed cavalry he was dubbed a knight-banneret on the battle-field of Pinkie. Even the relentless vengeance of "bloody Mary" did not injure his prosperity. During her reign he lived in peaceful seclusion on his estate near Hackney. On the accession of Elizabeth in 1558, Sir Ralph Sadler came once more into a sphere of active employment. He immediately became a member of Parliament for the county of Hertford, and a privy councillor. Not long afterwards his intimacy with the affairs of Scotland recommended him as a fit person to take up his abode in the town of Berwick, and to support with secret supplies of money the Scottish lords of the Congregation in their resistance to their Popish queen-dowager. A number of years were spent in less obtrusive business; and he was then, in 1584, appointed keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Castle of Tutbury, an office which he discharged with great honesty and humanity. His last service was to repair to Scotland to pacify the king's indignation on account of Mary's death. He returned worn out with the labours of a long life, and died at his lordship of Standon in Hertfordshire in 1587. Sadler's State Papers and Letters were published in 2 vols. 4to, Edinburgh, 1809. Prefaced to that edition was a memoir by Sir Walter Scott, which has also appeared among that great author's prose works.