Brightwell, Oxfordshire, and of Jocosa, daughter of John Goodwin of Winchington, Buckinghamshire, was born on the 10th of March 1573, and educated at Westminster school and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated M.A. in 1600. He travelled abroad, and was returned to the parliament of 1604 as member for St Mawes. Through his connexion as secretary with the earl of Northumberland his name was associated with the Gunpowder Plot, but after a short confinement he succeeded in clearing himself of any share in the conspiracy. In 1610 he was knighted and was sent as ambassador to Venice, where he was the means of concluding the treaty of Asti. He returned in 1615, and next year was appointed ambassador to Holland. The policy of England on the continent depended mainly upon its relations with that state, and Carleton succeeded in improving these, in spite of his firm attitude on the subject of the massacre of Amboyna, the bitter commercial disputes between the two countries, and the fatal tendency of James I. to seek alliance with Spain. It was in his house at the Hague that the unfortunate Elector Frederick and the princess Elizabeth took refuge in 1621. Carleton returned to England in 1625 with the duke of Buckingham, and was made vice-chamberlain of the household and a privy councillor. Shortly afterwards he took part in an abortive mission to France in favour of the French Protestants and to inspire a league against the house of Austria. On his return in 1626 he found the attention of parliament, to which he had been elected for Hastings, completely occupied with the attack upon Buckingham. Carleton endeavoured to defend his patron, and supported the king’s violent exercise of his prerogative. It was perhaps fortunate that his further career in the Commons was cut short by his elevation in May to the peerage as Baron Carleton of Imbercourt. Shortly afterwards he was despatched on another mission to the Hague, on his return from which he was created Viscount Dorchester in July 1628. He was active in forwarding the conferences between Buckingham and Contarini for a peace with France on the eve of the duke’s intended departure for La Rochelle, which was prevented by the latter’s assassination. In December 1628 he was made principal secretary of state, and died on the 15th of February 1632, being buried in Westminster Abbey. He was twice married, and had children, but all died in infancy, and the title became extinct. Carleton was one of the ablest diplomatists of the time, and his talents would have secured greater triumphs had he not been persistently hampered by the mistaken and hesitating foreign policy of the court.
His voluminous correspondence, remarkable for its clear, easy and effective style, and for the writer’s grasp of the main points of policy, covers practically the whole history of foreign affairs during the period 1610–1628, and furnishes valuable material for the study of the Thirty Years’ War. His letters as ambassador at the Hague, January 1616 to December 1620, were first edited by Philip Yorke, afterwards second earl of Hardwicke, with a biographical and historical preface, in 1757; his correspondence from the Hague in 1627 by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1841; other letters are printed in the Cabala, and in T. Birch’s Court and Times of James I. and Charles I., but by far the greater portion remains in MS. among the state papers.
DORCHESTER, GUY CARLETON, 1st Baron (1724–1808), British general and administrator, was born at Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, on the 3rd of September 1724. He served with distinction on the continent under the duke of Cumberland, and in 1759 in America as quartermaster-general, under his friend Wolfe. He was wounded at the capture of Quebec, and promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. In 1766 he was appointed governor-general of Canada, which position he held till 1778. His justice and kindliness greatly endeared him to the recently conquered French-Canadians, and did much to hold them neutral during the War of American Independence. He ordered the first codification of the civil law of the province, and was largely responsible for the passing of the Quebec Act. On the American invasion of Canada in 1775 he was compelled to abandon Montreal and narrowly escaped capture, but defended Quebec (q.v.) with skill and success. In October of the same year he destroyed the American flotilla on Lake Champlain. In 1777 he was superseded in his command of the military forces by Major-General John Burgoyne, and asked to be recalled. He returned, however, to America in May 1782 as commander-in-chief, remaining till November 1783. In 1786 he was again sent to Canada as governor-general and commander of the forces, with the title of Baron Dorchester. Many important reforms marked his rule; he administered the country with tact and moderation, and kept it loyal to the British crown amid the ferment caused by the French Revolution, and by the attempts of American emissaries to arouse discontent. In 1791 the province was divided into Upper and Lower Canada by the Constitutional Act. Of this division Carleton disapproved, as he did also of a provision tending to create in the new colony an hereditary aristocracy. In 1796 he insisted on retiring, and returned to England. He died on the 10th of November 1808. He married in 1772 a daughter of the 2nd earl of Effingham, and had nine children, being succeeded in the title by his grandson Arthur. On the death in 1897 of the 4th baron (another grandson) the title became extinct, but was revived in 1899 for his cousin and co-heiress Henrietta Anne as Baroness Dorchester.
J. C. Dent’s Canadian Portrait Gallery (Toronto, 1880) gives a sketch of Lord Dorchester’s Canadian career. His life by A. G. Bradley is included in the Makers of Canada series (Toronto). Most of his letters and state papers, which are indispensable for a knowledge of the period, are in the archives department at Ottawa, and are calendared in Brymner’s Reports on Canadian Archives (Ottawa, 1885, seq.). (W. L. G.)
DORCHESTER, a market town and municipal borough and the county town of Dorsetshire, England, in the southern parliamentary division, 135 m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South Western railway; served also by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 9458. It stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river Frome, within a wide open tract of land, containing 3400 acres, held under the duchy of Cornwall, called Fordington Field. Several of the streets are planted with trees, and the town is nearly surrounded by fine avenues. St Peter’s church is a Perpendicular building with a fine tower. All Saints and Holy Trinity churches are modern, but Fordington church retains Norman and Transitional details. Of public buildings the principal are—the town-hall, with market-house, shire-hall, county prison and county hospital; there is also a county museum, containing many local objects of much interest. The grammar school (founded in 1569) is endowed with exhibitions to Oxford and Cambridge. There is a statue to William Barnes the Dorsetshire poet (1801–1886). The town is noted also for its ale. It is a place of considerable agricultural trade, and large sheep and lamb fairs are held annually. The borough is under a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area 1648 acres.
History.—Durnovaria was here, a Romano-British country town of considerable size, probably successor to a British tribal centre of the Durotriges. The walls can be traced in part, and many mosaics, remains of houses, &c., have been found. The remains of an amphitheatre are seen at Maumbury Rings, near the town. Maiden Castle, 2 m. S.W. of the town, is a vast earthwork considered to have been a stronghold of the tribe of the Durotriges. There are other such remains in the vicinity. Little mention of Dorchester (Dornceaster, Dorcestre) occurs in Saxon annals, but a charter from Æthelstan to Milton Abbey in 939 is dated at villa regalis quae dicitur Doracestria, and at this period it possessed a mint. According to the Domesday Survey it was a royal borough, and at the time of Edward the Confessor contained 172 houses, of which 100 had been totally destroyed since the Conquest. Mention is made of a castle at Dorchester in records of the 12th and 13th centuries; and the Franciscan priory, founded some time before 1331, is thought to have been constructed out of its ruins. The latter was suppressed among the lesser monasteries in 1536. Edward II. granted the borough to the bailiffs and burgesses at a fee-farm rent of £20 for five years, and the grant was renewed in perpetuity by Edward III. Richard III. empowered the burgesses to elect a coroner and two constables, to be exempt from tolls, and to try minor pleas in the king’s court within the borough before a steward to be chosen by themselves. The first charter of incorporation, granted by James I. in 1610, established a governing council of two bailiffs and
