John Sadler (of

Warmwell Warmwell is a small village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated on the B3390 road about southeast of Dorchester. In 2013 the estimated population of the parish was 80. Warmwell contains several historic buildings, includin ...

, Dorset) (18 August 1615 – April 1674) was an English lawyer, academic, Member of Parliament,

Town Clerk of London The Town Clerk of London is an important position that has existed since the 13th century in the City of London, England. Originally the role was to take the minutes of London council meetings, but over the years the holder's role has gathered re ...

, Hebraist,

Neoplatonist Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some id ...

and millenarian thinker, private secretary to

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

, and member of the Parliamentarian Council of State. He was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1650 to 1660.''Concise Dictionary of National Biography''. Sadler was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Family

He married Jane, daughter of the Dorset MP John Trenchard. His sister Ann married John Harvard.

In politics

He was nominated for

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

for the 1653

Barebone's Parliament Barebone's Parliament, also known as the Little Parliament, the Nominated Assembly and the Parliament of Saints, came into being on 4 July 1653, and was the last attempt of the English Commonwealth to find a stable political form before the inst ...

. In 1659, for the

Third Protectorate Parliament The Third Protectorate Parliament sat for one session, from 27 January 1659 until 22 April 1659, with Chaloner Chute and Thomas Bampfylde as the Speakers of the House of Commons. It was a bicameral Parliament, with an Upper House having a po ...

, he was MP for Yarmouth, in the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

. Ernestine van der Wall writes: The

Hale Commission The Hale Commission was established by the Commonwealth of England on 30 January 1652 and led by Sir Matthew Hale to investigate law reform. Consisting of eight lawyers and thirteen laymen, the Commission met approximately three times a week and p ...

on law reform, headed from 1652 by

Sir Matthew Hale Sir Matthew Hale (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise ''Historia Placitorum Coronæ'', or ''The History of the Pleas of the Crown''. Born to a barrister and ...

, had Sadler as a leading lawyer, together with William Steele and John Fountain. He was

from 3 July 1649 (elected) to 18 September 1660. He was removed on the Restoration, under the pretext that he had signed the death warrant of Christopher Love. He was suspended 4 September 1660, then the suspension was removed on 6 September 1660 and finally he was "declared incapable of office" on 18 September 1660.

Political thought

He wrote ''The Rights of the Kingdom'' (1649), a founding document of British Israelitism. Tudor Parfitt calls it "one of the first invented expressions of an invented Israelite genealogy for the British". This was not, however, its overt purpose. Glen Burgess calls it "an historical defence of the regicide". Maurice Vile writes

Hartlib circle

Sadler was a

philosemite Philosemitism is a notable interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their history, and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a non-Jew. In the aftermath of World War II, the phenomenon of philosemitism sa ...

, on friendly terms with

Menasseh Ben Israel Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, wri ...

. He believed that readmission would allow for the Jews to be converted to Christianity, which would hasten the

new millennium In contemporary history, the third millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era in the Gregorian calendar is the current millennium spanning the years 2001 to 3000 (21st to 30th centuries). Ongoing futures studies seek to understand what is li ...

(which he conceived as being a time of "more justice and more mercy" rather than being visited by Christ's "bodily presence"). He was also an associate of

Samuel Hartlib Samuel Hartlib or Hartlieb (c. 1600 – 10 March 1662)
M. Greengrass, "Hartlib, Samuel (c. 1600–1662)", ''Oxford D ...

and

John Dury John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved ...

. This interest was not clearly separated from the line taken by Sadler in ''The Rights of the Kingdom''.''The year 1649 then shows Durie,

Worsley Worsley () is a village in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, which in 2014 had a population of 10,090. It lies along Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, there is evi ...

, Sadler, Jessey,

Moriaen ''Moriaen'' (also spelled ''Moriaan'', ''Morien'') is a 13th-century Arthurian legend, Arthurian romance in Middle Dutch language, Middle Dutch. A 4,720-line version is preserved in the vast Lancelot Compilation, and a short fragment exists at th ...

, Boreel and Menasseh all dealing with the question whether the lost tribes were living in America'' .. van der Wall, p. 55.

Family

In politics

Political thought

Hartlib circle

References

See also