There have been few attempts at new interpretations of religious and political identities among the political elite of Elizabethan England. This article investigates the actions and background of Thomas Sackville, lord Buckhurst, whose politic pragmatism and reticence in commenting personally on religion, in writing, have contributed to conflicting views on his position. It demonstrates that while Sackville upheld and promoted the religion of the established church, he nevertheless repeatedly differentiated between the political needs of the state for conformity, and the personal needs of individuals for freedom of conscience where there was not otherwise a threat to social order. It argues that Sackville's stance is significant because he had opportunities to engage in a wide variety of political spheres at the highest levels and often with scope to use his own judgment in determining when and how to intervene. Reference is made to his family background; activities in Sussex, including ecclesiastical patronage; disagreement with the earl of Leicester over English policy in the Netherlands (1587); his work as a privy councillor and high commissioner from 1586; and as chancellor of Oxford University from 1592. Reasons for his mentality are examined in assessing his generation's humanist ethical values, transmitted in English poetry as well as the premises of a classical education. It concludes that Sackville's construction of his religious identity as a moderate, in the preamble to his will, should not be construed as a lack of idealism in a man of his generation and experience.