SANDYS, William (1626-68)

The origins of the barony of Sandys are unclear, hence the rules governing its descent are equally uncertain. Burke claimed that it was from his father that Sandys inherited the title, but it has been demonstrated convincingly elsewhere that Elizabeth, Baroness Sandys, outlived her son, a royalist colonel who died of his wounds after a skirmish at Cheriton in 1644. It was on her death, assuming she enjoyed the barony as suo jure 5th Baroness Sandys, that the peerage passed to her grandson. Burke Dorm. and Extinct Baronetcies, 471; The Gen. n.s. xxxi. 216.

A remote descendant of the Plantagenet kings, Sandys could claim kinship with a number of prominent families, including the Manners earls (later dukes) of Rutland, and the Wriothesley earls of Southampton. Balliol College, Oxford also proved an important point of contact. Both Sandys and his younger brothers Henry Sandys, later 7th Baron Sandys, and Edwin Sandys, later 8th Baron Sandys, attended the college, as did their cousin, Richard Atkyns. Sandys was accompanied to France in 1642 by another Balliol associate, his future brother-in-law Henry Savage, later master of the college and rector of the family advowson of Sherborne St John. Ath. Ox. iii. 957; Oxford DNB (Henry Savage). Despite such influential relations, the family’s habit of intermarrying with people of the same surname, though often of no relation, has resulted in a somewhat confused genealogy. Chute, 29-30. The marriage of Sir Edwin Sandys of Latimers in Buckinghamshire (a descendant of Edwin Sandys^†, archbishop of York) to Elizabeth (possibly later suo jure Baroness) Sandys of the Vyne united two previously distinct branches of the family, an alliance which was further emphasized with the marriage of their son Henry Sandys to his cousin, Sir Edwin's niece, Jane Sandys. The Gen, n.s. xxxi. 213.

Sandys’ estates were largely centred on Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire, the Sandys’ former seat of The Vyne (Sherborne St John), which had been in the family since the fourteenth century, and which had been their principal residence since the sixteenth century, having been sold to Chaloner Chute^‡ in 1653, shortly after Sandys’ marriage to Lady Mary Cecil. Chute, 30; The Gen. n.s. xxxi. 214, 219-20; VCH Hants iv. 161. The sale of the Vyne was presumably on account of the family’s reputedly massive financial losses in the Civil War, though they do not appear to have been fined for their royalism. E.S. Sandys, History of the Family of Sandys, pt. 1, 10; Chute, 66. Mottisfont was far from being a modest seat. Assessed at 35 hearths in 1665 it was second only to the Vyne (assessed at 43 hearths) in the county, but Sandys’ interest in the county appears to have been limited and no match for that of the dominant Powlett marquesses of Winchester (later dukes of Bolton) and Nortons. Hampshire Hearth Tax Assessment 1665 ed. E. Hughes and P. White, (Hants Rec. Soc. ser. ii), 239, 264; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 244.

Despite his father’s death in the Civil War, and some suggestion that he too participated on the royalist side, Sandys escaped confiscation of his estates. He appears to have enjoyed sufficiently amicable relations with Richard Cromwell^‡ to take part in a hunting party with him and other Hampshire royalists, Charles West, 5th Baron De la Warr, and Sir William Kingsmill, in February 1655. Verney Mems. ii. 2; A.M. Coleby, Central Government and the Localities, 77. In spite of Cromwell’s overtures, Sandys was noted as being on the fringes of involvement in Penruddock’s rising. Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England, 152, 156. His activities at the time of the Restoration are uncertain, but the decision to place him in command of three important garrisons on the south coast is suggestive of the trust in which he was held by the royalists. Schoenfeld, 101. Nevertheless, he was perhaps not well known outside of Hampshire. Certainly Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, seems to have had difficulty placing him, listing him initially (correctly) as one of the peers whose fathers had been in arms but later amending this (inaccurately) to ‘one of the lords whose fathers sat’.

With the restoration of the House of Lords uncertainty over the descent of his peerage gave rise to doubts about Sandys’ right to sit. His case was referred to the newly appointed committee for privileges, which quickly decided in his favour, thus accepting the claim that his grandmother was indeed suo jure Baroness Sandys. Such a claim would be unlikely to succeed under modern peerage doctrine, and it is arguable that his writ of summons effectively created an entirely new barony. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/1, p. 5. On 4 May Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset, reported the committee’s recommendation and Sandys took his seat the following day. Following his admission Sandys was named to six committees (including the sessional committees for privileges and petitions), and he attended approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days of the first session. Absent without explanation at a call of the House on 31 July, he resumed his seat in the second session on 24 Nov, after which he attended approximately 47 per cent of its sittings. On 13 Dec. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill for vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines and two days later, he was named to the committee for the Hatfield level bill, a measure in which he was perhaps interested as Salisbury’s son-in-law.

Sandys does not appear to have been active in the elections for Hampshire of March 1661. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May and on 11 May was named to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. Absent at a call of the House on 20 May, Sandys returned two days later and was thereafter present for just under half of all sitting days, during which he was named to a further seven committees. Sandys was missing from the attendance list at the opening of the second session on 18 Feb. 1663 but was, nevertheless, nominated to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal, suggesting that he took his seat at some point during the day. On 25 Feb. he was named to the committee for petitions and over the course of the session he was nominated to a further five committees, including that for the bill for making rivers in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire navigable, in which he may have had some local interest. Although Sandys was present in the House on 10 July, Wharton assessed him as doubtful over the question of the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol. His attendance improved in the ensuing session of 1664, when he was present on approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days, but he was absent for the entirety of the 1664-5 session and he attended a mere three days of the fifth session of October 1665, during which he was named to just one committee.

Sandys attended approximately a third of all sitting days during the 1666-7 session but he was again named to just one committee. Between July and October 1667 he appears to have been involved in some sort of dispute with Lady Gardiner involving leases in London perhaps connected with the aftermath of the Great Fire. Verney ms mic. M636/21, Lady Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 30 July 1667; M636/22, Lady Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 16 Oct. 1667. His attendance improved in the session that began in October 1667, during which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the committee for the lead mines bill on 19 Nov., the following day Sandys entered his protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. On 7 Dec. he was nominated to the committee considering the bill for Clarendon’s banishment and to a further four committees during the remainder of the session.

Sandys sat for the last time on 9 May 1668; by 14 Sept. he was dead. Verney ms mic. M636/22, [M. Gape], to Sir R. Verney, 16 Sept. 1668. He left no will and no record of administration of his estate has been found. He was buried in the Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke, one of his family’s foundations, where £5 was expended on escutcheons. T.C. Wilks and C. Lockhart, General Hist. of Hants (3 vols. n.d.), iii. 229; Chute, 40; C10/130, John Poore’s second disbursements book, p. 122. He was succeeded by his brother, Henry Sandys, as 7th Baron Sandys.