A member of an old Herefordshire family, Sir John was the grandson of Roger, Lord Chandos. His father died in 1375, leaving him property scattered throughout the county, including the chief family seat at Snodhill castle in the Golden Valley and the manors of Fownhope, Limebrook (near Lingen), Wellington and Lugwardine, the last two of which he allotted to his mother for life. By 1377 he had married (as his second wife) the well-connected Philippa, daughter of Guy, Lord Bryan: in June 1383 he acted as his father-in-law’s surety and, in 1390, served as an executor of his will. In September 1396 Chandos’s mother died, and he recovered the manors of Wellington and Lugwardine to his own use.
From 1380 onwards Chandos acted as a j.p. and a local commissioner, and in December 1382 he was appointed sheriff of Herefordshire, though he remained in office for less than three weeks. He does not, however, appear to have been active outside his home county. Like many other gentry of the marches, he was deeply involved in resisting Owen Glendower’s revolt. In May 1401 he was one of those appointed to go to the relief of Abergavenny, where William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, was being besieged by the Welsh, and in the following August he attended a great council at Westminster. A year later, in August 1402, he was ordered to review the Herefordshire levies and lead them to the county town for a royal expedition into Wales. This enterprise was a failure. However, when in September 1403 Henry IV made a fresh attack on Glendower’s forces and ordered the border gentry to provide for the safeguard of their own strongholds, Chandos was required to garrison and provision Snodhill castle. A month later he was empowered to receive rebels from central Wales into the King’s peace.
As by this time Sir John was over 50 and without heirs of his body, in 1404 he began to settle the reversion of his lands (subject to a life interest for himself and his wife) upon feoffees, who mostly came from the locality. In this connexion it suffices to say that for Wellington and Fownhope his principal trustees were Thomas de la Hay (his neighbour at Peterchurch), Thomas Walwyn I, Sir John Oldcastle and (Sir) John Skydemore, and that after 1420 Snodhill was conveyed to Richard de la Mare and John Merbury. It was possibly with regard to these settlements that the lawyer and Speaker-to-be, William Stourton, entered into a series of recognizances with Chandos, the bonds to be redeemed between June 1409 and November 1411.
Chandos died at the age of about 79, on 18 Dec. 1428. His heirs were the issue of his sister Margaret (d.1406), by her husband Thomas Berkeley of Coberley, Gloucestershire, including her grandson,
Giles Bridges
†. From him were descended the Barons Chandos of Sudeley and the duke of Chandos.