Grey
BRYDGES
(5th B. Chandos of Sudeley)
Born: ABT 1579
Died: 10 Aug 1621
Father: William
BRYDGES (4° B. Chandos of Sudeley)
Mother: Mary
HOPTON
Married: Anne
STANLEY (B. Chandos of Sudeley / C. Castleheaven) 28 Feb 1608
Children:
1. Elizabeth
BRYDGES (C. Castleheaven)
2. George BRYDGES (6° B. Chandos of Sudeley)
3. William BRYDGES (7° B. Chandos of Sudeley)
4. Robert BRYDGES
Grey Brydges, 5th Lord Chandos was son of William, 4th Lord, by
Mary, daughter of Sir Owen Hopton, lieutenant of the Tower. His father died on 18
Nov 1602, his mother on 23 Oct 1624
(Lysons, Environs, iii. 450). He was Member of Parliament for Cricklade, 1597. He and his family
were friendly with the Earl of Essex. A cousin,
Elizabeth, daughter
of his uncle Giles, 3rd Lord, has been identified with the fair Mrs.
Brydges to
whom Essex showed so much attention as to offend the
Queen
(Sidney Papers). His
father visited Essex at Essex
House on the Sunday morning (8 Feb 1600-1) of Essex's insurrection, but was not deemed by the government far enough implicated
in the
conspiracy to prevent him sitting on the commission appointed to try the Earl.
His son, Grey Brydges, was, however, suspected of immediate complicity, and was
sent to the Fleet prison with Cuffe and others after the insurrection (Lodge,
Illustrations, iii. 120), but he was soon released. He succeeded his father in
the Barony (18 Nov 1602), attended James I's parliament (19 Mar 1603-4), was
made knight of the Bath when Prince Charles was created Duke of York
(Jan
1604-5),
visited Oxford with James I and was granted the degree of M.A. (30 Aug 1605),
and attended Prince Henry's funeral in 1612. In all the court masques and
tournaments Chandos took an active part. It was reported at court on 9
Sep
1613 that a
duel was to be fought by Chandos and the King's favorite, Lord Hay, afterwards
Viscount Doncaster and Earl of Carlisle. On 2 Jul 1609 he was appointed keeper
of Ditton Park, Buckinghamshire, for life.
In Downton Parish Registers, Jenny Compton found the following
entry:
"Robert BRIGIS sonne of Right Honourable the Lord Chandos The
godfathers; the Earle of Derby, the Earle of
Salisbury
& the Countess of Derby. The Deputis Sir Careloe Raleighe, Sir William
Normaton & the Lady Raleighe was baptysed 6 December 1610"
In 1610 he was appointed one of the
officers under Sir Edward Cecil in command of an expedition to the Low Countries
(News from Cleaveland, 1611). The Emperor's forces were besieging Juliers, and
the English had combined with Holland and France to protect the town. Lord
Edward Herbert of Cherbury was Chandos's companion through this campaign.
Chandos lodged at Juliers with Sir Horace Vere, but does not seem to have taken much
part in the fighting. (Lord Herbert, Autobiography, ed. S. Lee, pages 112-113).
On 27 Apr
1612 Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury,
stayed with Chandos at Ditton on his
journey to Bath, where he died on 24 May following. On 23 Jul of the same year Chandos
visited Spa for his health. On 14 Jul 1616 there was some talk of
making him
president of Wales, and on 8 Nov 1617 he was appointed to receive the Muscovite
Ambassadors then in England. His health was still failing, and after a trial in
1618 of the waters of Newenham Mills in Warwickshire, he returned to Spa, where
he
died suddenly on 10 Aug 1621. His body was brought to Sudeley and there buried.
Lucy, Countess of Bedford, writing on 30 Aug 1621, states that his death was
hastened by the Spa waters. An elegy was written bu Sir John Beaumont. A few
years
before his death he married Anne, daughter of
Ferdinando
Stanley, fifth Earl of Derby,
by whom he had two sons, George and William. His widow afterwards became the
second wife of the infamous Earl of Castlehaven.
Chandos lived sumptously at Sudeley Castle;
thrice a week his house was open to his neighbors; he was lavish in his
generosity to the poor, and came up to London with an extraordinarily elaborate
retinue. His liberality gained for him the title
of "King of the Cotswolds". There are very many references in the
'State Papers' to a family quarrel which Chandos inherited from his father, and
which reflects little credit on his character.
|
His first cousin, Elizabeth, to
whom reference has
already been made, appears to have claimed Sudeley and other parts of the Chandos property as the daughter and coheiress of
Giles, the 3rd Lord. In his
father's lifetime Grey Brydges assaulted the lady's representative at a
conference held to
settle the dispute (Jun 1602). In the following Oct it was proposed that
Grey should marry Elizabeth, but finally, in Dec, when he had become 5th
Lord Chandos, it was stated that the controversy had been otherwise
'compounded'. Immediately after James I's accession Elizabeth married
Sir John Kennedy, one of
the king's Scotch attendants. Chandos appears to have opposed the match, and it
was rumoured early in 1604 that Kennedy had a wife living in Scotland. But
James
I
wrote to Chandos (19 Feb 1603/4) entreating him to overlook Sir John's errors
because of his own love for his attendant. Elizabeth apparently left her husband
and desired to have the matter legally examined, but as late as 1609 the
lawfulness
of the marriage had not been decided upon. Lord Chandos declined to aid his
cousin, and she died deserted and in poverty in Oct 1617 (1623?). |
Elizabeth
Brydges
Daughter and coheiress of
Giles, 3rd B. Chandos
|
Horace Walpole credits Chandos with the
authorship of an anonymous collection of highly interesting essays, entitled
'Horae Subsecivae,' 1620, published by Edward Blount. Anthony A. Wood (Athenae,
iii. 1196) and Bishop Kennett (Memoirs of the
Cavendish Family, 1708) state, however, that Gilbert Cavendish, eldest son of
the 1st Earl of Devonshire, was the author of the work. From some topical
references the book would appear to have been written about 1615. Several copies
are extant
with the name of Lord Chandos inscribed on the title-page in seventeenth-century
hand-writing. Wood states that Gilbert Cavendish died young, and the general
style of the essays precludes the supposition that they were the production of a
young
man. Malone and Park, the editor of Walpole, attributed the book on this ground
to William, a brother of Gilbert, but Dr. Michael Lort and
Sir S. E. Brydges adhered to Horace Walpole's opinion that Grey
Brydges was the author. The
opposite
opinion of Wood and Kennett, the earliest writers on the subject, deserves great
weight, but it seems impossible to decide the question finally with the scanty
evidence at our disposal.
Grey Brydges's eldest son, George, who
became 6th Lord Chandos, was a sturdy Royalist, fought bravely at the first
battle of Newbury, and afterwards in the west of England (see Washbourne's
Bibliotheca Glocestrensis). He paid a large fine to
the Parliament at the close of the war, killed Henry
Compton in a duel at Putney
on 13 May 1652, was tried and found guilty of manslaughter after a long
imprisonment, 17 May 1654. He died of smallpox in Feb 1654/5, and was buried at Sudeley. He
married first Susan, daughter of Henry Montague, Earl of Manchester, by whom he
had 3 daughters; and second, Jane, daughter of John Savage, Earl of Rivers, by whom he
had 3 daughters. His brother William succeeded him as 7th Lord Chandos.
