Family and Education

b. c.1540, yr. s. of Thomas, 2nd Baron Sandys of The Vyne by Elizabeth, da. of George Mannrs, Lord Ros. educ. I. Temple 1555. m. Mabel, da. of Thomas Wriothesley^†, 1st Earl of Southampton, 1s. Kntd. 1591.1

Offices Held

J.p.q. Hants from c.1574, sheriff 1576-7, 1591-2.

Biography

On his father’s death in the winter of 1559-60, Sandys was left to exercise much of his family’s considerable influence in Hampshire, for the 3rd Baron Sandys was his nephew William, still a minor. In Stockbridge, and nearby at Mottisfont and Timsbury, there was property belonging to the barony. Timsbury was conveyed to Sandys by his nephew at an unknown date; in 1587 he was granted the nearby rectory of Sparsholt by the Queen, and he bought one of the Mottisfont manors in 1591. No doubt he already had interests in that part of the Sandys estates in 1563, when he secured election as the senior of the first two Members returned by Stockbridge on its enfranchisement.2

Sandys was an active county official and justice of the peace. In 1580 he, the dean of Winchester, (Sir) Richard Norton I and Sir William Kingsmill were commissioned—as those most interested in the project—to collect money for the endowment of a house of correction in Winchester. He was one of the two Hampshire collectors of funds contributed for defence in 1587, and one of the six gentlemen in the county required to supply horses for Ireland in 1600. In the 159os he was involved in a long dispute with his nephew, Lord Sandys, over their respective rights in Mottisfont, complaining to the Privy Council in 1596 that Lord Sandys had seized his manor there by force. In the summer of 1597 Francis Moore reported to Sir Robert Cecil that Sandys, ‘much unsatisfied’ with the arbitration of the case, had personally remonstrated with the lord chief justice, and the dispute continued for at least another year. Sandys’s case against his nephew was supported by Sir William Cornwallis.3

Sandys died 29 Aug. 1609, at Winchester, where he had leased a tenement in 1587.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Alan Harding

Notes

• 1. CP; DNB (Wriothesley, Thomas); C142/312/134.
• 2. CPR, 1558-60, p. 330; VCH Hants, iii. 447; iv. 487, 506.
• 3. APC, xi. 417; xiv. 388; xxiii. 184, 209; xxiv. 317; xxvi. 278; xxx. 439; xxxii. 279; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 395; HMC Hatfield, vii. 260; viii. 265, 292.
• 4. C142/312/134; VCH Hants, v. 6.