SANDYS, Edwin (1591-1623), of Ombersley, Worcs. and Woodham Ferrers, Essex

Sandys needs to be distinguished from his uncle Sir Edwin Sandys*, one of the most prominent parliamentarians of the period. His family’s fortune was built up by his grandfather, Edwin, the Elizabethan bishop of Worcester and later archbishop of York, and by his father who in 1582 acquired the leasehold of the large and compact royal manor of Ombersley, about six miles from Worcester. From the archbishop’s wife, the family also came to hold land in Woodham Ferrers, where Sandys was baptized. R.C. Hall, ‘Edwin’s Hall and the Sandys Family’, Trans. of Essex Hist. Soc. xviii. 216-221.

After spending a year at Oxford, Sandys entered the Middle Temple, where he stayed for at least seven years. MTR, 624. A sound knowledge of the law was particularly advantageous, as his family was engaged in a long-running dispute with its tenants at Ombersley. P. Large, ‘Rural Soc. and Agricultural Change: Ombersley, 1580-1700’ Eng. Rural Soc. 1500-1700 ed. J. Chartres and D. Hey, 105-37. In 1614 Sandys was elected at the comparatively young age of 23 at nearby Droitwich, where his brother-in-law John Brace had sat in 1604. He does not appear in any of the surviving records of the Parliament. That same year, Sandys married Penelope Bulkeley, thereby uniting him with one of the premier parliamentary dynasties in Wales. The marriage also brought him a second tie of kinship with his uncle, Sir Edwin, who married one of Penelope’s sisters, Catherine. A third sister, Elizabeth, married the Yorkshire attorney George Shilleto*.

It was through his connection to Shilleto that Sandys, who owned only a small property in Yorkshire, was elected for Pontefract in 1621. It was probably Shilleto who was behind the borough’s enfranchisement. Pontefract had not previously enjoyed parliamentary representation, but Shilleto, aided by Sir Thomas Wentworth* and Sandys’s namesake uncle, persuaded the Commons to order a writ of election, and on 14 Apr. Sandys was formerly returned. Despite the effort involved in obtaining the franchise for Pontefract, Sandys made no impression of the parliamentary records. CD 1621, ii. 263, iv. 192, vi. 465; J.K. Gruenfelder, ‘Yorks. bor. elections, 1603-40’, Yorks. Arch. Jnl. xlix. 109.

Sandys enjoyed his inheritance only briefly, dying intestate in September 1623, three weeks after his father. Administration of his estate was granted on 11 Nov. 1623. PROB 6/11, f. 50v. His mother erected a monument to her son in the church of St. John the Baptist in Wickhamford, Worcestershire. E.A.B. Barnard, ‘Ombersley and the Sandys Fam’. Trans. Worcs. Arch. Soc. xvi. 50. At his death Sandys owned lands in Worcestershire (including rights to present to the rectory at Ombersley) and Kent, a small amount of urban property around the Hailgate in Howden, Yorkshire, and 280 acres in Woodham Ferrers, C142/405/154. as well as land in Westmorland and Shoreditch. WARD 5/26/4. His son Samuel subsequently sat in the Short and Long Parliaments for Droitwich.