Sir Edwin Sandys's status as a man in holy orders
Sir Edwin
Sandys’s status as a man in holy orders
Sir Edwin Sandys is customarily portrayed in the
historiography of early Virginia as a defender of English liberties, as an
opponent of King James VI and I in the early Stuart Parliaments, as a defender
of free trade and the architect of the “great reforms” of 1618-1619 and, later,
as the victim of the machinations of his critics within the Virginia Company
leading to its dissolution. This interpretation – much of it derived directly
from the post-April, 1619 papers of the company itself and from the manuscripts
of his allies, John and Nicholas Ferrar - can still be found in the latest
works on the colony’s history.
What is surprising about this view is that it involves accepting
Sandys’s own evaluation of his career. This was much more complicated than
historians of Virginia have realised. Take Sandys’s experiences as a member of
the House of Commons, for example. This experience was gained illegally. In
1582, Sandys was presented to the prebend of Wetwang in Yorkshire by his
father, the Archbishop of York. He was thus in holy orders and, by law, barred
from standing for election to the House of Commons.[i]
Nevertheless, he was elected on eight occasions for English boroughs and once
for the county of Kent between 1589 and 1626. Sandys’s ambitions for high
office under King James and his overtures to the king’s favourite, George
Villiers for his favour figure nowhere in the colony’s history. His mendacity
over the breakdown and failure of the Virginia Company and its colony and his success
in gaining the Duke of Buckingham’s patronage in the Parliament of 1624 meant
that his final years were spent in ignominy as Andrew Thrush pointed out.
[i]
The House of Commons 1604-1629. Edited by Andrew Thrush and John P.Ferris
(Cambridge University Press. 2010), Volume VI, page 164.
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