Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/167

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Brydges
161
Brydges

rosity 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 third lord. In his father's lifetime Grey Brydges assaulted the lady's representative at a conference held to settle the dispute (June 1602). In the following October it was proposed that Grey should marry Elizabeth, but finally, in December, when he had become fifth 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 October 1617.

Horace Walpole credits Chandos with the authorship of an anonymous collection of highly interesting essays, entitled ‘Horæ Subsecivæ,’ 1620, published by Edward Blount [q. v.] Anthony à Wood (Athenæ, iii. 1196) and Bishop Kennett (Memoirs of the Cavendish Family, 1708) state, however, that Gilbert Cavendish, eldest son of the first 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 handwriting. 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 sixth 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 February 1654–5, and was buried at Sudeley. He married first Susan, daughter of Henry, earl of Manchester, by whom he had three daughters, and secondly Jane, daughter of John Savage, earl Rivers, by whom he had three daughters. His brother William succeeded him as seventh lord Chandos.

[State Paper Calendars (Dom.), 1600–21; Nichols's Progresses of James I; Burke's Extinct Peerage; Dugdale's Baronage; Brydges's Peers of the Reign of James I, vol. i.; Wood's Fasti (Bliss); Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 13, 5th ser. v. 303, 352; Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors (Park); Cooper Willyams's Hist. of Sudeley Castle.]

S. L. L.

BRYDGES, Sir HARFORD JONES (1764–1847), diplomatist and author, was the son of Harford Jones of Presteign, by Winifred, daughter of Richard Hooper of the Whittern, Herefordshire, and was born on 12 Jan. 1764. In commemoration of his descent, through his maternal grandmother, from the family of Brydges of Old Colwall, Herefordshire, he assumed, by royal sign manual dated 4 May 1826, the additional name of Brydges. Early in life he entered the service of the East India Company, and, acquiring great proficiency in the oriental languages, he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Persia, where he remained four years, from 1807 to 1811. On 9 Oct. 1807 he was created a baronet. On his return from Persia he was disappointed of immediate prospect of promotion in the service of the East India Company, and resigned his connection with it. Throughout life he cherished a warm interest in the welfare both of the Persians and the natives of India. In 1833 he published ‘The Dynasty of the Kajars, translated from the original Persian manuscript;’ in the following year ‘An Account of His Majesty's Mission to the Court of Persia in the years 1807–11, to which is added a brief history of the Wahanby;’ and in 1838 a ‘Letter on the Present State of British Interests and Affairs in Persia,’ addressed to the Marquis of Wellesley. In 1843 he pleaded the cause