John Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos

He was born at Coberley, Gloucestershire,[1] the son of Sir Giles Brydges[4] of Coberley (c. 1462 – 1511) and Isabel Baynham. His father was a knight of the body to Henry VII and his brother Thomas Brydges of Cornbury, Oxfordshire also held public office and served as an MP. Bridges inherited his father's Oxfordshire and Wiltshire estates as a minor in 1511, and was for two years the ward of Sir Edward Darrell.

He was knighted in 1513 after serving in France with Charles Brandon at Terouenne and Tournai. He attended Henry VIII on all subsequent state occasions in England and France (presumably including the famous meeting with Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where Gloucestershire was represented by, amongst others, a Sir John Brydges).

His election in 1529 as junior knight of the shire for Gloucestershire was a tribute to his standing both locally and at court, but it was doubtless assisted by his influential connections, through his mother with the Baynhams and through his wife with the noble house of Grey of Wilton.

Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire

Brydges was High Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1537,[1] and took part in suppressing the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1554.[4] As Lieutenant of the Tower of London during the earlier part of Queen Mary's reign, he had the custody not only of Lady Jane Grey and of Thomas Wyatt, but for a short time, of the Queen's half-sister as well, the Princess Elizabeth Tudor (who would later become Queen Elizabeth I of England).[4]

In 1554, Queen Mary I gave Sudeley Castle to John Brydges and created him Baron Chandos of Sudeley on 8 April 1554.[2] The castle remained his property throughout her reign and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as well and then passed down to his descendants. It was at Sudeley Castle that Queen Elizabeth was entertained three times. Also, later on in 1592, a spectacular three-day feast was held there to celebrate the anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Church at Sudeley Castle

It was around 1512 when Brydges married Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Edmund Grey, 9th Baron Grey de Wilton (died 1511), and Florence Hastings, eldest daughter of Sir Ralph Hastings.[5] They had eleven children. Their son Edmund succeeded to the Chandos barony on his father's death.[3] Their son Charles married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Carne.[6] Their daughter Katherine married Edward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley.[7]

He died at Sudeley Castle 12 April 1557[2] and was buried with heraldic ceremony on 3 May in Sudeley Church.[8] His will, dated 2 March 1556,[1] was proved 28 May 1557.[2][9] In his will, he styles himself as Sir John Bruges, Knight, Lord Chandos of Sudeley.

• Cokayne, G. E., ed. (1902). Complete Baronetage. II:1625–1649. Exeter: Pollard & Co.
• Cokayne, G. E. (1913). Gibbs, Vicary; Doubleday, H. Arthur (eds.). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant. III. London: St. Catherine Press.
• Cokayne, G. E. (1916). Gibbs, Vicary (ed.). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant. IV. London: St. Catherine Press.
• "John Brydges, (1st B. Chandos of Sudeley)". Tudorplace.com.ar. Retrieved 30 January 2009.
• Kirk, L. M.; Dale, M. K. (1982). "Brydges, Sir John (1492–1557), of Coberley, Glos.". In Bindoff, S. T. (ed.). Members. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558. The History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
• Lee, Sidney (1886). "Brydges, John" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 7. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 163–164.
• Machyn, Henry (1848). Nichols, John Gough (ed.). The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A. D. 1550 to A. D. 1563. [Camden Society. Publications]. XLII. Edited by John Gough Nichols. London: Printed for the Camden Society by J. B. Nichols and Son.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1460992709. Retrieved 8 October 2013.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chandos, Barons and Dukes of". Encyclopædia Britannica. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 838.

• Bydges, Sir John (1492–1557), of Coberley, Glos. A biography
• Sir John Brydges, 1st Lord Chandos Family tree