Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/301

 plete control. At the same time the Spanish government viewed the growth of Virginia with apprehension, Gondomar was perpetually intriguing against it, and James's anxiety to conclude the Spanish match inclined him to give ear to the Spanish ambassador's complaints. Warwick, who had a personal grievance against Sandys (see Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. App. ii. 5), seems to have lent himself to these intrigues, and Sandys vigorously attacked him and his party before the company. The Warwick party replied with a comprehensive indictment of Sandys's administration. They charged him with malversation of the company's funds, transmission of false news, and suppression of the truth concerning the miserable state to which his measures were said to have reduced the colonists (ib.) On 16 June 1621 Sandys was imprisoned in the Tower with Selden, whom he had consulted with a view to frustrating the intrigues against the company. The House of Commons concluded that Sandys's imprisonment was due to his speeches in parliament; the government maintained, and the contention was partially true, that it was due to other matters, and Ferrar explicitly states that the Virginian business was the cause (, Life of Ferrar, p. 110). The explanation was not believed, and on 16 July James found it politic to release Sandys and the other prisoners. Two years later (13 May 1623) Warwick complained of Sandys's conduct of Virginian affairs, and the privy council ordered him to be confined to his house. Soon afterwards commissioners were appointed by the king to inquire into the state of the colony. Sandys's party was generally supported by the settlers, but in July the attorney and solicitor general recommended the king to take the government of the colony into his own hands. The company now sought the aid of parliament; its petition was favourably received, and a committee was appointed to consider it. In May 1624 Sandys accused Gondomar in parliament of seeking to destroy the company and its plantation, and charged the commissioners with extreme partiality, stating that on the day when he was to have been examined on his conduct as treasurer, he was ordered by the king to go into the country. A few days later James forbade parliament to meddle in the matter, on the ground that the privy council was dealing with it. The case of the company's charter came before the king's bench in July, and on the 24th the court declared it null and void. The government of the colony was assumed by the crown, but the representative and other institutions established by Sandys remained to become a model for other American colonies.

Sandys meanwhile had resumed his parliamentary career. On 9 Jan. 1620–1 he was returned for the borough of Sandwich. Early in the session it was voted to petition the king on the breach of the privilege of free speech committed by the summons of Sandys before the privy council to answer for his speeches in June 1614, but the matter went no further (, Const. Hist. i. 363–4;, Precedents, i. 133). In the discussion over Floyd's case [see ]. Sandys alone urged moderation. On 29 May he drew attention to the spread of catholicism, stating that ‘our religion is rooted out of Bohemia and Germany; it will soon be rooted out of France’ (, iv. 127). In the following September the king proposed to get rid of him by sending him as commissioner to Ireland, a proposal which was renewed on the eve of the new parliament of February 1623–4, when he was elected for Kent. Sandys, wrote Chamberlain, obtained his election ‘by crying down his rivals, Sir Nicholas Tufton and Sir Dudley Diggs, as papist and royalist, but he will fail, being already commissioner for Ireland, and therefore incapable of election, and his Majesty will be but the more incensed against him’ (Cal. State Papers, 17 Jan. 1623–4). Nevertheless, he took his seat, having made his peace, according to the same authority, ‘by a promise of all manner of conformity’ (ib. p. 156). On 12 April he made a speech attacking Middlesex, and in May he and Coke brought the commons' charges against the lord treasurer before the House of Lords.

Sandys had throughout held relations with Buckingham, and, according to Chamberlain, some thought him a ‘favourite.’ Perhaps for this reason he was defeated for Kent in May 1625, but found a seat at Penryn. During the session he drew up with Pym a petition against the recusants; and, later on, he maintained that [q. v.] was not guilty of contempt of the house in publishing his second book before the commons had concluded their examination of the first. He was again defeated for Kent in January 1625–6, but sat for Penryn; in March 1627–1628 Buckingham's recommendation failed to secure his return for Sandwich. In that parliament he had no seat. His last years were devoted to the affairs of the East India Company. He died in October 1629, and was buried in Northbourne church, where a monument, with no inscription, was erected over his grave. He be-