Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/36

22 women to the colony to serve as wives to the tenants on the public lands. He also secured the exclusion from England of foreign tobacco in the interest of the Virgina trade. When his year as treasurer expired, Sandys was not reelected, because of the violent interference of the King, who sent word to the company "to choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin Sandys." The company would not, however, take any of the nominees of the King, but elected Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and John Ferrar was elected his deputy. Both were staunch adherents of the Sandys party, and during the frequent absences of Southampton, Sandys still took the leading part in the company's business. He opposed the movement to dissolve the charter with all his might, and had the question brought up in parliament, where he charged the commissioners appointed by the King to investigate Virginia affairs with extreme partiality, and ascribed the intrigues against the company to the influence of the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar. Despite his efforts, judgment was rendered against the charter June 24, 1624, and the company was dissolved. Sandys did not very long survive this action, but continued as the leader of the popular party in parliament till his death in October, 1629. He was interred in the church of Northbourne, in Kent. He was married four times, and by the last wife, Catherine, daughter of Sir Richard Bulkley, he had with other issue, five sons, all of whom, save one, adhered in the civil war to the popular side. Sir Edwin Sandys had an elder brother, Sir Samuel Sandys, who served in parliament, was knighted, etc.. and had two daughters by his wife Mercy, daughter of Martin Culpeper, Esq.. one who married Sir Francis Wyatt, governor of Virginia. and another who married Sir Fernando Weyman. who died in Virginia. Another brother was George Sandys, the poet, who resided in Virginia, where he acted as treasurer of the colony and was a member of the local council there.

Wriothesley, Henry, third Earl of Southampton and third treasurer of the Virginia Company, was the second and only surviving son of Henry Wriothesley, the second earl, by his wife Mary Browne, daughter of the last Viscount Montague. He was born October 6, 1573, and succeeded to the earldom at the death of his father in 1581. He attended St. John's College, Cambridge, and in 1589 at the age of 16 graduated as Master of Arts. In the autumn of 1592 he was accounted the most handsome and accomplished of all the young lords who accompanied Elizabeth to Oxford that year. On November 17, 1595, he distinguished himself in the lists set up in the Queen's presence in honor of the thirty-seventh anniversary of her accession, and was likened by George Poe in his account of the same to Bevis of Southampton, the ancient type of chivalry. His martial ardor was encouraged by his association with Essex, whom he accompanied in 1596 in the military and naval expedition to Cadiz. Next year he again accompanied Essex in the expedition to the Azores, but he alienated the Queen by marrying without her consent one of the Queen's waiting women, Elizabeth Vernon, a cousin of Essex, He was thrown into the Tower, but soon released. He went with Essex on the military expedition to Ireland, and on his return was drawn into the conspiracy, whereby Essex and his friends desired to regain by violence their influence at court. The rising failed completely, and Essex and Southampton were tried for treason and condemned to death.