Originally Candos: a name as illustrious as any to be met with in our annals, for one of its bearers was “the pride of English chivalry.” It was first planted in this country by Robert de Candos, a companion-in-arms of the Conqueror, who won with his own sword a noble domain in Wales, and married the heiress of one of the chief Domesday barons. “The male line of Alured de Hispania vanished in an heiress, perhaps his daughter. Her name was Isabella. Her husband was Robert de Candos, said to have conquered the territory of Caerleon. The pair certainly founded Goldclive Priory in Monmouthshire, and richly endowed it with lands, churches, and tithes, in Somerset and Devon. Robert de Candos is said to have died 1120.

“The male line of Candos merged again in an heiress, viz. Maude de Candos, wife, in 1166, of Philip de Columbiers.”—Eyton's Domesday Studies. But the lineage survived; for in 1165 Richard de Candos held the Herefordshire barony that had been the Domesday fief of Hugh L’Asne. One ruined octangular tower, crowning a “low but steep hill in the middle of the Golden Valley,” is all that is now left of his castle of Snodhill. His successors were Lords-Marcher, carrying on, for generation after generation, the bloody conflicts that devastated the Welsh border. Roger de Chandos (son of Robert who went with King John to Ireland in 1210), occurs in 1221 as obtaining from Henry III. licence to hold a fair at Fownhope, within the honour of Snodhill (Close Dolls). He died about the year 1266, and was succeeded by his son Robert, who took part with King Edward I. in his expedition into Wales. At his death, which happened in 1302, it was found that he held the barony of Snodhill by barony and the service of two knight’s fees. His son and successor, Roger de Chandos, served in the Scottish wars, temp. Ed. II., and received the honour of knighthood. In 1321 he was made sheriff of Herefordshire, and in the first year of Edward III. held that office and the governorship of Hereford Castle. To him succeeded Thomas de Chandos, whose heir was his brother Roger, the first of the family who was summoned to parliament. He was cited as a Baron from 1337 to 1355, and had previously been made a Banneret by the King, whom he attended in France. By Edward III. he was constituted Governor of Hereford Castle, and previous to his death in 1355 granted the church of Wellington to Robert Foliot, the Bishop of Hereford. (Harl. MS. 6868). Neither his son Sir Thomas nor his grandson Sir John (who has been erroneously identified with his celebrated namesake the Knight of the Garter) had summons to Parliament, and the latter, who held the Castle against Owen Glendwr in 1403, dying without issue 16 Dec. 1428, the estates in Herefordshire devolved to the surviving daughter of his sister Elizabeth (who had married Thomas Berkeley of Coberley in Gloucestershire) viz. Margery, wife of Nicholas Mattesden, and to his great nephew Giles Bruges, who through failure of the other line, became the eventual heir.”—Castles of Herefordshire, by the Rev. C. J. Robinson. Chandos, Much-Marcle, now a farm, was held by John de Chandos in 1285.

The great illustration of the house of Chandos belonged to another family of the name, seated at Radborne in Derbyshire, that never attained baronial rank. They bore the same pile Gules on a different field; but how nearly they were related to their Herefordshire kinsmen is not known. Sir John de Chandos, in the time of Henry III. acquired Radborne through his wife Margaret, daughter and co-heir (with her sister Ermentrude de Stafford) of Robert Fitz Walkeline. From him, in the third generation, descended Sir Edward, “to whom King Edward III., in the first year of his reign, granted an annuity of forty pounds, payable out of the Exchequer, until such time as he should provide him with forty pounds in land, or rent of equal value, in reward and encouragement of his good services.” Sir Edward married Isabel, daughter of Sir Robert Twyford, and eventually his co-heiress, who brought him one son, John, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Eleanor, and Margaret.

The son was the renowned soldier whose glorious career is chronicled by Froissart He lived in a martial age, and his generation was a generation of heroes; yet none among them claim a higher place than the great captain who trained the Black Prince in arms, and guided and guarded him, when, as a youngster of sixteen, he won his spurs at Cressy. On that other memorable day of Poitiers, when six thousand Englishmen stood against sixty thousand Frenchmen, and in less than three hours put them to utter rout, Sir John Chandos “never went from the Prince,” and gave him the signal to attack at the turning point of the battle. “When the men of armes of Englande,” says Froissart, “saw that the Marshale’s batayle was dysconfited, and the Duke’s batayle began to disorder and open, they lept them on their horses, the whiche they had redy by them; then they assembled togyder, and cryed Saynt George for Guienne: and the Lorde Chandos sayd to the Prince, ‘Sir, take your horse and ride forth, this ioumey is yours: God is this daye in your handes: gette vs to the French Kynge’s batayle, for ther lyeth all the sore of the mater; I thynke verily by his valyantnesse he woll not flye: I trust we shall have hym by the grace of God and Saynt George, so he be well fought withall; and, Sir, I herde you say, that this day I shulde se you a good knyghte.’ The Prince sayde, ‘Lette vs go forthe; ye shall not se me this day retourne backeand sayde, ‘Avaunce banner, in the name of God and Saynt George.’” He commanded at the battle of Auray, where the celebrated Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, was taken prisoner; and won so complete a victory, that he could bid the Earl of Montfort, on whose behalf it was fought, “Laud God and be of good cheer,” for he had that day conquered the heritage of Bretagne. The Earl pledged him in a flagon of wine, vowing that, beside God, he owed him “most thanks than to any creature living.” He followed the Black Prince into Spain, and, with the Duke of Lancaster, led the van at Najarra. On that field, for the first time, he unfurled his own gonfanon; a privilege reserved, by the custom of the time, to men of high rank and great estate. Before the battle opened, he “brought his baner rolled vp togyder to the Prince, and sayd, ‘Sir, beholde here is my baner; I requyre you dysplay it abrode; and gyue me leave this day to rayse it; for, Sir, I thanke God and you, I haue lande and herytage suffycient to mayntayne it withall.’ Then the Prince and the Kynge Don Peter tooke the baner bytweene their handes. and spred it abrode, the which was of sylver a sharpe pyle goules, The device he usually bore was a “blewe Lady embrandred in a softe beame” (Our Lady in glory), which, on the eve of the battle of Poitiers, was claimed by the French Lord of Clermont, whose own was similar. He challenged Chandos's right to bear it, but was himself slain the day following. and delyvered it to him, and sayd, ‘Sir Johan, beholde here is your baner; God sende you ioye and honoure thereof.’ Then Sir John Chandos bare his baner to his owne company, and sayd, ‘Sirs, beholde here is my baner and youfs, keepe it as your owneand they toke it, and were right ioyfull thereof, and sayd that by the pleasure of God and Saynt George, they wolde kepe and defende it to the best of their powers.” He had received grants of land in Lincoln and elsewhere, with all the knight’s fees that had been held by Godfrey de Harcourt, comprising the great Norman barony of St. Sauveur in the Côtentin, where he built a castle. Nor were his services requited only with estates, for he held offices of trust and dignity. He was Constable of Acquitaine, Seneschal of Poitou, and one of the Founder Knights of the Garter. He “kept a noble and great establishment, and he had the means of doing it, for the King of England, who loved him much, wished it should be so: and he was certainly worthy of it.”

After passing unscathed through so many hard-fought fields, he lost his life in an insignificant skirmish at the bridge of Lussac. On the last night of the year 1369, he had been foiled in an attempt to surprise the little town of St. Savin, whose recent capture by the French he had taken much to heart; and, retiring to Chauvigny, dismissed all his followers, with the exception of some forty spears. As he stood, gloomy and downcast, warming himself at the fire in the inn kitchen, word was brought him that the French, under Sir Loys de S. Julien and Carnet the Breton, were in the neighbourhood, and he called for his horse and rode forth to meet them. At break of day, he overtook them near the bridge of Lussac, and as he drew near, called out: “Hark ye, Frenchmen! ye ryde at youre pleasur and ease day and night, ye take and wyn townes and forteresses in Poyctou, whereof I am seneshal, ye ransome poore folke without my leave: it should seeme the countrie is all your’s—but I ensure you it is not so. It is more than a yere and half that I have sette all myne entent to encountre with you, and now I thanke God I se and speke to you; nowe shall it be sene who is stronger, other you or I. It hath been shewed me often tymes, that ye have greatly desyred to fynde me—nowe ye may se me here; I am John Chandos: avyse me well!”

While he thus jeered at the Frenchmen, a Breton, exasperated beyond endurance, raised his sword and struck an English squire, Simkin Dodinhole, from his horse. “Sir John, when he herde the noyse besyde him, tourned that way and saw his squyer lye on the erth, and the Frenchmen laying on him: then he was more chafed than before, and sayd to his company, 'Sirs, howe suffre you this squyer thus to be slayne? A-foot, a-foot!” and so he lept a-foot with all his company, and Simkin was rescued, and the batayle begun. Sir Johan Chandos, who was a right hardy and a couragyous knight, with his baner before him, and his company about him, with his cote of armes upon him, great and large, The words in Denys Sauvage’s edition are “qui lui battoit jusqu’ à terre,” and it seems likely that he entangled his foot in this long flowing robe. of white sarcenet with two piles goules, as one of the foremost, with his glayue in his hande, marched to his ennemyes. The same mornying there had fallen a great dewe, so that the ground was somewhat moyst, and so in his goyng forwarde, he slode and fell downe, and as he was arysing, ther light a stroke on him, gyven by a squyer called Jaques de S. Martin, with his glayue, which entered into the flesshe under his eye, bytweene the nose and the foreheed: Sir John saw not the stroke commying, for he was blynde on that one eye; he lost the sight thereof a fyve yeare before, as he hunted after an harte in the laundes of Burdeaux: and also he had on no vysor. The stroke was rude and entred into his brayne, and greved him so sore, that he overthrue to the erthe, and turned for pain two tymes up and downe, wounded to dethe, for after the stroke he never spake worde. Then his uncle Edward Clifford” (it should be Twyford) “stepte and bestrode him, for the Frenchmen wolde fayne have had him, and defended him so valyantly, and gave rounde about him such strokes that none durst aproche: also Sir John Chambo, and Sir Bertram of Case, seemed like men out of their myndes, thinking, verily that he had his dethes wounde.” The jubilant Frenchmen closed in, calling upon them to surrender; and a desperate struggle ensued; for Sir Edward, holding his ground, “would not depart from his nephew where he lay.” At length some welcome English pennons fluttered over the hill-side; a band of Poitevins and Gascons came hurrying to the rescue; and the would-be captors were themselves taken prisoners.

Great was the consternation of the new comers, when they gathered round their fallen seneschal, lying speechless on the ground; and loud and bitter their lamentation. “‘Alas! Sir John Chandos, the floure of all chivalry; unhappily was that glaive forged that thus wounded you, and brought you in peril of dethe!’ They wept piteously that were about hym, and he herde and understode them well, but he could speke no worde: they wronge their handes, and tare their heeres, and made many a pytefull complaynt, and specially suche as were of his owne house: then his servantes unarmed hym, and layde him on pavesses, and so bare him softly to Mortemer, the next forteresse: but he lyved not after his hurt past a day and a nyght. God have mercy on his soule: for in a hundred yere after, there was not a more curtesse knight, or fuller of noble vertues and good condycions amonge the Englysshemen, than he was; and when the Prince and Princesse, the Erle of Cambridge, the Erle of Pembroke, and other barowns and knights of Englande, such as were in Guienne, herd of his dethe, they sayd they had lost all on that syde of the sea.” All lamented him; friend and foe alike: the King of France “passionately declaring there was not any soldier living so able to make peace between both crowns as he.”

He had never been married, and left the greater part of his possessions to the Black Prince: but his paternal estate in Derbyshire passed to his sisters Eleanor and Elizabeth, and his niece Isabel, the wife of Sir John de Annesley, as heir to Margaret, the third sister, then defunct. Elizabeth had no husband, and Isabel no children. Eleanor married first Sir John Lawton, “the dear friend and companion in arms” of her brother; and secondly Roger Collyng of Herefordshire, whose wife she was in 1391. By Lawton she had a daughter Elizabeth, who inherited Radbourne, and married Peter de la Pole of Newborough in Staffordshire, the ancestor of Sacheverell Pole of Radbourne, who in 1807 obtained the Royal license to præfix the great name of Chandos to his own.

The title of Lord Chandos had been revived by Queen Mary in favour of one of her devoted partisans, Sir John Bruges, descended from the Sir Giles, who was, as we have seen, left sole representative of the baronial line, and succeeded his grandfather at Coberley in Gloucestershire. It was there that the fifth Lord kept open house for three days in the week, and earned the local title of “King of Cotswould.” He had married a lady of Royal lineage, Anne, daughter and co-heir of Ferdinando, fifth Earl of Derby, the great-granddaughter of Mary Tudor by the Duke of Brandon, and their son was offered an Earldom by Charles I. after the battle of Newbury, where three horses had been killed under him. He declined it; and it was not till 1714 that the ninth Lord received the title of Earl of Carnarvon, being further promoted to the Marquessate of Carnarvon and Dukedom of Chandos in 1729. He was a very rich and a very vain man. He had inherited a large fortune from his maternal grandfather, a Turkey merchant; amassed large sums as Paymaster of the Forces under Queen Anne, and married an heiress. His wealth and his titles together appear to have turned his head. He affected a fantastic state that aped Royalty; dined in public, like a sovereign, a grand flourish of trumpets heralding each course: was always escorted to his chapel “Handel was the Duke’s maestro di capella; and one of his oratorios was composed at Canons.”—Sir Bernard Burke. by a mock-military guard: and determined that his residences in town and country should be the wonder and admiration of the age. The London house was never accomplished: but he built on his first wife’s inheritance, at Canons, near Edgeware, an enormous square pile, “the four sides almost alike, with statues in the front,” that cost £200,000, and was universally pronounced more fit for a prince than a subject. This unlucky palace has been immortalized by Pope’s pungent satire: “At Timon’s villa let us pass a day, Where all cry out, ‘What sums are thrown away!’ So proud, so grand: of that stupendous air, Soft and agreeable came never there.

Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught As brings all Brobdinag before your thought: To compass this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down.

Who but must laugh, the master when he sees, A puny insect, shivering at a breeze!”

The Duke, with all his foibles, was liberal and popular; and this libel roused such general indignation, that (according to Dr. Johnson) Pope “tried all means of escaping from the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon him,” and even wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke. His concluding lines were prophetic: “Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann’d, And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.”

The Duke’s lavish expediture, and the bursting of the South Sea bubble, had sorely trenched upon his income; and at his death in 1744, Canons was found to be far too expensive a residence for his successor. It was put up for sale, but no one would buy it; and in the end it was pulled down, and disposed of piece-meal. The grand staircase—each step a solid block of marble twenty feet long—was purchased by Lord Chesterfield for the new house he was then building in May Fair:—now sold and ruined in its turn.

There were only two other Dukes of this family, the son and grandson of the so-called “princely Chandos” There is a story—whether true or false—that this vain-glorious Duke bought his third wife from her husband, an ostler at the Castle Inn, Marlborough, for ₤20; and, moreover, never repented of his bargain! In the Peerages, his last Duchess appears as Lydia Catherine Van Hatten, widow of Sir Thomas Davall, Knt. She left no children. and the sole heiress of the last, Lady Anne Eliza Brydges, married Richard Earl Temple, created in 1822 Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. On her father’s death in 1789, the barony granted by Queen Mary in 1554 had been immediately claimed by the Rev. Edward Brydges (Sir Egerton’s elder brother) who persevered for fourteen years in the fruitless endeavour to establish his right.