Brydges, Sir Grey, Lord Chandos

, a man of abilities, succeeded his father William, fourth lord | Chandos, in Nov. 1602. He was a friend of the earl of Essex, in whose insurrection he was probably involved, for his name appears on the list of prisoners confined in the Fleet on that account, Feb. 1600. He was made a knight of the bath at the creation of Charles duke of York, Jan. 1604, and in August 1605 was created M. A. at Oxford, the king being present. He was an associate of that active and romantic character, lord Herbert of Cherbury. and appears to have volunteered his services in the Low Countries, when the prince of Orange besieged the city of Juliers in 1610, and the Low Country army was assisted by four thousand English soldiers, under the command of sir Edward Cecil. From the great influence which his hospitality and popular manners afterwards obtained in Gloucestershire, and his numerous attendants when he visited the court, he was styled king of Cotswould, the tract of country on the edge of which his castle of Sudeley was situated. On November 18, 1617, he was appointed to receive and introduce the Muscovite ambassadors, who had brought costly presents from their master to the king. He died August 20, 1621. There is no doubt, says sir Egerton JBrydges (by whom the preceding notices were drawn together) that lord Chandos was a man of abilities as well as splendid habits of life, and by no means a literary recluse, although he is supposed to have been the author of “Horae subsecivas, Observations and Discourses,” Lond. 1620, 8vo, a work containing a fund of good sense and shrewd remark. In sir John Beaumont’s poems are some lines on his death, highly expressive of an excellent character. ¹