1. Sir Edwin Sandys - Early Years and Education
Edwin Sandys was born at Hartlebury Castle on the 9th of December 1561, the family bible records the time as 'six of the clock in the morning'. The second son of Bishop Edwin Sandys (1516?-1588) and his second wife Cecily. At the time of his birth his father was bishop of Worcester, and Hartlebury Castle, four miles south of Kidderminster, was his official residence. His father later became bishop of London and then Archbishop of York.
In 1570 his father became bishop of London and Edwin entered Merchant Taylors' School, London,
in 1571, considered second only to St. Paul's school. He became a scholar (fully matriculated undergraduate) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in September 1577 together with
his brother Samuel and his friend George Cranmer.
Education at this time was expanding and the young Sandys took
full advantage of his privileged position in society. George Cranmer was the grand-nephew of Archbishop Cranmer, author and compiler of the Book of Common Prayer, who had been martyred when he was burnt at the stake outside Balliol College, Oxford in 1556. There was no minimum age for admission of students
but a maximum age of nineteen; when Edwin matriculated he was still fifteen. Oxford had been ravaged intermittently by plague for the last six years, between 1571 and 1577. It reached its peak in the year Edwin arrived, when on one night alone the pestilence infected over 600 people.
His tutor was the theologian Richard Hooker, and both Sandys and Cranmer formed a friendship with Hooker that was to last more than two decades. The tutor system was a radical innovation introduced during this period. Edwin's father (then the bishop of London) selected Richard Hooker to be the young Edwin's tutor at Oxford. The powerful Elizabethan cleric and his son were to have a defining impact on Richard Hooker's life and career. The tutor was in loco parentis, so took charge of all aspects of their student's well being, including their allowances.
Corpus Christi had about 25 scholars, around 20 rich commoners and as many as ten younger clerks and choristers. The commoners tended to flout the college rules with impunity because their parents provided a welcome new source of income and future endowments. So the commoners finery, which was contary to college regulations, contrasted with the plain prescribed monastic garb of the scholars. It was also a time of social change and the focus was shifting away from educating ministers for the Church and was moving towards preparing the sons of wealthy families for careers in government, medicine, law, business and science.
Corpus Christi was stricter than other colleges; Matins in the chapel at 5 a.m. every morning and logic classes started at 6 a.m. Although the days had passed when missing a lecture meant a loss of meals and a public whipping. It was a place where education and moral discipline were serious matters. Compared with some of the richer colleges food was fairly plain. Only Greek and Latin would be spoken during the meal, when one of the fellows would read from the Bible.
Edwin and George Cranmer later took an active role in the preparation of Hooker's masterpiece The Laws of the Ecclesiastical Polity, which Hooker started writing around 1589. Hooker's friends often found it necessary to correct his composition and spelling. The eight-volume work set the tone and direction of Anglican theology. Edwin remained at Oxford on and off for nearly thirteen years, taking his B.A. in 1579 at the age of seventeen, and gaining election as a fellow of Corpus that same year. He studied law at Oxford but didn't complete his studies, although he did spend five years at an Inn of Court in London. He never practiced the profession, but used his legal training to good effect during his parliamentary career.
Portrait of Sir Edwin Sandys courtesy of M. Sandys.