CHANDLER, SAMUEL (1693-1766), English Nonconformist divine, was born in 1693 at Hungerford, in Berkshire, where his father was a minister. He was sent to school at Gloucester, where he began a lifelong friendship with Bishop Butler and Archbishop Secker; and he afterwards studied at Leiden. His talents and learning were such that he was elected fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and was made D.D. of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He also received offers of high preferment in the Church of England. These he refused, remaining to the end of his life in the position of a Presbyterian minister. He was moderately Calvinistic in his views and leaned towards Arianism. He took a leading part in the deist controversies of the time, and discussed with some of the bishops the possibility of an act of comprehension. From 1716 to 1726 he preached at Peckham, and for forty years he was pastor of a meeting-house in Old Jewry. During two or three years, having fallen into pecuniary distress through the failure of the South Sea scheme, he kept a book-shop in the Poultry. On the death of George II. in 1760 Chandler published a sermon in which he compared that king to King David. This view was attacked in a pamphlet entitled The History of the Man after God’s own Heart, in which the author complained of the parallel as an insult to the late king, and, following Pierre Bayle, exhibited King David as an example of perfidy, lust and cruelty. Chandler condescended to reply first in a review of the tract (1762) and then in A Critical History of the Life of David, which is perhaps the best of his productions. This work was just completed when he died, on the 8th of May 1766. He left 4 vols. of sermons (1768), and a paraphrase of the Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians (1777), several works on the evidences of Christianity, and various pamphlets against Roman Catholicism.
CHANDLER, ZACHARIAH (1813-1879), American politician, was born at Bedford, New Hampshire, on the 10th of December 1813. In 1833 he removed to Detroit, Michigan, where he became a prosperous dry-goods merchant. He took a prominent part as a Whig in politics (serving as mayor in 1851), and, impelled by his strong anti-slavery views, actively furthered the work of the “Underground Railroad,” of which Detroit was one of the principal “transfer” points. He was one of the organizers in Michigan of the Republican party, and in 1857 succeeded Lewis Cass in the United States Senate, serving until 1875, and at once taking his stand with the most radical opponents of slavery extension. When the Civil War became inevitable he endeavoured to impress upon the North the necessity of taking extraordinary measures for the preservation of the Union. After the fall of Fort Sumter he advocated the enlistment of 500,000 instead of 75,000 men for a long instead of a short term, and the vigorous enforcement of confiscation measures. In July 1862 he made a bitter attack in the Senate on General George B. McClellan, charging him with incompetency and lack of “nerve.” Throughout the war he allied himself with the most radical of the Republican faction in opposition to President Lincoln’s policy, and subsequently became one of the bitterest opponents of President Johnson’s plan of reconstruction. From October 1875 to March 1877 he was secretary of the interior in the cabinet of President Grant, succeeding Columbus Delano (1809-1896). In 1876, as chairman of the national republican committee, he managed the campaign of Hayes against Tilden. In February 1879 he was re-elected to the Senate to succeed Isaac P. Christiancy (1812-1890), and soon afterwards, in a speech concerning Mexican War pensions, bitterly denounced Jefferson Davis. He died at Chicago, Illinois, on the 1st of November 1879. By his extraordinary force of character he exercised a wide personal influence during his lifetime, but failed to stamp his personality upon any measure or policy of lasting importance.
CHANDOS, BARONS AND DUKES OF. The English title of Chandos began as a barony in 1554, and was continued in the family of Brydges (becoming a dukedom in 1719) till 1789. In 1822 the dukedom was revived in connexion with that of Buckingham.
John Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos (c. 1490-1557), a son of Sir Giles Brydges, or Bruges (d. 1511), was a prominent figure at the English court during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Mary. He took part in suppressing the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat in 1554, and as lieutenant of the Tower of London during the earlier part of Mary’s reign, had the custody, not only of Lady Jane Grey and of Wyat, but for a short time of the princess Elizabeth. He was created Baron Chandos of Sudeley in 1554, one of his ancestors, Alice, being a grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Chandos (d. 1375), and he died in March 1557. The three succeeding barons, direct descendants of the 1st baron, were all members of parliament and persons of some importance. Grey, 5th Baron Chandos (c. 1580-1621), lord-lieutenant of Gloucestershire, was called the “king of the Cotswolds,” owing to his generosity and his magnificent style of living at his residence, Sudeley Castle. He has been regarded by Horace Walpole and others as the author of some essays, Horae Subsecivae. His elder son George, 6th Baron Chandos (1620-1655), was a supporter of Charles I. during his struggle with Parliament, and distinguished himself at the first battle of Newbury in 1643. He had six daughters but no sons, and after the death of his brother William in 1676 the barony came to a kinsman, Sir James Brydges, Bart. (1642-1714), who was English ambassador to Constantinople from 1680 to 1685.
James Brydges, 1st duke of Chandos (1673-1744), son and heir of the last-named, had been member of parliament for Hereford from 1698 to 1714, and, three days after his father’s death, was created Viscount Wilton and earl of Carnarvon. For eight years, from 1705 to 1713, during the War of the Spanish Succession, he was paymaster-general of the forces abroad, and in this capacity he amassed great wealth. In 1719 he was created marquess of Carnarvon and duke of Chandos. The duke is chiefly remembered on account of his connexion with Handel and with Pope. He built a magnificent house at Canons near Edgware in Middlesex, and is said to have contemplated the construction of a private road between this place and his unfinished house in Cavendish Square, London. For over two years Handel, employed by Chandos, lived at Canons, where he composed his oratorio Esther. Pope, who in his Moral Essays (Epistle to the Earl of Burlington) doubtless described Canons under the guise of “Timon’s Villa,” referred to the duke in the line, “Thus gracious Chandos is belov’d at sight”; but Swift, less complimentary, called him “a great complier with every court.” The poet was caricatured by Hogarth for his supposed servility to the duke. Chandos, who was lord-lieutenant of the counties of Hereford and Radnor, and chancellor of the university of St Andrews, became involved in financial difficulties, and after his death on the 9th of August 1744 Canons was pulled down. He was succeeded by his son Henry, 2nd duke (1708-1771), and grandson James, 3rd duke (1731-1789). On the death of the latter without sons in September 1789 all his titles, except that of Baron Kinloss, became extinct, although a claimant arose for the barony of Chandos of Sudeley. The 3rd duke’s only daughter, Anna Elizabeth, who became Baroness Kinloss on her father’s death, was married in 1796 to Richard Grenville, afterwards marquess of Buckingham; and in 1822 this nobleman was created duke of Buckingham and Chandos (see [Buckingham, Dukes of]).
See G.E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage (1887-1898); and J.R. Robinson, The Princely Chandos, i.e. the 1st duke (1893).
CHANDOS, SIR JOHN (?-1370), one of the most celebrated English commanders of the 14th century. He is found at the siege of Cambrai in 1337, and at the battle of Crécy in 1346. At the battle of Poitiers, in 1356, it was he who decided the day and saved the life of the Black Prince. For these services Edward III. made him a knight of the Garter, gave him the lands of the viscount of Saint Sauveur in Cotentin, and appointed him his lieutenant in France and vice-chamberlain of the royal household. In 1362 he was made constable of Aquitaine, and won the victories of Auray (1364) and Navaret in Spain (1367) over Duguesclin. He was seneschal of Poitou in 1369, and was mortally wounded at the bridge of Lussac near Poitiers on the 31st of December. He died on the following day, the 1st of January 1370.