Edwin Sandys (1561–1629)

Sir Edwin Sandys (/ˈsændz/ SANDZ; 9 December 1561 – October 1629) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1589 and 1626.

[1][2][3] At Oxford his tutor was Richard Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, whose lifelong friend and executor Sandys became.

In 1582 Sandys' father gave him the prebend of Wetwang in York Minster, but he never took orders,[2] later resigning both his fellowship and prebendary.

When in Venice he became closely connected with Fra Paolo Sarpi, who helped him compose the treatise on the religious state of Europe, known as the Europae speculum.

He endeavoured to secure to all prisoners the right of employing counsel, a proposal which was resisted by some lawyers as subversive of the administration of the law.

In order to increase labour in Virginia, his program also promoted indentured servitude for the poor of England who could try to make a better life for themselves in the colony.

Also accredited to Sandys is an increase in women sent to the colonies, for the purpose of encouraging men to marry "tobacco brides" and start families, which ostensibly would motivate them to work harder.

[citation needed] He promoted and supported the policy which enabled the colony to survive the disasters of its early days, and, he continued to be a leading influence in the Company[2] until it was dissolved in 1624.

[10] Although the Virginia Company ultimately failed financially by 1624, the colony eventually grew and prospered until achieving independence late in the 18th century following the American Revolutionary War.

[11] Edwin Sandys shared with his brother George a leaning toward English Arminian theology and rejected Calvinist predestinarianism.