Clarendon was the only son of Edward Hyde Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon and his wife Lady Caroline Elizabeth Agar, daughter of James Agar, 3rd Earl of Normanton.

George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, three times Foreign Secretary, was his grandfather.

[1] Clarendon took his seat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords on his father's death in 1914.

When Bonar Law became Prime Minister in 1922 he appointed Clarendon Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (government chief whip in the House of Lords), a position he also held under Stanley Baldwin until January 1924, and again from December 1924 to 1925.

[3] Clarendon became Lord Chamberlain in 1938 and served until the death of King George VI in 1952.