In the latest blog for the Georgian Lords, Dr Charles Littleton, considers the career of the 1st duke of Chandos, a man who rose to become one of the most flamboyant peers of the early 18th century and a key patron of the composer, Handel.
Last month saw the 280th anniversary of the death of an intriguing and, in his time, prominent 18th-century aristocrat. Intriguing, because there was little in James Brydges’ origins to suggest that he would ever rise to be a duke. True, from 1676 he was heir to a barony, when his father succeeded a distant cousin as the 8th Baron Chandos. But, although landed gentry, the Brydges family did not earn enough revenue to support adequately their new noble status.
Without expectation of a substantial landed inheritance, James Brydges had to make his own way in the world. As a young man in London from 1698 he was a hard-working and shameless networker, and his years of attendance on ministers paid off when in 1705 he was appointed paymaster-general of the Allied forces abroad. Between 1705 and 1713 he managed close to £24 million of public funds for the armies. He was permitted to do with this money much as he liked as long as he met his responsibilities.
In the meantime, he ‘borrowed’ surplus funds and put them out for investment, skimming off the profits for himself. He watched the exchange rates so he could play the currency markets to his private advantage, again using public funds. As a result, he made a staggering fortune. Arthur Onslow thought it ‘the most surprising instance of a change of fortune raised by a man himself, that has happened in any age’, and calculated that in little more than a decade Brydges had accumulated a fortune of about £7,000 [Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time, ed. Routh, vi. 41-42]. This would make him a millionaire several times over today. Many contemporaries were uncomfortable with this fortune amassed from public funds on the back of a costly war.
Brydges retired in 1713, as both the war ended and Parliament ordered an audit of his accounts. The audit hung over him for several years and was not wrapped up until 1718. Ultimately, he was not charged with any malfeasance.
Brydges hardly kept himself away from public notice during the audit. In 1714 he used his contacts with the incoming Hanoverian ministers to obtain a higher title than the barony he was destined to inherit. He succeeded as 9th Baron Chandos on 16 October 1714, but only three days later was promoted earl of Carnarvon among the coronation honours. He continued to court the ministers over the following years until on 29 April 1719 he was promoted duke of Chandos.
In the same period Chandos was also developing his estate at Cannons (as he spelled it), near Edgware, which he had bought from his duchess’s uncle in 1710. Chandos intended his house to be a monument to his arrival among the upper nobility. He tore down the existing Elizabethan house and began work constructing a baroque palace in its stead. It was built remarkably quickly and was finished in 1725, at a total of over £160,000. He used it as a showcase for his wealth and artistic patronage, by exhibiting his many paintings by Italian artists. Cannons also had its own orchestra and choir, led between 1716 and 1718 by George Frideric Handel, Chandos’ resident composer. Handel’s ‘Chandos Anthems’ were composed there, and Cannons also saw the premieres of Esther and Acis and Galatea.
Even as a duke Chandos continued to draw most of his income from speculation and investment, rather than from land. He invested in the development of Cavendish Square in Marylebone, where he intended to build another palace for himself. He also invested heavily in many of the speculative joint-stock ventures of 1719-20. Onslow considered him ‘a dupe to men that nobody else almost would keep company with’. Chandos was heavily involved in both John Law’s Mississippi Company and the South Sea Company. In October 1720, after the bursting of the Bubble, he calculated that he had lost close to £700,000. He was still £40,000 in debt in 1729. To recover, he sold his London townhouse, on St James’s Square, and abandoned his grand building projects on Cavendish Square. However, he always maintained his palace of Cannons, his pride and joy and symbol of his success.
By the time of his death on 9 August 1744 Chandos was ‘reduced to the difficulties of indigence’, as Onslow expressed it. He left debts amounting to £83,000 on an estate which brought in only about £8,500 p.a. His heir Henry Brydges, 2nd duke of Chandos, was even more indebted, and in 1747-8 found himself forced to dismantle Cannons and auction off its contents and materials. Its central marble staircase was transported to the Mayfair townhouse of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield. An equestrian statue of George I, which had adorned the park, stood in Leicester Square until 1872. Unfortunately, almost no depictions of Cannons in its setting exist, and we must build our image of this celebrated building from its many written contemporary descriptions. As a final blow, the dukedom which Chandos had worked so hard to attain became extinct in 1789 at his grandson’s death.
Some contemporaries were quick to ridicule the extravagance and baroque tastes of this nouveau riche duke, with his vast fortune derived from suspect financial practices. Alexander Pope targeted Cannons as ‘Timon’s villa’ in his ‘Epistle to Lord Burlington’, where he mocked its grandiose size and expense:
At Timon’s Villa let us pass a Day
Where all cry out, “What Sums are thrown away!”
…
To compass this, his Building is a Town
His Pond an Ocean, his Parterre a Down;
[Alexander Pope, ‘Epistle to Lord Burlington’, ll. 83-92 passim]
To Onslow, on the other hand, Chandos ‘had parts of understanding and knowledge, experience of men and business… which more qualified him for a wise man, than what the wisest men have generally been possessed with’ [Burnet’s History of His Own Time, vi. 41-42].
CGDL
Further reading:
C. H. Collins Baker and Muriel Baker, The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges, first duke of Chandos (1949)
Joan Johnson, Princely Chandos (1984)
Aaron Graham, Corruption, Party, and Government in Britain, 1702-1713 (Oxford, 2015)
