Henry Brydges, 2nd Duke of Chandos

Financial problems

Henry Brydges was educated at Westminster School and St John's College, Cambridge. Henry's elder brother died without male issue in 1727 and Henry became heir to the dukedom. When his father died on 9 August 1744, the estate was heavily burdened by debt, the family having lost money in the South Sea Bubble. A decision was made to demolish the family seat, Cannons. In 1747 a twelve-day demolition sale saw both the contents and the very structure of the house itself sold piecemeal.

Marriages and children

On 21 December 1728 he married Lady Mary Bruce (1710–1738), daughter of Charles Bruce, 4th Earl of Elgin and Lady Anne Saville. They had two children who survived childhood, Lady Caroline Brydges (1729–1789) and James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos (1731–1789) who were painted by Bartholomew Dandridge in 1738

The Duke's second marriage was unconventional. In 1744 he married Anne Wells, a former chambermaid from Newbury in Berkshire. They had met a few years earlier in circumstances described by a witness as follows:

The Duke of Chandos and a companion dined at the Pelican, Newbury, on the way to London. A stir in the Inn yard led to their being told that a man was going to sell his wife, and they are leading her up with a halter around her neck. They went to see. The Duke was smitten with her beauty and patient acquiescence in a process which would (as then supposed) free her from a harsh and ill-conditioned husband. He bought her, and subsequently married her (at Keith's Chapel) Christmas Day, 1744.

Anne died at Shaw House, Newbury, on November 18, 1759 (or 1750?), without male issue, and Brydges married for a third time in 1767 to Elizabeth Major (1731–1813), daughter of Sir John Major, 1st Baronet.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu's description

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in a letter, dated Sandleford, 21st December, 1750 to Miss Anstey wrote: ' My dear Miss Anstey, ... A little before I went to London I lost my very good neighbour, the Dutchess of Chandos, a stroke of the palsy carried her off in a few days : her bodily pains were great, but her mind felt the serenity that gilds the evening of a virtuous life. She quitted the world with that decent fare-well which people take of it, who rather consider it as a place in which they are to impart good than to enjoy it Her character has made a great impression on me, as I think her a rare instance that age could not make conceited and stiff, nor retirement discontented, nor virtue inflexible and severe... '

In a letter to Mrs. Donnellan dated Sandleford, the 30th of December, 1750, Mrs. Montagu continued: ... My rich neighbours are dull, and my poor ones are miserable ... The Dutchess of Chandos is greatly missed by the poor in this rigorous season. There is a family at Donnington Castle who are very generous and charitable, but nothing can entirely avail in a part of the world where manufacture decays; daily labour must give daily bread; occasional alms like medicine to the diseased, but can hardly procure constant health. To make the poor happy one must make them industrious...

Career and titles

From 1729 to 1735 Brydges was Master of the Horse to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and in 1732 was invested as a Knight, Order of the Bath. On the death of his father as well as succeeding to the Dukedom, he also became 2nd Marquess of Carnarvon, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon, 5th Baronet Brydges of Wilton, 10th Baron Chandos and 2nd Viscount Wilton.