Mary Sandys was born on 19th February 1764 and baptised at Easthampstead, Berkshire. She and her brothers, William (b. 1761) and Edwin (b. 1765), were children of an equerry to an uncle of King George III. They grew up as part of the extended royal circle including the future King George IV.
Mary’s father, Col. Martin Sandys, died when she was only a four-year-old and her mother, Mary, also died within a year. She was passed into the care of her great-aunt, Mary Bertie, who husband, Lord Robert Bertie, was George III’s long-standing Lord of the Bedchamber. Mary’s brother, William, lived only until his mid-teens and her other brother, Edwin, died aged 20. These deaths paved the way for Mary to inherit the Sandys properties in Worcestershire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire in due course. The properties in Worcestershire were Ombersley Court and the Wickhamford Estate, including the Manor. By 1785 she had also inherited all of her mother’s estate.
In 1786, Mary Sandys married Arthur Hill, who in 1793 had become the 2nd Marquis of Downshire, an Irish title. In 1802, the Barony of Sandys was revived and Mary became Baroness Sandys as well as Marchioness Downshire. Mary had five sons and two daughters and her husband died in 1802.
A proposal of marriage
In 1807, she entertained the King’s sons, Prince George and his brother, the Duke of Sussex, at Ombersley Court. Sometime afterwards, Mary Sandys received a proposal of marriage from another of the royal princes, the Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. He had recently ended his relationship with Dorothea Bland, better known by her stage name of ‘Mrs. Jordan’, who bore him ten illegitimate children. Their affair ended in 1811 and he had debts of £56,000, so a marriage to a rich wife was an urgent necessity! Mary refused the offer of marriage, but there were no hard feelings on the Duke’s part.
If Mary had accepted, she would have become Duchess of Clarence and St Andrews. When King George III died in 1820, his eldest son succeeded him as George IV, having been Regent for a number of years. When he died in 1830, he was succeeded by his younger brother William, the Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, as King William IV. If Mary Sandys had accepted his proposal of marriage she would have become Queen Mary for six years, until her death in 1836, and Wickhamford Estate and Manor would have been Royal possessions.
Mary Sandys would have been in her late forties when she received the marriage proposal, so it is unlikely that any children would have resulted from the union. Therefore, Victoria’s succession as Queen would still have taken place even if Mary had married William.
William married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818 and she took his finances in hand. The couple had two short-lived daughters, so Victoria succeeded him to the throne when he died in 1837 having reigned for seven years.
Footnote – Mary’s son and eventual heir, Arthur Sandys (1792-1860), was in the Army in the Peninsular War and then an A.D.C. to the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke was later a guest at Ombersley Court and, when Mary went on a visit to Europe, her son gave her a guided tour of the battlefield at Waterloo.
Tom Locke, January 2025
Acknowledgement
The information on the Mary Sandys marriage proposal was found in Martin Davis’ book The House of Sandys, a copy of which was kindly donated by the author to the Badsey Society