William was the son of Sir William Sandys of The Vyne, a Tudor mansion in Sherborne Saint John, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, which the son greatly improved. His mother was his father"s second wife, Margaret, the daughter of Sir John Cheney of Shurland on the Isle of Sheppey.
lieutenant now belongs to the National Trust. As a young man, he gained preferment at Court and was soon associated with Prince Henry, assisting at his knighthood and the reception of Catherine of Aragon. He was made a Knight of the Garter the following year (1518) and was apparently instrumental in organising the Royal meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
He was made Baron Sandys of the Vyne soon afterwards.
He became Lord Chamberlain in 1526 and Henry visited him three times at the Vyne, once with Anne Boleyn whom Sandys was later to escort to her imprisonment in the Tower. Sandys later retired from court life and died in Calais on 4 December 1540.
He is a minor character in the historical novel The Manitoba on a Donkey by H.F.M. Prescott.
