The youngest son of Edwin Sandys, archbishop of York, he studied at Oxford. In 1621–25 he was treasurer and director of industry and agriculture in the American colony of Virginia. On his return, he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber by King Charles I. He published a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1621–26), and his reputation largely rests on a revised edition published in 1632 together with philosophical commentaries translated from various ancient authors, and including a translation of Book I of Virgil's Aeneid. John Dryden called him “the ingenious and learned Sandys, the best versifier of the former age,” and commended his ability to give his verse the same turn as the original. Many later poet-critics also attested to the value of his translations. He prepared the way for the heroic couplet of Dryden and Alexander Pope.