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By ADRIAN HANNEMANN.

Half-Length.

(Blue Satin Dress. Scarf in the Left Hand.)

The eldest daughter of John, first Baron Crewe of Skene, North Hants, by Jemima, daughter and co-heiress of Edward Waldegrave, Esq., Co. Essex. Married in 1642, to Edward Montagu, first Earl of Sandwich, by whom she had five sons and four daughters.

That useful gossip Pepys was very proud of his acquaintance with Lady Sandwich and he seems to have neglected no opportunity of getting news for his “Chronicle,” from her, as well as from her housekeeper, Sarah, who knew a great deal about Court matters and was most communicative, particularly in affairs of scandal. His first mention of Lady Sandwich is where he goes to dine with her and tell her the news (by order of Sir William Pen,) how that “an expresse had come from my Lord [then with the fleet] that by a great storm and tempest the mole at Argier had been broken down and several of our ships sunk,” and he thanks God, “that unlucky business is ended.” In another dinner at the “Wardrobe,” my Lady showed him a civet cat, parrot, and ape, which her Lord had sent her as a present from beyond seas. Her Ladyship, moreover seems to have taken Mr. Pepys into her councils, as regarded matrimonial alliances for her daughters, as we find him commissioned to inquire into the estate of Sir George Carteret, whose son Phillip was a suitor for my Lady Jemima, a marriage which afterwards took place, and every particular of which is detailed with a great sense of reflected importance by Pepys “who wore his new coloured silk suit on the occasion.” He assisted Lady Sandwich to settle accounts at that time, and he does not forget to inform us that he was invited down to Hinchingbrook, to keep her company, “so mighty kind is my Lady; but for my life I could not.”

On the 28th of May, 1665, he goes to my Lady Sandwich’s, “where to my shame I had not been a long time,” primed with a highly spiced story of “how my Lord of Rochester had run away with Mistress Mallet, the great beauty and fortune of the north,” and he found Lady Sandwich both interested and distressed by the news, as she had intended the fair heiress for her son, Hinchingbrook; and even now, she hoped the match might be broken off between the lady, and Lord Rochester, in which particular she was disappointed. But strangely enough, the daughter of the run-away couple did, unfortunately for her poor husband, become Countess of Sandwich.

Pepys goes all alone with my Lady to Dagenham, near Romford, in Essex, where Lady Jemima Carteret and her husband resided: “and a pleasant going it was, very merry, and the young couple well acquainted; but Lord! to see what fear all the people here do live in”—on account of the Plague. Two years afterwards we find our Chronicler walking up from Brampton, where he resided for some time, to Hinchingbrook, to spend the afternoon with that most excellent discreet and good lady, who was mightily pleased, as she informed him, with the lady who was to be her son Hinchingbrook’s wife. He found the two Ladies Montagu “grown proper ladies and handsome enough;” and the Countess, as was often the case, conferred with Mr. Pepys on financial matters, complaining they were much straitened in circumstances, and she had had to part with some valuable plate, and one of the best suites of hangings. We are assured by the same gentleman that “the House of Hinchingbrook is excellently furnished, with brave rooms and good pictures,” and that “it pleased infinitely beyond Audley End.”

Lady Sandwich died at the house of her daughter, Lady Anne Edgecumbe, at Cothele, County Devon, and was buried at Carstock, in Cornwall. The children of the first Earl and Countess of Sandwich were: Edward, who succeeded as second Earl; Sydney, who married the daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Wortley, of Wortley, County York, which patronymic he assumed, and was father-in-law to the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Oliver, who died unmarried, aged 38; John, in Holy Orders, died unmarried, aged 73; Charles married first, Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Forster, and secondly, Sarah, daughter of —— Rogers, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Esq., by both of whom he left issue. The daughters: Jemima, married to Sir Philip Carteret, who fell with his father-in-law in the battle of Southwold Bay, May, 1672, in consideration of whose services the King elevated his son George to the peerage, as Baron Carteret; Paulina, who died unmarried; Anne, married to Sir Richard Edgecumbe, by whom she was mother of the first Lord Edgecumbe, of Mount Edgecumbe, County Devon; she was married secondly, to Christopher Montagu, brother to the Earl of Halifax, and died in 1727; Catherine, married to Nicholas, son and heir to Sir Nicholas Bacon, of Shrubland Hall, Suffolk, and afterwards to the Rev. Mr. Gardeman. She died at the age of ninety-six.