Biographical Notices of the Portraits at Hinchingbrook
9781465648648
311 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Lord Sandwich is here much altered in appearance from his former portraits, but Pepys tells us he wore his beard in the Spanish fashion on his return from his Embassy; and a French correspondent about this time says: “Le Comte de Sandwich étoit bien fort, l’air doux, assez d’embonpoint, qui ne commençoit de l’incommoder qu’après son retour de l’Espagne.” Born, 1623. Died, 1672.—The second son of Sir Sidney Montagu, by Paulina, daughter of John Pepys, of Cottenham, near Cambridge. Sidney was the seventh son of Sir Edward Montagu, and brother to the first Lord Montagu of Boughton, was Groom of the Bedchamber to James I., and Master of Requests in the succeeding reign; sat for Huntingdon, and in 1640 was expelled the House for declining to subscribe to an oath framed by the Commons, “that they would live and die with their General, the Earl of Essex.” Montagu said he would not swear to live with Essex, as being an old man he would probably die before him, neither would he swear to die with him, as the Earl was in arms against the King, which he (Sidney) did not know how to separate from treason. For this boldness he was expelled the House by a majority of three, and sent prisoner to the Tower, where he remained a fortnight. Thus did he prove his loyalty, though he had nobly withstood on the other hand those measures which he considered detrimental to the liberties of the subject. He had two sons, and a daughter, married to Sir Gilbert Puckering of Tichmarch, in the County of Hunts. His eldest son Henry was drowned through the carelessness of a nurse, when only three years of age: his second son Edward became his heir; who married before he was twenty, Jemima, daughter of John, Lord Crewe of Stene, a family that sided with the Parliament. Clarendon tells us, that Sir Sidney Montagu never swerved from his allegiance; but his son being emancipated from his father’s control when very young, and married into a family which “trod awry,” was won over by the “caresses” of Cromwell to take command in his army, when new modelled by Fairfax, Montagu being then little more than twenty years of age. Indeed, when only eighteen he had already raised a regiment, and distinguished himself at its head in several actions, to wit; Lincoln, Marston Moor, and York; and the following year at Naseby, Bridgewater, and Bristol; his conduct at the storming of which last named town was reported to Parliament with the highest encomiums, not only for his gallantry, but for the successful manner in which he carried on the negociations with Prince Rupert. But notwithstanding Montagu’s military zeal, he opposed the undue influence of the army in the House of Commons, especially in their bringing about the seclusion of eleven members, and he formed and kept his resolution not to resume his seat (for Huntingdon) until the members were restored. In spite of this independent conduct, he was appointed (on the elevation of Cromwell to the Protectorate) one of the Supreme Council of Fifteen—and he only then in the twenty-fifth year of his age; and shortly afterwards he became Desborough’s colleague in the office of High Admiral.
