Born, 1674. Died, 1746.—Daughter of Ralph, Duke of Montagu, by his first wife. Married first, Alexander Popham, Esq., and secondly, her cousin, Lieutenant-General Daniel Harvey, Governor of Guernsey.
Jemima, First Countess of Sandwich:
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.