Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, KG PC FRS JP (27 July 162528 May 1672) was an English military officer, politician and diplomat, who fought for the Parliamentarian army during the First English Civil War and was an MP at various times between 1645 and 1660. A loyal supporter of Oliver Cromwell, he was a member of the English Council of State from 1653 to 1659 and General at sea from 1656 to 1660. Following Cromwell's death in 1658, he switched allegiance and played an important role in the Restoration of Charles II in May 1660. Created Earl of Sandwich in July 1660, he served as Ambassador to Portugal from 1661 to 1662, then Spain from 1666 to 1668, when he negotiated the 1667 Treaty of Madrid. He commanded a naval squadron in the first part of the 1665 to 1667 Second Anglo-Dutch War, being relieved of his command in 1666 after a dispute over prize money. He returned to sea during the 1672 to 1674 Third Anglo-Dutch War and was killed at the Battle of Solebay in June 1672. Montagu is one of the best-known characters of the 1660s since he is a central figure in the diaries of Samuel Pepys, a distant cousin and naval official. Personal details Montagu was born on 25 July 1625, only surviving son of Sir Sidney Montagu ( 1572-1644) and his first wife Paulina Pepys (died 1638), great-aunt of Samuel Pepys. He was admitted as a student member of the Middle Temple in 1635. In 1642, his father remarried Anne Isham (died 1676), whom he described as "a religious, virtuous woman, as loving and contenting to me as my heart can desire". On 7 November 1642, Montagu married Jemima Crew, daughter of John Crew, 1st Baron Crew and Jemima Waldegrave, whom Pepys in his Diary refers to with great affection as "My Lady". They had ten children in total; Jemima (1646–1671), Edward (1648–1688), Paulina (1649–1669), Sidney (1650–1727), Oliver (c. 1655–1689), John (c. 1655–1729), Charles (1658–1721), Anne (1660–1729) and Catherine (1661–1757). Paulina's death in February 1669, aged only twenty, was a great source of grief to her father: Pepys, who called her "a peevish lady", called to pay his condolences but found him "shut away for sorrow". First English Civil War and the Interregnum Although his father was a Royalist, when the First English Civil War began in August 1642 Montagu followed his Parliamentarian