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Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich (27 July 1625 – 28 May 1672), was an English landowner and infantry officer who later became a naval officer and a politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1645 and 1660. He served Oliver Cromwell loyally in the 1650s, but went on to play a considerable part in the Restoration of King Charles II and was rewarded with several court offices. Sandwich served as the English ambassador to Portugal from 1661 to 1662 and the ambassador to Spain from 1666 to 1668. He later became an admiral, serving in the two Anglo-Dutch Wars during the reign of Charles II; he was killed at the Battle of Solebay. A detailed primary source for Sandwich's career in the 1660s is the diary of Samuel Pepys, who was his cousin and protégé.
This picture is an oil-on-canvas portrait of Sandwich by Sir Peter Lely, an English painter of Dutch origin, dated around 1660 to 1665. He is depicted in the robes of the Order of the Garter, into which he was inducted as a knight by Charles II. The painting is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut.Painting credit: Peter Lely