Dorothy Montagu, Countess of Sandwich

Dorothy Montagu, Countess of Sandwich (22 March 1716/17 - Barnes 17 July 1797), formerly The Hon. Dorothy Fane, was a British peeress.

Family and marriage

Dorothy was born on 22 March 1717, the third surviving daughter of Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane (1676-1744) by his wife Mary (1686-1762) daughter of the envoy Hon. Alexander Stanhope, FRS. Mary was the sister of soldier-statesman James, 1st Earl Stanhope (1673-1721), and was one of the six original Maids of Honour to Queen Anne, appointed 4 June 1702.

Dorothy was baptised on 27 April 1717 at St. Giles in the Fields.

On 14 March 1741, shortly before her 24th birthday, she married at St James's, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.

In a letter to Horace Walpole dated 23 December 1742, the British Resident in Florence Horace Mann, who had been her brother's charge d'affairs when he held the post, describes the birth of her first son, who died soon after: 'your friend Lady Sandwich has got a son; if one may believe the belly she wore it is a brave one.' In a letter dated 10 January 1747 Mann tells Walpole: 'I don't believe I am a favourite with my Lady, though I really deserve to be one on many accounts, and for being very essentially instrumental in getting her her Lord.'

They separated in 1754 or 1757 and she was granted an apartment in Windsor Castle with an elder sister, Elizabeth. She also lived at the Fane's Thames-side New House at Basildon in Berkshire.

She was declared 'De Lunatico Inquirendo' in May 1767.

Her brother, Charles, 2nd Viscount Fane, died without issue and his estates in Berkshire, Armagh, and Limerick were inherited by her and her surviving sister Mary, Madame de Salis, Countess de Salis, wife to Jerome, 2nd Count de Salis.

Dorothy had one surviving son John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich (1744- 1814).

References

• R. de Salis, Quadrennial di Fano Saliceorum, volume one, London, 2003

printed (History of Parliament, GEC, VCH), manuscript & family knowledge.