The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

About this book

Here is a book that is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of England's navy and of the eighteenth century in general. Its thorough scholarship does not in the least impede, but rather facilitates, its readability. It is masterly without being didactic.No historical figure of eighteenth-century England has been more grossly misrepresented than the inventor of our favorite fast food. The stereotype is well known: an unscrupulous man of pleasure whose mistress, a courtesan, was murdered on the steps of the Admiralty, inside which her lover was carelessly mismanaging the War of American Independence.It is refreshing to read a biography that explodes this long-accepted view. Martha Ray was not a courtesan but rather the Joan Sutherland of her day, whose rendering of "I know that my Redeemer liveth" was admired by the most discriminating critics. It was, appropriately, outside Covent Garden after attending a performance (not outside the Admiralty) that she was murdered by an unhinged admirer; she had lived for many years with and had borne children to John, fourth Earl of Sandwich. As to his mismanagement of naval affairs, Nicholas Rodger, the outstanding historian of the eighteenth-century navy, demonstrates in this brilliant and extremely readable book that as First Lord of the Admiralty he was in a class by himself.This was by no means his only distinction. As a diplomat he displayed extraordinary powers and won from foreign statesman the admiration and trust that his own countrymen then and subsequently have largely denied him. As a parliamentary manager of the constituencies that he was in a position to influence, he shared an energy, skill and wonderful tact in handling all sorts and conditions of men - qualities that were acknowledged and praised by his most unrelenting denigrators. As a young man he had been an adventurous traveler with a title to a place in the history of Greek epigraphy. His lifelong passion for music, especially in championing and reviving the then-unfashionable oratorios of Handel, has given him, in the present biographer's opinion, his nearest connection to the life of our own time.For it is the special pleasure of this absorbing book that though it is written by one of England's foremost naval historians, it is not in the least restricted to the dockyards and quarterdecks of the Georgian navy. The political analysis is subtle, original, and well-argued. The intellectual and artistic background is part of a strikingly new view of the tall, lounging figure that surveys us from Gainsborough's great portrait now in the Maritime Museum. Above all, the human quality of a man whose domestic life was blighted by the madness of a dearly loved wife is brought before us.