The present structure is irregular and picturesque, having been altered and added to at intervals during the last two hundred years by succeeding owners. The entrance is through the archway of a fine gate-house, where it is said the third Earl of Sandwich, a man of feeble intellect, was confined for some time by his unscrupulous wife, the daughter of the witty but unprincipled Earl of Rochester. It is surrounded by pretty grounds rich in evergreens, situated in a small park, and presents a very imposing aspect to the railway traveller as he passes the town of Huntingdon. The ancestors of few families however noble appear to me to have more interest for outsiders than the house of Montagu. Edward, the first Earl of Sandwich, who was so instrumental in the restoration of Charles II., is familiar to all readers of Pepys’s Diary, being the god of that amusing gossip’s idolatry. Samuel prided himself on his relationship and intimacy with Lord and Lady Hinchingbrooke, of whom he was certainly the confidant and adviser. Indeed, he lived hard by in a little cottage at Brampton, within a stone’s throw of his patron’s house, where he would often go and confer with him or “with my Lady Countess” in her husband’s absence. That noble housewife was often “put to it” to make two ends meet, in consequence of her lord’s open-handedness and the too frequent card-playing with His Majesty and the Castle men. Brave, generous, noble-hearted and affectionate, we cannot but share in his kinsman Pepys’s partiality for a man whose faults and shortcomings may in some measure be condoned by the times he lived in and the society he frequented. As an Admiral his sailors adored him; as a courtier he was reckoned good—perhaps too good—company, and at home he was tenderly loved by his wife and children and dependants. We know that his lordship was comely in feature and of a commanding presence, and there is little doubt that he himself agreed in the universal opinion, as we have innumerable portraits of him at all ages. He died a hero’s death at the engagement at Southwolds Bay in 1672, a Dutch fire-ship having set his own vessel in a blaze. The gallant Admiral, after sending off his surviving officers and crew in the boats, remained on his own quarter-deck until his good ship, _The Royal James_, burned to the water’s edge. There is a splendid painting of this desperate fight by Vanderweldt in what is fondly called the “ship room” at Hinchingbrooke, and on the opposite wall hangs a frame containing two fine miniatures by Cooper of the first Earl and Countess, together with a small pocket compass and a piece of the blue ribbon of the garter, discoloured by sea-water, which were found on the Admiral’s body when it floated into Harwich Harbour.