Sir Edward Wortley Montagu (8 February 1678 – 22 January 1761) was British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, husband of the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and father of the writer and traveller Edward Wortley Montagu.
Son of Sidney Wortley Montagu and grandson of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, a Cambridge graduate and lawyer, Wortley Montagu was educated at Westminster School, Trinity College, Cambridge (1693) and trained in the law at the Middle Temple (1693), was called to the bar in 1699 and entered the Inner Temple in 1706.
He was best known for his correspondence with, seduction of, and elopement with the aristocratic writer, Mary, daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. They married in 1712. He succeeded his father in 1727, inheriting Wortley Hall.
Montagu himself was a prominent Whig politician, and was MP for Huntingdon before eventually becoming a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 1714 to 1715 and Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte in Constantinople from 1716 to 1718. As Ambassador, he was charged with pursuing the ongoing negotiations between the Ottomans and the Habsburg Empire. Upon his return from Constantinople, he fell out with the Whig hierarchy, but remained a Member of Parliament for Huntingdon (1722–1734) and Peterborough (1734 until his death in 1761).
He left a large fortune to his daughter Mary, having in 1755 cut off his son Edward with a small allowance. Mary married the future Prime Minister, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. Sir Edward had bought and rebuilt Wortley Hall, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, which also passed to his daughter.
Famous quotes containing the words wortley and/or montagu:
“Life is too short for a long story.”
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)
“I don’t say ‘tis impossible for an impudent man not to rise in the world, but a moderate merit with a large share of impudence is more probable to be advanced than the greatest qualifications without it.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)