Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, in conversation with King Charles II, praises the virtue of his Osborne ancestors. Engraving by C. Grignion after S. Wale, 1771.

Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Lord Danby (from 1674; subsequently created Marquis of Carmarthen in 1689, and Duke of Leeds in 1694), is narrating to the elderly Charles II (left) the story of his grandfather, the merchant Edward Osborne (ca.1530-1592). As an apprentice to Sir William Hewit, master of the Clothworkers' Company and Lord Mayor of London, Edward Osborne plunged into the river Thames to save the life of Hewit's daughter Anne, after a careless maid had let her fall in. As a reward Edward was offered Anne as his bride, and a considerable part of Hewit's estate. Thomas Osborne told the king that "he hoped posterity would do so much justice to their family, as always to give it a place in the histories of peerage" (Oxford magazine, loc. cit.). An associate of Osborne points to a portrait on the wall behind, presumably meant to be of Anne Hewit, though she had died in 1585 and the portrait is of the style of ca. 1730. "The romantic tale of the rescue and their courtship was first published in 1720 by John Strype: "Sir William was pleased to say, Osborn saved her, and Osborn should enjoy her" ... and became the subject of a popular Victorian novel, 'The colloquies of Edward Osborne' by Anne Manning" (Oxford dictionary of national biography)