Sarah was the daughter of Sir John Evelyn, and a cousin of John Evelyn, the famous diarist. Married three times, her widowhoods were always short ones. Her first husband was Sir John Wray, 3rd Baronet of Glenworth. In 1665, after being a widow for five months, she married Thomas, 2nd Viscount Fanshawe, becoming his second wife. Sarah fought for the right of her son, Evelyn, 3rd Viscount Fanshawe, to hold the post of King’s Remembrancer on his coming of age. Tragically, he died shortly before he was to take the office. The death of Thomas in 1674 led to her to marry nine months later, for the third and final time, Viscount Castleton. Sarah died in 1717 and was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. This is a nineteenth-century copy of the original portrait which would have been painted during the period of Sarah's marriage to Thomas Fanshawe (1665–1674).