MONTAGU, John (1690-1749)

Famed for his puckish demeanour and fondness for practical jokes, John Montagu (styled Lord Monthermer from 1702 until his succession as duke of Montagu) became heir to his father’s dukedom following the early death of his two older brothers, the latter of whom (Winwood Montagu, styled Lord Monthermer 1689-1702) had drunk himself to death following an embassy to Hanover. B. Falk, Way of the Montagues, 14-15, 264; Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 5 May 1702. John, Lord Monthermer’s passions appear to have been more sober, embracing horticulture and antiquarianism as well as enthusiasm for military affairs, though it seems he was not averse to joining his confreres in sampling the delights of the latest fleshpots on occasion. W. Suss. RO, Goodwood mss 21/10/14. Monthermer represented the senior branch of one of the country’s most successful families, which at the time of the accession of George I could boast two dukedoms and two earldoms among its various members. Yet he seems to have exercised little parliamentary interest in the closing years of Queen Anne’s reign. An interest at Clitheroe, exercised by his father in right of his stepmother, the dowager duchess of Albemarle, appears to have been all but broken by his father’s death. HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 326-7. Even so, as the eventual holder of extensive estates in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, Monthermer was undoubtedly a figure of considerable political influence, which was further reinforced by his marriage to Lady Mary Churchill in March 1705. The alliance was vigorously promoted by his father and was supported by Lady Mary’s mother in preference to at least three other noble suitors. Falk, 148. Nevertheless, Lady Mary’s father, Marlborough, expressed reservations about Monthermer’s suitability. Marlborough was concerned particularly by his prospective son-in-law’s reputed immaturity and thought Lady Mary ‘too much a woman for him.’ Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 178. Lady Marlborough also came to despair of Monthermer’s irrepressible exuberance, later commenting dismissively that:

All his talents lie in things only natural in boys of 15 years old, and he is about two and fifty; to get people into his garden and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country houses, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and 20 such pretty fancies like these. Opinions of Sarah Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, 58.

As a result of such reservations it was agreed as a condition of the match that the young couple should not cohabit until Monthermer had attained the age of 16. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 336; Add. 61450, f. 193. Immediately after the marriage Monthermer departed for the continent with Dr. Peter Silvestre. By the early summer of 1706 he was with Marlborough on campaign in the Low Countries. In spite of his lifelong interest in the army Monthermer seems not to have relished the grim reality of battle, and by May he was already seeking permission to return to England. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 34; Add. 61134, f. 156; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 529; Add. 61134, f. 158.

Having succeeded both to the dukedom of Montagu and the office of master of the great wardrobe on his father’s death, the new duke was confronted by Duke Ralph’s debts, which were reputedly in excess of £40,000 as well as the £20,000 mortgage on the sumptuous town house built by the 1st duke in Bloomsbury. Verney ms mic. M636/54, M. Adams to Fermanagh, 26 Mar. 1709. He had to deal with the problem of his stepmother, the lunatic dowager duchess of Albemarle, whose wealth meant that her remaining relations fought for her custody. HMC Portland, ii. 206; Add. 61619, f. 45; UNL, Pw2 638. He also inherited his father’s influence. One of Montagu’s first actions after his succession was to petition Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on behalf of Thomas Colthurst for the office of chief justice of New York, something for which his father had already supplicated Sunderland. Montagu now made it his ‘earnest request that my father’s solicitation in his behalf may now be remembered.’ Add. 61546, f. 127.

Montagu wanted to rejoin his father-in-law on campaign in the summer of 1709. Attempts by his kinsman, Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, to dissuade him proved to be unnecessary as he received a firm refusal from Marlborough, who recommended that he postpone his expedition to the following year. Add. 61134, ff. 198-9; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. iii. 1320. Montagu’s interest in joining his father-in-law abroad may have been connected to deteriorating relations with his wife. Although the duchess’s later none too discreet affair with William Villiers, 2nd earl of Jersey, failed to prevent Montagu and Jersey from remaining ‘the dearest friends that ever was’, the marriage appears to have run into difficulties long before. Add. 61457, ff. 147-8; Wentworth Pprs. 230. Montagu’s wife complained to her mother prior to her husband’s inheritance of the dukedom that:

it is certainly possible that besides being so ill in every thing, my Lord Monthermer, from being the duke of Montagu’s son (that was always so famous for using his wife and everybody ill) may very soon grow to think ill of me, and not care for me, but that I can’t help now. Add. 61450, f. 35.

The duchess of Marlborough also appears to have revised her opinion of someone she had initially considered ‘the best match in England’ at about this time, though her antipathy was directed primarily at her daughter with whom she was rarely on good terms. Add. 61451, ff. 5-7, 123; 61442, ff. 34-35; 61458, f. 184.

Still a minor at the time of the trial of Henry Sacheverell in March 1710, a few days later Montagu at last quit England for the campaign in Flanders. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 564; Add. 61652, f. 210. He had returned by the spring of the following year, and on 5 Apr. 1711 he took his seat in the House. Having sat for just that day, he absented himself from the remainder of the session and on 18 Apr. registered his proxy with Halifax. From May to August he was again abroad on campaign with his father-in-law and, before Montagu’s departure for England that summer, Marlborough recommended him to his fellow former duumvir, Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, writing that, ‘I would not let the duke of Montagu go without recommending him to your friends. He is modest and has I think very good sense.’ Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. iii. 1677.

Montagu’s return to England in August 1711 may have been prompted by the death of his young heir, John Montagu, styled marquess of Monthermer, earlier that month. This was almost certainly the ‘sad calamity’ referred to by Halifax in a letter to Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford. Add. 70028, f. 152. Montagu was mentioned as one of those intending to be at the forefront of the 17 Nov. anti-popery procession in London. This was devised as a protest against the peace terms but was banned on the orders of the secretary of state, William Legge, earl of Dartmouth. Wentworth Pprs. 212. Montagu resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the second session of the 1710 Parliament on 7 Dec., after which he was present for just over half of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was included on a list of peers compiled by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, possibly concerning Nottingham’s alliance with the Whigs over the occasional conformity bill. In or about early December he was listed as an opponent of the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. On 8 Dec. Montagu was noted as dining with other prominent Whig grandees, and on 10 Dec. Montagu was listed among those office-holders who had voted against the ministry on the question of no peace without Spain. Forecast on 19 Dec. as opposed to permitting James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House by right of his British dukedom of Brandon, the following day Montagu voted accordingly in favour of barring Scots peers at the time of Union from taking their seats by virtue of post-Union British peerages.

Montagu dined with Prince Eugene of Savoy during his visit to London in January 1712. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 715. He received Sunderland’s proxy on 1 Apr., which was vacated by Sunderland’s return to the House the following month on 5 May, and on 25 Apr. he also received that of Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset (also vacated on 5 May). On 28 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to address the queen for an offensive war against France, and on 7 June he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace.

Present in the House on four of the prorogation days between January and March 1713, Montagu resumed his seat in the third session on 9 Apr. 1713. Although he was estimated by Harley (now promoted earl of Oxford) as being opposed to the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commerce treaty on 13 June, he attended on just five days of the 77-day session and was absent from the House after 5 May. That summer Montagu again travelled to Holland, but he was kept informed of events at home by Swift, who provided him with details of the efforts of his kinsman, Edward Richard Montagu^‡, styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke (‘a strenuous Tory’) to be elected for Huntingdonshire. HMC Buccleuch, i. 359-60. Montagu arrived back in England from Antwerp in October. Add. 70070, newsletter, 20 Oct. 1713. The following month he was noted as being a member of both the Kit Cat and the Hanover clubs. Pols in Age of Anne, 299.

Montagu took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days. On 30 Mar. he received the proxy of his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Scroop Egerton, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, which was vacated by the close of the session. Nottingham forecast that he would oppose the schism bill, and on 15 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. He attended the House for just five days of the 17-day session that met in the aftermath of the queen’s death. Following the dissolution Montagu was expected to support a compromise arrangement in the forthcoming contest in Buckinghamshire, by which the seats were shared between the two parties. Verney ms mic. M636/55, Newhaven to Fermanagh, 9 Oct. 1714; HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 27.

A long-standing supporter of the Hanoverian succession, Montagu was amply rewarded by the new regime. In 1715 he was appointed to the lieutenancies of both Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, and over the ensuing years he received a string of ceremonial appointments and military commissions, culminating in his promotion as a general in the army in 1746 during the Jacobite rebellion. Corresp. Dukes of Richmond and Newcastle, 1724-50 ed. T.J. McCann (Sussex Rec. Soc. lxxiii), 80n. Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work. Montagu continued to attend the House for the remainder of his life, sitting for the final time on 26 May 1749. He died a few weeks later of a ‘violent fever’ on 6 July and was buried at St Edmund’s, Warkton in Northamptonshire, where a monument was later erected, designed by Roubiliac. Burlington Mag. cxxii. (922), 40. An epitaph published in the Gentleman’s Magazine the following month praised Montagu as ‘the friend of humankind’ and declared how,

The great lament his ripen’d glories fled;
The poor lament him, whom his bounty fed…
Ages to come shall emulate his fame,
And every virtue kindle at his name. Gent. Mag. xix. 375.

In the absence of a male heir, at his death the dukedom became extinct. His estates were divided between his two daughters, Isabella, duchess of Manchester, and Mary, countess of Cardigan. The dukedom of Montagu was later recreated for the latter’s husband, George Brudenell* [610], 4th earl of Cardigan.