MONTAGU (MOUNTAGU), Edward I (1616-84), of Boughton, Northants.

In 1621, when Edward Montagu was aged only four, his father, Edward, 1st Baron Montagu, prepared a short paper of advice for him, presumably intended to be read by him when he was older.

You are descended of worthy ancestors. I accounted them always my greatest glory. So do you. And as you possess their lands, so imitate their virtues, and you shall be the crown of them.17L. Stone, ‘Lord Montagu’s directions for his son’, Northants. Past and Present, ii. 222.

The Montagus were indeed a well-established family, although possibly not as ancient as Lord Montagu believed. The Montagus of Boughton in this period confidently claimed descent from Drogo de Monte Acuto who had come over with William I in 1066, and, for that reason, they used the undifferentiated arms of John, marquess of Montagu (d.1471). In reality, they were descended from a Northamptonshire yeoman, Richard Ladde of Hanging Houghton, who had taken the name Montagu in about 1448, although it cannot be ruled out that Ladde was related to the Montagus of Spratton through a female line.18CP. The fortunes of the family had been founded by Ladde’s grandson, Sir Edward Montagu, lord chief justice of king’s bench and later of common pleas under Henry VIII and Edward VI. It was he who in 1528 bought the estate at Boughton which became the family seat. The family had again achieved prominence two generations later when Henry† and James Montagu both rose to become major figures at court, with Henry ending up as the 1st earl of Manchester and lord privy seal, and James as bishop of Winchester and dean of the chapel royal. Lord Montagu acquired his peerage in 1621 specifically because he did not want to be completely overshadowed by these two younger brothers.19Cope, Life of a Public Man.

As the 1st Baron Montagu had no surviving sons from his first marriage, the young Edward was brought up as heir to the Montagu patrimony. That inheritance included the godliness so associated with the family in this period. Part of his father’s advice in 1621 had been that ‘for your religious and civil carriage study well Solomon’s works’, in which he took it for granted that Edward would be ‘well instructed’.20Stone, ‘Lord Montagu’s directions’, 223. Edward’s attendance at the school at Oundle was supplemented with religious instruction from the vicar of Weekley, Joseph Bentham, who dedicated his published collection of sermons to Edward and his two younger brothers, William* and Christopher.21Oundle Sch. Admiss. Reg. 1626-34, f. 6v; Cope, Life of a Public Man, 141-2; J. Bentham, The Societie of the Saints [?1630]. That Edward completed his education at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, was entirely predictable, given that his late uncle, Bishop Montagu, had been the college’s first master. Many years later Edward would step in with a substantial donation to his old college to tide it over the financial difficulties created by the civil war.22HMC Buccleuch, i. 308. As soon as he turned 16, a number of possible brides were suggested for him, including one of the daughters of the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*).23HMC Montagu, 115-16. Lord Montagu thought there was no hurry and expressed the view that it might be best for Edward if he spent some time travelling abroad before marrying.24HMC Montagu, 116. It therefore cannot be ruled out that he did visit the continent at some stage during the two years before he took a wife. The bride he married in 1633 was Anne Winwood, daughter of the late Sir Ralph Winwood†, who had been one of James I’s secretaries of state, and sister of Richard Winwood*. Lady Winwood was much impressed by Lord Montagu’s piety and she had high hopes that his son would live up to his example.25HMC Montagu, 117. However, it was said by Philip Warwick* that Lord Montagu reprimanded Edward’s new wife when she failed to turn up for the religious services held twice daily in the Montagu household, apparently because she objected to such rigid use of the Book of Common Prayer.26Warwick, Mems. Charles I, 243-4. These tensions were soon overcome and Lord Montagu was able to write in his 1641 will of his pleasure that Edward had ‘married into a religious family, and to a hopeful young woman (now with God)’.27PROB11/196/404.

It seems likely that Lord Montagu had religious reservations about some aspects of Charles I’s policies in the 1630s, but, if so, he kept quiet about them.28Cope, Life of a Public Man, 147-56. The king’s decision to send a military expedition to Scotland in 1639 is known to have caused him particular anguish. In early 1639 Edward consulted with his uncle, the earl of Manchester, as to what contribution his father should offer to the king for this campaign and then organised the purchase of the arms which it had been agreed Lord Montagu should send.29HMC Buccleuch, i. 276, ii. 380-1, 384; Cope, Life of a Public Man, 158-70.

Lord Montagu welcomed the decision to summon the Short Parliament in 1640 and, despite failing health, he did his best to play an active part in the deliberations of the House of Lords.30Procs. Short Parl. 95-105. He refrained, however, from interfering in any of the parliamentary elections held that year and his sons had instead to rely on their uncle’s patronage. Quite why it was Edward’s younger brother, William, rather than Edward himself, who was elected at Huntingdon in March 1640 is not clear, but seven months later William stepped aside to allow Edward to sit for that borough’s junior seat. Their cousin, George Montagu*, took the senior seat on that occasion, reflecting the fact that it was George’s father, the earl of Manchester, who had secured both nominations. While sitting as an MP in the Long Parliament, Edward evidently stayed at a variety of addresses in London, including with Sir Sidney Montagu* in the Temple, at Chelsea and in St Margaret’s Lane, Westminster.31HMC Montagu, 130, 159, 160; HMC Buccleuch, i. 304.

The presence in the Commons of two Montagus, both sitting for Huntingdon, in the early years of the Long Parliament makes it almost impossible to distinguish between the two cousins. Apart from the fact that both took the Protestation on 3 May 1641, all the Montagu references in the Journals during the first two years of the Long Parliament could apply equally to Edward or George and, in any case, those references are not especially informative.32CJ ii. 39b, 51b, 60b, 62b, 102b, 133a, 338b, 523b. Fortunately, several letters survive which were written by Edward to keep his father, who had withdrawn to the country in February 1641, up to date with events in Parliament. Five days after he himself had taken it, he sent Lord Montagu a copy of the Protestation. In his accompanying letter, he mentioned the riots at Westminster in favour of the prosecution of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), adding that ‘we are in great fear that there is a design to bring our army to London’. He was evidently impressed by the arguments that the sentences of the court of star chamber had been ‘cruel and tyrannical’, although at that stage he assumed its powers would be reformed rather than abolished outright.33HMC Montagu, 129-30. A month later, on 2 June 1641, he told Lord Montagu that they had had ‘a very stirring week’ debating the Root and Branch bill. The other major item of business before the House at that time was the treaty with the Scots. This Montagu viewed with some misgivings, for he thought that ‘we have yielded to some things which I wish we had not’.34HMC Montagu, 130.

The third of these letters from Montagu to his father dates from just over a year later, when the political crisis had deepened almost to the point of war. Writing on 8 June 1642, Montagu reported that ‘the proceedings of the Parliament hath been very little of late, because the differences betwixt the king and them do daily increase’ and that Parliament was pressing ahead with its plans to raise its own forces. He went on to make it clear that he approved of the decision by the Commons two days before to declare that his brother-in-law, Robert Bertie, 1st earl of Lindsey, was ‘a public enemy to the state’, explaining that Lindsey and Viscount Savile (Thomas Savile†) ‘were like to have put the country into combustion’.35HMC Buccleuch, i. 304. His promise two days later to give Parliament £100 in plate or money ‘for defence of the king and Parliament conjunctively and not divided’ may not have been as equivocal as it sounded.36PJ iii. 473.

Lord Montagu adopted a rather different stance and on 9 September 1642 the Commons ordered that he be sent for.37CJ ii. 760a. His fault, according to the later account by Edward Hyde*, was ‘declaring himself unsatisfied with their disobedient and undutiful proceedings against the king, and more expressly against their ordinance for the militia’.38Clarendon, Hist. ii. 317 There was no way in which Parliament could countenance Lord Montagu’s decision, taken after much soul searching, to implement the king’s commission of array in Northamptonshire.39HMC Montagu, 155-8; Cope, Life of a Public Man, 190-4. From this point onwards, Lord Montagu was imprisoned as a delinquent, first in the Tower of London and later under house arrest at his London residence in the Savoy.40Cope, Life of a Public Man, 194-7. As Hyde noted, this action was taken even although his son was ‘very unlike his father’.41Clarendon, Hist. ii. 317. In fact, Edward’s support for Parliament probably did work to the family’s advantage, for Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* later wrote to him hinting heavily that the Northamptonshire sequestrators would be prepared to bend their rules as a favour to him in order to minimise the confiscations at Boughton arising from Lord Montagu’s delinquency.42HMC Montagu, 161.

It might be thought significant that Edward Montagu should have been omitted by the king from the commission of array which had caused his father such trouble. Having said that, Parliament seems to have been just as reluctant to appoint him to its local commissions.43Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. This may not have been such a snub, for Parliament did include him on the most important of its commissions, that for associating the midland counties, and appointment to the lesser commissions may have been thought inappropriate for someone who was the heir to a peerage. (The series of local appointments in Huntingdonshire, including that of deputy lieutenant, more probably refer to his cousin, Edward Montagu II*.) Whether he was now any more prominent at Westminster is still difficult to say. He may have been the MP sent on 16 December 1642 to put pressure on his uncle, Sir Sidney Montagu, to lend money to Parliament, or the MP who claimed privilege in January 1643 when his servant was arrested by the undersheriff of Huntingdonshire, or the MP who insulted Walter Long* in debate on 17 February 1643, but in each case it could equally have been George Montagu.44CJ ii. 891b, 944b, 969b. Other evidence for his involvement in proceedings is slight.45CJ ii. 817b, 920a; iii. 12a, 123a. Neither of the cousins was especially active in the Commons.

Whatever it was that Montagu was doing, it was enough to allow the rector of Warkton (the parish adjacent to Boughton) to flatter him, probably in April 1643, by writing that it was ‘a matter of joy to me, and will be, I doubt not, comfort to your honour, that, as I hear, you do promote, what lies in you, the peace of the kingdom’.46HMC Montagu, 160.

It seems only to have been in the autumn of 1643, after Parliament had approved the Solemn League and Covenant, that Montagu may have waivered. It cannot be certain that he was one of the MPs who asked for more time on 30 September 1643 before taking the Covenant (George Montagu took it four days later), but he had still not done so by the following January and his absence from Westminster then began to arouse suspicions. He was given a fortnight from 22 January 1644 in which to return to London and he satisfied the Commons on 7 February by finally subscribing to the Covenant.47CJ iii. 259b, 374a, 390a. As has been mentioned, Montagu had expressed reservations about an alliance with the Scots as early as June 1641 and it may well be that he had as many doubts about the imposition of Scottish-style Presbyterianism as he had probably had about episcopacy. When he told Sir Sidney Montagu, in a letter written on the same day he had taken the Covenant, that there was no news from London ‘but of victories on the Parliament side’, he clearly regarded that as news to be welcomed.48Bodl. Carte 223, f. 143.

Lord Montagu died on 15 June 1644, while still under house arrest as a suspected delinquent. Edward inherited the peerage and entered into possession of most of the family estates.49PROB11/196/404; C108/62: will of Edward, 1st Lord Montagu (draft), [?1641]. Over the next five years he sat in the House of Lords as an Independent peer. From July 1645 he was one of the commissioners appointed to reside with the Scottish army and it was in that capacity that he helped receive Charles I from the Scots in January 1647.50CJ iv. 208a-b, 210b, 263a. He was also present at Holdenby in June of that year when George Joyce seized the king from their custody.51The Copie of a Letter from the Commrs. with the King (1647, E.391.10); LJ ix. 249b-250a; A Letter from the Right Honourable Ed. Ld. Montagu (1647, E.392.10). Disapproving of the regicide, he avoided any involvement in politics during the 1650s. His eldest son, Edward†, become an important royalist agent, playing a crucial role in the Restoration by acting from 1659 onwards as the intermediary between Edward Montagu II and the exiled court.52Clarendon, Hist. vi. 188-90, 223-4; Whitelocke, Diary, 581. After 1660 Montagu was content to watch as his sons carved out careers for themselves at the Restoration court. As Edward had been killed while serving with the navy at Bergen in 1665, it was his second son, Ralph†, who, at his death in 1684, succeeded him as 3rd Baron Montagu.