MONTAGU (MOUNTAGU), Sir Sidney (c.1572-1644), of Hinchingbrooke, Hunts. and Hemington, Northants.

Sir Sidney’s period as an MP in the Long Parliament was a mere coda to a long and eventful life. The youngest of the six Montagu brothers, he had seen two of them, Edward† and Henry†, become peers (Lord Montagu of Boughton and earl of Manchester) and a third, James, become a bishop. Hopes of using these connections to gain court office as an alternative to his practice as a lawyer had met with only mixed success. His appointment as one of the four masters of the court of requests, which, although lucrative, was scarcely high-profile. Even securing that had required two years’ service as an extraordinary master, albeit with a knighthood and promotion to the bench of the Middle Temple. The death of his brother James in 1618 and the political side-lining of Henry in the 1620s had ruled out further advancement. In 1633 Harbottle Grimston* heard rumours that he was contemplating retirement and suggested to him that Bulstrode Whitelocke* would be prepared to buy the requests position from him. Montagu dismissed the idea on the grounds that ‘he would not sell the king’s favour’.31Whitelocke, Diary, 72.

It had taken the decision by the earl of Manchester in 1627 to buy the estate of Sir Oliver Cromwell† to establish his youngest brother as a substantial figure within Huntingdonshire. Sir Sidney put up part of the £3,000 purchase money and, as Manchester already owned several large country houses while he had none, Sir Sidney took over the Cromwell seat at Hinchingbrooke, just outside Huntingdon.32HMC Buccleuch, i. 266, iii. 319; RCHME Hunts. 152; VCH Hunts. ii. 136. In doing so, he promptly became the most important gentleman in the immediate vicinity of the borough. His Ship Money assessment (£6 13s 4d) would be the highest in the town.33Bodl. Carte 74, f. 206. Hinchingbrooke had regularly been used as a stop on royal progresses and Charles I continued this tradition by spending two nights there in July 1634 and one in March 1640.34Bodl. Carte 74, f. 177; NMM, SAN/A/3, f. 120. Montagu would have been only too aware that such visits had helped ruin Sir Oliver Cromwell.

Montagu’s service as an MP had been modest. He had not sat since 1614, having been defeated in the contest for the Huntingdonshire seats in 1620 and not tried again that decade. The purchase of Hinchingbrooke did not give him an automatic interest in Huntingdon: Manchester dominated its corporation and preferred to use his patronage in 1628 and 1640 on behalf of other members of the family. Sir Sidney seems to have made no attempt to stand in the Short Parliament elections, but then circumstances changed. When Charles I turned to his officials for money to finance a new campaign against the Scots following the failure of that Parliament, Montagu first refused to advance a ‘loan’ of £4,000 and then the reduced sum of £2,000. As a result, he was dismissed from his place in the court of requests.35HMC Rutland, i. 521; HEHL, EL 7825; EL 7839; M.C. Fissel, The Bishops’ Wars (Cambridge, 1994), 127, n. 89. Valentine Wauton* was elected as one of the MPs for Huntingdonshire on 10 October 1640 largely on the strength of his earlier refusal to pay Ship Money and it seems likely that Montagu was elected with him in recognition of the sacrifice he had made.36HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 334. He thus returned to the Commons after an absence of over a quarter of a century.

Montagu’s age and legal expertise entitled him to respect from his colleagues. From the outset he was included on the privileges committee and committees to confer with the Lords about fast days and breaches of privilege.37CJ ii. 21a, 23b, 25b. In the early months of the session he also made a number of speeches, all of which seem to have been intended to give support to the court’s positions. This may not have been inconsistent with his previous opposition to the Scottish campaign, for it is possible that he felt that Parliament ought to give every assistance to the king at this time to allow him to fulfil the terms of the treaty concluded with the Scots at Ripon. This would require the voting of money. On 17 December 1640 Montagu seconded the motion by Sir Simonds D’Ewes* that thanks should be sent to the king for indicating that he would be pleased if MPs proceeded with consideration of the revenues.38Procs. LP i. 635. A week later when they debated the resulting subsidy bill, Montagu objected to the wording of the preamble which described it as having been granted by the Commons; no doubt recalling the complaints made in 1628, when the Lords had argued that this new formulation ignored them, he maintained that this was a recent innovation dating only from the earlier Parliaments of the reign.39Procs. LP ii. 46; Northcote Note Bk. 112. He was more successful the following month when he and D’Ewes pointed out a minor error in the title of Lord Finch (John Finch†) in the articles of impeachment which had been prepared against the former lord keeper. This has the appearance of a spoiling tactic to delay the articles’ passage and the Commons’ decision to send these two pedants to check the patent rolls in the Rolls Chapel was probably intended as a way of diverting their attention before they could create any more confusion. Their investigations proved them to have been correct and the articles were accordingly amended.40Procs. LP ii. 161, 171-2, 184-5.

Judged by the number of his committee appointments, Montagu was an active Member of the House throughout 1641. A wide range of bills, including those on the length of Michaelmas term, the powers of the clerk of the market, the conversion of tillage into pasture and a number of pieces of private legislation, may well have detained his attention.41CJ ii. 73b, 75a, 82a, 92b, 160a, 164a, 240b. Montagu was probably one of the main backers of the bill against clerical pluralism, for his name headed the list of the committee appointed to consider it on 10 March 1641. (A year later he would also be among those named to consider the Lords’ amendments to it.)42CJ ii. 100b; 431b. Indeed, he seems to have been taking a close interest in the various religious reforms before the Commons at this time. Two days previously he had been named to the committee on the bill to prevent clergymen holding temporal offices and he would speak in the debate on that subject on 11 March.43CJ ii. 99a; Procs. LP ii. 710-11. His nomination to the committees on University College, Oxford, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge (2 July 1641) can also be noted. His exact attitude to these various measures remains unclear and the notes by John Moore* on Montagu’s speech during the debate on episcopacy on 11 June, which simply record that Montagu expressed the hope that ‘God can so illuminate our eyes that we may do all for the glory of God, and the peace of this commonwealth’, are not much more informative.44Procs. LP v. 99. Even so, it seems plausible that Montagu was sympathetic towards these attempts at further reformation. He had certainly acted on the Commons’ wish for information on the state of the parish clergy by seeking data on the subject from the Huntingdonshire constables.45C. Holmes, ‘Surveys of the clergy of Huntingdonshire early in 1641’, Cromwelliana, ser. iii, no. 7, 75-84. That he waited until 7 July before taking the Protestation, two months after it had first been offered to the House, may have had more to do with the fact that his nephew, the Abbé Montagu, had been implicated in the first army plot than with any reservations on his part about promising to defend the Protestant religion.46CJ ii. 201a; Harl. 479, f. 42.

A number of his committee appointments in July 1641 suggest that, like most of his colleagues, his main concern by then was to see a speedy disbandment of both the king’s and the Covenanters’ armies, if possible before the king left for Scotland in August.47CJ ii. 211a, 223a, 228a. Moreover, as an ex-master and Manchester’s brother, he had an obvious interest in the bill to confirm a ruling which Manchester, as lord privy seal, had handed down in the court of requests in the case of Hobart v. Humbeston.48CJ ii. 250b; Harl. 164, f. 18v. Following his appointment as a commissioner to disarm the recusants in Huntingdonshire, Montagu may well have spent the autumn recess of 1641 doing just that.49LJ iv. 385b. Over the winter of 1641-2 he was included on a number of committees, was one of the MPs sent on 31 December to ask the king for protection for Parliament by the London trained bands and was sent on 2 February to inform Lord Keeper Littleton (Edward Littleton†) of an order to dismiss one of the Huntingdonshire justices of the peace.50CJ ii. 305b, 308b, 338b, 365a, 431b, 441b; PJ i. 257. As late as 25 March 1642 he was included on the committee assigned the bill for the better maintenance of the ministry and then delivered a petition which had been submitted by the Huntingdonshire gentry.51CJ ii. 496b-497a; PJ ii. 85, 88.

Thereafter the Journals and diaries fall silent about his involvement in the Commons’ business. He had certainly returned to Huntingdonshire by late April 1642, for he can be shown to have attended a meeting of the local assessment commissioners.52Add. 34401, f. 58. Whether he then went back to Westminster, to watch helplessly as Parliament moved towards armed conflict with the king, or remained in the country to nurse his despair, it would soon become clear that he felt his first loyalty was to his king. In the words of his old friend, D’Ewes, Montagu stopped attending Parliament

partly through infirmity of age, being about threescore and twelve years old, and partly through distaste of the proceedings of the House, being chiefly employed about maintaining and managing a civil war.53Harl. 164, f. 177v.

That autumn Montagu failed to respond when asked to back the parliamentarian war effort in Huntingdonshire. It was this refusal which was used as the pretext when the Commons agreed on 27 October to summon him before them.54CJ ii. 824b; Add. 18777, f. 44v. Montagu obeyed the summons and on 3 December he duly appeared.

To D’Ewes, what followed was ‘a sad accident’.55Harl. 164, f. 177v. On being asked by Speaker William Lenthall whether he would serve as one of their commissioners, Montagu replied that, ‘he would be a commissioner rather than to have his house plundered’.56Harl. 164, f. 177v. Asked then whether he was prepared to declare his support for the resolution of 11 August offering assistance to Parliament’s commander, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, he initially claimed to be unaware of it and, after some verbal sparring with Lenthall, eventually stated explicitly that he would not approve the resolution. What caused particular offence was that, in doing so, he produced a copy of the king’s most recent declaration and pointed out that it forbade any of them giving any support to Essex.57CJ ii. 874a-b; Harl. 164, f. 177v. It was ruled to be ‘a great crime that any Member should be guided by declarations from abroad, and not by his own judgment, in giving his vote’.58CJ ii. 874b. In the debate which followed, arguments by his supporters about ‘the suddenness of the expression, the impotency of his age, and the innocency of his intention’ almost carried the day, for the resolution to punish him was passed by only 48 votes to 45. The punishment was a harsh one, however: he was sent to the Tower and disabled from sitting as an MP.59Harl. 164, ff. 177v, 178v; CJ ii. 874a-b; Add. 18777, f. 79. D’Ewes was much moved by the sight of Montagu kneeling at the Bar ‘with much humble patience and constancy of countenance’ to hear the Commons’ verdict, although, when he visited him that afternoon to offer his commiserations, he found him ‘so cheerly and well satisfied, as if the House had bestowed some favour upon him’.60Harl. 164. f. 178v. The fuss which had been made about Montagu’s appeal to the king’s declaration touched on fundamental issues about the choice of sides. It is understandable that his imprisonment was singled out by the king in his next declaration, issued just five days later, as one of the recent actions by Parliament which he thought most disgraceful.61His Majesties Declaration…upon occasion of the Ordinance and Declaration of the Lords and Commons, for assessing all such who have not contributed sufficiently for raising Money (1642), sig. [A4].

Thirteen days in the Tower was enough to persuade Montagu to change his mind. On 16 December 1642 he submitted a petition to the Commons admitting that he had been wrong and asking that he be forgiven. The Commons accepted his apologies and agreed that he should be released, but also asked him to lend £1,000 towards the costs of the northern expedition, just to prove that he was being sincere.62Bodl. Carte 74, ff. 349-350, 375; CJ ii. 891b; NMM, SAN/A/3, f. 120. His disablement as an MP was not reversed.

Montagu’s final years were hardly one of uneventful retirement, for in January 1644 he married for a second time.63Harris, Life of Edward Montagu, i. 18. His new wife, Anne Pay, had been left £500 in cash, a house in Westminster and some lands in Northamptonshire by her first husband, which was wealth which Sir Sidney probably found useful at this time.64PROB11/190/287. By March 1644 he had to revise his will as he was no longer sure that he would leave enough money to pay the £1,000 he had promised her, which made it all the more difficult when the Committee for Advance of Money demanded £400 (in practice £200) from him for his own property at Westminster two months later. This demand was later waived as he had already contributed in Huntingdonshire.65PROB11/192/225; CCAM 392. It is clear that by this stage his estates had been transferred to his only surviving son, Edward II*, and, as Edward was a steadfast supporter of Parliament, there may have been some tension between the pair. Whatever the case, Montagu died on 25 September 1644.66NMM, SAN/A/3, f. 120; Vis. Northants. 1681, 141. No doubt because Edward was detained on military service elsewhere, Sir Sidney’s son-in-law, Sir Gilbert Pyckeringe*, seems to have stepped in to assist Lady Montagu at this time, for he agreed to take over from her the responsibility for carrying out the terms of Montagu’s will.67PROB11/192/225. But Edward, who would go on to become the 1st earl of Sandwich, who was elected the following year as MP for Huntingdonshire in the vacancy which had been created by Sir Sidney’s disablement.