MONTAGU (MOUNTAGU), George (1622-81), of Kimbolton, Hunts. and later of Horton, Northants.

The Montagus of Kimbolton were one of several cadet branches of the Montagus of Boughton, but by the 1620s the success of Sir Henry Montagu† had ensured that the Kimbolton branch outranked the others. A lawyer by profession, Sir Henry had served successively as lord chief justice of king’s bench, lord treasurer, lord president of the council, and, from 1628 onwards, lord privy seal. He had been created Viscount Mandeville in 1620 and earl of Manchester in 1626. These titles, his offices and his purchase of Kimbolton Castle in 1615 made him the highest-ranking man in Huntingdonshire. George Montagu was no more than Manchester’s fifth surviving son, but, as the first son by his third wife, George was in line to receive a share of the substantial fortune which his mother, Margaret Crouch, had brought with her from her second husband, John Hare†.

George Montagu, at the age of only 18, had probably not even completed his education when he was elected to the Long Parliament. His time at Cambridge had been brief and he was clearly only admitted to the Middle Temple when he went up to London prior to taking his seat.24MT Admiss. i. 138. That he had plans to attend the Middle Temple may indeed have been the main reason why he had got elected at all, as his father might otherwise have been expected to nominate one of his two available elder brothers, James† or Henry; the eldest brother, Viscount Mandeville (Edward Montagu†) had been summoned to the Lords as Lord Kimbolton, while the other elder brother, Walter, had converted to Catholicism and taken holy orders. The voters at Huntingdon were unlikely to stand in the way of anyone nominated by Manchester, and his father’s steward, Robert Bernard*, who had sat for the town in the previous Parliament, was certainly not going to do so. Montagu’s cousin, Edward Montagu I*, who, at the age of 24, was a little older, took the junior seat.

That Montagu entered the Commons along with his cousin makes it difficult to trace either of their parliamentary careers in detail until Edward succeeded to his father’s peerage in 1644. All that can be said with certainty about George’s involvement in the business of the House up to the summer of 1642 is that he took the Protestation on 3 May 1641 and that he possibly sat on seven committees, including that on the impeachment of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).25CJ ii. 39b, 51b, 60b, 62b, 102b, 133a, 338b, 523b. His youthfulness and inexperience were obvious reasons why his involvement is likely to have been extremely limited. More substantial clues as to what he thought as the crisis between king and Parliament worsened are instead to be found in the two letters he wrote to his uncle, Lord Montagu, in the spring of 1642. On 16 March he sent Lord Montagu up-to-date news of the king’s reply to Parliament’s decision to assume control of the militia by authority of ordinance.26HMC Buccleuch, i. 292. The following month he again wrote with a report of the latest developments, in particular the Common’s votes on whether Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland, and Robert Deverehx, 3rd earl of Essex, should obey the king’s summons to leave Westminster.27HMC Buccleuch, i. 297-9. Montagu tried to adopt a neutral tone when reporting these events, but Lord Montagu for one interpreted these letter as evidence that George sympathised with Parliament’s stance – he told Manchester that he had written back to his nephew to remind him of the biblical injunction, ‘Fear God, honour the king’.28HMC Buccleuch, i. 295. Lord Montagu’s supposition was probably correct.

Although the Montagu family as a whole were divided over the issue of the war, it seems likely that those of them sitting at Westminster followed Mandeville’s lead. The sixth person named with the Five Members, Mandeville had steadfastly opposed the king in the Lords and, as 2nd earl of Manchester, he went on to become one of the leading commanders in the parliamentarian army. Both George and Edward Montagu I sided with Parliament and at least one of them seems to have been named to a number of committees on military affairs in which Manchester had an interest.29CJ ii. 817b, 920a; iii. 12a, 482a. To be more specific about George’s role is difficult. He and Edward I are equally likely to have been sent with William Pierrepont* in December 1642 to persuade their uncle, Sir Sidney Montagu*, to lend £1,000 to Parliament following his release from the Tower.30CJ ii. 891b. Either of them could also have been the MP who claimed privilege against the undersheriff of Huntingdonshire after he had arrested one of his servants, and the source of rude remarks about Walter Long* on 17 February 1643.31CJ ii. 944b, 969b; Add. 18777, f. 157v. What is known is that George subscribed to the oath imposed in the aftermath of Waller’s plot on 7 June 1643.32CJ iii. 119a. However, it is possible that he took the Covenant in October 1643 with some reluctance. Either he or his cousin asked for more time to think about doing so on 30 September 1643: that George took it four days later might suggest that he was the one with these doubts, although, having said that, Edward Montagu I did not take it until the following February.33CJ iii. 259b, 262a.

There is a brief period, between the succession of Edward Montagu I as 2nd Baron Montagu in June 1644 and the election of Edward Montagu II* as an MP in the autumn of 1645, when George Montagu’s activity in Parliament can be discussed with a measure of certainty. His use as a messenger to the Lords in June 1644 as part of the dispute between the two Houses over the case of Edward King† is not in doubt.34CJ iii. 534b, 538b. King, at that stage, was Manchester’s ally in his struggle against Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, for control over the parliamentarian forces in Lincolnshire and there is every reason to suppose that Montagu was acting for his half-brother when he encouraged the Commons to pursue King’s complaints. (It was only later that Montagu’s future father-in-law, Sir Anthony Irby*, turned against King as a further twist in the feuds among the Lincolnshire gentry.)35C. Holmes, ‘Col. King and Lincs. politics, 1642-1646’, HJ xvi. 451-84. When Sir William Waller* and Oliver Cromwell* raised the complaints about Manchester’s conduct as commander of the Eastern Association in the Commons on 25 November 1644, Montagu challenged their claims and managed to get them referred to committee.36Add. 31116, p. 351. The inclusion of him in the delegation sent in January 1645 to ask Manchester to remove his cavalry regiments from Bedfordshire was probably thought to be tactful. Moreover, if Montagu, who was named to the committee to consider it, did not have a direct interest in the self-denying bill, his half-brother undoubtedly did.37CJ iv. 18b-19a, 88a. His other committee appointments during this period – to the Committee for Examinations (16 Oct. 1644) and to the committee to investigate the value of offices (14 Nov. 1644) – confirm the impression of modest activity.38CJ iii. 666b, 695b.

The election of Montagu’s cousin, Edward Montagu II, to the Commons created some confusion equivalent to that when Edward I had been sitting there. Fortunately, the clerks compiling the Journals usually described Edward II by his military rank, so it is fair to assume that all other references are to George. On that basis, he sat on the committee in February 1646 to decide what compensation should be paid to the families of those who had died fighting for Parliament, was absent from Westminster with permission in July, and sat on two further committees later that year.39CJ iv. 452a, 613a, 653a; v. 11a. He certainly acted as one of the pallbearers at the funeral of the earl of Essex on 22 October 1646.40The True Mannor and Forme of the Proceeding to the Funerall of the Right Honourable Robert Earle of Essex (1646), 16 (E.360.1). What little there is which may refer to him in 1647 may be more revealing. If, as seems likely, it was Montagu and not Edward Montagu II who was added on 2 August to the ‘committee of safety’ (which had been set up to mobilise the City against the army), it would appear that, unlike Manchester, he was not among those MPs who had fled to the army following the Presbyterian ‘riots’ at Westminster on 26 July.41CJ v. 265a. His probable presence on the delegation sent in June 1648 to warn the 8th earl of Rutland (John Manners*) that he should keep Belvoir Castle garrisoned suggests that he spent some time at Westminster during 1648, but otherwise he remains elusive.42CJ v. 590a. He was removed from the Commons by the purge in December 1648 and did not apply to resume his seat there after the regicide.43A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62).

Montagu appears to have played almost no public role under the republic and the protectorate. He may have been among those who were examined in June 1651 about the bribery allegations against the MP for Carlisle, Lord Howard of Escrick (Edward Howard*).44CJ vi. 591a. If so, those were his only dealings with the Rump. His continuing presence on the Northamptonshire commission of the peace until 1652 was probably little more than a formality. His known dealings with the authorities seem rather to have been as an intermediary on behalf of others. When Manchester fell foul of one of the committees at Worcester House, he turned to his brother for assistance, asking him to raise the matter with Bulstrode Whitelocke*.45HMC 8th Rep. ii. 64. He also wrote to the local major-general, William Boteler*, in support of a former Montagu chaplain, the vicar of Kingsthorpe, when Boteler tried to take action against him.46HMC Buccleuch, i. 309. The death of his mother in December 1653 brought Montagu into his full inheritance as the principal bequest left to him by his father, the estate at Horton, five miles to the south east of Northampton on the border with Buckinghamshire, had been left first to his mother as part of her jointure.47PROB11/192/515; PROB11/240/124; Bridges, Northants. i. 368. It is likely that it was there that he spent most of the 1650s, living quietly with his growing family.

The re-admission of the secluded Members on 21 February 1660 gave Montagu the opportunity to resume his seat in the Commons, but there is evidence that he hestitated to do so. Edmund Ludlowe II* claimed that Montagu had said to him at about this time that

the conditions upon which the secluded Members had entered the House were more dishonourable than those upon which others were gone out, and that he was not willing to sit among them, they having engaged to make Monck general of all the forces by sea and land, to settle a constant maintenance for the army, to appoint a new Parliament to be chosen; and when those things were dispatched, to put a period to themselves within a day or two at the most.48Ludlow, Mems. ii. 236.

If so, Montagu soon relented, for he was sitting in the Commons again by 27 February, and he went on to sit on several committees between then and the final dissolution of the Long Parliament on 16 March.49CJ vi. 854b, 855b, 856a, 860b. His brief period as custos rotolorum of Westminster in the spring of 1660 probably reflected the influence of his cousin, Edward Montagu II, who was now a political player of the first rank.

The influence of Robert Bernard was sufficiently strong to prevent Montagu’s re-election at Huntingdon in either 1660 or 1661 and he had to rely on his cousin to secure his return at Dover. At that stage Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, judged him to be a Presbyterian. However, Montagu was sufficiently acceptable to the restored regime for Henrietta Maria to appoint him as master of St Katherine’s Hospital in January 1661. Under him the hospital, which became his main London residence, was regarded as having entered a period of decline.50CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 577; CCSP v. 434; Nichols, Royal Hosp. 19, 48; C. Jamison, The Hist. of the Royal Hosp. of St Katherine (Oxford, 1952), 92-5. As queen, Catherine of Braganza succeeded Henrietta Maria as the hospital’s patron and attempted to remove Montagu as master in favour of one of her own nominees, but, so long as he lived, Manchester proved to be too powerful an ally for Montagu for her to dare to offend him.51Bodl. Carte 73, f. 645v; North c.4, f. 260. This dispute also did not prevent Queen Catherine including him on her council in 1669, and, from that point onwards, he was associated in Parliament with the court interest. Following his death in 1681 he was buried in the hospital’s chapel, St Katherine’s-by-the-Tower.52Nichols, Royal Hosp. 19. He was survived by five sons – Edward†, Christopher†, Irby†, Charles† and James† – all of whom sat in Parliament at various times between 1681 and 1713. Charles would go on to become one of the leading whig politicians of the 1690s, resulting in his elevation to the peerage as Baron Halifax in 1700, followed 14 years later by his promotion to become earl of Halifax.53HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715.