MONTAGU, James (1568/9-1618)

Montagu was one of the leading court prelates of the early Jacobean period, being dean of the Chapel Royal, which position gave him constant access to the king. Moreover, few other bishops hailed from such a prominent gentry family – two of his siblings acquired peerages under James – and he was one of only two academics (the other being George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury) to be appointed directly to the Jacobean episcopate without first holding a cure of souls. His close relationship with the king was cemented by his labours as editor of James’s collected works, which were published early in 1617. His early death two years later removed an important Calvinist voice at court, and led to his replacement as dean of the Chapel and bishop of Winchester by a cleric of a very different hue, Lancelot Andrewes^*.

University administrator and courtier, to 1604

The younger son of a well-endowed Northamptonshire family, Montagu was educated at Christ’s College, one of the most puritan establishments in Elizabethan Cambridge. Although he never took a degree, from the time of his arrival at Cambridge in 1588 he was presumably marked out as the first master of Sidney Sussex College, which was endowed with a bequest of £5,000 from his great-aunt Frances Sidney, widow of Thomas Radcliffe^†, 3rd earl of Sussex, following her death in 1589. However, the countess’ executors, Henry Grey^*, 6th earl of Kent and Sir John Harington^*, later 1st Lord Harington and Montagu’s uncle, had first to haggle with Trinity College and secure a private act in 1593 to establish clear title to the site of the new college (the former Greyfriars). Consequently, it was not until 20 May 1595 that Montagu laid the foundation stone.20 Al. Cant.; PROB 11/74, ff. 247r-v, 253; VCH Cambs. iii. 481-6; Sidney Sussex Archives, Camb., Box 1 (21 Nov. 1594, vice chan. to earl of Kent); Box 1/8; Box 2/21; Hist. Univ. Camb. ed. V. Morgan, ii. 19-20. As the purchase of the site and building costs used up much of the countess’ bequest, the fellows were initially obliged to subsist on a rent-charge of £30 per annum plus student fees, so that when the college opened its doors in 1598 there were problems in maintaining the planned establishment. Robert Cotton^‡, whose younger brother was one of one of the college’s first students, stepped in and offered the foundation a rectory. However, the transaction was never completed, despite assurances given by Montagu’s lawyer-brother, Henry Montagu^* (later 1st earl of Manchester), that the impropriation would be valid. Montagu nevertheless raised five other endowments during his tenure as master, one of which was provided by Harington while another came from his eldest brother Sir Edward Montagu^* (later 1st Lord Montagu). He also used his own income to improve the water supply and pay for the chapel fittings, and at his death he bequeathed the college £20 a year, charged upon lands at Coppingford, Huntingdonshire.21 Cott., Julius C.III, f. 271; VCH Cambs. iii. 482, 484; PROB 11/132, f.37v; Lloyd, 800. For another prospective endowment, see Bodl., Tanner 74, f. 14. As a head of house, Montagu was necessarily involved in university politics, most notably the disputed election of John Overall^* (later bishop of Norwich) as master of St. Catharine’s Hall in 1598. He was subsequently also one of those who examined Overall’s criticisms of Calvinist theology – with which he strongly disagreed.22 CUL, CUA, Misc. Collect. 7, pp. 89-91; HMC Hatfield, x. 208-10; JOHN OVERALL.

Despite his youth, Montagu lobbied in August 1602 for appointment as dean of Windsor in succession to Robert Bennett^*, newly appointed bishop of Hereford. However, the vacancy went instead to Giles Thompson^* (later bishop of Gloucester).23 HMC Hatfield, xii. 291. Shortly after Elizabeth’s death, John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, keen to surround the new Scottish king with English clerics who might be to his liking, included Montagu on a list of potential court preachers, with the result that Montagu preached his first sermon in the Chapel Royal on 8 Apr. 1603. King James, then on his journey south from Edinburgh, was not present, but Montagu met him shortly thereafter, at Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdonshire, with the other Cambridge heads of house.24 Diary of John Manningham ed. R.P. Sorlien, 225; McCullough, 106; D. Lloyd, States-men and Favourites (1665), 575-6. James apparently took an instant liking to a man of similar age and academic tastes, and Montagu swiftly gained royal favour: on 31 May a signet letter was issued ordering the Lichfield chapter to elect him to the vacant deanery; while in December he was appointed to the newly revived position of dean of the Chapel Royal, a post which allowed him to develop a personal rapport with the king. He swiftly increased the wages of the chapel servants, and put the choir on a professional footing.25 Lloyd, 801; SO3/2, p. 9; McCullough, 63, 106-8; Oxford DNB, xxxviii. 738-9.

In January 1604 Montagu attended the Hampton Court Conference, which was held in response to puritan complaints about the established Church. Perhaps because of his family’s godly reputation, Montagu carefully supported the conformist position, albeit not always successfully. At one point, he found a citation in the Prayer Book for Richard Bancroft^*, bishop of London, and on another he provided a justification for the use of the cross in baptism. However, when he whispered in James’s ear during a discussion about the validity of baptism by the laity, Bancroft snapped, ‘speak out, M[aste]r Doctor, and do not cross us underhand’.26 W. Barlow, Summe and Substance of the Conference (1604), 12; R.G. Usher, Reconstruction of the Eng. Church, ii. 338, 342, 350. His personal views are only revealed in a letter he sent to his mother, an enthusiastic patron of godly ministers, in which he praised the king for speaking ‘wisely, wittily and learnedly’. While conceding that the puritan delegates had not put their case strongly, he acknowledged that James had given fair consideration to their grievances: bishops were to have ‘some grave men to be assistants with them in all censures’; the abuses of church courts were to be amended; and those with scruples about subscription to the rites and ceremonies of the Church were to be treated ‘with meekness and gentleness’. However, a comparison of his letter with other accounts reveals some interesting errors and omissions. Montagu claimed that puritan complaints about doctrine, maintenance for preachers and the church courts had been ‘easily agreed unto by all’, which was hardly the case, and he omitted to mention James’s angry outburst on being pressed to adopt parts of the Elizabethan presbyterian agenda.27 Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 13-16; Barlow, 23-53, 58-63, 77-83.

The subscription crisis, 1605

Montagu secured a royal nomination as dean of Worcester in December 1604,28 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 366-7; Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, i. 39. but his relationship with the king was sorely tested by the crisis created by the requirement that all clergymen subscribe to the 1604 Canons, particularly the rites and vestments complained about by the puritans at Hampton Court. His troubles began in June 1604, when, hoping to establish his credentials as a potential chaplain for Prince Henry, he arranged for John Burges to deliver a sermon before the king. Burges unwisely used the occasion to attack the policy of subscription, for which he was imprisoned. This awkward situation was compounded by allegations that Montagu had been privately encouraging other nonconformist ministers to resist subscription, a charge levelled against him by Lewis Pickering, a minister then under interrogation for pinning a libel to Archbishop Whitgift’s hearse.29 McCullough, 185-6; A. Bellany, ‘A Poem on the Abp’s. Hearse’, JBS, xxxiv. 160-1. Thus when, in December 1604, William Chaderton^*, bishop of Lincoln, solicited his advice in dealing with over 30 nonconformist ministers in his diocese, Montagu was placed in a difficult position. Writing to Bancroft, he named Alexander Cooke, vicar of Louth, Lincolnshire as one of the ringleaders, but he may have offered the king private assurances of Cooke’s willingness to conform, as the latter was allowed an extra six months to reconsider his position.30 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 379-80; xvii. 65; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 199. He seems to have performed a similar service for Thomas Bywater, who tendered a petition against subscription from the Essex godly. In a letter to Bancroft, Montagu termed this document ‘the most saucy and dangerous thing I ever saw’, but he later claimed to have upbraided Bywater for his ‘wicked work’ and told him that the king would have released him but for the Council’s objections.31 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 65; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 203. For Montagu, the most embarrassing episode occurred on 9 Feb. 1605, when his eldest brother, Sir Edward, presented King James with a petition against the strict enforcement of conformity, signed by many of the Northamptonshire gentry. James lambasted the petitioners at the Privy Council board, and clearly suspected that Montagu had been playing a double game, encouraging the puritans to stand their ground while at the same time assuring him of their willingness to conform. This probably explains the evasive tone of much of Montagu’s correspondence during this period. Not until July 1605 did he feel himself sufficiently restored to royal favour to broker a reconciliation between his brother and the king.32 HMC Montagu, 46-8.

Polemicist and diocesan, 1606-18

Apparently a contender for the deanery of Durham in the summer of 1606, Montagu quickly yielded the place to Prince Henry’s tutor, Adam Newton, who assigned him an annuity of £400, pending a more lucrative preferment. At the same time, Montagu lobbied unsuccessfully for the post of solicitor general for his brother Henry, and for a mastership of Requests for his brother Sidney^‡. In the autumn he was present at Hampton Court for a conference between James and his most obstinate Scottish presbyterian critics, of whom he observed ‘I never heard such men nor such divinity since I was born’. During this meeting he had a heated argument with James Melville about the royal supremacy.33 Bodl., Carte 74, ff. 361, 377-9; Autobiog. and Diary of Mr James Melville, 1606-10 ed. R. Pitcairn (Wodrow Soc. 1842), 666-7; W.R. Foster, Church Before the Covenants, 111-13; D.G. Mullan, Episcopacy in Scotland, 105-8. In December 1607, while assisting the king in writing a treatise, Montagu persuaded James to accept the decision of Cambridge University’s chancellor, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, to set aside the royal nomination of John Felton^* (later bishop of Ely) as master of Gonville and Caius College. Three months later, upon news of the death of John Still^*, bishop of Bath and Wells, Salisbury presumably raised no objections to the king’s selection of Montagu for the vacancy. The price of this preferment was the deanery of Worcester, the headship of Sidney Sussex and the annuity Montagu received from Newton, but he retained his most important position, that of dean of the Chapel, on condition that he reside in his diocese for six months each year.34 HMC Hatfield, xix. 364-8, 375; xx. 86-7, 89; CSP Dom, 1603-10, pp. 410, 416; NICHOLAS FELTON. Presumably to allay any lingering fears about Montagu’s puritan sympathies, George Downame, his contemporary at Christ’s College, preached at his consecration on the subject of episcopal authority, paraphrasing a tract by Thomas Bilson^*, bishop of Winchester. This sermon was swiftly printed, and copies were sent to the next meeting of the general assembly of the Scottish Kirk at Linlithgow, which was cautiously re-establishing episcopacy north of the border.35 D. Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland ed. T. Thomson (Wodrow Soc 1845), vi. 741; G. Downame, A Sermon defending the honourable function of Bishops (1608); A.R. MacDonald, ‘Jas. VI and the General Assembly, 1586-1618’, Reign of James VI ed. J. Goodare and M. Lynch, 180-1.

Valued at around £500 a year, Bath and Wells was not a lucrative see, but Montagu apparently made the most of revenues from the lead mines in the Mendip Hills, worth another £200 a year. With no family to support, he could afford to be generous in his benefactions, giving £1,000 to re-roof the nave of Bath Abbey, which had stood open to the elements for 70 years.36 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. vi. 56; P.M. Hembry, Bishops of Bath and Wells, 188-92; Bodl. Carte 74, f. 335. Montagu conducted a diocesan visitation in the summer of 1609, using Archbishop Bancroft’s visitation articles of 1605 as a model, but with additional articles about the enforcement of excommunication, observance of the Sabbath and charitable endowments. Other inquiries, about witchcraft and the observance of the Jacobean holidays of 5 Aug. and 5 Nov., perhaps reflect the king’s interests.37 Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church ed. K. Fincham (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. i), 18-22.

Montagu’s new see afforded him a significant amount of patronage, which he dispensed to his friends and relations: Gerard Wood, appointed archdeacon of Wells in 1611, was his cousin; Samuel Ward, archdeacon of Taunton from 1615, had recently been appointed master of Sidney Sussex, and Timothy Revett, archdeacon of Bath from 1614, was a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Montagu also bestowed a living on Richard Bernard, who had been deprived in 1605 but subsequently conformed, publishing polemics urging others to follow his example. He also provided support to the former Catholic priest Theophilus Higgons. However, Montagu’s successor at Wells, Arthur Lake^*, deplored his lack of discrimination in his selection of those he had ordained and licensed to preach.38 Fincham, 51, 56, 193-5; Fasti, v. 14, 17-18; M.C. Questier, Conversion, Pols. and Religion, 47.

Although he now divided his time between Somerset and the court, Montagu maintained his links with Cambridge. In 1609, when a dispute arose over the election of a new master at Christ’s College, it was he who discovered that the London-based separatist Henry Jacob had been lobbying the fellows. This led the king to impose upon the college the conformist Valentine Carey^* (later bishop of Exeter), who brought the college’s puritan reputation to an abrupt end.39 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 138-9, 142-3, 147-8; S.A. Bondos-Greene, ‘End of an Era: Camb. Puritanism and the Christ’s Coll. Election of 1609’, HJ, xxv. 201-8.

While Montagu had a reputation as an effective preacher, his academic credentials were not strong: his doctorate was awarded by royal mandate rather than examination; he published no works under his own name; and he was not included among the scholars chosen to translate the bible – although he was apparently considered as a replacement for the Oxford man Richard Edes, his predecessor as dean of Worcester, when the latter died in 1604.40 Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 110; McCullough, (suppl. cal. 205); D. Norton, King James Bible, 61. However, as dean of the Chapel Royal he had an unrivalled opportunity to influence the king’s opinions. In the autumn of 1607, the Venetian ambassador noted the two men were closeted together; the fruit of their efforts was Triplici Nodo, James’s first, anonymous defence of the oath of allegiance imposed on English Catholics in 1606. Montagu’s role was probably that of an amanuensis, providing references to the works of Cardinal Bellarmine which James aimed to refute. Bellarmine and the English Jesuit Robert Persons responded to James’s tract in the autumn of 1608, whereupon Montagu set about gathering material for an expanded edition of this royal refutation, A Praemonition to all Christian Monarches, which was addressed to the princes of Europe, and published under James’s own name in 1609.41 CSP Ven, 1607-10, p. 74; R.B. Patterson, King Jas. VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, 84-9; D.H. Willson, ‘Jas. I and his Literary Assistants’, HLQ, viii. 38-42; HMC Hatfield, xx. 260. Later, in 1616, Montagu distributed a printed order within his diocese of Bath and Wells, ordering ministers and teachers to buy and use copies of a new work, God and the King, which explained the oath of allegiance in terms suitable for the schoolroom or catechism class.42 James [Montagu], To all and singular archdeacons, officials, parsons… (1616).

Montagu also exercised some wider influence on the trajectory of English religious polemic. In 1610-12 he offered official encouragement to the French scholar Isaac Casaubon in his writings on the oath of allegiance controversy, and in March 1612 he brought Richard Sheldon, an apostate Catholic priest, to a meeting with the king. He also read theological works to James, although on one occasion the latter was said to have taken a violent dislike to a work by Richard Field, dean of Gloucester, seized it from Montagu’s hands, ‘and threw it on the ground in a great anger’.43 Burney 365, ff. 228-41; Fincham, 56; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 78-9, 146.

In 1616, Montagu edited the king’s prose works, published early the following year with a dedication to Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales), ‘the true heir and inheritor of them’, as a model for his own reign.44 The Workes of the most High and Mightie Prince, James ed. J. Montagu (1616), sigs. a3v-4; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 51. In the preface to this work (the only essay of his own to appear in print), Montagu took up the challenge of justifying his master’s bold decision to engage with contemporary debates about papal authority:

if I were worthy to advise a king, he should meddle very sparingly, and but upon important causes, with polemicals … so long as there are diversity of opinions, there will never want matter for confutations. And in these replications the person of a king is more exposed and lies more open, than the person of a poor scholar can do; for as he is a far greater mark, so he may far more easily be hit …

While acknowledging that ‘there is scarce a people, language or nation in Christendom’ which had not responded to the Oath of Allegiance controversy, ‘either by way of refuting, or at least by railing’, he insisted that the king’s opponents, although safe ‘from bleeding by his Majesty’s sword; … are not safe from being blasted by the breath of his Majesty’s books … a certain influence to work great change and alteration in the world’. He revealed that James’s polemical skills were such that the king had written Triplici Nodo in just six days, intending it merely as a guide for a larger work to be penned by Montagu himself. However, when the draft was given to Archbishop Bancroft and the bishop of Ely,45 The bishop of Ely in 1607 was Martin Heton^*, although Montagu may have meant Heton’s successor, Lancelot Andrewes^* (later bishop of Winchester). they had judged it fit for publication without further elaboration. Montagu also sought to explain why this collection of political writings included a hitherto unpublished paraphrase of the book of Revelations (written in the 1580s), insisting that the princes of Europe had a common interest in destroying ‘the kingdom of Antichrist’, as represented by papal absolutism. The volume concluded with James’s recent speech in Star Chamber, which he cited as an exemplar of the king’s ‘great power and experience in these kingdoms’.46 Workes of … James, sigs. c4v, d1v-d2v, d4; J. Rickard, Authorship and Authority: the writings of James VI and I, 161-8. Montagu had, in fact, made a few subtle editorial changes, presumably hoping thereby to influence the reception of his master’s work: the less strident Basilikon Doron (1599) was printed before The True Lawe of Free Monarchies (1598), a more polemical statement of James’s anti-papal views; while the five royal speeches selected for publication were left to the end of the volume, perhaps to encourage their reception as general essays in kingship, rather than as products of their specific political circumstances.47 Rickard, 149-61.

The 1610 parliamentary sessions

Montagu attended the Lords for the first time in February 1609, at a prorogation meeting of the House.48 LJ, ii. 544a. He attended his first parliamentary session in the spring of 1610, when he was present for two-thirds of the sittings; on 26 Apr. his absence was excused because he was in attendance on the king. At the start of the session, he was one of many peers ordered to attend the conference at which the lord treasurer, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, outlined the crown’s financial problems, and was included on three delegations which pressed James to accept the Commons’ offer to compound for wardship and tenures. Perhaps reflecting the king’s private views, Montagu was sceptical about the prospects for these negotiations, informing his brother Sidney at the end of March, ‘here is nothing else talked of but the Wards, and I do verily think it will be but talk when all is done’.49 Ibid. 550b, 556b, 564b, 579b, 582b; Bodl., Carte 74, f. 400. Early in the session, he was also nominated to attend a conference with the Commons about a textbook by Dr John Cowell, Regius professor of civil law at Cambridge, whose absolutist tone had offended some MPs. He presumably briefed his master about this quarrel, as James prefaced his speech to Parliament on 21 Mar. with a lengthy exposition of his own views about divine right monarchy. Later in the session, Montagu was named to a committee for the bill to require all those naturalized or restored in blood to take communion, the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and another to impose new punishments on any who attempted to assassinate the king.50 LJ, ii. 557b, 606b, 651a.

Most of the ecclesiastical legislation which reached the Lords during this session was promoted by puritans in the Commons, and received short shrift from the bishops. Thus Montagu’s nomination to the committee for the bill to prevent the 1604 Canons being used to deprive nonconforming ministers was undoubtedly intended to assist in hindering the progress of the bill, which died in committee. On 12 July, at the second reading of the bill against scandalous ministers, which would have impeded the work of the ecclesiastical commissioners, George Abbot, bishop of London, noted that the bill was unnecessary, as three bishops, including Montagu, had recently deprived scandalous ministers. In fact, Montagu’s record in proceedings against delinquents was hardly impeccable: during his tenure at Wells, he proceeded half-heartedly against the capricious minister Meredith Mady, who, despite having been ‘very clamorous’ against Montagu, was not finally removed until 1617 (after Montagu’s translation to Winchester) and then only by Abbot himself.51 Ibid. 611a, 641b; Fincham, 51, 56; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/CP127 (John May to John Cannon, 26 Feb. 1617)

Montagu’s committee nominations included several bills of local interest, including measures to assign the revenues of a decayed Dorset parish to maintain a preacher in Dorchester, repair the harbour at Minehead, Somerset, and improve farming in the West Country.52 LJ, ii. 563b, 577b, 593b, 596b, 630a. He attended only one-third of the sittings of the brief autumn session, when he was named to two bill committees, one concerning the bequeathing of land in wills and the other to confirm duchy of Cornwall leases.53 Ibid. 675a, 677a.

Court and Parliament 1610-14

Montagu assumed a more prominent role at court after 1610: he confirmed Princess Elizabeth on Good Friday 1611, preached the sermon at her wedding in February 1613, and accompanied the Elector Palatine and Prince Charles (Stuart^*, Prince of Wales) to a theological disputation at Cambridge shortly thereafter.54 McCullough, (suppl. cal. 168, 183-4); Chamberlain Letters, i. 424, 427; J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 26-7. In 1611 he was even spoken of as a contender for the vacancy at London caused by George Abbot’s elevation to the see of Canterbury, although in the event the post went to John King^*.55 HMC Rutland, i. 428. In August 1613 Montagu escorted Queen Anne when she took the waters at Bath, and arranged a civic pageant in her honour at Wells. In return, he persuaded the queen to support the candidacy of his brother, Sir Henry, as chief justice of King’s Bench, in succession to the recently deceased Sir Thomas Fleming^‡; but the post went instead to Sir Edward Coke^‡.56 Wells Convocation Acts Bks. ed. A. Nott and J. Hasler (Som. Rec. Soc. xc), 251-2; Bodl., Carte 74, f. 383. Fortunately for his relationship with the king, Montagu was not directly involved in the controversial divorce case between Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex and his wife, but in December 1613 he was sent to inform Archbishop Abbot that the king expected him to make the first move towards a reconciliation of the differences which had been caused by James’s determination to secure a nullification. When Montagu married the divorced countess to Robert Carr^*, Viscount Rochester (later earl of Somerset) – which Archbishop Abbot had refused to do – it was publicly noted that he had officiated at the bride’s previous marriage to Essex, seven years earlier.57 State Trials ed. T.B. Howell, ii. 840-3; Chamberlain Letters, i. 495.

James summoned a fresh Parliament in the spring of 1614, but Montagu held little hope of its success, explaining that it was held ‘only for money, and I wish the king had it, and that we had an end of it, for we shall never have the king in quiet so long as it lasteth’. However, he persuaded the Wells corporation to provide a seat for his brother Sidney and, in the hotly contested Somerset county election, enthusiastically supported Sir Robert Phelips^‡, who, he considered, been the victim of ‘a fine trick’ by his opponents. He promised that if any of his 300 tenants voted the wrong way, ‘they shall smart for it soundly’. Phelips may have mustered a majority of the freeholders at the county court, but the sheriff returned his opponents regardless.58 Bodl., Carte 74, ff. 326, 357; Wells Convocation Act Bks. 259; Som. RO, DD/PH/216/92; DD/PH/224/8; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 347-8.

Montagu attended the Lords almost every day during the Addled Parliament, playing a much more significant role than he had in 1610. For the first month of the session he was involved with routine matters: a conference about the bill to settle the rights of Princess Elizabeth’s children to the succession; committees for bills concerning sumptuary laws, the bequeathing of lands in wills, the preservation of timber, and the endowment of Monmouth grammar school.59 LJ, ii. 691a, 692b, 694a, 697b, 711b. On 26 May, at the second reading of the Sabbath bill, when it was observed that a measure could not be committed unless someone spoke against it, he intervened to insist that Scripture imposed no prohibition on dancing, and urged that breaches of the Sabbath be punished in the church courts, not by secular magistrates, as the bill provided. He was included on the bill committee, and acted as spokesman in a conference with the Commons on 2 June, when he rehearsed the same arguments again:

To take away all recreation is as I conceive it contrary to the divine rule itself, and the strictest and reformedest churches … Geneva after evening prayer allows pall-mall, tennis and suchlike exercises, and in my opinion those recreations that neither break rest nor sanctification, which are the two parts of performing the due observation of that day, are lawful and may be used … Who must be punished? The poor. By whom? By a justice of peace, and yet not free from our [ecclesiastical] court, the which I hold to be unjust, that a man should be punished in two places for one and the selfsame fault.

Secretary of State Sir Ralph Winwood^‡, astonished by this tirade, asked what exceptions, precisely, the Lords took to the bill, but the bishops could offer few concrete proposals, and the meeting ended inconclusively.60 Ibid. 708b, 713b; HMC Hastings, iv. 265-6, 278-80.

The main point of contention during the Addled Parliament was the question of whether the Commons would be allowed to rehearse their objections to impositions on trade, which had been dismissed by James in July 1610. MPs debated the issue at length, then sought a conference with the Lords in order to make a joint approach to the king. The Privy Council were determined to avoid this prospect, and the bishops, keen defenders of the royal prerogative over the Church, supported the councillors, moving to consult the judges about the legality of impositions before conferring with the Commons. Montagu was one of those who proved most vocal in this regard, declaring on 23 May that ‘we ought rather to hear the judges before the lower House, for the king is in possession of these things we should argue of’.61 HMC Hastings, iv. 254-5. However, the judges declined to offer an opinion before hearing the arguments, which left the question of whether to confer with the Commons without the benefit of their advice. This was debated the following day, when Montagu urged the House to follow the precedent it had set in 1610, when peers asked the king for leave to confer with the Commons about composition for wardship. However, he was sceptical about the wisdom of considering a case which might deprive the crown of an important source of revenue. As the judges were not prepared to declare themselves, ‘though his Majesty should give us leave, I think it were not fit to meet with them [the Commons]’. This long debate concluded with a vote in which the Lords resolved not to confer with the Commons, the Privy Council defeating the motion to do so with the assistance of 16 of the 17 bishops present, including Montagu.62 Ibid. 259; Chamberlain Letters, i. 533; LJ, ii. 706b-7a.

On 26 May it was proposed to inform MPs that ‘we think it not fit to give them a meeting about the point of impositions’. However, attempts were made to phrase this message less bluntly, leaving MPs with the option of applying for a conference at a later date. Montagu would have none of this, though, insisting that ‘they first sowed and set abroach this matter, and therefore we ought to give them answer’ – in other words, an unmitigated refusal. Two days later, the Commons complained about the speeches of Richard Neile^*, bishop of Lincoln, who had accused MPs of meddling with the prerogative. It was widely observed that this allegation had reached the Commons as hearsay, and that the Lords, who had heard Neile speak, should judge him. Montagu observed that this would make the House both informers and judges, a legal absurdity; it was eventually resolved that if Neile had spoken amiss, his peers should have censured him at the time. This dispute caused the breakdown of relations between Lords and Commons, made the session unworkable, and led to the dissolution ten days later.63 HMC Hastings, iv. 264-5, 269.

Final years 1614-18

Following the end of the session, Convocation offered the king a benevolence in lieu of parliamentary subsidy. Montagu donated £110 in cash and 113oz. of gilt plate, and also raised the handsome sum of 1,000 marks from the diocesan clergy.64 E351/1950. In addition, he secured the prosecution of Edmund Peacham, rector of Hinton St George, Somerset, who was discovered in possession of various seditious papers, including a libel against Montagu himself; the case was tried both before High Commission, and the Somerset assizes.65 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 263; Fincham, 317; Chamberlain Letters, i. 612-13; J.S.Cockburn, Hist. Eng. Assizes, 227. Montagu’s brother Sir Walter^‡ died suddenly in March 1616, after naming the bishop as one of his executors. The terms of the will provoked contention among the surviving brothers.66 PROB 11/128, ff. 276-7; Northants. RO, Montagu 3/137-8; HMC Buccleuch, i. 247; iii. 192-3; HP Commons 1604-29, v. 386. In June 1616, Montagu acted promptly upon news of the death of Thomas Bilson^*, bishop of Winchester, securing a royal promise of the vacancy for himself the following day. He may also have had a hand in the appointment of Arthur Lake as his successor at Bath and Wells, who vacated his post as master of St Cross hospital, near Winchester, to which Montagu appointed Sir Peter Young, the almoner of Scotland, at the king’s behest.67 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 12; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 375; HMC Downshire, v. 534-5; Bodl., Tanner 283, f. 195. He also strove unsuccessfully to secure preferment for his brother Sidney, but his support did help his brother Henry replace Sir Edward Coke as chief justice of King’s Bench.68 HP Commons 1604-29, v. 383-4; Bodl., Carte 74, ff. 339, 402; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 22; HMC Downshire, vi. 17.

Early in 1617, Montagu and Andrewes were both tipped for the post of lord chancellor – either man would have constituted the first ecclesiastical incumbent since the Reformation – but James had probably already resolved to choose Francis Bacon^* (later Viscount St Alban).69 HMC Downshire, vi. 109-10, 129; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 51; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 436-7. Montagu was instead selected to accompany James on his visit to Scotland; his new bishopric was one of the wealthiest in England, worth over £2,200 a year, and he was said to have travelled to Scotland with 2,000 gold Jacobus pieces.70 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 55, 63; HMC Downshire, vi. 139; Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. vi. 56. Before his departure, he managed to secure a royal chaplaincy for John Williams^*, and the deanery of Bristol for Edward Chetwynd.71 Hacket, i. 31; HMC Buccleuch, i. 202; Fasti, viii. 16.

Montagu was sworn a privy councillor on his return to London, joining Abbot and Andrewes at the board. His appointment was welcomed by Sir Dudley Carleton^* (later Viscount Dorchester), ambassador at The Hague, who correctly assumed that this demonstrated the king’s resolve to support proposals for an international synod of Protestant churches to establish the orthodoxy of Calvinist doctrine in face of criticisms from the followers of the recently deceased Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. In reply, Montagu instructed Carleton to forward the most recent works published by both factions in the Netherlands, and expressed his fears (presumably shared by the king) that ‘there will be found many in our country at home that are not far from some of these opinions, therefore when they shall see them well quenched there (i.e. the United Provinces), they will be the less busy in them here’. He was clearly working in close co-operation with Archbishop Abbot, and, had he lived, he would undoubtedly have had a significant influence over the Synod of Dort. As it was, he probably recommended Samuel Ward, still master of Sidney Sussex College, as one of the English delegation sent to Dort.72 SP105/95, ff. 15v-20; British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19) ed. A Milton (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. xiii), pp. xxviii, n.44, xxix, 21, 25-6, 109; N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 91-2.

With the aid of a £1,000 fine for dilapidations from Bishop Bilson’s widow, Montagu was able to refurbish Winchester House, his episcopal palace in Southwark, Surrey, where he held a great feast for those who had travelled to Scotland with him.73 APC, 1616-17, p. 335; Fincham, 53; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 114; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 494. He finally secured his brother Sir Sidney a mastership of Requests in ordinary in January 1618;74 Bodl., Carte 74, f. 324; HP Commons 1604-29, v. 384. but by this time his own health was failing. His physicians pronounced him ‘in a very desperate case’ in February 1618, and by April he was diagnosed with dropsy [oedema]. He died at Greenwich on 20 July, and was buried at Bath Abbey a month later.75 HMC Buccleuch, i. 252-3; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 160; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 549; HMC Downshire, vi. 452, 454. In his will of 1 Apr. 1618, he thanked God for having ‘advanced me by the hand of a most sacred king to serve Him in the Church in the most worthy and weighty calling of a bishop’, gave the king a gold cup worth £100 ‘for those high favours he hath ever multiplied upon me’, and a diamond ring to ‘the most faithful friend that ever I had’, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham. His executor, his brother Sir Charles Montagu^‡, erected an alabaster tomb to his memory in Bath Abbey, ‘to stir up some more benefactors to that place’, while his brother Sir Henry paid for the west doors, which bear the arms of Montagu and the bishopric of Winchester. He was succeeded at Winchester by Andrewes, who sued his executor for dilapidations, but secured a payment of only £90.76 PROB 11/132, ff. 37-8; Fincham, 53. The bulk of Montagu’s papers were presumably scattered at the death of his brother Sir Charles in 1625, but his library, valued at £200, was bequeathed to Sidney Sussex College in 1619, where it still remains.77 N. Rogers, ‘Early Hist. of Sidney Sussex Coll. Lib.’, Sidney Sussex Coll., Camb.: Historical Essays ed. D.E.D. Beales and H.B. Nisbet, 78, 81-2.