MONTAIGNE, George (c.1569-1628)

Montaigne was born at Cawood, Yorkshire, a manor of the archbishopric of York. His parents were presumably not wealthy, as he matriculated at Queens’ College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1586. A fellow from 1592, three years later he acted in – and may have helped to write – a comedy performed before Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, who appointed him a chaplain and took him on the Cadiz expedition of 1596.33 Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 164-5; Al. Cant.; J. Twigg, Hist. Queens’ Coll., Camb. 107; Fuller, iii. 413. As a university proctor in 1600-1, he was sent to court several times by the vice-chancellor, John Jegon^* (later bishop of Norwich), and was included on the delegation sent to inaugurate the new university chancellor, Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury) after Essex’s execution.34 CUL, CUA, Misc.Collect.8, f. 1r-v; CUA, U.Ac.2(1), f. 188. John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, appointed him to his first clerical living in January 1603 – he was licensed to hold his fellowship in commendam – and he preached his first sermon at court a week after Queen Elizabeth’s death.35 CCEd; P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Ct. (suppl. cal. 98); C58/8.

By 1606 Montaigne was one of the chaplains to Cecil, recently created earl of Salisbury, at which time he reported on the disappointing progress of the latter’s heir William Cecil^*, Viscount Cranborne (later 2nd earl of Salisbury) as a student at Cambridge. In the following year, Sir John Brograve^‡, attorney general of the duchy of Lancaster, presented him to the rectory of Aspenden, Hertfordshire.36 HMC Hatfield, xix. 128 (see also ibid. 460-1, 465-6); CCEd. Salisbury’s efforts to secure him a sinecure at Greetham hospital, co. Durham foundered on the determination of William James^*, bishop of Durham to appoint a resident master, but Montaigne acquired a similar position at the Savoy hospital in the Strand in 1608.37 HMC Hatfield, xix. 378, 446; xxi. 73-4; Somerville, 239. He was doubtless more interested in the presidency of Queens’: when the incumbent, Humphrey Tyndall, fell sick in 1608, he asked that the fellows be permitted to hold a free election; as senior fellow he would have had first refusal, but Tyndall’s recovery upset his plans.38 HMC Hatfield, xx. 231; Twigg, 68. He was collated to a third living at Cheam, Surrey in 1609, but surrendered the first two and his Cambridge fellowship in the autumn of 1610, when he acquired the deanery of Westminster Abbey, another post in Salisbury’s gift. He entertained Viscount Cranborne there a few months later.39 CCEd; Fasti, vii. 70; HMC Downshire, ii. 407; Lansd. 94, no. 82.

As dean of Westminster, Montaigne enjoyed a high profile at court. He usually preached on Good Friday, and in July 1614 he also delivered a Latin sermon before James I and Christian IV of Denmark. In July 1613, when the commission hearing the annulment suit brought against Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex by his wife, Frances Howard, became deadlocked, Montaigne was one of those co-opted to ensure a favourable verdict. Showing ingratitude to the son of his earliest patron, he not only voted for nullification, but preached at the marriage of Frances to her lover Robert Carr^*, earl of Somerset, on 26 December.40 McCullough, (suppl. cal. 173, 187, 194, 197, 207, 215); Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 469, 495. As dean, Montaigne was also expected to serve as a gaoler for the king from time to time. In October 1612 Edward Vaux^*, 4th Lord Vaux was consigned to Montaigne’s care in the vain hope that he might persuade the notorious Catholic to conform; a sojourn of two years at the deanery had no impact on Vaux’s beliefs.41 Lansd. 153, ff. 89-90; EDWARD VAUX. Three years later, in October 1615, the earl of Somerset was detained at Montaigne’s house for two weeks while under investigation for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. During this time, Montaigne and Oliver St John^*, 3rd Lord St John, reported having overheard circumstantial evidence relating to the poisoning charge.42 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 382, 385; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 14; SP14/82/82.

Montaigne kept an eye on developments in Cambridge, but when Tyndall, the college’s president, died in 1614, one of the existing fellows, John Davenant^* (later bishop of Salisbury), secured Somerset’s backing before Montaigne had even learned of the vacancy. Despite Montaigne’s timely gift of plate, it was Davenant who was elected.43 SP14/66/75; Twigg, 68-9. Montaigne had more success in the summer of 1617, overcoming a challenge from Nicholas Felton^*, then bishop-elect of Bristol (later bishop of Ely), to secure the bishopric of Lincoln.44 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 82, 105. His cause may have been assisted by Richard Neile^*, his predecessor at both Westminster and Lincoln (and later archbishop of York), whose anti-Calvinist sympathies he clearly shared. In the first year of his episcopate, Montaigne and Neile both served on a commission which exonerated Neile’s protégé, the future archbishop of Canterbury William Laud^* from allegations of consorting with a crypto-Catholic don at Oxford. Both men were also members of the predominantly anti-Calvinist group of clerics which drafted the instructions for the British delegation at the Synod of Dort. Montaigne subsequently appointed as his diocesan chancellor John Farmery, who went on to become Laud’s leading collaborator in his campaign to unseat the next bishop of Lincoln, John Williams^* (later archbishop of York).45 Works of Abp. Laud ed. J. Bliss, iv. 318-19; H. Hajzyk, ‘Church in Lincs. c.1595-c.1640’ (Camb. Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1980), 116-17.

In return for a see valued at £828 a year, Montaigne was required to surrender his other preferments. However, the Westminster chapter awarded him hunting rights on their manor of Offord Cluny, Huntingdonshire, which lay adjacent to the episcopal manor house at Buckden.46 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. (1913-15), vi. 56; Acts of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster 1609-42 ed. C.S. Knighton (Westminster Abbey Rec. Ser. v), 56-7. Montaigne visited his diocese only in the summer, and showed a limited interest in its administration: his 1618 visitation articles – which largely echoed those of one of his predecessors, William Chaderton^* – omitted the enquiries about regular preaching; while his visitation court focussed on collecting fees; it took Henry Hastings, 5th earl of Huntingdon over six months to persuade him to re-rate the Leicestershire clergy for militia charges; and the only leases he granted were assigned to his brother’s children. When King James visited Buckden – Huntingdonshire lay on his regular autumn hunting itinerary – Montaigne entertained him on a lavish scale; he may have been the prelate John Milton described as ‘canary-sucking and swan-eating’.47 Hajzyk, 83, 86-7; Vis. Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church ed. K. Fincham (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. i), 70-1; HEHL, HA9345-7; Oxford DNB, xxxix. 539.

In 1619 Montaigne was appointed lord high almoner after Lancelot Andrewes^*, bishop of Winchester, became dean of the Chapel Royal. With Neile as clerk of the Closet, this gave anti-Calvinists a monopoly over worship at court. Andrewes was not entirely pleased with his promotion, for although he gained control over the liturgical practice of the Chapel Royal, he lost the right to preach before the king on feast days. However, Montaigne’s court sermons paled by comparison with those of Andrewes, who had won ‘great applause’ for his preaching to the household. At Christmas 1622, the king – most unusually – interrupted Montaigne’s sermon, which led to speculation ‘… that he should leave the almoner-ship, for being to preach so often and to be so much about the king, he is not found so able a man as his predecessor, or as Dr Laud … that is named to succeed him’. Montaigne remained in post until his death, but the incident demonstrates the tensions within the anti-Calvinist faction at court.48 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 247-8, 470; E351/544, f. 110v; McCullough, 151-4.

Thanks to ill-health, Montaigne attended little more than half the sittings during the spring meeting of the 1621 Parliament, leaving his proxy with Bishop Neile.49 T. Birch, Ct. and Times Jas. I, ii. 258; LJ, iii. 4a. Although a parliamentary novice, he was included on the newly established committee for privileges (5 Feb.), and another to review the draft of the Lords’ Journal (27 March). At the start of the session, he was also a member of a committee to scrutinize two bills of relevance to a proposed war with Spain, one to ban the export of ordnance, the other to upgrade the weaponry of the county militias. In addition, he was required to attend two conferences to draft a petition to the king for enforcement of the recusancy laws. A member of the committee appointed to investigate abuses of the concealed lands patent granted to Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, he endorsed the report’s findings on 26 March.50 LJ. iii. 10b, 13a, 17a, 18b, 47a, 70b. Although absent from much of the session after Easter, Montaigne inaugurated the debate on 12 May about sentencing Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, presumably at the instigation of the favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham. He also seconded Buckingham in calling for the censure of a man who had breached parliamentary privilege by arresting a royal servant.51 LD 1621, pp. 40, 77; LJ, iii. 101b. His remaining appointments included committees for bills to confirm the conditions under which Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales) was allowed to make leases of the duchy of Cornwall estates; to allow Ludovic Stuart^*, earl (later 1st duke) of Richmond, to alienate the manor of Temple Newsam, Yorkshire to Sir Arthur Ingram^‡; and to settle the payment of crown rents charged upon the estates of Edward Russell^*, 3rd earl of Bedford.52 LJ, iii. 26b, 31a, 117b.

In July, Montaigne was translated to the see of London, vacated by the death of John King^*. John Williams, then one of Buckingham’s closest advisors, had a promise of the reversion from the favourite, but the diocese of London required close supervision, while King James intended to retain Williams’ services at court. Prince Charles advocated the cause of another cleric, almost certainly Montaigne, who had entertained him at Buckden in October 1619; following a sharp altercation, James allowed his son’s wishes to prevail. Williams therefore replaced Montaigne at Lincoln, a diocese frequently presided over by absentee court prelates, whereupon Neile staked a claim to London, only to be bought off with the promise of preferment for Laud.53 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 360, 362, 382; Bodl., Tanner 73, f. 36; Birch, ii. 258-60; CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 88; SC6/Jas.I/1682, rot. 5d; CHARLES STUART. In the middle of this reshuffle, George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, accidentally killed a gamekeeper. After Williams refused to be consecrated by a man with blood on his hands, it was speculated that Abbot would be replaced by Tobie Matthew^*, archbishop of York, with Montaigne going to York, and Williams to London. Montaigne sat on the commission which considered the primate’s fate, but rivalry over the succession to Canterbury left it deadlocked. Abbot was reprieved, but was not allowed to perform the consecrations which took place that autumn, a task which was delegated to Montaigne and four other bishops.54 Add. 72254, ff. 57, 64; SP14/123/15, 123; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 399-400, 406-7; J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 68; Works of Abp. Laud, iii. 137; GEORGE ABBOT.

Parliament reconvened in November, when Montaigne was included on committees for bills to improve the navigation of the Thames near Oxford; to confirm Prince Charles’s purchase of Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire; and to reprieve women convicted of small felonies. He cannot have attended another bill committee on which he was included on 5 Dec., for debts of those attainted, as he was granted leave of absence two days earlier, and did not attend the House again until it met for the dissolution on 8 Feb. 1622.55 LJ, iii. 171a, 173b, 174b, 178b, 182b, 202a. After the collapse of the Parliament, a benevolence was organized by the Privy Council. Montaigne raised a contribution of £1,280 from his diocese, a yield almost equivalent to a clerical subsidy. He also preached in support of this levy at Paul’s Cross, adopting the high prerogative stance that ‘what we have is not our own, and what we gave [to the crown] was but rendering and restoring’.56 SP14/133/13; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 443.

Montaigne presumably paid Buckingham handsomely for endorsing his elevation to the see of London; he certainly cultivated the favourite over the next few years. In January 1622 he confirmed the entire Villiers family, including the favourite’s wife and mother, both of whom were (correctly) suspected of Catholic sympathies. Shortly thereafter, when Francis Norris^*, 1st earl of Berkshire, killed himself, Montaigne – whose position as almoner gave him jurisdiction over the goods of suicides – assured Buckingham that he would ‘in this as in all my other actions first look upon my sovereign … and then upon your lordship as the star which first brought me to kiss his hands and worship him’. In March 1623, after Buckingham and Prince Charles arrived in Spain, Montaigne unsuccessfully lobbied the favourite ‘to play the king of Great Britain’s almoner in Madrid, and to cast away two or three hundred pounds in the street there for the honour of the prince his Highness’.57 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 419; Bodl. Add.D.111, f. 186; Stowe 743, f. 41; Fincham, 49.

Ecclesiastical administration made significant demands on Montaigne’s time during his tenure at London. His most challenging task was to oversee the puritans who dominated the pulpits of London: his visitation articles of 1621 inquired not only whether preachers were licensed and read divine service before delivering their sermons, but also whether they avoided controversial matters of state, as the king required in his proclamation of December 1620. In addition, he issued instructions requiring parish officials to curb another puritan custom, the wearing of hats during divine service.58 P. Seaver, Puritan Lectureships, 229-30; Stuart Royal Proclamations I: Jas. I ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 495-6; Vis. Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church, 202-3; Fincham, 239-40. However, Montaigne was not a vigorous persecutor of puritans. It is true that he had Henry Everard, lecturer St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster removed for flouting his instructions, issued in March 1623, to avoid controversy; but when similar allegations were made against Edmund Wilson, lecturer at St Andrew, Holborn, Montaigne found nothing ‘tending to tumult or sedition’.59 J. Shami, John Donne and Conformity in Crisis in the late Jacobean Pulpit, 75-101; CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 403; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 482-3; SP14/142/22; SP16/40/1; Seaver, 231-2. When Laud took over at London in 1628, he clearly believed his predecessor had been unduly tolerant of puritan preachers. There was probably some truth in this allegation, for in 1624 Montaigne accepted on trust the assurances given by Edward Conway^*, Lord (later 1st Viscount) Conway, in respect of the conformity of the future separatist John Davenport.60 SP14/173/43, 47; Seaver, 234.

Montaigne played an important role in censoring the London book trade. In March 1622 he arrested Sir George Buc, master of the Revels, for publishing a book which argued that Jesus was not the Messiah. He later presided over the burning of the works of the Heidelberg divine Paraeus, who asserted the subject’s right of resistance to a persecuting monarch, and in 1624 licensed the publication of Laud’s debate with the Jesuit confessor of the favourite’s mother.61 Add. 72275, f. 133; Add. 72254, f. 122; Add. 72299, f. 133; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 439, 443; Works of Abp. Laud, iii. 147.

Anti-Calvinist clerics were favoured at court in the early 1620s because of their willingness to accept the limited degree of toleration for Catholicism that a Spanish Match would entail. However, Montaigne was no enthusiast for Rome: in March 1622 he was one of those clerics who recommended the banishment of Marc’Antonio De Dominis, the Catholic convert who was seeking reconciliation with the papacy.62 CSP Ven. 1621-3, p. 232; CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 367-70; P. Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus, (1668), 108. Moreover, in July 1623, at the signing of the marriage treaty, Montaigne was slighted by the Spanish ambassador’s chaplain, who put his hat on as the bishop said prayers for the king. This may explain why Montaigne later refused to allow the English Catholics killed when the chapel at the French embassy collapsed to be buried in consecrated ground. When Charles and Buckingham (now a duke) returned from Madrid deeply suspicious of Spanish motives, Montaigne quickly revised his priorities, imprisoning a Catholic priest detained at a bookseller’s shop in February 1624.63 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 510; Spain and the Jacobean Catholics II ed. A.J. Loomie (Catholic Rec. Soc. lxviii), 160; Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 1621-5 ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxxiv), 251. At this time, Buckingham allegedly backed Montaigne against Williams as successor to the elderly Archbishop Matthew of York, presumably as an incentive for Montaigne to support the ‘patriot coalition’ then being assembled for the forthcoming Parliament.64 Hacket, i. 168.

Montaigne attended three-quarters of the sittings of the 1624 Parliament, held a share in the proxies of Richard Milbourne^*, bishop of Carlisle and George Carleton^*, bishop of Chichester, and was named to the committee for privileges.65 Add. 40087, f. 3; LJ, iii. 215a-b. For all his dependence on Buckingham, he played a relatively minor part in the manoeuvrings by which the prince and the duke orchestrated the breach with Spain. At the initial debate of 27 Feb. about whether to end the negotiations for a Spanish Match, Montaigne echoed the belligerent rhetoric of others, volunteering to ‘spend himself to the uttermost farthing, all his estate’ in the event of a war; ‘had he his feet as a hart’, he claimed, ‘he would be in the head of the troupe’. However, he had no wish to give unnecessary provocation to the Spanish ambassadors, who were troubled by rowdy demonstrations, and proposed that a guard be set around the embassy. He was appointed to the committee for munitions, charged with making an inventory of munitions and fortifications, and he was one of those who conferred with the Commons and petitioned the king on several occasions thereafter in order to secure a breach with Spain.66 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 8-9, 14-15; LJ, iii. 237b, 242b, 246a, 256a, 258a, 273b, 275a.

Although James formally agreed to overturn his longstanding pro-Spanish policy, many doubted his willingness to risk a breach with Spain. As the marriage treaty was predicated on the implementation of a toleration for English Catholics, a reversal of this policy would spell an end to the negotiations. After Easter Montaigne was one of those ordered to confer with the Commons about drafting a petition to enforce the recusancy laws, and then to deliver the resulting document to the king. He was also ordered to attend a conference about the Commons’ petition for the removal of officeholders suspected of Catholic sympathies.67 LJ, iii. 287b, 304a, 393b.

Montaigne played no part in the impeachment of the duke’s most inveterate enemy, the lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield^*, 1st earl of Middlesex. Moreover, when a complaint raised against another of the duke’s enemies, Lord Keeper Williams, proved groundless, he was one of those who demanded that the guilty parties make a formal submission.68 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 46. He was included on a number of legislative committees, including that appointed to scrutinize the informers’ bill, another to restrict exports of bullion, and four others for bills to regulate the subject’s title to crown lands.69 LJ, iii. 252b, 258a, 263b, 284b, 296a, 304a. He was also appointed to the committee for an estate bill sponsored by Prince Charles, and another to confirm the endowment of three lectureships in London. However, surprisingly, he was not included on the committee for the bill to regulate breweries in London and Westminster, a project which lay within his diocese, and was supported by Prince Charles.70 Ibid. 246a, 269a, 342a, 363a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 35.

Montaigne was present on almost every day of the 1625 Parliament, and held the proxy of Valentine Carey^*, bishop of Exeter, but he played a minor role in its proceedings. As one of the bishops ordered on 28 June to draft a form of prayers for the public fast organized in the face of a plague epidemic, he successfully moved the Lords to allow London to hold its fast on the same day as Parliament.71 Works of Abp. Laud, iii. 165-6; Procs. 1625, p. 69. After the Commons again raised the issue of enforcement of the recusancy laws, Montaigne was selected to attend a conference about this issue, and was included on the committee for the recusancy bill.72 Procs. 1625, pp. 146, 174. Otherwise, he was only involved with the auditing of accounts for money raised to redeem captives from North Africa, the raising of money for the relief of plague victims, and bills for preserving the crown’s revenues, preventing the forging of judicial seals and the striking down of a patent for the New England fisheries.73 Ibid. 127, 139, 174-5, 179.

King Charles was said to have regarded Montaigne as ‘addicted to voluptuousness, and one that loved his ease too well to disturb himself in the concernments of the Church’. Consequently, Montaigne’s stock at court declined in the new reign.74 Heylyn, 174-5. In June 1627 Charles promised to bring Laud to London in place of Montaigne, but the latter, having been aware of his precarious position for some time, made efforts to please his master by taking a more vigorous line against puritan ministers. In 1626 he revoked the preaching licence of the future Independent Hugh Peter, and drove another radical preacher, Zachary Symmes to seek refuge in Bedfordshire; while in 1627 he foiled the attempt by the firebrand preacher John Traske to deliver a funeral sermon, and refused a preaching licence for the leading puritan Ezekiel Culverwell. However, Montaigne did nothing to unsettle Thomas Hooker, the lecturer of Chelmsford, Essex who later emigrated to New England under pressure from Laud, nor did he interfere with the activities of the puritan feoffees for impropriations, who raised significant sums in London, and purchased clerical livings and advowsons to be bestowed on puritan ministers.75 SP16/51/6; 16/73/7; Seaver, 178, 229, 234-8; N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 191-2.

One of the issues left unresolved at the end of the 1625 Parliament was the furore over the anti-Calvinist divine Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Chichester), who published two books calling the Calvinist doctrines of the Jacobean church into question. In January 1626, shortly before a new Parliament convened, the king referred these books to a group of anti-Calvinist bishops, among them Montaigne, who resolved that the contents of Montagu’s books were ‘the doctrine of the Church of England, or agreeable thereunto’, and recommended that preaching on points of doctrinal controversy should henceforth be avoided. Buckingham subsequently convened a theological disputation at York House, at which he cited the bishops’ endorsement of Montagu. However, Montaigne, like three of the other four bishops who had confirmed the validity of Montagu’s writings, did not attend this conference, perhaps in order to avoid a public rift in the highest echelons of the church.76 Works of Abp. Laud, vi. 249; Tyacke, 165-7.

Sickness kept Montaigne from much of the first half of the 1626 Parliament. He was present in the Lords for only eight days before Easter, and the only business he was involved with during this time was in reporting his distribution of the collection taken for plague victims in London.77 Procs. 1626, i. 79, 106-7, 150-1, 206, 209-10, 316. However, from the end of April he attended almost every day, which suggests that by then his health had recovered. He may also have been encouraged to attend in order to defend Buckingham, both against impeachment charges brought by the Commons and by accusations levelled by John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol. On 2 May Bristol was attacked for having notified MPs about the charges he intended to bring against the duke, whereupon Montaigne called ‘to send to the Commons that they take no notice of it, for that this House is possessed thereof’. However, his motion was not adopted. A week later, the Lords considered whether to allow the king to testify about his private conversations with Bristol in Madrid, evidence which would have been difficult to refute without causing offence to Charles. Montaigne insisted that Bristol was wrong to claim such evidence was inadmissible, as the civil law allowed a judge to be a witness.78 Ibid. 347, 392. When the Commons presented their impeachment charges against Buckingham on 8 and 10 May, they included Bristol’s accusation that the duke had hastened the death of King James by medical malpractice. Charles, an accessory if this were proven, responded by arresting the two MPs who presented the charge. However, on 15 May many of the duke’s enemies testified that nothing untoward had been said, although Montaigne, like many of Buckingham’s supporters, claimed not to have heard what was spoken.79 Ibid. 478, 483; C. Russell, PEP, 304-7. Montaigne was subsequently included on the committee ordered to examine Bristol’s witnesses, but signed only two of the depositions taken before the dissolution.80 Procs. 1626, i. 540, 597, 599.

At the end of May, following the death of Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, chancellor of Cambridge University, Montaigne briefly visited Cambridge to lobby the heads of house on Buckingham’s behalf. The appointment, which was swiftly approved, was a calculated snub to the duke’s more moderate critics, who argued that Buckingham should surrender some of his offices. Montaigne himself was attacked in the Commons by John Pym^‡ for his unwelcome intervention.81 Procs. 1626, iii. 352, 356; iv. 310.

The anti-Calvinists were relieved at the dissolution of June 1626, and sought to entrench themselves in royal favour thereafter. Montaigne, who assured Buckingham of his ‘honest and devoted heart’, held a rigorous investigation of the unlicensed publication of Sir Robert Cotton’s^‡ Reign of Henry the Third, laying the blame not on the author, but on a group of opportunistic printers. In April 1627, when Archbishop Abbot declined to authorize the publication of a provocative sermon by Robert Sibthorpe in favour of the Forced Loan, Montaigne personally authorized the work; he also licensed a prayer book by Neile’s protégé John Cosin^†, which was widely considered to be Catholic in its tone.82 SP16/54/4; 16/58/102; Works of Abp. Laud, iv. 274-6; vii. 7; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 353. In the summer of 1627 the king, angered by Abbot’s defiance over the licensing of Sibthorpe’s sermon, suspended the archbishop, and in October Montaigne, Neile, Laud, Buckeridge and John Howson^*, bishop of Oxford were instructed to exercise his office, a commission which continued until June 1628.83 Rushworth, i. 431-3; Rymer, viii. pt. 2, p. 264.

Montaigne was unable to play a significant part in the exercise of Abbot’s archiepiscopal functions due to failing health – he presumably feared for his life as early as February 1627, when he made a brief nuncupative will. However, he was not entirely incapacitated: in November he attended High Commission for the sentencing of Frances, Viscountess Purbeck (Buckingham’s sister-in-law) for adultery, and warned a meeting of the London clergy to avoid discussing the duke’s defeat at the Île de Ré in their sermons.84 PROB 11/154, f. 245v; Works of Abp. Laud, iii. 393; T. Birch, Ct. and Times Chas. I, i. 295. After June 1627, when the king resolved to replace him at London, Montaigne spent a good deal of energy in lobbying for the best possible settlement. A move to Durham offered the prospect of financial gain, and the incumbent, Bishop Neile, readily agreed to surrender his post in return for a translation to Winchester, the wealthiest bishopric in England. However, Montaigne was said to have regarded this appointment ‘as the worst kind of banishment’, and pleaded to be allowed to reside at Durham House in the Strand, rather than in his diocese. He was elected by the cathedral chapter on 3 Mar., but shortly thereafter news arrived of the demise of Archbishop Matthew. Since Montaigne had long ago been promised the archbishopric of York by Buckingham, proceedings for his installation at Durham were therefore discontinued.85 Heylyn, 175; Fasti, xi. 74.

Due to these delays, Montaigne was still bishop of London when Parliament convened on 17 Mar. 1628. Poor health kept him from the House entirely, but he was questioned about the distribution of the collection for plague victims in London, and in June, during the impeachment of Dr Roger Manwaring^†, rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields, Middlesex (later bishop of St Davids), it was noted that Montaigne had licensed the printing of his controversial sermon in favour of the Forced Loan.86 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 72, 87, 389-90, 555, 572, 628; CD 1628, iv. 281, 284. Montaigne swiftly informed the Lords that he had done so on the instructions of Bishop Laud, who, clearly taken aback at being implicated by his rival, blustered he had acted on the king’s command. The Lords condemned Manwaring, and ordered Montaigne, as his diocesan, to suspend him from his benefice and his preaching licence.87 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 642, 660.

With support from Buckingham, Montaigne was translated to York on 1 July by his fellow commissioners for the archbishopric of Canterbury, under licence from the newly-reinstated Archbishop Abbot. An eye-witness claimed he had ‘death in his face’ and noted that he was carried on a litter, ‘being both lame and deaf’. His last act as bishop of London was to reinstate Manwaring to his benefice and preaching licence, which he performed reluctantly, under royal orders.88 SP16/100/4; Fasti, iv. 2; Birch, Chas. I, i. 371-2. He was enthroned at York by proxy on 24 Oct., but died at London on the same day. In his nuncupative will of February 1627, he bequeathed £100 to the poor of his native parish of Cawood, four gold rings to ‘four little girls, whom his lordship had used to call his wives’, and the rest of his estate to his brother Isaac, whom he had just appointed receiver-general of the archbishopric of York. The latter proved the will on 10 November.89 Fasti, iv. 2; Smyth’s Obit. 3; PROB 11/154, f. 245v; Borthwick, Rev.RGA.1.