MONTAGU, Edward (c.1562-1644)

Head of one of Northamptonshire’s leading gentry families, Montagu, seated at Boughton, in the parish of Weekley, was well known for his puritan persuasions. In 1605 he briefly suffered loss of all his local offices for protesting against the deprivation of nonconformist ministers, and in 1618 he appointed as vicar of Weekley the moderate puritan preacher Joseph Bentham. He also supported the puritan lecture at Kettering, which served as a platform for (among others) the puritan convert Robert Bolton, who later advised Montagu to promote Bentham to the nearby benefice of Broughton.31 Oxford DNB, v. 234; vi. 492. Both Bentham and Bolton dedicated books to Montagu, while Bentham also penned an obsequious life of his patron, which remained in manuscript form.32 J. Bentham, The Christian Conflict … (1625); T. Bolton, Some generall directions for a comfortable walking with God (1625).

As well as his support for moderate puritanism, Montagu was noteworthy for his deep pockets but limited political ambitions. Unlike his younger brothers Sir Henry (Montagu^*, later 1st earl of Manchester) and James (Montagu^*, bishop of Winchester), who pursued high level careers in the law and Church respectively, he was content, at least before the early 1620s, to remain a county magnate. Moreover, although he claimed to be descended from John Neville^†, 1st marquess of Montagu (d.1471), whose arms he adopted on entering into his inheritance in 1602 (thereby provoking a successful legal challenge from Anthony Maria Browne^*, 2nd Viscount Montagu three years later), he initially showed little interest in purchasing a peerage.33 Coll. of Arms, I.25, ff, 15r-v, 16v-17, 18r-v; Cope, 36-7. According to his brother James, his eyes were fixed on acquiring heavenly glory rather than further worldly honours, but in reality he probably considered the £10,000 demanded for a barony too steep.34 HMC Buccleuch, i. 252.

Montagu’s unwillingness to buy a peerage vanished in December 1620, when his brother Sir Henry became not only lord treasurer but also Viscount Mandeville. Suddenly Montagu was no longer on an equal social footing with one of his younger siblings. He therefore approached the king, James I, who, being perennially short of money, promised to ennoble him, even though he ‘smelt a little of puritanism’. However, he required Montagu to ‘do him an errand first’. Precisely what the king meant by this demand is unclear, but Montagu had recently been elected to the forthcoming Parliament as junior knight of the shire for Northamptonshire, and James, desperate to avoid another failed meeting with his subjects, probably expected Montagu to serve his interests in the Commons before granting him his wish.35 Cope, 82. If this was indeed what was intended, James may not have been disappointed. In May 1621, as the Commons and Lords quarrelled over whether the lower House enjoyed the power of judicature, Montagu consulted his former brother-in-law, the famous antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton^‡, who sent him a treatise which argued that the Commons enjoyed equal power with the Lords. At first, Montagu used this information to defend the Commons’ claim, but on 11 May he advised the lower House not to inquire too closely into the material supplied by Cotton. Perhaps he realized that, if he helped the Commons to extend their powers at the expense of the Lords, he risked alienating the king, and thus his own promised elevation to the peerage.36 K. Sharpe, Sir Robert Cotton 1586-1631, p. 168.

The winter sitting of the 1621 Parliament

James was evidently satisfied with Montagu’s performance in the Commons for on 9 June, five days after Parliament rose for the summer, it was reported that the king would soon make him a baron.37 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 381. Twenty days later, Montagu, having presumably by now emptied his purse, was formally ennobled as Lord Montagu of Boughton. When Parliament reconvened in the following November, Montagu was formally introduced to the House by his fellow Northamptonshire peer, the 1st Lord Spencer (Robert Spencer^*), and by his son-in-law the 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (Robert Bertie^*).38 LJ, iii. 162b, 163a. This ceremony, the first of its kind for peers created by patent rather than summoned by writ in acceleration, was probably designed to replace the hitherto customary practice of investiture by the crown, which had been dispensed with in Montagu’s case.39 A. Wagner and J. Sainty, ‘Origin of the Introduction of Peers in the House of Lords’, Archaeologia, ci. 133. Montagu may have commemorated his entry to the Lords by having his portrait painted, as a picture of him wearing his parliamentary robes now hangs at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. This painting was probably commissioned in imitation of a (now lost) portrait of his brother Viscount Mandeville, which, unusually for this period, also depicts the sitter in parliamentary attire.40 Reproduced in frontispiece to duke of Manchester [W.D. Montagu], Court and Soc. from Elizabeth to Anne.

Montagu was a seasoned parliamentarian by the time he entered the upper House, having been elected to the Commons on six previous occasions. He was also a veteran parliamentary diarist, having kept an account of Commons proceedings in 1604, and again in 1606-7. This habit of recording events at Westminster, widespread among Members of the lower House, was less well established in the Lords, where only one other peer – Henry Hastings^*, 5th earl of Huntingdon – is known to have kept a parliamentary diary before 1629. Nevertheless, Montagu resumed his wonted practice on taking his seat, ultimately producing a workmanlike, if rather colourless, account of proceedings. Written mainly in the past tense, and compiled either from memory, or from notes (no longer extant) taken in the chamber, this document made no attempt to capture every twist and turn of debate. Instead, its author provided little more than a bare summary. Montagu’s account of the 30 Nov. debate on the bill to prevent the hunting for concealed lands is typical. After recording that one (unnamed) peer proposed that the House should ask the king for his view of this measure, Montagu noted merely that this motion ‘bred divers questions and different opinions’, and that it was decided to recommit the bill.41 Northants. RO, Montagu 29/64, unfol., 30 Nov. 1621. However, it would perhaps be misleading to accuse Montagu of undue brevity. The clerk of the parliaments failed to notice this particular debate at all, either in his scribbled book or the official Journal. Since the earl of Huntingdon chose not to sit, Montagu’s account is therefore the only record of this debate that has come down to us.42 LJ, iii. 176a; Add. 40086, f. 34v.

Montagu assiduously attended the winter sitting of the 1621 Parliament. According to the Journal, he was absent three times, but this is certainly false: on the first occasion (20 Nov.) he was introduced to the House and on the second (27 Nov.) his diary demonstrates that he was, in fact, present. The only day on which he actually appears to have been absent was 19 Dec., the final day of the session. The reason for his non-appearance is unexplained, but it seems likely that Montagu grew bored of proceedings, for in his diary entry for the three previous days of sitting he complained that ‘nothing [was] done but about privileges and such like matters’.43 Northants. RO, 29/65, unfol., entry for 15, 17 and 18 Dec. 1621.

It may have been because he frequently attended while others did not that Montagu was appointed to seven of the 11 new committees established by the Lords during the sitting, plus six of the committees set up before the summer recess. These appointments did not, however, include the committee for drafting a new bill to outlaw monopolies, despite the claim made by his modern biographer.44 Cope, 92; LJ, iii. 177b. On the face of it, this omission is surprising, as a measure on monopolies, supported by Montagu himself, had been drawn up by the Commons before the summer adjournment. However, the explanation lies in the fact that Montagu not only led the vote in the Lords to reject the Commons’ bill, but also opposed the proposal to draft a new bill. In his diary, Montagu explained why he had changed his mind in respect of the monopolies bill. Aside from the fact that he now thought that the penalties prescribed for offenders were too severe, he now concurred with the judges, who considered the word ‘monopolies’ to be ‘of so large an extent as might admit divers interpretations’.45 Northants. RO, Montagu 29/64, unfol., 1 Dec. 1621.

Montagu recorded that he spoke only twice during the course of the winter sitting. The first occasion was at the third reading of the bill to prevent the export of iron ordnance on 30 November. He opened the debate, and pointed out two defects in the measure, one of which was that the bill made no provision for trying peers who offended against its provisions. These shortcomings were duly addressed, and the bill completed its passage through the House without further opposition. The second occasion on which Montagu spoke was during the debate on the monopolies bill the following day. Although not appointed to help draft a new bill, Montagu suggested that the House should confer with the Commons to explain why it had rejected the former measure. However, his fellow peers replied that this was needless.46 LD 1621, p. 99; Northants. RO, Montagu 29/64, unfol., 30 Nov. and 1 Dec. 1621. In the event, he was vindicated, because the lord keeper, John Williams^* (bishop of Lincoln, later archbishop of York), subsequently proposed just such a conference, ‘which motion was generally well liked of by the whole House’.47 LJ, iii. 179a.

In the immediate aftermath of the Parliament, Montagu was angry that so much time had been spent sitting at Westminster to so little effect. Parliament had reassembled in November 1621 for the express purpose of voting subsidies to pay for the defence of the Rhenish Palatinate, which territory, ruled by the king’s son-in-law, was in danger of being overrun by Spanish and imperial forces. However, the Commons had not only failed to grant supply but had also challenged James’s right to marry off his eldest son, Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales), to a Spanish infanta. Under these circumstances, the king was left with little option but to raise money from his subjects by means of a benevolence, which form of levy was in theory voluntary but in practice compulsory. Montagu was appalled, and not only because the country was in the grip of a trade depression, as the English did not like financial levies imposed upon them except by Parliament, ‘as former ages show’. Writing to his brother Viscount Mandeville, he warned that, outside the capital, ‘little will be raised, and that with a great deal of unwillingness’. He himself proposed an alternative method of raising money, namely a ‘liberal pardon’ for minor offences committed, no such pardon having been issued by James at the end of the 1621 assembly. However, a similar idea had been considered, and rejected, by the Privy Council in the aftermath of the 1614 Addled Parliament, and therefore it is hardly surprising that Montagu’s proposal was not adopted. Instead, over the spring of 1622 Montagu and his fellow Northamptonshire magistrates were instructed to raise a benevolence.48 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 225-6. For the earlier scheme, see A. Thrush, ‘Personal Rule of Jas. I, 1611-20’, Pols., Religion and Popularity ed. T. Cogswell et al., 100.

The Parliament of 1624

The most important of Montagu’s many local offices was that of lieutenant of Rockingham forest, which post he had held since at least 1593. As lieutenant, Montagu, though in theory subject to the supervision of the king’s warden, was responsible for the day-to-day administration of the forest,49 W.A.J. Pettit, Royal Forests of Northants. (Northants. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 21. which covered most of the eastern half of Northamptonshire. However, in May 1622, Lord Cranfield^* (Lionel Cranfield, later 1st earl of Middlesex), recently appointed lord treasurer in succession to Montagu’s brother Mandeville, inadvertently trespassed upon Montagu’s authority by issuing a warrant to the latter’s longstanding local enemy, Sir Francis Fane^* (later 1st earl of Westmorland) on the assumption that Fane was the forest’s lieutenant. When Montagu complained, Cranfield swiftly offered an apology,50 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 256-7; Cope, 97. but by then the damage had been done. Fane, irritated that Montagu had countermanded the lord treasurer’s warrant, and jealous that Montagu was a peer while he was not, proceeded publicly to question his rival’s authority. He also circulated a libel describing Montagu as ‘the grand promoter of this county, a dangerous, awful man’. Not surprisingly, Montagu retaliated, bringing a prosecution against Fane in Star Chamber. However, in late October the king not only put a stop to the case, but also summoned both men before him and reconciled them.51 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 264; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 262. This rapprochement was little more than window dressing, though, as before long Montagu complained to the king’s chief minister, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, that Fane ‘still persists in his malice and practiseth to bring me into distaste with some of his Majesty’s principal councillors of state, and into obloquy in my country’.52 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 257.

Despite Fane’s attempts to undermine him, Montagu remained a powerful figure in local politics. Ahead of the elections to the 1624 Parliament, he and Lord Spencer assumed their accustomed role of selecting the knights of the shire for Northamptonshire in order to avoid a contest. Between them they decided that Spencer’s eldest son Sir William Spencer^‡ (later 2nd Lord Spencer) and Montagu’s cousin and fellow puritan Richard Knightley^‡ should be returned for the county. However, Montagu subsequently came under pressure from some of his neighbours to switch his support to another of his cousins, Sir Lewis Watson^† (later 1st Lord Rockingham), the owner of Rockingham manor, who had the ear of Buckingham. He agreed to do so because he was persuaded that this arrangement would conform to ‘the ancient course’, a line of argument to which, being a traditionalist in all things, he was peculiarly vulnerable. Both halves of the county – east and west - would now be represented in Parliament, rather than merely the eastern side. However, faced with Montagu’s backsliding, Lord Spencer was unyielding. Not only did he deny that the county had customarily returned knights from both sides of the county, he also described Watson as ‘the unfittest of any on that part of the shire’. Unless Watson gave way to Knightley, ‘the opposition will be great, for we on this part will not sit down unless you can enforce us to lie down’. Confronted with the prospect of a contest (a mark of failure), and learning too that Watson’s candidacy had been endorsed by his enemy Fane – a point rammed home with delightful sarcasm by Spencer - Montagu backed down.53 Ibid. 258, 259; HMC Montagu, 106. As a result, Sir William Spencer and Knightley were both returned unopposed, leaving Watson to come in for the borough of Lincoln instead.

Montagu attended the state opening of Parliament on 19 Feb., when he was appointed by the king one of the triers of petitions from Gascony and England’s overseas territories. He also sat the next day, and again on the 23rd (the third day of the meeting), although on the latter occasion he is incorrectly shown as absent in the Journal. However, on the 24th he suffered an attack of ‘the stone’, which caused him avoid the Lords for the next few days. As a result he did not witness Buckingham deliver his ‘relation’ of the history of the Spanish Match to both Houses. This rather annoyed him for, as in 1621, he kept a diary of proceedings, and his account was now necessarily incomplete. However, he resumed his seat on the 27th, and thereafter sat every day (notwithstanding the Journal’s failure to record his presence on 9 Mar.) until the afternoon of 24 Mar., when he returned to Northamptonshire for Easter, thereby anticipating the adjournment by a day.54 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 230, 235. He incorrectly records the day of his departure as 24 April.

This frequent attendance meant that Montagu was, once again, often appointed to committees. Indeed, he was named to 22 of the 39 committees - more than half - established before Easter. Among his legislative appointments during this period were three bills of interest to puritans like himself. One, a perennial favourite, concerned the misuse of the Sabbath, while the others dealt with drunkenness and with evidence provided by informers against Catholics. No local interests informed any of Montagu’s committee nominations. However, he secured appointment to the committee for a bill on an exchange of lands involving his cousin Sir Lewis Watson and Prince Charles. Despite his earlier hostility to the monopolies bill, Montagu was appointed to consider a new bill on this same subject in mid March.55 LJ, iii. 246a, 249b, 252b, 267a, 274b.

Early in the Parliament Montagu was named to two standing committees: the committee for privileges and the (misleadingly named) subcommittee for privileges. This latter body was primarily concerned with inspecting the clerk’s book, both to ensure its accuracy and to see that correct procedure had been followed. As a parliamentary diarist, Montagu was clearly well suited to membership of what was often referred to as the Journals committee, and it is therefore hardly surprising that on 9 Mar. it was he who was chosen to relay its findings to the House. In his report, Montagu observed that a questionable procedure had been adopted in respect of the hospitals bill, which had been ordered to sleep after a defect in its wording had been discovered, despite having passed at third reading. Montagu argued that it was contrary to precedent to order a bill to sleep after it successfully completed its passage through the House, and that customary practice suggested that the bill should be sent back to the Commons for final amendment. The Lords, after taking legal advice, duly adopted this recommendation.56 LJ, iii. 215a, 215b, 253a, 254b-5a.

The principal reason the Parliament had been summoned was to advise the king whether to continue the negotiations with Spain for a royal marriage. Montagu was appointed to a committee to confer with the Commons on this subject on 2 Mar., and attended its meetings the following morning and the next day. At the second of these meetings, on the 4th, both Houses being resolved to advise James to break off the negotiations, the 3rd earl of Pembroke (William Herbert^*) proffered a note that he and the 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley^*) had written with the consent of their fellow peers. This said that the Commons promised to adventure both their lives and fortunes if James precipitated a war with Spain by breaking off the marriage negotiations. However, the note provided by Pembroke and Southampton clearly breached the convention that subsidies were initiated only by the Commons, and not surprisingly therefore the lower House ignored the Lords’ motion. Montagu, who had only recently been a Member of the Commons himself, undoubtedly realized this. However, if he regarded his fellow peers as presumptuous he declined to say so in his diary. Instead, he merely noted that the Commons passed over the Lords’ motion in silence.57 HENRY WRIOTHESLEY; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 232.

Responsibility for reporting to the Lords the reasons for breaking off the Spanish Match agreed by both Houses fell to the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot^*. While delivering this report, Abbot explained that, at the insistence of the king, he had decided to drop one proposed reason, the defence of the Protestant religion, on the grounds that ‘all our reasons had a dependence on religion’. Montagu was not entirely satisfied with this decision, but he, like others, decided to give way, though he confided to his diary that ‘amongst many of ourselves in private we had debate’.58 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 232. The House thereupon appointed a committee to present Parliament’s advice to the king. Montagu was initially appointed to this body, but, for reasons that remain unclear, the House subsequently decided to reduce the size of this committee, and his name was one of those dropped.59 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 26.

Montagu evidently spoke only rarely before Easter. Aside from his report from the Journals committee, mentioned above, he is recorded as having addressed the House only three times. On the first occasion (11 Mar.), he called upon the Lords to confer with the Commons rather than merely meet their representatives. He also proposed that a message be sent to the lower House accordingly, which motion led to the appointment of a committee to draft this document.60 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 27; Add. 40087, f. 72. The second occasion occurred two days later, when Montagu queried whether it was correct to describe Elizabeth Lumley as ‘Lady’ Elizabeth Lumley in the bill to allow her husband, Sir Richard Lumley, to sell land to pay his debts. He was of the view that only a baroness had the right to affect that title. Astonishingly, the House proved unable to reach an immediate decision, and the matter was ordered to be considered by the bill’s committee, of which Montagu himself was a member.61 Add. 40087, f. 83; LJ, iii. 257a, 260b. Montagu’s final contribution to debate before the Easter recess was on 23 Mar., when he declared that David Waterhouse^‡, the lawyer who had drafted a libel against Star Chamber, was more worthy of punishment than the man who had commissioned him to do so.62 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 44.

Shortly before the Easter recess, Montagu asked the clerk of the parliaments for a copy of Parliament’s advice to the king to end the Spanish Match, which was duly supplied.63 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 60v; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 245. He subsequently took an extended Easter break, for although the Lords reassembled on 1 Apr. he did not resume his seat for another six days. Not being one to disregard established procedure, however, he had Francis Russell^*, 2nd Lord Russell (later 4th earl of Bedford) obtain for him leave of absence.64 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 2; LJ, iii. 284a. Following his return, he sat until the end of the session, missing only five more sittings, on one of which (27 Apr.) he was unwell. This respectable attendance record meant that Montagu continued to attract many new committee appointments. However, for the first time since he became a member of the Lords, his nominations fell below half of the total number possible (26 out of 66). None of the legislative committees to which he was appointed dealt with issues of particular interest to him or his county, with the possible exception of those on the true making of woollen cloth and the export of wool (the western half of Northampton being sheep country).65 LJ, iii. 393a, 403b.

Montagu returned to Westminster to find that Lord Treasurer Cranfield, now earl of Middlesex, had come under parliamentary attack by the partisans of the duke of Buckingham. He himself recorded the ensuing proceedings in some detail, and was a member of the seven-man committee appointed to consider one of the chief pieces of evidence against Middlesex - the petition submitted by the officers of the Ordnance. He also helped take the evidence of numerous witnesses.66 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 237; LJ, iii. 358b-60a, 361a. However, he had little sympathy for the lord treasurer’s plight. When, on 11 May, the 2nd marquess of Hamilton [S] (James Hamilton^*, 1st earl of Cambridge) proposed that Middlesex’s uncivil speeches be considered after he answered the charges against him, Montagu suggested instead that the matter be dealt with first, whilst the words spoken ‘are fresh in memory’.67 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 73; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 63. The following day, during the debate on how to punish Middlesex, he declared that the lord treasurer, for the sake of personal gain, had ‘taken away the honour and state of the kingdom in the [great] wardrobe’, of which he had formerly been master. Finally, on 13 May, he called for the House to examine Middlesex’s patents of honour, a proposal which strongly suggests that he favoured stripping the earl of his titles.68 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 76, 187.

Aside from contributing to the debates on punishing Middlesex, Montagu is recorded as having spoken only once, on 21 May, when Lord Keeper Williams attempted to have an addition made to the monopolies bill removed before it had been formally presented to the House. Ever the stickler for correct procedure, Montagu pointed out that members should not ‘speak against amendments till they be read’, whereupon the amendments and provisos to the bill were duly reported from committee.69 Ibid. 99; LJ, iii. 397b.

Montagu seems to have grown tired of recording all but the most significant events in the Lords in 1624, as several of his diary entries are terse to the point of being uninformative. On 18 Mar., when the House read seven bills, his entry consisted simply of two words: ‘private bills’. (The statement is not even entirely accurate, as the first of the seven measures to be read was the monopolies bill). Two-word entries also characterize his entries for 14 and 27 May (‘ordinary business’ and ‘ordinary matters’ respectively). On the final day of the session (29 May) Montagu noted that, throughout the session, the king had made ‘many speeches according to the varieties of matter which are too long to set down; many excellent good ones but some displeasing’.70 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 234, 243, 245.

The parliaments of 1625 and 1626

In February 1625, Montagu married his sister-in-law Lady Anne Hare (née Crouch). She was his third wife, while he was her fourth husband. The marriage was presumably based in part on a mutual need for companionship, as Montagu was now in his mid sixties, while his bride, who was commended for the mildness of her disposition by her late husband Sur Ralph Hare^‡, was aged 51.71 Cope, 104; HP Commons 1558-1603, ii. 254.

Shortly after he remarried, a fresh Parliament was summoned by the new king, Charles I. Montagu was not anxious to sit, either because he feared the plague which was then raging in the capital or because he now found travelling to London detrimental to his health. He therefore appealed to his brother Mandeville, now lord president of the Privy Council, to obtain for him a licence of absence. The king was reluctant to grant Montagu his wish, as he considered him ‘a good Parliament-man, and not to be spared’. However, since the session was likely to be short, and dominated by money – the preserve of the Commons – he allowed him his way. Consequently, when Parliament met in June, Montagu, who played no recorded part in the Northamptonshire county election that year, was excused by his brother on grounds of ill health.72 HMC Buccleuch, i. 260, 261; Procs. 1625, pp. 44, 47.

It seems likely that the failure of the brief Westminster sitting to vote subsidies on the scale required by the king led Mandeville to warn Montagu that his presence would be needed when Parliament reassembled at Oxford in early August. However, Montagu did not appear until the second day of the new sitting, on 2 Aug., when he again began keeping a diary. Although he had been educated at Christ Church, he was forced to take lodgings at Trinity College, his alma mater having been commandeered by members of the Privy Council and the officers of the royal household.73 Procs. 1625, pp. 127, 661, 662.

Following his arrival at Oxford, Montagu sat continuously until the dissolution on 12 Aug., during which time he was appointed to three of the eight committees established by the House. Two of these concerned matters of religion, while the third was on free fishing off the north American coast. He made no recorded speeches. However, in his diary, Montagu noted that on 4 Aug. the king asked him his opinion while out walking after dinner. Earlier that day both Houses had been addressed by one of the masters of Requests, John Coke^‡, rather than by Secretary of State Conway (Sir Edward Conway^*, later 1st Viscount Conway), to the annoyance of many Members of the Commons. Charles, whose decision to employ Coke rather than Conway had been taken on purely practical grounds, was taken aback by this criticism, and asked Montagu, in the presence of Buckingham, for his opinion, seeing that he was ‘an old Parliament lower House man’. However, Montagu clearly thought that the criticism was justified. Far from defending Charles’s decision to employ Coke he remarked, diplomatically, that ‘I never saw it before’. This was not the only note of disapproval struck by Montagu at Oxford. On 9 Aug. he noted in his diary that at a conference held that day, members of the Lords took their seats before the representatives of the lower House arrived, ‘which is not according to the ancient order’.74 Ibid. 136, 146, 171, 174, 179. However, he failed to mention that this breach of convention had been made necessary by overcrowding, for if peers arrived in the Painted Chamber only after MPs, they often found it difficult to get to their seats.

Following the dissolution, Montagu retired to Northamptonshire, where he soon discovered that it was not only the House of Lords which no longer seemed to set a firm store by tradition. Early in October his enemy, Sir Francis Fane, recently appointed chairman of the county bench and now earl of Westmorland, instructed the local quarter sessions to meet that Christmas at Kettering, which lay close to his seat at Apethorpe, rather than at the county town of Northampton, in defiance of accustomed practice. Montagu was appalled, and not merely because Kettering lacked both a sessions house and gaol, as Westmorland had flatly disregarded an order recently made by his fellow justices. In mid November he predicted that there would be ‘some scuffling shortly’ among the magistrates, Westmorland’s behaviour being so high-handed ‘that it cannot be borne’. He himself was spoiling for a fight, and enlisted the help of his old allies, the Spencer family. In December he told Sir William Spencer that if their two houses stuck together ‘we shall be too hard for any domineering lord’. More importantly, he also obtained, with the help of his brother Mandeville, the support of the Privy Council, which, in early December, ordered the quarter sessions to meet at Northampton as normal. Montagu was naturally delighted at this ruling, but his pleasure was cut short three weeks later, when the king countermanded this order. The eastern division of Northamptonshire had recently contributed willingly to a privy seal loan, and Charles, by way of gratitude, ordered that henceforward Kettering would host the Christmas quarter sessions. Montagu was so disgusted that he conspicuously failed to sit on the bench when the sessions met on 10 Jan. 1626.75 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 253-4, 256; i. 262; APC, 1625-6, pp. 256-7, 293. Cope’s account of this episode is defective: Cope, 103-4, 109, 111.

In the midst of this quarrel, the king summoned another Parliament. In respect of the forthcoming Northamptonshire county election, there was now no question of Montagu having to choose between his cousins Sir Lewis Watson and Richard Knightley, as he had been forced to do two years earlier, since Knightley had recently been pricked as sheriff, and was thus ineligible to stand. However, Knightley urged Montagu to ensure that the county chose knights of the shire who were willing to compile a list of the papists in their midst. If others did the same, he argued, ‘there may be a calculation by the Parliament’ of the overall number of Catholics in the kingdom, whereby the king, who had now embarked upon war with Catholic Spain, might see the danger he was in. However, Montagu replied that he needed no prompting ‘to do all things tending to the honour of God and the good of the king and kingdom’, for on his side of the county at least, he and the local gentry had taken such pains ‘that there will not be a beggar left out that comes not to church every Sunday’.

Now that Knightley was unable to stand, Montagu proposed that Lord Spencer’s son Sir William be returned alongside Sir Lewis Watson, thereby ensuring that both sides of the county – east and west – were represented. However, Sir William Spencer informed Montagu that he was unwilling to serve again, having sat for Northamptonshire in three consecutive parliaments. Montagu thereupon encouraged Sir John Pickering^‡, a gentleman from eastern Northamptonshire of impeccable puritan credentials, to stand instead. Shortly after Christmas, though, Sir William Spencer changed his mind after Lord Spencer heard it rumoured that Montagu intended to help Westmorland’s eldest son Lord Burghersh (Mildmay Fane^†, later 2nd earl of Westmorland) to the senior seat. Understandably, Pickering was left feeling dismayed, for as he informed Montagu by letter, now that he had committed himself publicly to the fray, ‘I cannot go back’. However, he was a popular choice among voters, many of whom considered him a more acceptable alternative to Knightley than Watson, as did Knightley himself. Montagu was horrified, and rapidly sought to distance himself from Pickering, whom he accused of canvassing solely on his own behalf and of discouraging others from voting for Watson.76 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 259, 261, 262. However, the day before the election he was forced to admit that his attempts to avoid a contest (presumably by persuading either Pickering or Spencer to withdraw) had failed: ‘I have done my best to avoid it, and cannot do more, but leave the issue to God’s dispose’. He could not bring himself to attend the hustings in person the following day, but learned of Watson’s defeat from one of his friends.77 HMC Buccleuch, i. 262; HMC Montagu, 111.

In the aftermath of this humiliation, Montagu complained to his brother Mandeville of having been ‘much neglected and unthankfully used’ by Northamptonshire’s voters. Ironically, he attributed the defeat of Watson – whose seat lay in the east of the shire - to local anger over the king’s decision to move the Christmas quarter sessions to Kettering, in eastern Northamptonshire, which he himself had bitterly opposed. This setback helps to explain why Montagu was once again reluctant to attend Parliament, although he actually pleaded old age, the length of the journey and the state of the roads. However, his request for a licence of absence was evidently rebuffed, probably because the Parliament was immediately preceded by the king’s coronation, which Montagu was naturally expected to attend.78 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 263.

After participating in the coronation procession,79 Manner of the Coronation of King Chas. I ed. C. Wordsworth (Henry Bradshaw Soc. ii), p. l. Montagu attended the opening of Parliament four day later, when he was reappointed one of the triers of petitions from Gascony and England’s overseas territories. In his parliamentary diary, which he now recommenced, he noted with obvious distaste that the recusant peers who had sat through the church service when the king was crowned failed to attend the service held at the state opening. However, he observed with satisfaction a few days later that two of the Catholic noblemen involved – the 4th Lord Vaux (Edward Vaux^*) and the 12th Lord Audley (Mervyn Tuchet^*, 2nd earl of Castlehaven [I]) - had taken the oath of allegiance. Montagu’s close interest in the loyalty of Catholic peers is perhaps not surprising, given his religious outlook. However, in Vaux’s case it was undoubtedly tempered by a measure of personal concern. Vaux was his near neighbour at Boughton, and, along with his brother William, had recently been brought before Star Chamber for his abusive treatment of Montagu’s cousin and fellow puritan, Richard Knightley.80 Procs. 1626, i. 22, 24, 25, 41.

Although he had been reluctant to attend the Parliament, Montagu sat throughout the ensuing session almost without break. The Journal suggests that in February he was absent twice, but his diary does not indicate that he was elsewhere and includes entries for both days (the 8th and the 27th). Before 5 June, when he returned to Northamptonshire for eight days, Montagu may have been absent only once, on 1 Apr., when he obtained formal leave. He nevertheless supplied an entry in his diary for that day. He did the same again following his extended June absence, by consulting the clerk of the parliaments’ scribbled book.81 Ibid. 239, 245, 561.

Montagu clearly took great personal pride in the regularity of his attendance. Perhaps for the same reason he endeavoured to ensure that he was not late. He was therefore shocked when, on 7 Mar., he arrived after prayers, ‘which I never did before’. The previous day Montagu had recorded in his diary that the House had adjourned to nine o’clock the next morning, whereas it had actually agreed to reassemble at eight.82 Ibid. 116, 124.

The regularity of his attendance meant that, once again, Montagu was frequently appointed to committees. Of the 49 established by the House during the session, Montagu was named to 38. As in 1624, they included both the standing committee for privileges and the subcommittee for privileges, whose proceedings in respect of the money raised for the relief of plague victims in the capital in 1625 he reported to the House on 25 Apr. (though he coyly failed to mention this fact in his diary). Several of Montagu’s other committee appointments dealt with matters of religion, such as the observation of the Sabbath, the better maintenance of the ministry, benefit of clergy, clerical magistrates and the citations issued by church courts.83 Ibid. 292, 295, 300, 313, 314, 317, 369.

In 1626, as in the previous assemblies in which he had sat, Montagu seldom addressed the House. However, in mid February he and his fellow puritan peer, the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele (William Fiennes^*), moved that Carew Ralegh, who had introduced a bill to restore himself in blood, should both take the oath of allegiance before the whole House and bring in a certificate confirming that he had received communion. Four days later, he opposed a proposal that the subcommittee of privileges meet to draft an order to punish those peers who had failed to attend and not sent a proxy. This was, perhaps, surprising in a peer as conscientious in his attendance as Montagu, but his reasons for opposing the motion are regrettably not recorded. On 6 Mar. Montagu expressed dissatisfaction with the House’s slow proceedings. Peers had now sat for a month, he complained, and yet had still not discussed the defence of the kingdom, for which Parliament had been summoned. He therefore called for something to be done. This motion, which was widely applauded, led to the appointment of a committee for the safety and defence of the kingdom, to which Montagu himself was named. It was not, as Conrad Russell claimed, an invitation to follow the precedent set in 1624 by the earls of Pembroke and Southampton, who had tried to prompt the Commons to vote subsidies.84 Ibid. 55, 62, 110, 116; C. Russell, PEP, 287.

Montagu made five further speeches before the Parliament was dissolved. The first, on 31 Mar., was in respect of the office of hereditary lord great chamberlain, which was claimed by his son-in-law Robert Bertie^*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey). In view of his interest in this matter, Montagu offered to leave the chamber, as he had nine days earlier, when the House discussed Willoughby’s claim to the earldom of Oxford. However, his colleagues insisted that he remain in his seat.85 Procs. 1626, i. 196, 234. Montagu spoke again on 5 Apr., when he asked to know whether the subcommittee of privileges, of which he was a member, was required to continue searching for precedents in respect of the imprisonment of peers during time of Parliament, as the House had issued an order suspending this search on 15 March. His inquiry evidently set the cat among the pigeons, as the matter was subsequently debated at length, and had to be settled by a vote.86 Ibid. 260, 262. For the order, and the suspension, see ibid. 149-50, 156. Montagu’s next recorded intervention occurred on 29 Apr., when he expressed the view that the 1st earl of Bristol (John Digby^*), who had been summoned to the House as a delinquent, should be allowed to sit until he was formally charged. Ten days later, Montagu spoke again, asking the House to protect the reputation of the king by making it clear that events mentioned in Bristol’s recent petition referred to Charles as prince of Wales rather than as monarch. His final recorded speech of the session, made on 15 May, was motivated by a similar concern. Like many other peers, he declared that Sir Dudley Digges^‡ had not, during his presentation of the Commons’ articles of impeachment against Buckingham, impugned the king’s honour.87 Ibid. 323, 392, 477, 482.

In addition to these occasional contributions to debate, and his service on numerous committees, Montagu made two other recorded impressions on the parliamentary record in 1626. The first, on 15 May, was to vote against the motion to allow the earl of Bristol counsel during his trial. His reason for doing so stemmed from pedantry rather than principle; he disliked the wording of the motion. His second contribution to proceedings occurred one week later, when he helped introduce to the House his nephew, Edward Montagu^*, Lord Kimbolton (later 2nd earl of Manchester), who had been summoned to the Lords by writ of acceleration.88 Ibid. 486, 540.

Although Montagu kept a diary of the 1626 Parliament, he carefully excluded from its pages any evidence of his sympathies regarding the main business of the session, the impeachment of Buckingham. He also preserved the anonymity of those who addressed the House on highly sensitive subjects, such as the arrest, while Parliament was sitting, of the 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel (Thomas Howard^*). On 11 May, for instance, he noted that ‘a lord’ moved to consider how to give the king satisfaction. Were it not for the clerk of the parliaments, whose account of this debate in his scribbled book is less guarded than Montagu’s, there would be no way of knowing that the speaker concerned was, in fact, Viscount Saye and Sele. Montagu observed the same coyness in respect of his entry for 25 May, when he recorded that ‘a lord’ declared that the king’s answer to the House’s petition demanding to know the reason for the detention of Arundel was in ‘no way satisfactory’. On this occasion, however, the identity of the speaker remains a mystery, as the clerk tactfully omitted to record the debate altogether.89 Ibid. 404, 553.

If Montagu was guarded in what he chose to confide to his diary in 1626, he nevertheless conveyed more colour than in previous years. On 11 May, for instance, he recorded that the Lords could ‘hear by the noise’ that a deputation from the Commons had arrived outside the chamber with a message requesting that Buckingham be placed in custody. He also noted that, after this message was delivered, the duke ‘made a fine speech, which I think he had prepared in writing by the often looking upon a paper’. This same entry makes it clear that, on this occasion at least, Montagu relied upon his memory in order to write up his account of the day’s proceedings, for he added that he could not remember what Buckingham had said.90 Ibid. 403, 404.

It is not known why Montagu returned to Northamptonshire for eight days during the dying days of the session, but he resumed his seat on 13 June. Two days later, with the axe about to fall, he was appointed to help draft a short petition calling upon the king to continue the Parliament, a copy of which is among Montagu’s own papers. However, before this document could be presented to Charles, the assembly was dissolved.91 Ibid. 623, 633; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 304.

The Forced Loan and the Parliament of 1628-9

Following the dissolution, Montagu was asked by the king to lend money to the crown for the war effort. However, before he could pay up, Charles cancelled this, and other requests for voluntary contributions, in favour of a Forced Loan. Montagu, as a leading member of local society, was naturally appointed a commissioner for the Loan’s collection, both in Northamptonshire and nearby Huntingdonshire, where his brother Mandeville, now earl of Manchester, held his principal estates. However, in view of his lack of enthusiasm for the benevolence raised in the immediate aftermath of the 1621 Parliament, he might have been expected to drag his feet over this demand for unparliamentary taxation. In fact, after searching his conscience, he decided that he could not ‘deny this desire of the king’s’, for if it was the duty of a Christian to lend to his brother ‘how could I answer before God if I were to deny the king?’ Besides, ‘what causes can there be greater than the defence of the realm?’92 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 304, 305; i. 263, 264. He therefore not only paid his contribution quickly, but also promoted the Loan enthusiastically. On the face of it, his efforts were well rewarded, for at Northampton he persuaded many of the local gentry to contribute who at first declared themselves unwilling to pay.93 Procs. 1626, iv. 348; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 15. However, his support for this levy drew criticism from among his neighbours, many of whom were impressed that in some other counties noblemen were in the forefront of the opposition to the Loan. Indeed, according to Joseph Bentham, Montagu ‘lost ... the love of his country [i.e. county]’ by his support for the Loan. Montagu was disconcerted by the degree of displeasure he had aroused among his neighbours, who were already dissatisfied with him for failing to prevent the transfer of the Christmas quarter sessions to Kettering, and in December 1626 he therefore tried to minimize the damage. On being instructed to promote the Loan in Huntingdonshire, he asked his brother Manchester for permission to be excused.94 Cope, 121.

In the midst of these difficulties, Montagu finally had his revenge on the earl of Westmorland. In October 1626 he won his slander case in Star Chamber, which had been temporarily halted by the late king, James I. However, his sense of triumph was undoubtedly short-lived, as Charles I proved unwilling to set down the costs payable by Westmorland, presumably because the latter was, like Montagu himself, a firm supporter of the Forced Loan.95 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 307, 309. The following year, Montagu became embroiled in a rivalry with another local peer, the 5th Lord Mordaunt (John Mordaunt^*, later 1st earl of Peterborough). Both men were eager to snap up Geddington woods, in Rockingham forest, which lay adjacent to Montagu’s principal seat of Boughton and which the crown, desperate for cash to pay for its military ventures, was willing to sell. In order to gain the ear of the king’s chief minister, Buckingham, Montagu approached Sir Sackville Crowe^‡, whose father he had once helped and who was now one of the duke’s chief servants. Crowe was only too willing to assist, and, despite his new duties as treasurer of the Navy, persuaded Buckingham to suspend a grant made out to Mordaunt. However, the matter was necessarily put on hold after Buckingham went on campaign in France.96 Ibid. 318; i. 266.

Following the duke’s return, Mordaunt tried to outbid Montagu.97 Ibid. iii. 319, 320. However, in February 1628, with the assistance of his brother Manchester, Montagu finally secured his prize, at a cost of £850. He also persuaded the king, for an additional £1,000, to abolish the wardenship of Rockingham forest after the death of the current warden, the 2nd earl of Exeter (William Cecil^*), and to divide its duties between himself and two other foresters. This grant, which was also opposed by Mordaunt, passed the great seal over the summer.98 Coventry Docquets, 248; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 321, 532, 580; 1628-9, pp. 199, 254, 513; HMC Buccleuch, i. 267; iii. 323. It seems unlikely that Montagu, who died in 1644, ever derived much benefit though, since Exeter did not expire until 1640.

Shortly before Montagu’s grant of Geddington woods passed the great seal, the king summoned another Parliament. Montagu, whose local credibility now lay in tatters, appears to have kept a low profile in the ensuing elections. Certainly there is no evidence that he helped select the Northamptonshire knights of the shire, although one of the successful candidates, the Loan refuser Richard Knightley, had briefly enjoyed his support in 1624.

There is no evidence that, before Parliament assembled, Montagu applied to the king for leave of absence, as he had in 1625 and 1626. Reappointed a trier of petitions from Gascony and England’s overseas territories on the opening day of the Parliament, he subsequently enjoyed one of the most impressive attendance records of any peer in 1628. According to the Journal, he was absent four times, but in point of fact the clerk failed to record his presence at least twice: on 22 Mar., when he helped introduce to the House the 1st Lord Maynard (William Maynard*), and on 28 Mar., when he participated in debate.99 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 91, 116. This regular attendance was, not surprisingly, once again reflected in the number of Montagu’s committee nominations. Of the 52 committees established during the session, Montagu was named to 35, more than two thirds. He was nearly included on a 36th, being listed initially on the committee for the Neville estate bill, which measure he had been required to help consider in 1626. However, for reasons that are now unclear, his name was removed. As usual, Montagu was a member of both the committee and the subcommittee for privileges.100 Ibid. 63, 73, 79, 258, 261; Procs. 1626, i. 84. It seems likely that Montagu kept a diary of proceedings in 1628, just as he had in the previous four parliaments, but if so it seems not to survive.

Although the 1628 session was dominated by debates over the extent of the crown’s arbitrary powers, it has been suggested that, for Montagu, the major issue of the session was religion.101 Cope, 127. There is certainly good reason for supposing this to be the case. Montagu regarded Buckingham’s recent military failure in France as evidence of divine displeasure, and as early as December 1627 he asked Manchester to consider how the nation might be ‘stirred up to a public humiliation’. He certainly believed in the efficacy of public acts of abasement, as he pointed out that after the national day of fasting held at the height of the severe plague epidemic of 1625 the sickness had decreased. Were this exercise to be repeated, he argued, there was little doubt that the kingdom’s martial fortunes would improve.102 HMC Buccleuch, i. 267. In the event, when Parliament assembled it was not Montagu who proposed that a national day of fasting be held but various Members of the Commons.103 CD 1628, ii. 34, 36. Nevertheless, Montagu was a member of the committee which conferred with the lower House on this matter, and helped presented the resultant petition to the king, who appointed5 Apr. as the day for fasting and prayer.104 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 78, 86; CD 1628, ii. 94, 320.

For Montagu, however, the fast petition was only the first step. Shortly after his brother Manchester reported to the upper House Charles’s favourable response, he proposed that the king now be asked to take a firm line against Catholics. The penal laws against recusants, which had been suspended following the king’s marriage to Henrietta Maria, should be executed, and none of those guilty of avoiding church should be permitted to compound for their offence. He also demanded that those who resorted to the queen’s chapel in Denmark House should be prevented from doing so. Were these steps to be taken, he averred, the nation would remove from itself the sin of tolerating ‘idolatry.’ However, this motion, though ‘well approved of’ by many peers, was politely ignored by the rest of the House, to the irritation of the 2nd earl of Devonshire (William Cavendish^*) and Viscount Saye and Sele, who renewed it in order ‘that motions made here may not die’. As a result, the House established a 12-man committee to draft a new petition. Although its members naturally included Montagu, it was Devonshire who reported the resulting document to the House. Montagu was nevertheless among those peers who called upon both Houses to present the petition to the king, and he subsequently expressed joy on learning that Charles had accepted the petition’s recommendations.105 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 96-9, 103, 124, 160-1. Montagu continued for the rest of the session to take a close interest in religious matters, being named to consider bills to increase the amount of preaching, punish abuses of the Sabbath, identify popish recusants and provide better maintenance for ministers. At its second reading on 28 Mar., this latter bill was greeted with silence, to the consternation of the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (Thomas Morton^*, later bishop of Durham), who observed that the measure could not be committed unless something was said in its favour. At this, Montagu, a supporter of the bill, remarked that those with church livings should be resident upon them.106 Ibid. 112, 116, 421, 579, 627.

Montagu’s concern for matters of religion, and his aversion to popery, may help to explain an otherwise baffling incident that occurred in early April. He complained to the Lords that one John Mayne had used his name to forge a letter of protection. However, Montagu was mistaken, for after the matter was referred to the subcommittee for privileges, of which Montagu himself was a member, it was discovered that the letter produced by Mayne to avoid arrest had actually been issued by the latter’s master, the Catholic peer Henry Parker^*, 14th Lord Morley, who had been granted leave of absence.107 Ibid. 146, 171, 183, 199, 353; HENRY PARKER. The incident raises the intriguing possibility that Montagu feared he had become the target of Catholic mischief making.

Although religious considerations may have been at the forefront of Montagu’s mind in 1628, other subjects also drew his attention. In early April he opposed John Williams, bishop of Lincoln, after the latter suggested that, because there were no merchants in the upper House, Buckingham’s proposals for increasing trade should first receive consideration in the Commons. His reason for doing so is unrecorded. Later that same day (Thursday 3 Apr.), business being thin, he helped head off a proposal to adjourn the House until the following Monday, moving instead that it meet tomorrow. His motion was doubtless motivated in part by gratitude at the king’s favourable reception of Parliament’s petition on religion. However, it may also suggest that Montagu had heeded the king’s warning, issued two days earlier, ‘that the time of year slips away, and if their supply be not speedy, he shall not be able to put a ship to sea’. If so, it is noticeable that Montagu showed little concern for the king’s timetable three weeks later. When Buckingham, anxious to speed up proceedings, tried to force an immediate vote on the king’s right to imprison without showing cause, it was Montagu who riposted ‘not before a conference’. This remark was one of only two made by Montagu during the debates on the liberties of the subject. The other was uttered in early May, when he proposed, without success, that two or three peers be instructed to draw up a report on the Petition of Right. However, Montagu also defended the 5th earl of Huntingdon, who had spearheaded the collection of the Forced Loan in Leicestershire, after the House learned that Huntingdon had been accused by Sir Henry Shirley of levying more money than was necessary and of embezzling the surplus. Indeed, when Huntingdon complained to the House on 26 May, Montagu proposed that witnesses be examined in order to confirm the earl’s story. Montagu was also appointed to the committee to examine those who could prove the Commons’ accusations against the rector of St Giles in the Fields Roger Manwaring^* (later bishop of St Davids), whose absolutist views on the Forced Loan had enraged many Members of the lower House.108 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 133, 146-7, 148, 324, 426, 525, 533, 612.

Montagu is known to have made only three other speeches that session. In the first, on 28 Mar., he found himself in the unusual position of supporting his old enemy, the earl of Westmorland, who complained that a beggar had tried to strike him after laying hold of his coach. Montagu, no friend to those who sought to overturn the natural social order, called for the king to issue a proclamation. His second speech, on 23 May, also took as its theme the established order of things. He moved ‘for every lord to sit in his place’, suggesting either that he was annoyed that some peers were standing when they should have been seated, or that he was irritated that certain members of the House were not sitting in their designated places. In his final speech of the session, on 16 June, Montagu seconded his fellow puritan peer, Viscount Saye and Sele, who complained that the preamble to the subsidy bill failed to mention the Lords. This omission, Saye observed, necessarily meant that either peers were not required to contribute or that they were required to pay without giving their assent. Montagu agreed with Saye, that the House confer with the Commons.109 Ibid. 15-16, 514, 650.

Montagu tried to avoid sitting in the second session of Parliament, which met in January 1629. He was not ill exactly, but neither was he entirely well, or so he said, and therefore he preferred to stay at home to undergo a course of physic. However, on approaching his brother Manchester for leave of absence, he was politely rebuffed, on the grounds that the king would withhold his consent. Ever obedient to royal commands, Montagu therefore set aside his personal preferences and journeyed to Westminster. There he took lodgings, as Manchester, who had previously housed him in time of Parliament, was now unable to put him up.110 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 330; i. 268. He subsequently attended all 23 of the session’s sittings, and was appointed to 13 of the 19 committees established by the upper House (including both the committee and the subcommittee for privileges).111 LJ, iv. 6a, 6b. He also resumed his habit of keeping a diary of proceedings.

As in 1628, matters of religion probably occupied much of Montagu’s attention during the session. On 14 Mar. he noted in his diary that Viscount Saye and Sele ‘made a good speech for the necessity of preaching ministers’, and he himself was named to three committees on religious matters. The first was on a bill to improve the maintenance of parish clergy; the second was required to compose a petition to the king requesting another public fast; while the third was to draft measures to prevent churches from falling into decay and provide sufficient stipends for curates.112 Ibid. 8a, 14a, 31a. However, the subject of Montagu’s only recorded speech that session was not religion but the privilege of English peers. On 9 Feb. Thomas Belasyse^*, Lord (later 1st Viscount) Fauconberg, complained to the House that the purchasers of Irish viscountcies took precedence over English barons on English commissions. Although Montagu considered this speech both ‘temperate and discreet’, Fauconberg provoked fierce condemnation from those who feared that the king would not look kindly on any proposal to curb the social standing of Irish (and by implication Scottish) peers. However, Montagu, despite his firm sense of loyalty to the king, was undeterred. After persuading the House to turn itself into a grand committee, he proceeded to denounce royal practice. The law, he pointed out, took no notice of ‘foreign’ peers, but regarded them simply as commoners. Moreover, the ordering of peers was governed by a statute of 1540, which said that noblemen were to be listed in order of the age of their titles. Foreign peers, being commoners, could not be placed before them. For Montagu, the issue was so clear that the only real question was how peers could go about obtaining redress. It seems likely that it was his forceful support for Fauconberg that was responsible for persuading the House to appoint a committee to draft a resolution on the matter, to which he himself was duly named.113 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 334-5; LJ, iv. 25b.

In Montagu’s eyes, the precedence accorded to ‘foreign’ peers subverted the established social order. So too did the widespread habit of wearing clothing suitable only for those of a higher social rank. Attempts to curb this practice were of long standing, and Montagu doubtless supported them. In 1604, while a knight of the shire for Northamptonshire, he had reported a bill to restrict the use of precious metals in clothing, and in 1626, 1628 and 1629 he sat on committees established to consider apparel legislation. His concern for the fate of the apparel bill in 1629 is apparent from his diary entry for 19 Feb., in which he noted that those in favour of the measure outnumbered their opponents by five votes, who therefore called for proxy votes to be included. No doubt to Montagu’s satisfaction, the bill’s supporters subsequently triumphed, as it transpired that the number of proxies on both sides was equally balanced.114 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 340; Procs. 1626, i. 231; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 112; LJ, iv. 19b.

Final years, 1630-44

During the 1630s Montagu largely devoted himself to the administration of his native county. In 1635 he was fined £3,470 for encroachment after the crown revived the medieval forest laws. However, this exorbitant sum was later reduced, after negotiation with the Privy Council, to just £500.115 Pettit, 85, 88, 89; HMC Buccleuch, i. 265-6. That same year Montagu and five other magistrates complained to the Privy Council that eastern Northamptonshire had been overrated for Ship Money. As a result, the Council ordered the county sheriff to amend his assessment.116 HMC Buccleuch, iii. 375, 376; CSP Dom. 1635, p. 446.

In view of his puritan leanings, it is not surprising that Montagu viewed the direction of English ecclesiastical policy during the 1630s with grave misgivings. In his private notes he revealed that he thought that, under William Laud^*, archbishop of Canterbury, the Church had set up altars, and so fallen prey to idolatry. Consequently, when the Scottish Covenanters rebelled in 1638, his sympathies were very much with the king’s enemies.117 Cope, 163. However, his sense of duty to the crown outweighed his personal preferences in matters of religion, and, on being summoned to attend the king at York in January 1639, he promised to do as he was bidden, though in truth he was now too old and infirm to serve in person. In the event, he supplied six horsemen for the forthcoming campaign instead.118 CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 478; Cope, 478.

Despite his reservations about the wisdom of royal policy, Montagu sided with the king on the outbreak of civil war. However, he was arrested at Boughton in August 1642 by parliamentary forces and imprisoned in the Tower. Although subsequently permitted to remove himself to more comfortable quarters, he remained in the capital, where he died in June 1644. Soon thereafter he was buried at Weekley parish church, near his seat at Boughton, where a modest tomb was erected to his memory. He was succeeded as 2nd Lord Montagu by his eldest son Edward^† who, unlike his father, was a firm supporter of the parliamentarian cause.119 Oxford DNB, xxxviii. 702.