MONTAGU, Sir Henry (bef. 1567-1642), of Aldersgate Street, London; Brick Court, the Middle Temple, London; and Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet Street, London; later of Hertford (subsequently Manchester) House, Cannon Row, Westminster; Kimbolton Castle, H

Described by Dudley Carleton* in 1606 as one of the ‘apostles of the Lower House’, Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 76. Montagu was the younger son of a leading Northamptonshire magnate, and was born at his father’s seat of Boughton house shortly before 1567. While still a schoolboy ‘one skilful in mysterious arts’ allegedly predicted that he would ‘raise himself above the rest of his family’. T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. ii. 513. After completing a Cambridge education, he was admitted in 1585 to the Middle Temple, where he was assigned to the chambers of his eldest brother, Edward. Called to the bar in 1592, he established a thriving legal practice. His clients included his kinsman, the governor of Flushing, (Sir) Robert Sidney†, whose agent at Court, Rowland Whyte, thought he would ‘prove an excellent lawyer’. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 229, 306, 439, 458. In 1601 he married the daughter of the Exchequer auditor, Sir William Spencer, whereupon his father settled upon him the Northamptonshire manor of Kettering. Bridges, Hist. and Antiqs. of Northants. ii. 242. That same year his elder brother James entrusted him with the management of the estates of Sidney Sussex College. Cott. Julius C.III, f. 271.

Montagu obtained significant advancement early in the new reign when, on the recommendation of lord keeper Egerton (Thomas Egerton I†), he was appointed recorder of London in succession to (Sir) John Croke III† (26 May 1603). CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 10; CLRO, Reps. 26/1, f. 147v; Cott. Titus C.VII, f. 46. One of his first duties was to address the king the day before the Coronation, when he expressed the City’s relief at the failure of the Main Plot. The next day he welcomed the queen to the City and was knighted. HALS, Gorhambury XII.B.5, unfol.; Bodl. Rawl. D1045, ff. 75-9. He subsequently helped investigate the plot, arresting one of the servants of Lord Cobham (Henry Brooke, alias Cobham II†) and searching his papers. HMC Hatfield, xv. 274.

On 7 Feb. 1604, following the announcement of a Parliament, Montagu and three other leading Londoners were dispatched by the corporation to the king’s chief minister, Lord Cecil (Robert Cecil†) ‘about the special affairs of this City’. CLRO, Reps. 26/1, f. 275. One week later, Montagu, who had previously represented Higham Ferrers in Parliament, was returned for London, an honour traditionally bestowed by the City upon its recorder. On the first day of the opening session (19 Mar.), Montagu helped administer the Oath of Supremacy to his colleagues, a task deputed in earlier parliaments to the privy councillors in the House, of whom there was now a distinct shortage. When it was proposed to elect Sir Edward Phelips as Speaker, several other names were murmured, including Montagu’s, but the House eventually acquiesced in the king’s choice. CJ, i. 140b, 141b. As London’s recorder, Montagu was expected to pursue the City’s legislative interests. He was accordingly named to consider bills concerning London’s Court of Requests (14 May), the statute of bankrupts (14 May), new buildings and overcrowding in the capital (27 Apr.), and the City’s quays and wharves (20 June), all measures which probably originated with the corporation. He and his fellow London Member, Richard Gore, also headed the committee for the bill on garbling spices in London (30 May), a matter of concern as the right to appoint the garbler had long been disputed between London and the Crown. Ibid. 188a, 209a, 228b, 243b. For London’s legislative programme in 1604, see LONDON. In addition, Montagu was required to defend his constituents against hostile legislation, such as the London tithes bill, which he was named to consider on 10 May. The corporation ordered all its parliamentary representatives and six leading citizens to attend the committee and to confer beforehand. CJ, i. 205a-b; CLRO, Reps. 26/2, f. 360. Montagu may have needed no such prompting regarding the free trade bill, which threatened to overturn the treasured monopolies enjoyed by London’s trading Companies. Named to the committee on 24 Apr., he opposed the measure at its third reading on 31 May, when he was supported by his fellow London Members, Gore and Nicholas Fuller. Montagu’s contribution to the debate was so important that on 4 June Sir Edwin Sandys was obliged to rebut it ‘point by point’. CJ, i. 183b, 232a, 983a.

Montagu’s parliamentary interests embraced the legislative business of the City’s chartered Companies. From 1603 he received an annual fee of £5 from the Brewers, and in March 1604 he brought in a bill to place all the brewers in and around London under the Company’s jurisdiction. However, the measure, which had also been considered in 1601, fell at the first reading (27 March). GL, ms 5442/5, unfol., 1603/4 acct.; CJ, i. 156b. It may have been with an eye to the Brewers’ interests that on 24 Apr. Montagu was named to consider the Coopers’ bill, which sought to oblige each brewer to employ two coopers. CJ, i. 183b. The Blacksmiths paid Montagu to peruse a bill drawn up for them, GL, ms 2883/3, p. 92. The identity of this bill is unknown. while the Vintners, too, called on Montagu’s services. In April they paid him £6, at least £1 of which was for legal advice regarding an alehouse bill that they considered hostile. However, Montagu was not named to the bill committee, as the Vintners’ main allies in the Commons were Nicholas Fuller and Francis Moore. GL, ms 15333/2, pp. 359-60; CJ, i. 180a. Montagu and the rest of London’s Members were appointed to consider the Painters’ Company bill on 15 June, and 13 days later he was nominated to the committee for the leathercutters bill, a measure that concerned several of the livery Companies. He probably followed closely the bill to confirm the charter of Bridewell hospital, as the hospital’s welfare directly concerned the City’s government, and he was twice named to the committee (27 Apr. and 9 June). CJ, i. 228a, 235b, 239b, 247b. He certainly took a close interest in the numerous clothing bills before the House in 1604, two of which at least originated in London. The first, put in by the Clothworkers, sought to protect native employment by preventing the export of undressed cloth, while the second, introduced by the Merchant Adventurers and with opposite ends in mind to the Clothworkers, aimed to increase exports by allowing unfinished cloths to be sent abroad. Montagu chaired the committee, for on 11 and 12 Apr. both the London measures and the other bills were entrusted to him. Ibid. 167a, 169b.

One of Montagu’s chief concerns in 1604 was to protect the rights of the Commons. A member of the privileges committee, he proved anxious to secure the release of Sir Thomas Shirley I, who despite his parliamentary status had been imprisoned for debt. On 27 Mar. he debated whether Shirley was entitled to privilege, and on 11 Apr. concluded that Shirley’s arrest before Parliament met constituted a ‘contempt’ that was ‘very plain’. He was unimpressed when William Hakewill preferred a short bill to induce the warden of the Fleet to release his prisoner, claiming on 9 May that it ‘helpeth not’. Instead, he proposed that six Members should accompany the serjeant-at-arms and, if necessary, force Shirley’s release. Approval greeted his suggestion until the Speaker pointed out that any Member using force would be liable in law for the resultant injuries and damage. Frustrated, Montagu the next day presented a bill himself, which was given three readings in rapid succession. Ibid. 150a, 167b, 205a-b; CD 1604-7, p. 28. Montagu proved almost as vocal when the Commons defended its right to determine its own membership following the disputed Buckinghamshire election. He thereby risked causing offence to his patron, Egerton, now lord chancellor Ellesmere, who claimed authority to determine controverted elections himself. On 23 Mar. he debated the Buckinghamshire case, and was subsequently appointed to help draft and present a message to the king on the subject. On 30 Mar. he dismissed James’s suggestion that the House should confer with the judges: ‘The judges have judged, and we have judged. What need then of conference?’ The House, he said, should resolve the matter itself and simply inform the Council of its decision. That same day he was appointed to help record the Commons’ reasons for its proceedings, and on 5 Apr. he was named to the joint conference appointed to consider the resultant document. CJ, i. 156b, 157a, 934b, 940a; CD 1604-7, p. 37. Both the Shirley case and the Buckinghamshire election dispute represented serious threats to the Commons, but most worrying of all was the king’s insistence that the Commons derived its privileges from him, a claim which led to the drafting of the Form of Apology and Satisfaction. Montagu participated in the debate of 20 June over the wording of this document, but the gist of his speech went unrecorded. CJ, i. 243b.

Montagu also made his presence felt during the discussions on James’s desire to obtain statutory recognition of the style ‘Great Britain’. Indeed, he reported the joint conference of 14 Apr. and debated the matter on 23 and 26 Apr., though on both occasions his words went largely unrecorded. Moreover, he was one of the 20 Members instructed on 5 May to confer with the Lords about the bill to appoint commissioners of the Union; four days later he addressed the House on the matter. Ibid. 172a-3a, 182b, 199a, 958b, 968a. On other contentious issues Montagu took a back seat: twice named to attend joint conferences on wardship (22 Mar. and 22 May), for instance, he seems not to have contributed to debates on the subject. Ibid. 154a, 222b. His legislative interests, by comparison, were wide and not restricted to measures concerning London. He showed particular concern for the assarts bill, being named to the committee (3 May) and participating in the third reading debate (25 May), when he spoke in favour of the measure ‘with many reasons’. Ibid. 197b, 226a, 980b. He may also have chaired the committee for the Tunnage and Poundage bill, as his name heads the list of its members. Ibid. 228b. Among the many legislative committees to which he belonged were those to confirm the liberties of the subject (29 Mar.), naturalize Lady Kildare, daughter of the lord admiral, the 1st earl of Nottingham (Charles Howard†, 30 May), and confirm the queen’s jointure (24 May). This latter appointment may have reflected his association with Sir Robert Sidney, who had recently been appointed Anne’s lord chamberlain; certainly, Anne’s jointure estate continued to exercise Montagu after the session had ended, as his name appears on a list of surveyors for the queen’s lands in Huntingdonshire dated September 1604. Ibid. 157a, 224a, 229a; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iii. 133. Among Montagu’s non-legislative appointments were committees to consider motions put forward at the beginning of the session by his elder brother Sir Edward Montagu and by Sir Robert Wroth I (23 March). CJ, i. 151a-b. Montagu was one of the lawyers granted leave on 11 Apr. to act as counsel in the Lords in a dispute over title and honour between Lords Despenser and Abergavenny. Ibid. 167b, 373b.

Shortly before the end of the 1604 session Montagu bought the Bedfordshire manor of Colmworth from his brother Sir Edward for £4,000. Eg. 3881, f. 24. This and other purchases placed a heavy strain on Montagu’s resources, and in July 1605 he borrowed £1,200 from the chamber of London. PROB 11/192, ff. 377v-8. Two months later, Montagu ‘was taken in great extremity with a dead palsy’. Bodl. Carte 74, f. 379; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 287 (misdated ‘1606’ by the ed.). He soon recovered, and shortly before Parliament reconvened London’s governors appointed him to help consider ‘what matters are fit to be preferred this present Parliament for the good and benefit of this City’ (24 October). CLRO, Reps. 27, f. 104v. However, when the Commons reassembled in November, any thought of introducing the City’s legislation was temporarily swept aside by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Instead, Montagu was nominated to the committee for the bill to ensure better enforcement of the penal laws (6 November). CJ, i. 257a It was not until January 1606 that Montagu could focus on the City’s legislative business again. The first measure he and the other London Members introduced aimed to restrict building in the capital and reduce the number of tenants in each property, and was similar to the bill presented in 1604. Named to the committee on 24 Jan., he reported its deliberations on 20 Mar., whereupon the House ordered it to be recommitted. Montagu returned once again with the bill on 1 Apr. and defended it during the ensuing debate, but despite his best efforts the measure was rejected. Ibid. 259b, 292a; Bowyer Diary, 87. He achieved greater success in respect of the bill to bring fresh water from the River Lea to north London. Work on the ‘New River’ had already started under a private individual named Capt. Colthurst, but in October 1605 the City determined to take control of the scheme itself, and ordered its parliamentary representatives to obtain authorization from both the Council and Parliament. Colthurst was naturally furious that London’s corporation intended to rob him of the fruit of his labours, and petitioned Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, for redress. The Commons was anxious that Colthurst should be fully compensated, and partly for this reason the bill completed its third reading only after a division (20 May). Before the vote Montagu, a member of the bill committee, was obliged to promise ‘in the name of the lord mayor and the state of the City’, that Colthurst would receive whatever recompense the lord chancellor specified. With this difficulty removed, the bill was sent up to the Lords and shortly thereafter it was enacted. CJ, i. 262b, 310b, 311a; Bowyer Diary, 176-7; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 55; SR, iv. 1092-3.

The buildings and New River bills were just two of the measures presented by the City in 1606. Another bill aimed to make it easier to recover small debts and relieve poor debtors in London, while another sought to bring the capital’s streams and rivers under the jurisdiction of the local sewers commission. A third dealt with the dressing and searching of woollen cloths. Montagu was naturally appointed to consider all three, but responsibility for steering them through committee fell to Nicholas Fuller. CJ, i. 260b, 262a, 270b. However, he remained closely involved with London’s legislative agenda, being part of the City committee established on 25 Feb. to consider laying a further bill before the Commons aimed at making Leadenhall market the required venue for selling new drapery wares. Montagu may have absented himself from the House on the morning of 26 Feb. in order to attend this committee. The City eventually agreed to pursue the bill (13 Mar.), but neither Montagu nor the other London Members succeeded in getting it read. CLRO, Jors. 27, ff. 26, 30.

Montagu also promoted the capital’s interests during that session’s purveyance debates. Purveyance had long been a source of grievance to London, which claimed immunity under its charter of 1 Edward III. In November 1605 the City set up a committee to consider the complaints of local merchants, to which Montagu was appointed, and through him it pressed its case on the floor of the Commons (11 March). P. Croft, ‘Parl., Purveyance and the City of London 1589-1608’, PH, iv. 21-2, 28; CJ, i. 282b. Most Members shared London’s resentment at purveyance, and some favoured compounding to be rid of it. Montagu assured them that the City’s charter would not be an obstacle to a nationwide composition. However, many others preferred the more radical solution proposed by John Hare, which aimed to retain the king’s right of pre-emption while forcing him to pay the market price. Montagu disapproved, perhaps because the bill threatened to compromise several private composition arrangements already in force in London. On 26 Feb. he criticized the preamble, and on 12 Mar. he opposed ‘a clause against London’. CJ, i. 274b, 283b. Six days later, when Hare’s bill received its third reading, he announced that he was ‘for the composition in London’. However, the House proceeded with Hare’s bill, and required Montagu to help persuade the Lords of its necessity. On 12 Apr. he was dispatched to the Lords to seek a conference on the bill, and four days later reported the conference’s proceedings (16 April). Ibid. 282b, 286a, 298a, 299a; Bowyer Diary, 75.

London interests coloured Montagu’s involvement on other issues too. On 25 Mar. he urged a generous vote of supply ‘that the king’s credit may be saved’, for as he announced on 14 Mar., James owed the City £140,000. Ibid. 285a, 289b. Montagu was named to the subsidy cttee. on 10 Feb.: ibid. 266b. He probably chaired the committees appointed to consider bills introduced by the recently incorporated Pinmakers and the London-based Muscovy Company, as he reported both measures on 26 Apr. as fit to sleep. Ibid, 291b, 301a. He may also have chaired the committee for the London dairymen’s bill, as he reported the measure on 18 March. Ibid. 260b, 286a. The previous day he and his fellow London Members were appointed to consider a clothworking bill, and on 2 May he was named to the committee for a bill introduced by the capital’s artisan skinners, which was opposed by the City corporation as it was hostile to the interests of the Eastland Company. Ibid. 285b, 304a; CLRO, Reps. 27, f. 172. On 28 Feb. Montagu and his fellow London Members were all named to consider a measure to give statutory authority to the ordinances of the 12 leading livery companies. CJ, i. 275b.

London’s business clearly dominated Montagu’s legislative agenda, but personal connections also intruded in the case of two bills in 1606. The first concerned a measure to confirm some leases made by Robert, Lord Spencer, and Spencer’s late father, Sir John, to which Montagu was named on 7 February. Montagu’s father-in-law, Sir William Spencer, was a younger son of Sir John Spencer and brother of Lord Spencer. The second bill concerned the estate of Sir Christopher Hatton*, which Montagu was appointed to consider on 4 April. Although Montagu may not have been closely connected to Hatton, the bill was commended to him two days earlier by his kinsman Sir Robert Sidney, now Lord L’Isle. Ibid. 265a, 293b; R. Davids, Mss, Literary Portraits and Association Items, lot 132.

During the 1604 session Montagu had taken little recorded interest in religious matters, unlike his godly elder brother, Sir Edward. However, the Gunpowder Plot aroused his fears of Catholicism. On 21 Jan. he and his brother were appointed to help consider how to proceed against Jesuits and seminary priests and prevent further popish plots. The following day he persuaded the House to prepare a law to preserve the king’s person and, according to one report, offered a draft himself. CJ, i. 257b; Bowyer Diary, 203; Stowe 168, f. 320v At the same time he was appointed to help draft a bill to ensure better enforcement of the penal statutes, his membership of the earlier committee established on 6 Nov. having presumably lapsed following the adjournment of 9 November. He adopted an uncompromising attitude towards Catholic nonconformity. When the recusancy bill was debated on 28 Feb. he proposed to extend its provisions ‘to sons and daughters’. Moreover, during the debate of the bill for the better discovery of recusants and the education of their children, when John Bond questioned whether recusants were automatically excommunicate, he was ‘answered and taxed for it’ by both Richard James and Montagu (14 April). Montagu’s credentials as a hardliner were reinforced on 5 Mar., when he was one of 11 senior lawyers ordered to ‘draw the bills of recusants’. Fear of recusancy may explain Montagu’s participation in the debate on the Sabbath bill when it received its third reading on 17 February. CJ, i. 258a, 269b, 276a, 277b, 298a.

During the session Montagu showed an interest in the affairs of the Church in general, having since about August 1604 been a member of the court of High Commission. On 10 Apr. he was ordered to explain one of the articles in the Commons’ list of ecclesiastical grievances at a forthcoming conference with the Lords. According to Dudley Carleton, he and his fellow spokesmen subsequently handled themselves ‘very curiously and learnedly’. Cott. Cleopatra F.II, f. 239; Carleton to Chamberlain, 76. The article concerned related to citations. The CJ incorrectly identifies Sir Edward Montagu as the spokesman: CJ, i. 296b. He seems to have been reappointed as a conference spokesman later that month, but was absent for the report, which was given by Fuller instead (29 April). CJ, i. 301a, 302b. On 13 May Montagu was instructed to help set down the House’s ecclesiastical grievances, which were to be presented to the king the next day. Ibid. 308b. Concerning the House’s grievances in general, Montagu played an equally prominent role. On 8 Apr. he was appointed to speak on behalf of the Commons at a conference to consider a range of grievances. Ten days later he was named to help draft a petition concerning those grievances, which included impositions. On 10 May he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the House to exclude the Book of Rates from its list of complaints. Ibid. 295a-b, 300b, 308a. One particular grievance which seized his attention concerned the extortions and exactions of customs officials, a problem which may have been particularly acute in London. Named to the committee on 15 Mar., he reported its proceedings on 4 April. Ibid. 285a, 293b.

Following the prorogation it was rumoured that either Montagu or Francis Bacon* would shortly succeed Sir John Doddridge* as solicitor-general, but in fact no vacancy occurred until the following year. Bodl. Carte 74, f. 361. As reader of his inn, he spent much of the summer teaching. HMC Hatfield, xviii. 233. When Parliament reassembled in November, all attention was turned on the Union, which was to form the main business of the session. From the outset Montagu took a prominent role. On 26 Nov. he reported from the previous day’s joint conference that the Lords wanted the Commons’ conference spokesmen to engage in free debate so as to speed up proceedings, and on 4 Dec. he explained to his colleagues the ancient feudal tenure of escuage, whereby tenants on the English side of the border were required to perform military service against the Scots in time of war. One week later he helped plan a conference with the Lords regarding the intended abolition of the hostile laws, although he and Bacon proved oddly reluctant to serve as spokesmen themselves (13 December). His name was nevertheless ordered to stand. CJ, i. 325b, 329b, 330b, 1007a. He attended another joint conference on 17 Dec., when he jotted down ‘certain remembrances’, but, unable to report these before the House rose for Christmas, he left his notes with the Speaker. Ibid. 332a.

When the House reconvened in February many of the lawyer-Members took advantage of the assizes to absent themselves. Montagu, however, continued to attend. On 13 Feb. he relayed the contents of his notes on the conference of 17 Dec. to the House, and five days later urged a committee to consider whether those Scots born since James’s accession were automatically naturalized Englishmen, and if not, whether ‘we should consent to make them so’. Ibid. 333b, 1016a. On 26 Feb. he was appointed to assist Bacon report a conference with the Lords on this self-same question. Montagu’s own view was that the Scots born after 1603 were neither naturalized nor aliens, but ‘in a medium betwixt both ... so that they were capable of many privileges of the kingdom but not of all’. The House in general shared this opinion, but when Montagu expressed it on 4 Mar. he was ‘taxed of some importunity in that he fell again to discourse upon that point that had been so long in debating and was already come to resolution’. Ibid. 1021b, 1026a; Bowyer Diary, 212-13, n. 32. Montagu helped to report two more conferences on the Union before the Easter recess. CJ, i. 352a, 1032b. When the House reassembled, Sir Edwin Sandys suggested that instead of discussing the Union in a piecemeal fashion, they should aim to bring about a complete merger of the two countries (28 April). Sandys had previously opposed the Union, and by offering to proceed along lines known to be unacceptable to both Houses he was probably trying to sabotage the project altogether. Montagu did not share this aim, and brushed aside any thought of bringing about a so-called ‘perfect’ Union, declaring that ‘unto great matters we come not but by steps’ (29 April). While acknowledging that he was ‘no state-studied man’, he observed that ‘the union of Aragon and Castile began with participation of particular benefits’. Consequently, he proposed that they should continue to ‘frame bills with restrictions, and not expect the perfect Union’. Ibid. 1037b; Bowyer Diary, 271-2. The House agreed and turned its attention to the hostile laws bill. On 28 May Montagu debated the remanding of prisoners from England to Scotland and vice versa, CJ, i. 1047b. and on 5 June he supported James’s suggestion that witnesses should be limited to the prosecution in Border trials, arguing that ‘if you admit witnesses for the prisoner you bring in perjury’. Bowyer Diary, 318. The Journal conveys a difference sense. It states that Montagu favoured witnesses, ‘but not upon oath; because, by probability, much perjury’: CJ, i. 1049a. Six days later he was instructed to help prepare yet another conference with the Lords on the hostile laws bill. Ibid. 382a.

Although the Union consumed much of Montagu’s time and energy during the third session, it was by no means his sole preoccupation, for as always London had its own legislative agenda. In November 1606 the City ordered Montagu to help draft yet another bill to restrict the number of buildings erected in the capital and prevent the subdivision of existing buildings into tenements. It received a first reading on 6 Dec., and a second two days later, when Montagu deplored the number of tenements that had sprung up over the last couple of years. A committee was established, and Montagu’s name headed the list of its members, but the bill, like its predecessors, failed to make further headway. CLRO, Reps. 27, f. 295v; CJ, i. 1008a-b. Following the Christmas recess the City changed tactics, presenting two new bills to the Lords, which reached the Commons in March 1607. This time Montagu allowed Nicholas Fuller to steer at least one of these measures through the Commons, but Fuller ultimately proved no more successful. Failure also dogged the City’s attempts to defeat a bill presented by the corporation of Southampton. This bill, which arose from as a result of a lawsuit, threatened London’s interests as it aimed to confirm a clause of Southampton’s charter that prevented outsiders from trading with any but freemen within its precincts. In mid-April 1607 Southampton referred the lawsuit to William Brock, its recorder and one of its parliamentary representatives, and also to Montagu, but no agreement was reached, and at the end of the month the bill was presented to the Commons. Soton Mayor’s Bk. 1606-8 ed. W.J. Connor (Soton Rec. Ser. xxi), 75-6 (incorrectly termed Sir ‘George’ Montagu); CJ, i. 364b. Montagu subsequently gained membership of the bill committee (7 May), but not the chairmanship, which evidently went to Brock, who reported the measure on 5 June. At the final reading three days later, Montagu and Fuller clashed with Brock, but as the House sympathized with Southampton they failed to prevent the bill from being sent up to the Lords. When it returned at the beginning of July with a proviso attached, Montagu again opposed the measure without success. CJ, i. 1050b, 1056b.

The main Commons’ business of interest to London was a measure to secure for the livery Companies and the four City hospitals the lands and properties previously given to them for superstitious uses. In November 1606 the Companies had, on Montagu’s advice, petitioned the king to allow them to seek parliamentary confirmation of their title, for although they had compounded many times before, their ownership had again been questioned. James agreed, in exchange for a payment of around £2,500, whereupon Montagu approached each Company in turn for a contribution. For e.g., see Clothworkers Hall, London, Orders of Cts. 1605-23, ff. 18v-19. However, when the bill appeared in the Commons it received a hostile reception. At its first reading on 29 Apr. Edward Alford described it as ‘dangerous’ and thought ‘it may reach as far as St. Michael’s Mount’. The bill might have been stifled had it not been for Montagu who, according to the clerk, ‘satisfied the House amply’. Bowyer Diary, 254; CJ, i. 365a, 1037a. Although further dispute accompanied the second reading on 4 May, the measure was nevertheless committed, and Montagu, who may have served as the committee’s chairman, reported it on 7 May. A few months later the bill was enacted. Throughout these long proceedings the livery Companies issued enough money to Montagu to cover the fees associated with the bill, but when the measure was enacted Montagu received the money due to the king. Most paid up fairly promptly, but the Tallowchandlers delayed until at least 1609. The Tallowchandlers’ payment is recorded on their acct. for 1609-11: GL, ms 6152/2, f. 99.

The London estates’ bill was the most important piece of London legislation before the Commons during the session of 1606-7, but several other bills also concerned the capital and its recorder. On 30 Apr. 1607 Montagu, along with his fellow London Members, was appointed to consider the relief of the poor curriers of London, and on 3 July he reported a number of amendments to the bill. In addition, he attracted nominations to committees concerned with leathercutting (9 Dec. 1606), butlerage (28 Mar. 1607), merchants’ debts (5 June 1607) and woollen cloth (23 Feb. 1607), reporting the amendments to the latter bill on 1 July. CJ, i. 329a, 339b, 356a, 379b, 389b, 390a-b, 1038a. Throughout the session Montagu seems to have been assiduous in his attendance. Indeed, he was even present in early July 1607, when the number of Members present slumped to less than 20. However, many other Members, lawyers in particular, were less conscientious that Montagu, and in March 1607 Edward Alford sought to remedy the problem of chronic absenteeism through legislation. Montagu, however, was outraged, declaring that existing legislation was adequate and describing Alford’s measure as ‘a scandalous, idle, needless bill’. Ibid. 1025b.

Shortly before the end of the session, the king promoted Bacon rather than Montagu to become solicitor-general. However, James did advance him to the rank of king’s counsel, while allowing him to retain the recordership of London. This arrangement threatened to create a conflict of interest should the king and the City ever confront each other in court, but James gave assurances that Montagu would be permitted to act for London in such an eventuality. CLRO, Jors. 27, f. 170. When Parliament reassembled in February 1610, Montagu resumed his earlier position at centre stage. During the negotiations for the Great Contract he chaired grand committees, helped draft messages and assisted in planning, managing and reporting endless joint conferences with the Lords. CJ, i. 394a, 401a, 403b, 406b, 409b, 414a-b, 419a, 420a-b, 425a, 449b, 450b, 451a, 452b, 453a; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 14-15, 53-4, 140; ii. 313. An extremely able speaker, he could always be relied upon to acquit himself well. At a hastily arranged conference with the Lords on 26 May, Montagu opened the batting for the Commons ‘in a good and elegant fashion being but suddenly appointed thereto’. Procs. 1610, ii. 120. Even though he was now a member of the king’s legal team, he did not provide the government with unquestioning support. Indeed, on 28 Feb. he angered the government’s chief spokesman in the Commons, the chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Julius Caesar, by his lukewarm response to Salisbury’s request for supply as well as support. Montagu was prepared only to consider supply ‘in due time’, whereas Caesar demanded ‘a plain, open, English answer, that we purpose to give somewhat’. CJ, i. 403a. Nevertheless, he joined Caesar and the other law officers on 9 Nov. in opposing the wording of a message which implied that James had changed the terms of the Contract at the last moment. Procs. 1610, ii. 322.

Montagu’s lukewarm support for the Great Contract contrasts with his trenchant views regarding the royal prerogative. Unlike most other lawyer-Members, he avoided condemning the king’s right to levy impositions, and indeed, on 23 Nov., he declared that these duties were ‘necessary in some cases to restrain the importation of foreign superfluities’. CJ, i. 443a; Parl Debates, 1610 ed. S.R. Gardiner, 61, 143-4. Furthermore, he roundly defended the Privy Council’s powers after Sir Herbert Croft complained on 24 Feb. that the lord chancellor had incarcerated a poor man in Newgate and denied him bail and a judicial hearing. Although the man had died in gaol, Montagu approved of Ellesmere’s actions, declaring that Council members were entitled to imprison any man for contempt against the king’s authority. Many Members were appalled, and several of them ‘did so cough and hawk as he could scarce be heard’. Whether Montagu genuinely held such views, or was simply defending his former patron, is unclear. CJ, i. 393a; Procs. 1610, ii. 354.

Throughout the fourth session Montagu continued to prosecute the interests of his constituents. On 5 May he offered a further bill ‘against inmates and new buildings’, and 11 days later secured a place on the bill committee. Predictably, this measure failed to progress, unlike the bill to prevent contentious suits against magistrates and constables, which was enacted at the end of the session. Although the provisions of this bill applied to the entire country, the measure originated in London, and Montagu and two of his fellow London Members were named to the committee (16 May). CJ, i. 425a, 429a; SR, iv. 1161-2. For its origins, see LONDON. Montagu was also required to consider bills to bolster the powers of the Horners’ Company (23 Feb.) and confirm the Salters’ and Brewers’ Companies in possession of their lands (20 February). The latter measure aimed to close a loophole in the 1607 London estates’ bill, but the task of steering it through committee was left to Fuller, who reported it. London’s commercial interests must explain why Montagu was nominated to the shipping and mariners’ bill on 28 February. CJ, i. 397b, 399a, 402a.

In February and March Montagu helped prepare and report a number of conferences with the Lords regarding Dr. John Cowell’s legal dictionary, entitled the Interpreter, which claimed that the king was above the law. Ibid. 400b, 405a, 407a, 408b. In May he tried unsuccessfully to defuse the crisis which erupted when the Speaker, who was regarded by the House as its spokesman rather than the king’s, was criticized for relaying messages from James. Montagu agreed that the Speaker, Sir Edward Phelips, was not entitled to bring messages from the king in an official capacity, but argued that Phelips could do so as an ordinary Member ‘as well as any other servant of the king’s or any other private man of the House’. Indeed, he termed this the Speaker’s ‘double capacity’. Procs. 1610, ii. 88-9. During the subsidy debate on 13 June Montagu was one of the Members who spoke in favour of a grant of two subsidies. Later, on 11 July, he suggested the addition of four fifteenths. CJ, i. 438a, 448a; Parl. Debates, 1610, p. 55.

On 19 Feb. Montagu was named to consider the bill against pluralism and non-residence, which had been preferred by his brother, Sir Edward. The two men were later paired as tellers for the noes during a division over the bishops’ leases bill (14 July), which they won by 11 votes. CJ, i. 393a, 396b, 450a. Though not a religious activist like Sir Edward, Montagu was nevertheless concerned with the problem of recusancy, as he had been in 1605/6. On 8 Mar. he suggested the establishment of a committee to investigate Sir Stephen Procter, who had abused his position as sole receiver of fines on penal statutes to enrich himself, and offered to provide evidence so damning that Procter ‘shall never evade or wind himself out’. A committee was subsequently appointed, and on 2 May Montagu revealed to the House what he knew. Ibid. 408a, 423b. Montagu’s keen pursuit of Procter may have been because London had failed to keep the recusancy problem in check. On 18 May Sir Francis Hastings called for legislation to remove all recusants from London, and on 25 May he complained that there were ‘not so many recusants these seven years as now’. Montagu endeavoured to reassure Hastings that the City was doing all that it could to address the problem, claiming that no less than 100 of its citizens had been indicted at the recent sessions. Ibid. 432b. Montagu himself was actively engaged in rooting out Catholics, and in February 1611 he announced the discovery of a Catholic cell in Aldersgate Street, where he himself lived. CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 5. His most conspicuous success, however, occurred in November 1613, when, accompanied by a large number of armed men, he arrested in Spitalfields a Spanish abbess and three English nuns on the orders of Archbishop Abbot. HMC Downshire, iv. 231, 239; Spain and the Jacobean Catholics II, 1613-24 ed. A.J. Loomie (Cath. Rec. Soc. lxviii), 16.

Following the dissolution, Montagu received further preferment, being appointed a king’s serjeant in February 1611, when he was granted permission to retain the recordership on the same terms as before. HMC Rutland, i. 428. In April 1612 he participated in the debate held before the king over whether holders of baronetcies were equivalent to the younger sons of barons. During the discussions Montagu, counsel for the barons, was ‘unfitly interrupted’ by the baronet Sir William Twysden*, whereupon Montagu chided Twysden, saying that he had a right to speak uninterrupted ‘unless you mean to have it in your patent to speak when you list’. Add. 34218, f. 122. Two months later Montagu was made a judge of the Midland circuit, for which appointment he received a royal dispensation, as circuit judges were not normally permitted to practise on their home patch. HMC 8th Rep. ii. 28. The prospect of additional promotion arose on the death in August 1613 of the chief justice of King’s Bench, Sir Thomas Fleming. Montagu laboured hard to succeed Fleming, even enlisting the support of the queen, who wrote ‘very earnestly’ for him, but in October the office was bestowed on Sir Edward Coke. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 476; Bodl. Carte 74, f. 383.

In March 1614 London elected its parliamentary representatives. As recorder Montagu naturally expected to be granted a seat, but the City initially refused to return him ‘because he is the king’s serjeant’. This difficulty on its own might not have rendered Montagu objectionable, but at the same time it was rumoured that the king would select as Speaker Sir Thomas Lowe, who was returned as London’s senior Member. Were Montagu to be returned as well as Lowe, both London’s knights would be in the king’s pocket. In the event Ranulphe Crewe was chosen as Speaker, and the City therefore conferred the remaining seat on Montagu. Chamberlain Letters i. 515-16; HMC Downshire, iv. 325, 333. Nevertheless, the suspicion that Montagu was now too closely bound to the king may have lingered, as the task of presenting the City’s extensive legislative programme to the House and steering it through committee fell not to Montagu but to his junior colleagues, Nicholas Fuller and Robert Middleton. Montagu’s role seems to have been limited to membership of the committees concerned. For the cttee., see CJ, i. 481a, 489a. For the legislative programme and its management, see LONDON.

Although accorded only a secondary role by the City corporation, Montagu was active in the Commons on behalf of at least one London interest. From at least 1610 he had been employed by the Vintners’ Company to oppose the French merchants’ charter, GL, ms 15333/2, pp. 509, 540, 561, 583. and therefore when the French Company’s patent was attacked as a monopoly on 20 Apr., Montagu leapt to his feet, declaring that whenever he heard London’s name mentioned he felt ‘summoned’ to speak. When the issue was raised again on 3 May, Montagu ‘desired that London might not have the aspersion of this fault’, as the blame more properly belonged to the patentees of the Company. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 111, 129. Further evidence of Montagu’s continuing involvement in the affairs of the livery Companies is provided by the example of the Bakers’ Company, which paid Montagu to ‘peruse and correct’ a bill they presented to the Speaker. Moreover, like his fellow London Members, Montagu was named to consider the Haberdashers’ bill to confirm the building of an almshouse and grammar school in Monmouth (16 May). CJ, i. 486a; GL, ms 5174/3, f. 249v.

Although Montagu continued to be involved in London’s affairs in the Commons, the clerk no longer referred to him in the Commons Journal as ‘Mr. Recorder’ but described him as ‘Mr. Serjeant’. The alteration was significant, as Montagu took a leading role in helping to further the Crown’s interests in the Commons. In 1614 James hoped to avoid unrest over impositions by offering the Lower House several grace bills. The task of laying these before the Commons was assigned to attorney-general Bacon and to Montagu, who brought in four. On 20 Apr., the day on which the Commons rose for Easter, Montagu pressed the House to proceed quickly with these measures, ‘lest the keeping of these bills of grace should prove to them bills of blame’. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 99, 106, 115. Following the Easter recess Montagu spoke approvingly of the grace bill to restrict the assigning of debts to the Crown, because the problem it addressed was ‘as fit for relief by Parliament as any other’ (4 May). This bill, and the others which accompanied it, were steered through committee by Montagu, who reported them together on 20 May. Ibid. 133-4, 302. The king’s attempt to use the grace bills to prevent trouble over impositions proved unsuccessful, and consequently Montagu and his fellow government spokesmen sought to placate the House while defending the king’s right to levy these duties. Following the second reading of the impositions’ bill on 18 Apr., Montagu declared that his ‘zeal’ for the bill’s content was ‘with the forwardest’, he could not support the measure because the Commons was not prepared to put anything in place of impositions. On 6 June he tried to make it appear that he and the other Crown law officers agreed that impositions were illegal while at the same time defending the impositions already in force, for though he declared ‘that he was a flatterer of a king that would maintain the king’s right by law to impose’, he added that this did not apply to impositions placed on imports and exports, only to duties charged on domestic goods traded at home. Ibid. 97, 431-2. Since James never intended to extend impositions to domestic trade and the Commons were concerned purely with impositions on imports and exports, this was an entirely specious line of argument. On 16 May, Montagu and the solicitor-general, (Sir) Henry Yelverton, were obliged to deny knowledge of any records that proved the legality of impositions after William Hakewill announced that the Crown’s law officers were sitting on documents that would ‘cross the opinion of this House’. Ibid. 260.

Montagu did his best to persuade the Commons to vote supply. On 12 Apr. he seconded the Crown’s chief spokesman, Sir Ralph Winwood, after Winwood demanded that subsidies be voted before consideration be given to grievances. He argued that this method of proceeding was not unprecedented, having been adopted by Robert Cecil in 1593, and that some scope for grievances remained as the grace bills could be considered in the mornings and supply in the afternoon. On 5 May he supported a motion to send a message to the king promising that supply would be granted. However, the failure to resolve the question of impositions undermined the efforts of Montagu and his fellow government spokesmen. On the final day of the session (7 June) the House drafted a message to the king attributing its neglect of subsidies directly to James’s refusal to part with impositions. Montagu was appalled, and urged the House ‘to part fair, not hopeless of remedy of impositions if the Parliament continue’. Even now, he said, it was not too late to vote supply, and to do so would demonstrate the Commons’ love for the king. Ibid. 438, 442.

As in the previous Parliament, Montagu was a member of the privileges committee, although he was added only after he participated in the debate over the return of Sir George Selby for Northumberland. On 10 May he joined in condemning Sir Thomas Parry’s conduct in respect of the Stockbridge election, even though Parry was a fellow Crown spokesman, and pointed out that the case underlined the need to bolster existing legislation prohibiting the election of non-residents. He also participated in the debate on the Cambridgeshire election (14 May), and at his suggestion a committee was appointed (24 May) to examine the case against the sheriff of Northumberland. Ibid. 40, 190, 241, 337. Like the rest of the Commons, Montagu was affronted by the aspersions cast on the House by Bishop Neile, although he cautioned that it was necessary to proceed on the basis of proven facts rather than rumour and report (26 May). He was accordingly one of eight Members appointed to draft a message requesting a conference with the Lords that afternoon. On 27 May he defended the House’s decision to suspend all business until it had received satisfaction, pointing out that the cessation was purely temporary. Appointed to help draft a further message to the Lords on 30 May, he participated in the debate over Francis Lovett (3 June), to whom Neile had allegedly given a certificate of conformity even though Lovett had not received communion. Ibid. 368, 381, 419.

Less than five months after the dissolution, Montagu’s second wife, whom he had married in 1613, died. He remained a widower for the next six years, although in 1616 it was rumoured that he had secretly wed his maid. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 34-5. In July 1615 he obtained from the Crown the reversion to Kimbolton Castle and manor in Huntingdonshire, and after buying the interests of the tenant-in-tail at a cost of £21,000, he subsequently made this property his principal seat. CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 296; Eg. 3881, f. 21. Later that summer he travelled the Western circuit, and was one of the judges who presided at the trial of Edmund Peacham, a clergyman whose offences included writing a book against Montagu’s brother James, the bishop of Bath and Wells. Yonge Diary ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 27-8. Following the death of his younger brother Sir Walter in March 1616, it was revealed that Montagu, in accordance with a conveyance of June 1604, would inherit the latter’s lands at Hanging Houghton, which lay near Montagu’s manor of Kettering. Sir Edward Montagu was furious, as he considered that Houghton should have descended to him, but Sir Henry protested that he had not put any pressure on Sir Walter to leave him this property. Litigation evidently ensued, HMC Buccleuch, i. 247; iii. 192, 197-8; Eg. 3881, f. 24; Northants. RO, Montagu 3, f. 138; 6, f. 177v. and relations between the two brothers were strained still further in July, when Sir Edward produced a son and heir, thereby reducing Sir Henry’s chances of succeeding to Boughton. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 16.

In May 1616 Montagu helped prosecute the earl and countess of Somerset, who were accused of murdering Sir Thomas Overbury. His opening remarks have been described as ‘little more than crude abuse’, but his performance confirmed his abilities and helped secure the earl of Somerset’s conviction. A. Somerset, Unnatural Murder, 393, 405; State Trials ed. T.B. Howell, ii. 952, 963, 968-9, 994-5. When Sir Edward Coke was dismissed as lord chief justice of King’s Bench in November, Montagu at last received the promotion he craved. He remain dissatisfied, however, and by January 1619 it was rumoured that he would succeed Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, who had been dismissed as lord treasurer six months earlier. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 197, 199, 202-3; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 2. Montagu could barely conceal his excitement, and secretly wrote to the royal favourite, George Villiers, marquess of Buckingham, offering £10,000 for the treasurer’s staff. Bodl. Tanner 74, f. 178. Such an enormous sum was well within his means, for not only was he independently wealthy but in March 1619 an elderly relative, the king’s silkman Roger Montagu, died making him his heir. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 223. In December 1620 Montagu calculated that his estate was worth £40,000. Bodl. Tanner 290, f. 31. However, the king was not yet ready to appoint a new treasurer. In April 1620 Montagu married for a third time, taking as his wife Margaret Crouch, the widow of John Hare, ‘a sober, comely woman of great means’. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 302. He subsequently renewed his pursuit of the treasurer’s staff, becoming locked in a bidding war with the chancellor of the Exchequer, Fulke Greville*. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was informed through his half-brother, Sir Edward Villiers*, that Montagu would now pay 20,000 gold pieces, but this sum was evidently considered insufficient and the next day Montagu raised his offer to £20,000, but informed Sir Edward that he was ‘resolute not to exceed’ this amount. This revised offer, coupled with the support of Buckingham’s wife, did the trick, and in December Montagu was made lord treasurer and ennobled as Baron Kimbolton and Viscount Mandeville. Bodl. Tanner 290, f. 29; 114, f. 154; CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 196-200; J. Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 116.

Montagu’s remained treasurer for less than nine months. After finding the office to be a source of ‘great care, trouble and vexation’, and claiming that he had only accepted it ‘unwillingly’, he eagerly exchanged the treasurership in September 1621 for the presidency of the Council, ‘a place long out of use and of no great necessity’. His departure was almost certainly unlamented by James, who probably realized that the master of the Great Wardrobe, Lord Cranfield (Sir Lionel Cranfield*), was better suited to run the Exchequer than Montagu. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 399; Eg. 3881, f. 21; Sidney Letters ed. A. Collins, ii. 352. The latter retained the presidency for the next seven years, and in 1626 was created earl of Manchester. On the death of the earl of Worcester in June 1628 he was appointed lord keeper of the Privy Seal, which office he retained until his death in November 1642. In accordance with his will, drafted on 22 Mar. 1642, he was buried in the chancel of Kimbolton church in the tomb he had ‘long since prepared’. PROB 11/192, ff. 373-8. Montagu was the author of Contemplatio Mortis, et Immortalitatis, a conventional meditation on death published anonymously in 1631, but reissued under his name in 1633, 1638, 1639 and 1642. The later editions include portraits of Montagu in the preface. Other contemporary depictions of him include an anonymous, three-quarter length portrait in oils in the Middle Temple. Dict. of Brit. Portraiture ed. R. Ormond and M. Rogers, p. i. Montagu was succeeded as earl of Manchester by his eldest son, Edward, who represented Huntingdonshire in the Parliaments of 1624-6.