‘pour unge pleasoir mille dolours’ is still to be seen.
His will is printed in Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas's 'Testamenta Vetusta,' p. 743. An apology for his part in the attempted settlement of the crown upon Lady Jane Grey found among his papers and printed by Fuller (Church History, vol. viii. § 1), is aptly described by Coke as 'a simple and sinewless defence' (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. App. p. 366).
Montagu married thrice: (1) Cicily or Elizabeth, daughter of William Lane of Orlingbury, Northamptonshire; (2) Agnes, daughter of George Kirkham of Warmington in the same county; (3) Ellen, daughter of John Roper [q. v.], attorney-general to Henry VIII, relict of John Moreton, and after Montagu's death wife of Sir John Digby. Montagu left male issue by his third wife alone—viz. five sons and six daughters. Edward, the eldest son, was father of Edward Montagu, first baron Montagu [q. v.], of James Montagu, bishop of Winchester [q. v.], and of Sir Henry Montagu, first earl of Manchester [q. v.] His widow died in May 1563.
Two portraits of the lord chief justice are preserved at Boughton.
[Wise's Montagus of Boughton and their Northamptonshire Homes, 1888; Fuller's Worthies (Northamptonshire); Bridges's Northamptonshire, i. 565, ii. 19, 31, 38, 117, 125, 211, 231, 284, 309, 347, 349, 367, 400, 403, 420, 565; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), ii. 42; Dugdale's Orig. pp. 127, 216; Chron. Ser. pp. 83–5; Stow's London, 6th edit. i. 723; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII; State Papers, Henry VIII, 1830, i. 702 et seq.; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Camden Miscellany, Camden Soc. (London Chronicle), iv. 18; Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camden Soc.), i. 161, 167–8, ii. 7–8, 91, 103; Hayward's Life of Edward VI, ad fin.; Trevelyan Papers (Camden Soc.), i. 199, 205, ii. 26, 34; Archæologia, xxx. 463, 474–6; Strype's Mem. (fol.) vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 11, 15, 296, pt. ii. pp. 457, 480, vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 15, 22, 25, 313; Rymer's Fœdera, 2nd edit. xiv. 402, xv. 110, 217; Strype's Cranmer (fol.), i. 293, ii. 163; Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life of Henry VIII (ed. 1683), p. 630; Cobbett's State Trials, i. 458; Burnet's Reformation, ed. Pocock; Troubles connected with the Prayer Book of 1549 (Camden Soc.); Foxe's Martyrs, ed. 1689, book ix. p. 46; Ellis's Letters, ii. 169 et seq.; The Chronicle of Queen Jane (Camden Soc.); Machyn's Diary (Camden Soc.); Burghley State Papers (Haynes), p. 174; 10th Rep. Dep.-Keeper Publ. Rec. App. ii. p. 240; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. p. 12; Froude's Hist. of England; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Lingard's Hist. of England, 2nd edit. vii. 138.]
MONTAGU, EDWARD, first Baron Montagu of Boughton (1562–1644), born in 1562, was the second son of Sir Edward Montagu, knt. (1532–1602), of Boughton Castle, Northamptonshire, high sheriff for the county in 1567, by his wife Elizabeth (d. 1618), daughter of Sir James Harington of Exton, Rutland. His grandfather was Sir Edward Montagu (d. 1557) [q.v.], chief justice of the king's bench. James Montagu, [q. v.], bishop of Winchester, Sir Henry Montagu, first earl of Manchester [q. v.], and Sir Sidney Montagu, master of requests, who was the ancestor of the Earls of Sandwich, were his brothers. Montagu matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, about 1574, graduated B.A. 14 March 1578–9, and was a student of the Middle Temple in 1580. He represented Brackley, Northamptonshire, in the parliament of 1601, and Northamptonshire in those of 1603–4–1611, 1614, and 1620–1–2. He was made K.B. by James I at his coronation, 25 July 1603, and created Baron Montagu of Boughton on 29 June 1621.
On 9 Feb. 1604–5, with other gentlemen of Northamptonshire, he presented a petition to the king in favour of those ministers in the county who refused subscription. The petitioners were warned that their combination ' in a cause against which the king had shewed his mislike … was little less than treason.' Montagu was for the time deprived of his lieutenancy and justiceship of the peace in the county (Winwood, Memorials, ii. 48-9).
From 1635 to 1637 he was occupied with the ship-money assessment of the county. In February 1638-9, when summoned to attend the king at York, he obeyed, though then seventy-six years of age, and with 'some great infirmities' upon him. As lord-lieutenant of Northamptonshire he put in execution the commission of array, but he voted against the king on the question of precedency of supply on 24 April 1640 (Cal. State Papers, 1640, p. 66). On 11 Sept. 1640 he wrote to his nephew, Edward Montagu (afterwards second earl of Manchester) [q. v.], in support of the petition to the king for summoning a new parliament (Duke of Manchester's MSS.}, and on 21 March 1641–2 complained in a second letter to his nephew that the parliament had been guilty of the grave sin of usury (ib.) His popularity and influence in Northamptonshire, combined with his known loyalty, led to an order of parliament (24 Aug. 1642) for bringing Montigu as a prisoner to London. On his way thither he encountered at Barnet the Earl of Essex, who was marching north with the parliamentary army. The earl stopped to
