Hugh Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Mount Alexander (24 February 1651 – 12 February 1717) was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

soldier and peer. Montgomery was the son of

Hugh Montgomery, 1st Earl of Mount Alexander Hugh Montgomery, 1st Earl of Mount Alexander (c. 1623 – 15 September 1663), known as The Viscount Montgomery from 1642 to 1661, was an Irish peer. He was appointed to command his father's regiment in 1642. He was commander-in-chief of the Royalis ...

and his first wife, Mary, daughter of

Charles Moore, 2nd Viscount Moore of Drogheda Charles Moore, 2nd Viscount Moore of Drogheda (1603-1643) was an Irish aristocrat noted for his leadership of Irish Royalist forces in northern Leinster during the early stages of the Irish Confederate Wars. Background He was the third but elde ...

. Montgomery succeeded to his father's title as Earl of Mount Alexander in 1663. His father had been encumbered by debt and Montgomery was forced to sell Newton House and much of his estate in

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

to Sir Robert Colville to raise capital. In 1674 he received a commission as a captain of a troop of horse and in 1683 he was appointed Custos Rotulorum of County Down. In 1685 he received favours from James II of England, including an annual pension of £400 and a seat in the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

. Despite this, Montgomery adhered to William III of England following the

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...

and was appointed a colonel in William's army in January 1689. On 14 March 1689 he commanded Williamite Protestant militia forces in their defeat at the Break of Dromore. Following the battle, Montgomery fled from Ireland, first to the Isle of Man and then to London. He returned to Ireland after the defeat of the Jacobites in 1691. From 1692, Montgomery regularly attended the Irish House of Lords and he was reappointed to the Privy Council in 1693. Between 1698 and 1705 he was Master-General of the Irish Board of Ordnance. He was made a brigadier-general in 1699 and was one of the

Lords Justices of Ireland The Lords Justices (more formally the Lords Justices General and General Governors of Ireland) were deputies who acted collectively in the absence of the chief governor of Ireland (latterly the Lord Lieutenant) as head of the executive branch of ...

from 1702 to 1704. He married twice but had no surviving children, and was succeeded in his title by his brother, Henry Montgomery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mount Alexander, Hugh Montgomery, 2nd Earl of 1651 births 1717 deaths 17th-century Anglo-Irish people 18th-century Anglo-Irish people Earls in the Peerage of Ireland Members of the Irish House of Lords Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Williamite military personnel of the Williamite War in Ireland