Sir William Montagu (c.1618 – 26 August 1706) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1640 and 1695.

Life

Montagu was a younger son of Edward Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu of Boughton and his second wife Frances Cotton. He was educated at Oundle School and admitted to

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...

on 15 April 1632. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 22 October 1635. In April 1640, Montagu was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Aft ...

. He was called to the bar on 11 February 1642. In 1660, Montagu was elected MP for Cambridge University in the Convention Parliament. History of Parliament Online - William Montague
/ref> He was elected MP for Stamford in 1661 for the Cavalier Parliament and sat until 1676. He became Attorney-General to Queen Catherine in 1662, holding the post until 1676. He was Treasurer of the Middle Temple in 1663 and Autumn reader in 1664. In 1676 he became Serjeant-at-Law and was Chief Baron of the Exchequer from 1676 to 1686. He sat on the Bench at several of the

Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate C ...

trials, and appeared just as credulous as the other judges about the testimony of Oates and the other informers; but at the trial of Titus Oates for perjury in 1685, under pressure from

Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, Privy Council of England, PC (15 May 1645 – 18 April 1689), also known as "the Hanging judge, Hanging Judge", was a Welsh people, Welsh judge. He became notable during the reign of James II of Englan ...

, he claimed that he had never thought Oates a credible witness. He is said to have pleaded for clemency in the case of the

Dominican priest The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

Lionel Anderson Lionel Anderson, alias Munson (died 1710) was an English Dominican priest, who was falsely accused of treason during the Popish Plot, which was the fabrication of the notorious anti-Catholic informer Titus Oates. He was convicted of treason on the ...

, convicted in 1680 of the

capital crime Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

of acting as a priest within England, since Lionel's father was a friend of his: Lionel, who was something a royal favourite in any event, was reprieved, but banished from England. Montagu was removed from the bench in 1686 because he refused to give an unqualified opinion in favour of the Royal Prerogative of dispensing individuals from the provisions of a statute, which was a crucial part of James II's policy of toleration for Roman Catholics. He was assessor to the Convention Parliament (1689) . Montagu died in 1706 and was buried at Weekley.

Family

Montagu married: * Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Ralph Freeman of Aspeden, Hertfordshire; they had a son, **Christopher; * Mary, (died 10 March 1699 – 1700) daughter of Sir John Aubrey, bart.; they had a son and a daughter, ** William, married, 29 May 1670, Mary Anne, daughter of Richard Evelyn of Woodcote, Surrey, brother of John Evelyn the diarist, and died without issue in 1690 ; ** Elizabeth, married Sir William Drake of Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire.

References

;Attribution , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Montagu, William 1618 births 1706 deaths People from Huntingdon People educated at Oundle School Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Members of the Middle Temple Serjeants-at-law (England) Chief Barons of the Exchequer English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1661–1679 English MPs 1660 Members of the pre-1707 Parliament of England for the University of Cambridge English MPs 1690–1695 William