Second Earl of Manchester. Key participant, English Civil War [1] . Cromwell's commander; shaped the ensuing peace and the formation of the Restoration.

Entered Cambridge, 1618; represented county of Huntingdon in parliament 1623-1626; attended Prince Charles in Spain, 1623; made by Charles a knight of the Bath at Charles's coronation, 1625; House of Lords, 1626; puritan leanings due to 2nd wife; signed "the petition of the 12 peers" urging the king to call a parliament, 1640; negotiations with Scotland, 1640; leader of the popular puritan faction in the House of Lords; one of 16 peers chosen to transact business during the adjournment, 1641; one of the 5 members impeached by the king for high treason, 1642; cleared, obtained command of a regiment, raised money for the army; discovered the Tomkins-Challoner plot , president of the court-martial, 1643;

Cromwell [1], [2], [3], [4] requested parliament to appoint a unified commander, Montagu (as Earl Manchester) was thus appointed major-general, 1643; was very familiar with Cromwell (both from Huntingdonshire); besieged Lynn-Regis (Norfolk), 1643; joined Cromwell's forces at siege of Bolingbroke, 1643; won at Winceby (Horncastle), 1643; captured Lincoln, 1643; directed to `regulate' Cambridge (institute reformation), 1644; recaptured Lincoln, 1644; raised the siege of York, 1644 (at this point Cromwell was serving under Montagu as his lieutenant-general, apparently at this point Cromwell sided with a plan to form a government without Charles); At Marston Moor [1] (a famous battle - the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil) Cromwell commanded Montagu's calvary, 1644;

At this point he became a cautious and `lethargic' commander complaining of the toll on his men. At the 2nd battle of Newbury, the royalist army escaped, 1644; at a council of war he declared his horror of prosecution of war, and:

`If we beat the king 99 times he is king still, and so will his posterity be after him; but if the king beat us once, we shall be all hanged, and our posterity be made slaves.'

His starving men were deserting in large number, and Cromwell charged him with incompetence: `his aversenes to engagement... his neglecting of opportunityes and declineing to take or pursue advantages...' Montagu's position was:

`that this war would not be ended by the sword, for if it were so concluded, it would be an occasion of rising again or of a future quarrel, but it would be better for the kingdom if it were ended by an accommodation.'

The political fight between Cromwell and Montagu became overshadowed by the formation of the New Model Army [1] , and Montagu resigned his commission, 1645; frequent Speaker of the House of Lords, peace seemed possible and Charles indicated his willingness to entrust the militia to Montagu; commissioner framing the articles of peace, 1646; in charge of Great Seal, 1646-1648; signed engagement of the Army to stand by the freedom of parliament, 1647; opposed the king's trial, and retired from public life when formation of the commonwealth became inevitable, 1649;

Chancellor of the university of Cambridge, 1649; actively helped bring about the Restoration, and welcomed the king as Speaker of the Lords on the kings return, 1658; richly rewarded, made lord chamberlain and privy councilor; knight of the Garter, 1661; inclined to leniency in the trial of the regicides; made a general and raised a regiment to fight the Dutch, 1667;

A Presbyterian; fellow of the Royal Society; ` It was easy to begin a war, he was in the habit of saying, but no man knew when it would end, and a war was not the way to advance religion.' (Pickering, 1644).

Married in the King's (James's) bedchamber, with the bedridden king throwing his shoe at the bridal party as they left the room, 1623;

Context for this incident is provided by Lockyer:

"Early in ... 1623, Buckingham provided a handsome dowry for another of his cousins, Susan Hill, who married Edward Montagu, the eldest son of Viscount Mandeville, the former Lord Treasurer. The ceremony, which was carried out by Lord Keeper Williams, was performed `in the King's bedchamber, who took great joy in it and blessed the bride with one of his shoes'. There is, of course, something distasteful about these arranged marriages, but they were the custom of the day and could often turn out to be love matches. This seems to have been the case with Edward and Susan Montagu, who were parted shortly after their marriage, since Edward went to Spain to attend upon Bukingham and the Prince. He left his young wife pregnant, and she wrote a letter to him full of tenderness, in which she told him how she was about to go `into the little bed which I find less than ever it was, and never have no mind to go into it because I cannot find my sweeting there.' " (Lockyer)

Sources:
[DNB].
Buckingham, Lockyer.

http://www.montaguemillennium.com/familyresearch/h_1671_edward.htm