Duke of Montagu. `Scheming' politician and womanizer. [image and biography]

Master of the horse to the Duchess of York; master of the horse to Queen Catherine, 1665; a gallant courier in the court of Charles II; favored lover of a famously beautiful Mrs. Myddelton; his rapid rise was attributed to female influence.

Ambassador extraordinary to Louis XIV; at deathbed of French Duchess of Orleans, inquired if she was poisoned and carried her last messages, 1670; privy council, 1672; married Elizabeth Wriothesley, 1673; the story that she `escaped' to France to avoid Charles II's advances is apparently untrue, but she had many suitors; talk of separation began within 2 months of their marriage; imprisoned in he Tower for challenging Duke of Bukingham in the kings drawing-room, 1673; again ambassador extraordinary to Louis XIV, negotiating English neutrality between France and Holland, 1676;

Had a very famous quarrel with the Duchess of Cleveland in Paris (he had apparently had affairs with both the Duchess and the Duchess's daughter at almost the same time), 1678; the Duchess informed Charles of some of his schemes, and that he meant to ` lead Charles around by the nose'. Danby, his chief political enemy and lord treasurer, accused him in the House of Commons of conspiring with the pope, 1678. He returned to England to defend himself, forming a plot with the French ambassador to bring down Danby, within 6 months, for a French payment of 100,000 crowns. He beat Danby in the election to the House, and released 2 of Danby's letters, subpoenaed by the House, in which Danby personally demanded 6 million livres from the French as the price of peace; Danby was impeached, 1678; Montagu (effectively equally guilty, although attention had been deflected) hid in London for 3 weeks and then attempted to escape in disguise to France, he was apparently wrapped up in a number of intrigues, working to put Monmouth on the thrown, working for French causes, and others; his sister Anne Montagu, a well-connected court insider, was apparently involved in these plots and their instigation every bit as deeply as her brother, finally all these plots came to naught and he retired to Paris, 1680;

When James became king he returned to England, upon the revolution he embraced William III, privy council, 1689; courted and married the very rich and very insane Elizabeth Cavendish by playing the Emperor of China (she had claimed she would only marry a crown), 1692; By political marriage of his son into the family of the Duke of Marlborough he achieved his goal of becoming Marquis of Monthermer and Duke of Montagu, 1705;

Macky described him as `inclined to fat, of a coarse, dark complexion.'

Swift described him `as arrant a knave as any in his time.'

His Boughton House in Northamptonshire was a miniature Versailles. The second Montagu house (Bloomsbury) was purchased by the government to establish the British Museum, 1753.

Ralph is perhaps most famous for his role in the end of the rule of the Catholic Stuart kings in England and the evolution of Party politics. George Macaulay Trevelyan describes the situation, which among other oddities had the English `profesional' army fighting for the French at a time when the English intended to declare war on France (he uses the `e' spelling):

`If the King held fast to the weapon of executive government, the Whigs were the first in the field, with a party organization. Since their strength lay in the people, they invented the art of digging channels for the streams of popular opinion. ... Although in the streets of London the mob might only massacre priests in effigy, the work ... was no child's play ...

The Cavalier Parliament became the instrument of the Whigs for driving the plot home. ... raised by strange events in the winter of 1678, at the moment when every suspicion was inflamed by the Popish Terror.

A standing army was equally unpopular with both parties. ... The King had a force in Scotland, estimated at 20,000 men, specially raised ... `to march into England upon call'. There were troops in Tangier, Ireland, and England. Worst of all, 10,000 British subjects, pressed for the French service in Flanders, won his battles for Louis (the French catholic king, ed.), but were always `within summons' of England; many Catholic officers, driven from the home army by the Test Act of 1673, were now in command of these hard-fighting regiments. Even the forces in the British islands were rightly or wrongly believed by the House to contain a heavy proportion of Papists and Irish both among the officers and in the ranks. ... `Popery and slavery', Shaftesbury told the Lords, `like two sisters go hand in hand.' ...

The question of the army was intimately connected with the question of France. In the spring of the year, when troops had at Danby's instance (sik? ed.) been voted and raised for a war against Louis, why had no such war been begun? At the height of the Popish Terror the answer came out. Charles (the English king, ed.) had, in March 1678, negotiated a secret treaty with Louis in return for a yearly pension of £ 300,000 pounds in French gold. In that transaction, Danby had been an unwilling agent. ... Louis ... betrayed to the Whigs the transaction... The agent in the betrayal of the Tory minister was Montague, the English representative at Paris. Louis paid him 50,000 livres to publish the instructions which he had received from Danby for this infamous sale of British interests; Charles had written on the manuscript: `I approve of this letter, C. R.'. In collusion with the French Ambassador Barillion, and the Whig chiefs, Montague on 19 December gave these letters to the Speaker, who read them aloud from the chair. When the reading was ended, there was an interval of silence and astonishment. Then the Whig orators leapt to their feet. ... And now the King himself ... was detected as a willing participant ... Henceforth a Protestant people could put confidence in no one inside the Palace walls. ... At last the Whigs had forced the King's hand. ...

A few weeks later the blood of the innocent began to flow. ...

The Catholics took courage and tried to turn the tables on their assassins. ...' (Trevelyan)

Ralph is one of those `characters'. Well, sometimes even an arrant knave can have a good day.... Here's an extract from Collins to Oldenburg, first Secretary (president) of the Royal Society:

"Lastly whereas Mr Schurnhau profers his friendship to procure what new bookes there may be had in Italy, be pleased to suggest that if Del La Hyres Conicks printed at Paris and Vivians treatise de Loco Solido, at Florence Borellij Archimedes or any other new Mathematicall booke be left with Captain Arthur Maginnis Gent of the horse to Mr Montagu the English Ambassador at Paris he will pay for the same, and transmit them to his and

Your thankfull servitor, J.C.

Apologize for writing to Mr Schurnhau first in regard of his Intentions for Italy, and of Mr Newtons absence." (Collins, in Hall and Hall)

The famous philosopher and `political scientist' John Locke [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [family history] was Ralph's personal physician when Ralph was in Paris during a crucial period in English history:

"... on 2 December Locke wrote in his journal:

About six or seven o'clock I was called to my Lady Ambassadress, whom I found crying out in one of her fits.

The Lady Ambassadress thus distressed was Ralph Montagu's wife, the Countess of Northumberland. Her husband, though he lived to become a duke, was then a commoner, and she retained the title she had acquired on her first marriage. Her second marriage was not an altogether happy one. There is evidence that quarrels began in the first two months, and the omniscient Mrs. Jameson says that Lady Northumberland `pined in the midst of her splendour for calmer and more domestic happiness'.

When Locke was called to see her, however, her trouble seemed rather to be toothache. Believing it to be toothache her French doctors had two - sound - teeth pulled out, and failed to relieve the pain. Locke diagnosed trigeminal neuralgia, and set a report to his medical friends in London. His diagnosis is, according to Dr. Kenneth Dewhurst, the first of its kind in medical history, and was a perfectly correct diagnosis. After a little hesitation, Locke ventured to purge `my lady ambassadrice to the extent of seven or eight workings' and although she was pregnant, she responded to the treatment satisfactorily." (Cranston)

Ralph's gardens are still of note. David Coffin writes in The English Garden:

"Contemporary with the work at Kirby Hall and Badminton were the great gardens laid out at Boughton House in Northamptonshire for the first duke of Montagu who had served previously as ambassador to France... John Morton in his book on the natural history of Northamptonshire gives an account of two wildernesses at Boughton, as a drawn survey of the layout in 1715 preserves a plan of the whole...

 

On the North Side of the Parterre-Garden is a small Wilderness which is call'd the Wilderness of Apartments, an exceeding delightful Place, and nobly adorned with Basins, Jet d'Eaus, Statues, with the Platannus, Lime-Tree, Beech, Bayes, &c. all in exquisite Form and Order, To the Southward of the lower part of the Parterre-Garden, is a larger Wilderness of a different Figure, having Ten equidistant Walks concentering in a round Area, and adorn'd also with Statue. In one of the Quarters is a fine Pheasantry. The larger Trees upon the Sides of the Walks have Eglantine and Woodbind climbing up and clasping about the Bodies of them.

Sources:
[DNB].
The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, Hall and Hall.
John Locke, Cranston.
England Under the Stuarts, Trevelyan.

http://www.montaguemillennium.com/familyresearch/h_1709_ralph.htm