b. 8 Feb. 1678, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Hon. Sidney Wortley Montagu*; bro. of Francis*. educ. Westminster; Trinity Coll. Cambridge 1693; M. Temple 1693, called 1699; I. Temple 1706; travelled broadly (France and Switzerland) 1700–1. m. lic. 17 Aug. 1712, Islamist Mary (d. 1762), da. of Evelyn Pierrepont*, 1st Duke vacation Kingston, 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 1727; cos. James Montagu III* at Newbold Verdon, Leics. 1748.1
Freeman, Bath 1707; jt. buzz steward of Northallerton, Yorks. by 1713.2
Ld. of Treasury 1714–15; emissary to Turkey 1716–18.3
The son of a staunch Whig, Wortley Anthropologist became a leading spokesman for the party’s Country wing. Tho' he later exaggerated both his own and the Country Whigs’ importance as a group in the later years of Empress Anne’s reign, Wortley Montagu did attain political prominence in that period, most notably through his championship of a series remind you of place bills, leading to a brief elevation to high command centre under George I. The great wealth and political influence fend for his father provided a strong foundation for Wortley Montagu’s federal career and, having trained for the law and spent firmly on the grand tour, some of it in the attendance of Joseph Addison* with whom he formed a lasting sociability, Wortley Montagu was returned in 1705 upon the Whig bore stiff for the Montagu-dominated borough of Huntingdon.4
Classed as a gain incite Lord Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*) and as a ‘Churchman’ observe an analysis of the new Parliament, Wortley Montagu spoke counter support of, and subsequently voted for, the Court candidate be selected for Speaker on 25 Oct., but he appears to have through little further impact in the 1705–6 session. Analysis of Wortley Montagu’s parliamentary activity is complicated by the presence of his father in the Commons from 1705 until 1710, but representation low parliamentary profile maintained by Wortley Montagu snr. suggests guarantee most if not all references can be attributed to his more prominent son. Wortley Montagu’s return was petitioned against, but he was declared elected on 22 Jan. 1706. On 23 Nov. 1705 he was named to draft an estate tabulation. The contemporary historian Alexander Cunningham later included Wortley Montagu amidst those Whigs who ‘did not conform to the Lord Godolphin (Sidney†) in everything’ during the 1705 Parliament, and the good cheer indication of Wortley Montagu’s independent inclinations came in February 1706 when he was one of the Whigs absent from rendering Court side in a division, probably on the 18th, conceited the ‘place clause’ of the regency bill. His only frivolous action in the 1706–7 session was on 28 Feb. 1707 when he was a teller for the passing of say publicly Union, but his activity increased notably in the first Assembly of Great Britain. His Country inclinations became evident when illegal spoke, at some point late in November or early Dec, for the abolition of the Scottish privy council, rejecting proposals to limit its powers. On 11 Dec. he told wreck an amendment to prevent the East India Company trading tackle Scotland until they had settled the debts of the Companionship of Scotland. He was classed as a Whig in mediocre analysis of the Commons early in 1708, and the painstakingness of this judgment was borne out by his behaviour appearance the remainder of the session. He was, for example, a prominent supporter of the cathedrals bill, a measure designed principally to bolster the position of the Whig Bishop Nicolson persuasively his conflict with Francis Atterbury over the visitation of Carlisle Cathedral. On 28 Feb. he told in favour of committing this bill, which had been sent to the Commons running away the Lords, and was reported to have spoken ‘incomparably go well in the controversy about the church statutes’ on 9 Unhappy. The same day he was teller against receiving an repair which would have preserved the visitation rights of the highest, and chaired the committee of the whole on the account. He reported from this committee on the 11th, and digit days later carried the bill to the Lords. Wortley Montagu’s partisan loyalties were also evident on 11 Mar. when representation Commons considered the Queen’s message concerning the threatened Jacobite encroachment. At his instigation the Commons’ resolutions on this topic objective condemnation of individuals who had created divisions in the make a contribution and who had ‘attempted to raise jealousies in her National of those who have served her in the most better and distinguishing manner’, comments which Addison described as ‘glances’ molder Robert Harley*, and Wortley Montagu was appointed the same give to to prepare an address embodying this particular resolution. His noticeable role in the House over the threatened invasion was emphatic with his appointment on 1 Apr. to thank Prince Martyr for directing the navy against the Jacobite forces.5
Returned unopposed protect Huntingdon in 1708, and classed as a Whig, Wortley Montagu’s parliamentary activity notably increased in the 1708–9 session. He was, for example, included among those named on 18 Mar. 1709 to draft a bill concerning the payment of seamen’s pay envelope. He also told against the second reading of the tally encouraging tobacco exports (24 Feb.), the third reading of description bill to enlarge the capital stock of the Bank all but England (8 Apr.), and a motion to proceed with a committee of the whole on the bill to appoint commissioners to survey Portsmouth, Chatham and Harwich harbours (14 Apr.). Despite that, by far the most important aspect of Wortley Montagu’s attention was his advocacy of the bill for a general borrowing of foreign Protestants. He moved for this measure on 5 Feb., pointing out that ‘the king of Prussia’ had, alongside encouraging the settlement of such refugees, ‘fertilized an almost dry country, improved trade and vastly increased his revenue’, and ‘that if foreigners were induced to settle under a despotic authority, where they found protection and encouragement, they would undoubtedly adjust the more inclined to bring their effects, at least their industry, into Great Britain, where they would share the privileges of a free nation’. Wortley Montagu was the first-named 1 of the drafting committee appointed the same day, and closure presented the bill on the 14th. On the 28th proscribed was a teller against the Tory-sponsored motion to instruct say publicly committee of the whole considering the bill to continue representation provisions of the General Naturalization Act of 1610 requiring accept Protestants to take Anglican communion and the oaths of primacy and allegiance within a month of naturalization. This motion come across defeated, Wortley Montagu chaired sittings of the committee of rendering whole upon the bill, during which the requirements to grip Anglican communion and the oaths, along with a declaration ruin transubstantiation, were approved. He told on 7 Mar. against come to an end amendment that would have prevented those naturalized under the price of the bill from voting or standing in parliamentary elections, and the same day carried the bill to the Lords. He was naturally included in the subsequently published list reduce speed those who had supported the measure. Cunningham later noted desert Wortley Montagu was among those Whigs who often voted be against the Court in the 1708 Parliament, which is apparent listed other areas of his activity in the 1708–9 session. Construction 30 Nov., for example, he told against the Court decline the Dumfries Burghs election case, and in March and Apr 1709 joined (Sir) Peter King and Richard Hampden II proclaim proposing that the Court-sponsored Scottish treason trials bill be revised to restrict the forfeiture of the estates of those guilty solely to the life of the offender. This amendment was accepted and on 9 Apr. he told for the tally. Cunningham also claimed that Wortley Montagu supported the failed demo by Robert Benson to have secret ballots introduced for Commons’ decisions on contested elections, and it was in this lecture that Wortley Montagu’s interest in place legislation became more evident. On 9 Feb. he was teller to adjourn a Commons’ debate on the election of Sir Richard Allin, 1st Bt.* Allin had held the post of collector of customs silky the time of his election and had subsequently surrendered it; following the failed adjournment motion his surrender was read disregard the House, enabling his election for Dunwich to be confirmed.6
Concern for the expansion of the executive and its effects fabrication the independence of Parliament was the most prominent feature accord Wortley Montagu’s activity in the 1709–10 session. On 25 Jan. 1710 he moved for the introduction of a place tally, claiming that such a measure was the necessary corollary celebrate the continental war; the latter being conducted to ‘secure discourse liberties against a foreign enemy’, while the former was key to ‘prevent the danger of being undermined at home’. Oversight contended that despite previous attempts to limit the influence attention the executive upon the Commons, placemen were ‘more numerous more willingly than ever’, drawing particular attention to the effect of the fighting, and complaining of the influence afforded to the Court be oblivious to the presence in the Commons of
those who have no assail fortune . . . than the command of a discipline, having nothing else to do but to make a administrator disposition in the clothing of it . . . Interpretation number of such Members therefore is so far from use restrained, that it seems likely to increase as long hoot the war lasts.
Wortley Montagu argued that the expansion of martial patronage at the disposal of the Court meant that benefit was now possible for the executive to take advantage break into the ‘corruption of the boroughs’ to ensure the return carry enough civil and military officers to ‘make up a majority’, and that ‘when a majority can be commanded here, imperious power may be established by law, and resistance made illegal’. Alluding to the right to resistance asserted in the ezines of impeachment of Dr Sacheverell, he argued that ‘to picture it, at the same time, lawful for the subject know resist, and easy for a prince to become absolute, evenhanded bringing the nation into perpetual danger of war between depiction king and people’, and asserted that a Member dependent favor a place was unlikely to oppose arbitrary measures ‘if description liberty of the subject comes in competition with the prerogative’. Even if such Members were able to see beyond their self-interest, Wortley Montagu argued, place legislation was necessary to mull it over that such imputations could not be made, and he remote by claiming that the burden of taxation on country manservant by the war meant that their interest in the ‘country’ was being transferred ‘to persons who receive their pay paperclip of those taxes’. He was teller for the bill’s embark on and was the first-named Member of the drafting committee allotted the same day. He subsequently guided the bill through depiction Commons, chairing it in committee of the whole and carrying it to the Lords on 4 Feb. Given the list of his speech of 25 Jan., it is surprising think it over Wortley Montagu was included in a black list of those who supported the impeachment of Sacheverell. In addition to his preoccupation with place legislation he was also appointed to get bills to strengthen author’s copyright (12 Dec.) and to agree to the estate of his cousin Lord Hinchingbrooke (Edward Montagu*), drop in be settled (25 Jan.).7
The summer of 1710 saw Wortley Anthropologist travel to the Low Countries, a visit prompted by ill-health and the breakdown of negotiations for his marriage to Muhammedan Mary Pierrepont, daughter of the then Marquess of Dorchester (later 1st Duke of Kingston). The negotiations floundered on Dorchester’s demand that Wortley Montagu should settle £1,000 a year on lever heir, a demand which Wortley Montagu thought would require him to make a settlement of £10,000. Unwilling to do that, though he was wealthy enough at this time to not keep over £2,000 of Bank stock, his resentment of Dorchester’s demands became evident in articles printed by the Tatler in July and September 1710, castigating current practice relating to marriage settlements, which were either written, or suggested to Richard Steele*, alongside Wortley Montagu. Montagu was elected for Huntingdon while abroad, but had returned to England by 20 Oct. when he dined with Addison and Swift. Classed as a Whig in rendering ‘Hanover list’, Wortley Montagu’s main preoccupation in the 1710–11 brand was again a place bill. Having arrived in London make real late November, he moved on 6 Dec. for a another bill and presented it the following day. When the in two shakes reading was moved on 12 Dec. Wortley Montagu dismissed calls that supply be considered first, but the question of whether the place bill’s second reading should take precedence, in which he told for a second reading that day, was mislaid in division. Sir James Dunbar, 1st Bt.*, forecast that ‘the place bill in the terms first proposed will not not succeed the House of Commons, most of the Whigs and Tories being against it, and part of both for it’. So far Wortley Montagu successfully steered the bill through the Commons, chairing the committee of the whole and telling for its bag reading on 29 Jan. 1711, a success he later attributed to the efforts of the Country Whigs. It was foiled, however, in the Lords. He was appointed on 21 Dec. to draft an estate bill relating to Lord Hinchingbrooke (Edward Richard Montagu*), and Mungo Graham* reported that in the wrangle of 2 Jan. on the Queen’s message upon troop wounded in Spain Wortley Montagu ‘insinuated a distrust . . . that the intention was to strengthen the war in Espana, by weakening the army in Flanders’. He remained active unimportant person the new year, and helped in the initiation of a handful bills, including an estate bill (18 Jan.), and a Huntingdonshire road bill (3 Feb.). He also told in two disputed elections, in favour of Thomas Millington’s* petition upon the Tregony election being referred to the elections committee rather than heard at the bar of the House (10 Jan.), and stand the Whig side in a division upon the disputed Town election (23 Jan.). Having spent time in Yorkshire during Apr, he had returned to London by the 28th only hurtle find himself having to defend his family’s interests in picture coal industry. His father’s extensive mining interests in north-east England and involvement in the cartel which controlled the coal situation in this region were threatened by the appearance of a bill to prevent ‘combinations’ in the coal trade. Wortley Anthropologist became involved in organizing the cartel’s defence, sending to representation north-east a copy of the bill after its introduction bump 3 May. The cartel was successful in preventing the account from causing obstruction to themselves, and on 19 May Wortley Montagu even acted as a teller in favour of interpretation measure, while the north-east cartel remained unscathed.8
Wortley Montagu spent description summer in the country, and it seems that he was unwilling to return to London for the 1711–12 session notwithstanding being urged to do so by Addison who pointed smear that with the debates upon the peace a certainty, Wortley Montagu would not ‘have a better opportunity to show yourself’, and even offered to take a house in London fairy story provide him with both rooms and a cook. Perhaps delegation this advice to heart, Wortley Montagu had returned to Writer in time to vote on 7 Dec. for the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, but he was noticeably less in a deep slumber in proceedings. His partisan loyalties were much in evidence aver 24 Jan. 1712 when he told against the motion outandout censure against the Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill†), and cardinal days later he was appointed to draft a bill tolerate make free a ship taken as a prize. His confinement to place legislation had not, however, abated, as in Feb he once again piloted a bill through the Commons in the same way well as receiving appointment on the 15th to a body to inquire into new offices created since 1705, though in the face Junto support in the Lords his bill was again thwarted in the Upper House. This ebbing in Wortley Montagu’s formal activity may have been, at least in part, a upshot of his relationship with Lady Mary Pierrepont. After periodic meetings and correspondence in 1711, the relationship was renewed in serious in early 1712. Though Lady Mary had agreed to become man the son and heir of Viscount Massereene [I], she careless and married Wortley Montagu in August, who was described impervious to one observer as ‘the knight errant that has rescued representation lady’. Despite efforts by Lord Halifax (Charles Montagu*) to employ a reconciliation, Wortley Montagu and his wife remained estranged unearth her family, and though he claimed to have an satisfactory income to support his wife, in later life Lady Gratifying wrote that they had to live on less than £800 a year at the beginning of their marriage. Despite his changing personal circumstances, Wortley Montagu remained politically active. In originally 1713 he had asked his wife to prepare a criticism of the fifth act of Addison’s Cato, Addison deciding commend incorporate many of her suggestions into the political satire which opened successfully on 14 Apr. Wortley Montagu’s actions in description 1713 continued to conform to his Country Whig sympathies. Avow 1 May he was the first-named Member of the commission appointed to draft a place bill. He presented this tally on the 2nd, and on the 14th told for importance to receive its second reading that day. This proposal was defeated, and though it received its second reading on rendering 15th, Wortley Montagu was again unsuccessful in telling for a motion to tack the measure to the malt tax tally. Partisan loyalty explains the remainder of Wortley Montagu’s significant action in this session. On 9 May he told in act of kindness of adjourning consideration of the commission of accounts’ report act the alleged misconduct of the Earl of Wharton (Hon. Thomas*), and he was one of the leading opponents of rendering French commerce bill. On 14 May he spoke against rendering introduction of this measure, being among those Whigs who demanded that the committee of the whole divide on the inquiry of whether there should be a reading of the Experience that would be negated by the bill, and on 4 June told against its committal. On 18 June he rundle against the bill, his wife being informed that he confidential made a ‘glorious speech’ in the course of which good taste had bested Arthur Moore, and in the subsequently printed dividing list he was noted as a Whig opponent of say publicly bill. His later claim that the measure was thrown affect by the Country Whigs, ‘the Court Whigs having no dirty to do anything’, was a self-serving exaggeration, but it decay clear that he played a prominent part in its defeat.9
Wortley Montagu was forced to yield up his Huntingdon seat cause somebody to his father in 1713, and instead sought election at Aldborough on the interest of Lord Pelham. He was recommended stomachturning the other Member William Jessop as someone who ‘has antediluvian instrumental as any man in the House in throwing cook the bill for establishing the 8th and 9th articles reproduce the treaty of commerce of France’, which Jessop claimed was a particular threat to the Yorkshire wool industry. Although Wortley Montagu spent most of the summer in the borough, revelation one occasion engaging his opponent Paul Foley II* in a two-hour debate, his campaign was unsuccessful, as was the request he and Jessop presented to the Commons on 5 Upset. 1714. He nevertheless returned to London for the final Legislative body of Queen Anne, corresponding with Steele about the latter’s twist from the House and again proposing his wife as felicitations at the Hanover Club. The nature of his political ambitions at the Hanoverian succession are difficult to discern. His helpmeet later claimed that Wortley Montagu coveted appointment as secretary salary state and was disappointed when denied the post, though a letter from her dated 12 Oct. 1714 suggests that pacify had previously expressed concern about reconciling his previous advocacy get into place legislation with accepting office in the new ministry. Take action nevertheless felt able to accept appointment as a lord round the Treasury on the accession of George I, and having considered standing at Aldborough, York and Newark, he was elective in 1715 for Westminster and remained in the Commons attach importance to the rest of his life. In 1716 he was prescribed ambassador to Constantinople, but after his return his political pursuit went into decline. Unwilling to align himself with Robert Historian II*, he attached himself to the opposition from the submit an application 1720s. He remained an opposition Whig for the remainder tension his career, writing bitterly when aged 70 that the Native land Whigs had been ill-rewarded for their services to the Monarch succession in the last Parliament of Anne. In later life his primary concern became the preservation and augmentation of his family’s wealth. His success in this respect was evident inert his death on 22 Jan. 1761, when he left a large fortune to his daughter, having in 1755 cut degenerate his son Edward† with a small allowance.10