suc. bro. 12 Apr. 1708 as 5th Visct. MONTAGU.
Never sat.
b. bef. 1641, 2nd s. of Francis Browne, 3rd Visct. Montagu; bro. of Francis Browne, 4th Visct. Montagu. m. bef. 1685, Barbara (d. 23 Nov. 1723), da. of Thomas Walsingham of Little Chesterford, Essex and Anne, da. Theophilus Howard†, 2nd earl of Suffolk, 2s. 6da.1 d. 25 June 1717.
Commr. customs 1687-8.
Dep. lt., Kent 1688.2
Associated with: Cowdray, Suss.; St Germain, France.
Browne was left the manor of Lenham, Kent by his father, an outlying property purchased by his grandfather, the 2nd Viscount, and which he disposed of soon after he inherited the title from his brother.3 This estate explains his appointment as a deputy lieutenant in February 1688. He was clearly perceived as a loyalist by James II, being named to the new customs commission in February 1687 (which was superseded in December 1688). Following the Revolution Browne chose to go into exile with James II, and presumably was the ‘Mr. Brown’, ‘the late Montagu of Cowdray’s brother’, who was listed in 1689 as in France with King James with an estate of £2,000 p.a.4 He subsequently served as secretary of state at St. Germains in 1690-1.5 Browne seems to have returned to England after the peace of Ryswick. In January 1698 a warrant was issued for a licence for his wife and three daughters, who had gone into France after the Revolution, and in May 1699 he was probably the ‘Henry Browne’ who was given leave to return from France.6
Montagu inherited the peerage in April 1708, but he was barred from the Lords by his Catholicism. His name appeared on one parliamentary list, of those voting on Sacheverell’s guilt in March 1710, but this was to note that he was a Catholic. It was probably soon after he assumed the viscountcy, that Montagu petitioned the queen for permission for his son, Anthony Browne†, the future 6th Viscount Montagu, to return to England, he ‘having been formerly in France, has for these last three years constantly resided at the duke of Lorraine's court at Luneville.’ Now he wanted to come home and had reached Rotterdam by using a pass from John Churchill, duke of Marlborough.7
Montagu seems to have taken no role in the politics of Midhurst, possibly because he was not in possession of Cowdray House and Park, in which the dowager retained a life interest. His lack of interest in electioneering was made clear when in 1711 he sold several burgages to Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, who had been attempting to build up an interest in Midhurst since 1709. In 1709, as the only surviving trustee of the settlement for his Roper cousins (daughters of Christopher Roper, 5th Baron Teynham) he was negotiating with the commissioners of customs for the sale of land on the Isle of Grain.8
Montagu’s inheritance was much circumscribed by the terms of his brother’s will and his debts which amounted to some £20,000 at his death.9 One outstanding question, a debt trust created in 1688, which had been rendered void when John Carryll (one of the trustees) was outlawed for treason, was sorted out by the enactment of a private bill which authorized that part of the trust vested in the Crown (by virtue of Caryll’s attainder) should be vested in the surviving trustee, Henry Arundell, thereby allowing the sale of two of the Montagu manors in order to fulfil the trust.10 Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, was approached by Sir Richard Onslow†, the future Baron Onslow, and subsequent purchaser of the lands for nearly £25,000 in July 1712, who presented him with a case on 14 Feb. 1711.11 The treasury referred the petition for a bill to the attorney general on 19 Feb. 1711, and following a favourable report, on 23 Feb. William Lowndes‡ was ordered to signal the Crown’s consent to the bill.12 On 24 Feb. a petition was received by the Commons for a bill, and royal consent was confirmed on the 26th. The bill was presented to the House on 28 Feb., and managed through the Commons by ‘Mr. Onslow’, presumably Thomas‡, a son of Sir Richard, passing on 7 April. The bill was given a first reading in the Lords on 9 Apr., whereupon John Poulett, Earl Poulett, informed the House that the queen had given her consent for the bill to be passed. Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, reported the bill without amendment on 1 May and it passed two days later.
Montagu challenged the other dispositions of his brother’s will, alleging that his sister-in-law had taken advantage of his brother’s fragile mental health in order to improve her personal financial position at the expense of the estate, including obtaining an annuity by means of a fraudulent codicil to his will. His charges were vigorously defended by the dowager viscountess and her husband, Sir George Maxwell, whom she had married in July 1710. An agreement between Montagu and his sister-in-law was drawn up in December 1710 but seems not to have been implemented.13 In November 1711 they commenced what was to become an acrimonious series of actions and cross actions in chancery. In 1716 the court found in favour of the dowager. Montagu’s appeal to the Lords resulted in the overthrow of the disputed codicil on the grounds that the 4th Viscount was not of ‘sane memory’ at the time he signed it, but otherwise brought little advantage.14
Montagu died on 25 June 1717 and was succeeded by his son. He acquired posthumous fame in the story that he was responsible for the murder of a local priest and had to live out his years in hiding, a legend for which there is no contemporary evidence.15
R.P./S.N.H.- 1 Suss. Arch. Colls. 131, p. 127.
- 2 CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 141, 228.
- 3 Cowdray Archives, Catalogue ed. A.A. Dibben, pp. xi-xii.
- 4 CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 375.
- 5 CCSP, v. 690; G. Glickman, Eng. Catholic Community, 1688-1745, pp. 104-9.
- 6 CSP Dom. 1698, p. 63; 1699, p. 166.
- 7 Add. 61620, ff. 216-17.
- 8 CTB, xxiii. 393, 417.
- 9 Henry Lord Viscount Montagu ... The Appellant’s Case [1717].
- 10 HMC Portland, x. 361; CTB, xxv. 173.
- 11 W. Suss. RO, Montagu mss SAS-BA/164; HMC Portland, x. 361.
- 12 CTB, xxv. 19, 173, 623.
- 13 Montagu mss SAS-BA/159.
- 14 Henry Lord Viscount Montagu ... The Appellant’s Case.
- 15 J.A.E. Roundell, Cowdray: The Story of a Great English House, pp. 167-8; Suss. Arch Colls. 131, pp. 126-8.