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Observer, Volume 2, Issue 34, 7 May 1881, Page 361

Sir William Drogo Montague, K.P., Duke of Manchester, Earl of Manchester, Viscount Mandeville, and Baron Montagu of Kimbolton in the peerage of England, is the head of the once poAverful but now somewhat impoverished

house of Montagu, which claims descent from Drogo de Monte Acuto, a Norman warrior in the immediate train of Robert, Earl of Moreton, who came over to England at the time of the conquest. The real founder of the house of Montagu was, however, Sir Edward Montagu, a distinguished lawyer and judge in the reign of Henry VIII. Macaulay says this worthy "was one of the most subservient creatures that ever wore judicial ermine." Henry VIII., Somerset, Northumberland, and Queen Mary all found him equally pliable. Like most of the prominent men of that time, he was a greedy devourer of ecclesiastical property, including lands at Hemingford, Warkton, Barkton, Scaldwell, Houghton, Lamport, Maidwell, Hoothorpe, Clipston, and many other places, mostly in Northamptonshire. He took some part in the attempt to set the crown upon the head of Lady Jane Grey, but managed to escape with a fine, and died possessed of manors and lands in thirty-two places. Next to being a courtier, becoming a time-serving judge was in that age the short road to wealth, as Sir Edward Montagu's life shows. His eldest son had six sons, whose descendants obtained four peerages — the Dukedom of Montague, now extinct, the Earldom of Halifax, likewise extinct, the Dukedom of Manchester, and the Earldom of Sandwich. The third son of the six, a lawyer, obtained the office of Lord Chief Justice by promising to give the post of Clerk of the King's Bench, a very lucrative office, to a nominee of Buckingham, the favourite of James I. He next bought the office of Lord Treasurer of the Duke for a sum of £20,000, though there is some doubt whether the purchase money really went into the hands of the Duke or the King In any case he made a bad bargain, for he was compelled to resign his office in less than two years, which looks as though both King and Duke had conspired to obtain money by false pretences. Montagu was created Viscount Mandeville, and afterwards Earl of Manchester ; what he paid for his peerage we do not know, but it is notorious that nearly all the peerages of James I. were sold at a heavy price.