(Buff Coat and Cuirass. Lace Cravat and Ruffles. Blue Sash over the Shoulder. Broad Red Sash round the Waist. Right Hand holding a Truncheon, which rests on the Mouth of a Cannon; Left Hand on his Hip.)
Ralph, Duke of Montagu:
By RILEY.
Three-quarter Length.
(Curled Wig. Loose Gown of Orange Silk.)
Born, ——. Died, 1708. The only surviving son of Edward, second Lord Montagu of Boughton, by Anne, daughter of Sir Ralph Winwood. He was educated at Westminster and on the death of his elder brother succeeded him as Master of the Horse to Queen Catherine, Consort of Charles II. He was sent as Ambassador to Paris, in 1669, for which office, says a contemporary, he was more indebted to the partiality of the fair sex, than to his own merits. He told Sir William Temple he was resolved to become Ambassador in France, and Sir William asked him on what he founded his hopes, as neither the King nor the Duke of York were attached to him. “They shall act” said Montagu, “as if they were;” upon which Sir William Temple remarks that his appointment was brought about by the favour of the ladies, who were always his best friends, for some perfection the rest of the world did not discover.
He was famous when in France, for the state in which he lived. “He entered Paris,” (says Collins) “with a more than common appearance, having seventy-four pages and footmen in rich liveries, twelve led horses with their furniture, twenty-four gentlemen on horseback, and eighteen English noblemen and gentlemen of quality in four rich coaches with eight horses each, and two chariots with six, made as costly as art could contrive.” The King and the Duke of Orleans received him with great honour, and he was entertained both at St. Cloud and Versailles, the fountains of which played in his honour; and it was here he imbibed a taste for building and laying out gardens, which he afterwards indulged to a great extent. The beautiful and youthful Countess of Northumberland, who had lately become a widow, was residing in Paris, and as we mention in the notice of her life, Montagu became her suitor, and eventually her husband. They were married privately in England in 1673. After his marriage he became a Privy Councillor and Master of the Great Wardrobe, an office he bought of the Earl of Sandwich. He busied himself in building on a magnificent scale, and found his wife’s money most useful to him in carrying out his plans.
Although already rather in disrepute at Court, King Charles II. did not disdain to employ Montagu in 1678 on a new, and in every sense of the word, extraordinary mission to Paris. At that time there resided in the French capital, an astrologer who had gained great credit by predicting, not only the restoration of the English Monarch, but the exact date, May 29, 1660, of his return to England, and that some time before it actually happened. Charles, in consequence, had the firmest belief in the wise man’s auguries, and he despatched Montagu on an errand to ask his advice and predictions on some subject of political importance. The Envoy-extraordinary sounded the Necromancer, and finding the black art did not blind its professor to self-interest, the King’s messenger offered the wise man a large bribe to shape his predictions according to his (Montagu’s) directions; then, with an imprudence which was inconsistent with his previous cunning, he went off to the Duchess of Cleveland and confided his secret to her. But Barbara was angry with her former admirer, and jealous of his admiration for her own daughter, and she resolved to be revenged. Accordingly she wrote to the King and told him the whole story. “Montagu,” she says, “has neither conscience nor honour; he has told me several times he despises you in his heart, and that he wishes the Parliament would send you and your brother to travel, for you are a dull, ungovernable fool, and he is a wilful fool.” This version of the story is taken from Algernon Sidney’s correspondence.