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398 Richard Montagu (ca.1575–1641) The son of a Buckinghamshire clergyman, Montagu studied at Eton from 1590–94 before proceeding to King’s College, Cambridge, where he took his BA in 1598 and his MA in 1602. He was ordained two years later, after which he left Cambridge, but returned to take his BD in 1609. During this period he was assisting Henry Savile on his monumental edition of Chrysostom (1610–12) and completing his own edition of Gregory of Nazianzen’s invectives against Julian (1610), one possible model for the oft-noted pugnacity of Montagu’s prose. In 1613 he received from King James the rectory of Stanford Rivers, Essex, and two years later became a royal chaplain. In 1617 he was made a canon of Windsor, and then in 1623 rector of Petworth, Sussex. In these years he was also at work on both a critique1 of Baronius’ massive Roman Catholic church history (the Annales ecclesiastici [1588–1607]) and also on his 1621 treatise defending the divine right basis of tithes against John Selden’s claim that these had always been a matter of positive law and custom. This appears to have been an amicable controversy, since a 1626 letter of Montagu ’s describes Selden as a close and trusted friend (Cosin 1:92–93). In 1624 Montagu, then forty-nine and a respected priest, patristic scholar, and antiquarian , knowingly ignited a theological firestorm by publishing, first, a qualified defense of the invocation of saints, followed by an ostensibly anti-Catholic treatise (the New gag) whose argument hinged on the proposition that the Calvinist doctrines condemned by papal controversialists were not, as these controversialists had assumed, doctrines held by the Church of England.2 Several outraged Calvinist divines replied to Montagu in print, but two took a further step and informed against him to the Commons, whose members found Montagu’s book deeply offensive. The King, however, did not. According to Montagu’s testimony before the House on July 6, 1625, “after the informations exhibited 1 The critique was published in 1622 as Analecta ecclesiasticarum exercitationum. 2 Montagu’s New gag responds to the 1623 The gag of the reformed Gospel by Matthew Kellison (whom Montagu refers to as “the Gagger”), the then-president of the English College at Douai. 399 Richard Montagu in Parliament, the King sent for him, and spoke to him . . . these words: ‘If thou be a Papist, I am a Papist;’ giving him leave to print somewhat in his own defense,” although requiring Francis White, the Dean of Carlisle, to vet the work to make sure nothing contradicted the doctrine and discipline of the English Church, which Montagu, as an ordained minister, was sworn to uphold. Montagu published the said defense of his New gag in 1625 under the title Appello Caesarem, but White’s imprimatur did nothing to abate the furious reaction of the Commons, whose Committee on Religion, headed by John Pym, strove repeatedly over the next four years—until Charles shut down Parliament in 1629—to have the book burned and Montagu himself declared a traitor. Two conferences were held in early 1626—the second, the York House Conference, involving Cosin, Buckeridge, and Preston—in an unsuccessful attempt to sort out the theological issues. In June of the same year Charles issued a proclamation silencing both sides.3 The Commons , however, refused to let go of the matter until, in 1628, Charles took it out of their hands by appointing Montagu bishop of Chichester and thus liable only to the judgment of his peers in the House of Lords. Montagu served at Chichester until 1638 and then at Norwich until his death three years later; in both dioceses, he proved to be a tolerant, moderate, and even-handed ecclesiastical governor. He continued his patristic and antiquarian researches during these last years, apparently spending most of his income on rare books and manuscripts. He died, according to the ODNB’s laconic report, “very poor.” [\ The theology of the New gag and Appello Casearem cannot, on its own, account for the apoplectic reaction they triggered. Donne’s 1623 Devotions upon emergent occasions, which stands in the same theological tradition, provoked no such outcry (Strier). The abrasive scuffing and scoffing of Montagu’s style (see, for example, the epistle prefacing Appello) was surely a factor, but the ferocity of the Commons’ response may also have drawn pent-up force from the unbroken sequence of military disasters, including Buckingham’s fiascos at Cadiz and...

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