when his election comes to be disputed.[1] The King, when he heard he was elected, said he did
- ↑ This respect, as he calls it, so promptly ofi«red and apparently without reference to the merits of the case, of which we have heard something in later days, was unavailing. Algernon Sidney's return for Guildford was found not to be good.
were so gracious as to keep up the honour of a family by the female line, to bestow it upon those who married the eldest, without there were some personal prejudice to the person who had that claim. I may add. Sir, another pretension, which is the same for which you have given a Dukedom to the Bedford family, the having been one of the first, and held out to the last in that cause which, for the happiness of England, brought you to the crown. I hope it will not be thought a less merit to be alive and ready on all occasions to venture all again for your service, than if I had lost my head when my Lord Russel did."
The claim thus advanced on the ground of his marriage with the eldest daughter of the Duke of Newcastle was a bold one. This lady, who was his second wife, was the widow of the Duke of Albemarle, and possessed immense riches by marriage and inheritance. Her head was completely turned, and she declared she would give her hand only to a sovereign Prince. Montague wooed and won her in the character of the Emperor of China, and he kept her in a sort of confinement in Montague House, where she was always served upon the knee as Empress of China.
William refused his request, but he obtained his object under his successor, by whom he was created Duke of Montague, and Viscount Monthermer. He died at Montague House, in 1709, having, according to Collins, lived with as great a splendour and as much magnificence as any man in Great Britain.—Burnet, Harris's Lives (Appendix.) Mrs. Jameson's Beauties of the Court of Charles II.
