General Notes

WILLIAM MONTACUTE, second Earl of Salisbury, eldest son of William the first Earl, was born in June, 1328. -Before he was of age he was Knighted when Edward landed at La Hague. He afterward served at the siege of Can, and at the glorious battle of Crecy. When the Order of the Garter was instituted he was the seventh of its original knights, and when the Black Prince obtained Aquitaine he attended him to France and served under him in all his excursions and expeditions. At the battle of Poitiers he commanded the rear of the English army, and was highly instrumental in gaining that famous victory. In short, almost his whole life was a perpetual campaign under Edward III. and his son, the Black Prince.

In the succeeding reign, he was continued in all his posts and preferments, and also made governor of Calais, whence he harrassed the French with continual excursions. In the fifth of that reign he convoyed to England the King's intended Consort, daughter of Charles, King of the Romans, and in the seventh and eighth he served against the Scots. In the ninth, a grant was made to him during life, of the custody of the Isle of Wight and Castle of Carisbrook. In the twentieth, the year ,397, he departed this life, having ordered by his will, that every day until his corpse should be interred at Bisham, distribution should be made of one pound five shillings to three hundred poor people; likewise that twenty poor men should bear torches on the day of his funeral, each torch eight pounds weight, and each of them wearing a gown of black cloth with a red hood; also, that there should be nine wax lights about his corpse, and upon every pillar of the church there should be fixed banners of his arms; moreover that £3° should be given to the religious, to sing "rentals and pray for his soul.

He first married Joan, who by way of distinction was called Fair Maid of Kent, daughter to Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, but having been separated from her upon a petition from Sir Thomas Holland to the Pope, in which he alleged that she had been pre-contracted to him, his lordship married second, Elizabeth, dau. and co-heir of John lord Mohun, one of the original Knights of the Garter by whom he had a son who died without issue, having been accidentally killed by his father in a tilting at Windsor in the year 1383. This son was named Sir William Montague and married Elizabeth, dau. of Richard Fitz Alan, Earl of Arundel. His widow married in 1388 Thomas lord Mowbray, Earl Marshal of England.

Sir John Montacute, the brother of this Earl, married Margaret, dau. and heir of Sir 'I Thomas Monthermer son of Joan of Acres, dau. Of King Edward I., in whose right he had summons to Parliament from the 31St of Edward to the 13th year of Richard II., when he died. He had three sons, John his heir (who became 3d Earl of Salisbury), Thomas Montague, Dean of Salisbury, and Richard .Montague, of whose issue there is no trace. This Richard lived about the year 1400. None of the English genealogies make any further mention of him except to state his name. It is claimed that there was also a fourth son, whose name was Simon Montague, and from /'in the nobility of England of this name claim descent. Collins' Peerage, however, states that there is no evidence that this Simon ever lived, and is inclined to the belief that the nobility are descended from James Montague, a natural son of General Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury. This James Montague had large possessions in (County Kent, where he was a man of distinction, and is buried in the (Church of Ludsdown in Kent. Sir John Montacute had also three daughters, Sybil, Catherine and Margaret.