the throne before venting her rage against Montgomery. Assuming the position of regent once again, she ordered an immediate trial in Paris. The court found Montgomery guilty of treason and sentenced him to death by decapitation.20
On June 26, 1574, Gabriel Montgomery died, facing death as courageously as he had lived. Proud and defiant until the end, he maintained silence under torture when his captors tried to extract a confession. He also remained constant to the faith that he embraced after his initial flight to England. To a friar who attempted to convince him that he had been deceived by his conversion, he replied: “If I have been deceived, it was by members of your own order; for the first person that ever gave me a bible in French, and bade me to read it, was a Franciscan like yourself. And therein I learned the religion that I now hold, which is the only true religion. Having lived in it ever since, I wish, by the grace of God, to die in it today.”21
On the scaffold, Montgomery addressed the spectators, speaking movingly in support of his religious principles. He also requested “that they would tell his children, whom the judges had declared to be degraded to the rank of ‘roturiers,’ that, if they had not virtue of nobility enough to reassert their position, their father consented to the act.”22 Refusing a blindfold, he then offered his neck to the executioner’s sword. Gabriel Montgomery thus entered martyrdom. His military exploits and the manner in which he conducted himself during his execution served as inspiration to the remaining Huguenots. Instead of destroying the Huguenot sect as Catherine had expected, Montgomery’s death had just the opposite effect. It infused new life into the cause, which at that time was at its lowest ebb.
Gabriel Montgomery’s legacy of loyal devotion to heartfelt convictions apparently served as an incentive for his family to regain their noble status. By 1583, in Normandy, young Count Montgomery had succeeded to the rank of his father and taken up arms in the Protestant cause.23 The wars continued until 1598. At that time, Henry of Navarre, who gained decisive military victories as a Protestant leader, brought political as well as military unity and peace to France by embracing the Catholic religion as King Henry IV.
Another more direct Montgomery descendant, Sir Hugh Montgomery, went to England with William III of Orange in 1689 and commanded a regiment during the wars with Ireland (1690–1691). William rewarded him with vast land grants in Ireland. Many of his relations migrated to live on the Montgomery landholdings in Ireland, and this period gave rise to the Irish branch of the Montgomery family.24
Also during this era, the Montgomery kin devised the heraldic armorial insignia, which Richard Montgomery would later inherit. Some sources record that Gabriel Montgomery emblazoned on his shield a man impaled by a lance, in grim memory of the mortal wound that he delivered to Henry II. However, evidence indicates that this account was a fabrication, invented by the Catholics to rally loyalist hatred and opposition to Montgomery during the war. A reference to this incident was not included in the Montgomery coat of arms until the Irish Montgomerys redesigned it many years later, adding an arm clad in armor grasping a broken lance to the design. The designers also changed the motto inscribed below the shield at this time by substituting “Patriae Infelici Fidelis” (Loyalty but Misfortune in One’s Native Land) for the Scottish “Garde Bien” (Protect Well).25
These past events and personalities, then, formed the lineage that Richard Montgomery inherited. His heritage helped to shape his value system and worldview throughout his life. Therefore, an understanding of the Montgomery ancestry facilitates perceptions of Richard’s later decisions and conduct.
With this warlike family tradition, it was natural for Richard to be disposed toward a military career. Befitting a son of landed gentry, he acquired a liberal education as a youth. After receiving his initial education at St. Andrews School, Richard enrolled in Trinity College, Dublin, in 1754. He attended two years of college when, upon the advice and urging of his father and oldest brother, he made a final decision in favor of joining the army. Thomas probably influenced his son toward military service because he wanted Richard to follow in his footsteps and those of his forefathers in maintaining the Montgomery military tradition. Alexander had already established himself as an army officer, having received an appointment sometime before. His father purchased an ensign’s commission for Richard, and he entered British military service on September 21, 1756, at the age of eighteen. He spent the next eight years of his early manhood in the 17th Regiment of Foot in the British army.26
The 17th Regiment had a long and honorable history. In 1688, King James II hurriedly expanded his army to meet the threat of William III to his throne. He added four thousand Englishmen to the army lists, together with three thousand men from both Ireland and Scotland. Raising the new regiments, which included the 17th, brought the total army strength to forty thousand men. King James felt confident that he could defend his crown with such a force. However, political conspiracy, not force of arms, caused the overthrow of James. Most of his high-ranking officials deserted him, and he fled into exile without a major military confrontation. The 17th Regiment survived the “Glorious Revolution” and several army reorganizations that followed. It later distinguished itself during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), fighting under the Duke of Marlborough throughout wartorn Europe.27
It is ironic that Richard Montgomery became a member of the same regiment that James II formed to oppose his ancestor, Sir Hugh Montgomhery, who was then in the service of William III. Nevertheless, the 17th Regiment was proud of its reputation as a time-honored Irish unit, loyal in its support to the British Empire. Richard must have shared this military tradition after joining the 17th as a young, inexperienced officer. The time of Richard’s induction into the army was the eve of a momentous world event that would provide the 17th another opportunity to bravely serve the king—the Seven Years’ War. It would also furnish Richard an opportunity to uphold the Montgomery family heritage and prove himself as a professional soldier.
CHAPTER THREE
Duty in the Seven Years’ War
When first a soldier . . . I stood in arms. Then, in Britannia’s cause. I drew my sword, and charg’d the rival Gaul.1
Having borne a share in all the labour of our American wars, and the reduction of Canada. Little did he foresee the scenes which that land had still in reserve for him! Little did those generous Americans, who then stood by his side, think they were assisting to subdue a country, which would one day be held up over us a greater scourge in the hands of friends, than ever it was in the hands of enemies!2
The nagging imperial rivalry between Great Britain and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led ultimately to the Seven Years’ War between these two contending national powers as they struggled for world supremacy. Although global in overall scope, the part of the military conflict that occurred in North America became known as the French and Indian wars. This belligerency represented a series of protracted colonial wars between the British army, augmented by provincial militia, and French troops, assisted by their Indian allies.
Competing British and French claims in the Ohio Valley on the colonial western frontier touched off the final confrontation for control of the continent. In 1747, a group of prominent Virginians organized the Ohio Company of Virginia for the purpose of land speculation and fur trading.
Two years later, the company was able to influence the British government to grant it some two hundred thousand acres in the Ohio Valley.
The French, viewing the British initiative as a direct challenge to their own claims and designs in the region, retaliated by building two forts on the upper Ohio River and increasing their presence in the disputed area. In 1753, Virginia Gov. Robert Dinwiddie sent a twenty-one-year-old militia officer, Maj. George Washington, to protest the French intrusion into territory that the British claimed as part of the Virginia colony. The French spurned Washington’s
