Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester

Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester (7 November 1642) was an English judge, politician and peer. He is mainly remembered today as the judge who sentenced Sir Walter Raleigh to death.

Life Henry was the 3rd son of Edward Montagu of Boughton and Elizabeth Harington. His grandfather, Sir Edward Montagu, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench from 1539 to 1545, was named by King Henry VIII one of the executors of his will, and governor to his son, Edward VI.

Henry was born at Boughton, Northamptonshire, about 1563. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, was admitted to Middle Temple on 6 November 1585 and was Called to the Bar on 9 June 1592. He was elected recorder of London in 1603, and in 1616 was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in which office it fell to him to pass sentence on Sir Walter Raleigh in October 1618.

In 1620, Henry was appointed Lord High Treasurer, being raised to the peerage as Viscount Mandeville and Baron Montagu of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire. He became President of the Council in 1621, in which office he was continued by Charles I, who created him Earl of Manchester in 1626. In 1628, he became Lord Privy Seal, and in 1635 a commissioner of the treasury. Another son he had with Catherine Spencer was James Montagu who served as MP for Huntingdon in the English House of Commons alongside Oliver Cromwell in 1628.

One of his sons by his third wife, Margaret Crouch, was George Montagu, father of Charles Montagu, created Earl of Halifax in 1699, and James Montagu, Attorney General from 1708 to 1710.