88 Memoir of George Montagu. 
Eighth, on the occasion of that monarch’s visit to Lackham, when 
he was entertained for several days, whilst paying his addresses to 
the Lady Jane Seymour of Wolf-hall near Great Bedwyn. There is 
still extant a curious old print, representing in various compartments, 
the preparations for the king’s visit to Lackham, with the rats and 
mice running away from the housemaids, who, with mop and broom, 
are making all things clean and trim for the royal guest. 
So rich was this house in curiosities, that a long day might have 
been well employed in inspecting old chests filled with the costumes 
and jewelry of different centuries; many such articles of each 
generation for some hundreds of years having been carefully 
stored up by the family. 
Among other curious property was a massive service of plate, 
including even silver saucepans, covers, and wash-hand basins. 
This was a gift from Queen Anne, and bore the Royal Arms. 
There was also a large collection, above a hundred in number, of 
the MS. letters of the great Duke of Marlborough, written to a 
member of his family during his campaign; with some from Queen 
Anne in her own handwriting. All these memorials are now 
dispersed. 
But to return to the subject of our memoir. At the age of 
sixteen, George Montagu entered the army as a Lieutenant in the 
15th regiment of foot, and when he had completed his eighteenth 
year, he married Anne, the eldest daughter of William Courtenay, 
Esq., and Lady Jane his wife, who was one of the sisters of the 
Farl of Bute, Prime Minister to George the Third. After a few 
months spent in visiting friends of the bride in Scotland and in 
Treland, Lieutenant Montagu’s regiment was ordered to embark for 
America, and the youthful pair had to experience the pain of a 
long separation. She was placed with his family in Wiltshire. 
In the stirring events of military life he never shrank from 
gallantly performing his part; but the misery which often fell upon 
the unoffending inhabitants of scattered villages and lonely dwellings, 
from the brutality and licentiousness of the soldiery, was painful 
to him in the extreme; and in narrating anecdotes of the war to 
his children in after years, he was wont to allude to circumstances 
of this nature with abhorrence. 
