In a despatch from the Dutch embassy the States General were informed that many of the votes of that session which had caused astonishment out of doors were to be ascribed to nothing but to the bitter envy which the ability and fame of Montague had excited.

It was not without a hard struggle and a sharp pang that the first Englishman who has held that high position which has now been long called the Leadership of the House of Commons submitted to be deposed.

But he was set upon with cowardly malignity by whole rows of small men none of whom singly would have dared to look him in the face.

A contemporary pamphleteer compared him to an owl in the sunshine pursued and pecked to death by flights of tiny birds.

On one occasion he was irritated into uttering an oath.