Thomas Montagu was born in 1388. He was the eldest son of John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (d. 1400), who was killed while plotting against King Henry IV in 1400, and his lands forfeited, later partly retrieved by Thomas. His mother was Maud Francis, daughter of Sir Adam Francis (born ca. 1334), Mayor of London.
Thomas was granted part of his father’s estates and summoned to Parliament in 1409, though not fully restored until 1421. He was present throughout the campaign of Agincourt in 1415 and at the naval engagement before Harfleur in 1416. In 1420 he was in chief command in Maine, and, when Henry V went home the next year, Salisbury remained in France as the chief lieutenant of Thomas, duke of Clarence. The Duke, through his own rashness, was defeated at Baugé on March 21, 1421. Salisbury came up with the archers too late to retrieve the day but recovered the bodies of the dead and by a skillful retreat averted further disaster.
Salisbury’s success in Maine marked him out as a chief lieutenant in the French war after Henry’s death. Subsequent operations completed the conquest of Champagne, leaving him to be employed on the Norman border and in Maine. After a year’s visit to England he returned to the chief command in the field in July 1428. He determined to make Orléans his principal objective, and began the siege on October 12. On October 27, while surveying the city from a window in the castle of Tourelles he was wounded by a cannon shot and died a few days later.
He married twice:
Firstly to Eleanor Holland, a sister and eventual co-heiress of Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, and daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent. By Eleanor he had a daughter, his only legitimate child:
Alice Montagu, who married Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, who succeeded his father-in-law jure uxoris as Earl of Salisbury.
Secondly to Alice Chaucer, daughter of Thomas Chaucer and grand-daughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
He was an English nobleman, one of the few who remained loyal to Richard II after Henry IV became king.
She was a granddaughter of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Married three times, she eventually became a Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
She was an English noblewoman, the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, a half-brother of King Richard II of England.
