HALIFAX, CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF (1661 1715 ), English statesman and poet, fourth son of the Hon. George Montague, was born at Horton, Northamptonshire, on April 16, 1661. He was educated at Westminster school, where he was king's scholar in 1677 and at Trinity college, Cambridge, where he was one of the students who assisted Newton in forming the Philosophical Society of Cambridge. His clever panegyric on the death of Charles II. attracted the notice of the earl of Dorset, through whose patronage, he entered parliament in 1689 as mem ber for Maldon. About this time he married the countess-dowager of Manchester, and after the coronation of William and Mary he purchased a clerkship to the council. His poetical Epistle occa sioned by his Majesty's Victory in Ireland brought him a pension of Loo per annum. In 1692 he was made one of the commission ers of the treasury. His success as a politician was mainly due to his skill in finance. In 1692 he proposed to raise a million of money on annuities for 99 years. The Scotsman William Paterson (q.v.) had already submitted to the Government his plan of a national bank, and when in the spring of 1694 the prolonged con test with France had rendered another large loan absolutely neces sary, Montague introduced the bill for the incorporation of the Bank of England. Immediately after the prorogation of parlia ment Montague was rewarded by the Chancellorship of the Exchequer.
In 1695 he was returned for Westminster to the new parlia ment, and pushed through the House his famous Recoinage Bill. Rapid restoration of public credit secured him a commanding influence; but although Godolphin resigned office in Oct. 1696, the king hesitated for some time between Montague and Sir Stephen Fox as his successor, and it was not till 1697 that Mon tague was appointed first lord. In 1698 and 1699 Montague acted as one of the council of regency during the king's absence from England. After the return of the king in 1699 he was compelled to resign his offices. He succeeded his brother in the auditorship of the Exchequer.
On the accession of the Tories to power he was raised to the peerage (17 00) as Lord Halifax. In 1701 he was impeached for malpractices along with Lord Somers and the earls of Portland and Oxford, but all the charges were dismissed by the Lords ; and in 1703 a second attempt to impeach him also failed. He was a member of the council of regency in 1714 pending the arrival of George I., and was first lord of the treasury in the new ministry. He was also created earl of Halifax and Viscount Sunbury. He died on May 19, 1715 and left no issue. He was buried in the vault of the Albemarle family in Westminster Abbey. His nephew George (d. 1739) succeeded to the barony, and was created Vis count Sunbury and earl of Halifax in 1715.
Montague was a friend to many men of letters. He procured from Godolphin a commissionership for Addison, and enjoyed a life-long intimacy with Newton, for whom he obtained the master ship of the Mint. In administrative talent he surpassed all his contemporaries, and his only rival in parliamentary eloquence was Somers; but the effect of his brilliant financial successes on his reputation was gradually almost nullified by the arrogance of his manner and by his sensitive vanity.
His Miscellaneous ll'orks were published at London in 1704; his Life and Miscellaneous Works in 1715 ; and his Poetical Works, to which also his "Life" is attached, in 1716. His poems were reprinted in Johnson's English Poets, vol. ix.