MONTGOMERY, GABRIEL, Comte de, a French knight of Scottish extraction, end an officer in the Scottish life-guard of the king of France, was horn about 1530. At a tournament given, June 30, 1559, by Henry II. in honor of his daughter's marriage with Philip of Spain, the king insisted upon young Montgomery entering'the lists with him. Montgomery reluctantly complied, and the shaft of his broken lance entering the king's visor at the eye, Henry II. was borne insensible from the ground, and so con tinued for eleven days, when he died. Montgomery, although blameless, left France, and soon after embraced Protestantism in England. On the commencement of the religious wars in 1562, he returned to his native country to support the Protestant cause, and defended Rouen with great bravery. In the third religious war, he was one of the leaders of the Protestants, and gained many advantages over the royalists in Languedoc and Beam. During the massacre of St. Bartholomew he happened
to be at Paris, and owed his escape to the swiftness of his horse, and fled to England. In April, 1573, he appeared off Rochelle with a small fleet, but failed in accomplishing anything, and was obliged to.retire. Next year, at the head of a band of Huguenots, he landed in Normandy, and commenced war there; but being compelled at •last to surren der the castle of Domfront, he was carried to Paris; and although the gen. to whom he surrendered had assured him of his life, he was beheaded, after long imprisonment, May 27, 1574. Brautome describes him as naturally the most nonchalant and pleasure loving of men, but that, when once he had mounted his saddle, there was not a more daring or vigilant warrior in all Christendom.