George Montaigne (Mountain)

Dr George Mountaigne (or Mountain) was Dean of Westminster 1610-1617 but has no memorial at Westminster Abbey nor any portrait in the Deanery. He was buried at Cawood church in Yorkshire, where he was born in 1569. His father was Thomas. Educated at Cambridge university he became chaplain to the Earl of Essex and went with him on the Cadiz expedition. Rector of Great Cressingham in Norfolk he was also Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, Master of the Savoy and chaplain to James I. In 1613 he was granted a coat of arms (illustrated). The blazon for this is "barry lozengy or and azure, on a chief gules three crosses crosslet of the first" and he also had a crest "a stork's head issuing out of rays or". From 1617 he was bishop of Lincoln, then of London and lastly Durham. In 1628 he was elected Archbishop of York but died in November of that year. His brother Isaac put up a memorial to him at Cawood.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004

"Acts of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster 1609-1642" edited by C.S. Knighton, 2006