Walter Montagu

Walter Montagu (c. 1603–1677) was an English courtier, secret agent (a.k.a. David Cutler) and Benedictine abbot.

He was the second son of Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, by his first wife Catherine Spencer. He was born in the parish of St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, London, and educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

He then spent some time abroad. In 1624 he was engaged by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, to take part in the diplomacy leading to the French marriage of the future Charles I of England to Henrietta Maria; and for subsequent diplomacy. He graduated M.A. at Cambridge in 1627. He was present at Portsmouth in 1628 when Buckingham was assassinated.

He continued to work in France, funded as a secret service agent, returning to England in 1633. At court he distinguished himself by his pastoral drama, entitled The Shepherd's Paradise, which he had published in 1629. The work was heavily influenced by a French novel Astrée, by Honoré d'Urfé, dedicated to Henry IV of France, the Queen's father; the Queen herself acted in it, when it was performed in 1633, and it set a trend for theatricals among the courtiers. Sir John Suckling ridiculed it in his poem The Session of the Poets (1637).

He went again to the Continent, as attaché to the Paris embassy, and also travelled. The Queen gave him a letter of introduction to the Papal Court, and Pope Urban VIII received him. Back in Paris, and went to see the exorcisms at Loudun. He became a Catholic convert under Jean-Joseph Surin, who was in charge of the exorcisms in the Loudun possessions.

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