“In all the hosts of effigies that throng the aisles of Westminster Abbey one man only, and he a sailor, strikes a martial attitude. The men of the Middle Ages have sheathed their swords and composed their hands in prayer; the men of the age of reason have donned the toga. A Captain Montagu alone, in Flaxman’s posthumous statue, firmly grips his hilt, and, because they had so many greater treasures to protect, the chapter left him to stand there throughout the war unencumbered by sand bags, gazing across the lower nave as he had gazed at the ships of revolutionary France in the waters off Ushant on the day of victory and death. His name is not well remembered and his portrait, larger than life and portly for his years, has seldom attracted the notice of sightseers.” (Unconditional Surrender, Evelyn Waugh, 1961)
A sculptural masterpiece and a superb bit of prose commemorating a mere Captain in the Royal Navy killed in action, aged forty-one, at Ushant under the command of Lord Howe in 1794. You may recall that Major Major was promoted to Major (so major thrice) in Catch-22; likewise Montagu was made Captain of HMS Montagu. Where are the Flaxmans today? Or is there simply not the will to commission funerary monuments of such quality? Frankly, Montagu is a footnote in naval history, let alone national history, but we are fortunate his family commissioned such a fine monument.