This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'of Montagu,' in Normandy. The Latinized form was 'de Monte Acuto,' whence the occasional Montacute. The 'Prior Montis Acuti' is mentioned in the Hundred Rolls (ii. 135). The parish of Montacute, Somerset, took its name from the family. 'Drogo de Monteacuto, the great Domesday tenant, came over in the retinue of Robert Earl of Mortain, the Conqueror's half-brother': Collins, quoted by Lower.

William de Monte Acuto, Southamptonshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

William de Montagu, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

Symon de Monte Acuto, Devon, ibid.

1526. John Muntagew and Catherine Slene: Marriage Lic. (London).

1628. Baptised — Edward, s. Thomas Mountague: St. James, Clerkenwell.

(A-French-Latin) belonging to Montaigu (Normandy) = the Peaked Hill [French mont, Latin mons, mont-is, a hill + French aigu, Latin acut-us, pointed] This name was Latinized in mediæval documents de Monte Acuto.

There are a Montaigu and a Montaigu- les-Bois in the Manche Dept.

This Norman toponymic has been used as a synonym of MacTague, q.v

(English) One who came from Montacute or Mont Aigu (peaked hill), in Normandy.

Or Montagud (de Monte Acuto): from Montaigu-les-Bois, in the arrondissement of Coutances, Normandy, which remained in the possession of the family till the death of Sébastien de Montaigu, s. p. in 1715.—(Recherches sur le Domesday). Two of this name appear in Domesday: Ansger and Drogo de Montaigu; both richly endowed; but the former left no heir. Drogo’s barony was in Somersetshire, where two of the manors he held in 1086, Shipton and Sutton, still retain his name. Shipton Montagu was the head of the honour. He had come to England in the train of the Earl of Mortaine, and received from him large grants of lands, with the custody of the castle, built either by the Earl or his son William, in the manor of Bishopston, and styled, from its position on a sharp-topped hill, Monte Acuto. In 13 John, his grandson Drogo II. certified that he held ten and a half knight’s fees in the Western counties. The first baron by writ was Simon de Montacute, “a right valiant chieftain and a wise,” who did good service in the wars of Scotland and of Gascony, was Governor of Corfe Castle and Beaumaris, and Admiral of Edward I.’s fleet The King bestowed upon him the hand of a princess of royal Danish blood, Aufrick, daughter of Fergus King of Man, who, seeing her brother and all her kindred overcome by Alexander III. of Scotland, had fled into England with the charters of her island, for protection and assistance. Simon, with the King’s aid, re­conquered her sovereignty, and it continued with their descendants till his great-grandson sold his rights to Lord Scrope. It is evident, however, that it had at least once passed out of their possession, for we find mention of a second conquest in 1342 by William, Simon’s grandson, who was crowned King of Man by Edward III. This William de Montacute, created Earl of Salisbury in 1337, was a famous soldier and statesman in Edward’s reign, and first earned the King’s gratitude by seizing Roger Mortimer in Nottingham Castle, and sending him prisoner to London. For this he was rewarded with numerous grants, including many of Mortimer’s forfeited estates, a pension of ₤1ooo a year, and the manor and castle of Werk, to be held by the service of defending it against the Scots. It was there that, in 1341, Froissart tells us the King fell in love with the beautiful Katherine de Grandison, Countess of Salisbury. David, King of Scotland, then returning home with a victorious army laden with spoil, stopped on his way to invest Werk, and ordered a general assault. The Earl’s brother, Sir Edward, a most gallant soldier, was in charge as castellan; his Countess was also in the Castle, and showed such a brave spirit, that “instead of receiving courage from others, she added heart to all.” She went about among the soldiers, distributing gold and silver, with many engaging and encouraging words, and further promises of reward, telling them that “King Edward their lord would presently come to their relief.” The Scottish assault was bravely repulsed; but that night, Sir Edward, mindful of the Countess’ jeopardy, sought a messenger who would make his way to the King at York, and acquaint him with their condition. He threw down a purse of gold, as the reward of whoever would adventure for this service, with his best gelding to carry him; but the undertaking seemed desperate, and no hand was put out to take it up. Then Sir Edward declared that for the sake of the Lady of the Castle, and for theirs, he would do the errand himself. “For I have such knowledge of you,” added he, “that I doubt not you will make a shift to hold out till my return.” When darkness fell, he sallied out, and it rained so hard, that the Scottish sentries kept under shelter, and he passed through their army unperceived and unhurt At daybreak, he was half a league away, and meeting two Scots driving cattle to the camp, pricked them with his spear, and cried, “Now go your ways, and tell your King that I am Edward Montacute, who have this night broke through his camp, and am now going to direct the King of England hither with his army;” and so set forward “on the spur.” On receiving this message the Scottish King renewed the assault with redoubled fury; but the brave Countess and her little garrison again beat him back; and finding that he had wasted ten days before the Castle, he took his baron's advice to return home; and next morning re-crossed the Tweed with his whole force. That same day, at noon, King Edward arrived, and pitched his camp where the Scots had lain; and when he had put off his armour, declared he would “see the Castle, and give a visit to the noble lady the Countess of Salisbury,” whom he had not seen since her marriage.

And when the Countess, hearing of his coming, had the gates set open, and came forth to greet him, in the full flush of her triumph, and radiance of her beauty, the King lost his heart to her then and there; and it is the cognizance of her garter, picked up by him at a Court revel with the warning words, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” that has now been for upwards of five centuries worn by one of the proudest orders of chivalry in Christendom. This is the version given by Froissart, Polidore Virgil, &c., of the foundation of the Order, and seems to me the most probable; but there is at least one other (see St. John), and the story has been very generally doubted. M. Fournier plausibly objects the Countess’s age, being “sixty at the time;” but I am at a loss to divine how he arrives at this conclusion. When she was besieged at Werke Castle, Froissart says she had been married fourteen years; and in those days of early marriages, we may safely assume that she was not more than thirty—perhaps hardly as much. The Order was founded three years afterwards, in 1344. Her husband died of injuries received at the jousts that preceded its institution; and her son, who succeeded as second Earl of Salisbury, was then only fifteen years of age. The loyal castellan, Sir Edward, was summoned to Parliament in the following year. He was very eminent in the French and Scottish wars, and married the King’s cousin, Lady Alice Plantagenet, one of the co-heiresses of Thomas de Brotherton, Duke of Norfolk; but left only one daughter, Joan Countess of Suffolk, who died childless.

The Earl of Salisbury, however, fairly outshone his brother in renown; for “of his valorous deeds worthily to write,” says Walsingham, “would be a work of great commendation,” and some magnitude. He had been early retained to serve the King in peace and war for the term of his natural life, and scarcely a month of it was left unemployed. He lost an eye in the wars of Scotland, was taken prisoner in France, and narrowly escaped execution by the good offices of the King of Bohemia, fought the Saracens at Algeziras, succeeded the King’s uncle as Earl Marshal of England, was Governor of the Channel Islands, Constable of the Tower, and Admiral of the Fleet He died of a fever, brought on by the hurts and bruises he had received at a great tourney held at Windsor in 1344; and his fair widow ended her days in the sisterhood of St.Albans. The next Earl was—if that were possible—more completely a soldier than even his father had been, for his whole life may be described as one prolonged campaign. He fought at Cressy, and led the rear-guard at Poitiers, where he had a savage contention with the Earl of Warwick as to which of them should shed the most French blood. When mustering his men between Dover and Sandwich for the French war in 1359, he told them plainly he never meant to return alive, except he came as a conqueror; “Wherefore,” said he, “if there be any among you unwilling to partake with me in whatever God shall please to send us, honour or dishonour, peace or war, life or death, that man hath my free will to depart:” but not a man went. He was first married to Joan Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent, but divorced on account of her pre-contract with Sir Henry Holland; and his second wife, one of the Mohun co-heiresses, brought him only one son, who, by a cruel fatality, was slain by his own hand at a tilting match at Windsor 6 Richard II. His nephew John thus became his successor. This, the third Earl of Salisbury, was the son of Sir John de Montacute, a person of great note in his time,” and one of the heroes of Cressy, and his wife Margaret, the heiress of Thomas Lord Monthermer, son of Ralph, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, by Joan of Acres, the daughter of Edward I. She brought him, with other great possessions, her father’s barony of Monthermer, and he had been summoned to parliament in her right by Edward III. Earl John was, like all his race, a soldier, “always in the hottest medley,” and one of the chief men among the Lollards. He was a great favourite of Richard II., stood faithfully by him to the very end, and even conspired with the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon to get rid of his supplanter. All three accordingly presented themselves at Windsor Castle, disguised as Christmas mummers, w ith the intention of murdering the new King; but the plot leaked out, and they fled in hot haste to Cirencester, where they were seized and summarily put to death by the townspeople. All Salisbury’s possessions escheated to the Crown by attainder; but Henry IV., moved by compassion for his widow and children, granted them a maintenance, and restored a great part of the estates to his son Thomas, who was reinstated in his Earldom in 1409. He was the fourth and last Earl of the blood of Montacute, and the greatest of all who bore the name; for none of his warlike predecessors ever rose to the height of his superb renown. The “mirror of all martial men,” it was from him the greatest captain of the age first learnt the art of war; and his life was so crowded with exploits and achievements, that to recount them all would be to narrate anew the whole glorious reign of Henry V. The King trusted and rewarded him above all men; named him Lieutenant General of Normandy; gave him, with many Norman castles and manors, the entire county of Perche; and sent for him when he was lying on his death bed at Vincennes. There, with his last words, he solemnly “recommended his affairs” to his two uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and to the “renowned Salisbury,” and the former, as soon as he became Regent, accordingly appointed the Earl Vicegerent and Lieutenant of the King in France, Brie, and Champagne. He did “not sleep in his great office of trust;” but was unwearied in his efforts to maintain the dearly-won supremacy of England; and as long as he lived to be the soul of the war, her power was never humbled before her enemies. His name alone struck them with dismay; for he had made it a name of fear to their ears; and years and years after his time they still vividly remembered “What a terror he had been to France.”

At last, as he stood at a grated window in a tower overlooking the siege of Orleans, he was struck by a cunningly-aimed shot that carried away half his face, and killed Sir Thomas Gargrave by his side.

“Salisbury— How far’st thou, mirror of all martial men, One of thy eyes, and thy cheek’s side struck off? * * * * In thirteen battles Salisbury o’ercame, Henry the Fifth he first trained to the wars, Whilst any trump did sound, or drum strike up, His sword did ne’er leave striking in the field.” —Henry VI., Part I., Act 1.

He died eight days afterwards, and his body was taken home to be buried, by his express desire, in his own church of Bisham in Berkshire, where all his forefathers had lain. He had married “a very fair Lady,” Eleanor Holland, sister and co-heir of the same Earl of Kent who had perished with his father at Cirencester, and left an only child, Alice de Montacute, in her own right Countess of Salisbury, who married Sir Richard Nevill, the eldest son of Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland by his second wife Joan de Beaufort, and transmitted her heroic blood to her son the King maker. (See Nevill.) The existing house of Montagu descends from a Northamptonshire squire who died in 1517, and lies buried in Hemington church. “Collins and others have deduced this Thomas Montagu from Simon Montagu, who is stated to have been younger brother to John, third Earl of Salisbury, and uncle to Thomas, the fourth and last Earl. Unfortunately there is no proof of the existence of this Simon, nor of any of the intermediate generations. But the late Mr. Thorpe (and it seems Mr. Anstis concurred in this opinion) suspected this family to be descended from James Montagu, a natural son of Thomas, the last Earl of Salisbury. This James lies buried in the church of Ludsdowne in Kent, of which place he derived the manor from his father. The bordure round the arms of the present family favours this idea. The question is now of little consequence: a proud family may be content with such a mark once in seven centuries.”—Sir Egerton Brydges. Sir Edmund Montagu, the actual founder of the family, was the younger son of Thomas (though he lived to inherit whatever patrimony there may have been), and chose the law as his profession. He rose rapidly and steadily into great repute; obtained a seat in the House of Commons, and such “authority, account, credit, and countenance” there, that once, when Henry VIII. was angered at the delay of one of his subsidy bills, he sent for Montagu, and crying, “Ho! Will they not let my bill pass?” laid his hand on his head as he knelt before him, and said, “Get my bill to pass by such a time to-morrow, or else by such a time this head of yours will be off.” Under this extreme pressure, Montagu “wrought so effectually,” that the bill was got through the House even before the time prescribed. In 1539 he was named Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and six years afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, “a descent in honour, but an ascent in profit;” declaring that he was now an old man, and loved the kitchen before the hall, the wannest place best suiting with his age. In politics he was less successful; for, though able and active, and ever solicitous to trim his course towards the winning side, he compromised himself irretrievably in the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and was thrown into the Tower by Queen Mary, in spite of his tardily-proffered allegiance. He was only pardoned on payment of a heavy fine, and having been at the same time deprived of his Chief Justiceship, spent the rest of his days in retirement at his house of Boughton, in Northamptonshire, where he died in 1563. He had received very large grants when “the golden showers of Abbey-lands rained amongst great men” at the Sequestration, and bequeathed to his son Edward property in thirty-two parishes lying in four different counties.

This second Edward Montagu was the common ancestor of all the different branches of the house. From his eldest son, Edward, sprung the Dukes of Montagu; from his fourth son Henry the Dukes of Manchester and Earls of Halifax; and from his seventh son, Sir Sidney, the Earls of Sandwich.

Edward, the eldest son, who was created in 1621 Lord Montagu, a man “easy of access, courteous to all, yet keeping the secrets of his own heart,” was “exceedingly beloved” in the county, and so hospitable that twelve hundred people were “fed, cheered and comforted by his beneficence.” But he was “no friend to changes, either in church or state,” and when the Civil War broke out, was imprisoned in the Savoy by the Parliament, where he died at the age of eighty-one. The next Lord was the father of two sons; 1. Edward, who was—as the story goes—dismissed from his post at Court for making love to Queen Katherine of Braganza, and fell at the siege of Bergen in 1665, unmarried; and 2. Ralph, termed “the most successful and unscrupulous of the entire house. He was employed as Minister in France, and as appears from Barillon’s papers, received fifty thousand crowns from Louis to ruin Danby, who was dreaded and detested by France. This ruin he accomplished by reading in the House letters from Danby to the French Court asking for money in consideration for a treaty. Out of such disgraceful gains as these rose the pile of Montagu House, till lately occupied by the British Museum, which Lord Montagu built for his town house, intending to make of Boughton a miniature Versailles.”—Great Governing Families of England. In this he certainly was successful, for he not only built a spacious palace in the French style, but emulated the splendours he had admired at Versailles by landscape-gardening on the grandest scale. The avenues he designed and planted—one of them six miles long—are still the pride of the county. From the time he first entered the House of Commons he had played a great part in political life, and no one was more zealous and active in furthering the Revolution of 1688. On their accession, William and Mary created him Earl of Montagu and Viscount Monthermer, and Queen Anne, in 1705, further conferred upon him the titles of Duke of Montagu and Marquess of Monthermer. He died four years afterwards, leaving only one surviving son, by his first wife, Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley (the widow of the last Earl of Northumberland), John, with whom the line closed. This second Duke had married one of the co-heiresses of the great Duke of Marlborough, Lady Mary Churchill, who brought him three sons, all of whom died early, and three daughters. The youngest of these, a second Lady Mary, proved to be the heiress, and was the wife of George Brudenell fourth Earl of Cardigan, who took the name of Montagu when her father died in 1749, and was himself created Duke of Montagu and Marquess of Monthermer in 1766. But their only son died in his father’s lifetime, and once more the inheritance passed to a daughter, Elizabeth Duchess of Buccleuch, and from her to her second son, Lord Henry Scott, who succeeded to one of his grandfather’s baronies, and bore his name. This barony has been revived in favour of another Lord Henry Scott, the second son of Walter, fifth Duke, who was created Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in 1885. He, again, left no heir male, and on his death in 1845 “the miniature Versailles” reverted to the son of his elder brother, the present Duke of Buccleuch.

Henry Montagu, the ancestor of the Dukes of Manchester, trod the same path to eminence that his grandfather had followed; for he, too, was a subtle and successful lawyer, and Lord Chief Justice of England. He succeeded Sir E. Coke in 1616; and in 1620 obtained from the Duke of Buckingham the staff of Lord Treasurer for a “consideration” of ₤20,000; “When Montagu was asked what the treasurership might be worth a year, he replied, ‘Some thousands of pounds to him who after death would go instantly to heaven, twice as much to him who would go to purgatory, and a nemo scit to him who would venture to a worse place.’”—Ibid. but held it for little more than a year, after which he had to resign in favour of the Earl of Middlesex, and to accept the inferior office of Lord President of the Council in exchange. During that year, however, he had received the titles of Baron Montagu of Kimbolton and Viscount Mandeville; Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdonshire, which he had purchased from the Wingfield family, having once been the property of the Mandevilles. Charles I., not long after his accession, further created him Earl of Manchester; and in 1628 he again exchanged his office for that of Lord Privy Seal, which he held for the rest of his life. “He was,’’ says Lord Clarendon, “a wise man, and of an excellent temper, of great industry and sagacity in business.” He left six sons; 1. Edward, his successor; 2. Walter, who was a Catholic priest, and Abbot of St.Martin’s, near Pontoise; 3. James, the Puritan member for Huntingdon; 4. Henry, died s. p. 5. George, also a Puritan, who sat for Huntingdon in the Long Parliament, and was the grandfather of the celebrated Lord Halifax; and 6. Sidney, who never married. Edward, second Earl of Manchester, was one of the leaders of the popular party in the Civil War; but, Lord Clarendon tells us, “most unfit for the company he kept He was of a gentle and a generous nature, civilly bred: had reverence and affection for the person of the King; lov’d his country with too unskilful a tenderness; and was of so excellent a temper and disposition, that the barbarous times, and the rough part he was forced to act in them, did not wipe out, or much deface, those marks.” He was “in the van of the Puritan minority in the House of Lords;” impeached with the five obnoxious members of the Commons in 1642; and entered with heart and soul into the service of the Parliament. He commanded a regiment at Edgehill; and the next year, as leader of the army raised by the seven associated Eastern counties, gained success after success, defeating the Earl of Newcastle at Horncastle, and carrying the city of Lincoln by storm. Cromwell, whom, “being his countryman, he had raised from a low fortune,” was second in command; and jealousies and differences sprang up and grew between them, till, after the second battle of Newbury, the future Lord Protector formally charged the Earl with treachery and cowardice. The enquiry that followed led to the so-called Self-Denying Ordinances, that deprived Manchester of his command. He was Speaker of the House of Lords, but never took his place in parliament after the King’s execution; aided in the Restoration, and sat in judgment on the regicides. He died in 1671, having survived his eldest son. Charles, third Earl, his grandson and successor, who was in arms for the Prince of Orange, and for a short time his principal Secretary of State, was created Duke of Manchester in 1719, and is now represented by the seventh Duke.

Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, the younger son of a younger son (his grandfather had been the fourth brother of the second Lord Manchester) was left to make his own way in the world. While still at Cambridge, he wrote a poem that attracted the attention of the witty Earl of Dorset, who invited him to London; and two years later gained his first celebrity by publishing (with his college friend Prior) a parody on Dryden’s Hind and Panther. It was not, however, till he was elected a member of the Convention Parliament that he was fairly launched in the political arena; for he had always intended to enter the Church. “At thirty,” says Macaulay, “he would have gladly given all his chances in life for a comfortable vicarage and a chaplain’s scarf; at thirty-seven he was First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Regent of the Kingdom, and this elevation he owed not at all to favour, but solely to the unquestionable superiority of his talents for administration and debate.” He was the first financier of his time, and two of his financial operations are still remarkable—the modest loan of one million in 1672 that was “the germ of the largest National Debt ever known;” and the great re-coinage of silver in 1698. He was created Lord Halifax on the recommendation of the House of Commons in 1700, and Earl of Halifax and Viscount Sunbury by George I. in 1714, but died, without posterity, nine months afterwards. His barony had been secured by reversion to his nephew George Montagu, who in the same year received the two higher titles from the Crown, and transmitted them to his only son, the last heir-male of the family.

The Earls of Sandwich, the only other existing branch of the Montagus, descend from Sir Sidney, the youngest brother of the first Earl, who bought from Sir Oliver Cromwell Hinchingbrook, their present seat, near Huntingdon. Edward, his son, fought by Cromwell’s side in the Civil War from the age of eighteen, and earned such rapid promotion that he was a brigadier when “not two months more than twenty years old:” but it was as a sailor that his principal reputation was to be gained. In 1656 he was appointed joint Admiral of the Fleet with Blake, and after the death of the latter, had the sole command, “in which,” says Lord Clarendon, “he was discreet and successful.” He had remained the staunch supporter and personal friend of the Protector; but, on the downfall of Richard Cromwell, he listened to the overtures made to him by Charles II., and agreed to use the Commonwealth fleet in forwarding the Restoration. In these negotiations, he acted independently of Monck, and even made it a condition that they should be kept secret from him, a reticence which Monck never forgave. He brought the King over to England, and two days after the joyful landing at Dover, the George and Garter were presented to him on board his ship, then riding in the Downs. In July following, he was created Earl of Sandwich and Viscount Hinchingbrook, made Master of the King’s great Wardrobe, Admiral of the Narrow Seas, and Lieut.-Admiral to the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England. Two years after this, he was the King’s proxy at his marriage, and brought back the new Queen; but the latter part of his life is chiefly noteworthy for his successes at sea. In 1665, when the Dutch and English fleets had been engaged for thirteen hours off Leostaff, Sandwich, with his blue squadron, fell upon the enemy’s centre, divided their fleet in half, and turned the scale of victory. Eighteen men of war surrendered on that occasion; and in the course of the same year he captured twelve others, with a host of merchant men, and one thousand prisoners. He fell in 1672, during the second Dutch war, serving as Vice-Admiral under the Duke of York. One Sunday night in May, the united French and English fleets were lying sociably together off Solebay, in Suffolk, and “great jollity and feasting” was going on, when the Earl broke in with the unwelcome suggestion that it would be well to weigh anchor and get out to sea, for “as the wind stood, the fleet rode in danger of being surprised.” The advice was not taken, and so ill received by the Duke of York, that he retorted by a taunt implying that the Earl was afraid. The surprise he foreboded actually occurred on the following day, when De Ruyter attacked the allies unawares, and utterly defeated them. Sandwich, in his ship, the Royal James, was the first to sail out and interpose between the advancing enemy and the unprepared fleet, and singly and successfully engaged several of their ships. No one, however, came to his relief; the Duke chose to abandon him to his fate; and when he saw his own Vice-Admiral, Sir Joseph Jordan, sail past him to join his commander, he cried out, “We must fight it out alone to the last man!” and loyally kept his word. He defended himself till noon, and sunk three of the Dutch fire-ships; but a fourth, under cover of the smoke, succeeded in grappling the Royal James, and set her aflame. Of her crew of one thousand men, the greater part lay dead or dying on deck, and the slender remnant got away in the long boat But the Earl, with the Duke’s taunt of the night before still ringing in his ears, disdained to save his life, and remained behind to perish, the last man left in his burning ship. Twelve days after the battle, his body, recognized by the star on his coat, was found floating in the sea off Harwich, and buried with public honours in Westminster Abbey. From his eldest son, Edward, descends the present and eighth Earl; Sidney, the second, married the heiress of the Wortleys, adopted their name, and was the father-in-law of the eccentric authoress, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

"That the surname of this family," observes Collins, "was anciently written in Latin, De Monte Acuto, and in old English, Montacute, is evident from Domesday Book and other records; but the original name was Montagu, from the town of Montagu in Normandy; of which name and family there are still remaining many persons of distinction in France." The patriarch of the family in England was the great Domesday tenant, Drogo de Monteacuto, who came hither in the retinue of Robert Earl of Mortain, the Conqueror's half-brother. His descendants have been frequently ennobled in both early and modern times. There are at present three places in Normandy called Montaigu; that from which our English family sprang would appear to be Montaigu-les-Bois, in the arrondissement of Coutances, of which M. Du Bois remarks: "Ses anciens seigneurs etaient fameux dans le moyen-age." Itin. de la Normandie, 516. The parish of Montacute, co. Somerset, received its appellation from this family, who, as tenants of the Norman Earls of Mortain, had possessions there.

(French.) De Mont aigue—from the sharp or steep mountain.

From Montaigu; a location name in France and Holland.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Montagud. Montaigu; a local name