the final crushing of the Lancastrian resistance, Montagu's role focussed on diplomacy and peacekeeping. In June 1465 he was commissioned to contract marriages "between English and Scottish subjects" as well as to treat for perpetual peace with Scotland, as a result of which, Montagu returned the captured Duke of Albany to Scotland, for which he was paid fifty marks. It was during this time (Hicks has suggested around January 1465) that Montagu and Lord Scales were requested by the Duke of Brittany to accompany a force of 3,000 Breton archers supplied by him, for the League of the Public Weal against Louis XI of France. However, due to commitments in the north with Warwick, Montagu ended up taking no part in this campaign. In 1465 Montagu received the main grant of the Percy Earldom of Northumberland estates, and on 25 March the following year he was granted the constableships and honours of Knaresborough and Pontefract Castles, which Warwick and before him their father had previously held, and also the castles of Tickhill, Snaith, and Dunstanburgh. This was to repay his arrears in back wages from his Wardenship of the East March, from an indenture of 1 June 1463. On the same day he was made Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster (north of the Trent), and it was from the profits of the duchy that his wages were coming from, amounting to approximately £1,000. Warden of the Marches The Wardens were the military guardians of the border from the late fourteenth century, and their salaries made them the highest-paid among Crown officers, but this was inclusive of the cost of raising troops and maintaining defence. This has also been described as controlling "private armies raised at the Crown's expense." By the mid-fifteenth century, the Wardenship of the East March was the most important of the two northern marcher lordships. Marcher Wardens were granted the right to recruit by their being "explicitly" exempted from the 1468 Statute of Livery, which restrained- or attempted to restrain- retaining. Montagu, however, was allowed to continue retaining in times of peace as well as war. At this point Humphrey Neville was still on the run, and Montagu required troops to be raised on various occasions; in 1467, for example, Beverley sent him troops to deal with Humphrey's resistance. Warwick's rebellion In 1467, as part of his brother's plan for a closer relationship with the French,