After the trauma of the 1569 rebellion, Montague may have hoped to limit the reaction against his co-religionists. In early April 1571 he was present in parliament at a conference between the two Houses on a bill concerning religion. The bill enforced attendance at church more strictly and, crucially, compelled reception of communion. In April and May he was nominated to sit on a committee with, among others, the earls of Huntingdon and Bedford to consider the bill which became ‘An Acte agaynst Fugytyves over the Sea’, and also, in May, the treasons bill which became ‘An Acte whereby certayne Offences bee made Treason’.

In some ways it is curious that Montague should have been charged with overseeing a bill which enforced full ecclesiastical conformity, though he was himself a conformist and, in any case, the bill failed because Elizabeth vetoed it. Perhaps Montague intervened in order to stymie the passage of this legislation. There are vague ambassadorial reports which suggest that some of the peers objected to provisions in the bill which intruded on noble privilege in this respect (although there is no direct indication that Montague was among them). When the bill received its third reading in the Lords, four Catholic peers (Worcester, Southampton, Windsor and Vaux) voted against it, but Montague did not. In fact, on this occasion, he was not present in the House at all. (This is one of the very few days in this session in which he was noted as being absent.