Then, not without irony but to complete his response to events in London, Monck had ordered a solemn day of fasting and public humiliation to seek ‘the Blessing of the Lord upon this Great Affair’.
While Monck’s Army considered this Great Affair was the continuing purge in the other Regiments and garrisons which Monck and Morgan prosecuted with vigour, there were those who pondered that it might have some other meaning. It was the beginning of a campaign of disinformation that Monck began part in jest but with increasingly deadly intent. Always keen to keep his enemy guessing, he had cleared out any officer or ranker suspected of harbouring disloyal or radical views. He had also sent troops south to occupy Berwick in the name of the Governor of Scotland, thereby securing his left flank just as intelligence reached him that Lambert was marching north and his advanced troops were not far away; they had already occupied Chillingford Castle.
By this time it was early December and, on the 8th, he had begun the concentration of his Army on the line of the Tweed, shifting his headquarters from Dalkeith to the little border town of Coldstream. Here he sat down and waited, and while he did so he constantly rode up and down the extended line, starting his rounds at two o’clock in the morning, his horse picking its way over ice and through snow, well aware that the appalling weather worked in his favour.
At Coldstream, General Monck, linked by Berwick to the sea and a twice-weekly packet-boat with news from Ireland, conducted his correspondence, received the reports of his Colonels, his garrison-commanders, Clarke his ‘intelligencer’ and Clarges his ears and eyes in London. He had even been contacted by Henry Cromwell, the Lord Deputy of Ireland who sent Cornet Monck, a distant kinsman of the General, with his personal letters intended to rescue his brother’s doomed dynasty. Although this had proved too late and Henry had soon afterwards been removed from his Irish post, most of the intelligence that flowed first into Dalkeith and, later that unsettled year, into Coldstream, kept Monck and Clarke apprised of events as they unfolded.
Thus, by mid-December Monck was sending off his gallopers from his smoky riverside cottage. They rode into England – to Clarges in London, to Morice in Devon, to Fairfax in Yorkshire – through by-ways and tracks and not along the Great North Road. All the while, Monck heeded the words of Cameron of Lochiel as to the quietude of the Highlands. As for England, a growing discontent with the Army and its Puritan leaders was stoking a deepening resentment among the ordinary folk. From the State’s Navy came news from Monck’s old vice admiral and comrade-in-arms, the former Leveller John Lawson, that the Fleet would follow Monck’s lead and had declared its loyalty to Parliament – even such an unrepresentative body as the Rump now was. ‘Montagu has secretly declared for the King,’ Lawson wrote of the man he had just superseded , ‘but I can assure Your Excellency that I shall be guided by you.’
Meanwhile there was the proximate threat of John Lambert. Lambert may have the larger Army and Lambert’s troops may have been fired up with the zeal of the Lord, but they lived off the country; his men were therefore widely quartered, their pay was in arrears and they were busy alienating the Northumbrian farmers and cottagers thanks to Lambert’s indiscriminate billeting and demands for ‘free-quarter’. While Monck’s men grumbled at their conditions, they were well fed, paid, and, despite their privations, in vastly better living conditions than Lambert’s. Moreover, their billeting was not at the expense of their hosts. As the tough old General and his Colonels drilled them and harangued them, they grew in stature while Lambert’s men began to desert, some even coming over the Tweed into Monck’s encampments. Apart from turning the Northumbrians against him, Lambert had also made enemies in the City of London, which had dismissed all his pleas for loans with which to pay his soldiers.
Lying unsleeping on his uncomfortable and improvised bed, Monck intuitively sensed his moment was imminent. He had no way of knowing yet how matters would play out; he had no clear idea of an objective, other than that of a sovereign obedience to Parliament. For a while his mind drifted, first to Anne and her poor, disappointed face, peering at him from her carriage as he had packed her off forthwith back to Dalkeith. He would write to her tomorrow, extend the olive-branch and send his love to his beloved Kit. Then he thought of the boy playing in the gardens of the palace gardens that Monck, the rough untutored soldier, had laid out and replanted to the delight of both himself and the Duchess of Buccleuch. Her Grace, to whose family Dalkieth Palace belonged, had been a frequent and friendly visitor whose influence had reconciled many of the old Scots aristocracy to Monck’s rule. More devious men than Cameron of Lochiel had been persuaded to accept the fait accompli that Monck and his Army represented, even that arch-dissembler, Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, whom Monck had tamed into co-operative neutrality but who still harboured equivocal feelings for the Stuarts.
Monck stirred at the recollection, or was it the howl of the wind outside that disturbed his rest? In his present position he could never relax and yet every instinct in the old campaigner insisted he sought the balm of sleep. He turned affairs of state over one more time in his tired mind, and once more he came up against the unanswerable question: ‘What next?’
‘I must… I have to leave some things to fortune and the decisions that others make,’ he whispered into the darkness like a prayer. ‘Only upon them and their probity, or lack of it, can I base my own motions.’ He could think no more; there was nothing more to be thought of; he had done everything within his power to make Scotland safe and as prosperous as possible. Now the matter of England awaited him. And for that he must needs sleep.
And so, sometime after midnight, he did.
*
If Lambert had been troubling Monck’s mind when he went to sleep it was Lochiel who made it up the following morning. Sir Ewan Cameron rode into Coldstream, the first of those ‘others’ upon whose actions Monck’s own would have to be contingent. They would not all work in his favour, as he well knew, but those that did he must take advantage of. Monck’s thinking was making the subtle change between the militarily pragmatic to the politically expedient, and the grim old soldier knew it. While he felt confident enough to trust absolutely his instincts as a fighting man, he was less sure of what would confront him in the near future. The distant but vivid experience of incarceration in The Tower on a charge of High Treason threw a long shadow, and his discomfiture of not fully being in command of a fleet at sea had been an irksome burden. The anarchy that was what his informants were telling him was the state of affairs in England held an awful spectre of dreadful uncertainty for him, so that when Lochiel’s arrival was announced Monck sensed the first stirrings of a decision.
Major Jeremiah Smith announced Lochiel and Monck met him in the tiny living space of the smoky cottage. Monck was under no illusions about Lochiel’s coat-turning and guessed the ambivalence of his complex loyalties, but he had placed a degree of trust in Sir Ewan, backed up with easements that amounted to bribes, and responsibilities that pandered to Lochiel’s ambitions among the competing hierarchy of the Clan Chieftains. Lochiel had responded warmly and, in a characteristic gesture, had sealed his commitment to Monck with the gift of the Gyr falcons Monck had passed on to Lambert.
‘A fine day to you, Excellency, despite the chill,’ Lochiel said, offering his hand which Monck shook. He wore a cloak darkened by melting snow over half-armour. ‘I bring you news.’
‘You have executed my commission to pursue the thieving Glengarry Macdonells,’ Monck replied.
‘Och, that,’ Lochiel paused, smiling. ‘They’ll be nae mair trouble. But you will be better pleased to know that I ha’e bent the Lord Lorne to thy will. He’ll answer to me if he sae much as moves when you march into England.’
‘And who says I am to march into England?’ Monck asked drily.
‘Why, every one of your red-coated soldiers just now freezing along the Tweed!’ quipped Lochiel, relishing the game.
Monck’s expression darkened. ‘D’you trust Lorne?’
<
br /> ‘Aye.’
‘And his father? Old Argyll?’
‘The same.’
‘Hmm.’ Monck grunted, looking at the handsome younger man before him. ‘You don’t wear your tartan,’ Monck remarked as his orderly appeared with some porridge for their breakfasts. Lochiel was fond of appearing at Dalkeith in rougher attire than the half-armour with its white lace collar he now appeared in, as if to remind the Lowland Scots, and the English soldiery and attendants at Monck’s court, that in Lochaber he was a great man.
‘If you are going south, sir, I would come with you. I ha’e a troop of Horse at your disposal.’
‘A troop of Horse? Well, well.’ Monck raised his eyebrow and looked in Clarke’s direction as the Secretary bent over his desk.
‘Aye, Excellency,’ Lochiel went on. ‘A fine group of gentlemen, including some of Argyll’s best, all at your service in earnest of good faith.’
‘You are sure of Argyll and Lorne?’
‘The twa Campbells are as one. They wait on the outcome of…’ Lochiel shrugged his shoulders, the cuirass rising about his neck as he did so, fluttering the lace. Amused, Monck saw him struggling for words.
‘The matter that rests upon my shoulders, eh?’ he said. ‘And there are some, I have heard, that say the King rides in my belly.’ Lochiel nodded and Clarke shook his head. Monck grunted again and addressed Clarke. ‘Where’s Tom Morgan, Will?’
‘He set off an hour since to ride the line to Kelso, Your Excellency.’
‘Good.’ Monck nodded, almost abstractedly, before fixing Lochiel with his coldest expression. ‘You may ride south with us, Sir Ewan, and you are most welcome, but God help you if I find the Marquess of Argyll or Lord Lorne fail to play the game as you say.’
A grim smile played about Lochiel’s mouth and he revealed the teeth he had once memorably set into the larynx of an English officer who had attempted his arrest at Achdalieu. ‘Aye, General Monck, those are terms acceptable to me, for if either of them budge in their loyalty they will ha’e me to answer to afore thee. There’ll be nae rising in the Highlands.’
But Monck had not finished. ‘As for the King being in my belly,’ he said pointedly, ‘I would as soon shit him into the Tweed, as bear him into England.’
Lochiel nodded. ‘I serve the good General Monck, sir. As for any King, why the King of Scotland is over the sea.’
‘Equivocation met equivocation,’ the observing Clarke afterwards told his wife Dorothy, though Lochiel’s response seemed to satisfy Monck.
‘Very well. See your men are quartered, Sir Ewan, but ready to ride at an hour’s notice.’
Lochiel’s departure was stalled by the opening of the rickety door to the requisitioned cottage. A bitter blast of cold air ushered in a heavily cloaked figure whose hat was pulled hard down over his face and whose shoulders were white with snow. It was clear the new arrival had been impatient with the sentry’s punctiliousness. Monck recognised the man immediately.
‘Dick! You are I hope in health. Here, the fire…’
Dick Cann waved aside the General’s solicitude, removing his hat to reveal a face taut with cold. Cann had come with Monck from Potheridge, initially to serve him in the office of groom; being a superb horseman who could read the country like a cavalryman, he had become Monck’s most confidential courier, entrusted with his most sensitive correspondence and it was clear that what he brought was of such a nature. Monck dismissed Lochiel who left reluctantly, rightly divining Monck’s courier bore tidings of importance.
‘Well, Dick? You are from Thomas Clarges?’
‘I am, sir.’
‘You have had a hard ride, will you first take some refreshment?’
Cann shook his head. ‘Thank you, no sir. The country is swarming with men from Lambert’s Army. Deserters…’
‘Aye, we had twenty or so come in last night. They volunteer to join us more for the hot broth than anything else… You have Tom Clarges’s letter?’
‘No sir. No letters. All must be by word-of-mouth.’
Monck glanced at Clarke who looked up from his extemporised desk. ‘Go on.’
‘Master Clarges sends his compliments and says to tell you that Mister Speaker can assure you no more than that the Government of the nation is in crisis. The military council which has usurped power is unable to sustain itself unless it brings in the Army in full strength to occupy London. However, Fleetwood’s forces have mutinied and their chief went down on his knees to them.’ Cann managed a frozen half-smile.
‘Well, well,’ responded Monck, matching Cann’s warped grin. ‘Pray go on.’
‘The Parliament is sitting and everything is split apart and you must – you must, sir, Mister Clarges was insistent upon this point, urging Mr Lenthall’s most earnest entreaty – act at once. I am also to tell you that Mister Morice is in London and adds the weight of his opinion which is the same as that of your brother-in-law.’
‘Thank you, Dick.’ Monck’s tone was abstracted. He looked briefly at Clarke and then turned away, seating himself on a wooden stool beside the guttering fire. Clarke suddenly saw him as an old man as he stared into the embers, watching them glow and then dim, according to the direction of the air, in under the door, or down the chimney. Monck sat thus for several minutes before raising his head and turning to the two waiting men.
‘Lochiel and now Clarges, eh,’ he said slowly, as though weighing not the import of their messages, but the worth of the men themselves. ‘And at opposite ends of the land…’ Monck’s voice lowered. ‘Lochiel and Clarges,’ he muttered. ‘Lochiel and Clarges…’ Then he heaved himself to his feet.
‘I think we have done with waiting, gentlemen.’ He smiled, first at Clarke and then at Cann. ‘Do you go and get some sustenance and some sleep Dick. Tell the orderlies to tend your horse.’ He waited only for Cann to follow Lochiel outside, then threw off his introspective air, rapping out his instructions to Clarke. His secretary felt a painful moment of utter weariness, as though he would faint under the burden of his office and the terrible prospect of what he knew was coming. It had been tough enough marching with Old George through the glens and over the moors in the high-summer of ’fifty-four, but to embark on a march from Coldstream to London in the first days of a freezing cold January was almost more than Clarke could bear to contemplate. But then he shook himself and rose to the occasion as Old George passed his simple orders with – Clarke knew well enough – that decisiveness which would set all in motion and upon which the wheel of history itself would turn.
‘Will, do you give the prepared orders for the Army to concentrate on Coldstream by midnight tonight. I want the guns here by ten. Twenty rounds of ammunition is to be issued to the Foot. Each trooper of the Horse must carry hay. Pass word to all Colonels before noon, and I want Colonel Knight to lead the column. He is to stretch his men to the utmost; make that clear in his orders. The rest you know, we have discussed it often enough and I have private letters to write.’
Clarke bent to his task while Monck returned to his tiny bed-chamber and drew out his writing case. It was a difficult letter to pen, for he must galvanise Anne without terrifying her.
My Dearest Wife,
You must forgive me my haste in Dismissing you, but this place is not for a Woman, nor is it the Time for Us. I have much on my Mind. Not since I was among the Forlorn Hope flung into the breach at Breda, of which you have oft heard me speak, have I ventured my very Life upon the turn of Fate. Then the hazard was mine own alone; now, besides that which I owe to you and the Boy, it is the Peace, Hope and Happiness of the Three Nations. We have before spoken of the March of Events; now All depends upon this Army and what it may Accomplish. I am afeard that if we Miscarry You and the Boy will be taken as Hostages. Therefore in all things heed this, that on the Receipt of this Latter by the hand of an Officer, you take Ship for London. Proceed discreetly with only your Maid and a Nurse to tend the Boy. The Officer who bears this will accompany you, command him in all things. When
you are in London, go to Tom, but stir not from his House. Should, which God forbid, you hear of any Reverse before you leave Scotland, place yourself in the hands of Her Grace. If you are in England, go directly to Potheridge and wait until you hear either from me or your Brother. Pray for the Arms of
Your Loving Husband,
Geo. Monck
He read the letter before folding and sealing it. For a moment he hesitated and then drew another sheet of paper towards him, dipped his quill and wrote again, this time to the Duchess of Buccleuch.
Your Grace,
I write in Haste and place the Fortunes of my Family in Your Hands. We go this Day into England of Necessity and for the betterment of the Three Nations. You know my Mind in these things, for We have often spoke of it, but should matters miscarry and Mistress Monck and my Boy be unable to follow me into England, I beseech thee to Succour them and give them such Shelter as May lie in your Power. May God have Mercy on this Great Undertaking and bring it to a Happy Conclusion. Please be assured of my Gratitude for every Particular of your Friendship.
Your Devoted Friend,
Geo. Monck
Having sealed the second letter he returned to the outer room. Along with Smith, his adjutant, his three orderly officers were now in attendance, having been summoned by Clarke.
‘Captain Jenkin,’ he called, holding out the letters, the superscription of the first to Mrs. Monck uppermost. ‘Do you ride with these to Dalkeith. One is for my wife, the other for Her Grace the Duchess of Buccleuch. You are to attend Mistress Monck and receive her instructions as if they are my own. If all goes well, you shall rejoin me in London. If not my wife will know what to do and you should stay with her. I do not wish her progress to be marked, so you must use discretion and not augment her by any escort or draw attention to her as being my wife. That is most particular. I have directed her to proceed by way of a Leith smack. Do you travel as a gentleman accompanying a lady, a relative, perhaps. D’you understand?’
Jenkin nodded. ‘Aye, sir. Perfectly.’
Sword of State: The Wielding Page 3