Monck looked at Clarke. ‘And Dorothy?’ he asked.
‘If it pleases you, sir.’
Monck nodded and turned again to Jenkin. ‘And tell Mistress Clarke that her husband wishes for her presence in London, all being well with us with God’s help.’ Monck paused, then went on: ‘Very well. Should you need assistance you will find Lord Fairfax kindly disposed in Yorkshire, but that should not be necessary. If you hear we are embattled before London, go directly into Devon; my wife will direct you.’
‘You may rely upon me, sir.’
‘I shall, Captain Jenkin. Most assuredly, I shall.’
A moment later Monck, waving aside Clarke’s thanks, had immersed himself in his route of march, sending for his Quarter-Master-General to discuss the victuals to be drawn and issued to the Army, marking upon a map the best and most reliable places en route to replenish their necessaries.
*
Monck sat his favourite black-charger on a small tump of land half a mile south of Coldstream. The morning was clear and cold, the blue sky swept free of snow-clouds, and a thin sunshine sparkled in reflection off the frosty bushes that lined the road. Here the succession of marching feet was already churning the pristine whiteness into a dark slush, a curious metaphor for man’s general despoiling of natural beauty, Monck’s chaplain Doctor Gumble thought philosophically as he sat his horse amid the group of senior field and orderly officers attending the Lord-General. Monck was thinking about the detached vanguard of cavalry, his own troops of Horse he had sent ahead of the main column under Colonel Knight. He hoped that Cann was correct about the disintegration of Lambert’s Army. Happily, Knight was no fool and knew his business; it was his job to try the way ahead and warn the main force if he encountered an enemy.
Monck’s stallion stirred beneath the General’s bulk; its breath condensing in the freezing air as it tossed its noble head up and down – to the beat of the drums, Monck fancied in an abstracted moment. A few yards away and slightly below him, Talbot’s Regiment of Foot marched past. Monck raised his plumed hat as his own regiment followed and, without turning his head, he called out: ‘Captain Heath!’
One among the little group of staff and senior field officers not directly in the column-of-march, but sitting patiently behind Monck, Gideon Heath answered his Commander-in-Chief’s summons, walking his horse forward a pace or two.
‘Your Excellency?’
‘Do you ride down to that mongrel bunch,’ Monck growled, regarding the tramping Foot who marched behind his colours, ‘ride the length of the battalion and honour them with my compliments. Tell them I expect them to wipe the disgrace of their disloyalty from my recollection. Tell them they now have the best officers in the Service and if any of them disavow themselves in the coming weeks they will answer to me, their Colonel-in-Chief.’
‘Excellency.’ Heath was about to put spurs to his horse, but Monck restrained him with his hand. ‘And then do you ride on to Colonel Knight. Tell him to send me a galloper when he finds himself his quarters for tonight. He may proceed as far as he wishes on this occasion.’
Monck watched Heath dash off, saw him ride along the line of Monck’s Foot, and caught the rippling cheer that followed his remonstrance down the line of infantrymen. They were on their mettle, a fact sensed by the Reverend Doctor Thomas Gumble who had importunately occupied the space left at the General’s side by Heath. Gumble’s mare snickered, as if to announce the arrival of its rider, though in truth to attract the attention of the General’s charger.
The stallion stirred at the presence of the mare and Monck instinctively drew the rein hard on the bit. He turned to see the divine’s face, well wrapped up against the cold. ‘Well, Doctor,’ Monck said, ‘six thousand men, six regiments of Foot and four of Horse, what do you think of them, sir?’
Gumble drew in his breath. ‘They march like the Sons of God in the Chronicles,’ Gumble replied, drawing a guffaw from Lieutenant General Thomas Morgan and a snigger from the other officers.
‘Bollocks, Gumble,’ Morgan commented as Monck joined in the laughter. ‘They are six indifferent regiments of Foot but fortunately for us, the four of Horse are in excellent condition.’ Morgan’s Welsh lilt carried clear in the stillness of the winter air. ‘And, mark you well, Doctor Gumble, there are seven thousand men under Johnnie Lambert out there.’ Morgan pointed south, over the snow-covered hills.
Gumble brushed off the good-natured mockery of the military and riposted. ‘I am informed, General Morgan, that the forces under General Lambert are in disarray, deserting for want of pay and victuals…’
‘Sure of that, are you, Doctor Gumble? Absolutely sure of it, eh?’
‘The hand of God is in all this, General Morgan,’ Gumble riposted, gesturing to the marching column, ‘of that I am indeed absolutely sure.’
Monck spurred his horse forward and his retinue followed, laughing at the man they had come to call – good-naturedly enough – ‘Mumble Gumble’. Monck led them back towards the Tweed. Here they watched the end of the column come slip-sliding down the steep and icy road from the north where the town clung to the hillside, to cross the river, some by the bridge and some over the ice.
‘’Tis your Rubicon, General Monck,’ Gumble declared sententiously, anxious to reclaim the historical gravity of the moment.
‘My what?’ growled Monck, turning to stare uncomprehending at his chaplain.
‘The Rubicon, Your Excellency. The river which once Caesar had crossed he must commit all or…’
‘Or lose his head, no doubt.’ There was an awkward silence, then Monck laughed again. ‘I’m no scholar, Doctor Gumble, but was not Caesar killed by his friends? If so I bid you recall that I do not cross the Tweed with any ambitions to become Caesar. Now come, gentlemen, it is time we set our own horses’ heads southwards.’ Monck gestured for his entourage to move forwards, calling to Morgan, ‘Tom, do you keep me company and ride with me, there is something I wish to discuss with you.’
*
That night Monck lay at Wooler. Here the first of a succession of messengers and petitioners met him, men not of his own ‘intelligencing’, but men anxious to put this or that point-of-view to him in a serious of encounters that he was to find as vexatious as the succession of visitations he had endured at Dalkieth. This first, though, was welcome enough, for the letter borne by the man came from Mister Speaker Lenthall. Although it confirmed Cann’s news that the Rump was again sitting, it was otherwise cautious, falling short of a direct invitation – let alone an order – for Monck to march on London. It did, however, tell Monck that Lambert, his troops leaving him by the day, had turned south to fall upon Fairfax. All had thereafter disintegrated and Lambert was now in hiding.
Knowing Lenthall’s warmth towards himself, Monck responded, sending Captain Heath to find Gumble. Heath discovered the chaplain ensconced before an inn fire, consuming a bottle and a meat-pie; winkling him out of his cosy billet, Heath sent him to the General’s head-quarters. It was already late, but Monck spent an hour in deep conversation with Gumble, whom he trusted, giving him verbal instructions and letters for Lenthall and Clarges. In the first of these missives Monck declared he would march first on York, hinting that an order to proceed further south would be appreciated by the Lord-General. After attending Lenthall, Gumble was to confer with Clarges and learn all he could about the politico-military situation in London, before hurrying back.
‘I will arrange a small escort for you, Doctor,’ Monck said kindly, adding, ‘I suspect you are about to cross your own Rubicon when you leave tomorrow morning.’
Monck might have been amused at the sudden expression of apprehension that crossed the faithful Gumble’s face had not a weary Clarke announced a galloper from Colonel Knight.
‘Show him in, show him in.’ Monck’s tone was eager. When the young cavalry Cornet appeared, he saluted the General and drew a note from the deep cuff of his gauntlet. Monck took it, read it and looked up at the expectant Clarke. ‘The Lord is with u
s, gentlemen,’ he said to the room where besides Clarke and the Cornet-of-Horse, Thomas Gumble lingered curiously. ‘While we have advanced but a dozen miles, Colonel Knight’s cavalry detachment has reached Morpeth, what… thirty…?’
‘Forty, Your Excellency, at the least,’ corrected the diligent Clarke.
‘Forty miles!’ exclaimed a delighted Monck, ‘and in these conditions!’ Monck took some pride in this achievement, Knight’s cavalrymen being his own.
‘The Lord of Hosts is indeed with us, Your Excellency,’ murmured an impressed Gumble, sensing a moment more numinous than the mere crossing of a Rubicon - personal or otherwise.
CHAPTER TWO – LONDON
February 1660
‘Tell me, Will.’
William Clarke looked at Mistress Monck and smiled. She had arrived in London with Kit, her maid and his nurse, along with Dorothy Clarke, all under the escort of Captain Zephaniah Jenkin a week or so earlier to lodge in secret with her brother, Tom Clarges. Now, with her husband and his small Army in the capital she had, that very forenoon, joined Monck in The Cockpit in Whitehall Palace, General Monck’s head-quarters. She had yet to see her husband who had been called early to attend Parliament and had left Clarke to do his wife the honour of greeting her. Clarke regarded the plain face with its bright, intelligent grey eyes and knew the deep motivation behind Anne Monck’s abrupt question. He shook his head.
‘Nothing, ma’am. I have no idea.’
An expression of vexation crossed Mistress Monck’s face, which lost its eager anticipation. ‘Nothing?’ Her tone was one of profound disappointment.
‘No. We were at Morpeth on the fourth where His Excellency received notice that Parliament had received his own letter saying that he would restore the Members to their proper place and thereafter submit to their instructions. At Newcastle on the sixth we received the city’s obvious approbation but exactly what of, other than our marching south, I am at a loss to know. Durham was the same and we reached York to find My Lord Fairfax in welcome and with whom we lodged five days. His Excellency and My Lord spent much time in conclave, but I know nothing of their speech together and everywhere we went His Excellency spoke nothing of his intentions beyond some generalisations regarding the Parliament…’
‘So you know nothing of his mind?’ Anne interrupted impatiently.
Clarke shook his head. ‘Only that he will not reveal it to a soul.’
‘Pah!’ Anne was exasperated.
‘There was one incident…’
‘Go on.’
‘There was much speculation over his discourse with My Lord Fairfax. His Lordship’s political views are advanced, even sophisticated, and their long conferences provoked one of his officers to be heard placating a curious and restless crowd that had gathered without, with the news that General Monck marched south to restore Charles Stuart to the throne of his fathers.’
he sudden interest in Anne’s eyes did not go unobserved by Clarke; it was, he had long known, what Mistress Monck most desired. ‘Was that the whole of the incident?’ she enquired sharply.
‘No.’ Clarke shook his head. ‘Word was quickly carried to your husband, and it was right to do so, to scotch any such expectations for fear of provoking widespread disorder…’
‘And?’
‘He came straight from his chamber boiling mad with heat and, the fellow being pointed out to him…’
‘By whom, Will?’
‘By me, Mistress Anne…’ Clarke faced Anne Monck whose loyalty to her husband was as fierce as his own.
‘And then?’
‘He knocked the fellow down with such a clatter of his pot-helm on the cobbles that the waiting mob, forgetting politics, laughed mightily at the roundhead’s heels kicking skywards.’
‘He will not have liked himself for the necessity of doing that,’ Anne remarked ruminatively.
‘No, he did not, but the man afterwards sought leave of attendance on the General and apologised for his indiscretion. Your husband took his hand and pleaded the need to scotch the matter and to do so publicly. There the matter ended… I think.’
‘And now he is gone before the Parliament?’
‘Aye, Mistress. And we must await the outcome.’
Anne nodded her resignation and withdrew, leaving Clarke to stare from the window. York, Clarke sensed, had been a significant stop. In addition to his meeting with Fairfax, Monck had received reinforcements from Ireland and had sent Morgan back to Scotland with a strong force, reducing his own Army so that none could speak of an invasion. Here, too, he received an official ‘order’ from Parliament to march to London and, under such legitimacy, the column set off again. All that Monck had said to his interlocutors was that he ‘marched for the welfare of England, nothing more, nor nothing less’. It was a skilful ambiguity worthy, so Doctor Gumble had remarked when he rejoined the General at Mansfield, ‘of an old fox’.
By the time they reached Market Harborough on 24th January Clarke knew Monck had been in correspondence with William Morice, for his constituents were pleading that he should insist on the Rump readmitting the Members excluded by Cromwell years ago. As with every proposition, Monck turned this aside. However, from St Albans Monck wrote to Lenthall ‘requesting’ that he pass orders to disperse all the troops about London, except for two named Regiments, to designated quarters with a month’s pay. The labour of drafting the necessary orders in the detail the Lord-General required had cost Clarke most of a night’s sleep. The leading republicans, led by Haselrig, objected to the Army’s power being thus gelded by dispersal, but these dissidents were over-ruled. Only one unit, commanded by Speaker Lenthall’s son, refused. Their mutiny was soon put down, the rebellious soldiery despatched by Colonel Knight’s advanced detachment of Horse who had already arrived in the capital. Once Monck heard this, he gave the order to enter London in review order. They had done so on February 3rd.
Clarke smiled at the recollection. Perhaps it had been worth all the trouble. The Foot, in column of line, all officers bedecked with red-and-white favours in their hats, had been preceded by three Regiments of Horse, Knight having rejoined his chief at Highgate. Led by trumpeters and Monck on his black charger, his be-feathered hat upon his head, his leather coat devoid of any armour but simply girt by the great red-orange sash, the so-called Army of Scotland descended Highgate Hill with all the impressive pomp it could muster after its long march. Among the staff attending Monck was Clarke himself, alongside Major Smith and the dashing and romantic figure of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel.
‘Ye should ha’e had had ain o’ my Gyr falcons upon your wrist, George!’ he cried with unusual familiarity as he doffed his own plumed headgear to some smiling and waving ladies in the crowd of citizenry who, for the most part, stood sullenly by the side of the roadway.
Monck said nothing. He sat his hard-reined stallion, staring straight ahead, enigmatic, stern and powerful, his left hand on his sword hilt, buried in the flouncing knot of the sash, a figure of absolute inscrutability and awe. The resentment of the citizenry was not lost on him. Behind him Gumble, given to Biblical fancy, saw in him a human version of the pillar of cloud that had led the Chosen People across Sinai.
The drums of the Foot beat time as the column marched down Gray’s Inn Lane, passed Temple Bar and swung into the Strand. Although some church bells were ringing, there were far too many lining the route who looked askance. Some bawled out for ‘a free Parliament’ and hissed Lochiel, but at Somerset House the column halted. From a stationary coach Speaker Lenthall emerged and Monck dismounted to shake his hand. He hoped thereby to convey the impression that he submitted to the authority of Parliament and had not come as a conqueror. An hour later the his troops were taking up their allotted billets and stations in and around Whitehall Palace while Monck established his own head-quarters in The Cockpit.
By the following morning, Monck had secured the capital, placed one of his own partisans, Colonel Herbert Morley, as Constable of The Tower, and attended
the Council of State where he had refused to take any oath. For the whole of the next day Monck was beset by petitioners, all of whom were turned aside, Clarke and Gumble assuring them that ‘His Excellency is called before the Parliament on Monday’ and that ‘it would be improper to discuss any matters before then.’
*
As further proof of his subordination to the will of Parliament, Monck refused the chair offered him by the Speaker, merely leaning upon its back. ‘I am this House’s servant, not its master,’ he said to the assembled Members. ‘To sit before the Bar would be unbecoming a servant.’
Lenthall then opened the proceedings by thanking the Lord-General for his assistance in restoring the Parliament to its rightful powers and place. Comparing Monck’s initiative to the cloud the prophet Elijah’s servant saw above Mount Carmel, Lenthall expanded his metaphor so that it adduced ‘to the refreshment of the whole nation’. Thereafter the sitting members all looked at the grim visaged soldier standing before them. He had appeared there before, to receive condemnation, and now took his time, quietly considering this reversal of fortune. Even as the expectant Members began to grow restless, wondering if the man before them was a stupid as many of his colleagues in the Army considered him, Monck stirred. The truth was his legs hurt him and he would fain have sat upon the proffered seat. He cleared his throat.
‘In my march I have been importuned by every quality of person imaginable,’ he began. ‘Every man sought mine intentions by speaking of his own desires. There are those among our countrymen who wish for the return of the excluded Members. There are those who claim the necessity of a Gospel-ministry, a free and new Parliament. I have even received a petition to encourage higher learning and the reform of the Universities, and much more besides…’
Monck paused. Those Members who wished to would interpret his words as an allusion to the restoration of a monarchy, the unmentioned option that lay before them. Well, thought Monck, that was up to them. He continued.
Sword of State: The Wielding Page 4