Now his own small but personal staff were ready and anxious to be off. Well, he must play out this last act, then rescue Anne from the folly of attempting to become a lady-in-waiting. That, bless her, no-one would ever countenance! He had done his best to ameliorate the torrent of supplicants and placate some of them by enrolling them into a Royal Life Guard, and some of these gentlemen rode with him under the command of the Duke of Richmond, the Earls of Northampton and Cleveland, among other noblemen. This splendid troop, equipped and caparisoned at its members’ own expense, had been added to Monck’s escort of two troops of his own Horse.
He clambered into the coach awaiting him in the inn yard. It was already full of these gentlemen cavalry, assembling under braided and embroidered guidons, Their Graces of Richmond and Northumberland at their head. As for the crowd of opportunists who followed Monck as the Hebrews had followed Moses and were just then gathering to follow his equipage, he could do nothing but wave as the coach lurched into motion and struck out towards Dover, sitting uncomfortably in his padded seat, meditating upon what the coming hours held in store as Gumble descanted enthusiastically upon the theme of the restoration of a King, about which he seemed to know a great deal.
As the coach descended towards the beach below Dover Castle and was recognised, a boat shoved off from the shore and was pulled towards the anchored fleet. It was not difficult to see among the men-of-war, both great and small, the ship which bore the King, for at her main truck flew the Royal Standard of the Stuarts, a great silken banner that lifted languidly in the gentle breeze. Where did all this flummery come from? Monck mused as Gumble remarked upon the splendour of the day, asserting it as evidence of God’s will. From the fore and mizzen trucks of the King’s ship flew subsidiary flags, including Montagu’s as General-at-Sea, and someone mentioned the great man-of-war had been built as the Commonwealth’s Naseby. Lying off Scheveningen on the Dutch coast she had been hastily renamed Royal Charles, and Monck wondered what they had done with the Naseby’s noble figure-head of Cromwell on his horse trampling England’s enemies underfoot. Now she lay at anchor in the late May sunshine, small boats bobbing around her filled with the curious and the gawpers, the fisher-folk and those among the gentry who had hired boats for the purpose of being close to the Sovereign and perhaps receiving acknowledgement. Lesser standards flew from the mast-heads of the Swiftsure and the London, marking the berths of the Royal Dukes of York and Gloucester, the former already named as Lord High Admiral.
At about three o’clock in the afternoon, within minutes of Monck stepping from his coach and walking unsteadily down the beach over the uneven surface of shingle and sand accompanied by Clarke, Gumble and Morice, a decorated barge, followed by a second less ostentatious craft, left the side of the Royal Charles. She, too, bore a Royal Standard, a smaller version of the great silken banner that was now being hauled down from the flag-ship’s main-truck to mark the King’s departure from the Royal Charles. There now broke out the first of the many gun salutes that would accompany Charles from Dover to London, echoed as they were by all the guns of the fleet to which the cannon on the ramparts of the great castle high overhead responded.
Dover beach was crowded with on-lookers from every conceivable walk of life, but Monck stood alone close to the tide-line where the sea lapped gently in low breakers, his staff and attendants several paces in his rear, the enormous concourse of the curious and the obsequious flanking him. He wore his plain buff coat without armour, his feet in boots, girt by his sword and the orange-red sash of his rank with its elaborate bow. Upon his head was his wide-brimmed hat with its long feather trim; the lace at his throat and cuffs was spotless, plain and elegant, his be-ribboned hair his own.
As the barge approached, Monck spotted the young King, who stood up as he neared the beach. Charles was dressed in blue, his dark features and long black hair setting off his tall figure. He was as unlike his father as it was possible to be, so that Monck was pricked by the rumour that he had been sired by Henry Jermyn and not the sad, self-deceptive and stuttering little man with whom Monck had walked in Christchurch Garden all those years ago.
Beside the King were his two brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the former in a coat trimmed in yellow, the latter in scarlet and grey. Monck moved unsteadily down to the water’s edge and removed his hat just as the boat’s forefoot grounded. The agile young King, walking forward along the thwarts between each pair of oarsmen, put one cork-heeled shoe on the barge’s gunwhale and leapt down onto the beach with a wet thud. He swept off his hat, dropped to one knee in genuflection and cast his eyes to heaven, touching his right hand to his breast in a gesture some thought was a surreptitious but popish crossing of himself.
‘God be praised for this great and wonderful deliverance,’ Monck heard him say as he too dropped to one swollen knee, his hat across his breast and meeting the King’s eye as he raised his head. Behind the two men, it seemed the vast crowd held its breath.
‘Up, sir! Up!’ First on his feet the King, replacing his hat, assisted the old soldier to rise. ‘Thou hast no need to kneel.’ Then, in an impulsive gesture, Charles took Monck by the shoulders and embraced him, touching his face with his own cheek. ‘God’s will, sir,’ he breathed in Monck’s ear, ‘but thy resolution, for which my thanks.’
A blushing Monck took a half step backwards, replaced his hat and bowed. Then he presented his sword hilt foremost to the King in an act of ritual submission. ‘Your Majesty is most welcome.’
King Charles refused the proffered sword and Charles smiled uncertainly at him. Despite the King’s condescension, Monck read apprehension - even perhaps fear - in the younger man’s eyes. It came to Monck in a prescient moment that Charles stood in some awe of the weather-beaten old soldier standing before him and to whom he very largely owed this dramatic upturn in his fortunes.
Then the King’s smile widened, his gloved hand gently touching the pommel of Monck’s weapon, and Monck knew the moment had passed. Now there was but an accord between them. ‘You have already drawn it in my service General Monck,’ he said, referring to Monck’s sword, ‘for which I am truly grateful,’ he declared graciously, in a voice others could hear in spite of the thunder of the cannon, adding, ‘I am yours to command.’
‘Sir, it is for me to obey,’ Monck responded.
‘But I shall be in need of wise counsel, sir,’ said the King in a low voice. ‘And I am in need of a father.’
Monck, deeply moved, his eyes swimming, nodded then cleared his throat. ‘If Your Majesty will permit me…’ He stepped back, raised his hat and half-turned to the crowd behind him. Then he roared as at a full, military review: ‘God save the King!’
The cry was taken up by all, so that the wild shout, repeated and repeated, set the startled gulls - already wheeling above the beach, disturbed by the multitude, the detonations of the salutes – to an even louder crying as they lifted from the beach and wheeled about the cliffs. In the general acclamation the Duke of Gloucester was heard to shout ‘God save General Monck!’ at which point the King smiled, brushed aside Thomas Gumble who knelt at his feet and sought to kiss the wide hem of His Majesty’s coat and, taking Monck’s arm, walked towards the Mayor and Corporation of Dover. This worthy, with his Aldermen, had appeared with a canopy to cover the King.
Having accepted the Mayor’s white staff of office and promptly returned it to him, the King received a copy of the Holy Bible, remarking that it was the thing which he loved most. Then, with Monck at his side and the two Dukes close by, he led a growing entourage up the beach towards the coach that lay in waiting for the Royal party. Behind him several boats were unloading courtiers, naval officers and personages of quality eager not to be left behind.
‘It is fifteen years since I saw England in May, sir,’ the King remarked to Monck, doffing his hat left and right as the crowd made way for him and his large following. Monck held his peace; there was little he could say; besides, with his inflamed legs it was damnably difficul
t walking on Dover beach, even with King Charles at his side.
*
They lay that night at Canterbury where Monck was obliged to submit a list of petitioners seeking positions under the new monarchy.
‘How in Heaven’s name am I to please all these persons, General Monck?’ The King’s face expressed his displeasure at the peremptory demand. ‘I have scarce dried the sea-water from my shoes.’
Quartered in the old Archbishop’s draughty palace, the King was busy demolishing a cold chicken’s leg, his richly embroidered coat flung over an ornately carved chair, his younger brothers York and Gloucester at table with him. Monck, who had been invited to sit as an equal, had little appetite for food; he was bone-weary. Outside in an adjacent room Monck’s fellow General-at-Sea, Sir Edward Montagu, and the other senior courtiers and officers, both naval and military, dined off the exiled and absent Archbishop’s plate.
‘There are thrice as many without, Your Majesty, all clamouring for your bounty and regard, and five times as many awaiting you in London with similar expectations. I am sorry that I am obliged to submit this list, but Your Majesty has a veritable confusion of matters of like nature to overcome, so perhaps a few days of leisure to consider how best to accomplish this would be best.’
‘Of course, but I cannot thereby immediately oblige you, sir.’
‘Me, sir?’ Monck was genuinely astonished. ‘Forgive the presumption, Your Majesty, but I lay this before you with no expectations, only a sense of obligation to those who petitioned me. Your Majesty knows best who has served thee…’
‘Indeed, but for yourself?’
‘Myself, sir? What should I expect for myself?’ The thought of Anne’s ambition occurred briefly to Monck at this moment, and he dismissed it as swiftly as it had come, but his own expectations were little more than the opportunity to retire. He was past fifty, his legs pained him abominably at times and he had shot his bolt. ‘I have acted according to my duty, sir. To be confirmed in my position as Lord-General of the Army may well work in your favour, sir, rather than promote a favourite over my head. Beyond that, sir, I am content.’
Charles gave him a shrewd smile. The old man was said to be simple, but he certainly spoke his mind and Charles warmed to him, recalling what his soldiers had nick-named him.
‘Well, General Monck, tomorrow both you and Sir Edward – having been uppermost in this, my Glorious Restoration – shall be invested as Knights of the Garter… No, do not protest, it is not for you to protest and Sir Edward will not, I assure you. The matter lies in my grant and you must submit. Morice I shall also dub knight, for he has been the bridge between us, as has your brother-in-law whom I knighted before he left the Hague. Thereafter it is in my mind to confer upon you a Dukedom and some other honours. You have Royal blood in your veins, I understand…’ The dark young man waved aside any protest that Monck began. ‘Now, sir, I require some counsel as to my entrance into London and thereafter the assumption of my Government…’
*
Monck was nodding-off with weariness as he shared a bottle of wine with Morice and Clarke in the same bed-room from which Clarke had ejected him that same morning. It seemed an age ago, and indeed perhaps it was, for the world – at least the little world of the British Islands – had changed. It was now near midnight, the King having obliged Gumble, along with the Dean and Chapter of the neglected cathedral, by attending a service of thanksgiving for God’s goodness in returning him to the throne of his father. In conjunction with his own devotions, King Charles had made it plain enough that God may have ordained his Restoration, but General Monck had facilitated the Divine will. It was all rather too much for old Monck who saw little remarkable in pursuing the line of duty.
If Morice and Clarke expected any further orders from Monck, they were disappointed. He had, they knew, left Clarges – now Sir Thomas and but lately returned from Holland a knight bearing the final details for the King’s arrival – in London, to oversee something of the reception being prepared for the restored King. But he had kept his own counsel regarding the brief conversation he had had with Charles Stuart, making no mention of the proposed knighthood for Morice, nor the honours the King intended for himself. All he seemed willing to relate to his two eager and curious followers was an anecdote of a bumptious little man whose custody of a spaniel of which ‘His Majesty was inordinately fond,’ he seemed anxious to relate to anyone who would listen.
‘Peeps, or some such, he said his name was,’ Monck said, yawning. ‘A clerk, methinks, and one of Montagu’s hangers-on.’
Having both studied the General as he abandoned even this small morsel of narrative and began nodding over his wine-cup, the two men looked at each other in a glance of mutual understanding: the old man should be left and his servant sent in to help him into bed.
They made to leave the chamber when Monck suddenly roused himself, asking Clarke: ‘Will, did we send a despatch to Colonel Knight? I have forgot, I confess my mind much distracted…’
‘Yes, Excellency. The troops will be in review order just as you require.’
‘On Blackheath?’
‘On Blackheath.’
‘Then I wish you goodnight.’
PART TWO – TRUSTY AND WELL BELOVED
CHAPTER FIVE – LONDON
June 1660 – December 1662
‘George! I am so proud of you! Come hither that I may embrace you properly!’ Monck submitted to Anne’s warm welcome. It did not displease him though he feared its impact upon her, evidence of which was not long in coming. She drew away from him with a smile that took years off her face and turned to pick up their sturdy, seven-year old son Christopher with an effort. ‘Kit, come and see what the King has given your father.’ She fingered the blue silk ribbon that he wore across his breast. ‘Your Daddy is a Knight of the Garter, darling,’ she cooed, staring at her husband, her eyes swimming with emotion. ‘And he is to be made a Duke.’
‘How did you know?’ Monck began but she sharply pre-empted.
‘Sir Thomas tells me that which you will not,’ she said quickly before turning to the boy again. ‘That means that one day you will be a Duke, my sweet.’
Kit Monck looked singularly unimpressed. ‘The Garter?’ he asked uncomprehending and indicating the ribbon. ‘That is not a garter.’
His mother put him down as Monck grunted. ‘You will have to explain it all to him later,’ Monck remarked, ‘unless you leave it to the King who seems o’erfond of garters, giving them to his followers and taking them from their wives.’
Anne was not listening, her mind fastening on the wondrous good fortune that the Restoration had brought her. ‘But a Duke, George, a Duke!’
‘Aye, aye,’ he conceded, unable to hold out against her for long. ‘And you a Duchess, no less,’ he said, articulating what he knew she could not in his presence. She almost visibly preened herself at the words, her homely face cracked by a broad grin. ‘And I pray thee Anne, in all seriousness and sincerity, to match thy manners to the grand ladies who will infest the Court to which we shall, from time-to-time be obliged to attend or they will –’
‘From time-to-time? I thought…’ she broke in.
‘Anne, Anne, I intend to go down into Devon and live quietly. I am mightily fatigued by the events of these past months –’
‘But George, Kit here must learn to be… to be… a courtier, a King’s page-boy at the least, for will he not have a courtesy title now that you are made Baron Potheridge as well? Come sir, I pray thee do not cozen me,’ she added hurriedly and with some asperity as Monck turned away. Then, her tone even sharper, she rounded on him setting-out her stall as she might have once set-out her millinery. ‘You paraded the Army at Blackheath and received the King’s acclamation for it; you came into London at the head of the King’s procession on your black horse, rigged like a popinjay and leading the King and his Royal Brothers like three monkeys…’
‘Anne! Damnation, Anne, have a care! That is not –’
�
��You regarded all the bonfires and the bells, the flower and herb-throwing, the largesse and obeisance of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation, the fountains running red with wine, the banners and the tapestries, the peoples’ cheers as much your triumph as the King’s!’
‘Anne! I have no such regard for all that nonsense. Do you of all people not know that?’ He was at once furious, distraught and hurt, well knowing there was a song going about the streets to an air they were calling ‘General Monck’s March’. He knew, too, the skewing of his reputation by its slander:
With Glory there comes booty,
With the love of a fair day’s pay,
If you’ve troops to command, he’ll give you a hand,
George Monck is a practical man.
He knew too of the underlying truth of it, for to the returns he derived from Scotland, amounting to £500 per annum, there was £4,000 a year yielded by his Irish estates plus a pensionable grant out of the Royal Revenues of £7,000 to him and the heirs of his body on his assumption of his ducal title. The animadversions of the uncomprehending world he could brush aside, but this assault by his wife whose own avarice had undoubtedly contributed to public opinion, was insupportable. Hurt swiftly turned to affront, then anger and the uncoiling of his infamous temper.
‘Such flummeries were rites of passage to be endured,’ he snarled, his blue eyes cooling. He clenched his fists and held them fast to his side as young Kit fell back and Anne’s face lost its colour. ‘’Tis you, Madam, whose head has been turned!’
But Anne was not to be stayed, despite her husband’s rising temper. Her rise to rank beyond her wildest dreams needed some expression and she could not understand her husband’s reticence, or his sudden and obvious anger. He had earned his elevation, as she knew better than most women of her new station ever did, having experienced what hard work truly was. She was proud of their joint accomplishment, and of their installation here, in the apartments provided for them in The Cockpit at Whitehall. That her husband had assumed a veritable plethora of offices, as Captain General of all His Majesty’s forces until his death, as Master of the Horse, as a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber – utterly unique in His Majesty having granted Monck leave to attend him at any time and to leave only when asked to by the Sovereign himself – gave her unmitigated pleasure.
Sword of State: The Wielding Page 11