‘Fire-ships!’ someone yelled and they saw the smoke begin to coil upwards from the Henry. Ayscue’s van squadron seemed to have been entirely destroyed. Frustratingly they were unable to work the Royal Charles to her assistance, and Monck began to consider the day lost.
He called Kempthorne to his side and bellowed in his smoke-blackened ear, ‘We’re beaten, John, but this wind and the condition of our ships prevents us from disengaging. I consider we should make the signal to anchor.’
‘Your Grace, Your Grace…’ The same officer who Monck had sent aloft that morning sought to gain the Commander-in-Chief’s attention.
‘What is it, Grant?’ Kempthorne asked.
‘I think the Dutch are breaking off the action, sir.’
‘The devil they are!’
Very slowly over the following hour the noise subsided as the two exhausted fleets drew apart and the fighting between them slowly fizzled out as men too exhausted to ply their guns slumped beside them, despite the exhortations of their officers. One thing was clear as the evening approached, the fleets drew apart and the crews were set to work knotting and splicing, fishing spars and, where they could, hoisting spare yards to replace those shot away, and that was that. The Dutch had given the English a severe drubbing.
The night that followed was short and bloody. While the tired but fit cleared the decks of debris and threw the dead overboard, the wounded suffered the torments of the knife and bone-saw, their screams making the sleep of the exhausted intermittent and full of hellish visions. Not a man among either fleet could hear properly, for their ears rang while their skin crawled with stale sweat and smoke-powder. Some food was served but all order seemed to have disintegrated as, everywhere, men slept where they had earlier stood.
Yet strangely the ships’ routines went on. Men attended to their watches after a fashion and the fleets lay hove-to, drifting with the tide as the wind abated. The early dawn promised a hot June day with a red sun rising over the rim of the world to stir the restless air into languid motion. And, like resurrected corpses, the stiff and weary rose from their sleep and put their ships back into fighting trim. Monck had spent much of the night at the capstan which Clarke was using as an extemporised desk – the great cabin being cleared for action – and towards the dawn four officers were sent round the fleet in the ship’s boats. They carried Monck’s written order that all ships capable of standing in the line-of-battle were required so to do; a list of the casualties was brought back to the Royal Charles.
Monck gave these a cursory glance and looked at Clarke. ‘There will be equal damage in the Dutch fleet, Will. Our ships may be battered but we were not firing high; they will have suffered, of that I have no doubt. That is why they broke of action last evening and that is why I shall press them again today.’
By about eight o’clock, both fleets had reformed east of the Galloper shoal and soon afterwards came into action. They fought the whole day without any conclusion, the lines-of-battle criss-crossing as each passed through the enemy’s, while the guns thundered their defiance. All was intermittently obscured by smoke, but, at intervals, damaged ships fell out of their formations, the English predominating in this respect. Such ships withdrew towards Harwich, beating clumsily into the wind to do so, such was the damage.
At one point, however, it seemed that the English had cut-off Van Tromp’s division and might have finished the business of its destruction as they had intended on the first day of the battle, but again, De Ruyter, executing a brilliant turn-about, brought a locally overwhelming force against the cluster of English ships over-bearing Van Tromp and rescued him. In the fury of this action a storm of iron balls swept the Royal Charles’s deck and a cry beside him made Monck turn.
Will Clarke was down on one knee in an awkward supplication, his shocked face looking at his chief. ‘Christ, but I am shot!’
Monk took in the situation at a glance: a round shot had shattered Clarke’s right leg and the blood from his femoral artery was pumping out of him upon the white planking beneath him. Even as Monck called for assistance, Clarke’s eyes glazed over and he slumped sideways in his own gore.
‘Oh, Will, Will…’
Monck bent over his most faithful friend and colleague and, for a moment, it looked as if the battle-hardened old man would crack at the wounding of Clarke, but he rose and those like Kempthorne, who had seen what had occurred, marvelled at Monck’s stone face.
‘Have him carried below,’ Monck shouted to a brace of gunners Kempthorne summoned from their piece to remove the badly mauled Clarke. The men knuckled their foreheads and Monck bent to his friend, looked up as a further blast of shot swept the quarterdeck. ‘Take him gently and have the surgeon see to him quickly. Do you do that for me.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Monck turned to Kempthorne who was wounded in the right arm, had lost his hat and had a lacerated ear. ‘Hot work, John. But I fear they have the better of us again. I fear poor Will’s wound will prove mortal.’
‘Let us pray that is not the case, Your Grace.’
Again nightfall brought respite and again the dawn brought renewed action which continued throughout the third day. It was now that the English fleet, having impressed the Dutch with their bold station-keeping, began to falter in their combined resolution. Watching, Monck was alarmed that in places the line was not maintained and he ordered the offending ships identified.
‘They are those threatened by the enemy’s fire-ships,’ Kempthrone remarked.
‘I care not if they feel threatened by the devil himself, they have no business falling out of line contrary to my orders unless they are set ablaze, God damn them.’
Kempthorne glanced at Monck and saw he was furious. He too stared along the line and was compelled to agree the loss of cohesion might prove fatal. By the early evening the English fleet had been reduced to half its initial strength, most of the damaged ships having extricated themselves from the line-of-battle. The breeze, which had lain in the east all that day, remained steady but, during this long engagement, the ceaseless manoeuvring and the contrary flood and ebb of the tides had all but destroyed the reckoning of the fleet’s masters so that their position was unknown in any detail. Monck ordered the lowering of the great flag for close-action to be replaced by the signal for a disengagement, sending officers in two boats to gather around him the fifteen most effective ships, drawing them out in line abreast under easy sail while he allowed the rest of the fleet to escape to the westwards, towards the safe-haven of Harwich Harbour and the Thames Estuary.
Silhouetted against the westering sun, the retreating English made a fine target for the triumphantly following Dutch, but Monck’s retreat was masterly, matching De Ruyter’s earlier enterprise, for the enemy gained no advantage and, while they kept the field as a hallmark of their victory, they were largely frustrated in their pursuit.
But fate left them one prize. It was unsurprising in the circumstances that one ship should run aground, though the Royal Charles briefly touched the same bank before she sheered off. Unfortunately Sir George Ayscue’s Royal Prince drove hard upon the Galloper Shoal and Monck, mindful of covering the bulk of his fleet, was compelled to leave her to her fate. De Ruyter sent in fire-ships and before the retreating English had lost sight of her they watched as she struck her colours to the enemy. Now, as the remaining serviceable ships under Monck sent in their reports by boat, the news of disaffection, especially aboard Ayscue’s flag-ship, was brought to Monck’s notice. He interviewed her lieutenant who had been sent after the Commander-in-Chief by Ayscue himself.
‘Well?’
‘Sir George presents his compliments, Your Grace, and charged me with telling you that there is great disaffection aboard his flag-ship and he fears the worst if the fire-ships reach him. They were but eight or nine cables distant when I got away…’
Monck stared hard at the nervous young man. He had blood on his hand and in his hair, his hat was missing. His dishevelment was common to the
m all after so long an action.
‘And your own opinion, sir?’
The poor fellow swallowed hard; he looked exhausted but he stood his ground. ‘She has too many old republicans among her company, Your Grace. They have been an ungovernable mob at times.’
‘Well, you had better stay, sir, and tell your boat’s crew that if they wish to join the Dutch republic they may return to their ship, otherwise we could use good seamen here.’
Monck turned away. This was the culmination of a weakness in the English fleet that he did not like to see. Monck dismissed the whole matter. There would be time to discover more later; for the time being he must enquire after the state of poor Will Clarke. Just as he sent word below for news, shouts came from aloft: sails were in sight to the southward. It was either the French or Rupert.
Monck ordered an interception, and the last fifteen of the ships under his direct control wore round to stand south to meet the strangers. Far astern of them they could see the bright spot of leaping colour where De Ruyter’s men had set fire to the Royal Prince and long after the flickering flames had dropped over the horizon, the pall of smoke marred the horizon before it too was engulfed by the encroaching night.
But by this time Monck had made his rendezvous with Rupert and had boarded his flag-ship, the 82-gun Royal James. The sun had then not yet set, though the evening was far advanced and Monck found Rupert at table, being waved to a seat with a glass of wine set before him. Ravenous after his exertions Monck fell upon the meat, tossed off the wine and urged Rupert to assist him in renewing the battle.
‘They have worsted us, Your Highness, and done great damage such that I have lost for the moment two-thirds of my fleet. Not all those in command did my bidding, but by God we are not beaten even though they think we are. I have sent the damaged ships into Harwich but with yours to reinforce us, we might yet force a favourable issue.’
‘I admire Your Grace’s sanguinary mood and marvel at it, but d’you think that we advance the King’s cause by wrecking the fleet?’
‘If we wreck the enemy’s fleet, we shall have nothing further to fear from them!’ Monck said while choler, the meat and wine having warmed him to his task. Rupert, his glass poised, regarded the older man for a long, contemplative moment. Then he lowered his wine, wiped his mouth and nodded. ‘Very well, George,’ he said, his voice low, his tone confidential. ‘I’ll join you.’
Monck rose, throwing aside his own napkin. He shook Rupert’s hand. ‘Keep in line, Your Highness. Keep in line,’ Monck said, smiling. ‘And now for some sleep,’ he added, striding out onto the quarterdeck calling for his boat.
The following morning the wind had shifted back into the south-west quarter again and the combined force of Monck’s and Rupert’s ships now numbered three score, only four fewer than the Dutch. During the night prodigious efforts to get their ships in fighting trim had been made by the toiling crews. Even the most battered man-of-war still in company with Monck was capable of re-engaging and, by eight of the clock, the action was renewed, the English fleet making five passes in line before the formations broke up into a general mêlée. The effect of this last day’s engagement was to rob the Dutch of some of their triumph, for although the English losses of ten ships burnt or captured along with eight thousand men killed, wounded or taken prisoner was far greater than the damage inflicted on the Dutch, both sides were shattered and, in Rupert’s telling phrase, ‘almost beaten into pieces’. As the afternoon drew on the wind began to falter and a summer fog settled over the sea. The two fleets drew apart; they would not renew the action; the Four Days’ Battle was over.
We have, Monck wrote to Ann from Harwich, been Beaten by the Dutch, but not without Honour, though I confess the matter myself and owe much of this Redemption to His Highness and the timely arrival of His ships from the Channel. But this is set at nought by the sad news that Wm Clarke is dead, he being mortally wounded by Having his Leg shot off his body in the second of the four days in which we were engaged. I am, thank God, unscathed, but poor Will lies in the churchyard of St Nicholas at Harwich and I must write to his Widow, the fact making this letter too short, my own heart being too full at this time of writing…
But Dorothy Clarke was not the only person to whom Monck wrote from Harwich. He wrote also to James, Duke of York, in his capacity as Lord High Admiral, the substance of which set out in plain language the situation of the English fleet.
…I have sent those ships most damaged and unable to make good their own repairs into Harwich and the Medway for Chatham. I do urge Your Highness to send word to the Dockyards for the most Expeditious rendering of every assistance to those ships-of-war which may be made ready for an immediate renewal of Hostilities. We have lost by burning or surrender Ten ships, including the “Swiftsure,” the “Seven Oaks,” the “Loyal George,” and the “Royal Prince”, besides some Great losses among our People the Computation of which I am as yet uncertain, having my Secretary, Sir William Clarke, removed from a mortal wounding. My Flag Captain, Sir John Kempthorne is also wounded, so severely at the end of the Action that he must needs go upon the Shore.
For the most part the Fleet under my Command carried itself Properly during Four Days of Constant Exertion and the timely arrival of His Highness’s squadron, from which we should Never have been separated, enabled us to leave the Dutch with some consideration of our power in spite of our Great, Grave and Grievous Losses. These need not, however, have been so Great had there not been a Falling off in the Temper of some Five Captains who failed to Act with the Zeal expected of them in the King’s Service and Acted Contrary to my most Express Orders and Instructions to maintain the Line-of-Battle. Their Fear of the Effects of the Dutch fire-ships was such that they removed their ships from the said Line-of-Battle and in so doing, enabled the Enemy to exploit the Intervals. Their names are appended, but I have seen fit to dismiss them forthwith, conditional only upon Your Highness’s Endorsement of My Action in which I am confident Your Highness will not disappoint this my Application for fear of too much damaging His Majesty’s Service…
*
Monck made his bow, straightening up to see the King motion him to an empty seat. Charles sat, uncovered, at the table with a palpably reluctant air, kept at affairs of state by Clarendon who sat, surrounded by papers, wearing an air of somewhat exasperated importance. The Duke of York lounged in a window-seat and examined his nails. The light falling sideways across his face showed Monck something of a sneer most of the House of Stuart concealed by their otherwise good looks. It was an unfortunate insight, he thought to himself as he settled in his chair. Rupert was not in attendance which, as far as Monck was concerned, was a pity.
‘Well, My Lord, it seems the Dutch have mastered you at last.’ The King’s tone was light, almost unconcerned. Out of the corner of his eye Monck saw York stir, distracted from his finger-nails by the prospect of the fall of the Duke of Albemarle. Affronted that the King held the lives of eight thousand of his subjects so lightly, Monck simmered, but he would not have been averse to dismissal. The prospect of retirement to Potheridge gleamed like the Holy Grail of his wildest imagination: Potheridge and its rebuilding, Potheridge with Anne and Kit, Potheridge alongside the Torridge in its wooded banks, some fishing for trout and some shooting…
‘We suffered a drubbing, Your Majesty, that I cannot deny but, in the main and, with some few exceptions as I have stated to Your Royal Brother, our fleet stood the assault manfully since we were out-numbered at the start.’ Monck left the accusation unspecified, the fatal fact of the division of the fleet having been made by the three other men in the room.
A heavy silence followed Monck’s bald response, then York asked what Monck proposed. Monck rallied; though he would have accepted dismissal readily enough, he had not come to resign his command. It would throw a bone down for his enemies to chew with relish, but for himself he no longer cared. He was himself weary and the death of Will Clarke had robbed him of the one prop that was capable of main
taining his zeal for the King’s service.
‘The fleet is refitting,’ he summarised, ‘the greater part of the ships now being in the Medway at Chatham or Sheerness. Some others have been sent to Woolwich and Deptford, with five lesser vessels at the Navy-yard at Harwich. Every Captain has been charged with refitting diligently and as expeditiously as may be. The season is not yet over and, providing sufficient powder and shot, along with victuals, chiefly biscuit, may be made available, I am informed that the deficiencies of the ships may be rectified from what now lies in the dockyards. You have Master Pepys to thank for that.’
The King suppressed an elegant yawn and reached for his hat, at which a disappointed Monck sighed audibly before addressing the nub of the morning’s audience.
‘As for the command of the fleet…’ He got no further. The King slapped his hand decisively on the table and rose, Monck and Clarendon jumping to their feet and York sliding off his perch.
‘As for the command of the fleet, My Lord Duke, it shall remain your own responsibility jointly with His Highness Prince Rupert. Kindly concert your arrangements with him and when you have fought a further engagement as I see you purpose to do, we may enquire into the fleet’s conduct upon this occasion, and that of its commander. Perhaps, My Lord Duke, you may come out of your next encounter with more laurels than your last.’
And, with that, the King swept from the room, followed closely by the Duke of York. As Monck and Clarendon straightened up from their bow their eyes met.
‘Not for the first time I hear hounds baying for my blood,’ Monck remarked.
Clarendon shrugged. ‘We are all meat for someone, Your Grace. It was unfortunate that the fleet was divided.’
‘’Twas more than unfortunate, My Lord. ’Twas damn near disastrous.’
‘I think you should take comfort from the fact that the Lord High Admiral made no objection to your cashiering the five captains –’
Sword of State: The Wielding Page 18