Sword of State: The Wielding

by Richard Woodman

  With that, Monck rose, drawing Middleton aside and addressing him quietly as the others scuttled out to do Monck’s peremptory bidding.

  ‘My Lord Middleton you, thank God, know your business too well,’ he began with a hint of irony, ‘do you bring all such troops, but chiefly those guns available, and position them on the banks of the river where best they may enfilade the reach contiguous to the Dockyard. If you are able, reinforce Upnor Castle. I saw only a handful of the King’s troops at the muster and they were so mightily distracted by fear that we may expect little service from them without a stiffening. Your militia will, I hope, bear up if only in appearance to deter the Dutch from attempting the landing and burning of the Dockyard itself. God help the ships in the stream, but if I leave the river’s bank to you, I shall do my best to wring some action out of these others.’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace, ye may leave the matter in my hands.’

  ‘One thing more. Do you order my Coldstreamers to this place. I shall join them later.’

  Middleton grinned. ‘Ah shall tak’ a wee pleasure in giving any order to the Coldstreamers, Y’r Grace.’

  And, despite their predicament, the two old enemies made their mutual bows smiling, to go their separate ways.

  Pett had a grand admiral’s barge at their disposal with three lesser craft trailing in her wake as they pulled out into the stream. He seemed distracted and before the barge pulled away from the steps, Monck thought he heard him pass word to an attendant to ‘ensure Mistress Pett carries off all the plate’.

  The day was bright, sunny, and with a light breeze from the south-east such that would waft the Dutch upstream. On the distant horizon, above the green and wooded hills that rose in low undulations on either side of the Medway, lay a pall of smoke: the Dutch.

  ‘They will be upon us within hours,’ Monck growled, regarding the long lines of men-of-war lying in the tiers, their upper spars sent down, their stems and sterns moored to the heavy iron-ringed mooring buoys with every appearance of permanence. It was not lost at him that the tide was at a young flooding. ‘We must do what we may to remove some at least of these within the confines of the dock.’

  ‘The tide will not yet serve… There is no time…’ Pett murmured, as if the admission emphasised his own neglect. Then the reason burst from him, for the imputation of incompetence was more than he could bear. ‘Your Grace, we have not had the money to pay the labourers for months, I cannot get a man to work for nothing when his wife and children want food and he is so hungry that he has not the energy to assist. Doth the King know this?’

  ‘Speak not to me of such matters, Master Pett,’ Monck replied discouragingly. ‘It is for us to mitigate what I fear is about to fall upon the Kingdom. Is that the Royal James?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  ‘And that is the Royal Charles, is it not?

  ‘Yes, Your Grace, it is.’

  There they lay, two of the King’s best ships, the latter Monck’s late flag-ship. Both were supine, laid up ‘in ordinary’ as the phrase had it, their gun-ports closed, their guns removed ashore, barely two score of ship-keepers to maintain them as they tugged gently at their moorings, just two of fifty or so men-of-war that lay idle.

  ‘I gave specific orders for their removal,’ Monck said, turning to the admiral. ‘Sir Edward?’

  ‘I passed the word to Master Pett, Your Grace.’ Spragge was clearly exhausted and Monck did not press him but turned to the Commissioner.

  ‘Master Pett?’

  ‘There are not the men –’ Pett began, but Monck cut him short. There was no time for recriminations, only for the adoption of some measures of preservation.

  ‘Is there time yet to effect their withdrawal?’

  ‘I doubt it, Your Grace,’ Spragge suggested wearily. ‘The best we might achieve is to scuttle them where they lie.’

  ‘That is a desperate and severe expedient,’ Monck said reflectively, ‘but they invite the Dutch like loose tinder…’ Monck shook his head. ‘Let us first look to the outer works,’ he began decisively. ‘Now, Sir Edward, I perceive the river opens here. Do you think it profitable to move five or six of the smaller vessels and sink them as obstacles a little downstream?’

  ‘There are two possible approaches, Your Grace, either side of the Mussel Bank, though one will only serve towards the top of the tide. I have covered this with the battery at Gillingham. We might block one, but the other…’

  ‘Let us leave this matter to Master Pett.’ Monck turned to the Commissioner. ‘Do you get the nearest four small vessels and have them towed and sunk to block the channels. That will give you something to do rather than occupy your thoughts with the salvation of your plate and effects. Do you lend your endeavours too, Master Brouncker.’

  Pett looked mortified and near to tears as he called in one of the attending boats, transferring into it with Brouncker.

  ‘Have we any vessels with guns mounted?’ Monck asked Spragge.

  The admiral pointed out four ships lying at a single anchor off Hoo Ness. ‘The Matthias, the Unity, the Carolus Quintus and the Mary; they constitute my entire commissioned squadron. They are, however, only half-manned for want of seamen,’ he added bitterly.

  Monck was fingering the map and looked up again. ‘They cover the chain at Gillingham?’

  ‘They would, if it were properly in place, Your Grace. The Unity is posted to lie upon the seaward side, the other three within the boom. They have springs on their cables and may bring what guns can be worked to guard the boom should the enemy seek to force it.’

  ‘God’s blood! Why is the boom not yet in place?’

  Spragge sagged under his fatigue; he did not lack courage, only sleep and he stared at Monck with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Your Grace, as I intimated with regard to the great ships and your orders thereupon, I cannot get that co-operation from the Dockyard that is requisite. The numbers of seamen available are too few, the Unity is full of one hundred and fifty poor silly lads and country fellows raw from the fields. The Mary likewise. The Dockyard labourers are the most numerous but they are under Pett’s orders and defy mine, Pett is, as you remarked, more concerned with his traps; you are the only man who can pull this shambles to any order. I regret my own dereliction, the loss of Sheerness, but even there we were short of –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Monck said impatiently. ‘Such matters will be enquired into later.’

  It was clear to Monck that Spragge had been let down at every point. No doubt his defeat at Sheerness had been caused by the paucity of men as much as the inadequacies of the defences. The first worm of despair was uncoiling in Monck’s guts.

  ‘Well, let us see,’ said Monck, rallying.

  They boarded the Matthias and Monck called the ship’s company together. ‘You are to deter the approach of the Dutch with all your energies,’ he told them as they shifted from one foot to the other. Their mood of disaffection was palpable. ‘Or answer at the peril of your lives.’

  Their commander called for three cheers and Monck and his party went over the side to a feeble acclamation. They visited the other vessels with much the same effect. Then Monck had them pulled back upstream to land at Upnor Castle. Here they discovered the defences short of ammunition and the pitifully small garrison grumbling openly about a lack of pay. Monck told them to hold their tongues and to stand to their duty. He would see about their pay when the crisis was over.

  ‘You’ll save yerself the wages of the dead!’ one of them called out, ‘which will avail my wife fuck-all!’

  ‘I shall pay you from mine own pocket sir!’ Monck retorted, turning to his Secretary. ‘Pray have a list of the garrison given to my Clerk, Master Lock.’

  It was clear to Monck that the castle, instead of being kept in a posture of defence, had been used as a comfortable residence by its commander, Sir Edward Scott. Monck remarked the gardens, but disdained to pass more than the minimum of requisite orders to Scott, who appeared embarrassed by the behaviour of his men, leaving Mo
nck to return, simmering with supressed fury, to the barge. Monck indicated another of the ships, where matters were even less propitious. Here, aboard the Royal Oak, was near flagrant mutiny, for the men drew about the inspecting party, their looks menacing, their fear of an enemy attack and of their own exposure plainly obvious.

  Monck strode in among them and suddenly found himself confronted by a man whose face seemed distantly familiar. ‘I know thee,’ he said, staring at the bluff figure of the seaman.

  ‘I know thee, too, Milord. Thou wert Monck the King-maker that is now Albemarle the King’s arse-licker.’ Monck swung his cane, striking the fellow’s left leg.

  ‘Christ!’ The man fell to one knee.

  ‘You are Harris, are you not?’ Monck snarled as the injured man’s mates gathered round, menacing Monck with their fists.

  Spragge called out a warning and drew his sword: ‘They have knives, Your Grace, have a care.’

  ‘I do not fear these fellows,’ Monck said, shouldering his way deeper into them and catching the eyes of first one and then another as he did so. ‘We fought together as we shall fight again. They are noble when their blood-lust is up. The trouble lies with Able Seaman Harris who hath a mouth larger than a saker’s muzzle, though it resembles his arse for ’tis shit that he spouts. I have bested him before, in Whitehall, and then I promised him his pay which was then wanting but which afterwards he received.’ Monck spun round and levelled his cane at Harris as the man got to his feet rubbing his bruised knee, ‘did you not, Master Harris? Eh?’

  Harris was discomfited; his mates enjoyed the Lord-General’s foul language and were not going to pass up what seemed like the promise of much needed back-pay.

  ‘Shall we be paid, sir?’ someone asked.

  ‘Aye, but only if you do your duty this day and thereafter until the Dutch have been driven from our shores.’ Monck paused. ‘Have you food and ale?’

  ‘No, Milord, we have not.’

  ‘Then Harris had better accompany me and I shall order something from the town. Send a boat in an hour.’

  And with that they left the Royal Oak and Monck sat in the barge staring at the red-faced seaman as he nursed his battered knee.

  ‘D’you wish for a surgeon, Harris?’ Monck asked.

  ‘Better a pension,’ Harris responded.

  ‘You do not lack spirit, I must say.’ Monck turned to Spragge. ‘Have this man made a Yeoman of Sheets, Sir Edward. I owe him something.’

  Again they passed the Royal Charles. Monck could not bring himself to go on board. Three hundred yards farther on, they came across Pett in his boat, running a heavy rope from the sixty-gun Vanguard to the dock-head by which means she could be hauled into safety when the tide served.

  ‘Master Pett,’ Monck called out, his voice cracking with anger. ‘Do you first secure the Royal Charles. Her position at the downstream trot leaves her vulnerable.’

  ‘Your Grace, I cannot. I have no more boats other than those ordered by Lord Middleton to ferry powder and shot into Upnor Castle. God grant that the guns from there can cover your flag-ship. The Dutch must force the boom to take her…’

  ‘It seems they have already passed the block-ships and the boom at Sheerness!’ Monck bellowed back. ‘Think thee this will prove more satisfactory?’

  ‘I will move the Monmouth, Your Grace.’ Spragge offered. ‘She is best placed and better manned than most.’

  ‘Very well. Do you see to it.’

  The boats drifted apart and, at Spragge’s nod, the oarsmen bent again to their task.

  ‘’Tis a great pity we cannot effect more,’ Monck remarked grimly, ‘but the boom must be raised at all costs. I shall insist at that whatever the cost!’

  ‘Your Grace, the apparent dereliction is not entirely the fault of the Dockyard officers. Pett’s plea must carry some weight,’ Spragge said earnestly in low tones, mitigating his earlier accusation but further deepening Monck’s suspicions. ‘We have been promised funds and men, yet neither have been forthcoming. This man’s case,’ Spragge indicated Harris, ‘is typical.’

  At the head of the King’s stairs they were met by Brouncker. ‘Do you draft a requisition for bread, cheese and ale to be bought in the town and distributed among all the ships manned for defence. This man,’ Monck indicated Harris, ‘will see to its distribution. The account is to be rendered to me.’ Monck turned to the hobbling seaman now standing uncomfortably among his social superiors.

  ‘D’you go now with Master Brouncker, Harris. He will see you and your fellows fed. And desist from that ridiculous limp or I shall strike you again to justify your conduct.’

  And to the astonishment of all but Monck, Harris grinned and made an awkward little bow. ‘Milord…’ he murmured.

  ‘He will tell his grand-children that Monck, the King’s arse-licker, beat him twice in his life,’ Monck remarked to no-one in particular, ‘but he will do his duty when called upon.’

  Ashore and back in Pett’s house, Monck called for a list of the moored ships, directing Spragge to move several more downstream as block-ships, scuttling them in the fairway to better protect the remainder.

  ‘Then you may take some rest, Sir Edward. I shall see to the placing of the boom.’

  The following morning he called another meeting and was alarmed to learn from Spragge that not only were the block-ships not yet in place but the Dutch were tiding up the river on the flood.

  ‘How many ships did we bring into the dock on the last high-water, Master Pett?’

  ‘Three, Your Grace.’ Pett did not look up from the papers under his nose.

  ‘And the Vanguard?’

  Still downcast, Pett shook his head. ‘She took the ground, just off the dock-head, the shoal is new…’

  ‘God’s blood!’

  ‘We have not the resources, Your Grace!’

  But the conversation ended there and they all looked at each other. Through the open window, borne on a fresh breeze from the north-east, came the noise of cannon-fire.

  *

  Monck stood at the head of four companies of his Coldstreamers behind a battery of ill-served guns. He leaned upon his cane, exhausted after a sleepless night. Immediately behind him, a handful of orderly officers stood at their horses’ heads, his own charger among them, cropping the grass even as the guns along the river’s bank boomed their pitiful defiance.

  He already knew the Dutch had taken the forty-four gun Unity and all her pitiful farm-boys. Then De Ruyter – for Monck now knew the identity of the Dutch Commander-in-Chief – had sent a disgraced Dutch officer named Jan van Brakel in the forty-gun Viede with two fire-ships packed with gun-powder to destroy the boom off Gillingham. Even as the English watched, Van Brakel blew apart the boom which Monck himself had so assiduously drawn across the river the previous evening. Then, indifferent to the guns of the Matthias, the Carolus Quintus and the Mary, Van Brakel led several smaller craft and heavily manned boats towards the helplessly moored men-of-war. The Dutch boats, laden with tar, oil-barrels, oiled oakum and other inflammables, picked their quarry. Van Brakel boarded and took the Carolus Quintus, turning her guns upon the English defences so that their shot ploughed up the turf not far from Monck’s position.

  A ball furrowed the sod at Monck’s feet and so terrified the horses that they reared up and one broke free to bolt off into the darkness.

  ‘Come away, Your Grace, come away! ’Tis too dangerous here!’ An orderly officer urged forward by Lock was tugging at Monck’s sleeve. Monck shrugged him off; he was shaking with rage.

  ‘If I feared a ball, sir, I should have long since quitted the profession of soldier. Would that one of these would take me in honour, than that I should live to explain this damnable disaster to the King!’

  Monck’s words were lost in a deafening explosion; it needed no-one to explain that a magazine had been detonated.

  Then Lock was at his elbow. ‘If you will not come away, Your Grace, you had better know that the word has just now arrived from
Admiral Spragge that they are boarding the Royal Charles.’

  ‘No, by God, they cannot!’ There was agony in the old man’s voice. ‘My horse, Matthew, here, directly.’

  Monck’s bay charger was brought up and Lock and the orderly who brought it offered their shoulders to enable Monck to mount. He grasped his cane like a riding-whip and dug spurs into the stallion’s flanks, tugging the horse’s head round and heading for a low bluff that hid from view that part of the river-bank opposite the mooring of his former flag-ship, Hurriedly Lock and two staff officers dashed after him.

  Monck rounded the bend and drew rein, staring at the appalling sight before him. Men were running past in disorder and the ruins of one of the batteries told where a small party of Dutch had landed, driven off the gunners and fired the magazine.

  ‘Hold those bastards!’ Monck roared, indicating the fleeing English artillerymen. But he paid the fugitives no further attention, looking instead at the river now crowded with Dutch boats. He recognised among them the ornate barges of several admirals, one of which lay alongside the Royal Charles. Even as the astonished and outraged Monck watched, Dutch colours were hoisted above the flag-ship’s stern and the standard of a Dutch admiral was run-up to the top of the lower main-mast. A fight was in progress for the possession of the Monmouth which had been cut loose of her moorings and was drifting upstream on the flood-tide, only to run foul of the grounded Mary which was, within minutes, set ablaze.