Sword of State: The Wielding

by Richard Woodman

  To Gumble’s cringing delight, they entertained the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Sheldon, and upon one occasion the Spanish Ambassador interrupted his embassage to call upon the Duke of Albemarle, reporting afterwards that the great man was married to a parsimonious shrew, his grand rooms were cold as a castle, and his table ill-served, the food being badly prepared and lacking in either quality or quantity. ‘His Grace’s great and envied wealth,’ the Ambassador wrote to Madrid, ‘is not anywhere in evidence other than in the grandeur of his surroundings. Otherwise his establishment is mean…’

  When, upon his departure, he made some such observation to Gumble, who had taken upon himself the role of His Grace’s major domo, the pious but loyal and sycophantic divine defended his master. ‘Your Excellency sees only the ruin of the man of latter days and forgets the man whose entire active life was spent in the frugality and rigours of the camp. Superfluity is not in the Duke’s nature, Excellency. His strength lies in the capacity of his mind and the diligence of his application to work. There are riches enough in his Treasury, to be sure, but those of his great spirit are monumental.’ And with this somewhat confusing panegyric, the Ambassador had to be content.

  Most regular and welcome of these visitors was the Earl of Craven whose company always lifted Monck’s spirits, for old campaigns were fought again, both men having served in the Low Countries in their youth. Craven’s tales diverted Anne from her more lugubrious thoughts, and she was swept along by his rich, amusing and informative narratives concerning the lives of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her two sons, the Princes Rupert and Maurice. Craven was a living link with a past that Anne perceived as romantic, tragic and which somehow redemptively reversed the impression of futility that her lonely, isolated life at New Hall had slowly imposed upon her during her husband’s illness. Craven also brought with him particulars of the scandalous behaviour of the King and his court which, if they did not entirely amuse either Monck or his wife, passed many a winter’s evening and reminded them of the life that went on beyond their walls.

  ‘I had something of interest to you only recently from Arlington,’ Craven remarked one night when a savage gale blew about the chimney pots of New Hall. The two men were alone, each with their glass, Craven enjoying his pipe and Monck his quid.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘That the night the Dutch were in the Thames and the Medway, and you, George, you were about your business with the Coldstreamers at Chatham, that the King, taking no notice of the affairs of his Kingdom, was chasing a moth in the company of his whore.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oh, Castlemaine, of course.’

  Monck frowned, parked his quid in his cheek and said ruminatively, ‘His Majesty is a great disappointment to me.’ Craven removed his pipe-stem from his mouth, but otherwise remained silent. ‘I did not play my part on His Restoration to find I had put a man of seemingly infinite frivolity upon the Throne.’

  ‘They are a doomed House, the Stuarts…’

  ‘You should know, William, your loyalty was ill-requited.’

  ‘York will not last when the time comes; the country will not stomach a Catholic and all our wars will have to be fought over again.’

  Monck shook his head. ‘They will not be told, the Stuarts, not one of them…’

  *

  Throughout these months Monck’s condition had been that of a convalescent. He remained dropsical, could not lie flat without choking, and suffered from a shortness of breath at the slightest exertion. The warmer weather tempted him out of doors and he was driven round the estate, leaving instructions for a long stone circumvallation. In the late spring, a letter arrived from Bristol. It was signed by a certain ‘Doctor Sermon’ who claimed to have been a former comrade-in-arms under the Lord General and gave His Grace notice that he had now become a distinguished physician with a cure for the dropsy. Sermon offered to prescribe Monck a notable specific which could produce a wondrous cure. Monck was inclined to dismiss the fellow, for he could not recollect a man of the name, but Anne and Gumble, without at first conferring with Skinner, persuaded Monck to respond. At Monck’s acquiescence, Gumble therefore took it upon himself to invite the old soldier to New Hall. The man duly arrived and produced a dissolving pill of compressed powders consisting of several excellent substances to be infused in white-wine. There was also a so-called diet-drink, the recipe for which was afterwards left in Gumble’s charge. After the absorption of nineteen or twenty of the infusions, Monck was on his feet and could sleep lying-down, some of the weight of the dropsy falling miraculously away from his body. His appetite was restored and he recovered much of his former energy. Those who loved him remarked that his mind was as active as formerly and he went about the estate planting the avenue of limes that he had promised.

  As for Doctor Sermon, that worthy did not wish to importune his patient and returned to his practice as soon as he had instructed Doctor Skinner as to the regimen under which Monck must now live. Skinner, though miffed that another had a cure for the dropsy and was but a crude and former soldier with no real pretensions to an understanding of physic, could not gainsay the success of Sermon’s medicine.

  Anne was beside herself with joy, writing to Kit at court that his Daddy was better and that he must come home and discuss his marriage plans. Kit did not need to, for Monck resolved as soon as he could walk half-a-mile with only his cane, he would himself return to London and play whatever part he might in the Privy Council. He was not such a fool as to think that Sermon had prescribed the elixir of youth, but the stay of execution left him bent upon securing a suitable marriage for his beloved son Christopher.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE COCKPIT

  December 1669 – January 1670

  ‘He should have continued with the diet-drink, Your Grace,’ Gumble whispered insistently.

  ‘He would not, Your Grace,’ riposted Skinner as Anne turned upon him, her face a mask of despair. They had been four months in London and by late November her husband had suffered a severe relapse. The news of this soon spread and no-one expected Monck to live much longer, only Anne clinging on to the remotest possibility of a further cure. But if the dying man was to slip quietly from the world he – and Anne – were to be disappointed. A succession of visitors came to pay their last respects. Craven was a daily visitor; Rupert called but Monck was asleep and the Prince forbore waking him. Not so the Duke of York who insisted upon his Royal Presence being made known to Monck, compelling the wretched man to half-rise from the heavily upholstered chair in which he slumped. Arlington came too, and then, with every appearance of genuine humility and contrition, came the King.

  Monck knew him and struggled most ineffectually to make his bow, but the King motioned him to take his ease and took his hand, a chair being swiftly placed beside Monck’s. What words were exchanged were not known, but the King was observed to be weeping when he withdrew, and Monck was afterwards heard by Anne to murmur ‘the Black Boy is a bad King, but a King nonetheless…’

  Now, a sennight later, she looked at her husband and could not bear the sight of him suffering. ‘He should be a-bed,’ she began in an oft-repeated plea, for she could think of nothing else to suggest. Exasperated and at the end of his own tether, Skinner insisted, not for the first time, that: ‘The Duke can no longer breathe reposing on pillows. He must needs sit up to draw breath, Madam.’ Skinner’s tone was firm, conclusive, and he added, ‘there is little more that I can do for him. He passes to the realm of Doctor Gumble; I am sorry for it, Your Grace, but all my skills are exhausted.’ The physician stepped back, revealing the room through the open door. Monck’s man-servant was attempting to array him in something more becoming a wedding than his grubby night-shirt.

  Some attempt had been made to deck The Cockpit for Christmas, though the festivities had amounted to little more than Gumble’s office on the morning of Christ’s birth. Monck had spoken not a word throughout the whole day but he had rallied the following morning, St Stephen’s D
ay, when, summoning Matthew Lock and Gumble, he passed word for several Members of Parliament to attend him. This being done he held a fully sentient discussion about the nation’s finances which was full of good sense. The following day, Gumble was instructed to summon the Duke’s lawyers and Monck’s affairs were set in order to the advantage of his son Kit, the arrangements for his heir’s anticipated wedding then being settled.

  ‘He has worked hard enough for it,’ Gumble grumbled, having previously had long and somewhat tortuous discussions with the Duke over his final testament. Gumble had discovered that Monck had made his will hurriedly before hoisting his flag in the summer of 1666 and that he, Gumble, now advised Monck to redraft it before it was too late. Gumble urged Monck to establish a hospital for old soldiers. ‘There is sufficient for your son’s inheritance and Her Grace’s maintenance and a hospital would prove a legacy that will remain ever to your glory as of the first soldier of the age,’ the divine had insisted. Monck had scoffed at the notion of being thus remembered, not holding to any such opinion of his own standing, but he had at first promised to consider the idea. It appealed to him, but he knew it would not appeal to Anne whose thoughts were all for her boy and his future prospects. Instead of a refuge for old and decayed soldiers, the entire Monck inheritance was laid out as a lure for a bride and in this, the too-devoted parents thought, they had been successful. After the customary negotiations they had secured a worthy partner for Kit in the comely person of the merry-eyed fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of Lord Ogle.

  After the will had been settled to Gumble’s disappointment on the 27th, the Reverend Doctor had come to Monck to discuss the state of his soul and his preparations for death. Gumble, returning to his theme of greatness by way of consolation, remarked that some people in Chelsea had seen a great meteor as large as the full moon streak through the sky the previous night. Monck had chuckled wheezily and said such portents did not mark his life, though the turning of the weather and the melting of the Christmas frost would likely mark his passing.

  ‘I have some confession to make,’ he breathed as Gumble bent to hear him. ‘I have been a violent man in my time, Doctor. Say some prayer for my redemption upon that issue, but speak not of it to anyone.’

  The day of the wedding having been fixed for the 30th, there were those that despaired of it, because for the next two days Monck sat as still and white as a corpse. On the 29th there arrived a number of Army officers who reported to Lock, still the Lord-General’s Military Secretary. To a man they all signified their joint desire to stand an honour guard upon the Lord-General’s person until the passing of his great soul. Lock noted the disparate loyalties of these men, several being Dissenters and men whom Monck had once dismissed. Among them was his former adjutant, Jeremiah Smith. Late that same night came another visitor, announced by his high-pitched Welsh voice: General Sir Thomas Morgan strode impatiently into the room and asked to be conducted into the Lord-General’s presence immediately.

  ‘Sir, he sleeps,’ said Lock, rising to greet so distinguished an officer.

  ‘I am from St Helier,’ Morgan said, ‘and if you can give me assurance, I shall come back on the morrow.’

  ‘I think it unlikely he will pass tonight, Sir Thomas, but one can never be certain.’

  ‘Then I will take my chance,’ responded the Governor of the Channel Islands, turning away but nodding to some among the assembled officers.

  As Anne and Skinner stared through the open door that following morning, they were aware of a presence behind them. Anne turned to recognise the diminutive figure she had last seen in Dalkeith.

  ‘Sir Thomas! You are come!’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace. I am told your boy is to be wed this day. Would my presence offend…?’

  ‘No, no, Sir Thomas, and it would greatly please the Duke. Do pray make yourself known to him, he barely sleeps, perhaps not a full hour in a fortnight, but his mind is clear. He is better today for he senses its importance though he struggles to get into a shirt.’ Anne’s mood was over light, brittle, she must need run to her maids to have her own person made ready.

  Morgan entered the room and saw Monck propped vertical in a great chair which over-flowed with cushions and pillows. He was fat beyond imagination, his face puffy, its lines flattened, his eyes inflamed, tiny yet still chips of fire and ice.

  ‘Tom!’ Monck could barely speak his old friend’s name but he raised a pudgy hand and Morgan seized it.

  ‘Indeed I should have killed thee at Nantwich when I attacked with Fairfax, George, to spare you this agony…’ There were tears in the Welshman’s eyes as he shoved aside the struggling man-servant and helped Monck to dress after a fashion.

  An hour later, the Lord-General sat in some splendour. ‘Almost enthroned,’ Gumble remarked afterwards, ‘as was no more than his due, and with his Duchess beside him upon one side and his son the groom upon the other, all hand-in-hand.’

  Anne wore green, her wide skirt bespangled with pearls, her hair upon her head and thick with diamonds. The young groom wore white silk doublet and hose, his shirt slashed with scarlet. His shoes were white silk, his high cork heels covered in scarlet morocco. He too was covered in diamonds.

  The bride, when she arrived, eclipsed them all by her grace. Monck, relinquishing Anne, took Elizabeth’s and joined it to Kit’s, thereafter surrendering the business to Gumble and his fellow clerics. When it was over and the bride and groom withdrew, Monck fell into a brief doze, waking with a start and complaining of gun-fire. All next day, the 31st, Monck was restless and ill-at-ease, and on the 1st January he received the Sacrament from Gumble. When word of this was heard in the ante-chamber all the Army officers, led by Morgan and Smith, came into the room uninvited as a body, ranging themselves about the awful figure. Other men came and went, including several members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, to stand silent before him to pay their deepest respects. Among them was Lord Arlington, who assured all Monck’s anxious household that he would see to their care after their Lord’s death.

  Throughout the 2nd Monck sat thus in state, his old comrades standing about him as though on guard. Someone remarked quietly that the fanatics had prophesied that Monck would not die in his bed, to which another responded that it was appropriate that he should die standing as though to arms. Otherwise all was silent bar the weeping of Anne. All through that day and the following night, a score of men stood about the dying man so that Gumble, attentive to the last in the matter of performing his offices, had to shoulder his way through them.

  ‘There was in this apparent gross irreverence,’ he said afterwards to the King who enquired of him all the details of Monck’s death, ‘so great a worship to so great a spirit that I was fain to dismiss them.’

  Then, between eight and nine of the morning of the 3rd, almost ten years to the moment when Monck had sat his horse in the snow upon the tump south of Coldstream to watched his small Army begin its march south, he stirred and groaned. Every man present held his own breath, so that the death-rattle was audible to all.

  There was a prolonged silence, as if no man wished to acknowledge the inevitable for which all had been waiting. Then the corpse slumped inelegantly sideways, threatening to slide to the floor. Morgan’s sharp Welsh voice ordered the body eased to the floor and laid out, arms by its side, like a soldier fallen upon the field of battle. Then he commanded: ‘Open the window!’

  Gumble, throwing wide the casement to permit the escape of Monck’s soul, noticed a thaw had set in. ‘I will inform Her Grace,’ he said, turning back into the room.

  ‘That is for me to do,’ responded Morgan imperiously, going in search of Anne.

  He found her in her bed-chamber, fully dressed but asleep in a chair, exhausted by her long vigil.

  ‘Madam,’ he called, shaking her gently. ‘It is over.’

  Anne’s shriek pierced the ears of all who heard it. She rushed into the chamber and threw herself on top of Monck’s body. It was signal for the off
icers to withdraw. Leaving the widow to Gumble, Morgan bent and touched Anne’s shoulder.

  ‘God bless, Your Grace. He was among the greatest of men.’ Then, taking one final look at his fallen chief, Morgan left The Cockpit.

  As she had foretold, Anne did not long survive her husband. She lived to learn that upon the death of her husband the King had immediately bestowed Monck’s Garter on their son and that, as the Court went into Mourning, His Majesty declared a State Funeral. But she was also told that this was to be postponed for lack of funds and so she took to her bed, refused food and died three weeks later.

  EPILOGUE – WESTMINSTER

  30 April 1670

  Ensign John Churchill’s shoes pinched him and his feet hurt like the devil. He stared up at the loom of the twin towers of Westminster Abbey and gave fervent thanks that the column of march would shortly reach its destination.

  The head of the long funeral procession had passed the Abbey’s west door when, at a given command of double drum beats, it halted. On a stentorian shout the entire formation faced left as, above their heads, the Abbey bells tolled. The senior officers, their swords reversed, now flourished them in magnificent salute; the swish of gilded hilts up to their lips, then out and down in that elegant sweeping extension into seconde, followed by the reverse, their pointes swung over to stab the gravelled thoroughfare. With their swords vertical, their gauntleted hands crossed upon their pommels, they bowed their heads in tribute.