Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  Wren rose to his feet and held out a temporising hand, motioning Monck to be seated, all the while shaking his head.

  ‘It is true, Colonel, that I am declared for the King and the true religion, why else should I be incarcerated here? But I came as an agent to catechise you, merely out of neighbourliness, thinking that you may desire some society, some conversation. We live in times that would try any man’s soul, to be sure, but I do not – and I beg you to believe my word in this, Colonel – I do not come hither to provoke you.’ He paused and Monck reseated himself, Wren following his example. He went on, soothing Monck: ‘I am myself bereft of any society apart from the intermittent visits of those who have the charge of us and the occasional visitations of the young woman who attends our wants. The truth is, Colonel, I have some books you may wish to read, and access to more …’

  ‘Have you Raleigh?’ Monck demanded curtly. ‘His Political Observations in particular?’

  ‘Why no, but should you wish for a copy I could …’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘Very well. I see you are working on a manuscript of your own.’ Wren indicated the sheets of close-written script.

  ‘Yes.’ Monck looked down at his work, embarrassed at the disclosure.

  ‘And I see too that I interrupted you and that your ill-concealed irritation was perfectly natural.’ Wren held out his right hand, not for his ring to be kissed, but to shake Monck’s. ‘I am not a spy, Colonel.’

  Monck paused a moment before extending his own hand whereupon Wren pressed Monck’s fist and, dropping his voice, added, ‘Nor do I particularly wish to be a martyr for the cause in which we two are enmeshed.’

  Monck nodded. ‘To remain effective, loyalty, like the chain of command my Lord Bishop, must needs be kept simple.’

  Wren considered this for a moment. ‘Indeed, Colonel, you make a cogent point.’ Then he turned for the door and shouted for the turnkey. After his visitor had gone, Monck again addressed his manuscript, reaching for his quill and reading the last lines, to freshen his mind. As his eyes roamed over the exhortation to act like the fox, he cast the quill aside and stood up, returning to the window to stare out over the Thames. Wren’s visit had dislocated his train of thought for, in his response to Wren’s probing, he had failed to take his own advice; resorting instead to the intemperate behaviour that had – all those years ago – led to him thrashing Nicholas Battyn.

  ‘Too little of the fox,’ he murmured in self-admonishment.

  *

  Two days later Monck was working on his manuscript when Wren called upon him again, beckoning in a woman who served fresh bread, beef pie and cabbage from a covered basket, along with a flask of ale. Monck was disappointed that it was not Anne, whom he was sure had been in St Stephen’s Tower the previous day. Owing to his indebtedness to her, he had no cause to expect her charity, but her neglect disappointed him.

  ‘I thought you too busy to dine properly, Colonel,’ Wren said with smiling familiarity, aware that Monck was penniless, ‘and thought to join you. Besides your dinner I bring you food for thought.’ Wren withdrew a book from his sleeves and held it out to Monck, who took it, running his palm down its worn spine.

  ‘Raleigh,’ he said smiling. ‘I am obliged. Thank you.’

  ‘Come, eat first.’ Wren settled himself on the bed, made of it a table and laid out their meal. Monck hesitated a moment, then fell upon the victuals with unmistakable enthusiasm, his ink-stained finger tearing at the bread. Wren watched him, sensing the raw power of the man. He must have eaten like this when on the march but only, Wren judged, after he had seen to his men; of that Wren was certain, without actually knowing why.

  ‘Tell me, Colonel, how came you to be taken prisoner?’

  Monck tossed off his pot of ale, gave a discreet belch behind his hand and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin provided.

  ‘I was taken at Nantwich,’ he said shortly, as if that were all the explanation necessary.

  ‘How came you to be at Nantwich?’ Wren asked, gently prompting him.

  ‘You would that I should relate my history?’

  Wren shrugged. ‘Only that part which led you to Nantwich.’

  Monck considered the request, appreciated the bishop’s charity in feeding him, the boredom of their imprisonment and nodded. ‘Very well,’ he began. ‘I saw service under Ormonde in Ireland fighting the Confederate rebels until in September of last year his Lordship negotiated a twelve-month cessation of hostilities in order to bring his army over into England to serve the King against the forces of the Parliament.’ Monck paused and stared fixedly at Wren. ‘I refused to take the loyal oath that my Lord Ormonde pressed upon his officers under this change of circumstances …’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘It was unnecessary,’ said Monck dismissively. ‘And to be asked to do so was an affront …’

  ‘To your sense of honour?’

  ‘Not to my sense of it,’ Monck responded with a touch of asperity, ‘but to my honour itself.’

  ‘I see. Pray do you go on.’

  ‘Please understand the commission under which I served Ormonde was from the King himself, and therefore sufficient to the purpose of the moment.’

  ‘But the Earl’s army was being paid by Parliament, surely you can see Ormonde’s predicament? He wished to eliminate any conflict of interests in the turmoil of the situation.’

  ‘I commanded the infantry in Ormonde’s Army; I was in a position of trust and had held to my charge through considerable difficulties; to have all this service questioned by the demand for an oath of allegiance at this point was dishonourable to myself.’ Monck verged on the indignant, regarding Wren as a blockhead. Surely a man who comprehended the mystery of the Holy Trinity could see how the mind of a plain soldier functioned? Monck rammed his point home. ‘I am not a man of faction, my Lord Bishop, but a man of principle insofar as this is possible. There is a deal too much made of this oath-taking …’

  Monck fixed Wren with that look of cold steel that had so alarmed Anne. Then he shrugged and went on: ‘As for the source of my wages, since they were as uncertain as sunshine and rain, my duty was my first concern.’

  ‘And they arrested you for your pains,’ Wren remarked with a rueful smile, dismissing Monck’s obvious irritation. There was something childish about Monck’s still obvious outrage at Ormonde’s demand, childish yet attractively honest.

  Monck shook his head. ‘No, not at once. I was deprived of my command and Harry Warren took over from me.’

  ‘He is here now.’

  ‘Aye, I know, though they will not let me speak with him.’

  ‘I have had the pleasure. He is well enough, and sends to be remembered to you. But how then, had you colloquy with the King at Oxford?’

  ‘Ormonde dismissed me and sent me home on furlough. I was to accompany the army to Chester but word came that the late John Pym had arrived there with the intention of offering me high command in the Parliamentary forces if I persuaded those troops inclined to follow me …’

  ‘That must have been half of Ormonde’s force!’

  ‘Perhaps not so many, but the intrigues of Lord Lisle and others, persuaded Lord Ormonde to have me arrested and sent to Bristol. Lisle had had conversation with Lord Digby who had me brought next to Oxford.’

  ‘And what did you say to His Majesty?’

  Monck shook his head. ‘As I told thee before, my Lord Bishop, our discourse was private; besides, I do not recollect precisely what I said, only that I was frank and His Majesty did me the honour of listening to me and then complimenting me upon …’ Monck stopped, aware that he had strayed into the Bishop’s trap. ‘No matter.’

  ‘And Nantwich?’ a disappointed Wren prompted, seeking to get at the event by another route.

  Monck looked at Wren with a wry smile. ‘I observe your sap changes direction, my Lord Bishop, but it will not serve. Still, there is no harm … As for Nantwich, they wished me to go into the West Country but I refus
ed. A civil war is evil enough; to prosecute it against one’s native county an abomination. I offered to rejoin the Irish brigade then investing Nantwich under Lord Byron and the day after I arrived, with Warren entreating me to take over, Fairfax struck from out of Yorkshire along the left bank of the River Weaver where four regiments of foot, Warren’s included, were in their siege lines …’

  Wren was transfixed, watching the professional soldier emerge as Monck conjured his account out of his memory with a spare and impressive imagery that somehow convinced Wren that Monck was incapable of embellishment. He cast aside his precipitate notion of the man’s childishness; Monck possessed an enviable and impressive simplicity, straightforward, to-the-point and honest. Wren could almost feel the inspiriting presence of their returned if deposed Colonel reviving men depressed by a siege over a cold Christmas, shivering in their trenches, unpaid and bereft of a commander in whom they had confidence, for Warren was not half the man Monck was.

  Monck’s eyes now sought the middle-distance of recollection and Wren perceived him standing in the deep snow, pike in hand, as Fairfax’s horse trampled through the winter’s frozen mantle.

  ‘Hearing of Black Tom’s advance,’ Monck went on, ‘we took up a position about a mile in rear of our lines, formed on Acton church, leaving a guard to hold the place where we had thrown a span over the river. Although much snow lay all about, a sudden thaw had so swollen the Weaver that all the fords seemed impassable and the spate had carried away our own homespun bridge. Nevertheless, we could not risk the garrison attempting a sortie, hence our guard, but our force was now split. With Byron on the Weaver’s right bank lay the remainder of the foot and all the horse. The latter, hearing of the alarm, set off to Acton but it took them some time to find anywhere to cross the swollen river and their route proved long, some six miles or so.

  ‘Fairfax was in no such wise inhibited. He drove straight at us, forcing his way through dense hedgerows in spite of the thick and melting snow and was upon us by the time Byron and our horse fell at last upon his rear.’ Monck paused and smiled, admiration of his old comrade-in-arms from the Low Countries shining through the recollection of his own defeat. ‘But Fairfax faced his rear-ranks about and received Byron’s horse on their pikes, then felled them with the muskets mustered in the intervals. It was well done, by God, very well done!’ Monck paused a moment, as if to savour Fairfax’s professionalism. After a moment’s reflection, he took up his tale again.

  ‘Then, leaving three regiments with their fronts reversed, Fairfax drove onwards upon us …’ Monck hesitated, his face clouding over so that Wren sensed the agony of that moment as Monck related the dreary sequel. ‘Warren’s men – my men that had lately been – holding the very centre of our line, broke and might have fled but that …’

  Wren visualised Monck in his voluntarily subordinate station, pike in hand and raging through the failing and disgraced ranks, his ranks, as they sought safety and he roared at them to stand and fight. And yet even now Monck’s modesty inhibited him from relating how he had stalled their precipitate retreat, if only for a moment, whereupon Fairfax had broken through the crumbling centre of the Royalist line and torn the wings asunder.

  ‘A moment later the garrison, seeing our troubles, threw planks across our broken bridge, stormed across the river in a bold sortie, drove in our guard and fell upon us from the rear.’ Monck relapsed into silence.

  ‘And you?’ Wren prompted quietly.

  ‘I?’ Monck appeared to awake from a dream. ‘I? Why I watched my men run and I saw those that did not run turn their muskets upon the wings which, for a fleeting moment, stood firm.’ He seemed to come out of his reminiscent trance and stared at Wren. ‘They turned their weapons upon the men that, not half-an-hour since, had stood in the same line of battle as themselves!’ Monck’s tone was full of contempt. ‘I had not seen the like since La Rochelle when I had hoped never to do so again … Men that I had cosseted and loved in Ireland ...’

  ‘Then you were taken …’

  ‘No!’ Monck laughed. ‘I and a few others, Harry Warren among them, took refuge in Acton Church where the baggage train was parked, hoping Byron’s force might come to our aid. After an hour of hesitating, however, Byron withdrew and the church, the train, our artillery, baggage … everything, fell to the enemy. Then was I taken. Two days later my regiment – my regiment – was enlisted in Fairfax’s army and Warren and I found ourselves on our way to Hull, prisoners of the Parliament.’ Monck paused again, then emitted a snort. ‘Here I was asked to follow the example of my soldiers and repudiate my commission! Upon our refusal Warren and I were sent south, to London here, where we were arraigned before the Bar of the Commons and the charge of High Treason was laid against us. Thereafter, in July last, I became your neighbour, my Lord Bishop, and here I have languished ever since. Now you have a full account of my history up until the present day.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘An irregular correspondence with one Cromwell among others, all of whom seek my advice and my participation in forming a new Parliamentary army on the model of that used in the Low Countries. John Desborough came here twice already.’ Monck smiled. ‘He would amuse you, Bishop Wren, and reminds me of Christ’s tempter in the desert. I have agreed that I would accept my liberty only if exchanged by regular cartel. He tells me – Biblical this, and further to your amusement – that His Majesty takes an interest in my case and that officers of the King have several times represented names for exchange, but the Parliamentary Committee of Examinations will not hear of any such thing.’

  ‘They are awaiting your change of heart,’ remarked Wren, adding, ‘but I fear they misjudge their man, eh, Colonel?’

  Monck nodded. ‘Perhaps. Desborough claims I am a victim of mine own stubbornness.’

  ‘What said you to that?’

  ‘Huh! That no man was a victim whose honour was intact.’

  ‘Desborough himself might have understood that, Colonel, but the matter is one of politics and others will not.’

  ‘I know nothing of politics, nor have any desire to make good the deficiency.’ Monck paused, then eyed Wren shrewdly. He dropped his voice and said: ‘If you have the means to carry news to the King, pass word to him to heed what I told him in Christchurch garden.’

  ‘I do not carry news to the King, Colonel. I am incarcerated like yourself …’

  ‘I may be no politician, Bishop Wren, but as a general field officer in Ireland I appreciate the need of intelligence. Even in this place there are ways and means.’

  ‘You are uncommon touchy about your honour, Colonel,’ Wren said, interrupting, his thoughts running elsewhere.

  Monck bristled. His brows knit in a frown and Wren glimpsed the implacable nature of the man, sensing the source of his formidable reputation as a soldier. ‘Uncommon touchy?’ Monck snarled. ‘How so, sir? How can a man of honour be touchy about such a quality?’

  ‘You regard it as an absolute?’

  ‘If by that you mean it must bear the sincerity of …’ Monck cast about for a simile comprehensible to a cleric, ‘of … of a confession, why of course! What else is it?’

  ‘Many men hold it lighter.’

  ‘Such men are themselves light-weight in proportion.’

  ‘But why so deep ingrained in thy case, Colonel?’ Wren suddenly regretted his question for he noticed that, without intending it, it struck deep. He thought for a moment that Monck would ignore it but the shadow passed and Wren saw, or thought he saw, something like relief pass across Monck’s features.

  ‘Because, my Lord Bishop, I once did a dishonourable thing.’

  ‘And you wish to make atonement with your entire life?’

  ‘Is that not a meet and right Christian thing to do?’

  ‘Why yes … yes, but …’ Wren shook his head and smiled at Monck. ‘You are unusual, Colonel, and I thank you for your confidence. I wish to God that you had the charge of this country in your hands for I fear the Desboroughs, t
he Fairfaxes and the Cromwells of this world.’

  ‘You need have no fear of Fairfax, my Lord Bishop, he is at least a man of honour and a damnably good soldier to boot. Of Cromwell and Desborough I know little enough beyond tittle-tattle.’

  ‘Cromwell, I mind, is a man not unlike yourself, Colonel.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know of him somewhat. He comes from within my diocese and I too have heard tittle-tattle.’ Wren paused for a moment’s thought, then added, ‘Tittle-tattle that speaks of a prodigious, God-fearing man, if not one of mine own mind.’

  The two men sat a moment in silence, each digesting the import of their conversation then Wren rose and extended his hand. Monck stood and shook hands. ‘Until another day, Colonel.’

  When Wren had gone Monck found it again impossible to return to his work. Nor could he sit and read Raleigh’s Political Observations, though he tried twice to settle to the task. Instead he fell to pacing his chamber, cursing the cold and the ale that had loosened his tongue. He intensely disliked talking about himself, preferring the privacy of his own thoughts, but after months of isolation his conversation with Anne had loosened his guard. Besides, there was something else niggling him, some small spectre that had stirred out of his discourse with the Bishop of Ely and it took him a moment to nail it. He went over the conversation and then recalled the thought, half-formed at the time, but which now struck him with that peculiar alarm that affects those impotent to do anything to remedy an anxiety.

  ‘Cromwell …’ he growled to himself. Yes, that was the key to it, Oliver Cromwell of whom he had heard much lately, even here, mewed-up in St Stephen’s tower, for Cromwell had ridden out of the eastern counties at the head of a body of fearsome cavalry whose enviable discipline exactly matched the model Monck had pressed upon the King. And under Cromwell, this body of horse had shattered the cream of the Royalist cavalry under Rupert at Marston Moor where, in July last, the Parliamentary army had taken control of the north of England. Though Sir Thomas Fairfax had had the chief command of the Parliament’s forces, it was Cromwell and his ‘Ironsides’ whose crushing rout had swept Rupert’s cavalry from the field and clinched the matter. It seemed to Monck that if – and could it be otherwise, he asked himself? – if Cromwell and Fairfax applied the model throughout the forces at Parliament’s disposal, that the King’s cause was irretrievably lost.