Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  Already the drummers were beating out the order to attack and they were leery at the sharp declivity of the river’s bank.

  The Broxburn tore at their legs as they stumbled and waded into its freezing waters. Behind him Monck realised the men, clustered together, derived support from each other whereas he, in the vanguard, several times almost lost his footing, fearful of an ignominious fall under the water’s rush. He was in the burn up to his thighs; then it was up to his waist. He moved one heavy leg forward after the other while leaden balls pinged about them as Lumsden’s musketeers tried enthusiastically to enfilade their advance. Then they were across and, streaming water from their soaked clothing, clambering onto the slippery wet grass and moss on the far bank. This was trampled, squelching, underfoot as, at the words of command, the pike-heads came down and they thrust forward, Monck at their head.

  The regiment was out of breath now and Lumsden’s pike-men checked them for twenty long and heaving minutes of thrust, parry and push-of-pike. It was an ugly but familiar business. Monck plied his weapon with an old skill and when it ran through a heavy Scotsman and the press of his fellows behind prevented him extracting it, he let go, drew his sword and laid about him. Caught in the mêlée he failed to see what was happening elsewhere, though his brain noted the reassuring thunder of his guns that kept Innes, Piscottie, Holborn and Stewart from coming to Lumsden’s aid. At first, though he did not know it until later, Lambert and Fleetwood had been thrown back but, as the daylight increased and Cromwell moved up reinforcements from the reserve, they recrossed the burn and began to roll-up the Scots’ right. The enemy, thinking the battle won, had not expected the English to recover so rapidly, or with such a formidably gathering momentum. The bulk of Leslie’s infantry now found themselves pinned between the ravine through which the upper Broxburn poured and the rise of Doon Hill, up which, as the daylight grew, Colonel Pride’s skirmishers, backed by impetuous horsemen from Lambert’s regiments, drove the Scottish cavalry under Browne, Montgomerie, Strachan and Leslie himself. Thus most of those who had first impeded the Ironsides’ attack now found the tables turned against them. Pride and the reserve, led by Cromwell himself on a small Scots horse and with his lower lip bleeding from his constant chewing, urged his men to extend to the left, to work their way round the reverse of Doon Hill and come down upon the trapped Scots in the valley of the burn.

  In the meantime Monck and his struggling troops had carried Lumsden’s position. Lumsden’s men had soon begun to give way, falling back before the powerful figure of George Monck, slashing left and right with his sword, leading a steady advance of pike-men supported by galling musketry. Lumsden’s inexperienced musketeers had discharged their weapons prematurely and soon ran out of dry powder and shot. Their spare store had been ruined by rain and they began to falter. With his infantry giving ground under Monck’s relentless pressure, a mortified and wounded Lumsden was delivered a prisoner into Monck’s hands. But Monck now found himself checked, for his regiments discovered themselves confronted by the fresh troops of Sir James Campbell, part of Lawers’ brigade drawn up in the rear of Lumsden’s crumbling ranks. They proved more stubborn.

  Monck’s plight was seen by Cromwell who ordered Pride’s brigade to his assistance. Led by Cromwell’s own regiment, commanded in the field by Lieutenant-Colonel Goffe, Pride’s pike-men advanced upon Monck’s left, turning Campbell’s flank. Slowly the bloody struggle, reduced to push-of-pike and butt of musket as the English pressed up the hill, inclining all the time to the right, always to the right, driving the Scots in upon themselves so that they lost all sense of order. The shouts and roars of enraged men full of blood-lust, the screams of pain and heartless bellows, mixed with the fervid huzzahs of the Godly under the pall of smoke thrown by the artillery, set Monck’s teeth on edge as he gasped and fought for a foothold in the slither, calling on his men for ever greater effort in their advance. As Monck’s guns in the English centre fell silent for fear of hitting the backs of their own men, so too did those of the faltering, overrun Scots cannon under Doon Hill. There were, as Monck had known, only a handful of these available to Leslie and they presented little threat to the advancing English and a greater danger to the Scots falling back upon them. Pride’s intervention, now backed by Lambert and Lilburne’s horse which had been reformed after finally throwing back the Scots cavalry, now overran Lawers’ brigade and began to roll the entire Scottish force back upon itself, trapping it between burn and hill.

  Then up came the sun. ‘God’s own light thrown across the field of battle,’ men said of it afterwards, and the exultations began to sound as the English prevailed against both odds and auguries. Above him Monck could see on the summit of Doon Hill, the red coats of Ironsides. Here and there on the slope were others, small groups wheeling and turning as they hunted out Leslie’s broken cavalry from among the whin bushes, while the English infantry completed their encirclement and came down upon the wretched Scotsmen with the wrath of Almighty God and the satisfaction of revenge in their bright and fevered eyes.

  Monck’s men pressed on. Fighting a desperate rear-guard action, the regiment of Sir John Haldane of Gleneagles was cut to pieces while their fellow countrymen attempted to escape the English onslaught. A bloody Nichols threw three standards at Monck’s feet and a badly wounded Scots captain fell on his knees, giving up his sword in return for quarter and his life. Somewhere a cavalry trumpet sent out the faint notes for a rally and then Monck heard it, the noise of the New Model Army at worship. Faint at first, but ever stronger as the fight in his immediate vicinity began to falter and fade, and the enemy fell like sheaves of wavering corn, came to him the words of the One-hundred and seventeenth Psalm.

  ‘Oh, praise the Lord all ye heathen: Praise him all ye nations.

  For His merciful kindness is ever more and more towards us:

  And the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise the Lord.’

  As Monck leaned, panting, upon his sword, regarding the shattered enemy ranks and the dreadful slaughter about him, he heard a second trumpet, this time sounding the advance. Cromwell, full of the zeal of the Lord of Hosts, pressed the cavalry onwards in pursuit, harrying the fleeing Scots. Those of Leslie’s army not at the feet of the English begging for their lives, streamed back the way both armies had come, past Bellhaven and Haddington, opening the road to Edinburgh.

  All thought of that to Berwick was now forgotten. This was no longer a retreat.

  *

  ‘See, General Monck, a score of enemy standards, three thousand prisoners…’

  If Lambert’s extravagant gesture at the Scots colours leaning against the wall in Broxmouth House was in some way meant as an admonishment to Monck, it foundered on his well-known taciturnity. Monck forbore any comment and, ignoring Lambert entirely, advanced to the table where Cromwell sat, as he had sat in the small hours, composing his despatch for Parliament. This time he removed his hat.

  ‘It has pleased Almighty God to give us the victory. Make arrangements to march on Edinburgh immediately,’ the Captain-General said without looking up. Monck turned his head towards Lambert, acknowledging Cromwell’s order but making it clear that he would carry out what Lambert should have already undertaken.

  ‘It is in hand, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Do I understand that General Lambert commands the pursuit?’

  Cromwell bit his lower lip and looked up, first at Monck and then at Lambert. ‘It is the Lord’s work, gentlemen, kindly be about it with all speed. Let us not throw away what advantage God has granted us, His name be praised.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Monck responded with a hint of irony, staring at Lambert’s flushed face. Without a word, the younger man stamped out of the room.

  Monck was in the act of following him when, without lifting his head, Cromwell said, ‘He is young George, and his impetuosity carried the day.’ Monck held his tongue, divining the line the Captain-General was taking in apportioning credit for the victory in the despatch he was composing for th
e benefit of London. That much was to be expected, he thought, as he made a second attempt to leave, but the Captain-General looked up and added, ‘as did thy steadfastness, George.’

  Monck made a small bow before withdrawing. Outside in a thin and watery sunshine his orderly held his horse’s bridle. Just then John Okey’s dragoons approached and their commander saluted him. ‘Onwards to Edinburgh, General Monck!’ he called cheerfully.

  ‘God speed you, Colonel Okey!’ Monck responded, suddenly aware that this was a moment to savour, like the breach at Breda.

  Surely their fortunes had turned upon a whim of fate. Or perhaps God had willed it, after all, for it was whispered among the men that that day was the Captain-General’s birthday. Characteristically Monck cast aside the philosophical train of thought; there was work to be done and, in his experience at least, God helped those who helped themselves.

  SCOTLAND

  September 1650 – February 1652

  It may have been the flurry of hailstones that beat like a snare-drum upon the small windows of the governor’s apartment in Edinburgh Castle, or it may have been the slight commotion in the antechamber that roused Monck from his concentration on the papers before him. The list of requisitions would have distracted a less diligent man hours ago, but the distraction was, nevertheless, almost welcome. He looked first at the window, the view from which he was familiar with, seeing the flattening of the chimney-smoke over the crowded roofs of the city as the squall swept in from the north-west.

  ‘Summer,’ he muttered with a mild, half-amused contempt.

  But it was the commotion in the antechamber that revealed itself as the source of disturbance as the intervening door was flung open and the small, irrepressible figure of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Morgan burst into the room with Monck’s frustrated secretary, William Clarke, making apologetic gestures behind him.

  ‘Colonel Morgan!’ Monck exclaimed, rising to his feet, his smile genuine as he greeted his companion in arms.

  ‘Lieutenant General Monck,’ Morgan responded with a flourish of mock gravity that bespoke an understanding born of friendship between the two men. ‘I have news, sir …’

  ‘Of Lambert?’ Monck asked anxiously, aware of the attack David Leslie had mounted from his position at Torwood.

  ‘Indeed. And a brilliant affair it was too,’ Morgan admitted, well aware of the antipathy between Lambert and Monck. But Monck was too seasoned a campaigner to concern himself with belittling Lambert’s success; it mattered to Monck only that he had been successful and Morgan knew it. ‘He acted with consummate skill,’ the little Welshman said, ‘hiding the bulk of his force behind a reverse slope and then falling upon the enemy’s right flank.’

  ‘He has a genius for such tactical flourishes,’ Monck conceded admiringly.

  ‘They say two thousand men were killed in half an hour,’ Morgan went on, ‘fourteen hundred Jockies, no less, have been taken prisoner and Sir John Browne, their captain, has been wounded, mortally it is feared.’ Morgan smiled. ‘In summa, sir, we finally hold the north bank of the Forth.’

  Morgan did not need to add that this news would be more than welcome to Monck. Since Dunbar the victors’ fortunes had not waxed without intermittent disappointment. It was true that, in addition to those felled or captured upon the field of battle, the pursuit that followed the slaughter had yielded a further four thousand dead and eight thousand prisoners; but David Leslie had escaped to Stirling with five thousand men and immediately reformed the Covenanters’ army with great skill and in short order. And all the while his moss-troopers had continued to harry the English whenever and wherever possible, interdicting the desperately needed convoys of food-wagons sent up from Newcastle and Berwick. Moreover, although in the aftermath of Dunbar Lambert’s cavalry had taken Edinburgh, the citadel itself had defied capture. Cromwell, his main army riven with sickness, had failed to seize Stirling wherein Leslie held out, forcing the Captain-General to fall back upon Linlithgow where he entrenched himself. Here, he too had succumbed to a fever.

  It was left to Monck and Lambert to systematically reduce the moss-troopers’ strongholds throughout that bleak November, striking hither and yon to the discomfiture of the Scots. It had meant hard riding in continuing foul weather, and the motivating of a tired soldiery that faltered from exhaustion and the desire to retire into winter quarters.

  ‘I thought this the New Model,’ Monck was fond of growling at its disaffected officers in an attempt to encourage them to ever greater efforts. As for himself, he appeared everywhere with a relentless energy that could not fail to impress. Even Lambert commented upon it.

  In addition to his near-demonic descents upon outpost and encampment alike, Monck fostered another form of warrior from among the prisoners taken at Dunbar. Setting up a tent and with Will Clarke in close attendance, Monck fell to interviewing Scotsmen of all sorts. His persuasions, argued in a reasonable tone and larded with references to the will of Almighty God and for the good of all God-fearing men, were further augmented by a judicious disbursement of silver coin and the promise of more. It was sufficient to turn some men Judas and convert others into reliable intelligencers. Such men learned to answer to Will Clarke, head of Monck’s Intelligence Department, who reported to his master.

  The swift descents of Lambert’s cavalry upon assemblies of Covenanters whenever word came in of their doings from these newly recruited spies began to sap the enemy’s will and enabled Monck to bring up his guns wherever the Scots took shelter behind stone walls. The appearance of Monck’s cannon so intimidated the garrison of Dirleton Castle, a fortress a few miles from the field of Dunbar, that it begged for quarter. Soon afterwards his artillery had similarly reduced Roslin and Borthwick castles; word of Monck as a force to be reckoned with spread through the lowland valleys.

  But there were harder nuts to crack and when Monck turned his attention to Edinburgh Castle it seemed that his run of luck was over. He sent for miners from Derbyshire who dug under the looming spurs of jutting rock upon the summit of which the mighty fortress squatted. Into their under-mining he packed quantities of fine-milled gunpowder and set a spark to the train therefrom. The resulting explosions blew tons of granite in the faces of the besiegers, killing a score or so, but effecting little against the castle which continued to hold-out under its governor, Walter Dundas.

  In the meanwhile Monck had summoned heavy siege guns which were brought up to Leith by sea. These he had laid with great deliberation and the assistance of his engineer, one Joachim Hane, on the ramparts of the citadel. Intermittently throughout the day – for they were slow to load – the heavy crump of this monstrous artillery could be heard, gradually wearing down both the stonework of the castle’s outer works, but also the morale of those inside it.

  Finally, hearing of Lambert’s defeat of a relieving force of Covenanters under Ker, and fearing the further effects of Monck’s heavy cannon which were proving effective in their work of demolition, Dundas capitulated on Christmas Eve. Monck had marched in to take possession of the fortress that dominated the Scots capital and, no more than an hour later, had received by galloper Cromwell’s commission appointing him governor of the city.

  Monck was too phlegmatic and experienced a campaigner to have his head turned by this elevation. Taking up his quarters in Dundas’s old chambers he took stock. There would be no return to Anne for some time, as he had briefly written to her, for there remained much to do. The chief concern of the English was the destruction of the Covenanters main force, growing by the day and for which invaders must cross the Firth of Forth.

  Mustering troops in considerable numbers at Leith, early in the New Year, an embarkation was ordered into an assembly of boats from the fleet which had now come up from the south and was anchored in Leith Road. Pulling gallantly in windy conditions, the fleet’s oarsmen had all but accomplished the four-mile crossing to the north shore at Burntisland, when a savage and accurate fire from the Scots’ guns threw them back. But it had not o
nly been the enemy that had foiled the attempt. That the boats had only narrowly escaped wholesale capsize in the chop thrown up by the wind and tide in the firth was a salutary lesson to their commander; in future, tidal water would be an element to respect.

  Discouraged from a further attempt on the Fife shore until the weather moderated, a disappointed Monck took heart from another opportunity. In conference with the fleet’s commander, Richard Deane, he accepted Deane’s offer of the use of his ships for shore bombardment. In February, further encouraged by the disorder in the countryside and the beneficial consequences of his liberality to informers, Monck resumed his counter-harrying of the moss-troopers’ lairs. He had moved the artillery train east, towards Tantallon Castle where, within forty-eight hours, helped by the guns of Deane’s men-of-war anchored offshore, Monck’s six huge siege-guns had battered a breach in the great curtain wall across the promontory upon which Tantallon perched. Monck had then used a heavy mortar to throw explosive carcasses into the bailey to intimidate the garrison with such effect that the fortress soon fell.

  Word of this travelled fast, seemingly born upon the wings of the hooded crows and jackdaws that the concussion of the artillery scared from their roosts in the ramparts of Tantallon. It had only remained for Monck to move west again, and order his great guns to open fire upon Blackness Castle - not far from Oliver at Linlithgow - for the enemy to be cleared out of the area south of the Forth. Buoyed up by this success, and urged on by Deane, in whom he found a friend and a collaborator, Monck next made another attempt to cross the Forth.

  At Deane’s suggestion he had some weeks earlier ordered the construction of a number of flat-bottomed boats, an undertaking that had been completed by April. Monck now ordered a second attack on Burntisland. Again the firth proved a difficult obstacle and the defenders too determined. The boats had once more returned to the safety of Leith harbour, the troops disembarking in dismay and frustration, eyes cast down as they passed Monck who moved among them, speaking encouragingly. Few met his eyes, for all were crestfallen; the New Model was losing its faith in the God of Battles, and perhaps in General Monck.