Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  But by now Oliver had recovered from his fever and sought to breathe new life into his demoralised soldiery. Word reached Monck that the Captain-General had again taken the field in an attempt to discomfit Leslie and bring the reinvigorated Covenant Army to battle. Monck was ordered to cause a diversion by taking Callendar House, near Falkirk, but to his fury this cost him losses in officers and men from his own regiment. Meanwhile a further attempt was made to cross the Forth, not at Burntisland, but higher, where the river was narrower, between North and South Queensferry. By 18 July a small force of English under Overton had advanced into the Kingdom of Fife and lay at Inchkeithing, whereupon Lambert was hard on Overton’s heels, crossing the firth to increase the English strength and – at last – alarming Leslie.

  Despatching four thousand men under Sir John Browne to dislodge the invaders, Leslie retained his main force at Torwood. Perhaps, in not sending more, or of accompanying the detachment himself, Leslie was overconfident, but he was no longer in supreme command of the Scots. For months, including the weeks of the Dunbar campaign, his actions had been subject to a council comprised chiefly of Kirk Elders, limiting the scope of Leslie’s authority. Now worse was imposed upon him, for the youthful King Charles II – acknowledged the rightful King of Scotland - had assumed the role of commander-in-chief and Leslie’s influence waned still further.

  For Charles it was not Scotland – whose support he had gained by compromise – that formed the royal objective, but England and its vacant, dispossessed throne.

  While Lambert had moved across the Forth, Monck had returned to Edinburgh Castle, anxious as ever about the supplies without which nothing could function and Lambert would most certainly founder. These had assumed a greater urgency and importance than the spies’ reports that Will Clarke collected among the taverns of the city. It was therefore in the castle, fretting over the delays in the despatch of powder and flints from Berwick and concerned at the arrival of ships coming north from the Thames laden with military necessities that Morgan had found Monck.

  After accepting a glass of wine, Morgan reached for his satchel and took from it a sealed paper. ‘I bring orders from the Captain-General,’ he said, handing the document to Monck, who swiftly opened the seal. ‘Oliver is in a lather to get our main force across the Forth in support of Lambert …’

  ‘And wishes me to secure Burntisland harbour,’ said Monck, his eyes scanning Cromwell’s written instruction.

  ‘I have already ordered the boats downstream from Queensferry to Leith,’ Morgan said. ‘You could embark in the morning.’

  ‘Very well,’ Monck replied, looking at Clarke, who hovered in the doorway. The secretary nodded and then withdrew. ‘That should draw Leslie eastwards,’ he added, addressing Morgan.

  The Welshman nodded. ‘Oliver will get the battle he wishes for to finally despatch the Covenanters.’

  ‘Let us hope so.’ Monck sat and reached for quill and paper. ‘Do you make everything ready at Leith, Tom. I must pass word for the artillery to embark, and move the infantry at my disposal by first light.’ He was already bending over the paper, his pen busily scratching its imperatives across it, as Morgan, tossing off his glass of wine, acknowledged his instructions. He left Monck at his desk, sealing his orders before passing them to his secretary for an orderly to carry to others.

  *

  On 24 July 1651 Monck’s forces had captured the little island of Inchgarvie, which lay midway across the Firth of Forth, before reaching the north bank. On the 29th his men had moved downstream and taken Burntisland itself; then, as July ended, Cromwell’s main forces from Linlithgow finally crossed the Forth en masse, by way of the safe-haven of Burntisland harbour.

  All was now in giddy motion; by 2nd August the English Army in Scotland had marched north, traversing the isthmus of the Fife peninsula, reaching the banks of the Tay and compelling the surrender of Perth. Cromwell let it be known that he intended halting Leslie to the south-east of the city and bringing him to a decisive battle; troops, guns, ammunition were moved up with all despatch so that all was set for such a bloody encounter. But Oliver was deceived; instead of smashing the Covenanters, the Captain-General received unwelcome intelligence from his own scouts and Monck’s Scottish spies. Leslie had abruptly halted his advance, then turned back for Stirling. It took a day before this astonishing news was confirmed; Monck’s agents reporting that upon hearing Cromwell’s advance northwards across Fife, King Charles had ordered Leslie to join him.

  ‘Oliver has been cheated of his pell-mell battle,’ Monck remarked to Clarke as he drew up an order for the morrow. ‘But I sense we have to hand the climax of affairs.’

  An hour later, as Monck dined with a handful of his staff officers, Clarke announced the arrival of a galloper. The messenger brought Monck a peremptory summons to Cromwell’s headquarters at Kinross, south of Perth. Here, on the 3 August 1651, the Captain-General called a Council of War.

  Leaning forward over a paper-strewn table, Cromwell stared in turn at the faces of his assembled field-officers.

  ‘Charles Stuart marches south,’ he said, pausing to allow the import of his words sink in. ‘Reinforced by Leslie, he essays the invasion of England by way of the west coast, no doubt intending to recruit from those in the north-west of England and Wales still adhering to his party.’ Oliver straightened up, lightly brushing his hands, as if unconcerned with any possibilities that might arise from this bold and potentially consequential act.

  ‘’Tis a folly; a desperate gambit. True, he seeks to deceive us, to march south and raise the country while our main army is occupied in Scotland.’ Again he raked his commander’s faces, his own set firm, his tone purposeful. ‘I doubt that he will reach London,’ Cromwell remarked with prescient confidence, ‘as Harrison lies at Carlisle at the head of three thousand men and I have requested the Council of State to assemble a further force at Chester.’ The Captain-General fell silent as his audience stirred, giving low voice to its reaction to the news.

  ‘Black Tom will not suffer this to go unchallenged,’ Lambert remarked with easy familiarly, referring to Sir Thomas Fairfax who, rather than fight the Scots, had retired to his estate in Yorkshire when Parliament offered him command of the Army.

  ‘No,’ agreed the Captain-General, ‘I am certain that Sir Thomas will not suffer any of this and will surely be moved to call out the Yorkshire levies. Moreover, I mean to inform Mr Speaker Lenthall that although the Scots are embarked upon a descent on London, which may trouble some men’s thoughts and cause us a measure of inconvenience – we being some days in their rear – nevertheless, the Lord shall bring us up with them and show them the folly of their desire.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ someone murmured and was met with a murmur of agreement. But not everyone considered Oliver’s confidence to be justified and there was a nervous atmosphere in the Council, an anxiety to be off in hot pursuit. Cromwell ignored the doubting Thomases and, looking briefly around the assembled officers, divining their concern. ‘We shall, of course, with God’s good grace, undertake the pursuit and destruction of the Scots but it will be to no avail if the Malignant’s son escapes us and returns hither. He will yet command unconditional support from the Highlands and we shall have our work here to do all over again.’

  This was better; the attending officers nodded their agreement in their eagerness not to delay. ‘I have it therefore in mind to divide our forces. General Lambert will lead the pursuit and General Monck, with those regiments still recruiting their strength, will remain in Scotland.’ Cromwell looked up at Monck. ‘I shall leave the siege train in your hands, with the greater part of the artillery. Leslie has too little to cause us any fear in this regard and we shall move faster without encumbrance. Do you therefore take Stirling without delay and thereafter act as you think best; with Stirling in our hands much good fortune may follow.’

  ‘Aye sir.’ Monck acknowledged the order. ‘And those regiments you intend to leave …?’

  Cromwell ref
erred to a paper Monck himself had drawn up several days earlier. ‘Of foot, three: your own, along with Colonel Reade’s and Colonel Ashfield’s; of horse four, those of Colonels Hacker, Okey, Alured and Grosvenor; you will also have several troops of dragoons, which I have yet to determine, and two companies of fire-locks to guard the artillery train. In all some five thousand men …’ Cromwell looked up at Monck, his sentence unfinished, expecting Monck to solicit more.

  Monck nodded. ‘That should suffice, sir, if you consider you have sufficient to settle affairs with Leslie.’ Monck, aware of Lambert’s close scrutiny, avoided any mention of the enemy commander-in-chief, Charles Stuart.

  ‘I shall, of course, request the Council of State reinforces you.’

  Monck nodded again, acquiescing gracefully. With a hostile army marching upon them, he could not see the Council stirring themselves greatly on behalf of an army detachment left five hundred miles away, especially as it was left under the command of that former royalist, George Monck. Lambert caught his eye and Monck read the same thoughts in the expression of the man he had come to see as his rival. In Lambert’s perception this was an added disincentive, with the army detachment in question under the command of a man whose personal loyalty to the Parliament had yet to be tested. Oliver, it was clear Lambert thought, took a great risk in leaving Scotland in Monck’s hands. But then Lambert was unaware of the great debt Oliver owed Monck. Nor could Lambert possibly know with what relief Monck – fully aware of all of this, not least of Oliver’s testing trust - grasped his opportunity.

  Later that day, knowing a courier would depart for London before the army divided next morning, he dashed off a letter to Anne.

  I am left Governor of Scotland, my dearest, he wrote, adding without any thought for material gain, but only that of reputation,

  and if God wills it, we should prosper from this providential circumstance. The delay in the settlement of our own affairs may seem hard to bear but I beg you to be patient as I believe it to conduce to a happy and untrammelled outcome.

  With her good sense Anne would divine his meaning. He enclosed a brief note for William Morrice, who had agreed to take over the greater part of the administration of his affairs, asking Anne to forward it, then sat back, allowing his thoughts to drift south, to dwell a moment upon his private life, before giving his whole attention to the task he had been set.

  *

  The day after the army had divided, as Monck’s detachment broke camp, orders were received from Cromwell to send Colonel Hacker’s regiment to join him. ‘I send you Colonel Berry’s that you be not further weakened,’ the Captain-General wrote in a hastily scribbled note. In taking his departure, Hacker had remarked with a smile that, ‘I know not where lies the greater glory, sir, but am sorry to leave you.’

  Monck conceded his slow smile, reaching up to clasp Hacker’s hand as the other leant over his saddle-bow. ‘If the Captain-General catches the enemy there is no doubt of that, if not matters will fall out God-knows how. Here we have ordinary work to do,’ he said releasing Hacker’s hand.

  ‘God grant you every success, General Monck.’ With a salute Hacker turned his horse, and trotted after his men the dust of whose march was already being flattened by an onset of mizzling rain.

  Monck watched him go then turned aside to find Okey and Alured awaiting his order to move their cavalry off towards Stirling, the advance guard of his little army. He caught an exchange of glances between them and knew its import. They too had their suspicions about Monck, and they lay not just with doubts as to his loyalty. His abilities in plain soldiering were manifest enough; not a man in the army would doubt that, but the organisation of logistics was a boring, if necessary, business, an affair best left to a man of dull and stolid worth, a man of proven ability to cope with so turgid a preoccupation. How, that anxious exchange of glances revealed, was such a fellow going to cope with independent command and matters of manoeuvre? It was, after all, Lambert who had succeeded in crossing the Firth of Forth.

  And not just independent command of a corps ancillary to the main force, but one left in its rear, in occupation of an entire and hostile country? Both Alured and Okey – and presumably all their fellow colonels left under Monck’s command – would rather have been riding south with Oliver, whatever fate had in store for the Captain-General. Well, he thought, as the mizzle turned into a fine rain, he would have to show them that Honest George was not quite the dullard they supposed.

  ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ he said with a smile, ‘do you move your horse off. I shall send the artillery and the bulk of the infantry after you and await only Colonel Berry before I follow.’ Both officers raised their right hands to their hats and were about to pull their horses heads round when he added, ‘there may be little glory here,’ he said indicating the rain with a rueful expression, ‘but I intend to finish the labour of conquering Scotland before the winter sets in. I rely upon you to play your part, and with vigour, gentlemen, with vigour. Nothing less, mark you.’

  The two cavalrymen exchanged a further intimate glance as they muttered their acknowledgement of Monck’s command. He watched them as they rode off, Alured at a dashing canter, Okey at a slower trot.

  ‘They’ll see, George, they’ll see,’ muttered Morgan, who had come up quietly and stood by Monck’s side, invested with his new responsibilities as Monck’s chief-of-staff. Monck turned and looked at the Welshman.

  ‘Beware insubordination, Tom,’ he growled.

  ‘I have no fear of thy fair-mindedness, General Monck,’ Morgan said in a low voice, tinged with companionable irony.

  ‘Nor I of thy loyalty, Colonel,’ Monck responded with mock hauteur. The two men exchanged grave smiles. ‘Now, let us move this rabble forward and take Stirling!’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  *

  On the 6th Monck’s little army lay encamped before Stirling, whereupon he summoned the garrison and the town, promising freedom from plunder or violence. The town clerk and several senior citizens approached after some hours’ wait, during which threats of storming the town coerced the city fathers into submission. The delay afforded every opportunity for those disinclined to treat with the enemy to retire into the castle from which no reply was received and was therefore deemed to be in defiance.

  At one o’clock in the morning following, Monck’s troops marched into Stirling and were billeted on the townsfolk; they were under strict orders to conduct themselves properly and such was the discipline in the detachment of the New Model Army under General Monck that matters passed off peacefully enough. The castle was another matter, as was the surrounding countryside. Unwilling to allow the population to think that by sitting down with his guns in front of Stirling Castle, Monck intended ignoring the rest of the country, he sent a column north, to pass over the mountains and harry remnants of the Covenant Army left behind by King Charles and Leslie. This move was unexpected, both by friend and foe alike, for the column included artillery sent to traverse country over which no field-gun – not even the light leather-guns Monck despatched – had ever been seen in so hostile a terrain. Only Morgan was unsurprised.

  On the 7th the proper investment of Stirling Castle began, with wooden platforms under construction for the siege-guns then being brought upstream. These included two heavy mortars, capable of throwing charged and fused carcasses over the walls, where their explosions would burst them asunder, throwing the fragments of their cases hither-and-thither, to the very great terror of those within the walls. Other guns were mounted in vantage points in the town, several small pieces being hoisted into the steeple of the church, from where they could play with advantage upon the ramparts of the castle’s outer ward. Four days later all was in place and the bombardment began in earnest, the mortars being supervised by Monck’s specialist, the pyroballogist Joachim Hane.

  Despite Hane’s expertise, Monck was everywhere at once, directing the artillery, encouraging Hane’s men, placating the town’s councillors and reassuring the
population as the thunder of his cannon and mortars shook the houses of the citizens to their foundations. The protestations at the use of the church were silenced when the garrison began to fire upon the steeple and struck it several times. Meanwhile, although the more serious business of investigating the citizen’s complaints of plundering and drunkenness among his troops he left to his provost marshal, Monck did not neglect the consequences of this officer’s findings. Nor did he scruple to order severely condign punishments – by way of public floggings – to be inflicted upon five of Colonel Berry’s men who were convicted of straggling and plundering. One, whose offence had been that of robbery, was shot by order of the General, the first manifestation of Monck’s ruthless but lawful governance. He also removed all of Berry’s men from their comfortable billets in the town, sending them to bivouac in the surrounding countryside, a collective punishment designed to impress the townsfolk as much as to remind the disaffected soldiery that they were now under George Monck’s command. As might be expected, this did not go unnoticed elsewhere in the ranks, but nor was its import entirely ignored by the Scots wronged by the action of the condemned man and his fellow malefactors.

  After three days of bombardment with Hane’s mortars whose shells burst with intimidating as much as material effect and during which the castle’s governor, Colonel William Conyngham, refused every summons of Monck’s, there came rumours that the garrison were in a mutinous state. No-one knew how such news passed from the castle’s fastness to the besieging force, but these intimations took form when a drummer appeared on the ramparts to beat a parley. He was said by an observer standing nearby to be a highlander from his attire. Hane ceased his fire and this then slackened all along the line. Called to the church’s steeple Monck levelled his glass at the drummer, pointed out to him by Hane.