Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘They turn…?’

  ‘Aye, sir, they turn… See! Where they follow…one…three, six or seven…all braced sharp up as they feel the sou’-wester…’

  ‘Do you pass word to form line alongside them as they come down on us!’

  ‘Aye, sir at once!’ Bourne turned away rapping out orders. Others took up the shout and Monck was aware of gunners closing about their pieces and men scampering about like monkeys, throwing coils of rope off the belaying pins – he knew what they were!

  And there was Godbolt too. Monck caught his eye. ‘Captain Godbolt!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Have your men work their pieces with as much activity as they may muster. I rely upon their doing so.’

  ‘Aye, sir, of course…’

  ‘See to it then, I should not have your landsmen shown up ill among such seamen as they find themselves.’

  Monck turned away, supressing a grin at Godbolt’s pained look. A few moments later three guns barked simultaneously from the Resolution’s upper deck to draw the fleet’s attention to three hoists of brightly coloured bunting the ascended the windward foretopsail yard-arm. A moment or two later the same set of flags went aloft from the best vantage points of the nearer repeating frigate – actually a hired merchantman – and then followed from the foremasts of Lawson’s Vanguard. While this went on Resolution’s helm went over and the click-click of her parrels and rattle of the gear running through the brace-blocks told of the yards being swung. The complex shadows of masts, sails and rigging moved in a steady arc across the scrubbed planking of the deck as Monck silently admired the wonder of it. As his own division swung into a ragged line ahead and astern of the Resolution, he could see something of the squadrons of Lawson and Penn, spread over five or six miles of sea, begin to close. And, raising Bourne’s glass again to rake the slowly forming lines of the English men-of-war, he saw their black iron teeth emerge from their open gun-ports.

  The low and ragged thunder of several broadsides rumbled over the water and he turned in time to see the emission of clouds of smoke from the oncoming Dutch. He knew now it was up to his subordinate admirals and captains, for the smoke would obscure all but his immediate surroundings, even though they were now close-hauled and the breeze swept the deck. ‘One may lead a horse to water,’ Monck muttered philosophically to himself, considering his own role in all this, ‘but one cannot make him drink.’ He only hoped Lawson’s pusillanimous captains had bethought themselves of a better course of action for today.

  Bourne rejoined him and Monck returned his telescope.

  ‘This is better than I had hoped, Your Excellency. It seems your words have had an impact. I only hope this breeze is strong enough to resist the concussion of the guns. I have known it fail in such a situation as a pell-mell action.’

  ‘We shall see, Captain Bourne, we shall see…’ Monck had removed his hat and was tying a cloth drawn from his pocket about his ears. Bourne smiled and nodded. ‘I shall have difficulty hearing you,’ Monck said, raising his voice.

  ‘No matter,’ shouted Bourne. ‘I shall attend to the ship.’

  Monck clambered up onto the poop, wishing he still had Bourne’s glass. Staring about him he watched as the two lines of ships, rough and ready though they were, began a steady cannonade, noting how the English edged down upon their opponents, seeking that half-cannon shot range that he had urged upon them. ‘Better than I thought too…’ he said to himself as a storm of shot sailed past him so that he felt the wind of it.

  ‘Your Excellency…’ Monck turned. A young officer whose name he did not know but who was, Monck surmised, in charge of the seamen charged with the swivels fired from the poop, was approaching him, his hand holding his hat firmly upon his head.

  ‘What is it?’ Monck asked.

  ‘You are much exposed here, sir. I am mindful of out late lamentable loss, sir, may I urge you to take shelter.’

  Another whistle and scream flew past them; a ball buried itself – with a thud that shook the ship – in the stern just below them and a shower of splinters struck three of four of Godbolt’s marines. They were caught in the very act of levelling their match-lock muskets at a Dutch ship that seemed, to Monck, to have loomed out of the smoke from no-where to run alongside the Resolution.

  ‘I should not wish to miss this…’ he began, but Bourne’s head appeared at the top of the companion ladder. He was waving for Monck to rejoin him on the quarter-deck.

  ‘What is it?’ Monck asked, lifting the cloth from his right lug as the noise assailed him in even greater fury.

  ‘’Tis difficult to be certain, Your Excellency,’ Bourne bellowed at him, ‘but Lieutenant Bulstrode has just reported that he thinks Tromp is not well-supported. He speaks of several of the Dutch ships breaking away.’

  ‘I saw nothing from the poop…’

  ‘It takes a practiced eye, mostly you will only see the smoke from our next ahead and astern but Bulstrode must have seen something in an interval.’

  ‘I daresay we shall know soon enough.’

  ‘I daresay we shall.’

  Within the next quarter of an hour Bourne carried the Resolution gallantly into the action and Monck had gained a better idea of what was going on. He was well aware that, unlike a land-battle, where a commander could move about the field and apply pressure and issue orders where necessary according to the way events unrolled, at sea much depended upon subordinate commanders. He realised that he could do little once action was joined, and all relied upon the leadership he had given at the council of war. Imbued with their commander’s notions, it was up to the English captains. Initially, in their pursuit of the Dutch, the English fleet had the advantage, for they were to windward and thus held the ‘weather-gauge,’ but they were driving down onto the Dutch coast to leeward, into shallower water where off-lying shoals provided a bulwark to the enemy. Moreover, while they manoeuvred in deep-water, the larger, deeper-draughted English men-of-war, were in their element. If their seamanship matched their enemy’s, the greater power of their broadsides would – as Monck had observed – overwhelm the lighter Dutch ships. But Van Tromp was not a man to run away and hide behind his native sand-banks and now, like that stag that Tom Clarges had winged, he turned at bay.

  Having satisfied himself that his sailing master had the Resolution’s sails trimmed to such a nicety that he might bring the flag-ship’s eighty-eight guns to bear upon the enemy as soon as may be, Bourne led Monck forward and, standing beside the knightheads, pointed out as much as he could. Ahead of them the twelve leading ships in Monck’s own, centre squadron, stood in their rough-and-ready line, following the sixty-two gun Triumph, the ship in which Monck had flown his flag in the Channel in February. Beyond, and hidden from Monck and Bourne, were the thirty-odd ships making up the van squadron under Lawson. But if the two men could not see Lawson, they could see the enemy well enough, a clear advantage of the English fleet falling into line ahead.

  Tromp had indeed put about in an attempt to wound his pursuers by leading his ships against Lawson in the van. They came on and Monck remarked their shifting of their sails before Bourne had brought it to his attention. Quick as a flash Monck divined Tromp’s purpose.

  ‘He’s trying to cut off Lawson squadron! Can we make no more sail, John?’

  Bourne looked up at the huge bowsprit that rose before them. The two sprit-sails mounted at its extremity were drawing well and below them the bow-wave curled back from the Resolution’s bluff bow.

  ‘I have nothing else to set, Excellency.’

  ‘Then we must bide our time. We have the wind with us and seem to be bearing its rising with us.’

  He caught the brief look of admiration that crossed the amiable Bourne’s features as the two officers turned and made their way back to the quarter-deck, the upper-deck guns’ crews and the top-men at their stations knuckling their foreheads as they passed.

  ‘’Tis not true thou cannot teach an old dog new tricks, Captain Bourne,’ Monck rem
arked wryly.

  But Bourne, if he was listening, was distracted by a cry from forward. ‘He’s fetched his wind, by God!’ Bourne pointed to where the leading ships of Tromp’s fleet which a moment ago they had observed try and cross the stern of Lawson’s, had resumed their former heading and were now bearing down towards the English centre.

  ‘Make ready there!’ Bourne roared and Monck heard the cry descend in the ship to the main and lower gun-decks. Here Lieutenants Rusbridge, Bulstrode and their fellows would be calling to their men and the gun-captains would be peering from their individual gun-ports to catch an early glimpse of the Dutch as their crews spiked the guns round a degree or two so they might fire as soon as they bore.

  ‘Pass word only to fire at the word of command,’ Monck rapped, eager to fire an instantaneous broadside for the mental as much as the physical impact it would have. Gratifyingly messengers obediently scurried off the quarter-deck and while it seemed a long time in coming, when it did – after the first Dutch shot went screaming low over their heads – it fully justified Monck’s enthusiasm for his guns.

  The very fabric of the ship shuddered at the near simultaneity of the discharge, echoing in the rumble of the gun-tricks as they snapped the breechings tight with their recoil. But the Dutch had their range now, and had knocked their quoins in to lower the trajectory of their own shot so that their response was a further cause for the Resolution to shudder along her entire length. As those iron balls carelessly laid still flew over-head with a rending noise and the terrible disruption of the air in their train, others found their targets. The impacts along the rails sent showers of splinters into the air, two main shrouds were shot-away, one waist gun was hit fairly and squarely and rent the air with a discordant clang as its muzzle opened like an iron bloom. One ball near the starboard hance carried the upper deck bulwark away, took with it the legs of two seamen struggling with a small gun, scored the deck between Monck and Bourne and, after dislodging two balls from their garland by a larboard quarter-deck gun, finally lodged itself in the larboard scuppers, half-buried in the bulwark. Holes appeared wantonly in the main course just as it was being clewed-up, to slow the great ship as she came to grips with her foes. Not for the first time, Monck wondered at the complex management of the battle-ship as men coolly went about the task of handling her even as an iron death rained all about them. There was nothing of similar equivalence in a land-battle, he thought in that abstracted moment. And it was odd too, he thought, as he settled the cloth about his head more firmly over his ears as they again began to ring, that of all those who were aboard the Resolution, he that was in charge, had the least to do.

  A ball passed so close to Bourne that he staggered as the wind of it drew the air from his lungs. Monck put out a hand to steady him as he coughed and nodded his appreciation.

  ‘It is warm work, Excellency!’ he gasped.

  ‘I doubt it will last,’ Monck shouted. ‘We are firing two balls to the Dutchman’s one, and ours are by far the heavier.’

  ‘Pray God you are right.’

  ‘I am. D’you see there?’ Monk pointed and Bourne looked out to starboard where their late adversary, in receiving another broadside, had lost her fore topmast and was slewing round as the Resolution drove past her, leaving her to the tender mercies of their next astern, the fifty-gun Worcester. All along the line the Dutch had put about and, as the English ships swung their yards to press them, a running fight ensued. Monck walked across to the binnacle to ascertain their new direction; it was nearer south than east now, bearing down on the shoals off Ostend.

  As the afternoon wore on the action seemed to diminish. It was clear from the lookouts’ reports, confirmed by Bourne despatching a midshipman or two to the masthead with a telescope – and on one occasion going up to the mizzen top himself – that Tromp’s fleet had in part deserted him. When Bourne descended he remarked that several Dutch ships lay in their wake, battered and forlorn.

  ‘Let Penn’s frigates be after them and secure them as prizes,’ Monck ordered, again marvelling that in the midst of it all, as the Resolution bore along at three or four knots, her people could get a boat in the water and convey Monck’s direction to the lesser men-of-war in Admiral Penn’s rear squadron to break away from the battle-line and secure the prizes.

  And then came more news, shouted down in triumph from the tops: ‘Sail ho! To the west sou’ west!’

  Bourne levelled his long glass in the direction indicated, as Monck too peered away to the distant horizon. He could see sails, half a dozen, perhaps, breaking the sharp line of the rim of the world. But he could hear Bourne counting above nine and ten.

  ‘Blake, by Heaven!’ Bourne exclaimed admiringly, lowering the telescope and handing it tom Monck. ‘Out of his sick-bed and come with a dozen sail to help us.’

  ‘Can he get between the enemy and the coast?’ Monck enquired urgently. Coming up from The Downs, Blake’s ships ran along the shore under the impetus of a rising gale which was beginning to wreak a greater havoc than the English cannon among the battered Dutch men-of-war.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Bourne concluded, ‘but he’ll drive the Dutch further east.’

  ‘The Schelde, the Maas or the Texel then.’

  ‘Aye, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Still, we have given them a damned good drubbing.’

  ‘A thrashing more like, I’d say, sir,’ said Bourne enthusiastically as yet another broadside – ragged compared with those fired earlier as the men tired – flashed and thundered along the Resolution’s side.

  ‘There, Excellencies!’ the Resolution’s Sailing-Master called out, indicating the Dutch vessel a few score of yards off their starboard beam. Her great ensign, three horizontal bars of red-over-white-over-blue that she wore on a tall staff rising from the pocked and shattered gilded glory of her poop, was coming down to lie, like a dead and fluttering bird over her taffrail. ‘She strikes!’

  Despite the gale that ended the day, Blake’s flag-ship crossed the Resolution’s stern so close that the two Generals-at-Sea were able hold a brief exchange.

  ‘I give you God’s love, General Monck!’ Blake shouted, ‘and mine own congratulations!’

  ‘My thanks, sir! And what orders do you have?’

  ‘The day is yours, General Monck! What do you suggest?’

  ‘To mew them up for as long as we may and starve them of their trade!’

  ‘Then we are of one happy mind, General Monck! Do you send the despatch upon today’s work!’ And with a wave of his hat Blake stepped down from the rail and veered away, leaving Monck the task of composing his Report of Proceedings to Oliver.

  He sent it off at first light, early the next morning by his attendant pinnace. With it went a letter to Anne, and it attested to the fact that he had written it ‘near midnight’. Its tone carried something of his private satisfaction.

  For two days past we have been engaged with the Dutch between the Gabbard Shoal, the North Foreland of Kent and what the Mariners call The Broad Fourteens. I am now much more of a Master of the Mariners’ way of speaking and, had you a wish of it, I think that you would be pleased to see your loving George such a Tarry Breeks. We have seen hard service and poor Richd Deane is killed in the most Horrible Manner. The night before the battle he confided in me that a Scotch-woman who had the Second-Sight had foretold his Death and there are those that say he wore the mark of its Visitation upon his face that Morning, for he was two long hours upon his knees. I know not of such matters but I have lost a Friend of many Years. Besides this Great Loss the whole weight of Naval Affairs, about which as you well know, I am almost entirely Ignorant, now falls upon my Shoulders. However, thanks to your Prayers, God’s Providence favoured our Cause which is thereby proved Just by our Triumph. Our Arms prevailing, we took Eleven Dutch ships of war and sank a round Half Dozen. We now have Mynheer upon the run and purpose to box him in his own Fastnesses behind his sand dunes and hold him there to the Ruin of his Trade without which he will Starve.r />
  Tell Will Morice to especially mind the apple harvest this year, and tell Brother Tom that I would have him to write to William Clarke in Dundee for some confidential notification of what complexion matters bear in Scotland.

  As to yourself, my Dearest, you are all that I wish for most in this world and I pray that the Matter whose intimation you spoke of to me is now all as it should be.

  Ever Your Loving,

  Geo Monck

  He was not sure in his own mind why he had made that curious request of Tom Clarges, but he was too tired to query his motive. It did not occur to him, as he rolled himself into his blankets and settled into his cot, that he might, in that elevated and victorious moment, have himself had a touch of the second-sight.

  *

  Monck stood at the Resolution’s rail and started after the boat, watching its oarsmen as they bent to their task. It was a fine, mid-summer morning and the sea glittered in the brilliant sunshine under the caress of a gentle breeze that barely raised a wavelet over the low swell. As the oar-blades rose from the sea, the water droplets running off and sparkling, each left a small, expanding pool that neatly bracketed the wake of the barge in the stern of which hunched the figure of Robert Blake.

  Monck perceived little of the natural details of Blake’s departure. The senior General-at-Sea had boarded the Resolution earlier that morning, calling for a conference with Monck, an unexpected procedure when Monck had been anticipating a council-of-war. Monck had greeted Blake as he came over the ship’s rail to a squeal of pipes and the formal doffing of the hats of all Monck’s assembled officers. They respectfully swept the scrubbed white planning of the Resolution’s quarter-deck with their green-black cock’s feathers. But Blake had barely acknowledged the handsome courtesy, gripping Monck’s hand and muttering, ‘Let us to your cabin, General…’

  Balke had looked awful, even in the dark shadow of the brim of his own hat. Once he had removed this Monck was shocked by what he saw. Blake’s face was puffy and red-raw; his eyes streamed with rheum and he dabbed at them with a handkerchief he drew from his sleeve and which was never absent from his hand until he prepared to go over the side. On Monck enquiring after his health, Blake shook his head. ‘I cannot throw off this feverish imposthume. It delays the healing of my wound and my surgeon, Daniel Whistler, thinks that if I do not retire ashore…’ Blake hesitated, implying the worst.