Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘As bad as anything I have been in.’

  ‘But the God of Battles was with us and now the Dutch seem intent on an accommodation.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. I was a-feared the order to withdraw the fleet might have been premature.’

  ‘You still have some ships serviceable?’ Oliver was anxious.

  ‘Penn and Lawson keep the sea, the former is anchored in Yarmouth Road, the latter in the lee of the Gunfleet Sand. They have their frigates off the Texel, the Maas and the Schelde.’

  ‘And the communication between them?’

  ‘Three advice boats, the pinnaces Whelp, Merlin and Joshua. William Penn is senior officer.’

  Cromwell nodded approval. ‘The Army Council has decided to promote Penn, making him a General-at-Sea in Deane’s room. Do you concur?’

  ‘Aye, he is a good officer, as is John Lawson.’

  ‘And Lawson is a God-fearing man…’

  ‘I think high command has dispelled his Levelling tendencies,’ Monck remarked drily, recalling his Rear Admiral’s sentiments following the action off the Gabbard.

  ‘That is much to our advantage,’ Cromwell nodded, obviously pleased both with Lawson’s conversion from radicalism and Monck’s shrewdness in remarking it. The Lord General continued, asking: ‘Do you not think the season over-late for campaigning? Surely by now we can consider the threat laid aside until the spring?’

  ‘I would not throw away the advantage we have gained over the enemy just for convention, Your Excellency.’

  Cromwell considered Monck’s response with a smile. ‘No, I would not expect you to, George. Anyhap, I have delayed passing word until I had spoken with you, but I intend this day sending word that they may bring their fleets into the Medway for the winter. I am confident that the Dutch will try nothing against us now. There are some details to attend to, but their Plenipotentiary, Count Pauw, has given me assurances… You understand?’

  ‘I am to formally strike my flag?’

  ‘You have the jargon to a nicety. Just so, you are to formally strike your flag, at least for the time being if you have sufficient confidence in Will Penn.’ Cromwell moved back behind his desk and indicated that Monck should take a seat. ‘Now, we have this matter of accounts to settle, but before we do there is something more pressing. I have word that a large gathering of the fleet’s seamen at Charing Cross is seeking to cause trouble. I look to you…’

  ‘If I might, Excellency,’ Monck broke in. ‘I have just passed through them; they attempted unsuccessfully to detain me and made known to me their argument…’

  ‘Their argument? You think they have an argument?’

  ‘Their legitimate claim, Your Excellency, to the adjudication of the prize-courts over the matter of what they call gun-and-ton money.’

  Cromwell sighed. ‘More expense…’

  ‘A victory, as Your Excellency knows only too well, comes at a price. A thousand men are dead and unlikely to claim their pay, though their widows may seek a moiety…’

  ‘We have the Chatham Chest and there is the Trinity House…’

  ‘That may be so, Excellency, but in truth they offer little enough when the enormity of the problem is realised. Besides, the prizes will further recompense the State’s coffers and it is the usage of the service that the gains go to the men who took them, sir.’

  Cromwell was silent for a long moment. He stared first at a paper on his desk, then at Monck. ‘You are of a fixed opinion on this matter?’

  ‘I am, Your Excellency, not least because it is what they deserve, having earned it and I, moreover, have promised it to them, within a sennight, and payable at the Navy Board’s Office.’

  ‘Have you, by Heaven.’ Cromwell’s face wore an expression that spoke of effrontery and astonishment at Monck’s stand.

  ‘There will be a bloody riot if the matter is prevaricated further.’

  Cromwell relapsed into a thoughtful silence for a moment, then nodded and looked up at Monck. ‘You are right,’ he said with sudden conviction, adding: ‘God is pleased with them and they have done God’s work, it is only right that they should have what is owing them.’

  ‘Thank you, Excellency.’

  But then Cromwell fell again into so profound a silence that Monck thought him abstracted, in some religious trance. His awkwardness was swept away by the realisation that Cromwell was listening to something. His own hearing, dulled by the two actions in which he had lately taken part, was less acute and compromised by a low tinnitus, but now the noise of the disturbance, as it swelled in its angry surge, impinged even upon Monck’s damaged ears.

  ‘Damn their insolence,’ he snapped, rising to his feet. ‘By your leave, I would speak with them, Your Excellency…’

  Cromwell raised his hand is a gesture of acquiescence. ‘Pray do what you can…’ he said to Monck’s back as he left the room. Monck passed rapidly through the inner office where Thurloe sat bolt-upright in his chair, listening to the riotous mob, and an equally alarmed Clarges seemed about to leap out of his. Motioning Clarges to remain where he was, Monck threw open the door into the outer office. The two clerks were already on their feet. ‘Have you weapons?’ Monck asked as he drew his own sword. They nodded. ‘Then draw and follow me at once!’

  He reached the street to discover the Palace sentinels had their own swords in their hands and had called out the guard. A clattering of booted feet emerged from the guard-room as the rest of the guard turned out. The sight of these soldiers riled the now vociferously hostile mob. Someone caught sight of Monck.

  ‘There the bugger is!’

  ‘We trusted you…!’

  Monck elbowed the guard aside and stood before them, his face ablaze. ‘D’you think I can settle matters in the twinkling of an eye? Eh? What are ye – fools?’ He was pushing himself deep into the crowd now, roaring at them oblivious to the shouted warning of the sergeant-of-the-guard that he was beyond protection. ‘Get ye hence, the lot of you before you destroy your case! Go! Hop it, before I use this upon you…’ He brandished his sword so that the thin London sunlight caught it, flashed upon it, catching the eyes of others, further back.

  Angered and emboldened by the sight of the naked blade a man screamed: ‘You old bastard! Set about us, would you?’

  The crowd took fire and surged forward at this provocation, but Monck was equal to the occasion and hollered back: ‘I promised thee I would see to the matter! I have given you my word and was in the act of speaking with the Lord General! Now, for the final time: Get ye gone or by Almighty God I shall smite thee! All of thee! Every mother’s son among thee!’

  Monck extended his sword-arm to the side and those nearest drew back. ‘I warned thee!’ He swung the blade, pronated, in a wide arc across his front. The flat of it caught three or four men and they fell, or drew back; the point pinked one, tore his shirt and slashed his breast.

  ‘He’s drawn blood!’

  ‘Murderer!’

  ‘I warned thee! Get thee hence!’

  ‘Honest George means it,’ some friend in the throng shouted. ‘We must trust Honest George…’ Clearly opinion was divided, this present revival of their tempestuous behaviour whipped up by a demagogue unconvinced that Monck would lift a finger for them.

  But at the sight of Monck, his sword drawn and scything at the crowd, a crowd of armed Ironsides at his back, some began to falter, sensing they had gone too far. Others from behind pressed forward, led by a large, bull-like seaman who was shouting his demands for ‘justice, gun-and-ton money!’ a cry now being repeated and repeated.

  ‘Justice! Gun-and-ton money!’

  The large ring-leader pushed out of the crowd armed with a cutlass, backed by others bearing arms. This was open rebellion. The big man in his front opened his mouth but Monck beat him to it.

  ‘I know you!’ Monck extended his sword-arm so that the big-man stopped, confronted by Monck’s unwavering sword-point. ‘You were aboard the Resolution with me! Now do you do as you are bid i
f you have any command over these people and disperse, or by God I’ll cut you down for a start!’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ The big-man raised his cutlass and made to slash Monck’s sword aside. Monck dropped his blade, the heavy cutlass swept over it and Monck whipped-up his point, at the same time stepping forward.

  ‘Would I not?’

  Instinctively the big man fell back, the crowd behind him offered him a barrier and he hefted his cutlass again, coming into a clumsy guard. Monck extended his right arm and strode directly at the man, the blades clashed and scraped, but the big man’s parry was ineffectual. Monck’s sword-point approached the man’s breast; he could not retreat for the crowd pressed him. Monck twitched his point. It flicked to the side and cut the man’s left shoulder, then up across his face.

  The fellow fell back with a cry, blood streaming down his face from his cut nose. But now the guard was behind Monck and as the big man staggered back, Monck reached down, twisted the cutlass from his grip and helped him to his feet, drawing him close and hissing in his ear: ‘I promised I will get your money you bloody tom-fool! Now hop it and leave me to do your work!’

  Astonished, the wounded man staggered backwards a step and then Monck found Cromwell, sword in hand, beside him.

  ‘You shall be paid!’ he said. ‘Just as General Monck has said! You have both my word and that of General Monck upon the matter, a sennight hence at the Navy Office! Now, get ye gone, all of ye!’

  The two men stood their ground, the soldiers in a solid rank behind them. The mob of seamen and their supporters hesitated, spoke among themselves with side-ways looks at the two grand figures and began to melt away. Monck felt Cromwell’s hand upon his shoulder.

  ‘That was well done. You have extinguished what might have become a riot, George,’ he said quietly. ‘We shall pay them. Please ensure they know that right well before you come back in.’

  Monck nodded, and as Oliver and the guard fell back to the entrance to the Cockpit, Monck walked after the receding mob, easily identifying the man he had wounded as he stood, bleeding from his nose, a crowd of sympathisers round him.

  ‘What a fucking cheek!’ A man drew attention to the approaching Monck and for a moment he thought Oliver’s congratulations might prove premature. But he stepped quickly up to the man who held a rag to his face.

  ‘What is thy name and rank?’ he asked. Not waiting for a reply he gestured at the man’s wound so that he took his hand away. ‘The blade is clean,’ Monck said, sheathing his sword and looking with concern at the ragged cut. ‘Dost thee get that dressed,’ Monck indicated the cut nose, taking two gold pieces from his pocket. ‘This will pay for the surgeon and perhaps some additional consolation for thy wounded spirit. Tell me thy name?’

  ‘’Arris. Able Seaman. Fore-topman in the Resolution.’

  ‘Fight Dutchmen, Harris. You and your fellows are damnably good at that. Now,’ he turned to the others around Harris, the number of which was growing. ‘Do you go after the rest of them and tell them that I thou hast the Lord General’s word that we shall pay you your gun-and-ton money, today week, upon application at the Navy Office. Not before and nowhere else. Do you understand?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He turned back to Harris. ‘Now seek out a barber-surgeon and if fortune throws us together again I will mark thy conduct.’

  As he walked back into the Cockpit, Monck saw Clarges watching from a window. The subsequent interview with Cromwell seemed an anti-climax after this excitement, which Monck soon forgot as he presented his accounts and a thoroughly rattled Clarges produced what figures Monck required to answer the queries put to him by the Lord General. When they had finished and rose to leave, Cromwell detained Monck, indicating Clarges should await his master in the next room.

  ‘It was my sincere desire to have you to hand months ago when matters between the Parliament and the Army reached its culmination, but I was o’er-ruled. Your reputation as an artillerist convinced the Army Council to employ you as General-at-Sea, a duty which you have executed well. I received the papers which you sent in April last, confirming the loyalty of the fleet but what were your private thoughts upon the matter?’ Cromwell paused, then added quietly, ‘I would have your true mind upon the matter, George.’

  ‘In truth, sir, the uncertainty of the times does so much vary the nature of affairs that my endeavours can only be at the service of the Commonwealth as a whole. As to matters between the Army and the Parliament, I deplore anything and everything that doth not conduce to the public good. It is a quiet rule in the whole of the Three Nations that I labour for.’ He paused, the phrase had slipped out, a reference to Cromwell’s disastrous Irish policy with which Monck could have neither truck nor sympathy. The Lord General appeared not to notice the implied rebuke as Monck went on. ‘I am not of your sectaries, which places me at odds with half the Army; but I am likewise not for those who falsely seek an oligarchy cloaked in the name of the people. I hold then to order, but order under just laws. That is my mind.’

  ‘But if it is necessary,’ Cromwell said, choosing his words with obvious care, ‘that a few should take the reins of state…’

  ‘Is that not what the Army Council has already done, Excellency? And have I not given proof of my loyalty…?’

  ‘It is not your loyalty that I seek to interrogate, George. It is your politics.’

  Monck met the Lord General’s gaze, sensing the full gravity of the occasion; here was either a meeting of minds, or a moment of distinction – even perhaps division – between the two men. ‘Freedom within the law,’ Monck said, ‘just laws and order in the land; the encouragement of trade and the payment of those who labour. I am constantly at a loss as to understand why the Parliament fails to fulfil what every Englishman – and woman - must surely want. But equally I do not understand why the Army seeks its own presumption.’

  Cromwell smiled. ‘You have rendered me good and confidential service in the past, George, and I am very sensible of the obligation I owe you for it. But the world is a-stir and the Army riven by the faction of Fifth Monarchists, Anabaptists…’

  ‘I have no truck with such distinctions, Oliver,’ Monck said familiarly leaning forward and dispensing with the formality of rank that lay between them. ‘I have no objection to a man worshipping howsoever he will within a world that allows him to compose his conscience and his soul with Almighty God.’ Monck paused; in the intimacy of the moment Cromwell seemed no longer affronted by his presumption and, Monck sensed, was awaiting more. ‘If you are asking me where I stand in relationship to your own position in the eyes of the Army and Parliament I will say that I am for Parliament as an expression – the best expression of the desires of all Englishmen – but for something superior to Parliament to express the will of the Nation, of all Three Nations if it comes to that.’ Monck stopped for a moment, then returned to formality. ‘I am familiar with The Tower, Your Excellency, I detest oath-taking as thou knowest, but I am your man now as I was at Dunbar and shall be as long as my health allows it, and thou deals fairly.’

  ‘And what if I were to send you north, to Scotland?’

  ‘Then I should go.’

  ‘That is good,’ Cromwell seemed to hesitate a moment, then: ‘There is one other matter, George, closely touching your person…’

  ‘You mean the matter of my situation?’ Monck’s tone was wry.

  Cromwell met the irony. ‘I cannot extend my tolerance to your free-will…’

  ‘I intend to marry, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Good. As to Scotland, I cannot promise anything, George. We must needs first hold the Dutch to account for their troublesome conduct. They still harbour Charles Stuart, and until I receive an assurance that he receives no encouragement from them, matters must pivot upon the fleet.’ Cromwell rose and held out his hand.

  ‘I understand,’ Monck stood and Cromwell’s grip was firm, encouraging; Monck’s resolute.

  ‘You are a man on uncommon good sense, George.’
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  ‘The mantle falls where it will,’ Monck responded. ‘My commission is next in my regard after The Bible.’

  Cromwell’s expression remained long in the memory of George Monck: it seemed to him to contain an affirmation of sudden and close friendship, a portion of deep regard, even perhaps admiration, but also of relief, as if the Lord General was a-tremble, contemplating something of greater moment than a peace treaty with the Dutch, or reconciling the Army to the Parliament. Whatever it was, Monck was convinced Cromwell was relieved to have Monck assuredly on his side.

  Just as he was leaving, almost as an after-thought, the Lord General told Monck that he should not leave London before the middle of November, adding that as a final act before striking his flag, he should inform Penn and Lawson that they were all three required to attend a state-banquet to be given in their honour.

  ‘Thurloe has the details.’

  Monck bowed, expressed his pleasure, then remarked, ‘Sir, I am sensible of the honour, as will be Admirals Penn and Lawson but I must assure myself that the payments of gun-and-ton money will indeed be made within a sennight and before any honour such as a dinner is conferred upon either myself or my friends.’

  ‘You have my solemn word upon it, General Monck, as I stand before Almighty God.’

  Picking up his hat, Monck swept the carpet with its plume as he bowed and withdrew. Nodding to Thurloe, he gathered-up Clarges as the Secretary indicated to his attendant that the visitors should be conducted to the street. As Monck acknowledged the salutes of the sentinels guarding the entrance to the Cockpit and Clarges stepped forward to call their coach, it suddenly came to Monck. He must keep the matter close, not breathe a word to Anne, or even Clarges, but the thought seized him with utter conviction: Oliver meant to take the Crown!

  *

  In the event Cromwell kept him in London for two long months, his anxiety to have Monck married subordinate to the turmoil of public affairs. The matter troubled both Monck and Clarges, both knowing of Anne’s imminent confinement, but Cromwell – his views expressed through Thurloe – was unyielding. Monck, accompanied by Clarges, and with Penn and Lawson from company, had dutifully attended the grand banquet given in their honour. Then, a week or so later, on 2nd December, Monck received his renewed commission as a General-at-Sea. Apparently he was not going to be sent to Scotland after all; Oliver had changed his mind or he had been out-voted a second time.