Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘My what?’ growled Monck, turning to stare uncomprehending at his chaplain.

  ‘The Rubicon, Your Excellency. The river which once Caesar had crossed he must commit all or…’

  ‘Or lose his head, no doubt.’ There was an awkward silence, then Monck laughed again. ‘I’m no scholar, Doctor Gumble, but was not Caesar killed by his friends? If so I bid you recall that I do not cross the Tweed with any ambitions to become Caesar. Now come, gentlemen, it is time we set our own horses’ heads southwards.’ Monck gestured for his entourage to move forwards, calling to Morgan, ‘Tom, do you keep me company and ride with me, there is something I wish to discuss with you.’

  *

  That night Monck lay at Wooler. Here the first of a succession of messengers and petitioners met him, men not of his own ‘intelligencing’, but men anxious to put this or that point-of-view to him in a serious of encounters that he was to find as vexatious as the succession of visitations he had endured at Dalkieth. This first, though, was welcome enough, for the letter borne by the man came from Mister Speaker Lenthall. Although it confirmed Cann’s news that the Rump was again sitting, it was otherwise cautious, falling short of a direct invitation – let alone an order – for Monck to march on London. It did, however, tell Monck that Lambert, his troops leaving him by the day, had turned south to fall upon Fairfax. All had thereafter disintegrated and Lambert was now in hiding.

  Knowing Lenthall’s warmth towards himself, Monck responded, sending Captain Heath to find Gumble. Heath discovered the chaplain ensconced before an inn fire, consuming a bottle and a meat-pie; winkling him out of his cosy billet, Heath sent him to the General’s head-quarters. It was already late, but Monck spent an hour in deep conversation with Gumble, whom he trusted, giving him verbal instructions and letters for Lenthall and Clarges. In the first of these missives Monck declared he would march first on York, hinting that an order to proceed further south would be appreciated by the Lord-General. After attending Lenthall, Gumble was to confer with Clarges and learn all he could about the politico-military situation in London, before hurrying back.

  ‘I will arrange a small escort for you, Doctor,’ Monck said kindly, adding, ‘I suspect you are about to cross your own Rubicon when you leave tomorrow morning.’

  Monck might have been amused at the sudden expression of apprehension that crossed the faithful Gumble’s face had not a weary Clarke announced a galloper from Colonel Knight.

  ‘Show him in, show him in.’ Monck’s tone was eager. When the young cavalry Cornet appeared, he saluted the General and drew a note from the deep cuff of his gauntlet. Monck took it, read it and looked up at the expectant Clarke. ‘The Lord is with us, gentlemen,’ he said to the room where besides Clarke and the Cornet-of-Horse, Thomas Gumble lingered curiously. ‘While we have advanced but a dozen miles, Colonel Knight’s cavalry detachment has reached Morpeth, what… thirty…?’

  ‘Forty, Your Excellency, at the least,’ corrected the diligent Clarke.

  ‘Forty miles!’ exclaimed a delighted Monck, ‘and in these conditions!’ Monck took some pride in this achievement, Knight’s cavalrymen being his own.

  ‘The Lord of Hosts is indeed with us, Your Excellency,’ murmured an impressed Gumble, sensing a moment more numinous than the mere crossing of a Rubicon - personal or otherwise.

  CHAPTER TWO – LONDON

  February 1660

  ‘Tell me, Will.’

  William Clarke looked at Mistress Monck and smiled. She had arrived in London with Kit, her maid and his nurse, along with Dorothy Clarke, all under the escort of Captain Zephaniah Jenkin a week or so earlier to lodge in secret with her brother, Tom Clarges. Now, with her husband and his small Army in the capital she had, that very forenoon, joined Monck in The Cockpit in Whitehall Palace, General Monck’s head-quarters. She had yet to see her husband who had been called early to attend Parliament and had left Clarke to do his wife the honour of greeting her. Clarke regarded the plain face with its bright, intelligent grey eyes and knew the deep motivation behind Anne Monck’s abrupt question. He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am. I have no idea.’

  An expression of vexation crossed Mistress Monck’s face, which lost its eager anticipation. ‘Nothing?’ Her tone was one of profound disappointment.

  ‘No. We were at Morpeth on the fourth where His Excellency received notice that Parliament had received his own letter saying that he would restore the Members to their proper place and thereafter submit to their instructions. At Newcastle on the sixth we received the city’s obvious approbation but exactly what of, other than our marching south, I am at a loss to know. Durham was the same and we reached York to find My Lord Fairfax in welcome and with whom we lodged five days. His Excellency and My Lord spent much time in conclave, but I know nothing of their speech together and everywhere we went His Excellency spoke nothing of his intentions beyond some generalisations regarding the Parliament…’

  ‘So you know nothing of his mind?’ Anne interrupted impatiently.

  Clarke shook his head. ‘Only that he will not reveal it to a soul.’

  ‘Pah!’ Anne was exasperated.

  ‘There was one incident…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There was much speculation over his discourse with My Lord Fairfax. His Lordship’s political views are advanced, even sophisticated, and their long conferences provoked one of his officers to be heard placating a curious and restless crowd that had gathered without, with the news that General Monck marched south to restore Charles Stuart to the throne of his fathers.’

  he sudden interest in Anne’s eyes did not go unobserved by Clarke; it was, he had long known, what Mistress Monck most desired. ‘Was that the whole of the incident?’ she enquired sharply.

  ‘No.’ Clarke shook his head. ‘Word was quickly carried to your husband, and it was right to do so, to scotch any such expectations for fear of provoking widespread disorder…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He came straight from his chamber boiling mad with heat and, the fellow being pointed out to him…’

  ‘By whom, Will?’

  ‘By me, Mistress Anne…’ Clarke faced Anne Monck whose loyalty to her husband was as fierce as his own.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He knocked the fellow down with such a clatter of his pot-helm on the cobbles that the waiting mob, forgetting politics, laughed mightily at the roundhead’s heels kicking skywards.’

  ‘He will not have liked himself for the necessity of doing that,’ Anne remarked ruminatively.

  ‘No, he did not, but the man afterwards sought leave of attendance on the General and apologised for his indiscretion. Your husband took his hand and pleaded the need to scotch the matter and to do so publically. There the matter ended… I think.’

  ‘And now he is gone before the Parliament?’

  ‘Aye, Mistress. And we must await the outcome.’

  Anne nodded her resignation and withdrew, leaving Clarke to stare from the window. York, Clarke sensed, had been a significant stop. In addition to his meeting with Fairfax, Monck had received reinforcements from Ireland and had sent Morgan back to Scotland with a strong force, reducing his own Army so that none could speak of an invasion. Here, too, he received an official ‘order’ from Parliament to march to London and, under such legitimacy, the column set off again. All that Monck had said to his interlocutors was that he ‘marched for the welfare of England, nothing more, nor nothing less’. It was a skilful ambiguity worthy, so Doctor Gumble had remarked when he rejoined the General at Mansfield, ‘of an old fox’.

  By the time they reached Market Harborough on 24th January Clarke knew Monck had been in correspondence with William Morice, for his constituents were pleading that he should insist on the Rump readmitting the Members excluded by Cromwell years ago. As with every proposition, Monck turned this aside. However, from St Albans Monck wrote to Lenthall ‘requesting’ that he pass orders to disperse all the troops about London, except for
two named Regiments, to designated quarters with a month’s pay. The labour of drafting the necessary orders in the detail the Lord-General required had cost Clarke most of a night’s sleep. The leading republicans, led by Haselrig, objected to the Army’s power being thus gelded by dispersal, but these dissidents were over-ruled. Only one unit, commanded by Speaker Lenthall’s son, refused. Their mutiny was soon put down, the rebellious soldiery despatched by Colonel Knight’s advanced detachment of Horse who had already arrived in the capital. Once Monck heard this, he gave the order to enter London in review order. They had done so on February 3rd.

  Clarke smiled at the recollection. Perhaps it had been worth all the trouble. The Foot, in column of line, all officers bedecked with red-and-white favours in their hats, had been preceded by three Regiments of Horse, Knight having rejoined his chief at Highgate. Led by trumpeters and Monck on his black charger, his be-feathered hat upon his head, his leather coat devoid of any armour but simply girt by the great red-orange sash, the so-called Army of Scotland descended Highgate Hill with all the impressive pomp it could muster after its long march. Among the staff attending Monck was Clarke himself, alongside Major Smith and the dashing and romantic figure of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel.

  ‘Ye should ha’e had had ain o’ my Gyr falcons upon your wrist, George!’ he cried with unusual familiarity as he doffed his own plumed headgear to some smiling and waving ladies in the crowd of citizenry who, for the most part, stood sullenly by the side of the roadway.

  Monck said nothing. He sat his hard-reined stallion, staring straight ahead, enigmatic, stern and powerful, his left hand on his sword hilt, buried in the flouncing knot of the sash, a figure of absolute inscrutability and awe. The resentment of the citizenry was not lost on him. Behind him Gumble, given to Biblical fancy, saw in him a human version of the pillar of cloud that had led the Chosen People across Sinai.

  The drums of the Foot beat time as the column marched down Gray’s Inn Lane, passed Temple Bar and swung into the Strand. Although some church bells were ringing, there were far too many lining the route who looked askance. Some bawled out for ‘a free Parliament’ and hissed Lochiel, but at Somerset House the column halted. From a stationary coach Speaker Lenthall emerged and Monck dismounted to shake his hand. He hoped thereby to convey the impression that he submitted to the authority of Parliament and had not come as a conqueror. An hour later the his troops were taking up their allotted billets and stations in and around Whitehall Palace while Monck established his own head-quarters in The Cockpit.

  By the following morning, Monck had secured the capital, placed one of his own partisans, Colonel Herbert Morley, as Constable of The Tower, and attended the Council of State where he had refused to take any oath. For the whole of the next day Monck was beset by petitioners, all of whom were turned aside, Clarke and Gumble assuring them that ‘His Excellency is called before the Parliament on Monday’ and that ‘it would be improper to discuss any matters before then.’

  *

  As further proof of his subordination to the will of Parliament, Monck refused the chair offered him by the Speaker, merely leaning upon its back. ‘I am this House’s servant, not its master,’ he said to the assembled Members. ‘To sit before the Bar would be unbecoming a servant.’

  Lenthall then opened the proceedings by thanking the Lord-General for his assistance in restoring the Parliament to its rightful powers and place. Comparing Monck’s initiative to the cloud the prophet Elijah’s servant saw above Mount Carmel, Lenthall expanded his metaphor so that it adduced ‘to the refreshment of the whole nation’. Thereafter the sitting members all looked at the grim visaged soldier standing before them. He had appeared there before, to receive condemnation, and now took his time, quietly considering this reversal of fortune. Even as the expectant Members began to grow restless, wondering if the man before them was a stupid as many of his colleagues in the Army considered him, Monck stirred. The truth was his legs hurt him and he would fain have sat upon the proffered seat. He cleared his throat.

  ‘In my march I have been importuned by every quality of person imaginable,’ he began. ‘Every man sought mine intentions by speaking of his own desires. There are those among our countrymen who wish for the return of the excluded Members. There are those who claim the necessity of a Gospel-ministry, a free and new Parliament. I have even received a petition to encourage higher learning and the reform of the Universities, and much more besides…’

  Monck paused. Those Members who wished to would interpret his words as an illusion to the restoration of a monarchy, the unmentioned option that lay before them. Well, thought Monck, that was up to them. He continued.

  ‘What is all that to a soldier, eh? I can tell you that a soldier learned that there are those that lack satisfaction in the government of the Nation, and that all who presented notions of their own held to this one common fact. As for the future, I told ’em nothing more than that I sought the welfare of these Nations, and that I did so through thy agency but that thou continued a reform both within and without this House. I advise thee to settle the pay of the troops and the Irish estates upon those promised them in lieu; there are some matters of equality I would wish to see settled upon Scotland, as to the rest I rely upon your good sense. My Army will support all this, but thou must admit such of the sober gentry as will support thee, denying those of the fanatical party as much as those of the cavalier. Such men will bestir mischief and, as Almighty God knows, we have had enough of faction. That is all I have to say.’

  If Monck thought his quiet appeal to reason would carry the day, he was mistaken. The rising swell of disagreement that followed a brief silence rapidly transformed the House into a Bedlam of shouting, gesticulating men, some on their feet, some waving their fists at him, some few attempting to placate what looked to an increasingly contemptuous Monck like a mob. The contrast between the disciplined force that had marched south at his heels in expectation of good sense and this bear-pit of disorder was stark. Monck longed for the camp, for the evening meal with his staff and regimental commanders. Even, at that moment of profound disappointment, for a harsh march across a Highland bogh in pursuit of rebels. Therein lay challenge, the possibility of defeat and its countervailing possibility of satisfaction. This… This was just madness!

  Lenthall was crying for order, addressing himself in particular to a wildly fulminating Haselrig who seemed to Monck to rave in his very face. Drawing himself up, Monck picked up his hat and left the Chamber.

  *

  ‘Forty! A mere forty of the Members remaining from the Long Parliament and they would hold they speak for the people!’ Monck’s mood was a mixture of fury and frustration as he took a glass of wine before dinner in The Cockpit in the company of Anne, the Clarkes, the Clarges, Major Smith and Doctor Gumble. He had hoped that a mere forty Englishmen might agree with him, disband their assembly and send out writs for a general election, but no: ‘The damned fools see nothing but themselves when they consider great matters of state.’ To Monck, who had willingly submitted to the over-arching principle of Parliamentary rule, who had subordinated his own ambitions – whatever people might say about his avarice – to such a nebulous ideal, who had held fast to his duty and maintained his subordination, to see such a mob of childish factionalism was an anathema.

  ‘What the devil d’you make of it all?’ he asked Clarges.

  ‘The City will not like the fact that you did not come down heavily on the side of a new Parliament, the cavaliers that you did not claim Charles Stuart’s right to return, the radical fanatics that you would not take the oath against the House of Stuart… In short, sir, you have pleased nobody.’

  Monck looked round the table. They were all looking at him. ‘Was I supposed to dictate terms, then?’ The bluff old soldier was quizzical, not comprehending the complexities of the wasp’s nest he had unwittingly stuck his head into.

  ‘They would have expected that,’ responded Clarges, adding ‘sadly, for that is the lownes
s that we have come to…’

  ‘Too little of the fox, eh?’ he ruminated quietly, a rueful smile playing about the corners of his mouth. ‘Damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.’ Clarges caught his eye. ‘You have more to say?’ Clarges looked awkward and Monck prompted him. ‘Come, Tom, speak your mind for mine is too weary of these tedious affairs to think clearly. I had thought Lenthall a friend.’

  ‘For Lenthall to remain anything towards you, sir, he must maintain a kind of neutrality. By not clearly stating your preference… no, your case, your intentions, they – Haselrig and his radical friends in the Army, along with others in the Parliament who incline to the good old cause – will now think they can put you in their pocket.’

  Monck scoffed and looked at his wife. ‘Let us go down into Devon, Anne, and find some peace.’

  ‘We would have no peace if matters are not concluded here,’ Anne retorted sharply. They all knew she was for the King, yet she had spent the morning that her husband had stood before the Bar of the Commons entertaining the ladies of the Members who had complimented her upon her sweetmeats.

  ‘You, too,’ murmured Monck as Clarke and Clarges exchanged glances, well comprehending Mistress Monck’s ill-concealed agenda.

  ‘God’s wounds!’ Monck blasphemed, looking round at them all. ‘Then what is to be done?’

  ‘The reed must bend to the wind, Your Excellency,’ said Gumble, speaking for the first time. He had accompanied Monck to the Parliament and heard the General’s speech, noting the response of the assembled Members. ‘I counsel patience.’

  ‘Can England be patient, Doctor?’

  ‘England must be patient; just for a few days.’

  They were half-way through their dinner when the summons came to attend the Council of State immediately. Monck left to raised eyebrows among his companions. ‘I think we shall have some days of difficulty,’ said Gumble as the company sat in silence after Monck’s departure. ‘Then the Lord will make known His will.’