Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘On what pretext?’ Monck stared at Clarges in complete astonishment. This was a final outrage after the obedience of his submission!

  ‘You left the City without orders –’

  Monck held up his hand. ‘Enough! I have heard your words and am tired of all this!’ He looked up at the little group of devoted followers.

  ‘Sir,’ said Barrow, ‘you must do something…’

  ‘Ah yes, Doctor Barrow, I must do something.’ Monck’s voice rose. ‘I must, no-one else… but what precisely, eh? What?’ They stood there in silence. Every man in the room knew that indeed only George Monck could stem the disordered state of affairs, but none dared counsel him any further. Monck sighed, stood up and took a turn about the room. After a moment’s reflection he stopped and turned towards the anxious men.

  ‘Very well. Do you compose a remonstrance for my signature tomorrow morning. Pass word, Will, for the Army to parade at six o’clock; we will march into the City. The men must spend the day at Finsbury Fields. As to the letter of remonstrance, you will remind the Rump that it has outlived its term, that it has disregarded the liberties of the people, that it has issued orders prejudicial to the citizens of London and insisted they were carried out to the detriment of the defences of the City. Remind the Members that they themselves have failed to enforce the arrest of John Lambert, among others, and remind them that they must dispel all appearances that they, the Parliament as it is now constituted, is an assembly perpetual. Their term is up! They must, within a week, issue writs to fill up their vacant seats to void suspicion of their having become an oligarchy. Only then will it be worthy of the loyalty so lately displayed towards it by the English Army of Scotland.’

  Monck looked about him, relief was on every face. ‘I want at least a dozen officers of field-rank to sign with me. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency,’ said Clarges, smiling as the others murmured their enthusiastic assent. Monck grunted. ‘See to it. And now I am going to bed.’

  *

  Clarke, Barrow and Clarges sat up all night drafting the long letter; fourteen field officers – that is above the rank of Major - signed it at dawn, and Monck soon thereafter. Clarges took the letter and gave it into the hands of Colonel Knight, one of the signatories who, with the others awaited Monck’s appearance, before hurrying to the House of Commons. There he awaited the arrival of Colonels Knight and Clobery.

  Monck, meanwhile, having paraded the troops billeted in and about Whitehall, took his leave of Anne, mounted his charger and returned to the City, quartering himself in a lodging known as ‘the Glass-house’ on Broad Street. Here Monck set about dictating to Clarke a series of letters to the garrison commanders elsewhere, asserting his authority over all English forces and informing them of the resolve of the senior officers of his own Army. His officers, posting sentinels as they went, conducted the column to Finsbury Fields where, throughout a cold February day, they stood to their arms, miserable but steadfast and obedient.

  In Whitehall, Mr Speaker Lenthall took his place and called the Rump to order. The day’s business was barely begun when the tipstaff entered the chamber followed immediately by Monck’s two Colonels who, having bowed towards Lenthall, announced a communication from ‘General Monck, now quartered with his Army within the City,’ and delivered the letter.

  ‘They were nothing less than astounded, the most so Sir Arthur Haselrig who had claimed the bear was chained-up,’ Clarges reported, hurrying to the Glass-house as soon as the resolve of the Rump was clear. ‘Speeches were made putting it to the Members that you should be immediately arrested and taken to The Tower. Someone pointed out that you were occupying the City of London and had your own man in The Tower. In the end they moved to send a conciliatory mission in the form of two Commissioners. Their arrival will not long be delayed. I cannot be but a quarter of an hour in advance of them.’

  Monck met the two men seated at a table, with Clarke at one end, quill in hand, papers and ink-pot before him. Colonel Knight, Major Smith and two orderly officers stood or sat close by; the tap-room was clearly a busy, if requisitioned, military head-quarters. The two Commissioners, named Scott and Robinson, had already run the gauntlet of Monck’s sentries and the sergeant commanding his guard. What they did not know was that Monck had just received the Lord Mayor, recently released from arrest, and that worthy had told him that the City had lost faith in him.

  Monck said nothing when Scott and Robinson arrived. He knew them well, for they had joined him on the march south, sent as spies to discover his intentions, a mission they had discovered to be impossible. At their appearance Monck merely looked up and listened to their speech. They agreed that the matter of filling up the vacant seats was being mooted. Nothing more. Had he anything to say? they asked.

  ‘The letter says everything I have to say,’ he responded blandly and without expression, turning again to his correspondence. The sense of having been fobbed-off was quickly picked-up by the adjacent officers. Scot and Robinson were escorted to the street where they were turned out and insulted, a small altercation that immediately attracted the notice of passers-by, street vendors and the curious crowd that had assembled outside the Glass-house as soon as it was known that General Monck had quartered himself within. The two representatives of the Rump departed hurriedly in a coach surrounded by a vociferous and hostile crowd.

  Such a small triumph preceded disaster. That afternoon a message arrived to inform ‘Commissioner Monck’ that Fleetwood had been appointed Lord-General in his place.

  ‘I am one of five such Commissioners,’ he said to his assembled staff and those of his close advisers who attended him, the short letter dangling from his fingers as if distasteful to his touch. ‘Haselrig is our chief and, should we be reduced to a quorum of three, I am to be excluded.’ Monck smiled up at the men round him. ‘The insult is absolute and final. God damn their black souls!’

  ‘There are but forty of them, Your Excellency,’ Clarke reminded Monck, looking at Ralph Knight apprehensively. Such an outburst from Monck was uncharacteristic, but Clarke saw that he was quivering with supressed fury and marvelled that he held mastery over himself. No-one but Monck himself could know that he had teetered upon the brink of such senseless violence as had got him into trouble as a youth. Scot and Robinson were lucky to escape with only abuse; George Monck was quite capable of knocking both of them to the ground.

  ‘You command us, sir. Not Charles Fleetwood,’ Knight said, pointedly.

  ‘Thank you Ralph.’ Monck stood, went to the window and regarded the street outside. A journey-man saw him and shook his fist, attracting more attention. Another remonstrated with the hostile tradesman, seeking to rouse a cheer in the General’s favour; a brawl ensued, broken-up by Monck’s sentries and their sergeant. The participants were sent on their way; the entire incident was a metaphor for the situation throughout the country. Monck turned back to the room. ‘Well, gentlemen, I am due to dine with the Lord Mayor and the Corporation at five of the cock. Thereafter, let us see what tomorrow brings…’

  Clarke shook his head as Monck withdrew. ‘No more procrastinating, old fellow,’ he murmured, ‘for we shall all pay for it with our heads.’

  The assembly of Aldermen, councillors and merchants who were awaiting Monck at the Guildhall half an hour later were as hostile to him as the journey-man who had shaken his fist. He had, after all, imprisoned several of them, though they had subsequently been released. He made a few conciliatory remarks to the Lord Mayor who gave him to understand that they were all beset by perplexities, that Monck’s conduct had shocked them profoundly, but they knew not who else to turn to. Monck had barely started his meal, aware that the rising tide of conversation was vociferously uncomplimentary, whereupon he threw aside his napkin and rose to his feet. A sudden silence descended upon the diners as they lounged at their board, overseen by the great oaken figures of Gog and Magog.

  ‘My Lord Mayor, Aldermen, gentlemen, I stand before you meekly,
aware that the carrying out of my orders had exasperated you beyond natural patience and touched your honour deeply,’ Monck began. ‘I, too, am sensible of honour and am besides bound by duty. It is not in my nature to question the orders that I am given, even though, as I now frankly declare to you, I detested their carrying out and questioned their requisiteness. That I was compelled by authority to overbear upon you is eloquent testimony to the quality and judgement of that authority from which they were derived…’

  Monck paused. He sensed their attention, their eagerness for him to bring them some relief.

  ‘I have not much to say upon this kind occasion. But what I have to tell you is that this morning I have sent to the Parliament to issue out writs within seven days for the filling up of their House, and, when filled, to sit no longer than until April the sixth, that they may give place to a full and free Parliament…’

  He got no further, for nothing further needed to be said. The company rose to its feet to a man, cheering and raising their glasses to ‘General Monck!’, ‘The Lord-General!’, even to ‘Honest George!’ In the hubbub men were to be seen leaving the room to spread the word, the Lord Mayor was pumping his hand and Monck, in a rare moment, felt his throat swell.

  When he left the Guildhall the bells of the adjacent church of St Lawrence Jewry were already ringing, and soon the cheerful sound of pealing tocsins rang out from thirty-one other churches. As Monck and his escort walked back towards the Glass-house there were already crowds filling the street and shouting out the gladsome words:

  ‘A full and free Parliament! A full and free Parliament!’

  ‘The tide has turned, Your Excellency,’ said Doctor Gumble, welcoming Monck back to his head-quarters where Clarke, Knight and others had assembled to determine the cause of the excited noise.

  ‘Should I pass word to bring in the troops, sir?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Do it at once. They have stood too long in the cold, poor fellows,’ said Monck, chiding himself for uncharacteristic negligence of his men’s well-being.

  By midnight, bonfires blazed and wherever any of Monck’s soldiers appeared they were given meat and ale, even wine, from a deliriously happy citizenry, a fine recompense for their tedious day. Someone said that effigies of the members of the Rump were being cast into the flames, another that messengers were leaving for other parts of the country. How they knew such things was a mystery, but the consequences in the next few days attested to the truth of it all.

  Regarding it all from the window he had occupied but a few hours earlier, Monck was heard by Clarke to mutter: ‘that this is an anarchy worse than any other, for to disappoint such expectations could end only one way.’

  CHAPTER THREE – LONDON

  March – May 1660

  On the morrow Monck shifted his head-quarters to the Draper’s Hall on the invitation of that Company. It was a mark of the City’s revived esteem. In the next few days, word came in of the wider effect of his letter to the Rump. Everywhere across the land, associations were formed to refuse the payment of taxes until the reforms Monck had demanded of the remaining Members were carried out. He received letters of support from all parts of the country; Fairfax wrote from Yorkshire, others from Bristol, even from Edinburgh and Dublin. Those closer to London came in person. Clarke was beset by petitioners, great and small, rich and poor, so that Gumble was reminded of the ante-rooms of Dalkeith Palace writ larger and nightmarish. Monck secluded himself, avoiding them all, though afterwards there were those who claimed to have seen him personally and wrung from him statements advising the restoration of the King.

  Monck remained far too wary to admit any preference whatsoever; he still waited upon events, though his hand was somewhat firmer upon the pulse, particularly after the arrival of William Morice from Devon. Morice brought a new perspective to bear upon affairs, forming with Clarges and Monck, a triumvirate which settled down to work.

  In Westminster the Rump went through its protracted death-throes, refusing to follow Monck’s ‘advice,’ issuing writs for by-elections instead of simply recalling the excluded Members. The Rump’s common fear that any such recall would produce an overwhelming majority of Members opposed to themselves had led to this foolish course of action, which only revealed the body as a self-serving and self-preserving oligarchy. That the excluded Members would themselves prove to be split between Royalists and Presbyterians was not seen as offering any advantage for exploitation. Speaker Lenthall sensibly withheld his signature but the Members of the Rump simply passed an Act allowing the signature of one of the Parliamentary clerks to stand in his stead.

  In the meantime, Monck and his coterie had been busy. Clarke had no need to fear his chief’s procrastination; George Monck had only been drawing breath. Where all had previously been indecision governed by low sprits, now a ferocious animation moved Monck, reminiscent of that extraordinary energy he was wont to display on campaign. As the multitude of petitioners beset Clarke and he refused to allow them to see Monck, the General, together with Clarges and Morice, took counsel and called in four Army clerks. As the hours passed Monck’s gallopers, called from their cosy billets and told to ready their horses, were sent from the Draper’s Hall. Some had a cavalry escort, others rode alone, others in pairs when they followed a similar route.

  But it was not merely gallopers with letters that left the City. Monck sent out detachments of troops to disarm units of those in the English Army loyal to Fleetwood, Lambert and the radicals. While it fomented opposition among these fanatics, the great libel that he intended to restore the King – which was industriously spread by his enemies – equally encouraged the cavalier party and everywhere they showed their faces openly. Word reached Monck and his agents and they too received a visitation from a grim-faced troop of Monck’s cavalry. Thus were the teeth drawn of any attempting armed intervention. In the meanwhile Monck’s letters were rousing the sober gentry of the shires, whatever their persuasion.

  Fifteen days after shaking hands with the Speaker outside Somerset House on his arrival from Scotland, Monck sent word to the Rump – still deceiving itself that it commanded the Government of the Commonwealth – that he was seeking the return of the excluded Members. Quite what was meant was unclear until, two days later, Monck informed Lenthall that he had secured the support of, and called-in, seventy-three of them. Then he sent word to Whitehall that he would presently attend the Chamber.

  The seventy-three who had been summoned to London by Monck had agreed to conform to the General’s wishes, recognising that he negotiated on behalf of the whole of the Army. There was no question of a restoration of the monarchy, Monck insisted; a King meant bishops and that thought was not to be considered and certainly not by a man of Presbyterian leanings. When word of this got out it would disarm the propaganda of Haselrig and Fleetwood, and the more real military resistance of Lambert. Then Monck had Colonel Knight and his own troop of Horse conduct his muster of the excluded Members into the House. To Lenthall’s private delight, there were only fourteen Members of the Rump sitting.

  A short while afterwards Monck himself stood before the Bar of the House. Clarke was with him and, as he began to address the assembly, Clarke removed a sheaf of papers from his leather satchel.

  ‘You are not, I hope,’ Monck began, rapidly warming to his task as he addressed the sitting Members, ‘ignorant what care and endeavours have been used for healing the breaches amongst ourselves, and that in order thereunto, divers conferences have been procured between you though to small effect. Yet, having at length received fuller satisfaction from these worthy Gentlemen, that were formerly excluded,’ he paused to indicate the new arrivals. ‘I am now bold to put you to the trouble that I might open myself to you all. But lest I might be mistaken, as of late it befell me, I have committed to writing the heads of what I intended to discourse to you, and,’ he added, looking at Lenthall, ‘I desire it may be read openly to all.’

  ‘Pray proceed, sir.’

  Monck b
owed to Lenthall and turned to Clarke who placed his bundle of papers in the General’s hands. Monck began to read.

  ‘It appears to me by what I have heard from you and the whole Nation that the peace and happy settlement of these bleeding Nations, next under God, lieth in your hands. And when I consider that wisdom, piety, and self-denial, which I have reason to be confident lodgeth in you, and how great a share of the Nation’s sufferings will fall upon you, in case the Lord deny us now a settlement, I am in very good hopes there will be found in you all such melting bowels towards these poor Nations, that you will become healers and makers up of all its woeful breaches. And that such an opportunity lies now before you and may clearly appear to be in your hands, I thought it good to assure you, and that in the Presence of God, that I have nothing before mine own eyes but God’s Glory, and the settlement of these Nations, upon Commonwealth foundations.’

  Monck paused, to lay emphasis upon these, his declared wishes.

  ‘Far be it from me to impose anything, I desire you may be in perfect freedom to decide. Only give me leave to remind you that the old foundations are by God’s Providence, so broken, that, in the eye of reason, they cannot be restored but upon the ruins of the people of these Nations…’

  And so it rolled on, page after page of it, in which Monck, in terms of disguised deference, laid out a policy of reform and told the listening Members that writs should be sent out for the a new Parliament which was to assemble no later than the 20th April. In effecting this coup, Monck had eased his own anxieties that the excluded Members would prove overwhelmingly Royalist by accepting advice from Morice and others.

  Three motions were immediately laid before the House: that there would be no change to the form of government from that of a Commonwealth; that the Parliament, having provided for an interim administration, should dissolve itself pending the calling of an election; and that all land grants to army officers in settlement of their services should be confirmed.