Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  As for Doctor Sermon, that worthy did not wish to importune his patient and returned to his practice as soon as he had instructed Doctor Skinner as to the regimen under which Monck must now live. Skinner, though miffed that another had a cure for the dropsy and was but a crude and former soldier with no real pretensions to an understanding of physic, could not gainsay the success of Sermon’s medicine.

  Anne was beside herself with joy, writing to Kit at court that his Daddy was better and that he must come home and discuss his marriage plans. Kit did not need to, for Monck resolved as soon as he could walk half-a-mile with only his cane, he would himself return to London and play whatever part he might in the Privy Council. He was not such a fool as to think that Sermon had prescribed the elixir of youth, but the stay of execution left him bent upon securing a suitable marriage for his beloved son Christopher.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE COCKPIT

  December 1669 – January 1670

  ‘He should have continued with the diet-drink, Your Grace,’ Gumble whispered insistently.

  ‘He would not, Your Grace,’ riposted Skinner as Anne turned upon him, her face a mask of despair. They had been four months in London and by late November her husband had suffered a severe relapse. The news of this soon spread and no-one expected Monck to live much longer, only Anne clinging on to the remotest possibility of a further cure. But if the dying man was to slip quietly from the world he – and Anne – were to be disappointed. A succession of visitors came to pay their last respects. Craven was a daily visitor; Rupert called but Monck was asleep and the Prince forbore waking him. Not so the Duke of York who insisted upon his Royal Presence being made known to Monck, compelling the wretched man to half-rise from the heavily upholstered chair in which he slumped. Arlington came too, and then, with every appearance of genuine humility and contrition, came the King.

  Monck knew him and struggled most ineffectually to make his bow, but the King motioned him to take his ease and took his hand, a chair being swiftly placed beside Monck’s. What words were exchanged were not known, but the King was observed to be weeping when he withdrew, and Monck was afterwards heard by Anne to murmur ‘the Black Boy is a bad King, but a King nonetheless…’

  Now, a sennight later, she looked at her husband and could not bear the sight of him suffering. ‘He should be a-bed,’ she began in an oft-repeated plea, for she could think of nothing else to suggest. Exasperated and at the end of his own tether, Skinner insisted, not for the first time, that: ‘The Duke can no longer breathe reposing on pillows. He must needs sit up to draw breath, Madam.’ Skinner’s tone was firm, conclusive, and he added, ‘there is little more that I can do for him. He passes to the realm of Doctor Gumble; I am sorry for it, Your Grace, but all my skills are exhausted.’ The physician stepped back, revealing the room through the open door. Monck’s man-servant was attempting to array him in something more becoming a wedding than his grubby night-shirt.

  Some attempt had been made to deck The Cockpit for Christmas, though the festivities had amounted to little more than Gumble’s office on the morning of Christ’s birth. Monck had spoken not a word throughout the whole day but he had rallied the following morning, St Stephen’s Day, when, summoning Matthew Lock and Gumble, he passed word for several Members of Parliament to attend him. This being done he held a fully sentient discussion about the nation’s finances which was full of good sense. The following day, Gumble was instructed to summon the Duke’s lawyers and Monck’s affairs were set in order to the advantage of his son Kit, the arrangements for his heir’s anticipated wedding then being settled.

  ‘He has worked hard enough for it,’ Gumble grumbled, having previously had long and somewhat tortuous discussions with the Duke over his final testament. Gumble had discovered that Monck had made his will hurriedly before hoisting his flag in the summer of 1666 and that he, Gumble, now advised Monck to redraft it before it was too late. Gumble urged Monck to establish a hospital for old soldiers. ‘There is sufficient for your son’s inheritance and Her Grace’s maintenance and a hospital would prove a legacy that will remain ever to your glory as of the first soldier of the age,’ the divine had insisted. Monck had scoffed at the notion of being thus remembered, not holding to any such opinion of his own standing, but he had at first promised to consider the idea. It appealed to him, but he knew it would not appeal to Anne whose thoughts were all for her boy and his future prospects. Instead of a refuge for old and decayed soldiers, the entire Monck inheritance was laid out as a lure for a bride and in this, the too-devoted parents thought, they been successful. After the customary negotiations they had secured a worthy partner for Kit in the comely person of the merry-eyed fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of Lord Ogle.

  After the will had been settled to Gumble’s disappointment on the 27th, the Reverend Doctor had come to Monck to discuss the state of his soul and his preparations for death. Gumble, returning to his theme of greatness by way of consolation, remarked that some people in Chelsea had seen a great meteor as large as the full moon streak through the sky the previous night. Monck had chuckled wheezily and said such portents did not mark his life, though the turning of the weather and the melting of the Christmas frost would likely mark his passing.

  ‘I have some confession to make,’ he breathed as Gumble bent to hear him. ‘I have been a violent man in my time, Doctor. Say some prayer for my redemption upon that issue, but speak not of it to anyone.’

  The day of the wedding having been fixed for the 30th, there were those that despaired of it, because for the next two days Monck sat as still and white as a corpse. On the 29th there arrived a number of Army officers who reported to Lock, still the Lord-General’s Military Secretary. To a man they all signified their joint desire to stand an honour guard upon the Lord-General’s person until the passing of his great soul. Lock noted the disparate loyalties of these men, several being Dissenters and men whom Monck had once dismissed. Among them was his former adjutant, Jeremiah Smith. Late that same night came another visitor, announced by his high-pitched Welsh voice: General Sir Thomas Morgan strode impatiently into the room and asked to be conducted into the Lord-General’s presence immediately.

  ‘Sir, he sleeps,’ said Lock, rising to greet so distinguished an officer.

  ‘I am from St Helier,’ Morgan said, ‘and if you can give me assurance, I shall come back on the morrow.’

  ‘I think it unlikely he will pass tonight, Sir Thomas, but one can never be certain.’

  ‘Then I will take my chance,’ responded the Governor of the Channel Islands, turning away but nodding to some among the assembled officers.

  As Anne and Skinner stared through the open door that following morning, they were aware of a presence behind them. Anne turned to recognise the diminutive figure she had last seen in Dalkeith.

  ‘Sir Thomas! You are come!’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace. I am told your boy is to be wed this day. Would my presence offend…?’

  ‘No, no, Sir Thomas, and it would greatly please the Duke. Do pray make yourself known to him, he barely sleeps, perhaps not a full hour in a fortnight, but his mind is clear. He is better today for he senses its importance though he struggles to get into a shirt.’ Anne’s mood was over light, brittle, she must need run to her maids to have her own person made ready.

  Morgan entered the room and saw Monck propped vertical in a great chair which over-flowed with cushions and pillows. He was fat beyond imagination, his face puffy, its lines flattened, his eyes inflamed, tiny yet still chips of fire and ice.

  ‘Tom!’ Monck could barely speak his old friend’s name but he raised a pudgy hand and Morgan seized it.

  ‘Indeed I should have killed thee at Nantwich when I attacked with Fairfax, George, to spare you this agony…’ There were tears in the Welshman’s eyes as he shoved aside the struggling man-servant and helped Monck to dress after a fashion.

  An hour later, the Lord-General sat in some splendour. ‘Almost enthroned,’ Gumble remar
ked afterwards, ‘as was no more than his due, and with his Duchess beside him upon one side and his son the groom upon the other, all hand-in-hand.’

  Anne wore green, her wide skirt bespangled with pearls, her hair upon her head and thick with diamonds. The young groom wore white silk doublet and hose, his shirt slashed with scarlet. His shoes were white silk, his high cork heels covered in scarlet morocco. He too was covered in diamonds.

  The bride, when she arrived, eclipsed them all by her grace. Monck, relinquishing Anne, took Elizabeth’s and joined it to Kit’s, thereafter surrendering the business to Gumble and his fellow clerics. When it was over and the bride and groom withdrew, Monck fell into a brief doze, waking with a start and complaining of gun-fire. All next day, the 31st, Monck was restless and ill-at-ease, and on the 1st January he received the Sacrament from Gumble. When word of this was heard in the ante-chamber all the Army officers, led by Morgan and Smith, came into the room uninvited as a body, ranging themselves about the awful figure. Other men came and went, including several members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, to stand silent before him to pay their deepest respects. Among them was Lord Arlington, who assured all Monck’s anxious household that he would see to their care after their Lord’s death.

  Throughout the 2nd Monck sat thus in state, his old comrades standing about him as though on guard. Someone remarked quietly that the fanatics had prophesied that Monck would not die in his bed, to which another responded that it was appropriate that he should die standing as though to arms. Otherwise all was silent bar the weeping of Anne. All through that day and the following night, a score of men stood about the dying man so that Gumble, attentive to the last in the matter of performing his offices, had to shoulder his way through them.

  ‘There was in this apparent gross irreverence,’ he said afterwards to the King who enquired of him all the details of Monck’s death, ‘so great a worship to so great a spirit that I was fain to dismiss them.’

  Then, between eight and nine of the morning of the 3rd, almost ten years to the moment when Monck had sat his horse in the snow upon the tump south of Coldstream to watched his small Army begin its march south, he stirred and groaned. Every man present held his own breath, so that the death-rattle was audible to all.

  There was a prolonged silence, as if no man wished to acknowledge the inevitable for which all had been waiting. Then the corpse slumped inelegantly sideways, threatening to slide to the floor. Morgan’s sharp Welsh voice ordered the body eased to the floor and laid out, arms by its side, like a soldier fallen upon the field of battle. Then he commanded: ‘Open the window!’

  Gumble, throwing wide the casement to permit the escape of Monck’s soul, noticed a thaw had set in. ‘I will inform Her Grace,’ he said, turning back into the room.

  ‘That is for me to do,’ responded Morgan imperiously, going in search of Anne.

  He found her in her bed-chamber, fully dressed but asleep in a chair, exhausted by her long vigil.

  ‘Madam,’ he called, shaking her gently. ‘It is over.’

  Anne’s shriek pierced the ears of all who heard it. She rushed into the chamber and threw herself on top of Monck’s body. It was signal for the officers to withdraw. Leaving the widow to Gumble, Morgan bent and touched Anne’s shoulder.

  ‘God bless, Your Grace. He was among the greatest of men.’ Then, taking one final look at his fallen chief, Morgan left The Cockpit.

  As she had foretold, Anne did not long survive her husband. She lived to learn that upon the death of her husband the King had immediately bestowed Monck’s Garter on their son and that, as the Court went into Mourning, His Majesty declared a State Funeral. But she was also told that this was to be postponed for lack of funds and so she took to her bed, refused food and died three weeks later.

  EPILOGUE – WESTMINSTER

  30 April 1670

  Ensign John Churchill’s shoes pinched him and his feet hurt like the devil. He stared up at the loom of the twin towers of Westminster Abbey and gave fervent thanks that the column of march would shortly reach its destination.

  The head of the long funeral procession had passed the Abbey’s west door when, at a given command of double drum beats, it halted. On a stentorian shout the entire formation faced left as, above their heads, the Abbey bells tolled. The senior officers, their swords reversed, now flourished them in magnificent salute; the swish of gilded hilts up to their lips, then out and down in that elegant sweeping extension into seconde, followed by the reverse, their pointes swung over to stab the gravelled thoroughfare. With their swords vertical, their gauntleted hands crossed upon their pommels, they bowed their heads in tribute.

  Slowly, the rear section of the procession detached, passing the stationary troops and moving solemnly towards the opened west door of the Abbey with its waiting cluster of clergy coped and mitred in cloth-of-gold. It was led by a multitude of attendants comprising poor men in gowns and followed by His Grace of Albemarle’s dozen watermen and their master. Next came trumpeters, fifers and drummers under a drum-major; then standard-bearers, heralds and pursuivants; knights of the Garter and the Bath, the sons of the nobility; the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; forty officers who had attended the Duke’s lying-in-state at Somerset House; the Clerk of Parliament; the Judge of the Court of Admiralty; the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, bishops and banners, all preceding the symbols of the dead man’s state: his sword, his achievements, a seemingly endless stream of splendour, colour and pomp.

  The young ensign watched entranced, his heart racing. This was indeed a moment.

  Next, drawn by six black plumed and mantled horses, came the creaking funeral car surmounted by a catafalque beneath the canopy of which lay the effigy of the deceased: His Grace the Duke of Albemarle, resplendent in gilt armour, bearing his baton, his ducal coronet upon his head, his rich blue Garter robe wound about him.

  After this came the Chief Mourning Horse preceding the Chief Mourner, his Grace’s son and successor, Christopher, Second Duke of Albemarle, wearing the Garter taken from his father’s body and sent to him by order of the King as a mark of His Majesty’s profound esteem.

  From within the Abbey, where the King and Court awaited this pompous arrival, came the sound of trumpets, a mournful fanfare to mark the solemnity. And then, following Albemarle’s supporters, there walked a dozen robed peers and the Horse of Honour, a huge black stallion richly caparisoned with crimson velvet. Finally, drawing rein and stopping abreast of the Coldstreamers, the Duke’s own troop of Horse who, with the stolid Coldstreamers, had crossed the Tweed that January morning ten years earlier when the dead man had saved the Three Nations from anarchy.

  The main column of stationary troops waited until the last of the final funeral procession had entered the Abbey before they were stood easy. The young ensign expelled his breath in a long exhalation. Outside the Abbey’s west door the last of the Duke’s magnificent chargers pawed the ground and tossed its splendid head.

  Like so many of the gawping multitude, John Churchill had never in his life seen anything quite so magnificent. And all in honour of a dead man! A meteor, he somewhat fancifully thought to himself, contemplating the rise of the great man whose actual corporeal remains had been quietly interred within the Abbey the previous day. Yes, that was it – a meteor! A meteor fallen to earth: that had been the life of General George Monck. Did they not say one had been seen in London a few days before his death? The metaphor pleased and provoked Churchill. He felt the prickle of an unaccountable jealousy. Why? Was it because it had been the times that had made the man? And now such times of turbulence as Monck had endured had passed and there was no such exciting avenue of life down which the young and ambitious John Churchill, Ensign in His Majesty’s First Regiment of Foot Guards, could dash to some similar glory; was that what troubled him?

  What, the seventeen year-old wondered impatiently, did the future hold for him? And did the question which had tormented him the entire forenoon – when did a man sense his ow
n destiny? – constitute of its own accord that sense of destiny he so desired?

  ‘Perhaps,’ answered a voice in his head. ‘Perhaps.’

  And then it struck him that he was seeking the wrong thing. A man could not sense his own destiny, but he might hold to one who had gone before, study him, emulate him and – again perhaps – that convergence of events and opportunity that produced the right man at the right time might, as it had done George Monck, ask greatness of him.

  He looked down the long column of men, standing to arms as, from within the Abbey, the sound of the choir came faintly to them accompanied by the soft whinny of the horses and the creak of harness. The pain of his wrecked feet and the misery of poverty struck him again; he let his mind wander as he waited the order to march off. He dreamed of fields of battle and bloody slaughter, of a great house filled with plate and paintings of military triumph such as Albemarle was said to have had, and he imagined himself in full wig and half-armour, himself the saviour of a nation. He must study the dead man’s achievements; seek the secrets of his reputed methods; he had heard of a book of military ‘observations’ written by Albemarle.

  And then, mused the future Duke of Marlborough ruefully, perhaps then destiny would look favourably upon him.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I hope you have enjoyed reading all three of these short novellas about George Monck, one of the most under-valued personages in British history. I first came across him years ago and I dine occasionally beneath his portrait. He popped up in some research I was doing for a history book and I subsequently gave him a cameo part in the novels I wrote about Christopher (Kit) Faulkner (A Ship for the King, For King or Commonwealth and The King’s Chameleon, all published by Severn House). There are a number of biographies of Monck but all suffer from a paucity of information and without exception, I thought, lost something of the man by relying upon the handful of anecdotes about him which remain to us. His first biographer was his chaplain Thomas Gumble and I have drawn from his panegyric, as have his two most distinguished successors, Sir Julian Corbett (Monck, 1899) and more recently Peter Reece (The Life of General George Monck, 2008). Despite the lack of detail available, Monck’s life, lived in one of the most extreme and turbulent periods in British history, was absolutely chock-full of incident and I have invented little in the principal events that bore down upon him during his extraordinary life, and omitted more. As a novelist I have in fact done little more than fill in a few gaps, simplify the turbulent whirl of the history – particularly the political history, which is complex beyond belief – and give to Monck and those about him my own interpretation of what they might have been like, given the evidence I had to hand. This I sought always to render from the perspective of Monck himself, or that of his clique.