Sword of State: The Wielding

by Richard Woodman

  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 bowed 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.

  Only this last was refused, on the grounds that the Parliament, as was then composed, had not the authority to do so. Monck, in repudiation of those slanders that he was greedy, readily agreed this matter could be carried over. As Monck was preparing to withdraw he was detained by Lenthall.

  ‘Pray, a moment, sir,’ Lenthall said, assiduously avoiding the use of any title. He then addressed the House. ‘I lay before you the motion that for the quietude of the Nation, George Monck be returned to his high office of Lord-General.’

  The cries of ‘Aye! Aye!’ caused Monck to bow first to the Speaker and then the benches.

  On this satisfactory conclusion of business, Monck rode directly back to Draper’s Hall where, in his absence, every Regimental commander available within riding distance, and including some nominally under the orders of Charles Fleetwood, were assembled in the hall. Hot from Westminster, he called them to order.

  ‘I have summoned you to inform you that this afternoon the Parliament has restored me to the post of Lord-General of the Armies of England, Ireland and Scotland. As such, I can assure you all that in recalling the excluded Members my intention has been solely to dissolve the Rump and to set in train the sending out of writs for the calling of a new Parliament. That you may have heard I have today failed to secure you your rights need not disturb you at this time. Within two months these matters will be settled by a new Parliament and I must ask for your further patience until your debentures can be settled properly. This goes for all arrears of pay to you and your men. It is my desire that you make this known without equivocation to your troops. Understand this: it is necessary that such forms be followed lest imputations of over-bearing are laid upon us as soldiers, and that I shall not tolerate, the Army always being subordinate to the civil power.

  ‘As to other matters, I can assure you that only a government conforming to a proper Commonwealth under a full and free Parliament will be an acceptable settlement. Moreover and in the most particular, whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, anyone disturbing the peace of the Three Nations on behalf of Charles Stuart shall be deemed guilty of High Treason. Likewise any man who seeks to place his ambition above the rule of law as presently given under God’s Providence. These remarks and instructions will be presently conveyed in writing to all garrisons and detachments throughout the Three Nations.

  ‘Amen.’

  This speech was greeted by ‘Amens’ and smiles, most of the officers there being men of Monck’s Army and largely of his own mind. Later that evening, in addition to written copies of his Order of the Day, he sent junior officers of his own Horse to secure the retreat of Colonel Robert Lilburne to his North Yorkshire estate, and the person of John Lambert who was taken to The Tower. A strongly worded order was sent out to all Colonels to maintain tight discipline and guard against subversion and debauchery. With that Monck bid Clarke, Morice, Knight and the rest good night.

  Clarke watched him go with a sigh. ‘Will that suffice?’ asked Colonel Knight.

  ‘I doubt it,’ answered Clarke. ‘Not until Sir Arthur Haselrig follows Johnnie Lambert into protective custody.’

  *

  It was early, sunrise yet an hour distant, but Monck could not sleep. He stood at the window of his working chamber in The Cockpit and stared down into the grey yard below. The March gale blew some de
bris, leaves mainly, round and round in the far corner, mirroring the turmoil and indecision in Monck’s mind. A little over a month earlier he had come to London to settle the affairs of the Three Nations and now it seemed to him in that twilit hour that he had not merely achieved nothing, but so confused matters as to make them irredeemable. True, he had at last encompassed a path towards a Parliament better representing the ambitions of the people, but he knew that his attempts to exclude those sober gentlemen of the shires who espoused the cause of the exiled Charles Stuart would be returned in any election and that the assurances that he had given to the Army to this effect would make a liar of him. If he could not see this himself, William Morice had assured him it was so, and Morice was as astute a politician as Monck was a brilliant soldier. Clarges, with his ear to the Cities of London and Westminster rather than the wider country had confirmed what Morice said: the slightest spark of Royalist favour would catch a powder train alight and that would set the whole ablaze. The looming horror of a renewed civil war was the sole matter that kept George Monck at his post.

  Only the day before Colonel Okey, a republican fanatic and hand-holder of Haselrig, had led a deputation of like-minded officers to see him. They had flatly refused to accept any government constituted under the authority of ‘a single person,’ by which they meant either Charles Stuart or George Monck. He and Clarke had placated them, given assurances that Monck himself had no ambitions to crown himself, nor that he had any intercourse with the agents of ‘King’ Charles who were said to be in London. Okey and his delegation had withdrawn, suspicious but mollified, if only for the time being. Much could happen in a few days, but that was the trouble. Monck sighed; he felt the burden of his vast responsibilities not because they were heavy, but because they were political.

  ‘Are you well, sweetheart?’

  Startled, he turned and saw Anne at the open doorway. She came in, a shawl about her shoulders over her night-gown, her brown hair, flecked with grey, wispy about her face.

  ‘Nan, Nan, did I wake you?’

  She came to him, he put his arm about her and she her head on his shoulder. ‘You are troubled by matters of state…’ It was a statement, not a question, and he grunted his acknowledgement of it.

  ‘Such matters have kept us apart too much,’ she added, referring to his quartering in the City.

  ‘Such matters are unavoidable,’ he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘What is to become of us?’ The fear of awful consequences was in her tone and he soothed her.

  ‘You and the boy will be alright. You have Potheridge and good men like Morice and Clarke about you…’

  ‘I do not care about that. Not now, not this minute. I care about us.’

  Monck was silent for a moment, staring out of the window as the light grew. ‘If I open my heart to you, you must say nothing of it, Anne, nothing. You have been indiscreet and there are those who pick up your unguarded remarks and use them against me, so for the sake of little Kit as much as you and I, what I say now must lie betwixt us.

  ‘Of course.’ She looked up at him, suddenly as awed as she had been that day in The Tower when she had first encountered Monck and recognised him for a great man. ‘I promise.’

  ‘I can see only one way out of all this scheming,’ he began tentatively. ‘And that is to admit that you are right…’

  ‘The King?’

  ‘The King…’ He paused. ‘I do not want this, but there is no alternative. The King is seen as the only power that can hold these Nations together…’

  ‘For better or for worse,’ Anne added.

  ‘Aye, and I fear for worse unless we can bring him to heel for his father could not be trusted and for that reason lost his head along with his crown and Kingdom.’

  She remained silent and he looked down at her, expecting some small manifestation of triumph, for such a possibility would, he knew well, kindle all her old avarice. But she stared up at him, her face pale in the dawn, and he read fear in her eyes; she knew what incarceration in The Tower meant, and she knew the consequences of a proven charge of High Treason.

  ‘If,’ he said quietly, ‘Prince Charles returns to become King, there will be a price to be paid. The surviving Regicides will hang at the very least. Men like Colonel Okey who was but lately here… Lambert, Harrison, Ingoldsby and all the others…’

  ‘And those like you who have steadfastly opposed the cause of the Royalists? What of them?’

  ‘If he wishes to avoid further strife, he must abate whatever malice he feels…’

  ‘He will need advisors, men of honour, men like you George, men like you…’

  ‘But I…’

  She pulled away from him and confronted him, her arms encircling his ample waist, drawing him towards her and looking up at him. Suddenly changed, she perceived a possible future both for herself and her own ambitions, but also a future which might – just might - answer for reasons of state. ‘Do you make it known, George, that you see no alternative but the return of the King, but then impose such conditions upon Charles Stuart that he durst not disregard them.’

  ‘Me?’ He was incredulous. ‘You think me capable of such… such intrigue… such influence upon a Stuart?’

  ‘You, George, are capable of anything. You do not know your own weight. No-one in the whole country, not Fairfax who hides away in Yorkshire, not Haselrig who is extreme, not Lambert who is in The Tower where he belongs, not Fleetwood who has been but a name for too long, not… not…’

  He smiled as she ran out of names. ‘You forget those in Ireland, the Earls of Glencairn and Middleton, even Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, Archibald Cameron of Argyll…’

  ‘Pah!’ she said, ‘they are nothing.’

  He considered her proposition for some moments. ‘I must strengthen my hold on the Army,’ he said after a few moments rumination. ‘Those elements of it beyond my own direct command…’

  ‘Yes, yes. Do that, George. Bind the Army to yourself. Purge it and bind it close. You presently hold the title and authority of Lord-General, the men know you, trust you…’

  He pushed her gently aside, catching the fire of her enthusiasm. It was as though scales had dropped from his eyes for all that it meant breaking his assurances to Okey and his crew. Still, that revelation was yet some time away, and in the meanwhile he must move against those whose ambitions held to what they called ‘the good old cause’ of English republicanism. That it was a deceptive misnomer was a matter for cleverer minds than his to argue over. He knew it spoke for a despotism perhaps worse than a Stuart King who might be persuaded to take some advice from the man who had made clear his path.

  Well, well, so be it. Monck drew in his breath then looked at his wife. Backed against the window, Anne saw the change her words had wrought in her husband. She remained fearful of the future, but less of her husband’s vacillating, for she had an immense faith in both his star and his common sense.

  ‘Go, get thee dressed, Nan. I have work to do.’

  It was as if that dawn conversation between husband and wife somehow changed things, though in truth what transpired was no more than an unravelling of consequences as events unrolled and parties manoeuvred, their intentions surfacing. While between the dissolution of the Rump and the calling of the new Parliament, Monck and the Council of State held together an interim government, matters remained as uncertain as ever. Letters came from Yorkshire warning Monck to be on his guard against assassination, word having reached the Fairfaxes that there were those who believed Monck intended to seize the Crown for himself. But letters came too from the troops occupying outlying towns, pledging their loyalty to the Lord-General, even though they crossed gallopers carrying orders for certain senior officers of known views to be removed, their commissions cancelled and their posts filled by others. In this Mr Speaker Lenthall proved accommodating.

  It was now, on the eve of the sending out of the writs for the recalling of the Parliament, that Monck remembered another matter in which
he fully asserted his near-regal powers. On a dark afternoon in March, he called for an escort and rode to The Tower.

  ‘I know thee, sir.’ The old turnkey held the lantern to Monck’s deeply lined face.

  ‘And I know thee, fellow. Now stand aside and conduct me to Bishop Wren.’

  The gaoler turned without another word and led Monck to St Thomas’s Tower. When admitted to the divine’s presence, Monck made a bow.

  ‘General Monck!’ Wren rose from his table, his arms out-stretched. He had been writing, a quill and ink-well sat on his desk alongside a prayer-book and sheaves of paper. His cell was lined with book shelves which, with a five-branched candelabra, gave the chamber an almost homely air. ‘Why, what a pleasure. Pray, do sit down, sir. May I offer you some wine?’

  ‘Thank you, no, My Lord Bishop. I came to tell you that on my authority you are to be released.’

  ‘Released?’ The notion seemed to astonish Wren and he seemed flummoxed, distracted even, turning aside and motioning Monck to his desk. ‘I recall you wrote a book while you were here. I have done the same. Well, not a book, but I have undertaken the revision of the Book of Common Prayer.’

  Monck stared down at the closely written sheets of paper, reading the words: It is meet, right and our bounden duty to give thanks to God…

  Even as he cast his eyes over Wren’s careful hand, a tear plopped on the page and the words ‘bounden duty’ grew blurred and indistinct. Monck placed his hand upon Wren’s shaking shoulder as the man sniffed and incredulously repeated the single word: ‘Released?’