There was a dreadful, pregnant pause. Then Lochiel took the initiative: ‘God save King Charles!’ he called out.
Again, there was a moment’s hesitation and then it was over. Some were openly weeping, some were smiling, but all gave out the shout – ‘God save the King!’
‘Will ye declare for the King at once, Your Excellency?’
‘Aye! Aye!’ There was an encouraging chorus of assent for this new notion, designed, no doubt, to place the restoration of the King upon the swords of the Army.
Monck shook his head. ‘No gentlemen, this must – it has to be – based on the wishes of Parliament.’
A thoughtful quiet greeted the suppression of this impulsive request before the cleverer among them saw point of Monck’s argument. They shuffled awkwardly, their eventual agreement coming – like a Quaker decision, Clarke remarked later – from their wordless consent.
One-by-one they left as one-by-one they had come in. All of them came and shook his hand, some with the tears wet on their weather-beaten cheeks, some unable to meet Monck’s own watery blue eyes. Some could not speak, others muttered their apologies at having raised the matter, others merely murmured their farewells. Monck himself could scarcely bear it.
Apart from Clarges and Clarke who remained in the room after they had all departed, Lochiel was the last to leave.
‘Ye’d never ha’e held Scotland, George, though Ah’d never ha’e turned a hand agin thee.’
‘I know that Ewan,’ growled the old man, thinking – as Lochiel was thinking - of Argyll, plotting and awaiting the turn of the tide in his castle at Inverary. ‘In truth I was never tempted, though I am flattered, ’tis to be sure.’
‘What man wouldna be? They love thee, George, they love thee. ’Tis a pity ye gave that pair o’ birds to Lambert. You’ll be having some time on your hands now. Maybe I’ll send thee another brace an’ ye can hunt frae your horse doon in that Devon o’ yours.’
‘You have made straight the King’s path, sir,’ Clarke said when Lochiel had gone. Monck noted the tears in his Secretary’s eyes.
‘I did not carry him in my belly, as they are saying, Will.’
‘I know that, and so, too, do many others.’ Clarke looked at Clarges who shrugged.
Monck grunted and cleared his throat. ‘Call the courier. He has been waiting long enough, and get those papers sent to King Charles,’ Monck indicated the pile of signed declarations awaiting dispatch to Breda. Clarke nodded, but did not move, as though the recent event had paralysed him and Monck saw the exhaustion in his haggard features.
He looked from Clarke to Clarges and growled at them.
‘Which of you is going to tell Mistress Monck she is not to be Queen, eh?’
‘I will, George,’ said Clarges with a smile, ‘out of brotherly love.’
‘Go to it. Then I have other work for you.’ Clarges left the room and Monck put his hand on Clarke’s shoulder. ‘Tom Clarges shall be my ambassador to Charles Stuart. Do not take offence at it, Will. It strikes me that you are ill.’
Clarke shook his head. ‘Tired, sir. That is all. Just dog-tired. And I have a wife.’
‘Well, you may sleep soundly with her tonight. I think we have secured the loyalty of the one part of our new King’s realm that might have disrupted his restoration.’
Clarke nodded and Monck sighed. ‘Something troubles you, sir?’ Clarke enquired.
‘Only the prospect of facing my own wife,’ he grunted, stuffing a quid of tobacco into his cheek.
*
‘Bishop Wren! I was not expecting you but you are welcome. Will you take a glass of wine?’
‘Thank you, yes, Your Excellency. Your Secretary was kind enough to recall me.’
‘You have heard the news. Is that what brings you here?’
‘My heart is over-full, General Monck. I felt my thanks at your good offices in my behalf were inadequate upon the occasion of your visit, so I thought it best if I delayed any effusion of gratitude until I might seek an opportunity to express my sentiments adequately, embracing all your achievements, rather than only those impinging upon myself. It seems that you have accomplished everything.’
Monck shrugged. ‘My brother-in-law goes to Breda shortly and I expect him to communicate the King’s mind without delay. Sir Edward Montagu is ordered to prepare a squadron suitable for His Majesty’s reception and conveyance hither when the word is given. Such matters I tell you in confidence. As for yourself, I think it, er, meet, right and your bounden duty to prepare an Office in the Abbey church at Westminster to the celebration of His Majesty’s Restoration. I shall prepare an order for that and you may confer with the Dean and Chapter.’
‘That I shall do with great diligence and pleasure, sir. Perhaps, when matters are more settled and the King is upon the throne of his father, you might commend my prayer book…’
‘I shall do whatever lies in my power, My Lord Bishop, but I remind you that there is yet much hostility to the notion of Episcopalianism. Indeed, I myself –’
‘Are Presbyterian, I recall it, sir, but I am hopeful… Oh, I am hopeful!’
*
‘Your Excellency comes again.’ The old turnkey made an obsequious bow and made way for Monck. ‘You’ll be wanting to see General Lambert.’
‘Quite so.’
Monck nodded at the young Cornet who had commanded his escort and had directed the sentries at The Tower’s Lion Gate to make way for the Lord-General. They had stood aside smartly enough as Monck and the half-troop of his Life-guard walked their horses into The Tower’s precincts; it was after dark and the imposition of the curfew, but Monck’s name still ran as law throughout London and no opposition was presented. His face was known to all, even in the half-darkness. Monck had dismounted, handed his reins to one of the accompanying troopers and waited with the young cavalry officer while a summons was sent for the state-gaoler.
‘Pass my compliments to Colonel Morley, the Constable,’ Monck said to the attending Cornet as he saw the gaoler approaching. ‘Ask him to excuse my not calling upon him, but this is a private visit.’
Having again recognised his former prisoner, the gaoler led Monck up a familiar flight of stairs in St Thomas’s Tower. He knew before they reached the barred door that Lambert would be in the cell that he had once occupied; such deep coincidences were decreed by God’s Providence and simply had to be. The bolts were drawn and the heavy keys turned in the two locks. Lambert sat at the same table at which Monck had compiled his Observations upon Military and Political Affairs. He appeared to be reading by the light of a single candle. An empty plate with cutlery, a flagon and pewter pot lay beside him. He looked round at his visitor and, having recognised him, stood up.
‘General Monck. I had not expected you. You have come to gloat, no doubt.’
Monck ignored the slight. ‘I am sorry to find you here, General Lambert. Truly sorry. Have you everything you desire for your comfort?’
‘What if I had not?’
‘I should provide it for you,’ Monck replied simply.
‘Is it true what they say, that you have made way for Charles Stuart?’
‘Parliament has provided for the Restoration of the Monarchy, yes…’
‘So you turned your coat again.’
‘One does what is necessary General Lambert, having fixed before one’s eyes only the general welfare, the freedom and rights of the Three Nations from arbitrary and tyrannical usurpations.’ Monck’s tone was firm, reasonable, even. He was not going to rise to any ground-bait thrown by the self-regarding Lambert. Lambert stared at him with contempt but Monck had not finished. ‘Your own espousal of the good old cause meant power for the Army’s most senior officers, of which you were one. Do not pretend to me that you, or any of the radicals, could have administered affairs without one of you assuming Oliver’s mantle of power: You, Johnnie. You. To say otherwise would be ridiculous.’
‘I might have thought more of you had you assumed Oliver’s mantle yourse
lf. You might even have made yourself King George.’
‘Better a change of heart than so arrogant an assumption.’
Lambert stared at Monck, incredulous, then unable to fathom the grim old man who stood before him, he changed his tack, lowering his sights to the personal, seeking to wound wherever he might. ‘You have always hated me… Been jealous of me.’
Monck cut in. ‘Pray, do not resort to such childish nonsense. I have never been jealous of you,’ Monck admitted, ‘though you have been a thorn in my side often enough.’
‘No, no, George. You have hated me ever since Dunbar.’
‘’Tis true Oliver gave you a disproportionate share of the glory, yes, but I have never had the time to hate you, John.’ Monck paused, then thrust home: ‘Generally speaking, I found myself too occupied with affairs left to me by your own lack of experience.’ Lambert blenched at the slight, but said nothing; no-one had ever previously accused him of incompetence. But Monck went on relentlessly. ‘Indeed, I came tonight to warn you that you are likely to be charged with High Treason when the King is restored. I may myself suffer such a fate but, if Charles Stuart holds to his promises, I shall do what I can for you. However, I can make no promises. Well knowing your plight from mine own experiences in this place, I am solicitous for your comfort. You have escaped once, if you attempt it again and are retaken a second time, I cannot answer for the consequences.’
Even in the guttering flame of the single candle Monck could see Lambert’s face was drained of colour. He had been richly humiliated, arriving in London under Ingoldsby’s escort at the very moment that Monck was concluding a review of the mobilised trained-bands upon the greensward of Hyde Park. Near fourteen thousand men had been drawn up in scarlet and blue, and their acclamations of fierce loyalty rent the air. Lambert, riding at Ingoldsby’s knee in the very shadow of Tyburn’s gallows, his scabbard at his hip empty of its surrendered sword, heard the shouts for King Charles, saw men on their knees pledging their loyalty, heard the hurrahs for Monck and was forced to ride past as men recognised him in what must have seemed to the humiliated general a coup de théâtre. Poor Lambert almost choked on the recollection.
‘Oh yes, John, all our actions have consequences,’ Monck went on, ‘something you radicals never quite understood, making that most common error in believing that good fortune was God’s reward for virtue.’ Monck paused, watching the impact of his words on Lambert.
‘That is blasphemy. All is God’s will.’
‘Perhaps,’ Monck went on drily, ‘But most, in my experience, is commonly simply luck, though a man may seek to forge a little of it by hard work. As for the King, he returns bid to do so by a free and full Parliament accompanied by many declarations and addresses of loyalty coming in from all parts of,’ Monck paused, a half-smile on his face as he laid emphasis upon the noun, ‘…the Kingdom. He will – he must, unlike his father - defer to the wishes of Parliament. To this end he has given an undertaking and will affirm it by an oath.’
‘I thought you did not believe in oaths,’ murmured Lambert, recovering some of his wits.
‘I do not have to, John. But Kings tend to, and that is what matters, is it not?’
‘You have put the clock back these twenty years.’
Monck shook his head. ‘No, we have not. It was you and your hot-headed accomplices that sought to impose too unsupportable a burden upon your fellow countrymen.’ And then Monck forsook his reasonable, avuncular tone; an edge of deep anger entering his voice, making a deep impression on John Lambert. ‘Great heavens, you could not agree but fell to senseless bickering, one crying for this, another for that! No wonder Oliver despaired of you all! Would that Oliver had himself laid out a better succession than his unfortunate son! The bitter truth is that you misplayed your hand!’
Again Lambert stared at Monck, astonished at the political shrewdness of a man whose abilities he had hitherto considered limited to plain soldiering. Monck had touched a nerve made raw by the collapse of Lambert’s cause, his party and his personal ambition. In the face of Monck’s remark he could only say: ‘Be careful of this King.’ He spat out the noun with contempt. ‘Be careful that he doth not deceive you.’
‘As you would most certainly have done, eh?’ Monck shrugged. ‘Methinks it is better to be eaten by a lion, that by rats, mice and lice.’
Lambert, who had sustained himself thus far with notions that matters remained in flux, that the wheel of fortune might still turn in his favour, now knew that this was the end. Monck, whom he had never truly liked, had not seized the power that he might have done – and as Lambert would have had he had the opportunity open to Monck. But Lambert’s vaunting ambition now, like Babel’s tower, crashed into the arid dust of disappointment. He sought bitter words with which to sting his tormentor: ‘Okey escaped,’ he muttered.
‘What’s that?’
‘I hear Colonel Okey escaped Dick Ingoldsby, George,’ Lambert sneered. It was the desperate threat of a finished man. ‘You have not seen the end of all this yet.’
Monck stared at him, his eyes ice-blue. ‘Perhaps not the very end, Johnnie,’ he responded in like vein, plucking vulgarity out of his old campaigner’s lexicon: ‘But the arse is followed only by the tail. What can Okey do but quail? I hear he has gone into Holland with other Regicides. If the King wishes them sought out, there will be little I can do about it…’
‘Would you do anything?’ Lambert’s tone was sarcastic.
‘I would have saved you from yourself, John,’ Monck said quietly. ‘Assuming we may turn aside the King’s vengeance for your bollocks and entrails, you are like to be here for a long time. You may not recall the Laudian bishop Matthew Wren, but he was held in a cell hard-by this one for some seventeen… eighteen years, and not by any King.’ Monck paused, letting the blow fall as gently as may be, but seeing the shadow of long incarceration fall across Lambert’s features. Monck made for the door, knocking for the turnkey. ‘Pray do you send to me if there are books or anything similar that might ease your plight.’ Lambert turned his head and saw Monck’s smile. It was not unkind. George Monck did not gloat, a realisation that somehow worsened Lambert’s pain.
As the noise of the keys turning in the locks broke the silence fallen between them, Monck said, ‘I truly do not like to see you thus circumstanced, John.’
‘Get out!’ Lambert’s tone was half-strangled.
Monck shrugged, turned to leave, then stopped in the doorway and swung round. ‘Tell me something: what did you do with that pair of fine Gyr falcons I sent you?’
‘Wh… what?’ Lambert recovered himself with an effort. ‘The birds? Why, I set them free. I had no use for them. Why do you ask?’
‘To remind you that I once extended the hand of friendship to you. I do not hate you, General Lambert. At least, from time-to-time do me the honour of remembering that.’
The two men regarded each other for long moment as both awaited the opening of the cell door. Nothing more could pass between them; Monck was finished with John Lambert; for all the man’s cleverness, he had indeed deceived himself.
CHAPTER FOUR – DOVER AND CANTERBURY
May 1660
‘Sir, there is a courier come directly from Dover. The King will not land without General Monck to receive him.’ Clarke stood before him in his bed-chamber of the inn at Canterbury, a half-smile hovering on his face.
A weary Monck looked up from his breakfast. He had not slept well, his legs ached, he felt overborne by troubles, and he sighed deeply. ‘God’s blood, Will, have I not laboured enough to bring these events forth? I am pressed from every corner by opportunists! Even God Almighty took the seventh day for rest.’
‘I fear, sir, the King will allow you little rest until he is crowned, and perhaps not even then.’
Monck stared at him a moment, then nodded, for Clarke face also bore the imprint of weariness. ‘God save you are wrong. Have the coach made ready.’
‘The ostlers are already putting the horses t
o, sir, and Mister Morice and Doctor Gumble await your pleasure below.’
‘Very well.’ Monck stood and leaned on the table, seemingly gathering his wits. He had been importuned every inch of the way from London – or so it seemed – by place-seekers and petitioners, old cavaliers who claimed the ruin of their family fortunes in the service of the King’s father; former Parliamentary enthusiasts who saw the writing on the wall and feared reprisals; brewers and biscuit-bakers who sought the provisioning of the new King. Such men fell over each other in their eagerness to solicit the King’s favour. It was a distasteful spectacle and Monck knew it was but a prelude of what was to come. He saw no purpose in encouraging any of them, for he had no sense of his own influence and could only await the King’s landing when he might hand over his great responsibilities. That morning the image of Potheridge and the River Torridge swam into is mind’s eye, that and Kit playing on the lawn or mounting his first pony, and Anne in her chamber, perhaps with another child upon her lap… He shook his head. No, he was too old for all that and he had left Anne rushing about Whitehall Palace, ordering clean linen for the Royal Apartments. There would be those who considered that wardrobe mistress would be a suitable enough position for Anne Monck, for a flood of exiled courtiers would join the ruined cavaliers to fill the new King’s court with flatterers, sycophant and straight-forward perquisite-hunters. In some defiance of a havering Parliament, the City of London had already voted money and now sent a delegation to Dover to wait upon the new monarch. The roads were thus choked with opportunists and gallants, fine ladies and plain whores, all jostling along on their beribboned horses so that Monck wondered where they had all been hiding these last ten sober years.
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