Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  Most, even in that partial army with its fierce and Puritan loyalties, when confronted by the setbacks of the Scottish campaign, perceived virtues in Monck’s conduct. Notwithstanding their present predicament, Monck had proved that his was the eye for detail, his the clear and unambiguous order, and his the route of march most advantageous to their progress. Men soon regarded his capture at Nantwich as bad luck, a sticking with his men, rather than taking horse and fleeing. The more perceptive noted with surprise that his method fell-in with that of the New Model Army, causing many to think Monck should have held Lambert’s post as Cromwell’s chief-of-staff. But the appointment of Lambert had precedence and there was besides the post of second-in-command, a purely political decision settled upon the person of Sir Charles Fleetwood. Reliable, religiously sound, but inexperienced above his regimental command, Fleetwood was no more than a buttress to Cromwell himself. And there were others whose Puritan credentials far outweighed Monck’s slender claim to high regard. A cavalryman like Lambert, Colonel Robert Lilburne was also a Regicide, as was Edward Whalley, the Commissary-General of the Horse. Both were fiercely attached to Cromwell, though Lilburne was said to harbour odd political notions like his brother John, the Leveller. Amid this sectarian brotherhood Monck was a parvenu, an older man, experienced but in the eyes of all but Cromwell, unsound, unreliable, a notorious turncoat. Unfazed, Monck quietly undertook many of the duties rightfully Fleetwood’s and, more pertinently, Lambert’s. It was thus Monck who tended the drudgery of supply, of disposition and of reconnaissance, the subtleties of which his seniors were wont to disregard.

  But it began to be bruited abroad that men seemed to turn out of their bivouacs with more fervour if Monck gave the word – second perhaps to Cromwell himself. And it was notable how often it was Monck’s regiment that was first to assemble at the muster, or be drawing their stores from the Quartermaster General’s train.

  For himself, Monck did not care; his devotion to the task was total and if, in doing Lambert’s work, Lambert felt slighted, then that was Lambert’s problem; Monck knew he had Cromwell’s approval and, besides, if he saw to matters himself he was in no doubt but that they were properly accomplished. Lambert was flash-in-the-pan brilliant, but military operations required long hours of dull preparation, and Cromwell knew it. As a mark of his personal faith in Monck, the Captain-General had appointed him the senior of his infantry commanders.

  For sure, it had been Monck’s guns that had battered the Scots in the opening moves of the campaign, as Cromwell sought to outwit the cunning Leslie before Edinburgh, and it was Monck who, detached from the main force, had taken the fortified houses of Colinton and Redhall. But these were not decisive actions; the nearest they had come to a pitched battle was at Gogar on the Glasgow road where, although within gunshot of each other, the Scots lay on dry ground behind an all but impassable morass. Even Monck had no answer to that.

  ‘Sir, ’tis late …’ one of the young gentlemen behind him ventured with a forced cough, prompting him to move on. They were tired and needed rest.

  Monck held up his hand; something had caught his eye, in the left distance, on the lower ground beyond the faint line of the rushing burn. ‘I think, gentlemen, it is not late, but early. Do you perceive movement? There! Behind the enemy’s right?’

  There was a moment of silence, as if the young officers could not bring themselves to undertake yet further duty that dismal night. The question seemed to stretch their sense of loyal duty to the utmost.

  ‘Cavalry,’ someone said suddenly.

  ‘By God they are extending …’ added a second.

  ‘They are advancing their right to envelop our left and will be across the burn to turn our flank,’ added the third. ‘They will cut us off from the ships!’ Apprehension if not fear lent an intensity to the exclamation.

  ‘An encirclement …’ the first added almost incredulously, as though the thing were impossible despite the evidence before him.

  ‘Come!’ With a sudden movement that, after the havering, surprised his staff, Monck set off at a swift walk towards the small stone farm of Broxmouth House that was Cromwell’s headquarters.

  As they hastily descended the gentle incline, it began to rain again and the overcast, thick as it was, seemed to increase in density. They passed through the English lines, exchanging password and countersign with the pickets, as the deluge increased. The downpour suppressed the faint snickering from the horse-lines, whence came a farmyard smell redolent of nostalgia for more peaceable times. As they approached Broxmouth House it was clear the alarm had already been raised. Orderlies gathered about their horses and lantern-light from an open door gleamed in reflection from the churned mud outside the threshold and fell upon the rain glossed flanks of black and bay as they jostled by a stone mounting block. Without ceremony Monck and his party entered the Captain-General’s presence, carrying the rain and mud into the candlelit interior.

  The handsome Lambert turned and looked-up as Monck entered the crowded room. ‘Ah, General Monck,’ he said smoothly, ‘we were wondering when …’

  Monck ignored Lambert’s slyly offensive jibe and nodded at the silently anxious Fleetwood. Raking the others with tired eyes he planted his wet gloves on the table and leaned over Cromwell, who, pen-in-hand, was himself bent over a paper. Water from Monck’s hat-brim dripped upon the table and Lambert’s eyes glittered at the newcomer’s effrontery.

  ‘You see where they are moving?’ Monck queried abruptly, addressing his remark directly at Cromwell who looked up from the order he was writing.

  ‘I do.’ Cromwell gave Monck a wan smile and rose to his feet confronting Monck; it was the signal the group of senior officers had been waiting for and they abandoned their privately muttered conversations and fell silent in anticipation. ‘Well?’ Cromwell was looking directly at Monck, their faces no more than two feet apart.

  ‘Sir, the Scots have numbers and their hills; these are their advantages. We have discipline and despair, both qualities that will prompt our men to acquit themselves well; these factors are our advantages. My advice is to attack at once.’

  Cromwell nodded. ‘If we beat the right wing where it stands,’ he announced, ‘then their whole army is thrashed.’ The Captain-General looked round him, his face strained as he bit his lower lip in what had become a compulsive reaction to stress. Monck noted the raw flesh, the bleeding wart; this was a man near the end of his tether.

  ‘Sir Charles?’

  ‘I concur, Sir,’ responded Fleetwood with grave obedience.

  ‘General Lambert?’

  Lambert’s face worked with fury but at Cromwell’s demand he answered obediently. ‘I too, Sir.’

  ‘General Monck’s opinion we already know. Gentlemen …?’ Cromwell, looked round the others who muttered their assent. ‘Very well, we will make our dispositions accordingly. John,’ he turned to Lambert, ‘you shall move your horse and Lilburne’s across the burn on the left and turn their right flank. Sir Charles will command you.’ He looked at Fleetwood then Lilburne who nodded. Turning next to Monck, Cromwell said, ‘George, your guns to the front and then wait upon events with your brigade holding the centre …’

  ‘I have a place for guns, Sir,’ Monck said quietly.

  ‘Very well,’ Cromwell agreed, then continued. ‘Colonels Okey and Overton, do you hold the line of the burn. Colonel Pride, I would have your brigade take post in the rear of the horse on the left flank ready to move forward and hold the ground won by Generals Fleetwood and Lambert. That will amount to three regiments of infantry and five of horse mustered on the left. I shall post the reserve …’ Cromwell raked them with his bloodshot gaze. ‘Any questions?’ He paused, then lifted up his eyes to the low, smoke-stained ceiling. ‘God is delivering them into our hands, gentlemen. They are coming down to us.’

  ‘May the Lord God of Hosts be praised,’ added Fleetwood to a chorus of ‘Amens.’

  Monck said nothing. Cromwell’s fervour stank of desperation.<
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  *

  ‘Up! Up! Up!’ Monck waved his hand and then set his shoulder to the wheel of the gun. It was the eighth he had ordered his men to move forward in the hissing darkness of the September night. A chill wind was getting up and might shift the rain-clouds but the sodden ground was almost impassable as they strained at the spokes and thrust the dragging trails through the morass. Only the most vigorous exertions on the part of the artillerymen, their fusiliers and detachments of Monck’s regiment detailed to assist, had ensured that within two hours of the order being given, a battery of field guns with its ammunition-laden limbers had been man-handled up to an almost semi-circular bend in the Broxburn which thrust a salient towards the Scots position. From this location, which Monck had earlier marked out, he knew he could both pin-down the Scots centre and prevent a quick reinforcement of the enemy’s right from its left flank. In the last hours of the night, as the sky slowly cleared and the moon shone fitfully from behind the streaming clouds, Monck drew up his own brigade in front of Brand’s Mill, a little to the left of his guns.

  At the head of his troops he accosted an under-officer, Captain Francis Nichols. ‘The men have been fed?’ he asked brusquely, knowing he had put the matter in train earlier, having ordered what was available from the ships at Dunbar up to the encampment.

  ‘They have sir.’

  Monck nodded and turned to the men in their ranks behind Nichols. ‘Well, my lads, we shall see what we can do this day,’ he said, shouldering his half-pike and walking along their front, his subordinate captains trailing in his wake and each taking his post as they passed their companies. ‘You shall show me again of what you are made.’

  It was at this point that General Lambert rode up, demanding to speak to General Monck.

  ‘I am here, General Lambert,’ Monck identified himself.

  ‘Your guns, General Monck, your guns, they are in the wrong place, sir, kindly move them to where they may be best able to play them upon the enemy’s left.’

  ‘My guns are advanced as far as the river, General Lambert, and can enfilade ...’

  ‘They should be more to the right …’

  ‘I know my business sir,’ Monck cut in, ‘and suggest that you attend to your own which, if I recall it aright, is in command of your cavalry.’

  ‘Have a care, Monck …’

  ‘It is my belief,’ Monck went on, seizing Lambert’s horse’s bridle and tugging its head round, ‘that you should be advancing upon the enemy’s flank if we are to have the faintest chance of success this day! Good morning to you, General Lambert.’ Monck stepped back and slapped his hand upon the rump of Lambert’s charger, so that the animal jerked uncertainly and Lambert, in a fury, was obliged to ride off.

  ‘God’s wounds,’ Monck muttered to himself. ‘We do not deserve to be delivered from our present plight.’

  Astonishingly, during these active preparations, no sound came from the Scots camp. Masked by the low howl of the wind, the slashing curtains of rain and mist that swept across the low countryside and the rising ground beyond, the English reformed their front from a defensive to an offensive posture while the Scots, having made their own movement to the right in preparation for a morning attack, had lain down to sleep. The wind, though it blew cold in the faces of the English, carried the noise of their manoeuvres away from the enemy. Perhaps God had not entirely deserted them.

  As Monck strode along his front, angry at Lambert’s presumption and showing himself to his men to stir their blood, he sought to divine their spirit in the pale ovals of their faces, streaked with grime though they were. In the fitful and partial moonlight, he could see, or perhaps he merely sensed, that the call to battle had invigorated them. There was always the other reason, he thought, that death was preferable to the endless marching, squatting and shitting, the poor food and the relentless rain of this God-forsaken land. He kept his exhortations short; it better showed his confidence in them.

  ‘Sir, a bite and some little wine …’ Monck turned. A soldier named Rogers, appointed his servant, thrust a crust at him, along with a little cheese and a small flask. Monck thanked him and took the victuals.

  ‘Shall we attack before daylight, General?’

  ‘Overton …’ Monck looked up at Colonel Overton who had strolled the length of his own brigade and come upon Monck breaking his fast. ‘Yes, we shall, it is our best, indeed, our only chance.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Your men have been fed?’

  ‘Aye, the Lord be praised, though I know not how the victuals arrived.’ Monck said nothing, as Overton added, ‘How think you the day will go?’

  Monck swallowed the wine which was poor enough stuff, looted no doubt from Broxmouth House. He waved his left hand towards the north, where a thin greyness drew over the distant sea. ‘If Fleetwood and Lambert can gain purchase on the left and you can hold them to your front, I think we shall have a chance of pinning them against their hills …’

  They were interrupted by a trumpet note that came from the Scots camp. ‘The Jockies are awake,’ Overton remarked. ‘I wish you God’s love, General!’

  Monck grunted as Overton scrambled back towards his men, his brigade a dark mass against the sodden grass, the pale line of suddenly wavering pike-heads gleaming faintly. Monck wiped his mouth and handed the flask to the silent Rogers. Holmes came up and the two men exchanged a word then Holmes ordered the captains to their posts. Monck picked up his grounded half-pike and walked steadily back to the centre of his own front line. Two of his captains, Nichols and Ethelbert Morgan who commanded the companies in the centre, gathered round him as he lent his weapon upon his shoulder and settled his casque upon his head. Easing his shoulders inside his cuirass he nodded to the north where a movement told where Lambert was on the move at last. Cromwell, would be there and all must await the moment.

  ‘Captain Grove?’ Monck called to the officer commanding the battery of guns.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Your guns, sir; warn them to make ready and await my order to fire.’

  And then he heard it, the faint shout and, looking up, the sudden movement as Lambert’s Ironsides, indistinct in the gloom, trotted forward and splashed and plunged across the burn where it ran shallow and wider than it did to Monck’s immediate front. The Ironsides were met by a louder shout as the Scots, already under arms, rushed forward to meet the threat. Monck was aware that, as if my some miracle, the sky began to clear. All along the lines, on both sides of the torrent of the burn, there were shouts and acclamations as the Scots sprang to arms. A dozen Scottish standards reared their brazen heads into the moonlight as – at last – the rain petered out. The first gleam of dawn had yet to spread across the field of battle.

  Casting his eye to the left and the right, Monck walked forward. He could see Grove a hundred yards away, standing expectantly beside the nearest gun. Monck raised his hand and lowered it smartly; the first discharge boomed out, its ball gouging clods of earth in the very front of Sir James Lumsden’s Scots. Monck watched with satisfaction as the enemy line wavered with apprehension. ‘Raw troops and they do not like my guns,’ he ruminated softly to himself.

  Monck was aware of Nichols at the head of his company and just behind the General.

  ‘General Lambert’s men make some progress,’ Nichols remarked and Monck nodded. To his left he could just make out the red colour of the Ironsides’ coats, and the gleam of light upon their steel helmets as they met the Scots cavalry coming down towards them. Monck almost felt the physical shock of the encounter, and sensed the check Lambert sustained as the Scots horsemen, many of them bearing lances, thrust at his Ironsides. Thereafter he paid them no more attention, for the success of Lambert and Fleetwood on the left rested in part upon his own steadfastness in preventing the enemy moving to their right and supporting the Scots horse. Monck walked forward to the guns where Grove was exhorting his artillerymen.

  ‘Play on them, my lads,’ Monck shouted in the intervals between two discharges. ‘Pin ’em like
rats in a trap.’ Staring at the burn he thought it unlikely that Lumsden or Innes to his left could cross the torrent without a struggle and, after a few words with the gunners, resumed his position. Calling Nichols and Morgan to him he indicated the flatter land that lay to their left, around Brand’s Mill.

  ‘When I give you the order, do you move off and cross the burn there, by the mill. That is where Lumsden will try and strike at us and I would have us meet him halfway.’

  ‘He’s on the move, sir,’ Nichols remarked. ‘I’ll be about God’s work,’ he threw over his shoulder as he trotted off at a loping run, shouting to his company to follow. Monck hefted his pike and turned to look at his men. ‘Make ready!’ he roared and he heard the under-officers passing the order to port their pikes. He could see their faces more clearly now and all in the front rank stared expectantly at him. He grinned at them; what else could he do? Turning about he motioned for the advance. ‘Forward!’

  Suddenly there was a young cornet of horse reining-in alongside him, his mount steaming in its exertion, its rider leaning from the saddle.

  ‘General Monck, sir?’

  ‘I am he.’

  ‘General Lambert is checked, sir! The enemy have artillery and infantry behind their horse! The Captain-General desires that you relieve the pressure to your front!’

  Monck turned about and waved again to his men. ‘Drummers!’ he yelled before turning to the cornet. ‘I desire that you inform the Captain-General,’ he called out, as the young officer jerked his horse’s head round to the north, ‘that we are already about the day’s business!’