Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  Calling for hot-water and his razor, Monck felt the relief of reinvigoration. Perhaps, after all he thought, there was something in this sea-life. He crossed the cabin and lifted a sash of one glazed window, letting in the fresh morning air. ‘’Tis not only I who stink,’ he muttered to himself, ‘but poor Dick also begins to.’ Thank goodness he had had the sense last night to order two seamen to lash a sail-cloth cover round Deane and his cot else the damned rats would have had more of the dead man than his doublet.

  ‘Do what you must with your rolling hitches and your catharpings,’ he had said sharply to the two men sent in from the watch on deck to attend to the matter, ‘but stop the rats from dishonouring General Deane’s mortal remains until we can land him for a decent burial.’ He had noted the quick grins exchanged between the pair at his misappropriation of nautical terms, but also the sober expressions that had quickly replaced their mirth at Monck’s mention of Deane’s body.

  His servant brought in a bowl, a ewer of steaming water from the Resolution’s single galley stove along with Monck’s shaving tackle. ‘I’ll see to myself,’ he said curtly.

  ‘As you please Excellency,’ the man said with a bob of his head.

  ‘Do you ask the Officer of the Deck to acquaint me of the position of the fleet.’

  ‘Yes, Excellency.’

  While he waited, Monck fell to scraping his ample jowls raw, his mind ranging over the wording of his Report of Proceedings finished by candle-light near eleven of the clock the previous night. He did not think it required revision. Oliver would read between the lines now that Oliver was in charge, and only God knew quite what lay in the mind of Oliver Cromwell. On the eve of his expedition to Ireland, Monck recalled with a shudder, Cromwell had listened to Monck’s opinion of waging war there, for Monck had just returned from thence. But Cromwell the religious zealot had violated that first duty of a victorious commander so urged by Monck, and massacred horribly where he had better have ruled with fairness and leniency. Was that Monck’s fault? If so, it must gravely imperil his own soul.

  Monck muttered a bitter curse, wiped the razor blade and continued rasping his cheek. Though troubled by the turmoil of politics and frustrated by the folly of the sectarians, Monck had no liking for either. However, while he was intuitively wary of the arbitrary power of the Army, he trusted Oliver as a safe pair of hands – at least for the time being. When he and Deane had been fitting-out their fleet at Portsmouth, badgering the Council of State for men and supplies that would not come, they had received a despatch which told of the coup just then accomplished in London. The Rump Parliament had been overthrown, a new Council sat at Whitehall and Oliver sat at the head of it: what, the despatch asked, did the State’s navy intend? Deane had taken delivery of the papers, his partisan enthusiasm evident in his bright expression, coloured only with an apprehension as to what his dour and non-committal colleague might say. It was the only moment in their close association that Monck had sensed any anxiety on Deane’s part as to the outcome of their collaboration.

  ‘Thou knowest I am no politician, Dick,’ Monck had growled self-deprecatingly as Deane requested his opinion, ‘but it seems that since we are charged with the defence of our country in the face of a determined and competent foe, we should hold to our duty above all else. Other matters may be set aside and need not concern us.’

  Deane’s expression had relaxed. ‘I had thought…’ he began, but broke off, deciding against further elaboration. He had shaken his head, looking at Monck directly. ‘I am glad of it George, right glad of it. Here…’ He thrust his right hand out and Monck took it. Odd, he thought to himself, the eloquent exchange that two Englishmen could accomplish without the tiresome use of words, but the simple grasp of their hands.

  ‘I do deprecate the dissolution of Parliament, Dick,’ Monck had said, still clasping Deane’s outstretched hand and looking directly into his eyes, ‘but for the time being I see no alternative.’ He noted the shadow that passed over Deane’s face, but then it brightened again.

  ‘Well, time will decide.’

  ‘Aye, it will. And Oliver cannot live for ever,’ Monck had said pointedly. ‘Shall I draft a response for your approval and our joint signatures?’

  ‘I am of the opinion that we should consult our fellow flag-officers and the captains of the fleet,’ Deane had insisted.

  Monck had shrugged. ‘If you so wish.’

  ‘I do, General Monck,’ Deane said with a wry pomposity, ‘so, if you have no objection strong enough to stand against my desire, I shall send a boat round the fleet.’

  Monck had raised his hand in silent acquiescence. As a Commissioner of the State his duty was clear enough. And, in the end, he had been proved right. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, but no dissent, Lawson, Penn and the rest of them had held the defence of the Nation the principle to which they must bind their fates. In the end it had been Monck who had drafted the fleet’s response, though both Generals-at-Sea appended their signatures.

  ‘Well, ’tis all history now,’ Monck muttered to himself. He concluded his toilet, threw off his bed-gown and summoned his servant just as the man admitted the Officer-of-the-Deck.

  ‘Good morning, Your Excellency…’

  ‘Good morning, Rusbridge. Be so good as to acquaint me of the fleet’s position.’

  Lieutenant Rusbridge cleared his throat a trifle nervously, Monck thought as he drew on the shirt his servant held out to him. ‘How fared you yesterday?’ Monck interrupted, seeking to put the other man at ease. He was, Monck noted, not much younger than his commander-in-chief, one of the older sea-officers, men colloquially known as ‘tarpaulins’ on account of their long service and experience.

  ‘Well enough, Your Excellency. I commanded the larboard battery on the middle deck and I flatter myself we shot the mast out of the Leeuwarden and beat in the sides of the Vlissingen…’

  ‘And the mood of your men at the conclusion of the action?’ asked Monck, stepping into his breeches and tucking his shirt in.

  ‘In high temper…until, that is, we learned of the loss of General Deane.’ Monck noted the slight wrinkling of Rusbridge’s nose and the straying of his eyes to the curtain screening the starboard bed-place.

  ‘A sad affair, sir, a sad affair; and now, to this day’s work; how do we stand?’ he put each foot into his shoes as his man knelt and buckled his breeches at the knee.

  ‘Within sight of Ostend, Your Excellency, and, or so it seems to me, all the enemy lie ahead of us under our lee, or what is left of it, for the wind fails by the moment.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘It is impossible to be exact, sir, but I do not suppose many have flown elsewhere…though perhaps a few may have run into the Schelde for fear of us.’

  ‘But not enough to signify?’ Monck took his neck-cloth from his servant, wound it under his full chin and tied it off.

  Rusbridge shook his head. ‘Not in my opinion, Your Excellency if, by your apprehensions, you mean a sufficient number to form an independent squadron.’

  ‘That is exactly what I mean, Lieutenant Rusbridge. And our own fleet?’

  ‘Again, as far as I can see, we are of one company, though the wind…’

  ‘Is failing and no doubt Resolution lags in the rear…?’ Monck let the query hang, thrusting his arms into his coat.

  Rusbridge nodded. ‘She is uncommon slow, sir.’

  ‘D’you consider I put too many guns in her, Lieutenant?’ Monck settled the coat upon his shoulders and waved aside the proffered cuirass.

  ‘It is not for me to say…’

  ‘It is if I ask an opinion of you, sir,’ Monck said sharply.

  ‘Well then, I do,’ Rusbridge answered confidently, quickly adding, ‘but that is not the only reason.’

  ‘Is it not? That comes as some relief to me.’ Monck’s expression was wry as he took up his wig. ‘Come, say what other causes slow the ship?’

  ‘She is very old, sir, and fouled. Since she was built as th
e Prince Royal and rebuilt upon occasion, she has taken up much water with which her timbers are impregnated; she lies thus lower in the water than she was meant to, even before Your Excellency augmented her armament…and in truth sir, thou didst no more than add a moiety of weight thereby, compared with all her other burden.’

  ‘So,’ said Monck picking up his hat, ‘I am not such a numskull of a landsman as some would declare me to be, eh?’ he stepped towards Rusbridge and led out onto the quarter-deck, absolving Rusbridge from the necessity of formulating a reply. ‘D’you have a glass, sir?’ he asked the lieutenant, turning abruptly so that Rusbridge all but cannoned into him.

  ‘Here sir,’ said Bourne who had himself just come on deck and completed a survey of the coast that lay along the southern horizon. Monck thanked him and took the offered telescope, raking a large arc of the horizon before levelling it on the enemy fleet which lay across the eastern horizon beyond the hulls and spars of most of the English fleet.

  ‘There are banks, er, shoals, between us and the coast, are their not?’ he inquired.

  ‘Extensive shoals, General Monck, over which we may not pass, even at high water. But the enemy may, on account of their drawing less water.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he snapped testily, ‘that much even a thick-witted foot-soldier can comprehend.’ He felt rather than saw Bourne and Rusbridge exchange glances. Monck lowered the glass and looked away to the west-south-westward, along the line of the coast which, dark against the rising sun, stretched away into the distance where it was no longer Flanders, but France. ‘And there is as yet no sign of Blake.’ It was an observation, rather than a question.

  ‘No, Your Excellency. Nor of any wind.’

  Monck was silent for a while and then asked: ‘Well, gentlemen, what does your famous sea-sense tell you, eh? Rusbridge, as the junior your opinion first.’

  ‘The, er, the wind was from the north yesterday, veering from north-west to north-east,’ Rusbridge began somewhat hesitantly, but he then quickly recovered himself and looked upwards at the sky. ‘The wind has now dropped, but there are mare’s tails aloft and I would stake a sovereign on there being a sou’wester by noon.’

  ‘Captain Bourne?’

  ‘I find no reason to dissent from Lieutenant Rusbridge’s opinion, though perhaps we must wait for nightfall.’

  ‘And you, sir, what about you?’ Monck addressed this last to a quarter-master who, having just finished refilling the binnacle lights with oil, had impertinently lingered to eavesdrop. Monck sensed the man’s lively interest.

  ‘Me, Your Excellency?’

  ‘Yes, you, sir,’ Monck said, his blue eyes a-twinkle. ‘I daresay you have an opinion of your superiors’ competence so, what do you think?’

  The man swallowed hard and looked from Rusbridge to Bourne, the sources of official and peremptory wrath and punishment. Both men bore frowns. Tugging his forelock he ventured: ‘I think the Lieutenant and Captain Bourne are correct, Your Excellency.’

  ‘A wise reply,’ said Monck grinning. His spirits rose with the sun that now broke over the unseen coast of distant Holland whither the Dutch fleet ahead of them sought refuge, laying a sparkling path upon the surface of the calm sea. To the south it picked out the roofs and spires of Ostend with a sharp clarity.

  ‘Then we are all of one mind,’ he said. ‘Be so kind, Lieutenant, to have the signal hoisted for all Flag-Officers and Captains to repair on board the flag-ship and now, gentlemen,’ he added gesturing to Bourne and Rusbridge, ‘pray join me in breaking your fasts.’

  At ten o’clock that morning the great cabin was crowded, over-spilling onto the stern-gallery with the admirals and captains of the fleet. Before calling them to order, Monck’s eye ranged over them. Lawson and Penn, commanders of the van and rear squadrons, each surrounded by their own junior flag-officers. Penn stood with his own subordinate vice and rear admirals, Lane and Graves; Lawson with Jordan and Goodson. Peacock and Howlett, his own squadron’s, were drawn up to one side. Each of these men commanded a division, three in each squadron, and gathered about them their individual ships’ commanders, over a hundred men in all, some of whom, the most junior, milled about the door onto the quarter-deck.

  Commanding silence, Monck gestured to the curtained bed-place the drapes of which he had noticed twitching as the room had filled.

  ‘Some of you will already be aware of the death of General Deane,’ he announced to a rising murmur of astonishment and sorrow. ‘He was killed at the first onslaught of the enemy yesterday, a moment when some of you seemed lacking in a willingness to press forwards in support of Admiral Lawson…’ Monck looked about him, chiefly at the group of captains surrounding John Lawson, letting the intimation of responsibility for Deane’s death strike those at whom the dart was aimed. Lawson, Monck knew, was known to hold radical political views as a Leveller; where did that place a flag-officer near-deserted by his captains, Monck wondered, meeting their gazes? Several of them cast down their eyes; there was an awkward shuffling and audible murmuring among the crowd. Monck raised his voice. ‘But what is done, is done and cannot be recovered.’ He paused. ‘However, what is done in fault may at least be amended by renewed endeavour and it is my intention that, if the wind serves and God supports our arms, we should avenge the death of General Deane…’ A murmur of assent greeted these high-flown words. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘you gentlemen are all of you better fitted than I am to pass this fleet through the enemy and cut him off from the safety of his havens, but I am charged with the execution of such a design and I am assured that a wind from the south-west will soon appear, so…’ He stared about him. ‘That is my desire.’ He paused again, then concluded: ‘I have therefore called you together to ask your counsel and your advice shall be as binding upon me as an Act of Parliament. So, what say thee all?’

  A groundswell of approval met the question. Those upon whom the lash of criticism had fallen sought to clear their names and, in a rising clamour, all cried for action. Monck was compelled to raise his hand and shout for order.

  ‘Is it resolved unanimously by us all that we should not await the arrival of General Blake?’

  ‘We have no guarantee that he will arrive…’ That was Lawson, and Penn led the ‘ayes’ that followed.

  ‘Very well, then.’ Monck waited for the hubbub of renewed enthusiasm to die away. ‘Then I have only this to say. You have had the written orders for battle promulgated by Generals Blake, Deane and myself, some time since, and some of you have failed to stand by them. I shall not take task with any of you if there is no repeat of such folly. It is my desire, as the instructions expressly ordain, that we fight in line, in as close an order as that which we can contrive to do through our skill and cunning, and to do this at half-cannon shot of the enemy. Mark that well – a half-cannon shot of the enemy.

  ‘The signal to take up such a line of battle will be a red flag and this shall signify that each squadron shall take the best advantage it may, to engage with the enemy ship next unto them, and in order hereunto, all ships of every squadron shall endeavour to keep a line with their chief. And besides all this, recollect and take comfort from this fact, that, though I comprehend not all your larboardings and starboardings I know this right well – the Dutch do not like our weight of metal; it is greater than their ships bear and it is to our great advantage that this is so.’

  At Monck’s silence nods and whispers grew among the assembly. Then, just as Monck about to dismiss them to their ships, Bourne pressed forward with the news that the wind was picking up. ‘And from the sou’ west,’ he added with a satisfied grin.

  ‘To your ships, gentlemen!’ Monck raised his voice over the racket that greeted this news. ‘And let us finish this affair.’

  The flotilla of boats bobbing idly around the Resolution’s flanks was suddenly galvanised as the admirals had their barges called alongside and, in a somewhat confused order of precedence, the sea-officers went over the flag-ship’s side on their way back to their vario
us commands. Several of them sought to press Monck’s hand as they left and he spoke courteously to each of them.

  ‘You let the buggers off too lightly, George,’ Lawson growled familiarly in a low voice as he took his leave. ‘I’d have had them shot for their cowardice if you’d not interfered.’

  Monck smile benignly, wondering whither Lawson’s principals had flown after the heat of action. ‘We’ll shoot them if they fail twice, John,’ he said, matching Lawson’s tone and shaking his out-stretched hand. ‘All the more reason for it.’

  ‘That I shall hold thee to,’ Lawson said, laughing as, leaning backwards, the baize-covered man-ropes slipping easily through his hands, his feet agilely transferring from one batten on the ship’s side to the next lower, he descended into his barge. Watching, Monck wondered whether he could ever do such a thing as effortlessly as Lawson. Leveller or not, Lawson was clearly a seaman to his very finger-tips.

  The rising of the breeze was opportune, for the tide had been carrying both fleets east, along the coast towards the wide estuary of the Schelde where the Dutch might have secured themselves securely. But now it had turned and ran against them. Before the breeze filled the slack canvas of their quarry the English ships were enjoying its benefit, crowding on sail, jostling to get into station in their respective divisions, palpable evidence that their captains were taking seriously Monck’s admonition to fight in line ahead. Within two hours of the senior officers tumbling over the Resolution’s side the leading English ships were trying ranging shots at the Dutch fleet strung out ahead of them.

  ‘They bear up, Excellency, see, there…’ Bourne, his voice tense with excitement, offered Monck his long glass. ‘’Tis Tromp’s flag in Brederode, I’m sure of it!’