Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘They take me for a fool, Will,’ Monck said bitterly. And unwisely explaining himself to Anne in the privacy of their chamber, Monck played into his wife’s hands. ‘I proved myself a better soldier that the Scots grandees by beating them soundly at their own game. Now they seek my humiliation, biting the hand that feeds them and endlessly seeking to disrupt the good governance of this Nation. They are despicable!’ he ended venomously.

  If he expected sympathy from Anne he got none. And she had forgotten the awe with which she once regarded the Plantagenet blood in her husband’s veins. ‘I told you they despised us,’ she said sharply, making her case with a narrow prejudice that sought only to turn her husband’s mind to her own way of thinking. ‘They see us as upstarts, impostors; they have no respect for what you are trying to do for the common people of Scotland, for whom they care not a whit! If you can’t see it, then I can, for ’tis as plain as the nose upon your face!’

  Monck remained silent; hurt by her assault, thinking only that she could not possibly understand, that perhaps she had never understood, and that it had been better that she remained in England.

  ‘There is only one thing for it, George,’ she continued, oblivious to the effect of her speech upon him. ‘You have a right to recompense…we have a right to recompense… You are the Governor of Scotland… Then do you take some provision for our future, for the future of Kit and Georgie…’

  ‘Fond of money though I am,’ Monck broke in, his voice hard, his blue eyes the chips of ice that had once terrified young Anne Clarges when she had first met him in The Tower, ‘I do not intend to allow it, or my wife, to corrupt me,’ he roared. ‘We stay here until I am relieved of this command by death or the orders of the Lord Protector!’

  But Anne was no longer the impressionable young woman she had once been, and she flared back at him. ‘Death? Orders? What makes you think your precious Protector will live for ever, eh? Why, even the Reverend Doctor Price says…’

  ‘What does Price say?’ Monck intervened, his voice cold. He had not liked the necessity of having to appoint an official chaplain to his Governorship, but the matter was unavoidable and Price had seemed the most suitable of the candidates Clarke had presented to him. ‘Tell me,’ he said in the tone of voice that had chilled to the very marrow the more tractable of the rebellious Clan Chieftains when he threatened them with the rack: ‘What exactly does Price say?’

  ‘That you are at heart a Royalist, that the Cavalier party intrigues upon this certainty, that my Lord Glencairn’s humiliation against you was based upon this and that you will be subjected to such sallies… I see you are shocked…’

  ‘I am stunned.’

  ‘He says, moreover, that Oliver cannot live forever and that only two men could possibly replace him. Charles Stuart is one…’ Anne hesitated, beginning to fear the expression her husband wore.

  ‘And who, pray, is the other?’ Monck’s question was quite ingenuous and her reply dumbfounded him.

  ‘You, George. You.’

  *

  ‘You have a visitor, Your Excellency.’

  Monck nodded at the orderly officer. He was half-expecting a visit from the Duchess of Buccleuch with whom he had struck-up a cordial friendship and whose good offices on Monck’s behalf had reconciled a significant number of the Scottish nobility to his government. They had conceived a common interest in the grounds of Dalkeith Palace, but it was not the Duchess who entered his office. Monck looked up from the paper he was drafting to see Cameron of Lochiel standing before him, and behind the Clan Chief a bearded ghillie wrapped in a tartan plaid with two huge hooded falcon’s, their talons bright yellow against the dark brown of the ghillie’s gauntlet.

  ‘Sir Ewan!’ Monck rose to his feet, motioned Cameron into a chair and called for wine. ‘What brings you here? Do you propose hawking Edinburgh free of pigeons?’

  Lochiel cocked an eye at the two raptors and laughed. ‘Nae, nae, they are for thee, Your Excellency, a gift frae me to you.’

  ‘That is uncommon good of you, but I fear I should not know what to do with them, I have never hawked, you see.’

  ‘Och, nae matter. Happen ye know someone who does, an’ will appreciate a pair o’ the finest gyr falcons the Highlands can provide. The importance of this gesture is to reflect ma guid opinion o’ ye sair. ’Tis an earnest o’ my sincerity an’ affection for ye, an’ ma requital o’ your fair dealing wi’ mysel’. There, General Monck, ’tis a fair speech I mak’ thee, an’ I can add nae mair to it.’

  The two men were now sitting, the wine had arrived and, having delivered himself of his speech, Lochiel told his man to wait outside with the pair of magnificent gyr falcons. Monck regarded the younger man in silence, his mind was toying with a remarkable proposition.

  ‘I hope a hav’na embarrassed ye, sair.’ Lochiel shifted a little uneasily in his chair. ‘I meant what ah said an’ will offer ye sairvice, if ye’ve a mind to have it or have the need o’ it.’

  ‘Your sword?’

  ‘Aye, an ma Clansmen if necessary.’

  ‘Might that not put you in bad odour with those you recently called brothers-in-arms?’

  ‘Ahm nae an advocate, but I reck the case is altered, General Monck.’

  Monck considered Lochiel a moment longer. The spectre of Overton and his treacherous conspiracy crossed his mind, but then his good sense and judgement prevailed. ‘Sir Ewan, suppose I was to confer upon you a commission of office,’ Monck pulled a face, ‘for the good order of Lochaber, for example.’ Monck shrugged. ‘It would mean you must needs come to a composition with Colonel Brayne’s garrison at Inverlochy and,’ Monck added drily, ‘relinquish your tendency to bite out the throats of Brayne’s men.’

  Lochiel smiled, looking genuinely pleased. ‘I should be honoured, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Very well,’ Monck rang a small bell on his paper-strewn table and, when an orderly responded asked for William Clarke to attend him. He smiled at Lochiel and raised his glass in a toast. ‘Will Clarke will provide you with a commission for my signature. I wish you every success and thank you for your kindness.’

  ‘The kindness is all on your part, sair,’ said Lochiel, raising his own glass in tribute.

  ‘What d’you intend to do with the birds, Your Excellency?’ Clarke asked after Lochiel and his man had left the two great raptors clawing at a chair-back in Clarke’s room.

  ‘Her Grace has a falconer,’ responded Monck, ‘she will oblige me by the loan of his services for a few days. Pray send word for him.’

  ‘A few days?’ Clarke raised his eyebrows. ‘And then what?’

  ‘A gift for John Lambert, perhaps?’ Clarke looked at Monck and, seeing his blue eyes were sparkling with amusement, burst out laughing. ‘Yes,’ added Monck firmly, ‘a gift for Lambert, I think. If Lochiel wishes to seal his amity with me by this means, why should I not make such a gesture to Lambert, eh?’

  And in the outer room the orderlies, unused to sounds of mirth from the Governor’s closet, looked wonderingly at one another.

  *

  The fatal fever came upon the infant George two days later, a week after Monck’s disagreement with Anne. Monck summoned James Macrae, whom he trusted, only to discover Macrae had died but the previous week. Instead, he summoned his official physician, Doctor Barrow. Anne called the Reverend Doctor Price. The offices of the former proved useless, those of the latter indispensable, for the poor little boy died in his mother’s arms in her chamber in Dalkieth Palace. He was laid to rest in the neighbouring church of St Nicholas, his death uniting his parents in grief but, as the weeks grew into months, the child’s death slowly separated them. Anne took consolation in religion, seeking solace in the prolonged and private sermonising of the Reverend Doctor Price and his colleague, Thomas Gumble. Monck buried himself in affairs of state, wrestling with the difficulties of taxation while simultaneously fending-off Cromwell’s importunate desire to send ill-disciplined regiments to join Monck’s army in Scotland where it wa
s thought by the Lord Protector, that his Scottish Governor would knock them into shape.

  Monck enjoyed the greater success with the government of the Nation entrusted to his care, the success of which gradually provided Scotland with a period of memorable stability and prosperity. Essentially an uncomplicated man, Monck was separated by distance from the constant swirl of politics south of the border. Ever a pragmatist, for him politics were split between those who were on the side of order, represented – at least for the time being – by the Lord Protector; and the trouble-makers. The trouble-makers came in two factions: the Royalists, whose desire to re-establish Charles Stuart upon the thrones of the Three Nations was a ridiculous anachronism, and the Army zealots whose constant arguments and lust for power would, in short order, beggar and fracture the Commonwealth of which they spoke with such enthusiastic affection. Cromwell, Monck considered, if not representative of the will of the majority of his fellow countrymen, better acted in their best interests than any of the shaky, insubstantial and troublesome alternatives.

  Thus inflexibly loyal to the Lord Protector, Monck seemed in defiance of every intrigue set up against him by those intent on disrupting the excellence of his own government in Scotland. Given the ruthlessness with which he had put down the revolt raised by Glencairn and Middleton, Monck was utterly at a loss to understand how anyone could believe such nonsense as they put about with their tainting stories of his secret Royalist sympathies. That he had handled the ring-leaders with toleration was widely misunderstood, but the consequent insult to his sense of honour wormed at him and he fumed that, even in trusting Oliver’s letters, the Protector guyed him over the widely voiced but utterly groundless suspicions. It came as some consolation, therefore, that Cromwell fostered Monck as advisor to his eldest son Richard – nominated his father’s eventual successor – with whom Monck was encouraged to strike-up a mentoring correspondence.

  But if Monck, through the agencies of Clarke, Argyle and now Cameron of Lochiel, knew of every move his enemies made in Scotland; and if his brother-in-law Thomas Clarges kept him informed of any relevant subtleties arising from the turmoil of London politics that the Lord Protector saw no need to communicate; and if the estrangement with Anne and the death of little George made him aware of the uncertainties of the future, including the eventual death of Oliver Cromwell, nothing warned him of the intrigue that was just them being fanned into life in distant Devon. Here his brother Nicholas, the Rector of Plymtree, was offered a fat new living by a cousin of the Monck brothers, Sir John Grenville. The younger Grenville, in whose gift the benefice lay, wanted nothing better than to see his cousin installed in the parish of Kelkhampton, a parish which would prove far more comfortable for the Reverend Monck and his family than that of Plymtree. Thinking of his tithes, Nicholas was over-joyed, assuring Grenville that his wife would be likewise delighted. Over a hearty dinner an expansive Sir John casually asked if Nicholas was in communication with brother George in distant Scotland.

  ‘Upon occasion,’ Nicholas replied, somewhat disingenuously, warmed by Sir John’s wine and his fraternal link with his famous but peccant brother who, since he had sensibly taken Nicholas’s advice and married his mistress, had become a great and admired man. ‘Pray why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh,’ shrugged Sir John with a disingenuously genial smile, ‘as you know I have never met him, but George is a man of such considerable experience that I was simply wondering if I should have need of the benefit of his advice, whether you be prepared to acquaint me with him?’

  ‘My dear cousin, I should be delighted.’

  ‘One seeks to foster the good of the family, you know,’ Sir John said with secret satisfaction, thereby gently reminding Nicholas of the obligation he was laid under by acquiring the living of Kelkhampton.

  ‘Naturally,’ the other replied innocently.

  For Monck in Scotland, the small consolations in his increasingly isolated life were the enjoyment of his surviving son Kit’s development and education, and a slow rebuilding of his relationship with Anne. If they troubled themselves about their future it was to plan a new life on Monck’s lands in Ireland, in particular an estate at Ballymurn, near Wexford. This had been granted to him in compensation for arrears of pay, such was the state of the English Treasury in contrast with the Scottish. With this remote prospect still a distant but pleasing goal in which a proper reconciliation with an unhappy Anne played its part, Monck had been corresponding with Oliver’s second son, Henry. To the Lord-Deputy in Dublin he had confided his remaining ambition to end his days as an Irish planter, his remaining in Scotland due only to his desire to see your Father and my dear Friend better settled in his Affairs.

  After that the old soldier felt he was due a rest from his public duties, and Scotland deserved a new Governor.

  Author Note

  The Battle of Scheveningen, sometimes known as the First Texel, is generally recorded as having been fought on 31 July 1653. Using the Old Style, Julian Calendar, Monck would have written (as his contemporary biographer Thomas Gumble did) the 20th.

  SWORD OF STATE

  Book Three: The Wielding

  Richard Woodman

  Table of Content

  CHAPTER ONE – COLDSTREAM

  CHAPTER TWO – LONDON

  CHAPTER THREE – LONDON

  CHAPTER FOUR – DOVER AND CANTERBURY

  CHAPTER FIVE – LONDON

  CHAPTER SIX – LONDON

  CHAPTER SEVEN – THE NORTH SEA

  CHAPTER EIGHT – LONDON

  CHAPTER NINE – CHATHAM

  CHAPTER TEN – NEW HALL, ESSEX

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE COCKPIT

  PART ONE – THE RESTORATION OF THE KING

  CHAPTER ONE – COLDSTREAM

  December 1659

  ‘God’s truth! This beer is bitterer than horse-piss!’

  ‘Horse-piss would be warmer.’

  ‘Aye, and wouldn’t go off as quickly either. This stuff is gone bad before it even gets cold - and in this poxy weather!’

  The three young orderly officers were crouched dejectedly round the fire set in the miserable hearth of the tiny cottage. Outside the freezing gale howled, occasionally blowing the wood-smoke down the short chimney to set them coughing, their eyes watering.

  ‘What o’clock is it?’ one of them asked.

  ‘About eight, I should judge. It has been dark these four hours…’

  ‘Or more. Methinks ’tis nearer nine. A bloody pox upon this damnable weather. I wonder Old George stands it.’

  ‘Old George can stand anything. Some of the men say he’s only half man, the rest is devil.’

  ‘Aye, and some them will believe it, too!’

  ‘By the Lord God, but it is cold!’

  ‘I hope to God the horses…’ But Captain Gideon Jenkin’s articulated concern for their horses’ welfare, important because of the demands put upon them by their Commander-in-Chief, was interrupted by the arrival of Old George himself.

  The rough wooden door of the small cottage set in the steep hillside above the frozen River Tweed flew open with a clatter and General George Monck, Lord-General of the Armies of the Three Nations and Governor of Scotland, entered the tiny room. He was followed by his military secretary William Clarke, his adjutant, Major Jeremiah Smith, and Lieutenant General Thomas Morgan, all four of whom looked chilled to the very marrow, their noses blue and dripping. The quartet was accompanied by a swirl of white snow and an icy blast of wind out of the black night; the fire guttered, its smoke swirling into the room and the three orderly officers jumped to their feet coughing but standing ram-rod stiff.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Monck, taking off his steel helmet and motioning them to relax. ‘I have no further need of thy services this night.’ The Lord-General was a sturdy man of middle height; he wore a plain buff jerkin over blue breeches and jack-boots and wound about his waist was the red-orange sash of his exalted rank. His hair was long, framing a strongly featured, deeply lined face, the set
tled expression of which was one of grim determination. The cold had pinched his round jowls but he looked less troubled by the inclemency of the weather than his companions. His blue eyes could smile kindly, or freeze a man like the ice in which he had spent the last six hours, riding the banks of the Tweed, all the way from Berwick to Coldstream, where he had established the headquarters of his Army, lying, as it did, midway between Berwick in the east and Kelso in the west. All along the north bank of the River Tweed his small Army lay in its rough quarters, waiting upon events.

  General Monck gave off an air of stolid imperturbability. Few divined his real thoughts, but every soldier assembled on the line of the Tweed trusted him. Not for nothing did the men in the ranks call him ‘Honest George’ for, if they did not love him, they feared and respected him. ‘Honest George,’ or ‘Old George,’ would always look after them, insisted the veterans who had marched with him in his two astounding campaigns in Scotland. Even when the political situation required them to occupy the most miserable quarters in the middle of winter, when the campaigning season was over and they should have been cosily ensconced in the fortresses of Edinburgh, Inverness, Perth, Inverlochy and Ayr, ‘Honest George’ would not only share their misery, but surpass them in the demands he made upon them by those he imposed upon himself.

  But if few could know Monck’s mind, most among the Horse and Foot encamped along the river-side sensed that their presence here, astride the very border between the England he and his Army served and the Scotland it occupied, was of crucial importance. Ever since the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658, when his elder son Richard had been proclaimed Lord Protector in his succession, England had been in a state of political ferment. Scotland, under Monck’s firm but fair hand, unenthusiastically accepted the news of Richard’s elevation. As long as trade continued to prosper and the military garrisons maintained peace, which meant that as long as General Monck and his Council of Commissioners governed with an even-handed administration that levied taxes squarely, and as long as Monck’s iron discipline prevailed among his troops, most Scots were content. Those among the Highland Clans who had followed the Earls of Glencairn and Middleton in their rebellion in the name of Charles Stuart, the rightful King of Scotland, and who in consequence refused to accept the rule of the Protector’s Viceroy, had been allowed to enlist in mercenary regiments to serve abroad. Most simply went home. Such a pacification after so ruthless a campaign had been a remarkably enlightened move by Monck. Many of the Clan Chieftains had come in and made their composition with Monck, and he had accepted their word of honour and left them in peace to make of their remote, mountainous ancestral lands what they would. Some, like the fearsome Cameron of Lochiel - Sir Ewan Cameron, Ewan Dhu, the Wolf-slayer – the man had reputedly bitten out the throat of an English officer who tried to hold him, was now among Governor Monck’s closest friends and advisers, ruling Lochaber in the Lord-General’s name.