Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘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 yourself. 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 ambi
tion 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 to, 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.

  Now his own small but personal staff were ready and anxious to be off. Well, he must play out this last act, then rescue Anne from the folly of attempting to become a lady-in-waiting. That, bless her, no-one would ever countenance! He had done his best to ameliorate the torrent of supplicants and placate some of them by enrolling them into a Royal Life Guard, and some of these gentlemen rode with him under the command of the Duke of Richmond, the Earls of Northampton and Cleveland, among other noblemen. This splendid troop, equipped and caparisoned at its members’ own expense, had been added to Monck’s escort of two troops of his own Horse.

  He clambered into the coach awaiting him in the inn yard. It was already full of these gentlemen cavalry, assembling under braided and embroidered guidons, Their Graces of Richmond and Northumberland at their head. As for the crowd of opportunists who followed Monck as the Hebrews had followed Moses and were just then gathering to follow his equipage, he could do nothing but wave as the coach lurched into motion and struck out towards Dover, sitting uncomfortably in his padded seat, meditating upon what the coming hours held in store as Gumble descanted enthusiastically upon the theme of the restoration of a King, about which he seemed to know a great deal.

  As the coach descended towards the beach below Dover Castle and was recognised, a boat shoved off from the shore and was pulled towards the anchored fleet. It was not difficult to see among the men-of-war, both great and small, the ship which bore the King, for at her main truck flew the Royal Standard of the Stuarts, a great silken banner that lifted languidly in the gentle breeze. Where did all this flummery come from? Monck mused as Gumble remarked upon the splendour of the day, asserting it as evidence of God’s will. From the fore and mizzen trucks of the King’s ship flew subsidiary flags, including Montagu’s as General-at-Sea, and someone mentioned the great man-of-war had been built as the Commonwealth’s Naseby. Lying off Scheveningen on the Dutch coast she had been hastily renamed Royal Charles, and Monck wondered what they had done with the Naseby’s noble figure-had of Cromwell on his horse trampling England’s enemies underfoot. Now she lay at anchor in the late May sunshine, small boats bobbing around her filled with the curious and the gawpers, the fisher-folk and those among the gentry who had hired boats for the purpose of being close to the Sovereign and perhaps receiving acknowledgement. Lesser standards flew from the mast-heads of the Swiftsure and the London, marking the berths of the Royal Dukes of York and Gloucester, the former already named as Lord High Admiral.

  At about three o’clock in the afternoon, within minutes of Monck stepping from his coach and walking unsteadily down the beach over the uneven surface of shingle and sand accompanied by Clarke, Gumble and Morice, a decorated barge, followed by a second less ostentatious craft, left the side of the Royal Charles. She, too, bore a Royal Standard, a smaller version of the great silken banner that was now being hauled down from the flag-ship’s main-truck to mark the King’s departure from the Royal Charles. There now broke out the first
of the many gun salutes that would accompany Charles from Dover to London, echoed as they were by all the guns of the fleet to which the cannon on the ramparts of the great castle high overhead responded.

  Dover beach was crowded with on-lookers from every conceivable walk of life, but Monck stood alone close to the tide-line where the sea lapped gently in low breakers, his staff and attendants several paces in his rear, the enormous concourse of the curious and the obsequious flanking him. He wore his plain buff coat without armour, his feet in boots, girt by his sword and the orange-red sash of his rank with its elaborate bow. Upon his head was his wide-brimmed hat with its long feather trim; the lace at his throat and cuffs was spotless, plain and elegant, his be-ribboned hair his own.

  As the barge approached, Monck spotted the young King, who stood up as he neared the beach. Charles was dressed in blue, his dark features and long black hair setting off his tall figure. He was as unlike his father as it was possible to be, so that Monck was pricked by the rumour that he had been sired by Henry Jermyn and not the sad, self-deceptive and stuttering little man with whom Monck had walked in Christchurch Garden all those years ago.

  Beside the King were his two brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the former in a coat trimmed in yellow, the latter in scarlet and grey. Monck moved unsteadily down to the water’s edge and removed his hat just as the boat’s forefoot grounded. The agile young King, walking forward along the thwarts between each pair of oarsmen, put one cork-heeled shoe on the barge’s gunwhale and leapt down onto the beach with a wet thud. He swept off his hat, dropped to one knee in genuflection and cast his eyes to heaven, touching his right hand to his breast in a gesture some thought was a surreptitious but popish crossing of himself.

  ‘God be praised for this great and wonderful deliverance,’ Monck heard him say as he too dropped to one swollen knee, his hat across his breast and meeting the King’s eye as he raised his head. Behind the two men, it seemed the vast crowd held its breath.