Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Up, sir! Up!’ First on his feet the King, replacing his hat, assisted the old soldier to rise. ‘Thou hast no need to kneel.’ Then, in an impulsive gesture, Charles took Monck by the shoulders and embraced him, touching his face with his own cheek. ‘God’s will, sir,’ he breathed in Monck’s ear, ‘but thy resolution, for which my thanks.’

  A blushing Monck took a half step backwards, replaced his hat and bowed. Then he presented his sword hilt foremost to the King in an act of ritual submission. ‘Your Majesty is most welcome.’

  King Charles refused the proffered sword and Charles smiled uncertainly at him. Despite the King’s condescension, Monck read apprehension - even perhaps fear - in the younger man’s eyes. It came to Monck in a prescient moment that Charles stood in some awe of the weather-beaten old soldier standing before him and to whom he very largely owed this dramatic upturn in his fortunes.

  Then the King’s smile widened, his gloved hand gently touching the pommel of Monck’s weapon, and Monck knew the moment had passed. Now there was but an accord between them. ‘You have already drawn it in my service General Monck,’ he said, referring to Monck’s sword, ‘for which I am truly grateful,’ he declared graciously, in a voice others could hear in spite of the thunder of the cannon, adding, ‘I am yours to command.’

  ‘Sir, it is for me to obey,’ Monck responded.

  ‘But I shall be in need of wise counsel, sir,’ said the King in a low voice. ‘And I am in need of a father.’

  Monck, deeply moved, his eyes swimming, nodded then cleared his throat. ‘If Your Majesty will permit me…’ He stepped back, raised his hat and half-turned to the crowd behind him. Then he roared as at a full, military review: ‘God save the King!’

  The cry was taken up by all, so that the wild shout, repeated and repeated, set the startled gulls - already wheeling above the beach, disturbed by the multitude, the detonations of the salutes – to an even louder crying as they lifted from the beach and wheeled about the cliffs. In the general acclamation the Duke of Gloucester was heard to shout ‘God save General Monck!’ at which point the King smiled, brushed aside Thomas Gumble who knelt at his feet and sought to kiss the wide hem of His Majesty’s coat and, taking Monck’s arm, walked towards the Mayor and Corporation of Dover. This worthy, with his Aldermen, had appeared with a canopy to cover the King.

  Having accepted the Mayor’s white staff of office and promptly returned it to him, the King received a copy of the Holy Bible, remarking that it was the thing which he loved most. Then, with Monck at his side and the two Dukes close by, he led a growing entourage up the beach towards the coach that lay in waiting for the Royal party. Behind him several boats were unloading courtiers, naval officers and personages of quality eager not to be left behind.

  ‘It is fifteen years since I saw England in May, sir,’ the King remarked to Monck, doffing his hat left and right as the crowd made way for him and his large following. Monck held his peace; there was little he could say; besides, with his inflamed legs it was damnably difficult walking on Dover beach, even with King Charles at his side.

  *

  They lay that night at Canterbury where Monck was obliged to submit a list of petitioners seeking positions under the new monarchy.

  ‘How in Heaven’s name am I to please all these persons, General Monck?’ The King’s face expressed his displeasure at the peremptory demand. ‘I have scarce dried the sea-water from my shoes.’

  Quartered in the old Archbishop’s draughty palace, the King was busy demolishing a cold chicken’s leg, his richly embroidered coat flung over an ornately carved chair, his younger brothers York and Gloucester at table with him. Monck, who had been invited to sit as an equal, had little appetite for food; he was bone-weary. Outside in an adjacent room Monck’s fellow General-at-Sea, Sir Edward Montagu, and the other senior courtiers and officers, both naval and military, dined off the exiled and absent Archbishop’s plate.

  ‘There are thrice as many without, Your Majesty, all clamouring for your bounty and regard, and five times as many awaiting you in London with similar expectations. I am sorry that I am obliged to submit this list, but Your Majesty has a veritable confusion of matters of like nature to overcome, so perhaps a few days of leisure to consider how best to accomplish this would be best.’

  ‘Of course, but I cannot thereby immediately oblige you, sir.’

  ‘Me, sir?’ Monck was genuinely astonished. ‘Forgive the presumption, Your Majesty, but I lay this before you with no expectations, only a sense of obligation to those who petitioned me. Your Majesty knows best who has served thee…’

  ‘Indeed, but for yourself?’

  ‘Myself, sir? What should I expect for myself?’ The thought of Anne’s ambition occurred briefly to Monck at this moment, and he dismissed it as swiftly as it had come, but his own expectations were little more than the opportunity to retire. He was past fifty, his legs pained him abominably at times and he had shot his bolt. ‘I have acted according to my duty, sir. To be confirmed in my position as Lord-General of the Army may well work in your favour, sir, rather than promote a favourite over my head. Beyond that, sir, I am content.’

  Charles gave him a shrewd smile. The old man was said to be simple, but he certainly spoke his mind and Charles warmed to him, recalling what his soldiers had nick-named him.

  ‘Well, General Monck, tomorrow both you and Sir Edward – having been uppermost in this, my Glorious Restoration – shall be invested as Knights of the Garter… No, do not protest, it is not for you to protest and Sir Edward will not, I assure you. The matter lies in my grant and you must submit. Morice I shall also dub knight, for he has been the bridge between us, as has your brother-in-law whom I knighted before he left the Hague. Thereafter it is in my mind to confer upon you a Dukedom and some other honours. You have Royal blood in your veins, I understand…’ The dark young man waved aside any protest that Monck began. ‘Now, sir, I require some counsel as to my entrance into London and thereafter the assumption of my Government…’

  *

  Monck was nodding-off with weariness as he shared a bottle of wine with Morice and Clarke in the same bed-room from which Clarke had ejected him that same morning. It seemed an age ago, and indeed perhaps it was, for the world – at least the little world of the British Islands – had changed. It was now near midnight, the King having obliged Gumble, along with the Dean and Chapter of the neglected cathedral, by attending a service of thanksgiving for God’s goodness in returning him to the throne of his father. In conjunction with his own devotions, King Charles had made it plain enough that God may have ordained his Restoration, but General Monck had facilitated the Divine will. It was all rather too much for old Monck who saw little remarkable in pursuing the line of duty.

  If Morice and Clarke expected any further orders from Monck, they were disappointed. He had, they knew, left Clarges – now Sir Thomas and but lately returned from Holland a knight bearing the final details for the King’s arrival – in London, to oversee something of the reception being prepared for the restored King. But he had kept his own counsel regarding the brief conversation he had had with Charles Stuart, making no mention of the proposed knighthood for Morice, nor the honours the King intended for himself. All he seemed willing to relate to his two eager and curious followers was an anecdote of a bumptious little man whose custody of a spaniel of which ‘His Majesty was inordinately fond,’ he seemed anxious to relate to anyone who would listen.

  ‘Peeps, or some such, he said his name was,’ Monck said, yawning. ‘A clerk, methinks, and one of Montagu’s hangers-on.’

  Having both studied the General as he abandoned even this small morsel of narrative and began nodding over his wine-cup, the two men looked at each other in a glance of mutual understanding: the old man should be left and his servant sent in to help him into bed.

  They made to leave the chamber when Monck suddenly roused himself, asking Clarke: ‘Will, did we send a despatch to Colonel Knight? I have forgot, I confess
my mind much distracted…’

  ‘Yes, Excellency. The troops will be in review order just as you require.’

  ‘On Blackheath?’

  ‘On Blackheath.’

  ‘Then I wish you goodnight.’

  PART TWO – TRUSTY AND WELL BELOVED

  CHAPTER FIVE – LONDON

  June 1660 – December 1662

  ‘George! I am so proud of you! Come hither that I may embrace you properly!’ Monck submitted to Anne’s warm welcome. It did not displease him though he feared its impact upon her, evidence of which was not long in coming. She drew away from him with a smile that took years off her face and turned to pick up their sturdy, seven-year old son Christopher with an effort. ‘Kit, come and see what the King has given your father.’ She fingered the blue silk ribbon that he wore across his breast. ‘Your Daddy is a Knight of the Garter, darling,’ she cooed, staring at her husband, her eyes swimming with emotion. ‘And he is to be made a Duke.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Monck began but she sharply pre-empted.

  ‘Sir Thomas tells me that which you will not,’ she said quickly before turning to the boy again. ‘That means that one day you will be a Duke, my sweet.’

  Kit Monck looked singularly unimpressed. ‘The Garter?’ he asked uncomprehending and indicating the ribbon. ‘That is not a garter.’

  His mother put him down as Monck grunted. ‘You will have to explain it all to him later,’ Monck remarked, ‘unless you leave it to the King who seems o’erfond of garters, giving them to his followers and taking them from their wives.’

  Anne was not listening, her mind fastening on the wondrous good fortune that the Restoration had brought her. ‘But a Duke, George, a Duke!’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ he conceded, unable to hold out against her for long. ‘And you a Duchess, no less,’ he said, articulating what he knew she could not in his presence. She almost visibly preened herself at the words, her homely face cracked by a broad grin. ‘And I pray thee Anne, in all seriousness and sincerity, to match thy manners to the grand ladies who will infest the Court to which we shall, from time-to-time be obliged to attend or they will –’

  ‘From time-to-time? I thought…’ she broke in.

  ‘Anne, Anne, I intend to go down into Devon and live quietly. I am mightily fatigued by the events of these past months –’

  ‘But George, Kit here must learn to be… to be… a courtier, a King’s page-boy at the least, for will he not have a courtesy title now that you are made Baron Potheridge as well? Come sir, I pray thee do not cozen me,’ she added hurriedly and with some asperity as Monck turned away. Then, her tone even sharper, she rounded on him setting-out her stall as she might have once set-out her millinery. ‘You paraded the Army at Blackheath and received the King’s acclamation for it; you came into London at the head of the King’s procession on your black horse, rigged like a popinjay and leading the King and his Royal Brothers like three monkeys…’

  ‘Anne! Damnation, Anne, have a care! That is not –’

  ‘You regarded all the bonfires and the bells, the flower and herb-throwing, the largesse and obeisance of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation, the fountains running red with wine, the banners and the tapestries, the peoples’ cheers as much your triumph as the King’s!’

  ‘Anne! I have no such regard for all that nonsense. Do you of all people not know that?’ He was at once furious, distraught and hurt, well knowing there was a song going about the streets to an air they were calling ‘General Monck’s March’. He knew, too, the skewing of his reputation by its slander:

  With Glory there comes booty,

  With the love of a fair day’s pay,

  If you’ve troops to command, he’ll give you a hand,

  George Monck is a practical man.

  He knew too of the underlying truth of it, for to the returns he derived from Scotland, amounting to £500 per annum, there was £4,000 a year yielded by his Irish estates plus a pensionable grant out of the Royal Revenues of £7,000 to him and the heirs of his body on his assumption of his ducal title. The animadversions of the uncomprehending world he could brush aside, but this assault by his wife whose own avarice had undoubtedly contributed to public opinion, was insupportable. Hurt swiftly turned to affront, then anger and the uncoiling of his infamous temper.

  ‘Such flummeries were rites of passage to be endured,’ he snarled, his blue eyes cooling. He clenched his fists and held them fast to his side as young Kit fell back and Anne’s face lost its colour. ‘’Tis you, Madam, whose head has been turned!’

  But Anne was not to be stayed, despite her husband’s rising temper. Her rise to rank beyond her wildest dreams needed some expression and she could not understand her husband’s reticence, or his sudden and obvious anger. He had earned his elevation, as she knew better than most women of her new station ever did, having experienced what hard work truly was. She was proud of their joint accomplishment, and of their installation here, in the apartments provided for them in The Cockpit at Whitehall. That her husband had assumed a veritable plethora of offices, as Captain General of all His Majesty’s forces until his death, as Master of the Horse, as a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber – utterly unique in His Majesty having granted Monck leave to attend him at any time and to leave only when asked to by the Sovereign himself – gave her unmitigated pleasure.

  It was unprecedented, so high did the tough old soldier stand in the esteem of Charles Stuart, and so much did Charles Stuart need unimpeachable advice which only George Monck could impart. Why should not Anne, the loyal wife, bask in some of the reflected glory? Had she not played her own small part in all this amazing turn of events, making sweetmeats to beguile the Members of Parliament as their husbands havered indecisively over the future of the Three Nations? And in her thoughtfulness in making the cold and rambling Palace of Whitehall fit to receive a restored monarch?

  She stepped towards him, her own fists balled, hammering on the bulk of his chest, the tears now streaming down her face and turning it an unlovely red. ‘I am proud of you George Monck, proud of you, God damn your black soul!’

  The harpy attack turned Monck’s mood as she beat him ineffectually, converting anger and hurt to astonishment and then amusement.

  ‘Anne! Anne!’ he laughed, seizing her slender wrists and restraining her until she subsided on his breast and they embraced. ‘I pray thee, do not count your chickens until they are hatched, Anne. The Letters Patent conferring my titles have not yet been issued.’

  ‘Oh, pah!’ The King will not break his word.’

  ‘His father did, often enough. And there are signs he is already disregarding what he promised at Breda in regard of the Regicides.’

  ‘That sort of talk will get you hanged, George Monck.’

  ‘’Tis a pity they don’t hang wives, though calling the King and his brothers monkeys may yet change all that,’ he retorted with a grin, so that they fell to laughing together after such a sharp encounter. ‘Come…’ He embraced and kissed her again. ‘I have invited Lochiel to dinner. He returns to Scotland tomorrow and I wish to pay him my respects before he leaves.’

  Anne sighed and drew away with a mocking moue of her mouth. ‘I see I must yet attend thee as a mere cook,’ she said.

  ‘Merely as my lady,’ he said, an edge of serious intent in his voice, so that Anne hurried off to give orders to her kitchen, motioning young Christopher to follow until his father stopped her.

  ‘You must forgive us, my boy,’ Monck said, seating himself and beckoning the lad to his knee. ‘You will find our lives much changed, Kit. Your mother is right, you must learn to become a courtier, but I promise you we will go down into Devon from time-to-time and I shall teach you to shoot and tickle for trout as I did when I was a lad like you.’

  ‘But I want to become a soldier, Father, like you.’

  ‘There will be time enough for that. Besides, on campaign it helps a soldier if he can find his own food and he needs to shoot straight. You cannot learn to sho
ot straighter than by hitting a fallow buck in a sun-dappled woodland; to tell you the truth ’tis the only way. And you must ride, like you had been learning to in Scotland.’

  ‘I liked Scotland,’ Kit said wistfully. There was a preternaturally distant look in the boy’s eye and Monck presciently thought the lad’s future would not be easy. He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘I hope that I live long enough to be good to thee, my boy.’

  ‘You are good to me Father.’

  Monck smiled at the serious face looking up at him. ‘Perhaps, but we have not spent enough time together so there is room for improvement.’ Monck was conscious that tears were filling his own eyes and he sniffed and coughed. Looking out of the dirty window of his chamber in The Cockpit he said abstractedly, ‘Potheridge is lovely at this time of the year…’

  ‘Is it better than the palace at Dalkeith?’ Kit asked, and Monck recalled the boy would remember nothing of the old manor house.

  ‘Oh yes. At least I think so, though I liked the gardens at Dalkeith. But they belonged to the Duchess of Buccleuch, whereas Potheridge is all mine.’

  ‘And will be mine one day,’ Kit said with a finality that revealed something of the schooling Anne had already given him.

  ‘Yes,’ replied his father. ‘Yes, it will, one day…’

  *

  In the following weeks of June and July Monck found himself completely engaged in the establishment of the new King’s Government. Appointed a senior Privy Counsellor, he declined the arduous office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, approving the appointments of Morice as one of King Charles’s two Secretaries of State and, somewhat contrary to his religious principles and in considerable wonder that so little could yield so much, the appointment of his brother Nicholas to the see of Hereford. The reappointment of Bishops was but one of many of the promised undertakings King Charles II repudiated.