Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  She was still flying Admiraal Van Ghent’s flag, a huge Dutch ensign floating languidly over her gilded stern above the Royal Coat of Arms of King Charles II. Monck sat his horse and watched as the Dutch boats towed their booty downstream, rubbing his eyes, overwhelmed by the ferocity of his emotion. Slowly the Royal Charles, once Oliver’s great flag-ship and named for his greatest victory at Naseby, the very ship aboard which the King had been carried home from exile, disappeared from view, a prize of the Mynheers.

  That evening, as word reached them that the Dutch were abandoning Sheerness fort and withdrawing from the Medway, Monck called a further meeting at Pett’s house. Exhausted from lack of sleep the previous night and the exertions of the day, he sat heavily, breaking the silence by asking: ‘Well Matthew, cast us the total losses.’

  Lock cleared his throat. ‘The Royal Charles and the Unity taken. Burnt or scuttled, the Royal James, the Loyal London, the Royal Oak, the Golden Phoenix, the Vanguard, the Charles the Fifth, the Matthias, the Maria Sancta, the Marmaduke and the Leicester…’ Lock laid down the paper from which he had been reading.

  ‘But the Monmouth is safe,’ growled Monck. ‘Well, thanks be to Almighty God for that mercy.’ He hauled himself to his feet and went to the window that looked down over the dockyard towards the river. As if framed for his especial benefit the blackened and still burning hulk of the Royal James lay grounded, the stink of her smouldering permeating the room. Monck turned back to the men at the table.

  ‘I am of a mind to break my sword across my knee,’ he said heavily, lowering his head. Just then Lock, who had been called from the room, re-entered it.

  ‘This, by an express, just arrived, Your Grace.’ Lock handed Monck the letter. He recognised Clarendon’s hand in the superscription and tore at the seal. The King commanded Monck’s immediate return to London. The banks had closed; credit was not be had; the exchanges were paralysed; coal had risen ten-fold in price and panic was spreading. The Dutch had been in the Thames where men-of-war and merchant ships had been burnt as high as Woolwich. Even now the enemy’s fleet was anchored at the Nore and there was talk of more ships lying off Harwich.

  ‘There is no rest, Matthew,’ Monck said, passing the letter to Lock, ‘no rest for the weary.’

  CHAPTER TEN – NEW HALL, ESSEX

  Winter 1667 – Summer 1669

  Anne stared from the window overlooking the formal garden that lay to the rear of New Hall. The grandeur of the great Tudor pile mocked her. Here had resided for a short while King Henry VIII; Oliver had been granted the place in recognition of his destruction of Stuart hopes at Worcester, though he had relinquished it later for Hampton Court. Now she, Nan Clarges that was, sat as the chatelaine, the farrier’s daughter now Her Grace The Duchess of Albemarle.

  She sighed and shivered. The place was cold and the frost still lay upon the shrubs and ornamental trees below her. She cast a disinterested glance at the grey December sky and wished, with an involuntary sob, that she and her husband and boy were at Potheridge. For all her ambition, in retrospect she would rather have had the gentle life of a country squire’s wife than the vain-glory of Charles’s luxurious Court. She shivered again; was she contracting a fever? She found she did not care, for her beloved George was dying. A return of the distemper which had laid him low five years earlier had returned and his physician, Doctor Thomas Skinner, held out little hope. ‘He has a dropsy against which no timely care was employed,’ Skinner had said reproachfully.

  But what could she have done? Her husband had been worn to this unhappy pass by the King’s ceaseless demands and all her pleas had fallen upon deaf ears. The very thought made her angry, and she had once been such an enthusiastic Royalist!

  ‘Madam? Your Grace?’

  Anne looked up to see Skinner approach. ‘Well, Doctor?’

  Skinner shook his head. ‘I regret that he is no better, Your Grace. I fear the worst and for that we must prepare…’

  ‘Yes.’ She was dry-eyed. It was what she had been expecting; the inevitable.

  ‘Your Grace, it is cold here. I beseech thee to come into a warmer chamber. There is no sense in contracting a fever yourself.’

  Skinner offered his arm and Anne rose to lean upon the young man as he led her into the solar where he left her before a crackling fire. Here Doctor Gumble found her an hour later, the fire nothing but a smoky heap of ash, unmade-up, the room chilling.

  ‘I did not send for you, Doctor Gumble,’ she remonstrated.

  ‘I know, Your Grace, but Doctor Skinner expressed his fears for you and I felt it my duty to –’

  ‘Do not speak to me of duty, sir,’ she said sharply. ‘Duty is even now depriving me of my husband and all the hope of happiness I have in this life.’

  ‘Come, come, Your Grace, you have the happiness of the hereafter to look forward to,’ Gumble said brightly. ‘His Grace is such a man as the Heavenly Kingdom awaits… His nobility, his selflessness…’

  ‘And what of his bad deeds, Doctor? What of them?’

  ‘All men – aye, and all women too – are sinners…’

  ‘He pulled down Clarendon.’

  ‘No, Your Grace, he did not do that,’ Gumble’s tone was emphatic.

  ‘I have heard him mumbling that it was him.’

  ‘Your Grace is troubled unnecessarily by the ramblings of his fevered mind to which nothing of sense should be attached. I have the truth, should you wish to hear it.’

  Anne sighed. ‘If it pleases you.’

  ‘It pleases me to set your mind at rest, Your Grace, for you need have no apprehensions that His Grace’s conduct was anything other than that of a man of honour.’ Gumble paused, saw that the Duchess made no objection, and entered upon his sermon. ‘You are aware, of course, that after the catastrophic events of recent months an explanation was necessary both to the King and Privy Council, but also to Parliament. Both His Grace and His Highness Prince Rupert fully justified their conduct at sea, His Highness pleading most eloquently that had the Duke of York and My Lord Sandwich better pursued the Dutch fleet after the Lowestoft fight, the conditions for further prosecuting the war would be deprived the Dutch. That matter passed with the thanks of Parliament being heaped upon the two, Rupert and your husband.

  ‘As for the fiasco in the Medway, His Grace was cleared of any wrong-doing, it being established that he had accomplished all that could be done given the parlous situation there prevailing. Blame was laid upon Commissioner Pett for his gross and prolonged neglect, of his seeking to mislead His Highness The Duke of York as Lord Admiral as to how matters truthfully stood. As for the lack of funds by which mean things might have been the better prepared, the chief culprit in this was the Earl of Clarendon –’

  ‘But ’twas not true,’ interrupted Anne. ‘Funds were drawn off improperly by sundry persons, not the Earl of Clarendon, this I know for my husband told me this himself. He was outraged that blame should be imputed where it was unjust…’

  ‘Just so, Your Grace. Your husband being who he is would thus react, and in all the truth of it. No, no, the notion that the Earl was the cause was a calumny, a wicked calumny, for Clarendon was, likewise was your husband, critical of the King’s morals. Both men were the targets of a vicious plot hatched by Milady Castlemaine but which gained support from and was maintained by others, chiefly for gravitas Sir Edward Conway who found in the fall of Clarendon some advantage for himself. As His Grace tells the story it was laid to the charge of the Duke of York to dismiss Clarendon…’

  ‘His very own father-in-law…’

  ‘To keep it within the family, so to speak, and to advise him into timely exile, but His Highness developed a smallpox and the task was laid upon His Grace who, in discharging it, purged himself of any taint. That was the element of the affair which vexed your husband and, very likely, brought on this resumption of his former disease.’

  Anne sat for a long moment before emitting a long sigh. ‘Thus do great men fall…’

  ‘If
Clarendon was great…’

  ‘I meant my husband, Doctor.’

  ‘Your Grace, your husband has not fallen. Even should he die under this present disadvantage, he lies in the happiest opinion of his Sovereign and with all the obligations of a grateful nation.’

  ‘You do not see the world with a woman’s eyes, Doctor Gumble. ’Twas ever a man’s fault.’

  To break the awkward silence that now fell between them, Gumble offered to have a maid sent to make up the fire.

  ‘No, no, sir. The cost of it is not to be borne. I shall go and sit with him.’

  Gumble rose as the Duchess got to her feet, holding the door for her. Then he looked at the cold grate and shook his head. ‘This is parsimony taken unto madness,’ he murmured to himself, following his mistress.

  In the great man’s bed-chamber Anne settled beside Monck’s bed while Gumble, seeing that there was nothing more wanted, made his bow and withdrew.

  Anne regarded Monck with great tenderness. His immense trunk was propped almost upright by a bank of pillows to ease his breathing, which came labouring out of his wheezing chest. She took his hand and gently squeezed it so that he opened his eyes.

  ‘I do not sleep, Anne.’

  ‘You should try,’ she said kindly.

  ‘Why? I have the whole of eternity for that. I can just see the trees from here and think the drive would benefit from an avenue of limes such as we tried at Dalkeith… What do you think, Nan?’

  ‘I think that an excellent idea, George. You shall do it in the spring, perhaps.’

  ‘And if I do not live to do it, you shall, or order Kit to see to it.’ He smiled, ‘even if it were my last wish, eh?’

  ‘Please, George.’

  They remained silent for several minutes, then Monck stirred and said, ‘I was thinking of that fellow Pepys.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Pepys; a clerk at the Navy Board or the Admiralty. D’you not mind him? He dined with us upon occasion, a conceited fellow full of his own merits and blind to those in others, chiefly me…’ Monck chuckled to himself, a noise emitted more like a rusty cackle than any expression of amusement. He coughed and Anne wiped his mouth clear of spittle. When he had regained his breath he resumed his tale. ‘I met him in the Strand at the time of Clarendon’s dismissal. It was a time when all connected with the business of the Navy were anxious of imputations of misdoings and malfeasances. I could read worry all over Master Pepys’s smooth countenance and I ventured a pass at him which struck home. “Good day to you, Master Pepys,” says I, to be met with an obsequious reciprocation in which there was a good deal of “Your Grace this and Your Grace that,” and “is Your Grace in good health which is that which I most earnestly desire in these trying times, Your Grace.” There was a good deal more too tedious to relate but by which I judged that he had learned I at least was cleared of all such accusations that might yet fall about his neck as a hangman’s noose. So, says I - for there was something reminiscent of Master Peter Pett, the Chatham Commissioner – so says I: “I hope, Master Pepys, thou hast carried into the country all your plate and monies,” at which point the poor fellow’s face grows as pallid as a bed-sheet and he staggers so that I thought he might faint. Next he mutters: “How dost Your Grace know…” then realising he had confessed and to a man whose wits he thinks inferior to his own, puts his hand to his mouth and stares at me like a bullock awaiting the axe! Ha! Ha!’ Monck’s croaking laugh brought on another fit of coughing which in turn caused Anne to plead for him to speak no more.

  But Monck would have none of it, for the yarn was too good to abandon and must be brought to its conclusion. He waved her concern aside. ‘The best bit is yet to be told, Anne… yes, yes, for I had had a day at the Council board and was tired of politicking. So, seeing Master Pepys’s extreme discomfiture, I replied to his query. “Master Pepys,” says I, “I know that thou thinks me a dim wit and, besides, regard me as any young man might an old one, but thou forgets that I know a knave when I see one and have had intelligencers inform me of a great deal. Remember, sir, who ruled Scotland under Oliver…’ Monck paused, turned his head and stared at Anne, as if expecting some reaction.

  ‘I do not see…’ she began, confused, unable to laugh with her dying husband.

  ‘Anne, Anne, it showed I had not lost my wits then, nor have I now by this acute remembrance, for all that this damnable illness seeks to enfeeble my brain…’

  His head fell back upon the pillows and he closed his eyes and presently his even breathing told her that he slept at last.

  *

  But just as before, though he lay a-bed sick for many weeks, Monck confounded all expectations and did not die. With the onset of spring, his disease abated and he would rise for an hour or two in the afternoons and see his steward, giving the man orders for the betterment of his estate. From time-to-time, Tom Clarges and Will Morice would pay their kinsfolk a visit and the talk would swirl about the table of politics, of the King’s plethora of mistresses, of York’s Popery endangering the succession, and the King’s secret inclination towards it. They talked, too, of Potheridge and of the works in hand there, leading Monck to say that thither he would go the moment he could travel, for the sight of the Torridge in summer sunshine would restore any man to health, no matter what the ravages of his disease.

  To Gumble’s cringing delight, they entertained the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gilbert Sheldon, and upon one occasion the Spanish Ambassador interrupted his embassage to call upon the Duke of Albemarle, reporting afterwards that the great man was married to a parsimonious shrew, his grand rooms were cold as a castle, and his table ill-served, the food being badly prepared and lacking in either quality or quantity. ‘His Grace’s great and envied wealth,’ the Ambassador wrote to Madrid, ‘is not anywhere in evidence other than in the grandeur of his surroundings. Otherwise his establishment is mean…’

  When, upon his departure, he made some such observation to Gumble, who had taken upon himself the role of His Grace’s major domo, the pious but loyal and sycophantic divine defended his master. ‘Your Excellency sees only the ruin of the man of latter days and forgets the man whose entire active life was spent in the frugality and rigours of the camp. Superfluity is not in the Duke’s nature, Excellency. His strength lies in the capacity of his mind and the diligence of his application to work. There are riches enough in his Treasury, to be sure, but those of his great spirit are monumental.’ And with this somewhat confusing panegyric, the Ambassador had to be content.

  Most regular and welcome of these visitors was the Earl of Craven whose company always lifted Monck’s spirits, for old campaigns were fought again, both men having served in the Low Countries in their youth. Craven’s tales diverted Anne from her more lugubrious thoughts, and she was swept along by his rich, amusing and informative narratives concerning the lives of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her two sons, the Princes Rupert and Maurice. Craven was a living link with a past that Anne perceived as romantic, tragic and which somehow redemptively reversed the impression of futility that her lonely, isolated life at New Hall had slowly imposed upon her during her husband’s illness. Craven also brought with him particulars of the scandalous behaviour of the King and his court which, if they did not entirely amuse either Monck or his wife, passed many a winter’s evening and reminded them of the life that went on beyond their walls.

  ‘I had something of interest to you only recently from Arlington,’ Craven remarked one night when a savage gale blew about the chimney pots of New Hall. The two men were alone, each with their glass, Craven enjoying his pipe and Monck his quid.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘That the night the Dutch were in the Thames and the Medway, and you, George, you were about your business with the Coldstreamers at Chatham, that the King, taking no notice of the affairs of his Kingdom, was chasing a moth in the company of his whore.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oh, Castlemaine, of course.’

  Monck frowned, parked
his quid in his cheek and said ruminatively, ‘His Majesty is a great disappointment to me.’ Craven removed his pipe-stem from his mouth, but otherwise remained silent. ‘I did not play my part on His Restoration to find I had put a man of seemingly infinite frivolity upon the Throne.’

  ‘They are a doomed House, the Stuarts…’

  ‘You should know, William, your loyalty was ill-requited.’

  ‘York will not last when the time comes; the country will not stomach a Catholic and all our wars will have to be fought over again.’

  Monck shook his head. ‘They will not be told, the Stuarts, not one of them…’

  *

  Throughout these months Monck’s condition had been that of a convalescent. He remained dropsical, could not lie flat without choking, and suffered from a shortness of breath at the slightest exertion. The warmer weather tempted him out of doors and he was driven round the estate, leaving instructions for a long stone circumvallation. In the late spring, a letter arrived from Bristol. It was signed by a certain ‘Doctor Sermon’ who claimed to have been a former comrade-in-arms under the Lord General and gave His Grace notice that he had now become a distinguished physician with a cure for the dropsy. Sermon offered to prescribe Monck a notable specific which could produce a wondrous cure. Monck was inclined to dismiss the fellow, for he could not recollect a man of the name, but Anne and Gumble, without at first conferring with Skinner, persuaded Monck to respond. At Monck’s acquiescence, Gumble therefore took it upon himself to invite the old soldier to New Hall. The man duly arrived and produced a dissolving pill of compressed powders consisting of several excellent substances to be infused in white-wine. There was also a so-called diet-drink, the recipe for which was afterwards left in Gumble’s charge. After the absorption of nineteen or twenty of the infusions, Monck was on his feet and could sleep lying-down, some of the weight of the dropsy falling miraculously away from his body. His appetite was restored and he recovered much of his former energy. Those who loved him remarked that his mind was as active as formerly and he went about the estate planting the avenue of limes that he had promised.