Monk

CHAPTER XII
ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM

With Monk's success his real difficulties began. His first act was to attend the Council of State. The Oath of Abjuration was tendered to him and he refused it. A third of the Council had done the same, and amongst them irreproachable Republicans. He suggested a conference between the two parties to settle the point. For the present he certainly could not take it. He must consult the Coldstreamers. "The officers of my army," he said, and his words must have sounded strangely like a threat, "are very tender in taking oaths." So he returned to his apartments to be besieged with callers. Politicians were there eager for a word on which to work, and astute foreign ministers at their wits' end what to report to their respective governments. For every one a discreet answer had to be provided. All Sunday the game continued with little relief, except a secret information that Scot's son had been boasting how in a few days the general would be in the Tower with his head in danger.

Monk wisely took no more notice of the information than to display his force by lining the way from Whitehall to Westminster with a "triumphant guard" as on Monday he went down in state to receive the thanks of Parliament. Scot had told him that a declaration of his devotion to the House and his dislike of the addresses was expected. It was a trying ordeal, but his blunt honesty took him through. A chair of state had been placed for him at the bar, but he refused to sit, as unbecoming a servant of the Parliament. Standing he received the fulsome vote of thanks, and then leaning over the back of the chair, he made his modest acknowledgments, protesting he had done no more than his duty. As though he were making an official report of matters in which he had no personal concern, he told them that on his way to town he had observed the country to be very anxious for a settlement, and that a number of addresses had been presented to him. The demands they contained and his own unexceptionable answers were summarised with soldier-like brevity. "But although I said it not to them," he continued, "I must say (with pardon) to you; that the less oaths and engagements are imposed (with respect had to the security of the common cause) the sooner your settlement will be attained to.... I know all the sober gentry will close with you if they may be tenderly and gently used. And I am sure you will so use them; as knowing it to be the common concern to amplify and not lessen our interest, and to be careful that neither the Cavalier nor the Fanatic party have a share in your civil or military power." In conclusion he respectfully called attention to the advisability of confirming the land-grants of the Irish soldiers and adventurers, and of settling several points for the better and more equable administration of Scotland.

Nothing could have been done better. The immediate effect of the speech was an immense increase in Monk's popularity. The conservative Republicans were delighted at his deferential demeanour; their ladies, returning from Mrs. Monk's reception at Whitehall, approved her sweetmeats, and complacently noted how she had helped them to wine with her own hand; while the country at large read the general's speech as a threat to the oligarchy which oppressed it. The city was enthusiastic, for not only did it begin to doubt the sincerity of his devotion to the Rump, but by his conclusion about Ireland the capitalists saw in him their champion. And, as we have seen, at such a crisis the capitalists had then the same peculiar influences which they have exercised under similar conditions in more modern times.

In fact from this moment the city became the scene on which the drama of the Restoration was to be played out. A week ago Mordaunt had arrived on a special mission from Charles to assure the Corporation of his constitutional intentions should he return, and the city had definitely turned its face to the King. The situation which the prevailing political uncertainty had brought about was no longer endurable. Trade was in a state of complete stagnation. Property was felt to be unsafe. The city was without a single representative in Parliament. It saw the moment had come for a decisive step, and two days after Monk's speech, on the ground that the sitting Parliament was not a representative assembly, the Common Council resolved to pay no more taxes till the House had filled up its vacancies.

Monk's principles were immediately put to a severe test. It was late at night when the vote of defiance became known at Whitehall, but a summons came for his instant attendance at the Council of State. The hours went by and he did not return. His friends remembered young Scot's boast, and gathered in alarm. Ashley Cooper tried to take his seat in the Council-chamber, but found it locked and guarded. Mrs. Monk hammered on the door and cried frantically to her husband, but not a sound came back. In despair she retired to her apartments, and it was past two before she was relieved by her husband's reappearance. Then it was only for a moment. To his friends' dismay he briefly told them that at daybreak the city was to be occupied, and then refusing to listen to any one went to bed. His paymasters had ordered him to coerce those on whom all his hopes depended, and he was going to obey.

The movement was punctually carried out, and no sooner were the guards set and the troops at their quarters than Monk, in accordance with his instructions, sent for a number of the leading citizens and placed them under arrest. This done, to the amazement of his officers, he ordered them to remove the city gates and portcullises, and the post and chains by which the streets were barricaded. In vain they protested, in vain his most devoted followers tendered their commissions. His only reply was to order the subordinate officers to do the work of their superiors. Of so astounding a piece of obedience no one knew what to think. The common soldiers were inclined to look upon it as a joke; the officers were in despair. At last a deputation of the Corporation waited on him to expostulate, and promise that if he would desist the Common Council would meet early on the morrow and reconsider its determination.

Monk at once complied, and reported to the Council of State recommending a lenient course. They replied brutally that they had dissolved the Common Council, and that he was not only to take down the gates but to break them in pieces. Again he obeyed. "Now, George," cried Haslerig when he heard of it, "we have thee for ever, body and soul." On the morrow, with growing anger, the troops recommenced the hateful work. They fraternised with the people, and together they railed at the Rump. Morley, who held the Tower, came and offered to declare against the men of Westminster if Monk would only give the word. His warmest friends went to reason with him, but the general sat in his quarters at the Three Tuns, near Guildhall, grimly chewing his tobacco, and no one dare speak to him. So extraordinary was his conduct that his officers began to believe he had some deep design. The orders were carried out to the last letter; guards were set at all the important points, and in the afternoon the rest of the army marched back to its quarters about Westminster.

Haslerig and his friends had won an incalculable victory. On Monk hung the hopes of the country, and they had deliberately struck him a fatal blow where they knew his spotless sense of honour exposed him without defence to their attack. His position was indeed desperate, and no sooner was he alone at Whitehall than Clarges came in to point out the extremity of his danger. The wanton insult he had put upon the liberties of the great municipal corporation must turn against him not only every town in the kingdom, but the whole influence of finance and commerce. It was the deliberate intention of the Council that it should. Nothing could now save him but to return immediately to the city and declare for a free Parliament. Monk would not listen. Clarges in desperation began to urge the folly of being true to men who did not keep their side of the engagement. He showed the general how through the whole affair he had been treated with contempt. Ever since his entry into London the Government had habitually called him "Commissioner" Monk. They had denied him the very rank they themselves had conferred upon him, and violated the commission on which he based his obedience. The general began to waver. He felt the injustice keenly, and confessed at last that something must be done to regain the country's esteem. With that he dismissed his kinsman, saying that he would take till Tuesday to consider what course he should adopt.

It was Friday. By Tuesday the news would be all over the kingdom and he a ruined man. It was absolutely necessary to do something at once. Presently Clarges returned with Dr. Barrow, the general's private physician and judge-advocate, a man who had been of great service throughout. Two or three officers accompanied them, with whom they had privately agreed to brave the general's displeasure in one more effort to save him from his rigid integrity. With the vehemence of despair they poured out proof after proof of the Rump's iniquitous intentions. Haslerig was in correspondence with Lambert. Ludlow, whom Monk had accused of treason on Coote's information, still sat in his place. A tumultuous petition in favour of strict abjuration had been fomented and received by the House at the hands of Praise-God Barebones himself, the ringleader of those very fanatics against whom he had come to act. The Council was even then, it was said, considering whether they should cashier him on the ground that in leaving the city he had disobeyed its orders. After all his devotion it was more than the honest soldier could endure, and reluctantly he consented to march into the city next day. Having issued his orders accordingly, he told his little council to prepare some excuse to the Parliament. No excuse could be found. The general was worn out; for the last two nights he had had no sleep; unable to resist any longer, he at last allowed a letter to be prepared, setting out the real reasons of the movement and demanding the House to keep its word. With that he went to bed, and all through the night the four councillors that remained were busy with the manifesto.

Early next morning the members came down to the House in the ordinary course. The guards were all on duty as usual, and the Speaker proceeded to take the chair. No sooner, however, was business begun than two of Monk's colonels came in with a long letter signed by the general and fourteen of his field-officers. In respectful but unequivocal language it charged them with deliberately seeking to undo all the good that had been effected by their restoration. It desired them, therefore, to show their good intentions by settling the qualification of members and issuing writs for the vacant seats by the next Friday. It reminded them that the date fixed for their dissolution was at hand, and finally informed them that with the intention of waiting for their "full and free concurrence to these just desires of the nation," and of preserving order till it was obtained, the army had retired into the city.

The House was thrown immediately into a tumult of consternation. At the very moment when their terrible slave seemed safely bound he had risen up and snapped his chains like threads. Every kind of proposition was made to recall him, but eventually Scot and Robinson were ordered to carry a soft answer into the city. They found Monk with the Lord Mayor, and in the lowest spirits. His reception had been more than cold; the city had lost faith in him; he had broken the guiding rule of his life and had lost faith in himself. His friends urged him to declare at once for a free Parliament, but hoping against hope that he still might not be forced to use the military power against the civil, he refused to give a hint of his intended revolt till he heard the answer of the House. When it came, shifty and meaningless, he doubted no longer. Without heat he dismissed the messengers, but his officers insulted them, and the mob hooted them out of the city. Once more himself, blunt and determined, he stood up in the Guildhall to address the Council which the Lord Mayor had consented to call at five o'clock. With manly frankness he told them how he detested the work he had had to do. If laying down his commission would have stopped it, he would gladly have done so, but it would only have been put into unkinder hands. "But what I have to tell you," he concluded, "is that this morning I have sent to the Parliament to issue out writs within seven days for the filling up of their House, and when filled to sit no longer than till May 6th, that they may give place to a full and free Parliament."

The enthusiasm with which his words were received was indescribable. As the news spread through the city the people gave way to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Late as it was the bells were set a-ringing; the soldiers, who had been shivering all day in their ranks on Finsbury Fields, were brought in to be fed and fêted like kings. Bonfires were soon blazing in every street, and anything that could do duty for an effigy of the Rump was cast into them. To such a pitiable decrepitude had the glorious Long Parliament lived.

As its doom was cried from end to end of England the same extravagant scenes were enacted. Associations were everywhere formed to refuse the payment of taxes till Monk's demands were complied with. Everywhere men were worshipping the executioner of their doting liberator. His guards kept watch at the Parliament's gates; from the city his sword was stretched over it. In spite of himself, in spite of every effort to set a lawful authority above him, George Monk was uncrowned King of England.

But the sternest of those who had made the renown of the greatest of Parliaments were still in their places, and it was soon clear that they meant to leave no stone unturned to dethrone their enemy. Persuasion having failed they tried what force could do. A new commission for the army was appointed, so arranged that Monk must always be in the minority. They distributed arms to the Fanatics; they tampered with his troops; they industriously spread reports amongst Fleetwood's army that Monk and the city were in league to restore the King. Monk's complete reply was to seize the arms of Cavaliers and Fanatics alike and to refuse to allow the city to mobilise its militia. Then they fell to coaxing again, with no more success. For Monk began to see a better way of ridding himself of the power which had fallen on him than by surrendering it on any terms to those who had so misused it.

Ever since he had established himself at Draper's Hall addresses and petitions of all kinds had flowed in upon him. It soon appeared that the great majority of them were in favour of escaping from the deadlock by the restoration of the secluded members. To this the general had always been averse. They were pronounced Royalists, who wished to go back to the Isle of Wight treaty and the status quo of 1648, regardless of the vested interests that had arisen meanwhile. It meant the resumption of the land-grants which had been made for the services of those who had shed their blood for the good old cause, and that in Monk's eyes meant a new civil war. Already the suspicions which his understanding with the city had aroused were once more driving the Republicans into the extended arms of Lambert's militarism, and he seems to have at this time regarded the objections to the King's return as insuperable. Milton with all his eloquence, and Haslerig with all the ardour of his democratic faith, were blinding him to everything but the "good old cause." "From my soul I desire a Commonwealth," he wrote to Haslerig, and so long as the secluded members showed themselves irreconcilable to the Republic he would have nothing to do with them. Now, however, it was suggested to him that they were willing to come to terms with the sitting members, and he permitted a conference between the victims and the instigators of Pride's Purge.

The conference was so far satisfactory that the general entered into direct negotiations with the secluded members on behalf of the army. The chief points on which he insisted were a clear understanding that nothing was to be done to change the form of government from a Commonwealth; that the House should dissolve immediately it had provided for the interim administration of the country; and that the land-grants should be confirmed. On the first two points their answer was satisfactory. The last they rejected on the ground that they had no authority to pass such an act. Were any proof wanted of the disinterestedness of Monk's conduct at this time, it is that in spite of his undeniable love of money he gave up the point on which hung the hard-earned savings of a lifetime. Yet even this risk he was prepared to run for the good of the country he loved so well. Early on February 21st all the secluded members who were in town assembled at Whitehall. There the general met them and made them a speech setting forth his view of the situation. He told them that monarchy was not to be thought of. The old foundations were so broken that they could not be restored. If the nation found their long struggle was only to end in a restoration they would never again be induced to rise for the liberties of Parliament, and the cause of freedom would be lost for ever. Besides a King meant bishops, and that the country would never endure again. So he dismissed them to Westminster under the escort of his own lifeguard.

Almost the first act of the reinvigorated Parliament was to name Monk "Captain-General under Parliament of all the land forces in England, Scotland, and Ireland." By virtue of this exalted rank he became as fully as the sovereign of to-day the constitutional head of the nation in arms. Added to this he was made jointly with Montague general of the fleet, and when the list of the new Council of State came out his name appeared in large type across the top like a king's. Haslerig at once saw his opportunity for a new departure. To destroy Monk's power directly was no longer possible, but so exalted was his position that could it be forced a little higher it would become insecure; or if the worst came to the worst, a protectorate, or even a King George, was better than the accursed Stuart.

This dangerous move on the part of the Commonwealth men soon began to show itself. A pamphlet had already appeared setting out Monk's royal descent. Now an insidious motion was made in the House to bestow on him and his heirs for ever the palace of Hampton Court and all its parks, and a Bill to give it effect was successfully brought in. But before long a still better opportunity presented itself to Haslerig. On March 13th the House, on the plea of leaving the nation absolutely free, abrogated the "Engagement" which members had to take to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth as established without King or House of Lords. Monk was highly annoyed. He looked upon it as a breach of the conditions on which the secluded members had been admitted. Jealous of his principles, he had seated them with a high hand on the express understanding that nothing was to be done to alter the constitution. Practically the vote went far to make him and the army responsible for the counter-revolution to which it directly pointed, and which every day looked more unavoidable. Haslerig saw the moment had come to play his trump card. With the concurrence of their party and a number of officers, he, Scot, and some others repaired to Whitehall, bent on inducing Monk to assume the protectorate. Clarges was first sounded. He gave no encouragement, and the conspirators left him to go straight to the lord-general. In alarm lest his brother-in-law's power of resistance should be unequal to so splendid a temptation, Clarges flew to the Council which was sitting in a room close by. In answer to an urgent summons Ashley Cooper came out, and Clarges hurriedly told him his alarming suspicions of what was going on in the lord-general's apartments.

Meanwhile by every argument Haslerig and his friends were pressing Monk to take upon himself the civil authority as well as the military. It was clear, they said, from the late vote that a restoration was intended, and a restoration meant his death, for like Stanley, who enthroned the Tudors, he was too great to live. Monk told them to fear nothing. The House merely wanted to leave its successor entirely free, and as for taking upon himself the civil authority, the fate of Cromwell's family was a warning to which he could not be deaf. Haslerig urged that Cromwell was a usurper, while Monk would be acclaimed by the nation. He himself was prepared to bring a petition with a hundred thousand signatures. But the lord-general was obdurate, and dismissing the conspirators he repaired to his place at the Council. The moment he appeared Ashley Cooper got up and moved that the room be cleared and the doors locked. Then he charged Monk with having received some indecent overtures from seditious persons, and demanded a full disclosure of their nature that the Council might take steps accordingly. But the kindly old general had no mind to see proscriptions begin. He had no idea of letting one party shed the blood of another, and being fully determined to hold the balance true till the nation's wishes could be weighed, he was not averse to letting the Council see what volcanic forces he could explode upon them at a word. "There is not so much danger in agitation as you apprehend," he said when Ashley Cooper had done. "It is true some have been with me to be resolved in scruples concerning the present transactions in Parliament, but they went away from me well satisfied." And the Council had to tamely receive the rebuke of the fearless look and laconic address which their consciences were too guilty to resent.

So the incident ended, but not without one important result. As Gumble had lost the general's ear from being suspected probably of too close an understanding with his old patron Scot, so now Clarges, who had succeeded him, was superseded by a new councillor. By the advice of his brother Nicholas the general invited his kinsman Morice, the secluded member for Plymouth, to come up and take his seat, and from this time forward the slow-witted soldier had at his elbow the political sagacity of this scholarly recluse.

It was indeed fortunate that he had, for he was not yet to be left in peace. Haslerig immediately returned to the attack with a petition from a number of officers begging the lord-general to sign a declaration in favour of a Commonwealth and against a single person, and to get the Parliament to do the same. In the army lay the great danger to the country. Monk knew that the only chance of a settlement rested on his ability to keep it in hand till the great voice of the nation could speak its mind with overwhelming authority. Sensible of the gravity of the situation, he told the deputation he would give them an answer in Council of War on the morrow. He was confronted with a danger as great as any he had yet encountered, and he met it with his usual address. To the malcontents' arguments his spokesmen answered that their fears and hopes were alike groundless. The writs ran in the name of the Commonwealth, and every one who had served against the Parliament was disqualified. In any case no good could come of an attempt to put pressure on the House, for it would only dissolve itself and plunge the nation once more into anarchy. And they need not hope that the lord-general in that event would assume the government. They would merely be left a prey to the common enemy. Monk confirmed all his friends had said in the usual laconic speech with which he was wont to close such discussions. Still they were not satisfied. An officer continued to boldly argue that the qualifications were no safeguard, as the new Parliament alone had power to decide whether they had been observed. The argument was unanswerable. Monk abruptly cut it short by saying that the meetings of military councils to meddle with civil matters were subversive of discipline, and for the future he absolutely forbade them. The army was still tingling with the blows by which the terrible disciplinarian had broken it to his will. In various parts of the country where insubordination had shown itself new ones had been inflicted to remind them in whose grip they were. The new spirit of modern discipline which Monk had begotten was already arising, and Haslerig was once more baffled.

Still he was not defeated, and the last hours of the great Parliament are obscured in the mists of another intrigue in which the indomitable Republican played a mysterious part. A resolution had been passed that the dissolution should take place on or before March 16th. As the time drew near signs of a strong disinclination to abide by it began to appear. Monk, who had retired to St. James's to keep as much in the background as possible, began to have his suspicions. The original understanding had been that they were to sit for about a week and do nothing but arrange for a new Parliament and an interim Government, and to take measures to keep the military Fanatics quiet. This merely meant that they were to provide Monk with pay for the army and all that was necessary for the preservation of order. They chose, however, to interpret it by passing a Bill for the re-establishment of the militia, and putting it into the hands of their own men. Not content with this breach of faith, they began busying themselves with Church matters. In a Presbyterian and Independent Parliament such questions were not to be settled in an hour. When the writs came out, moreover, it was found that they had been made returnable five days later than the specified time. The Militia Bill had gone to the printers, but had not yet been published. A committee was sent to inquire into the delay. It was found that the Bill had been tampered with in the press. Haslerig was suspected of being at the bottom of it. However that may be, it had the effect he would have wished. Monk's suspicions were changed to certainties. At St. James's it became clear that the Presbyterians were manœuvring to gain time, till they had the new militia in readiness to support them in prolonging their sitting and recalling the King on their own terms. Pym indeed had so openly advocated this course that the general had had to send for him privately and warn him to hold his tongue. It was just what Monk had feared, but though his own sympathies were in favour of the moderate Presbyterians, he was not going to allow that party to steal a march on the country any more than the Cavaliers or Fanatics or Republicans, and he put his foot down at once.

When the House met on the 6th an ominous letter from the redoubtable general was in the Speaker's hands. Like naughty children conscious of their guilt, they voted that it should not be opened for the present lest it contained a command for them to be gone. The previous day the Bill for settling Hampton Court upon the general had been thrown out on the third reading, at the instance of his friends, it was said, but from what ensued it would seem that at least it was done with unseemly alacrity; and if Monk did not approve of it, it is certainly strange that it was allowed to proceed so far. At all events, as the alarming letter lay unopened before them, they hurriedly voted the lord-general £20,000 and the stewardship of the palace and all its parks. Then the seal was broken and the general's message read. It assured them that he would be responsible for the peace of the Commonwealth with his army, and desired them to stop the reorganisation of the militia. What more it contained we do not know. The immediate effect was that the House despatched a committee to St. James's to give satisfaction to the irate general, and voted to take the question of dissolution the first thing after dinner.

As soon as the members met again after the mid-day adjournment the committee reported that they had been to the general, and he was satisfied with their explanations. But the House had been taught a lesson, and in a few hours, by its own act, the most renowned Parliament that ever sat was no more.

CHAPTER XIII
THE UNCROWNED KING

Monk had now led the country another distinct march along the thorny path he was clearing with such anxious devotion, and Sir William Davenant burst out into a long panegyric on the occasion. But at the same time he reminded the general—

The Parliament was gone, but the Council of State remained, and there the patriotic struggle began again! The Presbyterian section was strong, and outside it was backed by a powerful combination, at the head of which were Northumberland, Manchester and the men of the days to which the Self-Denying Ordinance put an end. These saw that a restoration was inevitable, and felt that the only salvation of the country lay in a renewal of the Isle of Wight treaty. Though baulked by Monk's watchfulness in their attempt to get the King recalled by a Presbyterian Parliament, they did not despair of outmarching the Cavaliers and Opportunists. Their last chance was in a restoration through the agency of the Council of State before the new Parliament could meet, and again and again they pressed Monk to openly espouse their cause. He only said he was in the service of the Commonwealth and could not listen. The pressure grew greater, the party more powerful, and he found it necessary to treat their proposals more seriously, but still he gave no hope. In despair, at last, they seized upon some expression he had let fall to send word to the King that they had won him, and that they were prepared to enter into formal negotiations for a restoration. A fortnight before the needy voluptuary, weary of his exile, would have embraced the offer with avidity, but now, to the astonishment of all concerned, the proposition was coldly, almost contemptuously received. Something had happened of which they were in entire ignorance, something so singular as almost to startle us anew into an exaggeration of the personal influence in history.

Up till now Monk's reputation as a Commonwealth man was practically without a spot. By honestly doing his duty he had lived down every suspicion. All but the most sanguine of the Cavalier agents considered him hopelessly loyal to his trust. Best known of these was his cousin Sir John Grenville, who, in spite of his notorious malignancy, was free of St. James's on the ground of his relationship. But he had no better luck than the rest. Fruitlessly he sought a private interview through his old friend Morice. Night after night he stayed till every one was gone, but "Good-night, cousin; 'tis late," was all he got for his pains as the wary old general went off to bed.

Such was Monk's position when the Portuguese ambassador asked for an audience. The recent treaty of the Pyrenees had left Portugal at the mercy of Spain, and she had sent a special envoy to England to seek assistance. For some time past the envoy had been in negotiation with the Council of State for a renewal of Cromwell's alliance, but the action of the Presbyterian leaders seems to have demonstrated to him that its authority was moribund. The power of Monk and the now inevitable recall of the King suggested to him a brilliant piece of diplomacy, and he resolved to flash a dazzling proposal in the eyes of the general. Father Russell, the secretary to the embassy, seems first to have sounded Morice. But at all events, amidst the enormous mass of business with which he exhausted his secretaries, Monk found time for an interview.

The ambassador began by saying that without wishing to pry into the general's intentions with regard to the King, he thought it only right to tell him that Charles Stuart ought at once to get out of Spanish territory. He was then at Brussels, and the envoy assured Monk that the moment the Spaniards got wind of the national reaction in favour of a restoration they would kidnap his person, and hold him as a hostage for the retrocession of Jamaica and Dunkirk. Monk, who already had reason to suspect the Spaniards of intriguing with the Irreconcilables through the Jesuits, was much impressed, and the ambassador was encouraged to explain his solicitude for Charles's safety. In the event of a restoration, he said, his master was prepared, in return for military assistance against Spain, to offer the King the hand of the Infanta, and with her a dowry of an unheard-of sum of money, together with the towns of Tangiers and Bombay. The advantages of the arrangement it was needless to point out. It would give to England the command of the Mediterranean and East Indian trade, and enable her to complete the humiliation of her great rival which the heroes of the Armada had begun.

To a man of Monk's hot patriotism, who remembered Raleigh, who had been moulded into manhood while Drake and Grenville and Hawkins were living memories, the proposal was too dazzling to resist. His passion for the expansion of England had never been quenched. His faith in it as a panacea for all political trouble was as strong as ever. Before him stretched the prospect of a glorious war, in which the fierce ardour of the Fanatic soldiers would find worthy employ, and serve to lift their country out of the slough into which they had plunged it to a greatness beyond the dreams of their fathers. The fires of his youth were rekindled. He may even have dreamed of ending his career in wiping out the disgrace in which it had begun, and at the head of the most powerful navy and the finest army in the world of outshining the greatest of the great Queen's captains.

Whatever was the overmastering cause, the wary strategist suddenly changed front, cast his scruples to the winds, and the Portuguese ambassador immediately applied to the Council for a frigate to carry him and his portentous secret to Lisbon. Monk had determined to communicate with the King. Charles's danger was great and pressing. At any moment a precipitate message from the Presbyterians to the Court might give the Spaniard the signal to act; nor was the anxious general without good ground to suspect that the French ambassador was intriguing with the Manchester cabal, and that Mazarin had a chance, if not an intention, of playing the same game. On the eve of its accomplishment the long-wished-for settlement was in desperate peril of wreck, and calm and swift as ever the old soldier set to work single-handed to thwart the designs of the two most renowned diplomatists in Europe.

Absolute secrecy was essential. The Portuguese negotiations with the Committee of Safety were continued as if nothing had happened, and the general looked round for a messenger on whom he could implicitly rely. Morice could not be spared, and it was clear that Grenville was the only man. After two ineffectual attempts to induce him to disclose his secret mission to Morice, Monk was convinced of his discretion, and granted him an interview. In the dead of night, shortly after the dissolution, he was introduced into Morice's private apartments at St. James's. The general appeared from a secret stairway, and Grenville without preface or apology thrust into his hands the King's letters which his cousin Nicholas had refused to take up to Scotland. Monk started back, and asked him fiercely how he dared so play the traitor.

The Cavalier quietly replied that in the service of the King, his master, danger had grown familiar to him. Overcome with his young kinsman's coolness, and the memories of all he owed to his house, the old general unbent at once and cordially embraced him. Then he read the King's letter. In flattering terms it assured him of Charles's favour, and of his intention to follow Monk's advice implicitly if he would only espouse his cause. Grenville added what he had been authorised to promise—a hundred thousand a year for him and his officers, any title he chose, and the office of Lord High Constable. Monk replied that what he did was for his country's good, and that he would not sell his duty or bargain for his allegiance. Grenville pressed for a written answer, but the wary soldier refused; he had intercepted too many letters himself. Grenville was told he must take his reply by word of mouth, and so was dismissed till the morrow.

For some time past the general had had confidential consultations with the leaders of the various parties, with a view apparently of finding a common ground on which a settlement might be made when the new Parliament met. Lenthal, for whose ripe experience Monk seems to have had a high regard, had suggested as the terms that would be most satisfactory to the country, a general amnesty, the confirmation of the land-titles, and liberty of conscience. These the general now determined to make the basis of negotiation, and when Grenville returned the following evening he found them incorporated in a pithy memorandum. An urgent appeal to the King to leave Brussels for some place in Holland was added, and a strict caution to Grenville that he was not to ask for any reward for the service Monk was doing. After reading over these instructions to his cousin several times till he had them by heart, the general threw the paper into the fire. With final orders not to leave Charles till he was out of Spanish territory, and not even to treat of a reward, Grenville was dismissed, and left London the same night. Thus it was that when the letter of the Presbyterians surprised the exultant exiles in the act of preparing an answer to the general's message of salvation, the King only laughed, and said, "I perceive that these people do not know that I and General Monk stand on much better terms."

Charles at once acted on the general's advice, and after seeing him safely upon Dutch soil, Grenville on April 4th hastened back with a dangerous burden. Besides official letters for the two Houses of Parliament, the Council, the army, and the city, each containing a copy of the famous Declaration from Breda, he carried an autograph letter from the King to the general, together with a commission for him to be Captain-General of the Three Kingdoms, and a signet and seal for a Secretary of State, to be delivered to whomsoever the general chose. The letter Monk accepted, but he had still enough of the true soldier of fortune in him to refuse a commission incompatible with the one he held. Nor would he take the seals, but told Grenville to hide himself and his papers till Parliament met, and then act according to his instructions.

The few Royalists who were in the secret were already in a state of ecstasy. Mordaunt, who had been working successfully in other quarters, had written over that nothing could now stop the King's return but an attempt by Lambert on the Council or Monk. Fortunately Lambert was in the Tower, but nevertheless the danger was great. As the designs of the Presbyterians became known the army grew more and more restless. Agitators began to persuade them they were to be cheated out of land, arrears, and all the long struggle had won them. Monk saw his regiments must be still further purged. To effect this Charles Howard of Naworth, who commanded his bodyguard, together with Ashley Cooper and the old Coldstreamers, prepared a petition to him that every officer should be required, in view of the insubordinate spirit that was arising, to sign an engagement to be true to the Government as it was then constituted. The precaution was taken none too soon. A few days after Grenville's return a letter was intercepted disclosing a conspiracy of Anarchists and extreme Republicans as formidable as any with which Cromwell had had to contend. It was written from Wales by Desborough, the most formidable of the Fanatics, to a partisan in the city. The idea involved the destruction of Charles and his brothers as well as of Monk, and early in May the Fanatics were to rise in Wales, seize all the towns on the Marches, and set up the Long Parliament at Shrewsbury. By this masterly move they hoped to attract the Presbyterians, whom they had been careful to make jealous of the Cavaliers. Already it appeared they had the support of the Jesuits, who, as Monk knew very well, were always ready to join hands with Independency. Till all was ready the army was to be kept in a state of ferment and distrust of its leaders, and the new House was to have "bones to pick," so as to prevent the possibility of any decided step being taken towards the King's recall. Vane was to lead the insurrection, and Haslerig's support was expected. Already the city had quarrelled with the Presbyterian leaders. Other signs of the conspirators' work appeared, and Monk and the Council were taking their precautions when suddenly the danger was doubled. On April 11th (or 10th), after Colonel Howard had presented the officers' petition to the general, like a thunderclap came the news that Lambert had escaped from the Tower.

It was at such a moment that Monk was greatest. Small as was his opinion of his rival as a soldier, he knew Lambert was looked upon by the malcontents of the army as their champion. It was a name to conjure with, and the Fanatics had got the one thing wanting, a man the soldiers would follow. Monk acted with all his old energy. Arrests were made right and left. The new Engagement was presented to all the regiments, and every officer who refused to sign was cashiered. Morgan was reinforced in Scotland and the city militia mobilised. Still the work had only begun. Lambert, after narrowly escaping arrest in the city, got away into the country. The expected desertions began, and Monk ordered the Engagement to be signed by rank and file as well as officers. Whole troops and companies refused, and whole troops and companies were disarmed and broken. As fast as one regiment was sound it was despatched to remodel another; but hardly was the operation complete than intelligence came that Lambert had appeared in arms in the western Midlands. Instantly Colonels Howard and Ingoldsby—daring Dick Ingoldsby, Cromwell's favourite sabreur, "who could neither pray nor preach"—were hurried with two flying columns to the scene of action; but that was not all. Monk was not a man to do things by halves. The events of the next week it was impossible to foretell; he could only prepare for the worst. By the elections the country had already declared for the King, and, determined at all costs to save it from Lambert and the Fanatics, Monk sent for Sir John Grenville. He told him that if the rising were not immediately crushed the army might revolt at any time. "In that case," he continued, "I shall publish my commission from the King, and raise all the royal party of the three nations." Sir John was instructed to hold himself in readiness to convey the necessary orders to the leading Cavaliers, and that night his brother Barnard was speeding towards Holland with the general's warning to the King.

Monk's heroic remedy was destined to be untried. His energy had once more saved the country from civil war. On Easter Tuesday, six days after the alarm was given, a grand review of the mobilised trained-bands was held in Hyde Park. From ten thousand throats the great Royalist reaction found voice. Many cheered for the King openly; the auxiliaries drank his health on their knees; George Monk was the darling of the hour. As though nothing should be wanting from his triumph, when the enthusiasm was at its highest a party of travel-stained horse was seen moving along the outskirts of the park. Right under the gallows at Tyburn they passed, and a new shout rent the air; for in their midst rode Lambert with swordless scabbard.

His attempt was premature, and had been crushed at a blow. Pistol in hand, Dick Ingoldsby had ridden him down as he galloped from the field; but the great conspiracy was practically untouched. Desborough's agents redoubled their activity. Monk's officers, sensible of the danger, came to beg him to proclaim the King at once before Parliament met, and so win the whole glory for himself and the army. But even the stirring scene in the park could not shake his splendid self-control. He quietly reminded them of their oft-expressed determination to keep the military power in obedience to the civil, and of the Engagement they had so recently signed. What they proposed, he said, was treason, and so he dismissed them.

In spite of the danger which still threatened from the Parliamentary delays, which he knew the Fanatics were fostering, he was determined to proceed in a constitutional manner, and he arranged with his cousin, Charles's accredited agent, the exact method of procedure. Parliament met quietly on the 25th. Monk took his seat for Devon, having elected to sit for his native county in preference to Cambridge University by which he had been also returned. The Commons next day passed the general a vote of thanks for his unparalleled services in having conquered the enemies of Church and State without so much as "a bloody nose." The few Presbyterian Lords who had met uninvited and unresisted did the same, and Monk in his acknowledgment bluntly begged them to look forward and not backward in transacting affairs, a hint they were careful to take. While this was going on in Parliament Sir John Grenville presented himself at the Council-chamber and asked to see the lord-general. Monk came out and received from his cousin's hands as from a stranger an official letter addressed "To our trusty and well-beloved General Monk, to be by him communicated to the President and Council of State, and to the officers of the armies under his command." Monk at once ordered his guards to detain the messenger and returned to the Council-chamber. There he broke the seal and handed the letter unread to the president. The surprise was complete. No one but Morice had an idea of what had been going on. Still it was clear that the letter came from Charles, and after some debate it was resolved that without being read it should be presented to Parliament on May 1st, the day they had fixed for the business of the settlement of the nation. Meanwhile Grenville was to be placed under arrest, but the general interposed, saying that although a stranger he was a near kinsman of his own, and that he would be responsible for his appearance at the bar.

But it was not intended that Grenville should wait for the summons. So soon as the Houses met he attended, and sprung upon them the official letters he had for each. In the Commons Morice was on his feet before the House could recover its breath, and moved that the constitutional government of the country was by King, Lords, and Commons. The motion was carried in a rush of enthusiasm, and Monk asked leave to communicate the King's despatch to the army. It was granted. Similar votes were passed in the Lords, and the Commonwealth was constitutionally at an end. At a subsequent sitting, however, the House came a little more to its senses. Sir Matthew Hale rose to move for a committee to inquire what terms had been offered to the late King. Monk saw, or thought he saw, the cloven hoof of the Sectaries. Here was one of the "bones to pick" which he knew they meant to provide. He rose to his feet immediately and solemnly warned the House not to presume on the apparent quiet of the country. Incendiaries, he said, were on the watch for a place to raise a flame: he had full information, which it was not expedient to make public; but he could not answer for the army or undertake to preserve order if the King were not sent for at once. There is no reason to doubt not only that he believed what he said, but that it was really true, and that the Sectaries and Republicans were fast loosening his grip on the troops. Relying on Charles's promises to himself, he saw no danger in his unconditional return, for, as he went on to point out to the House, without troops or money the King would be at their mercy. He concluded by moving that commissioners should be immediately sent to invite Charles to England; "And the blood be on the head of him," he cried, "who delays the settlement."10

His words were greeted with a thunder of applause. The old constitutionalists saw that Monk's appeal was irresistible, and in the excitement of the moment vote after vote was passed that went beyond the most extravagant hopes of the most sanguine Cavalier. The Revolution was at an end, and the lord-general's lady proceeded to herald the new era by frankly turning to her old trade and purchasing a stock of linen at wholesale prices on the King's account for Whitehall.

The rapid transformation that followed is a matter of history. Both France and Spain saw the victim of their long intrigues suddenly snatched from their grasp, and each made desperate efforts to coax him back into its power. All their blandishments were in vain. Monk had succeeded in his resolve that if the King came back it should be without entangling the country in any engagements with foreign powers. Mazarin and De Haro had been completely outwitted by the dull soldier, and the cardinal died of vexation, it used to be said, in the following year.

Early on May 25th Monk was roused at Canterbury with the news that the fleet, which was bringing home the King, was in sight. There he had just arrived, the idol of the swarms of gentlemen that were flocking to Dover to welcome Charles and push their fortunes. He was worshipped and tormented as the fountain of honour. In his pocket he had a long list of importunate friends and enemies whom he had good-naturedly promised to recommend for places in the Government. His bodyguard was filled with noblemen. The very roads threatened to be blocked with the multitude of high-born supplicants, till the old disciplinarian, shocked at the indecency of the scramble, imperiously enrolled them into regiments and insisted on some order being observed.

Monk was "the sole pillar of the King's confidence," and so soon as the fleet reached Dover Roads Charles sent an express to say that he would not land till he came to him. No sooner was the summons received than he was on horseback again hastening to Dover. The critical moment had come. Every one then agreed that it was Monk who had restored the King, but how and why no one could exactly tell. As the boat containing the royal party touched the beach they crowded round to see the meeting of the two uncrowned kings, hoping that Monk's demeanour would lift the mist in which the future was wrapped and show them who was going to wield the sceptre. Charles himself was as nervous and anxious as the rest. This formidable figure that had arisen so suddenly and with such mystery, this man of darkness who had done as it were single-handed what for years had defied the efforts of his own most trusted councillors, and who yet forbade the very mention of reward, the perplexed King could only fear.

On the beach they met, and to every one's surprise the soldierly figure sank upon its knee and kissed the royal hand as deferentially as though it were the king who had made the general. Startled into an unwonted display of emotion Charles raised him, and embracing him with genuine fervour called him his father. Both were too moved for many words. Without more ado, amidst the shouts of the people and the thunder of the guns from forts and fleet, the two walked side by side to the royal coach. There the soldier of fortune took his place with the King and his brothers; and the Duke of Buckingham was clever enough, to every one's annoyance, to get possession of the boot uninvited.

The transports of delight which marked the whole progress to Canterbury were like a dream to Charles, so little could he understand it all. His first sensation, when he had time to realise his position quietly, was one of disgust at the indecency with which petitions for places had been showered upon him the moment he landed. It was impossible to satisfy them all, and the throne before him bid fair to be a bed of thorns; but far worse was yet to come. Hardly was he alone when the terrible general came into his room. Monk was no courtier, and his Court manners were already exhausted. It was a visit of business, and his way of doing business was aggressively direct. Without any preface or apology he went straight to the point, and in his blunt rough way told the King he could not do him better service than to recommend him councillors who would be acceptable to the people. With that he handed in his list of names. Charles nervously thrust it into his pocket, thanked the general, and dismissed him. Clarendon was sent for, and together they read the alarming memorandum. It contained the names of but two Cavaliers. Charles was aghast. What did it mean? Was this the solution of Monk's extraordinary conduct? Did he intend to be mayor of the palace to a roi fainéant? Clarendon knew as well as Monk the great revolutionary forces that were straining unseen beneath all the enthusiasm. He knew they were only kept under by an army which sympathised with them in its heart. The fleet was still riding off Dover; Monk had only to hold up his finger, and in a few hours the King would be on his travels again. The chancellor determined to get Morice to find out what the general intended. In an hour he came back. The general, he reported, was extremely pained that he had caused the King any uneasiness. He held the royal commission, and was there to receive orders, not to give them. The paper was merely a list of persons he had promised to recommend. The King was at perfect liberty to accept or reject them, only there were a few whom he heartily wished he could make use of.

The episode was ended; the King breathed again, but he never forgot the fright. Till the veteran passed away Charles never ceased to fear his power and love the hand that used him so gently. Ashley Cooper, whom Monk specially recommended, was sworn a Privy Councillor on the spot, together with the general himself, Morice, and the Earl of Southampton; but the King committed himself no further. Morice was also given the seals which Monk had refused to confer in spite of a heavy bribe, and the general himself received the Garter at the hands of the Dukes of York and Gloucester. He was offered the choice of any of the great offices of State, and he characteristically chose that of Master of the Horse. It had little or nothing to do with politics, and the patronage was extensive.

So the play was ended, and in a blaze of triumph such as England had never known the King entered London in the midst of a magnificent procession. Immediately behind him rode the lord-general beside the obtrusive Duke of Buckingham. Never before or since has a subject occupied such a position and arrogated less to himself. The ovation with which the King and his deliverer were received was deafening. Charles was perfectly dazed. He could hardly speak to his faithful Parliament as Lords and Commons met him jostling one another in a disorderly and excited mob. He recognised no one, and was so exhausted with the din that he could not attend the Thanksgiving in the Abbey. So as though the note of incapacity must be struck at the outset, he turned aside and took refuge in Whitehall. Still the glory of the conqueror was none the less, nor his satisfaction less complete. He could lay his head on his pillow that night with the happy consciousness that the burden of empire was lifted from his shoulders, that his country was at peace again, and still more, which was dearest of all to his great heart, that the triumph had been won without the cost of a single life.

CHAPTER XIV
THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY

To follow Monk's career after the Restoration in detail would here be out of place. It adds but little to our knowledge of the man and labours under the ban of anti-climax. To the student of history and government it is full of interest, yet so unobtrusive was his work that it is now hard to trace beneath the shifting strife of politicians. When men asked what after all this dull workday soldier had done that the country should idolise him as it did, Secretary Nicholas, who knew, was wont to say that even if he had not put Charles upon his throne, he would still have deserved all the bounties the King had bestowed upon him for his services after the Restoration.

It is a remark profoundly true. His finest work goes unrecorded. To suppose that the whole nation acquiesced at once in the Restoration is almost as great an error as to think that it was conquered by William at Hastings. As yet Monk had but stolen a march on the Irreconcilables. Numbers of ardent spirits belonging to the Anabaptists, the Fifth Monarchy men, and the fighting section of the Quakers, together with a large body of extreme Independents and Presbyterians, were only waiting for an opportunity to tear the arch-malignant from his throne again. They comprised all the fiery earnestness of the nation, they breathed the exaggerated spirit of all that has made us what we are; and when we see Mrs. Hutchinson at her heroic colonel's side as he lay rotting in a living grave; when we think of Harrison's wife buying his blood-stained clothes of the executioner, and, unable to believe that God had suffered her saint to die with his work unended, watching over them till he should come again,—the heart of Monk's profoundest admirer must bleed that they fell under such a hand as his.

And the kindly heart of the old general bled for them, too. Of all the libels that pursued him from the mouths of those who envied him the royal favour, or suffered from the success of his patriotic policy, none is greater than that which accused him of betraying his friends and persecuting his enemies. Neither one nor the other is true. From the moment his victory was assured he busied himself unflinchingly in saving the vanquished from the hands of those who mistook animosity for zeal. It was he who cried "Hold!" when the Convention tried to enlarge the list of exceptions to the amnesty; it was he who stayed the vengeance of the Cavalier Parliament by coming down to the House with the words of the King in his mouth. Privately he worked as nobly. Numbers of men were preserved upon some evidence the general had in their favour. Lambert, Fleetwood, Lenthal, Milton, and the Cromwells all found in him a friend at Court. Haslerig's fears he had laughed away with a promise to save him for twopence. His persistent opponent got off scot free, and the letter is still extant in which the twopence was sent.11 Most wanton of all are those who accuse him of indecency in sitting on the Regicide Commission, forgetting that the man who knew enough to hang half the kingdom could only escape from the witness-box by a seat on the bench. It were better to remember that he sat there with seven other adherents of the Revolution of every shade of opinion, and to credit the King with a desire to make the commission a representative one, and Monk with the intention of seeing fair play to the men who were down.

The darkest cloud upon his memory is his alleged conduct in reference to Argyle's trial. The charge against him is that, when the evidence proved inconclusive, Monk produced some private correspondence upon which the marquis was immediately convicted. The story has hitherto rested on the testimony of Burnet, a notorious libeller of the general's, and Baillie, who, like the rest of the Presbyterians, could never forgive him for foiling their attempt to force upon the country a covenanted King. No evidence could be more tainted, and it is not surprising that the story has always been doubted, seeing how inconsistent it is with the character of a man "who could not hate an enemy beyond the necessity of war." Injudicious advocates have even denied the fact altogether, but a bundle of Argyle's letters, including some to Monk and one to his secretary, was certainly produced at the last moment, and at once sealed the prisoner's fate. In consequence of Charles's resolution not to go behind the Scotch amnesty of 1651, the chief point in Argyle's indictment was that he had adhered to the King's enemies, or, in other words, that he had opposed the last Highland insurrection. The leaders of it were at once his judges and his prosecutors, and they were determined to have their revenge. The case closed and still there was no real evidence, when just as the Court was deliberating its judgment a messenger thundered at the door with the fatal packet from London. Regardless of all law the case was reopened, the letters read, and Argyle condemned.

The question of Monk's share in the infamous proceeding rests on the contents of those letters. They have now been found, and they acquit him for ever. Only two are to him, and they contain no evidence whatever beyond what had been already obtained in abundance. They are confined to little more than civilities. The one to Clarke, Monk's secretary, encloses a letter from Glencairn, and expresses Argyle's intention of keeping his own country neutral. The other three are to Lilburne, and they prove in the clearest manner that Argyle was not only giving the English general information of the Royalist movements, but was doing his best to prevent assistance going to the insurgents.12 These three letters are not endorsed as having been "admitted" by the prisoner, and could any doubt remain that it was these on which he was convicted, it would be removed by the subsequent petition of Archibald the tenth Earl. For in that document he recites that the fatal letters bore no "signature" that the marquis "had owned them." The letters to Monk and Clarke are all endorsed with Argyle's admission.13

Thus we may finally dismiss this wholly uncorroborated libel about deliberately producing confidential letters. The compromising documents are State Papers. That Monk knew enough to cost Argyle his life ten times over is certain. It is equally certain that he did not tell what he knew. The tardy production of the documents and the official nature of their contents point to the natural explanation of their appearance—a last despairing search in the archives of the Council of State by the men who were thirsting for the great Covenanter's blood, and hungering for his estates.

The libel has not even the excuse of provocation. Monk did not desert the Presbyterians. He never, indeed, belonged to their party. He professed their ecclesiastical opinions, but never embraced their political creed. Nor did he fail to stand by them in the hour of need. For not only did he give the leaders certificates of their services to the Restoration, but when it was found impossible to prevent the passing of the Bill of Uniformity, the "man that was all made of mercy" joined with his old political opponent Lord Manchester in urging the King not to enforce it in all its rigour. Nor did Charles finally make surrender to the persecuting spirit of the Anglican majority in Parliament till Monk was lying in state.

Still it is not to be wondered at that such stories pursued him. The very loftiness of his station was enough to breed them in men less fortunate. Besides his Garter, his Mastership of the Horse, and his exalted commission, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Duke of Albemarle, Earl of Torrington, and Baron Monk of Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Tees. For a while he was also Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was made a gentleman of the Bedchamber, and as though that did not place him near enough to the person of the grateful King, by his patent as Captain-General he was granted the extraordinary privilege of entering the presence at any hour unannounced, and remaining there till he was told to go. The King never ceased to treat him as a father. Indeed Charles's unswerving devotion to his deliverer is enough to redeem his character from the sweeping charge of baseness that is sometimes made against it. As a member of the inner committee of the Privy Council, the parent of all cabinets, Monk must have constantly had to lecture and thwart his master, but never once did he give a sign that the old duke's favour was declining.

By the King he was regarded as a father, and by the country as no less. "The body of the people," said the Bishop of Exeter in his funeral sermon, "loved and honoured him, nay (God forgive them), they believed and trusted in him." There was never an awkward job to be done, or failure to be rectified, or panic to be allayed, but the Duke of Albemarle was sent for like an old family doctor. Was there a powerful minister to be dismissed, the Duke had to break the news to him; the Treasury accounts got into confusion, and the Duke was put on to the commission to set them straight; the plague drove Court and Parliament from the capital, and he was left behind sitting in Whitehall with his life in his hand, seeing every one who presented himself day after day at a time when brother would hardly speak to brother, or husband to wife, and through the whole of that terrible period he managed in his own person army, navy, treasury, and police. The Duke of York failed as an admiral, and "old George" was asked if he would mind taking command. The great fire destroyed half London, and threw the country into a panic, and the King, in terror of a new revolution, had to beg "the sole pillar of the state" to come up from the fleet and restore confidence. The people openly said it never would have happened if the general had been there; and when the Dutch sailed into the Thames men seemed to think he had only to go down to Chatham for the enemy to scatter like chaff.

As the country recovered from its fever of royalism, and began to look back first without disgust, then with regret to the days of Oliver, it saw in the Protector's old general the personification of all the glories of the Commonwealth. He stood out in startling contrast to the butterfly throng amongst whom he had his place, and the courtiers felt it. Every one laughed at the stupid old soldier for his homeliness, his mean establishment, his vulgar wife, and the dulness and lethargy which grew on him with his disease. But every one feared him also. Every request he pressed was granted as a matter of course. Even the King did not dare or care to give him a command, but always sounded him through Morice to ascertain whether he were willing to do what was wanted.

To detail his endless services is here impossible. His greatest work was undoubtedly the disbanding of the great revolutionary army. Some sixty thousand men had to be loosed upon a country seething with the fanatical opinions which the army had made its own, and of which, in spite of Monk's purging, it still was full. Statesmen knew it was the great danger the restored monarchy had to face. To Monk the task was committed; and he did it not only peaceably, but so well that the disbanded soldiers, instead of being so many germs of disaffection, earned themselves, through the facilities the general was careful to provide for their employment, the reputation of being the best citizens in the State.

Another debt which the nation owed to George Monk, whether for good or ill it is hard to say, was entirely due to the confidence his unblemished career had inspired. The Revolution had taken fire in the heat of a quarrel as to which estate of the realm was to control the army. That that dispute did not recur to mar the harmony of the Restoration, and even to render it impossible, was due to the simple fact that the nation trusted "honest George." As soon as it was known that he held the royal commission of Captain-General not a word was uttered on the question. In his hands the country knew that it was safe.

Thus it was that he became the Father of the British Army. It was he who, in the few regiments that were kept on foot to overawe the Sectaries, started its glorious traditions. It was he who gave it its unequalled note of duty and devotion. It was he who once and for ever pronounced that it must be a thing apart from politics, and taught it that a soldier's greatest glory is to obey. In every characteristic of which it is proudest, or for which we love it best, glitters the stamp of its first commander's personality. Whether we see its officers rising in the hour of peril above the personal jealousies which have ruined so many of our neighbours' enterprises, or admire its dogged obstinacy, its cheerful discipline, and its chivalrous impatience of party strife; or whether we glory in the strange contempt it has ever shown for its enemies, making a pastime of war,—we have but to turn to see each finest trait reflected as in a mirror in the life of the man who gave it breath. Strange, indeed, it is that a body in which esprit de corps has reached its noblest development should have forgotten as it has the hero who begot it, and guided its first halting steps along the splendid path it was to tread.

And yet the cause is plain enough. Like the rest of the great characters of the English Revolution, Monk has till recently been only visible through the literature of the Restoration. The navy was then the fashion, and Monk was only known to the historians of the time as an admiral. That aspect of him obscured every other. Society patronised the navy; it even divided itself into two cliques on the subject, the partisans of the general and the partisans of Lord Sandwich. Montague's party included nearly all the Court, and unfortunately his two talented placemen Pepys and Evelyn, whose testimony wherever their patron's rival is concerned is so tainted with gratitude as to be almost worthless. Yet from them he is chiefly judged, though they manifestly will never say a good word for him if they can help it; and the Clerk of the Check at least is never more happy than when he is pouring lively contempt upon his seamanship, his duchess, and his dinners.

Monk, however, was secure in the favour of the King and the nation, and, as has been said, it was to him they turned in their trouble after the unsatisfactory naval campaign of 1665. The two admirals had come out of it far from well. Both the Duke of York and Lord Sandwich were accused of cowardice, and Monk had charged his rival with something very like embezzling prize-money. In recognition of their services the prince was told he could not be allowed to expose his life again, and the peer was sent out of the way as ambassador to Madrid. It was, in fact, resolved to supersede them by Prince Rupert and the lord-general. The only question was, would the great man condescend to accept the appointment? After sounding Morice the King with considerable trepidation determined to try. In the autumn Monk was suddenly summoned to Oxford from his post of danger at Whitehall, which with heroic devotion he had never left since the plague broke out. In three days he was back again, and with a throb of delight the country heard that the Duke of Albemarle was to command the fleet next year. Though longing for rest and enfeebled with disease, he had accepted the divided command without a murmur. The only condition he made was that his wife should not know of it till the last moment, for he was sure she would be furious with him for going to sea again. But the appointment was too popular to be kept a secret. The country was confident that nothing could withstand the Duke of Albemarle. The news spread like fire, and the fond old general had some bad half-hours before he sailed in the spring.

On June 1st, while separated from Rupert, he met the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter, outnumbering him nearly two to one. A council of war was called, but the old general's antipathy for cowardice had grown to be almost a monomania. He "hated a coward as ill as a toad," and every officer there knew that the barest suggestion that savoured of prudence would cost him his ship. Of course he attacked, and against such an enemy the issue was a foregone conclusion. After a three days' fight his fleet was cut to pieces. The wonder is that it was not annihilated. It was only by a brilliant display of all his old mastery of naval tactics that he got its shattered remains into the Thames.14