FOR KING AND PARLIAMENT
The great drama was about to begin. The star-chamber had given judgment
in Hampden's case: the prayer-book had been read in Edinburgh; and it
was amidst ominous mutterings of coming evil that Captain Monk set foot
once more upon his native shore.
How great a tragedy was to develope itself out of the prologue upon
which the curtain was about to rise, no one as yet could tell. Still
less were there any to guess that the plain Low Country officer
stepping on to the Dover beach was the man who was to cut the knot of
the last act and end the play in a blaze of triumph.
We can see him clearly as he rides towards London, brooding, as his
manner was, on the ungrateful treatment he had received at the hands
of his masters. He is now in his thirtieth year, rather short than
tall, but thickset and in full possession of the physical strength
which the ill-starred under-sheriff had tasted at Exeter years ago; and
as with an air of dogged self-reliance he sits erect upon his horse,
handsome, fresh-coloured, well-knit, he looks every inch a soldier.
Quietly chewing his tobacco for company, as the fashion was, he speaks
little to those who overtake him on the road, except perhaps it is to
grumble at the Mynheers when the subject turns that way. He answers
strangers with a blunt, almost rude brevity, at which men are offended,
but which somehow they feel little inclined to openly resent. He is an
ill-mannered, thick-headed soldier, they say, and it is best to leave
him alone to take his own way.
And indeed he was little more. He was frankly the ideal of a soldier
of fortune, versed in his art to the point of pedantry, wary to the
verge of craftiness, fearless to a fault, jealous of his honour as the
knight of La Mancha himself. The name by which such men were known is
unfortunate, for it has led to much misconception of their character.
Then it was well understood to mean a soldier by profession, no more
nor less than what every officer in our army is to-day. The ideal
soldier of fortune was marked not so much by his readiness to change
his colours as by his blind devotion to those with which for the time
being he was engaged. Until the period of his commission, or of the
war or campaign for which he had engaged was ended, his loyalty to his
paymasters was as ungrudging as it was unassailable. Nothing would
have induced him to enter a service which he considered dishonourable,
but having once engaged he fought and toiled and bled in contemptuous
indifference to the political manoeuvres of the men whose commission
he held. To look upon such men as cruel, unprincipled adventurers is
the very reverse of the truth where worthy pupils of the heroic Veres
are concerned. We must remember that it was in their school that Monk
learnt his trade, and not in that which produced men like the Turners
and Dalziells and brought disgrace upon the name of the soldier of
fortune. They were men who could only teach virtues, though perhaps the
only virtues they could teach were honesty and obedience. At any rate
that was the lesson which Monk learnt. To be true to his paymaster,
that was his rule in life; to obey the civil authority which employed
him, that was his political creed. Such was the code which Monk brought
home with him from the Low Countries. Simple and rude as it was, it was
all he had to guide him through the labyrinth he was about to tread.
As yet the Revolution stirred but in restless slumber, and it is
probable that it was not the prospect of civil strife which brought
Monk to England in search of employment. Prince Rupert and his brother
were at Court in hopes of getting their uncle's aid for the recovery
of the Palatinate; and the King, sobered by failure, was turning
and doubling every way to shirk the responsibility and enjoy the
credit of assisting his beautiful and unfortunate sister. Of all the
schemes which were suggested to this end the most extraordinary was
the project for the colonisation of Madagascar. The idea was that a
thousand gentlemen should join, each with a thousand pounds and a
number of servants. The King was to provide twelve ships from the navy,
and thirty merchantmen were to complete the fleet. Every adventurer
was to sail in person, and the whole was to be commanded by Prince
Rupert himself, with the title of Governor-General of Madagascar or
St. Lawrence. But Elizabeth grew anxious about her son, and opposed
the wild scheme in which she could see no reason. "As for Rupert's
romance," she wrote to Roe, "about Madagascar, it sounds more like one
of Don Quixote's conquests when he promised his trusty squire to make
him king of an island." In the end practical merchants and seamen threw
so much cold water on the scheme that it began to lose favour, and
Rupert did not go.
Meanwhile all the world was run mad on the romantic adventure. Davenant
wrote a little epic about it, which made Endymion Porter exclaim,
himself as mad as the rest:
"What lofty fancy was't possest your braine,
And caus'd you soare into so high a straine?"
Suckling so far forgot himself in the craze of the hour as to write
a copy of verses that may still be read without a blush. Even the
phlegmatic Captain Monk was carried away. Man of the new time as he
was, in the bottom of his heart he was Elizabethan. The project was
more than enough to revive the dreams of his Devonshire boyhood, of
Raleigh, of Guiana, and the early days of Virginia, and he promised
to go. But it was not to be. Ere long he withdrew, either because his
native shrewdness showed him it was all a bubble or else because the
curtain was up at last, and he turned to the thrilling play beside
which the Madagascar adventure was only a childish fairy tale.
Scotland was to be coerced into conformity, and in the bustle of
preparation Monk saw his chance. To every soldier in England his name
must have been perfectly familiar. Every young gentleman who had seen
any service was hurrying to the King's standard on the chance of a
commission, and the majority of them would be only too glad to claim
George Monk as their father-in-arms, and boast of their service in the
colonel's company of the crack regiment in the Low Country Brigade.
Nor did Monk lack powerful friends. He was a wide-kinned man, so wide
that it is impossible to trace the multitudinous ramifications of his
family. He had connections in high places, and they began to take him
up. Above all Lord Leicester seems to have found a pleasure in pushing
his distinguished young kinsman's fortunes, and at this moment there
was no better friend a young man could have than Robert Sidney, second
Earl of Leicester. His family was just now rising into high favour. His
brother-in-law, the Earl of Northumberland, was Lord Admiral, while for
sister-in-law he could claim the lovely Countess of Carlisle herself.
This "Erinnys of the North," as Warburton called her, for whom Waller
could forget awhile his Sacharissa, who made Davenant sing his
sweetest, and wrung from Suckling his most lascivious note, was still
the reigning beauty of the Court. As she entered middle age her charms
seemed only to ripen. Her eyes were as bright, her wit as keen, her
vivacity as sparkling as ever. The only change was in the field of
her conquests. Weary of breaking the hearts of fops and poets, she
was seeking new excitement in political intrigue and new pleasures in
charming tried leaders of men such as Pym and Strafford. At this moment
a blunt manly soldier like Captain Monk was just the man to find favour
in her capricious eyes. Monk was always soft-hearted with a woman, and
his admiration of such a beauty must have been frank and undisguised.
Whatever was the cause, he found her willing to support Lord
Leicester's request for his advancement. The task was not difficult.
Officers of tried worth who could be trusted in the quarrel were in
high demand for lieutenant-colonels of the newly-raised regiments. Half
the colonels were noblemen of little experience, and the rest were
occupied with their duties on the staff. Monk, as a man who despised
politics and was without convictions, was in every way fitted for a
command, and his fair friend was soon able to hand him his commission
as lieutenant-colonel of Lord Newport's regiment of foot.
Monk soon found plenty of work to do; but all his efforts to turn his
men into soldiers were thrown away. In June, 1639, to his intense
disgust a pacification was patched up with the Scots, and the First
Bishops' War came to an ignominious end before a blow had been struck.
To Monk, whose narrow but enthusiastic patriotism had been only
increased by his service abroad, such a fiasco was deeply mortifying.
With a stupid constancy, for which it is impossible not to love him,
he clung through life to the fixed idea that one Englishman was any
day worth two or three of any other nation. To face an army of Scots
for months and then come to terms without fighting was a piece of
pusillanimity he could not understand, and never forgot.
Nor did the conduct of the Second Bishops' War mend his opinion of
the King. His regiment was amongst the first that were ready to take
the field. It was present at the rout at Newburn Ford, where its
lieutenant-colonel distinguished himself by saving the English guns.
But with that disgraceful action the campaign ended. Monk and a few
other officers at the Council of War urged every argument which the
pedantic strategy of the day could suggest in order to induce the
King to attack the Scots with the concentrated army which was now
strengthened with the Yorkshire and Durham trained-bands. But all was
in vain, and an armistice preliminary to peace was concluded at Ripon,
by which the two northern counties were left in possession of the Scots
as security for a war-indemnity.
For these two miserable failures Monk never forgave the King. To the
end of his life he used to harp on the fatal mistake Charles made in
not following the advice he gave, and to the last maintained, with
characteristic ignorance of the real questions at issue, that all the
blood which flowed in the following years was to be imputed to the
folly of sparing it then.
While the Scots were eating up the fat of the land and Monk was
fretting at the part he had to play, the plot was thickening fast. The
Long Parliament had met and Strafford was brought to bay. The breach
between King and Parliament was widening daily, and Charles was foolish
enough to listen to schemes which the most hairbrained of his courtiers
devised for dragging the army into the quarrel. Men ready to coerce the
Houses were to be placed in command, and the army was to be brought
up to London and the Tower snatched from the hands of Lord Newport,
who was now constable. But there was a difficulty in the way. The Low
Country officers, true to their principles, refused to have anything
to do with the plot, and the conspirators fell out before the question
of command could be settled. Goring, who had been promised the post
of Lieutenant-General, in a fit of spite betrayed the plot to Lord
Newport. Newport told Pym, and at the critical moment when Strafford's
fate hung in the balance Pym played the information as a trump-card.
The effect was electrical, and its sequel of no little consequence to
Monk. The revelation produced a revulsion of feeling which brought
Strafford's head to the block, and Lord Leicester, as a favourite with
both King and Parliament, was hastily summoned from Paris to succeed
him as Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland.
As the truth about the army-plots was allowed to transpire the worst
was believed of the King's intentions. The belief even began to spread
that Charles was privy to a popish plot, of which the queen was the
centre, to bring troops from Ireland for the utter subversion of the
Protestant faith. Then into the midst of the growing distrust there
burst like a thunderbolt the news of the Irish rebellion, and the
smouldering fires of the Reformation, which had slumbered since the
great days when they scorched the throne of Spain, burst into a flame.
On the heels of the news came down a letter from Scotland in which
the King commended to Parliament the care of reducing the rebels to
obedience. The Commons voted on the spot an army of eight thousand men
and confidently called for volunteers. But that was not all. The weapon
was easy to forge, but it must now be placed out of the King's reach.
It was not enough that Leicester was made Captain-General. His second
in command must also be a man in whose honour and fidelity the House
had implicit confidence.
Astley and Conyers were unwilling to serve. It says not a little for
the reputation which Monk had won both as a man and a soldier, that
his name was the next mentioned.[2] It was proposed that he should
be given the command as Lieutenant-General, with Henry Warren,
his veteran major and devoted friend, as his Adjutant-General, or
Sergeant-major-general, as it was then called. It was a splendid
chance, but Monk was doomed to disappointment. The Houses were suddenly
informed that Ormonde had been chosen for the command and commissioned
Lieutenant-General by the King, and the tactics of the Parliament had
to be changed. It was determined to raise an army by an Impressment
Bill, to which a clause was to be added vesting the control of it in
their own hands. As the month of November wore on and it was still in
debate, by every post came news of fresh atrocities committed by the
Papist rebels upon the English Protestants. Never perhaps again till
the story of the Cawnpore massacre set the nation's teeth, did such a
frenzy of revenge take possession of the people. More and more troops
were voted every week. Every tale, no matter how hideous or improbable,
was greedily believed. It was necessary that something should be done
at once. Leicester was ordered to raise two regiments of foot and
one of horse by voluntary enlistment, and that the Parliament might
keep a firm hand on the reins it was further resolved that he should
submit the list of officers he proposed to commission to the Houses for
approval. Monk was named for lieutenant-colonel and Warren for major of
Leicester's own regiment of foot. Both were at once approved; and the
nominations of Leicester's two sons, Lord Lisle and Algernon Sidney, as
well as that of Sir Richard Grenville, were confirmed for the horse.
On February 21st, 1642, Colonel Monk landed in Dublin at the head of
the Lord-General's regiment of foot. It was a splendid body of men,
two thousand strong and officered by the flower of the disbanded army
of the north. And with him was Sir Richard Grenville, commanding four
hundred of Leicester's new regiment of horse. Over the scenes which
followed there is no need to linger. In fire and blood the wretched
Irish had to do penance for the outburst of savagery to which they
had been goaded by Strafford's imperious rule. The most important
operation of the campaign of 1642 was the expedition for the relief
of the English settlements in Kildare and Queen's County. With two
thousand five hundred foot under Monk, five hundred horse under Lucas,
Coote, and Grenville, and six guns, Ormonde left Dublin on April 2nd,
and by the 9th had successfully relieved Athy, Maryborough, and some
smaller settlements. The work was accomplished with all the horrible
accompaniments which characterised Irish warfare. "In our march
thither," wrote an officer in Monk's regiment, "we fired above two
hundred villages. The horse that marched on our flanks fired all within
five or six miles of the body of the army; and those places that we
marched through, they that had the rear of the army always burned.
Hitherto we met not with any enemy to oppose, yet not a mile nor a
place that we marched by, that the dead bodies of the rebels did not
witness our passage." But the most difficult part of the enterprise
yet remained. Some thirty miles beyond the river Nore, in a country
swarming with rebels, lay several garrisons yet unrelieved. Ormonde's
provisions were running so short that to reach them by a regular
operation was impossible; but sooner than abandon them Grenville,
Lucas, and Coote undertook to make a dash to their aid with the
cavalry, while Monk covered the retreat. On the morning of Saturday
the 10th, in the dead of night, the horse sallied from Maryborough, and
succeeded in passing the river unobserved. The Irish at once took the
alarm, and seized the only two fords by which they could return. That
at Portnahinch they barred by an intrenchment, and leaving the other
open they laid a strong ambush along the dangerous causeway by which
it was approached. There, certain of their prey, they quietly waited
to wreak a terrible vengeance on Grenville's ruthless troopers. On
Monk rested the only chance of escape. Early on Monday morning, with
a party of six hundred musketeers, he attacked a neighbouring castle,
which belonged to one of the rebel leaders, hoping to draw to its
relief the forces which held the fords; but not a man would they stir.
In desperation he determined to force the pass at Portnahinch, but on
reaching it he found the river so swollen that it was impassable for
foot. The last hope seemed gone, but Monk was not to be beaten. Seizing
every point of vantage on his own bank, he placed his musketeers with
such skill that the Irish could neither abandon nor reinforce their
intrenchments. Assured that the horse must mean to force a passage
at this point under cover of Monk's fire, they at last withdrew the
whole of their strength from the other ford, and while Monk occupied
them with a deadly fusilade, Grenville and his exhausted comrades rode
unmolested along the abandoned causeway and reached Maryborough in
safety.[3]
The horse were saved, and, now his object was accomplished, Ormonde
began to retire to Dublin. It was in the course of this march that he
won his brilliant action at Kilrush. Monk was present with the staff
during the general's reconnaissance on the eve of the battle, and we
may credit him with at least a share of the masterly tactics by which
the victory was obtained. That Ormonde appreciated his services is
certain, for on this occasion he was mentioned in despatches "for the
alacrity and undaunted resolution" he had displayed.
By the end of June eight more regiments, including Lord Lisle's
carbineers, were landed in Dublin, and the Parliament seemed to have
exhausted all the resources it could spare for Ireland. The Civil War
was beginning. By straining every nerve it could only hold its own
against the King in England, and the Irish army was left to shift for
itself. Constant forays became a necessity, and indeed were the only
operations possible. In these no one was so successful as Monk. He
displayed in them all the qualities which endear a commander to his
men, and soon no officer in the army was so popular with rank and file
as he. No one, they used to say, was too sick or sorry for action,
and nobody's boots were too bad for a march, when the word was passed
that "honest George" was off foraying again. It became a joke that his
regiment was the purveyor for the whole of Dublin.
This was hardly the work that Monk had promised himself when he
volunteered for Ireland; but at any rate it was a great relief to him
that he was leaving behind the politics which he detested and only
half understood for some hard fighting which was his meat and drink.
But he was to be sadly disappointed. Lord Leicester, commissioned by
the King and paid by the Parliament, was still in England, detained by
orders from Oxford. In Ormonde Charles knew he had a representative
in every way satisfactory. He was a royalist above suspicion. The
advent of Leicester could only strengthen the hands of the Lords
Justices, who represented the Lord Lieutenant in his absence. These men
were staunch Parliamentarians, and made it their business to oppose
Ormonde's influence in every way. Indeed their enemies accused them
of deliberately thwarting his operations in order that, by allowing
the rebellion to spread, there might be a larger area of land for
confiscation. In return for providing money for the suppression of
the rebellion an influential body of London capitalists had obtained
from Parliament a concession of one quarter of the land which should
become liable to confiscation; and it is to be feared the Lords
Justices were to some extent interested in this gigantic job. The Lords
Justices had their fortunes to make, and they saw them in their power
of distributing the forfeited lands. Their interests as well as their
opinions were in sympathy with the parliamentary cause. Thus Ormonde
represented for them a double danger, and without accusing them of
actually fostering rebellion, it is certain that they did their best to
discredit Ormonde with the King in order to procure his recall.
To seek Monk's attitude in the strife we need not go far. If he had
any sympathies either way, which is very doubtful, they were certainly
at this time parliamentarian. Indeed a slight he received about this
time must have sharply spurred him to the side to which contempt for
the King, anxiety about his pay, and the influence of his friends the
Sidneys already inclined him. In May Sir Charles Coote, the governor
of Dublin, had been killed in action. No one deserved to succeed him
so well as "honest George." No one had done so much for the place,
above all, in keeping in temper the troops who were always on the
verge of mutiny for want of pay and clothes and food. Accordingly Lord
Leicester, on the recommendation of the Lords Justices, sent over a
commission by which he was appointed governor at a double salary of
forty shillings a day, a little addition which made the post doubly
dear to the soldier of fortune; but hardly had the commission arrived
when there came a letter direct from the King approving the permanent
appointment of Lord Lambert, who had been acting as Coote's deputy, and
Monk found the governorship and his forty shillings a day snatched out
of his very mouth.
Important as this affair was to poor Monk, it was but one of many such
passages between the two parties. Ormonde, on the whole, was getting
the upper hand; but the condition of friction which this state of
things set up could have but one result. The rebels gained ground by
strides. In September General Preston landed from Spain with quantities
of supplies of all kinds for their use. A popish plot was winded once
more. A new design was suspected of raising an army for the King in
Ireland with Catholic money and arms. Ormonde's popularity was growing
alarming. What was to prevent him suddenly joining hands with the
rebels and turning with the whole army upon the Parliament? How could
it then withstand the King? An old prophecy was in every one's mouth:
"He that would old England win
First with Ireland must begin."
The action which the Commons took at this crisis gives us a startling
peep beneath the boards where the wire-pullers sat. Joint-committees
were sent out to the various provinces, consisting each of two
delegates, one nominated by the Commons and one by the Syndicate which
was working the Irish concession. Reynolds and Goodwin were the two
appointed for Dublin. On their arrival they were at once, without
a shadow of right, admitted to the Council, and set to work to put
Lisle at the head of the army instead of Ormonde, and oust from the
governorship of Dublin the man who had supplanted the parliamentary
candidate. They even tried to commit the army to an oath of fealty to
Parliament, but £20,000 was all the money they had brought to satisfy
arrears, and it was not enough to allay the distrust of the soldiers.
As the winter advanced the distress and discontent of the troops
increased. Their clothes were in rags, many had not even boots to
their feet, and proper food could hardly be obtained. They cried aloud
for their pay, and the delegates saw a new device must be tried to
silence the dangerous clamour. In testimony of the goodwill of the
Parliament, they offered all such as should be willing to accept it a
grant of rebel land in satisfaction of arrears. The idea was extremely
ingenious and nearly succeeded. Monk was far too dull a man to see
through it, and he at once subscribed the agreement. But there were
many to point out what it meant. It was soon seen to be a mere device
to commit the army to the cause of the Parliament, and those who had
so hastily signed insisted on withdrawing, for ruin stared them in
the face. Ormonde had received instructions from the King to negotiate
a pacification with the Irish rebels. In him the army saw their only
chance of redress, and in spite of all the delegates could do they set
out their grievances in a loyal address and sent it to the King.
By the end of January, 1643, Ormonde, strengthened by a new commission
from Oxford, was able to exclude Reynolds and Goodwin from the Council,
and after a few weeks spent in undisguised attempts to suborn the
troops, they sailed for England, just in time to escape arrest on the
royal warrant.
The cavalier had triumphed; but until he had carried out his
instructions to come to terms with the rebels his victory was
useless to the royal cause. The negotiations went on but slowly. The
Anglo-Irish lords of the Pale were anxious for peace, but the Lords
Justices were careful to obstruct Ormonde's diplomacy by forcing him
into military operations. Their policy deferred the cessation, but
only to make it more inevitable. Each expedition left the Government
more exhausted. The scanty resources that remained were only the more
rapidly consumed, and, though with the singleness of purpose that had
marked his conduct throughout, Monk strained every nerve to do his
duty, no real impression was made upon the rebels.
Very shortly after Ormonde's victory at Ross, Preston was threatening
Ballinakill, twenty miles north of Kilkenny, and the garrison was only
saved for the time by Monk dashing out of Dublin with half a regiment
and four troops. Close to the town he met a large number of rebels, put
them to flight, relieved the garrison, and returned safe to Dublin.
Still food grew scarcer. Preston knew his game was a waiting one, and
avoided an engagement. As time went on the English army could hardly
be kept together. The troops were scattered about, working on lands by
which the chief officers were pacified. Desertions in all ranks took
place wholesale. Negotiations for peace were revived, and the military
situation was in complete stagnation.
It was about this time that Monk heard of his father's death, and
probably in consequence of this he asked and obtained leave from
Ormonde to go home. There was an annuity of £100 a year to look after,
which was left him by Sir Thomas's will, but the matter had to wait.
In June Preston and O'Neill, the leader of the native Irish party,
had advanced almost within touch of each other into King's County and
West Meath. Ormonde, hoping to bring them to their knees, determined
once more to try and force them to an action. A strong force of two
thousand foot and three hundred and fifty horse was prepared and Monk
called on to take the command. On the strength of his leave he refused,
and all the pressure which the Lords Justices could bring to bear on
him was of no avail. Sir John Temple, the father of Sir William, was
the man who at last induced him to consent, and he marched. Under the
nose of Preston, with less than a third of his numbers, he succeeded
in relieving the important garrison of Castle-Jordan, but want of
provisions rendered a forward movement impossible, and he was compelled
to retreat without coming to an engagement.
On all sides the rebels were closing in. Ormonde learnt that Lord
Inchiquin in Munster was in as desperate a position as himself. Still
he would not grant the rebels their terms, and Monk, in spite of all
his grievances, stood by him with obstinate devotion. No more was
heard of his leave, and all through those terrible weeks of danger
and privation he held on to encourage the troops with his presence.
In the autumn he was operating successfully in Wicklow, and occupying
positions there to hold Lord Castlehaven and General Preston in check
till the harvest was secured. But from the north O'Neill was advancing,
and Monk was recalled to reinforce Lord Moore, who was opposing the
Ulster Nationalists. Once more every effort was paralysed by the
commissariat. Moore was killed, and Monk had to retire to Dublin to
find all he had gained in Wicklow was lost.
Further resistance was hopeless. The army was at starvation point.
Preston was raiding within two miles of Dublin gates, and north and
south O'Neill and Castlehaven held in irresistible force the whole
of the country on which the English relied for supplies. To add to
Ormonde's embarrassments, ever since the Scots had declared for the
Parliament Charles had been pressing him to conclude an armistice
with the rebels upon any terms, and at last he gave way. On September
15th was signed that cessation from which, in insane contempt for the
deepest feelings of his people, the King hoped so much, and which was
at last to bring upon him so terrible a retribution.