Monk

In the middle of September, 1625, the great expedition by which Charles the First and Buckingham meant to revenge themselves upon the Spaniards for the ignominious failure of their escapade to Madrid was still choking Plymouth harbour with disorder and confusion. Impatient to renew the glories of Drake and Raleigh and Essex, the young King went down in person to hasten its departure. Great receptions were prepared for him at the principal points of his route, and bitter was the disappointment at Exeter that he was not to visit the city.

For the plague was raging within its walls, and while holiday was kept everywhere else, the shadow of death was upon the ancient capital of the west.

Hardly, however, had the King passed them by when the citizens had a new excitement of their own. The noise of a quarrel broke in upon the gloom of the stricken city. Those within hearing ran to the spot and found a sight worth seeing. For there in the light of day, under the King's very nose, as it were, a stalwart young gentleman of about sixteen years of age was thrashing the under-sheriff of Devonshire within an inch of his life. With some difficulty, so furious was his assault, the lad was dragged off his victim before grievous bodily harm was done, and people began to inquire what it was all about.

Every one must have known young George Monk, who lived with his grandfather, Sir George Smith, at Heavytree, close to Exeter. Sir George Smith of Maydford was a great Exeter magnate, and his grandson and godson George belonged to one of the best families in Devonshire, and was connected with half the rest; and had they known how the handsome boy was avenging the family honour in his own characteristic way, they would certainly have sympathised with him for the scrape he was in.

For the honour of the Monks of Potheridge in North Devon was a very serious thing. There for seventeen generations the family had lived. Ever since Henry the Third was King they had looked down from their high-perched manor-house over the lovely valley of the Torridge just where the river doubles upon itself in three majestic sweeps as though it were loath to leave a spot so beautiful. By dint of judicious marriages they had managed to be still prosperous and well connected. It was no secret indeed that they claimed royal blood by two descents on the distaff side. For the grandmother of George's father, Sir Thomas, was Frances Plantagenet, daughter and co-heiress of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle; and his grandfather's grandmother, as co-heiress of Richard Champernown of Insworth, had brought him the Cornish bordure and kinship with King John through Richard, King of the Romans, and his son, the Earl of Cornwall.

But of late things had been going very hard at Potheridge. Sir Thomas had succeeded to a heavily encumbered estate, and his attempts at economy had done little or nothing to better his position. An increasing family added to his difficulties and his sorrows. Ten children had already been born to him, and four, including his two eldest boys, were in the grave. Thomas was now the future heir, and then came George. After him was his favourite brother, the quiet studious Nicholas who was to be a parson; and then little Arthur the baby, who became a soldier like George. George had been born on December 8th, 1608, and was now nearly seventeen years old. He grew up a handsome lusty boy, and from his earliest years his daring and spirit had destined him to be a soldier. It was the career of all younger sons of metal, and few can have looked forward to it more ardently than George Monk. It was the tradition of his family. His uncle Richard had died a captain; his uncle Arthur had fallen in 1602 at the glorious defence of Ostend by that renowned captain, Sir Francis Vere. His great-uncle, Captain Francis Monk, had sailed with Drake and Norris in their famous descent upon Portugal in 1589, and having been severely wounded at the storm of Corunna, had died a few days afterwards when the fleet was driven by stress of weather into Peniché.

The very soil he trod was fertile with the romance of war. For George was born in the heart of the country which bred the greatest of the Elizabethan heroes. The soldiers and sailors who most adorned the great Queen's age were living memories in his childhood, their exploits were the tales of his nursery, their names the first words he learnt to lisp. Hard by lived his aunt Grace, who had married the brilliant young Bevil Grenville, heir and grandson of the immortal Sir Richard himself. His aunt Elizabeth was wife to Luttrell of Hartland Abbey, and through her he could claim kinship with the Howards; while all around the home by Tor and Torridge were clustered the old North Devon families with whom Kingsley's undying romance has made us so familiar. Nor were these influences lessened as time went on. Sir George Smith took such a fancy to the fearless high-spirited boy that he one day offered to educate him if he might live half the year at Maydford. Poor embarrassed Sir Thomas could only consent, and George entered a new sphere of life even fuller of romance and adventure than the old. At Larkbere, within easy distance of his new home, lived Sir Nicholas Smith, Sir George's eldest son, where the lad found endless cousins to foster the dreams of Devon boyhood. But all his games and stories there were tame beside the attractions of his aunt Frances's house at Farringdon. For Frances Monk had married Sir Lewis Stukeley, Vice-Admiral of Devon, and there George must have found for a play-fellow little Tom Rolfe, the child of Pocahontas, whose guardian Stukeley had become since the Indian beauty's death. Sir Lewis, too, was a cousin and intimate friend of Raleigh himself, and George must have seen in the company of his uncle that latest born child of the sixteenth century and even heard his stirring adventures from his own lips. He would certainly have missed no opportunity of seeing the famous navigator. Raleigh was the hero of every lad with an English spirit or an ear for a tale. His Discovery of Guiana was a book that was in every one's hands, and George and his cousins must have known by heart its wonderful stories of El Dorado and the Amazons. At any rate the lad was old enough to have witnessed with eager eyes the setting forth of Sir Walter's last expedition to find the land of gold; to have heard with sinking heart how his uncle Stukeley had gone forth to arrest the hero upon his disastrous return; to mourn with all England when Raleigh's head fell on Tower Hill, and to burn with shame and anger when he heard the cry of execration that rose against his uncle, the treacherous friend who betrayed the last of the Elizabethans.

It is not difficult to imagine how a boy of George's nature, brought up in the midst of such surroundings, must have chafed to see his friends and kinsmen joining their colours while he was too young to be allowed to go. Richard Grenville, Sir Bevil's brother, whom George must have known well, was with the expedition, and George can have wished nothing better than to serve under him. Sir Richard Grenville, though he afterwards disgraced himself by his excesses in the Civil War, was then the very hero for a boy like George. He was a typical Low Country soldier. From an early age he had served with Prince Maurice, the first captain of his time, in the regiment of that pattern soldier Lord Vere. In a few years he had risen to the rank of captain, and was now commanding a company in the regiment of Sir John Borough, chief of the staff to the expedition. It was a splendid opportunity for George to begin his career, but it was not to be, and it must have been with mixed feelings that he heard the expedition was not to be delayed a year.

When the King came down it was of course impossible that a man of such a position as Sir Thomas Monk should not go and pay him his respects like the other county gentlemen. Unfortunately there was an annoying difficulty in the way. He was by this time hopelessly in debt, and so many judgments were out against him that he was little better than a prisoner at Potheridge. To appear in public meant certain arrest. There was but one escape from the dilemma, and that was to bribe the under-sheriff. The only question was to whom so delicate a mission was to be entrusted, and it cannot but raise our opinion of young George that he was chosen for the task. His mission was successfully carried out, and in due course Sir Thomas rode out to meet his sovereign with all the best blood in Devon. But before the royal party came in sight the proceedings were interrupted by a painful incident. Either the under-sheriff had blabbed, or George had been boasting of his diplomacy. At all events the rascally attorney had received a bigger bribe from the other side, and now at this solemn moment and in face of the whole county the villain came forward and arrested Sir Thomas.

George Monk was not a boy to sit down quietly under such an indignity. Without saying anything to anybody he took the first opportunity of slipping off into Exeter regardless of the plague. Once inside the gates he went straight to the perfidious attorney, and having told him in the plainest words what he thought of him, there and then proceeded to administer the cudgelling in the midst of which he has been already introduced, and which was to prove his introduction to an eventful career.

For George was in a desperate scrape. The bruised lawyer threatened merciless proceedings, and to cudgel an under-sheriff was an outrage of which the law was likely to take a very serious view. It was clear that the boy must be concealed till the storm blew over. There was only one way of doing it. The fleet was lying in Plymouth nearly ready to sail. Once there he would be safe. So George, to his intense delight we may be sure, was smuggled off and hurriedly engaged as a volunteer under his kinsman Sir Richard Grenville. Early in October the expedition sailed. The baffled attorney had to hang up his unserved writ on the office-files, and George Monk, by the force of the straitened circumstances of the family, found himself prematurely a soldier with the burden of an imperfect education to carry through life.

It is unnecessary to follow closely the disastrous expedition to Cadiz in 1625. Ill-planned, ill-disciplined, ill-officered, and ill-supplied, it was doomed from the first to failure. For young George Monk it was a bitter awakening from the dreams a boy will have of the glories of a soldier's life. The ship in which he sailed and the company in which he served, bad as it was, can hardly have been so bad as the rest. Grenville was at least a soldier by profession and a good officer. Borough's regiment must at least have tasted discipline. The veteran general was one of the most distinguished and scholarly soldiers of his time; a man who had seen grow up under the Veres that immortal English brigade which by patient effort and undaunted perseverance had wrested from the Spaniards their till then unchallenged claim to be the finest infantry in the world. He had seen more service than any man in the army, and in all questions of military science his word was law.

Thus George began his career under good masters, and two years later he was fortunate enough to bring himself again under their command. At the head of another expedition, as ill-found as the first, Buckingham early in June, 1627, effected a landing on the Isle of Rhé, and laid siege to St. Martin, the citadel of the island. Its capture proved a more difficult matter than he had expected. Already nearly a fortnight had been expended in fruitless attempts when Buckingham's anxieties were further increased by unwelcome news. A young gentleman was announced with an important verbal message from the lips of the King. It was George Monk, who at the risk of his life had made his way through France; though ignorant of the language he had penetrated the army which lay before Rochelle, and so reached Rhé with the intelligence that a large combined naval and military force was being prepared in France to relieve the island.

For this daring service, the risks of which it is difficult to exaggerate, Sir John Borough gave him a commission as ensign in his own regiment, of which Sir Richard Grenville was major, or sergeant-major, as the rank then was, a rank involving all the duties which are now performed by adjutants, as well as the command of a company. It was most probably his kinsman's colours that the young ensign carried, and this is why he always regarded Sir Richard as his father-in-arms. For now he had begun in earnest his career as a professional soldier, and it was with every opportunity of laying the foundations of that consummate technical knowledge which afterwards distinguished him. To enforce the sound teaching of his colonel came the appalling disaster with which the expedition closed. It was a lesson he never forgot, and long after he would often grieve over the iniquitous mismanagement with which the whole affair had been conducted.

In the following year he took part with his regiment, which was now commanded by Grenville, in the last half-hearted attempt to relieve Rochelle, and then followed a period of inactivity. Buckingham was dead, and Conway with his policy of non-intervention reigned in his stead. Richelieu had no desire to retaliate; Spain was too weak to strike a blow, and England settled down to enjoy her repose. At home there was no chance of employment for the professional soldier for many years to come, and adventurous youth must look abroad.

There over the sea was a tempting prospect. Frederick Henry, the young Prince of Orange, had begun his brilliant career. In the previous year he had suddenly taken the offensive and snatched Grol from the very arms of the great Spinola. His treasury was overflowing with the plunder of the plate-fleet which Peter Hein had captured, and now he was besieging Bois-le-duc. Lord Vere had returned at his summons to command the English brigade and to give the young Stadtholder the benefit of his unrivalled experience. It was a name to conjure with, and volunteers flocked over from England eager for the reputation of having served under the most accomplished soldier England had yet produced. But amateur soldiering would not now satisfy George Monk, nor would his purse bear the expenses which a gentleman-private must incur. Fortunately he was not without interest, and was able to procure a commission in the regiment of which Lord Vere's kinsman, the young Earl of Oxford, had just obtained the command.

Before he could join Bois-le-duc had fallen, and it was not till 1631 that the Stadtholder took the field again. This year, however, saw the annihilation of the Spanish flotilla which attempted to surprise the island of Tholen. Lord Oxford had command of the English contingent, which was detailed to man the prince's boats, and at last George tasted the sweets of victory. The following year he was to witness one of the most brilliant campaigns which had ever been fought in the Low Countries. No sooner was the prince in motion than Venlo, Stralen, Ruremonde fell in rapid succession, and by the middle of June he had completely invested Maastricht. Three armies flew to its relief, but the prince beat them all, and at last was left to prosecute the siege unmolested. The brunt of the work in the English lines fell on Monk's regiment, but the young ensign passed through the four months of almost daily fighting without a scratch. His colonel was not so fortunate. The earl was shot dead in the second month of the siege while bringing up reinforcements to the support of the advanced picket in the trenches. On August 21st Maastricht capitulated, and the campaign was brought to a glorious conclusion. Lord Vere returned to England, having assigned the command of his regiment to George Goring, the eldest son of Lord Norwich and the future notorious cavalry officer of the Civil Wars.

It was about this time that Monk was promoted to the rank of captain, and found himself in a position which laid the foundations of his fortunes. He was in command of the colonel's company, that is to say, a double company, of which the colonel was nominal captain. For in the early days of the regimental system every colonel had his company just as every general had his regiment; and as the general had his lieutenant-colonel, so each colonel had his captain-lieutenant taking precedence of all the other captains. It was this rank that Monk now bore, and it was one to which great honour and responsibility were attached. It was in the colonel's company that the volunteers chiefly chose to trail their pikes, and so great was the prestige of Lord Vere's regiment, and so popular the fascinating reprobate who commanded it, that his company was sometimes half composed of unruly young gentlemen who had come abroad to see the wars and sow their wild oats. Thus it was that Monk became personally acquainted with half the officers who afterwards distinguished themselves in the coming Civil Wars, and not only did he make their acquaintance but he won their respect as well. It was only by enforcing the strictest discipline that order could be maintained amongst such a company. Monk took his profession seriously. During his service in Holland he had made deep study of the military sciences, no doubt in company with old Henry Hexham, the learned and literary quartermaster of the regiment. He had no idea of young gentlemen playing at soldiers and disgracing the name by using it only as an excuse for every kind of licence. Soldiering under Captain Monk was found to be a very serious thing. The wildest blades were soon tamed by the impassive stare and rough speech of the captain-lieutenant, young as he still was, and many there were who lived to thank him long afterwards for the severity of the lessons he taught.

Yet he was no mere soldier of the lecture-room and parade-ground either, for all his science and severity. Those who followed George Monk had to tread in thorny places, as any one who knew it not before found out at the siege of Breda. It was the last piece of service for Monk in the Low Countries, and it was the one in which he crowned his reputation for that absolute intrepidity which afterwards used to terrify the carpet-knights of the Restoration, and even make Prince Rupert hold his breath.

In 1637 Frederick found himself strong enough to invest the town with a combined army of Dutch and French, together with his English brigade. The French and English attacks were directed on an important hornwork, and here Goring's regiment had plenty of hard work and hard fighting. Monk soon found himself without a colonel; for Goring here received the wound that gave him the attractive limp the young cavaliers used afterwards so to envy, and he had to give up the active command of his regiment. But in spite of every difficulty, by the night of September 6th the English mines were almost ready. On the morrow they were to be reported complete. Monk was in command of the advanced picket in the trenches. Some attempt of the besieged to destroy the English works was only to be expected, and but for Monk's vigilance the labour of weeks might have been undone in a single night. In discharge of his duty as commander in the trenches he was making the round, and at one point he had to pass close under the hornwork. No sooner had he reached the spot than he saw a number of Spaniards dropping silently from the berme into the trenches. He had but four pikes and a couple of musketeers at his back, but without a moment's hesitation he hurled himself at the dark mass in front of him. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, till the picket, alarmed by the firing, came up, and the enemy were driven within their own works.

The mines were saved, and next morning were reported ready to be sprung. The prince at once ordered the English and French to assault, and Monk himself was told off to lead a forlorn hope of twenty musketeers and ten pikes. In support were a few sappers and two small parties like his own to right and left. After them were the whole of the gentlemen-volunteers. When all was ready the mines were discharged. A great piece of the work crumbled into ruins, and Monk, followed by his party, disappeared into the cloud of dust and smoke before it had time to settle. Without a check he reached the summit of the breach and leaped out upon a body of musketeers drawn up to resist the stormers. Completely surprised by the fury and suddenness of Monk's attack, the Spaniards broke and fled as he sprang out of the smoke. Regardless of his followers, half of whom slunk back into the breach, Monk kept on right into the enemies' work and dashed straight at a body of some six or seven score men who stood with pikes charged to receive him. But nothing would stop him now. Shouting at the top of his voice, "A Goring! a Goring!" he fell furiously on them with the handful who had followed. Fortunately the supports were close at his heels, and shaken by his desperate onslaught, the Spaniards broke before the charge of the volunteers. In disorder they fled into an interior work followed by the English and French, who rushed bravely to the rescue, and the hornwork was won.1

It was the beginning of the end. The loss of the hornwork made the city untenable, and a few weeks later the garrison surrendered. It was Monk's last stroke in the service of the States-General. In the following year, as he lay in winter-quarters at Dort, the burghers took deep offence at some disturbances of which his young reprobates had been guilty, and claimed to try them for the offence. No one had a higher sense of his duty to his employers than Monk, and no one stood up more stoutly for the rights of the men under his command. He insisted on settling the matter by court-martial. The burghers appealed to the States. Such cases were not unknown, and had always been decided in favour of the military. But Dort was an important town, and not to be offended lightly. The States-General decided in favour of the burgomaster, and the prince had to order Monk and his troops into quarters which were by no means a change for the better. Monk was highly offended. He considered the honour of the army was outraged in his person. Unable to support the indignity, and disgusted at the want of consideration shown to a man of his services, he resigned his commission, and resolved to place his sword and experience at the service of his own country.

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 man?uvres 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.

As early as April Ormonde had received secret instructions which can have left him in no doubt as to the real meaning of the King's anxiety for the success of the negotiations. No sooner was the matter settled than the Lieutenant-General busied himself in carrying out his master's orders. Every man that could be spared was to be sent to the assistance of the King against the Scots, and the greatest care was to be exercised that they sailed under commanders who could be trusted.

Meanwhile, in face of the catastrophe they had so long apprehended, the parliamentary agents were not idle. They promised the troops full discharge of arrears and every other inducement to enter their service, and with such success that Ormonde considered it necessary to take the precaution of demanding the signature of a "protestation" from the officers who were to go to England. To his intense disgust Monk was called upon to formally pledge himself to be true to the flag under which he was about to serve. That he had any serious objection to the royal cause is hardly probable. His friends, Lord Lisle and Algernon Sidney, were not in Dublin to influence him. Monk, with the rest of the officers, must have long lost faith in parliamentary promises of pay; and, moreover, through the Commons' antipathy to martial law, there had been trouble in Ireland of the same nature as that which led to his leaving the Dutch service. Then the prospect of coming to blows with the Scots, before whom he had been disgraced, had irresistible attractions for him. Morally there was nothing to prevent him entering the royal service. Although paid by the Parliament it was the King's commission he held. But to be asked to pledge himself to the politics of those for whom he fought was in his eyes a monstrous proposal, while to be called on to swear fidelity to the man whose commission he held was an insult. Rigid even to pedantry in his notions of military honour, he did not know what it was to swerve a hair's-breadth from the duty of his place. Through jealousy and disappointment, through every danger and temptation, he had been true to Ormonde, and now his reward was to be suspected of being able to forget what was due to himself as a soldier. It was more than he could tamely endure. Ormonde presented the protestation, and Monk flatly refused either to sign or swear, nor did he scruple to say plainly what he thought of it. Only one man had the spirit or honesty to follow his example, and that was Colonel Lawrence Crawford, the sturdy Scot whose bigotry would not now permit him to draw sword against the Covenant, and was ere long to bring down upon him the merciless resentment of Cromwell.

Monk was deprived of his regiment, and Warren reluctantly accepted the command. Ormonde could do no less, but so great was his respect for Monk's character and capacity that he took no further step. Monk was simply granted leave to go home, and there the matter might have rested but for the injudicious conduct of his sanguine young admirer, Lord Lisle. The Parliament was about to send reinforcements into Ulster, and the choice of a commander lay between the Scotchman Munroe and Lisle. Munroe's recommendation was his influence with the old Scotch colonists, while Lisle claimed that he could command the services of Monk, and through him half Ormonde's army. Lord Digby, the King's Secretary of State, although his good opinion of Monk was unshaken by the rumours he heard, still took the precaution of warning Ormonde, and writing in the King's name a very flattering letter to the colonel himself. So far all was well. His spotless integrity was enough to lift him above every suspicion. Ormonde seems still to have had enough confidence in him to allow him to sail with the troops to Chester, when somehow he got to know that a special messenger from Pym himself had arrived in Dublin to urge Monk to prevent the troops joining the King.

It now was impossible for Ormonde to ignore the danger of the injured colonel's power for evil so long as he remained with the army, and he felt it his duty to send him to Bristol under arrest. Instructions went with him that he should be confined till further orders from Oxford, whither the Lieutenant-General sent a report of the step he had taken. "In the meantime," he says in his letter to Sir Francis Hawley, the governor of Bristol, "I must assure you that Colonel Monk is a person very well deserved of this kingdom, and that there is no unworthy thing laid to his charge, therefore I desire you to use him with all possible civility."

Hawley, who was one of Monk's innumerable kinsmen, interpreted his instructions so widely as to release the colonel on parole at once, indignant, as it seems, that a man of such distinguished service should be treated so shabbily. But his responsibility was not to last long. Digby showed Ormonde's despatch to the King, who decided at once that Monk was a man worth the trial to gain, and he was sent for to Oxford.

Lord Digby had ready for the injured soldier a most flattering reception. "Honest George" was but a child in the hands of such a man. The brilliant Secretary of State was irresistible with his polished wit, his scholarly discourse, and great personal charm. It was he who had provided Charles with his most trusted counsellors. It was he who had beguiled Sir John Hotham into betraying his trust at Hull. He had even a personal experience of ratting himself, and easily persuaded the colonel to give him his company to Christchurch, where the King lodged.

The inevitable result ensued. No one had in a greater degree the trick of attaching such men to him than Charles. No one had a keener eye for a weakness to be played upon. He was taking the air in the gardens of the College when the two visitors arrived, and we can see them even now as they meet amidst the trim lawns. The artful secretary making his presentation in a few flattering words that say everything to the King: the stalwart soldier saluting somewhat abruptly with a frank honest stare; and Charles with his careworn smile saying something that brings a flush to the handsome face he scrutinises. We can hear him speak of the daring journey to Rhé, of the breach at Breda, of the guns at Newburn, and of all that has since been done in Ireland. He is glad also to have so great an authority on military science in Oxford, as he wants some confidential advice on the prosecution of the war. We can see the look of half-amused surprise as honest George "deals very frankly with his Majesty," and tells him his army is only a rabble of gentility, whose courage and high birth are worthless beside the growing discipline that Fairfax and Skippon and Cromwell are teaching his enemies. Let the King cut down his numbers to ten thousand men, properly organised and equipped; let him officer them with real Low Country soldiers, and send the high-born amateurs to the right-about, and with such an army he would bring the rebels to their knees in a trice. It is hardly, perhaps, the answer his Majesty expected, but he trusts to hear more of the matter another time. So Monk is dismissed, delighted at the King's good sense and condescension. Pay, arrears, and all are forgotten. He is taken by assault, and soon informs Lord Digby he is ready to take service in the royal army.

The only question now was where the man who was worth a trial to gain should be employed. There was a general impression that he should go to Devonshire, where his eldest brother, Sir Thomas, was doing good work. But Monk made difficulties. A civil war in his native county was peculiarly distasteful to a man of his nature. Besides, his heart was not there. He had left it with the regiment that was devoted to him, and that was now, with the rest of the Irish brigade, investing Nantwich under Lord Byron. The fall of the place was looked on as certain; when all at once in the midst of the Christmas revels there was a cry that help was at hand. Under peremptory orders from London, Fairfax had left his winter-quarters about Lincoln, and had succeeded in penetrating Cheshire with a large force by the end of January. There was no doubt about Monk's destination then. The hardships of the unexpectedly long siege and two small reverses had seriously affected the temper of the Irish brigade, and their idol was hurried to infuse a better spirit into his old comrades for the coming struggle.

The sight of "honest George" was as good as another regiment to the besiegers, and when he took his place, pike in hand, at the head of the first file of his old corps, Lord Byron saw his force had got a new heart. Monk had in his pocket a commission to raise a regiment and a promise of the post of Major-General to the brigade, but in spite of this and of Warren's entreaties to take his old command, he insisted on retaining his humble position.

The very day after Monk joined the alarm was given that Fairfax was at hand, and the position of the Royalists was suddenly found to be desperately weak. Byron's army was investing the town on both sides of the river Weaver. Warren's and four other regiments of foot were on the left bank, and it was on this side that Fairfax was advancing. On the first news of his approach they had taken up a position at Acton Church, about a mile in rear of their works, where they intended to stop his advance, while to prevent a sortie of the garrison a small guard was left to hold the bridge by which the town was reached. On the other side of the river was Lord Byron with the rest of the infantry and all the horse. Communications had been kept up hitherto by fords, but a sudden thaw had so swollen the river as to render them impracticable. Only by a ride of six miles could the horse reach the foot at Acton, and the way lay through lanes that the melting snow had rendered almost impassable. Still there was but one thing to do, and Byron galloped off along the river through the slush and mire, trusting there might yet be time to get round before the enemy attacked.

Meanwhile Fairfax had come in sight of the isolated foot. Monk's old Low Country comrade saw his advantage immediately, and continued his advance with the intention of cutting his way through the infantry to join hands with the garrison before Byron could come to the rescue. Nearer and nearer he pressed, opening a way through the hedges as he came straight across country. Suddenly there was an alarm in the rear-guard. In spite of the mud and narrow lanes and swollen river Byron was upon him at last. Quick as thought "Form your files to the rear and charge for horse!" was the order which rang from Fairfax's lips, and Byron's breathless troopers were hurled back from a solid wall of pikes and muskets. Three of the Parliament regiments had reversed their front and with the rest Fairfax dashed at Monk and his friends. Warren's was in the centre, and it broke at once. The rest stood firm but with flanks exposed. Pike in hand Monk raged through his disgraced regiment and rallied it for one more charge. Again it broke, and Fairfax poured in between the wings a resistless flood. At the same moment the garrison sallied out, forced the guard at the bridge, and fell upon the Royalist rear. All was over. Drowned in a sea of armed men that flowed on every side of them, the regiments which till now had held their ground could resist no longer. Surrender or flight was all that was left. Too late Monk found the regiment he was so proud of would not fight in such a cause. He even had to hear it said that a number of his men had turned their fire on the hard-pressed wings. Acton Church, around which the train was parked, was hard by, and thither with the rest of the officers he took refuge. For a while Byron hovered round to try a rescue with the horse, but the attempt was hopeless. Church, guns, baggage and all were surrendered, and after barely a week's service in the King's army Monk found himself a prisoner.

A few days afterwards nearly the whole of his old regiment had enlisted with Fairfax, while he and Warren were sent prisoners to Hull. But for such a man Hull was not safe enough. It had but recently been relieved, and was not out of danger so long as Lord Newcastle was at York. Fairfax and the other officers who had fought by Monk's side in the Low Countries knew well the value of his services, and impressed upon the Parliament that he was "a man worth the making," and not without effect. He was ordered up to London with Warren, and on July 8th brought to the bar of the House. There the two unfortunate officers were charged with high treason and committed to the Tower. No sooner were they there than Lord Lisle set about justifying his boasts to the Council. He was still doing his best to get appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and there could be no better testimonial to his fitness than that he could command the services of the officers in the Tower. Of Monk there was every hope, for he alone had refused to bind himself not to serve the Parliament, nor were the most enticing offers wanting to tempt him.

Already the New Model Army was in contemplation. Men of all parties saw that nothing decisive would ever be done except by adopting the methods which Monk had urged on the King. A compact mobile field-force, complete and organised in every detail on the Low Country system, must replace the unmanageable mobilised militia with which the war had hitherto been aimlessly dragged on. Cromwell had now definitely come to the front and thrown himself into the task. Except possibly Sir Jacob Astley, who was at Oxford with Charles, there was no one in the kingdom more fitted for the all-important work than Monk. Cromwell, who knew how to choose a man, must have been perfectly aware of his qualifications, even if he had not been as intimate as he was with Lord Lisle. Nor was it from Cromwell alone that the prisoner was tempted. Though all were agreed the weapon must be forged, they were by no means at one as to the hands in which it was to be placed. Independents and Presbyterians were man?uvring for the control. In spite of standing orders members were so constantly visiting the prisoners that the House had strictly to forbid the practice without special leave. The same day a leading Presbyterian was granted permission, and towards the end of October Monk's case was specially referred to the committee of examinations.

But they all mistook their man. He still held the King's commission. The war for which he had engaged was still raging, and the most brilliant offers that could be made him he only regarded as insults. Pressure was even brought to bear, it is said, by a more rigorous confinement, but it was useless, and he indignantly refused his liberty except by a regular cartel.

Days and weeks went by and no exchange came. Although, as he had refused to desert in Ireland, he was not affected by the order which forbade the exchange of the other Irish officers upon any terms, Parliament had no intention of allowing so valuable an officer to get back to the royal camp. In vain Daniel O'Neill urged the King to procure his release for service in Ireland. Charles seems to have done his best. Clarendon says that many attempts were made to exchange him; that one was we know. Care, however, seems to have been taken by his would-be employers not only that these attempts should be unsuccessful, but that Monk should not even hear of them. The wretched colonel thought himself forgotten. His money was gone, and a penniless prisoner in those days was the most miserable of men. Of his annuity fifty pounds was all he had had, and on November 6th, but four months after his committal, he sat down to write an urgent appeal to his brother for another fifty. The letter concludes with a pathetic cry for his release: "I shall entreat you," he says, "to be mindful of me concerning my exchange, for I doubt all my friends have forgotten me. I earnestly entreat you, therefore, if it lies in your power, to remember me concerning my liberty; and so in haste, I rest, your faithful brother, George Monk."

In haste and in the Tower! But any excuse was good enough with the taciturn soldier if it saved words. And he might have saved them all. Exchange and remittance were alike out of the question with his hard-pressed brother, and as the weary months went by he thought himself indeed deserted. Once out of the very depth of his poverty Charles sent him a hundred pounds-an extraordinary mark of esteem as things went at Oxford then. But that was all. Bitterly he felt the seeming ingratitude, but in spite of all with obstinate loyalty he refused to desert his colours, and sat himself down to forget in the pursuit of literature the fancied wrongs under which he smarted.

Like many other active-minded men before and since, having absolutely nothing to do he determined to write a book. He had before him the example of Lord Vere and his brother-in-arms, Hexham, the literary quartermaster of his old Low Country regiment, and most worthily he followed in their steps. The book is full of vigorous and pithy aphorisms which flash on us the condensed opinions of a man who spoke little and thought much. We can hear, as we read it, the few well-digested words, rugged, blunt, and direct, with which he compelled the attention of councils of war and won the respect and admiration of his men. Its subdued enthusiasm tells us of a genuine soldier reverently devoted to his profession, and looking mournfully from the place apart, where his almost aggressive patriotism had placed him, at the distractions with which his beloved country was torn. It gives us as clearly as though we saw him face to face the key of the character that has been as much misunderstood and abused as any in history. He was an English citizen first, a soldier next, and a politician not at all. Of the real meaning of the strife he was incapable of grasping any conception. For him it was all a mere question of the interior, and in his eyes no question of the interior, not even religion itself, was worth a civil war, or the sacrifice of England's military renown.

He called his work Observations upon Military and Political Affairs. The military part is admirable, and shows us the consummate soldier he was. It strikes one of the first notes of modern military science, and takes for its dominant theme the comparatively small part which actual fighting plays in the duties of a general and the success of a campaign. The political observations are more crude but equally characteristic. With the exception of some sagacious remarks on governing a conquered country, they are confined to the methods of preventing civil war. After recommending a strong centralised government, technical education, and uniformity of religion, if it can be obtained without danger, he enunciates those principles which caused him to take the final step at the great crisis of his life. Still under the influence of his Devonshire training he strongly insists on State colonisation as a means whereby sources of weakness may be turned into strength. "But the principal and able remedy," he says, "against civil war is to entertain a foreign war. This chaseth away idleness, setteth all on work, and particularly this giveth satisfaction to ambitious and stirring spirits; it banisheth luxury, maketh your people warlike, and maintaineth you in such reputation amongst your neighbours, that you are the arbitrators of their differences." And it is from this point of view that he expresses his only opinion on the great question that was coming. "A sovereign prince," he lays down, "is more capable to make great and ready conquests than a commonwealth, and especially if he goeth in person into the field."

When the manuscript was complete he gave it to Lord Lisle to take care of, and thus we may be sure that it was from Monk's pen that Cromwell, to whom Lisle would not have omitted to show his treasure, learnt something at least of his knowledge of war.

But literature was not his only consolation. There was another more to his taste and less to his credit. For there used to come to the Tower one Ann Ratsford, the wife of a perfumer who lived at the sign of the Three Spanish Gypsies in the Exchange. By trade she was a milliner, and in that capacity used to look after Monk's linen. She was neither pretty nor well bred; she had a sharp tongue and manners that were not refined. But the colonel was soft-hearted, and she was very kind; the colonel was so handsome and had such a soldierly air, and then all his friends had forgotten him and the perfumer was detestable. So the gloomy walls of the Tower were brightened with an unholy idyl, and thus began the intrigue which was to make a duchess of plain Nan Clarges, the farrier's daughter of the Savoy.