Julian Stafford Corbett

“ On the whole Scotch establishment there was hardly a colonel who was above suspicion. Every garrison and every company were full of the veteran fanatics who had taught the world the art of revolution, and every man of them in his heart rejoiced at Lambert's success. With this element free, his army was Lambert's army. At all cost it must be made powerless, though it was the very soul of his force. But Monk did not hesitate. Not a moment was to be lost. In a few hours the news would be all over Scotland and the chance gone. ”

“ No sooner was he landed at Chester than he found public opinion in a high state of agitation over his armistice. He was interviewed by excited politicians: he was eagerly asked what induced him to make so monstrous an alliance; but little could be made of him. The cautious, taciturn soldier must have been a difficult man to interview, and to every inquisitive attack he replied that he had the warrant of his superiors for what he had done. He had obeyed his orders, he had done his duty, and he had no fear of the consequences; nor did it concern him whether the treaty was justifiable or not. ”

“ Gumble, ventured to accost him. "What do you think of this agreement?" said the general abruptly. The doctor replied at once by asking leave to escape into Holland, for whatever the rest might hope he knew his life was not safe. "What!" cried Monk angrily, "do you lay the blame on me? If the army will stick to me I will stick to them." A burst of enthusiasm greeted his words. Every officer present vowed he would live and die with him, and shout after shout of joy re-echoed through the city as the news spread through the ranks of the soldiers. ”

“ 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 Duke of York failed as an admiral, and "old George" was asked if he would mind taking command. The great fire destroyed half London, and threw the country into a panic, and the King, in terror of a new revolution, had to beg "the sole pillar of the state" to come up from the fleet and restore confidence. The people openly said it never would have happened if the general had been there; and when the Dutch sailed into the Thames men seemed to think he had only to go down to Chatham for the enemy to scatter like chaff. ”

“ From ten thousand throats the great Royalist reaction found voice. Many cheered for the King openly; the auxiliaries drank his health on their knees; George Monk was the darling of the hour. As though nothing should be wanting from his triumph, when the enthusiasm was at its highest a party of travel-stained horse was seen moving along the outskirts of the park. Right under the gallows at Tyburn they passed, and a new shout rent the air; for in their midst rode Lambert with swordless scabbard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the one hand was the Parliament, reactionary in spite of its purging; on the other the army, radical in spite of its leader. For the purpose of understanding Monk's relation to them it is unnecessary to enter minutely into the characteristics of both factions. To place ourselves in sympathy with a political situation it is necessary not so much to understand the aims of the several parties which create it, as to grasp the motives which each party attributes to the other. The great body of politicians are moved more by distrust of their adversaries than by confidence in themselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The war and his magnificent new flagship, the Swiftsure, were much more to his mind, and he can only have rejoiced when he saw the power of Parliament suddenly surrendered into Cromwell's hands.
The new rule had his entire approval. A single person, as we have seen, was his ideal of government, and especially when that single person was one well able to apply the "principal and able remedy against civil wars." The crisis had resolved itself into a situation after his own heart. ”

“ The artillery duels by which it was sought to goad Leslie into an engagement were under his direction, and it was he who took the castles of Colinton and Redhall during Cromwell's attempt to turn the Scotch position before Edinburgh.
During the terrible retreat on Dunbar it is hardly too much to say his consummate technical skill saved the army from destruction. More dead than alive the remnants of Cromwell's splendid force had reached Haddington. Sick, shattered, and harassed to death with incessant marching through the rain and mire, they seemed now an easy prey. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ And so by a happy combination of the patient industry of the ploughman and the daring activity of the mosstrooper Monk made the war support itself, a thing as strange as it was palatable to the authorities at home; and while he thus delighted his masters he no less attached his troops to him by his judicious distribution of loot, as well as by keeping an open house to which every officer had at all times a hearty welcome. His maxim was to "mingle love with the severity of his discipline," believing that "they that cannot be induced to serve for love will never be forced to serve for fear." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Monk's reception at Whitehall, approved her sweetmeats, and complacently noted how she had helped them to wine with her own hand; while the country at large read the general's speech as a threat to the oligarchy which oppressed it. The city was enthusiastic, for not only did it begin to doubt the sincerity of his devotion to the Rump, but by his conclusion about Ireland the capitalists saw in him their champion. And, as we have seen, at such a crisis the capitalists had then the same peculiar influences which they have exercised under similar conditions in more modern times. ”

“ The orders were carried out to the last letter; guards were set at all the important points, and in the afternoon the rest of the army marched back to its quarters about Westminster.
Haslerig and his friends had won an incalculable victory. On Monk hung the hopes of the country, and they had deliberately struck him a fatal blow where they knew his spotless sense of honour exposed him without defence to their attack. His position was indeed desperate, and no sooner was he alone at Whitehall than Clarges came in to point out the extremity of his danger. ”

“ Without giving his leaderless regiment a moment to think Monk followed up the blow with a pithy and soldier-like speech, asking them if they thought it right for the Scotch army to submit to the insolent extravagancies of the home forces. "For my own part," he cried, "I think myself obliged by the duty of my place to keep the military power in obedience to the civil. Since we have received our pay and commissions from the Parliament it is our duty to defend them. ”

“ Though the intrepid Dutch were soon as busy refitting as Monk himself, every one knew a decisive action had been fought. A public thanksgiving was ordered, and honours were showered on Monk and poor Blake and their officers. Next to Cromwell the soldier of fortune was now the greatest man in the land. Yet, in spite of his greatness, and in spite of the ardour with which he threw himself into the work of refitting the fleet, he found time and conscience to do a little act of humble duty before he put to sea again. ”