MONCK, George (1608-70), of Potheridge, Devon.

The Monck family had been landowners in Devon since the twelfth century, and their surname – a corruption of the Norman ‘Le Moyne’ – suggests their roots could be traced back to the Conquest. The family lineage was illustrious as well as ancient, as an earlier Monck had married a daughter of Arthur Plantagent, illegitimate son of Edward IV, whose wife was Elizabeth Grey, 6th Baroness Lisle.113Ashley, Monck, 2-3. This marriage brought not only an indirect connection with the royal family, but also (through Elizabeth’s first marriage) links with the Dudleys and Sidneys. Such a genealogy made it all the more galling that, in the early seventeenth century, the Moncks of Potheridge were reduced to penury. Monck’s father, Thomas, fell out with his in-laws, the Smyths of Madworthy, and spent much time and money fighting legal disputes with them and other relatives. He ran into debt in the late 1610s, stood as MP for Camelford to avoid being arrested in 1625, was eventually apprehended, and died in gaol in June 1627.114‘Thomas Monck’, HP Commons 1604-29. The financial crisis of Thomas Monck had a great impact on his younger son, George, who had been brought up in the Smyth household. In September 1626 George, and his elder brother Thomas avenged their father’s disgrace by assaulting Nicholas Battyn, the under-sheriff who had arrested him, with George inflicting wounds that led to Battyn’s death in January 1627.115M. Stoyle, ‘The Honour of George Monck’, History Today, xliii. 43-8. It was hardly surprising that Monck sought to escape prosecution for murder by joining the 1st duke of Buckingham’s expedition to the Ile de Ré shortly afterwards.

Monck’s early military career is somewhat confused. His first biographer stated that he accompanied his cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, as a volunteer with Sir John Burrough’s regiment during the ill-fated attack on Cadiz in 1625, but this cannot be corroborated.116T. Gumble, The Life of General Monck (1671), 4. It is likely that this episode has been confused with his service as an ensign under Burroughs during the Ile de Rhé expedition in 1627, as he is mentioned as delivering a message to the English commanders (‘with great hazard of his life’) in a surviving journal of the campaign.117Ashley, Monck, 10, citing R. Grenville, Two Original Journals (1724). In 1628 he may have joined the second expedition there, once Grenville had succeeded to the colonelcy.118Ashley, Monck, 5-6, 9, 11. During the early 1630s Monck served in the Netherlands, as ensign and then captain in Lord Vere’s regiment, initially serving under Vere’s lieutenant colonel, the 19th earl of Oxford; and he was present at the siege of Maastricht in 1632, when Oxford was killed. In August 1632, when Vere sent Monck back to London with news of developments at Masstricht, he was described as ‘having been here the greatest part of this siege’.119SP84/144, f. 229. By 1634 he was captain-lieutenant of the regiment, now under the command of George Goring. When Goring’s men were involved in the assault on Breda in 1637, Monck led 30 men in a daring raid to capture a crucial horn-work, precipitating the fall of the town.120Gumble, Monck, 5-9; Ashley, Monck, 13-18, 263, citing H. Hexham, Siege of Breda (1637); Mems. of Prince Rupert ed. Warburton, i. 80-1. Monck’s activities between 1637 and 1640 are unclear. It is usually stated that he was in England in the spring of 1638, and that he found employment (through the influence of the 2nd earl of Leicester, the countess of Carlisle or George Goring) as lieutenant-colonel of the 1st earl of Newport’s foot during the first bishops’ war of 1639.121Ashley, Monck, 19-21; Gumble, Monck, 10. However, the army treasurers’ accounts for this period do not list Monck as Newport’s lieutenant-colonel, and there is no mention of his service in any other regiment.122E351/292. Indeed, it was not until August 1640, when the king’s army mustered at Selby before the second bishops’ war, that Monck appears in this role.123Add. 28082, ff. 11-12; E351/293. Biased reports that Monck was a leading member of the king’s council of war cannot be confirmed from neutral sources; and whether or not Monck was the only officer to keep his head (and to save the artillery train) at the battle of Newburn remains a matter for conjecture.124Ashley, Monck, 23; Gumble, Monck, 19.

Irish Wars, 1641-6

After the defeat of the king’s army in August 1640, nothing is known of Monck’s activities until the winter of 1641-2, when he was recruited into the army raised against the Catholic rebels in Ireland. In November 1641 the Long Parliament included Monck as one of the senior officers chosen to serve under the lord lieutenant, the earl of Leicester, and shortly afterwards he was appointed as lieutenant-colonel of the earl’s own foot regiment.125CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 164. On 21 January 1642 Monck was at Chester with Leicester’s regiment, reporting that he ‘we shall want nothing for our present embarking but money’.126Nalson, Impartial Collection, ii. 919-20. Monck, accompanied by his kinsman, Sir Richard Grenville, eventually arrived at Dublin with 1,500 foot and 400 horse on 20-1 February.127HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 79. By April, Monck’s regiment was in the field, supporting an offensive by James Butler, earl of Ormond, which culminated in his victory at Kilrush (15 April), where Monck’s service was commended.128Ashley, Monck, 29-32. He also reduced many castles in the vicinity of Trim, co. Meath.129Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 69-70. The closeness of Monck to the Sidneys can be seen in the chaotic events which followed the death of the governor of Dublin, Sir Charles Coote senior, in the spring of 1642. In May Leicester wrote to the lords justices, ordering that Monck was to replace Coote as governor, even though the post had been promised to Charles Lord Lambart† by the king. The Irish council prevaricated. When Leicester heard of this in early June, he again demanded Monck’s appointment, and sent over his commission, which the lords justices had to accept until they could get a definitive ruling from the king.130Bodl. Carte 68, f. 455; HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 126-7, 157-8, 160-1. In July, the king’s appointment of Lambart was confirmed, and the lords justices also warned Leicester that the form of Monck’s warrant was contrary to the city of Dublin’s charter.131HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 167. Monck’s commission was withdrawn shortly afterwards.

Despite his removal from the Dublin governorship, Monck was willing to work with the Irish council and its committees, and he remained eager to promote a robust military policy in Ireland. In December 1642 and January 1643 he campaigned against the Irish forces towards the south and west of Dublin, his aggressive approach attracting the praise of Leicester’s son Philip Sidney*, Viscount Lisle, who reported in January 1643 that ‘many of the chief officers of the army are desirous to do the work, and Colonel Monck especially doth intend it’.132HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 415. When Lisle made his offer ‘to the state’ on behalf of the commanders, to maintain a strong force through the winter months, he told Leicester that he had ‘before advised of it with Colonel Monck’.133HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 417. When Ormond and Lisle made their bold attack deep into co. Wexford, Monck destroyed the co. Wicklow garrisons, before joining the main army in time for the battle of Ross on 18 March.134Ashley, Monck, 37-8. In the aftermath of defeat, Lisle was court-martialled, with Monck appearing as one of two judges who presided over the case.135HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 419-28. In the summer of 1643 Monck was again in the field, this time thrusting north west against the forces of Owen Roe O’Neill.136Ashley, Monck, 39-40. On 1 September 1643 the Commons ordered that Monck was to be paid £100 from his arrears for his ‘faithful service’ in Ireland.137CJ iii. 224b.

Monck’s active military career in Ireland was brought to an abrupt end by the signing of the cessation of arms between the royalists and the Catholic confederates in September 1643. As befitted a friend of the pro-parliamentarian Viscount Lisle, Monck was opposed to the truce and refused to subscribe to it. In the weeks after the cessation was agreed Monck was retained in his command, but (probably in October or November) he went on to sign the petition of the Irish Protestants to the king which accompanied the hard-line commissioners sent over to persuade the king to abandon his truce altogether.138HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 343-4. On 10 November, George Lord Digby* told Ormond that he feared Lisle intended to lead a mutiny, hoping ‘he can draw after him some of your lordship’s regiments’, including that of Monck.139Bodl. Carte 7, f. 409. As a result Monck was removed from the command of Leicester’s regiment, which was given to his major, Henry Warren.140Ashley, Monck, 43. On 16 November Ormond ordered that Monck should be kept in Ireland when the Protestant troops were shipped to England, saying that if Monck tried to cross to Chester with them, he was to be arrested and sent to Bristol.141Bodl. Carte 7, f. 473. Whether Monck crossed the Irish Sea in custody or in freedom is unknown. The suspicions of him, voiced in Dublin and Oxford, would seem to dismiss any notion that he ‘came over in very good grace and favour’ with the king’s party. Once in England, he travelled to Oxford, where he was granted a private audience with the king, although it seems unlikely that he was allowed, on this occasion, openly to criticise the royalist army, or that he was sent to Chester to ‘review’ the newly arrived Irish forces there – or even to replace Lord Byron as their general.142Gumble, Monck, 17-18. In fact, the interview was not a great success, and on 23 December Digby reported that the king thought Monck ‘worth the trial to gain, but in case that fail, care shall be taken that he do no hurt’.143Bodl. Carte 8, f. 203.

Colonel Warren’s regiment was shipped to Chester in December 1643, and was marched to join Byron’s troops besieging Nantwich.144Bodl. Carte 8, ff. 211-2. There they were joined by Monck, who enlisted in his former regiment as a gentleman volunteer. On 24 January Byron’s army was defeated by a force under Sir Thomas Fairfax*, and Monck was taken prisoner.145Magnalia Dei (1644), 15 (E.31.13). Robert Byron’s account of the defeat pointed the finger of blame at Monck’s men. ‘Warren’s regiment, though they had their beloved Colonel Monck in the head of them, was no sooner charged, but they broke, and being rallied again at the next charge ran quite away; some say they played foul play, and ran over to the enemy, at least some of them, and fired upon us’ and it later emerged that ‘many of the soldiers that were prisoners, especially of Warren’s, have taken conditions with them [the enemy]’.146Bodl. Carte 9, ff. 77v-8. The parliamentarians corroborated this, saying that many of the Irish Protestant troops had ‘taken the Covenant, the most of Colonel Monck’s regiment’.147Mercurius Britannus (sic) no. 2 (31 Jan.-6 Feb. 1644), 12 (E.31.18). Monck’s old comrades may have turned coat, but their former commander had not. Lord Digby, writing from Oxford, remained convinced of Monck’s loyalty, listing him among the ‘gallant officers’ captured on the day, which had changed a minor set-back into ‘a great overthrow’.148Bodl. Carte 9, f. 81. Ormond also accepted that Monck’s actions were honourable.149Letterbook of the Earl of Clanricarde ed. J. Lowe (Dublin, 1983), 489. Parliament also treated Monck as a royalist: after his capture, he was sent to Hull, and then, with the other ‘officers that came out of Ireland’, in July 1644 he was transferred to the Tower of London, to remain there during Parliament’s pleasure.150CJ iii. 416b, 554b.

Monck was in the Tower for the next two years. A visit by the prominent Irish Protestant MP, Sir John Clotworthy*, to Monck in September 1644, suggests that the parliamentarians were at first hopeful that Monck would defect to them – just as Murrough O’Brien, 1st earl of Inchiquin, and the Munster Protestants had a few weeks before – but nothing came of it.151CJ iii. 623a. This may not have been due to Monck’s obduracy. On another occasion, he thanked Arthur Graham for his efforts to secure his release, but added bitterly that all the Irish officers were ‘like to endure this misery till the end of the war’.152Bodl. Carte 16, f. 365. It was only in the summer of 1646 that Monck gained his freedom; and this time the crucial factor seems to have been the intercession of his kinsman and former colleague in Ireland, Viscount Lisle.

Irish Wars, 1646-50

In January 1646 Lisle was appointed Parliament’s lord lieutenant of Ireland, with a year’s term beginning in the following April, in a move designed to put Irish affairs into the hands of the Independent faction, which favoured a new English invasion rather than a collaborative venture between Parliament, the Scots in Ulster and the Ormondists in Dublin. This more aggressive policy received the support of those Irish veterans, including Monck, who had opposed the cessation of arms in 1643. During his time in prison, Monck had written a military manual – later printed as his Observations – which he now delivered to Lisle. In it, he dealt not only with the conduct of troops in the field, in sieges, and in camp, but also with the strategic aspects of a campaign, and the latter may have been intended as his advice to the new lord lieutenant as he prepared to sail for Ireland.153Observations upon Military and Political Affairs (1671), sig A3, pp. 4-20. Monck’s release was first resolved by the Commons on 1 July 1646, when he was allowed ‘to go beyond the seas’ upon taking the negative oath, although it is not certain that this meant Ireland.154CJ iv. 595a. He remained in prison in October, when Ormond advised his agents, sent to negotiate a settlement with Parliament after his peace treaty with the Irish rebels had collapsed, to seek the assistance of Monck and other officers in the Tower, and to gain their release.155LJ viii. 524b. But it was not until 12 November that Lisle reported to the Commons the advice of the Derby House Committee that Monck, who had ‘engaged his honour that he will faithfully serve the Parliament in this war in Ireland’, should be released on taking the negative oath and the Covenant.156CJ iv. 720a-b; LJ viii. 562a; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 84.

At first, it was expected that Lisle’s troops would cross from Chester to Dublin, and Monck was nominated as deputy-governor of the city under Lisle’s brother, Algernon Sydney*.157CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 489; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 726. Once Ormond had withdrawn from his negotiations with Parliament in November, the plan was revised, and Monck, serving as adjutant, was sent to Bristol to organise a crossing to the southern province of Munster.158CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 802. Monck arrived at Bristol in January 1647, and left for Ireland in early February, but he had barely £1,000 in money, 60 horse and 240 foot with him, and his message to the lord president of Munster, Lord Inchiquin, that Lisle would be ‘his very real friend’ lacked conviction.159HMC Egmont, i. 350, 353, 355, 357. When Lisle himself sailed for Ireland shortly afterwards, he immediately began a process of undermining Inchiquin, which included replacing one regimental commander, Colonel Brockett, with Monck.160HMC Egmont, i. 389. This appointment was short-lived, and when the lord lieutenant’s commission expired in April 1647, Monck was forced to return to England, having achieved nothing.161Gumble, Monck, 25.

In London, Monck remained in favour with the Independents, but also associated with Presbyterian sympathisers, including Sir Philip Percivalle* and William Jephson*, and although he was still suspect ‘in regard he had once served the king’, he was a popular choice as the new commander in Ulster.162HMC Egmont, i. 400, 405, 427-8, 434. On 16 July 1647 Parliament appointed him commander-in-chief of the forces in Ulster not under the command of the younger Sir Charles Coote*. This gave Monck control of the eastern half of the province, and his instructions, along with later orders, allowed him to disburse money and exercise martial law as an autonomous commander.163CJ v. 246b, 347a; LJ ix. 336a-7a. Monck arrived in Dublin on 5 September, and soon after marched north to take over the headquarters of the Ulster forces at Lisnagarvey (Lisburn).164Ashley, Monck, 58. The situation in Ulster was difficult, as tensions mounted between the English and Scottish forces there and their parliamentarian pay-masters. Monck put a brave face on it, saying that ‘his reception by the British in Ulster was not so well as he could wish, yet much better than he expected’, and he joined the parliamentarian governor of Dublin, Colonel Michael Jones, in a series of raids against the Irish forces in northern Leinster.165HMC Egmont, i. 476-8; TCD, MS 844, f. 14; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 593. In the autumn of 1647, lack of supplies forced Monck to make other arrangements for his troops, a task made all the more urgent by the attitude of his Scottish regiments, who ‘will no longer obey than he hath money to pay’.166HMC Egmont, i. 479. In November he wrote a threatening letter to the governor of Dundalk, Colonel Moore, telling him to stop charging the Ulster troops excise, as ‘I shall be constrained, having no market, to let my soldiers live on your protected people’ – in other words, to take free quarter from Moore’s supporters in the area.167Add. 38091, f. 96. When satisfaction was not forthcoming, Monck issued orders for his subordinates to quarter on areas recently vacated by the Scots in Ulster. This policy of taking free quarter from friends as well as foes, naturally created disputes between the Ulster officers, which worsened during and after the second civil war.168HMC Hastings, ii. 352-5.

Despite his lack of resources, during 1648 Monck’s command in Ulster was relatively successful. Parliament acknowledged Monck’s loyalty in February by agreeing to raise a new regiment of 1,200 men for Monck to command.169CJ v. 464b. In May the Commons praised efforts by Monck and other commanders in Ulster to prevent Scottish troops being withdrawn to fight for the royalist forces mustered on the mainland by James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton.170CJ v. 571b. Monck cooperated with Parliament’s other commanders in Ireland, notably Michael Jones in Dublin, and they shared intelligence information about the Scottish threat in the spring and early summer.171CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 775, 778; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 47, 212. In August 1648 Jones reported a joint campaign to clear the enemy from co. Meath, in which Monck had played a prominent part.172LJ x. 434a. The defeat of Hamilton’s army at Preston in Lancashire prompted Monck to mount a coup against the Ulster Scots, surprising the castle at Carrickfergus, seizing the Scottish commander, Robert Monro, and eventually taking the towns of Belfast and Coleraine. Although Monck worked with disaffected Scottish officers in his capture of Carrickfergus, his attitude towards the Scots in Coleraine was reportedly harsh, threatening ‘to put all within that town to the sword, in revenge of some English that were killed by those of the garrison’.173Hist. of the Irish Confederation ed. J. T. Gilbert (7 vols. Dublin, 1891), vi. 285-6. Such tactics did not worry a grateful Parliament, which rewarded Monck with £500 and the governorship of Carrickfergus.174CJ vi. 37a-b, 41a; LJ x. 528b-9a; D. Stevenson, Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates (Belfast, 1981), 263. They also made efforts to send fresh troops to reinforce Monck and Coote, and ordered them to arrest any potential troublemakers in the Scottish regiments under their command.175CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 268, 298-9, 311.

The execution of Charles I turned many Ulster officers against Parliament, and Monck, fearing unrest in his army, declared in March 1649 that all officers were to sign a denunciation of Ormond and the rebels or be removed. This provoked the Scots in particular, who were unanimous in rejecting ‘any association with such as will not cordially renew the Covenant with us’ and denouncing the ‘sectarian army in England’.176HMC Hastings, ii. 356-7; Bodl. Carte 118, f. 44; TCD, MS 844, ff. 97-8. Faced with mutiny, Monck was forced to abandon his garrisons in Ulster, and retreat south to Dundalk in April.177HMC Ormonde, o.s. ii. 91; HMC Hastings, ii. 359-60. He also began to look elsewhere for support – even outside the Protestant camp. On 23 March 1649 the Catholic commander, Owen Roe O’Neill, sent Monck proposals for ‘a cessation of arms … for an offensive and defensive war’ against both the Ulster Scots in the north and the Ormondists in the south.178HMC Ormonde, o.s. ii. 90. The cessation was to continue for three months, while a treaty was negotiated between O’Neill and Parliament, allowing liberty of conscience for Catholics, indemnity for all actions since the outbreak of the rebellion, and the restoration of lands. Monck was naturally sceptical that Parliament would agree to such terms, but encouraged O’Neill to hope for lenient treatment of his own ‘party’, as well as the return of his ancestral estates.179CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 364-6. Even if, as is likely, Monck intended merely to humour O’Neill, even the discussion of such terms left him open to charges of political and religious treachery.

Despite assurances from the English council of state that an army was about to sail for Ireland, and efforts by Lisle and others (through the council’s Irish committee) to secure supplies and naval assistance in the short term, Monck was forced to sign the cessation with O’Neill on 8 May.180Bodl. Carte 24, f. 493; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 48, 93-4, 101, 112, 118; Ashley, Monck, 64. In the days that followed, and before any benefits of the cessation could be felt, Monck’s position deteriorated rapidly. Although he had drawn up ambitious plans to go on the offensive, relieving Dublin and the outlying garrison at Trim, when royalist forces advanced against Dundalk his troops deserted in droves.181HMC Ormonde, o.s. ii. 97. The town fell without a fight soon afterwards, and Monck hastily took ship to England. The authorities in London had been aware of Monck’s negotiations with O’Neill for some time, but it was only once Oliver Cromwell* and his army had safely landed at Dublin in August that his dealings were made public.182CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 263. On 10 August the council of state reported that ‘they neither did, nor do, approve of what he hath done’, and Monck, called to the bar of the Commons on the same day, was forced to make a humiliating apology, admitting that ‘he did it upon his own score, without advice of any other person’. Parliament was satisfied, and while declaring their abhorrence of what he had done, they accepted that he had acted in good faith, and decided not to take the matter further.183CJ vi. 277a-b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 264. Monck was not to be prosecuted, but he had been publicly reprimanded, and all his papers concerning the embarrassing O’Neill episode were subsequently published.184Ashley, Monck, 68. In the aftermath, he returned to Devon, to take possession of the family estates that he had inherited on the death of his nephew in March, and to free them from the fines and charges imposed by the Committee for Compounding.185Bodl. Carte 24, f. 153; CCC 1367. Monck also had time to plan revenge against the Scottish officers whose mutiny had forced his hand; and in December 1649 he wrote to Ulster advising that the miscreants should be captured, executed, and their estates forfeited.186HMC Hastings, ii. 361.

Parliament’s leniency to Monck may be an indication of Cromwell’s personal intervention on his behalf. There is little evidence of previous dealings between the two men, but through the spring and summer of 1649 Cromwell had become eager to recruit men who might prove useful in the Irish campaign. In August Monck had given his letters concerning the O’Neill treaty to Cromwell, who had then passed them on to the council of state, and there may some truth in the claim by Monck’s first biographer that Cromwell had prevented Monck’s imprisonment.187CJ vi. 277a; Gumble, Monck, 28-9. It was certainly Cromwell who brought Monck out of retirement in the summer of 1650, when he was preparing his expedition against the Scots, and when he marched north from London, he took Monck with him.188Ashley, Monck, 73. And it is interesting that in the same period, Monck was also made colonel of an foot regiment in Ireland, ‘lately Colonel Giffard’s’, which he retained until the end of the year, when it was reduced. This sinecure was presumably designed to give Monck a senior rank and a modest income, and it is probable that Cromwell was behind the appointment.189SP63/281; SP28/69, f. 488; SP28/72, ff. 214, 236-7; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 641. In July Cromwell also furnished Monck with a foot regiment in the English army, created from companies drawn from Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s* and George Fenwick’s* regiments, stationed at Newcastle and Berwick respectively.190CSP Dom. 1650, p. 258, 283; Ashley, Monck, 75.

Despite such marks of favour, later accounts describing Monck as Cromwell’s ‘darling … whom he sent for in all councils of war preparatory to this march’, and the mastermind behind the victory at Dunbar in September 1650, must be treated with caution.191Gumble, Monck, 34-5, 38. Monck was certainly a valued officer. He was present with his regiment at Dunbar, and may have commanded the infantry there; he then went on to besiege various castles around Edinburgh, and on 24 December he received the surrender of Edinburgh Castle itself, and was made governor of the city as a result. After a series of successful sieges in the Lothians (including the reduction of Tantallon Castle) in the spring of 1651, Monck was appointed lieutenant-general of the ordnance in May, and supported John Lambert* in his efforts to secure a bridgehead across the Firth of Forth in the summer. When Charles Stuart and his army of Scots marched into England, Cromwell and Lambert followed him, and Monck was left in charge of the campaign in the north. In August 1651 he took Stirling Castle after the defenders mutinied, and then moved against the heavily fortified town of Dundee on the banks of the Firth of Tay. After a period of bombardment, Monck’s regiments stormed the town, killing as many as 800 people, both soldiers and townsmen, women and children, and ‘spoiled and plundered the whole town’.192Ashley, Monck, 79-89; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 7-13; H.G. Tibbutt, Colonel John Okey, 1606-62 (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xxxv. 1955), 44-6; Nicoll, Diary, 58.

War in Scotland and at sea, 1650-3

Monck’s service in Scotland in 1650-1 marked the turning-point of his career. The humiliations of the O’Neill truce and Ulster mutiny of 1649 were erased by the efficient brutality of Dundee. As a reward, Parliament ordered on 9 September 1651 that Monck receive £500 a year from forfeited estates in Scotland, and in November the Commissioners for Compounding were ordered to discharge the estates that he had inherited from his royalist brother.193CJ vii. 14a, 44a-b. On 23 October, Monck was also given his first important civilian position, as one of the commissioners sent to negotiate with the defeated Scots.194CJ vii. 30b. The primary duty of the commissioners was to organise the union negotiations which were supposed to bring the Scots into a partnership (however unequal) with their conquerors, but Monck’s attitude to the Scottish people at this time was less than sympathetic. In February 1652 he told Cromwell of the continued unrest in the localities, and commented that ‘I cannot conceive that ever we shall be absolutely masters of this country unless the highlands be laid waste, which I conceive may easily be done in our summer’s service’.195Add. 38091, f. 98. Monck would have to wait to put such drastic plans into action, however, for by the beginning of March he had returned to London. It may have been at this time (rather than immediately after the siege of Dundee) that he succumbed to a bout of illness, which accounts for his absence from record during the summer, and he may have travelled to Bath to recuperate.196Gumble, Monck, 46.

In July 1652 the council of state told Cromwell to send Monck back to Scotland, but he remained in England in August, organising new fortifications at Great Yarmouth, which was vulnerable to attack by the Dutch, newly committed to a war with England.197CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 329, 381. On 26 November 1652 Monck was appointed as one of the three generals-at-sea, to take charge of the war against the Dutch navy.198CJ vii. 222a. Although his fellow commanders, Richard Deane* and Robert Blake*, were more experienced, Monck proved himself a natural seaman. At the battle of Portland in February 1653 he played the decisive part in defeating the Dutch fleet, and he also contributed to the victories off the Gabbard in June and near the Dutch coast in July, which left the English ‘absolute masters of the sea’. He may also have been the originator of the ‘instructions’ issued by the generals in March 1653, which established the principle of fighting in line-ahead, thus ensuring more orderly engagements.199Ashley, Monck, 100-6; Ludlow, Mems. i. 363. Monck’s naval service was acknowledged in the summer of 1653, when he was appointed as a navy commissioner.200CJ vii. 285a. He was also nominated as MP for Devon in the Nominated Assembly. Monck seems to have attended the House only once, on 1 October, when he ‘took his place’, and received thanks from the speaker ‘for his great and faithful services to the Parliament and the Commonwealth’.201CJ vii. 328a. The Nominated Assembly followed this with more material signs of their favour, making moves to guarantee his Scottish land grant against the claims of the dowager duchess of Hamilton, and (in early December) re-appointing him as general-at-sea and as a commissioner for the admiralty and navy.202CJ vii. 342b, 361a-b, 362a. The dissolution of the Nominated Assembly and the establishment of the protectorate did little to disrupt Monck’s naval duties through the winter, although it was known by the end of January that he was destined to go back to Scotland, as commander-in-chief of the army there.203 CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 345-6; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS L, f. 7. Indeed, only after peace was signed with the Dutch on 5 April 1654 was Monck ordered to take up his new position.204Ashley, Monck, 113.

Commander in Scotland, 1654-9

Monck received his commission as commander-in-chief on 8 April 1654, along with instructions allowing him wide powers in civil government as well as military affairs.205Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 76-80; TSP ii. 222; CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 76-7. He arrived in Edinburgh on 22 April.206Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 90-1. Despite stories of Monck’s personal intimacy with Cromwell at this time, he probably owed his appointment as commander-in-chief of Scotland to John Lambert*, who would remain his main point of contact with the English council until 1657.207Gumble, Monck, 73, 75, 77; D. Farr, John Lambert (Woodbridge, 2003), 131-2. The choice of Monck reflected his reputation as a tough commander, able to put down the royalist rebellion in the highlands, led by the earl of Glencairn, which had festered since the previous summer. Monck advanced to Stirling in May 1654, and conducted a vigorous campaign against the rebels, attacking them, dispersing them, and destroying lands that might have afforded assistance to them. He was also able to implement the scorched earth policy he had recommended two years before, telling Cromwell in July that ‘we have burned such parts of the highlands where they were utterly engaged against us’.208Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 145; Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 251-2, 255-6. From September 1654 the rebellion began to falter, and its commanders negotiated articles. By the summer of 1655 the highlands were firmly under government control, and from then until Monck marched south into England in January 1660, Scotland was relatively peaceful.209Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 177-9, 187-9, 269-72.

Despite this tranquillity throughout his service in Scotland Monck made no secret of his distrust of the majority of Scots. In 1654-5 he called for Scottish prisoners to be transported to the West Indies (and thus treated more like Irish rebels than English royalists).210Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 193. He warned against reducing the army, as the Scots would take this as an encouragement to renew the insurrection, and recommended that if any were to be disbanded, ‘it would be well done to begin with those soldiers that married Scotch women’.211Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 221, 226, 257; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol. 22 June 1655. In September 1655 he called for more money to be spent on repairing garrisons and building citadels, ‘seeing those countrymen are still forward to wait for an opportunity’ to rise up, ‘and want not advice or encouragement from Charles Stuart to do it’.212Add. 38848, f. 32. He made repeated efforts to protect the English merchants in Leith from the claims of suzerainty made by the neighbouring city of Edinburgh, and because of the military importance of the port, refused to allow Scottish ministers to preach at the church there, because large congregations might be used as a cover for a rising.213Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 239, 318; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS L, f. 139. He also ordered the arrest of the earl of Selkirk – the husband of Anne, duchess of Hamilton – in the autumn of 1656, fearing that he would raise ‘the Hamilton faction’ in rebellion.214NRS, GD406/1/2589. In January 1657, Monck warned Broghill that ‘the Scots are now as malignant as ever’; in April 1658 he denounced the highlanders as ‘little different from the most savage heathens’; and on hearing of Cromwell’s final illness in September 1658 he immediately wrote to all his subordinate commanders, ordering them to ‘have a care to have a special eye over the Scots’.215Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 347, 383; NLS, Acc. 8037.

Monck’s underlying hostility to the Scottish nation may have influenced his style of government in the 1650s, which relied on the army. Through martial law, local commanders controlled much of the administration of justice in 1654-5, although they were ordered not to ‘meddle with civil affairs’ once a civilian council of Scotland, under the presidency of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), had convened in September 1655.216Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 22 Oct. 1655. Even then Monck warned that ‘I cannot see any safety in disbanding’, and insisted that taxes would have to remain at a high level.217Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS L, f. 88. The impetus for civilian reforms, especially those bringing native Scots into the administration, whether nationally or locally, mostly came from others: either being inherited from the previous commander, Robert Lilburne*, or insisted upon by Lord Broghill. Although Monck had proposed appointing local justices of the peace to help to keep order in April 1654, as ‘it would much conduce to the settling of the country’, he did not pursue this, and it was left to Broghill to implement the scheme in the winter of 1655-6.218Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 98; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS L, f. 36v. The same was true of the excise, which was designed to support the army in any case.219Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 259-60, 294. Concessions by Monck were often grudging. When suggesting that indebted landowners should be allowed to satisfy their creditors by selling their estates, he was concerned not for justice but security, for desperate men would flock to the royalist ranks, while flexibility ‘would keep this country much more in peace than it is’.220Add. 38848, f. 27. Monck’s approach to government was that of a soldier: straightforward, and, at times, unsubtle. In a letter to the governor of Leith, Lieutenant-colonel Wilkes, in January 1655 Cromwell had commented, ‘I pray you show your fidelity in standing by and sticking to your honest general, George Monck, who is a simple-hearted man’.221Clarke Pprs. ii. 242. Events were to prove Cromwell correct.

While Monck was generally hostile to the Scottish nation, and keen to maintain a strong military presence north of the border, he could also be curiously naïve when it came to those Scots who professed loyalty to the regime. This was undoubtedly the case with Archibald Campbell*, marquess of Argyll. In February 1652 Monck had told Cromwell that he thought Argyll could be won over to the English cause, and ‘I hope this next summer we shall understand one another better’; Argyll’s agreement to live peacefully under English rule, pronounced by two sets of articles signed later in the year, seemed to justify this.222Add. 38091, f. 98. Within a month of his arrival in Scotland in 1654, Monck was enlisting Argyll as an ally against Glencairn’s rebels, saying that he was ‘glad to see your lordship so forward in engaging towards and settling of the peace of this nation’ – even though Argyll’s son, Lord Lorne, was a rebel leader.223Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 104. He repeatedly praised Argyll in letters to Cromwell, and even after an incident at the marquess’s seat at Inveraray, when a government ship was plundered in broad daylight, continued to defend Argyll as ‘righteous’.224Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 110-1, 145, 176-7. Monck’s support for Argyll continued after 1655, when the marquess went to England to secure compensation for money lent to the English and Scottish governments in the 1640s.225Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 17 Aug. 1655. If anything, the hostility of Lord Broghill to Argyll may have strengthened Monck’s determination to stand by his man. But in the summer of 1657 Monck was confronted with evidence of the marquess’s duplicity in the early 1650s, and his attitude suddenly changed.226TSP vi. 341. By 1659 he was denouncing Argyll in the strongest terms: ‘I think in his heart there is no man in the three nations does more disaffect the English interest than he’.227Eg. 2519, f. 19.

In church policy, Monck was soon won over by the minority Protester party, which courted the Cromwellian regime for reasons of expediency, and succeeded in alienating the government from their rivals in the much larger Resolutioner faction. Although on first arriving in Scotland Monck had expressed doubts as to their loyalty, the Protester leaders, including Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston and James Guthrie, soon grew close to the general.228HMC Laing, i. 292; Baillie Lttrs. and Pprs. iii. 257. Monck declared to Cromwell in 1655 that the Protesters were the ‘honest party’ in the Kirk, and surprised Robert Baillie with his shows of ‘familiarity’ with Wariston and Guthrie.229TSP iii. 117; Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 298. In 1657 Monck again asserted that the Protesters ‘are better to be trusted than the other party which are called the general resolution men’, and lobbied the English council to favour them in their deliberations over the future of the Scottish Kirk.230Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 345; Consultations ed. Stephen, i. 368. His dogged refusal to deal with the Resolutioners threatened to cause friction between him and Lord Broghill, who saw the winning over of the majority in the Kirk as essential to settling Scotland on a civilian foundation.231P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge, 2004), ch. 4. All this began change during 1657 and 1658, thanks to Protester meddling in the Glasgow burgh elections and their denunciation of liberty of conscience – a position originally adopted by the Jedburgh Presbytery but soon taken up by leading figures such as James Guthrie and Samuel Rutherford.232K.D. Holfelder, ‘Factionalism in the Kirk during the Cromwellian Invasion and Occupation of Scotland, 1650 to 1660’ (PhD, Edinburgh Univ. 1999), 244, 274-6. It was said as early as October 1657, that the Protesters ‘cast cold water’ upon the general, and a year later they were openly opposing the Cromwellian government.233Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 125-6. Even conforming Protesters were viewed with suspicion during the 1659 elections, and in January 1660 Monck reportedly called Wariston ‘an incendiary, that had made the division between the Protesters and the public Resolutioners’ and fomenting problems in England as well.234Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 188; Wariston Diary, iii. 149, 167, 181 By contrast, he now thought of the Resolutioners as ‘very peaceable men’, who were ‘complying’ to the government; looked upon their agent in London, James Sharpe, as ‘my very good friend’; and (in March 1660) stated that ‘Presbytery … [is] the best expedient to heal the bleeding divisions of these poor nations, so it be moderate and tender’.235TSP vii. 607; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 151; NLS, Wodrow Folio MSS, vol. 26, f. 97.

The sudden reversal of Monck’s relations with Argyll and the Protesters may have been influenced by the ending of a third relationship: that between Oliver Cromwell and John Lambert. The removal of Lambert from the protectoral council and the army high command in July 1657 broke the strong connection which had grown up between him and Monck since 1650. Lambert was probably behind Monck’s appointment as commander-in-chief in 1654, and Monck certainly relied on him for advice during the mid-1650s.236Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 269, 289, 299; Farr, Lambert, 131-2. Lambert found Monck a useful ally in counter-balancing the dangerous policy reforms demanded by Lord Broghill, who wanted to see civilian, rather than military government throughout the British Isles, and called for a reduction in the power of the sectarians over the church. Lambert had also supported Monck against Broghill in championing the Protester faction in the Kirk and encouraging the marquess of Argyll, and in the spring of 1657 he supported the Protester agents in their meetings with the English council – much to the irritation of Broghill.237Little, Broghill, chs. 4 and 5. Both Monck and Lambert had a vested interest in Scotland, as beneficiaries of lands confiscated from Scottish royalists, and they were eager to defend their rights and the rights of those who had purchased the lands from them. Monck went out of his way to protect Lambert’s estates in Lauderdale in 1654-5, and when his own lands at Kinneil looked vulnerable in 1656, he called on Lambert ‘to stand my friend’ when the problem of satisfying creditors was discussed in the English council.238Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 320. Monck’s closeness with Lambert and the army interest in England before 1657 can also be seen in his involvement in the first two protectorate Parliaments, both in managing the Scottish elections and in his efforts to guide proceedings during the sessions.

Scotland and Parliament, 1654-9

The 1654 elections were conducted during the tail-end of the Glencairn rebellion, and some northern constituencies were too disrupted to return members at all. Others were uncertain whether they could vote, as the qualifications laid down at Whitehall excluded those Scots who had supported the Stuarts in 1648 and 1650-1. Monck was impatient with such obstacles, and instructed William Lord Cochrane* (on behalf of Ayr and Renfrew shires) to ignore the rules and elect an MP regardless, reassuring him that others had been ‘accepted of notwithstanding the qualifications of the persons electing’.239Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 2 Oct. 1654. He also wrote letters on behalf of those whose status might be queried, including the earl of Linlithgow (George Livingstone*), and excused the delay of Sir Alexander Wedderburn* of Blackness and James Stewart* of Mains in coming to Parliament.240Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 19, 21 Sept., 19 Oct. 1654. Otherwise, Monck did little to interfere with the choice of candidates in these elections, although he clearly expected to influence Scottish affairs at Westminster. Even before the session opened, he had sent senior officers (and MPs) orders to work with Lambert ‘for a constant way of supplying the forces here’.241Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 6 Sept. 1654. On 30 September, the scoutmaster-general for Scotland, George Downing*, who acted as Monck’s main agent in this Parliament, reported the appointment of the committee for Scottish affairs, and asked the general to ‘let me have your directions what you think fit for the committee to consider of for Scotland’.242Eg. 2618, f. 46. At the beginning of the Parliament Monck was upbeat, telling Cromwell that he hoped affairs at Westminster ‘will now go on prosperously and without interruption’ despite the false start.243Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 186. But later events worried him, not least moves among MPs to reduce the tax burden to £60,000 a month, which he feared would force a reduction of the Scottish army and renewed rebellion.244Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 221, 226. He also opposed changes to the ordinance of Union once it was passed as an act, and (conscious of the need to protect the unfree burgh of Leith against encroachments by Edinburgh) he may have intervened to encourage opposition to the burgh MPs who pressed for confirmation of their privileges through the proposed new bill.245Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 239; NRS, B56/16/16.

When he heard that a second protectorate Parliament was being called, Monck told Secretary John Thurloe* that he was ‘very glad’, but recognised there was unfinished business from 1654-5, and hoped that ‘they will be more discreet now seeing the errors of the former Parliament’.246Add. 4157, f. 73. Monck was also aware of the problems that would be caused by the absence of many Scottish councillors at Westminster – a situation which brought civil government to a standstill between September 1656 and March 1657 – and during the elections he did not put himself, or Major-general Thomas Morgan, forward for seats, ‘because I know we cannot be spared from home’.247TSP v. 277. The 1656 elections were mostly managed by the president of the Scottish council, Lord Broghill, and Monck was probably being diplomatic when he praised the Englishmen and ‘honest and peaceable Scotchmen’ chosen as a result.248TSP v. 295. There are signs that Monck was also able to influence the choice of candidates, including his brother-in-law, Dr Thomas Clarges (who sat for Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty), and Lambert’s client, Thomas Talbot II (Dumfries burghs), and Monck also opposed the departure from Scotland of another MP, the Scottish councillor and lord keeper, Samuel Disbrowe*, for reasons of state.249Supra, ‘Clarges’, ‘Disbrowe’, and infra, ‘Talbott II’.

During the second protectorate Parliament, Scottish business was of obvious interest to Monck, and he no doubt influenced his brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges, who acted as his (somewhat erratic) agent in the Commons at this time. In November Monck received newsletters detailing the passage of a new Scottish Union bill, and in January 1657 he reminded Lambert, ‘the act for uniting Scotland with England being now under debate in the house’ of the risks to Leith if the privileges of the royal burghs (and especially Edinburgh) were confirmed.250Clarke Pprs. iii. 80-2; TSP v. 754. Although still opposed to reducing the army in Scotland, when it came to the assessment burden, Monck argued that they should have ‘an equality’ with England … since we have united them into one commonwealth’.251TSP vi. 330, 351-2. Monck’s views on national affairs were more conservative than those of Lambert. In January 1657 he told William Stane* that he approved of harsh measures against the infamous Quaker, James Naylor, and ‘his punishment is no more than his desert’: a view perhaps informed by his concern at the ‘growing evil’ of Quakerism within the Scottish army.252Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LI, f. 1; TSP vi. 136. In February he commented to Thurloe that ‘I am glad to hear there is £400,000 to be advanced to his highness towards the Spanish War’, and he shared the general belligerence of those around Cromwell.253Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LI, f. 4v. During the constitutional debates in the spring and summer of 1657, Monck was kept informed of developments by John Rushworth* and Gilbert Mabbott, while John Thurloe* warned him to keep an eye on those in the Scottish army who might oppose a monarchical settlement.254Clarke Pprs. iii. 89-99; Eg. 2618, f. 51. Monck gave the Humble Petition and Advice a guarded welcome, especially when, in mid-March, it appeared that ‘the officers are better satisfied than they were’.255TSP vi. 106. In May 1657 Monck reported to Cromwell his efforts to prevent English army petitions being circulated north of the border, and promised ‘that neither your highness nor the Parliament shall be troubled’ from Scotland.256Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 354. He remarked to Thurloe that he was relieved that Cromwell had rejected the crown, and added that ‘I hope he will be ready to accept of it [the government] by title of protector … and the Parliament may come to some settlement in this business’.257TSP vi. 292, 310.

Monck’s other main concern during this Parliament was a personal one – to secure his rights over the barony of Kinneil. Monck had raised this issue in a letter to Cromwell of 11 October 1656.258TSP v. 490. Parliament first considered Monck’s bill in December 1656, and it was read twice, committed at Lambert’s instigation, and Downing reported amendments on 2 February 1657.259CJ vii. 469a, 470b, 473a, 475a, 476b, 481b, 483b, 484a, 485a; Burton’s Diary, i. 227. During the initial stages, the passage of the bill was facilitated by Lambert, Nathaniel Whetham I*, Clarges and others, and Monck wrote letters of thanks to those who had helped take care of ‘his business’, including Denis Bond* and Lord Broghill.260Burton’s Diary, i. 267; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 346-7. Despite this, complications were created by a petition of the duchess of Hamilton, who claimed the estate as her jointure, although a motion to consider this petition during the reading of the ingrossed bill was rejected (with Thomas Clarges acting as teller against) despite strong support for the Hamilton position by the Presbyterians. The Hamilton petition was instead recommitted, and, significantly, Lambert was added to the committee to consider it.261CJ vii. 485a-b. The third reading of Monck’s bill, on 16 February, included a report by Clarges from the committee, which concluded ‘that the petitioners have no legal right’, and the attempt to introduce a proviso in the bill on the duchess’s behalf was rejected (with Lambert’s ally, Adam Baynes, acting as teller).262CJ vii. 491b-492a. Cromwell gave his consent to the Kinneil bill on 9 June, and by this time an earlier ordinance granting Monck lands in Ireland for his service in the 1640s, had been confirmed as law.263CJ vii. 525b, 552b; C107/29.

After the removal of Lambert, Monck seems to have relied increasingly on his colleague in the Scottish council Samuel Disbrowe, and his brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges. Disbrowe had been involved in the Scottish administration since 1651, was a friend of Lord Broghill, and was a loyal Cromwellian. Clarges, though a salaried agent for both the army and the council in Scotland, was less reliable.264TSP vii. 563. In the autumn of 1658, for example, Clarges exploited Monck’s trust, demanding that all correspondence between the general and the new protector should pass through his office, and boasting that there were certain matters that he had chosen to keep secret from Monck himself.265Eg. 2618, f. 56. Clarges also penned (and perhaps even drafted) Monck’s paper of advice to Richard Cromwell*, calling for unity, for the encouragement of ‘orthodox’ ministers, and reliance on Presbyterians and the ‘old lords’. Certainly the call for a massive reduction of the army and the inclusion of Broghill and others on the council shows that Monck’s attitudes had changed radically since 1657, and this again points to new influences around him.266TSP vii. 387-8. Clarges also took a prominent part in the management of the Scottish elections, and in this he worked closely with Thurloe and Samuel Disbrowe.

The elections in Scotland for the third protectorate Parliament of 1659 were much more closely managed that before. Thurloe selected suitable government place-men to be recommended to Monck, and Monck and Disbrowe managed the local candidates ‘well-affected to the government’, moving quickly ‘to prevent the shires and towns from engaging to other people’.267TSP vii. 555, 572, 574-5. As Monck told Thurloe on 30 December 1658, ‘my lord keeper [Disbrowe] and myself have done our best to get those men chosen you have wrote for’, despite the efforts of Argyll and the Protesters to get their own men elected instead. Monck, mindful of the importance of having a solid government party in the Commons, assured Thurloe that ‘I have taken care that as many as come out of this country shall be there with the first’, and, to this end, he had entrusted the collection and sending in of the writs to Clarges.268TSP vii. 584. The result was telling. The direct intervention of Monck can be seen in various elections, including those for Banff burghs (which chose Clarges), Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty (which elected Monck’s protégé, Major Ralph Knight) and Linlithgow burghs (which returned the carpet-bagger, Thomas Waller).269NRS, B30/13/6, f. 6v; B48/9/2, p. 726; TSP vii. 613. Monck once again recommended the earl of Linlithgow as a suitable MP, and also supported another amenable Scot, William Ross of Drumgarland.270Bodl. Rawl. A.63, f. 54; TSP vii. 633. Other place-men included Monck’s cousin, Sir Peter Killigrew; his old friend, William Stane; Thurloe’s crony, Lawrence Oxburgh; and the protector’s kinsman, Edward Sedgewicke. Monck also intervened to try to prevent the election of the marquess of Argyll, and he may also have blocked the election to a Scottish seat of Lambert’s ally, Colonel William Michell, while Disbrowe moved to stop Wariston gaining a seat for Linlithgow shires.

During the 1659 Parliament, Monck seemed keener than ever to direct business from afar, working through such agents as Disbrowe and Clarges. In January, before the Scottish MPs went south, he ordered William Ross to tell a meeting of the ‘burghs and shires’ that he intended ‘to move in the behalf of the nation of Scotland that the inhabitants thereof may enjoy an equality with the nation of England in all respects’, especially over the allocation of assessments, on condition that all arrears would be paid beforehand.271Eg. 2618, f. 57. A problem from the very beginning was the status of the Scottish MPs, whose right to sit at Westminster had not been confirmed in the Humble Petition. Rushworth alerted Monck to this on 27 January, warning that ‘their elections will be all questioned’.272Clarke Pprs. iii. 176. On 24 March Monck expressed his relief to Disbrowe ‘that the Scotch members shall sit in the house to vote for themselves’, and in April he was impatient ‘of your slow proceedings, and that you stand upon such little punctilios, I could wish you would fall upon business, that things might be settled to keep us in peace’.273Eg. 2519, ff. 19, 29. The army’s dissolution of the Parliament on 22 April brought any Scottish legislation to an abrupt end, and put into jeopardy the ‘settlement’ that Monck had sought over the previous few years.

Commonwealth to Restoration, 1659-60

The ending of the 1659 Parliament also put Monck into a difficult position, as English affairs were now in the hands of the army officers, including Lambert and Charles Fleetwood*, whom he had rejected as allies in the summer of 1657. Fortunately for Monck, the English officers recognised that they could not easily remove him, and that they must not provoke him either. The day after the forced dissolution of Parliament, 23 April 1659, Fleetwood wrote to him explaining the army’s actions, fearing that they ‘may be misrepresented unto you’, and stressing that they intended ‘to serve his highness in the further preservation of this good old cause’.274Clarke Pprs. iii. 194. According to the French Ambassador, Monck responded by asking, warily, ‘what the good old cause was?’275M. Guizot, History of Richard Cromwell trans. A.R. Scoble (2 vols. 1856), i. 381. Despite his reservations, in early May Monck sent letters to Fleetwood with the Scottish officers ‘concurrence’ with their English counterparts, and supporting the restoration of the Rump Parliament.276Whitelocke, Diary, 514; CJ vii. 647b. He expressed relief that ‘eminent’ men were now in control, and that anarchy had been avoided, adding that ‘I shall not be negligent to my duty to my country in this day of its greatest concernment’.277Clarke Pprs. iv. 10. After political stability, Monck’s greatest concern was to keep control of the armed forces in Scotland, and he protested at the changes to the officers proposed by Parliament in June, saying that the present incumbents were ‘free and forward for the returning of this Parliament’ and should thus be continued.278Clarke Pprs. iv. 16-17. He received a dusty answer from Westminster, although the letter drafted by Sir Arthur Hesilrige promised that Monck’s own regiments would not be changed, and assured him that he still enjoyed Parliament’s trust.279CJ vii. 677a, 680a; Clarke Pprs. iv. 18n. Monck’s reply was conciliatory, as he stressed his ‘obedience’ and ‘reverence’ for the Rump.280Clarke Pprs. iv. 22. Thereafter, Monck proved himself loyal to the commonwealth, opposing Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in the summer, and encouraging his London agent, Thomas Clarges, to work with Bulstrode Whitelocke* to perfect a new Union bill which would once again draw England and Scotland into a single political unit.281Clarke Pprs. iv. 37, 49, 50-5; Longleat, Whitelocke XIX, ff. 26, 57; Whitelocke, Diary, 520, 524.

The coup by Lambert and the English officers in October 1659 received no support from Monck, who moved to prevent army petitions circulating in Scotland.282Clarke Pprs. iv. 58-9. He was thanked by the Rump for his ‘faithfulness’ on 5 October, and on 12 October he was appointed as one of the army commissioners who would take control of the armed forces once the recalcitrant officers had been cashiered.283CJ vii. 792a, 796a. The Rump’s actions provoked the senior officers to close it down, and to set up their own committee to run the country. Monck responded by purging suspect officers in Scotland, and by declaring that the officers had created ‘an arbitrary, tyrannous government’ that could not be tolerated.284Clarke Pprs. iv. 64-5, 67n, 75-6. Apart from his abhorrence of unstable government, Monck’s opposition to the committee of safety may have been influenced by his animosity to its leaders, especially its president, Johnston of Wariston, and the leading military figures, Fleetwood and Lambert, whose appointment as commanders-in-chief of the army ‘discontented Monck’.285Clarke Pprs. iv. 77, 80-1, 87-8, 88, 100, 107. Their determination to create a government on ‘an illegal foundation’ merely confirmed Monck’s earlier suspicions about their true loyalties.286Clarke Pprs. iv. 88. Monck’s own intentions were clear. As yet, there was clearly no question of restoring the king. Thomas Clarges may have been in touch with royalist agents from December 1659, but it is doubtful that this amounted to a coherent plan, despite the fears of some at Whitehall.287HMC Leyborne-Popham, 231, 234-6; Baker, A Chronicle of the Kings of England (1665), 707-77; Whitelocke, Diary, 547, 549, 552. Other evidence suggests that Monck was firmly in favour of a commonwealth. In his orders to Captain Woodward to take control of Dunottar Castle in November, Monck told him ‘to keep and defend the same for the use of the Parliament and commonwealth of England against all opposers whatever’.288Add. 19399, f. 85. In December he warned Lambert, who had advanced to Newcastle, that any division in England would only aid their common enemy, the Stuarts.289Clarke Pprs. iv. 171. In the end, there was no conflict between Monck and Lambert, as the English troops had no stomach for a fight, and in January 1660 Monck was able to march south, across the border, unopposed.

Monck’s relations with the Rump Parliament, restored once again in December 1659, again suggest that his aim was the restoration of the commonwealth, not the monarchy. He was careful to keep in close contact with leading MPs as he marched south in January, sending them letters from Coldstream, Wooler, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leicester and St Albans, and agreeing in advance where his troops would be quartered when they reached London.290CJ vii. 804a, 805b, 808a, 823b, 826b. Parliament responded with a number of honours and gifts, including a seat on the council of state and £1,000 in land.291CJ vii. 801a, 813a-b, 825b, 828b. In February and March, Monck attended Parliament (making, on 6 February, ‘a small speech, but very little of learning or ingenuity in it’), and received still more favours, including the office of captain-general of all the armed forces, a grant of £20,000, and the stewardship of Hampton Court.292CJ vii. 834b, 835a, 847a, 848b, 852b, 877a, 879b-880b; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 145. The readmission of the excluded Members may have facilitated the restoration of Charles II, but it is not certain that Monck intended this to be any more than the broadening of Parliament’s support to include the Presbyterians. This was his panacea for Richard Cromwell in 1658-9, and he returned to it in 1660. The closure of the Rump on 16 March, and the calling of a Convention Parliament may have been to the same end. There are signs that the change from a parliamentarian to a royalist outcome seems to have occurred in late March or early April. The tone of Monck’s correspondence with the Edinburgh ministers suddenly changed. On 14 March he praised moderate ‘Presbytery’ as the solution to the ills of the nations; but by 12 April the ministers found their letters ‘a thing dissatisfactory’ to Monck. It seems doubtful that, as they suspected, the reason was the general’s ‘jealousy’ of their correspondence with Lord Broghill at this time.293NLS, Wodrow Folio MSS, vol. 26, ff. 97, 177. Surely more important was the re-appearance in London of Monck’s royalist relative Sir John Grenville, and the meeting between the two men which almost certainly took place in late March or early April. It is interesting that in the same period Monck seems to have sidelined his unreliable brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges.294Supra, ‘Thomas Clarges’. Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) also saw April as the turning-point, as ‘from this time on [Monck] behaved himself with great affection towards the king, and … used all his endeavours to promote and advance the interest of his majesty’.295Clarendon, Hist. vi. 210.

Once Monck had decided to back the royalists, he quickly dropped former allies who might compromise his image as the loyal kingmaker. Richard and Henry Cromwell* both asked for Monck’s help in April and June 1660 respectively, but were put off, probably indefinitely.296Eg. 2618, f. 67; Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/75. The Presbyterians, much praised by Monck in the later 1650s, were sidelined, and there was some justification for their later complaints that Monck had ‘betrayed’ them. Those who had been friends and allies but had fallen out with Monck during the crisis of 1659-60 had been jettisoned long before, and Monck now sought to destroy them. These included not only Wariston, Argyll and Lambert, but also moderates like Whitelocke, who was dismayed when Monck’s ‘great kindness … turned to malice’, as the general sought to exclude him from pardon.297Wariston Diary, iii. 181; Farr, Lambert, 219n; Whitelocke, Diary, 460, 597-8; Longleat, Whitelocke XIX, ff. 114, 116, 118, 120. Only a very few former associates could now count on Monck’s favour. On 30 April 1660 Hesilrige, who had led the Rump in opposition to the army in 1659-60, asked for Monck’s help against a vengeful Parliament, and the general went out of his way to provide him with protection.298Eg. 2618, f. 71; Add. 38091, f. 102. Monck’s old colleague from the Scottish council, Samuel Disbrowe, was provided with a pardon at the general’s request.299Eg. 2519, ff. 32, 34. Thomas Clarges received a knighthood after the Restoration, although his place as Monck’s closest adviser had been usurped by Grenville, who became earl of Bath. Monck was himself created duke of Albemarle by a grateful Charles II in June 1660.300CP.

Conclusion

From 1660 until his death ten years later, Monck was celebrated as the architect of the Restoration. Yet such plaudits should not obscure the lateness of his conversion to royalism. Before March 1660, Monck had never been a whole-hearted supporter of the Stuarts. His service in the second bishops’ war was purely professional; in Ireland his closest associates were pro-parliamentarian; and his time in the king’s army in 1644 was brief and inglorious. Only his imprisonment, and refusal of Parliament’s offers of employment between 1644 and 1646, can be seen as a sign of principled royalism, and in the later 1640s he proved a reliable parliamentarian commander in Ulster. During the 1650s he associated with the army interest, and from 1657 with the Presbyterians, and even in 1659-60 he was motivated by the need to re-establish stability, rather than a desire to restore Charles II. This conservatism, which was a constant theme throughout Monck’s public career, was balanced by a heightened sense of his own honour, which made Monck a difficult colleague and a dangerous enemy. The violence of his reaction against any who crossed him – especially those whom he had trusted and who had (in his eyes) subsequently let him down – became most pronounced in the period immediately before the Restoration, as Argyll and Wariston could testify. Perhaps thanks to his increasing irascibility, in later years Monck became an isolated figure, whose death in 1670 was ‘unlamented by many’.301Whitelocke, Diary, 750. He was succeeded by his son, Christopher Monck† (MP for Devon, 1667-70) who became 2nd duke of Albemarle.302HP Commons 1660-90.