Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
| George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle | |
|---|---|
| 6 December 1608 – 3 January 1670 | |
 George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle by Sir Peter Lely, painted 1665–1666 |
|
| Place of birth | Potheridge, Torrington, Devon |
| Allegiance | England |
| Service/branch | English Army |
| Rank | Captain-General |
| Battles/wars | Battle of Newburn Irish rebellion Battle of Nantwich Battle of Dunbar First Anglo-Dutch War Second Anglo-Dutch War |
| Awards | KG |
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, Earl of Torrington, Baron Monck of Potheridge, Beauchamp And Teyes KG (6 December 1608 – 3 January 1670) was an English soldier and politician and a key figure in the restoration of Charles II.
[edit] Early life and career
He was born at Potheridge, near Torrington, in Devon, second son of Sir Thomas Monck, a gentleman of a good Devon family but in straitened financial circumstances. Having assaulted the undersheriff of the county in revenge for a wrong done to his father, he was forced to go abroad. Becoming a soldier, he served as a volunteer in the expedition to Cádiz (1626), and the next year fought well at the siege of the Île de Ré (an abortive attempt to aid French Protestants in the city of La Rochelle).
In 1629 Monck went to the Netherlands, then a centre of warfare, and there he gained a high reputation as a leader and a disciplinarian. In 1638 he threw up his commission in consequence of a quarrel with the civil authorities of Dordrecht, and returned to England. He obtained the lieutenant-colonelcy of Newport's regiment.
[edit] Service in the Royalist cause
During the operations on the Scottish border in the Bishops' Wars (1639–1640) he showed his skill and coolness in the dispositions by which he saved the English artillery at the Battle of Newburn (1640), though he had little ammunition.
At the outbreak of the Irish rebellion (1641) Monck became colonel of Lord Leicester's regiment under the command of Ormonde. All the qualities for which he was noted through life—his talent of making himself indispensable, his imperturbable temper and his impenetrable secrecy—were fully displayed in this post. The governorship of Dublin stood vacant, and Leicester appointed Monck.
Charles I, however, overruled the appointment in favour of Lord Lambart, and Monck with great shrewdness surrendered the appointment without protest. The Duke of Ormonde, however, viewed him with suspicion as one of two officers who refused to take the oath to support the Royal cause in England, and sent him under guard to Bristol.
Monck justified himself to Charles in person, and his astute criticisms of the conduct of the Irish war impressed the king, who gave him a command in the army brought over from Ireland during the English Civil War. Taken prisoner by the Roundheads at the Battle of Nantwich in 1644, he spent the next two years in the Tower. He spent his imprisonment writing his Observations on Military and Political Affairs.
[edit] Career under the republic
Monck's experience in Ireland, however, led to his release. He was made major general in the army sent by parliament against the Irish rebels. Making a distinction like other soldiers of the time[citation needed] between fighting the Irish and taking arms against the king, he accepted the offer and swore loyalty to the parliamentary cause. He made little headway against the Irish and concluded an armistice (called then a "convention") with the rebel leaders upon terms which he knew the parliament would not ratify[citation needed]. The convention was indeed a military expedient to deal with a military necessity, and although most of his army went over to the Royalist cause, he himself remained faithful to his employers and returned to England.
Although parliament, as expected, disavowed the terms of the truce, no blame was attached to Monck's recognition of military necessity. He next fought at Oliver Cromwell's side in Scotland at the Battle of Dunbar, a resounding victory. Made commander-in-chief in Scotland by Cromwell, Monck completed the subjugation of the country.
In February 1652 Monck left Scotland to recover his broken health at Bath, and in November of the same year he became a general at sea in the First Anglo-Dutch War, which ended in a decisive victory for the Commonwealth's fleet and marked the beginning of England's climb to supremacy over the Dutch at sea.
On his return to shore Monck married Anne Clarges. Next year he returned to Scotland, methodically beating down a Royalist insurrection in the Highlands. At Cromwell's request, Monck remained in Scotland as governor.
In 1654, the timely discovery of a plot fomented by Robert Overton, his second in command, gave Monck an excuse for purging his army of all dissident religious elements, then called "enthusiasts", deemed "dangerous" to the Cromwell regime.
In 1655 he received a letter from Charles II, a copy of which he at once sent to Cromwell, who is said to have written to Monck in 1657 in the following terms: "There be [those] that tell me that there is a certain cunning fellow in Scotland called George Monck, who is said to lye in wait there to introduce Charles Stuart; I pray you, use your diligence to apprehend him, and send him up to me." Monck's personal relations with Cromwell were those of sincere friendship on both sides.
[edit] Restoration of the monarchy
During the confusion which followed Cromwell's death on 3 September 1658, Monck remained silent and watchful at Edinburgh, careful only to secure his hold on his troops. At first he contemplated armed support of Richard Cromwell, but on realising the young man's incapacity for government, he gave up this idea and renewed his waiting policy. In July 1659 direct and tempting proposals were again made to him by the king. Monck's brother Nicholas, a clergyman, brought to him the substance of Charles's letter. He bade his brother go back to his books, and refused to entertain any proposal. No bribe could induce him to act one moment before the right time.
That right time came when Gen. John Lambert declared against the Rump Parliament. On 23 October 1659, Monck at once took measures of active opposition to this repetition of Pride's Purge.
Holding Lambert in play without fighting until Lambert's army began to melt away for want of pay, Monck received the commission of commander-in-chief of the parliamentary forces on 24 November 1659. He entered the capital on 3 February 1660. In all this his ultimate purpose remained mysterious. At one moment he secretly encouraged the demands of the Royalist City of London, at another he urged submission to the existing parliament, then again he refused to swear an oath abjuring the house of Stuart, and further he hinted to the Rump of the Long Parliament the urgent necessity of a dissolution.
He forced the dissolution of the Rump Parliament, while at the same time breaking up, as a matter affecting discipline, the political camarillas that had formed in his own regiments. He was now master of the situation.
Though he protested his adherence to republican principles, it was a matter of common knowledge that the new parliament would have a strong Royalist colour. Monck himself, now in communication with Charles II, accepted the latter's Declaration of Breda, which was largely based on Monck's recommendations. The new parliament met on 25 April 1660, and on 1 May voted the restoration of the monarchy.
Soldier though he was, he had played the difficult game of politics in a fluid and uncertain situation with incomparable skill. That he was victor sine sanguine, i.e., "without blood", as the preamble of his patent of nobility stated, was generally applauded as the greatest service of all, especially after the violence of the Civil Wars.
[edit] Charles II's gratitude
Charles II rewarded Monck suitably for his services in restoring him to his throne. He was knighted, invested with the Order of the Garter, and made Master of the Horse in the King's household. Charles also raised him to the peerage with the titles of Baron Monck, Earl of Torrington and Duke of Albemarle, and he received a pension of £700 a year.
He entirely concurred in the disbandment of the Model Army, and only the regiment of which he was colonel, the Coldstream (Guards), survives to this day, one of the oldest military formations in the world and the last representing the army of the English Civil War.
As a further token of Charles II's gratitude, in 1663 Monck was named one of eight Lords Proprietors given title to a huge tract of land in North America which became the Province of Carolina, the present-day American states of North and South Carolina.
[edit] End of career
His last military services to England were rendered in the Second Anglo-Dutch War when he was appointed commander-in-chief of the English fleet. [1]
After that war's dismal conclusion,[2] he returned to private life (although he officially served as First Lord of the Treasury). He died of edema on 3 January 1670, "like a Roman general with all his officers about him".[citation needed] He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
His dukedom became extinct on the death of his son Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (1653–1688).
[edit] Notes
- ^ Monck, George "Monck, George, 1st Duke Of Albemarle, Earl Of Torrington, Baron Monck Of Potheridge, Beauchamp And Teyes." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. 18 Sept. 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- ^ The Age of Louis XIV Will and Ariel Durant, 1963
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Life of Monk, by Dr Gumble, his chaplain (London, 1671)
- Life of George Monck by Charles Harding Firth, ©1894
- George Monck and the Restoration: Victory without Bloodshed by Ted Jamison ISBN 0-912646-04-7
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New title | Commander-in-Chief of the Forces 1660–1670 |
Vacant
Title next held by
James Scott |
| Honorary titles | ||
| English Interregnum | Lord Lieutenant of Devon 1660–1670 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Bath |
| Custos Rotulorum of Devon 1660–1670 |
||
| Preceded by The Earl of Dorset The Earl of Berkshire |
Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex 1662–1670 |
Succeeded by The Earl of Craven |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Edmund Ludlow (Lord Deputy) |
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1660–1662 |
Succeeded by The Duke of Ormonde |
| Preceded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine |
Master of the Horse 1660–1668 |
Succeeded by The Duke of Buckingham |
| Preceded by The Earl of Southampton (Lord High Treasurer) |
First Lord of the Treasury 1667–1670 |
Succeeded by The Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (Lord High Treasurer) |
| Peerage of England | ||
| Preceded by New Creation |
Duke of Albemarle 1660–1670 |
Succeeded by Christopher Monck |
1893 text
George Monk, born 1608, created Duke of Albemarle, 1660, married Ann Clarges, March, 1654, died January 3rd, 1676.
Annotations
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Historian Thomas Macaulay’s description of Monk:
“George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot. … He had at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King, had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commission from the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to saintship, had raised himself to high commands by his courage and professional skill. He had been an useful servant to both Protectors, and had quietly acquiesced when the officers at Westminster had pulled down Richard [Cromwell] and restord the Long Parliament, and would perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second expulsion of the Long Parliament, if the provisional government had abstained from giving him cause of offence and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and somewhat sluggish; nor was he at all disposed to hazard sure and moderate advantages for the chalice of obtaining even the most splendid success. He seems to have been impelled to attack the new rulers of the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should become great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, he should not even be secure. Whatever were his motives, [in 1660] he declared himself the champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to acknowledge the usurped authority of the provisional government, and, at the head of seven thousand veterans, marched into England.”
—From Thomas Babington Macaulay’s History of England From the Accession of James II, Vol. I, Chapter 1 (1848) (text available online at Project Gutenberg)
Monk, at least in Macaulay’s description, sounds something like George Washington at the tail end of the American Revolution, when unpaid and disgruntled troops started to grumble about marching on Congress, a move that could well have resulted in a dictatorship and/or some kind of royal restoration in America. Washington strongly supported Congress and prevailed over the grumblers. It isn’t hard to imagine that the 18th century general knew something of the history of 1659-60.
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A colorful, dismissive description of Monk is given by Henry B. Wheatley in his book, “Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In” (1880):
“George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, was a singularly unheroic character. He was slow and heavy, but had a sufficient supply of good sense, and, in spite of many faults, he had the rare good fortune to be generally loved. He was so popular that ballads were continually being made in his praise. Pepys said [Diary, March 6, 1667] there were so many of them that in after times his fame would sound like that of Guy of Warwick.
“Aubrey tells us that Monk learned his trade of soldiering in the Low Countries, whence he fled after having slain a man. Although he frequently went to sea in command of the fleet, he always remained a soldier,and the seamen laughed behind his back when instead of crying ‘Tack about,’ he would say ‘Wheel to the right or left.’ [Wheatley then quotes Pepys, who had a similar, but less interesting anecdote in an April 4, 1667 diary entry.]
“
— Chapter 10: Public Characters, pp. 183-5 (1889 edition; reprinted 1975 by Haskell House in New York). Except for the backhanded compliment above, Wheatley has nothing good to say of Monk.
Wheatley also quotes an Oct. 23, 1667 diary entry of Pepys’:
“The blockhead Albemarle hath strange luck to be loved, though he be, and every man must know it, the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country.”
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Monk’s marriage gave both the Puritans and the Victorian historian Henry B. Wheatley (and me) something to wag tongues about:
“Monk was fond of low company; both he and his vulgar wife were quite unfit for high — I cannot say refined — society, for there was but little refinement at court. Ann Clarges had been kind to Monk when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and he married her out of gratitude. She had been previously married to Thomas Ratford, of whose death no notice was given at the time of the marriage, so that the legitimacy of Christopher, afterwards second Duke of Albemarle, was seriously questioned. Aubrey relates a story which cannot well be true, but which proves the general feeling of doubt respecting the point. He says that Thomas Clarges came on shipboard to tell Monk that his sister had had a child. Monk cried out, ‘What is it?’ and on hearing the answer, ‘A boy,’ he said, ‘Why, then, she is my wife.’”
— From Wheatley’s “Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In,” (London, 1889 edition), Chapter 10: Public Characters, pp. 184-185. I have no clue who this Aubrey is that Wheatley refers to.
Wheatley notes (p. 185) that in a Nov. 4, 1666 diary entry, Pepys relates some gossip he heard that Monk, when drunk, said it was a “miracle” that his wife, “our Dirty Bess,” should find herself the Duchess of Albemarle.
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Historian Antonia Fraser on Monck:
“In Scotland, where he not only held down but positively governed the Scots with his Cromwellian army, his rule was both wise and firm. He had not benefited personally from confiscated Royalist church land in England and had thus no financial stake in the continuation of the Protectorate: Monck had been loyal to Oliver Cromwell. He would have been loyal to Richard [Cromwell] too, had he considered that the younger Protector had any capacity for maintaining within England that law and order which he found so precious.”
Charles II, in exile, secretly asked Monck for help in the summer of 1659, but the cautious general rejected any idea of an immediate uprising in favor of the crown.
— “Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration,” by Antonia Fraser, 1980, Part II, Chapter 11, pp. 164-5.
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“Aubrey” is John Aubrey (1626-1697), the antiquarian and writer, whose “Lives of Eminent Men” chronicled both truth and hearsay of characters from the Elizabethan age up to his own time. Although it was not published until 1847, it was well-known within literary circles and often cited by other writers of the period.
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More on Monck:
Here’s a link to a biographical sketch on Monck from David Plant’s “British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate 1638-60” website:
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Aubrey’s “Brief Lives” (the usual name for his “Lives of Eminent Men”, which Lisa Grimm mentions) is a wonderful book and surely it and Pepys’ Diary rank as the two great (auto)biographies of 17th century England. Aubrey’s is a series of mini-biographies of the great characters of the age, from Shakespeare to Aubrey himself to Descartes and everybody in between. It’s written in the same gossippy informal style as Pepys, and readers of this weblog will surely appreciate it as much as Pepys. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567920632/
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Winston Churchill, wryly, on Monck:
“He was a soldier of fortune, caring more for plying his trade than for the causes at stake. [ … ] He had steered his way through all the hazardous channels and storms, supporting in turn and at the right moment Parliament, the Commonwealth, and the Protectorate. [ … ] He ranged himself from the first against the violence of the Army in London. Moving with the sentiments of the Scottish people, he gained from a Convention supplies to maintain his army without causing offence. [ … ]
“Monk was one of those Englishmen who understand to perfection the use of time and circumstances. It is a type which has thriven in our Island. The English are apt to admire men who do not attempt to dominate events or turn the drift of fate; who wait about doing their duty on a short view from day to day until there is no doubt whether the tide is on the ebb or the flow; and who then, with the appearance of great propriety and complete self-abnegation, with steady, sterling qualities of conduct if not of heart, move slowly, cautiously, forward towards the obvious purpose of the nation. During the autumn of 1659 General Monk [ … ] was the object of passionate solicitations from every quarter. They told him he had the future of England in his hands, and all appealed for his goodwill. The general received the emissaries of every interest and party in his camp. he listened patiently, as every great Englishman should, to all they had to urge, and with that simple honesty of character which we flatter ouselves as a race he kept them all guessing for a long time what he would do.”
— “A History of the English Speaking Peoples: The New World” (1956), Book Six, Chapter 21: The Restoration.
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Portrait of George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle by David Loggan from the National Portrait Gallery
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=monck&LinkID=mp00058&rNo=2&role=sit
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“
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http://1911encyclopedia.org/M/index.htm
Sorry, this is the source for the above quotes.
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A Letter From His Excellencie Lord General Monck, And The Officiers Under His Command, To The Parliament (1660)
Provided by Ian Maxted, County Local Studies Librarian, Exeter Central Library.
“I have put a facsimile of this item on our website at:
http://www.devon.gov.uk/library/locstudy/1660mon1.html“I hope this is of use to the website. I apologise for the quality of the facsimile but the original is very discoloured.”
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Chambers’s Encyclopaedia, 1906
“…on New-year’s Day 1660 he crossed the Border with 6000 men, and five weeks later entered London unopposed. So far he had kept his intentions profoundly secret. Still every one felt that the decision lay with ‘Old George;’ every party courted him; the Republicans even offered him the protectorate. But, while he offended nobody, he declined to connect himself with any of the sectaries, and waited patiently the course of events. From the first, his own wish, dictated by no high motive, had been to bring back the Stuarts; and before long he saw that the nation at large was with him. The freeing of the Rump parliament from the army, the readmission of the excluded members, and the election of a new parliament—these were his wary steps towards the Resoration.” -
This is Charles Harding Frith’s biography of Monck from 1894:
http://www.generalmonck.com/biography.htmSome striking illustrations are included.
(It’s part of a site that is do with the publication in 2002 of a new edition of Monck’s ‘Observations upon Military & Political Afairs’ written in 1644-46 and first published in 1671.)
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Monck another point of view “his ability to pay the men vs Lambert failure to pay his troops “
[ref C Hill p99 Century of revolution]
City of London: Money is still the milk of politics: Tho history seems to look at the romantic side. -
His wife, Anne: http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/958.php
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A long bio on Albamarle;
http://www.generalmonck.com/biography.htm -
The Coldstream guards re-enactment June 1930
http://www.generalmonck.com/page3.htm
monks regiment
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Gen. Monk to be Captain General.
Resolved, That George Monck Esquire is nominated and appointed, by this House, to be Captain General of all the Land Forces, in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and that the Concurrence of the House of Commons be desired herein.
From: British History Online
Source: House of Lords Journal Volume 11: 25 April 1660. House of Lords Journal Volume 11, ().
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=13936#s5 -
Monck did a have a brother that passed away in Dec 61 . He was the Bishop of Hereford.
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Monkes bill for his foray from the Coldstreams. Sc.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=26190&strquery=forest#s6 -
Monck’s portrait by Lely
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/PaintingDetail.cfm?lettera=&ID=BHC2508&name=Sir%20Peter%20Lely&action=ArtistTitle -
Medals Commemorating Monck (3, all circa 1660)
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=MEC0844
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=MEC0845
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=MEC0846
References in the diary
- 1660
-
Jan: 1, 5, 9, 13, 18, 20, 21, 26, 30, 31
Feb: 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29
Mar: 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 14, 16, 19, 29
Apr: 2, 11, 15, 18, 27, 29
May: 3, 4, 22, 25, 27
Jun: 6, 20, 25, 29
Aug: 21, 22
Oct: 3, 10
Nov: 20
Dec: 16
- 1661
-
Jan: 2, 21
Apr: 22, 23
Aug: 16, 18
- 1662
-
Sep: 3, 15
Oct: 27
Nov: 10
Dec: 1, 24
- 1663
-
Mar: 26
Apr: 13
May: 15, 25
Jun: 17
Jul: 15
Nov: 9, 25
Dec: 28
- 1664
-
Jan: 11
Feb: 17, 22
Apr: 1, 6
Jun: 9, 20
Jul: 14, 23
Oct: 13, 31
Nov: 14
Dec: 5, 15
- 1665
-
Jan: 27
Mar: 17, 20, 27
Apr: 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 17, 24, 28
May: 1, 3