The Life of General George Monck

For King & Cromwell

Peter Reese

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781844686445
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

General George Monck is famous for the key role he played in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. His actions changed the course of British history, but his statesmanship in the dangerous time between the death of Cromwell and the bloodless return of Charles II distracts attention from his extraordinary career as a soldier and general, admiral, governor and administrator. During the confused, often bloody era of the English Civil Wars and the Protectorate he was one of the great survivors. Peter Reese, in this perceptive new study, follows Monck through his long, varied career, from his impoverished upbringing in the West Country and his military apprenticeship on the Continent, to his experience as a commander on both sides during the civil wars. He distinguished himself on the battlefields of Ireland and Scotland, and as a general-at-sea for both Cromwell and Charles II. His shrewdness and firmness of character, his skill as a leader, his high popularity with his troops and his occasional ruthlessness gained for him a formidable reputation. On Cromwell's death he was one of the few men in England with the power, personal authority and political skill to secure the restoration of Charles II and to bring to an end twenty years of conflict.

Part I

The Formative Years

Chapter 1

The Mercenary Soldier 1625—38

He has departed, withdrawn, gone away, broken out.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Catilinam

Like John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, who campaigned so notably some fifty years later, George Monck came from a long-standing West Country family facing serious financial problems. In both cases their straitened circumstances drove them to become the most accomplished and bravest of soldiers and ingrained in them a fear of poverty that drove them later to accumulate great fortunes.

The Monck family’s association with North Devon reputedly stretched back to the time of William the Conqueror, who granted the estate of Potheridge near Torrington to William le Moyne. Legend has it that subsequently one of the family was a medieval monk who, in order to enjoy his inheritance of Potheridge, reverted from the celibate to normal life, thereby giving the family the name of Monk or Monck.¹ By whatever means they acquired the name, the Moncks enjoyed the distinction of having some royal blood in their family line, notably through an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, Arthur Plantagenet, who was created Lord Lisle in 1523. Lord Lisle’s second wife, Honor, had a daughter Frances, who, by marrying a Thomas Monck, became George Monck’s great-grandmother on his father’s side.² A second royal link, more tenuous still, came from George’s grandfather’s grandmother, who as coheiress of Richard Champernown of Insworth had brought him the Cornish bondage and kinship with King John through Richard, King of the Romans, and his son, the Earl of Cornwall.³ However attenuated such royal links might be, they would subsequently give George Monck’s fervent supporters additional cause for underpinning his candidature for Protector of the State when the post was vacated by the Cromwells.

George was born on 6 December 1608 at the family home of Great Potheridge, the fourth of ten children to Sir Thomas Monck and his wife Elizabeth, whose own landowning family came from Maydworthy, near Exeter. When three days old the infant was christened in the chapel of Holy Trinity, Landcross, where the adjacent manor house was occupied by his aunt Margaret, wife of affluent landowner Thomas Giffard. Financial reasons probably led to its taking place there: the wealthy Giffards could keep the ceremony ‘in-house’ and prevent George’s ardently royalist father – who had inherited a heavily encumbered estate – from having to show himself and risk being hounded by agents representing his creditors.

Because of his father’s monetary problems, George was looked after for some time by his maternal grandfather, Sir George Smyth, a formerly wealthy Exeter merchant after whom he was named. During this period Sir George would have assumed responsibility for his grandson’s schooling, which probably took place at Exeter Grammar School. The Smyths lived in good style, offering open hospitality to their circle of friends, and at such gatherings their robust and confident young charge, however sparing with words, was likely to have made his mark, as also when visiting his relatives in the region.

George Smyth’s eldest son lived at Larkbere close by, while Sir Thomas Monck’s sister Frances, who was married to Sir Lewis Stukeley, Vice Admiral of Devon, lived at Farringdon near Exeter. Sir Lewis was a close friend of Sir Walter Ralegh, who visited Farringdon before his final voyage, and it is just possible that he met young George there. Whether he did or not, the boy was old enough to have known about Ralegh’s earlier successes as well as the tragedy of his last expedition, when on his return he was arrested by Stukeley, his former friend, and subsequently executed on Tower Hill. George could also have travelled to nearby Bideford to meet Sir Bevil Grenville, his uncle by marriage, the grandson of that audacious sailor of Elizabethan times, Sir Richard Grenville.

With such connections George may well have dreamt of the adventures that might lie before him, for there is no doubt that he would have heard about the stirring deeds of his past relatives. His great-uncle had sailed with the famous Devonian sailor Francis Drake⁴ and died at Peniche in Spain, while another uncle, Arthur, had been killed during the English defence of Ostend in 1602. With such prominent and proud kinsmen what might he be capable of achieving?

Whatever his hopes, during the summer of 1625 – when Monck was not yet seventeen – a notable incident occurred which was to determine his choice of career and affect him for the rest of his life. In that year Charles I was progressing through Devon and Cornwall on his way to inspect his expeditionary force assembling at Plymouth and Falmouth, an army of ten regiments, each of 1,000 soldiers, due to be carried in more than a hundred ships, for an attack on Spain, and to be commanded by the Duke of Buckingham, the King’s favourite – although he would shortly withdraw and give way to Edward Cecil, later Viscount Wimbledon. The force had the benefit of the able veteran Sir John Burroughs as both regimental commander and its chief of staff, but nevertheless it was far from impressive; most of its soldiers had been pressed into service at the last minute and a good proportion of the ships were in poor condition. The King and Buckingham mounted the expedition to gain their revenge against Spain and its opposition to Charles’s intended marriage to the Spanish Infanta, but there was a secondary motive in the hope that such an attack on Catholic Europe would allay fears in Britain concerning the King’s actual marriage to the Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria of France. The aim (agreed after the fleet had set off) was to occupy the Spanish port of Cadiz prior to ambushing the Spanish treasure fleet returning from the West Indies. Dual objectives spell danger for any campaign, especially when, as in this case, the projected attack on Cadiz was modelled on that made in 1596 by the Earl of Essex, since when its defences had been strengthened.

Whatever the expedition’s prospects, its relevance for the young George Monck was soon to become apparent. At this time the majority of the Devon nobility, including Sir Thomas Monck, strongly supported the King and all were eager to pay their respects to him. However, with so many demands for debt standing against Sir Thomas, any attempt to participate meant certain arrest. Remarkably, his father selected young George to visit the under-sheriff of the county, Nicholas Battyn, with a substantial present, hoping ‘that he might with liberty and freedom attend upon his Majesty’⁵ for ‘he did not know what judgements or statutes might be against him… but desired that, without any prosecution, he might have the liberty to wait upon his Prince’.⁶ However, after being offered a further – and larger – bribe, from his father’s creditors, the sheriff broke his word, finding it ‘in his interest to arrest the person of Sir Thomas Monk upon an Execution in the most publick place of the county where they were… to receive his Majesty’.⁷

Such public humiliation and the subsequent throwing of his father into the county gaol enraged young George who, on 30 September 1625, sought out the treacherous official and cudgelled him severely until an ostler intervened, but he nonetheless went on to thrust at him with his sword.⁸ Monck was arrested, although when Battyn had recovered enough to ride out of Exeter he was released on bail. The family approached Richard Grenville, younger brother of Sir Bevil, an officer in Burroughs’s regiment, who agreed to take the young blood with him on the coming expedition. Whether Monck was placed directly in Burroughs’s regiment or joined the expedition as a gentleman volunteer (in which case he would have come under the direct care of the commander-in-chief) is not known, but such overseas service marked a sudden and unexpected start to his military career.

The seaborne attack on Cadiz in late 1625 was a shambolic affair and the pusillanimous and ill-disciplined conduct of many who were involved could well have stifled the idealism of any aspiring soldier. Yet, in spite of widespread inefficiency and cowardice elsewhere, in Burroughs’s regiment Monck was fortunate to serve under capable men. His kinsman, Richard Grenville, however wild and dissolute he became later, was highly regarded, having already served in the Low Countries under Prince Maurice, while Sir John Burroughs himself was not only an experienced soldier, but a demanding commander whose regiment was the best there.

The problem facing the attackers was the location of Cadiz at the head of a narrow peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic. Unlike Essex’s earlier expedition, which isolated the port by seizing the bridge of Zuazo at the peninsula’s landward end, Cecil decided to attack the fort of Puntal guarding the port from the sea. Guns carried on shallow-draught vessels attempted a bombardment, but their attack was not properly pressed home and a land assault became necessary. Sir John Burroughs was placed in command, but after failing to scale the fort’s walls with ladders, he bypassed it, at which point Puntal’s small garrison of 120 men surrendered. George Monck was more likely to have watched than participated in these assaults and he clearly would not have taken part if he had been a gentleman volunteer.

After the fort’s capture, Cecil heard that a Spanish force was moving to relieve the port and therefore marched his army down the peninsula to meet them at the bridge of Zuazo. The troops carried no rations over the relatively short distance, but during the course of the march Cecil unwisely granted a butt of wine to each regiment. With such troops the inevitable happened: they broke open others, causing the soldiers to become drunk and mutinous, but fortunately for them the relieving Spanish army did not materialize.

In the meantime the expedition’s admiral, the Earl of Denbigh, attempted to destroy a number of galleons and smaller ships that were anchored outside Cadiz harbour. However, after learning that hulks had been sunk to block the harbour approaches, he considered the operation too risky and opted to sail for Cape St Vincent to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet that was due there shortly. After re-embarking its soldiers, the expedition set sail – only to miss the Spanish fleet, which succeeded in reaching Cadiz unscathed. There was no option but to return to England with none of its objectives gained.

It is not clear how George Monck spent the next eighteen months: Devon continued to be inexpedient for him with the death of the sheriff in 1626, and in January 1627 ‘a fresh series of depositions were taken by the city authorities and four more witnesses came forward’⁹ in connection with Monck’s attack. However, by mid-1627 a new military opportunity arose.

Following a sequence of events during which the French and English each seized the other’s merchant ships, including 200 English ships set to carry claret from France to England, Charles I declared war on France. Already at war with Spain, his belligerence towards France arose in part from his exasperation at the domestic behaviour of his young French wife. The inevitable problems arising from waging war against two such powerful nations were compounded by his dissolution of Parliament for their opposition to Buckingham, thereby making it certain that further expeditions would suffer from serious shortages of money.

Even so, during the three months from April to June 1627 a new armada of 100 ships was assembled, together with an army of about 6,000 troops, many of whom had been ‘captured’ by press-gangs scouring the inns of the garrison towns. This time Buckingham assumed command, ignoring the cautions of Sir Edward Cecil (now Viscount Wimbledon) against making war with such a lack of trained soldiers and when ‘our marines are out of practice’.¹⁰ Once more Buckingham and the King sought more than one objective. In the first instance, the expedition was due to land at La Rochelle to join French Protestant Huguenots opposed to Cardinal Richelieu, and then after its anticipated success, Buckingham was to make for Bordeaux to release the English boats loaded with wine, before attempting to waylay the Spanish treasure ships returning home.

The fleet embarked from Plymouth on 27 June 1627 with Sir John Burroughs once more a regimental commander and given the additional responsibility of bringing the force into some disciplinary order. Richard Grenville served as one of his company commanders, with George Monck as an ensign, the most junior officer rank.¹¹ Details of some of Monck’s actions at this time are contained in a journal kept by Richard Grenville, which described how the young ensign was given a specific and important task: ‘Mr Monck came from England through the Main[land] – passing the [French] army which lay before Rochel with great hazard to his life – and brought Message by Word of Mouth from the King to my Lord Duke, with Intelligence of thirty to forty Sail of Ships, with three or four thousand men preparing in France.’¹²

To entrust such vital intelligence to such a junior officer and to send him across a hostile country to deliver it seems remarkable. Among Monck’s biographers Maurice Ashley seems to reach the most convincing explanation, namely that on Burroughs’s recommendation Buckingham could have sent Monck back to England to brief the King on the expedition’s progress so far, following which the King ordered him to return with the latest news of the French counter-plans. He could conceivably have set out by ship which for some reason landed him on the mainland short of La Rochelle. Whether this was correct, or if he made the whole journey overland, it meant an arduous and lengthy passage through France, and Monck had only a smattering of French, never having made good his deficiency in this language.

In fact, whatever messages Monck carried, events had not gone well for this expedition either. The sea approaches to La Rochelle were dominated by the island of Rhé, and Buckingham therefore decided he should seize that first. But Rhé was protected by two forts, La Prée and Saint Martin, and in assaulting them the English suffered heavy casualties, including Sir John Burroughs, whom Monck would always regard as his father in arms. The attackers were also hampered by shortages of ammunition and other supplies, which forced them to withdraw when the French mounted their expected counter-attacks -so successfully that no fewer than forty English standards were captured. As an ensign, Monck had a duty to carry one of his regiment’s banners¹³ and, although he escaped injury, his could conceivably have been one of those captured and hung in the Paris cathedral of Notre Dame. The remnants of the force, including Monck, returned to Plymouth on 12 November 1627 to meet with an understandably cool reception.

Undaunted, Buckingham planned a third attack for 1628, but while he was making his preparations he was assassinated by a naval officer who had served on Rhé the previous year and whose pay was in arrears. With Buckingham dead, Charles selected the Earl of Lindsey as his new commander, although he possessed little knowledge of such operations, and in the meanwhile the French had taken the opportunity of strengthening their defences by building moles as protection against any seaborne assaults. This expedition set off on 7 September 1628 with Burroughs’s regiment now commanded by Monck’s kinsman, Sir Richard Grenville, but in the event it enjoyed no greater success than its predecessor. The English fire ships failed to destroy the French vessels covering the moles, before, on 18 October, the purpose of the expedition was lost by the surrender of the Huguenots at La Rochelle, thus giving the English fleet no option but to return through the November gales to its home ports.

By now Monck, although still not twenty-one, was an experienced junior commander. Although the expeditions had proved abortive and could have been seen as demonstrating the futility of war, for such a dedicated soldier they offered seminal lessons, namely the need in such circumstances for a single commander over both the land and sea forces, together with the requirement for thorough training, effective supply arrangements, firm discipline and, above all, a single, clear aim. Whatever Monck might have learned, this did not check his sense of anger and disappointment at the results, especially the death of Sir John Burroughs. Thomas Gumble, Monck’s first biographer, related how, ‘(As young as he was) [he] would often relate with grief the ill condition of that Affair by which the English reaped nothing but Reproach and Dishonour and yet wanted neither courage nor gallantry.’

It is not clear whether Monck stayed with his regiment until 1629 or whether it was disbanded immediately upon its return from La Rochelle, for in April 1629 the King was compelled to make peace with France. There would have been little for Monck in Devon during this time for, whether or not the affair with the late under-sheriff had been laid to rest, the family’s fortunes had shown little improvement and, in any event, the prospects for a younger son were strictly limited.

By 1631 Monck had returned to active soldiering, this time as a mercenary in the regiment of Robert Vere, 19th Earl of Oxford, who had succeeded his acclaimed predecessor, Sir Edward Vere. Once again Monck probably owed his place to members of his family, although he was not a gentleman volunteer like other young men such as Sir Thomas Fairfax, Jacob Ashley and Philip Skippon, who would also take part in the coming civil war. George Monck remained an ensign with a scant three shillings a day for his pay, although in the event of his regiment capturing a town there were additional prospects of plunder.

At this time Holland provided a valuable training ground for aspiring English soldiers, including those young men who for a variety of reasons needed to leave their native country. The Dutch United Provinces had been fighting Spain and its German allies since 1568 and during the early 1630s the English mercenaries there earned the high regard of the Dutch Stadholder and eminent soldier, Prince Frederick Henry of Orange. In his book on Monck, French historian M Guizot attempted to spell ou...