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English Men of Action


MONK

[Illustration]


[Illustration: MONK

From a Miniature by SAMUEL COOPER in the Royal Collection at Windsor]




    MONK

    BY
    JULIAN CORBETT


    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO.
    AND NEW YORK
    1889

    _All rights reserved_




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER I
                                              PAGE
    DEVONSHIRE AND FOREIGN SERVICE               1


    CHAPTER II

    FOR KING AND PARLIAMENT                     15


    CHAPTER III

    THE KING'S COMMISSION                       33


    CHAPTER IV

    THE PARLIAMENT'S COMMISSION                 46


    CHAPTER V

    THE TREATY WITH THE IRISH NATIONALISTS      56


    CHAPTER VI

    CROMWELL'S NEW LIEUTENANT                   69


    CHAPTER VII

    GENERAL-AT-SEA                              83

    CHAPTER VIII

    GOVERNOR OF SCOTLAND                        95


    CHAPTER IX

    THE ABORTIVE PRONUNCIAMENTO                116


    CHAPTER X

    THE NEGLECTED QUANTITY                     129


    CHAPTER XI

    THE BLOODLESS CAMPAIGN                     144


    CHAPTER XII

    ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM                  160


    CHAPTER XIII

    THE UNCROWNED KING                         178


    CHAPTER XIV

    THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY                  195




CHAPTER I

DEVONSHIRE AND FOREIGN SERVICE


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

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

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

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

But of late things had been going very hard at Potheridge. Sir
Thomas had succeeded to a heavily encumber