



Produced by sp1nd, Charlie Howard, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









Transcriber's note: Italic text is indicated by _underscores_; boldface
text is indicated by =equals signs=.




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 encumbered estate, and his attempts
at economy had done little or nothing to better his position. An
increasing family added to his difficulties and his sorrows. Ten
children had already been born to him, and four, including his two
eldest boys, were in the grave. Thomas was now the future heir, and
then came George. After him was his favourite brother, the quiet
studious Nicholas who was to be a parson; and then little Arthur
the baby, who became a soldier like George. George had been born on
December 8th, 1608, and was now nearly seventeen years old. He grew up
a handsome lusty boy, and from his earliest years his daring and spirit
had destined him to be a soldier. It was the career of all younger sons
of metal, and few can have looked forward to it more ardently than
George Monk. It was the tradition of his family. His uncle Richard had
died a captain; his uncle Arthur had fallen in 1602 at the glorious
defence of Ostend by that renowned captain, Sir Francis Vere. His
great-uncle, Captain Francis Monk, had sailed with Drake and Norris in
their famous descent upon Portugal in 1589, and having been severely
wounded at the storm of Corunna, had died a few days afterwards when
the fleet was driven by stress of weather into Peniche.

The very soil he trod was fertile with the romance of war. For George
was born in the heart of the country which bred the greatest of the
Elizabethan heroes. The soldiers and sailors who most adorned the great
Queen's age were living memories in his childhood, their exploits
were the tales of his nursery, their names the first words he learnt
to lisp. Hard by lived his aunt Grace, who had married the brilliant
young Bevil Grenville, heir and grandson of the immortal Sir Richard
himself. His aunt Elizabeth was wife to Luttrell of Hartland Abbey,
and through her he could claim kinship with the Howards; while all
around the home by Tor and Torridge were clustered the old North
Devon families with whom Kingsley's undying romance has made us so
familiar. Nor were these influences lessened as time went on. Sir
George Smith took such a fancy to the fearless high-spirited boy that
he one day offered to educate him if he might live half the year at
Maydford. Poor embarrassed Sir Thomas could only consent, and George
entered a new sphere of life even fuller of romance and adventure than
the old. At Larkbere, within easy distance of his new home, lived
Sir Nicholas Smith, Sir George's eldest son, where the lad found
endless cousins to foster the dreams of Devon boyhood. But all his
games and stories there were tame beside the attractions of his aunt
Frances's house at Farringdon. For Frances Monk had married Sir Lewis
Stukeley, Vice-Admiral of Devon, and there George must have found for a
play-fellow little Tom Rolfe, the child of Pocahontas, whose guardian
Stukeley had become since the Indian