A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. III

by François Guizot

The taciturn chief comprehended that in the great undertaking in which he had embarked, the simple obedience of his agents was not sufficient, and that their intelligent and voluntary assistance was necessary. In the council which he formed he allowed anything to be said, but spoke little himself. Two commissioners were chosen by the general at the solicitation of the officers; he refused to designate the third; the commissioner who was nominated did not suit his views, but he did not complain, and the three delegates immediately set out for London, encountering Lambert on the way, who ill-humoredly suffered them to pass, when he learnt that the first condition of the negotiations was the recall of the Parliament which he had expelled.

Lambert, meanwhile, was in no hurry to come to blows. At York he encountered Morgan, but recently appointed Major-General of the Scotch army, who was proceeding to his post, when an attack of gout arrested him on the way. Morgan loudly censured the conduct of Monk. Lambert asked him whether he would not willingly devote his efforts to paralyzing his influence over the army. Morgan consented, and at the moment when the commissioners of the general were quitting York to proceed to London to prosecute their negotiation, Morgan on the other hand set out thence to repair to Edinburgh on behalf of Lambert, to arrange with Monk or to alienate his soldiers from him.

Monk received Morgan like an old friend and an officer to whom he owed the greatest consideration. "I come," the latter said to him, "to ask you whether you will lay down your arms, and become reunited in friendship with Fleetwood and Lambert." "If they wish to re-establish Parliament," replied Monk, "I shall not have much to say." "I have promised to put the question to you," said Morgan, "but not to take back the answer. I am not a politician, but I am certain that you are a friend of the country, and I am ready to take part in anything you may do." At the same time the messenger of Lambert delivered to Monk a letter of the chaplain of Fairfax, Dr. Bowles, offering to the general of the army of Scotland the assistance of the former general of the Long Parliament, and of a great number of gentlemen of Yorkshire, provided he would declare himself against the established form of government more clearly than he had done in his declaration.

"I am asked for that which would ruin me," said Monk; "I am already at sufficient pains to persuade the army that I do not propose to bring back the king." And he continued in his falsehoods. But before proceeding to bring his quarters nearer to the frontier, he came to an understanding with the principal Scottish noblemen, and with a certain number of deputies of the towns, entrusting to them the safety of Scotland, and asking them to cause the arrears of taxes to be paid and to preserve order. They would willingly have offered more, but Monk contrived to restrain their zeal, and he was able to cope with the elements of division which the commissioners of the army of England sought to sow among his troops. They did not always act with tact. One day, General Deane, specially sent by Fleetwood, passed in front of a company of infantry. "Lambert is marching upon you," said he, "and all the army of Monk will not be a breakfast for him." "The cold weather then will have given Lambert," said the offended soldiers, "a good appetite if he eats our pikes and swallows our bullets." Monk sent back Deane, reprimanding him for his arrogance, and he was at Haddington on the road to England, on the 18th of November, 1659, when he received despatches from the Committee of Safety. Scarcely had Monk read them when he re-entered his room without saying a word, and on the morrow returned to Edinburgh.

It was a treaty comprising nine articles for the reconciliation of the two armies, concluded in London in three days by the emissaries of Monk, who had been circumvented and trifled with by the Republicans. There was no question involved in it of the re-establishment of the Long Parliament. All the declarations against Charles Stuart were renewed, and the dissolution of the Scotch army was prepared for by the revision to which the titles of the officers appointed by Monk were to be subjected. It was the ruin of the general, of his power, his partisans, and his schemes.

On his return to Edinburgh, where the news was already circulating. Monk found his staff strongly agitated. He was walking to and fro in silence in the council-chamber when his chaplain, Gumble, entered. "I come to make a trifling request," he said to the general. "What is that?" "I beg you will have the goodness to sign me a pass for Holland. There is at Leith a vessel ready to set sail, and I am anxious to take the opportunity." "What! you desire to leave me?" "I don't know how your Highness will provide for your own safety when your command is taken from you; but as for a poor devil like myself I don't wish to remain in their power. I know what would happen to me if I did." "Is it to me that you make all these reproaches?" asked Monk sharply. "Let the army hold for me and I will hold for the army." All present exclaimed that they were ready to live or die with their general. The same impulse communicated itself to all the army. The malcontents did not dare to show their dissent. It was suggested that the treaty should be simply rejected. Monk contented himself with declaring by the council of officers that certain articles were obscure, and that negotiations must be reopened. The messengers of the Committee of Safety were sent back to their masters with these new propositions; the army of Scotland, continuing its march, removed its headquarters to Berwick.

It was there that the general received, at the end of November, a letter signed by nine members of the old Council of State, who had met in secret in London under the presidency of Scott, who conferred on him the title of Commander-in-chief of all the forces of England and Scotland. The shrewd instincts of Monk had not deceived him. Time and the very foundation of affairs were working more effectively for him than all the intrigues. The party of the army became more and more disorganized. Lambert, without funds, at the head of troops discontented and divided, had caused secret proposals to be addressed to the king, promising to re-establish him on the throne on condition that he should marry his daughter. Fleetwood also made advances to the Royalists. The politic Hyde treated with them all, not without some contempt in the bottom of his heart. "If the two crowns of France and Spain," he wrote, "would but declare openly that they will have no dealings with these fanatics who have neither form nor order of government, and who respect no rule either among themselves or towards others, we should come to the end of our work. The money which was required twenty years ago to buy five of our manors in the west, would suffice now to purchase the whole kingdom."

Hyde was mistaken. The kingdom was not to be bought, and conscientious and indomitable devotion to the republic was not wanting. But the general disposition of the nation, enlightened and wearied by its own errors, was leading it back to Charles Stuart. If the public feeling had not undergone a change, it would have been in vain to buy the great personages who were offering themselves to him.