Thus a second time the supreme authority devolved on the meeting of officers at Wallingford House. They immediately established their favourite plan for the government of the army. The office of commander-in-chief, in its plenitude of power, was restored to Fleetwood; the rank of major-general of the forces in Great Britain was given to Lambert; and all those officers who refused to subscribe a new engagement, were removed from their commands. At the same time they annulled by their supreme authority all proceedings in parliament on the 10th, 11th, and 12th of October, vindicated their own conduct in a publication with the title of "The Army's Plea,"[1] vested the provisional exercise of the civil authority in a committee of safety of twenty-three members, and denounced the penalties of treason against all who should refuse to obey its orders, or should venture to levy forces without its permission. An attempt was even made to replace Richard Cromwell in the protectorial dignity;[a] for this purpose he came from Hampshire to London, escorted by three troops of horse; but his supporters in the meeting were out-voted by a small majority, and he retired to Hampton Court.[2]
[Footnote 1: See Declaration of the General Council of Officers, 17. The Army's Plea for its Present Practice, printed by Henry Hills, printer to the army, 1659, is in many parts powerfully written. The principal argument is, that as the parliament, though bound by the solemn league and covenant to defend the king's person, honour, and dignity, did not afterwards scruple to arraign, condemn, and execute him because he had broken his trust; so the army, though they had engaged to be true and faithful to the parliament, might lawfully rise against it, when they found that it did not preserve the just rights and liberties of the people. This condition was implied in the engagement; otherwise the making of the engagement would have been a sin, and the keeping thereof would have been a sin also, and so an adding of sin to sin.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 685, 686. Ludlow, ii. 250, 286, 287. Clar. Pap. 591. At the restoration, Richard, to escape from his creditors, fled to the continent; and, after an expatriation of almost twenty years, returned to England to the neighbourhood of Cheshunt, where he died in 1713, at the age of eighty-six.—Noble, i. 228.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. Oct 26.]
Of all the changes which had surprised and perplexed the nation since the death of the last king, none had been received with such general disapprobation as the present. It was not that men lamented the removal of the Rump; but they feared the capricious and arbitrary rule of the army; and, when they contrasted their unsettled state with the tranquillity formerly enjoyed under the monarchy, many were not backward in the expression of their wishes for the restoration of the ancient line of their princes. The royalists laboured to improve this favourable disposition; yet their efforts might have been fruitless, had the military been united among themselves. But among the officers there were several who had already made their peace with Charles by the promise of their services, and many who secretly retained a strong attachment to Hazlerig and his party in opposition to Lambert. In Ireland, Barrow, who had been sent as their representative from Wallingford House, found the army so divided and wavering, that each faction alternately obtained a short and precarious superiority; and in Scotland, Cobbet, who arrived there on a similar mission, was, with seventeen other officers who approved of his proposals, imprisoned by order of Monk.[1]
From this moment the conduct of Monk will claim a considerable share of the reader's attention. Ever since the march of Cromwell in pursuit of the king to Worcester he had commanded in Scotland; where, instead of concerning himself with the intrigues and parties in England, he appeared to have no other occupation
[Footnote 1: Ludlow, ii. 237, 252, 259, 262, 300. Clar. Pap. iii. 591.
Carte's Letters, 266.]
than the duties of his place, to preserve the discipline of his army, and enforce the obedience of the Scots. His despatches to Cromwell from Scotland form a striking contrast with those from the other officers of the time. There is in them no parade of piety, no flattery of the protector, no solicitation for favours. They are short, dry, and uninteresting, confined entirely to matters of business, and those only of indispensable necessity. In effect, the distinctive characteristic of the man was an impenetrable secrecy.[1] Whatever were his predilections or opinions, his wishes or designs, he kept them locked up within his own breast. He had no confidant, nor did he ever permit himself to be surprised into an unguarded avowal. Hence all parties, royalists, protectorists, and republicans, claimed him for their own, though that claim was grounded on their hopes, not on his conduct. Charles had been induced to make to him repeatedly the most tempting offers, which were supported by the solicitations of his wife and his domestic chaplain; Monk listened to them without displeasure, though he never unbosomed himself to the agents or to his chaplain so far as to put himself in their power. Cromwell had obtained some information of these intrigues; but, unable to discover any real ground of suspicion, he contented himself with putting Monk on his guard by a bantering postscript to one of his letters. "Tis said," he added, "there is a cunning fellow in Scotland,
[Footnote 1: "His natural taciturnity was such, that most of his friends, who thought they knew him best, looked upon George Monk to have no other craft in him than that of a plain soldier, who would obey the parliament's orders, and see that his own were obeyed."—Price, Mystery and Method of his Majesty's happy Restoration, in Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars in England, published by Baron Maseres, ii. 700.]
called George Monk, who lies in wait there to serve Charles Stuart; pray use your diligence to take him and send him up to me."[1] After the fall of the protector Richard, he became an object of greater distrust. To undermine his power, Fleetwood ordered two regiments of horse attached to the Scottish army to return to England; and the republicans, when the military commissions were issued by the speaker, removed a great number of his officers, and supplied their places with creatures of their own. Monk felt these affronts: discontent urged him to seek revenge; and, when he understood that Booth was at the head of a considerable force, he dictated a letter to the speaker, complaining of the proceedings of parliament, and declaring that, as they had abandoned the real principles of the old cause, they must not expect the support of his army. His object was to animate the insurgents and embarrass their adversaries; but, on the very morning on which the letter was to be submitted for signature to his principal officers, the news of Lambert's victory arrived;[a] the dangerous instrument was instantly destroyed, and the secret most religiously kept by the few who had been privy to the intention of the general.[2]