During the terrible retreat on Dunbar it is hardly too much to say his consummate technical skill saved the army from destruction. More dead than alive the remnants of Cromwell's splendid force had reached Haddington. Sick, shattered, and harassed to death with incessant marching through the rain and mire, they seemed now an easy prey. About midnight an attack on the rear-guard had been repulsed, but the position was none the less desperate. Leslie was at their heels bent on destroying them before they could reach their ships. He was out-marching them to the right on a line parallel to their own, and it was certain that with the first glimpse of daylight he would be upon them. Yet it seemed impossible to do anything. A Scotch mist was driving across them and the darkness was absolutely impenetrable. As they stood in the ranks the soldiers could hardly see their right and left hand files. Yet Monk undertook to draw the army up in line of battle fronting to its true right. It was Lambert's duty as major-general; and it must have been a rough blow to his vanity that his rival was not only allowed to undertake a task for which his own experience was inadequate, but that he succeeded in what seemed an impossibility. For succeed he did. By feeling or instinct he set about the work, of which we can now have little conception. Complicated mathematical calculations were involved; foot had to be mingled with horse, and pikemen with musketeers. But all this was child's play to Monk. The dismal morning broke, and there Leslie saw facing him a line of battle, perfect in every distance and resting on Gladsmuir and Haddington, with a swollen tributary of the Tyne to protect its front. Without hesitation the Scotch general declined the action, and hurried on to secure Cockburnspath and cut off Cromwell from Berwick.
We must pass on to the evening of September 2nd. In Dunbar the spiritless supper at the headquarters' mess was over and Cromwell was walking with Lambert hoping against hope for a chance of escape. But the position was unchanged. There was still the swollen Brock roaring along its impassable channel in heavy spate from the right to where it joined the sea on the extreme left: there was the narrow stretch of meadow beyond; and then the hills, where dimly in the gathering gloom the Scottish host lay out and penned them in past hope. Suddenly there was a movement. The Scotch were beginning to draw down from the hills, the horse on their right flank were taking ground towards the sea. It was clear Leslie meant to attack on the morrow where on the English left the Berwick road crossed the Brock. The manœuvre was difficult. In the narrow piece of level ground that was available between the hills and the burn it would take long to execute, and until it was complete the right flank of the Scots which had hitherto been secure in the difficult ground about Cockburnspath was exposed. Leslie must be attacked when his movement was half-done. It was a desperate chance, but the only one against his overwhelming numbers.
Lambert agreed with Cromwell's suggestion, but the General would not decide without Monk's opinion. He was probably busy superintending the embarkation of his heavy guns, but he was quickly found and received the idea favourably. All depended on the success of the first attack. The ford must be seized before Leslie was ready to cross, and then the Scotch line as it lay between the hills and the burn taking ground to the right might be rolled up like a scroll. There must be no thought of repulse; he offered to lead the foot in person, and again he was given the post that Lambert as major-general ought to have filled.
The Council of War was assembled at once, and Monk demonstrated to the colonels the practicability of Cromwell's idea. The attack was decided on, and the first glimmer of dawn saw Monk standing beside the burn, half-pike in hand, at the head of his regiment of foot.[6] All was ready to begin, but Lambert, who was to lead the attack at the head of the horse, was away, to Cromwell's annoyance, worrying about Monk's guns with which he had suggested a feint should be made upon the Scots' left. Valuable time was lost, but at last he came, and the horse dashed across the ford followed by Monk in support. A desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued. For an hour the thing hung in a balance. The flower of the Scotch regiments was there, and the resistance they offered was worthy of their reputation. But regiment after regiment poured over from the Dunbar side, ever inclining to the left till the Scotch right was overlapped. All this time Monk was fighting desperately at pike's length with a regiment that would not break. But now as the rout of the out-flanked regiments exposed it to the horse it had to go with the rest, and then the day was won. Galled by the guns and small-shot from across the swollen burn, the Scots' left and centre, incapable of reaching their enemy, would stand no longer. As the beaten right fell back upon them, rolling up the line as they came, a panic ensued. Throwing down their arms they fairly ran, nor stopped till they reached Edinburgh.
The fall of Edinburgh Castle ended the campaign of 1650. Monk had been appointed governor of the city, and with the duties of his office and the preparations for the next campaign he was occupied during the winter. By February, however, in the following year, he was at active work again. Tantallon Castle was his first care, and by the aid of the splendid siege-train he had organised he battered the ancient stronghold of the Douglas into submission in forty-eight hours: Blackness Castle on the Forth followed in March; and thus by the time spring had fairly begun the way was cleared for the real object of the campaign, and Monk's services were rewarded with the substantive rank in which he had been acting.
Leslie during the winter had reorganised his army, and was occupying an intrenched position at Torwood, to the north of Falkirk, covering Stirling. Beyond him the government was being carried on in security at Perth. The Torwood position was far too strong for a direct attack to be risked. Every endeavour to turn it or to tempt Leslie to leave failed, and yet it was imperative that he should be dislodged.
Who suggested the daring manœuvre by which the end was at last achieved we do not know. At this time Monk was higher in his commander's counsels than ever. Brilliant tactician as he was, Cromwell had hitherto given little evidence of far-sighted strategy. He was not a trained soldier, and Lambert was only a talented civilian like himself. Deane had had no scientific training in the continental school, nor did he join the army till May. Indeed Monk was the only professional soldier on the staff at the time the manœuvre was projected. But if Cromwell was no professional soldier he had the military instinct too highly developed not to know his own shortcomings, and to appreciate at its full value the consummate technical knowledge of his new adviser. The few words that fell blunt and sure from the taciturn soldier of fortune had more weight in the Council of War than all the rest together. At any rate we may be sure the movement was the result of Cromwell's and Monk's reconnaissance of Leslie's position at Stirling in September, and that it was worked out by Monk on his return to Edinburgh. For in November a requisition went up to the Council of State for the flotilla of flat-bottomed boats which the contemplated operation required.
It was known at the English headquarters that there was a party about the King who were urging an advance into England. The plan had much to recommend it, and Cromwell determined to spoil it by forcing Leslie's hand. A footing was to be secured upon the opposite side of the Forth, and a blow threatened upon Perth. If Leslie attempted to quit his intrenchments to parry it he was to be attacked in his true front, and compelled to reoccupy his position. The English army was then to be thrown suddenly across the Forth, and a dash on Perth developed before he could move again. Thus the Torwood position would be turned, Stirling taken in reverse, and no way would remain of loosing Cromwell's new hold except to attack him on his own ground, or by advancing into England to compel him to follow. In either case the victory was almost a certainty for the Commonwealth.
As early as the middle of April part of the flotilla had arrived, and Monk had made an attack on Burntisland. He was repulsed. Cromwell's illness delayed further operations for some time. At the end of June he recovered. Major-General Harrison was sent with all the force that could be spared into Cumberland to check the expected inroad of the Scots, and Cromwell advanced to threaten the position at Torwood. Early in July he moved westward to Glasgow with the double object of securing the affections of the people in that quarter and of drawing Leslie's attention away from the Forth, while the preparations for the descent on the north bank of the river were completed. On July 17th a small party landed at North Ferry, rapidly intrenched themselves, and Lambert followed with a strong division. Cromwell had moved back to his old position before Torwood, and as though a direct attack were still his real object, Monk was ordered to storm an outpost.
All was now ripe, and at the end of July the long contemplated operation was commenced. In the precision with which it was carried out we may at least see Monk's unerring hand. The success was complete. By August 3rd Perth was in the possession of the Commonwealth. Leslie was in full career for the south, and Cromwell and his generals repassing the Forth in hot pursuit.