[CHAPTER VII]
GENERAL-AT-SEA
The waters at Bath completely restored Monk's health, and in July the Council requested Cromwell to order him back to his duty in Scotland, that he might report on the state of the country. Monk did not go.
A new act in the drama had begun. With Dunbar, Worcester, and Monk's successes in Scotland, the Presbyterian party was reduced to impotency. The Independents were triumphant, and the factors of which that party was composed began to detach themselves with ominous distinctness. On the one hand was the Parliament, reactionary in spite of its purging; on the other the army, radical in spite of its leader. For the purpose of understanding Monk's relation to them it is unnecessary to enter minutely into the characteristics of both factions. To place ourselves in sympathy with a political situation it is necessary not so much to understand the aims of the several parties which create it, as to grasp the motives which each party attributes to the other. The great body of politicians are moved more by distrust of their adversaries than by confidence in themselves. Monk at any rate, with his soldierly contempt for politics, was incapable of taking a higher view of the situation than this. Parliament credited the army with a desire to establish an arbitrary military government. The army suspected Parliament of an intention to perpetuate itself as a tyrannical oligarchy. The latter idea Monk could endure, the former was for him intolerable. If it came to a question of army or Parliament, Cromwell knew that his incorruptible lieutenant would be obstinately true to his principles and side with the civil power. It is easy to understand that on the eve of his great stroke he preferred that his devoted partisan, Major-General Deane, who was acting in Monk's absence, should continue to command the army in Scotland.
The outbreak of the Dutch war was made an excuse for keeping the general in England. In view of the coming struggle it was considered advisable to make Great Yarmouth a formidable naval port. Monk was the highest authority on fortification in the service, and the Council had to consent to his being employed to carry out the necessary work. In this congenial occupation he remained until November. It was then in contemplation to appoint two admirals to command the fleet jointly with Blake, according to the usual practice. Deane, having a considerable naval reputation, was naturally one, and he was summoned from Scotland, where Colonel Lilburne, an advanced radical of Anabaptist opinions, succeeded him. Monk was proposed as the other, but again Cromwell opposed the appointment. He saw the coming crisis almost within measurable distance, and naturally wished to see the fleet as well as the army in the right hands. But this time his opposition was in vain. On the last day of the month Blake was defeated by a greatly superior force under Tromp. The Thames was in danger, and four days later Monk and Deane were ordered to be ready to put to sea in twenty-four hours.
Tromp's victory was, however, too dearly bought for him to pursue Blake, and after his famous cruise in the Channel, as the broom-myth tells, he bore away to Rhé to fetch home the Dutch merchant-fleet that was to assemble there for convoy. All the winter the three generals were busy fitting out a new fleet, and in February they put to sea to intercept Tromp and his costly charge. On the 18th they met, and there ensued one of those extraordinary engagements which distinguished these wars. For three days it lasted, and at the end both sides claimed the victory. Tromp practically saved his huge convoy, while Blake and his partners defeated the Dutch fleet.
Monk's share in the engagements had been comparatively small, as his flagship was a hopelessly slow sailer. Out of his love for heavy artillery he had probably over-gunned it—a common error in the English navy then. At the age of forty-four it is not easy to suddenly take up a new profession, and he made no pretence to seamanship. His complete ignorance of nautical matters became a standing joke. When his ship was coming into action, and the master cried larboard or starboard, Monk used to reply with a cheery shout of "Ay, ay, boys, let us board them!" and he never heard the last of it. When at nightfall on the first day he at length got into action he refused to retire, though his master urgently showed him the danger he ran from fire-ships. "Why," he cried, "the very powder of this ship is enough to blow a fire-ship from it. Charge again!" and away he went through the opposing squadron once more regardless of every protest. Blake had borne the brunt of the action, and had been so severely wounded by an iron splinter that he had to withdraw from active service and leave the command to his two colleagues.
For the next two months Monk was at Portsmouth busily refitting the fleet and crying out continually for supplies and men that would not come, and doing his best to alleviate the sufferings caused by the late battle. No wonder there were vexatious delays when we think what was going on at Whitehall. On April 21st the fleet lay at Spithead all ready for sea except for the delayed stores, when a despatch with strange news was put into the admiral's hands. The blow had fallen: the Revolution was complete: the Rump Parliament was no more. A new Council was sitting at Whitehall, and Cromwell was virtually dictator. What did the fleet mean to do?
In the quiet dignity of the answer we can see little of Deane's partisanship. Monk's honest indignation glows from between the lines. The whole proceeding was detestable to him; but staring him in the face was the one thing that ever raised him from his narrow views of duty, and that was the danger of his country. In spite of its insularity there was a genuineness about his patriotism that even won the admiration of his traducers. He made his choice, and took care that the answer which went back should show the reason why. It told in simple language, without a word of approval, how they had very seriously considered the news, and had finally resolved that as the nation had entrusted them with its defence it was their duty to defend it. In striking contrast was the enthusiastic answer that came back from Lilburne's army in the north. Years afterwards, in a similar crisis, Monk's acquiescence was thrown in his teeth. "I shall answer you that," he wrote. "It was never in my conscience to go out of God's way under the pretence of doing God's work; and you know the variety of times doth much vary the nature of affairs, and what might then patiently be submitted unto, we being engaged with a foreign enemy in a bloody war, cannot be drawn into a precedent at this time after our repentance."