To the Government's distrust Monk replied with contempt. His despatches at this time are curt and peremptory. He obviously detested the new state of things, and acquiesced in it only because it staved off the evil day he dreaded when he would be dragged, sword in hand, into the miserable political struggle which he had hitherto so successfully avoided. He sullenly did his duty, and that was all. He informed the Government of Royalist movements as regularly as ever, and engaged as actively in keeping the country quiet. Still, as though he foresaw the need his country was soon to have for Scotland's goodwill, he began to relax his hold, and with complete success. "The last two years of his government," it was said by a Scotchman, "were so mild and moderate, except with respect to the clergy, whose petulant and licentious tongues he curbed upon all occasions, that the nation would not have willingly changed it for any other but that of their natural prince." Yet his rule was so complete that in Scotland the great Royalist plot that was now in full maturity could not even show its head.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE ABORTIVE PRONUNCIAMENTO
Monk was now on the eve of the remarkable adventure which was to lift him from the position of an able officer to the dignity of a great historical figure. Fifty was then considered a ripe old age, and while most men of his years were looking round for a resting-place, he was about to begin his political career.
It was none of his own seeking. Thrifty and business-like to a fault, he had amassed a considerable fortune, and he began to turn his eyes longingly to his property in Ireland. At Ballymurn, between Wexford and Enniscorthy, he had an estate which had been granted to him in satisfaction of arrears of pay. It was in the midst of the most fertile and prosperous part of the island, and within easy reach of his old home. Ever since the beginning of 1657, with the colonial instinct still strong within him, he had been writing to Henry Cromwell, the Lord-Deputy of Ireland, that his only ambition now was to settle down as an Irish planter. All that kept him at his post, he told him, was his desire to see "your father and my dear friend better settled in his affairs." With Oliver's death and Richard's fall that motive was gone. Since Lambert had reappeared upon the scene his relations with head-quarters had not been pleasant. Each day they grew more strained, and he longed for retirement more ardently than ever.
Apart from politics his life at Dalkeith was pleasant enough. In the short intervals of relaxation from business he devoted himself to planting, gardening, and hunting, of which he was passionately fond. He was a man of strong domestic affections, and they grew with advancing years. On the whole his family life was happy. His wife was possessed of many good qualities. She was devoted to him, and in spite of her sharp tongue he was very fond of her. The loss of his baby son George was a great and lasting grief, but Christopher, his first-born, was left. Daughters he had none, but Mary Monk, the eldest girl of his favourite brother, had come to stay with him, and even now he was in correspondence with her father about her marriage and the dowry he was going to provide.
But however attractive grew the prospect of a quiet life in Ireland far away from the din of politics, retirement was now out of the question. On July 5th, 1659, he found it his duty to write the following warning to the Council of State: "I make bold to acquaint you that I hear that Charles Stuart hath laid a great design both in England and Ireland, but as yet I hear nothing that he hath written over to this country concerning that business. I am confident that if he had I should have heard of it."
By a strange irony almost as he penned the words his cousin, Sir John Grenville, was in consultation with Lord Mordaunt as to the best method of making the general a party to their design. It was the widespread conspiracy for a simultaneous rising of the King's friends in every county of which the vigilant governor had heard. Fortified with a new commission from the King, Mordaunt and his beautiful and courageous young wife had succeeded in hatching a really fine plot in concert with the more energetic members of the Sealed Knot. King and Cavaliers were to be kept in the background, and those constitutional Royalists, who as far as possible had never been in arms for the Crown, were to rise for a free Parliament and "the known laws of the land."
Mordaunt, in spite of his youth and the ardent enthusiasm which had goaded the inert Knot into taking up the movement, had a clear head. In his heart he knew that much more was to be done by gaining the leaders of the Opposition than by the best planned risings, and for him Monk's adhesion, or at least his neutrality, was of the first importance. By the whole of the King's councillors, however, the general, to his honour, was looked upon as unapproachable. It was in this difficulty that his sanguine young cousin saw the opportunity for which he had been so long preparing, and declared himself ready to undertake the task. At his request he was armed with an effusive letter from Charles to Monk, and a commission leaving him free to treat, with the sole limit that no more than a hundred thousand pounds a year was to be promised to the general and his officers. Grenville lost not a moment, and a few days later poor book-loving Nicholas was startled in his quiet Cornish rectory by a peremptory summons to London.