Monk's warning was not the only one which reached the Council. Sir Richard Willis, the most trusted member of the Knot and an old friend of Monk's, was revealing everything but the names of the Cavaliers engaged. The only anxiety of the Government was to conceal its information from the conspirators. At every point it was ready. Lambert and Fleetwood were old hands at the work. Their idea apparently was to allow the rising to take place, tempt the King to land, and then inflict a blow which would at once crush their adversaries and give themselves an unassailable prestige. Amongst other precautions Monk was ordered to send two regiments of horse and two of foot into England, and it is significant that he obeyed without demur.
At the last moment an officious postmaster spoilt all. In a fit of zeal he intercepted an important letter. The Royalists got to hear of it, lost their heads, and the rising was nipped in the bud, or abandoned everywhere but in Cheshire and Lancashire. There Sir George Booth successfully established himself, and Lambert marched against him.
Amidst the din and bustle of military preparation Nicholas Monk arrived in London, and with no little alarm heard from Grenville's lips what was required of him. Ostensibly for the purpose of settling his daughter's marriage, and bringing her back to Cornwall, he was to carry the King's letters to his brother and negotiate the secret treaty. Nicholas flatly refused to touch the letters. They were far too dangerous. He consented, however, to carry a verbal message, and was solemnly sworn not to breathe a word of the very delicate affair to any one but his brother.
The only difficulty was how to reach Dalkeith. Lambert's troops blocked every road, and it was found necessary to take Clarges into their confidence. The only objection was that the cunning commissary, who knew everything, would certainly not believe Nicholas was going on his daughter's account. He had to be told that the parson's real mission was from the constitutional gentry of Devon and Cornwall. Some such mission he really had. Clarges refused to engage in the affair, but consented to provide Nicholas with a passage on a Government ship to Leith, and cautioned him against letting any one know his business except Dr. Barrow, the general's physician, and Dr. Price, his private chaplain.
Meanwhile Monk was being approached from another quarter. Lord Fairfax, it is said, had undertaken as part of the general movement to raise the gentlemen of the north, but he was far too good a soldier not to see the futility of the attempt if Monk chose to oppose it. He would not stir till he had come to an understanding with the Scots' governor, and to this end Colonel Atkins, on pretence of visiting relations in Fife, was ordered to go to Dalkeith. Atkins had commanded a company under Monk in Lord Leicester's regiment in 1641. They were old brothers-in-arms, and Monk received him so kindly that the colonel ventured to disclose the intention of the gentlemen of the north, and ask the general what he would do if they began to make their levies. He had his answer in a moment. "If they do appear," said Monk sharply, "I will send a force to suppress them. By the duty of my place I can do no less."
Such was his reply, but "the duty of my place" was for him no longer the magic solvent of all ethical difficulties that it had been. During his long proconsulship "honest George" had developed from the soldier into the statesman. True he clung still to his cherished first-born as ardently as ever. "I am not one of those," he had just written to the Speaker, "that seek great things, having had my education in a commonwealth where soldiers received and observed commands but gave none.... Obedience is my great principle, and I have always and ever shall reverence the Parliament's resolution in civil things as infallible and sacred." That the military power must be subject to the civil was still his creed, but it was no longer the whole of it. He began to see that for the rule to hold good the civil power must be that which was authorised by the Constitution; that it must be the power to which the Government was entrusted by the country. Since the deposition of the King and the abdication of the Protector the constitutional civil power was the Parliament, and the junto of politicians who were sitting at Westminster was not the Parliament. It was a truth he would perhaps have been slower to grasp had they treated him better in the matter of commissions; but they had stupidly forced the situation home to the hard-witted soldier, and having once embraced the idea he was not likely to abandon it. Nor was this all. The man of the hour was Lambert, his old rival, and the very apostle of the doctrines he abhorred. For Lambert the army was a political body which had won the people their liberties, and which alone was capable of administering them. His idea of the army was that it should be an executive corporation as self-contained and independent as other men at other times have sought to make the Church. For this Cromwell had discarded him. For this he had come upon the scene once more, and the civil power was in league with him.
Such was the light in which Monk viewed the situation when on August 8th his brother arrived at Dalkeith. The general was as usual up to his eyes in business. His ante-room was thronged with officers waiting for orders, and he had to commit Nicholas to the care of Dr. Price. The two parsons soon fraternised. Nicholas was bursting with his secret. The simple country rector grew more and more nervous as the time went on. The nearer the task of broaching the subject to his formidable brother was approached the less he liked it. At last he could contain himself no longer. Regardless of his oath and Grenville's cautions, he blurted out his whole secret and begged Price's assistance. The astute chaplain was aghast at the negotiator's indiscretion, for not only had he disclosed the western gentlemen's mission as Clarges had authorised him, but he had let out Sir John Grenville's too. Fortunately Price was a Royalist, and no harm was done. But he warned his simple visitor of the atmosphere in which the general was existing. It was a miasma of distrust and suspicion which none but "honest George" could have breathed and lived. Every eye was watching for a sign. The slightest indiscretion might be fatal, and absolute secrecy was a necessity. At the same time he gave him every encouragement. Mrs. Monk, he said, was constantly urging her husband to make a move, and he permitted her to talk the rankest treason every night. In her he would certainly find an active ally, and he himself would do his best. Finally he told him the best way to approach the general. The soldier was not without his superstitions, and Nicholas was advised to pave the way for his disclosures with some old wives' prophecies about the future greatness of the family which he had brought out of Devonshire.
Thus prepared he was conducted to his brother. A few officers were still waiting in the ante-room. One of them at once suspiciously asked Price what was the meaning of Nicholas's visit. Price put him off with the story of Mary Monk, but nevertheless Nicholas was more alarmed than ever, and began to see that conspiring was not the simple affair of tokens and cyphers which he had thought.
No one was present at the interview between the brothers that evening, and no one knows exactly what occurred, but it is certain that its effect was to give George a much more serious view of the Great Design than he had before. His contempt for Cavalier conspiracies was profound, and Grenville's message had probably very little effect upon him. He did not know his young cousin personally, and looked upon him merely as one more of those enthusiastic young gentlemen whose sportive delight in hairbrained plots and whose passion for mystery were always leading them into scrapes and indefinitely postponing the Restoration. But Nicholas brought out of Devonshire a message from a very different man. Their kinsman, William Morice, had associated himself with Stukeley and the other western gentlemen, and Morice's administration of Monk's Devonshire estates seems to have given the general a profound faith in that gentleman's practical sagacity. Morice's approval at least assured him that the Presbyterians were engaged, and that Sir George Booth's rising was not a mere Cavalier plot. He was already considerably impressed by Lord Fairfax's adhesion, and now he began to see that whether or not the movement would end in the Restoration, the country was in earnest about having a real Parliament elected to settle some permanent form of government.
Nicholas gave Price such a favourable account of his interview that he looked upon the general as practically engaged. Still Monk gave no sign. Morice's advice involved, to say the least, putting pressure on the men whose commissions he held and whose pay he was taking. It was a serious obstacle, but everything continued to deepen the impression which Atkins and Nicholas had begun. Every post brought news that Booth's position was improving, and no doubt Mrs. Monk did her best when the curtains were drawn. Next week Colonel Atkins returned. Again he was well received, and Monk seems to have taken the opportunity of arranging a regular system of correspondence with Lord Fairfax, but nothing further appeared.