The famous movement had begun. Colonel Knight, by a splendid march through the snow, reached Morpeth with the vanguard the same evening. Finding Lambert had fallen back against Fairfax, he continued his advance, and the following morning surprised and seized Newcastle at break of day. The general followed with the rest of the army. All told it consisted of but four weak regiments of horse and six fine ones of foot. It was divided into two brigades, one under himself and the other under Morgan. The first night they reached Wooler, and heard officially from the Speaker of the restoration of the Rump, and unofficially that Lambert, deserted by his army, had disappeared. The Speaker's letter contained an acknowledgment of Monk's services, but no orders. He therefore ignored his unofficial intelligence and continued his advance. On the 4th he reached Morpeth, where he was received by the Sheriff of Northumberland. Next day arrived from London the City Sword-bearer with a petition from the Lord Mayor and Corporation that he would declare for a full Parliament, as they were unrepresented in the Rump. A deputation from the Newcastle municipality invited him to the town, and accordingly he entered it amidst the first of those ovations which were to mark every step of his memorable march.
Yet in spite of the enthusiasm that his soldierly figure excited whenever it appeared in the streets, Monk could not congratulate himself on his position. He had practically failed. Instead of giving his country a free Parliament he had restored the Rump. For England he saw nothing but new political troubles, for himself a repetition of the suspicion and ingratitude he had already experienced. Still he held their commission, and felt bound to do his duty to them. All else was dark before him. So Dr. Gumble was sent to London to convey his compliments and humble advice to the authorities, and as secretly as possible to see what could be made out of the situation. Nor did he depart further from the path of duty than to allow an officer to proceed to his old comrades in Ireland, suggesting that the Irish army should petition for a free Parliament.
From Coldstream, as soon as he heard the Rump was sitting, he had written to the Speaker for orders. As yet none had arrived, and he determined, in pursuance of his new authority as commander-in-chief, to advance to York. There he arrived on the 11th, to find no trace of Fairfax or his party. They had disappeared, and the city was in the hands of troops who had gone over to the Parliament. The rest of Lambert's deserters had joined the Yorkshire gentlemen, but had sent to the right-about every Cavalier that had shown himself at the rendezvous. Buckingham himself, Fairfax's own son-in-law, had had to go in spite of his irreproachable professions. York had refused to receive any of Fairfax's partisans. Lord Fairfax himself, sensible of a fiasco, had made a fit of the gout an excuse for retiring to his own house. However, on Monk's arrival he entered the city in state to see him. With every argument he urged him to stay where he was and declare for the King. Monk of course refused, but he could not prevent his association with Fairfax arousing the old suspicions. No means was omitted to clear himself. An officer was heard to say that Monk would at last bring in Charles Stuart, and the old general, in a fit of exasperation, publicly gave him a sound thrashing for his pains.
Still these suspicions were not without their value. The Rump shared them. They dare not leave him with Fairfax; they dare not order him to retreat. There was no course but to tell him to advance, and Monk obeyed with alacrity. Sending Morgan back to keep Scotland quiet, and leaving Colonel Fairfax to occupy York, he marched on the 16th with an army increased, by a careful selection from Lambert's deserters, to nearly six thousand men. His progress was a triumph. The peasantry thronged to the highway to stare at the deliverer as he passed. The church-bells rang. The gentry came in troops with addresses, urging on him the necessity of a full Parliament. Silent as a sphinx, the harassed soldier rode on through it all, while all the world watched him. Every eye, every ear, was strained for a sign; and a safe platitude or two about his country's welfare and the duty of his place was all that could be dragged from his impenetrable reserve.
As he advanced his perplexities and his silence increased. On the 18th Gumble met him at Mansfield to say that already half the House were his declared enemies. An oath for the abjuration of the Stuart dynasty had been imposed upon the new Council of State, of which he had been made a member. An attempt, however, to order its administration to the House had led to a determined resistance from the best of the old Commonwealth men. The House was split into two factions, and Monk's popularity with the non-abjurers was but adding to the suspicions of the abjurers. At Nottingham Clarges arrived to confirm and add to Gumble's intelligence. A deputation, consisting of Scot, the new Secretary of State, and Robinson, another abjuring member of the Government, was on its way to offer him the congratulations of the House, but with secret instructions to watch his every movement and endeavour to entrap him into abjuring. The London garrison, too, had by no means acquiesced in Fleetwood's surrender, and was still in a state of sullen hostility. It was clear that the crisis was not yet at an end, and there was still hope for Monk, that if he could once establish himself in London and keep things quiet, one party or the other would force on a general election. The chief difficulty was Fleetwood's army. It was stronger than Monk's, and out of its entire roll only two foot regiments, Morley's and Fagg's, could be trusted. Ashley Cooper had a regiment of horse, but it certainly would not obey him. Fortunately in the House the non-abjurers were in the majority, and at Clarges's suggestion Monk used his few remaining hours of liberty to prepare a letter to the Speaker pointing out the advisability of removing from about the Parliament the regiments which were as yet hardly cool from rebellion.
On Monday the 22nd he continued his march, and before Leicester was reached Scot and Robinson appeared. From that moment he could not call his soul his own. By day they had him to ride in their coach, by night they bored holes in the partitions that separated their room from his. They got up discussions at meals and stood at his elbow while he received the endless deputations and addresses that were showered in his path. All was of no avail. The old soldier stuck to the plain rule that had served him so well through life, and was not to be caught. Finding the situation was getting beyond him, he patiently resumed his unassailable position of the obedient and disinterested soldier of fortune. He received the commissioners as his superior officers. The troops had orders to halt and present arms whenever their coach passed, and in every way they were treated with the ceremony reserved for a commander-in-chief. The commissioners were delighted, and sent glowing accounts to the Speaker. They even accepted the general's excuse for not at once taking the Oath of Abjuration. He had understood, he said, that some members of the Government had refused it, and he felt it was better to wait till he got to London and could hear both sides.
The deputations from the city and the counties that met him at every town as he proceeded knew not what to make of it. The general received them with the utmost civility, and the commissioners railed at their petitions. The principal points they variously urged were a full and free Parliament, a dissolution, and the admission of the members secluded in 1648 without any previous oath or engagement. Sometimes the general found himself compelled to answer them. If the Parliament were not yet free, he told them, he would endeavour to remove the restraint that remained. The House had already decided to fill up the vacant places, and then it would be full. It had agreed to dissolve itself of its own accord, and as for admitting members to sit without any engagement to the Government, such a thing was never heard of, and besides, the House had decided not to readmit them. And he politely expressed his surprise that they thought him capable of so far forgetting his duty to his commission as to question the resolution. Thoroughly disheartened the deputations retired to fall into the hands of enthusiastic staff-officers, who filled them with new wonder. Monk seems to have told his friends to do their best to remove any bad impression his reception of the addresses might arouse, and they interpreted their instructions with some freedom. Lavish promises were made in the general's name, and every one was told to proceed actively with the petitioning without paying the slightest attention to what Monk pretended to think of them.
So the people only shouted more loudly and the bells rang more merrily as the triumph went on through Harborough, Northampton, Dunstable, till on the 28th St. Albans was reached. Here a halt was made to allow the columns to close up and for the crucial request to be made. For Monk determined from here to despatch the letter which had been prepared at Nottingham. Clarges was sent on before to pave the way for its reception. It was a critical moment. The House had just confirmed Monk's commission of general. It was a rank then considered so dangerously exalted as to be hardly ever conferred. Indeed before the Revolution it had seldom been borne except by the sovereign, and already the quidnuncs began to talk of his alliance with the Plantagenets. It was the very point upon which the leaders of the army had finally broken with Parliament, and the first act of Monk in his new capacity was to request that the whole of Fleetwood's troops might be removed from the capital to make way for his own.
A violent debate ensued. Haslerig opposed it with all his weight, but so well organised were the non-abjurers and so favourable had been Scot's reports that the request was granted. The great difficulty was overcome, and on February 2nd Monk moved to Barnet. That night for the first time the commissioners slept in another house. Apparently they intended to make one despairing effort on the part of the abjurers to keep Monk from peacefully occupying the capital. At all events about midnight the Secretary of State rushed into Monk's quarters in his night-shirt and slippers crying that the apprentices were out and the garrison in mutiny. He implored, he commanded Monk to march on the spot and restore order, but the old general was perfectly unmoved. He grimly told him he would undertake to be in London early enough in the morning to prevent mischief, and Scot had to go back to bed. Some considerable disturbance there had been, but before Monk marched next day it had been easily suppressed by a few troops of horse and something on account of arrears.
Next night there was high feasting at Westminster. Weeks ago at Holyrood Monk's butler had promised the staff a bottle of wine at Whitehall on Candlemas Day. He was a wag whom Charles the First had mock-knighted one evening at supper with his table-knife in the old days at Oxford. It was only a day late, and "Sir" Ralph Mort was called on to pay his wager as the general sat with the Coldstreamers in the "Prince's Apartment" rejoicing at the success of their move. Everything had gone well. Days before at Nottingham the details of the occupation had been arranged, and the troops had quietly marched to their quarters without a hitch. True the Coldstreamers' reception had not been enthusiastic. In vain had Monk ridden down Chancery Lane and the Strand at the head of his army, with trumpeters and led horses and all the pomp of a general in the field. In vain was his staff swelled by a brilliant crowd of gaily-dressed gentlemen. For the thoughtful the general's intentions were too dark: for the thoughtless his troops were too shabby; and the entry was made with the cold precision of an operation of war.