When on Thursday at noon the Dutch came on once more fifty guns, besides those which had arrived from Gravesend, were in position, and a furious fire was opened on them. The Dutch stood on in spite of it, and engaged Upnor Castle and the batteries with the coolest effrontery. Between the broadsides English deserters on board the enemy were heard jeering at the Government that had cheated them of their pay, and under cover of the intrepid attack the fire-ships passed on to where the three great ships were sunk. They were still an easy prey. Their upper works still towered above the water. Not a boat was to be found to stop the progress of the fire-ships. Helpless but defiant still, the old terror of the Dutch drew down to the shore, and taking his stand, cane in hand, with his Guards at his back, where the fire was hottest, watched the humbling of the flag which he and Blake and Oliver had raised so high. The fire-ships had soon done their work: the three finest ships that were left to England were a mass of flames; and no ball had come to end the bitterness of the old general's shame.
The Dutch retired with the ebb, and Monk, whom since the morning the anxious King had been summoning to his side to allay the panic in the capital, went up to town. He had saved the dock-yard and two-thirds of the fleet, but it did little to soothe his indignation, and he reached Whitehall at two o'clock next morning storming at those who had rejected his advice to fit out the fleet and treat sword in hand. On his arrival a report was circulated that he had been made Lord High Constable, and the immediate effect seems to have been a restoration of confidence. Something like order and definite purpose was infused into the work of blocking the Thames, and the Dutch thought fit to try and surprise other ports. But everywhere they found to their cost that they had no longer the Board of Admiralty to deal with. The hand of the lord-general was at every point, and wherever they attempted to land they were at once repulsed with loss. They returned to the Nore, but it was only to find that their old enemy had now set his mark there also. Thames and Medway bristled with guns and defensive works, and no further offensive operation was attempted till peace was signed.
Whatever was the fact, the country believed that old George had saved it from invasion and the miseries to which it had been exposed by Charles's treacherous councillors. The Monmouth incident was sung in ballads, and the general was compared to his immortal kinsman the great Sir Richard Grenville. Parliament met in a rage. Ravenous for a scapegoat, they went into committee on the late miscarriages, and the first result was a vote of thanks to the lord-general.
It was but little consolation to the old man. The disgrace at Chatham had been a terrible blow to him, and his tremendous exertions had told upon his shattered constitution. In despair he saw Charles return to the lap of his mistresses, indolent and profligate and careless as ever; and he fell back into the lethargy from which he had roused himself at his country's call. For some time it had been growing on him as his terrible disease advanced with secret strides. The following year dropsy declared itself, but still he clung to his post and occupied himself incessantly with the duties of his office. In the autumn, however, it became so bad, and was so complicated by an affection of the heart and lungs, that he was compelled to retire to Newhall, his seat in Essex, for rest and change of air. The old rumour that he had been poisoned was revived, and caused great anger among the people;[15] for in him shone the only ray of hope, the only spark of honesty amidst the night of treachery and corruption in which the country seemed lost.
During the winter he grew worse, but still neglected all precautions. His extraordinary constitution had bred in him a contempt for medicine and an insuperable impatience of the restraints which medical treatment entailed. At last, however, being almost unable to breathe, he was induced to try some pills invented by an old soldier of his who had set up as a doctor. Strangely enough he experienced immediate relief, and by the end of the summer he returned to Whitehall thinking himself entirely cured. Once more he threw himself into the business of State with something of his old ardour, till with winter came a relapse to warn men that his end was near.
Every one flocked to the Cockpit to pay his respects to the renowned invalid and to look once more upon the embodiment of the iron age that was past. Parliament was sitting, and the great strife between the Houses over Skinner's case was at its height. Lords and Commons called on their way from Westminster, and forgetful even then of all but his country's peace, the stout old general, as he sat up in his chair wearily gasping for breath, implored them to come to a good understanding. Sir John Grenville, now Earl of Bath, was assiduous in his attendance, and Gilbert Sheldon, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, who all through the plague had stood unflinching by the general's side, prayed with him constantly. Even the laughter-loving King tore himself almost daily from the society of Lady Castlemaine to endure for a little while the distressing sight.
Though to the last Monk could not quite believe that his disease had mastered him, yet he viewed the prospect of his approaching death with the same quiet resolution with which he had looked it in the face a hundred times before. He thought he still might live to staunch the bleeding wounds of his country and see its King a man again. But if he might not raise it, he at least could leave it with little regret now it was sunk so low. For years his own life had been a pattern of temperance and chastity, and the unblushing sin with which his great achievement had deluged the country was the source of real and poignant grief to him.
But one desire really bound him to life, and that was to see his son married. Christopher was now a gallant of about eighteen years old, and ever since his father was first taken ill a marriage had been in course of arrangement between him and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, granddaughter of the Duke of Newcastle. Now at the eleventh hour the business was completed, and on December 30th the young couple were brought to the general's chamber. There beside his chair, as he sat gasping for life, they were married, and the last faint effort of the arms that had lifted a king on to his throne was to take the silly girl he had chosen and place her feebly in the arms of the beloved son she was destined to ruin. It was a tragic wedding indeed, and with it the doom of the ancient house of Monk was sealed. No child blessed the ill-omened union, and the extravagance of the half-witted bride soon drove the young duke to those evil courses which dragged him to his untimely end. The last of his race, he brought his father's name and titles in dishonour to the ground. With the crown of the Stuarts fell the coronet of Albemarle. For by strange irony, as William of Orange was on the eve of sailing to dethrone the dynasty which the first duke had so triumphantly restored, the last duke was dying in Jamaica a broken gambler and a sot.
Happily ignorant of what he did, the dying father resigned himself to the end which was now inevitable. At four o'clock on New Year's morning, 1670, he insisted on being removed to his sitting-room. Just ten years ago in the fulness of his strength he had risen from his uneasy couch at Coldstream to order his vanguard to cross the Tweed on their eventful march. Now as then, it was freezing bitterly, and no fire was alight. Gumble hurried to his side. He saw death in the smile which greeted him, and hastened to read the service for the Visitation of the Sick. Later in the day the Sacrament was administered, and the world knew the great man was in extremity. All Sunday they flocked to take their leave of him in such numbers that it was impossible to keep the room clear for a minute. It was the anniversary of the great day of his life, the Second of January, when he himself at the head of his army had crossed the Rubicon of the English Revolution, and like Cromwell's, his victories seemed to cluster round his head even as Death laid his hand upon it.
All night he lingered clinging to life. Erect in his chair, as the people loved to remember, he defied even Death to make him bend, and at the last received him sitting like a king. To the end he maintained that he would live if only the bitter frost would loose its grip, and till dawn he obstinately held his enemy at bay. Then as the sun rose warm and bright and the frost began to break, the faithful Coldstreamers, who were watching in the silent chamber, heard "a single small groan," and the brave spirit of their chief was free at last.