discoursing of his innocency.’ He had the liberty of the Tower in August 1616, and in October was let out on bail for a year. Coke's fall operated in his favour. On 12 Feb. 1617 Bacon and Yelverton both agreed that a fresh trial was unadvisable, since the evidence was purely conjectural, and to ‘rip up those matters now’ would be a mistake on the king's part. They therefore advised that Monson should plead his innocence again publicly and receive pardon. Accordingly, Monson was brought to the bar of the king's bench; his pardon was read; he affirmed his innocence, and reflected on Coke's treatment of him (22 Feb. 1617).
Although released, he was not restored to royal favour till 1620, when he was allowed to kiss hands. His posts had all been taken from him in 1615, and his affairs seem to have become embarrassed. In 1620 he had to lease his lands in Lincolnshire to pay his debts, and there are various petitions about his money matters in the state paper office. In 1625 he received the small office of clerk for the king's letters, bills, and declarations before the council of the north; about 1618 he and his son John had a grant of the stewardship of the duchy of Lancaster.
Monson spent his old age in retirement. He amused himself by writing a book of advice for his grandson: ‘An Essay on Afflictions,’ printed 1661–2, and another on ‘Fasting, Adoration, and Prayer.’ He was an accomplished man, ‘a great lover of music.’ He seems to have educated young musicians ‘as good as England had,’ especially singers, in his household, and ‘was at infinite charge in breeding some [singers] in Italy.’ His enemies called him ‘proud and odious.’ He died at South Carlton in May 1641, aged 77, and was buried 29 May in the church there. By his wife Margaret (d. 1630), daughter of Sir Edmund Anderson [q. v.], lord chief justice of the common pleas, he had four sons, three of whom lived to maturity, and four daughters. His eldest son, Sir John (1600–1683), and the second, Sir William (d. 1672?), are separately noticed.
[Collins's Peerage, 1779, vii. 284; Carew's Letters, pp. 17, 20, 363; State Trials, ii. 949; Amos's Great Oyer of Poisoning, p. 213, &c.; Wilson's Truth brought to Light; Nichols's Progresses of James I, i. 164, 555, ii. 24n., 452; Oxf. Univ. Registers, i. 237, ii. 89; State Papers, James I, 1603–36; Gardiner's History, ii. 180, 334, 345, 363; Lives of Bacon and Coke, &c.]
MONSON, Sir WILLIAM (1569–1643), admiral, was the third son of Sir John Monson of South Carlton in Lincolnshire, where his family had been settled for many generations. On 2 May 1581 he matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, being registered as then fourteen (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) ; but he himself has recorded that in 1585, being then sixteen, he went off to sea without the knowledge of his mother or father, and entered on board a ship with letters of reprisal. After a long cruise, they fell in with a Biscay ship one September evening. A very severe fight followed. The English boarded the Spaniard ; but the sea got up and their ship was obliged to cast oif, leaving her men to their fate. The struggle went on all night ; and the next morning, most of the English and nearly all the Spaniards being killed or wounded, the ship was surrendered. She was the first Spanish prize, Monson says, that ever saw the English shore. The success confirmed him in his adventurous career, and, having been reconciled to his father, he was put in command of a private ship of war, in which he cruised as far as the Canaries. The voyage lasted longer than was expected ; their provisions ran short, and with great difficulty, in storm and fog, they made Dingle Bay in Ireland, just as they were reduced to their last biscuit.
In 1588 Monson was lieutenant of the Charles, a small queen's ship, one of the fleet against the Armada ; and in 1589 he commanded the Margaret, one of the ships with the Earl of Cumberland in his voyage to the Azores and the Canaries [see Clifford, George, third Earl of Cumberland]. The Margaret was sent home with some of the prizes, while Monson, moving into the Victory, remained with the earl. They were unable to water at the Canaries, and were reduced to very terrible straits on the homeward voyage. 'The extremity we endured,' says Monson, 'was more terrible than befell any ship in the eighteen years' war;' but when he adds 'for sixteen days together we never tasted drop of drink, either beer, wine, or water' (Naval Tracts, 461), it is quite certain that his memory was guilty of some exaggeration. Privation and suffering brought on a severe illness, and for the next year Monson remained on shore. In 1591 he commanded the Garland in Cumberland's expedition to the coast of Spain, and was left in charge of a Dutch ship with a Portuguese cargo. She was recaptured by the Spaniards, and Monson became a prisoner. For two years he was detained, part of the time on board the galleys at Cascaes or in the Tagus, and part of the time in the castle of Lisbon. Although not actually ill-used, the treatment of a prisoner was severe, the confinement was close, and the daily allowance for food was equivalent to threepence. One day
