father on his deathbed to do nothing without the advice of the cautious general. On the abdication of Richard, Monk at first acquiesced in the change of the government and the restoration of the Rump; but on learning that the junto of officers had dissolved the parliament and had usurped all authority in the state, he took offence at their proceedings; and probably feeling some apprehensions regarding the security of his own position, he set out for London at the head of seven thousand veteran troops, with the professed object of freeing the parliament from the oppression of the soldiers. As he advanced towards the capital, the leading gentry of the various counties through which he passed, flocked around him, expressing their earnest desire that he would employ his power in restoring the kingdom to liberty and peace. But, habitually taciturn, selfish, and wary, he maintained an impenetrable reserve respecting his plans. The probability is, that he did not make up his mind what course he should follow till after he had been some days in the capital, and had satisfied himself as to the popular feeling. He then declared in favour of a free parliament, which when it assembled, as he must have foreseen, proceeded at once to take steps to restore the exiled family. Monk acted throughout with great caution and dissimulation, and took care to conceal his own views and his secret negotiations with Charles till the parliament had declared in favour of the restoration. He frustrated an attempt made by Sir Matthew Hale, to secure some more definite settlement before recalling the king; and to him it was mainly owing that Charles was restored to the throne of his ancestors, without any new securities being given against maladministration or a single provision made in favour of the cause of liberty. Monk's subsequent conduct showed that he was destitute alike of principle and of good feeling. He not only became a member of the commission for trying the regicides; but he acquiesced in the insults so meanly put upon the corpse of his old commander, the illustrious Blake; and he had the baseness and treachery, in order to procure the condemnation of Argyle, to give up some private letters which that nobleman had written to him, expressing attachment to the government of Cromwell.—(See Archibald Campbell.) He was speedily loaded with honours and rewards; was created Duke of Albemarle, Knight of the garter, sworn a member of the privy council, made master of the horse, gentleman of the bedchamber, and first commissioner of the treasury; and received the grant of an estate worth £7000 a year, besides various pensions. When war broke out with Holland in 1664, Monk was placed at the head of the admiralty. In the following year he was appointed, in conjunction with Prince Rupert, to the command of the fleet, and encountered the Dutch fleet in a desperate engagement which lasted four days, and terminated without any decisive result. On the death of the earl of Southampton in 1667 Monk was again placed at the head of the treasury; but failing health soon compelled him to retire in a great measure from public life. He died, 30th December, 1669, in the sixty-first year of his age, leaving an immense fortune to his only son by Anne Clarges, a milliner, who had been for some years his mistress before she became his wife. On the death of the second duke in 1688 the titles became extinct. Monk was little more than a fortunate military adventurer, brave, cautious, taciturn, and somewhat sluggish, but unprincipled, unscrupulous, selfish, and avaricious. Clarendon accuses him of taking bribes for the disposal of his patronage, and says—"Profit was always the highest reason with him." Monk's wife was a woman of masculine character and furious temper, and even exceeded him in avarice.—J. T.
MONMOUTH, James Scott, Duke of, was the natural son of King Charles II., by Lucy Walters, the daughter of a gentleman of Haverfordwest in the county of Pembroke. The lady was in Holland when she attracted the attention of the exiled prince, and their son was born at Rotterdam on the 9th April, 1649. He was committed to the care of Lord Crofts, by whose surname he was called until married to Anne, duchess of Buccleuch, when he assumed her name of Scott. The queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, became attached to him, and after keeping him in her family for several years, she brought him with her to London in 1662. The beautiful boy, of whom Dryden says—
" His motions all accompanied with grace.
And paradise was opened in his face"—
fascinated not only his fond, good-natured father, but the whole court, and all who came in contact with him He was immediately created Baron of Tindale, Earl of Doncaster, and Duke of Monmouth, and early in the following year was chosen a knight of the garter. In 1665 he was married to the richest heiress in Britain, Anne, daughter of the earl of Buccleuch; was created Duke of Buccleuch, appointed master of the horse, lord great-chamberlain, and high admiral of Scotland. In 1670, on the completion of his twenty-first year, he was sworn of the privy council. At court his triumphs were of a less honourable nature, for he let scarcely a day pass without engaging in some amour. In 1673 he served in the French army as a volunteer, and gained considerable reputation at the capture of Maestricht. In 1678 he was made commander-in-chief of the English forces in Scotland, and defeated the covenanters at Bothwell bridge. The great tenderness the king showed for him encouraged a faint hope that his legitimacy might be established, and the succession secured to him. Designing men fostered this feeling, and the crafty Shaftesbury set afloat the rumour that Charles had been married to Lucy Walters. James, duke of York, naturally alarmed at the thought of losing his inheritance, procured from the king a formal denial of the alleged marriage, and at the same time an order that Monmouth should quit the kingdom. The latter retired to Utrecht, and became the instrument of political intriguers. After soliciting permission to return, and being refused, he nevertheless did return in 1680. Then, under pretence of amusing himself, he made a kind of royal progress through the discontented counties of England, accompanied by a retinue of malcontent nobles, who were conspiring to excite a general insurrection throughout the country. The immediate fruit of this extensive conspiracy was the Rye-house plot, confined to a few whig desperadoes, who proposed to assassinate the king and his brother. The scheme was concealed from Monmouth, who loved his father too sincerely ever to have consented to parricide. Charles, persuaded of this, contrived to save his son from the punishment which fell heavily on the whig party on the discovery of the plot. A complete reconciliation might have been effected with both the king and the duke of York, had not Monmouth retracted his first penitent confession. Shame at betraying his friends seems to have prompted this course. Charles allowed the retractation to be made, but bade his son appear no more in his presence. The latter retired again to Holland, where he was well received by William of Orange and the Princess Mary. He soon became the life and soul of the court. Though still favoured and provided for by the king of England, he could not obtain his recall. At the very moment when Halifax, his intercessor, had given him hopes that his wish would be granted, the fatal news arrived that Charles had died (February 6, 1684), and that James II. reigned in his stead. Thus deprived of his best friend, Monmouth, obliged to quit the Dutch court, resolved to retire into private life, and went to Brussels accompanied by his paramour. Lady Henrietta Wentworth, who for love of him had sacrificed her maiden honour and the prospect of a splendid alliance. His feeble resolutions, however, were soon turned aside. The prince of Orange had in vain counselled him to join the imperial armies fighting in Hungary against the Turks, where his undoubted bravery might have secured him an honourable position. Baser counsellors—Robert Ferguson, Lord Grey, and the earl of Argyle—had more success in persuading him, against his own judgment, to undertake that rash and fatal expedition into England which terminated in the battle of Sedgemoor, and led Monmouth to the block. This expedition, the particulars of which are to be found in every history of England, lasted but seven weeks. Monmouth sailed from the Texel on the 24th of May, 1685, and he galloped away from Sedgemoor field on the 6th of July. Two days afterwards he was found crouching in a ditch, disguised in a shepherd's dress, and covered over with fern leaves—a few peas in his pocket being his only nourishment. A watch, a purse of gold, and the rich diamond badge of the garter, together with some superstitious charms, were also found in his pockets. A deeply interesting account of his capture, his removal to London, his craven letter to the king, his interview with James, his piteous supplications for life, and his most distressing death, will be found in the brilliant pages of Lord Macaulay's History of England. He was executed on Tower-hill, on Wednesday the 15th July, 1685. Almost his last words were expressive of his love for Lady Wentworth. After his death many handkerchiefs were dipped in his blood, and his memory was long cherished by the common people.—(See Lodge's Portraits.)—R. H.
