cr. 6 July 1660 duke of ALBEMARLE
First sat 16 July 1660; last sat 4 Nov. 1669
MP Devon 1653, c. Apr.-7 July 1660.
b. 6 Dec. 1608, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Monck‡ (d. 1629) of Potheridge, Devon, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Smith‡ of Madworth House, Exeter; bro. of Nicholas Monck, bp of Hereford from 1660. educ. unknown. m. 23 Jan. 1653, Anne (d. 29 Jan. 1670), da. of John Clarges, farrier, of Drury Lane, Westminster, presumed wid. of Thomas Radford, of New Exchange, Strand, Westminster, 2s. (1 d.v.p.). KG 26 May 1660; suc. bro. May 1647. d. 3 Jan. 1670; will 8 June 1665, pr. 4 Jan 1670.1
Commr. for settlement [S] 1651–2, admiralty 1652–9, Feb.–July 1660; councillor of state [S] 1655–May 1660; commr. for security [S] 1656, army Oct. 1659; councillor of state 2 Jan.–28 May 1660; PC 27 May 1660–d.; master of the horse May 1660–8; ld. of treasury June–Sept. 1660, first ld. 1667–d.; ld. lt. [I] June 1660–1; master, Trinity House June 1660–1, commr. for trade Nov. 1660–d.; gent. of the bedchamber Nov. 1660–d.; commr. for coronation claims Dec. 1660–1, loyal and indigent officers 1662, Tangier 1662–d., sale of Dunkirk 1662, prize appeals 1665–7; assessment of peers 1663;2 dep. ld. high adm. 1665; commr. for public accounts 1668.3
Commr. for assessment, Devon 1652, 1657, Jan. 1660; freeman, Portsmouth 1653; commr. for militia, Devon 1659, Devon and Mdx. Mar. 1660; kpr. St. James’s Park Feb. 1660–d.; custos rot. Devon Mar. 1660–d.; ld. lt. Devon July 1660–d., Mdx. 1662–d.; commr. for sewers, Lincs. Aug. 1660, Yorks. (E. Riding) 1664;4 kpr. Hampton Court Aug. 1660–d.; bailiff, Teddington, Byfleet, and Ashtead Aug. 1660–d.; warden, Finkley forest by Dec. 1660–d.; member, corp. for propagation of the Gospel in New England 1661; high steward, Kingston-upon-Hull 1661–d., Exeter 1662–d., Barnstaple 1664–d.; commr. for oyer and terminer, Home, Midland, Norfolk, Northern, and Oxford circuits 1662; commr. York 1662;5 ld. proprietor Carolina 1663, palatine 1669–d.; asst. Royal Adventurers into Africa 1664–d.
Ensign 1627–8, 1629 (Dutch army); capt. of ft. c. 1631–8; lt. col. of ft. (roy.) 1639–44; adj. gen. of ft. [I] (parl.) 1646–9; gov. of Carrickfergus 1648–9, Wexford 1661–d.;6 col. of ft. 1650–d., Coldstream Gds. 1661; lt. gen. 1651; c.-in-c. [S] 1651–2, 1654–Jan. 1660; gen. at sea 1652–3, 1666; col. of horse 1654–61; ld. gen. Nov. 1659; capt. gen. Aug. 1660–d.
FRS 1665.
Associated with: Potheridge, Devon, New Hall, Essex; Cockpit, Whitehall, Westminster.
Likenesses: watercolour miniature, by S. Cooper, c. 1658, Royal Collection); oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c. 1660, NPG 423, version in NMM; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely (Garter Robes), National Galleries of Scotland, PG 900; engraving, by D. Loggan, 1661, NPG 833.
Early life and military career
The Moncks were one of the oldest gentry families in Devon, having been settled at Potheridge since the twelfth century. Although the family had social pretensions (they claimed descent from the Plantagenets) Sir Thomas Monck’s finances were precarious and were not alleviated by his marriage to the daughter of Sir George Smith, a wealthy Exeter merchant. Nevertheless the young George Monck was initially brought up by his maternal grandfather and Sir Thomas confidently expected that this close personal relationship would result in a substantial legacy to the Monck family at Sir George’s death. Sir George died in 1619 but the expected legacy did not materialize, with the result that Sir Thomas’ finances deteriorated still further, to the point that he had difficulty in satisfying even minor creditors.
It was almost certainly some episode relating to his debts that precipitated a quarrel with John Battyn, under-sheriff of Devon, who was accused of having committed ‘some wrongs’ against Sir Thomas. Since Sir Thomas is known to have been in a debtor’s gaol by January 1626, it seems likely that (as described by Gumble, one of Monck’s earliest biographers) Battyn had reneged on a deal to permit Sir Thomas to appear in public without fear of arrest for debt during Charles I’s passage through Devon in the autumn of 1625. On 30 Sept. 1626 the teenage George Monck, together with his older brother Thomas and John Pollard, avenged Sir Thomas’ humiliation by mounting a vicious and otherwise unprovoked attack on Battyn at an Exeter inn. Although Gumble described the incident as though it were a somewhat minor cudgelling, surviving depositions show that this was a brutal beating in which George Monck played a leading part. He also stabbed the unarmed victim, who later died of his injuries.7
George Monck was lucky to avoid trial and conviction for murder especially as the attack clearly violated the clear but unwritten rules of honourable combat, even in terms of combat against a social inferior. Some thought he was more than lucky – that his family’s influence coupled with powerful local interests had connived to protect him. They were probably right: by April 1627 Monck was either in hiding or had fled; by the summer he was serving as an ensign in the company captained by his kinsman Sir Richard Grenville, as part of the expedition against the Isle of Rhé.8
Monck became a professional soldier campaigning across Europe until his return to the British Isles in or about 1638.9 At the outbreak of the civil wars he fought for the king, but his loyalty was suspect and in 1643 he had to justify himself in an interview with the king. He then rejoined the royalist army but shortly afterwards was captured by the parliamentarians at the battle of Nantwich (1644) and imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of high treason. During this period he is said to have met and to have made a mistress of his future wife.
By the summer of 1646 the royalist cause was clearly lost. On 1 July 1646 the Commons learned that Monck was prepared to take the negative oath and that if discharged from his imprisonment in the Tower would leave the country.10 By November he had changed sides and the committee of both kingdoms reported ‘That Colonel Monk hath been at this committee; and hath engaged his honour that he will faithfully serve the Parliament in this war in Ireland, if he may be employed thither; that he hath taken the negative oath, and is ready to take the covenant’. Both Houses then accepted his offer of service in Ireland.11 It seems unlikely that later legends that he swore never to be an enemy to the king had any basis in reality; there is no corroboration of the story later retailed by Gumble that Monck received the blessing of the royalist Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely, and even if there were it would be open to an interpretation that Monck was somewhat cynically ensuring his ability to attach himself to whatever side emerged victorious.
In the aftermath of the execution of Charles I Monck’s actions in Ireland again called his loyalties into question but he was able to explain his conduct to Parliament, and Oliver Cromwell‡ was sufficiently convinced of his reliability to use his services in the invasion of Scotland (1650) and to give him command of a regiment of guards. In 1651, when Cromwell returned to England, Monck was left behind as commander-in-chief of Scotland. He subsequently served with distinction as one of the three generals of the fleet and was returned to Parliament as knight of the shire for Devon in 1653. His services were well rewarded: in 1652 Parliament passed an ordinance granting him the barony of Kinneil, confiscated from James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S], which he sold for over £5,000. He did so without guaranteeing the purchaser’s title, allegedly telling him that he must ‘take the hazard of the turn of the times’.12 He also received substantial grants of land in Ireland.
Monck’s loyalty to the Cromwellian regime was demonstrated by his prompt action against potential rebels in his own regiment and by his active promotion of a marriage between his niece, Elizabeth Monck, and Thomas Pride, eldest son and namesake of the regicide colonel who had grown wealthy under the Cromwellian regime.13 In 1647 Monck had succeeded to the somewhat modest family patrimony at Potheridge on the death of his older brother. Long after his own death it was alleged that he had fraudulently claimed possession of the estate under a non-existent entail and that it should have passed instead to Elizabeth Monck as the common-law heiress. As there is no surviving family archive and since the majority of Devon wills were destroyed in the Blitz in World War II, it is now almost impossible to establish the truth of this allegation. Notes compiled in the course of later litigation include references to an entail of 1627 but do not clarify its provisions.14 Whether guilty of sharp practice or not, Monck did his best to guarantee his niece’s future as carefully as he could, including insuring against the possibility of a royalist revival: while he required his purchasers to accept that there could be no guarantee of title to confiscated lands, he protected his niece by insisting that her marriage settlement (made in or before 1653) specifically forbid the use of her portion to buy land formerly belonging to the king, bishops, deans and chapters, or delinquents.15
In 1653 Monck married. In later years this marriage became the topic of much gossip. Despite the poverty of his early life, he was of unquestionable gentry lineage, with pretensions to an aristocratic background. This, together with his wealth and his status as the hero of the Restoration, ensured that his lack of social graces could be interpreted as a bluff, soldierly manner. His wife’s behaviour was treated less kindly: ‘Her former station’ wrote one commentator, ‘shows itself in her manners and dress, being in no way remarkable for elegance or gentility.’16 Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, and Samuel Pepys‡ went further, calling her ‘a filthy woman’ and ‘the veriest slut and drudge’.17
Although it is possible that John Clarges was rather more than a working craftsman, the very fact that a duchess’s father could be described as a farrier was considered risible, and it was widely assumed that her social background was vastly inferior to that of her husband. That the duchess was devoted to the duke was understandable; that the duke should be devoted to the duchess, who was but ‘a plain, homely dowdy’, and that, despite all his bravery in the field, he should be wary of upsetting her, seemed inexplicable.18 In the course of a long and tangled series of disputes over the Albemarle estate that began after the death in 1688 of Monck’s only surviving son, Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albemarle, it was alleged that Anne Clarges’ first husband, Thomas Radford, was still alive at the time of her second marriage. Whatever the truth of the matter, the claim was clearly vexatious, since the marriage had not been challenged either in Monck’s lifetime or in the lifetime of their son. Not surprisingly, her nephew Sir Walter Clarges‡ described it as ‘a scandal to common justice’.19
Architect of the Restoration?
In the confusion and uncertainty that characterized the period after the death of Cromwell, Monck came to be seen as a key figure in any future political settlement. Shortly after the succession of Richard Cromwell‡, John Colepeper, Baron Colepeper, told Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, that ‘the person my eye is chiefly on as able alone to restore the king and not absolutely averse to it, neither in his principles nor in his affections … is Monck’.20 Monck’s younger brother, Nicholas Monck, the future bishop of Hereford, who owed his early preferment to their royalist cousin John Granville, later earl of Bath, was said to have attempted to convert Monck to the king’s cause on a visit to Scotland in the summer of 1659. After the Restoration it was claimed that Monck knew of, and would have joined, Booth’s rebellion had the rising not been defeated so quickly but it is difficult to accept such claims at face value, especially as John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, was never sure whether he could count on Monck’s support.21
Shortly after Booth’s rising, John Lambert‡ expelled Parliament. News of this reached Monck in mid-October 1659. He embarked upon a purge of commissioned and non-commissioned officers whose loyalty could not be relied upon, stating his intention to defend the rights of Parliament and to oppose any attempt to institute government by ‘a single person’, whether king or army officer.22 In his parting letter to the magistrates of Scottish burghs he specifically warned them against holding any correspondence with Charles Stuart or his adherents.23 He delayed moving his army south until he learned of Parliament’s favourable reaction to his declaration. Difficulties with communications meant that this did not arrive until early December.24 The delay puzzled contemporaries. Early in November 1659, Hyde thought Monck still to be feared but he soon came to realize that – just as Lambert and his supporters had foretold – events were playing into the hands of the royalists: ‘we shall not lose this winter, all things being as ripe for us in England as can be wished … some officers and soldiers run every day from Monck to Lambert, and others from Lambert to Monck … Indeed the confusion is great throughout the kingdom.’25
Monck began his march into England in January 1660, arriving in London just over a month later. Cooperation from Henry Fairfax‡, 3rd Lord Fairfax [S], who had agreed to join Monck in opposing a restoration of the king, ensured that no opposition was offered by Lambert’s troops.26 Monck’s opposition to restoration was confirmed in his letter to the gentlemen of Devon, warning them that the growth of new interests, such as Dissenting sects and those who had benefited from the purchase of forfeited church and royalist lands, required the protection of a republic and therefore the continued exclusion of the secluded Members.27 Yet demands for the return of the secluded Members and for calling a free Parliament continued to grow. Many of the addresses were handed to Monck himself.28
At Monck’s suggestion all the forces in London, except his own, were dispersed to new and scattered quarters in order to prevent any attempt at a military coup d’état. On 6 Feb. he addressed Parliament, choosing his words with so much care that ‘most men know not what construction to make of it’.29 The next day Pepys reported that Monck ‘hath now the absolute command and power to do anything that hath a mind to do’, but his remarks were premature, for on 9 Feb. Monck complied with an order from the Rump to take action against the City of London.30 On 11 Feb. he ordered the Rump to issue writs for fresh elections and to dissolve itself, but wrangling about the qualifications that should be imposed on candidates – and therefore the political complexion of any new Parliament – continued.
Monck then presided over several meetings between representatives of the Rump and of the secluded Members, but no agreement was reached. According to Anthony Ashley Cooper, later earl of Shaftesbury, on the night of 20 Feb. he, with Mrs. Monck, her brother, Thomas Clarges‡, John Cloberry,‡ and Ralph Knight‡, sat up arguing with Monck until three in the morning about the need for the immediate readmission of the secluded Members. That Anne Monck had considerable influence over her husband and that she used it in favour of a restoration is highly probable. There were suggestions that the exiled king should make a point of encouraging her.31 Whether Shaftesbury’s account is accurate is another matter. There are indications that something may have been brewing earlier, for Pepys reported a meeting of the secluded Members with Monck on 17 Feb. and another meeting of the secluded Members on 19 Feb. at the house of John Crew, later Baron Crew, which – considering Crew’s Calvinism and it ‘being the Lord’s day’ – he thought must be suggestive of ‘something extraordinary in the business’.32
On 21 Feb. Monck forced the readmission of the secluded Members, thus significantly altering the balance of power in Parliament in favour of the presbyterians. The presbyterians however were divided, and even those who favoured a restoration were determined to make it a conditional one, with a limited monarchy and a moderately puritan religious settlement. In order to achieve this it was necessary to ensure that former cavaliers were disbarred from becoming parliamentary candidates and that if the House of Lords were to meet as part of the new Parliament it should exclude those peers who had been in actual service with the king, the post-1642 creations, and those ‘young lords’ who had been minors in the civil wars.
Even at this stage, Monck was still speaking in favour of a commonwealth and against the restoration of Charles Stuart but all his actions, including a report in early March that he had sent for the keys of the doors to the House of Lords and had set a guard there, were open to widely differing interpretations, including the possibility that, given his claims to royal ancestry, he sought the crown for himself.33 Some cavaliers grew bold, triumphantly proclaiming ‘all things in such a fair way to the re-establishment of our master, that we look every day for some invitations home’.34 Most remained puzzled, changing their interpretations of Monck’s intentions from day to day. Monck, still worried that opposition from within the army carried with it the threat of renewed civil war,
was much distracted in my endeavours for the peace and settlement of the nation and put to several and different postures in the managing of them, I being forced to use the force of power to some, and friendship and fair promises of security to others, till I had at last reduced matters to such a consistency that all were removed from command and trust in arms that would not engage to acquiesce in whatsoever the then succeeding Parliament should act.35
In particular he was extremely anxious about the reaction of Charles Fleetwood‡ and Sir Arthur Hesilrige‡. Fleetwood’s allegiance seems to have been secured with minimal promises on Albemarle’s part but Hesilrige’s command of Berwick, Carlisle, Newcastle, and Tynemouth, and his extensive influence over the army, made him a potentially far more dangerous enemy. Monck undertook to secure Hesilrige’s ‘life and estate’ in return for his promise not to interfere with the course of events, and on 19 Mar. Hesilrige submitted peacefully to the new council of state.36 Monck’s endeavours ‘to leave as little as I could to the uncertainty of the event’ puzzled and infuriated the exiled king and his adviser, Edward Hyde, who concluded that ‘the man is less steady than they expected’, adding that ‘If he mean well he will quickly commit those notorious fellows in the army and elsewhere who are likely to give trouble and then allow the Lords to sit.’37
Monck, who had consistently refused to receive royalist agents, consented to a private interview with his cousin, the royalist Sir John Granville, later earl of Bath, on 19 Mar. 1660. Granville handed him a letter from the king, written some nine months earlier, and Monck pledged his loyalty to the crown, declaring himself ready ‘to sacrifice my life and fortune in his service’, but even at this late stage of events he was unwilling to commit himself on paper and made Granville take a verbal answer back to the exiled court.38 Granville’s notes of the meeting suggest that Monck’s priorities were the confirmation of land titles and payment of the army rather than the religious settlement. The theological ferment of the civil wars and interregnum seems to have left little mark on Monck, who readily conformed to the Anglican Church after the Restoration. Granville’s notes also include Monck’s instructions that Charles II write to him with letters for the Speakers of both Houses and the lord mayor of London.39 Plans for elections continued and Monck’s support was much in demand by candidates. Towards the end of March the council of officers of the army had agreed to ‘acquiesce in what the next Parliament should determine as to the settling a government in the nation’.40
By mid-April it was rumoured that the new Parliament would include a House of Lords.41 It was also reported that Monck was going to remove the guard on the Lords and that he would refuse to act against those royalist peers who had announced their intention to sit.42 Yet just days before the new Parliament was due to meet on 25 Apr., the presbyterian peers, led by Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, were reported to have persuaded Monck that the House of Lords should sit but that its presbyterian character should be preserved by preventing the royalist and ‘young lords’ from taking their seats there.43 The uncertainty of the situation was such that rumours that the Commons would refuse to recognize the House of Lords were still circulating on 24 Apr. 1660, just one day before the Convention was due to meet.44 On 25 Apr., after having ‘deeply considered’ the issue, all but one member of the Commons assented to a de facto recognition of the upper House by agreeing to respond to the Lords’ request for a day of national fasting.45 Royalist and Catholic peers, together with the ‘young lords’, began to trickle back to the House; Monck initially discouraged them but soon changed his mind and allowed them to take their seats.46
Whether Monck’s role in the Restoration was one that he planned of his own volition, was in obedience to the wishes of the exiled king, or was simply a reflection of his inability to control events remains a moot point. The presbyterians certainly believed that Monck had betrayed them and this view was probably substantiated still further when, according to Gilbert Burnet, the future bishop of Salisbury, Monck’s objections ensured that there was no discussion of the proposals for a conditional restoration put forward by Matthew Hale‡. Yet once the secluded Members had been readmitted an unconditional restoration became increasingly likely. Monck continued to be wary of military insurrection and ensured that the Declaration of Breda was read and approved by the army and the fleet. His opposition to Hales’s proposals for a conditional restoration and his insistence that the fleet set sail to meet the king as soon as possible seem to have been based in fears that any delay might lead at best to unrest and at worst to renewed rebellion.47 In the meantime, elections to the Convention continued. Monck was returned to the Commons, as were several of his allies: Thomas Clarges, John Cloberry, Lord Fairfax, Ralph Knight, and William Penn‡. He assisted in the election of Harbottle Grimston‡ as Speaker of the Commons and, according to Sir John Bramston, ‘tho’ no great talker, governed all’.48
The Restoration 1660–1
Even before the Long Parliament finally dissolved itself, Monck had been generously rewarded with office (appointed commander-in-chief of all land forces in the three kingdoms, joint general at sea, and a member of the council of state) and money (a grant of £20,000). With the return of the king, his rewards multiplied still further. The royal family’s gratitude to Monck was obvious from the moment they landed at Dover when Charles II embraced Monck and called him ‘father’ and ‘Whilst all the rest were shouting God Save the King, the duke of Gloucester [Henry*] threw up his hat and cried “God bless General Monk”’. Shortly afterwards Monck was invested with the order of the garter, the honour thus done him being exalted still further by the way in which James, duke of York, personally put the garter on him. Monck’s high standing was further underlined by his physical proximity to the king on the journey to London. Still a mere commoner, he nevertheless sat with the king and his brothers in the royal coach, while George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham rode in the boot. When the royal party swapped to horses, the king was flanked on his right by his brothers and on his left by Monck; only when they reached London did Monck ride behind the king, and even then he rode with the duke of Buckingham.49
One diplomat remarked that Monck was ‘almost revered by the king’ and was ‘the author of the prosperity and repose which these realms at present enjoy’.50 As the man in effective control of the army he was also, of course, a potential threat. It was fortunate for the king that Monck had no ambition to exercise supreme political power. It was nevertheless necessary to placate him. Thus Monck was appointed to the new council, made master of horse, captain general of the forces in all three kingdoms, a gentleman of the bedchamber, and lord lieutenant of Devon, and was tipped as a possible lord treasurer.51 It was also suggested that he be appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. According to the French ambassador this was because the king was tired of Monck’s importunities and wished to send him away from court, but it is unlikely that Charles really did wish to remove the man whom he regarded as the military mainstay of his fledgling regime.52 The well-known story of the way in which Monck simply passed a list of names of his clients to Charles without any expectation that the king would be able to satisfy their demands suggests that he was well aware of the limits of Charles’s patronage opportunities. In his memoirs Clarendon suggested that Monck wanted the post to protect his interests in his Irish estates, worth some £4,000 a year, ‘though he was willing to have it believed in the city and the army, that he retained it only for the good of the adventurers, and that the soldiers might be justly dealt with for their arrears’.53 Disputes over the appointment caused friction at court, which were exacerbated by Monck’s reluctance to take on the duties of the office personally. His rivals for the post were James Butler, marquess of Ormond [I] (later duke of Ormond), and John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). An attempt at a compromise in which Robartes was appointed lord deputy failed over questions of status, Robartes not liking ‘to be deputy to any man but the king himself’.54 No letters patent were issued to Monck under the English seal but he was regarded as lord lieutenant of Ireland until the appointment of Ormond in 1662.55
Although Monck’s relationship to the Prides was now something of an embarrassment, it did not affect his reputation as the saviour of the monarchy. If the French ambassador were correct, his position may have been strengthened still further by a judicious alliance with Edward Hyde.56 It was certainly believed that he had become one of the king’s closest advisers: during the Commons debates on the Act of Oblivion, when the arguments threatened to become acrimonious, he ‘told ’em that he knew his majesty’s mind (and had come to declare it)’.57
He was not of course to remain a commoner long. In July 1660 he was given a dukedom, thus becoming one of only three non-royal dukes in the English peerage. His choice of the title of Albemarle reflected a conscious reference to his supposed Plantagenet origins, although it is perhaps an interesting reflection on the way in which his contemporaries perceived him that they continued to refer to him as the lord general.58
After the Restoration, Monck’s reputation as a military man led him to assume something of a policing role both at court and elsewhere. Even at the coronation banquet he had had to intervene to prevent a quarrel between the king’s footmen and the barons of the Cinque Ports. In the autumn of 1660, after a spate of robberies, he arranged for military patrols to protect the approach roads to London; and when fears about highway robberies again became acute in 1667, it was to him that the Commons turned for advice.59 In 1663 he disarmed several nobles who fell out after an entertainment at the house of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, and kept them under a guard of soldiers until tempers cooled.60 In May 1664 or 1665 he was entrusted with the king’s message to Edward Montagu banning him from court.61 In December 1667, on the instructions of the king, he forced Buckingham and Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, to promise on their honours not to enter into a duel; both he and the king were furious when the promise was broken.62 Early in 1668 he was busy ‘composing a quarrel’ between Oxford and Charles Sackville, then styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset).63 The following year he prevented a duel between Charles Stuart, 3rd duke of Richmond, and James Hamilton.64
In keeping with his newly elevated status Albemarle also received considerable financial rewards – and it was money rather than political power that interested him. He was given grants of land worth £7,000 a year (including Theobalds Park and estates in the duchy of Lancaster), as well as substantial estates in Ireland. Sometime after 1662 he acquired New Hall, a once royal palace in Essex formerly owned by the Buckingham; he was also given the use of the Cockpit in Whitehall as his London residence. 1662 also saw him become one of the original proprietors of Carolina. Meanwhile the Albemarles received costly gifts from members of the royal family, among them a pearl necklace from Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I, said to be worth some £2,500.65 Estimates of the duke’s wealth vary: his annual income may have been between £13,000 and £22,000; he was said to have left £70,000 or perhaps as much as £180,000 in ready money; one estimate adds to this £50,000 in jewels and £50,000 in Lady Albemarle’s possession.66
Albemarle had a wide range of public commitments and was a member of the inner circle of the council. His wealth and his position at the centre of the new regime ensured his ability to command considerable patronage. His correspondence with Ormond underlines his continuing interest in the Irish land settlement and regularly included patronage requests for a wide range of individuals, an astonishing number of whom were described as kinsmen. Those closest to Albemarle naturally benefited most. His brother, Nicholas, became bishop of Hereford; his brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges‡, received a baronetcy, the lease of Reading Abbey, and a perpetual pension of £500 a year; his trusted officers Ralph Knight and John Cloberry were each knighted and given pensions of £600 a year; his kinsman John Colleton received a baronetcy and the sinecure office of commissioner of wine licences; another kinsman, William Morice‡, was appointed secretary of state; and his cousin Bernard Granville‡ was promised the reversion of the post of groom of the bedchamber.67 Other rewards were almost certainly granted on his recommendation and naturally included many former parliamentarians; as lord lieutenant of Devon, for example, he retained an unusually high proportion of former parliamentarian deputies and he appointed his kinsman Arthur Bassett to command the Barnstaple militia.68 Some of his influence was exerted by his wife: it was her intervention that secured the post of surveyor at Windsor Castle for William Tayleur‡ against objections advanced by Mordaunt.69
While Albemarle claimed to have been careful to ensure that his recommendations to the king were restricted to ‘such as have always been faithful to his majesty or instrumental in his restoration’, it was widely suspected that his wife (and by implication the duke himself) was eager to turn the couple’s newfound influence into cash by trading in places. She was said to have demanded £500 from one applicant and in 1664 it was said to be her demand for payment in full rather than over a period of years that led to the collapse of negotiations between Albemarle and Buckingham for the sale of the office of master of the horse.70 According to Clarendon, who may not of course have been entirely unprejudiced in the matter, Anne Monck’s ‘vile good housewifery’ meant that ‘such men, who had been most notorious in the malice against the crown from the beginning of the rebellion, or had been employed in all the active offices to affront and oppress his party, were for money preferred and admitted into those offices’. There were other opportunities too for ‘an immoderate lover of money’ to turn a profit.71 Monck reaped considerable financial benefits from his brother’s short tenure as bishop of Hereford and was also accused of corruption in the settlement of claims in Ireland.72
The extent of Albemarle’s parliamentary patronage is difficult to determine, partly because his landholdings were so scattered, partly because his personal papers do not survive, and partly because he made no attempt to build up an organized personal following. It was perhaps only to be expected that his opinion would be sought in the course of elections to the Convention and it is known that he was instrumental in the election of William Penn but it was after the Restoration and his acquisition of lands, wealth, and offices that his influence became more significant, although his scattered landholdings and consequent lack of a compact territorial base tends to disguise the extent of his authority. His standing in the south-west of England and his friendship with Sir Hugh Pollard‡ may well have been an important factor in the parliamentary management of an area that returned a disproportionate number of Members to the Commons.73 His family’s long association with Devon meant that he was either related or had ties of friendship to almost all the leading west country families. A chance survival of documents reveals that he was deeply implicated in early attempts to purge the corporation of Barnstaple by his kinsmen Arthur Bassett and Sir John Chichester‡ and it is not unreasonable to assume that he was involved in similar local power struggles elsewhere.74 His appointment as one of the mediators of a dispute between the freemen and inhabitants of Exeter and the mayor and aldermen on 23 Aug. 1660 certainly suggests considerable influence in that city. He fostered the election of Thomas Stringer‡ to the Commons and was clearly on friendly terms with other prominent individuals who either were or would later become Members of the lower House.
Albemarle exercised electoral influence in Essex and Lancashire by virtue of his estates in those counties. Less obviously he probably also exerted some control over elections in the north and east ridings of Yorkshire. He was on good terms with the powerful magnate and lord lieutenant of the North Riding, Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg. As a former Cromwellian collaborator, Fauconberg had good reason to be thankful to Albemarle, who had been instrumental in securing him a royal pardon. Fauconberg’s uncle, John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse, was a Catholic royalist but he too wanted the new government to overlook his links to important figures in the Cromwellian regime. Belasyse was lord lieutenant of the East Riding and governor of Hull, where Albemarle became high steward in 1661 and where he was at least partially successful in protecting the puritan preacher at Trinity Church, Hull (John Shaw) from the enmity of Gilbert Sheldon, bishop of London, later archbishop of Canterbury.75 Belasyse and Albemarle were both appointed commissioners for York under the Corporation Act and were responsible, in part at least, for the drastic purge of that corporation in 1662.76 Meanwhile, correspondence relating to the activities of commissioners of sewers in the East Riding reveals that Albemarle was also an important landowner there and that the (mainly aristocratic) commissioners were careful to respect his interests.77
In May 1660, while still a member of the Commons, Monck chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges which discussed the arrangements for the reception of the king. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 13 July 1660 to the apparent delight of the House, which ordered two of its members to wait on the king to thank him for the honour so conferred. Albemarle was immediately nominated to the committee for privileges; thereafter he was a consistently high attender, being present for just under 90 per cent of the remaining sitting days that session, and was named to eight further committees, including those for disbanding the army, the annexation of Dunkirk and Mardike, and the draining of the great level of the fens, in which his connection with the Berties (major landholders in Lincolnshire) may have given him a personal interest. On 30 July Fauconberg’s proxy was registered to him – perhaps because the business of the day was scheduled to include an attempt by the royalist Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, to reclaim lands that his family had lost during the interregnum. Albemarle was almost certainly interested in opposing any claim that threatened to upset the land settlement and Derby was also a political rival in Lancashire. On 27 Aug. he was one of those deputed by the House to recommend its chaplain, Thomas Hodges, to the king for some mark of favour.
By September 1660 his relationship with Hyde seems to have deteriorated; it was now said that his dislike of the chancellor had become obvious.78 Perhaps he was jealous of Hyde’s position. It was Hyde’s intervention in the autumn of 1660, rather than Albemarle’s, that enabled Nicholas Monck to retain the provostship of Eton after his appointment as bishop, which suggests that by then Hyde was better able to act as an intermediary to the king than Albemarle.79 Later that year the duchess of Albemarle stood godmother to the duke of York’s infant son, but according to the French ambassador the Albemarles were now becoming more closely associated with the queen’s faction than with the developing Hyde–York axis.80
In October 1660 Albemarle sat on the trials of the regicides at the Old Bailey, alongside the lord mayor, Sandwich, and ‘such a bench of noblemen as hath not been ever seen in England’.81 During the same month he was present at the Worcester House conference but it is not clear whether he took an active part in the proceedings or was merely an observer.82 His connections with moderate Presbyterians suggest a possible antipathy to episcopacy but in practice he had little difficulty in accepting the restoration of the Anglican Church or in seeking promotion for his brother within it. He was perhaps less worried about inappropriate forms of religious observance than some of his contemporaries and had no hesitation in enjoying a play in a place that would on a Sunday be reserved for a sermon.83
In November 1660 Albemarle intervened to protect his ally Sir John Robinson‡, lieutenant of the Tower, in a dispute about privilege of Parliament, and in the same month he presented the House with an account of the costs of disbanding the army.84 His close relationship to the royal family was also underlined by Princess Henrietta’s decision to use him to deliver her thanks to the House for the gift of £10,000 that had been voted to her. In December he entered a protest at the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell.85 The validity of title to land sold or confiscated during the interregnum had been one of the questions about which Monck’s presbyterian allies had been most worried during discussions about a restoration. He had himself been a major beneficiary of interregnum land sales. For Albemarle, therefore, opposition on this issue was not simply a point of principle but was also a deeply personal one. In the summer of 1661 he was expected to vote against the claim of Oxford to the great chamberlaincy. There was almost certainly a personal motive involved in this vote: Oxford’s rival (Montagu Bertie, 2nd earl of Lindsey) had a distinguished record as a royalist soldier but one of his sons had served under Albemarle’s command at the Restoration and the two men were clearly close.86 Referring to Albemarle as ‘my most noble friend’, Lindsey appointed him as an executor and as one of the guardians of his underage son, James Bertie, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). He also marked their friendship by bequeathing Albemarle his best horse.87
It was symptomatic of Albemarle’s reputation as the architect of the Restoration that he became the target, along with the king and York, of an assassination plot. Then, early in January 1661, the instability of the new regime and its need for a military strong man seemed to be underlined by Venner’s rising. In reality the actions of ‘a few desperate enthusiasts … who had first lost their wits before they did their loyalty’ posed little threat, but fears of what might have happened had the rebels been better organized prompted the retention of what was effectively a small standing army, in which Albemarle took command of a troop of guards and a regiment of foot.88
Settling the nation 1661-3
Albemarle’s attendance during the 1661–2 session dropped to just under 60 per cent of sitting days. Although he was seriously ill in the summer of 1661, this illness coincided with the recess and so did not affect his attendance.89 The decline in his attendance rate is largely attributable to a long absence from Parliament between 7 Feb. and 26 Mar. 1662. As might be expected he was appointed early in the session to the committees for privileges and petitions and during the course of the year was also named to five other committees. On 23 July 1661, in response to a petition from the Commons in favour of the children of Sir Arthur Hesilrige, he made a statement to the House concerning his promise to Sir Arthur ‘to endeavour the saving of his life, and preserving of his estate’ and was then deputed to present the petition to the king.
According to Louis XIV, who insisted that his source of information was impeccable, in September 1661 Albemarle, together with Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, and Ashley, led the opposition to the king’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza (and by implication to the influence of Clarendon). They were supported in this endeavour by Ormond and by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol.90 Circumstantial evidence suggests that there may have been some truth in the French king’s assertions. Clarendon’s relationship with the king had certainly cooled over the summer of 1661 and his position was perceived to be weak; Albemarle was thought to dislike Clarendon and Bristol was known to support the rival Spanish match.91 Albemarle seems to have been involved in some way with assisting the Spanish ambassador, to the annoyance of Louis XIV, and it is highly likely that he did play some part in the factional rivalries that disturbed the court in the summer and early autumn of 1661, although there is little indication that his role was as important as Louis XIV’s comments would suggest. On the contrary, Charles II may well have been playing power games of his own. The French ambassador reported that the king was well aware of factional rivalries at his court and that he was using the fear of ‘troubles in his realm … [to] … draw greater concessions’ from Parliament at its next meeting and that ‘as regards Monck, the duke of Ormond and the earl of Bristol, he was sure they could not do anything he would not know about well in advance’.92
During 1661 and through into early 1662 rumours of plots and rebellion triggered extensive discussions about ways of ensuring military security, first by the creation of a ‘select’ militia and then by an enlarged standing army. Although little documentary evidence survives, Albemarle must have been deeply involved in these discussions: one of the plans under consideration was drawn up by his secretary and trusted adviser, Sir William Clarke, and on 19 Dec. 1661 he was named as one of the committee to meet with a similar committee from the Commons during the recess to discuss ‘ways of securing the peace of the kingdom’ in the wake of revelations of a plot against the government.
Throughout 1661 Albemarle had almost certainly been involved in the lengthy discussions on the subject of the validity of acts and ordinances that had been passed between 1641 and 1660. When Parliament reconvened in January 1662 after a short Christmas break, he was named to the committee to consider the issues. Although no attendance lists survive, he was almost certainly present at some of the heated discussions that continued throughout January and into early February.93 He was definitely present on 25 Jan. when the debate over the reinstatement of a court at York provoked uproar in the House, but, although his links to York and Yorkshire suggest that he must have had an interest in the outcome, nothing is known of his part in the debate. He was appointed to the committee on the bill for uniformity and to three other committees, some of which, such as those relating to the confirmation of title to estates in the duchy of Lancaster, were of personal interest. He was so concerned about the effect of one of these bills (relating to titles in the Honour of Clitheroe) that he employed counsel to state his case to the committee.94
Albemarle was almost certainly also interested in his public capacity in the bill pertaining to the jurisdiction of the court of admiralty, but, as indicated above, he was away from Parliament for much of February and March, so cannot have taken a leading role in the committee’s discussions. Since the business of the House during this period largely concerned the passage of the Act of Uniformity, it is possible that his absence was strategic, but a genuine incapacity through illness is probably more likely. In late February 1662 he was said to be ‘struggling with a churlish ague’ from which he seems to have take a month to recover.95
His own bill, confirming the various grants of land that he had received from the king, was piloted through the House during his absence. It is impossible to tell who managed the process but it is perhaps significant that the bill was reported by the reliable government supporter Jerome Weston, 2nd earl of Portland, who had not been named to the committee but who had recently begun to chair a number of important committees. It seems unlikely that Albemarle had left the passage of the bill to chance for later that year he sought a similar bill for confirmation of his Irish estates and was careful to send a copy of the draft to Ormond and to ask him to canvass support for it in both Houses of the Irish Parliament.96 On 30 Mar., towards the end of a difficult session, Albemarle and Manchester were deputed to attend the king and to secure an appointment for the presentation of the petition against Jesuits and Romish priests.
Rumours of some sort of estrangement between the king and Albemarle early in the summer of 1662 seem to have been no more than gossip, for fears of unrest in London led in July to his appointment as lord lieutenant of Middlesex, displacing the previous joint lord lieutenants, Thomas Howard, earl of Berkshire, and Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset.97 The government anticipated trouble from the imminent ejection of those ministers who failed to subscribe to the new Act of Uniformity, especially in London where some one-third of the ministers were deprived. As Albemarle also held the lord lieutenancy of Southwark, he had control of the militia throughout those parts of London that were outside the City walls. By placing him in charge of preserving the peace of the metropolis the king was both acknowledging his confidence in Albemarle’s loyalty and undermining any residual confidence that the Presbyterians might have had in his benevolence. Yet, for all the fears of others, Albemarle himself seems to have been confident of the security of the new regime, writing in December 1663 that ‘Now and then there are some little designs amongst the Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy men … but their designs are so weak and inconsiderable that I am confident they will not be dangerous to his majesty and the kingdom.’98
In August 1662, in private discussions with the French ambassador about the sale of Dunkirk, Clarendon made it clear that, although Albemarle was one of the commissioners for the sale, he was not initially party to the negotiations. Albemarle’s opposition to the deal was such that when Sir William Morice was slow in arranging for the documents to be copied, his actions were suspected of being orchestrated by Albemarle as part of a last-ditch attempt to abort the treaty.99 Later in the year he was expected to receive further rewards in the form of a grant of lands in the West Indies, and he organized a military show of strength in London in order to ward off yet another sectarian plot.100 Yet he was (according to Pepys) losing ground at court.101 Whether this related in any way to his attitude to the Declaration of Indulgence issued in December 1662 is unknown.
During the 1663 session Albemarle was present at nearly 85 per cent of sittings. He was named as usual to the committees for privileges and petitions and to ten others, including some in which he had a clear personal or official interest, such as the preparation of a bill to repeal the acts passed by the 1640 Parliament, the prevention of duels, the care of indigent commissioned officers, and the organization of the militia (which he also chaired). On 21 Mar. he was appointed with Anglesey to attend the king about arranging the return of deeds concerning the right to present to advowsons which had been confiscated from various royalist peers during the civil wars and interregnum. It was perhaps in anticipation of continuing difficulties in Parliament, including continuing attacks on Clarendon by Bristol, that on 24 Mar. Albemarle received the proxy of William Widdrington, 2nd Baron Widdrington. This was an interesting alliance since Widdrington, a former royalist, had no obvious connection to Albemarle other than through his marriage to a member of the Bertie family.
In April 1663 Albemarle and Anglesey were deputed to present the thanks of the House to the king for his response to the petition against Jesuits and Catholic priests, and Albemarle was nominated as a member of the delegation to request that the petition and the king’s response be printed. It is difficult to assess his position at court at this time. He continued to receive financially valuable rewards, including a grant in May 1663 of lands in Carolina.102 According to Pepys, although the duke was still much favoured by the king he was, as far as policy was concerned, increasingly marginalized, being ‘none of the cabinet’.103 Nonetheless he was attending the meetings at which policy was discussed and formulated for presentation to the privy council and early in June (when the Clarendonian forces were rallying) he was named as one of a new group of advisers: a group that pointedly excluded Bristol.104
It seems likely that Albemarle was regarded as an ally by Bristol, who attempted to use him as an intermediary to deliver a letter to the king on 26 June 1663, the very day that Bristol’s involvement in Sir Richard Temple’s offer to secure a supply was revealed to the Commons.105 If Albemarle’s admiring early biographers are to be believed, his dislike of faction and his loyalty to the court made it improbable that he would have been prepared to voice his opposition to Clarendon publicly, let alone join in attempts to impeach him. Nevertheless, Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that Albemarle would vote in favour of Bristol’s attack on Clarendon and that he would use Widdrington’s proxy to the same purpose. From 9 June Albemarle also held Belasyse’s proxy and Belasyse, too, was listed as one of Clarendon’s opponents. On 18 July 1663 Albemarle was named as one of the commissioners to assess peers under the subsidy bill. After the end of the session, when the government ordered a drastic retrenchment, Albemarle fought hard to protect his own people from the effects of the measure.106
The 2nd Dutch War, 1664-7
During the short 1664 session Albemarle’s attendance dropped to 61 per cent. He was as usual named to the committees for privileges and petitions. When Bristol tried to secure an audience with the king in March, he again chose Albemarle as an intermediary.107 The following month Albemarle was unsuccessful in an attempt to gain Clarendon’s support for the election of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges, as a burgess for Salisbury.108 He was still actively involved in preparations for defence but he was perhaps beginning to suffer declining health: in September 1664 it was reported that ‘The general is insistently demanding to be relieved of his duties, under the pretext of his disabilities.’109
By the time that Parliament reconvened for the 1664–5 session the prospect of war with the Dutch had become increasingly likely. Given the combination of his military background and his membership of the Royal Adventurers, it is not surprising that in January 1665 Sir Allen Brodrick‡ identified Albemarle as one of those keen to declare war.110 Louis XIV believed that Albemarle and York were the leading proponents of war and his diplomatic representatives confirmed Albemarle’s bellicosity, attributing it to variously to Spanish subornation, his lack of knowledge of international affairs, his mistaken belief that there was ‘nothing to fear from foreigners’, and his desire for prize money. The French even believed that Albemarle was passing intelligence to the Spanish, suggesting that, being ‘very avaricious’ and governed by his wife who was even more avaricious, he was taking money to do so.111
One of the few pieces of information that we have about Albemarle’s activities in this period relates to his adjudication of a dispute about the status of Portland and Sandsfoot castles. His role in settling this disagreement demonstrates not only his continuing importance as a military adviser but also his ability (and willingness) to intervene in local power struggles.112 He was present on just under 59 per cent of sitting days during the 1664–5 session. His absences were concentrated in January 1665 and he continued to attend Parliament right up until the prorogation of 2 Mar., so the decline in attendance cannot be attributed directly to preparations for war. Throughout the session Albemarle held the proxy of John Poulett, 2nd Baron Poulett, and from 25 Jan. 1665 he again held Widdrington’s proxy. He was named to the committee for privileges and to two other committees, one of which (that for Sir Robert Carr’s bill) included all those present in the chamber; the other, in February 1665 for ‘settling and improving’ Wildmore in the fenlands of Lincolnshire, was probably directly related to the Widdrington and Bertie interests in that county.
An account of the battle of Lowestoft (3 June 1665) by Sir Thomas Clifford, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, indicates that Albemarle was not only present but was struck and bruised by the cannonball that caused the death of Sir William Clarke.113 Perhaps his narrow escape encouraged a sense of mortality for a few days later Albemarle made his will. He was soon back in London, dealing with the consequences of the outbreak of plague. At the prorogation meeting held in London on 1 Aug. he informed the House of the illness of Lindsey and then deputized for him as lord great chamberlain for the introduction of William Craven, now elevated to an earldom. He was again present for the prorogation of 3 Oct., when he was just one of four members of the House to hear the formal announcement that the next session would be held in Oxford. Albemarle did not attend the short Oxford session but remained in London, taking charge of affairs there in the absence of the court.114 Nevertheless he contributed to parliamentary discussions from a distance, especially the need for legislation to control the spread of plague. When the proposals came up to the Lords after passing through the Commons, the House, being obstinately and ‘ridiculously tender’ of the privileges of its members, insisted on adding provisos to the effect that no part of the bill should apply to any peer of the realm and that no peer’s house should be shut up even if infected. Thus, despite York’s ‘vehement intercession’ and Albemarle’s ‘passionate letters’, the bill failed when the Commons refused to accept the Lords’ amendments.115
When Albemarle finally arrived in Oxford late in November 1665 it was, according to one observer, to carry the news that the danger of plague was now diminishing and that it would be safe for the king and the court to return to London. Another report rather more credibly insisted that it ‘was to consult about the affairs of the navy in which his grace is known to be particularly necessary’.116 The contradictory accounts reflect the beginnings of a confused period during which a variety of conflicting rumours about the future of the armed forces began to circulate. Those close to the court knew that Albemarle was in favour with the king (who greeted him at Oxford ‘with all the demonstrations of joy one friend could give to another, hugging, kissing, etc.’) and that, in the wake of the corruption scandal that had discredited Sandwich, Albemarle was about to be declared general at sea.117 There was no public announcement at that time, however, apparently because Monck thought that his wife would oppose the appointment, as indeed she did.118 Yet at the same time Pepys reported rumours that York’s military role would be enhanced at Albemarle’s expense.119 Since Pepys was firmly allied to Sandwich, who had good reason to destabilize the fragile relationship between York and Albemarle, it is possible that these rumours represented something of a pre-emptive strike by Sandwich in his anxiety to protect his position. Sandwich was probably counting on the probability that even those who disliked Albemarle would find the prospect of his replacement a worrying one: as he told Pepys, in a coded reference to distrust of York, ‘if it were not for him, God knows in what troubles we might be from some private factions, if an army could be got into another hand, which God forbid’.120
For those in the know, Albemarle’s appointment was tantamount to a guarantee of continuing military success: ‘Money comes in freely … upon easier terms than before’, remarked William Sancroft,* [940], later archbishop of Canterbury, ‘upon the great reputation of that good man’, and the government was quick to take advantage of the possibility for easy credit.121 In April 1666, a month after his appointment as joint general at sea was confirmed, Albemarle attended the court of directors of the East India Company. He assured them of the king’s gratitude and favour, offered his services to assist them, and then asked for an additional loan of £50,000 to the crown.122 He also took advantage of the situation to promote his own interests – or rather those of his extended family – by seeking the intervention of the king in a dispute with John Cosin, bishop of Durham, over the marriage portion of Cosin’s daughter to Albemarle’s cousin Denis Granville (Bath’s younger brother).123
In the aftermath of the inconclusive Four Days Battle of June, underlying tensions between York and Albemarle again came to the surface.124 The subsequent victory over the Dutch in the St. James’s Day Battle and the successful raid on Dutch merchantmen moored at the entrance to the Zuider Zee did much to ensure that Albemarle’s popularity remained high, although there were clearly those at court who realized that the heavy losses of men and ships were potentially disastrous. Sir William Coventry‡ was sure that ‘outrages’ committed by Albemarle in searching for contraband prize would never have been tolerated if committed by the king or York.125
Early in September 1666 Albemarle was persuaded to return to London to take charge of arrangements for dealing with what has since become known as the Great Fire of London. The privy council unanimously agreed with the king that civil disorder would follow the devastation of the fire and that Albemarle was the only person with sufficient expertise and credibility to prevent this. It is a telling tribute to the awe in which he was held that he was again seen as the saviour of the nation, able ‘to give the king his kingdom a second time’.126 One commentator even thought that if he had arrived earlier ‘the town might have been saved’.127
Others thought they discerned an ulterior motive in Albemarle’s recall, which, according to Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, also had the useful effect of removing the difficulties created by having the navy ‘commanded by two heads, that were in danger of disagreeing’.128 It may have been this sort of reaction that spawned the rumour that Albemarle had been dismissed from the government. Albemarle’s relationship with York was certainly deteriorating. He may have resented York’s appointment as lord high admiral and the two men were in any case at odds over the management of the navy. Albemarle’s comments on the poor calibre of his officers in June 1666 suggest that he was worried about discipline. Pepys, whose comments on Albemarle’s ability were coloured by his allegiance to Sandwich, makes it clear that disagreements between Albemarle, York, and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, over the appointment of officers and other issues had left the navy in a parlous state.129 Albemarle was probably also worried about the consequences of the crisis in government finances that had left the seamen unpaid and that caused them to riot in October and December 1666. His army career had shown him to be a stern disciplinarian but one who was extremely concerned about the morale of his troops and who was always determined to ensure that they were paid.
In the meantime Albemarle was still very active in Parliament, although feuds at court made him vulnerable to factional backstabbing. Arlington’s secretary told Pepys that ‘my lord general is become mighty low in all people’s opinion … that he hath received several slurs from the king and the duke of York [and] … is grown a drunken sot’.130 During the 1666–7 session Albemarle was present on just over 75 per cent of sitting days. He was again named to the committee for privileges, as well as to three other committees to consider bills, including that for seamen and naval stores. On 29 Dec. 1666 he presented a petition, endorsed by the king, in favour of a bill to reverse the attainder of Francis Scawen, son of his Commons ally the court supporter Robert Scawen‡, for stealing a horse. On 17 Jan. he was deputed by the House to inform the king that the poll bill had passed. In February he was named to the committee to recommend the condition of Edward Somerset, 2nd marquess of Worcester, and his wife to the king. Although he was not present in the House on 29 Jan. when the estate bill for James Bertie, now 5th Baron Norreys, was read for a second time and so could not be named to the committee, it is nevertheless clear that he was involved in negotiations over the substance of the bill, perhaps in fulfilment of his duties as executor of the 2nd earl of Lindsey’s will.131
By the time that the 1666–7 session ended early in February it was already apparent that the government was in disarray over the cost of the war and the collapse of naval finances. Albemarle was believed to have opposed the decision (reputedly made at the suggestion of Sir William Coventry‡) to save money by laying up the great ships in harbour – a decision that contributed to the disaster in the Medway the following June – although in reality he had advised the king that Dutch ships in the Thames could do no harm.132 Whatever the reason, in February 1667 it was reported that ‘some smart repartees’ at a meeting of the council had ended with York pushing Albemarle away. To the consternation of the king, Albemarle immediately resigned all his commissions. After considerable persuasion he agreed to continue as general but he was adamant in his refusal to accept a renewal of his commission for the navy.133 Rumours of problems in government spawned exaggerations, including the suggestion that ‘there is a design to bring in popery … [and] that the duke of Albemarle and two or three lords are clapped up in the Tower’. It was perhaps partly to defuse such tensions that York made a point of breaking his journey to Harwich in mid-March to oversee naval preparations in order to dine with Albemarle at his Essex house.134 Albemarle’s return to London shortly afterwards thus ‘discredits that report of his having retired from court upon discontent’.135
In April Albemarle was said to be indisposed and Pepys remarked that the duke ‘is not well and doth grow crazy’. In this context the word crazy did not carry its modern connotations of actual mental unbalance, for only a month later Pepys was complaining of actions by Albemarle that amounted to a very rational and deliberate attempt at extortion.136 The word was used in its older sense of physical frailty. According to Gumble, Albemarle’s health had never fully recovered from his illness in the summer of 1661.137 His health was now increasingly precarious and it may well have been an awareness of this, rather than the avarice that Arlington was so willing to ascribe to him, that encouraged him in his attempts to sell the mastership of the horse during the spring and early summer of 1667.138
After Clarendon, 1667-70
It was perhaps in the hope that Albemarle would assist in his fight against Coventry that Clarendon proposed his name as nominal head of the treasury commission in May 1667. Albemarle’s involvement in the events that led to the fall of Clarendon is by no means straightforward. In June 1667 he was being tipped to act as high constable at any impeachment proceedings.139 In August he was sent by the king as ‘the only man fit for those works’ to take the purse from Clarendon, who refused to surrender it to anyone other than the king himself, yet he was also said to have joined with a somewhat strange grouping that included Buckingham as well as York and Archbishop Sheldon in support of the chancellor.140 Albemarle’s relationship with York had certainly improved, for the following month he stood godfather to York’s infant son, Edgar (later duke of Cambridge), together with Henry Somerset, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).141
During the 1667–9 session Albemarle’s attendance dropped to just under 61 per cent. His attendance was high until the spring of 1668 but he was ill and so absent from the House for most of March 1668. Even when he returned in April his attendance that month was somewhat erratic. Thereafter, however, he resumed his normal high levels of attendance until his last illness in November 1669, although, according to Gumble, he had ‘relapsed into his old distempers’ towards the end of 1668 and was neglecting his health in order to fulfil his public duties.142 Either before or shortly after the session opened Albemarle was one of three peers who were named, along with the two secretaries of state, to the privy council committee for foreign affairs. The French agent de Ruvigny professed shock at the appointments, claiming that all but one of the members of the committee (including Albemarle) were ‘very ignorant of foreign affairs and cannot speak a word of French’.143 It seemed likely that Albemarle would escape censure for the naval setbacks of the summer, for while the Commons clearly wanted to blame someone, their approach to Albemarle and Prince Rupert for information was couched in terms that suggested both men had already been exculpated. The House resolved to send a committee to wait on them and ‘to present to them, the thanks of this House, and the great esteem they have of their eminent merit in the late war’.144
In the course of the autumn Albemarle was named to eight committees, many of which (such as the committees for trade between England and Scotland, for the trial of peers, for assigning exchequer orders, for the banishment of Clarendon, and for public accounts) represented major issues of public policy to which most of those present were also named. In November, according to de Ruvigny, the king, Buckingham, and Albemarle were trying to destroy the ‘third party’ set on foot by Ashley and Anglesey and had decided ‘to get rid of M. the chancellor completely, and vigorously to oppose the plans of those who would like to save him through the dispute they have brought about between the two chambers’. To this end they proposed to make a public protest.145 On 27 Nov. Buckingham and Albemarle did indeed support the attempts of the Commons to imprison Clarendon without a specific charge and entered a protest against the Lords’ refusal to comply with the Commons’ request. Albemarle’s son, Christopher Monck, spoke against Clarendon in the Commons. As Christopher Monck was barely 14 at the time, his words were naturally interpreted as an expression of Albemarle’s own views.
By December 1667, Charles II was said to be holding regular meetings with the Albemarles and Buckingham.146 Various lists of the king’s inner circle of advisers agree that the central figures were Buckingham, Sir Orlando Bridgeman‡, and Albemarle but there is little information about the part that Albemarle played in this trinity.147 Some said he was absent from council when the decision to enter into the triple alliance was taken; others thought that he, Bridgeman, and the king were in the secret together.148
Albemarle’s failure to prevent the duel between Buckingham and Shrewsbury in January 1668 was ascribed to a lack of communication at the centre of government that meant that everything ‘doth fall between two stools’, but barely a month later the relationship between Albemarle and Buckingham was described as ‘a confederacy offensive and defensive’ aimed squarely at Ormond as their common enemy.149 In April 1668 Albemarle was said to have been responsible for the king’s decision not to dissolve Parliament, threatening to leave the country in the event of a dissolution in the belief that that opposition to the king’s policies would be even greater in a new Parliament and ‘not seeing that there could be any security for their heads’.150 Early in the summer of 1668 he sold the mastership of the horse to Buckingham for a sum variously said to be £10,000 or over £20,000.151
With the government still in disarray, Albemarle was appointed one of the commissioners to examine miscarriages of justice in Ireland, and then in September he was named as one of the commissioners to negotiate with the French over the proposed commercial treaty. In late September and early October the French ambassador reported that Albemarle was dissatisfied and that, egged on by his wife, he was demanding the post of lord treasurer.152 How accurate this assessment was is difficult to tell. It is not even clear whether Albemarle was at court at this time; he may well have been at his house in Essex because we know that on 10 Oct., before leaving London, Charles II summoned him from his house at New Hall to the capital in order to cover the king’s absence and that as a result ‘he sits daily with the commissioners of the treasury who are very busy in settling the king’s revenue’. Albemarle’s continued importance, at least in the public mind, was underlined by the discovery of a plot to kill him and the execution in December 1668 of his would-be assassin. Amid reports of reconciliations at court, it was said that Albemarle had joined with York and those still attached to Clarendon in an attempt to prevent the king from announcing that the next meeting of Parliament would be postponed from March 1669 to the following October.153
Albemarle’s health was by now visibly declining. In February 1669 he was said to have ‘grown very apoplectical’ and ‘not like to live long’. For the next six weeks, newsletters and private correspondents provide us with an almost daily commentary on the fluctuating state of his health. Even after the immediate fears for his life had dissipated, regular accounts of his condition continued to appear in newsletters.154 Despite his infirmities (he was said to be suffering from difficulty in breathing, scurvy, and dropsy all at the same time) he still maintained an important public role. In March, when the king left London for Newmarket, he again put Albemarle in charge of affairs during his absence; it was even said that Albemarle had at last been offered the post of lord treasurer.155 French observers, who had considered him to be one of the most active opponents of a dissolution of Parliament, wondered briefly whether his demise might tip the balance of power in favour of a dissolution after all, but by July, when the duchess of Albemarle had also fallen gravely ill, reports of his recovery began to circulate and by early August he was ‘very well recovered’ and was once again on his way to London to take charge of affairs in the king’s absence. 156
Albemarle was present when Parliament reconvened on 19 Oct. 1669; he even held a proxy, that of Richard Vaughan, Baron Vaughan (and 2nd earl of Carbery [I]). He managed just three more attendances before his final illness. According to his early biographers he spent his final months in great discomfort and virtually unable to move, yet he was still involved in public affairs and on 23 Nov. sent his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges, to warn the Commons of the dangers presented by ‘the great resort of dangerous and disaffected persons to this Town’.157 He was also determined to secure the future of his dynasty. Negotiations for the marriage of his son, Christopher, to the daughter of Henry Cavendish, styled Lord Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), secured a portion of almost royal size, £20,000, and resulted in a wedding that took place on 30 Dec. 1669. Albemarle died just four days later. Unable to lie in his bed, he died sitting in his chair.158
Albemarle’s will, made in 1665, was a simple one, leaving the residue of his estate to his son, Christopher, whose ‘tuition and breeding’ were entrusted to his wife and to his close friends Craven, Sir William Morice, Sir John Maynard, Sir Edward Turner,‡ Sir William Doyley,‡ Robert Brown the elder, and John Powell. The will refers to an earlier settlement of lands. Details of this settlement do not survive but it was later alleged that it ensured the descent of Albemarle’s ancestral estates, in case of failure of issue by Christopher Monck, to Albemarle’s niece Frances Moore, with remainder to the daughters of his younger brother Nicholas Monck. Frances Moore’s older sister, Elizabeth Pride, was allegedly cut out of the succession because of her marriage to the son of a regicide but that did not stop her from claiming that she was entitled to the ancestral estates after the 2nd duke’s death under the terms of her own father’s settlement.159
Albemarle’s reputation as the regime’s military strongman may have outlived the reality of his abilities but to some his death at a time of acute and continuing political crisis left the government dangerously exposed to disorder and rebellion by ‘fanatics’.160 So acute was the sense of national loss that Charles II immediately announced his intention of paying for the funeral himself, and the duke’s body was removed to Denmark House in preparation for a lying-in-state at Somerset House. The funeral was delayed until 30 Apr. 1670. Andrew Marvell‡ commented somewhat waspishly on the delay, suggesting that it meant that Albemarle had been forgotten, but it is more likely that plans for the funeral were thrown into disarray by the death of the duchess of Albemarle just three and a half weeks after that of her husband. Albemarle was finally buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey on 30 Apr. 1670, at a cost of over £5,500.161 No monument was erected until the disputes surrounding his son’s estate were finally settled in 1720. Two biographies, by his chaplains, Thomas Gumble and John Price, appeared very soon after his death and another, by his doctor, Thomas Skinner, existed in manuscript until published early in the eighteenth century.162 All three were adulatory and helped to preserve and confirm Albemarle’s reputation as the saviour of the kingdom.
The epithet most often associated with George Monck is ‘honest’ and, in the midst of a dispute about the marriage portion due to Elizabeth Monck, Colonel Pride and his son went out of their way to pin the blame (if any) on Elizabeth Monck’s maternal relatives, assuring the court that George Monck was a man of ‘so great honour and integrity’ that he could not possibly be involved in an attempt to defraud his niece.163 Yet Albemarle had an uncanny ability to profit from the situations in which he found himself. There was surely a certain conflict of interest inherent in his ability to appoint trustees to consider and mediate the claims for arrears of pay due to those officers who had served the king in Ireland before 1649 when he had himself bought up a share in the rights to those arrears.164 Pepys was not the only contemporary of Albemarle who thought that he and his duchess were profiting financially from his position. As a young man George Monck had had to be content with a younger son’s portion of £80 a year. The ancestral estate at Potheridge, which he inherited at the death of his older brother, was said in 1690 to have a capital value of £10,000, but this was almost certainly an overestimate and at the time Monck inherited it the estate was in any case burdened with debt and with portions for his nieces. He died one of the wealthiest individuals in the country and in possession of estates in at least 12 English counties, in Ireland, and in Carolina.165 It therefore seems likely that in this context the word ‘honest’ refers not so much to his financial dealings as to his political ones. Albemarle was undoubtedly a man with a potentially extensive power base, yet he did not attempt to build a following in either the Lords or the Commons and, although he forged alliances and enmities at court, he nevertheless seems to have maintained considerable political independence.
Albemarle’s role in the Restoration of Charles II has naturally attracted much historical attention. Since his political papers do not survive and since his communications at the time were necessarily both verbal and secret, historians have found it difficult to reconstruct his intentions with any clarity. His contemporaries also found his intentions difficult to interpret. Even under the best of circumstances Monck was famously taciturn and secretive: ‘He is a silent man’, observed Sir Philip Percivalle in 1647; a decade later he was if anything even more inscrutable: ‘Monck is so dark a man’, wrote Mordaunt in 1660, ‘no perspective can look through him.’166 If General Monck did have a master plan, the complexities of the political situation of 1658–60 did not encourage him to declare it. Perhaps, as some of his royalist critics believed, his actions were those of a man jockeying for power against his fellow generals. Perhaps, if his response to Parliament’s attempts to change his officers in the summer of 1659 is to be taken at face value, his ideal was that the army should be under the control of the civil authorities: ‘Obedience is my great principle’, he once said, ‘and I have always, and ever shall, reverence the Parliament’s resolutions in civil things as infallible and sacred.’167 Perhaps Clarendon summed him up correctly when he observed ‘that he was instrumental in bringing mighty things to pass which he had neither wisdom to foresee nor courage to attempt nor understanding to continue’.168 Perhaps, unlike so many others drawn to the court of Charles II, he was simply not interested in becoming a political leader.
Above all, his actions demonstrate just how anxious he was both to avoid another civil war and to enjoy the fruits of being on the winning side. Idolized in his own time for his undoubted courage, his reliability, and his role in the Restoration, he was nevertheless an unexciting hero, ‘a dull, heavy man’ as Pepys described him.169 He was perhaps best summed up by his friend, Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury: ‘A man great of performance, little of speech, no lover of waste words, or fine composed orations, but a great affector of what was short and plain, easy and unaffected.’170
R.P.- 1 TNA, PROB 11/332.
- 2 LJ, xi. 564.
- 3 CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 427; 1661–2, pp. 416, 475; 1664–5, pp. 226, 289; 1667–8, pp. 90, 564.
- 4 Add. 40134, f. 1.
- 5 HMC 8th Rep. i. 275.
- 6 Bodl. Carte 42, f. 206.
- 7 Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxvii, 7–14.
- 8 Ibid.; M. Ashley, General Monck, 5–6.
- 9 For details of Monck’s military career see Ashley, General Monck.
- 10 CJ, iv. 595.
- 11 LJ, viii. 562; CJ, iv. 720.
- 12 TNA, C 10/171/4.
- 13 TNA, C 5/19/81.
- 14 Add. 36116, ff. 127–44.
- 15 TNA, C 5/19/81.
- 16 Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 470.
- 17 Pepys Diary, vii. 55–57.
- 18 Ibid. ii. 51.
- 19 HMC Portland, ii. 183–4.
- 20 Bodl. Clarendon 58, ff. 345–6.
- 21 Miller, Charles II, 17.
- 22 G. Davies, The Restoration of Charles II, 162–5, 169.
- 23 HMC Var. v. 166–7.
- 24 EHR, cv. 363–76.
- 25 CCSP, iv. 445; HMC Var. ii. 361–2.
- 26 Clarke Papers, iv. 250–1.
- 27 Davies, Restoration, 269–70.
- 28 HMC 5th Rep. 153; HMC Var. viii. 64.
- 29 HMC 7th Rep. 462.
- 30 Pepys Diary, i. 44–45.
- 31 CCSP, iv. 665.
- 32 Pepys Diary, i. 60.
- 33 Pepys Diary, i. 61–62; HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 333, 335; Verney ms mic. M636/17, Denton to Sir R. Verney, 1 Mar. 1660.
- 34 HMC Bath, ii. 141–2.
- 35 HMC Portland, iii. 256–7.
- 36 HMC 7th Rep. 159–60; HMC Portland, iii. 256–7.
- 37 CCSP, iv. 607.
- 38 Davies, Restoration, 312.
- 39 Archives, xxxv (123), 63–67.
- 40 Eg. 2551, f. 22.
- 41 HMC 3rd Rep. 89.
- 42 Letters and Memorials of State … Written and Collected by Sir Henry Sydney, Sir Philip Sydney, Robert, 2nd Earl of Leicester, ed. A. Collins (1746), ii. 685; HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 335; Bodl. Carte 214, f. 65.
- 43 CCSP, iv. 665–6.
- 44 HMC 3rd Rep. 89.
- 45 Ibid.; TNA, PRO 31/3/107, ff. 11, 13r; CJ, viii. i.
- 46 TNA, PRO 31/3/107, ff. 6–7, 15–16; CCSP, iv. 674–5, 681–2; Bodl. Carte 30, f. 576.
- 47 Pepys Diary, i. 118, 133; Sandwich, Journal, 75; Burnet, i. 160–1.
- 48 Bramston Autobiog. 116.
- 49 HMC Le Fleming, 24–25.
- 50 CSP Ven. 1659–61, pp. 156–8.
- 51 HMC 5th Rep. 184; HMC Egmont, i. 614.
- 52 Miller, Charles II, 41.
- 53 Clarendon, Life, i. 356.
- 54 Pepys Diary, i. 228.
- 55 HMC 5th Rep. 155, 200.
- 56 TNA, PRO 31/3/107, p. 110.
- 57 HMC 5th Rep. 184.
- 58 Ibid. 154.
- 59 Ashley, General Monck, 219–20; CJ, ix. 8.
- 60 Pepys Diary, iv. 136–8.
- 61 Northants. RO, Montagu letters 18, f. 36.
- 62 Add. 36916, f. 58.
- 63 HMC Le Fleming, 55.
- 64 Ibid. 62.
- 65 TNA, C 10/279/11.
- 66 Ashley, General Monck, 253–4; Wood, Life and Times, ii. 184; Sandwich Journal, x. 99–101; Verney ms mic. M636/23, Sir R. to E. Verney, 5 Jan. 1670 NS; NAS, GD 157/2667/2.
- 67 TNA, PROB 36/5, Albemarle to Bath, 27 May 1666.
- 68 Miller, Charles II, 64; HJ, xli. 425.
- 69 CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 35.
- 70 TNA, PROB 36/5, Albemarle to Bath, 27 May 1666; Pepys Diary, i. 181; Bodl. Tanner 47, ff. 189–90.
- 71 Clarendon, Life, i. 366.
- 72 Bodl. Carte 33, f. 315.
- 73 Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 80–81.
- 74 Halliday, ‘Commissions of Association’, 425–6.
- 75 Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Surtees Soc. v), 153.
- 76 HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 489.
- 77 Add. 40133, ff. 41, 42.
- 78 TNA, PRO 31/3/107, p. 177.
- 79 Notes which Passed, 16.
- 80 HMC 5th Rep. 196; TNA, PRO 31/3/108, pp. 135–9.
- 81 Pepys Diary, i. 263.
- 82 G.R. Abernathy, Jr., ‘The English Presbyterians and the Stuart Restoration, 1648–1663’, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.s. lv (pt. 2), 75; Reliquae Baxterianae, ii. 274–6.
- 83 HMC 5th Rep. 200.
- 84 Ibid. 169.
- 85 LJ, xi. 209.
- 86 Bodl. Carte 32, f. 600.
- 87 TNA, PROB 11/458.
- 88 HMC Finch, i. 130.
- 89 HMC Hastings, iv. 104.
- 90 TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 170–6.
- 91 Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 218–19.
- 92 TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 192–3.
- 93 Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 133.
- 94 LJ, xi. 418.
- 95 Letters and Memorials of State, ed. Collins, ii. 724; WSHC, Somerset mss 1332/53/215.
- 96 Bodl. Carte 31, f. 570.
- 97 Verney ms mic. M636/18, Butterfield to Sir R. Verney, 23 June 1662.
- 98 HMC Finch, i. 229.
- 99 TNA, PRO 31/3/110, pp. 216, 220, 242, 246–7, 323.
- 100 HMC Portland, iii. 268; TNA, PRO 31/3/110, pp. 356, 452–3; Pepys Diary, iii. 252.
- 101 Pepys Diary, iii. 290–1.
- 102 CSP Col. 1661–8, pp. 125, 133.
- 103 Pepys Diary, iv. 137.
- 104 TNA, PRO 31/3/112, pp. 29–31.
- 105 HMC 8th Rep. i. 219 .
- 106 HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 78.
- 107 Bodl. Tanner 47, ff. 101–2; HMC 8th Rep. i. 219.
- 108 Bodl. Clarendon 81, f. 205.
- 109 TNA, PRO 31/3/113, p. 289.
- 110 Bodl. Carte 34, f. 553.
- 111 TNA, PRO 31/3/114, pp. 184, 267, 296, 302; PRO 31/3/115, pp. 1, 3.
- 112 CSP Dom. Addenda, 1660–70, p. 696; CSP Dom. 1664–5, pp. 109–10.
- 113 CSP Dom. 1665–6, pp. 430–2.
- 114 Evelyn Diary, iii. 416.
- 115 Bodl. Carte 34, f. 468.
- 116 Bodl. Carte 46, f. 225; Carte 72, f. 58.
- 117 Bodl. Carte 34, ff. 498–9; Carte 46, f. 227.
- 118 Clarendon, Life, ii. 187–8; Pepys Diary, vi. 324.
- 119 Pepys Diary, vi. 277, 321.
- 120 Ibid. vii. 55–56.
- 121 Bodl. Tanner 45, f. 53.
- 122 OIOC, B/28 Court of Directors Minutes, 141.
- 123 CSP Dom. 1665–6, p. 360.
- 124 Pepys Diary, vii. 163.
- 125 Ibid. vii. 203.
- 126 CSP Dom. 1666–7, p. 99.
- 127 Verney ms mic. M636/21, Sir N. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, 7 Sept. 1666.
- 128 Bodl. Carte 46, ff. 363–4.
- 129 Pepys Diary, vii. 314–15, 323–4, 340, 349–50.
- 130 Pepys Diary, vii. 353–4.
- 131 Bodl. Carte 35, f. 173.
- 132 TNA, PRO 31/3/116, pp. 126–30.
- 133 HMC Le Fleming, 45.
- 134 CSP Dom. 1666–7, pp. 568, 576.
- 135 Bodl. Carte 103, ff. 258–9.
- 136 Bodl. Carte 46, ff. 470–1; Pepys Diary, viii. 181, 184–5, 219.
- 137 T. Gumble, Life of General Monck (1671), 407.
- 138 Bodl. Carte 46, ff. 470–1, 476–7, 484–5; Carte 51, ff. 321–4.
- 139 Pepys Diary, viii. 269; Verney ms mic. M636/21, Lady A. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, 15 June 1667.
- 140 Pepys Diary, viii. 401–2; Clarendon, Life, ii. 386.
- 141 HMC 14th Rep. IX, 370.
- 142 Gumble, Life of Monck, 453.
- 143 TNA, PRO 31/3/117, pp. 1–2, 46.
- 144 CJ, ix. 6–7.
- 145 TNA, PRO 31/3/117, pp. 39–41.
- 146 Ibid. pp. 56–59.
- 147 Pepys Diary, viii. 585; Bodl. Carte 220, ff. 326–8; TNA, PRO 31/3/118, pp. 14, 15.
- 148 TNA, PRO 31/3/118, pp. 33–37; Verney ms mic. M636/22, [Sir N. Hobart] to Sir R. Verney, n.d.
- 149 Pepys Diary, ix. 27; Add. 36916, f. 58; Bodl. Carte 36, f. 195.
- 150 TNA, PRO 31/3/118, pp. 119–20.
- 151 Verney ms mic. M636/22, Sir R. to E. Verney, 28 May 1668; Add. 36916, f. 103.
- 152 TNA, PRO 31/3/120, pp. 3–4, 10–11.
- 153 Add. 36916, ff. 115, 121–2.
- 154 Bodl. Rawl. Letters 113, f. 102; Add. 36916, ff. 125, 127, 131, 133–4; HMC Portland, iii. 311; Verney ms mic. M636/23, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 22 Mar. 1669; TNA, PRO 31/3/121, pp. 89–90; Add. 36916, ff. 136–9.
- 155 Add. 36916, f. 129; Verney ms mic. M636/23, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 10 Mar. 1669.
- 156 TNA, PRO 31/3/121, pp. 112–13; PRO 31/3/122, p. 17; NAS, GD 406/1/9826, E. Palmer to G. Digby, 4 July 1669; Durham UL (Palace Green), Cosin letter bk. 5a, ff. 28, 30; Add. 36916, ff. 140–1.
- 157 CJ, ix. 111; Add. 36916, f. 151.
- 158 CSP Ire. 1669–70, p. 59.
- 159 TNA, C 9/273/1.
- 160 HMC Le Fleming, 68–69.
- 161 TNA, LCO 2/10/1.
- 162 Gumble, Life of Monck; J. Price, The Mystery and Method of His Majesty’s Happy Restauration (1680); W. Webster, The Life of General Monk … From an Original Manuscript of Thomas Skinner (1723).
- 163 TNA, C 5/19/81.
- 164 HMC Ormonde, i. 251; TNA, C 107/25.
- 165 TNA, C 9/273/1; C 10/279/11; Add. 36916, f. 161; CSP Ire. 1669–70, p. 59.
- 166 HMC Egmont, i. 405; Letter Book of John Viscount Mordaunt 1658–60, ed. M. Coate, 174.
- 167 Clarke Papers, iv. 22–23.
- 168 Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 164.
- 169 Pepys Diary, i. 87.
- 170 The Christians Victory over Death. A Sermon (1670).