he negotiations. No sooner was the matter settled than the Lieutenant-General busied himself in carrying out his master's orders. Every man that could be spared

parliamentary promises of pay; and, moreover, through the Commons' antipathy to martial law, there had been trouble in Ireland of the same nature as that which led to his leaving the Dutch service. Then the prospect of coming to blows with the Scots, before whom he had been disgraced, had irresistible attractions for him. Morally there was nothing to prevent him entering the royal service. Although paid by the Parliament it was the King's commission he held. But to be asked to pledge himself to the politics of those for whom he fought was in his eyes a monstrous proposal, while to be called on to swear fidelity to the man whose commission he held was an insult. Rigid even to pedantry in his notions of military honour, he did

and the choice of a commander lay between the Scotchman Munroe and Lisle. Munroe's recommendation was his influence with the old Scotch colonists, while Lisle claimed that he could command the services of Monk, and through him half Ormonde's army. Lord Digby, the King's Secretary of State, although his good opinion of Monk was unshaken by the rumours he heard, still took the precaution of warning Ormonde, and w

th him that he should be confined till further orders from Oxford, whither the Lieutenant-General sent a report of the step he had taken. "In the meantime," he says in his letter to Sir Francis Hawley, the governor

ignant, as it seems, that a man of such distinguished service should be treated so shabbily. But his responsibility was not to last long.

ith his polished wit, his scholarly discourse, and great personal charm. It was he who had provided Charles with his most trusted counsellors. It was he who had beguiled Sir John Hotham

e scrutinises. We can hear him speak of the daring journey to Rhé, of the breach at Breda, of the guns at Newburn, and of all that has since been done in Ireland. He is glad also to have so great an authority on military science in Oxford, as he wants some confidential advice on the prosecution of the war. We can see the look of half-amused surprise as honest George "deals very frankly with his Majesty," and tells him his army is only a rabble of gentility, whose courage and high birth are worthless beside the growing discipline that Fairfax and Skippon and Cromwell are teaching his enem

left it with the regiment that was devoted to him, and that was now, with the rest of the Irish brigade, investing Nantwich under Lord Byron. The fall of the place was looked on as certain; when all at once in the midst of the Christmas revels there was a cry that help was at hand. Under peremptory orders from London, Fairfax had left his winter-quarters about L

e of his old corps, Lord Byron saw his force had got a new heart. Monk had in his pocket a commission to raise a regiment and a promise of the post o

en up a position at Acton Church, about a mile in rear of their works, where they intended to stop his advance, while to prevent a sortie of the garrison a small guard was left to hold the bridge by which the town was reached. On the other side of the river was Lord Byron with the rest of the infantry and all the horse. Communications had been kept up hitherto by fords, but a sudden th

troopers were hurled back from a solid wall of pikes and muskets. Three of the Parliament regiments had reversed their front and with the rest Fairfax dashed at Monk and his friends. Warren's was in the centre, and it broke at once. The rest stood firm but with flanks exposed. Pike in hand Monk raged through his disgraced regiment and rallied it for one more charge. Again it broke, and Fairfax poured in between the wings a resistless flood. At the same moment the garrison sallied out, forced the guard at the bridge, and fell upon the Royalist rear. All was over. Drowned in a sea of armed men that flowed on every side of them, the reg

e value of his services, and impressed upon the Parliament that he was "a man worth the making," and not without effect. He was ordered up to London with Warren, and on July 8th brought to the bar of the House. There the two unfortunate officers were charged with high treason and committed to the Tower. No sooner were they there than Lord Lisle set about justifying his bo

elf into the task. Except possibly Sir Jacob Astley, who was at Oxford with Charles, there was no one in the kingdom more fitted for the all-important work than Monk. Cromwell, who knew how to choose a man, must have been perfectly aware of his qualifications, even if he had not been as intimate as he was with Lord Lisle. Nor was it from Cromwell alone that the prisoner was tempted. Though all were agreed the weapon must be forged, they w

d the most brilliant offers that could be made him he only regarded as insults. Pressure was even brought to bear, it is s

attempts were made to exchange him; that one was we know. Care, however, seems to have been taken by his would-be employers not only that these attempts should be unsuccessful, but that Monk should not even hear of them. The wretched colonel thought himself forgotten. His money was gone, and a penniless prisoner in those days was the most miserable of men. Of his annuity fifty pounds was all he had had, and on November 6th, but four m

and as the weary months went by he thought himself indeed deserted. Once out of the very depth of his poverty Charles sent him a hundred pounds-an extraordinary mark of esteem as things went at Oxford then. But that was all

t, the few well-digested words, rugged, blunt, and direct, with which he compelled the attention of councils of war and won the respect and admiration of his men. Its subdued enthusiasm tells us of a genuine soldier reverently devoted to his profession, and looking mournfully from the place apart, where his almost aggressive patriotism had placed him, at the distractions with which his beloved country was torn. It gives us as clearly as though we saw h

reventing civil war. After recommending a strong centralised government, technical education, and uniformity of religion, if it can be obtained without danger, he enunciates those principles which caused him to take the final step at the great crisis of his life. Still under the influence of his Devonshire training he strongly insists on State colonisation as a means whereby sources of weakness may be turned into strength. "But the principal and able remedy," he says, "against civil war is to entertain a foreign war. This chaseth away

we may be sure that it was from Monk's pen that Cromwell, to whom Lisle would not

milliner, and in that capacity used to look after Monk's linen. She was neither pretty nor well bred; she had a sharp tongue and manners that were not refined. But the colonel was soft-hearted, and she was very kind; the colonel was so handsome and had such a soldier