Lord of Cromwell's parliament.  He brought Chas II back to England and was duked thereby. Heir to his elder brother Thomas.

Monck or Monk, George, first Duke of Albemarle 1608-1670

Name: Monck or Monk, George
Title: first Duke of Albemarle
Dates: 1608-1670
Active Date: 1648
Gender: Male

Place of
    Birth: Potheridge, near Torrington in Devonshire
    Burial: Westminster Abbey
Spouse: Anne, duchess of Albemarle, born 25 March 1619 (Sloane MS)...
Likenesses: 1...,   2...,   3...,   4...,   5...,   6...,   7...
Sources: Of separately published lives of Monck the most important is The...
Contributor: C. H. F. [Charles Harding Firth]

Article
Monck or Monk, George, first Duke of Albemarle 1608-1670, born 6 Dec. 1608 at Potheridge, near Torrington in Devonshire, was the second son of Sir Thomas Monck, knt., by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Smith of Maydford in the same county (Gumble, Life of Monck, 8vo, 1671, p. 1; Visitation of Devonshire, 1620, ed. Colby, pp. 188-91). In 1625 the under-sheriff of Devonshire perfidiously arrested Sir Thomas Monck as he went to pay his respects to the king, and George Monck avenged his father's wrongs by thrashing the under-sheriff. To avoid legal proceedings he took service as a volunteer in the expedition to Cadiz, under his kinsman, Sir Richard Grenville, who was then major to the regiment of Sir John Borough. In 1627 he distinguished himself by bringing a letter from the king to the Duke of Buckingham in the Isle of Ré, ‘passing the army, which lay before Rochelle, with great hazard of his life.’ It was probably as a reward for this service that he now obtained an ensign's commission in Borough's regiment (Gumble, p. 4; Works of George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, ed. 1736, iii. 253). About 1629 Monck entered the Dutch service, serving in the regiment of the Earl of Oxford, which after Oxford's death became the regiment of George Goring. At the siege of Breda, in 1637, Monck led the forlorn hope in the assault on one of the outworks of the town. He distinguished himself also as a strict disciplinarian, and earned a reputation as a good officer. A quarrel with the magistrates of Dort on the question of their jurisdiction over the soldiers under Monck's command finally led to his quitting the Dutch service. A scheme was at this time on foot in England for the colonisation of Madagascar by a joint-stock company, and Monck thought of becoming one of the adventurers in that enterprise. But the outbreak of the Scottish troubles provided him employment in England (Gumble, pp. 5-11; Hexham, Brief Relation of the Siege of Breda, 4to, 1637, p. 27). In the list of the army under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, in 1640, Monck appears as lieutenant-colonel of the foot regiment of the Earl of Newport (Peacock, Army Lists, 2nd edit. p. 75). Gumble attributes to Monck's good conduct the saving of the English guns in the rout at Newburn (p. 10; cf. Skinner, Life of Monck, 1724, p. 18).
At the outbreak of the Irish rebellion the Earl of Leicester/a relative of Monck's/was lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and at once offered Monck the command of his own regiment of foot. The regiment, consisting of twelve hundred men, landed at Dublin on 21 Feb. 1642 (Gumble, p. 15; Nalson, Historical Collections, ii. 919). Monck gained much honour at the battle of Kilrush, and by defeating the Irish in a number of skirmishes and forays (Borlase, Irish Rebellion, ed. 1743, p. 100). In June 1642 he ‘took Castleknock, and killed eighty rebels, besides some that he hanged; and a while after he took the castles of Rathroffy and Clongoweswood in the county of Kildare, and did good execution upon the enemy’ (Coxe, Hibernia Anglicana, ii. 107). In December 1642 he relieved Ballinakill, besieged by General Preston, and defeated at Tymachoe an attempt of the Irish to intercept his return to Dublin (Carte, Ormonde, ed. 1851, ii. 386; Bellings, Hist. of the Irish Catholic Confederation, i. 91, ii. 177). In the summer of 1643 he conducted an expedition for the relief of Castle-Jordan in King's County, captured various places in Wicklow, and took part in an unsuccessful campaign against Owen O'Neill (ib. i. 161, ii. 271, 363; Carte, ii. 500). On 7 June 1643 the Earl of Leicester commissioned Monck as governor of Dublin, with a salary of 40s. a day, but the king, at the request of the lords justices, appointed Lord Lambert instead (ib. ii. 347; Bellings, ii. 44). Though he failed to obtain this public recognition of his services, he had gained the confidence of his men, and was ‘the most beloved by the soldiers of any officer in the army’ (Carte, iii. 43).
Even before the cessation of September 1643 Monck had obtained leave to return to England, possibly on account of the death of his father. His refusal to take the oath which Ormonde imposed on the Irish army before it was transported to England to serve Charles I proceeded, according to Carte, from a desire to consult his patron, the Earl of Leicester, or to obtain his arrears from the parliament before again entering the king's service, nor did it prevent Ormonde granting him a pass. But some loose talk of Lord Lisle's about the possibility of gaining over Monck to the parliamentary cause, and a message which Pym had sent to Monck with that object, drew suspicion upon him. Ormonde consequently sent him under safe custody to Bristol till the king's pleasure should be known, at the same time telling the governor that Monck was a person ‘that hath very well deserved in the service of this kingdom,’ and that ‘no unworthy thing’ was laid to his charge. The governor allowed him to go to Oxford to justify himself, which he succeeded in doing without difficulty. In his interview with Charles I he frankly criticised the conduct of the war in Ireland, and asserted that ten thousand men properly disciplined and equipped, and commanded by officers of experience, could bring it to a conclusion (ib. iii. 37, v. 504, 525; Gumble, p. 17).
His old regiment had been given to his second in command, but he obtained a commission to raise a new one. He rejoined the army just before its defeat by Fairfax at Nantwich (25 Jan. 1644), fought as a volunteer at the head of his old regiment, and was taken prisoner. On 8 July he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, charged with high treason, and committed to the Tower, where he remained for two years, finding it very difficult even to subsist (Skinner, p. 23; Carte, Original Letters, i. 38, 41; Commons' Journals, iii. 554). His elder brother, Thomas, who was not rich, and was actively engaged in the king's cause, sent him 50l. In a letter begging for another 50l., on the score of his great necessities, Monck adds: ‘I shall entreat you to be mindful of me concerning my exchange; for I doubt all my friends have forgotten me.’ Prince Rupert made an attempt to get him exchanged for Sir Robert Pye [q.v.], and the king sent him 100l., a gift which he often mentioned with gratitude in later days (Gumble, p. 20; Skinner, p. xix; Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. p. 63; Cal. of Compounders, p. 1366; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. iv. 241).
In September 1646, when Ormonde was negotiating with the parliament, one of his requests was that Monck and some other imprisoned officers might be released and sent over to Ireland, ‘being men that knew the country and were experienced in the service, and therefore fitter to be employed than others’ (Carte, iii. 270). For the same reason, when the parliament took the Irish war into its own hands, it decided to employ Monck. On 1 July he obtained leave to go beyond seas, on condition of taking the ‘negative oath.’ But Lord Lisle, who was chosen by parliament lord-lieutenant of Ireland, persuaded Monck to offer to serve there. On 12 Nov. 1646 Lisle reported to the lords from the Derby House committee that Monck had engaged his honour that he would faithfully serve the parliament if he were employed in Ireland; and, moreover, that he had taken the negative oath, was willing to take the covenant, and was ready to start at a moment's notice (Commons' Journals, iv. 595, 720; Lords' Journals, viii. 562). The offer was accepted, and there can be little doubt that Monck actually did take the covenant, though the fact has been much disputed (Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 352; Guizot, Life of Monck, ed. Wortley, p. 39). A royalist tradition represents Monck before he left the Tower as solemnly begging the blessing of his fellow-prisoner, Dr. Wren, and pledging himself never to be an enemy to the king. Whether the story is true or not, Monck, like Lord Broghill and others, certainly drew a distinction between bearing arms against the Irish rebels and bearing arms against the king. But once embarked in the service of the parliament, military honour led him to be unswervingly faithful to the government whose pay he took (Barwick, Life of John Barwick, p. 267). In February 1647 Monck set out with Lord Lisle for Munster, with the rank of adjutant-general, returning in April, when Lisle's commission expired. Parliament now determined to divide the command, assigning the government of Leinster to Michael Jones [q.v.], and that of Ulster to Monck (Carte, iii. 324, 331; Gumble, p. 25; Lords' Journals, ix. 336).
During the next two years Monck's ability was chiefly shown by the skill with which he contrived to maintain his position and to provide for his men in a ravaged and barren country. In October 1647, and again in August 1648 he joined Jones, and the two made brief campaigns together and captured a few small fortresses (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1645-7, p. 593; Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. p. 205; Hist. of the War in Ireland, by an Officer of Sir John Clotworthy's Regiment, Dublin, 1873, pp. 58-62; Portland MSS. p. 493). In 1648 the defection of the Scottish army in Ulster made his position extremely precarious; but by a skilfully arranged plot he surprised their headquarters at Carrickfergus (16 Sept.) and Belfast, and sent their general, Robert Monro [q.v.], a prisoner to England (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 52; Borlase, p. 255).
On 28 Sept. parliament appointed Monck governor of Carrickfergus, and voted him a gratuity of 500l. The king's execution led to further divisions among the adherents of the parliament, and the ‘old Scots’/the colony established in Ulster by the plantation of James I/now declared against the parliament, and summoned Monck to join them in support of Charles II (The Declaration of the British in the North of Ireland, with some Queries of Colonel Monck, &c., 1648, 4to; Hill, The Montgomery MSS., i. 177-90). Belfast and Carrickfergus fell into their hands, and Monck was obliged to retire to Dundalk (April 1649). In this extremity, finding Jones unable to give him any help, he concluded a cessation of arms for three months with Owen Roe O'Neill [q.v.] (8 May 1649). Monck was well aware that the peace propositions put forward by O'Neill were not likely to be accepted by the parliament. He succeeded in persuading O'Neill to modify them, but even when amended considered them ‘wonderful high,’ and believed that O'Neill would be satisfied with much less than he demanded. As an excuse for his action in concluding the armistice he pleaded simply military necessity, the ill condition in which he was between the forces of O'Neill and the Scots, and the paramount importance of preventing O'Neill from joining Ormonde in an attempt to drive the English out of Ireland. In forwarding the convention and O'Neill's propositions to Cromwell personally, instead of to the council of state, he wrote: ‘Since there was great necessity for me to do it I hope it will beget no ill construction, when the advantage gained to the service, by dividing Ormonde and MacArt, is fully weighed’ (25 May 1649). From a military point of view the arrangement with O'Neill did produce some of the results anticipated by Monck. On the other hand, as soon as it became known, the fidelity of Monck's own men was shattered. Inchiquin, whom Ormonde sent against him, took Drogheda, induced nearly all its garrison to join his army, and intercepted the convoy of ammunition which Monck forwarded to O'Neill, with a request for help (15 July). Two days afterwards Inchiquin invested Dundalk, and Monck's own soldiers forced him to surrender (17 July). Monck then proceeded to England, landed at Chester on 26 July, and appeared before the parliament on 10 Aug. The house passed a vote in which they ‘utterly disapproved’ of his proceedings in the treaty with O'Neill, but declared their belief in his good faith, and promised not to question his conduct further. Monck asserted that he had acted solely on his own responsibility (Commons' Journals, vi. 277; cf. Aphorismical Discovery, ii. vii. 216; Carte, Original Letters, ii. 388; Walker, History of Independency, ed. 1661, ii. 230; The True State of the Transactions of Col. Geo. Monck with Owen Roe Mac Art, O'Neill, &c., 1649, 4to).
In July 1650 Cromwell invaded Scotland, and took Monck with him. There was some difficulty, however, in finding him a command. Bright's regiment, which had fought against Monck at Nantwich, was indignant at the suggestion that he should become their colonel. Cromwell formed a new regiment for him, by taking five companies from Fenwick's and five from Hesilrige's. On 13 Aug. parliament ordered the regiment thus made to be placed on the establishment, and it became at the Restoration the Coldstream guards (Memoirs of Capt. John Hodgson, ed. 1806, p. 139; Mackinnon, The Coldstream Guards, 1833, i. 4). At Dunbar Monck led the brigade of foot, and did good service, though Gumble probably exaggerates when he represents him as teaching Cromwell and the other officers the art of war, and gives him the whole credit of the victory (Carlyle, Cromwell, Letter cxl.; Gumble, pp. 34-8). He was subsequently engaged during November 1650 in the siege of Dirleton Castle and other small places, and in the spring of 1651 in the capture of the more important fortresses of Tantallon and Blackness. ‘Thereby,’ says Gumble, ‘he increased in reputation and credit with the general, and seemed to bear the greatest sway in the councils of war, which drew upon him the envy of all the old officers.’

[Can't get it all in!  So here's the genealogy bit at the end.]


Anne, duchess of Albemarle, born 25 March 1619 (Sloane MS. 1708, f. 117), was the daughter of John Clarges, a farrier in the Savoy, by his wife, Anne Leaver. She married, on 28 Feb. 1632-3, Thomas Radford, also a farrier, and afterwards a servant to Prince Charles, ‘from whom she was separated in 1649, but of whose death before her second marriage no evidence appears to have been obtained.’ Her remarriage to Monck took place on 23 Jan. 1652-3 at St. George's, Southwark (Chester, Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 171). Aubrey asserts that she was Monck's seamstress when he was prisoner in the Tower, and hints that she was also his mistress. A letter written in September 1653, mentioning the marriage, describes her character in the harshest terms, but these scandalous stories contain inaccuracies which destroy their credit (Letters from the Bodleian, ii. 452; Thurloe, i. 470). By her Monck had two sons: first, Christopher, born in 1653, second duke of Albemarle [q.v.]; secondly, George, who died an infant, and was buried in the chapel at Dalkeith House (Skinner, p. 70).
In 1659 all Mrs. Monck's influence with her husband was exercised on behalf of the restoration of the monarchy. Price dwells on the freedom she was wont to use in her evening conversations with the general after his day's work was over. At night too he was sometimes ‘quickened with a curtain lecture of damnation/a text that his lady often preached upon to him’ (Price, ed. Maseres, pp. 712, 716). This zeal gained her the praise of Hyde's correspondents, who speak of her as ‘an extreme good woman,’ and ‘a happy instrument in this glorious work’ (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 739, 741, 749). After the Restoration her defects became more obvious, and Clarendon terms her ‘a woman of the lowest extraction, the least wit, and less beauty;’ ‘nihil muliebre præter corpus gerens’ (Rebellion, xvi. 98). To Pepys she seemed ‘a plain, homely dowdy,’ and he complains that when he dined at the duke's he found him with ‘dirty dishes, and a nasty wife at table and bad meat’ (Diary, 4 April 1667). Her worst fault, however, was avarice, and she was commonly accused of selling offices in her husband's department, and of even worse methods of extortion (ib. 22 June 1660; 16 May 1667). She died on 29 Jan. 1670, aged nearly 51, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 28 Feb. (Chester, p. 171).

Sources
Of separately published lives of Monck the most important is The Life of General Monck, Duke of Albemarle, with Remarks upon his Actions, by Thomas Gumble, D.D., 8vo, 1671. Gumble was Monck's chaplain during 1659 and part of 1660, and derived much of his information from Monck and his officers. The Life by Thomas Skinner is for the most part a mere compilation, though Skinner was promised the use of original papers by Lord Bath and the second Duke of Albemarle (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 377, 8th ser. iv. 421). It was first published in 1723 by William Webster, curate of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, London, who added a preface containing some original documents. Of modern lives the most important is that by Guizot, originally published in 1837. Of this there are two translations, the first, published in 1838, with valuable annotations by J. Stuart Wortley, the second, published in 1851, by A. R. Scoble, from Guizot's revised edition of his work (1850), with an appendix of diplomatic correspondence. A life, by Julian Corbett, 1889, is included in the series of English Men of Action. Lives of Monck are also in Winstanley's Worthies, 1684; Biographia Britannica, v. 3134; Campbell's British Admirals, 1744; Prince's Worthies of Devon, 1701. A pedigree is given in the Visitations of Devon, ed. by Colby. In 1660 a pamphlet was printed, entitled The Pedigree and Descent of his Excellency, General George Monk, setting forth how he is descended from King Edward III, by a Branch and Slip of the White Rose, the House of York; and likewise his Extraction from Richard, King of the Romans.
For particular portions of Monck's career the following are the chief authorities: 1. For his service in Ireland: Carte's Life of Ormonde; Carte's MSS. in the Bodleian Library; Gilbert's Aphorismical Discovery of Treasonable Faction. 2. For his services at sea: Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir William Penn, 1833; J. B. Deane's Life of Richard Deane; The Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, translated 1697; the parliamentary newspapers for 1653, and the Calendar of Domestic State Papers. 3. For his government of Scotland: The Thurloe State Papers, 1742; MSS. of Sir William Clarke at Worcester College, Oxford (published by Camden Soc.); Mackinnon's Hist. of the Coldstream Guards, 1833; Masson's Life of Milton, vol. v. 4. For the Restoration: The Mystery and Method of his Majesty's happy Restoration, by John Price, one of Monk's chaplains, 8vo, 1680; reprinted by Maseres in Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars in England, 1815; The Continuation of Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle of the Kings of England, by Edward Phillips, printed in the edition of 1661 and subsequent editions, in what relates to Monck is based on the papers of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges; the papers of Monck's secretary, Sir William Clarke, throw much light on the history of this part of Monck's life (published by Camden Soc. from MSS. at Worcester College, Oxford, or in the possession of F. Leyborne Popham, esq., of Littlecote); Ludlow's Memoirs, 1698; the Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii.; Guizot's Hist. of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of Charles II, translated by A. R. Scoble, 1856. Letters and declarations by Monck during this period, reprinted from contemporary pamphlets, are to be found in the Old Parliamentary History. Shortly after the Restoration A Collection of Letters and Declarations, &c., sent by General Monk, 4to, 1660, was published, which was reprinted in 1714 in 8vo. This was meant to expose his perfidy, and his protestations in favour of a republic were all printed in italics. It contained a letter to the king on 30 Dec. 1659, which is a forgery. 5. For the post-Restoration period of Monck's life: Burnet's Hist. of his own Time; the Continuation of Clarendon's Life, and the Diary of Samuel Pepys. A Vindication of General Monck from some Calumnies of Dr. Burnet and some Mistakes of Dr. Echard, in relation to the sale of Dunkirk and the Portuguese match, was published by George Granville. It called forth an answer, to which Granville replied in A Letter to the Author of Reflections Historical and Political, occasioned by a Treatise in Vindication of General Monk. Both are reprinted in the Genuine Works of Lord Lansdowne, 2 vols. 1736. On Monck's death the university of Oxford published a collection of Latin verses, Epicedia Universitatis Oxoniensis in Obitum Georgii ducis Albemarliæ, fol., 1670; and Cambridge added Musarum Cantabrigiensium Threnodia, 1670, 4to. Payne Fisher wrote an Elogium Sepulchrale, and Thomas Flatman a Pindarique Ode. Robert Wild, Iter Boreale, 1660, 4to, celebrates Monck's march from Scotland, and Dryden's Annus Mirabilis, 1667, his four days' sea-fight.

Contributor: C. H. F.

published  1894