Victor without bloodshed: George Monck and the restoration
Jamison, Ted R.
Jamison, Ted R.
Citations
Altmetric:
Soloist
Composer
Publisher
Date
1972
Additional date(s)
Abstract
Probably no segment of the Interregnum deserves more attention than those final critical months before the king's return in May, 1660. And there is no better way to understand the period than through the eyes of the man most directly responsible for the Restoration, George Monck, later the Duke of Albemarle. But Monck's role has been almost forgotten, and he is remembered chiefly for his founding of the glamorous Coldstream Guards. George Monck's real importance has been strangely ignored, and he has become little more than a footnote in the texts. The traditional interpretation of Monck's role in the Restoration is that he left Scotland solely because of his abhorrence of the Fleetwood-Lambert clique's oligarchical control over the civil affairs of England. He is usually portrayed as a man who simply drifted with the tide of events but in no way controlled it. A restudy of the sources suggests that historians have heretofore accorded Monck less than his due. This study presents a new interpretation of George Monck's role in the Restoration. A careful reading of the sources indicates that Monck had a soldier's instinct for obeying orders and believed that the military should be subordinate to the civilian government. Politically, he was a single-minded individual. He served in the forces of Charles I until captured in 1644 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. When the king's cause was lost, Monck left the Tower in 1646 to become a commander in the Parliamentary Army. But at heart he was still a royalist and was determined to serve the Stuart cause again. With the political instability following on Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658, his opportunity was not long in coming. Monck marched his army from Scotland to London in early 1660, and when he discerned that the time was ripe for a Restoration, he communicated with Charles Stuart. The conditional return of the king, the Declaration of Breda, was a direct result of George Monck's personal instructions, and, equally important, a consequence of his premeditated scheme hatched in Scotland.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
Albemarle, George Monck, Duke of, 1608-1670
Great Britain--History--Restoration, 1660-1688
Great Britain--History--Restoration, 1660-1688
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Genre
Dissertation
Description
Format
vii, 260 leaves, bound : illustrations, map
Department
History