their efforts might have been fruitless, had the military been united among themselves.  But among the officers there were several who had already made their peace with Charles by the promise of their services, and many who secretly retained a strong attachment to Hazlerig and his party in opposition to Lambert.  In Ireland, Barrow, who had been sent as their representative from Wallingford House, found the army so divided and wavering, that each faction alternately obtained a short and precarious superiority; and in Scotland, Cobbet, who arrived there on a similar mission, was, with seventeen other officers who approved of his proposals, imprisoned by order of Monk.[1]

From this moment the conduct of Monk will claim a considerable share of the reader’s attention.  Ever since the march of Cromwell in pursuit of the king to Worcester he had commanded in Scotland; where, instead of concerning himself with the intrigues and parties in England, he appeared to have no other occupation

[Footnote 1:  Ludlow, ii. 237, 252, 259, 262, 300.  Clar.  Pap. iii. 591.  Carte’s Letters, 266.]

than the duties of his place, to preserve the discipline of his army, and enforce the obedience of the Scots.  His despatches to Cromwell from Scotland form a striking contrast with those from the other officers of the time.  There is in them no parade of piety, no flattery of the protector, no solicitation for favours.  They are short, dry, and uninteresting, confined entirely to matters of business, and those only of indispensable necessity.  In effect, the distinctive characteristic of the man was an impenetrable secrecy.[1] Whatever were his predilections or opinions, his wishes or designs, he kept them locked up within his own breast.  He had no confidant, nor did he ever permit himself to be surprised into an unguarded avowal.  Hence all parties, royalists, protectorists, and republicans, claimed him for their own, though that claim was grounded on their hopes, not on his conduct.  Charles had been induced to make to him repeatedly the most tempting offers, which were supported by the solicitations of his wife and his domestic chaplain; Monk listened to them without displeasure, though he never unbosomed himself to the agents or to his chaplain so far as to put himself in their power.  Cromwell had obtained some information of these intrigues; but, unable to discover any real ground of suspicion, he contented himself with putting Monk on his guard by a bantering postscript to one of his letters.  “Tis said,” he added, “there is a cunning fellow in Scotland,

[Footnote 1:  “His natural taciturnity was such, that most of his friends, who thought they knew him best, looked upon George Monk to have no other craft in him than that of a plain soldier, who would obey the parliament’s orders, and see that his own were obeyed.”—­Price, Mystery and Method of his Majesty’s happy Restoration, in Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars in England, published by Baron Maseres, ii. 700.]