Note 495 — Chapter X · (continued 3)

If the account of his chaplain, Dr. Price, republished in Maseres' Tracts, vol. ii., be worthy of trust, Monk gave so much encouragement to his brother, a clergyman, secretly despatched to Scotland by Sir John Grenvil, his relation, in June 1659, as to have approved Sir George Booth's insurrection, and to have been on the point of publishing a declaration in favour of it. P. 718. But this is flatly in contradiction of what Clarendon asserts, that the general not only sent away his brother with no hopes, but threatened to hang him if he came again on such an errand. And, in fact, if anything so favourable as what Price tells us had occurred, the king could not fail to have known it. See Clarendon State Papers, iii. 543. This throws some suspicion on Price's subsequent narrative (so far as it professes to relate the general's intentions); so that I rely far less on it than on Monk's own behaviour, which seems irreconcilable with his professions of republican principles. It is, however, an obscure point of history, which will easily admit of different opinions.

The story told by Locke, on Lord Shaftesbury's authority, that Monk had agreed with the French ambassador to take on himself the government, wherein he was to have the support of Mazarin, and that his wife, having overheard what was going forward, sent notice to Shaftesbury, who was thus enabled to frustrate the intrigue (Locke's Works, iii. 456), seems to have been confirmed lately by Mr. D'Israeli, in an extract from the manuscript memoirs of Sir Thomas Browne (Curiosities of Literature, N. S. vol. ii.), but in terms so nearly resembling those of Locke, that it seems to be an echo. It is certain, as we find by Phillips's continuation of Baker's Chronicle (said to be assisted, in this part, by Sir Thomas Clarges, Monk's brother-in-law), that Bourdeaux, the French ambassador, did make such overtures to the general, who absolutely refused to enter upon them; but, as the writer admits, received a visit from the ambassador on condition that he should propose nothing in relation to public matters. I quote from Kennet's Register, 85. But, according to my present impression, this is more likely to have been the foundation of Shaftesbury's story, who might have heard from Mrs. Monk the circumstance of the visit, and conceived suspicions upon it, which he afterwards turned into proofs. It was evidently not in Monk's power to have usurped the government, after he had let the royalist inclinations of the people show themselves; and he was by no means of a rash character. He must have taken his resolution when the secluded members were restored to the house (Feb. 21); and this alleged intrigue with Mazarin could hardly have been so early.

It may be added that in one of the pamphlets about the time of the exclusion bill, written by Shaftesbury himself or one of his party (Somers Tracts, viii. 338), he is hinted to have principally brought about the restoration; "without whose courage and dexterity some men, the most highly rewarded, had done otherwise than they did." But this still depends on his veracity.