put there by the committee of safety, and placed in command Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had brought in admiral Lawson, assisted by several members of parliament. On the 26th of December the Rump met again in that house from which they had twice been so ignominiously expelled. Their first proceeding was to annul their act against the payment of excise and customs, so that they might not be without money, and their next to dismiss Lambert, Desborough, Berry, and other officers, and to order them to retire further from London; and they ordered Vane, who had adhered to the committee of safety, to confine himself to his house at Raby. Thus they were throwing down with their own hands the very bulwarks which should prevent their falling helplessly into the power of Monk and his army. Still more, they sent an order to Lambert's regiments to quit their commander, and retire to such quarters as they appointed. The soldiers having heard of their comrades in the south having gone over to the parliament, did not hesitate to obey its orders, and Lambert found himself left alone with only about a hundred horse. At Northallerton his officers took their leave of him with tears, and he retired quietly to a house which he had in the country. Thus the expectation of a sharp encounter betwixt Monk and Lambert was at an end, and the road was open to Monk to march to London without opposition.
He had received assurances from lord Fairfax, that within twelve days he would join him or perish in the attempt, and he forthwith called together his friends, and demanded the surrender of York. On the 1st of January the gates of York were thrown open to Fairfax and his followers, and that same day Monk commenced his march southward from Coldstream. Monk remained five days at York in consultation with Fairfax, who did not hesitate to avow his readiness to assist in the restoration of the king. Clarendon tells us that the king had sent Sir Horatio Townsend to Fairfax, expressing confident hopes of Monk, and requiring him to co-operate with him; and the parliament had become so apprehensive of him, that before his arrival at York, they wrote to him, advising him to send back part of his forces to Scotland, as being needless now in England, and might prevent danger in Scotland. Monk paid no attention, and the parliament began to wish him back in Scotland altogether. But it does not appear that Monk in any way committed himself to Fairfax by his words, whatever his conduct might indicate. On the contrary, at York he caned an officer who charged him with a design of bringing in Charles Stuart. On his quitting York, Fairfax disbanded his forces, and Monk pursued his march in the same mysterious silence. The parliament had appointed a council of state, and framed the oath for its members to embrace a most stringent abjuration of royalty and of the Stuart family. The soldiers sympathising with the parliament, the officers, on reaching Nottingham, proposed signing an engagement to obey the parliament in all things except the bringing in of Charles Stuart. Monk declared this unnecessary, parliament having expressed itself so strongly on that head; and at Leicester he wrote a reply to certain royalist petitioners in Devonshire, stating his confidence that monarchy could not be reintroduced, that the excluded members of 1648 could not be safely reinstated, and that it was their bounden duty to obey and support the present government.
At Leicester arrived two of the most democratic members of parliament, Scott and Robinson, to watch his proceedings, but ostensibly to do him honour. He received them with all respect, and such was his apparent devotion to parliament, that they were thoroughly satisfied and highly delighted. At every place he was met by addresses from towns and counties, praying him to restore the excluded members, and procure a full and free parliament. He replied on all occasions that he was but the servant of parliament in a military capacity, and referred the applicants to the two deputies for their answers. These gentlemen, who were vehemently opposed to any such restoration of the excluded members, gave very free denials, with which Monk did not in any way interfere.
This conduct, we are assured by Clarendon, extremely confounded Charles and his partisans, who had calculated greatly on Monk's secret inclinations, but the dispersion of Lambert's forces, the retirement of Fairfax, and the vigorous adherence of Monk to the parliament, puzzled and depressed them. It might have been supposed that though Monk had so impenetrably concealed his designs from the adherents of the commonwealth, that he had a secret understanding with the king. Clarendon, who was fully in the king's confidence, and his great adviser, solemnly assures us that there was nothing of the kind; that all attempts to arrive at his purpose had been unavailing. By the consent of Charles, Monk's brother, a clergyman in Devonshire, had been induced by Sir Hugh Pollard and Sir John Grenville, the king's agents, to visit the general in the north, and endeavour to persuade him to declare for the king. But Monk took him up very shortly, and advised him to go home and come no more to him with such propositions. To the last moment this secret and solemn man kept the same immovable, impenetrable course. There is little doubt but that he felt, from the miserable weakness and disunion of both the officers and the parliamentary leaders, the great all-controlling mind being gone, that the king must come again, and that he was ready to do the work at the safe moment. But that till he was positively certain the way was clear of every obstacle, no power on earth should move him. It is probable that he was indifferent to the fact whether the king or the parliament ruled, but that he would decide for the strongest when it was unmistakably the strongest, and not till then.
To prevent alarm to the parliament, he brought only five thousand troops with him from York, being much fewer than those which were quartered in London and Westminster; but from St. Alban's on the 28th of January he wrote to the speaker, requesting that five of the regiments there might be removed to other quarters before his arrival, lest there should arise strife betwixt his soldiers and those so lately engaged in rebellion against the parliament. This startled the parliament, and dull must those members have been who did not perceive that they committed a series of gross blunders in destroying the greater part of the army, and disbanding their best officers, to clear the stage for a new master. But there was nothing for it but complying. They ordered the regiments to remove, but they refused. Why, they asked, were they to quit their quarters to make room
