"The Duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our miseries," was the deliberate statement made in the House of Commons, followed by a long list of charges, and the determination, for the first time, to hold a minister responsible to Parliament for his actions. The king was furious. "None of my servants shall be questioned by you, or it shall be the worse for you," he said scornfully, and he dissolved Parliament. But the trial of Buckingham was taken out of their hands, for shortly afterwards he was stabbed to death by a certain Fenton, a melancholy, malcontented gentleman, who declared that he did so to rid the country of an intolerable tyrant. He was buried quietly in the Abbey, and the king set up to his memory the elaborate but hardly beautiful monument which you see. You must notice, though, the three figures of his children, for one of them, Francis, a very gallant boy, "of rare beauty and comeliness," fell fighting for the king at Kingston, wounded nine times, yet scorning to ask quarter, standing with his back against an oak tree till he dropped.
General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, fought on the Parliamentary side, and after the defeat of the Royalists in England he was with Cromwell through his victorious campaigns in Scotland and Ireland, remaining behind as commander-in-chief for Scotland. But it was as a sailor rather than as a soldier that he made his greatest reputation, for when the struggle began between England and the Dutch for the command of the seas, the Dutch challenging the English right to it, Monk, and another Parliamentary officer, Blake, were appointed generals at sea, it being thought that their ability to lead, their energy and their good sense, would more than compensate for their lack of technical experience. So it eventually proved, and after some close fighting Monk was able to report that the English held the coast of Holland as if it were besieged. Parliament rewarded Monk with a vote of thanks, a medal and a chain worth £300, and he assured them that he had "no other thought but to defend the nation against all enemies, whether by sea or by land, as might be entrusted to him."
Not altogether approving of the arbitrary way in which Cromwell treated Parliament, he determined to keep clear of politics and to remain a "plain fighting man." But while employed by the Protector he was entirely loyal to him, and at once sent to him a letter he received from Charles II. suggesting negotiations. "An honest, very simple-hearted man," was Cromwell's remark on him.