MONK, mfink, or MONCK, George, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE, English general and naval com mander; the restorer of the Stuart dynasty: b. Potheridge, Devon, 6 Dec. 1608; d. Newhall, Essex, 3 Jan. 1670. At 17 he enlisted and served in the Cadiz expedition under Sir Rich ard Grenville, a relative; then entered the Dutch army; and returned to England in 1639, fought brilliantly in Scotland and after 1640 in Ireland, and on the outbreak of the Civil War kept his commission in the king's army. But in 1644 he was captured by the Parliamen tarian forces, and after two years' imprisonment in the Tower, joined the victors, for whom he went to Ulster as governor. Accused of ex ceeding his powers by arranging a truce (which was almost an alliance) with Owen O'Neil, he was recalled to England in 1649 and repn manded at the bar of the House of Commons. At the victory of Dunbar in 1650 he did good service ; a year later he was made lieutenant general of the ordinance and in Cromwell's absence was commander-in-chief of Scotland. In 1652 he was made a general of the fleet. He introduced the elements of land tactics into naval formation and administered two crushing defeats to the Dutch, van Tromp being killed in the latter battle. In 1654 he again was sent to
Scotland on the Royalist rising as commander of the army, and acted there with much more prudence and success. After Oliver's death and Richard Cromwell's resignation Monk set him self to effect the Stuart Restoration, quietly shifted the forces in England until all was so arranged that there was no chance of armed resistance, and then (1660) brought back Charles II — a bloodless revolution meeting with general favor. He was made Duke of Albemarle, received other high honors, main tained order and showed rare courage in Lon don during the Plague, but with an empty treasury in 1667 could not keep the Dutch from burning the shipping in the Thames. Short, fat, fair and wrinkled, Monk was not a win ning personality, being cold, prudent past a virtue and rather unprincipled; but he was a wonderfully able general, with technical skill rare in one so lacking in theoretical training. His life was written by his chaplain, Dr. Thomas Gumble (1671). Consult also the biographies by Guizot (1838 and 1850) ; and that by Corbett, J., in the Men of Action) series (New York 1889).