; and next day (Nov. 3), at a
meeting of Monk's officers, Colonel Wilkes, Lieutenant-Colonel
Clobery, and Major Knight, were deputed to go into England as
Commissioners for a Treaty. They had certain instructions given them,
in which Monk himself "invented matter to confound their debates."
They were to insist on the restoration of the Rump, or, if the Rump
would not be restored, then on a full and free new Parliament.[1]

[Footnote 1: Phillips, 663-667, and Skinner, 133-136. Phillips's
information about Monk and his proceedings in Scotland is very full
and minute; indeed his whole account of Monk's enterprise
henceforward to the Restoration, though in form only part of a
continuation of _Baker's Chronicle_, is a contribution of
original history rather than a mere compilation. He was permitted,
as he tells us, the use of Monk's papers and those of his agents.
This part of the book, in fact, looks like a literary commission
executed for Monk.]

And so, having dispatched the commissioners, Monk continued his
colloquies with Clarges, such privileged persons as the physician Dr.
Barrow and the chaplain Dr. Gumble being admitted to some of them,
but only Clarges fathoming Monk's intentions, and he but in part.
When the Independent ministers and other envoys arrived, there was a
conference at Holyrood House at which they made speeches, Monk
listening, but keeping his own mouth shut. Once, indeed, when Mr.
Caryl warned him that war and bloodshed, if begun, would be "laid at
his door," he burst out against Lambert and his party, saying
_they_ had begun the war, and, if they continued in their
course, he would "lay them on their backs." While the Independent
ministers were yet in Edinburgh, doing their best, there was a more
welcome advent in the person of Colonel Morgan (Nov. 8). He had been
lying ill of gout at York, but had recovered so far as to be able to
come to Edinburgh as a kind of messenger to Monk from Lambert. He
delivered his message punctually enough, but told Monk he was glad to
be with him again, and would follow him implicitly whatever he did,
being "no statesman" himself. Monk was vastly pleased, looking on
Morgan, it is said, as worth more than all the 140 officers he had
lost. Morgan had, moreover, brought important communications from
Yorkshire, which led Monk to dispatch Clarges and Talbot thither to
establish an understanding with Lord Fairfax.[1]

[Footnote 1: Phillips, 667-669; Skinner, 138-140.]