To the Government's distrust Monk replied with contempt. His despatches at this time are curt and peremptory. He obviously detested the new state of things, and acquiesced in it only because it staved off the evil day he dreaded when he would be dragged, sword in hand, into the miserable political struggle which he had hitherto so successfully avoided. He sullenly did his duty, and that was all. He informed the Government of Royalist movements as regularly as ever, and engaged as actively in keeping the country quiet. Still, as though he foresaw the need his country was soon to have for Scotland's goodwill, he began to relax his hold, and with complete success. "The last two years of his government," it was said by a Scotchman, "were so mild and moderate, except with respect to the clergy, whose petulant and licentious tongues he curbed upon all occasions, that the nation would not have willingly changed it for any other but that of their natural prince." Yet his rule was so complete that in Scotland the great Royalist plot that was now in full maturity could not even show its head. CHAPTER IX THE ABORTIVE PRONUNCIAMENTO Monk was now on the eve of the remarkable adventure which was to lift him from the position of an able officer to the dignity of a great historical figure. Fifty was then considered a ripe old age, and while most men of his years were looking round for a resting-place, he was about to begin his political career. It was none of his own seeking. Thrifty and business-like to a fault, he had amassed a considerable fortune, and he began to turn his eyes longingly to his property in Ireland. At Ballymurn, between Wexford and Enniscorthy, he had an estate which had been granted to him in satisfaction of arrears of pay. It was in the midst of the most fertile and prosperous part of the island, and within easy reach of his old home. Ever since the beginning of 1657, with the colonial instinct still strong within him, he had been writing to Henry Cromwell, the Lord-Deputy of Ireland, that his only ambition now was to settle down as an Irish planter. All that kept him at his post, he told him, was his desire to see "your father and my dear friend better settled in his affairs." With Oliver's death and Richard's fall that motive was gone. Since Lambert had reappeared upon the scene his relations with head-quarters had not been pleasant. Each day they grew more strained, and he longed for retirement more ardently than ever.