THE BRITISH PLUTARCH. THE LIFE OF GEORGE MONK. G EORGE MONK, duke of Albermarle, the renowned reftorer of king Charles II. to his crown and kingdom, was defcended of a family fettled fo early as the reign of Henry III. at Potheridge, in Devonshire, where he was born on the fixth of December, 1608. He was likewife chiefly educated there by his grand-father and god-father Sir George Smith, with whom he moftly refided. VOL. VII. B He He dedicated himself to arms from his youth, no provifion being expected from his father Sir Thomas Monk; whofe reduced fortune, however, brought an affront upon him, which was resented by our young warrior in fuch a fpirited manner as obliged him to enter into the fervice fooner than was intended; which rendered it neceffary for him, when not quite feventeen years of age, to enter as a volunteer under his kinfman Sir Richard Greenvile, then lying at Plymouth, and just upon fetting out under lord Wimbedon, on the illconcerted, and worfe executed, expedition against Spain. The ill fuccefs which attended our young volunteer's firft effay, neither damped his courage nor changed his martial inclination; for the very next year he obtained a pair of colours under Sir John Burroughs, in the expedition to the isle of Rhee and Rochell. From hence be returned at the end of that war in 1628; and the following year, being just then of age, he ferved as an enfign in the Low-Countries, first under lord Oxford, and then under lord Goring, by whom he was promoted to the rank of captain of his own company. In this ftation he was concerned in feveral fieges and battles; and, having, in ten years fervice, by a steady and clofe application to the duties of his profeffion, made himself an abfolute master of the art military, and become extremely useful to the fervice, he retired on a difguft given him by the prince of Orange, and |