It has been the fate of Nicholas Monck, the bishop of Hereford for less than a year in 1661, to be remembered as the ‘unremarkable’ country parson who was promoted to the episcopate merely as a reward to his more able brother. Certainly, Nicholas Monck retained his Devonshire living throughout the Interregnum because of the general’s position. Yet he was one of the clerics on the planning lists for the restored Church.
After the death of Oliver Cromwell‡ in the autumn of 1658, Granville allegedly called on Nicholas Monck’s services in a secret mission to bring General Monck over to the royalist cause. After the Restoration, Granville’s patronage continued to prove lucrative. He presented Nicholas Monck to the king where the ‘honest plain hearted’ cleric supposedly impressed the monarch with his candour.
Monck attended the House of Lords for only the first two days of the session in November 1661 before falling ill and dying at his lodgings in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. The rewards for royal service had been considerable; Monck, the youngest son of an impoverished gentry family and a country parson for most of his career, was able to bequeath to his wife and daughters over £4,000.
The precipitate nature of Bishop Monck’s elevation, brief tenure of office, and sudden death left diocesan affairs in some confusion. In April 1662, Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, received a petition from Monck’s widow, Susanna, for an order to the new bishop, Herbert Croft, to seal several leases which Nicholas had signed over to his brother but had been unable to seal himself.
After lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, Monck was given a lavish funeral in Westminster Abbey on 20 Jan. 1662. The occasion set the aesthetic tone for the Restoration Church in its emphasis on pomp and hierarchy.