Monk
GEORGE, DUKE OF AL- BEMARLE, an English military commander; born in Potheridge, Devonshire, England, Dec. 6, 1608. Being a younger son, he entered the army as a volunteer, and served under his relation Sir Richard Grenville, in an expedition to Spain, and afterward served for some years in the Netherlands. On the breaking out of the war between Charles I. and the Scots, in 1639, he obtained a colonel's commission, and attended the king in both his expeditions to the N. When the Irish rebellion began in 1641, the lordsjustices appointed him governor of Dublin. On his return to England he was sent to relieve Nantwich, where he was taken prisoner by the army of the Parliament, and sent to the Tower, where he remained till 1646. The royal cause being ruined, he obtained his liberty on condition of taking a command in Ireland, and concluded a peace with the rebels, which displeased Parliament. Cromwell made him Lieutenant-General, and gave him the chief command in Scotland.
Monk distinguished himself at the battle of Dunbar, and afterward in the war with the Dutch. On the decease of the Protector and the resignation of power by his son, he took advantage of his position to crush the repu republicans, and recall Charles II. to the throne, and was as a reward created Duke of Albemarle . In 1664 he was appointed admiral of the and in 1666 obtained a great victory over the Dutch. He died Jan. 3, 1670, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. to combine the maximum of gun-power fleet in conjunction with Prince Rupert, with the minimum of exposure. Monitors are so called from the name of the first vessel of the kind, built during the American Civil War, which proved its superiority in a famous engagement with the "Merrimac" in 1862, at Hampton Roads, at the mouth of James river, Va. The fight between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac" was a terrific one, and lasted nearly four hours, the two vessels touching each other part of the time. The "Merrimac" at last gave up the contest, badly damaged, and SO much disabled as and so much disabled as to require the aid of tugs to get her The "Monitor" was uninjured . away.
As the first encounter of iron-clad vessels, this contest created much interest in all maritime nations, though nowhere except in the United States navy was the monitor adopted as a distinct type of warship. The construction of monitors is thought to have led to that of torpedo boats.