The Monk

**The Monk** was a renegade Time Lord who had been a friend of the Doctor's on Gallifrey until he fled to meddle in history under the alias of The “Monk”. (DW: *The Time Meddler*)

## Biography

#### The Battle of Hastings Plot

The Monk went to 1066 Northumbria, trying to prevent the Normans from winning the Battle of Hastings as part of a plan to guide England into an age of technological prosperity when the First Doctor encountered him, using a progress chart to keep track of the proceedings. After the Monk's plans were prevented, the Doctor sabotaged the dimensional control of his TARDIS, making it the same size inside as outside. With his TARDIS interior reduced to dollhouse proportions, the Monk was seemingly stranded in 11th century England. (DW: *The Time Meddler*)

#### Alliance with the Daleks

The Monk ran into the First Doctor again on the volcanic planet Tigus. The Monk sabotaged the lock on the Doctor's TARDIS, though that did not stop him from getting inside. The Doctor stole the Monk's direction controls to use in his effort to stop the Daleks.

The Monk's TARDIS landed in ancient Egypt. Knowing of the Daleks, the Monk decided to help them regain the taranium core to avoid being exterminated himself while trying unsuccessfully to convince the Doctor and his companions of his honourable nature. The Doctor overpowered the Monk and placed him in a sarcophagus, where he was found by Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom. He caused them to be captured by the Daleks, but was also held prisoner by them. The Doctor tinkered with the chameleon circuit of the Monk's TARDIS, making it take various shapes, finally that of a police box. The Doctor was forced to give the taranium to Mavic Chen, enabling his companions and the Monk to escape the Daleks.

The Monk entered his TARDIS before the Daleks could recapture him. However, the Doctor had stolen its partially compatible directional unit, and as the Monk arrived on an ice planet he realised he'd have to wander in time and space as lost as the Doctor was. (DW: *The Daleks' Master Plan*)

## Personality

Despite his experience as a Time Lord, the Monk's attitude typically demonstrated a very short-term view when making his plans, intending to alter the outcome of the Battle of Hastings with only vague ideas of how things would work out later. The Monk also showed a childish and petulant side to his nature, although he did have a temper, and he could get annoyed and exasperated easily, usually when he was disturbed during his plans like he frequently was in 1066 when his disguise as a monk led to him being forced to tend to injured Saxons even if the role was necessary since the Saxons were a part of his plans. (DW: *The Time Meddler*)

He would boast about his plans and he often enjoyed mocking the Doctor during their meetings. This bragging would extend to his TARDIS, lauding its superiority when compared to the Doctor's TARDIS. (DW: *The Time Meddler*)

## Physical Appearance

### First Known Monk

The First Monk wore the robes of a 1066 Northumberland monk, initially as part of a disguise. He was a middle-aged, chubby, white-skinned man with a lined, clean-shaven face, a gap in his top front teeth and dark hair cut into a bowl cut. (DW: *The Time Meddler*)

### The first villainous Time Lord?

* Peter Butterworth's unnamed time traveller in DW: *The Time Meddler* had the distinction of being the first compatriot of the Doctor and Susan to appear on television. There is some difficulty, however, in assigning to him the quality of "first Time Lord other than the Doctor and Susan" to appear in the series, as the name of "Time Lord" had yet to make its debut in the series at the time; indeed, it was far from established that the Doctor was a humanoid alien rather than a human from an advanced future civilisation.
	+ Absent the context of later continuity, *The Time Meddler* seems to set itself firmly in the latter tradition, with both the Doctor and the Monk equating "history" and "human history" in dialogue, treating Earth's history as if it were their own; the trinkets and keepsakes collected by the Monk notably all come from various periods of Earth's history, to the exclusion of any other planet.

### Miscellaneous

* The Monk is also the first recurring villain after the Daleks, and the first individual foe to return for a rematch.

### Name

The Monk was almost never actually referred to as "the Time Meddler" or "the Meddling Monk" by themselves or others, both of these "names" being taken from the titles of the overall serial and the second episode.

## List of Appearances

Season 2 (1964-65)* *The Time Meddler*

Season 3 (1965-66)* *The Daleks' Master Plan*