THE LIFE OF JOHN MILTON Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and LiteraryHistory of His Time by DAVID MASSON, M. A. , LL. D. , Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University ofEdinburgh VOLUME V 1654-1660 London:MacMillan and Co. 1877 CONTENTS. BOOK I. SEPTEMBER 1654-JUNE 1657. HISTORY:--OLIVER'S FIRST PROTECTORATE CONTINUED. BIOGRAPHY:--MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE FIRSTPROTECTORATE CONTINUED. CHAP. I. SECTION I. Oliver and his First Parliament: Sept. 3, 1654-Jan. 22, 1654-5. --Meeting of the First Parliament of the Protectorate:Its Composition: Anti-Oliverians numerous in it: Their Four Days'Debate in challenge of Cromwell's Powers: Debate stopped by Cromwell:His Speech in the Painted Chamber: Secession of some from theParliament: Acquiescence of the rest by Adoption of _TheRecognition_: Spirit and Proceedings of the Parliament stillmainly Anti-Oliverian: Their Four Months' Work in Revision of theProtectoral Constitution: Chief Debates in those Four Months:Question of the Protector's Negatives: Other Incidental Work of theParliament: Question of Religious Toleration and of the Suppressionof Heresies and Blasphemies: Committee and Sub-Committee on thisSubject: Baxter's Participation: Tendency to a Limited Tolerationonly, and Vote against the Protector's Prerogative of more: Case ofJohn Biddle, the Socinian. --Insufficiency now of our former Synopsisof English Sects and Heresies: New Sects and Denominations: TheFifth-Monarchy Men: The Ranters: The Muggletonians and other StrayFanatics: Bochmenists and other Mystics: The Quakers or Friends:Account of George Fox, and Sketch of the History of the Quakers tothe year 1654. --Policy of the Parliament with their Bill for a NewConstitution: Parliament outwitted by Cromwell and dissolved: NoResult. CHAP. I. SECTION II. Between the Parliaments, or the Time of Arbitrariness:Jan. 22, 1654-55--Sept. 17, 1656. --Avowed "Arbitrariness" of thisStage of the Protectorate, and Reasons for it. --First Meeting ofCromwell and his Council after the Dissolution: Major-General Overtonin Custody: Other Arrests: Suppression of a wide RepublicanConspiracy and of Royalist Risings in Yorkshire and the West: RevenueOrdinance and Mr. Cony's Opposition at Law: Deference of ForeignGovernments: Blake in the Mediterranean: Massacre of the PiedmonteseProtestants: Details of the Story and of Cromwell's Proceedings inconsequence: Penn in the Spanish West Indies: His Repulse fromHispaniola and Landing in Jamaica: Declaration of War with Spain andAlliance with France: Scheme of the Government of England byMajor-Generals: List of them and Summary of their Police-System:Decimation Tax on the Royalists, and other Measures _interrorem_: Consolidation of the London Newspaper Press:Proceedings of the Commission of Ejectors and of the Commission ofTriers: View of Cromwell's Established Church of England, withEnumeration of its various Components: Extent of Toleration outsidethe Established Church: The Protector's Treatment of the RomanCatholics, the Episcopalians, the Anti-Trinitarians, the Quakers, andthe Jews: State of the English Universities and Schools under theProtectorate: Cromwell's Patronage of Learning: List of English Menof Letters alive in 1656, and Account of their Diverse Relations toCromwell: Poetical Panegyrics on him and his Protectorate. --NewArrangements for the Government of Scotland: Lord Broghill'sPresidency there for Cromwell: General State of the Country:Continued Struggle between the Resolutioners and the Protesters forKirk-Supremacy: Independency and Quakerism in Scotland: More ExtremeAnomalies there: Story of "Jock of Broad Scotland": Brisk Intercoursebetween Scotland and London: Mission of Mr. James Sharp. --Irelandfrom 1654 to 1656. --Glimpse of the Colonies. CHAP. I. SECTION III. Oliver and the First Session of his SecondParliament: Sept. 17, 1656-June 26, 1657. --Second Parliament of theProtectorate called: Vane's _Healing Question_ and anotherAnti-Oliverian Pamphlet: Precautions and Arrests: Meeting of theParliament: Its Composition: Summary of Cromwell's Opening Speech:Exclusion of Ninety-three Anti-Oliverian Members: Decidedly OliverianTemper of the rest: Question of the Excluded Members: Their Protest:Summary of the Proceedings of the Parliament for Five Months (Sept. 1656-Feb. 1656-7): Administration of Cromwell and his Council duringthose Months: Approaches to Disagreement between Cromwell and theParliament in the _Case of James Nayler_ and on the Question ofContinuation of the Militia by Major-Generals: No Rupture. --TheSoxby-Sindercombe Plot. --Sir Christopher Pack's Motion for a NewConstitution (Feb. 23, 1656-7): Its Issue in the _Petition andAdvice_ and Offer of the Crown to Cromwell: Division of PublicOpinion on the Kingship Question: Opposition among the Army Officers:Cromwell's Neutral Attitude: His Reception of the Offer: His longHesitations and several Speeches over the Affair: His Final Refusal(May 8, 1657): Ludlow's Story of the Cause. --Harrison and the FifthMonarchy Men: Venner's Outbreak at Mile-End-Green. --Proposed NewConstitution of the _Petition and Advice_ retained in the formof a Continued Protectorate: Supplements to the _Petition andAdvice_: Bills assented to by the Protector, June 9: Votes for theSpanish War. --Treaty Offensive and Defensive with France againstSpain: Dispatch of English Auxiliary Army, under Reynolds, forService in Flanders: Blake's Action in Santa Cruz Bay. --"_Killingno Murder_": _Additional and Explanatory Petition andAdvice_: Abstract of the Articles of the New Constitution asarranged by the two Documents: Cromwell's completed Assent to the NewConstitution, and his Assent to other Bills. June 26, 1657:Inauguration of the Second Protectorate that day: Close of the FirstSession of the Second Parliament. CHAP. II. Milton's Life and Secretaryship through the First Protectoratecontinued: September 1654-June 1657. --SECTION I. : From September 1654to January 1654-5, or Through Oliver's First Parliament. --Ulac'sHague Edition of Milton's _Defensio Secunda_, with the _FidesPublica_ of Morus annexed: Preface by Dr. Crantzius to theReprint: Ulac's own Preface of Self-Defence: Account of Morus's_Fides Publica_, with Extracts: His Citation of Testimonies tohis Character: Testimony of Diodati of Geneva: Abrupt Ending of theBook at this Point, with Ulac's Explanation of theCause. --Particulars of the Arrest and Imprisonment of Milton's FriendOverton. --Three more Latin State-Letters by Milton for Oliver (Nos. XLIX. -LI. ): No State-Letters by Milton for the next Three Months:Milton then busy on a Reply to the _Fides Publica_ of Morus. CHAP. II. SECTION II. : From January 1654-5 to September 1656, or Throughthe Period of Arbitrariness. --Letter to Milton from Leo de Aitzema:Milton's Reply: Letter to Ezekiel Spanheim at Geneva: Milton'sGenovese Recollections and Acquaintances: Two more of Milton's LatinState-Letters (Nos. LII. , LIII. ): Small Amount of Milton'sDespatch-Writing for Cromwell hitherto. --Reduction of OfficialSalaries, and Proposal to Reduce Milton's to £150 a Year: ActualCommutation of his £288 a Year at Pleasure into £200 for Life: Ordersof the Protector and Council relating to the Piedmontese Massacre, May 1655: Sudden Demand on Milton's Pen in that Business: His Letterof Remonstrance from the Protector to the Duke of Savoy, with Tenother Letters to Foreign States and Princes on the same Subject (Nos. LIV. -LXIV. ): His Sonnet on the Subject. --Publication of the_Supplementum_ to More's _Fides Publica_: Account of the_Supplementum_, with Extracts: Milton's Answer to the _FidesPublica_ and the _Supplementum_ together in his _Pro SeDefensio_, Aug. 1655: Account of that Book, with Specimens:Milton's Disbelief in Morus's Denials of the Authorship of the_Regii Sanguinis Clamor_: His Reasons, and his Reassertions ofthe Charge in a Modified Form: His Notices of Dr. Crantzius and Ulac:His Renewed Onslaughts on Morus: His Repetition of the BontiaAccusation and others: His Examination of Morus's PrintedTestimonials: Ferocity of the Book to the last: Its Effects onMorus. --Question of the Real Authorship of the _Regii SanguinisClamor_ and of the Amount of Morus's Concern in it: The Du MoulinFamily: Dr. Peter Du Moulin the Younger the Real Author of the_Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, but Morus the Active Editor and theWriter of the Dedicatory Epistle: Du Moulin's own Account of thewhole Affair: His close Contact with Milton all the while, and Dreadof being found out. --Calm in Milton's Life after the Cessation of theMorus-Salmasius Controversy: Home-Life in Petty France: Dabblings ofthe Two Nephews in Literature: John Phillips's _Satyr againstHypocrites_: Frequent Visitors at Petty France: Marvell, Needham, Cyriack Skinner, &c. : The Viscountess Ranelagh, Mr. Richard Jones, and the Boyle Connexion: Dr. Peter Du Moulin in that Connexion:Milton's Private Sonnet on his Blindness, his Two Sonnets to CyriackSkinner, and his Sonnet to young Lawrence: Explanation of these FourSonnets. --_Scriptum Domini Protectoris contra Hispanos_:Thirteen more Latin State-Letters of Milton for the Protector (Nos. LXV. -LXXVII. ), with Special Account of Count Bundt and the SwedishEmbassy in London: Count Bundt and Mr. Milton. --Increase of LightLiterature in London: Erotic Publications: John Phillips in Troublefor such: Edward Phillips's London Edition of the Poems of Drummondof Hawthornden: Milton's Cognisance of the same. --Henry Oldenburgand Mr. Richard Jones at Oxford: Letters of Milton to Jones andOldenburg. --Thirteen more State-Letters of the Milton Series (Nos. LXXVIII. -XC. ): Importance of some of them. CHAP. II. SECTION III. : From September 1656 to June 1657, or Through theFirst Session of Oliver's Second Parliament. --Another Letter fromMilton to Mr. Richard Jones: Departure of Lady Ranelagh for Ireland:Letter from Milton to Peter Heimbach: Milton's Second Marriage: HisSecond Wife, Katharine Woodcock: Letter to Emeric Bigot: Milton'sLibrary and the Byzantine Historians: M. Stoupe: Ten moreState-Letters by Milton for the Protector (Nos. XCI. -C. ): Morland, Meadows, Durie, Lockhart, and other Diplomatists of the Protector, back in London: More Embassies and Dispatches over Land and Sea:Milton Standing and Waiting: His Thoughts about the Protectorategenerally. BOOK II. JUNE 1657-SEPTEMBER 1658 HISTORY:--OLIVER'S SECOND PROTECTORATE. BIOGRAPHY:--MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE SECONDPROTECTORATE. CHAP. I. Oliver's Second Protectorate: June 26, 1657-Sept. 3, 1658. --RegalForms and Ceremonial of the Second Protectorate: The Protector'sFamily: The Privy Council: Retirement of Lambert: Death of AdmiralBlake: The French Alliance and Successes in Flanders: Siege andCapture of Mardike: Other Foreign Relations of the Protectorate:Special Envoys to Denmark, Sweden, and the United Provinces: Aims ofCromwell's Diplomacy in Northern and Eastern Europe: Progress of hisEnglish Church-Establishment: Controversy between John Goodwill andMarchamont Needham: The Protector and the Quakers: Death of JohnLilburne: Death of Sexby: Marriage of the Duke of Buckingham to MaryFairfax: Marriages of Cromwell's Two Youngest Daughters: Preparationsfor another Session of the Parliament: Writs for the Other House:List of Cromwell's Peers. --Reassembling of the Parliament. Jan. 20, 1667-8: Cromwell's Opening Speech, with the Supplement by Fiennes:Anti-Oliverian Spirit of the Commons: Their Opposition to the OtherHouse: Cromwell's Speech of Remonstrance: Perseverance of the Commonsin their Opposition: Cromwell's Last Speech and Dissolution of theParliament, Feb. 4, 1657-8. --State of the Government after theDissolution: The Dangers, and Cromwell's Dealings with them: HisLight Dealings with the Disaffected Commonwealth's Men: ThreatenedSpanish Invasion from Flanders, and Ramifications of the RoyalistConspiracy at Home: Arrests of Royalists, and Execution of Slingsbyand Hewit: The Conspiracy crushed: Death of Robert Rich: The Earl ofWarwick's Letter to Cromwell, and his Death: More Successes inFlanders: Siege and Capture of Dunkirk: Splendid Exchanges ofCompliments between Cromwell and Louis XIV. : New Interference inbehalf of the Piedmontese Protestants, and Project of a ProtestantCouncil _De Propaganda Fide_: Prospects of the ChurchEstablishment: Desire of the Independents for a Confession of Faith:Attendant Difficulties: Cromwell's Policy in the Affairs of theScottish Kirk: His Design for the Evangelization and Civilization ofthe Highlands: His Grants to the Universities of Edinburgh andGlasgow: His Council in Scotland: Monk at Dalkeith: Cromwell'sIntentions in the Cases of Biddle and James Nayler: Proposed New Actfor Restriction of the Press: Firmness and Grandeur of theProtectorate in July 1658: Cromwell's Baronetcies and Knighthoods:Willingness to call another Parliament: Death of Lady Claypole:Cromwell's Illness and Last Days, with the Last Acts and Incidents ofhis Protectorship. CHAP. II. Milton's Life and Secretaryship through the Second Protectorate. --Milton still in Office: Letter to Mr. Henry de Brass, with Milton'sOpinion of Sallust: Letters to Young Ranelagh and Henry Oldenburg atSaumur: Morus in New Circumstances: Eleven more State-Letters ofMilton for the Protector (Nos. CI. -CXI. ): Andrew Marvell brought inas Assistant Foreign Secretary at last (Sept. 1657): John Dryden nowalso in the Protector's Employment: Birth of Milton's Daughter by hisSecond Wife: Six more State-Letters of Milton (Nos. CXII. -CXVII. ):Another Letter to Mr. Henry de Brass, and another to Peter Heimbach:Comment on the latter: Deaths of Milton's Second Wife and her Child:His two Nephews, Edward and John Phillips, at this date: Milton'slast Sixteen State-Letters for Oliver Cromwell (Nos. CXVIII. -CXXXIII), including Two to Charles Gustavus of Sweden, Two ona New Alarm of a Persecution of the Piedmontese Protestants, andSeveral to Louis XIV. And Cardinal Mazarin: Importance of this lastGroup of the State-Letters, and Review of the whole Series ofMilton's Performances for Cromwell: Last Diplomatic Incidents of theProtectorate, and Andrew Marvell in connexion with them: Incidents ofMilton's Literary Life in this Period: Young Güntzer's_Dissertatio_ and Young Kock's Phalęcians: Milton's Edition ofRaleigh's Cabinet Council: Resumption of the old Design of ParadiseLost and actual Commencement of the Poem: Change from the DramaticForm to the Epic: Sonnet in Memory of his Deceased Wife. BOOK III. SEPTEMBER 1658--MAY 1660. HISTORY:--THE PROTECTORATE OF RICHARD CROMWELL, THE ANARCHY, MONK'S MARCH AND DICTATORSHIP, AND THE RESTORATION. RICHARD'S PROTECTORATE: SEPT. 3, 1658--MAY 25, 1659. THE ANARCHY:-- STAGE I. :--THE RESTORED RUMP: MAY 25, 1659--OCT. 13, 1659. STAGE II. :--THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT: OCT. 13, 1659--DEC. 26, 1659. STAGE III. :--SECOND RESTORATION OF THE RUMP, WITH MONK'SMARCH FROM SCOTLAND: DEC. 26, 1659--FEB. 21, 1859-60. MONK'S DICTATORSHIP, THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT, AND THERESTORATION. BIOGRAPHY:--MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH RICHARD'SPROTECTORATE, THE ANARCHY, AND MONK'S DICTATORSHIP. CHAP. I. FIRST SECTION. The Protectorate of Richard Cromwell: Sept. 3, 1858--May 25, 1659. --Proclamation of Richard: Hearty Response fromthe Country and from Foreign Powers: Funeral of the late Protector:Resolution for a New Parliament. --Difficulties in Prospect: List ofthe most Conspicuous Props and Assessors of the New Protectorate:Monk's Advice to Richard: Union of the Cromwellians against CharlesStuart: Their Split among themselves into the Court or Dynastic Partyand the Army or Wallingford-House Party: Chiefs of the Two Parties:Richard's Preference for the Court Party, and his Speech to the ArmyOfficers: Backing of the Army Party towards Republicanism orAnti-Oliverianism: Henry Cromwell's Letter of Rebuke to Fleetwood:Differences of the Two Parties as to Foreign Policy: The FrenchAlliance and the War with Spain: Relations to the King ofSweden. --Meeting of Richard's Parliament (Jan. 27, 1658-9): The TwoHouses: Eminent Members of the Commons: Richard's Opening Speech:Thurloe the Leader for Government in the Commons: Recognition of theProtectorship and of the Other House, and General Triumph of theGovernment Party: Miscellaneous Proceedings of theParliament. --Dissatisfaction of the Army Party: Their CloserConnexion with the Republicans: New Convention of Officers atWallingford-House: Desborough's Speech; The Convention forbidden bythe Parliament and dissolved by Richard: Whitehall surrounded by theArmy, and Richard compelled to dissolve the Parliament. --ResponsiblePosition of Fleetwood, Desborough, Lambert, and the other ArmyChiefs: Bankrupt State of the Finances: Necessity for some kind ofParliament: Phrenzy for "The Good Old Cause" and Demand for theRestoration of the Rump: Acquiescence of the Army Chiefs: Lenthall'sObjections: First Fortnight of the Restored Rump: Lingering ofRichard in Whitehall: His Enforced Abdication. CHAP. I. SECOND SECTION. The Anarchy, Stage I. : or The Restored Rump: May25, 1659-Oct. 13, 1659. --Number of the Restored Rumpers and List ofthem: Council of State of the Restored Rump: Anomalous Character andPosition of the New Government: Momentary Chance of a Civil Warbetween the Cromwellians and the Rumpers: Chance averted by theAcquiescence of the Leading Cromwellians: Behaviour of RichardCromwell, Monk, Henry Cromwell, Lockhart, and Thurloe, individually:Baulked Cromwellianism becomes Potential Royalism: EnergeticProceedings of the Restored Rump: Their Ecclesiastical Policy andtheir Foreign Policy: Treaty between France and Spain: Lockhart atthe Scene of the Negotiations as Ambassador for the Rump: Remodellingand Reofficering of the Army, Navy, and Militia: Confederacy of Oldand New Royalists for a Simultaneous Rising: Actual Rising under SirGeorge Booth in Cheshire: Lambert sent to quell the Insurrection:Peculiar Intrigues round Monk at Dalkeith: Sir George Booth'sInsurrection crushed: Exultation of the Rump and Action taken againstthe Chief Insurgents and their Associates: Question of the futureConstitution of the Commonwealth: Chaos of Opinions and Proposals:James Harrington and his Political Theories: The Harrington or RotaClub: Discontents in the Army: Petition, and Proposals of theOfficers of Lambert's Brigade: Severe Notice of the same by the Rump:Petition and Proposals of the General Council of Officers: ResoluteAnswers of the Rump: Lambert, Desborough, and Seven other Officers, cashiered: Lambert's Retaliation and Stoppage of the Parliament. CHAP. I. SECOND SECTION (continued). The Anarchy, Stage II. : or TheWallingford-House Interregnum: Oct. 13, 1659-Dec. 26, 1659. --TheWallingford-House Government: Its _Committee of Safety_:Behaviour of Ludlow and other Leading Republicans: Death ofBradshaw. --Army--Arrangements of the New Government: Fleetwood, Lambert, and Desborough, the Military Chiefs: Declared Championshipof the Rump by Monk in Scotland: Negotiations opened with Monk, andLambert sent north to oppose him: Monk's Mock Treaty with Lambert andthe Wallingford-House Government through Commissioners in London: HisPreparations meanwhile in Scotland: His Advance from Edinburgh toBerwick: Monk's Army and Lambert's. --Foreign Relations of theWallingford-House Government: Treaty between France and Spain:Lockhart: Charles II. At Fontarabia: Gradual Improvement of hisChances in England. --Discussions of the Wallingford-House Governmentas to the future Constitution of the Commonwealth: The Vane Party andthe Whitlocke Party in these Discussions: Johnstone of Warriston, theHarringtonians, and Ludlow: Attempted Conclusions. --Monk atColdstream: Universal Whirl of Opinion in favour of him and theRump: Utter Discredit of the Wallingford-House Rule in London:Vacillation and Collapse of Fleetwood: The Rump Restored a secondtime. CHAP. I. SECOND SECTION (continued). The Anarchy, Stage III. : or SecondRestoration of the Rump, with Monk's March from Scotland: Dec. 26, 1659-Feb. 21, 1659. --The Rump after its Second Restoration: NewCouncil of State: Penalties on Vane, Lambert, Desborough, and theother Chiefs of the Wallingford-House Interregnum: Case of Ludlow:New Army Remodelling: Abatement of Republican Fervency among theRumpers: Dispersion of Lambert's Force in the North: Monk's Marchfrom Scotland: Stages and Incidents of the March: His Halt at St. Alban's and Message thence to the Rump: His Nearer View of theSituation: His Entry into London, Feb. 3, 1659-60: His AmbiguousSpeech to the Rump, Feb. 6: His Popularity in London: Pamphlets andLetters during his March and on his Arrival: Prynne's pamphlets onbehalf of the Secluded Members: Tumult in the City: Tumult suppressedby Monk as Servant of the Rump: His Popularity gone: Blunderretrieved by Monk's Reconciliation with the City and Declarationagainst the Rump: _Roasting of the Rump in London_, Feb. 11, 1659-60: Monk Master of the City and of the Rump too; Consultationswith the Secluded Members: Bill of the Rump for Enlarging itself byNew Elections; Bill set aside by the Reseating of the SecludedMembers: Reconstitution of the Long Parliament under Monk'sDictatorship. CHAP. I. THIRD SECTION. Monk's Dictatorship, the Restored Long Parliament, and the Drift to the Restoration: Feb. 21, 1659-60--April 25, 1660. --The Restored Long Parliament: New Council of State: Active Menof the Parliament: Prynne, Arthur Annesley, and William Morrice:Miscellaneous Proceedings of the Parliament: Release of old RoyalistPrisoners: Lambert committed to the Tower: Rewards and Honours forMonk: "Old George" in the City: Revival of the Solemn League andCovenant, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and all the Apparatusof a Strict Presbyterian Church-Establishment: Cautious Measures fora Political Settlement: The Real Question evaded and handed over toanother Parliament: Calling of the Convention Parliament andArrangements for the Same: Difficulty about a House of Lords: Howobviated: Last Day of the Long Parliament, March 16, 1659-60: Scenein the House. --Monk and the Council of State left in charge: Annesleythe Managing Colleague of Monk: New Militia Act carried out:Discontents among Monk's Officers and Soldiers: The Restoration ofCharles still very dubious: Other Hopes and Proposals for the moment:The Kingship privately offered to Monk by the Republicans: Offerdeclined: Bursting of the Popular Torrent of Royalism at last, andEnthusiastic Demands for the Recall of Charles: Elections to theConvention Parliament going on meanwhile: Haste of hundreds to beforemost in bidding Charles welcome: Admiral Montague and his Fleetin the Thames: Direct Communications at last between Monk andCharles: Greenville the Go-between: Removal of Charles and his Courtfrom Brussels to Breda: Greenville sent back from Breda with aCommission for Monk and Six other Documents. --Broken-spiritedness ofthe Republican Leaders, but formidable Residue of Republicanism inthe Army: Monk's Measures for Paralysing the same: Successful Deviceof Charges; Montague's Fleet in Motion: Escape of Lambert from theTower: His Rendezvous in Northamptonshire: Gathering of a Wreck ofthe Republicans round him: Dick Ingoldsby sent to crush him: TheEncounter near Daventry, April 22, 1660, and Recapture of Lambert:Great Review of the London Militia, April 24, the day before theMeeting of the Convention Parliament: Impatient longing for Charles:Monk still impenetrable, and the Documents from Breda reserved. CHAP. II. FIRST SECTION. Milton's Life and Secretaryship through Richard'sProtectorate: Sept. 1658-May 1659. --Milton and Marvell still in theLatin Secretaryship: Milton's first Five State-Letters for Richard(Nos. CXXXIII. -CXXXVII. ): New Edition of Milton's _DefensioPrima_: Remarkable Postscript to that Edition: Six moreState-Letters for Richard (Nos. CXXXVIII. -CXLIII. ): Milton'sRelations to the Conflict of Parties round Richard and in Richard'sParliament: His probable Career but for his Blindness: His continuedCromwellianism in Politics, but with stronger private Reserves, especially on the Question of an Established Church: His Reputationthat of a man of the Court-Party among the Protectoratists: His_Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes_: Account ofthe Treatise, with Extracts: The Treatise more than a Plea forReligious Toleration: Church-Disestablishment the Fundamental Idea:The Treatise addressed to Richard's Parliament, and chiefly to Vaneand the Republicans there: No Effect from it: Milton's Four lastState-Letters for Richard (Nos. CXLIV. -CXLVII. ): His Private Epistleto Jean Labadie, with Account of that Person: Milton in the monthbetween Richard's Dissolution of his Parliament and his formalAbdication: His Two State-Letters for the Restored Rump (Nos. CXLVIII. -CXLIX. ) CHAP. II. SECOND SECTION. Milton's Life and Secretaryship through theAnarchy: May 1659--Feb. 1659-60. --_First Stage of the Anarchy, orThe Restored Rump_ (May--Oct. 1659):--Feelings and Position ofMilton in the new State of Things: His Satisfaction on the whole, andthe Reasons for it: Letter of Moses Wall to Milton: Renewed Agitationagainst Tithes and Church Establishment: Votes on that Subject in theRump: Milton's _Considerations touching the Likeliest Means toremove Hirelings out of the Church_: Account of the Pamphlet, withExtracts: Its thorough-going Voluntaryism: Church-Disestablishmentdemanded absolutely, without Compensation for Vested Interests: TheAppeal fruitless, and the Subject ignored by the Rump: Dispersion ofthat Body by Lambert. --_Second Stage of the Anarchy, or TheWallingford-House Interruption_ (Oct. -Dec. 1659):--Milton'sThoughts on Lambert's coup d'etat in his _Letter to a Friendconcerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth_: The Letter in themain against Lambert and in Defence of the Rump: Its extraordinarypractical Proposal of a Government by two Permanent Central Bodies:The Proposal compared with the actual Administration by the_Committee of Safety_ and the Wallingford-House Council ofOfficers: Milton still nominally in the Latin Secretaryship: MoneyWarrant of Oct. 25, 1659, relating to Milton, Marvell, andEighty-four other Officials: No Trace of actual Service by Milton forthe new _Committee of Safety_: His Meditations through theTreaty between the Wallingford-House Government and Monk in Scotland:His Meditations through the Committee-Discussions as to the futureModel of Government; His Interest in this as now the ParamountQuestion, and his Cognisance of the Models of Harrirgton and the RotaClub: Whitlocke's new Constitution disappointing to Milton: Two moreLetters to Oldenburg and Young Ranelagh: Gossip from abroad inconnection with these Letters: Morns again, and the Council of FrenchProtestants at Londun: End of the Wallingford-HouseInterruption. --_Third Stage of ike Anarchy, or The SecondRestoration of the Rump_ (Dec. 1659-Feb. 1659-60):--Milton'sDespondency at this Period: Abatement of his Faith in the Rump: HisThoughts during the March of Monk from Scotland and after Monk'sArrival in London: His Study of Monk near at hand and Mistrust of theOmens: His Interest for a while in the Question of thePreconstitution of the new Parliament promised by the Rump: HisAnxiety that it should be a Republican Parliament by mereSelf-enlargement of the Rump: His Preparation of a new RepublicanPamphlet: The Publication postponed by Monk's sudden Defection fromthe Rump, the Roasting of the Rump in the City, and the Restorationof the Secluded Members to their places in the Parliament: Milton'sDespondency complete. CHAP. II. THIRD SECTION. Milton through Monk's Dictatorship: Feb. 1659-60--May 1660. --First Edition of Milton's _Ready and Easy Wayto Establish a Free Commonwealth_: Account of the Pamphlet, withExtracts: Vehement Republicanism of the Pamphlet, with its PropheticWarnings: Peculiar Central Idea of the Pamphlet, viz. The Project ofa Grand Council or Parliament to sit in Perpetuity, with a Council ofState for its Executive: Passages expounding this Idea: AdditionalSuggestion of Local and County Councils or Committees: DaringPeroration of the Pamphlet: Milton's Recapitulation of the Substanceof it in a short Private Letter to Monk entitled _Present Means andBrief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth_: Wide Circulation ofMilton's Pamphlet: The Response by Monk and the Parliament of theSecluded Members in their Proceedings of the next fortnight:Dissolution of the Parliament after Arrangements for its Successor:Royalist Squib predicting Milton's speedy Acquaintance with theHangman at Tyburn: Another Squib against Milton, called _TheCensure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's Book_: Specimens of thisBurlesque: Republican Appeal to Monk, called _Plain English_:Reply to the same, with another attack on Milton: Popular Torrent ofRoyalism during the forty days of Interval between the Parliament ofthe Secluded Members and the Convention Parliament (March 16, 1659-60--April 25, 1660): Caution of Monk and the Council of State:Dr. Matthew Griffith and his Royalist Sermon, _The Fear of God andthe King_: Griffith imprisoned for his Sermon, but forwardRepublicans checked or punished at the same time: Needham dischargedfrom his Editorship and Milton from his Secretaryship: Resolutenessof Milton in his Republicanism: His _Brief Notes on Dr. Griffith'sSermon_: Second Edition of his _Ready and Easy Way to Establisha Free Commonwealth_: Remarkable Additions and Enlargements inthis Edition: Specimens of these: Milton and Lambert the lastRepublicans in the field: Roger L'Estrange's Pamphlet against Milton, called _No Blind Guides_: Larger Attack on Milton by G. S. , called _The Dignity of Kingship Asserted_: Quotations from thatBook; Meeting of the Convention Parliament, April 25, 1660: Deliveryby Greenville of the Six Royal Letters from Breda, April 28-May 1, and Votes of both Houses for the Recall of Charles: Incidents of thefollowing Week: Mad impatience over the Three Kingdoms for the King'sReturn: He and his Court at the Hague, preparing for the Voyage home:Panic among the surviving Regicides and other prominent Republicans:Flight of Needham to Holland and Absconding of Milton from his housein Petty France: Last Sight of Milton in that house.        *       *       *       *       * BOOK I. SEPTEMBER 1654--JUNE 1657. HISTORY:--OLIVER'S FIRST PROTECTORATE CONTINUED. BIOGRAPHY:--MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE FIRSTPROTECTORATE CONTINUED. THE LIFE OF JOHN MILTON, WITH THE HISTORY OF HIS TIME.        *       *       *       *       * CHAPTER I. OLIVER'S FIRST PROTECTORATE CONTINUED: SEPT. 3, 1654-JUNE 26, 1657. Oliver's First Protectorate extended over three years and six monthsin all, or from December 16, 1653 to June 26, 1657. The first ninemonths of it, as far as to September 1654, have been alreadysketched; and what remains divides itself very distinctly into threeSections, as follows:-- Section I:--_From Sept. _ 3, 1654 _to Jan. _ 22, 1654-5. ThisSection, comprehending four months and a half, may be entitled OLIVERAND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENT. Section II:--_From Jan. _ 22, 1654-5 _to Sept. _ 17, 1656. This Section, comprehending twenty months, may be entitled BETWEENTHE PARLIAMENTS, OR THE TIME OF ARBITRARINESS. Section III:--_From Sept. _ 17, 1656 _to June_ 26, 1657. This Section, comprehending nine months, may be entitled OLIVER ANDTHE FIRST SESSION OF HIS SECOND PARLIAMENT. We map out the present chapter accordingly. SECTION I. OLIVER AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENT:SEPT, 3, 1654-JAN. 22, 1654-5. MEETING OF THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF THE PROTECTORATE: ITSCOMPOSITION: ANTI-OLIVERIANS NUMEROUS IN IT: THEIR FOUR DAYS' DEBATEIN CHALLENGE OF CROMWELL'S POWERS: DEBATE STOPPED BY CROMWELL: HISSPEECH IN THE PAINTED CHAMBER: SECESSION OF SOME FROM THE PARLIAMENT:ACQUIESCENCE OF THE REST BY ADOPTION OF _THE RECOGNITION_:SPIRIT AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT STILL MAINLYANTI-OLIVERIAN: THEIR FOUR MONTHS' WORK IN REVISION OF THEPROTECTORAL CONSTITUTION: CHIEF DEBATES IN THOSE FOUR MONTHS:QUESTION OF THE PROTECTOR'S NEGATIVES: OTHER INCIDENTAL WORK OF THEPARLIAMENT: QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AND OF THE SUPPRESSIONOF HERESIES AND BLASPHEMIES: COMMITTEE AND SUB-COMMITTEE ON THISSUBJECT: BAXTER'S PARTICIPATION: TENDENCY TO A LIMITED TOLERATIONONLY, AND VOTE AGAINST THE PROTECTOR'S PREROGATIVE OF MORE: CASE OFJOHN RIDDLE, THE SOCINIAN. --INSUFFICIENCY NOW OF OUR FORMER SYNOPSISOF ENGLISH SECTS AND HERESIES: NEW SECTS AND DENOMINATIONS: THEFIFTH-MONARCHY MEN: THE RANTERS: THE MUGGLETONIANS AND OTHER STRAYFANATICS: BOEHMENISTS AND OTHER MYSTICS: THE QUAKERS OR FRIENDS:ACCOUNT OF GEORGE FOX, AND SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE QUAKERS TOTHE YEAR 1654. --POLICY OF THE PARLIAMENT WITH THEIR BILL FOR A NEWCONSTITUTION: PARLIAMENT OUTWITTED BY CROMWELL AND DISSOLVED: NORESULT. Before the 3rd of September, 1654, the day fixed by theConstitutional Instrument for the meeting of the First Parliament ofthe Protectorate, the 460 newly elected members, or the major part ofthem, had flocked to Westminster. They were a gathering of the mostrepresentative men of all the three nations that could be regarded asin any sense adherents of the Commonwealth. All the Council of State, except the Earl of Mulgrave and Lord Lisle, had been returned, someof them by two or three different constituencies. Secretary Thurloehad been returned; Cromwell's two sons, Richard and Henry, had beenreturned, Henry as member for Cambridge University; several gentlemenholding posts in his Highness's household had been returned. Of theold English peers, there had been returned the Earl of Salisbury, theEarl of Stamford, and Lord Dacres; and of the titular nobility therewere Lord Herbert, Lord Eure, Lord Grey of Groby, and the greatFairfax. Among men of Parliamentary fame already were ex-SpeakerLenthall, Whitlocke, Sir Walter Earle, Dennis Bond, Sir Henry Vane_Senior_, Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Thomas Scott, William Ashurst, Sir James Harrington, John Carew, Robert Wallop, and Sir ThomasWiddrington; and of Army or Navy men, of former Parliamentaryexperience or not, there were Colonels Whalley, Robert Lilburne, Barkstead, Harvey, Stapley, Purefoy, Admiral Blake, andex-Major-General Harrison. Some of these had been returned by twoconstituencies. Bradshaw was a member, with two of the Judges, Haleand Thorpe, and ex-Judge Glynne. Lawyers besides were not wanting;and Dr. Owen, though a divine, represented Oxford University. Onemissed chiefly, among old names, those of Sir Henry Vane_Junior_, Henry Marten, Selden, Algernon Sidney, and Ludlow; butthere were many new faces. Among the thirty members sent fromScotland were the Earl of Linlithgow, Sir Alexander Wedderburn, Colonel William Lockhart, the Laird of Swinton, and the EnglishColonels Okey and Read. Ireland had also returned military Englishmenin Major-General Hardress Waller, Colonels Hewson, Sadler, Axtell, Venables, and Jephson, with Lord Broghill, Sir Charles Coote, SirJohn Temple, Sir Robert King, and others, describable as Irish orAnglo-Irish. [1] [Footnote 1: Complete list gives in Parl. Hist, III. 1428-1433. ] The 3rd of September, selected as Cromwell's "Fortunate Day, "chancing to be a Sunday, the Parliament had only a brief meeting withhim that day, in the Painted Chamber, after service in the Abbey, andhis opening speech was deferred till next day, On Monday, accordingly, it was duly given, but not till after another sermon inthe Abbey, preached by Thomas Goodwin, in which Cromwell found muchthat he liked. It was a political sermon, on "Israel's bringing-outof Egypt, through a Wilderness, by many signs and wonders, towards aPlace of Rest, "--Egypt interpreted as old Prelacy and the Stuart rolein England, the Wilderness as all the intermediate course of theEnglish Revolution, and the Place of Rest as the Protectorate or whatit might lead to. Goodwill seems to have described with specialreprobation that latest part of the Wilderness in which the cry hadarisen for sheer Levelling in the State and sheer Voluntaryism in theChurch; and Cromwell, starting in that key himself, addressed theParliament, with noble earnestness, in what would now be called ahighly "conservative" speech. Glancing back to the BarebonesParliament and beyond, he sketched, the proceedings of himself andthe Council and the great successes of the Commonwealth during theintervening eight months and a half, and hopefully committed to theParliament the further charge of Order and Settlement throughout thethree nations, Then he withdrew. That same day they chose Lenthallfor their Speaker, and Scobell for their Clerk. [1] [Footnote 1: Cromwell's Second Speech (Carlyle, III. 16-37); CommonsJournals of dates. ] Cromwell's hopes were blasted. The political division of thepopulation of the British Islands was now into OLIVERIANS, REPUBLICANIRRECONCILABLES, PRESBYTERIANS, and STUARTISTS, the two lastdenominations hardly separable by any clear line, Now, in this newParliament, though there were many staunch Oliverians, and no avowedStuartists, the Republican Irreconcilables and the Presbyterianstogether formed a majority. They needed only to coalesce, and theParliament called by Oliver's own writs would be an Anti-OliverianParliament. And this is what happened. No sooner was the House constituted, with about 320 members presentout of the total 460, than it proposed for its first business whatwas called "The Matter of the Government"; by which was meant areview of that document of forty-two Articles, called the_Government of the Commonwealth_, which was the constitutionalbasis of the Protectorate. On Thursday, Sept. 7, accordingly, theyaddressed themselves to the vital question of the whole document aspropounded in the first of the Articles. "Whether the House shallapprove that the Government shall be in one Single Person and aParliament": such was the debate that day in Grand Committee, after adivision on the previous question whether they should go intoCommittee. On this previous question 136 had voted _No_, withSir Charles Wolseley and Mr. Strickland (two of the Council of State)for their tellers, but 141 had voted _Yea_, with Bradshaw andColonel Birch for their tellers. In other words, it had been carriedby a majority of five that it fell within the province of the Houseto determine whether the Single-Person element in the Government ofthe Commonwealth, already introduced somehow as a matter of fact, should be continued. On this subject the House debated through therest of that sitting, and the whole of the next, and the next, andthe next, --i. E. Till Monday, Sept 11. Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and Scotttook the lead for the Republicans, not that they hoped to unseatCromwell, but that they wanted to assert the paramount authority ofParliament, and convert the existing Protectorship into a derivativefrom the House then sitting. Lawrence, Wolseley, Strickland, andothers of the Council of State, describable as the ministerialmembers, maintained the existing constitution of the Protectorate, and pointed out the dangers that would arise from plucking up a goodpractical basis for mere reasons of theory. Matthew Hale interposedat last with a middle motion, substantially embodying the Republicanview, but affirming the Protectorship at once, and reservingqualification. All in all, there was great excitement, muchconfusion, and an outbreak from some members of very violent languageabout Cromwell. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates: Parl. Hist. III. 1445;Godwin, IV. 116-125. ] What might have been the issue had a vote come on can only beguessed. Things were not allowed to go that length. On Tuesday, Sept, 12, the members, going to the House, found the doors locked, soldiersin and around Westminster Hall, and a summons from the Lord Protectorto meet him again in the Painted Chamber. Having assembled there, they listened to Cromwell's "Third Speech. " It is one of the mostpowerful of all his speeches. It began with a long review of his lifein general and the steps by which he had recently been brought to theProtectorship. It proceeded then to a recitation of what he called"the witnesses" to his Government, or proofs of its validity--theWitness _above_, or God's manifest Providence in leading him towhere he was; the Witness _within_, or his own consciousness ofintegrity; and the Witnesses _without_, or testimonies ofconfidence he had received from the Army, the Judges, the City ofLondon, other cities, counties and boroughs, and public bodies of allsorts. "I believe, " he said, "that, if the learnedest men in thisnation were called to show a precedent, equally clear, of aGovernment so many ways approved of, they would not in all theirsearch, find it. " Then, coming to the point, he asked what right thepresent Parliament had to come after all those witnesses andchallenge his authority. Had they not been elected under writs issuedby him, in which writs it was expressly inserted, by regulation ofArticle XII. Of the Constitutional Instrument of the Protectorate, "That the persons elected shall not have power to alter theGovernment as it is hereby settled in one Single Person and aParliament"? On this point he was very emphatic. "That _your_judgments, who are persons sent from all parts of the nation underthe notion of approving this Government--for _you_ to disown ornot to own it; for _you_ to act with Parliamentary authorityespecially in the disowning of it, contrary to the very fundamentalthings, yea against the very root of this Establishment; to sit andnot own the Authority by which you sit:--is that which I believeastonisheth more men than myself. " A revision of the Constitution ofthe Protectorate in _circumstantials_ he would not object to, but the _fundamentals_ must be left untouched. And let thosehearing him be under no mistake as to his own resolution. "The wilfulthrowing away of this Government, such as it is, so owned of God, soapproved by men, so witnessed to in the fundamentals of it as wasmentioned above, were a thing which, --and in reference not to_my_ good, but to the good of these Nations and Posterity, --Ican sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave, and buried withinfamy, than I can give my consent unto. " He had therefore calledthem now that they might come to an understanding. There was awritten parchment in the lobby of the Parliament House to which herequested the signatures of such as might see fit. The doors of theParliament House would then be open for all such, to proceedthenceforth as a free Parliament in all things, subject to the singlecondition expressed in that parchment. "You have an absoluteLegislative Power in all things that can possibly concern the goodand interest of the public; and I think you may make these Nationshappy by this settlement. " With so much great work before them, withthe three nations looking on in hope, with foreign nations looking onwith wonder or worse feelings, had they not a greatresponsibility?[1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle's Cromwell, III. 37-61. ] Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and others, would not sign the document offeredthem, which was a brief engagement "to be true and faithful to theLord Protector and the Commonwealth, " and not to propose alterationof the Government as "settled in a single Person and a Parliament. "The Parliament, therefore, lost these leaders; but within an hour"The Recognition, " as it came to be called, was signed by a hundredmembers, and the number was raised to 140 before the day was over, and ultimately to about 300. And so, with this goodly number, theHouse went on. But the Anti-Oliverian leaven was still strong in it. This appeared even in the immediate dealings of the House with theRecognition itself. They first (Sept, 14) declared that it should notbe construed to comprehend the whole Constitutional Instrument of theProtectorate, but only the main principle of the first Article; andthen (Sept. 18) they converted the Recognition into a resolution oftheir own, requiring all members to sign it, Next, in order to getrid of the stumbling-block of the First Article altogether, theyresolved (Sept. 19) that the Supreme Legislative authority was anddid reside in "One Person and the People assembled in Parliament, "and also (Sept. 20) that Oliver Cromwell was and should he LordProtector for life, and that there should be Triennial Parliaments. Thus free to advance through the rest of the Forty-two Articles attheir leisure, they made that thenceforward almost their sole work. Through the rest of September, the whole of October, and part ofNovember, the business went on in Committee, with the result of a newand more detailed Constitution of the whole Government in sixtyArticles instead of the Forty-two. A Bill for enacting thisConstitution, passed the first reading on the 22nd of December, andthe second on the 23rd; it then went back into Committee foramendments; and in January 1654-5 the House was debating theseamendments and others. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given and of Nov. 7, andGodwin, IV, 130-132. ] In the long course of the total debate perhaps the most interestingdivisions had been one in Committee on October 16, and one in theHouse on November 10. In the first the question was whether theProtectorship should be hereditary, and it had been carried by 200votes to 60 that it should _not_. This was not strictly anAnti-Oliverian demonstration; for, though Lambert was the mover for ahereditary Protectorship in Cromwell's family, many of the undoubtedOliverians voted in the majority, nor does there seem to be any proofthat Lambert had acted by direct authority from Cromwell. Moredistinctly an Anti-Oliverian vote had been that of Nov. 10, which wason a question of deep interest to Cromwell: viz. The amount of hisprerogative in the form of a negative on Bills trenching onfundamentals. In his last speech he had himself indicated these"fundamentals, " which ought to be safe against attack even byParliament--one of them being Liberty of Conscience, another theControl of the Militia as belonging to the Protector _inconjunction with_ the Parliament, and a third the provision, thatevery Parliament should sit but for a fixed period. In all othermatters he was content with a negative for twenty days only; but onbills trenching on these fundamentals he required a negativeabsolutely. The question had come to the vote in a very subtle form. The motion of the Opposition was that Bills should become Law withoutthe Protector's consent after twenty days, "provided that such Billscontain nothing in them contrary to such matters wherein theParliament shall think fit to give a negative to the Lord Protector, "while the amendment of the Oliverians or Court-party altered thewording into "wherein the Single Person and the Parliament shalldeclare a negative to be in the Single Person, " thus giving Cromwellhimself, and not the Parliament only, a right of deciding where anegative should lie. On this question the Oliverians were beaten by109 votes to 85, and the decision would probably have caused arupture had not the Opposition conceded a good deal when they went onto settle the matters wherein Parliament _would_ grant theProtector a negative. [1] [Footnote 1: Journals of dates and Godwin, IV. 134-139. ] As we have said, almost the sole occupation of the Parliament wasthis revision of the flooring on which itself and the Protectoratestood. They did, however, some little pieces of work besides. Theyundertook a revision of the Ordinances that had been passed by theProtector and his Council, and also of the Acts of the BarebonesParliament; and they proposed Bills of their own to supersede some ofthese, --especially a new Bill for the Ejection of ScandalousMinisters, and a new Bill for Reform of the Court of Chancery. But ofall the incidental work undertaken by this Parliament none seems tohave been undertaken with so much gusto as that which consisted inefforts for the suppression of Heresy and Blasphemy. Here was thenatural outcome of the Presbyterianism with which the Parliament wascharged, and here also the Parliament was very vexatious to the soulof the Lord-Protector. After all, this portion of the work of the Parliament can hardly becalled incidental. It was part and parcel of their main work ofrevising the Constitution, and it was inter-wrought with the questionof Cromwell's negatives. Article XXXVII. Of the original Instrumentof the Protectorate had guaranteed liberty of worship and ofpreaching outside the Established Church to "such as profess faith inJesus Christ, " and Cromwell, in his last speech, had noted this asone of the "fundamentals" he was bound to preserve. How did theParliament meet the difficulty? Very ingeniously. They said that thephrase "such as profess faith in Jesus Christ" was a vague phrase, requiring definition; and, the whole House having formed itself intoa Committee for Religion, and this Committee having appointed aworking sub-Committee of about fourteen, the sub-Committee wasempowered to take steps for coming to a definition. Naturally enough, in such a matter, the sub-Committee wanted clerical advice; and, eachmember of the sub-Committee having nominated one divine, there was asmall Westminster Assembly over again to illuminate Parliament on thedark subject. Dr. Owen and Dr. Goodwin were there, with Nye, SidrachSimpson, Stephen Marshall, Mr. Vines, Mr. Manton, and others. Mr. Richard Baxter had the honour of being one, having been asked toundertake the duty by Lord Breghill, when the venerable ex-PrimateUsher had declined it; and it is from Baxter that we have the fullestaccount of the proceedings. When he came to town from Kidderminster, he found the rest of the divines already busy in drawing up a list of"fundamentals of faith, " the profession of which was to be thenecessary title to the toleration promised. Knowing "how ticklish abusiness the enumeration of fundamentals was, " Baxter tried, he says, to stop that method, and suggested that acceptance of the Creed, theLord's P[r]ayer, and the Decalogue would be a sufficient test. Thisdid not please the others; Baxter almost lost his character fororthodoxy by his proposal; Dr. Owen, in particular, forgetful of hisown past, was now bull-mad for the "fundamentals. " They were drawnout at last, either sixteen or twenty of them in all, and handed toParliament through the sub-Committee. Thus illuminated, Parliament, after a debate extending over six days (Dec. 4-15, 1654), dischargedits mind fully on the Toleration Question. They resolved that thereshould certainly be a toleration for tender consciences outside theEstablished Church, but that it should not extend to "Atheism, Blasphemy, damnable Heresies to be particularly enumerated by thisParliament, Popery, Prelacy, Licentiousness or Profaneness, " nor yetto "such as shall preach, print, or avowedly maintain anythingcontrary to the fundamental principles of Doctrine held forth in thepublic profession, "--said "fundamental principles" being the"fundamentals" of Dr. Owen and his friends, so far as the Houseshould see fit to pass them. They were already in print, with theScriptural proofs, for the use of members, and the first of them_was_ passed the same day. It was "That the Holy Scripture isthat rule of knowing God, and living unto Him, which whoso does notbelieve cannot be saved. " The others would come in time. Meanwhile itwas involved in the Resolution of the House that the Protectorhimself should have no veto on any Bills for restraining or punishingAtheists, Blasphemers, damnable Heretics, Papists, Prelatists, ordeniers of any of the forthcoming Christian fundamentals. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of days given; Neal, IV. 97-100;Baxter's Life, 197-205. On this visit to town, Baxter had thehonour to preach before Cromwell, having never done so till then, "save once long before when Cromwell was an inferior man amongother auditors. " He had also the honour of two long interviews withCromwell, the first with one or two others present, the second infull Council. They seem to have been reciprocally disagreeable. Onboth occasions, according to Baxter, Cromwell talked enormouslyfor the most part "slowly" and "tediously" to Baxter's taste, butwith passionate outbreaks against the Parliament. On the secondoccasion the topic was Liberty of Conscience, and what was beingdone in the Subcommittee and by the Divines on the subject. Baxterventured to hint that he had put his views on paper and that itmight save time if his Highness would read them. "He received thepaper after, but I scarce believe that he ever read it; for I sawthat what he learned must be from himself--being more disposed tospeak many hours than to hear one, and little heeding what anothersaid when he had spoken himself. " Cromwell had made up his mindabout Baxter long ago (Vol. III. P. 386), but had apparently nowgiven him another trial, on the faith of his reputed liberality onthe Toleration question. But Baxter did not gain upon him. ] As if to show how much in earnest they were on this whole subject, the House had at that moment the notorious Anti-Trinitarian JohnBiddle in their custody. Since 1644, when he was a schoolmaster inGloucester, this mild man had been in prison again and again for hisopinions, and the wonder was that the Presbyterians had not succeededin bringing him to the scaffold in 1648 under their tremendousOrdinance of that year. His Socinian books were then known overEngland and even on the Continent, and he would certainly have beenthe first capital victim under the Ordinance if the Presbyterians hadcontinued in power. At large since 1651, he had been living ratherquietly in London, earning his subsistence as a Greek reader for thepress, but also preaching regularly on Sundays to a small Sociniancongregation. In accordance with the general policy of the Governmentsince Cromwell had become master, he had been left unmolested. Theorthodox had been on the watch, however, and another Socinian book ofBiddle's, called _A Two-fold Catechism_, published in 1654, hadgiven them the opportunity they wanted. For this book Biddle had beenarrested on the 12th of December, and he had been brought before theHouse on his knees and committed to prison on the 13th. The viewswhich the House were then formulating on the Limits of Toleration inthe abstract may be said therefore to have been illustrated over Mr. Biddle's body in the concrete. His case came up again on the 15th ofJanuary, when the House, after hearing with horror some extracts fromhis books, ordered them to be burnt by the hangman, and at the sametime instructed a Committee to prepare a Bill for punishing him. Thepunishment, if the Presbyterians could succeed in falling back ontheir Parliamentary Ordinance of May 1648, was to be death. [1] [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 593-598; Commons Journals of dates. ] It was really of very great consequence to the Commonwealth of theProtectorate what theory of Toleration should be adopted into itsConstitution, whether the Parliament's or Cromwell's. For the fermentof religious and irreligious speculation of all kinds in the threenations was now something prodigious, and there were widely diffuseddenominations of dissent and heresy that had not been in existenceten years before, when the Long Parliament and the WestminsterAssembly first discussed the Toleration Question. Our synopsis of theEnglish sects and Heresies of 1644 (Vol. III. 143-159) is not, indeed, wholly out of date for 1654, but it would require extensionsand modifications to adjust it accurately to the latter year. Therehad been the natural flux and reflux of ideas during the interveningdecade, the waning of some sects and singularities that had no deeproot, the interblending of others, and new bursts in the teemingchaos. _Atheists_, Sceptics_, _Mortalists_ or _Materialists_, _Anti-Scripturists_, _Anti-Trinitarians_ or _Socinians_, _Arians_, _Anti-Sabbatarians_, _Seekers_, and _Divorcers_ or _Miltonists_: allthese terms were still in the vocabulary of the orthodox, describingpersons or bodies of persons of whose opinions the Civil Magistratewas bound to take account. Sects, on the other hand, that had been onthe black list ten years ago had now been admitted to respectability. _Baptists_ or _Anabaptists_, _Antinomians, _Brownists_, nay evenINDEPENDENTS generally, had been regarded in 1644 as dark anddangerous schismatics; but now, save in the private colloquies orcontroversial tracts of Presbyterians, no feeling of horror attachedto those names. INDEPENDENTS, indeed, were now the Lords of theCommonwealth, and _Anabaptists_ and _Antinomians_ were in highplaces, so that the most orthodox Presbyterians found themselves sideby side with them in private gatherings and committees. In theEstablished Church of the Protectorate there was to be acomprehension of Presbyterians, Independents, and such Baptists andother really Evangelical Sectaries as might be willing; and, accordingly, the question of mere Toleration outside the EstablishedChurch no longer concerned the Evangelical sects lying immediatelybeyond ordinary Independency. If, from objection to the principle ofan Establishment, they chose to remain outside, they would havetoleration there as a matter of course. To make up, however, for thisremoval of so many of the old Sectaries from all practical interestin the question on their own account, there were new religiousdenominations of such strange ways and tendencies, such unknownrelations to anything hitherto recognised as Orthodoxy or as Heresy, that the poor Civil Magistrate, or even the coolest AbstractTolerationist, in contemplating them, might well be puzzled. Thefollowing is a list of the chief of these new Sects that had sprungup since 1644:-- FIFTH-MONARCHY MEN:--At first sight this does not appear a new sect, but merely a continuation of the old MILLENARIES or CHILIASTS (Vol. III, pp. 152-153), who believed that the Personal Reign of Christ onEarth for a thousand years was approaching. The change of name, however, indicates greater precision in the belief, and also greaterintensity. According to the wild system of Universal Chronology thenin vogue, the past History of the World, on this side of the Flood, had consisted of four great successive Empires or Monarchies--theAssyrian, which ended B. C. 531; the Persian, which ended B. C. 331;the Macedonian, or Greek Empire of Alexander, which was made tostretch to B. C. 44; and the Roman, which had begun B. C. 44, with theAccession of Augustus Cęsar, and which had included, though peoplemight not see how, all that had happened on the Earth since then. Butthis last Monarchy was tottering, and a Fifth Universal Monarchy wasat hand. It was that foreshadowed in Rev. Xx. : "And I saw an Angelcome down from Heaven, having the key of the Bottomless Pit and agreat chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that greatserpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousandyears, and cast him into the Bottomless Pit, and shut him up, and seta seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till thethousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be looseda little season. And I saw Thrones, and they sat upon them, andjudgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that werebeheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the worship of God, andwhich had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither hadreceived his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and theylived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of thedead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. " Thisprophecy was the property of all Christians, and might receivedifferent interpretations. The literal interpretation, favoured bysome theologians, was that, at some date fast approaching, Christwould reappear visibly on Earth, accompanied by the re-embodied soulsof dead saints and martyrs, while the rest of the dead slept on, andthat in the glorious reign of Righteousness and the subjugation ofall Evil thus begun for a thousand years men then living, or the truesaints among them, might partake. This interpretation, though scoutedby the more rational theologians, had seized on many of the morefervid English Independents and Sectaries, so that they had begun tosee, in the great events of their own time and land, the dazzlingedge of the near Millennium. The doctrine had caught the souls ofHarrison and other men of action, hitherto classed as Anabaptists orSeekers. Now, so far there was no harm in it, nor could any of theorthodox who rejected it for themselves dare to treat it as one ofthe heresies to be restrained by the Civil Magistrate. Evidently, however, there was a root of danger. What if the Fifth-Monarchy menshould make it part of their faith that the saints could acceleratethe Fifth Monarchy, and that it was their duty to do so? Then theirtenet might have strange practical effects upon English politics. Already, in the time of the Barebones Parliament, there had beenwarnings of this, the Fifth-Monarchy men there, or outside theParliament, having distinguished themselves by an ultra-Republicanismwhich verged on Communism, and also by their zeal for pureVoluntaryism in Religion and the abolition of a paid Ministry and allexpress Church machinery. The fact had not escaped Cromwell, and inhis speech at the opening of the present Parliament he had takennotice of it. In that very speech he had singled out for remark "themistaken notion of the Fifth Monarchy. " It was a notion, he admitted, held by many good and sincere men; nay it was a notion he honouredand could find a high meaning in. "But for men, on this principle, tobetitle themselves that they are the only men to rule kingdoms, govern nations, and give laws to people, and determine of propertyand liberty and everything else, --upon such a pretension as this:truly they had need to give clear manifestations of God's presencewith them, before wise men will receive or submit to theirconclusions. " If they were notions only, he added, they were bestleft alone; for "notions will hurt none but those who have them. "But, when the notions were turned into practice, and proposals weremade for abrogation of Property and Magistracy to smooth the way forthe Fifth Monarchy, then one must remember Jude's precept as to themode of dealing with the errors of good men. "Of some havecompassion, " Jude had said, "making a difference; others save withfear, pulling them out of the fire. "[1] [Footnote 1: Hearne's _Ductor Historicus_, 1714 (for the olddoctrine of the Four Monarchies); Thomason Pamphlets; Carlyle'sCromwell, III. 24-27. --The Fifth Monarchy notion was by no means anupstart oddity of thought among the English Puritans of theseventeenth century. It was a tradition of the most scholarly thoughtof medięval theologians as to the duration and final collapse of theexisting Cosmos; and it may be traced in the older imaginativeliterature of various European nations. Thus the Scottish Sir DavidLindsay's long poem entitled _Monarchy, or Ane Dialogue betwixExperience and one Courtier of the Miserable Estate of the World_, the date of which is 1553, is a moralized sketch of the wholeprevious history of the world, according to the then accepteddoctrine of the Four past Secular Monarchies, with a glance around atthe Europe of Lindsay's own time as already certainly in the dregs of"The Latter Days, " and an anticipation, as if with assured personalbelief, of a glorious Fifth Monarchy, or miraculous reconstitution ofthe whole Universe into a new Heaven and Earth, to begin probablyabout the year 2000. ] RANTERS:--"These made it their business, " says Baxter, "to set up theLight of Nature under the name of _Christ in Man_, and todishonour and cry down the Church, the Scripture, and the presentMinistry, and our worship and ordinances; and called men to hearkento Christ within them. But withal they conjoined a cursed doctrineof Libertinism, which brought them to all abominable filthiness oflife. They taught, as the FAMILISTS, (see Vol. III. P. 152), that Godregardeth not the actions of the outward man, but of the heart, andthat to the pure all things are pure ... I have seen myself letterswritten from Abington, where among both soldiers and people thiscontagion did then prevail, full of horrid oaths and curses andblasphemy, not fit to be repeated by the tongue or pen of man; andthis all uttered as the effect of knowledge and a part of theirReligion, in a fanatic strain, and fathered on the Spirit of God. "The Ranters, in fact, seem to have been ANTINOMIANS (see Vol. III. 151-152) run mad, with touches from FAMILISM and SEEKERISM greatlyvulgarized. Of no sect do we hear more in the pamphlets andnewspapers between 1650 and 1655, though there are traces of them ofearlier date. The pamphlets about them generally take the form ofprofessed accounts of some of their meetings, with reports of theirprofane discourses and the indecencies with which they wereaccompanied. There are illustrative wood-cuts in some of thepamphlets; and, on the whole, I fancy that some low printers andbooksellers made a trade on the public curiosity about the Ranters, getting up pretended accounts of their meetings as a pretext forprurient publications. There is plenty of testimony, however, besidesBaxter's word, that there was a real sect of the name pretty widelyspread in low neighbourhoods in towns, and holding meetings. AmongRanters named in the pamphlets I have noticed a T. Shakespeare. "Thehorrid villainies of the sect, " says Baxter, "did not only speedilyextinguish it, but also did as much as ever anything did to disgraceall sectaries, and to restore the credit of the ministry and thesober unanimous Christians;" and this, or the transfusion ofRanterism into equivalent phrenzies with other names, may accountfor the fact that after a while the pamphlets about the Ranters ceaseor become rare. Clearly, in the main, the regulation of such a sect, so long as it did last, was a matter of police; and the only questionis whether there were any tenets mixed up with Ranterism, or held bysome roughly called Ranters, that were capable of being dissociated, and that were in fact in some cases dissociated, from offencesagainst public decency. Exact data are deficient, and there wereprobably varieties of Ranters theologically. Pantheism, or theessential identity of God with the universe, and his indwelling inevery creature, angelic, human, brute, or inorganic, seems to havebeen the belief of most Ranters that could manage to rise to ametaphysics--with which belief was conjoined also a rejection of allessential distinction between good and evil, and a rejection of allScripture as mere dead letter; but from a so-called "Carol of theRanters" I infer that Atheism, or at least Mortalism or Materialism(see Vol. III. P. 156-157), had found refuge among some of thevarieties. Thus:-- "They prate of God! Believe it, fellow-creature, There's no such bugbear: all was made by Nature. We know all came of nothing, and shall pass Into the same condition once it was By Nature's power, and that they grossly lie That say there's hope of immortality. Let them but tell us what a soul is: then We shall adhere to these mad brainsick men. "[1] [Footnote 1: Baxter's Life, 76-77; and Thomason Pamphlets_passim_. The pamphlet last quoted is in Vol. 485 (oldnumbering). I have also used a quotation from another pamphlet inBarclay's _Inner Life of the Religious Societies of theCommonwealth_ (1876), pp. 417-418. ] STRAY FANATICS: THE MUGGLETONIANS:--Sometimes confounded with theRanters, but really distinguishable, were some crazed men, whosecrazes had taken a religious turn, and whose extravagances becamecontagious. --Such was a John Robins, first heard of about 1650, whenhe went about, sometimes as God Almighty, sometimes as Adam raisedfrom the dead, with the power of raising others from the dead. He hadraised Cain and Judas, and other personages of Scripture, forgivingtheir sins and blessing them; which personages, changed in character, but remembering their former selves quite well, went about inRobins's company and were seen and talked with by various people. Hecould work miracles, and in dark rooms would exhibit himselfsurrounded with angels, and fiery serpents, and shining lights, orriding in the air. He had been sent to Bridewell, and hissupernatural powers had left him. --One heard next, in 1652, of twoassociates, called John Reeve and Ludovick Muggleton, who professedto be "the two last Spiritual Witnesses (Rev. Xi. ) and alone trueProphets of the Lord Jesus Christ, God alone blessed to alleternity. " They believed in a real man-shaped God, existing from alleternity, who had come upon earth as Jesus Christ, leaving Moses andElijah to represent him in Heaven--also in the mortality of the soultill the resurrection of the body; and their chief commission was todenounce and curse all false prophets, and all who did not believe inReeves and Muggleton. They visited Robins in Bridewell and told_him_ to stop his preaching under pain of eternal damnation; butthey favoured some eminent Presbyterian and Independent ministers ofLondon with letters to the same effect. They dated their letters"from Great Trinity Lane, at a Chandler's shop, against one Mr. Millis, a brown baker, near Bow Lane End;" and the editor of_Mercurius Politicus_, who had received one of their letters sodated, had the curiosity to go to see them, with some friends of his, in the end of August 1653. He found them "at the top of an old housein a cockloft, " and made a paragraph of them thus:--"They are said tobe a couple of tailors: but only one of them works, and that isMuggleton; the other, they say, writes prophecies. We found two womenthere whom they had convinced; whom we questioning, they said theybelieved all. Besides there was an old country plain man of Essex, who said he had been with them twice before; and, being asked whetherhe were of the same opinion and did believe them, he answered, Trulyhe could not tell what to say, but he was come to have some discoursewith them in private. " Two mouths after this interview (Oct. 1653), they were brought before the Lord Mayor and Recorder for theirletters to ministers, and sentenced to six months of imprisonmenteach. But they were to be farther heard of in the world. Muggletonindeed to as late as 1698, when he died at the age of ninety, leavinga sect called THE MUGGLETONIANS, who are perhaps not extinctyet. --Among those who attached themselves to Reeves and Muggleton wasa Thomas Tany, who called himself also "Theauro John, " and professedto be the Lord's High Priest. They would have nothing to do with him, and put him on their excommunicated list. Whether because this preyedon the poor man's mind or not, he was found in the lobby of theParliament House on Saturday, Dec. 30. 1654, with a drawn sword, slashing at members, and knocking for admittance. The House, who werethen in the midst of their debate on the proper Limits of Toleration, ordered him to be brought to the bar:--"Where, " say the journals, "being demanded by Mr. Speaker what his name was, answered'_Theeror John_'; being asked why he came hither, saith, He firedhis tent, and the people were ready to stone him because he burnt theBible--which he acknowledgeth he did. Saith it is letters, not life. And he drew his sword because the man jostled him at the door. Saithhe burnt the Bible because the people say it is the Word of God, andit is not; it deceived _him_. And saith he burnt the sword andpistols and Bibles because they are the Gods of England. He did itnot of himself; and, being asked who bid him do it, saith God. ' Andthereupon was commanded to withdraw. " He was sent into custodyimmediately. --Stray fanatics like Robins, Reeves, Muggleton, andTheauro John, seem to have been not uncommon through England. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 313-317; Mercurius Politicus, No. 167 (Aug. 18-25, 1653); Commons Journals, Dec. 30, 1654; Barclay's _ReligiousSocieties_, pp. 421-422. ] BOEHMENISTS AND OTHER MYSTICS:--Of the German Mystic Jacob Boehme(1575-1624) there had been a _Life_ in English since 1644, witha catalogue of his writings, and since then translations of some ofthe writings themselves had appeared at intervals, mostly from theshop of one publisher, Humphrey Blunden. The interest in "theTeutonical Philosopher" thus excited had at length taken form in asmall sect of professed BOEHMENISTS, propounding the doctrine of theLight of Nature, i. E. Of a mystic intuitional revelation in the soulitself of all true knowledge of divine and human things. Of this sectBaxter says that they were "fewer in number, " and seemed "to haveattained to greater meekness and conquest of passions, " than theother sects. The chief of them was Dr. Pordage, Rector of Bradfield, in Berks, with his family. They held "visible and sensible communionwith angels" in the Rectory, on the very walls and windows of whichthere appeared miraculous pictures and symbols; and the Doctorhimself, besides alarming people with such strange phrases as "thefiery deity of Christ dwelling in the soul and mixing itself with ourflesh, " was clearly unorthodox on many particularpoints. [1]--Boehme's system included a mystical physics or cosmologyas well as a metaphysics or theosophy, and some of his Englishfollowers seem to have allied themselves with the famous AstrologerWilliam Lilly, whose prophetic Almanacks, under the title of_Merlinus Anglicus_, had been appearing annually since 1644. Butindeed all sorts of men were in contact with this quack orquack-mystic. He had been consulted by Charles I as to the probableissue of events; he had been consulted and feed by partisans of theother side: his Almanacks, with their hieroglyphics and politicalpredictions, had a boundless popularity, and were bringing him a goodincome; he was the chief in his day of those fortune-telling andspirit-auguring celebrities who hover all their lives between highsociety and Bridewell. As he had adhered to the Parliamentarians andmade the stars speak for their cause, he had hitherto been prettysafe; but the leading Presbyterian and Independent ministers, as wehave seen (ante IV, p. 392), had recently called upon Parliament toput down his bastard science. Gataker had attacked "that grandimpostor Mr. William Lilly" in an express publication. [2]--Is it in aspirit of mischief that Baxter names THE VANISTS, or disciples of SirHenry Vane the younger, as one of the recognised sects of this time?That great Republican leader, it was known, with all his deeppractical astuteness and the perfect clearness and shrewdness of hisspeeches and business-letters, carried in his head a mysticMetaphysics of his own which he found it hard to express. It was asomething unique, including ideas from the Antinomians, theAnabaptists, and the Seekers, he had been so much among, withsomething also of the Fifth-Monarchy notion, and with the theory ofabsolute Voluntaryism in Religion, but all these amalgamated with newingredients. Burnet tells us that, though he had taken pains to findout Vane's meaning in his own books, he could never reach it, andthat, as many others had the same experience, it might be reasonableto conclude that Vane had purposely kept back the key to his system. Friends of Vane had told Burnet, however, that "he leaned to Origen'snotion of a universal salvation of all, both of devils and thedamned, and to the doctrine of pre-existence. " Even when Cromwelland Vane had been close friends, calling each other "Fountain" and"Heron" in their private letters. Vane had been in possession ofsuch peculiar lights, or of others, beyond Cromwell's apprehension. "Brother Fountain can guess at his brother's meaning, " he had writtento Cromwell in Scotland August 2, 1651, with reference to sometroublesome on-goings in the Council of State during Cromwell'sabsence, begging him not to believe ill-natured reports about"Brother Heron" in connexion with them, and adding, "Be assured heanswers your heart's desire in all things, except he be esteemed evenby you in principles too high to fathom; which one day, I ampersuaded, will not be so thought by you, when, by increasing withthe increasings of God, you shall be brought to that sight andenjoyment of God in Christ which passes knowledge. " If this toCromwell, what to others? Three years had passed, and Vane was now incompulsory retirement. His _Retired Man's Meditations_ had notyet been published. Such Vanists, therefore, as there were in 1654must have imbibed their knowledge of them from Sir Henry'sconversation or indirectly. Among these Baxter mentions Peter Sterry, one of Cromwell's favourite preachers, and afterwards known as amystic on his own account. Of Sterry's preaching, already notoriouslyobscure, Sir Benjamin Rudyard had said that "it was too high for thisworld and too low for the other, " and Baxter puns on the associationof Vane and Sterry, asking whether _Vanity_ and _Sterility_had ever been more happily conjoined. But the sect of the VANISTSexisted perhaps mainly in Baxter's fancy. [3] [Footnote 1: Stationers' Registers from 1644 to 1654; Baxter, 77-78;Neal, IV. 112-113. ] [Footnote 2: Engl. Cycl. Art. _Lilly_; Stationers' Registers ofdate June 10, 1653 (Gataker's Tract) and of other dates (Lilly'sAlmanacks). ] [Footnote 3: Baxter, 74-76; Milton Papers by Nickolls, 78-79;Wood's Ath. III, 578 et seq. And IV. 136-138. ] QUAKERS OR FRIENDS:--Who can think of the appearance of this sect inEnglish History without doing what the sect itself would forbid, andreverently raising the hat? And yet in 1654 this was the very sect ofsects. It was about the Quakers that there had begun to be the mostviolent excitement among the guardians of social order throughout theBritish Islands. --It was then six or seven years since they had firstbeen heard of in any distinct way, and four since they had receivedthe name QUAKERS. A Derbyshire Justice of the Peace, it is said, first invented that name for them, because they seemed to be fond ofthe text Jer. V. 22, and had offended him by addressing it to himselfand a brother magistrate: "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord; will yenot tremble at my presence?" But Robert Barclay's account of theorigin of the name in his _Apology for the Quakers_ (1675) isprobably more correct, though not inconsistent. He says it arose fromthe fact that, in the early meetings of "The Children of the Light, "as they first called themselves, violent physical agitations were notunfrequent, and conversions were often signalized by thataccompaniment. There was often an "inward travail" in some onepresent; "and from this inward travail, while the darkness seeks toobscure the light, and the light breaks through the darkness, whichit will always do if the soul gives not its strength to thedarkness, there will be such a painful travail found in the soul thatwill even work upon the outward man, so that often-times, through theworking thereof, the body will be greatly shaken, and many groans andsighs and tears, even as the pangs of a woman in travail, will layhold of it: yea, and this not only as to one, but ... Sometimes thepower of God will break forth into a whole meeting, and there will besuch an inward travail, while each is seeking to overcome the evil inthemselves, that by the strong contrary workings of these oppositepowers, like the going of two contrary tides, every individual willbe strongly exercised as in a day of battle, and thereby tremblingand a motion of body will be upon most, if not upon all, which, asthe power of Truth prevails, will from pangs and groans end with asweet sound of thanksgiving and praise. And from this the name of_Quakers_, i. E. _Tremblers_, was first reproachfully castupon us; which though it be none of our choosing, yet in this respectwe are not ashamed of it, but have rather reason to rejoicetherefore, even that we are sensible of this power that hathoftentimes laid hold of our adversaries, and made them yield to us, and join with us, and confess to the Truth, before they had anydistinct and discursive knowledge of our doctrines. "--The Quakers, then, according to this eminent Apologist for them, _had_, fromthe first, definite doctrines, which might be distinctly anddiscursively known. What were they? They hardly amounted to anyexpress revolution of existing Theology. In no essential respect didany of their recognised representatives impugn any of the doctrinesof Christianity as professed by other fervid Evangelical sects. TheTrinity, the Divinity of Christ, the natural sinfulness of men, propitiation by Christ alone, sanctification by the Holy Spirit, theinspiration and authority of the Scriptures--in these, and in othercardinal tenets, they were at one with the main body of theircontemporary Christians. Though it was customary for a time toconfound them with the Ranters, they themselves repudiated theconnexion, and opposed the Ranters and their libertinism whereverthey met them. Wherein then lay the distinctive peculiarity of theQuakers? It has been usual to say that it consisted in their doctrineof the universality of the gift of the Spirit, and of the constantinner light, and motion, and teaching of the Spirit in the soul ofeach individual believer. This is not sufficient. That doctrine theyshared substantially with various other sects, --certainly with theBoehmenists and other Continental Mystics, not to speak of theEnglish Antinomians and Seekers. Nay, in their first great practicalapplication of the doctrine they had been largely anticipated. If theinner motion or manifestation of the Spirit in each mind, ininterpretation of the Bible or over and above the Bible, is the soletrue teaching of the Gospel, and if the manifestation cometh as theSpirit listeth, and cannot be commanded, a regular Ministry of theWord by a so-called Clergy is an absurdity, and a hired Ministry anabomination! So said the Quakers. In reaching this conclusion, however, they had only added themselves to masses of people, known asBrownists, Seekers, and Anabaptists, who had already, by the sameroute or by others, advanced to the standing-ground of absoluteVoluntaryism. What did distinguish the early Quakers seems to havebeen, in the first place, the thorough form of their apprehension ofthat doctrine of the Inner Light, or Immediate Revelation of theSpirit, which they held in common with other sects, and, in thesecond place, their courage and tenacity in carrying out thepractical inferences from that doctrine in every sentence of theirown speech and every hour of their own conduct. As to the form inwhich they held the doctrine itself Barclay will be again our bestauthority. "The testimony of the Spirit, " he says, "is that alone bywhich the true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can only be, revealed; who, as by the moving of his own Spirit he converted theChaos of this world into that wonderful Order wherein it was in thebeginning, and created Man a living Soul to rule and govern it, so bythe same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the sons ofmen, both Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles: which revelations ofGod by the Spirit, whether by outward voices and appearances, dreams, or inward objective manifestations in the heart, were of old theformal object of their faith and remain yet so to be, --since theobject of the Saints' faith is the same in all ages, though set forthunder divers administrations. " This Inner Light of the Spirit, seizing men and women at all times and places, and illuminating themin the knowledge of God, was, Barclay elsewhere explains, somethingaltogether supernatural, something totally distinct from naturalReason. "That Man, as he is a rational creature, hath Reason as anatural faculty of his soul, we deny not; for this is a propertynatural and essential to him, by which he can know and learn manyarts and sciences, beyond what any other animal can do by the mereanimal principle. Neither do we deny that by this rational principleMan may apprehend in his brain, and in the notion, a knowledge of Godand spiritual things; yet, that not being the right organ, ... Itcannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth. " And whatof the use and value of the Scriptures? "From these revelations ofthe Spirit of God to the saints have proceeded the Scriptures ofTruth, which contain (1) A faithful historical account of the actingsof God's people in divers ages, with many singular and remarkableprovidences attending them; (2) A prophetical account of severalthings, whereof some are already past and some yet to come; (3) Afull and ample account of all the chief principles of the doctrine ofChrist ... Nevertheless, because they are only a declaration of thefountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to beesteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge, nor yet theadequate primary rule of faith and manners. Nevertheless, as thatwhich giveth a true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subordinate to theSpirit, from which they have all their excellency and certainty. " Somuch for the _form_ of the central principle of Early Quakerism, so far as it can be expressed logically. But it was in the resoluteapplication of the principle in practice that the Early Quakers madethemselves conspicuous. They were not Speculative Voluntaries, waiting for the abolition of the National Church, and paying tithesmeanwhile. They were Separatists who would at once and in every wayassert their Separatism. They would pay no tithes; they called everychurch "a steeple-house"; and they regarded every parson as the hiredperformer in one of the steeple-houses. Then, in their own meetingsfor mutual edification and worship, all their customs were inaccordance with their main principle. They had no fixed articles ofcongregational creed, no prescribed forms of prayer, no ordinance ofbaptism or of sacramental communion, no religious ceremony insanction of marriage, and no paid or appointed preachers. Theministry was to be as the spirit moved; all equally might speak or besilent, poor as well as rich, unlearned as well as learned, women aswell as men; if special teachers did spring up amongst them, itshould not be professionally, or to earn a salary. Yet, with all thisliberty among themselves, what unanimity in the moral purport oftheir teachings! Their restless dissatisfaction with the EstablishedChurch and with all known varieties of Dissent, their passion for afull reception of Christ at the fountain-head, their searchings ofthe Scriptures, their private raptures and meditations, their prayersand consultations in public, had resulted in a simple re-issue of theChristianity of the Sermon on the Mount. Quakerism, in its kernel, was but the revived Christian morality of meekness, piety, benevolence, purity, truthfulness, peacefulness, and passivity. Therewere to be no oaths: Yea or Nay was to be enough. There were to be noceremonies of honour or courtesy-titles among men: the hat was to betaken off to no one, and all were to be addressed in the singular, as_Thou_ and _Thee_. War and physical violence were unlawful, and therefore all fighting and the trade of a soldier. Injuries tooneself were to be borne with patience, but there was to be the mostactive energy in relieving the sufferings of others, and in seekingout suffering where it lurked. The sick and those in prison were tobe visited, the insane and the outcast; and the wrongs and crueltiesof law, whether in death-sentences for mere offences againstproperty, or in brutal methods of prison-treatment, were to beexposed and condemned. For the rest, the Friends were to walkindustriously and domestically through the world, honest in theirdealings, wearing a plain Puritan garb, and avoiding all vanities andgaieties. --Had it been possible for such a sect to come intoexistence by mere natural growth, or the unconcerted association oflike-minded persons in all parts of the country at once, even then, one can see, there would have been irritation between it and the restof the community. The refusal to pay tithes, the refusal of oaths inCourts of Law or anywhere else, the objection to war and to the tradeof a soldier, the _Theeing_ and _Thouing_ of allindiscriminately, the keeping of the hat on in any presence, wouldhave occasioned constant feud between any little nucleus of Quakersand the society round about it. But the sect had not formed itself byany such quiet process of simultaneous grouping among people who hadsomehow imbibed its tenets. It had come into being, and in fact hadshaped its tenets and become aware of them, through a previousfervour of itinerant Propagandism such as had hardly been known sincethe first Apostles and Christian missionaries had walked among theheathen. The first Quaker, the man in whose dreamings by himself, aided by scanty readings, the principles of the sect had beenevolved, and in whose conduct by himself for a year or two the secthad practically originated, was the good, blunt, obstinate, opaque-brained, ecstatic, Leicestershire shoemaker, George Fox, theBoehme of England. From the year 1646, when he was two and twentyyears of age, the life of Fox had been an incessant tramp through thetowns and villages of the Midlands and the North, with preachings inbarns, in inns, in market-places, outside courts of justice, andoften inside the steeple-houses themselves, by way of interruption ofthe regular ministers, or correction of their doctrine after thehours of regular service. Extraordinary excitements had attended himeverywhere, paroxysms of delight in him with tears and tremblings, outbreaks of rage against him with hootings and stonings. Again andagain he had been brought before justices and magistrates, to whosepresence indeed he naturally tended of his own accord for the purposeof lecturing them on their duties, and to whom he was always writingBiblical letters. He had been beaten and put in the stocks; he hadbeen in Derby jail and in several other prisons, charged with riot orblasphemy; and in these prisons he had found work to his mind and hadsometimes converted his jailors. And so, by the year 1654, "the manwith the leather breeches, " as he was called, had become a celebritythroughout England, with scattered converts and adherents everywhere, but voted a pest and terror by the public authorities, the regularsteeple-house clergy whether Presbyterian or Independent, and theappointed preachers of all the old sects. By this time, however, hewas by no means the sole preacher of Quakerism. Every now and thenfrom among his converts there had started up one fitted to assist himin the work of itinerant propagandism, and the number of such hadincreased in 1654 to about sixty in all. Richard Farnsworth, JamesNayler, William Dewsbury, Thomas Aldam, John Audland, FrancisHowgill, Edward Burrough, Thomas Taylor, John Camm, RichardHubberthorn, Miles Halhead, James Parnel, Thomas Briggs, RobertWidders, George Whitehead, Thomas Holmes, James Lancaster, AlexanderParker, William Caton, and John Stubbs, of the one sex, withElizabeth Hooton, Anna Downer, Elizabeth Heavens, Elizabeth Fletcher, Barbara Blaugden, Catherine Evans, and Sarah Cheevers, of the othersex, were among the chief of these early Quaker preachers after Fox. They had carried the doctrines into every part of England, and alsointo Scotland and Ireland; some of them had even been moved to go tothe Continent. Wherever they went there was the same disturbanceround them as round Fox himself, and they had the same hardtreatment--imprisonment, duckings, whippings. It is necessary thatthe reader should remember that in 1654 Quakerism was still in thisfirst stage of its diffusion by a vehement propagandism carried on bysome sixty itinerant preachers at war with established habits andcustoms, and had not settled down into mere individual Quietism, withassociations of those who had been converted to its principles, andcould be content with their own local meetings. In the chief centres, indeed, there were now fixed meetings for the resident Quakers, themain meeting place for London being the Bull and Mouth in St. Martin's-le-Grand; but Fox and most of his coadjutors were stillwandering about the country. --There was already an extensiveliterature of Quakerism, consisting of printed letters and tracts byFox himself, Farnsworth, Nayler, Dewsbury, Howgill, and others, andof invectives against the Quakers and their principles byPresbyterians and Independents; and some of the letters of theQuakers had been directly addressed to Cromwell. There had also, sometime in 1654, been one interview between the Lord Protector and Fox. Colonel Hacker, having arrested Fox in Leicestershire, had sent himup to London. Brought to Whitehall, one morning early, when the LordProtector was dressing, he had said, on entering, "Peace be on thisHouse!" and had then discoursed to the Protector at some length, theProtector kindly listening, occasionally putting a question, andseveral times acknowledging a remark of George's by saying it was"very good, " and "the truth. " At parting, the Protector had takenhold of his hand, and, with tears in his eyes, said "Come again to myhouse! If thou and I were but an hour of the day together, we shouldbe nearer one to another. I wish no more harm to thee than I do to myown soul. " Outside, the captain on guard, informing George that hewas free, had wanted him, by the Protector's orders, to stay and dinewith the household; but George had stoutly declined. [1] [Footnote 1: Sewel's _History of the People called Quakers_ (ed. 1834), I, I--136; Rules and Discipline of the Society of Friends(1834), _Introduction_; Baxter, 77; Neal, IV. 31-41; Pamphletsin Thomason Collection; Robert Barclay's _Apology for theQuakers_ (ed. 1765), pp. 4, 48, 118, 309-310. This last is areally able and impressive book--far the most reasoned expositioneven yet, I believe, of the principles of early Quakerism. Thoughnot written till twenty years after our present date, it was thefirst accurate and articulate expression, I believe, of theprinciples that had really, though rather confusedly, pervaded theQuaker teachings and writings at that date. --There are many particlesof information about the early Quakers, and about other contemporaryEnglish sects, in _The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of theCommonwealth_, published in 1878, the posthumous work of a secondRobert Barclay, two hundred years after the first. But the book, though laborious, is very chaotic, and shows hardly any knowledge ofthe time of which it mainly treats. ] Such were the more recent sects and heresies for which, as well asfor those older and more familiar, the First Parliament of theProtectorate had been, with the help of Dr. Owen and hisbrother-divines, preparing a strait-jacket. Of that Parliament, however, and of all its belongings, the Commonwealth was to be ridsooner than had been expected. It had been the astute policy of the Parliament to concentrate alltheir attention upon the new Constitution for the Protectorate, andto neglect and postpone other business until the Bill of theConstitution had been pushed through and presented to Cromwell forhis assent. In particular they had postponed, as much as possible, all supplies for Army and Navy and for carrying on the Government. Bythis, as they thought, they retained Cromwell in their grasp. By theinstrument under which they had been called, he could not dissolvethem till they had sat five months, --which, by ordinary counting fromSept. 3, 1654, made them safe till Feb. 3, 1654-5. But, if they couldcontrive that it should be Cromwell's interest not to dissolve themthen, there was no reason why they should not sit on a good whilelonger, perhaps even till near Oct. 1656, the time they hadthemselves fixed for the meeting of the next Parliament. To postponesupplies, therefore, till after the general Bill of the Constitutionin all its sixty Articles should have received Cromwell's assent, towrap up present supplies and the hope of future supplies as much aspossible in the Bill itself, was the plan of the Anti-Oliverians. TheBill, it will be remembered, had passed the second reading on Dec. 23, had then gone into Committee for amendments, and had come back tothe House with these amendments. On the 10th of January, 1654-5, whenthe Bill was almost ready to be engrossed, it was moved by theOliverians that there should be a conference about it with theProtector; but the motion was lost by 107 votes to 95. Among varioussubsequent divisions was one on the 16th on the question whether theBill should become Law even if the Lord Protector should refuse hisassent, and the Anti-Oliverians negatived the putting of the questionby eighty-six votes to fifty-five. The next day, after anotherdivision, it was resolved thus: "That this Bill entitled _An ActDeclaring and Settling the Government of the Commonwealth_, &c. , be engrossed in order to its presentment to the Lord Protector forhis consideration and assent, " and that, if "the Lord Protector andthe Parliament shall not agree thereunto and to every Articlethereof, then the Bill shall be void and of none effect. " Cromwellhaving thus been shut up to accept all or none, the Bill passed thethird and conclusive reading on Friday, Jan. 19. Then all depended onCromwell, who would have twenty days to make up his mind. He had madeup his mind already, and did not mean to wait for the parchment. TheBill included provisions striking, as he conceived, at the root ofhis Protectorate, e. G. One for depriving him and the Council of Stateof that power of interim legislation which they had hithertoexercised with so much effect, and others withholding the negative hethought his due on future Bills affecting fundamentals. He was, besides, wholly disgusted with the spirit and conduct of theParliament. Accordingly, having bethought himself that, in thepayment of the soldiers and sailors, a month was construed astwenty-eight days only, he let the Saturday and Sunday after thethird reading of the Bill pass quietly by, and then, on Monday the22nd, having summoned the House to meet him in the Painted Chamber, addressed them in what counts as the Fourth of his Speeches, toldthem their time was up that day, and dissolved them. TheirConstitutional Bill of Sixty Articles disappeared with them; and theyhad not, in all the five months, sent up a single Bill to Cromwellfor his assent. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 148-157; Carlyle, III. 70-95. ] SECTION II. BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENTS, OR THE TIME OF ARBITRARINESS: JAN. 22, 1654-55--SEPT. 17, 1656. AVOWED "ARBITRARINESS" OF THIS STAGE OF THE PROTECTORATE, AND REASONSFOR IT. --FIRST MEETING OF CROMWELL AND HIS COUNCIL AFTER THEDISSOLUTION: MAJOR-GENERAL OVERTON IN CUSTODY: OTHER ARRESTS:SUPPRESSION OF A WIDE REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY AND OF ROYALIST RISINGSIN YORKSHIRE AND THE WEST: REVENUE ORDINANCE AND MR. CONY'SOPPOSITION AT LAW: DEFERENCE OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS: BLAKE IN THEMEDITERRANEAN: MASSACRE OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS: DETAILS OFTHE STORY AND OF CROMWELL'S PROCEEDINGS IN CONSEQUENCE: PENN IN THESPANISH WEST INDIES: HIS REPULSE FROM HISPANIOLA AND LANDING INJAMAICA: DECLARATION OF WAR WITH SPAIN AND ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE:SCHEME OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND BY MAJOR-GENERALS: LIST OF THEMAND SUMMARY OF THEIR POLICE-SYSTEM: DECIMATION TAX ON THE ROYALISTS, AND OTHER MEASURES _IN TERROREM_: CONSOLIDATION OF THE LONDONNEWSPAPER PRESS: PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMISSION OF EJECTORS AND OF THECOMMISSION OF TRIERS: VIEW OF CROMWELL'S ESTABLISHED CHURCH OFENGLAND, WITH ENUMERATION OF ITS VARIOUS COMPONENTS: EXTENT OFTOLERATION OUTSIDE THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH: THE PROTECTOR'S TREATMENTOF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS, THE EPISCOPALIANS, THE ANTI-TRINITARIANS, THEQUAKERS, AND THE JEWS: STATE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLSUNDER THE PROTECTORATE: CROMWELL'S PATRONAGE OF LEARNING: LIST OFENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS ALIVE IN 1656, AND ACCOUNT OF THEIR DIVERSERELATIONS TO CROMWELL: POETICAL PANEGYRICS ON HIM AND HISPROTECTORATE. --NEW ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND: LORDBROGHILL'S PRESIDENCY THERE FOR CROMWELL: GENERAL STATE OF THECOUNTRY: CONTINUED STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE RESOLUTIONERS AND THEPROTESTERS FOR KIRK-SUPREMACY: INDEPENDENCY AND QUAKERISM INSCOTLAND: MORE EXTREME ANOMALIES THERE: STORY OF "JOCK OF BROADSCOTLAND": BRISK INTERCOURSE BETWEEN SCOTLAND AND LONDON: MISSION OFMR. JAMES SHARP. --IRELAND FROM 1654 TO 1656. --GLIMPSE OF THECOLONIES. This long stretch of twenty months was to be another period of thegovernment of the Commonwealth by the Lord Protector and the Councilof State on their own responsibility and without a Parliament. In thecircumstances in which the late Parliament had left them, withoutsupplies and without a single concluded and authoritative enactment, they could only fall back on the original Instrument of theProtectorate, amending its defects by their own ingenuity asexigencies occurred, with a suggestion now and then snatched, for thesake of quasi-Parliamentary countenance, from the wreck of the lateConstitutional Bill. Hence a character of "arbitrariness" inCromwell's government throughout this period greater perhaps than inany other of his whole Protectorate. For that, however, he wasprepared. At the first meeting of the Council after the Dissolutionof Parliament (Tuesday, Jan. 23, 1654-5) there were present, I find, His Highness himself, and thirteen out of the eighteen Councillors, viz. : Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Viscount Lisle, Lambert, Desborough, Fiennes, Montague, Sydenham, Strickland, SirCharles Wolseley, Skippon, Jones, and Rous; and it was then "orderedby his Highness and the Council that Friday next be set apart fortheir seeking of God, and that Mr. Lockyer, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Denn, andMr. Sterry, be desired then to give their assistance. " In entering onthe new period of their Government, the Protector and the Councilthought a day of special prayer very fitting. [1] [Footnote 1 Council Order Book of date. --Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, having shown Anti-Oliverian tendencies in the late Parliament, didnot reappear in the Council after the Dissolution, and hadvirtually ceased to be a member. Colonel Mackworth had died Dec. 26, 1654. The three other members not present at the meeting ofJan. 23, 1664-5 were Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and RichardMayor. Fleetwood was in Ireland; Pickering's absence wasaccidental, and he was in his place very regularly afterwards;Mayor did not attend steadily. ] In the Dissolution Speech Cromwell, rebuking the Parliament for theirinattention to what he considered their real duty, had compared themto a tree under the shadow of which there had been a too thrivinggrowth of other vegetation. Interpreting the parable, he hadexplained to them that there was at that moment a new and verycomplex conspiracy against the Commonwealth, that the Levellers athome had been in correspondence with the Cavaliers abroad, that theirplans were laid and their manifestos ready, that commissioners fromCharles Stuart had arrived and stores of arms and money had beencollected, and also (worst of all) that there had been tamperingswith the Army by Commonwealth men of higher note than the mereLevellers. He did not believe, he said, that any then in Parliamentwere in the Cavalier interest in the connexion, but he was not surethat they were all perfectly clear of the connexion on all its sides. At all events, he knew that their policy of starving the Army hadgiven the enemy their best opportunity. Fortunately, he had alreadysome of the chief home-conspirators in custody, and the Cavalier partof the plot might explode when it liked. [1] [Footnote 1: Speech IV (Carlyle, III 75-81. )] The chief of those in custody when Cromwell spoke was the RepublicanMajor-General Overton. He had been under suspicion before, as we haveseen, but had cleared himself sufficiently to Cromwell, and had beensent back to Scotland as second in command to Monk (Sept. 1654). Since then, however, he had relapsed into the Anti-Oliverian mood, and had become, it was believed, the head of the numerousAnti-Oliverians or Republicans in Monk's Army, The proposal was toseize Monk, make Overton the commander-in-chief, and march intoEngland, But, information having been received in time, there hadbeen the necessary arrests of the guilty officers (Dec. 1654). Mostof them had been kept in Edinburgh to be dealt with by Monk; but thechiefs had been sent at once to London, and among them Overton, whosearrest had taken place at Aberdeen. He was committed to the TowerJan. 16, 1654-5. The clue having thus been furnished, furtherinvestigation had disclosed more. In concert with the Anti-Oliverianmovement in the Army of Scotland, and depending on that movement forhelp, there had been plottings in England, in which Harrison, ColonelOkey, Colonel Alured, Colonel Sexby, Adjutant-General Allen, AdmiralLawson, Major John Wildman, Lord Grey of Groby, Carew, and evenBradshaw, Hasilrig, and Henry Marten, were, or were said to be, moreor less involved. The aim seems to have been a combination of theAnabaptist Levellers with the more eminent Republicans, --theLevellers, or some of them, quite willing to combine also with theRoyalists, and indeed in confidential negotiation with them. How thescheme, or medley of schemes, would have turned out in the working, was never to be known. It was frustrated by the arrest, in Januaryand February, of most of the suspected. The most important arrest wasthat of Major Wildman, the undoubted chief of the Levelling sectionof the conspiracy. When arrested in Wiltshire, he was found in theact of dictating a "Declaration of the Free and Well-affected Peopleof England now in arms against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Esq. " Hewas imprisoned in Chepstow Castle. Sexby, the most active man afterWildman in the Levelling or Anabaptist section of the conspiracy, escaped and went abroad. Adjutant-General Allen, and others lessdeeply implicated, were dismissed from their posts in the Army. Harrison was confined in the Isle of Portland, Carew in St. Mawes, inCornwall, and Lord Grey of Groby in Windsor Castle. None of all theRepublicans, higher or lower, it was remarked, suffered anypunishment beyond such seclusion or dismissal from the service. Clemency on that side was always Cromwell's policy. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 158-165; Carlyle, III. 66-70 and 98-99;Whitlocke, IV. 182-188 (Wildman's Proclamation); Life of RobertBlair, 319. ] Much sharper was Cromwell's method of dealing with the attemptedinvasion and insurrection of the Royalists independently. Hopes hadrisen high at the Court of the Stuarts, and the preparations had beenextensive. Charles himself had gone to Middleburg, with the Marquisof Ormond and others, to be ready for a landing in England; Hull hadbeen thought of as the likeliest landing-place; commissioned pioneersof the enterprise were already moving about in various Englishcounties. Of all this Thurloe had procured sufficient intelligencethrough his foreign spies, and the precautions of the Protector andCouncil had been commensurate. The projected Overton revolt inScotland and the Wildman-Sexby plot in England having been brought tonothing, the Royalists had to act for themselves. Two abortiverisings in March, 1654-5, exhausted their energy. One was inYorkshire, where Sir Henry Slingsby and Sir Richard Malevrierappeared in arms, but were immediately suppressed. The other was inthe West, and was more serious. On the night of Sunday, the 11th ofMarch, a body of 200 Cavaliers, headed by Sir Joseph Wagstaff, one ofCharles's emissaries from abroad, took possession of the city ofSalisbury, The assizes were to be held in the city the next day, andChief Justice Rolle, Judge Nicholas, and the High Sheriff, hadarrived and were in their beds. They were seized; and next morningWagstaff issued orders for hanging them, but was stopped in the actby the remonstrances of Colonel John Penruddock and others. FromSalisbury, finding no encouragement among the citizens, theinsurgents moved westward till they reached South Molton inDevonshire, where they were overtaken on the night of Wednesday, March 14, by Captain Unton Crook. There was a brief street-fight, ending in the defeat of the Royalists, and the capture of Penruddockand about fifty more. Wagstaff escaped. Of the contemporaryinsurgents in the north there had meanwhile escaped Malevrier andalso Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who had come from abroad to head theRoyalist insurrection generally, had gone to the north, but had notawaited the actual upshot. He lay concealed in London for a time, and got to Cologne at last. In the trials which ensued those whosuffered capitally were Penruddock, beheaded at Exeter, a CaptainHugh Grove and several others at other places in the West, and two orthree at York. Many of the inferior culprits, capitally convicted, had their lives spared, but were sent in servitude to Barbadoes. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 824-827; Whitlocke, IV. 188; Godwin, IV. 167-169; Carlyle, III. 99-100. ] Revenue had been one of the first cares of the Protector and Councilin resuming power after the Dissolution. By a former ordinance oftheirs of June 1654 (Vol. IV. P. 562), the assessment for the Armyand Navy had been renewed for three months at the rate of £120, 000per month, and for the next three months at the lowered rate of£90, 000 per month. This ordinance had expired at Christmas 1654; and, though the Parliament had then passed a Bill for extending theassessment for three months more at £60, 000 per month, the Bill hadnever been presented to Cromwell for his assent. On the 8th ofFebruary, 1654-5, therefore, a new Ordinance by his Highness andCouncil fixed the assessment for a certain term at £60, 000 per month. This acceptance of the reduction proposed by the Parliament gavegeneral satisfaction; and there is evidence that at this timeCromwell and the Council let themselves be driven to various shiftsof economy rather than overstrain their power of ordinance-making inthe unpopular particular of supplies. But, indeed, it was on thequestion of the validity of this power generally, all-essential as itwas, that they encountered their greatest difficulties. A merchantnamed Cony did more to wreck the Protectorate by a suit at law thandid the Cavaliers by their armed insurrection. Having refused to paycustom duty because it was levied only by an ordinance of the LordProtector and Council of March, 1654, and not by authority ofParliament, he had been fined £500 by the Commissioners of Customs, and had been committed to prison for non-payment. On a motion for awrit of _habeas corpus_ his case came on for trial in May 1655. Maynard and two other eminent lawyers who were his counsel pleaded soeffectively that they were committed to the Tower for what wascalled language destructive to the Government. Cony himself then wenton with the pleading, and so sturdily that Chief Justice Rolle wasnon-plussed, and had to confess as much to Cromwell. It was only bydelay, and then by some private management of Cony, that a decisionwas avoided which would have enabled the whole population legally todefy every taxing ordinance of the Protectorate. Similarly theOrdinance of August 1654 for regulating the Court of Chancery, andeven the Ordinance of Treason under which the late insurgents hadbeen tried, had brought the Protectorate into collision with theconsciences of Lawyers and Judges. There were such remonstrances toCromwell on the subject that he had to re-arrange the whole Bench. Heremoved Rolle and two other Judges, appointing Glynne and Steele intheir stead, and he deprived Whitlocke and Widdrington of theirCommissionerships of the Great Seal, compensating them after a whileby Commissionerships of the Treasury. For all this "arbitrariness"Cromwell avowed, in the simplest and most downright manner, the pleaof absolute necessity. The very existence of his Protectorate was atperil; and that meant, he declared, the existence of theCommonwealth. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 174-183; Whitlocke, through April, May, June, and July, 1655. ] For such "arbitrariness" in some of the Protector's home-proceedingsthere was, most people allowed, a splendid atonement in the marvelsof his foreign policy. Never had there been on the throne of Englanda sovereign more bent upon making England the champion-nation of theworld. The deference, the sycophancy, of foreign princes andpotentates to him, and the proofs of the same in letters andembassies, and in presents of hawks and horses, had become a themefor jests and caricatures among foreigners themselves. Parliamentsmight come and go in Westminster; but there sat Cromwell, immoveablethrough all, the impersonation of the British Islands. Hisdissolution of the late Parliament, and his easy suppression of thesubsequent tumult, had but increased the respect for him abroad. Whether he would finally declare himself for Spain or for France wasstill the momentous question. The Marquis of Leyda, Spanish Governorof Dunkirk, had come to London to assist Cardenas in the negotiationsfor Spain; but Mazarin was indefatigable in his offers, through M. DeBordeaux and otherwise. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books _passim_; Guizot, II. 203. ] While the Parliament was still sitting, Cromwell had sent out twofleets, one under the command of Blake (Oct. 1654), the other underthat of Penn (Dec. 1654). There was the utmost secrecy as to thedestination and objects of both, but the mystery did not last longabout Blake's. He had received instructions to go into theMediterranean, make calls there on all powers against which theCommonwealth had claims, and bring them to account. Blake fulfilledhis mission with his usual precision and success. His first call ofany importance was on the Grand Duke of Tuscany, formerly so much inthe good graces of the Commonwealth (Vol. IV. Pp. 483-485), but whomCromwell, after looking more into matters, had found culpable. Blake's demands were for heavy money-damages on account of Englishships taken by Prince Rupert in 1650, and sold in Tuscan ports, andalso on account of English ships ordered out of Leghorn harbour inMarch 1653, so that they fell into the hands of the Dutch. There wasthe utmost consternation among the Tuscans, and the alarm extendedeven to Rome, inasmuch as some of Rupert's prizes had been sold inthe Papal States. A disembarcation of the English heretics and eventheir march to Rome did not seem impossible; and Tuscans and Romanswere greatly relieved when the Grand Duke paid £60, 000 and the Pope20, 000 pistoles (£14, 000), and Blake retired. His next call was atTunis, where there were accounts with the Dey. That Mussulman havingpointed to his forts, and dared Blake to do his worst, there was atremendous bombardment on the 3rd of April, 1655, reducing the fortsto ruins, followed by the burning of the Dey's entire war-squadron ofnine ships. This sufficed not only for Tunis, but also for Tripoliand Algiers. All the Moorish powers of the African coast gave uptheir English captives, and engaged that there should be no morepiracy upon English vessels. Malta, Venice, Toulon, Marseilles, andvarious Spanish ports were then visited for one reason or another;and in the autumn of 1655 Blake was still in the Mediterranean forulterior purposes, understood between him and Cromwell. [1] [Footnote 1: Guizot, II. 186-198, with, documents in Appendix;Godwin, IV. 187-188; Whitlocke. IV. , 206-207. ] While Blake was in the Mediterranean, one Italian potentate did asudden act of infamy, which resounded through Europe, and for whichCromwell would fain have clutched him by the throat in his own inlandcapital. This was Carlo Emanuele II. , Duke of Savoy and Prince ofPiedmont. In the territories of this young prince, in the Piedmontese valleysof Luserna, Perosa, and San Martino, on the east side of the CottianAlps, lived the remarkable people known as the Vaudois or Waldenses. From time immemorial these obscure mountaineers, speaking a peculiarRomance tongue of their own, had kept themselves distinct from theChurch of Rome, maintaining doctrines and forms of worship of such akind that, after the Lutheran Reformation, they were regarded asprimitive Protestants who had never swerved from the truth throughthe darkest ages, and could therefore be adopted with acclamationinto the general Reformed communion. The Reformation, indeed; hadpenetrated into their valleys, rendering them more polemical fortheir faith, and more fierce against the Church of Rome, than theyhad been before. They had experienced persecutions through theirwhole history, and especially after the Reformation; but, on thewhole, the two last Dukes of Savoy, and also Christine, daughter ofHenry IV. Of France, and Duchess-Regent through the minority of herson, the present Duke, had protected them in their privileges, evenwhile extirpating Protestantism in the rest of the Piedmontesedominions. Latterly, however, there had been a passion at Turin andat Rome for their conversion to the Catholic faith, and priests hadbeen traversing their valleys for the purpose. The murder of one suchpriest, and some open insults to the Catholic worship, aboutChristmas 1654, are said to have occasioned what followed. On the 25th of January, 1654-5, an edict was issued, under theauthority of the Duke of Savoy, "commanding and enjoining every headof a family, with its members, of the pretended Reformed Religion, ofwhat rank, degree, or condition soever, none excepted, inhabiting andpossessing estates in the places of Luserna, Lucernetta, SanGiovanni, La Torre, Bubbiana, and Fenile, Campiglione, Briccherassio, and San Secondo, within three days, to withdraw anddepart, and be, with their families, withdrawn, out of the saidplaces, and transported into the places and limits marked out fortoleration by his Royal Highness during his good pleasure, namelyBobbio, Villaro, Angrogna, Rorata, and the County of Bonetti, underpain of death and confiscation of goods and houses, unless they gaveevidence within twenty days of having become Catholics. " Furthermoreit was commanded that in every one even of the tolerated places thereshould be regular celebration of the Holy Mass, and that there shouldbe no interference therewith, nor any dissuasion of any one fromturning a Catholic, also on pain of death. All the places named arein the Valley of Luserna, and the object was a wholesale shifting ofthe Protestants of that valley out of nine of its communes and theirconcentration into five higher up. In vain were there remonstrancesat Turin from those immediately concerned. On the 17th of April, 1655, the Marquis di Pianezza entered the doomed region with a bodyof troops, mainly Piedmontese, but with French and Irish among them. There was resistance, fighting, burning, pillaging, flight to themountains, and chasing and murdering for eight days, Saturday, April24, being the climax. The names of about three hundred of thosemurdered individually are on record, with the ways of the deaths ofmany of them. Women were ripped open, or carried about impaled onspikes; men, women, and children, were flung from precipices, hacked, tortured, roasted alive; the heads of some of the dead were boiledand the brains eaten; there are forty printed pages, and twenty-sixghastly engravings, by way of Protestant tradition of the ascertainedvariety of the devilry. The massacre was chiefly in the Valley ofLuserna, but extended also into the other two valleys. The fugitiveswere huddled in crowds high among the mountains, moaning andstarving; and not a few, women and infants especially, perished amidthe snows. On the 27th of April some of the remaining Protestantpastors and others, gathered together somewhere, addressed a circularletter to Protestants outside the Valleys, stating the hard case ofthe survivors. "Our beautiful and flourishing churches, " they said, "are utterly lost, and that without remedy, unless God Almighty workmiracles for us. Their time is come, and our measure is full. O havepity upon the desolations of Jerusalem, and be grieved for theafflictions of poor Joseph! Shew the real effects of yourcompassions, and let your bowels yearn for so many thousands of poorsouls who are reduced to a morsel of bread for following the Lambwhithersoever he goes. "[1] [Footnote 1: Morland's History of the Evangelical Churches of theValleys of Piedmont, with a Relation of the Massacre (1658), 287-428; Guizot, II. 213-215. ] There was a shudder of abhorrence through Protestant Europe, but noone was so much roused as Cromwell. In the interval between the Dukeof Savoy's edict and the Massacre he had been desirous that theVaudois should publicly appeal to him rather than to the Swiss; and, when the news of the Massacre reached England, he avowed that it came"as near his heart as if his own nearest and dearest had beenconcerned. " On Thursday the 17th of May, and for many days more, thebusiness of the Savoy Protestants was the chief occupation of theCouncil. Letters, all in Milton's Latin, but signed by the LordProtector in his own name, were despatched (May 25) to the Duke ofSavoy himself, to the French King, to the States General of theUnited Provinces, to the Protestant Swiss Cantons, to the King ofSweden, to the King of Denmark, and to Ragotski, Prince ofTransylvania. A day of humiliation was appointed for the Cities ofLondon and Westminster, and another for all England. A Committee wasappointed, consisting of all the Councillors, with Sir ChristopherPack and other eminent citizens, and also some ministers, to organizea general collection of money throughout England and Wales in behalfof the suffering Vaudois. The collection, as arranged June 1, was totake the form of a house-to-house visitation by the ministers andchurchwardens in every city, town, and parish on a particular Lord'sday, for the receipt of whatever sum each householder might freelygive, every such sum to be noted in presence of the donor, and theaggregates, parish by parish, or city by city, to be remitted to thetreasurers in London, who were to enter them duly in a generalregister. The subscription, which lagged for a time in somedistricts, produced at length a total of £38, 097 7_s. _3_d. _--equal to about £137, 000 now. Of this sum £2000 (equal toabout £7500 now) was Cromwell's own contribution, while London andWestminster contributed £9384 6_s. _ 11_d. _, and the variouscounties sums of various magnitudes, according to their size, wealth, and zeal, from Devonshire at the head, with £1965 0_s. _3_d. _, Yorkshire next, with £1786 14_s. _ 5_d. _, andEssex next, with £1512 17_s. _ 7_d. _, down to Merionethshireyielding £3 0_s. _ 1_d. _ from her eight parishes, andRadnorshire £1 14_s. _ 4_d. _ from her seven. Cromwell's owndonation of £2000 went at once to Geneva for immediate use; and£10, 000 followed on the 10th of July, as the first instalment of thegeneral subscription. There were similar subscriptions, it ought tobe added, in other Protestant countries. [1] [Footnote 1: Letter from Thurloe to Pell at Geneva (Vaughan'sProtectorate, I. 158-159); Council Order Books, May 17, 18, 22, 23, 25, June 1 and July 8, 1655; Morland, 562-596. Morland gives aninteresting abstract of the Treasurer's Accounts of the Collection;but the original accounts in a large folio book, entitled_Committee for Piedmont_ &c. , are in the Record Office. Thecounties are arranged there alphabetically and the parishesalphabetically under each county, with the sums which the_parishes_ individually subscribed. Some parishes seem whollyto have neglected the subscription, and there are blanks oppositetheir names. ] At the time of the massacre Cromwell had two agents in Switzerland, viz. Mr. JOHN PELL (Vol. IV. P. 449) and the ubiquitous JOHN DURIE. They had been sent abroad early in 1654, to cultivate the friendlyintercourse already begun between the Evangelical Cantons and theCommonwealth, and also to watch the progress of a struggle which hadjust broken out between the Popish Cantons of the Confederacy and theEvangelical Cantons. As the Evangelical Cantons were also astirabout the Vaudois, whose cause was so closely connected with theirown, the services of Pell and Durie were now available for thatbusiness. Cromwell, however, had thought an express Commissionernecessary, with instructions to negotiate directly with the Duke ofSavoy, and had selected for the purpose Mr, SAMUEL MORLAND, an ableand ingenious man, about thirty years of age, who had been withWhitlocke in his Swedish Embassy, and had been taken into the Counciloffice on his return as assistant to Thurloe. On the 26th of MayMorland left London, carrying with him the letters addressed to LouisXIV. And the Duke of Savoy. He was at La Fčre in France on the 1st ofJune, treating with the French King and Mazarin, and was able todespatch thence a letter from the French King to Cromwell, expressingwillingness to do all that could be done for the Vaudois, andexplaining that he had already conveyed his views on the subject tothe Duke of Savoy. Thence Morland continued his journey to Rivoli, near Turin, where he arrived on the 21st of June. He was receivedmost politely, was entertained and driven about both at Rivoli and atTurin itself, and was admitted to a formal audience on or about the24th. He there made a speech in Latin to the Duke, the Duchess-motherbeing also present, and delivered Cromwell's letter, The speech was avery bold one. He spared no detail of horror in his picture of themassacre as he had authentically ascertained it, and added, "Were allthe Neros of all times and ages alive again (I would be understood tosay it with out any offence to your Highness, inasmuch as we believethat none of these things was done by any fault of yours), they wouldbe ashamed at finding that they had contrived nothing that was noteven mild and humane in comparison. Meanwhile angels arehorrorstruck, mortals amazed!" The Duchess-mother, replying for herson, could hardly avoid hinting that Mr. Morland had been ratherrude. She was, nevertheless, profuse in expressions of respect forthe Lord Protector, who had no doubt received very exaggeratedrepresentations of what had happened, but at whose request she wassure her son would willingly pardon his rebellious subjects andrestore them to their privileges. During the rest of Morland's stayin Turin or its neighbourhood the object of the Duke's counsellors, and also of the French minister, was to furnish him with what theycalled a more correct account of the facts, and induce him to conveyto Cromwell a gentler view of the whole affair. Morland kept his owncounsel; but, having had a second audience, and received the Duke'ssubmissive but guarded answer to Cromwell, and also several otherpapers, he left Turin on the 19th of July and proceeded, according tohis instructions, to Geneva. [1] [Footnote 1: Morland, 563-583; and Letters between Pell and Thurloegiven in _Vaughan's Protectorate_. ] Meanwhile Cromwell, dissatisfied with the coolness of the French Kingand Mazarin, and also with the shuffling and timidity of the SwissCantons, had been taking the affair more and more into his own hands. He had despatched, late in July, another Commissioner, Mr. GEORGEDOWNING, to meet Morland at Geneva, help Morland to infuse someenergy into the Cantons, and then proceed with him to Turin to bringmatters to a definite issue. He had been inquiring also about thefittest place for landing an invading force against the Duke, and hadthought of Nice or Villafranca. Blake's presence in the Mediterraneanwas not forgotten. All which being known to Mazarin, that wilystatesman saw that no time was to be lost. While Mr. Downing wasstill only on his way to Geneva through France, Mazarin hadinstructed M. Servien, the French minister at Turin, to insist, inthe French King's name, on an immediate settlement of the Vaudoisbusiness. The result was a _Patente di Gratia e Perdono_, or"Patent of Grace and Pardon, " granted by Charles Emanuel to theVaudois Protestants, Aug. 19, in terms of a Treaty at Pignerol, inwhich the French Minister appeared as the real mediating party andcertain Envoys from the Swiss Cantons as more or less assenting. Asthe Patent substantially retracted the Persecuting Edict and restoredthe Vaudois to all their former privileges, nothing more was to bedone. Cromwell, it is true, did not conceal that he was disappointed. He had looked forward to a Treaty at Turin in which his own envoys, Morland and Downing, and D'Ommeren, as envoy from the UnitedProvinces, would have taken the leading part, and he somewhatresented Mazarin's too rapid interference and the too easy complianceof the envoys of the Cantons. The Treaty of Pignerol containedconditions that might occasion farther trouble. Still, as thingswere, he thought it best to acquiesce. Downing, who had arrived atGeneva early in September, was at once recalled, leaving Morland andPell still there, to superintend the distribution of the Englishsubscription-money among the poor Vaudois, instalment afterinstalment, as they arrived. The charitable work was to detainMorland in Geneva or its neighbourhood for more than a year, nor wasthe great business of the Piedmontese Protestants to be wholly out ofCromwell's mind to the day of his death. [1] [Footnote 1: Morland, 605-673; Guigot, II. 220-225; Council OrderBook, July 17. ] Just at the date of the happy, though not perfect, conclusion of thePiedmontese business, came almost the only chagrin ever experiencedby Cromwell in the shape of the failure of an enterprise. It was nowsome months since he had made up his mind in private to a rupturewith Spain, intending that the fact should be first announced to theworld in the actions of the fleet which he had sent with sealedorders to the West Indies under Penn's command. The instructions toPenn and to General Robert Venables, who went with him as commanderof the troops, were nothing less, indeed, than that they shouldstrike some shattering blow at that dominion of Spain in the NewWorld which was at once her pride and the source of her wealth. Itmight be in one of her great West-India Islands, St. Domingo, Cuba, or Porto Rico, or it might be at Cartagena on the South-Americanmainland, where the treasures of Peru were amassed, for annualconveyance across the Atlantic. Much discretion was left to Penn andVenables, but on the whole St. Domingo, then called Hispaniola, wasindicated for a beginning. Blake's presence in the Mediterranean withthe other fleet had been timed for an assault on Spain at home whenthe news should arrive of the disaster to her colonies. [1] [Footnote 1: Guizot, II. 184-186; Godwin, IV. 180-194. ] Penn and Venables together were not equal to one Blake. They openedtheir sealed instructions at Barbadoes, one of the two or three smallIslands of the West-Indies then possessed by the English, and, aftercounsel and preparation, proceeded to Hispaniola. The fleet nowconsisted of about sixty vessels, and there were about 9000 soldierson board, some of them veterans, but most of them recruits of badquality. They were off St. Domingo, the capital of the Island, on the14th of April, 1655, and from that moment there was misunderstandingand blundering. Penn, Venables, and the Chief Commissioner who hadbeen sent out with them, differed as to the proper landing point; thewrong landing point was chosen for the main body; the men fell illand mutinied; the Spaniards, who might have been surprised at firstby a direct assault on St. Domingo, resisted bravely, and poured shotamong the troops from ambuscade. Two attempts to get into St. Domingowere both foiled with heavy loss, including the death ofMajor-General Heane and others of the best officers. The mortalityfrom climate and bad food being also great, the enterprise onHispaniola was then abandoned; but, dreading a return to England withnothing accomplished, Penn and Venables bethought themselves ofJamaica. Here, where they arrived May 10, they were rather morefortunate. The Spaniards, utterly unforewarned, deserted the coast, and fled inland. There was no difficulty, therefore, in takingnominal possession of the chief town, though even that was done in abungling manner. Then, leaving the Island in charge of a portion ofthe troops, under Major-General Fortescue, with Vice-Admiral Goodsonto sail about it with a protecting squadron, Penn hastened back toEngland, Venables quickly following him. They arrived in London, within a few days of each other, early in September, and were at oncecommitted to the Tower for having returned without orders. The newsof the failure of their enterprise had preceded them, and Cromwellwas profoundly angry. A bilious illness which he had about this timewas attributed by the French ambassador Bordeaux to his brooding overthe West-Indian mischance. He was soon himself again, however, andPenn and Venables had nothing to fear. They were released after afew weeks. After all, Jamaica was better than nothing. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 195-203; Carlyle, III. 122-123; Guizot, II. 226-231; Letters of Cromwell to Vice-Admiral Goodson andMajor-General Fortescue (Carlyle, III. 126-132). ] One result of the West Indian expedition was that the long-delayedalliance with France was now a settled affair. Cardenas had hispass-ports sent him, and on the 22nd of October, 1655, he leftEngland. The Court of Madrid had already recalled him, laid anembargo on all English property in Spain, and conferred a Marquisateand pension on the Governor of Hispaniola. On the 24th of October theTreaty of Peace and Commerce between Cromwell and Louis XIV. Wasfinally signed; and within a few days afterwards there was out inLondon an elaborate document entitled "_Scriptum DominiProtectoris, ex consensu atque sententia Concilii sui editum, in quohujus Reipublica causa contra Hispanos justa esse demonstratur_"("The Lord-Protector's Manifesto, published with the consent andadvice of his Council, in which the justice of the Cause of thisCommonwealth against the Spaniards is demonstrated"). Now, accordingly, the Commonwealth entered on a new era of her history. Cromwell and Mazarin were to be fast friends, and the Stuarts were tohave no help or countenance any more from the French crown; while, onthe other hand, there was to be war to the death between theCommonwealth and Spain, war in the new world and war in the old, andSpain was thus naturally to adopt the cause of Charles II. , andemploy exiled English Royalism everywhere as one of her agencies, --Ofthe consciousness of the Lord-Protector and the Council of thisincreased complexity of the foreign relations of the Commonwealth inconsequence of the rupture with Spain there is a curious incidentalillustration. "That several volumes of the book called _The NewAtlas_ be bought for the use of the Council, and that the Globeheretofore standing in the Council Chamber be again brought thither, "had been one of the Council's instructions to Thurloe at theirmeeting of Oct. 2. Thenceforth, doubtless, both the Globe and theAtlas were to be much in request. --More important, however, than suchfixed apparatus in the Council Room was the moving instrumentality ofenvoys and diplomatists in the chief European cities and capitals. Above all, an able ambassador in Paris was now an absolute necessity. Nor was the fit man wanting. Among the former Royalists of thePresbyterian section that had become reconciled to the Commonwealth, and attached to the Protector by strong personal loyalty, was theScottish WILLIAM LOCKHART, member for Lanarkshire in the lateParliament. He had been trained to arms in France in his youth, andhad since then served as a Colonel among the Scots. In this capacityhe had been in Hamilton's Army of the Engagement, defeated byCromwell at Preston, and in David Leslie's subsequent Army forCharles II. , defeated at Dunbar. Having received some insults fromCharles, of such a kind that he had declared that "no King on earthshould use him in that manner, " he had snapped his connexion with theStuarts before the Battle of Worcester; and for some time after thatbattle he had lived moodily in Scotland, meditating a return toFrance for military employment. A visit to London and an interviewwith Cromwell had retained his talents for the service of theProtectorate, and his affection for that service had been confirmedby his marriage, in 1654, with Robina Sewster, the orphan niece ofthe Protector. Altogether Cromwell had judged him to be the very manto represent the Protectorate at Paris, and be even a match forMazarin. He was now thirty-four years of age. He was nominated to theembassy in December 1655; but he did not go to his post till thefollowing April. --Hardly a less important appointment was that, inJanuary 1655-6, of young Edward Montague to be one of the Admirals ofthe Fleet. Blake, who had been cruising off Cadiz, and on whom therewas the chief dependence for action against the Spaniards at sea, hadfelt the responsibility too great, and had applied for a colleague. Penn, being in disgrace, was out of the question; and Montague, thena member of the Protector's Council, was chosen. He had been one ofCromwell's favourites and disciples since the days of Marston Moorand Naseby, when, though hardly out of his teens, he haddistinguished himself highly as a Parliamentary Colonel. Henceforththe sea was to be his chief element; and, as Admiral or General atsea, he was to become very famous. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV, 214-217 and 298-300; Guizot, II. 231-234;Thomason copy of the Declaration against Spain, dated Nov. 9, 1655;Council Order Books, Oct. 2, 1655; Article on Lockhart in Chambers'sBiographical Dictionary of Scotsmen; Carlyle, III. 309-310. ] It was just about this time of change and extension in the foreignrelations of the Commonwealth that the people of England and Walesbecame aware that they were, and had been for some time, under anentirely new system of home-government, called _Government byMajor-Generals_. The difficulties of the home-government of the Protectorate weregreat and peculiar. The power of the Lord-Protector and his Councilto pass ordinances had been called in question. Judges and lawyerswere not only pretty unanimous in the opinion that resistance topayment of imposts not enacted by Parliamentary authority might bemade good at law, and that the Ordinance for Chancery Reform was alsolegally invalid; they doubted even whether, in strict law, therecould be proceedings for the preservation of the public peace, bycourts and magistrates, under any Council ordinance about crimes andtreasons. All this Cromwell had been meditating. How was revenue tobe raised? How were Royalist and Anabaptist plottings to besuppressed? How were police regulations about public manners andmorals to be enforced? How was the will of the Central Government atWhitehall, in any matter whatsoever, to be transmitted to any spot inthe community and made really operative? Meditating these questions, Cromwell, as he expressed it afterwards, "did find out a little poorinvention": "I say, " he repeated, "there was a little thinginvented. "[1] The little invention consisted in a formalidentification of the Protector's Chief Magistracy with his Headshipof the Army. He had resolved to map out England and Wales intodistricts, and to plant in each district a trusty officer, with thetitle of Major-General, who should be nominally in command of themilitia of that district, but should be really also the executivethere for the Central Government in all things. A beginning had beenmade in the business as early as May 1655, when Desborough wasappointed Major-General of the Militia in the six southwesterncounties; and the districts had been all marked out and theMajor-Generals chosen in August. But there had been very greatsecrecy about the scheme; and not till the 31st of October was thereofficial announcement of the new organization. Only about mid-winter, 1655-6, did people fully realise what it meant. The Major-Generalciesthen stood thus:-- [Footnote 1: Speech V. (Carlyle, III. 176). ] Person. District. 1. MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SKIPPON. _London. _ 2. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN BARKSTEAD. _Westminster and Middlesex. _ 3. MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS KELSEY. _Kent and Surrey. _ 4. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM GOFFE. _Sussex, Hants, and Berks. _ 5. FLEETWOOD (with MAJOR-GENERAL _Oxford, Bucks, Herts, _ HEZEKIAH HAYNES as his deputy). _Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, _ _and Cambridge. _ 6. MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD WHALLEY. _Lincoln, Notts, Derby, _ _Warwick, and Leicester. _ 7. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM BUTLER. _Northampton, Bedford, _ _Hunts, and Rutland. _ 8. MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES WORSLEY _Chester, Lancaster, and_ (succeeded by MAJOR-GENERAL _Stafford. _ TOBIAS BRIDGES). 9. LAMBERT (with MAJOR-GENERAL _York, Durham, Cumberland_ ROBERT TILBURNE and MAJOR-GENERAL _Westmorland, _ CHARLES HOWARD as his deputies). _and Northumberland. _ 10. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN DESBOROUGH. _Gloucester, Wilts, Dorset, _ _Somerset, Devon, and_ _Cornwall. _ 11. MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES BERRY. _Worcester, Hereford, Salop, _ _and North Wales. _ 12. MAJOR-GENERAL DAWKINS. _Monmouthshire and_ _South Wales. _[1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books, as digested by Godwin, IV. 228-229. ] The powers intrusted to these Major-Generals and to their subordinateofficers in the several counties were all but universal. They were topatrol the counties with horse and foot, but especially with horse. They were to guard against robberies and tumults and to bringcriminals to punishment. They were to take charge of the publicmorals, and see the laws put in force against drunkenness, blasphemy, plays and interludes, profanation of the Lord's Day, anddisorderliness generally. They were to keep a register of alldisaffected persons, remove arms from their houses, note theirchanges of residence, and take security for the good behaviour ofthemselves, their families, and servants. All travellers andstrangers were bound to appear before them, and give an account ofthemselves and their business. They were to arrest vagabonds andpersons with no visible means of living. Above all, they were to seeto the execution of a certain very severe and far-reaching measurewhich the Protector and the Council had determined to adopt inconsequence of the late Royalist insurrection and conspiracy. Either from information that had been received, or merely _interrorem_, there had, during the past summer and autumn, beennumerous arrests of persons of rank and wealth that had hitherto beenallowed to live quietly in their country mansions, on theunderstanding that, though Royalists, they had ceased to be such, inany active sense. The Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Lindsey, theEarl of Newport, the Earl of Northampton, the Earl of Rivers, theEarl of Peterborough, Viscount Falkland, and Lords Lovelace, St. John, Petre, Coventry, Maynard, Lucas, and Willoughby of Parham, witha great many commoners of distinction, had been thus arrested. Therewas a general consternation among the peaceful Royalists throughoutthe country. It looked as if their peacefulness was to be of noavail, as if the Act of Oblivion of Feb. 1651-2 was to be a deadletter, as if Cromwell had suddenly changed his policy of universalconciliation. In reality, Cromwell had no intention of reversing hispolicy of universal conciliation; but he wanted to teach the lessonthat Royalist insurrections and conspiracies would fall heavily onthe Royalists themselves, and he wanted particularly, at thatmoment, to make the Royalists pay the expenses of the police kept upon their account. Under cover of the consternation caused by thenumerous arrests, he introduced, in fact, a _Decimation_ uponthe Royalists, i. E. An income tax of ten per cent, upon all Royalistspossessing estates in land of £100 a year and upwards or personalproperty worth £1500. It was to be the main business of theMajor-Generals to assess this tax within their bounds, and to collectit strictly and swiftly. It is astonishing with what ease theysucceeded. It seems to have been even a relief to the Royalists toknow definitely what their principles were to cost them, and to havearrest or the dread of it commuted into a fixed money payment. Assoon as the tax was fairly in operation, all or most of those who hadbeen arrested were liberated, and subsequent arrests by theMajor-Generals themselves were only of vagabonds or suspiciouspersons. The only appeal from the Major-Generals was to his Highnesshimself and the Council. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, 223-242; Carlyle, III. 101. ] What with the vigilance of the Major-Generals in their districts, what with the edicts of the Protector and the Council for thedirection of the Major-Generals, the public order now kept over allEngland and Wales was wonderfully strict. At no time since thebeginning of the Commonwealth had there been so much of that generaldecorum of external behaviour which Cromwell liked to see. Cock-fights, dancing at fairs, and other such amusements, were underban. Indecent publications that had flourished long in the guise ofweekly pamphlets disappeared; and books of the same sort were moreclosely looked after than they had been. But what shall we say aboutthis Order, affecting the newspaper press especially:--"_Wednesday, 5th Sept. _, 1655--At the Council at Whitehall, Ordered by hisHighness the Lord Protector and the Council, That no person whateverdo presume to publish in print any matter of public news orintelligence without leave of the Secretary of State"? The effect ofthe order was that not only the indecent publications purporting tobe newspapers were suppressed, but also a considerable number ofnewspapers proper, insomuch that the London newspaper press wasreduced thenceforth to two weekly prints, authorized by Thurloe, viz. Needham's _Mercurius Politicus_, published on Thursdays, and_The Public Intelligencer_, a more recent adventure, publishedon Mondays. Just after the order, I note, the _MercuriusPoliticus_ enlarged its size somewhat, to match with the _PublicIntelligencer_, and in the first number of the new size(Sept. 22-Oct. 4, 1655) the Editor speaks with great approbation of theOrder of Council "silencing the many pamphlets that have hithertopresumed to come abroad. " Needham seems now to have assumed theeditorship of both papers; and after the twenty-third number of the_Intelligencer_ (March 3-10, 1655-6) the publisher of it, aswell as of the _Mercurius Politicus_, was Thomas Newcome. Thenewspaper press of the Protectorate was thus pretty well consolidatedby Mr. Thurloe. There were two papers only, under one management, orrather there was a single bi-weekly newspaper with alternativenames. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of 1655 and 1658 _passim; Merc. Pol. _ and _Public Intelligencer_ of dates given. ] It was part of the duty of the Major-Generals to assist, so far asmight still be necessary, in the execution of the Ordinance of Aug. 1654 for the ejection of scandalous and insufficient ministers andschoolmasters (Vol. IV. P. 564 and p. 571), The County _Committees ofEjectors_ under that Ordinance had already performed theirdisagreeable work in part, but were still busy. On the whole, thoughthey turned out many, they seem not to have abused their powers. "Imust needs say, " is Baxter's testimony, "that in all the countieswhere I was acquainted, six to one at least, if not many more, thatwere sequestered by the Committees were, by the oaths of witnesses, proved insufficient or scandalous, or both--especially guilty ofdrunkenness or swearing, --and those that, being able godly preachers, were cast out for the war alone, as for their opinions' sake, werecomparatively very few. This, I know, will displease that party; butthis is true. " Baxter admits, indeed, that there were cases in whichthe Committees were swayed too much by mere political feeling, andejected men from their pulpits whom it would have been better toretain. Other authorities assert the same more strongly, but ratherfail in the proof. The most notorious instance produced of a blunderon the part of any of the Committees was in Berkshire. The Rector ofChildrey in this county was the learned orientalist Pocock, who hadlost his Professorship of Hebrew in the University of Oxford forrefusing the engagement to the Commonwealth, but still held theArabic lectureship there, because there was no one else who knewArabic sufficiently. Not liking his look, or not seeing whatOrientalism had to do with the Gospel, the rude Berkshire Committeewere on the point of turning him out of his Rectory, when Dr. Oweninterfered manfully and prevented the scandal. About the same time, it is said, Thomas Fuller was in some trepidation about his living ofWaltham Abbey, in Essex, but acquitted himself before the Committeehandsomely. [1] [Footnote 1: Baxter, 74; Wood's Ath. IV. 319; Godwin, IV. 40-41. ] Distinct from the County Committees of Ejectors, and forming theother great constitutional power in Cromwell's Church-Establishment, was the Central or London _Committee of the Thirty-eight Triers_(Vol. IV. P. 571). It was their duty to examine "all candidates forthe public ministry, " i. E. All persons presented to livings by thepatrons of the same, and pass only those that were fit. Baxter'sreport of the work of these Triers, as done either by themselves inconclave, or by Sub-commissioners for them in the counties, is themore remarkable because he disowned the authority under which theTriers acted and was in controversy with most of them. "Though theirauthority was null, " he says, "and though some few over-busy andover-rigid Independents among them, were too severe against all thatwere Arminians, and too particular in inquiring after evidences ofsanctification in those whom they examined, and somewhat too lax intheir admission of unlearned and erroneous men that favouredAntinomianism or Anabaptism, yet, to give them their due, they didabundance of good to the Church. They saved many a congregation fromignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers. That sort of men that intendedno more in the ministry than to say a sermon as readers say theircommon prayers, and so patch up a few good words together to talk thepeople asleep with on Sunday, and all the rest of the week go withthem to the ale-house and harden them in sin; and that sort ofministers that either preached against a holy life, or preached asmen that never were acquainted with it; all those that used theministry but as a common trade to live by, and were never likely toconvert a soul:--all these they usually rejected, and in their steadadmitted of any that were able serious preachers, and lived a godlylife, of what tolerable opinion soever they were. So that, thoughthey were many of them somewhat partial for the Independents, Separatists, Fifth Monarchy men, and Anabaptists, and against thePrelatists and Arminians, yet so great was the benefit above the hurtwhich they brought to the Church that many thousands of souls blessedGod for the faithful ministers whom they let in. " Royalist writersafter the Restoration give, of course, a different picture. "Ignorant, bold, canting fellows, " they say, "laics, mechanics, andpedlars, " were brought into the Church by Cromwell's Triers. One may, in the main, trust Baxter. [1] [Footnote 1: Baxter, 72; Noal, IV. 102-109. ] Cromwell's Established Church of England and Wales may now be imagedwith tolerable accuracy. It contained two patches of completedPresbyterian organization, one in London and the other in Lancashire. The system of Presbyteries or Classes, with half-yearly ProvincialAssemblies, which had been set up by the Long Parliament in these twodistricts, remained undisturbed. Both in London and in Lancashire, however, the system was in a languid state; and for the rest of thecountry, and indeed for non-Presbyterians in London and Lancashiretoo, the Church or Public Ministry was practically on the principleof the Independency of Congregations. Each parish had, or was tohave, its regular minister, recognised by the State, and theassociation of ministers among themselves for consultation or mutualcriticism was very much left to chance and discretion. Ministers anddeacons, however, did draw up Agreements and form voluntaryAssociations in various counties, holding monthly or other periodicalmeetings; and, as it was the rule in such associations not to meddlewith matters of Civil Government, they were countenanced by theProtectorate. Baxter tells us much of the Association inWorcestershire which he had helped to form in 1653, and adds thatsimilar associations sprang up afterwards in Cumberland andWestmorland, Wilts, Dorset, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Essex. These Associations are to be conceived as imperfect substitutes forthe regular Presbyterian organization, and most of the ministersbelonging to them were eclectics or quasi-Presbyterians, like Baxterhimself, making the most of untoward circumstances, while thestricter Presbyterians, who sighed for the perfect model, held aloof. Perhaps the majority of the State-clergy all over the countryconsisted of these two classes of Presbyterians baulked of their fullPresbyterianism, --the _Rigid Presbyterians_, who would acceptnothing short of the system as exemplified in London and Lancashire, and the _Eclectics_ or _Quasi-Presbyterians_ grouped involuntary Associations. But among the State-clergy collectively therewere several other varieties. There were many of the old_Church-of-England Rectors and Vicars_, still Prelatic insentiment, and, though obliged to disuse the Book of Common Prayer, maintaining some sweet remnant of Anglicanism. Some of these, not ofthe High Church school, did not scruple to join thequasi-Presbyterian Associations that were liberal enough to admitthem; but most found more liberty in keeping by themselves. Thenthere were the Independents proper, drawn from all those variousEvangelical Sects, however named separately, whose principle ofIndependency stopped short of absolute Voluntaryism, and thereforedid not prevent them from belonging to a State-Church. The moremoderate of these Independents might easily enough, in consistencywith their theory of Congregationalism, join the quasi-PresbyterianAssociations, and some of them did so; but not very many. Themajority of them were simply ministers of the State-Church, in chargeof individual parishes and congregations, and consulting each other, if at all, only in informal ways. Among the Independent Sectaries ofall sorts thus officiating individually in the State-Church, thedifficulty, as far as one can see, must have been chiefly, or solely, with the _Baptists_. How could preachers who rejected the riteof Infant Baptism, maintained the necessity of the rebaptism ofadults, and thought dipping the proper form of the rite, be ministersof parishes, or be included in any way among the State-clergy? Thatsuch ministers did hold livings in Cromwell's Established Church is afact. Mr. John Tombes, the chief of the Anti-Pędobaptists, andhimself one of Cromwell's Triers, retained the vicarage of Leominsterin Herefordshire, with the parsonage of Boss in the same county, anda living at Bewdley in Worcestershire; and there are other instances. Baxter's language already quoted implies nothing less, indeed, thanthat Anti-Pędobaptists in considerable numbers were presented toChurch-livings by the patrons and passed by the Triers; and heelsewhere signifies that he did not himself greatly object to this. "Let there be no withdrawing, " he says, "from the ministry and churchof that place [i. E. A parish of mixed Pędobaptists andAnti-Pędobaptists] upon the mere ground of Baptism. If the ministerbe an Anabaptist, let not us withdraw from him on that ground; and, if he be a Pędobaptist, let not _them_ withdraw from _us_. "He even suggests that the pastor of a church might openly record hisopinion on the Baptism subject, if it were contrary to that of themajority of the members, and then proceed in his pastorate all thesame, and that, on the other hand, private members might publiclyenter their dissent from their pastor's opinion, and yet abide withhim lovingly and obediently in all other things. How far, and in howmany places, this method of leaving Pędo-baptism an open question wasactually in operation in the Established Church of the Protectorate, and whether Infant Baptism thus fell into complete abeyance in someparishes where Anabaptists of eminence were settled, or whether thePędobaptist parishioners in such eases quietly avoided that result byhaving their children baptized by other ministers, are points of someobscurity. On the whole, the difficulty can have been felt butexceptionally and here and there, for it was obviated on the greatscale by the fact that most of the real Anabaptists, preachers andpeople alike, were Voluntaries, disowning the State-Churchaltogether, and meeting only in separate congregations. Even forsuch, however, in localities where they were pretty numerous, thereseems to have been a desire to make some provision. Thus on March 13, 1655-56, it was ordered by His Highness and the Council "that it bereferred to General Desborough, Major-General for the County ofDevon, to take care that the Church under the form of Baptism atExeter have such one of the public meeting-places assigned to themfor their place of worship as is best in repair, and may with mostconveniency be spared and set apart for that use. " The ExeterBaptists may have thought it not inconsistent with their principlesto accept so much of State favour. Not the public buildings, so muchas the Tithes and Lay Patronage with which they were connected, werethe abominations of the State-Church in the eyes of the AnabaptistVoluntaries. For let it not be forgotten that Cromwell's ardentpassion for a Church-Establishment under his Protectorate had comemore and more to involve, in his reasonings, the preservation of theTithe-system and the continuance of lay Patronage. The legal patronsof livings retained their right of nominating to vacancies; theTriers only checked that right by examination of nominees and therejection of the unfit. Cromwell himself combined in his own person, to a most extraordinary extent, the functions both of Patron andTrier. "It is observable that, his Highness having near one half ofthe livings in England, one way or other, in his own immediatedisposal by presentation, he seldom bestoweth one of them upon anyman whom himself doth not first examine and make trial of in person, save only that, at such times as his great affairs happen to be moreurgent than ordinary, he useth to appoint some other to do it in hisbehalf; which is so rare an example of piety that the like is not tobe found in the stories of Princes. " We have not exaggerated, it willbe seen, Cromwell's personal anxiety about his Established Church. That, indeed, is farther proved, in a very interesting manner, bycertain entries in the Order Books of his Council which become moreand more frequent in this middle section of his Protectorate. Theyrefer to "augmentations of ministers' stipends. " Thus, in December1655, there is an order for the augmentation of the stipends ofseventy-five ministers in different counties, all in one batch; andsucceeding entries in 1656 show the steady progress of the same workby repeated orders for other augmentations, batch after batch. Clearly Cromwell had resolved that there should be a systematicincrease of the salaries of the parochial clergy all over England, beginning with those who needed it most. The details of the businesswere managed by that body of "Trustees for maintenance of ministers"which had been appointed by Ordinance in Sept. 1654 (Vol. IV. P. 564); but the final Orders for Augmentations came from the Protectorand Council, and there was no part of his work in which the Protectorseemed to have more pleasure. [1] [Footnote 1: Baxter, 96-97 and 180-188; Wood's Ath. III. 1083;Council Order Books of dates; Neal, IV. Chap. 3; Marchamont Needham'sBook against John Goodwin, entitled _The Great Accuser CastDown_, published in July 1657. The information about Cromwell'spractice in his patronage of livings is from the last. The book wasdedicated to Cromwell. ] But what of that Toleration of Dissent from the Established Churchwhich he professed to be equally dear to him? That Cromwell wasfaithful still to the principle of Liberty of Conscience, to thefullest extent of his past professions, there can be no doubt. It maybe more doubtful whether his past professions pledged him to a theoryof Toleration as absolute as that which had been advocated eleven ortwelve years before by Roger Williams and John Goodwin, and thenadopted by the Army Independents generally, and which was stillupheld by the main body of the Anabaptists. The evidence, however, rather favours the idea that he had already been in sympathy evenwith this extreme theory of Toleration, and so that now, though hehad bitterly disappointed his old Anabaptist associates by declaringhimself for the Civil Magistrate's Authority in matters of Religion, he still cherished the extreme theory of Toleration as it might beapplied round about his Established Church. In his heart, I believe, he was for persecuting nobody whatsoever, troubling nobodywhatsoever, for mere religious heresy, even of the kinds he himselfmost abhorred. But, though this might be his private ideal, hisdifficulties publicly and practically were enormous. The otherunlimited Tolerationists in England were Anabaptists and the like, detesting his Established Church as incompatible with trueToleration, and in league for battering it down. Through the rest ofthe community there was but little voice for Toleration. The franticand idiotic stringency of the Presbyterians of 1644-6 was now, indeed, rather out of fashion, and a certain mild babble about aLimited Toleration was common in the public mouth. But the old leavenwas at work in many quarters; occasional pamphlets from thePresbyterian camp still wailed lamentably about "the effects of thepresent Toleration, especially as to the increase of Blasphemy andDamnable Errors;" and some Presbyterian booksellers had recentlypublished _A Second Beacon Fired_, in which they insidiouslytried to work upon the Lord Protector's new Conservative andState-Church instincts; by denouncing the books of some leadingAnabaptists and other heretics, hostile to his Government, and humblyadjuring him to "do what might be expected from Christianmagistrates" in such flagrant cases. In the late Parliament there hadbeen much of this Presbyterian spirit, and it had been provedabundantly that the Protector's idea of Toleration would have beenvoted down by the national representatives. Then what a harassingdefinition of proper Christian Toleration had come even fromCromwell's favourite Independents, Messrs. Owen and the rest, withtheir twenty fundamentals! Add the difficulties arising from thenature of some of the current heresies themselves, as tendingdirectly to the defamation of his government, the subversion of lawsand institutions, and the disturbance of the peace. [1] [Footnote 1: Various Thomason Pamphlets of 1654-1656. The _SecondBeacon Fired_ was published in Oct. 1654 by six Londonbooksellers--Luke Fawne, John Rothwell, Samuel Gellibrand, ThomasUnderhill, Joshua Kirton, and Nathaniel Webb. Two of them, Rothwelland Underhill, had published for Milton in former days. The hereticschiefly denounced are Biddle, Dell, Farnworth, Norwood, Braine, JohnWebster, and Feake. John Goodwin replied to the booksellers in _Afresh Discovery of the High Presbyterian Spirit, or the Quenching of"The Second Beacon Fired_, " published in Jan. 1654-5, and sofound himself in a new quarrel. There was a reply called _AnApology for the Six Booksellers_. ] A very fair amount of Liberty of the Press, though not to newspapers, nor to publications clearly immoral, seems to have been allowed byCromwell. Through 1655 and 1656 there were books and pamphlets of themost various kinds, and advocating the most various opinions. Therewere Episcopalian books and Anabaptist books, arguments for Tithesand arguments against Tithes, Fifth Monarchy tracts, Quaker Tractsand Anti-Quaker Tracts, in extraordinary profusion. Prynne wouldpublish one day _The Quakers unmasked and clearly detected to bebut the spawn of Romish frogs, Jesuits and Franciscan Friars, sentfrom Rome to seduce the intoxicated giddy-headed English nation_, and George Fox would print the next day _The Unmasking andDiscovery of Antichrist, with all the False Prophets, by the truelight which comes from Christ Jesus_. Nor, of course, was there, any interference with the religious meetings of any of the ordinaryPuritan sects, Baptists or whatever else, that chose to formseparatist congregations. Even those who so far passed the boundsthat they were called Ranters or Fanatics were quite safe in theirown conventicles; and altogether one has to conclude that much thatwent by the still worse names of Blasphemy, Atheism, Infidelity, andAnti-Christianism, had as quiet a life under the Protectorate as inany later time. Practically, all that is of interest in the enquiryas to the amount of Religious Toleration under Cromwell's Governmentlies in what is known of his dealings with five denominations ofDissenters from his Established Church--the Papists, theEpiscopalians, the Socinians or Anti-Trinitarians, the Quakers, andthe Jews. (1) _The Papists. _ Papists might be Papists under Cromwell'sgovernment in the sense that there was no positive compulsion on themto abjure their creed and profess another. The question, however, isas to open liberty of Roman Catholic worship. This question hadpassed through Cromwell's mind, and the results of his ruminationsupon it appear most succinctly in one of his letters to Mazarin. After the Treaty made with France, the Cardinal very naturallypressed the subject of a toleration for Catholics in England, therather as Cromwell was always so energetic for a toleration ofProtestants in Catholic countries. "Although I have this set home tomy spirit, " Cromwell wrote in reply, "I may not (shall I tell you I_cannot_?) at this juncture of time, and as the face of myaffairs now stands, answer your call for Toleration. I say _Icannot_, as to a public declaration of my sense in that point;although I believe that under my government your Eminency, in behalfof Catholics, has less reason for complaint, as to rigour on men'sconsciences, than under the Parliament. For I have of some, and thosevery many, had compassion; making a difference. Truly I have (and Imay speak it with cheerfulness in the presence of God, who is awitness within me to the truth of what I affirm) made a difference;and, as Jude speaks, 'plucked many out of the fire, '--the raging fireof persecution, which did tyrannise over their consciences, andencroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates. Andherein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, andsome weights that press me down, to make a farther progress, anddischarge my promise to your Eminency in relation to that. "[1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 202-203. The letter is dated Dec. 26, 1656. ] (2) _The Episcopalians. _ The question under this heading is notabout those moderate Episcopalian divines who had conformed so far asto retain their rectories and vicarages in the Established Church, but about those Episcopalians of stronger principle, whether HighChurch and Arminian or not, who had been ejected from their formerlivings, or were trying to maintain themselves by some kind ofprivate practice of their clerical profession in various parts ofEngland. Against these, just at the time when the Major-Generalcieswere coming into full operation, there did issue one fell Ordinance. It was published Nov. 24, 1655, under the title of _An Ordinancefor Securing the Peace of the Commonwealth_, and it ordered thatafter Jan. 1, 1655-6 no persons should keep in their houses aschaplains or tutors any of the ejected clergy, and also that none ofthe ejected should teach in schools, preach publicly or privately, celebrate baptism or marriage, or use the Book of Common Prayer, under pain of being prosecuted. The Ordinance seems to have beenissued merely as part and parcel of that almost ostentatious menaceof severities against the Royalists by which Cromwell sought at thatparticular time to terrify them into submission and prevent fartherplottings. At all events, it was announced in the Ordinance itselfthat there would be great delicacy in the application of it, so as tofavour such of the ejected as deserved tender treatment; and, infact, it was never applied or executed at all. No one was prosecutedunder it; and, though it was not recalled, it was understood that itwas suspended by the pleasure of his Highness, and that chaplains, teachers, and preachers, of the Episcopal persuasion, might go on asbefore, and reckon on all the toleration accorded to otherDissenters. On this footing they did go on, ex-Bishops and futureBishops among them, with increasing security; and gradually thenotion got abroad that the Protector began to have even a kindlyfeeling for the "good old Church. " Many Royalist authorities concurto that effect. "The Protector, " says one, "indulged the use of theCommon-Prayer in families and in private conventicles; and, thoughthe condition of the Church of England was but melancholy, yet itcannot be denied that they had a great deal more favour andindulgence than under the Parliament. " Burnet, on the authority ofDr. Wilkins, afterwards Bishop Wilkins, who was the second husband ofCromwell's youngest sister, adds a more startling statement. "Dr. Wilkins told me, " says Burnet, "he (Cromwell) often said to him(Wilkins) no temporal government could have a sure support without anational church that adhered to it, and he thought England wascapable of no constitution but Episcopacy; to which he told me he didnot doubt but Cromwell would have turned. " Wilkins probably liked tothink this after he himself had turned; but it is hardly credible inthe form in which Burnet has expressed it. Yet Cromwell, in thattemper of conservatism, or desire of a settled order in all things, which more and more grew upon him after he had assumed theProtectorate, had undoubtedly the old Episcopalian clergy in view asa body to be conciliated, and employed as a counterpoise to theAnabaptists. He cannot but have been aware, too, of the spontaneousmovements in some of the quasi-Presbyterian Associations of theclergy for a reunion as far as possible with the more moderateEpiscopalians, as distinct from the High-Church Prelatists orLaudians. Among others, Baxter was extremely zealous for such aproject; and his accounts of his correspondence about it withex-Bishop Brownrigg in 1655, and his conversations about it at thesame time with ex-Primate Usher, are very curious and interesting. Baxter and many more were quite willing that there should be arestored Episcopacy after Usher's own celebrated model: i. E. AnEpiscopacy not professing to be _jure divino_, but only forecclesiastical conveniency, --the Bishops to be permanent Presidentsof clusters of the clergy, and to be fitted into an otherwisePresbyterian system of Classes and Provincial Synods. They werewilling, moreover, in the interest of such a scheme, to reconsiderthe old questions of a Liturgy, kneeling at the Sacrament, and othermatters of Anglican ceremonial. Enough all this to rouse the angrysouls of _Smectymnuus_, Milton, and the other Root-and-BranchAnti-Prelatists who had led the English Revolution. But, as timeschange, men change, and it is not impossible that Cromwell, the firstreal mover of the Root-and-Branch Bill of 1641, may now, fifteenyears later, have looked speculatively sometimes at the old trunk inthe timberyard. It is certain that he treated with profound respectthe man whose advice about any remodelling of Episcopacy would havebeen the most authoritative generally. Ex-Primate Usher had lived inLondon through the Commonwealth and the Protectorate with the highesthonour, pensioned at the rate of £400 a year, and holding also thepreachership to the Society of Lincoln's Inn. Cromwell had shown himevery attention, and had consulted him on several occasions. He hadretired to Reigate a short time before his death, which happened onthe 21st of March, 1655-6. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, a sumof £200 having been voted for his funeral by the Protector andCouncil. Eight months after his death there was published from hismanuscript, by his friend and former chaplain, Dr. Nicholas Bernard, that famous _Reduction of Episcopacy into the form of SynodicalGovernment_ which had got about surreptitiously in 1641 (Vol. II. 229-230), and which was then regarded, and has been regarded eversince, as the most feasible model of a Low-Church Episcopacy adaptedto Presbyterian forms. [1] [Footnote 1: Neal, IV. 135-137 and 101-2; Burnet (ed. 1823) I. 110;Baxter, 172-178 and 206; Thomason Catalogue, Nov. 25, 1656(date of publication of Usher's _Reduction_); Wood's Fasti, I. 446. ] (3) _Anti-Trinitarians. _ The crucial test of Cromwell'sToleration policy as regarded this class of heretics, and indeed asregarded all heresies of the higher order, was the case of poor Mr. John Biddle. The dissolution of the late Parliament had been so farfortunate for him that the prosecution begun against him by thatParliament under the old Blasphemy Ordinance of 1648 had been stoppedand he had been set at liberty (March 1655). But it was only to getinto fresh trouble. The orthodox in London were determined that heshould not be at large, and it was reported to the Council on the 3rdof July that on the preceding Thursday, June 28, "in the newmeeting-house at Paul's, commonly called Captain Chillingdon's churchmeeting-place, John Biddle did then and there, in presence of about500 persons, maintain, some hours together, in a dispute, that JesusChrist was not the Almighty or most High God, and hath undertaken toproceed in the game dispute the next Thursday. " Cromwell himself waspresent at this meeting of the Council, with Lawrence, Lambert, theEarl of Mulgrave, Skippon, Rous, Sydenham, Pickering, Montague, Fiennes, Viscount Lisle, Wolseley, and Strickland. What were they todo? They ordered the Lord Mayor to stop the intended meeting, and allsuch meetings in future, and to arrest Biddle if necessary; and theyreferred the affair for farther enquiry to Skippon and Rous. Theaffair, it seems, could not possibly be hushed up; Biddle wascommitted to Poultry Compter, and then to Newgate, and his trial cameon at the Old Bailey, again under the Blasphemy Ordinance of 1648. Having, with difficulty, been allowed counsel, he put in legalobjections, and the trial was adjourned till next term. MeanwhileLondon was greatly agitated. The Presbyterians and the orthodoxgenerally were eager for Biddle's conviction; but a very considerablenumber of persons, including not only Biddle's own followers andfree-thinkers of other sorts, but also some Independent and Baptistministers, whose orthodoxy was beyond suspicion, bestirred themselvesin his behalf. Pamphlets appeared in that interest, one entitled_The Spirit of Persecution again broken loose against Mr. JohnBiddle_, and a numerously signed petition was addressed toCromwell, requesting his merciful interference. The Petition, as welearn from _Mercurius Politicus_, was very badly managed. "Thepersons who presented a petition some few days since to his Highnesson the behalf of Biddle, " says that paper under date Sept. 28, "camethis day in expectation of an answer. They had access, and diversgodly ministers were present. And, the Petition being read in thehearing of divers of those under whose countenance it was presented, many of them disowned it, as being altered both in the matter andtitle of it since they signed it, and so looked upon it as a forgedthing, wherein both his Highness and they were greatly abused, anddesired that the original which they signed might be produced; whichMr. Ives and some others of the contrivers and presenters of it werenot able to do, nor had they anything to say in excuse of so foul amiscarriage. Whereupon they were dismissed, his Highness havingopened to them the evil of such a practice [tampering with petitionsafter they had been signed], as also how inconsistent it was for_them_, who professed to be members of the Churches of Christand to worship him with the worship due to God, to give anycountenance to one who reproached themselves and all the ChristianChurches in the world as being guilty of idolatry: showing that, ifit be true which Mr. Biddle holds, to wit that our Lord and SaviourJesus Christ is but a creature, then all those who worship him withthe worship due to God are idolaters. His Highness showed moreoverthat the maintainers of this opinion of Mr. Biddle's are guilty ofgreat blasphemy against Christ, who is God equal with the Father; andhe referred it to them to consider whether any who loved the LordJesus Christ in sincerity could give any countenance to such a personas he is. " But, while the petitioners were thus dismissed with asevere lecture, Cromwell had made up his mind to save Mr. Biddle. Onthe 5th of October it was resolved by the Council that he should beremoved to the Isle of Scilly and there shut up; and Cromwell'swarrant to that effect was at once issued. In no other way could thetrial have been quashed, and it was the kindest thing that could havebeen done for Biddle in the circumstances. He lived comfortablyenough in his seclusion in the distant Island for the next two yearsand a half, receiving an allowance of a hundred crowns _perannum_ from Cromwell, and employing his leisure in the deep studyof the Apocalypse and the preparation of a treatise against theDoctrine of the Fifth Monarchy. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books, July 3 and Oct. 5, 1655; _Merc. Pol. _ Sept. 27-Oct. 4, 1655; Wood's Ath. III. 599-601; ThomasonCatalogue (Tracts for and against Biddle). ] (4) _The Quakers. _ There was immense difficulty with this newsect--from the fact, as has been already explained, that they had notsettled down into mere local groups of individuals, asking tolerationfor themselves, but were still in open war with all other sects, allother forms of ministry, and prosecuting the war everywhere byitinerant propagandism. George Fox himself and the best of hisfollowers seem by this time indeed to have given up the method ofactually interrupting the regular service in the steeple-houses inorder to preach Quakerism; but they were constantly tending to thesteeple-houses for the purpose of prophesying there, as was thecustom in country-places, after the regular service was over. Thus, as well as by their conflicts with parsons of every sect whereverthey met them, and their rebukings of iniquity on highways and inmarket-places, not to speak of their obstinate refusals to pay tithesin their own parishes, they were continually getting into the handsof justices of the peace and the assize-judges. Take as one exampleof their treatment in superior courts the appearance of WilliamDewsbury and other Quakers before Judge Atkins at Northampton afterthey had been half a year in Northampton jail. --Seeing them at thebar with their hats on, the Judge told the jailor he had a good mindto fine him ten pounds for bringing prisoners into the Court in thatfashion, and ordered the hats to be removed by the jailor's man. Then, after some preliminary parley, "What is thy name?" said theJudge to Dewsbury, who had made himself spokesman for all. "Unknownto the World, " said Dewsbury. "Let us hear what that name is that theWorld knows not, " said the Judge goodhumouredly. "It is, " quothDewsbury, "known in the light, and none can know it but he that hathit; but the name the world knows me by is William Dewsbury. " Then tothe question of the Judge, "What countryman art thou?" the reply was, "Of the Land of Canaan. " The Judge remarked that Canaan was far off. "Nay, " answered Dewsbury, "for all that dwell in God are in the holycity, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from Heaven, where the soulis in rest, and enjoys the love of God in Jesus Christ, in whom theunion is with the Father of Light. " The Judge admitted that to bevery true, but asked Dewsbury whether, being an Englishman, he wasashamed of that more prosaic fact. "Nay, " said Dewsbury, "I am freeto declare that my natural birth was in Yorkshire, nine miles fromYork towards Hull. " The Judge then said, "You pretend to beextraordinary men, and to have an extraordinary knowledge of God. "Dewsbury replied, "We witness the work of regeneration to be anextraordinary work, wrought in us by the Spirit of God. " Theconversation then turned on their preaching itinerancy, andabstinence from all ordinary callings, the Judge remarking that eventhe Apostles had worked with their hands. Dewsbury admitted that someof the Apostles had been fishermen, and Paul a tent-maker, butasserted that, "when they were called to the ministry of Christ, theyleft their callings to follow Christ whither he led them by hisSpirit, " and that he and his fellow-prisoners had but done the same. The end of the colloquy was that the Judge, with every wish to belenient, could not make up his mind to discharge the prisoners. "Isee by your carriage, " he said, "that what my brother Hale did at thelast assizes, in requiring bond for your good behaviour, he mightjustly do it, for you are against magistrates and ministers"; andthey were remitted to Northampton jail accordingly. --If judges likeHale and Atkins had to act thus, one may imagine how the poor Quakersfared in the hands of inferior and rougher functionaries. Fines andimprisonment for vagrancy, contempt of court, or non-payment oftithes, were the ordinary discipline for all; but there were caseshere and there of whipping by the hangman, and other more ferociouscruelties. For among the Quakers themselves there were varieties ofmilder and wilder, less provoking and more provoking. The Quakerismof men like Fox and Dewsbury was, at worst, but an obdurate andirritating eccentricity, in comparison, for example, with theQuakerism run mad of James Nayler. This enthusiast, oncequarter-master in a horse troop under Lambert, and regarded as "a manof excellent natural parts, " had for three or four years kept himselfwithin bounds, and been known only as one of the most eminentpreachers of the ordinary Gospel of the Quakers and a prolific writerof Quaker tracts. But, having come to London in 1655, he had beenunbalanced by the adulation of some Quaker women, with a MarthaSimmons for their chief. "Fear and doubting then entered him, " saythe Quaker records, "so that he came to be clouded in hisunderstanding, bewildered, and at a loss in his judgment, and becameestranged from his best friends, because they did not approve hisconduct. " In other words, he became stark mad, and set up forhimself, as "The Everlasting Son, the Prince of Peace, the Fairestamong Ten Thousand, the Altogether Lovely. " In this capacity he wentinto the West of England early in 1656, the admiring women followinghim, and chaunting his praises with every variety of epithet from theSong of Solomon, till he was clapped up in Exeter jail. Nor wasNayler the only madman among the Quakers about this time. A kind ofepidemic of madness seems to have broken out in the sect, or amongthose reputed to belong to it. "One while, " says Baxter, "divers ofthem went naked through divers chief towns and cities of the land, asa prophetical act: some of them have famished and drowned themselvesin melancholy;" and he adds, more especially, as his own experiencein Kidderminster, "I seldom preached a lecture, but going and comingI was railed at by a Quaker in the market-place in the way, andfrequently in the congregation bawled at by the names of Hireling, Deceiver, False Prophet, Dog, and such like language. " TheProtector's own chapel in Whitehall was not safe. On April 13, 1656, "being the Lord's day, " says the _Public Intelligencer_ for thatweek, "a certain Quaker came into the chapel in sermon time, and in avery audacious manner disturbed the preacher, so that he was fain tobe silent a while, till the fellow was taken away. His Highness, being present, did after sermon give order for the sending him to ajustice of peace, to be dealt with according to law. "--Naturally, thewhole sect suffered for these indecencies and extravagances of someof its members, and the very name _Quakerism_ became a synonymfor all that was intolerable. The belief had got abroad, moreover, that "subtle and dangerous heads, " Jesuits and others, had begun to"creep in among them, " to turn Quakerism to political account, and"drive on designs of disturbance. " Altogether the Protector andCouncil were sorely tried. Their policy seems, on the whole, to havebeen to let Quakerism run its course of public obloquy, and get intojail, or even to the whipping-post _ad libitum_, for offencesagainst the peace, but at the same time to instruct theMajor-Generals privately to be as discreet as possible, makingdifferences between the sorts of Quakers, and especially letting noneof them come to harm for their mere beliefs. "Making a difference, "as by the injunction in Jude's epistle, was, as we know, Cromwell'sown great rule in all cases where complete toleration was impossible, and he does not seem to have been able to do more for the Quakers. Hehad not, however, forgotten his interview with their chief, and mayhave been interested in knowing more especially what had become of_him_. --Fox, after much wandering in the West without seriousmishap, had fallen among Philistines in Cornwall early in 1656, andhad been arrested, with two companions, for spreading papers and forgeneral vagrancy and contumacy. He had been in Launceston prison forsome weeks, when Chief Justice Glynne came to hold the assizes inthose parts. There had been the usual encounter between the Judge andthe Quakers on the eternal question of the hats. "Where had they hatsat all, from Moses to Daniel?" said the Chief Justice, rather rashly, meaning to laugh at the notion that Scripture could be brought tobear on the question in any way whatever. "Thou mayest read in thethird of Daniel, " said Fox, "that the three children were cast intothe fiery furnace, by Nebuchadnezzar's command, with their coats, their hose, and _their hats on_. " Glynne, though he had lost hisjoke, and though Fox put him further out of temper by distributingamong the jurymen a paper against swearing, did not behave badly onthe whole, and the issue was the simple recommitment of Fox and hisfriends to Launceston prison. There, however, as they would not anylonger pay the jailor the seven shillings a week he demanded for theboard of each, they were put into the most horrible hole in the placeand treated abominably. They were in this predicament when Cromwellheard of them. "While G. Fox was still in prison, one of his friendswent to Oliver Cromwell, and offered himself, body for body, to liein prison in his stead, if he would take him and let G. Fox go atliberty. But Cromwell said he could not do it, for it was contrary tolaw; and, turning to those of his Council, 'Which of you, ' quoth he, 'would do as much for me if I were in the same condition?'" An orderwas sent by Cromwell to the Governor of Pendennis Castle to enquiremeantime into the treatment of the Launceston prisoners, and theirrelease followed after a little while. It was noted also, in proof ofhis personal kindness towards the Quakers, that, though he receivedletters from some of them violently abusive of himself and hisgovernment, he never showed any anger on that account. [1] [Footnote 1: Sewel's History of the Quakers (ed. 1834) I. 137-173;Baxter, 77 and 180; _Public Intelligencer_ of April 14-21, 1656; Council Order Book, Feb. 6, 1655-6. ] (5)_The Jews. _ A very interesting incident of Cromwell'sProtectorate was his attempt to obtain an open toleration for theJews in England. Since the year 1290, when they had been banished ina body out of the kingdom under Edward I. , there had been onlyisolated and furtive instances of visits to England or residence inEngland by persons of the proscribed race. Of late, however, acertain Manasseh Ben Israel, an able and earnest Portuguese Jew, settled in Amsterdam as a physician, had conceived the idea that, inthe new age of liberty and other great things in England, there mightbe a permission for the Jews to return and live and trade freely. Hehad opened negotiations by letter, first with the Rump and then withthe Barebones Parliament, but had at length come over to London todeal directly with the Protector. "_To his Highness the LordProtector, &c. The Humble Addresses of Manasseh Ben Israel, Divineand Doctor of Physic, in behalf of the Jewish Nation_, " were inprint on the 5th of November, 1655; and they were formally before theCouncil on the 13th, his Highness present in person. The petition wasfor a general protection of such Jews as might come to reside inEngland, with liberty of trade, freedom for their worship, thepossession of a Jewish synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in London, anda revocation of all statutes contrary to such privileges. Cromwellwas thoroughly in favour of the proposal and let the fact be known;but, as it was necessary to proceed with caution, the matter wasreferred to a conference between the Council and twenty-eight personsoutside of it, fourteen of whom were clergymen (Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Nye, Cudworth, Hugh Peters, Sterry, &c. ), and the rest lawyers (St. John, Glynne, Steele, &c. ), or city merchants (Lord Mayor Dethicke, Aldermen Pack and Tichbourne, &c. ) There were four meetings of thisConference at Whitehall in December, Cromwell himself taking part. "Inever heard a man speak so well, " says an auditor of his speech atone of the meetings. On the whole, however, the Conference could notagree with his Highness. Some of the city-men objected, on commercialgrounds, to the admission of the Jews; and the clergy were against italmost to a man, partly on the authority of Scripture texts, partlyfrom fear of the effects of the importation into London of the newsect of Judaism. The Conference was discontinued; and, though thegood Rabbi lingered on in London till April 1656, nothing could bedone. Prejudice in the religious world was too strong. Neverthelessthe Protector found means of giving effect to his own views. Not onlydid he mark his respect for Manasseh Ben Israel by a pension of £100a year, to be paid him in Amsterdam; he admitted so many Jews, one byone, by private dispensation, that there was soon a little colony ofthem in London, with a synagogue to suit, and a piece of ground atStepney leased for a cemetery. In effect, the readmission of the Jewsinto England dates from Cromwell's Protectorate. [1] [Footnote 1: _Merc. Pol. _ Nov. 1-8, 1655; Council Order Book, Nov. 13; Godwin, IV. 243-251; Carlyle, III. 136, note. Prynne opposedthe Readmission of the Jews in a pamphlet, in two parts, called _AShort Demurrer to the Jews' long discontinued Remitter_ (March1656); and Durie published, in the form of a letter to Hartlib, _ACase of Conscience: whether it be lawful to admit Jews into aChristian Commonwealth_ (June 27, 1656). I have not seen Durie'sletter; but Mr. Crossley (_Worthington's Diary_, I. 83, note)reports it as moderately favourable to the Jewish claim. The letteris dated, he says, from Cassel, Jan. 8, 1655-6. ] Although making no great pretensions to learning himself, Cromwellseems to have taken especial pleasure in that part of his powers andprivileges which gave him an influence on the literature andeducation of the country. Here, in fact, he but carried out in aspecial department that general notion of the Civil Magistrate'spowers and duties which had led him to declare himself so stronglyfor the preservation and extension of an Established Church. The morethorough-going champions of Voluntaryism in that day, Anabaptistsand others, had begun, as we have seen, to agitate not only for theabolition of a national Church or State-paid clergy of any kind, butalso for the abolition of the Universities, the public schools, andall endowments for science or learning. But, if Cromwell had sosignally disowned and condemned the system of sheer Voluntaryism inReligion, it was not to be expected that the more peculiar andexceptional Voluntaryism which challenged even State Endowments foreducation should find any countenance from _his_ Protectorate. Nor did it. The two English Universities had been sufficiently Puritanized longbefore Cromwell's accession to the supreme power--Cambridge in1644-5, under the Chancellorship of the Earl of Manchester (III. 92-6), and Oxford in 1647-8, under the Chancellorship of the Earl ofPembroke (IV. 51-52). The Earl of Manchester, who had been living incomplete retirement from public affairs since the establishment ofthe Commonwealth, still retained the nominal dignity of the CambridgeChancellorship; but Cromwell had already for five years beenChancellor of the University of Oxford himself, having been electedto the office in January 1650-1, after the Earl of Pembroke's death. His interest in University matters had been naturally sustained bythis official connexion with Oxford, and had shown itself in variousways before his Protectorate; but his Protectorate added fresh powersto those of his mere Chancellorship for Oxford, and brought hisnative University of Cambridge also within his grasp. He availedhimself of his powers largely and punctually in the affairs of both, and was applauded in both as the steady defender of their honours andprivileges. --To rectify what might still be amiss in them, or toomuch after the mere Presbyterian standard of Puritanism, he hadappointed, by ordinance of September 2, 1654, (Vol. IV. P. 565), anew body of Visitors for each, to inquire into abuses, determinedisputes, &c. The result was that the two Universities were now inbetter and quieter working order than they had been since the firststormy interruption of their old routine by the Civil War. Eachreckoned a number of really able and efficient men among its heads ofcolleges, and in its staff of professors and tutors. In Oxford therewas Dr. John Owen, head of Christ Church, and all but permanentlyVice-Chancellor of the University, with Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Dr. JohnWilkins, Dr. Robert Harris, Dr. Thankful Owen, Dr. John Conant, Dr. Jonathan Goddard, and others, as heads of other Colleges, and Dr. Henry Wilkinson, Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, Dr. Pocock, and themathematicians Dr. Seth Ward and Dr. John Wallis among theProfessors. Cambridge boasted of such men as Dr. Ralph Cudworth, Dr. Benjamin Whichcote, Dr. John Worthington, Dr. John Lightfoot, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, Dr. John Arrowsmith, Dr. Anthony Tuckney, Dr. HenryMore, and others now less remembered. And under the discipline andteaching of such chiefs there was growing up in both Universities ageneration of young men as well grounded in all the older sorts oflearning as any generation of their predecessors, with the benefitalso of newer lights, as was to be proved by the names andappearances of many of them in English history to the end of thecentury. Even Clarendon admits as much. It was a wonder to him tofind, in the subsequent days of his own Chancellorship of theUniversity of Oxford, that the "several tyrannical governmentsmutually succeeding each other" through so many previous years hadnot so affected the place but that it still "yielded a harvest ofextraordinary good and sound knowledge in all parts of learning. " Heattributed this to the inherent virtues of the academic soil itself, which could choke bad seeds, cherish the good, and even defybarrenness by finding its own seeds; but it may be more reasonable tosuppose that the superintendence of the Universities under the"tyrannical governments, " and especially under Cromwell's as thelatest of them, had not been barbaric. --The University Commissioners, it may be added, had authority to inspect Westminster School, Eton, Winchester, and Merchant Taylors'. But, indeed, there seems hardly tohave been a foundation for learning anywhere in England that was not, in one way or another, brought under Cromwell's eye. In his inquiriesafter moneys that might still be recoverable out of the wreck of theold ecclesiastical revenues one can see that, next to the increaseand better sustenance of his Established Ministry, additions to theendowed scholastic machinery of the country were always in his mind. It is clear indeed that one of those characteristics of conservatismby which Cromwell intended that his government should bedistinguished from the preceding Governments of the Revolution wasgreater care of the surviving educational institutions of England andWales, with the resuscitation of some that had fallen into decay. Themoney-difficulties were great, and less could be accomplished than hedesired; but, apart from what may have been done for the refreshmentof the older foundations, it is memorable that Cromwell was able togive effect to at least one very considerable design of EnglishUniversity extension. A College in Durham, expressly for the benefitof the North of England, with a Provostship, four Professorships, andtutorships and fellowships to match, was one of the creations of theProtectorate. [1] [Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti Oxon. From 1654 onwards; Orme's Life ofJohn Owen, 175-187; Clarendon, 623; Godwin, IV. 102-104 and 595;Neal, IV. 121-123; with references to Worthington's Diary byCrossley, and Cattermole's _Literature of the Church ofEngland_. ] While it was chiefly through the organized means afforded by theUniversities and Colleges that Cromwell did what he could for theencouragement of learning, his relations to the learned menindividually that were living in the time of his Protectorate werealways at least courteous, and in some instances peculiarlyfriendly. Usher being dead (March 21, 1655-6), and also the great Selden (Nov. 20, 1654) and the venerable and learned Gataker (July 27, 1654), thefollowing were the Englishmen of greatest literary celebrity already, or of greatest coming note in English literary history, who werealive at the midpoint of Oliver's Protectorate, and could and didthen range themselves (for we exclude those of insufficient age) ashis adherents on the whole, his subjects by mere compulsion, or hisimplacable and exiled enemies. We divide the list into groupsaccording to that classification, as calculated for the year 1656;but the names within each group are arranged in the order ofseniority:[1]-- [Footnote 1: There may be errors and omissions in the list; but, having taken some pains, I will risk it as it stands. ] ADHERENTS MORE OR LESS CORDIAL. George Wither (_ętat_ 68). John Goodwin (_ętat_ 63). Edmund Calamy (_ętat_ 56). Thomas Goodwin (_ętat_ 56). John Lightfoot (_ętat_ 54). Edmund Waller (_ętat_ 51). John Rushworth (_ętat_ 49). Milton (_ętat_ 48). Benjamin Whichcote (_ętat_ 46). James Harrington (_ętat_ 45). Henry More (_ętat_ 42). John Wilkins (_ętat_ 42). John Owen (_ętat_ 40). John Wallis (_ętat_ 40). Ralph Cudworth (_ętat_ 39). Algernon Sidney (_ętat_ 39). Marchamont Needham (_ętat_ 36). Andrew Marvell (_ętat_ 36). Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill (_ętat_ 35). William Petty (_ętat_ 33). Thomas Stanley (_ętat_ 31). John Aubrey (_ętat_ 30). Robert Boyle (_ętat_ 29). John Bunyan (_ętat_ 28). Sir William Temple (_ętat_ 27). John Tillotson (_ętat_ 26). John Howe (_ętat_ 26). Edward Phillips (_ętat_ 26). John Phillips (_ętat_ 25). John Dryden (_ętat_ 25). Henry Stubbe (_ętat_ 25). John Locke (_ętat_ 24). Samuel Pepys (_ętat_ 24). Edward Stillingfleet (_ętat_ 21). SUBJECTS BY COMPULSION. Ex-Bishop Hall (died Sept. 8, 1656, _ętat_ 82). John Hales (died May 19, 1656, _ętat_ 72). Robert Sanderson (_ętat_ 69). Thomas Hobbes (_ętat_ 68). Robert Herrick (_ętat_ 65). John Hacket (_ętat_ 64). Izaak Walton (_ętat_ 63). James Shirley (_ętat_ 62). James Howell (_ętat_ 62). Gilbert Sheldon (_ętat_ 58). William Prynne (_ętat_ 56). Brian Walton (_ętat_ 56). Peter Heylin (_ętat_ 56). Jasper Mayne (_ętat_ 52). Thomas Fuller (_ętat_ 52). Edward Pocock (_ętat_ 52). Sir William Davenant (_ętat_ 51). Thomas Browne of Norwich (_ętat_ 51). William Dugdale (_ętat_ 51). Henry Hammond (_ętat_ 51). Richard Fanshawe (_ętat_ 48). Aston Cockayne (_ętat_ 48). Samuel Butler (_ętat_ 44). Jeremy Taylor (_ętat_ 43). John Cleveland (_ętat_ 43). John Pearson (_ętat_ 43). John Birkenhead (_ętat_ 41). John Denham (_ętat_ 41). Richard Baxter (_ętat_ 41). Roger L'Estrange (_ętat_ 40). Abraham Cowley (_ętat_ 38). John Evelyn (_ętat_ 36). Isaac Barrow (_ętat_ 26). Anthony Wood (_ętat_ 25). Robert South (_ętat_ 23). ACTIVE ENEMIES IN EXILE. John Bramhall (_ętat_ 63). George Morley (_ętat_ 58). John Earle (_ętat_ 55). Sir Kenelm Digby (_ętat_ 53). Sir Edward Hyde (_ętat_ 48). Thomas Killigrew (_ętat_ 45). George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (_ętat_ 29). The relations of Cromwell to such persons varied, of course, withtheir attitudes towards himself and his government. The theologian among his adherents to whom he seems to have beendrawn by the strongest elective affinity was Dr. John Owen. "Sir, youare a person I must be acquainted with, " he had said to Owen inFairfax's garden; laying his hand on his shoulder, one day in April1649, just after he had first heard Owen preach;[1] and so, frombeing merely minister of Coggeshall in Essex, Owen had becomeCromwell's friend and chaplain in Ireland, and had still, through hissubsequent promotions, ending with the Deanery of Christ Church andthe Vice-Chancellorship of Oxford, been much about Cromwell and muchtrusted by him. Perhaps the only difference now between them was thatOwen's theory of Toleration was less broad than Cromwell's. Next toOwen among the divines of the Commonwealth, the Protector seems tohave retained his liking for Dr. Thomas Goodwin, and for such otherfervid or Evangelical Independents as Caryl, Sterry, Hugh Peters, andNicholas Lockyer, with a gradual tendency to John Howe, the youngestof his chaplains. For the veteran free-lance and Arminian JohnGoodwin, a keen critic now of Cromwell's Commission of Triers and ofother parts of his Church-policy, his liking must have been less; butGoodwin's merits were fairly appreciated, and he had at least perfectliberty to conduct his congregation as he pleased and to publish hispamphlets. So, on the other hand, eminent Presbyterian divines likeCalamy, accommodated amply in Cromwell's Established Church, had allfreedom and respect. --As to his dealings with non-clerical men ofletters friendly to his government, we know a good deal already. Milton, of whose relations to the Protectorate we shall have to speakmore at large, was his Latin Secretary; Needham was his journalist;Marvell was in his private employment and was looking for somethingmore public. Still younger men were growing up, in the Universitiesor just out of them, regarding the Protectorate as now the settledorder of things, in which they must pass their future lives. Cudworth, recently promoted from the mastership of Clare College, Cambridge, to that of Milton's old College of Christ's, had beenasked by the Protector to recommend to him any very promising youngCambridge men he might discover;[2] and, doubtless, there had been asimilar request to Owen of Oxford. Dryden, still at Cambridge, thoughnow twenty-five years of age, and already, by his father's death, asmall Northamptonshire squire of £40 a year, was looking forward, weshall find, as his family connexions with the Parliamentarians andthe Commonwealth made natural, to a life in London under the greatProtector's shadow. [Footnote 1: Orme's Life of Owen (1820), p. 113. ] [Footnote 2: Life of Cudworth, as cited by Godwin, IV. 596. ] All that could be expected by divines and scholars ranking in oursecond category, i. E. As subjects of the Protectorate by merecompulsion, and known to be strongly disaffected to it, wasprotection and safety on condition of remaining quiet. This they didreceive. For a month or two, indeed, after the terrible ordinance ofNov. 24, 1655, threatening the expulsion of the ejected Anglicanclergy from the family-chaplaincies, schoolmasterships, andtutorships, in which so many of them had found refuge, and forbiddingthem to preach anywhere or use the Book of Common Prayer, there hadbeen a flutter of consternation among the poor dispersed clerics. That Ordinance, however, as we saw, had merely been _interrorem_ at a particular moment, and had remained a dead letter. The admirable John Hales, it is true, did resign a chaplaincy whichhe held near Eton rather than bring the good lady who sheltered himinto trouble; and by his death soon afterwards England lost a man ofwhom the Protector must have had as kindly thoughts as of any of theold Anglicans. That case was exceptional. Ex-Bishop Hall, in the endof his much-battered life, lived quietly near Norwich, rememberinghis past losses and sequestrations under the Long Parliament ratherthan suffering anything more of the kind. Peter Heylin was in similarcircumstances in Oxfordshire, and by no means bashful. Jeremy Tayloralternated between the Earl of Carbery's seat, called "the GoldenGrove, " in Caernarvonshire, near which he taught a school, and thesociety of his friend John Evelyn, in London or at Sayes Court inSurrey, --tending on the whole to London, where he resumed preaching, and, after a brief arrest and some little questioning, was leftunmolested. Hammond was mainly at Sir John Packington's inWorcestershire; Sanderson and Fuller were actually in parochiallivings, the one in Lincolnshire, the other in Essex; and Pocock wasin a Professorship. Sorely vexed as such men were, and poorer in theworld's goods than they had been, this was the time of the greatestliterary productiveness of some of them. Old Bishop Hall had notceased to write, but was to leave trifles of his last days to bepublished after the Restoration as "Shakings of the Olive Tree"; andworks, or tracts and sermons, by Sanderson, Heylin, Hammond, Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor, some of them of a highly Episcopal tenor, wereamong the publications of the Protectorate. Fuller's _ChurchHistory of Britain_, one of the best and most lightsome books inour language, was published in 1655-6. Brian Walton's great Polyglotthad not yet been carried farther than the third volume; but theProtector had continued to that scholar the material furtherance inhis arduous work which had been yielded first by the Rump Government, apparently on some solicitation by Milton (Vol. IV. Pp. 446, 447);and the work, when it did appear complete in six volumes folio, in1657, was to contain handsome acknowledgment by Walton of thisgenerosity. Of the incessant literary activity of the PresbyterianBaxter through the Protectorate we need say nothing. It is moreremarkable that there was no interruption of William Prynne'sinterminable series of pamphlets on all sorts of public questions, and often violently against the Government. For the rest, where werethe Herricks, the Shirleys, the Clevelands, and the other oldRoyalist wits and satirists of the lighter sort? Keeping schools, most of them, or living with friends in the country, and now and thensending out, as before, some light thing in print. Samuel Butler, asecretary or the like in private families, was yet unknown to fame, but was taking notes and sure to print them some day; and the twomost placid and imperturbable men in all England were Browne ofNorwich and Izaak Walton. Browne, all his best known writingspublished long ago, but appearing in new editions, was contented nowwith attending his patients; and, when Izaak Walton was not in hishouse in Clerkenwell (to which neighbourhood he seems to have removedafter giving up his shop in Chancery Lane), he was away on somefishing ramble. His _Complete Angler, or The Contemplative Man'sRecreation_ had appeared in May 1653, and a second edition of itwas just out. [1] [Footnote 1: Details in this paragraph are from various sources: e. G. Wood's; 'Ath. And Fasti and Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy underthe several names, Cattermole's _Literature of the Church ofEngland_, Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual by Bohn, and theThomason Catalogue of Pamphlets. See also, for Jeremy Taylor, Evelyn's _Diary and Correspondence_, about date 1855-6. Evelynwas greatly concerned about Cromwell's ordinance for suppressingpreaching and schoolmastering by the Anglican clergy, and about itsprobable results for Taylor in particular. See one of his letters toTaylor (pp. 593-4, ed. 1870). ] The number of wits and men of letters still hostile to theProtectorate to such a degree that they would undergo the hardshipsof exile rather than live in England was, it will have been observed, comparatively small. This arose from the fact that some who had beenin exile at the death of Charles I, or even afterwards in the trainof Charles II. , had reluctantly lost faith in the possibility of arestoration of the Stuarts, and had returned to England, to jointhemselves with those whom we have classed generally as Cromwell's"subjects by compulsion. " Leading cases were those of Hobbes, SirWilliam Davenant, and Abraham Cowley; with which, for convenience, may be associated that of the satirist Cleveland, though _he_had never gone into exile, but had remained in England, taking therisks. --HOBBES, who had been in Paris since 1641, to be out of thebustle of the English confusions, but who had come into centralconnexion with the Stuart cause there by his appointment in 1646 tobe tutor to young Charles, had been obliged to leave that connexion, ostensibly at least, in 1651 or 1652. The occasion is said to havebeen the publication of his _Leviathan_. That famous book of1651, like its two predecessors of 1650, _Human Nature_ and_De Corpore Politico_, he had found it convenient to publish inLondon, where the Commonwealth authorities do not seem to have madethe least objection. But by this time Hobbes's infidelity, orAtheism, or Hobbism, or whatever it was, had become a dreadfulnotoriety in the world; and, when Hobbes presented a fine copy of hisgreat book to Charles II. , that pious young prince had beeninstructed by the Royalist divines about him that it would not do tocountenance either Mr. Hobbes or his books any longer. Charlesretained privately all his own real regard for his old tutor, andHobbes perfectly understood that; but the hint had been taken. Backin England at last, and permitted to live in the house of his oldpupil and patron, the Earl of Devonshire, where his only annoyancewas the society of the Earl's chaplain, Jasper Mayne, he had foundthe Protectorate comfortable enough for all his purposes, and hadbeen publishing new books under it, including his pungentdisputations with ex-Bishop Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity andwith Wallis of Oxford on Mathematics. [1]--Hobbes's friend DAVENANThad for some time been less lucky. _His_ return to England hadbeen involuntary. He had been captured at sea in 1650 on his way toVirginia (Vol. IV. P. 193), had been a prisoner in the Isle of Wightand in the Tower and in danger of trial for his life, and had beenreleased only by strong intercession in his favour, in which Miltonis thought to have helped. This result, however, had reconciled him, and Davenant too had become one of the subjects of the Protectorate. Nay he had struck out an ingenious mode of livelihood for himselfunder Cromwell, somewhat in his old line of business. "At that time, "says Wood, "tragedies and comedies being esteemed very scandalous bythe Presbyterians, and therefore by them silenced, he contrived a wayto set up an Italian Opera, to be performed by declamations andmusic; and, that they might be performed with all decency, seemliness, and without rudeness and profaneness, John Maynard, serjeant-at-law, and several sufficient citizens, were engagers. ThisItalian Opera began in Rutland House in Charter-house yard, May 23, 1656, and was afterwards transferred to the Cockpit in Drury Lane. "Cromwell's own fondness for music may have prompted him to thisrelaxation, in Davenants favour, of the old theatre-closing Ordinanceof September 1642. At all events, money was coming in for Davenant, and he was not very unhappy. [2]--The Satirist JOHN CLEVELAND, as wehave said, had never gone into exile. This was the more remarkablebecause, through the Civil War, he had adhered to the King's causemost tenaciously, not only in official employment for it, but alsoserving it by the circulation of squibs and satires very offensive tothe Parliamentarians, and to the Scots in particular. Through theCommonwealth, however, and also into the Protectorate, he _had_lived on in England, in obscurity and with risks, latterly somewherein or about Norfolk, as tutor or quasi-tutor to a gentleman, on £30 ayear. By ill luck, in Nov. 1655, just when the police of theMajor-Generals was coming into operation, he had been apprehended, onhis way to Newark, by the vigilance of Major-General Haynes, andcommitted to prison in Yarmouth, There seems to have been no definitecharge, other than that he was "the poet Cleveland" and was aquestionable kind of vagrant. He had been in prison for some monthswhen it occurred to him to address a letter to the Protector himself. "May it please your Highness, " it began, "Rulers within the circle oftheir government have a claim to that which is said of the Deity:they have their centre everywhere and their circumference nowhere, Itis in this confidence that I address your Highness, as knowing noplace in the nation is so remote as not to share in the ubiquity ofyour care, no prison so close as to shut me up from the partaking ofyour influence. " After explaining that he had been and still was aRoyalist, but that he had taken no active part in affairs for aboutten years, he concludes, in a clever vein of compliment, thus: "If yougraciously please to extend indulgence to your suppliant in taking meout of this withering durance, you will find mercy will establish youmore than power, though all the days of your life were as pregnantwith victories as your twice-auspicious Third of September. " Theappeal to Cromwell's magnanimity was successful. Cleveland wasreleased, came to London, and lived by his wits there till his deathin May 1658. [3]--A much later returner from among the Royalistexiles than either Hobbes or Davenant was the poet COWLEY. His returnwas late in 1655 or early in 1656, and seems to have been attendedwith some mystery. He had been for years at Paris or St. Germains, inthe household of Lord Jermyn, acting as secretary to his Lordship andto Queen Henrietta Maria, deciphering the secret letters that came tothem, and therefore at the very heart of the intrigues for CharlesII. Yet, after a temporary imprisonment, security in £1000 had beenaccepted in his behalf, and he had been allowed to remain in London. The story afterwards by his Royalist friends was that he had comeover, by understanding with Jermyn and the ex-Queen, to watch affairsin their interest and send them intelligence, and that, the better todisguise the design, he pretended compliance with the existingpowers, meaning to obtain the degree of M. D. From Oxford, and set upcautiously as a medical practitioner. It is very unlikely that such adangerous game could have been safely tried under eyes likeThurloe's; and the fact seems to be that Cowley was honestly tired ofexile and willing to comply, in a manly way, for the sake of lifeonce more at home. One of his first acts after his return was topublish his Collected Poems in a volume of four parts. They appeared, on or about April 1656, from the shop of Humphrey Moseley, thepublisher of Milton's Poems ten years before, and still alwaysdealing, as then, in the finer literature. In a preface to the bookCowley distinctly avowed his intention to accept the inevitable, treat the controversy as at length determined against the Stuarts bythe unaccountable will of God, and no longer persist in theridiculous business of weaving laurels for the conquered. Heannounced at the same time that he had not only excluded from thevolume all his pieces of this last kind, but had even burnt themanuscripts. In a copy of the book presented by him to the BodleianLibrary at Oxford there is a "Pindarique Ode" in his own hand, datedJune 26, 1656, breathing the same sentiment. The book is supposed tobe addressing the great Library; and, after congratulating itself onbeing admitted into such a glorious company without deserts of itsown, but by mere predestination, it is made to say:-- [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 1207-1212, and 972. ] [Footnote 2: Wood's Ath. III. 805-806. In Davenant's works (pp. 341-359 of folio edition of 1673) will be found, by those who arecurious, a copy of _"The First Day's Entertainment at Rutland Houseby Declamations and Musick: after the manner of the Ancients. "_ Itstrikes one as very proper and very heavy, but it may have been agodsend to the Londoners after their long deprivation of theatricalentertainments. The music was partly by Henry Lawes. ] [Footnote 3: _Cromwelliana_, 154; Wood's Fasti, I. 499; Godwin, IV. 240-241. There is a MS. Copy of Cleveland's letter among theThomason large quartos. It is dated "Oct. 1657;" but that, I imagine, is an error. ] "Ah! that my author had been tied, like me, To such a place and such a company, Instead of several countries, several men, And business which the Muses hate!"[1] [Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti, II. 209-213; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, with Cunningham's Notes (1854), I. 7-12. Cowley did receive the M. D. Degree at Oxford, Dec. 2, 1657, and did remain in England through therest of Cromwell's Protectorate; and, though the Royalists welcomedhim back after Cromwell's death, his compliance was to be rememberedagainst him. ] As the Muses were returning to England in full number, and ceasing tobe so Stuartist as they had been, it was natural that there should beexpress celebrations of the Protectorate in their name. There hadbeen dedications of books to Cromwell, and applauses of him in proseand verse, from the time of his first great successes as aParliamentary General; and such things had been increasing since, till they defied enumeration. In the Protectorate they swarmed. Matchless still among the tributes in verse was Milton's singleSonnet of May 1652, "_Cromwell, our chief of men_, " and Miltonhad written no more to or about Cromwell in the metrical form sincethe Protectorate had begun, but had contented himself with adding tohis former prose tributes in various pamphlets that most splendid andsubtle one of all which flames through several pages of his_Defensio Secunda_. It is Milton now, almost alone, that weremember as Cromwell's laureate; but among the sub-laureates therewere some by no means insignificant. Old George Wither, though hismarvellous metrical fluency had now lapsed into doggrel and senility, had done his best by sending forth, in 1654-5, from some kind ofmilitary superintendentship he held in the county of Surrey (Woodcalls it distinctly a Major-Generalship at last, but that is surelyan exaggeration), two Oliverian poems, one called _The Protector: APoem briefly illustrating the Supereminency of that Dignity, _ theother _A Rapture occasioned by the late miraculous Deliverance ofhis Highness the Lord Protector from a desperate danger_. [1] Instronger and more compact style, though still rather rough, AndrewMarvell, in the same year, had added to his former praises ofCromwell a poem of 400 lines, published in a broad-sheet, with thetitle _The First Anniversary of the Government under his Highnessthe Lord Protector_. It began:-- [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 762-772. ] "Like the vain curlings of the watery maze Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise, So man, declining always, disappears In the weak circles of increasing years, And his short tumults of themselves compose, While flowing Time above his head does close. Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs, Sun-like, the stages of succeeding suns; And still the day which he doth next restore Is the just wonder of the day before. Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring, And shines the jewel of the yearly ring; 'Tis he the force of scattered Time contracts, And in one year the work of ages acts. "[1] [Footnote 1: Marvell's Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, I. 169-170. ] But the most far-blazoned eulogy at the time, and the smoothest toread now, was one in forty-seven stanzas, which appeared May 31, 1655, with the title _A Panegyric to my Lord Protector of thepresent greatness and joint interest of his Highness and this Nation, by E. W. , Esq. _ The author was Edmund Waller, still under a cloudfor his old transgression, but recovering himself gradually by hiswealth, his plausibility and fine manners, and his powers ofversifying. Here are four of the stanzas:-- "Your drooping country, torn by civil hate, Restored by you, is made a glorious state, The seat of Empire, where the Irish come, And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom. "The sea's our own; and now all nations greet, With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet; Your power extends as far as winds can blow, Or swelling sails upon the globe may go. "Heaven, that hath placed this Island to give law To balance Europe and its states to awe, In this conjunction doth on Britain smile, -- The greatest Leader and the greatest Isle .... "Had you some ages past this race of glory Run, with amazement we should read your story; But living virtue, all achievements past, Meets envy still to grapple with at last. "[1] [Footnote 1: Waller's Poems: date of this from Thomason's Catalogue. ] Waller's verses, if nothing else, would suggest that we ought to knowsomething more, at this point, of the state of Scotland, Ireland, andeven the Colonies, under Cromwell's Protectorate. SCOTLAND. After August 1654, when the Glencairn-Middleton insurrection had beensuppressed (Vol. IV, p. 532), the administration of Scotland had beenagain for some time wholly in the hands of Monk, as theCommander-in-chief there, with assistance from the four residentEnglish Judges and minor officials. Cromwell and his Council inLondon, however, had been thinking of a more regular method for theGovernment of Scotland; and, at length, in the end of July 1655, thefollowing was the arrangement: I. CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT. COUNCIL, SITTING IN EDINBURGH. _President of Council_ (£2000 a year): Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill. General Monk. Major-General Charles Howard. Colonel Adrian Scroope. Colonel Cooper. Colonel Nathaniel Whetham. Colonel William Lockhart (soon afterwards Sir William, and Ambassador to France). John Swinton, Laird of Swinton (afterwards Sir John). Samuel Desborough, Esq. (brother of the Regicide). _Chief Clerk to the Council_ (£300 a year): Emanuel Downing. SUPREME COMMISSIONERS OF JUSTICE (in lieu of the Old Scotch Court ofSession):--This was a body of Seven Judges; four of whom wereEnglish--George Smith, Edward Moseley, William Lawrence, and HenryGoodyere (the last two in the places of two of the original four of1652), --but three of them native Scots, accustomed to Scottish lawand practice. These native Judges had been added for some timealready, and there had been, and were to be, changes of the persons;but one hears most of Lockhart, Swinton, Sir James Learmont, Alexander Pearson, and Andrew Ker. At hand, and helping much, thoughno longer now the great man he had been in Scotland, was SirArchibald Johnstone of Warriston. STATE OFFICERS:--Most of the state-offices of the old Scottishconstitution were still kept up, but were held, of course, by the newCouncillors and Judges. The _Keepership of the Great Seal_ wasgiven to Desborough; the _Signet_ or _Privy Seal_, with thefees of the old _Secretaryship_, to Lockhart; the _ClerkRegistership_ to Judge Smith; &c. TRUSTEES OF FORFEITED AND SEQUESTRATED ESTATES:--Under this name, bythe Ordinance of April 12, 1654 (Vol. IV. Pp. 561-562), there was abody of seven persons, about half of them English, looking after therents and revenues of those numerous Scottish nobles and lairds thepunishment of whom, for past delinquency, by total or partial seizingof their estates, had been one of the necessary incidents of theConquest (Vol. IV. Pp. 559-561). II. MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT. COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, General George Monk (head-quarters Dalkeith), with Major-General Howard, Colonels Cooper, Scroope, and Whetham, andother Colonels and inferior officers, under him. The total force ofhorse and foot in Scotland may have been about 7000 or 8000. It wasdistributed over the country in forts and garrisons, the chief beingthose of Edinburgh, Leith, Glasgow, Stirling, Dundee, Perth, Aberdeen, Dunnottar, Burntisland, Linlithgow, Dumbarton, Ayr, Dunstaffnage, and Inverness. Everywhere the English soldiers acted asa police, and their officers superseded, or were conjoined with, thenative magistrates and sheriffs in the local courts. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of the English Council July 26, 1655, containing letter from "Oliver P. " to Monk, announcing the newestablishment; _Perfect Proceedings_, No. 307, publishing forthe Londoners, under date July 27, the names of his Highness's newCouncil for Scotland; Baillie's Letters, III. 249-250; Godwin, IV. 462-3. ] Under this government Scotland was now very tranquil and tolerablyprosperous. True, almost all the old poppy-heads or thistle-heads, the native nobles and notables, were gone. Those of them who had beentaken at Worcester, or had been sent out of Scotland as prisonersabout the same time by Monk, were still, for the most part, indurance in England; others were in foreign exile; the few thatremained in Scotland, such as Argyle, Loudoun, Lothian, the Marquisof Douglas, and his son Angus, were out of sight in theircountry-houses, utterly broken by private debts or fines andforfeitures, and in very low esteem. Then, among many Scots of goodstatus throughout the community, there were complaints andgrumblings on account of the taxes for the support of the EnglishArmy, or on account of loss of posts and chances by the admission ofEnglishmen to the same, or by the promotion of such other Scots asthe English saw fit to favour, Incidents of this kind, much noted atthe time, had been the ejection of some Professors from theUniversities by the English Visitors in 1653, and the appointmentsby the same visitors of men of their own choice to Universityposts--e. G. Mr. Robert Leighton, minister of Newbattle, to thePrincipalship of Edinburgh University, and Mr. Patrick Gillespie tothat of the University of Glasgow. But even Baillie, whose complaintson such grounds had been bitter in 1654, and to whom the appointmentof Gillespie to the Glasgow Principal-ship had been a particularprivate grievance, was in better spirits before 1656. Glasgow, hethen reports, was flourishing. "Through God's mercy, our town, in itsproportion, thrives above all the land. The Word of God is well lovedand regarded; albeit not as it ought and we desire, yet in no town ofour land better. Our people has much more trade in comparison thanany other: their buildings increase strangely both for number andfairness. " Burnet's account is that the whole country partook of thisgrowing prosperity, which he attributes to the excellent police ofthe English, the trading they introduced, and the money they put incirculation. "A man may ride over all Scotland with a switch in hishand and a hundred pounds in his pocket, which he could not have donethese five hundred years, " was Mr. Samuel Desborough's summaryaccount afterwards of the state of the country which he had helped toadminister under the Protectorate; and Cromwell's own reference tothe subject is even more interesting and precise. Acknowledging thatthe Scots had suffered much, and were in fact "a very ruined nation, "yet what had befallen them had introduced, he hinted, a verydesirable change in the constitution of Scottish society. It hadenfranchised and encouraged the middle and lower classes. "The_meaner_ sort in Scotland, " he said, "love us well, and arelikely to come into as thriving a condition as when they were undertheir own great lords, who made them work for their living no betterthan the peasants of France;" and "The _middle_ sort of people, "he added, "do grow up there into such a substance as makes theirlives comfortable, if not better than they were before. " Of course, in neither of these classes, any more than from among thedispossessed nobles and lairds, can the sentiment of Scottishnationality and the pain of its abolition have been extinct. Yet onenotices, towards the end of 1656, a soothing even in that respect. The Scots, all but universally, by that time, had acquired the habitof speaking deferentially of "His Highness" or "His Highness the LordProtector"; correspondence with Charles II. Had entirely ceased; theEdinburgh barristers had returned to the bar; and the Scottishclergy, pretty generally, left off praying for Charles publicly. LordBroghill's admirable management had helped much to thisreconciliation. "If men of my Lord Broghill's parts and temper belong among us, " wrote Baillie, "they will make the present Governmentmore beloved than some men wish. From our public praying for the KingBroghill's courtesies, more than his threats, brought off our leadingmen. " Baillie himself had yielded that point at last. [1] [Footnote 1: Baillie, III. 236-321 (including letters to Spang, July19, 1654, Dec. 31, 1655, and Sept. 1, 1656); Burnet (ed. 1823), I. 104-105; Chambers's Domestic Annals of Scotland, II. 249; Carlyle, III. 342-3 (Cromwell's Speech XVII. ). ] Raging yet among the Scottish clergy, and dividing the Scottishcommunity so far as the clergy had influence, was the controversybetween the _Resolutioners_ and the _Remonstrants_ or_Protesters_ (Vol. IV. Pp. 201-214, 281-284, 288-289, and 361). By a law of political life, every community, at every time, must have_some_ polarizing controversy; and this was Scotland's throughthe whole period of her absorption in the English Commonwealth andProtectorate. The Protesters were the Whigs, and the Resolutionersthe Tories, of Scotland through that time; and the strife between theparties was all the fiercer because, Scottish autonomy being lost, itwas the only native strife left for Scotsmen, and they were batteneddown to it, as an indulgence among themselves, by a larger andunconcerned rule overhead. General Assemblies of the Kirk being nolonger allowed, it had to be conducted in Provincial Synods andPresbyteries only, or in sermons and pamphlets of mutual reproach. The exasperation was great; Church-censures and threats of suchpassed and repassed; all attempts at agreement failed; the bestfriends were parted. Leaders among the majority, or Resolutionerclergy, were Mr. Robert Douglas of Edinburgh, who had preached thecoronation sermon of Charles II. At Scone, Mr. James Sharp of Crail(these two back for some time from the imprisonment in London towhich Monk had sent them in 1651: Vol. IV. 296), Mr. James Wood ofSt. Andrews, old Mr. David Dickson, now Professor of Divinity inEdinburgh, and our perpetual friend Baillie. The minority, orProtesters, were led by such ministers as Mr. James Guthrie ofStirling, their first oracle, Mr. Patrick Giliespie of GlasgowUniversity, Mr. John Livingston of Ancram, Mr, Samuel Rutherford ofSt. Andrews, and Mr. Andrew Cant of Aberdeen; with whom, as theirbest lay head, was Johnstone of Warriston. Peace-makers, such as Mr. Robert Blair of St. Andrews and Mr. James Durham of Glasgow, negociated between the two sides; and Mr. Robert Leighton, in hisEdinburgh Principalship, looked on with saintly and philosophicindifference. He hoped that, while so many brethren "preached to thetimes, " one brother might be allowed "to preach on eternity" and thatthe differences on earth would "make heaven the sweeter. " In fact, however, the controversy was not merely a theoretical one. Not onlywas it involved whether the two last General Assemblies, of 1651 and1652, swayed as they had been by the Resolutioners, should berecognised and their acts held valid, and what should be the spiritand constitution of the Kirk in future: present interests were alsoinvolved. It had been to the Protesters that Cromwell had turned withgreatest liking and hope, both on political grounds and fromspiritual sympathy, when he was fighting in Scotland; and, since thebeginning of his Protectorate, _they_ had been most in favour. Early in 1654 three of their number, Mr. Patrick Gillespie, Mr. JohnLivingston, and Mr. John Menzies, had been summoned to London toadvise the Protector; they had been there two or three months; andthe effects of their advice had been visible in an ordinance aboutvacant Kirk-livings very favourable to the Protesters, and generallyin a continued inclination towards the Protesters in the proceedingsof the English Government in Scotland. The ministers and othersejected by Cromwell's visitors had been mostly of the Resolutionerspecies; and one of Baillie's complaints is that Protesters, whetherfit or not, were put into vacant livings by the English, and thatonly Scotsmen of that colour were conjoined with the English in theexecutive and the judicatories. Till 1656 all this had been verynatural. The dregs of Stuartism, and consequent antipathy to theProtectorate, had persisted till then most visibly among theResolutioners. [1] [Footnote 1: Baillie, _ut supra_; Life of Robert Blair, 313_et seq. _; Wodrow's Introduction to his _History_ (1721);Beattie's _Church of Scotland during the Commonwealth_ (1842), Chap. III. ] Though the Protesters were originally what we have calledsuper-ultra-Presbyterians, it was not surprising that some of themhad moved into Independency. There certainly were some Independentsamong the Scottish parish clergy at this time, especially aboutAberdeen; and the Independents apart from the National Church hadbecome numerous. But mere Independency now, or even Anabaptism, wasnothing very shocking in Scotland; it was the increase of newersectaries that alarmed the clergy. Quakerism had found its way intoScotland; so that there were now, we are told by a contemporary, "great numbers of that damnable sect of the Quakers, who, beingdeluded by Satan, drew away many to their profession, both men andwomen. " As in England, Quaker preachers went about disturbing theregular service in churches, or denouncing every form of ministry buttheir own to open-air congregations, and often with physicalconvulsions and fits of insane phrenzy. The Church-courts and thecivil authorities were much exercised by the innovation, and hadbegun action against the sect, the rather because many of the commonpeople, in their weariness of the strife among their own clergy, "resetted" the Quaker preachers and said they "got as much good ofthem as of anybody else. "[1] [Footnote 1: The quotations are from Chambers's _Dom. Annals ofScotland_, II. 232-234. ] Not an importation like Quakerism, but of ineradicable native growth, was the crime of witchcraft; and, though that crime was known inEngland too, and occupied English law-courts, Scotland maintained herfearful superiority in witch-trials and witch-burnings. "There ismuch witchery up and down our land, " wrote Baillie: "the English bebut too sparing to try it, but some they execute. " Against crimes ofother orders the English judges were willing enough to act; andnothing is more startling to one who is new to such facts than tofind how much of their business, in pious and Presbyterian Scotland, consisted in trials of cases of hideous and abnormal sexualism. But, indeed, very strange _isms_ of quite another sort, and of which meremodern theory would have pronounced the Scotland of that timeincapable, lurked underneath all the piety, all the preaching, allthe exercise of Presbyterian discipline, all the seeming distributionof the population universally into Resolutioners and Protesters, withinterspersed Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and other vehementChristians. Bead, from the Scottish correspondence of Needham's_Mercurius Politicus_, in the number for June 26-July 3, 1656, thefollowing account of one of the cases that had come before JudgeSmith and Judge Lawrence in their Dumfriesshire circuit of theprevious May:-- "Alexander Agnew, commonly called Jock of Broad Scotland, " [apparently an itinerant beggar, or Edie Ochiltree, of Dumfriesshire] was tried on this indictment. --"_First_, the said Alexander, being desired to go to church, answered 'Hang God: God was hanged long since; what had _he_ to do with God? he had nothing to do with God'. _Secondly_, He answered he was nothing in God's common; God gave him nothing, and he was no more obliged to God than to the Devil; and God was very greedy. _Thirdly_, When he was desired to seek anything in God's name, he said he would never seek anything for God's sake, and that it was neither God nor the Devil that gave the fruits of the land: the wives of the country gave _him_ his meat. _Fourthly_, Being asked how many persons were in the Godhead, answered there was only one person in the Godhead, who made all; but, for Christ, he was not God, because he was made, and came into the world after it was made, and died as other men, being nothing but a mere man. _Sixthly_, He declared that he knew not whether God or the Devil had the greater power; but he thought the Devil had the greatest; and 'When I die, ' said he, 'let God and the Devil strive for my soul, and let him that is strongest take it. ' _Seventhly_, He denied there was a Holy Ghost, or knew there was a Spirit, and denied he was a sinner or needed mercy. _Eighthly_, He denied he was a sinner, and [said] that he scorned to seek God's mercy. _Ninthly_, He ordinarily mocked all exercise of God's worship and convocation in His name, in derision saying 'Pray you to your God, and I will pray to mine when I think time. ' And, when he was desired by some to give thanks for his meat, he said, 'Take a sackful of prayers to the mill, and shill them, and grind them, and take your breakfast off them. ' To others he said, 'I will give you a twopence, and [if ye] pray until a boll of meal and one stone of butter fall down from heaven through the house-rigging to you. ' To others, when bread and cheese was given him, and was laid on the ground by him, he said, 'If I leave this, I will [shall] long cry to God before he give it me again. ' To others he said, 'Take a bannock, and break it in two, and lay down one half thereof, and ye will long-pray to God before he put the other half to it again. ' _Tenthly_, Being posed whether or not he knew God or Christ, he answered he had never had any profession, nor never would--he had never had any religion, nor never would: also that there was no God nor Christ, and that he never received anything from God, but from Nature, which he said ever reigned and ever would, and that to speak of Gods and their persons was an idle thing, and that he would never name such names, for he had shaken his cap of such things long since. And he denied that a man has a soul, or that there is a Heaven or a Hell, or that the Scriptures are the Word of God. Concerning Christ, he said that he heard of such, a man; but, for the second person of the Trinity, he had been the second person of the Trinity if the ministers had not put him in prison, and that he was no more obliged to God nor the Devil. --And these aforesaid blasphemies are not rarely or seldom uttered by him, but frequently and ordinarily in several places where he resorted, to the entangling, deluding, and seducing of the common people. Through the committing of which blasphemies, he hath contravened the tenor of the laws and acts of Parliament, and incurred the pain of death mentioned therein; which ought to be inflicted upon him with all rigour, in manner specified in the indictment. --Which indictment being put to the knowledge of an assize, the said Alexander Agnew, called Jock of Broad Scotland, was by the said assize, all in one voice, by the mouth of William Carlyle, late bailie of Dumfries, their chancellor, found guilty of the said crimes of blasphemy mentioned in his indictment; for which the commissioners ordained him, upon Wednesday, 21 May, 1656, betwixt two and four hours in the afternoon, to be taken to the ordinary place of execution for the Burgh of Dumfries, and there to be hanged on a gibbet while [till] he be dead, and all his moveable goods to be escheat. " The intercourse between Scotland and London, both by letters and byjourneys to and fro, was now very brisk. [1] Not only were Lauderdale, Eglinton, Marischal, David Leslie, and a number of the otherdistinguished Scottish prisoners of 1651, still detained in London, in more or less strict custody, with their wives and retainers nearthem; but many Scots whose proper residence was in Scotland werecoming to London, on visits of some length, for their own or forpublic business. Among these, late in 1655, was Lockhart, --to beconverted, as we know, into the Protector's ambassador to the Courtof France. The eccentric ex-Judge Scot of Scotstarvet had alreadybeen in London, petitioning for the remission or reduction of hisfine of £1500 for former delinquency, and succeeding completely atlast, "in consideration of the pains he hath taken and the service hehath done to the Commonwealth. " The Earl of Lothian was in London, painfully prosecuting petitions for the recovery of certain lostfamily-properties. But the most remarkable apparition was that of theMarquis of Argyle. He came to London in September, 1655, and he seemsto have remained there for a long while. What had brought him up wasalso a suit with the Protector and the Council for reparation of someportions of his lost fortunes and for favour generally; but he seemsto have gone about a good deal, visiting various people. "Came tovisit me. " says Evelyn, the naturalist and virtuoso of Sayes Court, in his diary, under date May 28, 1656, "the old Marquis of Argyle. Lord Lothian, and some other Scotch noblemen, all strangers to me. _Note_: The Marquis took the turtle-doves in the aviary forowls. " It had been his characteristic mistake through life. [2] [Footnote 1: In the London _Public Intelligencer_ for April12-19, 1658, among other advertisements of stage-coaches startingfrom "the George Inn, without Aldersgate, " is one of a fortnightlystage-coach for Edinburgh, the fare £4. Something of the sort mayhave been running already. ] [Footnote 2: Council Order Books of the Protectorate through 1655and 1656; _Mere. Pol. _ for Sept. 27-Oct. 4, 1655; Evelyn's_Diary_ (ed. 1870), p. 248. In the Council Order Books, underdate Sept. 11, 1656, is minuted an order that, in terms of an Act ofthe Estates of Scotland of March 16, 1649, the Marquis of Argyleshall, from and after Nov. 10, 1657, have half the excise of winesand strong waters in Scotland, but not exceeding £3000 in any oneyear, until he is satisfied of a debt of £145, 400 Scots due to him byScotland on public grounds. ] Any influence which the Marquis could now have with the Protector inmatters of Scottish Government must have been small; but it wasunderstood that, such as it was, it would be on the side of the Kirkparty of the Protesters. And this had become of some consequence. Inand through 1656, if not earlier, it had become obvious that theinclinations of the Protector to that party had been considerablyshaken. The change was attributed partly to Lord President Broghill. Almost from his first coming to Scotland, this nobleman had found itdesirable to win over the Resolutioners. "The President Broghill, "says Baillie, "is reported by all to be a man exceeding wise andmoderate, and by profession a Presbyterian: he has gained more on theaffections of the people than all the English that ever were amongus. He has been very civil to Mr. Douglas and Mr. Dickson, and isvery intime with Mr. James Sharp. By this means we [theResolutioners] have an equal hearing in all we have ado with theCouncil. Yet their way is exceeding longsome, and all must be donefirst at London. " So far as Broghill's communications with Londonmight serve, the Resolutioners, therefore, might count on him astheir friend. And by this time he had reasons to show. Had he notsucceeded, where the stern Monk had failed, in inducing theResolutioner clergy to give up public praying for King Charles andotherwise to conform; and was it not on this ground that Monk wasbelieved still to befriend the Protesters? But perhaps it hardlyneeded Broghill's representations to induce Cromwell to reconsiderhis Scottish policy in regard to the Kirk. That same Conservatismwhich had been gaining on him in the English department of hisProtectorate, leading him rather to discourage extreme men whiletolerating them, had begun to affect his views of Kirk parties inScotland. The Resolutioners were numerically the larger party: ifthey would be reconciled, might they not be his most massive supportin North Britain? It is possible that the institution of the newScottish Council under Broghill's Presidency may have been the resultof such thoughts, and that Broghill thus only took a course indicatedfor him by Cromwell. At all events, various relaxations of formerorders, about admission to vacant livings and the like, had alreadybeen made in favour of the Resolutioners; and, in and from 1656, itwas noted that extreme men in Scotland too were not to his Highness'staste, and that, contrary to what might have been expected from hisformer relations to Scottish Presbyterianism, his aim now was torebuild a good and solid Established Church in Scotland mainly on thenative Presbyterian principle, though under control, and to leaveextravagant spirits, including even those too forward forIndependency among the Scots, to the mere benefits of an outsidetoleration. It was not his way to proceed hurriedly, however; and, asthe Protesters were religiously the men most to his liking, and mustby all means be kept within the Kirk, an agreement between them andthe Resolutioners was a political necessity. To this end he hadagain, more than once recently, requested some of the leaders of bothparties to come to London for consultation, as Gillespie, Livingston, and Menzies, for the Protesters, had done before. Appeals to theCivil Power in ecclesiastical matters being against the Presbyteriantheory which the parties professed in common, that suggestion had notbeen taken, notwithstanding the precedent, and the parties hadpersisted in their war of mutual invective in Scotland, each gettingwhat it could by private dealings with the Council there, --theResolutioners through Broghill and the Protesters through Monk. Butthat could not last for ever; and, in August 1656, strictPresbyterian theory had been so far waived by both parties that bothhad resolved on direct appeal to his Highness in London. TheResolutioners had the start. They had picked out as their fittestsingle emissary Mr. James Sharp of Crail, then forty-three years ofage, already well acquainted with London by his former compulsorystay there, and with the advantage now of intimacy with Broghill. HisInstructions, signed by three of the leading Resolutioners, wereready on the 23rd of August. They were substantially that he shouldclear the Resolutioners with the Protector from themisrepresentations of the Protesters, paint the Protesters in returnas mainly hot young spirits and disturbers, and obtain from hisHighness a restoration of Presbyterian use and wont through the wholeKirk, with preponderance to the Resolutioners, though not with aGeneral Assembly till times were more quiet. _Per contra_, theProtesters had drawn out certain propositions to be submitted toCromwell. They asked for a Commission for the plantation of kirks, tobe appointed by his authority and to consist of those he might thinkfit, to administer the revenues of the Kirk according to the Acts ofAssemblies and the laws of the land prior to 1651, the fatal year ofthe "Resolutions. " They asked also for a Commission of Visitation, one half to be elected by the Resolutioners and one half by theProtesters, to have the power of "planting and purging" in parishesand of composing differences in Synods and Presbyteries. For urgingthese propositions a deputation to Cromwell had been thought of, andactually appointed. As it was postponed, however, Sharp was to be inLondon first by himself. Hence some importance for the Protesters inany counterweight there might be in Argyle's presence there already. [1] [Footnote 1: Baillie, Letters to Spang, in 1655 and 1656, as alreadycited, with III. 568-573 for Instructions to Sharp and Propositionsof the Protesters; Life of Robert Blair, 325-329. ] No one was more anxious for the success of Mr. Sharp's mission thanthe good Baillie of Glasgow University, now in his fifty-fifth year, a widower for three years, but about to marry again, and known as oneof the stoutest Resolutioners and Anti-Protesters since thatcontroversy had begun. He had had his discomforts and losses in theUniversity under the new Principalship of Mr. Patrick Gillespie; buthad been busy with his lectures and books, and the correspondence ofwhich he was so fond. Among his letters of 1654-5, besides those toSpang, are two hearty ones to his old friend Lauderdale in his Londoncaptivity, one or two to London Presbyterian ministers, and aninteresting one to Thomas Fuller, regretting that they had not beensooner acquainted, and saying he had "fallen in love" with Fuller'sbooks and was longing for his _Church History_. This was not theonly sign of Baillie's mellower temper by this time towards theAnglicans. He was inquiring much about Brian Walton, whose name hadnot been so much as heard of when Baillie was in London, and whosePolyglott seemed now to him the book of the age. Baxter, on the otherhand, was an Ishmaelite, a man to be put down. All these matters, however, had been absorbed at length in Baillie's interest in Mr. Sharp's mission. He was to write to his old London friends, Rous, Calamy, and Ashe, urging them to help Mr. Sharp to the utmost, and hewas to correspond with Sharp himself. "I pray God help you and guideyou; you had need of a long spoon [in supping with a certainpersonage]: trust no words nor faces, for all men are liars, " is thememorable ending of the first letter that Sharp in London was toreceive from Baillie. [1] [Footnote 1: Baillie, III. 234-335; with Mr. Laing's Life ofBaillie. ] IRELAND. There had been little of novelty in Ireland for some time after theproclamation of the Protectorate (Vol. IV. P. 551). Fleetwood, withthe full title of "Lord Deputy" since Sept. 1654, had conducted theGovernment, as well as he could, with a Council of assessors, consisting, after that date, of Miles Corbet, Robert Goodwin, ColonelMatthew Tomlinson, and Colonel Robert Hammond. This last, so broughtinto the Protector's service after long retirement, died at Dublin inJuly 1655. Ludlow still kept aloof, disowning the Protectorate, though remaining in Ireland with his old military commission. Leftvery much to themselves, Fleetwood and his Council had carried out, as far as possible, the Acts for the Settlement of the country passedor proposed by the Rump in 1652, but not pushing too severely thegreat business which the Rump had schemed out, of a general andgradual cooping up of the Roman Catholics within the single provinceof Connaught. In the nature of things, that business, or indeed anyactual prevention of the exercise of the Catholic Religion whereverRoman Catholics abounded, was impracticable. It was enough, in theLord Protector's view, that the land lay quiet, the Roman Catholicsand their faithful priests not stirring too publicly, the Englishsoldiery keeping all under sufficient pressure, and English andScottish colonization shooting in here and there, with Protestantpreaching and Protestant farming in its track. On the whole, Fleetwood's Lord-Deputyship, if not eventful, was far from unpopular. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 447-449. ] It had occurred to Cromwell, however, that more could be done inIreland, and that his son-in-law Fleetwood was perhaps notsufficiently energetic, or sufficiently Oliverian, for the purpose. Accordingly, about the same time that Fleetwood had been raised tothe Lord-Deputyship, Cromwell's second son, Henry, had been appointedMajor-General of the Irish Army. The good impression he had made inhis former mission to Ireland (Vol. IV. P. 551) justified theappointment. Not till the middle of 1655, however, did he arrive inIreland. His reception then was enthusiastic, and was followed by thesudden recall of Fleetwood to London, professedly for a visit only, but really not to return. The title of Lord-Deputy of Ireland wasstill to be Fleetwood's for the full term of his originalappointment; but he was to be occupied by the duties of his EnglishMajor-Generalship and his membership of Oliver's Council at home, andthe actual government of Ireland was thenceforth in the hands ofHenry Cromwell. The young Governor, whose wife had accompanied him, held a kind of Court in Dublin, with Fleetwood's Councillors abouthim, or others in their stead, and a number of new Judges. Thediverse tempers of these advisers, among whom were some Anabaptistsor Anti-Oliverians, and his own doubts as to some of the instructionsthat reached him from his father, made his position a very difficultone; but, though very anxious and sensitive, he managed admirably. Inparticular, it was observed that, in matters of religion, he had allhis father's liberality. It was "against his conscience, " he said, "to bear hard upon any merely on account of a different judgment. " Heconciliated the Presbyterian clergy in a remarkable manner; theRoyalists liked him; he would not quarrel with the Anabaptists; andhe was as moderate as possible towards the Roman Catholics. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 449-458; _Milton Papers_ by Nickolls, 187-138; Carlyle, III. 108-109, and 133-140 (Letters from Cromwell tohis son Harry). ] One of Henry Cromwell's difficulties would have been Ludlow, had thatuncompromising Republican remained in Ireland. From that he wasrelieved. In January 1655 Fleetwood had been ordered by the Protectorto make Ludlow give up his commission; and, as Ludlow questioned thelegality of the demand, he had arranged with Fleetwood to go andsettle the matter with the Protector himself. The Protector seemingto prefer that Ludlow should stay where he was, and having sentorders to that effect, Fleetwood was himself In England, and HenryCromwell was in his place in Dublin, and still there seemed no chanceof leave for Ludlow to cross the Channel. At length, without distinctleave, but trusting to a written engagement Fleetwood had given him, he ventured on the passage; and on Dec. 12, 1655, after theexperience of a most stormy sea, he had that of a more stormyinterview with the Protector and some of his Council at Whitehall. Cromwell rated him roundly for his past behaviour generally and forhis return without leave, and demanded his _parole_ ofsubmission to the established Government for the future. Some kind of_parole_ Ludlow was willing to give, declaring that he saw noimmediate chance of a subversion of the Government and knew of nodesign for that end, but refusing to tie his hands "if Providence_should_ offer an occasion. " With that Cromwell, who had begunto "carry himself more calmly" towards the end of the interview, wasobliged to be content. He became quite civil to Ludlow, saying he"wished him as well as he did any of his Council, " and desiring himto make "choice of some place to live in where he might have goodair. " Ludlow retired into Essex[1]. [Footnote 1: Ludlow's Memoirs, 481-557; Carlyle, III. 136. ] THE COLONIES. With the exception of a factory of the London East India Company, which had been established at _Surat_ on the west coast ofHindostan in 1612, and a settlement on the _Gambia_ on thewestern coast of Africa, dating from 1631, all the considerableColonies of England in 1656 were American:--I. NEW ENGLAND. The fourchief New England Colonies, _Plymouth_, _Massachusetts_, _Connecticut_, and _New Haven_, confederated since 1643, together with the outlying Plantations of _Providence_ and_Rhode-Island_, &c. , still belonged politically to themother-country; and through Cromwell's Protectorate, as before, theconnexion had been signified by references of various subjects to theHome-Government, discussions of these by that Government, and ordersand advices transmitted in return. In the main, however, the Coloniesremained independent, each with its annually elected Governor, andthe Confederacy with its annually elected Board of Commissionersbesides; and, while professing high admiration of Cromwell andapproval generally of his rule, they were not troubled with questionsof rule seriously affecting their own interests. The war with theDutch did for some time involve them in inconveniences with theirDutch neighbours; but their dissensions were chiefly with each other, or domestically within each colony. The harsh proceedings inMassachusetts and elsewhere against Baptists and other Sectaries gavesome colour to Roger Williams's assertion that, in the matter ofreligious toleration, New England was becoming old while Old Englandwas becoming new; and, as soon as Quakerism had broken out in NewEngland and Quakers had appeared there (1656), it became evident thatthere would be even less mercy for that sect in New England than onthe other side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, with their zealousPuritanism, their energy and industry, and the abilities of theirBradfords, Bradstreets, Winslows, Winthrops, Standishes, Endicotts, Hayneses, Hopkinses, Newmans, Williamses, and other prominentgovernors or assistant-governors, the Confederacy and the Plantationswent on prosperously towards their ultimate, though yet unforeseen, destiny in the formation of the United States. Cromwell, indeed, hada scheme which would have stopped that issue. He had a scheme forfetching all the Puritans of New England back and planting themsplendidly in Ireland. Communications on the subject had passed asearly as 1651, when Ireland had been just reconquered; but naturallywithout effect. The New Englanders were not then too numerous perhapsto have been transported to Ireland bodily; but, as one of theirhistorians says, "they had taken root. " Their increase, however, formore than a century thenceforward was to be mainly within themselves, for new arrivals from England had become scarce. [1] II. OTHERCOLONIES AND SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA. These too went on verymuch at their own will, though not quite unnoticed. _Virginia_, dating from 1608, and _Maryland_, dating from 1634, continued tobe the favourite colonies for Royalist settlers, Anglican or RomanCatholic; but there had been recent additions of English Puritans, and of transported Scottish prisoners of war, to the population ofVirginia, and the connexions with the mother-country had remainedunbroken. There were commercial regulations about both Colonies bythe English Council, and grants of passes to them. Canada and theother regions about the St. Lawrence, the possession of which hadbeen contested by the English and the French in the reign of CharlesI, had lapsed long ago into the hands of the French; but MajorSedgwick had wrested back for Cromwell, in 1654, the peninsula thencalled _Acadie_, but now _Nova Scotia_, being part of theterritory that had been granted under that name by Charles to hisScottish Secretary, the Earl of Stirling, and had been colonised byScots, to some extent, from 1625 onwards. Off the mainland, Newfoundland, which had contained an English fishing population forat least twenty years, was not neglected; and, beyond the bounds ofany of the North-American Colonies or Plantations that weredefinitely named and recognised, there may have been stragglersknowing themselves to be subjects of the Protectorate. [2] III. THEWEST INDIES. The _Bermudas_ or _Summer Islands_ had beenEnglish since 1612, and had now a considerable population of opulentsettlers, attracted by their beauty and the salubrity of the climate;_Barbadoes_, English since 1605, and with a population of morethan 50, 000, had been a refuge of Royalists, but had been taken forthe Commonwealth in 1652, and had been much used of late for thereception of banished prisoners; such other Islands of the LesserAntilles as _Antigua_, _Nevis_, _Montserrat_, and the_Virgin Islands_, together with _The Bahamas_, to the northof Cuba, had been colonised in the late reign; and _Jamaica_ hadbeen Cromwell's own conquest from the Spaniards, by Penn's blunder, in 1655. The war with Spain had given new importance to those WestIndia possessions of the Protectorate. They had become war-stationsfor ships, with considerable armed forces on some of them; and someof Cromwell's best officers had been sent out, or were to be sentout, to command in them. Of them all Jamaica was Cromwell's petisland. He had resolved to keep it and do his best with it. Thecharge of it had been given to a commission consisting of AdmiralGoodson, Major-General Fortescue, Major-General Sedgwick (therecaptor of Nova Scotia from the French), and Daniel Serle, Governorof Barbadoes; and Fortescue and Sedgwick, and others in succession, were to die at their posts there. To have the rich island colonisedat once with the right material was the Protector's great anxiety;and his first thoughts on that subject, as soon as he had learnt thatthe Island was his, had issued in a most serious modification of hisformer offer to the New Englanders. As they had refused to come backand colonise Ireland, would they not accept Jamaica? "He didapprehend the people of New England had as clear a call to transportthemselves thence to Jamaica as they had had from England to NewEngland, in order to the bettering of their outward condition;"besides which, their removal thither would have a "tendency to theoverthrow of the Man of Sin. " They should be transported free ofcost; they should have lands rent-free for seven years, and afterthat at a penny an acre; they should be free from customs, excise, or any tax for four years; they should have the most liberalconstitution that could be framed: only his Highness would keep theright of appointing the successive Governors and their Assistants. The answer of the Massachusetts people, when it did arrive, wasevasive. They spoke of the reported unhealthiness of Jamaica, andthey assured Ms Highness of their admiration, their gratitude, andtheir prayers. The answer had not been received at the date we havereached (Sept. 1656), and the Protector still cherished his idea. Asit proved, the New Englanders were to remain New Englanders, andJamaica was to be colonised slowly and with less select material. [3] [Footnote 1: Palfrey's Hist. Of New England, II. 304-415, andespecially 388-390. ] [Footnote 2: Various minutes in Council Order Books from 1649onwards; Carlyle, III, Appendix, 442-443. ] [Footnote 3: Mills's _Colonial Constitutions_ (1856), 124-133, Introd. XXXIV. Et seq. ; Carlyle, III. 124-133; Palfrey's _NewEngland_, II. 390-393. ] SECTION III. OLIVER AND THE FIRST SESSION OP HIS SECOND PARLIAMENT: SEPT. 17, 1656-JUNE 26, 1657. SECOND PARLIAMENT OF THE PROTECTORATE CALLED: VANE'S _HEALINGQUESTION_ AND ANOTHER ANTI-OLIVERIAN PAMPHLET: PRECAUTIONS ANDARRESTS: MEETING OF THE PARLIAMENT: ITS COMPOSITION: SUMMARY OFCROMWELL'S OPENING SPEECH: EXCLUSION OF NINETY-THREE ANTI-OLIVERIANMEMBERS: DECIDEDLY OLIVERIAN TEMPER OF THE REST: QUESTION OF THEEXCLUDED MEMBERS: THEIR PROTEST: SUMMARY OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THEPARLIAMENT FOR FIVE MONTHS (SEPT. 1656-FEB. 1656-7): ADMINISTRATIONOF CROMWELL AND HIS COUNCIL DURING THOSE MONTHS: APPROACHES TODISAGREEMENT BETWEEN CROMWELL AND THE PARLIAMENT IN THE CASE OF JAMESNAYLER AND ON THE QUESTION OF CONTINUATION OF THE MILITIA BYMAJOR-GENERALS: NO RUPTURE. --THE SEXBY-SINDERCOMBE PLOT. --SIRCHRISTOPHER PACK'S MOTION FOR A NEW CONSTITUTION (FEB. 23, 1656-7):ITS ISSUE IN THE _PETITION AND ADVICE_ AND OFFER OF THE CROWN TOCROMWELL: DIVISION OF PUBLIC OPINION ON THE KINGSHIP QUESTION:OPPOSITION AMONG THE ARMY OFFICERS: CROMWELL'S NEUTRAL ATTITUDE: HISRECEPTION OF THE OFFER: HIS LONG HESITATIONS AND SEVERAL SPEECHESOVER THE AFFAIR: HIS FINAL REFUSAL (MAY 8, 1657): LUDLOW'S STORY OFTHE CAUSE. --HARRISON AND THE FIFTH-MONARCHY MEN: VENNER'S OUTBREAK ATMILE-END-GREEN. --PROPOSED NEW CONSTITUTION OF THE _PETITION ANDADVICE_ RETAINED IN THE FORM OF A CONTINUED PROTECTORATE:SUPPLEMENTS TO THE _PETITION AND ADVICE_: BILLS ASSENTED TO BYTHE PROTECTOR, JUNE 9: VOTES FOR THE SPANISH WAR, --TREATY OFFENSIVEAND DEFENSIVE WITH FRANCE AGAINST SPAIN: DISPATCH OF ENGLISHAUXILIARY ARMY, UNDER REYNOLDS, FOR SERVICE IN FLANDERS: BLAKE'SACTION IN SANTA CRUZ BAY. --_"KILLING--NO MURDER"_: ADDITIONALAND EXPLANATORY PETITION AND ADVICE: ABSTRACT OF THE ARTICLES OP THENEW CONSTITUTION AS ARRANGED BY THE TWO DOCUMENTS: CROMWELL'SCOMPLETED ASSENT TO THE NEW CONSTITUTION, AND HIS ASSENT TO OTHERBILLS, JUNE 26, 1657: INAUGURATION OF THE SECOND PROTECTORATE THATDAY: CLOSE OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE SECOND PARLIAMENT. Willing to relieve his government, if possible, from the character of"arbitrariness" it had so long borne, Cromwell had at last resolvedon calling another Parliament. The matter had been secretlydeliberated in Council in May and June 1656, and the writs were outon July 10. There had ensued, throughout England, Scotland, andIreland, a great bustle of elections, the Major-Generals in Englandand the Councils in Scotland and Ireland exerting themselves tosecure the return of Oliverians, and the Protector and his Council byno means easy as to the result. Two recent Republican pamphlets hadcaused agitation. One, which had been called forth by a Proclamationof a General East a month or two before, was by Sir Henry Vane, andwas entitled _A Healing Question Propounded and Resolved. _ Itwas temperate enough, approving of the government in some respects, and even suggesting the continuance of some kind of sovereignty in asingle person, but containing censures of the "great interruption" ofpopular liberties, and appeals to the people to do their part. Theother and later pamphlet (Aug. 1), directly intended to bear on theElections, was called _England's Remembrancer, _ and wasvirtually a call on all to use their votes so as to return aParliament that should unseat Oliver. The author of this secondpamphlet evaded detection; but Vane was brought to task for his. Hewas summoned to London from his seat of Belleau in Lincolnshire, July 29; by an order of Aug. 21 he was required to give security in£5000 that he would do nothing "to prejudice the present government";and, on his refusal, there issued a warrant, signed by HenryLawrence, as President of the Council, for his committal to KingCharles's old prison, Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. Aboutthe same time, precautions were taken with Bradshaw, Harrison, Ludlow, Lawson, Rich, Okey, Alured, and others. Bradshaw wassuspended for a week or two from his Chief-Justiceship of Chester;Harrison was sent to Pendennis Castle in Cornwall; Rich to Windsor;security in £5000 was exacted from Ludlow, or rather arranged for himby Cromwell; and the others were variously under guard. Nor didleading royalists escape. Just before the meeting of the Parliament, a dozen of them, including Lord Willoughly of Parham and Sir JohnAshburnham, were sent to the Tower. The Republican Overton was stillthere. All this new "arbitrariness" for the moment was for thepurpose of sufficiently tuning the Parliament. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books through July, Aug. And Sept. 1656;Godwin, IV. 261-277; Ludlow, 568-573; Catalogue of ThomasonPamphlets. ] It met on Wednesday, Sept. 17, when the first business wasattendance, with the Protector, in the Abbey Church, to hear a sermonfrom Dr. Owen. Among the 400 members returned from England and Waleswere the Protector's eldest son, Richard Cromwell (for CambridgeUniversity), Lord President Lawrence and at least twelve othermembers of the Council (Fleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, Skippon, Jones, Montague, Sydenham, Pickering, Wolseley, Rous, Strickland, andNathaniel Fiennes), with Mr. Secretary Thurloe, Admiral Blake, andmost of the Major-Generals not of the Council (Howard, Berry, Whalley, Haynes, Butler, Barkstead, Goffe, Kelsey, and Lilburne). Other members, of miscellaneous note and various antecedents, wereWhitlocke, Ingoldsby, Scott, Dennis Bond, Maynard, Prideaux, Glynne, Sir Harbottle Grimston, the Earl of Salisbury, Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Sir Anthony Irby, Alderman Sir Christopher Pack, Lord Claypole, SirThomas Widdrington, Ex-Speaker Lenthall, Richard Norton, Pride (nowSir Thomas), and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, --this last long anabsentee from the Council, Of the thirty members returned from theshires, burghs, or groups of such, in Scotland; about half wereEnglishmen: e. G. President Lord Broghill for Edinburgh, SamuelDesborough for Midlothian, Judge Smith for Dumfriesshire, thephysician Dr. Thomas Clarges (Monk's brother-in-law) for Ross, Sutherland, and Cromarty, Colonel Nathaniel Whetham for St. Andrews, &c. ; while among the native Scots returned were Ambassador Lockhart, Swinton, the Earl of Tweeddale, and Colonel David Barclay. Irelandhad returned, among _her_ thirty (who were nearly allEnglishmen), Sir Hardress Waller, Major-General Jephson, Sir CharlesCoote, and several Colonels. [1]--Not a few of the chief members hadbeen returned by more than one constituency: e. G. Lord Broghill, forCork as well as for Edinburgh. Several of those returned cannot havebeen expected to give attendance, at least at first. Thus, AdmiralsBlake and Montague were away with their fleets, off Spain andPortugal. But Broghill did come up from Scotland to attend, andSwinton and most of the other members of the Scottish Council withhim, leaving Monk once more in his familiar charge. AmbassadorLockhart also had come over, or was coming. [Footnote 1: List of the members returned for the Second Parliamentof the Protectorate in _Part. Hist. _ III. 1479-1484. ] There were two rather important interventions between Dr. Owen'sopening sermon to the Parliament and their settling down tobusiness. One was the Lord Protector's opening speech in the Painted Chamber, now numbered as Speech V, of the Cromwell series. It was very long, of extremely gnarled structure, but full of matter. The pervadingtopic was the war with Spain. This was justified, with approvingreferences to the published Latin Declaration of Oct. 1655 on thesubject, entitled _Scriptum Domini Protectoris, &c. _(Milton's?), and with vehement expressions of his Highness's personalabhorrence of Spain and her policy. He represented her and herallies and dependents as the anti-English and anti-Christian Hydra ofthe world, while France, though Roman Catholic too, stood apart fromall the other Catholic powers in not being under the Pope's lash andso able to be fair and reasonable. He urged the most energeticprosecution of the war that had been begun. But with the Spanish warhe connected the dangers to England from the Royalist risings andconspiracies of the last two years, announcing moreover that he hadnow full intelligence of a compact between Spain and Charles II. , aforce of 7000 or 8000 Spaniards ready at Bruges in consequence, andother forces promised by Popish princes, clients of Spain. There wereEnglish agents of the alliance at work, he said, and one miscreant inparticular who had been an Anabaptist Colonel; and, necessarily, allschemes and conspiracies against the present government would driftinto the Hispano-Stuartist interest. He acquitted some of theopponents of his government, calling themselves "Commonwealth's men"and "Fifth Monarchy men, " from any intention of that conjunction; butso it would happen. His arrests of some such had been necessary forthe public safety. He knew his system of Major-Generalships was muchcriticised, and thought arbitrary; but that had been necessary too, and a most useful invention. He had called this Parliament with ahope of united constitutional action with them for the future, andwould recommend, in the domestic programme, under the general head of"Reformation, " certain great matters to their care. There was theSustentation of the Church and the Universities; there wasReformation of Manners; and there was the still needed Reformation ofthe Laws. On the Church-question he avowed, more strongly than everbefore, his desire to uphold and perpetuate an Established Church. "For my part, " he said, "I should think I were very treacherous if Itook away Tithes, till I see the Legislative Power settle maintenanceto Ministers another way. " He knew that some of the ministersthemselves would prefer some other form of State-provision; but, onthe whole, believing that some distinct State-maintenance of theClergy, whether by tithes or otherwise, was "the root of visibleprofession. " he adjured the Parliament not to swerve from that. Heexpounded also his principle of comprehending Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all earnest Evangelical men amicably inthe Established Church, with small concern about their differencesfrom each, other, and expressed his especial satisfaction that thePresbyterians had at length come round to this view, and given upmuch of their old Anti-Toleration tenet. "I confess I look at thatas the blessedest thing which hath been since the adventuring uponthis government. " Towards the end of the speech there was just a hintthat he stood on his Protectorship for life, and regarded that as afundamental, not to be called in question. "I say, Look up to God:have peace among yourselves. Know assuredly that, if I have aninterest, I am by the voice of the People the Supreme Magistrate, and, it may be, do know somewhat that might satisfy my conscience, ifI stood in doubt. But it is a union, really it is a union, betweenyou and me; and, both of us united in faith and love to Jesus Christ, and to His peculiar Interest in the world, -_that_ must groundthis work. And in that, if I have any peculiar interest which ispersonal to myself, which is not subservient to the public end, itwere not an extravagant thing for me to curse myself, because I knowGod will curse me if I have. " After quoting the 85th Psalm, hedismissed them to choose their Speaker. [1] [Footnote 1: Speech V. ; Carlyle, III. 159-196. ] Then, however, there was the second intervention. It was in the lobbyof the House. Some persons, acting for the Clerk of the Commonwealthin Chancery, stood there, with tickets certifying that such and suchmembers had been duly returned and also "_approved by hisHighness's Council";_ the doors of the House were guarded bysoldiers; and none but those for whom the tickets had been made outwere allowed to enter. About ninety-three found themselves thusexcluded; among whom, were Hasilrig, Scott, Irby, Sir HarbottleGrimston, the Earl of Salisbury, Maynard, four of the six membersfor the city of London, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. The residue, who had received tickets, proceeded to constitute the House, andunanimously elected Sir Thomas Widdrington, Sergeant at Law and oneof the Commissioners of the Treasury, for their Speaker. Almost theonly other business that day was to thank Dr. Owen for his sermon, and order it to be printed. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Sept. 17, 1656; and Parl. Hist. III. 1484-1487. ] The next day there was read in the House a letter to the Speaker, signed by a number of the excluded, informing him of the fact anddesiring to be admitted. Through that and the two following sittings, an inquiry into the circumstances of the exclusion formed part of theproceedings. The Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, beingrequired to attend, did at last present himself, and explained thathe had but obeyed orders. He had received a letter from Mr. Jessop, the Clerk of the Council, ordering him to deliver tickets only tosuch of the persons elected as should be certified to him as approvedby the Council; and he had acted accordingly. With some reluctance, he produced the letter; and the House then resolved to ask theCouncil for their reasons for excluding so many members. These weregiven, on the 20th, by Fiennes for the Council. They were to theeffect that Article XXI. Of the constituting Instrument of theProtectorate, called _The Government of the Commonwealth_ (Vol. IV. Pp. 542-544), required the Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, for the first three Parliaments of the Protectorate, to report to theCouncil what persons had been returned, and empowered the Council toadmit those duly qualified and to exclude others, and also that, byanother clause in the same Instrument (Art. XVII. ), it was requiredthat the persons elected should be "of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation. " All which being undeniable, it wasresolved by the House, after debate, Sept. 22, by a majority of 125to twenty-nine, to refer the excluded to the Council itself for anyfarther satisfaction they wanted, and meanwhile "to proceed with thegreat affairs of the nation. " The House, _without_ the excluded, it will be seen, was decidedly Oliverian in the main. The excluded, or some of them, took their revenge by printing and distributing aProtest or Remonstrance addressed to the Nation, with the names ofall the ninety-three attached, those of Hasilrig and Scott first. Itwas a document of extreme vehemence, denouncing the Protector as anarmed tyrant and all who had abetted him in his last act as capitalenemies to the Commonwealth, and disowning beforehand, as null andvoid, all that the truncated Parliament might do. Cromwell took nonotice whatever of this Remonstrance. By one more stroke of"arbitrariness, " bolder than any before, but allowed, he might plead, by the Instrument of his Protectorate, he had fashioned for himself aSecond Parliament, likely to be more to his mind than his First. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Sept, 18-22, 1656; Whitlocke, IV. 274-280 (where the Remonstrance of the Excluded is given in full);Ludlow, 579-580. ] So it proved. Some of the excluded having been admitted after all, and new elections having been made in cases where members had beenreturned by two or more constituencies, the House went on for thefirst five months (Sept. 1656-Feb. 1656-7) with a pretty steadyworking attendance of about 220 at the maximum--which implies that, besides the excluded, there must have been a large number ofabsentees or very lax attenders. During these five months a largeamount of miscellaneous business was done, with occasional divisions, but no vital disagreement within the House, or between it and theProtector. There was an Act for renouncing and disavowing Charles II, over again, and an Act for the safety of the Lord Protector's personand government, both made law, by Cromwell's assent, Oct. 27. Therewas a vote of approbation of the war with Spain, with votes of meansfor carrying it on. There were Bills, more formal than before, foradjusting and completing the incorporation of Scotland and Irelandwith the Commonwealth. There were Committees of all sorts formaturing these and other Bills. Among the grand Committees was onefor Religion. There were votes of reward to various persons for pastservices. The better observance of the Lord's Day was one of thesubjects of discussion. Amid the minor or more private business onenotes a great many _naturalizings_ of foreigners resident inEngland, or of persons of English descent born abroad or otherwiserequiring to be naturalized. Theodore Haak and his family, Dr. LewisDu Moulin, a number of Lawrences and Carews, and a daughter of thepoet Waller, are among the scores included in such NaturalizationBills. Through all this, hardly a week, of course, without an orderto Dr. Owen, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Caryl, Nye, Sterry, Manton, or someother leading divine, to preach a special sermon, with thanks afterfor his "great pains, " and generally a request that the sermon shouldbe printed. On the whole, Speaker Widdrington had no light post. Indeed, in January 1656-7, the House, perceiving him to be very illand weak, insisted on his taking leave of absence, and appointedWhitlocke as his substitute. Whitlocke acted as pro-Speaker, he tellsus, from January 27 to Feb. 18, with great acceptance and rapiddespatch of business. On the last of these days, however, Widdrington, though at the risk of his life, reappeared and resumedduty. A fee of £5, it seems, was due to the Speaker from every personnaturalized by bill, and all such fees would have gone to Whitlockehad Widdrington remained absent. The loss to Whitlocke was made uphandsomely by the House in a vote of £2000, besides repayment of £500he had expended over his allowance in his Swedish embassy, and thanksfor his many eminent services. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals over period and for dates named;Whitlocke, IV. 280-286. ] About a fortnight after the Parliament had met (Oct. 2), there hadcome splendid news from Blake and Montague. A Spanish fleet from theWest Indies, with the ex-Viceroy of Peru and his family on board, anda vast treasure of silver, had been attacked in Cadiz bay by sixEnglish frigates under the command of Captain Stayner. Two of theships had been taken, two burnt and sunk (the ex-Viceroy, his wife, and eldest daughter, perishing most tragically in the flames), andthere had been a great capture of silver. The rejoicing in London wasgreat, and it was renewed a month afterwards by the actual arrivalof the silver from Portsmouth, a long train of waggon-loads throughthe open streets, on its way to the Mint, Admiral Montague himselfhad come with it. He was in the House Nov. 4, welcomed with thanksand applauses to his place for a while among the legislators. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given, and Godwin, IV, 300-303. ] Legislative work being back in the hands of a Parliament, theProtector and his Council had confined themselves meanwhile tomatters of administration, war, and diplomacy. Vane had been releasedfrom his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight by order of Council, Dec. 11, and permitted to return to Lincolnshire; and there had been otherrelaxations of the severities attending the opening of theParliament. There had been an order of Council (Oct. 2) for therelease of imprisoned Quakers at Exeter, Dorchester, Colchester, andother places, with instructions to the Major-Generals in therespective districts to see the order carried out and the fines ofthe poor people discharged. The business of the PiedmonteseProtestants still occupied the Council, and there were letters tovarious foreign powers. Of new diplomatic arrangements of theProtector about this time, and through the whole session of theParliament, account will be more conveniently taken hereafter; butAmbassador Lockhart's temporary presence in London, and his frequentcolloquies with the Protector over French affairs, Spanish affairs, the movements of Charles II abroad, a rumoured dissension betweenCharles II. And his brother the Duke of York, and Mazarin's astuteintimacy with all, are worthy of remark even now. It was on Dec. 10, 1656, that Lockhart received from his Highness the honour ofknighthood at Whitehall; and on Feb. 3, 1656-7, it was settled by hisHighness and the Council that Lockhart's allowance thenceforward inhis Embassy should be £100 a week, i. E, about £18, 000 a year inpresent value. Lockhart's real post being in Paris, his attendance inParliament can have been but brief. His fellow-Scotsman, Swinton ofSwinton, also gave but brief attendance. The Protector had taken theopportunity of Swinton's visit to London to show him specialattention, and to promote in the Council certain very substantialrecognitions of his adhesion to the Commonwealth when other Scotsabhorred it, and of his good services in Scotland to it and theProtectorate since. But, as his proper place was in Edinburgh, it wasordered, Dec. 25, 1656, that he, and his fellow-members of theScottish Council, Major-General Charles Howard and Colonel AdrianScroope, should return thither. This was the more necessary becauseLord Broghill did not mean to return to Scotland, the air of whichdid not suit him, but preferred employment for the future either inEngland or in his native Ireland. Broghill's Presidency in Scotlandhad now, indeed, virtually ceased, and the administration there, withthe difficult steering between the Resolutioners and the Protestersof the Kirk, had been left to Monk and the rest. Nay, as we know, thehearing of that vital Scottish question had been transferred toLondon. Sharp, who had come to London in Broghill's train as agentfor the Resolutioners, "presently got access to the Protector" and"was well liked of and accepted. " But the Marquis of Argyle hadweight enough yet to stop any concession to him till the other partyhad been heard. Accordingly, in October, 1656, a Mr. James Simson, minister of Airth, had been sent up by the Protesters, to befollowed, more effectively, in January, by Mr. James Guthrie himself, Principal Gillespie of Glasgow, and three elders, of whom one wasWarriston. There had been a conference and debate between Sharp andthese Protesters before Cromwell, three of his Council being present, and Owen, Lockyer, Manton, and Ashe attending as representativeEnglish divines; but his Highness had not yet made up his mind. Therumour in Scotland was that Sharp was likely to succeed, and that hehad driven Warriston and Gillespie very hard in the Conference, andcontrived, in particular, to make Warriston, in self-defence, betraysome awkward secrets. One finds, however, that Principal Gillespiewas invited to preach twice before the Parliament, and thanked forhis sermons, and that he had influence enough to move in the Councila suit in the interests of the University of Glasgow. Though Sharp, as Baillie advised him, was "supping with a long spoon, " Cromwellhad probably taken estimate of him. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates given, and of others (e. G. Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, 1656, and Jan. 12 and Feb. 12, 1656-7); _Merc. Pol. _ No. 340 (Dec. 11-18, 1656); Life of Robert Blair, 329-331;Baillie, III. 328-341. ] One matter In which there had been an approach to disagreementbetween the Parliament and the Protector was the famous _Case ofJames Nayler;_--Quakerism and its extravagancies were irritatingthe sober part of the nation unspeakably, and this maddest of all theQuakers, on account of the outrageous "blasphemies" of his recentSong-of-Simon procession through the west of England--repeated atBristol after his release from Exeter jail--had been selected byParliament for an example. On the 31st of October, 1856, a largecommittee was appointed on his case; and on the 5th of December, Nayler and others having been brought prisoners to London meanwhile, the report of the Committee was made, and there began a debate on thecase, which was protracted through ten sittings, Nayler himselfbrought once or twice to the bar. It was easily resolved that he hadbeen "guilty of horrid blasphemy" and was a "grand impostor and greatseducer of the people": the difficult question was as to hispunishment. On the 16th of December it was carried but by ninety-sixvotes to eighty-two that it should _not_ be death, and, aftersome faint farther argument on the side of mercy, this was thesentence: "That James Nayler be set on the pillory, with his head inthe pillory, in the New Palace, Westminster, during the space of twohours, on Thursday next, and shall be whipped by the hangman throughthe streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange, London, therelikewise to be set on the pillory, with his head in the pillory, forthe space of two hours, between the hours of eleven and one onSaturday next--in each of the said places wearing a paper containingan inscription of his crimes: and that at the Old Exchange his tongueshall be bored through with a hot iron; and that he be there alsostigmatized in the forehead with the letter B: And that he beafterwards sent to Bristol, and conveyed into and through the saidcity on a horse bare-ridged, with his face backwards, and there alsopublicly whipped the next market-day after he comes thither: And thatfrom thence he be committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and thererestrained from the society of all people, and kept to hard labour, till he be released by Parliament, and during that time be debarredfrom the use of pen, ink, and paper, and have no relief but what heearns by his daily labour. " Though petitions for clemency had alreadybeen presented to Parliament by some very orthodox people, the firstpart of this atrocious sentence was duly executed Dec. 18. Then camemore earnest petitions both to Parliament and the Protector, with theeffect of a respite of the next part from the 20th to the 27th;between which dates this letter from the Protector was read in theHouse: "O. P. Right Trusty and Well-beloved, We greet you well. Havingtaken notice of a judgment lately given by yourselves against oneJames Nayler, Although we detest and abhor the giving or occasioningthe least countenance to persons of such opinions and practices, orwho are guilty of the crimes commonly imputed to the said person:Yet, We, being intrusted in the present Government on behalf of thePeople of these Nations, and _not knowing how far such Proceeding, entered into wholly without Us, may extend in the consequence ofit_, Do desire that the House will let Us know the grounds andreasons whereupon they have proceeded. " Two things are here to beperceived. One is that Cromwell did not approve of the course takenwith Nayler. The other, and more important, is that he regarded thisaction of the House, without his consent, as an intrenchment on thatpart of his prerogative which concerned Toleration. He thoughthimself, by the constitution of his Protectorate, entrusted with acertain guardianship of this principle, even against Parliament; andhe did not know how far Nayler's case might be made a precedent forreligious persecutions. What may have been the exact reply toCromwell from the House we do not know; but the House was not in amood to spare Nayler. He had not satisfied the clergymen sent toconfer with him. Accordingly, on the 27th, a motion to respite himfor another week having been lost by 113 to 59, the second part ofhis punishment was inflicted to the letter; after which he wasremoved to Bristol to receive the rest. All that one can say is that, though Cromwell was far from pleased with the business, and eventhought it a horrible one, he did not feel that he could at that timemake it the occasion of an actual quarrel with the Parliament. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Carlyle III, 213-215; Sewel's_History of the People called Quakers_ (ed. 1834) I. 179-207. ] Another matter in which a disagreement might have been feared betweenCromwell and his Parliament was that of _TheMajor-Generalships. _ This "invention" of Cromwell's for the policeof England and Wales generally, and specially for the collection ofthe Decimation or Militia Tax from the Royalists, had been sosuccessful that he had congratulated himself on It in his openingspeech to the Parliament. He, doubtless, desired that Parliamentshould adopt and continue it. On the 7th of January, 1656-7, accordingly, there was read for the first time "a Bill for thecontinuing and assessing of a Tax for the paying and maintaining ofthe Militia forces in England and Wales, " i. E. For prolongingCromwell's Decimation Tax of 1655, and virtually the whole machineryof the Major-Generalships. That there would be serious opposition inthe House had been foreseen since Dec. 25, when there had been twodivisions on the question of leave to bring in the Bill, and leavehad been obtained only by eighty-eight votes to sixty-three. Amongthe opponents were Whitlocke and the other lawyers, all those indeedwho wanted to terminate the time of "arbitrariness, " and objected toa tax now on old political delinquents as contrary to theParliamentary Act of Oblivion of Feb. 1651-2. On the other hand, theBill was strongly supported by Lambert. Fiennes, Lisle, Pickering, Sydenham, other members of Council, and the Major-Generalsthemselves. It was, in fact, a Government Bill, Nevertheless, after aprotracted debate of six days, the second reading of the Bill wasnegatived Jan. 29 by 121 to 78, and the Bill absolutely rejected by124 to 88. Cromwell himself had helped to bring about this result. Much as he liked his "invention, " he had perceived, in the course ofthe debate, that it must be given up; and he had given hints to thateffect. The House, in short, had understood that they were left totheir own free will. And so the Major-Generalships disappeared, thepolice of the country reverted to the ordinary magistracy, andCromwell was to trust to Parliament for necessary supplies in moreregular ways. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 327-331. ] What drew the Parliament and the Protector more closely togetherabout this time was the explosion of a new plot against theProtector's life. At the centre of the plot was that "wretchedcreature, an apostate from religion and all honesty, " of whomCromwell had spoken in his opening speech as going between CharlesII. And the King of Spain, and negotiating for a Spanish invasion ofEngland. In other words, he was Edward Sexby, once a stout trooperand agitator in the Parliamentarian army (Vol. III. P. 534), afterwards Captain and even Colonel in the same, but since then oneof the fiercest Anabaptist malcontents. He had been in the Wildmanplot of Feb. 1654-5, but had then escaped abroad; and since then hisoccupation had been as described by Cromwell, --now in Flanders, nowin Madrid, shuttling alliance between Spain and the Stuarts. But, though a Spanish invasion of England to restore the Stuarts was hisgreat game, an assassination of Cromwell anyhow, whether without aSpanish invasion or in anticipation of it, was nearest to his heart. Actually he had been in London just before the meeting of theParliament, trying to arrange for such "fiddling things"--so Cromwellhad called them--as shooting him in the Park or blowing him up in hischamber at Whitehall. Before Thurloe had traces of him, he had againdecamped to Flanders; but he had left a substitute in MilesSindercombe, an old leveller and mutineer of 1647, but since then aquarter-master in Monk's Army in Scotland, and dismissed for hiscomplicity in the Overton project. Sexby had left Sindercombe £1600;and with this money Sindercombe had been again tampering withCromwell's guard, taking a house at Hammersmith convenient for shotsat Cromwell's coach when he drove to Hampton Court, and buyinggunpowder and combustibles for a nearer attempt in Whitehall. He hadbeen, seen in the Chapel at Whitehall on the evening of January 8, and that night the sentinel on duty smelt fire just in time toextinguish a slow-match that was to explode a mass of blazingchemicals at midnight. All Whitehall having been roused, theProtector with the rest, information led at once to Sindercombe. Hewas arrested in his lodging, and sent to the Tower; and, his trialhaving followed, Feb. 9, he was convicted on evidence given byaccomplices, and doomed to execution on the 14th. In the nightpreceding he was found dead in his bed, having poisoned himself. Hehad left intimation that he was under no concern about his immortalsoul, having passed out of any form of religion recognising such anentity, and become a Materialist or Soul-sleeper. Meanwhile his plothad raised a ferment of new loyalty round the Protector. On the 19thof January, when Thurloe made a formal disclosure to the House of allthe particulars of the plot, a general thanksgiving throughoutEngland, Scotland, and Ireland, was ordered, and it was resolved thatthe whole House should wait upon his Highness "to congratulate withhis Highness on this great mercy and deliverance. " The interview wason January the 23rd, in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, whenSpeaker Widdrington made the address for the House, and Cromwellreplied in a most affectionate speech (_Speech_ VI. ). Thethanksgiving was on Feb. 20; on which day Principal Gillespie ofGlasgow and Mr. Warren had the honour of preaching the specialsermons before the House in St. Margaret's, Westminster. The day waswound up by a noble dinner in Whitehall, to which the whole House hadbeen invited by the Protector, followed by a concert, vocal andinstrumental, in the part of the Palace called the Cockpit. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given, and of Feb. 18;Carlyle, III. 204-211; Godwin, IV. 331-333; _Merc. Pol. _ No. 349 (Feb. 12-19, 1656-7); Whitlocke, IV. 286; Parl. Hist. III. 1490. ] Three days after the great dinner in Whitehall, i. E. On Monday, Feb. 23, 1656-7, there was an incident in the House which turned all thefuture proceedings of this Second Parliament of the Protectorate intoa new channel. It is thus entered in the Journals:-- " ... Sir Christopher Pack [Ex-Mayor of London, knighted by Cromwell, Sept. 25, 1655, and now one of the members for the City] presented a Paper to the House, declaring it was somewhat come to his hand tending to the Settlement of the Nation and of Liberty and Property, and prayed it might be received and read; and, it being much controverted whether the same should be read without farther opening [preliminary explanation] thereof, the Question being propounded _That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be further opened by him before it is read, _ and the Question being put _That this Question be now put, _ it passed in the Negative. The Question being propounded _That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be now read, _ and the Question being put _That that Question be now put, _ the House was divided. The Noes went forth:--Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Robinson, Tellers for the Noes--with the Noes 54; Sir Charles Wolseley, Colonel Fitzjames, Tellers for the Yeas--with the Yeas 144. So it passed in the Affirmative. And, the main Question being put, it was Resolved _That this Paper, offered by Sir Christopher Pack, be now read. _ The said Paper was read accordingly, and was entitled 'The Humble Address and Remonstrance of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, now assembled in the Parliament of this Commonwealth. '"[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date. ] The debate on the Paper was protracted to the evening "a candle"having been ordered in for the purpose; and it was then adjourned tothe next day. In fact, for the next four months, or through the wholeremainder of the session, the House was to continue the debate, orquestions arising out of it, and to do little else. For, on the 24thof February, it was resolved by a majority of 100 to 44 (Lambert andStrickland tellers for the _Minority_) that the paper should betaken up and discussed in its successive parts, "beginning at thefirst Article after the Preamble;" and, though an attempt was madenext day to throw the subject into Grand Committee, that was defeatedby 118 to 63. In evidence of the momentousness of the occasion, awhole Parliamentary day was set apart for "seeking the Lord" upon it, with prayers and sermons by Dr. Owen and others; and, when the Housemet again after that ceremonial (Feb. 28), it was resolved that novote passed on any part of the Paper should be binding till allshould be completed. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. ] Sir Christopher Pack's paper of Feb. 23, 1656-7, entitled _TheHumble Address and Remonstrance, &c. _, was nothing less than aproposed address by Parliament to the Protector, asking him to concurwith the Parliament in a total recast of the existing Constitution. It had been privately considered and prepared by several persons, andWhitlocke had been requested to introduce it, "Not liking--severalthings in it, " he had declined to do so; but, Sir Christopher havingvolunteered, Whitlocke, Broghill, Glynne and others, were to backhim. Indeed, all the Oliverians were to back him. Or, rather, therewas to grow out of the business, according as the Oliverians weremore hearty or less hearty in their cooperation, a new distinction ofthat body into _Thorough Oliverians_ and _DistressedOliverians_ or _Contrariants_. Why this should have been thecase will appear if we quote the First Article of the proposedAddress after the Preamble. It ran thus: "That your Highness will bepleased to assume the name, style, title, dignity, and office of KINGof England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective Dominions andTerritories thereunto belonging, and exercise thereof, to hold andenjoy the same, with the rights and privileges and prerogativesjustly, legally, and rightfully, belonging thereunto: That yourHighness will be pleased, during your life-time, to appoint anddeclare the person who shall, immediately after your death, succeedyou in the Government of these Nations. " The rest of the Address wasto correspond. Thus Article II. Proposed a return to the system oftwo Houses of Parliament, and generally the tenor was towards royalinstitutions. On the other hand, the regality proposed was to bestrictly constitutional. There was to be an end to all arbitrarypower. There were to be free and full Parliaments once in three yearsat farthest; there was to be no violent interference in future withthe process of Parliament, no exclusion of any persons that had beenduly returned by the constituencies; and his Highness and Councilwere not to make ordinances by their own authority, but all laws, andchanges or abrogations of laws, were to be by Act of Parliament. Oliver was to be King, if he chose, and a King with very largepowers; but he was to keep within Statute. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 286 and 289; Commons Journals of March2, 3, and 24, 1656-7, and March 25, 1657 (whence I have recoveredthe original wording of Article I. Of the Address). ] On March 2 and 3 the First Article of the Address was debated, withthe result that it was agreed to _postpone_ any vote on thefirst and most important part of the Article, offering Oliver theKingship, but with the passing of the second part, offering him, whether it should be as King or not, the power of nominating hissuccessor. A motion for postponing the vote on this part also waslost by 120 to 63. Then, on the 5th, Article II. , proposingParliaments of _two Houses_, was discussed, and adopted without adivision; after which there were discussions and adoptions of theremaining proposals, day after day, with occasional divisions aboutthe wording, till March 24. On that day, the House, their survey ofthe document being tolerably complete, went back on the_postponed_ clause of the First Article, involving theall-important question of the offer of the Kingship. Through twosittings that day, and again on March 25 (New Year's Day, 1657), there was a very anxious and earnest debate with closed doors, theopposition trying to stave off the final vote by two motions foradjournment. These having failed, the final vote was taken (March25); when, by a majority of 123 to 62, the Kingship clause wascarried in this amended form: "That your Highness will be pleased toassume the name, style, title, dignity, and office of King ofEngland, Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective Dominions andTerritories thereunto belonging, and to exercise the same accordingto the laws of these Nations. " Then, it seemed, all was over, exceptverbal revision of the entire address. Next day (March 26) it wasreferred to a Committee, with Chief Justice Glynne for Chairman, toperform this--i. E. To "consider of the title, preamble, andconclusion, and read over the whole, and consider the coherence, andmake it perfect. " All which having been done that same day, and theHouse having given some last touches, the document was ready to beengrossed for presentation to Cromwell. By recommendation of theCommittee, the title had been changed from _Address andRemonstrance_ into _Petition and Advice_. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and between March 5 and March25. ] Of course, the great proposal in Parliament had been rumoured throughthe land, notwithstanding the instructed reticence or mysteriousvagueness of the London newspapers; and, in the interval between theintroduction of Sir Christopher Pack's paper and the conversion ofthe same into the _Petition and Advice_, with the distinct offerof Kingship in its forefront, there had been wide discussion of theaffair, with much division of opinion. Against the Kingship, evenhorrified by the proposal of it, were most of those Army-men who hadhitherto been Oliverians, and had helped to found the Protectorate. Lambert, Fleetwood, and Desborough, were at the head of this militaryopposition, which included nearly all the other ex-Major-Generals, and the bulk of the Colonels and inferior officers. One of theirmotives was dread of the consequences to themselves from a subversionof the system under which they had been acting and a return to aConstitutional and Royal system in which Cromwell and they might haveto part company. This, and a theoretical Republicanism stilllingering in their minds, tended, in the present emergency, almost toa reunion between them and the old or Anti-Oliverian Republicans. Ithad been some of the Oliverian Army-men in Parliament, at all events, that had first resisted Pack's motion. Ludlow's story is that theyvery nearly laid violent hands on Pack when he produced his paper;and the divisions in the Commons Journals exhibit Lambert and variousColonels, with Strickland, as among the chief obstructors of the_Petition and Advice_ in its passage through the House. Strickland, it will be remembered, was an eminent member of theProtector's own Council; and, as far as one can gather, severalothers of that body, besides Lambert, Fleetwood, Desborough, andStrickland--perhaps half of the whole number of those now habituallyattending the Council--were opposed to the Kingship. On the otherhand, the more enthusiastic Oliverians of the Council, those mostattached to Cromwell personally, e. G. Sir Charles Wolseley, appear tohave been acquiescent, or even zealous for the Kingship; and therewere at least some military Oliverians, out of the Council, of thesame mind. In the final vote of March 25, carrying the offer ofKingship, the tellers for the majority were Sir John Reynolds(Tipperary and Waterford), and Major-General Charles Howard(Cumberland), while those for the minority were Major-General Butler(Northamptonshire), and Colonel Salmon (Dumfries Burghs). Undoubtedly, however, the chief managers of the _Petition andAdvice_ in the House from the first had been Whitlocke, Glynne, and others of the lawyers, with Lord Broghill. The lawyers had beenlong anxious for a constitutional Kingship: nothing else, theythought, could restore the proper machinery of Law and State, andmake things safe. Accordingly, out of doors, in the whole civilianclass, and largely also among the more conservative citizens, theidea of Oliver's Kingship was far from unwelcome. The Presbyteriansgenerally, it is believed, were very favourable to it, theirdispositions towards Cromwell having changed greatly of late; nor ofthe old Presbyterian Royalists were all averse. There were Royalistsnow who were not Stuartists, who wanted a king on grounds of generalprinciple and expediency, but were not resolute that he should beCharles II. Only. The real combination of elements against Oliver'sKingship consisted, therefore, of the unyielding old Royalists of theStuart adhesion, regarding the elevation of the usurping "brewer" tothe throne as abomination upon abomination, the Army Oliverians orLambert and Fleetwood men, interested in the preservation of theexisting Protectorate, and the passionate Republicans and Levellers, who had not yet condoned even the Protectorate, and whom theprospect of King and House of Lords over again, with all theirbelongings, made positively frantic. How far Cromwell had been aware beforehand of such a project as thatof Sir Christopher Pack's paper may be a question. That he had let itbe known for some time that he was not disinclined to a revision andenlargement of the constitution of the original Protectorate may befairly assumed; but that he had concocted Pack's project and arrangedfor bringing it on (which is Ludlow's representation, and, of course, that of all the Histories) is very unlikely. The project, as inPack's paper, and as agreed upon by Whitlocke, Glynne, and otherlawyers and Parliament men, was by no means, in all its parts, such aproject as Cromwell himself would have originated. To the Kingship hemay have had no objection, and we have his own word afterwards thathe favoured the idea of a Second House of Parliament; but there wereaccompanying provisions not so satisfactory. What he had hithertovalued in his Protectorate was the place and scope given to his ownsupreme personality, his power to judge what was best and to carry itthrough as he could, unhampered by those popular suffrages andParliamentary checks and privileges which he held to be mereeuphemisms for ruin and mutual throat-cutting all through the BritishIslands in their then state of distraction; and it must thereforehave been a serious consideration with him how far, in the publicinterests, or for his own comfort, he could put himself in newshackles for the mere name of King. What, for example, of theproposed restitution of the ninety-and-odd excluded members to thepresent Parliament? How could he get on after that? In short, therewas so much in Pack's paper suggestive of new and difficult questionsas to the futurity of Cromwell, his real influence in affairs, if heexchanged the Protectorship for Kingship, that the paper, or theexact project it embodied, cannot have been of Cromwell's devising. There are subsequent events in proof of the fact. On the 27th of February, the fourth day after the introduction ofPack's paper, and the very day of the Fast appointed by the Houseprior to consideration of it in detail, Cromwell had been waited onby a hundred officers, headed by the alarmed Major-Generals, imploring him not to allow the thing to go farther. His reply wasthat, though he then specifically heard of the whole project for thefirst time, he could by no means share their instantaneous alarm. Kingship was nothing in itself, at best "a mere feather in a man'shat"; but it need be no bugbear, and at least ought to be no newthing to _them_. Had they not offered it to him at theinstitution of the Protectorate, though the title of Protector hadbeen then preferred? Under that title he had been often a mere drudgeof the Army, constrained to things not to his own liking. For therest, were there not reasons for amending, in other respects, theconstitution of the Protectorate? Had it not broken down in severalmatters, and were there not deficiencies in it? If there had been aSecond House of Parliament, for example, would there have been thatindiscreet decision in the case of James Nayler, a decision thatmight extend farther than Nayler, and leave no man safe?--Thus, withthe distinct information that Cromwell would not interfere withPack's project in its course through the House, had the Officers beendismissed. It was probably in consequence of their remonstrance withCromwell, however, that the vote on the Kingship clause of the FirstArticle had been postponed from the 2nd of March to the 25th. Thedelay had been useful. Though Lambert, Fleetwood, Desborough, and themass of the military men, still remained "contrariants, " not a few ofthem had been shaken by Cromwell's arguments, or at least by hisjudgment. If _he_, whom it was their habit to trust, wasprepared to take the Kingship, and saw reasons for it, why shouldthey stand out? So, before the vote did come on, Major-GeneralsBerry, Goffe, and Whalley, with others, had ceased to oppose, and theKingship clause, reserved to the last, as the keystone of theotherwise completed arch, had been carried, as we have seen, bytwo-thirds of the House. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 349-353; Carlyle, III. 217. ] It was on Tuesday, March 31, in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, that Speaker Widdrington, attended by the whole House, and by all thehigh State-officers, formally presented to Cromwell, after a longspeech, the _Petition and Advice_, engrossed on vellum. Theunderstanding, by vote of the House, was that his Highness mustaccept the whole, and that otherwise no part would be binding. Cromwell's answer, in language very calm and somewhat sad(_Speech_ VII. ), was one of thanks, with a request for time toconsider. On the 3rd of April, a Committee of the House, appointed byhis request, waited on him for farther answer. It was still one ofthanks: e. G. "I should be very brutish did I not acknowledge theexceeding high honour and respect you have had for me in this Paper";but it was in effect a refusal, on the ground that, being shut up toaccept all or none, he could not see his way to accept (_Speech_VIII. ). Notwithstanding this answer, which could hardly be construedas final, the House next day resolved, after two divisions, to adhereto their _Petition and Advice_, and to make new application tothe Protector. On the previous question the division wasseventy-seven to sixty-five, Major-Generals Howard and Jephsontelling for the majority, and Major-General Whalley and ColonelTalbot for the minority; on the main question there was a majority ofseventy-eight, with Admiral Montague and Sir John Hobart for tellers, against sixty-five, told by General Desborough and Colonel Hewson. ACommittee having then prepared a brief paper representing to hisHighness the serious obligation he was under in such a matter, therewas a second Conference of the whole House with his Highness (April8). His reply to Widdrington then (_Speech_ IX. ) did notwithdraw his former refusal, but signified willingness to receivefarther information and counsel. To give such information andcounsel, and In fact to reason out the matter thoroughly withCromwell, the House then appointed a large Committee of_ninety-nine_, composed in the main, one must fancy, of memberswho were now eager for the Kingship, or at least had ceased toobject. Whitlocke, Broghill, Glynne, Fiennes, Lenthall, LordCommissioner Lisle, Sir Charles Wolseley, and Thurloe, were to be themost active members of this Committee; but it included also AdmiralMontague, Generals Howard, Jephson, Whalley, Pack, Goffe, and Berry, with Sydenham, Rous, the Scotch Earl of Tweeddale, the Lord Provostof Edinburgh, the poet Waller, and even Strickland. The Committee wasappointed April 9, and the House was to await the issue. [1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 218-228 (with Cromwell's _Speeches_VII. , VIII. , and IX. ); Commons Journals of dates. ] It seemed as if it would never be reached. The Conferences of theCommittee with Cromwell between April 11 to May 8, their reasoningswith him to induce him to accept the Kingship, his reasonings inreply in the four speeches now numbered X. -XIII. Of the Cromwellseries, his doubts, delays, avoidances of several meetings, andconstant adjournments of his final answer, make a story of greatinterest in the study of Cromwell's character, not without remarkableflashes of light on past transactions, and on Cromwell's theory ofhis Protectorship and of Government in general. Speech XIII. , inparticular, which is by far the longest, and which was addressed tothe Committee on April 21, is full of instruction. Having in hisprevious speeches dealt chiefly with the subject of the Kingship, andstated such various objections to the kingly title as the badassociations with it, the blasting as if for ever which it hadreceived from God's Providence in England, and the antipathy to it ofmany good men, he here took up the rest of the _Petition andAdvice_. Approving, on the whole, of the spirit and contents ofthe document, and especially of the apparent rejection in it of thatnotion of perpetually-sitting Single-House Parliaments which heconsidered the most fatal fallacy in politics, and persistence inwhich by the Rump had left him no option but to dissolve that bodyforcibly and assume the Dictatorship, he yet found serious defects insome of the Articles, and want of precision on this point and that. His criticisms of this kind were masterly examples of his breadth ofthought, his foresight, and his practical sagacity, and made animmediate impression. For, at this stage of the proceedings, thebelief being that he would ultimately accept the Kingship, the House, whose sittings had been little more than nominal during the greatWhitehall Conferences, applied itself vigorously, by deliberations inCommittee and exchanges of papers with the Protector, to suchamendments of the _Petition and Advice_ as he had indicated. OnApril 30 sufficient intimation of such amendments was ready, and theformer Committee of Ninety-nine were required to let his Highnessknow the same and ask him to appoint a time for his positive answer. For another week, notwithstanding two appointments for the purpose, all was still in suspense. During that week we are to supposeCromwell either in perplexed solitary meditation, or shut up in thoseconfidential meetings with a few of the most zealous promoters of theKingship which Whitlocke describes. "The Protector, " says Whitlocke, "often advised about this and other great businesses with the LordBroghill, Pierrepoint, myself, Sir Charles Wolseley and Thurloe, andwould be shut up three or four hours together in private discourse, and none were admitted to come in to him. He would sometimes be verycheerful with us, and, laying aside his greatness, he would beexceeding familiar with us, and by way of diversion would make verseswith us, and every one must try his fancy. He commonly called fortobacco, pipes, and a candle, and would now and then take tobaccohimself: then he would fall again to his serious and great business. "At length, on Friday, May 8, the Parliament, assembled once more inthe Banqueting House, did receive their positive answer. It was in abrief speech (Speech _XIV. _) ending "I cannot undertake thisGovernment with the title of King; and that is mine Answer to thisgreat and weighty business. "[1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 280-301 (with Speeches X. --XIV. ); CommonsJournals of dates; Whitlocke, IV. 289-290. ] The story in Ludlow is that to the last moment Cromwell had meant toaccept, and that his sudden and unexpected refusal was occasioned bya bold stroke of the Army-men. Having invited himself to dine atDesborough's, says Ludlow, he had taken Fleetwood with him, and hadbegun "to droll with them about monarchy, " and ask them why sensiblemen like them should make so much of the affair, and refuse to pleasethe children by permitting them to have "their rattle. " Fleetwood andDesborough still remaining grave, he had called them "a couple ofscrupulous fellows, " and left them. Next day (May 6) he had sent amessage to the House to meet him in the Painted Chamber next morning;and, casually encountering Desborough again, he had told Desboroughwhat he intended. That same day Desborough had told Pride, whereuponthat resolute colonel had surprised Desborongh by saying he wouldprevent it still. Going to Dr. Owen on the instant, Pride had madehim draft an Officers' Petition to the House. It was to the effectthat the petitioners, having "hazarded their lives against monarchy, "and being "still ready to do so, " observed with pain the "greatendeavours to bring the nation again under their old servitude, " andbegged the House not to allow a title to be pressed upon theirGeneral which would be destructive to himself and the Commonwealth. To this petition Pride had obtained the signatures of two Colonels, seven Lieutenant-Colonels, eight Majors, and sixteen Captains, notmembers of the House; and Cromwell, learning what was in progress, had sent for Fleetwood, and scolded him for allowing such a thing, the rather as Fleetwood must know "his resolution not to accept thecrown without the consent of the Army. " The appointment with theHouse in the Painted Chamber for the 7th was changed, however, intothat in the Banqueting House on the 8th, the latter place, as themore familiar, being fitter for the negative answer he now meant togive. --Ludlow's story, though he cites Desborough as his chiefinformant, is not perfectly credible in all its details; but theCommons Journals do show that the meeting originally appointed byCromwell on the 6th for the Painted Chamber on the 7th was put off tothe 8th, and then held in the Banqueting House, and also that therewas an Officers' Petition in the interim. It was brought to the doorsof the House, by "divers officers of the Army, " on the 8th, just asthe House was adjourning to the Banqueting House; and the Journalsonly record that the officers were admitted, and that, a ColonelMason having presented the Petition in their name and his own, theywithdrew. The rest is guess; but two main facts cannot be doubted. One is that Cromwell's great, if not sole, reason at last forrefusing the Crown was his knowledge of the persistent opposition ofa great number of the Army men. The other is that he rememberedafterwards who had been the chief _Contrariants_. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 586-591; Commons Journals of dates. There hadbeen public pamphlets against the Kingship: e. G. One by SamuelChidley, addressed to the Parliament, and called "Reasons againstchoosing the Protector to be King. "] While the great question of the Kingship had been in progress therehad been a detection of a conspiracy of the Fifth-Monarchy Men. Ever since the abortive ending of the Barebones Parliament theseenthusiasts had been recognisable as a class of enemies of theProtectorate distinct from the ordinary and cooler Republicans. WhileVane and Bradshaw might represent the Republicans or Commonwealth'smen generally, the head of the Fifth-Monarchy Republicans wasHarrison. The Harrisonian Republic, the impassioned dream of thisreally great-hearted soldier, was the coming Reign of Christ onEarth, and the trampling down, in anticipation of that reign, of alldignities, institutions, ministries, and magistracies, that might beinconsistent with it. In the Barebones Parliament, where theFifth-Monarchy Men had been numerous, and where Harrison had ledthem, they had gone far, as we know, in conjunction with theAnabaptists, in a practical attempt to convert Cromwell's interimDictatorship, with Cromwell's assent or acquiescence, into abeginning of the great new era. They had voted down Tithes, Church-Establishments, and all their connexions, and only thesteadiness of Rons, Sydenham, and the other sober spirits, in makingthat vote the occasion of a resurrender of all power into Cromwell'shands, had prevented the consequences. And so, Cromwell'sProtectorate having come in where Harrison wanted to keep a vacuumfor the Fifth Monarchy, and that Protectorate having not onlyconserved Tithes and an Established Church, but professed them to beparts of its very basis, Harrison had abjured Cromwell for ever. "Those who had been to me as the apple of my eye, " said Harrisonafterwards, "when they had turned aside, said to me, Sit thou on myright hand; but I loathed it. " Through the Protectorate, accordingly, Harrison, dismissed from the Army, had been living as a suspectedperson, with great powers of harm; and, three or four times, whenthere were Republican risings, or threatenings of such, it had beenthought necessary to question him, or put him under temporary arrest. The last occasion had been just before the opening of the presentParliament, when he was arrested with Vane, Rich, and others, and hadthe distinction of being sent as far off as Pendennis Castle inCornwall, while Vane was sent only to the Isle of Wight, and Richonly to Windsor. The imprisonments, however, being merelyprecautionary, had been but short; and, at the time of the proposalof the Kingship to Cromwell, Harrison, as well as the others, wasagain at liberty. That Harrison had ever practically implicated himself in any attemptto upset the Protectorate by force hardly appears from the evidence. He was an experienced soldier, and, with all his fervid notions of aFifth Monarchy, too massive a man to stir without calculation. Allthat can be said is that he was an avowed enemy of Cromwell's rule, that he was looked up to by all the Fifth-Monarchy Republicans, andthat he held himself free to act should there be fit opportunity. Butthere were Harrisonians of a lower grade than Harrison. Especially inLondon, since the winter of 1655, there had been a kind of society ofFifth-Monarchy Men, holding small meetings in five places, only oneman in each meeting knowing who belonged to the others, but the fiveconnecting links forming a central Committee for management andpropagandism. It must have been from this Committee, I suppose, thatthere emanated, in Sept. 1656, a pamphlet called "_The Banner ofTruth displayed, or a Testimony for Christ and against Antichrist:being the substance of several consultations holden and kept by acertain number of Christians who are waiting for the visibleappearance of Christ's Kingdom in and over the World, and residing inand about the City of London_. " Probably as yet these humbleFifth-Monarchy Men had not gone beyond private aspirations. At allevents, Thurloe, though aware of their existence, had not thoughtthem worth notice. But Sindercombe's Plot of Feb. 1656-7, and thesubsequent proposal of the Kingship for Cromwell, had excited themprodigiously, and they had been longing for action, and looking aboutfor leaders. Harrison was their chief hope, and they had applied tohim, but also to other Republicans who were not speciallyFifth-Monarchy Men, such as Rich, Lawson, and Okey. Whatencouragement they had or thought they had from such men one does notknow; but they had fixed Thursday, April 9, the very day of theappointment of the great Committee of Ninety-nine to deal withCromwell about the Kingship, for an experimental rendezvous andstandard-raising on Mile-End-Green. This being known to Thurloe, ahorse-troop or two finished the affair by the capture of about twentyof them at Shoreditch, ready to ride to Mile-End-Green, and also bythe capture at Mile-End-Green itself of their intended standard, somearms, and a quantity of Fifth-Monarchy books and manifestos. Five orsix of the captured, among whom was Thomas Venner, a wine-cooper, thereal soul of the conspiracy, were imprisoned in the Tower, and therest elsewhere; but, in accordance with Cromwell's lenient custom insuch cases, there was no trial, or other public notice of the affair, beyond a report about it by Thurloe to the House (April 11). Harrison, however, was again arrested, with Rich, Lawson, and MajorDanvers; and amongst those taken was a Mr. Arthur Squib, who had beenin the Barebones Parliament, and one of Harrison's chief followersthere. Squib's connexion with Venner in the present wretchedconspiracy seems to have been much closer than Harrison's. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 372-375; Carlyle, III. 228-229; ThomasonCatalogue of Pamphlets; Commons Journals, April 11, 1657; Thurloe, I. 289. ] Cromwell had used the Venner outbreak to point a moral in one or twoof his speeches on the Kingship Question. The standard taken atMile-End-Green bore a Red Lion couchant, with the motto _Who shallrouse him up?;_ and among the tracts or manifestos taken was onecalled _A Standard set up, whereunto the true Seed and Saints ofthe Most High may be gathered together for the lamb, against theBeast and the False Prophet_. It was a fierce diatribe againstCromwell, with a scheme for the government of the Commonwealth onFifth-Monarchy principles after his overthrow. The supreme authoritywas to be the Lord Jesus Christ; but there was to be an annuallyelected Sanhedrim or Supreme Council to represent Him, and toadminister Biblical Law, and no other, with inferior elected judgesfor towns and counties. The Bible being the sole Law, a formalLegislature would be unnecessary; and all other magistracy besidesthe Sanhedrim and the Judgeships was to be abolished, and also, ofcourse, all State ministry of Religion. Now, to Cromwell, who hadread the Tract, all this furnished excellent illustration of the kindhe wanted. Always frankly admitting that it might be said he had"griped at the government of the nations without a legal assent, " hehad never ceased to declare that this had been a sheer necessity forthe nations themselves. But the _Standard set up_ of theFifth-Monarchy insurgents of Mile-End-Green had enabled him to returnto the topic with reference specifically to the Barebones Parliamentand the transition thence to the Protectorate. That wild pamphlet, hehad told his auditors, in Speech XII. (April 20), was by one who hadbeen "a leading person" in the Barebones Parliament (Harrison orSquib?); and in Speech XIII. (April 21) he had dwelt on the factagain more at large, revealing a story, as he said, of his "ownweakness and folly. " The Barebones Parliament had been one of his ownchoosing; he had filled it with "men of our own judgment, who hadfought in the wars, and were all of a piece upon that account. " Thishe had done in his "simplicity, " expecting the best results. But, asit had happened, there was a band of men in that Parliament drivingeven then for nothing but the principles of this wretchedFifth-Monarchy manifesto, the abolition of Church and Magistracy, anda trial of a fantastic government by the Law of Moses. Major-GeneralHarrison and Mr. Squib had been the leaders of this band, with theAnabaptist minister Mr. Feak as their confidant out of doors; andwhat they did from day to day in the Parliament had been concocted inprivate meetings in Mr. Squib's house. "This was so _de facto:_I know it to be true. " Had he not done well in accepting theProtectorate at such a moment, and so saving the Commonwealth fromthe delirium of which they had just seen a new spurt atMile-End-Green?[1] [Footnote 1: I have taken the account of the _Standard Set Up_from Godwin, IV. 375-378, not having seen it myself. The passagesin Cromwell's speeches referring to it will be found in Carlyle, III, 260, and 276-277. ] After the Protector's refusal of the Kingship the House proceeded toadjust the new constitution they had prepared in the _Petition andAdvice_ to that unavoidable fact. Not much was necessary. It wasonly necessary to re-shape the key-stone, by removing the word "King"from the first clause of the First Article and retaining the word"Protector": all the rest would hold good. Accordingly, after somedays of debate, it was finally agreed, May 22, that the former firstclause of the First Article should be cancelled, and thissubstituted: "That your Highness will be pleased, by and under thename and style of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereuntobelonging, to hold and exercise the office of Chief Magistrate ofthese Nations, and to govern according to this _Petition andAdvice_ in all things therein contained, and in all other thingsaccording to the Laws of these Nations, and not otherwise. " Theremaining clause of the First Article, empowering Cromwell to appointhis immediate successor, was left untouched, as well as all thesubsequent Articles. To the whole of the _Petition and Advice_, so arranged, Cromwell solemnly gave his assent in the PaintedChamber, May 25, addressing the House in a short speech, in which heexpressed his thorough confidence in them in respect to thoseexplanations or modifications of the document which they had promisedin order to meet the objections he had taken the liberty of making. He did not doubt there would be "a perfecting of those things. "[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. The speech of Cromwell inassenting to the _Petition and Advice_, May 25, 1657, had beenaccidentally omitted in the earlier editions of Carlyle's_Cromwell;_ but it was given in the Appendix to the edition of1657. It may stand as Speech XIV*. In the numbering. ] The "perfecting of those things" occupied a good deal of time. Whatwas necessary was to cast the resolutions already come to insupplement to the _Petition and Advice_, or those that might yetsuggest themselves, into a valid legal form; and it was agreed, June4, that, except in as far as it might be well to pass express Billson specific matters, the best way would be to frame and submit to hisHighness a _Humble Additional and Explanatory Petition andAdvice_. The due framing of this, and the preparation of thenecessary Bills, were to be work for three weeks more. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date, and afterwards. ] Meanwhile, in evidence that the Session of the Parliament up to thispoint, notwithstanding the great business of the _Petition andAdvice_ and the Kingship question, had by no means been barren inlegislation, the House had gathered up all the Bills already passed, but not yet assented to, for presentation to his Highness in a body. On the 9th of June thirty-eight such Bills, "some of the public, andthe others of a more private, concernment, " were presented to hisHighness by the whole House, assembled in the Painted Chamber, theSpeaker, "after a short and pithy speech, " offering them as somegrapes preceding the full vintage, and his Highness ratifying all byhis assent. --Among these was one very comprehensive Act with thispreamble: "Whereas, since the 20th of April, 1653, in the greatexigences and necessities of these nations, divers Acts andOrdinances have been made without the consent of the People assembledin Parliament--which is not according to the fundamental laws of thenations and the rights of the People, and is not for the future to bedrawn into example--yet, the actings thereupon tending to thesettlement of the estates of several persons and families and thepeace and quiet of the nations: Be it enacted by his Highness theLord Protector and this present Parliament, " &c. What is enacted isthat about a hundred Acts and Ordinances, all duly enumerated, outof those made by the Barebones Parliament in 1653 or by Oliver andhis Council after the establishment of the Protectorate in Dec. 1656, together with all acts and ordinances of the same touching customsand excise, shall by this Act be confirmed and made good, eitherwholly and absolutely (which is the case with nearly all) or withspecified modifications--"all other Acts and Ordinances, and everybranch and clause therein contained, not confirmed by these presents, which have been made or passed between the 20th day of April 1653 andthe 17th day of September 1656" to be absolutely null and void. Inother words, the House had been revising long and carefully the Actsof the Barebones Parliament and the arbitrary Ordinances of Oliverand his Council from Dec. 1653 onwards, with a view to adopt all thatmight stand and to give them new constitutional sanction. Among theActs of the Barebones Parliament so confirmed and continued was theirfamous Act for the forms and ceremonial of Marriage and for theRegistration of Births and Burials (Vol. IV. P. 511), except only theclause therein declaring any other marriages than as these prescribedto be illegal. Of Cromwell's own Ordinances from Dec. 1653 onwardsall were preserved that, I suppose, he really cared for. Thus, of his_eighty-two_ first public Ordinances, passed between Dec. 1653and the meeting of his First Parliament Sept. 3, 1654, _thirty-six_ were expressly confirmed; which, as most of therest were Excise or Customs Ordinances or Orders for temporaryoccasion, means that substantially all his legislation on hisentering on the Protectorate was to remain in force. Moreparticularly, I may note that Nos. 7, 16, 24, 30, 31, 32, 33, 50, 54, 58, 60, 66, 67, 69, 71, 81, and 82, in our List of his firsteighty-two Public Ordinances (Vol. IV. Pp. 558-565) were among thoseconfirmed. These included his Ordinances against Cockfights andDuels, his Ordinance for Reform of the Court of Chancery, his variousOrdinances for the incorporation and management of Scotland, and hisvarious Church-Establishment Ordinances for England and Wales, withhis two commissions of Triers and Ejectors. Among contemporaryordinances of his also confirmed, over and above those in the mainlist of Eighty-two, were that for setting up Lectures in Scotland, that in favour of Glasgow University, and that for the better supportof the Universities of Scotland--this last, however, limited to theUniversities alone by the omission of what related to "theencouragement of public preachers" (Vol. IV. P. 565: footnote). Themost noticeable Ordinances of Cromwell's _not_ confirmed arethose relating to Treasons--No. 8 in the List of Eighty-two, and itsappendages Nos. 12 and 49. Altogether, the Parliament had handsomelycleared Cromwell in respect of his Interim Dictatorship and what waspast of his Protectorate, and he had every reason to be satisfied. But, besides this all-comprehensive Act of retrospection, several ofthe other Acts presented for his assent at the same time must havebeen very much to his mind. --There was an Act for settling lands inScotland upon General Monk, with similar Acts for settling lands inIreland on Fleetwood, Dr. Owen, Sir Hardress Waller, and otherpersons of desert; there were several Naturalization Bills in favourof a great number of foreigners and English aliens; there was "An Actfor limiting and settling the prices of Wines"; and there was "An Actagainst Vagrants, and wandering, idle, dissolute Persons. " Mostwelcome to Cromwell, and drawing from him a few words of specialacknowledgment after his assent to all the Bills (_Speech XV. _), were "Two Bills for an Assessment towards the defraying of the chargeof the Spanish war and other occasions of the Commonwealth. " One wasfor £60, 000 a month from England for the three months ending June 24;the other for an assessment of £20, 000 from Ireland for the samethree months. These were instalments of a lump sum of £400, 000, whichthe House had voted as long ago as Jan. 30, 1656-7, for the carryingon of the Spanish war, and the remainder of which was to be raised inother ways. The House had already before it a general Bill for thecontinued assessment of England, Scotland, and Ireland, for Army andNavy purposes, beyond the period specified; but that Bill had notyet passed. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Scobell's Acts and Ordinancesof 1656, given in mass in his book, Part II. P. 371 et seq. Seeespecially there, pp. 389-395. ] Army and Navy purposes, and the carrying on of the Spanish War:these, through all the bustle of the Kingship question, had stillbeen the deepest things in Cromwell's mind. His alliance with France, settled so far by the Treaty of Peace and Commerce dated Oct. 24, 1655, but much imperilled since by Mazarin's dexterity in evasion andhis occasional oscillations towards Spain, had at length, byLockhart's exertions, been converted into a great Treaty "offensiveand defensive, " signed at Paris, March 23rd, 1656-7, and ratified byLouis XIV. April 30, and by Cromwell himself May 4, 1657. By thistreaty it was provided that there should be joint action againstSpain, by sea and land, for the reduction and capture of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, the three coast-towns of Spanish Flandersadjoining the French territories on the north-east. Gravelines, iftaken, was to belong to France ultimately, but, if taken first, wasto be held by the English till Mardyke and Dunkirk were taken--whichtwo towns were to belong permanently to England, only withstipulation of inviolability of Roman Catholic worship for theinhabitants, and of no further English encroachments on Flanders. Forthe joint-enterprise France was to supply 20, 000 men, and Cromwell anauxiliary army of 6000 foot (half at the expense of France), besidesa fleet for coast-service. A secret article of the Treaty was thatneither power should make separate peace with the Spanish Crown forthe space of one year from the date of the Treaty. [1]--Cromwell hadlost no time in fulfilling his part of the engagement. To command theauxiliary English army in Flanders he had selected Sir John Reynolds, who had served ably heretofore in Ireland, and was now, as we haveseen, member for Tipperary and Waterford in the present Parliament, and a strong Oliverian. His commission was dated April 25; and byMay 14 he and his 6000 English foot had all been landed at Boulogne. They were thought the most splendid body of soldiers in Europe, andwere admired and complimented by Louis XIV. , who went purposely, withLockhart, to review them. The promised fleet of cooperation was to beunder the command of young Admiral Montague, who was still, however, detained in England. [2]--Meanwhile Blake, in his wider command offthe coasts of Spain itself, or wherever in the Atlantic there couldbe a dash at the Spaniard, had added one more to the series of hisnaval exploits. To intercept a rich Spanish fleet from Mexico, he hadgone to the Canary Isles; he had found the fleet there, sixteen shipsin all, impregnably ensconced, as it was thought, in the fortifiedbay of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe; and, after a council of war, in whichit was agreed that, though the ships could not be taken, they mightbe destroyed, he had ventured that tremendous feat April 20, with themost extraordinary success. He had emerged from Santa Cruz Bay, aftereleven hours of connonading and fighting, all but undamaged himself, but leaving not a ship of the Spanish fleet extant, and every fort inruins. Not till May 28 did the news reach London; but on that dayThurloe presented a narrative of the glorious action to the House, who forthwith ordered a special thanksgiving, and a jewel worth £500to Blake. On the 10th of June the jewel was sent, with a letter ofhonour from the Protector, and instructions to leave fourteen of hisships off Cadiz, and return home himself with the rest of hisfleet. [3] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 540-542. But see Guizot's _Cromwell andthe English Commonwealth_, II. 377 (Engl. Transl. 1854), withLatin Text of the Treaty itself in Appendix to same volume. ] [Footnote 2: Godwin, IV. 542-543; Commons Journals of May 5, 1657(leave to Reynolds to go on the service). ] [Footnote 3: Commons Journals, May 28 and 29, 1657; Godwin, IV. 418-420; Carlyle, III. 264 and 304-305. ] "_Killing no Murder: briefly discoursed, in Three Questions, byWilliam Allen:_" such was the title of a pamphlet in secretcirculation in London in June, 1657, and still of some celebrity. Itbegan with a letter "To His Highness, Oliver Cromwell, " in thisstrain: "To your Highness justly belongs the honour of dying for thepeople; and it cannot choose but be an unspeakable consolation to youin the last moments of your life to consider with how much benefit tothe world you are likely to leave it ... To hasten this great good isthe chief end of my writing this paper. " There follows, accordingly, a letter to those officers and soldiers of the army who remembertheir engagements, urging them to assassinate Cromwell. "We wish wehad rather endured thee, O Charles, " it says, "than have beencondemned to this mean tyrant, not that we desire any kind ofslavery, but that the quality of the master sometimes graces thecondition of the slave. " Sindercombe is spoken of as "a brave man, "of as "great a mind" as any of the old Romans. At the end there isthis postscript: "Courteous reader, expect another sheet or two ofpaper on this subject, if I escape the Tyrant's hands, although hegets in the interim the crown upon his head, which he hath underhandput his confederates on to petition his acceptance thereof. " Thiswould imply that, though not in circulation till June, the pamphlethad been written while the Kingship question was in suspense, i. E, before May 8. The name "William Allen" on the title-page was, ofcourse, assumed. The pamphlet, hardly any one now doubts, was byEdward Sexby, the Stuartist arch-conspirator, then moving betweenEngland and the continent, and known to have been the real principalof Sindercombe's plot. Actually, when the pamphlet appeared, thedesperate man was again in England, despite Thurloe's police. Thepamphlet was greedily sought after, and much talked of. The sale was, of course, dangerous. A copy could not be had under fiveshillings. [1] [Footnote 1: Copy of _Killing no Murder_ (first edition, muchrarer than a second and enlarged edition of 1659) among the ThomasonPamphlets, with the date "June 1657" marked on it: Wood's Ath. IV. 624-5; Godwin, IV. 388-390 (where the pamphlet is assumed to havebeen out "early in May"); Carlyle, III, 67. After the Restoration, Sexby being then dead, the pamphlet was claimed by another. --Ananswer to _Killing no Murder_, under the title _Killing isMurder_, appeared Sept. 21, 1657. It was by a Michael Hawke, ofthe Middle Temple. ] People were still talking of _Killing no Murder_ when the FirstProtectorate came to a close. We have now only to take account of thecircumstances of that event, and of the differences there were to be, constitutionally, between the First Protectorate and the Second. On the 25th of June, 1657, all the details of the _HumbleAdditional and Explanatory Petition and Advice_ having been atlength settled by the House, that supplement to the original_Petition and Advice_ was also ready for his Highness's assent. The two documents together, to be known comprehensively as _ThePetition and Advice_, were to supersede the more militaryInstrument, called _The Government of the Commonwealth_, towhich Cromwell had sworn in Dec. 1653, at his first installation, andwere to be the charter of his new and constitutionalizedProtectorate. The Articles of this new Constitution were seventeen inall, and deserve some attention:--Article I. , as we know, confirmedCromwell's Protectorship and empowered him to choose hissuccessor. --Article II. Provided for the calling of Parliaments ofTwo Houses once in three years at furthest. --Article III. Stipulatedfor all Parliamentary privileges and the non-exclusion of any of theduly elected members except by judgment of the House of which theymight be members. --Article IV. , which was much the longest, determined the classes of persons who should be disqualified frombeing elected or voting in elections. _Universally_, all RomanCatholics were to be excluded, and all who had abetted the IrishRebellion. Farther, in _England_, were to be excluded all whohad been engaged in any war against Parliament since Jan. I, 1641-2, unless they had afterwards given "signal testimony" of their goodaffections, and all who, since the establishment of the Protectorate, had been engaged in any plot or insurrection against _it_. In_Scotland_ were to be excluded all who had been in arms againstthe Parliament of England or against that of Scotland before April 1, 1648 (old _Malignants_ and _Montrosists_), except such ashad afterwards given "signal testimony, " &c. , and also all who, sinceApril 1, 1648, had been in arms against the English Parliament or theCommonwealth (the _Hamiltonians_ of 1648, and the _ScottishRoyalists of all varieties_ who had fought for Charles II. In1650-51), except such as had since March 1, 1651-2, "livedpeaceably"--but with the supplementary proviso, required by hisHighness, that, while "having lived peaceably" since Worcester wouldsuffice for the miscellaneous Royalists of 1650-51, who were indeednearly the whole population of Scotland, the less pardonable_Hamiltonians_ of 1648 would have to pass much stricter tests. In _Ireland_, though Protestants generally were to be qualified, there was to be like caution in admitting such as, though faithfulbefore March 1, 1649-50, had afterwards opposed the Commonwealth orthe Protector. These disqualifications affected both voting andeligibility; but eligibility was restricted still farther. Ineligiblewere to be all atheistic persons, scoffers at Religion, unbelieversin the divine authority of the Bible, or other execrable heretics, all profaners of the Lord's Day, all habitual drunkards or swearers, and all who had married Roman Catholics or allowed their children tomarry such. For the rest, all persons of the voting sex, over the ageof twenty-one, and "of known integrity, fearing God, and of goodconversation, " were to be eligible. One farther exception had beenmade in the original _Petition and Advice_; to wit, all in holyorders, all ministers or public preachers. "There may be some of us, it may be, who have been a little guilty of that, who would be loathto be excluded from sitting in Parliament, " Cromwell had saidlaughingly while commenting on this clause; and it had accordinglybeen defined as excluding only regular pastors of congregations. Hehad procured an important modification of another clause of the sameArticle. It had been proposed that the business of examining who hadbeen duly elected, and the power of suspending members till the Houseitself should decide, should be vested in a body of forty-onecommissioners to be appointed by Parliament; but, Cromwell havingpointed out that this would be a clumsy process, and that thecommissioners themselves might be "uncertain persons, " and might"keep out good men, " it was agreed that the judgment of the Houseitself, with a fine of £1000 on every unqualified person that mighttake his seat, would fully answer the purpose. --Article V. Related tothe Second House of Parliament, called simply "the other House. " Itwas to consist of not more than seventy nor fewer than forty persons, qualified as by the last Article, to be nominated by the Protectorand approved by the Commons House, twenty-one to be a quorum, and noproxies allowed. Vacancies were to be filled up by nominations by theProtector, approved by the House itself. The powers of the House werealso defined. They were to try no criminal cases whatsoever, unlesson an impeachment sent up from the Commons, and only certainspecified kinds of civil cases. All their final determinations wereto be by the House itself, and not by delegates orCommittees. --Article VI. Ruled that all other particulars concerning"the calling and holding of Parliaments" should be by law andstatute, and that there should be no legislation, or suspension, orabrogation of law, but by Act of Parliament. --Article VII. Guaranteeda yearly revenue of £1, 300, 000, whereof £1, 000, 000 to be for the Armyand Navy, and the remaining £300, 000 for the support of theGovernment, the sums not to be altered without the consent ofParliament, and no part of them to be raised by a land-tax. Theremight also be "temporary supplies" over and above, to be voted by theCommons; but on no account was his Highness to impose any tax, orrequire any contribution, by his own authority. By Cromwell's requestit was added that his expenditure of the Army and Navy money shouldbe with the advice of his Council, and that accounts should berendered to Parliament. --Article VIII. Settled that his Highness'sPrivy Council should consist of not more than twenty-one persons, seven a quorum, to be approved by both Houses, and to be irremovablebut by the consent of Parliament, though in the intervals ofParliament any of them might be suspended by the Protector. It wasasked that the Government should always be with the advice of theCouncil, and stipulated that, after Cromwell's death, allappointments to the Commandership-in-chief, or to Generalships atland or sea, should be by the future Protectors with consent of theCouncil. --Article IX. Required that the Lord Chancellor, or LordKeeper, or Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, the Lord Treasureror Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, the Judges, and all the greatState-officers in England, Scotland, or Ireland, should, in cases offuture appointment by the Protector and his Council, be approved byParliament. --Article X. Congratulated the Protector on hisEstablished Church, and begged him to punish, according to law, allopen revilers of the same. --Article XI. Related to Religion andToleration. The Protestant Faith, as contained in the Old and NewTestaments, and as yet to be formulated in a Confession of Faith tobe agreed upon between his Highness and the Parliament, was to be theprofessed public Religion, and to be universally respected as such;but all believers in the Trinity and in the divine authority of theScriptures, though they might dissent otherwise in doctrine, worship, or discipline from the Established Church, were to be protected inthe exercise of their own religion and worship, --this liberty not toextend to Popery, Prelacy, or the countenancing of blasphemouspublications. Ministers and Preachers agreeing in "matters of faith"with "the public profession, " though differing in "matters of worshipand discipline, " were not to be excluded from the Established Churchby that difference, but might have "the public maintenance appointedfor the ministry" and promotion and employment in the Churchaccording to their abilities. None but those whose differenceextended to matters of faith need remain outside the EstablishedChurch. Dissenters from the Established Church, if sufficiently rightin the faith, were to have equal admission with others to all civiltrusts and appointments, subject only to any disqualification forcivil office attached to the ministerial profession. His Highness wasrequested to agree to the repeal of all laws inconsistent with theseprovisions. --Article XII. Required that all past Acts fordisestablishing or disendowing the old Prelatic Church, andappropriating the revenues of the same, should hold good. --ArticleXIII. Required that Old Malignants, and other such classes of personsas those disqualified for Parliament in Article IV. , should beexcluded also from other public trusts. --Article XIV. Stipulated thatnothing in the _Petition and Advice_ should be construed asimplying the dissolution of the present Parliament before such timeas his Highness should independently think fit. --Article XV. Providedthat the _Petition and Advice_ should not be construed asrepealing or annulling any Laws or Ordinances already in force, notdistinctly incompatible with itself. --Article XVI. Protected in asimilar way all writs, commissions, grants, law-processes, &c. , issued and in operation already, even though the wording should seema little past date. --Article XVII. And Last requested his Highness tobe pleased to take an oath of office. A form of such oath appeared inthe _Additional Petition and Advice_, with another form of oathfor his Highness's Councillors in England, Scotland, and Ireland, anda third for the members of either House of Parliament. This last, besides a promise to uphold and promote the true Protestant Religion, contained a special promise of fidelity to the Lord Protector and hisGovernment. Farther, by the same _Additional Petition andAdvice_, the Lord Protector was requested and empowered to issuewrits calling qualified persons to the other House in convenient timebefore the next session of Parliament, and such persons wereempowered to meet and constitute the other House at the time andplace appointed without requiring farther approbation from thepresent Single House. [1] [Footnote 1: The original Petition and Advice is given in full inScobell (378-383), Whitlocke (IV. 292-301), and in Parl. Hist. (III. 1502-1511); the Additional Petition and Advice in Scobell450-452, and Whitlocke, IV. 306-310. But see also Cromwell's SpeechXIII. With Mr. Carlyle's elucidations (Carlyle, III. 279 et seq. )] Friday, June 26, 1657, was the last day of the present Single House, and a day of high ceremonial in London. The House, having met asusual in the morning, and transacted some overstanding business, roseabout two o'clock to meet his Highness in the Painted Chamber. There, with the words "The Lord Protector doth consent, " the _AdditionalPetition and Advice_, and therefore the whole new Constitution ofthe Protectorate, as just described, became law, and assent was givenalso to a number of Bills that had passed the House since the 9th. Among these was an "Act for convicting, discovering, and repressingof Popish Recusants, " an "Act for the Better Observation of theLord's Day, " and an "Act for punishing such persons as live at highrates and have no visible estate, profession, or calling, answerablethereto. " There were also two Money Bills for temporary supplies:viz. One for raising £15, 000 from Scotland, to go along with the£180, 000 from England, and the £20, 000 from Ireland, voted for thethree months just ended, and another general and prospective one, assessing England at £35, 000 a month, Scotland at £6000 a month, andIreland at £9000 a month, for the next three years. All these assentshaving been received, there was an adjournment to Westminster Hallfor the solemn installation of his Highness in his SecondProtectorate. --The Hall had been magnificently prepared, andcontained a vast assemblage. The members of the House, the Judges intheir robes, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their robes, and otherdignitaries, were ranged in the midst round, a canopied chair ofstate. It was the royal chair of Scotland, with the mysticcoronation-stone underneath it, brought for the purpose from theAbbey. In front of the chair was a table, covered with pink-colouredGeneva velvet fringed with gold; and on the table lay a large Bible, a sword, the sceptre, and a robe of purple velvet, lined with ermine. His Highness, having entered, attended by his Council, the greatstate officers, his son Richard, the French Ambassador, the DutchAmbassador, and "divers of the nobility and other persons of greatquality, " stood, beside the chair under the canopy. The Speaker, assisted by the Earl of Warwick, Whitlocke, and others, then attiredhis Highness in the purple velvet robe; after which he delivered tohim the richly-gilt Bible, girt him with the sword, and put the goldsceptre into his hand. His Highness then swore the oath of office, administered to him by the Speaker, After that, the Speaker addressedhim in a well-turned speech. "You have no new name, " he said, "but anew date now added to the old name: the 16th of December is nowchanged into the 26th of June. " He explained that the robe, theBible, the sword, and the sceptre were presents to his Highness fromthe Parliament, and dwelt poetically on the significance of each. "What a comely and glorious sight, " he concluded, "it is to behold aLord Protector in a purple robe, with a sceptre in his hand, a swordof justice girt about him, and his eyes fixed upon the Bible! Longmay you prosperously enjoy them all, to your own comfort, and thecomfort of the people of these three Nations!" His Highness stillstanding, Mr. Manton offered up a prayer. Then, the assemblage givingseveral great shouts, and the trumpets sounding, his Highness satdown in the chair, still holding the sceptre. Then a herald stood upaloft, and signalled for three trumpet-blasts, at the end of which, by authority of Parliament, he proclaimed the Protector. There werenew trumpet-blasts, loud hurrahs through the Hall, and cries of "Godsave the Lord Protector. " Once more there was proclamation, and oncemore a burst of applauses. Then, all being ended, his Highness, withhis robe borne up by several young persons of rank, passed with hisretinue from the Hall by the great gate, where his coach was inwaiting. And so, with the Earl of Warwick seated opposite to him inthe coach, his son Richard and Whitlocke on one side, and ViscountLisle and Admiral Montague on the other, he was driven through thecrowd to Whitehall, surrounded by his life-guards, and followed bythe Lord Mayor and other dignitaries in their coaches. --There was abrief sitting of the House after the Installation. It was agreed torecommend to his Highness to "encourage Christian endeavours foruniting the Protestant Churches abroad, " and also to recommend to himto take some effectual course "for reforming the government of theInns of Court, and likewise for placing of godly and able ministersthere"; and it was ordered that the Acts passed by the House shouldbe printed collectively, and that every member should have a copy. Then, according to one of the Acts to which his Highness had that dayassented, the House adjourned itself for seven months, i. E. To Jan. 20, 1657-8. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of June 26, 1657; Parl. Hist. III. 1514-1518 (Reprint of the authorized contemporary account of theInstallation-Ceremony, which had a frontispiece by Hollar);Whitlocke, IV. 303-305; Guizot's Cromwell, II. 337-339 (where some ofthe particulars of the Installation seem to be from Frencheye-witnesses). ] CHAPTER II. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE FIRST PROTECTORATECONTINUED: SEPTEMBER 1654--JUNE 1657. For more than reasons of mere mechanical symmetry, it will be well todivide this Chapter of Milton's Biography into Sections correspondingwith those of Oliver's Continued Protectorate in the precedingChapter. SECTION I: FROM SEPTEMBER 1654 TO JANUARY 1654-5, OR THROUGH OLIVER'SFIRST PARLIAMENT. ULAC'S HAGUE EDITION OF MILTON'S _DEFENSIO SECUNDA_, WITH THE_FIDES PUBLICA_ OF MORUS ANNEXED: PREFACE BY DR. CRANTZIUS TOTHE REPRINT: ULAC'S OWN PREFACE OF SELF-DEFENCE: ACCOUNT OF MORUS'S_FIDES PUBLICA_, WITH EXTRACTS: HIS CITATION OF TESTIMONIES TOHIS CHARACTER: TESTIMONY OF DIODATI OF GENEVA: ABRUPT ENDING OF THEBOOK AT THIS POINT, WITH ULAC'S EXPLANATION OF THECAUSE. --PARTICULARS OF THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF MILTON'SFRIEND OVERTON. --THREE MORE LATIN STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR OLIVER(NOS. XLIX. --LI. ): NO STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR THE NEXT THREEMONTHS: MILTON THEN BUSY ON A REPLY TO THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ OFMORUS. In October 1654 there was out at the Hague, from Ulac's press, avolume in two parts, with this title: "_Joannis Miltoni DefensioSecunda pro Populo Anglicano contra infamem Libellum, cujus titulus'Regii Sanguinis Clamor adversus Parricidas Anglicanos. ' AccessitAlexandri Mori, Ecclesiastę, Sacrarumque Litterarum Professoris, Fides Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni, Scurrę. Hagę-Comitum, ex Typographia Adriani Ulac_, MDCLIV. " ("John Milton's SecondDefence for the English People in reply to an infamous Book entitled'Cry of the King's Blood against the English Parricides. ' To which isadded A Public Testimony of Alexander Morus, Churchman, and Professorof Sacred Literature, in reply to the Calumnies of John Milton, Buffoon. Printed at the Hague by Adrian Ulac, 1654. ") The reprint ofMilton's _Defensio Secunda_ fills 128 pages of the volume;More's appended _Fides Publica_, or Public Testimony, in reply, is in larger type and fills 129 pages separately numbered. Morus, after all, it will be seen, had been obliged to acquiesce in Ulac'sarrangement (Vol. IV. P. 634). Instead of trying vainly any longer tosuppress Milton's book on the Continent, he had exerted himself tothe utmost in preparing a Reply to it, to go forth with that reprintof it for the foreign market which Ulac had been pushing through thepress and would not keep back. Although Milton complains that Ulac's edition of his book for theforeign market was not only a piracy, but also slovenly in itself, with printer's errors vitiating the sense and arrangement in somecases, [1] it was substantially a reprint of the original. Itsinterest for us, therefore, lies wholly in the preliminary matter. This consists of a short Preface headed "_Lectori_" ("To theReader") and signed "GEORGIUS CRANTZIUS, _S. S. Theol. D. _, " anda longer statement headed "_Typographus pro Se-ipso_" ("ThePrinter in his own behalf") and signed "A. ULACQ. " [Footnote 1: Pro Se Def. (1655). ] The Rev. Dr. Crantzius, who does not give his exact address, writesin an authoritative clerical manner. Though in bad health, he says, he cannot refrain from penning a few lines, to say how much he isshocked at the length to which personalities in controversy aregoing. He really thinks Governments ought to interfere to put suchthings down. Readers will find in the following book of Milton's alamentable specimen. He knows nothing of Milton himself; but Milton'swritings show him to be a man of a most damnable disposition, andSalmasius had once shown him (Dr. Crantzius) an English book ofMilton's propounding the blasphemy "that the doctrine of the Gospel, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning Divorce is devilish. " Dr. Crantzius had known Salmasius very well; and O what a man _he_was! Nothing amiss in him, except perhaps a hasty temper, and toogreat subjection to a peculiar connubial fate! There was a posthumousbook of Salmasius against Milton; and, should it ever appear, Miltonwould feel that even the dead could bite. Dr. Crantzius had seen aportion of it; and, "Good Heavens! what a blackguard is Milton, ifSalmasius may be trusted. " Dr. Crantzius had known Morus both atGeneva and in Holland. He was certainly a man often at feud withenemies and rivals, and giving them too great opportunities by hisirascibility and freedom of speech. But he was a man of highaspirations; and the late Rev. Dr. Spanheim had once told Dr. Crantzius that Morus's only fault was that he was _altier_, asthe French say, i. E. Haughty. As for Milton's special accusationsagainst Morus, Dr. Crantzius knew them for a certainty to be false. Even after the Bontia scandal had got abroad and the lawsuit of Moruswith the Salmasian household was running its course, Dr. Crantziushad heard Salmasius, who was not in the habit of praising people, speak highly of Morus. Salmasius had admitted at the same time thathis wife had injured Morus, though he could not afford to destroy his"domestic peace" by opposing her in the matter. On the Bontia affairspecifically, Salmasius's express words, not only to Dr. Crantzius, but to others whom he names, had been, "If Morus is guilty, then I amthe pimp, and my wife the procuress. " As to the sequel of the caseDr. Crantzius is ignorant; and he furnishes Ulac with this preface tothe Book only in the interests of truth. But what a quarrelsomefellow Milton must be, who had not kept his hands off even the"innocent printer"! The "innocent printer's" own preface to the Reprint shows him to havebeen a very shrewd person indeed. He keeps his temper better than anyof them. Two years had elapsed. , he says, since he printed the_Regii Sanguinis Clamor_. Who the real author of the book was hedid not even yet know. All he knew was that some one, who wanted tobe anonymous, had sent the manuscript to Salmasius, and that, aftersome delay and hesitation, he had obliged Salmasius by putting thebook to press. Ulac then relates the circumstances, already known tous, of his correspondence with Hartlib about the book, and his offersto Milton, through Hartlib, to publish any reply Milton might make. He had been surprised at the long delay of this reply, and also atthe extraordinary ignorance of business shown by Milton and hisfriends in their resentment of _his_ part in the matter. It wasfor a tradesman to be neutral in his dealings; he had relations withboth the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, and would publish foreither side; and, as to his lending his name to the DedicatoryPreface to Charles II. , everybody knew that printers did such thingsevery day. However, here now is Mr. Milton's _Defensio Secunda_in an edition for the foreign market, printed with the same good willas if Milton had himself given the commission. It contains, he finds, a most unjustifiable attack on M. Morus, with abuse also ofSalmasius, who is now in his grave; but that is other people'sbusiness, not Ulac's. He cannot pass, however, the defamation ofhimself inserted in Milton's book. --Ulac then quotes the substance ofMilton's account of him as once a swindler and bankrupt in London, then the same in Paris, &c. (Vol. IV. P. 588). This information, Ulachas little doubt, Milton has received from a particular Londonbookseller, whom Ulac believes also to have been the real publisherof Milton's book, though Newcome's name appears on it. It is all atissue of lies, however, and Ulac will meet it by a sketch of his ownlife since he first dealt in books. This takes him twenty-six yearsback. It was at that time that, being in Holland, which is his nativecountry, and having till then not been in trade at all, he receivedfrom England a copy of the _Arithmetica Logarithmica_ of thefamous mathematician Henry Briggs [published 1624]. Greatlyenamoured with this work and with the whole new science ofLogarithms, and observing that Briggs had given the Logarithms fornumbers only from 1 to 20, 000, and then from 90, 000 to 100, 000, hehad set himself to fill up the gap by finding the Logarithms fornumbers from 20, 000 to 90, 000, and had had the satisfaction, in anincredibly short space of time, of bringing out the result [in anextended edition of Briggs's book published at Gouda, 1628]. Briggsand the English mathematicians were highly gratified, and Ulac wasasked to publish also Briggs's _Trigonometria Britannica_. Thisalso he had done [at Gouda in 1633, Briggs having died in 1630, andleft the work in charge of his friend Henry Gellibrand]; after whichhe had engaged in the heavy labour of converting into Logarithms theSines and Tangents to a Radius of 10, 000, 000, 000 given in the _OpusPalatinum_, and had issued the same under the title_Trigonometria Artificialis_. These labours of Ulac's were notunknown to the mathematical world; and it was somewhat surprisingthat Milton had not heard of them, especially as, in his sketch ofhis own life in the _Defensio Secunda_, he professed hisinterest in Mathematics, and spoke of his visits to London fromHorton for the purpose of picking up any novelties in that science. At any rate, it was zeal for the dissemination of the mathematicalbooks above-mentioned that had turned Ulac into a printer andbookseller. In that capacity he certainly had been in London, tradingin books generally, and he had been in difficulties there, though notof a kind discreditable to himself. After he had been some years inLondon, trading peaceably, some London booksellers, jealous for theirmonopoly, had conspired against him, and tried to obtain an orderfrom Archbishop Laud for the confiscation of his whole stock intrade. Through the kind offices of Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, thishad been prevented, and he had been empowered to sell off hisexisting stock. Nay, a little while afterwards, he had had aprospect, through the Royal Printers, of a full trading licence fromthe Archbishop, on condition of his buying from them copies of twoheavy works they had printed by the Archbishop's desire--viz. _Theophylact on St. Paul's Epistles_ and the _Catena of theGreek Fathers on Job_. He had actually obtained such a licence fortwo years, and had hopes of its renewal, when the Civil War brokeout. On that account only, and not in any disgrace, as Milton said, he had, after having been about ten years in all in London, transferred himself to Paris. [1] He had been there about six years, dealing honestly, and publishing important theological and otherbooks, the titles of some of which he gives; but here also he hadbeen the victim of trade jealousy. He had found it impossible to geton in Paris, though it was utterly false that he dared not now showhis face there. He _had_ shown his face there, since he hadreturned to his native Holland and made the Hague his head-quarters;and he could show his face there again without any inconvenience. Meanwhile he was in the Hague, comfortable enough; and his characterthere might easily be ascertained. --To return to Milton's presentbook. Though Ulac had reprinted it, he had done so in doubt whether, now that there was peace between the United Provinces and theProtector, such irritating books between the two nations ought not tobe mutually suppressed. His own leanings had always been rather tothe English Parliamentarians than to the Royalists, and hence he hadbeen disposed to think well of Milton. Though he cannot think so wellof him now, he will not retaliate by any abuse of Milton. "If Miltonis acknowledged in his own country to be a good man, let him be gladof it; but I hear that many Englishmen who know him are of anotheropinion. I would decide nothing on mere rumour; nay, if I hadascertained anything scandalous about him with positive certainty, Ishould think it better to hold my tongue than to blazon it aboutpublicly. " How strange, however, that Milton had fallen foul of Morusat such a violent rate! Had he not been told two years ago, throughHartlib, that Morus was not the author of the book for which he madehim suffer? It was the more inexcusable inasmuch as in the _JoannisPhilippi, Angli, Responsio ad Apologiam Anonymi Cujusdam_--whichwork Milton had superintended, if he had not written it--there hadbeen the same mistake of attributing a work to the wrong person. Itwould be for Morus himself, however, to take cognisance of that. [Footnote 1: Long ago, foreseeing the interest I should have in ULAC, I made notes in the State-Paper Office of some documents appertainingto him when he was a Bookseller in London. They do not quitecorrespond with Ulac's account of his reasons for leaving London. Thedocuments, here arranged in what seems to be their chronologicalorder, are as follows:--(1) Petition of Ulac, undated, to Sir JohnLambe, Dean of the Arches, that he would intercede with Laud inUlac's favour. His two years' licence for importing hooks is nowalmost expired; but many of the Greek books he had bought from theRoyal Printers are still on his hands unsold, besides the wholeimpression of a _Vita Christi_ which he had also bought fromthem after the London stationers would not look at it. It would be agreat thing for him therefore to have his licence extended for atime; and, if this favour is obtained from his Grace, he promises todo all he can for the importation of learned Greek and Latin books ofthe kind his Grace likes. (2) Humble Petition to Laud by RichardWhittaker, Humphrey Robinson, George Thomason, and other LondonBooksellers, dated April 15, 1640, representing to his Grace that, contrary to decree in Star-Chamber, "one Adrian Ulacke, a Hollander, hath now lately imported and landed at the Custom House divers balesor packs of books, printed beyond seas, with purpose to vent them inthis kingdom, " and praying for the attachment of the said bales andthe apprehension of Ulac. (3) Of the same date, Laud's order, orsuggestion to the Lord Treasurer to join him in an order, to attachthe goods in the Custom House accordingly. (4) Humble Petition ofUlac to Juxon, Bishop of London, of date April 1640, explaining thetransaction for which he is in trouble. He had gone to Paris "uponthe 5th of Dec. Last, " and had there sold a great many copies of_Theophylact on Paul's Epistles_, the _Catena Patrum Gręcorumin Jobum_, Bishop Montague's _De Vita Christi_, _Spelman'sBritish Councils_, &c. , at the same time buying a number of booksto be imported into England. Although these last had been sent offfrom Paris before January, "yet, by want of ships and winds, theycould come no sooner"--i. E. Not till after the 13th of April, 1640, when his two years' licence for importing had expired. He humblybeseeches Juxon that he may be allowed to "receive and dispose of thesaid books so sent freely without any trouble. " (5) A note of Laud's, written by his secretary, but signed by himself, as follows:--"Hadnot the Petitioner offended in a high matter against the State intransporting bullion of the kingdom, I should have been willing tohave given time as is here [i. E. In the last document] expressed. However, I desire Sir John Lambe to consider of his Petition, and dofurther therein as he shall find to be just and fitting, unless hefind that the sentence in the Star-Chamber hath disabled him. --W. CANT. _Apr. _ 21, 1640. " (6) Humble Petition, undated, of Ulac, now "prisoner in the Fleet, " to Sir John Lambe. The prisoner "was, the24th of May last, censured by the Lords in the High Court ofStar-Chamber in £1000 to his Majesty and imprisonment. " He is in verygreat straits, owing above £500 to his Majesty's Printers for books, "much hindered by the deadness of trading, " and by the return of manybooks on his hands. He is "a stranger, without any friends, " andunless the fine of £1000 is mitigated "to a very low rate, " he willbe in "utter ruin and misery. " He therefore prays Lambe's good wordwith Laud. --My only doubt is whether the document I have put here asNo. 6, ought not to _precede_ the others: i. E. Whether Ulac'soffence in the matter of the "bullion, " with his fine andimprisonment, was not an affair of older date than his importation ofbooks after time in April 1640, though then remembered against him. All the documents were together in the same bundle in the S. P. 0. When I examined them, and the published Calendars have not yetovertaken them. ] And now for More's own _Fides Publica_ or Public Testimony forHimself. It is a most painful book on the whole. Gradually itimpresses you with considerable respect for the ability of theauthor, and especially for his skill both in logical and patheticpleading; and throughout you cannot but pity him, and remember thathe was placed in about the most terrible position that a human being, and especially a clergyman of wide celebrity, could occupy--placedthere too by what would now be called an act of literary savagery, outraging all the modern proprieties of personal controversy. Stillthe impression left finally is not satisfactory. It is but fair, however, that he should speak for himself. The book opens thus:-- "If I could acknowledge as true of me any of those things which you, by a wild and unbridled licence, have not only attributed to me, but have even, to your eternal disgrace, dared to publish, I should be angry with you to a greater degree than I am, you most foolish Milton: for let that be your not unfitting, though mild, designation in the outset, while that of liar and others will fashion themselves out of the sequel. But, as the charges are such that there is no one of those to whom I am a little more closely known, however unfavourable to me, but could convict them of falsehood from beginning to end, I might afford, strong in the sole consciousness of my rectitude, to despise them, and perhaps this is what I ought to do. Still, with a mind as calm as a sense of the indignity of the occasion will permit, I have resolved to expostulate with you. Yet I confess myself to be somewhat moved; not by anger, but by another feeling. I am sorry, let me tell you, for your own case, and shall be sorry until you prove penitent, and this whether it is from sheer mental derangement that you have assailed with mad and impotent fury a man who had done you no harm, and who was, as you cannot deny, entirely unknown to you, or whether you have let out the empty house of your ears, as those good masters of yours say, to foul whisperings going about, and, with your ears, put your hand and pen too, for I know not what wages, but certainly little honourable, at the disposal of other people's malicious humour. Choose which you please. I pray God Almighty to be merciful to you, and I beg Him also in my own behalf that, as I proceed to the just defence of my reputation, He may suggest to me a true and modest oration, utterly free from all lying and obscenity, --that is, very unlike yours. " On the point of the authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_Morus is emphatic enough. He declares over and over again that_he_ was not the author, and he declares that Milton knew thisperfectly well, --might have known it for two years, but had beyondall doubt known it before he had published the _DefensioSecunda_. We shall bring together the passages that refer to thissubject:-- I neither wrote it, nor ever pretended to have done so, --this I here solemnly declare, and make God my witness, --nor did I contribute anything to the writing of it.... The real author is alive and well, unknown to me by face, but very well known to several good men, on the strength of whose joint knowledge of the fact I challenge with righteous detestation the public lie which wriggles everywhere through your whole book.... Let the author answer for himself: I neither take up his quarrel, nor thrust my sickle into his corn.... But I wish the anonymous author would come forth some time or other openly in his own name.... What then would Milton think? He might have reason to fame and detest the light of life, being manifestly convicted of lying before the world. He might say, indeed, "I had not thought of it: I have been under a mistake" ... But what if I prove by clear evidence that you knew well enough already that the author of this book was another person, not I? ... [Morus then goes on to say that Milton might have learnt the fact in various ways, even from a comparison of the style of the book with that of Morus's acknowledged writings; but he lays stress chiefly on the information actually sent to Milton in 1652 by Ulac, and on the subsequent communications to him, through Durie and the Dutch Ambassador Nieuport, before the _Defensio Secunda_ had left the press] ... Will you hear a word of truth? You had certainly learnt the fact, and cannot for two whole years have been ignorant of it. But, as you perceived it would not suit your convenience to vent your spleen against an anonymous opponent, that is a nobody, and some definite person must be pitched upon as an adversary to bear your rage expressly, no one else seemed to you more opportune than I as an object of calumny, whether because you heard that I had many enemies, though (what proves their savageness) without any cause, who would hold up both thumbs in applause of your jocosities, or because you knew that, by the arts of a Juno, I was involved in a lawsuit, more troublesome in reality than dangerous, and you did not believe that I should be, as I have been, the winner before all the tribunals.... Your book once written, Morus must of necessity stand for your opponent, or Milton, the Defender of the People, would have done nothing in two years! He would have lost all the laborious compilation of his days and nights, all his punnings upon my name, all his sarcasms on my sacred office and profession.... For, if you had taken out of your book all the reproaches thrown at me, how little would there have been, certainly not more than a few pages, remaining for your "People"! What fine things would have perished, what flowery, I had almost said Floralian, expressions! What would have become of your "gardens of Alcinous and Adonis, " of your little story about "Hortensius"; what of the "syca_more_, " what of "Pyramus and Thisbe, " what of the "Mulberry tree"? [All these are phrases in Milton's book, introduced whenever he refers circumstantially to the naughty particulars of the scandals against Morus, whether in Geneva or in Leyden. The name _Morus_, which means "mulberry tree" and "fool" in Latin and Greek, and may be taken also for "Moor" or "Ethiop, " and in still other meanings, had yielded to the Dutch wits, as well as to Milton, no end of metaphors and punning etymologies in their squibs against the poor man] ... The real author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ neither lives among the Dutch, --is not "stabled" among them, to use your own expression--nor has he, I believe, anything in common with them ... Vehemently and almost tragically you complain that I have upbraided you with your blindness. I can positively affirm that I did not know till I read it in your own book that you had lost your eyesight. For, if anything occurred to me that might seem to look that way, I referred to the mind [Note this sentence: the Latin is "_Nam, si quid fortč se dabat quod eņ spectare videretur, ad animum referebam_"] ... Could I then upbraid you with blindness who did not know that you were blind, --with personal deformity who believed you even good-looking, chiefly in consequence of having seen the rather neat likeness of you prefixed to your Poems [Marshall's ludicrous botch of 1645 which Milton had disowned] ... Nor did I know any more that you had written on Divorce. I have never read that book of yours; I have never seen it ... I will have done with this subject. That book is not mine. I have published, and shall yet publish, other books, not one letter of which shall you, while I am alive and aware of it, attack with impunity. Some _Sermons_ of mine are in men's hands; my books _On Grace and Free Will_ are to be had; there are in print my _Exercitations on the Holy Scripture, or on the Cause of God_, which I know have passed into England, so that you have no excuse, --as well as my _Apology for Calvin_, dedicated to the illustrious Usher of Armagh, your countryman, my very great friend, whose highly honourable opinion of me, if the golden old man would permit, I would put against a thousand Miltons. With God's help others will appear, some of which, as but partly finished, I am keeping back, while others are ready for issue. [A list of some of these, including _Orationes Argumenti Sacri, cum Poematiis_: the list closed with a statement that he has mentioned only his Latin works, and not his French Sermons]. Every now and then there is a passage of retaliation on Milton. Hereare two specimens: MILTON'S OWN CHARACTER AND REPUTATION:--"Do not think, obscurely though you live, that, because you have had the first innings in this game in the art of slander, you therefore stand aloft beyond the reach of darts. You have not the ring of Gyges to make you invisible. Your virtues are taken note of. You are not such a person, my friend, that Fame should fear to tell lies even about _you_; and, unless Fame lies, there is not a meaner or more worthless man going, and nothing is clearer than that you estimate by your own morals the characters of other people. But I hope Fame lies in this. For who could hear without the greatest pain--what I for my part hardly, nay not to the extent of hardly, bring my mind to credit--that there is a man living among Christians who, being himself a concrete of every form of outrageous iniquity, could so censure others?" MILTON'S PRODIGIOUS SELF-ESTEEM:--"All which has so elated you that you would be reckoned next after the very first man in England, and sometimes put yourself higher than the supreme Cromwell himself; whom you name familiarly, without giving him any title of rank, whom you lecture under the guise of praising him, to whom you dictate laws, assign boundaries to his rights, prescribe duties, suggest counsels, and even hold out threats if he shall not behave accordingly. You grant him arms and rule; you claim genius and the gown for yourself. '_He only is to be called great_, ' you say, '_who has either done great things_'--Cromwell, to wit!---'_or teaches great things_'--Milton on Divorce, to wit!--'_or writes of them worthily_'--the same twice-great Milton, I suppose, in his Defence of the English People!" How does Morus proceed in the main business of clearing his owncharacter from Milton's charges? His plan was to produce a dated andauthenticated series of testimonials from others, extending over theperiod of his life which had been attacked, and to interweave thesewith explanations and an autobiographic memoir. He has reached theeightieth page of his book before he properly begins this enterprise. He gives first a testimonial from the Genevan Church, dated Jan. 25, 1648, and signed by seventeen ministers, of whom Diodati is one; thenanother from the Genevan Senate or Town Council, dated Jan. 26, 1648;then two more, one from the Church again, and one from the Senateagain, both dated April 1648; then, among others, a specialtestimonial from Diodati, in the form of a long letter to Salmasius, dated "Geneva, 9th May, 1648. " Diodati's testimonial, which is givenboth in French and in Latin, is the most interesting in itself, andwill represent the others. "As to his morals, " says Diodati, writingof Morus to Salmasius, "I can speak from intimate knowledge, and doso with, strict conscientiousness. His natural disposition is goodand without deceit or reservation, frank and noble, such as ought toput him in very harmonious relations with all persons of honour andvirtue, of whatsoever condition, --quick and very sensible toindignities, but easily coming to himself again: not one to provokeothers, but yet one who has terrible spurs for his own defence. Ihave hardly seen any who have done themselves credit by attackinghim. _Conscia virtus_, and you may add what belongs to the_genus irritabile vatum_, make him well armed against hisassailants. For the rest, piety, honesty, temperance, freedom fromall avarice or meanness, are found in him in a degree suitable to hisprofession. " Suddenly, just when we have read this, and seen Morus self-describedas far as to the year 1648, when he was about to leave Geneva forHolland, the book comes to a dead stop. Diodati's letter ends on page129; and when we turn over the leaf we find a Latin note from Ulac, headed "_The Printer to the Reader_" and expressed as follows:-- "Our labours towards finishing this Treatise had come to this point, when lo! M. Morus, who had been staying for some time here at the Hague with the intention of completing it, called away by I know not what occasion to France, and with a favourable wind hastening his journey, was prevented from bringing all to an end, and so gratifying with every possible speed the desire of many curious persons to read both Treatises at once, Milton's and More's. What to do I was for some days uncertain; but some gentlemen, not of small condition, at length persuaded me that I should not defer longer the publication of what of his I had already in print, --alleging that the remaining and still wanting testimonies of eminent men, and of the Senates and Churches of Middleburg, Amsterdam, &c. , given for the vindication of M. Morus, and which were here to have been subjoined, might be afterwards printed separately when they reached me. Wishing to comply with their request, and my own inclination too, I now therefore do publish, Reader, what I am confident will please your curiosity, if not in full measure, at least a good deal. Let whosoever desires to see the sequel expect it as soon as possible. " Was there ever such an unfortunate as Morus? Everything everywhereseems to go wrong with him. Here, at the Hague, having absentedhimself from Amsterdam for the purpose, he has been writing hisDefence of Himself against Milton, doing it cleverly and in a waylikely to make some impression, when, suddenly, for some reasonunknown even to his printer, he is obliged to break off for a journeyinto France, just as he was approaching the heart of his subject. Hadhe absconded? This seems actually to have been the construction, abroad. "Morus is gone into France, " writes a Hague correspondent ofThurloe, Nov. 3, 1654; "it is believed that he has a calling, _etquidem a Castris_, and that he will not return to Amsterdam. Theylove well his renown and learning, but not his conversation; for theydo not desire that he should come to visit the daughters of conditionas he was used to do. He promised Ulac to finish his Apology; but hewent away without taking his leave of him: so that you see that Ulachath finished abrupt. " Morus, as we shall find, did finish the book;but the _Fides Publica_, as it was first circulated in Hollandtowards the end of 1654, and as it first reached Milton, was the bookabruptly broken off as above, at page 130, with the testimonials andthe autobiography coming no farther down than the year 1648, whenMorus had not yet left Geneva. In January, 1654-5, when Milton had read Morus's _Fides Publica_in its imperfect state, and was considering in what form he shouldreply to it, his thoughts on the subject must have been interruptedby the new misfortune of his friend Overton. What that was hasalready been explained generally (ante pp. 32-33); but the details ofthe incident belong to Milton's biography. Overton's former misunderstanding with the Protector having been madeup, he had been sent back to Scotland, as we saw, in September, 1654, to be Major-General there under Monk, and pledged to be faithful inhis trust until he should himself give the Protector notice of hisdesire to withdraw from it. For a month or two, accordingly, all hadgone well, Monk in the main charge of Scotland, with hishead-quarters at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, and Overton in specialcharge of the North of Scotland, with his head-quarters at Aberdeen. Meanwhile, as Oliver's First Parliament had been incessantly opposinghim, questioning his Protectorship, and labouring to subvert it, theanti-Oliverian temper had again been strongly roused throughout thecountry, and not least among the officers and soldiers of the army inScotland. There had been meetings and consultations among them, andsecret correspondence with scattered Republicans in England and withsome of the Parliamentary Oppositionists, till at length, ifThurloe's informations were true, the design was nothing less than todepose Monk, put Overton in supreme command, and march into Englandunder an anti-Oliverian banner. The Levellers, on the one side, andthe Royalists, on the other, were to be drawn into the movement, ifindeed there had not been actual communications already with agentsof Charles II. It may be a question how far Overton himself was aparty to the design; but it is certain that he had relapsed into hisformer anti-Oliverian humour, and was very uneasy in his post atAberdeen. "I bless the Lord, " he writes mysteriously from that town, Dec. 26, in answer to a letter of condolence from some friend--"Ibless the Lord I do remember you and yours (by whom I am muchremembered) so far as I am able in everything. I know right well youand others do it much for me; and, pray, dear Sir, do it still. Heaveme up upon the wings of your prayers to Him who is a God hearingprayers and granting requests. Entreat Him to enable me to stand tohis Truth; which I shall not do if He deject or forsake me. " Thisletter, as well as several letters _to_ Overton, had beenintercepted by Monk's vigilance; and hardly had it been written whenOverton was arrested by Monk's orders, and brought to Leith. At Leithhis papers were searched, and there was found in his letter-casethis copy of verses in his own hand:-- "A Protector! What's that? 'Tis a stately thing That confesseth itself but the ape of a King; A tragical Cęsar acted by a clown, Or a brass farthing stamped with a kind of crown; A bauble that shines, a loud cry without wool; Not Perillus nor Phalaris, but the bull; The echo of Monarchy till it come; The butt-end of a barrel in the shape of a drum; A counterfeit piece that woodenly shows; A golden effigies with a copper nose; The fantastic shadow of a sovereign head; The arms-royal reversed, and disloyal instead; In fine, he is one we may Protector call, -- From whom the King of Kings protect us all!" With this piece of doggrel, the intercepted letters, and the otherinformations, Overton was shipped off by Monk from Leith to London onthe 4th of January, 1654-5; and on the 16th of that month he wascommitted to the Tower. Thence the next day he wrote a long letter toa private friend, in which he enumerates the charges against him, andreplies to them one by one. He denies that he has broken trust withthe Protector; he denies that he is a Leveller; and, what pleases usbest of all, he denies the authorship of the doggrel lines justquoted. His exact words about these may be given. "But, say some, youmade a copy of scandalous verses upon the Lord Protector, whereby hisHighness and divers others were offended and displeased ... I mustacknowledge I copied a paper of verses called _The Character of aProtector_; but I did neither compose them, nor (to the best of myremembrance) show them to any after I had writ them forth. They weretaken out of my letter-case at Leith, where they had been a long timeby me, neglected and forgotten. I had them from a friend, who wishedmy Lord [Cromwell] well, and who told me that his Lordship had seenthem, and, I believe, laughed at them, as, to my knowledge, he hathdone at papers and pamphlets of more personal and particular importand abuse. " It is really a relief to know that Overton, who is stillcredited with these lines by Godwin, Guizot, and others, was not theauthor of them, and this not because of their peculiar politicalimport, but because of their utter vulgarity. How else could we haveretained our faith in Milton's character of Overton--"you, Overton, bound to me these many years past in a friendship of more thanbrotherly closeness and affection, both by the similarity of ourtastes, and the sweetness of your manners"? Still to have copied andkept such lines implied some sympathy with their political meaning;and, Thurloe's investigations having made it credible otherwise thatOverton was implicated, more than he would admit, in the design of ageneral rising against the Protector's Government, there was an endto the promising career of Milton's friend under the Protectorate. Heremained from that time a close prisoner while Oliver lived. On the3rd of July, 1656, I find, his wife, "Mrs. Anne Overton, " had libertyfrom the Council "to abide with her husband in the Tower, if sheshall so think fit. "[1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, III. 75-77, and 110-112; Council Order Book, July 3, 1656. Godwin, whose accuracy can very seldom be impeached, had not turned to the last-cited pages of Thurloe; and hence heleaves the doggrel lines as indubitably Overton's own (_Hist. OfCommonwealth_, IV. 163). Guizot and others simply follow Godwinin this, as in most things else. --That Overton's disaffection wasvery serious indeed, and that Cromwell had had good reason for hissuspicions of him even on the former occasion, appears from the factthat among the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian there is a draft, inHyde's hand, of a letter, dated April 1654, either actually sent, ormeant to be sent, by Charles II. To Overton. The substance of theletter, as in Mr. Macray's abstract of it for the Calendar of theClarendon Papers (II. 344), is as follows:--"_The King to Col. Ov[erton]. _ Has received such information of his affection that hedoes not doubt it, and believes that he abhors those who, after alltheir pretences for the public, do now manifest that they havewholly intended to satisfy their own ambition. He has it in hispower to redeem what he has heretofore done amiss; and the King isvery willing to receive such a service as may make him a principalinstrument of his restoration, for which whatsoever he or his familyshall wish they shall receive, and what he shall promise to any ofhis friends who may concur with him shall be made good. " If thisletter was among those found among Overton's papers at Leith (whichis not very likely), little wonder that Cromwell would not trusthim at large a second time. ] At the date of Overton's imprisonment the Protector was making up hismind to dismiss his troublesome First Parliament after his fourmonths and a half of experience of its temper; and six days afterthat date he did dismiss it, to its own surprise, before it had senthim up a single Bill. How many Latin letters had Overton's friendMilton written for the Protector in his official capacity during thefour months and a half of that troublesome Parliament? So far as therecords show, only three. They were as follows:-- (XLIX. ) "To THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD, LUIS MENDEZ DE HARO, " _Sept. _ 4, 1654:[1]--The Spanish Prime Minister, Luis de Haro, had recently, in the Protector's apparent indecision between the Spanish alliance and the French alliance, resolved to try to secure him for Spain by sending over a new Ambassador, to supersede Cardenas, or to co-operate with him. He had announced the same in letters to Cromwell; who now thanks him, professes his desire to be in friendship with Spain, and promises every attention to the new Ambassador when he may arrive, Cromwell pays a compliment to the minister himself. "To have your affection and approbation, " he says, "who by your worth and prudence have acquired such authority with the King of Spain that you preside, with a mind to match, over the greatest affairs of that kingdom, ought truly to be a pleasure to me corresponding with my apprehension of the honour I shall have from the good opinion of a man of excellence. " Milton is dexterous in wording his documents. [Footnote 1: No. 29 in Skinner Transcript (where exact date isgiven); No. 47 in Printed Collection and in Phillips (where monthonly is given). ] (L. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF THE CITY OF BREMEN, _Oct. 25_, 1654:--There has come to be a conflict between the City of Bremen and the new King of Sweden, arising from military designs of that King on the southern shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, Bremen is in great straits; and the authorities have represented this to Cromwell through their agent, Milton's friend, Henry Oldenburg, and have requested Cromwell's good offices with the Swedish King. Cromwell answers that he has done what they want. He has great respect for Bremen as a thoroughly Protestant city, and he regrets that there should he a quarrel between it and the powerful Protestant Kingdom of Sweden, having no stronger desire than that "the whole Protestant denomination should at length coalesce in one by fraternal agreement and concord. " (LI. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _Oct. _ 28, 1654:--As announced to the Bremeners in the last letter, Cromwell did write on their behalf to the Swedish King. He had hoped that the great Peace of Munster or Westphalia (1648) had left all continental Protestants united, and he regrets to hear that a dispute between Sweden and the Bremeners has arisen out of that Treaty. How dreadful that Protestant Swedes and Protestant Bremeners, once in league against the common foe, should now be slaughtering each other! Can nothing be done? Could not advantage be taken of the present truce? He will himself do anything in his power to bring about a permanent reconciliation. These three letters, it will be observed, belong to the first twomonths of that cramped and exasperated condition in which Oliverfound himself when he had his First Parliament by his side; and thereis not a single preserved letter of Milton for Oliver between Oct. 26, 1654, the date of the last of the three, and Jan. 22, 1654-5, thedate of the sudden dissolution of the Parliament. The reason of thisidleness of Milton, in his Secretaryship during those three months, leaving all the work to Meadows, must have been, I believe, that hewas then engaged on a Reply to More's _Fides Publica_ in theimperfect state in which it had just come forth. All along, as wehave seen, the Literary Defence of the Commonwealth on every occasionof importance had been regarded as the special charge of Milton inhis Secretaryship, to which routine duty must give way; and, as his_Defensio Secunda_ in reply to the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_had been, like several of his preceding writings, a task performed byhim on actual commission from the Rump Government, though notfinished till the Protectorate had begun, Oliver and his Council mayhave thought it but fair that another pamphlet of the same series inreply to the _Fides Publica_ of Morus should count also to thecredit of Milton's official services, even though it must necessarilybe more a pamphlet of mere personal concern than any of itspredecessors. But, indeed, by this time, Mr. Milton was a privilegedman, who might regulate matters very much for himself, and drop in onThurloe and Meadows at the office only when he liked. SECTION II: FROM JANUARY 1654-5 TO SEPTEMBER 1656, OR THROUGH THEPERIOD OF ARBITRARINESS. LETTER TO MILTON FROM LEO DE AITZEMA: MILTON'S REPLY: LETTER TOEZEKIEL SPANHEIM AT GENEVA: MILTON'S GENEVESE RECOLLECTIONS ANDACQUAINTANCES: TWO MORE OF MILTON'S LATIN STATE-LETTERS (NOS. LII. , LIII. ): SMALL AMOUNT OF MILTON'S DESPATCH-WRITING FOR CROMWELLHITHERTO. --REDUCTION OF OFFICIAL SALARIES, AND PROPOSAL TO REDUCEMILTON'S TO £150 A YEAR: ACTUAL COMMUTATION OF HIS £288 A YEAR ATPLEASURE INTO £200 FOR LIFE: ORDERS OF THE PROTECTOR AND COUNCILRELATING TO THE PIEDMONTESE MASSACRE, MAY 1655: SUDDEN DEMAND ONMILTON'S PEN IN THAT BUSINESS: HIS LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE FROM THEPROTECTOR TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, WITH TEN OTHER LETTERS TO FOREIGNSTATES AND PRINCES ON THE SAME SUBJECT (NOS. LIV. --LXIV. ): HIS SONNETON THE SUBJECT. --PUBLICATION OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM TO MORE'S _FIDESPUBLICA_: ACCOUNT OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM, WITH EXTRACTS: MILTON'SANSWER TO THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ AND THE SUPPLEMENTUM TOGETHER INHIS _PRO SE DEFENSIO_, AUG. 1655: ACCOUNT OF THAT BOOK, WITHSPECIMENS: MILTON'S DISBELIEF IN MORUS'S DENIALS OF THE AUTHORSHIP OFTHE _REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_: HIS REASONS, AND HIS REASSERTIONSOF THE CHARGE IN A MODIFIED FORM: HIS NOTICES OF DR. CRANTZIUS ANDULAC: HIS RENEWED ONSLAUGHTS ON MORUS: HIS REPETITION OF THE BONTIAACCUSATION AND OTHERS: HIS EXAMINATION OF MORUS'S PRINTEDTESTIMONIALS: FEROCITY OF THE BOOK TO THE LAST: ITS EFFECTS ONMORUS. --QUESTION OF THE REAL AUTHORSHIP OF THE _REGII SANGUINISCLAMOR_ AND OF THE AMOUNT OF MORUS'S CONCERN IN IT: THE DU MOULINFAMILY: DR. PETER DU MOULIN THE YOUNGER THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE_REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_, BUT MORUS THE ACTIVE EDITOR AND THEWRITER OF THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE: DU MOULIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF THEWHOLE AFFAIR: HIS CLOSE CONTACT WITH MILTON ALL THE WHILE, AND DREADOF BEING FOUND OUT. --CALM IN MILTON'S LIFE AFTER THE CESSATION OF THEMORUS-SALMASIUS CONTROVERSY: HOME-LIFE IN PETTY FRANCE: DABBLINGS OFTHE TWO NEPHEWS IN LITERATURE: JOHN PHILLIPS'S _SATYR AGAINSTHYPOCRITES_: FREQUENT VISITORS AT PETTY FRANCE: MARVELL, NEEDHAM, CYRIACK SKINNER, &C. : THE VISCOUNTESS RANELAGH, MR. RICHARD JONES, AND THE BOYLE CONNEXION: DR. PETER DU MOULIN IN THAT CONNEXION:MILTON'S PRIVATE SONNET ON HIS BLINDNESS. HIS TWO SONNETS TO CYRIACKSKINNER, AND HIS SONNET TO YOUNG LAWRENCE: EXPLANATION OF THESE FOURSONNETS. --_SCRIPTUM DOMINI PROTECTORIS CONTRA HISPANOS_:THIRTEEN MORE LATIN STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. LXV. --LXXVII. ), WITH SPECIAL ACCOUNT OF COUNT BUNDT AND THE SWEDISHEMBASSY IN LONDON: COUNT BUNDT AND MR. MILTON. --INCREASE OF LIGHTLITERATURE IN LONDON: EROTIC PUBLICATIONS: JOHN PHILLIPS IN TROUBLEFOR SUCH: EDWARD PHILLIPS'S LONDON EDITION OF THE POEMS OF DRUMMONDOF HAWTHORNDEN: MILTON'S COGNISANCE OF THE SAME. --HENRY OLDENBURG ANDMR. RICHARD JONES AT OXFORD: LETTERS OF MILTON TO JONES ANDOLDENBURG. --THIRTEEN MORE STATE-LETTERS OF THE MILTON SERIES (NOS. LXXVIII. --XC. ): IMPORTANCE OF SOME OF THEM. Oliver had just entered on his period of Arbitrariness, or Governmentwithout a Parliament, when Milton received the following letter inLatin from Leo de Aitzema, or Lieuwe van Aitzema, formerly known tohim as agent for Hamburg and the Hanse Towns in London, but nowresiding at the Hague in the same capacity (IV. 378-379). Aitzema, wemay now mention, was a Frieslander by birth, eight years older thanMilton, and is remembered still, it is said, for a voluminous andvaluable _History of the United Provinces_, consisting of agreat collection of documents, with commentaries by himself inDutch. [1] This had not yet been published. [Footnote 1: See Article _Aitzema_ in Bayle's Dictionary. ] "To the honourable and highly esteemed Mr. John Milton, Secretary to the Council of State, London. "Partly because Morus, in his book, has made some aspersions on you for your English Book on Divorce, partly because many have been inquiring eagerly about the arguments with which you support your opinion, I have, most honoured and esteemed Sir, given your little work entire to a friend of mine to be translated into Dutch, with a desire to have it printed soon. Not knowing, however, whether you would like anything corrected therein or added, I take the liberty to give you this notice, and to request you to let me know your mind on the subject. Best wishes and greetings from "Your very obedient "LEO AITZEMA[1] "Hague: Jan. 29, 1654-5. " [Footnote 1: Communicated by the late Mr. Thomas Watts of the BritishMuseum, and published by the late Rev. John Mitford in Appendix toLife of Milton prefixed to Pickering's Edition of Milton's Works(1851). ] Milton's answer, rather unusually for him, was immediate. TO LEO VAN AITZEMA. It is very gratifying to me that you retain the same amount of recollection of me as you very politely showed of good will by once and again visiting me while you resided among us. As regards the Book on Divorce which you tell me you have given to some one to be turned into Dutch, I would rather you had given it to be turned into Latin. For my experience in those books of mine has now been that the vulgar still receive according to their wont opinions not already common. I wrote a good while ago, I may mention, _three_ treatises on the subject:--the first, in two books, in which _The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ (for that is the title of the book) is contained at large; a second, which is called _Tetrachordon_, and in which the four chief passages of Scripture concerning that doctrine are explicated; the third called _Colasterion_, in which answer is made to a certain sciolist. [The _Bucer Tract_ omitted in the enumeration. ] Which of these Treatises you have given to be translated, or what edition, I do not know: the first of them was twice issued, and was much enlarged in the second edition. Should you not have been made aware of this already, or should I understand that you desire anything else on my part, such as sending you the more correct edition or the rest of the Treatises, I shall attend to the matter carefully and with pleasure. For there is not anything at present that I should wish changed in them or added. Therefore, should you keep to your intention, I earnestly hope for myself a faithful translator, and for you all prosperity. Westminster: Feb. 5, 1654-5. [1] [Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 16. ] The next letter, written in the following month, also connectsitself, but still more closely, with the Morus controversy. It isaddressed to Ezekiel Spanheim, the eldest son of that FrederickSpanheim, by birth a German, of whom we have heard as Professor ofTheology successively at Geneva (1631-1642) and at Leyden(1642-1649). This elder Spanheim, it will be remembered, had beenimplicated in the opposition to Morus in both places--the story beingthat he had contracted a bad opinion of Morus during hiscolleagueship with him in Geneva, and that, when Salmasius, partly tospite Spanheim, of whose popularity at Leyden he was jealous, hadnegotiated for bringing Morus to Holland, Spanheim "moved heaven andearth to prevent his coming. " It is added that Spanheim's death (May1649) was caused by the news that Morus was on his way, and that hehad said on his death-bed that "Salmasius had killed him and Morushad been the dagger. "[1] On the other hand, we have had recently theassurance of Dr. Crantzius that Spanheim had once told him that theonly fault in Morus was that he was _altier_, or self-confident. That the stronger story is the truer one substantially, if not to itslast detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus washereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son, Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, thisEzekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than hisfather, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not toclose till 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he hadreturned from Leyden in 1651, to accept a kind of honoraryProfessorship that had been offered him, in compliment partly to hisfather's memory, partly to his own extraordinary promise. As one whohad lived the first thirteen years of his age in Geneva, and the nextnine in Leyden (1642-1651), and who was now back in Geneva, he hadbeen amply and closely on the track of Morus; and how little he likedhim will now appear:-- [Footnote 1: Bayle, both in Article _Spanheim_ and in Article_Morus_. ] TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM OF GENEVA. I know not by what accident it has happened that your letter has reached me little less than three months after date. There is clearly extreme need of a speedier conveyance of mine to you; for, though from day to day I was resolving to write it, I now perceive that, hindered by some constant occupations, I have put it off nearly another three months. I would not have you understand from this my tardiness in replying that my grateful sense of your kindness to me has cooled, but rather that the remembrance has sunk deeper from my longer and more frequent daily thinking of my duty to you in return. Late performance of duty has at least this excuse for itself, that there is a clearer confession of obligation to do a thing when it is done so long after than if it had been done immediately. You are not wrong, in the first place, in the opinion of me expressed in the beginning of your letter--to wit, that I am not likely to be surprised at being addressed by a foreigner; nor could you, indeed, have a more correct impression of me than precisely by thinking that I regard no good man in the character of a foreigner or a stranger. That you are such I am readily persuaded by your being the son of a most learned and most saintly father, also by your being well esteemed by good men, and also finally by the fact that you hate the bad. With which kind of cattle as I too happen to have a warfare, Calandrini has but acted with his usual courtesy, and in accordance with my own sentiment, in signifying to you that it would be very gratifying to me if you lent me your help against a common adversary. This you have most obligingly done in this very letter, part of which, with the author's name not mentioned, I have not hesitated, trusting in your regard for me, to insert by way of evidence in my forthcoming _Defensio_ [in reply to More's _Fides Publica_]. This book, as soon as it is published, I will direct to be sent to you, if there is any one to whose care I may rightly entrust it. Any letters you may intend for me, meanwhile, you will not, I think, be unsafe if you send under cover to Turretin of Geneva, now staying in London, whose brother in Geneva you know; through whom as this of mine will reach you most conveniently, so will yours reach me. For the rest I would assure you that you have won a high place in my esteem, and that I particularly wish to be loved by you yet more. Westminster: March 24, 1654-5. [1] [Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 17. ] In writing this letter Milton must have had brought back to hisrecollection his visit to Geneva fifteen years before (June 1639) onhis way home from Italy. The venerable Diodati, the uncle of hisfriend Charles, was the person in Geneva of whom he had seen most, and who dwelt most in his memory; but the elder Spanheim had thenbeen in the same city, and Morus too, and the present EzekielSpanheim, as a boy in his tenth year, and others, still alive, whohad then known Morus, and had since that time had him in view. Miltonhad certainly not then himself seen Morus, though he must have heardof him; but it is possible he may have seen the elder Spanheim, andmay now, in writing to Spanheim's son, have remembered the fact. Inany case there were links of acquaintanceship still connecting Miltonwith Geneva and its gossip. The "Calandrini, " for example, who ismentioned in Milton's letter, and who may be identified with aGenevese merchant named "Jean Louis Calandrin, " heard of in Thurloe'scorrespondence, must in some way have been known to Miltonpersonally, and interested in serving him. [1] It had been in inconsequence of a suggestion of this Calandrini, "acting-with hisusual courtesy, " that young Spanheim had, in October 1654, whenMorus's fragmentary _Fides Publica_ was just out or nearly so, addressed a polite letter to Milton, sending him some additionalinformation about the Genevese portion of Morus's career. The letterhad not readied Milton till the end of December or the beginning ofJanuary 1654-5; and for nearly three months after that he had left itunacknowledged. That he had been moved to acknowledge it at last was, doubtless, as his letter itself suggests, and as we shall see yetmore precisely, because he had then nearly ready his Reply to the_Fides Publica_, and had used Spanheim's information there, onlysuppressing the name of his informant. But that Milton had alreadyhad no lack of private informants about Morus's career, whether inGeneva or in Holland, has appeared abundantly. TheHartlib-Durie-Haak-Oldenburg connexion about him in London was aperfect sponge for all kinds of gossip from, abroad. We hear now, however, of another person in particular who may have supplied Miltonwith his earlier information as to the Genevese part of Morus's life, A family long of note in Geneva had been that of the Turretins, originally from Italy, and indeed from Lucca, whence they had beendriven, as the Diodatis had been, by their Protestantism, One of thisfamily, Benedict Turretin, born in Geneva, had been a distinguishedTheology Professor there, and at his death in 1631 had left at leasttwo sons. One of these, Francis Turretin, born at Geneva in 1623, had, after the usual wanderings of Continental scholars in thosedays, just returned to Geneva (1653), and settled there in what maybe called the family-business, i. E. The profession of Theology. Inthis he was to attain extraordinary celebrity, his _InstitutioTheologię Elencticę_ ranking to this day among CalvinisticTheologians as a master-work of its kind. Well, this FrancisTurretin, rising into fame at Geneva, just as Ezekiel Spanheim was, and seeing Spanheim daily, had, it seems from Milton's letter, abrother in London, on intimate terms with Milton; and Milton'sproposition to young Spanheim was that they should correspond infuture through the two Turretins. Who would have thought to find thefuture author of the _Institutio Theologię Elencticę_ used byMilton for postal purposes? Is it not clear too that the LondonTurretin must have been one of Milton's informants about Morus'sreasons for leaving Geneva? Respectability everywhere, at our presentdate at least, seems adverse to Morus. [2] [Footnote 1: For mention of Jean Louis Calandrin, the Genevesemerchant, see Letters between Pell and Thurloe in _Vaughan'sProtectorate_ (I. 302, 308, 354). He died at Geneva, in Feb. 1655-6, about a year after this mention of him by Milton. It ispossible he may have been a relative of a "Cęsar Calandrinus"mentioned by Wood as one of the many foreigners who had studied atExeter College, Oxford, during the Rectorship of Dr. Prideaux(1612-1641), and who was afterwards "a Puritanical Theologist, "intimate with Usher, a Rector in Essex, and finally minister of theparish of Peter le Poor in London, where he died in 1665, leaving ason named John. Wood speaks of him as a German (Wood, Ath. III. 269, and Fasti, I. 393-4); but the name is evidently Italian. Indeed Ifind that there had been an intermarriage in Italy between theDiodati family and a family of Calandrinis, bringing some of theCalandrinis also to Geneva about the year 1575. (Reprint, forprivate circulation, of a Paper on the Italian ancestry of Mr. William Diodate of New Haven, U. S. , read before the New HavenColony Historical Society, June 28, 1875, by Edward E. Salisbury, p. 13). By the kindness of Colonel Chester, whose genealogicalresearches are all-inclusive, I have a copy of the will of theabove-named Cęsar Calandrini of St. Peter le Poor, London. It isdated Aug. 4, 1665, when he was "three score and ten, " and mentionstwo sons, Lewis and John, two daughters living, one of them marriedto a Giles Archer, and grandchildren by these children, besidesnephews and nieces of the names of Papillon and Burlamachi. The son"John" in this will proved it in October 1665, and cannot have beenthe Calandrini of Milton's letter; but that Calandrini may havebeen of the same connexion. ] [Footnote 2: Bayle, Art. _Francois Turretin_. ] Busy over his reply to the _Fides Publica_, Milton had stretchedhis dispensation from routine duty in his Secretaryship not onlythrough November and December 1654 and January 1654-5, as was notedin last section, but as far as to April 1655 in the present section. Through these five months there is, so far as the records show, atotal blank, at all events, in his official letter-writing. In April1655, however, as if his reply to the _Fides Publica_ were thenoff his mind, and lying in the house in Petty France complete ornearly complete in manuscript, we do come upon two more of his LatinState-letters, as follows:-- (LII. ) TO THE PRINCE OF TARENTE, _April_ 4, 1655[1]:--This Prince, one of the chiefs of the French nobility, but connected with Germany by marriage, was a Protestant by education, had been mixed up with the wars of the Fronde, and was altogether a very stirring man abroad. He had written to Cromwell invoking his interest in behalf of foreign, and especially of French, Protestantism. Cromwell expresses his satisfaction in having had such an address from so eminent a representative of the Reformed faith in a kingdom in which so many have lapsed from it, and declares that nothing would please him more than "to be able to promote the enlargement, the safety, or, what is most important, the peace, of the Reformed Church. " Meanwhile he exhorts the Prince to be himself firm and faithful to his creed to the very last. --The Prince of Tarente, it may be mentioned, had interested himself much in the lawsuit between Morus and Salmasius. He had tried to act as mediator and induce Morus to withdraw his action--a condescension which Morus acknowledges, though he felt himself obliged, he says, to go on. [Footnote 1: No. 32 in Skinner Transcript (which gives the exactdate); also in Printed Collection and in Phillips. ] (LIII. ) To ARCHDUKE LEOPOLD of AUSTRIA, GOVERNOR OF THE SPANISH NETHERLANDS (_undated_):--Sir Charles Harbord, an Englishman, has had certain goods and household stuff violently seized at Bruges by Sir Richard Grenville. The goods had originally been sent from England to Holland in 1643 by the then Earl of Suffolk, in pledge for a debt owing to Harbord; and Grenville's pretext was that he also was a creditor of the Earl, and had obtained a decree of the English Chancery in his favour. Now, by the English law, neither was the present Earl of Suffolk bound by that decree nor could the goods be distrained under it. The decision of the Court to that effect is herewith transmitted; and His Serenity is requested to cause Grenville to restore the goods, inasmuch as it is against the comity of nations that any one should be allowed an action in foreign jurisdiction which he would not be allowed in the country where the cause of the action first arose. "The justice of the case itself and the universal reputation of your Serenity for fair dealing have moved us to commend the matter to your attention; and, if at any time there shall be occasion to discuss the rights or convenience of your subjects with as, I promise that you shall find our diligence in the same not remiss, but at all times most ready. "[1] [Footnote 1: Undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips; dated"Aug. 1658" in the Skinner Transcript, but surely by mistake. Sucha letter can hardly have been sent to the Archduke after Oct. 1655, when the war with Spain broke out. I have inserted it at this pointby conjecture only, and may be wrong. ] In April 1655, when these two letters were written, Oliver was in thesixteenth month of his Protectorship. His first nine months ofpersonal sovereignty without a Parliament, and his next four monthsand a half of unsatisfactory experience with his First Parliamentswere left behind, and he had advanced two months and more into hisperiod of compulsory Arbitrariness, when he had to govern, with thehelp of his Council only, by any means he could. Count all the LatinState-Letters registered by Milton himself as having been written byhim for Cromwell during those first fifteen months and more of theProtectorate, and they number only nine (Nos. XLV. -XLVIII in Vol. IV. Pp. 635-636, and Nos. XLIX. -LIII. In the present volume). These nineLetters, with the completion and publication of his _DefensioSecunda_, and now the preparation of a Reply to More's _FidesPublica_, and also perhaps occasional calls at Thurloe's officeand occasional presences at interviews with ambassadors and envoys inWhitehall, were all he had been doing for fifteen months for hissalary of £288 a year. The fact cannot have escaped notice. He hadhimself called attention to it, as if by anticipation, in thatpassage of his _Defensio Secunda_ in which he spoke of the kindindulgence of the State-authorities in retaining him honourably infull office, and not abridging his emoluments on account of hisdisability by blindness. The passage may have touched Cromwell andsome of the Councillors, and there was doubtless a general feelingamong them of the worth, beyond estimate in money, of Milton's nameto the Commonwealth, and of his past acts of literary championshipfor her. Economy, however, is a virtue easily recommended tostatesmen by any pinch of necessity, and it so chanced that at thevery time we have now reached, April 1655, the Protector and hisCouncil, being in money straits, were in a very economical mood (seeante p. 35). Here, accordingly, is what we find in the Council OrderBooks under date April 17, 1655. _Tuesday, April_ 17, 1655:--Present the Lord President Lawrence, Lord Lambert (styled so in the minute), Colonel Montague, Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Major-General Skippon. "The Council resumed the debate upon the Report made from the Committee of the Council to whom it was referred to consider of the Establishment of the Council's Contingencies. "_Ordered:_-- "That the salary of £400 _per annum_ granted to MR. GUALTER FROST as Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies be reduced to £300 _per annum_, and be continued to be paid after that proportion till further order. "That the former yearly salary of MR. JOHN MILTON, of £288, &c. , formerly charged on the Council's Contingencies, be reduced to £150 _per annum_, and paid to him during his life out of his Highness's Exchequer. "That the yearly salaries hereafter mentioned, being formerly paid out of the Council's Contingencies, --that is to say £45 12_s. _ 6_d. _ _per annum_ to Mr. Henry Giffard, Mr. Gualter Frost's assistant, --_per annum_ to Mr. John Hall, --_per annum_ to Mr. Marchamont Needham, --_per annum_ to Mr. George Vaux, the house-keeper at Whitehall, --_per annum_ for the rent of Sir Abraham Williams's house [for the entertainment of Ambassadors], and--_per annum_ to M. René Angler, --be for the future retrenched and taken away. "That some convenient rooms at Somerset House be set apart for the entertainment of Foreign Ambassadors upon their address to his Highness. "That it be referred to Mr. Secretary Thurloe to put that part of the Intelligence [from abroad] which is managed by M. René Augier into the common charge of Intelligence, and to order it for the future by M, Augier or otherwise, as he shall see most for the Commonwealth's service. * * * * * "That it be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council that several warrants be issued under the great seal for authorizing and requiring the Commissioners of his Highness's Treasury to pay, by quarterly payments, at the receipt of his Highness's Exchequer, to the several officers, clerks, and other persons after-named, according to the proportions allowed them for their salary in respect of their several respective offices and employments during their continuance or till his Highness or the Council shall give other order: that is to say:-- "To John Thurloe, Esq. , Secretary of State:--For his own office, after the proportion of £800 _per annum_; for the office of Mr. Philip Meadows, Secretary for the Latin Tongue, after the rate of £200 per annum; for the salaries of--clerks attending his [Thurloe's] office at 6_s. _ 8_d. _ _per diem_, a piece (which together amount to----); for the salaries of eleven messengers at 5_s. _ _per diem_, apiece (which together amount to £1003 15_s. _): amounting in the whole to ---- "To Mr. Henry Scobell and Mr. William Jessop, Clerks to the Council, or to either of them:--For their own offices, viz. Mr. Scobell £500 _per annum_, Mr. Jessop £500 _per annum_; for the salaries of--clerks attending their office at 6_s. _ 8_d. _ _per diem_ (which together amount to ----): amounting in the whole to ---- "To Mr, Edward Dendy, Serjeant at Arms attending the Council:--For his own office after the proportion of £365 _per annum_; for the salaries of his _ten_ deputies at 3_s. _ 4_d. _ _per diem_ a piece (which together amount to £608 6_s. _ 8_d. _); amounting in the whole to £973 6 8 "To Richard Scutt, Usher of the Council Chamber:--For himself and his assistants at 13_s. _ _per diem_, (being £237 5_s_, _per annum_); for Thomas Bennett's salary, keeper of the back-door of the Council Chamber, at 4_s. Per diem_ (being £73 _per annum_); for the salary of Robert Stebbin, fire-maker to the clerks, at 2_s. Per diem_ (being £36 10_s. Per annum_): amounting in the whole to £346 15 0 "The first payment of the said several and respective sums before-mentioned to commence from the 1st of April instant. "To Richard Nutt, master of his Highness's barge:--For his own office after £80 _per annum;_ for Thomas Washborne, his assistant, for his salary, after £20 _per annum;_ for the salaries of 25 watermen to attend his Highness's barge, at £4 _per annum_ to each (amounting together to £100 _per annum_): amounting in the whole to £200 _per ann. _ "The same to commence from 25th March, 1655. " Clearly the Council were in a mood of economy. Not only were certainsalaries to be reduced, but a good many outlays were to be stoppedaltogether, including Needham's subsidy or pension for hisjournalistic services. But more appears from the document. In spiteof the general tendency to retrenchment, the salaries of Scobell andJessop, the two clerks of the Council, are to be raised from £365 ayear to £500 a year. This alone would suggest that not retrenchmentonly, but an improvement also in the system of the Council'sbusiness, was intended. The document as a whole confirms that idea. It maps out the service of the Council more definitely than hithertointo departments. Thurloe, of course, is general head, styled now"Secretary of State"; but it will be observed that the department ofForeign Affairs, including the management of Intelligence fromabroad, is spoken of as now wholly and especially his, and thatMeadows, with the designation of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue, "ranks distinctly under him in that department. Scobell and Jessop, as"Clerks to the Council, " though under Thurloe too, are now importantenough to be jointly at the head of a separate staff; the Bailiff orConstable department is separate from theirs, and under the charge ofMr. Sergeant-at-Arms Dendy; and minor divisions of service, nameableas Ushership and Barge-attendance, are under the charge of Messrs. Scutt and Nutt respectively. The payments of salaries arehenceforward not to be vaguely through Mr. Gualter Frost, asTreasurer for the Council's Contingencies, but by warrants to theTreasury to pay regularly to the several heads the definitesums-total in their departments, their own salaries included. Milton's case was evidently treated as a peculiar one. It wascertainly proposed that his allowance should be reduced from £28818_s. _ 6_d. _ a year, which had hitherto been its rate, to£150 a year--i. E. By nearly one half. Most of us perhaps aredisappointed by this, and would have preferred to hear that Milton'sallowance had been doubled or tripled under the Protectorate, --madeequal, say, to Thurloe's. Records must stand as they are, however, and must be construed coolly. Milton's £288 a year for _his_lighter and more occasional duties had doubtless been all along infair proportion to the elder Frost's £600 a year, or Thurloe's £800, for _their_ more vast and miscellaneous drudgery. Nor, if Miltonhad ceased to be able to perform the duties, and another salariedofficer had been required in consequence, was there anythingextraordinary, in a time of general revision of salaries, that thefact should come into consideration. The question was precisely as ifnow a high official under government, who had been in receipt of asalary of over £1000 a year, was struggling on in blindness after sixyears of service, and an extra officer at £700 a year had been forsome time employed for his relief. In such a case, the official beinga man of great public celebrity and having rendered extraordinaryservices in his post, would not superannuation on a pension orretiring-allowance be considered the proper course? But this wasexactly the course proposed in Milton's case. The reduction from £288to £150 a year was, it ought to be noted, only part of theproposition; for, whereas the £288 a year had been at the Council'spleasure, it was now proposed that the £150 a year should be forlife. In short, what was proposed was the conversion of a terminablesalary of £288 a year, payable out of the Council's contingencies, into a life-pension of £150 a year, payable out of the Protector'sExchequer: which was as if in a corresponding modern case aterminable salary of over £1000 a year were converted into alife-pension of between £500 and £600. On studying the document, Ihave no doubt that the intention was to relieve Milton from thatmoment from all duty whatsoever, putting an end to that anomalous_Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary_, into which his connexionwith the Council had shaped itself since his blindness, and remittinghim, as _Ex-Secretary_ Milton, a perfectly free andhighly-honoured man, to pensioned leisure in his house in PettyFrance. For it is impossible that the Council could have intended toretain. Milton in any way in the working Secretaryship at a reducedsalary of £150 a year while Meadows, his former assistant, had thetitle of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue, " with a higher salary of£200 a year. Perhaps one may detect Thurloe's notions of officialsymmetry in the proposed change. Milton's _Latin SecretaryshipExtraordinary_ or _Foreign Secretaryship Extraordinary_ mayhave begun to seem to Thurloe an excrescence upon his own general_Secretaryship of State_, and he may have desired that Miltonshould retire altogether, and leave the Latin Secretaryship completeto Meadows as his own special subordinate in the foreign department. The document, however, we have to add farther, though it purports tobe an Order of Council, did not actually or fully take effect. Ifind, for example, that Needham's pension or subsidy of £100 a year, which is one of the outlays the document proposed to "retrench andtake away, " did not suffer a whit. He went on drawing his salary, sometimes quarterly and sometimes half-yearly, just as before, andprecisely in the same form, viz. By warrant from President Lawrenceand six others of the Council to Mr. Frost to pay Mr. Needham so muchout of the Council's Contingencies. Thus on May 24, 1655, or fiveweeks after the date of the present Order, there was a warrant toFrost to pay Needham £50, "being for half a year's salary due untohim from the 15th of Nov. Last to the 15th of this instant May"; andthe subsequent series of warrants in Needham's favour is complete tothe end of the Protectorate. [1] Again, Mr. George Vaux, whom ourpresent order seems to discharge from his house-keepership ofWhitehall, is found alive in that post and in receipt of his salaryof £150 a year for it to as late as Oct. 1659. [2] There must, therefore, have been a reconsideration of the Order by the Council, or between the Council and the Protector, with modifications of theseveral proposals. The proposal to raise the salaries of Scobell andJessop from £365 a year to £500 a year each must, indeed, have beenmade good, --for Scobell and Jessop's successor in the colleagueshipto Scobell are found afterwards in receipt of £500 a year. [3] But, onthe same evidence, we have to conclude that the reductions proposedin the cases of Mr. Gualter Frost and Milton were _not_confirmed, or were confirmed only _partially_. Frost is foundafterwards distinctly in receipt of £365 a year, [4] The actualreduction, in his case, therefore, was not from £400 to £300, as hadbeen proposed, but only from £400 to £365, or back to what his salaryhad been formerly (Vol. IV. 575-578). Milton again is found at theend of the Protectorate in receipt of £200 a year, and not of £150only, as had been proposed In the Order. [5] The inference must be, therefore, that there had been a reconsideration and modification ofthe Order in his case also, ratifying the proposal of a reduction, but diminishing considerably the proposed _amount_ of thereduction. One would like to know to what influence the modificationwas owing, and how far Cromwell himself may have interfered in thematter. On the whole, while one infers that the reconsideration ofthe Order generally may have been owing to direct remonstrances fromthose whom it affected injuriously, such as Frost, Vaux, and Needham, there is little difficulty in seeing what must have happened inMilton's particular. My belief is that he signified, or caused it tobe signified, that he had no desire to retire on a life-pension, thatit would be much more agreeable to him to continue in activeemployment for the State, that for certain kinds of such employmenthe found his blindness less and less a disqualification, that thearrangement as to salary might be as the Council pleased, but thathis own suggestion would be that his salary should be reduced to£200, so that he and Mr. Meadows should henceforth be on an equalityin that respect. Such, at all events, was the arrangement adopted;and we may now dismiss this whole incident in Milton's biography bysaying that, though in April 1655 there was a proposal tosuperannuate him entirely on a life-pension of £150 a year, theproposal did not take effect, but he went on from that date, just asbefore, in the Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary, though at thereduced salary of £200 a year instead of his original £288. [Footnote 1: My notes from the Money Warrant Books of the Council. ] [Footnote 2: Money Warrants of Feb. 15, 1658-9 and Oct. 25, 1659. ] [Footnote 3: Money Warrant of Oct. 25, 1659. ] [Footnote 4: Ibid. ] [Footnote 5: Ibid. ] As if to prove that the arrangement was a perfectly suitable one, andthat Milton's retirement into ex-Secretaryship would have been aloss, there came from him, immediately after the arrangement had beenmade, that burst of Latin State-letters which is now the most famousof his official performances for Cromwell. It was in the second weekof May, 1655, that the news of the Massacre of the PiedmonteseProtestants reached England; and from the 17th of that month, onwardsfor weeks and weeks, the attention of the Protector and the Councilwas all but engrossed, as we have seen (ante pp. 38-44), by thatdreadful topic. Here are a few of the first Minutes of Councilrelating to it:-- _Thursday, May_ 17, 1655:--Present: HIS HIGHNESS THE LORD PROTECTOR, Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Fiennes, Lord Lambert, Mr. Rous, Major-General Skippon, Lord Viscount Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Montague, Colonel Jones, General Desborough, Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley, Mr. Strickland. _Ordered_, "That it be referred to the Earl of Mulgrave, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Mr. Rous, and Colonel Jones, or any--of them to consider of the Petition [a Petition from London ministers and others], and also of the papers of intelligence already come touching the Protestants under the Duke of Savoy, and such other intelligence as shall come to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, and to offer to the Council what they shall think fit, as well _touching writing of letters_, collections, or otherwise, in order to their relief ... That it be referred to Colonel Fiennes, Mr. Strickland, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Mr. Secretary Thurloe, to prepare the draft of a letter to the French King upon this day's debate touching the Protestants suffering in the Dukedom of Savoy, and to bring in the same to-morrow morning. " _Friday, May_ 18:--At a second, or afternoon sitting (_present_: Lord President Lawrence, Lord Lambert, General Desborough, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Fiennes, Colonel Jones, Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Montague), "Colonel Fiennes reports from the Committee of the Council to whom the same was referred the draft of a Letter to be sent from his Highness to the King of France concerning the Protestants in the Dukedom of Savoy; which, after some amendments, was approved and ordered to be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council. " _Tuesday, May_ 22:--_Present_: Lord President Lawrence, Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Rous, Colonel Montague, Colonel Jones, General Desborough, Mr. Strickland, Colonel Fiennes, Lord Viscount Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Lord Lambert. "The Latin draft of a Letter to the Duke of Savoy in behalf of the Protestants in his Territory was this day read. _Ordered_, That it be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will please to sign the said Letter and cause it to be sent to the said Duke. " _Wednesday, May_ 23:--"Colonel Fiennes reports from the Committee of the Council the draft of two letters in reference to the sufferings of the Protestants in the territories of the Duke of Savoy, the one to the States-General of the United Provinces, the other to the Cantons of the Swisses professing the Protestant Religion; which were read, and, after several amendments, agreed. _Ordered_, That it be offered to his Highness the Lord Protector as the advice of the Council that he will please to send the said letters in his Highness's name to the said States-General and the Cantons respectively. " Though Milton's name is not mentioned in these minutes, it was he, and no other, that penned, or at least turned into Latin, for theCommittee, and so for the Council and the Protector, the particularletters minuted, and indeed all the other documents required by theoccasion. The following is a list of them:-- (LIV. ) TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, _May_ 25, 1655:[1]--This Letter may be translated entire. It is superscribed "OLIVER, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, &c. , to the Most Serene Prince, EMANUEL, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, Greeting "; and it is worded as follows:--"Most Serene Prince, --Letters have reached us from Geneva, and also from the Dauphinate and many other places bordering upon your dominion, by which we are informed that the subjects of your Royal Highness professing the Reformed Religion were recently commanded by your edict and authority, within three days after the promulgation of the said edict, to depart from their habitations and properties under pain of death and forfeiture of all their estates, unless they should give security that, abandoning their own religion, they would within twenty days embrace the Roman Catholic one, and that, though they applied as suppliants to your Royal Highness, begging that the edict might be revoked, and that they might be taken into their ancient favour and restored to the liberty granted them by your Most Serene ancestors, yet part of your army attacked them, butchered many most cruelly, threw others into chains, and drove the rest into the deserts and snow-covered mountains, where some hundreds of families are reduced to such extremities that it is to be feared that all will soon perish miserably by cold and hunger. When such news was brought us, we could not possibly, in hearing of so great a calamity to that sorely afflicted people, but be moved with extreme grief and compassion. But, confessing ourselves bound up with them not by common humanity only, but also by community of Religion, and so by an altogether brotherly relationship, we have thought that we should not be discharging sufficiently either our duty to God, or the obligations of brotherly love and the profession of the same religion, if we were merely affected with feelings of grief over this disaster and misery of our brethren, and did not exert ourselves to the very utmost of our strength and ability for their rescue from so many unexpected misfortunes. Wherefore the more we most earnestly beseech and adjure your Royal Highness that you will bethink yourself again of the maxims of your Most Serene ancestors and of the liberty granted and confirmed by them time after time to their Vaudois subjects. In granting and confirming which, as they performed what in itself was doubtless most agreeable to God, who has pleased to reserve the inviolable jurisdiction and power over Conscience for Himself alone, so there is no doubt either that they had a due regard for their subjects, whom they found hardy and faithful in war and obedient always in peace. And, as your Royal Serenity most laudably treads in the footsteps of your forefathers in all their other kindly and glorious actions, so it is our prayer to you again and again not to depart from them in this matter either, but to repeal this edict, and any other measure that may have been passed for the molestation of your subjects of the Reformed Religion, restoring them to their habitations and goods, ratifying the rights and liberty anciently granted them, and ordering their losses to be repaired and an end to be put to their troubles. If your Royal Highness shall do this, you will have done a deed most acceptable to God, you will have raised up and comforted those miserable and distressed sufferers, and you will have highly obliged all your neighbours that profess the Reformed Religion, --ourselves most of all, who shall then regard your kindness and clemency to those poor people as the fruit of our solicitation. Which will moreover tie us to the performance of all good offices in return, and lay the firmest foundations not only for the establishment but even for the increase of the relationship and friendship between this Commonwealth and your Dominion. Nor do we less promise this to ourselves from your justice and moderation. We beg Almighty God to bend your mind and thoughts in this direction, and we heartily pray for you and for your people peace and truth and prosperity in all your affairs. "[2]--The bearer of this letter to the Duke, as we know, was Mr. Samuel Morland, who had been selected as the Protector's special Commissioner for the purpose. He left London on the 26th of May. He took with him, also, a copy of the Latin speech which he was to deliver to the Duke in presenting the letter. As there is much probability that this Latin speech is also in part of Milton's composition, and as it is in even a bolder and more indignant strain than the letter, it may be well to translate it too:--"Your Serene and Royal Highnesses [the Duke and his mother both addressed?], --The Most Serene Lord, Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, has sent me to your Royal Highnesses; whom he salutes very heartily, and to whom, with a very high affection and peculiar regard for your Serenities, he wishes a long life and reign, and a prosperous issue of all your affairs, amid the applauses and respect of your people. And this is due to you, whether in consideration of the excellent character and royal descent of your Highnesses, and the great expectation of the world from so many eminent good qualities, or in recollection, after reference to records, of the ancient friendship of our Kings with the Royal house of Savoy. Though I am, I confess, but a young man, and not very ripe in experience of affairs, yet it has pleased my Most Serene and Gracious Master to send me, as one much devoted to your Royal Highnesses and ardently attached to all bearing the Italian name, on what is really a great mission. --The ancient legend is that the son of Croesus was completely dumb from his birth. When, however, he saw a soldier aiming a wound at his father, straightway he had the use of his tongue. No other is my predicament, feeling as I do my tongue loosened by those very recent and bloody wounds of Mother Church. A great mission surely that is to be called wherein all the safety and hope of many poor people is comprehended--their sole hope lying in the chance that they shall be able, by all their loyalty, obedience, and most humble prayers, to mollify and appease the minds of your Royal Highnesses, now irritated against them. In behalf of these poor people, whose cause pity itself may seem to make its own, the Most Serene Protector of England also comes as an intercessor, and most earnestly requests and beseeches your Royal Highnesses to deign to extend your mercy to these your very poor and most outcast subjects--those, I mean, who, inhabiting the roots of the Alps and certain valleys in your dominion, have professed nominally the Religion of the Protestants. For he has heard (what no one can say has been done by the will of your Royal Highnesses) that those wretched creatures have been partly killed by your forces, partly expelled by violence and driven from their home and country, so that they are now wandering, with their wives and children, houseless, roofless, poor, and destitute of all resource, through rugged and inhospitable spots and over snow-covered mountains. And, through the days of this transaction, if only the things are true that fame at present reports everywhere (would that Fame were proved a liar!), what was not dared and attempted against them? Houses smoking everywhere, torn limbs, the ground bloody! Ay, and virgins, ravished and hideously abused, breathed their last miserably; and old men and persons labouring under illness were committed to the flames; and some infants were dashed against the rocks, and the brains of others were cooked and eaten. Atrocity horrible and before unheard of, savagery such that, good God, were all the Neros of all times and ages to come to life again, what a shame they would feel at having contrived nothing equally inhuman! Verily, verily, Angels are horrorstruck, men are amazed; heaven itself seems to be astounded by these cries, and the earth itself to blush with the shed blood of so many innocent men. Do not, great God, do not seek the revenge due to this iniquity. May thy blood, Christ, wash away this stain!--But it is not for me to relate these things in order as they happened, or to dwell longer upon them; and what my Most Serene Master requests from your Royal Highnesses you will understand better from his own Letter. Which letter I am ordered to deliver to your Royal Highnesses with all observance and due respect; and, should your Royal Highnesses, as we greatly hope, grant a favourable and speedy answer, you will both do an act most gratifying to the Lord Protector, who has taken this business deeply to heart, and to the whole Commonwealth of England, and also restore, by an exercise of mercy very worthy of your Royal Highnesses, life, safety, spirit, country, and estates to many thousands of most afflicted people who depend on your pleasure; and me you will send back to my native country as the happy messenger of your conspicuous clemency, with great joy and report of your exalted virtues, the deeply obliged servant of your Royal Highnesses for evermore. "[3] [Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy preserved in the RecordOffice (Hamilton's _Milton Papers_, p. 15) and in the copyactually delivered to the Duke (Morland, pp. 572-574)--the phrase inboth being "_Dabantur ex aula nostra Westmonasterii_, 25_Maii_, _anno_ 1654. " In the Skinner Transcript, however, the dating is "_Westmonsterio, May_ 10, 1655;" which again ischanged into "_Alba Aula, May_ 1655, " i. E. "Whitehall, May 1655"(month only given) in the Printed Collections and in Phillips. ] [Footnote 2: There are one or two slight verbal differences betweenMilton's original draft, here translated, and the official copy asactually delivered to the Duke, and as printed by Morland. Thus, inthe first sentence, instead of _"Redditę sunt nobis e Geneva, necnon ex Delphinatu aliisque multis ex locis ditioni vestręfinitimis, literę, "_ the official copy has simply _"Redditęsunt nobis multis ex locis ditioni vestę finitimis literę. "_] [Footnote 3: I have translated the speech from the official Latindraft, as preserved in the Record Office, and as printed by Mr. Hamilton, _Milton Papers_, pp. 18-20. Mr. Hamilton has no doubtthat the composition is Milton's. He founds his opinion partly on thestyle, and partly on the fact that the draft is "written in the samehand as the other official copies of Milton's letters. " I agree withMr. Hamilton, though the matter does not seem to be absolutely beyondcontroversy. The style is generally like Milton's; there are phrasesrepeated from Milton's Latin elsewhere--e. G. "_montesque nivibuscoopertos_, " repeated from the Letter to the Duke of Savoy, and"_totius nominis Italici studiosissimum_" which almost repeatsthe "_toiius Gręci nominis ... Cultor_" of the second Letter toPhilaras; and there are also phrases identical with some used inMilton's other letters on the subject of the Massacre which have yetto be noted in this list. On the other hand, there are passages andexpressions in the Speech that strike one as hardly Miltonic, whilethe purport in some places would favour the idea that Morland wrotethe speech himself. What seems to negative this idea most strongly, and therefore to point most distinctly to Milton as the author, isthe existence of the MS. Official copy in the Record Office. Thespeech, that copy proves, must have been prepared before Morland leftLondon, and must have been taken with him. For that it cannot havebeen merely deposited in the State Paper Office afterwards, as arecord of what he did say at Turin, is proved by the fact that hisactual speech at Turin, as printed by himself in his book, with anEnglish Translation (pp. 558-561), though in substance identical withthe draft-copy, differs in some particulars. In the actual speech theplural, "Your Royal Highnesses, " is changed into the singular, "YourRoyal Highness, " for address to the Duke only, though theDuchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morlandto the Son of Croesus is entirely omitted; and there are other verbalchanges, apparently suggested by Morland's closer information as heapproached Turin, or by his sense of fitness at the moment--inillustration of which the reader may compare the very strong passageabout "the Neros of all times and ages" as we have just rendered itfrom the draft with the same passage as we have previously renderedit from Morland's actual speech (ante p. 42). But, if Morland tookthe speech with him, unless he wrote it himself and had it approvedbefore his departure, who so likely to have furnished it as Milton?All in all, that is the most probable conclusion; and anythingun-Miltonic in the speech may be accounted for by supposing that, though the Latin was Milton's, the substance was not entirely his. Morland, though he does not say in his book that the speech wasfurnished him, does not positively claim it as his own. He, at allevents, used the liberty of deviating from the original draft. ] (LV. ) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May 25, 1655_[1]:--His Highness in this letter recapitulates the facts at some length, and expresses his conviction that the Cantons, so much nearer the scene of the horrors, are already duly roused. He informs them that he has written to the Duke of Savoy and hopes the intercession may have effect; but adds, "If, however, he should determine otherwise, we are prepared to exchange counsels with you on the subject of the means by which we may be able most effectively to relieve, re-establish, and save from certain and undeserved ruin, an innocent people oppressed and tormented by so many injuries, they being also our dearest brothers in Christ. "[2] [Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy as dispatched, and asprinted in Morland's book, pp. 581-562; but draft dated"_Westmonasterio, May 19, 1655_" in the Skinner Transcript, thePrinted Collection, and Phillips. ] [Footnote 2: One of the phrases in this letter about the poorPiedmontese Protestants is "_nunc sine tare, sine teoto, ... Permonies desertos atque nives, cum conjugibus ac liberis, miserrimevagantur_. " The phrase occurs almost verbatim in Morland's speechto the Duke of Savoy--"_sine lare, sine tecto ... Cum suisconjugibus ac liberis vagari_. "] (LVI. ) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _May_ 25, 1655:--To the same effect as the last, _mutatis mutandis_. What sovereign can be more ready to stir in such a cause than his Swedish majesty, the successor of those who have been champions of the Protestantism of Europe? Gladly will the Protector form a league with him and with other powers to do whatever may be necessary. (LVII. ) TO THE KING OF DENMARK, May 25, 1655:[1]--An appeal in the same strain to his Danish Majesty: phraseology varied a little, But matter the same. [Footnote 1: This and the last both so dated in official copy asprinted in Morland's book, pp. 554-557; dated only "May 1655" inSkinner Transcript, Printed Collection, and Phillips. ] (LVIII. ) TO LOUIS XIV. , KING OF FRANCE, May 25, 1655:[1]--The story recapitulated for the benefit of his French Majesty, with the addition that it is reported that some troops of his Majesty had assisted the Piedmontese soldiery in the attack on the Vaudois. This the Protector can hardly believe: it would be so much against that policy of Toleration which the Kings of France have found essential for the peace of their own dominions. The Protector cannot doubt, at all events, that his Majesty will use his powerful influence with the Duke of Savoy to induce him at once, as far as may be possible, to repair the outrageous wrong already done. [Footnote 1: This Letter is omitted in the Printed Collection and inPhillips; but it is given in the Skinner Transcript (No. 38 there), and Mr. Hamilton has printed it in his Milton Papers (p. 2). It hadalready been printed in Morland's book (pp. 564-565). ] (LIX. ) TO THE MOST EMINENT LORD, CARDINAL MAZARIN, _May_ 25, 1625:[1]--Not content with writing to Louis XIV. , Cromwell addressed also the great French Minister. After mentioning the dreadful occasion, the letter proceeds--"There is clearly nothing which has obtained for the French nation greater esteem with all their neighbours professing the Reformed Religion than the liberty and privileges permitted and granted to Protestants by edicts and public acts. It is for this reason chiefly, though for others as well, that this Commonwealth has sought for the friendship and alliance of the French to a greater degree than before. For the settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French Protestants, causes me to hope much from your own prudence and magnanimity. " [Footnote 1: Utterly undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips, and quite misplaced in both; properly dated "May 25, 1655" in SkinnerTranscript. ] (LX. ) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _May_ 25, 1655:[1]--To the same effect as the letters to the Swiss Cantons and the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, but with emphatic expression of his Highness's peculiar confidence In the Dutch Republic in such a crisis. He offers in the close to act in concert with the States-General and other Protestant powers for any interference that may be necessary. [Footnote 1: So dated in official copy, as printed in Morland'sbook, pp. 558-560; but undated in Printed Collection and inPhillips, and dated "_West. , Junii_--1655" in SkinnerTranscript (No. 41 there). This last is a mistake; for Thurloespeaks of the letter as already written May 25 (Thurloe to Pell, _Vaughan's Protectorate_, I. 185). The official copy, as givenin Morland, differs somewhat from Milton's draft. "_Ego_" forCromwell, in one sentence, is changed into "_Nos;_" and theclosing words of the draft, "_et is demum, sentiet orthodoxnoninjurias atque miserias tam graves non posse nos negligere_" areomitted in the official copy, possibly as too strong. These may beamong the amendments made in Council, May 23. ] (LXI. ) TO THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA, _May_, 1655:[1]--Transylvania, now included in the Austrian Empire, was then an independent Principality of Eastern Europe, in precarious and variable relations with Austria, Poland, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. The population, a mixture of Wallachs, Magyars. Germans, and Slavs, was largely Protestant; and the present Prince, George Ragotzki, was an energetic supporter of the Protestant interest in that part of Europe, and a man generally of much political and military activity. He had written, it appears, to Cromwell on the 16th of November, 1654, and had sent an Envoy to England with the letter. It had expressed his earnest desire for friendship and alliance with the Protector, and for co-operation with him in the defence of the Reformed Religion. Cromwell now acknowledges the letter and embassy, with high compliments to the Prince personally, of whose merits and labours there had been so much fame. This leads him at once to the Piedmontese business. Is not that an opportunity for the co-operation his Serenity had mentioned? At any rate, it behoves all Protestant princes to be on the alert; for who knows how far the Duke of Savoy's example may spread? [Footnote 1: Dated so in Skinner Transcript, Printed Collection, andPhillips--with the addition "Westminster" in the first, and"Whitehall" in the two last: no copy given in Morland's book. ] (LXII. ) TO THE CITY OF GENEVA, _June_ 8, 1655:--This letter announces the collection in progress in England for the relief of the Piedmontese Protestants. It will take some time to complete the collection; but meanwhile the first instalment of £2000 [Cromwell's personal contribution] is remitted for immediate use. His Highness is quite sure that the City authorities of Geneva will cheerfully take charge of the money, and see it distributed among those most in need. A postscript bids the Genevese expect £1500 of the sum through Gerard Hensch of Paris, and the remaining £500 through Mr. Stoupe, a well known travelling agent of Cromwell and Thurloe. (LXIII. ) TO THE KING OF FRANCE, _July_ 29, 1655:--The Protector here acknowledges an answer received to his previous letter of May 25. [The answer had been delivered to Morland early in June, when he was on his way through Paris, and transmitted by him to the Protector. A translation of it is given in Morland's book, pp. 566-567. ] He is glad to be confirmed in his belief that the French officers who lent their troops to assist the Piedmontese soldiery in that bloody business did so without his Majesty's order and against his will--glad also to learn that these officers have been rebuked, and that his Majesty has, of his own accord, remonstrated with the Duke of Savoy, and advised him to stop his persecution of the Vaudois. As no effect has yet been produced however, [Morland has by this time delivered his speech at Turin, and reported the dubious answer given by the Duke of Savoy: ante pp. 42-43], the Protector is now despatching a special envoy [i. E. Mr. George Downing] to Turin, to make farther remonstrances. This envoy will pass through Paris, and his mission will have the greater chance of success if his Majesty will take the opportunity of again impressing his views upon the Duke. By so doing, by punishing those French officers who employed his Majesty's troops so disgracefully, and by sheltering such of the poor Vaudois as may have sought refuge in France, his Majesty will earn the respect of other Powers, and will strengthen the loyalty of his own Protestant subjects. (LXIV. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _July_ 29, 1655:--This is a special note, accompanying the foregoing letter, and introducing and recommending Mr. Downing to his Eminence. Besides these official documents for Cromwell on the Piedmontesebusiness, there came from Milton his memorable Sonnet on the same, expressing his own feelings, and Cromwell's too, with less restraint. It may have been in private circulation at the Protector's Court atthe date of the last two of the ten letters: ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. [1] [Footnote 1: If Morland's speech at Turin was of Milton'scomposition, as we have found probable, the contrast between onephrase in that speech and the opening of this Sonnet is curious. "Donot, great God, do not seek the revenge due to this iniquity, " saysthe Speech; "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, " says theSonnet. ] From the Piedmontese Massacre we have now to revert to Morus. His_Fides Publica_, in reply to Milton's _Defensio Secunda_, hadbeen published in an incomplete state, as we have seen, by Ulac atthe Hague in August or September 1654; and Milton had a rejoinder tothis publication ready or nearly ready, as we have also seen, by theend of March 1655. The reason why this Rejoinder had not alreadyappeared has now to be stated. One of Morus's reasons for hurrying into France so unexpectedly, andleaving his unfinished book in Ulac's hands, seems to have been thechance of a professorship or pastorship there that would enable himto quit Holland permanently, and settle at length in his own country. "Some speak of calling Morus, against whom Mr. Milton writes sosharply, to be Professor of Divinity at Nismes; but most men say itwill ruin that church, " is a piece of Parisian news sent by Pell toThurloe in a letter from Zurich dated Oct. 28, 1654;[1] and, withthat prospect, or some other, Morus seems to have remained in Francefor some time after that date. When copies of his incomplete _FidesPublica_ reached him there, he may not have thanked Ulac forissuing the book in such a state without leave given. All the more, however, he must have felt himself obliged to complete the book. Accordingly he did, from France, forward the rest of the MS. To Ulac, with the result of the appearance at last from Ulac's press of asupplementary volume with this title: "_Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastę et Sacrarum Litterum Professoris, Supplementum FideiPublicę contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni. Hagae-Comitum, TypisAdriani Ulacq, 1655. _" ("Supplement to the Public Testimony ofAlexander Morus, Churchman and Professor of Sacred Literature, inreply to the Calumnies of John Milton. Hague: Printed by AdrianUlac, 1655. ") Ulac prefixes, under the heading "_The Printer to theReader_, " a brief explanatory Preface. "You have here, good Reader, "he says, "the missing remainder of the edition of a Treatise which welately printed and published under the title _Aleaxandri Mori FidesPublica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni_. This remainder thatReverend gentleman has sent me from France. Of the whole matter judgeas may seem fair and just to you. Let it suffice for me to havesatisfied your curiosity. Farewell. " It must have been this_Supplementum_ of Morus, reaching London perhaps in April 1655, or perhaps during the first busy correspondence about the Piedmontesemassacre, that delayed the appearance of Milton's already writtenRejoinder to the imperfect _Fides Publica_. He would notice this"Supplement" as well as the volume already published, and so havedone with Morus altogether. [Footnote 1: Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 73; where "Mr. Miton"appears as "Mr. Hulton. "] Morus's _Supplementum_ consists of 105 pages, added to theoriginal _Fides Publica_, but numbered onwards from the lastpage there, so as to admit of the binding of the two volumes into onevolume consecutively paged, though with two title-pages, differentlydated. The matter also proceeds continuously from the point at whichthe _Fides Publica_, broke off. Referring to the testimony borneto his character in the venerable Diodati's Letter from Geneva toSalmasius, dated May 9, 1648, and connecting it with Milton's mentionof his personal acquaintance with Diodati formed in his visit toGeneva in 1639, Morus addresses Milton thus: "This is that John Diodati upon whom you cast no small stain by your praise, and who truly, if he were alive, would prefer to be in the number of those who are vituperated by you. Would he _were_ alive! How he would beat back your pride, not indeed with other pride, but with the gravest smile of contempt! How he would despise in his great mind your thoughts, sayings, acts, all in one! How he would anticipate your fine satire, and, moved with holy loathing, spit upon it! '_With him_, ' you say, '_I had daily society at Geneva_. ' But what did you learn from him? What of desirable contagion did you carry away from his acquaintance? Often have we heard him enumerating those friends he had in your country whom he commended on the score of either learning or goodness. Of _you_ we never heard a syllable from him. " Then, after telling of his affectionate parting with Diodati atGeneva, when both, were in tears and the old man blessed him, heproceeds to quote other Testimonials, either in French or in Latin. Four more are still from former Swiss friends:--viz. An extract fromanother letter of Diodati, addressed to M. L'Empereur; a letter fromM. Sartoris to Salmasius, dated Geneva, April 5, 1648; a testimonialfrom the lawyer Gothofridius, dated Geneva, May 24, 1648; and asubsequent letter from the same, dated Basel, April 23, 1651. All arevery complimentary. Passing then to his life in Holland after leavingSwitzerland, Morus continues the series of his testimonials. We havefirst, in French or Latin, or both, a letter from the Church atMiddleburg to the Church at Geneva, dated Nov. 2, 1649, an extractfrom a letter of the Synod of the Walloon Churches of the UnitedProvinces to the Pastors and Professors of Geneva, dated May 6, 1650, and a testimonial from the Church of Middleburg, on the occasion ofsending M. Morus as deputy to the said Synod, dated April 19, 1650. More documents of the same kind follow, chiefly for the purpose ofdisproving the assertion that M. Morus had been condemned and ejectedby the Middleburg Church. They include an extract from the Acts ofthe Consistory of the Walloon Church of Middleburg, dated July 10, 1652, a testimonial from the Middleburg Church of the same date, andan extract from the Articles of the Synod of the Walloon Churchesheld at Groede, Aug. 21-23, 1652. Having thus brought himself, withample testimonials of character, to the date of his removal from theMiddleburg Church to the Professorship in Amsterdam, he takes up moreexpressly the _Accusatio de Bontid_ or Bontia scandal. He giveswhat he calls the true and exact version of that story, with thosedetails about Madame de Saumaise and her quarrel with him on Bontia'saccount which have already appeared in our narrative. He lays stresson the fact that it was himself that had instituted the law-process, and persevered in it to the end; and he dwells at some length on thesuccessful issue of the case both in the Walloon Synod and in theSupreme Court of Holland. He has evidence, he says, that Salmasius, to his dying day, spoke in high terms of him, and admitted thatMadame de Saumaise was in the wrong. "This statement has been made, "he says, "not solely in reply to your insolence, but also out ofregard for the weakness and ignorance of those at a distance who haveimbibed the venom of the calumny and heard of the spiteful revenge towhich I was subject, but not of the unusual sequel of its judicialdiscomfiture. All of whom, but especially my friends and countrymen, amid whom there has happened to me the same that happened to Basilamong _his_ neighbours, I request and beseech by all that issacred not rashly to credit mere report, much less the letters whichmy adversaries have sent hither and thither through all nations, especially after they perceived that they were driven from all theirdefences at home, judging that they would more easily invest theirlie with belief and authority in distant parts. Fair critics, I doubtnot, will at least suspend their judgment, and not incline to eitherside, until there shall have reached them a just narrative of thefacts, truly and freely written by a friend, the publication of whichhas hitherto been kept back at my desire. " Three additionaltestimonials are then appended to show that his reputation had notsuffered in Amsterdam on account of the Saumaise-Bontia scandal, andespecially that the rumour that he had been suspended fromministerial functions there was utterly untrue. These Amsterdamtestimonials, as being the latest in date, and the most important inMorus's favour, may be given in abstract:-- _From the Magistrates of Amsterdam, July 11, 1654_:--"Whereas the Reverend and very learned Mr. Alexander Morus, Professor of Sacred History in our illustrious School, has complained to us that one John Milton, in a lately published book, has attacked his reputation with atrocious calumnies, and has added moreover that the Magistrates of Amsterdam have interdicted him the pulpit, and that only his Professorship of Greek remains, ... We, &c. , testify. " What they testify is that, since Morus had come to Amsterdam, "not only had he done nothing which could afford ground for such calumnies, or was unworthy of a Christian and Theologian, " but he had also discharged the duties of his Professorship with extraordinary learning, eloquence and acceptance. So far, therefore, were the Magistrates from censuring M. Morus that, on the contrary, they were ready still, on any occasion, to afford him all the protection and show him all the good will in their power. The certificate is sealed with the City seal, and signed by "N. Nicolai, " the City clerk. _From the Amsterdam Church (about same date)_:--Three Pastors of this Church--Gothofrid Hotton, Henry Blanche-Tete, and Nicolas de la Bassecour--certify, "in the name of the whole convocation of the Gallo-Belgie Church of Amsterdam, " that Morus discharges his Professorship with high credit; also "that, as regards his life and conversation, they are so far from knowing or acknowledging him to be guilty of those things of which he is accused by one Milton, an Englishman, in his lately published book, that, on the contrary, they have frequently requested sermons from him, and he has delivered such in the church, excellent in quality and perfectly orthodox, --which could not have occurred if anything of the alleged kind had been known to his brethren (_quod heud factum fuisset si hujusmodi quioquam nobis innotuisset_). " _From the Curators of the Amsterdam School, July 29, 1654_:--To the same effect, with the story of the circumstances of the appointment of Morus to the Professorship. They had been very anxious to get him, and he had justified their choice. "We think the calumnies with which he is undeservedly loaded arise from nothing else than the ill-will which is the inseparable accompaniment of especially distinguished virtue. " Signed, for the Curators, by "C. De Graef" and "Simon van Hoorne. " After asking Milton how he can face these flat contradictions of hischarges, not from mere individuals, but from important public bodies, and saying that "one favourable nod from any one of the personsconcerned would be worth more than the vociferations of a thousandMiltons to all eternity, " Morus corrects Milton's mistake as to thenature of his Professorship. It is not a Professorship of Greek, butof Sacred History, involving Greek only in so far as one might referin one's lectures to Josephus or the Greek Fathers. But he _had_been a Professor of Greek--in Geneva, to wit, when little over twentyyears of age. Nor, in spite of all Milton's facetiousness on thesubject of Greek, and his puns on _Morus_ in Greek, was heashamed of the fact. "For all learning whatever is Greek, so thatwhoever despises Greek Literature, or professors of the same, mustnecessarily be a sciolist. " And here he detects the reason ofMilton's incessant onslaughts on Salmasius. Milton was evidentlymost ambitious of the fame of scholarship, as appeared from hisanticipations of immortality in his Latin poems; and, though he mightbe a fair Latinist--not immaculate in Latin either, as he might hearsome time or other from Salmasius himself, though that was a secretyet--he knew that he could never snatch away from Salmasius the palmof the highest, i. E. Of Greek, scholarship. Morus does not claim forhimself the title of a perfect classic; he is content with hispresent position and its duties. Admirable lessons in life are to beobtained from the study of Church History. Of these not the least isthe verification of the words in the Gospel, "Woe unto you when allmen shall speak well of you. " What calumnies had been borne byJerome, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and others of the best ofmen! With such examples before one, why should an insignificantperson, like the writer, conscious too of many faults and weaknesses, take calumny too much to heart? This pathetic strain, attainedtowards the close of the book, is maintained most skilfully in theperoration. "But, if credit enough is not given to my own solemn affirmation, nor to this Public Testimony, Thee, Lord God, I make finally my witness, who explorest the inmost recesses of the spirit, who triest the reins, and knowest the secret motives of the breast, a Searcher of hearts to whom, as if by thorough dissection, all things are bare. Thee, God, Thee I call as my witness, who shalt one day be my Judge and the Judge of all, whether it is not the case that men see in this heart of mine what Thou seest not. Would that Thou didst not also see in the same heart what they do not see! But ah me! I am far baser in reality than they feign. Suppliantly I adore the will of Thy Providence that permits me to be falsely accused among men on account of so many hidden faults of which I am truly guilty in Thy sight. Thou, Lord, saidst to Shimei, 'Curse David. ' Glory be to Thy name that hast chosen to preserve me, exercised with so many griefs, that I may serve Thyself. There is one great sin discernible in my soul, which I confess before the whole world. I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength; that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me I have not yet turned to full account--whether because I have followed too much the pleasures of mere study, or whether I have consumed too much time and labour in refuting the invectives of the evil-disposed, to whom, such has been Thy pleasure, I have been constantly an object of attack. Cover the past for me, regulate the future. Cleared before men, before Thee I shall be cleared never, unless Thy mercy shall be my succour. I confess I have sinned against Thee, nor shall I do so more. Thou seest how this paper on which I write is now all wet with my tears: pardon me, Redeemer mine, and grant that the vow I now take to Thee I may sacredly perform. Let a thousand dogs bark at me, a thousand bulls of Bashan rush upon me, as many lions war against my soul, and threaten me with destruction, I will reply no more, defended enough if only I feel Thee propitious. I will no more waste the time due to Thee, sacred to Thee, in mere trifles, or lose it in beating off the importunity of moths. Whatever extent of life it shall please Thee to appoint me still, I vow, I dedicate, all to Thee, all to Thy Church. So shall we be revenged on our enemies. Convert us all, Thou who only canst. Forgive us, forgive them also; nor to us, nor to them, but to Thy name, be the glory!" Milton read this, but was not moved. On the 8th of August, 1655, there was published his Rejoinder to the original _FidesPublica_, with his notice of the _Supplementum_ appended. Itis a small volume of 204 pages, entitled _Joannis Miltoni_, _Angli_, _Pro Se Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum_, _Ecclesiasten_, _Libellifamosi_, _cui titulus 'Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cęlum adversusParricidas Anglicanus'_, _authorem recte dictum. Londini_, _TypisNewcomianis_, 1655 ("The English, John Milton's Defence forHimself, in reply to Alexander Morus, Churchman, rightly called theauthor of the notorious book entitled 'Cry of the King's Blood toHeaven against the English Parricides, ' London, from Newcome's Press, 1655"). This is perhaps the least known now of all Milton's writings. It has never been translated, even in the wretched fashion in whichhis _Defensio Prima_ and _Defensio Secunda_ have been; andit is omitted altogether in some professed editions of Milton's wholeworks. [1] [Footnote 1: The date of publication is from the Thomason copy in theBritish Museum. ] After a brief Introduction, in which Milton remarks that the quarrel, which was originally for Liberty and the English People, has nowdwindled into a poor personal one, he discusses afresh, as the firstreal point in dispute, the question of the authorship of the _RegiiSanguinis Clamor_. Morus's denials, or seeming denials, go fornothing. Any man may deny anything; there are various ways of denial;and he still maintains that Morus is, to all legal intents andpurposes, responsible for the book. "Unless I show this. " he says, "unless I make it plain either that you are the author of that mostnotorious book against us, or that you have given sufficient occasionfor justly regarding you as the author, I do not object to theconclusion that I have been beaten by you in this controversy, andcome out of it ignominiously, with disgrace and shame. " How is thisstrong statement supported? In the first place, there is reproducedthe evidence of original, universal, and persistent rumour. "This Isay religiously, that through two whole years I met no one, whether acountryman of my own or a foreigner, with whom there could be talkabout that book, but they all agreed unanimously that you were calledits author, and they named no one for the author but you. " To Morus'sassertion that he had openly, loudly, and energetically disowned thebook, where suspected of the authorship, Milton returns a complexanswer. Partly he does not believe the assertion, on the ground thatthere were many who had heard Morus confessing to the book andboasting of it. Partly he asks why such energetic repudiations werenecessary, and why, in spite of them, intimate friends of Morusretained their former opinion. Partly he admits that there maylatterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was dangerin being thought the author. Any criminal will deny his crime insight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus hadreason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the _RegiiSanguinis Clamor_ was forthcoming, what had not the author of thatbook to dread after the Peace between the Dutch and the Commonwealthhad been concluded? By articles IX. , X. , and XI. Of the Peace it wasprovided that no public enemy of the Commonwealth should haveresidence, shelter, living, or commerce, within the bounds of theUnited Provinces; and who more a public enemy of the Commonwealththan the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_? No wonder that, after that Peace, Morus had trembled for the consequences of hishandiwork. The loss of his Amsterdam Professorship, instant ejectionfrom Holland, and prohibition of return under pain of death, werewhat he had to fear. Were not these powerful enough motives fordenial to a man like Morus? Had not Milton, when he learnt by lettersfrom Durie in May 1654 that Morus was disowning--the book, beenentitled to remember these motives? For what other evidence had beenproduced besides Morus's own word? His friend Hotton's only; and thatwas no independent testimony, but only Morus's at second hand. Andeven now, after Morus's repeated and studiously-worded denials in his_Fides Publica_, how did the case stand? "That book [the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_] consists of various prooemia and epilogues [i. E. Addition to the central text]--to wit, _An Epistle to Charles_, another _To the Reader_, and two sets of verses at the close, one eulogistic of Salmasius, the other in defamation of me. Now, if I find that you wrote or contributed any page of this whole book, even a single verse, or that you published it, or procured it, or advised it, or superintended the publishing, or even lent the smallest particle of aid therein, you alone, since no one else is to the fore, shall be to me responsible for the whole, the author, the 'Crier'. Nor can you call this merely my severity or vehemence; for this is the procedure established among almost all nations by right and laws of equity. I will adduce, as universally accepted, the Imperial Civil Law. Read _Institut. Justiniani l. IV. De Injuriis, Tit. 4_: 'If any one shall write, compose, or publish, or with evil design cause the writing, composing, or publishing, of a book or poem (or story) for the defamation of any one, ' &c. Other laws add 'Even should he publish in the name of another, or without name;' and all decree that the person is to be taken for the author and punished as such. I ask you now, not whether you wrote the text of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, but whether you made, wrote, published, or caused to be published, the Epistle Dedicatory to Charles prefixed to the _Clamor_, or any particle thereof; I ask whether you composed or caused to be published the other Epistle to the Reader, or finally that Defamatory Poem, You have replied nothing yet to these precise questions. By merely disowning the _Clamor_ itself and strenuously swearing that you wrote no portion of it, you thought to escape with safe credit, and make game of us, inasmuch as the Epistle to Charles the Son, or that to the Reader, or the set of Iambic verses, is not the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_. Take now this in brief, therefore, that you may not be able so to wheel about or prevaricate in future, or hope for any escape or concealment, and that all may know how far from mendacious, how veritable on the contrary, or at least not unfounded, was that report which arose about you: take, I say, this in brief, --that I have ascertained, not by report alone, but by testimony than which none can be surer, that you managed the bringing out of the whole book entitled _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, and corrected the printer's proofs, and composed, either alone, or in association with one or two others, the Epistle to Charles II. Which bears Ulac's name. Of this your own name 'ALEXANDER MORUS, ' subscribed to some copies of that Epistle, has been too clear and ocular proof to many witnesses of the fact for you to be able to deny the charge or to get rid of it.... There are several who have heard yourself either admit, on interrogation, that that Epistle is yours, or declare the fact spontaneously.... If you ask on what evidence I, at such a distance, make these statements, and how they can have become so certain to myself, I reply that it is not on the evidence of rumour merely, but partly on that of most scrupulous witnesses who have most solemnly made the assertions to myself personally, partly on that of letters written either to myself or to others. I will quote the very words of the letters, but will not give the names of the writers, considering that unnecessary in matters of such notoriety independently. Here you have first an extract from a letter to me from the Hague, the writer of which is a man of probity and had no common means of investigating this affair:--'I have ascertained beyond doubt (_exploratissimum mihi est_) that Morus himself offered the copy of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_ to some other printers before Ulac received it, that he superintended the correction of the errors of the press, and that, as soon as the book was finished, copies were given and distributed by him to not a few. '... Take again the following, which a highly honourable and intelligent man in Amsterdam writes as certainly known to himself and as abundantly witnessed there:--'It is most certain that almost all through these parts have regarded Morus as the author of the book called _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_; for he corrected the sheets as they came from the press, and some copies bore the name of Morus subscribed to the Dedicatory Epistle, of which also he was the author. He himself told a certain friend of mine that he was the author of that Epistle: nay there is nothing more certain than that Morus either assumed or acknowledged the authorship of the same. ' ... I add yet a third extract. It is from another letter from the Hague:--'A man of the first rank in the Hague has told me that he has in his possession a copy of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ with Morus's own letter. '" Farther on Milton re-adverts to the same topic, in a passage which itis also well to quote: "You say you 'will produce not rumours merely, not conversations merely, but letters, in proof that I had been warned not to assail an innocent man. ' Let us then inspect the letter you publish, which was written to you by 'that highly distinguished man, Lord Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation, '--a letter, it is evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He--and it shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man' (for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble on your most unworthy account?)--goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He communicates your letter to Mr. Secretary. When he saw that he had no success, he sends to me two honourable persons, friends of mine, with that same letter of yours. What do they do? They read me that letter of Morus, and they request, and say that Ambassador Nieuport also requests, that I will trust to your letter in which you deny being the author of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_. I answered that what they asked was not fair--that neither was Morus's word worth so much, nor was it customary to believe, in contradiction to common report and other ascertained evidence, the mere letter of an accused person and an adversary denying what was alleged against him. They, having nothing more to say on the other side, give up the debate.... When afterwards the Ambassador wanted to persuade Mr. Secretary Thurloe, he had still no argument to produce but the same copy of your letter; whence it is quite clear that those 'reasons' brought to me 'for which he desired' me to be so good as not to publish my book had nothing to do with reasons of State. Do not then corrupt the Ambassador's letter. Nothing there of 'hostile spirit, ' nothing of the 'inopportune time;' all he writes is that he 'is sorry I had chosen, notwithstanding his request, to show so little moderation'--sorry, that is, that I had not chosen, at his private request, to oblige you, a public adversary, and to recall and completely rewrite a work already printed and all but out. Let 'the highly distinguished man, ' especially as an Ambassador, hold me excused if I would not, and really could not, condone public injuries on private intercessions. " Before Milton passes to the review of Morus's vindication of hischaracter and past career, he disposes of Dr. Crantzius and Ulac, asobjects intervening between him and that main task. For the _FidesPublica_, it will be remembered, had been bound up with that Hagueedition of Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ to which the Rev. Dr. Crantzius had prefixed a preface in rebuke of Milton and in defenceof Morus, and to which Ulac had also prefixed a statement replying toMilton's charges against him of dishonesty and bankruptcy. Severalpages are given to Dr. Crantzius, who is called "a certain I know notwhat sort of a bed-ridden little Doctor, " then taxed with ignorance, garrulity, and general imbecility, and at last kicked out of the waywith the phrase "But I do marvellously delight in Doctors. " Ulac, ashaving been reckoned with before, receives briefer notice. "_Youare a swindler, Ulac_, said I; _I am a good Arithmetician_, says Ulac:" so the notice begins; and then follow some sentences tothe effect that Ulac's creditors had been very ill satisfied with his_counting_, that the rule of probity is not the _Logarithmiccanon_, that correct accounts are different things from _Tablesof Sines_ or _Tables of Tangents and Secants_, and thatacting on the square is not necessarily taught by_Trigonometry_. After which Milton reverts to Ulac'sdouble-dealings with himself, first in his fathering the abusiveDedication of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ while he wascorresponding with Milton's friends in London and making kindinquiries about Milton's health, and next in bringing out a piratededition of the _Defensio Secunda_, printing the sameinaccurately, and actually binding it up with the _FidesPublica_ of Morus, so as to compel a united sale of the two booksfor his own profit. How a man could have published so coolly a bookin which he was himself held up as a rogue and swindler passesMilton's comprehension; but Ulac, he seems to admit, was no ordinarytradesman. For poor Morus himself there is not an atom of mercy yet. All hisdexterous pleading, all his declarations of innocence, all hispathetic appeals, all his citations of the decisions in his favour inthe Bontia case by the Walloon Synod and the Supreme Court ofHolland, are simply trampled under foot, and the charges formerlymade against him are ruthlessly reiterated as true nevertheless. There are even additional details, and fresh charges of the samekind, derived from more recent information. The plan adopted byMilton is to go over the _Fides Publica_, extracting phrases andsentences from it, and commenting on each extract; but the generaleffect of the book is that of the ruthless chasing round and round ofthe poor ecclesiastic in a biographical ellipse, the two foci ofwhich are Geneva and Leyden. Distinct evidence is produced that both at Geneva and in Holland the_fama_ against Morus was still as strong as ever. The evidencetakes the form of extracts from two letters received by Milton sincethe _Fides Publica_ had appeared;-- _From a Letter from Geneva, dated Oct. 14, 1654_ (i. E. From that letter of Ezekiel Spanheim of which Milton had told Spanheim that he meant to avail himself, though without mentioning the writer's name: sec ante pp. 172-173). "Our people here cannot sufficiently express their wonder that you are so thoroughly acquainted with the private history of a man unknown to you personally, and that you have painted him so in his native colours that not even by those with whom he has been on the most familiar terms could the whole play-acting career of the man (_tota, hominis histrionia_) have been more accurately or happily set forth; whence they are at a loss, and I with them, to understand with what face, shameless though he is and impudent-mouthed, he is on the point of daring again to appear in the public theatre. For it is the consummation and completeness of your success in this part of the business that you have not brought forward either imagined or otherwise unknown charges against the man, but charges of common repetition in the mouths of all his greatest friends even, and which can be clearly corroborated by the authority and vote of the whole assembly, and even by the accession of farther criminations to the same effect... I would assure you that hardly any one can now longer be found here, where for many years he discharged a public-office, but greatly to the disgrace of this Church, who would dare or undertake longer to lend his countenance to the man's prostituted character. " _From a Letter from Durie at Basel, Oct. 3, 1654_:--"As regards Morus's vices and profligacy, Hotton does not seem to entertain that opinion of him; I know, however, that others speak very ill of him, that his hands are against nearly everybody and everybody's hands against him, and that many ministers even of the Walloon Synod are doing their best to have him deprived of the pastoral office. Nor here in Basel do I find men's opinion of him different from that in Holland of those who like him least. " The fresh, particulars of information that Milton had received aboutMorus and his alleged misdeeds are unsparingly brought out. The nameof the woman of bad character at Geneva with whom Morus was said tohave been implicated there, and the scandal about whom had driven himfrom Geneva, has now been ascertained by Milton. It was ClaudiaPelletta; and of her name, and all the topographical details ofMorus's alleged meetings with her, there is enough and more thanenough. Claudia Pelletta at Geneva, and Bontia at Leyden, pull Morusbetween them page after page: not that they only have claims, for inone sentence we hear of an insulted widow somewhere in Holland, andin another of a dubious female figure seen one rainy night with Morusin a street in Amsterdam. But Bontia is still Milton's favourite. Herepeats the Latin epigram about her and Morus; he apologizes forhaving hitherto called her Pontia, attributes the error to amisreading of the MS. Of that epigram when it first came fromHolland, but says he still thinks Pontia the prettier name; and, using information that had recently reached him, though we have beenin prior possession of something equivalent (Vol. IV. P. 465), hethus reminds Morus of his most memorable meeting with that bravedamsel:-- "You remember perhaps that day, nay I am sure you remember the day, and the hour and the place too, when, as I think, you and Pontia [he still keeps to the form 'Pontia'] last met in the house of Salmasius--you to renounce the marriage-bond, she to make you name the day for the nuptials. When she saw, on the contrary, that it was your intention to dissolve the marriage-engagement made in the seduction, then lo! your unmarried bride, for I will not call her Tisiphone, not able to bear such a wrong, flew furiously at your face and eyes with uncut nails. You who, on the testimony of Crantzius (for it is right that so great a contest should not begin without quotation from your own _Fides Publica_)--you who, on the testimony of Crantzius, were _altier_ in French, or _fiercish_ in Latin, and on the testimony of Diodati had _terrible spurs for self-defence_, prepare to do your manly utmost in this feminine kind of fight. Madame de Saumaise stands by as Juno, arbiter of the contest, Salmasius himself, lying in the next room ill with the gout, when he heard the battle begun, almost dies with laughing. But alas! and O fie! our unwarlike Alexander, no match for his Amazon, falls down vanquished. She, getting her man underneath, then first, from her position of vantage, goes at his forehead, his eye-brows, his nose; with wonderful arabesques, and in a Phrygian style of execution, she runs her finger-points over the whole countenace of her prostrate subject: never were you less pleased, Morus, with Pontia's lines of beauty. At last, with difficulty, either margin of his cheeks fully written on, but the chin not yet finished, up he rises, a man, by your leave, absolutely nail-perfect, no mere Professor now but a Pontifical Doctor, --for you might have inscribed upon him, as on a painting, _Pontia fecit_. [We see now the reason for keeping to the form 'Pontia. '] Doctor? Nay rather a codex in which his vengeful critic had scraped her adverse comments with a new stilus. You felt then, I think, Ulac's Tables of Tangents and Secants, to a radius of I know not how many painful ciphers, printed on your skin. " How does Milton meet Morus's protestations of his innocence both atGeneva and in Leyden, and the evidence he adduces in his behalf?Respecting the protestations, he notes that they are merely generaland that, like his denials of the authorship of the _RegiiSanguinis Clamor_, they are worded equivocally or indistinctly. Why does he not deny the Pelletta charge and the Bontia charge, andthe other charges, one by one specifically, and in a downrightmanner? Why does he not go back to Geneva, face the living witnessesand the documentary evidence there waiting him, and abide the issue?As for the decisions in his favour in the Bontia case by the WalloonSynod and the Supreme Court of Holland, of what worth are they? Onecould see, one had even been informed, that there had been influencesat work with both tribunals to procure the result, such as it was. Many good, but easy, men had thought it best, for the reputation ofthe Christian ministry, not to rake too deeply into such anunpleasant business. Especially in the Synod the proceedings had beena farce. When Riverius, the moderator of the Synod, at the close ofthe proceedings, had said to Morus, "_Never was a Moor sowhitewashed as you have been to-day_, " could not everybody, withany sense of humour, perceive that the Reverend gentleman had beenjoking? Then, what had been the formal decision of the Synod?"_That nothing had been found in the papers of weight to take awayfrom the Churches their wonted liberty of inviting M. Morus to preachwhen there was occasion_. " Was that a whitewashing with which tobe content? No wonder that Morus had taken refuge among his papertestimonials. About the whole system of Testimonials Milton isconsiderably dubious. He does not deny that a public testimonial maybe an honour, and that there may be proper occasion for such things;but, real discernment of merit being rare, and those who give andthose who seek testimonials being but a jumble of the good and thebad together, the abuses of the system bring it into discredit. "Theman of highest quality needs another's testimonial the least; nordoes any good man ever do anything merely to make himself known. "Waiving that general question, however, one may _examine_Morus's testimonials. This examination of the testimonials is begun in the first or mainpart of Milton's _Pro Se Defensio_; but, as Morus had onlyentered on his testimonials in the _Fides Publica_ as originallypublished, and presented most of them in his _Supplementum_ tothat book, so Milton prolongs this branch of his criticism into anappendix entitled separately _Authoris ad Aleasandri MoriSupplementum Responsio_ ("The Author's Answer to Alexander More'sSupplement. ") Prom the first sentences of this Appendix we learn thatthe preceding part of Milton's book had been written two monthsbefore the _Supplementum_ had come into his hands. Morus's published Testimonials divide themselves chronologically, itmay have been observed, into three sets--(1) those given him atGeneva early in the year 1648, and brought by him into Holland on hisremoval thither, (2) those given him at Middleburg between Nov. 1649and Aug. 1652, and (3) the three given him at Amsterdam in July 1654, after Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ had appeared, and incontradiction of statements made in that book. --On the Genevese setof Testimonials, including that from the venerable Diodati, Milton'scriticism, in substance, is that they were vitiated by their date. They had been given, or obtained by hard begging, not perhaps beforethe Pelletta scandal had been heard of, but before it had beensufficiently notorious, and while it still seemed credible to manythat Morus was innocent, and others were good-naturedly willing tostop the investigation by speeding him off to another scene, TheodoreTronchin, pastor and Professor of Theology, and Mermilliod andPittet, two other pastors, had been the first movers, among theGenevese clergy, for an inquiry into Morus's conduct; the elderSpanheim had, as Milton believed, been one of those that even thenwould have nothing to do with the Testimonials; the aged Diodati hadthen for some time ceased to attend the meetings of his brethren, andmight not know all. But, in any case, nearly a year had elapsedbetween the date of the last of those Genevese Testimonials whichMorus had published and Morus's actual departure from Geneva. Duringthat interval there had been a progress of Genevese opinion on thesubject of his character and conduct, and he had been furnished withfresh papers in the nature of farewell Testimonials. Morus hadsuppressed those. Would he venture to produce them?--On theMiddleburg Testimonials the criticism is that they do not matter muchone way or another, but that they show Morus on the whole to havesoon been found a troublesome person in Holland also, some businessabout whom was always coming up in the Walloon Synods. In Middleburgtoo there had been a progress of opinion about him with fartherexperience. His co-pastor there. M. Jean Long, who had been his firmfriend for a while, and had signed some of the testimonials, was nowunderstood to speak of him with absolute detestation. Morus havingproduced some of these testimonials to disprove Milton's assertionthat he had been ejected by the Middleburg church, Milton explainsthat he had not said _ejected_, but only _turned adrift_, and that this was substantially the fact. Now, however, if Durie'sreport is correct, not only would the single Middleburg church, butnearly the whole Walloon Synod also, willingly _eject_him. --Milton's greatest difficulty is with the three Amsterdamtestimonials of July 1654. He has to admit that they prove him tohave been misinformed when he said that the Amsterdam authorities hadinterdicted Morus from the pulpit, just as he had been wrong incalling Morus's Amsterdam professorship that of Greek. That admissionmade (and it was hard for Milton ever to admit he was wrong, even ina trifle), he contents himself with quoting sentences from theAmsterdam testimonials to show how merely formal they were, howlittle hearty, and with this characteristic observation about theAmsterdam dignitaries, tossing their testimony aside in any case:"_Et id nescio_, [Greek: aristindźn] _an_ [Greek:ploutindźn], _virtute an censu, magistratum ilium in civitate suāobtineant_: And I know not, moreover, whether it is by merit or bywealth that the gentlemen hold that magistracy in their city. " Thisis, doubtless, Milton's return for the slighting mention of himselfin the Amsterdam testimonials. [1] [Footnote 1: A Hague correspondent of Thurloe, commenting on theappearance of the first part of Morus's _Fides Publica_ and itsabrupt ending had written, Nov. 3, 1654, thus: "The truth is Morusdurst not add the sentence [text of the judicial finding] againstPontia; for the charges are recompensed [costs allowed her], andwhere there is payment of charges that is to say that the action ofPontia is good, but that the proofs fail.... The attestations of hislife at Amsterdam and at the Hague, he could not get them to hisfancy" (Thurloe, 11. 708). ] While we have thus given, with tolerable completeness, an abstract ofMilton's extraordinary _Pro Se Defensio contra AlexandrumMorum_, we have by no means noticed everything in it that might beof interest in the study of Milton's character. There is, forexample, one very curious passage in which Milton, in reply to acriticism of Morus, defends his use of very gross words (_verbanuda et prętextata_) in speaking of very gross things. He makestwo daring quotations, one from Piso's Annals and the other fromSallust, to show that he had good precedent; and he cites Herodotus, Seneca, Suetonius, Plutarch, Erasmus, Thomas More, Clement ofAlexandria, Arnobius, Lactantlas, Eusebius, and the Bible itself, asexamples occasionally of the very reverse of a squeamish euphemism. Of even greater interest is a passage in which he foresees thecharges of cruelty, ruthlessness, and breach of literary etiquette, likely to be brought against him on account of his treatment ofMorus, and expounds his theory on that subject. The passage may fitlyconclude our account of the _Pro Se Defensio_:-- "To defame the bad and to praise the good, the one on the principle of severe punishment and the other on that of high reward, are equally just, and make up together almost the sum of justice; and we see in fact that the two are of nearly equal efficacy for the right management of life. The two things, in short, are so interrelated, and so involved in one and the same act, that the vituperation of the bad may in a sense be called the praising of the good. But, though right, reason, and use are equal on both sides, the acceptability is not the same likewise; for whoever vituperates another bears the burden and imputation of two very heavy things at once, --accusing another, and thinking well of himself. Accordingly, all are ready enough with praise, good and bad alike, and the objects of their praise worthy and unworthy together; but no one either dares or is able to accuse freely and intrepidly but the man of integrity alone. Accustomed in our youth, under so many masters, to make laborious displays of imaginary eloquence, and taught to think that the demonstrative force of the same lies no less in invective than in praise, we certainly do at the desk hack to pieces bravely the traditional tyrants of antiquity. Mezentius, if such is the chance, we slay over again with unsavoury antitheta; or we roast to perfection Phalaris of Agrigentum, as in his own bull, with lamentable bellowing of enthymemes. In the debating room or lecture-room, I mean; for in the State for the most part we rather adore and worship such, and call them most powerful, most great, most august. The proper thing would be either not to have spent our first years in sport as imaginary declaimers, or else, when our country or the State needs, to leave our mere fencing-foils, and venture sometimes into the sun, and dust, and field of battle, to exert real brawn, shake real arms, seek a real foe. The Suffeni and Sophists of the past, on the one hand, the Pharisees and Simons and Hymenęi and Alexanders of the past on the other, we go at with many a weapon: those of the present day, and come to life again in the Church, we praise with studied eulogies, we honour with professorships, and stipends, and chairs, the incomparable men that they are, the highly-learned and saintly. If it comes to the censuring of one of them, if the mask and specious skin of one of them are dragged off, if he is shown to be base within, or even publicly and openly criminal, there are some who, for what purpose or through what timidity I know not, would have him publicly defended by testimonies in his favour rather than marked with due animadversion. My principle, I confess, and as the fact has several times proved, is far enough apart from theirs, inasmuch as, if I have made any profit when young in the literary leisure I then had, whether by the instructions of learned men or by my own lucubrations, I would employ the whole of it to the advantage of life and of the human race, could I range so far, to the utmost of my weak ability. And, if sometimes even out of private enmities public delinquencies come to be exposed and corrected, and I have now, impelled by all possible reasons, prosecuted with most just invective, nor yet without proper result, not an adversary of my own merely, but one who is the common adversary of almost all, a nefarious man, a disgrace to the Reformed Religion and to the sacred order especially, a dishonour to learning, a most pernicious teacher of youth, an unclean ecclesiastic, it will be seen, I hope, by those who are chiefly interested in making an example of him (for why should I not so trust?), that herein I have performed an action neither displeasing to God, nor unwholesome to the Church, nor unuseful to the State. " What a blast this to pursue poor Morus over the Continent! It wouldseem as if, in expectation of it, he had put himself as far as hecould out of hearing. When Milton's _Pro Se Defensio_ appeared, Morus was no longer in France, but in Italy; and it was not till May, 1656, or nine months after, that he reappeared in Holland. Then, ashe had outrun by more than a year his formal leave of absence fromhis Amsterdam professorship, granted Dec, 20, 1654, there seem tohave been strict inquiries as to the causes of his long absence. Itwas explained that he had fallen ill at Florence; it also came outthat he had had a very distinguished reception from the Grand Duke ofTuscany, and that the Venetian Senate had presented him with a chainof gold for a Latin poem he had written on a recent defeat of theTurks at sea by the Venetian navy; and, what was most to the point, it appeared, by addresses of his own at Amsterdam, and at a meetingof the Walloon Synod at Leyden, that he had found in Italy greatopportunities "for advancing the glory of God by the preaching of theGospel. " We know independently that, while in Italy, he had madeacquaintance with some of those wits and scholars among whom Miltonhad moved so delightfully in his visit of 1638-9, and among whomHeinsius had been back in 1652-3, to find that they still rememberedMilton, and could talk about him (Vol. IV. Pp. 475-476); and it iseven startling to have evidence from Moms himself that he exchangedespecial compliments at Rome with Milton's old friend Holstenius, theVatican librarian, and became so very intimate at Florence withMilton's beloved Carlo Dati as to receive from Dati the mostaffectionate attention and nursing through his illness. And so, allseeming fully satisfied at Amsterdam, he resumed his duties in theAmsterdam School. Not to be long at peace, however. Hardly had hereturned when, either on the old charges, now so terrificallyreblazoned through Holland by Milton's perseverance for his ruin, oron new charges arising from new incidents, he and the Walloonchurch-authorities were again at feud. In this uncomfortable state wemust leave him for the present. [1] [Footnote 1: Bayle's Dict, Art. _Morus_, and Bruce's Life ofMorus, pp. 142-145 and 204-205. This last book is a curiosity. Onehardly sees why the life and character of Morus should have sofascinated the Rev. Archibald Bruce, who was minister of the AssociateCongregation at Whitburn, in Linlithgowshire, from 1768 to 1816, andProfessor of Theology there for the Associate Presbyterian Synod fornearly all that time. He was a worthy and learned man, for whom Dr. McCrie, the author of the Life of John Knox, and of the samePresbyterian denomination, entertained a more "profound veneration"than for any other man on earth (see Life of McCrie by his son, edit. 1840, pp. 52-57). He was "a Whig of the Old School, " with liberalpolitical opinions in the main, but strongly opposed to RomanCatholic emancipation; which brought him into connexion with LordGeorge Gordon, of the "No Popery Riots" of 1780. He wrote many booksand pamphlets, and kept a printer at Whitburn for his own use. He mayhave been drawn to Morus by his interest in the history ofPresbyterianism abroad, especially as Morus was of Scottishparentage, or by his interest in the proceedings of PresbyterianChurch Courts in such cases of scandal as that of Morus. At any rate, he defends Morus throughout most resolutely, and with a good deal ofscholarly painstaking. Milton, on the other hand, he thoroughlydislikes, and represents as a most malicious and un-Christian man, consciously untruthful, and of most lax theology to boot. To be sure, he was the author of _Paradise Lost_; but that much-praised poemhad serious religious defects too! There is something actuallyrefreshing in the _naļveté_ and courage with which thesturdy Professor of the Associate Synod propounds his own dissentfrom the common Milton-worship. --The authority for Morus'sacquaintanceship in Italy with Holstenius and Dati is the collectionof his Latin Poems, a thin quarto, published at Paris in 1669, underthe title of _Alexandri Mori Poemata_. It contains his poem, alongish one in Hexameters, on the victory of the Venetians over theTurks; also verses to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany; also obituaryelegiacs to Diodati of Geneva, and several pieces to or on Salmasius. One piece, in elegiacs, is addressed "_Ad Franciscum Turretinum, rarę indolis ac summę spei juvenem_. " This Francis Turretin (soaddressed, I suppose, long ago, when he and Morus were in Genevatogether) was, if I mistake not, the famous Turretin of Milton'sletter about Morus to Ezekiel Spanheim (ante pp. 173-176). Among theother pieces are one to Holstenius and one to Carlo Dati. In thefirst Morus, speaking of his introduction to Holstenius and to theVatican library together, says he does not know which seemed to himthe greater library. The poem to Dati is of considerable length, inHexameters, and entitled "_Ęgri Somnium: ad pręstantem virumCarolum Dati_" ("An Invalid's Dream: To the excellent CarloDati"). It represents Morus as very ill in Florence and thinkinghimself dying. Should he die in Florence and be buried there, hewould have a poetic inscription over his grave to the effect thatwhile alive he also had cultivated the Muses, and begging thepasser-by to remember his name ("_Qui legis hęc obiter, Moriquemorique memento_"). How kind Dati had been to him--Dati, "thanwhom there is not a better man, the beloved of all the sister Muses, the ornament of his country, having the reputation of being all butunique in Florence for learning in the vanished arts, siren at oncein Tuscan, Latin, and Greek! ... This Dati soothed my fever-fits withthe music of his liquid singing, and sat by my bed-side, and spokewords of sweetness, which inhere yet in my very marrow. " And soMilton's Italian friend of friends (Vol. III. Pp. 551-654 and680-683) had been charitable to poor Morus, whom he knew to be afugitive from Milton's wrath, and who could name Milton, if at all, only with tears and cursing. ] It is now high time, however, to answer a question which must havesuggested itself again and again in the course of our narrative ofthe Milton and Morus controversy. Who was the real author of the bookfor which Morus had been so dreadfully punished, and what was thereal amount of Morus's responsibility in it? That Milton's original belief on this subject had been shaken hasbeen already evident. He had written his _Defensio Secunda_, infirm reliance on the universal report that Morus was the one properauthor of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, or that it had beenconcocted between him and Salmasius; and, though Morus's denial ofthe authorship had been formally conveyed to him before the_Defensio Secunda_ left the press, he had let it go forth as itwas, in the conviction that he was still not wrong in the main. Themore express and reiterated denials of Morus in the _FidesPublica_, however, with the references there to another person asthe real author, though Morus was not at liberty to divulge his name, had produced an effect. The authorship of the _Regii SanguinisClamor_ was then indeed a secondary question, inasmuch as in the_Fides Publica_ Morus had interposed himself personally, --notonly in self-defence, but also for counter-attack on Milton. Still, as the _Fides Publica_ would never have been written had notMilton assumed Morus to be the author of the _Regii SanguinisClamor_ and dragged him before the world solely on that account, Milton had necessarily, in replying to the _Fides Publica_, adverted to the secondary question. His assertion now, i. E, in the_Pro Se Defensio_, was a modified one. It was that, whateverfacts had yet to be revealed respecting the authorship of the four orfive parts of the compound book severally, he yet knew for certainthat Morus had been the editor of the whole book, the corrector ofthe press for the whole, the busy and ostentatious agent in thecirculation of early copies, and the writer at least of theDedicatory Preface to Charles II. , put forth in Ulac's name. Thequestion for us now is how far this modified assertion of Milton wascorrect. Almost to a tittle, it _was_. That Morus was the editor of thebook, the corrector of the press, and the active agent in thecirculation of early copies, may be taken as established by thedocumentary proofs furnished by Milton, and is corroborated byindependent evidence known to ourselves long ago (Vol. IV. Pp. 459-465). But was he also partially the author? Here too Milton'sevidence may be taken as conclusive, so far as respects theDedicatory Epistle to Charles II. That Epistle, with its enormouspraises of Salmasius, and its extremely malignant notice of Milton, was undoubtedly by Morus, for copies of it signed by himself werestill extant. So far, therefore, Milton was right in saying thatMorus's denial of the authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_was an equivocation, resting on a tacit distinction between the bodyof the book and the additional or editorial matter. In severalpassages Morus himself had betrayed this equivocation, but in none soremarkably as in a sentence to the peculiar phrasing of which wecalled attention in quoting it (ante p. 159). Protesting that he hadnot so much as known the fact of Milton's blindness at the time ofthe publication of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, and thereforecould not have been guilty of the heartless allusion to it in theDedicatory Epistle, he there said, "_If anything occurred to methat might seem to look that way, I referred to the mind_, "--aphrase which it is difficult to construe otherwise than as anadmission that he had written the Dedicatory Epistle, but hademployed the familiar quotation there ("_monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum_") only metaphorically. All inall, then, the authorship of the Dedicatory Epistle, as well as theeditorship and adoption of the whole anonymous book, is fastened uponMorus. With this amount of responsibility fastened upon him, however, Morus must be dismissed, and another person brought to the bar. Hewas the Rev. DR. PETER DU MOULIN the younger. The Du Moulins were a French family, well known in England. Thefather, Dr. Peter Du Moulin the elder (called _Molinęus_ inLatin), was a French Protestant theologian of great celebrity. He hadresided for a good while in England in the reign of James I. , officiating as French minister in London, and in much credit with theKing and others; but, on the death of James, he had returned toFrance. At our present date he was still alive at the age ofeighty-seven, and still not so much out of the world but that peoplein different countries continued to think of him as a contemporaryand to quote his writings. There are references to him, far fromdisrespectful, in one of Milton's Anti-Episcopal Pamphlets in replyto Bishop Hall. [1] Two of his sons, both born in France, had settledpermanently in England, and had become passionately interested inEnglish public affairs, though in very different directions. --Theyounger of these, LEWIS DU MOULIN, born 1606, having taken the degreeof Doctor of Physic at Leyden, had come to England when but a youngman, and, after having been incorporated in the same degree atCambridge (1684), had been in medical practice in London. At thebeginning of the Long Parliament, he had taken the Parliamentarianside, and had written, under the name of "Irenęus Philalethes, " twoLatin pamphlets against Bishop Hall's _Episcopacy by DivineRight_--pamphlets very much in the same vein of root-and-branchChurch Reform as those of the Smectymnuans and Milton at the sametime. Since then, still adhering to the Parliament through the CivilWar, he had become well known as an Independent--much, it is said, tothe chagrin of his old father, who was a Presbyterian, with leaningsto moderate Episcopacy; and in 1647, in the Parliamentary visitationof the University of Oxford, he had been rewarded with the CamdenProfessorship of History in that University. He had been made M. D. OfOxford in 1649. At least three publications had come from his pensince his appointment to the Professorship, one of them a Translationinto Latin (1650) of the first chapter of Milton's_Eikonoklastes_. From this we should infer, what isindependently likely, that he was acquainted with Miltonpersonally. [2]--Very different from the Independent andCommonwealth's man Lewis Du Monlin. M. D. And History Professor ofOxford, was his elder brother PETER DU MOULIN, D. D. Born in 1600, hehad been educated, like his brother, at Leyden, and had taken hisD. D. Degree there. He is first heard of in England in 1640, when hewas incorporated in the same degree at Cambridge; and at thebeginning of the Civil War he was so far a naturalised Englishman asto be Rector of Wheldrake, near York. From that time, though azealous Calvinist theologically, he was as intensely Royalist andEpiscopalian as his brother was Parliamentarian and Independent. Sowe learn most distinctly from a brief MS. Sketch of his life throughthe Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, written by himself after theRestoration, for insertion into a copy of the second edition of oneof his books, of date 1660, presented by him to the library ofCanterbury Cathedral. "Our gracious King and now glorious Martyr, Charles the First, he there says, finding that his rebellioussubjects, not content to make war against him in his kingdom, assaulted him with another war out of his kingdom with their tonguesand pens, he set out a Declaration to invite all his loving subjectsand friends that could use the tongues of the neighbouring states torepresent with their pens the justice of his cause, especially toProtestant Churches abroad. That Declaration smote my heart, asparticularly addressed to me; and I took it as a command laid upon meby God himself. Whereupon I made a solemn vow to God that, as far asLatin and French could go in the world, I would make the justice ofthe King's and the Church's cause to be known, especially to theProtestants of France and the Low Countries, whom the King's enemiesdid chiefly labour to seduce and misinform. To pay my vow, I firstmade this book" [entitled originally "_Apologie de la ReligionReformée, et de la Monarchie et de I'Église d'Angleterre, contre lesCalomnies de la Ligue Rebelle de quelques Anglois et Écossois_";but in an imperfect English translation the title was afterwardschanged into "_History of the Presbyterians_", and in the secondFrench edition, on a copy of which Du Moulin was now writing, itbecame "_Histoire des Nouveaux Presbytériens, Anglois etÉcossois_"]--which was begun "at York, during the siege [i. E. June1644, just before Marston Moor], in a room whose chimney was beatendown by the cannon while I was at my work; and, after the siege andmy expulsion from my Rectory at Wheldrake, it was finished in anunderground cellar, where I lay hid to avoid warrants that were outagainst me from committees to apprehend me and carry me prisoner toHull. Having finished the book, I sent it to be printed in Holland bythe means of an officer of the Master of the Posts at London, Mr. Pompeo Calandrini, who was doing great and good services to the Kingin that place. But, the King being dead, and the face of publicbusinesses altered, I sent for my MS. Out of Holland, and reformed itfor the new King's service. And it was printed, but verynegligently, by Samuel Browne at the Hague [1649?] ... Much about thesame time I set out my Latin Poem, _Ecclesię Gemitus_ ('Groansof the Church'), with, a long Epistle to all Christians in thedefence of the King and the Church of England; and, two years after[1652], _Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Coelum_. God blessed thesebooks, and gave them the intended effect, the disabusing of manymisinformed persons. And it was so well resented by his Majesty, thenat Breda, that, being showed my sister Mary among a great company ofladies, he brake the crowd to salute her, and tell her that he wasvery sensible of his obligations to her brother, and that, if everGod settled him in his kingdom, he would make him know that he was agrateful prince. " Here, then, in Dr. Peter Du Moulin's own hand, though not till after the Restoration, we have the _Regii SanguinisClamor_ claimed as his, with the information that it was one of aseries of books written by him with the special design of maintainingthe cause of Charles II. And discrediting the Commonwealth amongContinental Protestants. [3] [Footnote 1: See close of _Animadversions on the Remonstrant'sDefence_. ] [Footnote 2: Wood's Fasti, II. 125-126; Whitlocke, II. 290. Thewritings of Lewis Du Moulin I have here mentioned are known to meonly by the titles and descriptions given by Wood and his annotatorDr. Bliss. ] [Footnote 3: Wood's Fasti, II. 195; and _Gentleman's Magazine_for 1773, pp. 369-370. In the last is given the autobiographicsketch of Du Moulin, transcribed from the copy of his _Histoiredes Nouveaux Presbytériens_ (edit. 1660) in the CanterburyLibrary. --The Mary du Moulin, the sister of Peter and Lewis, mentioned in the autobiographic sketch, died at the Hague in Feb. 1699, having, like most of the Du Moulins, attained a great age. The father, Dr. Peter the elder, died in 1658 at the age of ninety;Lewis died in 1683 at the age of seventy-seven; and Peter theyounger, of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, died in 1684 at theage of eighty-four. --The reader will have noted the PompeoCalandrini mentioned as an official in the London Post Office inthe time of the Civil War, and as secretly aiding Charles I. In hiscorrespondence. He was, doubtless, of the Italian-Genevese family ofCalandrinis already mentoned, _ante_ pp. 172-173 and footnote. ] Yet farther proof on the subject, also from Dr. Peter's own hand. Inthe Library of Canterbury Cathedral there is, or was, his own copy ofthe original edition of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_; and inthat copy the preliminary Dedicatory Epistle in Ulac's name toCharles II. Is marked for deletion, and has these words prefixed toit in Du Moulin's hand; "_Epistola, quam aiunt esse AlexandriMori, quę mihi valde non probatur_" ("Epistle which they say is byAlexander Morus, and which is not greatly to my taste"), [1] All therest, therefore, was his own. But, to remove all possible doubt, wehave the still more complete and exact information furnished by himin 1670, Milton then still alive and in the first fame of his_Paradise Lost_. In that year there appeared from the CambridgeUniversity Press a volume entitled _Petri Molinęi P. F. [Greek:Parerga]: Poematum Libelli Tres_. It was a collection of Dr. PeterDu Moulin's Latin Poems, written at various times of his life, andnow arranged by him in three divisions, separately title-paged, entitled respectively "Hymns to the Apostles' Creed, " "Groans of theChurch" (_Ecclesię Gemitus_), and "Varieties. " In the seconddivision were reprinted the two Latin Poems that had originallyformed part of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, with their fulltitles as at first: to wit, the "Eucharistic Ode, " to the greatSalmasius for his _Defensio Regia_, and the set of scurrilousIambics "To the Bestial Blackguard John Milton, Parricide andAdvocate of the Parricide. " With reference to the last there areseveral explanations for the reader in Latin prose at differentpoints in the volume. At one place the reader is assured that, thoughthe Iambics against Milton, and some other things in the volume, mayseem savage, zeal for Religion and the Church, in their hour of soretrial, had been a sufficient motive for writing them, and they mustnot be taken as indicating the private character of the author, asknown well enough to his friends. At another place (pp. 141-2 of thevolume) there is, by way of afterthought or extension, a larger andmore express statement about the Iambics against Milton, which musthere be translated in full: "Into what danger I was thrown, " says DuMoulin, "by the first appearance of this Poem in the _Clamor RegiiSanguinis_ would not seem to me worthy of public notice now, wereit not that the miracle of divine protection by which I was kept safeis most worthy of the common admiration of the good and the praise ofthe Supreme Deliverer. I had sent my manuscript sheets to the greatSalmasius, who entrusted them to the care of that most learned man, Alexander Morus. This Morus delivered them to the printer, andprefixed to them an Epistle to the King, in the Printer's name, exceedingly eloquent and full of good matter. When that care ofMorus over the business of printing the book had become known toMilton through the spies of the Regicides in Holland, Milton held itas an ascertained fact that Morus was the author of the_Clamor;_ whence that most virulent book of Milton's againstMorus, entitled _Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano_. It hadthe effect, moreover, of making enemies for Morus in Holland; for atthat time the English Tyrants were very much feared in foreign parts. Meanwhile I looked on in silence, and not without a soft chuckle, atseeing my bantling laid at another man's door, and the blind andfurious Milton fighting and slashing the air, like the hoodwinkedhorse-combatants in the old circus, not knowing by whom he was struckand whom he struck in return. But Morus, unable to stand out againstso much ill-will, began to cool in the King's cause, and gave Miltonto know who the author of the _Clamor_ really was (_Clamorisauthorem Miltono indicavit_). For, in fact, in his Reply toMilton's attack he produced two witnesses, of the highest creditamong the rebels, who might have well known the author, and coulddivulge him on being asked. Thus over me and my head there hung themost certain destruction. But that great Guardian of Justice, to whomI had willingly devoted both my labour and my life, wrought out mysafety through Milton's own pride, as it is customary with His Wisdomto bring good out of evil, and light out of darkness. For Milton, whohad gone full tilt at Morus with his canine eloquence, and who hadmade it almost the sole object of his _Defensio Secunda_ to cutup the life and reputation of Morus, never could be brought toconfess that he had been so grossly mistaken: fearing, I suppose, that the public would make fun of his blindness, and thatgrammar-school boys would compare him to that blind Catullus inJuvenal who, meaning to praise the fish presented to Domitian, "'Made a long speech, Facing the left, while on his right there lay The actual turbot. ' [Footnote 1: _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1773, as in last note. ] "And so, Milton persisting in his blundering charge against Morusfor that dangerous service to the King, the other Rebels could not, without great damage to their good patron, proceed against any otherthan Morus as guilty of so great a crime. And, as Milton preferred mygetting off scatheless to being found in a ridiculous positionhimself, I had this reward for my pains, that Milton, whom I hadtreated so roughly, turned out my patron and sedulous body-guard. Don't laugh, reader; but give best thanks, with me, to God, the mostgood, the most great, and the most wise, deliverer. " This final version of the story of Du Moulin (in 1670, remember)seems to have become current among those who, after the Restoration, retained any interest in the subject. Thus, Aubrey, in his notes forMilton's life, written about 1680, has a memorandum to this effect, giving "Mr. Abr. Hill" as his authority: "His [Milton's] sharpwriting against Alexander More of Holland, upon a mistake, notwithstanding he [Morus] had given him [Milton], by the ambassador, all satisfaction to the contrary, viz. That the book called_Clamor_ was writ by Peter Du Moulin. Well, that was all one[said Milton]; he having writ it [the _Defensio Secunda_], itshould go into the world: one of them was as bad as theother. '"--_Bentrovato_; but there is at least one vitalparticular in which neither Du Moulin's amusing statement in 1670 norAubrey's subsequent anecdote seems to be consistent with the exacttruth as already before us in the documents. The secret of the realauthorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ had been better andlonger kept than Du Moulin's statement would lead us to suppose. EvenUlac in 1654, as we have seen, while declaring that Morus was not theauthor, could not tell who else he was. Morus himself did then know, having been admitted into the secret, probably from the first; andseveral others then knew, having been told in confidence bySalmasius, Morus, or Du Moulin. Charles II. Himself seems to havebeen informed. But that Morus had refrained from divulging the secretgenerally, or communicating it in a precise manner to Milton, even atthe moment when he was frantically trying to avert Milton's wrath andstop the publication of the _Defensio Secunda_, seems evident, and must go to his credit. In the remonstrance with Thurloe, in May1654, through the Dutch ambassador Nieuport, intended to stop thepublication when, it was just leaving the press, we hear only of thedenial of Morus that he was the author--nothing of any informationfrom him that Du Moulin was the real author; and, though Durie hadabout the same time informed Milton in a letter from the Hague thathe had heard the book attributed, on private authority from Morus, to"a certain French minister, " no name was given. Farther, in the_Fides Publica_, published some months afterwards, Morus wasstill almost chivalrously reticent. While declaring that the realauthor was "alive and well, " and while describing him negatively sofar as to say that he was not in Holland, nor within the circle ofMorus's own acquaintances, he still avoids naming him, and onlyappeals to himself to come forward and own his performance. And so, as late as August 1655, when Milton replied to Morus in his _Pro SeDefensio_, the evidence still is that, though he had more correctideas by that time as to the amount and nature of Morus'sresponsibility for the book, and was aware of some other author atthe back of Morus, he had not yet ascertained who this other authorwas, and still thought that the defamatory Iambics against himself, as well as the Dedicatory Epistle to Charles II. , might be Morus'sown. It seems to me possible that not till after the Restoration didMilton know that the alleged "French Minister" at the back of Morusin the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ was Dr. Peter Du Moulin, or atall events that not till then did he know that the defamatoryIambics, as well as the main text, were that gentleman's. The onlyperson who could have put an end to the mystery completely was DuMoulin himself, and not till after the Restoration, as we have seen, was it convenient, or even safe, for Du Moulin to avow hishandiwork. Yet all the while, as Du Moulin himself hints in his confession of1670, he had been, if we may so express it, close at Milton's elbow. In 1652, when the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ appeared, Du Moulin, then fifty-two years of age, and knows as a semi-naturalizedFrenchman, the brother of Professor Lewis Du Moulin of Oxford, hadbeen going about in England as an ejected parson from Yorkshire, thevery opposite of his brother in politics. He had necessarily knownsomething of Milton already; and, indeed, in the book itself there iscloser knowledge of Milton's position and antecedents than would havebeen easy for Salmasius, or Morus, or any other absolute foreigner. The author had evidently read Milton's _Tenure of Kings andMagistrates_ and his _Eikonoklastes_, as well as his_Defensio Prima_; he was aware of the significance given to thefirst of these treatises by the coincidence of its date with theKing's Trial, and could represent it as actually a cause of theRegicide; he had gone back also upon Milton's Divorce Pamphlets andAnti-Episcopal Pamphlets, and had collected hints to Milton'sdetriment out of the attacks made upon him by Bishop Hall and othersduring the Smectymnuan controversy. All this acquaintance withMilton, the phrasing being kept sufficiently indefinite, Du Moulincould show in the book without betraying himself. That, as he hastold us, would have been his ruin. The book, though shorter than the_Defensio Regia_ of Salmasius, was even a more impressive andsuccessful vilification of the Commonwealth than that bigperformance; and not even to the son of the respected Europeantheologian Molinaeus, and the brother of such a favourite of theCommonwealth as Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, could Parliament or the Councilof State have shown mercy after such an offence. As for Milton, theattack on whom ran through the more general invective, not for "fortythousand brothers" would _he_ have kept his hands off Dr. Peterhad he known. Providentially, however, Dr. Peter remained_incognito_, and it was Morus that was murdered, Dr. Peterlooking on and "softly chuckling. " Rather, I should say, getting moreand more alarmed, and almost wishing that the book had never beenwritten, or at all events praying more and more earnestly that hemight not be found out, and that Morus, murdered irretrievably at anyrate, would take his murdering quietly and hold his tongue. For theCommonwealth had firmly established itself meanwhile, and had passedinto the Protectorate; and all rational men in Europe had given upthe cause of the Stuarts, and come to regard pamphlets in theirbehalf as so much waste paper; and was it not within the BritishIslands after all, ruled over though they were by Lord ProtectorCromwell, that a poor French divine of talent, tied to Englandalready by various connexions, had the best chances and outlooks forthe future? So, it appears, Du Moulin had reasoned with himself, andso he had acted. "After Ireland was reduced by the Parliamentaryforces, " we are informed by Wood, "he lived there, some time atLismore, Youghal, and Dublin, under the patronage of Richard, Earl ofCork. Afterward, going into England, he settled in Oxon (where he wastutor or governor to Charles, Viscount Dungarvan, and Mr. RichardBoyle his brother); lived there two or more years, and preachedconstantly for a considerable time in the church of St. Peter in theEast. "[1] His settlement at Oxford, near his brother Dr. Lewis, datesitself, as I calculate, about 1654; and it must have been chieflythence, accordingly, that he had watched Milton's misdirectedattentions to poor Morus, knowing himself to be "the actual turbot. "There is proof, however, as we shall find, that he was, from thatdate onwards, a good deal in London, and, what is almost startlinglystrange, in a select family society there which must have brought himinto relations with Milton, and perhaps now and then into hiscompany. Du Moulin could believe in 1670 that Milton even then knewhis secret, and that he owed his escape to Milton's pride andunwillingness to retract his blunder about Morus. We have seen reasonto doubt that; and, indeed, Milton, had, in his second Moruspublication, put himself substantially right with the public aboutthe extent of Morus's concern in the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, and had scarcely anything to retract. What he could do in additionwas Du Moulin's danger. He could drag a new culprit to light andimmolate a second victim. That he refrained may have been owing, aswe have supposed most likely, to his continued ignorance that the Dr. Du Moulin now going about in Oxford and in London, so near himself, was the original and principal culprit; or, if he did have anysuspicions of the fact, there may have been other reasons, in andafter 1655, for a dignified silence. [Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti, II. 195. ] In proceeding from the month of August 1655, when Milton publishedhis _Pro Se Defensio_, to his life through the rest of Oliver'sProtectorate, it is as if we were leaving a cluster of large islandsthat had detained us long by their size and by the storms on theircoasts, and were sailing on into a tract of calmer sea, where theislands, though numerous, are but specks in comparison. The reason ofthis is that we are now out of the main entanglement of the Salmasiusand Morus controversy. Milton had taken leave of that subject, andindeed of controversy altogether for a good while. In the original memoirs of Milton due note is taken of this calm inhis life after his second castigation of Morus. "Being now quiet fromstate adversaries and public contests, " says Phillips, "he hadleisure again for his own studies and private designs"; and Wood'sphrase is all but identical: "About the time that he had finishedthese things, he had more leisure and time at command. " Both addthat, in this new leisure, he turned again at once to those threelabours which had been occupying him, at intervals, for so manyyears, and which were, in fact, always in reserve as his favouritehack-employments when he had nothing else to do--his compilations forhis intended _Thesaurus Linguę Latinę_, his _History ofBritain_, and his _Body of Biblical Theology_. The meremention of such works as again in progress in the house in PettyFrance in the third or fourth year of Milton's blindness confirmsconclusively the other evidences that he had by this time overcome ina remarkable manner the worst difficulties of his condition. One seeshim in his room, daily for hours together, with his readers andamanuenses, directing them to this or that book on the shelves, listening as they read the passages wanted, interrupting andrequiring another book, listening again, interrupting again, and soat length dictating his notes, and giving cautions as to the keepingof them. His different sets of papers, with the volumes most in use, are familiar now even to his own touch in their places on the tableor the floor; and, when his amanuenses are gone, he can sit on byhimself, revising the day's work mentally, and projecting the sequel. And so from day to day, with the variation of his afternoon exercisein the garden, or the walk beyond it in some one's company into thepark or farther, or an occasional message from Thurloe onoffice-business, or calls from friends singly or two or threetogether, and always, of course, at intervals through the day, thepleased contact of the blind hands with the stops of the organ. Among the inmates of the house in Petty France in the latter part of1655, besides the blind widower himself, were his three little orphangirls, the eldest, Anne, but nine years of age, the second, Mary, butseven, and the youngest, Deborah, only three. How they were tended noone knows; but one fancies them seeing little of their father, andleft very much to the charge of servants. Two women-servants, withperhaps a man or boy to wait on Milton personally, may have completedthe household, unless Milton's two nephews are to be reckoned as alsobelonging to it. That the nephews still hovered about Milton, and resided with himoccasionally, together or by turn, giving him their services asamanuenses, appears to be certain. Edward Phillips was nowtwenty-five years of age, and John Phillips twenty-four; but neitherof them had taken to any profession, or had any other means ofsubsistence than private pedagogy, with such work for the booksellersas could be obtained by their own ability or through their uncle'sinterest. The younger, as we know, had made some name for himself byhis _Joannis Philippi, Angli, Responsio_ of 1652, written inbehalf of his uncle, and under his uncle's superintendence; and it isprobable that both the brothers had in the interval been doing oddsand ends of literary work. There are verses by both among thecommendatory poems prefixed to the first two parts of Henry Lawes's_Ayres and Dialogues for one, two, or three Voices_, publishedin 1653, as a sequel to that previous publication of 1648, entitled_Choice Psalmes put into musick for three Voices_, which hadcontained Milton's own sonnet to Lawes; and in the _DivinePoems_ of Thomas Washbourne, a Gloucestershire clergyman, published in 1654, there are "Verses to his friend Thomas Washbourne"by Edward Phillips. In this latter year, I find, John Phillips musthave been away for some time in Scotland, for in a letter to Thurloedated "Wood Street, Compter, 11th April, 1654", the writer--no otherthan Milton's interesting friend Andrew Sandelands, now back fromScotland himself--mentions Phillips as there instead. Sandelands hadnot ceased, under the Protectorate, to try to make himself useful tothe Government, and so get restored to his Rectory; and, as nothinghad come of his grand proposal about the woods of Scotland, he hadinterested himself in a new business: viz. "the prosecution of thatinformation concerning the Crown Lands in Scotland which his Highnessand the late Council of State did refer to the Commissioners atLeith. " Assuring Thurloe that he had been diligent in the affair, hesays, "I have employed Mr. John Phillips, Mr. Milton's kinsman, tosolicit the business, both with the Judges at Edinburgh and with theCommissioners at Leith; who by _his last letter_ promiseth togive me a very good account very speedily. " Whether this means thatSandelands had himself sent Phillips from London to Scotland on thebusiness, or only that, knowing Phillips to be already in Scotland, he had put the business into his hands, in either case one discernsan attempt on Milton's part to find some public employment, otherthan clerkship under himself, for the unsteady Phillips. The attempt, however, must have failed; for in 1655 Phillips was back in London, still a Bohemian, and apparently in a mood that boded ill for hisever being anything else. [1] [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. IV. 760-769 and 212; Lawes's _Ayres andDialogues_; Thurloe, II. 226-227. --At the date of the letter toThurloe (April 11, 1654) Sandelands was still in great straits. Hehad been arrested for debt and was then in prison. He reminds Thurloeof his attempts to be useful for the last year or more, notforgetting his project, in the winter of 1652-3, of timber and tarfrom the Scottish woods. The "stirs in Scotland" since, it appears, had obstructed that design after it had been lodged, through Milton, with the Committee of the Admiralty; but Sandelands hopes it may berevived, and recommends a beginning that summer in the wood ofGlenmoriston about Loch Ness, where the English soldiers are to beplentiful at any rate. "Sir, " he adds, "if a winter journey intoScotland to do the State service, and my long attendance here, hathnot deserved a small reward, or at least the taking off of thesequestration from my parsonage in Yorkshire, I hope ere long Ishall merit a far greater, when by my means his Highness's revenuesshall be increased. "--Milton, I may mention, had, about this time, several old acquaintances in the Protector's service in Scotland. One was the ex-licencer of pamphlets, Gilbert Mabbot. I find him, inJune 1653, in some official connexion with Leith (Council OrderBook, June 3). ] On the 17th of August, 1655, or just nine days after the publicationof Milton's _Pro Se Defensio_, there appeared anonymously inLondon, in the form of a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-two pages, apoem in rhyming heroics, entitled _A Satyr against Hypocrites_. In evidence that it was the work of a scholar, there were two mottoesfrom Juvenal on the title-page, one of them the well known "Si naturanegat, facit indignatio versum. " Of the performance itself there canbe no more exact description than that of Godwin. "It is certainlywritten, " he says, "with considerable talent; and the scenes whichthe author brings before us are painted in a very lively manner. Hedescribes successively a Sunday, as it appeared in the time ofCromwell, a christening, a Wednesday, which agreeably to the customof that period was a weekly fast, and the profuse and extravagantsupper with which, according to him, the fast-day concluded. Thechristening, the bringing home the child to its mother, who is stillin confinement, and the talk of the gossips, have a considerableresemblance to the broadest manner of Chaucer. " This last remarkGodwin at once qualifies. Whereas in Chaucer, he says, we have sheernatural humour, with no ulterior end, the _The Satyr againstHypocrites_ "is an undisguised attack upon the National Religion, upon everything that was then visible in this country and metropolisunder the name of Religion. " In other words, it is in a vein ofanti-Puritanism, or even anti-Cromwellianism, quite as bitter as thatof any of the contemporary Royalist writers, or as that of Butler andthe post-Restoration wits, with a decided tendency also to indecencyin ideas and expression, Of the more serious parts this is aspecimen:-- "Oh, what will men not dare, if thus they dare Be impudent to Heaven, and play with prayer, Play with that fear, with that religious awe, Which keeps men free, and yet is man's great law! What can they but the worst of Atheists be Who, while they word it 'gainst impiety, Affront the throne of God with their false deeds? Alas! this wonder in the Atheist breeds. Are these the men that would the age reform, That _Down with Superstition_ cry, and swarm This painted glass, that sculpture, to deface, But worship pride and avarice in their place? _Religion_ they bawl out, yet know not what Religion is, unless it be to prate!" That such "a smart thing, " as Wood calls it, should have appeared inthe middle of Cromwell's Protectorate, and that, itsanti-Cromwellianism being implied in its general anti-Puritanismrather than explicitly avowed, it should have had a considerablecirculation, need not surprise us. What is surprising is that theauthor should have been Milton's younger nephew, who had been broughtup from his very childhood under his uncle's roof, and educatedwholly and solely by his uncle's own care. It would add to thesurprise if the thing had been actually written in Milton's house;and even for that there is, as we shall find, something likeevidence. Altogether, I should say, Mr. John Phillips had, of late, got quite beyond his uncle's control, and had taken to courses of hisown, not in very good company. Among new acquaintances he hadforsworn his uncle's politics, and was no longer perfectly at easewith him. [1] [Footnote 1: _A Satyr against Hypocrites_, 1655 (Thomason copyfor date of publication); Godwin's _Lives of the Phillipses_, 49-51; Wood's Ath. IV. 764. --The _Satyr against Hypocrites_ isascribed in some book-catalogues to Edward Phillips; nay, I havefound it ascribed, by a singular absurdity, to Milton himself. Thatit passed at the time as Edward Phillips's seems proved by the entryof it in the Stationers' Registers under date March 14, 1654-5: "_ASatyr against Hypocrites by Edward Phillips, Gent_, " thepublisher's name being given as "Nathaniel Brooke. " I cannot explainthis; but John Phillips was certainly the author. Wood alone wouldbe good authority; but it appears from one of Bliss's notes to Woodthat the piece was afterwards claimed by John Phillips, and inEdward Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum_, published in 1675, thepiece is ascribed by name to his brother John, in evidence of his"vein of burlesque and facetious poetry" (Godwin, Lives of thePhillipses, p. 158). It was a rather popular piece when firstpublished, and was twice reprinted after the Restoration. ] During the whole time of Milton's residence in Petty France, hiselder nephew tells us, "he was frequently visited by persons ofquality, particularly my lady Ranelagh (whose son for some time heinstructed), all learned foreigners of note (who could not part outof this city without giving a visit to a person so eminent), andlastly by particular friends that had a high esteem for him: viz. Mr. Andrew Marvell, young Lawrence (the son of him that was Presidentof Oliver's Council), ... Mr. Marchamont Needham, the writer of_Politicus_, but above all Mr. Cyriack Skinner. " To these may beadded Hartlib, Durie (when he was not abroad), Henry Oldenburg, andothers of the Hartlib-Durie connexion. Altogether, the group is aninteresting one, and it is precisely in and about 1655 that we havethe means of seeing all the individuals of it in closest proximity toMilton and to each other. As one's curiosity is keenest, at thispoint, about Lady Ranelagh, she may have the precedence. On her own account she deserves it. We have already seen (ante Vol. III. 658-660) who she was, --by marriage the Viscountess Ranelagh, wife of Arthur Jones, second Viscount Ranelagh in the Irish Peerage, but by birth Catharine Boyle, daughter of the great Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, with the four surviving sons of that Earl for herbrothers, and his five other surviving daughters for her sisters. --Ofher four brothers, the eldest, Richard Boyle, second Earl of Cork, lived generally in Ireland, looking after his great estates there;and indeed it was in Ireland that most of the family had their chiefproperties. But the second brother, Roger Boyle, Lord Broghhill, already known to us for his services in Ireland under Cromwell, andfor his conspicuous fidelity to Cromwell ever since, was now inScotland, as President of Cromwell's Council there. _He_ may becalled the literary brother; for, though his chief activity hithertohad been in war and politics, he had found time to write and publishhis long romance or novel called _Parthenissa_, and so to begina literary reputation which was to be increased by poems, tragedies, comedies, &c. , in no small profusion, in coming years. His age, atour present date, was about thirty-four. Two years younger wasFrancis Boyle, the third brother, afterwards Lord Shannon, and fouryears younger still was the philosophical and scientific brother, Mr. Boyle, or "the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle. " When we last saw thisextraordinary young man, after his return from his travels, i. E. In1645-48, he was in retirement at Stalbridge in Dorsetshire, absorbedin studies and in chemical experiments, but corresponding eagerlywith Hartlib and others in London, and sometimes coming to townhimself, when he would attend those meetings of the _InvisibleCollege_, the germ of the future Royal Society, about the delightsof which Hartlib was never tired of writing to him. This mode of lifehe had continued, with the interruption of a journey or two abroad, till 1652. "Nor am I here altogether idle, " he says in one of hislatest letters to Hartlib from Stalbridge; "for I can sometimes makea shift to snatch from the importunity of my affairs leisure to tracesuch plans, and frame such models, as, if my Irish fortune willafford me quarries and woods to draw competent materials from toconstruct after them, will fit me to build a pretty house in Athens, where I may live to Philosophy and Mr. Hartlib. " The necessity oflooking after the Irish fortune of which he here speaks had sincethen taken him to Ireland and kept him there for the greater part oftwo years. He found it, he says, "a barbarous country, where chemicalspirits were so misunderstood, and chemical instruments sounprocurable, that it was hard to have any Hermetic thoughts in it;"and he had betaken himself to "anatomical dissections" as the onlykind of scientific pastime that Irish conditions favoured. Onreturning to England, in 1654, he had settled in Oxford, to be in thesociety of Wilkins, Wallis, Goddard, Ward, Petty, Bathurst, Willis, and other kindred scientific spirits, most of them recentlytransferred from London to posts in the University, and so formingthe Oxford offshoot of the _Invisible College_, as distinct fromthe London original. But still from Oxford, as formerly fromStalbridge, the young philosopher made occasional visits to London;and always, when there, he was to be found at the house of hissister, Lady Ranelagh. --What property belonged to Lady Ranelaghherself, or to her husband, lay also mainly in Ireland; but for manyyears, in consequence of the distracted state of that country, herresidence had been in London. "In the Pall Mall, in the suburbs ofWestminster, " is the more exact designation. Her Irish propertyseems, for the present, to have yielded her but a dubious revenue;and though she had a Government pension of £4 a week on some accountor other, she seems to have been dependent in some degree onsubsidies from her wealthier relatives. It also appears, thoughhazily, that there was some deep-rooted disagreement between her andher husband, and that, if he was not generally away in Ireland, hewas at least now seldom with her in London. She had her children withher, however. One of these was her only son, styled then simply Mr. Richard Jones, though modern custom would style him Lord Navan. In1655 he was a boy of fifteen years of age, Lady Ranelagh herselfbeing then just forty. The education of this boy, and of her two orthree girls, was her main anxiety; but she took a deep interest aswell in the affairs of all the members of the Boyle family, not oneof whom would take any step of importance without consulting her. Shecorresponded with them all, but especially with Lord Broghill and thephilosophical young Robert, both of them her juniors, and Robertpeculiarly her _protegé_. In his letters to her, all writtencarefully and in a strain of stately and respectful affection, we seethe most absolute confidence in her judgment; and it is from herletters to him, full of solicitude about his health, and of interestin his experiments and speculations, that we obtain perhaps the bestidea of that combination of intellectual and moral excellencies towhich her contemporaries felt they could not do justice except bycalling her "the incomparable Lady Ranelagh. " For that name, whichwas to be hers through an entire generation more, was already ascommon in talk about her beyond the circle of her own family as theaffectionate one of "Sister Ranelagh" was within that circle. Partlyit was because she was one of the best-educated women of her time, with the widest tastes and sympathies in matters literary andphilosophical, and with much of that genius of the Boyles, though infeminine form, which was represented by Lord Broghill and RobertBoyle among her brothers. Just before our present date we find hertaking lessons in Hebrew from a Scotch teacher of that language thenin London, who afterwards dedicated his _Gate to the HolyTongue_ to her, with much respect for her "proficiency in so shorta time, " and "amidst so many abstractions as she was surroundedwith. " And so in things of greater grasp. In writing to her brotherRobert her satisfaction with the new Experimental Philosophy which heand others are trying to institute can express itself as a beliefthat it will "help the considering part of mankind to a clearerprospect into this great frame of the visible world, and therein ofthe power and wisdom of its great Maker, than the rough draft whereinit has hitherto been represented in the ignorant and wholesalephilosophy that has so long, by the power of an implicit faith in thedoctrine of Aristotle and the Schools, gone current in the world hasever been able to assist them towards. " But it was not merely byvariety of intellectual culture that Lady Ranelagh was distinguished. One cannot read her letters without discerning in them a deepfoundation of piety in the best sense, real wisdom, a seriousdetermination with herself to make her own life as actively useful aspossible, and a disposition always to relate herself to what wassterling around her. "Though some particular opinions might shut herup in a divided communion, " said Burnet of her long afterwards, "yether soul was never of a party. She divided her charities andfriendships, her esteem as well as her bounty, with the truest regardto merit and her own obligations, without any difference made uponthe account of opinion. " This was true even at our present date, whenshe was an Oliverian in politics, like her brother Broghill, thoughperhaps more moderately so, and in religious matters what may becalled a very liberal Puritan. [1] [Footnote 1: Birch's Life of Robert Boyle, prefixed to edition ofBoyle's Works, pp. 27-33; Letters of Boyle to Lady Ranelagh and ofLady Ranelagh to Boyle in Vol. V. Of his Works; Notes by Mr. Crossleyto his edition of _Worthington's Diary and Correspondence_ forthe Chetham Society, I. P. 164-165, and 366. Mrs. Green's Calendarof State-Papers for 1651, p. 574. ] How long Lady Ranelagh had known Milton is uncertain; but, as hernephew, the young Earl of Barrimore, had been one of Milton's pupilsin his house in the Barbican, and as we had express information thathe had been sent there by his aunt, the acquaintance must have begunas early as 1646 or 1647. And now, it appears, through all theintermediate eight years of Milton's changes of residence andfortune, including his six in the Latin Secretaryship, theacquaintanceship has been kept up, and has been growing moreintimate, till, in 1655, in his widowerhood and blindness in hishouse in Petty France, there is no one, and certainly no lady, thatmore frequently calls upon him, or whose voice, on the staircase, announcing who the visitor is, he is more pleased to hear. They wereclose neighbours, only St. James's Park between their houses; and hishaving taught her nephew, the young Earl of Barrimore, was not nowthe only link of that kind between themselves. She had not beensatisfied till she had contrived that her own son should, to someextent, be Milton's pupil too. "My Lady Ranelagh, whose son for sometime he instructed" are Phillips's words on this point; and, thoughwe included Lady Ranelagh's son, Mr. Richard Jones, afterwards thirdViscount and first Earl of Ranelagh, in our general enumeration ofMilton's pupils, given under the year 1647, when the Barbicanestablishment was complete, it was with the intimation that thisparticular pupil, then but seven years old, could hardly have beenone of the Barbican boys, but must have had the benefit of lessonsfrom Milton in some exceptional way afterwards. The fact, on thelikeliest construction of the evidence, seems to have been thatMilton, to oblige Lady Ranelagh, had quite recently allowed the boyto come daily, or every other day, from his mother's house in PallMall to Petty France, to sit with him for an hour or two, and readGreek and Latin. To the end of his life Milton found this easy kindof pedagogy a pleasant amusement in his blindness, and made it indeedone of his devices for help to himself in his readings and referencesto books; and Lady Ranelagh's son may have been his first experimentin the method. That he retained an interest in this young Ranelagh ofa semi-tutorial kind, as well as on his mother's account, the sequelwill prove. Strange things do happen in real life; and actually it was possiblethat, on the day of one of Lady Ranelagh's visits to Milton, shemight have had a call in her own house from Dr. Peter Du Moulin. Forher ladyship's circle of acquaintance did include this gentleman. Hehad been tutor in Ireland to her two nephews, Viscount Dungarvan andMr. Richard Boyle, sons of her eldest brother, the Earl of Cork, andhe had come with them, still in that capacity, to Oxford (ante p. 224), and so had been introduced into the whole Boyle connexion. [1]What amount of awkwardness there may have been in a possible meetingbetween Du Moulin and Milton themselves through this common socialconnexion of theirs in London has been already discussed. TheRanelagh circle, for the rest, included all those, or most of them, that were Milton's friends independently, and could converse abouthim in her ladyship's own spirit. The family of Lord PresidentLawrence, for example, were in high esteem with Lady Ranelagh; andthe President's son, Mr. Henry Lawrence, Milton's young friend, andpresumably one of his former pupils of the Barbican days, seems tohave been about this time much in the company of her ladyship'snephew, the Earl of Barrimore. That young nobleman, we may mention, had become a married man, shortly after he had ceased to be Milton'spupil in the Barbican, and was now leading a gallant and rather idlelife about London, but not quite astray from his aunt's society, orperhaps from Milton's either. [2] Then there were Hartlib, Durie, Haak, and other lights of the London branch of the _InvisibleCollege_, friends of Robert Boyle for years past, andcorresponding with him and the other luminaries of the Oxford colonyof the _College_. Hartlib, in particular, who now lived atCharing Gross, and who had found a new theme of interest in thewonderful abilities and wonderful experiments of Mr. Clodius, aGerman chemist, who had recently become his son-in-law, was still inconstant correspondence with Boyle, and was often at Lady Ranelagh'son some occasion or other. [3] Nor must Milton's new German friend, Henry Oldenburg, the agent for Bremen, be forgotten. He also, as weshall find, had been drawn, in a special manner, into the Boyle andRanelagh connexion, and was, in fact, entering, by means of thisconnexion, on that part of his interesting career for which he isremembered in the annals of English science. He was to marry Durie'sonly daughter, and be retained by that tie, as well as by others, inthe Hartlib-Durie cluster of Milton's friends. [Footnote 1: Dr. Peter Du Moulin was one of Robert Boyle's friendsand correspondents both before and after the Restoration. It was atBoyle's request that Du Moulin translated and published in 1658 alittle book called _The Devil of Mascon_, a French story ofwell-authenticated spirit-rapping; and the book was dedicated byDumoulin to Boyle, and Boyle contributed an introductory letter toit. Moreover, it was to Boyle that Du Moulin in 1670 dedicated thefirst part of his _Parerga_ or Collection of Latin Poems, thesecond part of which contained his reprint of the Iambics againstMilton from the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_. --See Birch's Life ofBoyle, p. 60, and four letters of Du Moulin to Boyle in Boyle'sWorks, Vol. V (pp 594-596). In three of these letters, all writtenafter the Restoration, Du Moulin presents his respectful services to"My Honourable Lady Ranelagh" in terms implying long-establishedacquaintanceship. But there are other scattered proofs of Du Moulin'slong intimacy with the whole Boyle family. ] [Footnote 2: The young Earl had married, hastily and against hismother's will, in 1649, shortly after he had been Milton's pupil. Seea letter of condolence on the subject from Robert Boyle to hissister, the young Earl's mother (Boyle's Works, V. 240). For theintimacy between the young Earl of Barrimore and young Henry Lawrencesee a letter of Hartlib's to Boyle. (Ibid. V. 279). ] [Footnote 3: Letters of Hartlib to Boyle in Vol. V. Of Boyle'sWorks. ] Marvell, Needham, and Cyriack Skinner are not certainly known to havebeen among Lady Ranelagh's acquaintances. _Their_ visits toMilton, therefore, have to be imagined apart. Marvell's, if he werestill domiciled at Eton, can have been but occasional, but must havebeen always welcome. Needham's cannot have been, as formerly, onbusiness connected with the _Mercurius Politicus_; for Miltonhad ceased for some years to have anything to do with the editorshipof that journal. The duty of licensing it and its weekly double, _The Public Intelligencer_, also edited by Needham and publishedby Newcome, was now performed regularly by the omnipotent Thurloe. Both journals would come to Milton's house, to be read to him; andNeedham, in his visits, would bring other gossip of the town, and bealtogether a very chatty companion. "Above all, Mr. Cyriack Skinner"is, however, Phillips's phrase in his enumeration of those of hisuncle's friends who were most frequently with him about this time. The words imply that, since June 1654, when this old pupil ofMilton's had again "got near" him (Vol. IV. Pp. 621-623), hisattention to Milton had been unremitting, so that Milton had come todepend upon it and to expect him almost daily. On that understandingit is that we may read most luminously four private Sonnets ofMilton, all of the year 1655, two of them addressed to CyriackSkinner, and one to young Lawrence. The remaining sonnet, standingfirst of the four in the printed editions, is addressed to no one inparticular; but the four will be read best in connexion. In readingthem Cyriack Skinner is to be pictured as about twenty-eight years ofage, and Lawrence as a youth of two and twenty:-- (1) When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, returning, chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies:--"God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait. " (2) Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied In Liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain masque Content, though blind, had I no better guide. (3) Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, what may be won From the hard season gaining? Time will run On smoother, till Favonius reinspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise. (4) Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench, To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. It has been argued that the last two of these Sonnets must be out oftheir proper chronological places in the printed editions. They musthave been written, it is said, before Milton lost his sight: for howare such invitations to mirth and festivity reconcileable withMilton's circumstances in the third or fourth year of his blindness?There is no mistake in the matter, however. In Milton's own secondor 1673 edition of his Minor Poems the sonnets, in the order in whichwe have printed them, --with the exception of No. 2, which had then tobe omitted on account of its political point, --come immediately afterthe sonnet on the Piedmontese Massacre; and there are other reasonsof external evidence which assign Nos. 1, 3, and 4, distinctly toabout the same date as No. 2, the opening--words of which date_it_ near the middle of 1655. But, indeed, we should miss muchof the biographic interest of the last two sonnets by detaching themfrom the two first. In No. 1 we have a plaintive soliloquy of Miltonon his blind and disabled condition, ending with that beautifulexpression of his resignation to God's will in which, under theimage of the varieties of service that may be required by some greatmonarch, he contrasts his own stationariness and inactivity with theenergy and bustle of so many of his contemporaries. In No. 2, addressed to Cyriack Skinner, he treats of the same topic, onlyreverting with pride, as he had done several times in prose, to theliterary labour that had brought on his calamity. In both theintimation is that he has disciplined himself to live on ascheerfully as possible, taking daily duties, and little pleasurestoo, as they come. What more natural, therefore, than that, somelittle while after those two affecting sonnets on his blindness hadbeen written, there should be two others, in which not a word shouldbe said of his blindness, but young Lawrence and Cyriack Skinnershould find themselves invited, in a more express manner than usual, to a day in Milton's company? For that is the proper construction ofthe Sonnets. They are cards of invitation to little parties, perhapsto one and the same little party, in Milton's house in the winter of1655-6. It is dull, cold, weather; the Parks are wet, and thecountry-roads all mire; and for some days Milton has been baulked ofhis customary walk out of doors, tended by young Lawrence or Cyriack. To make amends, there shall be a little dinner in the warm room athome--"a neat repast" says Milton temptingly, adding "with wine, "that there may be no doubt in that particular--to be followed by along talk and some choice music. So young Lawrence is informed inthe metrical missive to _him_; and the same day (unless, as wemay hope, the little dinner became a periodical institution inMilton's house), Cyriack is told to come too. Altogether they aremodel cards of invitation. [1] [Footnote 1: More detailed reasons for the dating of Sonnets 1, 3, and 4 (for Sonnet 2 dates itself) will be found in the Introductionsto those Sonnets in the Cambridge Edition of Milton. In line 12 ofNo. 2 I have substituted the word "talks" for the word "rings, " nowalways printed in that place. "Of which all Europe rings from side toside, " is the reading in the copy of the Sonnet as first printed byPhillips in 1694 at the end of his memoir of Milton; but that copyis corrupt in several places. The original dictated draft of theSonnet among the Milton MSS. At Cambridge is to be taken as thetrue text; and there the word is "talks. " Phillips had doubtlessthe echo of "rings" in his ear from the Sonnet to Fairfax. The moresonorous reading, however, has found such general acceptance that aneditor hardly dares to revert to "talks. "] We are now in the winter of 1655-6, and we have seen no Secretarialwork from Milton since his letters and other documents in thebusiness of the Piedmontese Protestants in May, June, and July, 1655. Officially, therefore, he had had another relapse into idleness. Not, however, into total idleness. "_Scriptum Dom. ProtectorisReipublicę Anglicę, Scotię, Hibernię, &c. , ex Consensa atqueSententia Concilii Sui Edictum, in quo Hujus Reipublicę Causa contraHispanos justa esse demonstratur_, 1655" ("Manifesto of the LordProtector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland. Ireland, &c. , putforth by the consent and advice of his Council, in which the justiceof the cause of this Commonwealth against the Spaniards isdemonstrated, 1655"), is the title of a Latin document, of the lengthof about twenty such pages as the present, now always included ineditions of Milton's prose-writings, on the probability, though notquite the certainty, that it was Milton's performance. If so, it wasthe third great document in the nature of a Declaration of Warfurnished by Milton for the Commonwealth, the two former having beenhis Latin version of the Declaration of the Causes of War against theScots in June 1650 (IV. 228) and his similar version of theDeclaration against the Dutch in July 1652 (IV. 482-483). The presentmanifesto was perhaps a more difficult document to draft than eitherof those had been, inasmuch as Cromwell had to justify in it hisrecent attack upon the Spanish possessions in the West Indies. Accordingly, the manifesto had been prepared with some pains. Itpassed the Council finally on the 26th of October, 1655, four daysafter the Spanish ambassador Cardenas had left England, and two daysafter the Treaty between Cromwell and France had been signed;[1] andthe Latin copies of it were out in London on the 9th of November. [2]Unlike the previous Declarations against the Scots and the Dutch, which had been printed in several languages, it appears to have beenprinted in Latin only. [Footnote 1: Council Order Book of date. ] [Footnote 2: Dated copy among the Thomason Pamphlets. ] A general notion of the document will be obtained from, an extract ortwo in translation. The opening is as follows:-- "That the causes that induced us to our recent attack on certain Islands in the West Indies, now for some time past in the possession of the Spaniards, are just and in the highest degree reasonable, there is no one but will easily understand if only he will reflect in what manner that King and his subjects have always conducted themselves towards the English nation in that tract of America ... Whenever they have opportunity, though without the least reason of justice, and with no provocation of injury, they are incessantly killing, murdering, nay butchering in cold blood, our countrymen there, as they think fit, seizing their goods and fortunes, destroying their plantations and houses, capturing any of their vessels they may meet on those seas, and treating their crews as enemies and even pirates. For they call by that opprobrious name all of any nation, themselves alone excepted, who dare to navigate those waters. Nor do they profess to have any other or better right for this than reliance on some ridiculous donation of the Pope, and the fact that they were the first discoverers of some parts of that western region ... Certainly it would have been disgraceful and unworthy in us, in possession as we were, by God's bounty, of so many ships, furnished, equipped, and ready for every use of maritime warfare, to have chosen to let them rot idly at home, rather than employ them in those parts in avenging the blood of the English, so unjustly, so inhumanly, and so often, shed by the Spaniards there, --nay, the blood too of the Indians, inasmuch as God 'hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation' [Acts xvii. 26] ... Our purpose, however, is to show the right and equity of the transaction itself, rather than to state all our several reasons for it. And, that we may do this the more clearly, and explain general assertions by particulars, it will be proper to cast our eyes back a little into the past, and to run strictly over the transactions between the English and the Spaniards, observing the state of affairs on both sides, as far as mutual relations were concerned, from the time of the first discovery of the West Indies and of the Reformation of Religion. For those two great events, as they were nearly contemporary, occasioned everywhere in the world vast changes, but especially as between the English and the Spaniards; which two nations have from that time followed diverse and almost opposite methods and principles in the management of their affairs. " The manifesto, accordingly, then reviews the history of the relationsbetween Spain and England from the time of Henry VIII. , appending atlast a long list of more recent outrages by the Spaniards on Englishships and settlements in the West Indies, the dates all duly given, with the names of the ships and their captains, and the values of thecargoes. After which, returning to more general considerations, itdiscusses the two pretexts of the Spaniards for their solesovereignty in the West Indies, --the Papal donation, and the right offirst discovery. Both are dismissed as absurd; and the document endswith an appeal to the common interests of Protestantism throughoutEurope. Even the recent massacre of the Vaudois Protestants isbrought into the plea. Thus:-- "If meanwhile we suffer such grievous injuries to be done to our countrymen in the West Indies without any satisfaction or vengeance; if we consent to be all excluded from that so important part of the world; if we permit our bitter and inveterate enemy (especially now that peace has been made with the Dutch) to carry home unmolested those huge treasures from the West Indies, by which he can repair his present losses, and restore his affairs to such a condition that he shall be able again to betake himself to that deliberation of his in 1588 'whether it would be more prudent to begin with England for the recovery of the United Provinces of Holland, or to begin with them for the subjugation of England';--beyond a doubt he will find for himself not fewer, but even more reasons, why the beginning should now be made with England. And, should God permit him ever to carry out these designs, then we should have good grounds for expecting that on us first, but eventually on all Protestants wheresoever, there would be wreaked the residue of that most brutal massacre suffered lately by our brothers in the Alpine valleys: which massacre, if credit is to be given to the published complaints of those poor orthodox Christians, was originally schemed and appointed in the secret councils of the Spanish Court, through the agency of those paltry friars whom they call missionaries (_per illos fraterculos missionarios quos vacant Hispanicę aulę consiliis intimis informata primitus ac designata erat_). " How far Milton's hand helped in this important document of theProtectorate may fairly be a question. The substance was probablydrafted by the Council and Thurloe, and only handed to Milton forre-expression and translation; nay, it is possible that even in thework of translation, to save time, Milton and Meadows may have beenpartners. All in all, however, as the proofs are all but certain thatMilton's hand was to _some_ extent employed in the document, itmay mark his return to ordinary official work in Oct. -Nov. 1655, after three months of renewed exemption from such work, following hisbatch of state-letters on the subject of the Massacre inPiedmont. [1] [Footnote 1: The _Scriptum Domini Protectoris contra Hispanos_was reprinted, as indubitably Milton's, in 1738, and again in 1741, to assist in rousing British feeling afresh against Spain; and Birchand all succeeding editors of Milton have agreed in regarding it ashis. Godwin, however (_Hist. Of Commonwealth_, IV. 217-219, footnote), suggests doubts. ] What adds to the probability that Cromwell's Manifesto against Spain, dated Oct. 26, 1655, and published Nov. 9, was partly of Milton'scomposition, is the fact, to which we have now to request attention, that he did about this time resume ordinary office-work to an extentbeyond expectation. The following is a list of Letters to ForeignStates and Princes written by him for Cromwell from Dec. 1655 to May1656 inclusively. Two or three of them are important Cromwelliandocuments, and require elucidation:-- (LXV. ) TO THE DOGE OF VENICE, _Dec. 1655_:--His Highness congratulates the Venetians upon their recent naval victory over the Turks, but brings to their notice the fact that among the ships they had taken in that victory there was an English one, called _The Great Prince_, belonging to William and Daniel Williams and Edward Beal, English merchants. She had been pressed by the Turks at Constantinople, and employed as a transport for Turkish soldiers and provisions to Crete. The crew had been helpless in the affair, and the owners blameless; and his Highness does not doubt that the Doge and Senate will immediately give him a token of their friendship by causing the ship to be restored. --The naval victory of the Venetians was, doubtless, that which Morus had celebrated In the Latin poem for which he received his gold chain (ante pp. 212-213). (LXVI. ) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, Dec. 1655:--Samuel Mico, William Cockain, George Poyner, and other English merchants have petitioned his Highness about a ship of theirs, called _The Unicorn_, which had been seized in the Mediterranean as long ago as 1650 by the Admiral and Vice-Admiral of the French fleet, with a cargo worth £34, 000. The capture was originally unfair, as there was then peace between England and France, and express promises had been recently given by Cardinal Mazarin and the French Ambassador, M. De Bordeaux, that amends would be made as soon as the Treaty with France was complete. That happily being now the case, his Highness expects from his Majesty the indemnification of the said merchants as "the first-fruits of the renewed friendship and recently formed alliance. " (LXVII. ) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Jan. _ 1655-56:[1]--His Highness has been informed of very extraordinary conduct on the part of the French Governor of Belleisle in the Bay of Biscay. On the 10th of December last, or thereabouts, he not only admitted into his port one Dillon, a piratic enemy of the English Commonwealth, and assisted him with supplies, but also prevented the recapture of a merchant ship from the said Dillon by Captain Robert Vessey of the _Nightingale_ war-ship, and further secured Dillon's escape when Vessey had fought him and had him at his mercy. All this is, of course, utterly against the recent Treaty: and his Majesty will doubtless take due notice of the Governor's conduct and give satisfaction. [Footnote 1: Not in the Printed Collection nor in Phillips; but inthe Skinner Transcript (No. 46 there), and printed thence inHamilton's Milton Papers (p. 4). ] (LXVIII. ) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _Jan. _ 1655-6. To understand this important letter it is necessary to remember that in 1653 there had broken out, for the second or third time, a Civil War of Religion among the Swiss. The Popish Cantons of Schwytz, Uri, Zug, Unterwalden, Luzern, &c. , had quarrelled with the Protestant or Evangelical Cantons of Zurich, Basel, Schaffhausen, Bern, Glarus, Appenzell, &c. ; and, as the Popish Cantons trusted to help from surrounding Catholic powers, the Confederation and Swiss Protestantism were in peril. It had been to watch events and proceedings in this struggle that Cromwell had sent into Switzerland, early in 1654, Mr. John Pell and Mr. John Durie, as his agents (ante p. 41). Durie had remained only about a year; but Pell was still there, reinforced now by Morland, who, after his special mission to the Duke of Savoy on the business of the Piedmontese Massacre of April 1655, had taken up his abode in Geneva to superintend the distributing of the money collected for the Piedmontese Protestants. That massacre had been ominous to the Swiss, and had complicated the strife between the Popish and the Evangelical Cantons. In the Popish Cantons, especially that of Schwytz, there had been severe persecutions of Protestant Dissenters; the union of these Cantons among themselves and their Anti-Protestant temper had become stronger; and altogether the news from Switzerland was bad. Application had been made by the Evangelical Cantons, through Pell, for help from Cromwell, similar application being made at the same time to the Dutch; and the following is Cromwell's answer:--"Both from your public acts transmitted to us by our Commissioners at Geneva [Pell and Morland], and from your letter dated at Zürich, Dec. 27, we understand abundantly in what condition your affairs are. --too abundantly, since it is none of the best. Wherein, though we grieve to find your peace at an end and so lasting a Confederacy ruptured, yet, as it appears that this has happened by no fault on your part, we trust that hence, from the very iniquity and obstinacy of your adversaries, there is again being furnished you only so much new occasion for displaying your courage and your long-known constancy in the Evangelical Faith. For what the Schwytz Cantoners are driving at in their resolution to make it a capital offence in any one to embrace our Religion, and who they are that have instigated them to proceedings of such a hostile spirit to the Orthodox Faith, no one can avoid knowing who has not yet forgotten that foul slaughter of our brethren in Piedmont. Wherefore, well-beloved friends, as you always have been, be still, by God's help, brave; do not yield your rights and federate privileges, nay, Liberty of Conscience and Religion itself, to be trampled on by worshippers of idols; and so prepare yourselves that you may not only appear the champions of your own liberty and safety, but may be able also to succour and stand by your neighbouring brethren by all means in your power, especially those most sorrow-stricken Piedmontese: firmly persuaded of this, that the intention was to have opened a passage to your persons over their bodies and deaths. For my part, be assured [the expression in the singular: _de me scitote_] that your safety and prosperity are no less my care and anxiety than if this fire had broken out in this our own Commonwealth, or than if those axes of the Schwytz Cantoners had been sharpened, and their swords drawn (as they veritably are, for all the Reformed are concerned), for our own necks. No sooner, therefore, have we been informed of the state of your affairs, and the obdurate temper of your enemies, than, taking counsel with some very honourable persons, and some ministers of the Church of highest esteem for their piety, on the subject of the assistance it might be possible to send you consistently with our own present requirements, we have come to those resolutions which our agent Pell will communicate to you. For the rest, we cease not to commend to the favour of Almighty God all your plans, and the protection of this most righteous cause of yours, whether in peace or in war. "--From a private letter of Thurloe's to Pell, of the same date as this official one, we learn that the persons consulted by Cromwell on the occasion were the Committee for the Piedmontese Collection (ante pp. 40-41), his Highness regarding the Piedmontese business and the Swiss business as radically identical, and desiring to prepare the public mind for exertions, if necessary, in behalf of Swiss Protestantism as extraordinary as those that had been made for the Piedmontese. The conferences on the subject were very earnest, with the result that his Highness instructed Pell to offer the Cantons of Zürich and Bern a subsidy of £20, 000, at the rate of £5000 a month, on security for repayment--the first £5000, however, to be sent immediately, without waiting for such security. [1] [Footnote 1: See Thurloe's Letter in Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I, 334-337. ] (LXIX. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _Feb. _ 1655-6:[1]--This letter also is very important, though less in itself than in its circumstances; and it requires introduction. --Charles X. , or Charles Gustavus (Karl Gustav), the successor of Queen Christina on the Swedish throne, was proving himself a man of energy. Chancellor Oxenstiern, so long the leading statesman of Sweden, had died in Aug. 1654, just after the accession of Charles; and under the new King, with the younger Oxenstiern for his Chancellor, Sweden had entered on a career of war, which was to continue through his whole reign, and the aim of which was little less than the extension of Sweden into an Empire across the Baltic. He had begun with Poland, between which and Sweden there was an old feud, and the King of which then was John Casimir. Other powers, however, had been immediately stirred by the war. Denmark, Russia, and the German empire generally, were interested in saving Poland, and therefore tended to an alliance against Karl Gustav; while, on the other hand, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm, found it convenient for the present, in the interests of his Prussian possessions, to be on the side of Sweden. Cromwell had not been likely at first to interfere directly in such a complicated continental quarrel; and, indeed, as we have seen from a previous letter of his to the Swedish King (ante p. 166), his first feeling on hearing of the Swedish movements on the Continent had been that of regret at the disturbance of the Peace of Westphalia. Still Sweden was a power which commanded Cromwell's respect. Nor was Charles X. , on his side, less anxious to retain the friendship of the great English Protector. On succeeding Christina he had accepted and ratified her Treaty with Cromwell--"Whitlocke's Treaty, " as it may be called; he had sent a Mr. PETER COYET to be Swedish Resident in London; and, after he had begun his Polish war, there was nothing he desired more than some yet closer partnership between himself and Cromwell, that might unite Sweden and England in a common European policy. Accordingly, in July 1655, Charles X. Being then in camp in Poland, there had arrived in London a splendid Swedish embassy extraordinary, consisting of COUNT CHRISTIERN BUNDT, and other noblemen and gentlemen, with attendants, to the number of two hundred persons in all, "generally proper handsome men and fair-haired. " Whitlocke, who was naturally called in by the Protector on this occasion, describes with unusual gusto the reception of the Embassy. There was a magnificent torchlight procession of coaches, most of them with six horses, to convey the Ambassador and his suite from Tower Wharf, where they landed, to Sir Abraham Williams's house in Westminster; there were feastings and other entertainments, at the Lord Protector's charge, for three days; and at length on the third day Count Bundt had audience in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in the midst of a great assembly, with ladies in the galleries. It was difficult to say whether in this audience the Ambassador or the Protector acquitted himself best. "The Ambassador's people, " says Whitlocke, "were all admitted into the room, and made a lane within the rails in the midst of the room. At the upper end, upon a footpace and carpet, stood the Protector, with a chair of state behind him, and divers of his Council and servants about him. The Master of the Ceremonies [still Sir Oliver Fleming] went before the Ambassador on the left side; the Ambassador, in the middle, betwixt me and Strickland, went up in the open lane of the room. As soon as they [the Ambassador and his immediate suite] came within the room, at the lower end of the lane, they put off their hats, the Ambassador a little while after the rest; and, when he was uncovered, the Protector also put off his hat, and answered the Ambassador's three salutations in his coming up to him; and on the foot-pace they saluted each other as friends usually do; and, when the Protector put on his hat, the Ambassador put on his as soon as the other. After a little pause, the Ambassador put off his hat, and began to speak, and then put it on again; and, whensoever in his speech he named the King his master, or Sweden, or the Protector, or England, he moved his hat: especially if he mentioned anything of God, or the good of Christendom, he put off his hat very low; and the Protector still answered him in the like postures of civility. " The speech, which was in Swedish, but immediately translated into Latin by the Ambassador's secretary, was to the effect that the King of Sweden desired to propound to His Highness some matters for additional treaty. Cromwell's reply, delivered in English, which the Ambassador understood, was to the effect that he was very willing to enter into "a nearer and more strict alliance" with the King of Sweden and would nominate some persons to hear Count Bundt's proposals. --All this had been in the last days of July 1655; but, though there had been subsequent audiences of the Ambassador, and banquets given to him and the other chief Swedes by the Protector himself at Hampton Court, August had passed, and September, and October, and November, and still the actual Treaty had been avoided. Other things engrossed the Protector--the Treaty with France, the West-India Expedition, the beginning of the War with Spain, &c. But in Count Bundt there had been sent to Cromwell perhaps the most high-tempered ambassador he had ever seen. Immediately after the first audience, Dorset House, in Fleet Street, taken and furnished at the Ambassador's own expense, had become the head-quarters of the Embassy; and here, as month after month had passed without approach to real business, his impatience had flashed into fierceness. It broke out in his talk to Whitlocke, who took every opportunity of being with him, the rather because other "grandees" held aloof. "No Commissioners being yet come to the Swedish Ambassador, " writes Whitlocke, under date Dec. 1655, "he grew into some high expressions of his sense of the neglect to his master by this delay; which I did endeavour to excuse, and acquainted the Protector with it, who thereupon promised to have it mended. " In truth, the warlike Swedish King had become by this time a man whose embassy compelled attention. "_Letters of the success of the Swedes in Poland and Lithuania, " "Letters of the Swedes' victory against the Muscovites, " "The Swedes had good success in Poland and Moscovia, " "An Agreement made between the King of Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg:_" such had been pieces of foreign news recently coming in. Accordingly, in January 1655-6, Whitlocke, Fiennes, Strickland, and Sir Gilbert Pickering, had been empowered, on the Protector's part, to treat with Count Bundt, and the Treaty had begun. --There were preliminary difficulties, however. Cromwell wanted a Treaty that should include the Dutch and the King of Denmark, and be, in fact, a League of the chief Protestant Powers of Europe in behalf of general Protestant interests; Count Bundt, on the other hand, pressed that special League between England and Sweden which he had come to propound, arguing that, while it would be more advantageous to both countries in the meantime, it might be extended afterwards. For a while there was danger of wreck on this preliminary difference; and Cromwell even talked of transferring the Treaty to Stockholm and sending Whitlocke thither for the second time as Ambassador-Plenipotentiary--greatly to Whitlocke's horror, who had no desire for another such journey, and a good deal to Count Bundt's displeasure, who thought himself and his mission slighted. At length, the Ambassador having signified that he had received new instructions from his master, which would enable him to meet Cromwell's views in some points, he was allowed to have his own way in the main; and in February 1655-6 the Treaty was on foot, both in the Council meetings at Whitehall, and in meetings of Whitlocke and the other English Commissioners with the Ambassador at Dorset House. "A long debate touching levies of soldiers and hiring of ships in one another's dominions;" "long debates touching contraband goods, in which list were inserted by the Council corn, hemp, pitch, tar, money, and other things:" such are Whitlocke's descriptions of the Dorset House meetings. The Treaty, in fact, was partly commercial and partly political, pointing to new advantages for England, but also to new responsibilities, all round the Baltic and throughout Germany. In the debates no one more resolute, no one more clear-headed, no one more contemptuous when he pleased, than Count Bundt; and he had, it appears, a very able second in his subordinate, the Swedish Resident in ordinary, Mr. Coyet. --In the midst of these laborious debates over the Treaty news had arrived of the birth at Stockholm of a son and heir to the Swedish King. The birth of this Prince, afterwards Charles XI. Of Sweden, occasioned a grand display of loyalty at the Swedish Embassy in London. "Feb. 20, " writes Whitlocke, "the Swedish Ambassador kept a solemnity this evening for the birth of the young Prince of Sweden. All the glass of the windows of his house, which were very large, being new-built, were taken off, and instead thereof painted papers were fitted to the places, with the arms of Sweden upon them, and inscriptions in great letters testifying the rejoicing for the birth of the young Prince: on the inside of the papers in the rooms were set close to them a very great number of lighted candles, glittering through the painted papers: the arms and colours and writings were plainly to be discerned, and showed glorious, in the street: the like was in the staircase, which had the form of a tower. In the balconies on each side of the house were trumpets, which sounded often seven or eight of them, together. The company at supper were the Dutch Ambassador, the Portugal and Brandenburg Residents, Mynheer Coyet, Resident for Sweden, the Earls of Bedford and Devon, the Lords St. John, Ossory, Bruce, Ogilvie, and two or three other young lords, the Count of Holac (a German), the Lord George Fleetwood, and a great many knights and gentlemen, besides the Ambassador's company. It was a very great feast, of seven courses. The Swedish Ambassador was very courteous to me; but the Dutch and others were reserved towards me, and I as much to them. "--Milton's Letter to the Swedish King in Cromwell's name relates itself to this last incident. The King had written specially to Cromwell announcing the happy news of the birth of his son and heir; and Cromwell replies in this fashion:--"As it is universally understood that all concerns of friends, whether adverse or prosperous, ought to be of mutual and common interest among them, the performance by your Majesty of the most agreeable duty of friendship, by vouchsafing to impart to us your joy by express letters from yourself, cannot but be extremely gratifying to us, in regard that it is a sign of singular and truly kingly civility in you, indisposed as you are to live merely for yourself, so to be indisposed even to keep a joy to yourself, without feeling that your friends and allies participate in the same. We duly rejoice, therefore, in the birth of a Prince, to be the son of so excellent a King, and the heir, we hope, of his father's valour and glory; and we congratulate you on the same happy coincidence of domestic good fortune and success in the field with which of old that King of renowned fortitude, Philip of Macedon, was congratulated--the birth of whose son Alexander and his conquest of the powerful nation of the Illyrians are said to have been simultaneous. For we make no question but the wresting of the Kingdom of Poland by your arms from the Papal Empire, as it were a horn from the head of the Beast, and your Peace made with the Duke of Brandenburg, to the great satisfaction of all the pious, though with growls from your adversaries, will be of very great consequence for the peace and profit of the Church. May God grant an end worthy of such signal beginnings; may He grant you a son like his father in virtue, piety, and achievements! All which we truly expect and heartily pray of God Almighty, already so propitious to your affairs, "--It is clear that Cromwell desired to be all the more polite to the Swedish monarch because of the long delay of the Treaty with Count Bundt. That Treaty was going on slowly; and we shall hear more of Milton in connexion with it. [2] [Footnote 1: So dated in Printed Collection, Phillips, and SkinnerTranscript. ] [Footnote 2: Whitlocke, IV. 208-227; i. E. From July 1655 to Feb. 20, 1655-6. ] (LXX. ) To FREDERICK III. , KING OF DENMARK, _Feb. _ 1655-6(?)[1]:--John Freeman, Philip Travis, and other London merchants, have represented to his Highness that a ship of theirs was seized and detained by the Danish authorities in March 1653 because the Captain tried to slip past Elsinore without paying the toll. He was a Dutchman and had done this dishonestly on his own account, that he might pocket the money. There had been negotiations on the subject with the Danish Ambassador when there had been one in London, and redress had been promised; but, though the merchants had since sent an agent to Copenhagen, the only effect had been to add expense to their loss. By the Danish law it is the master of a ship that is punishable for the offence of evading toll, and the ship may be condemned, but not the goods. The offender in this case is now dead, but left a confession; the sum evaded was small; the cargo detained was worth £3000; will his Majesty see that the goods are restored, with reparation? [Footnote 1: Quite undated in Printed Collection, Phillips, andSkinner Transcript, but conjecturally of about this date. ] (LXXI. ) TO THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _April_ 1, 1656:--A complaint in behalf of Thomas Bussel, Richard Beare, and other English merchants. A ship of theirs, called _The Edmund and John_, on her voyage from Brazil to Lisbon, was seized long ago by a privateer of Flushing, commanded by a Lambert Bartelson. The ship itself and the personal property of the sailors had been restored; but not the goods of the merchants. The Judges in Holland had not done justice in their case; and now, after long litigation, an appeal is made to the chief authority. (LXXII. ) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _April_ 9, 1656 (?): This is the Credential Letter of LOCKHART, going on his embassy to the French King. As Lockhart was by far the most eminent of the Protector's envoys, it may be translated entire: "WILLIAM LOCKHART, to whom We have given this letter to be carried to your Majesty, is a Scot by nation, of an honourable house, beloved by us, known for his very great fidelity, valour, and integrity of character. He, that he may reside in France, and be with you, so as to be able assiduously to signify to you my singular respect for your Majesty, and my desire not only for the preservation of peace between us but also for the perpetuation of friendship, has received from us the amplest instructions. We request, therefore, that you will receive him kindly, and give him gracious audience as often as there may be occasion, and place absolutely the same trust in whatsoever may be said and settled by him in our name as if the same things had been said and settled by Ourselves in person. We shall hold them all as ratified. Meanwhile we pray all peace and prosperity for your Majesty and your kingdom. " (LXXIII. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _April_ 9, 1656 (?):--A Letter accompanying the above, and introducing LOCKHART specially to the Cardinal. It is also worth translating entire: "Seeing the affairs of France most happily administered by your counsels, and daily increasing in prosperity to such a degree that your high popularity and high authority in government are justly increased and enlarged accordingly, I have thought it fit, when sending an ambassador to your King with letters and instructions, to recommend him also most expressly to your Eminence: to wit, WILLIAM LOCKHART, a man of honourable family, closely related to us, and respected by us besides for his singular trustworthiness. Wherefore your Eminence may receive as our own whatsoever shall be communicated by him in our name, and may also freely commit and entrust to him in my confidence whatever you shall think fit to communicate in return. From him too you will learn more at large, what I now again profess, as more than once already, how high is my feeling of your great services to France, and what a well-wisher I am to your reputation and dignity. "[1] [Footnote 1: Neither of these Letters about Lockhart is in thePrinted Collection or in Phillips; but both are in the SkinnerTranscript (Nos. 110 and 111 there), whence they have been printedby Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 9-10). He datesthem both, as in the Transcript, "_West. , Aug. _ 1658;" but thatis clearly a mistake, and the letters are out of their proper placesin the Transcript. Lockhart was nominated for the Embassy in Dec. 1655, and he "took ship at Rye on the 14th of April, 1656, on his wayto France" (see a letter of Thurloe's to Pell in Vaughan's_Protectorate_, I. 376-377). I have ventured to affix the exactdate "April 9, 1656" to the two letters, because it is on that daythat I find Lockhart's departure on his embassy definitely settledin the Council Order Books. Before "Aug. 1658" Lockhart had knownLouis XIV. And the Cardinal intimately for more than two years andneeded no introduction. ] (LXXIV. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _April_ 17, 1656:--Another extremely polite letter of the Protector to his Swedish Majesty, marking a farther stage in the proceedings of the Swedish Treaty. --That Treaty had been going on at Dorset House, the Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Resident, continuing their colloquies with Whitlocke. Fiennes, and Strickland, about pitch, tar, hemp, mutual privileges of trade between England and Sweden, trade also with Prussia, Poland, and Russia, and all the other items of the Treaty, and the Ambassador always pushing on the business and chafing at the slow progress made. Again and again he had taken serious offence at something. Once it was because, waiting on the Protector at Whitehall, he had been kept half-an-hour before the Protector appeared. It was with difficulty he was prevented from going away without seeing his Highness; "he durst not for his head, " he said, "admit of such dishonour to his master"; he had to be pacified by an apology. Then, when he did see the Protector, he had fresh cause for dissatisfaction. The propositions of the Treaty, as agreed upon so far between the Commissioners and the Ambassador, having been reported to the Council, and there having been a discussion on them there, Thurloe taking a chief part, new hesitations and difficulties had arisen, so that, when Cromwell conversed with Count Bundt, the Count was amazed to find his Highness cooler about the Treaty altogether than he had expected, and again harping on Protestant interests and the necessity of including the Dutch. The Count seems then to have broken bounds in his talk about the Protector to Whitlocke and others. In his own country, Sweden, he said, "when a man professed sincerity, they understood it to be plain and clear dealing"; if a man meant _Yea_ he said _Yea_, and if he meant _No_ he said _No_; but in England it seemed to be different. The explanations and soft words of Whitlocke and the rest having calmed him down again, the Treaty proceeded. --One of the most important meetings at Dorset House, by Whitlocke's account, was on the 8th of April. Mr. Jessop, as one of the Clerks of the Council, was there by appointment, and read "the new Articles in English as they were drawn up according to the last resolves of the Council. " A long debate on the Articles followed. The Ambassador begged "to be excused if he should mistake anything of the sense of them, they being in English, which he could not so well understand as if they had been in Latin, which they must be put into in conclusion; but he did observe, " &c. In fact, he restated his objections to making pitch, tar, hemp, flax, and sails, contraband, as they were the staple produce of Sweden. Lord Fiennes, in reply, premised: "that the Articles were brought in English for the saving of time, and they should be put in Latin when his Excellency should desire, " and then discussed the main subject. Whitlocke followed, and the Ambassador again, and Fiennes again, all in English; and "Mynheer Coyet then spake in Latin, that pitch, tar, and hemp were not in their own nature, nor by the law of nations, esteemed contraband goods, " &c. Strickland said a few words in reply, and then Whitlocke made a longer and more lawyer-like answer to Mynheer Coyet, --also, as he takes care to tell us, speaking in Latin. The discussion, which was long protracted, and extended to other topics, was closed by the Ambassador; who said "he desired a copy of these Articles now debated, and, if they pleased, that he might have it in Latin, which he would consider of. " This was promised. --The meeting so described was nearly the last in which the Swedish Resident, M. Coyet, took part. He was on the eve of his departure from England, leaving his principal, Count Bundt, to finish the Treaty; and the present brief letter of Milton for Cromwell to his Swedish Majesty has reference to that fact. "Peter Julius Coyet, " it begins, "having performed his mission to us, and so performed it that he ought not to be dismissed by us without the distinction of justly earned praise, is on the point of returning to your Majesty"; and in three sentences more very handsome testimony is borne to Coyet's ability and fidelity in the discharge of his duty, and his Swedish Majesty is again assured of the Protector's high regard for himself. "A constant course of victories against all enemies of the Church" is the Protector's wish for him. --Evidently, again, Cromwell, whatever might be the issue of the Treaty, was anxious to stand well with the Scandinavian; in corroboration of which we have this special paragraph in Whitlocke under date May 3: "This day the Protector gave the honour of knighthood to MYNHEER COYET, the King of Sweden's Resident here, who was now SIR PETER COYET, and gave him a fair jewel, with his Highness's picture, and a rich gold chain: it cost about £400. " Coyet, therefore, had remained in London a fortnight after the date of Milton's letter. [1] Indeed he remained a few days longer, assisting in the Treaty to the last. [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 227-255: i. E. From Feb. 20, 1655-6, toMay 3, 1656. ] (LXXV. ) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _May_ 14, 1656:[1]--John Dethicke, Merchant, at present Lord Mayor of the City of London, and another merchant, named William Wakefield, have represented to his Highness that, as long ago as October 1649, a ship of theirs, called _The Jonas of London_, was taken at the mouth of the Thames by one White of Barking, acting under a commission from the son of the late King, and taken into Dunkirk, then governed for the French King by M. L'Estrades. They had applied for satisfaction at the time, but had received a harsh answer from the governor. Perhaps his French Majesty, on receipt of this letter, will direct justice to be done. [Footnote 1: Not dated in Printed Collection, Phillips, or SkinnerTranscript; but dated by reference to it in a subsequent letter. ] (LXXVI. ) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _May_ 1656:--Also about a ship, but this time for the recovery of insurance on one. She was _The Good Hope of London_, belonging to John Brown, Nicholas Williams, and others; she had been insured in Amsterdam; she had been taken by a ship of the Dutch East India Company on her way to the East Indies; the insurers had refused to pay the sum insured for; and for six years the poor owners had been hopelessly fighting the case in the Dutch courts. It is a case of real hardship. (LXXVII. ) TO THE SAME, _May_ 1656:--Three times before letters have been written to the States-General in the interest of Thomas and William Lower, who had been left property in Holland by their father's will, but have been unjustly kept out of the same by powerful persons there, and tossed from law-court to law-court. This fourth application, it is hoped, may be more successful. These thirteen State Letters, were there nothing else, would provethat in and after the winter of 1655-6 Milton's services were againin request for ordinary office-work. But they do not represent thewhole of his renewed industry in that employment. The tremendous Swedish ambassador, Count Bundt, whose energy in hismaster's interests had swept through Whitehall like a storm, searching out flaws, waking up Thurloe and the Council, and obligingCromwell himself to be more circumspect, had made his influence felt, it seems, even in the house of the blind Secretary-Extraordinary. Itwas on the 8th of April, 1656, as we have just learnt from Whitlocke, that the Ambassador, in one of his conferences with Whitlocke, Fiennes, and Strickland, in Dorset House, M. Coyet also beingpresent, had rather objected to the fact that the new Articles of theTreaty, drafted for his consideration by the Council, and brought tothe conference by Mr. Jessop, had been brought in English, and not inLatin, as would have been business-like. Latin or English, as theCommissioners knew, it would have been all the same to Count Bundt, inasmuch as it was the matter of the Articles that displeased him;but they had promised that he should have them in Latin, andWhitlocke had judiciously taken the opportunity of speaking in Latin, in reply to some of M. Coyet's observations in the same tongue, as ifto show the Ambassador that Latin was by no means so scarce acommodity as he seemed to suppose about the Protector's Court. Therehad been delay, however, in furnishing the promised Latintranslation; and Count Bundt, glad of that new occasion forfault-finding, did not let it escape him. "The Swedish Ambassador, "relates Whitlocke under date May 6, 1656, "again complained of thedelays in his business, and that, when he had desired to have theArticles of this Treaty put into Latin, according to the custom inTreaties, it was fourteen days they made him stay for thattranslation, and sent it to one MR. MILTON, a blind man, to put theminto Latin, who, he said, must use an amanuensis to read it to him, and that amanuensis might publish the matter of the Articles as hepleased; and that it seemed strange to him there should be none but ablind man capable of putting a few Articles into Latin: that theChancellor [the late Oxenstiern] with his own hand penned theArticles made at Upsal [in Whitlocke's Treaty], and so he heard theAmbassador Whitlocke did for those on his part. The employment of MR. MILTON was excused to him, because several other servants of theCouncil, fit for that employment, were then absent. "[1] If this isexact, Count Bundt, having been promised the Latin translation on the8th of April, did not receive it till about the 22nd, and he had beennursing his wrath on the subject for a fortnight more before itexploded. In the delay itself he had certainly good ground forcomplaint. There was reason also in the complaint that importantsecret documents had gone to a blind man, who must employ anamanuensis, unless the Commissioners could have replied that theProtector and the Council had thoroughly seen to that matter, andthat Milton's amanuensis on such occasions was always a sworn clerkfrom the Whitehall office. On the whole, the Commissioners seem tohave taken more easily than became their places, or than theProtector would have liked, the insinuation of the imperious Countthat the Protector's official retinue must be a ragged andundisciplined rout, not to be compared with Karl Gustav's. May notWhitlocke himself, however, thinking at that moment of his own Latinsufficiency, have sharpened the point of the insinuation?[2] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 257. ] [Footnote 2: Whitlocke, from his interest in Swedish affairs, hadtaken ample notes of the negotiations with Count Bundt; and his storyof them is unusually minute. One observes that more than once in thecourse of it he dwells on the fact that, though employed by theProtector in this business, and taking the lead in it, he was still_not_ one of the Council. ] The excuse of the Commissioners to Count Bundt for having sent theArticles to Milton for translation was that "several other servantsof the Council, fit for that employment, were then absent. " They masthave referred, in particular, to Mr. Philip Meadows, the LatinSecretary in Ordinary. He had, we find, taken some part in thenegotiation in its earlier stage;[1] but, before it had proceededfar, he had been selected for a service which took him out ofEngland. In December 1655 it had been resolved to send a specialagent to Portugal; and on the 19th of February, 1655-6, at a Councilmeeting at which Cromwell himself was present, Meadows, thought offrom the first, was formally nominated as the fit person. It was agreat promotion for Meadows; for, whereas his salary hitherto in theLatin Secretaryship had been £200 a year, his allowance for thePortuguese agency was to be £800 a year or more. On the 21st ofFebruary he had £300 advanced to him for his outfit; on the 28th hewas voted £100, being for two quarters of his Secretarial salary dueto him, with £50 more for the quarter then current but not completed;and within a few days afterwards he was on his way to Lisbon. [2] Hisdeparture, I should say--preceded perhaps by a week or two ofcessation from office duty in preparation for it--was the real causeof the re-employment of Milton at this time in such routine work aswe have seen him engaged in. All or most of his former letters forthe Protector, it may have been noticed, e. G. Those on thePiedmontese business, had been on important occasions, such as mightjustify resort to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary; but in the batchwritten since Dec. 1655, when Meadows's Portuguese mission had beenresolved on, the ordinary and the extraordinary come together, andMilton, in writing letters about ships, as well as in translatingdraft articles, does work that would have been done by Meadows. Andthis arrangement, we may add, was to continue henceforth. For, despite the sneers of Count Bundt as to the poverty of theProtector's official staff, the Protector and Council, we shall find, were in no hurry to fill up the place left vacant by Meadows, butwere quite satisfied that Mr. Milton should go on doing his bestalone, with Thurloe to instruct him, and with the help of suchunderlings in Latin as Thurloe could put at his disposal. My beliefis that Milton was pleased at this trust in his renewed ability forordinary business. [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 218; where it is mentioned that in Dec. 1655 Meadows communicated with Whitlocke on the subject of the Treatyby Thurloe's orders. ] [Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates. It is curious thatWhitlocke, noting the new appointment of Meadows, under March 1655-6, enters it thus: "Mr. Meadows was going for _Denmark_, agent forthe Protector. " Meadows did go to Denmark, but not till a good whileafterwards; and the blunder of _Denmark_ at this date for_Portugal_ is one of the many proofs that Whitlocke's memorialsare not all strictly contemporary, but often combinations ofreminiscences and afterthoughts with the materials of an actualdiary. ] Among the matters that occupied the attention of the Protector'sGovernment about this time was the state of Popular Literature. It is a fact, easily explained by the laws of human nature, andcapable of being proved statistically, that since the stronggovernment of Cromwell had come in, and something like calm andleisure had become possible, there had been a return of people'sfancies to the lighter Muses. Nothing strikes one more, in turningover the Registers of the old London Book-trade, than the steadyincrease through the Protectorate of the proportion of books ofsecular and general interest to those of controversy and theology. One feels oneself still in the age of Puritanism, it is true, but asif past the densest and most stringent years of Puritanism and comingonce more into a freer and merrier air. Poems, romances, books ofhumour, ballads and songs, reprints of Elizabethan tragedies andcomedies, reprints of such pieces as Shakespeare's _Venus andAdonis_, collections of facetious extracts from the wits and poetsof the reigns of James and Charles I. , are now not uncommon. HumphreyMoseley, Milton's publisher of 1645, faithful to his oldtrade-instinct for poetry and the finer literature generally, wasstill at the head of the publishers in that line; but HenryHerringman, who had published Lord Broghill's _Parthenissa_, hadbegun to rival Moseley, and there were other caterers of amusing andhumorous books. Publishers imply authors; and so in the London of theProtectorate, apart from stray survivors from among the wits of KingCharles's reign, there were men of a younger sort, bred amid the morerecent Puritan conditions, but with literary zests that were Bohemianrather than Puritan, Among these, as we have hinted, and as we maynow state more distinctly, were Milton's nephews, Edward and JohnPhillips. [1] [Footnote 1: My notes from the Stationers' Registers, from 1652 to1656. ] Such Popular Literature as we have described had been left perfectlyfree. Indeed Censorship or Licensing of books generally, as distinctfrom newspapers, had all but ceased. Since Bradshaw's Press-Act of1649, it had been rather rare for an author or bookseller to take thetrouble, in the case of a non-political book, to procure theimprimatur of any official licenser in addition to the ordinarytrade-registration; and in this, as an established custom, Cromwell'sGovernment had acquiesced. Only in one particular, apart frompolitics, was there any disposition to interfere with the liberty ofprinting. This was where popular wit, humour, or poetry might passinto the ribald, profane, or indecent. Vigilance against openimmorality had from the first appeared to Cromwell one of the chiefduties of his Government; and he seems to have been unusuallyattentive to this duty in 1655-6, when he had just put the countryunder the military police of his Major-Generals and theirsubordinates. Then it is that we hear most of the suppressing ofhorse-races and the like, and that we are least surprised atencountering such a piece of information as that "players were takenin Newcastle and whipped for rogues. " Now, though by this time therehad already, by previous care on the part of Government, been aconsiderable cleansing of the Popular Literature of London, yetsomething or other in the state of the book-world about 1655-6 seemsto have occasioned new and more special interference. I believe it tohave been the increased frequency of ballads, facetię, and reprints, of higher literary character than the coarse pamphlets that had beensuppressed, but objectionable on the same moral grounds. At allevents, all but simultaneously with the Order of the Protector andhis Council, of Sept. 5, 1655, concentrating the whole newspaperpress in the hands of Needham and Thurloe (see ante pp. 51-52), therehad been a new general Ordinance "against Scandalous Books andPamphlets and for the Regulation of Printing" (Aug. 18, 1655), and itwas not long before this Ordinance was put in operation in one or twocases of the kind indicated. Here are some extracts from the OrderBooks of the Council in April and May 1656:-- _Tuesday, April_ 1656:--"That it be referred to the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Jones, and Lord Strickland, or any two of them, to examine the business touching the book entitled _Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_, and to send for the author and printer, and report the same to the Council. " _Friday, April_ 25, 1656:--Present: the Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Lambert, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Jones, the Lord Deputy of Ireland (Fleetwood), Lord Viscount Lisle, Mr. Rous, Major-General Skippon, and Lord Strickland. "Colonel Jones reports from the Committee of the Council to whom was referred the consideration of a book entitled _Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_, that the said book contains in it much scandalous, lascivious, scurrilous, and profane matter. _Ordered_ by his Highness the Lord Protector, by and with the advice of the Council, That the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the rest of the Committee for the regulation of Printing do cause all such [copies] of the said book as are not already seized to be forthwith seized on, wherever they shall be found, and cause the same, together with those already seized, to be delivered to the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, who are to cause the same to be forthwith publicly burnt. --He further reports that Nathaniel Brookes, Stationer, at the Angel in Cornhill, caused the said book to be printed; that the printers thereof were John Grismond, living in Ivy Lane, and James Cotterill, living in Lambeth Hill; and that JOHN PHILLIPS, of Westminster, was the author of the Epistle Dedicatory. _Ordered_, That it be referred to Sir John Barkstead, Knight, Lieutenant of the Tower [and Major-General for Westminster and Middlesex], to cause the fines to be levied on the said persons according to law: [also] that the said persons do attend the Council on Tuesday next. "--Milton's younger nephew, therefore, had been the editor of the offending volume. Of the eleven members of Council present when this fact came out, six were among those friends of Milton whom he had specially mentioned in his _Defensio Secunda_: viz. Fleetwood, Lambert, Lawrence, Pickering, Sydenham, and Strickland. _Saturday, April_ 26, 1656:--His Highness the Lord Protector approves of a great many recent Orders of Council presented to him all at once by Mr. Scobell, the Clerk of the Council. Among them is the order "for burning the book called _Sportive Wit_. " _Friday, May_ 9, 1656:--His Highness the Lord Protector present in person, with Lord President Lawrence, Lambert, Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, and Jones:--_Ordered_, &c. "That the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the rest of the Committee for regulating Printing do cause all the books entitled _Choice Droliery, Songs and Sonnets_ (being stuffed with profane and obscene matter, tending to the corruption of manners), to be seized wherever the same shall be found, and cause the same to be delivered to the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, who are required to give order that the same be burnt. " Copies of the second of the two books thus condemned by Cromwell andhis Council have, I believe, survived the burning, The publisher wasa John Sweeting, who had duly registered the book on the 9th ofFebruary 1655-6, shortly after which date it had appeared with thisfull title, _Choice Drollery, Songs and Sonnets: being a Collectionof Divers Eminent Pieces of Poetry of several Eminent Authors, neverbefore printed_. I have not seen any copy of the other bookbearing the precise title _Sportive Wit, or the Muses'Merriment_; but there are surviving copies of what may be the samewith an alternative title, viz. _Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems, never before printed, by Sir J. M. , Jas. S. , Sir W. D. , J. D. , and otheradmirable wits_. It had been out in London since. Jan. 18, 1655-6, had been registered on the 30th of that month, and is a respectablyprinted little book of 160 pages, with the motto "_Ut nectaringenium_" under the title, and with, the imprint _London. Printed for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Cornhill_, 1656. Itcontains moreover a Dedication "To the truly noble Edward Pepes, Esq. , " and an Epistle "To the Courteous Reader, " both signed with theinitials J. P. Either, therefore, this is the same book as the_Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_ which, figures in theOrders of the Council, or John Phillips had edited simultaneously forNathaniel Brooke (who had been the publisher of his _Satyr againstHypocrites_ in the preceding August) two books of the same generalcharacter. Even on the latter supposition, _Wit and Drollery, _in the absence of _Sportive Wit, _ may serve as a representativeof that production of the same editor and the same publisher. Thesubstance of Phillips's Epistle to the Reader in _Wit andDrollery_ is as follows:-- "Reader, --To give thee a broadside of plain dealing, this _Wit_ I present thee with is such as can only be in fashion, invented purposely to keep off the violent assaults of melancholy, assisted by the additional engines and weapons of sack and good company... What hath not been extant of Sir J. M. , of Ja. S. , of Sir W. D. , of J. D. , and other miraculous muses of the times, are here at thy service; and, as Webster, at the end of his play called _The White Devil, _ subscribes that the action of Perkins crowned the whole play, so, when thou viewest the title, and readest the sign of 'Ben Jonson's Head, in the backside of the Exchange, and the Angel in Cornhill, ' where they are sold, enquire who could better furnish thee with such sparkling copies of wit. " Among the included pieces are the younger Alexander Gill's lampoon onBen Jonson for his _Magnetic Lady_ and Ben Jonson's reply to thesame (ante Vol. I. Pp. 528-529); there are also several pieces ofSuckling; but, for the rest, as the title-page bears, the volumeconsists chiefly of specimens of _"Sir J. M. "_ (Sir JohnMennes), _"Jas. S. "_ (James Smith), _"Sir W. D"_ (SirWilliam Davenant), and _"J. D. "_ (Dr. Donne), professing not tohave been before in print. Whether this was so, and whether thepieces were all authentically by these poets, need not here concernus. It is enough to say that many of the pieces are decidedly, andsome very grossly, of the improper kind. The reader will not expectto have this proved by extract; but of the more innocent "drollery"the following stanzas from a poem entitled _"Nonsense"_ may be asample:-- O that my lungs could bleat like buttered pease! But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch, And are as mangy as the Irish seas, That doth engender windmills in a bitch. I grant that rainbows, being lulled asleep, Snort like a woodknife in a lady's eyes; Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep; For creeping puddings only please the wise. Note that a hard-roed herring should presume To swing a tithe-pig in a catskin purse, For fear the hailstones which did fall at Rome By lessening of the fault should make it worse. For 'tis most certain winter woolsacks grow, Till that the sheepshorn planets give the hint, From geese to swans, if men could keep them so, And pickle pancakes in Geneva print. At worst, the volume was but a catchpenny collection of pieces of akind of which there was plenty already dispersed in print under thenames of the same authors, or of others as classical; and, if thiswas the same book as the _Sportive Wit, _ or at all like thatbook, it may have been some mere accident of the moment that broughtGovernment censure upon Phillips's volume, while others, as had, escaped. But how annoying the whole occurrence to Milton![1] [Footnote 1: Thomason copy of _Wit and Drollery_ in the BritishMuseum, dated Jan. 18, 1655-6. --I failed to find a book with thetitle _The Sportive Wit_ in the Thomason Collection, and hencemy hypothesis that there was but one book, with alternative titles. Iam rather inclined to believe, however, that there were two, and havea vague recollection of having seen two books, one with one of thetitles and the other with the other, advertised in a contemporarynewspaper list of books on sale by the publisher Brooke. In Lowndes'sBibliog. Manual by Bohn, _sub voce_ "Wit, " the two books aregiven as distinct; but then _Sportive Wit or the Muses'Merriment_ is there dated 1656, while there is no notice of anedition of _Wit and Drollery, Jovial Poems, _ till 1661. ThoughI leave the matter in doubt, some collector of Facetiac may know allabout it. In any case, if _Wit and Drollery_ was not theidentical book condemned, it is of interest to us as being one ofPhillips's editing at the same moment. --Donne, who figures sostrangely in _Wit and Drollery, _ had been dead twenty-fiveyears, but was accessible in various editions and reprints of hisPoems. The other three poets named in the title-page as the chiefauthors of the pieces--Sir John Mennes, James Smith, andDavenant--were still alive and publishing for themselves. Indeed the_Musarum Delitice, or Muses' Recreation, _ consisting of piecesby Mennes and Smith, had been published by Herringman only the yearbefore (1655), and was in its second edition in 1658; and it may havebeen the success of this and Smith in it. Mennes, a stout book thatled to Phillips's publication and to the use of the names of MennesRoyalist sea-captain, who had served with Prince Rupert, and was inexile at our present date, became Chief Comptroller of the Navy afterthe Restoration and lived to 1670. Smith was a Devonshire clergyman, of Royalist antecedents, who had complied with the existing powersand retained his living. After the Restoration he had promotion inthe Church: and he died in 1667. ] Less unsatisfactory to Milton, must hare been the literaryappearances about the same time of his elder nephew, Edward Phillips. On the same day on which the stationer Nathaniel Brooke hadregistered _Wit and Drollery_ edited by John Phillips, i. E. OnJan. 30, 1655-6, he had registered two tales or small novels called"_The Illustrious Shepherdess_" and "_The ImperiousBrother_" both "written originally in Spanish and now Englished byEdward Phillips, Gent. "[1] The first of these translations, both fromthe Spanish of Juan Perez de Montalvan (1602-1638), is dedicated byPhillips to the Marchioness of Dorchester, in what Godwin calls "anextraordinary style of fustian and bombast. "[2] With the exception, of such affectation in style, which Phillips afterwards threw off, there is nothing ill to report of these early performances of his;and two translations from the Spanish were a creditable proof ofaccomplishment. But still more interesting was another literaryperformance of Edward Phillips's of the same date. This was hisedition of the Poems of Drummond of Hawthornden. [Footnote 1: Stationers' Registers of date. ] [Footnote 2: Godwin's _Lives of the Phillipses_, 138-139. Iknow the translations only from Godwin's account of them. ] Drummond had died in 1649, leaving in manuscript, at Hawthornden orin Edinburgh, not only his _History of Scotland from 1423to 1542, or through the Reigns of the Five Jameses_, butalso various other prose-writings, and a good deal of verse inaddition to what he had published in his life-time. Drummond's sonand heir being under age, the care of the MSS. Had devolved chieflyon Drummond's brother-in-law, Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, awell-known Scottish judge, antiquary, and eccentric. Hitherto thetroubles in Scotland had prevented the publication by Sir John ofthese remains of his celebrated relative, the only real Scottish poetof his generation. With the other Scottish dignitaries and officialswho had resisted the English invasion, Sir John himself had beenturned out of his public posts, heavily fined, and remitted intoprivate life (Vol. IV. P. 561). Gradually, however, as Scotland hadbecome accustomed to her union with England, things had come roundagain for the old ex-Judge, as well as for others. There is reason tobelieve that he was in London for some time in 1654-5, soliciting theProtector and the Council for favour in the matter of his fine, ifnot for restoration to one of his former offices, the Director ofthe Scottish Chancery. The case of Scot of Scotstarvet, at allevents, _was_ then under discussion in the Council, with theresult that his fine, which had been originally £1500, but had beenreduced to £500, was first reduced farther to £300, and next, apparently by Cromwell's own interposition, altogether "dischargedand taken off, in consideration of the pains he hath taken and theservice he hath done to the Commonwealth. "[1] If Scotstarvet himself, then seventy years of age, had come to London on the business, hemust have brought Drummond's MSS. , or copies of them, with him. Onthe 16th of January 1854-5 there had been registered at Stationers'Hall, as forthcoming, Drummond's _History of Scotland through theReigns of the Five Jameses_, with a selection of otherprose-writings of his, chiefly of a political kind; and the volumedid appear immediately, as a handsome small folio, bearing date 1655, and "printed by Henry Hills for Rich. Tomlins and himself. " As HenryHills was one of the printers to his Highness and the Council, theappearance from his press of a volume so full of conservativedoctrine, inculcating so strongly the duty of submission to kinglyprerogative and to constituted authority, may not be withoutsignificance. Another interesting circumstance about it is that ithad appeared under the charge of a London editor, "Mr. Hall of Gray'sInn, "--i. E. , unless I am mistaken, that Mr. John Hall whom we sawbrought in, at £100 a year, to do pieces of literary hackwork for theCouncil under Milton as long ago as May 1649, and who had been insome such employment for the Council, at least occasionally, eversince (ante p. 177). Accidental or not, the fact that the editor ofDrummond's Prose Writings, selected by Scotstarvet or by the printerHills, should have been a servant of the Council of State, and a kindof underling of Milton in that capacity, is at least curious. But itbecomes more curious when taken in connexion, with the fact that theeditor of the companion volume, containing the first professedlycomplete edition of Drummond's Poems, was Milton's elder nephew. Thisvolume, though announced by Mr. Hall in his Introduction to theProse Volume, did not appear till about a year afterwards, and thenas an octavo of 224 pages, with this title, _"Poems by that mostfamous Wit, William Drummond of Hawthornden ... London, Printed forRickard Tomlins, at the Sun and Bible, neare Pye-Corner, _ 1656. "The volume is dedicated to Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, and includesabout sixty small pieces of Drummond never before published, whichSir John had supplied from the Hawthornden MSS. Apart from revisionof the proofs, Phillips's editorship consisted in a prose preface, signed "E. P. , " and a set of commendatory verses, signed in full"Edward Phillips. " [Footnote 1: Council Order Books, March 9 and March 19, 1654-5. ] Drummond's Poetry had long been known to Milton in the fragmentarystate in which alone it had been till then accessible, i. E. In thesuccessive instalments of it published by Drummond himself inEdinburgh between 1613 and 1638. There might be proof also thatDrummond was one of Milton's favourites, and regarded by him as oneof the sweetest and truest poets that there had been in Great Britainthrough that age of miscellaneous metrical effort, much of itmiscalled Poetry, which included the whole of the laureateship of BenJonson and the beginning of that of Davenant. Accordingly, it is notdifficult to suppose that phrases about Drummond from Milton's ownmouth were worked by Phillips into his prose preface to the Londonedition of the Poems of Drummond. There is a little hyperbolism inthat preface; but the opening definition of Drummond's genius isexact, and the fitness of some of the phrases quite admirable. Thus:-- "To say that these Poems are the effects of a genius the most polite and verdant that ever the Scottish nation produced, although it he a commendation not to be rejected (for it is well known that that country hath afforded many rare and admirable wits), yet it is not the highest that may be given him; for, should I affirm that neither Tasso, nor Guarini, nor any of the most neat and refined spirits of Italy, nor even the choicest of our English Poets, can challenge to themselves any advantage above him, it could not be judged any attribute superior to what he deserves ... And, though he hath not had the good fortune to be so generally famed abroad as many others, perhaps of less esteem, yet this is a consideration that cannot diminish, but rather advance, his credit; for, by breaking forth of obscurity, he will attract the higher admiration, and, like the sun emerging from a cloud, appear at length with so much the more forcible rays... " Milton's interesting German friend, Henry Oldenburg, had recentlyremoved from London to Oxford. "In the beginning of this year, " saysWood in his _Fasti_ for 1656, "studied in Oxon, in the conditionof a sojourner, HENRY OLDENBURG, who wrote himself sometimesGRUBENDOL [anagram of OLDENBUBG]; and in the month of June he wasentered a, student by the name of _'Henricus Oldenburg, Bremensis, Nobilis Saxo'_: at which time he was tutor to a young Irishnobleman, called Henry O'Bryen [son of Henry, Earl of Thomond], thenalso a student there. "[1] As we construe the case, Oldenburg, havingbeen for some years in England as agent for Bremen, had begun to seethat he was likely to remain in England permanently; and he had goneto Oxford for the benefit of a year of study there with readings inthe Bodleian, and the society more especially of Robert Boyle, Wilkins, Wallis, Petty, and the rest of the Oxford colony or offshootfrom the _Invisible College_ of London. Desirable on its ownaccount, this migration to Oxford had been made easier to himfinancially, if it had not been, occasioned, by the arrangement thathe should be tutor there to the young Irish nobleman whom Wood names. But this young nobleman was not to be Oldenburg's only pupil atOxford. Though Wood does not mention the fact, there went with himthither, or there speedily followed him thither, to be also under hischarge, another young Irish nobleman. This was no other than, our ownRichard Jones, son of Viscount and Lady Ranelagh, the Benjamin amongMilton's pupils. Whatever had been the nature of Milton's recentinstructions of the youth, they had now ceased, and Oldenburg was tobe thenceforward the youth's more regular tutor. It does not seem tohave been intended that young Ranelagh should formally enter acollege, so as to receive the usual education at the University, butonly that he should obtain some acquaintance with Oxford and itsways, and be for a while in the society of his uncle Boyle, and ofhis two cousins, Viscount Dungarvan and Mr. Richard Boyle. If thesetwo sons of the Earl of Cork were still under the tutorship of Dr. Peter Du Moulin, Oldenburg and Jones at Oxford must have comenecessarily also into constant intercourse with that very secretadmirer of Milton. Oxford, we do gather, was still Du Moulin'shead-quarters; but he was so much on the wing thence that Oldenburgmight expect to succeed him in the tutorship of at least one of theyoung Boyles. Oldenburg was then thirty years of age, and youngRanelagh about sixteen. [Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti, II. 197. ] Among four letters to young Jones or Ranelagh included in Milton'sLatin Familiar Epistles one is undated. It is put second of the fourin the printed collection, but it ought to have been put first. It isMilton's first letter to the youth in his new position at Oxfordunder Henry Oldenburg's charge. The date may be in or about May1636:-- "To the Noble Youth, RICHARD JONES. "I received your letter much after its date, --not till it had lain, I think, fifteen days, put away somewhere, at your mother's. Most gladly at last I recognised in it your continued affection for me and sense of gratitude. In truth my goodwill to you, and readiness to give you the most faithful admonitions, have never but justified, I hope, both your excellent mother's opinion of me and confidence in me, and your own disposition. There is, indeed, as you write, plenty of amenity and salubrity in the place where you now are; there are books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the spot contributed as much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the place. The Library there, too, is splendidly rich; but, unless the minds of the students are made more instructed by means of it in the best kinds of study, you might more properly call it a book-warehouse than a Library. Most justly you acknowledge that to all these helps there must be added a spirit for learning and habits of industry. Take care, and steady care, that I may never have occasion to find you in a different state of mind; and this you will most easily avoid if you diligently obey the weighty and friendly precepts of the highly accomplished Henry Oldenburg beside you. Farewell, my well-beloved Richard; and allow me to exhort and incite you to virtue and piety, like another Timothy, by the example of that most exemplary woman, your mother. "Westminster. " In this letter one observes the rather strict tone of Mentorshipassumed towards young Ranelagh, as if Milton was aware of somethingin the youth, that needed checking, or as if Lady Ranelagh, with hermotherly knowledge, had given Milton a hint that the strict tone withhim would be generally the best. The tendency to a depreciation ofOxford, which is also visible in the letter, is no surprise fromMilton. The Anti-Oxonian feeling, if that is not too strong a name for itafter all, is even more apparent in Milton's next letter, addressednot to young Ranelagh, but to his tutor. Young Ranelagh, it appears, not long after the receipt of the foregoing, had run up to London ona brief visit to his mother, and had brought Milton a letter fromOldenburg. To this Milton replies as follows:-- "To HENRY OLDENBURG, Agent for Bremen with the English Government. "Your letter, brought by young Ranelagh, has found me rather busy; and so I am forced to be briefer than I should wish. You have certainly kept _your_ departing promise of writing to me, and that with a punctuality surpassed. I believe, by no one hitherto in the payment of a debt. I congratulate you on your present retirement, to my loss though it be, since it gives pleasure to you; I congratulate you also on that happy state of mind which enables you so easily to set aside at once the ambition and the ease of city-life, and to lift your thoughts to higher matters of contemplation. What advantage that retirement affords, however, besides plenty of books, I know not; and those persons you have found there as fit associates in your studies I should suppose to be such rather from their own natural constitution than from the discipline of the place, --unless perchance, from missing you here, I do less justice to the place for keeping you away. Meanwhile you yourself rightly remark that there are too many there whose occupation it is to spoil divine and human things alike by their frivolous quibblings, that they may not seem to be doing absolutely nothing for those many endowments by which they are supported so much to the public detriment. All this you will understand better for yourself. Those ancient annals of the Chinese from the Flood downwards which you say are promised by the Jesuit Martini[1] are doubtless very eagerly expected on account of the novelty of the thing; but I do not see what authority or confirmation they can add to the Mosaic books. Our Cyriack, whom you bade me salute, returns the salutation. Farewell. "Westminster: June 25, 1656. " [Footnote 1: Martin Martini, Jesuit Missionary to China, was born1614 and died 1661. ] That Count Bundt's remonstrance on the employment of a blind man inthe Protector's diplomatic business had had no effect will be provedby the following list of state-letters written by Milton immediatelyafter that remonstrance. We bring the list down to Sept. 1656, themonth in which the Second Parliament of the Protectorate met: (LXXVIII. ) To KINGS AND FOREIGN STATES GENERALLY, _June_ 1656:[1]--This is a Passport by the Protector in favour of PETER GEORGE ROMSWINCKEL, Doctor of Laws. He had been born and bred in the Roman Catholic Church, and had held high offices in that Church at Cologne, but had become an ardent Protestant, and had been for some time in England. He was now on his way back to Germany, to assume the post of Councillor to the widowed Duchess of Symmeren (?); and the Protector desires all English officers, consuls, agents, &c. , and also all foreign Governments, to give him free passage and handsome treatment. The tone of the letter is even haughtily Protestant. On the ground that "most people think in Religion with easy acquiescence in exactly what they have received from their forefathers, and not what they themselves, after imploring divine help, have learnt to be true by their own perception and knowledge, " the case of Romswinckel is represented as peculiarly interesting; and such phrases as "the Papal superstition" are not spared. The passport was probably expected to come only into Protestant hands. [Footnote 1: This Letter is not given in the Printed Collection orin Phillips; it is in the Skinner Transcript, and has been printedby Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 5-6). ] (LXXIX. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _June_ 1656:[1]--A special recommendation of the above Romswinckel to the Swedish King, in the same high Protestant tone. [Footnote 1: Not in Printed Collection or Phillips, but inSkinner Transcript, and printed by Hamilton (_Milton Papers_, 6-7). ] (LXXX. ) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _July_ 1656:--The Portuguese merchants of the Brazil Company owe certain English merchants a considerable sum of money on shipping accounts since 1649 and 1650. The English merchants, understanding that, by recent orders of his Portuguese Majesty, they are likely to lose the principal of the debt, and be put off with the bare interest, have applied to the Protector. He thinks it a hard case, and begs the King to let the debt be paid in full, principal and five years of interest. (LXXXI. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _July_ 1656:--After more than two months of farther debating between Count Bundt and the English Commissioners, in the course of which there had been frequent new displays of the Count's high temper, the Treaty between the Protector and Charles Gustavus had at last been happily finished on the 17th of July. On that day, Whitlocke tells as, he and Lords Fiennes and Strickland had their long final meeting over the Treaty with the Ambassador, ending; in formal signing and sealing on both sides. The main difficulty had been got over thus: "Concerning the carrying of pitch, tar, &c. To Spain, during our war with them [the Spaniards], there was a single Article, that the King of Sweden should be moved to give order for the prohibiting of it, and a kind of undertaking that it should be done. " On the whole, the Protector was satisfied; and, as he had contracted some admiration and liking for the Ambassador, precisely on account of his unusual spirit and stubbornness, he marked the conclusion of the Treaty by special compliments and favours. "The Swedish Ambassador, " says Whitlocke under date July 25, "having taken his leave of the Protector, received great civilities and respects from him, and afterwards dined with him at Hampton Court, and hunted with him. The Protector bestowed the dignity of knighthood upon one of his [the Ambassador's] gentlemen, Sir Gustavus Duval, the mareschal. " The present Latin letter by Milton, accordingly, was the letter of honourable dismissal which the Swede was to take back to his master. Perhaps the Swede knew that even this was written by the Protector's blind Latinist. --"Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c. , to the most Serene Prince, Charles Gustavus, King of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, &c. " is the heading of the letter; which proceeds thus:--"Most Serene King, --As we have justly a very high regard for the friendship of so great a Prince as your Majesty, one so famous for his achievements, so necessarily should that most illustrious Lord, CHRISTIERN BUNDT, your Ambassador Extraordinary, by whose endeavours a Treaty of the closest alliance has just been ratified between us, have been to as, were it but on this pre-eminent account, an object of favour and good report. We have accordingly judged it fit that he should be sent back to you after his most praiseworthy performance of this Embassy: but not without the highest acknowledgment at the same time of his other excellent merits, to the end that one who has been heretofore in esteem and honour with you may now feel that he is indebted to this our commendation for yet more abundant fruits of his assiduity and prudence. As for the transactions that yet remain, we have resolved shortly to send to your Majesty a special Embassy for those; and meanwhile may God preserve your Majesty safe, to be a pillar in His Church's defence and in the affairs of Sweden!--From our Palace of Westminster, --July 1656. Your Majesty's most affectionate, OLIVER, Protector &c. "--Count Bundt, we may add, remained in England a month more after all, receiving farther attentions and entertainments; and not till Aug. 23 did he finally depart, taking with him not only Milton's Letter, but also a present from the Protector of £1200 worth of "white cloth" and a magnificent jewel. It was because this jewel could not be got ready at once that he had staid on; and it was worth waiting for. "The jewel was his Highness's picture in a case of gold, about the bigness of a five-shillings piece of silver, set round the case with sixteen fair diamonds, each diamond valued at £60: in all worth about £1000. " The Count wore the jewel tied with a blue ribbon to his breast so long as he was in sight, barging down the Thames. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 257-273. ] (LXXXII. ) To the King of Portugal, _Aug. _ 1656:--Mr. Philip Meadows has been in Lisbon since March, busy in the duties of his mission, and sending letters and reports home. There was still danger, however, in being an agent for the English Commonwealth in a Roman Catholic country; and Meadows had nearly shared the fate of Dorislaus and Ascham. On the 11th of May, as he was returning at night to his lodgings in Lisbon, carried in a litter, he was attacked by two horsemen, who "discharged two pistols into the litter and shot him through the left hand. "[1] The wound was not serious; but the King of Portugal was naturally in great concern. He offered a large reward for the discovery of the criminals; and, in a Latin letter to Cromwell, dated "Alcantara, May 26, N. S. , " he professed his desire to have them punished, whether they were English refugees or native Portuguese. [2] The present Letter by Milton is the Protector's reply. Though there has been some interval since the receipt of his Majesty's letter, his Highness has not yet heard that the criminals have been apprehended; and he insists that there shall be a vigorous prosecution of the search and recommends that it should be put into the hands of "some persons of honesty and sincerity, well-wishers to both nations. " [Footnote 1: Thurloe to Pell, June 26, Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 432. ] [Footnote 2: See Letter itself in Thurloe, V. 28. ] (LXXXIII. ) To Louis XIV. Of France, _Aug. _ 1656:--Again about a ship, but this time in a peremptory strain. --Richard Baker and Co. Of London have complained to the Protector that a ship of theirs, called _The Endeavour_, William Jopp master, laden at Teneriffe with 300 pipes of rich Canary wine, had, in November last, been seized by four French privateer vessels under command of a Giles de la Roche, who had carried ship, cargo, and most of the crew away to the East Indies, after landing fourteen of the crew on the Guinea coast. For this daring act he had pleaded no excuse, except that his own fleet wanted provisions and that he believed the owners of his fleet would make good the loss. The Protector now demands that £16, 000 be paid to Messrs. Baker and Co. , and also that Giles de la Roche be punished. It concerns his French Majesty's honour to see to this, after that recent League with the English Commonwealth to which his royal oath is pledged. Otherwise all faith in Leagues will be at an end. (LXXXIV. ) TO CARDINAL, MAZARIN, _Aug. _ 1656:--On the same subject as the last. While writing to the King about such an outrage, the Protector cannot refrain from imparting the matter also to his Eminence, as "the sole and only person whose singular prudence governs the most important affairs of the French and the chief business of the kingdom, with equal fidelity, counsel, and vigilance. " (LXXXV. ) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _Aug. _ 1656. A Letter of some length, and very important. "We doubt not, " It begins, "but all will bear us this testimony--that no considerations have ever been stronger with us in contracting foreign alliances than, the duty of defending the Truth of Religion, and that we have never accounted anything more sacred than the union and reconciliation of those who are either the friends and defenders of Protestants, or at least not their enemies. " With what grief, then, does his Highness hear of new dissensions breaking out among Protestant powers, and especially of signs of a rupture between the United Provinces and Sweden! Should there be war between those two great Protestant powers, how the common enemy will rejoice! "To the Spaniard the prospect has already brought such an access of spirit and confidence that he has not hesitated, through his Ambassador residing with you, to obtrude most audaciously his counsels upon you, and that about the chief concerns of your Republic: daring even partly to terrify you by throwing in threats of a renewal of war, partly to solicit you by setting forth a false show of expediency, to the end that, abandoning by his advice your old and most faithful friends, the French, the English, and the Swedes, you would be pleased to form a close alliance with your former enemy and tyrant, pacified now forsooth, and, what is most to be feared, quite fawning. " The Protector earnestly adjures their High Mightinesses the States to be on their guard. "We are not ignorant that you, in your wisdom, often revolve in your minds the question of the present state of Europe in general, and especially the condition of the Protestants: how the Cantons of the Swiss following the orthodox faith are kept in suspense by the expectation from day to day of new commotions to be stirred up by their countrymen following the faith of the Pope, and this while they have hardly emerged from that war which, plainly on account of Religion, was blown and kindled by the Spaniard, who gave their enemies leaders and supplied the money; how for the inhabitants of the Alpine Valleys the designs of the Spaniards are again contriving the same slaughter and destruction which they most cruelly inflicted on them last year; how the German Protestants are most grievously troubled under the rule of the Kaiser, and retain their paternal homes with difficulty; how the King of Sweden, whom God, as we hope, has raised up as a valiant champion of the Orthodox Religion, is carrying on with the whole strength of his kingdom a doubtful and most severe war with the most powerful enemies of the Reformed Faith; how your own Provinces are threatened by the ominous league lately struck up among your Papist neighbours, of whom a Spaniard is the Prince; how we here, finally, are engaged in a war declared against the Spanish King. " What an aggravation of this condition of things if there should be an actual conflict between their High Mightinesses and Sweden! Will not their High Mightinesses lay all this to heart, and come to a friendly arrangement with Charles Gustavus? The Protector hardly understands the causes of the disagreement; but, if he can be of any use between the two powers, he will spare no exertion. He is about to send an embassy to the Swedish King, and will convey to him also the sentiments of this letter. --That the preparation of this Letter to the States-General had been very careful appears from the following minute relating to it in the Council Order-Books for Tuesday Aug. 19:--"Mr. Secretary [Thurloe] reports the draft of a letter to the States-General of the United Provinces; which was read, and committed to Sir Charles Wolseley, with the assistance of the Secretary, to amend the same, in pursuance of the present debate, and report it again to the Council. " Cromwell was himself present at this meeting of the Council, with Lawrence, Lambert, Wolseley, Strickland, Rous, Jones, Skippon, and Pickering. The draft read was most probably the English that was to be turned into Latin by Milton: but this does not preclude the idea that the document itself was substantially Milton's. Thurloe can hardly have drafted _such_ a document. He may have gone to Milton first. (LXXXVI. ) To The King of Portugal, _Aug. _ 1656:--The Protector has received his Portuguese Majesty's Ratification of the Peace negotiated in London by his Extraordinary Ambassador Count Sa in 1654, and also of the secret and preliminary articles of the same; and he has received letters from Philip Meadows, his agent at Lisbon, informing him that the counterpart Ratification on the English side had been duly delivered to his Majesty. There being now therefore a firm and settled Peace between the two nations, dating formally from June 1656, the Protector salutes his Majesty with all cordiality. As to his Majesty's letters of June 24th, mentioning some clauses of the League a slight alteration of which would be convenient for Portugal, the Protector is willing to have these carefully considered, but suggests that the whole Treaty may be perilled by tampering with any part of it. (LXXXVII. ) To THE COUNT OF ODEMIRA, _Aug. _ 1656:--This is a letter to the Prime Minister of Portugal, to accompany the foregoing to the King. The Protector acknowledges the Count's zeal and diligence in promoting the Peace now concluded, and takes the opportunity of pressing upon him, rather than again upon the King, relentless inquiry into the late attempt to assassinate Meadows. (LXXXVIII. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _Aug. _ 1656:--A letter very much in the strain of that just sent to the States-General of the United Provinces. Although, knowing what a champion the Protestant Faith has in his Swedish Majesty, the Protector cannot but rejoice in the news of his successes, there is one drawback. It is the accompanying news of the misunderstanding between his Majesty and the Dutch, now come to such a pass, he hears, that open conflict is likely, especially in the Baltic. The Protector is in the dark as to the causes, but ventures to press on his Majesty the views he had been pressing, but a few days ago, upon the Dutch. Let him think of the perils of Protestantism; let him think of Piedmont, of Austria, of Switzerland! "Who is ignorant that the counsels of the Spaniards and of the Roman Pontiff have, for two years past, filled all those places with conflagrations, slaughters, and troubles to the orthodox? If to these evils, so many already, there shall be added an outbreak of bad feeling among Protestant brethren themselves, and especially between two powers in whose valour, resources, and constancy lies the greatest safeguard of the Reformed Churches, so far as human means avail, the Reformed Religion itself must be endangered and brought to an extreme crisis. On the other hand, were all of the Protestant name to cultivate perpetual peace with that brotherly unanimity which becomes them, there will be no reason at all to be very much afraid of inconvenience to us from all that the arts or force of our enemies can do. " O that his Majesty may see his way to a pacific settlement of his differences with the Dutch! The Protector will gladly do anything to secure that result. (LXXXIX. ) TO THE STATES OF HOLLAND, _Sept. _ 1856:--William Cooper, a London minister, has represented to the Protector that his father-in-law, John le Maire of Amsterdam, invented, about thirty-three years ago, a certain device by which much revenue was brought in to the States of Holland, without any burden to the people. It was the settling of a certain small seal or stamp to be used in the Provinces ("_id autem erat parvi sigilli in Provinciis constitutio_"). For the working this invention he had taken into partnership one John van den Brook; and the States of Holland had promised the partners 3000 guilders yearly, equal to about £300 English, for the use of the thing. Not a farthing, however, had they ever received, though the States had benefited so much; and now, as they are both tired out, they have transferred their right to William Cooper, who means to prosecute the claim. The States are prayed to look into the matter, and to pay Cooper the promised annual pension, with arrears. (XC. ) To LOUIS XIV. Of FRANCE, _Sept. _ 1656:--His Highness is sorry to trouble his Majesty so often; but the grievances of English subjects must be attended to. Now a London merchant, called Robert Brown, who had bought 4000 hides, part of the cargo of a Dieppe ship, legally taken before the League between France and Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but; instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council. If acts done before the League are to be called in question, Leagues will be meaningless; and it would be well to make an example or two of persons causing trouble of this kind. Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belongto the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largestcontribution of work of this kind in any one month since the verybeginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst ofletters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Norought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 areparticularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of thatpassionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his boldstand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which hadmatured itself politically since then into the scheme of an expressLeague or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot beby mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in thehighest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should havealways been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the officepeople that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that, for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the LatinSecretary Extraordinary. A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may haveheard with some interest appears as follows in the CouncilOrder-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:--"Upon consideration of thehumble petition of Peter Du Moulin, the son, Doctor of Divinity, anda certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness, and by his Highness referred to the Council, _Ordered_ ... Thatthe said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted toexercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of Nov. 24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or instructions given tothe Major-Generals and Commissioners in the several counties, notwithstanding. " And so even the author of the _Regii SanguinisClamor_ was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being aVicar or a Rector, or something higher still, in Cromwell'sEstablished Church. _Can_ his secret have possibly been thenknown? _Can_ the Council have known that the man who petitionedthe Protector for indulgence, and to whom they now advised theProtector to grant it, was the author of the most vehement and bitterbook that had ever been written on the Royalist side, the man who hadabused the Commonwealth men as "robbers, traitors, parricides" and"plebeian scoundrels, " who had written of Cromwell "Verily an egg isnot liker an egg than Cromwell is like Mahomet, " and who had cappedall his other politenesses about Milton by calling him "more vilethan Cromwell, damned than Ravaillac"?[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. Peter du Moulin did become a Vicar in Cromwell'sEstablished Church. He was inducted into the Vicarage of Bradwell, inBucks, Oct. 24, 1657, but quitted it in a few days, apparently forsomething better (Wood's Fasti, II. 195: Note by Cole). ] SECTION III: FROM SEPTEMBER 1656 TO JUNE 1657, OR THROUGH THE FIRSTSESSION OF OLIVER'S SECOND PARLIAMENT. ANOTHER LETTER FROM MILTON TO MR. RICHARD JONES: DEPARTURE OF LADYRANELAGH FOR IRELAND: LETTER FROM MILTON TO PETER HEIMBACH: MILTON'SSECOND MARRIAGE: HIS SECOND WIFE, KATHARINE WOODCOCK: LETTER TOEMERIC BIGOT: MILTON'S LIBRARY AND THE BYZANTINE HISTORIANS: M. STOUPE: TEN MORE STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. XCI. -C. ): MORLAND, MEADOWS, DURIE, LOCKHART, AND OTHER DIPLOMATISTSOF THE PROTECTOR, BACK IN LONDON: MORE EMBASSIES AND DISPATCHES OVERLAND AND SEA: MILTON STANDING AND WAITING: HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT THEPROTECTORATE GENERALLY. Not much altogether is recoverable of Milton's life through thatsection of the Protectorate which coincides with the first Session ofthe Second Parliament (Sept. 17, 1656-June 26, 1657). What isrecoverable will connect itself with (1) Three Private Epistles ofhis dated in these nine months, and (2) The series of hisState-letters in the same period. To Richard Jones, _alias_young Ranelagh, still at Oxford with Oldenburg, Milton, four daysafter the meeting of the Parliament, addressed another letter in thattone of Mentorship which he seems to have thought most suitable forthe youth:-- "To the Noble youth, RICHARD JONES. "Preparing again and again to reply to your last letter, I was first prevented, as you know, by some sudden pieces of business, of such a kind as are apt to be mine; then I heard you were off on an excursion to some places in your neighbourhood; and now your most excellent mother, on her way to Ireland--whose departure ought to be a matter of no ordinary regret to both of us (for to me also she has stood in the place of all kith and kin: _nam et mihi omnium, necessitudinum loco fuit_)--carries you this letter herself. That you feel assured of my affection for you, right and well; and I would have you feel daily more and more assured of it, the more of good disposition and of good use of your advantages you give me to see in you. Which result, by God's grace, I see you not only engage for personally, but, as if I had provoked you by a wager on the subject, give solemn pledge and put in bail that you will accomplish, --not refusing, as it were, to abide judgment, and to pay the penalty of failure if judgment should be given against you. I am truly delighted with this so good hope you have of yourself; which you cannot now be wanting to, without appearing at the same time not only to have been faithless to your own promises but also to have run away from your bail. As to what you write to the effect that you do not dislike Oxford, you adduce nothing to make me believe that you have got any good there or been made any wiser: you will have to shew me that by very different proofs. Victories of Princes, which you extol with praises, and matters of that sort in which force is of most avail, I would not have you admire too much, now that you are listening to Philosophers [Robert Boyle and his set?]. For what should be the great wonder if in the native land of _wethers_ there are born strong horns, able to _ram_ down most powerfully cities and towns? [_Quid enim magnopere mirandum est si vervecum, in patria valida nascantur cornua quę urbes et oppida arietare valentissime possint?_ Besides the pun, there is some geographical allusion, or allusion of military history, which it is difficult to make out. ] Learn you, already from your early age, to weigh and discern great characters not by force and animal strength, but by justice and temperance. Farewell; and please to give best salutations in my name to the highly accomplished Henry Oldenburg, your chamber-fellow. "Westminster: Sept. 21, 1656. " If the date of this letter, as published by Milton himself, iscorrect, it was written on a Sunday. Yet there can have been noparticular haste; for Lady Ranelagh, who was to carry the letter toher son at Oxford on her way to Ireland, did not leave London for atleast another fortnight. The pass for "Lady Catharine, Viscountess ofRanelagh, and her two daughters, " with their servants, eight horses, &c. , to go into Ireland, was granted, I find, by the Protector'sCouncil, Oct. 7, 1656, on the motion of Lord President Lawrence. [1]She was to be away in Ireland for some years, occupied with familybusiness of various kinds; and Milton was thinking with regret of theblank in his life that would be caused by her absence. For she hadbeen to him, he says, "in the place of all kith and kin. " How muchthat phrase involves! Though we have no letters from Milton to LadyRanelagh, or from Lady Ranelagh to Milton, and though the fact oftheir friendship has been left by Milton unrecorded in that poeticalform, whether of sonnet or of idyll, which has preserved for us sofinely other incidents and intimacies of his life, this one phrase, duly interpreted, ought to make up for all. Perhaps in no part of anyeminent man's life, especially if he is bereft domestically, is therewanting this benefit of some supreme womanly interest wakened in hisbehalf. Twice in Milton's life, so unfortunate domestically hitherto, we have seen something of the kind. Twelve years ago, in the oldAldersgate days of his desertion by his wife, it seemed to be theLady Margaret Ley that was paramount. More recently, through theWestminster years of blindness and widowerhood, the real ministeringangel, if there had been any such, had been that Lady Ranelagh whomEnglish History remembers at any rate as the incomparable sister ofLord Broghill and of Robert Boyle. Let there be restored to herhenceforth the honour also of having been Milton's friend. [Footnote 1: Council Order-Books of date. ] The next extant Epistle of Milton, written when the Second Parliamentof the Protectorate had sat nearly two months, is also quite of aprivate nature. Of the German or Dutch youth to whom it is addressed, Peter Heimbach, I have ascertained only that he had been residing forsome time in London, perhaps originally brought thither in the trainof some embassy or agency, and that he had recently published inLondon a Latin letter of eulogy on Cromwell, [1] extremelyenthusiastic and somewhat juvenile. Milton's letter suggests fartherthat he had been much about Milton, as amanuensis or what not, butwas now on a visit to Holland. [Footnote 1: The Letter, which is in thirty-five pages of smallfolio, is entitled "_Petri ab Heimbach, G. F. , ad SerenissimumPotentissimumque Principem Olivarium, D. G. Magnę BrittanięProtectorem, verę Fidei Defensorem, Pium, Felicem, Invictum, Adlocutio Gralulatoria: Londini, Ex Typographia JacobiCottrellii_, 1656. " The praise of Cromwell is boundless; and hisconduct in the Piedmontese business, and his care of learning and theUniversities, are especially noticed. ] "To the very accomplished youth, PETER HEIMBACH. "Most amply, my Heimbach, have you fulfilled your promises and all the other expectations one would have of your goodness, with the exception, that I have still to long for your return. You promised that it would be within two months at farthest; and now, unless my desire to have you back makes me misreckon the time, you have been absent nearly three. In the matter of the Atlas you have abundantly performed all I requested of you; which was not that you should procure me one, but only that you would find out the lowest price of the book. You write that they ask 130 florins; it must be the Mauritanian mountain _Atlas_, I think, and not a book, that you tell me is to be bought at so huge a price. Such is now the luxury of Typographers in printing books that the furnishing of a library seems to have become as costly as the furnishing of a villa. Since to me at least, on account of my blindness, painted maps can hardly be of use, vainly surveying as I do with blind eyes the actual globe of the earth, I am afraid that the bigger the price at which I should buy that book the greater would seem to be my grief over my deprivation. Be good enough, pray, to take so much farther trouble for me as to be able to inform me, when you return, how many volumes there are in the complete work, and which of the two issues, that of Blaeu or that of Jansen, is the larger and more correct. This I hope to hear from yourself personally, on your speedy return, rather than by another letter. Meanwhile farewell, and come back to us as soon as you can. "Westminster: Nov. 8, 1656. " One guesses from this letter that Heimbach was then in Amsterdam. Itwas there, at all events, that the two Atlases about which Miltonenquired had been published or were in course of publication. That ofJohn Jansen, called _Novus Atlas_, when completed in 1658, consisted of six folio volumes; the yet more magnificent_Geographia Blaeviana_, or Atlas of the geographer and printerJohn Blaeu, was not perfect till 1662, and then consisted of elevenvolumes of very large folio. But various Atlases, or collections ofmaps in anticipation of the complete Atlas, had been on sale by Blaeufor ten or twelve years previously: e. G. , from his owntrade-catalogue in 1650, "Atlas, four volumes illuminated, boundafter the best fashion, will cost 150 guldens, " and "Belgia Foederataand Belgia Regia, two vols. , white [uncoloured], 70 guldens, orilluminated 140 guldens. " The gulden or Dutch florin was equal to1_s. _ 8_d. _ English, so that the price of Blaeu's fourvolume Atlas of 1650 was £12 10_s. _ To Milton in 1656 the priceof the same, or of whatever other Atlas he had in view, was to betwenty florins less, i. E. About £11. It was much as if one were askedto give £38 for a book now; and no wonder that Milton hesitated. [1] [Footnote 1: The information about the prices of Blaeu's generalAtlas in 1650 and his special Atlas of the two Belgiums in the sameyear is from a curious letter in the _Correspondence of the Earlsof Ancram and Lothian_, edited for the Marquis of Lothian, in1875, by Mr. David Laing (II. 256). ] Just four days after the date of the letter to Heimbach, i. E. On the12th of November, 1656, there took place an event of no lessconsequence to the household in Petty France than Milton's secondmarriage, after four years of widowerhood. It was performed, as theMarriage Act then in force required, not by a clergyman, but by ajustice of the peace, and is registered thus in the books of theparish of St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, under the year 1656: "Theagreement and intention of marriage between JOHN MILTON, Esq. , of theParish of Margaret's in Westminster, and MRS. KATHARINE WOODCOCKE, ofthe Parish of Mary's in Aldermanbury, was published three severalmarket-days in three several weeks, viz. On Wednesday the 22nd andMonday the 27th of October, and on Monday the 3rd of November; and, no exceptions being made against their intention, they were, according to the Act of Parliament, married the 12th of November bySir John Dethicke, Knight and Alderman, one of the Justices of Peacefor this City of London. "[1] Of this KATHARINE WOODCOCK (the "Mrs. "before whose name does not mean that she had been married before) welearn farther, from Phillips, that she was "the daughter of CaptainWoodcock of Hackney"; and that is nearly all that we know of herfamily. A Captain John Woodcock, who is found giving a receipt for£13 8_s. _ to the Treasurer-at-War on Oct. 6, 1653, on thedisbanding of his troop, may possibly have been her father, as noother Captain Woodcock of the time has been discovered. [2] There isreason to believe that Milton had not been acquainted with the ladybefore his blindness, and so that, literally, he had never_seen_ her. Not the less, for the brief space of her lifeallotted to their union, she was to be a light and blessing in hisdark household. [Footnote 1: Given in Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1840; but I owemy copy to the kindness of Colonel Chester, who took it direct fromthe Register of St. Mary, Aldermanbury; and who supplies me withthe following information in connexion with it: "It is generallysaid that the marriage took place in that church; but this, Ithink, may be doubted. I noticed, in several instances, that, whenthe religious ceremony was performed after the civil one, the factwas recorded; but it is not so in this case. I think that theCity marriages at that period usually took place in the Guildhall, where a magistrate sat daily; though I believe they were sometimessolemnized at the residence of one of the parties. "] [Footnote 2: Phillips; Hunter's _Milton Gleanings_, p. 35. Colonel Chester tells me that, although Katharine Woodcock isdescribed in the Register as "of the parish of Mary's inAldermanbury, " he found no trace of her family in that parish at thetime. "There were Woodcocks there at a much earlier period (say 100years before); but about this time I found only one burial, that ofMichael Woodcock, whose will I have since looked at, but which doesnot mention her. " The conjecture that Mr. Francis Woodcock, ministerof St. Olave's, Southwark, was a relative, receives no support fromwhat is known of his principles (see Vol. III, 184). A contemporaryPuritan divine, Thomas Woodcock, for some time minister of St. AndrewUndershaft, is found living at Hackney after the Restoration. ] The household better ordered; the three young orphan girls of thefirst marriage better tended; more of lightsomeness and cheerfulnessfor Milton himself among his books; continuance, under newmanagement, of the little hospitalities to the learned foreigners whooccasionally call, and to the habitual visitors: so, we are toimagine, pass away at home those winter months of 1656-7 during whichthe great topics of interest outside were the war with Spain, Sindercombe's plot against the Protector's life, the debates inParliament over the case of James Nayler, and the proceedings therefor amending the system of the Protectorate, whether by converting itinto Kingship or otherwise. Not, however, till the last day of March1656-7, or three months and a half after the marriage with KatharineWoodcock, have we another distinct glimpse of Milton in his privatelife. On that day he dictated, in Latin, the following letter:-- "To the most accomplished EMERIC BIGOT. "That on your coming into England I had the honour of being thought by you more worth visiting and saluting than others was truly and naturally gratifying to me; and that now you renew your salutation by letter, even at such an interval, is somewhat more gratifying still. For in the first instance you might have come to me perhaps on the inducement of other people's opinion; but you could hardly return to me by letter save at the prompting of your own judgment, or, at least, good will. On this surely I have ground to congratulate myself. For many have made a figure by their published writings whose living voice and daily conversation have presented next to nothing that was not low and common: if, then, I can attain the distinction of seeming myself equal in mind and manners to any writings of mine that have been tolerably to the purpose, there will be the double effect that I shall so have added weight personally to my writings, and shall receive back by way of reflection from them credit, how small soever it may be, yet greater in proportion. For, in that case, whatever is right and laudable in them, that same I shall seem not more to have derived from authors of high excellence than to have fetched forth pure and sincere from the inmost feelings of my own mind and soul. I am glad, therefore, to know that you are assured of my tranquillity of spirit in this great affliction of loss of sight, and also of the pleasure I have in being civil and attentive in the reception of visitors from abroad. Why, in truth, should I not bear gently the deprivation of sight, when I may hope that it is not so much lost as revoked and retracted inwards, for the sharpening rather than the blunting of my mental edge? Whence it is that I neither think of books with anger, nor quite intermit the study of them, grievously though they have mulcted me, --were it only that I am instructed against such moroseness by the example of King Telephus of the Mysians, who refused not to be cured in the end by the weapon that had wounded him. As to that book you possess, _On the Manner of Holding Parliaments_, I have caused the marked passages of it to be either amended, or, if they were doubtful, confirmed, by reference to the MS. In the possession of the illustrious Lord Bradshaw, and also to the Cotton MS. , as you will see from your little paper returned herewith. In compliance with your desire to know whether also the autograph of this book is extant in the Tower of London, I sent one to inquire of the Herald who has the custody of the Deeds, and with whom I am on familiar terms. His answer is that no copy of that book is extant among those records. For the help you offer me in return in procuring literary material I am very much obliged. I want, of the Byzantine Historians, _Theophanis Chronographia_ (folio: Greek and Latin), _Constantini Manassis Breviarium Historicum_, with _Codini Excerpta de Antiquitatibus Constantinopolitanis_ (folio: Greek and Latin), _Anastasii Bibliothecarii Historia et Vitę Romanorum Pontificum_ (folio); to which be so good as to add, from the same press, _Michael Glycas_, and _Joannes Cinnamus_, the continuator of Anna Comnena, if they are now out. I do not ask you to get them as cheap as you can, both because there is no need to put a very frugal man like yourself in mind of that, and because they tell me the price of these books is fixed and known to all. MR. STOUPE has undertaken the charge of the money for you in cash, and also to see about the most convenient mode of carriage. That you may have all you wish, and all you aspire after, is my sincere desire. Farewell. "Westminster: March 24, 1656-7. " Of the French scholar to whom this letter was addressed there is anexcellent notice in Bayle. "EMERIC BIGOT, " says Bayle, "one of themost learned and most honest men of the seventeenth century, was anative of Rouen, and of a family very distinguished in the legalprofession. He was born in 1626. The love of letters drew him asidefrom public employments; his only occupation was in books and theacquisition of knowledge; he augmented marvellously the library whichhad been left him by his father. Once every week there was a meetingat his house for talk on matters of erudition. He kept up literaryintercourse with a great number of learned men; his advices andinformation were useful to many authors; and he laboured all he couldfor the good and advantage of the Republic of Letters. He publishedbut one book [a Life of St. Chrysostom]; but apparently he would havepublished others had he lived to complete them. M. Ménage in France, and Nicolas Heinsius among foreigners, were his two most intimatefriends. He had none of the faults that accompany learning: he wasmodest and an enemy to disputes. In general, one may say he was thebest heart in the world. He died at Rouen Dec. 18, 1689, aged aboutsixty-four years. " How exactly this description of Bigot for hiswhole life tallies with the notion we should have of him, at the ageof thirty-two, from Milton's letter! He had been in England some timeago, it appears, and had there, like other foreigners, paid hisrespects to Milton. And now, either from Rouen, or more probably fromParis, he had reopened the communication, quite in the style of a mansuch as Bayle paints him. The immediate object of his letter seems tohave been to ask Milton to have some doubtful passages in a book "Onthe Manner of Holding Parliaments" compared with MS. Authorities inLondon; but he had taken occasion to express also his vividrecollection of Milton, his interest in Milton's present condition, and his desire to be of use to him in the quest or purchase offoreign books. Milton, who had evidently performed very punctually Bigot's immediatecommission, [1] did, it will be observed, send him a commission inreturn. It deserves a little explanation:--There was then in courseof publication at Paris, under the auspices and at the expense ofLouis XIV. , the first splendid collective edition of the ByzantineHistorians, i. E. Of that series of Historians, Chroniclers, Antiquarians, and Memoir-writers of the Eastern or Greek Empire fromthe 6th century to the 15th in whose works lies imbedded all ourinformation as to the History of the East through the Middle Ages. The publication, which was to attain to the vast size of thirty-sixvolumes folio, containing the Greek Texts with Latin Translations andNotes, was not to be completed till 1711; but it had been begun in1645. Now, in Milton's library, it appears, the Byzantine Historianswere already pretty well represented, either in the shape of theearlier volumes of this Parisian collection, or in that of separateprior editions of particular writers. There were some gaps, however, which he wanted to fill up. He wanted the _Chronographia_ ofTheophanes Isaacius, a chronicle of events from A. D. 277 to A. D. 811;also the _Brevarium Historicum_ of Constantine Manasses, ametrical chronicle of the world from the Creation to A. D. 1081; alsothe book of Georgius Codinus, the compiler of the fifteenth century, entitled _Excerpta de Originibus Constantinopolitanis_; alsothat of Anastasius Bibliothecarius on the _Lives of the Popes_. The Parisian editions of these, or of the first three, were now out(all in 1655). At the same time there might be sent him the Parisianeditions, if they had appeared, of the Annals of _MichaelGlycas_, bringing the History of the World from the Creation toA. D. 1118, and the valuable Lives of John and Manuel Comnenus by_Joannes Cinnamus_, the imperial notary of the 12th century. --Asthe Parisian edition of Michael Glycas (by Labbe) did not appear till1660, and that of Joannes Cinnamus (by Du Cange) not till 1670, Bigotcan have forwarded to Milton only the first-mentioned Byzantinebooks. One may imagine the arrival of the parcel of learned folios inthe neat new tenement which Milton inhabited in Petty France; and itgives one a stronger idea than we have yet had of Milton's passionfor books, and of his indomitable perseverance and ingenuity in theuse of them in his blind state, that he should have taken such pains, at our present date, to supply himself with copies of some of therare Byzantine Historians. Connecting this purchase, through Bigot, with the recent inquiry, through Heimbach, about the price ofBlaeu's great Atlas, may we not also discern some increasedattention to the furnishing of the house occasioned by the secondmarriage? [Footnote 1: It seems to me possible, though I would not be too sure, that the book about which Bigot wrote to Milton was one entitled_Modus tenendi Parliamentum apud Anglos_, by Henry Elsynge, Clerk of the House of Lords, and father of the Henry Elsynge who wasClerk of the Commons In the Long Parliament (Wood, Ath. III. 363-4). The book, which had been sent forth under Parliamentary authority in1641, was a standard one; and manuscript copies of it, or drafts forit, more complete than itself, may well have been extant in suchplaces as the Cotton Library or Bradshaw's. Actually Elsynge'sautograph of the book, dated 1626, was extant in London at the dateof Milton's letter, though not in the Tower. An edition of the book, "enriched with a large addition from the author's original MS. , " waspublished in 1768; and the MS. Itself is now in the British Museum(Bonn's _Lowndes_, Article "Elsynge"). ] The Herald in charge of the Records in the Tower, mentioned inMilton's letter as one of his acquaintances, was, I believe, WILLIAMRYLEY, Norroy King-at-arms. He had been Clerk of the Records, underthe Master of the Rolls, for some years, and was to continue in thepost till after the Restoration. A more interesting person was the"MR. STOUPE" who took charge of the cash to Bigot for the Byzantinevolumes, and was to see to their conveyance to London. --He was nocommon character. A Grison by birth, he had settled in London asminister of the French Church in the Savoy; but he had left that postto be one of Thurloe's travelling-agents and political intelligencersor spies. For two years or more he had been employed in secretmissions to France and Switzerland, chiefly for negotiation in theinterests of the continental Protestants; and his success in thiskind of employment, often at considerable personal risk, and histalent for collecting information in London itself by means ofcorrespondence from abroad, had gradually recommended him to theProtector. Burnet, who knew him well in after life, when he was morea frantic Deist than either a Protestant or "Christian, " had moreanecdotes about Cromwell from him than from any other man. Theanecdotes he liked best to tell were those in which his ownintriguing ability figured. Thus it was Stoupe, according to his ownaccount, that knew of Cromwell's design on the Spanish West Indiesbefore all the rest of the world. One day, late in 1654, having beencalled into the Protector's room on business, he had noticed him veryintent upon a map and measuring distances on it. Information beingStoupe's trade, he contrived to see that the map was one of the Bayof Mexico, and drew his inference. Accordingly, when the fleet ofPenn and Venables was ready to sail, but nobody knew its destination, "Stoupe happened to say in a company he believed the design was onthe West Indies. The Spanish Ambassador, hearing that, sent for himvery privately, to ask him upon what ground he said it; and heoffered to lay down £10, 000 if he could make any discovery of that. Stoupe owned to me that he had a great mind to the money, and fanciedhe betrayed nothing if he did discover the grounds of theseconjectures, since nothing had been trusted to him; but he expectedgreater matters from Cromwell, and said only that in a diversity ofconjectures that seemed to him more probable than any others. "Another of Stoupe's stories to Burnet was even more curious. Havinglearnt by a letter from Brussels that a certain refugee had come overto assassinate Cromwell, and was lodged in King Street, Westminster, he had hurried to Whitehall, and sent in a note to Cromwell, then inCouncil, saying he had something to communicate. Cromwell, supposingit might be one of Stoupe's ordinary pieces of intelligence, had sentout Thurloe to him. Though "troubled at this, " Stoupe had no optionbut to show Thurloe the letter. To his surprise, Thurloe had madelight of the matter, saying that they had rumours of that kind by thescore, and it was not for a great man like the Protector to troublehimself about them. Stoupe, who had hoped his fortune would be made, went away "much cast down, " to write to Brussels for surer evidence. He mentioned the matter, however, to Lord Lisle; and so, when Sexby'sor Sindercombe's Plot was discovered a while afterwards, Lisle, talking of it with the Protector, and not doubting that the Protectorknew all about Stoupe's previous revelation, said _that_ must bethe man Stoupe had spoken of. "Cromwell seemed amazed at this, andsent for Stoupe, and in great wrath reproached him for hisingratitude in concealing a matter of such consequence to him. Stoupeupon this shewed him the letters he had received, and put him in mindof the note he had sent in to him, which was immediately after he hadthe first letter, and that he had sent out Thurloe to him. At thatCromwell seemed yet more amazed, and sent for Thurloe, to whose faceStoupe affirmed the matter; nor did he deny any part of it, but onlysaid that he had many such advertisements sent him, in which tillthis time he had never found any truth. Cromwell replied sternly thathe ought to have acquainted _him_ with it, and left _him_to judge of the importance of it. Thurloe desired to speak in privatewith Cromwell. So Stoupe was dismissed, and went away, not doubtingbut Thurloe would be disgraced. " What was his surprise, however, tofind not only that Thurloe was not disgraced, but that he himself wasthenceforth less in favour? Thurloe, in justifying himself, had toldCromwell more about Stoupe than he previously knew, and "possessedCromwell with such an ill opinion of him that after that he nevertreated him with any confidence. "[1] If the story is true, Stoupe'sloss of favour dates from Jan. 1656-7, or two months before Milton'sletter to Bigot. It would seem, however, that he was still employedin some way as one of Thurloe's agents; and hence Milton's use of himto convey the cash to France. [2] That Milton knew Stoupe would havebeen certain without this evidence; but the evidence isinteresting. [3] [Footnote 1: Burnet's _Hist. Of his Own Time_, Book I. ] [Footnote 2: Of the £2000 sent from London to Geneva in June 1655 asthe first instalment of relief for the Piedmontese Protestants(Cromwell's own subscription) £500 had been sent through Stoupe. Seeante p. 190. ] [Footnote 3: Stoupe might make a good character in any historicalnovel of the time of the Protectorate. His career did not end then. He was to be "a brigadier-general in the French armies, " and oneknows not what else, before Burnet made his acquaintance. ] Of the following State-Letters of Milton, all belonging to ourpresent section of his life, five bear date before his secondmarriage, and five after. Those after the marriage come at longerintervals than those before:-- (XCI. ) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _Oct. _ 1656:--Peace with Portugal being happily ratified, the Protector is despatching THOMAS MAYNARD to be his consul in that country. This letter is to introduce him and bespeak access for him to his Majesty. (XCII. ) TO THE KING OF SWEDEN, _Oct. _ 1656:--A soldierly knight, Sir William Vavasour, who has been in England, is now returning to his military duty under the Swedish King. The Protector need hardly recommend back to his Majesty a servant so distinguished, but ventures to do so, and to suggest that he should be paid his arrears. (XCIII. ) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _Oct. _ 1656:--An English ship-master, called Thomas Evans, is going to Lisbon to prosecute his claim for £7000 against the Brazil Company, being damages sustained by the seizure of his ship, the _Scipio_, six years before, by the Portuguese Government, while he was in the Company's service. The Treaty provides for such claims; and, though the Protector has written before on the subject generally, he cannot but write specially in this case. (XCIV. ) TO THE SENATE OF HAMBURG, _Oct. 16, 1656:_--Long ago, in the time of King Charles, two brothers, James and Patrick Hays, being the lawful heirs of their brother Alexander, who had died intestate in Hamburg, had obtained a decree in their favour in the Hamburg Court, assigning them all the said Alexander's property, except dower for his widow. From that day to this, however, chiefly by the influence of Albert van Eizen, a man of consequence in Hamburg, they have been kept out of their rights. They are in extreme poverty and have applied to the Protector. As he considers it the first duty of his Protectorate to look after such cases, he writes this letter. It is to request the Hamburg Senate to see that the two brothers have the full benefit of the old decision of the Court. Further delay has been threatened, he hears, in the form of an appeal to the Chamber of Spires. That such an appeal is illegal will appear by the signed opinions of English lawyers which he forwards. "But, if entreaty is of no avail, it will be necessary, and that by the common right of nations, to resort to measures of retaliation. " His Highness hopes this may be avoided by the prudence of the Senate. (XCV. ) TO LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Nov. 1656:_--No answer has yet been received to his Highness's former letter, of May 14, on the subject of the claim of Sir John Dethicke, then Lord Mayor of London, and his partner William Wakefield, on account of the capture of a ship of theirs in 1649 by a pirate acting for Charles Stuart, and the insolent detention of the same by M. L'Estrades, the French Governor of Dunkirk (see the Letter, ante p. 253). Perhaps the delay had arisen from the fact that M. L'Estrades was then away with the army in Flanders; but "now he is living in Paris itself, or rather fluttering about with impunity in city and court enriched with the spoils of our people. " His Highness now imperatively demands immediate and strict attention to the matter. It is one of positive obligation by the Treaty; and the honour and good faith of His French Majesty are directly concerned. --It is a curious coincidence that within a day or two of the writing of this strong letter by Milton in behalf of Sir John Dethicke, that knight should have solemnised Milton's marriage with Katharine Woodcock. Nov. 12 was the date of the marriage; and, as Dethicke is spoken of in this letter as no longer in his Mayoralty, it must have been written after Lord Mayor's day, i. E. After Nov. 9, 1656. (XCVI. ) TO FREDERICK III. , KING OF DENMARK, _Dec. 1856:_--This is another of Cromwell's fervid Protestant letters, very much in the strain of those four months before to the States-General of the United Provinces and Charles Gustavus of Sweden, and indeed, with identical expressions. First he acknowledges letters from his Danish Majesty, of date Feb. 16, received through the worthy Simon de Pitkum, his Majesty's agent. They have been so gratifying, and the matter of them is so important, that his Highness has been looking about for a suitable person to be sent as confidential minister to Copenhagen. Such a person he hopes to send soon: meanwhile a letter may convey some thoughts about the state of Europe that are much occupying his Highness. The dissensions among Protestant States are causing him profound grief. Especially he is grieved by the jealousies and misunderstandings that separate two such important Protestant States as Denmark and Sweden. Can they not be removed? Sweden and the United Provinces, with both of which his Highness had taken the liberty of remonstrating to the same effect, have been coming to a happy accommodation: why should Denmark keep aloof? Let his Danish Majesty lay this to heart. Let him think of the persecutions of Protestants in Piedmont, in Austria, and in Switzerland; and let him imagine the eternal machinations of the Spaniard behind all. These surely are inducements sufficient to a reconciliation with Sweden, if it can be brought about. The Protector's good offices towards that end shall not be wanting if required. He has the highest esteem for the King of Denmark, and would cultivate yet closer alliance with him. --Relating to this letter is a minute of Council of the date Tuesday, Dec. 2: "The draft of a letter from his Highness to the King of Denmark was this day read, and after read by parts; and the several clauses thereof, being put to the question, were, with some amendments, agreed; and, the whole being so passed, it was offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will please to send the same. " The letter, therefore, was deemed important. Was the draft read in English or in Latin? On the first supposition it may still have come from Milton, though it had to go back to him. (XCVII. ) To WILLIAM, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE, _March 1656-7_:--After an apology to the Landgrave for not having sooner answered a letter of his received nearly twelve months ago, the Protector here also plunges into the subject of Union among Protestants. He is glad that the Landgrave appreciates the exertions in this behalf that have been made in Britain and elsewhere. "We have particularly desired the same peace for the Churches of all Germany, where dissension has been too sharp and of too long continuance; and through our DURIE, labouring at the same fruitlessly now for many years, we have heartily offered any possible service of ours that might contribute thereto. We remain still in the same mind; we desire to see the same brotherly love to each other among those Churches: but how hard a business this is of settling a peace among those sons of peace, as they pretend themselves, we understand, to our great grief, only too abundantly. For it is hardly to be hoped that those of the Reformed and those of the Augustan confession will ever coalesce into the communion of one Church; they cannot without force be prevented from severally, by word and writings, defending their own beliefs; and force cannot consist with ecclesiastical tranquillity. This, at least, however, they might allow one to entreat--that, as they do differ, they would differ more humanely and moderately, and love each other nevertheless. " It is a great pleasure to the Protector to exchange sentiments on this subject with a Prince of such distinguished Protestant ancestry. (XCVIII. ) TO THE DUKE OF COURLAND, _March 1657_:--After thanking this potentate of the Baltic for his hospitality, some time ago, to an English agent passing through to Muscovy, the Protector brings to his notice the case of one John Jamesone, a Scotchman, master of one of the Duke's ships. The ship had been wrecked going into port, but not by Jamesone's fault. The pilot, to whom he had intrusted it, according to rule and custom, had been alone to blame. Jamesone has been a faithful servant of the Duke for seven years; he is in great distress; and his Highness hopes the Duke will not stop his pay. (XCIX. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF DANTZIG, _April 1657_:--The Dantzigers, for whom the Protector has a great respect, have unfortunately sided with the Poles against the King of Sweden. Would that, for the sake of Religion, and in the spirit of their old commercial amity with England, they had chosen otherwise, or would yet change their views! That, however, is rather beyond the immediate business of this letter; which is to request them either to release the noble Swede, Count Konigsmarck, who has become their prisoner by treachery, or at least make his captivity easier. (C. ) TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, _April 1657_:--On the throne of this vast, chaotic, semi-Asiatic Empire at this time was Alexis, the son and successor of Michael Romanoff, the founder of that new dynasty under which Russia was to enter on her era of greatness. He had come to the throne, as a young man, in 1645, and had since then, in the despotic Czarish way, continued his father's policy for the civilization of his subjects by cultivating commerce with the neighbouring European states, and bringing in foreigners for service in his armies or otherwise. On the execution of Charles I. , however, he had broken utterly with the Regicide Island, and had ordered out of his dominions all English adherents of the Parliament. He alone of European Sovereigns had at once taken this high stand against the English Republic. But events, Russian interests, and communications from the Protector, had gradually brought him round. Since 1654, when a certain WILLIAM PRIDEAUX had been sent to Russia as agent for the Protector, the trade with Russia, through Archangel, had resumed its former dimensions, under rules permitting English merchants to sell and buy goods at Archangel, and have a factory there, but "not to go up in the country for Moscow or any other city in Russia. "[1] The envoy himself, however, had visited Moscow; and his long letters thence, or from Archangel, had thrown much light on the internal condition of that strange outlandish Muscovy, as Russia was then generally called, about which there had been hitherto more of curiosity than knowledge. The immense wealth of the Emperor, his vast military forces, the barbaric splendours of his Court, the Oriental submissiveness of the people and their oddities of dress and manners, the peculiarities of the Greek Religion, the great resources of Russia, and the obstructions yet existing in the way of trade with her, had all become topics of English gossip. But, in fact, Alexis had become a considerable personage in general European politics. By wars with Poland, and other populations about him, he had greatly enlarged his territories, adopting new titles of sovereignty to signify the same; and in the general imbroglio of North-Eastern Europe, involving Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the United Provinces, and even Germany, he had come to be a power whose movements and embassies commanded attention. It had been resolved, therefore, by the Protector and his Council to send a more special envoy to "the Great Duke of Muscovia"; and, on the 12th of March 1656-7, RICHARD BRADSHAW, ESQ. , so long Resident for the Commonwealth at Hamburg, was recommended by the Council to his Highness as the proper person. [2] The present letter of Milton, accordingly, is the Letter of Credence which Bradshaw was to take with him. --The Letter is addressed to his Russian Majesty, as punctually as possible, by all his chaos of titles, thus: "Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c. , to the Most Serene and most powerful Prince and Lord, the Emperor and Great Duke of all Russia, Lord of Volodomeria, Moscow, and Novgorod, King of Kazan, Astracan, and Siberia, Lord of Vobscow, Great Duke of Smolensk, Tuerscow, and other places, Lord and Great Duke of Novograda, and of the lower countries of Czernigow, Rezanscow, &c. , Lord of all the Northern Clime, and also Lord of Everscow, Cartalinska, and many other lands. "[3] After referring to the old commercial intercourse between Russia and England, the Protector says he is moved to seek closer communication, with his most august Imperial Majesty by that extraordinary worth, far outshining that of all his ancestors, by which he has won himself so good an opinion among all neighbouring Princes, Then he introduces and highly recommends BRADSHAW, who will duly reveal his instructions. [Footnote 1: Thurloe, II. 562. ] [Footnote 2: Council Order Book of date. ] [Footnote 3: Compare this address with that which the Envoy of theUnited Provinces was instructed by the States-General to be mostpunctual in using in his addresses to his Czarish Majesty nearly sixyears before (Aug. 1651: see Thurloe, I. 196):--"Most illustrious, most potent great Lord, Czar and Grand Duke Alexey Michaelowitz, Autocrator of all both the Greater and Lesser Russia, Czar of Kiof, Wolodomiria, Novgorod, Czar of Kazan, Czar of Astracan, Czar ofSiberia, Lord of Plescow, and Grand Duke of Smolensko, Tweer, Jugonia, Permia, Weatka, Bolgaria, Lord and Grand-Duke of Novagradaand the low lands of Zenigow, Resan, Polotzko, Rostof, Yareslav, Belooseria, Udoria, Obdoria, Condinia, Wietepsky, M'Stitslof, Lord ofall the Northern Lands, Lord of the Land of Iversky, Czar ofCartalinsky and Grusinsky, and of the Land of Cardadinsky, Prince ofthe Circasses and Gorshes, heir of his Father and Grand-father, andLord and Sovereign of many other Easterly, Westerly, and NortherlyLordships and Dominions. " Milton, for the Protector, is somewhat moreeconomical and uses _Rex_ for _Czar_. ] The mission of BRADSHAW to Russia was not the only incident in theProtector's diplomatic service about this time in which Milton, asForeign Secretary Extraordinary, may have felt an interest. MORLAND, after having been in Switzerland for about a year and a half on thebusiness that had grown out of his original Piedmontese mission, hadbeen at length recalled, leaving the Swiss agency, as before, in thehands of PELL by himself. He had been back in London since Dec. 1656, had attended the Council several times to give full and formal reportof his proceedings, and had also appeared before the great Committeefor the Collection for the Piedmontese Protestants, and presented hisaccounts of the moneys received and expended. All that he had donemet with high approbation; and, by way of reward in kind, it wasvoted by the Council, May 5, 1657, that he should have £700 for 'thecharge of paper, printing, and cutting of the maps, for 2000 copiesof his History, ' and the whole of the profits of that book. Morland's_History of the Evangelical Churches of Piemont_, which appearedin the following year, was therefore a State publication thecopyright of which was made over to the author. More munificent stillwas the reward of the services of MEADOWS in Portugal. His specialmission having been successfully accomplished, and ordinary consularduty in Lisbon having been put into good hands, he too had returnedto London, but only to be designated at once (Feb. 24, 1656-7) foranother mission of importance. This was that mission to the King ofDenmark which Cromwell had promised in his letter to the King of Dec. 1656, but for which a suitable person had not then been found. ToMeadows, fresh from Portugal, the appointment to Denmark was initself a high compliment; but there were very substantialaccompaniments. His allowance in his new mission was to be £1000 ayear; a special sum of £400 was voted for the expense of his journey;and it was ordered that, for his able discharge of his Portuguesemission, £100 a year should be settled on him and his for ninety-nineyears--a vote partly commuted a few days afterwards (March 19) into apresent money-payment of £1000. For DURIE, who was also now back inEngland, and indeed close to Milton in Westminster, after another ofhis roving missions, first through Switzerland, and then in otherparts, there was to be no employment so distinguished as that foundfor Meadows. It was enough that he should be at hand for any fartherservice of propagandism in behalf of his life-long idea of aPan-Protestant Union. Of two new diplomatic appointments that weresoon to be made, both above Durie's mark, we shall hear in time. Themost splendid diplomatic appointment of all in the Protector'sservice had, as we already know (ante p. 114), just received anincrease of dignity. The Scottish COLONEL WILLIAM LOCKHART, thehusband of Cromwell's niece, and his Ambassador at the Court ofFrance since April 1656, had been back on a visit in the end of theyear to attend Parliament and to consult with Cromwell; and now, knighted by Cromwell, he had returned to France as SIR WILLIAMLOCKHART, with his great allowance of £100 a week, or £5200 ayear. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates Jan. 1, 27, Feb. 3, 24, March 5, 12, 19, 1656-7, and May 5, 1657; Letter of Durie, dated"Westminster, May 28, 1657, " in Vaughan's Protectorate (II. 173). ] At no time, indeed, since the beginning of the Protectorate, hadthere been such activity in that foreign and diplomatic department ofthe Protector's service to which Milton belonged. Cromwell's allianceoffensive and defensive with France against Spain (March 23, 1656-7), leading immediately to the transport of an English auxiliary armyunder General Reynolds to co-operate with the French in Flanders(ante pp. 140-141), would in itself have caused an increase of suchactivity; but, in addition to this, and inextricably involved withthis in Cromwell's general Anti-Spanish policy, was that idea of aLeague or Union of the Protestant States of Europe which had firstperhaps been roused in his mind by the Piedmontese massacre of 1655, but had gradually, as so many of Milton's subsequent State-Lettersprove, assumed firmer form and wider dimensions. The Dutch, theProtestant Swiss, the Protestant German princes and cities, theDanes, the Swedes, the Protestants of Transylvania and other easternparts, perhaps even the Russians, all, so far as Cromwell's influencecould go, were to be brought to a common understanding for thepromotion of Protestant interests throughout the world and thedefiance of all to the contrary. It was Durie's old dream ofPan-Protestantism redreamt by a man whose state was kingly, and whohad the means of turning his dreams into realities. Now, consequently, in the service of that dream, as in his servicegenerally, "Thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest. " While so many were thus coming and going, at £800 a year, £1000 ayear, or £5000 a year, blind Milton, with his £200 a year, could only"stand and wait, " the stationary Latin drudge. The return of his oldassistant Meadows from Portugal may again have relieved him ofsomewhat of the drudgery; for, though Meadows was designated for thenew mission to Denmark Feb. 24, 1656-7, he did not actually set outfor Denmark till the following August, and there is something likeproof that in the interval, envoy though he now was, he resumedsecretarial duty at Whitehall under Thurloe. His renewed presence inLondon may account for the comparative rarity of Milton'sState-Letters from Dec. 1656 to April 1657, and also for the factthat then there follows a total blank of four months in the series, bringing us precisely to August, when Meadows was preparing to goaway again. What passed during these months we already know. Thegreat question of Kingship or continued Protectorship, which had beenin suspense during those months of March and April in which Miltonhad written his last four letters, had been brought to a close May 8, when Cromwell at last decisively refused the Crown; and the FirstSession of his Second Parliament had accordingly ended, June 26, notin his coronation, as had been expected, but in his inauguration inthat Second Protectorship the constitution of which had been framedby the Parliament in their so-called _Petition andAdvice_. --What may have been Milton's thoughts on the Kingshipquestion we can pretty easily conjecture. Almost to a certainty, hewas one of the private "_Contrariants_, " one of those Oliverianswho, with Lambert, Fleetwood, and most of the Army-men, objectedtheoretically to a return to Kingship, feared it would be fatal, andwere glad therefore when Cromwell declined it and accepted theconstitutionalized Protectorship instead. But, indeed, by this time, it is possible that Milton, though still Oliverian in the main, stilla believer in Cromwell's greatness and goodness, was not so devotedlyan Oliverian as he had been when he had written his panegyric on theProtector and the Protectorate in his _Defensio Secunda_. Eventhen he had made his reserves, and had ventured to express them inadvices and cautions to Cromwell himself. He can hardly haveprofessed that in those virtues of the avoidance of arbitrariness andself-will, the avoidance of over-legislation and over-restriction, which he had especially recommended to Cromwell, the rule of theProtector through the last three years had quite satisfied his ideal. Many of the so-called "arbitrary" measures, and even the temporarydevice of the Major-Generalships, he may have excused, as Cromwellhimself did, on the plea of absolute necessity; all the measuresdistinctly for repression of Royalist risings and conspiracies musthave had his thorough approbation; and, in the great matter ofliberty of speculation and speech, Cromwell had certainly shown moresympathy with the spirit of Milton's _Areopagitica_ than most ofhis Councillors or either of his Parliaments. Nor, as we havesufficiently seen, did Milton's notions of Public Liberty, any morethan Cromwell's, formulate themselves in mere ordinaryconstitutionalism, or the doctrine of the rightful supremacy ofParliaments elected by a wide or universal suffrage, and a demandthat such should be sitting always. He had more faith perhaps, asCromwell had, in a good, broad, and pretty permanent Council, actingon liberal principles, and led by some single mind. But there_had_ been disappointments. What, for example, of the frequentquestionings and arrests of Bradshaw, Vane, and other high-mindedRepublicans whom Milton admired, and what especially of the prolongeddisgrace and imprisonment of his dear friend Overton? Or, even if theplea of necessity or supposed necessity should cover such cases too(for Cromwell's informations through Thurloe might reach farther thanthe public knew, and the good Overton, at all events, had gone intodevious and dangerous courses), what about the Protector's grandinfatuation on the subject of an Established Church? He had preservedthe abomination of a State-paid ministry; he had made thatinstitution the very pride of his Protectorate; he was actuallyfattening up over again a miscellaneous State-clergy, in place of theold Anglicans, by studied encouragements and augmentations ofstipend. So Milton thought, and very much in that language; and here, above all, must have been his dissatisfaction with Cromwell'sGovernment. But what could be done? What other Government could therebe? What would the Commonwealth have been without Cromwell, and inwhat condition would it be if he were removed? On the whole, whatcould a blind private thinker do but, in his occasional interviewswith the great Protector on business, or his rarer presences perhapsin a retired place at one of the Protector's musical entertainmentsat Whitehall, keep all such thoughts to himself, reserving frankexpression of them for his intimates, and meanwhile behaving as aloyal Oliverian and performing his duty? In such a state of mind, asI believe, did Milton pass from the First Protectorate into theSecond. BOOK II. JUNE 1657-SEPTEMBER 1658. HISTORY:--OLIVER'S SECOND PROTECTORATE. BIOGRAPHY:-MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE SECONDPROTECTORATE. CHAPTER I. OLIVER'S SECOND PROTECTORATE: JUNE 26, 1657--SEPT. 3, 1658. REGAL FORMS AND CEREMONIAL OF THE SECOND PROTECTORATE: THEPROTECTOR'S FAMILY: THE PRIVY COUNCIL: RETIREMENT OF LAMBERT: DEATHOF ADMIRAL BLAKE: THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND SUCCESSES IN FLANDERS:SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF MARDIKE: OTHER FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THEPROTECTORATE: SPECIAL ENVOYS TO DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND THE UNITEDPROVINCES: AIMS OF CROMWELL'S DIPLOMACY IN NORTHERN AND EASTERNEUROPE: PROGRESS OF HIS ENGLISH CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: CONTROVERSYBETWEEN JOHN GOODWIN AND MARCHAMONT NEEDHAM: THE PROTECTOR AND THEQUAKERS: DEATH OF JOHN LILBURNE: DEATH OF SEXBY: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKEOF BUCKINGHAM TO MARY FAIRFAX: MARRIAGES OF CROMWELL'S TWO YOUNGESTDAUGHTERS: PREPARATIONS FOR ANOTHER SESSION OF THE PARLIAMENT: WRITSFOR THE OTHER HOUSE: LIST OF CROMWELL'S PEERS. --REASSEMBLING OF THEPARLIAMENT, JAN. 20, 1657-8: CROMWELL'S OPENING SPEECH, WITH THESUPPLEMENT BY FIENNES: ANTI-OLIVERIAN SPIRIT OF THE COMMONS: THEIROPPOSITION TO THE OTHER HOUSE: CROMWELL'S SPEECH OF REMONSTRANCE:PERSEVERANCE OF THE COMMONS IN THEIR OPPOSITION: CROMWELL'S LASTSPEECH AND DISSOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENT, FEB. 4, 1657-8. --STATE OFTHE GOVERNMENT AFTER THE DISSOLUTION: THE DANGERS, AND CROMWELL'SDEALINGS WITH THEM: HIS LIGHT DEALINGS WITH THE DISAFFECTEDCOMMONWEALTH'S MEN: THREATENED SPANISH INVASION FROM FLANDERS, ANDRAMIFICATIONS OF THE ROYALIST CONSPIRACY AT HOME: ARRESTS OFROYALISTS. AND EXECUTION OF SLINGSBY AND HEWIT: THE CONSPIRACYCRUSHED: DEATH OF ROBERT RICH: THE EARL OF WARWICK'S LETTER TOCROMWELL, AND HIS DEATH: MORE SUCCESSES IN FLANDERS: SIEGE ANDCAPTURE OF DUNKIRK: SPLENDID EXCHANGES OF COMPLIMENTS BETWEENCROMWELL AND LOUIS XIV. : NEW INTERFERENCE IN BEHALF OF THEPIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, AND PROJECT OF A PROTESTANT COUNCIL _DEPROPAGANDA FIDE_; PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT: DESIRE OFTHE INDEPENDENTS FOR A CONFESSION OF FAITH: ATTENDANT DIFFICULTIES:CROMWELL'S POLICY IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE SCOTTISH KIRK: HIS DESIGN FORTHE EVANGELIZATION AND CIVILIZATION OF THE HIGHLANDS: HIS GRANTS TOTHE UNIVERSITIES OF EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW; HIS COUNCIL IN SCOTLAND:MONK AT DALKEITH: CROMWELL'S INTENTIONS IN THE CASES OF BIDDLE ANDJAMES NAYLER; PROPOSED NEW ACT FOR RESTRICTION OF THE PRESS: FIRMNESSAND GRANDEUR OF THE PROTECTORATE IN JULY 1658: CROMWELL'S BARONETCIESAND KNIGHTHOODS: WILLINGNESS TO CALL ANOTHER PARLIAMENT: DEATH OFLADY CLAYPOLE: CROMWELL'S ILLNESS AND LAST DAYS, WITH THE LAST ACTSAND INCIDENTS OF HIS PROTECTORSHIP. Whether Cromwell's Second and Constitutionalized Protectorship was asagreeable to himself as his First had been may be doubted. He hadaccepted it, however, and meant to try it in all good faith. If, onthe one hand, it was more limited, on the other it was attended withmore of grandeur and dignity. Inasmuch as the actual Kingship hadbeen offered him, and the new constitution was exactly that whichwould have gone with the Kingship, his Protectorship now, in the eyesof all the world, was equivalent to Kingship. When inducted into hisFirst Protectorship, stately though the ceremonial had been, he hadworn but a black velvet suit, with a gold band round his hat, andthe chief symbol of his investiture had been the removal of his ownmilitary sword and substitution of the civil sword presented to himby Lambert. He had come into this Second Protectorship robed inpurple, and holding a sceptre of massy gold. In heraldry, as well asin reality, he had taken his place among the Sovereigns of Europe. Round about Cromwell, even through the First Protectorate, there hadbeen, as we have abundantly seen, much of the splendour and equipageof sovereignty. The phrases "His Highness's Court" and "HisHighness's Household" had become quite familiar. On all publicoccasions he was attended and addressed most ceremoniously; when herode out in state it was with life-guards about him, outriders infront, and coaches following; and the Order-Books of the Councilprove that his relations to the Council were regulated by carefuletiquette, and that his personal attendance at any of their meetingswas regarded as a distinction. One observes also, as with Cromwell'sapproval, and in evidence of the conservatism that had been growingupon himself, a retention or even multiplication of aristocraticforms in his court and government. He had conferred knighthoods lesssparingly than at first, though still rather sparingly;[1] inmentions of any of the old nobility, whether those that had becomeOliverian and were to be seen at Whitehall, or those who lived inretirement, their old titles were scrupulously preserved, --e. G. "TheMarquis of Hertford, " "The Earl of Warwick, " "The Earl of Mulgrave, ""The Lord Viscount Lisle, " "The Right Honourable the Lord Broghill";and not only were official or courtesy titles still recognised, as bycalling Fleetwood "My Lord Deputy, " Whitlocke "Lord CommissionerWhitelocke, " Fiennes "Lord Commissioner Fiennes, " and Lawrence "LordPresident Lawrence, " but there had been a curious extension of usagein this last particular. The Protector's sons had become respectively"The Lord Richard Cromwell" and "The Lord Henry Cromwell" in thenewspapers and in public correspondence; and, for some reason orother, probably on account of places held in his Highness's Householdor Ministry apart from the Council, at least two of the Councillorshad of late received similar courtesy-promotion. From the beginningof 1655 Lambert had ceased to be called "Major-General Lambert, " andhad become "Lord Lambert, " and from the beginning of 1656 "Mr. Strickland" had passed into "Lord Strickland. " They are so named bothin the Council Order-Books and in the Journals of the First Sessionof the Second Parliament. [Footnote 1: Here is a list of Cromwell's Knights of the FirstProtectorate, so far as I have ascertained them:--Lord Mayor ThomasViner (Feb. 8, 1653-4); John Copleston (June 1, 1655); Colonel JohnReynolds (June 11, 1655); Lord Mayor Sir Christopher Pack (Sept. 20, 1655); Colonel Thomas Pride, of 'Pride's Purge' celebrity (Jan. 17, 1655-6); Major-General John Barkstead, Lieutenant of the Tower (Jan. 19, 1655-6); M. Coyet, of the Swedish Embassy (April 15, 1656);Richard Combe (Aug. 1656); Lord Mayor Dethicke and George Fleetwood, Esq. Of Bucks (both Sept. 15, 1656); Ambassador Lockhart, Lord MayorRobert Tichbourne, Sheriff James Calthorpe, and Lislebone Long, Esq. , Recorder of London (all Dec. 10, 1656); Colonel James Whitlocke, ason of Bulstrode Whitlocke (Jan. 6, 1656-7); Thomas Dickson, of York(March 3, 1656-7); Richard Stayner (June 11, 1657). ] If there had been so much of sovereign and aristocratic form in theFirst Protectorate, there was a natural increase of such in theSecond. In the first place, the family of the Protector now lived inthe reflection of that dignity of the purple which had been formallythrown round himself. The Protector's very aged Mother having died inhonour and peace at Whitehall, Nov. 16, 1654, blessing him with herlast words[1], the family, in the Second Protectorate, was asfollows:-- [Footnote 1: At "ninety-four years of age" according to a letter ofThurloe's the day after her death (Thurloe to Pell, Nov. 17, 1654, inVaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 79-81); but Colonel Chester(_Westminster Abbey Registers, 521, Note_) sees reason forbelieving she had been baptized at Ely, Oct. 28, 1565, and wastherefore only in her ninetieth year at her death. ] HIS HIGHNESS, OLIVER, LORD PROTECTOR: _ętat. 58. _ HER HIGHNESS, ELIZABETH, LADY PROTECTRESS. Children and Children-in-Law. 1. THE LADY BRIDGET: _ętat. 33_: Ireton's widow, married to Fleetwood since 1652. FLEETWOOD, though he had been recalled from Ireland in the middle of 1655, and had been in London since then, retained his nominal Lord-Deputyship till Nov. 1657. 2. THE LORD RICHARD CROMWELL: _ętat. _ 31: married since 1649 to DOROTHY MAYOR, daughter of Richard Mayor, Esq. , of Hursley, Hants, who had been member for Hants in the Long Parliament, a fellow-Colonel with Cromwell in the Civil War, and afterwards in some of the Councils of the Commonwealth, in the Little Parliament, and in the Council of the Protectorate. --Though Lord Richard's tastes were all for a quiet country-life, with "hawking, hunting, and horse-racing, " he had been in both the Parliaments of the Protectorate, and had taken some little part in the Second. His father now brought him more forward. On the 3rd of July, 1657, when the Second Protectorate was but a week old, the Lord Protector resigned his Chancellorship of the University of Oxford; and on the 18th Lord Richard was elected in his stead. He was installed at Whitehall, July 29. He was also made a Colonel, and at length he was brought into the Council. The fact is thus minuted in the Council's Books under date Dec. 31, 1657:--"The Lord Richard Cromwell did this day take the oath of a Councillor, the same being administered unto him by the Earl of Mulgrave and General Desborough, in virtue of his Highness's Commission under the Great Seal. " He was immediately put on all Committees of the Council; and generally after that, when he did attend, his name was put next after the President's in the _sederunt_. 3. THE LORD HENRY CROMWELL: _ętat. 29_: in the Army since his boyhood; Colonel since 1649; Major-General and chief Commander in Ireland since the middle of 1655. At the beginning of the Second Protectorate he was still in the Government of Ireland with his military title only; but on the 24th of November 1657 he was sworn into the full Lord Deputyship in succession to Fleetwood. He had been married since 1653 to a daughter of Sir Francis Russell, of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire. 4. THE LADY ELIZABETH: _ętat. 28_: married in her seventeenth year to JOHN CLAYPOLE, ESQ. , of a Northamptonshire family. He had been made the Lord Protector's "Master of Horse, " and had therefore been known for some time by the courtesy-title of "Lord Claypole. " He had been in the Second Parliament of the Protectorate; and, as Master of Horse, had figured prominently in the ceremonial of the late Installation. Lord and Lady Claypole were established in the household of the Lord Protector, at Whitehall, or at Hampton Court; and Lady Claypole was a very favourite daughter. 5. THE LADY MARY: _ętat. 21_. She was unmarried when the Second Protectorate began, though Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper is said to have sought her hand, and to have turned against the Protector on being refused it; but on the 18th of November 1657 she became the second wife of THOMAS BELLASIS, VISCOUNT FALCONBRIBGE, one of the old nobility. He was about thirty years of age, had been abroad, had been sounded by Lockhart in Paris as to his inclinations to the Protectorate, had given every satisfaction in that matter, and had been certified by Lockhart to the Protector as "a person of extraordinary parts. " On his own account, and also because he was of an old Royalist family, his marriage with Lady Mary was thought an excellent match. 6. THE LADY FRANCES: _ętat. 19_. This, the youngest of Cromwell's children, was also unmarried at the beginning of the Second Protectorate. The fond dream of the wealthy old Gloucestershire squire, Mr. John Dutton, that his nephew and Cromwell's ward, Mr. William Dutton, Andrew Marvell's pupil at Eton with the Oxenbridges, might become the husband of the Lady Frances, as had been arranged between him and Cromwell (vol. IV. Pp. 616-619), had not been fulfilled; and, the old squire himself being now dead, young Dutton was left to find another wife for himself in due time. [1] For the Lady Frances, his Highness's youngest daughter, there might well be greater destinies. There had been vague whispers, indeed, of a suggestion in certain quarters that Charles II. Himself should propose for her and negotiate for a restoration, or a succession to Cromwell, accordingly; but for more than a year there had been more authentic talk of her marriage with Mr. ROBERT RICH, the only son of Lord Rich, and grandson and (after his father) heir-apparent of the Earl of Warwick. That this great and popular old Parliamentarian and Presbyterian Earl had been won round at last to the Protectorate, and that he had graced the late Installation conspicuonsly by his presence, were no unimportant facts; and the projected family-alliance was by no means indifferent to Cromwell. There were difficulties, not on the part of the young people; but at length, Nov. 11, 1657, just a week before the marriage of the elder sister to Lord Falconbridge, Lady Frances did become the wife of Mr. Rich. In the fourth month of the marriage, however. Feb. 16, 1657-8, the husband died, leaving the Lady Frances, not yet twenty years of age, a widow. She married again, and did not die till Jan. 1720-1. [Footnote 1: The will of John Dutton, Esq. , of Sherborne, Gloucestershire, was proved June 30, 1657, just four days after thebeginning of the Second Protectorate; and young Mr. William Duttonmarried a widow eventually--"Mary, daughter of John, ViscountScudamore, and relict of Thomas Russell of Worcestershire, Esq. "(Noble's Cromwell, I, pp 153-154). ] OTHER RELATIVES Worth noting among the Relatives of Cromwell alive in the SecondProtectorate, were the following;--(1) The Protector's eldestsurviving sister, ELIZABETH CROMWELL, _ętat. 64_, living at Ely, unmarried, and receiving occasional presents from her brother. Shelived to 1672. (2) The Protector's sister CATHERINE, _ętat. _ 61, first married to a Roger Whetstone, a Parliamentarian officer, andafterwards to COLONEL JOHN JONES, member of the Long Parliament forMonmouthshire, and one of the Regicides. He had been a member of thefirst and second Councils of the Commonwealth, had been for some timein Ireland as one of Fleetwood's Council, and was now a member of theProtector's Second Parliament. (3) The Protector's youngest sisterROBINA, formerly the wife of a Peter French, D. D. , but now the wifeof DR. JOHN WILKINS, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. Wilkins heldthe Wardenship by dispensation from Cromwell, his marriage in theoffice being against Statute. The only child of Mrs. Wilkins, by herfirst marriage, became afterwards the wife of Archbishop Tillotson. (4) The Protector's niece, ROBINA, daughter of his deceased sisterMrs. Anna Sewster, and now wife of SIR WILLIAM LOCKHART. (5) TheProtector's brother-in-law COLONEL VALENTINE WALTON, who had beenmember for Huntingdonshire in the Long Parliament, one of theRegicides, and a member of all the Councils of the Commonwealth; Hisfirst wife; Oliver's sister Margaret, being dead, he had married asecond, and had for some time been less active politically and lessOliverian. (6) The Protector's brother-in-law JOHN DESBOROUGH, knownas an officer of horse through the Civil Wars, and latterly as one ofCromwell's stoutest adherents through his Interim Dictatorship andProtectorate, a member of both his Parliaments, one of hisCouncillors, and one of his Major-Generals, though opposed to theKingship. He was now a widower by the recent death of his wife, Cromwell's sister Jane. (7) The Protector's cousin, or father'ssister's son, EDWARD WHALLEY, Colonel in the Civil Wars, one of theRegicides, and latterly member of both Parliaments of theProtectorate and one of the Major-Generals. (8) The Protector's aunt, or father's sister, Mrs. ELIZABETH HAMPDEN, mother of the famousHampden, and now a very aged widow, living about Whitehall, withanother son alive, besides grandchildren by her famous dead son, theeldest of whom, Richard Hampden, was a member of the presentParliament. (9) The Protector's cousin's son, COLONEL RICHARDINGOLDSBY, a Recruiter in the Long Parliament, one of the signers ofCharles's death-warrant, and one of the members for Buckinghamshirein both Parliaments of the Protectorate. More distant kindred of theProtector were the DUNCHES of Berkshire, and the MASHAMS of Essex, the head of whom, Sir William Masham, Bart. , had been member for thatcounty in the Long Parliament, and a member of all the Councils ofthe Commonwealth and of the first Parliament of the Protectorate. Thepoet WALLER was connected with the Protector by his cousinship withthe Hampdens. [1] [Footnote 1: Among authorities for the facts in this compilation, besides Council Order Books, and the whole narrative heretofore, areCarlyle's three genealogical Notes (I. 16, 20-21, and 54-55), Wood'sFasti, II. 155-8, various passages in Codwin, and two "Narratives"in _Harl. Misc_ III. 429-468. ] The Protector's new Privy Council for his Second Protectorate was notconstituted till Monday, July 13, 1657, more than a fortnight afterhis installation. Then, his Highness being present, there were swornin, according to the new oath of fidelity provided by the _Petitionand Advice_, Lord President Lawrence, General Desborough, LordCommissioner Fiennes, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Viscount Lisle, Mr. Rous, Lord Deputy Fleetwood, Lord Strickland, and Mr. SecretaryThurloe. This last took his seat at the board as full Councillor byspecial nomination of his Highness. In the course of the next fewmeetings there came in Colonel Sydenham, Major-General Skippon, SirGilbert Pickering, and Sir Charles Wolseley, raising the number tothirteen; which completed the Council for some time, though ColonelPhilip Jones and Admiral Montague afterwards took their seats, andLord Richard Cromwell, as we have seen, was added Dec. 31. Oncomparing the total list with that of the Council of the FirstProtectorate (Vol. IV. P. 545), it will be seen that Cromwellretained all that were alive of his former Council, except Lambert, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and Mr. Richard Mayor. Sir Anthony AshleyCooper had been a deserter from the former Council as early as Dec. 1654, and had since then been so conspicuous in the opposition thathe had been one of the ninety-three excluded from the House at theopening of the Second Parliament. Mr. Mayor, Richard Cromwell'sfather-in-law, though still nominally in the Council, seems to havebeen now in poor health and in retirement. The one extraordinaryomission was that of Lambert. He had taken all but the chief part inthe foundation of the First Protectorate; why was he absent from theGovernment of the Second? His Oliverianism, it appears, hadevaporated in the late debates about the Kingship and the newconstitution. Certain it is that he did not present himself at thefirst meeting of the new Council, and that, after an interview withCromwell in consequence, he surrendered his two regimentalcolonelcies, his major-generalship, and £10 a day which he had forthe last, and withdrew into private life. Still called "LordLambert, " and with a pension of £2000 a year granted him by Cromwell, he retired to Wimbledon, where his chief amusement was thecultivation of tulips. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of July 13, 1657, and thenceforward;Ludlow, 593-594; Godwin, IV. 446-447. ] The new Council having been constituted, and having begun to hold itsmeetings twice or thrice a week, the administration of affairs, homeand foreign, was free to go on, in his Highness's hands and theCouncil's, without farther Parliamentary interruption till Jan. 20, 1657-8. Foreign affairs may here have the precedence. Blake's grand blow at the Spaniard in Santa Cruz Bay was still in allpeople's minds, and they were looking for the return of that hero, recalled as he had been, June 10, either for honourable repose in hisbattered and enfeebled state after three years at sea, or for furtheremployment nearer home in connexion with the French-English allianceand the Flanders expedition. He was never, alas! to set foot inEngland. Off Plymouth, as his fleet was touching the shores, he died, utterly worn out with scurvy and dropsy, Aug. 7, 1657, agedfifty-eight. As the news spread, there was great sorrow; and on the13th of August it was ordered by the Council, "That the Commissionersfor the Admiralty and Navy do forthwith give order for the intermentof General Blake in the Abbey Church at Westminster, and for allthings requisite to be prepared for the funeral of General Blake insuch sort as was done for the funeral of General Deane, and that theygive direction for the preparing of Greenwich House for the receptionof the body of General Blake, in order to his funeral. " The body, having been embalmed, lay at Greenwich till Sept. 4, when it wasbrought up the Thames with all funereal pomp, mourning hangings onthe barges and the wherries all the way, and so buried in Henry theSeventh's chapel, the Council, the great Army officers, the LordMayor and Aldermen, and other dignitaries standing round, while amultitude thronged outside. It was observed that Lord Lambert hadmade a point of being present, as if to signify that the great sailorand he had always understood each other. How Blake would have farthercomported himself had he lived no one really knows. At sea he hadmade it a principle to abstain from party-politics. "When news wasbrought him of a metamorphosis in the State at home, he would thenencourage the seamen to be most vigilant abroad; for, said he, 'tisnot our duty to mind State-affairs, but to keep foreigners fromfooling us. " The idea among the ultra-Republicans of using Blake'spopularity to undermine Cromwell had long come to nothing. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books, Aug. 13, 1657: Godwin, IV. 420-421;Wood's Fasti, I. 371. ] Blake gone, the naval hope of England now was Admiral Montague. SinceAugust 11 he had been cruising up and down the Channel with his fleetunder general orders. The interest of the war with Spain now laychiefly in Flanders, where the Protector's army of 6000 foot underGeneral Reynolds was co-operating with the larger French army ofLouis XIV. Commanded by Turenne. Here Cromwell had, again to complainof Mazarin's wily policy. By the Treaty the great object of theexpedition was to be the reduction of the coast-towns, Gravelines, Mardike, and Dunkirk; but these sieges had been postponed, andTurenne had been campaigning in the interior, the English troopsobliged to attend him hither and thither, and complaining much oftheir bad accommodation and bad feeding. Mazarin, in fact, wasstudying French interests only, A peremptory communication fromCromwell through Ambassador Lockhart, Aug. 31, changed the state ofmatters. "I pray you tell the Cardinal from me, " he said, "that Ithink, if France desires to maintain its ground, much more to_get_ ground, upon the Spaniard, the performance. , of his Treatywith us will better do it than anything appears yet to me of anydesign he hath. " He offered 2000 more men from England, if necessary;but he added in a postscript, "If indeed the French be so false to usas that they would not have us have any footing on that side thewater, then I desire ... That all things may be done in order to thegiving us satisfaction, and to the drawing-off of our men. And truly, Sir, I desire you to take boldness and freedom to yourself in yourdealing with the French on these accounts. " The Cardinal at oncesuccumbed, and the siege of Mardike by land and sea was begun Sept. 21. The place was taken in a few days, and, in terms of the Treaty, given into the possession of General Reynolds for the English. Alittle while afterwards, a large Spanish force under Don John ofAustria, the Duke of York serving in it with four regiments ofEnglish and Irish refugees, attempted a recapture of the place; but, by the desperate fighting of the garrison and Montague's assistingfire from his ships, the attempt was foiled. The Protector had thusobtained at least one place of footing on the Continent; and, withEnglish valour to assist the military genius of Turenne, there wasprospect, late in 1657, of still more success in the SpanishNetherlands. Lockhart was again in London for consultation withCromwell Oct. 15, and Montague was back Oct. 24, on which day he tookhis oath and place in the Council. [1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 306-315 (including two Letters of Cromwellto Lockhart); Godwin, IV. 543-544; Guizot, II. 379-381;_Cromwelliana_, 168; Council Order Books, Oct. 24, 1657. ] Various other matters of foreign concern occupied the Protector andhis Council in the first months of the new Protectorate. There is anorder in the Council Books, July 28, 1657, for the despatch of £1000more to the Piedmontese Protestants, and for certain sums to be paidto Genevese and other ministers for trouble they had taken in thatmatter; and, as late as Nov. 25, there is an order for anotherdespatch of £1500. There were, indeed, to be farther collections forthe Piedmontese sufferers, and new interposition in their behalf withthe Duke of Savoy. Nay, by this time, the generosity of his Highnessin the Piedmontese business had led to applications from distressedProtestants in other parts of Europe. Thus, Nov. 4, his Highnessbeing himself present in the Council, and having communicated "apetition from the pastors of several churches of the ReformedReligion in Higher Poland, Bohemia, &c. , now scattered abroad throughpersecution in those parts, desiring some relief, and also a petitionfrom Adam Samuel Hartmann and Paul Cyril, delegates from theseexiles, together with a narrative of their condition and sufferings, "it was ordered that the matter should be referred to the Committeefor the Piedmontese Protestants and preparations made for anothercollection of money. All the while, of course, there had been themore usual and regular diplomatic business between the Protector andthe various agencies of foreign powers in London. One hearsespecially of the arrival, Aug. 1657, of a newAmbassador-Extraordinary from Portugal, Don Francisco de Mello, ofentertainments to him, and of audiences granted to him; also of muchintercourse between his Highness and the Dutch Ambassador LordNieuport, now so long resident in England and so much regarded there. But the latter half of 1657 is also remarkable for the despatch byhis Highness of three special Envoys of his own to the northernProtestant Powers. MR. PHILIP MEADOWS, appointed Envoy to Denmark aslong ago as Feb. 24, 1656-7 (ante p. 294), but detained meanwhile inLondon, set out on his mission at last, Aug. 31; and at the same timeMAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM JEPHSON, distinguished for his services inIreland, and returned as member for Cork and Youghal to bothParliaments of the Protectorate, set out as Envoy to his SwedishMajesty. He had been chosen for the important post Aug. 4. Finally, on the 18th of December, partly in consequence of the departure ofthe Dutch Ambassador Nieuport in the preceding month, for sometemporary stay at home on private affairs, GEORGE DOWNING, ESQ. (antepp. 43 and 191) was appointed to follow him in the capacity ofResident for his Highness in the United Provinces. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates; Whitlocke, IV. 311-313;and _Cromwelliana_, 168-169. ] The general purport of these three missions of Cromwell in 1657requires explanation. Not commercial interests merely, but also zealfor union among the Protestant Powers, had all along moved hisdiplomacy; and now the state of things in the north of Europe was soextraordinary that, on the one hand, the cause of Protestant unionseemed in fatal peril, but, on the other hand, if it could beretrieved, it might be retrieved perhaps in a definite andmagnificent form. The prime agency in bringing about this state ofthings had been the vast energy of the young Swedish King, Charles X. Or Karl-Gustav. Cromwell had by this time contracted an especialadmiration of this prince, and had begun to regard him as a kindredspirit and the armed champion of Continental Protestantism. To seehim succeed to the last in his Polish enterprise, and then turnhimself against Austria and her Roman Catholic clientage in theEmpire, had come to be Cromwell's desire and the desire in GreatBritain generally. For a time that had seemed probable. In the greatBattle of Warsaw, fought July 28-30, 1656, Charles-Gustavus and hisally the Elector of Brandenburg routed the Poles disastrously; and, Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania, also abetting and assisting theSwede, "_actum jam videbatur de Polonia_" as an old annalistsays: "it seemed then all over with Poland. " But a medley of powers, for diverse reasons and interests, had been combining themselves forthe salvation of Poland, or at least for driving back the Swede tohis own side of the Baltic. Not merely the Austrians and the GermanCatholic princes were in this combination, but also the Muscovites orRussians, and, most unnatural of all, the Danes, with countenanceeven from the more distant Dutch. Nay, the prudent Elector ofBrandenburg, hitherto the ally of the Swede, was drawn off from thatalliance. This was done by a treaty, dated Nov. 10, 1656, by whichthe Polish King, John Casimir, yielded to the Elector the fullsovereignty of Ducal Prussia or East Prussia, till then held by theElector only by a tenure of homage to the Polish Crown. All beingready, the Danish King, Frederick III. , gave the signal by declaringwar against Sweden and invading part of the Swedish territories. Whenthe news reached Cromwell, which it did Aug. 13, 1657, it affectedhim profoundly. He had previously been remonstrating, as we haveseen, both with the Danes and the Dutch, by letters of Milton'scomposition (ante pp. 272-3 and 290), trying to avert such anunseemly Protestant intervention in arrest of the Swedish King'scareer. And now, having his two envoys, MEADOWS and JEPHSON, readyfor the emergency, he despatched them at once to the scene of thatnew Swedish-Danish war in which what had hitherto been theSwedish-Polish war was to be at once engulphed. For Karl-Gustav hadturned back out of Poland to deal directly with the Danes, and theinterest was now concentrated on the struggle between these twopowers--the Poles, the German Catholics, the Muscovites, the Electorof Brandenburg, the Dutch, and other powers, looking on more or lessin sympathy with the Danes, and some of them ready to strike in. Toend the war, if possible, by reconciling Charles X. And FrederickIII, was Cromwell's first object; and, with that aim in view, Jephsonwas to attach himself more particularly to Charles X. , whatever mightbe his war-track, and Meadows more particularly to Frederick III. Butthey might cross each other's routes, deal with other States alongthese routes, and work into each other's hands. RICHARD BRADSHAW, likewise, who had been sent as Envoy to the Czar of Muscovy in thebeginning of the year (ante pp. 292-294), would be moving aboutusefully on the east of the Baltic. And, if a reconciliation betweenSweden and Denmark should by any means be brought about, what thenshould be aimed at but a repair of the rupture between the Elector ofBrandenburg and the Swedish King, so as to save the Elector from thethreatened vengeance of the Swede, and then farther the aggregationof other Protestant German States, and of the Dutch, round thisnucleus of a Swedish-Danish-Brandenburg alliance, for common actionagainst Poland, Austria, and German Catholicism? Even the Muscovites, as of the Greek Church, might be brought in, or at least they mightbe rendered neutral. All this was in contemplation, as a tissue ofideal possibilities, when MEADOWS and JEPHSON were despatched inAugust, and the mission of DOWNING four months later to the UnitedProvinces was partly in the same great interest. It may seem matterfor wonder that a man of Cromwell's practical sagacity, already sodeeply implicated on the Continent by his Flanders enterprise and hisalliance with France, should have had such a passion for fartherinterference as thus to insert his hands into the apparentlymeasureless entanglement in northern and eastern Europe. But, in thefirst place, his practical sagacity was not at fault. Precisely thatit should not be an entanglement, but a marshalling of powers in twosets according to their true religions and political affinities, wasthe essence of his aspiration; there were deep tendencies towardsthat result; sagacity consisted in perceiving these, and practicalityin promoting them. Cromwell's aspiration in connexion with theSwedish-Danish war was also, it could be proved, that of otherthoughtful Protestants then contemplating the war and speculating onits chances. But, in the second place, the business of the Frenchalliance and the Flanders enterprise was vitally inter-connected withthe so-called entanglement in the north and east. The German EmperorFerdinand III. Had died in April 1657; the Empire was vacant; Mazarinhad set his heart on obtaining that central European dignity for hisyoung master, Louis XIV. , and was intriguing with the Electors forthe purpose; it was still uncertain whether, when the time came, amajority of the Electoral College would vote for Louis XIV. Or wouldretain the Imperial dignity in the House of Austria by choosing thelate Emperor's son Leopold. The future of Germany and ofProtestantism in Germany was concerned deeply in that issue; and, whatever may have been Cromwell's feelings in the special prospect ofthe election of his ally Louis XIV. To the Empire, he was bound toprefer that to the election of another incarnation of AustrianCatholicism. [1] [Footnote 1: Studied from scattered documents in Thurloe and fromthose of Milton's State-Letters for Cromwell that appertain to Swedenand Denmark and the missions of 1657, with help from a very luminouspassage in Baillie's Letters (III. 370-371), and with facts and datesfrom the excellent abridged History forming the Supplement to the_Rationarium Temporum_ of the Jesuit Petavius (edit. 1745, I. 562-564), and from Carlyle's _History of Frederick the Great_, I. 222-223. ] At home meanwhile things went on smoothly. Cromwell had by this timebrought his Established Church into a condition highly satisfactoryto himself. The machinery of the _Ejectors_ and the_Triers_ was still in full operation; and, on reports from the_Trustees for the Maintenance of Ministers_, his Highness andthe Council still had the pleasure, from time to time, of orderingnew augmentations of clerical stipends. The Voluntaryism which stillexisted in wide diffusion through the English mind had becomecomparatively silent; and indeed open reviling of the EstablishedChurch had been made punishable by Article X. Of the _Petition andAdvice_. Perhaps the plainest speaker now against the principle ofan Established Church, or at least against the constitution of thepresent one, was the veteran John Goodwin of Coleman Street. "_TheTriers (or Tormentors) tried and cast by the Laws of God and Men_"was the title of a pamphlet of Goodwin's, which had been out sinceMay 1657, assailing the Commission of Triers. Goodwin was too eminenta Commonwealth's man, and too fair a controversialist, to be treatedas a mere reviler; and it was left to the Protector's journalist, Marchamont Needham, to reply through the press. "_The Great Accusercast down, or a Public Trial of Mr. John Goodwin of Coleman Street, London, at the Bar of Religion and Right Reason_, " was a pamphletby Needham, published July 31. It was dedicated "To His Most SereneHighness, Oliver, Lord Protector, " &c. , in such terms asthese:--"Sir, It is a custom in all countries, when any man hathtaken a strange creature, immediately to present it to the Prince:whereupon I, having taken one of the strangest that (I think) anypart of your Highness's dominions hath these many years produced, do, with all submissiveness, make bold to present him, bound hand andfoot with his own cords (as I ought to bring him), to your Highness. He need not be sent to the Tower for his mischievousness: there is nodanger in him now, nor like to be henceforth, as I have handled him. "In a prefixed Epistle to the Reader there is a good deal ofscurrility against Goodwin. He is described as "worse than a commonnuisance. " He is taxed also with inconsistency, inasmuch as he hadbeen one of those who, in Feb. 1651-2, had signed the famous_Proposals of Certain Ministers to the Committee for thePropagation of the Gospel_, in which the principle of anEstablished Church had been assumed and asserted (ante, IV. 392). Inthe body of the pamphlet Needham maintains that principle. "Christleft no such rules and directions, " he says, "nor was it hisintention to leave such, for propagating the Gospel, as exclude theMagistrate from using his wisdom and endeavours in order thereunto. "He defends the Commission of Triers and the Commission of Ejectors, and more than once twits Goodwin with having taken up at last theextreme crotchets of Roger Williams the American. "_A Letter ofAddress to the Protector occasioned by Mr. Needham's Reply to Mr. Goodwin's Book against Triers_" appeared Aug. 25; but we need notfollow the controversy farther. It had come to be Mr. John Goodwin'sfate to be the severest public critic of Cromwell's EstablishedChurch; it had come to be Mr. Marchamont Needham's to be the mostprominent defender of that institution. [1] [Footnote 1: Thomason Pamphlets, and Catalogue of the same fordates. ] More likely than such men as John Goodwin to be classed as openrevilers of the Established Church were the Quakers. They were nowvery numerous, going about in England, Scotland, Ireland, andeverywhere else, as before, and mingling denunciations of every formof the existing ministry with their softer and richer teachings. Theywere still liable, of course, to varieties of penal treatment, according to the degrees of their aggressiveness and the moods of thelocal authorities; but the disposition at head-quarters was decidedlytowards gentleness with them. Hardly had the new Council of Statebeen constituted when, Cromwell himself present, three of the mosteminent London physicians, Dr. Wright, Dr. Cox, and Dr. Bates, wereinstructed "to visit James Nayler, prisoner in Bridewell, and toconsider of his condition as to the state both of his mind and bodyin point of health"; and, from that date (July 16, 1657), his fartherdetention seems to have been merely for his cure. George Fox, whosecircuits of preaching took him as far as Edinburgh and the ScottishHighlands, could never be in London without addressing a pious letteror two to Cromwell, or even going to see him; and another Quaker, Edward Burrough, was so drawn to Cromwell that he was continuallypenning letters to him and leaving them at Whitehall. During andafter the Kingship question these letters were particularly frequent, the Quakers being all _Contrariants_ on that point. "OProtector, who hast tasted of the power of God, which manygenerations before thee have not so much since the days of apostasyfrom the Apostles, take heed that thou lose not thy power; but keepKingship off thy head, which the world would give to thee:" so hadFox written in one letter, ending, "O Oliver, take heed of undoingthyself by running into things that will fade, the things of thisworld that will change; be subject and obedient to the Lord God. "There was something in all this that really reached Cromwell's heart, while it amused him; and, though he would begin by bantering Fox atan interview, sitting on a table and talking in "a light manner, " asFox himself tells us, he would end with some serious words. Both toFox personally, and to the letters from him and other Quakers, hisreply in substance uniformly was that they were good people, andthat, for himself, "all persecution and cruelty was against hismind. " Cromwell was only at the centre, however, and could notregulate the administration of the law everywhere. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of date; and Sewel's _History ofthe Quakers_, I. 210-233. ] John Lilburne once more, but now for the last time, and in a totallynew guise! Committed to prison in 1653 by the government of theBarebones Parliament, acting avowedly not by law but simply "for thepeace of this nation" (ante, IV. 508), he had been first in theTower, then in a castle in Jersey, and then in Dover Castle. In thislast confinement, which had been made tolerably easy, a Quaker hadhad access to him, with very marked effects. "Here, in Dover Castle, "Lilburne had written to his wife, Oct. 4, 1655, "through theloving-kindness of God, I have met with a more clear, plain, andevident knowledge of God, and myself, and His gracious outgoings tomy soul, than ever I had in all my lifetime, not excepting myglorying and rejoicing condition under the Bishops. " Again, in alater letter: "I particularly can, and do hereby, witness that I amalready dead or crucified to the very occasions and real grounds ofoutward wars, and carnal sword-fightings, and fleshly bustlings andcontests, and that therefore confidently I now believe that I shallnever hereafter be a user of the temporal sword more, nor a joinerwith those that do. And this I do here solemnly declare, not in theleast to avoid persecution, or for any politic ends of my own, or inthe least for the satisfaction of the fleshly wills of any of mygreat adversaries, or for satisfying the carnal will of my poor weakafflicted wife, but by the special movings and compulsions of God nowupon my soul ... And that thereby, if yet I must be an imprisonedsufferer, it may from this day forward be for the truth as it is inJesus, which truth I witness to be truly professed and practised bythe savouriest of people, called Quakers. " This had not at onceprocured his release, for he remained in Dover Castle through atleast part of 1656. At length, however, after some proposal to lethim go abroad again, or to send him and his wife to the Plantations, security had been accepted for his good behaviour, and he had beenallowed to live as he liked at Eltham in Kent. Here, and elsewhere, he sometimes preached, and was in much esteem among the Quakers; andhere, on Saturday the 29th of August, 1657, he died. On the followingMonday his corpse was removed to London and conveyed to the housecalled "The Bull and Mouth" at Aldersgate, the chief meeting-place ofthe London Quakers. "At this place, that afternoon, assembled amedley of people, among whom the Quakers were most eminent fornumber; and within the house a controversy Was whether the ceremonyof a hearse-cloth should be cast over his coffin; but, the majorpart, being Quakers, not assenting, the coffin was about five o'clockin the evening brought forth into the street. At its coming out, there stood a man on purpose to cast a velvet hearse-cloth over thecoffin, and he endeavoured to do it; but, the crowd of Quakers notpermitting it and having gotten the body on their shoulders, theycarried it away without further ceremony, and the whole companyconducted it into Moorfields, and thence into the new churchyardadjoining to Bedlam, where it lieth interred. " Lilburne at his deathwas but thirty-nine years of age. He was popular to the last with theLondoners, and there were notices of him, comic and serio-comic, long after his death. By order of Council, Nov. 4, his Highnesshimself present, payment of the arrears of an allowance he had of40_s. _ a week, with continuation of the same allowancethenceforward, was granted to his wife, Elizabeth. [1] [Footnote 1: Sewel's _History of the Quakers_. I. 160-163(where, however, there is an error as to the date of Lilburne'sdeath); Wood's Ath. III. 357; _Cromwelliana_, 168; CouncilOrder Books of Nov. 4, 1657. ] When the subdued Lilburne thus went to his grave among the Quakers, his unsubdued successor in the trade of Anti-Cromwellian conspiracy, the Anabaptist ex-Colonel Sexby, was in the Tower, waiting his doom. He had been arrested, July 24, in a mean disguise and with a greatover-grown beard, on board a ship that was to carry him back toFlanders after one of his visits to London on his desperate design ofan assassination of Cromwell, to be followed by a Spanish-Stuartistinvasion. What _would_ have been his doom can be but guessed. Hebecame insane in the Tower, and died there in that state Jan. 13, 1657-8. He had previously confessed to Barkstead, the Lieutenant ofthe Tower, that he had been the real mover of the Sindercombe Plot, that he had been in the pay of Spain, and also, apparently, that hewas the author of _Killing no Murder_. [1] [Footnote 1: _Merc. Pol. _ of dates, as quoted in_Cromwelliana_, 167-170. ] So quiet and even was the course of home-affairs through the firstseven months of the new Protectorate that such glimpses and anecdotesof particular persons have to suggest the general history. Yet onemore of the sort. In the parish register of Bolton Percy in Yorkshire there is thisentry: "George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and Mary, the daughterof Thomas, Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, of Nunappleton within thisParish of Bolton Percy, were married the 15th day of September_anno Dom_. 1657. " This was, in fact, the marriage of the greatFairfax's only child, Marvell's former pupil, now nineteen years ofage, to the Royalist Duke of Buckingham, aged thirty. The poetCowley, who had known the Duke since their Cambridge days together, acted as his best man at the wedding, which was celebrated with greatfestivities at Nunappleton, Cowley contributing a poem. But surelyit was a most extraordinary marriage, and, though there had beenrumours of such a possibility for several years, it was heard of withsurprise. The only child and heiress of the great ParliamentarianGeneral, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, married to thisRoyalist of Royalists, the handsome young insurgent in the SecondCivil War of 1648, the boon-companion of Charles II. For some timeabroad, his boon-companion and buffoon all through his dreary year ofKingship among the Scots, his fellow-fugitive from the field ofWorcester, and ever since, though less in Charles's company thanbefore, and serving as a volunteer in the French army, yet a maintrump-card in Charles's lists! How had it happened? Easily enough. The great Fairfax, with ample wealth of his own, had made mosthonourable and chivalrous use of the accessions to that wealth thathad come in the shape of Parliamentary grants to him out of theconfiscated estates of Royalists. Now, one such grant, in lieu of amoney pension of £4000 a year, had been a portion of the confiscatedproperty of the young Duke of Buckingham, including an estate inYorkshire and York House in the Strand. The young Duke, stripped ofhis revenues of £25, 000 a year, had been living meanwhile on theproceeds of a great collection of pictures, Titians and what not, that had been made by his father, and which had been quietly conveyedabroad for sale. But Fairfax had not forgotten the splendid youngman, and had every wish to retrieve his fortunes for him. There hadprobably been communications to that end, not only with Buckinghamhimself, but even with Charles II. ; and the result had been theDuke's return to England and appearance in Yorkshire, early in 1657, to woo Mary Fairfax or to complete the wooing. Who could resist him?It might have been better for Mary Fairfax had she died in hergirlhood, fresh from Marvell's teaching; but now she was Duchess ofBuckingham. York House and the estate in Yorkshire had been restoredto her husband by gift, and Nunappleton and other Fairfax estateswere to be settled on him and her for their lives, and on their heirsshould there be any. [1] [Footnote 1: Markham's Life of Fairfax, 364-372. ] Naturally, the Protector might have something to say to thearrangement. The great Fairfax was a man to whom anything in reasonwould be granted; and, though Cromwell had no reason to believe thatFairfax favoured his Protectorate, and there had been even reportsfrom Thurloe's foreign agents of correspondence between Fairfax andCharles II. , [1] no one could challenge Fairfax's honour or doubt hispassive allegiance. But a son-in-law like Buckingham about himaltered the case. Little wonder, therefore, that the marriage atNunappleton was discussed at the Council in London. On the 9th ofOctober, his Highness and eight more being present, it was orderedthat a warrant should issue for arresting, and confining in the Isleof Jersey, George, Duke of Buckingham, who had been "in this nationfor divers months without licence or authority. " This led, of course, to earnest representations from Fairfax. Accordingly, Nov. 17, "HisHighness having communicated to the Council that the Lord Fairfaxhath made addresses to him, with some desires on behalf of the Dukeof Buckingham, " it was ordered "That the Resolves and Act ofParliament in the case of the said Duke be communicated to the LordFairfax as the grounds of the Council's proceedings touching the saidDuke, and that there be withal signified to the Lord Fairfax theCouncil's civil respects to his Lordship's own person. " The messagewas to be conveyed by the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Deputy Fleetwood, and Lord Strickland. Fairfax and the young couple must have madefarther appeal; for, Dec. 1, his Highness "delivered in to theCouncil a paper containing an offer of some reasons in reference tothe Duke of Buckingham his liberty, " whereupon it was minuted "Thatthe Council do declare it as their opinion that it is not consistentwith their duty to advise his Highness to grant the Duke ofBuckingham his liberty as is desired, nor consistent with hisHighness's trust to do the same. " Lord Strickland and Sir CharlesWolseley were to communicate the minute to Fairfax. Probably Fairfaxhad come up to town on the business. The young couple would seem tohave remained in the country; nor do I find that the order for thearrest of the Duke was yet actually enforced. [2] [Footnote 1: As early as Nov. 1654 Charles II. Had written toFairfax, begging him to "wipe out all he had done amiss" by suchservices to the Royal cause as he might yet render (Macray'sCalendar of the Clarendon State Papers, II. 426). ] [Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates. ] What may have disposed Cromwell not to be too harsh about themarriage was the fact that he had just celebrated the marriages ofhis own two youngest daughters. Lady Frances, the youngest, becameMrs. Rich on the 11th of November, and Lady Mary became ViscountessFalconbridge on the 18th. The drift of public interest was now towards the reassembling of theadjourned Parliament on the 20th of January 1657-8. Especially therewas great curiosity as to the persons that would be called by hisHighness to form the Second or Upper House. That was satisfied in thecourse of December by the issue of his Highness's writs under thegreat seal (quite in regal style, with the phrases "We, " "ourself, ""our great seal, " &c. ) to the following _sixty-three_ persons, the asterisks to be explained presently:-- *Lord Richard Cromwell (_Councillor_, &c. ). Lord Henry Cromwell (_Lord Deputy of Ireland_). Of the Titular Nobility. The Earl of Warwick. The Earl of Manchester. The Earl of Mulgrave (_Councillor_). The Earl of Cassilis (Scotch). William, Viscount Say and Sele. *Thomas, Viscount Falconbridge (_son-in-law_). *Philip, Viscount Lisle (_Peer's son and Councillor_). *Charles, Viscount Howard (raised to this rank by Cromwell, July 20, 1657). Philip, Lord Wharton. *George, Lord Eure. *Roger, Lord Broghill (_Peer's son_). *John, Lord Claypole (_son-in-law and "Master of our Horse"_). Great Army and Navy Officers. *Lieutenant-General Charles Fleetwood (_son-in-law and Councillor_). *Admiral, or "General of our Fleet, " John Desborough (_brother-in-law and Councillor_: made Admiral in suecession to Blake). *Admiral, or "General of our Fleet, " Edward Montague (_Councillor, and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury_). *Commissary-General of Horse, Edward Whalley (_cousin_). Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, General George Monk. Great State and Law Officers. *Nathaniel Fiennes (_Councillor_), Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal. *John Lisle, ditto. *Bulstrode Whitlocke, one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. *William Sydenham (_Councillor_), ditto. *Henry Lawrence (_Lord President of the Council_). Oliver St. John, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. *John Glynne, Lord Chief Justice of the Upper Bench. *William Lenthall, Master of the Rolls. William Steele, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Baronets. Sir Gilbert Gerrard. Sir Arthur Hasilrig. *Sir John Hobart. *Sir Gilbert Pickering (_Councillor and Chamberlain to the Household_). *Sir Francis Russell (_Henry Cromwell's father-in-law_). *Sir William Strickland. *Sir Charles Wolseley (_Councillor_). Knights. *Sir John Barkstead (knighted by Cromwell Jan, 19, 1655-6). Sir George Fleetwood (knighted by Cromwell Sept. 15, 1656). *Sir John Hewson (_Colonel_, knighted by Cromwell Dec. 5, 1657). *Sir Thomas Honeywood. Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston (Scotch). Sir William Lockhart (_Ambassador_, knighted by Cromwell Dec. 10, 1656). *Sir Christopher Pack (_Alderman_, knighted by Cromwell Sept. 20, 1656). *Sir Richard Onslow. *Sir Thomas Pride (Colonel Pride, knighted by Cromwell Jan, 17, 1655-6). *Sir William Roberts. *Sir Robert Tichbourne (_Alderman_, knighted by Cromwell Dec. 10, 1656). Sir Matthew Tomlinson (_Colonel_, knighted in Dublin by Lord Henry Cromwell. Nov. 25, 1657). Others. *James Berry (_the Major-General_). John Clerke (_Colonel_). *Thomas Cooper (_Colonel_). John Crewe. *John Fiennes. *William Goffe (_the Major-General_). *Richard Ingoldsby (_Cousin's son and Colonel_). *John Jones (_brother-in-law and Colonel_). *Philip Jones (_Councillor and Colonel_, and now "_Comptroller of our Household_"). *Richard Hampden (son of the great Hampden). William Pierrepoint. Alexander Popham. *Francis Rous (_Councillor and Provost of Eton_). *Philip Skippon (_Councillor and Major-General_). *Walter Strickland (_Councillor_). *Edmund Thomas. [1] [Footnote 1: In compiling the list I have used the enumerations inParl. Hist. III. 1518-1519, Whitlocke, IV. 313-314, and Godwin. IV. 469-471 (the last two not perfect): also a Pamphlet of April 1659called _A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament_. ] Such were "Oliver's Peers or Lords, " remembered by that name now, andso called at the time, not because they were Peers or Lords in theold sense, but because they were to be members of that "Other House"which, by Article V. Of the _Petition and Advice_, was toexercise some of the functions of the old House of Lords. Theselection was various enough, and probably as good as could be made;but there must have been great doubts as to the result. Would thoseof the old English hereditary nobility whom it had been deemedpolitic to summon condescend to sit as fellow-peers with Hewson, oncea shoemaker, Pride, once a brewer's drayman, and Berry, once a clerkin some iron works? What of Manchester, recollecting his deadlyquarrel with Cromwell as long ago as 1644-5, and what of Say andSele, who had remained sternly aloof from the Protectorate from thevery first, the pronounced Oliverianism of two of his sonsnotwithstanding? Then would Anti-Oliverian Commoners like Hasilrigand Gerrard, hating the Protector with their whole hearts, take it asa compliment to be removed from the Commons, where they could havesome power in opposition, to a so-called Upper House where they wouldbe lost in a mass of Oliverians? Farther, of the Oliverians who wouldhave willingly taken their seats and been useful, several of the mostdistinguished, such as Henry Cromwell, Monk, Lockhart, and Tomlinson, were at a distance, and could not appear immediately. Finally, if, after all these deductions, a sufficient House should be broughttogether, it would be at the expense of a considerable weakening ofthe Government party in the Commons by the withdrawal of leadingmembers thence, and this at a time when such weakening was mostdangerous. For, by the _Petition and Advice_, were not theAnti-Oliverians excluded from last session, to the number of ninetyor more, to take their seats in the Commons now, without farther letor hindrance from the Protector? Cromwell had, doubtless, foreseen that one of the difficulties of hisSecond Protectorate would be the transition from the system of aSingle-House Parliament, now nine years in use, to a revived form ofthe method of Two Houses. The experiment, however, had been, of hisown suggestion and was still to his liking, Could the Second Housetake root, it might aid him, on the one hand, in that steady andorderly domestic policy which, he desired in general, and it mightincrease his power, on the other hand, to stand firmly on his ownbroad notion of religious toleration. At all events, the time had nowcome when the difficulty must be faced. On Wednesday. Jan. 20, 1657-8; the members of the two Senses, such ofthem at least as had appeared, were duly in their places. Those ofthe new House were assembled in what tad formerly been the House ofLords, Of the sixty-three that had been summoned forty-three hadpresented themselves and had been sworn in by the form of oathprescribed in the _Petition and Advice_, They were theforty-three whose names are marked by asterisks in the preceding listof those summoned. When it is considered that from seven to ten ofthose not asterisked there (e. G. Henry Cromwell, Monk, Steele, Lockhart, and Tomlinson) would certainly have taken their places butfor necessary and distant absence, and might take them yet, the Housemast be called, so far, a very successful one. It had failed mostconspicuously, as had been expected, in one of its proposedingredients. Of the old English Peers there had come in only VisconntFalconbridge and Lord Eure; Warwick, Manchester, Say and Sele, Wharton, even Mulgrave, were absent. More ominous still was theabsence of the Anti-Oliverian commoner Sir Arthur Hasilrig, He hadnot yet come to town, and there was much speculation what course hewould take if he did come. Would he regard himself as still memberfor Leicester in the Commons House, though he had been excludedthence in September 1656, as he had before been driven from the sameseat in the First Parliament of the Protectorate; and would hereclaim that seat now rather than go into the Upper House? Meanwhilefor most of those who had been excluded in Sept. 1658 along withHasilrig there was no such dilemma; and, accordingly, they hadmustered, in pretty large number, to claim their seats in theCommons, The only formality with which they had to comply now was theprescribed oath of the _Petition and Advice_, by which they, aswell as the members of the Upper House, were to swear, among otherthings, "to be true and faithful to the Lord Protector, " &c. , and notto "contrive, design, or attempt anything against his person orlawful authority. " It is evident that Cromwell trusted a good deal tothe effects of this oath; for he had taken care that there should bestately commissioners in the lobby of the Commons from a very earlyhour in the morning to swear the members as they came in. As many as150 or 180 members in all, the formerly excluded and the old sitterstogether, seem to have been in the House, thus sworn, about the timewhen the forty-three were assembled in the adjacent Other House. TheCommons had then resumed business, on their own account, as met afterregular adjournment. They had appointed a Mr. John Smythe to be theirClerk, in lieu of Mr. Henry Scobell, now made general "Clerk of theParliament" and transferred to the Other House, and they had fixedthat day week as a day of prayer for divine assistance, when theUsher of the Black Rod appeared to summon them to meet his Highnessin the Other House. Arranging that the Sergeant-at-Arms should carrythe mace with him, and stand by the Speaker with the mace at hisshoulder through the whole interview with his Highness, the Houseobeyed the summons. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Jan. 20, 1657-8, et seq. ; Ludlow, 596-597; List of the 43 who sat in the Upper House in pamphlet of1659 already cited, called _A Second Narrative_, &c. ] Cromwell's speech to the two Houses (Speech XVI. ) openedsignificantly with the words "_My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Houseof Commons_. " It was a very quiet speech, somewhat slowly andheavily delivered, with "peace" for the key-word. He represented thenation as now in such a nourishing state, especially in thepossession of a settled and efficient Public Ministry of the Gospel, and at the same time of ample religious liberty for all, that nothingmore was needed than oblivion of past differences, and a heartyco-operation of the two Houses with each other, and with himself. Apologizing for being too ill to discourse more at length, he askedLord Commissioner Fiennes to do so for him. The speech of Fiennes wasessentially a continuation in the same strain, but with agorgeousness and variety of metaphor, Biblical and poetical, indescription of the new era of peace and its duties, utterly beyondthe bounds of usual Parliamentary oratory even then, and to whichCromwell and the rest, with all their experience of metaphor from thepulpit, must have listened with astonishment. "Jacob, speaking to hisson Joseph, said _I had not thought to have seen thy face, and lo!God hath showed me thy seed, also:_ meaning his two sons, Ephraimand Manasseh. And may not many amongst us well say some years hence_We had not thought to have seen a Chief Magistrate again among us, and lo! God hath shown us a Chief Magistrate in his Two Houses ofParliament?_ Now may the good God make them like Ephraim andManasseh, that the Three Nations may be blessed in them, saying_God made thee like these Two Houses of Parliament, which two, likeLeah and Rachel, did build the House of God!_ May you do worthilyin Ephrata, and be famous in Bethlehem!" There was more of the samekind, including a comparison of the new constitution of the_Petition and Advice_ to the perfected eduction of the orderlyuniverse out of chaos. It was the speech of a Puritan Jean Paul. [1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 320-326; Commons Journals Jan. 21 andJan. 25, 1657-8. Fiennes's speech is given in full under the lastdate, and must have much talked of. Whitlocke also prints it, IV. 315-329. ] Which of the two Houses was Ephraim and which Manasseh in Fiennes'sown fancy does not appear; but the Commons had already votedthemselves to be Ephraim, and the Other House to be the questionableManasseh. The Anti-Oliverians among them, now in the majority ornearly so, had resolved that their best policy, bound as they were byoath to the Protectorate and the new Constitution of the _Petitionand Advice_ generally, would be to question the powers of the newHouse as defined in the constituting document. The definition hadbeen rather vague. The meaning had certainly been that the new Houseshould be a legislative House, standing in very much the samerelation to the Commons as the old House of Lords had done, and notmerely a Judicial High Court for certain classes of cases, withgeneral powers of advice to the Commons in the conduct of weightyaffairs. This, however, was what the Anti-Oliverians in the Commonscontended; and on this contention, if possible, they were to breakdown the Other House and so make a gap in the new Constitution. Theyhad made a beginning even in the small matter of the relative claimsof Mr. Smythe, their own new Clerk, and Mr. Scobell, as general"Clerk of the Parliament, " to the possession of certain documents;but they found a better opportunity when, at their third sitting(Jan. 22, afternoon), they were informed that "some gentlemen were atthe door with a message from the Lords. " The message was merely arequest that the Commons would join the Lords in an address to hisHighness asking him to appoint a day of humiliation throughout thethree nations; but, purporting to be from "the Lords, " it cut verydeep. By a majority of seventy-five to fifty-one it was resolved"That this House will send an answer by messengers of their own, "i. E. That they would take time to consider the subject. Two more dayspassed, the House transacting some miscellaneous business, butnursing its resolution for a split; and, on Monday the 25th, lo! SirArthur Hasilrig among them, standing up prominently and insisting onbeing sworn and admitted to his seat. He had disdained the summons tothe Other House, and his proper place was _here!_ With somehesitation, he was duly sworn, and so was added to the group ofAnti-Oliverian leaders already in the House. He, Thomas Scott, SirAnthony Ashley Cooper, John Weaver, Sergeant Maynard, and one or twoothers, were thenceforth to head the opposition within doors. Outsidethere were in process of signature certain great petitions to theCommons House intended to widen the difference between it and theProtector. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 479-495; Carlyle, III. 328. ] At this point the Protector interposed. On the afternoon of the sameday on which Hasilrig had taken his seat (Jan. 25) the Commons weresummoned to the Banqueting House in Whitehall, to listen to anotherspeech from his Highness (Speech XVII. ), addressed to them and theOther House together. It opened with the phrase "_My Lords andGentlemen of thee Two Houses of Parliament_, " to obviate anyobjections there might be to the form of opening in the speech offive days before; and it was conceived in the same spirit ofrespectfulness to both Houses and anxiety for their support. But itexpounded, more strongly and at more length than the former speech, the pressing reasons for unanimity now. It surveyed, first, the stateof Europe generally, dwelling on the ominous combination of RomanCatholic interests everywhere, and the perils to the Protestant Causefrom the disputes among the Protestant Powers, and especially fromthe hostility of the Danes and the Dutch to the heroic King ofSweden, who had "adventured his all against the Popish Interest InPoland. " It declared the vital concern of Great Britain in all this, if only because an invasion of Great Britain in behalf of the Stuartswas a settled part of the Anti-Protestant programme. "You haveaccounted yourselves happy in being environed with a great Ditch fromall the world beside. Truly, you will not be able to keep your Ditch, nor your shipping, unless you turn your ships and shipping intotroops of horse and companies of foot, and fight to defend yourselveson _terra firma_. " Then, turning to the state of affairs athome, he insisted on the necessity of a general union in defence ofthe existing settlement. One Civil War more, he said, would throw thenation into a universal confusion, with or without a restoration ofthe Stuarts, and, if _with_ such a restoration, then withconsequences to some that they did not now contemplate. He made noexpress reference to the proceedings in the Commons of the last fewdays, but implored both Houses to abstain from dissensions, stand onthe basis to which he and they had sworn, and join with him in realwork. [1] [Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 329-347. ] The appeal to the Commons was in vain. After three or four moremeetings, they resumed, Jan. 29, the subject of the answer to bereturned to the message of the 22nd from the Other House. By a voteof eighty-four to seventy-eight they resolved to go into GrandCommittee on the subject. This having been done, they resolved, Jan. 30, "That the first thing to be debated shall be the Appellation tobe given to the persons to whom the answer shall be made. " On thisone point there was a protracted debate of four days, theoppositionists insisting that the appellation should be simply "TheOther House, " as in the _Petition and Advice_, and theOliverians contending that that was no name at all, that it had beenemployed in the _Petition and Advice_ only as a blank to beafterwards filled up, and that the proper name would be "The House ofLords. " In one of two divisions on Feb. 3 the votes were eighty-sevenagainst eighty-six; in the other they were ninety-three againsteighty-seven. These divisions, however, were merely incidental, andthe debate was still going on fiercely on Thursday, Feb. 4. Scott hadspoken and was trying to speak again in defiance of rule, withHasilrig backing him, when "Mr. Speaker informed the House that theUsher of the Black Rod was at the door with a message from hisHighness. " Hasilrig seems to have been still on his feet when theBlack Rod, having been admitted, delivered his message: "Mr. Speaker, His Highness is in the Lords House, and desires to speak with you. "Thither they adjourned, and there his Highness briefly addressed thetwo Houses once again (Speech XVIII. ). Or rather he addressed bothHouses only through about half of his speech; for, at a particularpoint, he turned deliberately to the Commons and proceeded thus: "Ido not speak to these Gentlemen, or Lords, or whatsoever you willcall them; I speak not this to _them_, but to _you_. Youadvised me to come into this place [the Second Protectorship], to bein a capacity by your advice. Yet, instead of owning a thing, somemust have I know not what; and you have not only disjointedyourselves but the whole Nation, which is in likelihood of runninginto more confusion in these fifteen or sixteen days that you havesat than it hath been from the rising of the last session to thisday. Through the intention of devising a Commonwealth again, thatsome people might be the men that might rule all! And they areendeavouring to engage the Army to carry that thing. And hath thatman been true to this Nation, whosoever he be, especially that hathtaken an oath, thus to prevaricate? These designs have been madeamong the Army, to break and divide us. I speak this in the presenceof some of the Army: that these things have not been according toGod, nor according to truth, pretend what you will. These things tendto nothing else but the playing of the King of Scots' game (if I mayso call him); and I think myself bound before God to do what I can toprevent it. That which I told you in the Banqueting House was true:that there are preparations of force to invade us, God is my witness, it hath been confirmed to me since, not a day ago, that the King ofScots hath an Army at the water's side, ready to be shipped forEngland. I have it from those who have been eyewitnesses of it. And, while it is doing, there are endeavours from some who are not farfrom this place to stir up the people of this town into atumulting--what if I said into a rebellion? And I hope I shall makeit appear to be no better, if God assist me. It hath been not onlyyour endeavour to pervert the Army while you have been sitting, andto draw them to state the question about a Commonwealth; but some ofyou have been listing of persons, by commission of Charles Stuart, tojoin with any insurrection that may be made. And what is like to comeupon this, the enemy being ready to invade us, but even present bloodand confusion? And, if this be so, I do assign it to this cause: yournot assenting to what you did invite me to by your _Petition andAdvice, _ as that which might prove the Settlement of the Nation. And, if this be the end of your sitting, and this be your carriage, Ithink it high time that an end be put to your sitting. And I DODISSOLVE THIS PARLIAMENT. And let God be judge between you andme!"[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; and Carlyle, III. 348-353. ] Thus, after a second session of only sixteen days, the SecondParliament of the Protectorate was at an end. Cromwell's explanationof his reasons for dissolving it is perfectly accurate. Through thefirst session the Parliament, as a Single House Parliament, had, bythe exclusion of about ninety of those returned to it, been athoroughly Oliverian body, and its chief work had been areconstitution of the Protectorate on a definite basis; but throughthe second session this Parliament, though nominally the same, hadbeen split into two Houses, the House of Lords wholly Oliverian, butthe House of Commons, by the loss of a number of its former membersand the readmission of the excluded, turned into an Anti-Oliverianconclave. Fourteen folio pages of the _Commons Journals_ arethe only remaining formal records of the short and unfortunateSession. Oliver's Lords can have had little more to do than meet andlook at each other. * * * * * There was to be no Parliament more while Cromwell lived. For sevenmonths onwards from Feb. 4, 1657-8, he was to govern, one may say, more alone than ever, more as a sovereign, and with all his energiesin performance of the sovereignty more tremendously on the strain. There was still, of course, the Council, now essentially a PrivyCouncil, meeting twice or thrice a week, or sometimes on specialsummons, and with this novelty in the public style and title of thecouncillors, that those of them who had been in the Upper House ofthe late Parliament retained the name of "Lords. " Lord PresidentLawrence, Lord Richard Cromwell, Lord Fleetwood, Lord Montague, LordCommissioner Fiennes, Lord Desborough, Lord Viscount Lisle, the Earlof Mulgrave, Lord Rous, Lord Skippon, Lord Pickering (_alias_"The Lord Chamberlain"), Lord Strickland, Lord Wolseley, LordSydenham, Lord Jones (_alias_ "Mr. Comptroller"), and Mr. Secretary Thurloe: such would have been the minute of a complete_sederunt_ of the Council when, it resumed duty after thedissolution of the Parliament. There never was such a complete_sederunt:_ ten out of the sixteen was the average attendance, rising sometimes to twelve. Occasionally Cromwell came to one oftheir meetings; but generally they transacted business amongthemselves to his order, and communicated with him privately. A fewof the Councillors were more closely in his confidence than the rest;Whitlocke, though not of the Council, was often consulted aboutspecial affairs; and the man-of-all-work, closeted with his Highnessdaily, was Mr. Secretary Thurloe. His Highness had, moreover, aprivate secretary, Mr. William Malyn, who had been with him alreadyfor several years. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books from Feb. 1857-8 onwards; Thurloe, II. 224. ] As Cromwell had intimated in his Dissolution Speech, his first labourafter the dissolution was to attack that vast complication of dangersof which he had already sure knowledge, and which he declared to havebeen caused, or brought to a head, by the wretched conduct of theCommons through their sixteen days of session, and by the positivetreason of some of their number. He had described the dangers asgathering from two quarters, though they were already interrelatedand would run together at last. There was "the King of Scots' game, "or the plot of a Royalist commotion in conjunction with a threatenedinvasion of the Spanish-Stuartist Army; and there was the design of agreat insurrection of Old Commonwealth's men for a subversion of theProtectorate and a return to the pure Single-House Republic. Of thefirst danger he had said, "I think myself bound before God to do whatI can to prevent it"; the second he had denounced as rebellion, saying, "I hope I shall make it appear to be no better, if God assistme. " For three or four months he was to be engaged in making goodthese words; but he had begun already. On February 6, at a greatmeeting of the Army-officers in the Banqueting House, he haddiscoursed to them impressively for two hours, abashing two or threethat had been tampered with, and receiving from the rest assurancesof their eternal fidelity. Ludlow says that, for several nightssuccessively, before or after this meeting, Cromwell himself took theinspection of the watch among the soldiers at Whitehall. [1] [Footnote 1: 2 Ludlow, 598-600; Godwin. IV. 496-7. ] As always, Cromwell's tenderness towards the Republicans or OldCommonwealth's men appeared now in his dealings with the newcommotion on that side. Colonel Packer and Captain Gladman, twodisaffected officers in his own regiment of horse, appear to havebeen merely dismissed from their commands; and one hears besides ofbut a few arrests, with no farther consequences than examinationbefore the Council and temporary imprisonment. Harrison was againarrested, the Fifth-Monarchy men having, of course, lent themselvesto the agitation, and Harrison having this time, Whitlocke says, beencertainly "deep in it. " Among the others arrested were Mr. JohnCarew, the Regicide and Councillor under the Commonwealth, JohnPortman, who had been secretary to Blake in the Fleet, a HughCourtney, and John Rogers, a preacher. There seems to have been nothought of any proceedings against Hasilrig, Scott, Sir AnthonyAshley Cooper, and the other Anti-Cromwellian leaders in the lateParliament. This, however, is less remarkable than that, withinformation in Cromwell's possession that some of the members of theParliament, nominally Commonwealth's men, had actually commissionsfrom Charles II. And were enlisting persons under such commissionsfor any possible insurrection whatever, he had contented himself withannouncing the fact in his Dissolution Speech and so merelysignifying to the culprits that their lives were in his hands. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 599-600; Whitlocke, IV. 330; Godwin, IV. 502-503. ] The Royalist project and its ramifications were really veryformidable. A Spanish Army of about 8000 men, with Charles II. Andhis refugees among them, _was_ gathered about Bruges, Brussels, and Ostend, with vessels of transport provided; and the burst of agreat Royalist Insurrection at home, in Sussex, London, andelsewhere, _was_ to coincide with the invasion from abroad. TheDuke of Ormond himself had come to London in disguise, to observematters and make preparations. He was in London for three weeks, living in the house of a Roman Catholic surgeon in Drury Lane, tillCromwell, who knew the fact, generously sent Lord Broghill to himwith a hint to be gone. This was early in March, some days after aproclamation "commanding all Papists and other persons who have beenof the late King's party or his son's to depart out of the cities ofLondon and Westminster, " and another proclamation forbidding suchpersons living in the country to stir more than five miles from theirfixed places of abode. On the 12th of that month the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London met his Highnessand the Army-officers by appointment at Whitehall, where his Highnessexplained to them at length the nature of the crisis, informed themparticularly of the strength of the Flanders army of invasion, Ormond's visit, &c. , and solemnly committed to them the safety of theCity. The response of the City authorities was extremely loyal. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 507-508; Carlyle, III. 353-354; _Merc. Pol. _, of March 11-18, 1657-8, quoted in _Cromwelliana_, pp. 170-171. The Proclamation ordering Papists and other Royalistsout of London and Westminster, and that ordering such persons in thecountry to keep near home, are both dated Feb. 25, 1657-8. There arecopies at the end of one of the volumes of the Council's minutes. ] On the principle that the country could not afford for ever thisperiodical trouble of a Royalist Conspiracy, and that some examplesof severity might make the present upheaving the last of the kind, Cromwell had resolved on a few such examples. His information, through Thurloe and otherwise, was unerring. He knew, and had knownfor some time, who were the members of the so-called "Sealed Knot, "i. E. That secret association of select Royalists resident in Englandwho were in closest correspondence with Hyde and the otherCouncillors of Charles abroad, and were chiefly trusted by them forthe management of the cause at home, Indeed, Sir Richard Willis, oneof the chiefs of the "Sealed Knot, " had for some time been inunderstanding with Cromwell, pledged to him by a peculiar compact, and revealing to him all that passed among the Royalists. Hence, before the end of April, some of the members of the "Sealed Knot, "and a number of leading Royalists besides, had been lodged in theTower. Among them were Colonel John Russell (brother of the Earl ofBedford), Colonel John White, Sir William Compton, Sir WilliamClayton, Sir Henry Slingsby (a prisoner in Hull since the Royalistrising of 1654-5, but negotiating there desperately of late to securethe officers and the town itself for Charles), Sir Humphrey Bennett, Mr. John Mordaunt (brother of the Earl of Peterborough), Dr. JohnHewit (a London Episcopal clergyman), Mr. Thomas Woodcock, and aHenry Mallory. It was part of the understanding with Willis thatseveral of the prisoners, Willis's particular friends, should beultimately released. For trial were selected Slingsby, Clayton, Bennett, Mordaunt, Woodcock, Mallory, and Dr. Hewit. The trials werein Westminster Hall, in May and June, before a great High Court ofJustice, consisting of all the judges, some of the great stateofficers, and a hundred and thirty commissioners besides, all inconformity with an Act of the late Parliament prescribing the mode oftrial for such prime offences. Five of the seven were eitheracquitted or spared: only Slingsby and Dr. Hewit were brought to thescaffold. They were beheaded on Tower Hill, June 8. Much influencewas exerted in behalf of Hewit; but, besides that he had been deeplyimplicated, he had been contumacious in the Court, challenging itscompetency, and refusing to plead. Prynne had stood by him, andprepared his demurrer. --From the evidence collected in Dr. Hewit'scase it appeared that he, if not Ormond, had been calculating on theco-operation of Fairfax, Lambent, Sir William Waller, and a greatmany other persons of name, up and down the country, not includedamong those whom Cromwell had seen fit to arrest. As Thurloedistinctly says, "It's certain Sir William Waller was fully engaged, "the omission, of that veteran commander from the number must havebeen an act of grace. About Lambert the speculation seems to havebeen absurd; and, though Cromwell must have known that Fairfax wasnow inclining generally towards a Restoration, he cannot havebelieved anything stronger at present in his case. There was nopublic reference to such high personages; nor, with the exception ofsome friendly expostulation by the Protector with a young Mr. JohnStapley of Sussex (son of Stapley the Regicide and Councillor of theCommonwealth), who _had_ been lured into the business, was anyaccount taken of the other miscellaneous persons in Hewit's list ofreputable sympathisers. It was enough for Cromwell to know who hadswerved so far, and to have made examples of Hewit himself andSlingsby. --These two would have been the only victims but for a wildsub-conspiracy in the City of London while the trials of Hewit andSlingsby were in progress. A few desperate cavaliers about town, thechief of whom were a Sir William Leighton, a Colonel Deane, and aColonel Manley, holding commissions from Charles, had met severaltimes at the Mermaid Tavern and elsewhere, and had arranged for amidnight tumult on Saturday the 15th of May. They were to attack theguard at St. Paul's, seize the Lord Mayor, raise a conflagration nearthe Tower, &c. The hour had come, and the conspirators were in theMermaid Tavern for their final arrangements, when lo! the trainbandson the alert all round them and Barkstead riding through the streetswith a train of five small cannon. A good many were arrested, thirtyof them London prentices. Six of the principals were condemned July2, of whom one was hanged, two were hanged, drawn, and quartered, andthree were reprieved. For the prentices there was all clemency. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 869-870; Godwin, IV. 508-527; _Merc. Pol_, May 13-20, 1658, quoted in _Cromwelliana_, 171-172;Thurloe, VII. 25, 65-69, 88-90, 100, and 147-8; Whitlocke, IV. 334. ] Though the prosecutions of the Royalist plotters were not concludedtill the beginning of July, all real danger from the plot itself hadbeen over in March or April, when Ormond was back in Bruges with thereport that his mission had been abortive and that Cromwell was toostrong. We must go back, therefore, for the other threads of ournarrative. The death of Mr. Robert Rich, Cromwell's son-in-law since thepreceding November, had occurred Feb. 16, 1657-8, only twelve daysafter the dissolution of the Parliament. Cromwell, saddened by theevent himself, had found time even then to write letters ofcondolence and comfort to the young man's grandfather, the Earl ofWarwick. The Earl's reply, dated March 11, is extant. "My pen and myheart, " it begins, "were ever your Lordship's servants; now they arebecome your debtors. This paper cannot enough confess my obligation, and much less discharge it, for your seasonable and sympathisingletters, which, besides the value they deserve from so worthy a hand, express such faithful affections, and administer such Christianadvice, as renders them beyond measure welcome and dear to me. " Then, after pious expression at once of his grief and of his resignation, he concludes with words that have a historical value. "My Lord, " hesays, "all this is but a broken echo of your pious counsel, whichgives such ease to my oppressed mind that I can scarce forbid my penbeing tedious. Only it remembers your Lordship's many weighty andnoble employments, which, together with your prudent, heroic, andhonourable managery of them, I do here congratulate as well as mygrief will give me leave. Others' goodness is their own; yours is awhole country's, yea three kingdoms'--for which you justly possessinterest and renown with wise and good men: virtue is a thousandescutcheons. Go on, my Lord; go on happily, to love Religion, toexemplify it. May your Lordship long continue an instrument of use, apattern of virtue, and a precedent of glory!" On the 19th of April1658, or not six weeks after the letter was written, the old Earlhimself died. By that time the louring appearances had rolled away, and Cromwell's "prudent, heroic, and honourable managery" had againbeen widely confessed. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 527-531, where Warwick's beautiful letter isquoted in full, but where his death is postdated by a month. SeeThurloe, VII. 85. ] Through all the turmoil of the proceedings against the plottersCromwell had not abated his interest in his bold enterprise inFlanders, or in his alliance with the French generally. That alliancehaving been renewed for another year (March 28, 1658), reinforcementswere sent to the English auxiliary army to fit it for farther work inthe Netherlands. Sir John Reynolds, the first commander of that army, having been unfortunately drowned in returning to England on a shortleave of absence (Dec. 5, 1657), the Governorship of Mardike hadcome into the hands of Major-General Morgan, while the command in thefield had been assigned to Lockhart, hitherto the Protector'sAmbassador only, though soldiering had been formerly his morefamiliar business. In conjunction with Turenne, Lockhart had beenpushing on the war, and at length (May 1658) the two armies, andMontagu's fleet, were engaged in the exact service which Cromwellmost desired, and Lockhart had been always urging. This was the siegeof Dunkirk, with a view to the possession of that town, as well asMardike, by the English. To be near the scene of such importantoperations, Louis XIV. And Cardinal Mazarin had taken up theirquarters at Calais; and, not to miss the opportunity of such nearapproach of the French monarch to the shores of England, Cromwelldespatched his son-in-law Viscount Falconbridge on a splendid embassyof compliment and congratulation. He landed at Calais on the 29th ofMay, was received by both King and Cardinal with such honours as theyhad never accorded to an ambassador before, and returned on the 3rdof June to make his report. The very next day there was a tremendousbattle close to Dunkirk between the French-English forces underTurenne and Lockhart and a Spanish army which had come for the reliefof the besieged town under Don John of Austria and the Prince ofCondé, with the Dukes of York and Gloucester in their retinue. Mainlyby the bravery of Lockhart's "immortal six thousand, " the victory ofthe French and English was complete; and, though the Marquis ofLeyda, the Spanish Governor of Dunkirk, maintained the defencevaliantly, the town had to surrender on the 14th of June, two daysafter the Marquis had been mortally wounded in a sally. Next day, according to the Treaty with Cromwell, the town was at once deliveredto Lockhart, Louis XIV. Himself, who was on the spot, handing him thekeys. Already, while that event was unknown, and merely toreciprocate the compliment of Falconbridge's embassy to Calais, therehad been sent across the Channel, in the name of Louis XIV. , the Dukede Crequi, first Gentleman of his Bedchamber, and M. Mancini, thenephew of Cardinal Mazarin, "accompanied by divers of the nobility ofFrance and many gentlemen of quality. " Met at Dover by Fleetwood andan escort, they arrived in London June 16, and remained there tillthe 21st, having audiences with his Highness, delivering to himletters from Louis and the Cardinal, and entertained by him with allpossible magnificence. While they were there, a special envoy joinedthem, announcing the capture of Dunkirk; and so the joy was complete. There was nothing the French King would not do to show his regard forthe great Protector; and, but for his Majesty's illness at thatmoment from small-pox, the Cardinal himself would have come overinstead of sending his nephew. And why should there not be a renewalof the Treaty after the expiry of the present term, to secure anotheryear or two of that co-operation of the English Army and Fleet withTurenne which had led already to such excellent results? What ifOstend, as well as Dunkirk and Mardike, were to be made over to theProtector? These were suggestions for the future, and meanwhile newsuccesses _were_ added to the capture of Dunkirk. Town aftertown in Flanders, including Gravelines at last, yielded to Turenne, or other generals, and received French garrisons, and through thesummer autumn the Spaniards were so beset in Flanders that anexpedition thence for the invasion of England in the interest ofCharles Stuart, or in any other interest, was no longer even apossibility. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 544-551; where, however, the digest of factsdoes not seem accurate in every point. Compare Thurloe, VII. 173-177and-192-3, and _Merc. Pol. _ June 10-17 and June 17-24, 1658 (asquoted in _Cromwelliana_, 172-173), and Guizot, II 380-388. ] While thus turning to account the alliance with the only Catholicpower with which there could be safe dealing, the Protector clungfirmly to his idea of a League among the Protestant Powersthemselves. If Burnet's information is correct, it was about thistime that he contemplated the institution in London of "a Council forthe Protestant Religion in opposition to the Congregation _DePropaganda_ _Fide_ at Rome. " It was to sit at ChelseaCollege: there were to be seven Councillors, with a large yearly fundat their disposal; the world was to be mapped out into four greatregions; and for each region there was to be a Secretary at £500 ayear, maintaining a correspondence with that region, ascertaining thestate of Religion in it, and any exigency requiring interference. That remained only a project; but meanwhile there was the agency ofJephson with the King of Sweden, of Meadows with the King of Denmark, of Downing with the United Provinces, and of other Envoys here andthere, all working for peace among the Protestant States and jointaction against the common enemy. In the Council Order Books for May1658 one comes also upon new considerations of the old subject of theProtestants of the Piedmontese valleys, with a fresh remittance of£3000 for their relief, and an advance at the same time of £500 outof the Piedmontese Fund for the kindred purpose of relieving twentydistressed Bohemian families. Indeed in that month his Highness wasagain at white heat on the subject of his favourite Piedmontese. TheTreaty of Pignerol, by which the persecuting Edict of 1655 had beenrecalled and liberty of worship again yielded to the poor Vaudois(ante pp. 43-44), had gradually been less and less regarded; therewere new troubles to the Vaudois from the House of Savoy; there wereeven signs of a possible repetition in the valleys of all the formerhorrors. How to prevent that was a serious thought with Cromwell amidall his other affairs; and he made his most effective stroke by animmediate appeal to the French King. On the 26th of May there went tohis Majesty one of Milton's Latin State Letters in the Protector'sname, adjuring him, by his own honour and by the faith of theiralliance, to save the poor Piedmontese and secure the Treaty whichhad been made in their behalf by former French intervention; and onthe same day there went a letter to Lockhart urging him to his utmostdiligence in the matter, and suggesting that the French King shouldincorporate the Piedmontese valleys with his own dominion, giving theDuke of Savoy some bit of territory with a Catholic population inexchange. Reaching Louis XIV. And Lockhart at the moment of the greatsuccess before Dunkirk, these letters accomplished their object. Thewill of France was signified at Turin, and the Protestants of theValleys had another respite. [1] [Footnote 1: Burnet (ed. 1823), I. 133; Letters of Downing, &c. InThurloe, Vol. VII. ; Council Order Books of date; Carlyle, III. 357-365. ] Were one asked what subject of home concern had the first place inCromwell's attention through all the events and transactions thathave hitherto been noticed, the answer must still be the same forthis as for all the previous portions of his Protectorate. It was"The Propagation of the Gospel, " with all that was then implied inthat phrase as construed by himself. As regarded England and Wales, the phrase meant, all but exclusively, the sustenance, extension, and consolidation of Cromwell's ChurchEstablishment. The _Trustees for the better Maintenance ofMinisters_, as well as the _Triers_ and _Ejectors_, werestill at work; and in the Council minutes of the summer of 1658, justas formerly, there are orders for augmentations of ministers'stipends, combinations of parishes and chapelries, and the like. Substantially, the Established Church had been brought into acondition nearly approaching Cromwell's ideal; but he had stillnotions of more to be done for it in one direction or another, andespecially in the direction of wider theological comprehension. Hedid not despair of seeing his great principle of concurrent endowmentyet more generally accepted among those who were really andevangelically Protestant. Much would depend on the nature of thatConfession of Faith which Article XI. Of the _Petition andAdvice_ had required or promised as a standard of what should beconsidered qualifying orthodoxy for the Church of the Protectorate. For such a purpose the Westminster Confession of Faith, even thoughits doctrinal portions might stand much as they were, could hardlysuffice as a whole. That Confession was to be recast, or a new oneframed. So the _Petition and Advice_ had provided or suggested;but it may be doubted whether Cromwell was very anxious for any suchformal definition of the creed of his Established Church. Hepreferred the broad general understanding which all men had, withhimself, as to what constituted sound Evangelical Christianity, andhe had more trust in administration in detail through his Triers andEjectors than in the application of formulas of orthodoxy. Here, however, Owen and the other Independent divines most in hisconfidence appear to have differed from him. They felt the want ofsome such confession and agreement for Association and Discipline asmight suit at least the Congregationalists of the Established Church, and be to them what the Westminster Confession was to thePresbyterians. "From the first, all or at least the generality of ourchurches, " they said, "have been in a manner like so many ships, though holding forth the same general colours, yet launched singly, and sailing apart and alone on the vast ocean of these tumultuoustimes, and exposed to every wind of doctrine, under no other conductthan that of the word and spirit, and their particular elders andprincipal brethren, without association among themselves, or so muchas holding out common lights to others to know where they were. " Apetition to this effect, though not in these terms, having beenpresented to his Highness, he reluctantly yielded. He allowed apreliminary meeting of representatives of the Congregational churchesin and about London to be held on June 21, 1658, and circular lettersto be sent out to all the Congregational churches in England andWales convoking a Synod at the Savoy on the 29th of September. TheConfession of Faith, if any, to be drawn up by this Synod was not, ofcourse, to be the comprehensive State Confession foreshadowed inArticle XI. Of the _Petition and Advice_, but only the voluntaryagreement of the Congregationalists or Independents for themselves. In fact, to all appearance, if the harmonious comprehension ofmoderate Anglicans, Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, withinone and the same Church, was to be signified by written symbols aswell as carried out practically, this could be done only by a plan ofconcurrent confessions justifying the concurrent endowments. Even forthat, it would seem, Cromwell was now prepared. Yet he was a littledubious about the policy of the coming Synod, and certainly was asmuch resolved as ever that Synods and other ecclesiastical assembliesshould be only a permitted machinery for the denominationsseverally, and that the Civil Magistrate should determine whatdenominations could be soldered together to make a suitableState-Church, and should supervise and make fast the junctions. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of May 1658; Neal's Puritans, IV. 188 et seq. ; Orme's Life of Owen, 230-232. ] There is very striking evidence of Cromwell's attention at this timeto the spiritual needs of Scotland in particular. --Early in 1657 weleft Mr. James Sharp in London as agent for the Scottish Resolutionerclergy, and Principal Gillespie of Glasgow, Mr. James Guthrie, Mr. James Simpson, and Johnstone of Warriston, with the Marquis of Argylein the background, opposing the clever Sharp, and soliciting hisHighness's favour for the Scottish Protesters or Remonstrants (antepp. 115-116). Both deputations had remained on in Londonperseveringly, Sharp making interest with the Protector throughBroghill; Thurloe, and the London Presbyterian ministers, while Owen, Lockyer, and the rest of the Independent ministers, with Lambert andFleetwood, took part rather with the agents of the Protesters. Wearied with listening to the dispute personally, Cromwell hadreferred it to a mixed committee of twelve English Presbyterians andIndependents, and at length had told both parties to "go home andagree among themselves. " Sharp, Simpson, and Guthrie had, accordingly, returned to Scotland before the autumn of 1657; and, though Gillespie, Warriston, and Argyle were left behind, it wasdifficult to say that either party had won the advantage. Baillie, indeed, writing from Glasgow after Sharp's return, could report thatthe Protesters had, on the whole, been foiled, and chiefly by theinstrumentality of "that very worthy, pious, wise, and diligent youngman, Mr. James Sharp. " But, on the other hand, the Protesters hadobtained some favours. As far as one can discern, Cromwell's judgmentas between the two parties of Scottish Kirkmen had come to be thatthey were to be treated as a Tory majority and a pugnacious Whigminority, whose differences would do no harm if they were both keptunder proper control, and that both together formed such aPresbyterian body as might suitably possess, and yet divide, theChurch of Scotland. For, as has been remarked already, Cromwell, inhis conservatism, had come, on the whole, to be of opinion that thenational clergy of Scotland must be left massively Presbyterian, andthat it would not do to weld into the Scottish Establishment, as intothe English, Baptists, or even ordinary professing Independents, inany considerable number. This would be bad news for those ScottishIndependents and Baptists who had naturally expected encouragementunder Cromwell's rule, but had already been disappointed. It would bethe common policy of the Resolutioners and Protesters to keep ordrive such erratic spirits out of the Kirk. [1]--Whether because thelong stay of the Scottish deputations in London had turned much ofCromwell's thoughts towards Scotland, or simply because his ownanxiety for the "Propagation, of the Gospel" everywhere in hisdominions, had led his eyes at last to that portion of Great Britain, we have now to record one of Cromwell's designs for Scotland worthyof strong mark even in the total history of his Protectorate. OnThursday, April 15, 1658, there being present In the Council the LordPresident Lawrence, Lord Richard Cromwell, the Earl of Mulgrave, andLords Meetwood, Wolseley, Sydenham, Lisle, Strickland and Jones, thefollowing draft was agreed to:--"Oliver, by the grace of God LordProtector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, andthe Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, To ourwell-beloved Council in Scotland greeting: Whereas for about thespace of one hundred years last past the Gospel, blessed be God! hathbeen plentifully preached in the Lowlands of the said nation, andcompetent maintenance provided for the ministers there, yet little orno care hath been taken for a very numerous people inhabiting in theHighlands by the establishing of a ministry or maintenance, --wherethe greatest part have scarce heard whether there be an Holy Ghost ornot, though there be some in several parts, as We are informed, thathunger and thirst after the means of salvation, --and that there is aconcealed maintenance detained in unrighteousness, and diverted fromthe right ends to the sole benefit of particular persons; And beingalso informed that there hath been much revenue for many yearstogether in the late King's time and since concealed and detainedfrom Us by such persons as have no right or title thereunto, and thatsome ministers that were acquainted with the Highland language havein a late summer season visited those parts and been courteously usedby many professing there breathings after the Gospel: We dotherefore, in consideration of their sad condition, the great honourand glory of God, and the good that may redound to the souls of manypoor ignorant creatures, Will and Require you, with all care, industry and conveniency, to find out a way and means for thePlanting of the Gospel in those parts, and that, in pursuance thereofand the better carrying on of so pious a work, our Barons of ourExchequer in Scotland do search and find out _£600 per annum_of concealed estates and revenues belonging to Us, or that may belongto Us and our Successors, and issue forth and pay the same unto suchperson or persons as by our said Council shall be nominated andappointed, out of such concealed rents or any other concealedrevenues whatsoever, quarterly or half-yearly as there shall because, by and with their assent and approbation, to the only use andend aforesaid. For which so doing this shall be your and theirwarrant. Witness Ourself at our Palace at Westminster the ---- day---- 1658. " This does not seem to have sufficed for his Highness; foron Tuesday, May 4, the Council returned to the subject and preparedanother draft, beginning, "Forasmuch as We, taking into considerationthe sad condition of our People in Scotland living in the Highlands, for want of the Preaching of the Gospel and Schools of Learning fortraining up of youth in Learning and Civility, whereby theinhabitants of those places in their lives and whole demeanour arelittle different from the most savage heathens, " and ending withinstructions that £1200 a year, or double the sum formerly proposed, should be set apart out of still recoverable rents and revenues ofalienated Chaplaincies, Deaneries, &c. Of the old Popish andEpiscopal Church of Scotland, and applied to the purposes ofpreaching and education in the Highlands. The sum, in the Scotland ofthat time, might go as far as £7000 or £8000 a year now, though inEngland it would have been worth only about £4200 of present value. Spent on an effective Gaelic mission of travelling pastors, and on afew well-planted schools, it might have accomplished a gooddeal. [2]--Since the beginning of the Protectorate there had beensome care in finding new funds for the Scottish Universities as wellas for the English. Principal Gillespie of Glasgow had procured agrant for the University of that city (Vol. IV. P. 565), andsomething had been done for University-reform in Aberdeen. Accordingly, that Edinburgh might not complain, it was now agreed, ata meeting of Council, July 15, 1658, his Highness himself present; toissue an order beginning, "Know ye that We, taking into ourconsideration the condition of the University of Edinburgh, and that(being but of late foundation, viz. Since the Reformation of Religionin Scotland) the rents thereof are exceedingly small, " and concludingby putting £200 a year at the disposal of the Town Council ofEdinburgh, "being the founders and undoubted patrons of the saidUniversity, " to be applied for University purposes with the adviceand consent of the Masters and Regents. The gift, it appears, hadbeen promised to Principal Leighton, when he had been in London, sometime before, on one of his yearly journeys for his own bookishpurposes, and certainly neither as Resolutioner nor Protester. "Mr. Leighton does nought to count of, but looks about him in hischamber, " is Baillie's characteristic fancy-sketch of Leighton whenhe was back in Edinburgh and the £200 a year had become a certainty;but he adds that the saint had shown more temper than usual atfinding that Mr. Sharp had contrived that £100 of the sum should goto Mr. Alexander Dickson (son of the Resolutioner David Dickson) whohad been recently appointed to the Hebrew Professorship, and whomLeighton did not like. Indeed Baillie makes merry over thepossibility that the poor £200 a year for Edinburgh might never beforthcoming, any more than the richer "flim-flams" Mr. Gillespie hadobtained for Glasgow, though in _them_ he confessed a morelively interest. [3]--Whether Scotland should ever actually handle thenew endowments for her Universities, or the more important £1200 ayear for the civilization of the Highlands, depended on the energyand ability of his Highness's Scottish Council in finding out waysand means. Broghill being still absent in England, but on the wingfor Ireland, and Lockhart and others being also absent, the mostactive of the Councillors now left in Scotland, in association withMonk, seem to have been Lord Keeper Desborough, Swinton of Swinton, and Colonel Whetham. Since August 1656, by the Protector's orders, _three_ had been a sufficient quorum of the Council. Monk, ofcourse, was the real Vice-Protector. Scotland had become his home. Hehad lived for some years in the same house at Dalkeith, "pleasantlyseated in the midst of a park, " occupying all his spare time "withthe pleasures of planting and husbandry"; he had buried his secondson, an infant, in a chapel near; and to all appearance he mightexpect to spend the rest of his days where he was, a wealthy Englishsoldier-farmer naturalized among the Scots, acquiring estates amongthem, and keeping them under quiet command. [4] [Footnote 1: Baillie, III, 836-874 and 577-582; Blair's Life, 333-334; Council Order Books, Feb. 12 and March 5, 1656-7, and Sept. 18, 1657; and a pamphlet published in London in July 1659 with thetitle "_The Hammer of Persecution, or the Mystery of Iniquity inthe Persecution of many good people in Scotland under the Governmentof Oliver, late Lord Protector, and continued by others of the samespirit, disclosed with the Remedies thereof, by Robt. Pitilloh, Advocate. _" The Persecution complained of by Mr. Pitilloh, aScottish lawyer who had left Presbyterianism, was simply thediscouragement under the Protectorate of such Scottish ministers ashad turned Independents and Baptists. The names of some such aregiven: e. G. Mr. John Row, Principal of the College of Old Aberdeen;Mr. Thomas Charters, Kilbride; Mr. John Menzies, Aberdeen; Mr. Seaton, Old Aberdeen; Mr. Youngston, Durris; Mr. John Forbes, Kincardine. "As soon as Oliver was lift up to the throne, " saysthe writer, "some of the Presbyterian faction were sent for; and, toingratiate himself with them, intimating tacitly that it was hislaw no minister in Scotland should have allowance of a livelihoodbut a National Presbyterian, he ordered that none should havestipends as ministers ... But such as had certificates from somefour of a select party, being thirty in all, ... Of the honestPresbyterian party. "] [Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates. ] [Footnote 3: Council Order Books of date, and Baillie, III. 356 and365-366. Another interesting item of Scottish History underCromwell's rule may have a place here, though it belongs properly tothe First Protectorate. In the Council Order Books under date Feb. 17, 1656-7, is this minute:--"On consideration of a report from hisHighness's Attorney General, annexed to the draft of a Patentprepared by his High Counsel learned, in pursuance of the Council'sorder of the 13th of January last, according to the purport of anagreement in writing presented to the Council under the hand of theProvost of Edinburgh on behalf of that city and of Dr. Purves onbehalf of the Physicians of Scotland, the same being for erecting aCollege of Physicians in Scotland: _Ordered_, That it beoffered to his Highness as the advice of the Council that hisHighness will be pleased to issue his warrant for Mr. AttorneyGeneral to prepare a Patent for his Highness's signature accordingto the said Draft. "] [Footnote 4: Council Order Books, Aug. 14, 1656. ] Next to the Propagation of the Gospel by an Established Ministryeverywhere, the fixed idea of Cromwell for his Home-Government, as wehave had again and again to explain, was toleration of all varietiesof religious opinion. Under this head little that is new presentsitself in the part of his Protectorate with which we are nowconcerned. The Anti-Trinitarian Mr. John Biddle, who had been incustody in the Isle of Scilly since Oct. 1655 (ante p. 66), had movedfor a writ of habeas corpus, and had been brought to London, apparently with an intention on Cromwell's part to set him atliberty. Nor had Cromwell lost sight of the poor demented Quaker, James Nayler. There is extant a long and confidential letter to hisHighness from his private secretary Mr. William Malyn, giving anaccount of a visit Malyn had paid to Nayler in Bridewell expressly byhis Highness's command. It is to the effect that he had found Naylerwell enough in bodily health, but so mulishly obstinate or mad thathe could not be coaxed in a long interview to speak even a singleword, and that therefore, though Malyn did not like to "dissuade" hisHighness from "a work of tenderness and mercy, " he could hardly yetadvise Nayler's release, but would carefully apply the money he hadreceived from his Highness for Nayler's comfort. For the Quakersgenerally there was, we fear, no more specific protection thanCromwell's good-nature when a case of cruelty was distinctly broughtwithin his cognisance. What shall we say, however, of one order orintention of Cromwell's Council in June 1658, which, if not againstliberty of conscience in the general sense, was decidedly retrogradein respect of the specific liberty of the press? On the 22nd of thatmonth, nine members being present, though not his Highness, it wasagreed, on a report by Mr. Comptroller, i. E. By Lord Jones, from aCommittee that had been appointed on the subject, to recommend to hisHighness to issue a warrant with this preamble, "Whereas there aredivers good laws, statutes, acts, and ordinances of Parliament inforce, which were heretofore made and published against the printingof unlicensed, seditious, and scandalous books and pamphlets, and forthe better regulating of printing, wherein several provisions arecontained, sufficient to prevent the designs of persons disaffectedto the State and Government of this Commonwealth, who have assumed tothemselves and do continually take upon them a licentious boldness towrite, print, publish, and disperse many dangerous, seditious, blasphemous, Popish, and scandalous pamphlets, books, and papers, tothe high dishonour of God, the scorn and contempt of the Laws and ofall good Order and Government; and forasmuch as it nearly concernsUs, in respect of the public peace and safety, to take care for a dueexecution of the said laws. " What followed was a special charge tothe Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company, together withHenry Hills and John Field, his Highness's Printers, to see to thestrict enforcement in future of the restrictions of certain citedPress Acts, --to wit, the ordinance of the Long Parliament of June 14, 1643 (that against which Milton had written his _Areopagitica_), the similar ordinance of the same Parliament of date Sept. 28, 1647, the Act of the Rump Parliament of Sept. 20, 1649 (Bradshaw's PressAct of the first year of the Commonwealth), and the renewal of thesame Jan. 7, 1652-3. Had this been all, one might have inferrednothing more than one of those occasional panics about Presslicentiousness from the recurrence of which even Milton's reasoninghad never been able to free the Government with which he wasconnected. But at the same meeting it was referred to Lord Fleetwood, Lord Wolseley, Lord Pickering, Lord Jones, Lord Desborough, LordViscount Lisle, and Lord Strickland, or to any two of them, "toconsider of fit persons to be added for licensing of books and toreport the names of such persons to the Council. " This was distinctlyretrogressive; and the regret of Milton must have been none the lessbecause four of the Committee that were to find the new licenserswere men he had named in his _Defensio Secunda_ as heroes of theCommonwealth, and because, as appears from a marginal jotting to theminute as it stands in the Council Order Books, the man thought of atonce for one of the new licensers, or as the person fittest to befirst consulted in the business, was Marchamont Needham. After all, it may have been, like some of the previous movements forpress-regulation, only a push from Paternoster Row in defence of thelegitimate book-trade, and the main intention of the Council itselfmay have been against pamphlets like _Killing no Murder_ orpublications of the indecent order. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates, and Nickolis's _MiltonState Papers_, 143-144 (the last for Malyn's Letter about Nayler). For previous Press Acts referred to by the Council, see ante Vol. III. 266-271, and Vol. IV. 116-118. ] O how stable and grand seemed the Protectorate in the month of July1658! Rebellion at home in all its varieties quashed once more, andnow, as it might seem, for ever; the threatened invasion of theSpaniards and Charles Stuart dissipated into ridicule; a footingacquired on the Continent, and 6000 Englishmen stationed there inarms; Foreign Powers, with Louis XIV. At their head, obeisant to thevery ground whenever they turned their gaze towards the BritishIslands, and dreading the next bolt from the Protector's hands; thosehands evidently toying with several new bolts and poising themtowards the parts of Europe for which they were intended; greatschemes, besides, for England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Colonies, in that inventive brain! All this, we say, in July 1658, by whichtime also it was known that the Protector, so far from fearing toface a new Parliament, was ready to call one and would take all thechances. His immediate necessity, of course, was money. His secondParliament, at the close of its first and loyal session in June 1657, had provided ordinary supplies for three years; but there had been nonew revenue-arrangements in the short second session, and the currentexpenses for the Flanders expedition, the various Embassies, theCourt, and the whole conduct of the Government, far outran the votedincome. The pay of the armies in England, Scotland, and Ireland wasgreatly in arrears; on all hands there were straits for money; and, whatever might be done by expedients and ingenuity meanwhile, theeffective extrication could only be by a Parliament. Not forsubsidies only, however, was Cromwell willing to resort again to thatagency, with all its perils. He believed that, in consequence of whathad passed since the Dissolution in January, any Parliament thatshould now meet him would be in a different mood towards himself fromthat he had recently encountered. Then might there not be proposals, in which he and such a Parliament might agree, for constitutionalchanges in advance of the Articles of the _Petition and Advice_, though in the same direction of orderliness and settled and statelyrule? Was there not wide regret among the civilians that he had notaccepted the Kingship; had his refusal of it been really wise; mightnot that question be reopened? With that question might there not gothe question of the succession, whether by nomination for one lifeonly as was now fixed, or by perpetual nomination, or by a return tothe hereditary and dynastic principle which the lawyers and thecivilians thought the best? Nor could the Second House of Parliamentremain the vague thing it had been so far fashioned. It must beamended in the points in which its weakness had been proved; and allthe evidence hitherto was that it must be made truly and formally aHouse of Lords, if even with the reinstitution of a peerage as partand parcel of the legislative system. Whether such a peerage shouldbe hereditary or for life only might be in doubt; but there weresymptoms that, even if the Legislative Peerage should be only forlife, Cromwell had convinced himself of the utility, for generalpurposes, of at least a Social Peerage with, hereditary rank andtitles. In his First Protectorate he had made knights only; in hisSecond he created a few baronets. Nay, besides favouring the courtesyappellation of "lords, " as applied to all who had sat in the lateUpper House and to the great officers of State, he had added at leasttwo peers of his own making to the hereditary peerage as it had comedown from the late reign. [1] [Footnote 1: In continuation of a former note giving a list of theKnighthoods of Cromwell's First Protectorate so far as I haveascertained them (ante p. 303), here is a list of the Knighthoods ofthe Second:--William Wheeler (Aug. 26, 1657); Edward Ward, of Norfolk(Nov. 2, 1657); Alderman Thomas Andrews (Nov. 14, 1657); ColonelMatthew Tomlinson (Nov. 25, 1657, in Dublin, by Lord Henry Cromwellas Lord Deputy for Ireland); Alderman Thomas Foot, Alderman ThomasAtkins, and Colonel John Hewson (all Dec. 5, 1657); James Drax, Esq. , a Barbadoes merchant (Dec. 31, 1657); Henry Bickering and PhilipTwistleton (Feb. 1, 1657-8); John Lenthall, Esq. , son of SpeakerLenthall (March 9, 1657-8); Alderman Chiverton and Alderman JohnIreton (March 22, 1857-8); Colonel Henry Jones (July 17, 1658, fordistinguished bravery at the siege of Dunkirk). -Baronetcies conferredby Cromwell were the following:--John Read, of Hertfordshire (Juae25. 1657); the Hon. John Claypole, father of Lord Claypole (July 20, 1657); Thomas Chamberlain (Oct. 6, 1657); Thomas Beaumont, ofLeicestershire (March 5, 1657-8); Colonel Henry Ingoldsby, JohnTwistleton, Esq. , and Henry Wright, Esq. , son of the physician Dr. Wright (all April 10, 1658); Griffith Williams, of Carnarvonshire(May 28, 1658); Attorney General Edmund Prideaux and SolicitorGeneral William Ellis (Aug. 13, 1668); William Wyndham, Esq. , co. Somerset (Aug. 28, 1658). The Baronetcies, being rare, seem to havebeen much prized; and that of Henry Ingoldsby raised jealousies (seeletter of Henry Cromwell in Thurloe, VII. 57). --_Peerages_conferred by Cromwell were not likely, any more than his Knighthoodsand Baronetcies, to be paraded by their possessors after theRestoration. But Cromwell's favourite, Colonel Charles Howard, ascion of the great Norfolk Howards, was raised to the dignity ofViscount Howard of Morpeth and Baron Gilsland in Cumberland;Cromwell's relative, Edmund Dunch, of Little Wittenham, Berks, wascreated Baron Burnell, April 20, 1658; and Cromwell, just before hisdeath, made, or wanted to make, Bulstrode Whitlocke a Viscount. ] As early as April the new Parliament had been thought of, and sinceJune there had been a select committee of nine, precognoscing thechances, considering the questions to be brought up, and feeling inevery way the public pulse. The nine so employed were LordsFleetwood, Fiennes, Desborough, Pickering, Philip Jones, Whalley, Cooper, and Goffe, and Mr, Secretary Thurloe. There are a fewglimpses of their consultations in the Thurloe correspondence, wherealso there is a hint of some hope of the compliance at last even ofsuch old Republicans as Vane and Ludlow. But July 1658 had come, andno one yet knew when the Parliament would meet. It could not beexpected then before the end of the year. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 99, 151-152, et seq. ] Before that time Oliver Cromwell was to be out of the world. Thoughbut in his sixtieth year, and with his prodigious powers of will, intellect, heart, and humour, unimpaired visibly in the least atom, his frame had for some time been giving way under the pressure of hisceaseless burden. For a year or two his handwriting, though statelierand more deliberate than at first, had been singularly tremulous, andto those closest about him there had been other signs of physicalbreaking-up. Not till late in July, however, or early in August, wasthere any serious cause for alarm, and then in consequence of theterrible effects upon his Highness of his close attendance on thedeath-bed of his second daughter, the much-loved Lady Claypole. Shehad been lingeringly ill for some time, of a most painful internaldisease, aggravated by the death of her youngest boy, Oliver. HamptonCourt had received her as a dying invalid, tortured by "frequent andlong convulsion-fits"; and here, through a great part of July, thefond father had been hanging about her, broken-hearted and unfit forbusiness. For his convenience the Council had transferred itsmeetings from Whitehall to Hampton Court; but, though he was presentat one there on July 15, he avoided one on July 20, another on July22, and a third on July 27. On the 29th, which was the fifth meetingat Hampton Court, he did look in again and take his place. Next dayLord and Lady Falconbridge arrived at Hampton Court, where already, besides the Protestor and the Lady Protectress, there were LordRichard Cromwell, the widowed Lady Frances, and others of the family, all round the dying sufferer. After that meeting of the Council ofJuly 29 which he had managed to attend, and an intervening meeting atWhitehall without him, the Council was again at Hampton Court onThursday the 5th of August. At this meeting one of the resolutionswas "That Mr. Secretary be desired to make a collection of suchinjuries received by the English from the Dutch as have come to hiscognisance, and to offer the same to the Council on this dayseven-night. " This was a very important resolution, significant of adissatisfaction with the conduct of the Dutch, and a desire to callthem to account again, which had for some time been growing inCromwell's mind; and there can be no doubt that he had suggestedthe subject to the Council. But his Highness did not appear in themeeting himself, and next day Lady Claypole lay dead. Before herdeath his grief had passed into an indefinite illness, described as"of the gout and other distempers"; and, though he was able to cometo London on the 10th of August, on which night Lady Claypole'sremains were interred in a little vault that had been prepared forthem in Henry VIIth's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, he returned toHampton Court greatly the worse. But, after four or five days ofconfinement, attended by his physicians--on one of which days (the13th) Attorney General Prideaux and Solicitor General Ellis were madebaronets--he was out again for an hour on the 17th; and thence tillFriday the 20th he seemed so much better that Thurloe and othersthought the danger past. From the public at large the fact of hisillness had been hitherto concealed as much as possible; and hence itmay have been that on two or three of those days of convalescence heshowed himself as usual, riding with his life-guards in Hampton CourtPark. It was on one of them, most probably Friday the 20th, thatGeorge Fox had that final meeting with him which he describes in hisJournal. The good but obtrusive Quaker had been writing letters ofcondolence and mystical religious advice to Lady Claypole in herillness, and had recently sent one of mixed condolence and rebuke toCromwell himself; and now, not knowing of Cromwell's own illness, hehad come to have a talk with him about the sufferings of the Friends. "Before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, "says Fox, "I saw and felt a waft of death go forth, against him; and, when I came to him, he looked like a dead man. " Fox, nevertheless, had his conversation with the Protector, who told him to come again, but does not seem to have mentioned the inquiry he had been making, through his secretary Mr. Malyn, about the state of Fox'sfellow-Quaker, poor James Nayler. Next day, Saturday, Aug. 21, whenFox went to Hampton Court Palace to keep his appointment, he couldnot be admitted. Harvey, the groom of the bedchamber, told him thathis Highness was very ill, with his physicians about him, and mustbe kept quiet. That morning his distemper had developed itselfdistinctly into "an ague"; which ague proved, within the next fewdays, to be of the kind called by the physicians "a bastard tertian, "i. E. An ague with the cold and hot shivering fits recurring mostviolently every third day, but with the intervals also troublesome. Yet it was on this first day of his ague that he signed a warrant fora patent to make Bulstrode Whitlocke a Viscount. Whitlocke himself, though he afterwards declined the honour as inconvenient, is preciseas to the date. The physicians thinking the London air better for themalady than that of Hampton Court, his Highness was removed toWhitehall on Tuesday the 24th. That was one of the intervals of hisfever, and he seems to have come up easily enough in his coach, andto have been quite able to take an interest in what he found going onat Whitehall. Six days before (Aug. 18) the Duke of Buckingham, whohad been for some time in London undisturbed, living in his mansionof York House with his recently wedded wife, and with Lord and LadyFairfax in their society, had been apprehended on the high-road somemiles from Canterbury; and, whether on the old grounds, or from newsuspicions, the Council, by a warrant issued on the 19th, doubtlesswith Cromwell's sanction intimated from Hampton Court, had committedhim to the Tower. On the very day of Cromwell's return to Whitehallthis business of the Duke was again before the Council, inconsequence of a petition from the young Duchess that he might bepermitted to remain at York House on sufficient security. Fairfaxhimself had gone to Whitehall to urge his daughter's request and totender the security, and Cromwell, though unable to be in theCouncil-room, gave him a private interview. According to the story inthe Fairfax family, it must have been an unpleasant one. Cromwellcould be stern on such a subject even at such a time and to his oldcommander, and so Fairfax "turned abruptly from him in the gallery atWhitehall, cocking his hat, and throwing his cloak under his arm, ashe used to do when he was angry. " Nor was this the last piece ofpublic business of which the Protector, though never more in theCouncil-room, must have been directly cognisant. Whitlocke says hevisited him and was kept to dine with him on the 26th, and that hewas then able to discourse on business; but, as Whitlocke makesHampton Court the place, there must be an error as to the day. Thelast baronetcy he conferred was made good on Saturday the 28th, fourdays after the interview with Fairfax; and even after that, betweenhis fever-fits, he kept some grasp of affairs, and received and sentmessages. But that Saturday of the last baronetcy was a day of markedcrisis. The ague had then changed into a "double tertian, " with twofits in the twenty-four hours, both extremely weakening. So Sundaypassed, with prayers in all the churches; and then came thatextraordinary Monday (Aug. 30, 1658) which lovers of coincidence havetaken care to remember as the day of most tremendous hurricane thatever blew over London and England. From morning to night the windraged and howled, emptying the streets, unroofing houses, tearing uptrees in the parks, foundering ships at sea, and taking even Flandersand the coasts of France within its angry whirl. The storm was felt, within England, as far as Lincolnshire, where, in the vicinity of anold manor-house, a boy of fifteen years of age, named Isaac Newton, was turning it to account, as he afterwards remembered, by jumpingfirst with the wind, and then against it, and computing its force bythe difference of the distances. Through all this storm, as itshuddered round Whitehall, shaking the doors and windows, thesovereign patient had lain on, passing from fit to fit, but talkingin the intervals with the Lady Protectress or with his physicians, while Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Sterry, or some other of the preachersthat were in attendance, went and came between the chamber and anadjoining room. A certain belief that he would recover, which he hadseveral times before expressed to the Lady Protectress and others, had not yet left him, and had communicated itself to the preachers asan assurance that their prayers were heard. Writing to Henry Cromwellat nine o'clock that night, Thurloe could say, "The doctors are yethopeful that he may struggle through it, though their hopes aremingled with much fear. " Even the next day, Tuesday, Aug. 31, Cromwell was still himself, still consciously the Lord Protector. Through the storm of the preceding day Ludlow had made a journey toLondon from Essex on family-business, beaten back in the morning by awind against which two horses could not make way, but contriving lateat night to push on as far as Epping. "By this means, " he says, "Iarrived not at Westminster till Tuesday about noon, when, passing byWhitehall, notice was immediately given to Cromwell that I was cometo town. Whereupon he sent for Lieutenant General Fleet wood, andordered him to enquire concerning the reasons of my coming at suchhaste and at such a time. " If Cromwell could attend to such a matterthat day, he must have been able also to prompt the resolution of hisCouncil in Whitehall the same day in the case of the Duke ofBuckingham. It was that the Duke, on account of his health, might beremoved from the Tower to Windsor Castle, but must continue inconfinement. At the end of the day, Fleetwood, writing to HenryCromwell, reported, "The Lord is pleased to give some little revivingthis evening: after few slumbering sleeps, his pulse is better. " Asnear as can be guessed, it was that same night that Cromwell himselfuttered the well-known short prayer, the words of which, or as nearlyas possible the very words, were preserved by the pious care of hischamber-attendant Harvey. It is to the same authority that we owe themost authentic record of the religious demeanour of the Protectorfrom the beginning of his illness. Very beautifully and simply Harveytells us of his "holy expressions, " his fervid references toScripture texts, and his repetitions of some texts in particular, such repetitions "usually being very weighty and with great vehemencyof spirit. " One of them was "It is a fearful thing to fall into thehands of the living God. " Three times he repeated this; but the textsof promise and of Christian triumph had all along been morefrequently on his lips. All in all, his single short prayer, whichHarvey places "two or three days before his end, " may be read as thesummary of all that we need to know now of the dying Puritan in theseeternal respects. "Lord, " he muttered, "though I am a miserable andwretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace, and Imay, I will, come to Thee. For Thy people, Thou hast made me, thoughvery unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Theeservice; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, thoughothers wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, however Thoudost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give themconsistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on todeliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the name ofChrist glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much upon Thyinstruments to depend more upon Thyself; pardon such as desire totrample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too;and pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ'ssake; and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. " Wednesday, Sept. 1, passes unmarked, unless it may be for the delivery to theLady Protectress, in her watch over Cromwell, of a letter, dated thatday, and addressed to her and her children, from the Quaker EdwardBurrough. It was long and wordy, but substantially an assurance thatthe Lord had sent this affliction upon the Protector's house onaccount of the unjust sufferings of the Quakers. "Will not theirsufferings lie upon you? For many hundreds have suffered cruel andgreat things, and some the loss of life (though not by, yet in thename of, the Protector); and about a hundred at this present day liein holes, and dungeons, and prisons, up and down the nation. " Theletter, we may suppose, was not read to Cromwell, and the Wednesdaywent by. On Thursday, Sept. 2, there was an unusually fullCouncil-meeting close to his chamber, at which order was given forthe removal of Lords Lauderdale and Sinclair from Windsor Castle toWarwick Castle, to make more room at Windsor for the Duke ofBuckingham. That night Harvey sat up with his Highness and againnoted some of his sayings. One was "Truly, God is good; indeed He is;He will not--" He did not complete the sentence. "His speech failedhim, " says Harvey; "but, as I apprehended, it was 'He will not leaveme. ' This saying, that God was good, he frequently used all along, and would speak it with much cheerfulness and fervour of spirit inthe midst of his pain. Again he said, 'I would be willing to live tobe farther serviceable to God and His people; but my work is done. 'He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often tohimself. And, there being something to drink offered him, he wasdesired to take the same, and endeavour to sleep; unto which heanswered, 'It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my design isto make what haste I can to be gone. ' Afterwards, towards morning, using divers holy expressions, implying much inward consolation andpeace, among the rest he spake some exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and judging himself. " This is the last. The next day, Friday, was his twice victorious Third of September, the anniversaryof Dunbar and Worcester. That morning he was speechless; and, thoughthe prayers in Whitehall, and in all London and the suburbs, did notcease for him, people in the houses and passers in the streets knewthat hope was over and Oliver at the point of death. For several daysthere had been cautious approaches to him on the subject of thenomination of his successor, and either on the stormy Monday or laterthat matter had been settled somehow. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books from July 8 to Sept. 2, 1658, giving minutes of fifteen meetings at Whitehall or Hampton Court, Cromwell present at the two first, viz. July 8 (Whitehall), July 15(Hampton Court), and at the sixth, viz. July 29 (Hampton Court), butat no other; Thurloe, VII. 309, 320, 323, 340, 344, 354-356, 362-364, 366-367, 369-370; _A Collection of Several Passagesconcerning his late Highness, Oliver Cromwell, in the Time of hisSickness_ (June 9, 1659, "London, Printed for Robert Ibbetson, dwelling in Smithfield, near Hosier Lane"); _Cromwelliana_, 174-178 (including an abridgment of the last tract); Whitlocke, IV. 334-335; Markham's Life of Fairfax, 373-374; Ludlow, 610; Godwin, IV. 564-575; Carlyle, III. 367-376 (which may well be read again andagain); Sewel's History of the Quakers, 1. 242-245; Life of Newton bySir David Brewster (1860), I. 14. ] CHAPTER II. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE SECOND PROTECTORATE. MILTON STILL IN OFFICE: LETTER TO MR. HENRY DE BRASS, WITH MILTON'SOPINION OF SALLUST: LETTERS TO YOUNG RANELAGH AND HENRY OLDENBURG ATSAUMUR: MORUS IN NEW CIRCUMSTANCES: ELEVEN MOBE STATE-LETTERS OFMILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. CI. -CXI. ): ANDREW MARVELL BROUGHT INAS ASSISTANT FOREIGN SECRETARY AT LAST (SEPT. 1657): JOHN DRYDEN NOWALSO IN THE PROTECTOR'S EMPLOYMENT: BIRTH OF MILTON'S DAUGHTER BY HISSECOND WIFE: SIX MORE STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON (NOS. CXII. -CXIII. ):ANOTHER LETTER TO MR. HENRY DE BRASS, AND ANOTHER TO PETER HEIMBACH:COMMENT ON THE LATTER: DEATHS OF MILTON'S SECOND WIFE AND HER CHILD:HIS TWO NEPHEWS, EDWARD AND JOHN PHILLIPS, AT THIS DATE: MILTON'SLAST SIXTEEN STATE-LETTERS FOR OLIVER CROMWELL (NOS. CXVIII. -CXXXIII. ), INCLUDING TWO TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN. TWOON A NEW ALARM OF A PERSECUTION OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, ANDSEVERAL TO LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN: IMPORTANCE OF THIS LASTGROUP OF THE STATE-LETTERS, AND REVIEW OF THE WHOLE SERIES OFMILTON'S PERFORMANCES FOR CROMWELL: LAST DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS OF THEPROTECTORATE, AND ANDREW MARVELL IN CONNEXION WITH THEM: INCIDENTSOF MILTON'S LITERARY LIFE IN THIS PERIOD: YOUNG GUNTZER'S_DISSERTATIO_ AND YOUNG KECK'S PHALAECIANS: MILTON'S EDITION OFRALEIGH'S _CABINET COUNCIL_: RESUMPTION OF THE OLD DESIGN OF_PARADISE LOST_ AND ACTUAL COMMENCEMENT OF THE POEM: CHANGE FROMTHE DRAMATIC POEM TO THE EPIC: SONNET IN MEMORY OF HIS DECEASEDWIFE. Through the Second Protectorate Milton remained in office just asbefore. He was not, however, as had been customary before at thecommencement of each new period of his Secretaryship, sworn inafresh. Thurloe was sworn in, both as General Secretary and as fullCouncillor, and Scobell and Jessop were sworn in as Clerks;[1] but wehear of no such ceremony in the case of Milton. His LatinSecretaryship, we infer, was now regarded as an excrescence from theWhitehall establishment, rather than an integral part of it. An oathmay have been administered to him privately, or his old generalengagement may have sufficed. [Footnote 1: Council Order Books, July 13 and 14, 1657. ] Our first trace of Milton after the new inauguration of Cromwell isin one of his Latin Familiar Epistles, addressed to some youngforeigner in London, of whom I know nothing more than may be learntfrom the letter itself:-- "To the Very Distinguished MR. HENRY DE BRASS. "I see, Sir, that you, unlike most of our modern youth in their surveys of foreign lands, travel rightly and wisely, after the fashion of the old philosophers, not for ordinary youthful quests, but with a view to the acquisition of fuller erudition from every quarter. Yet, as often as I look at what you write, you appear to me to be one who has come among strangers not so much to receive knowledge as to impart it to others, to barter good merchandise rather than to buy it. I wish indeed it were as easy for me to assist and promote in every way those excellent studies of yours as it is pleasant and gratifying to have such help asked by a person of your uncommon talents. "As for the resolution you say you have taken to write to me and request my answers towards solving those difficulties about which for many ages writers of Histories seem to have been in the dark, I have never assumed anything of the kind as within my powers, nor should I dare now to do so. In the matter of Sallust, which you refer to me, I will say freely, since you wish me to tell plainly what I do think, that I prefer Sallust to any other Latin historian; which also was the almost uniform opinion of the Ancients. Your favourite Tacitus has his merits; but the greatest of them, in my judgment, is that he imitated Sallust with all his might. As far as I can gather from what you write, it appears that the result of my discourse with you personally on this subject has been that you are now nearly of the same mind with me respecting that most admirable writer; and hence it is that you ask me, with reference to what he has said, in the introduction to his _Catilinarian War_--as to the extreme difficulty of writing History, from the obligation that the expressions should be proportional to the deeds--by what method I think a writer of History might attain that perfection. This, then, is my view: that he who would write of worthy deeds worthily must write with mental endowments and experience of affairs not less than were in the doer of the same, so as to be able with equal mind to comprehend and measure even the greatest of them, and, when he has comprehended them, to relate them distinctly and gravely in pure and chaste speech. That he should do so in ornate style, I do not much care about; for I want a Historian, not an Orator. Nor yet would I have frequent maxims, or criticisms on the transactions, prolixly thrown in, lest, by interrupting the thread of events, the Historian should invade the office of the Political Writer: for, if the Historian, in explicating counsels and narrating facts, follows truth most of all, and not his own fancy or conjecture, he fulfils his proper duty. I would add also that characteristic of Sallust, in respect of which he himself chiefly praised Cato, --to be able to throw off a great deal in few words: a thing which I think no one can do without the sharpest judgment and a certain temperance at the same time. There are many in whom you will not miss either elegance of style or abundance of information; but for conjunction of brevity with abundance, i. E. For the despatch of much in few words, the chief of the Latins, in my judgment, is Sallust. Such are the qualities that I think should be in the Historian that would hope to make his expressions proportional to the facts he records. "But why all this to you, who are sufficient, with the talent you have, to make it all out, and who, if you persevere in the road you have entered, will soon be able to consult no one more learned than yourself. That you do persevere, though you require no one's advice for that, yet, that I may not seem to have altogether failed in replying correspondingly with the value you are pleased to put upon my authority with you, is my earnest exhortation and suggestion. Farewell; and all success to your real worth, and your zeal for acquiring wisdom. "Westminster: July 15, 1657. " Henry Oldenburg, and his pupil Richard Jones, _alias_ youngRanelagh, had left Oxford in April or May 1657, after about a year'sstay there, and had gone abroad on a tour which was to extend overmore than four years. It was an arrangement for the farther educationof young Ranelagh in the way most satisfactory to his mother, LadyRanelagh, and perhaps also to his uncle, Robert Boyle, neither ofwhom seems to have cared much for the ordinary University routine;and particulars had been settled by correspondence between Oldenburgat Oxford and Lady Ranelagh in Ireland. [1] Young Ranelagh, I find, took with him as his servant a David Whitelaw, who had been servantto Durie in his foreign travels: "my man, David Whitelaw, " as Duriecalls him. [2] The ever-convenient Hartlib was to manage theconveyance of letters to the travellers, wherever they might be. [3] [Footnote 1: Letter of Oldenburg to Boyle, dated April! 5, 1657, given in Boyle's Works (V. 299). ] [Footnote 2: Letters of Durie in _Vaughan's Protectorate_ (II. 174 and 195). ] [Footnote 3: Letter of Oldenburg in Boyle's Works (V. 301). ] They went, pretty directly, to Saumur in the west of France, apleasant little town, with a college, a library, &c. , which they hadselected for their first place of residence, rather than Paris. AnItalian master was procured to teach young Jones "something ofpractical geometry and fortification"; and, for the rest, Oldenburghimself continued to superintend his studies, directing them a gooddeal in that line of physical and economical observation which mightbe supposed congenial to a nephew of Boyle, and which had becomeinteresting to himself. "As for us here, " wrote Oldenburg to Boylefrom Saumur, Sept. 8, 1657, "we are, through the goodness of God, inperfect health; and, your nephew having spent these two or threemonths we have been here very well and in more than ordinarydiligence, I cannot but give him some relaxation in taking a view ofthis province of Anjou during this time of vintage; which, though itbe a very tempting one to a young appetite, yet shall, I hope, by acareful watchfulness, prove unprejudicial to his health. "[1] A goodwhile before Oldenburg wrote this letter to Boyle both he and hispupil had written to Milton, and Milton's replies had already beenreceived. They are dated on the same day, but we shall put that toyoung Ranelagh first. It will be seen that Oldenburg must have had asight of it from his pupil before he wrote the above to Boyle:-- [Footnote 1: Boyle's Works, V. 299. ] "To the noble youth, RICHARD JONES. "That you made out so long a journey without inconvenience, and that, spurning the allurements of Paris, you have so quickly reached your present place of residence, where you can enjoy literary leisure and the society of learned persons, I am both heartily glad, and set down to the credit of your disposition. There, so far as you keep yourself in bounds, you will be in harbour; elsewhere you would have to beware the Syrtes, the Rocks, and the songs of the Sirens. All the same I would not have you thirst too much after the Saumur vintage, with which you think to delight yourself, unless it be also your intention to dilute that juice of Bacchus, more than a fifth part, with the freer cup of the Muses. But to such a course, even if I were silent, you have a first-rate adviser; by listening to whom you will indeed consult best for your own good, and cause great joy to your most excellent mother, and a daily growth of her love for you. Which that you may accomplish you ought every day to petition Almighty God, Farewell; and see that you return to us as good as possible, and as cultured as possible in good arts. That will be to me, beyond others, a most delightful result. "Westminster: Aug. 1, 1657. " The letter to Oldenburg contains matter of more interest:-- "To HENRY OLDENBURG. "I am glad you have arrived safe at Saumur, the goal of your travel, as I believe. You are not mistaken in thinking the news would be very agreeable to me in particular, who both love you for your own merit, and know the cause of your undertaking the journey to be so honourable and praiseworthy. "As to the news you have heard, that so infamous a priest has been called to instruct so illustrious a church, I had rather any one else had heard it in Charon's boat than you in that of Charenton; for it is mightily to be feared that whoever thinks to get to heaven under the auspices of so foul a guide will be a whole world awry in his calculations. Woe to that church (only God avert the omen!) where such ministers please, mainly by tickling the ears, --ministers whom the Church, if she would truly be called _Reformed_, would more fitly cast out than desire to bring in. "In not having given copies of my writings to any one that does not ask for them, you have done well and discreetly, not in my opinion alone, but also in that of Horace:-- "Err not by zeal for us, nor on our books Draw hatred by too vehement care. "A learned man, a friend of mine, spent last summer at Saumur. He wrote to me that the book was in demand in those parts; I sent only one copy; he wrote back that some of the learned to whom he had lent it had been pleased with it hugely. Had I not thought I should be doing a thing agreeable to them, I should have spared you trouble and myself expense. But, "If chance my load of paper galls your back, Off with, it now, rather than in the end Dash down the panniers cursing. "To our Lawrence, as you bade me, I have given greetings in your name. For the rest, there is nothing I should wish you to do or care for more than see that yourself and your pupil get on in good health, and that you return to us as soon as possible with all your wishes fulfilled. "Westminster: Aug. 1, 1657. " The books mentioned in the third paragraph as having been sent byMilton to Saumur in Oldenburg's charge must have been copies of the_Defensio Secunda_ and of the _Pro Se Defensio_. The personmentioned with such loathing in the second paragraph was the hero ofthose performances, Morus. The paragraph requires explanation. ForMorus, uncomfortable at Amsterdam, and every day under some freshdiscredit there, a splendid escape had at length presented itself. Hehad received an invitation to be one of the ministers of theProtestant church of Charenton, close to Paris. This church ofCharenton was indeed the main Protestant church of Paris itself andthe most flourishing representative of French Protestantismgenerally. For the French law then obliged Protestants to have theirplaces of worship at some distance from the cities and towns in whichthey resided, and the village of Charenton was the ecclesiasticalrendezvous of the chief Protestant nobility and professional men ofthe capital, some of whom, in the capacity of lay-elders, wereassociated in the consistory of the church with the ministers orpastors. Of these, in the beginning of 1657, there had been five, allmen of celebrity in the French Protestant world--viz. Mestrezat, Faucheur, Drelincourt, Daillé, and Gaches; but the deaths of the twofirst in April and May of that year had occasioned vacancies, and itwas to fill up one of these vacancies that Morus had been invitedfrom Amsterdam. Oldenburg, as we understand, had heard this piece ofnews, when passing through Paris on his way to Saumur, probably inJune. He had heard it, seemingly, on board the Charenton boat--i. E. As we guess, on board the boat plying on the Marne between Paris andCharenton. Hence the punning phraseology of Milton's reply. He wouldrather that such a piece of news had been heard by anybody on board_Charon's/_ boat than by Oldenburg on board the _Charenton_wherry. Altogether the idea that Morus should be admitted as one ofthe pastors of the most important Protestant church in France was, wecan see, horrible to him; and he hoped the calamity might yet beaverted. --For the time it seemed likely that it would be. There hadbeen ample enough knowledge in Paris of the coil of scandals aboutthe character of Morus; and copies of Milton's two Anti-Moruspamphlets had been in circulation there long before Oldenburg tookwith him into France his new bundle of them for distribution. Accordingly, though there was a strong party for Morus, disbelievingthe scandals, and anxious to have him for the Charenton church onaccount of his celebrity as a preacher, there were dissentients amongthe congregation and even in the consistory itself. One hears ofSieur Papillon and Sieur Beauchamp, Parisian advocates, and elders inthe church, as heading the opposition to the call. The business ofthe translation of Morus from Amsterdam was, therefore, no easy one. In any case it would have brought those Protestant church courts ofFrance that had to sanction the admission of Morus at Charenton intocommunication about him with those courts of the Walloon Church inHolland from whose jurisdiction he was to be removed; and one canimagine the peculiar complications that would arise in a case soextraordinary and involving so much inquiry and discussion. In fact, for more than two years, the business of the translation of Morusfrom Amsterdam to Paris was to hang notoriously between the DutchWalloon Synods, who in the main wanted to disgrace and depose himbefore they had done with him, and the French Provincial Synods, nowroused in his behalf, and willing in the main to receive him backinto his native country as a man not without his faults, but moresinned against than sinning. [1]--And so for the present (Aug. 1657)Morus was still in his Amsterdam professorship, longing to be inFrance, but uncertain whether his call thither would hold. How thecase ended we shall see in time. Meanwhile it is quite apparent thatMilton was not only willing, but anxious, that _his_ influenceshould be imported into the affair, to turn the scale, if possible, against the man he detested. As he had not heard of the call of Morusto Charenton till the receipt of Oldenburg's letter, his motivesoriginally for despatching a bundle of his Anti-Morus pamphlets intoFrance with Oldenburg can have been only general; but one gathersfrom his reply to Oldenburg that he thought the pamphlets might nowbe of use specifically in the business of the proposed translation. Indeed, one can discern a tone of disappointment in Milton's letterwith Oldenburg's report of what he had been able to do with thepamphlets hitherto. He might have spared himself the expense, hesays, and Oldenburg the trouble. Oldenburg, as we know (Vol. IV. Pp. 626-627), had never been very enthusiastic over Milton's onslaughtson Morus, The distribution of the Anti-Morus publications, therefore, may not have been to his taste. Milton seems to hint as much. [Footnote 1: Bayle, Art. Morus; Brace's Life of Morus, 204 etseq. --It was deemed of great importance by the English Royaliststhat they should be able to report of Charles II. , when Paris washis residence, that he attended the church at Charenton. There is aletter to him of April 17, 1653, saying his non-attendance there was"much to his prejudice. " (Macray's Cal. Of Clarendon Papers, II. 193). ] In August 1657 Milton, after three months of total rest, so far asthe records show, from the business of writing foreign Letters forthe Protector, resumed that business. We have attributed his releasefrom it for so long to the fact that his old assistant MEADOWS wasagain in town, and available in the Whitehall office, in the intervalbetween his return from Portugal and his departure on his new missionto Denmark; and the coincidence of Milton's resumption of this kindof duty with the precise time of Meadows's preparations for his newabsence is at least curious. Though it had been intended that heshould set out for Denmark immediately after his appointment to themission in February, he had been detained for various reasons; andnow in August, the great war between Denmark and Sweden having justbegun, he was to set out in company with another envoy: viz. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM JEPHSON, whom Cromwell had selected as asuitable person for a contemporary mission, to the King of Sweden(ante p. 312). It will be observed that eight of the following tenLetters of Milton, all written in August or September 1657, andforming his first contribution of letters for the SecondProtectorate, relate to the missions of Jephson and Meadows:-- (CI. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _August_ 1657:--His Highness has heard with no ordinary concern that war has broken out between Sweden and Denmark. [He had received the news August 13: see ante p. 313. ] He anticipates great evils to the Protestant cause in consequence. He sends, therefore, the most Honourable WILLIAM JEPHSON, General, and member of his Parliament, as Envoy-extraordinary to his Majesty for negotiation in this and in other matters. He begs a favourable reception for Jephson. (CII. ) TO THE COUNT OF OLDENBURG, _August_ 1657:--On his way to the King of Sweden, then in camp near Lubeck, JEPHSON would have to pass through several of the German states, and first of all through the territories of this old and assured friend of the English Commonwealth and of the Protector (see Vol. IV. Pp. 424, 480-1, 527, 635-6). Cromwell, therefore, introduces JEPHSON, and requests all furtherance for him. (CIII. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF BREMEN, _August_ 1657:--Also to introduce and recommend JEPHSON; who, on his route from Oldenburg eastwards, would pass through Bremen. (CIV. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF HAMBURG, _August_ 1657:--Still requesting attention to JEPHSON on his transit. (CV. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF LUBECK, _August_ 1657:--Still recommending JEPHSON; who, at Lubeck, would be near his destination, the camp of Charles Gustavus. (CVI. ) TO FREDERICK-WILLIAM, MARQUIS OF BRANDENBURG, _August_ 1657:--At first this Prince, better known now as "The Great Elector, Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia, " had been on the side of Sweden against Poland; and, in conjunction with Charles Gustavus, he had fought that great Battle of Warsaw (July 1656) which had nearly ruined the Polish King, John Casimir. Having been detached from his alliance with Sweden, however, in a manner already explained (ante p. 313), he had now a very difficult part to play in the Swedish-Polish-German-Danish entanglement. --As Jephson had instructions to treat with this important German Prince, as well as with the King of Sweden, Cromwell begs leave to introduce him formally. "The singular worth of your Highness both in peace and in war, and the greatness and constancy of your spirit, being already so famed over the whole world that almost all neighbouring Princes are eager for your friendship, and no one could desire for himself a more faithful and constant friend and ally, in order that you may understand that we also are in the number of those that have the highest and strongest opinion of your remarkable services to the Christian Commonweal, we have sent to you the most Honourable WILLIAM Jephson, " &c. : so the note opens; and the rest is a mere request that the Elector will hear what Jephson has to say. --The relations between the Elector and the Protector had hitherto been rather indefinite, if not cool; and hence perhaps the highly complimentary strain of this letter. (CVII. ) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF HAMBURG, _August_ 1657:--All the foregoing, for Jephson, must have been written between August 13, when the news of the proclamation of war between Sweden and Denmark reached London, and August 29, when Jephson set out on his mission. MEADOWS left London, on his distinct mission, two days afterwards. [1] His route was not to be quite the same as Jephson's; but he also was to pass through Hamburg. He is therefore recommended separately, by this note, to the authorities of that city. His letters of credence to the King of Denmark had, doubtless, already been made out, --possibly by himself. They are not among Milton's State-letters. [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, under Aug. 1657. ] (CVIII. ) To M. DE BORDEAUX, AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY FOR THE FRENCH KING, _August_ 1657:--There has been presented to the Lord Protector a petition from Samuel Dawson, John Campsie, and John Niven, merchants of Londonderry, stating that, shortly after the Treaty with France in 1655, a ship of theirs called _The Speedwell_ ("name of better omen than the event proved"), the master of which was John Ker, had been seized, on her return voyage from Bordeaux to Derry, by two armed vessels of Brest, taken into Brest harbour, and sold there with her cargo. The damages altogether are valued at £2, 500. The petitioners have not been able to obtain redress in France. The matter has been referred by the Protector to his Council. They find that the petitioners have a just right either to the restitution of their ship and cargo or to compensation in money. "I therefore request of your Excellency, and even request it in the name of the most Serene Lord Protector, that you will endeavour your utmost, and join also the authority of your office to your endeavours, that as soon as possible one or other be done. " The wording shows that the letter was not signed by the Protector himself, but only by Lawrence as President of the Council. It was probably not in rule for the Protector personally to write to an Ambassador in such a case. (CIX. ) TO THE GRAND-DUKE OF TUSCANY, _Sept. _ 1657:--A letter of rather peculiar tenor. A William Ellis, master of a ship called _The Little Lewis_, had been hired at Alexandria by the Pasha of Memphis, to carry rice, sugar, and coffee, either to Constantinople or Smyrna, for the use of the Sultan himself; instead of which the rascal, giving the Turkish fleet the slip, had gone into Leghorn, where he was living on his booty. "The act is one of very dangerous example, inasmuch as it throws discredit on the Christian name and exposes to the risk of robbery the fortunes of merchants living under the Turk. " The Grand-Duke is therefore requested to be so good as to arrest Ellis, keep him in custody, and see to the safety of the ship and cargo till they are restored to the Sultan. (CX. ) TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY (undated)[1]:--This letter to the prince on whom the Piedmontese massacre has conferred such dark celebrity is on very innocent and ordinary business. The owners of a London ship, called The Welcome, Henry Martin master, have Informed his Highness that, on her way to Genoa and Leghorn, she was seized by a French vessel of forty-six guns having letters of marque from the Duke, and carried into his port of Villafranca. The cargo is estimated at £25, 000. Will the Duke see that ship and cargo are restored to the owners, with damages? He may expect like justice in any similar case in which he may have to apply to his Highness. [Footnote 1: Not in Printed Collection nor in Phillips; but in theSkinner Transcript as No. 120 with the title _Duci Subaudię_, and printed thence by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 11-12). No date is given in the Skinner Transcript; and the insertionof the letter here is a mere guess. The place where it occurs in theSkinner Transcript suggests that it came rather late in theProtectorate, perhaps even after the present point. The years 1656and 1657 seem the likeliest. ] (CXI. ) TO THE MARQUIS OF BRANDENBURG, _Sept. _ 1657:--This is an important letter. "By our last letter to your Highness, " it begins, "either already delivered or soon to be delivered by our agent WILLIAM JEPHSON, we have made you aware of the legation intrusted to him; and we could not but there make some mention of your high qualities and signification of our goodwill towards you. Lest, however, we should seem only cursorily to have touched on your superlative services in the Protestant cause, celebrated so highly in universal discourse, we have thought it fit to resume that subject, and to offer you our respects, not indeed more willingly or with greater devotion, but yet somewhat more at large. And justly so, when news is brought to our ears every day that your faith and constancy, though tempted by all kinds of intrigues, solicited by all contrivances, yet cannot by any means be shaken, or diverted from the friendship of the brave King your ally, --and that too when the affairs of the Swedes are in such a posture that, in preserving their alliance, it is manifest your Highness is led rather by regard to the common cause of the Reformed Religion than by your own interests; when we know too that, though surrounded on all sides, and all but besieged, either by hidden or nearly imminent enemies, you yet, with your valiant but far from large forces, stand out with such firmness and strength of mind, such counsel and prowess of generalship, that the sum and weight of the whole business seems to rest, and the issue of this war to depend, mainly on your will. " The Protector goes on to say that, in such circumstances, he would consider it unworthy of himself not to testify in a special manner his sympathy with the Elector and regard for him. He apologizes for delay hitherto in treating with the Elector's agent in London, JOHN FREDERICK SCHLEZER, on the matters about which he had been sent; and he closes with fervent good wishes. --Evidently, the recognition of the importance of the Elector, and anxiety as to the part he might take in the war now involving Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and part of Germany, had been growing stronger in Cromwell's mind within the last few weeks. From the language of the letter one would infer either that Cromwell did not yet fully know of that treaty of Nov. 1656 by which the Polish King had bought off the Elector from the Swedish alliance by ceding to him the full sovereignty of East Prussia, or else that since then the Elector had been oscillating back to the alliance. --SCHLEZER had been in London since 1655, and had lodged at Hartlib's house in the end of that year. [1] [Footnote 1: Letter of Hartlib's in Worthington's Diary andCorrespondence, edited by Crossley (I, 66). ] Ten Latin State-letters nearly all at once, implying as they doconsultations with Thurloe, if not also interviews with the Protectorand the Council, argue a pretty considerable demand upon Milton atthis date for help again in the Foreign Secretaryship. It would seem, however, that it had occurred to the Protector and theCouncil that they were again troubling Mr. Milton too much or lefttoo dependent on him, and that, with the increase of foreign businessnow in prospect in consequence of the Swedo-Danish war and itscomplications, it would be well to have an assistant to him, such asMeadows had been. Accordingly, at a meeting of the Council on TuesdaySept. 8, 1657, Cromwell himself present, with Lawrence, Fleetwood, Lord Lisle, Strickland, Pickering, Sydenham, Wolseley, and Thurloe, there was this minute: "Ordered by his Highness the Lord Protector, by and with the advice of the Council, that MR. STERRY do, in theabsence of Mr. Philip Meadows, officiate in the employment of Mr. Meadows under Mr. Secretary [Thurloe], and that a salary of 200 merks_per annum_ be allowed him for the same. "[1] Whether this Mr. Sterry was the preacher Mr. Peter Sterry, already employed andsalaried as one of the Chaplains to the Council, or only a relativeof his, I have not ascertained; but it is of the less consequencebecause the appointment did not take effect. The person actuallyappointed was MR. ANDREW MARVELL at last. We say "at last, " for hadhe not been recommended for the precise post by Milton four years anda half before under the Rump Government? Milton may have helped nowto bring him in, or it may have been done by Oliver himself inrecognition of Marvell's merits in his tutorship of young Dutton andof his Latin and English Oliverian verses. There seems to be norecord of Marvell's appointment in the Order Books; but he tells ushimself it was in the year 1657. "As to myself, " he wrote in 1672, "I never had any, not the remotest, relation to public matters, norcorrespondence with the persons then predominant, until the year1657, when indeed I entered into an employment for which I was notaltogether improper. " When Marvell wrote this, he was oblivious ofsome particulars; for, though it is true that he was in no publicemployment under the Protectorate till 1657, it can hardly be saidthat he had not "the remotest relation" till then to public matters, nor any "correspondence with the persons then predominant. " Enoughfor us that, from the year he specifies, and precisely from Septemberin that year, he was Milton's colleague in the Foreign or LatinSecretaryship. "_Colleague_" we may call him, for his salary wasto be £200 a year (not 200 merks, as had been proposed for Sterry), the same as Milton's was, and the same as Meadows's had been; and yetnot _quite_ "colleague, " inasmuch as Milton's £200 a year was alife-pension, and also inasmuch as, in stepping into Meadows's place, Marvell became one of Thurloe's subordinates in the office, whilesomething of the original honorary independence of the ForeignSecretaryship still encircled Milton. --Just as Marvell had for sometime been wistful after a place in the Council Office, suitable for ascholar and Latinist, so there was another person now in the samecondition of outside waiting and occasional looking-in. "Receivedthen of the Right honble. Mr. Secretary Thurloe the sume of fiftypounds: £50: _by mee_, JOHN DRIDEN" is a receipt, of date "19October 1657, " among Thurloe's papers in the Record Office--the words"_by mee_, JOHN DRIDEN" in a neat slant hand, different from thebody of the receipt. The poet Dryden, it may be remembered, was thecousin and client of Sir Gilbert Pickering, one of the most importantmen in the Council and one of the most strongly Oliverian. The poetleft Cambridge, his biographers tell us, without his M. A. Degree, "about the middle of 1657, " and it was a taunt against him afterwardsthat he had begun his London life as "clerk" to Sir Gilbert. As hecannot have got the £50 from Thurloe for nothing, the probability isthat he had been employed, through Sir Gilbert, to do some clerklyor literary work for the Council. No harm, at all events, inremembering the ages at this date of the three men of letters thuslinked to the Protectorate at its centre. Milton was in hisforty-ninth year, Marvell in his thirty-eighth, Dryden in histwenty-seventh. [2] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books of date. ] [Footnote 2: Marvell's _Rehearsal Transprosed_ (in Mr. Grosart'sedition of Marvell's Prose Works), I. 322; Receipt in Record Officeas quoted; Christie's Memoir of Dryden prefixed to Globe edition ofDryden's Poetical Works. --That Marvell was appointed Milton'scolleague or assistant precisely in September 1657 is proved by thefact that his first quarter's salary appears in certain accounts asdue in the following December (see Thurloe, VII. 487). ] On the day on which Dryden received his fifty pounds from Thurloethere was this entry in the birth-registers of the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster: "October 19, 1657, _Katherin Milton, d. ToJohn, Esq. , by Katherin_. " The entry may be still read in thebook, with these words appended in an old hand some time afterwards:"_This is Milton, Oliver's Secretary_. " It is the record of thebirth of a daughter to Milton by his second wife, Katharine Woodcock, in the twelfth month of their marriage. The little incident remindsus at this point of the domestic life in Petty France; but it neednot delay us. We proceed with the Secretaryship. Whatever share of the regular work of the Foreign Department may havebeen now allotted to Marvell, an occasional letter was still requiredfrom Milton. The following Latin dispatches were written by himbetween September 1657 and Jan. 1657-8, when the Protector's SecondParliament reassembled for its second session, as a Parliament of twoHouses:-- (CXII. ) TO M. DE BORDEAUX, THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR, _Oct. _ 1657:--This is not in the Protector's name, but in that of the President of the Council. It is about the case of a Luke Lucy (_Lucas Lucius_) a London merchant. A ship of his, called _The Mary_, bound from Ireland to Bayonne, had been driven by tempest into the port of St. Jean de Luz, seized there at the suit of one Martin de Lazon, and only discharged on security given to abide a trial at law of this person's claim. Now, his claim was preposterous. It was founded on an alleged loss of money as far back as 1642 by the seizure by the English Parliament of goods on board a ship called _The Santa Clara_. He was not the owner of the goods, but only agent, with a partner of his, called Antonio Fernandez, for the real owners; there had been a quarrel between the partners; and the Parliament had stopped the goods till it should be decided by law who ought to have them. Fernandez was willing to try the action in the English Courts; but De Lauzon had made no appearance there. And now De Lauzon had hit on the extraordinary expedient of seizing Lucy's ship and dragging the totally innocent Lucy into an action in the French Courts. All which having been represented to the Protector by Lucy's petition, it is begged that De Lauzon may be told he must go another way to work. (CXIII. ) TO THE DOGE AND SENATE OF VENICE, _Oct. _ 1657:--A rather long letter, and not uninteresting. First the Protector congratulates the Venetians on their many victories over the Turks, not only because of the advantage thence to the Venetian State, but also because of the tendency of such successes to "the liberation of all Christians under Turkish servitude. " But, under cover of this congratulation, he calls to their attention again the case of a certain brave ship-captain, Thomas Galilei (_Thomam Galileum_). He had, some five years ago, done gallant service for the Venetians in his ship called _The Relief_, fighting alone with a whole fleet of Turkish galleys and making great havoc among them, till, his own ship having caught fire, he had been taken and carried away as a slave. For five years he had been in most miserable captivity, unable to ransom himself because he had no property in the world besides what might be owing to him for his ship and services by the Venetian Government. He had an old father still alive, "full of grief and tears which have moved Us exceedingly"; and this old man begs, and His Highness begs, that the Doge and Senate will arrange for the immediate release of the captive. They must have taken many Turkish prisoners in their late victories, and it is understood that those who detain the captive are willing to exchange him for any Turk of equal value. Also his Highness hopes the Doge and Senate will pay at once to the old man whatever may be due to his captive son. This, his Highness believes, had been arranged for after his former application on the subject; but probably, in the multiplicity of business, the matter had been overlooked. May the Republic of Venice long flourish, and God grant them victories over the Turks to the very end! (CXIV. ) TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY LORDS, THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _Nov. _ 1657:--This is a letter of commendation of the Dutch Ambassador William Nieuport on his temporary return home on private affairs (see ante p. 312). Through the "several years" of His Highness's acquaintance with him, he had found him of "such fidelity, vigilance, prudence, and justice, in the discharge of his office" that he could not desire a better Ambassador, or believe their High Mightinesses could find a better one. He cannot take leave of him, though but for a short time, without saying as much. Throughout his embassy, his aim had been, "without deceit or dissimulation, " to preserve the peace and friendship that had been established; and, so long as he should be Dutch Ambassador in London, his Highness did not see "what occasion of offence or scruple could rankle or sprout up" between the two States. At the present juncture he should regret his departure the more if he were not assured that no man would better represent to their High Mightinesses the Protector's goodwill to them and the condition of things generally. "May God, for His own glory and the defence of the Orthodox Church, grant prosperity to your affairs and perpetuity to our friendship!"--In writing this letter, Milton must have remembered Nieuport's interference in behalf of Morus, for the suppression at the last moment, if possible, of the _Defensio Secunda_. He had not quite relished that interference, or the manner of it. See Vol. IV, pp. 631-633, and ante p. 202-203. (CXV. ) TO THEIR HIGH MIGHTINESSES THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _Dec. _ 1657:--A fit sequel to the foregoing, for it is the Letter Credential to GEORGE DOWNING, just selected to be his Highness's Resident at the Hague, and so the counterpart of Nieuport (ante p. 312). "GEORGE DOWNING, " it begins, "a gentleman of rank, has been for a long time now, by experience of him in many and various transactions, recognised and known by Us as of the highest fidelity, probity, and ability. " He is, accordingly, recommended in the usual manner; and there is intimation, though not in language so strong as that of Lockhart's credentials to France, that "communications" with him will be the same as with his Highness personally. "Communications" only this case, Downing not being a plenipotentiary like Lockhart. [1] [Footnote 1: Downing's father was Emanuel Downing, a settler inMassachusetts, and his mother was a sister of the celebratedGovernor John Winthrop. Though born in this country (in or nearDublin in 1623), their son had grown up in New England, much underthe charge of Hugh Peters, who was related to him. He graduated atHarvard University in 1642. Thence he had come to England, and, frombeing a preacher in Okey's regiment of dragoons in the New Model(1645), had passed gradually into other employments. He had beenScoutmaster-General to the Army in Scotland (1653), but had beenattached since 1655 to Thurloe's office, and employed, as we haveseen, in diplomatic missions. His appointment to be Cromwell'sminister at the Hague was a great promotion. His salary in the postwas to be £1100 a year, worth nearly £4000 a year now. (Sibley's_Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University_. I. 28-53, with corrections at p. 583. )] (CXVI. ) TO THE PROVINCIAL STATES OF HOLLAND, _Dec. _ 1657:--While recommending DOWNING to the States General, his Highness cannot refrain from recommending him also specially to the States of Holland, self-governed as they are internally, and "so important a part of the United Provinces" besides. (CXVII. ) TO FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, _Dec. _ 1657:--The Protector's last letter to the Grand Duke (ante 372) had produced immediate effect. The rascally Englishman Ellis, who, to the discredit of English and Christian good faith, had run off with the cargo of rice, sugar, and coffee, belonging to the Sultan of Turkey, had been arrested in Leghorn. So the Grand Duke had informed Cromwell in a letter dated Nov. 10. The present is a reply to that letter, and is very characteristic. "We give you thanks for this good office; and now we make this farther request, --that, as soon as the merchants have undertaken that satisfaction shall be made to the, Turks, the said Master be liberated from custody, and the ship and her lading be forthwith let off, lest perchance we should seem to have made more account of the Turks than of our own citizens. Meanwhile we relish so agreeably your Highness's singular, conspicuous, and most acceptable good-will towards us that we should not refuse the brand of ingratitude if we did not eagerly desire a speedy opportunity of gratifying you in return by the like promptitude, by means of which we might prove to you in very deed our readiness also in returning good offices. Your Highness's most affectionate OLIVER. " To the same month as the last three of these Latin State-Lettersbelong two more of Milton's Latin Familiar Epistles. The persons towhom they are addressed are already known to us: "To the very distinguished MR. HENRY DE BRASS. "Having been hindered these days past by some occupations, illustrious Sir, I reply later than I meant. For I meant to do so all the more speedily because I saw that your present letter, full of learning as it is, did not so much leave me room for suggesting anything to you (a thing which you ask of me, I believe, out of compliment to me, not for your own need) as for simple congratulation. I congratulate myself especially on my good fortune in having, as it appears, so suitably explained Sallust's meaning, and you on your so careful perusal of that most wise author with so much benefit from the same. Respecting him I would venture to make the same assertion to you as Quintilian made respecting Cicero, --that a man may know himself no mean proficient in the business of History who enjoys his Sallust. As for that precept of Aristotle's in the Third Book of his Rhetoric [Chap. XVII] which you would like explained--'Use is to be made of maxims both in the narrative of a case and in the pleading, for it has a moral effect'--I see not what it has in it that much needs explanation: only that the _narration_ and the _pleading_ (which last is usually also called the _proof_) are here understood to be such as the Orator uses, not the Historian; for the parts of the Orator and the Historian are different whether they narrate or prove, just as the Arts themselves are different. What is suitable for the Historian you will have learnt more correctly from the ancient authors, Polybius, the Halicarnassian, Diodorus, Cicero, Lucian, and many others, who have handed down certain stray precepts concerning that subject. For me, I wish you heartily all happiness in your studies and travels, and success worthy of the spirit and diligence which I see you employ on everything of high excellence. Farewell. "Westminster: December 16, 1657. " "To the highly accomplished PETER HEIMBACH. "I have received your letter dated the Hague. Dec. 18 [foreign reckoning: the English would be Dec. 8], which, as I see it concerns your interests, I have thought I ought to answer on the very day it has reached me. After thanking me for I know not what favours of mine, --which, as one who desires everything good for you, I would were really of any consideration at all, --you ask me to recommend you, through Lord Lawrence, to our Minister appointed for Holland [DOWNING, whose credential letters Milton had drawn up only a day or two before]. I really regret that this is not in my power, both because of my very few intimacies with the men of influence, almost shut up at home as I am, and as I prefer to be (_propter paucissimas familiaritates meas cum gratiosis, qui domi fere, idque libenter, me contineo_), and also because I believe the gentleman is now embarking and on his way, and has with him in his company the person he wishes to be his Secretary--the very office about him you seek. But the post is this instant going, Farewell. "Westminster: December 18, 1657. " Too much is not to be made of certain phrases in this note. Miltonwas declining, in as civil terms as possible, a request which mightperhaps have been troublesome even if the Secretaryship to Mr. Downing had been vacant; and, though it would have been enough, asfar as Heimbach's present application was concerned, to tell him thatMr. Downing was already provided, the other reason may have beenthrown in by way of discouragement of such applications in future. We have had proof that Milton liked Heimbach; but we do not knowwhat estimate he had formed of Heimbach's abilities. Still, any wordsused by Milton about himself are always to be taken as incorrespondence with fact; and hence we are to suppose that, at thetime he wrote, he did keep himself as much aloof as possible from themagnates of the Council, performing the pieces of work required ofhim in his own house, rather than making them occasions for visitsand colloquies. His old and intimate friend Fleetwood, and his friendLord President Lawrence, with Desborough, Pickering, Strickland, Montague, and Sydenham, all of whom had been mentioned by him withmore or less of personal regard in the _Defensio Secunda_ in1654, were still Councillors, and formed indeed more than half theCouncil; but his intercourse with some of these individually may havebeen less since his blindness. Then, of the rest, Thurloe was thereal man of influence, the real _gratiosus_ who could carry orset aside a request like Heimbach's; and, though Milton'scommunications with Thurloe must necessarily have been more frequentthan with any other person of the Council, one has an indefinableimpression that Thurloe had never taken cordially to Milton or Miltonto Thurloe. At the date of Milton's note to Heimbach, too, _gratiosi_ were becoming plentiful all round the Council. Cromwell's sixty-three writs for the new Upper House had gone out, orwere going out, and in a week or two many more "lords" were to beseen walking in couples in any street in Westminster. Milton, in_his_ quiet retreat there, may have had something of all this inhis mind when he wrote to young Mr. Heimbach. The short second session of the Parliament, with its difficultexperiment of the two Houses once more, and the angry dispute of theCommons whether the name of "Lords" _should_ be allowed to theOther House, had come and gone (Jan. 20--Feb. 4, 1657-8), and ofMilton or his thoughts and doings through that crisis we have notrace whatever. Our next glimpse of him is just after the moment ofthe abrupt dissolution of the Parliament, when Cromwell wasaddressing himself again, single-handed, to the task of grapplingwith the double danger of anarchy within and a threatened invasionfrom without. The glimpse is a very sad one. "_Feb. _ 10, 1657-8, _Mrs. Katherin Milton_, " and again"_March_, 20, 1657-8, _Mrs. Katherin Milton_, " are twoentries, within six weeks of each other, in the burial registers ofSt, Margaret's, Westminster. They are the records of the deaths ofMilton's second wife and the little girl she had borne him only inOctober last. Which entry designates the mother and which, the childwe should not know from the entries themselves; but a sentence inPhillips's memoir of his uncle settles the point. "By his secondwife; Katharine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney, " saysPhillips, "he had only one daughter, of which the mother, the firstyear after her marriage, died in childbed, and the child also withina month after. " The first entry, therefore, is for the mother, andthe second for the child. The mother died exactly at the time of thedissolution of the Parliament, and not in child-birth itself, butnearly four months after child-birth; and the little orphan, outliving the mother a short while, died at the age of five months. And so Milton was again left a widower, with his three daughters bythe first marriage, the eldest in her twelfth year. His private life, for eighteen years now, had certainly not been a happy one; but thisdeath of his second wife seems to have been remembered by him everafterwards with deep and peculiar sorrow. She had been to him duringthe short fifteen months of their union, all that he had thoughtsaintlike and womanly, very sympathetic with himself, and maintainingsuch peace and order in his household as had not been there till sheentered it. And now once more it was a dark void, in which he mustgrope on, and in which things must happen as they would. Small comfort at this time can Milton have had from either of hisnephews. Not that they had openly separated themselves from him, oreven ceased to be deferential to him and proud of the relationship, but that they had more and more gone into those courses of literaryBohemianism those habits of mere facetious hack-work and balderdash, which he must have noted of late as an increasing and very ominousform of protest among the clever young Londoners against Puritanismand its belongings. The _Satyr against Hypocrites_ by hisyounger nephew in 1655 had been, in reality, an Anti-Puritan andAnti-Miltonic production; and, since the censure of that youngernephew by the Council in 1656 for his share in _The Sportive Wit orMuses' Merriment_, he had naturally stumbled farther and fartherin the same direction. By the year 1658, I should say, John Phillipshad entirely given up his uncle's political principles, and was knownamong his tavern-comrades as an Anti-Oliverian. We have no expresspublications in his name of this date, but he seems to have beenscribbling anonymously. Of the literary industry of his more sedateand likeable elder brother, Edward, there is authentic evidence. _ANew World of Words, or a General Dictionary, containing the Terms, Etymologies, Definitions, and Perfect Interpretations, of the properSignifications of hard English words throughout the Arts andSciences_: such is the title of a folio volume published by him in1657, and for the purposes of which he was afterwards accused ofhaving plagiarized largely from the _Glossographia_ of oneThomas Blount, published in the preceding year. In this piece oflabour, which was doubtless a bookseller's commission, he must havehad, the question of plagiarism apart, his uncle's thoroughgood-will; but it cannot have been the same with his _Mysteries ofLove and Eloquence: or the Arts of Wooing and Complimenting, as theyare managed in the Spring Garden, Hide Park, the New Exchange, andother eminent Places_. That performance, which appeared in August1658, with a Preface "To the Youthful Gentry, " and which must havebeen in progress at our present date, was much more in the vein ofhis brother John, and indeed was done to the order of NathanielBrooke, the bookseller who had published John's _Satyr againstHypocrites_, and also the more questionable _Sportive Wit or theMuses' Merriment_. "The book, " says Godwin, "is put together withconspicuous ingenuity and profligacy, and is entitled to noinsignificant rank among the multifarious productions which were atthat time issued from the press to debauch the manners of the nationand bring back the King. It consists of imaginary conversations andforms of address for conversation, poems, models of letters, questions and answers, an Art of Logic with examples from the poets, and various instructions and helps to the lover for the compositionof his verses; and, if we could overlook the gross provocations tolibertinism and vice which everywhere occur in the book, it might bementioned as no unentertaining illustration of the manners of the menof wit and gallantry in the time when it was published. " To Godwin'sdescription we may add that the book includes a Rhyming Dictionary, "useful for that pleasing pastime called Crambo, " also a collectionof parlour-games, and a number of other clever things. The poems andsongs interspersed with the prose were mostly old ones reprinted, some of them chosen with fine taste; but one or two were Phillips'sown. Of the model phrases or set expressions which form one of theprose parts of the volume, by way of instruction in the language ofgallantry and courtship, specimens are these, --"With your ambrosiackisses bathe my lips;" "You are a white enchantress, lady, and canenchain me with a smile;" "Midnight would blush at this;" "You walkin artificial clouds and bathe your silken limbs in wantondalliance. " What could Milton do, so far as such a production camewithin his knowledge, but shake his head and mingle smiles with afrown? Clearly the elder nephew too had slipped the Miltonicrestraints. He had not lapsed, however, so decidedly as his brother;and we may partly retract in his case the statement that Milton couldhave little comfort from him. He still went and came about Milton, very attentively. [1] [Footnote 1: Godwin's _Lives of the Phillipses_ (1815), 49-57, and 139-140; Wood's _Ath. _ IV. 760-769. I have not myselfexamined Phillips's _New World of Words_; but I have looked atthe Thomason copy of his _Mysteries of Love and Eloquence_, where the date of publication is given. Perhaps Godwin is a littletoo severe in his account of it. ] During the month immediately preceding his wife's death, and the twomonths following it, there is a break in the series of Milton'sState-Letters for Cromwell. But he resumed the familiar occupation onthe 30th of March, 1658; and thenceforward to the end of theProtectorate the series is again pretty continuous. Indeed, of thisperiod of Milton's life we know little more than may be inferredfrom, or associated with, the following morsels of his continuedSecretaryship:-- (CXVIII. ) To CHARLES X. , KING OF SWEDEN, _March_ 30, 1658:--The occasion of this letter was the receipt of news at last of the climax of the Swedish-Danish war in a great triumph of the Swedes. "In January 1658 Karl Gustav marches his army, horse, foot, and artillery, to the amount of twenty thousand, across the Baltic ice, and takes an island without shipping, --Island of Fünen, across the Little Belt; three miles of ice; and a part of the sea _open_, which has to be crossed on planks. Nay, forward from Fünen, when he is once there, he achieves ten whole miles more of ice; and takes Zealand itself--to the wonder of mankind. " Such, in Mr. Carlyle's summary (_History of Frederick the Great, i. 223, edit. _ 1869), was the feat of the Swedish warrior against his Danish enemy. It was followed almost immediately by a Peace between the two Powers, called _The Peace of Roeskilde_, by which Sweden acquired certain territories from Denmark, but very generous terms on the whole were granted to the Danes. Of all this there had been news to Cromwell, not only from his own correspondents, but also in an express letter from Charles Gustavus; and it is to this letter that Milton now replies in Cromwell's name:--"Most serene and potent King, most invincible Friend and Ally, --The Letter of your Majesty, dated from the Camp in Zealand, Feb. 21, has brought Us all at once many reasons why, both privately on our own account, and on account of the whole Christian Commonwealth, we should be affected by no ordinary joy. In the first place, because the King of Denmark (made your enemy, I believe, not by his own will or interests, but by the arts of the common foes) has been, by your sudden advent into the heart of his kingdom, and without much bloodshed, reduced to such a pass that he has at length, as was really the fact, judged peace more advantageous to him than the war undertaken against you. Next, because, when he thought he could in no way sooner obtain such a peace than by using Our help long ago offered him for a conciliation, your Majesty, on the prayer merely of the letters of our Envoy, deigned to show, by such an easy grant of peace, how much value you attached to Our friendship and interposed good-will, and chose that it should be My office in particular, in this pious transaction, to be myself nearly the sole adviser and author of a Peace which is speedily to be, as I hope, so salutary to Protestant interests. For, whereas the enemies of Religion despaired of being able to break your combined strength otherwise than by engaging you against each other, they will now have cause, as I hope, thoroughly to fear that this unlooked-for conjunction of your arms and hearts will turn into destruction for themselves, the kindlers of this war. Do you, meanwhile, most brave King, go on and prosper in your conspicuous valour, and bring it to pass that, such good fortune as the enemies of the Church have lately admired in your exploits and course of victories against the King now your ally, the same they may feel once more, with God's help, in their own crushing overthrow. "[1] From this letter it will be seen that the missions of Meadows and Jephson, but especially that of Meadows, had been of use. The immediate object of the missions, a reconciliation of Sweden and Denmark, had been accomplished; and what remained farther was, as Cromwell hints, the association of the other Continental Protestant powers with these two Scandinavian kingdoms in a league against Austria and Spain. How exactly this idea accorded with reflective Protestant sentiment everywhere appears from a few sentences in one of Baillie's letters, commenting on the very occurrences that occasioned Cromwell's present despatch. "I am glad, " writes Baillie, "that by a Peace, however extorted, the Swedes are free to take course with other enemies. I wish Brandenburg may return to his old posture, and not draw on himself next the Swedish armies; which the Lord forbid! for, after Sweden, we love Brandenburg next best.... Our wish is that the Muscoviter, for reforming of his churches, civilizing of his people, and doing some good upon the Turks and Tartars, were more straitly allied with Sweden, Brandenburg, the Transylvanian, and other Protestant princes. We should rejoice if, on this too good a quarrel against the Austrians ... He [Charles Gustavus] would turn his victorious army upon them and their associates, with the assistance of France and a good Dutch league. It seems no hard matter to get the Imperial Crown and turn the Ecclesiastic Princes into Secular Protestants. "[2] Very much in the direction of Baillie's hopes were Cromwell's envoys, Meadows, Jephson, Bradshaw, and Downing, to labour for the next few months. Of their journeys hither and thither, their expectations and disappointments, there are glimpses in successive letters in _Thurloe_; from which also it appears that Meadows and Downing gave most satisfaction, and that, after a while, Jephson was relieved of the main business of the Swedish mission, and that mission was conjoined with the Danish in the hands of Meadows (Thurloe, VII. 63-64). [Footnote 1: The translation of this letter by Phillips is unusuallycareless. It jumbles the tenses in such a manner that the Peacebetween Sweden and Denmark does not seem to have yet taken place, but only to be hoped for by Cromwell. In fact, Phillips'stranslation robs the letter of all its meaning and interest. ] [Footnote 2: Baillie, III. 371. ] (CXIX. ) TO THE GRAND-DUKE OF TUSCANY, _April_ 7, 1658:--A John Hosier, master of a ship called _The Lady_, had been swindled in April 1656 by an Italian named Guiseppe Armani, who has moreover possessed himself fraudulently of 6000 pieces of eight belonging to one Thomas Clutterbuck. There is a suit against Armani at Leghorn; but Hosier, after going to great expenses, is deterred from appearing there by threats of personal violence. "We therefore request your Highness both to relieve this oppressed man, and also to restrain the insolence of his adversary, according to your accustomed justice. " (CXX. ) TO LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _May_ 26, 1658:[1]--This is a very momentous letter. It is Cromwell's appeal to the French King in behalf once more of the poor Piedmontese Protestants:--"Most serene and potent King, most august Friend and Ally, --Your Majesty may remember that, at the time when there was treaty between us for the renewing of our League [April 1655]--the highly auspicious nature of which transaction is now testified by many resulting advantages to both nations and much damage to the common enemy--there fell out that miserable massacre of the People of the Valleys, whose cause, forsaken on all hands and sorely beset, we commended, with all ardour of heart and commiseration, to your pity and protection. Nor do we think that your Majesty, of yourself, was wanting in a duty so pious, nay so human, in as far as, by your authority or by the respect due to your person, you could prevail with the Duke of Savoy. We, certainly, and many other Princes and States, were not wanting, in the matter of embassies, letters, interposed entreaties, on the subject. After a most bloody slaughter of both sexes and of every age, Peace was at last granted, or rather a kind of more guarded hostility clothed with the name of Peace: the conditions of the Peace were settled in your town of Pignerol--hard conditions indeed, but in which wretched and poor people that had suffered all that was dreadful and brutal might easily acquiesce, if only, hard and unjust as they are, they were to be stood to. They are _not_ stood to; for the promise of each and all of them is eluded and violated by false interpretation and various asides: many are thrown out of their ancient abodes; many are interdicted from their native religion; new tributes are exacted; a new citadel is hung over their heads, whence soldiers frequently break forth, plundering or murdering all they meet: in addition to all which, new forces of late are secretly being got ready against them, and those among them who profess the Roman Religion have warning orders to remove for a time, so that all things now again seem to point to an exterminating onslaught on those most miserable creatures who were left over from that last butchery. That you will not allow this to be done I beseech and conjure you, Most Christian King, by that right hand of yours which sealed alliance and friendship with Us, by that most sacred ornament of the title of _Most Christian_; that you will not permit such a license of furious raging, I do not say to any prince (for such furious raging cannot possibly come upon any prince, much less upon the tender age of that Prince, or into the womanly mind of his Mother), but to those most holy assassins, who, while they profess themselves the servants and imitators of our Saviour Christ, Him who came into this world to save sinners, abuse His most meek name and institutes for savage slaughters of innocents. Snatch, thou who art able, and who in such a towering station art worthy to be able, so many suppliants of yours from the hands of homicides, who, drunk with gore recently, thirst for blood again, and consider it most advisable for themselves to lay at the doors of princes the odium of their own cruelty. Do not thou, while thou reignest, suffer thy titles or the territories of thy realm, or the most merciful Gospel of Christ, to be defiled by that scandal. Remember that these very Vaudois submitted themselves to your grandfather Henry, that great favourer of Protestants, when the victorious Lesdiguičres, through those parts where there is even yet the most convenient passage into Italy, pursued the yielding Savoyard across the Alps. The instrument of that Surrender is yet extant among the Public Acts of your Kingdom; in which, among other things, it is expressly provided and precautioned that the Vaudois should thenceforth be handed over to no one unless with those same conditions on which, by that instrument, your most invincible grandfather received them into his protection. This protection the suppliants now implore; as pledged by the grandfather, they demand it from you, the grandson. They would prefer and desire to be your subjects rather than his to whom they now belong, even by some exchange, if that could be managed; but, if that cannot be managed, to be yours at least in as far as your patronage, pity, and shelter can make them so. There are even reasons of state which might exhort you not to drive back Vaudois fleeing to you for refuge; but I would not, such a great King as you are, think of you as moved to the defence of those lying under calamity by other considerations than the promise of your ancestors, piety, and kingly benignity and greatness of soul. So the praise and glory of a most beautiful deed will be yours unalloyed and entire, and through all your life you will find the Father of Mercy, and His Son, King Christ, whose name and doctrine you will have vindicated from a wicked atrocity, more favouring and propitious to yourself. May God Almighty, for His own glory, the safeguard of so many innocent Christian human beings, and your true honour, dispose your Majesty to this resolution!" The letter was sent to Ambassador Lockhart, then commanding the English auxiliaries at Dunkirk, with very precise instructions to deliver it to his French Majesty, and to follow it up energetically by his own counsels. [2] It may have been delivered to Louis XIV. At or near Calais. It had, as we have seen, full effect. All in all, it is one of the most eloquent of the Milton series; and Milton must have exerted himself in the composition. [Footnote 1: The exact day of the month is not given either in thePrinted Collection or in the Skinner Transcript; but it isdetermined by a letter of Cromwell's to Ambassador Lockhart on thesame business. The two letters went together (see Carlyle, III. 357-365). ] [Footnote 2: Letter of Cromwell to Lockhart of date May 25, 1658, printed by Mr. Carlyle, _loc. Cit. _, from the Ayscough MSS. ] (CXXI. ) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May_ 26, 1658:[1]--On the same great business as the last. --"Illustrious and most honourable Lords, most dear Friends:--Concerning the Vaudois, your most afflicted neighbours, what grievous and intolerable things they have suffered from their Prince for Religion's sake, besides that the mind almost shrinks from remembering them because of the very atrocity of the facts, we have thought it superfluous to write to you what must be much better known to yourselves. We have also seen copies of the letters which your Envoys, who a good while since were the advisers and witnesses of the Peace of Pignerol, have written to the Duke of Savoy and the President of his Council in Turin; in which they show and prove in detail that all the conditions of the Peace have been broken, and have been rather a snare for those miserable people than a security. Which violation of the conditions, continued from the very date of the Peace even to this day, and every day growing more grievous, unless they endure patiently, unless they prostrate themselves and lie down to be trampled on and pushed into mud, their Religion itself forsworn, there impends over them the same calamity, the same havoc, which harassed and desolated them, with their wives and children, in so miserable a manner three years ago, and which, if it is to be undergone again, will wholly extirpate them. What can the poor people do? They have no respite, no breathing-time, as yet no certain refuge. They have to deal with wild beasts or with furies, to whom the recollection of the former slaughters has brought no remorse, no pity for their fellow-countrymen, no sense of humanity or satiety in shedding blood. These things are clearly not to be borne, whether we have regard to our Vaudois brethren, cherishers of the Orthodox Religion from of old, or to the safety of that Religion itself. We, for our part, removed though we are by too great an interval of space, have heartily performed all we could in the way of help, and shall not cease to do the like. Do you, who are close not only to the torments and almost to the cries of your brethren, but also to the fury of the same enemies, consider prospectively, in the name of Immortal God, and that betimes, what is now _your_ duty; on the question of what assistance, what protection, you can and ought to give to your neighbours and brothers, otherwise speedily to perish, consult your own prudence and piety, but your valour also. It is identity of Religion, be sure, that is the cause why the same enemies would see you likewise destroyed, nay why they would, at the same time, in the same by-past year, _have_ seen you destroyed by an intestine war against you by members of your Confederacy. Next to the Divine aid it seems simply to be with you to prevent the very oldest branch of the purer Religion from being cut down in that remnant of the primitive faithful: and, if you neglect their safety, now brought to the extreme crisis of peril, see that the next turn do not, a little while after, visit yourselves. While we advise thus fraternally and freely, we are meanwhile not idle on our own part: what alone it is allowed to us at such a distance to do, whether for securing the safety of those who are endangered, or for succouring the poverty of those who are in need, we have taken all pains in our power to do, and shall yet take all pains, God grant to us both such tranquillity and peace at home, such a settled condition of things and times, that we may be able to turn all our resources and strength, all our anxiety, to the defence of His Church against the fury and madness of His enemies!" [Footnote 1: The day of the month not given either in the PrintedCollection or in the Skinner Transcript; but we may date by the lastletter. ] (CXXII. -CXXV. ) TO LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN: end of _May_ 1658:[1]--This is a group of four letters, two to the King and two to the Cardinal, all appertaining to the splendid embassy of compliment on which Cromwell despatched his son-in-law, Viscount Falconbridge, in the end of May 1658, when he heard that the French Court had come so near England as Calais (ante pp. 340-341):--(1. ) TO LOUIS XIV. "Most serene and potent King, most august Friend and Ally, --Thomas, Viscount Falconbridge, my son-in-law, being on the point of setting out for France, and desiring to come into your presence, to kiss your royal hand and testify his veneration and the respect which he cherishes for your Majesty, though, on account of the great pleasantness of his society, I am unwilling to part with him, yet, as I do not doubt but, from the Court of so great a King, in which so many most prudent and valiant men have their resort, he will shortly return to us much more accomplished for all honourable occupations, and in a sense finished, I have not thought it right to oppose his mind and wish. And, though he is one, if I mistake not, who may seem to bring his own sufficient recommendations with him wherever he goes, yet, if he should feel himself somewhat more acceptable to your Majesty on my account, I shall likewise consider myself honoured and obliged by that same kindness. May God keep your Majesty safe, and long preserve our fast friendship for the common good of the Christian world. "--(2. ) TO CARDINAL MAZARIN. As his son-in-law Lord Falconbridge is going into France, recommended by a letter to the French King, Cromwell cannot but inform his Eminence of the fact, and give Lord Falconbridge an introduction to his Eminence also. "Whatever benefit he may receive from his stay amongst you (and he hopes it will not be small) he is sure to owe most of it to your favour and kindness, whose mind and vigilance almost singly sustain and guard such great affairs in that kingdom. " (3. ) To LOUIS XIV. "Most serene and potent King, most august Friend and Ally, --As soon as news had arrived that your Majesty was come into camp, and was besieging with so great forces that infamous town and asylum of pirates, Dunkirk, I conceived a great joy, and also a sure hope that now in a short time, by God's good assistance, the sea will be less infested with robbers and more safely navigable, and that your Majesty will soon by your warlike prowess avenge those frauds of the Spaniard, --one commander corrupted by gold to betray Hesden, another treacherously taken at Ostend. I therefore send to you the most noble Thomas, Viscount Falconbridge, my son-in-law, both to congratulate your arrival in a camp so close to us, and also to explain personally with what affection we follow your Majesty's achievements, not only by the junction of our forces, but with all wishes besides that God Almighty may keep your Majesty's self safe and long preserve our fast friendship for the common good of the Christian world. " (4. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN. As he is sending his son-in-law Viscount Falconbridge to congratulate the arrival of his French Majesty in the camp near Dunkirk, he has commanded him to convey also salutations and thanks to his Eminence, "by whose fidelity, prudence, and vigilance, above all, it has been brought about that French business is so prosperously managed against the common enemy in so many different parts, and especially in neighbouring Flanders. " It is clear that all these letters cannot have been sent, but only two of them. The closing words of the two letters to the King, for example, are identical to an extent incompatible with the idea that they were both delivered. It may be guessed by the suspicious that at first the intention was that Lord Falconbridge should seem to be visiting France for his own curiosity or pleasure, the Protector only taking advantage of his whim, and that letters 1 and 2 were then drafted, but that afterwards it was thought better to send Lord Falconbridge on an avowed embassy of congratulation in Cromwell's own name, and letters 3 and 4 were then substituted. Perhaps, however, there was no duplicity in the affair at all, and the idea of the embassy did actually originate in a whim of Lord Falconbridge. Anyhow all the notes were written by Milton, and he kept copies of those not used. [Footnote 1: Exact day not given either in Printed Collection or inSkinner Transcript; but the occasion fixes the time pretty closely. ] (CXXVI. ) To THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, _May_ 1658:--This is in a very different tone from recent letters of the Protector to the same Italian Prince (ante p. 372 and p. 378). --His Highness has been informed of various acts of discourtesy of late to his Fleet off Leghorn, utterly inconsistent with the terms of friendship on which he had supposed himself to stand with the Grand Duke. Accommodation to the ships has been refused, out of deference to Spain; restrictions have been put on their supplies of fresh water; English merchants resident in Leghorn, and even the English Consul, have not been permitted to go on board; shots have actually been fired; &c. If these things had been done by the Governor of the Town without orders, let him be punished; but, if otherwise, "let your Highness consider that, as we have always very highly valued your good-will, so we have learnt to distinguish open injuries from-good-will. " (CXXVII. -CXXX. ) To LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN. _June_ 1658:--On the 16th of June there had arrived in London, in rapid return for the embassy of Viscount Falconbridge to Calais, the splendid counter-embassy to Cromwell of the Duke de Crequi and M. Mancini, the Cardinal's nephew (ante pp. 340-341). That in itself would have been an incident calling for some special acknowledgment from the Protector; but hardly had the embassy arrived when there came news of the great event which both Louis XIV. And Cromwell had for some time been intently expecting--the capture of Dunkirk. On the 15th of June the keys of the captured town had been handsomely delivered to Sir William Lockhart by Louis XIV. Himself, so that the Treaty with Cromwell had been fully kept in that particular. Louis had sent a special Envoy with letters to announce the event to Cromwell formally; and this Envoy shared in the magnificent hospitalities which Cromwell showered upon the Duke de Crequi, M. Mancini, and their retinue. The four following letters all relate to this glorious occasion, and date themselves between June 16, when the French ambassadors arrived in London, and June 21, when they took their departure. (1. ) To Louis XIV. "Most serene and potent King, most august Friend and Ally, --That your Majesty has so speedily, by the illustrious embassy you have sent, repaid my mission of respect with interest, besides that it is a proof of your singular graciousness and magnanimity, comes as a manifestation also of the degree of your regard for my honour and dignity, not to myself only, but to the whole English People; on which account, in their name, I duly return your Majesty my most cordial thanks. Over the most happy victory which God gave to our conjoint forces against the enemy [in the Battle near Dunkirk on June 3, ten days before the surrender of the town: ante p. 340], I rejoice along with you; and it is very gratifying to me that in that battle our men were not wanting either to their duty to you, or to the warlike glory of their ancestors, or to their own valour. As for Dunkirk, your Majesty's hopes for the near surrender of which are expressed in your letter, I have the additional joy of being able so soon to write back that the surrender has now actually taken place; and my hopes are that the Spaniard will presently pay for his double treachery by the loss not of one city only, --the effecting of which result by the capture of the other town [Bergen, near Dunkirk, now also besieged] I would that your Majesty may have it in your power to report as quickly. As to your Majesty's farther promise that my interests shall be your care, in that matter I have no mistrust, the promise coming from a King of such worth and friendliness, and having the confirmation of the word of his Ambassador, the most excellent and accomplished Duke de Crequi. That Almighty God may be propitious to your Majesty and to the French State, at home and in war, is my sincere wish. " (2. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN. As we have already seen in Cromwell's correspondence with France, letters to the King and the Cardinal then almost always went in pairs, for Louis XIV. Was but beginning his long career of _Grand Monarque_ at the age of twenty, while the Cardinal, at the age of fifty-six, still retained that ministerial ascendancy which he had exercised all through the minority of Louis, and indeed since the death of Richelieu in 1642. This letter of Cromwell's to the Cardinal is even more interesting than that to the King, and may be given in full:--"Most Eminent Lord, --While I am thanking by letter your most Serene King, who has sent such a splendid embassy to return respects and congratulations and to communicate to me his joy over the recent most noble victory, I should be ungrateful if I did not at the same time pay by letter the thanks due also to your Eminence, who, to testify your good-will towards me, and your regard for my honour in all possible ways, have sent with the embassy your most worthy and highly accomplished young nephew, and even write that, if you had any one nearer akin to you or dearer, you would have sent that person in preference, --adding a reason which, coming from the judgment of so great a man, I consider no mean tribute of praise and distinction: to wit, your desire that those nearest to you in blood should imitate your Eminence in honouring and respecting me. Well, they will perhaps, at least, in your love for me, have had no stinted example of politeness, candour, and friendliness: of worth and prudence at their highest there are other far more brilliant examples in you, by which they may learn how to administer kingdoms and the greatest affairs with glory. With which that your Eminence may long and prosperously conduct affairs, for the common good of the French kingdom, yea of the whole Christian Republic, a distinction properly yours, I promise that my wishes shall not be wanting. " (3. ) To LOUIS XIV. [1] A more formal letter than the last, acknowledging the French King's own intimation that Dunkirk had been taken, and given into the possession of Lockhart. "That Dunkirk had surrendered to your Majesty, and that it had been by your orders immediately put in our possession, we had already heard by report; but with what a willing and glad mind your Majesty did it, to testify your good-will towards me in this matter, I have been especially informed by your royal letter, and have had abundantly confirmed by the gentleman in whom, from the tenor of that letter, I have all confidence, --the master in ordinary of your Palace. In addition to this testimony, though it needs no farther weight with me, our Ambassador with you [Lockhart], in discharge of his duty, writes to the same effect, and there is nothing that he does not ascribe to your most firm steadiness in my favour. Let your Majesty be assured in turn that there shall be no want of either care or integrity on our part in performing all that remains of our agreement with the same faith and diligence as hitherto. For the rest, I congratulate your Majesty on your successes and on the very near approach of the capture of Bergen; and may God Almighty grant that there may be as frequent exchanges as possible of such congratulations between us. " (4. ) TO CARDINAL MAZARIN[2]. This is on the same occasion and in the same strain. One sentence will suffice. "With what faith and expression of the highest good-will all was performed by you, though your Eminence's own assurance fully satisfied me, yet, that I should have nothing more to desiderate, our Ambassador, in carefully writing to me the details, had omitted nothing that could either serve for my information or answer your opinion of him. "--It is curious, after these two last letters, to turn to those letters of Lockhart's to which Cromwell refers. They quite confirm his words, though they contain expressions, about both the King and the Cardinal, of which Cromwell would not perhaps have sent them literal copies. Thus, in a letter to Thurloe, of June 14, the day before the delivery of Dunkirk to the English, but when all the arrangements for the delivery had been made, Lockhart, speaking of the difficulties he anticipated in so arduous and delicate a post as the Governorship of Dunkirk, especially with his small supplies and great lack of money, adds, --"Nevertheless I must say I find him [the Cardinal] willing to hear reason; and, though the generality of Court and Army are even mad to see themselves part with what they call _un si bon morceau_, so delicate a bit, yet he is still constant to his promises, and seems to be as glad in the general, notwithstanding our differences in little particulars, to give this place to his Highness as I can be to receive it: the King is also exceeding obliging and civil, and hath more true worth in him than I could have imagined. " Next day Lockhart wrote a brief note to Thurloe announcing himself as actually in possession, "blessed be God for this great mercy, and the Lord continue his protection to his Highness"; and there were subsequent longer letters both to Thurloe and to Cromwell himself[3]. Dunkirk was called "The Key of Spanish Flanders"; and the conquest of this place for the Protectorate was, it is to be remembered, among the last of Cromwell's great acts. [Footnote 1: This Letter is not to be found in the PrintedCollection or in Phillips; but it is in the Skinner Transcript (No. 102 there), and has been printed by Mr. Hamilton in his _MiltonPapers_, 7-8. ] [Footnote 2: Neither is this Letter in the Printed Collection. Itstands as No. 103 in the Skinner Transcript, and has been printed byHamilton, p. 8. ] [Footnote 3: Thurloe, VII. 173 et seq. ] (CXXXI. ) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _June_ 1658:--Since Cromwell's last letter by Milton to this heroic Scandinavian (March 30), congratulating him on his generous Peace with Denmark, and urging the policy of a League of all the northern Protestant Powers for conjoint action against Austria, Poland, and Catholicism universally, the movements of the Swede had been most perplexing. Now he had been turning against the Poles and Austrians; but again Denmark, or even the Dutch, seemed to be the object of his resentment, while there was very quarrelsome negotiation between him and the Elector Marquis of Brandenburg, and every appearance that the Elector might have to bear the next full burst of his wrath. All this did not seem favourable to the prospects of a Protestant League, and Cromwell's envoys, Meadows, Jephson, Bradshaw, and Downing, had been going to and fro with their wits on the stretch. Such, in general, was the condition of affairs when Milton for Cromwell wrote as follows:--"Most serene and potent King, most dear Friend and Ally, --As often as we look upon the ceaseless plots and various artifices of the common enemies of Religion, so often our thought with ourselves is how necessary it is for the Christian world, and how salutary it would be, for the easier frustration of the attempts of these adversaries, that the Potentates of Protestantism should be conjoined in the strictest league among themselves, and principally your Majesty with our Commonwealth. How much, and with what zeal, that has been furthered by Us, and how agreeable latterly it would have been to us if the affairs of Sweden and our own had been in such a condition and position that the League could have been ratified heartily by us both, and with all fit aid the one to the other, We have testified to your agents from the time when they first treated of the matter with Us. Nor, truly, were they wanting to their duty; but, as was their custom in other things, in this matter also they displayed prudence and diligence. But we have been so exercised at home by the perfidy of wicked citizens, who, though several times received back into trust, do not yet cease to form new conspiracies, and to repeat their already often shattered and routed plots with the exiles, and even with the Spanish enemy, that, occupied in beating off our own dangers, we have not hitherto been able, as was our wish, to turn our whole attention and entire strength to the guardianship of the common cause of Religion. What was possible, however, to the full extent of our power, we have already studiously performed; and, whatever for the future in this direction shall seem to conduce to your Majesty's interests, we shall not desist not only to desire, but also to co-operate with you with all our strength in accomplishing where they may be opportunity. Meanwhile we congratulate, and heartily rejoice in, your Majesty's most prudent and most valiant actions, and desire with assiduous prayers that God may will, for the glory of his own Deity, that the same course of prosperity and victory may be a very long one. "--So far as Milton's state-letters show, this is the last of the relations between Oliver Cromwell and Karl-Gustav of Sweden. But, in _Thurloe_ and elsewhere, there are farther traces of the great Swede in connexion with Cromwell, and of the interest which the two kindred souls felt in each other. Passing over some weeks of still uncertain movement of the Swede hither and thither in his complications with Austria, Poland, Denmark, Muscovy, Brandenburg, and the Dutch, we may note the sudden surprise of all Europe when, early in August, he tore up his brief Peace with Denmark, re-invaded Zealand, and marched straight upon Copenhagen. His reasons for this extraordinary act he thought it right to explain to Cromwell in a long letter dated from his quarters near Copenhagen, August 18, 1658. The letter can have reached Cromwell only on his death-bed; and, on the whole, Cromwell had to leave the world with the consciousness that the League of Protestant Powers for which he had prayed and struggled was apparently as far off as ever. The election to the vacant Emperorship had already taken place at last, July 8, 1658, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and it was the Austrian Leopold, King of Hungary, and not the French Louis XIV. , after all, that had been proclaimed and saluted _Imperator Romanorum_. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. , at various points from the beginning, but especially pp. 338, 342, and 257. Foreign dates in Thurloehave to be rectified. ] (CXXXII. ) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _August_ 1658:--A John Buffield, merchant of London, has been wronged by the detention of property of his by a Portuguese mercantile firm, and has been tossed about in Portuguese law-courts. The Protector requests his Portuguese Majesty to look into the matter and see justice done. So ends the series of Milton's Letters for Oliver. As there had beeneighty-eight such in all (XLV. -CXXXII. ) during the four years andnine months of the Protectorate, whereas there had been butforty-four (I. -XLIV. ) similar letters during the preceding four yearsand ten months of the Commonwealth proper and Interim Dictatorship, it will be seen that Milton's industry in this particular form of hisSecretaryship had been just twice as great for Oliver as for theGovernments before the Protectorate. [1] That fact in itself israther remarkable, when we remember that Milton came into theProtector's service totally blind. Of course, whoever had been in thepost would have had more to do in the way of letter-writing for theProtector than had been required by the preceding Councils of Statein their comparatively thin relations with foreign powers; but that ablind man in the post should have been so satisfactory for theincreased requirements says something for the employer as well as forthe blind man. Thurloe and others had relieved Milton of much of thesecretarial work; there had also been many breaks in Milton'ssecretaryship even in the letter-writing department, occasioned byill-health, family-troubles, or occupation with literary tasks whichwere really public commissions and were credited to him as such; andat such times the dependence had been on Meadows or some one else forthe Latin letters necessary. Always, however, when the occasion wasvery important, as when there had to be the burst of circular lettersabout the Piedmontese massacre, the blind man had to be sent to, orsent for. And what is worthy of notice now is that this had continuedto be the case to the last. At no time in the Secretaryship had therebeen a series of more important letters from Milton's pen than thosejust inventoried, written for the Protector in the last five monthsof his life, and mostly in the months of May and June, 1658. Two orthree of them are about ships or other small matters, showing that, even with Marvfell now; at hand for such drudgery, Milton did notwholly escape it; but the rest are on the topics of highest interestto Cromwell and closest to his heart. The poor PiedmonteseProtestants are again in danger. Who must again sound the alarm?Milton. Cromwell's son-in-law, the gallant Falconbridge, starts onhis embassy to Calais. Who must write the letters that are tointroduce him to King Louis and the Cardinal? Milton. The gorgeousreturn embassy of the Duke de Crequi and M. Mancini has to beacknowledged, and the bells rung for the fall of Dunkirk; and withthe congratulations to be conveyed across the Channel on that eventthere have to be interwoven Cromwell's thanks to the King and theCardinal for having so punctually kept their faith with him by thedelivery of the town to Lockhart. Who shall express the complexmessage? None but Milton. Finally, Cromwell would stretch his handeastward across the seas to grasp that of the Swedish CharlesGustavus struggling with _his_ peculiar difficulties, to givehim brotherly cheer in the midst of them, brotherly hope also thatthey two, whoever else in a generation of hucksters, may yet live tolead in a glorious Protestant League for the overthrow of Babylon andthe woman blazing in scarlet. Who interprets between hero and hero?Always and only the blind Milton. Positively, in reading Milton'sdespatches for Cromwell on such subjects as the persecutions of theVaudois and the scheme of a Protestant European League, one hardlyknows which is speaking, the secretary or the ruler. Cromwell meltsinto Milton, and Milton is Cromwell eloquent and Latinizing. [2] [Footnote 1: With one exception, all the State-letters of Milton, from the beginning of his Secretaryship to the death of Cromwell, that have been preserved either in the Printed Collection or in theSkinner Transcript, have now been inventoried, and, as far aspossible, dated and elucidated in the text of these volumes. Theexception is a brief scrap thrown in at the end of the Letters forCromwell both in the Printed Collection and in the SkinnerTranscript, but omitted by Phillips in his translation as notworthwhile. It was not written for Cromwell or his Council, butonly for the Commissioners of the Great Seal--whether for thoseunder the Protectorate, or for their predecessors, does not appear, though perhaps that might be ascertained. The scrap may be numberedat this point, though inserted only as a note:--(CXXXIII. ) "We, Commissioners of the Great Seal of England, &c. , desire that theSupreme Court of the Parliament of Paris will, on request, take suchsteps that Miles, William, and Maria Sandys, children of the latelydeceased William Sandys and his wife Elizabeth Soame, English bybirth and minors, may be able, from Paris, where they are now underprotection of the said Court, to return to us forthwith, and willdeliver the said children into the charge of the Scotchman JamesMowat, a good and honest man, to whom we have delegated this charge, that he may receive them where they are and bring them to us; and weengage that, on opportunity of the same sort offered, there will be areturn from this Court of the like justice and equity to any subjectsof France. "] [Footnote 2: The uniformly Miltonic style of the greater letters forthe Protector, the same style as had been used in the moreimportant letters for the Commonwealth, utterly precludes the ideathat Milton was only the translator of drafts furnished him. Inthe smaller letters, about ships wrongfully seized and other privateinjuries, the case may have been partly so, though even thereMilton must have had liberty of phraseology, and would imbed thefacts in his own expressions. But there was not a man about theCouncil that could have furnished the drafts of the greater lettersas we now have them. My idea as to the way in which they werecomposed is that, on each occasion, Milton learnt from Thurloe, oreven in a preappointed interview with the Council, or with Cromwellhimself, the sort of thing that was wanted, and that then, havinghimself dictated and sent in an English draft, he received it back, approved or with corrections and suggested additions, to be turnedinto Latin. Special Cromwellian hints to Milton for the letter toLouis XIV, on the alarm of a new persecution of the Piedmontese(ante pp. 387-9) must have been, I should say, the causal referenceto a certain pass as the best military route yet into Italy fromFrance, and the suggestion of an exchange of territories betweenLouis and the Duke of Savoy so as to make the Vaudois Frenchsubjects. The hints may have been given to Milton beforehand, orthey may have been [n]otched in by Cromwell in revising Milton'sEnglish draft. ] The last letters to Louis XIV. , Mazarin, and Charles Gustavus ofSweden, bring us to within about two months of Cromwell's death, andthe last one of all, that to the King of Portugal, to within lessthan a single month of the same. We have yet a farther trace of thediplomacies proper to Milton's office round the dying Protector. Here, however, it is not Milton that comes into view, but hiscolleague or assistant, Andrew Marvell. The Dutch Lord-Ambassador Nieuport, after having been absent inHolland since November 1657, had been sent back by their HighMightinesses, the States-General, to resume his post. Thecomplication of affairs in northern Europe by the movements ofCharles Gustavus, and the menacing attitude of that King not onlypretty generally all round the Baltic, but also towards the Dutchthemselves, had rendered Nieuport's renewed presence in London verynecessary. Newly commissioned and instructed, he made his voyage, andwas in the Thames on the night of the 23rd of July, though too lateto reach Gravesend that night. The arrival of an ambassador beingthen an affair of much punctilio, he sent his son up the river in ashallop, to inform Mr. Secretary Thurloe and Sir Oliver Fleming, themaster of the ceremonies, and to deliver to Thurloe a letterrequesting that the pomp of a public reception might be waived and hemight be permitted to take up his quarters quietly in the DutchEmbassy, still furnished and ready, just as he had left it. YoungMynheer Nieuport, coming to London on this errand, found things therein unexpected confusion, --the Lord Protector at Hampton Court, attending the death-bed of his daughter Lady Claypole, and leavingbusiness to itself, and Secretary Thurloe also out of town. Fortunately, Thurloe was not then at Hampton Court, but only at hisown country-house two miles off. Thither young Nieuport rode at once. He met Thurloe coming in his coach to Whitehall; whereupon Thurloe, after all proper salutations, informed him that his Highness hadalready heard of his father's arrival and had given orders for hissuitable reception. Meanwhile, would young Mr. Nieuport come into thecoach, so that they might drive back to Whitehall together? Arrivedat Whitehall, Thurloe immediately gave orders for the preparation ofone of his Highness's barges to be sent down to Gravesend, "with agentleman called Marvell, who is employed in the despatches for theLatin tongue. " Apparently this gentleman was on the spot, and was atonce introduced by Thurloe to young Nieuport. Then young Nieuportwent down the river by himself, rejoining his father at Gravesend, and bringing him a letter from Thurloe, to the effect that hisHighness was very anxious that his reception should be in all pointssuch as became the respect due to himself and his office, but thatMr. Marvell would come expressly to discuss and arrange particularsand that whatever Lord Nieuport should finally judge fitting shouldalso be satisfactory to his Highness. That was on the night ofSaturday, the 24th. Next day, Sunday the 25th, Marvell was duly downat Gravesend in the barge, actually before morning-sermon, as theAmbassador himself informs us, bidding the Ambassador formallywelcome in the Lord Protector's name, and sketching out for him "apublic reception, with barges and coaches, and also an entertainment, such as is usually given to the chiefest Ambassadors. " Lord Nieuportstill preferring less bustle on his own account, and thinking alsothat a great public reception would be unseemly at a time when "theLord Protector and the whole Court were in great sadness for themortal distemper of the Lady Claypole, " Marvell remained in waitingon him at Gravesend that day, and in the night brought him up to townin his barge _incognito_. It was thought that his Highness mightpossibly be able to come from Hampton Court to Whitehall the next dayor the next; but, that chance having passed, it was arranged that theAmbassador should himself go to Hampton Court, and have an audiencewith the Protector at three o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday the29th. Accordingly, at eleven o'clock on that day the master of theceremonies was at the Dutch Embassy, with three six-horse coaches;and, having been driven to Hampton Court, the Ambassador was receivedby Thurloe "at the second gate of the first court, " and taken to hisHighness's room. After interchange of compliments, his Highnessexpressed his regret "that his own indisposition, and other domesticinconveniencies, had hindered him from coming to London"; and then, the general company having been dismissed, and only Lord PresidentLawrence, Lord Strickland, and Thurloe, remaining in the room, therewas some talk on business. Various matters were mentioned, but onlygenerally, Nieuport not thinking it fit to trouble his Highness with"a large discourse, " and his Highness indeed intimating that he didnot find himself well enough to talk much. But all was very amicable, and at the end of the interview Cromwell, saying he hoped to be inLondon next week, insisted on conducting the Ambassador to the doorof the antechamber, leaving Lawrence, Strickland, and Thurloe, to dothe rest by attending him through the galleries back to the coaches. On that same day there had been a Council-meeting at Hampton Court, the last at which Cromwell was present. Possibly Dutch business wasdiscussed there, and also at the next meeting of Council, which wasat Whitehall on the 3rd of August, and without Cromwell. On the 5th, at all events, when the Council again met at Hampton Court, Cromwellnot present, there was, as we have seen (ante, p. 355), a minute onDutch business of a very ominous character. Cromwell's heart was nowwith the magnanimous Swede rather than with the merchandizing Dutch;and, in all probability, had he lived longer, Ambassador Nieuportwould have had to send home news that might not have been pleasant totheir High Mightinesses. But the next day (August 6) Lady Claypolewas dead; and from that day, through the remaining four weeks ofCromwell's life, the concerns of the foreign world grew dimmer anddimmer in his regards. Perhaps to the last moment of hisconsciousness what did most interest him in that foreign world wasthe great new commotion round the Baltic in which his Swedish brotherwas the central figure, and in which both the Dutch and theBrandenburg Elector were playing anti-Swedish parts, the Electoravowedly, the Dutch more warily, "The King of Sweden hath againinvaded the Dane, and very probably hath Copenhagen by this time, "wrote Thurloe from Whitehall to Henry Cromwell at two o'clock in themorning of August 27. Cromwell, therefore, had learnt that factbefore his death, and it must have mingled with his thoughts in hisdying hours. In these very hours, we find, not only was AmbassadorNieuport close at hand again, for Dutch negotiations in which thefact would naturally be of high moment, but Herr. Schlezer also, theLondon agent of the Brandenburg Elector, was at the doors of theCouncil office, with express letters from the Elector, which he wasanxious to deliver to Thurloe himself, in case even at such a timesome answer might be elicited. Thurloe choosing to be inaccessible, he had left the letters with Mr. Marvell. Thus, twice in the lastweeks of Oliver's Protectorate we have a distinct sight of Marvell inhis capacity of substitute for Milton. He barges down the Thames veryearly on a Sunday morning to salute an Ambassador in the name of theProtector and bring him up to town in a proper manner; and hereceives in the Whitehall office a troublesome diplomatic agent, whohas come with important despatches. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII 286 and 298-299 (Letters of Nieuport tothe States-General), 362 (Letter of Thurloe to Henry Cromwell), and373-374 (Latin letter of Schlezer to Thurloe, two days afterCromwell's death). ] Thirty-three Latin State-Letters and five Latin Familiar Epistles arethe productions of Milton's pen we have hitherto registered asbelonging to the Second Protectorate of Oliver. Two or threeincidents, appertaining more properly to his Literary Biography, haveyet to be noticed before we leave the period. Here is the title of a little foreign tract of which I have seen asolitary, and perhaps unique, copy:-"_Dissertationis ad quoedamloca Miltoni Pars Posterior; quam, adspirante Deo, Pręsids Dn. JacoboSchallero, S. S, Theol. Doct, et Philos. Pract. Prof. , ad. H. T. Facult. Phil. Decano, solenniter defendet die[17] mens. Septemb. Christophorus Güntzer, Argentorat. Argentorati, Typis FridericiSpoor, 1657_" ("Second Part of a Dissertation, on certain Passagesof Milton; which, with God's favour, and tinder the presidency ofJames Schaller, Doctor of Divinity and Professor of PracticalPhilosophy, acting as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy for theoccasion, Christopher Güntzer of Strasburg will solemnly defend onthe 17th of September. Strasburg, Printed by Frederic Spoor, 1657"). Of the Schaller here mentioned we have heard before in connexion witha publication of his in 1653, also entitled _Dissertatio ad locaquędam Miltoni_, and appended then to certain_Exercitationes_ concerning the English Regicide by the Leipsicjurist Caspar Ziegler (Vol. IV. Pp. 534-535). He seems to haveretained an interest in the subject, and to have kept it up amongthose about him; for here, four years after his own Dissertation, heis to preside at the academic defence of another on the same subjectby a Christopher Güntzer, who was probably one of his pupils. YoungGüntzer, it seems, had been trying his hand on the subject already;for this is but the "second part" of his performance. The "firstpart" I have not seen, though it seems to have been published. The"second part" is a thin quarto, paged 45-92, as if to be bound withthe first. It is in a juvenile and dry style of quotation andacademic reasoning, modelled after Schaller's older Dissertation, andnot worth an abstract. More interesting than itself are eleven piecesof congratulatory Latin verse prefixed to it by college friends ofthe disputant. In more than one of these Milton is mentioned; but theliveliest mention of him is in a set of Phalęcians signed"Christianus Keck. " Phalęcians are not to be attempted in English;but, as the semi-absurd relish of the thing would be lost in prose, the first few lines may run into a kind of equivalent doggrel:-- "What Salmasius, he whom all men hailed as Learning's prodigy, Phoenix much too big for His own late generation, ay or any old one, Wrote so bravely against the sin of Britain, Then all wet with the royal bloodshed in her, Milton answered with pen that, be it granted, Showed vast genius, nor a mind without some Real marks of artistic cultivation, Though, O shame! patronizing such an outrage. Milton's pen is refuted next by Schaller's, -- Quite a different pen and more respected. " Young Keck then goes on to assure his fellow-students that, if theireminent Professor Schaller's Dissertation of 1653 in reply to Miltonhad been duly read and pondered in Great Britain, it would have beenof far more use towards a restoration of the Stuarts than camps andcannon; and he ends by congratulating the world on the fact that nowyoung Güntzer, the accomplished young Güntzer, has placed himself bythe side of the learned Professor, to wave the same inextinguishabletorch of truth. [1]--In all probability, Milton never heard of such atrifle. It illustrates, however, the kind of rumour of himself andhis writings that was circling, in the year 1657, in holes andcorners of German Universities. Strasburg, with Elsatz generally, wasthen within the dominions of Austria; and it was naturally less inAustrian Germany than in other parts of the Continent that there wasthat especial admiration of Milton which had been growing since thepublication of his _Defensio Prima_, but which, as Aubrey tellsus, had reached its height under the Protectorate. "He was mightilyimportuned, " says Aubrey, "to go into France and Italy. Foreignerscame much to see him, and much admired him, and offered to him greatpreferments to come over to them; and the only inducement of severalforeigners that came over into England was chiefly to see O. Protector and Mr. J. Milton; and [they] would see the house andchamber where he was born. He was much more admired abroad than athome. " This corresponds with all our own evidence hitherto, though wehave heard nothing of those invitations and offers of foreignpreferment of which Aubrey speaks. [Footnote 1: The copy I have seen of Güntzer's _Dissertatio_ isin the British Museum Library. The figure "17" is inserted in MS. After the word "_die_" in the title-page. ] In May 1658, three or four months before Cromwell's death, there waspublished in London a little volume of about 200 pages, with thistitle-page: "_The Cabinet Council; Containing the chief Arts ofEmpire, and Mysteries of State; Discabineted in Political andPolemical Aphorisms, grounded, on Authority, and Experience; Andillustrated with the choicest Examples and Historical Observations. By the Ever-renowned Knight, Sir Walter Raleigh, published by JohnMilton Esq. _-Quis Martem tunicā tectum Adamantinā dignescripserit?-_London, Printed by Tho. Newcomb for Tho. Johnson atthe sign of the Key in St. Pauls Churchyard, near the West-end, 1658. "_ Prefixed to the body of the volume, which is divided intotwenty-six chapters, is a note "_To the Reader, "_ as follows:"Having had the manuscript of this Treatise, written by Sir WalterRaleigh, many years in my hands, and finding it lately by chanceamong other books and papers, upon reading thereof I thought it akind of injury to withhold longer the work of so eminent an authorfrom the public: it being both answerable in style to other works ofhis already extant, as far as the subject would permit, and given mefor a true copy by a learned man at his death, who had collectedseveral such pieces. -JOHN MILTON. "[1] [Footnote 1: There were subsequent reprints of Raleigh's _CabinetCouncil_ from this 1658 edition by Milton, with changes oftitle. See Bohn's Lowndes under _Raleigh_] By far the most interesting fact, however, in Milton's literary lifeunder the Second Protectorate is that he had certainly, before itsclose, resumed his design of a great English poem, to be calledParadise Lost. Phillips's words might even imply that he had resumedthis design before the end of the First Protectorate. For, afterhaving mentioned that, in the comparative leisure in which he wasleft by the conclusion of his controversy with Morus (Aug. 1655), heresumed those two favourite hack-occupations on which he always fellback when he had nothing else to do, --his History of England and hiscompilations for a Latin Dictionary, --Phillips adds, "But the highthof his noble fancy and invention began now to be seriously and mainlyemployed in a subject worthy of such a muse: viz. A Heroic Poem, entitled _Paradise Lost_, the noblest, " &c. In this passage, however, Phillips is throwing together, in 1694, all hisrecollections of the four years of his uncle's life between Aug. 1655and Aug. 1659; and Aubrey's earlier information (1680), originallyderived from Phillips himself, is that _Paradise Lost_ was begun"about two years before the King came in, " i. E. About May 1658. Thiswould fix the date somewhere in the two or three months immediatelyfollowing the death-of Milton's second wife. In such a matter exactcertainty is unattainable; and it is enough to know for certain thatthe resumption of _Paradise Lost_ was an event of the latterpart of Cromwell's Second Protectorate, and that some portion of thepoem was actually written in the house in Petty France, Westminster, while Milton was in communication with Cromwell and writing lettersfor him. In the rooms of that house, or in the garden that stretchedfrom the house into St. James's Park across part of what is now theground of Wellington Barracks, the subject of the epic first tookdistinct shape in Milton's mind, and here he began the greatdictation. Eighteen years had elapsed since Milton, just settled in London afterhis return from Italy, had first fastened on the subject, preferredit by a sure instinct to all the others that occurred in competitionwith it, and sketched four plans for its treatment in the form of asacred tragedy, one with the precise title _Paradise Lost_, andanother with the title _Adam Unparadised_ (Vol. II. Pp. 106-108, and 115-119). Through all the distractions of those eighteen yearsthe grand subject had not ceased to haunt him, nor the longing toreturn to it and to his poetic vocation. Nay there had hung in hismemory all this while certain lines he had actually written anddestined for the opening of the intended tragedy. They were the tenlines that now form lines 32-41 of the fourth book of our present_Paradise Lost_. He had imagined, for the opening of histragedy, Satan already arrived within our Universe out of Hell, andalighted on our central Earth near Eden, and gazing up to Heaven andthe Sun blazing there in meridian splendour. He had imagined Satan, in this pause of his first advent into the Universe he was to ruin, thus addressing the Sun as its chief visible representative:-- "O thou that with surpassing glory crowned, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god Of this new World, --at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads, --to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King!" And now, after eighteen years, the poem having been resumed, but withthe resolution, made natural by Milton's literary observations andexperiences in the interval, that the dramatic form should beabandoned and the epic substituted, these ten lines, writtenoriginally for the opening of the Drama, were to be the nucleus ofthe Epic. [1] With our present _Paradise Lost_ before us, we cansee the very process of the gradual reinvention. In the epic Satanmust not appear, as had been proposed in the drama, at once on ourearth or within our universe. He must be fetched from thetranscendental regions, the vast extra-mundane spaces, of his ownprior existence and history. And so, round our fair universe, newly-created and wheeling softly on its axle, conscious as yet of noevil, conscious only of the happy earth and sweet human life in themidst, and of the steady diurnal change from day and light-bluesunshine into spangled and deep-blue night, Milton was figuring andmapping out those other infinitudes which outlay and encircled hisconception of all this mere Mundane Creation. Deep down beneath thisMUNDANE CREATION, and far separated from it, he was seeing the HELLfrom which was to come its woe; all round the Mundane Creation, andsurging everywhere against its outmost firmament, was the dark andturbid CHAOS out of which its orderly and orbicular immensity hadbeen cut; and high over all, radiant above Chaos, but with theMundane Universe pendent from it at one gleaming point, was the greatEMPYREAN or HEAVEN of HEAVENS, the abode of Angels and of EternalGodhead. Not to the mere Earth of Man or the Mundane Universe aboutthat Earth was Milton's adventurous song now to be confined, representing only dramatically by means of speeches and chorusesthose transactions in the three extramundane Infinitudes that mightbear on the terrestrial story. It must dare also into thoseinfinitudes themselves, pursue among them the vaster and more generalstory of Satan's rebellion and fall, and yet make all converge, through Satan's scheme in Hell and his advent at last into our World, upon that one catastrophe of the ruin of infant Mankind which thetitle of the poem proclaimed as the particular theme. [Footnote 1: Phillips's words in quoting these lines are, "In theFourth Book of the Poem there are six [he says _six_, but quotesall the _ten_] verses which, several years before the Poem wasbegun, were shown to me and some others as designed for the verybeginning of the said Tragedy. " These words, if the Epic was begun in1658, might carry us back at farthest to about 1650 as the date whenthe ten lines were in existence; but, besides that Phillips'sexpression is vague, we have Aubrey's words in 1680 as follows:--"Inthe [4th] Book of _Paradise Lost_ there are about six verses ofSatan's exclamation to the Sun which Mr. E. Phi. Remembers aboutfifteen or sixteen years before ever his Poem was thought of; whichverses were intended for the beginning of a Tragoedie, which he haddesigned, but was diverted from it by other business. " This, onPhillips's own authority, would take the lines back to 1642 or1643; and that, on independent grounds, is the probable date. Hardly after 1642 or 1643 can Milton have adhered to his originalintention of writing _Paradise Lost_ in a dramatic form. ] "Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse"-- Such might be the simple invocation at the outset; but, knowing nowall that the epic was really to involve, and how far it was to carryhim in flight above the Aonian Mount, little wonder that he couldalready promise in it "Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. " It may have been in one of the nights following a day of suchmeditation of the great subject he had resumed, and some considerableinstalment of the actual verse of the poem as we now have it may havebeen already on paper, or in Milton's memory for repetition tohimself, when he dreamt a memorable dream. The house is all still, the voices and the pattering feet of the children hushed in sleep, and Milton too asleep, but with his waking thoughts pursuing him intosleep and stirring the mimic fancy. Not this night, however, is it ofHeaven, or Hell, or Chaos, or the Universe of Man with itsluminaries, or any other of the objects of his poetic contemplationby day, that dreaming images come. Nor yet is it the recollection ofany business, Piedmontese, Swedish, or French, last employing himofficially, that now passes into his involuntary visions. His mind iswholly back on himself, his hard fate of blindness, and his againvacant and desolate household. But lo! as he dreams, that seemssomehow all a mistake, and the household is _not_ desolate. Aradiant figure, clothed in white, approaches him and bends over him. He knows it to be his wife, whom he had thought dead, but who is notdead. Her face is veiled, and he cannot see that; but then he hadnever seen that, and it was not so he could distinguish her. It wasby the radiant, saintlike, sweetness of her general presence. That isagain beside him and bending over him, the same as ever; and it wascertainly she! So for the few happy moments while the dream lasts;but he awakes, and the spell is broken. So dear has been that dream, however, that he will keep it as a sacred memory for himself in thelast of all his Sonnets:-- "Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save, And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined So clear as in no face with more delight. But oh! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. "[1] [Footnote 1: We do not know the exact date of this Sonnet; but theinternal evidence decidedly is that it was written not very longafter the second wife's death, and probably in 1658. The manuscriptcopy of it among the Milton MSS. At Cambridge is in the hand of aperson who was certainly acting as amanuensis for Milton early in1660 and afterwards. ] BOOK III. SEPTEMBER 1660--MAY 1660. HISTORY:--THE PROTECTORATE OF RICHARD CROMWELL, THE ANARCHY, MONK'S MARCH AND DICTATORSHIP, AND THE RESTORATION. RICHARD'S PROTECTORATE: SEPT. 3, 1658--MAY 25, 1659. THE ANARCHY:-- STAGE I. :--THE RESTORED RUMP: MAY 25, 1659--OCT. 13, 1659. STAGE II. :--THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT: OCT. 13, 1659--DEC. 26, 1659. STAGE III. :--SECOND RESTORATION OF THE RUMP, WITH MONK'S MARCH FROM SCOTLAND: DEC. 26, 1659--FEB. 21, 1659-60. MONK'S DICTATORSHIP, THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT, AND THE RESTORATION. BIOGRAPHY:--MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH RICHARD'SPROTECTORATE, THE ANARCHY, AND MONK'S DICTATORSHIP. CHAPTER I. First Section. THE PROTECTORATE OF RICHARD CROMWELL: SEPT. 3, 1658--MAY 25, 1659. PROCLAMATION OF RICHARD: HEARTY RESPONSE FROM THE COUNTRY AND FROMFOREIGN POWERS: FUNERAL OF THE LATE PROTECTOR: RESOLUTION FOR A NEWPARLIAMENT. --DIFFICULTIES IN PROSPECT: LIST OF THE MOST CONSPICUOUSPROPS AND ASSESSORS OF THE NEW PROTECTORATE: MONK'S ADVICES TORICHARD: UNION OF THE CROMWELLIANS AGAINST CHARLES STUART: THEIRSPLIT AMONG THEMSELVES INTO THE COURT OR DYNASTIC PARTY AND THE ARMYOR WALLINGFORD-HOUSE PARTY: CHIEFS OF THE TWO PARTIES: RICHARD'SPREFERENCE FOR THE COURT PARTY, AND HIS SPEECH TO THE ARMY OFFICERS:BACKING OF THE ARMY PARTY TOWARDS REPUBLICANISM OR ANTI-OLIVERIANISM:HENRY CROMWELL'S LETTER OF REBUKE TO FLEETWOOD: DIFFERENCES OF THETWO PARTIES AS TO FOREIGN POLICY: THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND THE WARWITH SPAIN: RELATIONS TO THE KING OF SWEDEN. --MEETING OF RICHARD'SPARLIAMENT (JAN. 27, 1658-9): THE TWO HOUSES: EMINENT MEMBERS OF THECOMMONS: RICHARD'S OPENING SPEECH: THURLOE THE LEADER FOR GOVERNMENTIN THE COMMONS: RECOGNITION OF THE PROTECTORSHIP AND OF THE OTHERHOUSE, AND GENERAL TRIUMPH OF THE GOVERNMENT PARTY: MISCELLANEOUSPROCEEDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT. --DISSATISFACTION OF THE ARMY PARTY:THEIR CLOSER CONNEXION WITH THE REPUBLICANS: NEW CONVENTION OFOFFICERS AT WALLINGFORD-HOUSE: DESBOROUGH'S SPEECH: THE CONTENTIONFORBIDDEN BY THE PARLIAMENT AND DISSOLVED BY RICHARD: WHITEHALLSURROUNDED BY THE ARMY, AND RICHARD COMPELLED TO DISSOLVE THEPARLIAMENT. --RESPONSIBLE POSITION OF FLEETWOOD, DESBOROUGH, LAMBERT, AND THE OTHER ARMY CHIEFS: BANKRUPT STATE OF THE FINANCES: NECESSITYFOR SOME KIND OF PARLIAMENT: PHRENZY FOR "THE GOOD OLD CAUSE" ANDDEMAND FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE RUMP: ACQUIESCENCE OF THE ARMYCHIEFS: LENTHALL'S OBJECTIONS: FIRST FORTNIGHT OF THE RESTORED RUMP;LINGERING OF RICHARD IN WHITEHALL: HIS ENFORCED ABDICATION. OLIVER was dead, and Richard was Protector. He had been nominated, insome indistinct way, by his father on his death-bed; and, thoughthere was missing a certain sealed nomination paper, of much earlierdate, in which it was believed that Fleetwood was the man, it was theinterest of all parties about Whitehall at the moment, Fleetwoodhimself included, to accept the death-bed nomination. That havingbeen settled through the night following Oliver's death, Richard wasproclaimed in various places in London and Westminster on the morningof September 4, amid great concourses, with firing of cannon, andacclamations of "_God save His Highness Richard LordProtector!_" It was at once intimated that the Government was toproceed without interruption, and that all holding his lateHighness's commissions, civil or military, were to continue in theirappointments. Over the country generally, and through the Continent, the news ofOliver's death and the news that Richard had succeeded him ransimultaneously. For some time there was much anxiety at Whitehall asto the response. From all quarters, however, it was reassuring. Addresses of loyal adhesion to the new Protector poured in fromtowns, counties, regiments, and churches of all denominations; theproclamations in London and Westminster were repeated in Edinburgh, Dublin, and everywhere else; the Armies in England, Scotland, andIreland were alike satisfied; the Navy was cordial; from Lockhart, asGovernor of Dunkirk, and from the English Army in Flanders, therewere votes of confidence; and, in return for the formal intimationmade to all foreign diplomatists in London of the death of the lateProtector and the accession of his son, there came mingledcondolences on the one event and congratulations on the other fromall the friendly powers. Richard himself, hitherto regarded as a merecountry-gentleman of simple and jolly tastes, seemed to suit his newposition better than had been expected. In audiences with deputationsand with foreign ambassadors he acquitted himself modestly andrespectably; and, as he had his father's Council still about him, with Thurloe keeping all business in hand in spite of an inopportuneillness, affairs went on apparently in a satisfactory course. --Amatter which interested the public for some time was the funeral ofthe late Protector. His body had been embalmed, and conveyed toSomerset House, there to lie in open state, amid banners, escutcheons, black velvet draperies and all the sombre gorgeousnessthat could be devised from a study of the greatest royal funerals onrecord, including a superb effigy of his Highness, robed in purple, ermined, sceptred, and diademed, to represent the life; and not tillthe 23rd of November was there an end to these ghastly splendours bya great procession from Somerset House to Westminster Abbey todeposit the effigy in the chapel of Henry VII. , where the body itselfhad already been privately interred. --A week after this disappearanceof the last remains of Oliver (Nov. 29, 1658) it was resolved inCouncil to call a Parliament. This, in fact, was but carrying out theintention formed in the late Protectorate; but, while the cause thathad mainly made another Parliament desirable to Oliver was stillexcruciatingly in force, --to wit, the exhaustion of funds, --it wasconsidered fitting moreover that Richard's accession should as soonas possible pass the ordeal of Parliamentary approval. Thursday, Jan. 27, 1658-9, was the day fixed for the meeting of the Parliament. Through the intervening weeks, while all the constituencies werebusy with the canvassing and the elections, the procedure of Richardand his Council at Whitehall seemed still regular and judicious. There was due correspondence with foreign powers, and there was nointerruption of the home-administration. The Protector kept court ashis father had done, and conferred knighthoods and other honours, which were thankfully accepted. Sermons were dedicated to him as "thethrice illustrious Richard, Lord Protector. " In short, nearly fivemonths of his Protectorship passed away without any tumult ormanifest opposition. [1] [Footnote 1: _Merc. Pol. _, from Sept. 1658 to Jan. 1658-9, asquoted in _Cromwelliana_, 178-181; Thurloe, VII. 383-384, _etseq. _ as far as 541; Whitlocke, IV. 335-339; Phillips (i. E. Continuation of Baker's Chronicle by Milton's nephew, EdwardPhillips), ed. 1679, pp. 635-639; _Peplum Olivarii_, a funeralsermon on Oliver, dated Nov. 17, 1658, among ThomasonPamphlets. --Knights of Richard's dubbing in the first five months ofhis Protectorate were--General Morgan (Nov. 26), Captain Beke (Dee. 6), and Colonel Hugh Bethel (Dee. 26). There may have been others. ] Appearances, however, were very deceptive. The death of Cromwell had, of course, agitated the whole world of exiled Royalism, raising sunkhopes, and stimulating Charles himself, the Queen-Mother, Hyde, Ormond, Colepepper, and the other refugees over the Continent, todoubled activity of intrigue and correspondence. And, though thatimmediate excitement had passed, and had even been succeeded by akind of wondering disappointment among the exiles at the perfect calmattending Richard's accession, it was evident that the chances ofCharles were immensely greater under Richard than they had been whileOliver lived. For one thing, would the relations of Louis XIV. AndMazarin to Richard's Government remain the same as they had been toOliver's? There was no disturbance of these relations as yet. TheEnglish auxiliaries in Flanders were still shoulder to shoulder withTurenne and his Frenchmen, sharing with them such new successes asthe capture of Ypres, accomplished mainly by the valour of the braveMorgan. But who knew what might be passing in the mind of the craftyCardinal? Then what of the Dutch? In the streets of Amsterdam thepopulace, on receipt of the news of Cromwell's death, had gone aboutshouting "The Devil is dead"; the alliance between the EnglishCommonwealth and the United Provinces had recently been on strainalmost to snapping; what if, on the new opportunity, the policy ofthe States-General should veer openly towards the Stuart interest?All this was in the calculations of Hyde and his fellow-exiles, andit was their main disappointment that the quiet acceptance andseeming stability of the new Protectorate at home prevented thespring against it of such foreign possibilities. "I hope this youngman will not inherit his father's fortune, " wrote Hyde in the fifthmonth after Richard's accession, "but that some confusion will fallout which must make open a door for us. " The speculation was morelikely than even Hyde then knew. Underneath the great apparent calmat home the beginnings of a confusion at the very centre were alreadyat work. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 405 and 414; Guizot's _Richard Cromwelland the Restoration_ (English edition of 1856), I. 6-11. ] It will be well at this point to have before us a list of the mostconspicuous props and assessors of the new Protectorate. The name_Oliverians_ being out of date now, they may be called _TheCromwellians_. We shall arrange them in groups:-- I. THE COUNCIL. Lord President Lawrence. Lord Lieutenant-General Fleetwood (his Highness's brother-in-law). Lord Major-General Desborough (his Highness's uncle-in-law). Lord Sydenham (Colonel). Lord Pickering (_Chamberlain of the Household_). Lord Strickland. Lord Skippon. Lord Fiennes (_one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal_). Lord Viscount Lisle. Lord Admiral Montague. Lord Wolseley. Lord Philip Jones (_Comptroller of the Household_). Mr. Secretary Thurloe. [1] [Footnote 1: On comparing this list of Richard's Council with thelist of the Council in Oliver's Second Protectorate (ante p. 308) twonames will be missed--those of the EARL of MULGRAVE and old FRANCISROUS. The Earl of Mulgrave had died Aug. 28, 1658, five days beforeCromwell himself. The venerable Rous only just survived. He diedJan. 7, 1658-9, and is hardly to be counted in the present list. Richard's father-in-law, RICHARD MAYOR, though still alive andnominally in the Council, had retired from active life. ] II. NEAR ADVISERS, NOT OF THE COUNCIL. Lord Viscount Falconbridge (his Highness's brother-in-law). Lord Viscount Howard (Colonel). Lord Richard Ingoldsby (Colonel). Lord Whitlocke (still a much respected Cromwellian, and conjoined with Fiennes and Lisle in the Commission of the Great Seal, Jan. 22, 1658-9). Lord Commissioner John Lisle. Lord Chief Justice Glynne. Lord Chief Justice St. John. William Pierrepoint. Sir Edmund Prideaux (_Attorney General_). Sir William Bills (_Solicitor General_). Sir Oliver Fleming (_Master of the Ceremonies_). Sir Richard Chiverton (_Lord Mayor of London_). Dr. John Wilkins (his Highness's uncle-in-law). Dr. John Owen. Dr. Thomas Goodwin. III. CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ARMY IN OR NEAR LONDON:--Fleetwoodand Desborough, besides being Councillors, were the real heads of theArmy; and Skippon, Sydenham, and Montague, though of the Council too, with Viscount Howard and Ingoldsby, among the near advisers out ofthe Council, might also rank as Army-chiefs. But, in addition tothese, there were many distinguished officers, tied to theCromwellian dynasty, as it might seem, by their antecedents. Amongthese were Edward Whalley, William Goffe, Robert Lilburne, Sir JohnBarkstead, James Berry, Thomas Kelsay, William Butler, TobiasBridges, Sir Thomas Pride, Sir John Hewson, Thomas Cooper, JohnJones, and John Clerk. These were now usually designated, in theirmilitary capacity, as merely _Colonels;_ but the first eight hadbeen among Cromwell's "Major-Generals, " three of the thirteen hadtheir knighthoods from him, and nine of the thirteen (Whalley, Goffe, Barkstead. Berry, Pride, Hewson, Cooper, Jones, and Clerk) had beenamong his Parliamentary "Lords. "--We have mentioned but the chiefs ofthe Army, called "the Army Grandees;" but, since Richard's accession, and by his consent or summons, Army-officers of all grades hadflocked to London to form a kind of military Parliament roundFleetwood and Desborough, and to assist in launching the newProtectorate. They held weekly meetings, sometimes to the number of200 or more, in Fleetwood's residence of WALLINGFORD HOUSE, close toWhitehall Palace; and, as at these meetings, as well as at thesmaller meetings of "the Army Grandees" in the same place, allmatters were discussed, WALLINGFORD HOUSE was, for the time, a moreimportant seat of deliberation than the Council-Room itself. Therewere also more secret meetings in Desborongh's house. IV. WEIGHTY CROMWELLIANS AWAY FROM LONDON. (1) GENERAL GEORGE MONK, _Commander-in-Chief in Scotland;_ with whom may be associatedsuch members of the Scottish Council as Samuel Desborough, ColonelAdrian Scroope, Colonel Nathaniel Whetham, and Swinton of Swinton. (2) LORD HENRY CROMWELL, _Lord Deputy of Ireland_ hitherto, butnow, by his brother's commission, _Lord Lieutenant of Ireland_(Sept. 1658); with whom may be associated such of the Irish Councilor military staff as Chancellor Steele, Chief Justice Pepys, ColonelSir Hardress Waller, Colonel Sir Matthew Tomlinson, Colonel WilliamPurefoy, Colonel Jerome Zanchy, and Sir Francis Russell. Also inIreland at this time, and nominally in retirement, but a Cromwellianof the highest magnitude, was LORD BROGHILL. (3) Abroad the mostimportant Cromwellian by far was SIR WILLIAM LOCKHART, _LordAmbassador to France, General, and Governor of Dunkirk;_ with whommay be remembered George Downing, Resident in the United Provinces, and Meadows and Jephson, Envoys to the Scandinavian powers. Lockhartmanaged to be in England on a brief visit in December 1658. These fifty or sixty persons, one may say, were the men on whom itmainly depended, in the first months of Richard's Protectorate, whether that Protectorate should succeed or should founder. It hasbeen customary, in general retrospects of the time, to represent someof them as already tired of the Commonwealth in any possible form, and scheming afar off for the restoration of the Stuarts. This, however, is quite a misconstruction. --Monk, who is chiefly suspected, and who did now, from his separate station in the north, watch eventsin an independent manner, had certainly as yet no thought of the kindimagined. He had sent Richard a paper of advices showing a realdesire to assist him at the outset. He advised him, substantially, topersevere in the later or very conservative policy of his father, butwith certain differences or additions, which would be now easy. Heought, said Monk, at once to secure the affections of the greatPresbyterian body, by attaching to himself privately some of the mosteminent Presbyterian divines, and by publicly calling an Assembly ofDivines, in which Moderate Presbyterians and Moderate Independentstogether might agree on a standard of orthodoxy, and so stop theblasphemy and profaneness "too frequent in many places by the greatextent of Toleration. " Then, when a Parliament should meet, he oughtto bring a number of the most prudent and trustworthy of the oldnobility and the wealthy country gentry into the House of Lords. Forretrenchment of expense the chief means would be a reduction of theArmies in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by throwing two regimentseverywhere into one, and so getting rid of unnecessary officers; norlet his Highness think this advice too bold, for Monk could assurehim "There is not an officer in the Army, upon any discontent, thathas interest enough to draw two men after him, if he be out ofplace. " On the other hand, the Navy ought to be strengthened, andmany of the ships re-officered[1]--Such were Monk's advices; and, whatever may be thought of their value, they were certainly given ingood faith. And so with those others to whom, from their subsequentconduct, similar suspicions have been attached. At our present datethere was no ground for these suspicions. To some in the list, eitherranking among the actual Regicides or otherwise deeply involved inthe transactions of the late reign and their immediate consequences, the idea of a Restoration of the Stuarts may have been more horrible, on personal grounds, than it need have been to others, conscious onlyof later participation and lighter responsibility; but not a man inthe list yet dreamt of going over to the Royalist cause. Thedissensions were as to the manner and extent of their adhesion toRichard, and the policy to be recommended to him or forced upon him. [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 387-388. ] Cromwell's death having removed the one vast personal ascendency thathad so long kept all in obedience, jealousies and selfish interestshad sprung up, and were wrangling round his successor. From certainmysterious letters in cipher from Falconbridge to Henry Cromwell itappears that the wrangle had begun even round Cromwell's death-bed, "Z. [Cromwell] is now beyond all possibility of recovery"Falconbridge had written on Tuesday, Aug. 31: "I long to hear from A. [Henry Cromwell] what his intentions are. If I may know, I'll makethe game here as fair as may be; and, if I may have commission fromA. , I can make sure of Lord Lockhart and those with him. " One mightimagine from this that Falconbridge would have liked to secure thesuccession for Henry; but it rather appears that what he wanted wasto counteract a cabal against the interests of the family generally, which he had reported as then going on among the officers. Certainit is that, after Richard had been proclaimed and Henry had mostloyally and affectionately put all his services at the disposal ofhis elder brother, Falconbridge continued in cipher letters to informHenry of the proceedings of the same cabal. Gradually, in theseletters and in other documents, we come to a clear view of the mainfact. It was that the wrangle of jealousies and personal interestsround the new Protector had taken shape in a distinct division of hisadherents and supporters into two parties. First there was what maybe called the _Court Party_ or _Dynastic Party, _represented by Falconbridge himself, and by Admiral Montague, Fiennes, Philip Jones, Thurloe, and others in the Council, withHoward, Whitlocke, and Ingoldsby, out of the Council, and with theassured backing of Henry Cromwell, Broghill, and Lockhart, if notalso of Monk. What they desired was to make Richard's Protectorate anavowed continuation of his father's, with the same forms, the samepowers, and the permanence of the _Petition and Advice_ as theinstrument of the Protectoral Constitution in every particular. Inopposition to this party was the _Army Party, _ or_Wallingford-House Party, _ led by Fleetwood and Desborough, witha following of others in the Council and of the Army-officers almostin mass. While maintaining the Protectorate in name, they were forsuch modifications of the Protectoral Constitution as might consistwith the fact that the chief magistrate was now no longer Oliver, butthe feeble and unmilitary Richard. In especial, they were forlimiting the Protectorship by taking from Richard the control of theArmy, and re-assuming it for the Army itself in the name of theCommonwealth. It was their proposal, more precisely, that Fleetwoodshould be Commander-in-chief independently, and so a kind of militaryco-ordinate with the Protector. [1] [Footnote 1: Falconbridge's Letters (deciphered) in Thurloe, VII. 365-366 et seq. , with other Letters in Thurloe and Letters of theFrench Ambassador, M. De Bordeaux, chiefly to Mazarin, appended toGuizot's _Richard Cromwell and the Restoration, _ I. 231 _etseq. _] For nearly five months there had been this tug of parties atWhitehall round poor Richard. Naturally, all his own sympathies werewith the Dynastic Party; and he had made this apparent. He hadproposed to bring Falconbridge and Broghill, perhaps also Whitlocke, into the Council; and, when he found that the Army party would notconsent, he had declined to bring in Whalley, Goffe, Berry, andCooper, proposed by that party in preference. In the matter of thelimitation of his Protectorship by the surrender of his headship ofthe Army he had been even more firm. The matter having come beforehim formally by petition from the Council of Officers, after havingbeen pressed upon him again and again by Fleetwood and Desborough inprivate, he had, in a conference with all the officers then in town(Oct, 14). Fleetwood at their head, explained his sentiments fully. The speech was written for him by Thurloe. After some gentlepreliminaries, with dutiful references to his father, it came to themain subject. "I am sure it may be said of me, " said Richard, "thatnot for my wisdom, my parts, my experience, my holiness, hath Godchosen me before others: there are many here amongst you who excel mein all these things: but God hath done herein as it pleased Him, andthe nation, by His providence, hath put things this way. Being thenthus trusted, I shall make a conscience, I hope, in the execution ofthis trust; which I see not how I should do if I should part with anypart of the trust which is committed to me unto any others, thoughthey may be better men than myself. " He then instanced the twothings which he understood to be demanded of him by the Army. "Forinstance, " he said, "if I should trust it to any one person or moreto fill up the vacancies of the Army otherwise than it is in the_Petition and Advice_--which directs that thecommanders-in-chief of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the otherfield-officers, should be from time to time supplied by me, with theconsent of the Council, leaving all other commissioned officers onlyto my disposal--I should therein break my trust and do otherwise thanthe Parliament intended. It may as well be asked of me that I wouldcommit it to some other persons to supply the vacancies in theCouncil, in the Lords' House, and all other magistracies. I leave itto any reasonable man to imagine whether this be a thing in my powerto do.... There hath also been some discourse about aCommander-in-chief. You know how that stands in the _Petition_and _Advice_, which I must make my rule in my government, andshall through the blessing of God stick close to that. I am notobliged to make _any_ Commander-in-chief: that is left to my ownliberty, as it was in my father's; only, if I will make any, it mustbe done by the consent of the Council. And by the Commander-in-chiefcan be meant no other than the person who _under me_ commandsthe whole Army, call him what you will--'Field-Marshal, ''Commander-in-chief, ' 'Major-General, ' or 'Lieutenant-General. ' ... Commander-in-chief is the genus; the others are the species. And, though I am not obliged to have any such person besides myself tocommand all the forces, yet I _have_ made one: that is, I havemade my brother Fleetwood Lieutenant-General of all the Army, and soby consequence commander-in-chief [_under me_]; and I am sure Ican do nothing that will give him more influence in the Army thanthat title will give him, unless I should make him General[_instead of me_]; and I have told you the reasons why I cannotdo that. " Altogether, the speech, and the modesty with which it wasdelivered, produced very considerable effect for the moment upon theofficers. Whalley, Goffe, Berry, and others are understood to haveshown more sympathy with Richard in consequence; there was respectfor his firmness among people generally when it came to be known;and, though the meetings at Wallingford House and Desborough's housewere continued, action was deferred. One effect, however, had been torouse the dormant Anti-Cromwellianism of the Army-men, and to bringout, more than Fleetwood and Desborough intended, that leaven of pureRepublicanism, or affection for the "good old cause" of 1648-1653, which had not ceased, through all the submission to the Protectorate, to lurk in the regiments in combination with Anabaptistry, Fifth-Monarchism, and other extreme forms of religious Independency. In the meetings round Fleetwood and Desborough there had beenreflections on the late Protector's memory far from respectful. HenryCromwell in Ireland had heard of this; and among many interestingletters of his to various correspondents on the difficulties of hisbrother's opening Protectorate, all showing a proud and finesensitiveness, with some flash of his father's intellect, there isone (Oct. 20) of rebuke to his brother-in-law Fleetwood on account of_his_ conjunction with the malcontents, "Pray give me leave toexpostulate with you. How came those 200 or 300 officers together?... If they were called, was it with his Highness's privity? If theymet without leave in so great a number, were they told their error? Ishall not meddle with the matter of their petition, though somethings in it do unhandsomely reflect not only on this present, buthis late, Highness, I wish with all my heart you wereCommander-in-chief of all the forces in the three nations; but I hadrather have it done by his Highness's especial grace and mere motionthan put upon you in a tumultuary soldierly way. But, dear brother, Imust tell you (and I cannot do it without tears) I hear that dirt wasthrown upon his late Highness at that great meeting. They wereexhorted to stand up for that 'good old cause which had long lainasleep, ' &c. I thought my dear father had pursued it to the last. Hedied like a servant of God, and prayed for those that desired totrample upon his dust, for _they_ also were God's people. O dearbrother! ... Whither do these things tend? Surely God hath acontroversy with us. What a hurly-burly is there made! A hundredIndependent ministers called together" [the Savoy Synod of theCongregationalists, with Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Nye, Caryl, andothers, at their head, convoked Sept. 29, 1658, for framing aConfession of Faith, by permission from the late Protector: see antep. 844]. "a Council, as you call it, of 200 or 300 officers of ajudgment! Remember what has always befallen imposing spirits. Willnot the loins of an imposing Independent or Anabaptist be as heavy asthe loins of an imposing Prelate or Presbyter? And is it a dangerouserror that dominion is founded on grace when it is held by the Churchof Rome, and a sound principle when it is held by the Fifth Monarchy?... O dear brother, my spirit is sorely oppressed with theconsideration of the miserable estate of the innocent people ofthese three poor nations. What have these sheep done that_their_ blood should be the price of _our_ lust andambition? Let me beg of you to remember how his late Highness lovedyou, how he honoured you with the highest trust in the world byleaving the sword in your hand which must defend or destroy us; andhis declaring his Highness his successor shows that he left it thereto preserve _him_ and _his_ reputation. O brother, use itto curb extravagant spirits and busybodies; but let not the nationsbe governed by it. Let us take heed of arbitrary power. Let us begoverned by the known laws of the land, and let all things be kept intheir proper channels; and let the Army be so governed that the worldmay never hear of them unless there be occasion to fight. And truly, brother, you must pardon me if I say God and man may require thisduty at your hand, and lay all miscarriages in the Army, in point ofdiscipline, at _your_ door. " Fleetwood could answer this (Nov. 9) but very lamely: "I do wonder what I have done to deserve such asevere letter from you, " &c. Fleetwood was really a good-heartedgentleman, meaning no desperate harm to Richard or his Protectorate, though desiring the Commandership-in-chief for himself, and perhaps(who knows domestic secrets?) a co-equality of public status for hiswife, Lady Bridget, with the Lady-Protectress Dorothy. In fact, however, Lieutenant-General Fleetwood and Major-General Desboroughbetween them had let loose forces that were to defy their ownmanagement. Meanwhile, the phenomenon observable in the weekspreceding the meeting of the Parliament which Richard had called wasthat of a violent division already among the councillors andassessors of the Protectorate. There was the _Court Party_ or_Dynastic Party, _ taking their stand on the _Petition andAdvice, _ and advocating a strictly conservative and constitutionalprocedure, in the terms of that document, on the lines laid down byOliver. There was also the _Army Party_ or _Wallingford-HouseParty, _ led by Fleetwood and Desborough, with an immediate retinueof Cromwellian ex-Major-Generals and Colonels purposely in London, and a more shadowy tail of majors, captains, and inferior officers, coiled away among the regiments. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 447-449, 454-455, and 498; Phillips, 639;Guizot, I. 13-19, with Letters of M. De Bordeaux appended to thevolume. ] More than questions of home-administration was involved in thisdivision of parties. It involved also the future foreign policy ofthe Protectorate. The desire of Richard himself and of the CourtParty was to prosecute the foreign policy which Oliver had sostrenuously begun. Now, the great bequests from the late Protectoratein the matter of foreign policy had been two: (1)_The War withSpain, in alliance with France. _ The Treaty Offensive andDefensive with France against Spain, originally formed by CromwellMarch 23, 1656-7, and renewed March 28, 1658, was to expire on March28, 1659. Was it to be then again renewed? If not, how was the warwith Spain to be farther conducted, and what was to become ofDunkirk, Mardike, and other English conquests and interests inFlanders? Mazarin was really anxious on this topic. The alliancewith England had been immensely advantageous for France; and could itnot be continued? In frequent letters, since Cromwell's death, to M. De Bordeaux, the French Ambassador in London, Mazarin had pressed forinformation on this point. The substance of the Ambassador's replieshad been that the new Protector and his Council, especially Mr. Secretary Thurloe, were too much engrossed with home-difficulties tobe very explicit with him, but that he had reason to believe a loanfrom France of £50, 000 would aid the natural inclinations of theCourt-party to continue the alliance. This was more than Mazarinwould risk on the chance, though he was willing to act on thesuggestion of the ambassador that a present of Barbary horses shouldbe sent to Lord Falconbridge, or a jewel to Lady Falconbridge, tokeep _them_ in good-humour. There can be no doubt thatFalconbridge, Thurloe, Lockhart, and the Court Party generally, didhope to preserve the close friendship with France and the holdacquired by England on Flanders. Lockhart particularly had at heartthe hard, half-starved condition of his poor Dunkirk garrison andthe other forces in Flanders. On the other hand, there were signsthat public feeling might desert the Court Party in their desire tocarry on Oliver's joint-enterprise with France against the Spaniards. Dunkirk and Mardike were precious possessions; but might it not bebetter for trade to make peace with Spain, even if Jamaica shouldhave to be given back and there should have to be other sacrifices?This idea had diffused itself, it appears, pretty widely among thepure Commonwealth's men, and was in favour with some of theWallingford-House party. Why be always at war with Spain? True, shewas Roman Catholic, and the more the pity; but what did that concernEngland? Was there not enough to do at home?[1] (2) _Assistance tothe King of Sweden_. A great surprise to all Europe just beforeCromwell's death had been, as we know, the sudden rupture of thePeace of Roeskilde between Sweden and Denmark, with the reinvasion ofZealand by Charles Gustavus, and his march on Copenhagen (ante p. 396). Had Cromwell lived, there is no doubt that, with whateverregret at the new rupture, he would have stood by his heroic brotherof Sweden. For was not the Swedish King still, as before, the onereal man of mark in the whole world of the Baltic, the hope of thatleague of Protestant championship on the Continent which Cromwell hadlaboured for; and was he not now standing at bay against a most uglyand unnatural combination of enemies? Not only were John Casimir andhis Roman Catholic Poles, and the Emperor Leopold and his RomanCatholic Austrians, and Protestant Brandenburg and some other GermanStates, all in eager alliance with the Danes for the opportunity ofanother rush against _him_; the Dutch too were abetting theDanes for their own commercial interests? Actually this was the stateof things which Richard's Government had to consider. CharlesGustavus was still besieging Copenhagen; a Dutch fleet, under AdmiralOpdam, had gone to the Baltic to relieve the Danes (Oct. 1658): wasCromwell's grand alliance with the Swede, were the prospects of theProtestant League, were English interests in the Baltic, to be of noaccount? Applications for help had been made by the Swedish King;Mazarin, through the French ambassador, had been urging assistance toSweden; the inclinations of Richard, Thurloe, and the rest, were allthat way. Here again, however, the perplexity of home-affairs, thewant of money, the refusal of Mazarin himself to lend even £50, 000, were pleaded in excuse. All that could be done at first was tofurther the despatch to the Baltic of Sir George Ayscough, an ableEnglish Admiral who had for some years been too much in thebackground, but of whom the Swedish Count Bundt had conceived a highopinion during his embassy to England in 1655-6, and who hadconsequently been invited by the Swedish King to enter his service, bringing with him as many English officers and seamen as he could. This volunteer expedition of Ayscough Richard and his Council did atonce countenance. Nay, when news came (Nov. 8) of a great defeat ofOpdam's Dutch fleet by the Swedish Admiral Wrangel, the dispositionto help the Swede became stronger. On the 13th of that month aspecial envoy from the Swedish King, who had been in London for someweeks, took his departure with some satisfaction; and within a fewdays Vice-Admiral Lawson and his fleet of some twenty or twenty-oneships in the Downs had orders to sail for the Sound, for mediation atleast, but for the support of Charles Gustavus if necessary. Thefleet did put to sea, but with hesitations to the last and the reportthat it was "wind-bound. "[2] [Footnote 1: Letters between Mazarin and M. De Bordeaux in Guizot, I. 231-286, and II. 441-450; Thurloe, VII. 466-467. ] [Footnote 2: Letters between Mazarin and M. De Bordeaux last cited, with. Guizot, I. 23-26; Thurloe, VII. 412, 509, 529; Whitlocke forSept. , Oct. , Nov. , and Dec. 1658, also for Aug. 1656; Phillips, 638. ] "Wind-bound" was the exact description of the state of Richard'sGovernment itself. All depended on what should blow from theParliament that had been called. In the writs for the elections tothe Commons there had been a very remarkable retrogression from thepractice of Oliver for his two Parliaments. For those two Parliamentsthere had been adopted the reformed electoral system agreed upon bythe Long Parliament, reducing the total number of members for Englandand Wales to about 400, instead of the 500 or more of the ancientsystem, and allocating the 400 among constituencies rearranged so asto give a vast proportion of the representation to the counties, while reducing that of the burghs generally and disfranchising manysmall old burghs altogether. The _Petition and Advice_ havingleft this matter of the number of seats and their distribution openfor farther consideration, Richard and his Council had been advisedby the lawyers that it would be more "according to law" and thereforemore safe and more agreeable to the spirit and letter of the_Petition and Advice_, to abandon the late temporary method, though sanctioned by the Long Parliament, and revert to the ancientuse and wont. Writs had been issued, therefore, for the return ofover 500 members from England and Wales by the old time-honouredconstituencies, besides additions from Scotland and Ireland. Thus, whereas, for the last two Protectoral Parliaments, some of the largerEnglish counties had returned as many as six, eight, nine, or twelvemembers each, all were now reduced alike to two, the large number ofseats so set free, together with the extra hundred, going back amongthe burghs, and reincluding those that had been disfranchised. Londonalso was reduced from six seats to four. It seems amazing now thatthis vast retrogression should have been so quietly accepted. Itseems even to have been popular; and, at all events, it roused nocommotion. It had been recommended by the lawyers, and it wasexpected to turn out favourable to the Government. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 615-619; and compare the List of Members of thisParliament of Richard (_Part. Hist. _ III. 1530-1537) with thelists of Oliver's two Parliaments _(Part. Hist. _ 1428-1433, and1479-1484). ] On Thursday, Jan. 27, 1658-9, the two Houses assembled inWestminster. In the Upper House, where Lord Commissioner Fiennesoccupied the woolsack, were as many of Cromwell's sixty-three "Lords"(ante pp. 323-324) as had chosen to come. All the Council, exceptThurloe, being in this House, and the others having been, for themost part, carefully selected Cromwellians, it might have beenexpected that Government would be strong in the House. As itincluded, however, Fleetwood, Desborough, and all the chief Colonelsof the Wallingford-House party, it is believed that in suchattendances as there were (never more than forty perhaps) that partymay have been stronger than the Court party. But it was thecomposition of the Commons House that was really of consequence, andhere appearances promised well for Richard. The total number of themembers, by the returns, was 558, of whom 482 were from Englishcounties and burghs, 25 from Wales, 30 from Ireland, and only 21 fromScotland. Some fifty of the total number were resolute pureRepublicans, among whom may be noted Bradshaw (Cheshire), Vane(Whitchurch in Hants), Scott (Wycombe), Hasilrig (Leicester), Ludlow(Hindon), Henry Neville (Reading), Okey (Bedfordshire), and Weaver(Stamford); and there was a considerable sprinkling ofAnti-Cromwellians of other colours besides, including Lord Fairfax(Yorkshire), Lambert (Pontefract), Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (Wilts), and Major-General Browne (London). But Thurloe was there to representthe Government in chief (returned by Cambridge University, but byseveral other places also); and he could count about a hundred sureEnglish adherents on the benches; among whom were Sir EdmundPrideaux (Saltash), Sir William Ellis (Grantham), together with hisown subordinate in the Council-office, William Jessop (Stafford), andMilton's assistant in the Foreign Secretaryship, Andrew Marvell(Hull). There were not a few Army-officers of the Wallingford-Houseparty; but, on the whole, this element did not seem to beparticularly strong in the House. Among the members for Scottishconstituencies were the Marquis of Argyle (Aberdeenshire), SamuelDesborough (Midlothian), the Earl of Tweeddale (East Lothian), Colonel Adrian Scroope (Linlithgow group of Burghs), Swinton ofSwinton (Haddingtonshire), Colonel Whetham (St. Andrews, &c. ), andMonk's brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas Clarges (Aberdeen, Banff, andCullen). Ireland had returned, among her thirty, Sir Hardress Waller(Kerry, &c. ), Sir Jerome Zanchy (Tipperary and Waterford), SirCharles Coote (Galway and Mayo), and two Ingoldsbys. The Scottish andIrish representatives were, almost to a man, Government nominees. Altogether, Thurloe's anxiety must have been about the yet unknownmass of 300 or so, some scores of them lawyers, otherscountry-gentlemen, and many of them young, that formed the neutralstuff to be yet operated upon. Among these, in spite of the oath offidelity to the Lord Protector, there were indubitably not a few whowere Stuartists at heart; but most wavered between Republicanism andthe Protectorate, and it was hopeful for Thurloe in this respect thatso much of the mass was Presbyterian. Ludlow, who did not at firsttake his seat, tells us that he at last contrived to do so furtivelywithout being sworn, and seems to hint that Vane did the same. Therewas negligence on the part of the doorkeepers, or they were confusedby the multitude of strange faces; for a stray London madman, namedKing, sat in the House for some time, in the belief that, as one ofthat name had been elected for some place, he might possibly be theperson. [1] [Footnote 1: List in _Parl. Hist. _ III. 1530-1537; Ludlow, 619et seq. ] Richard's opening speech was in a good strain. It assumed loyalty tothe memory of his father and to the _Petition and Advice_, andrecommended immediate attention to the arrears of the Army and toother money-exigencies, with zealous prosecution of the war withSpain, and consideration of what might be done for the King ofSweden, the cause of European Protestantism, and English interests inthe Baltic. The speech was delivered in the Lords, only a few of theCommons attending. They were busy with swearing in their members, andwith the election of a Speaker. Mr. Chaloner Chute, a lawyer, one ofthe members for Middlesex, was unanimously chosen; but, short as thesession was to be, the House was to have three Speakers insuccession. Mr. Chute acted till March 9, when his health broke down, and Sir Lislebone Long, one of the members for Wells, was appointedhis substitute. Sir Lislebone died only seven days afterwards (March16), and Mr. Thomas Bampfield, one, of the members for Exeter, succeeded him. Chute having died also, Bampfield became full Speaker. April 15, 1659. [1] [Footnote 1: _Parl. Hist. _ III. 1537-1540, and Commons Journalsof dates. ] A day or two having been spent in preliminary business, and the Housepresenting the spectacle, long unknown in Westminster, of no fewerthan between 300 and 400 members in daily attendance, Thurloe, on the1st of February, boldly threw down the gage by bringing in a bill forrecognising Richard's right and title to be Lord Protector. Hasilrigand the Republicans were taken by surprise, and could only protestthat the motion was unseasonable and that other matters ought to haveprecedence. The bill having been read the first time that day, Thurloe consented that the second reading should be deferred to the7th. On that day, accordingly, there began a debate which lasted forseven successive days, and was a full trial of strength between theGovernment and the Republicans. Hasilrig, Neville, Scott, Vane, Ludlow, and others, exerted themselves to the utmost, Hasilrigleading, and making one speech three hours long. It was evident, however, that the Republicans knew themselves to be but a minority, and used the debate only for re-opening the question of a Republic. They did not attack the direct proposal of the Bill; on the contrarythey vied with the Cromwellians in language of respect for Richard. "I confess I do love the person of the Lord Protector; I never sawnor heard either fraud or guile in him. " said Hasilrig. "I would nothazard a hair of his present Highness's head, " said Scott; "if youthink of a Single Person, I would have him sooner than any manalive. " They did not want, they said, to pull down the Protectorate;they only objected to Thurloe's high-handed method for committing theHouse to a foregone conclusion. But Thurloe beat. On Monday the 14th, the question having been finally put "that it be part of this Bill torecognise and declare his Highness Richard, Lord Protector, to be theundoubted Lord Protector and Chief Magistrate, " it was carried by 191votes to 168 to retain the words "recognise and, " and so to acceptRichard's accession as valid already. On a proposal to leave out theword "undoubted" Thurloe did not think a division worth while, butmade the concession. He did oppose a resolution, suddenly broughtforward, to the effect that the vote just passed should not bebinding until the House should have settled the clauses fartherdefining the powers of the Lord Protector; but that resolution, having caught the fancy of the House, passed with his single dissent. On the whole, he had succeeded in his first great battle with theRepublicans. --Nor was he less successful in the second. TheProtectorship having been voted, it was Thurloe's policy to push nextthe question of the recognition of the Other House, whereas theRepublicans desired to avoid that question as long as possible, so asto keep the Other House a mere nonentity, while the Commonsproceeded, as the substantial and sovereign House, to define thepowers of the Protector. On the 18th of February, the Republicans, having challenged a settlement of this difference by moving that thequestion of the negative voice of the Protector in passing lawsshould have precedence of the question of the Other House, werebeaten overwhelmingly by 217 votes to 86; and then for more than amonth the question of the Other House was the all-engrossing one. Itinvolved other questions, some of them apparently independent. Thus, on the 8th of March, the debate took a curiously significant turn. Indignant at the very notion that there should be anything in Englandcalling itself "The House of Lords, " the Republican speakers hadplayed on this supposed horror with every variety of sarcasm, sneering at the existing "Other House, " with its shabby equipment ofold colonels and other originally mean persons. If there was to be aHouse of Lords, Hasilrig and others now said imprudently, why shouldit not be a real one, why should not the old nobility, so many ofthem honourable men, resume their places? "Why not?" was the instantretort from some independent members, with the instant applause ofmany in the House. Hasilrig saw his mistake, of which Thurloe did notfail to take advantage. "The old Peers, " said Thurloe, "are notexcluded by the _Petition and Advice_: divers arecalled, --others may be"; and the occasion was taken to pass aresolution expressly reserving for such of the old peers as had beenfaithful the privilege of being summoned to the Other House, shouldthe issue of the debate be in favour of the existence of thatinstitution. The divisions on this incidental resolution were thelargest recorded in the Journals of the House--the previous questionfor putting the resolution being carried by 203 to 184, and theresolution itself by 195 to 188. Though the majority was but small, the gain to the Court Party was precious, because on an unexpectedpoint. But the Republicans had done themselves no good by their stylein the main discussion, A miscellaneous assembly always resents theungenerous, and the sneers at the existing composition of the OtherHouse had seemed ungenerous. "They have gone through wet and dry, hotand cold, fire and water; they are the best officers of the best armyin the world; their swords are made of what Hercules's club was madeof": such were the terms in which one speaker defended the militaryveterans of the Other House; and they were received with cheers. Nordid the next step of the Republicans improve their position. Havingobserved what a considerable proportion of Thurloe's majoritiesconsisted of the members from Scotland and Ireland, Cromwelliansnearly to a man, they tried to sweep these from the House inanticipation of future votes. First, they raised the question aboutthe Scottish members, contending that their presence in an EnglishParliament was unconstitutional, that the _de facto_incorporation of Scotland with the Commonwealth had never beenlegally consummated, &c. On this subject, the House having firstnegatived the proposal that the Scottish members should withdrawduring the debate, it was decided, March 21, by a majority of 211(Thurloe one of the tellers) to 120 (Vane one of the tellers), "Thatthe members returned for Scotland shall continue to sit as membersduring this present Parliament, " A like vote, March 23, retained theIrish members. The Republicans had again lost character by this pieceof tactics. Not only was it offensive to Scotland and Ireland; but tomany disinterested English members it seemed a mean attempt todepreciate, for a mere party purpose, those great achievements ofrecent years which had made the British Islands, as if by miracle, one body-politic at last. On the 28th of March the principal debatecame to an end in this two-claused Resolution: "That this House willtransact with the persons now sitting in the Other House, as an Houseof Parliament, during the present Parliament; and that it is nothereby intended to exclude such Peers as have been faithful to theParliament from their privilege of being duly summoned to be membersof that House. " The final division was 198 to 125; but there had beena preceding division on the question whether the words "when theyshall be approved by this House" should be inserted after the word"Parliament" in the first clause. This very ingenious amendment ofthe Anti-Cromwellians had been rejected by 183 votes to 146, thetellers for the Cromwellian majority being the Marquis of Argyle andThurloe, and for the minority Lord Fairfax and Lord Lambert. --Thus, at the end of the second month of the Parliament, the victory wasclearly with Thurloe and the Government. The Protectorship had beenrecognised; and the Other House also had been recognised, rathergrudgingly indeed, and not by the desired name of "The House ofLords, " but with a proviso that seemed to put that and more withinreach. It had also been ascertained in general that, in a House ofCommons larger than had been seen in Westminster for many years, Richard's Government was stronger, on vital questions, than theRepublicans and all other Anti-Cromwellians together. For there hadbeen discussions affecting the foreign policy of the Protectorate, and in these the Republicans and Anti-Cromwellians had been equallybeaten. It had been, carried, for example, on Thurloe'srepresentation, to persevere in the despatch of a strong fleet to theBaltic in the interest of the Swedish King; and such a fleet, nowunder Admiral Montague's command, had actually sailed before the endof March. It was in the Sound early in April. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and Guizot, I. 46-72 (wherethe extracts from speeches are from _Burton's Diary_); alsoCommons Journals of Feb. 21 and 24; and Thurloe, VII. 636-637 and644-645. ] In minor matters the House had shown some independence. On the 23rdof February they had ordered the release of the Duke of Buckinghamfrom the imprisonment to which he had been committed by Oliver, accepting the Duke's own word of honour, and Fairfax's bail of£20, 000, that he would not abet the enemies of the Commonwealth. So, on the 16th of March, they had released Milton's friend, theRepublican Major-General Overton, from his four years' imprisonment, declaring Cromwell's mere warrant for the same to have beeninsufficient and illegal. This was a most popular act, and theliberated Overton was received in London with enthusiastic ovations. Other political prisoners of the late Protectorate were similarlyreleased, and, on the whole, the majority of the House, though withall reverence for Oliver's memory, were ready to take any occasionfor signifying that his more "arbitrary" acts must be debited tohimself only. There were also distinct evidences of a disposition inthe House, due to the massive representation of the Presbyterians init, to question the late Protector's liking for unlimited religionstoleration. They approved heartily, it appears, of his EstablishedChurch, and even of its breadth as including Presbyterians andIndependents; but, like preceding Parliaments, they were for a morerigorous care for Church-orthodoxy, and more severe dealings with"heresies and blasphemies. " Quakers, Anti-Trinitarians, and Jews wereespecially threatened. Here, indeed, the House meant rather toindicate its good-will to the Protectorate than the reverse; for, though. Richard and Henry Cromwell inherited their father's religiousliberality, and others of the Cromwellians agreed with them, not afew were disposed, like Monk, to make a compact with thePresbyterians for heresy-hunting part of the very programme ofRichard's Protectorate. The Toleration tenet, indeed, was perhapsmore peculiarly a tenet of the Republicans than of any otherpolitical party, and not without strong reasons of a personal kind, people said, on the part of some of them. Had not Mr. Henry Neville, for example, been heard to say that he was more affected by someparts of Cicero than by anything in the Bible? If heathenism likethat infected the Republican opposition, what could any plain honestChristian do but support the Protectorate?[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given, and of Feb. 26 andApril 2; Guizot, I. 103-104. ] April 1659 was the third month of the Parliament. About a hundred ofthe members hitherto in attendance had then withdrawn, and theattendances had sunk to between 150 and 270. This was the moreominous because the struggle had now ceased to be one between theProtector's Government and the Opposition, and had become one betweenthe Court Party and the Army or Wallingford-House Party for thefarther use of Thurloe's victories. The Republicans, foiled in their own measures, had entered intorelations with the Wallingford-House magnates. True, these were not, for the nonce, Republicans. On the contrary, they were still one wingof the declared supporters of Richard's Protectorship, and theirchiefs all but composed that Other House the rights of which Thurloehad vindicated so manfully against the Republicans, and which was nowtherefore a working part of the Legislature. But might there not beways and means of breaking down the allegiance of theWallingford-House men to the Protectorate, their present implicationwith it notwithstanding? They were primarily Army-chiefs, and onlysecondarily politicians for the Protectorate; behind them was theArmy itself, charged with Republican sentiments from of old, and withnot a few important officers in it who were Republicans re-avowed;and, besides, they were politicians for the Protectorate in aninterest of their own which quite separated them from the CourtParty. Might not these differences between the Court Party and theWallingford-House Party be so operated upon as to force the CourtParty into open antagonism to the Army, and so leave theWallingford-House men no option but to fall back upon ArmyRepublicanism and make the Army an agent, in spite of themselves, forthe "good Old Cause"? How well-founded was this calculation willappear if we remember one or two facts. Cessation of Army-dominationin politics, and reliance on massive public feeling and onconstitutional methods, were now fixed principles of the CourtParty. Monk had expressed them when he advised Richard to reduce theArmy and get rid of superfluous officers, assuring him that the mostdisaffected officer, once discharged, would be a very harmlessanimal. Henry Cromwell had expressed the same in that letter toFleetwood in which he sighed for the happy time when the Army wouldnever be heard of except when it was fighting. Thurloe, Broghill, Falconbridge, and the rest, were of the same general opinion; andparts of the Army itself, they believed, had been schooled intodocility. Monk could answer for the troops and officers in Scotland, Henry Cromwell for those in Ireland, and Lockhart for those inFlanders. But then there was the great body of soldiers and officersin England, with London for their rendezvous. To them abnegation ofdirect influence in politics was death. It was not only their arrearsthat they saw endangered, but that Army privilege of debating andtheorizing which had been asserted by Cromwell in the Civil War, andwhich Cromwell afterwards, while regulating and checking it, hadnever abolished. Were they to meet no more, agitate no more? Was thegreat Army of the Commonwealth to be degraded, for the benefit ofthis new Protector, into a mere collection of men paid for bestridinghorses and handling pikes and ramrods? So reasoned the rank and fileand the subalterns; but the chiefs, while sharing the generalfeeling, had additional alarms of their own. They had left actionsbehind them, done in their major-generalcies or other commands forCromwell, for which they might be called to account under a civilianProtectorate, or other merely constitutional Government. There hadactually been signs in the present Parliament of a tendency to there-investigation of cases of military oppression and the impeachmentof selected culprits. Were the Army-men to consent, in suchcircumstances, to give up their powers of self-defence and corporateaction? No! Oliver's son might deserve consideration; but Oliver'sArmy had prior claims. Hitherto, Fleetwood, Desborough, and the rest of theWallingford-House Party, had been content with private remonstranceswith Richard on Army grievances in general, or particular grievancesoccasioned by his own exercise of Army-patronage. A saying ofRichard's in one of these conferences had been widely reported andhad given great offence. In reply to a suggestion that he was doingwrong in appointing any but "godly" officers, he had said, "Here isDick Ingoldsby, who can neither pray nor preach, and yet I will trusthim before ye all. " As nothing was to be made of Richard in thisprivate way, the Army party had resolved on another great conventionof officers in London, nominally for the consideration of Armyaffairs, but really to constrain both Richard and the Parliament. Ludlow, who had hitherto been the medium of communication between theRepublicans and the Wallingford-House men, was informed of thisproposal; and he and the other Republicans looked on with the keenestinterest. Would Richard, with his recent experience, allow theofficers to reassemble in general council? To the horror of Broghill, Falconbridge, Thurloe, and the rest of the Court party, it was foundthat, in a moment of weakness, cajoled privately by Fleetwood andDesborough, he _had_ given the permission, without evenconsulting his Council. Nothing could be done but let the conventionmeet, taking care that as many officers as possible of the Courtparty should be present in it. Accordingly, on the 5th of April 1659, there were about 500 officers of all ranks at Wallingford House, Fleetwood and Desborough at the head of one Protectoral party, andBroghill, Viscount Howard, Falconbridge, with Whalley and Goffe, representing the other, while among the general body there were noone knew how many pure Republicans. The meeting having been solemnlyopened with prayer by Dr. Owen, there was a vehement speech fromDesborough. The essence of the speech was that "several sons ofBelial" had crept into the Army, corrupting its former integrity, andthat therefore he would propose that every officer should becashiered that would not "swear that he did believe in his consciencethat the putting to death of the late King, Charles Stuart, waslawful and just. " Amid the cheers that followed, Lords Howard andFalconbridge (two of the denounced "sons of Belial"?) left indisgust; but Broghill remained and opposed bravely. He disliked alltests; but, if there was to be a test, he would propose that itshould be simply an oath "to defend the Government as it is nowestablished under the Protector and Parliament. " If the presentmeeting insisted on a test, and did not adopt that one, he would seethat it should be moved in Parliament. This, supported by Whalley andGoffe, calmed the meeting somewhat; and, after much more speaking, inwhich the necessity of a separation of the military power from thecivil was a prominent topic, the result was "_A HumbleRepresentation and Petition of the Officers of the Armies of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, " expressed in general and not unrespectfulterms, but conveying sufficiently the Army's demands. Presented toRichard in Whitehall on the 6th of April, this petition was forwardedby him to the Commons on the 8th, with a letter to the Speaker. Formore than a week no notice was taken by the House; but, the petitionhaving been circulated in print, with other petitions and documentsmore fierce for "the good old cause, " and the general council ofofficers still continuing the meetings at Wallingford House, with theexcitement of sermons and prayers added to that of their debates, theHouse was driven at last into that attitude of direct antagonism tothe Army in the name of the Protectorate on which both Royalists andRepublicans had calculated. Thurloe would fain have avoided this, andhad almost longed for some Cavalier outbreak to occupy the twoconflicting Protectoral parties and reunite them. But the numerousCavaliers in London had been well instructed and lay provokinglystill; and the management of the crisis for Richard had passed fromThurloe to the House itself. On Monday the 18th of April, in a Houseof 250, with shut doors to prevent any from leaving, it was resolved, by 163 votes to 87, "That, during the sitting of the Parliament thereshall be no general council or meeting of the officers of the Armywithout the direction, leave, and authority of his Highness the LordProtector and both Houses of Parliament"; and it was also resolved, "That no person shall have or continue any command or trust in any ofthe Armies or Navies of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or any of theDominions or Territories thereto belonging, who shall refuse tosubscribe, That he will not disturb nor interrupt the free meetingsin Parliament of any of the members of either House of Parliament, ortheir freedom in their debates and counsels. " The concurrence of theOther House was desired in these votes; and the Commons, who hadnoted with surprise that Hasilrig, Ludlow, Scott, and Vane, rathertook part with the Army in the debate, proceeded to the seriousconsideration of the arrears of pay due to the officers and soldiers, and of other real military grievances, in order to reconcile theArmy, if possible, to their strong Resolutions. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 633-638; Commons Journals of dates; Guizot, I. 112-120; Phillips, 641; Thurloe, VII. 657-658; Letters of M. DeBordeaux to Mazarin, in Guizot, I. 361-365. ] That was not possible. Richard, urged by Broghill and others, andstrengthened by the votes of the Commons, summoned up courage to goto the council of officers at Wallingford House next day, and, afterlistening to their debates for a while, declare their meetingsdissolved. The only effect was that they dispersed themselves then, to meet from day to day just as before, Dr. Owen and other preachersstill among them. Meanwhile, the concurrence of the Other House withthe Resolutions having been purposely delayed and all but refused, the Commons adopted what farther measures they could for securingRichard's control of the militia. Richard was advised by those aroundhim to empower them to seize Fleetwood and Desborough, and alsoLambert, whose conjunction with the Wallingford-House party was nownotorious. He hesitated. He had never done harm to anybody, he said, and he would not have a drop of blood shed on his poor account. Thequestion now was between a forced dissolution of theWallingford-House council of officers and a dissolution of theParliament itself. That, in spite of Richard's objection to violence, seemed on the eve of being decided by a murderous battle in thestreets of London. Fleetwood, summoned to Whitehall to see theProtector, neglected the summons; and through the night betweenWednesday the 20th and Thursday the 21st of April there was arendezvous in and round St. James's, by Fleetwood's order, of all theregiments in town. A counter-rendezvous, in Richard's name, wasattempted at Whitehall; but Whalley, Goffe, and Ingoldsby, who wouldhave commanded here and done their best, found that they had nosoldiers to command, the bulk of their own regiments, with some ofRichard's guards, having preferred the other rendezvous. What thenhappened is told by Ludlow in a single sentence. "About noon, " saysthe sturdy democrat, "Colonel Desborough went to Mr. Richard Cromwellat Whitehall, and told him that, if he would dissolve his Parliament, the officers would take care of him, but that, if he refused to doso, they would do it without him, and leave him to shift forhimself. " There was some consultation, in which Broghill, Fiennes, Thurloe, Wolseley, and Whitlocke, took part. Whitlocke, as he tellsus, was against a dissolution even in that extremity; but most of theothers thought it inevitable. Richard, therefore, reluctantlyyielded; but, as he declined to dissolve the Parliament in person, acommission for the purpose, directed to Lord Commissioner Fiennes, the Speaker of the Upper House, was drawn up by Thurloe, anddelivered in the night to Fleetwood and Desborough. Next day, Fridaythe 22nd, when the message came to the Commons by the Black Rod toattend in the House of Lords, there was the utmost possibleconfusion. Some members who had gone out were recalled; all wereordered to remain in their places; there was a wild hubbub of motionsand speeches, Fairfax conspicuous for his indignation; and, atlength, the House, without paying attention to the summons of theBlack Rod, adjourned itself to Monday morning at eight o'clock. TheDissolution, therefore, had to be effected by published proclamation, and by padlocking and guarding the doors of the House. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 639-641; Whitlocke under date April 21, 1659;Commons Journals of April 22; Phillips, 641-642; Guizot, I. 120-128, with Letters of M. De Bordeaux to Mazarin appended at pp. 366-375. ] A week before the Dissolution the Parliament had estimated the publicdebt, as it would stand at the end of the year then current, at atotal of £2, 222, 090, besides what might be due to the forces inFlanders. Of this sum £1, 747, 584 was existing debt in arrears, £393, 883 was debt of the Navy running on for the year, and £80, 623was the calculated deficit for the year by the excess of the ordinaryexpenditure in England, Scotland, and Ireland over the revenues fromthese countries. It is interesting to note the particulars of thislast item. The annual income from England was £1, 517, 275, and theannual expenses in England £1, 547, 788, leaving a deficit for Englandof £30, 513; the annual income from Scotland was £143, 652, but theoutlay £307, 271 (more than double the income), leaving a deficit forScotland of £163, 619; the annual income from Ireland was £207, 790, and the outlay £346, 480, leaving a deficit for Ireland of £138, 690. This would have made the total deficit, for the ordinaryadministration, civil and military, of the three nations, £332, 823;but, as £252, 200 of this sum would be met by special taxes on Englandfor the support of the Armies in Scotland and Ireland, the realdeficit was £80, 623, as above. How to meet that, and the £393, 883running on for the Navy, and the arrears of £1, 747, 584 besides, andthe unknown amount that might be due to the Army in Flanders, was thefinancial problem to be solved. Two millions and a half, it may besaid roughly, were required to set the Commonwealth clear. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, April 16, 1659. ] The late Parliament having stated the problem, but having had no timeto attempt the solution, the responsibility had descended to thosewho had turned them out. It was but one form of the enormous and mostcomplex responsibility they had undertaken; but it was the particularform of responsibility that had most to do in determining theirimmediate proceedings. Had it been merely the administration that hadcome into their hands, with the defence of the Commonwealth againstthe renewed danger of a Royalist outburst at home and inburst fromabroad to take advantage of the political crash, theWallingford-House chiefs would probably have thought it sufficient toconstitute themselves into a military Oligarchy for maintaining andcarrying on Richard's Protectorate. Fleetwood, Desborough, andLambert would have been a Triumvirate in Richard's name, and the onlydeliberative apparatus would have been the general council ofofficers continued, or a more select Council of their numberassociated with a few chosen civilians. The Triumvirs might havegiven such a form to the constitution as, while securing the realpower for themselves, and not abolishing Richard, would havesatisfied or beguiled for the moment the so-called Republicanism nowagain rampant among the inferior Army-men. But there was no money;Government in any form was at a deadlock until money could be raised;and how was that to be effected? The Wallingford-House magnates didmeditate for an instant whether they should not try to raise money bytheir own authority, but concluded that the experiment would be toodesperate, and that, for this reason, if for no other, some kind ofParliament must be at once set up. --But what Parliament? Here theyhad not far to seek. For the last month or more, placards on all thewalls of London, the very cries of news-boys in the streets, had beentelling them what Parliament. We have several times quoted the phrase"The Good Old Cause, " as coming gradually into use after Oliver'sdeath, and passing to and fro in documents and speeches. But no onecan describe now the force and frequency of that phrase in London andthroughout England in April 1659 and for months afterwards. If twomen passed you in the street, you heard the words "the good oldcause" from one of them; every second or third pamphlet in thebooksellers' shops had "The Good Old Cause" on its title-page orrunning through its text; veterans rolled out the phrase sonorouslyin their nightly prayers, or went to sleep mumbling it. One notesconstantly in the history of any country this phenomenon of theexpression of a great wave of feeling in some single popular phrase, generally worn out in a few months; but the present is a peculiarlyremarkable instance. The phrase, in itself, was ambiguous. One mighthave supposed "the good old cause" to be the cause of Royalty and theStuarts. This was an ironical advantage; for the phrase was aRepublican, and even a Regicide, invention. It meant, as we havepassingly explained, the pure Republican constitution which had beenfounded on the Regicide and which lasted till Cromwell's dissolutionof the Rump on the 20th of April, 1653. It proclaimed that Cromwell'sInterim Dictatorship and Protectorate had been an interruption of thenatural course of things, dexterously leaving it an open questionwhether that interruption had been necessary or justifiable, butcalling on all men, now that Oliver was dead and his greatness gonewith him, to regard his rule as exceptional and extraordinary, and torevert to the old Commonwealth. It involved, therefore, a very exactanswer to the question which the Wallingford-House magnates were nowpondering. A Parliament was wanted: what other Parliament could it bethan the Rump restored? Let that very Assembly which Cromwell haddissolved on the 20th of April, 1653, resume their places now, treatthe six years of interval as a dream, and carry on theGovernment. --With this course prescribed to them by the very clamoursthat were in the air, and pressed upon them by Ludlow, Vane, Hasilrig, and the more strenuously Republican men of the Army-Councilitself, Fleetwood, Desborough, and the other magnates still faltered. They hardly liked to descend from their own elevation; suchRepublicanism as they had learnt of late to profess was not the oldRepublicanism of Ludlow and Vane, but one admitting the suprememagistracy of a Single Person; and they had obligations of honour, moreover, to the present Richard. They pleaded that it was impossibleto restore the Rump, inasmuch as there were not survivors enough fromthat body to make a House. Hereupon Dr. Owen, who seems to have beenextremely active in this crisis, produced in Wallingford House alist, which he had obtained from Ludlow, of about 160 persons who hadbeen duly qualified (i. E. Non-secluded) members of the Rump between1648 and 1653, and were believed to be still alive. There were thenmeetings for consultation at Sir Henry Vane's house, with fartherdifferences over some demands of the Army-magnates. They demanded thepayment of Richard's debts, ample provision for his subsistence anddignity, and some recognition of his Protectorship; and they alsodemanded that, besides the Representative House, there should be aSelect Senate or Other House. To these demands for a continuation ofthe Protectorate in a limited form the Republicans could not yield, though Ludlow, to remove obstructions, was willing to concede atemporary Senate for definite purposes. The differences had not beenadjusted when the Wallingford-House men intimated that they wereprepared for the main step and would join with the Republicans inrestoring the Rump. This was finally arranged on the 6th of May, whenthere was drawn up for the purpose "A Declaration of the Officers ofthe Army, " signed by the Army Secretary "by the direction of the LordFleetwood and the Council of Officers, " and when two deputations, oneof Army-chiefs with the Declaration in their hands, and the other ofindependent Republicans, waited on old Speaker Lenthall at his housein Covent Garden. It was for Lenthall, as the Speaker of the Rump atits dissolution, to convoke the surviving members. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 644-649; Parl. Hist. III. 1546-7; ThomasonPamphlets, and Chronological Catalogue of the same. ] Ludlow becomes even humorous in describing the difficulties they hadwith old Lenthall. To the deputation of Republicans, which arrivedfirst, "he began to make many trifling excuses, pleading his age, sickness, inability to sit long, " the fact being, as Ludlow says, that he had been one of Oliver's and Richard's courtiers, and was nowthinking of his Oliverian peerage, which would be lost if theProtectorate lapsed into a Republic. When the military deputationarrived, and Lambert opened the subject fully, Lenthall was stillvery uneasy. "He was not fully satisfied that the death of the lateKing had not put an end to the Parliament. " That objection havingbeen scouted, and the request pressed upon him that he would at onceissue invitations to such of the old members as were in town to meethim next morning and form a House, "he replied that he could by nomeans do as we desired, having appointed a business of far greaterimportance to himself, which he would not omit on any account, because it concerned the salvation of his own soul. We then pressedhim to inform us what it might be: to which he answered that he waspreparing himself to participate of the Lord's supper, which he wasresolved to take on the next Lord's day. Upon this it was repliedthat mercy is more acceptable to God than sacrifice, and that hecould not better prepare himself for the aforesaid duty than bycontributing to the public good. " As he was still obdurate, thedeputations told him they would do without him. The list of memberswas divided among such clerks as were at hand, and the circulars wereduly sent out. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 649-650. ] Next morning, Saturday May 7, 1659, about thirty of the members ofthe old Rump were shaking hands with each other in the House ofLords, waiting anxiously till as many more should drop in as wouldmake the necessary quorum of forty, before marching into the Commons. Army officers and other spectators were in the lobbies, equallyanxious. Time passed, and a few more did drop in, including HenryMarten, luckily remembered as in jail for debt near at hand, andfetched thence in triumph. At length, about thirty-seven havingmustered, old Lenthall, who had spies on the spot, thought it best tocome in; and, about twelve o'clock, he led a procession of exactlyforty-two persons into the Commons House, the officers and otherspectators attending them to the doors with congratulations. TheHouse, having been constituted, entered at once on business, framinga Declaration for the public suitable for the occasion, andappointing several committees. They set apart next day, Sunday the8th, for special religious services, with a re-inauguration sermon byDr. Owen. [1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 651-652; Commons Journals, May 7, 1659; ParlHist. III. 1547-1550. ] On Monday, May 9, the small new House had to re-encounter adifficulty which had troubled them somewhat at their first meeting onSaturday. On that day, besides the forty-two members of the Rump whohad answered the summons, there had come to the lobbies fourteenpersons who had been members of the Long Parliament before it becamethe Rump, i. E. Before that famous Pride's Purge of Dec. 6-7, 1648, which excluded 143 of the Presbyterians and other Royalists fromtheir seats, and so converted the Long Parliament into the morecompact body wanted for the King's Trial and the formation of theRepublic (Vol. III. Pp. 696-698). The fourteen, among whom were thePresbyterians Sir George Booth and William Prynne, had insisted onbeing admitted, but had been kept out by the officers after somealtercation. But now, on Monday, several of them were back, to seethe issue of a protest that had been meanwhile sent to the Speaker onbehalf of 213 members of the Long Parliament who were in the samegeneral predicament of "Secluded Members"--to wit, the 143 excludedby Pride's Purge and seventy more who had been excluded at varioustimes before for Royalist contumacy. Finding the doors open, three ofthese unwelcome visitors went in, of whom two came out again and werenot re-admitted, but one remained. That one was William Prynne. Hesat like a ghoul among the Rumpers. No persuasion on earth couldinduce him to leave. Hasilrig stormed at him, and Vane coaxed him;but there he sat, and there he would sit! He was a member of the LongParliament, and no other Parliament was or could be rightfully inexistence but that; if they turned him out, it should only be bycarrying him out by his feet and shoulders! Unwilling to resort tothat method, those present got rid of the intruder by postponingtheir meeting to a later hour, and taking care that, when Prynnereappeared, he should be turned back. The House that day passed anorder that none should sit in it but genuine Rumpers, appointing acommittee to ascertain who these were and to report on dubious cases;and the order was affixed to the doors outside. For a day or twoPrynne and others still haunted the lobbies; but at length theydesisted, Prynne taking his revenge by at once printing _TheRepublicans' and Others' spurious Old Cause briefly and trulyanatomized_, and then _One Sheet, or, if you will, a WindingSheet, for the Good Old Cause_. [1] [Footnote 1: Guizot, I. 138-141; Commons Journals, May 9, 1659;Catalogue of Thomason Pamphlets. The first of the two named pamphletsof Prynne appeared, with his name in full, May 13; the second, "byW. P. , " May 30. --Prynne continued, in subsequent pamphlets, toattack the Rumpers for the wrong done to him and the other secludedmembers in still debarring them from their seats. One was entitled_A True and Perfect Narrative of what was done, spoken, by andbetween Mr. Prynne, the old and newly-forcibly late SecludedMembers, the Army Officers, and those now sitting both in theCommons Lobby, House, and elsewhere, on Saturday and Monday last(the 7 and 9 of this instant May)_. Though so entitled, it didnot appear till June 13. It contained this passage against theBumpers:--"Themselves in divers of their printed Declarations, andtheir instruments in sundry books (as JOHN GOODWIN, MARKHAMNEEDHAM, MELTON, and others), justified, maintained, the veryhighest, worst, treasonablest, execrablest, of all Popish, Jesuitical, Unchristian, tenets, practices, treasons, as themurthering of Christian Protestant Kings. " This is a sample at onceof Prynne's style and of his accuracy. He does not take the troubleto know the names of the persons he writes about, but plods, onlike a rhinoceros in blinkers. ] For eighteen days after the resuscitation of the Rump, andnotwithstanding their distinct announcement in their publicdeclaration that they were to "endeavour the settlement" of theCommonwealth "without a Single Person, Kingship, or House of Peers, "Richard still lingered in Whitehall and his Protectorship remainednominally in existence. But the Republicans made what haste theycould to put an end to that anomaly. Their difficulty lay in theiryet unadjusted differences with the Army-officers conjoined with themin the Restoration of the Rump. Towards the removal of thesedifferences something was done on the 13th of May, when the Houseappointed Fleetwood "Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-chief of theland-forces in England and Scotland" (Ireland reserved), andassociated with him Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Ludlow, Hasilrig, andVane, in a commission of seven empowered to nominate, for approval bythe Parliament, the commissioned officers of the whole Army. Evenwith, this arrangement, however, the Army-magnates were notsatisfied; and it left other differences over, which were restatedthat very day in a petition and address from the whole Council ofOfficers. This Petition and Address, presented to the House by adeputation of eighteen chief officers, headed by Lambert andDesborough, consisted of fifteen Articles, the last three of whichcontained the points of most vital debate with the pure Republicans. In Article XIII. It was petitioned that, for the Legislative, thereshould be, in addition to the Popular or Representative House, "aselect Senate, co-ordinate in power. " Article XIV. Required also, forthe Executive; a separate Council of State. Article XV. Concerned theCromwell family. It did not demand a continuation of theProtectorate, but It demanded the payment by the State of all debtscontracted by Oliver or Richard in their Protectorates, thesettlement of £10, 000 a year on Richard and his heirs for ever, thesettlement of a farther £10, 000 a year on Richard for his life, andthe settlement of £8, 000 a year for life on "his honourable mother, "the Protectress-dowager, --all this to the end that there mightremain to posterity "a mark of the high esteem this nation hath ofthe good service done by his father, our ever-renowned General. " TheHouse was not then prepared to answer the demands of Articles XIII. And XV. , but only that of Article XIV. After a certain fashion. Itwas agreed that day that there should be an executive Council ofState, to consist of thirty-one persons, ten of them not members ofParliament, the Council to hold office till Dec. 1 next ensuing; andat that meeting and the two next the thirty-one Councillors were dulychosen. Then, on the 21st of May, various addresses of confidence inthe new Government having by this time come in from London and otherparts, the Republicans felt themselves strong enough to discuss thepetition of the officers, article by article, accepting most of them, but postponing the three last and another. Without saying what theymeant to do for the Cromwell family, they had In the Interim (May 16)appointed a committee to "take into consideration the presentcondition of the eldest son of the late Lord-General Cromwell, and toinform themselves what his estate is, and what his debts are, and howthey have been contracted, and how far he doth acquiesce in thegovernment of this Commonwealth. " There were interviews with Richardin Whitehall accordingly, with the result that there was brought tothe House on the 25th of May a paper signed by him, together with aschedule of his means and debts. The paper was, in fact, anabdication, In these terms: "Having, I hope, in some degree, learntrather to reverence and submit to the hand of God than to be unquietunder it, and, as to the late providences that have fallen outamongst us, however, in respect of the particular engagements thatlay upon me, I could not be active in making a change in thegovernment of these nations, yet, through the goodness of God, I canfreely acquiesce in it, being made. " He promised, in conclusion, tolive peaceably under the new government, and to do all in his powerto induce those with whom he had any interest to do the same. Fromthe accompanying schedule it appeared that his debts, incurred by hisfather or himself in the Protectorship, amounted to £29, 640, and thathis own clear revenue, after deduction of annuities to his mother andothers of the family, was but £1299 a year, and that encumbered by aprivate debt of £3000. The House accepted the abdication, undertookthe discharge of the debts as stated, voted £2000 at once to Mr. Richard, referred it to a committee to consider what more could be, done towards his "comfortable and honourable subsistence, " and, forthe rest, requested him to retire from Whitehall, and "dispose ofhimself as his private occasions shall require. " He lingered still alittle, fearing arrest by his creditors, but did at length retire toHampton Court, and thence into deeper and deeper privacy, to livefifty-three years more and become very venerable, though the morerude of the country-people would persist in calling him "Tumble-DownDick. " In the week of his abdication there was on the Londonbook-stalls a rigmarole poem on the subject, called _The World in aMaze, or Oliver's Ghost_. It opened with this dialogue betweenfather and son:-- _Oliver P. _: Richard. !. Richard! Richard! _Richard_: Who calls "Richard"? 'Tis a hollow voice; And yet perhaps it may be mine own thoughts. _Oliver_: No: 'tis thy father risen from the grave; Nor--would I have thee fooled, nor yet turn knave. _Richard_: I could not help it, father. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Parl. Hist. III. 1551-1557;Pamphlet, of given title, dated May 21 in MS. In the Thomason copy. ] CHAPTER I. Second Section. THE ANARCHY, STAGE I. : OR THE RESTORED RUMP: MAY 25, 1859-OCT. 13, 1659. NUMBER OF THE RESTORED RUMPERS AND LIST OF THEM: COUNCIL OP STATE OFTHE RESTORED RUMP: ANOMALOUS CHARACTER AND POSITION OP THE NEWGOVERNMENT: MOMENTARY CHANCE OF A CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE CROMWELLIANSAND THE RUMPERS: CHANCE AVERTED BY THE ACQUIESCENCE OF THE LEADINGCROMWELLIANS: BEHAVIOUR OF RICHARD CROMWELL, MONK, HENRY CROMWELL, LOCKHART, AND THURLOE, INDIVIDUALLY: BAULKED CROMWELLIANISM BECOMESPOTENTIAL ROYALISM: ENERGETIC PROCEEDINGS OF THE RESTORED RUMP: THEIRECCLESIASTICAL POLICY AND THEIR FOREIGN POLICY: TREATY BETWEEN FRANCEAND SPAIN: LOCKHART AT THE SCENE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS AS AMBASSADORFOR THE RUMP: REMODELLING AND RE-OFFICERING OF THE ARMY, NAVY, ANDMILITIA: CONFEDERACY OF OLD AND NEW ROYALISTS FOR A SIMULTANEOUSRISING: ACTUAL RISING UNDER SIR GEORGE BOOTH IN CHESHIRE: LAMBERTSENT TO QUELL THE INSURRECTION: PECULIAR INTRIGUES ROUND MONK ATDALKEITH: SIR GEORGE BOOTH'S INSURRECTION CRUSHED: EXULTATION OF THERUMP AND ACTION TAKEN AGAINST THE CHIEF INSURGENTS AND THEIRASSOCIATES: QUESTION OF THE FUTURE CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH:CHAOS OF OPINIONS AND PROPOSALS: JAMES HARRINGTON AND HIS POLITICALTHEORIES: THE HARRINGTON OR ROTA CLUB: DISCONTENTS IN THE ARMY:PETITION AND PROPOSALS OF THE OFFICERS OF LAMBERT'S BRIGADE: SEVERENOTICE OF THE SAME BY THE RUMP: PETITION AND PROPOSALS OF THEGENERAL COUNCIL OF OFFICERS: RESOLUTE ANSWERS OF THE RUMP: LAMBERT, DESBOROUGH, AND SEVEN OTHER OFFICERS, CASHIERED: LAMBERT'SRETALIATION AND STOPPAGE OF THE PARLIAMENT. The Restored Rump, which had met on the 7th of May, 1659, onlyforty-two strong, had very sensibly increased its numbers by the25th, the day of Richard's abdication. In obedience to a summons sentout to Rumpers in the country, between forty and fifty more had bythat time come in, raising the number in attendance to nearly ninety. In subsequent months still others and others dropped in, till theHouse could reckon about 122 altogether as belonging to it. Thefollowing is the most complete list I have been able to draw out forthe whole of our present term of the existence of the Restored House. Marks are added to each name, to signify the political course orresting-place of its owner from his first connexion with the LongParliament to his present reappearance:-- The asterisk prefixed to a name denotes a _Regicide_, i. E. An actual signer of the Death-Warrant of Charles I. (Vol. III. 720). The contraction _Rec. _ prefixed signifies that the person was not an original member of the Long Parliament when it met in Nov. 1640, but one of the _Recruiters_ who came in at various times afterwards to supply vacancies. Most of these came in between Aug. 1645 and the end of 1646 (Vol. III. 401-402); but there were stray Recruiters through 1647 and 1648; nay, about _eight_ persons were added by the Rump to itself by new writs issued after the institution of the Commonwealth. _R_ added to a name signifies a member of the Barebones Parliament of 1653; _O^1_ a member of Oliver's First Parliament of Sept. 1654-Jan. 1654-5; _O^2_ a member of Oliver's Second Parliament of Sept. 1656-Feb. 1657-8. The addition [t] in the last case denotes that the person was one of the Anti-Oliverians secluded at the beginning of the first Session, but restored at the beginning of the second. _R_ denotes a member of the Commons in Richard's late Parliament, just dissolved; and _L_ denotes that the person had been one of Oliver's and Richard's Lords. Other marks might have indicated the distinction of having belonged to one, or more, or all of the Councils of State of the Commonwealth, or to the Council of the Protectorate; but in most cases there will be sufficient recollection of this distinction by the reader, and references to the lists of the Councils already given will be easy where particulars are wanted. Aristocratic courtesy-designations of Oliverian origin are now stripped off, so as to present the names in the form thought correct by the restored Republic. _Speaker_: William Lenthall (_ętat. _ 68), _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ _Rec. _ Andrews, Robert _R_ _Rec. _ Anlaby, John _B_, _R_ _Rec. _ Ash, James _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Atkins, Alderman _Rec. _ Baker, James _R_ Barker, Col. John _Rec. _ Bennett, Col. Robert _B_, _O^1_, _R_ _Rec. _ Bingham, Col. John _B_, _0^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Birch, Col. John _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ *_Rec. _ Blagrave, Daniel _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Boone, Thomas _O^1_, _R_ *_Rec. _ Bourchier, Sir John Brereton, Sir Wm. , Bart. _Rec. _ Brewster, Robert _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ * Carew, John _B_ * Cawley, William _R_ *_Rec. _ Challoner, Thomas _R_ _Rec. _ Corbet, John _Rec. _ Crompton, Thomas _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Darley, Henry _O^2[t]_ _Rec. _ Darley, Richard _O^2[t]_ *_Rec. _ Dixwell, Col. John _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Dormer, John _Rec. _ Dove, John *_Rec. _ Downes, Col. John Dunch, Edmund _O^1_, _O^2_ _Rec. _ Earle, Serjeant Erasmus Ellis, Sir William _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Eyre, Col. William _R_ _Rec. _ Fagg, John _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Fielder, Col. John _R_ _Rec. _ Fleetwood, Lieut. -Gen, Charles _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ *_Rec. _ Garland, Augustine _O^1_ _Rec. _ Gold, Nicholas _R_ Goodwin, Robert _R_ Goodwyn, John _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ _Rec. _ Gurdon, Brampton Gurdon, John _O^1_ Hallows, Nathaniel Harby, Edward _Rec. _ Harrington, Sir James _O^1_ _Rec. _ Harvey, Col. Edward _O^1_, _O^2[t]_ Hasilrig, Sir Arthur, Bart. _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_, _L_ _Rec. _ Hay, William _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Heveningham, William _Rec. _ Hill, Roger _R_ Holland, Cornelius _O^1_ *_Rec. _ Hutchinson, Col. John *_Rec. _ Jones, Col. John (Cromwell's brother-in-law) _O^2[t]_, _L_ _Rec. _ Jones, Col. Philip _B_, _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ _Rec. _ Leman, William _Rec. _ Lechmere, Nicholas _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Lenthall, Sir John _R_ Lisle, Lord Commissioner _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ Lisle, Viscount Philip _B_, _L_ _Rec. _ Lister, Thomas _O^1_, _O^2[t]_ *_Rec. _ Livesey, Sir Michael _Rec. _ Love, Nicholas _R_ Lowry, John _R_ _Rec. _ Lucy, Sir Richard, Bart. , _B_, _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ _Rec. _ Ludlow, Lieut. -Gen. Edmund _R_ * Marten, Henry _Rec. _ Martin, Christopher _B_, _R_ *_Rec. _ Mayne. Simon Mildmay, Sir Henry _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ *_Rec. _ Millington, Gilbert Monson, Viscount (Irish Peer) Morley, Col. Herbert _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ _Rec. _ Nelthorpe, James _Rec. _ Neville, Henry _R_ Nicholas, Robert Nutt, John Oldworth, Michael Palmer, Dr. John Pembroke, the Earl of (Earl since 1650) Pennington, Alderman Isaac Pickering, Sir Gilbert, Bart. _B_, _O^1_, _O^2_ _Rec. _ Pigott, Gervase Prideaux, Sir Edmund _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ * Purefoy, Col. William _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Pury, Thomas, Senr. _O^1_, _O^2_ _Rec. _ Pury, Thomas, Junr. Pyne, Col. John _B_ _Rec. _ Raleigh, Carew (son of the great Raleigh) _R_ Reynolds, Robert _R_ _Rec. _ Rich, Col. Charles _R_ _Rec. _ Robinson, Luke _O^1_, _O^2_ St. John, Chief Justice _L_ _Rec. _ Salisbury, the Earl of _O^1_, _O^2[t]_ Salway, Major Richard _B_ *_Rec. _ Say, William *_Rec. _ Scott, Thomas _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ _Rec. _ Skinner, Capt. Augustine _O^1_ _Rec. _ Skippon, Major-Gen. _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ _Rec. _ Sidney, Col. Algernon _Rec. _ Smith, Philip *_Rec. _ Smyth, Henry _Rec. _ Strickland, Walter _B_, _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ Strickland, Sir William _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ _Rec. _ Sydenham, Col. Wm. _B_, _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ *_Rec. _ Temple, James *_Rec. _ Temple, Peter _Rec. _ Thompson, Col. George _R_ _Rec. _ Thorpe, Serjeant Francis _O^1_, _O^2[t]_ Trenchard, John _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Trevor, Sir John _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Vane, Sir Henry _R_ _Rec. _ Wallop, Robert _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Walsingham, Sir Thomas * Walton, Col. Valentine (Cromwell's brother-in-law) *_Rec. _ Wayte, Col. Thomas _Rec. _ Weaver, Edmund _Rec. _ Wentworth, Sir Peter _Rec. _ West, Edmund _Rec. _ Weston. Benjamin _R_ _Rec. _ White, Col. William Whitlocke, Lord Commissioner _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ Widdrington, Sir Thomas _O^1_, _O^2_ *_Rec. _ Wogan, Thomas _Rec. _ Wroth, Sir Thomas _O^2_, _R_ Wylde, Chief Baron _R_[1] [Footnote 1: I may explain the manner in which the list has beenprepared:--(1) I have gone over the Journals of the House through thefive months of its sittings--_Commons Journals_, Vol. VII. Pp. 644-797--and collected the names appearing in the lists ofCommittees. This certifies actual or assumed attendance, more orless, and at one time or another. (2) I have compared the result witha list in _Parl. Hist. _, III. 1547-8. It is much less completethan my own, giving only ninety-one names; but it helped me once ortwice. (3) For the political antecedents of the members I havereferred to Mr. Carlyle's Revised List of the Long Parliament, appended to Vol. II. Of his _Cromwell_, and to the Lists of theBarebones Parliament, Oliver's two Parliaments, and Richard'sParliament in Vol. III. Of the _Parl. Hist. _--With all my care, I may have left errors. Once or twice, where there are severalpersons of the same surname, I was doubtful as to the Christianname. The Journals often omit that. --I have seen, since writing theabove, a folio fly-leaf, published in London in March 1660, givingwhat it calls "a perfect list of the Rumpers. " It includes 121 names, and nearly corresponds with mine, but not quite--containing one ortwo names not given in mine (e. G. Sir Francis Russell), and omittingone or two I give. Effectively, I believe my own list the moreauthentic. ] From this list it will be seen, in the first place, that, if Ludlowwas correct in his estimate that there were 160 old Rumpers stillalive, a good many of them did not now reappear in that capacity atWestminster. It will be seen, farther, that nearly two-thirds ofthose who did re-appear were not original members of the LongParliament, but Recruiters. But this is not all. While aboutone-third of the total number that re-appeared, including fifteen outof the twenty-three Regicides on the list, had been in retirementduring the intervening governments from 1653 to 1659, abouttwo-thirds had not kept themselves so immaculate in that interval, but had served in the Barebones Parliament or in the Parliaments ofthe Protectorate. A good many of these, indeed--e. G. Birch, JohnGoodwyn, Harvey, Hasilrig, Lister, Lucy, Mildmay, Scott, and Thorpehad done so avowedly with Republican motives; but, on the other hand, some--e. G. Colonel Philip Jones, Pickering, Prideaux, St. John, Skippon, the two Stricklands, Sydenham, and Whitlocke--had mergedtheir Republicanism in Oliverianism, had been courtiers of Cromwell, and had taken honours from him. The Restored Rump could be describedas unanimously a Republican body, therefore, only in the sense thatmany in it had never swerved from pure Republican principles, andthat the rest were willing now to go back to such. Be it observed, finally, that the number 122 represents the hypothetical strength ofthe Restored House rather than its real strength. In the onlydivision in the House before the day of Richard's abdication theJournals show but forty-four as present and voting; nor do therecords of divisions through the whole duration of the House evershow more than seventy six as thus effectively present at any onesitting. Only five or six times are as many as sixty noted as presentand voting. One infers that many of the members, after having begunattending, ceased to do so, from indifference, or from dislike towhat was going on. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of May 13, 1659, with the recordeddivisions in the Journals for the whole session. ] A very considerable proportion of the effective attendance in theHouse must have been furnished by the presence in it of those memberswho were members also of the Council of State. This body, appointedby the House, May 13-16, to be an executive for the restored RumpGovernment, consisted of twenty-one Parliamentary and tennon-Parliamentary members. They were as follows, the asterisks againdenoting Regicides:-- Parliamentary Members (In the order of the number of votes they obtained in the ballot). *Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Bart. Sir Henry Vane Colonel *Lieut. -General Ludlow Lieut. -General Fleetwood Major Richard Salway Colonel Herbert Morley *Thomas Scott Colonel Robert Wallop Sir James Harrington *Colonel Valentine Walton *Colonel John Jones Colonel William Sydenham Algernon Sidney Henry Neville *Thomas Challoner *Colonel John Downes Lord Chief Justice St. John George Thompson Lord Commissioner Whitlocke *Colonel John Dixwell Robert Reynolds Non-Parliamentary Members. _Seven_ appointed without ballot. Thomas, Lord Fairfax _O^1_, _R_ Major-General Lambert _O^1_, _O^2_, _R_ Colonel John Desborough _O^1_, _O^2_, _L_ Colonel James Berry _O^2_, _L_ *John Bradshaw _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Bart. _B_, _O^1_, _O^2[t]_, _R_ Sir Horatio Townshend _R_ _Three_ chosen, by ballot. Josiah Berners _O^1_ Sir Archibald Johnstone, of Warriston _L_ Sir Robert Honeywood _R_ Fairfax was put among the non-Parliamentary ten because, though hehad been a member of the Rump (a very late Recruiter, elected Feb. 1648-9), he had retired from it before its dissolution. Hisnomination now to a seat in the Council was but a compliment, for hewithdrew into Yorkshire. An exceptional appointment was that of theScottish Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston. The Restored Rump wasavowedly an English Parliament only, treating the union with Scotlandas a business yet to be consummated. The election of a singleScotchman among the non-Parliamentary members of the Council was likea pledge that Scottish interests should not meanwhile be neglected. His election was by the recommendation of his friend Vane, whoprobably knew that Johnstone was by this time a _bonā fide_Republican. More questionable appointments, from the Republican pointof view, were those of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper and Sir HoratioTownshend. The second, a cousin of Fairfax, and one of the wealthiestmen in Norfolk, was in secret communication with Charles II. , and hadexpress permission from him to accept the present appointment. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, May 13-16, 1659; Markham's Fairfax, 375; Baillie's Letters, III. 430; Guizot, I. 153. ] There was one fatal absurdity in the position of the Restored RumpGovernment. It came together in the name of "the good old cause, " ora pure and absolute Republic; and yet it stood there itself inglaring contradiction to what is usually regarded, and to what itselfput forth, as the very root-principle of a pure Republic--to wit, theSovereignty of the People. Richard's House of Commons had been asfreely elected as any House of Commons since that of the LongParliament, and, as far as England and Wales were concerned, by thesame constituencies; it represented no past mood of the community, but precisely their mood in January 1658-9; and the attendances inthe House, when it did meet, were unusually numerous. Well, in aseries of debates and votes, in which there was no concussion, thisParliament had declared, in the main, for a continuation of theProtectorate and the Protectoral Constitution as settled by Oliver'sSecond Parliament. Hardly had this been done when, by a combinationin London between the disappointed Republicans and the Armymalcontents, the Parliament was abruptly dissolved. What thenstepped in to take its place? A small body, effectively about eightystrong at the utmost, having no pretence of representing thecommunity at that time, or of being anything else than the casualsurviving rag of a Parliament of 500, the members of which had beenelected at various times, and irregularly, between 1640 and 1649. Nay, it was not even the surviving rag of that Parliament itself, butthe rag of a stump to which that Parliament had been already reducedin 1649 by prior military hacking and carving. What pinch ofrepresentative virtue, for the England, Scotland, and Ireland of May1659, or even for the non-Royalist portions of their populations, wasthere in the Restored Rump? Many of them had not been in contact withtheir original constituencies for ten years or more; those who hadgone back to their original constituencies, or to others, forelection to the Protectorate Parliaments, or to any of them, had bythat fact treated the rights of the Long Parliament, in its integrityor in its last stump, as lapsed and defunct, and had appealed to thecommunity afresh. When that appeal had gone against them, when thelast and fullest Parliament had represented it as the will of thepeople that the Protectoral system should be continued, was it notodd that about forty of the defeated minority of that Parliament, without consulting their constituencies, should associate themselveswith a number of others, then quite astray from any constituencies, and with no other title than that of being Old Rumpers too, and thisfor the purpose of instituting the very form of Government justascertained to be unpopular? It was odd _theoretically_; for, though there were then Republicans--Milton for one--who had adoptedthe principle (essentially Cromwell's too) that the government ofStates cannot and ought not to go by mere multitudinous suffrage, butmay be dictated and compelled by the proper few, the Rumpers did notprofess to be Republicans of this sort. The supremacy of the Peoplethrough a Single Representative House was the deepest theoreticaltenet of most of the men who had now met to oppose the will of thePeople as declared in the fullest Representative House within memory. But, though odd theoretically, the contradiction is of a kind commonenough in History. The ultra-Republicans of the Restored Rump, whosevery definition of the right Republican system was that there oughtto be nothing in it _a priori_ whatever, were yet believers inthe indefeasible and _a priori_ authority of that Republicansystem itself. In other words, so important was it that there shouldbe no government except by the people themselves through aRepresentative House that, if the people would not govern themselvesby a Representative House in a certain particular manner, they mustnot be allowed to govern themselves by a Representative House, butmust be governed by a non-representative House till they came totheir senses! These remarks are not made speculatively, but because they expressthe sentiments common throughout the British Islands at the time, andexplain what followed. The first expectation after the usurpation of the Restored Rump hadbeen that there would be a civil war between the Protectoratists andthe Rumpers. For, though Fleetwood, Desborough, and the otherArmy-officers at the centre, had been the agents in Richard'sdownfall and had joined with the Republicans in restoring the Rump, the chances of the Protectorate were by no means exhausted by_their_ defection. While Richard lingered at Whitehall, hisProtectorship could not be said to be extinct, and whatever ofCromwellianism survived anywhere apart from the central English Armymight be rallied for the rescue. There was Henry Cromwell and theArmy in Ireland; there was Monk and the Army in Scotland; there wasLockhart and the Army in Flanders; there was the fleet under AdmiralMontague, a man marked even among Cromwellians for the ardour of hisdevotion to Cromwell and his family; and there were otherCromwellians of influence, dispersed from London by the recentevents, and carrying their resentment with them wherever they went. Broghill and Coote were back in Ireland; Ingoldsby was on a visit toIreland to consult with Henry Cromwell; Falconbridge was incountry-seclusion; and the Marquis of Argyle (a Londoner and clientof the Protectorate for some years) was back furtively in Scotland, to avoid arrest for his debts, and try new scheming. Then, if therecould be a combination of such elements, what masses of diffusedmaterial on which to work! There was the great body of the EnglishPresbyterians, reconciled to Oliver's rule completely before hisdeath, and desiring nothing better now than a continuation of theProtectoral system; there were the orderly and conservative classesgenerally, including many Anglicans who had ceased to be Royalists;and there were one knows not how many scattered Cromwellians, whetherin civil life or in the Army, whose Cromwellianism was, likeMontague's, less a political creed than a passionate privatehero-worship. Nor was this all. Louis XIV, and Mazarin wereCromwellians too for the nonce, faithful to the memory of the greatman whose alliance they had courted, and ready to lend the armed aidof France, if necessary, to the support of his dynasty. No one hadbeen watching the course of events in England more coolly than M. DeBordeaux, the French Ambassador in London; and through. May and partof June 1659 his letters to Mazarin show amply the nature of hiscommunications with Richard and Thurloe. "I have frequently renewedmy offers of the King's assistance, " he wrote to the Cardinal on the16th of May, nine days after the first meeting of the Restored Rumpand eleven days before Richard's abdication; and again, moredistinctly, on the 19th, "Having yesterday contrived to get aninterview with him [Thurloe] in the country, I assured him that theKing would spare neither money nor troops in order to re-establishthe Protector, if there were any likelihood of success, " TheAmbassador, it is true, had conceived the bold private idea thatLouis XIV, and the Cardinal might do better by using such a fineopportunity for an invasion and conquest of England by France on herown account; and he had hinted as much to the Cardinal. The idea wasnot encouraged; and so the position of M. De Bordeaux in Londonremained that of a secret partisan of the Cromwellians, offering themall help from France if they should engage in a civil war with theRumpers. [1] [Footnote 1: Guizot, I. 141-146, with Letters of M. De Bordeaux inthe Appendix to the volume (where the dates are by the Frenchreckoning)--especially Letters 46, 47, 48, and 49 (pp, 381-402);Baillie, III. 430; Phillips, 647-648. ] Before the middle of June it was evident that such a Civil War wasnot to be feared. Richard himself had been quite inert in Whitehall, and his abdication was a signal to all his partisans to give up thecause. Even after that there were efforts or protests in his behalfhere and there, but they died away. --Monk, about whose conduct in thecrisis there had been great anxiety among the Rumpers, and who hadsulkily wanted to know at first what this "Good Old Cause" was thatthey were so enthusiastic about in London, had already sounded theArmy in Scotland sufficiently to find that they would not opposetheir English brethren. A letter of adhesion to the RestoredCommonwealth by Monk and the Scottish Army had, accordingly, beenreceived May 18, and read in the House with great joy; and, thoughthere were still signs that Monk would stand a good deal on hisindependence, his adhesion on any terms was an immensegain. --Lockhart also, looking about him in Flanders, and consideringwhat would be best for English interests altogether, had given up allthoughts of a revolt from the Rump by the Continental forces, and hadreturned to England, early in June, to render his accounts. TheCouncil of the Rump, on their side, considering what was best in thecircumstances, with Dunkirk and the other results of Cromwell'sFlanders enterprise still on their hands, were glad to retainLockhart's services in the post of Ambassador to Louis XIV. And senthim back, after a week or two, with re-credentials in that post fromthe new Government. --There had been more uncertainty about HenryCromwell in Ireland. His great popularity and the conditions of thecountry itself made a Cromwellian revolt there more likely thananywhere else. But there was to be no such thing. Left by his inertbrother without direct communications, and receiving intelligence, ashe says, "only from common fame, " Henry had very bravely held out tothe last, ascertaining the temper of his officers and the Army. Nottill the 15th of June was he clear as to his duty; but on that day, having fully made up his mind, he addressed to the Speaker of theRump a letter worthy of himself and of the occasion. "All thiswhile, " he wrote, "I expected directions from his Highness, by whoseauthority I was placed here, still having an eye to the common peace, by preventing all making of parties and divisions either among thepeople or Army. But, hearing nothing expressly from him, and yethaving credible notice of his acquiescing in what Providence hadbrought forth as to the future government of these nations, I nowthink it time, lest a longer suspense should beget prejudicialapprehensions in the minds of any, to give you this account: viz, that I acquiesce in the present way of government, although I cannotpromise so much, affection, to the late changes as others veryhonestly may. For my own part, I can say that I believe God waspresent in many of your administrations before you were lastinterrupted [i. E. Before his Father's dissolution of them in April1653], and may be so again; to which end I hope that those worthypersons who have lately acknowledged such their interrupting you inthe year 1653 to have been their fault will by that sense of theirimpatience be henceforth engaged to do so no more, but be theinstruments of your defence whilst you quietly search out the ways ofpeace. .... Yet I must not deny but that the free submission whichmany worthy, wise, and conscientious persons yielded to the lateGovernment under a Single Person, by several ways as well real asverbal, satisfied me also in that frame. And, whereas my Father(whom I hope you yet look upon as no inconsiderable instrument ofthese Nations' freedom and happiness), and since him my Brother, wereconstituted chief in those administrations, and that the returning toanother form hath been looked upon as an indignity to those mynearest relations, I cannot but acknowledge my own weakness as to thesudden digesting thereof, and my own unfitness to serve you in thecarrying on your further superstructures upon that basis. And, as Icannot promote anything which infers the diminution of my lateFather's honour and merit, so I thank the Lord for that He hath keptme safe in the great temptation wherewith I have been assaulted towithdraw my affection from that Cause wherein he lived and died. "Thus beautifully and honourably did the real head of the Cromwellsthen living draw down the family flag. He was in London on the 4th ofJuly, to attend the pleasure of the House; on which day they orderedthat it should be referred to the Council to hear his report on Irishaffairs, and then that "Colonel Henry Cromwell have liberty to retirehimself into the country, whither he shall think fit, on his ownoccasions. " The same day there was an arrangement for paying themourning expenses of Cromwell's funeral; and on the 16th the subjectof a retiring provision for Richard Cromwell was resumed. His debts, as by former assurance, were to be discharged for him; he was to havea protection from trouble from his creditors meanwhile; and fartherinquiry was directed into the state of his resources, with theunderstanding that his income should receive such an increase asshould raise it to £10, 000 a year in all. --Monk, Lockhart, and theCromwells themselves, having adhered to the new Government, therecould be no separate action by Montague even if he could have won theBaltic Fleet to his will. Nor, of course, could Louis XIV. AndMazarin do otherwise now than treat the Protectoratist cause asextinct, and re-instruct M. De Bordeaux accordingly. He receivedcredentials as Ambassador from France to the new Government. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 669-671, and 683-684; Letters of M. DeBordeaux, in Guizot, I. 409-413; Commons Journals, June 13 and July2, 1659. ] The Cromwellians or Protectoratists being thus no longer a partymilitant, the struggle was to be a direct one between the Bumpers andthe cause of Charles II. Here, however, one has to note a mostextraordinary phenomenon. The cause of Charles II. , by no exertion onits own part, but by the mere whirl of events between May and July, had received an enormous accession of strength. Baulked of their own. Natural purpose of a preserved Protectorate constitutionally definedand guaranteed afresh, and resenting the outrage done to their latestsuffrages for that end, what could many of the Cromwellians do butcease to call themselves by that now inoperative name and melt intothe ranks of the Stuartists? For the veteran Cromwellians, implicatedin the Regicide and its close accompaniments, this was, of course, impossible. To the last breath _they_ must strive to keep outthe King; and, as they could do so no longer as Protectoratists, theymust fall in with the pure Republicans or Restored Rumpers, But forthe great body of the Cromwellians, not burdened by overwhelmingrecollections of personal responsibility, there was no suchcompulsion. What mattered it to the Presbyterians, or to that youngerpart of the entire population which had grown into manhood since thedeath of Charles I. , whether Kingship, which they would willinglyenough have seen Oliver assume, should now come back to them withthe old dynasty? All this Charles and Hyde had been observing. From May 1659 it hadbeen their policy to enter into communications with the more eminentof the disappointed or baulked Cromwellians, and to assure them notonly of indemnity for the past, but of rewards and honours to anyextent, if they would now become Royalists. Monk, Montague, Howard, Falconbridge, Broghill, and Lockhart, had all been thought of. Applications had been made even to the two Cromwells themselves, andparticularly to Henry Cromwell. There seems to be a reference to thatfact in the close of his fine letter to the Rump Parliament. Hethanked God that he had been able to resist temptation to a coursewhich in _him_, at all events, would have been infamous; and, though, he could not serve the Republican Parliament in _their_"further superstructures, " he could wish them well on the whole, andso feel that he was remaining as true as he could be, in suchperplexed circumstances, to the cause wherein his father had livedand died. Monk, without any such reservation, had already adhered tothe Parliament, and Charles's letter, when it did reach him, was noteven to remain in his own pocket till he should see his way moreclearly. Falconbridge and Howard, those two "sons of Belial" inDesborongh's esteem, had meanwhile, I believe, let it be known thatthey might be reckoned on by Charles, Montague and Broghill tendedthat way, but were in no such haste. Lockhart had deemed it best toenter the service of the Restored Rump, and would act honourably forthem while he remained their servant. Thurloe also, though not yetsafe from prosecution by the new Government, thought it only fair toassist them with advices and information. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 650-651; Guizot, I. 177-178. ] Meanwhile the new Government had been stoutly at work. The spirit ofthe "good old cause" was strong in the two or three scores of membersmost regularly in attendance, among whom were Vane, Marten, Ludlow, Hasilrig, Scott, Salway, Weaver, Neville, Raleigh, Lister, Walton, Say, Downes, Morley, and John Jones. Remembering the great days ofthe Commonwealth between 1649 and 1653, and not inquiring how much ofthe greatness of those days had been owing to the fact that thepoliticians at the centre had then a Cromwell marching over the mapfor them, and winning them the victories that gave them great work todo, they set themselves, with all their industry, courage, andability, to prove to the world that those great days might be renewedwithout a Cromwell. The Council generally held its meetings early inthe morning, so that the Council-business might not interfere withtheir attendance in the House. Johnstone of Warriston, though anon-Parliamentary member of the Council, at once acquired highinfluence in it. He, Vane, and Whitlocke, were most frequently in thechair. A new great seal; new Commissioners for the same (Bradshaw, Tyrrell, and Fountain); new Judges; state of the public debts; orders for thesale of Hampton Court and Somerset House; suspension of the sale ofHampton Court; votes for pay of the Army and Navy; an Act ofIndemnity and Oblivion; a Bill for settling the Union with Scotland;re-declarations of a Free Commonwealth, without Single Person, Kingship, or House of Peers; Irish affairs; a Vote for ending thepresent Parliament on the 7th of May ensuing: these mere headingswill indicate much of the miscellaneous activity of the Council, orof the House, or of committees of the House, as far as to the end ofJuly. One may glance more closely at their proceedings and intentionsin two departments: (1) _Church and Religion_, On the 27th ofJune, In reply to a petition from "many thousands of the free-bornpeople of this Commonwealth" for the abolition of Tithes, the Housevoted that "the payment of Tithes shall continue as now they are, unless this Parliament shall find out some other and more equal andcomfortable maintenance. " Evidently, therefore, the Restored Rumperswere not yet prepared to interfere materially with theChurch-Establishment as it had been left by Oliver. The petition, however, which drew from them this declaration, is itselfsignificant. In the opinion of many over the country absoluteVoluntaryism in Religion was part and parcel of "the good old cause, "and ought to be re-proclaimed as such, at once. Nor, though theRumpers now refused to admit that, was sympathy with the demandwanting within their own body. The majority of the Parliament and ofits Council were, indeed, orthodox Independents orSemi-Presbyterians, approving of Cromwell's Church policy, andanxious to support the existing public ministry. But Vane and someother leading Rumpers were men of mystic and extreme theologicallights, pointing in the direction of Fifth-Monarchyism, Quakerism, and all other varieties of that fervency for Religion itself whichwould destroy mere state-paid machinery in its behalf, while a few, on the other hand, such as Neville, were cool freethinkers, contemptuous of Church and Clergy as but an apparatus for theprevalent superstition. For the present, it had been thoughtimpolitic perhaps to divide counsels in that matter, or to giveoffence to the sober majority of the people by reviving the question, so much agitated between 1649 and 1653, whether pure Republicanism inpolitics did not necessarily involve absolute Voluntaryism inReligion; but the probability is that the question was onlyadjourned. In the connected question of Religious Toleration the newGovernment was more free at once to give effect to strong views; and, though it was not formally announced that unlimited Toleration was tobe the rule of the Restored Republic, this was substantially theunderstanding. On the whole, Cromwell's policy in Church-matters wasmerely continued. (2) _Relations with Foreign Powers_. In thismatter the rule of the new Government was a very simple one. It wasto withdraw, as speedily as possible, from all foreign entanglements. No longer now could Charles Gustavus of Sweden calculate on help fromEngland. Montague's Fleet, indeed, was still in the Baltic; Meadowswas re-commissioned as envoy-in-ordinary to the Kings of Denmark andSweden; envoys from Sweden had audiences in London; and at length, early in July, the importance of the Baltic business was fullyrecognised by the despatch of Algernon Sidney and Sir RobertHoneywood, two of the members of the Council of State, and Mr. Boone, a member of the House, to act as plenipotentiaries with Montague forthe settlement of the differences between Sweden and Denmark andbetween Sweden and the Dutch. The instructions, however, were tocompel the Swedish King to a pacification, and to co-operate with theDutch and the Danes in that interest. As regarded the Dutchthemselves, among whom Downing was grudgingly continued as Resident, there was the most studious care for a friendly intercourse. Therewas no revival now of that imperious project of the old CommonwealthGovernment for a union of the two Republics which had alarmed theDutch and led to the great naval war with them. It was enough thatthe English should mind their own affairs, and the Dutch theirs. Butthe determination to have no more of Cromwell's "spirited foreignpolicy" was most signally manifested in the business of the Frenchalliance and the war with Spain. That peace should be made with Spainwas a foregone conclusion, and circumstances were favourable. TheSpaniards, crippled by their losses in Flanders, had for some timebeen making overtures of peace to the French Court; these had beenreceived the more willingly at last because of the uncertainties inwhich Louis XIV. And Mazarin were left by Cromwell's death;negotiations had been cleverly on foot since the beginning of theyear for a treaty between the two Catholic Powers, to include themarriage of Louis XIV. With the Spanish Infanta, Maria Theresa; and, though the treaty had not been concluded, preliminaries had been sofar arranged that, since May 1659, there had been a cessation ofhostilities. Thus relieved already from the trouble of carrying onmilitary operations in Flanders, the Restored Rumpers took steps toget themselves included in the Treaty in progress between the twoKings, or, if they should fail in that, to secure peace with Spainindependently. This was the main business on which Lockhart had beenre-commissioned as ambassador to the French Court, From Paris he wentto St. Jean de Luz, at the foot of the Pyrenees, where Mazarin andthe Spanish Prime Minister Don Luis de Haro were then holding theirconsultations. He arrived there on the 1st of August, in suchambassadorial pomp as he thought likely to credit his difficultmission. The business of that mission, was to undo the work he haddone for Cromwell. Such was the will of his new masters. Dunkirk andthe rest of Cromwell's acquisitions on the Continent were only atrouble; and, if any decent arrangement could be made for sellingthem either to France or back to Spain, why not be satisfied? Warwith Continental Papacy and championship of Continental Protestantismwere but expensive moonshine. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, from May to the end of July 1659; Parl. Hist. For same term; Commons Journals of dates; Guizot, I. 165-172. ] In nothing was the Republican energy of the new Rumpers moreconspicuous than in their determination to subject all forms of thepublic service to direct Parliamentary control. They would have allrigorously in the grasp of the little Restored House itself, untilthe power should be handed over to a duly constituted successor. Hence their precaution, while nominating Fleetwood Lieutenant-Generaland Commander-in-chief of the Forces in England and Scotland, of notgiving him supreme power in appointing his officers, but making himonly one of a Commission of Seven for recommending officers to theHouse (May 13). Persevering in this policy, and becoming even morestringent in it, notwithstanding the complaints of the Army-magnatesthat it showed want of confidence in their integrity, the Houseproceeded, May 28, to a vast remodelling of the entire Armies ofEngland. Scotland, and Ireland. Fleetwood was confirmed in theCommandership-in-Chief for England and Scotland by a special Bill, passed June 7; and by another Bill, passed June 8, reconstituting theCommissioners for nominations of officers, it was secured not onlythat such nominations should require Parliamentary approval, but alsothat each commission to an officer should be signed by the Speaker inthe name of the Parliament, and delivered, if possible, to theofficer personally from the Speaker's own hands. Accordingly, on the9th of June, Fleetwood himself was solemnly presented with a signedtranscript of the Act appointing him Commander-in-Chief in Englandand Scotland; and from that day, on through the rest of June, thewhole of July, and even into August and September, much of thebusiness of the House consisted in passing commissions to theofficers recommended, sometimes with a rejection or substitution, andin seeing the officers come up in batches to the Speaker to receivetheir commissions one by one, each with a lecture on his duty. Aseach foot-regiment, consisting of ten companies, had its colonel, itslieutenant-colonel, its major, and its quartermaster, with sevencaptains besides, and twenty subalterns, and as each horse-regiment, consisting of six troops, had its colonel, its major, four captainsbesides, six lieutenants, six cornets, and six quartermasters, onemay guess the tediousness of this process of approving nominationsand delivering commissions. About 1200 persons had to be approved andcommissioned, or, if we throw in chaplains, surgeons, &c. , about 1400in all. Nevertheless, with certain arrangements for deliveringcommissions to officers at a distance, the process was carried so farthat one can make out from the Journals of the House not only thegeneral plan of the Remodelling, but even the names of a largeproportion of the actually appointed officers. The essence of thescheme was, of course, that all very pronounced Cromwellians, --e. G. Falconbridge, Howard, Ingoldsby, Whalley, Barkstead, Goffe, andPride, --should be thrown out of their commands, and men of the rightstamp substituted. It is to be noticed also, however, that there wereto be now properly but two _Generals_, and that the highestofficers under these, whatever had been their previous designations, were all, with a certain courtesy exception in favour of Lambert andMonk, to rank on one level as merely _Colonels_. As far as tothese Colonels, the result was as follows: I. ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. _Commander-in-Chief_: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, CHARLES FLEETWOOD. I. FOR, SERVICE IN ENGLAND AND WALES: 1. _Colonels of HorseRegiments_: John Lambert (with Richard Creed for his Major), JohnDesborough, James Berry (with Unton Crooke for his Major), RobertLilburne, Francis Hacker, John Okey, William Packer (with JohnGladman for his Major), Nathaniel Rich, Thomas Saunders, and HerbertMorley. 2. _Colonels of Foot-Regiments_: Lieutenant-GeneralFleetwood, Lambert, Robert Overton, Matthew Alured, John Hewson (withJohn Duckinfield for his Lieutenant-Colonel), John Biscoe, WilliamSydenham, Edward Salmon, Richard Mosse, Richard Ashfield, Sir ArthurHasilrig, Thomas Kelsay, John Clerk, Robert Gibbon, RobertBarrow. --One finds, besides, certain Colonels appointed to garrisoncommands: e. G. Colonel Thomas Fitch to be Governor of the Tower, Colonel Nathaniel Whetham to be Governor of Portsmouth, Colonel MarkGrimes to be Governor of Cardiff Overton was Governor of Hall as wellas Colonel of a Foot-Regiment; and Alured had charge of theLife-Guard of the House and the Council at Westminster, --All theseappointments were actually made; other colonelcies probably stoodover for consideration. --In the _Journals_ Lambert is styled"Major-General Lambert, " but that was only by courtesy. He had nocommission with that title; and Ludlow makes a point of marking thisby always calling him "Colonel Lambert" only. His distinction was inholding two colonelcies together, one of Foot and one of Horse. II. FOR SERVICE IN SCOTLAND:--Here, probably because of Monk'spassive resistance, the reorganization was less completely carriedout; but the intention seems to have been that Monk, though incourtesy he might still be called "General Monk, " should have only, by actual commission, the same distinction of double colonelcy thatLambert had in England. He had a Regiment of Foot and also one ofHorse; and among the other Colonels were, or were to be, ThomasTalbot (at Edinburgh), Timothy Wilkes (at Leith), Ralph Cobbet (atGlasgow), Roger Sawrey (at Ayr), Charles Fairfax (at Aberdeen), Thomas Read (at Stirling, with John Clobery for hisLieutenant-Colonel), Henry Smith (at Inverness), John Pierson (atPerth), the veteran Thomas Morgan of Flanders celebrity (a DragoonRegiment), and Philip Twistleton (a Horse Regiment). One or two ofthese were substitutions for officers whom Monk preferred. II. IRELAND. _Commander-in-Chief_: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL EDMUND LUDLOW. Ludlow, after having been commissioned to an English Colonelcy ofFoot, was removed to this higher post, in succession to HenryCromwell, July 4, not with the title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but with the military title of "Lieutenant-General of Horse. " For theCivil Government of Ireland there were associated with him, under thetitle of Commissioners, Colonel John Jones, William Steele, RobertGoodwyn, Colonel Matthew Tomlinson, and Miles Corbet. Ludlow did notgo to Ireland till late in July or early in August; and he hadstipulated, in accepting the Irish command-in-chief, that he shouldbe at liberty to return to England on occasion. Probably because Ludlow's recommendations from Ireland were waitedfor, fewer commissions were actually issued for Ireland than forEngland and Scotland. Ludlow himself, with Lambert and Monk, had thedistinction of a Colonelcy of Horse and one of Foot together; andother Colonels appointed were Thomas Cooper, Richard Lawrence, Alexander Brayfield, Thomas Sadler, and Henry Markham, forFoot-Regiments, and Jerome Zanchy, Peter Wallis, and Daniel Axtell, for Horse-Regiments. Sir Hardress Waller, Sir Charles Coote, Theophilus Jones, and others to be heard of in Ludlow's memoirs, werestill on duty in their old Colonelcies when he arrived in Ireland. In exactly the same way was the Navy to be brought withinParliamentary grasp. John Lawson, an assured Commonwealth's man, having been appointed Vice-Admiral and Commander-in-Chief in thenarrow seas (to counterbalance the Cromwellian Montague), receivedhis commission from the Speaker's hands on the 8th of June; suchcaptains and other officers for Lawson's Fleet as were at handreceived their commissions in the same manner; and commissions signedby the Speaker were sent out to the flag-officers, captains, andlieutenants in Montague's Baltic Fleet. --More a matter of wonderstill was the re-organization of the Militia of the Cities andCounties of all England and Wales. The regular Army could not butremark the extreme attention of the Parliament to the recruiting andre-officering of this vast civilian soldiery. A Bill for settling theMilitia, brought in on the 2nd of July, passed on the 26th; and fromthat time there was a stream of Militia officers from the counties, just as of the Regulars, to receive their commissions from theSpeaker. Old Skippon was re-appointed in his natural position asMajor-General of the Militia for the City of London (July 27) andCommander-In-Chief of all the Forces within, the Weekly Bills (Aug. 2); and Lord Mayor John Ireton was one of the City Colonels. [1] [Footnote 1: I have compiled these lists of names, with some labour, from the Commons Journals of May-Sept. 1659, aided by references toLudlow's Memoirs and other authorities for some particulars. Theremay be one or two omissions in the lists of actually appointedColonels. Possibly also the distribution of the regiments betweenEngland and Scotland, or between Great Britain and Ireland, may notbe absolutely correct. Perhaps that is hardly possible; for therewere shiftings of regiments between England and Ireland within thefew months under notice, and shiftings of regiments, or of parts ofregiments, between England and Scotland. I have put Overton amongthe Colonels in England, because he was made Governor of Hull; butthe larger part of the regiment to which he was appointed was withMonk in Scotland, and Overton's former military experience in highcommand had been chiefly in Scotland. ] The energetic little Rump and its Council were in the midst of allthis re-organizing and re-officering of the Forces of theCommonwealth when a demand suddenly burst upon them for the actualservice of a portion of those forces, such as they were. After a long period of judicious quiet, Hyde and the otherCouncillors of Charles abroad, in advice with the Royalists at home, had resolved on testing the King's improved chances by a generalinsurrection. The arrangements had been made chiefly by Mr. JohnMordaunt (see ante p. 337), Sir John Greenville, Sir Thomas Peyton, Mr. Arthur Annesley, and Mr. William Legge. These five had been theauthorized commissioners for the King in England since March last inplace of the former secret commissioners of the Sealed Knot; andMordaunt had been in Brussels to consult with Charles. In idea atleast the arrangements had been most formidable. The conspiracy hadits network through all England and Wales, and included not only theold Royalists, but also the more numerous Presbyterians and otherbaulked Cromwellians, now known collectively as "new Royalists. "Mordaunt himself, with other friends, had undertaken Surrey; SirGeorge Booth was to lead in Lancashire and Cheshire, where hisinfluence with the Presbyterians was boundless; old Sir ThomasMiddleton was to head the rising in Shrepshire and Flintshire; theEarl of Stamford that in Leicestershire; Lord Willoughby of Parhamthat in Suffolk; Colonel Egerton that in Staffordshire; ColonelRossiter that in Lincolnshire; Lord Herbert and Major-General Masseywere to rouse Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and the Welsh border;and there were commissions from Charles to known persons in othercounties, with blank commissions besides. The Duke of Buckingham, theEarls of Manchester, Derby, Northampton, and Oxford, Lord Fairfax, Lord Bruce, Lord Falkland, Lord Falconbridge, Sir William Waller, Colonel Popham, Colonel Ingoldsby, Mr. Edmund Dunch, and many others, were all implicated, or reported as implicated. Major-General Brownehad been sounded, with a view to a rising of the LondonPresbyterians. Moreover, there had been communications from Charleshimself to Admiral Montague in the Baltic, begging him to declare forthe cause, and bring his fleet, or at least his own ship, home foruse. There had been special devices also for bringing Monk into theconfederacy. "I am confident that George Monk can have no malice inhis heart against me, nor hath he done anything against me which Icannot easily pardon, " Charles had written to Sir John Greenville onthe 21st of July, authorizing him to treat with Monk, who was adistant relative of Greenville's, and to offer him whatever reward inlands and titles he might himself propose as the price of hisadhesion. With this letter there had gone one to be conveyed byGreenville to Monk. "I cannot think you will decline my interest, "Charles there said, adding various kind expressions, and offering toleave the time and manner of Monk's declaring for him entirely toMonk's own judgment. The letter had not yet been delivered, but muchwas expected from it. Meanwhile, as it was deemed essential to thesuccess of the insurrection that Charles himself should come toEngland, he, Ormond, the Earl of Bristol, and one or two others, went, with all possible privacy, from Brussels to Calais. The Duke ofYork was to follow them thither, or to Boulogne; and all were toembark together. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 868-870; Phillips, 640 and 619-651; Guizot, 191-204. ] As usual, there was great bungling. On the one hand, Thurloe's meansof intelligence being still wonderfully goods, if only because theRoyalist traitor Sir Richard Willis still maintained with him thecurious compact made with Cromwell, and Thurloe's information beingat the disposal of the Rump Government, there had been time for someprecautions on their part, Through the whole of July 30 and July 31the Council, with Whitlocke for President, were busy withexaminations. On the other hand, and chiefly through the agency ofWillis himself, doubts and hesitations had already arisen among theconfederates. It had all along been Willis's good-natured policy tobalance his treachery in revealing the Royalist plans by preventinghis friends from running upon ruin by executing those plans; and thispolicy he had again been pursuing. Now, though Charles had by thistime been made aware of Sir Richard's long course of treachery, andhad privately informed Mordaunt of the extraordinary discovery, thefact had been too little divulged to destroy the effects of SirRichard's counsels of wariness and delay, agreeable as thesenaturally were to men fearing for their lives and estates andremembering the failure of all previous insurrections. In short, whatever was the cause, August 1, which had been the day fixed for asimultaneous rising in many places, passed with far lessdemonstration than had been promised. Mordaunt and a few of hisfriends tried a rendezvous in Surrey, only to find it useless; inseveral other places those who straggled together dispersedthemselves at once; in Gloucestershire, where Major-General Massey, Lord Herbert, and their associates, did appear more openly, theaffair ended in the arrest or surrender of the leaders, Masseyescaping after having been taken. Only in Cheshire, where Sir GeorgeBooth was the leader, did a considerable body rise in arms. Booth, the Earl of Derby, Colonel Egerton, and a number of others, havingmet at Warrington, issued a proclamation in which no mention was madeof the King, but it was merely declared that certain "Lords, Gentlemen, and Citizens, Freeholders and Yeomen, in this once happynation, " tired of the existing anarchy and tyranny, had resolved todo what they could to recover liberty and free ParliamentaryGovernment. Hundreds and hundreds flocking to their standard, theymarched on Chester and took the city without opposition, though thecastle held out. The agitation then extended itself into Flintshire, where the aged Sir Thomas Middleton distinguished himself bybrandishing his sword in the market-place of Wrexham and proclaimingthe King. Various castles and garrisons in the two counties fell in, and Presbyterian Lancashire was also in commotion. Sir George Boothfound himself at the head of between 4000 and 5000 men, and itremained to be seen whether the movement he had begun so boldly inCheshire, Flintshire, and Lancashire, might not spread itselfnorthwards, eastwards, and southwards, and so do the work of theuniversal rising originally projected. It was hoped that his Majestyhimself, instead of landing in the south of England, as had beenproposed, would appear soon in the district that had so happily takenthe initiative. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 869-871; Whitlocke, IV. 355-356; Phillips, 649-652 (where Booth's Proclamation is given). ] After some hesitations among the Rumpers in London on the questionwhat officer should be sent against Sir George Booth, it was resolvedto send Lambert. He set out on the 6th of August, with threeregiments of horse, three of foot, one of dragoons, and a train ofartillery; and orders were sent for other forces to join him on hismarch, and for bringing two regiments from Ireland and three fromFlanders. Communications were to be kept up between Lambert and theCouncil at Westminster by messengers twice or thrice every day. Suchincessant communication was very necessary. Over England, Scotland, and Ireland, the talk was of Sir George Booth's Insurrection, withmuch exaggeration of its dimensions, and speculation as to itschances. Old and new Royalists everywhere, and men who had not yetdeclared themselves Royalists, were waiting for news that mightdetermine their course. --Above all, Monk at Dalkeith was lookingsouthwards with interest, and timing the arrival of each post-bag InEdinburgh. He had then a visitor at Dalkeith, in the person of hisbrother, the Rev. Mr. Nicholas Monk, minister of Kilhampton parish inCornwall, This gentleman had come to take home his daughter, who hadbeen living with Monk, a suitable husband having now been found forher in England. But he had come on a little piece of businessbesides. His Cornish living had been given him, about a year before, by Sir John Greenville; and Sir John had thought him the very man tobe employed in bringing round Monk to the King's interest. He had, accordingly, gone from Cornwall to London, had seen Greenville thereand received instructions, and had also consulted Dr. Thomas Clarges, Monk's brother-in-law, and his trusty agent in London, Clarges, without committing himself on the special subject of the mission, easily procured a passage to Scotland by sea for Mr. Nicholas Monk. He sailed for Leith, Aug. 5. He had not run the risk of carrying withhim the King's letters to Monk and Greenville; but he had got theirsubstance by heart. And so, having first sounded Monk's domesticchaplain, Dr. John Price, who was of Royalist proclivities too, hehad opened to Monk the fact that his sole purpose In coming was notto bring back his daughter. He told him of the King's commission toGreenville to treat with him, of the King's letter to himself, of theextent of the confederacy for the King in England, and of the hopesthat Sir George Booth's rising in Cheshire would yet bring out theconfederacy in its full strength. This was late at night in DalkeithHouse, when the two brothers were by themselves. "The thinking silentGeneral, " we are told, listened and asked a few questions, but, asusual, said not a word expressing either assent or dissent. Throughthe next few days he and Dr. Price, with Dr. Thomas Gumble, thePresbyterian chaplain to the Council in Edinburgh, and Dr. SamuelBarrow, chief physician to the Army in Scotland, were much togetherin private over a Remonstrance or Declaratory Letter, to be sent tothe ruling Junto in Westminster, "the substance of which was torepresent to them their own and the nation's dissatisfaction at thelong and continued session of this Parliament, desiring them to fillup their members, and to proceed in establishing such rules forfuture elections that the Commonwealth Government might be secured byfrequent and successive Parliaments. " The letter had been drafted byDr. Price, agreed to at a meeting in Dr. Price's room on Sunday afterevening sermon, and signed by the four and by Adjutant JeremiahSmith; and Adjutant Smith was waiting for his horse to go intoEdinburgh, taking the letter with him for the signatures of otherlikely officers, when Monk returned to the room and said it would bebetter to wait for the next post from England. Next day the postcame, with such news that the letter was burnt and all concerned init were enjoined to secrecy. --The news was that Sir George Booth'sInsurrection had been totally and easily crushed by Lambert (August17-19). Colonel Egerton and other prisoners of importance had beentaken; Sir Thomas Middleton had capitulated; Sir George Booth himselfand the Earl of Derby had escaped, but only to be taken a few daysafterwards. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 356-359; Phillips, 652; Skinner's Life ofMonk, 90-104; Wood's Ath. , IV. 815; Phillips, 652-653. ] At Westminster, where the good news was received Aug. 20, and morefully Aug. 22 and Aug. 23, all was exultation. A jewel worth £1000was voted to Lambert, and there were to be rewards to his officersand soldiers out of the estates of the delinquents. Since Lambert hadgone, there had been farther searches after delinquents; and, throughthe rest of August and the whole of September, both the Council andthe House proceeded with inquiries and examinations relating to theInsurrection. Among those committed to the Tower, besides Sir GeorgeBooth and Lord Herbert, were the Earl of Oxford, Sir William Waller("upon suspicion of high treason, " aggravated by his refusal topledge his honour not to act against the Government), LordFalconbridge (discharged on bail of £10, 000, Oct. 8), and Sir ThomasLeventhorpe. The Earl of Derby, the Earl of Chesterfield, and LordWilloughby of Parham, in custody in the country, were to be broughtto London; proclamations were out against Mordaunt and Massey; andthe Duke of Buckingham, Sir Henry Yelverton, the poet Davenant, theEarl of Stamford, Denzil Holies, and many others, including somePresbyterian ministers, were under temporary arrest or otherwise introuble. Vane and Hasilrig conducted the inquiries as cautiously aspossible, and with every desire not to multiply prosecutions toomuch. Thus, Admiral Montague, who had suddenly left the Baltic withhis whole fleet, against the will and in spite of the remonstrancesof his fellow-plenipotentiaries, Sidney, Honeywood, and Boone, andwho arrived off the English coast Sept. 10, only to know that theRoyalist revolt was at an end, and that any intentions he may havehad in connexion with it must be concealed, was not called inquestion for his strange conduct. He came boldly to London, reportedhimself to the Council of State, explained that he had come back forprovisions, &c. , and was more or less believed. --For, in fact, theCouncil itself, and the House itself, contained more open culprits. Sir Horatio Townshend had shown himself in his true colours, and hadbeen among the first apprehended; and, though the wily Sir AnthonyAshley Cooper cleared himself before a committee of the Councilappointed to investigate a charge against him, strong suspicionsremained. On the 8th of August, just after Lambert had marchedagainst Booth, there had been a call of the House with the resultthat Mr. Peter Brooke and Mr, Edmund Dunch, two members who had neverattended and about whom there were evil reports, were fined £100each; and on the 13th of September, while Dunch's fine was remittedon explanations given, Brooke, who had actually been in arms withBooth, was brought to the bar of the House in custody, disabled fromsitting in Parliament, and sent to the Tower on a charge of hightreason. Again, on the 30th of September, there was a call of theHouse, when fines of £100 were inflicted on Henry Arthington(_Rec. , O²_), John Carew (*_Rec. , B_), Thomas Mackworth(_Rec. , O¹, O², R_), Alexander Popham (_O^1, O^2, R_), RichardNorton (_Rec. , B, O^1, O^2, R_), and John Stephens (_Rec. , R_). These six, I imagine, were so punished as having neverattended the House, and as notoriously contumacious or disaffected. But the House took the opportunity of punishing with smaller fines, ranging from £5 to £40, twenty-five members who had been attending oflate too negligently; among whom were Lord Chief Justice St. John, Viscount Lisle, Lord Commissioner Lisle, Colonel Hutchinson, andColonel Philip Jones. At the same time they made an example ofMajor-General Harrison (*_Rec. , O^1, R_). He, of course, hadnever attended in the Restored Rump, for the very good reason that hehad been Cromwell's chief aider and abettor in the dissolution of theRump in April 1653. Remembering that fact, the House now ejected himaltogether, and declared him incapable of ever sitting in aParliament. There was, of course, no suspicion of _his_complicity with the Royalists, nor of the complicity of many that hadbeen fined £5 or £20. The House, in its hour of triumph, was merelysettling all scores together. --In what high spirits Lambert's victoryhad put the Rumpers appears from the fact that the House ordered therelease of the Quaker James Nayler at last (Sept. 8), and from suchhalf-jocular entries in the Order Books of the Council (Aug. 22 _etseq. _) as that Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Neville, or some other memberof the Council, or Mr. Brewster, a member of the Parliament, should"have a fat buck of this season" out of the New Forest, Hampton CourtPark, or some other deer-preserve of the Commonwealth. Theattendances in the Council through August and September averaged fromtwelve to sixteen, and generally included Whitlocke, Vane, Bradshaw, Hasilrig, Scott, Johnstone of Warriston, Neville, Salway, Walton, Berry, and Sydenham. Fleetwood and Desborough were more rarelypresent. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates and of Aug. 25 and Sept. 14(Ashley Cooper); Whitlocke, IV. 355-362; Thurloe, VII. 731-734(about Montague); and Order Books of Council of State from Aug. 11to the end of September 1659. There is a gap in the series of theOrder Books, as preserved in the Record Office, between Sept. 2, 1658, the day before Oliver's death and Aug. 11, 1659. After Oct. 25, 1659, there is again a gap. ] Precisely in this time of triumph after Lambert's success did theRumpers find leisure to address themselves to the question of theForm of Government they were to set up in the Commonwealth beforeretiring from the scene themselves. It was on the 8th of Septemberthat, after some previous debates in the House, it was referred to acommittee of twenty-nine "to prepare something to be offered to theHouse in order to the settlement of the Government of thisCommonwealth. " The Committee was to sit from day to day, and toreport on or before the 10th of October. Vane was named first on theCommittee, which included also Hasilrig, Whitlocke, Marten, Neville, Fleetwood, Sydenham, Salway, Scott, Chief Justice St. John, Downes, Strickland, and Sir Gilbert Pickering. What a work for a Committee!It was predetermined, of course, that the Constitution they were toconcoct was to be one suitable for a Free Commonwealth or Republic, without King, Single Person of any other denomination, or House ofLords; but, even within that prelimitation, what a range ofpossibilities! Nor were the Committee to be perplexed only by thevarieties of their own inventiveness in the art ofconstitution-making. All the theorists and ideologists of England, Scotland, and Ireland, were on the alert to help them, Ludlow'ssummary of the various proposals made within the Committee itself, orpressed upon it from the outside, is worth quoting. "At this time, "he says, "the opinions of men were much divided concerning a Form ofGovernment to be established amongst us. The great officers of theArmy, as I said before, were for a Select Standing Senate, to bejoined to the Representative of the People. Others laboured to havethe supreme authority to consist of an Assembly chosen by the People, and a Council of State to be chosen by that Assembly, to be vestedwith executive power, and accountable to that which should nextsucceed, at which time the power of the said Council shoulddetermine. Some were desirous to have a Representative of the Peopleconstantly sitting, but changed by a perpetual rotation. Othersproposed that there might be joined to the Popular Assembly a selectnumber of men in the nature of the Lacedęmonian Ephori, who shouldhave a negative in things wherein the essentials of the Governmentshould be concerned, such as the exclusion of a Single Person, touching Liberty of Conscience, alteration of the Constitution, andother things of the last importance to the State. Some were ofopinion that it would be most conducive to the public happiness ifthere might be two Councils chosen by the People, the one to consistof about 300, and to have the power only of debating and proposinglaws, the other to be in number about 1000, and to have the powerfinally to resolve and determine--every year a third part to go outand others to be chosen in their places. " There were differences, Ludlow adds, as to the proper composition of the body that shouldconsider and frame the new Constitution. Some were for referring thedeliberation to twenty Parliament men and ten representatives of theArmy, and proposed that, when these had agreed on a model, it shouldbe submitted first to the whole Army in a grand rendezvous. Parliament, however, had settled the method of procedure so far byappointing the present Committee. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of Sept. 8, 1659; Thomason Catalogue ofPamphlets; Ludlow, 674-676. ] Of the varieties of political theorists glanced at by Ludlow the mostfamous at this time were the Harringtonians or Rota-men. Some accountof them is here necessary. Their chief or founder was James Harrington, quite a different personfrom the "Sir James Harrington" now of the Council of State. He wasthe "Mr. James Harrington" who had been one of the grooms of thebedchamber to Charles I. In his captivity at Holmby and in the Isleof Wight (Vol. III. P. 700). Even then he had been a politicalidealist of a certain Republican fashion, and it had been part of theKing's amusement in his captivity to hold discourses with him anddraw out his views. --After the King's death, Harrington, cherishingvery affectionate recollections of his Majesty personally, had livedfor some years among his books, writing verses, translating Virgil'sEclogues, and dreaming dreams. Especially he had been prosecutingthose speculations in the science of politics which had fascinatedhim since his student days at Oxford. He read Histories; he studiedand digested the political writings of Aristotle, Plato, Macchiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, and others; he added observations ofhis own, collected during his extensive travels in France, Germany, and Italy; he admired highly the constitution of the VenetianRepublic, and derived hints from it; and, altogether, the result wasthat he came forth from his seclusion with a more perfect theory andideal of a body-politic, as he believed, than had yet been explainedto the world. He had convinced himself "that no government is of soaccidental or arbitrary an institution as people are apt to imagine, there being in societies natural causes producing their necessaryeffects, as well as in the earth or the air"; and one of thesenatural causes he had discovered in the great principle or axiom"that Empire follows the Balance of Property. " The troubles andconfusions In England for the last few ages were to be attributed, hethought, not so much to faults in the governors or in the governed asto a change in the balance of property, dating from the reign ofHenry VII. , which had gradually shifted the weight of affairs fromthe King and Lords to the Commons. But all could be put right byadopting a true model. It must not be an arbitrary monarchy, or amixed monarchy, or a mere democracy as vulgarly understood, or anyother of the make-shift constitutions of the past, but somethingworthy of being called a Free and Equal Commonwealth, and yetconserving what was genuine and natural in rank or aristocracy. Thebasis must be a systematic classification of the community inaccordance with facts and needs, and the arrangements such as to givefull liberty to all, while distributing power among all in such waysand proportions as to keep the balance eternally even and makefactions and contests impossible. These arrangements, as he hadschemed them out, were to be very numerous and complicated, everykind of social assemblage or activity, from the most local andparochial to the most general and national, having an exact machineryprovided for it; but two all-pervading principles were to be electionby Ballot and rotation of Eligibility. --Harrington's ideal had beenset forth in a thin folio volume, entitled _The Commonwealth ofOceana_, published in 1656, and dedicated to Cromwell. The bookwas in the form of a political romance, with high-flown dialogues, and a very fantastic nomenclature for his proposed dignities andinstitutions, throwing the whole into the air of poetic or literarywhimsy. There was, however, an elaborate exposition of the system andprocess of the Ballot. Though too fantastic for direct effect, thebook had been a good deal talked of, and had procured for the authornot only a considerable reputation, but also some following ofdisciples. One of these, and his intimate friend, was the Republicanfree-thinker Henry Neville. There had also been some criticisms byopponents, Royalist and Republican; in answer to which Harrington, in1658, had published a second treatise, called _The Prerogative ofPopular Government_, re-interpreting and vindicating the doctrinesof the _Oceana_, but more in a style of directdissertation. --The Harringtonians were by this time pretty numerous. Besides Neville there were perhaps six or eight of them among theRumpers themselves. Why, then, should there not be an effort toimpregnate the "Good Old Cause, " sadly in need of new impregnation ofsome kind, with a few of the essential Harringtonian principles? ByNeville's means the effort had been actually made in the Parliament. On the 6th of July there had been presented a petition from "diverswell-affected persons, " to which the petitioners "might have had manythousand hands" besides their own, had they not preferred relying onthe inherent strength of their case. The answer of the House, throughthe Speaker, had been most gracious. They perceived that this was apetition "without any private ends and only for public interest"; andthey assured the petitioners that the business to which the petitionreferred, viz. The settlement of a Constitution for the Commonwealth, was one in which the House intended "to go forward. " There is nothingin the Journals to indicate the nature of the petition; but it hadbeen drawn up by Harrington and may be read in his Works. It abjured, in the strongest terms, Kingship or Single-Person Sovereignty in anyform, and particularly "the interest of the late King's son"; but itrepresented the existing state of things as chaotic, and urged theadoption of a definite Constitution for England, the legislativepart of which should consist of two Parliamentary Houses, both to beelected by the whole body of the People. One was to contain about 300members, and was to have the power of debating and propounding laws;the other was to be much larger, and was to pass or reject the lawsso propounded. Great stress was laid on Rotation in the elections toboth. "There cannot, " said the petitioners, "be a union of theinterests of a whole nation in the Government where those that shallsometimes govern be not also sometimes in the condition of thegoverned"; and hence they proposed that annually a third part of eachof the two Houses should wheel out of the House, not to bere-eligible for a considerable period, and their places to be takenby newly elected members. Thus every third year the stuff of eachHouse would be entirely changed. --Not content with petitioningParliament, the Harringtonians disseminated their ideas vigorouslythrough the press. _A Discourse showing that the spirit of aParliament with a Council in the intervals is not to be trusted for aSettlement, lest it introduce Monarchy_, was a pamphlet ofHarrington's, published July 28; another, published Aug. 31, wasentitled _Aphorisms Political_, and consisted of a series ofbrief propositions: e. G. "Nature is of God, " "The Union withScotland, as it is vulgarly discoursed of, is destructive both to thehopes of a Commonwealth and to Liberty in Scotland. " There were to beother and still other publications, by Harrington or his disciples, through the rest of the year, including, for popular effect, a copperengraving of an Assembly in full session, watching the dropping ofnoble voting-balls into splendid urns. But this was not all. TheHarringtonians set up their famous debating club, called _TheRota_. "In 1659, in the beginning of Michaelmas term, " saysAnthony Wood, "they had every night a meeting at the then Turk'sHead in the New Palace Yard at Westminster (the next house to thestairs where people take water), called Miles's coffee-house--towhich place their disciples and virtuosi would commonly then repair:and their discourses about Government and of ordering of aCommonwealth were the most ingenious and smart that ever were heard, for the arguments in the Parliament House were but flat to those. This gang had a balloting box, and balloted how things should becarried, by way of _tentamens_; which being not used or known inEngland before upon this account, the room every evening was veryfull. Besides our author and H. Neville, who were the prime men ofthis club, were Cyriack Skinner, ... (which Skinner sometimes heldthe chair), Major John Wildman, Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire, Rog. Coke, Will. Poulteney, afterwards a knight (who sometimes heldthe chair), Joh. Hoskyns, Joh. Aubrey, Maximilian Pettie of Tetsworthin Oxfordshire, a very able man in these matters, ... Mich. Mallet, Ph. Carteret of the Isle of Guernsey, Franc. Cradock a merchant, Hen. Ford, Major Venner, ... Tho. Marriett of Warwickshire, Henry Croone aphysician, Edward Bagshaw of Christ Church, and sometimes Rob. Woodof Linc. Coll. , and James Arderne, then or soon afterwards a divine, with many others, besides antagonists and auditors of note whom Icannot now name. Dr. Will. Petty was a Rota-man, and would sometimestrouble Ja. Harrington in his Club; and one Stafford, a gent. OfNorthamptonshire, who used to be an auditor, did with his gang comeamong them one evening very mellow from the tavern, and did muchaffront the junto, and tore in pieces their orders and minutes. Thesoldiers who commonly were there, as auditors and spectators, wouldhave kicked them down stairs; but Harrington's moderation andpersuasion hindered them. The doctrine was very taking, and the morebecause as to human foresight there was no possibility of the King'sreturn. The greatest of the Parliament men hated this design ofrotation and ballotting, as being against their power. Eight or tenwere for it. " By Wood's dating in this passage, the Harrington orRota Club must have been in full operation shortly after theappointment, Sept. 8, of the great Committee of Parliament on the newConstitution. Neville was one of that Committee, and the popularityof the Club among the soldiers and citizens must have strengthenedhis hands in the Committee. Indeed for five months the Rota Club wasto be one of the busiest and most attractive institutions in London, yielding more amusement of an intellectual kind than any suchmeetings as those of the few physicists left in London to be thenucleus of the future Royal Society. It is worthy of remark thatHarrington and the chief Harringtonians looked with contempt on thesephysical philosophers. What were _their_ occupations over drugs, water-tubs, and the viscera of frogs, compared with great researchesinto human nature and plans for the government of states? Dr. WilliamPetty, who belonged to both bodies, seems to have taken pleasure introubling the Rota with his doubts and interrogatives. [1] [Footnote 1: Harrington's Works (large folio, 1727), with Toland'sLife of Harrington (1699) prefixed; Wood's Ath. , III. 1115-1126;Commons Journals, July 6, 1659; Catalogue of the Thomason Pamphlets(for dates), with inspection of first editions of some ofHarrington's Pamphlets in the Thomason Collection. ] While the Rota was holding its first meetings, the Rump and theWallingford-House Party were again in deadly quarrel. More and morethe resolute proceedings of the pure Republicans for subjecting theArmy completely to the Parliament had alienated the Army magnates. The reviewing by Parliament of all nominations for commissions, thedischarging of this officer and the bringing in of that, thedelivering out of the commissions by the Speaker to the officersindividually, were brooded over as insults. What was the intrinsicworth of this little so-called Parliament, what were its rights, thatit should so treat the Army that had set it up, and one company ofwhich could turn it out of doors in five minutes? Though broodingthus, the Army chiefs had contented themselves with rare attendancein the House or the Council, and had made no active demonstration. They were perhaps doubtful whether the spirit of submission to theParliament might not be now pretty general among the inferiorofficers, all with their bran-new commissions from the Speakerhimself. But the insurrection of Sir George Booth, and the march ofLambert's brigade into Cheshire to quell it, and the quick and signalsuccess of that enterprise, had given them the opportunity of testingthe Army's real feelings. Had not the Array now again a title toremember that it ought to be something more than a mere instrument ofthe existing civil authority? Was it not still the old English Army, always doing the real hard work of the State, and entitled thereforeto some real voice in State-affairs? Where would the Rump have been, where would the Republic have been, but for this service of Lambert'sbrigade? These were the questions asked in Lambert's brigade itself, more free to put such questions and to discuss them because of thedistance from London; but there were communications between Lambert'sbrigade and the centre at Wallingford House, with arrangements forconcerted action. As was fitting, the first bolt came from Lambert's brigade. At ameeting of about fifty officers of that brigade, held at Derby on the16th of September, it was agreed, after discussion, to appoint asmall committee to draw up the sense of the meeting in due form. Lambert himself then came quietly to London, where he was on the20th, with several of his leading officers. The issue of thecommittee left at Derby was a petition to Parliament in the name of"the Officers under the command of the Right Honourable the LordLambert in the late northern expedition. " The petition was to bepresented to Parliament when fully signed; but meanwhile a copy of itwas sent up to Colonel Ashfield, Colonel Cobbet, andLieutenant-Colonel Duckinfield, then in London, to be given, with aletter, to Fleetwood as Commander-in-chief, that so it might bebrought before the General Council of Officers. On the 22nd theHouse, having heard of the nature of the Petition, required that theoriginal document should be forthcoming for inspection, and thatFleetwood should at once produce his copy. The copy sufficed for allpurposes of information. The Petition consisted of a Preamble andfive Articles. It was full of a spirit of dissatisfaction, withcomplaints of the prevalence everywhere of "apostates, malignants, and neuters"; but its specific demands were two. One was that thesemi-Cromwellian petition of the General Council of Officers atWallingford House of date May 12, 1659 (ante pp. 449-450), "may not belaid asleep, but may have fresh life given unto it. " The other wasthat Fleetwood, whose term of office was just expiring, should befixed in the Commandership-in-chief, that Lambert should be madegeneral officer and chief commander next under him, that Desboroughshould be third as chief officer of the Horse, and Monk fourth aschief commander of the Infantry. On the 23rd these demands, and theattitude which they signified, were discussed in the House, with shutdoors, and in great excitement, Hasilrig leading the fury. Here waslatent Cromwellianism, or threatened single-person Government overagain, the soft Fleetwood to stop the gap meanwhile, but Lambert, once he was made general officer and nominally second, to emerge asthe new Cromwell! This was what was felt, if not said; and it wasresolved "That this House doth declare that to have any more generalofficers in the Army than are already settled by the Parliament isneedless, chargeable, and dangerous to the Commonwealth. " A motionfor censoring the Petition was negatived by thirty-one to twenty-five(Neville and Scott telling for the minority); but it was ordered thatFleetwood should communicate the Resolution to the officers of theArmy and admonish them of their irregular proceedings. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Parl. Hist. , III. 1562;Phillips, 654-656 (where the Petition itself is given). ] Wallingford House itself now took up the controversy, There weremeetings and meetings of the General Conncil of the officers, cautious at first, but gradually swelling into a chorus of anger overthe indignity put upon their brethren of Lambert's northernexpedition. There were dissenters who wanted to wait and have Monk'sadvice, but they were overborne. On the 5th of October Desborough andsome others were in the House with a petition signed by 230 officersthen about London. It consisted of a long preamble and nineproposals. The preamble complained generally of themisrepresentation, by some, "to evil and sinister ends, " of thepetition and proposals of the faithful officers of Lambert's brigade, and avowed the continued fidelity of the Army officers toCommonwealth principles, their repudiation of single-personGovernment, and their desire to be at one with the Parliament. Thearticles did not repeat the exact demands of the petition of theLambert brigade, but asked for an immediate settlement somehow of theCommandership-in-chief, for justice in all ways to the Army, andespecially for a guarantee that no officer or soldier should becashiered "without a due proceeding at a court-martial. " The debateon this Petition was begun on the 8th of October. The House was stillin a most resolute mood. They had received assurances from Monk ofhis decided sympathies with them rather than with theWallingford-House Council, and they believed still in thedisinclination of many of the officers in England to follow Lambertand Desborough to extremities. Accordingly, taking up the proposalsof the Petition one by one, they formulated answers to the first andsecond on Oct. 10, and answers to the next three on the 11th, all ina strain of high Parliamentary authority. At this point, however, theHouse interrupted its consideration of the Petition to hurry througha Bill of very vital consequence at such a juncture. It was a Billannulling, from and after May 7, 1659, all Acts, Orders, orOrdinances passed by any Single Person and His Council, or by anypretended Parliament or other pretended authority between the 19th ofApril 1653 (the day before Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump) andthe 7th of May 1659 (the day of the Restoration of the Rump), exceptin so far as these had been confirmed by the present Parliament, andfarther declaring it high treason for any person or persons, afterOct. 11, 1659, to assess, levy, collect, or receive, any tax, impost, or money contribution whatsoever, on or from the subjects of theCommonwealth, without their consent in Parliament, or as by law mighthave been done before Nov. 3, 1640. This comprehensive Act, calculated to overawe the Army Magnates by debarring them from allpower of money-raising, had been hurried through because of signsthat nothing less would avail, if even that would now suffice. Notonly had copies of the Army Petition of the 5th been circulated inprint, but there had been letters, with copies of the Petition, tovarious important officers away from London, Monk in chief, urgingthem to obtain subscriptions in their regiments, and forward the sameimmediately to Wallingford House. One such letter, signed byLambert, Desborough, Berry, Kelsay, Ashfield, Cobbet, Packer, Barrow, and Major Creed, had been misdelivered by chance to ColonelOkey, now on the side of the Parliament; and Okey gave it toHasilrig. The letter itself was one on which action might be taken, and an incident determined the House to very decisive action indeed. Precisely on that 11th of October when the House had formulated theiranswers to the Army Petition as far as to the fifth Article, and whenthey also passed the Bill so comprehensively asserting and guardingtheir own sole prerogative, Mr. Nicholas Monk arrived in London fromScotland, with powers from his brother to Dr. Clarges to let theParliament know that he would stand by them against theWallingford-House party, and would, if necessary, march into Englandfor their support. Next morning, Oct. 12, this news was buzzed amongthe Republican leaders of the House, and with prodigious effect. Themisdelivered letter was read and discussed; and, after a division, onthe previous question, of fifty (Mildmay and Lister tellers) againstfifteen (Colonel Rich and Alderman Pennington tellers), it wasresolved "That the several commissions of these several persons, viz. Colonel John Lambert, Colonel John Desborough, Colonel James Berry, Colonel Thomas Kelsay, Colonel Richard Ashfield, Colonel EalphCobbet, Major Richard Creed, Colonel William Packer, and ColonelWilliam Barrow, who have subscribed the said Letter, shall be, andare hereby, made null and void, and they and every of them be, andare hereby, discharged from all military employment. " The House thenvested the entire government of the Army in a commission ofseven, --to wit, Fleetwood, Ludlow, Monk, Hasilrig, Colonel Walton, Colonel Morley, and Colonel Overton, any three to be a quorum; and, having ordered the regiments of Morley and Okey, and a part of thatof Colonel Mosse, to be on guard in Westminster through the night, they rose with the consciousness of a bold day's work. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Parl. Hist. , III. 1562-8;Phillips, 656-660; Skinner's Life of Monk, 111-113. ] Next day, Thursday Oct. 13, there was no House at all. An entry inthe Journals of the House, subsequently inserted, explains why. "This day, " runs the entry, "the late Principal Officers of the Army, whose commissions were vacated, drew up forces in and aboutWestminster, obstructed all passages both by land and water, stoppedthe Speaker on his way, and placed and continued guards upon andabout the doors of the Parliament House, and so interrupted themembers from coming to the House and attending their service there. "This is a very correct summary of the incidents of more than twelvehours. Lambert had resolved to do the feat, and he managed it in themanner described. Morley's regiment and Mosse's regiment werefaithfully on guard round the House as ordered, and Okey would havebeen there too had not his men deserted him; but the House was toremain empty. Lambert had taken care of that by posting regiments inan outer ring round Morley's and Mosse's, so as to block allaccesses. Speaker Lenthall, trying to pass in his coach, was stoppedby Lieutenant-Colonel Duckinfield, and turned back with civility tohis house in Covent Garden; and so with the members generally. A fewdid break through and get in, among whom was Sir Peter Wentworth, whohad come by water with a stout set of boatmen. This was in themorning; and through the rest of the day Lambert was riding about, coming up now and then to Morley's men or Mosse's and haranguingthem. Would they suffer nine of their old officers to be disgracedand ruined? There were waverings and slidings-off towards Lambert, perhaps a general tendency to him; but for some hours the opposedmasses stood within pistol-shot of each other, Morley and Mosserefusing to yield their trust, and neither side willing to begin abattle. The citizens of London and Westminster waited the issue andhad no desire to interfere. The Council of State, however, had met inWhitehall; all stray members of the House, though not of the Council, had been invited to join them; and there was thus a sufficientgathering of both parties to negotiate an agreement. Not till theevening was this finally arranged; but then orders were sent out, inthe name of the Council of State, to the regiments on both sides togo peaceably to their quarters. The orders were most gladly obeyed. The information that went forth to the citizens, and that wascirculated over the country in letters, was that the Council ofOfficers "had been necessitated to obstruct the sitting of theParliament for the present, " but would themselves take all necessarycharge of the public peace till there should be a more regularauthority. In fact, the Rump had been dissolved a second time after arestored session, of five months. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date; Phillips, 661; Whitlocke, IV. 364-365; Ludlow, 711 and 723-726. ] CHAPTER I. Second Section (continued). THE ANARCHY, STAGE II. : OR THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE INTERREGNUM: OCT. 13, 1659-DEC. 26, 1659. THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT: ITS _COMMITTEE OF SAFETY_:BEHAVIOUR OF LUDLOW AND OTHER LEADING REPUBLICANS: DEATH OFBRADSHAW. --ARMY-ARRANGEMENTS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT: FLEETWOOD, LAMBERT, AND DESBOROUGH THE MILITARY CHIEFS: DECLARED CHAMPIONSHIP OFTHE RUMP BY MONK IN SCOTLAND: NEGOTIATIONS OPENED WITH MONK, ANDLAMBERT SENT NORTH TO OPPOSE HIM: MONK'S MOCK TREATY WITH LAMBERT ANDTHE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT THROUGH COMMISSIONERS IN LONDON: HISPREPARATIONS MEANWHILE IN SCOTLAND: HIS ADVANCE FROM EDINBURGH TOBERWICK: MONK'S ARMY AND LAMBERT'S. --FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THEWALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT: TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND SPAIN:LOCKHART: CHARLES II. AT FONTARABIA: GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT OF HISCHANCES IN ENGLAND. --DISCUSSIONS OF THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENTAS TO THE FUTURE CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH: THE VANE PARTYAND THE WHITLOCKE PARTY IN THESE DISCUSSIONS: JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON, THE HARRINGTONIANS, AND LUDLOW: ATTEMPTED CONCLUSIONS. --MONK ATCOLDSTREAM: UNIVERSAL WHIRL OF OPINION IN FAVOUR OF HIM AND THERUMP: UTTER DISCREDIT OF THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE RULE IN LONDON:VACILLATION AND COLLAPSE OF FLEETWOOD: THE RUMP RESTORED A SECONDTIME. For about a fortnight after Lambert's _coup d'état_, the Councilof State of the Rump, having become in a manner a party to thataction, still continued to sit in Whitehall, on an understandingwith the General Council of the Officers meeting in WallingfordHouse. There are preserved minutes of their sitting's to the 25th ofOctober, from which it appears that the Laird of Warriston was in thechair once or twice, but Whitlocke principally. Bradshaw, who wasthen a dying man, had appeared at one meeting, but only to protestthat, "being now going to his God, " he must leave his testimonyagainst a compromise founded on perjury to the Republic. But on the26th of October, after much consultation, the Council of State gaveplace to a new Supreme Executive, chosen by the Wallingford--Houseofficers, and called _The Committee of Safety. _ It consisted oftwenty-three persons, as follows:-- Whitlocke (made also_ Lord Keeper of the Great Seal_, Nov. 1). Colonel Robert Bennett Colonel James Berry Henry Brandreth Colonel John Clerk Desborough Fleetwood Sir James Harrington Colonel Hewson Cornelius Holland Alderman Ireton Sir Archibald Johnstone of Wariston Lambert Henry Lawrence Colonel Robert Lilburne Ludlow Major Salway William Steele (Chancellor of Ireland) Walter Strickland Colonel William Sydenham Robert Thompson Alderman Tichbourne Sir Henry Vane. The combination of persons is curious. Some were mere insertedciphers, and others would not act. Whitlocke, who was earnestlypressed by the officers to give to the body the weight and reputationof his presence, had very considerable hesitations, but did consent, chiefly on the ground, as he tells us, that he might be able tocounteract the extravagant communistic tendencies of Vane and Salway, and so prevent mischief. It is perhaps stranger to find Vane andSalway themselves on the list. Of late, however, Vane had beendetaching himself from the group of more intense Parliamentarians andseeing prospects for his ideas from conjunction, rather with theArmy-men. So with Salway, Ludlow had been nominated on the new bodyat a venture. Thinking he might be wanted to help the Rump in theirstruggle with the Army, he had returned from Ireland, leaving ColonelJohn Jones as his _locum tenens_ there; and he had not heard theastonishing news of Lambert's action till his landing on the Welshcoast. He had then wavered for a while between going back to Irelandand coming on to London, but had decided for the latter. Before hisarrival in town he had heard of his nomination to the Committee ofSafety and resolved not to accept it. He was more willing than usual, however, to make the best of circumstances; he consented even toshake hands with Lambert when he first met him; and, though notconcealing his opinion that Lambert's act had been utterlyunjustifiable, and that a restitution of the Rump even yet was theonly proper amends, he would not go entirely with those friends ofhis who were working for that end, as he thought, too wildly andboisterously, and too much with a view to mere revenge. These wereHasilrig, Scott, Neville, Morley, Walton, and their followers, amongwhom it is no surprise to find Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. They, ofcourse, had been left out of the new Committee of Safety, as the openand irreconcileable enemies of the system of things Lambert hadbrought in. Bradshaw, who would have been with them, died on the 31stof October, five days after the constitution of the Committee, leaving surely a most troubled world. [1] [Footnote 1: Council Order Books from Oct. 13 to Oct. 25, 1659;Ludlow, 706-713, 716-718, and 729-731; Whitlocke, IV. 365-368;Phillips, 662. ] Military arrangements had been made already (October 14-17) by theWallingford-House Council. Fleetwood had been namedCommander-in-chief of all the Armies; Lambert Major-General of theForces in England and Scotland; Desborough Commissary-General of theHorse; and these three, with Vane, Berry, and Ludlow, were to be theCommittee for nominations of all Army-officers. Though this, with theomission of Hasilrig, was the very committee the Rump had appointedfor the same business, Ludlow could not make up his mind to act onit. Disaffected officers, such as Okey, Morley, and Alured, had beenremoved from their commands; Articles of War for maintainingdiscipline everywhere had been drawn out; and the Committee ofnominations was to see that the officers throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland should be men under engagement to thenewly-established order. --It was foreseen that in this there would begreat difficulties. Even within England and Wales there might be manyofficers, besides those already discharged, whose adhesion to theWallingford-House policy was dubious; and these had to be found out. There was still greater uncertainty about Ireland, where Ludlow hadfor some months been master for the Rump. Thither, accordingly, therewas despatched Colonel Barrow, to be an agent for theWallingford-House policy with Ludlow's deputy Colonel John Jones, andwith the officers of the Irish Army. But it was from Scotland thatthe hurricane was expected. Monk, having offered to stand by the Rumpagainst the Wallingford-House party while yet the two were instruggle, had necessarily been omitted from that fourth Generalship, after Fleetwood, Lambert, and Desborough, to which he would doubtlesshave been appointed, in conformity with one of the proposals of theLambert Brigade Petition of the preceding month, but for thatpredeclaration of his hostility. It had been suggested, indeed, thatsuch an honour might pacify him; but it had been thought best to waitfor farther evidences of his state of mind, and merely to despatchColonel Cobbet to Scotland to give explanations to Monk himself andto probe also the feelings of his officers and soldiers. --They hadnot to wait long. No sooner had Monk heard of Lambert's _coupd'état_ than he repeated his former determination mostemphatically, both by energetic procedure on his own Scottish groundand by letters to all the four winds. "I am resolved, by the graceand assistance of God, as a true Englishman, " he wrote to SpeakerLenthall from Edinburgh October 20, "to stand to and assert theliberty and authority of Parliament; and the Army here, praised beGod, is very courageous and unanimous. " There were letters to thesame effect to Fleetwood and Lambert, to Ludlow and his substitutesin Ireland, to the commanders of the Fleet, and to many privatepersons. Colonel Gobbet was not allowed to enter Scotland, but wasseized at Berwick and put in prison. In short, before October 28, when the new Committee of Safety met for the first time in Whitehall, it was clear that Monk had constituted himself theantagonist-in-chief of their government, and the armed champion ofthe dismissed Rump. Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, and their comrades, were in exultation accordingly. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 366-367; Ludlow, 710-712 and 728-729;Phillips, 663-666; Skinner's Life of Monk, 117-128; Guizot, II. 18-22. ] Two resolutions were immediately taken by the Committee of Safety. Itwas resolved to attempt even then a negotiation with Monk; and it wasresolved to send Lambert north with a large force to prevent Monk'smarch into England if the negotiation should fail. On the night ofthe 28th of October, Monk's brother-in-law Dr. Clarges, and ColonelTalbot, one of Monk's favourite officers, then in London, were sentfor by the Committee, and asked to undertake the mission of peace. They willingly consented, and set out on the 29th, to be followedwithin a few days by six other missionaries for the samepurpose--Colonels Whalley and Goffe for the Wallingford-Houseofficers, a Mr. Dean specially for Fleetwood, and three Independentministers, Caryl, Barker, and Hammond, on a religious account. Therewere letters in plenty also from Fleetwood and others. Monk was to bereasoned with from all points of view. But, on the 3rd of November, Lambert also set out for York, to join Colonel Robert Lilburne there, and gather forces to block the north of England against thepossibility of Monk's invasion. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 368-369; Phillips, 663; Skinner, 131, 140, and 142-143; Guizot, II. 27-29. ] Monk, on his part, when Clarges and Talbot arrived in Edinburgh (Nov. 2), and Clarges had held his first long private discourse with him, was very willing to _seem_ to negotiate, and gave Clarges hisreasons. Though he had represented his Army as unanimously with him, that was hardly the case. The re-modelling operations of the lateRump had perturbed his Army considerably, displacing or degradingofficers he liked, and inserting or promoting officers he did notwant. Fortunately, most of the new officers had not yet come totheir posts, and the old ones were still available. But theregiments, or parts of regiments, in all their dispersed stations, atEdinburgh, Leith, Dalkeith. Stirling, Perth, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Ayr, Inverness, and the remoter Highland outposts, had tobe manipulated, weeded of oppositionists, and pulled graduallytogether; and, as it turned out, there were about 140 oppositionistsamong Monk's own approved officers of all ranks. To get rid of these, and otherwise to shape the Army to his mind, would take six weeks atleast. Then, as he told Clarges, he should be ready. His total forcewould consist of ten regiments of foot (his own, Talbot's, Wilkes's, Read's, Daniel's, Fairfax's, and those now called Overton's, Cobbet's, Sawrey's, and Smith's), with two regiments of horse (hisown and Twistleton's) and one of dragoons (that of the redoubtedMorgan, now absent in England). By recent careful economy, he had£70, 000 in the bank: his credit with the Scots was such that he couldhave more on demand; he had but to give permission, and the Scotsthemselves would flock in arms to his standard. He had resolved, however, that the performance should be in substance wholly anEnglish one, and that the Scots should be involved in it butindirectly and sparingly. Additional reasons for delay were furnishedby the fact that the sympathy with Monk which he knew to exist inEngland and Ireland, had not yet had due development, In short, Monkand Clarges agreed that it would be best to fall in with the offer ofnegotiation, in order to gain time; and next day (Nov. 3), at ameeting of Monk's officers, Colonel Wilkes, Lieutenant-ColonelClobery, and Major Knight, were deputed to go into England asCommissioners for a Treaty. They had certain instructions given them, in which Monk himself "invented matter to confound their debates. "They were to insist on the restoration of the Rump, or, if the Rumpwould not be restored, then on a full and free new Parliament. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 663-667, and Skinner, 133-136. Phillips'sinformation about Monk and his proceedings in Scotland is very fulland minute; indeed his whole account of Monk's enterprisehenceforward to the Restoration, though in form only part of acontinuation of _Baker's Chronicle_, is a contribution oforiginal history rather than a mere compilation. He was permitted, as he tells us, the use of Monk's papers and those of his agents. This part of the book, in fact, looks like a literary commissionexecuted for Monk. ] And so, having dispatched the commissioners, Monk continued hiscolloquies with Clarges, such privileged persons as the physician Dr. Barrow and the chaplain Dr. Gumble being admitted to some of them, but only Clarges fathoming Monk's intentions, and he but in part. When the Independent ministers and other envoys arrived, there was aconference at Holyrood House at which they made speeches, Monklistening, but keeping his own mouth shut. Once, indeed, when Mr. Caryl warned him that war and bloodshed, if begun, would be "laid athis door, " he burst out against Lambert and his party, saying_they_ had begun the war, and, if they continued in theircourse, he would "lay them on their backs. " While the Independentministers were yet in Edinburgh, doing their best, there was a morewelcome advent in the person of Colonel Morgan (Nov. 8). He had beenlying ill of gout at York, but had recovered so far as to be able tocome to Edinburgh as a kind of messenger to Monk from Lambert. Hedelivered his message punctually enough, but told Monk he was glad tobe with him again, and would follow him implicitly whatever he did, being "no statesman" himself. Monk was vastly pleased, looking onMorgan, it is said, as worth more than all the 140 officers he hadlost. Morgan had, moreover, brought important communications fromYorkshire, which led Monk to dispatch Clarges and Talbot thither toestablish an understanding with Lord Fairfax. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 667-669; Skinner, 138-140. ] Meanwhile Monk's three Commissioners had arrived at York and been inparley with Lambert. Finding that the question of the restitution ofthe Rump was involved in their instructions, he passed them on toLondon, having stipulated for a truce till the result should beknown. On the 12th of November the Commissioners were in London; andon the 15th, after three days of consultation at Wallingford House, atreaty of nine Articles was agreed to, and signed by them on the partof Monk and the Army in Scotland, and by Fleetwood on the part of theWallingford-House Council. There was great delight in Whitehall overthis result, and the Tower cannon proclaimed the happyreconciliation between Monk and the Government. But Monk'sCommissioners had been too hasty, or had been outwitted; and Clarges, who arrived in London that day, had come too late to stop them andspin out the time. A pledge of both parties against Charles Stuart orany single-person Government was in the forefront of the Treaty; andthe rest of the Articles simply admitted Monk and the officers of theScottish Army to a share in the Government as then going on, and incertain arrangements which the Committee of Safety and theWallingford-House Council had been already devising on their ownaccount. Monk received the news at Haddington on the evening of Nov. 18; he returned to Edinburgh next day, "very silent and reserved";but that day it was resolved by him, in consultation with some of hischief officers and with Dr. Barrow, to disown the Treaty--not, indeed, by actual rejection of any of the Articles, but on the pleathat several things had been omitted and that there must be fartherspecification. For this purpose it was proposed that twoCommissioners on Monk's part should be added to the former three, andthat five Commissioners from the Army in England should meet theseand continue the Treaty at Alnwick or some other indifferent placenear Scotland. When this answer reached London, Whitlocke, who hadall along, as he tells us, protested that Monk's object was delayonly and "that the bottom of his design was to bring in the King, "repeated more earnestly his former advice that Lambert should bepushed on to immediate action. "His advice was not taken, " saysWhitlocke, "but a new Treaty consented to by Commissioners on eachpart, to be at Newcastle. " From about the 20th of November that wasLambert's headquarters, while Monk, having left a portion of hisforces behind him for necessary garrison purposes in Scotland, cameon from Edinburgh to establish himself at Berwick with the rest. Hewas there before the end of the month. In the beginning of December1659, therefore, the two Armies were all but facing eachother, --Monk's consisting now of about 6000 foot and 1400 horse anddragoons, and Lambert's of between 4000 and 5000 horse and about3000 foot: the excess in horse giving Lambert a great superiority. AtMonk's back, moreover, there was no effective support in case offailure, unless by that arming of the Scots which he was unwilling torisk, while to back Lambert there were about 20, 000 more regulars inEngland, besides a militia of 30, 000, not to speak of the forces inIreland, and the regiments in Flanders. Between the two Armies allthat intervened to prevent conflict was the Treaty to be resumed atNewcastle. Monk magnified the importance of that, but took great careto postpone it. Wilkes, Clobery, and Knight, had not returned fromLondon, and were rather slow to do so and face Monk after theirblunder; and the two new Commissioners had not yet been appointed. Meanwhile letters and messages passed between the two Armies, andthere were desertions from the one to the other. [1] [Footnote 1: Skinner, 146-158; Phillips, 670-672; Whitlocke, IV. 373-377. ] All this while the London Government of the Committee of Safety hadbeen attending as well as they could to such general business asbelonged to them in their double capacity of supreme executive andtemporary deliberative. For, at the constitution of the body on the26th of October, it had been agreed that they should not onlyexercise the usual powers of a Council of State, but should alsoprosecute that great question of the future form of the Government ofthe Commonwealth which had occupied the late Rump. They were toprosecute this question in conference, if necessary, with the chiefArmy officers and others; and, if they should not come to aconclusion within six weeks, the question was to return to theWallingford-House Council itself. [1] [Footnote 1: Letter of M. De Bordeaux to Mazarin of date Nov. 6, 1659(i. E. Oct. 28 in English reckoning), in Appendix to Guizot, II. 274-278. ] In the matter of foreign relations the Committee of Safety had littleto do, the arrangements of the late Rump for withdrawing from foreignentanglements still holding good for the present. Meadows, who hadbecome tired of his agency with the two Scandinavian powers, nolonger such an inspiring office as it had been under theProtectorate, had asked the Rump more than once to recall him. Hehad remained in the Baltic to as late as October, but was now back inLondon, anxious about his own future and about his arrears of salary. If the present Government should succeed, there might possibly be arevival of the Cromwellian policy of co-operation with CharlesGustavus, and then the services of Meadows might be again in request;but meanwhile Algernon Sidney and the other plenipotentiaries sent bythe Rump into the Baltic, though checking the heroic Swede andscorned by him in return, might represent the only policy yetpossible. Downing, though also much exercised by the rapid turns ofaffairs, and thinking of scoundrel-like means for securing himself, does not seem to have been so dissatisfied with his position at theHague as Meadows was with his in the Baltic. He had come to Londonearly in November; a sub-committee of the Committee of Safety hadbeen appointed to receive his report on present relations with theUnited Provinces; and he was waiting for re-credentials. The DutchAmbassador Nieuport, we may add, was still in London, as also theFrench Ambassador M. De Bordeaux, and other inferior foreignresidents, but all meanwhile as mere on-lookers. --One inquires withmost interest about Ambassador Lockhart. Since August, he had been ator near St. Jean de Luz, on the borders between France and Spain, charged, as Ambassador for the Rump, with the business ofendeavouring to have the English Commonwealth included in the greatTreaty then going on between Mazarin and the Spanish minister DonLuis de Haro, so that, when peace had been definitely concludedbetween France and Spain, there might be peace also between Spain andthe Commonwealth. There he had been received, with the utmost respectby Mazarin and with all courtesy by Don Luis de Haro, both of themfriendly enough to the purpose of his mission for reasons of theirown. It was found, however, that the Peace between France and Spainwas a matter of sufficient complication and difficulty in itself; andso, though it was not finally concluded and signed till the end ofNovember, when it took the name of _The Treaty of the Pyrenees_, and secured, among many other things, the marriage of Louis XIV. Withthe Spanish Infanta, Lockhart, knowing all to be settled, had takenhis farewell. He was in London on the 14th of November, in the verycrisis of the negotiation between Monk and the new Government, butremained only a fortnight. Till Peace with Spain should be concludedby some means, his true place was at Dunkirk, for the recovery ofwhich Spain would now certainly wrestle, while France would also bidhigh for the acquisition. He left London for Dunkirk on the 1st ofDecember, the issue between Monk and the new Government stillundecided. --While Lockhart was on the scene of the great negotiationbetween Mazarin and Luis de Haro on the Spanish border, there hadbeen the surprise of the arrival there of no less a person thanCharles II. Himself. In August we left him waiting anxiously atCalais, ready to embark for England on the due explosion there of thegreat pre-arranged insurrection of the old Royalists and newRoyalists. He had lingered about the French coast for some time; but, when the revolt of Sir George Booth had collapsed, the notion of anew residence in Brussels after another of his failures had becomedisagreeable to him. He did go to Brussels, but only to conceive theidea of a trip, half of pleasure, half of speculation, to the sceneof the great diplomatic conferences. Might not his interests beconsidered in the Treaty? Mazarin, who had no wish to see him at theconferences, declined to give him a passport; but he risked thejourney _incognito_, with Ormond, the Earl of Bristol, and oneor two other attendants, going by a long and circuitous route, andfinding much amusement by the way. As they approached theirdestination, there was an unlucky separation of the party into two, Ormond going on ahead for inquiries and appointing a place for theirreunion. But for some days Charles and the Earl of Bristol were lost. Ormond, who had missed them at the appointed place, had gone on toFontarabia, a small frontier town of Spain, and the residence of DonLuis de Haro during the Treaty, just as St. Jean de Luz, two or threemiles off, but in the French territory, was the residence of Mazarin. Sir Henry Bennet, the Ambassador for Charles at the Spanish Court, was already there; and he, and Ormond, and Don Luis himself, were inno small anxiety. At length it appeared that the fugitives, on falseinformation that the Treaty was already concluded, had gone intoSpain on their own account, bound for Madrid itself, and had got asfar as Saragossa. Fetched back to Fontarabia, they were received withall politeness and state by Don Luis. But, though they remained sometime, the Treaty was so far settled that Charles found that nothingcould be done for his interests through that means. Mazarin, indeed, resenting his intrusion, and his passage through France withoutleave, refused to see him, and gave orders also that Sir Henry Bennetshould not be admitted. With only general assurances of good wishesfrom the Spanish minister, a present of 7000 gold pistoles for "theexpenses of his journey, " and promises of farther consideration ofhis case when there should be opportunity, Charles returned throughFrance by Paris, and was back in Brussels in December, just about thetime when Lockhart was back in Dunkirk. They had been crossing eachother's paths and were again near neighbours. --Although the late RumpGovernment had taken some alarm at Charles's visit to Fontarabia, andhad made remonstrances on the subject of his passage through France, it was now known that there was no danger of action for Charleseither by France or by Spain. The danger, indeed, was of a moresubtle and incalculable kind, and within the Commonwealth itself. Wehave seen how naturally the baulked Cromwellianism of the epoch ofthe dissolution of Richard's Parliament and the overthrow of hisProtectorate tended to transmute itself into Stuartism, and how muchof the strength of Sir George Booth's insurrection consisted of newRoyalism so produced. What we have now to add is that every baulkedor defeated cause in succession within the Commonwealth yielded inthe same way potential capital for Charles. The cause of Charles waslike an ultimate refuge for all the disappointed and destitute. Thosewho had not already been driven into it were ruefully or gladlylooking forward to it. Even among the extreme Rumpers or pureRepublicans, now maddened by Lambert's coup _d'état_, there weresome, Colonel Herbert Morley for one, who were feeling cautiouslyfor ways and means of forgiveness at Brussels. Nay, in the presentCommittee of Safety and in the Wallingford-House Council associatedwith it, there were some fully prepared, should this experiment alsofail, to help in a restoration of the Stuarts rather than go backinto the Republican grasp of Scott, Neville, and Hasilrig. There wasa vague common cognisance of this convergence of so many separatecurrents to one final reservoir. It showed itself in mutualaccusations of that very tendency of which all were conscious. Everyparty of Commonwealth's men accused every other party of a design tobring the King in, and every party so accused repudiated the chargewith such strength of language as to beget the suspicion, "The Ladyprotests too much, methinks. " On the other hand, the uneasy commonconsciousness disposed people to be practically somewhat tolerant. When no one knew what might happen to himself, why should he indicthis neighbour for treason? On some such ground it may have been, aswell as to try to win grace with the Presbyterians or new Royalists, that the present Government did not proceed with the trials of thelords and gentlemen committed for high treason for their concern inthe late Insurrection, but released all or most of them. LordsNorthampton, Falkland, Herbert, Howard, and others had been releasedNovember 1, and Sir George Booth himself was set at liberty on the9th of December. [1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 708, 727, 743, 753-4, 775, and 802;Whitlocke, IV. 369, 377, and 378; Clarendon, 872-877; Guizot, I. 211-215; Letters of M. De Bordeaux, in Appendix to Guizot, II. 288, 294, and 298; Order Books of Council of State, Aug. 23 and Oct. 13, 1659. ] In the matter of a new Constitution for the future the procedure ofthe Committee of Safety had been not uninteresting. On the 1st ofNovember they had referred the subject to a sub-committee, consistingof Vane, Whitlocke, Fleetwood, Ludlow, Salway, and Tichbourne; and onthis sub-committee Ludlow did consent to act. In fact, however, theGeneral Committee and the Wallingford-House Council kept along withthe Sub-Committee in the great discussion. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 368-369, and Ludlow, 736. Whitlocke doesnot here name himself as one of the sub-committee, though he namesthe others; but Ludlow names him distinctly, and Whitlocke's wordsafterwards (e. G. , p. 376) show him to have been an active member. ] The Kingship of Charles Stuart was, of course, an utterly forbiddenidea in the deliberations. The idea of a revival of any form of theProtectorship, whether by the recall of Richard, or by the electionof Fleetwood or Lambert, was equally forbidden, although there hadbeen whispers of the kind about Wallingford House, and Richard wasunderstood to be hovering near, in case he should be wanted. "Such aform of Government as may best suit and comport with a Free State andCommonwealth, without a Single Person, Kingship, or House of Peers, "was what had been solemnly promised in the first public declarationof the present powers; and to that all stood pledged. This, ofcourse, involved a Parliament. But what Parliament or what sort ofParliament? _The late Rump reinstated at once with fullauthority_, Ludlow was bound to say, and did say; but, as that wasout of the question with all the rest, he could suppose himselfoutvoted on that, and go on. _Richard's late Parliament_ hadbeen the murmur of some outside, perhaps not the least sensible inthe main; but the suggestion passed, as meaningless without Richardhimself. _The Long Parliament as it was before it became the Rump, i. E. With all the survivors of the illegally secluded members of1642-1649 restored to their seats_, was a third proposal, of moretremendous significance, that had been heard outside, and indeed hadbecome a wide popular cry. Inasmuch as this meant the bringing backof the Parliament precisely as it had been before the King's trialand the institution of the Commonwealth, with all those Presbyteriansand Royalists in it that it had been necessary to eject in mass inorder to make the King's trial and a Commonwealth possible, littlewonder that the present junto shuddered at the bare suggestion. _Anew Parliament, called by ourselves_, was the conclusion in whichthey took rest. But here their debates only began. Should it be aParliament of one House or of two Houses? If of two Houses, shouldthe Second House be a select Senate of fifty or seventy, coordinatewith the larger House, as the Army-chiefs had advised the Rumpers, orshould it be a much larger body? What should be the size of thelarger House, and what the powers and relations of the two? Then, whether of one or of two Houses, how should the Parliament beelected? To prevent the mere inrush of a Parliament of the old andordinary sort, whose first act would probably be to subvert theCommonwealth, what qualifications should be established for suffrageand eligibility? Might it not even be advisable not to permit thepeople at first full choice of their representatives, with whateverprescribed qualifications, but to allow them only choice amongnominees sent down to them by a higher power? Should Harrington'sprinciple of Rotation be adopted, and, if so, to what extent?Farther, whatever was to be the structure of the Parliament, were anyfundamentals to be laid down beforehand, as eternal principles of theCommonwealth, which even the Parliament should be bound not to touch?Must not the perpetuity of Republican Government itself, ornon-return to Kingship or single Chief Magistracy of any kind, be oneof these fundamentals, and Liberty of Conscience another? Nay, shoulda Church Establishment and Tithes be left open questions, or shouldthere be some absolute pre-determination on that great subject?Finally, when the Sub-Committee and the Committee of Safety, and theArmy officers round about, should have agreed upon all thesequestions, so far as to be able to draw out a Constitution or Form ofGovernment sufficiently satisfactory to themselves, ought not thatConstitution to be submitted to some wider representative authorityfor revision and ratification before being imposed on the People? Ifso, what should that intervening and ratifying authority be?[1] [Footnote 1: This is not a paragraph of suppositions, but the resultof a study of the actual chaos of opinion at the moment, by the helpof hints from Whitlocke, Ludlow, the letters of M. De Bordeaux, andinformation in contemporary Thomason pamphlets. Strangely enough, some of the most luminous hints come from the letters of M. DeBordeaux. He was observing all coolly and clearly with foreign eyes, and reporting twice a week to Mazarin. ] One can see that there were two parties among the debaters. Vane, inhis strange position at last after his many vicissitudes, had cometrailing clouds of his peculiar notions with him, and was regarded asthe advocate of wild and impracticable novelties. Not merely absoluteLiberty of Conscience and abolition of Tithes, in which Ludlow andothers went with him, but certain Millenarian or Fifth Monarchyspeculations, pointing to a glorious future over the trampled ruinsof the Church-Establishment and of much besides, were ideas which hewanted to ingraft in some shape into the new Constitution. Here herepresented a number of enthusiasts among the subalterns of the Armyand among ex-Army men; and, indeed, it had been with some difficultythat Major-General Harrison, the head of the Millenarians, had beenkept out of the Committee of Safety at its first formation, and soprevented from resuming public functions after his five years ofdisablement. Not having Harrison by his side, Vane could do littlemore than ventilate his Millenarianism, Communism, or whatever itwas, though, as Whitlocke says, he "was hard to be satisfied and didmuch stick to his own apprehensions. " The leader of the more moderateparty, as against Vane, was Whitlocke himself. He represented theLawyers, the Established Clergy, all the more sober and conservativespirits. Parliamentary use and wont, with no great new-fangledinventions, but only prudent modifications and precautions;preservation of the Established Church, the Universities, and theexisting legal system; Liberty of Conscience certainly, but soguarded as not to give reins to Quakerism and other Sectarianexcesses: these were the recommendations of Whitlocke. The Laird ofWarriston, it appears, who was not on the Sub-Committee, took up aposition of his own in the General Committee, which was neitherVane's nor Whitlocke's, but represented what Ludlow calls "theScottish interest. " One of its principles was that Liberty ofConscience should be very limited indeed. And so, through November, while Monk was consolidating his forces in Scotland, the discussionof the new Constitution had been straggling on in the Sub-Committeeand Committee at Whitehall, and in less authorized assemblies in thesame neighbourhood. Among these, besides a clerical conclave ofIndependent ministers, such as Owen and Nye, meeting at the Savoy andadvising Whitlocke on the Church-question, one must speciallyremember Harrington's Rota Club at the Turk's Head in New PalaceYard. That institution was now in its full nightly glory, discussingall the questions that were discussed in Whitehall and many more. Ithad won by this time the crowning distinction of being a subject ofdaily jokes and witticisms. In a London squib of Nov. 12, 1659, laughing at Harrington and his Rota-men, the public were informedthat among the last "decrees and orders of the Committee of Safety ofthe Commonwealth of Oceana" had been these three:--1. "That thepolitic casuists of the Coffee Club in Bow Street [had the Rotaadjourned thither, or was this some other debating Club?] appointsome of their number to instruct the Committee of Safety at Whitehallhow they shall find an invention to escape Tyburn, if ever the law berestored; 2. That Harrington's _Aphorisms_ and other politicalslips be recommended to the English Plantation in Jamaica, to try howthey will agree with that apocryphal purchase; 3. That a Levite andan Elder be sent to survey the Government of the Moon, and thatWarriston Johnstone and Parson Peters be the men, as a couple oflearned Rabbis in Lunatics. " Heedless of such mockery, theHarringtonians did not cease to put forth their own pamphlets withall seriousness. _Valerius and Publicola, or the True Form of aPopular Commonwealth extracted e puris naturalibus_ is the titleof a dialogue of Harrington's, of Nov. 17, expounding his principlesafresh. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 376 and 379-380; Ludlow, 751-752; Lettersof M. De Bordeaux, in Appendix to Guizot, II. 275, 293, 304; ThomasonTract of date, entitled _Decrees and Orders, &c. ;_ andThomason Catalogue. ] Two conclusions at least had been arrived at in the Sub-Committee andCommittee, and approved by the Wallingford-House Council of officers, before the middle of November, when they were actually embodied inthe Treaty with Monk's Commissioners in London. One was as to themode of determining Parliamentary qualifications. That duty was to beentrusted to a body of nineteen persons, ten of them named(Whitlocke, Vane, Ludlow, St. John, Warriston, &c. ), and the othernine to be chosen by the Armies of England, Ireland, and Scotland, three by each. A still more important conclusion was as to the body, intermediate between the present powers and the People, to which thewhole Constitution should be submitted for revision and ratificationbefore being imposed upon the People. It was to be a greatRepresentative Council of the Army and Navy, to be composed ofdelegates in the proportion of two commissioned officers from eachregiment in England, Scotland, or Ireland, chosen by the commissionedofficers of the regiments severally, together with ten naval officersto be chosen by the officers of the Fleet collectively. To Ludlow, approving only coldly of all that departed from his fixed idea ofsheer restitution of the Rump, this arrangement seemed, nevertheless, a very fair one. It was settled, in fact, that the greatRepresentative Council should meet at Whitehall on the 6th ofDecember, by which time the complete draft of the Constitution wouldbe ready. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 374; Phillips. 671-672. ] The Army and Navy Council did meet on that day, and it is from theirproceedings that we learn best the nature of the Constitutionsubmitted to them. The meeting, indeed, was not the great one thathad been expected. The delegates from Ireland had not arrived; nonehad come from Monk's army, though due intimation had been given tohim and he was reckoned bound by the Treaty; and, of course, in thecircumstances, delegates could not be spared from Lambert's. Therewas, however, a sufficient gathering, and Ludlow attended, byrequest, as one representative from Ireland. In a debate of five orsix days all the questions that had been discussed in the Committeeof Safety and its Sub-Committee were discussed over again, Ludlow andColonel Rich fighting for the restitution of the Rump even yet as theone thing needful, others starting wild proposals even yet for arestoration of the Protectorate, but Fleetwood, Desborough, and themajority urging substantially the proposals that had come from theCommittee of Safety, or rather a reduction of those, by the omissionof such portions of them as were Vane's, to the moderate andconservative core which might be regarded as Whitlocke's. AsWhitlocke himself was permitted to be present and advise in theCouncil, he was able to contribute much to this result by hislawyerly gravity and frequent mentions of the Great Seal. Altogetherthe Constitution as it passed the Council may be considered as his. And what was it? Nothing very alarming. A new Parliament, of a SingleHouse, to be elected by the people very much as by use and wont, butin conformity with a well-considered scheme of "qualifications" forkeeping out the dangerous; a separation, however, of the Executivefrom the Legislative, by the appointment, as heretofore, of a SupremeCouncil of State; maintenance of the Established Church, and that byTithes till some other as ample provision should be devised;Toleration of Dissent and of free expression of religious belief, butstill on this side of Quakerism and other anomalies, heresies, andextravagancies: such, after all, was the homely outcome. If Vane andthe theorists of the Harringtonian Club were disappointed, Ludlow waseven in worse despair; and at the last moment he proposed anextraordinary addition. If the late Rump was not to be restored, andif they were to adopt a Constitution which threatened, as he feared, to let in Charles, or to put all back under the power of the sword, let them at least try to avert such consequences by defining a fewfundamentals which should be inviolable, and let them appoint, underthe name of _Conservators of Liberty_, twenty-one men to beguardians of these fundamentals. He was humoured in this; and, threefundamentals having been agreed on--to wit, (1) Commonwealth inperpetuity, without King, Single Person, or House of Peers, (2)Liberty of Conscience, (3) Unalterability of the Army arrangementsexcept by the Conservators--the Assembly proceeded to ballot on alist of persons named by Ludlow as suitable for the office ofConservators. All went as Ludlow wished for the first seven or eighton the list, --dexterously arranged by him so because, being all menof the Wallingford-House party except Vane and Salway, these twocould hardly in decency be blackballed. But then the order of votingwas broken; and, though Ludlow himself was elected, not another manof the Parliamentarian party was let in. Actually, the Laird ofWarriston, who had declared publicly against Liberty of Conscience, and Tichbourne, who had proposed to restore Richard to theProtectorship, were preferred to such men as Hasilrig and Neville, and made guardians of fundamentals in which they did not believe. Ludlow then threw up the entire business in disgust, and resolvedthat it was high time for him to be back in Ireland. Nevertheless, his afterthought of the Fundamentals and their Conservators wasincorporated into Whitlocke's Constitution as it went back to theCommittee of Safety, with the ratification of the Council of Army andNavy officers, This was on the 14th of December. The next day thenature of the new Constitution was known to all who were interested, and there was a proclamation for a Parliament to meet in February. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 377-380; Ludlow, 753-769; Letters of M. De Bordeaux in Guizot, II. 306 and 315. ] Monk was now at Coldstream, on the Tweed, about nine miles fromBerwick. On the 13th of December he had taken leave, at Berwick, of adeputation of Scottish nobles and gentlemen, headed by the Earls ofGlencairn, Tullibardine, Rothes, Roxburgh, and Wemyss, who had comefrom Edinburgh with certain propositions and requests. As he wasgoing into England, leaving Scotland garrisoned but by a poor residueof his soldiers, would he not permit the shires to raise small nativeforces for police purposes, or would he not at least restore to theScottish nobility and gentry the privilege of wearing arms themselvesand having their servants armed? Farther, might he not, a littlewhile hence, sanction a general arming, so that Scotland might havethe pleasure of putting 6000 foot and 1500 horse at his disposal? Theminor requests were, within certain limits, granted easily; butagainst the last Monk was still very wary. To have granted it wouldhave been to proclaim that he was taking the Scottish nation with himin his enterprise, and so give indubitable foundation to thoserumours that "the King was at the bottom of it" which were flyingabout already, and which it was his first care to contradict. Theremust be no general arming of the Scots: he would march into Englandwith his own little army only! Still, however, he did not move fromColdstream, but stuck there, exchanging messages with Lambertrespecting the renewal of the Treaty. It was now dead winter, andthe snow lay thick over the whole region between the two Generals. Monk's personal accommodations at Coldstream were much worse thanLambert's at Newcastle. He was quartered in a wretched cottage, withtwo barns, where, on the first night of his arrival, he could findnothing for supper, and had to munch more than his usual allowance ofraw tobacco instead. But he had the means of paying his men andkeeping them in good humour, while bad pay and the cold weather weredemoralising Lambert's. [1] [Footnote 1: Skinner's Life of Monk, 161-168; Phillips, 674-675. ] For the restitution of the Rump Parliament, Monk's march into Englandwas to be quite unnecessary. His mere pertinacity in declaringhimself the champion of the Rump and making preparations for themarch had disintegrated all that seemingly coherent strength of theWallingford-House party throughout England and Ireland on whichLambert could rely when he left London in the beginning of November. All over England and Ireland, for six weeks now, people had beentalking of "Silent Old George, " as Monk's own soldiers called him, though he was but in his fifty-second year, and speculating on hispossible meaning, and on the chance that even Lambert might find himmore than a match. And such mere gossip and curiosity everywhere, mingling with previous doubtings in some quarters, and with relics ofpositive partisanship with the Rump in others, had gradually induceda complete whirl of public feeling. By the middle of December, whenthe Wallingford-House Government put forth their proclamation of anew Parliament, this was so apparent that Whitlocke and his friendsat the centre might well doubt whether that Parliament would evermeet. By that time, at all events, Lambert had begun to curse his ownfolly in not having fallen upon Monk at first, and in having lethimself afterwards be deluded so long by the phantom of a renewedtreaty at Newcastle. For what had been the news, and continued to bethe news, post after post? Colonel Whetham, Governor of Portsmouth, formerly Monk's associate in the Scottish Council, now in declaredcooperation with him, and holding the town for the Rump; Hasilrig, Morley, and Walton, gone to Portsmouth to turn the revolt toaccount; these and other members of the late Rump, such as Neville;Scott, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, openly resuming their functionsand issuing documents in which they declared General Monk, "theablest and most experienced commander in these nations, " to be"warranted in his present actings" by their express commission;risings or threatenings of risings in various parts of England, whether Royalist or Republican not known, but equally troublesome tothe existing powers; Admiral Lawson and his Fleet actually in theThames with an avowal at length of allegiance to the late Parliamentonly, and resisting all Vane's persuasions the other way; the Army inIreland, which had seemed so safe, now in a confused ferment, withSir Hardress Waller, Sir Charles Coote, Colonel Theophilus Jones, andothers, promoting a general demonstration in Monk's behalf! Lambert'sown Army was infected. That part of it which was called the IrishBrigade, as consisting of regiments that had been brought fromIreland at the time of Sir George Booth's insurrection, sympathisedwith Monk openly; the rest were dubious or listless. In the rear ofLambert in Yorkshire, though he can hardly yet have known the fact, Lord Fairfax was organising a movement, really with Royalist aims, but to take the form of a concerted combination with Monk as soon asMonk should advance. But it was in London itself, close round thepowers at Whitehall, that their weakness had become most notoriousand alarming. For some time the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and CommonCouncil had been acting almost as an independent authority; thecitizens were resolute against the payment of taxes, and had formedassociations to resist their collection; all that was Cavalierish inthe city was astir, with all that was Republican, in daily displaysof contempt for the Wallingford-House junta and their soldiery. Hewson's regiment, marching through the city, had been jeered at bythe apprentices and pelted with stones. In the centre of these Londontumults, Fleetwood, the Commander-in-chief, and the honorary head ofthe Government, had shown himself incapable even of the localmanagement. Of Fleetwood, all in all, indeed, one knows not, by thistime, what to think. The combination of mild qualities which Miltonhad eulogised in him in 1654 did not now suit. Ever since Richard'sfall, to which he had so largely contributed, Fleetwood had comportedhimself as a dignified and sweet-mannered man, more acceptable in thehighest place than Lambert, but uneasy in his mind, and uncomfortablein his relations to Lambert. He was a deeply religious man, whichLambert was not; and it was observed that on late occasions in theCouncil of Officers, when bad news made some sudden resolutionnecessary, and Lambert would have been, ready with one, Fleetwood'sone resource had been "Gentlemen, let us pray. " One thinks ofFleetwood's brother-in-law, poor Henry Cromwell, and what he mighthave been in Fleetwood's place. He, the man of real fitness, was inseclusion in Cambridgeshire, rejected where he was most needed, andindeed, though he did not yet fully know it, foreclosed already, atthe age of thirty-one, by his own honourable fidelity to his father'sashes, from all farther career or employment in any Englishworld. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 674-676; Whitlocke, IV. 378-380; Skinner, 170-178; Thurloe, VII. 797-798 (Letter of Sir Anthony AshleyCooper, Scott, &c. , to Fleetwood); Guizot, II. 54-57; Letters of M. De Bordeaux in Appendix to Guizot, II. 307-318. ] It was close on Christmas, and the anarchy in London had becomeindescribable. "I wished myself out of these daily hazards, but knewnot how to get free of them, " is Whitlocke's entry in his diary forDec. 20; and, under Dec. 22, he writes, "Most of the soldiery aboutLondon declared their judgment to have the Parliament sit again, inhonour, freedom, and safety; and now those who formerly were mosteager for Fleetwood's party became as violent against them, and forthe Parliament to sit again. " In other words, the soldiers ofFleetwood's own London regiments were tired of being insulted andjeered at, and had come to the conclusion, with their brethreneverywhere else, that Lambert's _coup d'état_ of Oct. 13 hadbeen a blunder and that the Rump must be reinstated. --In thesecircumstances, Whitlocke, after consultation with Lord Willoughby ofParham, the Presbyterian Major-General Browne, and others, thoughthimself justified in going to Fleetwood with a very desperateproject. It was evident, Whitlocke told him, that Monk's design wasto bring in the King; if so, the King's return was inevitable; and, if the King should return by Monk's means, the lives and fortunes ofall in the Wallingford-House connexion were at the King's or Monk'smercy. Would not Fleetwood be beforehand with Monk, and himself bethe agent of the unavoidable restoration? He might adopt either oftwo plans, an indirect or a direct. The indirect plan would be tofraternize with the City, declare for "a full and freeParliament"--not that Parliament for which Whitlocke was preparingwrits, but the fuller and freer one, unfettered by Wallingford-House"qualifications, " for which the Royalists had been astutely callingout, --and then either take the field with his forces under thatbanner, or else, if the forces he could rally proved too small, shuthimself up in the Tower, and trust to the City itself till the effectwere seen. The other way would be to dispatch an envoy to the King atonce with offers and instructions. Whitlocke himself was equallywilling to go into the Tower with Fleetwood or to be his envoy toCharles. After some rumination, Fleetwood, as Whitlocke understood, had concluded for the latter plan, and Whitlocke was taking leave ofhim, with that understanding, to prepare for his journey, when theyfound Vane, Desborough, and Berry, in the ante-chamber. AtFleetwood's request Whitlocke waited there, while the new comers andFleetwood consulted in the other room. In less than a quarter of anhour, says Whitlocke, Fleetwood came out, telling him passionately "Icannot do it, I cannot do it. " The reason he gave was that he hadjust been reminded that he was under a pledge to Lambert to take nosuch step without his consent. To Whitlocke's remonstrance that, Lambert being absent, and the matter being one of life or death, onlyinstant action could prevent ruin to Fleetwood himself and hisfriends, the answer was "I cannot help it"; and so they parted. --Thiswas on Thursday the 22nd of December. The next day, though Whitlockehad a call from Colonel Ingoldsby, Colonel Howard, and another, suggesting that, as Keeper of the Great Seal, he might fitly go tothe King on his own account, he went on sealing writs, he tells us, for the new Wallingford-House Parliament. Meanwhile, the uproar inthe City being at its maximum, such members of the late Council ofthe Rump as were in town met at Speaker Lenthall's house and issuedorders for a rendezvous of Fleetwood's regiments in Lincoln's InnFields under the command of Okey, Alured, Markham, and Mosse. Fleetwood, applied to for the keys of the Parliament house, willinglygave them up and resigned all charge. On Saturday the 24th the massof the soldiers were gladly at the appointed rendezvous, and weremarched down Chancery Lane, where the Speaker came out to them at theRolls, and was received with shouts of joy and repentance. On Mondaythe 26th all the members of the Rump who were at hand met the Speakerin the Council-Chamber at Whitehall, and walked thence to WestminsterHall, the mace carried before them, and the soldiers and populacecheering as they passed. They constituted the House and proceeded atonce to business. They had been excluded two months and fourteendays. [1] [Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 380-384; Phillips, 676; Letter of M. DeBordeaux to Mazarin of Dec. 28, 1659 (English reckoning), Guizot, 318-322. ] CHAPTER I. Second Section (continued). THE ANARCHY, STAGE III. : OR SECOND RESTORATION OF THE RUMP, WITHMONK'S MARCH FROM SCOTLAND: DEC. 26, 1659--FEB. 21, 1659-60. THE RUMP AFTER ITS SECOND RESTORATION: NEW COUNCIL OF STATE:PENALTIES ON VANE, LAMBERT, DESBOROUGH, AND THE OTHER CHIEFS OF THEWALLINGFORD-HOUSE INTERREGNUM: CASE OF LUDLOW: NEW ARMY REMODELLING:ABATEMENT OF REPUBLICAN FERVENCY AMONG THE RUMPERS: DISPERSION OFLAMBERT'S FORCE IS THE NORTH: MONK'S MARCH FROM SCOTLAND: STAGES ANDINCIDENTS OF THE MARCH: HIS HALT AT ST. ALBAN'S AND MESSAGE THENCE TOTHE RUMP: HIS NEARER VIEW OF THE SITUATION: HIS ENTRY INTO LONDON, FEB. 3, 1659-60: HIS AMBIGUOUS SPEECH TO THE RUMP, FEB. 6: HISPOPULARITY IN LONDON: PAMPHLETS AND LETTERS DURING HIS MARCH AND ONHIS ARRIVAL: PRYNNE'S PAMPHLETS ON BEHALF OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS:TUMULT IN THE CITY: TUMULT SUPPRESSED BY MONK AS SERVANT OF THE RUMP:HIS POPULARITY GONE: BLUNDER RETRIEVED BY MONK'S RECONCILIATION WITHTHE CITY AND DECLARATION AGAINST THE RUMP: ROASTING OF THE RUMP INLONDON, FEB. 11, 1659-60: MONK MASTER OF THE CITY AND OF THE RUMPTOO: CONSULTATIONS WITH THE SECLUDED MEMBERS: BILL OF THE RUMP FORENLARGING ITSELF BY NEW ELECTIONS: BILL SET ASIDE BY THE RESEATING OFTHE SECLUDED MEMBERS: RECONSTITUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT UNDERMONK'S DICTATORSHIP. The Rump, as restored the second time, never recovered even itsformer small dimensions. On a division taken the day after itsrestoration there were only thirty-seven present and voting, nor inany subsequent division did the number exceed fifty-three. This arosefrom the fact that Rumpers who had been conspicuous in theWallingford-House defection now absented themselves. On the otherhand, the Journals show an accession of at least five members notvisible in the previous session: viz. Colonel Alexander Popham, SirAnthony Ashley Cooper, Colonel Henry Markham, Mr. John Lassell, andMr. Robert Cecil (second son of the Earl of Salisbury). AshleyCooper, not an original Rumper, came in by the recognition, Jan. 7, 1659-60, of his right to sit for Downton in Wilts. Lassell, whosename is not on the list of the Long Parliament, may have found a seatin the same way. Prynne and some others of the secluded membersrenewed their attempt to get into the House, but were againrefused. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals (Divisions and Committees) from Dec. 26, 1659 to Feb. 21, 1659-60. ] A new Council of State was, of course, appointed at once. It was toconsist, as before, of _twenty-one_ Parliamentaries and_ten_ non-Parliamentaries, and to hold office from Jan. 1, 1659-60 to April 1, 1660. The following is the list, the order ineach section being that of preference as shown by the numbers ofvotes obtained in the ballot, and the asterisk again denoting aRegicide. PARLIAMENTARIES. Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Bart. Colonel Herbert Morley Robert Wallop *Colonel Valentine Walton *Thomas Scott Nicholas Love Chief Justice St. John Colonel William White John Weaver Robert Reynolds Sir James Harrington Sir Thomas Widdrington Colonel George Thompson *John Dixwell Henry Neville Colonel John Fagg John Corbet *Thomas Challoner *Henry Marten *William Say Luke Robinson (a tie between him and Carew Raleigh, decided by lot). NON-PARLIAMENTARIES. Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Bart. (appointed before his election as M. P. ) Josiah Berners General Monk Vice-Admiral Lawson Alderman Love Thomas Tyrrell Lord Fairfax Alderman Foote Robert Rolle Slingsby Bethell. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Dec. 31, 1659 and Jan. 2, 1659-60. ] The proceeding's of the House for the first month showed nodiminution of self-confidence by the late interruption. Hasilrig, whowas now the chief man in the Parliament and in the Council, was insuch a state of elevation that his friends were a little alarmed. Next in activity, and more a man of business, was Scott, whose meritswere acknowledged by his appointment first to an informalSecretaryship of State (Jan. 10), and then to that office fully andformally, with charge of the foreign and domestic intelligence (Jan. 17). He was to be for the Rump government what Thurloe had been forthe Protectorate. A good deal of the first month's business consisted in votes ofapprobation for those who had been faithful during the interruptionand votes condemning the Wallingford-House "usurpers" and their acts. Monk, of course, was the hero among the faithful. Messages of thankswere sent to him again and again, and on the 16th of January it wasresolved to bestow on him and his heirs £1000 a year. But there werethanks as well to Admiral Lawson, Whetham, and Fairfax; to Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, Morley, Walton, and the other members of the Councilof State who had laboured for the good old cause in the interim; andto Sir Hardress Waller, Sir Charles Coote, and Colonel TheophilusJones, for what they had done in Ireland. In the censure ofdelinquents there was nothing very revengeful. The Committee ofSafety was styled "the late pretended Committee of Safety, " and alltheir doings were voted null; but an indemnity for life and estatewas assured to the men themselves, and to all officers who had actedunder them, on condition of present submission. This indemnity wasnot so complete but that a few of the late chief's might expect somepunishment. Accordingly, on the 9th of January Vane was broughtbefore the House, disabled from sitting there any longer, and orderedinto private life at his estate of Raby in Durham; and on the sameday it was voted that Colonels Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Ashfield, Kelsay, Cobbet, Barrow, Packer, and Major Creed, all of whom werestill at large, should seclude themselves in whatever houses oftheirs were farthest from London. Vane, Lambert, and the rest nothaving complied sufficiently, there were subsequent votes, withlittle or no effect, for apprehending and compelling them; and on the18th of January Sydenham and Salway were added to the list of thereproved, the former by being expelled from the House and the latterby being suspended. Whitlocke and the Laird of Warriston, thoughunanimously regarded as among the prime culprits, escaped withoutpunishment. Whitlocke even ventured to appear in the House, but wasreceived so coolly that he soon withdrew into the country, leavinginstructions to his wife to burn a quantity of his papers and todeliver the great seal to the Speaker. So far was Fleetwood frombeing in danger that they were considering whether he might not beretained as Commander-in-chief. Ludlow, much to his surprise, foundhimself among the accused. This, however, was not because of themiddle course he had taken in London through the late interruption, though he had lost some credit by that with his Republican friends. He had unfortunately left London on his way back to Ireland on thevery eve of that happy restitution of the Rump which he had despairedof seeing, and it was in Ireland that his enemies were most numerousand violent. He had hardly arrived among them and attempted to resumehis command when he received notice from the House that he andColonel John Jones, with Miles Corbet and Matthew Tomlinson, wererequired to come over to answer certain charges against them relatingto their Irish government (Jan. 5). Ludlow and the others obeyed, andfound, on their arrival in London in February, that Sir Charles Cooteand other officers in Ireland had lodged an impeachment against themfor nothing less than high treason. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Dec. 26, 1659 to Feb. 1659-60; Ludlow, 783-806; Whitlocke, IV. 384-392. ] Another business, natural in the circumstances, was the now toofamiliar one of "re-modelling. " Men not now satisfactory had to beremoved from all departments of the public service and more propermen substituted. Whitlocke's great seal was given into new keeping, and there were new judicial appointments. To supply vacancies causedby the removal of defaulting officers in regiments, there beganagain, too, on a considerable scale, that process of nomination fornew commissions and of delivery of the commissions by the Speakerwhich had been so wearisome in the former session of the House. ToWhetham, Walton, Morley, Okey, Mosse, Alured, Hasilrig, Rich, Eyre, Hacker, and others, retaining their former colonelcies, or promotedto farther military trusts, there were added Colonels Camfield, Streater, Smithson, Sanders, &c. ; and now, as heretofore, one ispuzzled by the appearance of many persons as "colonels" who had thetitle only from their places in the militia of their counties, orfrom the courtesy custom of designating a retired army-man by hisformer name of honour. Lambert, Desborough, and the eight othersordered into seclusion, were, of course, among the discharged; soalso was Robert Lilburne; but Hewson seems to have been forgiven. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Dec, 1659 and Jan. 1659-60; Whitlockeas before. ] Through all these proceedings of the first month there had been signsof a curious abatement of that thorough-going Republican fervencywhich had characterized the House in its previous session. Theessential Republican principle had indeed been at once re-proclaimed. It had been resolved that each member of the new Council of State, before assuming office, should take an oath renouncing "the pretendedtitle or titles of Charles Stuart and the whole line of the late KingJames, and of every person, as a single person, pretending or whichshall pretend, " &c. The very next day, however, when Hasilrig broughtin a Bill enacting that every member of the House itself, or of anysucceeding House, should take the same oath, a minority, among whomwere Ingoldsby, Colonel Hutchinson, Colonel Fielder, and ColonelFagg, opposed very strongly. Not, of course, that they were otherthan sound Commonwealth's men; but that oaths were becomingfrightfully frequent, and this one would be "a confining ofProvidence, " &c. ! The first reading of the Bill was carried only by amajority of twenty-four (Neville and Garland tellers) against fifteen(Colonel Hutchinson and Colonel Fagg tellers). The effect was that, after a second reading, the Bill went into Committee and remainedthere, the members meanwhile sitting on without any engagement. Abouta half of those nominated to the Council of State, including Fairfax, St. John, Morley, Weaver, and Fagg, remained out of the Councilrather than submit to the qualification made essential in_their_ case. This was symptomatic enough; but it was alsoevident that, on such important questions as Tithes, an EstablishedChurch, and Liberty of Conscience, the House was in no disposition topersevere in what had hitherto been believed to be radical andnecessary articles of the Republican policy. The instructions givento a Committee on the 21st of January indicate very comprehensivelythe prevalence of a conservative temper in the House on these andother questions. The Committee were to prepare a declaration for thepublic "That the Parliament intends forthwith to proceed to thesettlement of the government, and will uphold a learned and piousMinistry of the nation and their maintenance by Tithes: and that theywill proceed to fill up the House as soon as may be, and to settlethe Commonwealth without a King, Single Person, or House of Peers;and will promote the Trade of the nation; and will reserve dueLiberty to tender consciences: and that the Parliament will notmeddle with the executive power of the Law, but only in cases ofmal-administration and appeals, &c. " Such a declaration was adoptedand ordered to be published on the 23rd. It was of a nature toconciliate the Presbyterian and Independent clergy of theEstablishment and the conservative mass of the people generally, butto disappoint grievously those various sectarian enemies of theChurch Establishment who had hitherto been the most enthusiasticexponents of the "good old cause. " The very phrase "the good oldcause, " one observes, was now passing into disrepute, and the word"fanatics" as a name for its extreme supporters was coming into usewithin the circle of the Rump politicians themselves. Hasilrig, Neville, and the rest of the ultra-Republicans, mast have felt thepower going from their hands. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 678; Ludlow, 807-809; Letters of M. De Bordeaux, Guizot, II. 325-839. ] While much of this cooling of the original Republican fervency wasowing to the recent experience of the public fickleness and of thenecessity of not "confining Providence" too much in the decision ofwhat to-morrow should bring forth, there was a special cause in therelations now subsisting between the House and Monk. The House having been restored by Monk's agency, but without thatmarch to London which he had proposed for the purpose, the majoritywere by no means anxious to see him in London. Monk, on the otherhand, to whom it had been a disappointment that the House had beenrestored without his presence to see it done, was resolvednevertheless that the march should take place. He was already withinEngland when the news of the premature restitution of the Rumpreached him, having advanced through the snow from Coldstream toWooler in Northumberland on the 2nd of January, to fight Lambert atlast. He was at Morpeth on the 4th, and at Newcastle on the 5th, tofind that there was to be no necessity for fighting Lambert afterall. Lambert's army had melted away with the utmost alacrity onorders from London, leaving their leader to submit and shift forhimself. After remaining three days at Newcastle, Monk resumed hismarch, by Durham and Northallerton, receiving addresses anddeputations by the way, and was at York on the 11th. Here he remainedfive days, besieged with more addresses and deputations, but having aconference also with Lord Fairfax, followed by a visit to hisLordship at his house of Nunappleton. Fairfax had been in arms toattack Lambert's rear, in accordance with the understanding he hadcome to with Monk; and it was part of Monk's business at York toreform the wreck of Lambert's forces, incorporating some of them withhis own and putting the rest under the command of officers who haddeclared for Fairfax. He arranged also for leaving one of his ownregiments at York and for sending Morgan back with two others to takecharge of Scotland. By these changes his army for farther advance wasreduced to 4000 foot and 1800 horse. Hitherto his march had been byhis own sole authority; but at York he received orders from theCouncil of State to come on to London. Dreading what might happenfrom his conjunction with the great Fairfax, and not daring to orderhim back to Scotland, the Rump leaders had assented to what theycould not avoid. From York, accordingly, he resumed his advance onthe 16th, the country before him, like that he had left behind, stillcovered thick with snow. On the 18th, at Mansfield inNottinghamshire, he met Dr. Gumble, whom he had sent on to Londonabout ten days before with letters to the Parliament and the Councilof State, and who had returned with valuable information. Next day, at Nottingham, his brother-in-law De Clarges also met him, bringingfarther information for his guidance. On the 22nd, as he wasapproaching Leicester, Messrs. Scott and Robinson, who had been sentfrom London as Commissioners from the Rump to attend him in the restof his march, made their appearance ceremoniously and were dulyreceived. They had come really as anxious spies on Monk's conduct, and were very inquisitive and loquacious; but they relieved himthenceforth of much of the trouble of answering the deputations andaddresses by which he was still beset on his route. They were withhim at Northampton, where he was on the 24th; at Dunstable, where hewas on the 27th; and at St. Alban's, where he arrived on the 28th. Here, twenty miles from London, he rested for five days, to see theissue of a very important message he had been secretly preparing forthe Parliament and which he now sent on by Dr. Clarges. It was arequest to the House to clear London of all but two of the regimentsthen in it, on the ground that, having so recently served Fleetwoodand the Wallingford-House party in their usurpation, they were not tobe trusted. The message was of a kind to surprise and perplex theHouse, and Monk had purposely reserved it to this late stage of hismarch that there might be the less time for discussion. While waitingat St. Alban's, he had to endure, we are told, "amongst the rest ofhis interruptions, " a long fast-day sermon from Hugh Peters, who hadcome to his quarters, with two other ministers. Monk's chaplain, Dr. Price, who was present at the sermon, has left an account of it. Thetext was Psalm cvii. 7, "And He led them forth by the right way, thatthey might go to a city of habitation"; and Peters, in discoursing onthis text, drew from it the assurance of a happy settlement of theCommonwealth at last. "With his fingers on the cushion, " says Dr. Price, "he measured the right way from the Red Sea, through, theWilderness, to Canaan; told us it was not forty days' march, but Godled Israel forty years through the Wilderness before they camethither; yet this was still the Lord's right way, who led his people_crinkledum cum crankledum_. " Monk's present march was to be oneof the last of the windings. [1] [Footnote 1: Skinner's Life of Monk, 175-199; Phillips, 677-680;Parl. Hist. , III. 1574 (quotation from Dr. Price). ] While Monk is at St. Alban's, we may inquire into his realintentions. They connect themselves with the purport of thoseaddresses with which he had been troubled along his whole route. Notonly had there been addresses from the inhabitants or authorities ofthe towns he passed through; but there had been letters to him atMorpeth from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, of theCity of London, followed by an address presented to him on theborders of Northamptonshire by a deputation of three commissionersfrom the City, two of them Aldermen. Now, almost all the addresseshad been in one strain. Thanking Monk for what he had already done, they prayed him to earn the farther gratitude of his countrymeneither by (1) securing that the present House should be convertedinto a real Parliament by the restoration of the secluded members of1642-1648 to their seats and the filling up of other vacancies, or(2) securing that a full and free new Parliament should be called atonce. Both these methods implied the restoration of Charles, thoughmention of that consequence, and by some even the thought of it, wasmost studiously avoided. A full and free new Parliament meant, in thepresent mood of the country, a recall of Charles rapidly andunhesitatingly. The filling up of the present Parliament by therestoration of the secluded members, and by new elections for othervacancies, meant the reconstituting of the Long Parliament entire, just as it had been while negotiations with Charles I. Were going on, and before the Army, in order to stop these negotiations and bring inthe Republic, ejected the Royalist and Presbyterian members. Such areconstituted Parliament, if time were given it, would alsoinevitably recall Charles II. , though it might do so after apreliminary compact with him on the basis of that Treaty of Newportwhich had been going on with his father late in 1648, and which mightbe regarded as still embodying the views of the Presbyteriansrespecting Royalty and its limits. Of the two methods the Cavaliersor Old Royalists naturally preferred that which would bring inCharles most speedily and with the fewest conditions; but, as theywere outnumbered by the Presbyterians or New Royalists, they werewilling to accept _their_ method. To the genuine Rumpers, ofcourse, either proposal was dreadful. To retain the power themselves, enlarging their House, if at all, only by new elections permitted bythemselves, and not to part with their power unless to a newParliament the qualifications for which should have been carefullypre-determined by themselves, was the only procedure by which theycould hope to preserve the Commonwealth. Hence, on the one hand, their willingness to throw overboard all that was not absolutelyessential to a Republican policy; but hence, on the other, theiranxiety to enforce an oath among themselves abjuring Charles and theStuarts utterly. It had been to feel Monk's inclinations in thismatter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to thedeputations and their requests, that they had despatched their twocommissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He hadbaffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, hisintention, when he first projected his march to London, had been torestore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admissionof the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him byFairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without thesecluded members, and determined to keep them out, not even toFairfax had he committed himself by a definite promise on that point. To the deputations he would reply only in curt generalities, orindeed, after Scott and Robinson had joined him, in generalitieswhich would have been thought crusty and uncivil, had not Gumble, orPrice, or the physician Dr. Barrow, been always at hand to explainprivately to disappointed persons that the General's way waspeculiar. Only in one matter was he explicit himself. He would notpermit the least insinuation that he designed to bring in Charles. AtYork he had caned one of his officers for having said somethingimprudent to that effect. [1] [Footnote 1: Skinner and Phillips _ut supra_; Letter of M. DeBordeaux to Mazarin, of date Jan. 21, in Guizot, II. 336-340. ] On the 30th of January, with whatever reluctance, the House didcomply with Monk's request, by issuing orders for the removal ofFleetwood's regiments from London; and on the 1st of February the waywas farther cleared by the appointment of Clarges to becommissary-general of the musters for England and Scotland. There wasa mutiny among Fleetwood's soldiers on account of the disgrace putupon them, and also on account of their dislike of country quartersafter the pleasures of London; but the mutiny only quickened thedesire to get rid of them. They were marched out by their officers;and on Friday the 3rd of February, Monk, who had come on to Barnetthe day before, marched in with his army, by Gray's Inn Lane, Chancery Lane, and the Strand. They appeared to the citizens a veryrough and battered soldiery indeed after their month's march throughthe English snows, the horses especially lean and ragged. That night, and all Saturday and Sunday, Monk was in quarters at Whitehall, receiving distinguished visitors. Though asked to take his seat inthe Council of State on Saturday, he declined to do so till he shouldsee his way more clearly on the disputed question of the abjurationoath. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Skinner, 199-206; Phillips, 680-682. ] On Monday, Feb. 6, the House was assembled in state to see Monkintroduced into it by Messrs. Scott and Robinson. His designationamong them was only "Commissioner Monk"; for, though he had beenappointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by a secret commission sent him by Hasilrig and a fewother members of the old Council of State during the lateinterruption, that commission did not now hold, and he had really noother authority than that implied by his appointment before Lambert's_coup d'état_ to be fellow-commissioner with Fleetwood, Ludlow, Hasilrig, Walton, and Morley for the regulation of the Army. The lastthree of these, as still acting in the commission, were nominally hisequals. But every care was taken to testify to Monk the sense of hisextraordinary services. A chair was set for him opposite the Speaker;at the back of which, as he declined the invitation to be seated, hestood while the Speaker addressed him in a harangue of glowingthanks. Then, with his hand on the chair, he spoke in return thespeech he had carefully conned. "Sir, I shall not trouble you withlarge narratives, " he said; "only give me leave to acquaint you that, as I marched from Scotland hither, I observed the people in mostcounties in great and earnest expectations of Settlement, and theymade several applications to me, with numerous subscriptions. Thechiefest heads of their desires were:--for a free and fullParliament, and that you would determine your sitting; a GospelMinistry; encouragement of Learning and Universities; and foradmittance of the members secluded before 1648, without any previousoath or engagement. To which I commonly answered, That you are now ina _free_ Parliament, and, if there were any force remaining uponyou, I would endeavour to remove it; and that you had voted to fillup your House, and then you would be a _full_ Parliamentalso... ; but, as for those gentlemen secluded in 1648, I told themyou had given judgment in it and all people ought to acquiesce inthat judgment; but to admit any members to sit in Parliament withouta previous oath or engagement to secure the Government in being, itwas never yet done in England. And, although I said it not to them, Imust say it with pardon to you, that the less oaths and engagementsare imposed (with respect had to the security of the common cause)your settlement will be the sooner attained to. " He was now halfthrough his speech; and the rest consisted of general recommendationsof a policy in accordance with "the sober interest, " with care that"neither the Cavalier nor Fanatic party" should have a share of thecivil or military power. He ended with a glance at Ireland andScotland, bespeaking particular attention to the Scots, as "a nationdeserving much to be cherished, " and sure to appreciate the latedeclaration in favour of a sober and conservative Church policy, inasmuch as no nation more dreaded "to be overrun with fanaticnotions. " Having thus delivered himself, Monk withdrew, leaving theHouse wholly mystified, but also a good deal distempered, by hisambiguities. It seems to have been on this occasion that Henry Martenvented that witty description of Monk which is one of the best evenof _his_ good sayings. "Monk, " he said, "is like a man that, being sent for to make a suit of clothes, should bring with him abudget full of carpenter's tools, and, being told that such thingswere not at all fit for the work he was desired to do, should answer, 'It matters not; I will do your work well enough, I warrant you. '"Monk was now on the spot with his budget of carpenter's tools, and hemeant to make a tolerable suit of clothes with them somehow. [1] [Footnote 1: There is a hiatus in the Journals at the point ofMonk's reception and speech in the House; but the speech was printedseparately, and is given in the Parl. Hist. III. 1575-7. The originalauthority for Henry Marten's witticism is, I believe, Ludlow(810-811). ] There was no lack of advices for his direction. Through the month ofhis march and of the anxious sittings of the House in expectation ofhim, the London press had teemed with pamphlets for the crisis. _TheRota, or a Model of a Free State or Equal Commonwealth_ was anotherof Harrington's, published Jan. 9, when Monk was between Newcastleand York; and on the 8th of February, when Monk had been five days inLondon, he was saluted by _The Ways and Means whereby an Equal andlasting Commonwealth may be suddenly introduced_, also by Harrington. _A Coffin for the Good Old Cause_ was another, in a different strain;and there were others and still others, some of them in the form ofletters expressly addressed to Monk. From the moment of his arrivalat St. Alban's, indeed, he had become the universal target forletter-writers and the universal object of popular curiosity. _ThePedigree and Descent of his Excellency General Monk_ was on thebook-stalls the day before his entry into London, and his speech tothe Parliament was in print the day after its delivery. All werewatching to see what "Old George" would do. He did not yet know thathimself, but was trying to find out. What occupied him was thatquestion of the means towards a full and free Parliament which hadbeen pressed upon him all along his march, and about which he hadhitherto been so provokingly ambiguous. Of all the pamphlets thatwere coming out only those that could give him light on this questioncan have been of the least interest to his rough common sense. Now, as it happened, he could be under no mistake, after his arrival inLondon, as to the strength and massiveness of that current of opinionwhich had set in for a re-seating of the secluded members. Since thefirst restoration of the Rump in May 1659, Prynne had been keepingthe case of the secluded members perpetually before the public inpamphlets; and Prynne, more than any other man, had created thefeeling that now prevailed. "Conscientious, Serious, Theological andLegal Queries propounded to the twice dissipated, self-erected, Anti-Parliamentary Westminster Juncto"; "Six Important Queriesproposed to the Re-sitting Rump of the Long Parliament"; "SevenAdditional Queries in behalf of the Secluded Members"; "Case of theOld secured, secluded, and twice excluded Members"; "Three SeasonableQueries proposed to all those Cities, Counties, and Boroughs, whoserespective citizens have been forcibly excluded, " &c. ; "FullDeclaration": such are the titles of those of Prynne's pamphlets, thelast of a long series in one and the same strain, which weredelighting or tormenting London when Monk arrived. Many of thesecluded members were in town to await the issue, and the last-namedof Prynne's pamphlets (published Jan. 30) contained an alphabeticallist of the whole body of them. There were, it appears, 194 secludedmembers then alive, besides forty who had died since 1648. If Monkwas to do anything at all, was not Prynne's way the safest and mostpopular? Practically, at all events, he could now see that thepossible courses had reduced themselves to two, --(1) The Rump's ownway, or self-enlargement of the present House by new writs, issuedwith all Republican precautions; (2) The City's way, or Prynne's way, which proposed to re-insert the secluded members into the presentHouse, so as to make it legally the Long Parliament over again, withits rights and engagements precisely as they had been at the time ofthe last negotiations with Charles I. In 1648. For which of these twocourses he should declare himself was the question Monk had toponder. [1] [Footnote 1: Thomason Pamphlets, and Catalogue of the same; Wood'sAth. III. 870-871. ] He nearly blundered. The Rump, having him and his Army at hand, hadbecome more firm in their determination to proceed in their own way. On the 4th of February, the day after Monk's arrival, they resolvedthat the present House should be filled up to the number of 400members in all for England and Wales, and that the returningconstituencies should be as in 1653; and, having referred certaindetails to a Committee, they proceeded on subsequent days to settlesome of the qualifications for voting or eligibility. The Londoners, tumultuous already, were enraged beyond bounds by these new signs ofthe Rump's obstinacy. It was again debated in the Common Council"whether the City should pay the taxes ordered by the Government";influential citizens urged the Lord Mayor to put himself at the headof a resistance to the Rump at all hazards; there were riots in thestreets and skirmishes between the militia and the apprentices. Thus, instead of having time to deliberate, Monk found himself in themidst of such a clash between the House and the City that instantdecision for the one or the other was imperative. --On the night ofthe 8th, two days after his speech in Parliament, he received ordersfrom the Council of State to go into the City with his regiments andreduce it to obedience. He was to take away the posts and chains inthe streets, unhinge the City gates, and wedge the portcullises; hewas to use any force necessary for the purpose; and he was to arresteleven citizens named, and others at his discretion. The orders, though addressed nominally to all the four Army-Commissioners, werereally intended for Monk; and there was the utmost anxiety among theleaders of the Rump to see whether he would execute them. To thesurprise of all, to the surprise of his own soldiers even, he didexecute them. On the 9th the House had three sittings; and in thesecond of these it was announced that Monk had marched his regimentsthat morning into the City, that he was then at Guildhall, that hehad nine of the eleven citizens already in custody, and that he hadremoved the posts and chains. All being now quiet, and the Lord Mayorand Aldermen having undertaken to hold a meeting of the CommonCouncil and give the Parliament every satisfaction, he had thought itbest not to incense the City by the extreme insult of unhinging thegates and wedging the portcullises. The Rumpers were in ecstasies. Monk had committed himself, and was irredeemably theirs. "All is ourown: he will be honest, " said Hasilrig to the friends beside him. Intheir triumph, they rose once more for a moment to the full height ofRepublican confidence. It happened that a deputation of Londoncitizens, headed by Mr. Praise-God Barebone, had come to the Housethat day with a petition and address, signed by some thousands of"lovers of the good old cause, " who were anxious to disclaim allconnexion with the City tumults and with "the promoters of regalinterest" in the City or elsewhere. The petitioners demanded nothingless than that the House should at once impose an oath abjuringCharles Stuart upon all clergymen and other persons in publicemployment; but even this did not prevent the House from thankingthem cordially. As for the City generally, now that Monk had broughtit to submission, the House would trample it under foot! The LordMayor, having behaved discreetly through the tumults, was to bethanked; but it was voted that the present Common Council should bedissolved and a new one elected by such citizens only as the Houseshould deem worthy of the franchise. Nor was Monk to hesitate anylonger about the city gates and portcullises. Orders were sent tohim, not only to unhinge the gates and wedge the portcullises, asthe Council had already ordered, but to break them in pieces. TheCity was to be overmastered utterly and finally, and Monk was to bethe agent. --Not even yet did Monk rebel. The gates and portculliseswere broken in pieces by his soldiers, and every other order waspunctually carried out. The soldiers were in indignation over theirbase employment, and the citizens were stupefied. In vain wereClarges, Dr. Barrow, and others of Monk's friends going about andassuring the Lord Mayor and Aldermen that the General was a man ofvery peculiar ways and must not be too hastily judged. "Verypeculiar ways indeed, " thought the citizens, mourning for theirhonours lost, and their broken gates and portcullises. On the nightof Friday, Feb. 10, when Monk returned to Whitehall, after his twodays of rough work in the city, it was, as it seemed, with hisreputation ruined for ever among the Londoners. A few days beforehe had been the popular demigod, the man on whom all depended, andwho had all in his power. Now what was he but the slave and hirelingof the Rump?[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 684-685; Skinner, 211-219; Whitlocke, IV. 394-396. ] It was afterwards represented by Monk's admirers that his Cityproceedings of Feb. 9 and 10 were the effects of consummate judgment. He could not then have disobeyed the Rump without resigning hiscommand; Hasilrig and Walton, two of his fellow-commissioners, wouldhave executed the orders independently; though by a disagreeableprocess, he had felt the temper of his officers and soldiers, andascertained that they were as disgusted with the Rump as he washimself! It may be doubted, however, whether he had not only beenhandling his carpenter's tools with too sluggish caution. Certain itis that he had returned to Whitehall in a sullen mood, and that, after a consultation overnight with his officers, his conclusion wasthat he must at once retrieve himself. That was a night of busypreparations between him and his officers. A letter was drafted, tobe sent to the House next day; and a copy was taken, that it might bein the printer's hands before the House had received the original. Next morning, Saturday Feb. 11, Monk and his regiments were again inthe City, drawn up in Finsbury Fields. He had left the letter for theHouse, signed by himself, seven of his colonels, onelieutenant-colonel, and six majors, to be delivered to the House bytwo of the signing colonels, Clobery and Lydcott; and he had come tomake his peace with the City. This was not very easy. The Lord Mayor, to whom Clarges had been sent to announce the return of theregiments, and to say that the General meant to dine with hisLordship that day, was naturally suspicious and distant; but, havingtaken counsel with some of the chief citizens, he could do no lessthan answer that he would expect the General. At the earlydinner-hour, accordingly, Monk was at his Lordship's house inLeadenhall Street, coldly received at first, but gradually with moreof curiosity and goodwill as his drift was perceived. He beggedearnestly that his Lordship would send out summonses for an immediatemeeting of the Common Council in Guildhall, notwithstanding thedissolution of that body by the Rump, saying he would accompany hisLordship thither and make certain public explanations. Dinner over, and the Lord Mayor and Common Council having met in Guildhall aboutfive o'clock, Monk did surprise them. He apologised for hisproceedings of the two preceding days, declaring that the work wasthe most ungrateful he had ever performed in his life, and that hewould have laid down his power rather than perform it, unless he hadseen that by such a step he would only have given advantage to thedominant faction. He was come now, however, to make amends. He hadthat morning sent a letter to the House, requiring them to issue outwrits within seven days for the filling up of vacancies in theirranks, and also, that being done, to dissolve themselves by the 6thof May at latest, that they might be succeeded by a full and freeParliament! Till he should receive ample satisfaction in reply tothese demands and otherwise, he meant to remain in the City of Londonwith his regiments, making common cause with the faithful citizens!Guildhall rang with acclamations; and, as the news was dispersedthence through the City, confirmed by the printed copies of Monk'sletter to the Rump that were by this time in circulation, thedejection of the two last days passed into a phrenzy of joy. Housewives ran out to Monk's soldiers, who had been standing all dayunder arms, carrying them food and drink without stint; crowds ofapprentices danced everywhere like delirious demons; the bells of allthe churches were set a-ringing; the houses of several "fanatics"were besieged, and the windows in Barebone's all smashed; and farinto the night and into the Sunday morning the streets blazed withlong rows of bonfires. Whatever piece of flesh, in butcher's stall orin family-safe, bore resemblance to a rump, or could be carved intosomething of that shape, was hauled to one of these bonfires to beflung in and burnt; and for many a day afterwards the 11th ofFebruary 1659-60 was to be famous in London as _The Roasting of theRump_. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 685-687; Skinner, 219-230; Parl. Hist. III. 1578-9; Letter of M. De Bordeaux, Guizot, II. 350-351; Pepys's Diary, Feb. 11, 1659-60. ] On receiving Monk's letter early in the forenoon of Saturday theHouse had temporized. They had sent Messrs. Scott and Robinson intothe City after Monk, to thank him for his faithful service of the twoprevious days, and to assure him "that, as to the filling up of theHouse, the Parliament were upon the qualifications before the receiptof the said letter, and the same will be despatched in due time. " Butat an evening sitting, with candles brought in, the House, informedby that time of Monk's proceedings in the City, had shown theirresentment by reconstituting the Commission for regulation of theArmy. They did not dare to turn Monk out; but they negatived bythirty (Marten and Neville tellers) to fifteen (Carew Raleigh andRobert Goodwyn tellers) a proposal of his partisans to make SirAnthony Ashley Cooper one of his colleagues. The colleagues they didappoint were Hasilrig, Morley, Walton, and Alured; and, in settlingthe quorum at three, they rejected a proposal that Monk should alwaysbe one of the quorum. --Through the following week, however, effortswere still made to come to terms with Monk. On Monday the 13th theCouncil of State begged him to return to Whitehall and assist themwith his presence and counsels. His reply was that, so long as theAbjuration Oath was required of members of the Council, he would notappear in it, and that meanwhile there were sufficient reasons forhis remaining in the City. Accordingly, he kept his quarters there, first at the Glass House in Broad Street, and then at Drapers' Hallin Throgmorton Street, holding _levées_ of the citizens andcity-clergy, and receiving also visits from Hasilrig and othermembers of the House. Even Ludlow, though one of the complaints inMonk's letter was that the House was allowing Ludlow to sit in itnotwithstanding the charge of high treason lodged against him fromIreland, ventured to go into the den of the lion. He was shy atfirst, Ludlow tells us, but became very civil, and, when Ludlow haddiscoursed on the necessity of union to keep out Charles Stuart, "Yea, " said he, "we must live and die together for a Commonwealth. "The interest that was now pressing closest round Monk, however, wasthat of the Secluded Members. The applications on their behalf by thePresbyterians of the City and of the counties round were incessant. Monk even yet had his hesitations. On the one hand, to avert, ifpossible, the re-seating of the secluded among them, the Rumpers hadbeen acting through the week in the spirit of their answer to Monk'sletter. They had been pushing on their Bill of Qualifications, sothat there might be no delay in the issue of writs for filling uptheir House to the number of 400, as formerly decided. They had, moreover, tried to pacify Monk in other ways. They had resolved(Feb. 14) that the engagement to be taken by members of Parliamentshould simply be, "I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth ofEngland and the Government thereof in the way of a Commonwealth andFree State, without a King, Single Person, or House of Lords"; andthey had resolved that this simple declaration should be substitutedfor the stronger abjuration oath even for members of the Council ofState. They had also complied with Monk's demands that there shouldbe more severe reprimand of the late Committee of Safety andespecially of Vane and Lambert. All this was to induce Monk to acceptthe proffered _Self-Enlargement of the present House_, ratherthan yield to the popular and Presbyterian demand for _the LongParliament reconstituted_. Nor were there wanting objections tothe latter plan in Monk's own mind. If a House with the secludedmembers re-seated in it would confine itself to questions of presentexigency and future political order, there might be no harm. Butwould it do so? With a Presbyterian majority in it, looking on allthat had been done since 1648 as the illegal acts of pretendedGovernments, might it not be tempted to a revengeful revision of allthose acts? Might it not thus unsettle those arrangements for thesale, purchase, gift, and conveyance of property upon which thefortunes of many thousands, including the Army officers and thesoldiery in England, in Scotland, and especially in Ireland, nowdepended? Would Monk's own officers risk such a consequence? To cometo some understanding with the secluded members on these points, Monkhimself, and Clarges and Gumble for him, had been holding interviewswith such of the secluded members as were in London; and matters hadbeen so far ripened that at length, on Saturday the 18th, by Monk'sinvitation, there was a conference at his quarters between about adozen of the leading Rumpers and as many representatives of theSecluded. Hasilrig was one of the Rumpers present; but, as most ofthe others were of the Monk party, the conference was not unamicable. Even the Rumpers who were favourable to the re-admission of theSecluded, however, could only speak for themselves, and therepresentatives of the Secluded could hardly undertake for theirabsent brethren; and so there was no definite agreement. ----Monk thentook the matter into his own hands. Having, in the course of theSunday and Monday, secured the concurrence of his officers, and madea rough compact in writing with a few of the secluded members, hemarched his Army out of the City on the morning of Tuesday the 21st;and, the secluded members having met him by appointment at Whitehall, to the number of about sixty, he made a short speech to them, causeda longer "Declaration" which he had taken the precaution of puttingon paper to be read to them, and then sent them, under the conduct ofCaptain Miller and a sufficient guard, to the doors of the ParliamentHouse. The incident had been expected; there were soldiers all roundthe House already; and the procession walked through cheering crowdsof spectators. Monk remained at Whitehall himself, to hold a GeneralCouncil of his officers later in the day. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 687-688; Skinner, 233-242; Ludlow, 832-836; Letters of M. De Bordeaux in Guizot, II. 347-365. ] The Rump, which had been still busy on Saturday with the Bill ofQualifications or "Disabling Bill, " but whose sitting on Monday ismarked only by a hiatus in the Journals, had not formed the House onTuesday morning when the procession of secluded members, swelled toabout eighty by stragglers on the way, entered and took their seats. A few of the Rumpers, seeing what had occurred, ruefully left theHouse, to return no more; but most remained and amalgamatedthemselves easily with the more numerous new comers. Thereconstituted House then plunged at once into businessthus:-"PRAYERS: _Resolved_, &c. , That the Resolution of thisHouse of the 18th of December, 1648, 'that liberty be given to themembers of this House to declare their dissent to the vote of the 5thof December 1648 that the King's Answer to the Propositions of bothHouses was a ground for this House to proceed upon for settlement ofthe Peace of the Kingdom, ' be vacated, and made null and void, andobliterated. " In other words, here was the Long Parliament, like aRip Van Winkle, resuming in Feb. 1659-60 the work left off in Dec. 1648, and acknowledging not an inch of gap between the two dates. There were seven other similar Resolutions, cancelling votes andorders standing in the way; and these, with orders for the dischargeof the citizens recently imprisoned by the Rump, and resolutions forannulling the late new Army Commission of the Rump, and forappointing Monk to be "Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief, underthe Parliament, of all the land-forces of England, Scotland, andIreland, " and continuing Vice-Admiral Lawson, in his naval command, were the sum and substance of the business of the first sitting. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date. ] Before night Monk and his officers had drafted a Letter to all theregiments and garrisons of England, Scotland, and Ireland, explainingto them that, by the grace of God and good London management, theyhad passed through another revolution. The Letter began "DearBrethren and Fellow-Soldiers, " and bore Monk's signature, followed bythose of Colonels Ralph Knight, John Clobery, Thomas Read, JohnHubblethorn, Leonard Lydcott, Thomas Sanders, William Eyre, JohnStreater, Richard Mosse, William Parley, Arthur Evelyn, and sixteeninferior officers. It was vague, but intimated that the Governmentwas still to be that of a Commonwealth, and that all disturbances ofthe peace "in favour of Charles Stuart or any other pretendedauthority" were to be put down. More explicit had been Monk's speechat Whitehall that morning to the secluded members on their way to theHouse, published copies of which were also distributed by Monk'sauthority. He had assured the secluded members, "and that in God'spresence, " that he had nothing before his eyes "but God's glory andthe settlement of these nations upon Commonwealth foundations"; andhe had pointed out the interest of the Londoners especially in thepreservation of a Commonwealth, "that Government only being capableto make them, through the Lord's blessing, the metropolis and bank oftrade for all Christendom. " On the Church question he had been veryprecise. "As to a Government in the Church, " he had said, "the wantwhereof hath been no small cause of these nations' distractions, itis most manifest that, if it be monarchical in the State, the Churchmust follow and Prelacy must be brought in--which these nations, Iknow, cannot bear, and against which they have so solemnly sworn; andindeed moderate, not rigid, Presbyterian Government, with asufficient liberty for consciences truly tender, appears at presentto be the most indifferent and acceptable way to the Church'ssettlement. " It is not uninteresting to know that Monk's chiefecclesiastical adviser at this moment, and probably the person whohad formulated for him the description of the kind of Church thatwould be most desirable, was Mr. James Sharp, from Crail in Scotland. He had followed Monk to London with a commission from the leaders ofthe Scottish Resolutioner clergy; and from his arrival there he hadbeen, Baillie informs us, "the most wise, faithful, and happycounsellor" Monk had, keeping him from all wrong steps by hisextraordinary Banffshire sagacity. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 688-689; Parl. Hist. III, 1579-1581 (Monk'sSpeech and Declaration); Baillie, III. 440-441. How uncertain it wasyet whether Monk would ever desert the Commonwealth, and how anxiousthe Royalists were on the subject, appears from a letter of Mordauntto Charles, dated Feb. 17, 1659-60, or four days before theRestoration of the Secluded Members (_Clar. State Papers_, III. 683). Speaking of Monk, Mordaunt writes thus:--"The visibleinclination of the people; the danger he foresees from so manyenemies; his particular pique to Lambert; the provocation of theAnabaptists and Sectaries, with whom I may now join the Catholics;the want of money to continue standing armies; the divisions of thechief officers in those respective armies; the advices of those nearhim--I mean, in particular, Clobery and Knight... ; the admonitionsdaily given him by Mr. Annesley and Alderman Robinson;--unless Godhas fed him to the slaughter, cannot but move him. "] CHAPTER I. Third Section. MONK'S DICTATORSHIP, THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT, AND THE DRIFT TOTHE RESTORATION: FEB. 21, 1659-60--APRIL 25, 1660. THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT: NEW COUNCIL OF STATE: ACTIVE MEN OF THEPARLIAMENT: PRYNNE, ARTHUR ANNESLEY, AND WILLIAM MORRICE:MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT: RELEASE OF OLD ROYALISTPRISONERS: LAMBERT COMMITTED TO THE TOWER: REWARDS AND HONOURS FORMONK: "OLD GEORGE" IN THE CITY: REVIVAL OF THE SOLEMN LEAGUE ANDCOVENANT, THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND ALL THE APPARATUSOF A STRICT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: CAUTIOUS MEASURES FORA POLITICAL SETTLEMENT: THE REAL QUESTION EVADED AND HANDED OVER TOANOTHER PARLIAMENT: CALLING OF THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT ANDARRANGEMENTS FOR THE SAME: DIFFICULTY ABOUT A HOUSE OF LORDS: HOWOBVIATED: LAST DAY OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, MARCH 16, 1659-60: SCENEIN THE HOUSE. --MONK AND THE COUNCIL OF STATE LEFT IN CHARGE: ANNESLEYTHE MANAGING COLLEAGUE OF MONK: NEW MILITIA ACT CARRIED OUT:DISCONTENTS AMONG MONK'S OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS: THE RESTORATION OFCHARLES STILL VERY DUBIOUS: OTHER HOPES AND PROPOSALS FOR THE MOMENT:THE KINGSHIP PRIVATELY OFFERED TO MONK BY THE REPUBLICANS: OFFERDECLINED: BURSTING OF THE POPULAR TORRENT OF ROYALISM AT LAST, ANDENTHUSIASTIC DEMANDS FOR THE RECALL OF CHARLES: ELECTIONS TO THECONVENTION PARLIAMENT GOING ON MEANWHILE: HASTE OF HUNDREDS TO BEFOREMOST IN BIDDING CHARLES WELCOME: ADMIRAL MONTAGUE AND HIS FLEETIN THE THAMES: DIRECT COMMUNICATIONS AT LAST BETWEEN MONK ANDCHARLES: GREENVILLE THE GO-BETWEEN: REMOVAL OF CHARLES AND HIS COURTFROM BRUSSELS TO BREDA: GREENVILLE SENT BACK FROM BREDA WITH ACOMMISSION FOR MONK AND SIX OTHER DOCUMENTS. --BROKEN-SPIRITEDNESS OFTHE REPUBLICAN LEADERS, BUT FORMIDABLE RESIDUE OF REPUBLICANISM INTHE ARMY: MONK'S MEASURES FOR PARALYSING THE SAME: SUCCESSFUL DEVICEOF CLARGES: MONTAGUE'S FLEET IN MOTION: ESCAPE OF LAMBERT FROM THETOWER: HIS RENDEZVOUS IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE: GATHERING OF A WRECK OFTHE REPUBLICANS FOUND HIM: DICK INGOLDSBY SENT TO CRUSH HIM: THEENCOUNTER NEAR DAVENTRY, APRIL 22, 1660, AND RECAPTURE OF LAMBERT:GREAT REVIEW OF THE LONDON MILITIA, APRIL 24, THE DAY BEFORE THEMEETING OF THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT: IMPATIENT LONGING FOR CHARLES:MONK STILL IMPENETRABLE, AND THE DOCUMENTS FROM BREDA RESERVED. In the nomination of a new Council of State the House adhered to thenow orthodox number of thirty-one. Monk was named first of all, byspecial and open vote, on the 21st of February; and the others werechosen by ballot, confirmed by open vote in each case, on the 23rd, when the number of members present and giving in voting-papers was114. The list, in the order of preference, was then, as follows:-- General GEORGE MONK William Pierrepoint John Crewe Colonel Edward Rossiter (Rec. ) Richard Knightley Colonel Alexander Popham Colonel Herbert Morley Lord Fairfax Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Bart. Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Bart. Lord Chief Justice St. John Lord Commissioner Widdrington Sir John Evelyn of Wilts Sir William Waller Sir Richard Onslow Sir William Lewis, Bart. Colonel (Admiral) Edward Montague (_Rec. _) Colonel Edward Harley (_Sec. _) Richard Norton (_Rec. _) Arthur Annesley (_Rec. _) Denzil Holles Sir John Temple (_Rec. _) Colonel George Thompson (_Sec. _) John Trevor (_Rec. _) Sir John Holland, Bart. Sir John Potts, Bart. Colonel John Birch (_Rec. _) Sir Harbottle Grimstone John Swinfen (_Rec. _) John Weaver (_Rec. _) Serjeant John Maynard. With the exception of Monk and Fairfax, who were not members of theParliament, and the latter of whom was absent in Yorkshire, theseCouncillors are to be imagined as also active in the business of theHouse. About nine of them were Residuary Rumpers who had acceptedwillingly or cheerfully the return of the secluded. The proportion ofResiduary Rumpers in the whole House was even larger. Though it hadbeen reported by Prynne that as many as 194 of the secluded werestill alive, and a contemporary printed list gives the names of 177as available, [1] the present House never through its brief sessionattained to a higher attendance than 150, the average attendanceranging from 100 to 120; and I have ascertained by actual countingthat more than a third of these were Residuary Rumpers. It is strangeto find among them such of the extreme Republicans as Hasilrig, Scott, Marten, and Robinson. They left the House for a time, butre-appeared in it, whereas Ludlow and Neville and others would notre-appear--Ludlow, as he tells us, making a practice of walking upand down in Westminster Hall outside, partly in protest, partly toshow that he had not fled. [2] Actually six Regicides remained in theHouse: viz. Scott, Marten, Ingoldsby, Millington, Colonel Hutchinson, and Sir John Bourchier. The majority of the Residuary Rumpers, however, --represented by such men as Lenthall, St. John, AshleyCooper, Colonel Thompson, Colonel Fielder, Carew Raleigh, Attorney-General Reynolds, Solicitor-General Ellis, and ColonelMorley, and even by two of the Regicides mentioned (Ingoldsby andHutchinson), --were now in harmony with the Secluded, and by no meansdisposed to abet Hasilrig, Scott, and Marten in any farther contestfor Rump principles. In other words, the House was now led really bythe chiefs of the reinstated members. Prominent among these, besidesCrewe, Knightley, Gerrard, Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, Sir WilliamWaller, Sir William Lewis, Arthur Annesley, Sir Harbottle Grimston, and others named as of the Council, were Prynne, Sir Anthony Irby, Major-General Browne, Sir William Wheeler, Lord Ancram (member for aCornish burgh), William Morrice, and some others, not of theCouncil. --Prynne, who ought to have been on the Council, if couragefor the cause of the Secluded and indefatigable assiduity in pleadingit were sufficient qualifications, had not been thought fit for thathonour; but he was a very busy man in the House. He had taken hisplace there very solemnly the first day, with an old basket-hiltsword on; and he was much in request on Committees. --Of morearistocratic manners and antecedents, and therefore fitter for theCouncil, was Arthur Annesley, a man of whom we have not heard muchhitherto, but who, from this point onwards, was to attract a gooddeal of notice. The eldest son of the Irish peer Viscount Valentiaand Baron Mountnorris, he had come into the Long Parliament in 1640as member for Radnorshire; he had gone with the King in the beginningof the Civil War; but he had afterwards done good service for theParliament in Ireland during the Rebellion, and had at lengthconformed to the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. While theProtectorate lasted he had been really a Cromwellian; but, like somany other Cromwellians, he was now a half-declared Royalist. He hadbeen one of the chief negotiators with Monk for the re-seating of theSecluded, and he took at once a foremost place among them, both inthe House and in the Council. He was now about forty-fire years ofage. --An accession to the House, after it had sat for a week or more, was Mr. William Morrice. He was a Devonshire man, like Monk, to whomhe was related by marriage. He had been sent into the Long Parliamentin 1645 as Recruiter for Devonshire, and had been afterwardssecluded; and he had been returned to Oliver's two Parliaments and toRichard's. Living in Devonshire as a squire "of fair estate, " he hadacquired the character of an able and bookish man of enlightenedPresbyterian principles; he had been of use to Monk in the managementof his Devonshire property; there had been constant correspondencebetween them; and there was no one for whom Monk had a greaterregard. Now, accordingly, at the age of about five and fifty, Morricehad left his books and come from Devonshire to London at Monk'srequest, not only to take his place in Parliament, but also to be akind of private adviser and secretary to Monk, more in his intimacythan even Dr. Clarges. --To complete this view of the composition ofthe new Government, we may add that on Feb. 24 Thomas St. Nicholaswas made Clerk of the Parliament, and that on the 27th the Houseappointed Thurloe and a John Thompson to be joint-secretaries ofState. There was a division on Thurloe's appointment, but it wascarried by sixty-five votes to thirty-eight. The tellers againstThurloe were Annesley and Sir William Waller, but he was supported bySir John Evelyn of Wilts and Colonel Hutchinson. Thurloe's formersubordinate, Mr. William Jessop, was now clerk to the Council ofState. [3] [Footnote 1: A single folio fly-leaf, dated March 26 in the Thomasoncopy, and called "_The Grand Memorandum: A True and PerfectCatalogue of the Secluded Members of the House of Commons, " &c. _It was printed by Husbands on the professed "command" of one of themembers (Prynne?). ] [Footnote 2: The fly-leaf mentioned in last note gives the names ofthirty-three Rumpers who did not sit in the House after thereadmission of the secluded members. Arranged alphabetically theywere:--Anlaby, Bingham, John Carew, Cawley, James Challoner, Crompton, Darley, Fleetwood, John Goodwyn, Nicholas Gold, JohnGurdon, Sir James Harrington, Hallows, Harvey, Heveningham, JohnJones, Viscount Lisle, Livesey, Ludlow, Christopher Martin, Neville, Nicholas, Pigott, Pyne, Sir Francis Russell, the Earl ofSalisbury, Algernon Sidney, Walter Strickland, Sir WilliamStrickland, Wallop, Sir Thomas Walsingham, and Whitlocke. Comparewith the list of the Restored Rump, ante pp. 453-455. ] [Footnote 3: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Feb. 21to March 16, 1659-60, with examination of the lists of all theCommittees through that period; Ludlow, 845-846; Wood's Ath. IV. 181et seq. (Annesley), and III. 1087 et seq. (Morrice); Clarendon, 891and 895. ] By the rough compact made with Monk, the House was to confine itselfto the special work for which it was the indispensable instrument, and to push on as rapidly as possible, through that, to an act forits own dissolution. The majority was such that the compact waseasily fulfilled. Six-and-twenty days sufficed for all that wasrequired from this reinstated fag-end of the famous Long Parliament. Naturally much of the work of the House took the form (1) of redressof old or recent injuries, and (2) of rewards and punishments. Almost the first thing done by the House was to restore theprivileges of the City of London, release the imprisoned CommonCouncil men and citizens, and issue orders for the repair of thebroken gates and portcullises. The City and the Parliament were nowheartily at one, and there was a loan from the City of £60, 000 intoken of the happy reconciliation. Sir George Booth, who had beenrecommitted to the Tower by the Rump, was finally released, thoughstill on security. There were several other releases of prisoners andremovals of sequestrations, and at length (Feb. 27) it was referredto a Committee to consider comprehensively the cases of all personswhatsoever then in prison on political grounds. On the 3rd of Marchparticular orders were given for the discharge of the Earl ofLauderdale, the Earl of Crawford, and Lord Sinclair, from theirimprisonment in Windsor Castle; and thus the last of the Scottishprisoners from Worcester Battle found themselves free men once more. Twelve days afterwards the House went to the extreme of the mercifulprocess by ordering the release of poor Dr. Matthew Wren, the Laudianex-Bishop, who had been committed by the Long Parliament early in1641 along with Laud and Strafford, and who had been lying in theTower, all but forgotten, through the intervening nineteen years. Atthe same time discretionary powers were given to the Council of Stateto discharge any political prisoners that might be still left. --Inthe article of _punishments_ the House was very temperateindeed. Notorious Rumpers were removed, of course, from military andcivil offices, and there were sharper inquiries after Colonel Cobbet, Colonel Ashfield, Major Creed, and others too suspiciously at large;but, with one exception, there seemed to be no thought of the seriousprosecution of any for what had been done either under the RumpGovernment or during the Wallingford-House interruption. Theexception was Lambert. Brought before the Council, and unable orunwilling to find the vast bail of £20, 000 which they demanded forhis liberty, he was committed by them to the Tower; and the House, onthe 6th of March, confirmed the act, and ordered his detention forfuture trial. While Lambert was thus treated as the chief criminal, the rewards and honours went still, of course, mainly to Monk. To hisCommandership-in-chief of all the Armies there was added theGeneralship of the whole Fleet, though in this command, to Monk'sdisappointment, Montague was conjoined with him (March 2). He wasalso made Keeper of Hampton Court; and the £1000 a year in landswhich the Rump had voted him was changed by a special Bill into£20, 000 to be paid at once (March 16), As the Bill was first drafted, the reward was said to be "for his signal services"; but by a vote onthe third reading the word "signal" was changed into "eminent. "Perhaps Annesley, Sir William Waller, and the other new chiefs atWhitehall were becoming a little tired of the praises of so peculiaran Aristides. But he was still a god among the Londoners. From St. James's, which was now his quarters, he would go into the City everyother day, to attend one of a series of dinners which they hadarranged for him in the halls of the great companies, and at which hefound himself so much at ease in his morose way that he would hardlyever leave the table "till he was as drunk as a beast. " Ludlow, whotells us so, would not have told an untruth even about Monk; andLudlow was then in London, knowing well what went on. Let us suppose, however, that he exaggerated a little, and that old George was thevictim of circumstances. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Feb. 21to March 16; Ludlow, 855-856. ] A large proportion of the proceedings of the House and the Councilmay be described as simply a re-establishment of Presbyterianism. Thesecluded members being Presbyterians to a man, there was at once anenthusiastic recollection of the edicts of the Long Parliamentbetween 1643 and 1648, setting up Presbytery as the nationalReligion, with a determination to revert in detail to those symbolsand forms of the Presbyterian system which the triumph ofIndependency had set aside during the Commonwealth, and which hadbeen allowed only partially, and side by side with their contraries, in the broad Church-Establishment of the Protectorate. The unanimityand rapidity of the House in their votes in this direction must havealarmed the Independents and Sectaries. It was on Feb. 29 that theHouse appointed a Committee of twenty-nine on the whole subject ofReligion and Church affairs--Annesley, Ashley Cooper, Prynne, and SirSamuel Luke (i. E. Butler's Presbyterian "Sir Hudibras") being of thenumber; and on the 2nd of March, on report from this Committee, theWestminster Assembly's Confession of Faith, as it had been underdiscussion in the Long Parliament in 1646 (Vol. III. P. 512), wasagain brought before the House, and passed bodily at once, with theexception of chapter 30, "_Of Church Censures_, " and chapter 31, "_Of Synods and Councils_"--which two chapters it was thought aswell to keep still in Committee. The same day there were otherresolutions of a Presbyterian tenor. But the climax was on March 5, in this form: "_Ordered_, That the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT beprinted and published, and set up and forthwith read in every church, and also read once a year according to former Act of Parliament, andthat the said SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT be also set up in thisHouse. " Thus, when the bones of Alexander Henderson had been for morethan thirteen years in their tomb in Grey Friars churchyard inEdinburgh, was the great document which he had drafted in that cityin August 1643, as a bond of religious union for the Three Kingdoms, and only the first fortunes of which he had lived to see, resuscitated in all its glory. What more could Presbyterianismdesire? That nothing might be wanting, however, there followed, onthe 14th of March, a Bill "for approbation and admittance ofministers to public benefices and lectures, " one of the clauses ofwhich prescribed means for the immediate division of all the countiesof England and Wales into classical Presbyteries, according to thoseformer Presbyterianizing ordinances of the Long Parliament which hadnever been carried into effect save in London and Lancashire. TheUniversities were to be constituted into presbyteries or insertedinto such; and the whole of South Britain was to be patternedecclesiastically at last in that exact resemblance to North Britainwhich had been the ideal before Independency burst in. What measuresof "liberty for consciences truly tender" might be conceded did notyet appear. Anabaptists, Quakers, Fifth Monarchy enthusiasts, andMonk's "Fanatics" generally, might tremble; and even moderate andorthodox Independents might foresee difficulty In retaining theirlivings in the State Church. Indeed Owen was already (March 13)displaced from his Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford, by a vote of theHouse recognising a prior claim of Dr. Reynolds to that post. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Neal, IV. 224-225. ] In the matter of a political settlement the proceedings were equallyrapid and simple. Celerity here was made possible by the fact thatthe House considered itself quite precluded from discussing the wholequestion of the future Constitution. Had they entered on thatquestion, the probability is that they would have decided for anegotiation with Charles II. , with a view to his return to Englandand assumption of the Kingship on terms borrowed from the old NewportTreaty with his father, or at all events on strictly expressed termsof some kind, limiting his authority and securing the PresbyterianChurch-Establishment. Even this, however, was problematical. Therewere still Republicans and Cromwellians in the Parliament, and not afew of the Presbyterians members had been Commonwealth's men so longthat it might well appear doubtful to them whether a return toRoyalty now was worth the risks, or whether, if there must be areturn to Royalty, it was in the least necessary to fix it again inthe unlucky House of Stuart. Then the difficulties out of doors! Noone knew what might be the effect upon Monk's own army, or upon thenumerous Republican sectaries, of a sudden proposal in the presentParliament to restore Charles. On the other hand, the Old Royaliststhroughout the country had no wish to hear of such a proposal. _They_ dreaded nothing so much, short of loss of all chance ofthe King's return, as seeing him return tied by such terms as thepresent Presbyterian House would impose. It was a relief to allparties, therefore, and a satisfactory mode of self-delusion to some, that the present House should abstain from the constitutionalquestion altogether, and should confine itself to the one duty ofproviding another Parliament to which that question, with all itsdifficulties, might be handed over. --On the 22nd of February, thesecond day of the restored House, it was resolved that a newParliament should be summoned for the 25th of April, and a Committeewas appointed to consider qualifications. The Parliament was to be a"full and free" one, by the old electoral system of English and Welshconstituencies only, without any representation of Scotland orIreland. But what was meant by "full and free"? On this questionthere was some light on the 13th of March, when the House passed aresolution annulling the obligation of members of Parliament to takethe famous engagement to be faithful to "the Commonwealth asestablished, without King or House of Lords, " and directing allorders enjoining that engagement to be expunged from the Journals. This was certainly a stroke in favour of Royalty, in so far as itleft Royalty and Peerage open questions for the constituencies andthe representatives they might choose; but, taken in connexion withthe order, eight days before, for the revival of the Solemn Leagueand Covenant--in which document "to preserve and defend the King'sMajesty's person and authority" is one of the leading phrases--it wasreceived generally as a positive anticipation of the judgment onthese questions. There was yet farther light, however, between March13 and March 16, when the House, on report from the Committee, settled the qualifications of members and electors. All Papists andall who had aided or abetted the Irish Rebellion were to be incapableof being members, and also all who, or whose fathers, had advised orvoluntarily assisted in any war against the Parliament since Jan. 1, 1641-2, unless there had been subsequent manifestation of their goodaffections. This implied the exclusion of all the very conspicuousRoyalists of the Civil Wars and the sons of such; and the presentHouse, as the lineal representative of the Parliamentarians in thosewars, could hardly have done less, especially as there was asaving-clause of which moderate Royalists would have the benefit, andas the electors were sure to interpret the saving-clause veryliberally. For there was not even the same guardedness in thequalifications of the electors themselves. It was proposed, indeed, by the Committee to disfranchise all "that have been actually in armsfor the late King or his son against the Parliament or havecompounded for his or their delinquency" with an exception only infavour of manifest penitents; but this was negatived by the House byninety-three votes (Lord Ancram and Mr, Herbert tellers) to fifty-sixvotes (Scott and Henry Marten tellers). Thus, active Royalists of theCivil Wars, if they might not be elected, might at least elect; and, as another regulation disqualified from electing or being elected all"that deny Magistracy or Ministry or either of them to be theOrdinances of God "--viz. All Fifth Monarchy men, extremeAnabaptists, and Quakers--the balance was still towards theRoyalists. In short, as finally passed, the Bill was one tending tobring in a Parliament the main mass of which should consist ofPresbyterians, though there might be a large intermixture of OldRoyalists, Cromwellians, and moderate Commonwealth's men. To such aParliament it might be safely left to determine what the future formof Government should be, whether Commonwealth continued, restoredKingship, or a renewal of the Protectorate. The present House had notitself decided anything. It had not decided against a continuance ofthe Commonwealth, should that seem best. It had only assumed thatpossibly that might not seem the best, and had therefore removedobstacles to the free deliberation of either of the other schemes. The revival of the Solemn League and Covenant might seem to implymore; but the phraseology of a document of 1643 might admit ofre-interpretation in 1660. --A special perplexity of the present Housewas in the matter of the Other House or House of Lords. They were nowsitting themselves as a Single House, notwithstanding that theLong Parliament, of which they professed themselves to be acontinuation, consisted of two Houses. This was an anomaly in itself, nay an illegality; and there had been a hot-headed attempt of some ofthe younger Peers to remove it by bursting into the House of Lords atthe same time that the secluded members took their seats in theCommons. Monk's soldiers had, by instructions, prevented that; and, with the full consent of all the older and wiser peers at hand, themanagement of the crisis had been left to the one reconstitutedHouse. The anomaly, however, had been a subject of serious discussionin that House. On the one hand, they could not pass a vote for therestitution of the House of Peers without trenching on that veryquestion of the future form of Government which they had resolved notto meddle with. On the other hand, absolute silence on the matter wasimpossible. How could the present single House, for example, even ifits other acts were held valid, venture on, an Act for thedissolution of that Long Parliament whose peculiar privilege, wrungfrom Charles I. In May 1641, was that it should never be dissolvedexcept by its own consent, i. E. By the joint-consent of the twocomponent Houses? Yet this was the very thing--that had to be donebefore way could be made for the coming Parliament. The courseactually taken was perhaps the only one that the circumstancespermitted. When the House, at their last sitting, on Friday, March16, did pass the Act dissolving itself and-calling the newParliament, it incorporated with the Act a proviso in these words:"Provided always, and be it declared, that the single actings of thisHouse, enforced by the pressing necessities of the present times, arenot intended in the least to infringe, much less take away, theancient native right which the House of Peers, consisting of thoseLords who did engage in the cause of the Parliament against theforces raised in the name of the late King, and so continued until1648, had and have to be a part of the Parliament of England. " Hereagain there was not positive prejudgment so much as the removal of anobstacle. --It did seem, however, as if the House would not separatewithout passing the bounds it had prescribed for itself. It hadalready been debated in whose name the writs for the new Parliamentshould issue? "In King Charles's" had been the answer of theundaunted Prynne. He had been overruled, and the arrangement was thatthe writs should issue, as under a Commonwealth, "in the name of theKeepers of the Liberties of England. " At the last sitting of theHouse, just as the vote for the dissolution was being put, thePresbyterian Mr. Crewe, provoked by some Republican utterance ofScott, moved that the House, before dissolving, should testify itsabhorrence of the murder of the late King by a resolution disclaimingall hand in that affair. The untimely proposal caused a greatexcitement, various members starting up to protest that they at leasthad never concurred in the horrid act, while others, who had beenKing's judges or regicides, betrayed their uneasiness byprevarications and excuses. Not so Scott. "Though I know not where tohide my head at this time, " he said boldly, "yet I dare not refuseto own that not only my hand, but my heart also, was in that action";and he concluded by declaring he should consider it the highesthonour of his existence to have it inscribed on his tomb: "_Herelieth one who had a hand and a heart in the execution of CharlesStuart_. " Having thus spoken, he left the House, most of theRepublicans accompanying him. The Dissolution Act was passed, andthere was an end of the Long Parliament. Their last resolution wasthat the 6th of April should be a day of general fasting andhumiliation. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Ludlow, 863-864; Noble'sLives of the Regicides, II. 169-199 (Life of Scott, with evidence ofLenthall and others at his trial); Phillips, 694; Guizot, II. 167-168. ] Though the House was dissolved, the Council of State was to sit on, with full executive powers, till the meeting of the new Parliament. Annesley was now generally, if not habitually, the President of theCouncil, and in that capacity divided the principal management ofaffairs with Monk. The Parliament having provided for expenses by an assessment of£100, 000 a month for six months, the Council could give fullattention to the main business of preserving the peace till theelections should be over. Conjoined with this, however, was theimportant duty of carrying out a new Militia Act which the Parliamenthad framed. It was an Act disbanding all the militia forces as theyhad been raised and officered by the Rump, and ordering the militiain each county to be reorganized by commissioners of Presbyterian orother suitable principles. The Act had given great offence to theregular Army, naturally jealous at all times of the civiliansoldiery, but especially alarmed now by observing into what hands theMilitia was going. It would be a militia of King's men, they said, and the Commonwealth would be undone! So strong was this feeling inthe Army that Monk himself had remonstrated with the House, and theMilitia Act, though passed on the 12th of March, was not printed tillthe House had removed his objections. This had been done by pointingto the clause of the Act which required that all officers of the newMilitia should take an acknowledgment "that the war undertaken byboth Houses of Parliament in their defence against the forces raisedin the name of the late King was just and lawful. " When Monk hadprofessed himself satisfied, the re-organization of the Militia wenton rapidly in all the counties. Monk was one of the Commissioners forthe Militia of Middlesex, and to his other titles was added that ofMajor-General and Commander-in-chief of the Militia of London. Meanwhile the Council had issued proclamations over the countryagainst any disturbance of the peace, and most of the activepoliticians had left town to look after their elections. TheHarringtonian or Rota Club, one need hardly say, was no more inexistence. After having been a five months' wonder, it had vanished, amid the laughter of the Londoners, as soon as the secluded membershad added themselves to the Rump. Theorists and their "models" wereno longer wanted. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, March 10-16; Phillips, 694;Whitlocke, IV. 405-406; Wood's Ath. III. 1120. ] Not even yet was there any positive intimation that the Commonwealthwas defunct. No one could declare that authoritatively, and every onemight hope or believe as he liked. The all but universal conviction, however, even among the Republicans, was that the Republic wasdoomed, and that, if the last and worst consummation in a return ofCharles Stuart was to be prevented, it could only be by consenting tosome single-person Government of a less fatal kind. O that Richard'sProtectorate could be restored! The thing was talked of by St. Johnand others, but the possibility was past. But might not Monk himselfbe invested with the sovereignty? Hasilrig and others actually wentabout Monk with the offer, imploring him to save his country by thislast means; and the chance seemed so probable that the Frenchambassador, M. De Bordeaux, tried to ascertain through Clargeswhether Monk's own inclinations ran that way. Monk was too wary foreither the Rumpers or the Ambassador. He declined the offers ofHasilrig and his friends, allowing Clarges privately to inform theCouncil that such had been made; and, though he received theAmbassador, it was but gruffly. "The French ambassador visitedGeneral Monk, whom he found no accomplished courtier or statesman, "writes Whitlocke sarcastically under March 24; and the ambassador'sown account is that he could get nothing more from Monk, in reply toMazarin's polite messages and requests for confidence, than areiterated statement that he had no information to give. And so, aSingle Person being inevitable, and the momentary uncertainty whetherit would be "Charles, George, or Richard again" being out of the way, the long-dammed torrent had broken loose. And what a torrent! "KingCharles! King Charles! King Charles!" was the cry that seemed toburst out simultaneously and irresistibly over all the BritishIslands. Men had been long drinking his health secretly orhalf-secretly, and singing songs of the old Cavalier kind in theirown houses, or in convivial meetings with their neighbours; openlyRoyalist pamphlets had been frequent since the abolition of Richard'sProtectorate; and, since the appearance of the PresbyterianParliament of the secluded members, there had been hardly a pretenceof suppressing any Royalist demonstrations whatever. On the eveningof the 15th of March, the day before the Parliament dissolveditself, some bold fellows had come with a ladder to the Exchange inthe City of London, where stood the pedestal from which a statue ofCharles I. Had been thrown down, and had deliberately painted outwith a brush the Republican inscription on the pedestal, "_Exittyrannus, Regum ultimus_, " a large crowd gathering round them andshouting "God bless Charles the Second" round an extemporizedbonfire. That had been a signal; but for still another fortnight, though all knew what all were thinking, there had been a hesitationto speak out. It was in the end of March or the first days of April1660, when the elections had begun, that the hesitation suddenlyceased everywhere, and the torrent was at its full. They weredrinking Charles's health openly in taverns; they were singing songsabout him everywhere; they were tearing down the Arms of theCommonwealth in public buildings, and putting up the King'sinstead. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 695; Letters of M. De Bordeaux, Guizot, II. 381-395; Whitlocke, IV. 405; Pepys's Diary, from beginning to April11, 1660. ] Popular feeling having declared itself so unmistakeably for Charles, it was but ordinary selfish prudence in all public men who hadanything to lose, or anything to fear, to be among the foremost tobid him welcome. No longer now was it merely a rat here and there ofthe inferior sort, like Downing and Morland, [1] that was leaving thesinking ship. So many were leaving, and of so many sorts and degrees, that Hyde and the other Councillors of Charles had ceased to count, on their side, the deserters as they clambered up. He received now, Hyde tells us, "the addresses of many men who had never beforeapplied themselves to him, and many sent to him for his Majesty'sapprobation and leave to sit in the next Parliament. " Between Londonand Flanders messengers were passing to and fro daily, with perfectfreedom and hardly any disguise of their business. Annesley, thePresident of the Council of State, was in correspondence with theKing; Thurloe, now back in the Secretaryship to the Council, was incorrespondence with him, and by no means dishonourably; and in themeetings of the Council of State itself, though it was bound to becorporately neutral till the Parliament should assemble, the drift ofthe deliberations was obvious. The only two men whose resistance evennow could have compelled a pause were Monk and Montague. What ofthem?----It was no false rumour that Montague, the Cromwellian amongCromwellians, the man who would have died for Cromwell or perhaps forhis dynasty, had been holding himself free for Charles. Under a cloudamong the Republicans since his suspicious return from the Baltic inSeptember last, but restored to command by the recent vote of theParliament of the secluded members making him joint chief Admiralwith Monk, he was at this moment (i. E. From March 23 onwards) in theThames with his fleet, in receipt of daily orders from the Counciland guarding the sea-passage between them and Flanders. He had onboard with him, as his secretary, a certain young Mr. Samuel Pepys, who had been with him already in the Baltic, had been meanwhile in aclerkship in the Exchequer office, but had now left his house in AxeYard, Westminster, and his young wife there, for the pleasure andemoluments of being once more secretary to so kind and great amaster. In cabin talk with the trusty Pepys the Lord Admiral made nosecret of his belief that the King would come in; but it was only byshrewd observations of what passed on board, and of the strangepeople that came and went, that Pepys then guessed what he afterwardsknew to be the fact. "My Lord, " as Pepys always affectionately callshis patron, was pledged to the King, and was managing most discreetlyin his interest. [2]--But the power of Montague, as Commander-in-chiefof the Navy only, was nothing in comparison with Monk's. How was Monkcomporting himself? Most cautiously to the last. Though it was thepolicy of his biographers afterwards, and agreeable to himself, thathis conduct from the date of his march out of Scotland should berepresented as a slow and continuous working on towards the one endof the King's restoration, the truth seems to be that he clung to thenotion of some kind of Commonwealth longer than most people, and madeup his mind for the King only when circumstances absolutely compelledhim. With the Army, or a great part of it, to back him, he mightresist and impede the restoration of Charles; but, as things nowwere, could he prevent it ultimately? Why not himself manage thetransaction, and reap the credit and advantages, rather than leave itto be managed by some one else and be himself among the ruined? Thathe had been later than others in sending Charles his adhesion was nomatter. He had gained consequence by the very delay. He was no longermerely commander of an Army in Scotland, but centre and chief of allthe Armies; he was worth more for Charles's purposes than all theothers put together; and Charles knew it! So Monk had been reasoningfor some time; and it was on the 17th of March, the day after thedissolution of the Parliament of the Secluded Members, that hisruminations had taken practical effect. Even then his way ofcommitting himself was characteristic. His kinsman, Sir JohnGreenville, the same who had been commissioned to negotiate with himwhen he was in Scotland, was again the agent. With the utmostprivacy, only Mr. Morrice being present as a third party, Monk hadreceived Greenville at St. James's, acknowledged his Majesty'sgracious messages, and given certain messages for his Majesty inreturn. He would not pen a line; Greenville was to convey themessages verbally. They included such recommendations to his Majestyas that he should smooth the way for his return by proclaiming apardon and indemnity in as wide terms as possible, a guarantee ofall sales and conveyances of lands under the Commonwealth, and aliberal measure of Religious Toleration; but the most immediate andpractical of them all was that his Majesty should at once leave theSpanish dominions, take up his quarters at Breda, and date all hisletters and proclamations thence. For the rest, as there were stillmany difficulties and might be slips, the agreement between hisMajesty and Monk was to be kept profoundly secret. [3] [Footnote 1: These two of the late public servants of Oliver--Downinghis minister at the Hague, and Morland his envoy in the business ofthe Piedmontese massacre of 1655--had behaved most dishonourably. Both, for some months past, had been establishing friendly relationswith Charles by actually betraying trusts they still held with thegovernment of the Commonwealth--Morland by communicating papers andinformation which came into his possession confidentially inThurloe's office (_Clar. Hist. _ 869), and Downing bycommunicating the secrets of his embassy to Charles, and acting inhis interests in that embassy, on guarantee that he should retainit, and have other rewards, when Charles came to the throne(_Clar. Life_, 1116-1117). There was to be farther proof thatDowning was the meaner rascal of the two. ] [Footnote 2: Pepys's Diary, from beginning to April 11, 1660. Montague seems to have first positively and directly pledged himselfto Charles in a letter of April 10, beginning "May it please yourexcellent Majesty, --From your Majesty's incomparable goodness andfavour, I had the high honour to receive a letter from you when I wasin the Sound last summer, and now another by the hands of my cousin"(Clar. State Papers). But the cousin had been already negotiating. ] [Footnote 3: Clarendon, 891-896; Thurloe, VII. 807-898; Skinner, 266-275; Phillips, 695-696. ] Over the seas went Greenville, as fast as ship could carry him, withthe precious messages he bore. At Ostend, where he arrived on the23rd of March, he reduced them to writing; and the next day, and forseveral days afterwards, Charles, Hyde, Ormond, and SecretaryNicholas, were in joyful consultation over them in Brussels. Theadvice of an instant removal to Breda fitted in with their ownintentions. Neither the Spanish territory nor the French was a goodground from which to negotiate openly with England; nor indeed wasSpanish territory quite safe for Charles at a time when, seeing hisrestoration possible, Spain might detain him as a hostage for therecovery of Dunkirk and Mardike. To Breda, accordingly, as Monkadvised, the refugees went. They went in the most stealthy manner, and just in time to avoid being detained by the Spanish authorities. Before they reached Breda, however, but when Greenville could saythat he had seen them safe within Dutch territory, he left them, topost back to England with a private letter to Monk in the King's ownhand, enclosing a commission to the Captaincy-General of all hisMajesty's forces, and with six other documents, which had beendrafted by Hyde, and were all dated by anticipation "_At Our Courtat Breda, this 4/14th of April 1660, in the Twelfth Year of OurReign_. " One was a public letter "To our trusty and well-belovedGeneral Monk, " to be by him communicated to the President and Councilof State and to the Army officers; another was to the Speaker of theHouse of Commons in the coming Parliament; a third was a general"Declaration" for all England, Scotland, and Ireland; a fourth was ashort letter to the House of Lords, should there be one; a fifth wasfor Admirals Monk and Montague, to be communicated to the Fleet; andthe sixth was to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen ofthe City of London. Besides the originals, copies of all were sent toMonk, that he might keep the originals unopened or suppress any ofthem. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 896-902; Phillips, 696; Skinner, 276-280. ] It could be an affair now only of a few weeks, more or less. There, at Breda, was his swarthy, witty, good-humoured, utterly profligateand worthless, young Majesty, with his refugee courtiers round him;at home, over all Britain and Ireland, they were ready for him, longing for him, huzzahing for him, Monk and the Council managingsilently in London; and between, as a moveable bridge, there wasMontague and his fleet. When would the bridge move towards theContinent? That would depend on the newly-elected Parliament, whichwas to meet on the 25th. Could there be any mischance in themeantime? It did not seem so. The late politicians of the Rump were dispersedand powerless. Hasilrig sat by himself in London, moaning "_We areundone: we are undone_"; Scott was in Buckinghamshire, ifperchance they might elect him for Wycombe: Ludlow hid in Wiltshireand Somersetshire, also nominated for a seat, but careless about it;the rest absconded one knows not where. The "Fanatics, " as theRepublican Sectaries were now called collectively, were silenced andoverwhelmed. Even Mr. Praise-God Barebone, tired of having hiswindows broken, was under written engagement to the Council to keephimself quiet. The same written engagement had been exacted fromHasilrig and Scott. --But what of the Army, the original maker of theCommonwealth, its defender and preserver through good report and badreport for eleven years, and with strength surely to maintain it yet, or make a stand in its behalf? The question is rather difficult. Itmay be granted that something of the general exhaustion, the fatigueand weariness of incessant change, the longing to be at rest by anymeans, had come upon the Army itself. Not the less true is it thatRepublicanism was yet the general creed of the Army, and that, coulda universal vote have been taken through the regiments in England, Scotland, and Ireland, it would have kept out Charles Stuart. Nay, soengrained was the Republican feeling in the ranks of the soldiery, and so gloomily were they watching Monk, that, could any suitableproportion of them have been brought together, and could any fitleader have been present to hold up his sword for the Commonwealth, they would have rallied round him with acclamations. Precisely toprevent this, however, had been Monk's care. One remembers his advicefrom Scotland to Richard Cromwell nineteen months ago, when Richardwas entering on his Protectorate. It was to cashier boldly. Not anofficer in the Army, he had said, would have interest enough, if hewere once cashiered, to draw two men after him in opposition to anyexisting Government. The very soul of Monk lies in that maxim, and hehad been acting on it himself. Not only, as we have seen, had hereofficered his own army in Scotland with the utmost pains beforeventuring on his march into England; but, since his coming intoEngland, he had still been discharging officers, and appointing orpromoting others. He had done so while still conducting himself asthe servant of the Restored Rump; and he had done so again veryparticularly after he had become Commander-in-chief for theParliament of the Secluded Members. The consequence was most apparentin that portion of the Army which was more especially his own, consisting of the regiments he had brought from Scotland, and thatwere now round him in London. The officers--Knight, Read, Clobery, Hubblethorn, &c. --were all men accustomed to Monk, or of his latestchoosing. His difficulty had been greater with the many dispersedregiments away from London, once Fleetwood's and Lambert's. Not onlywas there no bond of attachment between them and Monk; they were fullof bitterness against him, as an interloper from Scotland who had putthem to disgrace, and had turned some of them out of London to makeroom for his own men. But with these also Monk had taken hismeasures. Besides quartering them in the manner likeliest to preventharm, he had done not a little among them too by discharges and newappointments. One of his own colonels, Charles Fairfax, had been leftat York; Colonel Rich's regiment had been given to Ingoldsby;Walton's regiment to Viscount Howard; a Colonel Carter had been madeGovernor of Beaumaris, with command in Denbighshire; the RepublicanOverton had been removed from the Governorship of Hull; Mr. Morricehad been converted into a soldier, and made Governor of Plymouth; Dr. Clarges was Commissary General of the Musters for England, Scotland, and Ireland; and colonelcies were found for Montague, Rossiter, Sheffield, and Lord Falconbridge. When it is remembered thatFleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Kelsay, and others of the oldofficers, Rumpers or Wallingford-House men, were alreadyincapacitated, and either in prison or under parole to the Council ofState, it will be seen that the English Army of April 1660 was nolonger its former self. There were actually Royalists now among thecolonels, men in negotiation with the King as Monk himself was. Still, if Monk and these colonels had even now gone before most ofthe regiments and announced openly that they meant to bring in theKing, they would have been hooted or torn in pieces. Even incolloquies with the officers of his own London regiments Monk had tokeep up the Republican phraseology. Suspicions having arisen amongthem, with meetings and agitations, his plan had been to calm them bygeneral assurances, reminding them at the same time of that principleof the submission of the military to the civil authority which he andthey had accepted. On this principle alone, and without a wordimplying desertion, of the Commonwealth, he prohibited any moremeetings or agitations, and caused strict orders to that effect fromthe Council of State to be read at the head of every regiment. But aningenious device of Clarges went further than such prohibitions. Itwas that as many of the officers as possible should be got to sign adeclaration of their submission to the civil authority, not ingeneral terms merely, but in the precise form of an engagement toagitate the question of Government no more among themselves, butabide the decision of the coming Parliament. Many who could not havebeen brought to declare for Charles Stuart directly could save theirconsciences by signing a document thus conditionally in his interest;and the device of Clarges was most successful. On the 9th of April acopy of the engagement signed by a large number of officers in ornear London was in Monk's hands, and copies were out in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for additional signatures. As to the responsefrom Scotland there could be little doubt. Morgan, thecommander-in-chief in Scotland, had already reported the completesubmission of the Army there to the order established by theParliament of the Secluded Members. Only a single captain had beenrefractory, and he far away in the Orkneys. From Ireland, where Cooteand Broghill were now managing, the report was nearly as good. Altogether, by the 9th of April, Monk could regard the Republicanismof the Army as but the stunned and paralysed belief of so manythousands of individual red-coats. --It was no otherwise with theNavy. Moored with his fleet in the Thames, or cruising with itbeyond, Montague could assure Pepys in private that he knew most ofhis captains to be Republicans, and that he was not sure even of thecaptain of his own ship; and, studying a certain list which Montaguehad given him, Pepys could observe that the captains Montague wasmost anxious about were all or nearly all of the Anabaptistpersuasion. Still there was no sign of concerted mutiny; and it was agreat thing at such a time that Vice-Admiral Lawson, Montague'ssecond in command, and the pre-eminent Republican of the whole Navy, had shown an example of obedience. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 694-698; Skinner, 263-265; Ludlow, 865-873;Whitlocke, IV. 405-406; Pepys's Diary, March 28-April 9. ] There was to be one dying flash for the Republic after all. Lamberthad escaped from the Tower. It was on the night of April 9, the veryday on which Monk was congratulating himself on the engagement ofobedience signed by so many of his officers. For some days no oneknew where the fugitive had gone, and Monk and the Council of Statewere in consternation. Proclamations against him were out, forbiddingany to harbour him, and offering a reward for his capture. Meanwhileemissaries from Lambert were also out in all directions, to rouse hisfriends and bring them to a place of rendezvous in Northamptonshire. One of these emissaries, a Major Whitby, found Ludlow inSomersetshire, and delivered Lambert's message to him. Ludlow was notunwilling to join Lambert, but wanted to know more precisely what hedeclared for. With some passion, Whitby suggested that it was not atime to be asking what a man declared _for_; it was enough toknow what he declared _against_. Ludlow demurred, and said itwas always best to put forth a distinct political programme! Hemerely circulated the information; therefore, in Somersetshire andadjoining counties, and waited for further light. Along many roads, however, especially in the midland counties, others were stragglingto the appointed rendezvous. Discharged soldiers, Anabaptists, Republican desperates of every kind, were flocking to Lambert. --Alas!before many of these could reach Lambert, it was all over. Hither andthither, wherever there were signs of disturbance, Monk had beendespatching his most efficient officers; and, on the 18th of April, having received more exact information as to Lambert's whereabouts, he sent off Colonel Richard Ingoldsby to do his very best in thatscene of action. There could not have been a happier choice. For thiswas honest Dick Ingoldsby, the Cromwellian, of whom his kinsmanRichard Cromwell had said that, though he could neither preach norpray, he could be trusted. He was also "Dick Ingoldsby, theRegicide, " who had unfortunately signed the death-warrant of CharlesI. , to please Cromwell; and that recollection was a spur to him now. Since the abdication of Richard, he had been telling people that hewould thenceforth serve the King and no one else, even though hisMajesty, when he came home, would probably cut off his head. Thatconsequence, however, was to be avoided if possible; and already, since the restoration of the secluded members, Ingoldsby had beendoing whatever stroke of work for them might help towards earninghis pardon. Now had come his most splendid opportunity, and he wasnot to let it slip. --On Sunday, the 22nd of April, being EasterSunday, he came up with Lambert in Northamptonshire, about two milesfrom Daventry. Lambert had then but seven broken troops of horse, andone foot company; but Colonels Okey, Axtell, Cobbet, Major Creed, andseveral other important Republican ex-officers, were with him. Ingoldsby had brought his own horse regiment from Suffolk; ColonelStreater, with 500 men of a Northamptonshire foot-regiment, hadjoined him; the Royalist gentry round were sending in more horse; thecountry train-bands were up. The battle would be very unequal; was itworth while to fight? For some hours the two bodies stood facing eachother, Lambert's in a ploughed field, with a little stream in hisfront, to which Ingoldsby rode up frequently, parleying with such ofLambert's troopers as were nearest, and so effectively as to bringsome of them over. At last, Lambert showing no signs of surrender, Ingoldsby and Streater advanced, Ingoldsby ready to charge with hishorse, but Streater marching the foot first with beat of drum to trythe effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were thatthe general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should seethe pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was notnecessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; histroopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troopcame off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lamberthimself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to him, pistol in hand, heclaimed him as his prisoner. There was a kind of scuffle, Creed andothers imploring Ingoldsby to let Lambert go; and in the scuffleLambert turned his horse and made off, Ingoldsby after him at fullgallop. They were men of about the same age, neither over forty, butIngoldsby the stouter and more fearless for a personal encounter. Thetwo horses were abreast, or Ingoldsby's a little ahead, the riderturning round in his seat, with his pistol presented at Lambert, whomhe swore he would shoot if he did not yield. Lambert pleaded yet apitiful word or two, and then reined in and was taken. --On Tuesday, the 24th of April, Lambert was again in the Tower, with Cobbet, Creed, and other prisoners, though Okey and Axtell were not yet amongthem. There had been a great review of the City Militia that day inHyde Park, at which the various regiments, red, white, green, blue, yellow, and orange, with the auxiliaries from the suburbs, made themagnificent muster of 12, 000 men. The Parliament was to meet nextday, and Monk and the Council of State had no farther anxiety. Amongthe measures they had taken after Lambert's escape had been an orderthat the engagement, already so generally signed by the Officers, pledging to agreement in whatever Parliament should prescribe as tothe future form of government, should be tendered also to the privatesoldiers throughout the whole army. In the troops and companies ofFleetwood's old regiments, as many as a third of the soldiers, or insome cases a half, were leaving the ranks in consequence; but inMonk's own regiments from Scotland only two sturdy Republicans hadstepped out. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 698-699; Skinner, 286-289; Ludlow, 873-877;Wood's Fasti, II. 133-134; Whitlocke, IV. 407-409; M. De Bordeaux toMazarin, Guizot, II. 415. ] So sure was the Restoration of Charles now that the only difficultywas in restraining impatience and braggartism among the Royaliststhemselves. The last argument of the Republican pamphleteers havingbeen that the Royalists would be implacable after they had got backthe king, and that nothing was to be then expected but the bloodiestand severest revenges upon all who had been concerned with theCommonwealth, and some of the younger Royalists having given colourto such representations by their wild utterances in private, therehad been printed protests to the contrary by leading Royalists inLondon and in many of the counties. They desired no revenges, theysaid; they reflected on the past as the mysterious course of anall-wise Providence; they were anxious for an amicable reunion of allin the path so wonderfully opened up by the wisdom and valour ofGeneral Monk; they utterly disowned the indiscreet expressions offools and "hot-spirited persons"; and they would take no stepsthemselves, but would confide in Monk, the Council of State, and theParliament, The London "declaration" to this effect was signed by tenearls, four viscounts, five lords, many baronets, knights, andsquires, with several Anglican clergymen, among whom was JeremyTaylor. It was of no small use to Monk, who had equally to be on hisguard against too great haste. They were crowding round him now, andasking why there should be any more delay, why the king should not bebrought to England at once. His one reply still was that theParliament alone could decide what was to be done, and that he andothers were bound to leave all to the Parliament. Meanwhile Sir JohnGreenville had been back from his mission for some time, and had dulydelivered to Monk the important documents from Breda. Monk had keptCharles's private letter, but had given Greenville back all the rest, including his own commission to be his Majesty's Captain-General. Nota soul was to know of their existence till the moment when theyshould be produced in the Parliament. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips, 699-701; Skinner, 283-284 and 290-294;Clarendon, 902. ] CHAPTER II. First Section. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH RICHARD'S PROTECTORATE: SEPT. 1658-MAY 1659. MILTON AND MARVELL STILL IN THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP: MILTON'S FIRSTFIVE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXIII. -CXXXVII. ): NEW EDITIONOF MILTON'S _DEFENSIO PRIMA_: REMARKABLE POSTSRCIPT TO THATEDITION: SIX MORE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXVIII. -CXLIII. ):MILTON'S RELATIONS TO THE CONFLICT OF PARTIES ROUND RICHARD AND INRICHARD'S PARLIAMENT: HIS PROBABLE CAREER BUT FOR HIS BLINDNESS: HISCONTINUED CROMWELLIANISM IN POLITICS, BUT WITH STRONGER PRIVATERESERVES, ESPECIALLY ON THE QUESTION OF AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH: HISREPUTATION THAT OF A MAN OF THE COURT-PARTY AMONG THEPROTECTORATISTS: HIS _TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICALCAUSES_: ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE, WITH EXTRACTS: THE TREATISE MORETHAN A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERATION: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT THEFUNDAMENTAL IDEA: THE TREATISE ADDRESSED TO RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT, ANDCHIEFLY TO VANE AND THE REPUBLICANS THERE: NO EFFECT FROM IT:MILTON'S FOUR LAST STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXLIV. -CXLVII. ):HIS PRIVATE EPISTLE TO JEAN LABADIE, WITH ACCOUNT OF THAT PERSON:MILTON IN THE MONTH BETWEEN RICHARD'S DISSOLUTION OF HIS PARLIAMENTAND HIS FORMAL ABDICATION: HIS TWO STATE-LETTERS FOR THE RESTOREDRUMP (NOS. CXLVIII. -CXLIX. ). Milton and Marvell continued together In the Latin Secretaryshipthrough the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, The following were thefirst Letters of Milton for Richard:-- (CXXXIII. ) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _Sept. _ 5, 1658:--"Most serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate: As my most serene Father, of glorious memory, Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, such being the will of Almighty God, has been, removed by death on the 3rd of September, I, his lawfully declared successor in this Government, though in the depth of sadness and grief, cannot but on the very first opportunity inform your Majesty by letter of so important a fact, assured that, as you have been a most cordial friend to my Father and this Commonwealth, the sudden intelligence will be no matter of joy to you either. It is my business now to request your Majesty to think of me as one who has nothing more resolvedly at heart than to cultivate with all fidelity and constancy the alliance and friendship that existed between my most glorious parent and your Majesty, and to keep and hold as valid, with the same diligence and goodwill as himself, the treaties, counsels, and arrangements, of common interest, which he established with you. To which intent I desire that our Ambassador at your Court [Lockhart] shall be invested with the same powers as formerly; and I beg that, whatever he may transact with you in our name, you will receive it as if done by myself. Finally, I wish your Majesty all prosperity. --From our Court at Westminster. " (CXXXIV. ) To Cardinal Mazarin, _Sept. _ [5], 1658:--Dispatched with the last, and to the same effect. Knowing the reciprocal esteem between his late Father and his Eminence, Richard cannot but write to his Eminence as well as to the King. (CXXXV. ) To Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden. _October_ 1658:--"Most serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate: As I think I cannot sufficiently imitate my father's excellence unless I cultivate and desire to retain the same friendships which he sought, and acquired by his worth, and regarded in his singular judgment as most deserving to be cultivated and retained, there is no reason for your Majesty to doubt that it will be my duty to conduct myself towards your Majesty with the same attentiveness and goodwill which my Father, of most serene memory, made his rule in his relations to you. Wherefore, although in this beginning of my Government and dignity I do not find our affairs in such a position that I can at present reply to certain heads which your agents have propounded for negotiation, yet the idea of continuing, and even more closely knitting, the treaty established with your Majesty by my Father is exceedingly agreeable to me; and, as soon as I shall have more fully understood the state of affairs on both sides, I shall indeed be always most ready, as far as I am concerned, for such arrangements as shall be thought most advantageous for the interests of both Commonwealths. Meanwhile may God long preserve your Majesty, to His own glory and for the guardianship and defence of the Orthodox Church. "--The peculiar state of the relations between the Swedish King and the English Government is here to be remembered. The heroic Swede, by his sudden recommencement of war with Denmark, had brought a host of enemies again around him; and the question, just before Oliver's death, was whether Oliver would consider himself disobliged by the rupture of the Peace with Denmark, which had been mainly of his own making, or whether he would stand by his brother of Sweden and think him still in the right. That the second would have been Oliver's course there can be little doubt. The question had now descended to Richard and his Council. They were anxious to adhere to the foreign policy of the late Protector in the Swedish as in all other matters; but there were difficulties. (CXXXVI. AND CXXXVII. ) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN, _Oct. _ 1659:--Two more letters to his Swedish Majesty, following close on the last:--(1) In the first, dated "Oct. 13, " Richard acknowledges a letter received from the King of Sweden through his envoy in London, and also a letter from the King to Philip Meadows, the English Resident at the Swedish Court, which Meadows has transmitted. He is deeply sensible of his Swedish Majesty's kind expressions, both of sorrowing regard for his great father's memory, and of goodwill towards himself. There could not be a greater honour to him, or a greater encouragement in the beginning of his government, than the congratulations of such a King. "As respects the relations entered into between your Majesty and Us concerning the common cause of Protestants, I would have your Majesty believe that, since I succeeded to this government, though our Affairs are in such a state as to require the extreme of diligence, care, and vigilance, chiefly at home, yet I have had and still have nothing more sacredly or more deliberately in my mind than not to be wanting, to the utmost of my power, to the Treaty made by my father with your Majesty. I have therefore arranged for sending a fleet into the Baltic Sea, with those commands which our Internuncio [Meadows], whom we have most amply instructed for this whole business, will communicate to your Majesty. " This was the fleet of Admiral Lawson, which did not actually put to sea till the following month, and was then wind-bound off the English coast. See ante p. 428; where it is also explained that Sir George Ayscough was to go out with Lawson, to enter the Swedish service as a volunteer. --(2) The other letter to Charles Gustavus, though dated "Oct. " merely in the extant copies, was probably written on the same day as the foregoing, and was to introduce this Ayscough. "I send to your Majesty (and cannot send a present of greater worth or excellence) the truly distinguished and truly noble man, George Ayscough, Knight, not only famous and esteemed for his knowledge of war, especially naval war, as proved by his frequent and many brave performances, but also gifted with probity, modesty, ingenuity, and learning, dear to all for the sweetness of his manners, and, what is now the sum of all, eager to serve under the banners of your Majesty, so renowned over the whole world by your warlike prowess. " A favourable reception is bespoken for Ayscough, who is to bring certain communications to his Majesty, and who, in any matters that may arise out of these, is to be taken as speaking for Richard himself. It was not till the beginning of the following year that Ayscough did arrive in the Baltic. These five letters were undoubtedly the most important diplomaticdispatches of the beginning of Richard's Protectorate. They refer tothe two most momentous foreign interests bequeathed from Oliver: viz. The French Alliance against Spain, and the entanglement in NorthernEurope round the King of Sweden. Milton, as having written all theprevious state-letters on these great subjects, was naturallyrequired to be himself the writer of the five in which Richardannounced to France and Sweden his resolution to continue the policyof his father. Marvell's pen may have been used, then and afterwards, for minor dispatches. To the month of October 1658, the month after that of Oliver's death, belongs also a new edition of Milton's _Defensio Prima_. It wasin octavo size, in close and clear type, and bore this title:"_Joannis Miltonii, Angli, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio contraClaudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam. Editiocorrectior et auctior, ab Autore denuo recognita. Londini, TypisNewcombianis, Anno Dom. 1658_" (John Milton's Defence, &c. "_Corrected and Enlarged Edition, newly revised by the Author_"London: from Newcome's press, &c. ). [1] This edition seems to haveescaped the notice to which it is entitled. As far as my examinationhas gone, the differences from the original edition through the bodyof the work can be but slight. There is, however, a very importantpostscript of two pages, which I shall here translate:-- [Footnote 1: Thomason copy in British Museum, with the date"_Octob. _" (no day) written on the title-page. ] "Having published this book, some years ago now [April 1651], in the hurried manner then required by the interests of the Commonwealth, but with the notion that, if ever I should have leisure to take it into my hands again, I might, as is customary, afterwards polish up something in it, or perchance cancel or add something, this I fancy I have now accomplished, though with fewer changes than I thought: a monument, as I see, whosoever has contrived it, not easily to perish. If there shall be found some one who will defend civil liberty more freely than here, yet certainly it will hardly be in a greater or more illustrious example; and truly, if the belief is that a deed of such arduous and famous example was not attempted and so prosperously finished without divine inspiration, there may be reason to think that the celebration and defence of the same with such applauses was also by the same aid and impulse, --an opinion I would much rather see entertained by all than have any other happiness of genius, judgment, or diligence, attributed to myself. Only this:--Just as that Roman Consul, laying down his magistracy, swore in public that the Commonwealth and that City were safe by his sole exertion, so I, now placing my last hand on this work, would dare assert, calling God and men to witness, that I have demonstrated in this book, and brought publicly forward out of the highest authors of divine and human wisdom, those very things by which I am confident that the English People have been sufficiently defended in this cause for their everlasting fame with posterity, and confident also that the generality of mankind, formerly deceived by foul ignorance of their own rights and a false semblance of Religion, have been, unless in as far as they may prefer and deserve slavery, sufficiently emancipated. And, as the universal Roman People, itself sworn in that public assembly, approved with one voice and consent that Consul's so great and so special oath, so I have for some time understood that not only all the best of my own countrymen, but all the best also of foreign men, sanction and approve this persuasion of mine by no silent vote over the whole world. Which highest fruit of my labours proposed for myself in this life I both gratefully enjoy and at the same time make it my chief thought how I may be best able to assure not only my own country, for which I have already done my utmost, but also the men of all nations whatever, and especially all of the Christian name, that the accomplishment of yet greater things, if I have the power--and I _shall_ have the power, if God be gracious, --is meanwhile for their sakes my desire and meditation. " Perhaps one begins to be a little tired of this high-strainedexultation for ever and ever on the subject of his success in theSalmasian controversy. The recurrence at this point, however, is notuninstructive. At the beginning of Richard's Protectorate, we can seeMilton's defences of the English Republic were still regarded as theunparalleled literary achievements of the age, and Milton's Europeancelebrity on account of them had not waned in the least. It wassomething for the blind man, seated by himself in his small home inWestminster, and sending his thoughts out over the world from whichfor six years now he had been so helplessly shut in, to know thisfact, and to be able to imagine the continued recollection of him asstill alive among the myriads moving in that vast darkness. Thisfruit of his past labours, he says, he would "gratefully enjoy, " butwith no vulgar satisfaction. He would not confess it even to be withany lingering in him now of the last infirmity of a noble mind. Inhis fiftieth year, and in his present state, he could feel himselfsuperior to that, and could describe his consciousness as somethinghigher. If he had done a great work already, as he himself believed, and as the voice of all the best of mankind acknowledged, had it notbeen because God had chosen and inspired him for the same, and mighthe not in that faith send out a message to the world that perhaps Godhad not yet done with him, and they might expect from him, blind anddesolate though he was, something greater and better still? Theclosing sentence is exactly such a message, and one can suppose thatMilton was there thinking of his progress in _Paradise Lost_. Whatever was the amount of Marvell's exertion in the secretaryship, Milton was not wholly exempted from the duty of writing even the moreordinary letters for Richard and his Council. There is a vacantinterval of three months, indeed, after the five last registered andthe next; but in January 1658-9 the series is resumed, and there aresix more letters of Milton for Richard between the end of that monthand the end of February. Richard's Parliament, it is to beremembered, met on the 27th of January. (CXXXVIII. ) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _Jan. _ 27, 1658-9 (i. E. The day of the meeting of the Parliament):--Samuel Piggott, merchant of London, has complained to the Protector that two ships of his--the _Post_, Tiddy Jacob master, and the _Water-dog_, Garbrand Peters master--are detained somewhere in the Baltic by his Majesty's forces. They had sailed from London to France; thence to Amsterdam, where one had taken in ballast only, but the other a cargo of herrings, belonging in part to one Peter Heinsberg, a Dutchman; and, so laden, they had been bound for his Majesty's port of Stettin. Probably the Dutch ownership of part of the herring cargo was the cause of the detention of the ships; but Piggott was the lawful owner of the ships themselves and of the rest of the goods. His Majesty is prayed to restore them, and so save the poor man from ruin. (CXXXIX. ) To THE HIGH AND MIGHTY, THE STATES OF WEST FRIESLAND, _Jan. _ 27, 1658-9:--A widow, named Mary Grinder, complains that Thomas Killigrew, a commander in the service of the States, has for eighteen years owed her a considerable sum of money, the compulsory payment of which he is trying now to evade by petitioning their Highnesses not to allow any suit against him in their Courts for debts due in England. "If I only mention to your Highnesses that she, whom this man tries to deprive of nearly all her fortunes, is a widow, that she is poor, the mother of many little children, I will not do you the injustice of supposing that with you, to whom I am confident the divine commandments, and especially those about not oppressing widows and the fatherless, are well known, any more serious argument will be needed against your granting this privilege of fraud to the man's petition. "--The Thomas Killigrew here concerned may have been one of several well-known Killigrews, then refugee Royalists. Hence perhaps the earnestness of the letter. (CXL. ) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Feb. _ 18, 1658-9:--"We have heard, and not without grief, that some Protestant churches in Provence were so scandalously interrupted by a certain ill-tempered bigot that the matter was thought worthy of severe notice by the magistrates of Grenoble, to whom the cognisance of the case belonged by law; but that a convention of the clergy, held shortly afterwards in, those parts, has obtained your Majesty's order that the whole affair shall be brought before your Royal Council in Paris, and that meanwhile, there being no decision there hitherto, these churches, and especially that of Aix, are prohibited from meeting for the worship of God. " His Majesty is asked to remove this prohibition, and to see the author of the mischief properly censured. Such a missive proves that Richard and his Council kept to Oliver's rule of interference whenever there was persecution of Protestants, and also that they did not doubt their influence with Louis and Mazarin. (CXLI. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _Feb. _ 19, 1658-9:[1]--The Duchess-Dowager of Richmond, with her son, the young duke, is going into France, and means to reside there for some time. His Eminence is requested to show all possible attention to the illustrious lady and her son. [Footnote 1: So dated in the Skinner Transcript, but "29 Feb. " inPrinted Collection and Phillips. ] (CXLII. ) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _Feb. _ 22, 1658-9:[1]--About eight months ago the case of Peter Pett, "a man of singular probity, and of the highest utility to us and the Commonwealth by his remarkable skill in naval affairs, " was brought before his Eminence by a letter of the late Lord Protector (not among Milton's letters). It was to request that his Eminence would see to the execution of a decree of his French Majesty's Council, as far back as Nov. 4, 1647, that compensation should be made to Pett for the seizure and sale of a ship of his, called the _Edward_, by one Bascon, in the preceding year. His Eminence has doubtless attended to the request; but there is still some impediment. Will his Eminence see where it lies and remove it?--Since the time of Queen Mary there had been three Peter Petts in succession, ship-builders and masters of the Royal Dockyard at Deptford; and the present Peter was the father of the more celebrated Sir Peter Pett, who was fellow of the Royal Society after the Restoration. [Footnote 1: So dated in Printed Collection and in the SkinnerTranscript; misdated "Feb. 25" in Phillips. ] (CXLIII. ) To ALFONSO V. , KING OF PORTUGAL, _Feb. _ 23, 1658-9:[1]--Congratulations to his Portuguese Majesty upon a victory he had recently obtained over "our common enemy the Spaniard, " with acknowledgment of his Majesty's handsome behaviour, through his Commissioners in London, in the matter of satisfaction, according to an article in the League between Portugal and the English Commonwealth, to those English merchants who had let out their vessels to the Brazil Company. But there is still one such merchant unpaid--a certain Alexander Bence, whose ship, _The Three Brothers_, John Wilks master, had made two voyages for the Company. They refuse to pay him, though they have fully paid others who had made but one voyage; and "why this is done I do not understand, unless it be that in their estimation a person is more worthy of his hire who has earned it once than one who has earned it twice. " Will his Majesty see that Bence receives his due? [Footnote 1: In the Printed Collection and Phillips, and also, Ithink, in the Skinner Transcript, the king's name is given as "John";but John IV. Of Portugal had died in 1656 and been succeeded byAlfonso. ] These six letters belong to the first month of Richard's Parliament, with its very large and freely elected House of Commons representingEngland, Scotland, and Ireland, and its anomalous addition orexcrescence of another or Upper House, consisting of the two or threescores of recently-created Cromwellian "Lords. " The battle betweenthe Republicans and the Protectoratists had begun in the Commons, Thurloe ably leading there for the Protectoratists; the Republicanshad been beaten on the first great question by the recognition of theSingle-Person principle and of Richard's title to the Protectorship;and the House had gone on to the question of the continued existenceand functions of the other House, with every prospect that theCromwillians would beat the Republicans on that question too. FromJanuary to April, not only in the Parliament, but also over thecountry at large, the all-engrossing interest, as we know, was thiscontroversy between pure old Republicanism, desiring neither singlesovereignty nor aristocracy, and that more conservative form ofCommonwealth which had been set up by the Oliverian constitution. Over the country, no less than in the Parliament, the conservativepolicy was in favour, and the Cromwellians or Protectoratists, amongwhom the Presbyterians now ranked themselves, were far more numerousthan the old Republicans. Royalism, or at least Stuart Royalism, wasat its lowest ebb. Many that had been Royalists heretofore hadaccepted the constitutionalized Protectorate as the best substitutefor Royalty that circumstances allowed, and saw no course left thembut to cooperate with the majority of their countrymen in confirmingRichard's rule. How Milton stood related to this controversy is a matter rather ofinference than of direct information. Having been a faithful adherentand official of Oliver through his whole Protectorate, and stillholding his official place under Richard's Government, there islittle doubt that, if he had been obliged to post himself publicly oneither of the two sides, he would have gone among the Cromwellians. Nay, if he had been obliged to choose between the two subdivisions ofthis body, known as the _Court Party_ (supporting Richardabsolutely) and the _Wallingford-House Party_ (supportingRichard's civil Protectorate, but wanting to transfer the militarypower to the Army-chiefs), there can be little doubt that he wouldhave gone with the former. Had he been in the House of Commons, likehis colleague Andrew Marvell, his duty there, like Marvell's, wouldhave been that of a ministerial member, assisting Thurloe and votingwith him in all the divisions. But for his blindness, we may heresay, the chances are that he _would_ long ere now have been aknown Parliamentary man, and that, after having been a Cromwellianleader in Oliver's second Parliament, he might have been now inThurloe's exact place in Richard's present Parliament, or besideThurloe as a strangely different chief. This, or that otheralternative of a foreign ambassadorship or residency, which must havesuggested itself again and again to the reader in the course of ournarrative, might have been the natural career of Milton through therule of the Cromwells, had not blindness disabled him. For, ifMeadows, his former mere assistant in the Foreign Secretaryship, hadbeen for some time in the one career with increasing distinction, andif an opening had been easily found for Marvell in the other, why maynot imagination trace either career, or a combination of the two, hadphysical infirmity not prevented, for the greater Cromwellian of whomthese were but satellites? It is imagination only, and would not beworth while, were it not for one important biographical questionwhich it brings forward. Had Milton remained capable of any suchpractical career under the Cromwells, would he have retained, to thesame extent as he had done through his blindness, the necessaryqualification of being an Oliverian or Cromwellian? How far was hispresent Cromwellianism the actual consequence of his blindness, themere submissiveness of a blind man to what he had no power todisturb? It is partly an answer to this question to remember againhis _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654, with its great panegyric onCromwell. Milton had been but two years blind when that waspublished, and had not lost aught of the vehemence of his Republicanconvictions. Not without deliberation, therefore, had he given up thefirst form of the Commonwealth, consisting in a single supreme Houseof Parliament and an annual Council of State chosen by the same, andaccepted the later or Protectoral form, with Cromwell for its head, apermanent Council of State round Cromwell, and Parliaments onoccasion. But, underneath this general adhesion to the Protectorate, there had been even then certain Miltonic reserves, and especiallythe reserve of a protest against the continuance of a State Church. Now, had Milton been in a condition to act the part of a practicalstatesman through Oliver's Protectorate, might not some extraordinarydevelopment have been given to those reserves? With his boundlesscourage and the non-conforming habits of his genius, would he everhave been the Parliamentary servant of a Government from which hediffered at all, --from which he differed so vitally on the questionof Church Establishment? Probably in nothing else had Cromwell whollydisappointed him. Through the Protectorate there had been all thetoleration of religious differences that could be desired, or whatshortcoming there had been had hardly been by Cromwell's own fault;the other interferences with liberty had hardly perhaps, in Milton'sestimation, gone beyond the necessities of police; and in Cromwell'sforeign policy, with its magnificent championship of Protestantismabroad, what man in England was more ardently at one with him thanthe draftsman of his great foreign despatches? At the time of theproposal of Cromwell's Kingship, and generally at the time of thetransition out of his first Protectorate into his second, with theresuscitation then of so many aristocratic forms and the attempt toreinstitute a house of peers, there may have been, as we have alreadyhinted, an uprising in Milton's mind of democratic objections, andthe effect may have been that Milton before the end of Oliver'sProtectorate was less of an Oliverian than he had been at thebeginning. Still, precluded from any active concern in thoseconstitutional changes, he may have reconciled himself to them easilyenough, and also to the transmission of the Protectorship from Oliverto Richard. The one insuperable stumbling-block, I believe, had beenand was Cromwell's Established Church. Even in his blindness hecould theorize on that, and stiffen himself more and more in hisintense Religious Voluntaryism, Conscious of his irreconcileabledissent from Cromwell's policy in this great matter, and knowing thatCromwell was aware of the fact, it may have been a satisfaction tohim that he was not called upon to act a Parliamentary part, in whichproclamation of the dissent and consequent rupture with Cromwell onthe ecclesiastical question would have been inevitable. It may havebeen some satisfaction to him that he could go on faithfully andhonestly as a servant of Cromwell in the special business of theLatin Secretaryship, and for the rest be a lonely thinker and takerefuge in silence. It is worth observing, indeed, that nothing of apolitical kind had come from Milton's pen during the last three orfour years of Oliver's Protectorate, --nothing even indirectly bearingon the internal politics of the Commonwealth since his _Pro SeDefensio_ against Morus in 1655, and nothing directly bearingthereon since his _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654. And so, if weconclude this inquiry by saying that, at the time of Richard'saccession and the meeting of his Parliament, Milton was still aCromwellian, but a Cromwellian with the old Miltonic reserves, andthese strengthened of late rather than weakened, we shall be aboutright. To the public, however, in the present controversy between theProtectoratists and the pure Republicans, he was distinctly aProtectoratist, a Cromwellian, one of the Court-party, an official ofRichard and his Council. Since Cromwell's death, we have now to add, Milton had beenre-mustering his reserves. Under a new Protector, and from the newParliament of that new Protector, might he not have a hearing onpoints on which he had for some time been silent? On this chance, hehad interrupted even his _Paradise Lost_, in order to prepare anaddress to the new Parliament. As might be expected, it was on thesubject of the relations of Church and State. Meditating on thissubject, and how it might be best treated practically at such a time, Milton, had concluded that it might be broken into two parts. "Twothings there be which have been ever found working much mischief tothe Church of God and the advancement of Faith, --Force on the oneside restraining, and Hire on the other side corrupting, the Teachersthereof. " He would, therefore, write one tract on the effects ofCompulsion or State-restraint in matters of Religion and Speculation, and another on the effects of Hire or State-endowments in the same. The two would be interconnected, and would in fact melt into eachother; but they might appear separately, and it might be well tobegin with the first, as the least irritating. Accordingly, beforethe meeting of the Parliament he had prepared, and after it had metthere was published, in the form of a very tiny octavo, a tract withthis title-page: "_A Treatise of Civil Power in EcclesiasticalCauses: Shewing that it is not lawfull for any power on Earth tocompell in matters of Religion. The author J. M. London, Printed byTho. Newcomb, Anno_ 1659. " The tract consists of an address "Tothe Parlament of the Commonwealth of England with the Dominionsthereof, " occupying ten of the small pages, and signed "John Milton"in full, and then of eighty-three pages of text. [1] [Footnote 1: The little book was duly registered at Stationers' Hall, under date Feb. 16, 1658-9, thus: "Mr. Tho. Newcomb entered for hiscopy (under the hand of Mr. Pulleyn, warden) a book called ATreatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes by John Milton. "] After intimating that this was but the first of two tracts and thatthe other would follow, and also that his argument is to be whollyand exclusively from Scripture, Milton propounds the argument itselfunder four successive heads or propositions. --The first is that, there being, by the fundamental principle of Protestantism, "no otherdivine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one anotheras a common ground, but the Holy Scripture, and no other within usbut the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting thatScripture as warrantable only to ourselves and to such whoseconsciences we can so persuade, " it follows that "no man or body ofmen in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners inmatters of religion to any other men's consciences but their own. "Having reasoned this at some length by quotations of Scripture textsand explanations of the same, he proceeds to "yet another reason whyit is unlawful for the civil magistrate to use force in matters ofReligion: which is, because to judge in those things, though weshould grant him able, which is proved he is not, yet as a civilmagistrate he hath no right. " Under this second head, and also bymeans of Scripture quotations, there is an exposition of Milton'sfavourite idea of the purely spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom andof the instrumentalities it permits. The third proposition advancesthe argument by maintaining that not only is the civil magistrateunable, from the nature of the case, to determine in matters ofReligion, and not only has he no right to try, but he also doespositive wrong by trying. In arguing this, still Scripturally, Miltondilates on the meaning of the "Christian liberty" of the truebeliever, with the heights and depths which it implies in the renewedspirit, the superiority to "the bondage of ceremonies" and "the weakand beggarly rudiments. " The fourth and last reason pleaded, stillfrom Scripture, against the compulsion of the magistrate in Religion, is that he must fail signally in the very ends he proposes tohimself; "and those hardly can be other than first the glory of God, next either the spiritual good of them whom he forces or the temporalpunishment of their scandal to others. " Far from attaining either ofthese ends, he can but dishonour God and promote profanity andhypocrisy. --"On these four Scriptural reasons as on a firm square. "says Milton at the close, "this truth, the right of Christian andEvangelic Liberty, will stand immoveable against all those pretendedconsequences of license and confusion which, for the most part, menmost licentious and confused themselves, or such as whose severitywould be wiser than divine wisdom, are ever aptest to object againstthe ways of God. " Such is the plan of the little treatise, the literary texture ofwhich is plain and homely, rather than rich, learned, or rhetorical. "Pomp and ostentation of reading, " he expressly says, "is admiredamong the vulgar; but doubtless in matters of Religion he islearnedest who is plainest. " It was, we may remember, his firstconsiderable English dictation for the press since his blindness, andwhat one chiefly notices in the style is the strong grasp he stillretains of his old characteristic syntax. [1] The following are a fewof the more interesting individual passages or expressions:-- [Footnote 1: I have noted in the Tract one occurrence at least of thevery un-Miltonic word _its_, as follows:--"As the Samaritansbelieved Christ, first for the woman's word, but next and muchrather for his own, so we the Scripture first on the Church's word, but afterwards and much more for its own as the word of God. "] _Blasphemy. _--"But some are ready to cry out 'What shall then be done to Blasphemy?' Them I would first exhort not thus to terrify and pose the people with a Greek word, but to teach them better what it is: being a most usual and common word in that language to signify any slander, any malicious or evil speaking, whether against God or man or anything to good belonging. " _Heresy and Heretic_:--"Another Greek apparition stands in our way, 'Heresy and Heretic': in like manner also railed at to the people, as in a tongue unknown. They should first interpret to them that Heresy, by what it signifies in that language, is no word of evil note; meaning only the choice or following of any opinion, good or bad, in religion or any other learning. " _A Wrested Text of Scripture_:--"It hath now twice befallen me to assert, through God's assistance, this most wrested and vexed place of Scripture [_Romans_ XIII, 'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, ' &c. ]: heretofore against Salmasius and regal tyranny over the State; now against Erastus and State-tyranny over the Church. " _Are Popery and Idolatry to be Tolerated?_--"But, as for Popery and Idolatry, why they also may not hence plead to be tolerated, I have much less to say. Their Religion, the more considered, the less can be acknowledged a Religion, but a Roman Principality rather, endeavouring to keep up her old universal dominion under a new name and mere shadow of a Catholic Religion; being indeed more rightly named a Catholic Heresy against the Scripture; supported mainly by a civil, and, except in Rome, by a foreign, power: justly therefore to be suspected, not tolerated, by the magistrate of another country. Besides, of an implicit faith, which they profess, the conscience also becomes implicit, and so, by voluntary servitude to man's law, forfeits her Christian liberty. Who, then, can plead for such a conscience as, being implicitly enthralled to man instead of God, almost becomes no conscience, as the will not free becomes no will? Nevertheless, if they ought not to be tolerated, it is for just reason of State more than of Religion; which they who force, though professing to be Protestants, deserve as little to be tolerated themselves, being no less guilty of Popery in the most Popish point. Lastly, for Idolatry, who knows it not to be evidently against all Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, and therefore a true heresy, or rather an impiety; wherein a right conscience can have naught to do, and the works thereof so manifest that a magistrate can hardly err in prohibiting and quite removing at least the public and scandalous use thereof. " _Christ's unique act of Compulsion_:--"We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once; and that was to drive profane ones out of his Temple, not to force them in. " _Concluding Recommendation to Statesmen and Ministers_:--"As to those magistrates who think it their work to settle Religion, and those ministers or others who so oft call upon them to do so, I trust that, having well considered what hath been here argued, neither _they_ will continue in that intention, nor _these_ in that expectation from them, when they shall find that the settlement of Religion belongs only to each particular church by persuasive and spiritual means within itself, and that the defence only of the Church belongs to the magistrate. Had he once learnt not further to concern himself with Church affairs, half his labour might be spared and the Commonwealth better tended. " * * * * * In this last extract there is a distinct outbreak of the intentionwhich is rather covert through the rest of the tract. To a hastyreader the tract might seem only a plea for the amplest toleration, of religious dissent, a plea for full liberty, outside of theEstablished Church, not merely to Baptists, but also to Quakers, Anti-Trinitarians, and all other sects professing in any way to beChristians and believers in the Bible, Papists alone excepted, andthey but partially and reluctantly. There would be no censure onCromwell's policy, if that were all. But an acute reader of the tractwould have detected that more was intended in it than a plea forToleration, that the very existence of any Established Churchwhatever was condemned. In the passage last quoted it is clearly seenthat this is the ultimate scope. It is a reflection on Cromwell, almost by name, for not having freed himself from the notion that thesettlement of Religion is an affair of the Civil Magistrate, but onthe contrary having made such a supposed settlement of Religion oneof the passions of his Protectorate. It is a reflection on him, andon Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and all his ecclesiastical advisers andassessors, Independent or Presbyterian, for having busied themselvesin maintaining and re-shaping any State-Church, on however broad abasis, and so having perpetuated the old distinction betweenEstablishment and Dissent, Orthodoxy and Heresy, instead ofabolishing that distinction utterly, and leaving all varieties ofChristianity, equally unstamped and unfavoured, to organizethemselves as they best could on the principle of voluntaryassociation. For the future, statesmen and ministers are invited tocease from persevering in this delusion of the great and goodCromwell. The tract was addressed, as we have said, to the Parliament ofCromwell's son. The preface, signed with Milton's name in full, is arecommendation of the doctrine to that body in particular. "I haveprepared, Supreme Council, against the much expected time of yoursitting, " Milton there says, "this treatise; which, though to allChristian Magistrates equally belonging, and therefore to have beenwritten in the common language of Christendom, natural duty andaffection hath confined and dedicated first to my own nation, and ina season wherein the timely reading thereof, to the easieraccomplishment of your great work, may save you much labour andinterruption. " Then, after having stated the main doctrine, hecontinues:--"One advantage I make no doubt of, that I shall write tomany eminent persons of your number already perfect and resolved inthis important article of Christianity: some of whom I remember tohave heard often, for several years, at a Council next in authorityto your own, so well joining religion with civil prudence, and yet sowell distinguishing the different power of either, and this not onlyvoting but frequently reasoning why it should be so, that, if anythere present had been before of an opinion contrary, he mightdoubtless have departed thence a convert in that point, and haveconfessed that then both Commonwealth and Religion will at length, ifever, flourish, in Christendom, when either they who govern discernbetween Civil and Religious, or they only who so discern shall beadmitted to govern. " In other words, Milton's hopes of a favourablehearing for his doctrine in Richard's Parliament were founded (1) onthe general ground that many members of the Parliament were oldCommonwealth's men, of the kind that would have carried the abolitionof Tithes and of a State-Church in the Barebones Parliament of 1653, had not Rous broken up that Parliament and resurrendered the powerto Cromwell, and (2) on the special fact that some of them were menwhom Milton had himself heard with admiration, in the Councils ofState of the Commonwealth, when he first sat there as ForeignSecretary in attendance, avowing and expounding the principle ofVoluntaryism in Religion, in its fullest possible extent. Among theselast Milton must have had in view chiefly such members of the CommonsHouse in Richard's Parliament as Vane, Bradshaw, Harrison, Neville, Ludlow, and Scott, all of whom had been members of one, or several, or all, of the Councils of State of the old Commonwealth; but he mayhave had in view also such members of the present Upper House asFleetwood, St. John, and Viscount Lisle. Above all, Vane must havebeen in his mind, --Vane, on whom half of his eulogy in 1652 hadbeen. "To know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, _thou_, hast learned; which few have done. The bounds of either sword to _thee_ we owe. " Might not Vane and his fellows move in the present Parliament for areconsideration of that part of the policy of the Protectorate whichconcerned Religion? Might they not induce the Parliament to revert, in the matters of Tithes, a State Ministry, and Endowments ofReligion, to the temper and determinations of the much-abused, butreally wise and deep-minded, Barebones Parliament? Nothing less thanthis is the ultimate purport of Milton's appeal; and little wonderthat he prefixed an intimation that he wrote now only as a privateman, and without any official authority whatever. "Of Civil Liberty, "he says in the conclusion of his preface, "I have written heretoforeby the appointment, and not without the approbation, of Civil Power:of Christian Liberty I write now, --which others long since havingdone with all freedom under Heathen Emperors, I should do wrong tosuspect that now I shall with less under Christian Governors, andsuch especially as profess openly their defence of Christian liberty, although I write this not otherwise appointed and induced than by aninward persuasion of the Christian duty which I may usefullydischarge herein to the common Lord and Master of us all. " The wordsimply just a shade of doubt whether he, a salaried servant of theGovernment, might not be called to account for having been so bold. Altogether, Milton's _Treatise of Civil Power in EcclesiasticalCauses_ can be construed no otherwise than as an effort on hispart, Protectoratist and Court-official though he was, to renew hisrelations with the old Republican party in the Parliament in thespecial interest of his extreme views on the religious question. Merely as a pleading against Religious Persecution, the treatisemight have had some effect on the Parliament generally, where it wasin fact much needed, in consequence of the presence of so much of thePresbyterian element, and the likelihood therefore of increasedstringency against Quakers, Socinians, and other Non-Conformists. Thetreatise would have found many in the Parliament, besides theRepublicans, quite willing to listen to its advices so far. But onlyor chiefly among the old Republicans can there have been any hope ofan acceptance of its extreme definition of Christian Liberty, asinvolving Disestablishment and entire separation of Church andState. The Treatise, so far as we can see, produced no effect whatever. Sofar as the Religious Question did appear in the Parliament, it wasevident that the preservation of Cromwell's Church-Establishment, itsperpetuation as an integral part of Richard's Protectorate, was aforegone conclusion in the minds of the vast majority. AnyDisestablishment proposal, emanating from the Republican party, orfrom any individual member like Vane, would have been tramped out bythe united strength of the Presbyterians, the Cromwellians of theCourt, and the Wallingford-House Cromwellians. The danger even wasthat there might be a retrogression in the matter of mere Toleration, and that the presence and pressure of so many Presbyterians among thesupporters of Richard might compel Richard's Government, against hisown will and that of his Cromwellian Councillors, to a severerChurch-discipline than had characterized the late Protectorate. But, indeed, it was not on the Religious Question in any form that theRepublicans found time or need to try their strength. Their battlesin the Parliament were on the two main constitutionalquestions:--first, the question of the Protectorate itself orSingle-Person Government; and, next, the question of the Other Houseor House of Lords. On the first they were definitively beaten inFebruary; and on the second they were beaten, no less definitively, and with more distressing incidents of defeat, before the end ofMarch (ante pp. 432-435). Then, feeling themselves powerless as anindependent party, they changed their tactics. No sooner had theProtectoratists or Cromwellians triumphed collectively underThurloe's leadership than there had begun among them that fatalstraggle between the two divisions of their body of which the beatenRepublicans could not fail to take advantage. The _Court party_of the Cromwellians, still led by Thurloe in the Commons, desired topreserve the Protectorate unbroken and with full powers, reducing theArmy, as in an orderly and well-constituted State, to its properplace and dimensions as the instrument of the civil authority; the_Army Party_, or _Wallingford-House Party_, represented byFleetwood and Desborough in chief, wanted to leave Richard only thecivil Protectorship, and to set up a co-ordinate military power. Thedifferences between the two parties had been smouldering sinceRichard's accession, and had been too visible since the first meetingof the Parliament; but it was in April 1659, after their jointvictory over the Republicans, that they turned against each other indeadly strife, the Republicans looking on. Through that month theominous spectacle was that of two rival Parliaments inWestminster--Richard's regular Parliament, and the irregularWallingford-House Parliament of Army officers--watching each otherand interchanging threats and denunciations. It was on the 18th ofthe month that the regular Parliament passed their two courageousresolutions asserting their supreme authority. They were that theWallingford Council of officers should be immediately dissolved andno more such meetings of officers permitted, and that all officers ofthe Army and Navy should take an engagement not to interrupt theestablished power (ante pp. 440-441). Then it was evident there wouldbe a crash, but in what form was still unknown. Precisely at this crisis in Richard's Protectorship comes the lastbatch of Milton's official letters for him. The letters are four innumber:[1]-- [Footnote 1: These Letters do not appear in the ordinary PrintedCollection, or in Phillips; but they are in the Skinner Transcript, and have been printed thence by Mr. Hamilton in his _MiltonPapers_, pp. 12-14. ] (CXLIV. And CXLV. ) To FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, _April_ 19, 1659:--Two Letters to this Prince on the same day. (1) Sir John Dethicke, James Gold, John Limbery, and other London merchants, are owners of a ship called _The Happy Entrance_, which they sent out with merchandise for trade in the Mediterranean, under the command of a John Marvin. They can get no account from him, and have reason to fear he means to play the rogue with the ship and cargo and never return. It is believed that within two months he may put in at Leghorn; and the Protector requests the Grand Duke to give the merchants, in that case, facilities for the recovery of their property. (2) A James Modiford, merchant, complains to the Protector that certain goods of his, taken to Leghorn about 1652 by another English trader, Humphrey Sidney, were there seized by some Italian creditors of Sidney. Modiford has been unable to obtain redress; and the Grand Duke is now prayed to see his goods restored and any claims Sidney may have upon him referred to the English Courts. (CXLVI. ) To ALFONSO V. , KING OF PORTUGAL, _April_ 1659:[1]--A Francis Hurdidge of London complains that a ship of his, called _The Mary and John_, cargo valued at 70, 000 crowns, employed in the Brazil trade in 1649 and 1650, was seized by the Portuguese. The ship was afterwards taken from the Portuguese by the Dutch. The Treaty between the English Commonwealth and Portugal provides for such cases; and his Portuguese Majesty is requested to make compensation to Hurdidge to the extent of 25, 000 crowns. The man is in great straits. [Footnote 1: "_Joanni Portugallioe Regi_" is the heading in Mr. Hamilton's copy from the Skinner Transcript; but this is a mistake(see ante p. 576, note). ] (CXLVII. ) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _April_ 1659:--David Fithy, merchant, informs the Protector that, about a month ago, he contracted to supply to the Navy 150 sacks of hemp. He has the hemp now at Riga, and a ship ready to bring it thence for the use of the fleet--"part of which, " the Protector skilfully adds, "has just sailed for the Baltic for your protection" (i. E. Montague's fleet, despatched this very month: see ante p. 435). It appears, however, that his Swedish Majesty has forbidden the exportation of hemp from his port of Riga without special permission. His Majesty is requested to give Fithy this permission, that he may be able to fulfil his contract. The Protector will consider himself much obliged by the kindness. No more letters was poor Richard to write to crowned heads. On thevery day on which the two first of the foregoing were written, heappeared in Wallingford House, and ordered the dissolution of theCouncil of Officers according to the edict of the Parliament. Nextday it was known through all London that the question was between adissolution of this Council of officers and a dissolution of theParliament itself. The day after, Thursday, April 21, there was thefamous double rendezvous of the two masses of soldiery roundWhitehall to try the question, the rendezvous for Richard and theParliament utterly failing, while that for Fleetwood, Desborough, andthe other rebel chiefs, flooded the streets and St. James's Park. That night, quailing before the rough threats of Desborough, Richardand his Council yielded; and on Friday, the 22nd, the indignantParliament knew itself to be dissolved, and Richard's Protectoratevirtually at an end. Nominally, it dragged on for a month more. On Thursday, April 21, the day of the dreadful double rendezvous, andof Desborough's stormy interview with Richard in Whitehall to compelthe dissolution of the Parliament, Milton, in his house in PettyFrance, on the very edge of the uproar, was quietly dictating aprivate letter. It is that numbered 28 among his _EpistoloeFamiliares_, and headed "_Joanni Badioeo, PastoriArausionensi_, " i. E. "To John Badiaeus, Pastor of Orange. " Withsome trouble, I have identified this "Badiaeus" with a certain FrenchJEAN LABADIE, who is characterized by Bayle as a "schismaticminister, followed like an apostle, " and by another authority as "oneof the most dangerous fanatics of the seventeenth century. " The factsof his life, to the moment of our present concern with him, are givenin the accepted French authorities thus:--Born in 1610 atBourg-en-Guyenne, the son of a soldier who had risen to belieutenant, he had received a Jesuit education at Bordeaux, hadentered the Jesuit order at an early age, and had become a priest. For fifteen years he had remained in the order, preaching, and alsoteaching rhetoric and philosophy, reputed "a prodigy of talent andpiety, " but also a mystic and enthusiast, with fancies that he mustfound a new religious sect. While preaching orthodox Catholicism inpublic, he had been indoctrinating disciples in private with hispeculiarities; and, when they were numerous enough, he wanted toleave the Jesuits. By reasonings and kindness, they managed to retainhim for a while; but he grew more odd and visionary, fasting often, eating only herbs, and having divine revelations. After a dangerousillness, which brought him to death's door, he did obtain hisdismissal from the Jesuit order in April 1639, and went over Francepropagandizing. The Bishop of Amiens, caught by his eloquence, madehim prebendary of a collegiate church in that town; in connexion withwhich, and with the Bishop's approval, he founded a religiousassociation of young women, called St. Mary Magdalene. All seemed togo well for a time; but at length there was a scandal about him and agirl in Abbeville, with a burst of similar scandals about his abuseof the confessional for vicious purposes. To avoid arrest, heabsconded to Paris in August 1644, and thence to Bazas, where helived under a feigned name. But the Bishop of Bazas took him up; hecleared himself to the Bishop and others, and defied hiscalumniators. Only for a time; for again there were scandals, and hewas expelled the diocese. Going then to Toulouse, he gained theconfidence of the Archbishop there, who gave him charge of a conventof nuns. In this post he developed more systematically his notions ofthe religious life, described as a compound of Quietism andAntinomianism, after the fashion of sects already known in France andGermany, but with sexual extravangances which, when divulged, raisedan indignant storm. In November 1649, he had to abscond fromToulouse; and, after various wanderings, in which he called himself"Jean de Jesus Christ" and obtained popularity as a prophet, he cameto Montauban, and there publicly abjured Roman Catholicism in October1650. Elected minister of the Protestant church of that town in 1652, he lived there for some years in great esteem among the Protestants, but in deadly feud with the Roman Catholics. The schism was such thatat last the magistrates had to banish him from the town as adisturber of the peace. Then he had found refuge in Orange; and hewas in some kind of temporary Protestant pastorship in that town ofsouth-east France when there was this communication between him andMilton. [1] [Footnote 1: Article LABADIE in _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_(1859), with additional information from Article on him in the_Biographie Universelle_ (edit. 1819), and from _La Vie duSieur Jean Labadie_ by Bolsec (Lyon, 1664), and some passages inBayle's Dictionary (e. G. In Article _Mamillaires_). It is fromthe additional authorities that I learn the fact of the removal ofLabadie from Montauban to Orange; the Article in the _N. Biog. Gen. _ omits it. --I have seen two publications of Labadie atMontauban--one of 1650, entitled _Declaration de Jean de L'Abadie, cydevant prestre_, giving his reasons for quitting the Church ofRome; the other of 1651, entitled _Lettre de J. De L'Abadie ą sesamis de la Communion Romaine touchant sa Declaration_. ] TO JEAN LABADIE, MINISTER OF ORANGE. "If I answer you rather late, distinguished and reverend Sir, our common friend Durie, I believe, will not refuse to let me transfer the blame of the late answer from myself to him. For, now that he has communicated to me that paper which you wished read to me, on the subject of your doings and sufferings in behalf of the Gospel, I have not deferred preparing this letter for you, to be given to the first carrier, being really anxious as to the interpretation you may put upon my long silence. I owe very great thanks meanwhile to your Du Moulin of Nismes [not far from Orange], who, by his speeches and most friendly talk concerning me, has procured me the goodwill of so many good men in those parts. And truly, though I am not ignorant that, whether from the fact that I did not, when publicly commissioned, decline the contest with an adversary of such name [Salmasius], or on account of the celebrity of the subject, or, finally, on account of my style of writing, I have become sufficiently known far and wide, yet my feeling is that I have real fame only in proportion to the good esteem I have among good men. That you also are of this way of thinking I see plainly--you who, kindled by the regard and love of Christian Truth, have borne so many labours, sustained the attacks of so many enemies, and who bravely do such actions every day as prove that, so far from seeking any fame from the bad, you do not fear rousing against you their most certain hatred and maledictions. O happy man thou! whom God, from among so many thousands, otherwise knowing and learned, has snatched singly from the very gates and jaws of Hell, and called to such an illustrious and intrepid profession of his Gospel! And at this moment I have cause for thinking that it has happened by the singular providence of God that I did not reply to you sooner. For, when I understood from your letter that, assailed and besieged as you are on all hands by bitter enemies, you were looking round, and no wonder, to see where you might, in the last extremity, should it come to that, find a suitable refuge, and that England was most to your mind, I rejoiced on more accounts than one that you had come to this conclusion, --one reason being the hope of having you here, and another the delight that you should have so high an opinion of my country; but the joy was counterbalanced by the regret that I did not then see any prospect of a becoming provision for you among us here, especially as you do not know English. Now, however, it has happened most opportunely that a certain French minister here, of great age, died a few days ago. The persons of most influence in the congregation, understanding that you are by no means safe where you are at present, are very desirous (I report this not from vague rumour, but on information from themselves) to have you chosen to the place of that minister: in fact, they invite you; they have resolved to pay the expenses of your journey; they promise that you shall have an income equal to the best of any French minister here, and that nothing shall be wanting that can contribute to your pleasant discharge of the pastoral duty among them. Wherefore, take my advice, Reverend Sir, and fly hither as soon as possible, to people who are anxious to have you, and where you will reap a harvest, not perhaps so rich in the goods of this world, but, as men like you most desire, numerous, I hope, in souls; and be assured that you will be most welcome here to all good men, and the sooner the better. Farewell. "Westminster: April 21, 1659. " It is clear from this letter that Milton had never heard of thescandals against M. Labadie's moral character, or, if he had, utterlydisbelieved them, and regarded him simply as a convert from RomanCatholicism whose passionate and aggressive Protestant fervour hadbrought intolerable and unjust persecution upon him in France. Duriewas his informant; and, for all we can now know, Milton's judgmentabout Labadie may have been the right one, and the traditional Frenchaccount of him to this day may be wrong. It is certainly strange, however, to find Milton befriending with so much readiness and zealthis French Protestant minister, against whom there were exactly suchscandals abroad as those which he had himself believed and blazonedabout Morus, for the murder of Morus's reputation over Europe, andhis ruin in the French Protestant Church in particular. Nor does thereported sequel of Labadie's life, in the ordinary accounts of him, lessen the wonder. --Labadie did not come to London, as Milton hadhoped. When he received Milton's letter, he was on the wing forGeneva, where he arrived in June 1659, and where he continued hispreaching. Here, in the very city where Morus had once been, therestill were commotions round him; and, after new wanderings inGermany, we find him at Middleburg in Holland in 1666, thus again bychance in a town where Morus had been before him. At Middleburg heseems to have attained his widest celebrity, gathering a body ofadmirers and important adherents, the chief of whom was "MademoiselleSchurmann, so versed in the learned languages. " At length a quarrelwith M. De Wolzogue, minister of the Walloon church at Utrecht, brought Labadie into difficulties with the Walloon Synod and with theState authorities, and he migrated to Erfurt, and thence to Altona, where he died in 1674, "in the arms of Mademoiselle Schurmann, " whohad followed him to the last. He left a sect called _TheLabadists_, who were strong for a time, and are perhaps not yetextinct. Among the beliefs they inherited from him are said to havebeen these:--(1) That God may and does deceive man; (2) ThatScripture is not necessary to salvation, the immediate action of theSpirit on souls being sufficient; (3) That there ought to be noBaptism of Infants; (4) That truly spiritual believers are not boundby law and ceremonies; (5) That Sabbath-observance is unnecessary, all days being alike; (6) That the ordinary Christian Church isdegenerate and decrepit. One sees here something like a FrenchQuakerism, but with ingredients from older Anabaptism. Had Milton'sletter had the intended effect, the sect might have had its home inLondon. [1] [Footnote 1: _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_, as before. --It isto be remembered that Milton himself authorized the publication ofhis letter to Badiaeus with his other Latin Familiar Epistles in1674 (see Vol. I. P. 239). By that time he must have known the wholesubsequent career of Labadie and all the reports about him; and hecannot even then have thought ill of him or of Mad'lle Schurmann. To the end, he liked all bold schismatics and sectaries, if theytook a forward direction. ] Virtually at an end on the 22nd of April by the enforced dissolutionof the Parliament, Richard's Protectorate was more visibly at an endon the 7th of May, when the Wallingford-House chiefs agreed with theRepublicans in restoring the Rump. Eight days after that event Miltonwas called on to write two letters for the new Republicanauthorities. They were as follows:-- (CXLVIII. ) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _May_ 15, 1659:--"Most serene and most potent King, and very dear Friend: As it has pleased God, the best and all-powerful, with whom alone are all changes of Kingdoms and Commonwealths, to restore Us to our pristine authority and the supreme administration of English affairs, we have thought it good in the first place to inform your Majesty of the fact, and moreover to signify to you both our high regard for your Majesty, as a most potent Protestant prince, and also our desire to promote to the utmost of our power such a peace between you and the King of Denmark, himself likewise a very potent Protestant prince, as may not be brought about without our exertions and most willing good offices. Our pleasure therefore is that our internuncio extraordinary, Philip Meadows, be continued in our name in exactly the same employment which he has hitherto discharged with your Majesty for this Commonwealth; and to that end we, by these presents, give him the same power of making proposals and of treating and dealing with your Majesty which he had by his last commendatory letters. Whatever shall be transacted and concluded by him in our name, the same we pledge our promise, with God's good help, to confirm and ratify. May God long preserve your Majesty as a pillar and defence of the Protestant cause. --WILLIAM LENTHALL, _Speaker of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England_. " (CXLIX) To FREDERICK III. , KING OF DENMARK, _May_ 15, 1659:--The counterpart of the foregoing. His Danish Majesty, addressed as "most serene King and very dear Friend" is informed by Lenthall of the change in English affairs, and of the sympathy the present English Government feels with him in his adversity. They will do their utmost to secure a peace between him and the King of Sweden; and Philip Meadows, their Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Sweden, has full powers to treat with his Danish Majesty too for that end. "God grant to your Majesty, as soon as possible, a happy and joyful outcome from all those difficulties of your affairs in which you behave so bravely and magnanimously!" On the 25th of May Richard sent in his reluctant abdication, leavingthe Rump, which had already assumed the supreme authority, toexercise that authority without further challenge or opposition onhis part. Most of the public officials remained in their posts, andMilton remained In his. After five years and five months ofSecretaryship under a Single-Person Government, he found himselfagain Secretary under exactly such a Republican Government as he hadserved originally, consisting now of the small Parliament of theRestored Rumpers and of a Council of State appointed by thatParliament. In this Council of State were Bradshaw, Vane, Sir JamesHarrington, St. John, Hasilrig, Scott, Walton, and Whitlocke, who hadbeen members of all the first five Councils of the Commonwealth, fromthat which had invited Milton to the Secretaryship in 1649 to thatwhich Cromwell forcibly dissolved in 1653, besides Fairfax, Fleetwood, Ludlow, John Jones, Wallop, Challoner, Neville, Dixwell, Downes, Morley, Thompson, and Algernon Sidney, whom Milton had knownas members of one or more of those five Councils, and Lambert andDesborough, who had not been in any of them, but were among his lateracquaintances. CHAPTER II. Second Section. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE ANARCHY: MAY 1659--FEB. 1659-60. _FIRST STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE RESTORED RUMP_ (MAY--OCT. 1659):--FEELINGS AND POSITION OF MILTON IN THE NEW STATE OF THINGS:HIS SATISFACTION ON THE WHOLE, AND THE REASONS FOR IT: LETTER OFMOSES WALL TO MILTON: RENEWED AGITATION AGAINST TITHES ANDCHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: VOTES ON THAT SUBJECT IN THE RUMP: MILTON'SCONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE LIKELIEST MEANS TO REMOVE HIRELINGS OUTOF THE CHURCH: ACCOUNT OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH EXTRACTS: ITSTHOROUGH-GOING VOLUNTARYISM: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT DEMANDEDABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT COMPENSATION FOR VESTED INTERESTS: THE APPEALFRUITLESS, AND THE SUBJECT IGNORED BY THE RUMP: DISPERSION OF THATBODY BY LAMBERT. _SECOND STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSEINTERRUPTION_ (OCT. --DEC. 1659):--MILTON'S THOUGHTS ON LAMBERT'SCOUP D'ÉTAT IN HIS _LETTER TO A FRIEND CONCERNING THE RUPTURES OFTHE COMMONWEALTH_: THE LETTER IN THE MAIN AGAINST LAMBERT AND INDEFENCE OF THE RUMP: ITS EXTRAORDINARY PRACTICAL PROPOSAL OF AGOVERNMENT BY TWO PERMANENT CENTRAL BODIES: THE PROPOSAL COMPAREDWITH THE ACTUAL ADMINISTRATION BY THE _COMMITTEE OF SAFETY_ ANDTHE _WALLINGFORD-HOUSE COUNCIL OF OFFICERS_: MILTON STILLNOMINALLY IN THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP: MONEY WARRANT OF OCT. 25, 1659, RELATING TO MILTON, MARVELL, AND EIGHTY-FOUR OTHER OFFICIALS:NO TRACE OF ACTUAL SERVICE BY MILTON FOR THE NEW _COMMITTEE OFSAFETY_: HIS MEDITATIONS THROUGH THE TREATY BETWEEN THEWALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT AND MONK IN SCOTLAND: HIS MEDITATIONSTHROUGH THE COMMITTEE-DISCUSSIONS AS TO THE FUTURE MODEL OFGOVERNMENT: HIS INTEREST IN THIS AS NOW THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION, ANDHIS COGNISANCE OF THE MODELS OF HARRINGTON AND THE ROTA CLUB:WHITLOCKE'S NEW CONSTITUTION DISAPPOINTING TO MILTON: TWO MORELETTERS TO OLDENBURG AND YOUNG RANELAGH: GOSSIP FROM ABROAD INCONNECTION WITH THESE LETTERS: MORUS AGAIN, AND THE COUNCIL OF FRENCHPROTESTANTS AT LOUDUN: END OF THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE INTERRUPTION. _THIRD STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE SECOND RESTORATION OF THERUMP_ (DEC. 1659-FEB. 1659-60):--MILTON'S DESPONDENCY AT THISPERIOD: ABATEMENT OF HIS FAITH IN THE RUMP: HIS THOUGHTS DURING THEMARCH OF MONK FROM SCOTLAND AND AFTER MONK'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON: HISSTUDY OF MONK NEAR AT HAND AND MISTRUST OF THE OMENS: HIS INTERESTFOR A WHILE IN THE QUESTION OF THE PRECONSTITUTION OF THE NEWPARLIAMENT PROMISED BY THE RUMP: HIS ANXIETY THAT IT SHOULD BE AREPUBLICAN PARLIAMENT BY MERE SELF-ENLARGEMENT OF THE RUMP: HISPREPARATION OF A NEW REPUBLICAN PAMPHLET: THE PUBLICATION POSTPONEDBY MONK'S SUDDEN DEFECTION FROM THE RUMP, THE ROASTING OF THE RUMP INTHE CITY, AND THE RESTORATION OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS TO THEIR PLACESIN THE PARLIAMENT: MILTON'S DESPONDENCY COMPLETE. With what feelings was it that Milton found himself once more in theemployment of his old masters, the original Republicans orCommonwealth's-men? That there may have been some sense ofawkwardness in the re-connexion is not unlikely. Had he not for sixyears been a most conspicuous Cromwellian? Had he not justified againand again in print Cromwell's _coup d'état_ of 1653, by whichthe Rump had been turned out of power, and which the now RestoredRumpers, and especially such of their leaders as Vane, Scott, Hasilrig, and Bradshaw, were bound to remember as Cromwell'sunpardonable sin, and the woeful beginning of an illegitimateinterregnum? He had justified it, hardly anonymously, in his Letterto a Gentleman in the Country, published in May 1653, only afortnight after the fact (Vol. IV. Pp. 519-523). He had justified ita year later in his _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654, published somemonths after the Protectorate had actually begun. In that famouspamphlet, he had, amid much else to the same effect, made specialreference to Cromwell's Dissolution of the Rump in these wordsaddressed to Cromwell himself: "When you saw delays being contrived, and every one more intent on his private interests than on the publicgood, and the people complaining of being cheated of their hopes andcircumvented by the power of a few, you did what they themselves hadso often declined to do when asked, and put an end to theirGovernment" (Vol. IV. P. 604). Rumpers of tenacious memories cannothave forgotten such published utterances of Milton, while the factthat he had for some years past been an Oliverian, a Protectoratist, a Court-official for Oliver and Richard, was patent to all. Yet, nowthat the old Rumpers were restored to power, the survivors of theoriginal "few" whose dissolution by Cromwell he had publicly praisedand defended, here was Milton still in his secretaryship and writingthe first foreign letters they required. How was this? It is hardly a sufficient answer to say that it isquite customary for officials to remain in their places throughchanges of Government. On the one hand, Milton was not a man toremain in an element with which he could not conscientiously accord;and, on the other, the Rumpers were rather careful in seeking publicservants of their own sort. Thurloe was out of the generalSecretaryship; and one of the first acts of the restored House was topunish Mr. Henry Scobell, Clerk of the Parliament, for havingentered, the fact of Cromwell's Dissolution of the House on April 20, 1653, in the Journals tinder that date. They ordered a Bill to bebrought in for repealing the Act by which Scobell held theClerkship. [1] The truth, then, is that Milton was not, on the whole, displeased by the return of his old friends to power. Though he hadjustified Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump and had become openly anOliverian at the beginning of the Protectorate, he had never ceasedto regard with admiration and affection such of the old Republicansas Vane, Bradshaw, and Overton. It had probably all along been aquestion with him whether the blame of their disablement under theProtectorate lay more with themselves or with Oliver. Then, as wehave abundantly seen, there is reason for believing that before theend of the Protectorate his own Oliverianism or Cromwellianism hadbecome weaker than at first. The Miltonic reserves, as we have calledthem, with which he had given his adhesion to the Protectorate evenat first, had taken stronger and stronger development in his mind;and, whatever he found to admire in Cromwell's Government all in all, the whole course of that Government in Church matters had been adisappointment. Milton wanted to see Church and State entirelyseparated; Cromwell had mixed them, intertwined them, more than ever. Milton wanted to see the utter abolition in England of anything thatcould be called a clergy; Cromwell had made it one of the chiefobjects of his rule to maintain a clergy and extend it massively. Whether this policy might not yet be reversed had been one ofMilton's first questions with himself after Cromwell's death; and his_Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes_, addressed toRichard's Parliament, had been a challenge to that Parliament not toshrink from the great attempt. In that treatise, it is not too muchto say, Milton had shaken hands again with the old Republican party. In the preface to it he had dwelt fondly on his former connexion withthem, on his recollection especially of the speeches he had heardfrom some of them in the old Councils of State of the Commonwealth, when he had first the honour to sit there as Latin Secretary, andlisten to their private debates. What clearness then, whatdecisiveness, in such men as Vane and Bradshaw, on that "importantarticle of Christianity, " the necessary distinctness of the Civilfrom the Religious! Ah! could those old days be back! He had writtenas if those days had not been satisfactory, as if the dispersion ofhis old masters of those days had been necessary; but, in so writing, had he not been too hasty? So he had been asking himself of late; andthough, as Richard's Latin Secretary, and writing under hisProtectorate, he had not said a word against the establishedProtectoral Government, he had expressed generally his convictionthat England would never be right till either those charged with theGovernment should be men "discerning between Civil and Religious" ornone but such should be charged with the Government. Now, however, inMay 1659, he might speak more plainly. Richard's Government had beenswept away;--Richard's Parliament, which he had addressed, was nomore in being; and, by a revolution which he had not expected, and inwhich he had taken no part, the pure Republic, with the relics of theParliament that had first created it, was again the establishedorder. All round about him the men he respected most were exulting inthe change, and calling it a revival of "the Good Old Cause. " Withoutpronouncing on the change in all its aspects, he could join in theexultation for a special reason. Would not the restored RepublicanParliament and their Councils of State see it to be part of theirduty to assert at last the principle of absolute ReligiousVoluntaryism? [Footnote 1: Commons Journals, May 19, 1659. ] This representation of Milton's position at the time of therestoration of the Rump is confirmed by a private letter thenaddressed to him. The writer was a certain Moses Wall, of Causham orCaversham in Oxfordshire, a scholar and Republican opinionist of whomthere are traces in Hartlib's correspondence and elsewhere. [1] Miltonhad recently written to him, sending him perhaps a copy of his_Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes_; and this isWall's reply--written, it will be observed, the very day afterRichard's abdication:-- [Footnote 1: Worthington's Diary and Correspondence, by Crossley, I. 355 and 365. ] "Sir, "I received yours the day after you wrote, and do humbly thank you that you are pleased to honour me with your letters. I confess I have (even in my privacy in the country) oft had thoughts about you, and that with much respect for your friendliness to truth in your early years and in bad times. But I was uncertain whether your relation to the Court (though I think that a Commonwealth was more friendly to you than a Court) had not clouded your former light; but your last book resolved that doubt. "You complain of the non-progressency of the nation, and of its retrograde motion of late, in liberty and spiritual truths. It is much to be bewailed; but, yet, let us pity human frailty. When those who had made deep protestations of their zeal for our liberty, both spiritual and civil, and made the fairest offers to be the asserters thereof, and whom we thereupon trusted, --when these, being instated in power, shall betray the good thing committed to them, and lead us back to Egypt, and by that force which we gave them to win us liberty hold us fast in chains, --what can poor people do? You know who they were that watched our Saviour's sepulchre to keep him from rising [soldiers! see Matthew XXVII. And XXVIII. ]. Besides, whilst people are not free, but straitened in accommodations for life, their spirits will be dejected and servile; and, conducing to that end [of rousing them], there should be an improving of our native commodities, as our manufactures, our fishery, our fens, forests, and commons, and our trade at sea, &c. : which would give the body of the nation a comfortable subsistence. And the breaking that cursed yoke of Tithes would much help thereto. Also another thing I cannot but mention; which is that the Norman Conquest and Tyranny is continued upon the nation without any thought of removing it: I mean the tenure of land by copyhold, and holding for life under a lord, or rather tyrant, of a manor; whereby people care not to improve their land by cost upon it, not knowing how soon themselves or theirs may be outed it, nor what the house is in which they live, for the same reason; and they are far more enslaved to the lord of the manor than the rest of the nation is to a king or supreme magistrate. "We have waited for liberty; but it must be God's work and not man's: who thinks it sweet to maintain his pride and worldly interest to the gratifying of the flesh, whatever becomes of the precious liberty of mankind. But let us not despond, but do our duty; God will carry on that blessed work, in despite of all opposites, and to their ruin if they persist therein. "Sir, my humble request is that you would proceed, and give us that other member of the distribution mentioned in your book: viz. That Hire doth greatly impede truth and liberty. It is like, if you do, you shall find opposers; but remember that saying, _'Beatius est pati quam frui, '_ or, in the Apostle's words, James V. 11. [Greek: Makarizomen tous hypomenontas] ['We count them happy that endure']. I have sometimes thought (concurring with your assertion) of that storied voice that should speak from heaven when Ecclesiastics were endowed with worldly preferments, _'Hodie venenum infunditur in Ecelesiam'_ ['This day is poison poured into the Church']; for, to use the speech of Gen. IV. _ult. _, according to the sense which it hath in the Hebrew, 'Then began men to corrupt the worship of God. ' I shall tell you a supposal of mine; which is this:--Mr. Durie has bestowed about thirty years' time in travel, conference, and writing, to reconcile Calvinists and Lutherans, and that with little or no success. But the shortest way were:--Take away ecclesiastical dignities, honours, and preferments on both sides, and all would soon be hushed; those ecclesiastics would be quiet, and then the people would come forth into truth and liberty. But I will not engage in this quarrel. Yet I shall lay this engagement upon myself, --to remain "Your faithful friend and servant, "M. Wall. [1] "Causham: May 26, 1659. " [Footnote 1: Copy in Ayscough: MS. In British Museum, No. 4292 (f. 121); where the copyist "J. Owen" (the Rev. J. Owen of Rochdale)certifies it as from the original. It was printed, not verycorrectly, by Richard Baron, in 1756, in his preface to his editionof the _Eikonoklastes. _] Here, from a man evidently after Milton's own heart on the Churchquestion, we have Milton's welcome back into the ranks of the oldRepublicans. And more and more through the five months of the firstRestoration of the Rump (May 7--Oct. 13) the friends of "the goodold cause" had reason to know that Milton was again one ofthemselves. It happens, indeed, that we have no more letters of hisfor the Restored Rump Government than the two of May 15, alreadyquoted, which he wrote for the restored House, and which were signedby Speaker Lenthall. Those two letters close the entire series of theknown and extant State-Letters of Milton. He and Marvell, however, were still in their Secretaryship, drawing their salaries as before;and of the completeness of Milton's re-adherence to the RepublicanGovernment there is evidence more massive and striking than couldhave been furnished by any number of farther official letters by himfor the Rump or its Council. Milton, had not judged wrongly in supposing that the question ofChurch-disestablishment would now be made part and parcel of "thegood old cause. " We have already glanced at the facts (p. 466), butthey may be given here more in detail:--Hardly had the Rump beenreconstituted when petitions for Disestablishment, in the form ofpetitions for the abolition of Tithes, began to pour in upon it. Onesuch, called "The Humble Representation and Petition of manywell-affected persons in the counties of Somerset, Wilts, and someparts of Devon, Dorset, and Hampshire, " was read in the House on the14th of June. The petitioners were thanked, and informed that theHouse resolved "to give encouragement to a godly, preaching, learnedministry throughout the nation, and for that end to continue thepayment of Tithes till they can find out some other more equal andcomfortable maintenance for the ministry, and satisfaction of thepeople; which they intend with all convenient speed. " That day, accordingly, in a division of thirty-eight Yeas (Carew Raleigh andSir William Brereton tellers) to thirty-eight Noes (Hasilrig andColonel White tellers) it was carried, by the Speaker's casting vote, to refer the question of some substitute for Tithes to a GrandCommittee. On the 27th of June, there having been other petitionsagainst Tithes in the meantime, signed by "many thousands, " the Housecame to a more definite resolution, which they ordered to be printedand published by the Judges in their circuits. It was "That thisParliament doth declare that, for the encouragement of a godly, preaching, learned ministry throughout the nation, the payment ofTithes shall continue as now they are, _unless_ this Parliamentshall find out some other, " &c. As the word _unless_ had been, substituted for the word _until_ without a division, it isevident that the House had gone back in their intentions in thecourse of the fortnight, and were less disposed to commit themselvesto any serious interference with the Church Establishment as left byCromwell. The disappointment to the petitioning thousands must havebeen great. Still, the question had been raised, and might beregarded as only adjourned. What was wanted was continued agitationout of doors, more petitioning and more pamphleteering. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. ] It was in this last way that Milton could help. As advised by hisfriend Moses Wall, he had been busy over that second Disestablishmenttract which he had promised; and in August 1659 it appeared in thisform: _"Considerations touching the likeliest means to removeHirelings out of the Church. Wherein is also discourc'd of Tithes, Church-fees, Church Revenues; and, whether any maintenance ofministers can be settl'd by law. The author J. M. London, Printed byT. N. For L. Chapman at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, _ 1659. " Thevolume is a very small octavo, and contains eighteen unnumbered pagesof prefatory address to the Parliament in large open type, signed"John Milton" in full, followed by 153 pages of text. [1] [Footnote 1: Copy in Thomason Collection, with date "Aug. " marked ontitle-page--month only, no day. ] The Address to the Parliament deserves particular notice. Thefollowing is the main portion of it, with two phrases Italicised:-- "Owing to your protection, Supreme Senate, this liberty of writing which I have used these eighteen years on all occasions to assert the just rights and freedoms both of Church and State, and so far approved as to have been trusted with the representment and defence of your actions to all Christendom against an adversary of no mean repute, to whom should I address what I still publish on the same argument but to you, whose magnanimous counsels first opened and unbound the age from a double bondage under Prelatical and Regal tyranny, above our own hopes heartening us to look up at last like Men and Christians from the slavish dejection wherein from father to son we were bred up and taught, and thereby deserving of these nations, if they be not barbarously ingrateful, to be acknowledged, next under God, _the authors and best patrons of Religious and Civil Liberty that ever these Islands brought forth?_ The care and tuition of whose peace and safety, _after a short but scandalous night of interruption, _ is now again, by a new dawning of God's miraculous Providence among us, revolved upon your shoulders. And to whom more appertain these Considerations which I propound than to yourselves, and the debate before you, though I trust of no difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to Religion and to this your return, or whether ye will satisfy (which you never can) the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable Hirelings, whose disaffection ye well know hath to yourselves and your resolutions? That I, though among many others in this common concernment, interpose to your deliberations what my thoughts also are, your own judgment and the success thereof hath given me the confidence: which requests but this--that, if I have prosperously, God so favouring me, defended the public cause of this Commonwealth to foreigners, ye would not think the reason and ability whereon ye trusted once (and repent not) your whole reputation to the world either grown less by more maturity and longer study or less available in English than in another tongue: but that, if it sufficed, some years past, to convince and satisfy the unengaged of other nations in the justice of your doings, though then held paradoxal, it may as well suffice now against weaker opposition in matters (except here in England, with a spirituality of men devoted to their temporal gain) of no controversy else among Protestants. " This is, unmistakeably, a public testimony of Milton's re-adhesion tothe Rumpers, with something like an expression of regret that he hadever parted from them. After all, he could call them "the authors andbest patrons of religious and civil liberty that ever these Islandsbrought forth"; and, with this renewed conviction, and rememberingalso their former confidence in himself, especially in the Salmasiancontroversy, he could now congratulate them and the country on theirreturn to power. But is not the Address also a recantation of hisOliverianism? To some extent, it must be so interpreted. It seemsutterly impossible, indeed, that the phrase "_a short butscandalous night of interruption_" was intended to apply to theentire six years of the Cromwellian Dictatorship and Protectorship. That had not been a "short" interruption, for it had exceeded inlength the whole duration of the Commonwealth it had interrupted; andit would be the most marvellous inconsistency on record if Miltoncould ever have brought himself to call it "scandalous. " Who hadwritten the panegyric on Cromwell and his actually establishedProtectorship in the _Defensio Secunda?_ Who had been Oliver'sLatin Secretary from first to last, and penned for him his despatcheson the Piedmontese massacre and all his greatest besides? Thelikelihood, therefore, is that "the short but scandalous night ofinterruption" in Milton's mind was the fortnight or so ofWallingford-House usurpation which broke up Richard's Parliament andProtectorate, and from the continuance of which, with all theinconveniences of a mere military despotism, the restoration of theRump had seemed a happy rescue. But, though this single phrase may bethus explained, the tone of the whole address intimates far less ofgratitude to Oliver dead than there had been of admiration for Oliverliving. And the reason at this point is most obvious. Was it notprecisely because Cromwell had failed to fulfil Milton's expectationof him, in his sonnet of May 1652, that he would deliver theCommonwealth from the plague of "hireling wolves, " calling themselvesa Clergy--was it not because Cromwell from first to last had pursueda contrary policy--that it remained for Milton now, seven years afterthe date of that sonnet, to have to offer, as a private thinker, andon mere printed paper, his own poor _Considerations touching thelikeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church?_ It was notin a pamphlet on that subject, wherever else, that Milton could sayhis best for the memory of Cromwell. After some preliminary observations connecting the present treatisewith its forerunner; Milton opens his subject thus:-- "Hire of itself is neither a thing unlawful, nor a word of any evil note, signifying no more than a due recompense or reward, as when our Saviour saith, 'The labourer is worthy of his hire. ' That which makes it so dangerous in the Church, and properly makes HIRELING a word always of evil signification, is either the excess thereof or the undue manner of giving and taking it. What harm the excess thereof brought to the Church perhaps was not found by experience till the days of Constantine; who, out of his zeal, thinking he could be never too liberally a nursing father of the Church, might be not unfitly said to have either overlaid it or choked it in the nursing. Which was foretold, as is recorded in Ecclesiastical traditions, by a voice heard from Heaven, on the very day that those great donations of Church-revenues were given, crying aloud, _'This day is poison poured into the Church'_ [Note the adoption of the anecdote from Mr. Wall's letter]. Which the event soon after verified, as appears by another no less ancient observation, that 'Religion brought forth wealth, and the Daughter devoured the Mother. ' But, long ere _wealth_ came into the Church, so soon as any _gain_ appeared in Religion, HIRELINGS were apparent, drawn in long before by the very scent thereof [References to Judas as the first hireling, to Simon Magus as the second, and to various texts in the Acts and Epistles proving that among the early preachers of Christianity there were men who preached 'for filthy lucre's sake, ' or made a mere trade of the Gospel] .... Thus we see that not only the excess of Hire in wealthiest times, but also the undue and vicious taking or giving it, though but small or mean, as in the primitive times, gave to hirelings occasion, though not intended yet sufficient, to creep at first into the Church. Which argues also the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, to remove them quite, unless every minister were, as St. Paul, contented to teach _gratis:_ but few such are to be found. As therefore we cannot justly take away all Hire in the Church, because we cannot otherwise quite remove Hirelings, so are we not, for the impossibility of removing them all, to use therefore no endeavour that fewest may come in, but rather, in regard the evil, do what we can, will always be incumbent and unavoidable, to use our utmost diligence how it may be least dangerous. Which will be likeliest effected if we consider, --first what recompense God hath ordained should be given to ministers of the Church (for that a recompense ought to be given them, and may by them justly be received, our Saviour himself, from the very light of reason and of equity, hath declared, Luke X. 7, '_The labourer is worthy of his hire'_); _next, _ by whom; and, _lastly, _ in what manner. " In this passage and in other passages throughout the Treatise it isclear that Milton's ideal was a Church in which no minister shouldtake pay at all for his preaching or ministry, whether pay from thestate or from his hearers, but every minister should, as St. Pauldid, preach, absolutely and systematically _gratis_, derivinghis livelihood and his leisure to preach from his private resources, or, if he had none such, then from the practice of some calling orhandicraft apart from his preaching. Deep down in Milton's mind, notwithstanding his professed deference to Christ's words, "_Thelabourer is worthy of his hire, _" we can see this conviction thatit would be better for the world if religious doctrine, or in factdoctrine of any kind, were never bought or sold, but all spiritualteachers were to abhor the very touch of money for their lessons, being either gentlemen of independent means who could propagate thetruth splendidly from high motives, or else tent-makers, carpenters, and bricklayers, passionate with the possession of some truth topropagate. This, however, having been acknowledged to be perhaps animpossibility on any great scale, he goes on to inquire, as proposed, what the legitimate and divinely-appointed hire of Gospel-ministersis, from whom it may come, and in what manner. The general result isas follows:--I. The Tithes of the old Jewish dispensation are utterlyabolished under the Gospel. Nearly half the treatise is an argumentto this effect, and consequently for the immediate abolition of thetithe-system in England. Here Milton lends his whole force to thepopular current on this subject among the friends of "the good oldcause, " advocating those petitions to the Rump of which he has spokenin his preface. But he goes farther than the abolition of tithes. Hewill not allow of any statutory substitute for tithes, any taxationof the people in any form for the support of Religion. The onlysubstitute for tithes which he discusses specifically is compulsorychurch-fees for ministerial offices, such as baptisms, marriages, andburials. These, as well as tithes, he utterly condemns; and he windsup this part of his inquiry thus: "Seeing, then, that God hath givento ministers under the Gospel that only which is justly given them(that is to say, a due and moderate livelihood, the hire of theirlabour), and that the heave-offering of Tithes is abolished with theAltar (yes, though not abolished, yet lawless as they enjoy them), their Melchizedekian right also trivial and groundless, and bothtithes and fees, if exacted or established, unjust and scandalous, wemay hope, with _them_ removed, to remove Hirelings in some goodmeasure. " II. It is maintained that the lawful maintenance of theministry can consist only in the voluntary offerings of those theyinstruct, whether tendered individually, or collected into a commontreasury for distribution. The flocks ought to maintain their ownpastors, and no others are bound to contribute for the purpose. Butwhat of poor neighbourhoods that cannot maintain pastors and yet needthem most sorely? Milton has unbounded confidence that these will beovertaken and provided for by the zeal of pious individuals, or by"the charity of richer congregations, " taking the form of itinerantmissions. "If it be objected that this itinerary preaching will notserve to plant the Gospel in those places unless they who are sentabide there some competent time, I answer that, if they stay therefor a year or two, which was the longest time usually staid by theApostles in one place, it may suffice to teach them who will attendand learn all the points of Religion necessary to salvation: then, sorting them into several congregations of a moderate number, out ofthe ablest and zealousest of them to create elders, who, exercisingand requiring from themselves what they have learnt (for no learningis retained without constant exercise and methodical repetition), mayteach and govern the rest: and, so exhorted to continue faithful andstedfast, they may securely be committed to the providence of God andthe guidance of his Holy Spirit till God may offer some opportunityto visit them again and to confirm them. " The only concession Miltonwill make is that, in cases of urgent necessity, application may bemade to magistrates or other trustees of charitable funds for aid inthese temporary and itinerant missions. For the rest, it will beseen, it is with difficulty that he allows the existence of apermanent pastorate anywhere. If there is to be a body of men in thecommunity making a business of preaching, and if in towns andpopulous neighbourhoods congregations choose to retain the services, for life or for an indefinite period, of particular ministerialpersons selected from this body, and to erect handsome buildingsconvenient for such services, well and good, or rather it cannot behelped; but the picture most to Milton's fancy is that of an Englandgenerally, or at all events of a rural England, without any fixed orregular parish pastors or parish-churches, but each little localcluster of believers meeting on Sundays or other days in chapel orbarn for mutual edification, or to be instructed by such simpleteaching elders as may easily, from time to time, be produced withinitself. Add the itinerant agency of more practiced and professionalpreachers, circulating periodically among the local clusters, torouse them or keep them alive; and nothing more would be needed. There would be plenty of preaching, and good preaching, everywhere;but, as most of it would be spontaneous by hard-handed men knownamong their neighbours, and working, like their neighbours, for theirordinary subsistence, the preaching profession, as a means of income, would be reduced to a minimum. In a Church so constituted there wouldstill be hirelings, especially in large towns and where there werewealthy congregations; but the number of such would be greatlyreduced. III. Under the third head of the "manner" of the recompenseto ministers, where there is any recompense at all, the substance ofMilton's remarks is that the purely voluntary character of therecompense must be studiously maintained. It must be purely an alms, an oblation of benevolence. Hence it should never take the form of alife-endowment, or even of a contract conferring a legal title todemand payment. The appearance of a minister of the Gospel in alaw-court to sue for money supposed to be due to him for hisministerial services, even by promise or agreement, is spoken of withdisgust. Were it the understood rule that there could be no recoveryby a minister even of his promised salary, would not that also tendin some degree to keep Hirelings out of the Church? The pamphlet, it will be seen, is more outspoken and thoroughgoingthan its forerunner. It contains also more of those individualpassages that represent Milton in his rough mood of sarcasticstrength, though none of such beauty or eloquence as are to be foundin his earlier pamphlets. The following are characteristic:-- _Mr. Prynne's Defences of Tithes_:--"To heap such unconvincing citations as these in Religion, whereof the Scripture only is our rule, argues not much learning nor judgment, but the lost labour of much unprofitable reading. And yet a late hot Querist for Tithes, whom ye may know, by his wits lying ever beside him in the margin, to be ever beside his wits in the text, --a fierce Reformer once, now rankled with a contrary heat, --would send us back, very reformedly indeed, to learn Reformation from Tyndarus and Rebuffas, two Canonical Promoters. "[1] [Footnote 1: The reference is to Prynne's _Ten ConsiderableQueries concerning Tithes, &c. , against the Petitioners and Petitionsfor their Total Abolition_: 1659. ] _Marriages and Clerical Concern in the same_:--"As for Marriages, that ministers should meddle with them, as not sanctioned or legitimate without their celebration, I find no ground in Scripture either of precept or example. Likeliest it is (which our Selden hath well observed _I. II. C. 28. Ux. Heb. _) that in imitation of heathen priests, who were wont at nuptials to use many rites and ceremonies, and especially judging it would be profitable and the increase of their authority not to be spectators only in business of such concernment to the life of man, they insinuated that marriage was not holy without their benediction, and for the better colour made it a Sacrament; being of itself a Civil Ordinance, a household contract, a thing indifferent and free to the whole race of mankind, not as religious, but as men. Best, indeed, undertaken to religious ends, as the Apostle saith (1 Cor. VII. '_In the Lord_'); yet not therefore invalid or unholy without a minister and his pretended necessary hallowing, more than any other act, enterprise, or contract, of civil life, --which ought all to be done also in the Lord and to his glory, --all which, no less than marriage, were by the cunning of priests heretofore, as material to their profit, transacted at the altar. Our Divines deny it to be a Sacrament; yet retained the celebration, till prudently a late Parliament recovered the civil liberty of marriage from their encroachment, and transferred the ratifying and registering thereof from their Canonical Shop to the proper cognisance of Civil Magistrates" [The Marriages Act of the Barebones Parliament; in accordance with which had been Milton's own second marriage: see ante p. 281, and Vol. IV. P. 511]. _Sitting under a Stated Minister:_--"If men be not all their lifetime under a teacher to learn Logic, Natural Philosophy, Ethics, or Mathematics, ... Certainly it is not necessary to the attainment of Christian knowledge that men should sit all their life long at the foot of a pulpited divine, while he, a lollard indeed over his elbow-cushion, in almost the seventh part of forty or fifty years, teaches them scarce half the principles of Religion, and his sheep ofttimes sit the while to as little purpose of benefiting as the sheep in their pews at Smithfield. " _Congregations for mutual Edification:_--"Notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of some devoted still ignorantly to temples, we may be well assured that He who disdained not to be laid in a manger disdains not to be preached in a barn, and that by such meetings as these, being indeed most apostolical and primitive, they will in a short time advance more in Christian knowledge and reformation of life than by the many years preaching of such an incumbent, --I may say such an incubus ofttimes, --as will be meanly hired to abide long in those places. " _A Reflection on Cromwell for his Established Church:_--"For the magistrate, in person of a nursing father, to make the Church his mere ward, as always in minority, -the Church to whom he ought as a Magistrate (Isaiah XLIS. 23) '_to bow down with his face toward the earth and lick up the dust of her feet, _'--her to subject to his political drifts and conceived opinions by mastering her revenue, and so by his examinant Committees to circumscribe her free election of ministers, --is neither just nor pious: no honour done to the Church, but a plain dishonour. " _University Education of Ministers:--State of the Facts:_ "They pretend that their education, either at School or University, hath been very chargeable, and therefore ought to be repaired in future by a plentiful maintenance: whereas it is well known that the better half of them, and ofttimes poor and pitiful boys, of no merit or promising hopes that might entitle them to the public provision but their poverty and the unjust favour of friends, have had the most of their breeding, both at School and University, by scholarships, exhibitions, and fellowships, at the public cost, --which might engage them the rather to give freely, as they have freely received. Or, if they have missed of these helps at the latter place, they have after two or three years left the course of their studies there, if they ever well began them, and undertaken, though furnished with little else but ignorance, boldness, and ambition, if with no worse vices, a chaplainship in some gentleman's house, to the frequent imbasing of his sons with illiterate and narrow principles. Or, if they have lived there [at the University] upon their own, who knows not that seven years' charge of living there, --to them who fly not from the government of their parents to the licence of a University, but come seriously to study, --is no more than, may be well defrayed and reimbursed by one year's revenue of an ordinary good benefice? If they had then means of breeding from their parents, 'tis likely they have more now; and, if they have, it needs must be mechanic and uningenuous in them to bring a bill of charges for the learning of those liberal Arts and Sciences which they have learnt (if they have indeed learnt them, as they seldom have) to their own benefit and accomplishment. But they will say 'We had betaken us to some other trade or profession, had we not expected to find a better livelihood by the Ministry. ' This is what I looked for, --to discover them openly neither true lovers of Learning and so very seldom guilty of it, nor true ministers of the Gospel. " _University Education of Ministers not Necessary_: "What Learning, either human or divine, can be necessary to a minister may as easily and less chargeably be had in any private house ... Those theological disputations there held [i. E. At the Universities] by Professors and Graduates are such as tend least of all to the edification or capacity of the people, but rather perplex and leaven pure doctrine with scholastical trash than enable any minister to the better preaching of the Gospel. Whence we may also compute, since they come to reckonings, the charges of his needful library; which, though some shame not to value at £600 [equivalent to £2000 now], may be competently furnished for £60 [equivalent to £200 now]. If any man, for his own curiosity or delight, be in books further expensive, that is not to be reckoned as necessary to his ministerial either breeding or function. But Papists and other adversaries cannot be confuted without Fathers and Councils, immense volumes and of vast charges! I will show them therefore a shorter and a better way of confutation: _Tit. I. _ 9; 'Holding fast the faithful Word as he hath been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince gainsayers, '--who are confuted as soon as heard bringing that which is either not in Scripture or against it. To pursue them further through the obscure and entangled wood of antiquity, Fathers and Councils fighting one against another, is needless, endless, not requisite in a minister, and refused by the first Reformers of our Religion. And yet we may be confident, if these things be thought needful, let the State but erect in public good store of Libraries, and there will not want men in the Church who of their own inclinations will become able in this kind against Papists or any other Adversary. " No Parliament that England ever saw, not even the BarebonesParliament itself, could have entertained for a moment, with a viewto practical legislation, these speculations of the blind Titan inall their length and breadth. Disestablishment, Disendowment, Abolition of a Clergy, had been the dream of the Anabaptists andFifth Monarchy men of the Barebones Parliament. Even in that House, however, the battle practically, and on which the House broke up, wason the question of the continuance of Tithes, and it is dubiouswhether some in that half of the House which voted against Titheswould not have been for preserving a Church Establishment orPreaching Ministry by some other form of state-maintenance. Nor canone imagine, even in those eager and revolutionary times, an utterdisregard of that principle of compensation for life-interests whichany Parliament now, contemplating a scheme of Disestablishment, wouldconsider binding in common equity. The old Bishops, and the PrelaticClergy, indeed, had been disestablished without much consideration oflife-interests; but the procedure in their case had been of a penalcharacter, and it is unlikely that it would have been equallyunceremonious with the new clergy of Presbyterians and Independents, allowed generally to be orthodox. From any hesitation on that scoreMilton is absolutely free. He sees no difficulties, takes regard ofnone. It is not with a flesh-and-blood world that he deals, a worldof men, and their wives, and their families, and their yearlyincomes, and their fixed residences and household belongings. It iswith a world of wax, or of flesh and blood that must be content to betreated as wax. It is thought right to disestablish the Church: well, then, let the Clergy go! Abolish tithes; provide no substitute;proclaim that, after this day week, or the first day of the nextyear, not a penny shall be paid to any man by the State for preachingthe Gospel, or doing any other act of the ministry: and what then?Why, there will be a flutter of consternation, of course, throughsome ten thousand or twelve thousand parsonages; ten thousand ortwelve thousand clerical gentlemen will stare bewilderedly for awhile at their wives' faces: but do not be too much concerned! Theywill all shift very well for themselves when they know they must; thebest of them will find congregations where they are, or in otherplaces, and will work all the harder; and, if the drones and dotardsgo threadbare and starve for the rest of their lives, that is butGod's way with such since the beginning of the world! Be instant, berapid, be decisive, be thoroughgoing, O ye statesmen! What are vestedinterests in the Church of Christ? As the Restored Rumpers had already decreed that an EstablishedChurch should be kept up in England, and had gone no farther on theTithes question than to say that Tithes must be paid, as by use andwont, until some substitute should be provided, it is not likelythat, however long they had sat, Milton's views would have had muchcountenance from them. There were individuals among them of Milton'sway of thinking on the whole; but he had probably made a mistake infancying that he had materially improved his influence, or thechances of his notions of Church-polity, by his public re-adhesion tothe Rump. In fact, the continued existence of the Rump was moreprecarious than he had thought. In August 1659, while his pamphletwas in circulation, Lambert was away in the north, suppressing theCheshire Insurrection of Sir George Booth; in the next monthdiscontent with the Rumpers and their rule was rife in Lambert'svictorious northern Brigade; and in the beginning of October Londonwas again in agitation with the rupture of the hasty alliance thathad been patched up between the Republicans and the Wallingford-HouseCouncil of Army Officers. It was on the 12th of October that the Rumpdefied the Army by cashiering Lambert, Desborough, Berry, and sixother officers; and on the 13th Lambert retaliated by his _coupd'état_, filling the streets with his soldiery, catching theRumpers one by one as they went to the House, and informing them thatit was the will of the Army that they should sit no more. Thus hadbegun that "Second Stage of the Anarchy" which we have called _TheWallingford-House Interruption_. Of Milton's thoughts over the change effected by Lambert's _coupd'état_ we have an authentic record in a letter of his, dated"October 20, 1659" (i. E. Just a week after the _coup d'état_), and addressed to some friend with whom he had been conversing on theprevious night. It appears in his works now with the title "_ALetter to a Friend, concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth:Published from the Manuscript_. "[1] Who the Friend was does notappear; but the words of the Letter imply that he was some one verynear the centre of affairs. "Sir, " it begins, "upon the sad andserious discourse which we fell into last night, concerning thesedangerous ruptures of the Commonwealth, scarce yet in her infancy, which cannot be without some inward flaw in her bowels, I began toconsider more intensely thereon than hitherto I have beenwont, --resigning myself [i. E. Having hitherto resigned myself] to thewisdom and care of those who had the government, and not finding thateither God or the Public required more of me than my prayers forthose that govern. And, since you have not only stirred up mythoughts by acquainting me with the state of affairs more inwardlythan I knew before, but also have desired me to set down my opinionthereof, trusting to your ingenuity, I shall give you freely myapprehension, both of our present evils, and what expedients, if Godin mercy regard us, may remove them. " At the close of the Letter hesays, "You have the sum of my present thoughts, as much as Iunderstand of these affairs, freely imparted, at your request and thepersuasion you wrought in me that I might chance hereby to be someway serviceable to the Commonwealth in a time when all ought to beendeavouring what good they can, whether much or but little. Withthis you may do what you please. Put out, put in, communicate orsuppress: you offend not me, who only have obeyed your opinion that, in doing what I have done, I might happen to offer something whichmight be of some use in this great time of need. However, I have notbeen wanting to the opportunity which you presented before me ofshowing the readiness which I have, in the midst of my unfitness, towhatever may be required of me as a public duty. " The expressionsmight suggest that the friend who had been talking with Milton wasVane or some one else of those Councillors of the Rump who still saton at Whitehall consulting with the Wallingford-House Chiefs as tothe form of Government to be set up instead of the Rump (ante pp. 494-495). It may, however, have been some lesser personage, such asMeadows, back from the Baltic this very month. In any case, theletter was meant to be shown about, if not printed. It was, in fact, Milton's contribution, at a friend's request, to the deliberationsgoing on at Whitehall. [Footnote 1: It was first published in the so-called AmsterdamEdition of Milton's Prose Works (1698); and Toland, who gave it tothe publishers of that edition, informs us that it had beencommunicated to him "by a worthy friend, who, a little after theauthor's death, had it from his nephew"--i. E. From Phillips. ] He does not conceal his strong disapprobation of Lambert's _coupd'état_. Indeed he takes the opportunity of declaring, even morestrongly than he had done two months before, how heartily he hadwelcomed the restoration of the Rump. Thus:-- "I will begin with telling you how I was overjoyed when I heard that the Army, under the working of God's holy Spirit, as I thought, and still hope well, had been so far wrought to Christian humility and self-denial as to confess in public their backsliding from the good Old Cause, and to show the fruits of their repentance in the righteousness of their restoring the old famous Parliament which they had without just authority dissolved: I call it the famous Parliament, though not the harmless, since none well-affected but will confess they have deserved much more of these nations than they have undeserved. And I persuade me that God was pleased with their restitution, signing it as He did with such a signal victory when so great a part of the nation were desperately conspired to call back again their Egyptian bondage [Lambert's victory over Sir George Booth]. So much the more it now amazes me that they whose lips were yet scarce closed from giving thanks for that great deliverance should be now relapsing, and so soon again backsliding into the same fault, which they confessed so lately and so solemnly to God and the world, and more lately punished in those Cheshire Rebels, --that they should now dissolve that Parliament which they themselves re-established, and acknowledged for their Supreme Power in their other day's _Humble Representation_: and all this for no apparent cause of public concernment to the Church or Commonwealth, but only for discommissioning nine great officers in the Army; which had not been done, as is reported, but upon notice of their intentions against the Parliament. I presume not to give my censure on this action, --not knowing, as yet I do not, the bottom of it. I speak only what it appears to us without doors till better cause be declared, and I am sure to all other nations, --most illegal and scandalous, I fear me barbarous, or rather scarce to be exampled among any Barbarians, that a paid Army should, for no other cause, thus subdue the Supreme Power that set them up. This, I say, other nations will judge to the sad dishonour of that Army, lately so renowned for the civilest and best-ordered in the world, and by us here at home for the most conscientious. Certainly, if the great officers and soldiers of the Holland, French, or Venetian forces should thus sit in council and write from garrison to garrison against their superiors, they might as easily reduce the King of France, or Duke of Venice, and put the United Provinces in like disorder and confusion. " He adds more in the same strain, and calls upon the Army, as one"jealous of their honour, " to "manifest and publish with all speedsome better cause of these their late actions than hath hithertoappeared, and to find out the Achan amongst them whose close ambitionin all likelihood abuses their honest natures against their meaningto these disorders, "--in other words, to disown and denounce Lambert. But, having thus delivered his conscience on the subject of thesecond dismission of the Rump, he declares farther complaint to beuseless, and proceeds to inquire what is now to be done. "Being now in anarchy, without a counselling and governing power, andthe Army, I suppose, finding themselves insufficient to discharge atonce both military and civil affairs, the first thing to be found outwith all speed, without which no Commonwealth can subsist, must be aSENATE or GENERAL COUNCIL OF STATE, in whom must be the power firstto preserve the public peace, next the commerce with foreign nations, and lastly to raise moneys for the management of these affairs. Thismust either be the [Rump] Parliament readmitted to sit, or a Councilof State allowed of by the Army, since they only now have the power. The terms to be stood on are _Liberty of Conscience to allprofessing Scripture to be the Rule of their Faith and Worship_and the _Abjuration of a Single Person_. If the [Rump]Parliament be again thought on, to salve honour on both sides, thewell-affected party of the City and the Congregated Churches may beinduced to mediate by public addresses and brotherly beseechings;which, if there be that saintship among us which is talked of, oughtto be of highest and undeniable persuasion to reconcilement. If theParliament be thought well dissolved, _as not complying fully togrant Liberty of Conscience, and the necessary consequence thereof, the Removal of a forced Maintenance from Ministers_ [Milton's ownsole dissatisfaction with the Restored Rump], then must the Armyforthwith choose a Council of State, whereof as many to be of theParliament as are undoubtedly affected to these two conditionsproposed. That which I conceive only able to cement and unite theArmy either to the Parliament recalled or this chosen Council must bea mutual League and Oath, private or public, not to desert oneanother till death: that is to say that the Army be kept up and allthese Officers in their places during life, and so likewise theParliament or Councillors of State; which will be no way unjust, considering their known merits on either side, in Council or inField, unless any be found false to any of these two principles, orotherwise personally criminous in the judgment of both parties. Ifsuch a union as this be not accepted on the Army's part, be confidentthere is a Single Person underneath. That the Army be upheld thenecessity of our affairs and factions will [at any rate] constrainlong enough perhaps to content the longest liver in the Army. Andwhether the Civil Government be an annual Democracy or a perpetualAristocracy is not to me a consideration for the extremities whereinwe are, and the hazard of our safety from our common enemy, gaping atpresent to devour us. That it be not an Oligarchy, or the Faction ofa few, may be easily prevented by the numbers of their own choosingwho may be found infallibly constant to those two conditionsforenamed--full Liberty of Conscience and the Abjuration of Monarchyproposed; and the well-ordered Committees of their faithfullestadherents in every county may give this Government the resemblanceand effects of a perfect Democracy. As for the Reformation of Lawsand the Places of Judicature, whether to be here, as at present, orin every county, as hath been long aimed at, and many such proposalstending no doubt to public good, they may be considered in due time, when we are past these pernicious pangs, in a hopeful way of healthand firm constitution. But, unless these things which I have aboveproposed, one way or other, be once settled, in my fear (which Godavert!), we instantly ruin, or at best become the servants of one orother Single Person, the secret author and fomenter of thesedisturbances. " There is considerable boldness in these proposals of Milton, and yeta cast of practicality which is unusual with him. They prove again, if new proof were needed, that he was not a Republican of theconventional sort. He glances, indeed, at the possibility of an"Annual Democracy, " i. E. A future succession of annual Parliaments, or at least of annual Plebiscites for electing the Government. But herather dismisses that possibility from his calculations; andmoreover, even had he entertained it farther, we know that theParliaments or Plebiscites he would have allowed would not have been"full and free, " but only guarded representations of the"well-affected" of the community, --to wit, the Commonwealth's-men. But the Constitution to which he looks forward with most confidence, and which he ventures to think might answer all the purposes of aperfect democracy, is one that should consist of two perpetual orlife aristocracies at the centre, --one a civil aristocracy in theform of a largish Council of State, the other a military aristocracycomposed of the great Army Officers, --these two aristocracies to bepledged to each other by oath, and sworn also to the two greatprinciples of Liberty of Conscience and resistance to any attempt atSingle Person sovereignty. What communication between the CentralGovernment so constituted and the body of the People might benecessary for the free play of opinion might be sufficiently keptup, he hints, by the machinery of County Committees. The entirescheme may seem strange to those whose theory of a Republic refusesthe very imagination of an aristocracy or of perpetuity of power inthe same hands; but both, notions, and especially that of perpetuityof power in the same hands, had been growing on Milton, and were notinconsistent with _his_ theory of a Republic. Nor was hispresent scheme, with all its strangeness, the least practical of themany "models" that theorists were putting forth. It would, doubtless, have failed in the trial, --for the conception of a perpetual CivilCouncil at Whitehall always in harmony with a perpetual MilitaryCouncil in Wallingford House presupposed moral conditions in bothbodies less likely to be forthcoming in themselves than in Milton'sthoughts about them. But everything else would have failed equally, and some of the "models" perhaps more speedily. Since the subversionof Richard's Protectorate by Fleetwood and Desborough there had beenno possible stop-gap against the return of the Stuarts. The consulting authorities at Whitehall and Wallingford House didadopt a course having some semblance of that suggested by Milton. Before the 25th of October, or within six days after the date ofMilton's letter, the relics of the Council of State of the Rumpagreed to be transformed, with additions nominated by the Officers, into the new Supreme Executive called _The Committee of Safety_;and, as _The Wallingford-House Council of Officers_ stillcontinued to sit in the close vicinity of this new Council atWhitehall, the Government was then vested, in fact, in the twoaristocracies, with Fleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, Berry, andothers, as members of both, and connecting links between them. Butthe new _Committee of Safety_ was not such a Senate or Councilas Milton had imagined. For one thing, it consisted but oftwenty-three persons (see the list ante p. 494), whereas Milton wouldhave probably liked to see a Council of twice that size or evenlarger. For another, it was not composed of persons perfectly soundon Milton's two proposed fundamentals of Liberty of Conscience andAbjuration of any Single Person. Vane, to be sure, was on theCommittee, and a host in himself for both principles; and there wereothers, such as Salway and Ludlow, that would not flinch on either. But Whitlocke, Sydenham, and the majority, were but moderately forLiberty of Conscience, and certainly utterly against that Miltonicinterpretation of it which implied Church-disestablishment, while oneat least, the Scottish Johnstone of Warriston, was positively againstLiberty of Conscience beyond very narrow Presbyterian limits. Nor, though probably all would have assented at that time to an oathabjuring Charles Stuart, were they all without taint of the SinglePerson heresy in other forms. Some of them, including Whitlocke andBerry, would have liked to restore Richard; and Fleetwood and Lambertwere not wrongly suspected of seeing the most desirable Single Personevery morning in the looking-glass. Milton's former regard forFleetwood must have suffered considerably by recent events; and hethought of Lambert as the very "Achan" to be dreaded. But, farther, even had the two aristocracies been of perfectly satisfactorycomposition, they had abandoned that idea of their own permanencewhich Milton had made all but essential. They had agreed that theirchief work should consist in shaping out a fit constitution for theCommonwealth, and that the _Committee of Safety_ should continuein power only till that should be done and the new Constitutionshould come into operation. Such as it was, the new Government of the Wallingford-HouseInterruption had no objection to retaining Mr. Milton in the LatinSecretaryship if he cared to keep it. That he had held the postthroughout the whole of the Government of the Restored Rump (thoughall but in sinecure, as we must conclude from the cessation of theseries of his Latin Letters in the preceding May) appears from a veryinteresting document in the Record Office. The Council of State ofthe Rump, it is to be remembered, had not vanished with the Rumpitself on Oct. 13, but had sat on for twelve days more, though withits number reduced by the secession of Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, andother very vehement Rumpers, --the object being to maintain thecontinuity of the public business and to make the most amicablearrangement possible with the Army-officers. That object having beenaccomplished by the institution, of the new _Committee ofSafety_, the Council of the Rump, before demitting its powers tothis new body, which was to meet on the 28th of October, held its ownlast meeting at Whitehall on the 25th. At such a last meeting it wasbut business-like to clear off all debts due by the Council; and, accordingly, this was done by the issue of the followingcomprehensive money-warrant, signed by Whitlocke as President, and byfour others of those present. "These are to will and require you, out of such moneys as are or shall come into your hands, to pay unto the several persons whose names are endorsed the several sums of money to their names mentioned, making on the whole the sum of Three Thousand Six Hundred Eighty-two Pounds, Eight Shillings, and Six Pence: being so much due to them for their salaries and service to this Council unto the Two-and-twentieth day of this instant October. Hereof you are not to fail; and for so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given at the Council of State at Whitehall this 25th day of October, 1659. "B. WHITLOCKE, _President. _ A. JOHNSTON. JAMES HARRINGTON. CHARLES FLEETWOOD. JA. BERRY. "To GUALTER FROST, Esq. , "Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies. " "The eighty-six persons to whom the payments are to be made are divided into groups in the Warrant, the particular sum due to each person appended to his name. The first five groups stand thus:-- £ _s. _ _d. _ Richard Deane 234 7 6 _"At £500 per annum each_ Henry Scobell 234 7 6 William Robinson 83 0 0 _At £1 per day_ Richard Kingdon 86 0 0 _At £200 per annum each_ JOHN MILTON 86 12 0 ANDREW MARVELL 86 12 0 Gualter Frost 138 0 10 _At 20_s. _ per diem each_ Matthew Fairbank 139 0 0 Samuel Morland 88 0 0 Edward Dendy 169 0 0 Matthew Lea 56 6 8 _At 6_s. _ 8_d. _ per diem each_ [Clerks] Thomas Lea 56 6 8 William Symon 56 6 8" Then follow the names of _twenty-nine_ persons at 5_s. _ per diem each: viz. Zachary Worth, David Salisbury, Peter Llewellen, Edward Cooke, Richard Stephens, Stephen Montague, Thomas Powell; Henry Symball, Joseph Butler, Thomas Pidcott, Richard Freeman, George Hussey, Roger Read, Edward Osbaldiston, William Feild, Robert Cooke (or his widow), Thomas Blagden, William Ledsom, Edward Cooke; Edward Tytan, Thomas Baker, John Bradley, Nicholas Hill, Anthony Compton, Joshua Leadbetter, Alexander Turner, Thomas Wright, William Geering, and Edward Bridges. The occupations of the first seven are not described, but they were probably under-clerks; the next twelve were "messengers"; the last ten "serjeant deputies" under Dendy as Serjeant-at-Arms. The sums ordered to be paid to them vary from £4 to £42 5_s. _--_Forty-four_ more persons are added more miscellaneously, with the sums due to them respectively. Among these I may note the following:--"George Vaux, _Housekeeper_" (£69 9_s. _ 8_d. _), "Mr. Nutt, the _Barge-keeper_" (£65), "Mr. Embrey, _Surveyor_" (£140 12_s. _ 6_d. _), and "Mr. Kinnereley, _Wardrobe-keeper_" (£140 12_s. _ 6_d. _). [1] [Footnote 1: From Warrant Book in Record Office. On comparing thelist of persons in this warrant with that in the extract from theOrder Books of Oliver's Council of date April 17, 1655 (pp. 177-179), and with lists in a former Council minute of date Feb. 3, 1653-4, andin a Money Warrant of Oliver of same date (Vol. IV. Pp. 575-578), itwill be seen that there had been changes in the staff meanwhile. Milton, Scobell, Gualter Frost, Serjeant Dendy, Housekeeper Vaux, Bargemaster Nutt, and about a dozen of the clerks, messengers, andserjeant-deputies remain (one of the former clerks, MatthewFairbank, now promoted from his original 6_s. _ 8_d. _ a dayto 20_s. _ a day); but Thurloe, Jessop, Meadows, two youngerFrosts, and a good many others are gone, while new men are Deane, Robinson, Kingdon, Morland, Marvell, and others. Morland, as weknow, had been brought in a while ago to assist Thurloe; and hissalary, we now see, was larger than Milton's. --When Milton's salarywas reduced, in April 1655, it was arranged that it should be alife-pension, and payable out of the Exchequer; but the presentwarrant Directs payment to him, as to the rest, out of theCouncil's contingencies. It would seem, therefore, that Oliver'sarrangement for him had not taken effect, or had been cancelled bythe Rump, and that he was now not a life-pensioner, but once more amere official at the Council's pleasure. ] There is nothing in this warrant to show that Milton's services weretransferred to the new Committee of Safety; but the fact seems to bethat he did remain nominally in the Latin Secretaryship with Marvellthrough the whole duration of that body and of the Fleetwood-Lambertrule, i. E. To Dec. 26, 1659. Nominally only it must have been; for wehave no trace of any official work of his through the period. Therewas very little to do for the Government at that time in the way offoreign correspondence, and for what there was Marvell must havesufficed. Through the months of November and December Milton's thoughts, likethose of other people, must have been much occupied with thenegotiations going on between the new Government and their formidableopponent in Scotland. What would be the issue? Would Monk perseverein that championship of the ill-treated Rump which he had so boldlyundertaken? Would he march into England to restore the Rump, as hehad threatened; or would he yet be pacified and induced to accept theWallingford-House order of things, with a competent share in thepower? No one could tell. Lambert was in the north with his army, tobeat and drive back Monk if he did attempt to invade England, --atYork early in November, and at Newcastle from the 20th of Novemberonwards; Monk was still in Scotland, --at Edinburgh or Dalkeith tillthe end of November, then at Berwick, but from the beginning ofDecember at Coldstream. Between the two armies agents were passingand repassing; negotiators on the part of the London Government wereround about Monk and reasoning with him; Monk's own Commissioners inLondon had concluded their Treaty of the 15th of November withFleetwood and the Wallingford-House Council, and there had beenrejoicings over what seemed then the happy end of the quarrel; butagain the news had come from Scotland that Monk repudiated theagreement made by his Commissioners, and that the negotiation must beresumed at Newcastle. To that the Committee of Safety and theWallingford-House Council had consented; but, through Monk's delays, the negotiation had not yet been resumed. Would it ever be, or wouldMonk's army and Lambert's come into clash at last? If so, for whichought one to wish the victory? So far as Milton was concerned, he wasbound to wish the success of Monk. Was not Monk the champion of thatlittle Restored Rump to which Milton had himself adhered, and thelate suppression of which he had pronounced to be "illegal andscandalous"? Was not Monk also professing and proclaiming that veryprinciple of the proper submission of the military power to the civilon which Milton himself had dilated? Would it not be only God'sjustice if Lambert, "the secret author and fomenter of thesedisturbances, " should be disgraced and overthrown? Yet, on the otherhand, who could desire even that consequence, or the Restoration ofthe Rump, at the expense of another civil war and bloodshed? Wherewould the process stop? And, besides, was Monk, with his Presbyteriannotions, learnt among the Scots, the man from whose ascendancy Miltoncould hope anything but farther disappointment in the Churchquestion? All in all, we are to imagine Milton anxious for areconciliation. No less interesting to Milton must have been the activity of the newGovernment meanwhile in their great business of inventing "such aForm of Government as may best suit and comport with a Free State andCommonwealth. "----The Rump itself, as we know, had been busy withthis problem through the last month of its sittings, having appointedon the 8th of September a great Committee on the subject, with Vanenamed first, but all the most eminent Rumpers included (ante p. 480). Through this Committee there had been an inburst into theParliamentary mind, as Ludlow informs us, of the thousand and onecompeting proposals or models of a Commonwealth already devised bythe Harringtonians and other theorists; and, in fact, while theCommittee was sitting, there had started up for its assistance, closeto the doors of Parliament, the famous Harrington or Rota Club, meeting nightly in Miles's Coffee-house, and including Neville andothers of the Rumpers among its most constant members (ante pp. 484-486). That Milton knew already about Harrington and his "models"by sufficient readings of Harrington's books there can be no doubt. In the address to the Rump prefixed to his _Considerations touchingHirelings_ in August last he had distinctly referred to the kindacceptance by the Rump of "new models of a Commonwealth" dailytendered to them in Petitions, and must have had specially in viewthe Petition of July 6, which had been drawn up by Harrington, andwhich proposed a constitution of two Parliamentary Houses, one of 300members, the other much larger, on such a system of rotation as wouldchange each completely every third year (ante pp. 483-484). His onlycriticism on the competing models then had been that, till his ownnotion of Church-disestablishment were carried into effect, "no modelwhatsoever of a Commonwealth, would prove successful or undisturbed. "At that time, accordingly, Milton was so engrossed with hisChurch-disestablishment notion as to be comparatively careless aboutthe general question of the Form of Government. But, two monthslater, as we have seen, in his _Letter on the Ruptures of theCommonwealth_ occasioned by Lambert's assault on the Rump, he hadabandoned this indifference, and had proposed a model Constitution ofhis own, adapted to the immediate exigencies. From that time, we maynow report, though Church-disestablishment was never lost sight of, the question of the Form of Government had fastened itself onMilton's mind as after all the main one. From that time he neverceased to ruminate it himself, and he attended more to thespeculations and theories of others on the same subject. If, once ortwice in the winter months of 1659, Cyriack Skinner, the occasionalchairman of the Rota Club, did not persuade Milton to leave his housein Petty France late in the evening, and be piloted through thestreets to the Coffee-house in New Palace Yard to hear one of thegreat debates of the Club, and become acquainted with their method ofclosing the debate by a ballot, it would really be a wonder. ----Notin the Rota Club, however, but in the Committee of Safety atWhitehall and in the Wallingford-House Council, was the real andpractical debate in progress. On the 1st of November the Committeehad appointed their sub-committee of six to deliberate on the newConstitution; and through the rest of the month, both in thesub-committee and in the general committee, there had been thatintricate discussion in which Vane led the extreme party, or party ofradical changes, while Whitlocke stood for lawyerly use and wont inall things, and Johnstone of Warriston threw in suggestions from hispeculiar Scottish point of view. So far as Milton was cognisant ofthe discussion, his hopes must have been in the efforts of his friendVane. If any one could succeed in inducing his colleagues to insertarticles for Church-disestablishment and full Liberty of Conscienceinto the new Constitution, who so likely as he who had held thosearticles as tenets of his private creed so much earlier and so muchmore tenaciously than any other public man? Seven years ago Miltonhad described him on this account as Religion's "eldest son, " onwhose firm hand she could lean in peace. Now that he was again inpower, and that not merely as one of a miscellaneous Parliamentarybody, but as one of a small committee of leaders drafting aConstitution _de novo_, what might he not accomplish? That Vanedid battle in Committee for the notions he held in common withMilton, and for others besides, we already know; but we know alsothat the massive resistance of Whitlocke, backed outside by thelawyers and the Savoy clique of the clergy, was too much for Vane, and that the draft Constitution as it emerged ultimately wassubstantially Whitlocke's. It was on the 6th of December that thisdraft Constitution was submitted to the Convention of Army and Navydelegates at Whitehall; and it was on the 14th that, aftermodifications by this body tending to make it still more Whitlocke'sthan it had been, it went back to the Committee of Safety approvedand ratified. A Single House Parliament of the customary sort to meetin February; a new Council of State of the customary sort to beappointed by that Parliament; the Established Church to be kept up, and by the system of Tithes until some other form of ampleState-maintenance for the clergy should be provided; Liberty ofConscience for Nonconformists, but within limits: this and no morewas the parturition after all. If Ludlow was in despair because nosufficient security had been taken that the new Parliament should betrue to the Commonwealth, and if the theorists of the Rota weredisappointed because none of their patent models had been adopted, Milton's regret can have been no less. Government after government, but all deaf alike to his teachings! Even this one, with Vane at theheart of it, unable to rise above the old conceits of a customarystate-craft, and ending in a solemn vote for conserving a Church ofHirelings! So in the middle of December. Then, for another week, the strangephenomenon, day after day, of that whirl of popular and army opinionwhich was to render all the long debate over the new Constitutionnugatory, to upset the Wallingford-House administration, and stopWhitlocke in his issue of the writs for the Parliament that had justbeen announced. Monk's dogged persistency for the old Rump had donethe work without the need of his advance from Coldstream to fightLambert. All over England and Ireland people were declaring for Monkwith increasing enthusiasm, and execrating Lambert's _coupd'état_ and the Wallingford-House usurpation. Portsmouth hadrevolted; the Londoners were in riot; Lambert's own soldiery werefalling away from him at Newcastle; Fleetwood's soldiery in Londonwere growing ashamed of themselves and of their chief amid the tauntsand insults of the populace. On the 20th of December appearances weresuch that Whitlocke and his colleagues were in the utmostperplexity. One great Republican had not lived to see this return of publicfeeling to the cause of his heart. Bradshaw had died on the 22nd ofNovember, all but despairing of the Republic. His will was proved onthe 16th of December. It consisted of an original will, dated March22, 1653, and two codicils, the second dated September 10, 1655. Hiswife having predeceased him, leaving no issue, the bulk of hisextensive property went to his nephew, Henry Bradshaw; but there werevarious legacies, and among them the following in one group in thesecond codicil, --"To old Margarett ffive markes, to Mr. Marcham^t. Nedham tenne pounds, and to Mr. John Milton tenne poundes. " There isnothing here to settle the disputed question of Milton's cousinship, on his mother's side, with Bradshaw. [1] The legacy was a triflingone, equivalent to £35 now; and, as Needham and Milton are associatedon terms of equality, Bradshaw must have been thinking of themtogether as the two literary officials who had been so much incontact with each other, and with himself, in the days of hisPresidency of the Council of State, --Needham as the appointedjournalist of the Commonwealth, and Milton as its Latin champion, andfor some time Needham's censor and supervisor. In Milton's caseperhaps, as the codicil was drawn up fifteen months after thepublication of the _Defensio Secunda_, the legacy may have beenintended not merely as a small token of general respect andfriendliness, but also as a recognition by Bradshaw of the boldeulogy on him inserted into that work at a critical moment of hisrelations to Cromwell. [Footnote 1: Ormerod's Cheshire, III. 409; but I owe the verbatimextract from the codicil to the never-failing kindness of ColonelChester. --By an inadvertence the date of Bradshaw's death has beengiven, ante p. 495, as Oct. 31, 1659, instead of Nov. 22. ] * * * * * More than two years had elapsed since Milton's last letters toOldenburg and young Ranelagh (ante pp. 366-367). They were then atSįumur in France, where they remained till March 1658; but since thattime they had been travelling about, and from May 1659, if notearlier, they had been boarding in Paris. There are glimpses of themin letters from Oldenburg to Robert Boyle, and also in letters ofHartlib to Boyle, in which he quotes passages from letters he hasreceived both from Oldenburg and from young Ranelagh. Thus, in aletter of Hartlib's to Boyle of April 12, 1659, there is this fromOldenburg's last: "I have had some discourse with an able butsomewhat close physician here, that spoke to me of a way, thoughwithout particularizing all, to draw a liquor of the beams of thesun; which peradventure some person that is knowing and experienced(as noble Mr. Boyle) may better beat out than we can who wantexperience in these matters. " Young Ranelagh seems to have fullyacquired by this time the tastes for physical and experimentalscience which characterized his tutor; and his uncle Boyle may haveread with a smile this from Hartlib of date October 22, 1659:--"Thisweek Mr. Jones hath saluted me with a very kind letter, containing avery singular observation in these words: 'Concerning the generationof pearls I am of opinion that they are engendered in thecockle-fishes (I pray, Sir, give me the Latin word for it in yournext) of the same manner as the stone in our body, --which I endeavourfully to show in a discourse of mine about the generation of pearls;which, when I shall have done it, shall wait upon you for my part inrevenge of your observations. I heard lately a very remarkable storyabout margarites from a person of quality and honour in this town, which you will be glad, I believe, to hear. A certain German baronof about twenty-four years old, being in prison here at Paris, inthe same chamber with a Frenchman (who told this, as having beeneyewitness of it, to him that told it me), they having both need ofmoney, the baron sent his man to a goldsmith to buy seven or eightordinary pearls, of about twenty pence a piece, which he puta-dissolving in a glass of vinegar; and, being well dissolved, hetook the paste and put it together with a powder (which I should beglad to know) into a golden mould, which he had in his pocket, and soput it a-warming for some time upon the fire; after which, openingthe mould, they found a very great and lovely oriental pearl in it, which they sold for about two hundred crowns, although it was a greatdeal more worth. The same baron, throwing a little powder he had withhim into a pitcher of water, and letting it stand about four hours, made the best wine that a man can drink. ' Thus far the truly hopefulyoung gentleman, whereby he hath hugely obliged me. I wish he had theforementioned powder, that we might try whether we could make thelike pearls and wine. " From a subsequent letter of Hartlib's, datedNov. 29, 1659, it appears that Oldenburg and Jones were both muchinterested in the optical instruments of a certain Bressieux, then inParis, who had for two years been chief workman in that line forDescartes. They were anxious to make him a present of some good glassfrom London, because he was rather secretive about his workmanship, and such a present would go a great way towards mollifying him. [1] [Footnote 1: Letters of Oldenburg and Hartlib to Boyle in Boyle'sWorks (1744), V. 280-296 and 300-302. ] Very possibly with this last letter of Oldenburg's to Hartlib therehad been enclosed a letter from Oldenburg, and another from youngRanelagh, to Milton. Two such letters, at all events, Milton hadreceived, and undoubtedly through Hartlib, who was still theuniversal foreign postman for his friends. We can guess the substanceof the two letters. Young Ranelagh does not seem to have troubledMilton with his speculations on the generation of pearls, or hisstory of the German baron and his alchemic powders, but only to havesent his dutiful regards, with excuses for long neglect ofcorrespondence. Oldenburg had also sent his excuses for the same, butwith certain pieces of news from abroad, and certain references tothe state of affairs at home. Among the pieces of news were two ofsome personal interest to Milton. One was that the unfinished replyto his _Defensio Prima_, which Salmasius had left in manuscriptat his death six years ago, was about to appear as a posthumouspublication. The other was that there was to be a great Synod of theFrench Protestant Church, at which the case of Morus was to be againdiscussed. For, though it was more than two years since Morus hadreceived his call to the collegiate pastorship of the ProtestantChurch of Paris or Charenton, the question of his admissibility tothe charge had hung all that while between the Walloon Synods of theUnited Provinces and the French Protestant Church Courts, the latteron the whole favouring him, the former more and more bent ondisgracing him. In April of the present year a Walloon Synod atTergou had actually passed on him a sentence of suspension from theministerial office and from the holy communion "until by a sincererepentance of his sins he shall have repaired so many scandals he hasbrought upon us. " In spite of this, a French Provincial Synod, heldat Ai in Champagne in the following month, had ordered his admissionto be carried into effect, and the Parisian consistory had obeyedthis order, though two members of it protested. There had since thenbeen another Walloon Synod, held at Nimeguen in September, in whichthe former sentence of the Tergou Synod was confirmed, but, for thesake of peace between the Walloon Church and their brethren of theFrench Protestant Church, it was agreed to waive all fartherjurisdiction over Morus in Holland and to "remit the whole cause untothe prudence, discretion, and charity of the National Assembly of theFrench churches to meet at Loudun. " This was the Synod of whoseapproaching meeting Oldenburg had informed Milton--the Synod ofLoudun in Anjou (Nov. 10, 1659--Jan. 10, 1660). It was to be a veryimportant assembly indeed, --no mere Provincial Synod, but a nationalone, expressly allowed by Louis XIV. , and to consist of deputies, clerical and lay, from all the Protestant churches of France, empowered to transact all business relating to those churches undercertain royal regulations and restrictions, and in the presence of aroyal Commissioner. As there had been no such National ProtestantSynod in France for fifteen years, there was an accumulation ofbusiness for it, the case of Morus included. They were to examinethat case _de novo_, and to pronounce finally whether Morus wasguilty or not guilty, whether he should remain a minister of theFrench Church or not. [1] [Footnote 1: Bayle, Art. _Morus_, and Bruce's Life of Morus, 204-226. ] Milton's replies to the two letters will now be intelligible. Hewrites, it will be observed, in a gloomy mood, on the very day onwhich Whitlocke, for different reasons, was in a gloomy mood too and"wishing himself out of these daily hazards":-- TO HENRY OLDENBURG. "That forgiveness which you ask for _your_ silence you will give rather to _mine_; for, if I remember rightly, it was my turn to write to you. By no means has it been any diminution of my regard for you (of this I would have you fully persuaded) that has been the impediment, but only my employments or domestic cares; or perhaps it is mere sluggishness to the act of writing that makes me guilty of the intermitted duty. As you desire to be informed, I am, by God's mercy, as well as usual. Of any such work as compiling the history of our political troubles, which you seem to advise, I have no thought whatever [_longe absum_]: they are worthier of silence than of commemoration. What is needed is not one to compile a good history of our troubles, but one who can happily end the troubles themselves; for, with you, I fear lest, amid these our civil discords, or rather sheer madnesses, we shall seem to the lately confederated enemies of Liberty and Religion a too fit object of attack, though in truth they have not yet inflicted a severer wound on Religion than we ourselves have been long doing by our crimes. But God, as I hope, on His own account, and for His own glory, now in question, will not allow the counsels and onsets of the enemy to succeed as they themselves wish, whatever convulsions Kings and Cardinals meditate and design. Meanwhile, for the Protestant Synod of Loudun, which you tell me is so soon to meet [Milton does not seem to know that it had been sitting already for six weeks] I pray--what has never happened to any Synod yet--a happy issue, not of the Nazianzenian sort, [1] and am of opinion that the issue of this one will be happy enough if, should they decree nothing else, they should decree the expulsion of Morus. Of my posthumous adversary, as soon as he makes his appearance, be good enough to give me the earliest information. Farewell. "Westminster: December 20, 1659. " [Footnote 1: The allusion seems to be to the great OEcumenicalCouncil of Constantinople in 381, which confirmed Gregory Nazianzenin the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and in which Gregory presidedfor some time and inefficiently. ] TO THE NOBLE YOUTH, RICHARD JONES. "For the long break in your correspondence with me your excuses are truly most modest, inasmuch as you might with more justice accuse me of the same fault; and, as the case stands, I am really at a loss to know whether I should have preferred your not having been in fault to your having apologised so finely. On no account let it ever come into your mind that I measure your gratitude, if anything of the kind is due to me from you, by your constancy in letter-writing. My feeling of your gratitude to me will be strongest when the fruits of those services of mine to you of which you speak shall appear not so much in frequent letters as in your perseverance and laudable proficiency in excellent pursuits. You have rightly marked out for yourself the path of virtue in that theatre of the world on which you have entered; but remember that the path is common so far to virtue and vice, and that you have yet to advance to where the path divides itself into two. And you ought now betimes to prepare yourself for leaving this common path, pleasant and flowery, and for being able the more readily, with your own will, though with labour and danger, to climb that arduous and difficult one which is the slope of virtue only. For this you have great advantages over others, believe me, in having secured so faithful and skilful a guide. Farewell. "Westminster: December 20, 1659. " Two days after the date of these letters the uproar of execrationround the Wallingford-House Government had reached such an extremethat Whitlocke made his desperate proposal to Fleetwood that theyshould extricate themselves from their difficulty by declaring forCharles and opening negotiations with him. Two days more, andFleetwood's soldiery, under the command of officers of the Rump, weremarching down Chancery Lane, cheering Speaker Lenthall and asking hisforgiveness. Again two days more, and on the 26th of December, Fleetwood having given up the game and sent the keys of theParliament House to Lenthall, the Rumpers were back in their oldplaces. We have arrived, therefore, at that _Third Stage of theAnarchy_ which may be called "The Second Restoration of theRump. " * * * * * Of Milton in this stage of the Anarchy we hear little or nothingdirectly; but there are means for tracing the course of histhoughts. As may be inferred from the melancholy tone of his letter toOldenburg, he had all but ceased to hope for any deliverance for theCommonwealth by any of the existing parties. Even the SecondRestoration of the Rump, though it was what he was bound to approve, and had indeed suggested as possibly the best course, can havebrought him but little increase of expectation. If, in its bestestate, after its first restoration, the Rump had disappointed him, what could he hope from it now in its attenuated and crippledcondition, with Vane expelled from it because of his actings duringthe Wallingford-House Interruption, with Salway out of it, who hadworked so earnestly with Vane on the Church-question, and with othersof the ablest also out of it, leaving a House of but about two scoresof persons, to be managed by Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, and HenryMarten? Nay, not to be managed even by those undoubted Republicans, but to a great extent also by Ashley Cooper, Fagg, and others, whoseRepublicanism was of a very dubious character! For Milton cannot havefailed to take note of the abatement in this session of the Rump ofthat Republican fervency which had characterized its former session. What had been his own two proposed tests of genuine Republicanism?Willingness of every one concerned with the Government to take asolemn oath of Abjuration of a Single Person, and willingness also ofevery such person to swear to the principle of Liberty of Conscience. How was it faring with these two tests in this renewed Session of theRumpers? An abjuration oath of the kind indicated had been imposedindeed on the new Council of State; but nearly half of thosenominated to the Council had remained out of that body rather thantake the oath, and Hasilrig's proposal to require the same oath fromall members of the House itself had been so strenuously resisted thatit had fallen to the ground. Then, on the religious question, whatwas the deliberate offer of the House to the country in their headsfor a public Declaration on the 21st of January 1659-60? "Dueliberty to tender consciences" was promised; but that was a merephrase of custom, implying little or nothing, and it was utterlyengulphed, in Milton's estimate, by the accompanying engagement to"uphold a learned and pious ministry of the nation and theirmaintenance by Tithes. " On the Church-disestablishment question theHouse had actually receded from its former self by announcing that itwas not even to prosecute the inquiry as to a possible substitute forTithes. Altogether, before the twice-restored Rump had sat a month, Milton must have seen that his ideal Commonwealth was just as far offas ever. All he could hope was that the wretched little Parliamentwould not prove positively treacherous. With others, however, he must have been thinking more of Monk'sproceedings and intentions than of those of the Parliament. Monk'smarch from Coldstream southwards on the 2nd of January; the vanishingof the residue of Lambert's forces before him; the addresses to himin the English counties all along his route; his answers or supposedanswers to these addresses; his wary behaviour to the twoParliamentary Commissioners that had been sent to attach themselvesto him and find out his disposition in the matter of the AbjurationOath; his arrival at St. Alban's on the 28th of January; his messagethence to the Parliament to clear all Fleetwood's regiments out ofLondon and Westminster before his own entry; that entry itself on the3rd of February, when he and his battered columns streamed in throughGray's Inn Lane; finally his first appearance in the House andspeech, there:--of all this Milton had exact cognisance through thenewspapers of his friend Needham and otherwise. It was very puzzlingand by no means reassuring. If he had ever thought of Monk as bypossibility such a saviour of the Commonwealth as he had been longingfor, the study of the actually approaching physiognomy of Old Georgeall the way from Scotland, and still more Old George's firstdeliverance of himself in the Parliament, must have undeceived him. The Abjuration Oath, it appeared, was not at all to Monk's mind. Hewould not take it himself in order to be qualified for the seat votedhim in the Council of State, and he plainly intimated his opinionthat the day for such oaths and engagements was past. Milton cannothave liked that rejection by the General of one of the tests on whichhe had himself placed so much reliance. But, further, what meantMonk's very ambiguous utterance respecting the three immediatecourses one of which must be chosen? He had distinctly mentioned inthe House that the drift of public opinion, as he could ascertain itfrom the addresses made to him along his march, was towards either_an enlargement of the present House by the re-admission of theSecluded Members_ or _a full and free Parliament by a newgeneral election_; and, though he had seemed to acquiesce in thatthird course which was proposed by the House itself, viz. _theenlargement of the House by a competent number of new writs issued byitself under a careful scheme of qualification for electing or beingeligible_, he had left a very vague impression as to his realpreference. Now to Milton, as to all other ardent Commonwealth's men, the vital question was which of these three courses was to be taken. To adopt either of the two first was to subvert the Commonwealth. Tore-admit the secluded members into the present House was to convertit into a House with an overwhelming Presbyterian majority, and tobring back the days of Presbyterian ascendancy, with the prospect ofa restoration of Royalty on merely Presbyterian terms. To summon whatwas called a new full and free Parliament was, all but certainly, tobring back Royalty by a more hurried process still. Only by the thirdmethod, the Rump's own method, did there seem a chance of preservingthe Republican constitution; and yet Monk's assent to it had been buthesitating and uncertain. More ominous still had been his few wordsintimating his wishes in the matter of ecclesiastical policy. Hecould conceive nothing so good, on the whole, as the ScottishPresbyterianism he had been living amidst for the last few years, andhe thought that the 'sober interest' in England, steering between the'Cavalier party' on the one side and the 'Fanatic party' on theother, would be most secure by keeping to a moderate Presbytery inthe State-Church. That Milton's views as to the merits of ScottishPresbytery were not Monk's is an old story, needing no repetitionhere. What must have concerned him was to see Monk not only at onewith the great mass of his countrymen on the subject of aChurch-Establishment, but actually retrograde on the question of thedesirable nature of such an Establishment, inasmuch as he seemed tosignal his countrymen back out of Cromwell's broad Church of mixedPresbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, into a Church morestrictly on the Presbyterian model. Then another unpleasant noveltyin Monk's case was his fondness for the phrases _Fanatics, FanaticNotions_, the _Fanatic Party_. The phrases were not new; butMonk had sent them out of Scotland before him, and had brought themhimself out of Scotland, with a new significance. Very probably theyhad been supplied to him out of the vocabulary of his Scottishclerical adviser Mr. James Sharp, or of the Scottish Resolutionerclergy generally. At all events, it is from and after the date ofMonk's march into England that one finds the name _Fanatics_ acommon one for all those Commonwealth's men collectively who opposeda State-Church or the moderate Presbyterian or semi-Presbyterian formof it. Had Monk drawn out a list of his 'Fanatics, ' he would have hadto put Milton himself at the top of them, with Vane, Harrison, Barebone, and the leading Quakers. Nevertheless, here was Monk, such as he was, the armed constable ofthe crisis, the one man who could keep the peace and let the Rumpersproceed in doing their best. That "best" as they had agreedspecifically on the 4th of February, the day after Monk's arrival, was to be the recruiting of their own House up to a total of 400members for England and Wales, such recruiting to be effected by theissue of a certain number of new writs, together with a scheme ofqualifications calculated to bring in only sound Republicans, orpersons likely to cooperate in farther measures with the presentRumpers. This being what was promised by the conjunction of Monk andthe Rump, what could Milton do but acquiesce, be glad it was noworse, and contribute what advice he could? This, accordingly, iswhat he did. Pamphlets on the crisis, as we know, had been coming outabundantly--pamphlets for the good old cause of the Republic, pamphlets from Rota-men, pamphlets from Prynne and other haters ofthe Rump, pamphlets from crypto-Royalists, and pamphlets openlyRoyalist; and many of these had taken, and others were still to take, the form of letters addressed to Monk. It need be no surprise thatMilton had _his_ pamphlet in preparation. He had begun it justafter Monk's arrival in London and the resolution, of the Rump torecruit itself; he had written it hurriedly and yet with some earnestcare; and it seems to have been ready for the press about or not longafter the middle of February. Before it could go to press, however, there had been another revolution, obliging him to hold it back. There had been the rebellion of the Londoners because of theresolution of the Rump to perpetuate itself by recruiting, instead ofeither readmitting the secluded members or calling a new free andfull Parliament; there had been Monk's notorious two days in theCity, by order of the Rump, quashing the rebellion, and breaking thegates and portcullises (Feb. 9-10); there had been his extraordinaryreturn the third day, with his profession of regret before the LordMayor and the Aldermen and Common Council, and his announcement thathe had dissolved his connexion with the Rump, --that third day woundup with yells of delight through all the City, the smashing ofBarebone's windows, and the universal Roasting of the Rump instreet-bonfires (Feb. 11); there had been the ten more days of Monk'scontinued residence in the City, the Rumpers vainly imploringreconciliation with him, and the Secluded Members and their friendsgathering round him and negotiating; and, on Tuesday, Feb. 21, whenhe did remove from the City to Westminster, it was with the SecludedMembers in his train, to be marched under military guard to theirseats beside the Rumpers. The writs issued by the Rump for recruitingitself were now useless. It had been recruited in the way it leastliked, by the sudden reappearance in it of the excluded Presbyteriansand Royalists of the pre-Commonwealth period of the Long Parliament. Far more than the mere stopping of his pamphlet was involved forMilton in the events of that fortnight. He could construe them nootherwise than as the breaking down of the inner rampart thatdefended the Commonwealth against Charles Stuart. The _Roasting ofthe Rump_ in London was but a rough popular metaphor for "Downwith the Republic"; and, had the tumult of that night extended fromthe City to Westminster and the breaking of the windows of "fanatics"become general, Milton's would not have escaped. Then, in the courseof the negotiations with Monk through the fatal fortnight, had notthe Rump itself quailed? Had they not offered to cancel the solemnAbjuration Oath, alike for the Councillors of State and for futuremembers of Parliament, and to substitute only a general engagement tobe faithful to the Commonwealth, without King, Single Person, orHouse of Lords? Hardly anywhere now did there seem to be that stern, bold, uncompromising opposition to Royalty which would registeritself, as Milton wanted, in an oath before God and man, but onlythat feebler Republicanism which would pledge itself with theunderstood reservation of "circumstances permitting. " But worst ofall was the crowning fact that the Secluded Members had beenrestored. By that one stroke of Monk's all that had happened sincethe Commonwealth had been set up was put in question, and the powerwas given back into the hands of the very men who had protested andstruggled against the setting up of the Commonwealth eleven yearsago. How would these act? It might be hoped perhaps that some of themore prudent among them, having regard to the lapse of time and thechange of circumstances, might not think it their duty to be asvehemently Royalist now as they had been in 1648, and also perhapsthat the power of Monk, if Monk himself remained true, might restrainthe rest. But _would_ Monk remain true, or would his power availlong in restraining a Parliament the majority of which werePresbyterians and Royalists? Not to speak of the varied ability andsubtlety of such of the new Parliamentary chiefs as Annesley, SirWilliam Waller, Denzil Holles, Ashley Cooper, and HarbottleGrimstone, what was to be expected from the remorseless obstinacy, the rhinoceros persistency, of such a Presbyterian as Prynne? Howoften had Milton jeered at Prynne and the margins of his endlesspamphlets! It might be of some consequence to him now to rememberthat he had done so, and had therefore this virtual Attorney-Generalof the Secluded for his personal enemy. Altogether, Milton'sdespondency had never yet been so deep as it must have been at thisbeginning of the last phase of the long English Revolution, represented in the Parliament of the Secluded Members and in Monk'saccompanying Dictatorship. CHAPTER II. Third Section. MILTON THROUGH MONK'S DICTATORSHIP. FEB. 1659-60--MAY 1660. FIRST EDITION OF MILTON'S _READY AND EASY WAY TO ESTABLISH A FREECOMMONWEALTH_: ACCOUNT OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH EXTRACTS: VEHEMENTREPUBLICANISM OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH ITS PROPHETIC WARNINGS: PECULIARCENTRAL IDEA OF THE PAMPHLET, VIZ. THE PROJECT OF A GRAND COUNCIL ORPARLIAMENT TO SIT IN PERPETUITY, WITH A COUNCIL OF STATE FOR ITSEXECUTIVE: PASSAGES EXPOUNDING THIS IDEA: ADDITIONAL SUGGESTION OFLOCAL AND COUNTY COUNCILS OR COMMITTEES: DARING PERORATION OF THEPAMPHLET: MILTON'S RECAPITULATION OF THE SUBSTANCE OF IT IN A SHORTPRIVATE LETTER TO MONK ENTITLED _PRESENT MEANS AND BRIEFDELINEATION OF A FREE COMMONWEALTH_: WIDE CIRCULATION OF MILTON'SPAMPHLET: THE RESPONSE BY MONK AND THE PARLIAMENT OF THE SECLUDEDMEMBERS IN THEIR PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEXT FORTNIGHT: DISSOLUTION OFTHE PARLIAMENT AFTER ARRANGEMENTS FOR ITS SUCCESSOR: ROYALIST SQUIBPREDICTING MILTON'S SPEEDY ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE HANGMAN AT TYBURN:ANOTHER SQUIB AGAINST MILTON, CALLED THE _CENSURE OF THE ROTA UPONMR. MILTON'S BOOK_: SPECIMENS OF THIS BURLESQUE: REPUBLICAN APPEALTO MONK, CALLED _PLAIN ENGLISH_: REPLY TO THE SAME, WITH ANOTHERATTACK ON MILTON: POPULAR TORRENT OF ROYALISM DURING THE FORTY DAYSOF INTERVAL BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENT OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS AND THECONVENTION PARLIAMENT (MARCH 16, 1659-60--APRIL 25, 1660): CAUTION OFMONK AND THE COUNCIL OF STATE: DR. MATTHEW GRIFFITH AND HIS ROYALISTSERMON, _THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE KING_: GRIFFITH IMPRISONED FORHIS SERMON, BUT FORWARD REPUBLICANS CHECKED OR PUNISHED AT THE SAMETIME: NEEDHAM DISCHARGED FROM HIS EDITORSHIP AND MILTON FROM HISSECRETARYSHIP: RESOLUTENESS OF MILTON IN HIS REPUBLICANISM: HIS_BRIEF NOTES ON DR. GRIFFITH'S SERMON_: SECOND EDITION OF HIS_READY AND EASY WAY TO ESTABLISH A FREE COMMONWEALTH_:REMARKABLE ADDITIONS AND ENLARGEMENTS IN THIS EDITION: SPECIMENS OFTHESE: MILTON AND LAMBERT THE LAST REPUBLICANS IN THE FIELD: ROGERL'ESTRANGE'S PAMPHLET AGAINST MILTON, CALLED _NO BLIND GUIDES_:LARGER ATTACK ON MILTON BY G. S. , CALLED _HE DIGNITY OF KINGSHIPASSERTED_: QUOTATIONS FROM THAT BOOK: MEETING OF THE CONVENTIONPARLIAMENT, APRIL 25, 1660: DELIVERY BY GREENVILLE OF THE SIX ROYALLETTERS FROM BREDA, APRIL 28--MAY 1, AND VOTES OF BOTH HOUSES FOR THERECALL OF CHARLES; INCIDENTS OF THE FOLLOWING WEEK: MAD IMPATIENCEOVER THE THREE KINGDOMS FOR THE KING'S RETURN: HE AND HIS COURT ATTHE HAGUE, PREPARING FOR THE VOYAGE HOME: PANIC AMONG THE SURVIVINGREGICIDES AND OTHER PROMINENT REPUBLICANS: FLIGHT OF NEEDHAM TOHOLLAND AND ABSCONDING OF MILTON FROM HIS HOUSE IN PETTY FRANCE: LASTSIGHT OF MILTON IN THAT HOUSE. The Parliament of the Secluded Members and Residuary Rumpers had beensitting for a few days, had confirmed Monk in the Dictatorship byformally appointing him Captain-General and Commander-in-chief (Feb. 21), and had also (Feb. 22) intimated their resolution to devolve allreally constitutional questions on a new "full and free Parliament, "when Milton did send forth the pamphlet he had written. It was asmall quarto of eighteen pages with this title-page: "_The Readieand Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellencetherof compar'd with the inconveniences and dangers of readmittingkingship in this nation. The author J. M. , London, Printed by T. N. , and are to be sold by Livewell Chapman at the Crown in Popes-HeadAlley_. 1660. " Copies seem to have been procurable before the endof February 1659-60, but Thomason's copy bears date "March 3. "[1]That was the day of the order of Parliament for the release of thelast remaining Scottish captives of Worcester Battle. [Footnote 1: In Wood's Fasti (I. 485) the pamphlet is mentioned as"published in Feb. " The publication, we learn from subsequent wordsof Milton himself, was very hurried, and copies got about without hispress-corrections. I find no entry of the pamphlet in the Stationers'Registers. --It is particularly necessary to remember that this wasbut the _first edition_ of the pamphlet. Another was to follow. In all the editions of Milton's collected works, from that of 1698onwards, the reprint is from the later edition, without notice of thefirst; but I hardly know a case in which the distinction between twoeditions is more important. ] The pamphlet opens thus:-- "Although, since the writing of this treatise, the face of things hath had some change, writs for new elections [by the late Rump] have been recalled, and the members at first chosen [for the original Long Parliament] readmitted from exclusion to sit again in Parliament, yet, not a little rejoicing to hear declared the resolutions of all those who are now in power, jointly tending to the establishment of a Free Commonwealth, and to remove, if it be possible, this unsound humour of returning to old bondage instilled of late by some cunning deceivers, and nourished from bad principles and false apprehensions among too many of the people, I thought best not to suppress what I had written, hoping it may perhaps (the Parliament now sitting more full and frequent) be now much more useful than before: yet submitting what hath reference to the state of things as they then stood to present constitutions, and, so the same end be pursued, not insisting on this or that means to obtain it. The treatise was thus written as follows. " This is an attempt by Milton even yet to disguise his despondency. Hehad written the pamphlet while the late Rump was still sitting, whilethe conjunction between them and Monk was unbroken, and when the lastnews was that they had issued, or were about to issue, writs for therecruiting of their body by a large number of like-minded additionalmembers; but he will assume that the pamphlet may yet answer itspurpose, with hardly a change of phraseology. No longer, it is true, does the power lie with the Rump, recruited or unrecruited; it liesnow in the unexpected Parliament of the Residuary Rumpers _plus_Monk's restored representatives of the pre-Commonwealth period of theLong Parliament. But he will suppose the best even after thatsurprise. There is, at any rate, a more "full and frequent"Parliament than before: and there has been no declaration hitherto ofany intention to subvert the Commonwealth. On the contrary, had notMonk, both in his speech to the Secluded Members before readmittingthem, and also in his Declaration or Address to the Army publishedafter their re-admission, used the language of a trueCommonwealth's-man, and even called God to witness that his only aimwas "God's glory and the settlement of these nations uponCommonwealth foundations"? Had not the Secluded Members virtuallymade a compact with Monk upon these terms? Milton will not, for thepresent, suppose either Monk or the Parliament false in the mainmatter. He will only suppose that they have perceived, with himself, the infatuated drift of the popular humour towards a restoration ofRoyalty, and will themselves listen, and allow the country to listen, to what he had written on that subject two or three weeks ago. The despondency which he disguises in the preface appears in thepamphlet itself. Or rather it is a despondency dashed with a sanguineremnant of faith that all might yet be well, and that the means ofperpetuating a Republic, all contrary appearances notwithstanding, might yet be shown to be "ready and easy. " The use of these two wordsin the title of such a pamphlet at such a time is verycharacteristic. It was the public theorist, however, that ventured onthem, rather than the secret and real man. Throughout the pamphletthere is a sad and fierce undertone, as of one knowing that what heis prophesying as easy will never come to pass. About half of the pamphlet consists of a declamation in general onthe advantages of a Commonwealth Government over a Kingly Government, and on the dishonour, inconveniences, and dangers, to the BritishIslands in particular, if they should relapse into the one form ofGovernment after having had so much prosperous experience of theother. In the following specimen of the declamation the reader willnote the prophecy of actual events as far as to the Revolution of1688:-- "After our liberty thus successfully fought for, gained, and many years possessed (except in those unhappy interruptions which God hath removed), ... To fall back, or rather to creep back, so poorly as it seems the multitude would, to their once abjured and detested thraldom of kingship, not only argues a strange degenerate corruption suddenly spread among us, fitted and prepared for new slavery, but will render us a scorn and derision to all our neighbours. And what will they say of us but scoffingly as of that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour, who began to build a tower and was not able to finish it: 'Where is this goodly Tower of a Commonwealth, which the English boasted they would build to overshadow Kings and be another Rome in the West? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly; but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues but of factions, than those at the Tower of Babel, and have left no memorial of their work behind them remaining but in the common laughter of Europe. ' Which must needs redound the more to our shame if we but look on our neighbours THE UNITED PROVINCES, to us inferior in all outward advantages; who, notwithstanding, in the midst of great difficulties, courageously, wisely, constantly, went through with the same work, and are settled in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing Republic to this day. --Besides this, if we return to kingship, and soon repent (as undoubtedly we shall, when we begin to find the old encroachments coming on by little and little upon our consciences, which must needs proceed from King and Bishop united inseparably in one interest), we may be forced perhaps to fight over again all that we have fought and spend over again all that we have spent, but are never likely to attain, thus far as we are now advanced to the recovery of our freedom, never likely to have it in possession as we now have it, --never to be vouchsafed hereafter the like mercies and signal assistance from Heaven in our cause, if by our ingrateful backsliding we make these fruitless to ourselves, all His gracious condescensions and answers to our once importuning prayers against the tyranny which we then groaned under to become now of no effect, by returning of our own foolish accord, nay running headlong again with full stream wilfully and obstinately, into the same bondage: making vain and viler than dirt the blood of so many thousand faithful and valiant Englishmen, who left us in this liberty bought with their lives; losing by a strange after-game of folly all the battles we have won, all the treasure we have spent (not that corruptible treasure only, but that far more precious one of all our late miraculous deliverances), and most pitifully depriving ourselves the instant fruition of that Free Government which we have so dearly purchased, --a Free Commonwealth: not only held by wisest men in all ages the noblest, the manliest, the equalest, the justest Government, the most agreeable to all due liberty, and proportioned equality both human, civil, and Christian, most cherishing to virtue and true religion, but also, (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended or rather enjoined by our Saviour Himself to all Christians, not without remarkable disallowance and the brand of Gentilism upon Kingship [quotation here of _Luke_ XXII. 25, 26][1] ... And what Government comes nearer to this precept of Christ than a Free Commonwealth? Wherein they who are greatest are perpetual servants and drudges to the public at their own costs and charges, --neglect their own affairs, yet are not elevated above their brethren, --live soberly in their families, walk the streets as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration: whereas a King must be adored like a demigod, with a dissolute and haughty Court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masques and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male and female, --nor at his own cost, but on the public revenue, --and all this to do nothing but bestow the eating and drinking of excessive dainties, to set a pompous face upon the superficial actings of State, to pageant himself up and down in progress among the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject people. " [Footnote 1: This is one of Milton's very long sentences; and thelength shows, I think, the glow and rapidity of the dictation. ] Having thus expressed his belief that "a Free Commonwealth, withoutSingle Person or House of Lords, is by far the best government, _ifit can be had_, " Milton glances at the objection that recentexperience in England has shown such government to be practicallyunattainable. He denies this, alleging that all disappointmenthitherto "may be ascribed with most reason to the frequentdisturbances, interruptions, and dissolutions which the Parliamenthath had, partly from the impatient or disaffected people, partlyfrom some ambitious leaders in the Army"; and he declares that thepresent time is peculiarly favourable for one more vigorous effort. "Now is the opportunity, now the very season, wherein we may obtain aFree Commonwealth, and establish it for ever in the land withoutdifficulty or much delay. " He had written this when the Rump wassitting, and when he had in view the new elections that were torecruit that "small remainder of those faithful worthies who at firstfreed us from tyranny and have continued ever since through allchanges constant to their trust"; but he lets it stand now, as notinapplicable to the new condition of things brought in by the suddenmixture of the Secluded with the Rumpers. The "_Ready and EasyWay_, " however, has still to be explained; and to that heproceeds. The central idea of the pamphlet, and practically its backbone, is_One and the same Parliament in Perpetuity or Membership forLife_. This may be a surprise, not only to those who, knowing thatMilton was a Republican, conceive him therefore to have heldnecessarily the exact modern theory of Representative Government, butalso to those who understand Milton better, and who may remember atthis point his somewhat contemptuous estimates on previous occasionsof the value of the bodies called Parliaments. If those previouspassages of his writings are studied, however, it will be found thathe is not now so inconsistent as he looks. He had always thought abroad general council of fit men in the centre of a nation theessential of good government; and his chief recommendation toCromwell, even when approving of his exceptional Sovereignty, hadbeen that he should keep round him such a general Council. Further, it will be found that _permanence of the same men at the centre ofaffairs_ had always been his implied ideal, whether permanence ofan exceptional Single-Person sovereignty surrounded by a Council, orpermanence of a Council without a Single-Person sovereignty. His realobjection to so-called Parliaments, it will be found, lay in theassociation with them of the ideas of shiftingness, interruptedness, successiveness, the turmoil and debauchery of successive generalelections. So possessed was he with the notion of permanence oftenure as desirable in the governing agency, whatever it might be, that he had even modified the notion, as we have seen, to suit theanomalous conditions of that stage of the Anarchy which we havecalled the Wallingford-House Interruption, He had recommended thenthe experiment of a duality of life-aristocracies, one civil and theother military. And now, the turn of circumstances and of hisspeculations shutting him up once more to a single Civil Parliamentof the ordinary size and kind, he will insist on the quality ofpermanence or perpetuity as that which alone will make _it_answer the purpose. But, the very name "Parliament" having beenvitiated so as to make a permanent Parliament a difficult conceptionfor most people, he would rather get rid of the name altogether, andcall the central governing body simply THE GENERAL OR GRAND COUNCILOF THE NATION. All this appears in Milton's own words, as follows:-- "The ground and basis of every just and free Government (since men have smarted so oft for committing all to one person) is a GENERAL COUNCIL OF ABLEST MEN, chosen by the people to consult of public affairs from time to time for the common good. This Grand Council must have the forces by sea and land in their power, must raise and manage the public revenue, make laws as need requires, treat of commerce, peace, or war, with foreign nations; and, for the carrying on some particular affairs of State with more secrecy and expedition, must elect, as they have already, out of their own number and others, a _Council of State_, And, although it may seem strange at first hearing, by reason that men's minds are prepossessed with the conceit of successive Parliaments, I affirm that the GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL, being well chosen, should sit perpetual: for so their business is, and they will become thereby skilfullest, best acquainted with the people, and the people with them. The Ship of the Commonwealth is always under sail: they sit at the stern; and, if they steer well, what need is there to change them, it being rather dangerous? Add to this that the GRAND COUNCIL is both foundation and main pillar of the whole State, and to move pillars and foundations, unless they be faulty, cannot be safe for the building. I see not therefore how we can be advantaged by successive Parliaments, but that they are much likelier continually to unsettle rather than to settle a free Government, to breed commotions, changes, novelties, and uncertainties, and serve only to satisfy the ambition of such men as think themselves injured and cannot stay till they be orderly chosen to have their part in the Government. If the ambition of such be at all to be regarded, the best expedient will be, and with least danger, that every two or three years a hundred or some such number may go out by lot or suffrage of the rest, and the like number be chosen in their places (which hath been already thought on here, and done in other Commonwealths); but in my opinion better nothing moved, unless by death or just accusation.... [Farther argument for the permanence of the Supreme Governing Body, with illustrations from the Sanhedrim of the Jews, the Areopagus of Athens, the Senates of Lacedaemon and Home, the full Venetian Senate, and the States-General of the United Provinces]. I know not therefore what should be peculiar in England to make successive Parliaments thought safest, or convenient here more than in all other nations, unless it be the fickleness which is attributed to us as we are Islanders. But good education and acquisite wisdom ought to correct the fluxible fault, if any such be, of our watery situation. I suppose therefore that the people, well weighing these things, would have no cause to fear or murmur, though the Parliament, abolishing that name, as originally signifying but the _parley_ of our Commons with their Norman King when he pleased to call them, should perpetuate themselves, if their ends be faithful and for a free Commonwealth, under the name of a GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL: nay, till this be done, I am in doubt whether our State will be ever certainly and thoroughly settled.... The GRAND COUNCIL being thus firmly constituted to perpetuity, and still upon the death or default of any member supplied and kept in full number, there can be no cause alleged why peace, justice, plentiful trade, and all prosperity, should not thereupon ensue throughout the whole land, with as much assurance as can be of human things that they shall so continue (if God favour us and our wilful sins provoke Him not) even, to the coming of our true and rightful and only to be expected King, only worthy as He is our only Saviour, the Messiah, the Christ, the only heir of his Eternal Father, the only by Him anointed and ordained, since the work of our redemption finished, Universal Lord of all mankind. The way propounded is plain, easy, and open before us, without intricacies, without the mixture of inconveniences, or any considerable objection to be made, as by some frivolously, that it is not practicable. And this facility we shall have above our next neighbouring Commonwealth (if we can keep us from the fond conceit of something like a Duke of Venice, put lately into many men's heads by some one or other subtly driving on, under that pretty notion, his own ambitious ends to a crown), [1] that our liberty shall not be hampered or hovered over by any engagement to such a potent family as the House of Nassau, of whom to stand in perpetual doubt and suspicion, but we shall live the clearest and absolutest free nation, in the world. " [Footnote 1: The allusion here is vague. ] In effect, therefore, Milton's _Ready and Easy Way_, recommendedto the mixed Parliament of Residuary Rumpers and their reseatedPresbyterian half-brothers of March 1659-60, is that this Parliament, nailing the Republican flag to the mast, should make itself, or someenlargement of itself, the perpetual supreme power under the name ofTHE GRAND COUNCIL OF THE COMMONWEALTH, appointing a smaller_Council of State_, as heretofore, to be the working executive, but plainly intimating to the people that there are to be no moregeneral Parliamentary elections, but only elections to vacancies asthey may occur in the Grand Council by death or misdemeanour. He ishimself against the adoption of Harrington's principle of rotation toany extent whatever; but, if it would reconcile people to his scheme, he would concede rotation so far as to let a portion of the GrandCouncil go out every second or third year to admit new men. While expounding his main idea, Milton had intimated that he hadanother suggestion in reserve, which might help to reconcilereasonable men of democratic prepossessions to the seeming novelty ofan irremovable apparatus of Government at the centre. This suggestionhe brings forward near the end of the pamphlet. He arrives at it inthe course of a demonstration in farther detail of certainsuperiorities of Commonwealth government over Regal. "The wholefreedom of man, " he says, "consists either in Spiritual or CivilLiberty. " Glancing first at Spiritual Liberty, he contents himselfwith a general statement of the principle of Liberty of Conscience, as implying the absolute and unimpeded right of every individualChristian to interpret the Scripture for himself and give utteranceand effect to his conclusions; and, though he does not conceal thatin his own opinion such Liberty of Conscience cannot be completewithout Church-disestablishment, he does not press that for thepresent. Enough that Liberty of Conscience, according to anyendurable definition of it, is more safe in a Republic than in aKingdom, --which, by various instances from history, he maintains tobe a fact. Then, coming to Civil Liberty, he propounds his reservedsuggestion, or the second real novelty of his pamphlet, thus:-- "The other part of our freedom consists in the civil rights and advancements of every person according to his merit: the enjoyment of _those_ never more certain, and the access to _these_ never more open, than in a free Commonwealth. And _both_ in my opinion may be best and soonest obtained if every county in the land were made a _Little Commonwealth_, and their chief town a _City_ if it be not so called already; where the nobility and chief gentry may build houses or palaces befitting their quality, may bear part in the [district or city] government, make their own judicial laws, and execute them by their own elected judicatures, without appeal, in all things of Civil Government between man and man. So they shall have justice in their own hands, and none to blame but themselves if it be not well administered. In these employments they may exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into THE GRAND COUNCIL, according as their worth and merit shall be taken notice of by the people. As for controversies that may happen between men of several counties, they may repair, as they now do, to the Capital City. They should have here also [i. E. In their own Cities and Counties] schools and academies at their own choice, wherein their children may be bred up in their own sight to all learning and noble education, not in grammar only, but in all liberal arts and exercises. " This is what would now be called a scheme of _Decentralization_or _Systematic Local Government_. The counties, with their chiefcities, should be so many little independent communities, each withits legislative council, its law-courts, and its other institutions, employing and tasking the political energies and abilities of thecitizens or inhabitants of the district. While this would beadvantageous in itself, inasmuch as it would stimulate mentalactivity and social improvement everywhere, and would relieve theGRAND CENTRAL COUNCIL of much work more properly appertaining tomunicipalities, it would doubtless reconcile many to the existence ofsuch a GRAND CENTRAL COUNCIL in perpetuity. Energetic and ambitiousspirits would have scope and training in their own cities andneighbourhoods, and the hope of being elected to the CentralGovernment when there should be a vacancy there would be a fineincitement to the best to qualify themselves to the utmost fornational statesmanship. The following is the closing passage of the whole pamphlet:-- "With all hazard I have ventured what I thought my duty, to speak in season and to forewarn my country in time; wherein I doubt not but there be many wise men in all places and degrees, but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. Many circumstances and particulars I could have added in those things whereof I have spoken; but a few main matters now put speedily into execution will suffice to recover us and set all right. And there will want at no time who are good at circumstances; but men who set their minds on main matters and sufficiently urge them in these most difficult times I find not many. What I _have_ spoken is the language of the Good Old Cause: if it seem strange to any, it will not seem more strange, I hope, than convincing to backsliders. Thus much I should perhaps have said though I were sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones, and had none to cry to but, with the Prophet, _O Earth, Earth, Earth_, to tell the very soil itself what God hath determined of Coniah and his seed for ever. But I trust I shall have spoken persuasion to abundance of sensible and ingenuous men, --to some perhaps whom God may raise of these stones to become Children of Liberty, and may enable and unite in their noble resolutions to give a stay to these our ruinous proceedings and to this general defection of the misguided and abused multitude. " To understand fully the tremendous daring of this peroration, onemust turn to the passage of Hebrew prophecy which it cites andapplies to Charles Stuart. It is _Jeremiah XXII. _ 24-30, wherewoe is denounced upon Coniah, Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, the worthlessKing of Judah, no better than his father Jehoiakim:--"As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence. And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, andinto the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand ofNebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into anothercountry, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. But to theland whereunto they desire to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein isno pleasure? Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and arecast into a land which they know not? O Earth, Earth, Earth, hear theword of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord: Write ye this man childless, aman that shall not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed shallprosper, sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more inJudah. " A curious supplement to Milton's _Ready and Easy Way to establish aFree Commonwealth_ exists in the shape of a private letter whichhe addressed to General Monk. It was not published at the time, andbears no date, but must have been written immediately after thepublication of the pamphlet, while the Parliament of the SecludedMembers and Residuary Rumpers was still sitting. Milton, it wouldseem, had sent Monk a copy of the pamphlet; and this private letteris nothing but a brief summary of the suggestions of the pamphlet forthe General's easier reading, should he think fit. It is entitled, inour present copies, "_The Present Means and Brief Delineation of aFree Commonwealth, easy to be put in practice and without delay: In aLetter to General Monk_. "[1] The whole consists of less than threeof the present pages. Believing that all endeavours must now be used"that the ensuing election be of such, as are already firm orinclinable to constitute a Free Commonwealth, " Milton appeals to Monkto be himself the man to lead in these endeavours. "The speediestway, " he says, "will be to call up forthwith [to London] the chiefgentlemen out of every county, [and] to lay before them (as yourExcellency hath already, both in your published Letters to the Armyand your Declaration recited to the Members of Parliament), thedanger and confusion of readmitting kingship in this land. " Then letthe gentlemen so charged return at once to their counties, and elector cause to be elected, "by such at least of the people as arerightly qualified, " a STANDING COUNCIL in every city and great town, all great towns henceforth to be called _Cities_. Let it beunderstood that these councils are to be permanent seats of districtand local judicature and of political deliberation; but, whilesetting up such councils, let the gentlemen also see to the electionof "the usual number of ablest knights and burgesses, engaged for aCommonwealth, to make up the PARLIAMENT, or, as it will fromhenceforth be better called, THE GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL OF THENATION. " The local or city councils having meanwhile been set up, andit having been intimated that on great occasions their assent will berequired to measures proposed by the Grand Council of the nation, Milton does not anticipate that there will be much opposition "thoughthis GRAND COUNCIL be perpetual, as in that book [his pamphlet] Iproved would be best and most conformable to best examples"; but, should there be opposition, "the known expedient may at length beused of a partial _rotation_. " This is all that Milton has tosay, with one exception:--"If these gentlemen convocated refuse thesefair and noble offers of immediate liberty and happy condition, nodoubt there be enough in every county who will thankfully acceptthem, your Excellency once more declaring publicly this to be yourmind, and having a faithful veteran Army so ready and glad to assistyou in the prosecution thereof. "--What Monk thought of Mr. Milton'sLetter, if he ever took the trouble to read it, may be easilyguessed. It was at this time that he was so often drunk or nearly soat the dinners given in the City, and that Sir John Greenville, onthe part of Charles, was watching for an interview with him at St. James's. [Footnote 1: "_Published from the Manuscript_" is the additionin all our present reprints. In other words, this Letter to Monk, together with the previous _Letter to a Friend concerning theRuptures of the Commonwealth_, came into Toland's hands in themanner described in Note p. 617, and was also given by Toland foruse in the 1698 edition of Milton's Prose Works. ] Not one of Milton's pamphlets had a larger immediate circulation orprovoked a more rapid fury of criticism than his _Ready and EasyWay to establish a Free Commonwealth_. From the Parliament indeed the response was only indirect; but everyatom of such indirect response was a dead and contemptuous negative. Though, when Milton published the pamphlet, he was entitled to assumethat the compact between Monk and the Secluded Members whom he hadrestored guaranteed a continuance of the Commonwealth form ofGovernment, the entire tenor of their proceedings during thefive-and-twenty days to which they confined their sittings (Feb. 2l-March 16, 1659-60) was such as to undeceive him and others on thatpoint, and to show that, though they abstained from abolishing theCommonwealth themselves, they meant to leave the succeeding full andfree Parliament they had called at perfect liberty to do so. No otherconstruction could be put upon their votes even in ecclesiasticalmatters. Hardly was Milton's pamphlet out when he knew that they hadvoted the revival of the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faithas the standard of doctrine in the National Church (March 2), andthe revival of the Solemn League and Covenant as a document ofperpetual national obligation (March 5). Then followed (March 14)their vote for mapping out all England and Wales according to thestrict pattern of the Scottish Presbyterian organization. But, thatthere might be no mistake, their votes predetermining the compositionof the coming Parliament were also in the direction of the admissionof Royalists and the exclusion of those that could be called Fanaticsfor the Republic. The engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealthwithout King or House of Lords was annulled (March 13); the clausesdisqualifying even the active and conspicuous Royalists of the CivilWars were far from stringent; and the very act by which the Housedissolved itself contained a proviso saving the legal andconstitutional rights of the old House of Lords and pointing to therestitution of the Peerage. How significant also that scene in theHouse on the last day of their sittings, Friday, March 16, when Mr. Crewe moved for a vote of execration on the Regicides, and poorThomas Scott, standing up on the floor, and reckless though the wordsshould seal his doom, declared himself to be one of the blood-stainedband and claimed the fact as his highest earthly honour! What Scottdid that day in the House Milton had done even more publicly afortnight before in the daring peroration of his pamphlet. From March16, 1659-60, Milton and Scott, whoever else, might regard themselvesas in the list for the future hangman. In the list for the future hangman! It is a strong expression, buttrue historically to the very letter. Read the following from ascurrilous pamphlet, of six pages in shabby print, called _TheCharacter of the Rump_, which was out in London on Saturday the17th of March, the day after the dissolution of the Parliament:-- "An ingenious person hath observed that Scott is the Rump's man Thomas; and they might have said to him, when he was so busy with the General, "Peace, for the Lord's sake, Thomas! lest Monk take us, And drag us out, as Hercules did Cacus. "But John Milton is their goose-quill champion; who had need of a help-meet to establish anything, for he has a ram's head and is good only at batteries, --an old heretic both in religion and manners, that by his will would shake off his governors as he doth his wives, four in a fortnight. The sunbeams of his scandalous papers against the late King's Book is [sic] the parent that begot his late _New Commonwealth_; and, because he, like a parasite as he is, by flattering the then tyrannical power, hath run himself into the briars, the man will be angry if the rest of the nation will not bear him company, and suffer themselves to be decoyed into the same condition. He is so much an enemy to usual practices that I believe, when he is condemned to travel to Tyburn in a cart, he will petition for the favour to be the first man that ever was driven thither in a wheelbarrow. And now, John, _you_ must stand close and draw in your elbows [the fancy is of Milton standing on the scaffold pinioned], that Needham, the Commonwealth didapper, may have room to stand beside you ... He [Needham] was one of the spokes of Harrington's Rota, till he was turned out for cracking. As for Harrington, _he's_ but a demi-semi in the Rump's music, and should be good at the cymbal; for he is all for wheeling instruments, and, having a good invention, may in time find out the way to make a concert of grindstones. "[1] [Footnote 1: Pamphlet, of title and date given, in the ThomasonCollection. I have mended the pointing, but nothing else. ] Such was the popular verdict, in March 1660, on Milton and his lastpamphlet, and all his deserts and accomplishments in the world he hadlived in for one-and-fifty years. More of the like may be found onsearch; but I will pass to one retort on his _Ready and EasyWay_, of somewhat higher literary quality than the last, and whichretains a certain celebrity yet. It appeared on March 30, as a small quarto of sixteen pages, withthis title: "_The Censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's Book, entituled 'The Ready and Easie Way to Establish a FreeCommonwealth_. '" On the title-page is the imprint, "_London, Printed by Paul Giddy, Printer to the Rota, at the sign of theWindmill in Turne-againe Lane_. 1660, " and also a professedextract from the minutes of the Rota Club, "_Die Luna 26 Martii_1660, " certified by "_Trundle Wheeler, Clerk to the Rota_, "authorizing and ordering Mr. Harrington, as Chairman of the Club, todraw up and publish a narrative of that day's debate of the Club overMr. Milton's pamphlet, and to transmit a copy of the same to Mr. Milton. The thing, though it has been mistaken by careless people asactually a production of Harrington's, is in reality a cleverburlesque by some Royalist, in which, under the guise of an imaginarydebate in the Rota over Milton's pamphlet, Milton and the Rota-menare turned into ridicule together. The mock-names on the title-page(_Paul Giddy, Trundle Wheeler, &c. _) are part of the burlesque;and it is well kept up in the tract itself, which takes the form of aletter gravely addressed to Milton and signed with Harrington'sinitials, "_J. H. _"[1] [Footnote 1: The Rota Club, as we already know (ante p. 555), canhave had no meeting on the day supposed in the burlesque, havingdisappeared, with all its appurtenances, ballot-box included, at orimmediately after the swamping of the old Rump by the readmission ofthe secluded members. The last glimpses we have of it are these fromPepys's Diary:--_Jan. _ 10, 1659-60. "To the Coffee-house, wherewere a great confluence of gentlemen: viz. Mr. Harrington, Poulteney(chairman), Gold, Dr. Petty, &c. ; where admirable discourse till 9 atnight. "--_Jan. _ 17. "I went to the Coffee Club, and heard verygood discourse. It was in answer to Mr. Harrington's answer, who saidthat the state of the Roman government was not a settled government, and so it was no wonder that the balance of property was in one handand the command in another, it being therefore always in a posture ofwar; but it was carried by ballot that it was a steady government, though it is true by the voices it had been carried before that itwas an unsteady government: so to-morrow it is to be proved by theopponents that the balance lay in one hand and the government inanother. "--_Feb. _ 20 (day before Restitution of the Secluded). "I to the Coffee-house, where I heard Mr, Harrington and my LordDorset and another Lord talking of getting another place [for theClub meetings] at the Cockpit, and they did believe it would cometo something. " Had there been an express order for closing theClub?] Mr. Harrington is supposed to begin by expressing his regret to Mr. Milton that his duty obliges him to make so unsatisfactory a reportas to the reception of Mr. Milton's last pamphlet by the Club. "For, whereas it is our usual custom to dispute everything, how plain orobscure soever, by knocking argument against argument, and tilting atone another with our heads (as rams fight) till we are out of breath, and then refer it to our wooden oracle, the Box, and seldom anything, how slight soever, hath appeared without some person or other todefend it, I must confess I never saw bowling-stones run so unluckilyagainst any boy, when his hand has been out, as the ballots didagainst you when anything was put to the question from the beginningof your book to the end. " First, one gentleman had objected to thevery name of the book, _The Ready and Easy Way_, &c. , and hadremarked that Mr. Milton was generally unlucky in his titles to hispamphlets, most of them having been absurd or fantastic. A secondgentleman had been even more impolite. "He wondered you did not giveover writing, since you have always done it to little or no purpose;for, though you have scribbled your eyes out, your works have neverbeen printed but for the company of chandlers and tobaccomen, who areyour stationers, and the only men that vend your labours. He saidthat he himself reprieved the whole _Defence of the People ofEngland_ for a groat, ... Though it cost you much oil and labourand the Rump £300 a year. " Then a third gentleman, a member of theLong Robe, had been very severe and sarcastic on Mr. Milton'sknowledge of Law; and a fourth, who had travelled much abroad, hadfollowed with an equally severe criticism on Mr. Milton's knowledgeof European history. This last speaker was beginning to be prosy, when fortunately some one came into the Club with news that SirArthur Hasilrig, "the Brutus of our Republic, " had been nearly tornin pieces by a rabble of boys in Westminster Hall, just outside theClub, and had saved himself by taking to his heels. The laughter overthis made the last gentleman forget what he was saying; which gaveopportunity to a fifth gentleman to rise and discourse at some lengthon the sophistical and abominable character of Mr. Milton's PoliticalPhilosophy:-- "He was of opinion that you did not believe yourself, nor those reasons you give in defence of Commonwealth, but that you are swayed by something else, as either by a stork-like fate (as a modern Protector-Poet calls it, because that fowl is observed to live nowhere but in Commonwealths), or because you have unadvisedly scribbled yourself obnoxious, or else you fear such admirable eloquence as yours would be thrown away under a Monarchy.... All your politics are derived from the works of Declaimers, with which sort of writers the ancient Commonwealths had the fortune to abound ... All which you have outgone (according to your talent) in their several ways: for you have done your feeble endeavour to rob the Church, of the little which the rapine of the most sacrilegious persons hath left, in your learned work against Tithes; you have slandered the dead worse than envy itself, and thrown your dirty outrage on the memory of a murdered Prince, as if the Hangman were but your usher. These have been the attempts of your stiff formal eloquence, which you arm accordingly with anything that lies in your way, right or wrong, --not only begging but stealing questions, and taking everything for granted that will serve your turn. For you are not ashamed to rob O. Cromwell himself, and make use of his canting assurances from Heaven and answering condescensions: the most impious Mahometan doctrine that ever was vented among Christians. "... This speaker having ended with a comment on Mr. Milton's remark thatChrist himself had put "the brand of Gentilism" upon Kingship, "ayoung gentleman made answer that your writings are best interpretedby themselves, and that be remembered, in that book wherein you fightwith the King's Picture, you call Sir Philip Sidney's PrincessPamela, who was born and bred of Christian parents in England, 'aheathen woman, ' and therefore he thought that by _Heathenish_you meant _English_, and that in calling Kingship heathenish youinferred it was the only proper and natural government of the Englishnation, as it hath been proved in all ages. To which another objectedthat such a sense was quite contrary to your purpose; to which heimmediately replied that it was no new thing with you to write thatwhich is as well against as for your purpose. After much debate, theyagreed to put it to the ballot; and the young gentleman carried itwithout contradiction. " Then another critic fell foul of Mr. Milton'sDivinity and Church notions, --one of which, he said, was "that theChurch of Christ ought to have no head upon earth, but the monster ofmany heads, the multitude, " and another "that any man may turn awayhis wife, and take another as oft as he pleases": to which lastaccusation is added the comment, "As you have most learnedly provedupon the fiddle [_Tetrachordon_], and practised in your life andconversation; for which you have achieved the honour to be styled thefounder of a sect. " The audience by this time becoming weary, "aworthy knight of this Assembly stood up and said that, if we meant toexamine all the particular fallacies and flaws in your writing, weshould never have done; he would therefore, with leave, deliver hisjudgment upon the whole: which in brief was this:--That it is allwindy foppery from the beginning to the end, written, to theelevation of that rabble and meant to cheat the ignorant; that youfight always with the flat of your hand like a rhetorician, and nevercontract the logical fist; that you trade altogether in universals, the region of deceits and fallacy, but never come so nearparticulars as to let us know which among divers things of the samekind you would be at ... Besides this, as all your politics reach butthe outside and circumstances of things, and never touch atrealities, so you are very solicitous about _words_, as if theywere charms, or had more in them than what they signify; for noconjuror's devil is more concerned in a spell than you are in a mereword. " This last speaker having moved that Mr. Harrington himself, inconclusion, should deliver _his_ opinion on Mr. Milton's book, the result was as follows:-- "I knew not (though unwilling) how to avoid it; and therefore I told them, as briefly as I could, that that which I disliked most in your treatise was that there is not one word of _The Balance of Property_, nor the _Agrarian_, nor _Rotation_, in it from the beginning to the end: without which (together with a _Lord Archon_) I thought I had sufficiently demonstrated, not only in my writings but public exercises in that coffee-house, that there is no possible foundation of a free Commonwealth. To the first and second of these, --that is, the _Balance_ and the _Agrarian_, --you made no objection; and therefore I should not need to make any answer. But for the third, --I mean _Rotation_, --which you implicitly reject in your design to perpetuate the present members, I shall only add this to what I have already said and written on that subject: That a Commonwealth is like a great top, that must be kept up by being whipt round, and held in perpetual circulation; for, if you discontinue the rotation, and suffer the Senate to settle and stand still, down it falls immediately. And, if you had studied this point as carefully as I have done, you could not but know there is no such way under Heaven of disposing the vicissitudes of command and obedience, and of distributing equal right and liberty among all men, as this of _Wheeling_. "... [1] [Footnote 1: There is a reprint of this _Censure of the Rota_in the Harleian Miscellany (IV. 179-186). I take the date ofpublication from the Thomason copy of the original. ] How notoriously Milton had flashed forth as the chief militantRepublican of the crisis, how universally he had drawn upon himselfin that character the eyes of the Royalists and become the target fortheir bitterest shafts, may appear from yet another probing among thecontemporary London pamphlets. ----Perhaps the last formal andcollective appeal on behalf of the Republic to Monk and the others inpower was a small tract which appeared in the end of March, with thistitle:--_Plain English to his Excellencie the Lord-General Monk andthe Officers of his Army: or a Word in Season, not onely to them, butto all impartial Englishmen. To which is added a Declaration of theParliament in the year 1647, setting forth the grounds and reasonswhy they resolved to make no further Address or Application to theKing. Printed at London in the year_ 1660. The first part of thetract consists of eight pages addressed to Monk, in the form of aletter dated "March 22, " by some persons who do not give their names, but sign themselves "your Excellency's most faithful friends andservants in the common cause"; after which, in smaller type, comes areprint of the famous reasons of the Long Parliament for their totalrupture with Charles I. In January 1647-8 (Vol. III. Pp. 584-585). The letter begins thus:--"My Lord and Gentlemen, --It is written_The prudent shall keep silence in the evil time_; and 'tis likewe also might hold our peace, but that we fear a knife is at the verythroat not only of our and your liberties, but of our persons also. In this condition we hope it will be no offence if we cry out to youfor help, --you that, through God's goodness, have helped us so often, and strenuously maintained the same cause with us against the returnof that family which pretends to the Government of these nations ... We cannot yet be persuaded, though our fears and jealousies arestrong and the grounds of them many, that you can so lull asleep yourconsciences, or forget the public interests and your own, as to bereturning back with the multitude to Egypt, or that you should withthem be hankering after the leeks and onions of our old bondage. "There follows an earnest invective against the Stuarts; but the toneof respectfulness to Monk is kept up studiously throughout. There isno sign of Milton in the language, and one guesses on the whole thatthe tract was a concoction of a few of the City Republicans, withBarebone among them, meeting privately perhaps in the back-parlour ofthe Republican bookseller who ventured the publication anonymously;but it is possible that Milton may have been consulted, or at leasthave been cognisant of the affair. The reprinting of the reasons ofthe Long Parliament for their No-Address Resolutions of January1647-8 was an excellent idea, inasmuch as it reminded people of thatdisgust with Charles I. , that impossibility of dealing with him evenin his captive condition, which had driven the Parliamentarians tothe theory of a Republic a year before the Republic had been actuallyfounded; and this feature of the tract may have seemed good toMilton. ----The Tract must have annoyed Monk and the otherauthorities, for it was immediately suppressed. This we learn from areply to it, which appeared on the 3rd of April, with the title_Treason Arraigned, in answer to Plain English, being a Trayterousand Phanatique Pamphlet which was condemned by the Counsel of State, suppressed by Authority, and the Printer declared against byProclamation ... London, Printed in the year_ 1660. The replytakes the very curious form of a reproduction of the condemned tractalmost textually, paragraph by paragraph, with a running comment ofvituperation upon the author or authors. The following sentences, culled from the vituperative comment, will show that the writersuspected Milton as the person chiefly responsible, and willsufficiently represent the entire performance:-- "Some two days since came to my view a bold sharp pamphlet, called _Plain English_, directed to the General and his Officers.... It is a piece drawn by no fool, and it deserves a serious answer. By the design, the subject, malice, and the style, I should suspect it for a blot of the same pen that wrote _Eikonoklastes_. It runs foul, tends to tumult; and, not content barely to applaud the murder of the King, the execrable author of it vomits upon his ashes with a pedantic and envenomed scorn, pursuing still his sacred memory. Betwixt him [Milton] and his brother Rabshakeh [Needham?] I think a man may venture to divide the glory of it. It relishes the mixture of their united faculties and wickedness.... Say, Milton, Needham, either or both of you, or whosoever else, say where this worthy person [Monk] ever mixed with you.... Come, hang yourself; beg right; here's your true method of begging:--'O, for Tom Scott's sake, for Hasilrig's sake, for Robinson, Holland, Mildmay, Mounson, Corbet, Atkins, Vane, Livesey, Skippon, Milton, Tichbourne, Ireton, Gordon, Lechmere, Blagrave, Barebone, Needham's sake, and, to conclude, for all the rest of our unpenitent brethren's sake, help a company of poor rebellious devils[1]. '" [Footnote 1: The dates of the two pamphlets, and the extracts, arefrom copies in the Thomason Collection. Such references to Milton inthe pamphlets of March--April 1660 might be multiplied. He was thenin all men's mouths. ] We are now, it is to be seen, in the mid-stream of those final fortydays which intervened between the self-dissolution of the lastfag-end of the Long Parliament and the meeting of the Full and FreeParliament called for the conclusive settlement (March 16, 1659-60-April 25, 1660). Monk was Dictator; the Council of State, with Annesley for President, was the body in charge, along with Monk, keeping the peace; but all eyes were directed towards the comingParliament, the elections for which were going on. It was preciselyin the beginning of April that the popular current towards arestoration of Charles Stuart and nothing else had acquired fullforce and become a roaring and foaming torrent. They were shoutingfor him, singing for him, treating his restoration as alreadycertain, though the precise manner and date of it must be left to theParliament. Only the chiefs, Monk, Annesley, Montague, and the otherCouncillors, kept up an appearance as if the issue must not beanticipated till the Parliament should have actually met. Withletters to and from Charles in their pockets, and each knowing orguessing that the others had such letters, they were trying to lookas unpledged and as merely cogitative as they could. It was for themultitude to roar and shout for Charles, and they had now fullpermission. It was for the chiefs to be silent themselves, onlymanaging and manipulating, and watchful especially against anyoutbreak of Republican fanaticism even yet that might interfere withthe plain course of things and baulk or delay the popularexpectation. Wherever they could perceive a likelihood ofdisturbance, by act or by speech, there they were bound to curb orsuppress. At least in one instance they found it necessary to curb a too hastyand impetuous Royalist. This was Dr. Matthew Griffith, a clergymanover sixty years of age, once a _protegé_ of the poet Donne. Sequestered in the early days of the Long Parliament from his rectoryof St. Mary Magdalen, London, he had taken refuge with the Kingthrough the civil wars, and had been made D. D. At Oxford, and one ofthe King's chaplains. Afterwards, returning to London, he had livedthere through the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, one of thosethat continued the use of the liturgy and other Anglican church-formsby stealth to small gatherings of cavaliers, and that foundthemselves often in trouble on that account. He had suffered, it issaid, four imprisonments. The near prospect of the return of CharlesII. At last had naturally excited the old gentleman; and, chancing topreach in the Mercers' Chapel on Sunday the 25th of March, 1660, hehad chosen for his text _Prov. _ XXIV. 21, which he translatedthus: "My son, fear God and the King, and meddle not with them thatbe seditious or desirous of change. " On this text he had preached avery Royalist sermon. There would have been nothing peculiar in that, as many clergymen were doing the like. But, not content with havingpreached the sermon, Dr. Griffith resolved to publish it, in anostentatious manner and with certain accompaniments. "_The Fear ofGod and the King. Press'd in a Sermon preach'd at Mercers Chappell onthe 25th of March, 1660. Together with a brief Historical Account ofthe Causes of our unhappy distractions and the onely way to healthem. By Matthew Griffith, D. D. , and Chaplain to the late King. London, Printed for Tho. Johnson at the Golden Key in St. PaulsChurchyard_, 1660": such was the name of a duodecimo out in Londonin the first days of April. [1] The volume consists of threeparts, --first, a dedicatory epistle "To His Excellency George Monck, Captain-General of all the Land Forces of England, Scotland, andIreland, and one of the Generals of all the Naval Forces"; then thesermon itself in fifty-eight pages; and then an addition, in theshape of a directly political pamphlet, headed "_The SamaritanRevived_. " The gem is the dedication to Monk. The substance ofthat is as follows:-- [Footnote 1: "April" only, without day, is the date in the Thomasoncopy; but it was registered at Stationers' Hall, March 31, and thereis proof that the publication was immediate. ] "My Lord, --If you will be pleased to allow me to be a physician in the same sense that all moral divines do acknowledge the body-politic (consisting of Church and State) to be a patient, then I will now give your Highness a just account both how far and how faithfully I have practised upon it by virtue of my profession. When I first observed things to be somewhat out of order, by reason of a high distemper, which then appeared by some infallible indications, I thought it my duty to prescribe an wholesome electuary (out of the 122nd Psalm at the 6th verse, in a sermon which I was called to preach in the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul's, anno 1642, and soon after published by command under this title: _A Pathetical Persuasion to pray for the Public Peace_), to be duly and devoutly taken every morning next our hearts: hoping that, by God's blessing on the means, I should have prevented that distemper from growing into a formed disease. Yet, finding that my preventing physic did not work so kindly and take so good an effect as I earnestly desired, but rather that this my so tenderly beloved patient grew worse and worse, as not only being in process of time fallen into a fever and that pestilential, but also as having received divers dangerous wounds, which, rankling and festering inwardly, brought it into a spiritual atrophy and deep consumption, and the parts ill-affected (for want of Christian care and skill in such mountebanks as were trusted with the cure, while myself and most of the ancient orthodox clergy were sequestered and silent) began to gangrene: and, when some of us became sensible thereof, we took the confidence (being partly emboldened by the connivance of the higher powers that then were) to fall to the exercise of our ministerial functions again in such poor parishes as would admit us: Then I saw it was high time not only to prescribe strong purgative medicines in the pulpit (contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and contrition, the rhubarb of restitution and satisfaction, with divers other safe roots, seeds, and flowers, fit and necessary to help to carry away by degrees the incredible confluence of ill humours and all such malignant matter as offended), but also to put pen to paper and appear in print (as in this imperfect and impolished piece, which as guilty of an high presumption here in all humility begs your Lordship's pardon) wherein my chief scope is to personate the Good Samaritan, that, as he cured the wounded traveller by searching his wounds with wine and suppling them with oil, so I have here both described the rise and progress of our national malady, and also prescribed the only remedy, that I might be in some kind instrumental, under God and your Highness, in the healing of the same ... My Lord, as it must needs grieve you to see these three distressed kingdoms lie like a body without a head, so it may also cheer you to consider that the Comforter hath empowered you (and in this nick of time you only) to make these dead and dry bones live. You may by this one act ennoble and eternize yourself more in the hearts and chronicles of these three kingdoms than by all your former victories and the long line of your extraction from the Plantagenets your ancestors ... It is a greater honour to _make_ a king than to _be_ one. Your proper name minds you of being St. George for England; you surname prompts you to stand for order: then let not panic fears, punctilios of human policy, or state formalities, beguile you (whom we look upon as Jethro's magistrate, who was a man of courage, fearing God, dealing truly, and hating covetousness) of that immarescible crown of glory due to you, whom we hope that God hath designed to be the repairer of the breach and the temporal redeemer of your native country. " Evidently Dr. Griffith was a silly person, more likely to make acause ridiculous than to help it. There were things in his sermon andits accompaniments, however, that might harm the King's causeotherwise than by the bad literary taste of the defence. There was atone of that revengeful spirit which it was the policy of all themore prudent Royalists to disown. Hence the publication annoyed evenin that quarter. The unpardonable offence, however, was the addressto Monk. He was studying to be as secret as the grave, had signifiedhis leanings to the King by not a single public word, and indeed hadhardly ceased to swear he stood for the Commonwealth. And here was animpudent Doctor of Divinity spoiling all by openly assuming andannouncing the very thing to be concealed. Monk was excessivelyirritated; the Council of State sympathized with him; and so, "toplease and blind the fanatical party" for the moment, Dr. Griffithwas sent to Newgate. [1] [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 711-713. --Hyde, writing from Breda, April 16, 1660, says to a Royalist correspondent: "This very lastpost hath brought over three or four complaints to the king of thevery unskillful passion and distemper of some of our divines in theirlate sermons; with which they say that both the General and theCouncil of State are highly offended, as truly they have reason to be... One Dr. Griffith is mentioned. " _Ibid. _, note by Bliss. ] It was more natural, however, for the General and the Council to takesimilar precautions against too violent expressions ofanti-Royalism, too vehement efforts to stir up the Republican embers. Of their vigilance in this respect we have just seen an instance intheir instant suppression of the Republican appeal to Monk and hisOfficers entitled _Plain English_, and their procedure byproclamation against the anonymous publisher of that tract. If I amnot mistaken, he was Livewell Chapman, of the Crown in Pope's HeadAlley, the publisher of Milton's _Considerations touching thelikeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church_, and alsoof his more recent _Ready and Easy Way to establish a FreeCommonwealth_. There was, at all events, a printed proclamation ofthe Council of State against this person, dated "Wednesday, 28 March, 1660, " and signed "William Jessop, Clerk of the Council. " It began inthese terms:--"Whereas the Council of State is informed that LivewellChapman, of London, Stationer, having from a wicked design to engagethe nation in blood and confusion caused several seditious andtreasonable books to be printed and published, doth, now hide andobscure himself, for avoiding the hand of justice"; and it ended withan order that Chapman should surrender himself within four days, andthat none should harbour or conceal him, but all, and especiallyofficers, try to arrest him. If he was the publisher of _PlainEnglish_, there would be additional reason for suspecting thatMilton had some cognisance of that anonymous appeal to Monk; butthere can be no doubt that among the "seditious and treasonablebooks" the publication of which constituted Chapman's offence wasMilton's own _Ready and Easy Way_. The authorities had not yetstruck at Milton himself, but they were coming very near him. Theyhad ordered the arrest of his publisher. Within a few days after the order for the arrest of Milton'spublisher, Livewell Chapman, the authorities signified theirdispleasure, though in a less harsh manner, with another Republicanassociate of Milton, his old friend Marchamont Needham. --Not withoutdifficulty had this Oliverian journalist, the subsidized editor since1655 of the bi-weekly official newspaper of the Protectorate (callingitself _The Public Intelligencer_ on Mondays and _MercuriusPoliticus_ on Thursdays), been retained in the service of the GoodOld Cause. His Oliverianism having been excessive, to the extent ofdefending not only Oliver's Established Church, but also all else inhis policy that grated most on the pure Republicans, he had beendischarged from his editorship on the 13th of May, 1659, by order ofthe Restored Rump, before it had been six days in power, the placegoing then to John Canne. But Needham's versatility was matchless, and on the 15th of August the Rump had thought it best to reappointhim to the editorship. [1] Since then, having already in successionbeen Parliamentarian, Royalist, Commonwealth's man or Rumper, and allbut anti-Republican Protectoratist, the world had known him in hisfifth phase of Rumper or pure Commonwealth's man again. Not only inhis journals, but also in independent pamphlets, he had advocated theGood Old Cause. One such pamphlet, published with his name in August1659, under the title of _Interest will not lie_, [2] had been inreply to some Royalist who had propounded "a way how to satisfy allparties and provide for the public good by calling in the son of thelate King": against whom Needham's contention was "that it is reallythe interest of every party (except only the Papist) to keep himout. " One can understand now why, in the Royalist squib latelyquoted, Needham was named as "the Commonwealth didapper"[3] alongwith Milton as "their goose-quill champion, " and why the public werethere promised the pleasure of soon seeing the two at Tyburntogether. --But the final performance of Needham's, it is believed, was a tract called _News from Brussels, in a Letter from a nearattendant on his Majesty's person to a Person of Honour here_. Itpurports to be dated at Brussels, March 10, 1659-60, English style, and was out in London on March 23. The publication is said to havebeen managed secretly by Mr. Praise-God Barebone; and, though thetract was anonymous, it was attributed at once to Needham. Being"fall of rascalities against Charles II. And his Court, " as Woodsays, and professing to give private information as to the terribleseverities which they were meditating when they should be restored toEngland, the pamphlet was much resented by the Royalists; and JohnEvelyn roused himself from a sickbed to pen an instant and emphaticcontradiction, called _The late News or Message from Brusselsunmasked_. Needham's connexion, or supposed connexion, with soviolent an anti-Royalist tract, and possibly also with the Republicanmanifesto called _Plain English_, which appeared in the sameweek, could not be overlooked; and, accordingly, in Whitlocke, underdate April 9, 1660, we find this note: "The Council dischargedNeedham from writing the Weekly Intelligence and ordered Dury andMuddiman to do it. " The Dury here mentioned was not our John Durie ofEuropean celebrity, but an insignificant Giles Dury. His colleagueMuddiman, the real successor of Needham in the editorship, was HenryMuddiman, an acquaintance of Pepys, who certifies that he was "a goodscholar and an arch rogue. " He had been connected with the Londonpress for some time (for smaller news-sheets had been springing upagain beside the authorized _Mercurius_ and_Intelligencer_), and had been writing for the Rumpers. He hadjust been, owning to Pepys, however, that he "did it only to getmoney, " and had no liking for them or their politics. [4] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. As only the_Intelligencer_ is named in the orders, one infers that Needhamretained the editorship of the _Mercurius_ during his threemonths of suspension. He may have had more of a proprietary hold onthat paper. ] [Footnote 2: Thomason Catalogue: large quartos. ] [Footnote 3: _Didapper_: a duck that dives and reappears. ] [Footnote 4: Wood's Ath. III. 1180-1190; Whitlocke as cited; Pepys, under date Jan. 9, 1659-60; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 17, 1659-60 _etseq. _; Baker's Chronicle continued by Edward Phillips (ed. 1679), pp. 699-700. --It is curious to read Phillips's remarks on the"several seditious pamphlets" put forth by the Republican fanatics"to deprave the minds of the people" and prevent the Restoration. Though he must have remembered well that his uncle's were the chiefof these, he avoids naming him. He mentions, however, the _Newsfrom Brussels_, and dilates on the great service done by Evelyn inreplying to it. Phillips had meanwhile (1663-1665) been in Evelyn'semployment as tutor to his son. ] If they turned Needham out of his editorship, they could hardly doless than turn Milton out of his Latin Secretaryship. About thistime, accordingly, he did cease to hold the office which he had heldfor eleven years. Phillips's words are that he was "sequestered fromhis office of Latin Secretary and the salary thereunto belonging";but, unfortunately, though he gives us to understand that this wasshortly before the Restoration, he leaves the exact date uncertain. Though the last of Milton's state-letters now preserved and known ashis are the two, dated May 15, 1659, written for the Rump immediatelyafter the subversion of Richard's Protectorate, we have seen himholding his office in sinecure, and drawing his salary of £200 ayear, to as late at least as the beginning of the Wallingford-HouseInterruption in October 1659; and there is no reason for thinkingthat the Council or Committee of Safety of the Wallingford-HouseGovernment, his dissent from their usurpation notwithstanding, thought it necessary to dismiss him. Far less likely is it that theRepublican Rumpers, when restored the second time in December 1659, would have parted with a man so thoroughly Republican and sorespectful to themselves, even while they dared not adopt hisChurch-disestablishment suggestions. We may fairly assume, then, thatMilton remained Marvell's nominal colleague till Monk's finaltermination of the tenure of the Rump by re-admitting the secludedmembers, i. E. Till Feb. 21, 1659-60. Had he been then at oncedismissed, it would have been no wonder. How could he, theIndependent of Independents, the denouncer of every form ofState-Church, the enemy and satirist of the Presbyterians, andmoreover the author of the Divorce heresy and the founder of a sectof Divorcers, be retained in the service of a re-PresbyterianizedGovernment, founding itself on the Westminster Confession and theSolemn League and Covenant? There is no proof, however, of any suchinstant dismissal of Milton by the new powers, but rather a shade ofproof to the contrary in the phraseology of the preface to his_Ready and Easy Way_. The probability, therefore, is that it wasafter March 3, the date of the publication of that pamphlet, thatMilton was sequestered, and that it was the pamphlet itself, added tothe sum of his previous obnoxiousness to the new powers, that led tothe sequestration. Yet, as the new powers were proceeding warily, andkeeping up as long as they could the pretence of leaving theCommonwealth an open question, it is quite possible that they were inno haste to discharge Milton, All in all, the most probable time ofhis dismissal is some time after the dissolution of the Parliament ofthe Secluded Members on the 16th of March, 1659-60, when Monk and theCouncil of State were left in the management. As Milton had beenoriginally appointed by the Council of State and not by Parliament, it was in the Council's pleasure to continue him or dismiss him. Theywere in a severe mood, virtually anti-Republican already, though notyet avowedly so, between March 28, when they ordered LivewellChapman's arrest, and April 9, when they dismissed Needham; and thator thereabouts may be the date of Milton's discharge. [1] [Footnote 1: Phillips's narrative of his uncle's dismissal is ablotch of confused wording and pointing:--"It was but a littlebefore the King's Restoration that he wrote and published his book indefence of a Commonwealth; so undaunted he was in declaring his truesentiments to the world; and not long before his _Power of theCivil Magistrate in Ecclesiastical Affairs_ and his _Treatiseagainst Hirelings, _ just upon the King's coming over; having alittle before been sequestered from his office of Latin Secretary andthe salary thereunto belonging, he was force, " &c. This, as itstands, defies interpretation. The _Treatise of Civil Power inEcclesiastical Causes_ appeared in April 1659, or eight monthsbefore the same. There ought, I believe, to have been a full stopafter _Hirelings_, and the rest should have run on thus:--"Justupon the King's coming over, having a little before been sequesteredfrom his office of latin Secretary and the salary therunto belonging, he was force, " &c. ] * * * * * In office or out of office, it was the same to Milton. He haddetermined that he would not be suppressed, that he would not besilent, till they should tie his hands, or gag his mouth. There is nogrander exhibition of dying resistance, of solitary and uselessfighting for a lost cause, than in his conduct through April 1680. Alone he then stood, we may say, the last of the visible Republicans. Hasilrig, Scott, Ludlow, Neville, and Vane, had collapsed or were outof sight, the last under ban already by his former brothers of theCommonwealth; Needham was extinguished; most of the Cromwellians hadgone over to the enemy, or were hastening to surrender. Blind Miltonalone remained, the Samson Agonistes, On him, in the absence ofothers, the eyes of the Philistine mob, the worshippers of Dagon, hadbeen turned from time to time of late as the Hebrew that could makethem most efficient sport; and now it was as if they had all met, bycommon consent, to be amused by this single Hebrew's last exertions, and had sent to bring him on the stage. They laughed, they shouted, they shrieked, the gathered Philistine thousands: "He, patient, but undaunted, where they led him Came to the place. " The first of the feats of strength of Milton, thus alone on thestage, and knowing himself to be confronted and surrounded by ajeering multitude, was a somewhat puny and unnecessary one. It was anonslaught on Dr. Matthew Griffith for his Royalist sermon. He wantedsome object of attack, and the very notoriety given to Dr. Griffith'sperformance by the rebuke of the Council of State recommended it forthe purpose despite its intrinsic wretchedness. Accordingly, havinghad Dr. Griffith's Sermon and its accompaniments read over to him, hedictated what appeared some time in April with this title: "_BriefNotes upon a late Sermon, titled 'The Fear of God and the King';Preach'd, and since published, by Matthew Griffith, D. D. , andChaplain to the late King. Wherin many notorious wrestings ofScripture, and other falsities are observed. _"[1] [Footnote 1: Original copies of this pamphlet of Milton must be veryscarce. I could not find one in the British Museum, and I havelooked in vain elsewhere. Probably, at the date when it waspublished, the Council of State had become very alert insuppressing such things. I take the title and extracts fromPickering's (1851) collective edition of Milton's Works, "printedfrom the original editions. "] The tract, which is very short, opens thus:-- "I affirmed, in the Preface of a late Discourse, entitled _The Ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Dangers of readmitting Kingship in this Nation_, that 'the humour of returning to our old bondage was instilled of late by some deceivers': and, to make good that what I then affirmed was not without just ground, one of those deceivers I present here to the people, and, if I prove him not such, refuse not to be so accounted in his stead. " The greater part of the pamphlet consists of an examination of thesermon itself, with minute remarks on its wrestings ormisinterpretations of Scripture texts, and on the poverty of thepreacher's theology and scholarship generally. There is no actualdisguise of the fact that Milton has the lowest opinion of theintellectual _calibre_ of his antagonist, whom he once names "apulpit-mountebank, " and of whom he once says that "the rest of hispreachment is mere groundless chat, " Yet, on the other hand, he wouldevidently have Dr. Griffith taken as a fair enough specimen of theaverage Church-of-England clergyman. "O people of an implicit faith, no better than Romish if these be your prime teachers!" he onceexclaims, as if Dr. Griffith were a man of some distinction. The only portions of the _Notes_ of interest now are those thatbear on the historical situation at the moment. Thus, in the noticeof the Dedicatory Epistle to Monk prefixed to Dr. Griffith's sermon, there is an evident struggle on Milton's part to speak as if onemight still have faith in the General. It is possible that thecensure of Dr. Griffith by the Council of State, intended as it was"to please and blind the fanatical party, " may have had some suchtemporary effect on Milton. At all events, he refers to Monk as one"who hath so eminently borne his part in the whole action, " and hecharacterizes one portion of the Dedicatory Epistle, where Monk isprayed "to carry on what he had so happily begun, " as nothing lessthan "an impudent calumny and affront to his Excellence. " It chargeshim, says Milton, "most audaciously and falsely, with the renouncingof his own public promises and declarations both to the Parliamentand the Army; and we trust his actions ere long will deter suchinsinuating slanderers from thus approaching him for the future. "Throughout the _Notes_, however, one sees that even this smalllingering of confidence in Monk is forced, and that Milton is toosadly convinced of the probable predetermination of all now in powerto fulfil the general expectation and bring in Charles. In thefollowing passage there is a half-veiled intimation that, rather thansee that ignominious conclusion, Milton would reconcile himself toMonk's own assumption of the Crown:-- "Free Commonwealths have been ever counted fittest and properest for civil, virtuous, and industrious nations, abounding with prudent men worthy to govern; Monarchy fittest to curb degenerate, corrupt, idle, proud, luxurious people. If we desire to be of the former, nothing better for us, nothing nobler, than a Free Commonwealth; if we will needs condemn ourselves to be of the latter, despairing of our own virtue, industry, and the number of our able men, we may then, conscious of our own unworthiness to be governed better, sadly betake us to our befitting thraldom: yet, choosing out of our own number one who hath best aided the people and best merited against tyranny, the space of a reign or two we may chance to live happily enough, or tolerably. But that a victorious people should give up themselves again to the vanquished was never yet heard of, seems rather void of all reason and good policy, and will in all probability subject the subduers to the subdued, --will expose to revenge, to beggary, to ruin and perpetual bondage, the victors, under the vanquished: than which what can be more unworthy?" Of far more moment than the _Brief Notes on Dr. Griffith'sSermon_ was a second and enlarged edition of the _Ready and EasyWay to establish a Free Commonwealth_. Though it is announced distinctly and emphatically in the openingparagraph that this edition is a "revised and enlarged" one, not tillafter a careful comparison with the former edition is it seen howmuch the announcement implies. There are large additions; there areomissions; there are changes of phraseology in every page. The newpamphlet, were it nothing else, would be an interesting study ofMilton's art in authorcraft, of the expertness he had acquired inrecasting a composition of his, ingeniously dove-tailing passagesinto it without spoiling the connexion, and ejecting phrases that hadceased to be relevant or vital, all under the difficulties of hisblindness, when his ear listening to some mouth beside him and hisown mouth interrupting and replying were his sole instruments. Butthere is much more than this. The later edition is Milton about amonth farther down the torrent than the first, a month nearer thefalls; and the additions, omissions, and alterations, convey what hadpassed in his mind through that month. The second edition of the_Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth_ is to betaken, in short, for Milton's Biography at least, as an important newpublication. Only the essential additions and omissions can be herenoticed. [1] [Footnote 1: The fact that there are two editions of the _Ready andEasy Way_, though Milton calls express attention to it in thesecond, seems to have escaped all the bibliographers. There is nonote of it in Lowndes. What is most curious, however, is that, whileit is the second or enlarged edition alone that is now accessible toeverybody in the collective editions of Milton's Prose Works, fromthe so-called Amsterdam edition of 1898 to Pickering's and Bonn's, yet original copies of this second edition seem, to have whollydisappeared. There are several original copies of the _Ready andEasy Way_ in the British Museum, but all of the first edition, notone of the second; the Bodleian has no copy of the second; everyoriginal copy of the tract that I have been able to see or hear ofanywhere else has always turned out to be one of the first edition. In my perplexity, I began to ask myself whether this was to beexplained by supposing that Milton, after he had prepared the secondedition for the press, did not succeed in getting it published, andso that it was not till 1698 that it saw the light, and then by theaccident that his enlarged press-copy had survived, and come (throughToland or otherwise) into the hands of the printers of the Amsterdamedition of the Prose Works. But, though several pieces in thatedition are expressly noted as "never before published" (see notesante, p. 617 and p. 656), there is no such editorial note respecting_The Ready and Easy Way_, but every appearance of merereprinting from a previously published copy of 1660. On the whole, therefore, I conclude that Milton did publish his second and enlargededition some time in April 1660; and I account for the rarity oforiginal copies of this second edition by supposing that either theimpression was seized before many copies had got about, or theRestoration itself came so rapidly after the publication as to makeit all but abortive. Original copies of Milton's contemporary_Notes on Dr. Griffith's Sermon_ seem, as I have mentioned (antep. 675, note), to be equally scarce with original copies of thesecond edition of the _Ready and Easy Way_. They were the twolast utterances of Milton before the Restoration, and so close tothat event as perhaps to be sucked down in the whirlpool. Yet, as weknow for certain that the _Notes on Dr. Griffith's Sermon_ didappear, there is no need for a contrary supposition respecting theother. Very possibly original copies of both _have_ survivedsomewhere; and I should be glad to hear of the fact. As it is, I havehad to take my descriptions of both from the copies in the collectiveProse Works. By the bye, it is an error in bibliographers and editorsto give only the titles of old books from the original title-pages, without adding the imprints of the publishers. Much historical andbiographical information lies in such imprints. In the presentinstance, for example, I should have liked very much to know whetherLivewell Chapman was nominally the publisher of the second edition aswell as of the first, or whether Milton was obliged to put forth thesecond edition without any publisher's name. ] Among the _additions_ the most prominent is this motto (anextension of Juvenal I. 15, 16) prefixed to the whole:-- "_Et nos_ _Consilium dedimus Syllę: demus Populo nunc_"; which may be translated:-- "We have advised Sulla himself: advise we now the People. " Had this been prefixed to the first edition, the inevitableconclusion would have been that Sulla stood for Oliver Cromwell, andthat Milton meant that, having taken the liberty in his _DefensioSecunda_ of tendering wholesome advices even to the greatProtector in the height of his power, it might be allowed to him nowto advise the general body of his countrymen. Much would havedepended then on Milton's estimate of the character of the real orRoman Sulla. That seems to have been the ordinary and traditionalone, for in one of the smaller insertions in the text of the presentedition he speaks of the Roman People as having been brought, bytheir own infatuation, "under the tyranny of Sulla. " Now, though wehave seen that Milton had modified his opinion of the worth ofCromwell's Government all in all, we should have been shocked by anepithet of posthumous opprobrium applied to the man he had sopanegyrized while living. Fortunately, we are spared the shock. Monk, not Cromwell, is the military dictator that Milton has in view in themetonymy _Sulla_. He is thinking of his Letter to Monk only theother day, containing that specific suggestion of a PERPETUALNATIONAL COUNCIL in the centre and CITY COUNCILS in all the countieswhich he developes more at large in his pamphlet. Perhaps he isthinking also of the more recent remonstrance, called _PlainEnglish_, addressed by some London Republicans, of whom he mayhave been one, to Monk and his Officers. He has now done with Monk;he knows that the suggestions have taken no effect in that quarter, perhaps have been rebuffed; he will therefore dedicate them afreshto the people at large, for whom they were first written. Thetranslation, accordingly, may run definitely thus:-- "This advice we have given Sulla himself: 'tis for the People now. " In one or two of the added passages, or modifications of phraseology, we note reference to the course of events since the publication ofthe former edition. Compare, for example, the following portion ofthe prefatory paragraph with the corresponding portion of the sameparagraph as it first stood (p. 645):-- ... "I thought best not to suppress what I had written, hoping that it may now be of much more use and concernment to be freely published in the midst of our elections to a Free Parliament, or their sitting to consider freely of the Government; whom it behoves to have all things represented to them that may direct their judgment therein: and I never read of any state, scarce of any tyrant, grown so incurable as to refuse counsel from any in a time of public deliberation, much less to be offended. If their absolute determination be to enthral us, before so long a Lent of servitude they may permit us a little Shroving-time first, wherein to speak freely and take our leaves of Liberty, And, because in the former edition, through haste, many faults escaped, and many books were suddenly dispersed ere the note to mend them could be sent, I took the opportunity from this occasion to revise and somewhat to enlarge the whole discourse, especially that part which argues for a Perpetual Senate. The treatise, thus revised and enlarged, is as follows. " Again, the renewal of the Solemn League and Covenant by the lateParliament of the Secluded Members furnishes Milton with a freshtext. He does not, as might have been expected, and as he certainlywould have done on another occasion, upbraid the Parliament with thefact, or denounce the return to Presbyterian strictness of which itwas a signal: on the contrary, he presses the fact into his serviceas a new argument against the recall of Charles. The first of thefollowing sentences had appeared in the former edition; but the restis suggested by the revival of the Covenant in the interim:-- "What Liberty of Conscience can we then expect of others [even the good and great Queen Elizabeth, he has just said, had thought persecution necessary to preserve royal authority], far worse principled from, the cradle, trained up and governed by Popish and Spanish counsels, and on such depending hitherto for subsistence? Especially, what can this last Parliament expect, who, having revived lately and published the Covenant, hare re-engaged themselves never to readmit Episcopacy? Which no son of Charles returning but will most certainly bring back with him, if he regard the last and strictest charge of his father, _to persevere in not the Doctrine only, but Government, of the Church of England, [and] not to neglect the speedy and effectual suppressing of Errors and Schisms_, --among which he accounted Presbytery one of the chief. Or, if, notwithstanding that charge of his father, he submit to the Covenant, how will he keep faith to _us_ with disobedience to _him_, or regard that faith given which must be founded on the breach of that last and solemnest paternal charge, and the reluctance, I may say the antipathy, which is in all kings against Presbyterian and Independent Discipline?" Perhaps the most striking instance of _omission_ in the newedition of matter that had appeared in the first is in the paragraphon the subject of Spiritual Liberty to which reference has been madeat p. 653. He retains in that paragraph nearly all that related toLiberty of Conscience generally, but he carefully removes the two orthree sentences in which he had intimated his individual opinion thatthere could be no perfect Liberty of Conscience without abolition ofChurch Establishments and dissolution of every form of connexionbetween Church and State. There was practical sagacity in thisomission at the moment at which he was re-issuing his pamphlet. Itwas no time then to be obtruding upon the public, or upon thePresbyterians that were flocking in to the new Parliament, hispeculiar Disestablishment notion, however precious it might be tohimself. His real business was to stir up all, by any means, to thedefence even yet of the Republican form of Government; in such anargument, addressed mainly to Presbyterians and other zealots for aState Church, the question of Disestablishment was rather to beavoided; nay, for himself, that question had faded intoinsignificance for the time in comparison with the vaster questionwhether the Republic should be preserved or the Stuarts brought back, and most willingly would he have been, assured of the preservation ofthe Republic even though a State Church should continue to be partand parcel of it, and the special battle of Disestablishment shouldhave to be postponed. To keep out the Stuarts, to rouse dread anddisgust even yet at the idea that the Stuarts should return, was thesingle all-including possibility, or impossibility, for which he wasnow striving. To this end it is that again and again in the course ofthe pamphlet he inserts new passages heightening the contrast betweenthe glories and advantages of free Republican Government and themiseries and degradation of subjection to a Monarchy. Near thebeginning there is an enlargement of this kind, to the extent ofthree pages, in which he reviews, in greater detail than before, thesteps that had led to the establishment of the English Commonwealth;and appeals to his countrymen whether their experience ofCommonwealth government had not been on the whole satisfactory. Hadnot the very speeches and writings of that period, he had asked inhis first edition, "testified a spirit in this nation no less nobleand well-fitted to the liberty of a Commonwealth than in the ancientGreeks or Romans"? In returning to that topic now, he cannot refrainfrom breaking out once more, though it should be the last time, inhis characteristic vein of self-appreciation. "Nor was the heroiccause, " he adds, "unsuccessfully defended to all Christendom againstthe tongue of a famous and thought invincible adversary, nor theconstancy and fortitude that so nobly vindicated our liberty, ourvictory at once against two the most prevailing usurpers overmankind, Superstition and Tyranny, unpraised or uncelebrated in awritten monument likely to outlive detraction, as it hath hithertoconvinced or silenced not a few detractors, especially in partsabroad. " Readers who may think that we are already too familiar withthis strain may be reminded that Milton was here taking account ofthe contemptuous notices of his Defences of the Commonwealth in someof the recent Royalist pamphlets, and also that, as he dictated, thethought must have been passing in his mind that very probably hisdays were numbered, and those Defences of the Commonwealth would haveto remain, after all, his last important bequest to the world. There is proof that Milton had read the burlesque Censure of the Rotaon the first edition. Not only are two or three sentences omitted ormodified in consequence of remarks there made; but, in theconsiderable enlargements he thinks necessary for the support of hismain notion of PERPETUITY OF THIS NATIONAL GREAT COUNCIL, he takescare to extend also his former references to Harrington's principleof Rotation and other doctrines. Of course, he was well aware that itwas not Harrington himself that had complained of the slightness ofthe former references, but only some Royalist wit caricaturingHarrington together with himself. While disagreeing with Harrington, he shows his respect for him. The following are specimens of theseparticular enlargements:-- _The Rotation Principle_:--"But, if the ambition of such as think themselves injured that they also partake not of the Government, and are impatient till they be chosen, cannot brook the perpetuity of others chosen before them, or if it be feared that long continuance of power may corrupt sincerest men, the known expedient is, and by some lately propounded, that annually (or, if the space be longer, so much perhaps the better) the third part of Senators may go out, according to the precedence of their election, and the like number be chosen in their places, to prevent the settling of too absolute a power if it should be perpetual: and this they call _Partial Rotation_. But I could wish that this wheel or partial wheel in State, if it be possible, might be avoided, as having too much, affinity with the Wheel of Fortune. For it appears not how this can be done without danger and mischance of putting out a great number of the best and ablest; in whose stead new elections may bring in as many raw, unexperienced, and otherwise affected, to the weakening and much altering for the worse of public transactions. Neither do I think a Perpetual Senate, especially chosen and entrusted by the people, much in this land to be feared, where the well-affected, either in a Standing Army or in a Settled Militia, have their arms in their own hands. Safest therefore to me it seems, and of least hazard or interruption to affairs, that none of the Grand Council be moved, unless by death or just conviction of some crime; for what can be expected firm or stedfast from a floating foundation? However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any temperament that can be found in things of this nature, so disputable on either side. " _Contrast of Harrington's Model with Milton's, and a Suggestion for the mode of Elections_:--"And this annual Rotation of a Senate to consist of 300, as is lately propounded, requires also another Popular Assembly upward of 1000, with an answerable Rotation. Which, besides that it will be liable to all those inconveniencies found in the foresaid remedies, cannot but be troublesome and chargeable, both in their motion and their session, to the whole land, --unwieldy with their own bulk: unable in so great a number to mature their consultations as they ought, if any be allotted to them, and that they meet not from so many parts remote to sit a whole year leaguer in one place, only now and then to hold up a forest of fingers, or to convey each man his bean or ballot into the box, without reason shown or common deliberation; incontinent of secrets, if any be imparted to them; emulous and always jarring with the other Senate. The much better way doubtless will be, in this wavering condition of our affairs, to defer the changing or circumscribing of our Senate, more than may be done with ease, till the Commonwealth be thoroughly settled in peace and safety and they themselves give us the occasion.... Another way will be to well qualify and refine Elections: not committing all to the noise and shouting of a rude multitude, but permitting only those of them who are rightly qualified to nominate as many as they will; and out of that number others of a better breeding to choose a less number more judiciously; till, after a third or fourth sifting and refining of exactest choice, they only be left chosen who are the due number, and seem by most voices the worthiest.... But, to prevent all mistrust, the People then will have their several Ordinary Assemblies (which will henceforth quite annihilate the odious power and name of _Committees_) in the chief towns of every County, --without the trouble, charge, or time lost, of summoning and assembling from so far, in so great a number, and so long residing from their own houses, or removing of their families, --to do as much at home in their several shires, entire or subdivided, towards the securing of their liberty, as a numerous Assembly of them all formed and convened on purpose with the wariest rotation. " _Glance at some of Harrington's other notions_:--"The way propounded [Milton's] is plain, easy, and open before us: without intricacies, without the introducement of new or obsolete forms or terms, or exotic models, --ideas that would effect nothing, but with a number of new injunctions to manacle the native liberty of mankind; turning all virtue into prescription, servitude, and necessity, to the great impairing and frustrating of Christian Liberty. " As if the very closeness of the vision of returning Royalty hadrendered Milton's defiance of it more desperate and reckless, heinserts, wherever he can, some new expression of his contempt forCharles and all his family, and of his prophetic horror of the stateof society they will bring in. Thus:-- "There will be a Queen of no less charge, in most likelihood outlandish and a Papist, besides a Queen-Mother, such already, together with both their Courts and numerous Train: then a Royal issue, and ere long severally _their_ sumptuous Courts, to the multiplying of a servile crew, not of servants only, but of nobility and gentry, bred up then to the hopes not of public, but of court offices, to be Stewards, Chamberlains, Ushers, Grooms. " But the most terrific new passage in prediction of the Restorationand its revenges is the following: in which the reader will observealso the recognition, as in one spurn of boundless scorn, of theRoyalist scurrilities against himself:-- "Admit that Monarchy of itself may be convenient to some nations; yet to us who have thrown it out, received back again, it cannot but prove pernicious. For Kings to come, never forgetting their former ejection, will be sure to fortify and arm themselves sufficiently for the future against all such attempts hereafter from the People; who shall be then so narrowly watched and kept so low that, though they would never so fain, and at the same rate of their blood and treasure, they never shall be able to regain what they now have purchased and may enjoy, or to free themselves from any yoke imposed upon them. Nor will they dare to go about it, --utterly disheartened for the future, if these their highest attempts prove unsuccessful: which will be the triumph of all Tyrants hereafter over any People that shall resist oppression; and their song will then be to others _How sped the Rebellious English?_, to our posterity _How sped the Rebels your fathers?_.... Yet neither shall we obtain or buy at an easy rate this new gilded yoke which thus transports us. A new Royal Revenue must be found, a new Episcopal, --for those are individual: both which, being wholly dissipated or bought by private persons, or assigned for service done, and especially to the Army, cannot be recovered without a general detriment and confusion to men's estates, or a heavy imposition on all men's purses, --benefit to none but to the worst and ignoblest sort of men, whose hope is to be either the ministers of Court riot and excess or the gainers by it. But, not to speak more of losses and extraordinary levies on our estates, what will then be the revenges and offences remembered and returned, not only by the Chief Person, but by all his adherents: accounts and reparations that will be required, suits, indictments, inquiries, discoveries, complaints, informations, --who knows against whom or how many, though perhaps neuters, --if not to utmost infliction, yet to imprisonment, fines, banishment, or molestation. If not these, yet disfavour, discountenance, disregard, and contempt on all but the known Royalist, or whom he favours, will be plenteous. Nor let the new-royalized Presbyterians persuade themselves that their old doings, though, now recanted, will be forgotten, whatever conditions be contrived or trusted on. Will they not believe this, nor remember the Pacification how it was kept to the Scots, how other solemn promises many a time to us? Let them but now read the diabolical forerunning libels, the faces, the gestures, that now appear foremost and briskest in all public places as the harbingers of those that are in expectation to reign over us; let them but hear the insolencies, the menaces, the insultings of our newly animated common enemies, crept lately out of their holes, their Hell I might say, by the language of their infernal pamphlets, the spew of every drunkard, every ribald: nameless, yet not for want of licence, but for very shame of their own vile persons; not daring to name themselves while they traduce others by name, and give us to foresee that they intend to second their wicked words, if ever they have power, with more wicked deeds. Let our zealous backsliders [the Presbyterians] forethink now with themselves how _their_ necks, yoked with these tigers of Bacchus, --these new fanatics of not the preaching but the sweating tub, inspired with nothing holier than the venereal pox, --can draw one way, under Monarchy, to the establishing of Church-Discipline with these new-disgorged Atheisms. Yet shall they not have the honour to yoke with these, but shall be yoked under them: these shall plough on _their_ backs. And do they among them who are so forward to bring in the Single Person think to be by him trusted or long regarded? So trusted they shall be and so regarded as by Kings are wont reconciled enemies, --neglected and soon after discarded, if not prosecuted for old traitors, the first inciters, beginners, and more than to the third part actors, of all that followed. " Milton, does not deny that the vast majority of the nation desire therestoration of the King. He admits the fact and scouts it. He assertsthat by "the trial of just battle" the larger part of the populationof England long ago "lost the right of their election what the formof Government shall be, " and that, if even a majority of the restwould now vote for Kingship, their wishes must go for nothing. "Is itjust or reasonable that most voices, against the main end ofGovernment, should enslave the less number that would be free? Morejust it is, doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compela greater to retain (which can be no wrong to them) their libertythan that a greater number, for the pleasure of their baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be their fellow-slaves. " When hewrote this, he must have known well enough that he was writing invain. He confesses as much in his peroration. He confesses it thereeven by that single modification of the language which might seem atfirst sight the only sign of prudential concession and anticipationof personal consequences throughout the whole pamphlet. In citing theprophecy of Jeremiah he omits the passage exulting in God's decree ofexile against Coniah and his seed for ever (ante p. 654-655). Butthis is no prudential concession, no softening down in anticipationthat the passage might be produced against him. Of that state ofmind, of any fear of consequences whatever, there is not a tracethroughout the recast of his pamphlet. He is defying and daring theworst, and has thrown in already every possible addition of matter ofinsult to the coming Charles. He omits the passage about Coniahprecisely because its application to Charles is unfortunately nolonger possible; and the peroration for the rest is modified by thesorrow that so it should be. He will exhort against the Restorationto his latest breath; but he is looking across the Restoration now, and sending his words on to an unknown posterity. "What I have spoken is the language of that which is not called amiss _The Good Old Cause_: if it seem strange to any, it will not seem more strange, I hope, than convincing to backsliders. Thus much I should perhaps have said though I were sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones, and had none to cry to but, with the Prophet, _O Earth, Earth, Earth!_, to tell the very soil itself what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoken should happen (which Thou suffer not who didst create Mankind free, nor Thou next who didst redeem us from being servants of men!) to be the last words of our expiring Liberty. But I trust I shall have spoken persuasion to abundance of sensible and ingenuous men, --to some perhaps whom God may raise up of these stones to become children of reviving Liberty, and may reclaim, though they seem now choosing them a Captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little and consider whither they are rushing; to exhort this torrent also of the people not to be so impetuous, but to keep their due channel; and, at length recovering and uniting their better resolutions, now that they see already how open and unbounded the insolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay these ruinous proceedings, justly and timely fearing to what a precipice of destruction the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the general defection of a misguided and abused multitude. " To exhort a torrent! The very mixture and hurry of the metaphors InMilton's mind are a reflex of the facts around him. Current, torrent, rush, rapid, avalanche, deluge hurrying to a precipice: mix andjumble such figures as we may, we but express more accurately the madhaste which London and all England were making in the end of April1660 to bring Charles over from the Continent. Of the only importantrelic of opposition, the Republicanism of the Army, and how that hadbeen already managed by Monk, and was still being managed by him, wehave taken account. Its dying effort, as we saw, took the form ofLambert's escape from the Tower on the 9th of April, and his thirteendays of wild wandering and skulking on the chance of bringing thedispersed remains of Republicanism to a rendezvous. That was over onEaster-Sunday, April 22, when Dick Ingoldsby, with flushed face, andpistol in hand, collared the fugitive Lambert on his horse in a fieldnear Daventry, and brought him back, with others, to his prison inthe Tower. Strange that it should have been Lambert after all thatMilton found maintaining last by arms the cause which he was himselfmaintaining last by the pen. Lambert was the Republican he leastliked, hardly indeed a genuine Republican at all, though driven to adesperate attempt for Republicanism as his final shift, So it hadhappened, however. Milton and Lambert may be remembered together asthe last opponents of the avalanche. Lambert had fronted it with asmall rapier; Milton had wrestled with it in a grand exhortation. [1] [Footnote 1: As the date of the second edition of Milton's _Readyand Easy Way_ is a matter of real interest, it may be well to notehere the evidence on the point furnished by the extracts that havebeen made. In the second extract the phrase "_What can this lastParliament expect, who, having revived lately and published theCovenant &c. ?_" seems distinctly to certify that Milton waswriting after the 16th of March, when the Parliament of the SecludedMembers had dissolved itself. The first extract, giving the new andenlarged form of the opening paragraph, farther indicates that, whileMilton was writing, the country was in the midst of the elections forthe new "free and full" Parliament which had been called, --i. E. Whatis now known as The Convention Parliament. He thinks that hispamphlet, as modified, "_may now be of much more use andconcernment to be freely published in the midst of our elections to aFree Parliament or their sitting to consider freely of theGovernment_. " Now, the elections went on from the end of March toabout the 20th of April, and Milton's words almost imply that heexpected them to be pretty well advanced before his second editionwas in circulation, so that the effect of that new edition, if it hadany, would rather be on the Parliament itself after its meeting onApril 25. The passages referring to Harrington, and which seem toimply that Milton had read the _Censure of the Rota_ on hisfirst edition, would also bring the second edition into the month ofApril, inasmuch as the _Censure_ was not out till March 30. Finally, the whole tone of the added passages implies, as we havealready said, that Milton was at least a month farther down thestream towards the Restoration than when the first edition appeared, and the fact that in this second edition he utterly cancels andwithdraws the small lingering of faith in Monk which he had expressedin his _Notes to Dr. Griffith's Sermon_ seems more particularlyto certify that those _Notes_ preceded the new edition of the_Ready and Easy Way_ by a week or more. On the whole, I do notthink I am wrong in regarding the new edition as Milton's very lastperformance before the Restoration, and in dating it somewherebetween April 9, the day of Lambert's escape from the Tower, andApril 24, when Lambert was brought back a prisoner to London and themembers of the Convention Parliament were already gathered in town. As Thomason's copy of the first edition is marked "March 3, " thiswould make the interval between the two editions about a month and ahalf. ] The wrestlings now were ended. All that remained for the blind Samsonwas to listen, with bowed head, to the renewed burst of Philistinehissings, howlings, and execrations, against him, before they wouldlet him retire. It came from all quarters; but at least two personsstepped out from the crowd to convert the mere inarticulate uproarinto distinct invective and insult. "_No Blinde Guides: in answer to a seditious Pamphlet of J. Milton's entituled 'Brief Notes on a late Sermon, &c. ' Addressed tothe Author_. --'If the Blinde lead the Blinde, both shall fall intothe ditch. '--_London, Printed for Henry Brome, April_ 20, 1660. "This was the title of a tract, of fourteen small quarto pages, whichwas out on April 25. The author does not give his name; but he wasRoger L'Estrange, the Royalist pamphleteer. [1] The followingspecimen will represent the rest:-- [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 712. The date of the actual appearanceof the tract is from the Thamason copy. ] "Mr. Milton, "Although in your life and doctrine you have resolved one great question, by evidencing that devils may indue human shapes and proving yourself even to your own wife an incubus, you have yet started another; and that is whether you are not of that regiment which carried the herd of swine headlong into the sea, and moved the people to beseech Jesus to depart out of their coasts. (_This_ may be very well imagined from your suitable practices _here_. ) Is it possible to read your _Proposals of the benefits of a Free State_ without reflecting upon your tutor's 'All this will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me'? Come, come, Sir: lay the Devil aside; do not proceed with so much malice and against knowledge. Act like a man, that a good Christian may not be afraid to pray for you. Was it not you that scribbled a justification of the murder of the King against Salmasius, and made it good too thus: that murder was an action meritorious compared with your superior wickedness? 'Tis there (as I remember) that you commonplace yourself into set forms of railing, two pages thick; and, lest your infamy should not extend itself enough within the course and usage of your mother-tongue, the thing is dressed up in a travelling garb and language, to blast the English nation to the universe, and give every man a horror for mankind when he considers _you_ are of the race. In this you are above all others; but in your _Eikonoklastes_ you exceed yourself. There, not content to see that sacred head divided from the body, your piercing malice enters into the private agonies of his struggling soul, with a blasphemous insolence invading the prerogative of God himself (omniscience), and by deductions most unchristian and illogical aspersing his last pieties (the almost certain inspirations of the Holy Spirit) with juggle and prevarication. Nor are the words ill-fitted to the matter, the bold design being suited with a conform irreverence of language. But I do not love to rake long in a puddle. To take a view in particular of all your factious labours would cost more time than I am willing to afford them. Wherefore I shall stride over all the rest and pass directly to your _Brief Notes upon a late Sermon_ ... Any man that can but read your title may understand your drift, and that you charge the royal interest and party through the Doctor's sides. I am not bold enough to be his champion in all particulars, nor yet so rude as to take an office most properly to him belonging out of his hand. Let him acquit himself in what concerns the divine; and I'll adventure upon the most material parts of the rest. " [Extracts from Milton's _Notes on Dr. Griffith's Sermon_ follow, with brief comments, of no interest, and showing no ability. ] Almost immediately there followed "_The Dignity of KingshipAsserted: in answer to Mr. Milton's 'Ready and Easie Way to establisha Free Commonwealth. ' Proving that Kinqship is both in itself and inreference to these nations farre the most Excellent Government, andthe returning to our former Loyalty or Obedience thereto is the onlyway under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing, now languishing, broken, and almost ruined nations. By G. S. , a Loverof Loyalty. Humbly Dedicated and Presented to his most ExcellentMajesty Charles the Second, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, true Hereditary King. London, Printed by E. C. For H. Seile, overagainst St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, and for W. Palmer atthe Palm-Tree over against Fetter-lane end in Fleet Street. _ 1660. "It is a duodecimo volume, the dedication to Charles occupyingtwenty-one pages, and the main body of the text 177 pages, with aperoration in thirty-nine additional pages addressed to Monk and hisOfficers and to the two Houses of Parliament about to meet, and thenthree pages more of concluding address to his Majesty. Though theauthor does not give his name, he hints in the course of the volumethat he may "be inquired after and perhaps soon found out. " He saysalso that his profession "much differs from politics. " Hence it maybe doubted whether the conjecture is right which assigns the book toa George Searle, who had been an original member of the LongParliament for Taunton, and had been one of the Secluded. One mightventure rather on the query whether the author may not have been Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, soon to be Bishop of London and Archbishop ofCanterbury, but for the present waiting with anxiety for thecertainty of Charles's recall, and doing all he could, with otherdivines, to hasten it. [1] [Footnote 1: The Thomason copy gives "May, " without any day, as thedate of publication; but I find the book entered in the Stationers'Registers as early as March 31, 1660. The writing had been thenbegun, and the printing of the book had been going on through April. There is internal evidence that the new Parliament had not met, orat least that the Restoration was not positively resolved on, whenthe book was finished. Both in the dedication and in the peroration, the parts last written, the event is spoken of as only in nearprospect. --Sheldon, though a man of public distinction in his time, has left hardly any writings by which his style could beascertained. I think the guess worth risking that the presentperformance may have been his, if only because the offer of the guessmay lead to its confutation. George Searle is the man proposed by thebibliographers (see Bohn's _Lowndes_, Art. Milton, and note p. 108 of Todd's Life of Milton, edit. 1852); but I know not on whatauthority except that his initials are "G. S. " and that he was "awriter. "--As far as I have observed, it was the first edition ofMilton's pamphlet only that G. S. Had before him as he wrote. ] Whoever wrote the book must have had a touch of scholarly candour inhis nature. Though there is plenty of abuse of Milton, with thestereotyped allusions to his Divorce Doctrine and its effects, andwith such occasional phrases as "your wind-mill brain, " "theunpracticableness of these your fanatic state-whimsies, " and thoughthere is abuse also, in the coarse familiar strain, of the Rumpersand Commonwealths-men generally, and of "Oliver, the copper-nosedsaint, " we come upon such passages as the following, appreciative atleast of Milton's literary power:-- "I am not ignorant of the ability of Mr. Milton, whom the Rump (which was well-stored with men of pregnant though pernicious wits) made choice of before others to write their _Defence against Salmasius;_ one of the greatest learned men of this age, both for reality and reputation. " "... Made choice of Mr. Milton to be their champion to answer Salmasius; who, as may be conceived, not vulgarly rewarded for this service, undertakes it with as much learning and performance as could be expected from the most able and acute scholar living: concerning whose answer thus much must be confessed, --that nothing could be therein desired which either a shrewd wit could prompt or a fluent elegant style express. And, indeed, to give him his due, in whatever he vomited out against his Majesty formerly, or now declaims against Monarchy in behalf of a Republic, he then did, and doth now, want nothing on his side but truth. " These are casual expressions in the course of the argumentation withMilton; and, as there is no need to exhibit the argumentation itself, a single quotation more will suffice. It is from the Dedication toCharles II. That, though coming first in the book, was probablywritten last, when the writer could exult in the idea that hisMajesty was so soon to land on the British shores, and could havepleasure in being one of the first to address him ceremoniously andin public with all his royal titles. Let it be remembered that, bythe introduction of Milton into this Dedication, not onlyprominently, but even singly and exclusively, it was as if pains weretaken to remind Charles, just as he was preparing to step into theship that was to convey him to England, of the name of that one manamong his subjects who had done more to keep him out, and hadattacked him and his more ferociously, more relentlessly, and moresuccessfully, than any other living. Suppose that his Majesty, waiting at Breda, was curious to know already, for certain reasons, what person, not on the actual list of those who had signed hisfather's death-warrant, would be designated to him by universalopinion at home as the least pardonable traitor; and read this as theanswer of G. S. :-- This detestable, execrable murder, committed by the worst of parricides, accompanied with the disclaiming of your whole royal stock, disinheriting your Majesty's self and the rest of the royal branches, driving you and them into exile, with endeavouring to expunge and obliterate your never-to-be-forgotten just title; tearing up and pulling down the pillars of Majesty, the Nobles; garbling and suspending from the place of power all of the Commons House that had anything of honesty or relenting of spirit toward the injured Father of three Nations and his royal posterity: acts horrible to be imagined, and yet with high hand most villainously, perfidiously, and perjuriously perpetrated by monsters of mankind, yet blasphemously dishonourers of God in making use of His name and usurping the title of Saints in their never-before-paralleled nor ever-sufficiently-to-be-lamented-and-abhorred villanies:--this Murder, I say, and these Villainies, were defended, nay extolled and commended, by one MR. JOHN MILTON, in answer to the most learned Salmasius, who declaimed against the same with most solid arguments and pathetical expressions; in which Answer he did so bespatter the white robes of your Royal Father's spotless life (human infirmities excepted) with the dirty filth of his satirical pen that to the vulgar, and those who read his book with prejudice, he represented him a most debauched, vicious man (I tremble, Royal Sir, to write it), an irreligious hater and persecutor of Religion and religious men, an ambitious enslaver of the nation, a bloody tyrant, and an implacable enemy to all his good subjects; and thereupon calls that execrable and detestable horrible Murder a just Execution, and commends it as an heroic action: and, in a word, whatever was done in prosecution of their malice toward your Royal Progenitor and his issue, or relations, or friends and assistants, he calls Restoring of the nation to its Liberty. Yea! to make your illustrious Father more odious in their eyes where he by any means could fix his scandals, he would not spare that incomparable piece of his writing, his _Eikon Basilike_, but in a scurrilous reply thereto, which he entitled _Eikonoklastes_, he would not spare his devout prayers (which no doubt the Lord hath heard and will hear): in all which he expressed, as his inveterate and causeless malice, so a great deal of wicked, desperate wit and learning, most unworthily misbestowed, abused, and misapplied, to the reviling of his Prince, God's vice-gerent on Earth, and the speaking ill of the Ruler of the People. Now, although your Majesty, nor your Royal Father, neither of you, need vindication (much less that elaborate work of his), nor doth anything he hath written in aspersion of his Sovereign deserve answer (absolutely considered), yet, forasmuch as he hath in both showed dangerous wit and wicked learning, which together with elegance in expression is always (in some measure at least) persuasive with some, and because in these last and worst days those dangerous times are come in which many account Treason to be Saintship, and the madness of the people, like the inundation of waters, hath for many years overflowed all the bounds, &c ... [The writer, in continuation, refers to the assiduity of the fanatical enemies of Charles, still working, though at the end of their wits, to keep him out. ] Among many of whom MR. MILTON comes on the stage in post haste and in this juncture of time, that he may, if possible, overthrow the hopes of all good men, and endeavours what he can to divert those that at present sit at the helm, and by fair pretences and sophisticate arguments would, &c ... Which I taking notice of, and meeting with this forementioned pamphlet of MR. MILTON'S, and upon perusal of it finding it dangerously ensnaring, the fallacy of the arguments being so cunningly hidden as not to be discerned by any nor every eye, --observing also the language to be smooth and tempting, the expressions pathetical and apt to move the affections, ... I thought it my duty, &c. Before this salutation of his returning Majesty was visible on thebook-stalls the great event which it anticipated was as good asaccomplished. The two Houses of Parliament had met on Wednesday, the 25th of April. There was not only the "full and free" House of Commons for whichwrits had been issued, but a House of Lords also, assembled by itsown will and motion. In the Commons, where Sir Harbottle Grimstonewas elected Speaker, there were present over 400 out of the total of500 and more that were actually due; in the Lords, where the Earl ofManchester was chosen Speaker _pro tem. _, there were present onthe first day only nine peers besides himself: viz. The Earls ofNorthumberland, Lincoln, Denbigh, and Suffolk, Viscount Say and Sele, and Lords Wharton, Hunsdon, Grey of Wark, and Maynard. It was forthese two bodies to execute between them the task appointed. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals and Parl. Hist. , for the opening of theConvention Parliament. ] The meetings of the first three days were but preliminary, and not aword passed in either House to signify what was coming. On Friday, the 27th of April, there was an adjournment of both Houses toTuesday, the 1st of May. During that breathless interval it was aswhen a mine is ready, the gunpowder and other explosives all stored, the train laid, and what is waited for is the application of thelighted match. That duty fell to Sir John Greenville, and the mode inwhich it should be performed was settled privately between him andwary Old George. On Saturday, April 28, the Council of State are met at Whitehall, Annesley in the chair as usual. Colonel Birch, one of the members, entering late, informs General Monk that there is a gentleman at thedoor who desires to speak with him. Monk goes to the door, finds SirJohn Greenville there, and receives him as a perfect stranger, theguards looking on. Sir John delivers to him a letter, and tells himthat he does so by command of his Majesty. Monk orders the guards todetain this gentleman, and returns to the Council-room with theletter. Having broken the seal, but not opened the letter, he handsit to the President, intimating from whom it has come. Thesuperscription itself leaves no doubt on that point. The letter isone of the six, dated "_At our Court at Breda this 4/14th of April1660, in the twelfth year of Our Reign_, " which Sir JohnGreenville had brought over to be used by Monk at his discretion, andwhich Monk had given back into Greenville's custody till the propermoment for using them should arrive. It was that particular one ofthe six which was addressed to Monk himself, to be communicated byhim to the Council of State and the Officers of the Army. There wasmuch surprise in the Council, real or affected, Colonel Birchprotesting that he knew nothing of the business, but had merelyfound a gentleman at the door inquiring for General Monk and hadbrought in his message to the General. That gentleman was sent forand asked how he came by the letter. "It was given to me by hisMajesty with his own hand, " said Sir John. Altogether the Councilwere at a loss how to act; but finally it was agreed that they darednot read the letter without leave from Parliament. There was somequestion of sending Greenville into custody meanwhile; but Monk saidhe was a kinsman of his and he would be answerable for hisappearance. In short, this attempt to apply the match in the Councilhad not sufficiently succeeded, and Sir John knew that he must beforthcoming in the two Houses themselves. Sir John was equal to the occasion. Early in the morning of Tuesday, the 1st of May, he was at the door of the House of Lords with thatone of the six Letters from Breda which was addressed to theirLordships. There were now forty-two peers present. By one of theseGreenville sent in his name to Speaker the Earl of Manchester, withan intimation of the nature of his message. The Earl had no soonerinformed the House who and what were at the door than it was votedthat the Earl should walk down the floor, all present attending him, to receive his Majesty's letter. Sir John having thus got rid of twoof his documents, presented himself next at the door of the Commons, to try his chance with a third. He had already conveyed to SpeakerSir Harbottle Grimstone the fact that he was in attendance with aletter from his Majesty. He came now at the most fit moment, for theHouse had just received a report from the Council of State of whathad happened at the sitting of the Council on the preceding Saturday. The scene will be best imagined from the record in the Journals ofthe House:--"_Tuesday, May the 1st_, 1660. PRAYERS. Mr. Annesleyreports from the Council of State a Letter from the King, unopened, directed 'To our trusty and well-beloved General Monk, to becommunicated to the President and Council of State, and to theOfficers of the Armies under his command, ' being received from thehands of Sir John Greenville. The House, being informed that SirJohn Greenville, a messenger from the King, was at the door, _Resolved_, &c. That Sir John Greenville, a messenger from theKing, be called in. He was called in accordingly, and, being at thebar, after obeisance made, said: 'Mr. Speaker, I am commanded by theKing, my master, to deliver this Letter to You, and he desires thatYou will communicate it to the House. ' The Letter was directed 'ToOur trusty and well-beloved the Speaker of the House of Commons';which, after the messenger was withdrawn, was read to the House bythe Speaker. " The bold Sir John had now got rid of three of his sixdocuments. Nay, he had got rid of four; for in each of the threethere had been enclosed a copy of his Majesty's general_Declaration_, or Letter to "all Our Loving Subjects of whatdegree or quality soever. " It was for the Parliament to determinewhat should be done with this Declaration, as well as with the othertwo remaining Letters, one of them addressed to Generals Monk andMontague for communication to the Fleet, and the other to the LordMayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London. The trainhad been sufficiently fired already by the delivery of four of theBreda documents. [1] [Footnote 1: Lords and Commons Journals of dates; Parl. Hist. IV. 10-25; Phillips (continuation of Baker), 701-705; Skinner's Life ofMonk, 297-302; Whitlocke, IV. 409-411. ] The explosion was over and the air cleared, and all pretence was atan end at last. In the Commons, a few minutes after Sir JohnGreenville had left the House, it was "RESOLVED, _neminecontradicente_, That an answer be prepared to his Majesty'sLetter, expressing the great and joyful sense of this House of Hisgracious offers, and their humble and hearty thanks to his Majestyfor the same, and with professions of their loyalty and duty to hisMajesty. " The Lords had already passed an equivalent resolution, andhad recalled Sir John Greenville to receive their hearty thanks forhis care in the discharge of his duty. The rest of that day was spentin a conference between the two Houses, and in farther resolutionsand arrangements in each, subsidiary to those two resolutions of theforenoon which had virtually decreed the Restoration. Thus, in theCommons, still in the forenoon, "RESOLVED, _neminecontradicente_, that the sum of £50, 000 be presented to the King'sMajesty from this House, " and "RESOLVED, _neminecontradicente_, that the Letters from His Majesty, both that tothe House and that to the Lord General, and his Majesty's Declarationwhich came enclosed, be entered at large in the Journal Book of thisHouse"; and, again, at an afternoon sitting, the conference with theLords having meanwhile been held, "RESOLVED, That this House dothagree with the Lords, and do own and declare that, according to theancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the Government is, andought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons. " The news of what was doingin Parliament was already rushing hither and thither among theLondoners; the day ended among _them_, of course, with bonfiresand ringing of bells and the roar of rejoicing cannon; in the boom ofthe cannon, and in whatever form of rude telegraph or of horsemen atthe gallop along the four great highways, London was shaking themessage from itself in palpitations through all the land; nor amongthe galloping horsemen were those the least fleet that were spurringthrough Kent to the seaside to unmoor the packet-boats and convey thetidings to Charles. On the 1st of May, 1660, the English Commonwealthwas no more. [1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals and Parl. Hist. Of dates; Whitlocke, IV. 411. ] Yet another week for the formalities of its burial. A few of theleading incidents of that week may be presented in abstract:-- _May_ 2:--Ordered by the Lords "that the statues of the late King's Majesty be set up again in all the places from whence they were pulled down, and that the Arms of the Commonwealth be demolished and taken away wherever they are, and the King's Arms be put up in their stead. " _Same day in the Commons_:--Leave given to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London, to return an answer to his Majesty's Letter addressed to them. This was the fifth of the Breda documents. Also leave given to Dr. Clarges, a member of the House, to go at once to Breda, with Monk's answer to the letter _he_ had received. _May_ 3:--Sir John Greenville brought into the House of Commons to receive thanks, and the information that the House had voted him £500 to buy a jewel. The Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, addressed him as follows:--"Sir John Greenville, I need not tell you with what grateful and thankful hearts the Commons now assembled in Parliament have received his Majesty's gracious Letter. _Res ipsa loquitur_: you yourself have been _ocularis et auricularis testis de rei veritate_: our bells and our bonfires have already proclaimed his Majesty's goodness and our joys. We have told the people that our King, the glory of England, is coming home again; and they have resounded it back again in our ears that they are ready, and their hearts open, to receive him. Both Parliament and People have cried aloud to the King of Kings in their prayers _Long live King Charles the Second_. " The rest of the speech was compliment to Sir John himself. _Same day, in Montague's Fleet in the Downs_:--His Majesty's letter to Monk and Montague, intended to be communicated to the Fleet, having been sent by express from Monk, reached Montague that morning on board his flagship the Naseby. His secretary Pepys describes what followed: "My Lord summoned a Council of War, and in the meantime did dictate to me how he would have the vote ordered which he would have pass this Council. Which done, the Commanders all came on board, and the Council sat in the coach [Council cabin], the first Council of War that had been in my time; where I read the Letter and Declaration; and, while they were discoursing upon it, I seemed to draw up a vote, which, being offered, they passed. Not one man seemed to say _No_ to it, though I am confident many in their hearts were against it. After this was done, I went up to the quarterdeck with my Lord and the Commanders, and there read both the papers and the vote; which done, and demanding their opinion, the seamen did all of them cry out _God save King Charles_. " Pepys then made a circuit of the other ships with the same great news. "Which was a very brave sight, to visit all the ships, and to be received with the respect and honour that I was on board them all, and much more to see the great joy that I brought to all men, not one through the whole fleet shewing the least dislike of the business. In the evening, as I was going on board the Vice-Admiral, the General began to fire his guns, which he did, all that he had in his ship, and so did all the rest of the Commanders; which was very gallant, and to hear the bullets go hissing over our heads as we were in the boat! This done, and finished my proclamation, I returned to the Naseby, where my Lord was much pleased to hear how all the fleet took it in a transport of joy, and shewed me a private letter of the King's to him, and another from the Duke of York, in such familiar style as their common friend, with all kindness imaginable. And I found by the letters, and so my Lord told me too, that there had been many letters passed between them for a great while, _and I perceive unknown to Monk_. " _May_ 5. On report from the Council of State, a General Proclamation adopted by the Commons, with concurrence of the Lords, forbidding tumults, and instructing all in authority to continue in their respective offices and exercise the same thenceforth in his Majesty's name. _May_ 7. Sir George Booth, Lord Falkland, Mr. Denzil Holles, Sir John Holland, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Bruce, Sir Horatio Townshend, Lord Herbert, Lord Castleton, Lord Fairfax, Sir Henry Cholmley, and Lord Mandeville, chosen by the House of Commons to be the persons to carry to his Majesty the answer of the House to his Majesty's gracious Letter. The similar deputation from the Lords' House was to consist of the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Middlesex, Viscount Hereford, Lord Berkley, and Lord Brooke. Same day, on receipt from Montague of a copy of his Majesty's letter addressed to Monk and himself, as Generals of the Fleet, with news of the reception of the same by the Fleet on the 3rd, Monk and Montague were authorized to answer that letter. Thus the sixth and last of the Breda documents was finally disposed of. --Resolved also that Thursday next should be a day of thanksgiving in London and Westminster for the happy reconciliation with his Majesty, and farther, "That all and every the ministers throughout the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the Dominion of Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, do, and are hereby required and enjoined in their public prayers to, pray for the King's most excellent Majesty by the name of Our Sovereign Lord, Charles the Second, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. "--Resolved also that the King be proclaimed to-morrow. _Tuesday, May_ 8. Proclamation of Charles accordingly in Westminster Hall, and at Whitehall, Temple Bar, Fleet Conduit, the Exchange, and other places, his reign to date from the death of his father. Copies of the Proclamation to be sent to all authorities over Great Britain and Ireland, that it may be repeated everywhere. Also "RESOLVED, _nemine contradicente_, that the King's Majesty be desired to make his speedy return to his Parliament and to the exercise of his Kingly Office. "[1] [Footnote 1: These Notes, except the extract from Pepys, are compiledfrom the Commons Journals and the Parliamentary History for the weekbetween May 1 and May 8, with references to Whitlocke and Phillips. ] And so all was settled between Charles and his Three Kingdoms. Bythis time, indeed, not only in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but allover the main island from Land's End to Caithness and all over thelesser from Mizen Head to Malin Head, there was simply a universalimpatience till it should be known that Montague's fleet had shotfrom the Downs towards the Dutch coasts, to bring his Majesty and hisCourt, on the decks of his own ships, within hail of the cheeringfrom Dover cliffs. The delay was chiefly because of the necessity ofcertain upholstering and tailoring preparations on both sides. Athome there had to be due preparations of a household for his Majesty, and of households for his two brothers, when they should arrive. There had to be got ready not only a new crown and sceptre, and newrobes and ermines, but also the velvet bed, with the gold embroidery, the lining of satin or cloth of silver, the satin quilts, the fustianquilts to lie under the satin quilts, the down bolster, the fustianblankets, the Spanish blankets, the Holland sheets, with otheraccoutrements for his Majesty's own bedroom, besides similarfurnishing for the bedrooms of the Dukes of York and Gloucester, anew coach for his Majesty, liveries for his coachmen, footmen, andother servants, and innumerable etceteras. Then, on the other side ofthe water, where his Majesty had meanwhile received withextraordinary satisfaction, through Sir John Greenville, the £50, 000voted him by the Commons, £10, 000 of it in gold from England, and therest in bank bills payable at sight in Amsterdam, and where the Dukeof York had been promised another £10, 000 and the Duke of Gloucester£5000, much of the money had to be converted into the apparel andother equipments required for the suitable appearance of the threeroyal personages and their retinues when they should presentthemselves in England. A great deal might be done at Breda, wherealready there was swarming round his Majesty a miscellany of privatevisitors, English, Scottish, and Irish, all anxious to be useful, andmany of them with presents of money. But the final arrangements wereto be at the Hague, the capital of the United Provinces, amidwhatever stately ceremonial of congratulation and farewell the DutchGovernment could now offer in atonement for previous neglect orindifference. There had been most pressing solicitations, indeed, from the Spanish authorities of Flanders, that Charles would returnto Brussels and make his arrangements there; Mazarin too had sent amessage at last, begging him to honour France by making Calais hisport of departure; but Charles preferred the Hague. It was at theHague, therefore, that the commissioners from the two Houses ofParliament, with deputations from the City of London and the Londonclergy, were to wait upon Charles; it was there that he was to conferhis first large collective batch of English knighthoods, followingthe single knighthood conferred conspicuously already on Dr. Clargesat Breda; and it was thence that there was to be the greatembarkation for Dover. [1] [Footnote 1: Clarendon, 906-910; Pepys's Diary, from the 8th of Mayonwards. ] And what meanwhile of the chief Republican criminals at home, whetherthe Regicides or the scores of others that might count themselves inperil for more than mere place or property? Since the 1st of May, orbefore, such of them as could, such as were at liberty and had money, had absconded or been trying to abscond. Of the Regicides and some ofthe rest we shall hear enough in due course. For the present let usattend only to Needham and Milton. Needham had absconded in good time. It had probably been in the verybeginning of May, if not earlier; for on the 10th of May there wasout in London, in the form of a printed squib, _An Hue and Cryafter Mercurius Politicus_, giving a sketch of his career, andcontaining some doggrel verse about his escape, in this style:-- "But, if at Amsterdam you meet With one that's purblind in the street, Hawk-nosed, turn up his hair, And in his ears two holes you'll find; And, if they are, not pawned behind, Two rings are hanging there. "His visage meagre is and long, His body slender, " &c. [1] [Footnote 1: "_O. Cromwell's Thankes to the Lord General faithfullypresented by Hugh Peters in another Conference, together with an Hueand Cry after Mercurius Politicus: London, Printed by M. T. _"("1660, May 10" in the Thomason copy). ] Our latest glimpse of Milton is on the 7th of May, the day before thepublic proclamation of Charles in London. On that day "John Milton, of the City of Westminster, " transferred to his friend "CyriackSkinner, of Lincoln's Inn, Gentleman, " a Bond for £400 given by theCommissioners of the Excise in part security for money which Miltonhad invested in their hands. In the deed of conveyance, still extant, under the words at the end, "_Witness my hand and seal thus_, "there follows the signature "JOHN MILTON, " not in his own hand, butrecognisably in the fine and peculiar hand of that amanuensis to whomhe had dictated the sonnet in memory of his second wife about twoyears before. In yet another hand is the date "7th May, 1660"; butattached, to verify all, is Milton's family-seal of the double-headedeagle. Milton, we can see, wanted some money for sudden and urgentoccasions, and his friend Cyriack advanced it. Cyriack and othershad, doubtless, been already about him for some days, imploring himto hide himself, and devising the means; and that very night, or thenext, as we are to fancy, he is conveyed furtively out of his housein Petty France to some obscure but suitable shelter. The threechildren he has parted with, the eldest not yet fourteen years old, the second not twelve, and the third just eight, are left under whattendence there may be, hardly knowing what has happened, butuncertain whether they shall ever again see their strange blindfather. All is dark, and we may drop the curtain. [1] [Footnote 1: Sotheby's _Ramblings in Elucidation of Milton'sAutograph_, p. 129, and plate after p. 124. The document mentionedwas purchased in Aug. 1858, for £19, by Mr. Monckton Milnes (nowLord Houghton), apparently under the impression that the signaturewas Milton's own. ] CORRIGENDA AND ADDENDA IN VOLS. IV. AND V. _Vol. IV. Pp. _ 272-273:--From Mrs. Everett Green's Calendar ofDomestic State Papers for the Third Year of the Commonwealth I learnthat the first meeting of the Council of State for that year was onFeb. 17, 1650-51, and not on Feb. 19. There had been two meetingsbefore that of the 19th, and at the first of these Bradshaw had beenre-appointed President. _Vol. IV. Pp. _ 416-418 _and_ 423-424:--To Milton's Letterto the Oldenburg agent Hermann Mylius, translated and commented onpp. 416-418, and to the story, as told at pp. 423-424, of theSafeguard for the Count of Oldenburg's subjects obtained from theEnglish Council of State by the joint exertions of Mylius and Milton, an interesting addition has turned up in the form of another Latinletter from Milton to Mylius, preserved "in a collection ofautographs belonging to the Cardinal Bishop-Prince vonSchwartzenberg. " A copy was sent by Dr. Goll of Prague to ProfessorAlfred Stern of Bern, author of _Milton und Seine Zeit_; andProfessor Stern communicated it to the _Academy_, where itappeared Oct. 13, 1877. It may be here translated:--"Yesterday, mymost respected Hermann, after you had gone, there came to me amandate of the Council, ordering me to compare the Latin copy [of theSafeguard] with the English, and to take care that they agreed witheach other, and then to send both to Lord Whitlocke and Mr. Nevillefor revision; which I did, and at the same time wrote fully to LordWhitlocke on the subject of the insertion you wanted made, --namelythat there should be a clause in favour also of the successors anddescendents of his Lordship the Count, and this in the formula whichyou yourself suggested: I added moreover the reasons you assignedwhy, unless that were done, the business would seem absolutely null. What happened in the Council in consequence I do not know forcertain, for I was kept at home by yesterday's rain and was notpresent. If you write to the President of the Council[_Concilii_ only in the copy, but one guesses that the word for'President' has to be inserted], or, better still, if you send one ofyour people to Mr. Frost, you may yourself, I believe, hear fromthem; or, at all events, you shall know in the evening from me, --yourmost devoted JOHN MILTON. Feb. 13, 1651 [i. E. 1651-2]. " The letteraccords in every particular with the extract we have given from theminutes of the Council of State of Feb. 11, and enables us to see howthe Safeguard for the Count of Oldenburg did emerge, in the desiredform at last, in Parliament on Feb. 17. Professor Stern, in hiscommunication to the _Academy_, adds that the Safeguard is"printed by J. J. Winkelmann in his _Oldenburgische Friedens und derbenachbarten Oerter Kriegshandlungen_, p. 390, with theannotation, '_Hoc diploma ex Anglico originali in Latinum verbatimversum est. _ JOANNES MILTONIUS. _Westmonasterii, 17 Febr. , anno_ 1651-2" ('This diploma is turned verbatim into Latin fromthe English original. JOHN MILTON. Westminster, 17 Febr. , in the year1651-2'), I assume, but am not certain, that it is the same as thatmentioned as given in Thurloe, i, 385-6. _Vol. IV. P. _ 560:--For the Earl of Airly, mentioned as one ofthe delinquent Scottish noblemen who were fined by Oliver's ordinancefor Scotland of April 12, 1654, substitute the Earl of Ethie. He wasSir John Carnegie of Ethie, co. Forfar, Lord Lour since 1639, andcreated Earl of Ethie in 1647, --which title he exchanged, after theRestoration, for that of Earl of Northesk. _Vol. V. P. 227, in connexion with Vol. IV, pp. _ 487-494:--Apaper found very recently by Mrs. Everett Green in the Record Office, and kindly communicated by her to me, in continuation of those forwhich I have already acknowledged my obligations to her, enables meto throw some further light on Milton's friend and correspondentAndrew Sandelands, and on that scheme of his for utilising thefir-woods of Scotland in which he sought Milton's assistance. Thepaper, which is in the handwriting of Sandelands, is dated "30 June, 1653, " i. E. Two months and ten days after Cromwell had dissolved theRump and begun his Interim Dictatorship; it is addressed "For theHonor'ble. Sir Gilbert Pickering"--Pickering being then, it wouldseem, President of Cromwell's Interim Council of Thirteen (see Vol. IV. Pp, 498-499); and it is headed "_A Brief Narration of myTransactions concerning some Woods in Scotland_. " From thisstatement of Sandelands it appears that he had first broached hisscheme of obtaining masts and tar for the English navy from the woodsof Scotland to Cromwell himself in August 1652, and that it was inconsequence of Cromwell's recommendation of the scheme to the Councilof State then in power that the business had been referred to theCommander-in-chief in Scotland and Sandelands had gone to Scotland("at my own charge, " he says) and had the conferences withMajor-General Dean and Colonel Lilburne described at pp. 490-491 ofVol. IV. The result had been that detailed written explanation of hisscheme to Lilburne the substance of which has been quoted in the samepages--"the copy whereof, " adds Sandelands, "now remains in Mr. Thurloe's hands. " He means, of course, the copy he had enclosed toMilton in his letter of Jan. 15, 1652-3, and which Milton had dulydelivered to the Council of State. More had come of the matter thanwe knew at that date; for Sandelands proceeds thus in hisstatement:--"The Council of State, having received this information(recommended by the Commander-in-chief), gave order that ColonelLilburne should prosecute the design effectually. Upon receipt ofwhich order, Colonel Lilburne was pleased to employ me to try whetherthe Earl of Tullibardine (who had an interest of the third part ofthe woods of Abernethy and Glencalvie) would sell his share; which Idid, and brought with me an agreement under his hand that for £221 hewould yield up all his interest in the former woods and all otherbe-north Tay, upon condition that the money should be paid before the25th of March last [1653]; which Colonel Lilburne certified to theCouncil of State. But, their greater affairs [the discussions withCromwell just before his _coup d'état_] obstructing this design, neither money nor orders were sent. Therefore I did entreat ColonelLilburne to do me that justice to certify my diligence; which he did;and [having come to London meanwhile] I delivered it to hisExcellency [Cromwell] the 12th of June [a month and three weeks afterthe _coup d'état_]; who was pleased immediately after to revivethis motion to the Council of State [Cromwell's Interim Council ofThirteen], and they to refer it to Mr. Carew [one of the Thirteen]. Since which time I have given my daily attendance at Whitehall, expecting the event of the business. " He ends by solicitingPickering, as he had solicited Milton some months before, to bringthe matter to some such conclusion as might reimburse him for hisjourney to Scotland and all his care and pains there at his owncharge. From a note appended to the Statement, it appears that thewhole business was referred by Cromwell's Interim Council to aCommittee; but, as we have found Sandelands still in distress and inwant of employment as late as April 1654 (Vol. V. P. 227), hisrenewed application can have had but small success. End of Volume V