The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 / Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time

The story in Ludlow is that to the last moment Cromwell had meant to accept, and that his sudden and unexpected refusal was occasioned by a bold stroke of the Army-men. Having invited himself to dine at Desborough's, says Ludlow, he had taken Fleetwood with him, and had begun "to droll with them about monarchy," and ask them why sensible men like them should make so much of the affair, and refuse to please the children by permitting them to have "their rattle." Fleetwood and Desborough still remaining grave, he had called them "a couple of scrupulous fellows," and left them. Next day (May 6) he had sent a message to the House to meet him in the Painted Chamber next morning; and, casually encountering Desborough again, he had told Desborough what he intended. That same day Desborough had told Pride, whereupon that resolute colonel had surprised Desborongh by saying he would prevent it still. Going to Dr. Owen on the instant, Pride had made him draft an Officers' Petition to the House. It was to the effect that the petitioners, having "hazarded their lives against monarchy," and being "still ready to do so," observed with pain the "great endeavours to bring the nation again under their old servitude," and begged the House not to allow a title to be pressed upon their General 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, not members 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 the crown without the consent of the Army." The appointment with the House in the Painted Chamber for the 7th was changed, however, into that in the Banqueting House on the 8th, the latter place, as the more familiar, being fitter for the negative answer he now meant to give.—Ludlow's story, though he cites Desborough as his chief informant, is not perfectly credible in all its details; but the Commons Journals do show that the meeting originally appointed by Cromwell on the 6th for the Painted Chamber on the 7th was put off to the 8th, and then held in the Banqueting House, and also that there was an Officers' Petition in the interim. It was brought to the doors of the House, by "divers officers of the Army," on the 8th, just as the House was adjourning to the Banqueting House; and the Journals only record that the officers were admitted, and that, a Colonel Mason having presented the Petition in their name and his own, they withdrew. The rest is guess; but two main facts cannot be doubted. One is that Cromwell's great, if not sole, reason at last for refusing the Crown was his knowledge of the persistent opposition of a great number of the Army men. The other is that he remembered afterwards who had been the chief Contrariants.¹

While the great question of the Kingship had been in progress there had been a detection of a conspiracy of the Fifth-Monarchy Men.

Ever since the abortive ending of the Barebones Parliament these enthusiasts had been recognisable as a class of enemies of the Protectorate distinct from the ordinary and cooler Republicans. While Vane and Bradshaw might represent the Republicans or Commonwealth's men generally, the head of the Fifth-Monarchy Republicans was Harrison. The Harrisonian Republic, the impassioned dream of this really great-hearted soldier, was the coming Reign of Christ on Earth, and the trampling down, in anticipation of that reign, of all dignities, institutions, ministries, and magistracies, that might be inconsistent with it. In the Barebones Parliament, where the Fifth-Monarchy Men had been numerous, and where Harrison had led them, they had gone far, as we know, in conjunction with the Anabaptists, in a practical attempt to convert Cromwell's interim Dictatorship, with Cromwell's assent or acquiescence, into a beginning of the great new era. They had voted down Tithes, Church-Establishments, and all their connexions, and only the steadiness of Rons, Sydenham, and the other sober spirits, in making that vote the occasion of a resurrender of all power into Cromwell's hands, had prevented the consequences. And so, Cromwell's Protectorate having come in where Harrison wanted to keep a vacuum for the Fifth Monarchy, and that Protectorate having not only conserved Tithes and an Established Church, but professed them to be parts of its very basis, Harrison had abjured Cromwell for ever. "Those who had been to me as the apple of my eye," said Harrison afterwards, "when they had turned aside, said to me, Sit thou on my right hand; but I loathed it." Through the Protectorate, accordingly, Harrison, dismissed from the Army, had been living as a suspected person, with great powers of harm; and, three or four times, when there were Republican risings, or threatenings of such, it had been thought necessary to question him, or put him under temporary arrest. The last occasion had been just before the opening of the present Parliament, when he was arrested with Vane, Rich, and others, and had the distinction of being sent as far off as Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, while Vane was sent only to the Isle of Wight, and Rich only to Windsor. The imprisonments, however, being merely precautionary, had been but short; and, at the time of the proposal of the Kingship to Cromwell, Harrison, as well as the others, was again at liberty.

That Harrison had ever practically implicated himself in any attempt to upset the Protectorate by force hardly appears from the evidence. He was an experienced soldier, and, with all his fervid notions of a Fifth Monarchy, too massive a man to stir without calculation. All that 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, and that he held himself free to act should there be fit opportunity. But there were Harrisonians of a lower grade than Harrison. Especially in London, since the winter of 1655, there had been a kind of society of Fifth-Monarchy Men, holding small meetings in five places, only one man in each meeting knowing who belonged to the others, but the five connecting links forming a central Committee for management and propagandism. It must have been from this Committee, I suppose, that there emanated, in Sept. 1656, a pamphlet called "The Banner of Truth displayed, or a Testimony for Christ and against Antichrist: being the substance of several consultations holden and kept by a certain number of Christians who are waiting for the visible appearance of Christ's Kingdom in and over the World, and residing in and about the City of London." Probably as yet these humble Fifth-Monarchy Men had not gone beyond private aspirations. At all events, Thurloe, though aware of their existence, had not thought them worth notice. But Sindercombe's Plot of Feb. 1656-7, and the subsequent proposal of the Kingship for Cromwell, had excited them prodigiously, and they had been longing for action, and looking about for leaders. Harrison was their chief hope, and they had applied to him, but also to other Republicans who were not specially Fifth-Monarchy Men, such as Rich, Lawson, and Okey. What encouragement they had or thought they had from such men one does not know; but they had fixed Thursday, April 9, the very day of the appointment of the great Committee of Ninety-nine to deal with Cromwell about the Kingship, for an experimental rendezvous and standard-raising on Mile-End-Green. This being known to Thurloe, a horse-troop or two finished the affair by the capture of about twenty of them at Shoreditch, ready to ride to Mile-End-Green, and also by the capture at Mile-End-Green itself of their intended standard, some arms, and a quantity of Fifth-Monarchy books and manifestos. Five or six of the captured, among whom was Thomas Venner, a wine-cooper, the real soul of the conspiracy, were imprisoned in the Tower, and the rest elsewhere; but, in accordance with Cromwell's lenient custom in such 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 Major Danvers; and amongst those taken was a Mr. Arthur Squib, who had been in the Barebones Parliament, and one of Harrison's chief followers there. Squib's connexion with Venner in the present wretched conspiracy seems to have been much closer than Harrison's.¹

Cromwell had used the Venner outbreak to point a moral in one or two of his speeches on the Kingship Question. The standard taken at Mile-End-Green bore a Red Lion couchant, with the motto Who shall rouse him up?; and among the tracts or manifestos taken was one called A Standard set up, whereunto the true Seed and Saints of the Most High may be gathered together for the lamb, against the Beast and the False Prophet. It was a fierce diatribe against Cromwell, with a scheme for the government of the Commonwealth on Fifth-Monarchy principles after his overthrow. The supreme authority was to be the Lord Jesus Christ; but there was to be an annually elected Sanhedrim or Supreme Council to represent Him, and to administer Biblical Law, and no other, with inferior elected judges for towns and counties. The Bible being the sole Law, a formal Legislature would be unnecessary; and all other magistracy besides the Sanhedrim and the Judgeships was to be abolished, and also, of course, all State ministry of Religion. Now, to Cromwell, who had read the Tract, all this furnished excellent illustration of the kind he wanted. Always frankly admitting that it might be said he had "griped at the government of the nations without a legal assent," he had never ceased to declare that this had been a sheer necessity for the nations themselves. But the Standard set up of the Fifth-Monarchy insurgents of Mile-End-Green had enabled him to return to the topic with reference specifically to the Barebones Parliament and the transition thence to the Protectorate. That wild pamphlet, he had told his auditors, in Speech XII. (April 20), was by one who had been "a leading person" in the Barebones Parliament (Harrison or Squib?); and in Speech XIII. (April 21) he had dwelt on the fact again more at large, revealing a story, as he said, of his "own weakness and folly." The Barebones Parliament had been one of his own choosing; he had filled it with "men of our own judgment, who had fought in the wars, and were all of a piece upon that account." This he had done in his "simplicity," expecting the best results. But, as it had happened, there was a band of men in that Parliament driving even then for nothing but the principles of this wretched Fifth-Monarchy manifesto, the abolition of Church and Magistracy, and a trial of a fantastic government by the Law of Moses. Major-General Harrison and Mr. Squib had been the leaders of this band, with the Anabaptist minister Mr. Feak as their confidant out of doors; and what they did from day to day in the Parliament had been concocted in private meetings in Mr. Squib's house. "This was so de facto: I know it to be true." Had he not done well in accepting the Protectorate at such a moment, and so saving the Commonwealth from the delirium of which they had just seen a new spurt at Mile-End-Green?¹

After the Protector's refusal of the Kingship the House proceeded to adjust the new constitution they had prepared in the Petition and Advice to that unavoidable fact. Not much was necessary. It was only 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 some days of debate, it was finally agreed, May 22, that the former first clause of the First Article should be cancelled, and this substituted: "That your Highness will be pleased, by and under the name and style of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, to hold and exercise the office of Chief Magistrate of these Nations, and to govern according to this Petition and Advice in all things therein contained, and in all other things according to the Laws of these Nations, and not otherwise." The remaining clause of the First Article, empowering Cromwell to appoint his immediate successor, was left untouched, as well as all the subsequent Articles. To the whole of the Petition and Advice, so arranged, Cromwell solemnly gave his assent in the Painted Chamber, May 25, addressing the House in a short speech, in which he expressed his thorough confidence in them in respect to those explanations or modifications of the document which they had promised in 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

The "perfecting of those things" occupied a good deal of time. What was necessary was to cast the resolutions already come to in supplement to the Petition and Advice, or those that might yet suggest themselves, into a valid legal form; and it was agreed, June 4, that, except in as far as it might be well to pass express Bills on specific matters, the best way would be to frame and submit to his Highness a Humble Additional and Explanatory Petition and Advice. The due framing of this, and the preparation of the necessary Bills, were to be work for three weeks more.¹

Meanwhile, in evidence that the Session of the Parliament up to this point, notwithstanding the great business of the Petition and Advice and the Kingship question, had by no means been barren in legislation, 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, and the others of a more private, concernment," were presented to his Highness by the whole House, assembled in the Painted Chamber, the Speaker, "after a short and pithy speech," offering them as some grapes preceding the full vintage, and his Highness ratifying all by his assent.—Among these was one very comprehensive Act with this preamble: "Whereas, since the 20th of April, 1653, in the great exigences and necessities of these nations, divers Acts and Ordinances have been made without the consent of the People assembled in Parliament—which is not according to the fundamental laws of the nations and the rights of the People, and is not for the future to be drawn into example—yet, the actings thereupon tending to the settlement of the estates of several persons and families and the peace and quiet of the nations: Be it enacted by his Highness the Lord Protector and this present Parliament," &c. What is enacted is that about a hundred Acts and Ordinances, all duly enumerated, out of those made by the Barebones Parliament in 1653 or by Oliver and his Council after the establishment of the Protectorate in Dec. 1656, together with all acts and ordinances of the same touching customs and excise, shall by this Act be confirmed and made good, either wholly and absolutely (which is the case with nearly all) or with specified modifications—"all other Acts and Ordinances, and every branch and clause therein contained, not confirmed by these presents, which have been made or passed between the 20th day of April 1653 and the 17th day of September 1656" to be absolutely null and void. In other words, the House had been revising long and carefully the Acts of the Barebones Parliament and the arbitrary Ordinances of Oliver and his Council from Dec. 1653 onwards, with a view to adopt all that might stand and to give them new constitutional sanction. Among the Acts of the Barebones Parliament so confirmed and continued was their famous Act for the forms and ceremonial of Marriage and for the Registration of Births and Burials (Vol. IV. p. 511), except only the clause therein declaring any other marriages than as these prescribed to be illegal. Of Cromwell's own Ordinances from Dec. 1653 onwards all were preserved that, I suppose, he really cared for. Thus, of his eighty-two first public Ordinances, passed between Dec. 1653 and the meeting of his First Parliament Sept. 3, 1654, thirty-six were expressly confirmed; which, as most of the rest were Excise or Customs Ordinances or Orders for temporary occasion, means that substantially all his legislation on his entering on the Protectorate was to remain in force. More particularly, 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 first eighty-two Public Ordinances (Vol. IV. pp. 558-565) were among those confirmed. These included his Ordinances against Cockfights and Duels, his Ordinance for Reform of the Court of Chancery, his various Ordinances for the incorporation and management of Scotland, and his various Church-Establishment Ordinances for England and Wales, with his two commissions of Triers and Ejectors. Among contemporary ordinances of his also confirmed, over and above those in the main list of Eighty-two, were that for setting up Lectures in Scotland, that in favour of Glasgow University, and that for the better support of the Universities of Scotland—this last, however, limited to the Universities alone by the omission of what related to "the encouragement of public preachers" (Vol. IV. p. 565: footnote). The most noticeable Ordinances of Cromwell's not confirmed are those relating to Treasons—No. 8 in the List of Eighty-two, and its appendages Nos. 12 and 49. Altogether, the Parliament had handsomely cleared Cromwell in respect of his Interim Dictatorship and what was past of his Protectorate, and he had every reason to be satisfied. But, besides this all-comprehensive Act of retrospection, several of the other Acts presented for his assent at the same time must have been very much to his mind.—There was an Act for settling lands in Scotland upon General Monk, with similar Acts for settling lands in Ireland on Fleetwood, Dr. Owen, Sir Hardress Waller, and other persons of desert; there were several Naturalization Bills in favour of a great number of foreigners and English aliens; there was "An Act for limiting and settling the prices of Wines"; and there was "An Act against Vagrants, and wandering, idle, dissolute Persons." Most welcome to Cromwell, and drawing from him a few words of special acknowledgment after his assent to all the Bills (Speech XV.), were "Two Bills for an Assessment towards the defraying of the charge of the Spanish war and other occasions of the Commonwealth." One was for £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 same three months. These were instalments of a lump sum of £400,000, which the House had voted as long ago as Jan. 30, 1656-7, for the carrying on of the Spanish war, and the remainder of which was to be raised in other ways. The House had already before it a general Bill for the continued assessment of England, Scotland, and Ireland, for Army and Navy purposes, beyond the period specified; but that Bill had not yet passed.¹

Army and Navy purposes, and the carrying on of the Spanish War: these, through all the bustle of the Kingship question, had still been 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 and his occasional oscillations towards Spain, had at length, by Lockhart's exertions, been converted into a great Treaty "offensive and defensive," signed at Paris, March 23rd, 1656-7, and ratified by Louis XIV. April 30, and by Cromwell himself May 4, 1657. By this treaty it was provided that there should be joint action against Spain, by sea and land, for the reduction and capture of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, the three coast-towns of Spanish Flanders adjoining the French territories on the north-east. Gravelines, if taken, was to belong to France ultimately, but, if taken first, was to be held by the English till Mardyke and Dunkirk were taken—which two towns were to belong permanently to England, only with stipulation of inviolability of Roman Catholic worship for the inhabitants, and of no further English encroachments on Flanders. For the joint-enterprise France was to supply 20,000 men, and Cromwell an auxiliary army of 6000 foot (half at the expense of France), besides a fleet for coast-service. A secret article of the Treaty was that neither power should make separate peace with the Spanish Crown for the space of one year from the date of the Treaty.¹—Cromwell had lost no time in fulfilling his part of the engagement. To command the auxiliary English army in Flanders he had selected Sir John Reynolds, who had served ably heretofore in Ireland, and was now, as we have seen, member for Tipperary and Waterford in the present Parliament, and a strong Oliverian. His commission was dated April 25; and by May 14 he and his 6000 English foot had all been landed at Boulogne. They were thought the most splendid body of soldiers in Europe, and were admired and complimented by Louis XIV., who went purposely, with Lockhart, to review them. The promised fleet of cooperation was to be under the command of young Admiral Montague, who was still, however, detained in England.²—Meanwhile Blake, in his wider command off the coasts of Spain itself, or wherever in the Atlantic there could be a dash at the Spaniard, had added one more to the series of his naval exploits. To intercept a rich Spanish fleet from Mexico, he had gone to the Canary Isles; he had found the fleet there, sixteen ships in all, impregnably ensconced, as it was thought, in the fortified bay of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe; and, after a council of war, in which it was agreed that, though the ships could not be taken, they might be destroyed, he had ventured that tremendous feat April 20, with the most extraordinary success. He had emerged from Santa Cruz Bay, after eleven hours of connonading and fighting, all but undamaged himself, but leaving not a ship of the Spanish fleet extant, and every fort in ruins. Not till May 28 did the news reach London; but on that day Thurloe presented a narrative of the glorious action to the House, who forthwith ordered a special thanksgiving, and a jewel worth £500 to Blake. On the 10th of June the jewel was sent, with a letter of honour from the Protector, and instructions to leave fourteen of his ships off Cadiz, and return home himself with the rest of his fleet.³

"Killing no Murder: briefly discoursed, in Three Questions, by William Allen:" such was the title of a pamphlet in secret circulation in London in June, 1657, and still of some celebrity. It began with a letter "To His Highness, Oliver Cromwell," in this strain: "To your Highness justly belongs the honour of dying for the people; and it cannot choose but be an unspeakable consolation to you in the last moments of your life to consider with how much benefit to the world you are likely to leave it ... To hasten this great good is the chief end of my writing this paper." There follows, accordingly, a letter to those officers and soldiers of the army who remember their engagements, urging them to assassinate Cromwell. "We wish we had rather endured thee, O Charles," it says, "than have been condemned to this mean tyrant, not that we desire any kind of slavery, but that the quality of the master sometimes graces the condition 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 is this postscript: "Courteous reader, expect another sheet or two of paper on this subject, if I escape the Tyrant's hands, although he gets in the interim the crown upon his head, which he hath underhand put his confederates on to petition his acceptance thereof." This would imply that, though not in circulation till June, the pamphlet had been written while the Kingship question was in suspense, i.e, before May 8. The name "William Allen" on the title-page was, of course, assumed. The pamphlet, hardly any one now doubts, was by Edward Sexby, the Stuartist arch-conspirator, then moving between England and the continent, and known to have been the real principal of Sindercombe's plot. Actually, when the pamphlet appeared, the desperate man was again in England, despite Thurloe's police. The pamphlet was greedily sought after, and much talked of. The sale was, of course, dangerous. A copy could not be had under five shillings.¹

People were still talking of Killing no Murder when the First Protectorate came to a close. We have now only to take account of the circumstances 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 Humble Additional and Explanatory Petition and Advice having been at length 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 The Petition and Advice, were to supersede the more military Instrument, called The Government of the Commonwealth, to which Cromwell had sworn in Dec. 1653, at his first installation, and were to be the charter of his new and constitutionalized Protectorate. The Articles of this new Constitution were seventeen in all, and deserve some attention:—Article I., as we know, confirmed Cromwell's Protectorship and empowered him to choose his successor.—Article II. provided for the calling of Parliaments of Two Houses once in three years at furthest.—Article III. stipulated for all Parliamentary privileges and the non-exclusion of any of the duly elected members except by judgment of the House of which they might be members.—Article IV., which was much the longest, determined the classes of persons who should be disqualified from being elected or voting in elections. Universally, all Roman Catholics were to be excluded, and all who had abetted the Irish Rebellion. Farther, in England, were to be excluded all who had been engaged in any war against Parliament since Jan. I, 1641-2, unless they had afterwards given "signal testimony" of their good affections, 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 against the Parliament of England or against that of Scotland before April 1, 1648 (old Malignants and Montrosists), except such as had afterwards given "signal testimony," &c., and also all who, since April 1, 1648, had been in arms against the English Parliament or the Commonwealth (the Hamiltonians of 1648, and the Scottish Royalists of all varieties who had fought for Charles II. in 1650-51), except such as had since March 1, 1651-2, "lived peaceably"—but with the supplementary proviso, required by his Highness, that, while "having lived peaceably" since Worcester would suffice for the miscellaneous Royalists of 1650-51, who were indeed nearly 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 faithful before March 1, 1649-50, had afterwards opposed the Commonwealth or the Protector. These disqualifications affected both voting and eligibility; but eligibility was restricted still farther. Ineligible were to be all atheistic persons, scoffers at Religion, unbelievers in 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 to marry such. For the rest, all persons of the voting sex, over the age of twenty-one, and "of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation," were to be eligible. One farther exception had been made in the original Petition and Advice; to wit, all in holy orders, 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 loath to be excluded from sitting in Parliament," Cromwell had said laughingly while commenting on this clause; and it had accordingly been defined as excluding only regular pastors of congregations. He had procured an important modification of another clause of the same Article. It had been proposed that the business of examining who had been duly elected, and the power of suspending members till the House itself should decide, should be vested in a body of forty-one commissioners to be appointed by Parliament; but, Cromwell having pointed out that this would be a clumsy process, and that the commissioners themselves might be "uncertain persons," and might "keep out good men," it was agreed that the judgment of the House itself, with a fine of £1000 on every unqualified person that might take his seat, would fully answer the purpose.—Article V. related to the Second House of Parliament, called simply "the other House." It was to consist of not more than seventy nor fewer than forty persons, qualified as by the last Article, to be nominated by the Protector and approved by the Commons House, twenty-one to be a quorum, and no proxies allowed. Vacancies were to be filled up by nominations by the Protector, approved by the House itself. The powers of the House were also defined. They were to try no criminal cases whatsoever, unless on an impeachment sent up from the Commons, and only certain specified kinds of civil cases. All their final determinations were to be by the House itself, and not by delegates or Committees.—Article VI. ruled that all other particulars concerning "the calling and holding of Parliaments" should be by law and statute, and that there should be no legislation, or suspension, or abrogation of law, but by Act of Parliament.—Article VII. guaranteed a yearly revenue of £1,300,000, whereof £1,000,000 to be for the Army and Navy, and the remaining £300,000 for the support of the Government, the sums not to be altered without the consent of Parliament, and no part of them to be raised by a land-tax. There might also be "temporary supplies" over and above, to be voted by the Commons; but on no account was his Highness to impose any tax, or require any contribution, by his own authority. By Cromwell's request it was added that his expenditure of the Army and Navy money should be with the advice of his Council, and that accounts should be rendered to Parliament.—Article VIII. settled that his Highness's Privy Council should consist of not more than twenty-one persons, seven a quorum, to be approved by both Houses, and to be irremovable but by the consent of Parliament, though in the intervals of Parliament any of them might be suspended by the Protector. It was asked that the Government should always be with the advice of the Council, and stipulated that, after Cromwell's death, all appointments to the Commandership-in-chief, or to Generalships at land or sea, should be by the future Protectors with consent of the Council.—Article IX. required that the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, the Lord Treasurer or Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, the Judges, and all the great State-officers in England, Scotland, or Ireland, should, in cases of future appointment by the Protector and his Council, be approved by Parliament.—Article X. congratulated the Protector on his Established Church, and begged him to punish, according to law, all open revilers of the same.—Article XI. related to Religion and Toleration. The Protestant Faith, as contained in the Old and New Testaments, and as yet to be formulated in a Confession of Faith to be agreed upon between his Highness and the Parliament, was to be the professed public Religion, and to be universally respected as such; but all believers in the Trinity and in the divine authority of the Scriptures, though they might dissent otherwise in doctrine, worship, or discipline from the Established Church, were to be protected in the exercise of their own religion and worship,—this liberty not to extend to Popery, Prelacy, or the countenancing of blasphemous publications. Ministers and Preachers agreeing in "matters of faith" with "the public profession," though differing in "matters of worship and discipline," were not to be excluded from the Established Church by that difference, but might have "the public maintenance appointed for the ministry" and promotion and employment in the Church according to their abilities. None but those whose difference extended to matters of faith need remain outside the Established Church. Dissenters from the Established Church, if sufficiently right in the faith, were to have equal admission with others to all civil trusts and appointments, subject only to any disqualification for civil office attached to the ministerial profession. His Highness was requested to agree to the repeal of all laws inconsistent with these provisions.—Article XII. required that all past Acts for disestablishing or disendowing the old Prelatic Church, and appropriating the revenues of the same, should hold good.—Article XIII. required that Old Malignants, and other such classes of persons as those disqualified for Parliament in Article IV., should be excluded also from other public trusts.—Article XIV. stipulated that nothing in the Petition and Advice should be construed as implying the dissolution of the present Parliament before such time as his Highness should independently think fit.—Article XV. provided that the Petition and Advice should not be construed as repealing or annulling any Laws or Ordinances already in force, not distinctly incompatible with itself.—Article XVI. protected in a similar way all writs, commissions, grants, law-processes, &c., issued and in operation already, even though the wording should seem a little past date.—Article XVII. and Last requested his Highness to be pleased to take an oath of office. A form of such oath appeared in the Additional Petition and Advice, with another form of oath for his Highness's Councillors in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and a 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 his Government. Farther, by the same Additional Petition and Advice, the Lord Protector was requested and empowered to issue writs calling qualified persons to the other House in convenient time before the next session of Parliament, and such persons were empowered to meet and constitute the other House at the time and place appointed without requiring farther approbation from the present Single House.¹

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 as usual in the morning, and transacted some overstanding business, rose about two o'clock to meet his Highness in the Painted Chamber. There, with the words "The Lord Protector doth consent," the Additional Petition and Advice, and therefore the whole new Constitution of the Protectorate, as just described, became law, and assent was given also to a number of Bills that had passed the House since the 9th. Among these was an "Act for convicting, discovering, and repressing of Popish Recusants," an "Act for the Better Observation of the Lord's Day," and an "Act for punishing such persons as live at high rates and have no visible estate, profession, or calling, answerable thereto." 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 the three months just ended, and another general and prospective one, assessing England at £35,000 a month, Scotland at £6000 a month, and Ireland at £9000 a month, for the next three years. All these assents having been received, there was an adjournment to Westminster Hall for the solemn installation of his Highness in his Second Protectorate.—The Hall had been magnificently prepared, and contained a vast assemblage. The members of the House, the Judges in their robes, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their robes, and other dignitaries, were ranged in the midst round, a canopied chair of state. It was the royal chair of Scotland, with the mystic coronation-stone underneath it, brought for the purpose from the Abbey. In front of the chair was a table, covered with pink-coloured Geneva 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 great state officers, his son Richard, the French Ambassador, the Dutch Ambassador, and "divers of the nobility and other persons of great quality," stood, beside the chair under the canopy. The Speaker, assisted by the Earl of Warwick, Whitlocke, and others, then attired his Highness in the purple velvet robe; after which he delivered to him the richly-gilt Bible, girt him with the sword, and put the gold sceptre into his hand. His Highness then swore the oath of office, administered to him by the Speaker, After that, the Speaker addressed him in a well-turned speech. "You have no new name," he said, "but a new date now added to the old name: the 16th of December is now changed into the 26th of June." He explained that the robe, the Bible, the sword, and the sceptre were presents to his Highness from the Parliament, and dwelt poetically on the significance of each. "What a comely and glorious sight," he concluded, "it is to behold a Lord Protector in a purple robe, with a sceptre in his hand, a sword of justice girt about him, and his eyes fixed upon the Bible! Long may you prosperously enjoy them all, to your own comfort, and the comfort of the people of these three Nations!" His Highness still standing, Mr. Manton offered up a prayer. Then, the assemblage giving several great shouts, and the trumpets sounding, his Highness sat down in the chair, still holding the sceptre. Then a herald stood up aloft, and signalled for three trumpet-blasts, at the end of which, by authority of Parliament, he proclaimed the Protector. There were new trumpet-blasts, loud hurrahs through the Hall, and cries of "God save the Lord Protector." Once more there was proclamation, and once more a burst of applauses. Then, all being ended, his Highness, with his robe borne up by several young persons of rank, passed with his retinue from the Hall by the great gate, where his coach was in waiting. And so, with the Earl of Warwick seated opposite to him in the coach, his son Richard and Whitlocke on one side, and Viscount Lisle and Admiral Montague on the other, he was driven through the crowd to Whitehall, surrounded by his life-guards, and followed by the Lord Mayor and other dignitaries in their coaches.—There was a brief sitting of the House after the Installation. It was agreed to recommend to his Highness to "encourage Christian endeavours for uniting the Protestant Churches abroad," and also to recommend to him to take some effectual course "for reforming the government of the Inns of Court, and likewise for placing of godly and able ministers there"; and it was ordered that the Acts passed by the House should be printed collectively, and that every member should have a copy. Then, according to one of the Acts to which his Highness had that day assented, the House adjourned itself for seven months, i.e. to Jan. 20, 1657-8.¹

CHAPTER II.

MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE FIRST PROTECTORATE CONTINUED: SEPTEMBER 1654—JUNE 1657.

For more than reasons of mere mechanical symmetry, it will be well to divide this Chapter of Milton's Biography into Sections corresponding with those of Oliver's Continued Protectorate in the preceding Chapter.

SECTION I: FROM SEPTEMBER 1654 TO JANUARY 1654-5, OR THROUGH OLIVER'S FIRST PARLIAMENT.

ULAC'S HAGUE EDITION OF MILTON'S DEFENSIO SECUNDA, WITH THE FIDES PUBLICA OF MORUS ANNEXED: PREFACE BY DR. CRANTZIUS TO THE REPRINT: ULAC'S OWN PREFACE OF SELF-DEFENCE: ACCOUNT OF MORUS'S FIDES PUBLICA, WITH EXTRACTS: HIS CITATION OF TESTIMONIES TO HIS CHARACTER: TESTIMONY OF DIODATI OF GENEVA: ABRUPT ENDING OF THE BOOK AT THIS POINT, WITH ULAC'S EXPLANATION OF THE CAUSE.—PARTICULARS OF THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF MILTON'S FRIEND OVERTON.—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.

In October 1654 there was out at the Hague, from Ulac's press, a volume in two parts, with this title: "Joannis Miltoni Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano contra infamem Libellum, cujus titulus 'Regii Sanguinis Clamor adversus Parricidas Anglicanos.' Accessit Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastæ, Sacrarumque Litterarum Professoris, Fides Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni, Scurræ. Hagæ-Comitum, ex Typographia Adriani Ulac, MDCLIV." ("John Milton's Second Defence for the English People in reply to an infamous Book entitled 'Cry of the King's Blood against the English Parricides.' To which is added A Public Testimony of Alexander Morus, Churchman, and Professor of Sacred Literature, in reply to the Calumnies of John Milton, Buffoon. Printed at the Hague by Adrian Ulac, 1654.") The reprint of Milton'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's arrangement (Vol. IV. p. 634). Instead of trying vainly any longer to suppress Milton's book on the Continent, he had exerted himself to the utmost in preparing a Reply to it, to go forth with that reprint of it for the foreign market which Ulac had been pushing through the press and would not keep back.

Although Milton complains that Ulac's edition of his book for the foreign market was not only a piracy, but also slovenly in itself, with printer's errors vitiating the sense and arrangement in some cases,¹ it was substantially a reprint of the original. Its interest for us, therefore, lies wholly in the preliminary matter. This consists of a short Preface headed "Lectori" ("To the Reader") and signed "GEORGIUS CRANTZIUS, S.S. Theol. D.," and a longer statement headed "Typographus pro Se-ipso" ("The Printer in his own behalf") and signed "A. ULACQ."