[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 Royalists out of London and Westminster, and that ordering such persons in the country to keep near home, are both dated Feb. 25, 1657-8. There are copies at the end of one of the volumes of the Council's minutes.]

On the principle that the country could not afford for ever this periodical trouble of a Royalist Conspiracy, and that some examples of 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 known for some time, who were the members of the so-called "Sealed Knot," i.e. that secret association of select Royalists resident in England who were in closest correspondence with Hyde and the other Councillors of Charles abroad, and were chiefly trusted by them for the management of the cause at home, Indeed, Sir Richard Willis, one of the chiefs of the "Sealed Knot," had for some time been in understanding 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 the Tower. Among them were Colonel John Russell (brother of the Earl of Bedford), Colonel John White, Sir William Compton, Sir William Clayton, Sir Henry Slingsby (a prisoner in Hull since the Royalist rising of 1654-5, but negotiating there desperately of late to secure the officers and the town itself for Charles), Sir Humphrey Bennett, Mr. John Mordaunt (brother of the Earl of Peterborough), Dr. John Hewit (a London Episcopal clergyman), Mr. Thomas Woodcock, and a Henry Mallory. It was part of the understanding with Willis that several of the prisoners, Willis's particular friends, should be ultimately released. For trial were selected Slingsby, Clayton, Bennett, Mordaunt, Woodcock, Mallory, and Dr. Hewit. The trials were in Westminster Hall, in May and June, before a great High Court of Justice, consisting of all the judges, some of the great state officers, and a hundred and thirty commissioners besides, all in conformity with an Act of the late Parliament prescribing the mode of trial for such prime offences. Five of the seven were either acquitted or spared: only Slingsby and Dr. Hewit were brought to the scaffold. They were beheaded on Tower Hill, June 8. Much influence was exerted in behalf of Hewit; but, besides that he had been deeply implicated, he had been contumacious in the Court, challenging its competency, and refusing to plead. Prynne had stood by him, and prepared his demurrer.—From the evidence collected in Dr. Hewit's case it appeared that he, if not Ormond, had been calculating on the co-operation of Fairfax, Lambent, Sir William Waller, and a great many other persons of name, up and down the country, not included among those whom Cromwell had seen fit to arrest. As Thurloe distinctly says, "It's certain Sir William Waller was fully engaged," the omission, of that veteran commander from the number must have been an act of grace. About Lambert the speculation seems to have been absurd; and, though Cromwell must have known that Fairfax was now inclining generally towards a Restoration, he cannot have believed anything stronger at present in his case. There was no public reference to such high personages; nor, with the exception of some friendly expostulation by the Protector with a young Mr. John Stapley of Sussex (son of Stapley the Regicide and Councillor of the Commonwealth), who had been lured into the business, was any account taken of the other miscellaneous persons in Hewit's list of reputable sympathisers. It was enough for Cromwell to know who had swerved so far, and to have made examples of Hewit himself and Slingsby.—These two would have been the only victims but for a wild sub-conspiracy in the City of London while the trials of Hewit and Slingsby were in progress. A few desperate cavaliers about town, the chief of whom were a Sir William Leighton, a Colonel Deane, and a Colonel Manley, holding commissions from Charles, had met several times at the Mermaid Tavern and elsewhere, and had arranged for a midnight tumult on Saturday the 15th of May. They were to attack the guard at St. Paul's, seize the Lord Mayor, raise a conflagration near the Tower, &c. The hour had come, and the conspirators were in the Mermaid Tavern for their final arrangements, when lo! the trainbands on the alert all round them and Barkstead riding through the streets with a train of five small cannon. A good many were arrested, thirty of them London prentices. Six of the principals were condemned July 2, of whom one was hanged, two were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and three 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 concluded till the beginning of July, all real danger from the plot itself had been over in March or April, when Ormond was back in Bruges with the report that his mission had been abortive and that Cromwell was too strong. We must go back, therefore, for the other threads of our narrative.

The death of Mr. Robert Rich, Cromwell's son-in-law since the preceding November, had occurred Feb. 16, 1657-8, only twelve days after the dissolution of the Parliament. Cromwell, saddened by the event himself, had found time even then to write letters of condolence and comfort to the young man's grandfather, the Earl of Warwick. The Earl's reply, dated March 11, is extant. "My pen and my heart," it begins, "were ever your Lordship's servants; now they are become your debtors. This paper cannot enough confess my obligation, and much less discharge it, for your seasonable and sympathising letters, which, besides the value they deserve from so worthy a hand, express such faithful affections, and administer such Christian advice, 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," he says, "all this is but a broken echo of your pious counsel, which gives such ease to my oppressed mind that I can scarce forbid my pen being tedious. Only it remembers your Lordship's many weighty and noble employments, which, together with your prudent, heroic, and honourable managery of them, I do here congratulate as well as my grief will give me leave. Others' goodness is their own; yours is a whole country's, yea three kingdoms'—for which you justly possess interest and renown with wise and good men: virtue is a thousand escutcheons. Go on, my Lord; go on happily, to love Religion, to exemplify it. May your Lordship long continue an instrument of use, a pattern of virtue, and a precedent of glory!" On the 19th of April 1658, or not six weeks after the letter was written, the old Earl himself died. By that time the louring appearances had rolled away, and Cromwell's "prudent, heroic, and honourable managery" had again been widely confessed.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 527-531, where Warwick's beautiful letter is quoted in full, but where his death is postdated by a month. See Thurloe, VII. 85.]

Through all the turmoil of the proceedings against the plotters Cromwell had not abated his interest in his bold enterprise in Flanders, or in his alliance with the French generally. That alliance having been renewed for another year (March 28, 1658), reinforcements were sent to the English auxiliary army to fit it for farther work in the Netherlands. Sir John Reynolds, the first commander of that army, having been unfortunately drowned in returning to England on a short leave of absence (Dec. 5, 1657), the Governorship of Mardike had come into the hands of Major-General Morgan, while the command in the field had been assigned to Lockhart, hitherto the Protector's Ambassador only, though soldiering had been formerly his more familiar business. In conjunction with Turenne, Lockhart had been pushing on the war, and at length (May 1658) the two armies, and Montagu's fleet, were engaged in the exact service which Cromwell most desired, and Lockhart had been always urging. This was the siege of Dunkirk, with a view to the possession of that town, as well as Mardike, by the English. To be near the scene of such important operations, Louis XIV. and Cardinal Mazarin had taken up their quarters at Calais; and, not to miss the opportunity of such near approach of the French monarch to the shores of England, Cromwell despatched his son-in-law Viscount Falconbridge on a splendid embassy of compliment and congratulation. He landed at Calais on the 29th of May, was received by both King and Cardinal with such honours as they had never accorded to an ambassador before, and returned on the 3rd of June to make his report. The very next day there was a tremendous battle close to Dunkirk between the French-English forces under Turenne and Lockhart and a Spanish army which had come for the relief of the besieged town under Don John of Austria and the Prince of Conde, with the Dukes of York and Gloucester in their retinue. Mainly by the bravery of Lockhart's "immortal six thousand," the victory of the French and English was complete; and, though the Marquis of Leyda, the Spanish Governor of Dunkirk, maintained the defence valiantly, the town had to surrender on the 14th of June, two days after the Marquis had been mortally wounded in a sally. Next day, according to the Treaty with Cromwell, the town was at once delivered to Lockhart, Louis XIV. himself, who was on the spot, handing him the keys. Already, while that event was unknown, and merely to reciprocate the compliment of Falconbridge's embassy to Calais, there had been sent across the Channel, in the name of Louis XIV., the Duke de Crequi, first Gentleman of his Bedchamber, and M. Mancini, the nephew of Cardinal Mazarin, "accompanied by divers of the nobility of France and many gentlemen of quality." Met at Dover by Fleetwood and an escort, they arrived in London June 16, and remained there till the 21st, having audiences with his Highness, delivering to him letters from Louis and the Cardinal, and entertained by him with all possible magnificence. While they were there, a special envoy joined them, announcing the capture of Dunkirk; and so the joy was complete. There was nothing the French King would not do to show his regard for the great Protector; and, but for his Majesty's illness at that moment from small-pox, the Cardinal himself would have come over instead of sending his nephew. And why should there not be a renewal of the Treaty after the expiry of the present term, to secure another year or two of that co-operation of the English Army and Fleet with Turenne which had led already to such excellent results? What if Ostend, as well as Dunkirk and Mardike, were to be made over to the Protector? These were suggestions for the future, and meanwhile new successes were added to the capture of Dunkirk. Town after town in Flanders, including Gravelines at last, yielded to Turenne, or other generals, and received French garrisons, and through the summer autumn the Spaniards were so beset in Flanders that an expedition thence for the invasion of England in the interest of Charles Stuart, or in any other interest, was no longer even a possibility.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 544-551; where, however, the digest of facts does not seem accurate in every point. Compare Thurloe, VII. 173-177 and-192-3, and Merc. Pol. June 10-17 and June 17-24, 1658 (as quoted in Cromwelliana, 172-173), and Guizot, II 380-388.]

While thus turning to account the alliance with the only Catholic power with which there could be safe dealing, the Protector clung firmly to his idea of a League among the Protestant Powers themselves. If Burnet's information is correct, it was about this time that he contemplated the institution in London of "a Council for the Protestant Religion in opposition to the Congregation De Propaganda Fide at Rome." It was to sit at Chelsea College: there were to be seven Councillors, with a large yearly fund at their disposal; the world was to be mapped out into four great regions; and for each region there was to be a Secretary at L500 a year, maintaining a correspondence with that region, ascertaining the state of Religion in it, and any exigency requiring interference. That remained only a project; but meanwhile there was the agency of Jephson with the King of Sweden, of Meadows with the King of Denmark, of Downing with the United Provinces, and of other Envoys here and there, all working for peace among the Protestant States and joint action against the common enemy. In the Council Order Books for May 1658 one comes also upon new considerations of the old subject of the Protestants of the Piedmontese valleys, with a fresh remittance of L3000 for their relief, and an advance at the same time of L500 out of the Piedmontese Fund for the kindred purpose of relieving twenty distressed Bohemian families. Indeed in that month his Highness was again at white heat on the subject of his favourite Piedmontese. The Treaty of Pignerol, by which the persecuting Edict of 1655 had been recalled and liberty of worship again yielded to the poor Vaudois (ante pp. 43-44), had gradually been less and less regarded; there were new troubles to the Vaudois from the House of Savoy; there were even signs of a possible repetition in the valleys of all the former horrors. How to prevent that was a serious thought with Cromwell amid all his other affairs; and he made his most effective stroke by an immediate appeal to the French King. On the 26th of May there went to his Majesty one of Milton's Latin State Letters in the Protector's name, adjuring him, by his own honour and by the faith of their alliance, to save the poor Piedmontese and secure the Treaty which had been made in their behalf by former French intervention; and on the same day there went a letter to Lockhart urging him to his utmost diligence in the matter, and suggesting that the French King should incorporate the Piedmontese valleys with his own dominion, giving the Duke of Savoy some bit of territory with a Catholic population in exchange. Reaching Louis XIV. and Lockhart at the moment of the great success before Dunkirk, these letters accomplished their object. The will of France was signified at Turin, and the Protestants of the Valleys had another respite.[1]

[Footnote 1: Burnet (ed. 1823), I. 133; Letters of Downing, &c. in Thurloe, Vol. VII.; Council Order Books of date; Carlyle, III. 357-365.]

Were one asked what subject of home concern had the first place in Cromwell's attention through all the events and transactions that have hitherto been noticed, the answer must still be the same for this as for all the previous portions of his Protectorate. It was "The Propagation of the Gospel," with all that was then implied in that phrase as construed by himself.

As regarded England and Wales, the phrase meant, all but exclusively, the sustenance, extension, and consolidation of Cromwell's Church Establishment. The Trustees for the better Maintenance of Ministers, as well as the Triers and Ejectors, were still at work; and in the Council minutes of the summer of 1658, just as 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 a condition nearly approaching Cromwell's ideal; but he had still notions of more to be done for it in one direction or another, and especially in the direction of wider theological comprehension. He did not despair of seeing his great principle of concurrent endowment yet more generally accepted among those who were really and evangelically Protestant. Much would depend on the nature of that Confession of Faith which Article XI. of the Petition and Advice had required or promised as a standard of what should be considered qualifying orthodoxy for the Church of the Protectorate. For such a purpose the Westminster Confession of Faith, even though its doctrinal portions might stand much as they were, could hardly suffice as a whole. That Confession was to be recast, or a new one framed. So the Petition and Advice had provided or suggested; but it may be doubted whether Cromwell was very anxious for any such formal definition of the creed of his Established Church. He preferred the broad general understanding which all men had, with himself, as to what constituted sound Evangelical Christianity, and he had more trust in administration in detail through his Triers and Ejectors than in the application of formulas of orthodoxy. Here, however, Owen and the other Independent divines most in his confidence appear to have differed from him. They felt the want of some such confession and agreement for Association and Discipline as might suit at least the Congregationalists of the Established Church, and be to them what the Westminster Confession was to the Presbyterians. "From the first, all or at least the generality of our churches," 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 tumultuous times, and exposed to every wind of doctrine, under no other conduct than that of the word and spirit, and their particular elders and principal brethren, without association among themselves, or so much as holding out common lights to others to know where they were." A petition to this effect, though not in these terms, having been presented to his Highness, he reluctantly yielded. He allowed a preliminary meeting of representatives of the Congregational churches in and about London to be held on June 21, 1658, and circular letters to be sent out to all the Congregational churches in England and Wales convoking a Synod at the Savoy on the 29th of September. The Confession of Faith, if any, to be drawn up by this Synod was not, of course, to be the comprehensive State Confession foreshadowed in Article XI. of the Petition and Advice, but only the voluntary agreement of the Congregationalists or Independents for themselves. In fact, to all appearance, if the harmonious comprehension of moderate Anglicans, Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, within one and the same Church, was to be signified by written symbols as well as carried out practically, this could be done only by a plan of concurrent confessions justifying the concurrent endowments. Even for that, it would seem, Cromwell was now prepared. Yet he was a little dubious about the policy of the coming Synod, and certainly was as much resolved as ever that Synods and other ecclesiastical assemblies should be only a permitted machinery for the denominations severally, and that the Civil Magistrate should determine what denominations could be soldered together to make a suitable State-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 time to the spiritual needs of Scotland in particular.—Early in 1657 we left Mr. James Sharp in London as agent for the Scottish Resolutioner clergy, and Principal Gillespie of Glasgow, Mr. James Guthrie, Mr. James Simpson, and Johnstone of Warriston, with the Marquis of Argyle in the background, opposing the clever Sharp, and soliciting his Highness's favour for the Scottish Protesters or Remonstrants (ante pp. 115-116). Both deputations had remained on in London perseveringly, Sharp making interest with the Protector through Broghill; Thurloe, and the London Presbyterian ministers, while Owen, Lockyer, and the rest of the Independent ministers, with Lambert and Fleetwood, took part rather with the agents of the Protesters. Wearied with listening to the dispute personally, Cromwell had referred it to a mixed committee of twelve English Presbyterians and Independents, and at length had told both parties to "go home and agree 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 was difficult to say that either party had won the advantage. Baillie, indeed, writing from Glasgow after Sharp's return, could report that the Protesters had, on the whole, been foiled, and chiefly by the instrumentality of "that very worthy, pious, wise, and diligent young man, Mr. James Sharp." But, on the other hand, the Protesters had obtained some favours. As far as one can discern, Cromwell's judgment as between the two parties of Scottish Kirkmen had come to be that they were to be treated as a Tory majority and a pugnacious Whig minority, whose differences would do no harm if they were both kept under proper control, and that both together formed such a Presbyterian body as might suitably possess, and yet divide, the Church of Scotland. For, as has been remarked already, Cromwell, in his conservatism, had come, on the whole, to be of opinion that the national clergy of Scotland must be left massively Presbyterian, and that it would not do to weld into the Scottish Establishment, as into the English, Baptists, or even ordinary professing Independents, in any considerable number. This would be bad news for those Scottish Independents and Baptists who had naturally expected encouragement under Cromwell's rule, but had already been disappointed. It would be the common policy of the Resolutioners and Protesters to keep or drive such erratic spirits out of the Kirk.[1]—Whether because the long stay of the Scottish deputations in London had turned much of Cromwell's thoughts towards Scotland, or simply because his own anxiety for the "Propagation, of the Gospel" everywhere in his dominions, had led his eyes at last to that portion of Great Britain, we have now to record one of Cromwell's designs for Scotland worthy of strong mark even in the total history of his Protectorate. On Thursday, April 15, 1658, there being present In the Council the Lord President Lawrence, Lord Richard Cromwell, the Earl of Mulgrave, and Lords Meetwood, Wolseley, Sydenham, Lisle, Strickland and Jones, the following draft was agreed to:—"Oliver, by the grace of God Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, To our well-beloved Council in Scotland greeting: Whereas for about the space of one hundred years last past the Gospel, blessed be God! hath been plentifully preached in the Lowlands of the said nation, and competent maintenance provided for the ministers there, yet little or no care hath been taken for a very numerous people inhabiting in the Highlands by the establishing of a ministry or maintenance,—where the greatest part have scarce heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or not, though there be some in several parts, as We are informed, that hunger and thirst after the means of salvation,—and that there is a concealed maintenance detained in unrighteousness, and diverted from the right ends to the sole benefit of particular persons; And being also informed that there hath been much revenue for many years together in the late King's time and since concealed and detained from Us by such persons as have no right or title thereunto, and that some ministers that were acquainted with the Highland language have in a late summer season visited those parts and been courteously used by many professing there breathings after the Gospel: We do therefore, in consideration of their sad condition, the great honour and glory of God, and the good that may redound to the souls of many poor ignorant creatures, Will and Require you, with all care, industry and conveniency, to find out a way and means for the Planting of the Gospel in those parts, and that, in pursuance thereof and the better carrying on of so pious a work, our Barons of our Exchequer in Scotland do search and find out L600 per annum of concealed estates and revenues belonging to Us, or that may belong to Us and our Successors, and issue forth and pay the same unto such person or persons as by our said Council shall be nominated and appointed, out of such concealed rents or any other concealed revenues whatsoever, quarterly or half-yearly as there shall be cause, by and with their assent and approbation, to the only use and end aforesaid. For which so doing this shall be your and their warrant. Witness Ourself at our Palace at Westminster the —— day —— 1658." This does not seem to have sufficed for his Highness; for on Tuesday, May 4, the Council returned to the subject and prepared another draft, beginning, "Forasmuch as We, taking into consideration the sad condition of our People in Scotland living in the Highlands, for want of the Preaching of the Gospel and Schools of Learning for training up of youth in Learning and Civility, whereby the inhabitants of those places in their lives and whole demeanour are little different from the most savage heathens," and ending with instructions that L1200 a year, or double the sum formerly proposed, should be set apart out of still recoverable rents and revenues of alienated Chaplaincies, Deaneries, &c. of the old Popish and Episcopal Church of Scotland, and applied to the purposes of preaching and education in the Highlands. The sum, in the Scotland of that time, might go as far as L7000 or L8000 a year now, though in England it would have been worth only about L4200 of present value. Spent on an effective Gaelic mission of travelling pastors, and on a few well-planted schools, it might have accomplished a good deal.[2]—Since the beginning of the Protectorate there had been some care in finding new funds for the Scottish Universities as well as for the English. Principal Gillespie of Glasgow had procured a grant for the University of that city (Vol. IV. p. 565), and something had been done for University-reform in Aberdeen. Accordingly, that Edinburgh might not complain, it was now agreed, at a meeting of Council, July 15, 1658, his Highness himself present; to issue an order beginning, "Know ye that We, taking into our consideration the condition of the University of Edinburgh, and that (being but of late foundation, viz. since the Reformation of Religion in Scotland) the rents thereof are exceedingly small," and concluding by putting L200 a year at the disposal of the Town Council of Edinburgh, "being the founders and undoubted patrons of the said University," to be applied for University purposes with the advice and consent of the Masters and Regents. The gift, it appears, had been promised to Principal Leighton, when he had been in London, some time before, on one of his yearly journeys for his own bookish purposes, and certainly neither as Resolutioner nor Protester. "Mr. Leighton does nought to count of, but looks about him in his chamber," is Baillie's characteristic fancy-sketch of Leighton when he was back in Edinburgh and the L200 a year had become a certainty; but he adds that the saint had shown more temper than usual at finding that Mr. Sharp had contrived that L100 of the sum should go to Mr. Alexander Dickson (son of the Resolutioner David Dickson) who had been recently appointed to the Hebrew Professorship, and whom Leighton did not like. Indeed Baillie makes merry over the possibility that the poor L200 a year for Edinburgh might never be forthcoming, any more than the richer "flim-flams" Mr. Gillespie had obtained for Glasgow, though in them he confessed a more lively interest.[3]—Whether Scotland should ever actually handle the new endowments for her Universities, or the more important L1200 a year for the civilization of the Highlands, depended on the energy and ability of his Highness's Scottish Council in finding out ways and means. Broghill being still absent in England, but on the wing for Ireland, and Lockhart and others being also absent, the most active of the Councillors now left in Scotland, in association with Monk, 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, of course, was the real Vice-Protector. Scotland had become his home. He had lived for some years in the same house at Dalkeith, "pleasantly seated in the midst of a park," occupying all his spare time "with the pleasures of planting and husbandry"; he had buried his second son, an infant, in a chapel near; and to all appearance he might expect to spend the rest of his days where he was, a wealthy English soldier-farmer naturalized among the Scots, acquiring estates among them, 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 the title "The Hammer of Persecution, or the Mystery of Iniquity in the Persecution of many good people in Scotland under the Government of Oliver, late Lord Protector, and continued by others of the same spirit, disclosed with the Remedies thereof, by Robt. Pitilloh, Advocate." The Persecution complained of by Mr. Pitilloh, a Scottish lawyer who had left Presbyterianism, was simply the discouragement under the Protectorate of such Scottish ministers as had turned Independents and Baptists. The names of some such are given: 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," says the writer, "some of the Presbyterian faction were sent for; and, to ingratiate himself with them, intimating tacitly that it was his law no minister in Scotland should have allowance of a livelihood but a National Presbyterian, he ordered that none should have stipends as ministers ... but such as had certificates from some four of a select party, being thirty in all, ... of the honest Presbyterian party."]

[Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates.]

[Footnote 3: Council Order Books of date, and Baillie, III. 356 and 365-366. Another interesting item of Scottish History under Cromwell's rule may have a place here, though it belongs properly to the First Protectorate. In the Council Order Books under date Feb. 17, 1656-7, is this minute:—"On consideration of a report from his Highness's Attorney General, annexed to the draft of a Patent prepared by his High Counsel learned, in pursuance of the Council's order of the 13th of January last, according to the purport of an agreement in writing presented to the Council under the hand of the Provost of Edinburgh on behalf of that city and of Dr. Purves on behalf of the Physicians of Scotland, the same being for erecting a College of Physicians in Scotland: Ordered, That it be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will be pleased to issue his warrant for Mr. Attorney General to prepare a Patent for his Highness's signature according to the said Draft."]

[Footnote 4: Council Order Books, Aug. 14, 1656.]

Next to the Propagation of the Gospel by an Established Ministry everywhere, the fixed idea of Cromwell for his Home-Government, as we have had again and again to explain, was toleration of all varieties of religious opinion. Under this head little that is new presents itself in the part of his Protectorate with which we are now concerned. The Anti-Trinitarian Mr. John Biddle, who had been in custody in the Isle of Scilly since Oct. 1655 (ante p. 66), had moved for a writ of habeas corpus, and had been brought to London, apparently with an intention on Cromwell's part to set him at liberty. Nor had Cromwell lost sight of the poor demented Quaker, James Nayler. There is extant a long and confidential letter to his Highness from his private secretary Mr. William Malyn, giving an account of a visit Malyn had paid to Nayler in Bridewell expressly by his Highness's command. It is to the effect that he had found Nayler well enough in bodily health, but so mulishly obstinate or mad that he could not be coaxed in a long interview to speak even a single word, and that therefore, though Malyn did not like to "dissuade" his Highness from "a work of tenderness and mercy," he could hardly yet advise Nayler's release, but would carefully apply the money he had received from his Highness for Nayler's comfort. For the Quakers generally there was, we fear, no more specific protection than Cromwell's good-nature when a case of cruelty was distinctly brought within his cognisance. What shall we say, however, of one order or intention of Cromwell's Council in June 1658, which, if not against liberty of conscience in the general sense, was decidedly retrograde in respect of the specific liberty of the press? On the 22nd of that month, nine members being present, though not his Highness, it was agreed, on a report by Mr. Comptroller, i.e. by Lord Jones, from a Committee that had been appointed on the subject, to recommend to his Highness to issue a warrant with this preamble, "Whereas there are divers good laws, statutes, acts, and ordinances of Parliament in force, which were heretofore made and published against the printing of unlicensed, seditious, and scandalous books and pamphlets, and for the better regulating of printing, wherein several provisions are contained, sufficient to prevent the designs of persons disaffected to the State and Government of this Commonwealth, who have assumed to themselves and do continually take upon them a licentious boldness to write, print, publish, and disperse many dangerous, seditious, blasphemous, Popish, and scandalous pamphlets, books, and papers, to the high dishonour of God, the scorn and contempt of the Laws and of all good Order and Government; and forasmuch as it nearly concerns Us, in respect of the public peace and safety, to take care for a due execution of the said laws." What followed was a special charge to the Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company, together with Henry Hills and John Field, his Highness's Printers, to see to the strict enforcement in future of the restrictions of certain cited Press 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 Press Act of the first year of the Commonwealth), and the renewal of the same Jan. 7, 1652-3. Had this been all, one might have inferred nothing more than one of those occasional panics about Press licentiousness from the recurrence of which even Milton's reasoning had never been able to free the Government with which he was connected. But at the same meeting it was referred to Lord Fleetwood, Lord Wolseley, Lord Pickering, Lord Jones, Lord Desborough, Lord Viscount Lisle, and Lord Strickland, or to any two of them, "to consider of fit persons to be added for licensing of books and to report the names of such persons to the Council." This was distinctly retrogressive; and the regret of Milton must have been none the less because four of the Committee that were to find the new licensers were men he had named in his Defensio Secunda as heroes of the Commonwealth, and because, as appears from a marginal jotting to the minute as it stands in the Council Order Books, the man thought of at once for one of the new licensers, or as the person fittest to be first consulted in the business, was Marchamont Needham. After all, it may have been, like some of the previous movements for press-regulation, only a push from Paternoster Row in defence of the legitimate book-trade, and the main intention of the Council itself may have been against pamphlets like Killing no Murder or publications of the indecent order.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates, and Nickolis's Milton State 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 July 1658! Rebellion at home in all its varieties quashed once more, and now, as it might seem, for ever; the threatened invasion of the Spaniards and Charles Stuart dissipated into ridicule; a footing acquired on the Continent, and 6000 Englishmen stationed there in arms; Foreign Powers, with Louis XIV. at their head, obeisant to the very ground whenever they turned their gaze towards the British Islands, and dreading the next bolt from the Protector's hands; those hands evidently toying with several new bolts and poising them towards the parts of Europe for which they were intended; great schemes, besides, for England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Colonies, in that inventive brain! All this, we say, in July 1658, by which time also it was known that the Protector, so far from fearing to face a new Parliament, was ready to call one and would take all the chances. His immediate necessity, of course, was money. His second Parliament, at the close of its first and loyal session in June 1657, had provided ordinary supplies for three years; but there had been no new revenue-arrangements in the short second session, and the current expenses for the Flanders expedition, the various Embassies, the Court, and the whole conduct of the Government, far outran the voted income. The pay of the armies in England, Scotland, and Ireland was greatly in arrears; on all hands there were straits for money; and, whatever might be done by expedients and ingenuity meanwhile, the effective extrication could only be by a Parliament. Not for subsidies only, however, was Cromwell willing to resort again to that agency, with all its perils. He believed that, in consequence of what had passed since the Dissolution in January, any Parliament that should now meet him would be in a different mood towards himself from that he had recently encountered. Then might there not be proposals, in which he and such a Parliament might agree, for constitutional changes in advance of the Articles of the Petition and Advice, though in the same direction of orderliness and settled and stately rule? Was there not wide regret among the civilians that he had not accepted the Kingship; had his refusal of it been really wise; might not that question be reopened? With that question might there not go the question of the succession, whether by nomination for one life only as was now fixed, or by perpetual nomination, or by a return to the hereditary and dynastic principle which the lawyers and the civilians thought the best? Nor could the Second House of Parliament remain the vague thing it had been so far fashioned. It must be amended in the points in which its weakness had been proved; and all the evidence hitherto was that it must be made truly and formally a House of Lords, if even with the reinstitution of a peerage as part and parcel of the legislative system. Whether such a peerage should be hereditary or for life only might be in doubt; but there were symptoms that, even if the Legislative Peerage should be only for life, Cromwell had convinced himself of the utility, for general purposes, of at least a Social Peerage with, hereditary rank and titles. In his First Protectorate he had made knights only; in his Second he created a few baronets. Nay, besides favouring the courtesy appellation of "lords," as applied to all who had sat in the late Upper House and to the great officers of State, he had added at least two peers of his own making to the hereditary peerage as it had come down from the late reign.[1]

[Footnote 1: In continuation of a former note giving a list of the Knighthoods of Cromwell's First Protectorate so far as I have ascertained them (ante p. 303), here is a list of the Knighthoods of the Second:—William Wheeler (Aug. 26, 1657); Edward Ward, of Norfolk (Nov. 2, 1657); Alderman Thomas Andrews (Nov. 14, 1657); Colonel Matthew Tomlinson (Nov. 25, 1657, in Dublin, by Lord Henry Cromwell as Lord Deputy for Ireland); Alderman Thomas Foot, Alderman Thomas Atkins, and Colonel John Hewson (all Dec. 5, 1657); James Drax, Esq., a Barbadoes merchant (Dec. 31, 1657); Henry Bickering and Philip Twistleton (Feb. 1, 1657-8); John Lenthall, Esq., son of Speaker Lenthall (March 9, 1657-8); Alderman Chiverton and Alderman John Ireton (March 22, 1857-8); Colonel Henry Jones (July 17, 1658, for distinguished bravery at the siege of Dunkirk).-Baronetcies conferred by Cromwell were the following:—John Read, of Hertfordshire (Juae 25. 1657); the Hon. John Claypole, father of Lord Claypole (July 20, 1657); Thomas Chamberlain (Oct. 6, 1657); Thomas Beaumont, of Leicestershire (March 5, 1657-8); Colonel Henry Ingoldsby, John Twistleton, 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 Solicitor General William Ellis (Aug. 13, 1668); William Wyndham, Esq., co. Somerset (Aug. 28, 1658). The Baronetcies, being rare, seem to have been much prized; and that of Henry Ingoldsby raised jealousies (see letter of Henry Cromwell in Thurloe, VII. 57).—Peerages conferred by Cromwell were not likely, any more than his Knighthoods and Baronetcies, to be paraded by their possessors after the Restoration. But Cromwell's favourite, Colonel Charles Howard, a scion of the great Norfolk Howards, was raised to the dignity of Viscount Howard of Morpeth and Baron Gilsland in Cumberland; Cromwell's relative, Edmund Dunch, of Little Wittenham, Berks, was created Baron Burnell, April 20, 1658; and Cromwell, just before his death, made, or wanted to make, Bulstrode Whitlocke a Viscount.]

As early as April the new Parliament had been thought of, and since June there had been a select committee of nine, precognoscing the chances, considering the questions to be brought up, and feeling in every way the public pulse. The nine so employed were Lords Fleetwood, Fiennes, Desborough, Pickering, Philip Jones, Whalley, Cooper, and Goffe, and Mr, Secretary Thurloe. There are a few glimpses of their consultations in the Thurloe correspondence, where also there is a hint of some hope of the compliance at last even of such old Republicans as Vane and Ludlow. But July 1658 had come, and no one yet knew when the Parliament would meet. It could not be expected 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. Though but 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 his ceaseless burden. For a year or two his handwriting, though statelier and more deliberate than at first, had been singularly tremulous, and to those closest about him there had been other signs of physical breaking-up. Not till late in July, however, or early in August, was there any serious cause for alarm, and then in consequence of the terrible effects upon his Highness of his close attendance on the death-bed of his second daughter, the much-loved Lady Claypole. She had been lingeringly ill for some time, of a most painful internal disease, aggravated by the death of her youngest boy, Oliver. Hampton Court had received her as a dying invalid, tortured by "frequent and long convulsion-fits"; and here, through a great part of July, the fond father had been hanging about her, broken-hearted and unfit for business. For his convenience the Council had transferred its meetings from Whitehall to Hampton Court; but, though he was present at one there on July 15, he avoided one on July 20, another on July 22, and a third on July 27. On the 29th, which was the fifth meeting at Hampton Court, he did look in again and take his place. Next day Lord and Lady Falconbridge arrived at Hampton Court, where already, besides the Protestor and the Lady Protectress, there were Lord Richard Cromwell, the widowed Lady Frances, and others of the family, all round the dying sufferer. After that meeting of the Council of July 29 which he had managed to attend, and an intervening meeting at Whitehall without him, the Council was again at Hampton Court on Thursday the 5th of August. At this meeting one of the resolutions was "That Mr. Secretary be desired to make a collection of such injuries received by the English from the Dutch as have come to his cognisance, and to offer the same to the Council on this day seven-night." This was a very important resolution, significant of a dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Dutch, and a desire to call them to account again, which had for some time been growing in Cromwell's mind; and there can be no doubt that he had suggested the subject to the Council. But his Highness did not appear in the meeting himself, and next day Lady Claypole lay dead. Before her death his grief had passed into an indefinite illness, described as "of the gout and other distempers"; and, though he was able to come to London on the 10th of August, on which night Lady Claypole's remains were interred in a little vault that had been prepared for them in Henry VIIth's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, he returned to Hampton Court greatly the worse. But, after four or five days of confinement, attended by his physicians—on one of which days (the 13th) Attorney General Prideaux and Solicitor General Ellis were made baronets—he was out again for an hour on the 17th; and thence till Friday the 20th he seemed so much better that Thurloe and others thought the danger past. From the public at large the fact of his illness had been hitherto concealed as much as possible; and hence it may have been that on two or three of those days of convalescence he showed himself as usual, riding with his life-guards in Hampton Court Park. It was on one of them, most probably Friday the 20th, that George Fox had that final meeting with him which he describes in his Journal. The good but obtrusive Quaker had been writing letters of condolence and mystical religious advice to Lady Claypole in her illness, and had recently sent one of mixed condolence and rebuke to Cromwell himself; and now, not knowing of Cromwell's own illness, he had 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's fellow-Quaker, poor James Nayler. Next day, Saturday, Aug. 21, when Fox went to Hampton Court Palace to keep his appointment, he could not be admitted. Harvey, the groom of the bedchamber, told him that his Highness was very ill, with his physicians about him, and must be kept quiet. That morning his distemper had developed itself distinctly into "an ague"; which ague proved, within the next few days, to be of the kind called by the physicians "a bastard tertian," i.e. an ague with the cold and hot shivering fits recurring most violently every third day, but with the intervals also troublesome. Yet it was on this first day of his ague that he signed a warrant for a patent to make Bulstrode Whitlocke a Viscount. Whitlocke himself, though he afterwards declined the honour as inconvenient, is precise as to the date. The physicians thinking the London air better for the malady than that of Hampton Court, his Highness was removed to Whitehall on Tuesday the 24th. That was one of the intervals of his fever, and he seems to have come up easily enough in his coach, and to have been quite able to take an interest in what he found going on at Whitehall. Six days before (Aug. 18) the Duke of Buckingham, who had been for some time in London undisturbed, living in his mansion of York House with his recently wedded wife, and with Lord and Lady Fairfax in their society, had been apprehended on the high-road some miles from Canterbury; and, whether on the old grounds, or from new suspicions, the Council, by a warrant issued on the 19th, doubtless with Cromwell's sanction intimated from Hampton Court, had committed him to the Tower. On the very day of Cromwell's return to Whitehall this business of the Duke was again before the Council, in consequence of a petition from the young Duchess that he might be permitted to remain at York House on sufficient security. Fairfax himself had gone to Whitehall to urge his daughter's request and to tender the security, and Cromwell, though unable to be in the Council-room, gave him a private interview. According to the story in the Fairfax family, it must have been an unpleasant one. Cromwell could be stern on such a subject even at such a time and to his old commander, and so Fairfax "turned abruptly from him in the gallery at Whitehall, cocking his hat, and throwing his cloak under his arm, as he used to do when he was angry." Nor was this the last piece of public business of which the Protector, though never more in the Council-room, must have been directly cognisant. Whitlocke says he visited him and was kept to dine with him on the 26th, and that he was then able to discourse on business; but, as Whitlocke makes Hampton Court the place, there must be an error as to the day. The last baronetcy he conferred was made good on Saturday the 28th, four days after the interview with Fairfax; and even after that, between his fever-fits, he kept some grasp of affairs, and received and sent messages. But that Saturday of the last baronetcy was a day of marked crisis. The ague had then changed into a "double tertian," with two fits in the twenty-four hours, both extremely weakening. So Sunday passed, with prayers in all the churches; and then came that extraordinary Monday (Aug. 30, 1658) which lovers of coincidence have taken care to remember as the day of most tremendous hurricane that ever blew over London and England. From morning to night the wind raged and howled, emptying the streets, unroofing houses, tearing up trees in the parks, foundering ships at sea, and taking even Flanders and the coasts of France within its angry whirl. The storm was felt, within England, as far as Lincolnshire, where, in the vicinity of an old manor-house, a boy of fifteen years of age, named Isaac Newton, was turning it to account, as he afterwards remembered, by jumping first with the wind, and then against it, and computing its force by the difference of the distances. Through all this storm, as it shuddered round Whitehall, shaking the doors and windows, the sovereign patient had lain on, passing from fit to fit, but talking in the intervals with the Lady Protectress or with his physicians, while Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Sterry, or some other of the preachers that were in attendance, went and came between the chamber and an adjoining room. A certain belief that he would recover, which he had several times before expressed to the Lady Protectress and others, had not yet left him, and had communicated itself to the preachers as an assurance that their prayers were heard. Writing to Henry Cromwell at nine o'clock that night, Thurloe could say, "The doctors are yet hopeful that he may struggle through it, though their hopes are mingled 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 to London from Essex on family-business, beaten back in the morning by a wind against which two horses could not make way, but contriving late at night to push on as far as Epping. "By this means," he says, "I arrived not at Westminster till Tuesday about noon, when, passing by Whitehall, notice was immediately given to Cromwell that I was come to town. Whereupon he sent for Lieutenant General Fleet wood, and ordered him to enquire concerning the reasons of my coming at such haste and at such a time." If Cromwell could attend to such a matter that day, he must have been able also to prompt the resolution of his Council in Whitehall the same day in the case of the Duke of Buckingham. It was that the Duke, on account of his health, might be removed from the Tower to Windsor Castle, but must continue in confinement. At the end of the day, Fleetwood, writing to Henry Cromwell, reported, "The Lord is pleased to give some little reviving this evening: after few slumbering sleeps, his pulse is better." As near as can be guessed, it was that same night that Cromwell himself uttered the well-known short prayer, the words of which, or as nearly as possible the very words, were preserved by the pious care of his chamber-attendant Harvey. It is to the same authority that we owe the most authentic record of the religious demeanour of the Protector from the beginning of his illness. Very beautifully and simply Harvey tells us of his "holy expressions," his fervid references to Scripture texts, and his repetitions of some texts in particular, such repetitions "usually being very weighty and with great vehemency of spirit." One of them was "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Three times he repeated this; but the texts of promise and of Christian triumph had all along been more frequently on his lips. All in all, his single short prayer, which Harvey places "two or three days before his end," may be read as the summary of all that we need to know now of the dying Puritan in these eternal respects. "Lord," he muttered, "though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace, and I may, I will, come to Thee. For Thy people, Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much upon Thy instruments to depend more upon Thyself; pardon such as desire to trample 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's sake; and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure." Wednesday, Sept. 1, passes unmarked, unless it may be for the delivery to the Lady Protectress, in her watch over Cromwell, of a letter, dated that day, and addressed to her and her children, from the Quaker Edward Burrough. It was long and wordy, but substantially an assurance that the Lord had sent this affliction upon the Protector's house on account of the unjust sufferings of the Quakers. "Will not their sufferings lie upon you? For many hundreds have suffered cruel and great things, and some the loss of life (though not by, yet in the name of, the Protector); and about a hundred at this present day lie in holes, and dungeons, and prisons, up and down the nation." The letter, we may suppose, was not read to Cromwell, and the Wednesday went by. On Thursday, Sept. 2, there was an unusually full Council-meeting close to his chamber, at which order was given for the removal of Lords Lauderdale and Sinclair from Windsor Castle to Warwick Castle, to make more room at Windsor for the Duke of Buckingham. That night Harvey sat up with his Highness and again noted some of his sayings. One was "Truly, God is good; indeed He is; He will not—" He did not complete the sentence. "His speech failed him," says Harvey; "but, as I apprehended, it was 'He will not leave me.' This saying, that God was good, he frequently used all along, and would speak it with much cheerfulness and fervour of spirit in the midst of his pain. Again he said, 'I would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and His people; but my work is done.' He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often to himself. And, there being something to drink offered him, he was desired to take the same, and endeavour to sleep; unto which he answered, 'It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.' Afterwards, towards morning, using divers holy expressions, implying much inward consolation and peace, 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 anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester. That morning he was speechless; and, though the prayers in Whitehall, and in all London and the suburbs, did not cease for him, people in the houses and passers in the streets knew that hope was over and Oliver at the point of death. For several days there had been cautious approaches to him on the subject of the nomination of his successor, and either on the stormy Monday or later that 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), but at no other; Thurloe, VII. 309, 320, 323, 340, 344, 354-356, 362-364, 366-367, 369-370; A Collection of Several Passages concerning his late Highness, Oliver Cromwell, in the Time of his Sickness (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 and again); Sewel's History of the Quakers, 1. 242-245; Life of Newton by Sir 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'S OPINION OF SALLUST: LETTERS TO YOUNG RANELAGH AND HENRY OLDENBURG AT SAUMUR: MORUS IN NEW CIRCUMSTANCES: ELEVEN MOBE STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. CI.-CXI.): ANDREW MARVELL BROUGHT IN AS ASSISTANT FOREIGN SECRETARY AT LAST (SEPT. 1657): JOHN DRYDEN NOW ALSO IN THE PROTECTOR'S EMPLOYMENT: BIRTH OF MILTON'S DAUGHTER BY HIS SECOND 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'S LAST SIXTEEN STATE-LETTERS FOR OLIVER CROMWELL (NOS. CXVIII.-CXXXIII.), INCLUDING TWO TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN. TWO ON A NEW ALARM OF A PERSECUTION OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, AND SEVERAL TO LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN: IMPORTANCE OF THIS LAST GROUP OF THE STATE-LETTERS, AND REVIEW OF THE WHOLE SERIES OF MILTON'S PERFORMANCES FOR CROMWELL: LAST DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS OF THE PROTECTORATE, AND ANDREW MARVELL IN CONNEXION WITH THEM: INCIDENTS OF MILTON'S LITERARY LIFE IN THIS PERIOD: YOUNG GUNTZER'S DISSERTATIO AND YOUNG KECK'S PHALAECIANS: MILTON'S EDITION OF RALEIGH'S CABINET COUNCIL: RESUMPTION OF THE OLD DESIGN OF PARADISE LOST AND ACTUAL COMMENCEMENT OF THE POEM: CHANGE FROM THE DRAMATIC POEM TO THE EPIC: SONNET IN MEMORY OF HIS DECEASED WIFE.

Through the Second Protectorate Milton remained in office just as before. He was not, however, as had been customary before at the commencement of each new period of his Secretaryship, sworn in afresh. Thurloe was sworn in, both as General Secretary and as full Councillor, and Scobell and Jessop were sworn in as Clerks;[1] but we hear of no such ceremony in the case of Milton. His Latin Secretaryship, we infer, was now regarded as an excrescence from the Whitehall establishment, rather than an integral part of it. An oath may have been administered to him privately, or his old general engagement may have sufficed.

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books, July 13 and 14, 1657.]

Our first trace of Milton after the new inauguration of Cromwell is in one of his Latin Familiar Epistles, addressed to some young foreigner in London, of whom I know nothing more than may be learnt from 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 young Ranelagh, had left Oxford in April or May 1657, after about a year's stay there, and had gone abroad on a tour which was to extend over more than four years. It was an arrangement for the farther education of young Ranelagh in the way most satisfactory to his mother, Lady Ranelagh, and perhaps also to his uncle, Robert Boyle, neither of whom seems to have cared much for the ordinary University routine; and particulars had been settled by correspondence between Oldenburg at Oxford and Lady Ranelagh in Ireland.[1] Young Ranelagh, I find, took with him as his servant a David Whitelaw, who had been servant to Durie in his foreign travels: "my man, David Whitelaw," as Durie calls him.[2] The ever-convenient Hartlib was to manage the conveyance 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, a pleasant little town, with a college, a library, &c., which they had selected for their first place of residence, rather than Paris. An Italian master was procured to teach young Jones "something of practical geometry and fortification"; and, for the rest, Oldenburg himself continued to superintend his studies, directing them a good deal in that line of physical and economical observation which might be supposed congenial to a nephew of Boyle, and which had become interesting to himself. "As for us here," wrote Oldenburg to Boyle from Saumur, Sept. 8, 1657, "we are, through the goodness of God, in perfect health; and, your nephew having spent these two or three months we have been here very well and in more than ordinary diligence, I cannot but give him some relaxation in taking a view of this province of Anjou during this time of vintage; which, though it be a very tempting one to a young appetite, yet shall, I hope, by a careful watchfulness, prove unprejudicial to his health."[1] A good while before Oldenburg wrote this letter to Boyle both he and his pupil had written to Milton, and Milton's replies had already been received. They are dated on the same day, but we shall put that to young Ranelagh first. It will be seen that Oldenburg must have had a sight 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 by Milton to Saumur in Oldenburg's charge must have been copies of the Defensio Secunda and of the Pro Se Defensio. The person mentioned with such loathing in the second paragraph was the hero of those performances, Morus. The paragraph requires explanation. For Morus, uncomfortable at Amsterdam, and every day under some fresh discredit there, a splendid escape had at length presented itself. He had received an invitation to be one of the ministers of the Protestant church of Charenton, close to Paris. This church of Charenton was indeed the main Protestant church of Paris itself and the most flourishing representative of French Protestantism generally. For the French law then obliged Protestants to have their places of worship at some distance from the cities and towns in which they resided, and the village of Charenton was the ecclesiastical rendezvous of the chief Protestant nobility and professional men of the capital, some of whom, in the capacity of lay-elders, were associated in the consistory of the church with the ministers or pastors. Of these, in the beginning of 1657, there had been five, all men of celebrity in the French Protestant world—viz. Mestrezat, Faucheur, Drelincourt, Daille, and Gaches; but the deaths of the two first in April and May of that year had occasioned vacancies, and it was to fill up one of these vacancies that Morus had been invited from Amsterdam. Oldenburg, as we understand, had heard this piece of news, when passing through Paris on his way to Saumur, probably in June. 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 and Charenton. Hence the punning phraseology of Milton's reply. He would rather 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 of the pastors of the most important Protestant church in France was, we can see, horrible to him; and he hoped the calamity might yet be averted.—For the time it seemed likely that it would be. There had been ample enough knowledge in Paris of the coil of scandals about the character of Morus; and copies of Milton's two Anti-Morus pamphlets had been in circulation there long before Oldenburg took with him into France his new bundle of them for distribution. Accordingly, though there was a strong party for Morus, disbelieving the scandals, and anxious to have him for the Charenton church on account of his celebrity as a preacher, there were dissentients among the congregation and even in the consistory itself. One hears of Sieur Papillon and Sieur Beauchamp, Parisian advocates, and elders in the church, as heading the opposition to the call. The business of the translation of Morus from Amsterdam was, therefore, no easy one. In any case it would have brought those Protestant church courts of France that had to sanction the admission of Morus at Charenton into communication about him with those courts of the Walloon Church in Holland from whose jurisdiction he was to be removed; and one can imagine the peculiar complications that would arise in a case so extraordinary and involving so much inquiry and discussion. In fact, for more than two years, the business of the translation of Morus from Amsterdam to Paris was to hang notoriously between the Dutch Walloon Synods, who in the main wanted to disgrace and depose him before they had done with him, and the French Provincial Synods, now roused in his behalf, and willing in the main to receive him back into his native country as a man not without his faults, but more sinned against than sinning.[1]—And so for the present (Aug. 1657) Morus was still in his Amsterdam professorship, longing to be in France, but uncertain whether his call thither would hold. How the case ended we shall see in time. Meanwhile it is quite apparent that Milton was not only willing, but anxious, that his influence should 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 Morus to Charenton till the receipt of Oldenburg's letter, his motives originally for despatching a bundle of his Anti-Morus pamphlets into France with Oldenburg can have been only general; but one gathers from his reply to Oldenburg that he thought the pamphlets might now be of use specifically in the business of the proposed translation. Indeed, one can discern a tone of disappointment in Milton's letter with Oldenburg's report of what he had been able to do with the pamphlets hitherto. He might have spared himself the expense, he says, and Oldenburg the trouble. Oldenburg, as we know (Vol. IV. pp. 626-627), had never been very enthusiastic over Milton's onslaughts on 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 et seq.—It was deemed of great importance by the English Royalists that they should be able to report of Charles II., when Paris was his residence, that he attended the church at Charenton. There is a letter 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 as the records show, from the business of writing foreign Letters for the Protector, resumed that business. We have attributed his release from it for so long to the fact that his old assistant MEADOWS was again in town, and available in the Whitehall office, in the interval between his return from Portugal and his departure on his new mission to Denmark; and the coincidence of Milton's resumption of this kind of duty with the precise time of Meadows's preparations for his new absence is at least curious. Though it had been intended that he should set out for Denmark immediately after his appointment to the mission in February, he had been detained for various reasons; and now in August, the great war between Denmark and Sweden having just begun, he was to set out in company with another envoy: viz. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM JEPHSON, whom Cromwell had selected as a suitable person for a contemporary mission, to the King of Sweden (ante p. 312). It will be observed that eight of the following ten Letters of Milton, all written in August or September 1657, and forming his first contribution of letters for the Second Protectorate, 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 L2,500. 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 L25,000. 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 the Skinner Transcript as No. 120 with the title Duci Subaudiae, and printed thence by Mr. Hamilton in his Milton Papers (pp. 11-12). No date is given in the Skinner Transcript; and the insertion of the letter here is a mere guess. The place where it occurs in the Skinner Transcript suggests that it came rather late in the Protectorate, perhaps even after the present point. The years 1656 and 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]