PERIOD OF ARBITRARINESS.
LETTER TO MILTON FROM LEO DE AITZEMA: MILTON'S REPLY: LETTER TO
EZEKIEL SPANHEIM AT GENEVA: MILTON'S GENEVESE RECOLLECTIONS AND
ACQUAINTANCES: TWO MORE OF MILTON'S LATIN STATE-LETTERS (NOS. LII.,
LIII.): SMALL AMOUNT OF MILTON'S DESPATCH-WRITING FOR CROMWELL
HITHERTO.--REDUCTION OF OFFICIAL SALARIES, AND PROPOSAL TO REDUCE
MILTON'S TO £150 A YEAR: ACTUAL COMMUTATION OF HIS £288 A YEAR AT
PLEASURE INTO £200 FOR LIFE: ORDERS OF THE PROTECTOR AND COUNCIL
RELATING TO THE PIEDMONTESE MASSACRE, MAY 1655: SUDDEN DEMAND ON
MILTON'S PEN IN THAT BUSINESS: HIS LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE FROM THE
PROTECTOR TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, WITH TEN OTHER LETTERS TO FOREIGN
STATES AND PRINCES ON THE SAME SUBJECT (NOS. LIV.--LXIV.): HIS SONNET
ON THE SUBJECT.--PUBLICATION OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM TO MORE'S _FIDES
PUBLICA_: ACCOUNT OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM, WITH EXTRACTS: MILTON'S
ANSWER TO THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ AND THE SUPPLEMENTUM TOGETHER IN
HIS _PRO SE DEFENSIO_, AUG. 1655: ACCOUNT OF THAT BOOK, WITH
SPECIMENS: MILTON'S DISBELIEF IN MORUS'S DENIALS OF THE AUTHORSHIP OF
THE _REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_: HIS REASONS, AND HIS REASSERTIONS
OF THE CHARGE IN A MODIFIED FORM: HIS NOTICES OF DR. CRANTZIUS AND
ULAC: HIS RENEWED ONSLAUGHTS ON MORUS: HIS REPETITION OF THE BONTIA
ACCUSATION AND OTHERS: HIS EXAMINATION OF MORUS'S PRINTED
TESTIMONIALS: FEROCITY OF THE BOOK TO THE LAST: ITS EFFECTS ON
MORUS.--QUESTION OF THE REAL AUTHORSHIP OF THE _REGII SANGUINIS
CLAMOR_ AND OF THE AMOUNT OF MORUS'S CONCERN IN IT: THE DU MOULIN
FAMILY: DR. PETER DU MOULIN THE YOUNGER THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE
_REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_, BUT MORUS THE ACTIVE EDITOR AND THE
WRITER OF THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE: DU MOULIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF THE
WHOLE AFFAIR: HIS CLOSE CONTACT WITH MILTON ALL THE WHILE, AND DREAD
OF BEING FOUND OUT.--CALM IN MILTON'S LIFE AFTER THE CESSATION OF THE
MORUS-SALMASIUS CONTROVERSY: HOME-LIFE IN PETTY FRANCE: DABBLINGS OF
THE TWO NEPHEWS IN LITERATURE: JOHN PHILLIPS'S _SATYR AGAINST
HYPOCRITES_: FREQUENT VISITORS AT PETTY FRANCE: MARVELL, NEEDHAM,
CYRIACK SKINNER, &C.: THE VISCOUNTESS RANELAGH, MR. RICHARD JONES,
AND THE BOYLE CONNEXION: DR. PETER DU MOULIN IN THAT CONNEXION:
MILTON'S PRIVATE SONNET ON HIS BLINDNESS. HIS TWO SONNETS TO CYRIACK
SKINNER, AND HIS SONNET TO YOUNG LAWRENCE: EXPLANATION OF THESE FOUR
SONNETS.--_SCRIPTUM DOMINI PROTECTORIS CONTRA HISPANOS_:
THIRTEEN MORE LATIN STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS.
LXV.--LXXVII.), WITH SPECIAL ACCOUNT OF COUNT BUNDT AND THE SWEDISH
EMBASSY IN LONDON: COUNT BUNDT AND MR. MILTON.--INCREASE OF LIGHT
LITERATURE IN LONDON: EROTIC PUBLICATIONS: JOHN PHILLIPS IN TROUBLE
FOR SUCH: EDWARD PHILLIPS'S LONDON EDITION OF THE POEMS OF DRUMMOND
OF HAWTHORNDEN: MILTON'S COGNISANCE OF THE SAME.--HENRY OLDENBURG AND
MR. RICHARD JONES AT OXFORD: LETTERS OF MILTON TO JONES AND
OLDENBURG.--THIRTEEN MORE STATE-LETTERS OF THE MILTON SERIES (NOS.
LXXVIII.--XC.): IMPORTANCE OF SOME OF THEM.
Oliver had just entered on his period of Arbitrariness, or Government
without a Parliament, when Milton received the following letter in
Latin from Leo de Aitzema, or Lieuwe van Aitzema, formerly known to
him as agent for Hamburg and the Hanse Towns in London, but now
residing at the Hague in the same capacity (IV. 378-379). Aitzema, we
may now mention, was a Frieslander by birth, eight years older than
Milton, and is remembered still, it is said, for a voluminous and
valuable _History of the United Provinces_, consisting of a
great collection of documents, with commentaries by himself in
Dutch.[1] This had not yet been published.
[Footnote 1: See Article _Aitzema_ in Bayle's Dictionary.]
"To the honourable and highly esteemed Mr. John Milton, Secretary
to the Council of State, London.
"Partly because Morus, in his book, has made some aspersions on you
for your English Book on Divorce, partly because many have been
inquiring eagerly about the arguments with which you support your
opinion, I have, most honoured and esteemed Sir, given your little
work entire to a friend of mine to be translated into Dutch, with a
desire to have it printed soon. Not knowing, however, whether you
would like anything corrected therein or added, I take the liberty
to give you this notice, and to request you to let me know your
mind on the subject. Best wishes and greetings from
"Your very obedient
"LEO AITZEMA[1]
"Hague: Jan. 29, 1654-5."
[Footnote 1: Communicated by the late Mr. Thomas Watts of the British
Museum, and published by the late Rev. John Mitford in Appendix to
Life of Milton prefixed to Pickering's Edition of Milton's Works
(1851).]
Milton's answer, rather unusually for him, was immediate.
TO LEO VAN AITZEMA.
It is very gratifying to me that you retain the same amount of
recollection of me as you very politely showed of good will by once
and again visiting me while you resided among us. As regards the
Book on Divorce which you tell me you have given to some one to be
turned into Dutch, I would rather you had given it to be turned
into Latin. For my experience in those books of mine has now been
that the vulgar still receive according to their wont opinions not
already common. I wrote a good while ago, I may mention, _three_
treatises on the subject:--the first, in two books, in which _The
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ (for that is the title of the
book) is contained at large; a second, which is called
_Tetrachordon_, and in which the four chief passages of Scripture
concerning that doctrine are explicated; the third called
_Colasterion_, in which answer is made to a certain sciolist. [The
_Bucer Tract_ omitted in the enumeration.] Which of these Treatises
you have given to be translated, or what edition, I do not know:
the first of them was twice issued, and was much enlarged in the
second edition. Should you not have been made aware of this
already, or should I understand that you desire anything else on my
part, such as sending you the more correct edition or the rest of
the Treatises, I shall attend to the matter carefully and with
pleasure. For there is not anything at present that I should wish
changed in them or added. Therefore, should you keep to your
intention, I earnestly hope for myself a faithful translator, and
for you all prosperity.
Westminster: Feb. 5, 1654-5.[1]
[Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 16.]
The next letter, written in the following month, also connects
itself, but still more closely, with the Morus controversy. It is
addressed to Ezekiel Spanheim, the eldest son of that Frederick
Spanheim, by birth a German, of whom we have heard as Professor of
Theology successively at Geneva (1631-1642) and at Leyden
(1642-1649). This elder Spanheim, it will be remembered, had been
implicated in the opposition to Morus in both places--the story being
that he had contracted a bad opinion of Morus during his
colleagueship with him in Geneva, and that, when Salmasius, partly to
spite Spanheim, of whose popularity at Leyden he was jealous, had
negotiated for bringing Morus to Holland, Spanheim "moved heaven and
earth to prevent his coming." It is added that Spanheim's death (May
1649) was caused by the news that Morus was on his way, and that he
had said on his death-bed that "Salmasius had killed him and Morus
had been the dagger."[1] On the other hand, we have had recently the
assurance of Dr. Crantzius that Spanheim had once told him that the
only fault in Morus was that he was _altier_, or self-confident.
That the stronger story is the truer one substantially, if not to its
last detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus was
hereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son,
Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, this
Ezekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than his
father, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not to
close till 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year,
and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he had
returned from Leyden in 1651, to accept a kind of honorary
Professorship that had been offered him, in compliment partly to his
father's memory, partly to his own extraordinary promise. As one who
had lived the first thirteen years of his age in Geneva, and the next
nine in Leyden (1642-1651), and who was now back in Geneva, he had
been amply and closely on the track of Morus; and how little he liked
him will now appear:--
[Footnote 1: Bayle, both in Article _Spanheim_ and in Article
_Morus_.]
TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM OF GENEVA.
I know not by what accident it has happened that your letter has
reached me little less than three months after date. There is
clearly extreme need of a speedier conveyance of mine to you; for,
though from day to day I was resolving to write it, I now perceive
that, hindered by some constant occupations, I have put it off
nearly another three months. I would not have you understand from
this my tardiness in replying that my grateful sense of your
kindness to me has cooled, but rather that the remembrance has sunk
deeper from my longer and more frequent daily thinking of my duty
to you in return. Late performance of duty has at least this excuse
for itself, that there is a clearer confession of obligation to do
a thing when it is done so long after than if it had been done
immediately.
You are not wrong, in the first place, in the opinion of me
expressed in the beginning of your letter--to wit, that I am not
likely to be surprised at being addressed by a foreigner; nor could
you, indeed, have a more correct impression of me than precisely by
thinking that I regard no good man in the character of a foreigner
or a stranger. That you are such I am readily persuaded by your
being the son of a most learned and most saintly father, also by
your being well esteemed by good men, and also finally by the fact
that you hate the bad. With which kind of cattle as I too happen to
have a warfare, Calandrini has but acted with his usual courtesy,
and in accordance with my own sentiment, in signifying to you that
it would be very gratifying to me if you lent me your help against
a common adversary. This you have most obligingly done in this very
letter, part of which, with the author's name not mentioned, I have
not hesitated, trusting in your regard for me, to insert by way of
evidence in my forthcoming _Defensio_ [in reply to More's
_Fides Publica_]. This book, as soon as it is published, I
will direct to be sent to you, if there is any one to whose care I
may rightly entrust it. Any letters you may intend for me,
meanwhile, you will not, I think, be unsafe if you send under cover
to Turretin of Geneva, now staying in London, whose brother in
Geneva you know; through whom as this of mine will reach you most
conveniently, so will yours reach me. For the rest I would assure
you that you have won a high place in my esteem, and that I
particularly wish to be loved by you yet more.
Westminster: March 24, 1654-5.[1]
[Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 17.]
In writing this letter Milton must have had brought back to his
recollection his visit to Geneva fifteen years before (June 1639) on
his way home from Italy. The venerable Diodati, the uncle of his
friend Charles, was the person in Geneva of whom he had seen most,
and who dwelt most in his memory; but the elder Spanheim had then
been in the same city, and Morus too, and the present Ezekiel
Spanheim, as a boy in his tenth year, and others, still alive, who
had then known Morus, and had since that time had him in view. Milton
had certainly not then himself seen Morus, though he must have heard
of him; but it is possible he may have seen the elder Spanheim, and
may now, in writing to Spanheim's son, have remembered the fact. In
any case there were links of acquaintanceship still connecting Milton
with Geneva and its gossip. The "Calandrini," for example, who is
mentioned in Milton's letter, and who may be identified with a
Genevese merchant named "Jean Louis Calandrin," heard of in Thurloe's
correspondence, must in some way have been known to Milton
personally, and interested in serving him.[1] It had been in in
consequence of a suggestion of this Calandrini, "acting-with his
usual courtesy," that young Spanheim had, in October 1654, when
Morus's fragmentary _Fides Publica_ was just out or nearly so,
addressed a polite letter to Milton, sending him some additional
information about the Genevese portion of Morus's career. The letter
had not readied Milton till the end of December or the beginning of
January 1654-5; and for nearly three months after that he had left it
unacknowledged. That he had been moved to acknowledge it at last was,
doubtless, as his letter itself suggests, and as we shall see yet
more precisely, because he had then nearly ready his Reply to the
_Fides Publica_, and had used Spanheim's information there, only
suppressing the name of his informant. But that Milton had already
had no lack of private informants about Morus's career, whether in
Geneva or in Holland, has appeared abundantly. The
Hartlib-Durie-Haak-Oldenburg connexion about him in London was a
perfect sponge for all kinds of gossip from, abroad. We hear now,
however, of another person in particular who may have supplied Milton
with his earlier information as to the Genevese part of Morus's life,
A family long of note in Geneva had been that of the Turretins,
originally from Italy, and indeed from Lucca, whence they had been
driven, as the Diodatis had been, by their Protestantism, One of this
family, Benedict Turretin, born in Geneva, had been a distinguished
Theology Professor there, and at his death in 1631 had left at least
two sons. One of these, Francis Turretin, born at Geneva in 1623,
had, after the usual wanderings of Continental scholars in those
days, just returned to Geneva (1653), and settled there in what may
be called the family-business, i.e. the profession of Theology. In
this he was to attain extraordinary celebrity, his _Institutio
Theologiæ Elencticæ_ ranking to this day among Calvinistic
Theologians as a master-work of its kind. Well, this Francis
Turretin, rising into fame at Geneva, just as Ezekiel Spanheim was,
and seeing Spanheim daily, had, it seems from Milton's letter, a
brother in London, on intimate terms with Milton; and Milton's
proposition to young Spanheim was that they should correspond in
future through the two Turretins. Who would have thought to find the
future author of the _Institutio Theologiæ Elencticæ_ used by
Milton for postal purposes? Is it not clear too that the London
Turretin must have been one of Milton's informants about Morus's
reasons for leaving Geneva? Respectability everywhere, at our present
date at least, seems adverse to Morus.[2]
[Footnote 1: For mention of Jean Louis Calandrin, the Genevese
merchant, see Letters between Pell and Thurloe in _Vaughan's
Protectorate_ (I. 302, 308, 354). He died at Geneva, in Feb.
1655-6, about a year after this mention of him by Milton. It is
possible he may have been a relative of a "Cæsar Calandrinus"
mentioned by Wood as one of the many foreigners who had studied at
Exeter College, Oxford, during the Rectorship of Dr. Prideaux
(1612-1641), and who was afterwards "a Puritanical Theologist,"
intimate with Usher, a Rector in Essex, and finally minister of the
parish of Peter le Poor in London, where he died in 1665, leaving a
son named John. Wood speaks of him as a German (Wood, Ath. III. 269,
and Fasti, I. 393-4); but the name is evidently Italian. Indeed I
find that there had been an intermarriage in Italy between the
Diodati family and a family of Calandrinis, bringing some of the
Calandrinis also to Geneva about the year 1575. (Reprint, for
private circulation, of a Paper on the Italian ancestry of Mr.
William Diodate of New Haven, U.S., read before the New Haven
Colony Historical Society, June 28, 1875, by Edward E. Salisbury,
p. 13). By the kindness of Colonel Chester, whose genealogical
researches are all-inclusive, I have a copy of the will of the
above-named Cæsar Calandrini of St. Peter le Poor, London. It is
dated Aug. 4, 1665, when he was "three score and ten," and mentions
two sons, Lewis and John, two daughters living, one of them married
to a Giles Archer, and grandchildren by these children, besides
nephews and nieces of the names of Papillon and Burlamachi. The son
"John" in this will proved it in October 1665, and cannot have been
the Calandrini of Milton's letter; but that Calandrini may have
been of the same connexion.]
[Footnote 2: Bayle, Art. _Francois Turretin_.]
Busy over his reply to the _Fides Publica_, Milton had stretched
his dispensation from routine duty in his Secretaryship not only
through November and December 1654 and January 1654-5, as was noted
in last section, but as far as to April 1655 in the present section.
Through these five months there is, so far as the records show, a
total blank, at all events, in his official letter-writing. In April
1655, however, as if his reply to the _Fides Publica_ were then
off his mind, and lying in the house in Petty France complete or
nearly complete in manuscript, we do come upon two more of his Latin
State-letters, as follows:--
(LII.) TO THE PRINCE OF TARENTE, _April_ 4, 1655[1]:--This
Prince, one of the chiefs of the French nobility, but connected
with Germany by marriage, was a Protestant by education, had been
mixed up with the wars of the Fronde, and was altogether a very
stirring man abroad. He had written to Cromwell invoking his
interest in behalf of foreign, and especially of French,
Protestantism. Cromwell expresses his satisfaction in having had
such an address from so eminent a representative of the Reformed
faith in a kingdom in which so many have lapsed from it, and
declares that nothing would please him more than "to be able to
promote the enlargement, the safety, or, what is most important,
the peace, of the Reformed Church." Meanwhile he exhorts the Prince
to be himself firm and faithful to his creed to the very last.--The
Prince of Tarente, it may be mentioned, had interested himself much
in the lawsuit between Morus and Salmasius. He had tried to act as
mediator and induce Morus to withdraw his action--a condescension
which Morus acknowledges, though he felt himself obliged, he says,
to go on.
[Footnote 1: No. 32 in Skinner Transcript (which gives the exact
date); also in Printed Collection and in Phillips.]
(LIII.) To ARCHDUKE LEOPOLD of AUSTRIA, GOVERNOR OF THE SPANISH
NETHERLANDS (_undated_):--Sir Charles Harbord, an Englishman,
has had certain goods and household stuff violently seized at
Bruges by Sir Richard Grenville. The goods had originally been sent
from England to Holland in 1643 by the then Earl of Suffolk, in
pledge for a debt owing to Harbord; and Grenville's pretext was
that he also was a creditor of the Earl, and had obtained a decree
of the English Chancery in his favour. Now, by the English law,
neither was the present Earl of Suffolk bound by that decree nor
could the goods be distrained under it. The decision of the Court
to that effect is herewith transmitted; and His Serenity is
requested to cause Grenville to restore the goods, inasmuch as it
is against the comity of nations that any one should be allowed an
action in foreign jurisdiction which he would not be allowed in the
country where the cause of the action first arose. "The justice of
the case itself and the universal reputation of your Serenity for
fair dealing have moved us to commend the matter to your
attention; and, if at any time there shall be occasion to discuss
the rights or convenience of your subjects with as, I promise that
you shall find our diligence in the same not remiss, but at all
times most ready."[1]
[Footnote 1: Undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips; dated
"Aug. 1658" in the Skinner Transcript, but surely by mistake. Such
a letter can hardly have been sent to the Archduke after Oct. 1655,
when the war with Spain broke out. I have inserted it at this point
by conjecture only, and may be wrong.]
In April 1655, when these two letters were written, Oliver was in the
sixteenth month of his Protectorship. His first nine months of
personal sovereignty without a Parliament, and his next four months
and a half of unsatisfactory experience with his First Parliaments
were left behind, and he had advanced two months and more into his
period of compulsory Arbitrariness, when he had to govern, with the
help of his Council only, by any means he could. Count all the Latin
State-Letters registered by Milton himself as having been written by
him for Cromwell during those first fifteen months and more of the
Protectorate, and they number only nine (Nos. XLV.-XLVIII in Vol. IV.
pp. 635-636, and Nos. XLIX.-LIII. in the present volume). These nine
Letters, with the completion and publication of his _Defensio
Secunda_, and now the preparation of a Reply to More's _Fides
Publica_, and also perhaps occasional calls at Thurloe's office
and occasional presences at interviews with ambassadors and envoys in
Whitehall, were all he had been doing for fifteen months for his
salary of £288 a year. The fact cannot have escaped notice. He had
himself called attention to it, as if by anticipation, in that
passage of his _Defensio Secunda_ in which he spoke of the kind
indulgence of the State-authorities in retaining him honourably in
full office, and not abridging his emoluments on account of his
disability by blindness. The passage may have touched Cromwell and
some of the Councillors, and there was doubtless a general feeling
among them of the worth, beyond estimate in money, of Milton's name
to the Commonwealth, and of his past acts of literary championship
for her. Economy, however, is a virtue easily recommended to
statesmen by any pinch of necessity, and it so chanced that at the
very time we have now reached, April 1655, the Protector and his
Council, being in money straits, were in a very economical mood (see
ante p. 35). Here, accordingly, is what we find in the Council Order
Books under date April 17, 1655.
_Tuesday, April_ 17, 1655:--Present the Lord President
Lawrence, Lord Lambert (styled so in the minute), Colonel Montague,
Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Gilbert Pickering,
Major-General Skippon.
"The Council resumed the debate upon the Report made from the
Committee of the Council to whom it was referred to consider of the
Establishment of the Council's Contingencies.
"_Ordered:_--
"That the salary of £400 _per annum_ granted to MR. GUALTER
FROST as Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies be reduced to
£300 _per annum_, and be continued to be paid after that
proportion till further order.
"That the former yearly salary of MR. JOHN MILTON, of £288, &c.,
formerly charged on the Council's Contingencies, be reduced to £150
_per annum_, and paid to him during his life out of his
Highness's Exchequer.
"That the yearly salaries hereafter mentioned, being formerly paid
out of the Council's Contingencies,--that is to say £45 12_s._
6_d._ _per annum_ to Mr. Henry Giffard, Mr. Gualter
Frost's assistant,--_per annum_ to Mr. John Hall,--_per
annum_ to Mr. Marchamont Needham,--_per annum_ to Mr.
George Vaux, the house-keeper at Whitehall,--_per annum_ for
the rent of Sir Abraham Williams's house [for the entertainment of
Ambassadors], and--_per annum_ to M. René Angler,--be for the
future retrenched and taken away.
"That some convenient rooms at Somerset House be set apart for the
entertainment of Foreign Ambassadors upon their address to his
Highness.
"That it be referred to Mr. Secretary Thurloe to put that part of
the Intelligence [from abroad] which is managed by M. René Augier
into the common charge of Intelligence, and to order it for the
future by M, Augier or otherwise, as he shall see most for the
Commonwealth's service.
* * * * *
"That it be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council
that several warrants be issued under the great seal for
authorizing and requiring the Commissioners of his Highness's
Treasury to pay, by quarterly payments, at the receipt of his
Highness's Exchequer, to the several officers, clerks, and other
persons after-named, according to the proportions allowed them for
their salary in respect of their several respective offices and
employments during their continuance or till his Highness or the
Council shall give other order: that is to say:--
"To John Thurloe, Esq., Secretary of State:--For his own office,
after the proportion of £800 _per annum_; for the office of
Mr. Philip Meadows, Secretary for the Latin Tongue, after the rate
of £200 per annum; for the salaries of--clerks attending his
[Thurloe's] office at 6_s._ 8_d._ _per diem_, a
piece (which together amount to----); for the salaries of eleven
messengers at 5_s._ _per diem_, apiece (which together
amount to £1003 15_s._): amounting in the whole to ----
"To Mr. Henry Scobell and Mr. William Jessop, Clerks to the
Council, or to either of them:--For their own offices, viz. Mr.
Scobell £500 _per annum_, Mr. Jessop £500 _per annum_;
for the salaries of--clerks attending their office at 6_s._
8_d._ _per diem_ (which together amount to ----):
amounting in the whole to ----
"To Mr, Edward Dendy, Serjeant at Arms attending the Council:--For
his own office after the proportion of £365 _per annum_; for
the salaries of his _ten_ deputies at 3_s._ 4_d._
_per diem_ a piece (which together amount to £608 6_s._
8_d._); amounting in the whole to £973 6 8
"To Richard Scutt, Usher of the Council Chamber:--For himself and
his assistants at 13_s._ _per diem_, (being £237 5_s_, _per
annum_); for Thomas Bennett's salary, keeper of the back-door of
the Council Chamber, at 4_s. per diem_ (being £73 _per
annum_); for the salary of Robert Stebbin, fire-maker to the
clerks, at 2_s. per diem_ (being £36 10_s. per annum_):
amounting in the whole to £346 15 0
"The first payment of the said several and respective sums
before-mentioned to commence from the 1st of April instant.
"To Richard Nutt, master of his Highness's barge:--For his own
office after £80 _per annum;_ for Thomas Washborne, his
assistant, for his salary, after £20 _per annum;_ for the
salaries of 25 watermen to attend his Highness's barge, at £4
_per annum_ to each (amounting together to £100 _per
annum_): amounting in the whole to £200 _per ann._
"The same to commence from 25th March, 1655."
Clearly the Council were in a mood of economy. Not only were certain
salaries to be reduced, but a good many outlays were to be stopped
altogether, including Needham's subsidy or pension for his
journalistic services. But more appears from the document. In spite
of the general tendency to retrenchment, the salaries of Scobell and
Jessop, the two clerks of the Council, are to be raised from £365 a
year to £500 a year. This alone would suggest that not retrenchment
only, but an improvement also in the system of the Council's
business, was intended. The document as a whole confirms that idea.
It maps out the service of the Council more definitely than hitherto
into departments. Thurloe, of course, is general head, styled now
"Secretary of State"; but it will be observed that the department of
Foreign Affairs, including the management of Intelligence from
abroad, is spoken of as now wholly and especially his, and that
Meadows, with the designation of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue,"
ranks distinctly under him in that department. Scobell and Jessop, as
"Clerks to the Council," though under Thurloe too, are now important
enough to be jointly at the head of a separate staff; the Bailiff or
Constable department is separate from theirs, and under the charge of
Mr. Sergeant-at-Arms Dendy; and minor divisions of service, nameable
as Ushership and Barge-attendance, are under the charge of Messrs.
Scutt and Nutt respectively. The payments of salaries are
henceforward not to be vaguely through Mr. Gualter Frost, as
Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies, but by warrants to the
Treasury to pay regularly to the several heads the definite
sums-total in their departments, their own salaries included.
Milton's case was evidently treated as a peculiar one. It was
certainly proposed that his allowance should be reduced from £288
18_s._ 6_d._ a year, which had hitherto been its rate, to
£150 a year--i.e. by nearly one half. Most of us perhaps are
disappointed by this, and would have preferred to hear that Milton's
allowance had been doubled or tripled under the Protectorate,--made
equal, say, to Thurloe's. Records must stand as they are, however,
and must be construed coolly. Milton's £288 a year for _his_
lighter and more occasional duties had doubtless been all along in
fair proportion to the elder Frost's £600 a year, or Thurloe's £800,
for _their_ more vast and miscellaneous drudgery. Nor, if Milton
had ceased to be able to perform the duties, and another salaried
officer had been required in consequence, was there anything
extraordinary, in a time of general revision of salaries, that the
fact should come into consideration. The question was precisely as if
now a high official under government, who had been in receipt of a
salary of over £1000 a year, was struggling on in blindness after six
years of service, and an extra officer at £700 a year had been for
some time employed for his relief. In such a case, the official being
a man of great public celebrity and having rendered extraordinary
services in his post, would not superannuation on a pension or
retiring-allowance be considered the proper course? But this was
exactly the course proposed in Milton's case. The reduction from £288
to £150 a year was, it ought to be noted, only part of the
proposition; for, whereas the £288 a year had been at the Council's
pleasure, it was now proposed that the £150 a year should be for
life. In short, what was proposed was the conversion of a terminable
salary of £288 a year, payable out of the Council's contingencies,
into a life-pension of £150 a year, payable out of the Protector's
Exchequer: which was as if in a corresponding modern case a
terminable salary of over £1000 a year were converted into a
life-pension of between £500 and £600. On studying the document, I
have no doubt that the intention was to relieve Milton from that
moment from all duty whatsoever, putting an end to that anomalous
_Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary_, into which his connexion
with the Council had shaped itself since his blindness, and remitting
him, as _Ex-Secretary_ Milton, a perfectly free and
highly-honoured man, to pensioned leisure in his house in Petty
France. For it is impossible that the Council could have intended to
retain. Milton in any way in the working Secretaryship at a reduced
salary of £150 a year while Meadows, his former assistant, had the
title of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue," with a higher salary of
£200 a year. Perhaps one may detect Thurloe's notions of official
symmetry in the proposed change. Milton's _Latin Secretaryship
Extraordinary_ or _Foreign Secretaryship Extraordinary_ may
have begun to seem to Thurloe an excrescence upon his own general
_Secretaryship of State_, and he may have desired that Milton
should retire altogether, and leave the Latin Secretaryship complete
to Meadows as his own special subordinate in the foreign department.
The document, however, we have to add farther, though it purports to
be an Order of Council, did not actually or fully take effect. I
find, for example, that Needham's pension or subsidy of £100 a year,
which is one of the outlays the document proposed to "retrench and
take away," did not suffer a whit. He went on drawing his salary,
sometimes quarterly and sometimes half-yearly, just as before, and
precisely in the same form, viz. by warrant from President Lawrence
and six others of the Council to Mr. Frost to pay Mr. Needham so much
out of the Council's Contingencies. Thus on May 24, 1655, or five
weeks after the date of the present Order, there was a warrant to
Frost to pay Needham £50, "being for half a year's salary due unto
him from the 15th of Nov. last to the 15th of this instant May"; and
the subsequent series of warrants in Needham's favour is complete to
the end of the Protectorate.[1] Again, Mr. George Vaux, whom our
present order seems to discharge from his house-keepership of
Whitehall, is found alive in that post and in receipt of his salary
of £150 a year for it to as late as Oct. 1659.[2] There must,
therefore, have been a reconsideration of the Order by the Council,
or between the Council and the Protector, with modifications of the
several proposals. The proposal to raise the salaries of Scobell and
Jessop from £365 a year to £500 a year each must, indeed, have been
made good,--for Scobell and Jessop's successor in the colleagueship
to Scobell are found afterwards in receipt of £500 a year.[3] But, on
the same evidence, we have to conclude that the reductions proposed
in the cases of Mr. Gualter Frost and Milton were _not_
confirmed, or were confirmed only _partially_. Frost is found
afterwards distinctly in receipt of £365 a year,[4] The actual
reduction, in his case, therefore, was not from £400 to £300, as had
been proposed, but only from £400 to £365, or back to what his salary
had been formerly (Vol. IV. 575-578). Milton again is found at the
end of the Protectorate in receipt of £200 a year, and not of £150
only, as had been proposed In the Order.[5] The inference must be,
therefore, that there had been a reconsideration and modification of
the Order in his case also, ratifying the proposal of a reduction,
but diminishing considerably the proposed _amount_ of the
reduction. One would like to know to what influence the modification
was owing, and how far Cromwell himself may have interfered in the
matter. On the whole, while one infers that the reconsideration of
the Order generally may have been owing to direct remonstrances from
those whom it affected injuriously, such as Frost, Vaux, and Needham,
there is little difficulty in seeing what must have happened in
Milton's particular. My belief is that he signified, or caused it to
be signified, that he had no desire to retire on a life-pension, that
it would be much more agreeable to him to continue in active
employment for the State, that for certain kinds of such employment
he found his blindness less and less a disqualification, that the
arrangement as to salary might be as the Council pleased, but that
his own suggestion would be that his salary should be reduced to
£200, so that he and Mr. Meadows should henceforth be on an equality
in that respect. Such, at all events, was the arrangement adopted;
and we may now dismiss this whole incident in Milton's biography by
saying that, though in April 1655 there was a proposal to
superannuate him entirely on a life-pension of £150 a year, the
proposal did not take effect, but he went on from that date, just as
before, in the Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary, though at the
reduced salary of £200 a year instead of his original £288.
[Footnote 1: My notes from the Money Warrant Books of the Council.]
[Footnote 2: Money Warrants of Feb. 15, 1658-9 and Oct. 25, 1659.]
[Footnote 3: Money Warrant of Oct. 25, 1659.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid.]
[Footnote 5: Ibid.]
As if to prove that the arrangement was a perfectly suitable one, and
that Milton's retirement into ex-Secretaryship would have been a
loss, there came from him, immediately after the arrangement had been
made, that burst of Latin State-letters which is now the most famous
of his official performances for Cromwell. It was in the second week
of May, 1655, that the news of the Massacre of the Piedmontese
Protestants reached England; and from the 17th of that month, onwards
for weeks and weeks, the attention of the Protector and the Council
was all but engrossed, as we have seen (ante pp. 38-44), by that
dreadful topic. Here are a few of the first Minutes of Council
relating to it:--
_Thursday, May_ 17, 1655:--Present: HIS HIGHNESS THE LORD
PROTECTOR, Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel
Fiennes, Lord Lambert, Mr. Rous, Major-General Skippon, Lord
Viscount Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Montague, Colonel
Jones, General Desborough, Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley,
Mr. Strickland. _Ordered_, "That it be referred to the Earl of
Mulgrave, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Mr. Rous, and Colonel Jones, or
any--of them to consider of the Petition [a Petition from London
ministers and others], and also of the papers of intelligence
already come touching the Protestants under the Duke of Savoy, and
such other intelligence as shall come to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, and
to offer to the Council what they shall think fit, as well
_touching writing of letters_, collections, or otherwise, in
order to their relief ... That it be referred to Colonel Fiennes,
Mr. Strickland, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Mr. Secretary Thurloe,
to prepare the draft of a letter to the French King upon this day's
debate touching the Protestants suffering in the Dukedom of Savoy,
and to bring in the same to-morrow morning."
_Friday, May_ 18:--At a second, or afternoon sitting
(_present_: Lord President Lawrence, Lord Lambert, General
Desborough, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Fiennes, Colonel Jones,
Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Montague), "Colonel Fiennes reports from
the Committee of the Council to whom the same was referred the
draft of a Letter to be sent from his Highness to the King of
France concerning the Protestants in the Dukedom of Savoy; which,
after some amendments, was approved and ordered to be offered to
his Highness as the advice of the Council."
_Tuesday, May_ 22:--_Present_: Lord President Lawrence,
Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Rous, Colonel Montague, Colonel Jones,
General Desborough, Mr. Strickland, Colonel Fiennes, Lord Viscount
Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Lord Lambert. "The Latin draft of a
Letter to the Duke of Savoy in behalf of the Protestants in his
Territory was this day read. _Ordered_, That it be offered to
his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will
please to sign the said Letter and cause it to be sent to the said
Duke."
_Wednesday, May_ 23:--"Colonel Fiennes reports from the
Committee of the Council the draft of two letters in reference to
the sufferings of the Protestants in the territories of the Duke of
Savoy, the one to the States-General of the United Provinces, the
other to the Cantons of the Swisses professing the Protestant
Religion; which were read, and, after several amendments, agreed.
_Ordered_, That it be offered to his Highness the Lord
Protector as the advice of the Council that he will please to send
the said letters in his Highness's name to the said States-General
and the Cantons respectively."
Though Milton's name is not mentioned in these minutes, it was he,
and no other, that penned, or at least turned into Latin, for the
Committee, and so for the Council and the Protector, the particular
letters minuted, and indeed all the other documents required by the
occasion. The following is a list of them:--
(LIV.) TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, _May_ 25, 1655:[1]--This Letter
may be translated entire. It is superscribed "OLIVER, Protector of
the Commonwealth of England, &c., to the Most Serene Prince,
EMANUEL, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, Greeting "; and it is
worded as follows:--"Most Serene Prince,--Letters have reached us
from Geneva, and also from the Dauphinate and many other places
bordering upon your dominion, by which we are informed that the
subjects of your Royal Highness professing the Reformed Religion
were recently commanded by your edict and authority, within three
days after the promulgation of the said edict, to depart from their
habitations and properties under pain of death and forfeiture of
all their estates, unless they should give security that,
abandoning their own religion, they would within twenty days
embrace the Roman Catholic one, and that, though they applied as
suppliants to your Royal Highness, begging that the edict might be
revoked, and that they might be taken into their ancient favour and
restored to the liberty granted them by your Most Serene ancestors,
yet part of your army attacked them, butchered many most cruelly,
threw others into chains, and drove the rest into the deserts and
snow-covered mountains, where some hundreds of families are reduced
to such extremities that it is to be feared that all will soon
perish miserably by cold and hunger. When such news was brought us,
we could not possibly, in hearing of so great a calamity to that
sorely afflicted people, but be moved with extreme grief and
compassion. But, confessing ourselves bound up with them not by
common humanity only, but also by community of Religion, and so by
an altogether brotherly relationship, we have thought that we
should not be discharging sufficiently either our duty to God, or
the obligations of brotherly love and the profession of the same
religion, if we were merely affected with feelings of grief over
this disaster and misery of our brethren, and did not exert
ourselves to the very utmost of our strength and ability for their
rescue from so many unexpected misfortunes. Wherefore the more we
most earnestly beseech and adjure your Royal Highness that you will
bethink yourself again of the maxims of your Most Serene ancestors
and of the liberty granted and confirmed by them time after time to
their Vaudois subjects. In granting and confirming which, as they
performed what in itself was doubtless most agreeable to God, who
has pleased to reserve the inviolable jurisdiction and power over
Conscience for Himself alone, so there is no doubt either that they
had a due regard for their subjects, whom they found hardy and
faithful in war and obedient always in peace. And, as your Royal
Serenity most laudably treads in the footsteps of your forefathers
in all their other kindly and glorious actions, so it is our prayer
to you again and again not to depart from them in this matter
either, but to repeal this edict, and any other measure that may
have been passed for the molestation of your subjects of the
Reformed Religion, restoring them to their habitations and goods,
ratifying the rights and liberty anciently granted them, and
ordering their losses to be repaired and an end to be put to their
troubles. If your Royal Highness shall do this, you will have done
a deed most acceptable to God, you will have raised up and
comforted those miserable and distressed sufferers, and you will
have highly obliged all your neighbours that profess the Reformed
Religion,--ourselves most of all, who shall then regard your
kindness and clemency to those poor people as the fruit of our
solicitation. Which will moreover tie us to the performance of all
good offices in return, and lay the firmest foundations not only
for the establishment but even for the increase of the relationship
and friendship between this Commonwealth and your Dominion. Nor do
we less promise this to ourselves from your justice and moderation.
We beg Almighty God to bend your mind and thoughts in this
direction, and we heartily pray for you and for your people peace
and truth and prosperity in all your affairs."[2]--The bearer of
this letter to the Duke, as we know, was Mr. Samuel Morland, who
had been selected as the Protector's special Commissioner for the
purpose. He left London on the 26th of May. He took with him, also,
a copy of the Latin speech which he was to deliver to the Duke in
presenting the letter. As there is much probability that this Latin
speech is also in part of Milton's composition, and as it is in
even a bolder and more indignant strain than the letter, it may be
well to translate it too:--"Your Serene and Royal Highnesses [the
Duke and his mother both addressed?],--The Most Serene Lord,
Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, has sent me to your Royal Highnesses; whom he salutes very
heartily, and to whom, with a very high affection and peculiar
regard for your Serenities, he wishes a long life and reign, and a
prosperous issue of all your affairs, amid the applauses and
respect of your people. And this is due to you, whether in
consideration of the excellent character and royal descent of your
Highnesses, and the great expectation of the world from so many
eminent good qualities, or in recollection, after reference to
records, of the ancient friendship of our Kings with the Royal
house of Savoy. Though I am, I confess, but a young man, and not
very ripe in experience of affairs, yet it has pleased my Most
Serene and Gracious Master to send me, as one much devoted to your
Royal Highnesses and ardently attached to all bearing the Italian
name, on what is really a great mission.--The ancient legend is
that the son of Croesus was completely dumb from his birth. When,
however, he saw a soldier aiming a wound at his father, straightway
he had the use of his tongue. No other is my predicament, feeling
as I do my tongue loosened by those very recent and bloody wounds
of Mother Church. A great mission surely that is to be called
wherein all the safety and hope of many poor people is
comprehended--their sole hope lying in the chance that they shall
be able, by all their loyalty, obedience, and most humble prayers,
to mollify and appease the minds of your Royal Highnesses, now
irritated against them. In behalf of these poor people, whose cause
pity itself may seem to make its own, the Most Serene Protector of
England also comes as an intercessor, and most earnestly requests
and beseeches your Royal Highnesses to deign to extend your mercy
to these your very poor and most outcast subjects--those, I mean,
who, inhabiting the roots of the Alps and certain valleys in your
dominion, have professed nominally the Religion of the Protestants.
For he has heard (what no one can say has been done by the will of
your Royal Highnesses) that those wretched creatures have been
partly killed by your forces, partly expelled by violence and
driven from their home and country, so that they are now wandering,
with their wives and children, houseless, roofless, poor, and
destitute of all resource, through rugged and inhospitable spots
and over snow-covered mountains. And, through the days of this
transaction, if only the things are true that fame at present
reports everywhere (would that Fame were proved a liar!), what was
not dared and attempted against them? Houses smoking everywhere,
torn limbs, the ground bloody! Ay, and virgins, ravished and
hideously abused, breathed their last miserably; and old men and
persons labouring under illness were committed to the flames; and
some infants were dashed against the rocks, and the brains of
others were cooked and eaten. Atrocity horrible and before unheard
of, savagery such that, good God, were all the Neros of all times
and ages to come to life again, what a shame they would feel at
having contrived nothing equally inhuman! Verily, verily, Angels
are horrorstruck, men are amazed; heaven itself seems to be
astounded by these cries, and the earth itself to blush with the
shed blood of so many innocent men. Do not, great God, do not seek
the revenge due to this iniquity. May thy blood, Christ, wash away
this stain!--But it is not for me to relate these things in order
as they happened, or to dwell longer upon them; and what my Most
Serene Master requests from your Royal Highnesses you will
understand better from his own Letter. Which letter I am ordered to
deliver to your Royal Highnesses with all observance and due
respect; and, should your Royal Highnesses, as we greatly hope,
grant a favourable and speedy answer, you will both do an act most
gratifying to the Lord Protector, who has taken this business
deeply to heart, and to the whole Commonwealth of England, and also
restore, by an exercise of mercy very worthy of your Royal
Highnesses, life, safety, spirit, country, and estates to many
thousands of most afflicted people who depend on your pleasure; and
me you will send back to my native country as the happy messenger
of your conspicuous clemency, with great joy and report of your
exalted virtues, the deeply obliged servant of your Royal
Highnesses for evermore."[3]
[Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy preserved in the Record
Office (Hamilton's _Milton Papers_, p. 15) and in the copy
actually delivered to the Duke (Morland, pp. 572-574)--the phrase in
both being "_Dabantur ex aula nostra Westmonasterii_, 25
_Maii_, _anno_ 1654." In the Skinner Transcript, however,
the dating is "_Westmonsterio, May_ 10, 1655;" which again is
changed into "_Alba Aula, May_ 1655," i.e. "Whitehall, May 1655"
(month only given) in the Printed Collections and in Phillips.]
[Footnote 2: There are one or two slight verbal differences between
Milton's original draft, here translated, and the official copy as
actually delivered to the Duke, and as printed by Morland. Thus, in
the first sentence, instead of _"Redditæ sunt nobis e Geneva,
necnon ex Delphinatu aliisque multis ex locis ditioni vestræ
finitimis, literæ,"_ the official copy has simply _"Redditæ
sunt nobis multis ex locis ditioni vestæ finitimis literæ."_]
[Footnote 3: I have translated the speech from the official Latin
draft, as preserved in the Record Office, and as printed by Mr.
Hamilton, _Milton Papers_, pp. 18-20. Mr. Hamilton has no doubt
that the composition is Milton's. He founds his opinion partly on the
style, and partly on the fact that the draft is "written in the same
hand as the other official copies of Milton's letters." I agree with
Mr. Hamilton, though the matter does not seem to be absolutely beyond
controversy. The style is generally like Milton's; there are phrases
repeated from Milton's Latin elsewhere--e.g. "_montesque nivibus
coopertos_," repeated from the Letter to the Duke of Savoy, and
"_totius nominis Italici studiosissimum_" which almost repeats
the "_toiius Græci nominis ... cultor_" of the second Letter to
Philaras; and there are also phrases identical with some used in
Milton's other letters on the subject of the Massacre which have yet
to be noted in this list. On the other hand, there are passages and
expressions in the Speech that strike one as hardly Miltonic, while
the purport in some places would favour the idea that Morland wrote
the speech himself. What seems to negative this idea most strongly,
and therefore to point most distinctly to Milton as the author, is
the existence of the MS. official copy in the Record Office. The
speech, that copy proves, must have been prepared before Morland left
London, and must have been taken with him. For that it cannot have
been merely deposited in the State Paper Office afterwards, as a
record of what he did say at Turin, is proved by the fact that his
actual speech at Turin, as printed by himself in his book, with an
English Translation (pp. 558-561), though in substance identical with
the draft-copy, differs in some particulars. In the actual speech the
plural, "Your Royal Highnesses," is changed into the singular, "Your
Royal Highness," for address to the Duke only, though the
Duchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morland
to the Son of Croesus is entirely omitted; and there are other verbal
changes, apparently suggested by Morland's closer information as he
approached Turin, or by his sense of fitness at the moment--in
illustration of which the reader may compare the very strong passage
about "the Neros of all times and ages" as we have just rendered it
from the draft with the same passage as we have previously rendered
it from Morland's actual speech (ante p. 42). But, if Morland took
the speech with him, unless he wrote it himself and had it approved
before his departure, who so likely to have furnished it as Milton?
All in all, that is the most probable conclusion; and anything
un-Miltonic in the speech may be accounted for by supposing that,
though the Latin was Milton's, the substance was not entirely his.
Morland, though he does not say in his book that the speech was
furnished him, does not positively claim it as his own. He, at all
events, used the liberty of deviating from the original draft.]
(LV.) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May 25,
1655_[1]:--His Highness in this letter recapitulates the facts
at some length, and expresses his conviction that the Cantons, so
much nearer the scene of the horrors, are already duly roused. He
informs them that he has written to the Duke of Savoy and hopes the
intercession may have effect; but adds, "If, however, he should
determine otherwise, we are prepared to exchange counsels with you
on the subject of the means by which we may be able most
effectively to relieve, re-establish, and save from certain and
undeserved ruin, an innocent people oppressed and tormented by so
many injuries, they being also our dearest brothers in Christ."[2]
[Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy as dispatched, and as
printed in Morland's book, pp. 581-562; but draft dated
"_Westmonasterio, May 19, 1655_" in the Skinner Transcript, the
Printed Collection, and Phillips.]
[Footnote 2: One of the phrases in this letter about the poor
Piedmontese Protestants is "_nunc sine tare, sine teoto, ... per
monies desertos atque nives, cum conjugibus ac liberis, miserrime
vagantur_." The phrase occurs almost verbatim in Morland's speech
to the Duke of Savoy--"_sine lare, sine tecto ... cum suis
conjugibus ac liberis vagari_."]
(LVI.) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _May_ 25,
1655:--To the same effect as the last, _mutatis mutandis_.
What sovereign can be more ready to stir in such a cause than his
Swedish majesty, the successor of those who have been champions of
the Protestantism of Europe? Gladly will the Protector form a
league with him and with other powers to do whatever may be
necessary.
(LVII.) TO THE KING OF DENMARK, May 25, 1655:[1]--An appeal in the
same strain to his Danish Majesty: phraseology varied a little, But
matter the same.
[Footnote 1: This and the last both so dated in official copy as
printed in Morland's book, pp. 554-557; dated only "May 1655" in
Skinner Transcript, Printed Collection, and Phillips.]
(LVIII.) TO LOUIS XIV., KING OF FRANCE, May 25, 1655:[1]--The story
recapitulated for the benefit of his French Majesty, with the
addition that it is reported that some troops of his Majesty had
assisted the Piedmontese soldiery in the attack on the Vaudois.
This the Protector can hardly believe: it would be so much against
that policy of Toleration which the Kings of France have found
essential for the peace of their own dominions. The Protector
cannot doubt, at all events, that his Majesty will use his powerful
influence with the Duke of Savoy to induce him at once, as far as
may be possible, to repair the outrageous wrong already done.
[Footnote 1: This Letter is omitted in the Printed Collection and in
Phillips; but it is given in the Skinner Transcript (No. 38 there),
and Mr. Hamilton has printed it in his Milton Papers (p. 2). It had
already been printed in Morland's book (pp. 564-565).]
(LIX.) TO THE MOST EMINENT LORD, CARDINAL MAZARIN, _May_ 25,
1625:[1]--Not content with writing to Louis XIV., Cromwell
addressed also the great French Minister. After mentioning the
dreadful occasion, the letter proceeds--"There is clearly nothing
which has obtained for the French nation greater esteem with all
their neighbours professing the Reformed Religion than the liberty
and privileges permitted and granted to Protestants by edicts and
public acts. It is for this reason chiefly, though for others as
well, that this Commonwealth has sought for the friendship and
alliance of the French to a greater degree than before. For the
settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings
here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost
brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and
moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most
important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French
Protestants, causes me to hope much from your own prudence and
magnanimity."
[Footnote 1: Utterly undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips,
and quite misplaced in both; properly dated "May 25, 1655" in Skinner
Transcript.]
(LX.) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _May_ 25,
1655:[1]--To the same effect as the letters to the Swiss Cantons
and the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, but with emphatic expression
of his Highness's peculiar confidence In the Dutch Republic in such
a crisis. He offers in the close to act in concert with the
States-General and other Protestant powers for any interference
that may be necessary.
[Footnote 1: So dated in official copy, as printed in Morland's
book, pp. 558-560; but undated in Printed Collection and in
Phillips, and dated "_West., Junii_--1655" in Skinner
Transcript (No. 41 there). This last is a mistake; for Thurloe
speaks of the letter as already written May 25 (Thurloe to Pell,
_Vaughan's Protectorate_, I. 185). The official copy, as given
in Morland, differs somewhat from Milton's draft. "_Ego_" for
Cromwell, in one sentence, is changed into "_Nos;_" and the
closing words of the draft, "_et is demum, sentiet orthodoxnon
injurias atque miserias tam graves non posse nos negligere_" are
omitted in the official copy, possibly as too strong. These may be
among the amendments made in Council, May 23.]
(LXI.) TO THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA, _May_,
1655:[1]--Transylvania, now included in the Austrian Empire, was
then an independent Principality of Eastern Europe, in precarious
and variable relations with Austria, Poland, Russia, and the
Ottoman Empire. The population, a mixture of Wallachs, Magyars.
Germans, and Slavs, was largely Protestant; and the present Prince,
George Ragotzki, was an energetic supporter of the Protestant
interest in that part of Europe, and a man generally of much
political and military activity. He had written, it appears, to
Cromwell on the 16th of November, 1654, and had sent an Envoy to
England with the letter. It had expressed his earnest desire for
friendship and alliance with the Protector, and for co-operation
with him in the defence of the Reformed Religion. Cromwell now
acknowledges the letter and embassy, with high compliments to the
Prince personally, of whose merits and labours there had been so
much fame. This leads him at once to the Piedmontese business. Is
not that an opportunity for the co-operation his Serenity had
mentioned? At any rate, it behoves all Protestant princes to be on
the alert; for who knows how far the Duke of Savoy's example may
spread?
[Footnote 1: Dated so in Skinner Transcript, Printed Collection, and
Phillips--with the addition "Westminster" in the first, and
"Whitehall" in the two last: no copy given in Morland's book.]
(LXII.) TO THE CITY OF GENEVA, _June_ 8, 1655:--This letter
announces the collection in progress in England for the relief of
the Piedmontese Protestants. It will take some time to complete the
collection; but meanwhile the first instalment of £2000 [Cromwell's
personal contribution] is remitted for immediate use. His Highness
is quite sure that the City authorities of Geneva will cheerfully
take charge of the money, and see it distributed among those most
in need. A postscript bids the Genevese expect £1500 of the sum
through Gerard Hensch of Paris, and the remaining £500 through Mr.
Stoupe, a well known travelling agent of Cromwell and Thurloe.
(LXIII.) TO THE KING OF FRANCE, _July_ 29, 1655:--The
Protector here acknowledges an answer received to his previous
letter of May 25. [The answer had been delivered to Morland early
in June, when he was on his way through Paris, and transmitted by
him to the Protector. A translation of it is given in Morland's
book, pp. 566-567.] He is glad to be confirmed in his belief that
the French officers who lent their troops to assist the Piedmontese
soldiery in that bloody business did so without his Majesty's order
and against his will--glad also to learn that these officers have
been rebuked, and that his Majesty has, of his own accord,
remonstrated with the Duke of Savoy, and advised him to stop his
persecution of the Vaudois. As no effect has yet been produced
however, [Morland has by this time delivered his speech at Turin,
and reported the dubious answer given by the Duke of Savoy: ante
pp. 42-43], the Protector is now despatching a special envoy [i.e.
Mr. George Downing] to Turin, to make farther remonstrances. This
envoy will pass through Paris, and his mission will have the
greater chance of success if his Majesty will take the opportunity
of again impressing his views upon the Duke. By so doing, by
punishing those French officers who employed his Majesty's troops
so disgracefully, and by sheltering such of the poor Vaudois as may
have sought refuge in France, his Majesty will earn the respect of
other Powers, and will strengthen the loyalty of his own Protestant
subjects.
(LXIV.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _July_ 29, 1655:--This is a
special note, accompanying the foregoing letter, and introducing
and recommending Mr. Downing to his Eminence.
Besides these official documents for Cromwell on the Piedmontese
business, there came from Milton his memorable Sonnet on the same,
expressing his own feelings, and Cromwell's too, with less restraint.
It may have been in private circulation at the Protector's Court at
the date of the last two of the ten letters:
ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[1]
[Footnote 1: If Morland's speech at Turin was of Milton's
composition, as we have found probable, the contrast between one
phrase in that speech and the opening of this Sonnet is curious. "Do
not, great God, do not seek the revenge due to this iniquity," says
the Speech; "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," says the
Sonnet.]
From the Piedmontese Massacre we have now to revert to Morus. His
_Fides Publica_, in reply to Milton's _Defensio Secunda_, had
been published in an incomplete state, as we have seen, by Ulac at
the Hague in August or September 1654; and Milton had a rejoinder to
this publication ready or nearly ready, as we have also seen, by the
end of March 1655. The reason why this Rejoinder had not already
appeared has now to be stated.
One of Morus's reasons for hurrying into France so unexpectedly, and
leaving his unfinished book in Ulac's hands, seems to have been the
chance of a professorship or pastorship there that would enable him
to quit Holland permanently, and settle at length in his own country.
"Some speak of calling Morus, against whom Mr. Milton writes so
sharply, to be Professor of Divinity at Nismes; but most men say it
will ruin that church," is a piece of Parisian news sent by Pell to
Thurloe in a letter from Zurich dated Oct. 28, 1654;[1] and, with
that prospect, or some other, Morus seems to have remained in France
for some time after that date. When copies of his incomplete _Fides
Publica_ reached him there, he may not have thanked Ulac for
issuing the book in such a state without leave given. All the more,
however, he must have felt himself obliged to complete the book.
Accordingly he did, from France, forward the rest of the MS. to Ulac,
with the result of the appearance at last from Ulac's press of a
supplementary volume with this title: "_Alexandri Mori,
Ecclesiastæ et Sacrarum Litterum Professoris, Supplementum Fidei
Publicæ contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni. Hagae-Comitum, Typis
Adriani Ulacq, 1655._" ("Supplement to the Public Testimony of
Alexander Morus, Churchman and Professor of Sacred Literature, in
reply to the Calumnies of John Milton. Hague: Printed by Adrian
Ulac, 1655.") Ulac prefixes, under the heading "_The Printer to the
Reader_," a brief explanatory Preface. "You have here, good Reader,"
he says, "the missing remainder of the edition of a Treatise which we
lately printed and published under the title _Aleaxandri Mori Fides
Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni_. This remainder that
Reverend gentleman has sent me from France. Of the whole matter judge
as may seem fair and just to you. Let it suffice for me to have
satisfied your curiosity. Farewell." It must have been this
_Supplementum_ of Morus, reaching London perhaps in April 1655,
or perhaps during the first busy correspondence about the Piedmontese
massacre, that delayed the appearance of Milton's already written
Rejoinder to the imperfect _Fides Publica_. He would notice this
"Supplement" as well as the volume already published, and so have
done with Morus altogether.
[Footnote 1: Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 73; where "Mr. Miton"
appears as "Mr. Hulton."]
Morus's _Supplementum_ consists of 105 pages, added to the
original _Fides Publica_, but numbered onwards from the last
page there, so as to admit of the binding of the two volumes into one
volume consecutively paged, though with two title-pages, differently
dated. The matter also proceeds continuously from the point at which
the _Fides Publica_, broke off. Referring to the testimony borne
to his character in the venerable Diodati's Letter from Geneva to
Salmasius, dated May 9, 1648, and connecting it with Milton's mention
of his personal acquaintance with Diodati formed in his visit to
Geneva in 1639, Morus addresses Milton thus:
"This is that John Diodati upon whom you cast no small stain by
your praise, and who truly, if he were alive, would prefer to be in
the number of those who are vituperated by you. Would he
_were_ alive! How he would beat back your pride, not indeed
with other pride, but with the gravest smile of contempt! How he
would despise in his great mind your thoughts, sayings, acts, all
in one! How he would anticipate your fine satire, and, moved with
holy loathing, spit upon it! '_With him_,' you say, '_I had
daily society at Geneva_.' But what did you learn from him? What
of desirable contagion did you carry away from his acquaintance?
Often have we heard him enumerating those friends he had in your
country whom he commended on the score of either learning or
goodness. Of _you_ we never heard a syllable from him."
Then, after telling of his affectionate parting with Diodati at
Geneva, when both, were in tears and the old man blessed him, he
proceeds to quote other Testimonials, either in French or in Latin.
Four more are still from former Swiss friends:--viz. an extract from
another letter of Diodati, addressed to M. L'Empereur; a letter from
M. Sartoris to Salmasius, dated Geneva, April 5, 1648; a testimonial
from the lawyer Gothofridius, dated Geneva, May 24, 1648; and a
subsequent letter from the same, dated Basel, April 23, 1651. All are
very complimentary. Passing then to his life in Holland after leaving
Switzerland, Morus continues the series of his testimonials. We have
first, in French or Latin, or both, a letter from the Church at
Middleburg to the Church at Geneva, dated Nov. 2, 1649, an extract
from a letter of the Synod of the Walloon Churches of the United
Provinces to the Pastors and Professors of Geneva, dated May 6, 1650,
and a testimonial from the Church of Middleburg, on the occasion of
sending M. Morus as deputy to the said Synod, dated April 19, 1650.
More documents of the same kind follow, chiefly for the purpose of
disproving the assertion that M. Morus had been condemned and ejected
by the Middleburg Church. They include an extract from the Acts of
the Consistory of the Walloon Church of Middleburg, dated July 10,
1652, a testimonial from the Middleburg Church of the same date, and
an extract from the Articles of the Synod of the Walloon Churches
held at Groede, Aug. 21-23, 1652. Having thus brought himself, with
ample testimonials of character, to the date of his removal from the
Middleburg Church to the Professorship in Amsterdam, he takes up more
expressly the _Accusatio de Bontid_ or Bontia scandal. He gives
what he calls the true and exact version of that story, with those
details about Madame de Saumaise and her quarrel with him on Bontia's
account which have already appeared in our narrative. He lays stress
on the fact that it was himself that had instituted the law-process,
and persevered in it to the end; and he dwells at some length on the
successful issue of the case both in the Walloon Synod and in the
Supreme Court of Holland. He has evidence, he says, that Salmasius,
to his dying day, spoke in high terms of him, and admitted that
Madame de Saumaise was in the wrong. "This statement has been made,"
he says, "not solely in reply to your insolence, but also out of
regard for the weakness and ignorance of those at a distance who have
imbibed the venom of the calumny and heard of the spiteful revenge to
which I was subject, but not of the unusual sequel of its judicial
discomfiture. All of whom, but especially my friends and countrymen,
amid whom there has happened to me the same that happened to Basil
among _his_ neighbours, I request and beseech by all that is
sacred not rashly to credit mere report, much less the letters which
my adversaries have sent hither and thither through all nations,
especially after they perceived that they were driven from all their
defences at home, judging that they would more easily invest their
lie with belief and authority in distant parts. Fair critics, I doubt
not, will at least suspend their judgment, and not incline to either
side, until there shall have reached them a just narrative of the
facts, truly and freely written by a friend, the publication of which
has hitherto been kept back at my desire." Three additional
testimonials are then appended to show that his reputation had not
suffered in Amsterdam on account of the Saumaise-Bontia scandal, and
especially that the rumour that he had been suspended from
ministerial functions there was utterly untrue. These Amsterdam
testimonials, as being the latest in date, and the most important in
Morus's favour, may be given in abstract:--
_From the Magistrates of Amsterdam, July 11, 1654_:--"Whereas
the Reverend and very learned Mr. Alexander Morus, Professor of
Sacred History in our illustrious School, has complained to us that
one John Milton, in a lately published book, has attacked his
reputation with atrocious calumnies, and has added moreover that
the Magistrates of Amsterdam have interdicted him the pulpit, and
that only his Professorship of Greek remains,... We, &c.,
testify." What they testify is that, since Morus had come to
Amsterdam, "not only had he done nothing which could afford ground
for such calumnies, or was unworthy of a Christian and Theologian,"
but he had also discharged the duties of his Professorship with
extraordinary learning, eloquence and acceptance. So far,
therefore, were the Magistrates from censuring M. Morus that, on
the contrary, they were ready still, on any occasion, to afford him
all the protection and show him all the good will in their power.
The certificate is sealed with the City seal, and signed by "N.
Nicolai," the City clerk.
_From the Amsterdam Church (about same date)_:--Three Pastors
of this Church--Gothofrid Hotton, Henry Blanche-Tete, and Nicolas
de la Bassecour--certify, "in the name of the whole convocation of
the Gallo-Belgie Church of Amsterdam," that Morus discharges his
Professorship with high credit; also "that, as regards his life and
conversation, they are so far from knowing or acknowledging him to
be guilty of those things of which he is accused by one Milton, an
Englishman, in his lately published book, that, on the contrary,
they have frequently requested sermons from him, and he has
delivered such in the church, excellent in quality and perfectly
orthodox,--which could not have occurred if anything of the alleged
kind had been known to his brethren (_quod heud factum fuisset si
hujusmodi quioquam nobis innotuisset_)."
_From the Curators of the Amsterdam School, July 29,
1654_:--To the same effect, with the story of the circumstances
of the appointment of Morus to the Professorship. They had been
very anxious to get him, and he had justified their choice. "We
think the calumnies with which he is undeservedly loaded arise from
nothing else than the ill-will which is the inseparable
accompaniment of especially distinguished virtue." Signed, for the
Curators, by "C. de Graef" and "Simon van Hoorne."
After asking Milton how he can face these flat contradictions of his
charges, not from mere individuals, but from important public bodies,
and saying that "one favourable nod from any one of the persons
concerned would be worth more than the vociferations of a thousand
Miltons to all eternity," Morus corrects Milton's mistake as to the
nature of his Professorship. It is not a Professorship of Greek, but
of Sacred History, involving Greek only in so far as one might refer
in one's lectures to Josephus or the Greek Fathers. But he _had_
been a Professor of Greek--in Geneva, to wit, when little over twenty
years of age. Nor, in spite of all Milton's facetiousness on the
subject of Greek, and his puns on _Morus_ in Greek, was he
ashamed of the fact. "For all learning whatever is Greek, so that
whoever despises Greek Literature, or professors of the same, must
necessarily be a sciolist." And here he detects the reason of
Milton's incessant onslaughts on Salmasius. Milton was evidently
most ambitious of the fame of scholarship, as appeared from his
anticipations of immortality in his Latin poems; and, though he might
be a fair Latinist--not immaculate in Latin either, as he might hear
some time or other from Salmasius himself, though that was a secret
yet--he knew that he could never snatch away from Salmasius the palm
of the highest, i.e. of Greek, scholarship. Morus does not claim for
himself the title of a perfect classic; he is content with his
present position and its duties. Admirable lessons in life are to be
obtained from the study of Church History. Of these not the least is
the verification of the words in the Gospel, "Woe unto you when all
men shall speak well of you." What calumnies had been borne by
Jerome, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and others of the best of
men! With such examples before one, why should an insignificant
person, like the writer, conscious too of many faults and weaknesses,
take calumny too much to heart? This pathetic strain, attained
towards the close of the book, is maintained most skilfully in the
peroration.
"But, if credit enough is not given to my own solemn affirmation,
nor to this Public Testimony, Thee, Lord God, I make finally my
witness, who explorest the inmost recesses of the spirit, who
triest the reins, and knowest the secret motives of the breast, a
Searcher of hearts to whom, as if by thorough dissection, all
things are bare. Thee, God, Thee I call as my witness, who shalt
one day be my Judge and the Judge of all, whether it is not the
case that men see in this heart of mine what Thou seest not. Would
that Thou didst not also see in the same heart what they do not
see! But ah me! I am far baser in reality than they feign.
Suppliantly I adore the will of Thy Providence that permits me to
be falsely accused among men on account of so many hidden faults of
which I am truly guilty in Thy sight. Thou, Lord, saidst to Shimei,
'Curse David.' Glory be to Thy name that hast chosen to preserve
me, exercised with so many griefs, that I may serve Thyself. There
is one great sin discernible in my soul, which I confess before the
whole world. I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength;
that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me
I have not yet turned to full account--whether because I have
followed too much the pleasures of mere study, or whether I have
consumed too much time and labour in refuting the invectives of the
evil-disposed, to whom, such has been Thy pleasure, I have been
constantly an object of attack. Cover the past for me, regulate the
future. Cleared before men, before Thee I shall be cleared never,
unless Thy mercy shall be my succour. I confess I have sinned
against Thee, nor shall I do so more. Thou seest how this paper on
which I write is now all wet with my tears: pardon me, Redeemer
mine, and grant that the vow I now take to Thee I may sacredly
perform. Let a thousand dogs bark at me, a thousand bulls of Bashan
rush upon me, as many lions war against my soul, and threaten me
with destruction, I will reply no more, defended enough if only I
feel Thee propitious. I will no more waste the time due to Thee,
sacred to Thee, in mere trifles, or lose it in beating off the
importunity of moths. Whatever extent of life it shall please Thee
to appoint me still, I vow, I dedicate, all to Thee, all to Thy
Church. So shall we be revenged on our enemies. Convert us all,
Thou who only canst. Forgive us, forgive them also; nor to us, nor
to them, but to Thy name, be the glory!"
Milton read this, but was not moved. On the 8th of August, 1655,
there was published his Rejoinder to the original _Fides
Publica_, with his notice of the _Supplementum_ appended. It
is a small volume of 204 pages, entitled _Joannis Miltoni_, _Angli_,
_Pro Se Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum_, _Ecclesiasten_, _Libelli
famosi_, _cui titulus 'Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cælum adversus
Parricidas Anglicanus'_, _authorem recte dictum. Londini_, _Typis
Newcomianis_, 1655 ("The English, John Milton's Defence for
Himself, in reply to Alexander Morus, Churchman, rightly called the
author of the notorious book entitled 'Cry of the King's Blood to
Heaven against the English Parricides,' London, from Newcome's Press,
1655"). This is perhaps the least known now of all Milton's writings.
It has never been translated, even in the wretched fashion in which
his _Defensio Prima_ and _Defensio Secunda_ have been; and
it is omitted altogether in some professed editions of Milton's whole
works.[1]
[Footnote 1: The date of publication is from the Thomason copy in the
British Museum.]
After a brief Introduction, in which Milton remarks that the quarrel,
which was originally for Liberty and the English People, has now
dwindled into a poor personal one, he discusses afresh, as the first
real point in dispute, the question of the authorship of the _Regii
Sanguinis Clamor_. Morus's denials, or seeming denials, go for
nothing. Any man may deny anything; there are various ways of denial;
and he still maintains that Morus is, to all legal intents and
purposes, responsible for the book. "Unless I show this." he says,
"unless I make it plain either that you are the author of that most
notorious book against us, or that you have given sufficient occasion
for justly regarding you as the author, I do not object to the
conclusion that I have been beaten by you in this controversy, and
come out of it ignominiously, with disgrace and shame." How is this
strong statement supported? In the first place, there is reproduced
the evidence of original, universal, and persistent rumour. "This I
say religiously, that through two whole years I met no one, whether a
countryman of my own or a foreigner, with whom there could be talk
about that book, but they all agreed unanimously that you were called
its author, and they named no one for the author but you." To Morus's
assertion that he had openly, loudly, and energetically disowned the
book, where suspected of the authorship, Milton returns a complex
answer. Partly he does not believe the assertion, on the ground that
there were many who had heard Morus confessing to the book and
boasting of it. Partly he asks why such energetic repudiations were
necessary, and why, in spite of them, intimate friends of Morus
retained their former opinion. Partly he admits that there may
latterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was danger
in being thought the author. Any criminal will deny his crime in
sight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus had
reason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the _Regii
Sanguinis Clamor_ was forthcoming, what had not the author of that
book to dread after the Peace between the Dutch and the Commonwealth
had been concluded? By articles IX., X., and XI. of the Peace it was
provided that no public enemy of the Commonwealth should have
residence, shelter, living, or commerce, within the bounds of the
United Provinces; and who more a public enemy of the Commonwealth
than the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_? No wonder that,
after that Peace, Morus had trembled for the consequences of his
handiwork. The loss of his Amsterdam Professorship, instant ejection
from Holland, and prohibition of return under pain of death, were
what he had to fear. Were not these powerful enough motives for
denial to a man like Morus? Had not Milton, when he learnt by letters
from Durie in May 1654 that Morus was disowning--the book, been
entitled to remember these motives? For what other evidence had been
produced besides Morus's own word? His friend Hotton's only; and that
was no independent testimony, but only Morus's at second hand. And
even now, after Morus's repeated and studiously-worded denials in his
_Fides Publica_, how did the case stand?
"That book [the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_] consists of various
prooemia and epilogues [i.e. addition to the central text]--to wit,
_An Epistle to Charles_, another _To the Reader_, and two
sets of verses at the close, one eulogistic of Salmasius, the other
in defamation of me. Now, if I find that you wrote or contributed
any page of this whole book, even a single verse, or that you
published it, or procured it, or advised it, or superintended the
publishing, or even lent the smallest particle of aid therein, you
alone, since no one else is to the fore, shall be to me responsible
for the whole, the author, the 'Crier'. Nor can you call this
merely my severity or vehemence; for this is the procedure
established among almost all nations by right and laws of equity. I
will adduce, as universally accepted, the Imperial Civil Law. Read
_Institut. Justiniani l. IV. De Injuriis, Tit. 4_: 'If any one
shall write, compose, or publish, or with evil design cause the
writing, composing, or publishing, of a book or poem (or story) for
the defamation of any one,' &c. Other laws add 'Even should he
publish in the name of another, or without name;' and all decree
that the person is to be taken for the author and punished as such.
I ask you now, not whether you wrote the text of the _Regii
Sanguinis Clamor_, but whether you made, wrote, published, or
caused to be published, the Epistle Dedicatory to Charles prefixed
to the _Clamor_, or any particle thereof; I ask whether you
composed or caused to be published the other Epistle to the Reader,
or finally that Defamatory Poem, You have replied nothing yet to
these precise questions. By merely disowning the _Clamor_
itself and strenuously swearing that you wrote no portion of it,
you thought to escape with safe credit, and make game of us,
inasmuch as the Epistle to Charles the Son, or that to the Reader,
or the set of Iambic verses, is not the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_. Take now this in brief, therefore, that you may not be
able so to wheel about or prevaricate in future, or hope for any
escape or concealment, and that all may know how far from
mendacious, how veritable on the contrary, or at least not
unfounded, was that report which arose about you: take, I say, this
in brief,--that I have ascertained, not by report alone, but by
testimony than which none can be surer, that you managed the
bringing out of the whole book entitled _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_, and corrected the printer's proofs, and composed,
either alone, or in association with one or two others, the Epistle
to Charles II. which bears Ulac's name. Of this your own name
'ALEXANDER MORUS,' subscribed to some copies of that Epistle, has
been too clear and ocular proof to many witnesses of the fact for
you to be able to deny the charge or to get rid of it.... There are
several who have heard yourself either admit, on interrogation,
that that Epistle is yours, or declare the fact spontaneously....
If you ask on what evidence I, at such a distance, make these
statements, and how they can have become so certain to myself, I
reply that it is not on the evidence of rumour merely, but partly
on that of most scrupulous witnesses who have most solemnly made
the assertions to myself personally, partly on that of letters
written either to myself or to others. I will quote the very words
of the letters, but will not give the names of the writers,
considering that unnecessary in matters of such notoriety
independently. Here you have first an extract from a letter to me
from the Hague, the writer of which is a man of probity and had no
common means of investigating this affair:--'I have ascertained
beyond doubt (_exploratissimum mihi est_) that Morus himself
offered the copy of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_ to some other
printers before Ulac received it, that he superintended the
correction of the errors of the press, and that, as soon as the
book was finished, copies were given and distributed by him to not
a few.'... Take again the following, which a highly honourable and
intelligent man in Amsterdam writes as certainly known to himself
and as abundantly witnessed there:--'It is most certain that almost
all through these parts have regarded Morus as the author of the
book called _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_; for he corrected the
sheets as they came from the press, and some copies bore the name
of Morus subscribed to the Dedicatory Epistle, of which also he
was the author. He himself told a certain friend of mine that he
was the author of that Epistle: nay there is nothing more certain
than that Morus either assumed or acknowledged the authorship of
the same.' ... I add yet a third extract. It is from another letter
from the Hague:--'A man of the first rank in the Hague has told me
that he has in his possession a copy of the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_ with Morus's own letter.'"
Farther on Milton re-adverts to the same topic, in a passage which it
is also well to quote:
"You say you 'will produce not rumours merely, not conversations
merely, but letters, in proof that I had been warned not to assail
an innocent man.' Let us then inspect the letter you publish, which
was written to you by 'that highly distinguished man, Lord
Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation,'--a letter, it is
evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of
proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He--and it
shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man'
(for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble
on your most unworthy account?)--goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He
communicates your letter to Mr. Secretary. When he saw that he had
no success, he sends to me two honourable persons, friends of mine,
with that same letter of yours. What do they do? They read me that
letter of Morus, and they request, and say that Ambassador Nieuport
also requests, that I will trust to your letter in which you deny
being the author of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_. I answered
that what they asked was not fair--that neither was Morus's word
worth so much, nor was it customary to believe, in contradiction to
common report and other ascertained evidence, the mere letter of an
accused person and an adversary denying what was alleged against
him. They, having nothing more to say on the other side, give up
the debate.... When afterwards the Ambassador wanted to persuade
Mr. Secretary Thurloe, he had still no argument to produce but the
same copy of your letter; whence it is quite clear that those
'reasons' brought to me 'for which he desired' me to be so good as
not to publish my book had nothing to do with reasons of State. Do
not then corrupt the Ambassador's letter. Nothing there of 'hostile
spirit,' nothing of the 'inopportune time;' all he writes is that
he 'is sorry I had chosen, notwithstanding his request, to show so
little moderation'--sorry, that is, that I had not chosen, at his
private request, to oblige you, a public adversary, and to recall
and completely rewrite a work already printed and all but out. Let
'the highly distinguished man,' especially as an Ambassador, hold
me excused if I would not, and really could not, condone public
injuries on private intercessions."