countrymen in the West Indies without any satisfaction or
vengeance; if we consent to be all excluded from that so important
part of the world; if we permit our bitter and inveterate enemy
(especially now that peace has been made with the Dutch) to carry
home unmolested those huge treasures from the West Indies, by
which he can repair his present losses, and restore his affairs to
such a condition that he shall be able again to betake himself to
that deliberation of his in 1588 'whether it would be more prudent
to begin with England for the recovery of the United Provinces of
Holland, or to begin with them for the subjugation of
England';--beyond a doubt he will find for himself not fewer, but
even more reasons, why the beginning should now be made with
England. And, should God permit him ever to carry out these
designs, then we should have good grounds for expecting that on us
first, but eventually on all Protestants wheresoever, there would
be wreaked the residue of that most brutal massacre suffered lately
by our brothers in the Alpine valleys: which massacre, if credit is
to be given to the published complaints of those poor orthodox
Christians, was originally schemed and appointed in the secret
councils of the Spanish Court, through the agency of those paltry
friars whom they call missionaries (_per illos fraterculos
missionarios quos vacant Hispanicæ aulæ consiliis intimis
informata primitus ac designata erat_)."
How far Milton's hand helped in this important document of the
Protectorate may fairly be a question. The substance was probably
drafted by the Council and Thurloe, and only handed to Milton for
re-expression and translation; nay, it is possible that even in the
work of translation, to save time, Milton and Meadows may have been
partners. All in all, however, as the proofs are all but certain that
Milton's hand was to _some_ extent employed in the document, it
may mark his return to ordinary official work in Oct.-Nov. 1655,
after three months of renewed exemption from such work, following his
batch of state-letters on the subject of the Massacre in
Piedmont.[1]
[Footnote 1: The _Scriptum Domini Protectoris contra Hispanos_
was reprinted, as indubitably Milton's, in 1738, and again in 1741,
to assist in rousing British feeling afresh against Spain; and Birch
and all succeeding editors of Milton have agreed in regarding it as
his. Godwin, however (_Hist. of Commonwealth_, IV. 217-219,
footnote), suggests doubts.]
What adds to the probability that Cromwell's Manifesto against Spain,
dated Oct. 26, 1655, and published Nov. 9, was partly of Milton's
composition, is the fact, to which we have now to request attention,
that he did about this time resume ordinary office-work to an extent
beyond expectation. The following is a list of Letters to Foreign
States and Princes written by him for Cromwell from Dec. 1655 to May
1656 inclusively. Two or three of them are important Cromwellian
documents, and require elucidation:--
(LXV.) TO THE DOGE OF VENICE, _Dec. 1655_:--His Highness
congratulates the Venetians upon their recent naval victory over
the Turks, but brings to their notice the fact that among the ships
they had taken in that victory there was an English one, called
_The Great Prince_, belonging to William and Daniel Williams
and Edward Beal, English merchants. She had been pressed by the
Turks at Constantinople, and employed as a transport for Turkish
soldiers and provisions to Crete. The crew had been helpless in the
affair, and the owners blameless; and his Highness does not doubt
that the Doge and Senate will immediately give him a token of their
friendship by causing the ship to be restored.--The naval victory
of the Venetians was, doubtless, that which Morus had celebrated
In the Latin poem for which he received his gold chain (ante pp.
212-213).
(LXVI.) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, Dec. 1655:--Samuel Mico, William
Cockain, George Poyner, and other English merchants have petitioned
his Highness about a ship of theirs, called _The Unicorn_,
which had been seized in the Mediterranean as long ago as 1650 by
the Admiral and Vice-Admiral of the French fleet, with a cargo
worth £34,000. The capture was originally unfair, as there was then
peace between England and France, and express promises had been
recently given by Cardinal Mazarin and the French Ambassador, M. de
Bordeaux, that amends would be made as soon as the Treaty with
France was complete. That happily being now the case, his Highness
expects from his Majesty the indemnification of the said merchants
as "the first-fruits of the renewed friendship and recently formed
alliance."
(LXVII.) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Jan._ 1655-56:[1]--His
Highness has been informed of very extraordinary conduct on the
part of the French Governor of Belleisle in the Bay of Biscay. On
the 10th of December last, or thereabouts, he not only admitted
into his port one Dillon, a piratic enemy of the English
Commonwealth, and assisted him with supplies, but also prevented
the recapture of a merchant ship from the said Dillon by Captain
Robert Vessey of the _Nightingale_ war-ship, and further
secured Dillon's escape when Vessey had fought him and had him at
his mercy. All this is, of course, utterly against the recent
Treaty: and his Majesty will doubtless take due notice of the
Governor's conduct and give satisfaction.
[Footnote 1: Not in the Printed Collection nor in Phillips; but in
the Skinner Transcript (No. 46 there), and printed thence in
Hamilton's Milton Papers (p. 4).]
(LXVIII.) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _Jan._ 1655-6. To
understand this important letter it is necessary to remember that
in 1653 there had broken out, for the second or third time, a Civil
War of Religion among the Swiss. The Popish Cantons of Schwytz,
Uri, Zug, Unterwalden, Luzern, &c., had quarrelled with the
Protestant or Evangelical Cantons of Zurich, Basel, Schaffhausen,
Bern, Glarus, Appenzell, &c.; and, as the Popish Cantons trusted to
help from surrounding Catholic powers, the Confederation and Swiss
Protestantism were in peril. It had been to watch events and
proceedings in this struggle that Cromwell had sent into
Switzerland, early in 1654, Mr. John Pell and Mr. John Durie, as
his agents (ante p. 41). Durie had remained only about a year; but
Pell was still there, reinforced now by Morland, who, after his
special mission to the Duke of Savoy on the business of the
Piedmontese Massacre of April 1655, had taken up his abode in
Geneva to superintend the distributing of the money collected for
the Piedmontese Protestants. That massacre had been ominous to the
Swiss, and had complicated the strife between the Popish and the
Evangelical Cantons. In the Popish Cantons, especially that of
Schwytz, there had been severe persecutions of Protestant
Dissenters; the union of these Cantons among themselves and their
Anti-Protestant temper had become stronger; and altogether the news
from Switzerland was bad. Application had been made by the
Evangelical Cantons, through Pell, for help from Cromwell, similar
application being made at the same time to the Dutch; and the
following is Cromwell's answer:--"Both from your public acts
transmitted to us by our Commissioners at Geneva [Pell and
Morland], and from your letter dated at Zürich, Dec. 27, we
understand abundantly in what condition your affairs are.--too
abundantly, since it is none of the best. Wherein, though we grieve
to find your peace at an end and so lasting a Confederacy ruptured,
yet, as it appears that this has happened by no fault on your part,
we trust that hence, from the very iniquity and obstinacy of your
adversaries, there is again being furnished you only so much new
occasion for displaying your courage and your long-known constancy
in the Evangelical Faith. For what the Schwytz Cantoners are
driving at in their resolution to make it a capital offence in any
one to embrace our Religion, and who they are that have instigated
them to proceedings of such a hostile spirit to the Orthodox Faith,
no one can avoid knowing who has not yet forgotten that foul
slaughter of our brethren in Piedmont. Wherefore, well-beloved
friends, as you always have been, be still, by God's help, brave;
do not yield your rights and federate privileges, nay, Liberty of
Conscience and Religion itself, to be trampled on by worshippers of
idols; and so prepare yourselves that you may not only appear the
champions of your own liberty and safety, but may be able also to
succour and stand by your neighbouring brethren by all means in
your power, especially those most sorrow-stricken Piedmontese:
firmly persuaded of this, that the intention was to have opened a
passage to your persons over their bodies and deaths. For my part,
be assured [the expression in the singular: _de me scitote_]
that your safety and prosperity are no less my care and anxiety
than if this fire had broken out in this our own Commonwealth, or
than if those axes of the Schwytz Cantoners had been sharpened, and
their swords drawn (as they veritably are, for all the Reformed are
concerned), for our own necks. No sooner, therefore, have we been
informed of the state of your affairs, and the obdurate temper of
your enemies, than, taking counsel with some very honourable
persons, and some ministers of the Church of highest esteem for
their piety, on the subject of the assistance it might be possible
to send you consistently with our own present requirements, we have
come to those resolutions which our agent Pell will communicate to
you. For the rest, we cease not to commend to the favour of
Almighty God all your plans, and the protection of this most
righteous cause of yours, whether in peace or in war."--From a
private letter of Thurloe's to Pell, of the same date as this
official one, we learn that the persons consulted by Cromwell on
the occasion were the Committee for the Piedmontese Collection
(ante pp. 40-41), his Highness regarding the Piedmontese business
and the Swiss business as radically identical, and desiring to
prepare the public mind for exertions, if necessary, in behalf of
Swiss Protestantism as extraordinary as those that had been made
for the Piedmontese. The conferences on the subject were very
earnest, with the result that his Highness instructed Pell to offer
the Cantons of Zürich and Bern a subsidy of £20,000, at the rate of
£5000 a month, on security for repayment--the first £5000, however,
to be sent immediately, without waiting for such security.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Thurloe's Letter in Vaughan's _Protectorate_,
I, 334-337.]
(LXIX.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Feb._ 1655-6:[1]--This
letter also is very important, though less in itself than in its
circumstances; and it requires introduction.--Charles X., or
Charles Gustavus (Karl Gustav), the successor of Queen Christina on
the Swedish throne, was proving himself a man of energy. Chancellor
Oxenstiern, so long the leading statesman of Sweden, had died in
Aug. 1654, just after the accession of Charles; and under the new
King, with the younger Oxenstiern for his Chancellor, Sweden had
entered on a career of war, which was to continue through his whole
reign, and the aim of which was little less than the extension of
Sweden into an Empire across the Baltic. He had begun with Poland,
between which and Sweden there was an old feud, and the King of
which then was John Casimir. Other powers, however, had been
immediately stirred by the war. Denmark, Russia, and the German
empire generally, were interested in saving Poland, and therefore
tended to an alliance against Karl Gustav; while, on the other
hand, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm, found it
convenient for the present, in the interests of his Prussian
possessions, to be on the side of Sweden. Cromwell had not been
likely at first to interfere directly in such a complicated
continental quarrel; and, indeed, as we have seen from a previous
letter of his to the Swedish King (ante p. 166), his first feeling
on hearing of the Swedish movements on the Continent had been that
of regret at the disturbance of the Peace of Westphalia. Still
Sweden was a power which commanded Cromwell's respect. Nor was
Charles X., on his side, less anxious to retain the friendship of
the great English Protector. On succeeding Christina he had
accepted and ratified her Treaty with Cromwell--"Whitlocke's
Treaty," as it may be called; he had sent a Mr. PETER COYET to be
Swedish Resident in London; and, after he had begun his Polish war,
there was nothing he desired more than some yet closer partnership
between himself and Cromwell, that might unite Sweden and England
in a common European policy. Accordingly, in July 1655, Charles X.
being then in camp in Poland, there had arrived in London a
splendid Swedish embassy extraordinary, consisting of COUNT
CHRISTIERN BUNDT, and other noblemen and gentlemen, with
attendants, to the number of two hundred persons in all, "generally
proper handsome men and fair-haired." Whitlocke, who was naturally
called in by the Protector on this occasion, describes with unusual
gusto the reception of the Embassy. There was a magnificent
torchlight procession of coaches, most of them with six horses, to
convey the Ambassador and his suite from Tower Wharf, where they
landed, to Sir Abraham Williams's house in Westminster; there were
feastings and other entertainments, at the Lord Protector's charge,
for three days; and at length on the third day Count Bundt had
audience in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in the midst of a
great assembly, with ladies in the galleries. It was difficult to
say whether in this audience the Ambassador or the Protector
acquitted himself best. "The Ambassador's people," says Whitlocke,
"were all admitted into the room, and made a lane within the rails
in the midst of the room. At the upper end, upon a footpace and
carpet, stood the Protector, with a chair of state behind him, and
divers of his Council and servants about him. The Master of the
Ceremonies [still Sir Oliver Fleming] went before the Ambassador on
the left side; the Ambassador, in the middle, betwixt me and
Strickland, went up in the open lane of the room. As soon as they
[the Ambassador and his immediate suite] came within the room, at
the lower end of the lane, they put off their hats, the Ambassador
a little while after the rest; and, when he was uncovered, the
Protector also put off his hat, and answered the Ambassador's three
salutations in his coming up to him; and on the foot-pace they
saluted each other as friends usually do; and, when the Protector
put on his hat, the Ambassador put on his as soon as the other.
After a little pause, the Ambassador put off his hat, and began to
speak, and then put it on again; and, whensoever in his speech he
named the King his master, or Sweden, or the Protector, or England,
he moved his hat: especially if he mentioned anything of God, or
the good of Christendom, he put off his hat very low; and the
Protector still answered him in the like postures of civility." The
speech, which was in Swedish, but immediately translated into Latin
by the Ambassador's secretary, was to the effect that the King of
Sweden desired to propound to His Highness some matters for
additional treaty. Cromwell's reply, delivered in English, which
the Ambassador understood, was to the effect that he was very
willing to enter into "a nearer and more strict alliance" with the
King of Sweden and would nominate some persons to hear Count
Bundt's proposals.--All this had been in the last days of July
1655; but, though there had been subsequent audiences of the
Ambassador, and banquets given to him and the other chief Swedes by
the Protector himself at Hampton Court, August had passed, and
September, and October, and November, and still the actual Treaty
had been avoided. Other things engrossed the Protector--the Treaty
with France, the West-India Expedition, the beginning of the War
with Spain, &c. But in Count Bundt there had been sent to Cromwell
perhaps the most high-tempered ambassador he had ever seen.
Immediately after the first audience, Dorset House, in Fleet
Street, taken and furnished at the Ambassador's own expense, had
become the head-quarters of the Embassy; and here, as month after
month had passed without approach to real business, his impatience
had flashed into fierceness. It broke out in his talk to Whitlocke,
who took every opportunity of being with him, the rather because
other "grandees" held aloof. "No Commissioners being yet come to
the Swedish Ambassador," writes Whitlocke, under date Dec. 1655,
"he grew into some high expressions of his sense of the neglect to
his master by this delay; which I did endeavour to excuse, and
acquainted the Protector with it, who thereupon promised to have it
mended." In truth, the warlike Swedish King had become by this time
a man whose embassy compelled attention. "_Letters of the success
of the Swedes in Poland and Lithuania," "Letters of the Swedes'
victory against the Muscovites," "The Swedes had good success in
Poland and Moscovia," "An Agreement made between the King of Sweden
and the Elector of Brandenburg:_" such had been pieces of
foreign news recently coming in. Accordingly, in January 1655-6,
Whitlocke, Fiennes, Strickland, and Sir Gilbert Pickering, had been
empowered, on the Protector's part, to treat with Count Bundt, and
the Treaty had begun.--There were preliminary difficulties,
however. Cromwell wanted a Treaty that should include the Dutch and
the King of Denmark, and be, in fact, a League of the chief
Protestant Powers of Europe in behalf of general Protestant
interests; Count Bundt, on the other hand, pressed that special
League between England and Sweden which he had come to propound,
arguing that, while it would be more advantageous to both countries
in the meantime, it might be extended afterwards. For a while there
was danger of wreck on this preliminary difference; and Cromwell
even talked of transferring the Treaty to Stockholm and sending
Whitlocke thither for the second time as
Ambassador-Plenipotentiary--greatly to Whitlocke's horror, who had
no desire for another such journey, and a good deal to Count
Bundt's displeasure, who thought himself and his mission slighted.
At length, the Ambassador having signified that he had received new
instructions from his master, which would enable him to meet
Cromwell's views in some points, he was allowed to have his own way
in the main; and in February 1655-6 the Treaty was on foot, both in
the Council meetings at Whitehall, and in meetings of Whitlocke and
the other English Commissioners with the Ambassador at Dorset
House. "A long debate touching levies of soldiers and hiring of
ships in one another's dominions;" "long debates touching
contraband goods, in which list were inserted by the Council corn,
hemp, pitch, tar, money, and other things:" such are Whitlocke's
descriptions of the Dorset House meetings. The Treaty, in fact, was
partly commercial and partly political, pointing to new advantages
for England, but also to new responsibilities, all round the Baltic
and throughout Germany. In the debates no one more resolute, no one
more clear-headed, no one more contemptuous when he pleased, than
Count Bundt; and he had, it appears, a very able second in his
subordinate, the Swedish Resident in ordinary, Mr. Coyet.--In the
midst of these laborious debates over the Treaty news had arrived
of the birth at Stockholm of a son and heir to the Swedish King.
The birth of this Prince, afterwards Charles XI. of Sweden,
occasioned a grand display of loyalty at the Swedish Embassy in
London. "Feb. 20," writes Whitlocke, "the Swedish Ambassador kept a
solemnity this evening for the birth of the young Prince of Sweden.
All the glass of the windows of his house, which were very large,
being new-built, were taken off, and instead thereof painted papers
were fitted to the places, with the arms of Sweden upon them, and
inscriptions in great letters testifying the rejoicing for the
birth of the young Prince: on the inside of the papers in the rooms
were set close to them a very great number of lighted candles,
glittering through the painted papers: the arms and colours and
writings were plainly to be discerned, and showed glorious, in the
street: the like was in the staircase, which had the form of a
tower. In the balconies on each side of the house were trumpets,
which sounded often seven or eight of them, together. The company
at supper were the Dutch Ambassador, the Portugal and Brandenburg
Residents, Mynheer Coyet, Resident for Sweden, the Earls of Bedford
and Devon, the Lords St. John, Ossory, Bruce, Ogilvie, and two or
three other young lords, the Count of Holac (a German), the Lord
George Fleetwood, and a great many knights and gentlemen, besides
the Ambassador's company. It was a very great feast, of seven
courses. The Swedish Ambassador was very courteous to me; but the
Dutch and others were reserved towards me, and I as much to
them."--Milton's Letter to the Swedish King in Cromwell's name
relates itself to this last incident. The King had written
specially to Cromwell announcing the happy news of the birth of his
son and heir; and Cromwell replies in this fashion:--"As it is
universally understood that all concerns of friends, whether
adverse or prosperous, ought to be of mutual and common interest
among them, the performance by your Majesty of the most agreeable
duty of friendship, by vouchsafing to impart to us your joy by
express letters from yourself, cannot but be extremely gratifying
to us, in regard that it is a sign of singular and truly kingly
civility in you, indisposed as you are to live merely for yourself,
so to be indisposed even to keep a joy to yourself, without feeling
that your friends and allies participate in the same. We duly
rejoice, therefore, in the birth of a Prince, to be the son of so
excellent a King, and the heir, we hope, of his father's valour and
glory; and we congratulate you on the same happy coincidence of
domestic good fortune and success in the field with which of old
that King of renowned fortitude, Philip of Macedon, was
congratulated--the birth of whose son Alexander and his conquest of
the powerful nation of the Illyrians are said to have been
simultaneous. For we make no question but the wresting of the
Kingdom of Poland by your arms from the Papal Empire, as it were a
horn from the head of the Beast, and your Peace made with the Duke
of Brandenburg, to the great satisfaction of all the pious, though
with growls from your adversaries, will be of very great
consequence for the peace and profit of the Church. May God grant
an end worthy of such signal beginnings; may He grant you a son
like his father in virtue, piety, and achievements! All which we
truly expect and heartily pray of God Almighty, already so
propitious to your affairs,"--It is clear that Cromwell desired to
be all the more polite to the Swedish monarch because of the long
delay of the Treaty with Count Bundt. That Treaty was going on
slowly; and we shall hear more of Milton in connexion with it.[2]
[Footnote 1: So dated in Printed Collection, Phillips, and Skinner
Transcript.]
[Footnote 2: Whitlocke, IV. 208-227; i.e. from July 1655 to Feb. 20,
1655-6.]
(LXX.) To FREDERICK III., KING OF DENMARK, _Feb._
1655-6(?)[1]:--John Freeman, Philip Travis, and other London
merchants, have represented to his Highness that a ship of theirs
was seized and detained by the Danish authorities in March 1653
because the Captain tried to slip past Elsinore without paying the
toll. He was a Dutchman and had done this dishonestly on his own
account, that he might pocket the money. There had been
negotiations on the subject with the Danish Ambassador when there
had been one in London, and redress had been promised; but, though
the merchants had since sent an agent to Copenhagen, the only
effect had been to add expense to their loss. By the Danish law it
is the master of a ship that is punishable for the offence of
evading toll, and the ship may be condemned, but not the goods. The
offender in this case is now dead, but left a confession; the sum
evaded was small; the cargo detained was worth £3000; will his
Majesty see that the goods are restored, with reparation?
[Footnote 1: Quite undated in Printed Collection, Phillips, and
Skinner Transcript, but conjecturally of about this date.]
(LXXI.) TO THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES,
_April_ 1, 1656:--A complaint in behalf of Thomas Bussel,
Richard Beare, and other English merchants. A ship of theirs,
called _The Edmund and John_, on her voyage from Brazil to
Lisbon, was seized long ago by a privateer of Flushing, commanded
by a Lambert Bartelson. The ship itself and the personal property
of the sailors had been restored; but not the goods of the
merchants. The Judges in Holland had not done justice in their
case; and now, after long litigation, an appeal is made to the
chief authority.
(LXXII.) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _April_ 9, 1656 (?): This is
the Credential Letter of LOCKHART, going on his embassy to the
French King. As Lockhart was by far the most eminent of the
Protector's envoys, it may be translated entire: "WILLIAM LOCKHART,
to whom We have given this letter to be carried to your Majesty, is
a Scot by nation, of an honourable house, beloved by us, known for
his very great fidelity, valour, and integrity of character. He,
that he may reside in France, and be with you, so as to be able
assiduously to signify to you my singular respect for your Majesty,
and my desire not only for the preservation of peace between us but
also for the perpetuation of friendship, has received from us the
amplest instructions. We request, therefore, that you will receive
him kindly, and give him gracious audience as often as there may be
occasion, and place absolutely the same trust in whatsoever may be
said and settled by him in our name as if the same things had been
said and settled by Ourselves in person. We shall hold them all as
ratified. Meanwhile we pray all peace and prosperity for your
Majesty and your kingdom."
(LXXIII.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _April_ 9, 1656 (?):--A Letter
accompanying the above, and introducing LOCKHART specially to the
Cardinal. It is also worth translating entire: "Seeing the affairs
of France most happily administered by your counsels, and daily
increasing in prosperity to such a degree that your high popularity
and high authority in government are justly increased and enlarged
accordingly, I have thought it fit, when sending an ambassador to
your King with letters and instructions, to recommend him also most
expressly to your Eminence: to wit, WILLIAM LOCKHART, a man of
honourable family, closely related to us, and respected by us
besides for his singular trustworthiness. Wherefore your Eminence
may receive as our own whatsoever shall be communicated by him in
our name, and may also freely commit and entrust to him in my
confidence whatever you shall think fit to communicate in return.
From him too you will learn more at large, what I now again
profess, as more than once already, how high is my feeling of your
great services to France, and what a well-wisher I am to your
reputation and dignity."[1]
[Footnote 1: Neither of these Letters about Lockhart is in the
Printed Collection or in Phillips; but both are in the Skinner
Transcript (Nos. 110 and 111 there), whence they have been printed
by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 9-10). He dates
them both, as in the Transcript, "_West., Aug._ 1658;" but that
is clearly a mistake, and the letters are out of their proper places
in the Transcript. Lockhart was nominated for the Embassy in Dec.
1655, and he "took ship at Rye on the 14th of April, 1656, on his way
to France" (see a letter of Thurloe's to Pell in Vaughan's
_Protectorate_, I. 376-377). I have ventured to affix the exact
date "April 9, 1656" to the two letters, because it is on that day
that I find Lockhart's departure on his embassy definitely settled
in the Council Order Books. Before "Aug. 1658" Lockhart had known
Louis XIV. and the Cardinal intimately for more than two years and
needed no introduction.]
(LXXIV.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _April_ 17,
1656:--Another extremely polite letter of the Protector to his
Swedish Majesty, marking a farther stage in the proceedings of the
Swedish Treaty.--That Treaty had been going on at Dorset House, the
Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Resident, continuing their
colloquies with Whitlocke. Fiennes, and Strickland, about pitch,
tar, hemp, mutual privileges of trade between England and Sweden,
trade also with Prussia, Poland, and Russia, and all the other
items of the Treaty, and the Ambassador always pushing on the
business and chafing at the slow progress made. Again and again he
had taken serious offence at something. Once it was because,
waiting on the Protector at Whitehall, he had been kept
half-an-hour before the Protector appeared. It was with difficulty
he was prevented from going away without seeing his Highness; "he
durst not for his head," he said, "admit of such dishonour to his
master"; he had to be pacified by an apology. Then, when he did see
the Protector, he had fresh cause for dissatisfaction. The
propositions of the Treaty, as agreed upon so far between the
Commissioners and the Ambassador, having been reported to the
Council, and there having been a discussion on them there, Thurloe
taking a chief part, new hesitations and difficulties had arisen,
so that, when Cromwell conversed with Count Bundt, the Count was
amazed to find his Highness cooler about the Treaty altogether than
he had expected, and again harping on Protestant interests and the
necessity of including the Dutch. The Count seems then to have
broken bounds in his talk about the Protector to Whitlocke and
others. In his own country, Sweden, he said, "when a man professed
sincerity, they understood it to be plain and clear dealing"; if a
man meant _Yea_ he said _Yea_, and if he meant _No_
he said _No_; but in England it seemed to be different. The
explanations and soft words of Whitlocke and the rest having calmed
him down again, the Treaty proceeded.--One of the most important
meetings at Dorset House, by Whitlocke's account, was on the 8th of
April. Mr. Jessop, as one of the Clerks of the Council, was there
by appointment, and read "the new Articles in English as they were
drawn up according to the last resolves of the Council." A long
debate on the Articles followed. The Ambassador begged "to be
excused if he should mistake anything of the sense of them, they
being in English, which he could not so well understand as if they
had been in Latin, which they must be put into in conclusion; but
he did observe," &c. In fact, he restated his objections to making
pitch, tar, hemp, flax, and sails, contraband, as they were the
staple produce of Sweden. Lord Fiennes, in reply, premised: "that
the Articles were brought in English for the saving of time, and
they should be put in Latin when his Excellency should desire," and
then discussed the main subject. Whitlocke followed, and the
Ambassador again, and Fiennes again, all in English; and "Mynheer
Coyet then spake in Latin, that pitch, tar, and hemp were not in
their own nature, nor by the law of nations, esteemed contraband
goods," &c. Strickland said a few words in reply, and then
Whitlocke made a longer and more lawyer-like answer to Mynheer
Coyet,--also, as he takes care to tell us, speaking in Latin. The
discussion, which was long protracted, and extended to other
topics, was closed by the Ambassador; who said "he desired a copy
of these Articles now debated, and, if they pleased, that he might
have it in Latin, which he would consider of." This was
promised.--The meeting so described was nearly the last in which
the Swedish Resident, M. Coyet, took part. He was on the eve of his
departure from England, leaving his principal, Count Bundt, to
finish the Treaty; and the present brief letter of Milton for
Cromwell to his Swedish Majesty has reference to that fact. "Peter
Julius Coyet," it begins, "having performed his mission to us, and
so performed it that he ought not to be dismissed by us without the
distinction of justly earned praise, is on the point of returning
to your Majesty"; and in three sentences more very handsome
testimony is borne to Coyet's ability and fidelity in the discharge
of his duty, and his Swedish Majesty is again assured of the
Protector's high regard for himself. "A constant course of
victories against all enemies of the Church" is the Protector's
wish for him.--Evidently, again, Cromwell, whatever might be the
issue of the Treaty, was anxious to stand well with the
Scandinavian; in corroboration of which we have this special
paragraph in Whitlocke under date May 3: "This day the Protector
gave the honour of knighthood to MYNHEER COYET, the King of
Sweden's Resident here, who was now SIR PETER COYET, and gave him a
fair jewel, with his Highness's picture, and a rich gold chain: it
cost about £400." Coyet, therefore, had remained in London a
fortnight after the date of Milton's letter.[1] Indeed he remained
a few days longer, assisting in the Treaty to the last.
[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 227-255: i.e. from Feb. 20, 1655-6, to
May 3, 1656.]
(LXXV.) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _May_ 14, 1656:[1]--John
Dethicke, Merchant, at present Lord Mayor of the City of London,
and another merchant, named William Wakefield, have represented to
his Highness that, as long ago as October 1649, a ship of theirs,
called _The Jonas of London_, was taken at the mouth of the
Thames by one White of Barking, acting under a commission from the
son of the late King, and taken into Dunkirk, then governed for the
French King by M. L'Estrades. They had applied for satisfaction at
the time, but had received a harsh answer from the governor.
Perhaps his French Majesty, on receipt of this letter, will direct
justice to be done.
[Footnote 1: Not dated in Printed Collection, Phillips, or Skinner
Transcript; but dated by reference to it in a subsequent letter.]
(LXXVI.) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _May_
1656:--Also about a ship, but this time for the recovery of
insurance on one. She was _The Good Hope of London_, belonging
to John Brown, Nicholas Williams, and others; she had been insured
in Amsterdam; she had been taken by a ship of the Dutch East India
Company on her way to the East Indies; the insurers had refused to
pay the sum insured for; and for six years the poor owners had been
hopelessly fighting the case in the Dutch courts. It is a case of
real hardship.
(LXXVII.) TO THE SAME, _May_ 1656:--Three times before letters
have been written to the States-General in the interest of Thomas
and William Lower, who had been left property in Holland by their
father's will, but have been unjustly kept out of the same by
powerful persons there, and tossed from law-court to law-court.
This fourth application, it is hoped, may be more successful.
These thirteen State Letters, were there nothing else, would prove
that in and after the winter of 1655-6 Milton's services were again
in request for ordinary office-work. But they do not represent the
whole of his renewed industry in that employment.
The tremendous Swedish ambassador, Count Bundt, whose energy in his
master's interests had swept through Whitehall like a storm,
searching out flaws, waking up Thurloe and the Council, and obliging
Cromwell himself to be more circumspect, had made his influence felt,
it seems, even in the house of the blind Secretary-Extraordinary. It
was on the 8th of April, 1656, as we have just learnt from Whitlocke,
that the Ambassador, in one of his conferences with Whitlocke,
Fiennes, and Strickland, in Dorset House, M. Coyet also being
present, had rather objected to the fact that the new Articles of the
Treaty, drafted for his consideration by the Council, and brought to
the conference by Mr. Jessop, had been brought in English, and not in
Latin, as would have been business-like. Latin or English, as the
Commissioners knew, it would have been all the same to Count Bundt,
inasmuch as it was the matter of the Articles that displeased him;
but they had promised that he should have them in Latin, and
Whitlocke had judiciously taken the opportunity of speaking in Latin,
in reply to some of M. Coyet's observations in the same tongue, as if
to show the Ambassador that Latin was by no means so scarce a
commodity as he seemed to suppose about the Protector's Court. There
had been delay, however, in furnishing the promised Latin
translation; and Count Bundt, glad of that new occasion for
fault-finding, did not let it escape him. "The Swedish Ambassador,"
relates Whitlocke under date May 6, 1656, "again complained of the
delays in his business, and that, when he had desired to have the
Articles of this Treaty put into Latin, according to the custom in
Treaties, it was fourteen days they made him stay for that
translation, and sent it to one MR. MILTON, a blind man, to put them
into Latin, who, he said, must use an amanuensis to read it to him,
and that amanuensis might publish the matter of the Articles as he
pleased; and that it seemed strange to him there should be none but a
blind man capable of putting a few Articles into Latin: that the
Chancellor [the late Oxenstiern] with his own hand penned the
Articles made at Upsal [in Whitlocke's Treaty], and so he heard the
Ambassador Whitlocke did for those on his part. The employment of MR.
MILTON was excused to him, because several other servants of the
Council, fit for that employment, were then absent."[1] If this is
exact, Count Bundt, having been promised the Latin translation on the
8th of April, did not receive it till about the 22nd, and he had been
nursing his wrath on the subject for a fortnight more before it
exploded. In the delay itself he had certainly good ground for
complaint. There was reason also in the complaint that important
secret documents had gone to a blind man, who must employ an
amanuensis, unless the Commissioners could have replied that the
Protector and the Council had thoroughly seen to that matter, and
that Milton's amanuensis on such occasions was always a sworn clerk
from the Whitehall office. On the whole, the Commissioners seem to
have taken more easily than became their places, or than the
Protector would have liked, the insinuation of the imperious Count
that the Protector's official retinue must be a ragged and
undisciplined rout, not to be compared with Karl Gustav's. May not
Whitlocke himself, however, thinking at that moment of his own Latin
sufficiency, have sharpened the point of the insinuation?[2]
[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 257.]
[Footnote 2: Whitlocke, from his interest in Swedish affairs, had
taken ample notes of the negotiations with Count Bundt; and his story
of them is unusually minute. One observes that more than once in the
course of it he dwells on the fact that, though employed by the
Protector in this business, and taking the lead in it, he was still
_not_ one of the Council.]
The excuse of the Commissioners to Count Bundt for having sent the
Articles to Milton for translation was that "several other servants
of the Council, fit for that employment, were then absent." They mast
have referred, in particular, to Mr. Philip Meadows, the Latin
Secretary in Ordinary. He had, we find, taken some part in the
negotiation in its earlier stage;[1] but, before it had proceeded
far, he had been selected for a service which took him out of
England. In December 1655 it had been resolved to send a special
agent to Portugal; and on the 19th of February, 1655-6, at a Council
meeting at which Cromwell himself was present, Meadows, thought of
from the first, was formally nominated as the fit person. It was a
great promotion for Meadows; for, whereas his salary hitherto in the
Latin Secretaryship had been £200 a year, his allowance for the
Portuguese agency was to be £800 a year or more. On the 21st of
February he had £300 advanced to him for his outfit; on the 28th he
was voted £100, being for two quarters of his Secretarial salary due
to him, with £50 more for the quarter then current but not completed;
and within a few days afterwards he was on his way to Lisbon.[2] His
departure, I should say--preceded perhaps by a week or two of
cessation from office duty in preparation for it--was the real cause
of the re-employment of Milton at this time in such routine work as
we have seen him engaged in. All or most of his former letters for
the Protector, it may have been noticed, e.g. those on the
Piedmontese business, had been on important occasions, such as might
justify resort to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary; but in the batch
written since Dec. 1655, when Meadows's Portuguese mission had been
resolved on, the ordinary and the extraordinary come together, and
Milton, in writing letters about ships, as well as in translating
draft articles, does work that would have been done by Meadows. And
this arrangement, we may add, was to continue henceforth. For,
despite the sneers of Count Bundt as to the poverty of the
Protector's official staff, the Protector and Council, we shall find,
were in no hurry to fill up the place left vacant by Meadows, but
were quite satisfied that Mr. Milton should go on doing his best
alone, with Thurloe to instruct him, and with the help of such
underlings in Latin as Thurloe could put at his disposal. My belief
is that Milton was pleased at this trust in his renewed ability for
ordinary business.
[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 218; where it is mentioned that in Dec.
1655 Meadows communicated with Whitlocke on the subject of the Treaty
by Thurloe's orders.]
[Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates. It is curious that
Whitlocke, noting the new appointment of Meadows, under March 1655-6,
enters it thus: "Mr. Meadows was going for _Denmark_, agent for
the Protector." Meadows did go to Denmark, but not till a good while
afterwards; and the blunder of _Denmark_ at this date for
_Portugal_ is one of the many proofs that Whitlocke's memorials
are not all strictly contemporary, but often combinations of
reminiscences and afterthoughts with the materials of an actual
diary.]
Among the matters that occupied the attention of the Protector's
Government about this time was the state of Popular Literature.
It is a fact, easily explained by the laws of human nature, and
capable of being proved statistically, that since the strong
government of Cromwell had come in, and something like calm and
leisure had become possible, there had been a return of people's
fancies to the lighter Muses. Nothing strikes one more, in turning
over the Registers of the old London Book-trade, than the steady
increase through the Protectorate of the proportion of books of
secular and general interest to those of controversy and theology.
One feels oneself still in the age of Puritanism, it is true, but as
if past the densest and most stringent years of Puritanism and coming
once more into a freer and merrier air. Poems, romances, books of
humour, ballads and songs, reprints of Elizabethan tragedies and
comedies, reprints of such pieces as Shakespeare's _Venus and
Adonis_, collections of facetious extracts from the wits and poets
of the reigns of James and Charles I., are now not uncommon. Humphrey
Moseley, Milton's publisher of 1645, faithful to his old
trade-instinct for poetry and the finer literature generally, was
still at the head of the publishers in that line; but Henry
Herringman, who had published Lord Broghill's _Parthenissa_, had
begun to rival Moseley, and there were other caterers of amusing and
humorous books. Publishers imply authors; and so in the London of the
Protectorate, apart from stray survivors from among the wits of King
Charles's reign, there were men of a younger sort, bred amid the more
recent Puritan conditions, but with literary zests that were Bohemian
rather than Puritan, Among these, as we have hinted, and as we may
now state more distinctly, were Milton's nephews, Edward and John
Phillips.[1]
[Footnote 1: My notes from the Stationers' Registers, from 1652 to
1656.]
Such Popular Literature as we have described had been left perfectly
free. Indeed Censorship or Licensing of books generally, as distinct
from newspapers, had all but ceased. Since Bradshaw's Press-Act of
1649, it had been rather rare for an author or bookseller to take the
trouble, in the case of a non-political book, to procure the
imprimatur of any official licenser in addition to the ordinary
trade-registration; and in this, as an established custom, Cromwell's
Government had acquiesced. Only in one particular, apart from
politics, was there any disposition to interfere with the liberty of
printing. This was where popular wit, humour, or poetry might pass
into the ribald, profane, or indecent. Vigilance against open
immorality had from the first appeared to Cromwell one of the chief
duties of his Government; and he seems to have been unusually
attentive to this duty in 1655-6, when he had just put the country
under the military police of his Major-Generals and their
subordinates. Then it is that we hear most of the suppressing of
horse-races and the like, and that we are least surprised at
encountering such a piece of information as that "players were taken
in Newcastle and whipped for rogues." Now, though by this time there
had already, by previous care on the part of Government, been a
considerable cleansing of the Popular Literature of London, yet
something or other in the state of the book-world about 1655-6 seems
to have occasioned new and more special interference. I believe it to
have been the increased frequency of ballads, facetiæ, and reprints,
of higher literary character than the coarse pamphlets that had been
suppressed, but objectionable on the same moral grounds. At all
events, all but simultaneously with the Order of the Protector and
his Council, of Sept. 5, 1655, concentrating the whole newspaper
press in the hands of Needham and Thurloe (see ante pp. 51-52), there
had been a new general Ordinance "against Scandalous Books and
Pamphlets and for the Regulation of Printing" (Aug. 18, 1655), and it
was not long before this Ordinance was put in operation in one or two
cases of the kind indicated. Here are some extracts from the Order
Books of the Council in April and May 1656:--
_Tuesday, April_ 1656:--"That it be referred to the Earl of
Mulgrave, Colonel Jones, and Lord Strickland, or any two of them,
to examine the business touching the book entitled _Sportive Wit
or the Muses' Merriment_, and to send for the author and
printer, and report the same to the Council."
_Friday, April_ 25, 1656:--Present: the Lord President
Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Lambert, Sir Gilbert
Pickering, Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Jones, the Lord Deputy of
Ireland (Fleetwood), Lord Viscount Lisle, Mr. Rous, Major-General
Skippon, and Lord Strickland. "Colonel Jones reports from the
Committee of the Council to whom was referred the consideration of
a book entitled _Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_, that
the said book contains in it much scandalous, lascivious,
scurrilous, and profane matter. _Ordered_ by his Highness the
Lord Protector, by and with the advice of the Council, That the
Lord Mayor of the City of London and the rest of the Committee for
the regulation of Printing do cause all such [copies] of the said
book as are not already seized to be forthwith seized on, wherever
they shall be found, and cause the same, together with those
already seized, to be delivered to the Sheriffs of London and
Middlesex, who are to cause the same to be forthwith publicly
burnt.--He further reports that Nathaniel Brookes, Stationer, at
the Angel in Cornhill, caused the said book to be printed; that the
printers thereof were John Grismond, living in Ivy Lane, and James
Cotterill, living in Lambeth Hill; and that JOHN PHILLIPS, of
Westminster, was the author of the Epistle Dedicatory.
_Ordered_, That it be referred to Sir John Barkstead, Knight,
Lieutenant of the Tower [and Major-General for Westminster and
Middlesex], to cause the fines to be levied on the said persons
according to law: [also] that the said persons do attend the
Council on Tuesday next."--Milton's younger nephew, therefore, had
been the editor of the offending volume. Of the eleven members of
Council present when this fact came out, six were among those
friends of Milton whom he had specially mentioned in his
_Defensio Secunda_: viz. Fleetwood, Lambert, Lawrence,
Pickering, Sydenham, and Strickland.
_Saturday, April_ 26, 1656:--His Highness the Lord Protector
approves of a great many recent Orders of Council presented to him
all at once by Mr. Scobell, the Clerk of the Council. Among them is
the order "for burning the book called _Sportive Wit_."
_Friday, May_ 9, 1656:--His Highness the Lord Protector
present in person, with Lord President Lawrence, Lambert,
Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, and
Jones:--_Ordered_, &c. "That the Lord Mayor of the City of
London and the rest of the Committee for regulating Printing do
cause all the books entitled _Choice Droliery, Songs and
Sonnets_ (being stuffed with profane and obscene matter, tending
to the corruption of manners), to be seized wherever the same shall
be found, and cause the same to be delivered to the Sheriffs of
London and Middlesex, who are required to give order that the same
be burnt."
Copies of the second of the two books thus condemned by Cromwell and
his Council have, I believe, survived the burning, The publisher was
a John Sweeting, who had duly registered the book on the 9th of
February 1655-6, shortly after which date it had appeared with this
full title, _Choice Drollery, Songs and Sonnets: being a Collection
of Divers Eminent Pieces of Poetry of several Eminent Authors, never
before printed_. I have not seen any copy of the other book
bearing the precise title _Sportive Wit, or the Muses'
Merriment_; but there are surviving copies of what may be the same
with an alternative title, viz. _Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems,
never before printed, by Sir J.M., Jas. S., Sir W.D., J.D., and other
admirable wits_. It had been out in London since. Jan. 18, 1655-6,
had been registered on the 30th of that month, and is a respectably
printed little book of 160 pages, with the motto "_Ut nectar
ingenium_" under the title, and with, the imprint _London.
Printed for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Cornhill_, 1656. It
contains moreover a Dedication "To the truly noble Edward Pepes,
Esq.," and an Epistle "To the Courteous Reader," both signed with the
initials J.P. Either, therefore, this is the same book as the
_Sportive Wit or the Muses' Merriment_ which, figures in the
Orders of the Council, or John Phillips had edited simultaneously for
Nathaniel Brooke (who had been the publisher of his _Satyr against
Hypocrites_ in the preceding August) two books of the same general
character. Even on the latter supposition, _Wit and Drollery,_
in the absence of _Sportive Wit,_ may serve as a representative
of that production of the same editor and the same publisher. The
substance of Phillips's Epistle to the Reader in _Wit and
Drollery_ is as follows:--
"Reader,--To give thee a broadside of plain dealing, this
_Wit_ I present thee with is such as can only be in fashion,
invented purposely to keep off the violent assaults of melancholy,
assisted by the additional engines and weapons of sack and good
company... What hath not been extant of Sir J. M., of Ja. S., of
Sir W. D., of J. D., and other miraculous muses of the times, are
here at thy service; and, as Webster, at the end of his play called
_The White Devil,_ subscribes that the action of Perkins
crowned the whole play, so, when thou viewest the title, and
readest the sign of 'Ben Jonson's Head, in the backside of the
Exchange, and the Angel in Cornhill,' where they are sold, enquire
who could better furnish thee with such sparkling copies of wit."
Among the included pieces are the younger Alexander Gill's lampoon on
Ben Jonson for his _Magnetic Lady_ and Ben Jonson's reply to the
same (ante Vol. I. pp. 528-529); there are also several pieces of
Suckling; but, for the rest, as the title-page bears, the volume
consists chiefly of specimens of _"Sir J. M."_ (Sir John
Mennes), _"Jas. S."_ (James Smith), _"Sir W. D"_ (Sir
William Davenant), and _"J. D."_ (Dr. Donne), professing not to
have been before in print. Whether this was so, and whether the
pieces were all authentically by these poets, need not here concern
us. It is enough to say that many of the pieces are decidedly, and
some very grossly, of the improper kind. The reader will not expect
to have this proved by extract; but of the more innocent "drollery"
the following stanzas from a poem entitled _"Nonsense"_ may be a
sample:--
O that my lungs could bleat like buttered pease!
But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch,
And are as mangy as the Irish seas,
That doth engender windmills in a bitch.
I grant that rainbows, being lulled asleep,
Snort like a woodknife in a lady's eyes;
Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep;
For creeping puddings only please the wise.
Note that a hard-roed herring should presume
To swing a tithe-pig in a catskin purse,
For fear the hailstones which did fall at Rome
By lessening of the fault should make it worse.
For 'tis most certain winter woolsacks grow,
Till that the sheepshorn planets give the hint,
From geese to swans, if men could keep them so,
And pickle pancakes in Geneva print.
At worst, the volume was but a catchpenny collection of pieces of a
kind of which there was plenty already dispersed in print under the
names of the same authors, or of others as classical; and, if this
was the same book as the _Sportive Wit,_ or at all like that
book, it may have been some mere accident of the moment that brought
Government censure upon Phillips's volume, while others, as had,
escaped. But how annoying the whole occurrence to Milton![1]
[Footnote 1: Thomason copy of _Wit and Drollery_ in the British
Museum, dated Jan. 18, 1655-6.--I failed to find a book with the
title _The Sportive Wit_ in the Thomason Collection, and hence
my hypothesis that there was but one book, with alternative titles. I
am rather inclined to believe, however, that there were two, and have
a vague recollection of having seen two books, one with one of the
titles and the other with the other, advertised in a contemporary
newspaper list of books on sale by the publisher Brooke. In Lowndes's
Bibliog. Manual by Bohn, _sub voce_ "Wit," the two books are
given as distinct; but then _Sportive Wit or the Muses'
Merriment_ is there dated 1656, while there is no notice of an
edition of _Wit and Drollery, Jovial Poems,_ till 1661. Though
I leave the matter in doubt, some collector of Facetiac may know all
about it. In any case, if _Wit and Drollery_ was not the
identical book condemned, it is of interest to us as being one of
Phillips's editing at the same moment.--Donne, who figures so
strangely in _Wit and Drollery,_ had been dead twenty-five
years, but was accessible in various editions and reprints of his
Poems. The other three poets named in the title-page as the chief
authors of the pieces--Sir John Mennes, James Smith, and
Davenant--were still alive and publishing for themselves. Indeed the
_Musarum Delitice, or Muses' Recreation,_ consisting of pieces
by Mennes and Smith, had been published by Herringman only the year
before (1655), and was in its second edition in 1658; and it may have
been the success of this and Smith in it. Mennes, a stout book that
led to Phillips's publication and to the use of the names of Mennes
Royalist sea-captain, who had served with Prince Rupert, and was in
exile at our present date, became Chief Comptroller of the Navy after
the Restoration and lived to 1670. Smith was a Devonshire clergyman,
of Royalist antecedents, who had complied with the existing powers
and retained his living. After the Restoration he had promotion in
the Church: and he died in 1667.]
Less unsatisfactory to Milton, must hare been the literary
appearances about the same time of his elder nephew, Edward Phillips.
On the same day on which the stationer Nathaniel Brooke had
registered _Wit and Drollery_ edited by John Phillips, i.e. on
Jan. 30, 1655-6, he had registered two tales or small novels called
"_The Illustrious Shepherdess_" and "_The Imperious
Brother_" both "written originally in Spanish and now Englished by
Edward Phillips, Gent."[1] The first of these translations, both from
the Spanish of Juan Perez de Montalvan (1602-1638), is dedicated by
Phillips to the Marchioness of Dorchester, in what Godwin calls "an
extraordinary style of fustian and bombast."[2] With the exception,
of such affectation in style, which Phillips afterwards threw off,
there is nothing ill to report of these early performances of his;
and two translations from the Spanish were a creditable proof of
accomplishment. But still more interesting was another literary
performance of Edward Phillips's of the same date. This was his
edition of the Poems of Drummond of Hawthornden.
[Footnote 1: Stationers' Registers of date.]
[Footnote 2: Godwin's _Lives of the Phillipses_, 138-139. I
know the translations only from Godwin's account of them.]
Drummond had died in 1649, leaving in manuscript, at Hawthornden or
in Edinburgh, not only his _History of Scotland from 1423
to 1542, or through the Reigns of the Five Jameses_, but
also various other prose-writings, and a good deal of verse in
addition to what he had published in his life-time. Drummond's son
and heir being under age, the care of the MSS. had devolved chiefly
on Drummond's brother-in-law, Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, a
well-known Scottish judge, antiquary, and eccentric. Hitherto the
troubles in Scotland had prevented the publication by Sir John of
these remains of his celebrated relative, the only real Scottish poet
of his generation. With the other Scottish dignitaries and officials
who had resisted the English invasion, Sir John himself had been
turned out of his public posts, heavily fined, and remitted into
private life (Vol. IV. p. 561). Gradually, however, as Scotland had
become accustomed to her union with England, things had come round
again for the old ex-Judge, as well as for others. There is reason to
believe that he was in London for some time in 1654-5, soliciting the
Protector and the Council for favour in the matter of his fine, if
not for restoration to one of his former offices, the Director of
the Scottish Chancery. The case of Scot of Scotstarvet, at all
events, _was_ then under discussion in the Council, with the
result that his fine, which had been originally £1500, but had been
reduced to £500, was first reduced farther to £300, and next,
apparently by Cromwell's own interposition, altogether "discharged
and taken off, in consideration of the pains he hath taken and the
service he hath done to the Commonwealth."[1] If Scotstarvet himself,
then seventy years of age, had come to London on the business, he
must have brought Drummond's MSS., or copies of them, with him. On
the 16th of January 1854-5 there had been registered at Stationers'
Hall, as forthcoming, Drummond's _History of Scotland through the
Reigns of the Five Jameses_, with a selection of other
prose-writings of his, chiefly of a political kind; and the volume
did appear immediately, as a handsome small folio, bearing date 1655,
and "printed by Henry Hills for Rich. Tomlins and himself." As Henry
Hills was one of the printers to his Highness and the Council, the
appearance from his press of a volume so full of conservative
doctrine, inculcating so strongly the duty of submission to kingly
prerogative and to constituted authority, may not be without
significance. Another interesting circumstance about it is that it
had appeared under the charge of a London editor, "Mr. Hall of Gray's
Inn,"--i.e., unless I am mistaken, that Mr. John Hall whom we saw
brought in, at £100 a year, to do pieces of literary hackwork for the
Council under Milton as long ago as May 1649, and who had been in
some such employment for the Council, at least occasionally, ever
since (ante p. 177). Accidental or not, the fact that the editor of
Drummond's Prose Writings, selected by Scotstarvet or by the printer
Hills, should have been a servant of the Council of State, and a kind
of underling of Milton in that capacity, is at least curious. But it
becomes more curious when taken in connexion, with the fact that the
editor of the companion volume, containing the first professedly
complete edition of Drummond's Poems, was Milton's elder nephew. This
volume, though announced by Mr. Hall in his Introduction to the
Prose Volume, did not appear till about a year afterwards, and then
as an octavo of 224 pages, with this title, _"Poems by that most
famous Wit, William Drummond of Hawthornden ... London, Printed for
Rickard Tomlins, at the Sun and Bible, neare Pye-Corner,_ 1656."
The volume is dedicated to Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, and includes
about sixty small pieces of Drummond never before published, which
Sir John had supplied from the Hawthornden MSS. Apart from revision
of the proofs, Phillips's editorship consisted in a prose preface,
signed "E.P.," and a set of commendatory verses, signed in full
"Edward Phillips."
[Footnote 1: Council Order Books, March 9 and March 19, 1654-5.]
Drummond's Poetry had long been known to Milton in the fragmentary
state in which alone it had been till then accessible, i.e. in the
successive instalments of it published by Drummond himself in
Edinburgh between 1613 and 1638. There might be proof also that
Drummond was one of Milton's favourites, and regarded by him as one
of the sweetest and truest poets that there had been in Great Britain
through that age of miscellaneous metrical effort, much of it
miscalled Poetry, which included the whole of the laureateship of Ben
Jonson and the beginning of that of Davenant. Accordingly, it is not
difficult to suppose that phrases about Drummond from Milton's own
mouth were worked by Phillips into his prose preface to the London
edition of the Poems of Drummond. There is a little hyperbolism in
that preface; but the opening definition of Drummond's genius is
exact, and the fitness of some of the phrases quite admirable.
Thus:--
"To say that these Poems are the effects of a genius the most
polite and verdant that ever the Scottish nation produced, although
it he a commendation not to be rejected (for it is well known that
that country hath afforded many rare and admirable wits), yet it is
not the highest that may be given him; for, should I affirm that
neither Tasso, nor Guarini, nor any of the most neat and refined
spirits of Italy, nor even the choicest of our English Poets, can
challenge to themselves any advantage above him, it could not be
judged any attribute superior to what he deserves ... And, though
he hath not had the good fortune to be so generally famed abroad as
many others, perhaps of less esteem, yet this is a consideration
that cannot diminish, but rather advance, his credit; for, by
breaking forth of obscurity, he will attract the higher
admiration, and, like the sun emerging from a cloud, appear at
length with so much the more forcible rays..."
Milton's interesting German friend, Henry Oldenburg, had recently
removed from London to Oxford. "In the beginning of this year," says
Wood in his _Fasti_ for 1656, "studied in Oxon, in the condition
of a sojourner, HENRY OLDENBURG, who wrote himself sometimes
GRUBENDOL [anagram of OLDENBUBG]; and in the month of June he was
entered a, student by the name of _'Henricus Oldenburg, Bremensis,
Nobilis Saxo'_: at which time he was tutor to a young Irish
nobleman, called Henry O'Bryen [son of Henry, Earl of Thomond], then
also a student there."[1] As we construe the case, Oldenburg, having
been for some years in England as agent for Bremen, had begun to see
that he was likely to remain in England permanently; and he had gone
to Oxford for the benefit of a year of study there with readings in
the Bodleian, and the society more especially of Robert Boyle,
Wilkins, Wallis, Petty, and the rest of the Oxford colony or offshoot
from the _Invisible College_ of London. Desirable on its own
account, this migration to Oxford had been made easier to him
financially, if it had not been, occasioned, by the arrangement that
he should be tutor there to the young Irish nobleman whom Wood names.
But this young nobleman was not to be Oldenburg's only pupil at
Oxford. Though Wood does not mention the fact, there went with him
thither, or there speedily followed him thither, to be also under his
charge, another young Irish nobleman. This was no other than, our own
Richard Jones, son of Viscount and Lady Ranelagh, the Benjamin among
Milton's pupils. Whatever had been the nature of Milton's recent
instructions of the youth, they had now ceased, and Oldenburg was to
be thenceforward the youth's more regular tutor. It does not seem to
have been intended that young Ranelagh should formally enter a
college, so as to receive the usual education at the University, but
only that he should obtain some acquaintance with Oxford and its
ways, and be for a while in the society of his uncle Boyle, and of
his two cousins, Viscount Dungarvan and Mr. Richard Boyle. If these
two sons of the Earl of Cork were still under the tutorship of Dr.
Peter Du Moulin, Oldenburg and Jones at Oxford must have come
necessarily also into constant intercourse with that very secret
admirer of Milton. Oxford, we do gather, was still Du Moulin's
head-quarters; but he was so much on the wing thence that Oldenburg
might expect to succeed him in the tutorship of at least one of the
young Boyles. Oldenburg was then thirty years of age, and young
Ranelagh about sixteen.
[Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti, II. 197.]
Among four letters to young Jones or Ranelagh included in Milton's
Latin Familiar Epistles one is undated. It is put second of the four
in the printed collection, but it ought to have been put first. It is
Milton's first letter to the youth in his new position at Oxford
under Henry Oldenburg's charge. The date may be in or about May
1636:--
"To the Noble Youth, RICHARD JONES.
"I received your letter much after its date,--not till it had lain,
I think, fifteen days, put away somewhere, at your mother's. Most
gladly at last I recognised in it your continued affection for me
and sense of gratitude. In truth my goodwill to you, and readiness
to give you the most faithful admonitions, have never but
justified, I hope, both your excellent mother's opinion of me and
confidence in me, and your own disposition. There is, indeed, as
you write, plenty of amenity and salubrity in the place where you
now are; there are books enough for the needs of a University: if
only the amenity of the spot contributed as much to the genius of
the inhabitants as it does to pleasant living, nothing would seem
wanting to the happiness of the place. The Library there, too, is
splendidly rich; but, unless the minds of the students are made
more instructed by means of it in the best kinds of study, you
might more properly call it a book-warehouse than a Library. Most
justly you acknowledge that to all these helps there must be added
a spirit for learning and habits of industry. Take care, and steady
care, that I may never have occasion to find you in a different
state of mind; and this you will most easily avoid if you
diligently obey the weighty and friendly precepts of the highly
accomplished Henry Oldenburg beside you. Farewell, my well-beloved
Richard; and allow me to exhort and incite you to virtue and piety,
like another Timothy, by the example of that most exemplary woman,
your mother.
"Westminster."
In this letter one observes the rather strict tone of Mentorship
assumed towards young Ranelagh, as if Milton was aware of something
in the youth, that needed checking, or as if Lady Ranelagh, with her
motherly knowledge, had given Milton a hint that the strict tone with
him would be generally the best. The tendency to a depreciation of
Oxford, which is also visible in the letter, is no surprise from
Milton.
The Anti-Oxonian feeling, if that is not too strong a name for it
after all, is even more apparent in Milton's next letter, addressed
not to young Ranelagh, but to his tutor. Young Ranelagh, it appears,
not long after the receipt of the foregoing, had run up to London on
a brief visit to his mother, and had brought Milton a letter from
Oldenburg. To this Milton replies as follows:--
"To HENRY OLDENBURG, Agent for Bremen with the English Government.
"Your letter, brought by young Ranelagh, has found me rather busy;
and so I am forced to be briefer than I should wish. You have
certainly kept _your_ departing promise of writing to me, and
that with a punctuality surpassed. I believe, by no one hitherto in
the payment of a debt. I congratulate you on your present
retirement, to my loss though it be, since it gives pleasure to
you; I congratulate you also on that happy state of mind which
enables you so easily to set aside at once the ambition and the
ease of city-life, and to lift your thoughts to higher matters of
contemplation. What advantage that retirement affords, however,
besides plenty of books, I know not; and those persons you have
found there as fit associates in your studies I should suppose to
be such rather from their own natural constitution than from the
discipline of the place,--unless perchance, from missing you here,
I do less justice to the place for keeping you away. Meanwhile you
yourself rightly remark that there are too many there whose
occupation it is to spoil divine and human things alike by their
frivolous quibblings, that they may not seem to be doing absolutely
nothing for those many endowments by which they are supported so
much to the public detriment. All this you will understand better
for yourself. Those ancient annals of the Chinese from the Flood
downwards which you say are promised by the Jesuit Martini[1] are
doubtless very eagerly expected on account of the novelty of the
thing; but I do not see what authority or confirmation they can add
to the Mosaic books. Our Cyriack, whom you bade me salute, returns
the salutation. Farewell.
"Westminster: June 25, 1656."
[Footnote 1: Martin Martini, Jesuit Missionary to China, was born
1614 and died 1661.]
That Count Bundt's remonstrance on the employment of a blind man in
the Protector's diplomatic business had had no effect will be proved
by the following list of state-letters written by Milton immediately
after that remonstrance. We bring the list down to Sept. 1656, the
month in which the Second Parliament of the Protectorate met:
(LXXVIII.) To KINGS AND FOREIGN STATES GENERALLY, _June_
1656:[1]--This is a Passport by the Protector in favour of PETER
GEORGE ROMSWINCKEL, Doctor of Laws. He had been born and bred in
the Roman Catholic Church, and had held high offices in that Church
at Cologne, but had become an ardent Protestant, and had been for
some time in England. He was now on his way back to Germany, to
assume the post of Councillor to the widowed Duchess of Symmeren
(?); and the Protector desires all English officers, consuls,
agents, &c., and also all foreign Governments, to give him free
passage and handsome treatment. The tone of the letter is even
haughtily Protestant. On the ground that "most people think in
Religion with easy acquiescence in exactly what they have received
from their forefathers, and not what they themselves, after
imploring divine help, have learnt to be true by their own
perception and knowledge," the case of Romswinckel is represented
as peculiarly interesting; and such phrases as "the Papal
superstition" are not spared. The passport was probably expected to
come only into Protestant hands.
[Footnote 1: This Letter is not given in the Printed Collection or
in Phillips; it is in the Skinner Transcript, and has been printed
by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 5-6).]
(LXXIX.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _June_ 1656:[1]--A
special recommendation of the above Romswinckel to the Swedish
King, in the same high Protestant tone.
[Footnote 1: Not in Printed Collection or Phillips, but in
Skinner Transcript, and printed by Hamilton (_Milton Papers_,
6-7).]
(LXXX.) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _July_ 1656:--The Portuguese
merchants of the Brazil Company owe certain English merchants a
considerable sum of money on shipping accounts since 1649 and 1650.
The English merchants, understanding that, by recent orders of his
Portuguese Majesty, they are likely to lose the principal of the
debt, and be put off with the bare interest, have applied to the
Protector. He thinks it a hard case, and begs the King to let the
debt be paid in full, principal and five years of interest.
(LXXXI.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _July_ 1656:--After
more than two months of farther debating between Count Bundt and
the English Commissioners, in the course of which there had been
frequent new displays of the Count's high temper, the Treaty
between the Protector and Charles Gustavus had at last been happily
finished on the 17th of July. On that day, Whitlocke tells as, he
and Lords Fiennes and Strickland had their long final meeting over
the Treaty with the Ambassador, ending; in formal signing and
sealing on both sides. The main difficulty had been got over thus:
"Concerning the carrying of pitch, tar, &c. to Spain, during our
war with them [the Spaniards], there was a single Article, that the
King of Sweden should be moved to give order for the prohibiting of
it, and a kind of undertaking that it should be done." On the
whole, the Protector was satisfied; and, as he had contracted some
admiration and liking for the Ambassador, precisely on account of
his unusual spirit and stubbornness, he marked the conclusion of
the Treaty by special compliments and favours. "The Swedish
Ambassador," says Whitlocke under date July 25, "having taken his
leave of the Protector, received great civilities and respects from
him, and afterwards dined with him at Hampton Court, and hunted
with him. The Protector bestowed the dignity of knighthood upon one
of his [the Ambassador's] gentlemen, Sir Gustavus Duval, the
mareschal." The present Latin letter by Milton, accordingly, was
the letter of honourable dismissal which the Swede was to take back
to his master. Perhaps the Swede knew that even this was written by
the Protector's blind Latinist.--"Oliver, Protector of the
Commonwealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c., to the most
Serene Prince, Charles Gustavus, King of the Swedes, Goths, and
Vandals, &c." is the heading of the letter; which proceeds
thus:--"Most Serene King,--As we have justly a very high regard for
the friendship of so great a Prince as your Majesty, one so famous
for his achievements, so necessarily should that most illustrious
Lord, CHRISTIERN BUNDT, your Ambassador Extraordinary, by whose
endeavours a Treaty of the closest alliance has just been ratified
between us, have been to as, were it but on this pre-eminent
account, an object of favour and good report. We have accordingly
judged it fit that he should be sent back to you after his most
praiseworthy performance of this Embassy: but not without the
highest acknowledgment at the same time of his other excellent
merits, to the end that one who has been heretofore in esteem and
honour with you may now feel that he is indebted to this our
commendation for yet more abundant fruits of his assiduity and
prudence. As for the transactions that yet remain, we have resolved
shortly to send to your Majesty a special Embassy for those; and
meanwhile may God preserve your Majesty safe, to be a pillar in His
Church's defence and in the affairs of Sweden!--From our Palace of
Westminster,--July 1656. Your Majesty's most affectionate, OLIVER,
Protector &c."--Count Bundt, we may add, remained in England a
month more after all, receiving farther attentions and
entertainments; and not till Aug. 23 did he finally depart, taking
with him not only Milton's Letter, but also a present from the
Protector of £1200 worth of "white cloth" and a magnificent jewel.
It was because this jewel could not be got ready at once that he
had staid on; and it was worth waiting for. "The jewel was his
Highness's picture in a case of gold, about the bigness of a
five-shillings piece of silver, set round the case with sixteen
fair diamonds, each diamond valued at £60: in all worth about
£1000." The Count wore the jewel tied with a blue ribbon to his
breast so long as he was in sight, barging down the Thames.[1]
[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 257-273.]
(LXXXII.) To the King of Portugal, _Aug._ 1656:--Mr. Philip
Meadows has been in Lisbon since March, busy in the duties of his
mission, and sending letters and reports home. There was still
danger, however, in being an agent for the English Commonwealth in
a Roman Catholic country; and Meadows had nearly shared the fate of
Dorislaus and Ascham. On the 11th of May, as he was returning at
night to his lodgings in Lisbon, carried in a litter, he was
attacked by two horsemen, who "discharged two pistols into the
litter and shot him through the left hand."[1] The wound was not
serious; but the King of Portugal was naturally in great concern.
He offered a large reward for the discovery of the criminals; and,
in a Latin letter to Cromwell, dated "Alcantara, May 26, N.S.," he
professed his desire to have them punished, whether they were
English refugees or native Portuguese.[2] The present Letter by
Milton is the Protector's reply. Though there has been some
interval since the receipt of his Majesty's letter, his Highness
has not yet heard that the criminals have been apprehended; and he
insists that there shall be a vigorous prosecution of the search
and recommends that it should be put into the hands of "some
persons of honesty and sincerity, well-wishers to both nations."
[Footnote 1: Thurloe to Pell, June 26, Vaughan's _Protectorate_,
I. 432.]
[Footnote 2: See Letter itself in Thurloe, V. 28.]
(LXXXIII.) To Louis XIV. of France, _Aug._ 1656:--Again about
a ship, but this time in a peremptory strain.--Richard Baker and
Co. of London have complained to the Protector that a ship of
theirs, called _The Endeavour_, William Jopp master, laden at
Teneriffe with 300 pipes of rich Canary wine, had, in November
last, been seized by four French privateer vessels under command of
a Giles de la Roche, who had carried ship, cargo, and most of the
crew away to the East Indies, after landing fourteen of the crew on
the Guinea coast. For this daring act he had pleaded no excuse,
except that his own fleet wanted provisions and that he believed
the owners of his fleet would make good the loss. The Protector
now demands that £16,000 be paid to Messrs. Baker and Co., and also
that Giles de la Roche be punished. It concerns his French
Majesty's honour to see to this, after that recent League with the
English Commonwealth to which his royal oath is pledged. Otherwise
all faith in Leagues will be at an end.
(LXXXIV.) TO CARDINAL, MAZARIN, _Aug._ 1656:--On the same
subject as the last. While writing to the King about such an
outrage, the Protector cannot refrain from imparting the matter
also to his Eminence, as "the sole and only person whose singular
prudence governs the most important affairs of the French and the
chief business of the kingdom, with equal fidelity, counsel, and
vigilance."
(LXXXV.) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES,
_Aug._ 1656. A Letter of some length, and very important. "We
doubt not," It begins, "but all will bear us this testimony--that
no considerations have ever been stronger with us in contracting
foreign alliances than, the duty of defending the Truth of
Religion, and that we have never accounted anything more sacred
than the union and reconciliation of those who are either the
friends and defenders of Protestants, or at least not their
enemies." With what grief, then, does his Highness hear of new
dissensions breaking out among Protestant powers, and especially of
signs of a rupture between the United Provinces and Sweden! Should
there be war between those two great Protestant powers, how the
common enemy will rejoice! "To the Spaniard the prospect has
already brought such an access of spirit and confidence that he
has not hesitated, through his Ambassador residing with you, to
obtrude most audaciously his counsels upon you, and that about the
chief concerns of your Republic: daring even partly to terrify you
by throwing in threats of a renewal of war, partly to solicit you
by setting forth a false show of expediency, to the end that,
abandoning by his advice your old and most faithful friends, the
French, the English, and the Swedes, you would be pleased to form a
close alliance with your former enemy and tyrant, pacified now
forsooth, and, what is most to be feared, quite fawning." The
Protector earnestly adjures their High Mightinesses the States to
be on their guard. "We are not ignorant that you, in your wisdom,
often revolve in your minds the question of the present state of
Europe in general, and especially the condition of the Protestants:
how the Cantons of the Swiss following the orthodox faith are kept
in suspense by the expectation from day to day of new commotions
to be stirred up by their countrymen following the faith of the
Pope, and this while they have hardly emerged from that war which,
plainly on account of Religion, was blown and kindled by the
Spaniard, who gave their enemies leaders and supplied the money;
how for the inhabitants of the Alpine Valleys the designs of the
Spaniards are again contriving the same slaughter and destruction
which they most cruelly inflicted on them last year; how the German
Protestants are most grievously troubled under the rule of the
Kaiser, and retain their paternal homes with difficulty; how the
King of Sweden, whom God, as we hope, has raised up as a valiant
champion of the Orthodox Religion, is carrying on with the whole
strength of his kingdom a doubtful and most severe war with the
most powerful enemies of the Reformed Faith; how your own Provinces
are threatened by the ominous league lately struck up among your
Papist neighbours, of whom a Spaniard is the Prince; how we here,
finally, are engaged in a war declared against the Spanish King."
What an aggravation of this condition of things if there should be
an actual conflict between their High Mightinesses and Sweden! Will
not their High Mightinesses lay all this to heart, and come to a
friendly arrangement with Charles Gustavus? The Protector hardly
understands the causes of the disagreement; but, if he can be of
any use between the two powers, he will spare no exertion. He is
about to send an embassy to the Swedish King, and will convey to
him also the sentiments of this letter.--That the preparation of
this Letter to the States-General had been very careful appears
from the following minute relating to it in the Council Order-Books
for Tuesday Aug. 19:--"Mr. Secretary [Thurloe] reports the draft of
a letter to the States-General of the United Provinces; which was
read, and committed to Sir Charles Wolseley, with the assistance of
the Secretary, to amend the same, in pursuance of the present
debate, and report it again to the Council." Cromwell was himself
present at this meeting of the Council, with Lawrence, Lambert,
Wolseley, Strickland, Rous, Jones, Skippon, and Pickering. The
draft read was most probably the English that was to be turned into
Latin by Milton: but this does not preclude the idea that the
document itself was substantially Milton's. Thurloe can hardly have
drafted _such_ a document. He may have gone to Milton first.
(LXXXVI.) To The King of Portugal, _Aug._ 1656:--The Protector
has received his Portuguese Majesty's Ratification of the Peace
negotiated in London by his Extraordinary Ambassador Count Sa in
1654, and also of the secret and preliminary articles of the same;
and he has received letters from Philip Meadows, his agent at
Lisbon, informing him that the counterpart Ratification on the
English side had been duly delivered to his Majesty. There being
now therefore a firm and settled Peace between the two nations,
dating formally from June 1656, the Protector salutes his Majesty
with all cordiality. As to his Majesty's letters of June 24th,
mentioning some clauses of the League a slight alteration of which
would be convenient for Portugal, the Protector is willing to have
these carefully considered, but suggests that the whole Treaty may
be perilled by tampering with any part of it.
(LXXXVII.) To THE COUNT OF ODEMIRA, _Aug._ 1656:--This is a
letter to the Prime Minister of Portugal, to accompany the
foregoing to the King. The Protector acknowledges the Count's zeal
and diligence in promoting the Peace now concluded, and takes the
opportunity of pressing upon him, rather than again upon the King,
relentless inquiry into the late attempt to assassinate Meadows.
(LXXXVIII.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Aug._ 1656:--A
letter very much in the strain of that just sent to the
States-General of the United Provinces. Although, knowing what a
champion the Protestant Faith has in his Swedish Majesty, the
Protector cannot but rejoice in the news of his successes, there is
one drawback. It is the accompanying news of the misunderstanding
between his Majesty and the Dutch, now come to such a pass, he
hears, that open conflict is likely, especially in the Baltic. The
Protector is in the dark as to the causes, but ventures to press on
his Majesty the views he had been pressing, but a few days ago,
upon the Dutch. Let him think of the perils of Protestantism; let
him think of Piedmont, of Austria, of Switzerland! "Who is ignorant
that the counsels of the Spaniards and of the Roman Pontiff have,
for two years past, filled all those places with conflagrations,
slaughters, and troubles to the orthodox? If to these evils, so
many already, there shall be added an outbreak of bad feeling among
Protestant brethren themselves, and especially between two powers
in whose valour, resources, and constancy lies the greatest
safeguard of the Reformed Churches, so far as human means avail,
the Reformed Religion itself must be endangered and brought to an
extreme crisis. On the other hand, were all of the Protestant name
to cultivate perpetual peace with that brotherly unanimity which
becomes them, there will be no reason at all to be very much afraid
of inconvenience to us from all that the arts or force of our
enemies can do." O that his Majesty may see his way to a pacific
settlement of his differences with the Dutch! The Protector will
gladly do anything to secure that result.
(LXXXIX.) TO THE STATES OF HOLLAND, _Sept._ 1856:--William
Cooper, a London minister, has represented to the Protector that
his father-in-law, John le Maire of Amsterdam, invented, about
thirty-three years ago, a certain device by which much revenue was
brought in to the States of Holland, without any burden to the
people. It was the settling of a certain small seal or stamp to be
used in the Provinces ("_id autem erat parvi sigilli in
Provinciis constitutio_"). For the working this invention he had
taken into partnership one John van den Brook; and the States of
Holland had promised the partners 3000 guilders yearly, equal to
about £300 English, for the use of the thing. Not a farthing,
however, had they ever received, though the States had benefited so
much; and now, as they are both tired out, they have transferred
their right to William Cooper, who means to prosecute the claim.
The States are prayed to look into the matter, and to pay Cooper
the promised annual pension, with arrears.
(XC.) To LOUIS XIV. of FRANCE, _Sept._ 1656:--His Highness is
sorry to trouble his Majesty so often; but the grievances of
English subjects must be attended to. Now a London merchant, called
Robert Brown, who had bought 4000 hides, part of the cargo of a
Dieppe ship, legally taken before the League between France and
Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but;
instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped
in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French
court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector
now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council.
If acts done before the League are to be called in question,
Leagues will be meaningless; and it would be well to make an
example or two of persons causing trouble of this kind.
Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belong
to the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largest
contribution of work of this kind in any one month since the very
beginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst of
letters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Nor
ought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 are
particularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of that
passionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his bold
stand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which had
matured itself politically since then into the scheme of an express
League or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot be
by mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in the
highest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should have
always been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the office
people that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that,
for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the Latin
Secretary Extraordinary.
A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may have
heard with some interest appears as follows in the Council
Order-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:--"Upon consideration of the
humble petition of Peter Du Moulin, the son, Doctor of Divinity, and
a certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness,
and by his Highness referred to the Council, _Ordered_ ... That
the said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted to
exercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of Nov.
24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or instructions given to
the Major-Generals and Commissioners in the several counties,
notwithstanding." And so even the author of the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_ was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being a
Vicar or a Rector, or something higher still, in Cromwell's
Established Church. _Can_ his secret have possibly been then
known? _Can_ the Council have known that the man who petitioned
the Protector for indulgence, and to whom they now advised the
Protector to grant it, was the author of the most vehement and bitter
book that had ever been written on the Royalist side, the man who had
abused the Commonwealth men as "robbers, traitors, parricides" and
"plebeian scoundrels," who had written of Cromwell "Verily an egg is
not liker an egg than Cromwell is like Mahomet," and who had capped
all his other politenesses about Milton by calling him "more vile
than Cromwell, damned than Ravaillac"?[1]
[Footnote 1: Dr. Peter du Moulin did become a Vicar in Cromwell's
Established Church. He was inducted into the Vicarage of Bradwell, in
Bucks, Oct. 24, 1657, but quitted it in a few days, apparently for
something better (Wood's Fasti, II. 195: Note by Cole).]