had escaped from the Tower. It was on the night of April 9, the very
day on which Monk was congratulating himself on the engagement of
obedience signed by so many of his officers. For some days no one
knew where the fugitive had gone, and Monk and the Council of State
were in consternation. Proclamations against him were out, forbidding
any to harbour him, and offering a reward for his capture. Meanwhile
emissaries from Lambert were also out in all directions, to rouse his
friends and bring them to a place of rendezvous in Northamptonshire.
One of these emissaries, a Major Whitby, found Ludlow in
Somersetshire, and delivered Lambert's message to him. Ludlow was not
unwilling to join Lambert, but wanted to know more precisely what he
declared for. With some passion, Whitby suggested that it was not a
time to be asking what a man declared _for_; it was enough to
know what he declared _against_. Ludlow demurred, and said it
was always best to put forth a distinct political programme! He
merely circulated the information; therefore, in Somersetshire and
adjoining counties, and waited for further light. Along many roads,
however, especially in the midland counties, others were straggling
to the appointed rendezvous. Discharged soldiers, Anabaptists,
Republican desperates of every kind, were flocking to Lambert.--Alas!
before many of these could reach Lambert, it was all over. Hither and
thither, wherever there were signs of disturbance, Monk had been
despatching his most efficient officers; and, on the 18th of April,
having received more exact information as to Lambert's whereabouts,
he sent off Colonel Richard Ingoldsby to do his very best in that
scene of action. There could not have been a happier choice. For this
was honest Dick Ingoldsby, the Cromwellian, of whom his kinsman
Richard Cromwell had said that, though he could neither preach nor
pray, he could be trusted. He was also "Dick Ingoldsby, the
Regicide," who had unfortunately signed the death-warrant of Charles
I., to please Cromwell; and that recollection was a spur to him now.
Since the abdication of Richard, he had been telling people that he
would thenceforth serve the King and no one else, even though his
Majesty, when he came home, would probably cut off his head. That
consequence, however, was to be avoided if possible; and already,
since the restoration of the secluded members, Ingoldsby had been
doing whatever stroke of work for them might help towards earning
his pardon. Now had come his most splendid opportunity, and he was
not to let it slip.--On Sunday, the 22nd of April, being Easter
Sunday, he came up with Lambert in Northamptonshire, about two miles
from Daventry. Lambert had then but seven broken troops of horse, and
one foot company; but Colonels Okey, Axtell, Cobbet, Major Creed, and
several other important Republican ex-officers, were with him.
Ingoldsby had brought his own horse regiment from Suffolk; Colonel
Streater, with 500 men of a Northamptonshire foot-regiment, had
joined him; the Royalist gentry round were sending in more horse; the
country train-bands were up. The battle would be very unequal; was it
worth while to fight? For some hours the two bodies stood facing each
other, Lambert's in a ploughed field, with a little stream in his
front, to which Ingoldsby rode up frequently, parleying with such of
Lambert's troopers as were nearest, and so effectively as to bring
some of them over. At last, Lambert showing no signs of surrender,
Ingoldsby and Streater advanced, Ingoldsby ready to charge with his
horse, but Streater marching the foot first with beat of drum to try
the effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots,
which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that
the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see
the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not
necessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; his
troopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troop
came off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lambert
himself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to him, pistol in hand, he
claimed him as his prisoner. There was a kind of scuffle, Creed and
others imploring Ingoldsby to let Lambert go; and in the scuffle
Lambert turned his horse and made off, Ingoldsby after him at full
gallop. They were men of about the same age, neither over forty, but
Ingoldsby the stouter and more fearless for a personal encounter. The
two horses were abreast, or Ingoldsby's a little ahead, the rider
turning round in his seat, with his pistol presented at Lambert, whom
he swore he would shoot if he did not yield. Lambert pleaded yet a
pitiful word or two, and then reined in and was taken.--On Tuesday,
the 24th of April, Lambert was again in the Tower, with Cobbet,
Creed, and other prisoners, though Okey and Axtell were not yet among
them. There had been a great review of the City Militia that day in
Hyde Park, at which the various regiments, red, white, green, blue,
yellow, and orange, with the auxiliaries from the suburbs, made the
magnificent muster of 12,000 men. The Parliament was to meet next
day, and Monk and the Council of State had no farther anxiety. Among
the measures they had taken after Lambert's escape had been an order
that the engagement, already so generally signed by the Officers,
pledging to agreement in whatever Parliament should prescribe as to
the future form of government, should be tendered also to the private
soldiers throughout the whole army. In the troops and companies of
Fleetwood's old regiments, as many as a third of the soldiers, or in
some cases a half, were leaving the ranks in consequence; but in
Monk's own regiments from Scotland only two sturdy Republicans had
stepped out.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 698-699; Skinner, 286-289; Ludlow, 873-877;
Wood's Fasti, II. 133-134; Whitlocke, IV. 407-409; M. de Bordeaux to
Mazarin, Guizot, II. 415.]
So sure was the Restoration of Charles now that the only difficulty
was in restraining impatience and braggartism among the Royalists
themselves. The last argument of the Republican pamphleteers having
been that the Royalists would be implacable after they had got back
the king, and that nothing was to be then expected but the bloodiest
and severest revenges upon all who had been concerned with the
Commonwealth, and some of the younger Royalists having given colour
to such representations by their wild utterances in private, there
had been printed protests to the contrary by leading Royalists in
London and in many of the counties. They desired no revenges, they
said; they reflected on the past as the mysterious course of an
all-wise Providence; they were anxious for an amicable reunion of all
in the path so wonderfully opened up by the wisdom and valour of
General Monk; they utterly disowned the indiscreet expressions of
fools and "hot-spirited persons"; and they would take no steps
themselves, but would confide in Monk, the Council of State, and the
Parliament, The London "declaration" to this effect was signed by ten
earls, four viscounts, five lords, many baronets, knights, and
squires, with several Anglican clergymen, among whom was Jeremy
Taylor. It was of no small use to Monk, who had equally to be on his
guard against too great haste. They were crowding round him now, and
asking why there should be any more delay, why the king should not be
brought to England at once. His one reply still was that the
Parliament alone could decide what was to be done, and that he and
others were bound to leave all to the Parliament. Meanwhile Sir John
Greenville had been back from his mission for some time, and had duly
delivered to Monk the important documents from Breda. Monk had kept
Charles's private letter, but had given Greenville back all the rest,
including his own commission to be his Majesty's Captain-General. Not
a soul was to know of their existence till the moment when they
should be produced in the Parliament.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 699-701; Skinner, 283-284 and 290-294;
Clarendon, 902.]
CHAPTER II.
First Section.
MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH RICHARD'S PROTECTORATE: SEPT.
1658-MAY 1659.
MILTON AND MARVELL STILL IN THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP: MILTON'S FIRST
FIVE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXIII.-CXXXVII.): NEW EDITION
OF MILTON'S _DEFENSIO PRIMA_: REMARKABLE POSTSRCIPT TO THAT
EDITION: SIX MORE STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXXXVIII.-CXLIII.):
MILTON'S RELATIONS TO THE CONFLICT OF PARTIES ROUND RICHARD AND IN
RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT: HIS PROBABLE CAREER BUT FOR HIS BLINDNESS: HIS
CONTINUED CROMWELLIANISM IN POLITICS, BUT WITH STRONGER PRIVATE
RESERVES, ESPECIALLY ON THE QUESTION OF AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH: HIS
REPUTATION THAT OF A MAN OF THE COURT-PARTY AMONG THE
PROTECTORATISTS: HIS _TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL
CAUSES_: ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE, WITH EXTRACTS: THE TREATISE MORE
THAN A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERATION: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT THE
FUNDAMENTAL IDEA: THE TREATISE ADDRESSED TO RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT, AND
CHIEFLY TO VANE AND THE REPUBLICANS THERE: NO EFFECT FROM IT:
MILTON'S FOUR LAST STATE-LETTERS FOR RICHARD (NOS. CXLIV.-CXLVII.):
HIS PRIVATE EPISTLE TO JEAN LABADIE, WITH ACCOUNT OF THAT PERSON:
MILTON IN THE MONTH BETWEEN RICHARD'S DISSOLUTION OF HIS PARLIAMENT
AND HIS FORMAL ABDICATION: HIS TWO STATE-LETTERS FOR THE RESTORED
RUMP (NOS. CXLVIII.-CXLIX.).
Milton and Marvell continued together In the Latin Secretaryship
through the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, The following were the
first Letters of Milton for Richard:--
(CXXXIII.) To Louis XIV. OF FRANCE, _Sept._ 5, 1658:--"Most
serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate: As my most
serene Father, of glorious memory, Oliver, Protector of the
Commonwealth of England, such being the will of Almighty God, has
been, removed by death on the 3rd of September, I, his lawfully
declared successor in this Government, though in the depth of
sadness and grief, cannot but on the very first opportunity inform
your Majesty by letter of so important a fact, assured that, as you
have been a most cordial friend to my Father and this Commonwealth,
the sudden intelligence will be no matter of joy to you either. It
is my business now to request your Majesty to think of me as one
who has nothing more resolvedly at heart than to cultivate with all
fidelity and constancy the alliance and friendship that existed
between my most glorious parent and your Majesty, and to keep and
hold as valid, with the same diligence and goodwill as himself, the
treaties, counsels, and arrangements, of common interest, which he
established with you. To which intent I desire that our Ambassador
at your Court [Lockhart] shall be invested with the same powers as
formerly; and I beg that, whatever he may transact with you in our
name, you will receive it as if done by myself. Finally, I wish
your Majesty all prosperity.--From our Court at Westminster."
(CXXXIV.) To Cardinal Mazarin, _Sept._ [5], 1658:--Dispatched
with the last, and to the same effect. Knowing the reciprocal
esteem between his late Father and his Eminence, Richard cannot but
write to his Eminence as well as to the King.
(CXXXV.) To Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden. _October_
1658:--"Most serene and most potent King, Friend and Confederate:
As I think I cannot sufficiently imitate my father's excellence
unless I cultivate and desire to retain the same friendships which
he sought, and acquired by his worth, and regarded in his singular
judgment as most deserving to be cultivated and retained, there is
no reason for your Majesty to doubt that it will be my duty to
conduct myself towards your Majesty with the same attentiveness and
goodwill which my Father, of most serene memory, made his rule in
his relations to you. Wherefore, although in this beginning of my
Government and dignity I do not find our affairs in such a position
that I can at present reply to certain heads which your agents
have propounded for negotiation, yet the idea of continuing, and
even more closely knitting, the treaty established with your
Majesty by my Father is exceedingly agreeable to me; and, as soon
as I shall have more fully understood the state of affairs on both
sides, I shall indeed be always most ready, as far as I am
concerned, for such arrangements as shall be thought most
advantageous for the interests of both Commonwealths. Meanwhile may
God long preserve your Majesty, to His own glory and for the
guardianship and defence of the Orthodox Church."--The peculiar
state of the relations between the Swedish King and the English
Government is here to be remembered. The heroic Swede, by his
sudden recommencement of war with Denmark, had brought a host of
enemies again around him; and the question, just before Oliver's
death, was whether Oliver would consider himself disobliged by the
rupture of the Peace with Denmark, which had been mainly of his own
making, or whether he would stand by his brother of Sweden and
think him still in the right. That the second would have been
Oliver's course there can be little doubt. The question had now
descended to Richard and his Council. They were anxious to adhere
to the foreign policy of the late Protector in the Swedish as in
all other matters; but there were difficulties.
(CXXXVI. AND CXXXVII.) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN, _Oct._
1659:--Two more letters to his Swedish Majesty, following close on
the last:--(1) In the first, dated "Oct. 13," Richard acknowledges
a letter received from the King of Sweden through his envoy in
London, and also a letter from the King to Philip Meadows, the
English Resident at the Swedish Court, which Meadows has
transmitted. He is deeply sensible of his Swedish Majesty's kind
expressions, both of sorrowing regard for his great father's
memory, and of goodwill towards himself. There could not be a
greater honour to him, or a greater encouragement in the beginning
of his government, than the congratulations of such a King. "As
respects the relations entered into between your Majesty and Us
concerning the common cause of Protestants, I would have your
Majesty believe that, since I succeeded to this government, though
our Affairs are in such a state as to require the extreme of
diligence, care, and vigilance, chiefly at home, yet I have had and
still have nothing more sacredly or more deliberately in my mind
than not to be wanting, to the utmost of my power, to the Treaty
made by my father with your Majesty. I have therefore arranged for
sending a fleet into the Baltic Sea, with those commands which our
Internuncio [Meadows], whom we have most amply instructed for this
whole business, will communicate to your Majesty." This was the
fleet of Admiral Lawson, which did not actually put to sea till the
following month, and was then wind-bound off the English coast. See
ante p. 428; where it is also explained that Sir George Ayscough
was to go out with Lawson, to enter the Swedish service as a
volunteer.--(2) The other letter to Charles Gustavus, though dated
"Oct." merely in the extant copies, was probably written on the
same day as the foregoing, and was to introduce this Ayscough. "I
send to your Majesty (and cannot send a present of greater worth or
excellence) the truly distinguished and truly noble man, George
Ayscough, Knight, not only famous and esteemed for his knowledge of
war, especially naval war, as proved by his frequent and many brave
performances, but also gifted with probity, modesty, ingenuity, and
learning, dear to all for the sweetness of his manners, and, what
is now the sum of all, eager to serve under the banners of your
Majesty, so renowned over the whole world by your warlike prowess."
A favourable reception is bespoken for Ayscough, who is to bring
certain communications to his Majesty, and who, in any matters that
may arise out of these, is to be taken as speaking for Richard
himself. It was not till the beginning of the following year that
Ayscough did arrive in the Baltic.
These five letters were undoubtedly the most important diplomatic
dispatches of the beginning of Richard's Protectorate. They refer to
the two most momentous foreign interests bequeathed from Oliver: viz.
the French Alliance against Spain, and the entanglement in Northern
Europe round the King of Sweden. Milton, as having written all the
previous state-letters on these great subjects, was naturally
required to be himself the writer of the five in which Richard
announced to France and Sweden his resolution to continue the policy
of his father. Marvell's pen may have been used, then and afterwards,
for minor dispatches.
To the month of October 1658, the month after that of Oliver's death,
belongs also a new edition of Milton's _Defensio Prima_. It was
in octavo size, in close and clear type, and bore this title:
"_Joannis Miltonii, Angli, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio contra
Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam. Editio
correctior et auctior, ab Autore denuo recognita. Londini, Typis
Newcombianis, Anno Dom. 1658_" (John Milton's Defence, &c.
"_Corrected and Enlarged Edition, newly revised by the Author_"
London: from Newcome's press, &c.).[1] This edition seems to have
escaped the notice to which it is entitled. As far as my examination
has gone, the differences from the original edition through the body
of the work can be but slight. There is, however, a very important
postscript of two pages, which I shall here translate:--
[Footnote 1: Thomason copy in British Museum, with the date
"_Octob._" (no day) written on the title-page.]
"Having published this book, some years ago now [April 1651], in
the hurried manner then required by the interests of the
Commonwealth, but with the notion that, if ever I should have
leisure to take it into my hands again, I might, as is customary,
afterwards polish up something in it, or perchance cancel or add
something, this I fancy I have now accomplished, though with fewer
changes than I thought: a monument, as I see, whosoever has
contrived it, not easily to perish. If there shall be found some
one who will defend civil liberty more freely than here, yet
certainly it will hardly be in a greater or more illustrious
example; and truly, if the belief is that a deed of such arduous
and famous example was not attempted and so prosperously finished
without divine inspiration, there may be reason to think that the
celebration and defence of the same with such applauses was also by
the same aid and impulse,--an opinion I would much rather see
entertained by all than have any other happiness of genius,
judgment, or diligence, attributed to myself. Only this:--Just as
that Roman Consul, laying down his magistracy, swore in public that
the Commonwealth and that City were safe by his sole exertion, so
I, now placing my last hand on this work, would dare assert,
calling God and men to witness, that I have demonstrated in this
book, and brought publicly forward out of the highest authors of
divine and human wisdom, those very things by which I am confident
that the English People have been sufficiently defended in this
cause for their everlasting fame with posterity, and confident also
that the generality of mankind, formerly deceived by foul ignorance
of their own rights and a false semblance of Religion, have been,
unless in as far as they may prefer and deserve slavery,
sufficiently emancipated. And, as the universal Roman People,
itself sworn in that public assembly, approved with one voice and
consent that Consul's so great and so special oath, so I have for
some time understood that not only all the best of my own
countrymen, but all the best also of foreign men, sanction and
approve this persuasion of mine by no silent vote over the whole
world. Which highest fruit of my labours proposed for myself in
this life I both gratefully enjoy and at the same time make it my
chief thought how I may be best able to assure not only my own
country, for which I have already done my utmost, but also the men
of all nations whatever, and especially all of the Christian name,
that the accomplishment of yet greater things, if I have the
power--and I _shall_ have the power, if God be gracious,--is
meanwhile for their sakes my desire and meditation."
Perhaps one begins to be a little tired of this high-strained
exultation for ever and ever on the subject of his success in the
Salmasian controversy. The recurrence at this point, however, is not
uninstructive. At the beginning of Richard's Protectorate, we can see
Milton's defences of the English Republic were still regarded as the
unparalleled literary achievements of the age, and Milton's European
celebrity on account of them had not waned in the least. It was
something for the blind man, seated by himself in his small home in
Westminster, and sending his thoughts out over the world from which
for six years now he had been so helplessly shut in, to know this
fact, and to be able to imagine the continued recollection of him as
still alive among the myriads moving in that vast darkness. This
fruit of his past labours, he says, he would "gratefully enjoy," but
with no vulgar satisfaction. He would not confess it even to be with
any lingering in him now of the last infirmity of a noble mind. In
his fiftieth year, and in his present state, he could feel himself
superior to that, and could describe his consciousness as something
higher. If he had done a great work already, as he himself believed,
and as the voice of all the best of mankind acknowledged, had it not
been because God had chosen and inspired him for the same, and might
he not in that faith send out a message to the world that perhaps God
had not yet done with him, and they might expect from him, blind and
desolate though he was, something greater and better still? The
closing sentence is exactly such a message, and one can suppose that
Milton was there thinking of his progress in _Paradise Lost_.
Whatever was the amount of Marvell's exertion in the secretaryship,
Milton was not wholly exempted from the duty of writing even the more
ordinary letters for Richard and his Council. There is a vacant
interval of three months, indeed, after the five last registered and
the next; but in January 1658-9 the series is resumed, and there are
six more letters of Milton for Richard between the end of that month
and the end of February. Richard's Parliament, it is to be
remembered, met on the 27th of January.
(CXXXVIII.) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _Jan._ 27,
1658-9 (i.e. the day of the meeting of the Parliament):--Samuel
Piggott, merchant of London, has complained to the Protector that
two ships of his--the _Post_, Tiddy Jacob master, and the
_Water-dog_, Garbrand Peters master--are detained somewhere in
the Baltic by his Majesty's forces. They had sailed from London to
France; thence to Amsterdam, where one had taken in ballast only,
but the other a cargo of herrings, belonging in part to one Peter
Heinsberg, a Dutchman; and, so laden, they had been bound for his
Majesty's port of Stettin. Probably the Dutch ownership of part of
the herring cargo was the cause of the detention of the ships; but
Piggott was the lawful owner of the ships themselves and of the
rest of the goods. His Majesty is prayed to restore them, and so
save the poor man from ruin.
(CXXXIX.) To THE HIGH AND MIGHTY, THE STATES OF WEST FRIESLAND,
_Jan._ 27, 1658-9:--A widow, named Mary Grinder, complains
that Thomas Killigrew, a commander in the service of the States,
has for eighteen years owed her a considerable sum of money, the
compulsory payment of which he is trying now to evade by
petitioning their Highnesses not to allow any suit against him in
their Courts for debts due in England. "If I only mention to your
Highnesses that she, whom this man tries to deprive of nearly all
her fortunes, is a widow, that she is poor, the mother of many
little children, I will not do you the injustice of supposing that
with you, to whom I am confident the divine commandments, and
especially those about not oppressing widows and the fatherless,
are well known, any more serious argument will be needed against
your granting this privilege of fraud to the man's petition."--The
Thomas Killigrew here concerned may have been one of several
well-known Killigrews, then refugee Royalists. Hence perhaps the
earnestness of the letter.
(CXL.) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Feb._ 18, 1658-9:--"We have
heard, and not without grief, that some Protestant churches in
Provence were so scandalously interrupted by a certain
ill-tempered bigot that the matter was thought worthy of severe
notice by the magistrates of Grenoble, to whom the cognisance of
the case belonged by law; but that a convention of the clergy, held
shortly afterwards in, those parts, has obtained your Majesty's
order that the whole affair shall be brought before your Royal
Council in Paris, and that meanwhile, there being no decision there
hitherto, these churches, and especially that of Aix, are
prohibited from meeting for the worship of God." His Majesty is
asked to remove this prohibition, and to see the author of the
mischief properly censured. Such a missive proves that Richard and
his Council kept to Oliver's rule of interference whenever there
was persecution of Protestants, and also that they did not doubt
their influence with Louis and Mazarin.
(CXLI.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _Feb._ 19, 1658-9:[1]--The
Duchess-Dowager of Richmond, with her son, the young duke, is going
into France, and means to reside there for some time. His Eminence
is requested to show all possible attention to the illustrious lady
and her son.
[Footnote 1: So dated in the Skinner Transcript, but "29 Feb." in
Printed Collection and Phillips.]
(CXLII.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _Feb._ 22, 1658-9:[1]--About
eight months ago the case of Peter Pett, "a man of singular
probity, and of the highest utility to us and the Commonwealth by
his remarkable skill in naval affairs," was brought before his
Eminence by a letter of the late Lord Protector (not among Milton's
letters). It was to request that his Eminence would see to the
execution of a decree of his French Majesty's Council, as far back
as Nov. 4, 1647, that compensation should be made to Pett for the
seizure and sale of a ship of his, called the _Edward_, by one
Bascon, in the preceding year. His Eminence has doubtless attended
to the request; but there is still some impediment. Will his
Eminence see where it lies and remove it?--Since the time of Queen
Mary there had been three Peter Petts in succession, ship-builders
and masters of the Royal Dockyard at Deptford; and the present
Peter was the father of the more celebrated Sir Peter Pett, who was
fellow of the Royal Society after the Restoration.
[Footnote 1: So dated in Printed Collection and in the Skinner
Transcript; misdated "Feb. 25" in Phillips.]
(CXLIII.) To ALFONSO V., KING OF PORTUGAL, _Feb._ 23,
1658-9:[1]--Congratulations to his Portuguese Majesty upon a
victory he had recently obtained over "our common enemy the
Spaniard," with acknowledgment of his Majesty's handsome behaviour,
through his Commissioners in London, in the matter of satisfaction,
according to an article in the League between Portugal and the
English Commonwealth, to those English merchants who had let out
their vessels to the Brazil Company. But there is still one such
merchant unpaid--a certain Alexander Bence, whose ship, _The
Three Brothers_, John Wilks master, had made two voyages for the
Company. They refuse to pay him, though they have fully paid others
who had made but one voyage; and "why this is done I do not
understand, unless it be that in their estimation a person is more
worthy of his hire who has earned it once than one who has earned
it twice." Will his Majesty see that Bence receives his due?
[Footnote 1: In the Printed Collection and Phillips, and also, I
think, in the Skinner Transcript, the king's name is given as "John";
but John IV. of Portugal had died in 1656 and been succeeded by
Alfonso.]
These six letters belong to the first month of Richard's Parliament,
with its very large and freely elected House of Commons representing
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and its anomalous addition or
excrescence of another or Upper House, consisting of the two or three
scores of recently-created Cromwellian "Lords." The battle between
the Republicans and the Protectoratists had begun in the Commons,
Thurloe ably leading there for the Protectoratists; the Republicans
had been beaten on the first great question by the recognition of the
Single-Person principle and of Richard's title to the Protectorship;
and the House had gone on to the question of the continued existence
and functions of the other House, with every prospect that the
Cromwillians would beat the Republicans on that question too. From
January to April, not only in the Parliament, but also over the
country at large, the all-engrossing interest, as we know, was this
controversy between pure old Republicanism, desiring neither single
sovereignty nor aristocracy, and that more conservative form of
Commonwealth which had been set up by the Oliverian constitution.
Over the country, no less than in the Parliament, the conservative
policy was in favour, and the Cromwellians or Protectoratists, among
whom the Presbyterians now ranked themselves, were far more numerous
than the old Republicans. Royalism, or at least Stuart Royalism, was
at its lowest ebb. Many that had been Royalists heretofore had
accepted the constitutionalized Protectorate as the best substitute
for Royalty that circumstances allowed, and saw no course left them
but to cooperate with the majority of their countrymen in confirming
Richard's rule.
How Milton stood related to this controversy is a matter rather of
inference than of direct information. Having been a faithful adherent
and official of Oliver through his whole Protectorate, and still
holding his official place under Richard's Government, there is
little doubt that, if he had been obliged to post himself publicly on
either of the two sides, he would have gone among the Cromwellians.
Nay, if he had been obliged to choose between the two subdivisions of
this body, known as the _Court Party_ (supporting Richard
absolutely) and the _Wallingford-House Party_ (supporting
Richard's civil Protectorate, but wanting to transfer the military
power to the Army-chiefs), there can be little doubt that he would
have gone with the former. Had he been in the House of Commons, like
his colleague Andrew Marvell, his duty there, like Marvell's, would
have been that of a ministerial member, assisting Thurloe and voting
with him in all the divisions. But for his blindness, we may here
say, the chances are that he _would_ long ere now have been a
known Parliamentary man, and that, after having been a Cromwellian
leader in Oliver's second Parliament, he might have been now in
Thurloe's exact place in Richard's present Parliament, or beside
Thurloe as a strangely different chief. This, or that other
alternative of a foreign ambassadorship or residency, which must have
suggested itself again and again to the reader in the course of our
narrative, might have been the natural career of Milton through the
rule of the Cromwells, had not blindness disabled him. For, if
Meadows, his former mere assistant in the Foreign Secretaryship, had
been for some time in the one career with increasing distinction, and
if an opening had been easily found for Marvell in the other, why may
not imagination trace either career, or a combination of the two, had
physical infirmity not prevented, for the greater Cromwellian of whom
these were but satellites? It is imagination only, and would not be
worth while, were it not for one important biographical question
which it brings forward. Had Milton remained capable of any such
practical career under the Cromwells, would he have retained, to the
same extent as he had done through his blindness, the necessary
qualification of being an Oliverian or Cromwellian? How far was his
present Cromwellianism the actual consequence of his blindness, the
mere submissiveness of a blind man to what he had no power to
disturb? It is partly an answer to this question to remember again
his _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654, with its great panegyric on
Cromwell. Milton had been but two years blind when that was
published, and had not lost aught of the vehemence of his Republican
convictions. Not without deliberation, therefore, had he given up the
first form of the Commonwealth, consisting in a single supreme House
of Parliament and an annual Council of State chosen by the same, and
accepted the later or Protectoral form, with Cromwell for its head, a
permanent Council of State round Cromwell, and Parliaments on
occasion. But, underneath this general adhesion to the Protectorate,
there had been even then certain Miltonic reserves, and especially
the reserve of a protest against the continuance of a State Church.
Now, had Milton been in a condition to act the part of a practical
statesman through Oliver's Protectorate, might not some extraordinary
development have been given to those reserves? With his boundless
courage and the non-conforming habits of his genius, would he ever
have been the Parliamentary servant of a Government from which he
differed at all,--from which he differed so vitally on the question
of Church Establishment? Probably in nothing else had Cromwell wholly
disappointed him. Through the Protectorate there had been all the
toleration of religious differences that could be desired, or what
shortcoming there had been had hardly been by Cromwell's own fault;
the other interferences with liberty had hardly perhaps, in Milton's
estimation, gone beyond the necessities of police; and in Cromwell's
foreign policy, with its magnificent championship of Protestantism
abroad, what man in England was more ardently at one with him than
the draftsman of his great foreign despatches? At the time of the
proposal of Cromwell's Kingship, and generally at the time of the
transition out of his first Protectorate into his second, with the
resuscitation then of so many aristocratic forms and the attempt to
reinstitute a house of peers, there may have been, as we have already
hinted, an uprising in Milton's mind of democratic objections, and
the effect may have been that Milton before the end of Oliver's
Protectorate was less of an Oliverian than he had been at the
beginning. Still, precluded from any active concern in those
constitutional changes, he may have reconciled himself to them easily
enough, and also to the transmission of the Protectorship from Oliver
to Richard. The one insuperable stumbling-block, I believe, had been
and was Cromwell's Established Church. Even in his blindness he
could theorize on that, and stiffen himself more and more in his
intense Religious Voluntaryism, Conscious of his irreconcileable
dissent from Cromwell's policy in this great matter, and knowing that
Cromwell was aware of the fact, it may have been a satisfaction to
him that he was not called upon to act a Parliamentary part, in which
proclamation of the dissent and consequent rupture with Cromwell on
the ecclesiastical question would have been inevitable. It may have
been some satisfaction to him that he could go on faithfully and
honestly as a servant of Cromwell in the special business of the
Latin Secretaryship, and for the rest be a lonely thinker and take
refuge in silence. It is worth observing, indeed, that nothing of a
political kind had come from Milton's pen during the last three or
four years of Oliver's Protectorate,--nothing even indirectly bearing
on the internal politics of the Commonwealth since his _Pro Se
Defensio_ against Morus in 1655, and nothing directly bearing
thereon since his _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654. And so, if we
conclude this inquiry by saying that, at the time of Richard's
accession and the meeting of his Parliament, Milton was still a
Cromwellian, but a Cromwellian with the old Miltonic reserves, and
these strengthened of late rather than weakened, we shall be about
right. To the public, however, in the present controversy between the
Protectoratists and the pure Republicans, he was distinctly a
Protectoratist, a Cromwellian, one of the Court-party, an official of
Richard and his Council.
Since Cromwell's death, we have now to add, Milton had been
re-mustering his reserves. Under a new Protector, and from the new
Parliament of that new Protector, might he not have a hearing on
points on which he had for some time been silent? On this chance, he
had interrupted even his _Paradise Lost_, in order to prepare an
address to the new Parliament. As might be expected, it was on the
subject of the relations of Church and State. Meditating on this
subject, and how it might be best treated practically at such a time,
Milton, had concluded that it might be broken into two parts. "Two
things there be which have been ever found working much mischief to
the Church of God and the advancement of Faith,--Force on the one
side restraining, and Hire on the other side corrupting, the Teachers
thereof." He would, therefore, write one tract on the effects of
Compulsion or State-restraint in matters of Religion and Speculation,
and another on the effects of Hire or State-endowments in the same.
The two would be interconnected, and would in fact melt into each
other; but they might appear separately, and it might be well to
begin with the first, as the least irritating. Accordingly, before
the meeting of the Parliament he had prepared, and after it had met
there was published, in the form of a very tiny octavo, a tract with
this title-page: "_A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical
Causes: Shewing that it is not lawfull for any power on Earth to
compell in matters of Religion. The author J.M. London, Printed by
Tho. Newcomb, Anno_ 1659." The tract consists of an address "To
the Parlament of the Commonwealth of England with the Dominions
thereof," occupying ten of the small pages, and signed "John Milton"
in full, and then of eighty-three pages of text.[1]
[Footnote 1: The little book was duly registered at Stationers' Hall,
under date Feb. 16, 1658-9, thus: "Mr. Tho. Newcomb entered for his
copy (under the hand of Mr. Pulleyn, warden) a book called A
Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes by John Milton."]
After intimating that this was but the first of two tracts and that
the other would follow, and also that his argument is to be wholly
and exclusively from Scripture, Milton propounds the argument itself
under four successive heads or propositions.--The first is that,
there being, by the fundamental principle of Protestantism, "no other
divine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one another
as a common ground, but the Holy Scripture, and no other within us
but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that
Scripture as warrantable only to ourselves and to such whose
consciences we can so persuade," it follows that "no man or body of
men in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in
matters of religion to any other men's consciences but their own."
Having reasoned this at some length by quotations of Scripture texts
and explanations of the same, he proceeds to "yet another reason why
it is unlawful for the civil magistrate to use force in matters of
Religion: which is, because to judge in those things, though we
should grant him able, which is proved he is not, yet as a civil
magistrate he hath no right." Under this second head, and also by
means of Scripture quotations, there is an exposition of Milton's
favourite idea of the purely spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom and
of the instrumentalities it permits. The third proposition advances
the argument by maintaining that not only is the civil magistrate
unable, from the nature of the case, to determine in matters of
Religion, and not only has he no right to try, but he also does
positive wrong by trying. In arguing this, still Scripturally, Milton
dilates on the meaning of the "Christian liberty" of the true
believer, with the heights and depths which it implies in the renewed
spirit, the superiority to "the bondage of ceremonies" and "the weak
and beggarly rudiments." The fourth and last reason pleaded, still
from Scripture, against the compulsion of the magistrate in Religion,
is that he must fail signally in the very ends he proposes to
himself; "and those hardly can be other than first the glory of God,
next either the spiritual good of them whom he forces or the temporal
punishment of their scandal to others." Far from attaining either of
these ends, he can but dishonour God and promote profanity and
hypocrisy.--"On these four Scriptural reasons as on a firm square."
says Milton at the close, "this truth, the right of Christian and
Evangelic Liberty, will stand immoveable against all those pretended
consequences of license and confusion which, for the most part, men
most licentious and confused themselves, or such as whose severity
would be wiser than divine wisdom, are ever aptest to object against
the ways of God."
Such is the plan of the little treatise, the literary texture of
which is plain and homely, rather than rich, learned, or rhetorical.
"Pomp and ostentation of reading," he expressly says, "is admired
among the vulgar; but doubtless in matters of Religion he is
learnedest who is plainest." It was, we may remember, his first
considerable English dictation for the press since his blindness, and
what one chiefly notices in the style is the strong grasp he still
retains of his old characteristic syntax.[1] The following are a few
of the more interesting individual passages or expressions:--
[Footnote 1: I have noted in the Tract one occurrence at least of the
very un-Miltonic word _its_, as follows:--"As the Samaritans
believed Christ, first for the woman's word, but next and much
rather for his own, so we the Scripture first on the Church's word,
but afterwards and much more for its own as the word of God."]
_Blasphemy._--"But some are ready to cry out 'What shall then
be done to Blasphemy?' Them I would first exhort not thus to
terrify and pose the people with a Greek word, but to teach them
better what it is: being a most usual and common word in that
language to signify any slander, any malicious or evil speaking,
whether against God or man or anything to good belonging."
_Heresy and Heretic_:--"Another Greek apparition stands in our
way, 'Heresy and Heretic': in like manner also railed at to the
people, as in a tongue unknown. They should first interpret to them
that Heresy, by what it signifies in that language, is no word of
evil note; meaning only the choice or following of any opinion,
good or bad, in religion or any other learning."
_A Wrested Text of Scripture_:--"It hath now twice befallen me
to assert, through God's assistance, this most wrested and vexed
place of Scripture [_Romans_ XIII, 'Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers,' &c.]: heretofore against Salmasius and
regal tyranny over the State; now against Erastus and State-tyranny
over the Church."
_Are Popery and Idolatry to be Tolerated?_--"But, as for
Popery and Idolatry, why they also may not hence plead to be
tolerated, I have much less to say. Their Religion, the more
considered, the less can be acknowledged a Religion, but a Roman
Principality rather, endeavouring to keep up her old universal
dominion under a new name and mere shadow of a Catholic Religion;
being indeed more rightly named a Catholic Heresy against the
Scripture; supported mainly by a civil, and, except in Rome, by a
foreign, power: justly therefore to be suspected, not tolerated, by
the magistrate of another country. Besides, of an implicit faith,
which they profess, the conscience also becomes implicit, and so,
by voluntary servitude to man's law, forfeits her Christian
liberty. Who, then, can plead for such a conscience as, being
implicitly enthralled to man instead of God, almost becomes no
conscience, as the will not free becomes no will? Nevertheless, if
they ought not to be tolerated, it is for just reason of State
more than of Religion; which they who force, though professing to
be Protestants, deserve as little to be tolerated themselves, being
no less guilty of Popery in the most Popish point. Lastly, for
Idolatry, who knows it not to be evidently against all Scripture,
both of the Old and New Testament, and therefore a true heresy, or
rather an impiety; wherein a right conscience can have naught to
do, and the works thereof so manifest that a magistrate can hardly
err in prohibiting and quite removing at least the public and
scandalous use thereof."
_Christ's unique act of Compulsion_:--"We read not that Christ
ever exercised force but once; and that was to drive profane ones
out of his Temple, not to force them in."
_Concluding Recommendation to Statesmen and Ministers_:--"As
to those magistrates who think it their work to settle Religion,
and those ministers or others who so oft call upon them to do so, I
trust that, having well considered what hath been here argued,
neither _they_ will continue in that intention, nor
_these_ in that expectation from them, when they shall find
that the settlement of Religion belongs only to each particular
church by persuasive and spiritual means within itself, and that
the defence only of the Church belongs to the magistrate. Had he
once learnt not further to concern himself with Church affairs,
half his labour might be spared and the Commonwealth better
tended."
* * * * *
In this last extract there is a distinct outbreak of the intention
which is rather covert through the rest of the tract. To a hasty
reader the tract might seem only a plea for the amplest toleration,
of religious dissent, a plea for full liberty, outside of the
Established Church, not merely to Baptists, but also to Quakers,
Anti-Trinitarians, and all other sects professing in any way to be
Christians and believers in the Bible, Papists alone excepted, and
they but partially and reluctantly. There would be no censure on
Cromwell's policy, if that were all. But an acute reader of the tract
would have detected that more was intended in it than a plea for
Toleration, that the very existence of any Established Church
whatever was condemned. In the passage last quoted it is clearly seen
that this is the ultimate scope. It is a reflection on Cromwell,
almost by name, for not having freed himself from the notion that the
settlement of Religion is an affair of the Civil Magistrate, but on
the contrary having made such a supposed settlement of Religion one
of the passions of his Protectorate. It is a reflection on him, and
on Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and all his ecclesiastical advisers and
assessors, Independent or Presbyterian, for having busied themselves
in maintaining and re-shaping any State-Church, on however broad a
basis, and so having perpetuated the old distinction between
Establishment and Dissent, Orthodoxy and Heresy, instead of
abolishing that distinction utterly, and leaving all varieties of
Christianity, equally unstamped and unfavoured, to organize
themselves as they best could on the principle of voluntary
association. For the future, statesmen and ministers are invited to
cease from persevering in this delusion of the great and good
Cromwell.
The tract was addressed, as we have said, to the Parliament of
Cromwell's son. The preface, signed with Milton's name in full, is a
recommendation of the doctrine to that body in particular. "I have
prepared, Supreme Council, against the much expected time of your
sitting," Milton there says, "this treatise; which, though to all
Christian Magistrates equally belonging, and therefore to have been
written in the common language of Christendom, natural duty and
affection hath confined and dedicated first to my own nation, and in
a season wherein the timely reading thereof, to the easier
accomplishment of your great work, may save you much labour and
interruption." Then, after having stated the main doctrine, he
continues:--"One advantage I make no doubt of, that I shall write to
many eminent persons of your number already perfect and resolved in
this important article of Christianity: some of whom I remember to
have heard often, for several years, at a Council next in authority
to your own, so well joining religion with civil prudence, and yet so
well distinguishing the different power of either, and this not only
voting but frequently reasoning why it should be so, that, if any
there present had been before of an opinion contrary, he might
doubtless have departed thence a convert in that point, and have
confessed that then both Commonwealth and Religion will at length, if
ever, flourish, in Christendom, when either they who govern discern
between Civil and Religious, or they only who so discern shall be
admitted to govern." In other words, Milton's hopes of a favourable
hearing for his doctrine in Richard's Parliament were founded (1) on
the general ground that many members of the Parliament were old
Commonwealth's men, of the kind that would have carried the abolition
of Tithes and of a State-Church in the Barebones Parliament of 1653,
had not Rous broken up that Parliament and resurrendered the power
to Cromwell, and (2) on the special fact that some of them were men
whom Milton had himself heard with admiration, in the Councils of
State of the Commonwealth, when he first sat there as Foreign
Secretary in attendance, avowing and expounding the principle of
Voluntaryism in Religion, in its fullest possible extent. Among these
last Milton must have had in view chiefly such members of the Commons
House in Richard's Parliament as Vane, Bradshaw, Harrison, Neville,
Ludlow, and Scott, all of whom had been members of one, or several,
or all, of the Councils of State of the old Commonwealth; but he may
have had in view also such members of the present Upper House as
Fleetwood, St. John, and Viscount Lisle. Above all, Vane must have
been in his mind,--Vane, on whom half of his eulogy in 1652 had
been.
"To know
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,
What severs each, _thou_, hast learned; which few have done.
The bounds of either sword to _thee_ we owe."
Might not Vane and his fellows move in the present Parliament for a
reconsideration of that part of the policy of the Protectorate which
concerned Religion? Might they not induce the Parliament to revert,
in the matters of Tithes, a State Ministry, and Endowments of
Religion, to the temper and determinations of the much-abused, but
really wise and deep-minded, Barebones Parliament? Nothing less than
this is the ultimate purport of Milton's appeal; and little wonder
that he prefixed an intimation that he wrote now only as a private
man, and without any official authority whatever. "Of Civil Liberty,"
he says in the conclusion of his preface, "I have written heretofore
by the appointment, and not without the approbation, of Civil Power:
of Christian Liberty I write now,--which others long since having
done with all freedom under Heathen Emperors, I should do wrong to
suspect that now I shall with less under Christian Governors, and
such especially as profess openly their defence of Christian liberty,
although I write this not otherwise appointed and induced than by an
inward persuasion of the Christian duty which I may usefully
discharge herein to the common Lord and Master of us all." The words
imply just a shade of doubt whether he, a salaried servant of the
Government, might not be called to account for having been so bold.
Altogether, Milton's _Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical
Causes_ can be construed no otherwise than as an effort on his
part, Protectoratist and Court-official though he was, to renew his
relations with the old Republican party in the Parliament in the
special interest of his extreme views on the religious question.
Merely as a pleading against Religious Persecution, the treatise
might have had some effect on the Parliament generally, where it was
in fact much needed, in consequence of the presence of so much of the
Presbyterian element, and the likelihood therefore of increased
stringency against Quakers, Socinians, and other Non-Conformists. The
treatise would have found many in the Parliament, besides the
Republicans, quite willing to listen to its advices so far. But only
or chiefly among the old Republicans can there have been any hope of
an acceptance of its extreme definition of Christian Liberty, as
involving Disestablishment and entire separation of Church and
State.
The Treatise, so far as we can see, produced no effect whatever. So
far as the Religious Question did appear in the Parliament, it was
evident that the preservation of Cromwell's Church-Establishment, its
perpetuation as an integral part of Richard's Protectorate, was a
foregone conclusion in the minds of the vast majority. Any
Disestablishment proposal, emanating from the Republican party, or
from any individual member like Vane, would have been tramped out by
the united strength of the Presbyterians, the Cromwellians of the
Court, and the Wallingford-House Cromwellians. The danger even was
that there might be a retrogression in the matter of mere Toleration,
and that the presence and pressure of so many Presbyterians among the
supporters of Richard might compel Richard's Government, against his
own will and that of his Cromwellian Councillors, to a severer
Church-discipline than had characterized the late Protectorate. But,
indeed, it was not on the Religious Question in any form that the
Republicans found time or need to try their strength. Their battles
in the Parliament were on the two main constitutional
questions:--first, the question of the Protectorate itself or
Single-Person Government; and, next, the question of the Other House
or House of Lords. On the first they were definitively beaten in
February; and on the second they were beaten, no less definitively,
and with more distressing incidents of defeat, before the end of
March (ante pp. 432-435). Then, feeling themselves powerless as an
independent party, they changed their tactics. No sooner had the
Protectoratists or Cromwellians triumphed collectively under
Thurloe's leadership than there had begun among them that fatal
straggle between the two divisions of their body of which the beaten
Republicans could not fail to take advantage. The _Court party_
of the Cromwellians, still led by Thurloe in the Commons, desired to
preserve the Protectorate unbroken and with full powers, reducing the
Army, as in an orderly and well-constituted State, to its proper
place and dimensions as the instrument of the civil authority; the
_Army Party_, or _Wallingford-House Party_, represented by
Fleetwood and Desborough in chief, wanted to leave Richard only the
civil Protectorship, and to set up a co-ordinate military power. The
differences between the two parties had been smouldering since
Richard's accession, and had been too visible since the first meeting
of the Parliament; but it was in April 1659, after their joint
victory over the Republicans, that they turned against each other in
deadly strife, the Republicans looking on. Through that month the
ominous spectacle was that of two rival Parliaments in
Westminster--Richard's regular Parliament, and the irregular
Wallingford-House Parliament of Army officers--watching each other
and interchanging threats and denunciations. It was on the 18th of
the month that the regular Parliament passed their two courageous
resolutions asserting their supreme authority. They were that the
Wallingford Council of officers should be immediately dissolved and
no more such meetings of officers permitted, and that all officers of
the Army and Navy should take an engagement not to interrupt the
established power (ante pp. 440-441). Then it was evident there would
be a crash, but in what form was still unknown.
Precisely at this crisis in Richard's Protectorship comes the last
batch of Milton's official letters for him. The letters are four in
number:[1]--
[Footnote 1: These Letters do not appear in the ordinary Printed
Collection, or in Phillips; but they are in the Skinner Transcript,
and have been printed thence by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton
Papers_, pp. 12-14.]
(CXLIV. and CXLV.) To FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY,
_April_ 19, 1659:--Two Letters to this Prince on the same day.
(1) Sir John Dethicke, James Gold, John Limbery, and other London
merchants, are owners of a ship called _The Happy Entrance_,
which they sent out with merchandise for trade in the
Mediterranean, under the command of a John Marvin. They can get no
account from him, and have reason to fear he means to play the
rogue with the ship and cargo and never return. It is believed that
within two months he may put in at Leghorn; and the Protector
requests the Grand Duke to give the merchants, in that case,
facilities for the recovery of their property. (2) A James
Modiford, merchant, complains to the Protector that certain goods
of his, taken to Leghorn about 1652 by another English trader,
Humphrey Sidney, were there seized by some Italian creditors of
Sidney. Modiford has been unable to obtain redress; and the Grand
Duke is now prayed to see his goods restored and any claims Sidney
may have upon him referred to the English Courts.
(CXLVI.) To ALFONSO V., KING OF PORTUGAL, _April_
1659:[1]--A Francis Hurdidge of London complains that a ship of
his, called _The Mary and John_, cargo valued at 70,000
crowns, employed in the Brazil trade in 1649 and 1650, was seized
by the Portuguese. The ship was afterwards taken from the
Portuguese by the Dutch. The Treaty between the English
Commonwealth and Portugal provides for such cases; and his
Portuguese Majesty is requested to make compensation to Hurdidge to
the extent of 25,000 crowns. The man is in great straits.
[Footnote 1: "_Joanni Portugallioe Regi_" is the heading in Mr.
Hamilton's copy from the Skinner Transcript; but this is a mistake
(see ante p. 576, note).]
(CXLVII.) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _April_
1659:--David Fithy, merchant, informs the Protector that, about a
month ago, he contracted to supply to the Navy 150 sacks of hemp.
He has the hemp now at Riga, and a ship ready to bring it thence
for the use of the fleet--"part of which," the Protector skilfully
adds, "has just sailed for the Baltic for your protection" (i.e.
Montague's fleet, despatched this very month: see ante p. 435). It
appears, however, that his Swedish Majesty has forbidden the
exportation of hemp from his port of Riga without special
permission. His Majesty is requested to give Fithy this permission,
that he may be able to fulfil his contract. The Protector will
consider himself much obliged by the kindness.
No more letters was poor Richard to write to crowned heads. On the
very day on which the two first of the foregoing were written, he
appeared in Wallingford House, and ordered the dissolution of the
Council of Officers according to the edict of the Parliament. Next
day it was known through all London that the question was between a
dissolution of this Council of officers and a dissolution of the
Parliament itself. The day after, Thursday, April 21, there was the
famous double rendezvous of the two masses of soldiery round
Whitehall to try the question, the rendezvous for Richard and the
Parliament utterly failing, while that for Fleetwood, Desborough, and
the other rebel chiefs, flooded the streets and St. James's Park.
That night, quailing before the rough threats of Desborough, Richard
and his Council yielded; and on Friday, the 22nd, the indignant
Parliament knew itself to be dissolved, and Richard's Protectorate
virtually at an end. Nominally, it dragged on for a month more.
On Thursday, April 21, the day of the dreadful double rendezvous, and
of Desborough's stormy interview with Richard in Whitehall to compel
the dissolution of the Parliament, Milton, in his house in Petty
France, on the very edge of the uproar, was quietly dictating a
private letter. It is that numbered 28 among his _Epistoloe
Familiares_, and headed "_Joanni Badioeo, Pastori
Arausionensi_," i.e. "To John Badiaeus, Pastor of Orange." With
some trouble, I have identified this "Badiaeus" with a certain French
JEAN LABADIE, who is characterized by Bayle as a "schismatic
minister, followed like an apostle," and by another authority as "one
of the most dangerous fanatics of the seventeenth century." The facts
of his life, to the moment of our present concern with him, are given
in the accepted French authorities thus:--Born in 1610 at
Bourg-en-Guyenne, the son of a soldier who had risen to be
lieutenant, he had received a Jesuit education at Bordeaux, had
entered the Jesuit order at an early age, and had become a priest.
For fifteen years he had remained in the order, preaching, and also
teaching rhetoric and philosophy, reputed "a prodigy of talent and
piety," but also a mystic and enthusiast, with fancies that he must
found a new religious sect. While preaching orthodox Catholicism in
public, he had been indoctrinating disciples in private with his
peculiarities; and, when they were numerous enough, he wanted to
leave the Jesuits. By reasonings and kindness, they managed to retain
him for a while; but he grew more odd and visionary, fasting often,
eating only herbs, and having divine revelations. After a dangerous
illness, which brought him to death's door, he did obtain his
dismissal from the Jesuit order in April 1639, and went over France
propagandizing. The Bishop of Amiens, caught by his eloquence, made
him prebendary of a collegiate church in that town; in connexion with
which, and with the Bishop's approval, he founded a religious
association of young women, called St. Mary Magdalene. All seemed to
go well for a time; but at length there was a scandal about him and a
girl in Abbeville, with a burst of similar scandals about his abuse
of the confessional for vicious purposes. To avoid arrest, he
absconded to Paris in August 1644, and thence to Bazas, where he
lived under a feigned name. But the Bishop of Bazas took him up; he
cleared himself to the Bishop and others, and defied his
calumniators. Only for a time; for again there were scandals, and he
was expelled the diocese. Going then to Toulouse, he gained the
confidence of the Archbishop there, who gave him charge of a convent
of nuns. In this post he developed more systematically his notions of
the religious life, described as a compound of Quietism and
Antinomianism, after the fashion of sects already known in France and
Germany, but with sexual extravangances which, when divulged, raised
an indignant storm. In November 1649, he had to abscond from
Toulouse; and, after various wanderings, in which he called himself
"Jean de Jesus Christ" and obtained popularity as a prophet, he came
to Montauban, and there publicly abjured Roman Catholicism in October
1650. Elected minister of the Protestant church of that town in 1652,
he lived there for some years in great esteem among the Protestants,
but in deadly feud with the Roman Catholics. The schism was such that
at last the magistrates had to banish him from the town as a
disturber of the peace. Then he had found refuge in Orange; and he
was in some kind of temporary Protestant pastorship in that town of
south-east France when there was this communication between him and
Milton.[1]
[Footnote 1: Article LABADIE in _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_
(1859), with additional information from Article on him in the
_Biographie Universelle_ (edit. 1819), and from _La Vie du
Sieur Jean Labadie_ by Bolsec (Lyon, 1664), and some passages in
Bayle's Dictionary (e.g. in Article _Mamillaires_). It is from
the additional authorities that I learn the fact of the removal of
Labadie from Montauban to Orange; the Article in the _N. Biog.
Gen._ omits it.--I have seen two publications of Labadie at
Montauban--one of 1650, entitled _Declaration de Jean de L'Abadie,
cydevant prestre_, giving his reasons for quitting the Church of
Rome; the other of 1651, entitled _Lettre de J. de L'Abadie à ses
amis de la Communion Romaine touchant sa Declaration_.]
TO JEAN LABADIE, MINISTER OF ORANGE.
"If I answer you rather late, distinguished and reverend Sir, our
common friend Durie, I believe, will not refuse to let me transfer
the blame of the late answer from myself to him. For, now that he
has communicated to me that paper which you wished read to me, on
the subject of your doings and sufferings in behalf of the Gospel,
I have not deferred preparing this letter for you, to be given to
the first carrier, being really anxious as to the interpretation
you may put upon my long silence. I owe very great thanks meanwhile
to your Du Moulin of Nismes [not far from Orange], who, by his
speeches and most friendly talk concerning me, has procured me the
goodwill of so many good men in those parts. And truly, though I
am not ignorant that, whether from the fact that I did not, when
publicly commissioned, decline the contest with an adversary of
such name [Salmasius], or on account of the celebrity of the
subject, or, finally, on account of my style of writing, I have
become sufficiently known far and wide, yet my feeling is that I
have real fame only in proportion to the good esteem I have among
good men. That you also are of this way of thinking I see
plainly--you who, kindled by the regard and love of Christian
Truth, have borne so many labours, sustained the attacks of so many
enemies, and who bravely do such actions every day as prove that,
so far from seeking any fame from the bad, you do not fear rousing
against you their most certain hatred and maledictions. O happy man
thou! whom God, from among so many thousands, otherwise knowing and
learned, has snatched singly from the very gates and jaws of Hell,
and called to such an illustrious and intrepid profession of his
Gospel! And at this moment I have cause for thinking that it has
happened by the singular providence of God that I did not reply to
you sooner. For, when I understood from your letter that, assailed
and besieged as you are on all hands by bitter enemies, you were
looking round, and no wonder, to see where you might, in the last
extremity, should it come to that, find a suitable refuge, and that
England was most to your mind, I rejoiced on more accounts than one
that you had come to this conclusion,--one reason being the hope of
having you here, and another the delight that you should have so
high an opinion of my country; but the joy was counterbalanced by
the regret that I did not then see any prospect of a becoming
provision for you among us here, especially as you do not know
English. Now, however, it has happened most opportunely that a
certain French minister here, of great age, died a few days ago.
The persons of most influence in the congregation, understanding
that you are by no means safe where you are at present, are very
desirous (I report this not from vague rumour, but on information
from themselves) to have you chosen to the place of that minister:
in fact, they invite you; they have resolved to pay the expenses of
your journey; they promise that you shall have an income equal to
the best of any French minister here, and that nothing shall be
wanting that can contribute to your pleasant discharge of the
pastoral duty among them. Wherefore, take my advice, Reverend Sir,
and fly hither as soon as possible, to people who are anxious to
have you, and where you will reap a harvest, not perhaps so rich in
the goods of this world, but, as men like you most desire,
numerous, I hope, in souls; and be assured that you will be most
welcome here to all good men, and the sooner the better. Farewell.
"Westminster: April 21, 1659."
It is clear from this letter that Milton had never heard of the
scandals against M. Labadie's moral character, or, if he had, utterly
disbelieved them, and regarded him simply as a convert from Roman
Catholicism whose passionate and aggressive Protestant fervour had
brought intolerable and unjust persecution upon him in France. Durie
was his informant; and, for all we can now know, Milton's judgment
about Labadie may have been the right one, and the traditional French
account of him to this day may be wrong. It is certainly strange,
however, to find Milton befriending with so much readiness and zeal
this French Protestant minister, against whom there were exactly such
scandals abroad as those which he had himself believed and blazoned
about Morus, for the murder of Morus's reputation over Europe, and
his ruin in the French Protestant Church in particular. Nor does the
reported sequel of Labadie's life, in the ordinary accounts of him,
lessen the wonder.--Labadie did not come to London, as Milton had
hoped. When he received Milton's letter, he was on the wing for
Geneva, where he arrived in June 1659, and where he continued his
preaching. Here, in the very city where Morus had once been, there
still were commotions round him; and, after new wanderings in
Germany, we find him at Middleburg in Holland in 1666, thus again by
chance in a town where Morus had been before him. At Middleburg he
seems to have attained his widest celebrity, gathering a body of
admirers and important adherents, the chief of whom was "Mademoiselle
Schurmann, so versed in the learned languages." At length a quarrel
with M. de Wolzogue, minister of the Walloon church at Utrecht,
brought Labadie into difficulties with the Walloon Synod and with the
State authorities, and he migrated to Erfurt, and thence to Altona,
where he died in 1674, "in the arms of Mademoiselle Schurmann," who
had followed him to the last. He left a sect called _The
Labadists_, who were strong for a time, and are perhaps not yet
extinct. Among the beliefs they inherited from him are said to have
been these:--(1) That God may and does deceive man; (2) That
Scripture is not necessary to salvation, the immediate action of the
Spirit on souls being sufficient; (3) That there ought to be no
Baptism of Infants; (4) That truly spiritual believers are not bound
by law and ceremonies; (5) That Sabbath-observance is unnecessary,
all days being alike; (6) That the ordinary Christian Church is
degenerate and decrepit. One sees here something like a French
Quakerism, but with ingredients from older Anabaptism. Had Milton's
letter had the intended effect, the sect might have had its home in
London.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Nouvelle Biographie Générale_, as before.--It is
to be remembered that Milton himself authorized the publication of
his letter to Badiaeus with his other Latin Familiar Epistles in
1674 (see Vol. I. p. 239). By that time he must have known the whole
subsequent career of Labadie and all the reports about him; and he
cannot even then have thought ill of him or of Mad'lle Schurmann.
To the end, he liked all bold schismatics and sectaries, if they
took a forward direction.]
Virtually at an end on the 22nd of April by the enforced dissolution
of the Parliament, Richard's Protectorate was more visibly at an end
on the 7th of May, when the Wallingford-House chiefs agreed with the
Republicans in restoring the Rump. Eight days after that event Milton
was called on to write two letters for the new Republican
authorities. They were as follows:--
(CXLVIII.) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _May_ 15,
1659:--"Most serene and most potent King, and very dear Friend: As
it has pleased God, the best and all-powerful, with whom alone are
all changes of Kingdoms and Commonwealths, to restore Us to our
pristine authority and the supreme administration of English
affairs, we have thought it good in the first place to inform your
Majesty of the fact, and moreover to signify to you both our high
regard for your Majesty, as a most potent Protestant prince, and
also our desire to promote to the utmost of our power such a peace
between you and the King of Denmark, himself likewise a very potent
Protestant prince, as may not be brought about without our
exertions and most willing good offices. Our pleasure therefore is
that our internuncio extraordinary, Philip Meadows, be continued in
our name in exactly the same employment which he has hitherto
discharged with your Majesty for this Commonwealth; and to that end
we, by these presents, give him the same power of making proposals
and of treating and dealing with your Majesty which he had by his
last commendatory letters. Whatever shall be transacted and
concluded by him in our name, the same we pledge our promise, with
God's good help, to confirm and ratify. May God long preserve your
Majesty as a pillar and defence of the Protestant cause.--WILLIAM
LENTHALL, _Speaker of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of
England_."
(CXLIX) To FREDERICK III., KING OF DENMARK, _May_ 15,
1659:--The counterpart of the foregoing. His Danish Majesty,
addressed as "most serene King and very dear Friend" is informed by
Lenthall of the change in English affairs, and of the sympathy the
present English Government feels with him in his adversity. They
will do their utmost to secure a peace between him and the King of
Sweden; and Philip Meadows, their Envoy Extraordinary to the King
of Sweden, has full powers to treat with his Danish Majesty too for
that end. "God grant to your Majesty, as soon as possible, a happy
and joyful outcome from all those difficulties of your affairs in
which you behave so bravely and magnanimously!"
On the 25th of May Richard sent in his reluctant abdication, leaving
the Rump, which had already assumed the supreme authority, to
exercise that authority without further challenge or opposition on
his part. Most of the public officials remained in their posts, and
Milton remained In his. After five years and five months of
Secretaryship under a Single-Person Government, he found himself
again Secretary under exactly such a Republican Government as he had
served originally, consisting now of the small Parliament of the
Restored Rumpers and of a Council of State appointed by that
Parliament. In this Council of State were Bradshaw, Vane, Sir James
Harrington, St. John, Hasilrig, Scott, Walton, and Whitlocke, who had
been members of all the first five Councils of the Commonwealth, from
that which had invited Milton to the Secretaryship in 1649 to that
which Cromwell forcibly dissolved in 1653, besides Fairfax,
Fleetwood, Ludlow, John Jones, Wallop, Challoner, Neville, Dixwell,
Downes, Morley, Thompson, and Algernon Sidney, whom Milton had known
as members of one or more of those five Councils, and Lambert and
Desborough, who had not been in any of them, but were among his later
acquaintances.
CHAPTER II.
Second Section.
MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE ANARCHY: MAY 1659--FEB.
1659-60.
_FIRST STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE RESTORED RUMP_ (MAY--OCT.
1659):--FEELINGS AND POSITION OF MILTON IN THE NEW STATE OF THINGS:
HIS SATISFACTION ON THE WHOLE, AND THE REASONS FOR IT: LETTER OF
MOSES WALL TO MILTON: RENEWED AGITATION AGAINST TITHES AND
CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: VOTES ON THAT SUBJECT IN THE RUMP: MILTON'S
CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE LIKELIEST MEANS TO REMOVE HIRELINGS OUT
OF THE CHURCH: ACCOUNT OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH EXTRACTS: ITS
THOROUGH-GOING VOLUNTARYISM: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT DEMANDED
ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT COMPENSATION FOR VESTED INTERESTS: THE APPEAL
FRUITLESS, AND THE SUBJECT IGNORED BY THE RUMP: DISPERSION OF THAT
BODY BY LAMBERT.
_SECOND STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE
INTERRUPTION_ (OCT.--DEC. 1659):--MILTON'S THOUGHTS ON LAMBERT'S
COUP D'ÉTAT IN HIS _LETTER TO A FRIEND CONCERNING THE RUPTURES OF
THE COMMONWEALTH_: THE LETTER IN THE MAIN AGAINST LAMBERT AND IN
DEFENCE OF THE RUMP: ITS EXTRAORDINARY PRACTICAL PROPOSAL OF A
GOVERNMENT BY TWO PERMANENT CENTRAL BODIES: THE PROPOSAL COMPARED
WITH THE ACTUAL ADMINISTRATION BY THE _COMMITTEE OF SAFETY_ AND
THE _WALLINGFORD-HOUSE COUNCIL OF OFFICERS_: MILTON STILL
NOMINALLY IN THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP: MONEY WARRANT OF OCT. 25,
1659, RELATING TO MILTON, MARVELL, AND EIGHTY-FOUR OTHER OFFICIALS:
NO TRACE OF ACTUAL SERVICE BY MILTON FOR THE NEW _COMMITTEE OF
SAFETY_: HIS MEDITATIONS THROUGH THE TREATY BETWEEN THE
WALLINGFORD-HOUSE GOVERNMENT AND MONK IN SCOTLAND: HIS MEDITATIONS
THROUGH THE COMMITTEE-DISCUSSIONS AS TO THE FUTURE MODEL OF
GOVERNMENT: HIS INTEREST IN THIS AS NOW THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION, AND
HIS COGNISANCE OF THE MODELS OF HARRINGTON AND THE ROTA CLUB:
WHITLOCKE'S NEW CONSTITUTION DISAPPOINTING TO MILTON: TWO MORE
LETTERS TO OLDENBURG AND YOUNG RANELAGH: GOSSIP FROM ABROAD IN
CONNECTION WITH THESE LETTERS: MORUS AGAIN, AND THE COUNCIL OF FRENCH
PROTESTANTS AT LOUDUN: END OF THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE INTERRUPTION.
_THIRD STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE SECOND RESTORATION OF THE
RUMP_ (DEC. 1659-FEB. 1659-60):--MILTON'S DESPONDENCY AT THIS
PERIOD: ABATEMENT OF HIS FAITH IN THE RUMP: HIS THOUGHTS DURING THE
MARCH OF MONK FROM SCOTLAND AND AFTER MONK'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON: HIS
STUDY OF MONK NEAR AT HAND AND MISTRUST OF THE OMENS: HIS INTEREST
FOR A WHILE IN THE QUESTION OF THE PRECONSTITUTION OF THE NEW
PARLIAMENT PROMISED BY THE RUMP: HIS ANXIETY THAT IT SHOULD BE A
REPUBLICAN PARLIAMENT BY MERE SELF-ENLARGEMENT OF THE RUMP: HIS
PREPARATION OF A NEW REPUBLICAN PAMPHLET: THE PUBLICATION POSTPONED
BY MONK'S SUDDEN DEFECTION FROM THE RUMP, THE ROASTING OF THE RUMP IN
THE CITY, AND THE RESTORATION OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS TO THEIR PLACES
IN THE PARLIAMENT: MILTON'S DESPONDENCY COMPLETE.
With what feelings was it that Milton found himself once more in the
employment of his old masters, the original Republicans or
Commonwealth's-men? That there may have been some sense of
awkwardness in the re-connexion is not unlikely. Had he not for six
years been a most conspicuous Cromwellian? Had he not justified again
and again in print Cromwell's _coup d'état_ of 1653, by which
the Rump had been turned out of power, and which the now Restored
Rumpers, and especially such of their leaders as Vane, Scott,
Hasilrig, and Bradshaw, were bound to remember as Cromwell's
unpardonable sin, and the woeful beginning of an illegitimate
interregnum? He had justified it, hardly anonymously, in his Letter
to a Gentleman in the Country, published in May 1653, only a
fortnight after the fact (Vol. IV. pp. 519-523). He had justified it
a year later in his _Defensio Secunda_ of 1654, published some
months after the Protectorate had actually begun. In that famous
pamphlet, he had, amid much else to the same effect, made special
reference to Cromwell's Dissolution of the Rump in these words
addressed to Cromwell himself: "When you saw delays being contrived,
and every one more intent on his private interests than on the public
good, and the people complaining of being cheated of their hopes and
circumvented by the power of a few, you did what they themselves had
so often declined to do when asked, and put an end to their
Government" (Vol. IV. p. 604). Rumpers of tenacious memories cannot
have forgotten such published utterances of Milton, while the fact
that he had for some years past been an Oliverian, a Protectoratist,
a Court-official for Oliver and Richard, was patent to all. Yet, now
that the old Rumpers were restored to power, the survivors of the
original "few" whose dissolution by Cromwell he had publicly praised
and defended, here was Milton still in his secretaryship and writing
the first foreign letters they required.
How was this? It is hardly a sufficient answer to say that it is
quite customary for officials to remain in their places through
changes of Government. On the one hand, Milton was not a man to
remain in an element with which he could not conscientiously accord;
and, on the other, the Rumpers were rather careful in seeking public
servants of their own sort. Thurloe was out of the general
Secretaryship; and one of the first acts of the restored House was to
punish Mr. Henry Scobell, Clerk of the Parliament, for having
entered, the fact of Cromwell's Dissolution of the House on April 20,
1653, in the Journals tinder that date. They ordered a Bill to be
brought in for repealing the Act by which Scobell held the
Clerkship.[1] The truth, then, is that Milton was not, on the whole,
displeased by the return of his old friends to power. Though he had
justified Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump and had become openly an
Oliverian at the beginning of the Protectorate, he had never ceased
to regard with admiration and affection such of the old Republicans
as Vane, Bradshaw, and Overton. It had probably all along been a
question with him whether the blame of their disablement under the
Protectorate lay more with themselves or with Oliver. Then, as we
have abundantly seen, there is reason for believing that before the
end of the Protectorate his own Oliverianism or Cromwellianism had
become weaker than at first. The Miltonic reserves, as we have called
them, with which he had given his adhesion to the Protectorate even
at first, had taken stronger and stronger development in his mind;
and, whatever he found to admire in Cromwell's Government all in all,
the whole course of that Government in Church matters had been a
disappointment. Milton wanted to see Church and State entirely
separated; Cromwell had mixed them, intertwined them, more than ever.
Milton wanted to see the utter abolition in England of anything that
could be called a clergy; Cromwell had made it one of the chief
objects of his rule to maintain a clergy and extend it massively.
Whether this policy might not yet be reversed had been one of
Milton's first questions with himself after Cromwell's death; and his
_Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes_, addressed to
Richard's Parliament, had been a challenge to that Parliament not to
shrink from the great attempt. In that treatise, it is not too much
to say, Milton had shaken hands again with the old Republican party.
In the preface to it he had dwelt fondly on his former connexion with
them, on his recollection especially of the speeches he had heard
from some of them in the old Councils of State of the Commonwealth,
when he had first the honour to sit there as Latin Secretary, and
listen to their private debates. What clearness then, what
decisiveness, in such men as Vane and Bradshaw, on that "important
article of Christianity," the necessary distinctness of the Civil
from the Religious! Ah! could those old days be back! He had written
as if those days had not been satisfactory, as if the dispersion of
his old masters of those days had been necessary; but, in so writing,
had he not been too hasty? So he had been asking himself of late; and
though, as Richard's Latin Secretary, and writing under his
Protectorate, he had not said a word against the established
Protectoral Government, he had expressed generally his conviction
that England would never be right till either those charged with the
Government should be men "discerning between Civil and Religious" or
none but such should be charged with the Government. Now, however, in
May 1659, he might speak more plainly. Richard's Government had been
swept away;--Richard's Parliament, which he had addressed, was no
more in being; and, by a revolution which he had not expected, and in
which he had taken no part, the pure Republic, with the relics of the
Parliament that had first created it, was again the established
order. All round about him the men he respected most were exulting in
the change, and calling it a revival of "the Good Old Cause." Without
pronouncing on the change in all its aspects, he could join in the
exultation for a special reason. Would not the restored Republican
Parliament and their Councils of State see it to be part of their
duty to assert at last the principle of absolute Religious
Voluntaryism?
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals, May 19, 1659.]
This representation of Milton's position at the time of the
restoration of the Rump is confirmed by a private letter then
addressed to him. The writer was a certain Moses Wall, of Causham or
Caversham in Oxfordshire, a scholar and Republican opinionist of whom
there are traces in Hartlib's correspondence and elsewhere.[1] Milton
had recently written to him, sending him perhaps a copy of his
_Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes_; and this is
Wall's reply--written, it will be observed, the very day after
Richard's abdication:--
[Footnote 1: Worthington's Diary and Correspondence, by Crossley, I.
355 and 365.]
"Sir,
"I received yours the day after you wrote, and do humbly thank you
that you are pleased to honour me with your letters. I confess I
have (even in my privacy in the country) oft had thoughts about
you, and that with much respect for your friendliness to truth in
your early years and in bad times. But I was uncertain whether your
relation to the Court (though I think that a Commonwealth was more
friendly to you than a Court) had not clouded your former light;
but your last book resolved that doubt.
"You complain of the non-progressency of the nation, and of its
retrograde motion of late, in liberty and spiritual truths. It is
much to be bewailed; but, yet, let us pity human frailty. When
those who had made deep protestations of their zeal for our
liberty, both spiritual and civil, and made the fairest offers to
be the asserters thereof, and whom we thereupon trusted,--when
these, being instated in power, shall betray the good thing
committed to them, and lead us back to Egypt, and by that force
which we gave them to win us liberty hold us fast in chains,--what
can poor people do? You know who they were that watched our
Saviour's sepulchre to keep him from rising [soldiers! see Matthew
XXVII. and XXVIII.]. Besides, whilst people are not free, but
straitened in accommodations for life, their spirits will be
dejected and servile; and, conducing to that end [of rousing them],
there should be an improving of our native commodities, as our
manufactures, our fishery, our fens, forests, and commons, and our
trade at sea, &c.: which would give the body of the nation a
comfortable subsistence. And the breaking that cursed yoke of
Tithes would much help thereto. Also another thing I cannot but
mention; which is that the Norman Conquest and Tyranny is continued
upon the nation without any thought of removing it: I mean the
tenure of land by copyhold, and holding for life under a lord, or
rather tyrant, of a manor; whereby people care not to improve their
land by cost upon it, not knowing how soon themselves or theirs may
be outed it, nor what the house is in which they live, for the same
reason; and they are far more enslaved to the lord of the manor
than the rest of the nation is to a king or supreme magistrate.
"We have waited for liberty; but it must be God's work and not
man's: who thinks it sweet to maintain his pride and worldly
interest to the gratifying of the flesh, whatever becomes of the
precious liberty of mankind. But let us not despond, but do our
duty; God will carry on that blessed work, in despite of all
opposites, and to their ruin if they persist therein.
"Sir, my humble request is that you would proceed, and give us that
other member of the distribution mentioned in your book: viz. that
Hire doth greatly impede truth and liberty. It is like, if you do,
you shall find opposers; but remember that saying,_'Beatius est
pati quam frui,'_ or, in the Apostle's words, James V. 11.
[Greek: Makarizomen tous hypomenontas] ['We count them happy that
endure']. I have sometimes thought (concurring with your assertion)
of that storied voice that should speak from heaven when
Ecclesiastics were endowed with worldly preferments, _'Hodie
venenum infunditur in Ecelesiam'_ ['This day is poison poured
into the Church']; for, to use the speech of Gen. IV. _ult._,
according to the sense which it hath in the Hebrew, 'Then began men
to corrupt the worship of God.' I shall tell you a supposal of
mine; which is this:--Mr. Durie has bestowed about thirty years'
time in travel, conference, and writing, to reconcile Calvinists
and Lutherans, and that with little or no success. But the shortest
way were:--Take away ecclesiastical dignities, honours, and
preferments on both sides, and all would soon be hushed; those
ecclesiastics would be quiet, and then the people would come forth
into truth and liberty. But I will not engage in this quarrel. Yet
I shall lay this engagement upon myself,--to remain
"Your faithful friend and servant,
"M. Wall.[1]
"Causham: May 26, 1659."
[Footnote 1: Copy in Ayscough: MS. in British Museum, No. 4292 (f.
121); where the copyist "J. Owen" (the Rev. J. Owen of Rochdale)
certifies it as from the original. It was printed, not very
correctly, by Richard Baron, in 1756, in his preface to his edition
of the _Eikonoklastes._]
Here, from a man evidently after Milton's own heart on the Church
question, we have Milton's welcome back into the ranks of the old
Republicans. And more and more through the five months of the first
Restoration of the Rump (May 7--Oct. 13) the friends of "the good
old cause" had reason to know that Milton was again one of
themselves. It happens, indeed, that we have no more letters of his
for the Restored Rump Government than the two of May 15, already
quoted, which he wrote for the restored House, and which were signed
by Speaker Lenthall. Those two letters close the entire series of the
known and extant State-Letters of Milton. He and Marvell, however,
were still in their Secretaryship, drawing their salaries as before;
and of the completeness of Milton's re-adherence to the Republican
Government there is evidence more massive and striking than could
have been furnished by any number of farther official letters by him
for the Rump or its Council.
Milton, had not judged wrongly in supposing that the question of
Church-disestablishment would now be made part and parcel of "the
good old cause." We have already glanced at the facts (p. 466), but
they may be given here more in detail:--Hardly had the Rump been
reconstituted when petitions for Disestablishment, in the form of
petitions for the abolition of Tithes, began to pour in upon it. One
such, called "The Humble Representation and Petition of many
well-affected persons in the counties of Somerset, Wilts, and some
parts of Devon, Dorset, and Hampshire," was read in the House on the
14th of June. The petitioners were thanked, and informed that the
House resolved "to give encouragement to a godly, preaching, learned
ministry throughout the nation, and for that end to continue the
payment of Tithes till they can find out some other more equal and
comfortable maintenance for the ministry, and satisfaction of the
people; which they intend with all convenient speed." That day,
accordingly, in a division of thirty-eight Yeas (Carew Raleigh and
Sir William Brereton tellers) to thirty-eight Noes (Hasilrig and
Colonel White tellers) it was carried, by the Speaker's casting vote,
to refer the question of some substitute for Tithes to a Grand
Committee. On the 27th of June, there having been other petitions
against Tithes in the meantime, signed by "many thousands," the House
came to a more definite resolution, which they ordered to be printed
and published by the Judges in their circuits. It was "That this
Parliament doth declare that, for the encouragement of a godly,
preaching, learned ministry throughout the nation, the payment of
Tithes shall continue as now they are, _unless_ this Parliament
shall find out some other," &c. As the word _unless_ had been,
substituted for the word _until_ without a division, it is
evident that the House had gone back in their intentions in the
course of the fortnight, and were less disposed to commit themselves
to any serious interference with the Church Establishment as left by
Cromwell. The disappointment to the petitioning thousands must have
been great. Still, the question had been raised, and might be
regarded as only adjourned. What was wanted was continued agitation
out of doors, more petitioning and more pamphleteering.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates.]
It was in this last way that Milton could help. As advised by his
friend Moses Wall, he had been busy over that second Disestablishment
tract which he had promised; and in August 1659 it appeared in this
form: _"Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove
Hirelings out of the Church. Wherein is also discourc'd of Tithes,
Church-fees, Church Revenues; and, whether any maintenance of
ministers can be settl'd by law. The author J.M. London, Printed by
T.N. for L. Chapman at the Crown in Popes-head Alley,_ 1659." The
volume is a very small octavo, and contains eighteen unnumbered pages
of prefatory address to the Parliament in large open type, signed
"John Milton" in full, followed by 153 pages of text.[1]
[Footnote 1: Copy in Thomason Collection, with date "Aug." marked on
title-page--month only, no day.]
The Address to the Parliament deserves particular notice. The
following is the main portion of it, with two phrases Italicised:--
"Owing to your protection, Supreme Senate, this liberty of writing
which I have used these eighteen years on all occasions to assert
the just rights and freedoms both of Church and State, and so far
approved as to have been trusted with the representment and defence
of your actions to all Christendom against an adversary of no mean
repute, to whom should I address what I still publish on the same
argument but to you, whose magnanimous counsels first opened and
unbound the age from a double bondage under Prelatical and Regal
tyranny, above our own hopes heartening us to look up at last like
Men and Christians from the slavish dejection wherein from father
to son we were bred up and taught, and thereby deserving of these
nations, if they be not barbarously ingrateful, to be acknowledged,
next under God, _the authors and best patrons of Religious and
Civil Liberty that ever these Islands brought forth?_ The care
and tuition of whose peace and safety, _after a short but
scandalous night of interruption,_ is now again, by a new
dawning of God's miraculous Providence among us, revolved upon your
shoulders. And to whom more appertain these Considerations which I
propound than to yourselves, and the debate before you, though I
trust of no difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not
whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether ye
will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected
both to Religion and to this your return, or whether ye will
satisfy (which you never can) the covetous pretences and demands of
insatiable Hirelings, whose disaffection ye well know hath to
yourselves and your resolutions? That I, though among many others
in this common concernment, interpose to your deliberations what my
thoughts also are, your own judgment and the success thereof hath
given me the confidence: which requests but this--that, if I have
prosperously, God so favouring me, defended the public cause of
this Commonwealth to foreigners, ye would not think the reason and
ability whereon ye trusted once (and repent not) your whole
reputation to the world either grown less by more maturity and
longer study or less available in English than in another tongue:
but that, if it sufficed, some years past, to convince and satisfy
the unengaged of other nations in the justice of your doings,
though then held paradoxal, it may as well suffice now against
weaker opposition in matters (except here in England, with a
spirituality of men devoted to their temporal gain) of no
controversy else among Protestants."
This is, unmistakeably, a public testimony of Milton's re-adhesion to
the Rumpers, with something like an expression of regret that he had
ever parted from them. After all, he could call them "the authors and
best patrons of religious and civil liberty that ever these Islands
brought forth"; and, with this renewed conviction, and remembering
also their former confidence in himself, especially in the Salmasian
controversy, he could now congratulate them and the country on their
return to power. But is not the Address also a recantation of his
Oliverianism? To some extent, it must be so interpreted. It seems
utterly impossible, indeed, that the phrase "_a short but
scandalous night of interruption_" was intended to apply to the
entire six years of the Cromwellian Dictatorship and Protectorship.
That had not been a "short" interruption, for it had exceeded in
length the whole duration of the Commonwealth it had interrupted; and
it would be the most marvellous inconsistency on record if Milton
could ever have brought himself to call it "scandalous." Who had
written the panegyric on Cromwell and his actually established
Protectorship in the _Defensio Secunda?_ Who had been Oliver's
Latin Secretary from first to last, and penned for him his despatches
on the Piedmontese massacre and all his greatest besides? The
likelihood, therefore, is that "the short but scandalous night of
interruption" in Milton's mind was the fortnight or so of
Wallingford-House usurpation which broke up Richard's Parliament and
Protectorate, and from the continuance of which, with all the
inconveniences of a mere military despotism, the restoration of the
Rump had seemed a happy rescue. But, though this single phrase may be
thus explained, the tone of the whole address intimates far less of
gratitude to Oliver dead than there had been of admiration for Oliver
living. And the reason at this point is most obvious. Was it not
precisely because Cromwell had failed to fulfil Milton's expectation
of him, in his sonnet of May 1652, that he would deliver the
Commonwealth from the plague of "hireling wolves," calling themselves
a Clergy--was it not because Cromwell from first to last had pursued
a contrary policy--that it remained for Milton now, seven years after
the date of that sonnet, to have to offer, as a private thinker, and
on mere printed paper, his own poor _Considerations touching the
likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church?_ It was not
in a pamphlet on that subject, wherever else, that Milton could say
his best for the memory of Cromwell.
After some preliminary observations connecting the present treatise
with its forerunner; Milton opens his subject thus:--
"Hire of itself is neither a thing unlawful, nor a word of any evil
note, signifying no more than a due recompense or reward, as when
our Saviour saith, 'The labourer is worthy of his hire.' That which
makes it so dangerous in the Church, and properly makes HIRELING a
word always of evil signification, is either the excess thereof or
the undue manner of giving and taking it. What harm the excess
thereof brought to the Church perhaps was not found by experience
till the days of Constantine; who, out of his zeal, thinking he
could be never too liberally a nursing father of the Church, might
be not unfitly said to have either overlaid it or choked it in the
nursing. Which was foretold, as is recorded in Ecclesiastical
traditions, by a voice heard from Heaven, on the very day that
those great donations of Church-revenues were given, crying aloud,
_'This day is poison poured into the Church'_ [Note the
adoption of the anecdote from Mr. Wall's letter]. Which the event
soon after verified, as appears by another no less ancient
observation, that 'Religion brought forth wealth, and the Daughter
devoured the Mother.' But, long ere _wealth_ came into the
Church, so soon as any _gain_ appeared in Religion, HIRELINGS
were apparent, drawn in long before by the very scent thereof
[References to Judas as the first hireling, to Simon Magus as the
second, and to various texts in the Acts and Epistles proving that
among the early preachers of Christianity there were men who
preached 'for filthy lucre's sake,' or made a mere trade of the
Gospel] .... Thus we see that not only the excess of Hire in
wealthiest times, but also the undue and vicious taking or giving
it, though but small or mean, as in the primitive times, gave to
hirelings occasion, though not intended yet sufficient, to creep at
first into the Church. Which argues also the difficulty, or rather
the impossibility, to remove them quite, unless every minister
were, as St. Paul, contented to teach _gratis:_ but few such
are to be found. As therefore we cannot justly take away all Hire
in the Church, because we cannot otherwise quite remove Hirelings,
so are we not, for the impossibility of removing them all, to use
therefore no endeavour that fewest may come in, but rather, in
regard the evil, do what we can, will always be incumbent and
unavoidable, to use our utmost diligence how it may be least
dangerous. Which will be likeliest effected if we consider,--first
what recompense God hath ordained should be given to ministers of
the Church (for that a recompense ought to be given them, and may
by them justly be received, our Saviour himself, from the very
light of reason and of equity, hath declared, Luke X. 7, '_The
labourer is worthy of his hire'_); _next,_ by whom; and,
_lastly,_ in what manner."
In this passage and in other passages throughout the Treatise it is
clear that Milton's ideal was a Church in which no minister should
take pay at all for his preaching or ministry, whether pay from the
state or from his hearers, but every minister should, as St. Paul
did, preach, absolutely and systematically _gratis_, deriving
his livelihood and his leisure to preach from his private resources,
or, if he had none such, then from the practice of some calling or
handicraft apart from his preaching. Deep down in Milton's mind,
notwithstanding his professed deference to Christ's words, "_The
labourer is worthy of his hire,_" we can see this conviction that
it would be better for the world if religious doctrine, or in fact
doctrine of any kind, were never bought or sold, but all spiritual
teachers were to abhor the very touch of money for their lessons,
being either gentlemen of independent means who could propagate the
truth splendidly from high motives, or else tent-makers, carpenters,
and bricklayers, passionate with the possession of some truth to
propagate. This, however, having been acknowledged to be perhaps an
impossibility on any great scale, he goes on to inquire, as proposed,
what the legitimate and divinely-appointed hire of Gospel-ministers
is, from whom it may come, and in what manner. The general result is
as follows:--I. The Tithes of the old Jewish dispensation are utterly
abolished under the Gospel. Nearly half the treatise is an argument
to this effect, and consequently for the immediate abolition of the
tithe-system in England. Here Milton lends his whole force to the
popular current on this subject among the friends of "the good old
cause," advocating those petitions to the Rump of which he has spoken
in his preface. But he goes farther than the abolition of tithes. He
will not allow of any statutory substitute for tithes, any taxation
of the people in any form for the support of Religion. The only
substitute for tithes which he discusses specifically is compulsory
church-fees for ministerial offices, such as baptisms, marriages, and
burials. These, as well as tithes, he utterly condemns; and he winds
up this part of his inquiry thus: "Seeing, then, that God hath given
to ministers under the Gospel that only which is justly given them
(that is to say, a due and moderate livelihood, the hire of their
labour), and that the heave-offering of Tithes is abolished with the
Altar (yes, though not abolished, yet lawless as they enjoy them),
their Melchizedekian right also trivial and groundless, and both
tithes and fees, if exacted or established, unjust and scandalous, we
may hope, with _them_ removed, to remove Hirelings in some good
measure." II. It is maintained that the lawful maintenance of the
ministry can consist only in the voluntary offerings of those they
instruct, whether tendered individually, or collected into a common
treasury for distribution. The flocks ought to maintain their own
pastors, and no others are bound to contribute for the purpose. But
what of poor neighbourhoods that cannot maintain pastors and yet need
them most sorely? Milton has unbounded confidence that these will be
overtaken and provided for by the zeal of pious individuals, or by
"the charity of richer congregations," taking the form of itinerant
missions. "If it be objected that this itinerary preaching will not
serve to plant the Gospel in those places unless they who are sent
abide there some competent time, I answer that, if they stay there
for a year or two, which was the longest time usually staid by the
Apostles in one place, it may suffice to teach them who will attend
and learn all the points of Religion necessary to salvation: then,
sorting them into several congregations of a moderate number, out of
the ablest and zealousest of them to create elders, who, exercising
and requiring from themselves what they have learnt (for no learning
is retained without constant exercise and methodical repetition), may
teach and govern the rest: and, so exhorted to continue faithful and
stedfast, they may securely be committed to the providence of God and
the guidance of his Holy Spirit till God may offer some opportunity
to visit them again and to confirm them." The only concession Milton
will make is that, in cases of urgent necessity, application may be
made to magistrates or other trustees of charitable funds for aid in
these temporary and itinerant missions. For the rest, it will be
seen, it is with difficulty that he allows the existence of a
permanent pastorate anywhere. If there is to be a body of men in the
community making a business of preaching, and if in towns and
populous neighbourhoods congregations choose to retain the services,
for life or for an indefinite period, of particular ministerial
persons selected from this body, and to erect handsome buildings
convenient for such services, well and good, or rather it cannot be
helped; but the picture most to Milton's fancy is that of an England
generally, or at all events of a rural England, without any fixed or
regular parish pastors or parish-churches, but each little local
cluster of believers meeting on Sundays or other days in chapel or
barn for mutual edification, or to be instructed by such simple
teaching elders as may easily, from time to time, be produced within
itself. Add the itinerant agency of more practiced and professional
preachers, circulating periodically among the local clusters, to
rouse them or keep them alive; and nothing more would be needed.
There would be plenty of preaching, and good preaching, everywhere;
but, as most of it would be spontaneous by hard-handed men known
among their neighbours, and working, like their neighbours, for their
ordinary subsistence, the preaching profession, as a means of income,
would be reduced to a minimum. In a Church so constituted there would
still be hirelings, especially in large towns and where there were
wealthy congregations; but the number of such would be greatly
reduced. III. Under the third head of the "manner" of the recompense
to ministers, where there is any recompense at all, the substance of
Milton's remarks is that the purely voluntary character of the
recompense must be studiously maintained. It must be purely an alms,
an oblation of benevolence. Hence it should never take the form of a
life-endowment, or even of a contract conferring a legal title to
demand payment. The appearance of a minister of the Gospel in a
law-court to sue for money supposed to be due to him for his
ministerial services, even by promise or agreement, is spoken of with
disgust. Were it the understood rule that there could be no recovery
by a minister even of his promised salary, would not that also tend
in some degree to keep Hirelings out of the Church?
The pamphlet, it will be seen, is more outspoken and thoroughgoing
than its forerunner. It contains also more of those individual
passages that represent Milton in his rough mood of sarcastic
strength, though none of such beauty or eloquence as are to be found
in his earlier pamphlets. The following are characteristic:--
_Mr. Prynne's Defences of Tithes_:--"To heap such unconvincing
citations as these in Religion, whereof the Scripture only is our
rule, argues not much learning nor judgment, but the lost labour
of much unprofitable reading. And yet a late hot Querist for
Tithes, whom ye may know, by his wits lying ever beside him in the
margin, to be ever beside his wits in the text,--a fierce Reformer
once, now rankled with a contrary heat,--would send us back, very
reformedly indeed, to learn Reformation from Tyndarus and Rebuffas,
two Canonical Promoters."[1]
[Footnote 1: The reference is to Prynne's _Ten Considerable
Queries concerning Tithes, &c., against the Petitioners and Petitions
for their Total Abolition_: 1659.]
_Marriages and Clerical Concern in the same_:--"As for
Marriages, that ministers should meddle with them, as not
sanctioned or legitimate without their celebration, I find no
ground in Scripture either of precept or example. Likeliest it is
(which our Selden hath well observed _I. II. c. 28. Ux. Heb._)
that in imitation of heathen priests, who were wont at nuptials to
use many rites and ceremonies, and especially judging it would be
profitable and the increase of their authority not to be spectators
only in business of such concernment to the life of man, they
insinuated that marriage was not holy without their benediction,
and for the better colour made it a Sacrament; being of itself a
Civil Ordinance, a household contract, a thing indifferent and free
to the whole race of mankind, not as religious, but as men. Best,
indeed, undertaken to religious ends, as the Apostle saith (1 Cor.
VII. '_In the Lord_'); yet not therefore invalid or unholy
without a minister and his pretended necessary hallowing, more than
any other act, enterprise, or contract, of civil life,--which ought
all to be done also in the Lord and to his glory,--all which, no
less than marriage, were by the cunning of priests heretofore, as
material to their profit, transacted at the altar. Our Divines deny
it to be a Sacrament; yet retained the celebration, till prudently
a late Parliament recovered the civil liberty of marriage from
their encroachment, and transferred the ratifying and registering
thereof from their Canonical Shop to the proper cognisance of Civil
Magistrates" [The Marriages Act of the Barebones Parliament; in
accordance with which had been Milton's own second marriage: see
ante p. 281, and Vol. IV. p. 511].
_Sitting under a Stated Minister:_--"If men be not all their
lifetime under a teacher to learn Logic, Natural Philosophy,
Ethics, or Mathematics, ... certainly it is not necessary to the
attainment of Christian knowledge that men should sit all their
life long at the foot of a pulpited divine, while he, a lollard
indeed over his elbow-cushion, in almost the seventh part of forty
or fifty years, teaches them scarce half the principles of
Religion, and his sheep ofttimes sit the while to as little purpose
of benefiting as the sheep in their pews at Smithfield."
_Congregations for mutual Edification:_--"Notwithstanding the
gaudy superstition of some devoted still ignorantly to temples, we
may be well assured that He who disdained not to be laid in a
manger disdains not to be preached in a barn, and that by such
meetings as these, being indeed most apostolical and primitive,
they will in a short time advance more in Christian knowledge and
reformation of life than by the many years preaching of such an
incumbent,--I may say such an incubus ofttimes,--as will be meanly
hired to abide long in those places."
_A Reflection on Cromwell for his Established Church:_--"For
the magistrate, in person of a nursing father, to make the Church
his mere ward, as always in minority,-the Church to whom he ought
as a Magistrate (Isaiah XLIS. 23) '_to bow down with his face
toward the earth and lick up the dust of her feet,_'--her to
subject to his political drifts and conceived opinions by mastering
her revenue, and so by his examinant Committees to circumscribe her
free election of ministers,--is neither just nor pious: no honour
done to the Church, but a plain dishonour."