Chapter XIII: Section II: From January 1654-5 to September 1656, or Through the (1)

PERIOD OF ARBITRARINESS.

LETTER TO MILTON FROM LEO DE AITZEMA: MILTON'S REPLY: LETTER TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM AT GENEVA: MILTON'S GENEVESE RECOLLECTIONS AND ACQUAINTANCES: TWO MORE OF MILTON'S LATIN STATE-LETTERS (NOS. LII., LIII.): SMALL AMOUNT OF MILTON'S DESPATCH-WRITING FOR CROMWELL HITHERTO.--REDUCTION OF OFFICIAL SALARIES, AND PROPOSAL TO REDUCE MILTON'S TO £150 A YEAR: ACTUAL COMMUTATION OF HIS £288 A YEAR AT PLEASURE INTO £200 FOR LIFE: ORDERS OF THE PROTECTOR AND COUNCIL RELATING TO THE PIEDMONTESE MASSACRE, MAY 1655: SUDDEN DEMAND ON MILTON'S PEN IN THAT BUSINESS: HIS LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE FROM THE PROTECTOR TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, WITH TEN OTHER LETTERS TO FOREIGN STATES AND PRINCES ON THE SAME SUBJECT (NOS. LIV.--LXIV.): HIS SONNET ON THE SUBJECT.--PUBLICATION OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM TO MORE'S _FIDES PUBLICA_: ACCOUNT OF THE SUPPLEMENTUM, WITH EXTRACTS: MILTON'S ANSWER TO THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ AND THE SUPPLEMENTUM TOGETHER IN HIS _PRO SE DEFENSIO_, AUG. 1655: ACCOUNT OF THAT BOOK, WITH SPECIMENS: MILTON'S DISBELIEF IN MORUS'S DENIALS OF THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE _REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_: HIS REASONS, AND HIS REASSERTIONS OF THE CHARGE IN A MODIFIED FORM: HIS NOTICES OF DR. CRANTZIUS AND ULAC: HIS RENEWED ONSLAUGHTS ON MORUS: HIS REPETITION OF THE BONTIA ACCUSATION AND OTHERS: HIS EXAMINATION OF MORUS'S PRINTED TESTIMONIALS: FEROCITY OF THE BOOK TO THE LAST: ITS EFFECTS ON MORUS.--QUESTION OF THE REAL AUTHORSHIP OF THE _REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_ AND OF THE AMOUNT OF MORUS'S CONCERN IN IT: THE DU MOULIN FAMILY: DR. PETER DU MOULIN THE YOUNGER THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE _REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR_, BUT MORUS THE ACTIVE EDITOR AND THE WRITER OF THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE: DU MOULIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF THE WHOLE AFFAIR: HIS CLOSE CONTACT WITH MILTON ALL THE WHILE, AND DREAD OF BEING FOUND OUT.--CALM IN MILTON'S LIFE AFTER THE CESSATION OF THE MORUS-SALMASIUS CONTROVERSY: HOME-LIFE IN PETTY FRANCE: DABBLINGS OF THE TWO NEPHEWS IN LITERATURE: JOHN PHILLIPS'S _SATYR AGAINST HYPOCRITES_: FREQUENT VISITORS AT PETTY FRANCE: MARVELL, NEEDHAM, CYRIACK SKINNER, &C.: THE VISCOUNTESS RANELAGH, MR. RICHARD JONES, AND THE BOYLE CONNEXION: DR. PETER DU MOULIN IN THAT CONNEXION: MILTON'S PRIVATE SONNET ON HIS BLINDNESS. HIS TWO SONNETS TO CYRIACK SKINNER, AND HIS SONNET TO YOUNG LAWRENCE: EXPLANATION OF THESE FOUR SONNETS.--_SCRIPTUM DOMINI PROTECTORIS CONTRA HISPANOS_: THIRTEEN MORE LATIN STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. LXV.--LXXVII.), WITH SPECIAL ACCOUNT OF COUNT BUNDT AND THE SWEDISH EMBASSY IN LONDON: COUNT BUNDT AND MR. MILTON.--INCREASE OF LIGHT LITERATURE IN LONDON: EROTIC PUBLICATIONS: JOHN PHILLIPS IN TROUBLE FOR SUCH: EDWARD PHILLIPS'S LONDON EDITION OF THE POEMS OF DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN: MILTON'S COGNISANCE OF THE SAME.--HENRY OLDENBURG AND MR. RICHARD JONES AT OXFORD: LETTERS OF MILTON TO JONES AND OLDENBURG.--THIRTEEN MORE STATE-LETTERS OF THE MILTON SERIES (NOS. LXXVIII.--XC.): IMPORTANCE OF SOME OF THEM.

Oliver had just entered on his period of Arbitrariness, or Government without a Parliament, when Milton received the following letter in Latin from Leo de Aitzema, or Lieuwe van Aitzema, formerly known to him as agent for Hamburg and the Hanse Towns in London, but now residing at the Hague in the same capacity (IV. 378-379). Aitzema, we may now mention, was a Frieslander by birth, eight years older than Milton, and is remembered still, it is said, for a voluminous and valuable _History of the United Provinces_, consisting of a great collection of documents, with commentaries by himself in Dutch.[1] This had not yet been published.

[Footnote 1: See Article _Aitzema_ in Bayle's Dictionary.]

"To the honourable and highly esteemed Mr. John Milton, Secretary
to the Council of State, London.

"Partly because Morus, in his book, has made some aspersions on you
for your English Book on Divorce, partly because many have been
inquiring eagerly about the arguments with which you support your
opinion, I have, most honoured and esteemed Sir, given your little
work entire to a friend of mine to be translated into Dutch, with a
desire to have it printed soon. Not knowing, however, whether you
would like anything corrected therein or added, I take the liberty
to give you this notice, and to request you to let me know your
mind on the subject. Best wishes and greetings from

"Your very obedient

"LEO AITZEMA[1]

"Hague: Jan. 29, 1654-5."

[Footnote 1: Communicated by the late Mr. Thomas Watts of the British Museum, and published by the late Rev. John Mitford in Appendix to Life of Milton prefixed to Pickering's Edition of Milton's Works (1851).]

Milton's answer, rather unusually for him, was immediate.

TO LEO VAN AITZEMA.

It is very gratifying to me that you retain the same amount of
recollection of me as you very politely showed of good will by once
and again visiting me while you resided among us. As regards the
Book on Divorce which you tell me you have given to some one to be
turned into Dutch, I would rather you had given it to be turned
into Latin. For my experience in those books of mine has now been
that the vulgar still receive according to their wont opinions not
already common. I wrote a good while ago, I may mention, _three_
treatises on the subject:--the first, in two books, in which _The
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ (for that is the title of the
book) is contained at large; a second, which is called
_Tetrachordon_, and in which the four chief passages of Scripture
concerning that doctrine are explicated; the third called
_Colasterion_, in which answer is made to a certain sciolist. [The
_Bucer Tract_ omitted in the enumeration.] Which of these Treatises
you have given to be translated, or what edition, I do not know:
the first of them was twice issued, and was much enlarged in the
second edition. Should you not have been made aware of this
already, or should I understand that you desire anything else on my
part, such as sending you the more correct edition or the rest of
the Treatises, I shall attend to the matter carefully and with
pleasure. For there is not anything at present that I should wish
changed in them or added. Therefore, should you keep to your
intention, I earnestly hope for myself a faithful translator, and
for you all prosperity.

Westminster: Feb. 5, 1654-5.[1]

[Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 16.]

The next letter, written in the following month, also connects itself, but still more closely, with the Morus controversy. It is addressed to Ezekiel Spanheim, the eldest son of that Frederick Spanheim, by birth a German, of whom we have heard as Professor of Theology successively at Geneva (1631-1642) and at Leyden (1642-1649). This elder Spanheim, it will be remembered, had been implicated in the opposition to Morus in both places--the story being that he had contracted a bad opinion of Morus during his colleagueship with him in Geneva, and that, when Salmasius, partly to spite Spanheim, of whose popularity at Leyden he was jealous, had negotiated for bringing Morus to Holland, Spanheim "moved heaven and earth to prevent his coming." It is added that Spanheim's death (May 1649) was caused by the news that Morus was on his way, and that he had said on his death-bed that "Salmasius had killed him and Morus had been the dagger."[1] On the other hand, we have had recently the assurance of Dr. Crantzius that Spanheim had once told him that the only fault in Morus was that he was _altier_, or self-confident. That the stronger story is the truer one substantially, if not to its last detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus was hereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son, Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, this Ezekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than his father, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not to close till 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he had returned from Leyden in 1651, to accept a kind of honorary Professorship that had been offered him, in compliment partly to his father's memory, partly to his own extraordinary promise. As one who had lived the first thirteen years of his age in Geneva, and the next nine in Leyden (1642-1651), and who was now back in Geneva, he had been amply and closely on the track of Morus; and how little he liked him will now appear:--

[Footnote 1: Bayle, both in Article _Spanheim_ and in Article _Morus_.]

TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM OF GENEVA.

I know not by what accident it has happened that your letter has
reached me little less than three months after date. There is
clearly extreme need of a speedier conveyance of mine to you; for,
though from day to day I was resolving to write it, I now perceive
that, hindered by some constant occupations, I have put it off
nearly another three months. I would not have you understand from
this my tardiness in replying that my grateful sense of your
kindness to me has cooled, but rather that the remembrance has sunk
deeper from my longer and more frequent daily thinking of my duty
to you in return. Late performance of duty has at least this excuse
for itself, that there is a clearer confession of obligation to do
a thing when it is done so long after than if it had been done
immediately.

You are not wrong, in the first place, in the opinion of me
expressed in the beginning of your letter--to wit, that I am not
likely to be surprised at being addressed by a foreigner; nor could
you, indeed, have a more correct impression of me than precisely by
thinking that I regard no good man in the character of a foreigner
or a stranger. That you are such I am readily persuaded by your
being the son of a most learned and most saintly father, also by
your being well esteemed by good men, and also finally by the fact
that you hate the bad. With which kind of cattle as I too happen to
have a warfare, Calandrini has but acted with his usual courtesy,
and in accordance with my own sentiment, in signifying to you that
it would be very gratifying to me if you lent me your help against
a common adversary. This you have most obligingly done in this very
letter, part of which, with the author's name not mentioned, I have
not hesitated, trusting in your regard for me, to insert by way of
evidence in my forthcoming _Defensio_ [in reply to More's
_Fides Publica_]. This book, as soon as it is published, I
will direct to be sent to you, if there is any one to whose care I
may rightly entrust it. Any letters you may intend for me,
meanwhile, you will not, I think, be unsafe if you send under cover
to Turretin of Geneva, now staying in London, whose brother in
Geneva you know; through whom as this of mine will reach you most
conveniently, so will yours reach me. For the rest I would assure
you that you have won a high place in my esteem, and that I
particularly wish to be loved by you yet more.

Westminster: March 24, 1654-5.[1]

[Footnote 1: Epist. Fam. 17.]

In writing this letter Milton must have had brought back to his recollection his visit to Geneva fifteen years before (June 1639) on his way home from Italy. The venerable Diodati, the uncle of his friend Charles, was the person in Geneva of whom he had seen most, and who dwelt most in his memory; but the elder Spanheim had then been in the same city, and Morus too, and the present Ezekiel Spanheim, as a boy in his tenth year, and others, still alive, who had then known Morus, and had since that time had him in view. Milton had certainly not then himself seen Morus, though he must have heard of him; but it is possible he may have seen the elder Spanheim, and may now, in writing to Spanheim's son, have remembered the fact. In any case there were links of acquaintanceship still connecting Milton with Geneva and its gossip. The "Calandrini," for example, who is mentioned in Milton's letter, and who may be identified with a Genevese merchant named "Jean Louis Calandrin," heard of in Thurloe's correspondence, must in some way have been known to Milton personally, and interested in serving him.[1] It had been in in consequence of a suggestion of this Calandrini, "acting-with his usual courtesy," that young Spanheim had, in October 1654, when Morus's fragmentary _Fides Publica_ was just out or nearly so, addressed a polite letter to Milton, sending him some additional information about the Genevese portion of Morus's career. The letter had not readied Milton till the end of December or the beginning of January 1654-5; and for nearly three months after that he had left it unacknowledged. That he had been moved to acknowledge it at last was, doubtless, as his letter itself suggests, and as we shall see yet more precisely, because he had then nearly ready his Reply to the _Fides Publica_, and had used Spanheim's information there, only suppressing the name of his informant. But that Milton had already had no lack of private informants about Morus's career, whether in Geneva or in Holland, has appeared abundantly. The Hartlib-Durie-Haak-Oldenburg connexion about him in London was a perfect sponge for all kinds of gossip from, abroad. We hear now, however, of another person in particular who may have supplied Milton with his earlier information as to the Genevese part of Morus's life, A family long of note in Geneva had been that of the Turretins, originally from Italy, and indeed from Lucca, whence they had been driven, as the Diodatis had been, by their Protestantism, One of this family, Benedict Turretin, born in Geneva, had been a distinguished Theology Professor there, and at his death in 1631 had left at least two sons. One of these, Francis Turretin, born at Geneva in 1623, had, after the usual wanderings of Continental scholars in those days, just returned to Geneva (1653), and settled there in what may be called the family-business, i.e. the profession of Theology. In this he was to attain extraordinary celebrity, his _Institutio Theologiæ Elencticæ_ ranking to this day among Calvinistic Theologians as a master-work of its kind. Well, this Francis Turretin, rising into fame at Geneva, just as Ezekiel Spanheim was, and seeing Spanheim daily, had, it seems from Milton's letter, a brother in London, on intimate terms with Milton; and Milton's proposition to young Spanheim was that they should correspond in future through the two Turretins. Who would have thought to find the future author of the _Institutio Theologiæ Elencticæ_ used by Milton for postal purposes? Is it not clear too that the London Turretin must have been one of Milton's informants about Morus's reasons for leaving Geneva? Respectability everywhere, at our present date at least, seems adverse to Morus.[2]

[Footnote 1: For mention of Jean Louis Calandrin, the Genevese merchant, see Letters between Pell and Thurloe in _Vaughan's Protectorate_ (I. 302, 308, 354). He died at Geneva, in Feb. 1655-6, about a year after this mention of him by Milton. It is possible he may have been a relative of a "Cæsar Calandrinus" mentioned by Wood as one of the many foreigners who had studied at Exeter College, Oxford, during the Rectorship of Dr. Prideaux (1612-1641), and who was afterwards "a Puritanical Theologist," intimate with Usher, a Rector in Essex, and finally minister of the parish of Peter le Poor in London, where he died in 1665, leaving a son named John. Wood speaks of him as a German (Wood, Ath. III. 269, and Fasti, I. 393-4); but the name is evidently Italian. Indeed I find that there had been an intermarriage in Italy between the Diodati family and a family of Calandrinis, bringing some of the Calandrinis also to Geneva about the year 1575. (Reprint, for private circulation, of a Paper on the Italian ancestry of Mr. William Diodate of New Haven, U.S., read before the New Haven Colony Historical Society, June 28, 1875, by Edward E. Salisbury, p. 13). By the kindness of Colonel Chester, whose genealogical researches are all-inclusive, I have a copy of the will of the above-named Cæsar Calandrini of St. Peter le Poor, London. It is dated Aug. 4, 1665, when he was "three score and ten," and mentions two sons, Lewis and John, two daughters living, one of them married to a Giles Archer, and grandchildren by these children, besides nephews and nieces of the names of Papillon and Burlamachi. The son "John" in this will proved it in October 1665, and cannot have been the Calandrini of Milton's letter; but that Calandrini may have been of the same connexion.]

[Footnote 2: Bayle, Art. _Francois Turretin_.]

Busy over his reply to the _Fides Publica_, Milton had stretched his dispensation from routine duty in his Secretaryship not only through November and December 1654 and January 1654-5, as was noted in last section, but as far as to April 1655 in the present section. Through these five months there is, so far as the records show, a total blank, at all events, in his official letter-writing. In April 1655, however, as if his reply to the _Fides Publica_ were then off his mind, and lying in the house in Petty France complete or nearly complete in manuscript, we do come upon two more of his Latin State-letters, as follows:--

(LII.) TO THE PRINCE OF TARENTE, _April_ 4, 1655[1]:--This
Prince, one of the chiefs of the French nobility, but connected
with Germany by marriage, was a Protestant by education, had been
mixed up with the wars of the Fronde, and was altogether a very
stirring man abroad. He had written to Cromwell invoking his
interest in behalf of foreign, and especially of French,
Protestantism. Cromwell expresses his satisfaction in having had
such an address from so eminent a representative of the Reformed
faith in a kingdom in which so many have lapsed from it, and
declares that nothing would please him more than "to be able to
promote the enlargement, the safety, or, what is most important,
the peace, of the Reformed Church." Meanwhile he exhorts the Prince
to be himself firm and faithful to his creed to the very last.--The
Prince of Tarente, it may be mentioned, had interested himself much
in the lawsuit between Morus and Salmasius. He had tried to act as
mediator and induce Morus to withdraw his action--a condescension
which Morus acknowledges, though he felt himself obliged, he says,
to go on.

[Footnote 1: No. 32 in Skinner Transcript (which gives the exact date); also in Printed Collection and in Phillips.]

(LIII.) To ARCHDUKE LEOPOLD of AUSTRIA, GOVERNOR OF THE SPANISH
NETHERLANDS (_undated_):--Sir Charles Harbord, an Englishman,
has had certain goods and household stuff violently seized at
Bruges by Sir Richard Grenville. The goods had originally been sent
from England to Holland in 1643 by the then Earl of Suffolk, in
pledge for a debt owing to Harbord; and Grenville's pretext was
that he also was a creditor of the Earl, and had obtained a decree
of the English Chancery in his favour. Now, by the English law,
neither was the present Earl of Suffolk bound by that decree nor
could the goods be distrained under it. The decision of the Court
to that effect is herewith transmitted; and His Serenity is
requested to cause Grenville to restore the goods, inasmuch as it
is against the comity of nations that any one should be allowed an
action in foreign jurisdiction which he would not be allowed in the
country where the cause of the action first arose. "The justice of
the case itself and the universal reputation of your Serenity for
fair dealing have moved us to commend the matter to your
attention; and, if at any time there shall be occasion to discuss
the rights or convenience of your subjects with as, I promise that
you shall find our diligence in the same not remiss, but at all
times most ready."[1]

[Footnote 1: Undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips; dated "Aug. 1658" in the Skinner Transcript, but surely by mistake. Such a letter can hardly have been sent to the Archduke after Oct. 1655, when the war with Spain broke out. I have inserted it at this point by conjecture only, and may be wrong.]

In April 1655, when these two letters were written, Oliver was in the sixteenth month of his Protectorship. His first nine months of personal sovereignty without a Parliament, and his next four months and a half of unsatisfactory experience with his First Parliaments were left behind, and he had advanced two months and more into his period of compulsory Arbitrariness, when he had to govern, with the help of his Council only, by any means he could. Count all the Latin State-Letters registered by Milton himself as having been written by him for Cromwell during those first fifteen months and more of the Protectorate, and they number only nine (Nos. XLV.-XLVIII in Vol. IV. pp. 635-636, and Nos. XLIX.-LIII. in the present volume). These nine Letters, with the completion and publication of his _Defensio Secunda_, and now the preparation of a Reply to More's _Fides Publica_, and also perhaps occasional calls at Thurloe's office and occasional presences at interviews with ambassadors and envoys in Whitehall, were all he had been doing for fifteen months for his salary of £288 a year. The fact cannot have escaped notice. He had himself called attention to it, as if by anticipation, in that passage of his _Defensio Secunda_ in which he spoke of the kind indulgence of the State-authorities in retaining him honourably in full office, and not abridging his emoluments on account of his disability by blindness. The passage may have touched Cromwell and some of the Councillors, and there was doubtless a general feeling among them of the worth, beyond estimate in money, of Milton's name to the Commonwealth, and of his past acts of literary championship for her. Economy, however, is a virtue easily recommended to statesmen by any pinch of necessity, and it so chanced that at the very time we have now reached, April 1655, the Protector and his Council, being in money straits, were in a very economical mood (see ante p. 35). Here, accordingly, is what we find in the Council Order Books under date April 17, 1655.

_Tuesday, April_ 17, 1655:--Present the Lord President
Lawrence, Lord Lambert (styled so in the minute), Colonel Montague,
Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Gilbert Pickering,
Major-General Skippon.

"The Council resumed the debate upon the Report made from the
Committee of the Council to whom it was referred to consider of the
Establishment of the Council's Contingencies.

"_Ordered:_--

"That the salary of £400 _per annum_ granted to MR. GUALTER
FROST as Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies be reduced to
£300 _per annum_, and be continued to be paid after that
proportion till further order.

"That the former yearly salary of MR. JOHN MILTON, of £288, &c.,
formerly charged on the Council's Contingencies, be reduced to £150
_per annum_, and paid to him during his life out of his
Highness's Exchequer.

"That the yearly salaries hereafter mentioned, being formerly paid
out of the Council's Contingencies,--that is to say £45 12_s._
6_d._ _per annum_ to Mr. Henry Giffard, Mr. Gualter
Frost's assistant,--_per annum_ to Mr. John Hall,--_per
annum_ to Mr. Marchamont Needham,--_per annum_ to Mr.
George Vaux, the house-keeper at Whitehall,--_per annum_ for
the rent of Sir Abraham Williams's house [for the entertainment of
Ambassadors], and--_per annum_ to M. René Angler,--be for the
future retrenched and taken away.

"That some convenient rooms at Somerset House be set apart for the
entertainment of Foreign Ambassadors upon their address to his
Highness.

"That it be referred to Mr. Secretary Thurloe to put that part of
the Intelligence [from abroad] which is managed by M. René Augier
into the common charge of Intelligence, and to order it for the
future by M, Augier or otherwise, as he shall see most for the
Commonwealth's service.

* * * * *

"That it be offered to his Highness as the advice of the Council
that several warrants be issued under the great seal for
authorizing and requiring the Commissioners of his Highness's
Treasury to pay, by quarterly payments, at the receipt of his
Highness's Exchequer, to the several officers, clerks, and other
persons after-named, according to the proportions allowed them for
their salary in respect of their several respective offices and
employments during their continuance or till his Highness or the
Council shall give other order: that is to say:--

"To John Thurloe, Esq., Secretary of State:--For his own office,
after the proportion of £800 _per annum_; for the office of
Mr. Philip Meadows, Secretary for the Latin Tongue, after the rate
of £200 per annum; for the salaries of--clerks attending his
[Thurloe's] office at 6_s._ 8_d._ _per diem_, a
piece (which together amount to----); for the salaries of eleven
messengers at 5_s._ _per diem_, apiece (which together
amount to £1003 15_s._): amounting in the whole to ----

"To Mr. Henry Scobell and Mr. William Jessop, Clerks to the
Council, or to either of them:--For their own offices, viz. Mr.
Scobell £500 _per annum_, Mr. Jessop £500 _per annum_;
for the salaries of--clerks attending their office at 6_s._
8_d._ _per diem_ (which together amount to ----):
amounting in the whole to ----

"To Mr, Edward Dendy, Serjeant at Arms attending the Council:--For
his own office after the proportion of £365 _per annum_; for
the salaries of his _ten_ deputies at 3_s._ 4_d._
_per diem_ a piece (which together amount to £608 6_s._
8_d._); amounting in the whole to £973 6 8

"To Richard Scutt, Usher of the Council Chamber:--For himself and
his assistants at 13_s._ _per diem_, (being £237 5_s_, _per
annum_); for Thomas Bennett's salary, keeper of the back-door of
the Council Chamber, at 4_s. per diem_ (being £73 _per
annum_); for the salary of Robert Stebbin, fire-maker to the
clerks, at 2_s. per diem_ (being £36 10_s. per annum_):
amounting in the whole to £346 15 0

"The first payment of the said several and respective sums
before-mentioned to commence from the 1st of April instant.

"To Richard Nutt, master of his Highness's barge:--For his own
office after £80 _per annum;_ for Thomas Washborne, his
assistant, for his salary, after £20 _per annum;_ for the
salaries of 25 watermen to attend his Highness's barge, at £4
_per annum_ to each (amounting together to £100 _per
annum_): amounting in the whole to £200 _per ann._

"The same to commence from 25th March, 1655."

Clearly the Council were in a mood of economy. Not only were certain salaries to be reduced, but a good many outlays were to be stopped altogether, including Needham's subsidy or pension for his journalistic services. But more appears from the document. In spite of the general tendency to retrenchment, the salaries of Scobell and Jessop, the two clerks of the Council, are to be raised from £365 a year to £500 a year. This alone would suggest that not retrenchment only, but an improvement also in the system of the Council's business, was intended. The document as a whole confirms that idea. It maps out the service of the Council more definitely than hitherto into departments. Thurloe, of course, is general head, styled now "Secretary of State"; but it will be observed that the department of Foreign Affairs, including the management of Intelligence from abroad, is spoken of as now wholly and especially his, and that Meadows, with the designation of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue," ranks distinctly under him in that department. Scobell and Jessop, as "Clerks to the Council," though under Thurloe too, are now important enough to be jointly at the head of a separate staff; the Bailiff or Constable department is separate from theirs, and under the charge of Mr. Sergeant-at-Arms Dendy; and minor divisions of service, nameable as Ushership and Barge-attendance, are under the charge of Messrs. Scutt and Nutt respectively. The payments of salaries are henceforward not to be vaguely through Mr. Gualter Frost, as Treasurer for the Council's Contingencies, but by warrants to the Treasury to pay regularly to the several heads the definite sums-total in their departments, their own salaries included.

Milton's case was evidently treated as a peculiar one. It was certainly proposed that his allowance should be reduced from £288 18_s._ 6_d._ a year, which had hitherto been its rate, to £150 a year--i.e. by nearly one half. Most of us perhaps are disappointed by this, and would have preferred to hear that Milton's allowance had been doubled or tripled under the Protectorate,--made equal, say, to Thurloe's. Records must stand as they are, however, and must be construed coolly. Milton's £288 a year for _his_ lighter and more occasional duties had doubtless been all along in fair proportion to the elder Frost's £600 a year, or Thurloe's £800, for _their_ more vast and miscellaneous drudgery. Nor, if Milton had ceased to be able to perform the duties, and another salaried officer had been required in consequence, was there anything extraordinary, in a time of general revision of salaries, that the fact should come into consideration. The question was precisely as if now a high official under government, who had been in receipt of a salary of over £1000 a year, was struggling on in blindness after six years of service, and an extra officer at £700 a year had been for some time employed for his relief. In such a case, the official being a man of great public celebrity and having rendered extraordinary services in his post, would not superannuation on a pension or retiring-allowance be considered the proper course? But this was exactly the course proposed in Milton's case. The reduction from £288 to £150 a year was, it ought to be noted, only part of the proposition; for, whereas the £288 a year had been at the Council's pleasure, it was now proposed that the £150 a year should be for life. In short, what was proposed was the conversion of a terminable salary of £288 a year, payable out of the Council's contingencies, into a life-pension of £150 a year, payable out of the Protector's Exchequer: which was as if in a corresponding modern case a terminable salary of over £1000 a year were converted into a life-pension of between £500 and £600. On studying the document, I have no doubt that the intention was to relieve Milton from that moment from all duty whatsoever, putting an end to that anomalous _Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary_, into which his connexion with the Council had shaped itself since his blindness, and remitting him, as _Ex-Secretary_ Milton, a perfectly free and highly-honoured man, to pensioned leisure in his house in Petty France. For it is impossible that the Council could have intended to retain. Milton in any way in the working Secretaryship at a reduced salary of £150 a year while Meadows, his former assistant, had the title of "Secretary for the Latin Tongue," with a higher salary of £200 a year. Perhaps one may detect Thurloe's notions of official symmetry in the proposed change. Milton's _Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary_ or _Foreign Secretaryship Extraordinary_ may have begun to seem to Thurloe an excrescence upon his own general _Secretaryship of State_, and he may have desired that Milton should retire altogether, and leave the Latin Secretaryship complete to Meadows as his own special subordinate in the foreign department.

The document, however, we have to add farther, though it purports to be an Order of Council, did not actually or fully take effect. I find, for example, that Needham's pension or subsidy of £100 a year, which is one of the outlays the document proposed to "retrench and take away," did not suffer a whit. He went on drawing his salary, sometimes quarterly and sometimes half-yearly, just as before, and precisely in the same form, viz. by warrant from President Lawrence and six others of the Council to Mr. Frost to pay Mr. Needham so much out of the Council's Contingencies. Thus on May 24, 1655, or five weeks after the date of the present Order, there was a warrant to Frost to pay Needham £50, "being for half a year's salary due unto him from the 15th of Nov. last to the 15th of this instant May"; and the subsequent series of warrants in Needham's favour is complete to the end of the Protectorate.[1] Again, Mr. George Vaux, whom our present order seems to discharge from his house-keepership of Whitehall, is found alive in that post and in receipt of his salary of £150 a year for it to as late as Oct. 1659.[2] There must, therefore, have been a reconsideration of the Order by the Council, or between the Council and the Protector, with modifications of the several proposals. The proposal to raise the salaries of Scobell and Jessop from £365 a year to £500 a year each must, indeed, have been made good,--for Scobell and Jessop's successor in the colleagueship to Scobell are found afterwards in receipt of £500 a year.[3] But, on the same evidence, we have to conclude that the reductions proposed in the cases of Mr. Gualter Frost and Milton were _not_ confirmed, or were confirmed only _partially_. Frost is found afterwards distinctly in receipt of £365 a year,[4] The actual reduction, in his case, therefore, was not from £400 to £300, as had been proposed, but only from £400 to £365, or back to what his salary had been formerly (Vol. IV. 575-578). Milton again is found at the end of the Protectorate in receipt of £200 a year, and not of £150 only, as had been proposed In the Order.[5] The inference must be, therefore, that there had been a reconsideration and modification of the Order in his case also, ratifying the proposal of a reduction, but diminishing considerably the proposed _amount_ of the reduction. One would like to know to what influence the modification was owing, and how far Cromwell himself may have interfered in the matter. On the whole, while one infers that the reconsideration of the Order generally may have been owing to direct remonstrances from those whom it affected injuriously, such as Frost, Vaux, and Needham, there is little difficulty in seeing what must have happened in Milton's particular. My belief is that he signified, or caused it to be signified, that he had no desire to retire on a life-pension, that it would be much more agreeable to him to continue in active employment for the State, that for certain kinds of such employment he found his blindness less and less a disqualification, that the arrangement as to salary might be as the Council pleased, but that his own suggestion would be that his salary should be reduced to £200, so that he and Mr. Meadows should henceforth be on an equality in that respect. Such, at all events, was the arrangement adopted; and we may now dismiss this whole incident in Milton's biography by saying that, though in April 1655 there was a proposal to superannuate him entirely on a life-pension of £150 a year, the proposal did not take effect, but he went on from that date, just as before, in the Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary, though at the reduced salary of £200 a year instead of his original £288.

[Footnote 1: My notes from the Money Warrant Books of the Council.]

[Footnote 2: Money Warrants of Feb. 15, 1658-9 and Oct. 25, 1659.]

[Footnote 3: Money Warrant of Oct. 25, 1659.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid.]

As if to prove that the arrangement was a perfectly suitable one, and that Milton's retirement into ex-Secretaryship would have been a loss, there came from him, immediately after the arrangement had been made, that burst of Latin State-letters which is now the most famous of his official performances for Cromwell. It was in the second week of May, 1655, that the news of the Massacre of the Piedmontese Protestants reached England; and from the 17th of that month, onwards for weeks and weeks, the attention of the Protector and the Council was all but engrossed, as we have seen (ante pp. 38-44), by that dreadful topic. Here are a few of the first Minutes of Council relating to it:--

_Thursday, May_ 17, 1655:--Present: HIS HIGHNESS THE LORD
PROTECTOR, Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel
Fiennes, Lord Lambert, Mr. Rous, Major-General Skippon, Lord
Viscount Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Montague, Colonel
Jones, General Desborough, Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley,
Mr. Strickland. _Ordered_, "That it be referred to the Earl of
Mulgrave, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Mr. Rous, and Colonel Jones, or
any--of them to consider of the Petition [a Petition from London
ministers and others], and also of the papers of intelligence
already come touching the Protestants under the Duke of Savoy, and
such other intelligence as shall come to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, and
to offer to the Council what they shall think fit, as well
_touching writing of letters_, collections, or otherwise, in
order to their relief ... That it be referred to Colonel Fiennes,
Mr. Strickland, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Mr. Secretary Thurloe,
to prepare the draft of a letter to the French King upon this day's
debate touching the Protestants suffering in the Dukedom of Savoy,
and to bring in the same to-morrow morning."

_Friday, May_ 18:--At a second, or afternoon sitting
(_present_: Lord President Lawrence, Lord Lambert, General
Desborough, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Fiennes, Colonel Jones,
Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Montague), "Colonel Fiennes reports from
the Committee of the Council to whom the same was referred the
draft of a Letter to be sent from his Highness to the King of
France concerning the Protestants in the Dukedom of Savoy; which,
after some amendments, was approved and ordered to be offered to
his Highness as the advice of the Council."

_Tuesday, May_ 22:--_Present_: Lord President Lawrence,
Colonel Sydenham, Mr. Rous, Colonel Montague, Colonel Jones,
General Desborough, Mr. Strickland, Colonel Fiennes, Lord Viscount
Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Lord Lambert. "The Latin draft of a
Letter to the Duke of Savoy in behalf of the Protestants in his
Territory was this day read. _Ordered_, That it be offered to
his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will
please to sign the said Letter and cause it to be sent to the said
Duke."

_Wednesday, May_ 23:--"Colonel Fiennes reports from the
Committee of the Council the draft of two letters in reference to
the sufferings of the Protestants in the territories of the Duke of
Savoy, the one to the States-General of the United Provinces, the
other to the Cantons of the Swisses professing the Protestant
Religion; which were read, and, after several amendments, agreed.
_Ordered_, That it be offered to his Highness the Lord
Protector as the advice of the Council that he will please to send
the said letters in his Highness's name to the said States-General
and the Cantons respectively."

Though Milton's name is not mentioned in these minutes, it was he, and no other, that penned, or at least turned into Latin, for the Committee, and so for the Council and the Protector, the particular letters minuted, and indeed all the other documents required by the occasion. The following is a list of them:--

(LIV.) TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY, _May_ 25, 1655:[1]--This Letter
may be translated entire. It is superscribed "OLIVER, Protector of
the Commonwealth of England, &c., to the Most Serene Prince,
EMANUEL, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, Greeting "; and it is
worded as follows:--"Most Serene Prince,--Letters have reached us
from Geneva, and also from the Dauphinate and many other places
bordering upon your dominion, by which we are informed that the
subjects of your Royal Highness professing the Reformed Religion
were recently commanded by your edict and authority, within three
days after the promulgation of the said edict, to depart from their
habitations and properties under pain of death and forfeiture of
all their estates, unless they should give security that,
abandoning their own religion, they would within twenty days
embrace the Roman Catholic one, and that, though they applied as
suppliants to your Royal Highness, begging that the edict might be
revoked, and that they might be taken into their ancient favour and
restored to the liberty granted them by your Most Serene ancestors,
yet part of your army attacked them, butchered many most cruelly,
threw others into chains, and drove the rest into the deserts and
snow-covered mountains, where some hundreds of families are reduced
to such extremities that it is to be feared that all will soon
perish miserably by cold and hunger. When such news was brought us,
we could not possibly, in hearing of so great a calamity to that
sorely afflicted people, but be moved with extreme grief and
compassion. But, confessing ourselves bound up with them not by
common humanity only, but also by community of Religion, and so by
an altogether brotherly relationship, we have thought that we
should not be discharging sufficiently either our duty to God, or
the obligations of brotherly love and the profession of the same
religion, if we were merely affected with feelings of grief over
this disaster and misery of our brethren, and did not exert
ourselves to the very utmost of our strength and ability for their
rescue from so many unexpected misfortunes. Wherefore the more we
most earnestly beseech and adjure your Royal Highness that you will
bethink yourself again of the maxims of your Most Serene ancestors
and of the liberty granted and confirmed by them time after time to
their Vaudois subjects. In granting and confirming which, as they
performed what in itself was doubtless most agreeable to God, who
has pleased to reserve the inviolable jurisdiction and power over
Conscience for Himself alone, so there is no doubt either that they
had a due regard for their subjects, whom they found hardy and
faithful in war and obedient always in peace. And, as your Royal
Serenity most laudably treads in the footsteps of your forefathers
in all their other kindly and glorious actions, so it is our prayer
to you again and again not to depart from them in this matter
either, but to repeal this edict, and any other measure that may
have been passed for the molestation of your subjects of the
Reformed Religion, restoring them to their habitations and goods,
ratifying the rights and liberty anciently granted them, and
ordering their losses to be repaired and an end to be put to their
troubles. If your Royal Highness shall do this, you will have done
a deed most acceptable to God, you will have raised up and
comforted those miserable and distressed sufferers, and you will
have highly obliged all your neighbours that profess the Reformed
Religion,--ourselves most of all, who shall then regard your
kindness and clemency to those poor people as the fruit of our
solicitation. Which will moreover tie us to the performance of all
good offices in return, and lay the firmest foundations not only
for the establishment but even for the increase of the relationship
and friendship between this Commonwealth and your Dominion. Nor do
we less promise this to ourselves from your justice and moderation.
We beg Almighty God to bend your mind and thoughts in this
direction, and we heartily pray for you and for your people peace
and truth and prosperity in all your affairs."[2]--The bearer of
this letter to the Duke, as we know, was Mr. Samuel Morland, who
had been selected as the Protector's special Commissioner for the
purpose. He left London on the 26th of May. He took with him, also,
a copy of the Latin speech which he was to deliver to the Duke in
presenting the letter. As there is much probability that this Latin
speech is also in part of Milton's composition, and as it is in
even a bolder and more indignant strain than the letter, it may be
well to translate it too:--"Your Serene and Royal Highnesses [the
Duke and his mother both addressed?],--The Most Serene Lord,
Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, has sent me to your Royal Highnesses; whom he salutes very
heartily, and to whom, with a very high affection and peculiar
regard for your Serenities, he wishes a long life and reign, and a
prosperous issue of all your affairs, amid the applauses and
respect of your people. And this is due to you, whether in
consideration of the excellent character and royal descent of your
Highnesses, and the great expectation of the world from so many
eminent good qualities, or in recollection, after reference to
records, of the ancient friendship of our Kings with the Royal
house of Savoy. Though I am, I confess, but a young man, and not
very ripe in experience of affairs, yet it has pleased my Most
Serene and Gracious Master to send me, as one much devoted to your
Royal Highnesses and ardently attached to all bearing the Italian
name, on what is really a great mission.--The ancient legend is
that the son of Croesus was completely dumb from his birth. When,
however, he saw a soldier aiming a wound at his father, straightway
he had the use of his tongue. No other is my predicament, feeling
as I do my tongue loosened by those very recent and bloody wounds
of Mother Church. A great mission surely that is to be called
wherein all the safety and hope of many poor people is
comprehended--their sole hope lying in the chance that they shall
be able, by all their loyalty, obedience, and most humble prayers,
to mollify and appease the minds of your Royal Highnesses, now
irritated against them. In behalf of these poor people, whose cause
pity itself may seem to make its own, the Most Serene Protector of
England also comes as an intercessor, and most earnestly requests
and beseeches your Royal Highnesses to deign to extend your mercy
to these your very poor and most outcast subjects--those, I mean,
who, inhabiting the roots of the Alps and certain valleys in your
dominion, have professed nominally the Religion of the Protestants.
For he has heard (what no one can say has been done by the will of
your Royal Highnesses) that those wretched creatures have been
partly killed by your forces, partly expelled by violence and
driven from their home and country, so that they are now wandering,
with their wives and children, houseless, roofless, poor, and
destitute of all resource, through rugged and inhospitable spots
and over snow-covered mountains. And, through the days of this
transaction, if only the things are true that fame at present
reports everywhere (would that Fame were proved a liar!), what was
not dared and attempted against them? Houses smoking everywhere,
torn limbs, the ground bloody! Ay, and virgins, ravished and
hideously abused, breathed their last miserably; and old men and
persons labouring under illness were committed to the flames; and
some infants were dashed against the rocks, and the brains of
others were cooked and eaten. Atrocity horrible and before unheard
of, savagery such that, good God, were all the Neros of all times
and ages to come to life again, what a shame they would feel at
having contrived nothing equally inhuman! Verily, verily, Angels
are horrorstruck, men are amazed; heaven itself seems to be
astounded by these cries, and the earth itself to blush with the
shed blood of so many innocent men. Do not, great God, do not seek
the revenge due to this iniquity. May thy blood, Christ, wash away
this stain!--But it is not for me to relate these things in order
as they happened, or to dwell longer upon them; and what my Most
Serene Master requests from your Royal Highnesses you will
understand better from his own Letter. Which letter I am ordered to
deliver to your Royal Highnesses with all observance and due
respect; and, should your Royal Highnesses, as we greatly hope,
grant a favourable and speedy answer, you will both do an act most
gratifying to the Lord Protector, who has taken this business
deeply to heart, and to the whole Commonwealth of England, and also
restore, by an exercise of mercy very worthy of your Royal
Highnesses, life, safety, spirit, country, and estates to many
thousands of most afflicted people who depend on your pleasure; and
me you will send back to my native country as the happy messenger
of your conspicuous clemency, with great joy and report of your
exalted virtues, the deeply obliged servant of your Royal
Highnesses for evermore."[3]

[Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy preserved in the Record Office (Hamilton's _Milton Papers_, p. 15) and in the copy actually delivered to the Duke (Morland, pp. 572-574)--the phrase in both being "_Dabantur ex aula nostra Westmonasterii_, 25 _Maii_, _anno_ 1654." In the Skinner Transcript, however, the dating is "_Westmonsterio, May_ 10, 1655;" which again is changed into "_Alba Aula, May_ 1655," i.e. "Whitehall, May 1655" (month only given) in the Printed Collections and in Phillips.]

[Footnote 2: There are one or two slight verbal differences between Milton's original draft, here translated, and the official copy as actually delivered to the Duke, and as printed by Morland. Thus, in the first sentence, instead of _"Redditæ sunt nobis e Geneva, necnon ex Delphinatu aliisque multis ex locis ditioni vestræ finitimis, literæ,"_ the official copy has simply _"Redditæ sunt nobis multis ex locis ditioni vestæ finitimis literæ."_]

[Footnote 3: I have translated the speech from the official Latin draft, as preserved in the Record Office, and as printed by Mr. Hamilton, _Milton Papers_, pp. 18-20. Mr. Hamilton has no doubt that the composition is Milton's. He founds his opinion partly on the style, and partly on the fact that the draft is "written in the same hand as the other official copies of Milton's letters." I agree with Mr. Hamilton, though the matter does not seem to be absolutely beyond controversy. The style is generally like Milton's; there are phrases repeated from Milton's Latin elsewhere--e.g. "_montesque nivibus coopertos_," repeated from the Letter to the Duke of Savoy, and "_totius nominis Italici studiosissimum_" which almost repeats the "_toiius Græci nominis ... cultor_" of the second Letter to Philaras; and there are also phrases identical with some used in Milton's other letters on the subject of the Massacre which have yet to be noted in this list. On the other hand, there are passages and expressions in the Speech that strike one as hardly Miltonic, while the purport in some places would favour the idea that Morland wrote the speech himself. What seems to negative this idea most strongly, and therefore to point most distinctly to Milton as the author, is the existence of the MS. official copy in the Record Office. The speech, that copy proves, must have been prepared before Morland left London, and must have been taken with him. For that it cannot have been merely deposited in the State Paper Office afterwards, as a record of what he did say at Turin, is proved by the fact that his actual speech at Turin, as printed by himself in his book, with an English Translation (pp. 558-561), though in substance identical with the draft-copy, differs in some particulars. In the actual speech the plural, "Your Royal Highnesses," is changed into the singular, "Your Royal Highness," for address to the Duke only, though the Duchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morland to the Son of Croesus is entirely omitted; and there are other verbal changes, apparently suggested by Morland's closer information as he approached Turin, or by his sense of fitness at the moment--in illustration of which the reader may compare the very strong passage about "the Neros of all times and ages" as we have just rendered it from the draft with the same passage as we have previously rendered it from Morland's actual speech (ante p. 42). But, if Morland took the speech with him, unless he wrote it himself and had it approved before his departure, who so likely to have furnished it as Milton? All in all, that is the most probable conclusion; and anything un-Miltonic in the speech may be accounted for by supposing that, though the Latin was Milton's, the substance was not entirely his. Morland, though he does not say in his book that the speech was furnished him, does not positively claim it as his own. He, at all events, used the liberty of deviating from the original draft.]

(LV.) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May 25,
1655_[1]:--His Highness in this letter recapitulates the facts
at some length, and expresses his conviction that the Cantons, so
much nearer the scene of the horrors, are already duly roused. He
informs them that he has written to the Duke of Savoy and hopes the
intercession may have effect; but adds, "If, however, he should
determine otherwise, we are prepared to exchange counsels with you
on the subject of the means by which we may be able most
effectively to relieve, re-establish, and save from certain and
undeserved ruin, an innocent people oppressed and tormented by so
many injuries, they being also our dearest brothers in Christ."[2]

[Footnote 1: So dated in the official copy as dispatched, and as printed in Morland's book, pp. 581-562; but draft dated "_Westmonasterio, May 19, 1655_" in the Skinner Transcript, the Printed Collection, and Phillips.]