Chapter XIX: Section III: From September 1656 to June 1657, or Through the First

SESSION OF OLIVER'S SECOND PARLIAMENT.

ANOTHER LETTER FROM MILTON TO MR. RICHARD JONES: DEPARTURE OF LADY RANELAGH FOR IRELAND: LETTER FROM MILTON TO PETER HEIMBACH: MILTON'S SECOND MARRIAGE: HIS SECOND WIFE, KATHARINE WOODCOCK: LETTER TO EMERIC BIGOT: MILTON'S LIBRARY AND THE BYZANTINE HISTORIANS: M. STOUPE: TEN MORE STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. XCI.-C.): MORLAND, MEADOWS, DURIE, LOCKHART, AND OTHER DIPLOMATISTS OF THE PROTECTOR, BACK IN LONDON: MORE EMBASSIES AND DISPATCHES OVER LAND AND SEA: MILTON STANDING AND WAITING: HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PROTECTORATE GENERALLY.

Not much altogether is recoverable of Milton's life through that section of the Protectorate which coincides with the first Session of the Second Parliament (Sept. 17, 1656-June 26, 1657). What is recoverable will connect itself with (1) Three Private Epistles of his dated in these nine months, and (2) The series of his State-letters in the same period. To Richard Jones, _alias_ young Ranelagh, still at Oxford with Oldenburg, Milton, four days after the meeting of the Parliament, addressed another letter in that tone of Mentorship which he seems to have thought most suitable for the youth:--

"To the Noble youth, RICHARD JONES.

"Preparing again and again to reply to your last letter, I was
first prevented, as you know, by some sudden pieces of business, of
such a kind as are apt to be mine; then I heard you were off on an
excursion to some places in your neighbourhood; and now your most
excellent mother, on her way to Ireland--whose departure ought to
be a matter of no ordinary regret to both of us (for to me also she
has stood in the place of all kith and kin: _nam et mihi omnium,
necessitudinum loco fuit_)--carries you this letter herself.
That you feel assured of my affection for you, right and well; and
I would have you feel daily more and more assured of it, the more
of good disposition and of good use of your advantages you give me
to see in you. Which result, by God's grace, I see you not only
engage for personally, but, as if I had provoked you by a wager on
the subject, give solemn pledge and put in bail that you will
accomplish,--not refusing, as it were, to abide judgment, and to
pay the penalty of failure if judgment should be given against you.
I am truly delighted with this so good hope you have of yourself;
which you cannot now be wanting to, without appearing at the same
time not only to have been faithless to your own promises but also
to have run away from your bail. As to what you write to the effect
that you do not dislike Oxford, you adduce nothing to make me
believe that you have got any good there or been made any wiser:
you will have to shew me that by very different proofs. Victories
of Princes, which you extol with praises, and matters of that sort
in which force is of most avail, I would not have you admire too
much, now that you are listening to Philosophers [Robert Boyle and
his set?]. For what should be the great wonder if in the native
land of _wethers_ there are born strong horns, able to
_ram_ down most powerfully cities and towns? [_Quid enim
magnopere mirandum est si vervecum, in patria valida nascantur
cornua quæ urbes et oppida arietare valentissime possint?_
Besides the pun, there is some geographical allusion, or allusion
of military history, which it is difficult to make out.] Learn you,
already from your early age, to weigh and discern great characters
not by force and animal strength, but by justice and temperance.
Farewell; and please to give best salutations in my name to the
highly accomplished Henry Oldenburg, your chamber-fellow.

"Westminster: Sept. 21, 1656."

If the date of this letter, as published by Milton himself, is correct, it was written on a Sunday. Yet there can have been no particular haste; for Lady Ranelagh, who was to carry the letter to her son at Oxford on her way to Ireland, did not leave London for at least another fortnight. The pass for "Lady Catharine, Viscountess of Ranelagh, and her two daughters," with their servants, eight horses, &c., to go into Ireland, was granted, I find, by the Protector's Council, Oct. 7, 1656, on the motion of Lord President Lawrence.[1] She was to be away in Ireland for some years, occupied with family business of various kinds; and Milton was thinking with regret of the blank in his life that would be caused by her absence. For she had been to him, he says, "in the place of all kith and kin." How much that phrase involves! Though we have no letters from Milton to Lady Ranelagh, or from Lady Ranelagh to Milton, and though the fact of their friendship has been left by Milton unrecorded in that poetical form, whether of sonnet or of idyll, which has preserved for us so finely other incidents and intimacies of his life, this one phrase, duly interpreted, ought to make up for all. Perhaps in no part of any eminent man's life, especially if he is bereft domestically, is there wanting this benefit of some supreme womanly interest wakened in his behalf. Twice in Milton's life, so unfortunate domestically hitherto, we have seen something of the kind. Twelve years ago, in the old Aldersgate days of his desertion by his wife, it seemed to be the Lady Margaret Ley that was paramount. More recently, through the Westminster years of blindness and widowerhood, the real ministering angel, if there had been any such, had been that Lady Ranelagh whom English History remembers at any rate as the incomparable sister of Lord Broghill and of Robert Boyle. Let there be restored to her henceforth the honour also of having been Milton's friend.

[Footnote 1: Council Order-Books of date.]

The next extant Epistle of Milton, written when the Second Parliament of the Protectorate had sat nearly two months, is also quite of a private nature. Of the German or Dutch youth to whom it is addressed, Peter Heimbach, I have ascertained only that he had been residing for some time in London, perhaps originally brought thither in the train of some embassy or agency, and that he had recently published in London a Latin letter of eulogy on Cromwell,[1] extremely enthusiastic and somewhat juvenile. Milton's letter suggests farther that he had been much about Milton, as amanuensis or what not, but was now on a visit to Holland.

[Footnote 1: The Letter, which is in thirty-five pages of small folio, is entitled "_Petri ab Heimbach, G.F., ad Serenissimum Potentissimumque Principem Olivarium, D. G. Magnæ Brittaniæ Protectorem, veræ Fidei Defensorem, Pium, Felicem, Invictum, Adlocutio Gralulatoria: Londini, Ex Typographia Jacobi Cottrellii_, 1656." The praise of Cromwell is boundless; and his conduct in the Piedmontese business, and his care of learning and the Universities, are especially noticed.]

"To the very accomplished youth, PETER HEIMBACH.

"Most amply, my Heimbach, have you fulfilled your promises and all
the other expectations one would have of your goodness, with the
exception, that I have still to long for your return. You promised
that it would be within two months at farthest; and now, unless my
desire to have you back makes me misreckon the time, you have been
absent nearly three. In the matter of the Atlas you have abundantly
performed all I requested of you; which was not that you should
procure me one, but only that you would find out the lowest price
of the book. You write that they ask 130 florins; it must be the
Mauritanian mountain _Atlas_, I think, and not a book, that
you tell me is to be bought at so huge a price. Such is now the
luxury of Typographers in printing books that the furnishing of a
library seems to have become as costly as the furnishing of a
villa. Since to me at least, on account of my blindness, painted
maps can hardly be of use, vainly surveying as I do with blind eyes
the actual globe of the earth, I am afraid that the bigger the
price at which I should buy that book the greater would seem to be
my grief over my deprivation. Be good enough, pray, to take so much
farther trouble for me as to be able to inform me, when you return,
how many volumes there are in the complete work, and which of the
two issues, that of Blaeu or that of Jansen, is the larger and more
correct. This I hope to hear from yourself personally, on your
speedy return, rather than by another letter. Meanwhile farewell,
and come back to us as soon as you can.

"Westminster: Nov. 8, 1656."

One guesses from this letter that Heimbach was then in Amsterdam. It was there, at all events, that the two Atlases about which Milton enquired had been published or were in course of publication. That of John Jansen, called _Novus Atlas_, when completed in 1658, consisted of six folio volumes; the yet more magnificent _Geographia Blaeviana_, or Atlas of the geographer and printer John Blaeu, was not perfect till 1662, and then consisted of eleven volumes of very large folio. But various Atlases, or collections of maps in anticipation of the complete Atlas, had been on sale by Blaeu for ten or twelve years previously: e.g., from his own trade-catalogue in 1650, "Atlas, four volumes illuminated, bound after the best fashion, will cost 150 guldens," and "Belgia Foederata and Belgia Regia, two vols., white [uncoloured], 70 guldens, or illuminated 140 guldens." The gulden or Dutch florin was equal to 1_s._ 8_d._ English, so that the price of Blaeu's four volume Atlas of 1650 was £12 10_s._ To Milton in 1656 the price of the same, or of whatever other Atlas he had in view, was to be twenty florins less, i.e. about £11. It was much as if one were asked to give £38 for a book now; and no wonder that Milton hesitated.[1]

[Footnote 1: The information about the prices of Blaeu's general Atlas in 1650 and his special Atlas of the two Belgiums in the same year is from a curious letter in the _Correspondence of the Earls of Ancram and Lothian_, edited for the Marquis of Lothian, in 1875, by Mr. David Laing (II. 256).]

Just four days after the date of the letter to Heimbach, i.e. on the 12th of November, 1656, there took place an event of no less consequence to the household in Petty France than Milton's second marriage, after four years of widowerhood. It was performed, as the Marriage Act then in force required, not by a clergyman, but by a justice of the peace, and is registered thus in the books of the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, under the year 1656: "The agreement and intention of marriage between JOHN MILTON, Esq., of the Parish of Margaret's in Westminster, and MRS. KATHARINE WOODCOCKE, of the Parish of Mary's in Aldermanbury, was published three several market-days in three several weeks, viz. on Wednesday the 22nd and Monday the 27th of October, and on Monday the 3rd of November; and, no exceptions being made against their intention, they were, according to the Act of Parliament, married the 12th of November by Sir John Dethicke, Knight and Alderman, one of the Justices of Peace for this City of London."[1] Of this KATHARINE WOODCOCK (the "Mrs." before whose name does not mean that she had been married before) we learn farther, from Phillips, that she was "the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney"; and that is nearly all that we know of her family. A Captain John Woodcock, who is found giving a receipt for £13 8_s._ to the Treasurer-at-War on Oct. 6, 1653, on the disbanding of his troop, may possibly have been her father, as no other Captain Woodcock of the time has been discovered.[2] There is reason to believe that Milton had not been acquainted with the lady before his blindness, and so that, literally, he had never _seen_ her. Not the less, for the brief space of her life allotted to their union, she was to be a light and blessing in his dark household.

[Footnote 1: Given in Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1840; but I owe my copy to the kindness of Colonel Chester, who took it direct from the Register of St. Mary, Aldermanbury; and who supplies me with the following information in connexion with it: "It is generally said that the marriage took place in that church; but this, I think, may be doubted. I noticed, in several instances, that, when the religious ceremony was performed after the civil one, the fact was recorded; but it is not so in this case. I think that the City marriages at that period usually took place in the Guildhall, where a magistrate sat daily; though I believe they were sometimes solemnized at the residence of one of the parties."]

[Footnote 2: Phillips; Hunter's _Milton Gleanings_, p. 35. Colonel Chester tells me that, although Katharine Woodcock is described in the Register as "of the parish of Mary's in Aldermanbury," he found no trace of her family in that parish at the time. "There were Woodcocks there at a much earlier period (say 100 years before); but about this time I found only one burial, that of Michael Woodcock, whose will I have since looked at, but which does not mention her." The conjecture that Mr. Francis Woodcock, minister of St. Olave's, Southwark, was a relative, receives no support from what is known of his principles (see Vol. III, 184). A contemporary Puritan divine, Thomas Woodcock, for some time minister of St. Andrew Undershaft, is found living at Hackney after the Restoration.]

The household better ordered; the three young orphan girls of the first marriage better tended; more of lightsomeness and cheerfulness for Milton himself among his books; continuance, under new management, of the little hospitalities to the learned foreigners who occasionally call, and to the habitual visitors: so, we are to imagine, pass away at home those winter months of 1656-7 during which the great topics of interest outside were the war with Spain, Sindercombe's plot against the Protector's life, the debates in Parliament over the case of James Nayler, and the proceedings there for amending the system of the Protectorate, whether by converting it into Kingship or otherwise. Not, however, till the last day of March 1656-7, or three months and a half after the marriage with Katharine Woodcock, have we another distinct glimpse of Milton in his private life. On that day he dictated, in Latin, the following letter:--

"To the most accomplished EMERIC BIGOT.

"That on your coming into England I had the honour of being thought
by you more worth visiting and saluting than others was truly and
naturally gratifying to me; and that now you renew your salutation
by letter, even at such an interval, is somewhat more gratifying
still. For in the first instance you might have come to me perhaps
on the inducement of other people's opinion; but you could hardly
return to me by letter save at the prompting of your own judgment,
or, at least, good will. On this surely I have ground to
congratulate myself. For many have made a figure by their published
writings whose living voice and daily conversation have presented
next to nothing that was not low and common: if, then, I can attain
the distinction of seeming myself equal in mind and manners to any
writings of mine that have been tolerably to the purpose, there
will be the double effect that I shall so have added weight
personally to my writings, and shall receive back by way of
reflection from them credit, how small soever it may be, yet
greater in proportion. For, in that case, whatever is right and
laudable in them, that same I shall seem not more to have derived
from authors of high excellence than to have fetched forth pure and
sincere from the inmost feelings of my own mind and soul. I am
glad, therefore, to know that you are assured of my tranquillity of
spirit in this great affliction of loss of sight, and also of the
pleasure I have in being civil and attentive in the reception of
visitors from abroad. Why, in truth, should I not bear gently the
deprivation of sight, when I may hope that it is not so much lost
as revoked and retracted inwards, for the sharpening rather than
the blunting of my mental edge? Whence it is that I neither think
of books with anger, nor quite intermit the study of them,
grievously though they have mulcted me,--were it only that I am
instructed against such moroseness by the example of King Telephus
of the Mysians, who refused not to be cured in the end by the
weapon that had wounded him. As to that book you possess, _On the
Manner of Holding Parliaments_, I have caused the marked
passages of it to be either amended, or, if they were doubtful,
confirmed, by reference to the MS. in the possession of the
illustrious Lord Bradshaw, and also to the Cotton MS., as you will
see from your little paper returned herewith. In compliance with
your desire to know whether also the autograph of this book is
extant in the Tower of London, I sent one to inquire of the Herald
who has the custody of the Deeds, and with whom I am on familiar
terms. His answer is that no copy of that book is extant among
those records. For the help you offer me in return in procuring
literary material I am very much obliged. I want, of the Byzantine
Historians, _Theophanis Chronographia_ (folio: Greek and
Latin), _Constantini Manassis Breviarium Historicum_, with
_Codini Excerpta de Antiquitatibus Constantinopolitanis_
(folio: Greek and Latin), _Anastasii Bibliothecarii Historia et
Vitæ Romanorum Pontificum_ (folio); to which be so good as to
add, from the same press, _Michael Glycas_, and _Joannes
Cinnamus_, the continuator of Anna Comnena, if they are now out.
I do not ask you to get them as cheap as you can, both because
there is no need to put a very frugal man like yourself in mind of
that, and because they tell me the price of these books is fixed
and known to all. MR. STOUPE has undertaken the charge of the money
for you in cash, and also to see about the most convenient mode of
carriage. That you may have all you wish, and all you aspire after,
is my sincere desire. Farewell.

"Westminster: March 24, 1656-7."

Of the French scholar to whom this letter was addressed there is an excellent notice in Bayle. "EMERIC BIGOT," says Bayle, "one of the most learned and most honest men of the seventeenth century, was a native of Rouen, and of a family very distinguished in the legal profession. He was born in 1626. The love of letters drew him aside from public employments; his only occupation was in books and the acquisition of knowledge; he augmented marvellously the library which had been left him by his father. Once every week there was a meeting at his house for talk on matters of erudition. He kept up literary intercourse with a great number of learned men; his advices and information were useful to many authors; and he laboured all he could for the good and advantage of the Republic of Letters. He published but one book [a Life of St. Chrysostom]; but apparently he would have published others had he lived to complete them. M. Ménage in France, and Nicolas Heinsius among foreigners, were his two most intimate friends. He had none of the faults that accompany learning: he was modest and an enemy to disputes. In general, one may say he was the best heart in the world. He died at Rouen Dec. 18, 1689, aged about sixty-four years." How exactly this description of Bigot for his whole life tallies with the notion we should have of him, at the age of thirty-two, from Milton's letter! He had been in England some time ago, it appears, and had there, like other foreigners, paid his respects to Milton. And now, either from Rouen, or more probably from Paris, he had reopened the communication, quite in the style of a man such as Bayle paints him. The immediate object of his letter seems to have been to ask Milton to have some doubtful passages in a book "On the Manner of Holding Parliaments" compared with MS. authorities in London; but he had taken occasion to express also his vivid recollection of Milton, his interest in Milton's present condition, and his desire to be of use to him in the quest or purchase of foreign books.

Milton, who had evidently performed very punctually Bigot's immediate commission,[1] did, it will be observed, send him a commission in return. It deserves a little explanation:--There was then in course of publication at Paris, under the auspices and at the expense of Louis XIV., the first splendid collective edition of the Byzantine Historians, i.e. of that series of Historians, Chroniclers, Antiquarians, and Memoir-writers of the Eastern or Greek Empire from the 6th century to the 15th in whose works lies imbedded all our information as to the History of the East through the Middle Ages. The publication, which was to attain to the vast size of thirty-six volumes folio, containing the Greek Texts with Latin Translations and Notes, was not to be completed till 1711; but it had been begun in 1645. Now, in Milton's library, it appears, the Byzantine Historians were already pretty well represented, either in the shape of the earlier volumes of this Parisian collection, or in that of separate prior editions of particular writers. There were some gaps, however, which he wanted to fill up. He wanted the _Chronographia_ of Theophanes Isaacius, a chronicle of events from A.D. 277 to A.D. 811; also the _Brevarium Historicum_ of Constantine Manasses, a metrical chronicle of the world from the Creation to A.D. 1081; also the book of Georgius Codinus, the compiler of the fifteenth century, entitled _Excerpta de Originibus Constantinopolitanis_; also that of Anastasius Bibliothecarius on the _Lives of the Popes_. The Parisian editions of these, or of the first three, were now out (all in 1655). At the same time there might be sent him the Parisian editions, if they had appeared, of the Annals of _Michael Glycas_, bringing the History of the World from the Creation to A.D. 1118, and the valuable Lives of John and Manuel Comnenus by _Joannes Cinnamus_, the imperial notary of the 12th century.--As the Parisian edition of Michael Glycas (by Labbe) did not appear till 1660, and that of Joannes Cinnamus (by Du Cange) not till 1670, Bigot can have forwarded to Milton only the first-mentioned Byzantine books. One may imagine the arrival of the parcel of learned folios in the neat new tenement which Milton inhabited in Petty France; and it gives one a stronger idea than we have yet had of Milton's passion for books, and of his indomitable perseverance and ingenuity in the use of them in his blind state, that he should have taken such pains, at our present date, to supply himself with copies of some of the rare Byzantine Historians. Connecting this purchase, through Bigot, with the recent inquiry, through Heimbach, about the price of Blaeu's great Atlas, may we not also discern some increased attention to the furnishing of the house occasioned by the second marriage?

[Footnote 1: It seems to me possible, though I would not be too sure, that the book about which Bigot wrote to Milton was one entitled _Modus tenendi Parliamentum apud Anglos_, by Henry Elsynge, Clerk of the House of Lords, and father of the Henry Elsynge who was Clerk of the Commons In the Long Parliament (Wood, Ath. III. 363-4). The book, which had been sent forth under Parliamentary authority in 1641, was a standard one; and manuscript copies of it, or drafts for it, more complete than itself, may well have been extant in such places as the Cotton Library or Bradshaw's. Actually Elsynge's autograph of the book, dated 1626, was extant in London at the date of Milton's letter, though not in the Tower. An edition of the book, "enriched with a large addition from the author's original MS.," was published in 1768; and the MS. itself is now in the British Museum (Bonn's _Lowndes_, Article "Elsynge").]

The Herald in charge of the Records in the Tower, mentioned in Milton's letter as one of his acquaintances, was, I believe, WILLIAM RYLEY, Norroy King-at-arms. He had been Clerk of the Records, under the Master of the Rolls, for some years, and was to continue in the post till after the Restoration. A more interesting person was the "MR. STOUPE" who took charge of the cash to Bigot for the Byzantine volumes, and was to see to their conveyance to London.--He was no common character. A Grison by birth, he had settled in London as minister of the French Church in the Savoy; but he had left that post to be one of Thurloe's travelling-agents and political intelligencers or spies. For two years or more he had been employed in secret missions to France and Switzerland, chiefly for negotiation in the interests of the continental Protestants; and his success in this kind of employment, often at considerable personal risk, and his talent for collecting information in London itself by means of correspondence from abroad, had gradually recommended him to the Protector. Burnet, who knew him well in after life, when he was more a frantic Deist than either a Protestant or "Christian," had more anecdotes about Cromwell from him than from any other man. The anecdotes he liked best to tell were those in which his own intriguing ability figured. Thus it was Stoupe, according to his own account, that knew of Cromwell's design on the Spanish West Indies before all the rest of the world. One day, late in 1654, having been called into the Protector's room on business, he had noticed him very intent upon a map and measuring distances on it. Information being Stoupe's trade, he contrived to see that the map was one of the Bay of Mexico, and drew his inference. Accordingly, when the fleet of Penn and Venables was ready to sail, but nobody knew its destination, "Stoupe happened to say in a company he believed the design was on the West Indies. The Spanish Ambassador, hearing that, sent for him very privately, to ask him upon what ground he said it; and he offered to lay down £10,000 if he could make any discovery of that. Stoupe owned to me that he had a great mind to the money, and fancied he betrayed nothing if he did discover the grounds of these conjectures, since nothing had been trusted to him; but he expected greater matters from Cromwell, and said only that in a diversity of conjectures that seemed to him more probable than any others." Another of Stoupe's stories to Burnet was even more curious. Having learnt by a letter from Brussels that a certain refugee had come over to assassinate Cromwell, and was lodged in King Street, Westminster, he had hurried to Whitehall, and sent in a note to Cromwell, then in Council, saying he had something to communicate. Cromwell, supposing it might be one of Stoupe's ordinary pieces of intelligence, had sent out Thurloe to him. Though "troubled at this," Stoupe had no option but to show Thurloe the letter. To his surprise, Thurloe had made light of the matter, saying that they had rumours of that kind by the score, and it was not for a great man like the Protector to trouble himself about them. Stoupe, who had hoped his fortune would be made, went away "much cast down," to write to Brussels for surer evidence. He mentioned the matter, however, to Lord Lisle; and so, when Sexby's or Sindercombe's Plot was discovered a while afterwards, Lisle, talking of it with the Protector, and not doubting that the Protector knew all about Stoupe's previous revelation, said _that_ must be the man Stoupe had spoken of. "Cromwell seemed amazed at this, and sent for Stoupe, and in great wrath reproached him for his ingratitude in concealing a matter of such consequence to him. Stoupe upon this shewed him the letters he had received, and put him in mind of the note he had sent in to him, which was immediately after he had the first letter, and that he had sent out Thurloe to him. At that Cromwell seemed yet more amazed, and sent for Thurloe, to whose face Stoupe affirmed the matter; nor did he deny any part of it, but only said that he had many such advertisements sent him, in which till this time he had never found any truth. Cromwell replied sternly that he ought to have acquainted _him_ with it, and left _him_ to judge of the importance of it. Thurloe desired to speak in private with Cromwell. So Stoupe was dismissed, and went away, not doubting but Thurloe would be disgraced." What was his surprise, however, to find not only that Thurloe was not disgraced, but that he himself was thenceforth less in favour? Thurloe, in justifying himself, had told Cromwell more about Stoupe than he previously knew, and "possessed Cromwell with such an ill opinion of him that after that he never treated him with any confidence."[1] If the story is true, Stoupe's loss of favour dates from Jan. 1656-7, or two months before Milton's letter to Bigot. It would seem, however, that he was still employed in some way as one of Thurloe's agents; and hence Milton's use of him to convey the cash to France.[2] That Milton knew Stoupe would have been certain without this evidence; but the evidence is interesting.[3]

[Footnote 1: Burnet's _Hist. of his Own Time_, Book I.]

[Footnote 2: Of the £2000 sent from London to Geneva in June 1655 as the first instalment of relief for the Piedmontese Protestants (Cromwell's own subscription) £500 had been sent through Stoupe. See ante p. 190.]

[Footnote 3: Stoupe might make a good character in any historical novel of the time of the Protectorate. His career did not end then. He was to be "a brigadier-general in the French armies," and one knows not what else, before Burnet made his acquaintance.]

Of the following State-Letters of Milton, all belonging to our present section of his life, five bear date before his second marriage, and five after. Those after the marriage come at longer intervals than those before:--

(XCI.) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _Oct._ 1656:--Peace with
Portugal being happily ratified, the Protector is despatching
THOMAS MAYNARD to be his consul in that country. This letter is to
introduce him and bespeak access for him to his Majesty.

(XCII.) TO THE KING OF SWEDEN, _Oct._ 1656:--A soldierly
knight, Sir William Vavasour, who has been in England, is now
returning to his military duty under the Swedish King. The
Protector need hardly recommend back to his Majesty a servant so
distinguished, but ventures to do so, and to suggest that he should
be paid his arrears.

(XCIII.) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, _Oct._ 1656:--An English
ship-master, called Thomas Evans, is going to Lisbon to prosecute
his claim for £7000 against the Brazil Company, being damages
sustained by the seizure of his ship, the _Scipio_, six years
before, by the Portuguese Government, while he was in the Company's
service. The Treaty provides for such claims; and, though the
Protector has written before on the subject generally, he cannot
but write specially in this case.

(XCIV.) TO THE SENATE OF HAMBURG, _Oct. 16, 1656:_--Long ago,
in the time of King Charles, two brothers, James and Patrick Hays,
being the lawful heirs of their brother Alexander, who had died
intestate in Hamburg, had obtained a decree in their favour in the
Hamburg Court, assigning them all the said Alexander's property,
except dower for his widow. From that day to this, however, chiefly
by the influence of Albert van Eizen, a man of consequence in
Hamburg, they have been kept out of their rights. They are in
extreme poverty and have applied to the Protector. As he considers
it the first duty of his Protectorate to look after such cases, he
writes this letter. It is to request the Hamburg Senate to see that
the two brothers have the full benefit of the old decision of the
Court. Further delay has been threatened, he hears, in the form of
an appeal to the Chamber of Spires. That such an appeal is illegal
will appear by the signed opinions of English lawyers which he
forwards. "But, if entreaty is of no avail, it will be necessary,
and that by the common right of nations, to resort to measures of
retaliation." His Highness hopes this may be avoided by the
prudence of the Senate.

(XCV.) TO LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Nov. 1656:_--No answer has
yet been received to his Highness's former letter, of May 14, on
the subject of the claim of Sir John Dethicke, then Lord Mayor of
London, and his partner William Wakefield, on account of the
capture of a ship of theirs in 1649 by a pirate acting for Charles
Stuart, and the insolent detention of the same by M. L'Estrades,
the French Governor of Dunkirk (see the Letter, ante p. 253).
Perhaps the delay had arisen from the fact that M. L'Estrades was
then away with the army in Flanders; but "now he is living in Paris
itself, or rather fluttering about with impunity in city and court
enriched with the spoils of our people." His Highness now
imperatively demands immediate and strict attention to the matter.
It is one of positive obligation by the Treaty; and the honour and
good faith of His French Majesty are directly concerned.--It is a
curious coincidence that within a day or two of the writing of this
strong letter by Milton in behalf of Sir John Dethicke, that knight
should have solemnised Milton's marriage with Katharine Woodcock.
Nov. 12 was the date of the marriage; and, as Dethicke is spoken of
in this letter as no longer in his Mayoralty, it must have been
written after Lord Mayor's day, i.e. after Nov. 9, 1656.

(XCVI.) TO FREDERICK III., KING OF DENMARK, _Dec. 1856:_--This
is another of Cromwell's fervid Protestant letters, very much in
the strain of those four months before to the States-General of the
United Provinces and Charles Gustavus of Sweden, and indeed, with
identical expressions. First he acknowledges letters from his
Danish Majesty, of date Feb. 16, received through the worthy Simon
de Pitkum, his Majesty's agent. They have been so gratifying, and
the matter of them is so important, that his Highness has been
looking about for a suitable person to be sent as confidential
minister to Copenhagen. Such a person he hopes to send soon:
meanwhile a letter may convey some thoughts about the state of
Europe that are much occupying his Highness. The dissensions among
Protestant States are causing him profound grief. Especially he is
grieved by the jealousies and misunderstandings that separate two
such important Protestant States as Denmark and Sweden. Can they
not be removed? Sweden and the United Provinces, with both of which
his Highness had taken the liberty of remonstrating to the same
effect, have been coming to a happy accommodation: why should
Denmark keep aloof? Let his Danish Majesty lay this to heart. Let
him think of the persecutions of Protestants in Piedmont, in
Austria, and in Switzerland; and let him imagine the eternal
machinations of the Spaniard behind all. These surely are
inducements sufficient to a reconciliation with Sweden, if it can
be brought about. The Protector's good offices towards that end
shall not be wanting if required. He has the highest esteem for the
King of Denmark, and would cultivate yet closer alliance with
him.--Relating to this letter is a minute of Council of the date
Tuesday, Dec. 2: "The draft of a letter from his Highness to the
King of Denmark was this day read, and after read by parts; and the
several clauses thereof, being put to the question, were, with some
amendments, agreed; and, the whole being so passed, it was offered
to his Highness as the advice of the Council that his Highness will
please to send the same." The letter, therefore, was deemed
important. Was the draft read in English or in Latin? On the first
supposition it may still have come from Milton, though it had to go
back to him.

(XCVII.) To WILLIAM, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE, _March
1656-7_:--After an apology to the Landgrave for not having
sooner answered a letter of his received nearly twelve months ago,
the Protector here also plunges into the subject of Union among
Protestants. He is glad that the Landgrave appreciates the
exertions in this behalf that have been made in Britain and
elsewhere. "We have particularly desired the same peace for the
Churches of all Germany, where dissension has been too sharp and of
too long continuance; and through our DURIE, labouring at the same
fruitlessly now for many years, we have heartily offered any
possible service of ours that might contribute thereto. We remain
still in the same mind; we desire to see the same brotherly love to
each other among those Churches: but how hard a business this is of
settling a peace among those sons of peace, as they pretend
themselves, we understand, to our great grief, only too abundantly.
For it is hardly to be hoped that those of the Reformed and those
of the Augustan confession will ever coalesce into the communion of
one Church; they cannot without force be prevented from severally,
by word and writings, defending their own beliefs; and force cannot
consist with ecclesiastical tranquillity. This, at least, however,
they might allow one to entreat--that, as they do differ, they
would differ more humanely and moderately, and love each other
nevertheless." It is a great pleasure to the Protector to exchange
sentiments on this subject with a Prince of such distinguished
Protestant ancestry.

(XCVIII.) TO THE DUKE OF COURLAND, _March 1657_:--After
thanking this potentate of the Baltic for his hospitality, some
time ago, to an English agent passing through to Muscovy, the
Protector brings to his notice the case of one John Jamesone, a
Scotchman, master of one of the Duke's ships. The ship had been
wrecked going into port, but not by Jamesone's fault. The pilot, to
whom he had intrusted it, according to rule and custom, had been
alone to blame. Jamesone has been a faithful servant of the Duke
for seven years; he is in great distress; and his Highness hopes
the Duke will not stop his pay.

(XCIX.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF DANTZIG, _April
1657_:--The Dantzigers, for whom the Protector has a great
respect, have unfortunately sided with the Poles against the King
of Sweden. Would that, for the sake of Religion, and in the spirit
of their old commercial amity with England, they had chosen
otherwise, or would yet change their views! That, however, is
rather beyond the immediate business of this letter; which is to
request them either to release the noble Swede, Count Konigsmarck,
who has become their prisoner by treachery, or at least make his
captivity easier.

(C.) TO THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, _April 1657_:--On the throne of
this vast, chaotic, semi-Asiatic Empire at this time was Alexis,
the son and successor of Michael Romanoff, the founder of that new
dynasty under which Russia was to enter on her era of greatness. He
had come to the throne, as a young man, in 1645, and had since
then, in the despotic Czarish way, continued his father's policy
for the civilization of his subjects by cultivating commerce with
the neighbouring European states, and bringing in foreigners for
service in his armies or otherwise. On the execution of Charles I.,
however, he had broken utterly with the Regicide Island, and had
ordered out of his dominions all English adherents of the
Parliament. He alone of European Sovereigns had at once taken this
high stand against the English Republic. But events, Russian
interests, and communications from the Protector, had gradually
brought him round. Since 1654, when a certain WILLIAM PRIDEAUX had
been sent to Russia as agent for the Protector, the trade with
Russia, through Archangel, had resumed its former dimensions, under
rules permitting English merchants to sell and buy goods at
Archangel, and have a factory there, but "not to go up in the
country for Moscow or any other city in Russia."[1] The envoy
himself, however, had visited Moscow; and his long letters thence,
or from Archangel, had thrown much light on the internal condition
of that strange outlandish Muscovy, as Russia was then generally
called, about which there had been hitherto more of curiosity than
knowledge. The immense wealth of the Emperor, his vast military
forces, the barbaric splendours of his Court, the Oriental
submissiveness of the people and their oddities of dress and
manners, the peculiarities of the Greek Religion, the great
resources of Russia, and the obstructions yet existing in the way
of trade with her, had all become topics of English gossip. But, in
fact, Alexis had become a considerable personage in general
European politics. By wars with Poland, and other populations about
him, he had greatly enlarged his territories, adopting new titles
of sovereignty to signify the same; and in the general imbroglio of
North-Eastern Europe, involving Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the United
Provinces, and even Germany, he had come to be a power whose
movements and embassies commanded attention. It had been resolved,
therefore, by the Protector and his Council to send a more special
envoy to "the Great Duke of Muscovia"; and, on the 12th of March
1656-7, RICHARD BRADSHAW, ESQ., so long Resident for the
Commonwealth at Hamburg, was recommended by the Council to his
Highness as the proper person.[2] The present letter of Milton,
accordingly, is the Letter of Credence which Bradshaw was to take
with him.--The Letter is addressed to his Russian Majesty, as
punctually as possible, by all his chaos of titles, thus: "Oliver,
Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c.,
to the Most Serene and most powerful Prince and Lord, the Emperor
and Great Duke of all Russia, Lord of Volodomeria, Moscow, and
Novgorod, King of Kazan, Astracan, and Siberia, Lord of Vobscow,
Great Duke of Smolensk, Tuerscow, and other places, Lord and Great
Duke of Novograda, and of the lower countries of Czernigow,
Rezanscow, &c., Lord of all the Northern Clime, and also Lord of
Everscow, Cartalinska, and many other lands."[3] After referring to
the old commercial intercourse between Russia and England, the
Protector says he is moved to seek closer communication, with his
most august Imperial Majesty by that extraordinary worth, far
outshining that of all his ancestors, by which he has won himself
so good an opinion among all neighbouring Princes, Then he
introduces and highly recommends BRADSHAW, who will duly reveal his
instructions.

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, II. 562.]

[Footnote 2: Council Order Book of date.]

[Footnote 3: Compare this address with that which the Envoy of the United Provinces was instructed by the States-General to be most punctual in using in his addresses to his Czarish Majesty nearly six years before (Aug. 1651: see Thurloe, I. 196):--"Most illustrious, most potent great Lord, Czar and Grand Duke Alexey Michaelowitz, Autocrator of all both the Greater and Lesser Russia, Czar of Kiof, Wolodomiria, Novgorod, Czar of Kazan, Czar of Astracan, Czar of Siberia, Lord of Plescow, and Grand Duke of Smolensko, Tweer, Jugonia, Permia, Weatka, Bolgaria, Lord and Grand-Duke of Novagrada and the low lands of Zenigow, Resan, Polotzko, Rostof, Yareslav, Belooseria, Udoria, Obdoria, Condinia, Wietepsky, M'Stitslof, Lord of all the Northern Lands, Lord of the Land of Iversky, Czar of Cartalinsky and Grusinsky, and of the Land of Cardadinsky, Prince of the Circasses and Gorshes, heir of his Father and Grand-father, and Lord and Sovereign of many other Easterly, Westerly, and Northerly Lordships and Dominions." Milton, for the Protector, is somewhat more economical and uses _Rex_ for _Czar_.]

The mission of BRADSHAW to Russia was not the only incident in the Protector's diplomatic service about this time in which Milton, as Foreign Secretary Extraordinary, may have felt an interest. MORLAND, after having been in Switzerland for about a year and a half on the business that had grown out of his original Piedmontese mission, had been at length recalled, leaving the Swiss agency, as before, in the hands of PELL by himself. He had been back in London since Dec. 1656, had attended the Council several times to give full and formal report of his proceedings, and had also appeared before the great Committee for the Collection for the Piedmontese Protestants, and presented his accounts of the moneys received and expended. All that he had done met with high approbation; and, by way of reward in kind, it was voted by the Council, May 5, 1657, that he should have £700 for 'the charge of paper, printing, and cutting of the maps, for 2000 copies of his History,' and the whole of the profits of that book. Morland's _History of the Evangelical Churches of Piemont_, which appeared in the following year, was therefore a State publication the copyright of which was made over to the author. More munificent still was the reward of the services of MEADOWS in Portugal. His special mission having been successfully accomplished, and ordinary consular duty in Lisbon having been put into good hands, he too had returned to London, but only to be designated at once (Feb. 24, 1656-7) for another mission of importance. This was that mission to the King of Denmark which Cromwell had promised in his letter to the King of Dec. 1656, but for which a suitable person had not then been found. To Meadows, fresh from Portugal, the appointment to Denmark was in itself a high compliment; but there were very substantial accompaniments. His allowance in his new mission was to be £1000 a year; a special sum of £400 was voted for the expense of his journey; and it was ordered that, for his able discharge of his Portuguese mission, £100 a year should be settled on him and his for ninety-nine years--a vote partly commuted a few days afterwards (March 19) into a present money-payment of £1000. For DURIE, who was also now back in England, and indeed close to Milton in Westminster, after another of his roving missions, first through Switzerland, and then in other parts, there was to be no employment so distinguished as that found for Meadows. It was enough that he should be at hand for any farther service of propagandism in behalf of his life-long idea of a Pan-Protestant Union. Of two new diplomatic appointments that were soon to be made, both above Durie's mark, we shall hear in time. The most splendid diplomatic appointment of all in the Protector's service had, as we already know (ante p. 114), just received an increase of dignity. The Scottish COLONEL WILLIAM LOCKHART, the husband of Cromwell's niece, and his Ambassador at the Court of France since April 1656, had been back on a visit in the end of the year to attend Parliament and to consult with Cromwell; and now, knighted by Cromwell, he had returned to France as SIR WILLIAM LOCKHART, with his great allowance of £100 a week, or £5200 a year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates Jan. 1, 27, Feb. 3, 24, March 5, 12, 19, 1656-7, and May 5, 1657; Letter of Durie, dated "Westminster, May 28, 1657," in Vaughan's Protectorate (II. 173).]

At no time, indeed, since the beginning of the Protectorate, had there been such activity in that foreign and diplomatic department of the Protector's service to which Milton belonged. Cromwell's alliance offensive and defensive with France against Spain (March 23, 1656-7), leading immediately to the transport of an English auxiliary army under General Reynolds to co-operate with the French in Flanders (ante pp. 140-141), would in itself have caused an increase of such activity; but, in addition to this, and inextricably involved with this in Cromwell's general Anti-Spanish policy, was that idea of a League or Union of the Protestant States of Europe which had first perhaps been roused in his mind by the Piedmontese massacre of 1655, but had gradually, as so many of Milton's subsequent State-Letters prove, assumed firmer form and wider dimensions. The Dutch, the Protestant Swiss, the Protestant German princes and cities, the Danes, the Swedes, the Protestants of Transylvania and other eastern parts, perhaps even the Russians, all, so far as Cromwell's influence could go, were to be brought to a common understanding for the promotion of Protestant interests throughout the world and the defiance of all to the contrary. It was Durie's old dream of Pan-Protestantism redreamt by a man whose state was kingly, and who had the means of turning his dreams into realities. Now, consequently, in the service of that dream, as in his service generally,

"Thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest."

While so many were thus coming and going, at £800 a year, £1000 a year, or £5000 a year, blind Milton, with his £200 a year, could only "stand and wait," the stationary Latin drudge. The return of his old assistant Meadows from Portugal may again have relieved him of somewhat of the drudgery; for, though Meadows was designated for the new mission to Denmark Feb. 24, 1656-7, he did not actually set out for Denmark till the following August, and there is something like proof that in the interval, envoy though he now was, he resumed secretarial duty at Whitehall under Thurloe. His renewed presence in London may account for the comparative rarity of Milton's State-Letters from Dec. 1656 to April 1657, and also for the fact that then there follows a total blank of four months in the series, bringing us precisely to August, when Meadows was preparing to go away again. What passed during these months we already know. The great question of Kingship or continued Protectorship, which had been in suspense during those months of March and April in which Milton had written his last four letters, had been brought to a close May 8, when Cromwell at last decisively refused the Crown; and the First Session of his Second Parliament had accordingly ended, June 26, not in his coronation, as had been expected, but in his inauguration in that Second Protectorship the constitution of which had been framed by the Parliament in their so-called _Petition and Advice_.--What may have been Milton's thoughts on the Kingship question we can pretty easily conjecture. Almost to a certainty, he was one of the private "_Contrariants_," one of those Oliverians who, with Lambert, Fleetwood, and most of the Army-men, objected theoretically to a return to Kingship, feared it would be fatal, and were glad therefore when Cromwell declined it and accepted the constitutionalized Protectorship instead. But, indeed, by this time, it is possible that Milton, though still Oliverian in the main, still a believer in Cromwell's greatness and goodness, was not so devotedly an Oliverian as he had been when he had written his panegyric on the Protector and the Protectorate in his _Defensio Secunda_. Even then he had made his reserves, and had ventured to express them in advices and cautions to Cromwell himself. He can hardly have professed that in those virtues of the avoidance of arbitrariness and self-will, the avoidance of over-legislation and over-restriction, which he had especially recommended to Cromwell, the rule of the Protector through the last three years had quite satisfied his ideal. Many of the so-called "arbitrary" measures, and even the temporary device of the Major-Generalships, he may have excused, as Cromwell himself did, on the plea of absolute necessity; all the measures distinctly for repression of Royalist risings and conspiracies must have had his thorough approbation; and, in the great matter of liberty of speculation and speech, Cromwell had certainly shown more sympathy with the spirit of Milton's _Areopagitica_ than most of his Councillors or either of his Parliaments. Nor, as we have sufficiently seen, did Milton's notions of Public Liberty, any more than Cromwell's, formulate themselves in mere ordinary constitutionalism, or the doctrine of the rightful supremacy of Parliaments elected by a wide or universal suffrage, and a demand that such should be sitting always. He had more faith perhaps, as Cromwell had, in a good, broad, and pretty permanent Council, acting on liberal principles, and led by some single mind. But there _had_ been disappointments. What, for example, of the frequent questionings and arrests of Bradshaw, Vane, and other high-minded Republicans whom Milton admired, and what especially of the prolonged disgrace and imprisonment of his dear friend Overton? Or, even if the plea of necessity or supposed necessity should cover such cases too (for Cromwell's informations through Thurloe might reach farther than the public knew, and the good Overton, at all events, had gone into devious and dangerous courses), what about the Protector's grand infatuation on the subject of an Established Church? He had preserved the abomination of a State-paid ministry; he had made that institution the very pride of his Protectorate; he was actually fattening up over again a miscellaneous State-clergy, in place of the old Anglicans, by studied encouragements and augmentations of stipend. So Milton thought, and very much in that language; and here, above all, must have been his dissatisfaction with Cromwell's Government. But what could be done? What other Government could there be? What would the Commonwealth have been without Cromwell, and in what condition would it be if he were removed? On the whole, what could a blind private thinker do but, in his occasional interviews with the great Protector on business, or his rarer presences perhaps in a retired place at one of the Protector's musical entertainments at Whitehall, keep all such thoughts to himself, reserving frank expression of them for his intimates, and meanwhile behaving as a loyal Oliverian and performing his duty? In such a state of mind, as I believe, did Milton pass from the First Protectorate into the Second.