disappointments. What, for example, of the frequent questionings and arrests of Bradshaw, Vane, and other highminded 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 from the First Protectorate into the Second. pass BOOK II. JUNE 1657-SEPTEMBER 1658. HISTORY:-OLIVER'S SECOND PROTECTORATE. BIOGRAPHY:-MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE SECOND PROTECTORATE. CHAPTER I. 'OLIVER'S SECOND PROTECTORATE: JUNE 26, 1657—sept. 3, 1658. REGAL FORMS AND CEREMONIAL OF THE SECOND PROTECTORATE: THE PROTECTOR'S FAMILY: THE PRIVY COUNCIL: RETIREMENT OF LAMBERT: DEATH OF ADMIRAL BLAKE: THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND SUCCESSES IN FLANDERS: SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF MARDIKE: OTHER FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE PROTECTORATE: SPECIAL ENVOYS TO DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND THE UNITED PROVINCES: AIMS OF CROMWELL'S DIPLOMACY IN NORTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE: PROGRESS OF HIS ENGLISH CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JOHN GOODWIN AND MARCHAMONT NEEDHAM: THE PROTECTOR AND THE QUAKERS: DEATH OF JOHN LILBURNE: DEATH OF SEXBY: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM TO MARY FAIRFAX: MARRIAGES OF CROMWELL'S TWO YOUNGEST DAUGHTERS: PREPARATIONS FOR ANOTHER SESSION OF THE PARLIAMENT: WRITS FOR THE OTHER HOUSE: LIST OF CROMWELL'S PEERS.-REASSEMBLING OF THE PARLIAMENT, JAN. 20, 1657-8: CROMWELL'S OPENING SPEECH, WITH THE SUPPLEMENT BY FIENNES: ANTI-OLIVERIAN SPIRIT OF THE COMMONS: THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE OTHER HOUSE: CROMWELL'S SPEECH OF REMONSTRANCE : PERSEVERANCE OF THE COMMONS IN THEIR OPPOSITION: CROMWELL'S LAST SPEECH AND DISSOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENT, FEB. 4, 1657-8.-STATE OF THE GOVERNMENT AFTER THE DISSOLUTION: THE DANGERS, AND CROMWELL'S DEALINGS WITH THEM: HIS LIGHT DEALINGS WITH THE DISAFFECTED COMMONWEALTH'S MEN: THREATENED SPANISH INVASION FROM FLANDERS, AND WHETHER Cromwell's Second and Constitutionalized Protectorship was as agreeable to himself as his First had been may be doubted. He had accepted it, however, and meant to try it in all good faith. If, on the one hand, it was more limited, on the other it was attended with more of grandeur and dignity. Inasmuch as the actual Kingship had been offered him, and the new constitution was exactly that which would have gone with the Kingship, his Protectorship now, in the eyes of all the world, was equivalent to Kingship. When inducted into his First Protectorship, stately though the ceremonial had been, he had worn but a black velvet suit, |