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.

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