The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 998 pages of information about The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660.

The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 998 pages of information about The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660.

Friday, June 26, 1657, was the last day of the present Single House, and a day of high ceremonial in London.  The House, having met as usual in the morning, and transacted some overstanding business, rose about two o’clock to meet his Highness in the Painted Chamber.  There, with the words “The Lord Protector doth consent,” the Additional Petition and Advice, and therefore the whole new Constitution of the Protectorate, as just described, became law, and assent was given also to a number of Bills that had passed the House since the 9th.  Among these was an “Act for convicting, discovering, and repressing of Popish Recusants,” an “Act for the Better Observation of the Lord’s Day,” and an “Act for punishing such persons as live at high rates and have no visible estate, profession, or calling, answerable thereto.”  There were also two Money Bills for temporary supplies:  viz. one for raising L15,000 from Scotland, to go along with the L180,000 from England, and the L20,000 from Ireland, voted for the three months just ended, and another general and prospective one, assessing England at L35,000 a month, Scotland at L6000 a month, and Ireland at L9000 a month, for the next three years.  All these assents having been received, there was an adjournment to Westminster Hall for the solemn installation of his Highness in his Second Protectorate.—­The Hall had been magnificently prepared, and contained a vast assemblage.  The members of the House, the Judges in their robes, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their robes, and other dignitaries, were ranged in the midst round, a canopied chair of state.  It was the royal chair of Scotland, with the mystic coronation-stone underneath it, brought for the purpose from the Abbey.  In front of the chair was a table, covered with pink-coloured Geneva velvet fringed with gold; and on the table lay a large Bible, a sword, the sceptre, and a robe of purple velvet, lined with ermine.  His Highness, having entered, attended by his Council, the great state officers, his son Richard, the French Ambassador, the Dutch Ambassador, and “divers of the nobility and other persons of great quality,” stood, beside the chair under the canopy.  The Speaker, assisted by the Earl of Warwick, Whitlocke, and others, then attired his Highness in the purple velvet robe; after which he delivered to him the richly-gilt Bible, girt him with the sword, and put the gold sceptre into his hand.  His Highness then swore the oath of office, administered to him by the Speaker, After that, the Speaker addressed him in a well-turned speech.  “You have no new name,” he said, “but a new date now added to the old name:  the 16th of December is now changed into the 26th of June.”  He explained that the robe, the Bible, the sword, and the sceptre were presents to his Highness from the Parliament, and dwelt poetically on the significance of each.  “What a comely and glorious sight,” he concluded, “it is to behold a Lord Protector in a purple robe, with a sceptre in his hand, a sword

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The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.