“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660with the language of the saints advised the army that the only way to redeem its
“backsliding” in supporting the Protector and his adherents – “those Canaanites,
those Court-Parasites and Apostates” – was to restore the Rump Parliament.^21 The
republicans managed, as Austin Woolrych observes, to identify the Good Old Cause
with the Good Old Parliament, though much of the army had condemned the
Rump in 1653 for its efforts to rein in the sects and the army (CPW VII, 67). A few
pamphlets urged Leveller or Harringtonian programs,^22 but most called for the old
model: a commonwealth without Single Person or House of Lords, and restoration
of the Rump.
Whatever Milton may have expected or hoped from the revived republican sen-
timent, he continued his diplomatic correspondence for Richard, most of it dealing
with vessels or cargo seized or citizens requiring assistance.^23 He addressed a deft
rhetorical appeal to the King of France (February 18) in support of the Piedmontese
Protestants – this time exiles settled in Provence whose meetings for worship were
being obstructed – urging the king not to forbid these Protestants to offer prayers
for his safety and prosperity (CPW V.2, 860–1). Milton’s last letter for Richard was
to Charles X of Sweden, dated April 25.^24 About the same time Milton answered a
letter (now lost) from Jean de Labadie, a former French Jesuit turned Calvinist who
founded a sect dedicated to simple living and communal property, and who had
expressed a desire to settle in England. The letter was sent, probably with a copy of
his book recounting the difficulties occasioned by his conversion, through Giles
Dury, an elder of the French church in London.^25 Milton was clearly pleased by the
praises of his Defensio that Labadie passed along,^26 and he in turn praised Labadie
highly for following the gospel despite persecution. Milton and Dury found a post
for Labadie and Milton’s letter made him an offer of appointment as minister to a
French community in London.^27 Milton often tried to help such petitioners, espe-
cially writers or scholars; probably he had not heard the rumors of sexual laxity that
Labadie, much like Milton’s despised Alexander More, attracted wherever he went,
or else he attributed those rumors to Catholic harassment.
On May 6 the Council of Officers invited the Rump Parliament back and pub-
lished a Declaration all but admitting that they had made a grave mistake in expel-
ling that body in 1653. They acknowledge that they have wandered “divers ways
from rightous and equal paths,” that the apparent withdrawal of the Lord’s presence
from them has hitherto frustrated all attempts at settlement, and that the expelled
MPs were “eminent Asserters of that Cause, and had a special Presence of God with
them.”^28 On May 7 a procession of some forty MPs marched into parliament, and
soon others returned.^29 Almost immediately the issue was joined that was to bedevil
this new attempt to settle a republic: a conflict between parliamentary supremacy
and the army’s sense of itself as the best protector of the Good Old Cause and
virtually an estate of government. On May 13 the officers presented a “Humble
Petition and Address” to parliament outlining certain “fundamentals” to be pre-
served: a commonwealth form without Single Person, King, or House of Lords;