Notes to Chapter 1
8, p. 251), but by the Blasphemy Act of 1648 it would warrant the death penalty; as a
repeat offender he would at least face a long imprisonment or banishment.
32 George Fox, Journal, ed. Norman Penney (London, 1924), 105–6.
33 Marvell’s unsigned First Anniversary of the Government under O.C. (London, 1655) was
probably written in late December, 1654; it was advertised in Mercurius Politicus ( Janu-
ary 1–18, 1655) as “newly printed and published”; Thomason dates it January 17. The
work eulogizes Cromwell as another Gideon – a judge mightier than kings – satirizes
his opponents, and emphasizes his indispensability. The poem pays tribute to Milton
with an allusion to his Nativity Ode: “And Stars still fall, and still the Dragons Tail /
Swinges the Volumes of its horrid Flail” (ll. 151–2). Marvell also wrote a poem on the
marriage of Cromwell’s daughter Mary to Lord Fauconberg (November 19, 1657).
34 BL Stowe Ms 142, ff. 60, 61 has Milton’s signature (by proxy) for his quarter salary. In
the Council Order Books for April 17, 1655 the order for Milton appears in a separate
paragraph following the sentence announcing the reduction of Gualter Frost, Jr.’s salary
from £400 to £300: “That the former yearly Sallary of Mr. John Milton of 288li &.
formerly charged to the Councells Contingencies, be reduced to one hundred and fiftie
pounds per Ann, and payd to him dureing his life out of his Highnesse Exchequer:” SP
25/76/30; CSPD 8:127 (1655). There are no salary entries for Nedham, John Hall, or
George Vaux, perhaps indicating some intent to terminate their formal services.
35 The changes occurred but are not formally recorded. Nedham continued to receive his
salary, as did George Vaux. Frost’s salary was paid at £365, not £300; Milton’s salary as
of October 25, 1659 is listed as £200 (Masson, V, 177–83). Robet T. Fallon, Milton in
Government (University Park, Pa., 1993), 130–9, notes that financial records for the
considerable expenses of the secretary of state’s office have been lost or destroyed, and
with them records of Milton’s salary and the full range of his services.
36 The letters were printed in June as part of the Protector’s effort to marshal support for
the cause, in A Collection of Several Papers... Concerning the Bloody and Barbarous Massa-
cres, ed. Jean Baptiste Stouppe (London, 1655), 34–5. Later in June a Latin translation
appeared intended to enlist international support. The quotes are from a letter dated
May 8, and from Weekly Post, no. 231 (June 12–19, 1655), 1,844.
37 Samuel Morland, The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont (London,
1658), sigs a v, a 2.
38 See Fallon, Milton in Government, 143–51. Attribution to Milton rests on close parallels
between the speech and the several letters and Milton’s sonnet, and on the fact that the
speech and letters were copied in the same hand and deposited as a single bundle in the
public archives. Also the youthful Morland, who had but three days to prepare for his
mission, would likely not have been entrusted to draft a speech in the Protector’s own
name, and he does not claim credit for it in his History.
39 In the Skinner manuscript a draft of the letter to the Duke of Savoy is dated May 10
(CPW V.2, 685–7); four letters to other Protestant powers, also dated May 25, were
rough-drafted some days earlier, and then some of their contents reshuffled.
40 Pages 688–97. In the letter to the Swedish king, Cromwell’s desire to form and lead a
Protestant coalition had to give way to a tactful recognition of Charles X’s superior
claim as leader of international Protestantism. But Cromwell asserts his own leadership
forcefully in the letter to the United Provinces, urging that if Savoy persists in seeking
to destroy “those men among whom our religion was handed down from the very first
Notes to Chapter 10