“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660liberty of conscience for most Protestants who profess faith in the Trinity and the
Holy Scriptures (exempting only popery, prelacy, and licentious practices); and a
two-chamber legislature with an elected representative body and “a select senate,
co-ordinate in power, of able and faithful persons, eminent for godliness, and such
as continue adhering to this cause.”^30 In subsequent months the senior officers (the
so called Wallingford House group) remained wedded to some kind of Select Sen-
ate, and assumed that much of its membership would be drawn from their number.
Milton’s friend Henry Vane had proposed a variant of that scheme in The Healing
Question (1656) as a way to bring parliament and the army together by securing
both the principle of representative government and the protection of minority
liberties; he now reiterated that proposal in the form of a letter to Harrington,
incorporating some Harringtonian as well as millenarian elements.^31 But that idea
was anathema to committed republicans who would not brook any infringement
on the supremacy of the elected legislature or its control over the military.
On May 15 Milton wrote what seem to be his last letters of state, announcing the
Rump Parliament’s return to power. The formula in the letter to Charles X of
Sweden is closely replicated in that to Frederick III of Denmark: “Since Almighty
God... in whose power alone are all the revolutions of kingdoms and common-
wealths, has seen fit to restore us to our original authority and to the position of
supreme power in governing English affairs, we have thought first... to inform
Your Majesty of this fact.”^32 The letters assure both monarchs of parliament’s con-
tinued friendship, its earnest desire to help reconcile the two warring Protestant
powers, and its commission to Philip Meadows, ambassador extraordinary to Swe-
den, to help negotiate a settlement. Richard did not abdicate formally until May
25, but these letters ignore him completely. In mid-May also, pamphlets by the
irrepressible Prynne blamed the restoration of the Rump on the principles of Milton,
John Goodwin, and Marchamont Nedham, among others.^33
Although he did not publish it until August, Milton probably began work some-
time in June on the second part of his analysis of church–state relations, The Likeliest
Means to Remove Hirelings out of the church.^34 No doubt he took some comfort from
the Rump’s prompt acceptance of the toleration formula in the army’s “Humble
Petition and Address,” though he would not have approved the Trinitarian doctri-
nal test. Soon, however, fierce debates erupted in parliament and in the press over
tithes; supporters and abolitionists deluged the parliament with petitions, prompt-
ing Milton to address that issue immediately.^35 On June 27 the abolitionists pre-
sented a petition with fifteen hundred signatures, urging legislators not to force
maintenance for ministers on those “that for conscience sake cannot hear them, nor
own them.”^36 Parliament responded on the same day with a resolution to continue
tithes “unless this Parliament shall find out some other more equal and Comfortable
Maintenance” – strongly suggesting that it did not expect to make a change any
time soon.^37 But neither side took the matter as settled.
The most rigid tithe supporters, Presbyterians and some Independents, argued