“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660the Secretariat, since he found Cromwell a better friend to toleration than most,
and since he admired the Protector’s foreign policy, especially his support for the
Waldensians and for an international Protestant alliance. No doubt he saw himself
providing under all the regimes useful service to the nation in the crucial area of
foreign relations.
When he advised the Rump that religious liberty and disestablishment must be
secured before models of government can be properly considered, Milton under-
scored his priorities. But he could not long ignore the escalating political instability.
Restoration of the Rump was unpopular with many of the gentry who had sup-
ported the Protectorate as it turned more conservative, and many radical sectaries
feared that the Rump would again attempt to perpetuate its power. A few Levellers
revived the notion of an Agreement of the People with subscription restricted to
the well-affected; and a few sectaries and millenarians, among them Milton’s friend
Robert Overton, vigorously denounced the backsliding to a single person and urged
the rule of the elect.^50 In August the Presbyterian George Booth began an uprising
in support of Charles II (easily put down by Lambert). Several tracts set forth sim-
plified versions of Harrington’s Oceana as the best solution to the present crisis: his
provisions for a bicameral legislature – one house to debate and the other to vote –
and his designs to refine elections and to provide for both permanence and rotation
influenced many other government models, including Milton’s.^51 Sometime dur-
ing October the so called Rota Club began to meet nightly at the Turk’s Head
Coffee House to debate Harrington’s proposals and principles. Milton kept in close
touch with those deliberations through Cyriack Skinner, who was a member. John
Aubrey described the discussions as
the most ingeniose, and smart, that ever I heard, or expect to heare.... The room
was every evening full as it could be cramm’d.... The Doctrine was very taking, and
the more because, as to human foresight, there was no possibility of the King’s returne.... Well: this Meeting continued Novemb., Dec., Jan., till Generall Monke’s comeing-
in, all these aierie modells vanished.^52
Week by week tensions mounted between parliament and the army, as the par-
liament undertook to bring the army and its officers firmly under its civilian control
and the army responded with petitions asserting its special status and its ongoing
demands.^53 When the Rump foolishly revoked the commissions of nine high offic-
ers, including Fleetwood, Lambert called out his troops and on October 13 turned
the Rump out of doors yet once more. In its apologia, the army justified its action
on the ground that the parliament had sought to perpetuate itself and to ruin the
army and thereby the Good Old Cause.^54 During the next two weeks it was not
clear whether the army had dissolved or merely suspended the parliament. The
Council of Officers held the reins of power, but some members of the Council of
State continued to sit; among their last acts was an order for payment to the coun-