“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660victory over Booth’s royalist uprising (325). The self-described army of God be-
haved reprehensibly in renouncing the obedience and fidelity that they owe “to
their supreme Magistrates,” according to “the light of Nature, the lawes of Hu-
mane society, covenant & contract” (327). He allows that the Rump’s failure to
enact the principles he argued for in his last two tracts might have justified their
dissolution as “not complyeing fully to grant liberty of conscience & the necessary
consequence thereof, The Removall of a forc’t maintenance from Ministers” (330).
He does not, however, believe the officers acted from such motives, but rather
from “close ambition”: “that Archan” (Lambert), Milton hints, wants to be Protec-
tor (328–9). The best resolution would be the restoration of the Rump, with MPs
and army officers sworn to mutual protection, which should prove possible, he
comments ironically, “if there be that Saintship among us which is talked of” (330).
But he recognizes that the army “only now have the power” (329), and so offers a
pragmatic compromise based on the temporary settlement under discussion which
the friend probably reported to him and which the officers put in place a week
later: a 23-member Committee of Safety composed both of officers and MPs. Milton
suggests that a much larger body, also composed of army officers and as many MPs
as the army would allow, become a permanent, single-chamber legislature, whose
members as well as all army personnel would hold place for life, in order to prevent
ambition and suspicion between those groups (329–31). All council members must
swear to protect “Liberty of conscience to all professing Scripture the rule of their
faith & worship,” and to abjure any “single person” (330). Just how pragmatic and
temporary this and Milton’s other proposals for a permanent legislative council may
be is indicated by his dismissive comment that “whether the civill government be
an annuall democracy or a perpetuall Aristocracy, is too nice a consideracion for the
extremities wherein wee are & the hazard of our safety from a common enemie,
gapeing at present to devour us” (331). He proposes, as some security against “Oli-
garchy or the faction of a few,” that the permanent legislature might appoint com-
mittees “of their faithfullest adherents in every county,” which would “give this
government the resemblance & effects of a perfect democracie” (331). Those terms,
“resemblance & effects,” reveal Milton’s clear understanding that this proposal would
not realize the essence of representative government. Reforms to the law and the
courts, long sought by various radical groups, he also puts off to consider “in due
time,” after the crisis is past. (332)
In late November or early December, as riots and military maneuvers threatened
civil war and it became increasingly evident that the return of the Rump Parlia-
ment was the only feasible immediate settlement, Milton dictated the heads of
another scheme, adjusted to the changed circumstances: Proposalls of Certaine Expe-
dients for the Preventing of a Civill War now Feard, & the Setling of a Firme Government.^61
But he abandoned his intention to work up these notes into a treatise when events
made this plan moot. Most republican stalwarts held out for the return of the ousted
Rump Parliament; Londoners refused to pay taxes not lawfully voted in parliament;