“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660a flood of petitions denounced the army and called for the return of the Rump or
for a new “full and free parliament”; rumors of royalist uprisings abounded; appren-
tices rioted in London; some old Protectorians called for the return of Richard;^62
and in early December republican troops took over Portsmouth and attacked sev-
eral other strongholds. General Monk began marching toward England with the
sole intention, he insisted publicly and often, of supporting the Rump’s claims and
settling a Commonwealth government: “I do call GOD to witness, That the As-
serting of a Commonwealth is the onely intent of my heart.”^63 At this stage he
probably meant it, though his action set in motion the trajectory toward a Stuart
restoration. A treaty on November 15 prevented open conflict with Lambert’s
army, but Monk insisted on renegotiating its terms at great length as civil disrup-
tions continued.
The heads of Milton’s Proposalls revamp some notions from the Letter to a Friend,
and form the nucleus of the model he would soon flesh out in The Readie & Easie
Way. Here he calls unequivocally for the Committee of Safety to restore the Rump
and make it the perpetual legislature, filling it up with “as many as shal be judged
sufficient to carry on the great affairs committed to them” – either nominated by
the council and elected by the well-affected people, or vice versa. Again, legislators
must swear to the two “fundamentals,” religious liberty and abrogation of a single
person; and again, legislators, army officers, and soldiers should remain in place for
life, so as “to remove ambition the comon cause of disturbance” (336–8).^64 He
points to models of a permanent senate in “Rome, Venice, & elsewhere,” and also
argues through metaphor: the foundation of government “cannot be moveable
without great danger to the whole building” (336). To deflect the insistent calls for
a full and free parliament, he terms that institution a remnant of Norman slavery
and gives his proposed legislature a name he thinks more appropriate to a republic:
Because the name of parlament is a Norman or French word, a monument of our
Ancient Servitude, commonly held to consist necessarily of 3. Estates, King, Lords, &
commons; & the two latter to be called by the King to parlie with him about the great
affairs of his realme, it might be very agreeable with our freedome to chang the name
of parliament (especially now having outlived its honour by soe many dissolucions)
into the name of a Grand or Supreme Counsell. (337)With an appointed Council of State, this Grand Council would make lawes, deter-
mine peace and war, manage foreign affairs, raise taxes, and coin money, but would
have nothing to do with the church “furder then to defend religion from outward
violence” (338). To mitigate the danger of arbitrariness and as a means to attract
supporters to his plan, he begins to develop a notion of federalism, diffusing author-
ity to the regions. Many of the radicals’ desired reforms he describes as projects to
be achieved at the local level, centered in the chief city or town of every county:
the administration of civil justice, election of judges and other officers by the (well-