Notes to Chapter 178 In a published letter to the army regiments, A Letter from the Lord General Monck... To
the several and respective Regiments and other Forces in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in A
Collection of Letters and Declarations sent by General Monck (London, 1660, c. February 21),
41–3, he explained that he did so because the perpetual sitting of the Rump is inconsist-
ent with a free state. He promised not to repeal the ordinances for the sale of royal and
ecclesiastical property, not to return to the old bondage, not to permit pro-monarchical
activity, and to continue spiritual and civil liberty.
79 No New Parliament: Or some queries or Considerations Humbly offered to the present Parlia-
ment-Members (London, 1660, March 12), 4–5. See also [Marchamont Nedham?], News
from Brussels, in a Letter from a Neer Attendant on his Majesties Person. (London, 1660, c.
March 10), a satire emphasizing the eagerness of the court in exile for revenge against
Presbyterians as well as sectaries and seeking thereby to move the Long Parliament to
retain control and oppose a restoration.
80 J. M., The Readie & Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and The Excellence therof
Compar’d with The inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship in this nation (London,
1660). Thomason acquired it on March 3 but Wood (EL 46) claims publication in
February, as does a contemporary book list (LR IV, 301).
81 Their new Council of State excluded Vane, Arthur Haselrigg, and the other prominent
republicans. They appointed Monk commander-in-chief and he began purging the
officer corps of “the more obnoxious officers”: Parliamentary or Constitutional History,
III, col. 1,584.
82 Ibid., III, cols 1,591–2. For the various proposals see Thurloe, State Papers, VII, 887,
and CSPD 1659–60, 393–5. Some called for suspension of episcopal government for
three years and a synod to settle controversial issues; others proposed forcible imposi-
tion of Presbyterianism upon the nation and permanent banishment of the queen, Edward
Hyde, and other members of the court.
83 Commons Journal VII, 873–5, 880; CSPD 1659–60, 395.
84 The Present Means, and Brief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth, Easy to be Put in Practice,
and without Delay, in a Letter to General Monk, first published in Toland’s edition (1698)
II, 799–800, where it is said to have been printed “from the Manuscript” (now lost).
This draft is undated, unsigned, and lacks a formal address to Monk or the expected
compliments to him.
85 “Et nos consilium dedimus Syllae, demus populo nunc” (We have advised Sulla him-
self, advise we now the people) adapted from Juvenal I, 15–16. Lucius Cornelius Sulla
(138–78 BCE) was a dictator who held unlimited powers; the immediate context sug-
gests that the allusion is to Monk rather than to Oliver Cromwell.
86 Woolrych argues (CPW VII, 189–90) that Milton’s letter must have been written dur-
ing the first few days of March to have had any chance of implementation, given travel
conditions in seventeenth-century England, the announced date (March 15) of the
Long Parliament’s dissolution, and the date (April 25) set for the assembly of the new
parliament. But Milton may not have thought the Long Parliament would actually give
over according to schedule: there was some sentiment in that body to manage the
settlement of the government itself.
87 N. D. [Marchamont Nedham?], A Letter Intercepted, in which the two different Forms of
Monarchy and Popular Government are briefly controverted (London, 1660, March 23), 12–
13, declares that “the setling of a Government so excellently good [requires] the kind,
Notes to Chapter 11