These are casual expressions in the course of the argumentation with Milton; and, as there is no need to exhibit the argumentation itself, a single quotation more will suffice. It is from the Dedication to Charles II. That, though coming first in the book, was probably written last, when the writer could exult in the idea that his Majesty was so soon to land on the British shores, and could have pleasure in being one of the first to address him ceremoniously and in public with all his royal titles. Let it be remembered that, by the introduction of Milton into this Dedication, not only prominently, but even singly and exclusively, it was as if pains were taken to remind Charles, just as he was preparing to step into the ship that was to convey him to England, of the name of that one man among his subjects who had done more to keep him out, and had attacked him and his more ferociously, more relentlessly, and more successfully, than any other living. Suppose that his Majesty, waiting at Breda, was curious to know already, for certain reasons, what person, not on the actual list of those who had signed his father's death-warrant, would be designated to him by universal opinion at home as the least pardonable traitor; and read this as the answer of G.S.:—
This detestable, execrable murder, committed by the worst of parricides, accompanied with the disclaiming of your whole royal stock, disinheriting your Majesty's self and the rest of the royal branches, driving you and them into exile, with endeavouring to expunge and obliterate your never-to-be-forgotten just title; tearing up and pulling down the pillars of Majesty, the Nobles; garbling and suspending from the place of power all of the Commons House that had anything of honesty or relenting of spirit toward the injured Father of three Nations and his royal posterity: acts horrible to be imagined, and yet with high hand most villainously, perfidiously, and perjuriously perpetrated by monsters of mankind, yet blasphemously dishonourers of God in making use of His name and usurping the title of Saints in their never-before-paralleled nor ever-sufficiently-to-be-lamented-and-abhorred villanies:—this Murder, I say, and these Villainies, were defended, nay extolled and commended, by one MR. JOHN MILTON, in answer to the most learned Salmasius, who declaimed against the same with most solid arguments and pathetical expressions; in which Answer he did so bespatter the white robes of your Royal Father's spotless life (human infirmities excepted) with the dirty filth of his satirical pen that to the vulgar, and those who read his book with prejudice, he represented him a most debauched, vicious man (I tremble, Royal Sir, to write it), an irreligious hater and persecutor of Religion and religious men, an ambitious enslaver of the nation, a bloody tyrant, and an implacable enemy to all his good subjects; and thereupon calls that execrable and detestable horrible Murder a just Execution, and commends it as an heroic action: and, in a word, whatever was done in prosecution of their malice toward your Royal Progenitor and his issue, or relations, or friends and assistants, he calls Restoring of the nation to its Liberty. Yea! to make your illustrious Father more odious in their eyes where he by any means could fix his scandals, he would not spare that incomparable piece of his writing, his Eikon Basilike, but in a scurrilous reply thereto, which he entitled Eikonoklastes, he would not spare his devout prayers (which no doubt the Lord hath heard and will hear): in all which he expressed, as his inveterate and causeless malice, so a great deal of wicked, desperate wit and learning, most unworthily misbestowed, abused, and misapplied, to the reviling of his Prince, God's vice-gerent on Earth, and the speaking ill of the Ruler of the People. Now, although your Majesty, nor your Royal Father, neither of you, need vindication (much less that elaborate work of his), nor doth anything he hath written in aspersion of his Sovereign deserve answer (absolutely considered), yet, forasmuch as he hath in both showed dangerous wit and wicked learning, which together with elegance in expression is always (in some measure at least) persuasive with some, and because in these last and worst days those dangerous times are come in which many account Treason to be Saintship, and the madness of the people, like the inundation of waters, hath for many years overflowed all the bounds, &c ... [The writer, in continuation, refers to the assiduity of the fanatical enemies of Charles, still working, though at the end of their wits, to keep him out.] Among many of whom MR. MILTON comes on the stage in post haste and in this juncture of time, that he may, if possible, overthrow the hopes of all good men, and endeavours what he can to divert those that at present sit at the helm, and by fair pretences and sophisticate arguments would, &c ... Which I taking notice of, and meeting with this forementioned pamphlet of MR. MILTON'S, and upon perusal of it finding it dangerously ensnaring, the fallacy of the arguments being so cunningly hidden as not to be discerned by any nor every eye,—observing also the language to be smooth and tempting, the expressions pathetical and apt to move the affections, ... I thought it my duty, &c.
Before this salutation of his returning Majesty was visible on the book-stalls the great event which it anticipated was as good as accomplished.
The two Houses of Parliament had met on Wednesday, the 25th of April. There was not only the "full and free" House of Commons for which writs had been issued, but a House of Lords also, assembled by its own will and motion. In the Commons, where Sir Harbottle Grimstone was elected Speaker, there were present over 400 out of the total of 500 and more that were actually due; in the Lords, where the Earl of Manchester was chosen Speaker pro tem., there were present on the first day only nine peers besides himself: viz. the Earls of Northumberland, Lincoln, Denbigh, and Suffolk, Viscount Say and Sele, and Lords Wharton, Hunsdon, Grey of Wark, and Maynard. It was for these two bodies to execute between them the task appointed.1
1: Commons Journals and Parl. Hist., for the opening of the Convention Parliament.
The meetings of the first three days were but preliminary, and not a word passed in either House to signify what was coming. On Friday, the 27th of April, there was an adjournment of both Houses to Tuesday, the 1st of May. During that breathless interval it was as when a mine is ready, the gunpowder and other explosives all stored, the train laid, and what is waited for is the application of the lighted match. That duty fell to Sir John Greenville, and the mode in which it should be performed was settled privately between him and wary Old George.
On Saturday, April 28, the Council of State are met at Whitehall, Annesley in the chair as usual. Colonel Birch, one of the members, entering late, informs General Monk that there is a gentleman at the door who desires to speak with him. Monk goes to the door, finds Sir John Greenville there, and receives him as a perfect stranger, the guards looking on. Sir John delivers to him a letter, and tells him that he does so by command of his Majesty. Monk orders the guards to detain this gentleman, and returns to the Council-room with the letter. Having broken the seal, but not opened the letter, he hands it to the President, intimating from whom it has come. The superscription itself leaves no doubt on that point. The letter is one of the six, dated "At our Court at Breda this 4/14th of April 1660, in the twelfth year of Our Reign," which Sir John Greenville had brought over to be used by Monk at his discretion, and which Monk had given back into Greenville's custody till the proper moment for using them should arrive. It was that particular one of the six which was addressed to Monk himself, to be communicated by him to the Council of State and the Officers of the Army. There was much surprise in the Council, real or affected, Colonel Birch protesting that he knew nothing of the business, but had merely found a gentleman at the door inquiring for General Monk and had brought in his message to the General. That gentleman was sent for and asked how he came by the letter. "It was given to me by his Majesty with his own hand," said Sir John. Altogether the Council were at a loss how to act; but finally it was agreed that they dared not read the letter without leave from Parliament. There was some question of sending Greenville into custody meanwhile; but Monk said he was a kinsman of his and he would be answerable for his appearance. In short, this attempt to apply the match in the Council had not sufficiently succeeded, and Sir John knew that he must be forthcoming in the two Houses themselves.
Sir John was equal to the occasion. Early in the morning of Tuesday, the 1st of May, he was at the door of the House of Lords with that one of the six Letters from Breda which was addressed to their Lordships. There were now forty-two peers present. By one of these Greenville sent in his name to Speaker the Earl of Manchester, with an intimation of the nature of his message. The Earl had no sooner informed the House who and what were at the door than it was voted that the Earl should walk down the floor, all present attending him, to receive his Majesty's letter. Sir John having thus got rid of two of his documents, presented himself next at the door of the Commons, to try his chance with a third. He had already conveyed to Speaker Sir Harbottle Grimstone the fact that he was in attendance with a letter from his Majesty. He came now at the most fit moment, for the House had just received a report from the Council of State of what had happened at the sitting of the Council on the preceding Saturday. The scene will be best imagined from the record in the Journals of the House:—"Tuesday, May the 1st, 1660. PRAYERS. Mr. Annesley reports from the Council of State a Letter from the King, unopened, directed 'To our trusty and well-beloved General Monk, to be communicated to the President and Council of State, and to the Officers of the Armies under his command,' being received from the hands of Sir John Greenville. The House, being informed that Sir John Greenville, a messenger from the King, was at the door, Resolved, &c. That Sir John Greenville, a messenger from the King, be called in. He was called in accordingly, and, being at the bar, after obeisance made, said: 'Mr. Speaker, I am commanded by the King, my master, to deliver this Letter to You, and he desires that You will communicate it to the House.' The Letter was directed 'To Our trusty and well-beloved the Speaker of the House of Commons'; which, after the messenger was withdrawn, was read to the House by the Speaker." The bold Sir John had now got rid of three of his six documents. Nay, he had got rid of four; for in each of the three there had been enclosed a copy of his Majesty's general Declaration, or Letter to "all Our Loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever." It was for the Parliament to determine what should be done with this Declaration, as well as with the other two remaining Letters, one of them addressed to Generals Monk and Montague for communication to the Fleet, and the other to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London. The train had been sufficiently fired already by the delivery of four of the Breda documents.1
1: Lords and Commons Journals of dates; Parl. Hist. IV. 10-25; Phillips (continuation of Baker), 701-705; Skinner's Life of Monk, 297-302; Whitlocke, IV. 409-411.
The explosion was over and the air cleared, and all pretence was at an end at last. In the Commons, a few minutes after Sir John Greenville had left the House, it was "RESOLVED, nemine contradicente, That an answer be prepared to his Majesty's Letter, expressing the great and joyful sense of this House of His gracious offers, and their humble and hearty thanks to his Majesty for the same, and with professions of their loyalty and duty to his Majesty." The Lords had already passed an equivalent resolution, and had recalled Sir John Greenville to receive their hearty thanks for his care in the discharge of his duty. The rest of that day was spent in a conference between the two Houses, and in farther resolutions and arrangements in each, subsidiary to those two resolutions of the forenoon which had virtually decreed the Restoration. Thus, in the Commons, still in the forenoon, "RESOLVED, nemine contradicente, that the sum of £50,000 be presented to the King's Majesty from this House," and "RESOLVED, nemine contradicente, that the Letters from His Majesty, both that to the House and that to the Lord General, and his Majesty's Declaration which came enclosed, be entered at large in the Journal Book of this House"; and, again, at an afternoon sitting, the conference with the Lords having meanwhile been held, "RESOLVED, That this House doth agree with the Lords, and do own and declare that, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the Government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons." The news of what was doing in Parliament was already rushing hither and thither among the Londoners; the day ended among them, of course, with bonfires and ringing of bells and the roar of rejoicing cannon; in the boom of the cannon, and in whatever form of rude telegraph or of horsemen at the gallop along the four great highways, London was shaking the message from itself in palpitations through all the land; nor among the galloping horsemen were those the least fleet that were spurring through Kent to the seaside to unmoor the packet-boats and convey the tidings to Charles. On the 1st of May, 1660, the English Commonwealth was no more.1