Mr. Marvell complaining to
the House that their sergeant had extracted L150 in fees before he would
let Mr. Milton go. On which Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Lord
Chancellor, laconically observed that Milton deserved hanging. He
certainly got off easily, but, as he lived to publish _Paradise Lost_,
_Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_, he may be said to have
earned his freedom. All his poetry put together never brought him in a
third of the sum the sergeant got for letting him out of prison. General
Monk, the man-midwife, who so skilfully assisted at that great Birth of
Time, the Restoration, was made a duke, and Cromwell's army, so long the
force behind the supreme power, was paid its arrears and (two regiments
excepted) disbanded. "Fifty thousand men," says Macaulay, "accustomed to
the profession of arms, were thrown upon the world ... in a few months
there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in
the world had just been absorbed in the mass of the community."[92:1]

After this the House of Commons fell to discussing religion, and made
the sad discovery that differences of opinion still existed. In these
circumstances they decided to refer the matter to their pious king, and
to such divines as he might choose. They then voted large sums of money
for the royal establishment, and, it being the very end of August,
adjourned till the 6th of November. As for making constitutional terms
with the king, they never attempted it, though Sir Matthew Hale is
credited with an attempt to induce them to do so. Any proposals of the
kind must have failed. The people were in no mood for making
constitutions.

Having met again on the 6th of November, Marvell, in a letter to the
Mayor and Aldermen of Hull, dated the 27th of the month, reports that
"the House fell upon the making out of the King's revenue to L1,200,000
a year." "The Customs are estimated toward L500,000 per annum in the
revenue. His lands and fee farms L250,000. The Excise of Beer and Ale
L300,000, the rest arise out of the Post Office, Wine Licenses,
Stannaries Court, Probate of Wills, Post-fines, Forests, and other
rights of the Crown. The excise of Foreign Commodities is to be
continued apart until satisfaction of public debts and engagements
secured upon the excise."

This settlement of revenue marks "the beginning of a time." Cromwell, as
Cowley puts it in his _Discourse_, by far the ablest indictment of
Oliver ever penned, "took ar