from the imprisonment to which he had been committed by Oliver,
accepting the Duke's own word of honour, and Fairfax's bail of
L20,000, that he would not abet the enemies of the Commonwealth. So,
on the 16th of March, they had released Milton's friend, the
Republican Major-General Overton, from his four years' imprisonment,
declaring Cromwell's mere warrant for the same to have been
insufficient and illegal. This was a most popular act, and the
liberated Overton was received in London with enthusiastic ovations.
Other political prisoners of the late Protectorate were similarly
released, and, on the whole, the majority of the House, though with
all reverence for Oliver's memory, were ready to take any occasion
for signifying that his more "arbitrary" acts must be debited to
himself only. There were also distinct evidences of a disposition in
the House, due to the massive representation of the Presbyterians in
it, to question the late Protector's liking for unlimited religions
toleration. They approved heartily, it appears, of his Established
Church, and even of its breadth as including Presbyterians and
Independents; but, like preceding Parliaments, they were for a more
rigorous care for Church-orthodoxy, and more severe dealings with
"heresies and blasphemies." Quakers, Anti-Trinitarians, and Jews were
especially threatened. Here, indeed, the House meant rather to
indicate its good-will to the Protectorate than the reverse; for,
though. Richard and Henry Cromwell inherited their father's religious
liberality, and others of the Cromwellians agreed with them, not a
few were disposed, like Monk, to make a compact with the
Presbyterians for heresy-hunting part of the very programme of
Richard's Protectorate. The Toleration tenet, indeed, was perhaps
more peculiarly a tenet of the Republicans than of any other
political party, and not without strong reasons of a personal kind,
people said, on the part of some of them. Had not Mr. Henry Neville,
for example, been heard to say that he was more affected by some
parts of Cicero than by anything in the Bible? If heathenism like
that infected the Republican opposition, what could any plain honest
Christian do but support the Protectorate?[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given, and of Feb. 26 and
April 2; Guizot, I. 103-104.]

April 1659 was the third month of the Parliament. About a hundred of
the members hitherto in attendance had then withdrawn, and the
attendance