e from all those difficulties of your affairs in
which you behave so bravely and magnanimously!"

On the 25th of May Richard sent in his reluctant abdication, leaving
the Rump, which had already assumed the supreme authority, to
exercise that authority without further challenge or opposition on
his part. Most of the public officials remained in their posts, and
Milton remained In his. After five years and five months of
Secretaryship under a Single-Person Government, he found himself
again Secretary under exactly such a Republican Government as he had
served originally, consisting now of the small Parliament of the
Restored Rumpers and of a Council of State appointed by that
Parliament. In this Council of State were Bradshaw, Vane, Sir James
Harrington, St. John, Hasilrig, Scott, Walton, and Whitlocke, who had
been members of all the first five Councils of the Commonwealth, from
that which had invited Milton to the Secretaryship in 1649 to that
which Cromwell forcibly dissolved in 1653, besides Fairfax,
Fleetwood, Ludlow, John Jones, Wallop, Challoner, Neville, Dixwell,
Downes, Morley, Thompson, and Algernon Sidney, whom Milton had known
as members of one or more of those five Councils, and Lambert and
Desborough, who had not been in any of them, but were among his later
acquaintances.

CHAPTER II.

Second Section.

MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE ANARCHY: MAY 1659--FEB.
1659-60.

_FIRST STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE RESTORED RUMP_ (MAY--OCT.
1659):--FEELINGS AND POSITION OF MILTON IN THE NEW STATE OF THINGS:
HIS SATISFACTION ON THE WHOLE, AND THE REASONS FOR IT: LETTER OF
MOSES WALL TO MILTON: RENEWED AGITATION AGAINST TITHES AND
CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: VOTES ON THAT SUBJECT IN THE RUMP: MILTON'S
CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE LIKELIEST MEANS TO REMOVE HIRELINGS OUT
OF THE CHURCH: ACCOUNT OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH EXTRACTS: ITS
THOROUGH-GOING VOLUNTARYISM: CHURCH-DISESTABLISHMENT DEMANDED
ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT COMPENSATION FOR VESTED INTERESTS: THE APPEAL
FRUITLESS, AND THE SUBJECT IGNORED BY THE RUMP: DISPERSION OF THAT
BODY BY LAMBERT.

_SECOND STAGE OF THE ANARCHY, OR THE WALLINGFORD-HOUSE
INTERRUPTION_ (OCT.--DEC. 1659):--MILTON'S THOUGHTS ON LAMBERT'S
COUP D'ETAT IN HIS _LETTER TO A FRIEND CONCERNING THE RUPTURES OF
THE COMMONWEALTH_: THE LETTER IN THE MAIN AGAINST LAMBERT AND IN
DEFENCE OF THE RUMP: ITS EXTRAORDINARY PRACTICAL PROPOSAL OF A
GOVERNMENT BY TWO PERMANENT CENTRAL BODIES: THE PROPOSA