act, the continued existence of the Rump was more
precarious than he had thought. In August 1659, while his pamphlet
was in circulation, Lambert was away in the north, suppressing the
Cheshire Insurrection of Sir George Booth; in the next month
discontent with the Rumpers and their rule was rife in Lambert's
victorious northern Brigade; and in the beginning of October London
was again in agitation with the rupture of the hasty alliance that
had been patched up between the Republicans and the Wallingford-House
Council of Army Officers. It was on the 12th of October that the Rump
defied the Army by cashiering Lambert, Desborough, Berry, and six
other officers; and on the 13th Lambert retaliated by his _coup
d'etat_, filling the streets with his soldiery, catching the
Rumpers one by one as they went to the House, and informing them that
it was the will of the Army that they should sit no more. Thus had
begun that "Second Stage of the Anarchy" which we have called _The
Wallingford-House Interruption_.

Of Milton's thoughts over the change effected by Lambert's _coup
d'etat_ we have an authentic record in a letter of his, dated
"October 20, 1659" (i.e. just a week after the _coup d'etat_),
and addressed to some friend with whom he had been conversing on the
previous night. It appears in his works now with the title "_A
Letter to a Friend, concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth:
Published from the Manuscript_."[1] Who the Friend was does not
appear; but the words of the Letter imply that he was some one very
near the centre of affairs. "Sir," it begins, "upon the sad and
serious discourse which we fell into last night, concerning these
dangerous ruptures of the Commonwealth, scarce yet in her infancy,
which cannot be without some inward flaw in her bowels, I began to
consider more intensely thereon than hitherto I have been
wont,--resigning myself [i.e. having hitherto resigned myself] to the
wisdom and care of those who had the government, and not finding that
either God or the Public required more of me than my prayers for
those that govern. And, since you have not only stirred up my
thoughts by acquainting me with the state of affairs more inwardly
than I knew before, but also have desired me to set down my opinion
thereof, trusting to your ingenuity, I shall give you freely my
apprehension, both of our present evils, and what expedients, if God
in mercy regard us, may remove them." At the close of the Letter he
say