. 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