of
Spanish Flanders"; and the conquest of this place for the
Protectorate was, it is to be remembered, among the last of
Cromwell's great acts.

[Footnote 1: This Letter is not to be found in the Printed
Collection or in Phillips; but it is in the Skinner Transcript (No.
102 there), and has been printed by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton
Papers_, 7-8.]

[Footnote 2: Neither is this Letter in the Printed Collection. It
stands as No. 103 in the Skinner Transcript, and has been printed by
Hamilton, p. 8.]

[Footnote 3: Thurloe, VII. 173 et seq.]

(CXXXI.) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _June_
1658:--Since Cromwell's last letter by Milton to this heroic
Scandinavian (March 30), congratulating him on his generous Peace
with Denmark, and urging the policy of a League of all the northern
Protestant Powers for conjoint action against Austria, Poland, and
Catholicism universally, the movements of the Swede had been most
perplexing. Now he had been turning against the Poles and
Austrians; but again Denmark, or even the Dutch, seemed to be the
object of his resentment, while there was very quarrelsome
negotiation between him and the Elector Marquis of Brandenburg, and
every appearance that the Elector might have to bear the next full
burst of his wrath. All this did not seem favourable to the
prospects of a Protestant League, and Cromwell's envoys, Meadows,
Jephson, Bradshaw, and Downing, had been going to and fro with
their wits on the stretch. Such, in general, was the condition of
affairs when Milton for Cromwell wrote as follows:--"Most serene
and potent King, most dear Friend and Ally,--As often as we look
upon the ceaseless plots and various artifices of the common
enemies of Religion, so often our thought with ourselves is how
necessary it is for the Christian world, and how salutary it would
be, for the easier frustration of the attempts of these
adversaries, that the Potentates of Protestantism should be
conjoined in the strictest league among themselves, and principally
your Majesty with our Commonwealth. How much, and with what zeal,
that has been furthered by Us, and how agreeable latterly it would
have been to us if the affairs of Sweden and our own had been in
such a condition and position that the League could have been
ratified heartily by us both, and with all fit aid the one to the
other, We have testified to your agents from the time when t