On the day following (the 7th), the Commons proceeded to a more important question, and voted that it had been found by experience that the office of a king in this nation, and that to have the power thereof in any single person, was unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the nation, and therefore that it should be utterly abolished; and to that purpose an Act should be forthwith prepared. This was speedily followed by a vote, on the motion of Henry Marten, that the king's statues at the Royal Exchange and other places should be taken down, and on the places where they stood should be inscribed, "_Exit Tyrannus, Regum ultimus, Anno Libertatis Angliæ restitutæ primo_, A.D. 1648, January 30" (old style). There was, moreover, an elaborate declaration drawn up, to justify the changing of England into a Republic, translated into Latin, French, and Dutch, and addressed to foreign States. The custody of the new Great Seal was entrusted to three lawyers--namely, Whitelock, Keble, and Lisle; they were to hold it during good behaviour, and to be called Keepers of the Liberties of England, by authority of Parliament. The King's Bench was henceforth named the Upper Bench, and came to be called the Commons Bench, and Oliver St. John, who had done so much to bring about this revolution, was made Chief Justice. The next great measure was to dissolve the Executive Council, which had sat at Derby House, and revive it in a more extended form as the Executive Council of State, to consist of forty-one members. Three-fourths of these had seats in the House, and several of the late peers--Mulgrave, Pembroke, Denbigh, Fairfax, Lisle, Grey of Groby, Salisbury, and Grey of Werke. The chief heads of the law and officers of the army were included. The principal names were, the late peers already mentioned, and Whitelock, St. John, Cromwell, Skippon, Hazelrig, Midmay, Vane, Marten, Bradshaw, Ludlow, and Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham. Milton, the great national poet, was appointed its secretary, and henceforth prepared its public acts, and employed his mighty talents in the defence of the measures of the Republican Government.