The king was imprisoned and tried, and then it was that the true faith and intentions of many were made clear. The Presbyterian party, who had professed democratic republicanism, while their hopes of office were high—like many in our own days, who, when they have attained their hopes, or been rejected by the people for better men, desert their cause, abandon their principles, while they hold on to their name, and fight under their old banners, that they may more surely but more basely injure truth—being now in the minority and out of power, became noisy in their lamentations over the king’s fate, and endeavored by every means to prevent his execution, using all arguments, and stopping at nothing to undo what they themselves had brought about. For when they found that there was an unflinching determination of the democracy to punish this man for his enormities and wicked misgovernment. “They who”—to use Milton’s language—“had been fiercest against their prince, under the notion of a tyrant, and no mean incendiaries of the war against him, when God out of his providence and high disposal hath delivered him into the hands of their brethren, on a sudden and in a new garb of allegiance, which their doings have long since concealed, they plead for him, pity him, extol him, and protest against those who talk of bringing him to the trial of justice, which is the sword of God, superior to all mortal things, in whose hand soever, by apparent signs, his testified will is to put it.” Upon the happening of this event, Milton published his “Tenure of Kings,” from which is quoted the above passage, so applicable in its spirit to our own times, so true of all political trucksters, who shout loudly for the democracy, while they have hopes of using and abusing it, but who basely betray its confidence and abandon it, whenever they are required to put in practice their own professions. This book was published 1649, and served very much to tranquilize and calm the public mind upon that which had passed. After the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was called to the post of Latin Secretary, by the Council of State, which station he held till the Restoration. This was an office of great importance, inasmuch as all the public correspondence with foreign States devolved upon him. While holding this high and honorable public station, one so congenial with his feelings, and one for which he was so well fitted, he produced many state papers of great merit, and which contributed to advance the fame of the republic abroad.