The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His TimeMasson, David
Religion
The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
Masson, David
Milton, John, 1608-1674; Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
What Cromwell had thought when he moved the Accommodation Order of Sept.
13 had been virtually this: "Here are you discoursing about strict
Presbytery and what differences from it may be tolerated, when the real
question is whether we shall have a free England for Presbytery or
anything else to exist in, and how we can carry with us all honest men
who will fight to make such a free England." And now, when, after the
second Battle of Newbury, he again reappeared in Parliament, it was in
this prolongation, or profounder state, of the same mood:--"The time has
come when I must speak out. We, of this nation, must turn over a new
leaf. We have been fighting the King now for more than two years, and we
are very much as we were when we began. And why? Because the men who
command our armies against the King do not want really to beat him;
because they want only to _seem_ to be beating him; because the
picture they love to look on, as their heaven on earth to come, is a
picture of their gracious sovereign, after he has been beaten no more
than could be helped, surrounded by themselves as his reconciled and
pardoned ministers and chatting pleasantly with them over the deeds of
the campaigns. I say nothing personally of my Lord of Essex, or of Sir
William Waller: they are most honourable men. But I speak generally as I
feel. If the King is to be beaten, it can only be by generals who want to
beat him, who will beat him to bits, who will use all means to beat him,
who will gladly see in their armies the men who have the right
_spirit_ in them for beating him. Are these the Presbyterians only?
I trow not. I know my men; and I tell you that many of those that you
call Independents, that you call Anabaptists, Sectaries, and what not,
are among the stoutest and godliest in England, and will go as far as
any. Some weeks ago I complained to you of Major-general Crawford,
because he would trouble these men, and would have no soldiers of
Parliament in my Lord Manchester's army that did not agree with his own
notions of Religion and Church-government. _Now_ I complain of my
Lord Manchester himself. In this last Battle of Newbury, I tell you, the
King was beaten less than he might have been. He was allowed to get off.
I advised pursuing him, and my Lord Manchester would not. It was that
over again which has been from the first. And now I speak out what has
long been in my mind, and what brave men in thousands are thinking.
Before the Lord, we must turn over a new leaf in this War. We must have
an Army of the right sort of men, and men of the right sort to command
that Army."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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