indeed, one Delinquent for whom Baillie would have had no mercy--Dr. Maxwell, the Scottish ex-Bishop of Ross, who had published at Oxford, in the King's interest, "a desperately malicious invective" against Scottish Presbytery and its leaders. "However I could hardly consent to the hanging of Canterbury himself, or of any Jesuit," Baillie had written, July 16, 1644, after his first indignant sight of this book, "yet I could give my sentence freely against that unhappy liar's [Maxwell's] life." But, indeed, the Scottish Commissioners and the Scottish nation were conjoined as parties with the English Presbyterians and the English Parliamentarians generally (Prynne ruthlessly busy in getting up the evidence) in the long prosecution of Laud. It was all over on the 10th of January, 1644-5. On that day Laud, aged 72, laid his head upon the block on a scaffold in Tower Hill. Hanging had been commuted, with some difficulty, to beheading. He died brave, raspy, and High-Church to the last. [Footnote: Rushworth's main account of the trial and last days of Laud is in Vol. V. pp, 763-786. The "History of the Troubles and Tryal of William Laud," edited by Wharton, in two vols. folio, appeared in 1695- 1700.]--Minor executions about the same time were those of Hugh Macmahon and Lord Maguire for their concern in the Irish rebellion and massacre, Sir Alexander Carew for treachery at Plymouth, and the Hothams, father and son, for treachery at Hull. One Roger L'Estrange, a younger son of a Norfolk family, had been condemned to be hanged in Smithfield for an underhand attempt to win the town of Lynn for the King; but he was reprieved, lay in Newgate for some years, and lived for sixty years longer, to be known, even in Queen Anne's time, as Sir Roger L'Estrange, the journalist. CHAPTER II. MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES, AND IN A "WORLD OF DISESTEEM": STORY OF MRS. ATTAWAY--SAMUEL HARTLIB, JOHN DURIE, AND JOHN AMOS COMENIUS: SCHEMES OF A REFORMED EDUCATION, AND PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY--MILTON'S _TRACT ON EDUCATION_, AND METHOD WITH HIS PUPILS--HIS SECOND DIVORCE TRACT, OR COMPILATION FROM BUCER--MR. HERBERT PALMER'S ATTACK ON MILTON FROM THE PULPIT--MILTON AND THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: THEIR ACCUSATION OF HIM IN A PETITION TO THE COMMONS--HIS _AREOPAGITICA_, OR SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING--ANGER OF THE STATIONERS, AND THEIR COMPLAINT AGAINST MILTON TO THE LORDS: CONSEQUENCE OF THE COMPLAINT--THE DIVORCE QUESTION CONTINUED: PUBLICATION OF MR. HERBERT PALMER'S SERMON, AND FARTHER ATTACKS ON MILTON BY PRYNNE, DR. FEATLEY, AND AN ANONYMOUS PAMPHLETEER--_TETRACHORDON AND COLASTERION_: THEIR REPLIES TO THE ASSAILANTS.