This final version of the story of Du Moulin (in 1670, remember) seems to have become current among those who, after the Restoration, retained any interest in the subject. Thus, Aubrey, in his notes for Milton's life, written about 1680, has a memorandum to this effect, giving "Mr. Abr. Hill" as his authority: "His [Milton's] sharp writing against Alexander More of Holland, upon a mistake, notwithstanding he [Morus] had given him [Milton], by the ambassador, all satisfaction to the contrary, viz. that the book called _Clamor_ was writ by Peter Du Moulin. Well, that was all one [said Milton]; he having writ it [the _Defensio Secunda_], it should go into the world: one of them was as bad as the other.'"--_Bentrovato_; but there is at least one vital particular in which neither Du Moulin's amusing statement in 1670 nor Aubrey's subsequent anecdote seems to be consistent with the exact truth as already before us in the documents. The secret of the real authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ had been better and longer kept than Du Moulin's statement would lead us to suppose. Even Ulac in 1654, as we have seen, while declaring that Morus was not the author, could not tell who else he was. Morus himself did then know, having been admitted into the secret, probably from the first; and several others then knew, having been told in confidence by Salmasius, Morus, or Du Moulin. Charles II. himself seems to have been informed. But that Morus had refrained from divulging the secret generally, or communicating it in a precise manner to Milton, even at the moment when he was frantically trying to avert Milton's wrath and stop the publication of the _Defensio Secunda_, seems evident, and must go to his credit. In the remonstrance with Thurloe, in May 1654, through the Dutch ambassador Nieuport, intended to stop the publication when, it was just leaving the press, we hear only of the denial of Morus that he was the author--nothing of any information from him that Du Moulin was the real author; and, though Durie had about the same time informed Milton in a letter from the Hague that he had heard the book attributed, on private authority from Morus, to "a certain French minister," no name was given. Farther, in the _Fides Publica_, published some months afterwards, Morus was still almost chivalrously reticent. While declaring that the real author was "alive and well," and while describing him negatively so far as to say that he was not in Holland, nor within the circle of Morus's own acquaintances, he still avoids naming him, and only appeals to himself to come forward and own his performance. And so, as late as August 1655, when Milton replied to Morus in his _Pro Se Defensio_, the evidence still is that, though he had more correct ideas by that time as to the amount and nature of Morus's responsibility for the book, and was aware of some other author at the back of Morus, he had not yet ascertained who this other author