Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belong to the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largest contribution of work of this kind in any one month since the very beginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst of letters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Nor ought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 are particularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of that passionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his bold stand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which had matured itself politically since then into the scheme of an express League or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot be by mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in the highest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should have always been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the office people that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that, for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary. A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may have heard with some interest appears as follows in the Council Order-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:--"Upon consideration of the humble petition of Peter Du Moulin, the son, Doctor of Divinity, and a certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness, and by his Highness referred to the Council, _Ordered_ ... That the said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted to exercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of Nov. 24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or instructions given to the Major-Generals and Commissioners in the several counties, notwithstanding." And so even the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being a Vicar or a Rector, or something higher still, in Cromwell's Established Church. _Can_ his secret have possibly been then known? _Can_ the Council have known that the man who petitioned the Protector for indulgence, and to whom they now advised the Protector to grant it, was the author of the most vehement and bitter book that had ever been written on the Royalist side, the man who had abused the Commonwealth men as "robbers, traitors, parricides" and "plebeian scoundrels," who had written of Cromwell "Verily an egg is not liker an egg than Cromwell is like Mahomet," and who had capped all his other politenesses about Milton by calling him "more vile than Cromwell, damned than Ravaillac"?[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. Peter du Moulin did become a Vicar in Cromwell's Established Church. He was inducted into the Vicarage of Bradwell, in Bucks, Oct. 24, 1657, but quitted it in a few days, apparently for something better (Wood's Fasti, II. 195: Note by Cole).] SECTION III: FROM SEPTEMBER 1656 TO JUNE 1657, OR THROUGH THE FIRST SESSION OF OLIVER'S SECOND PARLIAMENT.