0 was voted for the expense of his journey;
and it was ordered that, for his able discharge of his Portuguese
mission, L100 a year should be settled on him and his for ninety-nine
years--a vote partly commuted a few days afterwards (March 19) into a
present money-payment of L1000. For DURIE, who was also now back in
England, and indeed close to Milton in Westminster, after another of
his roving missions, first through Switzerland, and then in other
parts, there was to be no employment so distinguished as that found
for Meadows. It was enough that he should be at hand for any farther
service of propagandism in behalf of his life-long idea of a
Pan-Protestant Union. Of two new diplomatic appointments that were
soon to be made, both above Durie's mark, we shall hear in time. The
most splendid diplomatic appointment of all in the Protector's
service had, as we already know (ante p. 114), just received an
increase of dignity. The Scottish COLONEL WILLIAM LOCKHART, the
husband of Cromwell's niece, and his Ambassador at the Court of
France since April 1656, had been back on a visit in the end of the
year to attend Parliament and to consult with Cromwell; and now,
knighted by Cromwell, he had returned to France as SIR WILLIAM
LOCKHART, with his great allowance of L100 a week, or L5200 a
year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books of dates Jan. 1, 27, Feb. 3, 24,
March 5, 12, 19, 1656-7, and May 5, 1657; Letter of Durie, dated
"Westminster, May 28, 1657," in Vaughan's Protectorate (II. 173).]

At no time, indeed, since the beginning of the Protectorate, had
there been such activity in that foreign and diplomatic department of
the Protector's service to which Milton belonged. Cromwell's alliance
offensive and defensive with France against Spain (March 23, 1656-7),
leading immediately to the transport of an English auxiliary army
under General Reynolds to co-operate with the French in Flanders
(ante pp. 140-141), would in itself have caused an increase of such
activity; but, in addition to this, and inextricably involved with
this in Cromwell's general Anti-Spanish policy, was that idea of a
League or Union of the Protestant States of Europe which had first
perhaps been roused in his mind by the Piedmontese massacre of 1655,
but had gradually, as so many of Milton's subsequent State-Letters
prove, assumed firmer form and wider dimensions. The Dutch, the
Protestant Swiss, the Protestant German princes and cities, the
Danes, the S