sword is to be employed against civil offences only. In adding that
the one exception to this toleration is atheism, Milton is careful to
state this limitation as being the toleration professed by Parliament,
and not as his private opinion.

So well satisfied were the Council with their secretary's
_Observations_ on the peace of Kilkenny, that they next imposed upon
him a far more important labour, a reply to the _Eikon Basilike_. The
execution of Charles I. was not an act of vengeance, but a measure of
public safety. If, as Hallam affirms, there mingled in the motives of
the managers any strain of personal ill-will, this was merged in the
necessity of securing, themselves from the vengeance of the King, and
what they had gained from being taken back. They were alarmed by
the reaction which had set in, and had no choice but to strengthen
themselves by a daring policy. But the first effect of the removal of
the King by violence was to give a powerful stimulus to the reaction
already in progress. The groan, which burst from the spectators before
Whitehall on January 30, 1649, was only representative of the thrill
of horror which ran through England and Scotland in the next ten days.
This feeling found expression in a book entitled "_Eikon Basilike_,
the portraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitude and sufferings."
The book was, it should seem, composed by Dr. Gauden, but professed
to be an authentic copy of papers written by the King. It is possible
that Gauden may have had in his hands some written scraps of the
King's meditations. If he had such, he only used them as hints to work
upon. Gauden was a churchman whom his friends might call liberal,
and his enemies time-serving. He was a churchman of the stamp of
Archbishop Williams, and preferred bishops and the Common-prayer to
presbyters and extempore sermons, but did not think the difference
between the two of the essence of religion. In better times Gauden