Background
Only a few months after Cromwell was made Lord Protector over England, Milton published a tract titled Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda. The work was one of the last times that Milton discussed Cromwell's character. It is a defence of the Parliamentary regime, controlled by Cromwell, and sought the support of a European audience. In addition to this purpose, the work serves a reply to the attacks on his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce by Herbert Palmer and attacks on his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano by Salmasius. A further anonymous pamphlet attack from the royalist side, Regii sanguinis clamor ad coelum, he rebutted with an ad hominem attack on Alexander Morus, whom Milton wrongly took to be the actual author (who was in fact Pierre Du Moulin). Milton used scurrilous gossip against Morus; scholars have decided that his sources of scandal were at least reasonably accurate.
However, the act of writing further strained his failing eyes, to the extent that he could no longer rely on his sight.
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