Note 1 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

: Neither of these Letters about Lockhart is in the Printed Collection or in Phillips; but both are in the Skinner Transcript (Nos. 110 and 111 there), whence they have been printed by Mr. Hamilton in his Milton Papers (pp. 9-10). He dates them both, as in the Transcript, "West., Aug. 1658;" but that is clearly a mistake, and the letters are out of their proper places in the Transcript. Lockhart was nominated for the Embassy in Dec. 1655, and he "took ship at Rye on the 14th of April, 1656, on his way to France" (see a letter of Thurloe's to Pell in Vaughan's Protectorate, I. 376-377). I have ventured to affix the exact date "April 9, 1656" to the two letters, because it is on that day that I find Lockhart's departure on his embassy definitely settled in the Council Order Books. Before "Aug. 1658" Lockhart had known Louis XIV. and the Cardinal intimately for more than two years and needed no introduction.