He still had to run the gauntlet of the Serjeant-at-Arms, who at some period unknown arrested him as obnoxious to the resolution of June 16th, and detained him, charging exorbitant fees, until compelled to abate his demands by the Commons' resolution of December 15th.

Milton relinquished his house in Westminster, and formed a temporary refuge on the north side of Holborn.
His nerves were shaken; he started in his broken sleep with the apprehension and bewilderment natural to one for whom, physically and politically, all had become darkness.
His condition, in sooth, was one of well-nigh unmitigated misfortune, and his bearing up against it is not more of a proof of stoic fortitude than of innate cheerfulness.

His cause lost, his ideals in the dust, his enemies triumphant, his friends dead on the scaffold, or exiled, or imprisoned, his name infamous, his principles execrated, his property seriously impaired by the vicissitudes of the times.

He had been deprived of his appointment and salary as Latin Secretary, even before the Restoration: and he was now fleeced of two thousand pounds, invested in some kind of Government security, which was repudiated in spite of powerful intercession.

Another "great sum" is said by Phillips to have been lost "by mismanagement and want of good advice," whether at this precise time is uncertain.