Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory 1527503275, 9781527503274

Citation preview

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory By

Volkan Kılıç

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory By Volkan Kılıç This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Volkan Kılıç All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0327-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0327-4

I dedicate this book to my wife, Semiha, and my daughter, Gülce; amare et sapere vix deo conceditur.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter I .................................................................................................... 29 Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets Chapter II ................................................................................................... 61 A Political Reading of Paradise Lost Conclusion ............................................................................................... 101 Works Cited ............................................................................................. 105

INTRODUCTION

John Milton has traditionally been studied with reference to his poetry rather than his prose writings within the contexts of theology, epic tradition and classical humanism. Yet, Milton was not only a poet but also a passionate political activist and a dedicated republican. This aspect of his work has come under focus only recently. Some Milton scholars have taken a serious interest in his political pamphlets since the 1960s (Schulman ix). Accordingly, although a great deal of studies have concentrated on Milton’s life and works, particularly his poetry, also some close attention has been given to his prose writings in order to link them with his poetry. So, as Zagorin has stated, “besides the limited treatment of Milton’s politics in many literary studies, in biographies, and in various editions of his prose, a few works exist that are heavily concerned with his political thoughts” (Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel: The Poet and His Politics ix). In this respect, among the critics who have studied Milton’s poetical works in the light of his prose works and of historical and political background of his time, Don M. Wolfe was the first to study Milton with reference to his political ideas and thoughts in his book Milton and the Puritan Revolution (1941). A systematic approach to Milton’s political works was made by Arthur E. Barker in his Milton and Puritan Dilemma 1641-1660 (1942), which was extensively concerned with the connection between Milton’s politics and his major poems (Barker xi-xii). Christopher Hill also studied Milton’s radical political vision and his “participation in the seventeenth century English Revolution” (Milton and the English Revolution 1). Robert Fallon, Stevie Davies, Peter Zagorin, David Norbrook, Barbara Lewalski, Blair Worden, David Armitage, Joan Bennett and Nigel Smith, among other eminent Milton scholars, have also studied Milton’s poetical writings in terms of his revolutionary and republican radicalism. In this regard, Hill states that “Milton was not just a writer. He is the greatest English revolutionary who is also a poet, the greatest English poet who is also a revolutionary” (Milton and the English Revolution 4). Although Milton wrote several poems and sonnets in his earlier career, he became known as a revolutionary and passionate political activist, beginning his political career with the pamphlets he wrote on the current politics of his time during the period between 1641 and 1660. And through his political pamphlets he vehemently attacked Stuart absolutism and

2

Introduction

autocracy, and defended instead antimonarchical rule and republicanism, giving particular attention to the religious and civil liberties of the people. However, following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he had to stop his pamphlet career due to the censorship imposed during this period that made it impossible to express his political thoughts freely, and he embarked on a literary project which included his major poetical works, Paradise Lost (1667) and Paradise Regained (1671) and Samson Agonistes (1671). Although these poems have generally been situated and studied in the epic tradition and classical humanism, they have also been studied historically and politically. Likewise considering his earlier reputation and active political life, one can state that Milton could not detach himself from the political controversies of his time. In this respect, it can be claimed that Milton composed Paradise Lost particularly as a political poem in which he voiced his political thoughts and ideals in an allegorical manner. So, the main concern of this dissertation is to re-read Milton’s major poem, Paradise Lost as a political allegory, especially as reflected in Books I-VII and IX-XII of the poem, which mostly reveal Milton’s political views and statements already expressed in his political pamphlets. Hence, the study will be an extensive political reading of the poem in the context of Milton’s own time, the political figures of his age, and the political arguments that he put forth earlier in his pamphlets. In other words, through the study of Paradise Lost, this dissertation will try to demonstrate to what extent and in what ways Milton embedded his political ideas in this poem. Historically, Milton lived at a time when Britain was undergoing a political crisis which ultimately led to the Civil War. The country drifted into this political crisis which involved an irreconcilable and unmanageable clash between Parliament and monarchy, or the Republicans and the Royalists. Within this ‘tumultuous’ period and chaotic environment, Milton emerged as a seriously dedicated republican and also an antimonarchical activist like his puritan contemporaries. He strongly supported the policies of Parliament and, hence, of Cromwell, later on against Charles I’s absolutist and autocratic policies and practices. In this regard, David Loewenstein has stated that for nearly twenty years of his career, during the ‘tumultuous times’ of the English Revolution, Milton invested his exceptional literary talents in polemical prose as he struggled with urgent issues of ecclesiastical, civic and domestic liberty. Scholars have sometimes divorced the writer of occasional, fiercely, polemical tracts during the Revolution from visionary author of sublime, lofty poetry. The two, poet and revolutionary polemicist, were, however, closely connected. Milton contributed actively

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

3

– and imaginatively – to the vital textual dimension of the English Revolution and its crises. (“Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 87)

As Milton wrote in his political pamphlet Defensio Secunda (The Second Defence of the English People) in 1654, he attempted to “devote [to] this conflict all [of his] talents and all [of his] active powers (CPW1, IV, 622). Therefore, in the years between 1649 and 1660 he published a series of polemical pamphlets in which he attacked both absolutism and autocracy unconditionally represented by Charles I and the leaders of the Church of England, while he strongly defended the civil, religious and political liberties of the people and upheld the principles of republicanism, which emerged in the seventeenth century in Europe. Actually, the question of absolutism and autocratic rule emerged in England during the early Stuart period. By way of an introduction to Milton’s republicanism and indeed to the development of the political crisis under the Stuarts, it would be appropriate to give an account of the underlying causes whereby the traditional cooperation between Parliament and the Crown was broken. As a matter of fact, ever since the thirteenth century England had been ruled through a kind of constitutional monarchy; in other words, the English monarchy from the time of Magna Carta to the Elizabethan period had always formulated and put into effect their policies in consultation with Parliament (Coward 101). Therefore, there had developed a kind of political cooperation between Parliament and the Crown. However, there had been times such as Henry VIII’s rule when Parliament had been manipulated and forced by the monarch to pass such acts that the monarch demanded (Servini 87). Such a close cooperation between Parliament and the Crown led to relative political stability in the country and it was this stability which was jeopardized by James I’s accession to power in 1603. The accession of James I to the English throne brought about the breakdown of the Elizabethan constitution because he largely ignored the role of Parliament as the chief advisor of the monarch (Coward 105). It was the Stuart dynasty that brought about the concept of absolutism and the personal rule of the monarch into the mainstream politics of the period, because, as Glen Burgess suggests, “early Stuart political discourse can indeed be read as containing defences of absolutism” (19). In this regard, the rise of Puritan power in Parliament in the seventeenth century made the friction in the country worse because there began a power struggle between the Crown and Parliament. As Coward has remarked, Parliament had been growing “from early sixteenth century infancy to later sixteenth 1

Milton, John. Complete Prose Works. Hereafter the work will be cited as CPW.

4

Introduction

century adolescence and early seventeenth century maturity” (102). The English Parliament adopted the Magna Carta in their restriction of the monarchical powers and in controlling the Court. Hence, in the seventeenth century England Parliament’s reference to the Magna Carta was an attempt to exercise its power and to control the Crown’s finances and ministers (Coward 102). James, however, had grown up in the Scottish tradition of monarchy, which was far different from the English tradition in terms of constitutional monarchy. The Scottish Parliament had very limited powers of control over the monarch when compared with the English one. Furthermore, the idea of ruling in Scotland was based on the absolute powers and divine right of kings. Hence, James’s belief in the absolute powers of the monarch, which were inherited from his Scottish rule based on absolute monarchy, increased the political instability in England (Trevelyan 70). James I was the first king of the Stuart line to practise the idea of absolute monarchy and to introduce the concept of the divine right of kings to the English court. His practice of absolute monarchy stems from his hatred of Parliament, which he dissolved three times during his reign. The first Parliament of England under the reign of James I lasted from 1604 to 1610. In 1610, James dissolved it due to the failure of negotiations over the Great Contract. From 1610 to 1614, he ruled without Parliament (Miller, The Stuarts 52). He felt the need to call Parliament in 1614 for budgetary reasons, but this Parliament became known as “the Addled Parliament” since it lasted only eight weeks as a result of the conflict between the king and the House of Commons over Parliament’s refusing to grant him ‘Benevolence’, which is a form of taxation, and a grant of £65,000 (Willson 348). The third Parliament, which was called in 1621, was dissolved again over a dispute of foreign policy between the Crown and Parliament (Trevelyan 79). Accordingly, James’s dispute with Parliament was the result of seeing the Crown as an absolute power over Parliament and considering Parliament as an unnecessary institution. For him, Parliament should not interfere in the political matters of the country; it was mostly useful for raising money for the monarch. As Miller states, James wondered aloud how his predecessors had allowed an institution like Parliament to come into being. The answer, of course, was that they had actively encouraged it, as a means of mobilising consent. It had helped the Tudors to enhance their power over church and state. But James could see no useful purpose in such an institution. He tended to see truculence as defiance and to take rudeness personally. (The Stuarts, 53)

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

5

James’s idea of monarchy was based on the belief of “the divine rights of kings”, which he defended in his two books, Basilicon Doron and The Trew Law of Free Monarchies. Especially, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies is regarded as the most vigorously absolutist of all James’s writings. Accordingly, Coward has stressed that the stability of later sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century England was constantly threatened by tensions that arose from the existing political, constitutional and religious situation […] the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 and the eruption of a severe economic crisis in 1621-3 intensified the tensions that had long threatened to destabilize the early Stuart state. As in an earlier period of war and economic crisis in the 1590’s, England in the 1620s underwent a period of intense political instability. (151)

In this regard, the stable political atmosphere in England during the Elizabethan period, which resulted from a close cooperation between Parliament and the Crown, started to deteriorate over the problems of ruling multiple kingdoms, which grew more serious with the accession of monarchs who were rulers of Scotland as well as England, Ireland and Wales; the state’s financial weakness; and differing views about the nature of the Post-Reformation English Church. (Coward 91)

Furthermore, the instability was also increased by James’s clash with Parliament in social, political and economical matters of the country, which led to relative deterioration in the relations between the Crown and Parliament (Brice 5). In the Tudor period, Parliament had a significant function as the advisor and executive body of the monarch. As soon as James ascended the throne, he began to implement absolutist policies ignoring the traditional role of Parliament. Among the Stuarts James I and Charles I attempted to “extend the powers of the crown beyond limits that their Parliaments considered tolerable, tempted as they were to take up the absolutist position that they saw successfully maintained by the kings of France and Spain and by the Holy Roman Emperor” (Parry 9). Hence, the extension and the rise of the power of the monarchs, and disregarding the function of Parliament, can be considered as the absolutist trends and tendencies of both James I and Charles I. Thus, it can be stated that the stability of the Elizabethan period was gradually transformed into instability both in domestic and foreign policies as a result of James’s implementation of these policies without the advice of Parliament. James I and Charles I’s strict adherence to the theory of divine right and attempts at royal absolutism led to a conflict between the Parliament and the king.

6

Introduction

The King replaced himself “legally, morally, and magically above all human law and restraint” (Parry 214). Furthermore, as pointed out both James I’s and Charles I’s reliance on the theory of divine rights of kings strengthened their confidence in the exercise of royal prerogative, which was considered as the right of the monarch to assert his authority without interference by Parliament or the law. Hence, in accordance with the doctrine of royal absolutism, the king is not compelled to summon the Parliament, and the Parliaments are in practice called to assembly only when the king needs them to vote for supplies. In this respect, “the King and his ministers could make policy and impose it by proclamation, relying on the magistracy for enforcement” (Parry 215). Historians divide the Stuart period into three separate parts. The first period covers the years 1603 to 1618, which was a time of conflict between the king and Parliament, principally over financial matters but also it concerned James’s desire for the union between England and Scotland (Brice 1). However, though considered as troubled years, the period was regarded as a time of stability in the country because James consulted Parliament in financial and political matters. The next period covers the years from 1618 to 1629, in which the beginning of the Thirty Years War proved the ineffective foreign policy of the monarch and the Duke of Buckingham (Brice 1). Hence, this led to a serious reaction within the House of Commons, criticizing the policies of the monarchy, which widened the gap between Parliament and monarchy. The third period covers the years from 1629 to 1640, known as the personal rule of Charles I since he decided to rule without Parliament because of the ideological conflicts between himself and Parliament. Brice states that “there was little opposition during this time, but when Parliament met again in 1640 the accumulated grievances of the previous eleven years united virtually the entire political union against the king” (2). Therefore, from the beginning of Stuart period to the outbreak of the civil war, the conflict between Parliament and the monarchy was strongly felt, and led the country into political, social and economic instabilities, culminating in the civil war between the Parliamentarians and Royalists. Considering the reasons and the nature of the initiation of the conflict between Parliament and the Crown, it can be claimed that it rests on political, economical, and religious or ecclesiastical reasons. Accordingly, Christopher Durston has asserted that “the early days of James’s first Parliament in 1604 were dominated by a tussle over parliamentary privilege” (38). Respectively, the quarrel between Parliament and the King began over the question of Parliamentary powers and privileges, in which

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

7

James I “started his reign by setting forth in explicit terms his claims to the Divine Right (Rayner 190). Comparing James I’s reign with that of Queen Elizabeth’s, Rayner has pointed out that the great Queen was too practical-minded to demand a formal recognition of her supremacy so long as she was left to govern in her own way: and Parliament was equally ready to let the subject sleep, so long as she carried on the government cheaply and effectively, and kept the Spanish danger at bay. But circumstances were now changed. The classes from which Parliament was mostly drawn-country gentlemen and prosperous merchants-had been growing rapidly in importance and self-confidence throughout the latter half of the last century; all fears of invasion were now past and the new King had none of the claims to the nation’s respect and affection possessed by his predecessor. (190)

Similar to the Stuart rulers, the monarchs in the Tudor period had authority and power over Parliament, which can also be termed as royal absolutism; however, most of the time they achieved a balance of this power and tried to maintain harmony and peace between Parliament and the Crown through considering and respecting the advice of Parliament in many of the state affairs. In this manner, Elton claims that Tudor monarchs ruled in accordance with the theory of the divine right of the king, however the House of Commons in those times existed as a powerful political institution and consultative body which represented the nation as a whole (22). Likewise, it can be claimed that, although the Tudor monarchs considered themselves as the only power, Parliament still exercised its authority and felt its influence on political affairs, which reveals the authority and dominance of Parliament over the monarchy. However, this practice and procedure, though not entirely, was reversed when James came to the English throne because of the fact that, from the beginning of his reign to the end, he adopted the doctrine of the divine rights of the kings. As stated by Lockyer, James supported the strong monarchical power in order to prevent the political and sectarian division in society and to maintain the stability and order in the country (34). Accordingly, James I adopted the idea that a monarch possess “a monopoly of political power” that he derives from God alone (Sommerville, “Introduction” xvii). In accordance with this doctrine, any resistance to the monarch was considered as sinful. As Sommerville has pointed out, if our king commands us to do things which contravene the law of God, we must disobey him, for we should always obey God rather than man. But if the monarch calls us to account for our disobedience, we should

8

Introduction meekly accept whatever punishment he inflicts upon us. (“Introduction” xvii)

Likewise, James I accepted that kings had a duty to rule in the public interest and through the law of the country; however, he claimed that no one had the power to force them to perform these duties (Lockyer, James VI and I 35). In this respect, what James stresses is that Parliament cannot have a forceful power over the kings because the kings derive their power only from God. In his Basilicon Doron, which was completed in 1598, James I reveals his ideas about monarchy and the divine rights of kings in the form of advice to his son, Henry. Therefore, the Basilicon Doron is considered as a book of practical advice. As Sommerville stresses “the emphasis in the Basilicon Doron was on the authority of the King and the obedience owed to him. Little or nothing was said about the rights and liberties of the subject, even though these were of prime concern to the English political nation” (36). Indeed, in the preface of the Basilicon Doron, James I reveals his intention in composing such a political treatise [he] wrote for exercise of mine owne ingyne, and instruction of him, who is appointed by God (I hope) to sit on my Throne after me. For the purpose and matter thereof being onely fit for a King , as teaching him his office; and the person whom-for it was ordained, a Kings heire, whose secret 2 counsellor and faithfull admonisher it must be. (JPW 4)

Hence, James I strongly argues in the Basilicon Doron that kings alone have the rights to make all final decision on both foreign and domestic policy. Besides political affairs, kings also have supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs (JPW 4). While he was ruling in Scotland prior to 1603, he strongly opposed Presbyterian ideology which prevailed in the Scottish church, the Kirk, since he believed that Presbyterianism undermined the authority and absolutist control of the monarchy. Presbyterianism, as a religious thought was modelled on Calvinist theology, and required a form of church government with a council of elders or presbyters replacing the Episcopal Church government (Potter 96). Therefore, rejecting the Presbyterian doctrine, James I believed in the rule of the ecclesiastical system by the monarchs since he adopted the belief that kings should control both secular and religious institutions as well, which is the power derived from God (Hill A Century of Revolution 6-7).

2

King James VI and I. Political Writings. Hereafter the book will be cited as JPW.

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

9

In another of his political works, entitled The True Law of Free Monarchies, James further reflects his concept of monarchy and kingship. In fact James I composed The True Law of Free Monarchies directly from his experience “as King of Scotland, having its origin in his repudiation of the teachings of his tutor, George Buchanan, who has been described as by far the most radical of all the Calvinist revolutionaries” (Lockyer, James VI and I 37). As clearly stated at the beginning of The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, James I regarded the monarchy as “the trew paterne of Diuinitie” (JPW 64) which is derived from “the fundamental Lawes of our owne Kingdome” and from the “law of Nature” (JPW 64). Likewise, according to James I, monarchy is a “forme of gouernment, as resembling the Diunitie, approacheth nearest to perfection, as all the learned and wise men from the beginning haue agreed vpon; Vnitie being the perfection of all things” (JPW 63). Furthermore, in The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, James I defended the concept of a free monarchy by stating that kings are not constrained by any human institution since they are only responsible to and appointed by God to govern people (JPW 64). He further claimed that kings should think of the interest and well-being of their subjects, and also that there are mutual duties between kings and people within this concept of kingship (Thrush 84). Accordingly, the book, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies has the subtitle, The Reciprock and Mutual Duty betwixt a Free King and his Natural Subjects. However, although James believed in mutual duties between kings and people, he insisted on the authority and the absolutist right of kings. As stated above, James I’s concept of absolutist monarchy is based on the divine rights of kings. In this respect, James I takes his support and sources from the Old Testament. As James I states, Kings are called Gods by the propheticall King David, because they sit vpon GOD his Throne in the earth, and haue the count of their administration to giue vnto him. Their office is, To minister Iustice and Iudgement to the people, as the same Dauid saith: To aduance the good, and punish the euill, as he likewise saith: To establish good Laues to his people, and procure obedience to the same as diuers good Kings of Iudah did: To procure the peace of the people, as the same Dauid saith: To decide all controuersies that can arise among them, as Salomon did: To be the Minister of God for the weale of them that doe euill, as S.Paul saith. And finally, As a good Pastour, to goe out and in before his people as is said in the first of Samuel: That through the Princess prosperitie, the peoples peace may be procured, as Ieremie saith. (JPW 64)

On the other hand, James I likened kings to fathers of their people. As pointed out, kings “enjoyed the same authority over their subjects that the

10

Introduction

law of nature gave to fathers over their families” (Lockyer 40). In accordance with this doctrine, since children have certain duties and must be obedient to their fathers, then respectively, subjects have duties and obedience to their kings. Therefore, any disobedience to kings would be recognized as rebellion against the sovereign, hence it would be recognized as “monstrous and unnatural” (JPW 77). In this respect, James I claimed that the subjects do not have any right to act against or resist their rulers or kings. However, he also claimed that there are some exceptions to the absolutism of kings in that if a king becomes lawless and turns out to be a tyrant, in which case this rule harms the state, and subjects have the right to get rid of such a tyrant (JPW 77). However, although James I stated the accountability of kings to their subjects, he asserted that subjects do not have any right or authority to judge their kings since “the wickedness therefore of the King can neuer make them that are ordained to be judged by him, to become his Iudges” (JPW 78). It is for this reason that subjects cannot judge their ruler but only God can. Moreover, James I claimed that any rebellion of the subjects leads to the destruction and disruption of the state and Commonwealth because he believes that “a bad king is better than no king at all, and the only alternative to royal rule is anarchy” (Lockyer, James VI and I 41). In order to verify this statement, James I gave reference to the poet Du Bartas, who reveals that “better it were to suffer some disorder in the estate, and some spots in the Common wealth, then in pretending to reforme, vtterly to overthrow the Republicke (qtd. in JPW 79). Therefore, in the Basilicon Doron and The Trew Law of Free Monarchies James I defended divineright monarchy (Lockyer, James VI and I 41). Correspondingly, in his speech to Parliament on 21st March 1610, James I also stressed his doctrine of kingship as follows: the state of Monarchie is the supremest thing vpon earth: For Kings are not onely GODS Lieutenants vpon earth, and sit vpon GODS throne, but euen by GOD himselfe they are called Gods. There bee three principall similitudes that illustrate the state of MONARCIE: One taken out of the word of GOD; and the two other out of the grounds of Policie and Philosophie. In the Scriptures Kings are called Gods, and so their power after a certaine relation compared to the Diuine power. Kings are also compared to Fathers of families: for a King is trewly Parens Patriae, the politique father of his people. And lastly, Kings are compared to the head of this Microcosme of the body of man. (JPW 181)

When he came to the English throne, he could not apply this theory of kingship practically because he was confronted with many difficulties both politically and economically in the country. Yet, he insisted on his

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

11

doctrine of divine right of kings. In terms of the relation of authority between monarchs and parliament, according to James I, kings are before any estates and rankes of men within the same, before any Parliaments were holden, or lawes made: and by them was the land distributed (which at the first was whole theirs) states erected and decerned, and formes of gouernement deuised and established: And so it followes of necessitie, that kings were the authors and makers of the Lawes, and not the Lawes of the kings. (JPW 73)

James I, furthermore, pointed out that Parliament does not have the function of making laws but it is only responsible for giving advice to kings in making laws. As he stated, in the Parliament (which is nothing else but the head Court of the king and his vassals) the lawes are but craued by his subjects, and onely made by him at their rogation, and with their aduice: for albeit the king make daily statutes and ordinances, enioying such paines thereto as hee thinkes meet, without any aduice make any kinde of Law or Statue, without his Scepter be to it, for giuing it the force of a law. (JPW 74)

Hence, James tried to exercise these absolutist practices, denying the laws of Magna Carta, which had brought limitations to the rights of the kings (Hughes, The Causes of the English Civil War 77). His practice of such lawless ruling sometimes ended with dissolution of the Parliament, as happened on 31 December 1610, in which James dismissed the Parliament over the disagreement resulting from economical matters (Croft 79). Furthermore, another friction that led to the dissolution of Parliament in 1621 stemmed from James’s following pro-Spanish foreign policies and the prospects of the marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Spanish Infanta, a Catholic princess, Maria, which was harshly criticized by the Protestant Parliament because this was the display of the introduction of Catholic practices and policies into England once more (Willson 357). Thus, Parliament offered a petition asking for Prince Charles to marry a Protestant, for the enforcement of the anti-Catholic laws, and a war with Spain, supporting the Protestant Bohemians against the Catholic Holy Roman Empire (Wilson 421). In this regard, while James I stated in his first Parliament that “all its power depended on his good will and it was sedition for the members even to discuss the limits of his prerogative”, the Parliament later protested that “we [they] hold it an ancient and undoubted right of Parliament to debate freely all matters which properly concern the subject” (qtd. in Rayner 190). The King replied in anger that their claims could not be accepted, which led to a

12

Introduction

dispute that continued through the six years of the life of the first Parliament of King James I (Rayner 190). Another political disagreement between the monarch and Parliament started with a particular dispute over an election of Buckinghamshire, which itself started with friction between the King and Parliament in “the Goodwin Case” (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 44). In the election, Sir John Fortescue, a privy councillor, had been defeated by Sir Francis Godwin; however, the Chancery Office had declared the election invalid on the grounds that Sir Francis Goodwin had been outlawed for the failure to pay his debts (Coward 134). Parliament, however, held the idea that they were “traditionally the judges of disputed election returns and they immediately reacted to this threat to their independence” (Brice 34). Thus, the Commons insisted that they were the one and only judge of the validity of election returns, reversed this decision and demanded that Goodwin take his seat. However, rejecting the claim and decision of the Parliament, James I intervened by stating that the Parliament “derived all matters of privilege from him and by his grant” (qtd. in Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown 32). Another clash between Parliament and the monarchy stemmed from James’s desire for union between his two kingdoms, Scotland and England. As James I, in his speech to Parliament in 1604, said, “I am assured that no honest subject of whatsoever degree within my whole dominions is less glad of this joyful union than I am” (qtd. in Brice 34). However, Parliament opposed James I this idea of fearing that the union of the kingdoms would bring about the supremacy of the Scottish people over the English people (Ashley 44). The friction and clash between Parliament and the King over the union widened and increased during meetings of Parliament from 1604 to 1607 (Durston 38). As stated, the disputes between Parliament and the monarch resulted from political matters. On the other hand, in essence, the conflict between Parliament and the monarchy originated mainly from financial matters. Accordingly, as Katherine Brice claims “James I had problems with his parliaments almost from the start. He was extravagant and crown finances were inadequate at the best of times” (2). Therefore, it has been stated that the financial problems of the king deteriorated the relations with Parliament, leading to its dissolution finally. Dietz points out that “the fundamental weakness of James’s position, which made the irritation of various groups and individuals among his subjects important, was that he had insufficient resources under his own control to carry on his government and meet its expenses” (250). As a result, it is stated that when coming to the English throne the economical conditions of the court directed James I to look for different financial resources such as levying taxes and exerting new

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

13

impositions without the approval and consent of Parliament. Another source of revenue for the monarchy was Parliamentary taxation, which the English monarchs claimed from Parliament in return for some concessions and privileges (Durston 26). In order to meet the expenses of the court and to support the army related to his foreign policy, James tended to seek new sources of revenue. As Kimmel states the sources of revenue that were available to the king included the sale of crown lands, feudal rights such as fines for recusancy, first fruits and tenths, and the sale of wardship, and a series of indirect taxes that had become part of the ordinary revenues. These duties on imports and exports, tonnage and poundage, and customs were especially important because they kept pace with inflation, increasing as trade increased. Finally, the crown also had access to a series of extraordinary taxes, such as military subsidies and fifteenths and tenth, an irregular income from sale of monopolies and patents, and small profits from judicial administrations (fees for writs), the right of purveyance (the compulsory purchase of food from royal officials), loans from corporate bodies, loans from private individuals, and “benevolences,” another euphemistically named loan. (141)

Although these fiscal resources were at the disposal of James, they were not even adequate to meet the ordinary needs of the king in peacetime, let alone to finance James’s foreign policy against the Habsburgs (Kimmel 141). Therefore, the monarch’s ineffective financial policies, and especially his imposition of unlawful and arbitrary taxes deepened the gap and the conflict between Parliament and the monarchy in England. Another occasion of clashes between the King and Parliament was on account of the religious controversy, particularly between Catholics and Protestants in England, which dates back particularly to the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I. Godfrey Davies reveals that in England during James I’s reign “disagreement on religion was greater than on any question” (7). In fact, in the past, until the emergence of the Protestant doctrine in 1517 with Martin Luther, England was totally a Catholic country. Furthermore, most people had adopted the Roman Catholic faith, and the Pope in Rome was considered as the head of the church. When Henry VIII broke away from Rome, the official religion of the country was transformed from Catholic to Protestant. He set up the Anglican Church of England declaring himself as the head of the Church of England, which marked the rise of aggravated religious conflicts in England. His succession to the English throne he adopted the Elizabethan church settlement, by practicing a Presbyterian system of ministers and

14

Introduction

favouring bishops in the English Church, although James I was brought up in the Calvinist faith. In this manner, James I believed that through adopting a Presbyterian Church system, which was based on the hierarchy of ministers, he would strengthen his position as a king. His attitude towards Catholics and Puritans was not very tolerant since he regarded these groups as passing the threat of religious conflict in the country (Hughes, The Causes of the English Civil War 96). Thus, the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, proved him right in considering Catholics as a danger to the unity of the state (Parry 11). On the other hand, James regarded the Puritans as more dangerous than any other religious groups or sects because of their rejection of “the hierarchical system of church government or the control of the State over the affairs of the spirit” (Parry 11). In fact, the Puritan demand for the reformation of the Protestant religion led eventually to civil war in England. Hence, the English revolution has been considered by many historians and scholars as a “Puritan revolution” (Hughes, The Causes of the English Civil War 96). Rejecting the Protestant and Catholic Church settlement and services, Puritanism gave importance to the individual conscience against the dogmas of priests. Hughes points out: In the English context, Puritans held that the Elizabethan settlement of the church was not adequate, and worked from 1560s against the ecclesiastical establishment for further reformation. They were often harasses or persecuted by authority and their religious sufferings, plus their sturdy individualism, meant they also led the struggle against political oppression and arbitrary government. (The Causes of the English Civil War 96)

Hence, although the emergence of the Puritan reformation movement dates back to Henry VIII’s time, it increased its effect and arrived at a more radical dimension during the reigns of James I and Charles, and it led to the Civil Wars. When Charles I ascended to the English throne in 1625, he turned out to be more aggressive than his father about the powers of Parliament, and deliberately followed a policy of autocracy and absolute monarchy. Following his father’s theory of divine right and royal absolutism, Charles, in a sense, extended these powers and began to practice the theory in a more radical extent. As Rayner claims, Charles I “had imbibed the Divine Right theory from the cradle, and clung to it with dull obstinacy. He was convinced that people who resisted his will were either fools or knaves, who it was lawful to outwit by any trickery” (203). According to Sommerville, the main cause of friction between the King and Parliament was due to Charles’s following strict royal policies of his own such as “taxation without consent, imprisonment without cause

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

15

shown, and the government of the church without Parliamentary advice” (Politics and Ideology in England, 1603-1640 5). Therefore, according to Somerville, this is evidence that “Charles was a far less able politician than his father and that his policies resulted in hardening of opinion on many issues” (Politics and Ideology in England, 1603-1640 5). As Lee claims, Charles I was not apt at kingship because “he had great dignity and a high sense of his position as king but no practical ability” (27). Furthermore, Charles adopted the idea that “parliament had a place in the constitution, but one theoretically and practically inferior to his own as hereditary monarch” (Lee 28). James I had been more successful than his son in maintaining the harmony between the King and the Parliament. In comparing the ideas of kingship and personality of both James I and Charles I, Coward points out that: James’s innate political shrewdness and flexibility enabled him to ride out political storms in a way that was later characteristic of Charles II; Charles I, on the other hand, had little of his father’s political ability and proved to be inflexible and uncompromising to the point of ineptness. Second, whereas James I tried (not always with total success, as will be seen) to act as an impartial arbitrator between different factions within the English Church, his son abandoned any such attempt with the result that religion became a serious divisive issue for the first time in early Stuart England. Thirdly, unlike his father, Charles I failed as ruler of his multiple kingdoms. The contrast between father and son as kings of Britain is clearest in the case of Scotland. Charles’s blundering policies north of the border had the catastrophic consequences of uniting against him not only most of his English subjects but also many of his Scottish ones. (152)

With Charles’s accession to the English throne in 1625 the conflict and disputes between Parliament and the monarchy deepened due to economic, political and religious reasons. When the first Parliament during the reign of Charles I was summoned in 1625, over the supplies for the forthcoming war with Spain, the members accepted to make a grant of £140, 000 for war expenses (Dietz 256). However, although Parliament’s grant for the war expenses could be considered a positive attitude in return for the grant Parliament expressed their complaints about the king’s marriage to a French Catholic princess that may pose the threat of increasing tolerance for the Catholics in England. However, Charles rejected Parliament’s claim and disregarded their concern over his marriage, and further, began to make concessions to the Roman Catholics, which initiated the first crisis between Parliament and the king (Ashley 55). On the other hand, although protesting to Charles’s marriage and his favouring the Catholics in England, his first Parliament granted Charles I the Customs Duties in

16

Introduction

1626, known as Tonnage and Poundage - but for one year only. For centuries, the Customs Duties had been granted to kings for the duration of their reigns (Trevelyan 147). As Sommerville states “since 1414, Parliament had voted every monarch the right for life to collect duties on every ton (cask) of wine and pound (£ value) of imports” (“1625-1629: the first crisis of Charles I's reign”). As a result of this unexpected attitude of Parliament and the inadequate special subsidy, the king dissolved his first Parliament (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 232). Another reason was that the Parliament demanded the dismissal of Charles’s chief minister, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, because the Commons thought he was giving the king bad advice. Accordingly, as Rayner points out “the king felt that if he gave way and dismissed the favourite, he would be admitting that Parliament had the right to control the conduct of the war and the appointment of ministers. Not for a moment would he allow such a claim” (205). Therefore, Charles rejected Parliament’s demands to dismiss his favourite. The second Parliament was called as a result of the financial requirements of the king due to the ongoing war with Spain. What Charles expected from the new Parliament was to collect the duties regularly, which would heal the wounds that the previous Parliament inflicted by refusing the granting of Tonnage and Poundage for the lifetime of the king. However, the Commons again had their grievances such as the role and politics of Buckingham, who was considered a threat to the common interests of the Parliamentarians. The failure of the war against Spain in Cadiz led the Commons to react strongly against the king and the Duke of Buckingham in a way that “Eliot launched a bitter attack on those he held responsible for the failure” (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 233). Likewise, the Commons demanded the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham, who was now charged with the failure of the military expedition to Spain. In this respect, as Parry states foreign policy was the special preserve of the monarch, who exercised here the secret wisdom with which God endowed his kings. Against such claims of divinely guided policy, Parliament made slow but persistent headway. Opposition to acts of royal prerogative was a feature of all the Parliaments of the two reigns, personified in the time of James by the legal conflicts between Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor, who was disposed to uphold royal prerogative, and Edward Coke, the Chief Justice, who was determined to use all the resources of common law to defeat the King’s desire to rule by proclamations and prerogative. (215)

Thus, as a result of the failure of the foreign policy of Charles I, Parliament refused to give extra grants for the supplies of the war, and Charles decided to dissolve the Parliament (Morril, “The Stuarts” 99). The

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

17

dissolution of Parliament left the king with no additional income and no adequate resources for financing the war expenditures. Ignoring the act of the previous Parliament which had rejected the king’s request to grant him customs duties for his life time, the king began to collect customs duties through raising forced loans and threatening those who refused to pay with imprisonment (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown 88-89 ). Thus, Charles decided to finance the war independent of Parliament (Rayner 207). As Brice states, the loan itself was seen as the attacking liberties of Parliament, and especially when “Charles’s subsequent actions made fears about the imposition of absolutism much more acute” (75). On the other hand, Charles was faced with opposition, which was led by Sir John Eliot, who was arrested and thrown into the Tower. Moreover seventy gentlemen, twenty-seven of whom were the members of Parliament, were imprisoned for they refused to contribute to the loan (Smith, Lacey 227). Unlawful taxes and arbitrary arrests of members of Parliament caused opposition to the policies of both Charles and the Duke of Buckingham. As a response to these reactions and oppositions, Charles argued that “in a national emergency he was entitled to raise taxes ‘for the common defence’ without Parliament’s agreement” (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles 71). This claim was supported with a series of sermons, which argued that the king had divine power, thus only God could judge or punish him (Smith, ibid). Thus, refusing to pay the forced loan was considered a rebellion against God, as stated in these sermons and speeches made by the king. Smith has stated that “all these sermons developed a theme originally suggested by Laud” (ibid). Charles also implied that he had a right of levying taxes in case of emergency, taking its basis from the prerogative rights and powers of kings. However, the imposition of the forced loan, in this respect, can be regarded as the king’s abuse of his prerogative rights and power because the Commons believed that Charles, under the pretext of his right of levying taxes in case of emergency, was abusing his power. Considering the abuse of power which exceeded the Common Law, many people believed and began to fear that the common law no longer offered adequate protection of their lives, liberties and property. Charles later had no option but to summon another Parliament in March 1628 due to campaigns and reactions against the Forced Loan and the urgent need for money to fight the war (Gardiner xix). The Commons, taking the advantage of the king’s need for money, passed the Petition of Right, which was designed to redress Parliament’s grievances by curbing Charles’s absolutist acts, including imposing the Forced Loan on his subjects, the imprisonment of people without trial and quartering troops in

18

Introduction

private homes. Gardiner claims, “the Petition of Right is memorable as the first statutory restriction of the powers of the Crown since the accession of the Tudor dynasty” (xx). The Petition of Right, which takes “natural liberties and natural law as the rhetorical sources of opposition to absolutism” (Kimmel 160), was intended to limit the powers of the monarch taking its source as the Magna Carta. As Rayner shows, there are two chief laws in the Petition of Right, referring to “the clause of Magna Carta (1215) which said that no free man could be imprisoned without trial; and the ‘Statuta de Talligio non Concedendo’ (1297), according to which no gift, loan or benevolence could be exacted without consent of Parliament” (209). Furthermore, in its final form, the petition declared that what Charles did was illegal as he employed practices such as “Martial Law”, “the Billeting of Troops”, “non-Parliamentary and Arbitrary Taxation”, and “Arbitrary Imprisonment without cause” (Brice 209). According to Trevelyan, billeting of troops and martial law caused distress in British society (135). The billeting of troops and martial law, arbitrary taxation and arbitrary imprisonment gave rise to agitation among the subjects. These attitudes and practices were considered systematic despotism. Thus, in the context of levying arbitrary taxes, the Petition of Right demanded that “no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament” (qtd. in Trevelyan 136). On the other hand, the Petition also demanded that “no freeman, in any such manner as before mentioned, be imprisoned or detained” (qtd. in Trevelyan 137). Significantly, the main purpose of the Petition of Right was the recognition of the liberty of the subject (Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in England 145). Sommerville states that Parliament is the most essential entity embodying the ancient and fundamental right of liberty. It enables the discussion of all matters freely and without enforcement of the monarch (Politics and Ideology in England 180). The Petition was approved by the House of Lords in May 1628 and the Commons later presented it to Charles on 2 June. Initially Charles’s attitude was not affirmative and constructive; however he had to assent because of his dire need for money that Parliament would supply in return for acceptance of the Petition. With the money that Parliament granted, a new expedition set out to help La Rochelle. But, during the expedition, the Duke of Buckingham was murdered, which pleased the Commons and upset Charles, and after this “the distance between Charles and his subjects increased” (Brice 2). The Petition is considered to have failed due to the disagreement between Charles and leaders of Parliament on two fundamental points. The first point is that in the Petition there was no

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

19

certain explication of the impositions, and Charles in this was able to claim a right to levy customs duties without the consent of Parliament. Secondly, the Petition did not include a direct obstruction to Arminianism in the Church, thus Charles attempted to appoint Arminian bishops as William Laud and Montague (Coward 164). Following the failure of the second La Rochelle expedition and the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, Charles became more radical in political, economic and social matters of the country, following strict Arminian policies in religious affairs by altering the character of the Church of England, appointing Arminian clergymen, and continuing to collect customs duties without consent of Parliament, which increased the gap between the monarch and Parliament. As a result, the Commons agreed on three resolutions “high churchmen and anyone suspected of popery should be branded as ‘capital enemies’ of the commonwealth; the king’s advisers who had urged him to collect taxes without parliamentary consent would be similarly judged; and anyone who paid customs charges would be a betrayer of the liberties of England” (Smith, “Politics in Early Stuart England” 229). Thus, Parliament linked Arminianism with the paying or collecting of ‘Tonnage and Poundage’ as treason. The resolutions were passed, which increased the struggle between the King and Parliamentarians because the Commons, through passing these resolutions, rejected the theory of royal absolutism and adopted a new theory of parliamentary absolutism (Dietz 259). Charles immediately decided to dissolve the parliament. Kishlansky describes the second session of the third parliament as a ‘pandemonium’, in which the Speaker of the House of Commons was restrained from dissolving Parliament while members usurped his authority and adopted three resolutions in contravention of King’s instructions. In this one tumultuous moment the worst fears of both Charles I and the leaders of the Commons were realized. The King feared that if he held another session of Parliament, members of the Commons would encroach on his prerogatives and openly question his authority. (113)

Eventually, in the second session of the third parliament in 1629, the Commons began to discuss the condition of king’s unending and persistent absolutist policies on arbitrary imprisonment, taxes and religious matters, and hence the king had to intervene in the discussions, which resulted in his dissolution of Parliament for eleven years (Trevelyan 146-147). Between the years 1629 and 1640, Charles ruled England without summoning Parliament. During the absence of Parliament, which was considered as “eleven years of tyranny,” Charles adopted absolutist policies both in conducting financial affairs and in domestic politics

20

Introduction

(Coward 165). However, having been deprived of the financial support of Parliament, Charles had to raise extra money by expanding customs duties, taxes and royal revenues. Moreover, he had to follow a pacifist foreign policy through making peace with both France and Spain. Kevin Sharpe in his detailed study of “the Personal Rule of Charles I” points out that when Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled the country without Parliament for eleven years, the conflict between the subjects and the monarch was intensified and increased (53). In his financial policy during this period, Charles ignored the resolutions of the previous Parliament through collecting customs duties. At the same time, he managed to decrease the royal expenditures, which was realized under his Lord Treasurer William Weston. “Within four or five years this able but unscrupulous minister had liquidated a war-debt of £1,000,000, and had placed the finances of the government on a sound basis” (Rayner 214). Both the king and the Lord Treasurer searched for every manner legally to collect money and increase the royal revenues. For example, they tried to revive ancient, longforgotten taxes and customs as well as neglected laws, so that they could “fine those who had unwittingly violated them” (Lee 29). Furthermore, the king ordered the imposition of heavy penalties for those breaking the Forest Laws. Monopolies were also a source of revenue, being indirect taxes on trade (Lee 30). ‘Ship Money’ was one of the most famous of these revenue-raising devices; however, it was a non-parliamentary tax accepted as necessary in times of emergency for the defence of the seas. Ship Money was revived in 1634 by Charles I and it was then raised every year in order to “build up a fleet to guard against the depredations of pirates who regularly raided the south coast and carried young people into slavery” (Brice 122). In 1635, Charles took a radical step by extending Ship Money to cover the non-coastal counties. Charles’s collecting Ship Money initiated oppositions and protestations, and those who refused to pay the tax were either arrested or imprisoned without their captors showing any cause. In 1637, the legality of Ship Money was brought before the law court by John Hampden, who had refused to pay it. However, the judges decided in favour of the king by declaring the collection of Ship Money to be legal (Lee 30). In fact, this was just one of the complaints against the king’s policies at the time. Graham Parry states that there was protracted legal challenge against prerogative, culminating in the ship Money case of 1637, when John Hampden was tried on an action brought by the King before all twelve common-law judges for refusal to pay taxes levied by royal prerogative, and was found against by a majority of seven to five. (215)

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

21

The decision of the judges was questioned by the public in terms of Magna Carta (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628), which restricted arbitrary taxes under the pretext of the defence of the country. Charles’s “eleven years of tyranny” was also felt in his religious policies. Attempting to make some radical reforms within the Church of England during 1630s, Charles appointed William Laud initially as Bishop of London in 1628, and later as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. A High Churchman, William Laud became the chief adviser of the king in ecclesiastical matters. Sharpe states that it is not correct to claim that the religious reforms and enactments of the 1630s were the policy of Charles I (62). According to Sharpe, William Laud, as Archbishop of Canterbury, exerted his influence on the religious history of the decade (Sharpe 62). Perpetuating the Arminian practices and beliefs in the Church of England which had started in the time of the Duke of Buckingham and with the influence of Henrietta Maria, a Catholic princess, William Laud took a further step in the implementation of some of the Catholic and Arminian practices within Church services and in the organization of the Church government (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 313-14). Brice states that “the Church of England underwent a dramatic change in the reign of Charles I, as he sought to introduce highly ceremonial worship which reminded many of Catholicism” (5). When examining the evolution of the English Church from the time of Elizabeth I to Charles I, it can be stated that there was an increased tendency to practice Catholicism during the reign of Charles I due to the fact that he was “more friendly than his father to Roman Catholics, and even more strongly opposed to Puritanism which now pervaded the House of Commons” (Ashley 55). This was realized and intensified with Charles’s marriage to a Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, who was the sister of King Louis XIII of France. The Catholic Queen, who promised to relieve the English Roman Catholics of their disabilities, promoted Catholic practices and agents in the English court (Morrill “The Causes of the British Civil Wars” 16). Thus, there began a transformation to Catholic principles and practices in the Church of England. According to Morrill “popery seemed to be implanted into the heart of the established Episcopal Church of England” (“The Causes of the British Civil Wars” 16). Likewise, the promotion of Popish and Arminian figures “transformed the agenda of the established church” (“The Causes of the British Civil Wars” 16). However, James I, unlike his son, Charles I, had attempted to construct balanced religious policies and practices, and he had refrained from disturbing both the puritans and the Catholics alike. In order to appease the English Puritans, James had even appointed a Puritan figure, George Abbot, as Archbishop of Canterbury. But when Abbot died in

22

Introduction

1633, Charles appointed William Laud, an ardent Arminian clergyman. The promotions of William Laud to the Archbishopric of Canterbury and of Richard Neile to the Archbishopric of York show the clear revolutionary attitudes of the king in order to impose a High Church system of liturgy and discipline on the Church of England, which is called Arminianism (Kishlansky 128-129). As Patricia-Ann Lee points out although Arminians were not Roman Catholic, many English men and women believed that they were, or at least that they were leading the church in that direction. This was a great disadvantage for Charles because hatred of popery [Roman Catholicism] was deeply embedded in English minds. To the English there was a natural connection between Catholicism, tyranny, and attempts by foreign powers to subvert and destroy their national independence. (28)

In due course, Arminianism became especially unpopular among the puritans in English society since it was considered as a threat to the free will and liberty of the conscience of the English people. Such fears appeared in the society because ecclesiastical leaders as Archbishop William Laud supported the absolutist political views of the king. William Laud believed in the Royal supremacy and the authority of the Bishops. He insisted upon the sacred character of the clergy and of Church buildings; he required elaborate vestments to be worn; he discouraged unauthorised preaching; he had the Communion Tables moved to the east end of churches, and railed off. (Rayner 215)

As Anthony Milton asserts, Laud and his supporters brought out some innovations and reforms within the Church services in the 1630s, which “generated a radical-puritan opposition” (96). Arminianism emerged in the Netherlands with the ideas of a Dutch theologian, Jacob (James) Arminius, who attacked the Calvinistic belief of predestination. The Arminians defended free will against predestination, and they aimed at restoring ceremony to church worship. Having read the writings of Jacobus Arminius, William Laud practised religious policies, which were basically Arminian. Laud was strongly against the Calvinist doctrine of predestination because in Calvinism “the majority of human beings were predestined to be damned regardless of the sort of lives they led, declaring that ‘it makes the God of all mercies to be the most fierce and unreasonable tyrant in the world’” (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 94). Like Catholics, Laud believed that the sacraments

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

23

provided a way to earn God’s grace which was available to all people (Smith, ibid). As we have seen, during his rule without Parliament, Charles’s adopted an absolutist rule, and to some critics these were “the years of tyranny”, in which Charles enacted radical policies, both in social, economical and political matters, which were considered as an attack to the national liberties of his subjects. Thus, Miller claims that “by 1640 it seemed that Charles’s reign had been seen a systematic assault on England’s liberties and religion” (Absolutism in Seventeenth-Century Europe 209). Charles’s absolute and authoritarian style of government was also observed in his other kingdoms, Scotland and Ireland. Particularly, he implemented and enforced the reformed religious practices and policies in Scotland through replacing the Presbyterian principles and practices with Anglican and Arminian ones. The attitude to Scotland during the reign of James I had been milder and more tolerant because, as James himself was Scottish, he understood that the Scottish people had a very distinct national character and attached themselves strongly to the “extremist sort of democratic Calvinism” (Rayner 223). Consequently, while James as an English king supported the Episcopal Church structure in the Church of England, he did not interfere with the Presbyterian form of church government in Scotland; he did not even consider this as a threat. However, when Charles came to the English throne, he supported the Arminians since he regarded Puritanism and Presbyterianism as a threat to his authority and sovereignty. Especially, after the appointment of William Laud, Charles attempted to put his anti-Presbyterian and anti-Calvinistic ideas into practice and aimed at centralizing the religious power of his monarchy. Likewise, in order to diminish the effects of Presbyterian practices in the Scottish Church and to establish unified central Anglican Episcopal principles over the three kingdoms, Charles and Laud imposed Arminian church canons and the Book of Common Prayer on Scotland, (King 84). This was introduced by force with royal proclamation in 1637. However, the introduction of an anti-Presbyterian prayer book created a Scottish riot and resistance against the English. Moreover, as Gardiner states, the Scottish resistance not only broke out but organized itself; and in 1638 a religious manifesto, the Scottish National Covenant, was signed by the greater part of the nation. It attacked the church system of Charles, though it nominally professed respect for his authority and avoided all direct attack on Episcopacy. (xxvii)

24

Introduction

The attempts for a compromise between the Scottish people and the English monarch failed, and in 1638 Episcopacy was abolished by the General Assembly of the Kirk. As a result, Charles attempted to invade Scotland (Trevelyan 177-178). To suppress the rebellion in Scotland, he decided to raise an army against the Scottish troops, and in 1639 the English army declared war against the Scots, which is called the First Bishops’ War (Trevelyan 178). However, the war ended without fighting because Charles was forced by the Scottish army to accept the terms of the peace treaty by agreeing “to call another Scottish Parliament and a General assembly in Edinburgh, which to his chagrin subsequently ratified the abolition of Scottish episcopacy” (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles 110). However, this failure in his Scottish attempt seemed to Charles as an “abdication of power”, as he initially aimed at creating a central government with the subjects obedient to him as the monarch taking his powers from God (Rayner 226). In order to finance another war against Scotland to suppress further Scottish rebellions, Charles had to call Parliament once more in 1640, and this was the end of his eleven years of personal government. However, it was called “The Short Parliament” because of the fact that it only lasted three weeks (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 354). The Short Parliament was not successful because the Commons again stated that they would not grant any money to the king until their grievances were redressed. Rejecting the claims of the Commons, Charles decided to dissolve the Parliament immediately, though he had inadequate forces to suppress the Scottish rebels (Lockyer, The Early Stuarts 356). The Scots invaded England in the summer of 1640 and they occupied Northumberland and County Durham. Charles was ineffective in resisting the Scottish invasion due to the lack of a strong army and money to support it. Accordingly, he was forced to summon another Parliament in November 1640, and this time he had to consider its grievances before the Commons would attend to his problems (Nauert 297). The Long Parliament was Charles’s last Parliament, and it was not legally dissolved until 1660. The new Parliament, headed by John Pym and under the leadership of radical politicians, was summoned to raise funds for the king, but it was, in fact, determined to restrict the absolutist policies of the king. One of its measures in this effort was the Triennial Act of 1641, which stated that “Parliament was to meet at least once in three years, and appoint[ed] a machinery by which it might be brought together when that period had elapsed, if the Crown neglected to summon it” (Gardiner xxix). With this act, the Parliament limited the right of the monarch to arbitrarily dissolve the Parliament. According to Lacey Baldwin Smith, this was a constitutional revolution that changed

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

25

Parliament into “a permanent and regular organ of government” in English politics (237). Moreover, Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of The Star Chamber and the Act for the Abolition of the High Commission (Trevelyan 206). Furthermore, Parliament agreed to impeach both the Earl of Stafford and Archbishop William Laud, whom the Commons regarded as “the main supporters of [Charles’s] arbitrary government (Gardiner xxix). The Earl of Stafford was condemned to death by Parliament and executed in May 1641, and William Laud was executed in 1645, during the Civil War. Moreover, the Long Parliament banned the monarch from collecting taxes without the consent of Parliament. Accordingly, fiscal absolutism was abolished, and Tonnage and Poundage was forbidden with the condition that it could be sanctioned by Parliament. Apart from the political and economic rights demanded from the king, in terms of the ecclesiastical matters Parliament was also involved in “the destruction of the Anglican Church, its replacement by a national Presbyterian Church, and establishment of Parliamentary control over the naming of high officials and the determination of policy” (Nauert 297). Likewise, the English Parliament considered that the Church, similar to the state, should be regulated by Parliamentary law rather than by royal authority, and Parliament enacted measures to abolish the pro-Catholic and Arminian principles and practices of Charles and Laud. Thus, Parliament aimed at stripping the monarch of his prerogative powers. In this respect, as Gardiner claims, “the Constitution which had been virtually modified in 1629 [with the dissolution of Parliament for eleven years] to the profit of Monarchy, was legally modified in 1641 to the disadvantage of Monarchy” (xxxiii). England drifted into a Civil War, which eventually made England a Commonwealth and Protectorate without monarchy between the years of 1649 and 1660. It can be stated that the Civil War was a part of a long-term process with the aim of establishing “enlightened parliamentary democracy and religious freedom” (Brice 3). In such Parliament, the Commons are the defender of law, property rights and individual liberties against the attacks of an autocratic and absolute monarchy. However, as Brice states, “in increasingly bitter divisions over religion and constitutional issues, parliament acted in a conscious way to promote the interests of the subject” (3). On the eve of the Civil War, as a result of the debates in Parliament over the rights of the king and the abolishment of his royal prerogatives of the king, the Commons was split into two between those who supported the prerogative rights of the king (Royalists) and the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) who supported the liberty of the subjects through limiting the rights of the king. As David Smith points out,

26

Introduction the central theme of the period between January and August 1642 was the gradual emergence of two sides associated with two competing conspiracy theories. On one side was what might be called the Puritan-Parliamentarian theory, which attributed England’s troubles to a ‘popish’ plot to subvert church and state. This theory was most eloquently set out in the Grand Remonstrance, and it gained renewed credibility from the Irish Rebellion and the attempted arrest of five members. On the other side stood what can be termed the Anglican-Royalist theory. This pinned all the blame on religious radicals or ‘schismatics’ who, it was claimed, sought to overthrow hierarchy and order in Church, constitution and society. (A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown 125)

Thus, during the Civil War, these two polarized groups entered into a series of battles, including the Battle of Edgehill (1642) and the Battle of Marston Moor (1644). By 1644, the Parliamentarians occupied much of the North of England, and in 1645 the New Model Army was gathered under the command of General Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. The New Model Army emerged for the first time as a national army which was under the direct control of English Parliament (Trevelyan 249). The Royalists were defeated at the Battle of Naseby in 1645. During the civil war Parliament passed a number of acts as restraining the powers of bishops in the Church of England, and finally episcopacy was abolished in 1646 together with the execution of William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1645. Following the wars, Charles was surrendered by the Scots, and they handed Charles over to the English Parliament in January 1647. After the negotiations with the King, Charles was sent to trial by Parliament and executed on 30 January 1649. It can be stated that the Civil Wars were the results of the conflict between Stuart absolutism and Parliamentarian republicanism, which was also the dominant issue which concerned the political philosophers and writers of the seventeenth century. Hence, John Milton, both as a poet and a devoted political and religious propagandist, was also concerned with the political and religious issues of the English revolution. He defended republicanism against monarchical tyranny, and the religious and civil liberties of the people against political and religious absolutism. Milton, in his earlier pamphlets written throughout the 1640s and 1650s, was an active supporter of Parliament against Charles I and later the Protectorate government under the leadership of Cromwell. Furthermore, in his early anti-Prelatical pamphlets, he dealt with the religious issues and problems of his time, and he particularly defended the ecclesiastical liberties of the English people, supporting freedom of worship and freedom of conscience. Between 1641 and 1642, Milton wrote his first five pamphlets

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

27

on church government and ecclesiastical matters. However, Milton’s main contribution to the English revolution came following 1649, the year in which Charles I was executed and England was transformed into a republican Commonwealth. In his political pamphlets, from 1649 to 1660, he expressed his republican views against monarchical rule and the tyranny of Charles I. According to Dzelzainis “the height of [Milton’s] public career was as chief propagandist to the Commonwealth regime which came into being following the execution of King Charles I in 1649” (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 4). Thus, Milton defended the trial and execution of the king by writing his pamphlet, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (February 1649), in which he defended the right of subjects to depose their kings when they act unlawfully. Milton in the pamphlet also asserts that people have the right to choose their kings and to reject them. He also claims that “the kings do not hold their title from God, but from people” (CPW, III, 199). He, furthermore, defends that people should react to tyranny in every form, religious or political, and they have the right to revolt against unjust and unlawful rulers. Upon his appointment in 1649 as Secretary for the Foreign Tongues to the Council of State, he continued to publish a series of pamphlets defending the republican regime. For instance, in his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio (A Defence of the English People), which was written against the attack on the commonwealth by Salmasius, he stated the reasons for rejecting monarchy (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 80). Furthermore, in this pamphlet, he attempted to vindicate the reason of Commonwealth to Europe. In his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (Second Defence of the People of England) (1654), Milton supported the ideas of liberty and free conscience by pointing out that all the citizens have an equal right to be free. However, in his last political pamphlet, The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, written in 1660 when the monarchy was restored, Milton presents an extremely passionate appeal to the people to preserve and re-establish republicanism in England. Moreover, in the pamphlet, Milton proposes a better model for a free Commonwealth. Thus, in his religious and political pamphlets, Milton stands as a very strong defender of freedom, liberty, individualism, and republicanism as a new political system based on the authority of the people and their right to resistance and rebellion against tyranny in politics and religion. Due to the restoration of the monarchy by Charles II following the collapse of the Commonwealth, Milton gave up the direct expression of republican propaganda and stopped writing political pamphlets for fear of retribution from the followers of Charles II.

28

Introduction

Milton includes these ideas in his poems. He uses literature as a medium in order to reflect his political and personal views. Thus, he indirectly reflects his republican ideology by using political allegory in his late poems. In Paradise Lost, published in 1667, Milton reflects the social and political panorama of England before and after the establishment of the Commonwealth, by seriously criticizing political institutions and figures. As in Book II of Paradise Lost, Milton presents the failure and defects of Parliament and its inept leaders during the Commonwealth in an allegorical way, so he gives the failure of the English revolution by depicting the forms of tyranny and political power in the images of God and Satan. Thus, in Paradise Lost he represents and reveals a political allegory of the monarchy of Charles I and the Cromwellian regime. On the other hand, in this poem he reflects his political views in parallel with the political views as reflected in his earlier political pamphlets. This book aims at analyzing John Milton’s Paradise Lost as a political allegory, in which he reveals his ideas on republicanism, religious and civil liberty, the use and abuse of power, monarchy, the nature of a free commonwealth, and the tyranny of absolutist monarchies. Accordingly, in Chapter I his political ideas as reflected in his pamphlets will be presented and examined. In Chapter II his Paradise Lost will be analyzed and studied in the light of Milton’s political ideology as expressed in his earlier pamphlets and works. In the Conclusion, it will be shown more exactly how John Milton is both a politician and a poet dealing with the political and social issues of his time as reflected in his pamphlets and poems. Hence, the study offers a political reading of the poem and puts forward strong argument that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a political allegory in which he represents his republican ideology and shows that he is opposed to all forms of tyranny and hegemonic power, particularly under the rules of Charles I and Cromwell’s Commonwealth.

CHAPTER I MILTON’S POLITICAL THOUGHT IN HIS PAMPHLETS

Milton contributed to the English Revolution with his prose writings and literary works, and was involved in the events of his time by attacking the Stuart government and Laudian Anglican Church, by defending the liberty of people both in political and religious spheres, as a political poet, as a polemicist, and as Secretary for Foreign Tongues during the interregnum period. Hence, although Milton is known mostly for his poetry, in fact his was a political mind, and throughout his life he devoted himself to political readings from the classical, renaissance and contemporary political philosophers. As a lifelong scholar, spending most of his time studying from early childhood until his death, he was considered a great mind both in literary circles and in political studies. He was indeed a national poet since he struggled for the liberation of his country throughout his life. In this regard, David Loewenstein argues that Milton “invested his exceptional literary talents in polemical prose as he struggled with the urgent issues of ecclesiastical, civic and domestic liberty” of his time during and even after the English revolution (“Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 87). Hence, within the twenty years of his career during the English Revolution, which he called the “tumultuous times”, Milton aimed at using his talents to contribute to the country’s welfare and happiness (CPW, I, 807). Accordingly, Milton composed his major pamphlets and literary works at a time of great religious and political instability in England. Although Milton had prepared himself for a life in literature and politics, by going into a long period of self-preparation, it has been asserted that he was not e an original political thinker since he did not put forward novel ideas for politics in England (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 1). From his early life on, he studied the works of eminent Greek and Roman philosophers and political thinkers including Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Tacitus, Machiavelli, and those of his contemporary philosophers and political thinkers such as Overton and Lilburn (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat

30

Chapter I

and Rebel 2). Furthermore, he was strongly influenced by the social and political events of his time. His political thought, hence, was shaped by the ideas of the classical republicans and renaissance humanist thinkers, which he then re-formed and related to the political events of his time. Two things occupy and characterize Milton’s political works: liberty in religion and liberty in civil life (Loewenstein “Milton’s Prose and Revolution” 92). Martin Dzelzainis has pointed out that the execution of Charles I was of great significance in Milton’s early political career as “the events leading to this act, the act itself, and its consequences, dominate Milton’s political writings” (“Introduction”, John Milton Political Writings ix). It was in those times that Milton was concerned with the politics and the government of the church. Hence, his poetry and prose reflect these religious and political aspects. Milton scholars, to some extent, have tended to disconnect Milton’s polemical pamphlets from his poetry. However, it is clear in his major poems, including Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), and Samson Agonistes (1671) that Milton closely connected the issues of theology and the politics of his time, as revealed in his pamphlets, with his visionary art (Loewenstein, Representing Revolution in Milton 2). As Fallon observes, [r]ecent studies of Milton’s political imagery argue that his stance in the poetry accurately reflects his stance in the prose, or that it is consistent with what is known of his political allegiances, or that it conforms comfortably to prevailing ideologies of his own time or our own. (Divided Empire, viii)

Therefore, it can be claimed that taking into consideration Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, Milton embedded politics into literature, and as a poet and a polemical pamphleteer, he made up his image and reputation as a political poet. In this way, Milton as a poet did not remain outside the social and political events of his time. Fallon further emphasizes that [t]he modern poet often adopts the stance of social critic, standing outside the established order to see it more clearly and draw attention to its flaws and inequities. Milton is an instance of a poet who played an important role within that order, as a public servant in the government of his country, one, moreover, who left a substantial body of prose articulating in extensive detail a body of political thought evolved from that experience. He wrote these works in response to pressing historical events, the passage of the Licensing Act, the execution of Charles I, the concerned attacks on

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

31

the legitimacy of the English Republic, and the impending election of a new Parliament in 1660, among others; and as a result these works are quite specific, vigorously polemic, and notably partisan in their expression of political allegiance. Hence the prose, like the sonnets, is for the most part occasional, and to dispense with any discussion of those occasions is to limit both our understanding of their meaning and our appreciation of their achievement. (Divided Empire xiii-iv)

Taking into consideration Milton’s literary and political career, according to Barker, Milton’s life and works are divided into three distinct periods (xii). The first period of Milton’s life, from the late 1620s to 1639, covers the years of preparation and his writing of the early poems (Barker xii). In this educational period, he conducted his studies both at university and with private tutors. However, it was also in this period that he initiated his literary career by composing his first significant poems, including Nativity Ode in 1629, Comus in 1634 and Lycidas in 1637 (Potter 30-31). The second period of his career, from 1640 to 1660, covers the years of the Revolution and his writing of prose works (Barker xii). It was during this period that Milton was involved in the English Revolution through writing polemical pamphlets, and defending the cause of republicanism against the monarchy of Charles I. Moreover, Milton became the official voice of the Commonwealth in this period for he was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues of the Council of the State. The third period covers the postrevolution years, in which Milton left composing pamphlets and wrote, instead, his three great poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes (Barker xii). Hence, within these three separate periods, Milton produced initially his early poems, later his religious and political pamphlets, and finally his major poems, respectively. Milton’s achievements in literary and political arenas were the results of his prolonged period of self-preparation and study from his early childhood (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 2). He was born in London in December 1608, as the son of a prosperous and cultivated man. John Milton, who was by profession a scrivener, was involved in the composition of legal documents and dealing with financial and property transactions. Milton’s father was a gentleman, having his own coat of arms (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 2-3). It is stated that Milton spent his childhood prosperously, and his father who “gave his precocious son the best possible education” encouraged and supported him for studying and learning (Bush 2). As one learns from his pamphlet, A Second Defence of the English People:

32

Chapter I Who I am, then, and whence I come, I shall now disclose. I was born in London, of an honourable family. My father was a man of supreme integrity, my mother a woman of purest reputation, celebrated throughout the neighbourhood for her acts of charity. My father destined me in the early childhood for the study of literature, for which I had so keen an appetite that from my twelfth year scarcely ever did I leave my studies for my bed before the hour of midnight...my father took care that I should be instructed daily both in school and under other masters at home. (CPW, IVi, 612)

In the pamphlet, Milton reveals his own biography and gives information about his early childhood in a way that his father encouraged and led him to study literature. Thus, Milton’s education began with private courses, tutored by Thomas Young, before he went to school (Raymond 5). In 1620 he attended St Paul School, where he received a humanist education in classical Latin and Greek, including history, poetry, philosophy, oratory and drama; and he was also taught, French and Hebrew (Schiffhorst 17). While he was at St. Paul’s School, he was interested in classical literature and philosophy, and spent his time reading Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and St Augustine. He was also interested in English poetry; he especially read Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which eventually became his principal inspiration. Thus, Milton was preoccupied with Spenserian issues including “Platonic idealism, classical mythology, medieval legend, militant Protestantism dressed in the most Italianate poetic forms” (Wilson 11). Additionally, Milton read Guillaume Du Bartas’s Divine Weeks and Works, translated by Josuah Sylvester, a poetic rendering of the Genesis, the Fall of Man and other related biblical stories, which was the favourite of Elizabethan Protestants (Schiffhorst 17). Hence, the humanist learning and education that Milton received at St. Paul’s School shaped and influenced his literary and political career later. Schiffhorst has commented that Milton’s aim was “to master all learning, to become the ideal Renaissance humanist who could one day write immortal verse. During these important years, he also found intellectual support for his liberal political and religious ideas” (19). In 1625, Milton went to Christ College, Cambridge, when he was sixteen years old, receiving the Bachelor’s degree in 1629 and the Master of Arts degree in 1632 (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 16-53). It is stated that Milton’s literary career began when he was at Cambridge, composing his early prolusions, academic exercises, and poems in English, Italian, Latin and Greek, including the poems dedicated to his former tutor, Thomas Young and to his friend, Charles Diodati, from St. Paul’s School. He also wrote a series of love poems on Emilia, an imagined girl (Brown 12), as well as elegies. During his Cambridge years, he composed his pastoral poems,

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

33

“L’Allegro” (1631) and “Il Penseroso” (1631) (Shawcross 27). Following his graduation from Cambridge in 1632, Milton rejected the chance to become a minister of the Church because he was strongly opposed to the idea of episcopacy in the Church of England. Later he preferred to live with his family at Hammersmith and then at Horton, where he enjoyed a kind of “studious retirement” and devoted himself to self-study and preparation for his future writing career. (Shawcross 17). Edward Jones considers the Horton period as a time of Milton’s “filling in a blank in canvas” (32). Milton spent much of this time making up his deficiency in literary and political studies. Furthermore, Milton wrote about his years at Hammersmith and Horton, giving a detailed list of topics and subjects in his Commonplace Book (Brown 37). Thus, as revealed in The Commonplace Book, Milton’s reading in the Horton period ranges from history and philosophy to theology, economy, ethics, education, political theory, music, mathematics, classical civilization and literature (Brown 37). He narrates his years at Horton as follows: At my father’s country place, whither he [Milton’s father] had retired to spend his declining years, I devoted myself entirely to the study of Greek and Latin writers [political philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Cicero], completely at leisure, not, however without sometimes exchanging the country for the city, either to purchase books or to become acquainted with some new discovery in mathematics or music, in which I then took the keenest pleasure. When I had occupied five years in this fashion, I became desirous, my mother having died, of seeing foreign parts, especially Italy, and with my father’s consent I set forth, accompanied by a single attendant. (CPW, IVi, 614)

Hence, one can claim that Milton’s political mind was formed during his Hammersmith and Horton periods, and his overall study and readings in Greek and Latin politics made up his future political ideas while defending republicanism and civil liberty of people against kingship and tyranny as revealed both in his political prose writings and in major political poems, including Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. He wrote his masques, Arcades (1632) and Comus (1634) during this period. On the other hand, another major work that Milton composed was Lycidas (1637), an elegy written on the death of his Cambridge friend, Edward King. After the self-preparation period at Hammersmith and Horton, Milton left England in 1638 for a European tour that took fourteen months. His travel to France, Italy and Switzerland was considered as the completion of his self-study, during which he met with scholars, authors and patrons of the arts, by whom he was greatly influenced (Shawcross 87-88). For example, in Paris he met Hugo Grotius, a famous Dutch

34

Chapter I

scholar, who wrote Adamus Exul in 1604, the tragedy of the Fall of Man, which is considered among the sources of Paradise Lost (Brown 59). Also in Naples, he met Manso, a friend of the poet Tasso, and in Florence he met Galileo. Having completed his European tour, Milton had to return to England in the summer of 1639 on account of the upcoming civil war in his country (Shawcross 90). As he reveals in A Second Defence of the English People: Although I desired also to cross to Sicily and Greece, the sad tidings of civil war from England summoned me back. For I thought it base that I should travel at my ease for the cultivation of my mind, while my fellowcitizens at home were fighting for liberty...I returned home after a year and three months, more or less, at almost the same time as Charles broke the peace and renewed the war with the Scots, which is known as the second Bishop’s war. (CPW, IVi, 619-20)

When Milton returned from his European tour in 1639, he was suddenly involved in the political and religious events of his time. He calls this period “upset and tumultuous times” since there was chaos and instability in England (CPW, IVi, 620). When the Civil Wars broke out, he began to take part in the political and religious controversies of the period. He wrote polemical pamphlets, dealing with the urgent matters of his time regarding ecclesiastical, personal or domestic and civil liberties, from 1641 to 1660. He calls these prose works the production of his “left hand” (CPW, I, 808). Milton’s “right hand” is his talent for poetry (Dobranski 9). Thomas Fallon has indicated that Milton’s mature polemical pamphlets serve [as] a chronicle of two turbulent decades of English history, the 1640s and 1650s. Milton entered into public print with tracts that ranged widely over issues of his day, publications that, for the purpose of discussion, can be roughly divided into two categories, the religious and the political. Milton's seventeenth-century contemporaries looked upon these two spheres of human concern as intimately intertwined: political actions were seen as profoundly influencing the fate of their immortal souls. The poet's prose works identify him as very much a man of his age since religion is always close to the surface of his political works and politics ever a factor in his vision of religion. (Fallon, “A Reading of His ‘left hand’: Milton's Prose” 7)

Therefore, in the period of civil wars Milton contributed actively, with his political pamphlets to the political circles during the English Revolution. Nicholas Von Maltzahn indicates that during these years Milton’s pen was his sword (31), through which he contributed to the Parliamentarian cause

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

35

and the English Revolution. In his earlier pamphlets, Milton particularly touched on the ecclesiastical liberties of the English people because he considered that the collapse of the Church of England would lead to both political and religious tensions which culminated in the early 1640s. Between 1641 and 1642, Milton wrote his first five pamphlets on church government and ecclesiastical matters succesively, “urging the cause of Presbyterianism against church government by bishops” (Leonard viii): These were Of Reformation in England and the Causes That Hitherto Have Hindered It (May 1641), Of Prelatical Episcopacy (June or July 1641), The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelaty (January or February 1641), Animadversions Upon the Remonstrant’s Defence Against Smectymnuus (July 1641), and An Apology for Smectymnuus (April 1642). Following his pamphlets on religious or ecclesiastical liberty, Milton worked on domestic and personal liberty, as he thought “without which civilized life is scarcely possible” (CPW, IVi, 624). It has been claimed that Milton’s intention of writing about domestic liberty resulted from his own problems in marriage (Loewenstein “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 92). In June 1642, Milton married Mary Powell; however, it was an unhappy marriage and a month later, she visited her family and did not return (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 156). Thus, in the following three years, between 1642 and 1645, on his experience of such an unhappy marriage, Milton published a series of pamphlets arguing for the legality and morality of divorce. Thus, leaving the ecclesiastical and political matters during this period, he turned to domestic matters and composed four pamphlets on divorce, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (August 1643), The Judgment of Martin Bucer (July 1644), Tetrachordon (March 1645), and Colasterion (March 1645) successively. In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Milton criticized and attacked the marriage law of England since it was based on medieval Catholicism, which only approves divorce on the condition of incompatibility or childlessness (Corns, John Milton: The Prose Works 41). Meanwhile, when writing his ideas on divorce and marriage, Milton was confronted with harsh criticism, the upcoming censorship and restriction by the members of Parliament. Hence, Milton responded to these criticisms and restrictions with his pamphlets defending the freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship. Areopagitica, with its full title, a speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England, was written in November 1644, in which Milton made one of the greatest defences of freedom of expression and advocated the abolition of licensing and censorship. As Corns claims, Areopagitica is a “tolerationist”

36

Chapter I

pamphlet as particularly it asks for the freedom of press (John Milton Prose Works 55). Another pamphlet that Milton wrote in this period was Of Education (1644), which reveals Milton’s ideas on the republican education of the citizens. Of Education expresses Milton’s belief that instead of the medieval educational system and medieval curriculum, there was need for a liberal education system influenced by Renaissance humanism, which he sees as fundamental for a democratic and free commonwealth. Between the years 1646 and 1649, Milton did not publish any prose writing perhaps because of the chaotic political atmosphere of his time. As Hill states, “1645 to 1649 were years of pregnant silence, in which we must assume that the poet was nursing his wounds, personal and political, and waiting” (Milton and the English Revolution 165). However, the political turbulence increased in 1648 leading to the trial and the execution of Charles in 1649, which was the most significant event in the development of the English Revolution because the trial and execution divided the English people into two: those who were in favour of the regicide and others who were opposed to the trial and execution. Especially the Presbyterians in the English Parliament, backed by the Royalists and the Levellers, demanded and supported negotiation with the king. However, demanding to bring Charles I to trial and to remove the objections and uncertainties about the position of the king, the army staged a military coup, known as “Pride’s Purge”, in December 1648 (Dzelzainis “Introduction” John Milton Political Writings x-xi). Finally, with the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649, all these uncertainties were removed. In all these crucial circumstances and events, with the purging of Parliament, the regicide, the abolition of kingship and the House of Lords, Milton supported the Rump Parliament and the government of Cromwell, which he saw as the guardian and endorser of the liberties of people against the tyrannies of monarchy. As Lowenstein points out, “Milton the polemicist positioned himself both boldly and carefully during this year as he used his pen to justify the revolutionary political events and the new regime” (“Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 94). Following the execution of the king, Milton urgently wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (February 1649), in which he “condemned shallow sympathy for a tyrant and upheld the principles of popular sovereignty and resistance with an array of authorities from the Bible and the classics down to Reformation divines” (Bush, The Early Seventeenth Century 392). The full title of the pamphlet reveals the synopsis of Milton’s ideas:

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

37

The Tenure of kings and Magistrates; proving, that it is lawful, and hath been so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or a wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose, and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected, or denied to do it. And that they who of late, so much blame deposing, are the men that did it themselves. (CPW, III, 189)

With its content, the title of the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates impressed the parliamentarians and the Council of State since they believed that Milton had a valuable rhetorical and controversial talent (Schiffhorst 32). The pamphlet proved a great success, and Milton was appointed as Secretary of State for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State in March 1649, in which post he remained for the next six years. According to Lewalski, Milton’s personality was akin to his position within the Commonwealth government since “it was the kind of public service his whole life had prepared him for” (The Life of John Milton 236). Indeed, Milton was eager to work as Secretary for Foreign Tongues because it was a position in which he could articulate his ideas on republicanism and the justification of the establishment of Free Commonwealth in England in the international context, freely and without any interruption. He provides his own account of the process of being appointed as Secretary for Foreign Tongues in A Second Defence of English People: The so called Council of State, which was then for the first time established by the authority of Parliament, summoned me, though I was expecting no such event, and desired to employ my services, especially in connection with foreign affairs. Not long afterwards there appeared a book attributed to the king, and plainly written with great malice against Parliament. Bidden to reply to this, I opposed to the Eikon the Eikonoklastes, not as I am falsely charged, “insulting the departed spirit of the king,” but thinking that Queen Truth should be preferred to King Charles [...] Then Salmasius appeared. So far were they from spending a long time seeking one who would reply to him, that all, of their own accord, at once named me, then present in the Council. (CPW, IV.i, 627-8)

As an officer, Milton was charged with licensing the weekly government news sheet, Mercurius Politicus, authorizing books, and examining papers of some suspected enemies of the state out of England (Hill, Milton and the English Revolution 184). In this position, Milton’s responsibility was to write on behalf of the Council of State, supporting the policies of the Cromwellian government both at home and abroad. Moreover, in Dzelzainis’s words, Milton was “responsible not only for handling much of the Commonwealth’s diplomatic correspondence but was also in effect

38

Chapter I

its chief propagandist” (“Introduction” John Milton Political Writings ix). However, as Christopher Hill states, “Milton’s role in the service of the republic [...] seems to have been selective. He was a committed defender of regicide and supporter of the Commonwealth” (Milton and the English Revolution 184). However, although Milton became the defender of the Commonwealth, he included his personal and individual ideas into his tracts in this period. When he was appointed as Secretary of Foreign Tongues, his first official task was to write against John Lilburn’s Old and New Chains, which attacked Cromwell and his army leadership. Raymond points out that Lilburn’s work “declares the Commonwealth tyrannical or of illegal creation and those who questioned the sovereign power of Parliament should be hanged, drawn and quartered” (118-19). Milton’s second polemical writing on behalf of the Council of State was his Observations Upon the Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels (May 1649), written as a response to “a treaty of January 1649 between the King’s Lord Lieutenant, James Butler, the Earl of Ormond, and the Confederate Catholics of Ireland, an agreement or “Articles of Peace” which posed a military threat to the new regime” (Loewenstein, “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 96). In the pamphlet, Milton condemned the Irish rebels as Papists, associating them with the royalist camp (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 241). In fact, Milton’s most challenging polemical writing as Secretary of Foreign Tongues was his Eikonoklastes (October 1649), composed to nullify the representation and image of Charles I as a martyred king as given in Eikon Basilike: the Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings, which was printed one week after the execution of the king commissioned by the royalists, and possibly written by John Gauden (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 247). Milton was later ordered by the Council of State to use his polemical talent in acknowledging the Republican government of England in the international arena. He successively wrote his Latin defences, Pro Populo Anglican Defensio (A Defence of the English People) in February 1651 and Defensio Secunda (The Second Defence of the English People) in May 1654. These two defences, written in Latin, aimed at giving a response to the European reactions and accusations against the Commonwealth, and were especially against the English royalists and advocates of monarchy exiled and living in Spain and France. Dzelzainis indicates that within weeks of the regicide, “royalist exiles sought to commission a work to voice their horror at the event, mobilize opinion against the new regime, and issue a call for the rightful successor to be installed on the throne” (“Introduction” John Milton Political Writings xix). The royalists outside England commissioned a famous French scholar, Salmasius (Claude de

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

39

Saumaise), to write a defence of the English monarchy to blame the new republican government in England. Salmasius wrote Defensio Regia Pro Carlo in 1649 (Defence of the Reign of Charles I) in Latin due to its planned international aim and appeal. In Defensio Regia Pro Carlo, Salmasius defended the rights of the kings against the liberties of the English Parliament, quoting from the Old and New Testaments. Salmasius, moreover, argued that monarchy was above the Parliament and that kings were independent of the control of Parliament (Bryson “Background for the Defense of the English People,"). Salmasius further argued that the English Parliament had not only executed a king but violated “laws which had been recognized from ancient times” (Brown 126). Thus, as a response to the demands and ideas of Salmasius, Milton was asked by the Council of State to write a reply defending the Commonwealth and republican Parliament. Accordingly, in A Defence of the English People, Milton, as an advocate of the commonwealth, discredited and refuted Salmasius’s ideas one by one “to demonstrate the commonwealth’s legitimacy” , and similar to the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, reiterates the reasons and justification of the regicide (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 81). With his defence “for the entire human race against the foes of liberty” (CPW, IV, 685), Milton initially aimed at performing an international duty as the voice of free England addressing the intellectuals of Europe (Hill, Milton and the English Revolution 182). During his service as Secretary for Foreign Tongues, Milton’s next piece of propaganda was his Defensio Secunda (the Second Defence of the English People), which appeared in May 1654, which, similar to Defensio, was written as an answer to royalist propaganda, this time Peter Du Moulin’s The Cry of the King’s Blood. It is in this pamphlet that Milton reflected the military successes of the republic and the constitutional changes made in 1653 (Corns, John Milton: The Prose Works 99). In fact two of the most significant political changes in England in 1653 were the dissolution of the Rump Parliament and Cromwell’s declaring himself Lord Protector, taking on powers similar to those of monarchs. To some respect, Ridden has claimed that Defensio Secunda is a defence of Cromwell’s position and justification of his standing as ‘Lord Protector’ (23). Defending the position of Cromwell, Milton asserts that although Cromwell has similar powers to the monarchs, in fact, he differs from them by not adopting tyranny. Hence, he claims that kings may be good men, but not that kingship is good at all because they are apt to become tyrants. Actually, Milton does not completely oppose kingship, as he reveals in The Tenure of Kings of Magistrates, but what he articulates is

40

Chapter I

his opposition to tyrannous kings. Similarly, in Defensio Secunda he states: Why is it that the attack which I, in a republic, am seen to make openly against kings, you, in a kingdom, and under the patronage of kings, do not dare to make against the republic...The right which I deny to kings, I would dare to deny to the end in any legitimate kingdom whatsoever. No monarch could injure me without first condemning himself by the confession that he was a tyrant. If I attack tyrants, what is this to kings, whom I am very far from classing as tyrants? As a good man differs from a bad, so much, I hold, does a king differ from a tyrant. Hence it happens that a tyrant not only is not a king but is always an especially dangerous threat to kings...He asserts, therefore, that tyrants must be abolished, not that kings should be abolished, but the worst enemies of kings, the most dangerous, in fact, of all their foes. (CPW, IVi, 561-2)

Hence, Milton points to the difference between a king and a tyrant and states that kings can be good for their people unless they become tyrants. He strongly opposes Charles I’s kingship because he turned out to be a tyrant. Furthermore, Milton warns Cromwell about the potential of becoming a tyrant. Moreover elsewhere in the pamphlet Milton, in a sense, advises Cromwell to improve church services and to restore prayers based on free conscience. On the other hand, Milton justifies Cromwell’s Protectorate as a rule sanctioned “by natural law of rule by the worthiest” (Lewalski, The life of John Milton 315). In this regard, as Milton has stated, there is nothing in human society more pleasing to God, or more agreeable to reason, nothing in the state more just, nothing more expedient, than the rule of the man most fit to rule. All know you to be that man, Cromwell. (CPW, IVi, 671-2)

Unlike the divine right of the kings, Milton sees Cromwell not as an eternal inheritor of the government, but “as the temporary guardian of the republic’s liberties” (Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 315). Subsequently, in the remaining period of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, Milton continued diplomatic correspondence, which comprised about ninety letters, some translations, and treaty documents (Fallon, Milton in Government 176). In the mean time, in his leisure time, he engaged in several projects to be completed later such as History of Britain, De Doctrina Christiana, and started composing his major epic poem, Paradise Lost (Zagorin Milton, Aristocrat and Rebel 123). In August 1655, Milton wrote his third Latin defence, Pro Se Defensio (The Defence

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

41

of Himself), which was his final debate against Salmasius and More. After his final defence as Secretary of Foreign Tongues, Milton did not participate in public polemic officially. Following Cromwell’s death in September 1658, England was drawn into a new political crisis and instability. Particularly, Richard Cromwell’s inheritance of the Protectorate brought most of the army and radical Independents against him (Woolrychy 43). For this reason, the Protectorate ended in a very short time. The Rump Parliament then took on the control of the country; however, it did not become as effective as it had been before. George Monck, the commander of the Army in Scotland, led his army into London in February 1660 and restored the Long Parliament. Then, when Monck decided to negotiate with Charles II to restore him to the throne, the Long Parliament dissolved itself in March 1660. A new Parliament, elected and convened in April 1660, was made up of the House of Lords and the House of Commons (Smyth 4-5). Finally, when Charles II was restored, the period of Commonwealth and republicanism ended and monarchy was restored. In these turbulent circumstances, however, despite the failure and the collapse of the republican period, which was termed “the Good Old Cause”, Milton continued voicing his radical religious and political ideas. Over and above, Milton’s discourse turned out to be more radical than it had been before (Loewenstein, “Milton’s Prose and Revolution” 101). This turbulent and unstable atmosphere was also felt in Milton himself, since he displayed a change of political allegiance and a shift in the nature of his political ideologies. In this manner, as Lewalski points out, Milton: [f]irst acquiesced in the protectorate of Richard Cromwell, then denounced protectorian government and eulogized the restored Rump parliament and the commonwealth, then defended an army government which deposed the Rump, then demanded the Rump’s return, then offered plans for perpetuating three different legislatures in power or about to come to power, and at one point proposed the establishment of a temporary monarchy or protectorate. (“Milton: Political Beliefs and Polemical Methods” 191)

Milton’s shifting political manoeuvres in this period have been problematic for scholars trying to find clear and coherent political ideas in his writings. For this reason, Milton’s political ideas in the periods of 1659 and 1660 contrast with the ones given in his earlier pamphlets. Lewalski further claims that during this period Milton reasserted two theories of government that contradict each other. Developed from his earlier tracts, Milton’s ‘theory of sovereignty’ brings about the right of every free people in choosing, altering and even deposing their government. On the other hand, Milton also offered ‘the aristocratic theory’ according to which the

42

Chapter I

worthy minority has the right to rule over the ‘unworthy minority’ (“Milton: Political Beliefs and Polemical Methods” 191). Having been disillusioned over the failures of religious innovations within the church government and services, as well as frightened by the dangers of the restoration of monarchy, Milton wrote pamphlets, urging the new convened Parliament to reconsider his concerns for religious liberty and the freedom of the individual conscience, as he did before being appointed as Secretary of Foreign Tongues. The pamphlets in which he pursued these arguments are A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes (February 1659) and Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove the Hirelings Out of the Church (August 1659). On the other hand, on the threshold of the restoration of monarchy, Milton published the first and second editions (in February and April 1660) of the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, in which he alerts readers to dangers of the coming Stuart restoration and demands the maintenance of the existing form of government, a kingless government (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 115). Thus, as a response to the unstable and gloomy political situation, Milton proposes a Commonwealth which is based on not a single person, i.e. an authoritative monarch or even a ‘semi-regal Protector’; but he rather proposes a Commonwealth that would be governed by a senate consisting of worthy minority (Loewenstein, “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 103). As Milton stated in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth: Military men hold it dangerous to change the form of battle in view of an enemy, neither did the people of Rome bandy with their senate while any of the Tarquins lived, the enemies of their liberty; nor sought by creating tribunes to defend themselves against the fear of their patricians till sixteen years after the expulsion of their kings, and in full security of their state, they had or thought they had just cause given them by the senate. Another way will be to well qualify and redefine elections: not committing all to the noise and shouting of a rude multitude, but permitting only those of them who are rightly qualified to nominate as many as they will, and out of that number others of a better breeding to choose a less number more judiciously, till after a third or fourth sifting and refining of exactest choice, they only be left chosen who are the due number, and seem by most voices of the worthiest. (891)

In his model of government Milton proposes a meritocratic model, inspired particularly by the ancient classical models of government, the Greek model of Areopagus, which had been ruled by a senate consisting of elders of the city, those holding high public office (Lowett 470). However,

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

43

Milton’s ideas were attacked by the royalists; some of his books were burned and even banned by the Parliament (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 121). When Charles II came to the English throne, those who had been involved in the execution of the former king were punished and imprisoned. Nevertheless, through the intervention of his friends and supporters, Milton was imprisoned only for a month, and in December 1660, he was officially pardoned (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 121). Shortly after that, Milton continued to live in London, and began to compose his poem, Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667. Following Paradise Lost, he wrote two prose works, Accidence Commenced Grammar (1669) and The History of Britain (1670). In 1671, he published his brief epic Paradise Regained, and a tragedy, Samson Agonistes. The second edition of Paradise Lost was published in 1674 (Leonard “Introduction” x). Milton published his final pamphlet, Of True Religion, issued in May 1673, in which he defended toleration for the Protestants (Corns, John Milton: the Prose Works 124). Considering the contents of his prose writings and the political ideology reflected in his pamphlets from 1642 to the 1660s, his prose writings can be classified under three distinct categories: those primarily defending religious liberty, those mostly concerned with domestic liberty and those dealing with political or civil liberties. This conforms with his own categorization of liberties, as explained in A Second Defence of the English People, “there were three species of liberty which are essential to the happiness of social life; religious, domestic, and civil” (CPW, Vi, 624). Thus, as reflected in his major prose writings, Milton was concerned mostly with the social and political issues of his time, including church government, education of the citizens, domestic matters such as divorce and marriage, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of press, British history, the Christian liberty, church-state relations, and civil government (Alvis ix). Milton’s political and reformed ideas of republicanism, popular sovereignty and the contract of government that emerged during the civil wars in England had not primarily originated with the theorists of the revolution. These political views had been dominant in the ancient world, in the writings of some Greek political philosophers and later in those of the Roman imperial lawyers (Zagorin, “The English Revolution” 49). During the 1640s, these views were amalgamated with ideas of “natural rights” and hence were “given a new content which transformed their character and made them into an instrument of revolutionary change” (Zagorin, “The English Revolution” 50). As a theorist of the English

44

Chapter I

Revolution, Milton was not original in his thoughts about republicanism and liberty of subjects, due to the fact that, it is said, he merely became the major spokesman of Aristotle’s Politics, Polybius’s Histories, Plutarch’s Lives, Cicero’s writings on justice and government, Livy’s history of Rome, Tacitus’s history of Rome, and Machiavelli’s the Prince and Discourses (Lowett 470). Milton, however, combined and reconstituted these ideas in the light of the political events of his time, and included his ideas on Christian liberty into the politics. Milton involved himself in the political events of his time by supporting Parliament’s actions against Charles I and Cromwell as well. He defended himself and the English people and then stove to prevent the restoration of monarchy at the end of the Cromwellian regime, much of his political writing was given in pamphlets written in haste and for immediate practical purposes. Therefore, as Berns claims, it is not surprising that Milton’s views on some matters, including the theory of kingship and “the character of common people”, changed as a result of the striking events of the civil war and its consequences (442). Thus, one can encounter a transformation in Milton’s ideas on monarchy when comparing his views given in his earlier pamphlets, as in the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes, to that of his late pamphlets, such as the Ready and Easy Way and De Doctrina Christiana, in which he became an ardent advocate of the principles of popular sovereignty and republicanism, refusing the institution of kingship and the rule of a single person. Milton had the vision that the improvement and liberation of the English society from the tyranny of the institutions should begin with the improvement of religious matters and the restoration of spiritual or Christian liberty in ecclesiastical matters (Sirluck 209). Liberty, which Milton defends in his political and religious pamphlets, constitutes the ethical condition that derives from true religion. In this manner, Milton’s suggestion of true religion necessitates that the church should be purified from all powers of government and authority, and that the subjects, with the help of a reformed education programme, should be free in their conscience (Sirluck 222-23). Milton’s ideas about church government and episcopacy were reflected in his pamphlets, written following the Bishop’s Wars of 1639 and 1640, beginning with Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England, published in May 1641. Milton’s central idea in his anti-prelatical writings is the corruption of the church government and the need for a reformation in episcopacy. As Zagorin reveals:

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

45

Episcopacy survived as a corrupt encumbrance from the past which must be discarded in order to complete the long deferred and scarcely begun reformation that had come to a halt in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. (Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 32)

Milton in fact proposed a kind of Christian renewal based on spiritual liberty and freedom of conscience. However in these anti-prelatical pamphlets, Milton does not overtly express his ideas about religion, but he suggests a form of reformation, which is a kind of the project for the elimination of the bishops from the church government. Wheeler points out that such a project of alteration in church government “goes beyond simple change to reshape and restructure not only the church but the way we think: what proofs we accept, how we read, what is essential and what indifferent to Christians and their communities” (266). Likewise, in Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England, as a response to deformation in the English church, urging reformation in the church system, Milton assures his readers that even God himself was on the side of those who opposed episcopacy: And it is still Episcopacy that before all worsen and slugs our the most learned and seeming religious of our Ministers, who no sooner are advanced to it, but like a seething pot set to cool, sensibly exhale and reek out the greatest part of that zeal, and those gifts which were formerly in them, settling in a skinny congealment of ease and sloth of nature, ‘tis a rare chance; nut their devotion most commonly comes to that queasy temper of luke-warmness, that gives a vomit to god himself. (CPW, I, 5367)

Therefore, for Milton episcopacy was a corruption of the practices of the early Church, and he reveals in the pamphlet the ways and reasons to return to the “primitive church” (Norbrook 112). Likewise, Norbrook has stated, “the modern clergy aspired to raise themselves above the people. The primitive church had been democratic, or at least aristocratic. Its officers were elected, as in parliamentary elections” (112). As Milton claims, by enabling the elective system in the church the “voyce of the people” would be heard (CPW, I, 544). Thus, Milton praises the apostles due to the fact that [l]ike those heroic patricians of Rome hasting to lay downe their dictatorship, they rejoys’t to call themselves and to be as fellow Elders among their brethren. Knowing that their high office was but as the scaffolding of the Church yet unbuilt, and would be but a troublesome disfigurement, so soone as the building was finish. (CPW, I, 791)

46

Chapter I

On the other hand, according to Milton, in the prayers and sermons people should return to the “civic virtue and purity of language” that apostles had formerly adopted and practiced (Norbrook 113). Hence, what Milton suggests is a return to and the restoration of the original form of Christian belief. Moreover, in his reformation programme, Milton reveals the defence of truth in religion through only following and reading the scripture. He also maintains that those who defended episcopacy were relying on tradition rather than Scripture. Throughout Of Reformation, Milton reveals the corruption and deformity of episcopacy, saying it even gives “a vomit to God himself” (CPW, I, 537). Milton, also, in his The Reason of Church Government Urg’d Against Prelaty, expresses his ideas on church government and episcopal power. As in Of Reformation, he continues attacking all forms of episcopal power and church hierarchy. Contending a Presbyterian church structure, Milton suggests in the pamphlet that the church should “reform her self rightly by the Scriptures, must undresse them of all their guilded vanities, and reduce them as they were at first, to the lowly and equall order of Presbyters” (CPW, I, 853). Thus, against the existence of episcopacy within the Church of England, he attempts to give a “rational justification of the Presbyterian church government” (Stavely 35). As in the previous anti-prelatical pamphlet, Milton asserts his anti-Laudian ideas existing within the church government. In this respect, while Archbishop Laud in his apologia in Star Chamber, 14 June 1637, had stated that “the external worship of God in this church might be kept in uniformity and decency, and is some beauty of holiness” (qtd. in Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution 148-9); Milton subverts and opposes Laud’s ideas through asking: Did God take such delight in measuring out the pillars, arches, and dooers of a materiall Temple, was he so punctuall and circumspect in lavers, altars, and sacrifices soone after to be abrogated, lest any of these should have beene made contrary to his minde? (CPW, I, 757)

Hence, Milton thinks that ceremonialism and sacramental worship bring about religious divisions in the nation to the extent that he claims “prelaty is a schism it selfe from the most reformed and most flourishing of our neighbour Churches abroad” (CPW, I, 791). Instead, in order to prevent a division among the people, Milton, adopting a Protestant view, advises “preaching the Gospell abundantly and powerfully throughout all the land”, instructing “the youth religiously”, and endeavouring “how the Scriptures may be easiest understood by all men” (CPW, I, 791). He champions, in Sabine’s term, “sola scripture”, believing that the Scripture alone will bring all the necessary instruction in faith for believers (510).

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

47

Likewise, Milton asserts the idea that each person has the right to interpret the Bible himself since the truth does not reside in the personal interpretations of the clergy, episcopes and the church but exists in every man (Sabine 510). Thus, Milton stresses the importance of the total freedom of conscience and the individualism of religion, which was the dominant ideology in the seventeenth century. Milton furthermore equates Episcopal Church government with the monarchical ruling and power. He believes that the existence of the corrupted clergy and bishops within the Church would serve the interests of the tyranny of the monarchy. Thus, he resembles the tyranny of the monarchy to the tyrannies of episcopacy, which for Norbrook is the “interdependence of religious and civil corruptions” (114). In this manner, Milton considers tyranny as “an ambiguous monster, and to be slaine in two shapes”, that is, civil tyranny and religious tyranny (CPW, I, 924). To prevent tyranny in church government, Milton offers the separation of the church and the monarchy, which suggests that Milton was a secularist politician. As Sabine indicates, for Milton [t]he two institutions are distinct in nature and purpose and therefore ought to be severed. Nothing but corruption follows if the clergy look to government for their support and not to the voluntary contributions of those who profit by their teaching. Church and state therefore two distinct societies, with no community of membership or purpose. (510)

Therefore, Milton’s primary reaction to the corruption of church matters is the separation of religion and state politics. Hence, he believes in the idea that while the church is concerned with the spiritual matters of individuals, the state is concerned with the material and external issues including politics and economy. As Morison points out, for Milton religious liberty is “the source of every kind of liberty...there is no freedom that should be more jealously guarded than religious freedom” (67). Consequently, Milton in his anti-prelatical pamphlets defends religious liberty, which he sees as the most prime key to domestic and civil liberties. While Milton’s assertion of religious liberties refers to the reformation in the English church, as a political reformer his views on political and civil liberty further point to the reformation in government. Therefore, as a political reformer Milton in general defends the sovereignty of the people and republicanism against monarchical rule. Milton in his pamphlets, beginning with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates in 1649 and ending with the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth in 1660, has inconsistencies in his political doctrines. In his earlier pamphlets

48

Chapter I

although Milton objects to monarchy and kingship, as we have seen he does not in fact totally oppose all sorts of monarchical rules; what he opposes is tyranny. In this respect, Milton tries to secure the liberty of subjects and freedom from any political subjection. Hence, his complete opposition to the monarchy in England stems from Charles I’s and formerly James I’s arbitrary rule and their absolutist ideas and practices. Actually, what Milton seeks is the sovereignty of people over monarchies. However, it can be observed that towards the end of his political career as a polemicist, as revealed in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, Milton eventually rejects any sort of single rule or authority, including monarchy and even the Protectorate, since they proved their tendencies towards tyranny and dictatorship as in the cases of Charles I and Cromwell. Correspondingly, when the Cromwellian rule was over and on the eve of the restoration, Milton totally rejected kingship and monarchy because although he had initially seen the single rule of Cromwell as a proper political manoeuvre, when Cromwell adopted dictatorship as the Protector. Milton was disillusioned with the Cromwellian rule and realized that the best sort of government was the republican one. Therefore, in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, he proposes a sort of Commonwealth which is based on “not a single person (i.e. an authoritarian monarch or even a quasi-regal Protector) but a perpetual senate of meritorious men inspired by such ancient classical and Jewish models as the Areopagus and Sanhedrin” (Loewenstein, “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” 103). That is, Milton advocates an aristocratic theory, which is the rule of a council comprised of the elite people, calling them a “worthy minority” (Lewalski, “Milton: Political Beliefs and Polemical Methods” 191). Thus, it can be claimed that Milton does not put forward a coherent political theory as given in his pamphlets but what he does is to write in accordance with the conditions and give answers to the polemics of his time. However, consistency and coherency in his thoughts can be observed in his views about religious and civil liberties, which are the starting points for Milton. Revealing his ideas on monarchical rule through defending the sovereignty of people against monarchy Milton reiterates the reason for composing his earlier pamphlet in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. As the title demonstrates, Milton in that work strives for proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held for through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and after due conviction, to depose, and put him to death; if the ordinary Magistrate have neglected, or deny’d to doe it. (CPW III, 189)

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

49

In this respect, Milton claims the validity of legal procedure in deposing the rulers who show tyrannical tendencies in their governance. This also demonstrates that Milton’s opposition to monarchy stems from the idea that any monarch can easily be transformed and degenerated to tyranny. In like manner, Milton perpetually renders this view in Paradise Lost, as in the allusions to Satan, who, due to his personal desires and selfish character, turned out to be a tyrant. In fact Milton here refers indirectly to the tyranny of the Stuart monarchs, especially Charles I, who during most of his reign, particularly in his closing of the Parliaments for eleven years, turned out to be a tyrant. Accordingly, for Milton any earthly monarchy can easily turn into any form of tyranny, however, as he indicates in Paradise Lost, the divine monarchy is the best form of monarchy because the kingdom of God would bring happiness for all humans. In this respect, as he points out in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, [c]ertainly that people must needs be mad or strangely infatuated that build the chief hope of their common happiness or safety on a single person; who, if he happen to be good, can do no more than another man; if to be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil without check than millions of other men. The happiness of a nation must needs be firmest and certainest in a full and free council of their electing, where no single person, but reason only, sways. And what madness is it for them who might manage nobly their own affairs themselves, sluggishly and weakly to devolve all on a single person; and, more like boys under the age than men, to commit all to his patronage and disposal who neither can perform what he undertakes, and yet for undertaking it, though royally paid, will not be their servant, but their lord. (886)

Accordingly, Milton stresses the danger and the disadvantages of single rule when compared to a republican government. While an autocracy leads to arbitrary government and tyranny, it becomes as Milton describes, a kind of “patronage” system, in which people become slaves. In contrast, a republican government is a free and democratic formation, constituted by an elected council, which regards itself as the slave of people. By the same token, Milton’s negativity towards monarchy is on account of the conception that as a form of government monarchy is not appropriate for free people. As he writes, [i]f men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny, of custom from without, and blind affections within; they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public state conformably

50

Chapter I governed to the inward vicious rule, by which they govern themselves. For indeed none can love freedom heartily, but good men: the rest love not freedom, but license: which never hath more scope, or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence is it, that tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters; against them lies all their hatred and suspicion. Consequently neither do bad men hate tyrants, but have been always readiest, with the falsified names of Loyalty and Obedience, to colour over their base compliances. (CPW, III, 195)

It is clear from the quotation above that for Milton a tyrant is someone who regards himself above the law or “the law of nature and right reason”. He also points out that any ruler should obey the law because “be he King, or Tyrant, or Emperour, the Sword of Justice is above him” (CPW III, 197). Thus, as Milton asserts, a king can be deposed or punished if he turns out to be a tyrant. Milton’s major political ideology is based on the liberty of people both in secular and religious spheres. He, therefore, in almost all of his political works, inserts the ideology of a free commonwealth in which political authority is derived ultimately from people, and magistrates can be held to account by their subjects in accordance to the laws of nature of natural justice (Dzelzainis, “Introduction” xvii). Moreover, Milton employs his view referring to a theory of the state of nature, according to which natural law is the most legitimate political authority which requires that every human being is free, and no person has the right to rule over the others: No man, who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny, that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and Were, by privilege above all the creatures, born to command, and not to obey: and that they lived so, till from the root of Adam's transgression, falling among themselves to do wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury, and jointly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement. Hence came cities, towns, and commonwealths. And because no faith in all was found sufficiently binding, they saw it needful to ordain some authority, that might restrain by force and punishment what was violated against peace and common right. This authority and power of self-defence and preservation being originally and naturally in every one of them, and unitedly in them all; for ease, for order, and lest each man should be his own partial judge, they communicated and derived either to one, whom for the eminence of his wisdom and integrity they chose above the rest, or to more than one, whom they thought of equal deserving: the first was called a king; the other, magistrates: not to be their lords and

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

51

masters, (though afterward those names in some places were given voluntarily to such as had been authors of inestimable good to the people,) but to be their deputies and commissioners, to execute, by virtue of their entrusted power, that justice, which else every man by the bond of nature and of covenant must have executed for himself, and for one another. (CPW, III, 198-199)

Milton in this regard discusses why people should not give their power to a single authority. As he states, “why among free persons one man by civil right should bear authority and jurisdiction over another; no other end or reason can be imaginable” (CPW, III, 199). According to Dzelzainis, Milton’s idea of people’s resistance to a ruler, in fact, leads to a theory of revolution, which brings about the deposition of the king and changing of the government (“Introduction” xviii). Another important fact to be stressed here is that Milton gives importance to the liberation of people, disregarding the function of Parliament because, as revealed in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, he maintains the idea that the power and political authority rests with the people, not with their representatives or with inferior magistrates (CPW, III, 198). On the other hand, Milton stresses the necessity of a contract in the form of mutual trust and a covenant between the rulers and people. Consequently, as in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Milton argues that all governments should be based on the theory of contract (CPW, III, 199). Accordingly, he explains that after the fall of Adam people were involved in a state of chaos as a result of violence and conflict, requiring mutual protection, which forced them into constituting a common league in the forms of towns, cities and commonwealths. When people failed to preserve such common league, they needed to give authority and power over to a single person in order to prevent the chaotic atmosphere and violence through the restraints of force and punishments (CPW, III, 198). Likewise, this authority and power was given to kings and magistrates (Sensabaugh, “Milton in the Revolution Settlement” 194). In this respect, as Milton explains, it is people that give authority and power to the kings. He points out that people have the right to depose or overthrow their kings and magistrates as kings hold their authority by the consent of people: It being thus manifest that the power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferr’d and committed to them in trust from the People, to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be tak’n from them, without a violation of thir natural birth-right, and seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of Political writers have defin’d a King, him who governs to the good and profit of his People, and not for his own ends, it follows from necessary

52

Chapter I causes, that the Titles of Sov’ran Lord, natural Lord, and the like, are either arrogancies, or flatteries. (CPW: III, 202)

As Corns argues, for Milton governments are established “to serve the political nation, not the other way around, and ‘the people’ retain inalienable rights” (John Milton: the Prose Works 69). A monarchical system can only be acceptable through achievement of the profit and welfare of people, not through the people being slaves to the monarchs. That is why Milton insists on the contractual system in government. Moreover, the king, as in the example of Charles I, is not the “lord” of the people, but he is the “citizens’ employee”, responsible merely for serving his subjects and protecting their properties and rights (Corns, John Milton: The Prose Works 69). In addition, Milton’s objection to monarchy stems from the derived and hereditary rights of the rulers. As he states, “to say...the King hath as good right to his Crown and dignitie, as any man to his inheritance, is to make the Subject no better than the King’s slave, his chattel, or his possession that may be bought and sould” (CPW, III, 203). Milton, in this regard, states that since kings derive their authority from people, they are not accountable to God but only to the people since they are originally appointed by the in consent: To say kings are accountable to none but God, is the overturning of all Law and government. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covn’nants, all Oathes are in vaine, and meer mockeries, all Lawes which they sweare to keep, made to no purpose; for if the King feare not God, as how many of them doe not? We hold then our lives and estates, by the tenure of his meer grace and mercy, as from a God, not a mortal Magistrate, a position that none but Court Parasites or men besotted would maintain...that since the King or Magistrate holds his authoritie of the people, both originally and naturally for their good in the first place, and not his own, then may the people as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him reject him, retaine him or depose him though no Tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of free born Men, to be govern’d as seems to them best. (CPW: III, 206)

Hence, according to Milton’s contractual argument, unlike the hereditary and derivative system of monarchy, people have the right to change their rulers, who “may be subject to dismissal and accountability” (Corns, John Milton: The Prose Works 70) even if they are not tyrants according to the theory of the natural law and “by the liberty and right of free born Men” (CPW, III, 206). Milton’s argument indicates the validity of the theory of contract, which refutes the theory of the divine rights of the kings.

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

53

Defending the rights and liberties of people, Milton also attacks and criticizes the attitudes and the respectful positions of Presbyterians towards Charles I before and during his trial. According to Alvis, “against the Presbyterians-turned-Royalist Milton argues chiefly the pusillanimity of their having become thus belatedly squeamish after years of armed conflict during which they tried their best to kill Charles in combat” (xii). Milton states that Presbyterians betrayed the English people, with their attempts to save the king and re-establish the monarchical rule, casting aside republicanism. In addition, he asserts that the Presbyterians acted hypocritically when supporting and taking the side of the Royalists (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel, 67-68). In this respect, Milton claims: Have they not levied all these Wars against him...and giv’n Commission to slay where they knew his person could not be exempt from danger? And if chance or flight had not sav’d him, how oft’n had they killd him, directing thir Artillery without blame or prohibition to the very place where they saw him stand? ...Have they not beseig’d him, & to thir power forbid him Water and Fire, save what they shot against him to hazard of his life? (CPW, III, 230-31)

Furthermore, Bryson suggests that the Presbyterians, supporting the King against the Parliament following the Civil War, denied their own heritage in a way that they discarded the theory of resistance which “they themselves espoused at the start of the Civil Wars and much which was developed in their own sixteenth century history by figures such as John Knox and George Buchanan” (“Background for the Defense of the English People”). The Presbyterian claim was that since the existing Parliament was purged by the Army in the case of Pride’s staging a coup in Parliament in 1648, the Parliament was regarded as illegitimate (Underdown 163). However, Milton’s reply to the Presbyterian’s defence of Charles I constitutes the basic premise of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which Milton defends the regicide of a particular king, Charles I, not the monarchy in general. Therefore, Milton, in the earlier phase of his political thought was not totally against kingship but what he wrote about is the representation of a particular kingship, as in the example of Charles I, who was totally a tyrant for him. Alvis claims Milton began by accepting a monarchy prescribed, by British tradition, then transferred his allegiance to the parliamentary revolution while maintaining that his opposition to Charles I was a matter of resisting not monarchy but tyranny. (x)

54

Chapter I

Hence, it can be claimed that Milton conditionally accepts monarchy in a way that unless it turns out to be tyranny, and if a monarch preserves the liberties of the subjects, monarchy can be an acceptable form of government. Consequently, the conditional acceptance of monarchy leads Milton to the idea of the mixed government, in which a king exists but with limited rights (Fink, “The Theory of Mixed State and the Development of Milton’s Political Thought” 705). Milton reveals in his early anti-prelatical pamphlet, Of Reformation: There is no civil government that has been known, no not the Spartan, not the Roman, though both for this respect so much praised by the wise Polybius, more divinely and harmoniously tuned, more equally balanced as it were by the hand and scale of justice, than is the commonwealth of England: where, under a free and untutored monarch, the noblest, worthiest, and most prudent men, with full approbation, and suffrage of the people have their power the supreme, and final determination of highest affairs. (CPW, I, 599)

Milton, thus, stresses that such a commonwealth should be made up of a mixed constitution and government rather than merely practicing monarchy, aristocracy or even democracy. However, as stated above, Milton requires a “more divinely and harmoniously tuned” and “equally balanced” constitution that respects the liberties of the people. Moreover, within the theory of mixed government, Parliament plays the most important part since all of the powers and authority, according to Milton, should be delegated to Parliament rather than to a monarch. As in A Defence of the People of England, Milton reveals the significance of Parliament: It has always been the practice for the Parliament, which is our Senate, to appoint a few of its members when it seemed necessary, to whom was granted the right to meet in any suitable place and conduct as it were a smaller Senate. Often the most serious business was assigned and entrusted to them for speedier and less public settlement. The supervision and oversight of the fleet, army, treasury, and indeed any task of peace or war. This, whether called a council or something else, may be new in name but is in fact of long standing; and without it no state at all can be well governed. (CPW, IVi, 317)

Therefore, in his model of mixed government, there is a senate acting as the “Council of State”, as in the Commonwealth during the Cromwellian regime, and this council is made up of wise and able men who are responsible to Parliament (Fink, “The Theory of Mixed State and the Development of Milton’s Political Thought” 720). Furthermore, Milton’s

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

55

depiction of a mixed government can be considered as a transition from a monarchical government to a Parliamentary government. In this respect Berns has claimed: although he [Milton] was to become an avowed enemy of monarchy, early adopting views wholly republican and therefore, in this respect, more in the spirit of his classical models than of English tradition, his attachment to the idea of the mixed constitution remained fixed throughout his political career. (441)

Respectively, Milton in his model of government is strictly attached to the principle of popular sovereignty, which acknowledges him as a republican. Therefore, what Milton sets out in his pamphlets from the beginning to the end is the theory of popular sovereignty. In Paradise Lost, he correspondingly has Adam exclaim: He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free. (XII. 67-71)

Thus, as Milton claims in his political pamphlets, by the law of nature, every human being is created free, and no single man has the right to rule over the others. Furthermore, for Milton the law of nature stresses the natural equality of man. Accordingly, in most of his political pamphlets, as well as in the poetical works, Milton voices his republican ideas, defending the authority and sovereignty of the people against kingship and absolute rule of magistrates. However, asserting his views on republicanism, Milton is considered as self-contradictory and inconsistent in his thoughts in a way that while in his earlier pamphlets he conditionally accepts kingship, in his later political pamphlets he insists on the abolition of kingship and establishment of a free commonwealth based on the liberty of people. Accordingly, Worden puts forward that Milton does not have a systematic republican theory, “a self-contained or self-sufficient programme” (“Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 227). The Republicanism that Milton adopted was a rising political ideology in Europe in the seventeenth century, taking its sources from classical models. Besides the political writings and practices of the ancient political philosophers, namely Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and Tacitus, the influence of Machiavelli was greatly felt in the Renaissance, shaping the modern republican theories of his [Milton’s] century (Norbrook 13). In England, as Worden states, Machiavelli’s ideas were adapted and developed in

56

Chapter I

accordance with the political events and circumstances of the time (“Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 225). The rise, popularity and development of the republican ideas in England were the result of the absolutist policies of James I and Charles I since people began to consider the values of the ancient constitution, Magna Carta, which restricted the rights of the monarchs (Barker 134-35). James Harrington, Marchamont Nedham, Algernon Sidney and Henry Nevile were among the eminent Republicans of the seventeenth century England who were regarded as the parts of the first stage of English republicanism, (Worden, “Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 226). Milton, as well, was considered a republican writer, especially for his radical views presented in his political pamphlets published after the deposition and regicide of Charles I, and the foundation of the Commonwealth (Dzelzainis “Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 8). However, Milton was not closely connected to the other Republican writers, and to some extent he detached himself from them because he was almost alone among the republicans again in his willingness to support and serve the semi-monarchical protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, a regime bitterly condemned by most of the others as a usurpation” (Worden, “Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven. (228)

One point that separates Milton from the other Republican writers of his time is that Milton did not totally oppose kingship as mentioned before. He even, as stated above, criticized the political attitudes and politics of Oliver Cromwell when he was the Protector. Instead, Milton supported a ‘regulated monarchy’ (CPW, III, 453). Milton’s support of the Cromwellian regime, although it displayed dictatorship in some matters, was due to his appointment as the Secretary of Foreign Tongues in 1649 (Zagorin, Milton Aristocrat and Rebel: The Poet and His Politics 3) . However, following the failure of the protectorate, Milton totally rejected kingship and single rule; instead he asserted his views on more republican discourses. In his republican ideas, Milton followed Aristotle’s views particularly on kingship, tyranny, and liberty. He adopted the Aristotelian ideal of kingship. In this, according to Aristotle an ideal king should have justice and reason (Worden, “Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 229). Most of the Milton scholars, including Martin Dzelzainis, Zera S. Fink, and Blair Worden, describe his republicanism as not liberal republicanism but as “classical republicanism”. In his classical republican theory Milton was also attached to the theory of a mixed state. Here, Fink claims that Milton was greatly influenced by the ideas of Polybius, the Greek historian, who asserted the theory of a mixed state, the mixture of

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

57

monarchy, aristocracy and democracy (The Classical Republicans 3). Finks further states that Milton revealed this theory, through citing from Polybius, in his early pamphlet, Of Reformation (The Classical Republicans 95). On the other hand, as Dzelzainis puts forth, “no matter how the political landscape altered during the Civil War and Interregnum, Milton always sought to discern in it the contours of the mixed state” (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 7). However, Dzelzainis has shown that Fink’s assertion of Milton’s classical republicanism as mixed state is not proper when analyzing his political pamphlets. Dzelzainis states, on the other hand that (t)o insist on the theoretical primacy at all times of the mixed state in Milton’s thinking is also to obscure the nature of his engagement with the failings of monarchy and the merits of a republican […] the arguments which Milton advanced on behalf of a republic and against monarchy, especially in 1649, are almost impossible to reconcile with the notion of a mixed constitution. (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 8)

Correspondingly, Dzelzainis acknowledges that Milton did not at all commit himself to the principle of mixed state. Yet he must have been influenced by the ideas of Aristotle, Sallust and Cicero, who are also the main authorities from whom Milton derived his republican ideas (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 9). It can be claimed that prior to the restoration of Charles II, and exclusively in his earlier pamphlets, Milton showed some sympathy for the idea of a mixed state, in which a king can hold its place as long as he refrains from the manners of absolutism. As he puts it in the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, the “power of Kings and Magistrates” is “only derivative, transferr’d and committed to them trust from the People, to the Common Good of them all, in whom power yet remains fundamentally” (CPW, III, 202). Instead, as Milton defends, removed from the people’s becoming “Lords and Maisters” because of their election, monarchs merely turn out to be the people’s “Deputies and Commissioners” conducting the matters of common interest on their behalf (CPW, III, 199). This idea is articulated several times in both the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes; however, it took its most remarkable and serious expression in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, in which Milton depicts those who govern in a free commonwealth as “perpetual servants and drudges to the public at their own cost and charges” (885). Milton goes further, in A Defence of the People of England saying that the magistrates are not merely the servants of the people but they are even their slaves, quoting from Cicero’s Pro Flacco and Pro Plancio, “the condition of freedom for

58

Chapter I

a people, and particularly for this ruling people which dominated the world, is the ability to give or to take away from anyone by its votes whenever it desires. We must accept the wishes of the people with good nature” (CPW, IVi, 388). Likewise Milton asks: “Shall I shrink from calling a king the servant of the people, when that roman senate which ruled so many kings professed itself the people’s servant?” (CPW, IVi, 388). In other respects, Milton assumes that the rulers hold their authority merely for their offices not as their personal possession. They are solely, as he states in Eikonoklastes, “the officers of the public” from whom people choose “to govern them as Freemen by Laws of this own framing” (CPW, III, 485). In this case, the rulers are: the entrusted Servants of the Commonwealth...to esteem themselves Maisters, both that great trust which they serve, and of the People that betrusted them: counting what they ought to doe both in discharge of thir public duty, and for the great reward of honour and revenue which they receave, as don all of meer grace and favour; as if thir power over us were by nature, and from themselves, or that God had sould us into thir hands. (CPW, III, 486)

Accordingly, Milton offers suggestions to the magistrates that they should “forget their own interests and concentrate solely on the good of the citizens” and “care for the whole of the res publica rather than any part of it” (Dzelzainis “Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 19). On this account, having adopted the Platonic idea, the rulers should be the guardians of the republic. Milton similarly embraces Cicero’s ideas as given in his On Duties that “the management of the republic is like a guardianship, and must be conducted in the light of what is beneficial not to the guardians, but to those who are put in their charge” (qtd. in Dzelzainis “Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 19). Milton did not fully expose his own republican ideology in his earlier pamphlets such as Eikonoklastes and the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, because Milton’s claims as given above are merely illustrations of the Neo-Scholastic theory of resistance. However, there are some differences between republicanism and the Neo-Scholastic theory of resistance. Quentin Skinner has explained that the Neo-Scholastics “are not generally republican in the strict sense of believing that the common good of a community can never be satisfactorily assured under a monarchical form of government” (114). Since Milton, in his earlier phase, did not reject completely the institution of monarchy, he would fit into this category rather than that of republicans. What he defended was the regicide of Charles I, not opposition to any institution of monarchy, as given in the

Milton’s Political Thought in His Pamphlets

59

Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. However, in Eikonoklastes, Milton reveals the conditions of kingship, giving all the rights to a parliament, and justification of removing it: For what can he give to a Parliament, who receaves all the hath from the People, and for the Peoples good. Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to contest and be preferr’d before the Peoples good; and yet unless it be in order to their good, he hath no rights at all, raigning by the Laws of the Land, not by his own; which Laws are in the hands of Parliament to change or abrogate, as they shall see best for the Common-wealth; ee’vn to the taking away of Kingship it self, when it grows too Maisterfull and Burd’nsome. (CPW, III, 458)

As this quotation reveals, Milton provisionally approves of monarchy since in his earlier commonwealth conception there is a limited monarchy and it is Parliament that holds all of the authority on behalf of the People, coming into existence with virtuous members. Furthermore, in his earlier pamphlets, he expressed repeatedly that “his target was not kings but tyrants” (Worden, “Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 228). As Milton states, “if therefore he obtrude upon us any public mischief, or withhold from us any general good, which is wrong in the highest degree, he must doe it as a Tyrant, not as a King of England, by the known Maxims of our Law” (CPW, III, 458). Blair Worden has further emphasized that Milton is uncertain about the institution of monarchy and “only after the protectorate had fallen did Milton voice, briefly, an unambiguous hostility to kingship” (“Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 228). Similarly, Dzelzainis has argued that “Milton displayed a high degree of indifference with regard to constitutional forms” (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 19). Correspondingly, Thomas Corns attests Milton’s earlier stance as “a regicide rather than as a republican”, defending the accountability of monarchs rather than constituting his theory of republic (“Milton and the Characteristics of a Free Commonwealth” 26). Likewise, as in Eikonoklastes, Milton construes the responsibility of a particular king, Charles I, not of kings in general. Therefore, having not a fixed form of government, Milton, to some respect, abides by the theory of mixed government. Milton’s complicated political theory, which was developed in 1649, with the publication of his the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he defended the validity and justification of the regicide, was transformed into a more radical extension with his strict adherence to the abolition of kingship as stated in his A Defence of the People of England, the Second Defence of the People of England, and finally in his Ready and Easy Way

60

Chapter I

to Establish a Free Commonwealth. Dzelzainis explains Milton’s inconsistency on the subject of monarchy as his “lack of interest in precise constitutional forms” (“Milton’s Classical Republicanism” 20). On the eve of the downfall of the Commonwealth and of the restoration of monarchy, Milton mostly integrated himself to the reconstruction of a new free Commonwealth, warning the English people against the dangers of the coming monarchy. The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth was Milton’s penultimate political pamphlet. In it he presented the characteristics of a free Commonwealth, showing himself to have become an ardent and radical defender of republicanism by completely rejecting any government based on a single person.

CHAPTER II A POLITICAL READING OF PARADISE LOST

So far, Milton has been examined in terms of his political activities and ideas as revealed in his pamphlets from 1640 to 1660. As an ardent republican and defender of religious and civil liberties of the people, he devoted all his energy and all his writing to the revolutionary cause, the deposition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Commonwealth during this period. His interest in poetry was overshadowed by his involvement in politics. However, the failure of the revolution and the restoration of the monarchy necessarily restricted Milton in the writing of republican pamphlets because as an active republican and regicide his life was in very real danger. Thus, instead of writing public pamphlets, from 1660 to his death in 1674 he returned to poetry, using literature as a medium to express his political ideas. Hence, he revealed his political experiences and ideas in his major poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Especially, it was in Paradise Lost that Milton reflected his political vision. Accordingly, in this chapter Milton’s Paradise Lost will be re-read politically and analyzed in the light of his political views and the historical events of his time, through examining the affinities between the characters and events given in the poem, and the ideas expressed in Milton’s political pamphlets. Milton’s Paradise Lost can be considered to be an allegorical representation of his political ideas. Considering the use of allegory in literary texts in general, it has been suggested that allegory is used as an extended metaphor, in which persons, objects, and actions in a story are equated with the meanings that lie outside the story itself (Abrams 5). Hence, in allegories, the underlying meaning has moral, political, social, and religious connotations, and in allegorical texts, to some extent, characters stand for the personifications of abstract ideas such as charity, greed, pride, or envy (ibid). Therefore, an allegory most of the time is a story having double meanings: a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning (ibid). When classifying Paradise Lost as a political allegory, different from the traditional form of allegory, it can be stated that in Paradise Lost Milton

62

Chapter II

gives a political subtext to the story of the fall of Lucifer and the fallen angels, and the fall of Adam and Eve. However, unlike other allegorical texts, in Paradise Lost the characters are not the personifications of abstract ideas but they are the representation of the political and historical figures of Milton’s own time. Meanwhile, some of the time and in some of their aspects, the story of the poem can be considered as a loose allegory of the republican experience of the English people in the seventeenth century. In this regard, in this study, the word allegory will be used to express the representation of characters as political figures of Milton’s own time, For example, it can be claimed that in the poem, God represents absolutist and autocratic politicians, depicting the political natures of the early Stuart monarchs. Satan, on the other hand, represents both the royalist and republican figures, Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. Hence as reflected in the poem, neither God nor Satan is an allegorical figure but they are the allegorical representations of political figures in the seventeenth century. Reading the whole poem as a political allegory, it can also be stated that Milton offers a political subtext within a Biblical story. Armand Himy claims that as a literary work Paradise Lost has its own proper code and language which is multiple including “literary, theological, political, and even to some extent historical” (118). The poem echoes theological and political, as well as historical events. Stevie Davies has claimed that “the political study of the figures and themes of Paradise Lost, and a desire to equate them with the events of English political history in which Milton took such a powerful part, both before and during the writing of epic, is a very old preoccupation among readers of the poem” (3). William Walker points out that Paradise Lost is a poem expressing Milton’s republican voice, in which he made use of the sociopolitical vocabularies of his time (183). Gabriel Roberts also claims that the poem can be situated in a political context, and in its lines one can examine “the stylistic and argumentative similarities between sections of Paradise Lost and Milton’s more explicitly political writings” (1). Milton’s inclusion of a political discourse in Paradise Lost clearly shows him as a politically active poet. In this respect, Fallon states that, for Milton, politics remained as “an inescapable feature of the human condition”, and hence he adopted politics “in both his life and his art” (Divided Empire xi). Fallon further points out that Milton in Paradise Lost represents Heaven and Hell “as political states” and the conflict between God and Satan is described as “a contest for hegemony in a political cosmos” (Divided Empire xi). In this respect, the conflict between God and Satan can be regarded as the struggle and political rivalry between the

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

63

Parliamentarians and the Royalists during the Civil War in England. Blair Worden takes a similar approach to Paradise Lost from a political perspective, considering Milton as a republican politician, who dealt with republican themes and ideas in the poem (“Milton’s Republicanism” 22627). Worden, however, has pointed out that Milton’s main intention in writing the poem is religious since Paradise Lost “justifies the ways of God to men by emphasising the dependence of men’s salvation upon the free exercise of their reason and choice”, which is an Arminian view written as a reaction against Calvinist orthodoxy (230). Worden accordingly claims that as a republican figure, Milton belonged to the view that “politics was a supremely religious activity”, which was widespread among the republicans of the seventeenth-century (231). Hence, Worden studies the poem as a manifestation of civil and religious liberty (230). Nigel Smith, likewise, points out that Paradise Lost cannot be read as “unrelated to the events of its own time” (“Paradise Lost from Civil War to Restoration” 251). He also claims that in the poem Milton voices his republican and puritan ideology (“Paradise Lost from Civil War to Restoration” 253). For him, the poem articulates the Civil War, drawing analogies between the war scenes of the poem and the historical events and figures during the Civil War (257). Knoppers has analyzed Paradise Lost as a critique and satire of the ceremony and spectacle which greeted the restoration of Charles II (3-4). David Loewenstein in his Representing Revolution in Milton and His Contemporaries gives a political analysis of the poem, depicting the relation between the politics of Satan’s revolt in Paradise Lost and Milton’s religious politics during the Revolution (203). However, Loewenstein, unlike Christopher Hill, who analyzed the poem as a historical allegory by aligning the historical figures and events with the literal figures and events in the poem, asserts that Paradise Lost does not ask its readers to make literal equations between its mythic characters and major historical figures from the Revolutionary years. Rather, it constantly challenges its engaged readers by showing them how to discern the treacherous ambiguities and contradictions of political rhetoric and behaviour, including their more revolutionary manifestations (203).

Thus, Loewenstein regards Paradise Lost as a polemical poem related to restoration politics, in which Milton criticizes the Antichristian agents who threatened “the Revolution and godly reformation” (204). For Zagorin, Paradise Lost can be analyzed in terms of the politics of Milton’s times, in which one can detect “the beliefs and values that sustained him [Milton] following the disastrous collapse of the Good Old Cause” (Milton

64

Chapter II

Aristocrat and Rebel 123). Zagorin, however, has claimed that Paradise Lost is not centrally about politics but it is about moral histories including “significant political references, reflections, and implications” (Milton Aristocrat and Rebel 124). Contextualizing the poem within the social and political events and the political figures of Milton’s time, as many of the scholars mentioned above agree, then, Paradise Lost can be regarded not only as a literary work, but as a political poem, which is the culmination of Milton’s political thought, republican experience, and political projections, as reflected in his earlier poems and prose writings. Accordingly, Milton’s Paradise Lost can be seen as a political allegory in which he reveals his republican ideology through displaying the fact that he is opposed to all forms of tyranny and monarchy, in terms of the use and abuse of power, hegemonic power and absolute monarchy under the rule of Charles I and even the Protectorate regime under Oliver Cromwell as well. In this respect, as a political allegory, Milton in the poem presents veiled political allusions in the stories of the fall of Lucifer, Satan’s rebellion, and the disobedience of Adam and Eve. This chapter, therefore, will be a political reading of Paradise Lost. The poem provides allegories of the use and abuse of political power, the quarrel between the republican regime and monarchy, equality, justice, and the rights of people, drawing political affinities and analogies between the literal characters of the poem, including God, Lucifer, and the Son, and the political figures of Milton’s time, including Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. God in the poem represents absolute rulership, reflected as the most authoritarian figure in the poem. Christ the Son can be regarded as Charles II in terms of his benevolent and tolerant nature, and the representation and relation between God and Christ in the poem can be taken as a comparison and display of the difference in the political natures and attitudes of Charles I and Charles II. On the other hand, Lucifer, who is the most dynamic character in the poem, has a polysemic political nature since allegorical interpretations of him lead us to different perspectives. Hence, Lucifer, given intentionally by Milton as a malevolent and ambitious politician, represents both the royalist and the republican figures of Milton’s time. Lucifer stands for corrupt rulers and politicians. The story of the fall of Lucifer is the picture of corrupt politicians, striving to gain political power. Lucifer’s dynamic political nature initially represents him with a more heroic posture as a republican figure, defending individual rights and equality, and defying God’s absolutism and tyranny. Satan’s essential reason for defiance is his resistance to inequality and arbitrary rulership. However, when Satan gathers political power and becomes the leader of

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

65

the fallen angels in Hell, he himself turns out to be an absolutist and tyrant. Like Lucifer, it can be stated that Oliver Cromwell experienced such a political progress, standing initially as an ardent republican and later when he became Lord Protector, turning out to be a tyrannical republican leader due to his personal, arbitrary and uncompromising political attitude. Similar to Cromwell, Satan has a project in his mind, which is to be more powerful. Therefore, Milton’s depiction of Satan as a republican can be associated with his disillusion with the Cromwellian regime, especially after he became the Lord Protector. In the poem, God is depicted as an absolute ruler standing for the Stuart monarchies similar to Charles I, who adopted arbitrary political decisions. Accordingly, in Book V of the poem, God arbitrarily reveals his decision of appointing the Son as his heir and new monarch: This day I have begot whom I declare My only Son, and on this holy hill Him have anointed, whom ye now behold At my right hand, your head I him appoint; And by myself have sworn to him shall bow All knees in Heav’n, and shall confess him Lord. (V. 603-608)

God is presented as the sole power who appoints the Son as his new heir and monarch of Heaven, which proves him to be an absolutist and arbitrary ruler. This is similar to the Romantic view of the poem, because the Romantic critics evaluated God as the anti-hero of the poem, representing the Stuart monarchs, and Satan as a republican hero, representing Cromwell and the revolutionary Milton (Newlyn 91-92). Accordingly, considering the Romantic point of view of the poem, it can be claimed that God represents monarchy in general, sometimes a good and authoritarian ruler and sometimes a despotic and tyrant ruler. However, although in some parts of the poem Satan appears to be a republican hero, Milton portrays him as more despotic, wicked, and tyrannous than God. As Milton writes at the beginning of Book I of the poem, Satan is an insurgent, wicked and seducing figure who caused the fall of man. Satan as a tyrannical, ambitious, and wicked politician is resembled in the poem to the “infernal serpent”, [...] whose guile Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his host Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring

66

Chapter II To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If he opposed; and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud With vain attempt. (I.34-44)

Hence, as given at the beginning of the poem, Satan is a tyrant and despotic figure over the fallen angels and Adam and Eve since he caused their fall from Eden. On the other hand, Satan’s rebellion against God is due to God’s abuse of his monarchical power. However, following the fall from heaven, Satan becomes a more powerful leader of the fallen angels than before, gaining more power than God, which also leads him to abuse this power by turning out to be a tyrannical ruler. Hence, it can be claimed that, unlike the Romantic perspective, Satan is worse than God as a political figure. Milton’s portrayal of God as an absolutist and despotic ruler stems from his imposition of arbitrary rule and acting as a lawless monarch. In this respect, God can be aligned with the Stuart monarchs of Milton’s time in terms of the arbitrary and personal government of rulers such as James I and Charles. Especially, the personal rule of Charles I’s was considered as the “eleven years of tyranny” (Sharpe “The Personal Rule of Charles I” 53). During this period, Charles adopted absolutist policies both in conducting financial affairs and in domestic politics (Coward 165). Similar to Charles’ personal rule, God’s rule is personal and absolutist because there is no advisory board or council to be consulted in heaven. In parallel, the republican perspective on Charles’ eleven years of tyranny is conveyed in the poem by Lucifer and the other fallen angels depicting God as a tyrannical monarch who “now triumphs, and in the excess of joy / Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n” (I.123-24). Furthermore, in the same Book I, Lucifer regards God as a heavenly tyrant who “sat in his throne, upheld by old repute/Consent or custom” (I.639-40). For Lucifer, God is Heav’n’s awful Monarch” (IV. 960) who acts with “impetuous rage” (I.175) and asks for idolatrous adoration. Milton in this sense draws analogies between the Stuart monarchs and God in heaven as a “supreme King” (I.735). In this respect, it can be claimed that Lucifer’s description of God as a vengeful tyrant can be associated with the portrayal of Charles I as a raging absolutist monarchy whose arbitrary power and authority are validated by the tyranny “of Custom” and the idols of tradition (The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, CPW, III.190; III.401). Beelzebub describes God as an absolute power, “Sole King”, and “Heav’n’s high Arbitrator”, who puts into force “arbitrary punishment” in heaven (I.325, 334, 359), and Satan in

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

67

Book X considers God as “tyrant” monarch and ruler (X.466). By depicting God as tyrant and absolutist in the eyes of the fallen angels, Milton draws attention to the arbitrary and absolutist rule of Charles I, who had exerted arbitrary imprisonment and punishment, in which people who were against the policies of the monarchy were imprisoned without showing any cause, as Sommerville shows in his Politics and Ideology in England, 1603-1640 that the royalist policies of Charles I, especially during his personal government, brought about taxation without consent, imprisonment without cause, and the government of the church without Parliamentary advice, which imposed limitation on the liberties of the subjects (4-5). Hence, Lucifer’s sudden reaction to God in Paradise Lost can be regarded as a rejection of the absolutism and arbitrary rule of monarchs. The idea of absolutism, as Glenn Burgess points out, referred in the seventeenth century to unlimited and arbitrary monarchy, which was the official ideology of early Stuart monarchy (19). Burgess draws attention, especially, to the lawless rule of the monarchs who followed arbitrary rule (20). Furthermore, as stated by Burgess, the “Commonwealth regime, which appeared in 1652, defined an absolute Monarch as one who had no law but his own will”, and therefore the Republicans considered any absolutist regime in this sense as tyranny (21). In this regard, in the poem, God’s personal presentation of the Son as his heir to the throne without counselling the inhabitants and the eminent angels of Heaven is seen by Lucifer as an act disrupting the will of the subjects. God’s declaration can easily be seen in this light: Hear all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers, Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand. This day I have begot whom I declare My only Son, and on this holy hill Him have anointed, whom ye now behold At my right hand; your head I him appoint, And by my self have sworn to him shall bow All knees in heaven, and shall confess him lord. (V. 600-608)

Milton here questions the arbitrary rule of God as a king, who exalts and promotes the Son in his kingdom. The absolutism in God’s words above is evident, as the “decree, which unrevoked shall stand” refers to God’s unlimited power. In the political sense, God as a ruler reinstates his own will over the will of the subjects. Satan in Book VI says that God imposes his own will by force:

68

Chapter II What Heavn’s Lord had powerfullest to send Against us from about his throne, and judged Sufficient to subdue us to his will. (VI. 425-27)

Satan’s claim is that God enforces his own will and laws on his subjects, the angels in Heaven, because he regards himself as having absolute power over them. In contrast, as in his political pamphlets, Milton insisted on the supremacy of the will of people over the will of the rulers because he believed that those rulers derive their powers from people. Accordingly, Milton in the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates claimed: It being thus manifested that power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative , transferr’d and committed to them in trust from the People, to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remaines fundamentally, and cannot be tak’n from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright. (CPW, III.202)

Here Milton represents the false kingship of the Stuarts monarchs in England. Similarly in Paradise Lost, through the figure of God exerting his arbitrary monarchy in Heaven, Milton represents the false kingship of the Stuarts. Milton draws the political picture of Charles I’s favouring to the Duke of Buckingham and the Duke’s unpopularity in the poem through giving the idea that in terms of God, there is a defiance and abuse of authority in the arbitrary act of the promotion of the Son, which initiates and deepens Satan’s rebellion, leading to his expulsion from Heaven. As a reaction to God’s promotion of the Son as a king without counselling the inhabitants of Heaven, Satan, acting as a republican figure, defends the rights of the angels against the unlimited rights of the monarch, and suggests the necessity of a Parliament in the government of Heaven. In Book V, Satan gathers his followers by reinstating freedom and liberty of subjects: This only to consult how we may best With what may be devise of honours new Receive him coming to receive from us Knee tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, but double how endured, To one and to his image now proclaimed? But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this yoke? (V. 779-85)

Just at the beginning of Book II, Satan, in his speech to the council in Hell, articulates his ideal rule and state as one that is based on “the fixed laws” (II. 18), “just right” (II. 18), “free choice” (II. 19), and a “counsel” (II. 20)

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

69

chosen according to merit with “full consent” (II. 24) of the subjects. In his rebellion Satan states that God broke the contract between ruler and subjects by making arbitrary new laws. According to Satan, the imposition of new laws is a display of tyranny: New laws thou seest imposed; New laws from him who reigns, new minds may raise In us who serve, new counsels, to debate What doubtful may ensue; more in this place To utter is not safe. (V.679-83)

Hence, Milton claims that monarchs cannot make new laws without consulting Parliament because it is Parliament not the monarch that is responsible for making laws. Satan’s idea of the necessity of consultation is in fact fundamental to Milton’s political thought, as expressed for instance in the Ready and Easy Way. Here Milton wrote “the happiness of a nation must needs be firmest and certainest in a full and free council of their own electing, where no single person, but reason only, sways” (886). Milton iterates this as a “self-governing democracy”, which is “safer and more thriving in the joint providence and counsel of many industrious equals than under the single domination of one imperious lord” (The Ready and Easy Way 886). Furthermore, it can be claimed that Satan’s depiction of God as a tyrant, because of his absolutism and arbitrary rule, is reminiscent of Milton’s vision of tyranny and monarchy. In his political pamphlets, beginning with the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates written in 1649 and ending with the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth written (1660), Milton states that he opposes all forms of tyranny, both religious and political. Also, his opposition to the monarchy in England comes out of Charles I’s and formerly James I’s arbitrary rule and their insistence on the theory of royal absolutism or divine rights of kings. As Sommerville states, the early Stuart monarchs did not rule according to law because they believed that “God had entrusted them with sole and sovereign authority to govern their subjects,” and that “they possessed absolute power, but were quite willing to promise that they would rule in the public interest and with consent of their subjects” (116). Subverting Stuart mode of the royal absolutism, Milton totally rejects the monarch as the sole power but the subjects or the common people as true sovereigns. Hence, Milton seeks the primacy of the sovereignty of the people over monarchies. Likewise, in his debate with Abdiel, Milton’s pamphleting words are echoed when Satan states that God’s subjects who do not have liberty and freedom are his servants, as monarchs regard their subjects as their servants:

70

Chapter II At first I thought that liberty and Heav’n To Heav’nly souls had been all one; but now I see that most through sloth had rather serve, Minist’ring Spirits, trained up in feast and song; Such hast thou armed, the ministrely of Heav’n, Servility with freedom to contend. (VI.164-169)

Thus, Satan’s view is that some heavenly angels are eager to serve God, rejecting liberty and freedom and choosing to be servants of God. Moreover, it can be stated that these lines can be Milton’s own view because of the fact that for Milton vice and effeminacy render a majority of the people unfit for liberty, and tyrants will take advantage of it (Lejosne 113). Through portraying God’s absolutism, in fact, Milton stresses the negative effects of autocracy when compared to a republican government. As we have seen, for Milton, monarchy is a kind of a patronage system, and it can result in an arbitrary government and tyranny under which people become slaves. On the other hand, a republican government is a free and libertarian formation, constituted by an elected council that regards itself as the slave of the people. By the same token, Milton’s negative feelings for monarchy are due to the conception that as a form of government, monarchy is not appropriate for the free people. In Paradise Lost, Satan refers to the contract and resistance theory, mentio0ned in Chapter I, because he regards God as an unjust force ruling not in public interest. Satan frequently articulates in Paradise Lost that God is a ruler “without law” (PL, V.798), who considers himself above the laws, which is essentially Milton’s thought on tyrant rulers in general. In the poem, Satan’s rebellion against God starts with his demand for liberty and freedom. Satan speaks to the fallen angels in Book V of the poem: Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, If these magnific titles yet remain Not merely titular, since by decree Another now hath to himself engrossed All power, and us enclipsed under the name Of King anointed, for whom all this haste Of midnight march, and hurried meeting here, This only to consult how we may best With what may be devised of honour new Receive him coming to receive from us Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, but double how endured, To one and to his image now proclaimed? (V.772-84)

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

71

Satan here articulates his disgust with God’s monarchy by questioning God’s hierarchy because God proclaimed the Son as his heir to the throne and a new king, and Satan believes that this is an unfair hierarchy. Moreover, denying God’s authority and power, Satan voices a republican idea of liberty and freedom of the people: But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and choose to bend The supple knee? Ye will not, if I trust To know ye right, or if ye know yourselves Natives and sons of Heav’n possessed before By none, and if not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for orders and degrees Jar not with liberty, but well consist. Who can in reason then or right assume Monarchy over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendour less, In freedom equal? Or can introduce Law and edict on us, who without law Err not, much less for this to be our Lord, And look for adoration to th’ abuse Of those imperial titles which assert Our being ordained to govern, not to serve? (V. 785-803)

Uttering these lines, Satan claims the rights of his angels (or people) and native freedom by pointing to the law of nature, which is, according to Rajan, “a perfectly orthodox version of the claim that monarchy is not grounded on the law of nature” (qtd in Fowler 306). Thus, Satan speaks of rights and liberties of his angels in a very republican tone stressing the equality, freedom, liberty, rights and power of “the people”. As such, Satan proves himself to be a good demagogue or orator by maintaining that all angels in Heaven were equally free, though there were orders and hierarchies. The angels in Heaven were neither bound by any laws nor in need of them but God, according to Satan, has disrupted their freedom and equality, by imposing a “[m]onarchy over such as live by right / His equals, if in power and splendour less, / In freedom equal”. One can claim that Satan’s rhetoric here is very effective, and all of the fallen angels, except Abdiel, are on his side. According to Abdiel, Satan is a hypocrite, striving to mask a false republicanism behind a heroic face. For Abdiel, Satan shows ingratitude in forgetting that he owes his power and being in Heaven to God:

72

Chapter II All things, ev’n thee, and all the Spirits of Heav’n By him created in their bright degrees, Crown’d them with Glory, and thir Glory nam’d Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, Essential Powers, nor by his Reign obscur’d, But more illustrious made, since he the Head One of our number thus reduc’t becomes, His Laws our laws, all honor to him done Returns our own. (V.737-45)

However, Satan rejects Abdiel’s claims and replies that the angels in Heaven do not owe anything to God because, as he articulates, “[w]e know no time when we were not as now; / Knowing none before us, self-begot, self-rais’d / By our own quick’ning power” (V.859-61). Satan also refers to the role of monarchs, asserting that the kings are mere servants of their subjects, and they are appointed to govern people, not to make the subjects become their servants (CPW, III, 203). In the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates Milton reveals: The King hath as good right to his Crown and dignitie, as any man to his inheritance, is to make the Subject no better than the Kings slave, his chattel, or his possession that may be bought or sold. And doubtless, if hereditary title were sufficiently inquir’d, the best foundation of it would be found either but in courtesie or convergence. But suppose it to be of right hereditary, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certain crimes be to forfet by law from himself, and posterity, all his inheritance to the King, then that a King for crimes proportional should forfet all his title and inheritance to the people: unless the people must be thought created all for him, he not for them, and they all in one body inferior to him single, which were a kinde of treason against the dignitie of mankind to affirm. (CPW, III. 203-204)

As already argued, the Son’s exaltation to kingship by God in Book V can be considered as a representation of the royalist concept of kingship. Such kingship is also reminiscent of the divine right of kings, according to which kings are appointed by God. In this context, the royalist view of the hereditary pattern of kingship was that [c]rowns were inherited as unquestionably as personal property was encouraged by Parliament’s statutory decision at the accession of James I that he succeeded to the throne by the right of inheritance...Royalists in the civil war were devoted to the principle that Charles was entitled to his crown by absolute right of inheritance. (Hughes, “Preface and Notes” 203)

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

73

Charles I, the son of James I, was appointed as the new monarch and king of England because of the hereditary system of monarchy in England. Figgis has pointed out that “on his accession Parliament passed a statute which purported not to give James a title, but merely to declare his inherent right” (138). This idea was reflected by Milton in the poem when the Son was appointed by God as king of Heaven: The just decree of God, pronounced and sworn, That to his only son by right endued With regal sceptre, every soul in Heav’n Shall bend the knee, and in that honour due Confess him rightful King. (V. 814-18)

Lejosne claims that the lines above, articulated by Abdiel to Lucifer, refer to Salmasius’s statements given in his, Defensio Regia Pro Carlo, a defence of Charles I as a royal monarch (109).Thus, as he states: Satan is such a flamboyant figure that the somewhat less arresting Abdiel usually receives less attention. He is generally assumed to be impeccably orthodox in his defence of heavenly monarchy, both political and theological, and that’s that. If one reads Abdiel’s speech just after studying Milton’s political pamphlets in conjunction with Salmasius’s Defensio Regia, Du Moulin’s Regii Sanguinis Clamor and a few other royalist writings, one cannot but realize, with some amusement, that Milton deliberately made the steadfast angel repeat, not only the most common, standard royalist arguments, but some of Salmasius’s own which had attracted his attention and could be made to fit into the context of Paradise Lost. (Lejosne 109)

In accordance with Lejosne’s views, it can be stated that through the end of Book V of Paradise Lost, the verbal debate between Abdiel and Lucifer can be taken as an example of the ongoing war of pamphlets between Milton and Salmasius. In his Defensio Regia, Salmasius argues that kings are divinely appointed sovereigns, taking his sources from history, the Bible and classical sources (Zagorin, Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel 80). The notion of the king as the father of his nation goes back to Aristotle, who in The Politics considered kings as fathers by stating that: for every household is ruled by its senior member, as by a king, and the offshoots too, because of their blood relationship, are ruled in the same way...the gods too are said to be governed by a king - namely because men themselves were originally ruled by kings and some are so still. (58)

This idea was perpetuated by James I and his son Charles I. In his political treatise, the Trew Law of Free Monarchies, James I likened kings to

74

Chapter II

fathers of their people. According to James I kings “enjoyed the same authority over their subjects that the law of nature gave to fathers over their families” (Lockyer, James VI and I 40). This theory requires that just as children have certain duties and owe obedience to their fathers, so subjects owe duties and obedience to their kings. Therefore, any disobedience to a king would be recognized as a rebellion against the sovereign, which would be recognized as “monstrous and unnatural” (JPW 77). In this respect, the theory of the kings as the fathers of their countries is based on the idea that subjects do not have any right to act against or resist their rulers or kings. Furthermore, as Davies points out, the royalist aim in practicing this theory was to prove that revolting against and even killing a king was not only “tyrannicide” but “parricide”, a crime against the natural and divine law (164). For instance, the regicide of Charles was considered by the royalists as a murder committed against God, and many royalist poets of the seventeenth century England reflected the killing of the king as crime against God, describing Charles as a martyr, resembling the regicide to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This was also dealt with in Eikon Basilike, a royalist book written following the regicide in 1649, in which Charles was depicted as a martyr king like Jesus. The idea of kings as fathers of their kingdoms was a widespread royalist belief during the Stuart period. The royalist view of the formula of father-king regards the king as “the healer” of his people (medicus regni) and also the husband (sponsus regni), because of the coronation, which is associated with the marriage of the king and kingdom. On the other hand, the king is also the father of his nation (pater patriae) (Davies 164). Correspondingly, Sir Robert Filmer, a Royalist author of seventeenth century England, in his book, Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings, indicates the king as the father of his nation, regarding the kings as the descendants of Adam, the first father of mankind. In Paradise Lost, Abdiel’s royalist defence of the divine right of kings is challenged and questioned by Lucifer. Lucifer protests against both God’s unjust rule and the Son’s divine power and appointment. Another point is Abdiel’s description of the good king as the father of his subjects, which is also a royalist claim: [...] But to grant it thee unjust, That equal over equals monarch reign: Thyself though great and glorious dost thou count, Or all angelic nature joined in one, Equal to him begotten Son, by whom As by his Word the mighty Father made All things, ev’n thee, and all the Spirits of Heav’n

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

75

By him created in their bright degrees, Crowned them with glory, and to their glory named Thrones, dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, Essential powers, nor by his reign obscured, But more illustrious made, since he the head One of our number thus reduced becomes, His laws our laws, all honour to him done Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage, And tempt not these, but hasten to appease Th’ incensed Father, and th’ incensed Son, While pardon may be found in time besought. (V. 831-48)

Abdiel’s allusion to the kings as the fathers of their subjects is rigorously rejected and opposed by Lucifer. Likewise, as in lines 852-869, it can be stated that, to some extent, Milton is reflecting his own views on the concept of kings as the fathers of their subjects: Th’ Apostate, and more haughty thus replied, That we were formed then say’st thou? And the work Of secondary hands, by task transferred From father to his Son? strange point and new! Doctrine which we would know whence learn’t: who saw When this creation was? Remember’st thou Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being? We know no time when we were not as now; Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised By our own quick’ning power, when fatal course Had circled his full orb, the birth mature Of this our native Heav’n, ethereal sons. Our puissance is our own, our own right hand Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try Who is our equal: then thou shalt behold Whether by supplication we intend Address, and to begirt th’ Almighty throne Beseeching or besieging. (V. 852-69)

According to this argument, Satan believes that kings cannot be fathers of subjects. Hence, the lines given above are similar to Milton’s ideas on kingship in his political pamphlets. In accordance with the speech above, Satan reflects the view that angels were not created by any outside entity, let alone God. Parallel to Satan’s lines above, Milton in his prose works, such as The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, A Defence of the People of England, and The Ready and Easy Way to a Free Commonwealth, attacks the royalist connection between father and king. In his Latin pamphlet,

76

Chapter II

Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio (A Defence of the People of England), Milton sheds light on this point: Indeed, you are wholly in the dark in failing to distinguish the rights of a father from those of a king: by calling kings fathers of their country, you think this metaphor has forced me to apply right off to kings whatever I might admit of fathers. Fathers and kings are very different things: Our fathers begot us, but our kings did not, and it is we, rather, who created king. It is nature which gave the people fathers, and the people who gave themselves a king; the people therefore do not endure even a father who is tyrannical. If a father kills his son he shall pay with his life: shall not then a king too be subject to this same most just laws if he has destroyed the people who are his sons? This is the more true since a father cannot abjure his position as father, while a king can easily make himself neither a father nor a king. (CPW, IVi, 327)

Hence, Milton’s claim is that metaphorically kings cannot be resembled to fathers. For Milton, when a father kills his child he is certainly punished. However when a monarch acts lawlessly, subjects do not have the right to judge or punish him. Moreover, Milton here reverses the royalist analogy that killing a king is a crime committed against the natural and divine law in that the people appointed the king, thus they are the real father of the king, since Milton believes that monarchs take their power not from God but from his subjects. Likewise, in order to break the connection between king and father, Milton reflects that the king is neither protector, nor lord, nor kin. In displaying the king not as a protector, Milton furthermore focuses on Charles I's actions presenting him as a tyrant rather than a protector. In fact, Milton describes Charles I as a tyrannous monarch throughout his political writings. In this regard, the king, as a tyrant, becomes the enemy of the people and poses a danger to their well being, not a father figure who protects their interests. Accordingly, in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Milton stresses that it is not right that "so many thousand Christians destroyed, should lie unaccounted for, polluting with their slaughtered carcasses all the Land over, and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them" (CPW, III:214). Similarly, in The Ready and Easy Way, Milton accuses the king of bringing "upon our lives destruction" (CPW, VII: 410). In this manner, Milton draws attention to the incidents that indicate the malevolent rather than benevolent nature of Charles's reign and illustrate Charles as a destroyer, not a protector. Milton employs in Paradise Lost is the representation of Satan as a political figure who has an unstable and polysemic political nature. In the

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

77

like manner, Milton draws Satan as a wicked, radical and malevolent politician representing both the royalist and republican figures of his time. In the poem, Satan can be taken as a figure embodying negative political aspects that Milton strictly and openly criticizes. For example, Satan represents the tyrannical Stuart monarchs, the ambitious and proud military leaders, and the degenerate and hypocritical parliamentarians and politicians who have excessive private interests. It can be claimed that Milton describes Satan in such a way that he embodies some of the worst aspects and traits of the revolutionaries of his time through depicting their selfish and ambitious natures as a result of which, as he believes, the Good Old Cause had totally deviated form its goal, which was to found a liberated and free Commonwealth. Lucifer, the Archangel and a respectful political leader in Heaven, later becomes Satan when expelled from Heaven for rebelling against God’s anointing the Son as the universal king. As soon as he rebels, Lucifer turns out to be a corrupt ruler and politician because he gains power similar to God and persuades the other fallen angels to unite under his command. His private ambition to have the same power as God, and excessive pride lead him to be an autocratic and tyrannical leader. Milton mentions Satan at the beginning of the poem as a self-interested, ambitious and proud person: […] what time his pride Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his host Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring To set himself in glory above peers. (I.36-39)

Hence, Milton describes Satan’s political ambition, which had been to set himself above all the other angels. He achieves this only in Hell. Also, Milton discloses Satan’s motives behind his rebellion against God: envy, pride, revenge and ambition. However, to some extent, Milton employed Lucifer with the true republican ideas that he had written in his political pamphlets earlier. In this respect, it can be stated that Lucifer’s dynamic and polysemic political nature in the first place is illustrated as heroic, and he as a military leader and an ardent republican defends the rights of the angels, justice, equality, freedom of conscience, resisting monarchy and tyranny. Lucifer in this regard is similar to Oliver Cromwell and Milton himself in their younger days. On the other hand, Satan is portrayed as a royalist and a false republican when he attains monarchical power and autocracy and becomes the leader of the fallen angels in Hell. Initially defying and criticising God’s absolutist rules and tyranny in Heaven, Satan himself turns out to be

78

Chapter II

absolutist and tyrant more than God. In Book X, Satan returns from the victory of deceiving Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit form the tree of knowledge. And in Hell Sin and Death, who are the daughter and son of Satan, praise his victory over God. They praise Satan as a great Emperor. As Sin says: Thine now is all this world, thy virtue hath won What thy hands builded not, thy wisdom gained With odds what war hath lost, and fully avenged Our foil in Heav’n; here thou shalt monarch reign, There didst not; there let him still victor sway, As battle hath adjudged, from this new world Retiring, by his own doom alienated, And henceforth monarchy with thee divide Of all things, parted th’ empyreal bounds His quadrature, from thy orbicular world, Or thy thee now more dang’rous to his throne. (X.372-82)

Although Satan is presented as the sole monarch of Hell, as Lucifer, he appears to be against the absolute monarchy of God and defies God’s monarchy several times in the poem. He later becomes a powerful absolute monarch, similar to God as a powerful monarch. At the beginning of Book II, Satan is presented, as an authoritarian and despotic leader (1-5), and again in lines 477-79, he is presented as a despotic monarch: […] towards him [Satan] they [the fallen angels] bend With awful reverence prone; and a god Extol him equal to the highest in Heav’n. (II.477-79).

Satan is also described as “Hell’s dread Emperor with pomp supreme/And God-like imitated state” (II.510-11). In this manner, Milton’s depictions of Satan can be analyzed as the allegorical representations of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. Thus, Satan can be associated with the absolutist, lawless and tyrannical practices of Charles I as well as Cromwell. On the other hand, Satan’s depiction as a false republican figure can be taken as referring to Cromwell, partly because of the fact that Oliver Cromwell, similar to Satan, experienced such a political progress, emerging initially as the ardent defender of republicanism and liberties but later, after becoming Lord Protector, abandoning republican principles and turning out to be a false republican on account of his personal, arbitrary and uncompromising political attitude. Thus, it can be claimed that Lucifer before his fall is associated with a republican hero, namely Cromwell, but after he falls as a result of his rebellion, he defies the power of God. He

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

79

reaches largely unfettered power in Hell, and he turns out to be a despotic, monarchical, tyrant, and dictatorial figure, who can be considered a monarch and a false republican, namely Cromwell after he becomes Lord Protector. On the contrary he appears to be the representative of tyrannical use of power and authority. Therefore, Satan cannot be the representative of any fixed historical person but as a polysemic figure he represents tyrannical monarchy, or aristocracy, or even democracy, which he shaped in accordance with his political and private interests. As Schulman suggests, Satan is a problematic character who embodies seventeenth century political theories (13). Satan represents any political character who has the potential for degenerating “into its passionate, tyrannical counterpart: despotism, oligarchy, or ochlocracy (tyranny of the one, the few, or the many)” (Schulman 13). Hence, as given in the poem Satan sometimes becomes an oriental despotic figure (II.1-5), and sometimes becomes a seemingly democratic orator (II.11-42). As Schulman further claimed, Satan does not represent “any particular contemporary figure but […] the problems of corruptibility and demagogic manipulation” (13). Satan, thus, is presented in the poem as conspirator and betrayer, who subverts and abuses his role as a promised leader. In this manner, Milton, who was disillusioned with Cromwell, has Abdiel address him as “Apostate, still thou err’st, nor end wilt find/Of erring, from the path of truth remote” (VI.172-73). According to Abdiel, Satan has departed from the way of God; hence he labels him “apostate”. In parallel, Milton, in the Second Defence of English People, accuses Cromwell of departing from the way of truth, namely republicanism. It is in this respect that Milton’s portrayal of Satan as a false republican can be analyzed as a result of his shock and disillusionment with the Cromwellian regime, which Milton considered as the collapse of the republican values and the total breakdown of the civil and religious liberties of the English people. Many scholars of Paradise Lost have equated Satan with Charles I and other royalist figures of the seventeenth century. In this regard, Joan Bennett, in her study “Satan and King Charles: Milton’s Royalist Portraits,” claims that in Paradise Lost there are strong connections between Satan and Charles I, linking the tyranny of Satan throughout the poem with the concept of tyranny of the monarchy as revealed in Milton’s political pamphlets (1). Bennett analyzes the poem from a political perspective making an alignment between Satan and the tyranny of Charles I by considering the demand of the fallen angels as false freedom (ibid). However, she contends that Paradise Lost cannot be perceived as a true political allegory (ibid). Similarly, Christopher Hill analyzes some parts of the lines regarding Satan in the poem in the light of the historical

80

Chapter II

events in the time of Charles I. Nigel Smith, also, makes connections between Satan and the corrupt monarchs of Milton’s time (Is Milton Better than Shakespeare 96-100). However, it cannot be claimed that Milton’s Satan is a totally wicked figure. In fact, Satan also voices Milton’s republican ideals. Therefore, Satan can be accepted as a polysemic political figure who does not represent one distinct side, republicans or royalists, or one political figure of Milton’s time because Satan throughout the poem displays the metamorphosis of a political nature, converting from being the defender of the liberties of people to a despotic and tyrant personality. Hence, Satan can be evaluated as an insurgent figure destroying both the rights and liberties of his followers as a highly despotic and tyrant ruler, acting in the manner of absolutist and arbitrary ruling. Also in his metamorphosis, his excessive pride and desire for power plays important roles. Likewise, Milton describes Satan in Book II as “raised” by “transcendent glory / Above his fellows” and speaking “with monarchical pride / conscious of highest worth” (II.427-29). In The Defence of English People, Milton describes Charles I as the most authoritarian and cruel despotic figure, so in Paradise Lost, Satan is illustrated as a royalist potentate: High on a royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat. (II. 1-5)

Milton here alludes to Charles I who had led a conspicuously luxurious life. Not only Lucifer but also the other fallen angels are portrayed as royal figures whom Milton associates with the earthly corrupt kings in the history of mankind. Hence, in Book I and later in Book II of the poem, Milton introduces the eminent and powerful fallen angels, who later in history became “gods of nations” (Fowler 66). Among those fallen angels, Belial is also described as a god whose power is king-like: Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd Fell not from heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself: to him no temple stood Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled With lust and violence the house of God. In courts and palaces he also reigns And in luxurious cities, where the noise

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

81

Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers , And injury and outrage: and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. (I.490-503)

Belial as a fallen angel is depicted as a wicked and tyrannous ruler, who is attached to the royalist figures of Milton’s time, namely the Stuart monarchs, who reigned in courts and palaces near a city (London) with “loftiest towers”. Moreover, it can be stated that Milton here draws attention to the condition of the Church of England, which was, as Milton stated, filled with false practices and priests that were in the service of the king not God. Accordingly, as Fowler suggests, Milton as a puritan activist portrays Belial “as the cavalier type” who is “suave, dilettante, dissolute and lacking in courage” (73). Belial hence is portrayed as a lustful monarch, who can be associated with the Restoration court of Charles II. As Zagorin has claimed, the Stuart king needed to be adored like a god. The cause of vast expense and luxury, he was surrounded by a dissolute and haughty court which debauched the prime gentry of both sexes and produced a servile nobility intent on court office instead of public service. (Milton, Aristocrat and Rebel 115)

Zagorin emphasizes the king’s desire to be treated like an idol. Also, he refers to the luxurious lives of the Stuart monarchs. Therefore, one can closely associate the royal portrayal of Satan and the other fallen angels with the kings of Milton’s own time. In terms of their tyrannical attitude, Milton in the poem associates the fallen angels with the sultans and emperors in the history of mankind. Nigel Smith suggests that “Paradise Lost delivers an unmistakable picture of the way in which monarchs fall into disastrously wicked ways, as the fallen angels are compared to, or seen to be continuous with, the wrecked trail of monarchy” (Is Milton Better than Shakespeare 99). The fallen angels are numberless: So numberless were those bad angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of hell ‘Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires; Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain. (I.344-350)

82

Chapter II

It can be stated that Milton’s reference to a “great sultan” is to the Ottoman sultans who invaded and conquered some parts of Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. Likewise, Davies has pointed out that “the sultans directed the Turkish invasions of Europe from behind the Caucasus westward, then down into Mediterranean lands and North Africa” (Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost 65). Lucifer, to some extent, is resembled to the sultans of the Eastern empires, especially the Ottoman Empire which was considered as a threat to the Christian West. It can be claimed that Milton here draws a connection between satanic invasion of heaven and the Turkish invasion of the West, since he believes that both are “the common foe of Christendom” (qtd in Davies, Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost 68). The fallen angels are also resembled to the barbarous tribes invading the South: A Multitude, like which the populous north Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the south, and spread Beneath Gibralter to the Lybian sands. (I. 351-55)

The Goths also moved from North to South to destroy the Roman Empire (Davies, Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost 65). On the other hand, in political and historical terms, “the populous north” in the lines above could also refer to the forces and the royal army of Charles I who during the civil wars prepared the royalist army against the Parliamentarians and republicans. Christopher Hill makes a connection between the satanic army and the royalist army in the Civil Wars (Milton and the English Revolution 371). The invasions coming from the North are indicated in some other parts of the poem again with negative connotations. In Book V of the poem, Satan raises his army in the North against the Heavenly forces: […] Assemble thou Of all those myriads which lead the chief; Tell them that by command, ere yet dim night Her shadowy cloud withdraws, I am to haste, And all who under me their banners wave, Homeward with flying march where we possess The quarters of the north...(V.683-89)

Subsequently, Satan assembles his forces and makes the preparations for a war in the north of Heaven against God. It can be claimed that “the north” here refers indirectly to Scotland from which the Stuart monarchs had ascended to the English throne. It can be claimed that Milton sees the

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

83

Scottish ascendance to the English throne as barbarous and evil because during the Civil Wars Charles I tried to use the Scottish forces against his enemies. Moreover, in 1659-60, General Monck came from the North to restore Charles II to the throne (Hill, Milton and English Revolution 371). Hence both within the civil wars and at the end of the Commonwealth regime, royalist attacks and invasion came from the north. Therefore Milton employs the image of “the north” in a negative sense referring to Satan’s attempted invasion of both Heaven and Eden in the poem. Fowler also mentions “the traditional association of the north with evil” in the Bible (301). Consequently, giving the Pagan gods and tyrannical monarchs in the history of mankind, moving from Pharaoh to sultan and finally to barbarian invasions of Europe in the poem, it can be stated that Milton indicates that all of the civilizations were oppressed by tyrannical monarchs, and in this respect the tyranny of Satan is part of that tradition. Additionally, Milton’s conception and representation of the fall of Lucifer in Paradise Lost can be regarded as an allegory of the nature and the reason of the defeat of the monarchy following the Civil War, beginning with James I and culminating with Charles I. In Milton’s Eikonoklastes and A Defence of the English People, Charles I, is revealed as manipulating and usurping the divine power. As an answer to the royalist Eikon Basilike, in which it was claimed that Charles was the representative of God’s power on earth, Milton states in Eikonoklastes that Charles I envisioned himself and politically acted as the God of the earth violating the religious liberty of his subjects. Milton writes: He calls the conscience Gods sovrantie, why then doth he contest with God about that supreme title? Why did he lay restraints, and force enlargements upon our conscience in things for which we were to answer God onely and the Church? God bids us Be subject for conscience sake, that is, as to a Magistrat, and in the Laws; not usurping over spiritual things, as Lucifer beyond sphere. (CPW, III, 501-2)

Accordingly, associating Lucifer with Charles I, Milton in Paradise Lost represents Lucifer as a political leader longing for power and authority and equating himself with God. In Book V of the poem, as narrated by Raphael, when God gathered the angels to declare Christ as his “only Son” who is to rule at his right hand, He asked the angels to obey Him: Him [the Son] who disobeys Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls Into utter darkness... (V. 611-14)

84

Chapter II

While the angels from all hierarchies declare their obedience to God, only Lucifer objects to God’s decision, challenging his divine authority and power. He also envies the Son’s position. Lucifer, filled with anger and jealousy, loses his Heavenly name, and is called Satan. Satan, proud of being one of the highest archangels, desires the same powers as God. He persuades one third of the other angels in Heaven to join him: […] he together calls, Or several one by one, the regent Powers, Under him regent, tells, as he was taught, That the Most High commanding, now ere night, Now ere dim night had disencumbered heaven, The great hierarchal standard was to move; Tells the suggested cause, and casts between Ambiguous words and jealousies, to sound Or taint integrity; but all obeyed The wonted signal, and superior voice Of their great Potentate; for great indeed His name, and high was his degree in Heav’n; His count’nance, as the morning star that guides The starry flock, allured them, and with lies Drew after him the third part of Heav’n’s host. (V. 696-710)

Satan here appears as a good orator, who is able to influence his followers to rebel against God. Later on, he in fact tries to sound his followers out as whether they are loyal to him or not. Likewise, he discloses his intentions to build his own throne and empire in heaven, similar to that of God. He admonishes his followers to disobey the unjust laws of God and take up arms against God’s unjust rule. Portraying Satan as a monarchical figure, it can be stated that Milton relates Satan to the Stuart monarchs: […] and Satan to his Royal seat High on a Hill, far blazing, as a Mount Rais'd on a Mount, with Pyramids and Towrs From Diamond Quarries hew'n, and Rocks of Gold, The Palace of great Lucifer, (so call That Structure in the Dialect of men Interpreted) which not long after, hee Affecting all equality with God, In imitation of that Mount whereon Messiah was declar'd in sight of Heav'n, The Mountain of the Congregation call'd; For thither he assembl'd all his Train, Pretending so commanded to consult About the great reception of thir King,

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

85

Thither to come, and with calumnious Art Of counterfeted truth thus held thir ears. (V 756-771)

Satan thus intends to create a new kingdom similar to God’s kingdom. Similar to God, who sits on his “High Throne” in Heaven, Satan sits “High on a Hill” in a “Palace” with “Pyramids and made from “Diamonds” and “Golden Rocks”. Milton, in this respect, refers to the monarchy of the Stuarts, particularly to the monarchy of Charles I, who was closely attached to the theory of the divine right of the kings, claiming that kings derive their earthly power from God. According to this theory, monarchs have absolute authority in both spiritual and political matters. Accordingly, in Paradise Lost, after his fall Lucifer desires to take the powers of God, intending to be the God of Hell. In this respect, it can be claimed that Milton echoes the view of James I in his book, the Trew law of Free Monarchies. As James I asserts, “kings are called Gods by the propheticall King David, because they sit vpon GOD his Throne in the earth, and haue the count of their administration to giue vnto him” (JPW 64). In fact, Lucifer, to a certain extent, acts in accordance with James I’s conception of the divine rights and political image of the monarchs. However, in his prose works, particularly in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Milton opposes this idea, and states that rulers do not derive their powers and authority from God but from people (CPW, III, 202-203). Hence, he states that monarchs cannot be the representative of God on earth, since the true and only representative is the only “anointed” Son (CPW, III, 204-206). As God gives and inscribes laws for mankind in the Bible, monarchs assert arbitrary laws to reinstate their kingdoms. Similarly, in Paradise Lost, as in the lines above, Lucifer, after God’s declaring the Son’s supremacy, decides to build a new kingdom, where his followers would choose their own king and make their own laws, as “New laws [...] / New laws from him who reigns, new minds may raise” (V. 679-80). Satan, as a usurper and destroyer, challenges God’s domination and authority. However, in the representation of authority and power in Paradise Lost Milton reveals various forms of authority: the authority of God (the Omnipotent), the authority of the Son (the Mesiah), the authority of Satan (Lucifer) and the authority of Adam. There is a hierarchical representation of power, and Milton presents and exemplifies God’s authority as the first form of authority. For Milton, God has the right to rule because he has the superior merit and created everything and everyone in the universe (Walum 575). God’s authority throughout the poem is not weakened; all of the angels recognize his authority and power,

86

Chapter II

including Satan at the end of the poem. For example, when Satan attempts to undermine the authority and the power of God, Abdiel rebukes him: Shalt thou give law to God, shalt thou dispute With him with the points of liberty, who made Thee what thou art, and formed the Powers of Heav’n Such as he pleased, and circumscribed their being? (V.822-825)

Likewise, Abdiel accuses Satan because he (Satan) demands equality and liberty in Heaven. Satan’s demand for equality and liberty can be regarded as republican, which can be associated with the demand for liberty from the parliamentarians and republicans during the English Revolution. Accordingly, Satan asserts: […] if not equal, yet free, Equally free: for orders and degrees Jar not with liberty, but well consist. Who can in reason then or right assume Monarchy over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendour less, In freedom equal? (V. 791-97)

It can be claimed that in these lines Satan’s speech is Miltonic, stressing human liberty and human dignity, and Milton, as a republican during the English Revolution, strived for restoring both religious and civil liberty. In the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth Milton stated that: the whole freedom of man consists of either spiritual or civil liberty. As for spiritual, who can be at rest, who can enjoy anything in this world with contentment who hath liberty to serve God and to save his own soul according to the best light which God hath planted in him to that purpose, by reading of his revealed will and the guidance of his Holy Spirit...the other part of our freedom consists in the civil rights and advancements of every person according to his merit: the enjoyment of those never more certain, and the access to these never more open, than in a free commonwealth. (896-97)

In some parts of the poem, the authority of Lucifer is presented not as a monarch but as a leader, longing for freedom and liberty, defending the rights of the subjects against the monarchy of God. Hence, Lucifer’s ideal state is based on freedom but it also lacks equality. In this respect, Lucifer is similar to Cromwell, who demanded freedom but not equality during his Protectorate. During his rule Oliver Cromwell did not consider himself a

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

87

monarch or a king, but a leader of his army and the Lord Protector of his government because he endeavoured to construct a republican state in which people would not be subjects but citizens, who were free and liberated. When Charles was executed in 1649, Cromwell made a speech to the public, “You are no more subjects, but citizens” (To Kill a King), which was the aspect of his republican regime, based on the freedom and equality of the people. Unlike the Stuart monarchs, rather than considering his subjects as servants and himself as an absolutist ruler, Cromwell regarded himself as a “Servant of God” (VI, 29). Hence, Satan’s stance against the tyranny and monarchy of God can be equated with Cromwell’s republican posture. Satan’s republican rhetoric urges the other rebel angels to refuse the “Kneetribute” and “prostration vile” owed to “King anointed”. Thus, Satan’s motivation of the fallen angels implies Cromwell’s motivation of the members of Parliament to react against the tyrannies of Charles I: […] though oppressed and fall’n, I give not Heav’n for lost. From this descent Celestial Virtues rising, will appear More glorious and more dread than from no fall, And trust themselves to fear no second fate: […] for none sure will claim in Hell Precedence, none, whose portion is so small Of present pain, that with ambitious mind Will covet more. With this advantage then To union, and firm faith, and firm accord, More than can be in Heav’n, we now return To claim our just inheritance of old, Surer to prosper than prosperity Could have assured us. (II.13-17; II.32-40)

In Paradise Lost, Satan is hence depicted as a republican who challenges God’s tyranny and absolute monarchy. Hence Satan’s enemy, as revealed at the beginning of the poem, is God who “sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n” (I. 223). It can be claimed that this is the republican Milton giving voice to Satan in expressing his views to some extent. Milton’s foremost rejection of monarchy, as given in his political pamphlets such as The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Eikonoklastes, A Defence of the English People, The Second Defence of English People and The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, is based on the idea that monarchy is the worst form of political structure for governing people since he always equates monarchy with tyranny, and every monarch has the potential for tyranny. As in the poem, Satan stands against the

88

Chapter II

monarchy of God since he thinks God‘s monarchy is based on “consent or custom” (I. 640), which turns out to be tyranny, in Lucifer’s terms, when he imposes “new laws” (V. 679-80), “new commands” (V. 691) and “new subjection” (II. 239). Milton also makes a connection between the role of Lucifer in the poem and the role of Oliver Cromwell before and during the foundation of the Commonwealth. In this respect, Satan’s republican, military and heroic ideals can be associated with those of Cromwell. Similar to Satan, who after the war in Heaven embarked in Hell on the task of constituting a new republic or state, and was elected as the first leader of Hell; Cromwell returned from the wars in Scotland, Ireland and the Anglo-Dutch Wars dissolved the Rump in January 1653 and became Lord Protector in December 1653 (Hill, A Century of Revolution 97). Accordingly, as Fallon claims, the position of Oliver Cromwell can be compared to that of Satan, who “in the company of his ‘Lords’ [is not] so powerful as to dictate and attempt to direct events within the limits imposed by the political system then in place” (Milton in Government 125). However, it can be stated that both Satan and Cromwell are effective orators and powerful persons. Satan’s ambitious and ardent personality is reminiscent of Cromwell’s enthusiastic and energetic personality as a leader. Coward has pointed out that Cromwell had “a dynamic and impetuous character”, and he was “a man of full zeal and fire”, clothing “self ambition in the guise of pious principles” (254). Hence, as Coward suggests, Cromwell possessed a “passionate zeal for godly reformation” (255). Accordingly, Cromwell’s passionate and ambitious personality is considered as “ideological schizophrenia” by Worden (69). However, Worden’s characterization of Cromwell as suffering from an ideological schizophrenia can also be applied to Satan’s strong desire for power throughout the poem. Although he was defeated in the war against God’s authority, he does not give up undermining God’s power and authority. Satan’s “ideological schizophrenia” is reflected at the beginning of Book II of the poem in which he makes a speech to the assembly: Powers and Dominions, deities of Heaven For since no deep within her gulf can hold Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fall’n, I give not Hev’n for lost. From this descent Celestial Virtues rising, will appear More glorious and more dread than from no fall, And trust themselves to fear no second fate. (II. 10-17)

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

89

Here Satan articulates his invincible and undaunted nature. He reveals that the fallen angels were oppressed by God’s tyranny in Heaven, and that their reforming attempts at liberty and freedom led to their fall from Heaven. Satan’s vision is that they are not fallen or defeated but they have won their freedom and liberty. And the defeat, in a sense, has enabled them to rally their forces better to get rid of the tyranny of God and of “present pain” in the future (II.34). What is more, it has reinforced their strong adherence to the concepts of liberty. Correspondingly, Satan delivers a Cromwellian speech as follows: Where there is then no good For which to strive, no strife can grow up there From faction, for none sure will claim in Hell Precedence, none, whose portion is so small Of present pain, that with ambitious mind Will covet more. With this advantage then To union, and firm faith, and firm accord, More than can be in Heav’n, we now return to Claim our just inheritance of old, Surer to prosper than prosperity Could have assured us. (II. 30-40)

Satan’s articulation of the possibility of a republican state is also uttered by Michael in Book XII, who says there will be on earth a postdiluvian but temporary state of “fair equality, fraternal state” (XII. 26). According to Satan, a stronger army will be achieved by the “union” and “firm faith” of the fallen angels, which is similar to Cromwell’s public speeches after the victory of the New Model Army and Parliamentarians over the Royalists (Smith, “Paradise Lost from Civil War to Restoration” 262). In this regard, the representation of Satan as a political figure and the political structure of the assembly of the fallen angels can regarded as a political allegory. In this manner, Milton criticizes the political structure of Cromwellian regime, stressing Cromwell’s hypocrisy as a political figure who rejected monarchy but later declared himself a Lord Protector, which Milton sees as a kind of hidden monarchy and tyranny. To some extent, Gabriel’s angry reply to Satan ‘s lies about his achievements in flying away from pains and over “the desolate Abyss” to earth can be interpreted as Milton’s anger at Cromwell (IV. 936). Gabriel, also, accuses Satan of being a liar who does not remain faithful to God: […] no leader but a liar traced, Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, O sacred name of faithfulness profaned!

90

Chapter II Faithful to whom? To thy rebellious crew? Army of fiends, fit body to fit head; Was this your discipline and faith engaged, Your military obedience, to dissolve Allegiance to th’ acknowledged Power Supreme? (IV. 949-56)

Gabriel thinks that “faithfulness” refers to obedience to the commands and orders of God only. For Gabriel, Satan, a former military leader in Hell, rebelled with his “rebellious crew” against the orders and commandments of God, and formed an “Army of fiends”. Here, it can be stated that Milton refers to the deeds of Cromwell after he became Lord Protector, questioning his faith in forming a free Commonwealth. For Milton, Cromwell disillusioned the Republicans because he could not achieve to give full liberty to the country: Thou sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who cringed more than thou Once fawned and cringed and servively adored Hev’n’s awful monarch? Wherefore but in hope To disposses him, and thyself to reign? (IV. 957-61)

In parallel, during the Commonwealth period, Cromwell was named as the patron of liberty by the republicans, and Milton The Second Defence of the English People, had praised Cromwell for his ardent support for the construction of liberty for the English nation, naming him “the liberator of [his] country”: All know you to be that man, Cromwell! Such have been your achievements as the greatest and most illustrious citizen, the director of public counsels, the commander of the bravest armies, the father of your country. It is thus that you are greeted by the spontaneous and heartfelt cries of all upright men. Your deeds recognize not other name as worthy of you; other do they allow, and the haughty titles which seem so great in the opinion of the mob, they properly reject [...] You suffered and allowed yourself, not indeed to be borne aloft, but to come down so many degrees from the heights and be forced into a definite rank, so to speak, for the public good [...] For if, when you became so great a figure, you were captivated by the title which as a private citizen you were able to send under the yoke and reduce to nothing, you would be doing almost the same thing as if, when you had subjugated some tribe of idolaters with the help of the true God, you were to worship the gods that you had conquered [...] You, the liberator of your country, the author of liberty, and likewise its guardian and saviour, can undertake no more distinguished role and none more august. By your deeds you have outstripped not only the achievements of our kings, but even the legends of our heroes. (CPW, IVi, 672)

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

91

Hence, as is clear from the quotation, Milton praised Cromwell as a leader of his country, achieving many republican deeds by abolishing the monarchy and House of Lords and constituting a Parliamentarian regime as an executive body in place of monarchy, defeating the Royalists and giving priority to the advancement of God’s cause. As Smith states, by adopting the Toleration Act in 1650, Oliver Cromwell ended the compulsory attendance at parish churches (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707 182-83). However, in the poem, Milton accuses Cromwell of diverging from his republican ideals and going back on his promises as an “author of liberty”. Furthermore, Milton was greatly disappointed and disillusioned with Cromwell’s failure to achieve “the godly reformation” by turning out to be monarchical in style and manner (Armitage, “John Milton: Poet against Empire” 211). Worden claims “the poet [Milton] is certainly capable of having come to share the belief of other republicans that the protector [Cromwell] had sacrificed the revolution on the altar of his own ambition” (“Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven” 141). Milton’s portraying of Satan as both the good and the bad of Cromwell, and his presentation of Pandemonium in the poem too, can be considered as political satire of the English Parliament under the Cromwellian government. What is satirized is that although there was a republican commonwealth which promised to bring freedom and equality to the English society and in which people should live in accordance with religious and civil liberty, there was not so much religious toleration and freedom as expected. Accordingly, as Hill argues, “the satanic parliament gave Milton the chance to stress what was most lacking in 1658-60 – unity among the defenders of the Good Old Cause” (Milton and the English Revolution 369). Milton reflects such weaknesses of the Cromwellian regime, in which there were internal quarrels and instability, as follows: Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not Hellish foes enow besides, That day and night for his destruction wait. (II. 496-505)

Pointing to the political instabilities and ongoing strife during the Commonwealth period, Milton accuses the Cromwellian government and the Lord Protector himself. He resembles them to ‘devils’, corrupting and undermining God’s gift to the English people, the Commonwealth. Similarly Milton in The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free

92

Chapter II

Commonwealth reflects the same attitude, and gives a list of the dangers of restoration of kingship: the loss of freedom, heavy taxes, fines and impositions, the return of episcopacy and its unity with the interest of kingship (Zagorin, Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel 115). On the other hand, as a republican, Satan articulates the idea of rule by “merit”, which Milton promotes as the perfect form of rule. According to this form of rule, there is a small council comprised of elected, worthy and meriting people. As in the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free government, Milton states: why should we thus disparage and prejudice our own nation as to fear a scarcity of able and worthy men united in counsel to govern us, if we will but use diligence and impartiality to find them out and choose them, rather yoking ourselves to a single person, the natural adversary and oppressor of liberty: though good, yet far easier corruptible by the excess of his singular power and exaltation, or at best, not comparably sufficient to bear the weight of government, nor equally disposed to make us happy in the enjoyment of our liberty under him?..in these employments they may, much better than they do now, exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into grand council, according to their worth and merit shall be taken notice of by the people. (893-97)

Thus, for Milton the people who are fittest to govern are chosen by the people. Accordingly, in Paradise Lost, which can be accepted as a republican text, there are many references to rule by merit. Milton draws a distinction between Satan’s merit and the Son’s merit. What Milton intends as rule by merit and the worthy, in fact, is found in the Son’s elevation as the head of the angels by his merit. As God gives it in Paradise Lost: Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition, quited all to save A world from utter loss, and hast been found By merit more than birthright Son of God, Found worthiest to be so by being good, Far more than great or high: because in thee Love hath abounded more than glory abounds, Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt With thee thy manhood also to this throne Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign Both God and man, Son both of God and man, Anointed universal King; all power I give thee, reign for ever, and assume

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

93

Thy merits; under thee as Head supreme Thrones, Princedoms, Powers; Dominions I reduce (III. 305-20)

Thus, as a republican, Milton adopts the theory of meritocracy; the most perfect example of which is given through the Son’s being elected as ruler in terms of his merit. Accordingly, Davies claims “Milton’s god is revolutionary enough to adopt an only Son who must manifest his concern for the good of all before he is ceremoniously recognized as the Son who deserves kingship” (150). Moreover, as given in the lines above, Milton gives reference to the status of the Son, “Son both God and man”. Therefore, when considering the status of the Son as the king of the Universe, “anointed universal King”, Milton refers to his appointment by God. On the other hand, regarding Milton’s ideas on monarchy and kingship, the kings are not selected by God on earth, they are chosen and appointed by the people because only the Son was God’s elected king in heaven. Furthermore, only the title of “King” is given by God to the Son. Milton suggests that the theory of meritocracy is better than the hereditary succession of the rulers, and in his political theory hereditary succession of the rulers potentially produces corrupt rulers not worthy and merited ones. In this respect, in his Commonplace Book, we find Milton revealing the idea that the hereditary rule should be modified with meritocracy: It is best, if a king expects to entrust his kingdom to his son after him, that he should so appoint his son that he will believe that his father establishes the succession of the realm, not on the basis of his coming of age, but on the basis of his deserts, and he is to receive his father’s authority, not as inherited spoils, but as the reward of worth; therefore, that king should rather decide in his own mind and in secret than publicly proclaim whom he expects to leave as heir to the realm, and leave the succession, as it were, in doubt. (CPW, I, 433)

Hence, in Paradise Lost, Milton relates that the Son’s elevation to the status of the universal king by God is justified by his worth and merit not because of succession by blood ties. There are many other references to meritocracy in Paradise Lost as follows: “Satan, exalted sat, by merit raised / to that bad eminence” (II. 5-6), “Ascend the Throne, by merit thine” (V. 80), and “Messiah, who by right of merit reigns” (VI. 43), Hence, Milton’s reference to the rule by merit, that is meritocracy, can clearly be seen in the poem, which, to some extent, indicates Milton’s ideal form of government in Commonwealth.

94

Chapter II

Another political issue that Milton includes in Paradise Lost is his dream of the construction of a republican Commonwealth. What Milton offers as a “Paradise” in his political ideas is a commonwealth. Correspondingly, it can be claimed that what Milton proposes as a theory of an ideal commonwealth for the English people in The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth finds practice and realization in Paradise Lost. Accordingly, as explained before, Milton exposes his antimonarchical opinions in that the only acceptable monarchy is the monarchy of God and Christ, which is reflected in Paradise Lost. Milton believes that earthly monarchies restrict the people’s liberties and as kings tend to treat their subjects tyrannically and lawlessly. Moreover, Milton represents Adam and Eve before their fall as free and liberated people. God says: I formed them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthral themselves: I else must change Their nature, and revoke the high decree Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained Their freedom; they themselves ordained their Fall. (III. 124-28)

Thus, Milton draws attention to the significance of freedom, which he thinks forms man’s civil and religious liberties. Milton in this respect discloses free will and freedom of conscience as constituting the essence of his political vision. In the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates Milton states: No man, who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny, that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and Were, by privilege above all the creatures, born to command, and not to obey: and that they lived so, till from the root of Adam's transgression, falling among themselves to do wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury, and jointly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement. (CPW, III, 198-99)

Thus, through stressing the existence of freedom in the pre-lapsarian world, Milton claims that according to natural law, which is the law that God ordained when creating mankind and the universe, and which is the most legitimate political authority which requires that every human being is free, no one has the right to rule over others. Furthermore, Milton proposes in the poem that free people should reject living under the command of a monarch or a ruler. However people are free and accountable to no one. In the poem, Mammon, one of the leaders of fallen

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

95

angels, makes a speech in Pandemonium which echoes these ideas in a republican tone: [...] Let us not then pursue By force impossible, by leave obtained Unacceptable, though in Heav’n, our state Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek Our own good from ourselves, and from our own Live to ourselves, though in the vast recess, Free, and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easy yoke Of servile pomp. (II. 249-57)

Lucifer, too, displays similar attitude following God’s proclamation of the Son as the head of the angels in heaven which can be considered as a republican speech: But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and choose to bend The supple knee? (V. 785-89)

As republican minds, Lucifer and Mammon, hence, warn their legions not to obey the throne of God and not to reduce themselves to servitude. In fact, here Milton is voicing his own thoughts in that in most of his pamphlets where he defended people’s resistance to the tyrannies of the monarchs. Similarly, Milton in his political pamphlet, The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth suggests: That a nation should be valorous and courageous to win their liberty in the field, and when they have won it, should be so heartless and unwise in their counsels as not to know how to use it, value it, what to do it, or with themselves; but after ten or twelve years’ prosperous war and contestation with tyranny, basely and besottedly to run their necks again into the yoke which they have broken, and prostrate all the fruits of their victory for nought at the feet of the vanquished, besides our loss of glory and such an example as kings or tyrants never yet had the like to boast of, will be an ignominy if it befall us, that never yet befell; worthy indeed themselves, whatsoever they be, to be for ever slaves, but that part of the nation which consents not with them, as I persuade me of a great number, far worthier than by their means to be brought into the same bondage. (886-87)

Hence, Milton, by stating his ideas on the freedom of people and getting rid of any sort of political bondage, puts his theoretical political views into

96

Chapter II

the mouths of his characters, particularly Lucifer and Mammon, in the poem. Another political idea that Milton illustrates in the poem is the formation and designation of an ideal republican state or commonwealth. In The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, Milton proposes a model of Commonwealth which consist of counties, becoming many little Commonwealths, possessing their own local assembly to make laws, and working under a council, which is an entrusted sovereignty (Zagorin, Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel 117). The most capable and the fittest men are chosen to the Grand council, which acts as the executive power to exercise the laws: [E]very county in the land were made a little commonwealth, and thir chief town a city, if it be not so call'd alreadie; where the nobilitie and chief gentry may build, houses or palaces, befitting their qualitie, may bear part in the government, make their own judicial lawes, and execute them by their own elected judicatures, without appeal, in all things of civil government between man and man. So they shall have justice in thir own hands, and none to blame but themselves, if it be not well administer'd. In these imployments they may exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into the Grand Councel, according as their worth and merit shall be taken notice of by the people. As for controversies that shall happen between men of several counties, they may repair, as they do now, to the capital cities. (Ready and Easy Way 896)

Moreover, the Commonwealth that Milton proposes has a military force, formed by faithful soldiers, which enables the safety of the state. However, most significantly, in such a Commonwealth there is no distinction between the lords and the commoners (Zagorin, Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel 117). Similarly, in Paradise Lost, Milton represents such a commonwealth, comprised of one central sovereign commonwealth, as the commonwealth of God and the Son in Heaven, and other little minor commonwealths, the commonwealth of Satan and the fallen angels and the commonwealth of the mankind, Adam and Eve. Hence, Milton proposes a decentralized form of government that displays a large degree of local autonomy (Zagorin, Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel 117). In this commonwealth, as presented in the poem, in Heaven, which is the centre of the commonwealth, God and the Son construct the “grand council”, since they are the worthies. Another political parallelism that Milton puts into Paradise Lost is the analogies between Satan’s Assembly in Hell and the English Parliament

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

97

and the Council of the Commonwealth during Cromwell’s period. According to Fallon, “the parallels between the regime in Hell and the governments of the English Republic suggests that Milton drew on his experience in public service to shape his vision of demonic rule (Divided Empire 63). At the end of Book I, Milton describes Pandemonium, the devils’ Parliament, and displays the ongoing discussions: [...] Winged heralds by command Of sov’reign power, with awful ceremony And trumpets’ sound throughout the host proclaim A Solemn council forthwind to be held At Pandaemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers and squared regiment By place or choice the worthiest: they anon With hundreds and with thousands trooping came Attended: all access was thronged, the gates And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall […] Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course: they on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, Though without number still amidst the hall Of that infernal Court. But far within And in their own dimensions like themselves The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim In close recess and secret conclave sat A thousand demi-gods on golden seats, Frequent and full. After short silence then And summons read, the great consult begin. (I.755-64: I.85-98)

As given in these lines, it is clear that the assembly of the fallen angels at first seems to be a meritocratic institution because the members are chosen in accordance with some sort of merit “by place or choice the worthiest”. However, the opening lines of Book II represent Satan as a tyrannical monarch who directs and manipulates the members of the assembly. While Satan, as the leader of the assembly is described as powerful and authoritative, the commoners, the chosen members of the assembly are likened to “smallest dwarfs” “like that Pygmean race” and “faery elves”. Thus it is clear from these words that the chosen members of the assembly have no real power because they are just discussing the matters and are not part of the powerful core of the government. They are likened to “bees” just buzzing. In fact, although the assembly is bicameral, the effective

98

Chapter II

organ is the “great Seraphic Lords and Cherubims”, who remains fullsized and comfortably seated in an inner chamber, and they are the executive and legislative bodies. Similarly, during the Protectorate period, Oliver Cromwell was powerful over the members of the Parliament like Satan in the assembly of Hell. Moreover, as for the political structure of the assembly, the two houses resemble to the English Parliamentary system in Westminster, which had earlier comprised of a larger House of Commons, and a smaller and hereditary House of Lords (Hill, A Century of Revolution 98). As the king and Cromwell were the head of the parliament, so Satan is the head of the Pandemonium. Even though the House of Lords had been abolished in 1649, it was brought back in 1658 as “the Other House” was reconstituted, with forty or seventy persons consisting of peers or lords, nominated by the Lord Protector and approved by the Commons (Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles 191). Identical with the Satanic assembly, in which the final decisions are made by the “great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim / In close recess and secret conclave” (I. 794-95), in the Council of the Commonwealth, although the Commons discussed and accepted acts initially, they then sent them to the Protectorate council, which made the final decisions (Smith A History of the Modern British Isles 192). Hence, drawing analogies between “Pandemonium”, “the great consult “and the “Stygian Council”, the names of the assembly in the hell, and the Council of the Commonwealth or the English parliament, Milton also makes a correlation between Satan and Cromwell, as the leaders of their parliaments and states. Milton in the poem, to some extent, gives the allegory of the fall of England, making close connections between the title of the poem, Paradise Lost, and “England lost” because of the failure of England’s republican experiment. Hence, he reflects the main reason behind the failure, which is the private interest of the republican leaders and Parliamentarians. As Milton gives at the beginning of the poem, it was Satan’s ambition and private interest, working against God’s power, that caused Adam and Eve to be expelled from the happy state, Heaven: […] what cause Moved our grand parents in that happy state, Favoured of Heav’n so highly, to fall off From their Creator and transgress his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? (I. 27-33)

“Our parents” in the lines above could be seen to refer to the English people, in which case this quotation particularly draws attention to the

A Political Reading of Paradise Lost

99

condition of English people before and after the English Revolution, who suffered from the tyrannical rules of the Stuart monarchs as well as the self-interested and ambitious republican leaders and Parliamentarians. As a political poet and a social critic Milton also represents and evaluates the social and historical events of his time in Paradise Lost. However, as Christopher Hill claims, Paradise Lost is not a historical document but purely a poem. He states: The surface meaning is not necessarily to be taken at its face value, as though it were a series of statements in prose. Nor, for that matter, should historians take most prose statements at their face value without careful critical examination of the context, the author’s probable intentions, and so on and so forth. (Milton and the English Revolution 354)

Assuming that in Paradise Lost Milton had some intention in composing the poem, which can be considered to illuminate his readers about the events of the English Revolution and to recognize the reasons of the defeat of the Commonwealth, while continuing to “[j]ustify the ways of God to men” (I. 26), one cannot disregard Paradise Lost from the historical point of view. In this regard, the Civil War is reflected in the poem as the war between God and the fallen angels under the leadership of Satan. However, in the war scenes Milton exchanges the roles, with the fallen angels representing the Royalists, who are defeated in the wars, and the angels of Heaven and the Christ’s Army representing the Republicans and the New Model Army. In this respect, Milton’s Satan stands for Charles I. Likewise, as the commanders of the army of good angels are Michael and Gabriel, the two generals of the army of the Parliamentarians were Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax. Thus, Milton constructs some correlations between the angels of Heaven and the Parliamentarians during the Civil War: Go Michael of celestial armies prince, And thou in military prowess next, Gabriel, lead forth to battle these my sons Invincible, lead forth my armied saints By thousands and by millions ranged for fight. (VI. 44-8)

Milton praises the military successes and heroic deeds of these commanders. And here the “celestial army” refers to the New Model Army, headed by General Cromwell. Moreover, Milton resembles the faithful soldiers of the New Model Army to the saints of Christ’s army, or -“armied saints” to some respect.

100

Chapter II

Although Milton did not fight in the war against the Royalists, he was involved in the revolutionary war by writing pamphlets to defend republicanism and the Parliamentarian regime against monarchy and tyranny. Furthermore, in the Commonwealth regime when he was appointed as Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State, Milton was involved in a series of pamphlet wars with European scholars, such as Claudius Salmasius and Peter Du Moulin (Sensabaugh 2). To some extent, at the beginning of Book VI of Paradise Lost, Milton writes his duty and position, and evaluates his efforts and attempts in resolving religious and civil liberty in the minds of the English people. God congratulates Michael for his great effort in war against the rebel angels: Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought The better fight, who single hast maintained Against revolted multitudes the cause Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms; And for the testimony of truth hast borne Universal reproach, far worse to bear Than violence: for this was all thy care To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds Judged the perverse: the easier conquest now Remains thee, aided by this host of friends, Back on thy foes more glorious to return Than scorned thou didst depart, and to subdue By force, who reason for their law refuse, Right reason for their law, and for their King Messiah, who by right of merit reigns. (VI. 29-43)

In accordance with these lines, if we contextualize the passage and for a while ignore that God is here congratulating Michael for routing the rebels, then the passage actually can be read very clearly as Milton congratulating himself for standing against the royalist assaults and antirepublican attacks even after the collapse of the republican regime. Hence, the lines above reveal Milton’s role in republicanism, in which he regards himself as the “servant of God”, not a servant of monarchs. As he states, he stood firmly against the enemies of the Commonwealth through his pamphlets and polemical writings, defending “the cause / Of truth”, which is “the good old cause” in a republican sense. He also reveals his success in his polemical writings in the international arena. Milton may have written these lines when the restoration of monarchy approached. On the other hand, rejecting earthly kingship, he claims that the only acceptable and lawful king in the universe is the “King Messiah” who reigns not because of the right of the laws, but “by right of merit”.

CONCLUSION

Considering his early poems, political pamphlets and great epics, most Milton scholars agree that Milton is not only a poet but also an ardent political activist and a pamphleteer, writing polemical pamphlets, on religious and political matters and the problems of his age. In his pamphlets he defends freedom, religious and civil liberties of people, individualism and republicanism as a new political system which is based on the authority of people and their rights to resistance and rebellion against tyranny and monarchy in political and religious life. Hence, throughout his life Milton was committed to fight and write against the absolutist monarchy and tyranny in England with his literary and political works. The young Milton, from 1608 to 1640, devoted himself completely to literature and art, writing poems that are pure works of fantasy and pure imagination. Thus, Milton in his early career did not aspire to be a political writer and pamphleteer but a great poet and artist, like Spenser. In this respect, he committed himself to art and literature through involving himself in private studies and a European journey. However, when the Civil War broke out in England, resulting from a conflict between Stuart absolutism and Parliamentarian republicanism, most of the English political philosophers and writers of the seventeenth century were seriously concerned about this conflict, composing works of art and political pamphlets in which they expressed their allegiance to the republicans. Milton in this time of political conflict was actively involved in political activities, as a result of which he became known as a political writer. Putting aside poetry, he devoted himself to political issues and activities from 1641 to the 1660’s. He emerged in political life as a political pamphleteer, defending the cause of republicanism against monarchical tyranny and religious oppression of the Church of England and the political absolutism of the Stuarts. Accordingly, in the early pamphlets Milton particularly dealt with ecclesiastical liberties of the English people, defending the freedom of worship and freedom of conscience because he believed that political liberty began with religious liberty, and where there was no religious liberty, people would not be free in political matters. However, the year 1649 became a turning point in Milton’s political life because when Charles I was executed, monarchy was abolished in England, and there was established a republican Commonwealth under the authority of Parliament. Milton, wrote against

102

Conclusion

the monarchy and tyranny of Charles I, defending instead the need for a more democratic regime, republicanism. Milton was appointed Secretary of the Foreign Tongues by the Council of the State, becoming this time the official defender of the Commonwealth. He wrote political pamphlets such as A Defence of the English People, the Second Defence of the English People the Defence of Himself, A Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, in which he defended political and civil liberties, religious toleration, a free Commonwealth and a necessity of a Parliamentarian regime based on the supremacy of the will of people, against monarchy, and political and religious tyrannies of the absolutist regimes. However, the Commonwealth regime collapsed as a result of inefficient and inadequate policies followed by Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard Cromwell, and also because of the long-brewing political contentions and quarrels in the Puritan government itself. Therefore, monarchy was restored in 1660. With the restoration of monarchy in England, Milton’s life, as an ardent republican and the defender of regicide, was in real danger when Charles II came to power in 1660. Milton had to refrain from writing on the political issues of his time. Hence, he did not write pamphlets on current political and religious issues of the time except for De Doctrina Chtistiana in 1673, which was published posthumously. In this he stated his religious views. He detached himself from further political controversies and no longer wrote polemical pamphlets criticising the monarchical regime. Considering Milton’s earlier position and reputation as a political activist and a republican fanatic, it would have been highly dangerous for him to write anything about politics. Furthermore, a new form of licensing law imposed in 1664 made it impossible for Milton to express his political ideas freely. Consequently, it can be claimed that in composing his major poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, he included some political intentions, reflecting his political views. Therefore, it can be stated that using literature as a medium of expression, Milton may have intentionally written Paradise Lost as a political poem, in which, by re-writing the Biblical story of the Creation, the fall of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve, he put a political subtext into the poem which reflected the social and political panorama of England of his time. Hence, Paradise Lost is an allegorical representation of his political ideas on tyranny and the absolute powers of the rulers, reflected through God and Satan, given as the representations of Charles I and Cromwell as well. On the other hand, in an allegorical way, Milton, to some extent,

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

103

questioned the failure of the republican regime in England, thus the title, Paradise Lost, can be considered as England’s failure in the way of democratization. Classifying Paradise Lost as a political allegory, Milton does not represent a traditional form of allegory in which an extended metaphor is used and the characters are the mere personifications of abstract ideas. Moreover, in the study it has been demonstrated that unlike other allegorical texts, the characters in Paradise Lost are not the personifications of abstract ideas but they are the representation of the political figures of Milton’s own time. In the poem Milton also reveals the use and abuse of political power, drawing political analogies between the characters of the poem, including God, Lucifer, or later Satan, and the Son, and the political figures of Milton’s time, including Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. Lucifer in the poem is given as the most dynamic character, having a polysemic political nature. In this regard, Milton portrays him both as the royalist and the republican politician. To some extent, the story of Lucifer is the representation of corrupt politicians and leaders, striving to gain political power. It can be stated that in the poem, God stands for absolutist and autocratic politicians of Milton’s own time, depicting the political natures and attitudes of the early Stuart monarchs. What makes Lucifer a dynamic character is that Milton depicts initially him as a heroic republican figure, defending individual rights and equality in Heaven, and defying God’s absolutism and tyranny. Satan’s main reason behind this rebellion and resistance is his stance against arbitrary rulership of monarchs and his insistence on equality and liberty of the angels, which can also be considered as Republican ideals, similar to Milton’s ideas on Republicanism in his earlier pamphlets. After Satan gains political power and becomes the leader of the fallen angels, he himself turns out to be an absolutist and tyrant more than God. Hence, this political metamorphosis in Lucifer can be an allusion to Oliver Cromwell who experienced such a political progress. Cromwell emerged as a military leader and an ardent republican, defending the rights and liberties of the English people against tyrannies and absolutist rule of the monarch. However when he becomes Lord Protector, thus having the sole power to some respect, he himself turns out to be an absolutist leader due to his personal, arbitrary and uncompromising political attitude. Therefore, it can be claimed that Milton’s depiction of Lucifer as a republican can be associated with his disillusion with the Cromwellian regime. On the other hand, reading the poem from a political perspective, it can be stated that God represents absolute rulership, reflected as the most

104

Conclusion

authoritarian figure of the poem. Hence, God, depicted as an absolute ruler stands for the Stuart monarchies similar to Charles I, who adopted arbitrary political decisions. The relationship between God and the Son can be associated with the relation between Charles I and Charles II, mainly on the hereditary nature of monarchy. In this respect, Milton, to a certain extent, questions and criticizes the concepts of kingship, divine rights of kings and hereditary monarchy. Therefore, it can be concluded that Paradise Lost is a poem into which Milton inserted his political ideology, mainly concentrating on the priority of the will, rights and liberties of people, questioning the use and abuse of the power of rulers.

WORKS CITED

Prımary Sources Aristotle. The Politics. Trans. T.A. Sinclair. London: Penguin, 1962. Hughes, Merritt Y, ed. John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. New York: Odyssey, 1957. James VI and I. Political Writings. Ed. Johan P. Sommerville. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Stephan Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Wolfe, Don M. et al., eds. Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 8 vols. London: Yale UP, 1953-82.

Secondary Sources Alvis, John. “Foreword”. Areopagitica and Other Political Writings of John Milton. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999. ix-xvi. Armitage, David, ed. “John Milton. Poet Against Empire.” Milton and Republicanism. Eds. Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 206-225. Barber, Sarah. Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution, 1646-1659. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1998. Barker, Arthur. Milton and Puritan Dilemma. Toronto: Toronto UP, 1976. Beer, Anna. Milton Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008. Belsey, Catherine. John Milton: Language, Gender, Power. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Berns, Laurance. “John Milton.” History of Political Philosophy. Eds. Leo Strauss and J. Cropsey. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1987. 396-420. Brown, Cedric C. John Milton: A Literary Life. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. Brice, Katherine. The Early Stuarts 1603-40. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994. Bryson, Michael. “Background for the Defense of the English People.” 14. 10. 2009. . Burgess, Glen. Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution. London: Yale UP, 1996.

106

Works Cited

Bush, Douglas, ed. “Introduction.” The Portable Milton. New York: Viking, 1949. 1-28 —. The Early Seventeenth Century, 1600-1660: Jonson, Donne and Milton. Oxford: Clarendon, 1962. Corns, Thomas. “Milton and the Characteristics of a Free Commonwealth.” Milton and Republicanism. Eds. David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 25-42. —. John Milton: The Prose Works. London: Prentice Hall, 1998. Croft, Pauline. King James. New York: Macmillan, 2003. Coward, Barry. The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714. 2nd Ed. London: Longman, 1994. Davies, Godfrey. The Early Stuarts 1603-1660. 2nd Ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1959. Davies, Stevie. Images of Kingship in Paradise Lost: Milton’s Politics and Christian Liberty. Columbia: Missouri UP, 1983. Davies, Stevie. Milton. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. Dietz, Frederick C. A Political and Social History of England. 3rd Ed. New York: Macmillan, 1950. Dobranski, Stephen B. “Milton’s Social Life.” The Cambridge Companion to Milton. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 1-24. Durston, Christopher. James I. London: Routledge, 1993. Dzelzainis, Martin. “Ideas in Conflict: Political and Religious Thought During the English Revolution.” The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Ed. N.H. Keeble. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 32-49. —. “Milton’s Classical Republicanism.” Milton and Republicanism. Eds. David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 3-24. —, ed. “Introduction.” John Milton Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. ix-xxvi. Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph. Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government: Papers and Reviews: 1982-1990. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. Fallon, Robert Thomas. “A Reading of His ‘left hand’: Milton's Prose”. A Concise Companion to Milton. Ed. Angelica Duran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. 7-24. —. Divided Empire: Milton’s Political Imagery. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1995. —. Milton in Government. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1993.

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

107

Fink, Zera. “The Theory of Mixed State and the Development of Milton’s Political Thought”. PMLA 57. 3 (1942): 705-36. —. The Classical Republicans: An Essay in the Recovery of a Pattern of Thought in Seventeenth Century England. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1945. Fowler, Alaistair. Ed. Paradise Lost. New York: Longman, 1971. Gardiner, Samuel Rawson. The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660. 3rd Ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968. Grierson, H. J. C. “Milton and Liberty.” The Modern Language Review 39. 2. (1944): 97-102. Hill, Christopher. Milton and the English Revolution. New York: Viking, 1977. —. A Century of Revolution: 1603-1714. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge, 1989. Himy, Armand. “Paradise Lost as a Republican ‘Tractacus TheologicoPoliticus’.” Milton and Republicanism. Eds. David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 118-36. Hughes, Merritt. “Preface and Notes.” Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Vol. III. Ed. Don Wolfe. London: Yale UP, 1966. 190-258. Hughes, Ann. “Religion 1640-1660.” A Companion to Stuart England. Ed. Barry Coward. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 350-73. Jones, Edward. “ ‘Filling in a Blank in the Canvas’: Milton, Horton, and the Kedermister Library.” The Review of English Studies, New Series 53. 209 . (2002): 31-60. Kenyon, J. P. ed. The Stuart Constitution, 1603-1688: Documents and Commentary. New York: Cambridge UP, 1986. Kimmel, Michael S. Absolutism and its Discontents: State and Society in Seventeenth Century France and England. New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1988. King, Bruce. Seventeenth Century English Literature: History of Literature Series. London: Macmillan, 1982. Kishlansky, Mark. A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714. London: Allen Lane, 1996. Lee, Patricia-Ann. “England: An Unfinished Revolution.” Establishing Democracies. Ed. Mary Ellen Fischer. Oxford: Westview, 1996. 22-55. Lejosne, Roger. “Milton, Satan, Salmasius and Abdiel.” Milton and Republicanism. Eds. David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 106-17. Leonard, John, ed. “Introduction.” John Milton: Paradise Lost. London: Penguin, 2000. vii-xli.

108

Works Cited

Lewalski, Barbara K. The Life of John Milton. A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. —. “Milton: Political Beliefs and Polemical Methods, 1659-60.” PMLA 74. 3 (1959): 191-2002. Lockyer, Roger. James VI and I. London: Longman, 1998. —. The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England 1603-1642. London: Longman, 1993. Loewenstein, David. “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution.” The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Ed. N.H. Keeble. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 87-106. —. Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Puritanism. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. Lovett, Frank. “Milton’s Case for a Free Commonwealth”. American Journal of Political Science 49. 3 (2005): 466-78. Maltzahn, Nicholas Von. “John Milton: The Later Life (1641-1674).” The Oxford Handbook of Milton. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 26-48. Miller, John. Absolutism in Seventeenth-Century Europe. London: Macmillan, 1990. —. The Stuarts. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2004. Milner, Andrew. John Milton and the English Revolution: A Study in the Sociology of Literature. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1981. Milton, Anthony. Laudian and Royalist Polemic in SeventeenthCentury England: The Career and Writings of Peter Heylyn. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2007. Morison, William. Milton and Liberty. London: W. Green, 1909. Morrill, John. “The Causes of the British Civil Wars.” The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Ed. N.H. Keeble. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 13-31. Morrill, John, ed. “The Stuarts.” The Oxford History of Britain. Vol III. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992. Norbrook, David. Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Naubert, Charles. The Age of Renaissance and Reformation. London: Dryden, 1981. Parry, Graham. The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1603-1700. London: Longman, 1989. Patterson, Annabel. Milton’s Words. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Potter, Lois. A Preface to Milton. Revised Ed. New York: Longman, 1986. Raymond, Dora Neill. Oliver’s Secretary: John Milton in an Era of Revolt. New York: Minton, Balch and Company, 1932.

Milton’s Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

109

Rayner, Robert M. England in Tudor and Stuart Times, 1485-1714. London: Longman and Green, 1934. Ridden, Geoffrey. Studying Milton. Hong Kong: Longman, 1885. Rivers, Isabel. “Prayer-book Devotion: The Literature of the Proscribed Episcopal Church.” The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Ed. N.H. Keeble. Cambridge. Cambridge U.P., 2001. 198-214. Roberts, Gabriel. “Milton’s Political Context.” Christ’s College. 2008. 01.06.2008. . Sabine, George H. A History of Political Thought. London: George G. Harrap and Co., 1966. Schiffhorst, Gerald. John Milton. New York: Continuum, 1990. Schulman, Lydia Dittler. Paradise Lost and the Rise of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1992. Sensabaugh, George, F. That Grand Whig: Milton. California: Standford UP, 1952. Servini, Peter. “Henry VIII: The Reformation.” The Tudor Years. Ed. John Lotherington. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994. 80-116. Sharpe, Kevin. “The Personal Rule of Charles I.” Before the English Civil War: Essays on Early Stuart Politics and Government. Ed. Howard Tomlinson. London: Macmillan, 1990. 53-78. Shawcross, John, T. John Milton: The Self and the World. Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1993. Sirluck, Ernest. “Milton’s Political thought: The First Cycle”. Modern Philology 61. 3 (1964): 209-24. Skinner, Quentin. “State.” Political Innovation and Conceptual Change. Eds. Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L. Hanson. New York: Cambridge UP, 1989. 90-131. Smith, David L. A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown. London: Blackwell, 1998. —. “Politics in Early Stuart England, 1603-42.” A Companion to Stuart England. Ed. Barry Coward. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 233-54. Smith, Lacey Baldwin. The Realm of England, 1399-1688. 5th Ed. Toronto: D. C. Heath, 1988. Smith, Nigel. “Paradise Lost from Civil War to Restoration.” The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Ed. N.H. Keeble. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 251-67. Sommerville, J. P. Politics and Ideology in England, 1603-1640. London: Longman, 1986.

110

Works Cited

—, ed. “Introduction.” James VI and I. Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. xv-xliv. —. “1625-1629: The First Crisis of Charles I's Reign.” 18. 09. 2008. . Stavely, Keith W. The Politics of Milton’s Prose Style. London: Yale UP, 1975. Symth, Jim. The Making of the United Kingdom: 1660-1800. London: Longman, 2001. To Kill a King. Dir. Mike Barker. Screenplay by Jenny Mayhew. Perf. Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, and Olivia Williams. Filmfour. 2003. Thrush, Andrew. “The Personal Rule of James I, 1611-1620”. Politics, Religion and Popularity. Eds. Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust and Peter Lake. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 84-102. Trevelyan, G. M. England under the Stuarts. London: New York, 2002. Underdown, David. Pride’s Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution. New York: Oxford UP, 1971. Walker, William. “Reassessing Milton’s Republicanism: History, Machiavelli, and Paradise Lost.” Uncircumscribed Mind: Reading Milton Deeply. Eds. Charles W. Durham and Kristin A. Pruitt. Cranbury: Rosemont, 2008. 183-221. Walum, Laurel Richardson. “The Art of Domination: An analysis of Power in Paradise Lost.” Social Forces 53. 4 (1975): 573-80. Wheeler, Elizabeth Skerpan. “Early Political Prose”. A Companion to Milton. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 263-77. Wilson, A.N. The Life of John Milton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984. Willson, David Harris. King James VI and I. London: Jonathan Cape, 1963. Woolrych, Austin. England without a King: 1649-1660. London: Routledge, 1993. Worden, Blair. “Milton’s Republicanism and the Tyranny of Heaven.” Machiavelli and Republicanism. Eds. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 225-46. Zagorin, Perez, ed. “The English Revolution, 1640-1660”. The English Revolution: Politics, Events, Ideas. Aldershot: Ashgate Varioum, 1998. —. Milton: Aristocrat and Rebel: The Poet and His Politics. New York: D. S. Brewer, 1992.