I. Date anv AvutuHorsuip.

To George Thomason, bookseller of the Rose and
Crown in St. Paul’s Church Yard, friend of Rushworth,
Calamy, and Milton, and keen observer of religious
and political affairs, we owe the British Museum col-
lection of tracts which bears his name. From 1640
to 1661 Thomason collected each day’s output of
tracts, broadsides, newspapers, books, even fly-leaves
of doggerel verse, and stored them away for the ed-
ification of future ages. Few of the publications rela-
ting to the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the
Restoration eluded his vigilance. As the flood of this
voluminous period bore in upon him, he carefully
noted the exact date of each publication in his cata-
logue, and often wrote out the full name of the author
where the treatise or book gave only the initials. On
this account, Thomason is the sole authority for the
dates of first and second editions of many books now
regarded as classics of English literature.

Among eight publications which came into Thoma-
son’s hands from the presses of London on Feb. 13,
1649, one small quarto, the work of a friend, must
have been noted by him with special pleasure. The
entry was as follows;—‘The Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates: proving that it is Lawfull 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. The Author, J. M. [i.e. John Milton.] Prin-
ted by Matthew Simmons (48 Feb).’ A year later,

b

ii Introduction

on Feb. 15, 1650, he notes the arrival at the Rose
and Crown of a copy of the second edition :—‘ The
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, proving that it is
Lawfull to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King,
and put him to death. Published now the second
time with some additions. The author J. M. [i. e. John
Milton] pp.60. Printed by Matthew Simmons (15 Feb.).’

We are thus certain of the exact date of publication
of this treatise, the first apology for the Commonwealth.
Thanks to another contemporary witness, we have
most interesting information as to the place of compo-
sition, the author's motive, his political sympathies,
and the effect of the publication on his own personal
fortunes. Our authority is Milton’s nephew, Edward
Philips, who gives a more extended reference to this
pamphlet than might have been expected in the brief
compass of his charming sketch of the life of the poet.
‘It was not long after the march of Fairfax and Crom-
well through the city of London with the whole army,
to quell the insurrections, Brown and Massey, now
malecontents also, were endeavoring to raise in the
city against the armies proceedings, ere he left his
great house in Barbican, and betook himself to a
smaller in High Holhourn, among those that open
backward into Lincolns-Inn Fields. Here he liv'd a
private and quiet life, still prosecuting his studies and
curious sea:ch into knowledge, the grand affair per-
petually of his life; till such time as, the war being
now at an end, with compleat victory to the Parlia-
ment’s side, as the Parliament then stood purg’d of all
its dissenting members, and the king after some trea-
ties with the army re infecta, brought to his tryal; tne
form of government being now chang’d into a free
state, he was hereupon oblig’d to write a treatise,
call’d The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.’

Date and Authorship iii

tose ‘After which his thoughts were bent upon retiring
The again to his own private studies, and falling upon
it is such subjects as his proper genius prompted him to
ing, @ write of, among which was the history of our own
ond @ zation from the beginning till the Norman Conquest,
ohn = wherein he had made some progress, When (for this
b.).’ @ his last treatise, reviving the fame of some other things
tion ihe had formerly published) being more and more taken
th. H notice of for the excellency of his stile, and depth of
ave 4 judgement, he was courted into the service of this
po- ‘3 new Commonwealth, and at last prevail’d with (for
ies, ‘he never hunted after preferment, nor affected the
nal =} tintimar and hurry of publick business) to take upon
ard % him the office of Latin secretary to the Counsel of
this = State.’!
rief j According to this Statement, The Tenure of Kings
pet. and Magistrates was written subsequent to the exe-
m- cution of Charles I and the proclamation of the Repub-
ny, lic. The book was published, it is true, exactly a
Ow | fortnight after the king’s death, and a week after the
the official Setting-up of th: republican form of govern-
his = ment, but Philips is in error as to the date of compo-
a sition. Milton himself, in an autobiographical passage
en @ in the Second Defence, distinctly states that he wrote
a i this pamphlet when the House of Commons was
nd 4 arranging for the trial of the king: ‘On the last species
or of civil liberty, I said nothing, because I saw that suf- !
ag % ficient attention was paid to it by the Magistrates ; nor i
a- | did I write anything on the prerogative of the crown, 1
all till the king, voted an enemy by the parliament, and
a- % vanquished in the field, was summoned before the
1e tribunal which condemned him to lose his head. But
2e “@ when at length, some Presbyterian ministers, who had ‘
e, q formerly been the most bitter enemies to Charles, be-

* Godwin, Lives of Edw. and Sohn Philips, app. p. 871.
b2

iv Introduction

came jealous of the growth of the Independents, and
of their ascendancy in the parliament, most tumul-
tuously clamoured against the seatence, and did all
in their power to prevent the execution, though they
were not angry so much on account of the act it-
self, as because it was not the act of their party; and
when they dared to affirm, that the doctrine of the
Protestants, and of all the reformed churches was ab-
horrent to such an atrocious proceeding against kings,
I thought that it became me to oppose such a glaring
falsehood; and accordingly, without any immediate or
personal application to Charles, I shewed, in an ab-
stract consideration of the question, what might law-
fully be done against tyrants: and in support of what
I advanced, produced the opinions of the most cele-
brated divines; while I vehemently inveighed against
the egregious ignorance or effrontery of men, who
professed better things, and from whom better things
might have been expected. That book did not make
its appearance till after the death of Charles; and was
written rather to reconcile the minds of the people t-
the event, than to discuss the legitimacy of that partic-
ular sentence which concerned the magistrates, and
which was already executed’ (Bohn 1, 259). Aside
from this direct evidence, a careful reading of the trea-
tise itself might have convinced Philips of his mistake.
Milton refers to the trial of the king (5. 12 ff.) as a
matter still under discussion: ‘They plead for him,
pity him, extoll him, protest against those that talke
of bringing him to the tryall of Justice, etc.’ He al-
ludes to those Independents who hesitate to take such
a course, who ‘begin to swerve, and almost shiver at
the Majesty and grandeur of som noble deed’ (6. 10).
The king is spoken of as one still alive (8. 20), ‘the
Sword of Justice is above him’ (8, 34), a prisoner, he

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3

Date and Authorship v

should not ‘think to scape unquestionable’ (21. 21).
He also speaks of ‘the proceedings now in Parlament
against the King’ (27. 31). In 38. 16ff. the Presby-
terians are denounced, ‘who now, to the stirring up
of new discord, acquitt him; ... absolve him, uncon-
found him, though unconverted, unrepentant,’ etc. He
speaks of the king’s trial as a future event (40. 16),
and of the likelihood of his punishment by the Par-
liament and Military Council ‘if it appeare thir duty’
(40. 22), while in 42.8 he refers to ‘what remaines
to doe, and warns the Presbyterian divines to ‘be-
ware an old and perfet enemy,’ if they put him in
his place of old-time power (42. 2 ff.).

Internal evidence, therefore, especially the mention
of ‘the proceedings now in Parlament against the
King,’ and the reference to those who shivered at the
prospect of becoming judges at the trial, make it
certain that Milton wrote these pages during the
month of January, 1649. On Jan. 1 the Commons
=ppointed commissioners and judges to try the king.
The proceedings against him were debated until the
passing of the Resolution and Ordinance of Jan. 6.
It was also during this momentous week that various
members of the House swerved and shivered. Bul-
strode Whitelocke, the great lawyer, found it con-
venient to retire into the country; the clerk of the
House, Mr. Elysyng, discovered that his health had
suddenly failed him; nearly half of the commissioners
failed to attend any of the meetings of the trial court.
Lord General Fairfax himself, an arch-leader of the
Independents, was at the first meeting on Jan. 8, but
never attended a second session. As Milton’s allusion
(6. 7 ff.) points to these faint-hearts, the treatise must
have been written after Jan. 8. The reference to
Prynne’s pamphlet, A Briefe Memento to the Present

vi

Introduction

Unparliamentary Junto (6. 80), which was published on
Jan. 19, would make the date of composition later
still, unless the sneer at Prynne was inserted when
Milton was revising the first sheets of his manuscript.
The pamphlet then must have been written between
Jan. 8 and Jan. 27, the date on which sentence was
pronounced against the king. If it was written before
the trial of Charles, the period of composition would
be narrowed to an interval of twelve days, between
Jan. 8 and Jan. 20. The former time-limit seems to
be the more probable, but even nineteen days was
a wonderfully short space of time for the production
of such a piece of work.

Il. Historicat Situation.

The historical situation, which forms the background
to tuis hurriedly written book, and with which it deals
in the boldest manner, was intensely dramatic. From
the serene pages of Philips, with his talk of the
prospect of Lincolns-Inn Fields from the High Hol-
born retreat, and his references to the private life
of Milton while he was ‘ prosecuting his curious search
intu knowledge,’ we gain only a partial view of the
great writer's interests. It is true that he still kept
up his studies, and this is one of the strange and well-
nigh unaccountable things about so many of the
scholars, statesmen, and soldiers of that age of com-
motion and upheaval, that they could turn so easily
from the turmoil of events to ‘the still air and quiet
of delightful studies,’ and prosecute all kinds of
laborious, and what seem to us trivial researches.
Considerable material in this pamphlet reveals the
‘private’ scholar, the curious student of ancient laws

Historical Situation vii

and historical precedents. We must also remember
that in these days of revolution Milton did consider-
able work towards a history of England. But if there
was the studious side to his life, bearing witness to
a strength of mind that would not be upset by the
storms in the real England at his door, he was also
a child of his time, an intensely interested observer
of every move in politics and religious controversy.
He sat there in his study at High Holborn, but he
looked not towards Lincolns-Inn Fields, but towards
Westminster, where the House of Commons was
hastening to the condemnation of Charles Stuart.
The historical situation at the beginning of the year
1649 can best be depicted by explaining the attitude
of various parties in England and Scotland towards
King Charles. He was at this time a prisoner in the
hands of the English army, whose leaders were Fairfax,
Ireton, and Cromwell. As far back as March or April,
1648, the army officers had decided in their famous
prayer-meeting at Windsor Castle that the only way
in which to promote liberty and to secure peace for
England was ‘to call Charles Stuart, that man of
blood, to an account for that blood he had shed and
mischief he had done to his utmost against the Lord's
Cause and People in these poor Nations.’! Fairfax
weakened at the last, as we have seen, but Cromwell,
Ireton, and the bulk of the officers and men never
receded from their stern prayer-meeting resolve. While
other parties treated with the king, they issued mani-
festo after manifesto, the burden of each and all being
a demand for justice on the king. In November the
democratic ideals of the regiments found expression in
the Grand Army Remonstrance, in which all attempts

* See Carlyle, Letters and Speeches of Cromwell 1. 286 ff.

viii Introduction

to treat with the King were denc.nced, and he him-
self was declared to be guilty of the highest treason,
incapable of penitence or common honesty. On
Dec. 1 the army seized Charles as their own prisoner ;
and on the following day Fairfax led his troops into
London, where they closed in upon Parliament, to
Overawe it into submission with their wishes. Pride’s
Purge took place on Dec. 6, by which all opposers
of the army, some 143 members of the Commons,
were excluded from their places, leaving 78 members
to carry out the orders of their masters. Of this
number, some 28 withdrew from the house of their
own accord, leaving what Prynne called the ‘un-
parliamentary Junto’ to bring the king to the scaf-
fold.

The second political group, closely allied with the
army, was composed of Independents—Puritans who
had gradually come to believe in the separation of
church and state, and were now willing to grant
toleration to all religious freethinkers, except prelatists,
papists, and atheists. At the close of the year 1648
this party in parliament and in the nation was divided
into two classes—first, the ultra-radicals, who were
determined to compass the king’s death, and set up
a republic; and, secondly, the great majority, who were
willing to visit the king with deposition, but who
shrank from the army’s proposed cure for the ills of
the nation. Of the large number of Independent
divines, only two, so far as is known, expressed ap-
probation of the trial of the king.

A third party, strongest in London, Lancashire, and
Scotland, was made up of Presbyterians who were
doing their utmost to save the royal prisoner from

* Rushworth, Hist, Coll, 7. 1297.

mr ty

vos wi wad

Historical Situation ix

the army and the Independents. In the earlier years
of the great rebellion the Presbyterians had been
supreme; they had ruled with a high hand, had
established their form of church government in Eng-
land on the ruins of the prelacy, had passed severe
laws against other sectaries, and had prosecuted the
war against the king with energy. In spite of their
jealous, , ecuting zeal, the Independents rapidly in-
creased in numbers and in power. Owing to Crom-
well's tolerance, the army became a hotbed of radic-
alism in politics and theology, and was regarded as
the greatest foe of the Presbyterians. Actuated no
doubt by genuine fear of the regimental preachers,
and alarmed at the rapid growth of the Independent
faction in the House of Commons, and feeling that
their one chance to force England to remain Pres-
byterian lay in the rehabilitation of the king, the fol-
lowers of the kirk both in Scotland and in England
labored from the days of the first imprisonment at
Newcastle in Aug., 1646, to the close of Nov., 1648,
to negotiate a treaty with Charles which would be
satisfactory, at least to themselves. The curious spec-
tacle was now presented of former enemies converted
into warm advocates of the king. A party among
the Presbyterians of Scotland, headed by the Scottish
Commissioners to England and the Hamiltonians, had
even entered into a secret engagement with the king,
in Jan. 1648, to invade England with a Scotch army,
for the purpose of restoring him to his full royalty,
on the understanding that he would guarantee the
Presbyterian form of church government in England
for three years, and suppress the Independents and
all other sects and heresies. Although the Hamil-
tonian party did succeed in leading an army into Eng-
land in the Second Civil War, it must be remembered

x Introduction

that Argyle and other Scotch nobles, the Presbyterian
ministers of Scotland, and the vast majority of their
congregations, were entirely out of sympathy both
with the treaty and the invasion. Yet in spite of the
fact that there were two classes among the Pres-
byterians of the realm, just as there were divisions
among the Independents, all the Presbyterians of
Scotland and England were averse to the army’s pro-
posal to bring the king to trial. One and all they
pitied the fallen monarch, and would have been glad
to restore him to his crown and royal dignity at no
slight compromise of liberties hardly wor, in the bloody
struggles of the Civil War. Wherefore not a Pres-
byterian layman sat on the court of trial, not a Pres-
byterian minister in London approved the course of
the army chiefs. Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain,
was sent to discuss the subject amicably with the
Westminster Assembly of Divines, but they declared
unanimously for the king's release. Peters was then
authorized by the army leaders to invite to a friendly
conference several London divines who all along had
preached in favor of armed rebellion—Marshall, Calamy,
Whitaker, Sedgewick, Ashe, and others prominent in
Presbyterian circles. They refused point blank, and,
instead of peaceful talk of compromise, assembled in
Sion College, and drew up a fiery criticism of Crom-
well and his supporters in Parliament, their Serious
and Faithfull Representation. The change of policy
among the Presbyterians is clearly seen by comparing
even the texts of their earlier and later sermons, and
perhaps best of all in the change of front shown in
the writings of the most voluminous of Presbyterian
pamphleteers, William Prynne. It was these incon-
sistent sermons, protestations, and tracts which excite |
the contempt of Milton, and partly inspired his treatise.

ee ee eee

Historical Situation xi

The last group, numerous but at this time ur'mport-
ant, was composed of the Royalists or Cavaliers—
courtiers, clergymen of the old church deprived of
their livings, country squires, nobles and soldiers in
exile, a great mass of country people who had to a
large extent remained untouched by sectarianism or
by the struggle for constitutional rights; all these,
deprived of power, looked on helplessly at the ‘royal
martyr’ moving to his doom.

Few men in England, and none in Scotland, ex-
pected or desired that the leaders of army and par-
liament would bring the king to the block. Until
the last moment thousands refused to believe that
Charles would really die upon the scaffold; there was
to be the pageantry of an execution, but nothing
more.' ‘Only some fifty or sixty governing English-
meu, with Oliver Cromwell in the midst of them,
were prepared for every reponsibility, and stood inex-
orably to their task.’? Milton was at one with Crom-
well and the other forward spirits in this business.
From his careful study of events he had come to the
conclusion that Charles was a faithless tyrant, respon-
sible for whole massacres committed on his faithful
subjects, guilty of a deluge of innocent blood (9. 3ff..,
a malefactor deserving of punishment as a common
pest and destroyer of mankind (20. 8). Neither Milton
nor Cromwell had any superstitious revere-ce fo: the
divinity that was supposed to hedge a king. ‘What
hath a native king to plead,’ he cries, ‘bound by so
many covenants, benefits and honours to the welfare
of his people, why he through the contempt of all
Laws and Parlaments, the onely tie of our obedience
to him, for his owne wills sake, and a boasted prae-

* Burnet, Hist. of Own Time 1. 64.
* Masson, Life of Milton 3. 718.

xii Introduction

rogative unaccountable, after sev’n years warring and
destroying of his best subjects, overcom, and yeilded
prisoner, should think to Scape unquestionable, as a
thing divine, in respect of whom so many thousand
Christians destroy’d, should lye unaccounted for, pol-
luting with their slaughterd carcasses all the land
over, and crying for vengeance against the living that
should have righted them’ (21. 14ff.), Entertaining
such views of his king, to whom loyalty and obe-
dience would now mean only a base compliance,
Milton was very strongly of opinion that the sword
of justice above the king ought to do its work. Con-
vinced in his own mind of the king’s guilt and well
merited punishment, he ranged himself in the most
uncompromising allegiance on the side of Cromwell,
Ireton, and Bradshaw, who had long since resolved
upon the tyrant’s death.