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John Milton was not only the greatest English Renaissance poet but also devoted twenty years to prose writing in the advancement of religious, civil and political liberties. The height of his public career was as chief propagandist to the Commonwealth regime which came into being following the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The first of the two complete texts in this volume, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, was easily the most radical justification of the regicide at the time. In the second, A Defence of the People of England, Milton undertook to vindicate the Commonwealth's cause to Europe as a whole.This book, first published in 1991, was the first time that fully annotated versions were published together in one volume, and incorporated a new translation of the Defence. The introduction outlines the complexity of the ideological landscape which Milton had to negotiate, and in particular the points at which he departed radically from his sixteenth-century predecessors.
Edited by William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon The legendary author of Paradise Lost and other poems was also a superb and provocative prose writer. Culled from Modern Library’s definitive The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton, this indispensable collection, authoritatively annotated and updated for this new volume, now includes selections from Milton’s Commonplace Book and the complete text of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates in addition to Milton’s letters, pamphlets, political tracts, and essays. Milton tackles diverse subjects and takes controversial positions, including notorious defenses of divorce and protests against censorship. With expert analysis, a chronology of the author’s life, clean layouts, and a comprehensive index, The Essential Prose of John Milton is an invaluable keepsake—a book bound to be a revelation for all readers of this monumental author. “Meticulously edited, full of tactful annotations that set the stage for his work and his times, and bringing Milton, as a poet and a thinker, vividly alive before us.”—Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is a book by John Milton, in which he defends the right of people to execute a guilty sovereign, whether tyrannical or not. In the text, Milton conjectures about the formation of commonwealths. He comes up with a kind of constitutionalism but not an outright anti-monarchical argument. He gives a theory of how people come into commonwealths and come to elect kings. He explains what the role of a king should be, and conversely what a tyrant is, and why it is necessary to limit a ruler's power through laws and oaths. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was one of the "key republican texts" during the 17th century. However, Milton gave up parts of his Republican views to support Parliament, especially when he called for the people to support the government. " more properly termed a regicide tract, justifying the killing of King Charles I, rather than a republican tract, justifying the establishment of a new kind of government." The argument in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates is complicated, and Milton attempts to reexplain his views in Eikonoklastes. With both pieces Milton attempted to disrupt the popular image of Charles I as innocent (Eikonoklastes means "image breaker"). The work is unique compared to other works during its time because Milton emphasises the deeds of individuals as the only way for there to be justice. The work also emphasises the freedom of the individual, and only through such freedom is an individual able to develop properly. Citing classical and biblical references, this emphasis refutes Hobbes's divine right of kings. Milton argues that no man is better than another, having all been created in God's image, free and equal, and that all have a right to dispose of themselves. Further, he argues that their freedom and equality entitles them to inflict the same treatment upon the king they would receive at the hands of the law, that magistrates are empowered by the 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 birthright.
These essays lead the reader into the political and intellectual worlds within which John Milton wrote his verse and prose, and into the later worlds within which his reputation evolved and fluctuated. The illuminating and entertaining range of perspectives will appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike.