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The Political Thought of John Milton
This List Is By:
Liberty Fund Staff
Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Although John Milton (1608-1674) is best know for his epic poem Paradise Lost he was also an accomplished and influential political writer who was active during the tumultuous period of the English Civil War and revolution. In this reading list we will explore some aspects of Milton’s political thought concerning the right to divorce, religious freedom, the right to overthrow a tyrannical king, freedom of speech, and the nature of freedom under a Commonwealth.
The readings below are in chronological order of year of first publication.
For further reading see:
- Topic: the English Revolution
- Forum: John Alvis’s introduction to Milton’s Political Writings
- see also the timeline of the life and works of Milton
The right to divorce: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
Milton had an unhappy first marriage which made his theoretical defence of the right to divorce quite personal. Milton took the radical view that marriage required the happiness and consent of both parties.
John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 1. Chapter: THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE;
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1209/78044 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
Freedom of Speech: Areopagitica (1644)
Milton’s famous defense of freedom of speech. It was a protest against Parliament’s ordinance to further restrict the freedom of print. Milton issued his oration in an unlicensed form and courageously put his own name, but not that of his printer, on the cover. In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of Areopagitica (1644):
By a decree of Charles’s Star Chamber July 11, 1637, the licensing of all printed works was deputed to the two archbishops, the chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Bishop of London, thereby insuring that control would ultimately fall to Archbishop Laud. Although Milton expected prior censorship to be relaxed under the revolutionary regime, on June 14, 1643, Parliament passed an ordinance providing for licensing the press. Milton composed Areopagitica as an appeal to Parliament to reconsider its recent decision, arguing that England now deserved a press freed from most of the restraints that the king had imposed. Milton published his pamphlet in 1644 under a title intended to recall the usages of ancient Greece. The Areopagus was a court and senate of oldest Athens composed of about three hundred members elected by the entire body of free Athenian citizens. Its name derives from the site of assembly, a hill within the city dedicated to the god Ares. Although Milton writes the appeal in the form of a public address to the legislative body in the manner of the Greek orator Isocrates, he never intended that it be delivered as an actual speech before Parliament. The argument failed of its practical purpose - Parliament continued to impose constraints of prior licensing upon authors.
In the edition by Jebb there is a lengthy introduction and analysis of the text which is useful.
John Milton, Areopagitica, with a Commentary by Sir Richard C. Jebb and with Supplementary Material (Cambridge at the University Press, 1918).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/103 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
On Education (1644)
Milton drew upon his reading of Renaissance humanism and his personal experience as a tutor to formulate his own ideas about education.
John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 1. Chapter: OF EDUCATION.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1209/78041 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
The right of the people to overthrow a Tyrant: The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
Written during the English Revolution, Milton’s pamphlet argues that there exists a voluntary contract between free men and their rulers, and that if a ruler becomes a tyrant then the people have the right to depose him if the ordinary magistrates have not done so. In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1648):
The first edition of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates was published in February 1648, a second in February 1649. From the argument itself one can perceive easily enough the political stimulus that impelled Milton to write the tract. Milton envisions two opponents: on the one hand, those who would blame the parliamentary forces for having taken up arms against their legitimate king; on the other hand, those (generally Presbyterians) who, having stood against Charles initially, experienced misgivings subsequently and drew back from executing the defeated monarch. Against the first, Milton, employing a very broad survey of authors who defended the justice of opposing and of killing bad rulers, draws upon classical authorities and Christian writers. Against the rebels who turned back at the point of regicide Milton conducts a much more circumstantial argument that turns upon several contested issues attached to particular events during the Civil War. The chief of these events were the negotiations conducted between Charles and the Presbyterian faction in Parliament that resulted in the king’s subscribing to the Presbyterian concept of church government embodied in their “covenant.” The resultant softening of Presbyterian opposition to Charles, Milton along with other Independents interpreted as a bid on the part of Presbyterians to make a separate peace for the benefit of their sect and for the purpose of combating the rising influence of Independents who found their strength in the army.
John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, edited with Introduction and Notes by William Talbot Allison (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1911).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/271 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
The right to resist the monarchy: A Defence of the People of England (1651)
In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of A Defence of the People of England (1651):
In the reaction to Parliament’s execution of Charles I probably no single writing posed such a threat to Milton’s party as the indictment of their deed by Claude Salmasius (1588-1653) in a lengthy Latin tract entitled Defensio Regia pro Carlo Primo. Salmasius enjoyed a distinguished reputation as the successor to the chair of the famous humanist J. C. Scaliger at Leyden, and after the publication of his attack on the English regicides he was received at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden. Salmasius’s Defence argued monarchist fundamentals as well as making an extended case against the parliamentary rebels for having broken their oaths of fealty to Charles, for having incited the realm to revolt, and for having executed the king without just cause or due process of law. Salmasius drew upon philosophical sources, scriptural interpretation, and the legal customs of England as he understood these.
In February 1651 Milton brought out his reply, Defensio pro Populo Anglicano in Latin, at the behest of Parliament acting in his capacity of Secretary of Foreign Tongues, a post to which he had been appointed in March 1649. Milton responds to Salmasius in kind following his opponent’s argument chapter by chapter and offering his own view of the philosophical tradition, scripture, and the British constitution as well as quite a different understanding of the events leading to the trial and execution of the king. Milton also follows Salmasius in a vituperative, satirical invective that argues the man as frequently as the principle. Thus Milton will ridicule his adversary for having changed sides in controversy, for meddling in the affairs of a nation foreign to him, and for having written in the pay of the son of the king he champions. Milton’s Defence is called the First to distinguish the work from another included in this volume in which he replies to a renewed attack mounted by an anonymous follower of Salmasius the year after the First Defence was published. Salmasius also wrote his own reply, which was published posthumously in 1660.
John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton, With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 2. Chapter: A DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND, IN ANSWER TO SALMASIUS’S DEFENCE OF THE KING. *
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1210/78211 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
On religious liberty: A Treatise on Civil Power (1659)
This is Milton’s most significant work on the idea of religious liberty.
John Milton, The Prose Works of John Milton, With a Biographical Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two Volumes (Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847). Vol. 2. Chapter: A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES; SHOWING THAT IT IS NOT LAWFUL FOR ANY POWER ON EARTH TO COMPEL IN MATTERS OF RELIGION.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1210/78225 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
Defending the Republic: The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660)
A defence of the Republic written on the eve of the restoration of the monarchy. Milton persisted in opposing rule by one man in favor of rule by those to whom power had been delegated by the people. In his introduction to Liberty Fund’s edition of the political writings of John Milton, John Alvis notes of The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660):
Soon after the execution of Charles I the Rump Parliament had abolished the offce of king, declaring it dangerous to liberty, unnecessary, and burdensome. Eleven years later England seemed to be on the point of restoring a king in the person of the son of the lately deposed monarch. On February 21, 1660, the Rump, at the instigation of Maj. Gen. George Monk, readmitted members who had been purged by Colonel Pride in 1648. Thus swollen with new members tending to Presbyterianism and monarchy, Parliament appeared ready for a return to monarchical government, and the question of the qualifications for voting on new M.P.s set for April 26 loomed with some urgency. Milton first wrote an open letter to General Monk calling upon him to support a republican regime strengthened by a perpetual grand council. Then, after Monk had entered London on February 6, Milton wrote and hastily had published the first version of The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth; And the Excellence Therof Compar’d with the Inconveniencies and Dangers of Readmitting Kingship in This Nation. Even after it had become certain that the impending parliament would be composed of those favorable to the return of royalty, Milton rushed through the press an enlarged edition of Easie Way just prior to the return of Charles II in May of 1660. Failing as he had to avert the reversion of his country to its pre-Commonwealth status, Milton nevertheless left in this appeal to republicans his most detailed plan for consolidating the gains of the revolution in a regime at once popularly based and arranged as an early version of the federal system of compound government later to be adopted in the American Constitutional Convention.
In Clark’s edition there is a lengthy and useful introduction to the text.
John Milton, The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, edited with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Evert Mordecai Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1915).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/272 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.
Liberty in Heaven and Hell: Paradise Lost (1667)
Milton postponed working on his magnum opus because of his involvement in the Revolution. When the republican cause was defeated and the monarchy restored he returned to work on it in his last years. This is a long work but there are many passages which deal with the power of the king-like God, the rebellion of Satan, and the freedoms enjoyed by Adam and Eve.
John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited after the Original Texts by the Rev. H.C. Beeching M.A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). Chapter: PARADISE LOST.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/556/85701 on 2008-03-12
The text is in the public domain.