By Samara Addo (Fall 2022)
John Milton was an English poet and intellectual born on December 9, 1608. He is considered the most significant English author after William Shakespeare. His most notable work is Paradise Lost which is considered as the greatest epic poem in English. This along with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes is said to solidify Milton’s reputation as one of the greatest English poets. At a young age, Milton was a gifted student and was enrolled in St. Paul’s School where he was privately tutored by Thomas Young who said to have influenced Milton in religious and political ideals. He was proficient in many languages and would later compose sonnets in those languages. He continued his education to college where he excelled academically. In all his works, Milton supported a political philosophy that opposed tyranny and state-sanctioned religion. He advocated for the abolishment of the church of England and the execution of King Charles I. Due to his political ideologies he became the voice of the English commonwealth after 1649. He went on to compose five tracts on the reformation of church government which in one he calls the attention to the attention to the resemblances between the ecclesiastical and political hierarchies in England.
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, a history and religious text, urges for the abolishment of tyrannical kingship and the execution of tyrants. In this book, Milton starts off the text by explaining his frustrations with the nation that according to him is not acting right because we are allowing ourselves to be governed without reason. His beliefs are still connected to an older world view of freedom which is that when people behave in a certain manner which is proper, they would be able to access right reasoning which is dedicated by the “divine” meaning God. He continues by defending the right of the people to execute a guilty sovereign. He further goes on to define the role of a king to the people and explains that the king derives his power from the people and therefore he must serve the common good and not himself. He conveniently also gives a definition of who a tyrant is, he says that a tyrant “is he who regarding neither law nor the common good reigned only for himself in his faction”. He also gives his own theory on how he believes people come into the commonwealths and how they elect kings and why we must limit a ruler’s power through oaths and laws to be able to keep them in check. To give a little background context as to what was happening during this time period when the text was written to help further understanding is that king Charles I who was the king of England at the time was being criticized by his people for his ruling his was seen as tyrannical. He was captured and imprisoned and was found guilty of treason, incapable penitence or common honesty. Now there were two sides, those who were supporters of the king and believed that he had done nothing wrong and those who believed that he was a corrupt king. And so, Milton wrote this text in defense of the people and the decisions that were being made which was to overthrow the king and have him executed. Though Milton agrees that some of the punishments are extreme he believes that they are just.
One of the main messages that Milton talks about in the text is the power the people. Directly taken from the text Milton says “It being thus manifest, that the power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, 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 taken from them, without a violation of their natural birthright”. He emphasizes that the kings power comes from the people and the people only, even though he is of higher authority, he is ruling for them, and all his actions must be in the people’s best interests and not of his own. The people’s power cannot be taken away without violating their natural birth right which Milton says that “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” Power the people should have when electing their king because they are the ones who ultimately are affected whether it be good or bad. Another important message that Milton talks about in this text is power that people in higher authority have and how easily it is for the to become corrupted. Milton explains that the people themselves came together to create some sort of authoritative system which would govern them. Which is how the king, and the magistrates came to be. They were put into not to be their masters but to be their commissioners and deputies and to execute justice. Milton further explains that “These for a while governed well, and with much equity decided all things at their own arbitrement; till the temptation of such a power, left absolute in their hands, perverted them at length to injustice and partiality”. Which is why Milton says that it is important to have laws that should govern people in places of authority so they do not abuse the power that has been given to them by the people. Milton furthers explains that when we the people elect leaders, we should make them take oaths “who upon those terms and no other, received allegiance from the people, that is to say, bond or covenant to obey them in execution of those laws, which they, the people, had themselves made or assented to.” Basically, what Milton is saying here is that the freedom that the people have which is their natural birthright, gives them the right to treat the king as they would be treated if they have broken the law. The king and the people form some sort of covenant / bond that kings promises to be just and fair and to serve in his people best interest and if that were to be broken the people have the right to do what the see is just. Looking back through history it has always been the case of the lower classes catering to the upper classes and having to carry their burdens. Take the French revolution for example the lower classes were being taxed more whiles also being paid less than the minimum wage back then. This meant that all the money they made went to taxes which was used to support the king and his follower’s lavish lifestyle and his people were left to suffer. Similar to the American revolution where the colonies were not being treated fairly under British rule. Though both these events happen over a hundred years after Milton’s death, it can be argued that this text may have influenced these revolutions as well as the English civil war which was a revolution that took place in England and ended with the execution of the king because the same ideologies Milton talks about in text is what influenced these people to take action.
This text matters today because some of Milton’s political views and ideologies in the 17th century are similar to that of the ones in the 21st century such as his sentiments on overthrowing a tyrannical leader and people exercising the power that they have. Though the way that we go about handling matters like this now is much different from how they were handled back in the 17th century due to the shift from a monarchical rule to a democratic rule. It was much easier to take action then because the people could quite literally storm the castle and demand for change. This isn’t the case, because we are a democracy our way of exercising these rights is to peacefully protest and have social movements and sometimes riots when the peaceful way isn’t bringing any improvements. Milton’s philosophy of overthrowing a tyrannical rule can also be said to be controversial as we had white supremacist storm the capital in the name of protecting their rights and country. Looking at it at the surface level one would say that they were doing exactly what Milton argued for but if one truly understood it they can see that this was an act of treason against the country.
Works Cited
Labriola , Albert C. “John Milton.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Aug. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Milton. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Milton. Accessed 4 December 2022.
Allegra Villarreal, Editor. “Contexts: Crisis of Authority.” An Open Companion to Early British Literature, 22 Jan. 2019, https://pressbooks.pub/earlybritishlit/chapter/crisis-of-authority-reporting-the-news/#chapter-246-section-2.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
