John Milton,
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
(to view the footnotes, click on the highlighted numbers)
John
Milton’s The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
(1649) argues that the English people did have the right
to condemn their king, Charles I, to death in 1649.
Furious at the monarchy’s embrace of what he understood
to be a regression to Catholic ceremony and understanding
Eikon Basilike as a type of idolatry, Milton
challenges the notion of “divine right,” the
doctrine that asserted a monarch’s right by birth
to rule as a type of divinity on earth. Under “divine
right,” no one would have the right to depose a
monarch, regardless of the monarch’s actions and
character. Milton begins by appealing to the people
of England to cease their “slavery” to tradition
and exercise judgment about the nature of their ruler.
By condoning Charles, they were not free men but under
the “double tyranny” of the king’s rule
as well as the oppression that comes with their own
abandonment of reason for the “custom” of
divine right. Citing examples from Scripture, Milton
argues that because man has always had free will, he
has always had the power to determine his leaders. Ultimately,
he argues, the English people will be remembered and
celebrated for their decision to execute Charles: Rather
than bringing them disgrace, this righteous exercise
of their free will brings them glory.
THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES:
PROVING THAT IT IS LAWFUL, AND HATH BEEN HELD SO 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 DENIED HIM TO DO IT. AND THAT THEY
WHO OF LATE SO MUCH BLAME DEPOSING, ARE THE MEN THAT
DID IT THEMSELVES.
If 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 affections1
within, they would discern better what it is to favor
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 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,2
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 color over their base compliances. . . .
But to unfold more at large this whole question, though
with all expedient brevity, I shall here set down from
first beginning, the original of kings; how and wherefore
exalted to that dignity above their brethren; and from
thence shall prove that, turning to tyranny, they may
be as lawfully deposed and punished as they were at
first elected.3
This I shall do by authorities and reasons, not learnt
in corners among schisms and heresies, as our doubling
divines are ready to calumniate, but fetched out of
the midst of choicest and most authentic learning, and
no prohibited authors, nor many heathen, but Mosaical,4
Christian, orthodoxal, and, which must needs be more
convincing to our adversaries, presbyterial.
No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that
all men naturally were born free,5
being the image and resemblance of God himself, and
were, by privilege above all the creatures, born to
command,6
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. . . .
Though perhaps till now no protestant state or kingdom
can be alleged to have openly put to death their king,
which lately some have written and imputed to their
great glory, much mistaking the matter, it is not, neither
ought to be, the glory of a protestant king never to
put their king to death; it is the glory of a protestant
king never to have deserved death. And if the parliament
and military council do what they do without precedent,
if it appears their duty, it argues the more wisdom,
virtue, and magnanimity, that they know themselves able
to be a precedent to others; who perhaps in future ages,
if they prove not too degenerate, will look up with
honor and aspire towards these exemplary and matchless
deeds of their ancestors, as to the highest top of their
civil glory and emulation. Which heretofore, in the
pursuance of fame and foreign dominion, spent itself
vaingloriously abroad, but henceforth may learn a better
fortitude7—to
dare execute highest justice on them that shall by force
of arms endeavor the oppressing and bereaving of religion
and their liberty at home: that no unbridled potentate
or tyrant, but to his sorrow, for the future may presume
such high and irresponsible license over mankind, to
havoc8
and turn upside down whole kingdoms of men, as though
they were no more in respect of his perverse will than
a nation of pismires9
. . . .
Contributing author: Michelle Ephraim,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
1). Does Nalson’s picture seem to support or refute Milton’s argument that the people have a right to depose their king?
2). Analyze Milton’s representation of the king’s relationship with the people.
