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.* [Ir has always been a short step from the deposition of a king to his execution. He who has once worn a crown is too great for a prisoner. It is almost inevitable that his dungeon should be the focus of plots and conspiracies for his restoration to power and the overthrow of the revolutionary government. These, if unsuccessful, can hardly fail to conduct him to the scaffold. Events were clearly tending in this direction through the year 1648; and the question was much debated, whether it was lawful to put the king to death? Milton, who had now finished his controversies with the clergy, turned his attention to this subject, and for the satisfaction of his own mind, wrote a treatise on The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. He says of it:-"I did not write anything on the prerogative of the crown, till the king, voted an enemy by parliament and vanquished in the field, was summoned before the tribunal which condemned him to lose his head. But when at length some Presbyterian ministers, who had formerly been the most bitter enemies of Charles, became jealous of the growth of the Independents, and of their ascendancy in the parliament, most tumultuously clamoured against the sentence, and did all in their power to prevent the execution, though they were not angry so much on account of the act itself, 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 abhorrent to such proceedings against kings, I thought it became me to oppose such a glaring falsehood, and, accordingly, * First published in February, 1649; a second edition was called for a few months afterwards. TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES. 119 without any immediate application to Charles, I showed, in an abstract consideration of the question, what might lawfully be done against tyrants." The treatise appears not to have been intended, in the first instance, for publication; and the charges brought against Milton, of having instigated the execution of the king, and of having hounded on the regicides in their work of death, are entirely groundless, Until the deed had been done, Milton held his peace. He had made up his mind that if done it would be lawful, and even laudable, and then quietly awaited the issue. But when the chiefs of the Republic were assailed by opprobrium and invective, when the newborn liberties of the nation were imperiled by the attack alike of Royalists and Presbyterians, Milton broke silence. If the irreparable deed was to cover the actors in it with ignominy, he, who deemed it both wise and just, would share the opprobrium with them. He therefore made some additions to his manuscript, and, a month after the execution of the king, published it. The abstract proposition which he sets himself to prove, is announced in the title of the treatise. Its special application to the matter in hand he states in the following words :-"If such a one there be, by whose commission whole massacres have been committed on his faithful subjects, his provinces offered to pawn or alienation, as the hire of those whom he had solicited to come in and destroy whole cities and countries; be he king or tyrant, or emperor, the sword of justice is above him; in whose hand soever is found sufficient power to avenge the effusion and so great a deluge of innocent blood. For if all human power to execute the wrath of God upon evil doers, without exception, be of God, then that power, whether ordinary (as in the case of kings) or extraordinary (as in the case of revolutionary tribunals), so executing that intent of God, is lawful, and not to be resisted." It will thus be seen that he takes the highest ground. He is not content to deny the doctrine of "the right divine of kings to govern wrong." He transfers the divine right to the people, and claims it for them as the original depositaries of all power, and insists that if a king fail in his delegated duty, the people may resume it from his hands, and, if necessary, inflict upon him, as an evil doer, the penalties which he has incurred. The method of argument which he adopts is thus stated by him :"I shall here set down from the first beginning, the original of * e.g. "The very title of the treatise is surely in the highest degree objectionable, and does not, in these days, require any refutation. To say the truth, this is a part of Milton's character which puzzles me,—and no other. This bloodthirstiness does not agree with his sanctity, and other mental and moral qualities."-Sir Egerton Brydges. 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; this I shall do by authorities and reasons, not learnt in corners, amongst schisms and heresies, as our doubting 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, Christian, Orthodox, and, which must needs be more convincing to our adversaries, Presbyterian." The extracts given from this treatise will illustrate the general principles upon which he conducts the argument;-only a careful perusal of the whole can show the vigour of his logic, and the closeness of his reasoning in defending his position.] ONLY GOOD MEN TRULY LOVE LIBERTY. 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 affections within, they would discern better what it is to favour 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 licence: 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; 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 their falsified names of Loyalty and Obedience, to colour over their base compli * When Milton speaks of "the falsified name of Loyalty," he may perhaps refer to the fact that Loyalty is not rightly the converse of Royalty. Loyalty means devotion to Loi, the law, not to Roi, the king. A distinction very important to bear in mind if we would not be cheated and juggled by words. ances. FICKLENESS OF PRETENDED PATRIOTS. 121 And although sometimes for shame, and when it comes to their own grievances, of purse especially, they would seem good patriots, and side with the better cause, yet when others, for the deliverance of their country endued with fortitude and heroic virtue, to fear nothing but the curse written against those "that do the work of the Lord negligently,"* would go on to remove, not only the calamities and thraldoms of a people, but the roots and causes whence they spring, straight these men, not only turn revolters from those principles, which only could at first move them, but lay the strain of disloyalty, and worse, on those proceedings which are the necessary consequences of their own former actions; nor disliked by themselves, were they managed to the entire advantages of their own faction; not considering the while that he toward whom they boasted their new fidelity, counted them accessory; and by those statutes and laws, which they so impotently brandish against others, would have doomed them to a traitor's death for what they have done already. It is true, that most men are apt enough to civil wars and commotions as a novelty, and for a flash hot and active; but through sloth or inconstancy, and weakness of spirit, either fainting ere their own pretences, though never so just, be half attained, or, through an inbred falsehood and wickedness, betray ofttimes to destruction with themselves men of noblest temper joined with them, for causes whereof they in their rash undertakings were not capable. If God and a good cause give them victory, the prosecution whereof for the most part inevitably draws after it the alteration of laws, change of government, downfall of princes with their families, then comes the task to those worthies, which are the soul of that enterprise, to be sweat and laboured out amidst the throng of vulgar and irrational men. Some contesting for privileges, customs, forms, and that old * Jer. xlviii. 1. entanglement of iniquity, their gibberish laws, though the badge of their ancient slavery. Others, who have been fiercest against their prince, under the notion of a tyrant, and no mean incendiaries of the war against them, when God, out of His providence and high disposal hath delivered him into the hands of their brethren, on a sudden and in a new garb of allegiance which their doings have long since cancelled, they plead for him, pity him, extol him, protest against those that talk of bringing him to the trial of justice, which is the sword of God, superior to all mortal things, in whose hand soever by apparent signs His testified will is to put it. But certainly, if we consider who and what they are, on a sudden grown so pitiful, we may conclude their pity can be no true and Christian commiseration, but either levity and shallowness of mind, or else a carnal admiring of that worldly pomp and greatness from whence they see him fallen; or rather, lastly, a dissembled and seditious pity, feigned of industry to beget new discord. THE ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENTS. No man, who knows aught, can be so stupid as 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 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. This authority and power of self-defence and preservation being originally and naturally in every one |