learns all about the ten tribes—a featured, lengthy chapter on Palestine gives a
detailed account.^2 Two centuries later, Palestine would be a topic of central
interest in England,^3 one connected to the ten tribes.
These were the times when the Bible, the King James edition in particular,
was hugely influential in English thought.^4 Milton’s England was a “biblical
culture” where “[m]en knew their bible very well...and could convey messages
through allusion to it.”^5 Politics was a favorite realm for such. In a political
climate that saw many dramatic shifts, the story of the ten tribes—one of
secession, with divine blessing, from the kingdom of a legitimate, but tyranni-
cal, king—was continually invoked. Daniel Defoe (c. 1659 – 1731 ), for one, wrote
a 1706 satire that included the lines “when Israel’s tribes from Judah’s scepter
stray’d and laws of nature, not of kings obey’d...God justified the revolt of
Ten Tribes for the Tyranny of Rehoboam.”^6 Note the tension between “aposta-
sy” and “revolt.” The latter would become part of the political rhetoric popular
in England at the time.
One of the legacies of the Glorious Revolution and the political upheavals
that followed it was the sensitivity to royal tyranny. In 1681 , for instance, the
Parliament heard a speech: “For Parliaments and against Favourites.” The
speaker invoked the example of King Rehoboam “who forsook the counsel of
old men and inclined to that of young men.” “Why were the ten tribes taken
from him?” the speaker sternly asked the king. The answer: the ancient king
had not heeded counsel. The hint was clear: the English king must listen to his
Parliament.^7 The warning reflected the recent and contemporary political
goings on in England. Charles II ( 1630 – 1685 ) had been installed by the English
Parliament twenty days before the fall of Cromwell in 1658. Charles II’s father,
Charles I ( 1600 – 1649 ), had been beheaded after a trial at Parliament.^8 Justify-
ing this later, Sir Edward Peyton ( 1587 – 1657 ) invoked Rehoboam, “who justly
lost the ten tribes,” as his first justification for the Parliament’s acts. “If the
Parliament had not opposed King Charles, God would have been revenged on
them.”^9
In the background were strong tensions between the kingdom’s Protestant
subjects and its Catholic rulers. In 1688 , during the Glorious Revolution,
James II ( 1633 – 1701 ), the last Roman Catholic king of England, was deposed
by a group of parliamentarians. The king, whom Defoe would later depict as
a modern-day Rehoboam, was distrusted for his religious policies and authori-
tarian manner of rule.A Collection of State Tracts, Publish’d on the Occasion of the
Late Revolution of 1688 cited the ten tribes at least twelve times to the effect that
“if the King did change the form of government to Tyranny, the people had a
right to reject him.” The “history of the ten tribes” was invoked as “a proof” that
the people had the right to change the government.^10
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