“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645“peace” party gained strength, but they were bitterly opposed by fiery preachers
and mobs of London petitioners. In late September parliament adopted the Solemn
League and Covenant, which had already been passed by the Scots Assembly: it was
subscribed by parliament members, office-holders, ministers, and men of all ranks,
including Milton.^41 The signatories pledged to preserve the reformed religion in
Scotland, to reform religion in England and Ireland “according to the Word of
God, and the example of the best Reformed Churches,” to bring the three king-
doms “to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion, Confession of Faith,
Forme of Church Government, [and] directory for Worship,” and to extirpate
“Popery, Prelacy... Superstition, Heresie, Schisme, Profanenesse, and whatsoever
shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of Godlinesse.” But
the covenant also included a formula that was to prove deeply divisive when its
several political purposes could no longer be reconciled:
We shall... endeavour with our Estates, and Lives, mutually to preserve the Rights
and Priviledges of Parliaments, and the Liberties of the Kingdomes: and to preserve,
and defend the Kings Majesties Person, and Authority, in the preservation and de-
fence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdome.... And that we have no
thoughts, or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatnesse.^42During that winter the Scottish armies failed to win the victories hoped for and
in consequence the Scots lost some clout in the Westminster Assembly. On De-
cember 8, 1643, the great parliament leader John Pym died. On January 22, 1644
parliament met with 22 Peers and 280 Commoners, and on the same day the king
opened an anti-parliament at Oxford of 49 Peers and 121 Commoners faithful to
his cause; he prorogued it on April 16. Through all this, Milton continued his
quotidian life of study, teaching, and visiting friends: Lady Margaret Ley and her
husband Colonel Hobson, the bookseller George Thomason and his wife Catharine,
and William Blackborough, a relative living nearby.^43
During these anxious months Milton turned aside from the ecclesiastical and
political issues foregrounded in the national debate, and published several tracts
relating to marriage and divorce: two editions of The Doctrine and Discipline of Di-
vorce (DDD 1 and DDD 2); The Judgement of Martin Bucer, Concerning Divorce;
Tetrachordon; and Colasterion. He was led to this topic by his personal experience of
marital incompatibility; as he later observed, we are mostly moved to protest wrongs
by the “spurre of self-concernment” (CPW II, 226). However, he generalizes that
experience, envisioning multitudes of Englishmen suffering in broken marriages
but held back by mind-forged manacles of misunderstood scripture from seeking
legitimate release in divorce: “Lamented experience daily teaches” the painful folly
of holding men to a bondage beyond their strength to endure (DDD 1 , 171). Civil
divorce with right to remarry was permitted for adultery and desertion in Protestant
countries on the Continent, but English law (still adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts)