“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645believed that a carefully designed program of reading and study is precisely the
means to help youths acquire the learning, experience, and values that free citizens
will need to make sound choices.
About this time Milton began experiencing vision problems that went well be-
yond the severe headaches he suffered as a child. He associated his symptoms with
digestive problems and found some relief in physical exercise:
I noticed my sight becoming weak and growing dim, and at the same time my spleen
and all my viscera burdened and shaken with flatulence. And even in the morning, if
I began as usual to read, I noticed that my eyes felt immediate pain deep within and
turned from reading, though later refreshed after moderate bodily exercise; as often as
I looked at a lamp, a sort of rainbow seemed to obscure it. Soon a mist appearing in
the left part of the left eye (for that eye became clouded some years before the other)
removed from my sight everything on that side.^104Edward Phillips states that he was “perpetually tampering with Physick” to pre-
serve his sight (EL 72). His disease may have been glaucoma exacerbated by nerv-
ous tension, retinal detachment, optic neuropathy, or a pituitary tumor compressing
the optic chiasm.^105 In 1644 he did not necessarily expect to become totally blind,
but he surely feared that possibility as only a person whose life is centered on books
could do.
The next few months brought important structural changes to the army and the
church. In early December Cromwell, long dissatisfied with the conduct of the war
under Essex, Manchester, and Waller, orchestrated parliament’s passage of a Self-
Denying Ordinance,^106 which paved the way for their honorable retirement and
prepared for the “New Modeling” of the army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, ordered
on February 15, 1645. The Westminster Assembly completed much of its business,
recommending to parliament a national Presbyterian Church Government with
classes, synods, and provincial and national assemblies. Parliament passed the requi-
site laws in January, 1645, but made some accommodation to Independent churches
by refusing to define local congregations strictly by parish lines. The treason trial of
Archbishop Laud, which began on March 12, 1644, concluded at last with his
conviction and execution on January 10, 1645. But a new round of negotiations
with the king which began in November, 1644 broke off in February, 1645, ac-
complishing nothing.^107
Milton’s Doctrine and Discipline continued to attract censure. The Stationers, no
doubt piqued by Milton’s insults in Areopagitica, complained to the Lords on De-
cember 28, 1644 of the “frequent printing of scandalous Books by divers, as
Hesekiah Woodward and Jo. Milton,” and order was taken for their examina-
tion.^108 Woodward was examined, confessed to writing “some papers” and was
released on bond on December 31.^109 Milton either was not examined (there is no
official record of it) or, as Cyriack Skinner claims, the judges, “whether approving