“Between Private Walls” 1645–1649the century past.^104 Instead he undertook to revive the humanist ideal of history as
counsel, not now to princes but to parliament and the people, in a literary style
appropriate to that purpose:
I intend not with controversies and quotations to delay or interrupt the smooth course
of History... but shall endevor that which hitherto hath bin needed most, with
plain, and lightsom brevity, to relate well and orderly things worth the noting, so as
may best instruct and benefit them that read... imploring divine assistance, that it
may redound to his glory, and to the good of the British Nation. (CPW V.1, 4)The overarching lesson Milton derives from his history is that the British people
from earliest times have displayed a troubling, innate characteristic: though valor-
ous in war, they sadly lack the civic virtues needed to sustain free governments and
their own liberties. He means to help his countrymen recognize their present dan-
ger from this disposition, and to counter it by choosing men of “solid & elaborate
breeding” as leaders, and also by gaining “ripe understanding and many civil vertues
... from forren writings & examples of best ages.”^105 That educative purpose sug-
gests that he probably intended to publish all or some part of the History soon, but
before he reached a suitable stopping point more urgent duties intervened.
Milton tried to adhere to certain historiographical principles. He does not un-
dertake new primary research but follows and condenses what he takes to be the
most reliable previous account(s), judging by plausibility and proximity to the events
treated. For example: “Suetonius writes that Claudius found heer no resistance...
but this seems not probable”; or again, “if Beda err not, living neer 500 years after,
yet our antientest Author of this report” (CPW V.1, 67, 97). He avoids rhetorical
speeches like those in Thucydides and Livy, “unless known for certain to have bin
so spok’n in effect as they are writ’n, nor then, unless worth rehearsal” (80). Yet he
narrates a few scenes dramatically, e.g. Caractacus before Claudius, and Leir and his
daughters dividing the kingdom (drawing on Holinshed and perhaps Shakespeare).
He assumes that the nobility or baseness of persons and deeds is mirrored in the
style of the history written about them, taking the historian’s style as an image of
the culture: noble deeds in the service of liberty against tyrants call forth eloquent
histories; degenerate civilizations produce foolish or trivial ones.
Throughout, Milton underscores those aspects of the historical record that have
contemporary application. One recurrent motif, that women who exercise power
in government or on the battlefield are almost always reprehensible and absurd, has
an unidentified contemporary referent in Queen Henrietta Maria, often denounced
by the Puritans for dictating policy to her husband and attempting to raise Euro-
pean armies in his support.^106 The Roman Empress Agrippina is said to have pre-
sented “a new and disdained sight to the manly Eyes of Romans, a Woeman sitting
public in her Female pride among Ensignes and Armed Cohorts” (72). The Briton
Queen Cartismandua was a traitor to her country and her husband and was op-