“Between Private Walls” 1645–1649The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, he rejoined the public debate about public
affairs. That treatise, designed rather like a deliberative oration meant to persuade,
has as its overarching rhetorical purpose the rallying of as large a part of the popu-
lace as possible to support or at least accept the trial, the regicide, and the new
commonwealth. Several elements are intertwined here, somewhat disjointedly: cas-
tigation of backsliding Presbyterians, rhetorical appeals to the fragmenting revolu-
tionary parties, defenses of tyrannicide, and development of a republican political
theory derived from classical and contemporary sources, and the Bible. Milton’s
Tenure is especially interesting as his own urgent exploration of republican ideas at
a crisis moment, tailored to immediate circumstances and to the needs of polemic
argument. It is at once an important document in the development of English
republican thought and an illuminating register of Milton’s political thought during
the king’s trial and just after his execution.
Milton claims in this tract to address issues of theory, leaving the magistrates to
judge the special case of Charles I. But such judgment, he insists, pertains only to
“the uprighter sort of them, and of the people, though in number less by many, in
whom faction least hath prevaild above the Law of nature and right reason” (CPW
III, 197). This principle provides a rationale for the actions of the army and the
extraordinary commission that tried the king. And though Milton does not men-
tion Charles, he makes clear his own judgment on the king’s case by using language
that echoes the indictment on which he was tried:^141
But this I dare owne as part of my faith, that if such a one there be, by whose
Commission, whole massachers have been committed on his faithfull Subjects, his
Provinces offerd to pawn or alienation, as the hire of those whom he had sollicited
to come in and destroy whole Citties and Countries; be he King, or Tyrant, or
Emperour, the Sword of Justice is above him; in whose hand soever is found suffi-
cient power to avenge the effusion and so great a deluge of innocent blood. For if all
human power to execute, not accidentally but intendedly, the wrath of God upon
evil doers without exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or if
that faile, extraordinary so executing that intent of God, is lawfull, and not to be
resisted. (197–8)As well, he often echoes emerging English theory during the past decade on popu-
lar sovereignty and government based on contract – especially Leveller formula-
tions – but without naming names or aligning himself with any party. This is in part
a rhetorical gesture, to make common cause among the various factions through
the fiction that his treatise is a only a theoretical exposition of the issues. But it is
also Milton’s characteristic posture of working out his own positions without reli-
ance on authorities or the formulations of others.
The tract begins with some equations. Milton associates the king’s political tyr-
anny with that slavery to custom and unruly passions that mark his supporters as bad
men, and insists that only good men, free of such slavery, can properly love liberty: