“The So-called Council of State” 1649–1652mitment to political and religious liberty in England. One reason is that he does see
a parallel between the Irish “barbarians” now and the English barbarians who, as he
noted in his History of Britain, had to be civilized by the conquering Romans.^27 He
concludes, however, citing their “absurd and savage Customes,”^28 that the Irish
have not yet profited from English civilizing, but have shown themselves “not
onely sottish but indocible and averse from all Civility and amendment,... reject-
ing the ingenuity of all other Nations to improve and waxe more civill by a civiliz-
ing Conquest, though all these many yeares better showne and taught” (304). A
further reason is his conviction that the “poyson” of idolatry and “public Supersti-
tions”(309) spread by the Roman church must be suppressed before Ireland can be
civilized. By giving the Irish control of their institutions, the king and Ormond
have given Rome, “this grand Enemy and persecutor of the true Church... root
to grow up and spread his poyson” (309), thereby also endangering England. Milton
judges the king’s treaty with the Irish by the republican principle of human equal-
ity. He has no right to act arbitrarily, and he is not imitating the divine kingship in
doing so, as royalists claim: “Why... should [the king] sit himselfe like a demigod
in lawlesse and unbounded anarchy; refusing to be accountable for that autority over
men naturally his equals, which God himself without a reason givn is not wont to
exercise over his creatures?” (307–8).
In his comments on Ormond’s letter to Jones and on the statement by the Ulster
Presbyters, Milton emphasizes their folly and treachery in making common cause
with the Irish. Appealing to English chauvinism, he inveighs against those
“unhallow’d Priestlings” the Ulster Presbyters (mostly settlers from Scotland) who
seek to dictate in church and state to the “sovran Magistracy of England, by whose
autoritie and in whose right they inhabit there” (322, 333). To answer Ormond’s
charge that the regicide was an act of anarchy and murder, Milton points to victo-
ries in battle as some evidence of divine approval: “the hand of God appear’d...
evidently on our side.”^29 But he bases his case chiefly on English law and institu-
tions. Reminding the Ulster Presbyters that their own John Knox “taught profess-
edly the doctrine of deposing, and of killing Kings,” he makes it a matter of glory to
the English that they proceeded “by the deliberate and well-weighd Sentence of a
legal Judicature”(329), not by military force or assassination. To answer the charge
that killing the king broke the Solemn League and Covenant, Milton restates his
principle that all covenants are conditional and this one explicitly conditional on
the king’s preservation “of true Religion, and our liberties” (331–2). To answer Ormond’s
charge that the English substituted for the traditional Three Estates the “Dreggs and
Scum of the House of Commons,” Milton defends the worthiness of those members
and especially Cromwell, whose nobility is founded on “valour and high merit” as
well as “eminent and remarkable Deeds.” He locates the essence of parliament not
in the Three Estates as such but in “the Supream and generall Councell of a Nation,
consisting of whomsoever chos’n and assembld for the public good,” claiming far
greater antiquity for such councils than for the Estates model (312–15).