“The So-called Council of State” 1649–1652to flee Lisbon in fear of his life. After Admiral Blake blockaded Prince Rupert’s
fleet in the port of Lisbon, Milton wrote for parliament (April 27) urging King John
to drive out the “pirates” or else to permit the English fleet to attack them in
Portuguese ports. Responding to further Portuguese provocations,^87 during the
summer and autumn of 1650 Blake destroyed the Portuguese fleet and soundly
defeated the royalist fleet in harbor; its remnants fled to the Spanish port of Cartagena,
and England demanded the return of those ships and their merchandise. Milton
translated for the council two letters from Philip to the governor of Cartagena,
along with his cover letter to Blake (January 7, 1651), directing that the goods
though not the ships be released (CPW V.1, 532–8) – the first clear evidence that
Milton knew Spanish.
Relations between England and Spain were complicated by the murder of the
newly appointed resident Ascham by royalist exiles the day after his arrival in Ma-
drid (June 6, 1650). The assassins escaped punishment for the next year or so by
taking sanctuary in a church. Milton wrote for parliament a series of increasingly
outraged letters to Philip and probably translated his responses. On June 28, 1650,
parliament appeals to Philip’s honor to deliver “suitable and speedy punishment” to
the assassins; on January 21–2, 1651, they acknowledge his efforts but insist that
“unless justice be satisfied without delay... we see not on what ground sincere and
lasting friendship can rest” (CPW V.2, 523–4, 539–43). A year later the issue was still
unresolved and protests continued.^88
Besides preparing a few other letters and translations,^89 Milton was given other
tasks. On February 2, 1650 he was directed to receive and store in the paper office
any public papers still in the hands of former officials, on June 25, to summarize
examinations taken by the army during an insurrection in Essex, and on August 14,
to join a committee to inventory the records of the Westminster Assembly.^90 On
June 25 also he was directed to examine the papers of his old nemesis William
Prynne, and to seize any papers “by him written, or in his Custody of dangerous
nature against the Commonwealth.”^91 Apparently he was also asked to examine
one foreign book that required authorization under the Press Act, and acted on it
according to his own liberal standards. The Journal of the House of Commons refers to
a “note under the Hand of John Milton” on August 10, 1650 that seems to have
authorized William Dugard to publish the Socinian Racovian Catechism, with its
“heretical” denial of Christ’s divinity. Dugard entered this Latin work in the Sta-
tioners Register on November 13, 1651 and published it soon after.^92 It may be that
attending to this licensing duty prompted Milton to begin to question Trinitarian
doctrine, which he repudiates in De Doctrina Christiana.
As Milton prepared his Defensio for publication, his other polemics remained a
focus of attention and controversy. On January 14, 1650 the council arranged to
send some of his books – presumably Tenure and Eikonoklastes – to be distributed
abroad.^93 Sometime after June 19 a second edition of Eikonoklastes appeared, with a
few added passages.^94 An anonymous answer to that work, Joseph Jane’s Eikon Aklastos,