“For the Sake of Liberty” 1652–1654to pass along to Milton together with an offer to publish his reply.^57 Milton later
reported that he was given the unbound sheets in the council and was expected to
reply: “Scarce was this book complete in the sheets before it was handed to me in
the Council; soon after that session another copy was sent me by the court of
inquisitions [parliament’s Committeee on Examinations]. It was also intimated that
I was expected to serve the state and stop up the mouth of this troublesome crier.”^58
Vlacq claimed that he wrote Hartlib as early as October, 1652 denying More’s
authorship, but if Hartlib passed along this news Milton evidently thought it just a
deceptive ploy by More and Vlacq.^59
The Clamor mounts a vigorous attack on the English “parricides,” laced with
virulent invective against Milton and his Defensio as well as fulsome praises of the
“great prince of letters, Claudius Salmasius” (CPW IV.2, 1,049). It presents a dra-
matic account (“spectaculum”) of the events leading up to the regicide, describing
that drama as a savage or monstrous “tragedy,” and drawing out resemblances to
Christ’s crucifixion. It also denounces the crimes of the bloodthirsty English “par-
ricides” against, in turn, the king, the English people, the English church, all kings
and peoples, the reformed churches of Europe, and God himself. Indeed, the au-
thor argues that this deed was worse than the crucifixion, for the Jews did not
recognize Christ whereas the sacrilegious English knew very well that they were
murdering a divinely anointed king (1,049, 1,058). It also mounts a vicious attack
defaming and degrading Milton’s person, character, and life, often portraying his
body as disfigured and monstrous.^60 We can imagine his pain and fury as someone
read these insults aloud to him, probably over and over as he prepared his response
to them; as Michael Lieb points out, the experience of listening to such lacerating
assaults would be much more distressing than simply reading them, because a reader
confronts the text in private and can control his encounter with it.^61
More’s epistle to Charles II, signed by Vlacq, excoriates Milton as a Cyclops
manqué:
“A monster horrible, deformed, huge, and sightless.” Though to be sure, he is not
huge; nothing is more weak, more bloodless, more shrivelled than little animals such
as he, who the harder they fight, the less harmful they are. It will please you to see
your man tearing to pieces this disgrace to the human race. (CPW IV.2, 1,045)The book proclaims Milton a “famished grammicaster,” a “hellish gallows-bird,”
and an “insignificant piece of mud” that the English threw against Salmasius only
because Selden refused the task. It describes Milton as a force for disintegration in
every sphere of human society: he was “expelled from his college at Cambridge
because of some disgrace” and then “fled shame and his country and migrated to
Italy”; he sought to destroy the bonds of marriage and the family with his infamous
divorce tracts; and then he severed the political bond between king and subject.
Indeed this “parricide” was the very executioner of Charles since he admits to