Notes to Chapter 1Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford, 1990); J. S. Morrill, The Revolt of the Provinces
(New York, 1976); Kevin Sharpe, Faction and Parliament (Oxford, 1978); Mark Kishlansky,
Parliamentary Selection (New York, 1986).
4 For example, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, eds, Conflict in Early Stuart England,
1603–1642 (London and New York, 1989); Thomas Cogswell, The Blessed Revolution
(Cambridge, 1989); Geoff Eley and William Hunt, eds, Reviving the English Revolution
(London, 1988).
5 See, for example, CPW I, 533–4, 555, 557, 917.
6 See Janel Mueller, “Embodying Glory: The Apocalyptic Strain in Milton’s Of Reforma-
tion,” in David Loewenstein and James G. Turner, eds, Politics, Poetics, and Hermeneutics
in Milton’s Prose (Cambridge, 1990), 9–40.
7 The bookseller George Thomason, Milton’s friend, collected some 22,000 pamphlets
and other publications in the period 1640–60, indicating the month and day he ac-
quired each. His collection is now in the British Library. I record Thomason’s dates of
acquisition in parenthesis, as an indication of approximate dates of publication. See
George Thomason, Catalogue of the Pamphlets, Books, Newspapers, and Manuscripts relating
to the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and Restoration, 2 vols (London, 1908). For the
Marprelate controversy see Raymond Anselment, “Betwixt Jest and Ernest”: Marprelate,
Milton, Marvell, Swift and the Decorum of Religous Ridicule (Toronto, 1979). For the print
revolution, see Sharon Achinstein, Milton and the Revolutionary Reader (Princeton, NJ,
1994).
8 For this Christian rhetorical tradition, see Peter Auski, “Milton’s ‘Sanctifi’d Bitternesse’:
Polemical Technique in the Early Prose,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 19
(1977), 363–76.
9 The margins of William Prynne’s massive tomes were laden with citations of biblical
chapter and verse, and other authorities, but this practice of “marginal Prynne” was
only an exaggeration of contemporary habits, especially among Puritans. See B. Doug-
las Trevor, Learned Appearances: Writing Scholarly and Literary Selves in Early Modern Eng-
land (Dissertation, Harvard University, 1999), 323–40.
10 Douglas Stewart, “Speaking to the World: The Ad Hominem Logic of Milton’s Polem-
ics,” The Seventeenth Century 11 (1996), 35–60.
11 Until June, 1644 he received annual interest of £24 on a loan to Richard Powell (LR
II, 103) and until May, 1642 he received £12 annually on a loan to Sir John Cope (LR
I, 357–8). There may have been other investments (Parker, II, 840).
12 See chapter 4, p. 109, 117.
13 Just when Milton worked on the list of topics is not known, but probably during the
first several months after his return, and before June, 1641 when he began to be caught
up in pamphlet controversy. His comments in the Reason of Church-governement (1641)
about weighing literary possibilities (CPW I, 812–15) seem related to this exercise. The
Trinity manuscript is cited in the text and notes as TM.
14 Under the heading “other Tragedies,” the first page lists “Adam ex in Banishment,”
“The flood,” and “Abram in Aegypt.” The remaining Genesis topics are on the second
page: “The Deluge,” “Sodom,” “Dinah” (with a cast of characters), and “Thamar”
(with a brief sketch). Exodus topics begin at the top of the second column on page two,
and the Old Testament list continues in the remaining space in column one. The Samson
topics are: “Samson pursophorus [the Fire-brand-bringer] or Hybristes, or Samson
Notes to Chapter 5