Notes to Chapter 1Forces, and of the General Council of Officers (London, 1649) demanded that crown lands
and revenues be sequestered for public uses, that the army’s arrears be met, that succes-
sive annual or biennial parliaments be guaranteed, that parliament be supreme in all
things with no negative voice from a king or any other, that fundamental liberties –
religious freedom, freedom from impressment in the army, and amnesty – be guaran-
teed as irrevocable, and that such a constitution be established by an “Agreement of
the People.”
101 See David Underdown, Pride’s Purge (Oxford, 1971), 143–72, 211–12.
102 “When these works [The Tenure and his previous polemics] were completed and I
thought that I could look forward to an abundance of leisure, I turned to the task of
tracing in unbroken sequence, if I could, the history of my country, from the earliest
origins even to the present day. I had already finished four books [Quatuor iam libros
absolveram] when... the Council of State... desired to employ my services, espe-
cially in connection with foreign affairs” (CPW IV.1, 627–8).
103 For Hartlib, see p. 212, and note 83. The book Milton used for the last part of Book
IV is Simeon of Durham’s De Gestis Regum Anglorum, which only became available to
him with the publication of Roger Twysden’s edition, in Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores
X (London, 1652). Milton’s statement in the preface to Moscovia that he intended,
after the example of Paulus Jovius’s account of Muscovy and Britain, to “assay some-
thing in the description of one or two Countreys... and I began with Muscovy”
(CPW VIII, 474–5) also suggests that he conceived these two projects at about the
same time.
104 Milton’s comment on antiquarian history is in Of Reformation (CPW I, 541–2). See
William Camden, Britannia (London, 1590); trans. Philemon Holland, Britain: or a
chorographicall description (London, 1618); Thomas May, History of the parliament of Eng-
land (London, 1647). For May’s significance to the revolution see David Norbrook,
“Lucan, Thomas May, and the Creation of a Republican Literary Culture,” in Kevin
Sharpe and Peter Lake, eds, Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England (Stanford, Calif.,
1993), 45–66; and Nigel Smith, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640–1660 (New
Haven, Conn., 1994), 342–5.
105 “Digression,” CPW V.1, 451.
106 See Cedric Brown, “Milton and the Idolatrous Consort,” Criticism 35 (1993), 419–39.
107 Page 80. Milton reports the abuse of Boadicea and her daughters by the Romans, but
does not allow that to be an excuse for her to lead a military action.
108 Page 85. Milton also treats the introduction of Christianity to Britain, the disruptions
caused by the heresies of Arius and Pelagius (a Briton), and the continuing incursions
of the Picts from the north and the Scots from Ireland.
109 French Fogle (CPW V.1, xxxix–xl) supposes that the first two books were written in
late 1647, the third (with the Digression) during the chaotic months of January–April,
- Nicholas von Maltzahn, in Milton’s History of Britain (Oxford, 1991), 22–48,
takes Milton at his literal word that he wrote the first four books (the fourth then
ending as he concluded his summary of Bede’s account) after the king’s execution and
after he completed Tenure. He argues (rightly I think) that the general thrust of the
Digression is consonant with that of the History as a whole and must have been written
along with Book III. But I agree with Austin Woolrych in “Debate: Dating Milton’s
History of Britain,” The Historical Journal 35 (1993), 929–43, that the Digression could
Notes to Chapter 7