“For the Sake of Liberty” 1652–1654He was a soldier well-versed in self-knowledge, and whatever enemy lay within –
vain hopes, fears, desires – he had either previously destroyed within himself or had
long since reduced to subjection. Commander first over himself, victor over himself... he entered camp a veteran and past-master in all that concerned the soldier’s life.
(667–8)
Declining to describe his many victories in the civil wars, Milton praises especially
the leadership qualities he first displayed in the army, inviting comparison with the
model Persian general and ruler, Cyrus the Great. He attracted men “who were
already good and brave, or else he made them such, chiefly by his own example”;
no one ever raised a “larger or better-disciplined army in a shorter space of time...
cherished by their fellow-citizens,” formidable to the enemy but merciful when
they surrendered, and “an inspiration to all virtue and piety” (668–9). His later
accomplishments are seen to flow from this preparation: Ireland was all but lost
until Cromwell broke the rebels’ power in a single battle; Scotland was subdued in
a year, adding “to the wealth of England that realm which all our kings for eight
hundred years had been unable to master.” After this, Cromwell showed himself
“as mighty in deliberation as in the arts of war:” he toiled in parliament to pass
needed laws, then dismissed the “few men” of the Rump Parliament when they
contrived delays and pursued their private interest, and finally accepted the Protec-
torate when it was thrust upon him at the Nominated Parliament’s collapse (670–
1). Proclaiming him “the man most fit to rule” (672), Milton emphasizes his
magnanimity – for Spenser the supreme epic virtue – in refusing the title of King.
Terming him pater patriae, Milton associates him with Cicero, who was first granted
that title, and also with Rome’s founder Aeneas, implicitly contrasting him with
that unworthy claimant to patriarchal kingship, Charles I.
But the epic hero celebrated at greatest length is Milton himself. His self-portrait,
developed in several places and over many pages, is rich in self-revelation as autobi-
ography fuses with art and Milton judges his life against heroic models. More’s
spiteful depiction of Milton in his Epistle to Charles as “a monster, dreadful, ugly,
huge” or rather “feeble, bloodless, and pinched” stung him to provide a striking
verbal picture of himself whose accuracy, he claims with amusing exaggeration, can
be attested by “many thousands of my fellow citizens, who know me by sight, and
... not a few foreigners” (584). That description accords him the physical grace,
spirit, strength, and even chivalric accomplishments proper to epic heroes:
Ugly I have never been thought by anyone, to my knowledge... I admit that I am
not tall, but my stature is closer to the medium than to the small. Yet what if it were
small, as is the case with so many men of the greatest worth in both peace and war?... I was not ignorant of how to handle or unsheathe a sword, nor unpractised in
using it each day. Girded with my sword, as I generally was, I thought myself equal to
anyone, though he was far more sturdy, and I was fearless of any injury that one man
could inflict on another. Today I possess the same spirit, the same strength, but not