“I... Steer Right Onward” 1654–1658of the murder of Kenelm he will leave “to be sought by such as are more credulous
than I wish my readers to be”; the story of King Edgar as victim of a bed-trick is
“fitter for a Novel then a History; but as I find it in Malmsbury, so I relate it”; and the
story of William the Conqueror ordering his men to spare the countryside he thinks
borrowed by the Monks from similar stories about Alexander and Caesar.^122 Milton
regrets that in Latin translation he could make little sense of the “extravagant fansies
and metaphors” in poems from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle celebrating the Battle of
Brunanburh (308–9). Had he wished to use those sources, Milton would have been
hard pressed to find Anglo-Saxon scholars to read them to him; in any case, his
purpose is not original scholarship but producing an educative humanist narrative.
Some patterns and lessons are repeated from the first segment of the History.
Again, Milton finds several wicked queens driven by ambition and passion, though
also a few worthy ones whose qualities surpass what is usual in women: the martial
Elfled was possessed of “vertues more then female” (313); Godiva was “a woman of
great praise” (386); and Edith was “commended much for beauty, modesty, and,
beyond what is requisite in a woman, learning” (374). And again he finds that the
English overvalue war and martial bravery.^123 Treating the Saxon period, Milton
can now emphasize some elements of the so called “Saxon myth” invoked by many
defenders of the revolution, according to which Englishmen’s liberties are embed-
ded in Saxon laws and institutions, and the Norman Conquest brought in its wake
feudal oppression and royalist absolutism. Milton’s History finds that some Saxon
kings were rightful targets of tyrannicide; that several kings were chosen by some
electorate and bound themselves to observe the ancient Saxon laws; and that Edward
the Confessor codified the immemorial common law guaranteeing Englishmen’s
liberties.^124 He also points to several formal compacts testifying that sovereignty was
seen to be vested in the people and only delegated to monarchs upon conditions.
Ethelred in exile was restored by “the Nobility and States of England” upon his
promise “to govern them better then he had done... [and] to consent in all things
to thir will” (348–9). And William the Conqueror at his coronation gave “his Oath
at the Altar in the presence of all the people, to defend the Church, well govern the
people, maintain right Law, prohibit rapine and unjust judgment” (402). But Milton
elides one element of the Saxon myth that he had emphasized in the Defensio: that
the ancient constitution vested sovereign power in parliament with the king subor-
dinate to it.^125 This concept of the ancient constitution would provide support for
traditional institutions and Milton was not eager to encourage the Protector’s moves
toward a quasi-royal “single person” and a two-house parliament. Also, Milton’s
recent experience with parliaments bent on religious repression no doubt gave him
pause, highlighting the problem of the tyranny of the majority in a sovereign rep-
resentative. He did not, like Harrington, Nedham, and Vane, develop a new re-
publican paradigm in the mid-1650s, but like them he found the best models for a
free commonwealth in ancient Greece and Rome, and in modern Venice, Geneva,
and the United Provinces, not in Saxon England.