“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669In Satan’s usurpation of a kingship properly belonging only to Christ, Milton
alludes to monarchs generally and to any others who, like Cromwell in the final
years of the Protectorate, assume quasi-monarchical status. Some aspects of Satan
invite association with Cromwell – his use of republican rhetoric and his promo-
tion of rebellion as a cloak for ambition – but the more fundamental associations are
with the Stuart monarchs, especially Charles I.^121 Pandemonium is “the high Capi-
tal / Of Satan and his Peers” (1.756–7), and within it the “great Seraphic Lords and
Cherubim” sit in secret conclave while the common angels, reduced to pygmy size,
swarm without (1.777–95). The council held there does not suggest a republican
House of Commons, but a House of Lords controlled by a monarch.^122 The pow-
erful peers, as Satan always terms them, debate their own agendas: Moloch urges
eternal war at any cost; Belial counsels peace through ignominious inaction; Mam-
mon would build up a rival empire in Hell founded on riches and magnificence,
but, ironically, describes that course of action in the language of republican virtue,
as a choice of “Hard liberty before the easie yoke / Of servile Pomp” (2.256–7).
Then Satan sways the council to his will through the agency of his chief minister,
Beelzebub. The scene closes with Satan accorded divine honors: “Towards him
they bend / With awful reverence prone; and as a God / Extoll him equal to the
highest in Heav’n” (2.477–9). This is an exaggerated version of the idolatry Milton
had long associated with the Stuart ideology of divine kingship: in Eikonoklastes he
denounced Charles I for making himself such an idol, and in The Readie & Easie
Way predicted that Charles II would do the same.
The association of monarchy with idolatry is also underscored in Milton’s long
catalogue of fallen angel leaders, described in terms of the idols they are to become
in human history (1.392–405). The first in order is “Moloch, horrid King besmear’d
with blood / Of human sacrifice, and parents tears”; special emphasis is given to
“Astarte, Queen of Heav’n,” to whom the “uxorious King” Solomon, “beguil’d by
fair Idolatresses” built a Temple; and the passage ends with Belial, who dwells where
priests turn atheist, and “Reigns” in “Courts and Palaces.” As is usual in Milton’s
treatment of idolatry, his emphasis in this account is less on the affront offered to
God than on the craven servility and debased vices that idolatry produces in those
who worship anything other than the transcendent God. Next to Moloch “homi-
cide,” whose worshippers burned their infants alive, was the altar of Chemos, inspir-
ing “wanton rites” and “lustful Orgies” – “lust hard by hate” (406–17). Worshipping
Baalim and Ashtaroth, Israel bowed “lowly down / To bestial Gods; for which thir
heads as low / Bow’d down in Battel, sunk before the Spear / Of despicable foes”
(1.432–7). The love story of Adonis “infected Sions daughters” with “wanton pas-
sions,” and Belial inspired all manner of “injury and outrage” – both homo- and
heterosexual rape – in his “Sons... flown with insolence and wine” (1.500–5). In
fallen Eve also, idolatrous worship of what is not God produces debasing servility, as
she offers hymnic praise and “low Reverence” to the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil, “as to the power / That dwelt within” (9.795–837).