Notes to Chapter 1Phillippe Diodati, nephew of John Diodati and one of the ministers charged to plead
the case against More at the April synod.
17 CPW IV.2, 871. A Dutch translation of the Doctrine and Discipline was published in
1655.
18 LR III, 443–4: “The trueth is Morus durst not add the [court] sentence against Pontia;
for the charges are recompensed and where there is payement of charges (that is to say
the action of Pontia is good; but that the proofes fayle hir) yea I beleeve that Morus was
faine to purge [perjure] himself upon oath.” See Sellin, “Morus before the Hof van
Holland,” 1–11.
19 CPW IV.2, 809–10. Paul R. Sellin, “Alexander More before the Synod of Utrecht,”
Huntington Library Quarterly 58 (1996), 239–48, points out that the whole matter was
again addressed at the synod of Tergou, April 23–8, 1659, when More’s behavior with
Guerret was described much as Milton had it from his sources. That synod also charged
him with licentious behavior with several other women, in Amsterdam and Middelburg,
and with frequenting brothels. Milton had wind of some of those scandals: besides
Peletta of Geneva and Guerret of Leyden he alludes to a “heroine” of the “Tibaltiana,”
a maid whose fate was likened to Pontia’s, a strumpet of Amsterdam, and a widow
whose chastity More assailed while consoling her for the death of her husband (CPW
IV.2, 777–8, n. 199; 809–10, n. 277).
20 See chapter 5, pp. 137–8, and chapter 6, pp. 182–4.
21 CPW IV.2, 744. In regard to the prophets, he comments that the “rabbins... set down
their Keri, for that which is written plainly. As for me, I confess I prefer to be plain of
speech with the sacred writers then speciously decent with the futile Rabbins” (745).
22 See chapter 9, p. 301. The representations of the Dutch ambassador Nieupoort he
traces back to More, and he seems to believe, or wants to believe, that both of Dury’s
letters identify the royalist Hotton as his informant, thought in fact only one does so.
23 See especially chapter 5, p. 152 and chapter 6, pp. 177–8.
24 Pages 701–2. He repeats the same either/or proposition soon after: “you are he whom
I declare either to be the author of that abominable outcry or to be justly regarded as the
author” (704).
25 Pages 712–13. To the same point he claims that More’s statement to Hotton denying
authorship itself argues some involvement: “this ought to be called your manifest con-
fession that you are a party either in composing this libel, or, with a very few others, in
procuring its composition; that if you are not the author, yet certainly you are his ally
and assistant; that either by your labor or by your counsel this book was published. If
this be the case... I need not fear... to have accused you falsely if either I have
affirmed that you are the very author, or have counted you in his company” (710).
26 Of the eight letters Milton excerpts, three are to Hartlib from Dury (identified), two are
to Milton (one anonymous, one by Spanheim but not named), and three others are also
anonymous but one of them, from Leyden, had been printed in Mercurius Politicus (Sep-
tember 27, 1652).
27 CPW IV.2, 774. See chapter 4, pp. 98–9.
28 See chapter 7, pp. 226–7.
29 Michael Lieb, Milton and the Culture of Violence (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 217–25.
30 See chapter 9, p. 281.
31 His offense would not qualify as blasphemy by the Blasphemy Act of 1650 (see chapter
Notes to Chapter 10