Upon the happening of this event, Milton published his “Tenure of Kings,” from which is quoted the above passage, so applicable in its spirit to our own times, so true of all political trucksters, who shout loudly for the democracy, while they have hopes of using and abusing it, but who basely betray its confidence and abandon it, whenever they are required to put in practice their own professions. This book was published 1649, and served very much to tranquilize and calm the public mind upon that which had passed.
After the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was called to the post of Latin Secretary, by the Council of State, which station he held till the Restoration. This was an office of great importance, inasmuch as all the public correspondence with foreign States devolved upon him. While holding this high and honorable public station, one so congenial with his feelings, and one for which he was so well fitted, he produced many state papers of great merit, and which contributed to advance the fame of the republic abroad.
Upon the execution of Charles Stuart, there was published a book which was styled “Eikōn Basilikē,” and which was pretended to have been written by the king, and left by him as a legacy and parting word to the world. It had a most unprecedented sale, owing to the curiosity excited by its appearance. As it was a work which was then likely to excite public sympathy, when public sympathy would be thrown away upon a bad and unworthy object, while at the same time it would abuse and mislead the public mind, the Parliament called upon Milton to write an answer to it, and to furnish an antidote for this lying poison, which it is well believed was never written by the king, but was manufactured and industriously circulated by the enemies of the people, and the friends of arbitrary power, with a hope that by its means they could unsettle the public mind, weaken the republic, and reëstablish the tyranny.
Milton accordingly wrote his Eikonoklastes; and truly was he an image-breaker; for with merciless force he entered the temple, and with his own right arm shattered the idol that they had bid all mankind bow down before.
Charles the Second, who was then residing upon the Continent, hired Salmasius, a man of great learning, and the successor of the celebrated Scaliger, as honorary professor at Leyden, to write a work in defense of his father and of the monarchy. For this work Charles paid Salmasius one hundred jacobuses. In the execution of this book, Salmasius filled it pretty plentifully with insolent abuse of all the public men of the Commonwealth, and those prominent in the Revolution; both from a natural inclination, and according to directions. In this he was quite expert; for though he was a fine scholar and very famed for his learning, yet as it has been said of him—“This prince of scholars seemed to have erected his throne upon a heap of stones, that he might have them at hand to throw at every one’s head who passed by.”
Immediately upon the appearance of this book, the Council of State unanimously selected Milton to answer it; and he, in obedience to this call, prepared and published his Defense of the People of England, a work of great worth and power, and which was written at intervals, during the moments snatched from his official duties, when he was weakened and infirm. This book was read everywhere. Europe rang with it, and wonder at its force filled all minds.
By some it has been said that the Council presented him with £1000 as a reward, which was no mean sum in those days of specie circulation. But empty thanks were all that he received. Neither this nor any other of his writings ever obtained one cent for him from the public purse, as he asserts in his Second Defense. While Milton was thus receiving attentions from all quarters, it was much otherwise with his arrogant opponent; for he suffered not only by the severity of Milton’s reply, but was slighted and treated ill by Christiana, Queen of Sweden, who had invited him to her court, among other learned men. Upon the reading of Milton’s “Defense,” she was so delighted therewith, that her opinion of Salmasius changed, and she became indifferent to him, which he perceiving, left her court, and retired to Spa, in Germany, where he shortly after died of chagrin.
Milton had been for many years suffering from a weakness in his eyes, arising out of his severe application to his studies. Year after year his sight became more and more dim, until his physicians warned him that unless he ceased his continual toil, he would become totally blind. This for a while he heeded; but the urgent call made upon him in the production of this answer to Salmasius, led him again to over-application, and he became wholly blind. Notwithstanding his blindness, he still continued the discharge of his official duties, and employed his leisure moments in the production of various other political tracts, in answer to the many abusive works issued by the royalists.
On the death of Oliver Cromwell, and the taking place of the difficulties that followed, he wrote a “Letter to a Statesman,” [supposed to be General Monk,] in which he gave a brief delineation of a “free Commonwealth, easy to be put in practice, and without delay.” Finding affairs were growing worse and worse, the people more and more unsettled, and that a king was likely to be reëstablished, and the Commonwealth subverted, he wrote and published his “Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellence thereof, Compared with the Inconveniences and Dangers of admitting Kingship in this Nation.” This short paper was published in 1659-60, and even after this he published his “Notes on a late Sermon entitled the Fear of God and the King, preached at Mercer’s Chapel, on March 25th, 1660, by Dr. Matthew Griffith,” the very year, and within a month of the Restoration; so that his voice was the last to bear witness against the overthrow of liberty and the restoration of tyranny.
Upon the return of Charles, he fled, and lay concealed, during which time his books, the Eikonoklastes and “Defense of the People of England,” were burned by the common hangman! An indictment was found against him, and a warrant for his arrest placed in the hands of the sergeant-at-arms. The act of indemnity was passed, and he received the benefit of it, and came forth from his concealment, but was arrested, and shortly after, by order of the House of Commons, discharged, upon his paying the fees to the sergeant-at-arms, who had endeavored to exact them from him, which he resisted, and appealed to the House. And thus, although a prisoner, he still displayed a determination and resolution to oppose that oppression in his own person, against which he had so stoutly battled for the whole people.