John Milton by Campbell Gordon; Corns Thomas N.; & Thomas N. Corns

Author:Campbell, Gordon; Corns, Thomas N.; & Thomas N. Corns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2008-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

The Protectorate

THE period from 20 April 1653 to 3 September 1658 witnessed significant changes in the governance of England, each redefining the republicanism of successive regimes, marking the rise or fall of groups and individuals, and challenging the integrity of its public servants. Milton remained in the employment of the state throughout, evidently accommodating himself to Cromwell’s ever-more-powerful control. However, his role shifted as the extent of his incapacity became clearer. The life records no longer show him directly engaged in surveillance work or in supervising other recruits to the publicity machine of the government. He published only two major works, both Latin polemics, though he continued, somewhat intermittently, to translate state papers. At the same time, he found ways of working that allowed him to take up and pursue major research projects in systematic theology, in British history, and in classical lexicography, to translate psalms, to complete a number of short poems of considerable distinction, and to work in earnest on his long-promised vernacular epic. As he did so, he strengthened his social ties and celebrated the pleasures of friendship, he built an appropriate support network, and he remarried, though the marriage was to be short-lived.

Cromwell’s motives for dismissing the Purged Parliament remain the subject of controversy and speculation. He and senior army officers had become both disappointed and alarmed by parliament’s conduct over its final year, as Blair Worden and Austin Woolrych have demonstrated.1 Within the New Model Army a wave of millenarian optimism followed the stunning victories at Dunbar and Worcester. Fifth Monarchism, with its aspiration of ushering in the rule of Christ through direct action, achieved some purchase among all ranks, and was championed at the most senior level by Major-General Thomas Harrison, nor was Cromwell himself unmoved by the apparently providential nature of the success to which he had led his troops. Yet as members who had distanced themselves from the regicide drifted back to resume their seats, a political body that was already quite conservative in its religious and social outlook became even more sceptical about extreme tolerationism, the abolition of tithes and the disestablishment of the church.

While such conduct disappointed Cromwell, the politicians’ resumption of a recurrent theme of most mid-century parliaments, the reduction and control of the armed forces, created suspicion and alarm. Parliament had supplemented itself through recruiter elections but remained both under strength and without any mandate that would resist the most superficial scrutiny, and, under pressure from the same armed forces that had purged it of its less acceptable members in 1648, it began in the spring of 1653 to debate its own reform or dissolution. Woolrych has demonstrated that, contrary to the propaganda of the army leadership and contrary to the conclusions of most earlier historians, the resolution it seemed likely to carry on the day it was dismissed was not to govern in apparent perpetuity, through the addition of members through recruiter elections, but to issue writs for a new parliament, perhaps to be preceded by a period in which the current members, augmented by others, would continue to sit.

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