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God Satan King Charles Revolutrinaries
God Satan King Charles Revolutrinaries
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JOAN S. BENNETT
have sought to understand what relationship curacy but a fictional character with an emo-
Milton saw between human and demonic revolu- tional rhetorical appeal. Milton suggests this fact
tion and rule, and what aspects of the prose when he pauses at one point in Eikonoklastes to
career were shared by the poetic. Romantic at- respond to the Eikon's style:
and by the same dramatic imagination, we can, George W. Whiting notices the different stress
find in the prose works a valuable literary gloss tary historian Thomas May of responsibility for
on the poetry. the events of the war. Typical are the contrasting
It is important to realize, first of all, the extent discussions of the royalist plot to free the Earl of
to which the King Charles of the prose pam- Strafford, condemned by Parliament for treason,
phlets was Milton's own literary creation. The from the Tower of London and then to invade
tract in which Milton began Charles's character England with a French and Irish army. Whereas
development in a sustained way is Eikonoklas- May's History goes at length into all the con-
tes.3 It was Milton's answer to the royalist spirators' roles, Milton's treats the plot as the
Eikon Basilike, a publication appearing shortly king's. The king, Milton says, was "soon after
after Charles's execution that attempted to pic- found to have the chief hand in a most detested
441
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442
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
conspiracy against the Parlament and Kingdom seventeenth-century royalists argued that the
Strafford, by seizing on the Towre of London." power, Milton argued that the man Charles was,
Milton's poem.
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Joan S. Bennett 443
tion that like the Sun shall rise and recover it self
not inherent in his person or absolute, a gov-
create the king: sun rules the heavens. However, the political
ence is to the Earth: What other notions but these, which gives temporary, but "false presumptuous
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444 God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
firmed his intention never to submit to the rule his human rule over earth, Adam's right reason-
of God, Milton abandons the traditional analogy ing about his own role as God's creature leads
entirely and describes Satan as a spot or blemish him to recognize the sun for what it literally is:
on the surface of the literal sun (11. 588-90). the creation of a divine ruler, the vehicle for
Thus, in the first three books, Milton leads us light created and given by God, who, as source
away from a false analogy between the physical of all, is the only holder of "sole Dominion":
Soul,
praise
thou fall'st.
... resound
Light. (v.171-79)
right of kings.
Of this new World; at whose sight all the Stars rightly understood, is, like Charles's, criminality.
state
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Joan S. Bennett 445
can easily deceive an unwary judge of character, angels; and in fact the issue comes full circle as
There, recognizing that Satan after his fall back to the world of men:
cites,
fence:
so often manifested by the commonest criminals at yield" (i.105-08). The same had been boasted
tion for their crimes, they will, for the last time,
projected not by a true courage ready for self- "unteachable man" and Satan the unteachable
"acts of oblivion" of God in the war in heaven saying, "A glorious King he would be, though
by which the feats of war performed by the rebel by his sufferings" (Eikonoklastes, p. 435), Mil-
angels were not recorded; then consider the ex- ton offered a counter interpretation of Charles's
planation that such acts were done "to give the sufferings, which applies equally to Satan, who
World an example, that glorious deeds don to claims his right to rule by his willingness to en-
ambitious ends, find reward answerable, not to dure the "Greatest share / Of endless pain"
thir outward seeming, but to thir inward ambi- (n.29-30) and who must win "the high repute"
tion." The latter judgment refers actually to the "through hazard huge" (ii.472-73). The gen-
under great risk, betrayed the parliamentary against such claims, "can never be put to him
cause to the king, and were caught and executed whose sufferings are his own doings" (Eikon-
oklastes, p. 435).
by Parliament for treason (Eikonoklastes, pp.
429-30). But it applies readily to the ambitious The point becomes even clearer when we see
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446
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
how each tyrant tries to use his own suffering, Busiris and his Memphian Chivalry,
bestrown
gain in heaven.
not in the end? But in the act of doing evil, men ing bravery in battle and defeat reveals itself
(Eikonoklastes, p. 478)
advance farther,
Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast, whose waves Book ix we see him appear from the under-
o'erthrew
ground river "involv'd in rising Mist" (1. 75)
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Joan S. Bennett 447
and watch him search for the serpent "through selves from its influence. But does not this pas-
each Thicket Dank or Dry, / Like a black mist sage sound like a paraphrase of the passage in
low creeping" (11. 179-80). The mist in the Book x of Paradise Lost where Satan returns
poem is a symbolic and a literal cover for victorious from a fallen Eden to his "Deifying
hypocrisy as Satan tries to hide from the guard- friends" in hell? There the fallen angels gather
ian angels: with a great hunger for words of glory and ful-
(11. 157-59)
Perhaps he, like Charles, "thought that mist mouths," 11. 546-47), with their material equiva-
could hide him from the eye of Heav'n as well as lent: fruit beautiful in form, but rotten in sub-
Milton has both tyrants further reveal the sounding words as resembling the apples of
baseness and intensity of their real motive for Sodom: "These pious flourishes and colours
seeking power as they willingly degrade them- examin'd throughly, are like the Apples of
selves in order to defend their purported glory. Asphaltis, appearing goodly to the sudden eye,
Of Charles's abortive and humiliating attempt to but look well upon them, or at least but touch
surprise and arrest five members of the House of them, and they turne into Cinders" (Eikonoklas-
that cross'd him; and that to have his will, he metaphor and characterization between Milton's
stood not to doe things never so much below portrayal of Charles and his portrayal of Satan
him" (Eikonoklastes, p. 379). Satan himself suggest that we should seek a comparison of the
understands this aspect of his own psychology two characters on the fundamental thematic
when he acknowledges to himself the baseness issue of their beliefs about the governing power
of his attack on man: "But what will not Ambi- they seek. What, then, does Milton reveal to be
tion and Revenge / Descend to?" (ix.168-69). the philosophical fault underlying this image of
Of very great importance to both of Milton's the invincible, suffering hero. "To be weak is
character portraits is the conclusion, in which miserable / Doing or Suffering," Satan asserts;
the false core of all the bravery and eloquence of and the strength of the hero, "doing or suffer-
each of his subjects is revealed unequivocally to ing," is what both sides of the false heroic image
his audience as being not only terrible but offer for admiration, even though, as Milton ar-
laughable. In a concerted effort to counteract the gues in his own voice, "in some things to be
martyr image of Charles projected by the Eikon, overcome is more honest and laudable then to
Milton urged that it could hardly "be thought conquer." The rebel angels' strength-worship is
upon (though how sad a thing) without som pointed out by Christ when, entering the battle
kind of laughter . . . that he who had trampl'd in heaven, he tells the loyal angels that though
over us so stately and so tragically should leave they have proved their moral virtue in battle, the
the world at last so ridiculously in his exit, as to Father has assigned the rebels' doom to him:
his and their heads with shame and confusion" Or I alone against them, since by strength
(vi.818-22)
eventually expose itself to ridicule, so that we With this reference to an unnatural separation of
finally see it for what it is and distance our- "strength" from "other excellence" we are at
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448 God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
what Milton reveals to be the heart of both re- had, until the war in heaven, unfairly kept his
bellions against the power of God. power hid: "till then as one secure / Sat on his
Milton held the divine right argument to be Throne . . . but still his strength conceal'd, /
false not only when it compared rulers' natural Which tempted our attempt" (I.638-42). Oth-
rights to govern but also when it compared the ers, reasoning that Satan must have known of
way an absolute monarch may govern with the God's omnipotence without having seen it, have
way God governs-which is not absolutely, by found Satan's original motivation to revolt im-
self and the governed to law. The royalists urged Now, although it is true that God had never,
philosophical acceptance of a paradox whereby before Satan's revolt, revealed to the angels his
man with absolute power is set by God over the had no evidence of God's greatest power-that
possible to believe of the Christian God, and creation; and the rebels are trying to defend their
take in the royalists' belief in the king's absolute during the course of their rebellion, they claim
be mysteriously reconciled. Milton claimed, on Because they do not, however, feel the creative
the contrary, that God's primary attribute is force within them, they find themselves positing
goodness, which demands that all other attri- an external, more powerful force at work, some
butes, including strength, be reconciled to it. "fatal course" (v.861), "Chance," "Fate," or
of human tyranny, Milton said, revealed no creator is, in fact, "stronger" than Satan, the
Christian faith at their base, but the same "bar- point is not the sheer greatness, which he does
barism" he had heard reported of Indians who not employ against the rebels, but the different
"worship as gods malevolent demons whom they quality of his strength. When Christ enters the
cannot exorcise" (Second Defence, CPW, IV, Pt. war in heaven, there is no battle to provide a test
I, 551). Such demonic powers would be fearful, of physical strength: The Creator, the source of
but they would not be worthy of either obedi- their own strength and being, simply appears
ence or emulation; and the superstitious ac- before the rebel angels, who "astonisht all re-
ceptance by Charles's followers of God as such a sistance lost, / All courage; down thir idle
deity is what enables them to make an idol in weapons dropp'd" (vi.838-39). A vision of
this world-as a third of heaven did once-of a divinity "wither'd all thir strength, /And of thir
being that seems to share the prized attribute of wonted vigor left them drain'd, /Exhausted,
power. If men worship a God because of his spiritless, afflicted, fall'n" (vi.850-52). Though
omnipotence, they have no defense against later in the poem, older in their spiritual decline,
human tyranny. If they worship God because of the angels slip back into admitting God as their
his justice, however, they have no excuse for creator,13 the hardness of their hearts blinds
accepting human tyranny. them more than before to that reality's signifi-
In Paradise Lost we are witnessing the orig- cance. It would be impossible for them to admit
inal of this mistaken faith in sheer, undefined that they were at war with the one above them in
strength, first tested in Satan's fatal effort "to set the chain of being and still remain in revolt; they
himself in Glory above his Peers." The false must therefore cling to the belief that their dif-
premises of Satan's strength-worship have mis- ference from their adversary is merely one of
led critics of the poem in two ways. On the one strength, that to be "weak," not wrong, is miser-
Satan's morality that Milton showed him to have Since rightness, justice, is the essence of God's
been right in attempting revolution because God ordering power manifested in creation, only a
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Joan S. Bennett 449
of doing evil, men [or angels] use not to consider hold divided empire.
rebellion.
least
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450
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
so injurious."
into his idea of his divine right to rule "above"
oklastes, p. 529).
could define fallen human law as "reason ab-
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451
Joan S. Bennett
rors" (Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, CPW, the law of their creator, God, to govern by the
III, 200) and why, when Charles tried to claim law themselves and their fellow angels, to serve
legal precedents for his "breaking" parliaments, God and fellow angels by the same law. Obedi-
Milton insisted that such trumped up laws could ence to the law of right reason is the condition
not uphold an indefensible practice: "I hold rea- for holding the titles that God decreed.
son to be the best Arbitrator, and the Law of When we see the angels accept Satan's irra-
Law it self" (Eikonoklastes, p. 403). That, he tional argument that "Titles," rather than laws,
repeated in his Defence, is the "basic precept of assert their right to govern, we are witnessing the
our law . . . by which nothing contrary to the first and archetypal instance of the necessary
laws of God or to reason can be considered law, separation, by law, of power from the persons
any more than a tyrant can be considered a king, who hold it. That "Majesty is inseparable from
or a servant of the Devil a servant of God" the person,"14 that a "title" asserts not an office,
(CPW, iv, Pt. i, 492). but a being, was at the heart of the royalist argu-
The tyrant's goal is to replace government by ment for divine right; this was the position held
rational law with government by arbitrary by Charles in the Eikon where, in refusing to
power; and, unlike the ordinary criminal, the obey the laws of Parliament, he argues that he
tyrant seeks not obscurity, which could hide his will not "part with . . . his honour as a King."
crime, but fame. A successful tyrant must there- Milton, however, exposes the conflict between
fore, Milton knew, be a master of rhetoric; for Charles's rhetorical use of a royal title and his
rhetoric is the tool he can employ against the actual abuse of a royal oath to uphold the law,
reason of the law to disguise his crime. When explaining that "when a King setts himself . . .
Charles wrote in the Eikon Basilike of "the ra- against the . . . residence of all his Regal power,
tionall soverantie of his soule, and liberty of his he then, in the single person of a Man, fights
will," Milton warned the people against such against his own Majesty and Kingship, and then
rhetoric, "Which words, of themselves, as farr as indeed sets the first hand to his own deposing"
they are sense, good and Philosophical, yet in (Eikonoklastes, pp. 524-25). Likewise, the
the mouth of him who to engross this common "residence" of all the rebel angels' "Regal
libertie to himself, would tred down all other power" is in the law of God, which they have
p. 412). And further, there is often in such lan- title and against law resulted, as did the histori-
guage the appearance rather than the substance cal argument for the divine right of kings, in a
of right reason, as when the King "insists upon vast false analogy between the government of
the old Plea of his Conscience, honour, and heaven and that of a fallen world. Readers have
Reason; using the plausibility of large and in- noticed that Satan's rival kingdom in hell seems
definite words, to defend himself at such a dis- in many ways to be a parody of God's kingdom;
With "all distinct view and examination of his king, Milton said in answer to Salmasius, we
reasoning" is the way a reader of Paradise Lost, must always distinguish the person from his title;
like the angels Abdiel and Gabriel, ought like- for "a tyrant, like a king upon the stage, is but
should examine, then, Satan's reasoning about (A Defence, CPW, iv, Pt. I, 310). The glory of
basis for their freedom: "those Imperial Titles angels, is an external manifestation of the spir-
which assert / Our being ordain'd to govern, not itual essence of the Father, who is too radiant
Gabriel: "ordain'd by whom? to govern whom? Son's "great Vice-gerent Reign" (v.609) is to
serve whom?" But the answers are implicit in make the unapproachable radiance of divinity
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452
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
jects on earth:
later temptation of Eve, is based on a self-
Powers,
(v.791-93)
Heaven
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Joan S. Bennett 453
sprung
le [who] with God's approval judge their guilty
(I.331-34)
This is serviture,
(vi. 178-81)
The angels who capitulate to Satan's argu- lion. Satan had argued that God's apparent
ment, on the other hand, are Milton's poetical power would not prove superior to their own
archetypes of that effeminacy of a people that and that it therefore merited challenging. This
Milton feared and finally came to witness in promise has proved false. When rereading the
spread
"argues no Leader, but a Liar trac't / Satan."
brought down
Sons. (xi.341-47)
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454
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
them, which
Leader" (II. 18-19). A subject whose will and
instead of rage
With solemn touches, troubl'd thoughts, and his argument. "Next," Satan reminds them, they
chase
followed him out of their own "free choice."
pain
(I.553-59)
We may read the following description of the Satan is right when he announces that they have
assembled hosts from two points of view-one is again "yielded with full consent" to his leader-
the tyrant Satan's and the other is that of the ship. We have indeed been watching the process
revolutionary Milton. We look at Satan's face: of their final yielding: how "troubled thoughts"
Millions of Spirits for his fault amerc't by reminding them of what has made them
(1.604-12; my italics)
leader who has betrayed them: "The people . . . For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
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Joan S. Bennett 455
own slaves.
312-13).
shown Charles giving his followers bishoprics
Other men willingly serve only their own vices; he yet public reason just,
is forced, even against his will, to be a slave, not Honor and Empire with revenge enlarg'd,
only to his own crimes, but also to the most By conquering this new World, compels me now
grievous crimes of his servants and attendants, and To do what else though damn'd I should abhor.
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456
God, Satan, and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
Satan and Charles, in Milton's two portraits out, though in fragmentary form, fundamental
of the tyrant, enslave their followers and them- elements of the character, action, underlying
selves in a "mistie cloud" of rhetoric that sub- philosophy and influence of this minor tyrant,
stitutes "prerogative" for the sunlight of God's elements that find full dramatization in his right
law, the only basis for a portrait of genuine roy- hand's portrait of Satan's epic struggle for power.
University of Delaware
a drama not of Christian martyrdom but of
Newark
tyrannous rebellion, Milton's left hand worked
Notes
that would be due him if the book were really his: "it
but for the sake of the higher religious principles dis-
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457
Joan S. Bennett
perfect freedom," Sir Robert Filmer had claimed: "The (I.650); "this infernal Pit [instead of God] shall never
greatest liberty in the world (if it be duly considered) hold / Celestial Spirits" (I.657-58).
is for a people to live under a monarch" (Patriarcha: 13 Satan speculates on the creation of man: "Whether
A Defense of the Natural Power of Kings against the such virtue spent of old now fail'd / More Angels to
Unnatural Liberty of the People [1680], ed. T. P. R. Create, if they at least / Are his Created" (ix.145-47).
Laslett, Oxford Univ. Press, 1949, p. 55). 14 Claudius Salmasius, Defensio Regia, Pro Carolo II
12 "Space [instead of God] may produce new Worlds" (1649), quoted in CPW, iv, Pt. I, 310, n. 23.
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