and hope for them in vain under the Rule of a King They who are of opinion that these things cannot be compass'd but under a King and a Lord it cannot well be expressed how mean how base I do not say how unworthy thoughts they have of themselves for in effect what do they other than confess that they themselves are lazy weak senseless silly Persons and fram'd for Slavery both in Body and Mind And indeed all manner of Slavery is scandalous and disgraceful to a freeborn ingenious Person but for you after you have recovered your lost Liberty by God's Assistance and your own Arms after the performance of so many valiant Exploits and the making so remarkable an Example of a most Potent King to desire to return again into a Condition of Bondage and Slavery will not only be scandalous and disgraceful but an impious and wicked thing and equal to that of the Israelites who for desiring to return to the Egyptian Slavery were so severely punish'd for that sordid slavish Temper of mind and so many of them destroy'd by that God who had been their Deliverer But what say you now who would perswade us to become Slaves The King say you had a Power of pardoning such as were guilty of Treason and other Crimes which evinces sufficiently that the King himself was under no Law The King might indeed pardon Treason not against the Kingdom but against himself and so may any body else pardon wrongs done to themselves and he might perhaps pardon some other Offences tho not always but does that follow because in some Cases he had the Right of saving a Malefactor's life that therefore he must have a Right to destroy all good Men If the King be impleaded in an inferior Court he is not obliged to Answer but by his Attorney Does it therefore follow that when he is summon'd by all his Subjects to appear in Parliament he may chuse whether he will appear or no and refuse to Answer in Person You say That we endeavour to justify what we have done by the Hollander ' s Example and upon this occasion fearing the loss of that Stipend with which the Hollanders seed such a Murraine and Pest as you are if by reviling the English you should consequentially reflect upon them that maintain you you endeavour to demonstrate how unlike their Actions and ours are The Comparison that you make betwixt them I resolve to omit tho many things in it are most false and other things flattery all over which yet you thought your self obliged to put down to deserve your Pension For the English think they need not alledge the Examples of Foreigners for their Justification They have Municipal Laws of their own by which they have acted Laws with relation to the matter in hand the best in the World They have the Examples of their Ancestors Great and Gallant Men for their imitation who never gave way to the Exorbitant Power of Princes and who have put many of them to Death when their Government became insupportable They were born free they stand in need of no other Nation they can make what Laws they please for their own good Government One Law in particular they have a great Veneration for and a very Ancient one it is enacted by Nature it self That all Humane Laws all Civil Right and Government must have a respect to the safety and welfare of good Men and not be subject to the Lusts of Princes From hence to the end of your Book I find nothing but Rubbish and Trifles pick'd out of the former Chapters of which you have here raised so great a heap that I cannot imagine what other design you could have in it than to presage the ruin of your whole Fabrick At last after an infinite deal of tittle tatle you make an end calling God to witness that you undertook the defence of this Cause not only because you were desired so to do but because your own Conscience told you that you could not possibly undertake the Defence of a better Is it fit for you to intermedâ—le with our matters with which you have nothing to do because you were desired when we our selves did not desire you to reproach with contumelious and opprobrious language and in a Printed Book the Supreme Magistracy of the English Nation when according to the authority and power that they are entrusted with they do but their duty within their own Jurisdiction and all this without the least injury or provocation from them for they did not so much as know that there was such a man in the world as you And I pray by whom were you desired By your Wife I suppose who they say exercises a Kingly Right and Jurisdiction over you and whenever she has a mind to it as Fulvia is made to speak in that obscene Epigram that you collected some Centoes out of Pag. 320. cries Either write or let 's fight That made you write perhaps lest the â—ignal should be given Or were you asked by Charles the Younger and that proâ—ligate Gang of Vâ—gabond Courtiers and like a second Balaam call'd upon by another Balak to restore a desperate Cause by ill writing that was lost by ill fighting That may be but there 's this difference for he was a wise understanding man and rid upon an Ass that could speak to curse the People of God Thou art a very talkative Ass they self and rid by a Woman and being surrounded with the healed heads of the Bishops that heretofore thou hadst wounded thou seem'st to represent that Beast in the Revelation But they say that a little after you had written this Book you repented of what you had done 'T is well if it be so and to make your repentance publick I think the best course that you can take will be for this long Book that you have writ to take a Halter and make one long Letter of your self So Judas Iscariot repented to whom you are like and that young Charles knew which made him send you the Purse Judas his Badg for he had heard before and found afterward by experience that you were an Apostate and a Devil Judas betray'd Christ himself and you betray his Church you have taught heretofore that Bishops were Antichristian and you are now revolted to their party You now undertake the Defence of their Cause whom formerly you damn'd to the pit of Hell Christ delivered all men from Bondage and you endeavour to enslave all mankind Never question since you have been such a Villain to God himself his Church and all mankind in general but that the same fate attends you that befel your equal out of despair rather than repentance to be weary of your life and hang your self and burst asunder as he did and to send before-hand that faithless and treacherous Conscience of yours that railing Conscience at good and holy men to that place of torment that 's parpared for you And now I think through God's
A DEFENCE OF THE People of ENGLAND BY JOHN MILTON In ANSWER to Salmasius's Defence of the King Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE ENGLISH READER THE Author of this Book is sufficiently known and so is the Book it self both at Home and Abroad to the Curious and Inquisitive but never having been rendred into English many whose Veneration for the Author would induce them to read any thing of his and who could not máster it in the Language in which he wrote it were deprived of the pleasure of perusing it and of the Information they might justly expect from it To gratifie them it is that this Translation long since made is now published for the person who took the pains to Translate it did it partly for his own private entertainment and partly to gratifie one or two of his Friends without any design of makâ—… it publick and is since deceased And the Publisher thinks it necessary to advertise the Reader some few things concerning it As First That the Author does with a great Freedom of Language and Strength of Reason detect the Fallacy of all the Cobweb Arguments made use of by the Flatterers of Princes to prove their Power to be derived immediately from God and to be superior to that of the Law whether deduced from Scripture Reason or Authority Secondly That whereas some things are inserted that contain Personal Reflections upon the late King Charles the First and pains taken to justifie all the Proceedings of the Parliament from first to last which may sound harsh in some of our ears the Reader ought to consider the time when these things were written and the occasion of the Author ' s Undertaking this Defence which were such as put him under a necessity of Vindicating whatever his Masters had done The Translator has not gelt him nor was the Publisher willing to do it especially since the Book has for many years been so publick tho in another Language And the great Use which it yields for the most part ought not to be lost because some things are here and there interspersed which the â—…blisher could wish there had been no occasion for Thirdly That some Passages here and there may seem obscure because the Author presupposeth his Readers to have read Salmasius to some or other of whose Authorities and Reasons such Passages relate Fourthly That where Salmasius ' s words are inserted they are for the most part if not always in Italick Tho the Coherence of the Discourse would sufficiently disclose to one that reads with care when Salmasius speaks and when the Author Fifthly That if the Author may seem to lay aside even rules of Decency in treating his Adversary whom indeed he ridicules and exposes with a great deal of Smartness Freedom and Contempt it must be considered That the Author wrote on the behalf and in Defence of the Powers then in being and in answer to a privaâ—e person who had loaded them with all Reproaches imaginable and who could not possibly give worse language to the meanest the most contemptible and the most unworthy person upon earth than he does in his Defensio Regia to men that had then the Government of one of the most Potent Nations in Christendom Sixthly That the Translator has kept perhaps too close to his Copy and not taken that liberty which is allowed to a Translation especially in the angry and peevish parts of it But it 's hoped the Faithfulness of the Translation may in some measure recompence for that and it is very well known to those that knew him that he neither could nor did pretend to lash so well in English as the Author could in Latin Lastly That some of the Author's Sarcasmes depending upon the sound and ambiguity of Latin words do as they needs must lose their Beauty and Elegance in a Translation THE AUTHOR'S Preface ALTHO I fear lest if in defending the People of England I should be as copious in Words and empty of Matter as most Men think Salmasius has been in his Defence of the King I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and silly Defender yet since no Man thinks himself obliged to make so much haste tho in the handling but of any ordinary Subject as not to premise some Introduction at least according as the weight of his Subject requires if I take the same course in handling well-nigh the greatest Subject that ever was without being too tedious in it I am in hopes of attaining two things which indeed I earnestly desire The one not to be at all wanting as far as in me lies to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future Ages The other That I shall appear to have avoided my self that frivolousness of Matter and redundancy of Words which I find fault with in my Antagonist For I am about to discourse of Matters neither inconsiderable nor common but how a most Potent King after he had trampled upon the Laws of the Nation and given a shock to its Religion and was ruling at his own Will and Pleasure was at last subdu'd in the Field by his own Subjects who had undergone a long Slavery under him how afterwards he was cast into Prison and when he gave no ground either by Words or Actions to hope better things of him he was finally by the Supreme Council of the Kingdom condemned to dye and beheaded before the very Gates of the Palace I shall likewise relate which will much conduce to the easing mens minds of a great Superstition by what Right especially according to our Law this Judgment was given and all these Matters transacted and shall easily defend my Valiant and Worthy Countrymen and who have extremely well deserved of all Subjects and Nations in the World from the most wicked Calumities both of Domestick and Foreign Railers and especially from the Reproaches of this most vain and empty Sophister who sets up for a Captain and Ringleader to all the rest For what King 's Majesty sitting upon an Exalted Throne ever shone so brightly as that of the People of England then did when shaking off that old Superstition which had prevailed a long time they gave Judgment upon the King himself or rather upon an Enemy who had been their King caught as it were in a Net by his own Laws who alone of all Mortals challenged to himself impunity by a Divine Right and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him himself being guilty which he would have inflicted upon any other But why do I mention these things as performed by the People which almost open their Voice themselves and testify the Presence of God throughout Who as often as it seems good to his Infinite Wisdom uses to throw down proud and unruly Kings exalting themselves above the Condition of Humane Nature and utterly to exâ—irpate them and all their Family By his manifest Impulse being set on work to recover our almost lost Liberty following
the Government of England into a Tyranny thought he could not bring it to pass till the Flower and Strength of the Military Power of the Nation were cut off Another of his Crimes was the causing some words to be struck out of the usual Coronation-oath before he himself would take it Unworthy and abominable Action The Act was wicked in it self what shall be said of him that undertakes to justifie it For by the Eternal God what greater breach of Faith and Violation of all Laws can possibly be imagin'd What ought to been more sacred to him next to the Holy Sacraments themselves than that Oath Which of the two do you think the more flagitious Person him that offends against the Law or him that endeavours to make the Law equally guilty with himself Or rather him who subverts the Law it self that he may not seem to offend against it For thus that King violated that Oath which he ought most religiously to have sworn to but that he might not seem openly and publickly to violate it he craftily adulterated and corrupted it and least he himself should be accounted perjur'd he turn'd the very Oath into a Perjury What other could be expected then that his Reign would be full of Injustice Craft and Misfortune who began it with so detestable an Injury to his People And who durst pervert and adulterate that Law which he thought the only Obstacle that stood in his way and hindred him from perverting all the rest of the Laws But that Oath thus you justify him lays no other Obligation upon Kings then the Laws themselves do and Kings pretend that they will be bound and limited by Laws tho indeed they are altogether from under the Power of Laws Is it not prodigious that a Man should dare to express himself so sacrilegiously and so senselesly as to assert that am Oath sacredly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists mary be dispensed with and set aside as a little insignifi cant thing without any Cause whatsoever Charles himself refutes you you Prodigy of Impiety Who thinking that Oath no light matter chose rather by a Subterfuge to avoid the force of it or by a Fallacy to elude it than openly to violate it and would rather falsifie and corrupt the Oath then manifestly forswear himself after he had taken it But The King indeed swears to his People as the People do to him but the People swear Fidelity to the King not the King to them Pretty Invention Does not he that promises and binds himself by an Oath to do any thing to or for another oblige his Fidelity to them that require the Oath of him Of a truth every King swâ—ears Fidelity and Service and Obedience to the People with respect to the performance of whatever he promiseth upon Oath to do Then you run back to William the Conqueror who was forced more than once to swear to perform not what he himself would bâ—…t what the People and the great Men of the Realm requir'd of him If many Kings are Crown'd without the usual Solemnity and Reign without taking any Oath the same thing may be said of the People a great many of whom never took the Oath of Allegiance If the King by not taking an Oath be at Liberty the People are so too And that part of the People that has sworn swore not to the King only but to the Realm and the Laws by which the King came to his Crown and no otherwise to the King than whâ—…st he should act according to those Laws that the Common People that is the House of Commons should chuse quas Vulgus elegerit For it were folly to alter the Phrase of our Law and turn it into more genuine Latin This Clause Quas Vulgus elegerit Which the Commons shall abuse Charles before he was Crown'd procured to be razed out But say you without the King's assent the People can chuse no Laws and for this you cite two Statutes viz. Anno 37 H. 6. Cap. 15. and 13 Edw. 4. Cap. 8. but those two Statutes are so far from appearing in our statute-Statute-books that in the years you mention neither of those Kings enacted any Laws at all Go now and complain That those Fugitives who pretended to furnish you with matter out of our Statutes imposed upon you in it and let other People in the mean time stand astonish'd at your Impudence and Vanity who are not asham'd to pretend to be throughly vers'd in such Books as it is so evident you have never look'd into nor so much as seen And that Clause in the Coronation-Oath which such a brazen-fac'd Brawler as you call fictitious The King's Friends you say your self acknowledge that it may possibly be extant in some Ancient Copies but that it grew into disuse because it had no convenient signification But for that very reason did our Ancestors insert it in the Oath that the Oath might have such a signification as would not be for a Tyrant's conveniency If it had really grown into disuse which yet is most false there was the greater need of reviving it but even that would have been to no purpose according to your Doctrine For that Custom of taking an Oath as Kings now-adays generally use it is no more you say then a bare Ceremony And yet the King when the Bishops were to be put down pretended that he could not do it by reason of that Oath And consequently that reverend and sacred Oath as it serves for the Kings turn or not must be solemn and binding or an empty Ceremony Which I earnestly entreat my Country-men to take notice of and to consider what manner of a King they are like to have if he ever 〈◊〉 back For it would never have entred into the thoughts of this Rascally-foreign Grammarian to write a Discourse of the Rights of the Crown of England unless both Charles Stuart now in Banishment and tainted with his Fathers Principles and those Prosâ—igate Tutors that he has along with him had induâ—uiously to suggested him what they would have writ They dictated to him That the whole Parliament were liable to be proceded against as Traitors because they declar'd without the Kings Assent all them to be Traitors who had taken up Arms against the Parliament of England and that the Parliaments were but the King's Vassals That the Oath which our Kings take at their Coronations is but a Ceremony And why not that a Vassal too So that no reverence of Laws no sacredness of an Oath will be sufficient to protect your Lives and Fortunes either from the Exorbitance of a furious or the Revenge of an exasperated Prince who has been so instructed from his Cradle as to think Laws Religion nay and Oaths themselves ought to be subject to his Will and Pleasure How much better is it and more becoming your selves if you desire Riches Liberty Peace and Empire to obtain them assuredly by your own Virtue Industry Prudence and Valour than to long after