John Milton — Poet, Polemicist & The Secretary of Foreign Tongues
By: Steve Newman Writer
Tags: Books, Poet, Biography, History, John Milton

John Milton — Poet, Polemicist & The Secretary of Foreign Tongues

“ A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.”

John Milton. Image: Kaliope

In March 1649, less than two months after the execution of Charles I, John Milton took on the position of Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Commonwealth Council of State. Such a position would undoubtedly have come about as a result of a pamphlet written by Milton approving of the king’s execution, printed just days after the event. The new Commonwealth, and later Cromwell himself, needed good scribes to deal with communications from foreign nations. Milton, an affirmed anti-royalist, poet, and self-appointed supporter of Oliver Cromwell, was their man.

A contemporary painting of Charles I execution. Image: vanproveratwordpress

John Milton soon made himself indispensable to the powers that be, and with six or seven languages under his belt, he quickly rose to a position where Cromwell could make good use him.

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,

To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,

And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud

Hast reared God’s trophies, and his work pursued;

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,

And Worcester’s laureate wreath: yet much remains

To conquer still; Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than war: new foes arise,

Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.

Help us to save free conscience from the paw

Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

The above poem, To The Lord General Cromwell — May 1652, is Milton’s plea to Oliver Cromwell to ensure the peace, hard won, is worthy of the blood spilled and lives lost.

Cromwell would certainly have read Milton’s poem, no doubt smiling ruefully as he did so, knowing full well that his most ardent supporter was right, yet impatient at his Secretary of Tongues impudence when England was now at war with Holland (on the high seas), with Cromwell also having to deal with a parliament that had once again lapsed into indolence. The chances are that the soon to be Lord Protector may have ordered Milton to be brought before him, and then, finding the now completely blind poet wholly unfettered in thought and word about the heavy-handedness of many of the edicts that came from parliament, and did our Lord General not realise just how many people were homeless and starving in the villages, and on the city streets, and that his 60,000 strong army were, through idleness and gossip, becoming restless. He may also have added:

“ And it must not be forgotten, sire, that you have promised the people a bill of representation?”

The smile may then have left Cromwell’s face as he led Milton to a chair, asking his aide to bring the illustrious poet some refreshment.

“ Do you think I am not aware of these things, John? But the king’s son had to be dealt with, and then we had to suffer the Irish and the Scots, and now the Dutch. When they have been dealt with by our navy we can move forward and build a new nation for all.”

As Cromwell’s aide handed Milton a glass of Rosa Solis cordial and a small finger biscuit, and Cromwell looked from his window at a beggar crumpled at the river’s edge, Milton asked:

“ And what of books sire, now that you are Chancellor of Oxford University?”

“ Oxford, eh, and we both Cambridge men. Books indeed Milton. But Parliament first I think?”

And Cromwell closed Parliament, and took personal control of the country. Some wanted to make him King.

Written and printed at the height of the Civil War, Milton’s essay against the censorship of books, Areopagitica, was an early reminder to parliament of one of the many reasons why England was at war with a traitorous king. It was also a treatise that became one of the first building blocks advocating uncensored literature and free speech, and an essay that, one-hundred-and-thirty years later, would help fuel the Enlightenment in Europe and, quite independently, the authors of the US Constitution. And Milton’s cry that “…a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.”, entered deeply into Cromwell’s psyche who, as a deep and learned reader of history (along with the psalms, which he saw as building blocks for the future), knew the importance of an educated society as well as a well housed and well fed one. In many ways Milton’s work kept Cromwell’s conscience well pricked and alert to the future needs of an England that had been kept in servitude for far too long. Milton would not allow Cromwell to lose sight of his vision for a prosperous, happy, democratically represented, and influential England, led by a Lord Protector who loved his people (all of his people), with Jesus Christ and John Milton at his side.

Earlier this century I wrote, produced, and directed a dinner play called 1651, An Evening with Oliver Cromwell, where the audience, gathered at a large table, dine with Oliver Cromwell, Major General Thomas Harrison, and John Milton. For the purposes of my play Cromwell had promoted the poet to the position of his Chief Advisor which, as some have suggested, is a “ tantalizing thought.” What my Milton gave to the play (set just a few days before the Battle Worcester) was his ability to interject fearlessly between Cromwell and Harrison, with questions of purpose and policy, which often stoked the two soldiers to a shared frustration they often found hard to suppress. Milton then cooled the heat by informing Cromwell of a letter received only that morning from his agent in Italy that the English flag now flew proudly in the Mediterranean. The young actor, James Keningale, who played Milton, really did put flesh on my dramatic skeleton. The play also brought together John Bunyan (who served in the Parliamentary Army), Cromwell’s daughter Elizabeth, bringing letters from her mother, plus Prince Charles (Charles II), in disguise. We’ve done the play several times, not least for The Battle of Worcester Society, organised by Oliver Cromwell’s great-grandson several times removed.

James Keningale. Image: Mandy

John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, in 1608. His father John, was an aspiring composer, and newly converted to the protestant faith, which meant he had to flee his parent’s Catholic home (he was probably thrown out) to settle in London. And it may have been at church that he later met and, later still, married Sarah Jeffrey, John’s mother. Finding employment as a scrivener (scribe) with a firm of lawyers, John Milton the elder prospered. And as the John Milton Academy Trust describe it: John Milton came into this world in “ …a century of revolution — in politics, print, science and the arts.”, with the baby’s parents embracing it all. The baby, as he grew, also knew he had a big part to play in the century of revolution.

Milton attended St. Paul’s School, founded in 1509, then “… had lessons with ‘my excellent tutor’ Thomas Young who was later to become Vicar of Stowmarket and Master of Jesus College Cambridge.” Milton found his love of books at St. Paul’s (as would Samuel Pepys when a student at the school a generation later) and would define education as:

“ …that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and publicke of peace and war.”

Baroque Music 1 The Concert Theodoor Rombouts 1597–1637. Image: warwickvalleyliving.com

When finished for the day copying deeds, and writing-up briefs, Milton’s father would take hold of a different quill to compose songs, and music for the lute and violin, instilling into his son a love, and an understanding, of music; an understanding which can be felt in Milton’s poetry which, if kept in mind when reading his work, can be a useful aide to understanding the poet’s inner mental rhythms and passions:

Hail, native language, that by sinews weak

Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak’

And mad’st imperfect words with childish trips,

Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,

Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,

Where he had mutely sat two years before:

Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask

That now I use thee in my latter task…

Milton as Poet and Civil Servant. Image: Colby College

After St. Paul’s Milton made it to Christ’s College Cambridge, graduating in 1629 with a BA, then an MA in 1632. He continued there, studying languages, and preparing himself to join the priesthood.

The idea of becoming a priest soon waned, and in 1638, Milton took off for Italy and Sorrento (via France), the birthplace of the late Renaissance poet, Torquato Tasso (who had died in a mental institution, just thirteen years before Milton’s birth), whose epic poem, Gerusalemme liberata, which describes the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade in 1099, and a poem that would have stirred the young Milton to his very soul. Milton may very well have translated the poem into English. There can be no doubt that Tasso’s masterpiece will have influenced Milton in both style, and length.

A few years ago my wife and I visited Sorrento, staying in the Hotel Tramontano over looking the Bay of Naples. It is a beautiful hotel that had, in Milton’s time, been a private house that doubled as a pension for those who came to worship Tasso. Milton was no exception, staying at the Tramontano pension (there’s a plaque in the hotel’s foyer saying so) for a couple of weeks as he searched out Tasso’s birthplace, trod the pathways that Tasso had walked, and perhaps rested in the shade of an ancient lemon tree where the great poet may have parked his poetic bottom. Milton also made the long walk to Naples to speak with Tasso’s biographer, who introduced Milton to Giovanni Battista Manso, one of Tasso’s patrons. Before leaving Italy Milton also visited the astronomer Galileo. Milton’s visit to Sorrento started something of a trend, with most of the English Romantic poets congregating at the Hotel Tramontano in the early 19th century, probably as some sort of intellectual energy boost before moving on to Rome.

The song, Torna a Surriento (Come Back To Sorrento), was composed at the Hotel Tramontano in 1894 by Ernesto De Curtis, with words by his brother, the poet and painter Giambattista De Curtis.

Listen to Dean Martin’s version

Image:ebay

With the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Milton, now politically out of favour (and very lucky to escape with his life), was depressed, and hugely saddened by Cromwell’s death, and hopes they both had for England. As a solace he returned to poetry, producing, by dictation, his masterpieces, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and the extraordinary poetic drama: Samson Agonistes.

Sam:

A Little onward lend thy guiding hand

To these dark steps, a little further on;

For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade.

There I am wont to sit, when any chance

Relieves me from my task of servile toil..

Milton would marry three times. Firstly to Mary Powell (with whom he had four children: Anne, Mary, John and Deborah), with Mary dying in 1652 after the birth of their fourth child. The next marriage was to Katherine Woodcock, who died just four months after the birth of their daughter Katherine. And finally to Elizabeth Mynshull (who was thirty-one years Milton’s junior). The couple lived happily together until Milton’s death.

John Milton died in 1674, aged 65.

Read: Oliver Cromwell: A Profile (Part One)

Bibliography: Antonia Fraser — Cromwell: Our Chief of Men (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1973); The Work of John Milton ( The Wordsworth Poetry Library, Ware, 1994); John Buchan — Oliver Cromwell (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, London, 1934); Samuel Pepys — Plague, Fire Revolution, Edited by Margaret Lincoln, with a Foreword by Claire Tomalin (Thames & Hudson, London & the National Maritime Museum, 2015)

With acknowledgements to: John Milton Academy Trust

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