Mr Edward Dawson writes: On or before the 13th February 1649 the forty-two pages of this defence of regicide were printed and in the hands of the public. Charles I had been dead only two weeks and he had been buried at Windsor only four days before. Wise and calming words were needed to vindicate the act and the views propounded by Milton had, in all likelihood, already been passed round the meeting by John Bradshaw prior to the signing of the King's death warrant itself.
'The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked King, and after due conviction, to depose, and put to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected, or denied to do it. And that they, who of late, so much blame deposing, are the men that did it themselves.’
In The Tenure Milton is developing his own theory of civil liberty with its idealistic assumption that human reason will be guided by human virtue. As he saw the problem, a contract between a King and his people should be no more binding than a marriage contract if the good for which the relationship was established had not in fact been achieved. The notion of absolute rule was a kind of treason against the dignity of mankind. The public good was the supreme law, and this could be determined through God's gift of right reason. A people "free by-nature' possessed, therefore, the right to depose and punish a tyrant. When the people as a whole neglected to exercise their right, an enlightened few must act on behalf of the many.
Such was the philosophy of regicide which Milton offered in The Tenure of Kings & Magistrates. He did not debate the guilt of Charles I; indeed, he carefully avoided any reference to the late King by name. The trial had been the business of others. His own concern was to justify the judging. While he did not altogether eliminate references to the late King or to the immediate crisis, he made the greatest effort of his career to achieve a tone of scholarly detachment.
His secondary purpose in writing The Tenure was to expose the pernicious hypocrisy of the Presbyterians who had been foremost in the fight against tyranny and now denounced deposing. A few important passages reveal Milton's interest in international affairs. For breadth of vision, however, and intimations of future world-mindedness, nothing else from the pen of John Milton can compare with these eloquent sentences:
‘Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the world? Neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that duty and relation... Nor is it distance of place that makes enmity, but enmity that makes distance. He therefore that keeps peace with me, near or remote, of whatsoever nation, is to me as far as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a neighbour. This is Gospel, and this was ever law among equals.’
On 13th March 1649, exactly one month after The Tenure was published, the newly organised republican Council of State voted to offer John Milton the post of Secretary for Foreign Tongues. Not only Milton's gift for polemics in his native tongue, but also his reliable scholarship and linguistic skill were recognised by the fledgling Republic.