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The English people needed to be particularly discerning readers during the turbulent years following the regicide. Royalists and revolutionaries cried out in print for support, and the choice between them could be construed as a choice between God's supporters and Satan's. Eikon Basilike, which represented the late King Charles as a good and religious man who attempted to preserve his subjects against political chaos, succeeded in part by offering a simpler, nostalgic alternative to the recent turmoil. In taking up the gauntlet to do battle with the king's book in October 1649, Milton pits his own acute power of reading in Eikonoklastes against the emotional appeal of a text that offers a comforting restoration of stability at the cost of liberty. Through his reading and refutation of Eikon Basilike, Milton works to prove his argument in Areopagitica, that "bad books ... to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate." (1) More importantly, by putting his own reading on public display, he instructs others in the process of discerning error masked by seductive rhetoric.
Several recent studies of Eikonoklastes examine the inadequacies in Milton's text, operating under the assumption that it was a failure because Eikon Basilike enjoyed propagandistic success, while Eikonoklastes largely did not. (2) This assumption deserves closer examination, since it depends upon a narrow view of Milton's objectives for his work. While Parliament unquestionably hoped that Milton would be able to counteract the popular appeal of Eikon Basilike, Milton's scorn for the masses becomes so acute in Eikonoklastes that it is clear he has a different aim for his text. In Eikonoklastes, Milton pursues purposes beyond the merely propagandistic, and his work is particularly successful as a demonstration of critical and discerning reading, an educative polemic crafted to provide a select audience with the tools to resist Charles's propaganda. Sharon Achinstein has already examined the revolutionary political dimensions of Milton's model of reading but, in so doing, underemphasizes the role of spiritual and sacred reading. (3) I broadly define spiritual reading as a process of critical reading that prioritizes spiritual concerns and sacred truths over worldly philosophy and politics; in Milton's case, the Holy Spirit within each believer serves as ultimate arbiter and authority. (4) Eikonoklastes depends upon spiritual reading, because through spiritual reading Milton acts to correct Eikon Basilike's misuse of spirituality as political propaganda. Charles's prayers in Eikon Basilike represent an application of spiritual faith for political ends, and they threaten to blur the distinctions between godly and worldly by presenting the worldly figure of King Charles as a second Christ. (5) Milton performs a critical reading of Eikon Basilike as a counter to that text's promotion of an uncritical sort of reading, which endangers not only the Commonwealth but also the souls of its citizens.
Confronted with the enormous success of the king's book, which went through thirty-five English printings in 1649, Milton might have recalled his famous words to Parliament in Areopagitica: "that which purifies us is triall, and triall is by what is contrary" (2:515). (6) Whether written by Charles or by some representative of his, Eikon Basilike threatened to "transfuse ... corruption into the people" by reinterpreting and reframing the revolt against the king (YP 2:519). Milton had eloquently argued in Areopagitica for allowing the publication of a work such as Eikon Basilike; in Eikonoklastes, he puts the theory of Areopagitica to work and engages in his own textual "triall." Given Milton's comment in Eikonoklastes that kings "are but weak at Arguments," (7) the widespread appeal of Eikon Basilike suggests a failure on the part of English readers exceeding whatever inadequacies might be found in the book itself. The "streaming fountain" of Truth threatened to "sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition" (2:543), as Milton had warned in Areopagitica, due not to censorship but to an uncritical readership willing to accept at face value the statements, interpretations, and prayers of the king's book. (8)
Milton chooses to engage with Eikon Basilike as a test of faith. His kind of discerning reader can penetrate deceptive and incompetent rhetoric and expose the underlying secular and religious assumptions, which draw upon "conformity and tradition" as their substance. These readers can perceive that piety and holiness develop from inward motions, not the external forms and formulae offered by kingship or by Eikon Basilike; through spiritual reading, the king's text reveals his duplicity to those who know how to interpret it. (9) The "perpetuall progression" of the fountain of Truth depends upon the constant efforts of discerning readers (YP 2:543), who seek to purify muddy waters through the exercise of their own reason.
If Milton can find the truth through spiritual reading, he has the responsibility to aid his fellow English citizens in performing the same task. He writes not simply to expose Eikon Basilike, but to demonstrate the procedure by which his readers may discern that text's unsoundness for themselves, a procedure of interrogating images instead of uncritically accepting them. (10) For the stewardship of the godly must counter the seemingly benevolent stewardship of one who, like Charles, does not write to protect and nurture his people, but to incite them against his enemies. Milton sees the apparent comfort offered by Eikon Basilike--that of a fatherly monarch who will take care of all the needs of his people--as a diabolic comfort, which threatens to lead the English people into servility. The godly among those people will seek inner strength through struggle, the interchange and interplay of discourse both true and false that Areopagitica champions. Eikonoklastes embodies that struggle, and Milton, through a forceful demonstration of spiritual reading, attempts to teach his readers how they may find God's truth within worldly discourse.
THE SACRED AND MILTON'S POLEMICAL PURPOSES
The contention between Eikonoklastes and the king's book is particularly fascinating in that Milton's polemical purposes, while overtly political, end up engaged with spiritual questions. In part, Eikon Basilike itself demands spiritual engagement. The king's text, which pursues the clearly political purpose of remaking Charles's tarnished image and of generating popular support for royalists, achieves its ends by constructing itself as a religious text, a deathbed prayer formulated by Charles on behalf of his kingdom. Milton is forced, then, to engage with both the spiritual posture and the political subtext in addressing the king's book. Milton aims less to undermine Charles's religious symbology in order to strip him of political influence than to draw upon the king's political history to counter his perilous and superstitious spirituality. The king's book threatens the godly because it co-opts Protestant virtues in its defense of Charles, and the book attacks not only the Commonwealth but also the spiritual values that helped to form it. (11)
Undoubtedly, Milton had political ends in undertaking his work. The large number of other writers who took up the arms of pen and pamphlet to counter the pervasive and persuasive influence of Eikon Basilike argues, as eloquently as Parliament's command to Milton, that the king's book was a real political threat to the supporters of the newly established Commonwealth. (12) Milton's somewhat disingenuous disclaimer that he writes against Eikon Basilike not because there is "any moment of solidity in the Book it self" or "any need of answering" (YP 3:339), but because he has been commanded, seems directly contradicted by the tremendous popular reception that book enjoyed. And given that success, how much greater the "need of answering" must be to one who finds no "moment of solidity" to warrant success?
Milton's polemical purpose, however, is more than just to fulfill his assigned task and to answer the political challenge presented posthumously by Charles. Milton demonstrates the procedure of discerning reading and thus illustrates the unsoundness of Charles's book. He writes not simply to counter the political and public challenge of Eikon Basilike, but also "to discover" and "to illustrate" the spiritual danger that the king's impious prayers and glosses represent. (13) When Milton suggests that Charles "seeks ... with cunning words to turn our success into our sin" (YP 3:600), he frames the political challenge in expressly religious terms.
Milton does not choose to ignore politics and focus exclusively upon spiritual matters in Eikonoklastes, but his concern for politics is driven by his religious faith. Milton engages with politics as a necessary evil, a step required to safeguard the Christian liberties of England's citizens. He sees political power as a means to create and preserve a space for spiritual freedom, not as an end in itself. For Milton, a political tyrant is dangerous because he possesses the ability to mislead the people through his worldly power and grandeur and to compel a particular form of faith by force. (14)
As Milton himself frequently points out, the spiritually secure are not susceptible to Charles's "Cleric elocution" (YP 3:601), but how many people can claim absolute spiritual security? At the very end of his text, Milton provides his readers with three categories of people in discussing the fruits of Charles's labors and framing his own project in Eikonoklastes:
Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short, contemptible, and soon fading reward: not what he aims at, to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man, or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian, if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless, and above the genius of his Cleric elocution, but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant, irrational, and Image-doting rabble ... The rest, whom perhaps ignorance without malice, or some error, less then fatal, hath for the time misledd, on this side Sorcery or obduration, may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves, and recover. (YP 3:601)
Those Milton writes for are not the "Image-doting rabble" who, unregenerate and unrepentant, embrace their own baseness; rather, Milton writes for those "misledd" who "may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves, and recover." The various audiences Milton presents here include those who have embraced the Satanic and worship the tyrannical, and who have no presumable interest in proper reading; those who stand unamazed, who must already have the reading skills to resist cunning words; and those who, while not yet saved, are still willing to seek their own salvation and are ready to learn discernment in their reading.
Milton's work serves, in part, to encourage those revolutionaries whose beliefs and whose faith have been shaken by Charles's execution. Eikon Basilike indeed attempts to transform the "success" of the revolution (and, presumably, of the regicide) into "sin," and the threat that it would do so drives much of Milton's polemical efforts. But Milton shifts ground within Eikonoklastes as he addresses his readers, including them in his thinking through frequent use of the word "we," while elsewhere criticizing his readers' acuity. Sometimes he includes himself obliquely in the criticism, as in this passage, which examines the Triennial Act, added to his fifth chapter in the second edition: "how great a loss we fell into of our ancient liberty by that act, which in the ignorant and Slavish mindes we then were, was thought a great purchase" (YP 3:399). Milton here positions himself with a group of people who had not then managed to bethink themselves to recover from slavishness, but he has clearly recovered since. The implication is that others among that "we," the readers of Eikonoklastes, have also thrown off their ignorance and returned to the love of liberty Milton describes as "the natural disposition of an Englishman" (3:344). Milton's ending thus encourages his readers to identify themselves with other wise men and "knowing Christian[s]"--the "we" of the text--instead of the "rabble." Moreover, any who might place themselves in the third category, that of the "misledd," are encouraged to join Milton in recovering spiritual wisdom.
The ending of Milton's text is also an expression of hope that those "misledd" through "ignorance without malice, or some error, less than fatal" can "recover" from Charles's deception. But it stresses that those "misledd" must "bethink themselves" (emphasis mine). Milton does not urge his readers, at the end of Eikonoklastes, to go out into the world and spread the word, to convince the misled of their error through direct action. Rather, he places the onus for action upon two agencies: that of the misled themselves and the divine agency that may grant them the "grace and good guidance" to recover. This conclusion to the work seems directed predominantly toward those readers who may be in need of recovery, warning them to be vigilant in their reading, and presenting Milton's reading of Eikon Basilike as a model for their own.
Milton's syntax in his final sentence indicates the need for active, godly reading. The...
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