King Charles II Orders John Milton's Books Burned
In August 1660, King Charles II of England ordered the burning of the books written by the renowned poet and political writer John Milton. This act occurred shortly after Charles II's restoration to the throne, following a period of turmoil marked by the execution of his father, Charles I, and the subsequent rise of the Commonwealth. Milton, a staunch advocate for freedom of the press and a supporter of the Parliamentarian cause during the English Civil War, had authored several works that criticized monarchy, including *Areopagitica* and *The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates*. These writings positioned him as a significant threat to the newly restored monarchy.
Despite being arrested and fined shortly before the book burning, Milton was released later that year, allowing him to continue his literary pursuits. By this time, he was nearly blind and had shifted his focus from political treatises to poetry, ultimately producing *Paradise Lost*, a profound epic reflecting themes of loss and redemption. Milton's legacy as a poet and thinker is recognized for his deep engagement with issues of governance and individual rights, making him a pivotal figure in English literature and history.
On this Page
King Charles II Orders John Milton's Books Burned
King Charles II Orders John Milton's Books Burned
On August 27, 1660, King Charles II of England, the newly restored monarch of the Stuart dynasty which had been ousted from power when Charles I was executed in 1649, ordered the burning of the poet John Milton's books. Milton, who had eloquently championed freedom of the press in his famous treatise Areopagitica (1644), was one of England's greatest poets, but he had supported the Parliamentarian cause during the English Civil War that resulted in Charles I's death and had written many treatises on behalf of the Commonwealth and in condemnation of the monarchy. Milton was fined and arrested on June 16, 1660, but was released on December 15 and permitted to resume his writing.
Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London, England, and was educated at Cambridge University. He had originally intended to become a priest but decided instead to pursue a literary career, styling himself a “poet priest” whose divine calling to write verse was akin to a religious vocation. For most of the 1630s Milton lived off his prosperous parents, reading the classics and traveling in France and Italy meeting other writers. By 1640 he settled in London, where he began writing social and political treatises just before the outbreak of the English Civil War. Milton's works against the monarchy and in support of reform earned him the favor of the new Commonwealth, and beginning in 1649 he served the new government as foreign secretary.
Over the next 10 years, Milton published several prose treatises that would draw the particular ire of the king, such as The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) and the Second Defense of the People of England (published in Latin in 1654), which defended the overthrow and execution of a tyrannical king; Eikonoklastes (1649), which argued against the superiority of kings over common men; and The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), the title of which continued, and the Excellence Thereof Compared with the Inconveniences and Dangers of Readmitting Kingship in this Nation. While it is not surprising that the author of such works should have been viewed as a threat to Charles II upon the restoration of the monarchy, it is also understandable that Milton's friends (who probably included the poet Andrew Marvell) should have been able to secure his release from prison six months later, since the writer was almost completely blind by 1652. With his sight fading, and disillusioned by the failure of the political cause to which he had devoted over a decade of his life, Milton returned to writing poetry in his final years.
By dictating the verse to his daughters and other assistants, Milton completed the first 10 books (published in 1667) of his greatest work, Paradise Lost (published in 12 books shortly before his death in 1674). One of the finest epics in the English language, Paradise Lost, which dramatizes Adam and Eve's fall from divine grace and banishment from the Garden of Eden, provided Milton with an apt metaphor for his own fall from political favor. Paradise Regained, an account of the temptation of Jesus by the Devil, followed in 1671, as did Samson Agonistes, a neoclassical tragedy about the blinded Old Testament hero. Milton died on November 8, 1674, in London. He is memorialized in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, across the street from the Parliament building.