John Milton and Marchamont Nedham were unlikely bedfellows; and yet they became friends, worked closely together and in their very different ways sought to promote the English Republic to the country and outside world. Anthony Bromley talks about their careers in the Republic and how they sought to promote it.

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Transcript

Okay, everyone. Hello, gentle listeners, and welcome to a great opportunity for me to talk to Anthony Bromley about Milton, Marchment Needham, and some of these fantastic characters that we’ve been hearing about. Anthony, completed his doctorate on Milton and utopianism in 2021 and currently teaches English at Caterham School in Surrey, and continues to research Milton in the 17th century, I think.

And I think I was given your name by, put in touch with you by the Three Ravens podcast, Martin Vogt. That’s right. Martin asked me to go on his show, I think, to be a representative of Oxfordshire, which is not great. You’re not necessarily the best thing since I come from Leicestershire. But I did my best.

It was great that Martin did give me this opportunity to come and speak on your podcast. He’s a good friend of mine. Yeah, he’s tremendous, actually. I love the Three Ravens. And it was, I’m very interested in some of the aspects about the Commonwealth, normally noted for being a time of, of misery and gloom.

run by the Puritans. And one of the things I wanted to emphasize is that, actually there was a lot of creativity, may not have been in dancing necessarily, may not have been in theater, but there was lots of creativity and cultural life. So, I’m delighted to hear about your expertise and that will give me a chance to show some of that.

Thank you for having me, David. Great to be here. Great. So we’re going to focus, I think, on John Milton, Needham, maybe some other people like Samuel Hartlib. And I think most people, of course, will have heard about John Milton. I can even quote a couple of lines from his scribbling, such as something about Adam and Tyne chains and challenging the omnipotent to arms.

But I guess fewer people know of his other work. so when does Milton start producing words that get attention? It’s quite tricky to say exactly when this happens. it will be sometime in the 1640s, probably. he did publish some poems in 1645. So some people who, who were reading poetic works in that period would have possibly come across a small time poet.

he also wrote some tracks that we celebrate today, but that Almost certainly didn’t have much of an impact at the time, such as, Aro Pagitica, which was his big, work on almost a free press, but not, but more freedom from pre publication licensing, but probably the divorce tracts that he wrote between 1643 and 45, they were vehemently responded to by Presbyterians, and he actually stopped writing, prose tracts, from 1640.

1645 to 1649, or at least we don’t have any extant, from that period. So probably that reaction is the best evidence that we have of him being noticed. the, I guess the biggest moment for him would have been 1649 when he wrote the tenure of kings and magistrates, which was essentially a tract that he probably wrote, in the, in, in the wake of the regicide possibly because it was published only three weeks after the regicide possibly writing it during the trial of the king and it’s essentially arguing how a people should have the rights to overthrow a tyrant if it or overthrow a monarch if they are being tyrannical so that moment probably led to him being noticed by the fledgling republican men in Floyd by them.

So again, Hunter’s to say, but 1649 would be the moment where then he became more noticed, certainly by the end of the Republican period. It’s very interesting. So Aero Pagitica, which of course I think becomes very famous indeed, actually in America, I understand it. Absolutely. But that wasn’t noticed at the time that wasn’t.

Well regarded or didn’t raise a storm, or No, there’s evidence because we, you mentioned Samuel Hartley and it was shared, the track was shared right. within the Hartley Circle, which is sort of, kind of circle for intellectual at the time, but didn’t, didn’t seem to have that much impact. So there isn’t evidence that we have that it made a big difference.

and ironically, and probably the biggest, well, one of the bigger ironies in Milton’s life or Milton’s career, he would then become, although he argued against licensing, which is essentially where someone in order to publish a pamphlet or. You had to get a license and that came from the station’s company And then it would be recorded in the station’s register by 16 50, Milton would actually become a licensor himself for the Republic.

So there is, there is that irony there. he, he ended up publishing Areopagirtica illegally. So essentially without a license, which perhaps suits the, the argument within the track. So the poet’s term, gamekeeper, effectively. So what was his, what was his reaction to the Regicide then? What did, what did he write about that?

So, The tenure of kings and magistrates is probably the best example of this, where he, he throughout his entire life, really, he was against, people who abused power to people who were tyrants. And that was his big argument in tenure of kings and magistrates. but he would change this. And it’s quite interesting that he does change this later in, in 1649, in the second edition of And he essentially argues that actually it’s, it’s, it’s only people within power who can overthrow, a tyrants and not the people.

So that, that shift probably comes with him being employed, whether or not he’s, anti monarchical. is, we don’t have that much evidence for that at this time. He does, but he does more evidently become anti demonarchical, in 1660. but at this time he is more anti tyrannical, you, you probably say.

And so that’s, that’s his main reaction. So he certainly supported it, and ended up then using that to become, a part of the Republican regime. So how does he, he then get noticed by, the Commonwealth and how, who, who provides his link in and gets him employed? probably John Bradshaw probably was, some of the, that he knew, and he would have helped her or he would have been aware of Milton and what he was writing and encouraged him to be, someone who could be, employed.

Milton’s ability to write Latin was from what I’ve heard, the way that he can write Latin and his, the quality of his Renaissance Latin is quite unique. And so essentially the role that he took, which is the secretary for foreign tongues, not quite a foreign secretary, but I guess I’m still selling, the country, or in this case, the Republican regime to Europe.

he would essentially write tracks in Latin that Europeans could read. They couldn’t not, not so many could read. English, but they could read Latin. It was sort of the, the European, language, certainly of, of people in power. So, so I guess his skills and talents were known by people within the government and were utilized very effectively.

It’s quite interesting. The link with John Bradshaw, in popular history, in my memory of, history, John Bradshaw is simply the a president of the court that tries Charles the first, and then it seems to completely disappear afterwards. Whereas in fact, he’s, he remains an important political figure, doesn’t he?

Yes. Yes. So I don’t know too much about him, but yeah, that’s, that’s certainly an aspect of what I’ve, I’ve read since that he seems to be involved. And actually when, when Needham, we’re going to talk about in a moment when, when Needham, ends up writing for the government, I think the Bradshaw was sort of one of the political, Masters who were sort of in, involved with making sure that he was writing things that the, that would benefit the Republic and not just, benefit his own personal ideology.

Okay, so, Milton was censored. well, in this regard, it was, yeah, needed more than, Milton. I think, yeah, I think the Milton was censored. was fairly happy to write, you know, kind of what, the government wanted to some extent need him as someone who is more willing to push the boundaries. Milton seems more inclined to do what he’s meant to do to get the pension that he wants.

And then by the end of the period, certainly Milton was, was happy to talk more critically about the government with it, essentially failing. Right. So, We’ve talked a little bit about his political ideas and his views about, tyranny. There are lots of new political and religious ideas as well thrown up during the revolutionary period.

What was his attitude towards the various religious ideas floating around? Was he like to turn ranter or did he support the change, religious changes? So the best answer I, I have for this is if we go back to Arab Bigotica, where essentially he’s, he’s, the argument is essentially for, against pre publication licensing.

But, within that, he’s also arguing for toleration. So arguing for liberty of conscience. So he would have supported people being able to read the Bible and have their own opinion, have their own viewpoint, so long as they were using their, their reason, he would say. And so he would have supported that, and he definitely supported the proliferation in, texts about religion in that period.

But he also was very much for opposing people who he believed were incorrect at the same time. So the idea was you could publish your tracts and then if they were wrong, then we can censor them. So he was never really against censorship completely, but certainly against, but he was for people having the opportunity to express their ideas and then to be, essentially told, no, yeah, that, that isn’t true because the Bible actually says this for instance.

So in terms of that, that period though, because, people would. there have been arguments essentially to say that Milton is so radical, so libertarian that he’s someone who perhaps you should align with someone like Winston Stanley, who I know that you’ve mentioned in previous podcasts. And, and I think that Milton, well, Winston Stanley being, from the position in society that he was, Milton, I think is so different and is so pro, so, elitist really that I don’t think he would have supported the kind of the digger enterprise and the movement, the movement of the commons in that way.

So there’s, I guess there’s a lot of layers to what Milton’s own, ideology at this point. We can’t say for certain that he didn’t write specifically about, you know, any particular. Movement. The only one that I know for certain that he would’ve, that, that he did seem to support was the Quakers, but only sort of later in his life.

Right. So, 1665 mm-Hmm. , yeah. 1665. He ended up, living, in Cha Giles, which was a Quaker community. And then some of the texts that followed that period, such as Paradise Regained, which is kind of like a sequel to Paradise Loss. they have some Quaker language within that. And then he also wrote, again, promoting toleration, a number.

Now, sort of 1671, that again was sort of kind of, I read it as him promoting the toleration of religious sects that were suffering at the time, specifically the Quakers who did suffer a lot in the 1660s and 1670s following the toleration of Cromwell’s government in the 1650s. Yeah. Okay, so we mentioned Needham earlier, and people, you were saying that Milton liked to write, would, prepared to write what he was pointed at, and I would guess if you were gonna look, watch somebody very carefully indeed, March McNeedham would be the one you look, you look like an orc at.

Absolutely. A wild card. How does he get connected to the regime? So Needham is a particularly interesting character, someone who perhaps hasn’t been, as well, well, read about certainly by, you know, younger historians, for instance, or younger political theorists as others, but, he, he’s, I think, someone that we, from the modern day, would find particularly interesting because he seems to have quite modern sensibilities, certainly, and it’s just Just quite an entertaining character from what he actually did.

Needham initially starts off his career by writing a newsbook, which essentially it’s close to a newspaper, but there were fewer articles in it. They were, he did write editorials within some of these, newsbooks. but they were essentially kind of, a fact file about what was going on. in the kingdom or in the commonwealth at the time alongside international correspondents too and so the first newsbook was Mercurius Britannicus that he wrote which is about which is pro parliamentarian he then ended up writing so vehemently against the king and apparently criticized his Stammer that the house of lords essentially said nope.

That was too much and he was in prison for two weeks he then got a royal pardon and then ended up turncoating or changing his allegiance and Ended up writing in another news book Mercurius Pragmaticus which was pro Royalist and then was imprisoned again in 1649 and then ended up being essentially found by, really it was by Milton actually, he, he was actually tasked with, with finding Needham and, then ended up writing his most significant and most most influential, I guess, newsbook, which is Mercurius Politicus, which was essentially the mouthpiece really for the Republic from 1650 to 1660.

So that was really a time when people would have read what was going on. It was very accessible, very well written, and it was published weekly with good detail, but wouldn’t include everything. So probably someone like Bradshaw may have, or other political masters would have just encouraged him not to mention things that might’ve worried.

a populist, such as Cromwell being offered the crown. That was, that was a period in 1657 where some of the information where Cromwell essentially expresses doubt about receiving the crown and, there is suggestion that maybe, because Needham doesn’t mention that, but he does mention other details of what Cromwell says in his speeches, maybe, the political masters were encouraging Needham, or preventing Needham, censoring him from writing all of that information down, which is very interesting to think about, that kind of political makeup there.

Yes, and how they, how they wanted to represent it. Needham, though, having come from, you know, having just done a royalist rag, surely, I mean, was he credible? What did people think when he suddenly started supporting the Commonwealth? I think he becomes. Increasingly less credible, because he then ends up publishing, so, so when in 1660, when, once again, when he does go into, into, into hiding, when he essentially publishes a, a tract against the royalists, goes into hiding, and then comes back out again, gets a pardon, and then ends up publishing tracts against the royalists.

essentially republishing tracks that he wrote in the Royalist newsbook. So that’s a period where he definitely isn’t credible, loses all credibility at that point. In 1649, when he was employed by the Republic, I think he was probably viewed as viewed as someone who had the skills that they needed, whether his credibility didn’t really matter.

I think they probably felt that they could manage him and they certainly did for the most part. A lot of what he wrote that was kind of, you know, against Cromwell is often quite implicit and can be, and has been interpreted both ways. So as in supporting him or going against him. So I think he was someone who’s clever enough to mask his, criticisms so much so that I do wonder whether a contemporary audience would have would have picked up on them, but you know, that’s all just.

That’s, that’s all part of what he did. So yeah, I think, I think credible enough and certainly skillful enough that when you’ve got a new Republic, you know, everything’s changed. You’ve done a, you know, killing, killing the King is, you know, essentially killing God to some extent. And so what do you do? You find the people who, you know, can do the jobs that you need them to do.

So, to some extent there must be some pragmatism there, regardless of the credibility. He seems deeply pragmatic to me, but it was, is it possible to know what he really believed in and what his real views are, or is it all covered by opportunism? Well, I think Needham is the closest to a Republican in the sense that we would understand one for today, apart from the democratic aspect of it, which, although he would believe in elections, it probably probably wouldn’t have been a full scale.

you know, everyone in the country could vote for instance, but Needham essentially. In 1651, 1652, in Macarius Politicus, he published a series of, well, I would term them as educational editorials. So he was essentially trying to educate his readership about republicanism, and specifically in terms of Machiavelli.

So the Discourses on Livy was what Nida was essentially going through and teaching. publishing about, and that he then republishes in 1656, in, in, in a kind of, whole tract called the Excellency of the Free States at a time when, of course, Cromwell was the protector. So in 1651, 52, it’s, it’s promoting the Republic in 56.

It’s, it’s probably a criticism of it, even though he could just argue I’m just republishing what I’ve already done before. So I would say that the way that he writes about that, and the manner in which he’s informed about that and continues to write about republicanism, I think that would be his actual personal ideology.

I think his support for the monarchy is only ever pragmatic. And indeed, he seems to be somewhat concerned or, or, or at least not fully happy with the protectorate, as a concept, but he is happy with it so long as it protects religious freedoms. probably again, because he was, he may not have had any belief in Christianity at all.

He’s one of the only people that we can say is possibly an atheist, or close to it. So his kind of desire for religious freedom is mostly so he doesn’t then have to go to church for instance. Okay. Okay. They’re quite closely linked then, Milton and Needham, I think. How, how closely did they work together?

What, do we, do we know anything about what they thought of each other? Are there any attitudes and beliefs that they shared? So Milton and Needham are particularly interesting because they definitely work together. Milton was the licensor for Mercurius Politicus and the other tracks the Edenwood published for the Republic, but they did have different ideologies.

So Milton’s flavor of republicanism was essentially an oligarchy. So it’s very different to how we would imagine a Republic where they would, you would have sort of a council of essentially elders almost, or a, a group of people who would sit and they would sit for life and they wouldn’t rotate.

There wouldn’t be any kind of electoral change there. whereas Needing was very much for rotation, and that was a big part of his, his ideology. So they are, in terms of republicanism, quite different. You, you, you could say opposed, and there is a lot of, infighting within the republican movement in the late 1650s.

But they seem to, have been quite close together, have seemed to have been quite close friends, and there is, there was an early biography that did, say that they were close friends, Anthony Wood wrote a biography of Milton where he referenced Needham as being a close friend of his. There have been arguments by, there’s a historian called, Blair Warden who does argue for close collaboration between the two.

So much so that possibly Milton, wrote things in Miraculous Politicus and maybe Needham wrote things that, or edited things that Milton wrote as well. And I mean, there is certainly evidence that. Or some suggestion, at least, of their writings being similar at some points. Needham is quite satirical in style.

He says that his style is quite jocular, is the word that he uses. Milton is not, and seems to kind of lack that level of wit. But there is some, some degree of, satire and wit in the ready and easy way to establish a free commonwealth that he publishes in 1660, which is Milton’s kind of anti monarchical and pro republican tract.

Although I think that the, the humor there ends up becoming quite sharp and much sharper than Needham’s. Needham’s is funny, Milton’s end up becoming, ends up becoming quite harsh. So I still think it’s Milton writing there, but again, may well have come from, Needham’s suggestion. For instance, Milton was, it’s important to recognize this, that Milton was, Milton was essentially blind by 1650.

And so he, he would have only done so much, licensing prior to that. so he ended up becoming very close with people who would, who he would talk to, who he would entertain at home, who he would, have intellectual discussions with. And, so I think his friends were an important part of his network and need and would have been part of that.

So, yes. I guess it’s also, it’s also important to emphasize that at this time, although we think that republicanism being one particular thing, it certainly seemed to entertain and the, the, the part or the kind of group of people, the group of intellectuals who were writing about republicanism, they did view things differently and they were somewhat infighting, but that’s still all within republicanism.

The Republican movement, as it were, I guess, emblematic of the fact that England couldn’t come up with any solution to the problems post regicide. So yes, it’s important to see that. It’s fascinating relationship actually, because I mean, from the outside, obviously, and on the next, but they seems like such different people and understand they also go quite well with John Bradshaw.

I mean, it’s rather, in a way, it’s rather nice. These very different people. Who appear to be able to dispute and get on even though they disagree, as it were. Yes, and I think that again, I’ve always thought that it comes back to, what I was saying about Arya Pichitika where, Milton’s promoting or, you know, he believes in a society, and he does come back to this, in, In future tracks, he essentially believes in a society where ideas can be published and then they can be disputed, argued against, and then the kind of, you know, you come closer to the truth.

and he often referred to truth with a capital T and that being the kind of that, so he did believe it in an absolute truth, but he also very much did believe that it was currently disparate. and, and we need to find that by discussion, by debate. I think he did entertain that in his life. and the way that he went about kind of engaging with people.

Right, fantastic. And then this wider circle of intellectual debate and ideas, I came across a chap I’d never heard before when writing the podcast, Samuel Hartlib, and I understand that you’ve written a paper on Milton’s ideas of education in 1644 and his contribution through that to the Hartlib circle.

Can you tell us something about Samuel Hartlib, who he was and Did those debates in the 1640s then carry through to the Republic? Certainly. So, yeah, this, this I think is important to show how intellectual ideas in this period did last from the 1640s and also how intellectual ideas, were kind of, important for the writers that ended up then becoming statesmen, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So the Hartlep circle is essentially a group of intellectuals that were, united or combined or, collaborated through, a figure called Samuel Hartlep, who essentially acted as an intelligencer. And he was almost influential, but not many of his ideas actually ended up becoming, coming to fruition.

So he would essentially find Find people that and he wrote about finding people with the heart of the papers actually still exists. So you can actually find their, they are online and it’s through Sheffield University. Essentially, he would write to different people, find out the different ideas and then, and then connect them with others.

He did, he did, find out about Milton. had correspondence with Milton and then Milton published his tract on education, which is essentially about, an aristocratic education. So it’s not really the kind of education that we nowadays, would find very popular. It was only about education, educating aristocrats, but it was about kind of training them to be the kind of people that would be able to lead the, the country, forward, essentially.

Hartley was essentially taking ideas from Well, here’s, here’s the foundation of, I guess, the heart Libyan ideology comes from Francis Bacon, which was quite, very scientific kind of, you could, you could hit the father of science and heart Lib was trying to create what’s known or what he termed the office of address, which was essentially a place that anyone could.

Come to. And he did, he did kind of open some, something close to that in London and Oxford, but didn’t really ever take off. where essentially someone could come and they could find whether it be jobs, whether it be information, it’s going to be kind of connecting people, I guess, a bit like, this is, this is quite a primitive form of, of the internet where you can find the information all in one place.

But he’s trying to, trying to do that with, with a person or an organization, which is very hard to actually do. The thing for Harlan and Milton is that. Hartley’s ideology was essentially about science and pro science. Whereas Milton, was, well, there are different arguments about Milton’s view on science, but he was definitely not that keen about science.

Hartley was partly also in inspired by someone called Kemenes, who was anti classics or, or, or, or anti classical learning, which is very much Milton’s view. So Milton, who was a schoolmaster, he, well, he essentially had kind of privately educated some students such as his nephews. His, his kind of ideal education was very much about the classics and was not very science heavy.

So they kind of drift apart, Hartley, Van Milton by the end of the 1640s. I think to kind of parallel that Needham certainly did use other in other intellectual ideas as well in the period. And, and one that we have also talked about is Hobbes. So Thomas Hobbes and Needham actually used Hobbes’s ideas. So whereas Milton and Hartley, drift apart Needham and Hobbes, although they probably didn’t know each other.

each other. Hobbes ideas of, authorization were essentially a, a person, authorizes the, the, the monarch or the person in power and they have no right to object to that. That was partly what, needed to be used in justifying the, Republic in the early 1650s. So he would, he would use Hobbes ideas there.

Needham’s a bit different though in that whereas other people had used that idea before they essentially said that Fromwell and the Republic are, were de facto in power. Needham argued that they were de facto and de jure in power. So they were, he, he, he argued that they were legally. in power and would use Hobbes for that.

So again, just to trace the, this is just to trace how the intellectual ideas did develop during, during the course of this period, and they weren’t ever, well, they were rarely isolated to individuals. All of that, just to finish this point, all of that is aided by the printing press. So in this period, the proliferation in an accessibility of the printing press is, it probably had one of the biggest changes of any printing press.

period. Apart from again, I would say the internet. So that, that change enabled people to, such as Needham, to have access to Hobbs ideas and would continue to have that impact during the course of the 1650s. So that’s the way those ideas spread. It’s not, there’s not a personal connection between Needham and Hobbs.

And Hobbes, or Milton and Hobbes, it’s about reading and spreading ideas. Yes, absolutely.

So 1653, there’s a real dramatic political change. Cromwell dissolves the Rump, the Protectorate is formed along with England’s first and only codified constitution. And there are a whole load of people who walk away from Cromwell at this point. Harry Vane, Arthur Hazelrigg, Oliver St. John, and many more.

How did Milton and. Needham react to that? So they did stay employed by the republic, or by the protection through throughout that that late 1650s period They did both publish, tracts, which is probably the best way we can answer this in 1654 So milton published a track called defensive segunda, which is it was obviously written in latin It is second defense of the People of England, and that is, referring back to the first, first defense, which was published in 1651.

Milton in this, is really talking about a text that has been written against the Republic. So it’s, it’s, it’s not got specific, it doesn’t specifically refer to what has happened with the protectorate. It’s just sort of kind of continuation of the role that he’s been employed to do, but he does write a long exhortation of Cromwell and, celebrates him and talks about all of his fine qualities, but then does.

encourage him to essentially defend or support liberty of conscience, which had often been or seems to have defined somewhat of Cromwell’s personal ideology, Needham is, is, is more more focused on a specific aspect of what had happened in 63. And that was the fifth monarchist influence over the Council of State, over the country.

the government as it was at that time and the corruption. So I guess similar to what Cromwell says in his speech and kind of against Cromwell, about what Cromwell was saying against the fifth monarchist in his speech. But Needham is, is yeah, very, very anti fifth monarchist, very anti factionalism. So Needham is, it seems to be, and this seems to recur for Needham, that so long as Cromwell can keep factions bay and keep a secure Republic and probably also keep liberty of conscience as for reasons that we’ve mentioned, then, he would be, he would be happy to support Cromwell.

doesn’t specifically say that, but that seems to be the implication of what he says. He’s very, very anti Monarch is in that. Whereas Milton doesn’t seem to be Milton himself, much more religious Milton did believe in the fifth monarchy as it were, you know, within, in the millennium, in the thousand year reign of Jesus Christ.

So he did believe in that, and he did believe that that was coming and that he’s kind of does. Does have a millenarian ideology within what he writes. So maybe that’s why. But it’s difficult to say why Needham goes so against them. Maybe Milton didn’t need to because Needham had done. Yeah, so they, they do write to quite different tracts for different reasons.

and then, but then they do carry on working for The government thereafter. So they continue to support Cromwell to a degree, but for different reasons. One for religious and one stability. Maybe, you know, political stability. Yes. Yeah, I think, I think it, it’s, it’s clearer that, so in 1657, when Cromwell is offered, in the humble petition and advice is offered, yeah.

The Crown, Needham essentially writes these, editorials, which are really fascinating to read, but quite hard to access. Called, letters from U Utopia where he imagines. That he’s getting correspondence from, someone from Utopia, Moore’s Utopia. And within that, there is, because, I mean, essentially, Utopia established a republic, and so Within that he has a figure called the prince who establishes a republic and and there’s kind of veiled criticism potentially of Cromwell not actually establishing a republic as in he has the opportunity to here he is like a prince.

Needham would refer to Cromwell as his highness in Mercurius Politicus. So it’s possible that in 1657 Needham is offering some but again very implicit criticism of Cromwell. Cromwell. Quite hard to say that because he then does end up writing and resumes his, use of Hobbes theory of de facto government, within those as well.

So there’s, it’s again, the, the ambiguity there is quite hard to fully read, but he does seem to be able to use that fiction of utopia to potentially criticize the government. Cromwell. Milton doesn’t, though. There’s no evidence there. Milton just carries on publishing tracts as, as requested by, the government and translating letters into Latin for Europe.

So there’s no evidence that Milton is, up until Cromwell dies, there’s no evidence that he, he offers criticism of the government. Brilliant. So, and then there’s yet further chaos when Cromwell dies. How do the two of them react to that? And there are all the factions in parliament and the army and what did they hope would emerge from all of that?

So Milton writes more in this period. If you were to look at a complete works of Milton, there’s, there, especially with the prose works, most of 1650s are the private letters or Latin works. His vernacular works resume with a vengeance, as it were, in, in the sort of period 1658 to 1660. And, and there is a general resurgence.

resurgence of proliferation, again, of pamphleteering in this period. So it’s both Republicans, such as James Harrington, for instance, writing a lot, publishing a lot in this period about what’s going to happen next and also Royalists. So Royalists are writing a lot, anti Republican, yeah, anti Republic, and, and specifically anti Republican.

And I can mention that in, in a minute, they do target Needham and Milton in particular, Milton writes. First and probably most important, he writes two tracts, which are essentially promoting liberty of conscience. Again, so he’s kind of encouraging whoever the next government is, although he is hoping that this will be a republic, he’s encouraging them to be, to, to promote and to support, religious freedom.

So that, that seems to be a recurring concern of his during this period. And that’s sort of 1658 to 59. And then he writes his kind of most significant blueprints for a republic. Called already an easy way to establish a Free Commonwealth in 1660. And this is the track where he talks about the, the, the Grand Senate.

So essentially just, just a, a standing council that never changes. There is, there is no rotation, no, no reelection. and about his, you know, the other, the other components of the Republic that he would imagine. But within this, and this is particularly interesting, I think, When we think about the history of republicanism, he, he does write against James Harrington, who probably wrote, Harrington was probably the most influential, this is a big statement, but probably the most influential Republican writer and theorist of the period, starting with the Commonwealth of Oceania in 1656, and then going through to, he was able to publish, almost able to write a response to a track that he’d read.

within the same week or really within days and then get it and then merge to get it into the printing press. He’s very, very prolific writer, Harrington. and Milton writes against him because, because Harrington is about a, about rotation of the government. So Milton’s very against that. And so writes against it.

So that, that, that infighting, you know, is evidence in what Milton writes in 1660. Needham is probably quite entertaining in that he, he ends up writing in 1660 a brilliant article that, that is worth reading, but he writes an article called News from Brussels where he pretends to be a cavalier. kind of hiding overseas, who’s essentially writing about how they’re going to get revenge on or, or how they’re going to dupe the Presbyterians who are supporting them in England.

So it’s, it’s, it’s very, very witty, very, very clever. And, and from that, and this is particularly, this is again, kind of showing the collaboration between the two or not the collaboration, but at least the close proximity of, of the two. intellectually and in terms of their actual work. Needham publishes the tract and then immediately goes into hiding.

And partly because the publisher, the publisher, the, the, the printer of the tract, he was essentially a kind of a radical publisher. he is, arrested and Milton, as it happened, had published the first, first edition of the ready and easy way with him and then had to publish the second edition by himself.

So, so, so he had to find someone and had to pay for it himself, which is quite interesting. You can see how there is. A lot going on in this period, a lot of, scrambling, I guess, to, express ideas as quickly as they could. Milton seems to be behind the times. Harrington was quite ahead of it, quite ahead of the game, and was publishing quite quickly.

Milton seems to always be, and I think at the beginning of The Ready and Easy Way, he admits how things have changed. since I wrote this, even though he’s then handing it to the publisher. So, yeah, so he’s, he’s, he’s very aware that everything’s happening so quickly in that, on the eve of the restoration, but Milton couldn’t, couldn’t quite keep up with it, but seems to still, perhaps, ignorantly or perhaps just, naively seems to keep trying to call and keep trying to clown before.

A Republic to return. But yes, that’s, that’s also when he’s most anti monarchical as well. Milton. Right. We hadn’t really seen that kind of specific kind of criticism and, and satire of the monarchy before then. And even mocks, for instance, there’s a, there’s a great moment where he mocks the person who carries essentially the chamber pot of the King.

So, so, so saying how ridiculous monarchy is that, that, that they have all this paraphernalia around them, all of this, pompons and circumstance and then references. And again, this is something that Milton wouldn’t usually do, but references that and the stool person, you know, the person who would carry the chamber pot.

So, that sounds, that sounds, yes, unduly entertaining for Milton. Not that I’m saying Milton isn’t entertaining, obviously, but they seem so different. him and Nida in their approach. So he’s slipping into a bit of, a bit of a populist polemic almost. Yes. And that, that’s the best evidence that I’ve seen for them.

Perhaps, you know, maybe Nida was saying, well, why don’t you say this at this point? Because they would, you know, at this point, yes, their, their flavors of republicanism is very different, but they still wanted the same thing. They definitely didn’t, didn’t, didn’t want the monarchy to return. That may be because of wanting liberty of conscience to be, maintained.

That’s, that’s clearly the thing that they both agree on most clearly, but I think it was just. Just shows how within coffee houses at this time, Harrington was, he led this, a group called the rota. The idea of the rota was again, this idea of rotation of, of the government and within, within the rota, within coffee houses, they would be discussing a lot of these ideas.

And there is evidence that Milton may well have attended. And so you, one would assume that maybe Needon also had as well. So I think although people thought differently and had different viewpoints, there’s still And they definitely don’t want the monarch to return. Fascinating. So how did they react then when the restoration happened?

And how did they fare under the restored Stuarts? So, Needham had to flee. He went into hiding again, may well have gone to, I think, Amsterdam, perhaps. to his, which was an area where you could, if you, if you wanted to publish something that you couldn’t publish it in the UK or, or in England, rather, then you would, then you would go to, Amsterdam he, he fled there, but did get a pardon and then ended up possibly by bribing though, possibly the only way that he got a pardon was by actually paying, paying the right people off and then would republish some of what he wrote in Mercurius Pragmaticus, the pro royalist.

Ah. 10 15 years earlier. So that’s, that’s kind of how, how he got over that. Milton is, is more, is perhaps more interesting in that he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a period of time. He had his books burnt because he was quite an important figure and some, some, some of his writings in this period were, were widely read.

But ultimately was able to get out of prison, partly because Andrew Marvell, who, who was also a famous poet, that we, that we read mostly for his poetry, not for his political standpoint. Marvell was MP for Hull and did have some political clout, so could, could kind of help to get Milton out. And so then Milton was able to leave the Tower of London and then lived a well, a quieter life, but ultimately then was obviously writing his, it was in this period.

So in between 58 and 63, roughly was when he was writing Paradise Lost. So he was in this period writing his, his greatest work and, and the work that we really remember him for. So, at the time, Milton was seen as more influential and important and dangerous to the restoration regime than Needham, or have I taken the wrong conclusion?

There’s a lot of brilliant royalist tracts going between 1659, really, and 60, but some in 1658, and a lot of them refer to Milton and Needham together. So, so, you know, they’re within, within a kind of wider group, but they’re often, they’re often positioned side by side as it, as it happens, which may tell you something about their friendship, their proximity.

And so I don’t think necessarily one was seen as more influential than the other necessarily, but they certainly were viewed as being kind of an embodiment of a republic that was failing. Okay. So. Afterlife. I know a little bit about Milton. He produces the track that has tortured schoolchildren through the ages.

What about, what about Needham? What, what happens to him? Does he have an afterlife? There isn’t that much evidence actually. He becomes a doctor and then ends up publishing some tracks on medicine thereafter. So, yeah, so I guess a physician you would say nowadays. Yes. And, but yeah, there’s not much evidence that he does.

much as I think he ends up writing some track later on in his life against some political figure, but that seems to be mostly a personal quarrel rather than an actual ideological one. So yeah, I think he does accept that there is within his lifetime. Nothing did, did really change. It wasn’t until 688 really that, that there was any kind of bigger opportunity for that.

He’s a flexible bloke basically. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. Very pragmatic. So one of my little big gripes is this thing about the Commonwealth being seen as very much this period of doom and gloom and the focus always on the theatre. Whereas I think coffee shops are invented from 1650, John Playford produces The Dancing Master, although he has to rather hide the fact that he’s doing it.

It’s got to see, got it. So there’s all this. energy going around. Why do you think our two heroes Milton and Needham should be remembered or should they not be remembered? Well, I suppose they should, but yeah, I guess that Milton it’s, it’s, you know, the, the, the verse that he’s written will immortalize him.

It has, and it will continue to do so regardless of what schoolchildren think. Certainly his, the, the quality of his prose though is quite unique. And I think it tends to be mostly read at postgraduate level, not even undergraduate level. So, I would always recommend, and I think that the value of something like Aritha Gitaka is definitely worth reading and does still, still have resonance today.

Although he, although he’s kind of promoting liberty of, At the very end, he does say, I mean, not tolerated potpourri, meaning I don’t actually believe I’m not actually saying that Catholics should be tolerated. So there is always qualifications there, which is, which is quite entertaining from a modern standpoint when we have a much more tolerant society.

But yeah, I think a lot of his prose, certainly that prose book in particular, has, has a lot of value in its spirits for a modern reader. I think Needham is particularly fascinating as someone who was pragmatic, someone also who is quite modern in a lot of his. His ideas, I think, is a more modern sense of toleration, partly because, you know, he himself was probably, not that religious and doesn’t, doesn’t seem to refer to religion as much.

So it’s nothing like Milton does. And also in terms of republicanism and liberty does, he does have a much more modern sense of freedom. And also he has that kind of entertaining wits, the way that he writes and, and his willingness to criticize those in power is saying that, again, we celebrate Today, and we believe, and it is a very important part of any newspaper, any, anyone really to be able to criticize the government, those in power.

And I think he does entertain that right probably before he really had it. So yes. So I think Needham is someone who hasn’t been as popular because he hasn’t written the great things that Milton has certainly inverse inverse, but certainly historians I think are bringing him back much more and reading much more about him and writing much more about him, which is great.

Yes, I suppose his, his work is a spema in a sense, but he’s fascinating. I mean, I, I’ve absolutely loved his life and reading about what he writes and he’s full of energy and, and creativity is very naughty. It seems to me, you know, he’s a fantastic story. It’s one of the kind of things you want to bring out about the protectorate.

Is, is there anything else that we should be celebrating about the cultural life of the protectorate? I would say that intellectually there’s a lot that’s happening here. I wouldn’t just limit it to the Protectorate, but I guess going from the 1640s through to the 1660s, and I think I would, I would celebrate the growth of science in this period.

So that’s kind of linking from the Hartlep circle that we mentioned earlier through to the Royal Society in 1660. Although Hartlep wasn’t himself a founding member, he seemed to have been associated with it, affiliated with it. So I say science is very important intellectually. I think the political ideas that grow in this period, such as Hobbes’s Leviathan, which is published in 1650 and ends up having a, has what it continues to have one of the biggest impacts on political theory today.

You have the Commonwealth of Oceania, which I mentioned that, that magnum opus of Harrington’s about the Republic, but which probably didn’t have the same impact as something like Leviathan. I think this is also a period where, as I’ve mentioned, toleration, religious ideas did grow. We have, Cromwell resettled the Jews for the first time in, in a few hundred years.

So that was a, that was a big moment for that. Well, I, Cromwell was really doing it because it does say in revelations that, that Jews was converted to Christianity at the end of, time. So that’s why it wasn’t the reason of toleration that we would have thought. Finally, I think also, and because there aren’t so many figures, so many female figures, we don’t often talk about it, but women were writing at this time and they were publishing at this time.

And I think it’s too easy to think that society has progressed in a kind of linear fashion. But I think, I think the way in which women were able to publish, they obviously had to be literate. So fewer were, were literate. And that was an issue at the time you could say from a modern perspective, but, but they could.

right. They could publish, and people like Anna Trapnell, Mary Carey, who was a fifth monarchist, they, they were writing and they did have a voice and there’s a wonderful moment or a wonderful part of one of the Mary Carey, one of her tracks, she’s writing to Cromwell’s wife and Fairfax’s wife. And so she’s, she’s actually writing to women and recognizing their role and their answer.

That’s from a modern standpoint, I think, I think it’s pretty fascinating to see, I guess, the seeds of modernity. in that period, a period of such change, that I guess these ideas could begin to grow, even if they then collapse as it were thereafter. But, yes. So I think there are, there, there are many, many different aspects there, which, which make it fascinating.