History and ideology : Milton, the levellers, and the council of state in 1649
Martin Dzelzainis seeks to clarify the views of Milton and the Levellers in relation to the “Norman Yoke,” the belief that the Conquest had installed an alien legal system that continued to restrict the natural rights of free subjects. Although Milton was in 1649 asked by the Council of State to respond to two incendiary Leveller pamphlets, he never seems to have done so in print (although other polemicists did). Many modern commentators have sought to interpret this silence as evidence of Milton’s views. Dzelzainis argues that Milton, recently appointed as secretary for foreign tongues, could not easily have refused the request. He shows that the Levellers’ own anti-Norman posture was at the time being modified; thus Milton’s anti-Norman rhetoric after 1649 is no indication of support for the Levellers. Furthermore, such rhetoric was applicable to those who opposed the Rump, including Presbyte77. See Milton, Political Writings, ed. Martin Dzelzainis (Cambridge, 1991), xxi–xxv. 78. See James Tyrrell, The General History of England, 3 vols. (London, 1700–1704), 1:110–11, 115–16, 150; 116 (second pagination); for more on Whig responses, see Nicholas von Maltzahn, Milton’s “History of Britain”: Republican Historiography in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1991), 176–78. 79. Tyrrell, General History, 1:vi (second preface). This content downloaded from 207.46.13.128 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 06:14:53 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Norman Conquest and the Common Law: The Levellers and the Argument from Continuity
Twenty-five years ago J. G. A. Pocock first argued that the Norman conquest was the rock upon which all arguments for the continuity of the common law finally came to wreck. Believe in the conquest qua conquest, and you could not believe that English law represented a continuous stream of unviolated custom or fail to see it as very much the offspring of Norman parentage. In the English revolution, the Levellers exemplified the logical necessity of Pocock's argu ment. Having seen the conquest for what it was, the group criticized the common law as none other than a Norman yoke and surrendered all appeals to history. By re-examining the Leveller use of history, this essay tests that proposition, turning it not upside down but on its side, and suggests an alternative conclusion both about the Levellers and the doctrine of continuity itself.
Dangerous Positions: Mixed Government, the Estates of the Realm, and the Making of the 'Answer to the XIX Propositions'
that was, on occasion, perceived among their fellow citizens. Despite the new conditions established by the Edict of Nantes, the disparate congregations in France still looked to Geneva to supply a steady stream of those practised in the ministry, requests which, in the light of the declining status of the Academy, were proving more and more difficult to fulfil. Meanwhile, the threat from the duke of Savoy reached a climax with the abortive attempt to take the town by stealth on 12 December 1602. Not surprisingly, this fortuitous deliverance soon came to be seen as testimony of divine favour. Yet, in reality, the city-state was isolated and cut off from the support of its co-religionists. Following the restoration of the mass in some of the neighbouring villages, it was sad to record that the peasantry accepted the change with little complaint: 'A qui n'a, ce qu'il a luy sera oste [Matt. xxv. 29]'. Aside from its obvious significance as a part chronicle of the Huguenot movement, the most valuable material in the Regislres is that of an occasional nature. True to the spirit of Calvin, the pastors granted as legitimate the practice of taking communion to the sick in reply to a query from the French congregation in Basle. The inclusion of a section denouncing the pope as AntiChrist in a special reprint of the Confession defoi was more in keeping with the times, though it may be noted that this was required by the Synod of Gap as a means of preventing any rapprochement that might undermine the integrity of the reformed party. Otherwise, as the editors themselves concede, the bulk of the material is highly repetitive, and this monotony is but little relieved by the decision to abridge many of the 120 letters supplied in the lengthy appendix.