no more immunity than others from the consequences of evil doing is a
proposition which seemed monstrous to many in Milton's day, but which
will command general assent in ours. But to lay it down that "any who
has the power" may interpose to correct what he chooses to consider the
laches of the lawful magistrate is to hand over the administration of
the law to Judge Lynch--rather too high a price to pay for the
satisfaction of bringing even a bad king to the block. Milton's sneer at
"vulgar and irrational men, contesting for privileges, customs, forms,
and that old entanglement of iniquity, their gibberish laws," is
equivalent to an admission that his party had put itself beyond the pale
of the law. The only defence would be to show that it had acted under
great and overwhelming necessity; but this he takes for granted, though
knowing well that it was denied by more than half the nation. His
argument, therefore, is inconclusive, except that portion of it which
modern opinion allows to pass without argument. He seems indeed to admit
in his "Defensio Secunda" that the tract was written less to vindicate
the King's execution than to saddle the protesting Presbyterians with a
share of the responsibility. The diction, though robust and spirited, is
not his best, and, on the whole, the most admirable feature in his
pamphlet is his courage in writing it. He was to speak yet again on this
theme as the mouthpiece of the Commonwealth, thus earning honour and
reward; it was well to have shown first that he did not need this
incentive to expose himself to Royalist vengeance, but had prompting
enough in the intensity of his private convictions.

He had flung himself into a perilous breach. "Eikon Basilike"--most
timely of manifestoes--had been published only four days before the
appearance of "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." Between its
literary seduction and the horror generally excited by the King's
execution, the tide of public opinion was turning fast. Milton no doubt