Milton, Grotius, and the Law of War: A Reading of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes

"Most true is the saying that all things are uncertainthe moment men depart from the Law."

—Hugo Grotius, "Prolegomena" to De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625)

What caused Milton to suggest the inevitability of war, to emphasize martial strife as a metaphor or as a subject of pedagogy, and to describe battle with a formidable array of authentic trappings? From his earliest gunpowder poems to his employment as Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State, where he witnessed crucial decision-making concerning the preparations for and conduct of warfare such as funding and strategy debate, the poet worked and lived consumed by war. The majority of scholars have concluded that Milton was unreservedly opposed to military discord. Foremost Miltonists such as Stella Purce Revard and James A. Freeman, for example,¹ maintain that Milton's work illustrates that battle cripples man physically and spiritually—that war exists as his most barbarous error. In contrast with this prevailing perspective, my study seeks to show that the poet's sustained depiction of war's violence is predicated on his optimism that the parameters of battle may be kept within reasonable juristic limits.

By aligning the poet's lengthy engagement with warfare, both in life and art, with the development of legal theories of warfare in the European seventeenth century, this essay questions the characterization of Milton either as a militarist or a pacifist, a ferocious "warfaring Christian" or an opponent to the use of violence in any form.² Integral to Milton's emphasis upon natural law in relation to martial theory is his profound affiliation with leading Dutch naturalist writer Hugo Grotius. I argue that Milton endorses Grotian themes such as the social nature of man, the moral foundations of waging just battle to protect rights, and prohibition against property usurpation as a shore against his increasing pessimism. Grotianism enables Milton to eschew the increasing reality and greatest trepidation that the English Civil War—his efforts in it and hopes he had for it—was without meaning.

This article is divided into three sections. Section one frames its discussion of Milton and Grotius with an overview of war during the Renaissance and proceeds in section two to demonstrate why the Dutch scholar's concept of natural law was endemic to Milton's portrayal of martial strife. The third and final section includes a Grotian reading of Paradise Regained (1671) and Samson Agonistes (1671). The poet's devotion to Grotian principles in these companion pieces enables his confidence in the limits of justice to establish whether battle is just or criminal. Milton shows us how law may be manifested in relation to the people in the organization of statehood and community. Consistent with Grotian sociability, he seeks to establish that the foundation of the jus gentium (law of nations) lies in the natural law and has its basis in appetitus societatis (desire for society).

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The portrayal of a resolutely anti-militaristic Milton is compelling, it seems to me, when we consider him in reference to twenty-first century standards of battle, in the context of our age of mass destruction that has the potential to use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Compared to the sophisticated technology and complex tactics of modern day globalized warfare, military efforts during the Renaissance involved a great deal more flexibility and realism and inspired a much more tangible dialectic of just versus criminal warfare. Though involving myriad human and economic costs, as do all wars, weaponry buildup was comparatively contained and finite during this earlier period due to technological constraints. Firearms signaled the spirit of human advancement and inquiry, but they also increased the loss of life. For the most part, developments toward the codification of international law were made to include considerations of armed strife in order to address, clarify, and delineate these limitations.

During war's ascendancy in Renaissance Europe, battle was increasingly professionalized, and the efficiency of state armies was augmented. Efforts revolved around rendering martial endeavors more productive. As J. R. Hale observes, "on the battlefield...