Resumen de Doing without Precedent: Applied Typology and the Execution of Charles I in Milton's "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates"
Recent analysis of John Milton’s first tract justifying King Charles I’s trial and execution in 1649 has highlighted its rational argumentation and secular foundation. This essay examines Milton’s use of biblical, classical, and national historical types of the regicide to exhort his readers to view the king as a tyrant, his death as a biblically and historically warranted punishment, and the current moment as a providential occasion to establish a godly English commonwealth. A rational and revolutionary applied typology is at work in the Tenure, demonstrating Milton’s radical deployment of scripture in a heated political controversy with the Presbyterian opponents of the regicide.
