ch, however "full of worth and wit" in its
own kind, it was a disgrace to the king to borrow a prayer at so grave
an hour. Perhaps as a mark of their approval of _Eikonoklastes_, the
Council of State gave Milton lodgings in Whitehall; and soon
afterwards, in January 1650, called upon him to reply to another
Royalist book which was making a {59} great stir. The result was the
beginning of a political and personal controversy which lasted almost
as long as it was safe for Milton to write about politics at all.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries great scholars had a
position which they are never likely to occupy again. In those
cosmopolitan days when an Italian governed France, and regiments and
even armies were often commanded by foreigners, the honour of
possessing a celebrated scholar was eagerly disputed not only by
universities, but by cities, sovereign states, and even kings.
Learning had then a market value in the world: for then, as always,
especially since the invention of printing, European opinion was worth
having on one's side; and in the days before journalism the practice
was to hire distinguished scholars to write to a political brief.
After the death of Charles I it was obviously the policy of Charles II
to secure support by a powerful indictment of the iniquity of the
rulers of the English Commonwealth. For this purpose his advisers
obtained the services of a certain Claude de Saumaise, or, as he was
generally called, Salmasius. This man, forgotten now except for
Milton, was then a scholar of such fame that his presence was disputed
between Oxford {60} and Venice, the French and the Dutch, between the
Pope who wanted him at Rome and Christina of Sweden who was soon to
persuade him to go to Stockholm. So it is not altogether surprising
that Charles II was advised to pay him, and perhaps paid him, much more
than he could afford for writing a book called _Defensio Regia_, which
was to be before all Europe the public statement of the case against
the new rulers of England. Milton spent a year in preparing his reply,
which came out in the beginning of 1651. The _Pro Populo Anglicano
Defensio_ is now pleasanter reading for Milton's detractors than for
those who honour his name. The unbridled insults which it heaps upon
Charles I and still more upon Salmasius, for whom its least offensive
titles are such as "blockhead," "liar" and "apostate," exceed even the
wide limits of abuse customary in the