The world into Milton was born in 1608 was a troubled and confused one; and, until his death in 1674, Milton lived through a period of turmoil and violent change. By 1608 King James I had been on the throne of England for five years; cominng south from Scotland after the death of Elizabeth I, he lacked the popularity of his doughty predecessor, on both national and personal grounds.

James clashed frequently and violently with Parliament over the control of the country´s goverment, and particularly its finances. An early struggle for control of the judges was resolved in favour of Parliament by 1621. King James also thought that he should control the Church through its bishops; but a group of men, increasing in numbers and strenght as the years went by, believed that the English Reformation, begun by Henry VIII with the double purpose of divorcing a queen who could not give him a male heir and of stripping the many rich monasteries and abbeeys of their treasures, scarcely justificied its name. Realising that such abuses as one priest holding more than one living were being retained, and that the authority of the Pope had been replaced by that of the King as head of the English Church, these men, the Puritans, as their name implies, strove tor a purer, more austere from a worship and Church organisation. Puritanism is not a religion, not confined to any one sect; it is an attitude of mind. These two forces of Puritanism and Parliamentarianism together resisted royal absolutism, at first by constitutional means, seeking to make the granting of revenue dependent upon the reform of abuses; and, from 1642 onwards, by force of arms.
 
 

James I´s son and successor, Charles I, quarrelled bitterly with his Parliaments from his accession in 1625 until 1629, when he determined to rule without at all; this period was called the the Personal Rule.

Charles disagreed with them all over again, saw his chief minister, Sttraford, and his Archbishop of Canterbury, Laud, removed from authority and executed, and finally, in 1642, took up arms to crush the forces of Parliament. Successful in the early stages of the war, Charles faced a powerful combination in the alliance of Parliament with the Scottish Covernanters, the loyalty of London to the Parliamentary cause, and the brilliant of Oliver Cromwell.

Thereafter Cromwell ruled England as Lord Protector until his death in 1658; but the Commonwealth had become increasingly unpopular, and there was no strong characterto succeed Cromwell; so in 1660 the royal house of Stuart was restored to the English throne in the person of Charles II, morally profligate but politically astute. He had been on the throne for fourteen years when Milton died in 1674, and further fourteen years were to pass before a second revolution continued the process of securing parliamentary rule in England and making its monarchy more constitutional. 

©York Notes . Paradise Lost .Books I-II and IV-IX. John Milton by Richard James Beck . Paradise Lost . Books I-II and IX-X  By R.E.C. Oxford University Press.