ABSTRACT
This assertion occupies the title page of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) and sets the agenda of the text which was to follow, in terms that clearly establish Milton’s belief in the legitimacy of the new post-monarchic order. Believing in the power of reasoned argument and the justice of the rump Parliament’s activities, but also sensitive to the difficulty facing people in judging between what he saw as the clever deceptions of the monarchist argument and the claims of the parliamentarians, Milton set himself the task of making clear exactly how the King had been bad, and exactly why it was necessary to replace monarchy with a representative republican leadership.
