Defeat and Triumph in The Readie and Easie Way: The Intentional Irony of the Title in the Second Edition

Abstract

By the time Milton published the second edition of The Readie and Easie Way, it was now too late to change the course of England’s history, and his proposed political model was already beyond the reach of his people. Milton’s decision to go ahead with the publication of the second edition, therefore, deserves some scrutiny. In this essay, I propose that this decision was prompted by the very defeat of his cause. I also propose that the title of treatise now contains an intentional irony that was not discernible in the first edition. In fact there are two opposing types of the ready and easy way suggested by the second edition: the one, if it had been carefully considered and swiftly acted upon, would have saved the country from thralldom; the opposite, the way back to thralldom chosen by the people of England, would lead to certain destruction. Milton stresses time and again the opportunity given by God, which the English people had disgracefully ignored. Such opportunity is not to come again. So clearly on display before the people of England, the reformation had been so tantalizingly close to fruition. Now, according to Milton, the true ready and easy way is no longer ready and easy. Only its opposite shadow remains, a path leading to "a precipice of destruction" that "the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurrie us through the general defection of a misguided and abus'd multitude" (YP 7: 463). Milton’s stance at the end of the treatise is that of a prophet who finds triumph in the face of defeat. While his cause is utterly lost, his prophecies (he had, after all, warned England of the dire consequences of disobedience as early as the beginning of his prose career) remain true and tested.