But unfortunately no external impulse stirred him to action, as in the case of the "Areopagitica." Presbyterians growled at him occasionally; they did not fine or imprison him, or put him out of the synagogue.

Thus his pen slumbered, and we are in danger of forgetting that he was, in the ordinary sense of that much-abused term, no Puritan, but a most free and independent thinker, the vast sweep of whose thought happened to coincide for a while with the narrow orbit of so-called Puritanism.
Impulse to work of another sort was at hand.

On January 30, 1649, Charles the First's head rolled on the scaffold.

On February 13th was published a pamphlet from Milton's hand, which cannot have been begun before the King's trial, another proof of his feverish impetuosity when possessed by an overmastering idea.

The title propounds two theses with very different titles to acceptance.