Milton's chief polemical prose was written in the decades of the 1640s and 1650s, during the strife between the Church of England and various reformist groups such as the Puritans and between the monarch and Parliament. Designated the antiepiscopal or antiprelatical tracts and the antimonarchical or political tracts, these works advocate a freedom of conscience and a high degree of civil liberty for humankind against the various forms of tyranny and oppression, both ecclesiastical and governmental. In line with his libertarian outlook, Milton wrote Areopagitica (1644), often cited as one of the most compelling arguments on the freedom of the press. In March 1649 Milton was appointed secretary for foreign tongues to the Council of State. In that capacity his service to the government, chiefly in the field of foreign policy, is documented by official correspondence, the Letters of State, first published in 1694. In that capacity, moreover, he was a vigorous defender of Cromwell's government. One of his assignments was to counteract the erosion of public support of the Commonwealth, a situation caused by the publication of the Eikon Basilike (1649) or King's Book, which had widespread distribution after Charles I's execution. Believed to have been written by the king himself--though composed chiefly by an episcopal divine, Dr.
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