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# SEARCH HEADLINE (rules 1-7 as in gulf-of-tonkin/claims.yaml)
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headline: "Eikon Basilike (1649): Milton Charged Charles I's Prayer Was Copied Word for Word From Sidney"
headline_claim: eikon-milton-pamela-charge
headline_status: draft           # set back to draft 2026-10-02 by owner: open dig, published as such; return to review when its anchors are read
assessment:
  question: "Who wrote the King's Book (Eikon Basilike): Charles I or John Gauden?"
  answer: unsettled
  headline: "Unsettled. Milton charged that a prayer in it was copied from Sidney (established). Who wrote the book is not decided."
  text: >
    It is established that Milton, in Eikonoklastes, charged that a prayer printed as the King's own was 'stol'n word for word' from Pamela's prayer in Sidney's Arcadia. It is also established that Gauden claimed after the Restoration
    to have written the book. Neither settles authorship, and whether the prayer was planted by Milton's side is a separate claim we have not examined. Our first measurements find the text we tested does not carry Charles's measured writing habits,
    but that is a low-confidence result of ours that no one outside the project has reviewed, and the text tested has no prayers at all. No published computational study of the book was found.
  lean:
    toward: "Not Charles I as the sole author of the text as printed"
    short: "not Charles I alone"
    strength: slight
    because: "The first-edition text we tested does not carry Charles's measured writing habits: it sits as far from his own prose as other clergy do (claim eikon-text-lacks-charles-habits)."
    caveats: "Our own low-confidence result, unreviewed. It does not point to Gauden: that test has not been run (claim eikon-style-singles-out-gauden). The comparison is between kinds of writing as well as authors. The text tested has no prayers at all."
  key_points:
    - "Milton charged that a prayer in the book was 'stol'n word for word' from Pamela's prayer in Sidney's Arcadia. That is established."
    - "Gauden claimed after the Restoration to have written it, and Charles I is also credited. Neither claim is settled."
    - "Our early measurement leans slightly away from Charles as sole author, but it is unreviewed."
  basis: [eikon-milton-pamela-charge, eikon-gauden-claimed-authorship, eikon-charles-wrote-book, eikon-text-lacks-charles-habits, eikon-no-computed-study-found]
  would_settle: "Gauden's own letters read directly, an edition-by-edition account of when the Pamela prayer was added, and a reviewed measurement on enough genre-matched text."
search_summary: >
  Did Milton accuse Charles I's King's Book of plagiarism? Yes: Eikonoklastes says a prayer in it was stol'n word for word from Pamela's prayer in Sidney's Arcadia. Who wrote the book is not settled.
url_slug: eikon-basilike-1649-milton-charged-kings-prayer-copied-from-sidney

subject: eikon-basilike
title: "Eikon Basilike, the King's Book (1649)"
migrated_from: "questions/eikon-basilike/index.html (open question Q-002 (formerly bounty B-002), opened 2026-10-01 by the Strata/Stratah project). The page and its run files are unchanged; this subject restates its claims in the YAML standard. Open Question IDs (C-01..C-08, F1..F12, DT-B1, G-01..G-07) are kept as bounty_id; B-001 (Casket Letters) also uses C-01..C-06, so the slug IDs here are the unique ones."
description: >
  Eikon Basilike ('The King's Image') appeared within days of Charles I's execution on 30 January 1649 and shaped how he was remembered.
  Milton answered it for Parliament. After 1660 John Gauden claimed he had written it; royalists swore the King did. This dig keeps four questions
  apart: what Milton charged about one prayer (documented), who wrote the book (contested; every position rests on testimony from interested people),
  whether the prayer was planted by Milton's side (unproven), and what a measured comparison of the book's word habits with Charles's own writing shows
  (a proposed result, not yet reviewed). The text tested contains no prayers at all.
divergence_note: >
  Every position on authorship rests on testimony from people with a stake in the answer; none rests on a test of the text itself. The one measured result
  (proposed) counts against the book being Charles's own unedited composition, and is equally consistent with Gauden writing it and with Charles drafting and someone
  else rewriting it.

claims:
  - id: eikon-milton-pamela-charge
    bounty_id: C-01
    state: established
    statement: >
      Milton charged, in Eikonoklastes, that a prayer printed as the King's own was "stol'n word for word" from the prayer of Pamela in Sidney's Arcadia,
      and told readers to compare "Pammela's Prayer" in "the 3d. Book of Sir Philips Arcadia p. 248" with "the first Prayer of his Majestie, deliverd to Dr. Juxon".
    evidence_class: primary_text
    confidence: high
    statement_kind: reported   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    assumptions:
      - text: "The EEBO-TCP transcription of Eikonoklastes (A50898) reproduces the printed passages faithfully."
        if_wrong: "A different reading of the printed wording; the quotation would need re-checking against the page images."
    alternatives:
      - text: "The charge first appeared in the 1650 second edition and not in 1649."
        why_not_preferred: "Not excluded: the edition read is the 1650 second edition and the first edition was not read. This is the condition in would_change_if."
    confidence_reasons:
      start: high
      start_because: "The anchor was read directly (primary)."
      steps:
        - {domain: indirectness, effect: none, reason: "The claim says Milton made the charge in Eikonoklastes, which the text read shows. It does not claim the charge is true or that it appeared in 1649."}
      reviewed: false
    evidential_weight: 4   # of 5; the passage read in the 1650 enlarged second edition, not the 1649 first edition
    anchor_checked: primary   # EEBO-TCP A50898 (Eikonoklastes, 1650) read 2026-10-02
    adoption_weight: 5   # of 5
    adoption_note: "Universal."
    would_change_if: "the passage being absent from the 1649 first edition (the charge would then date from 1650)"
    next_step: "Read the 1649 first edition of Eikonoklastes for the same passage; the text read here is the second, enlarged edition."
    anchor:
      type: primary-text
      description: >
        TCP A50898 [read]: "...a Prayer stol'n word for word from the mouth of Heathen fiction praying to a heathen God; and that in no serious Book, but the vain
        amatorious Poem of Sr Philip Sidneys Arcadia..." and "...may satisfie thir own eyes at leasure in the 3d. Book of Sir Philips Arcadia p. 248. comparing Pammela's
        Prayer with the first Prayer of his Majestie, deliverd to Dr. Juxion immediatly before his death, and Entitl'd, A prayer in time of Captivity". The TCP
        catalogue records this as the edition 'Publish'd now the second time and much enlarg'd', London 1650.
      accessible: true
      sources: [src-tcp-a50898]
  - id: eikon-text-tested-is-second-issue
    bounty_id: "F1/F2 (correction)"
    state: established
    statement: "The TCP text used as 'the first issue' (A38258) is catalogued as the first edition, second issue, printed by John Grismond for Richard Royston, which 'appeared within a few days of the death of the King, probably about 4 February' (Madan)."
    evidence_class: primary_text
    confidence: high
    statement_kind: reported   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 3   # of 5; a catalogue note, not the book itself
    anchor_checked: primary
    adoption_weight: 2   # of 5
    adoption_note: "Not measured."
    would_change_if: "the TCP catalogue note being corrected, or Madan's bibliography saying otherwise"
    next_step: "Check Madan's bibliography (1950) for the issue points; the open question page calls this text 'the first issue'."
    anchor:
      type: catalogue-record
      description: "TCP A38258 header [read]: 'First edition, second issue. Printed by John Grismond for Richard Royston. \"This issue appeared within a few days of the death the King, probably about 4 February.\" Cf. Madan, F.F. New bibl. of the Eikon basilike.'"
      sources: [src-tcp-a38258]
  - id: eikon-tested-text-has-no-pamela-prayer
    bounty_id: F2
    state: established
    statement: "The transcribed first-edition (second issue) text contains no Pamela prayer and no 'Prayer in time of Captivity': a search of the whole TCP text for 'Pamela', 'Pammela' and 'Captivity' prayer headings finds none. The prayers were added in later editions."
    evidence_class: primary_text
    confidence: moderate
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 3   # of 5; machine search of a transcription, absence anchor
    anchor_checked: primary
    adoption_weight: 2   # of 5
    adoption_note: "Not measured."
    would_change_if: "a prayer resembling Pamela's being found in the text under other wording"
    next_step: "Run the phrase matcher (the open question's pamela_control.py) over the whole text to rule out a prayer without the names; read Madan on which editions first carry the prayer (gap G-03)."
    anchor:
      type: absence-in-searched-record
      description: "Search by this session of TCP A38258 (about 60,300 words by a rough count; the open question gives 60,359): 0 hits for 'Pamela', 'Pammela', 'Prayer in time of Captivity'. The word 'prayer' occurs 50 times in ordinary use."
      sources: [src-tcp-a38258]
  - id: eikon-pamela-prayer-is-sidneys
    bounty_id: C-02
    state: proposed
    statement: "The 'Prayer in time of Captivity' printed in later editions is Sidney's text: the 1687 version shares 73 six-word phrases with Arcadia and 0-1 with Gauden, Taylor, Milton or the book's own chapters."
    evidence_class: synthetic
    confidence: moderate
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 3
    anchor_checked: primary   # TCP texts
    adoption_weight: 4   # of 5
    adoption_note: "Generally accepted; no source found disputes it."
    would_change_if: "a review finding an error in the matcher or the corpora"
    next_step: "Review by someone outside the project. Reproduced by this session on 2026-10-02 (tests.yaml): 73 of 482 six-word phrases shared with Arcadia."
    anchor:
      type: computed-result
      description: "Positive control of the phrase matcher (finding F11): the 1687 'Prayer in time of Captivity' (TCP A31771) against Arcadia (A12229). The 1687 text changed Pamela's opening, 'O all-seeing Light, and eternal Life of all things', to 'O Powerful and eternal God', but kept the rest."
      sources: [src-tcp-a12229, src-tcp-a31771]
    basis: "Our own computed result."
  - id: eikon-gauden-claimed-authorship
    bounty_id: C-03
    state: established
    statement: "After the Restoration, John Gauden privately claimed to have written Eikon Basilike."
    evidence_class: primary_text
    confidence: high
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 4
    anchor_checked: no
    adoption_weight: 5   # of 5
    adoption_note: "Universal. Whether the claim is true is a separate claim (eikon-charles-wrote-book)."
    would_change_if: "his letters being shown spurious or misdated"
    next_step: "Re-anchor to Gauden's own letters of 1660-62 (the open question page marks this 'no'); the TCP header for A38258 lists Gauden (1605-1662) among the attributed authors, which is not the claim itself."
    anchor:
      type: letters-of-the-claimant
      description: "Per open question Q-002 (formerly bounty B-002): his letters pressing the claim survive and are cited across the literature. Not read in this dig."
  - id: eikon-charles-wrote-book
    bounty_id: C-04
    state: contested
    statement: "Charles I wrote Eikon Basilike."
    evidence_class: interpretive
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    disputed_by:
      - {who: "John Gauden", kind: person, position: "claimed after the Restoration that he wrote it (claim eikon-gauden-claimed-authorship)", source_read: false, via: "the Q-002 page; Gauden's letters were not read here"}
    evidential_weight: 2
    anchor_checked: no
    adoption_weight: 2
    adoption_note: "Divided; many modern accounts lean to Gauden working from royal papers."
    would_change_if: "a test of the text that discriminates the positions, or a manuscript in the King's hand"
    positions:
      - {label: "Charles", holder: "William Levett (sworn statement); Richard Hollingworth (1692); Thomas Wagstaffe (1711)", ground: "Eyewitness testimony of the King writing at Carisbrooke; testimony from loyal servants, given decades later."}
      - {label: "Gauden", holder: "Gauden himself (1661); his widow's narrative", ground: "His own claim, made while seeking a richer bishopric. Self-interested but specific."}
      - {label: "Composite", holder: "Many modern accounts", ground: "Gauden composed or polished from the King's papers; Jeremy Taylor sometimes named as reviser. Fits both bodies of testimony."}
    anchor:
      type: testimony
      description: "As summarised in open question Q-002 (formerly bounty B-002); the testimonies were not each re-read here."
  - id: eikon-pamela-prayer-planted
    bounty_id: C-05
    state: contested
    statement: "The Pamela prayer was planted in an edition by Milton's side to discredit the book."
    evidence_class: interpretive
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 1
    anchor_checked: no
    adoption_weight: 2
    adoption_note: "Repeated as 'apparently' true on Wikipedia's Dugard page (orientation only; not a source); disputed by others."
    would_change_if: "a printing record showing who inserted the prayer and when (which editions carry it, and from which printers)"
    next_step: "Madan's bibliography of the Eikon editions (gap G-03); the printer William Dugard's own record. Keep separate from authorship: the text tested has no prayers."
    anchor:
      type: later-testimony
      description: "Rests on later royalist testimony about the printer Dugard; not examined here. A real borrowing used against the King does not show who put it there."
  - id: eikon-no-computed-study-found
    bounty_id: C-06
    state: searched_gap
    statement: "No computational style study of Eikon Basilike has been published, in three web searches."
    evidence_class: primary_text
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: search_result   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 1
    anchor_checked: no
    adoption_weight: 1
    adoption_note: "Not a claim anyone holds."
    would_change_if: "a published computed study being found"
    next_step: "Google Scholar, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, and the 1950s-2000s literature in The Library ('John Gauden and the Authorship of the Eikon Basilike', not yet read)."
    searched: "Three web searches by the open question author."
    anchor: {type: search-record, description: Three web searches by the open question author found no such study.}
  - id: eikon-text-lacks-charles-habits
    bounty_id: C-07
    state: proposed
    statement: "The first-edition text of Eikon Basilike does not carry Charles I's measured writing habits: it sits as far from his own prose as other clergymen's writing does."
    evidence_class: synthetic
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 3
    anchor_checked: primary   # TCP texts
    adoption_weight: 1
    adoption_note: "New 2026-10-01."
    would_change_if: "more of Charles's own formal or devotional prose being found and sitting close to the book; a reviewer finding an error"
    next_step: "Outside review; more of Charles's own formal and devotional prose (gaps G-05, G-06). The main result was reproduced from the published code by this session on 2026-10-02 (tests.yaml); that does not test the method."
    anchor:
      type: computed-result
      description: >
        Burrows' Delta on the 150 most common words after spelling normalisation, 2,000-word samples, profiles never including the work tested (finding F10).
        Median distance to Charles / to Gauden: Charles's own writing (held out, n=12) 0.465 / 0.744; Gauden's own works (n=25) 0.805 / 0.524; eight other 1640s-50s clergy
        (n=31) 0.724 / 0.632; the Eikon (n=29) 0.702 / 0.591. The Eikon's range does not overlap Charles's own. It does not show Gauden wrote it, and cannot separate
        'someone else wrote it' from 'Charles drafted it and someone else rewrote it'.
      sources: [src-tcp-a38258, src-tcp-a31932, src-tcp-a78958]
    basis: "Our own computed result, not reviewed by anyone outside the project."
  - id: eikon-style-singles-out-gauden
    bounty_id: C-08
    state: searched_gap
    statement: "Measured style singles out Gauden as the author: not shown."
    evidence_class: synthetic
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: search_result   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 1
    anchor_checked: primary
    adoption_weight: 1
    adoption_note: "Our first run (F6) suggested it and did not survive controls: it is recorded so that a headline built on it is not made."
    would_change_if: "a method that separates Gauden from other learned clergy before it is applied to the book"
    next_step: "Build such a method; Gauden's profile attracts most learned 1640s prose (F9: 17 of 31 passages from eight other clergy were 'nearest Gauden')."
    anchor: {type: search-record, description: 'Not shown: no measurement singles out Gauden. The only comparison run (claim eikon-text-lacks-charles-habits) does not test Gauden.'}
  - id: eikon-no-long-chapter-in-charles-range
    bounty_id: F12
    state: proposed
    statement: "No chapter of 1,500 words or more falls inside Charles's own range (0 of 19 against a profile of his formal papers); at 1,000 words the ranges overlap (8 of 26), so the short chapters cannot be decided."
    evidence_class: synthetic
    confidence: low
    statement_kind: judgment   # assigned by rule 2026-10-02, to be reviewed
    evidential_weight: 2
    anchor_checked: primary
    adoption_weight: 1
    adoption_note: "New 2026-10-01."
    would_change_if: "more of Charles's own prose changing his range, or a reviewer finding an error"
    next_step: "Outside review; larger sample of Charles's formal prose."
    anchor:
      type: computed-result
      description: "Chapter-level check (finding F12; chapters.py and chapters_fair.py). Bears on the composite theory only for chapters of 1,500 words or more."
      sources: [src-tcp-a38258]